The Variables

“Do you remember what you said to me that night in the System? When I was ready to crawl and dig my way out of there to find our children? Do you remember what you said to me?” Maxine lowered her voice and paused. Scott ran a finger over the bridge of his nose. “It’s not a rhetorical question, Scott. Do you remember?”

“I said,” Scott said after a beat, “that my position on the Elektos Board granted us safety.”

“And without it? Are we safe, Scott? Are...we...safe?”

“We are safe,” Scott said, his voice full, his own anger rising. He unbuttoned the top button of his shirt with an angry swipe. “We are here...we are home and we are safe. I don’t have power anymore and thank God! Thank God, Maxine. Is it power you crave? Or is it life? Because I have given you one, and I am done with the other. So, if I’ve given you the wrong thing, then you can go out and get it yourself.”

She looked at him wide-eyed. And everyone stared at Scott. He wasn’t the one who swore or yelled. He was their calm, their rock.

Maxine lowered her voice. “If you hadn’t been on the Board, then Lucy, Ethan, and Grant would be dead.”

“Then it was lucky I was on the Board when we needed it the most,” he said. Then he turned to Ethan, “What does everyone want from me? Why does some arbitrary title mean anything?”

“Are you asking me, Dad?” Ethan raised an eyebrow. “Maybe you don’t want my answer.”

“No,” Scott said. “Maybe I don’t.” He slipped out of his collared shirt and placed it on the back of a kitchen chair, and then he slowly climbed the stairs toward his room, stopping to rustle the twins’ hair and place a kiss on Galen’s head. “Goodnight.”

“And we don’t go to bed with unresolved conflict,” Maxine called up the stairs. “Don’t you dare walk away from this family when they need you the most.”

Scott paused. He looked down at the faces of everyone looking up at him. Then his eyes sca

“Dad,” Lucy said, unafraid to interrupt. She walked toward him, pleading. “You’re not free. You’re just a different kind of slave. Huck’s not going to lie down...when he realizes that he can’t sanitize everyone...when he realizes that the people here are just as human as the ones he slaughtered…then no one is safe here. We’re definitely not safe here.”

“You’re not safe anywhere,” Scott answered. “You never have been. You just never knew it until now. You’ve been protected your whole lives and you don’t care. It’s never the right kind of life that I can offer you.”

“Please,” Maxine said and she rolled her eyes and turned her back, placing her hands flat against the countertop.

“Huck is not some benefactor who gave us life,” Ethan called to his dad. “Why do you still buy into his illusion? We always had choices...it was you who believed our only choice was to give our lives over to that man.”

“Yes, you do have choices. Choose to live here, safely. Or choose to die. Because, my dear family, you don’t have a choice to leave...or a choice to fight...or a choice to change Huck’s world. Those are not the choices you have.” He looked directly at Maxine. “I’m tired. Goodnight.”

“Grant,” Maxine said, with her back still to Scott. A single request. “You lost your Elektos Board position because of him...and he’s not even worth searching for? You gave up everything you had built for the boy, and you’re just going to bed?”

Scott didn’t answer her. With slumped shoulders he took the steps one at a time and then disappeared into the loft, shutting his bedroom door behind him.

“Well,” she said, turning to Lucy. “That settles it.” She walked to the front door and opened it wide, and turned to Ethan. “No one leaves this house. I don’t care if a sea monster appears on that window and starts breaking the glass, you hunker down. Use the kitchen knives.”

“They’re plastic,” Ethan said.

“If Huck thinks plastic knives are going to prevent murder, then he’s never met Mama Maxine.” She nodded, pulled her robe tighter around her belly, and stormed out down the hall. Even after they had shut the door, they could hear their mother’s clomping steps fade into the distance.

Grant opened the door expecting to see guards and Huck and Gordy; he had assumed they changed their mind and were coming back to finish the job. So, when he saw Maxine standing there in her bathrobe, her hands on her hips, her bare face staring forward at him with a mixture of a

“Get your things,” she said, and she snapped her fingers. No good evening or other formal greetings one might receive after opening a door.

“Of course,” Grant said, and he reached behind him to grab a small green toothbrush.

“That’s it?” she asked. Grant nodded. “Good. Come on, let’s go.” She marched off down the hall and Grant scrambled behind her. Even though her legs were much shorter than his, he still struggled to keep up with her breakneck pace. She stormed up the steps, flew through the sky bridge, and breezed past the concierge. Grant shuffled by, too. Then Maxine changed her mind and she looked back at the woman smiling blandly at them as they walked past.

“Excuse me,” Maxine said.

“Good evening, Ms. King,” the concierge said. “Is there something I can procure for you tonight?”

“Procure,” she repeated with disdain. “No. Look, this young man,” she tugged on Grant’s sleeve and pulled him closer, “is staying with us.”

“Oh,” she said and she looked at Grant. “Mr. Trotter. I hear you’re a lovely piano player. Did you know we have a lovely collection of instruments on level thirty-two?” She glanced for a millisecond at the camera above her and the nodded. “Thank you, Mrs. King. I’ll note it in the log.”

Maxine paused, poised to launch, and hesitated before simply adding, “You do that,” before walking away.

Grant held on to his toothbrush with a fist and shot a glance over at Maxine. “Are you mad?” he asked in a whisper while they walked along the sky bridge to their housing.

“Mad?” Maxine stopped. White twinkle lights lined the walkway and dotted the ceiling, but the tu

“No,” Grant answered. He had never answered no to that question in his entire life. “Is that alright?”

“I’d be concerned if you said anything different. Come on. Let’s get back. Ethan has some clothes you can borrow.”

“I don’t need clothes,” Grant said as they continued walking.

“I have a rule in my house about nudity.”

Her frankness flustered him and Grant laughed and gave her an aw-shucks smile, but then he became serious and stopped walking once more. Maxine flew on ahead until she noticed she was walking alone. She spun and looked at him. She wasn’t wearing shoes, just fuzzy black slippers, and her legs were dotted with goose bumps.

“I heard. I was there. When Huck told Scott he was kicked off the Board.”

Maxine looked down. “This isn’t something for you to worry about.”

“I’m scared,” he said before she could say anything more.

“Me, too,” Maxine whispered.

Grant nodded. “Yes. But...I think we’re scared for different reasons.”

“You scared for your life, sweetheart?” Her tone was so motherly, so comforting. Everything about her welcomed him into her circle with such warmth and equanimity.