The following is an excerpt from "OTHEREARTH" By Jason Segel and Kirsten Miller. Published with permission.
THE PHANTOM
I’ve been staring at the gas gauge for over an hour. The needle is now below empty and the red light on the dashboard has burned itself onto my retinas. For the last thirty minutes, the three of us have been sitting in silence, focusing all of our energy on keeping the car on the road.
Kat crawls up between the two front seats. “You sure there’s no way to reactivate this?” she asks Busara, tracing a finger across a blue OnStar button on the rearview mirror. “They could send help if we run out of gas.”
“If the Company didn’t get to us first,” I point out.
Kat huffs with annoyance. “Simon, this is a desert. If we end up stranded out here, the Company will be the least of our worries. We have no food and our water is almost gone.”
“Then maybe we should have stolen a few bottles at the last place like I suggested,” I say.
“And maybe you should have filled up the gas tank.”
“I thought we should keep some money on hand just in case!”
“This argument is pointless,” Busara says. “Even if we wanted to reactivate the OnStar, we couldn’t do it without a phone. And besides, there’s a gas station ahead of us.”
I squint in the bright sunlight that’s pouring in through the windshield. Sure enough, there’s a sign in the distance. I lean back against the headrest as my whole body relaxes. I feel Kat kiss my ear. “Sorry,” she whispers. “I think I’m getting hangry too.”
I pull into the station. “You pump, I’ll pay,” I tell Busara as I roll to a stop. She hands me our last two twenty-dollar bills.
“I’ll come in too,” Kat says.
“No,” I tell her. “You stay. We need to make this fast.” She won’t approve of what I’m going to do. I’m not thrilled that I’ll soon be adding theft to my long list of crimes. But there’s no way in hell I’m going to let us starve to death before we reach New Mexico.
I step into the little store and realize it’s my lucky day. There’s no one behind the counter. I grab a plastic bag and rush down the first of three aisles, filling my bag with anything edible I can see. When I reach the final aisle, I discover I’ve had company the entire time.
“Get enough for the girls, too?” There’s an old man standing by the Cheetos. He’s gotta be at least eighty-five, but he’s still a dapper dresser. His sunglasses have amber lenses and thick tortoise-shell frames. They go well with his Brooklyn accent, which is like something out of a Scorsese film.
“Huh?” I reply.
An eyebrow rises above the frames of his sunglasses. “You know, I thought you’d be smarter,” he says. I guess I should be offended, but I’m too busy taking him in. There are hipsters who’d kill for the straw hat and guayabera he’s rocking. But I doubt they’d try, thanks to the giant gun the guy’s got propped against his shoulder. Thinking back to my "Call of Duty" days, I’d say it’s a WWII-era sniper’s rifle.
“Are you from the Company?” I ask. It seems odd that they’d hire a geriatric assassin with an antique firearm, but you never know.
“What?” One corner of his mouth rises in a sneer. “---- no. Irene Diamond sent me.” It’s so weird to hear a guy his age cursing that I almost miss the name.
“You mean my mother?” That is literally the very last thing I expected him to say.
“The fact that Irene Diamond is your mother makes very little difference to me. The fact that she’s the Kishka’s daughter -- that’s what’s relevant here. You can thank him for saving your a--.”
My grandfather has been dead for forty years. A small-time Brooklyn gangster nicknamed the Kishka on account of his giant nose, he’s been at the bottom of the Gowanus Canal since the 1970s. But that doesn’t keep him from popping up every once in a while. I wasn’t aware that my a-- needed saving at this particular juncture. I wonder what the Kishka knows that I don’t.
“Wait—how did you just . . .”
“Find you?” the old man shakes his head at my stupidity. “You got the nose, but you didn’t get the brains, did ya? You ever heard of OnStar? It’s a ------- surveillance system. Your friend’s car has been spying on you the whole time you’ve been gone.”
I glance out the front window at the car. It seems perfectly harmless. “That’s not possible,” I argue pointlessly. “The service is disabled.”
“So the hell what? You really think that means they stopped tracking the car? God, you’re an idiot. You’ve been leaving a trail of digital bread crumbs behind you. Lucky for you, your mother has a few friends in the law enforcement community. They told her what direction you were heading, and she called me.”
“Why you?” I ask, hoping the question doesn’t sound too rude.
“I’m familiar with the terrain. Been down here for years. Nobody knows the border like I do.” I think he’s telling me he hasn’t retired. I wonder what he’s been bringing across the border. Drugs? People? Huaraches? Who’d have guessed that my prim, proper mother was buddies with an octogenarian smuggler? Maybe I owe Irene Diamond a bit more respect.
“So does that mean the Company knows where we are too?”
“Oh, there’s no doubt that they do,” says the old guy.
My heart picks up speed. “Then why haven’t they stopped us?”
“'Cause they wanted to find out where you’re going!” He’s clearly exasperated with my ignorance. “Why bother killing a few measly rats when there’s a chance to set the whole nest on fire?”
