This Is Your Captain Speaking by Jon Methven

Author:Jon Methven
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

GET BACK TO WHERE YOU ONCE BELONGED

It had officially become a disorder. On several occasions she found herself thinking—what would Ava do?—then catching herself. More than once she had glanced over at her left hand to find the puppet staring back. It was an extension of her personality, something that had always been there in the shadows. She was concerned that she could never go back, now that she understood that this thing was a real, live beast, a personality with its own thoughts and emotions and even sexuality, its own rhythms separate from her reflexes.

Her behavior had gotten worse over the past few days—the approaching interview with Captain Swagger, and the plane, and whether he had saved the city and inspired the nation, or faked the entire thing. In the last twenty-four hours Dean had located Veiltality Inc., a publicity firm with a curious past. He’d discovered that Swagger’s wife and children had booked flights to New York nearly a month before. A press release from the airline suggested the birds in question were Anser albifrons, also known as the Greater White-fronted Goose, or the “Specklebelly,” which as far as Dean could find did not inhabit New York State. All this was combining into a curious anxiety that, oddly enough, seemed less nerve-racking knowing she was not in it alone; she had Ava.

Lucy blamed the psychiatrist. Gary had warned her that she was every bit as capable of insanity as the next. He had planted the seed and now it was growing its way through her. She had put in a dozen calls to Gary, paged him, taken Ava off for nearly twenty minutes hoping it would raise concern; but Gary Corbin had disappeared. And for the second time that week, she actually needed her therapist, this time to deal exclusively with the twenty-nine inches of irrationality harnessed to her left arm. Gary was right: this was how people became homeless, hosting funerals for dead pigeons at corner trash receptacles; this was how people shot up workplaces.

She had been called to the ANN Tower for a meeting with the executive producers, preparation for the Swagger interview. She had not met with the producers in nearly a year. They had not even had the decency to tell her to her face that she’d been demoted to the Twitter beat. And now, puppet attached, she intended to look across the table, stare into their miserable eyes, and gloat. If she was correct, they had called the meeting to discuss how to disguise Ava Tardner during the interview. Would they position the cameras so that her left arm fell mostly out of the shot? Would they suggest removing the puppet altogether? None of it mattered; this was payback. They had buried Lucy to stalk celebrities and she had knocked it out of the park. She had done it with a dummy on her arm. And she intended to do the Swagger interview with the dummy, just to make life uncomfortable for the producers.

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