Okay, I’m not expecting an apology, exactly, but Ochoa’s standing there waiting for my answer as if she didn’t hit me last night and everything’s normal and fine. You know what? Fine.

  I smile and say, “I’ll do what I can, Agent Ochoa.”

  Without another word, I walk past her into Interrogation Room 2.

  Amir Amin is sitting there at the little table wearing the same clothes he was wearing when I found him — a too-big brown sweater that’s hanging off a blade thin shoulder and black sweatpants. He’s barefoot and his black hair’s mussed. His eyes are a little clearer and he seems wide awake.

  He perks up a little when he sees me. “Mr. Walker!” he says. “You okay?”

  “I’m fine, Amir,” I say. “They let me sleep too. You okay?”

  “I still can’t believe I’m free,” says Amir, a little dazed. “It’s been four years! I can’t believe my message worked. I can’t believe you came and got us. I can’t believe how you grabbed Otter’s gun right out of the air. I can’t believe any of this.”

  “Oh, it’s real,” I say.

  “I’ve got your phone,” says Amir. “It’s been ringing like crazy. ID says ‘Wests?’ I didn’t know if I should give it to anybody, you know? I’m surprised the cops didn’t just take it off me.”

  “I figured,” I say. “Probably needs charged by now.”

  “Charged?”

  “My phone.”

  “Like a… credit card or something? Is this one of those pay-as-you-go things?”

  I blink at him.

  My phone rings. I look at it. Sure enough, it’s the ‘Wests.’ I look for the telltale battery icon in the upper right corner of the screen. I look for it at the bottom right. Upper left.

  “You gonna answer that?” says Amir. “Please? So they’ll shut up?”

  I answer.

  I hear Myra’s voice say, “I’ve got an idea.”

  “Oh, hi Myra.”

  “Yes, hi. Could you open up your messaging app for me, Push, and then I want you to type in, let’s say, five sets of random letters? Letters? Yeah, I think letters would be best. With spaces in between. Could you do that?”

  “Uh, sure,” I say, typing in a bunch of random letters and hitting the spacebar whenever.

  “Who is it?” says Amir.

  “Who’s that?” says Myra. “Wait a minute. Where are you? I’ve been trying to call…. You’re in trouble again, aren’t you? Alex!”

  I hold the phone away from my ear as she shouts for her husband. “It’s my accountant,” I say.

  “Your accountant?”

  I nod.

  “Who’s Alex?”

  “Her husband and my lawyer.”

  There’s a tap at the door. Ochoa’s there, the top of her head just visible through the tiny window in the door. All I can see is one eye and the curls of her hair. She points at Amir and makes her hand kind of shrug somehow, clearly wanting me to get on with things.

  I hear Alex’s voice through the phone. “Ben? What’s going on?”

  “Hi, Alex,” I say. “What’s Myra up to with those random letters?”

  “What?” says Alex. “Random--? I have no idea. Are you in trouble?”

  “I don’t think so?” Sighing, I say, “I, um, rescued a bunch of kids last night, and I’m still at the police station.”

  “Rescued--? You haven’t talked to them, right? The police?”

  “I didn’t do anything—.”

  “Did you commit any crimes during this rescue?”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah. Don’t say anything. I’m on my way. Where are you?”

  “The sheriff’s station in Willamette.”

  “Don’t say anything.”

  He hangs up.

  Before I put my phone away, I notice that I have a new notification from the App.

  New Skill: Nerve +1

  That must’ve been that alert when I was approaching the biker house. Nerve? Yeah, no shit. I’m out of my mind.

  Pocketing my phone, I consider walking out of the room and waiting quietly for Alex, but I already gave my word. I sit down in the other chair.

  “Agent Ochoa wants to talk to you,” I say to Amir. “They told me you didn’t want to.”

  Amir looks at the table and shifts in his chair.

  “I don’t think anybody here can understand the first thing about what you’ve been through, but they all know you’ve been through a lot,” I say. “That, they get. But look at what you’ve done. You’re the reason you and the others are free. You know that, right? Everybody here knows you’re a good guy. A hero.”

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  Amir just looks at the table.