I feel a bit wobbly. I’ve been leading them straight to Elvis.
“What should we do?” I ask.
“Get your friends in here,” the man orders. “If there’s anything essential in the car, tell them to bring it.” I hesitate. “You got a better idea?” he snaps.
I don’t, so I lean out the door. Busara’s just putting the cap back on the gas tank. “Kat, Busara. Come here, please. Grab the disks and the projectors, too.”
“Simon?” Kat asks. There’s a worried look on her face. She knows something’s up. The please definitely tipped her off. I’ve never been known for my manners.
“Don’t worry,” I tell her. “But please hurry up.”
A few seconds later, the two of them barge through the door. Kat’s limping, with one of her arms slung around Busara’s shoulder.
“What’s going on?” Busara asks warily.
“Oh my God.” Kat’s eyes have landed on the old man’s gun.
“It’s okay,” I assure her. “Really.” I hope to hell I’m right.
The man offers the two girls the kind of smile you’d see on the Wikipedia entry for dirty old b------. “So which one of these beauties is the girlfriend?” he asks.
I point to Kat and he nods appreciatively. “You may be a bit slow on the uptake, but you’re related to the Kishka, no doubt. You got the same taste in ladies.” He reaches out a hand. “Name’s Leonard D’Ignoto, sweetheart,” he says.
“Lenny D’Ignoto? You’re the Phantom?” I don’t know why I’m asking. I know it’s true. There was an entire chapter on him in Gangsters of Carroll Gardens. He was a sharpshooter for the Gallo crime family in Brooklyn, which explains the gun. They say he got his nickname by killing over three dozen made men. He shot them all from a distance, so no one ever saw his face. I gotta admit, I’m a bit dazzled. It’s a little like meeting a movie star.
“Wow,” Kat says. She remembers too.
“So you really did know my grandfather.”
“Yep,” he says. “He introduced me to my wife. She just happened to be his girlfriend at the time. Never got a chance to make it up to him.” Lenny digs into his pocket and retrieves a large wad of hundred-dollar bills. “This means me and the Kishka are even. Now if you’ll excuse me.” He walks over to the open window near the register and positions his gun on the ledge. With his sunglasses pushed up on his forehead, he puts his right eye up to the sight. I have no idea what he’s trying to hit. The gun seems to be aimed at the sky.
“What is he doing?” Busara whispers. “Who the hell is this guy? How do you guys know him?”
A shot rings out. Before Leonard has time to stand up, an object has fallen from the heavens. Shards of metal and plastic go flying when it hits the ground.
“Holy s---, it’s a drone!” Kat gasps, putting words to my fears.
“That’s how they’ve been watching you,” Lenny says. “There’s a van a few miles back, and I’m pretty sure they just stepped on the gas. So what do you say we swap keys?”
I’m not going to second-guess him at this point. I toss Lenny the keys to Busara’s car and he throws his over to me.
“I’m parked behind the station,” he tells me. “Hold back and let 'em chase me. Wait until we’re long gone before you take off. But whatever happens, don’t get on the road again.”
“I don’t understand. What are we supposed to do?” Busara asks.
“Drive through the desert,” Leonard tells us. “Nobody who lives around here uses the roads.”
After a quick tip of his hat to the ladies, Leonard jogs out to Busara’s car, tosses his gun onto the passenger seat and climbs in behind the wheel. Then he’s off. Less than a minute after Lenny peels out of the parking lot, a white van races by. It’s got to be going at least 130, but if I were betting, I’d put my money on the Phantom winning the race.
We find the vehicle he left parked behind the gas station covered in a beige tarp. I pull it off, revealing a Land Rover painted in desert camo, with a tent tied down to the roof. Busara cups her hands and peeks in through one of the windows. When she turns back to us, she’s practically bubbly.
“It’s got GPS. And satellite radio.” Lenny’s border business must be booming if he’s giving vehicles like this away.
“Is it safe to use stuff like that?” Kat asks me. “Won’t the Company be able to track us again?”
“Why would they try?” I reply. “They think they’re already chasing us.”
“But what if they run Lenny off the road?” she asks. “What if they find out we’re not in the car?”
“I’m going to go out on a limb and say your friend Lenny is the kind of guy who doesn’t leave home without a plan that covers all contingencies,” Busara says. She looks up at me. “How do you know him again?”
“Long story,” I say.
“Great. It’s gonna be a long drive,” Busara replies as she climbs into the passenger’s seat.
Once we’re on the move, Busara uses the GPS to chart a course through the desert; then she switches the satellite radio on and searches for a news channel. She finds one and we listen patiently to reports on the latest scandal to paralyze the government and the riots that have been taking place in Rust Belt cities across the American heartland. It’s all big news, of course, but none of it’s new. I would have thought the shocking death of Milo Yolkin, the brilliant CEO of the Company, the world’s most powerful corporation, would have been the top story of the day. But it isn’t until the daily business report that we first hear Milo’s name.