  “I had a bad night just the other day and Agent Ochoa and Agent Tyler really helped me out. If they hadn’t, I wouldn’t’ve been able to help you guys. Those bikers are terrifying, but they’re not the FBI. They aren’t the US government. They don’t have spy planes and smart bombs and tanks, right? And you know what?” I take out the papers, naming me a consultant and slide them over. “Take a look at those. Fresh off the printer this morning. Dude, me and the FBI are gonna go squish Otter and those other bastards into goo.”

  The corner of Amir’s mouth quirks up. He looks at the papers.

  “I mean, I know that Ochoa’s scary looking,” I say.

  Amir snorts.

  “And Agent Tyler? I bet she could pick us both up by the neck with either hand. I heard George Washington did that once.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. If I remember right, it was when he was in the army. I don’t know if it was during the Revolution or before. He saw two men fighting or about to, drove his horse between them, and lifted them both off the ground.”

  Amir grins. “I could totally see Agent Tyler doing that,” he says.

  “Look, talk to them, okay? They’re good people. And I’ll look after you, too, I promise.”

  “Okay.”

  I pat the table and stand. Ochoa is waiting at the door.

  She stands back so I can open the door.

  “I’m scary looking, eh?” she says to me with one fist backwards on a cocked hip. “In what way do I scare you, Mr. Walker?” She’s smiling, though.

  I have no idea what to say, and she doesn’t really scare me. At all. Mostly.

  She goes past me and closes the door behind.

  Tyler’s there. She says, “Thanks, Ben.” He gestures for me to lead the way, and we step into a narrow room where we can see Ochoa sitting down at the table, her back to us, through the one-way glass.

  “Is it called one-way glass or two-way?” I ask Tyler.

  She laughs. “Either really.”

  “Really?”

  She nods. “I guess they can’t count or something.”

  I say, “My lawyer’s on his way. He doesn’t want me talking to you.”

  Tyler grins. “You should absolutely not talk to any of the sheriff’s people unless your lawyer, myself, or Agent Ochoa are present.” She winks at me.

  We hear Ochoa say, “Thanks for getting Mr. Walker back his phone. I know he appreciates you looking after it for him. Like you were looking after all those kids.”

  Amir looks at the table.

  “Did you say she was good at this?” I say.

  “She’s the best I’ve ever seen in an interrogation room.”

  “Really?”

  Tyler nods. “She knew to get you, didn’t she?”

  Ochoa leans back. “Like I said before, Amir, you are not in any trouble at all. You’ve been missing for four years and presumed dead. I’m so sorry about your parents,” she says.

  “His parents?” I ask.

  Tyler says, “Home invasion. The kidnappers murdered them when he was taken.”

  “Do you know the particulars?” says Ochoa. “They fought, Amir. Both of them. I thought you should know. They fought hard.”

  Amir’s face scrunches up and he sobs once.

  “Your mom?” says Ochoa. “They found a finger in her mouth. She bit it off a guy. We found him soon after. DNA match. But he wouldn’t give up his buddies. He’s in prison now and will be forever. Your dad’s hands were bleeding. Three of his knuckles were broken. Pretty good for a dentist and a secretary, if you ask me. If I ever have to go down fighting, I hope I go like that.”

  Amir’s crying.

  “Is all that true?” I ask.

  Tyler nods.

  Then Ochoa does something I don’t expect. She takes off her glasses.

  Her back’s to me. I can’t see her face and for a moment, I have the wild urge to tap on the glass to make her turn.

  “Look at me, Amir,” says Ochoa. She reaches out and takes his hand.

  Amir does. He looks at her with such hope that it breaks my heart.

  “You have an aunt and uncle,” she says. “We didn’t want to track them down or say anything to them without your say-so. You’re twenty now. You don’t have to go to them or go anywhere you don’t want to, okay? I heard Mr. Walker say he’d look after you, and I believe him. You are free and safe, but others aren’t. Those bikers are out there doing what they do. What they did to you, they’re still doing to others. We got some that were holding you, but a bunch got away.” She takes his hand in both of hers now. “You were around them for years. There’s things about them you’re not even aware you know. And you were in their systems. I bet you know all kinds of things. Don’t get me wrong. We’ll get them, but if you help us, we’ll get them that much faster.”

  She sits there, holding his hand, for a long time.

  Amir says something.

  “What was that?” says Ochoa.

  “I made copies,” Amir says. “It started out as a troll farm, you know?”

  “Troll farm?” I ask.

  Tyler says, “Internet trolls peddling conspiracy theories for political and financial purposes.”

  “But that wasn’t making enough money,” says Amir. “Not after the election, anyway. So they had us playing games. We’d start an account, get good, then sell off our accounts to other players for cash. Some kids who were older and better typists they had catfish people for blackmail. I was into computers when they took me, and I already knew how to do a little coding. They made me learn to hack. I did a little ransomware and some other stuff. Broke into private companies’ files and did some freelance corporate espionage. Four years. I kept records.”

  “You’ve got it all on, what, a flash drive up your ass?” says Ochoa, and laughs.

  Amir laughs too. “God no. It’s on the cloud,” he says. “I keep my car keys up my ass.”

  ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

  Ochoa and Amir talk while Tyler goes and fetches her partner’s laptop. Amir’s opening it when Tyler rejoins me in the little room. I’ve seen a bunch of laptops over the last few days and I realize that not a one of them had a power cord. This phone they gave me doesn’t even have a port for one.

  “Why doesn’t my phone need charging?” I ask. “I keep meaning to ask.”

  Tyler looks at me, confused. “I’m sorry, what? Charging?”

  I hold up my phone. “How’s it powered?”

  “Sponsored energy,” says Tyler. “Every provider has a practitioner or two.”

  I nod. “Is Amir why you’re here?” I ask. “In Willamette?”

  “Hmm? Oh, no,” she says. “He was taken in Oregon. The little girls came up from the border and all the other kids all come from other places no where near Ohio. Based on what we’ve already learned, we think the Wild Specters have quite a human trafficking system. They take them from one place and then move them far away where no one’s looking for them. We didn’t even know they were here.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “There has been a rash of kidnappings in the area, some of them resembling what you interrupted on your first night here. We think some sponsored freelancers are operating in the area. All the missing are young people. How old would you say that woman was from the bar?”

  “The woman in the sweater?” I say. “Probably twenty-one or twenty-two.”

  Tyler nods. “That fits. Most of the victims have been younger. None of them older than that.”

  “Why? Is it some kind of sex thing?”

  “We don’t think so. Younger people have more possibility attached to them. Current magic theory believes that possibility has its own energy that the sponsored can tap into somehow to boost their abilities.”

  “Through human sacrifice?”

  “When all that possibility ends, the energy has to go somewhere. Practitioners who know how can channel it.”

  “Jesus. How many kids are missing?”

  “We think somewhere around forty.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “Look, you’re new to this, so here are the rules. We don’t talk to people about ongoing investigations. That can screw us up. The bad guys could hear about it. You could let something slip and reveal our methodologies or other agents or thousands of other things. We’ll only speak about it when we’re alone. You’re going to be held to the same confidentiality standards as any agent. Understood?”

  I nod. “You mean forty kids just from around here?”

  Tyler nods. “Probably more.”

  Amir is talking to Ochoa like their old friends. Her glasses remain there on the table. She hasn’t turned around once.

  “She’s really got him talking,” I say.

  Tyler shrugs. “He was just scared and gone through a traumatic experience. He actually wants to talk to us. Wants to hurt the people that hurt him. Wants justice. But yeah, I told you she would.”

  There’s a knock at the door.

  Agent Tyler opens it.

  Alex West is standing there in a suit with Sheriff Abernathy, who looks irritated. He always does. I don’t know if it’s me or if his face is just like that.

  “I told him you were busy,” says the Sheriff in his deep voice.

  Alex holds his hand out to Agent Tyler. “I’m Alex West. I represent Mr. Walker.”

  “Agent Cal Tyler,” says Agent Tyler. “Nice to meet you. We should all sit down and talk.”

  Alex looks up at Agent Tyler. He bends to peer around the door frame to see into the interrogation room. He looks at me. “You’ve been talking to them, haven’t you?”