The Company announced today that CEO Milo Yolkin will be taking an unforeseen leave of absence from the business he founded over a decade ago. With Yolkin gone, the wide release of his latest project will be shelved indefinitely. A major leap forward in virtual reality, Otherworld was on its way to becoming the most highly anticipated video game of the last forty years. Now it seems that only a small group of people will be able to claim that they’ve played it.
The Company’s stock price took a hit following the news. Shares fell by almost thirty percent yesterday, and the plunge is expected to continue when trading opens today. Meanwhile, the rumor mill has been working overtime as investors speculate about the reason for Yolkin’s sudden sabbatical. Theories range from standard burnout to life-threatening illness. Many in the tech community are begin- ning to wonder what the future of the Company might look like without its boy genius.
It takes a minute for it all to sink in. The Company is lying about Milo Yolkin. They’re hiding the fact that the boy genius’s “sabbatical” is going to be permanent.
“You’re sure Milo was dead the last time you saw him?” Busara asks.
I’ll never forget the sight of Milo’s emaciated body lying motionless on a sliding steel tray. It was hard to believe that it had functioned as long as it had. The most brilliant man in America looked like a junkie who’d wasted away. I suppose in the end that’s exactly what he was. But it wasn’t drugs that did Milo in. It was his own game that killed him. He got addicted. Then he played until he died.
“Yeah,” I mutter. “I’m sure.”
“The Company’s already suffering. If news got out that Milo was dead, their stock price would totally crash,” Kat says. “We know something that the Company doesn’t want the world to know. That means we’ve got leverage.”
“It also means the Company has another reason to kill us,” I point out.
Everyone in the car goes quiet. There’s nothing left to say.
The GPS screen says we’re making progress, but it’s hard to believe we’ll ever get anywhere. I’ve been driving all day across the desert, and I doubt the speedometer has ever passed thirty miles per hour. Turns out you need a road to drive fast. Since night fell, twenty has been my maximum speed. The darkness out here is so dense that the Land Rover’s headlights barely cut through it. There’s no moon out, but I can see the Milky Way, a purple streak of stars like a scar across the heavens. It reminds me that my own little world is just one of billions.
The girls are sleeping in the back. Kat suggested we stop and make camp in the desert, but I didn’t think that was wise. I’ll keep driving as long as I can. If we’re still alive in the morning, I’ll let Busara take over.
“I knew a guy once who fell asleep behind the wheel on I-95,” says someone to my right. I’d recognize the voice anywhere. I look over to find my grandfather sitting in the passenger’s seat, one wing tip–clad foot propped up on the dashboard. I can’t see much of his face in the darkness, but I can make out the silhouette of his giant schnoz. He looks just as real as Marlow Holm, but he’s not the product of any projector. He’s coming straight from my addled mind. “Cop told me they had to use a spatula to get his guts off the road.”
“This isn’t I-95,” I say. “Not much to hit around here.”
“Still,” says the Kishka. “You shouldn’t be taking risks you don’t need to take.”
I suppose that’s true, but there’s no point in pulling over. I’d never be able to fall asleep.
“I met your friend Lenny,” I tell him.
“Yeah, I know. How about that?” says the Kishka. “Guess I can’t hate the bastard for stealing my girl anymore, seeing as how he just rescued the sole heir to my DNA.” “Mom arranged the whole thing.”
The Kishka laughs. “You sound shocked.”
“I am,” I admit. “I wasn’t aware that she gave a shit. Plus, it doesn’t make sense. Why would she risk her law practice? She could be disbarred if they find out she helped me.”
“You think that makes a difference to her?” the Kishka asks. “I have eighteen years’ worth of evidence that suggests I’m not exactly at the top of her priorities list.”
“You’re working with a limited set of data,” says the Kishka. I almost ask what he knows about data when I remember that I’m talking to myself. “And even if you had it all, you’d never be able to predict what Irene’s gonna do next.”
“You’re saying my mom is a wild card?” I ask with a laugh. My grandfather obviously never witnessed what happens when his fancy-pants daughter discovers the maid left a speck of dust in her house. “I think maybe you’ve been gone too long.”
“Yeah well, whatever she’s like now, I think it’s safe to say she’s still human,” the Kishka tells me. “And if there’s one thing I know about humans, it’s this—they don’t make any sense. And the minute you start expecting them to, you end up at the bottom of a canal.”
“Simon, who are you talking to?” It’s Busara in the backseat.
I had no idea I was actually speaking out loud.
“My dead grandfather,” I say. I told her all about the Kishka earlier. I neglected to mention that he and I have been chatting on a regular basis.
She’s quiet for a moment. I think I may have just outed myself as a raving nutcase.
“Does it help?” she asks quietly.
“Yes,” I tell her. “Sometimes it does.”
But this time I don’t feel any better.