This Is the Night by Jonah C. Sirott Read Free Book Online Page A

the way, they would dodge gangs of refugee boys, angry kids whose worlds had been broken apart after First Aggression and now loved nothing more than to throw a fist at the natives. As soon as class let out, Benny and Joe waited for each other outside the chain-link fence. Sometimes other boys wanted to play with them; Joe always said no, but Benny could usually convince him otherwise.
    After what seemed like a long time, Benny returned from the bathroom. With an electric groan, the freezers, stoves, and lamps came back to life.
    “I mean, here we are, you and me, sitting in a coffee shop,” Joe said, “and all the while the Registry has got its fingers at our throats.”
    “Yeah, yeah,” said Benny, waving his hands. “Let’s talk about something else.”
    “Fine. Have you been reading the papers?”
    “Not really.”
    But what papers were the ones that needed reading? Years ago, as one of his first moves in office, the prime minister had showered grants and tax breaks on anyone looking to start up news channels, newspapers, even radio stations. For the public good, for an informed citizenry, he said. Currencies were bestowed upon anyone who correctly filled out the forms. What’s the plan for today? the joke went. Oh, nothing much, just starting up a national newspaper.
    Only now, years later, there was far too much information, and Joe had little idea if any of it could be trusted. As a result, he paid attention to almost nothing. Except, of course, to what was right in front of him. And in front of him now, he saw, was a wolf in the guise of a sheep.
    “That guy in the fringed vest,” Joe said, indicating the man with his chin. “He’s been watching us the whole time. He got up and followed you when you went to the bathroom.”
    “C’mon, Joe. You’re always so worried about people. Don’t worry about him. He’s whatever.” Benny leaned in closer. “But how about that other guy?” He pointed to a man with short-clipped hair and black-rimmed glasses on the other side of the café, cracking peanuts out of the shell one by one.
    “You think he’s Registry?” said Joe. “I mean a Reggie?”
    Benny’s laugh was spare and gravelly. “Not everybody’s an undercover. He looks like that kid we used to have chemistry with.” The man with black-rimmed glasses pushed another peanut shell with his thumbs. A little part of the peanut flew an unexpected path into the lens of his glasses.
    “Are you serious?”
    “Yeah, you know who I mean. What’s his name, who was always taking notes and wouldn’t share them. Not that I remember much from chemistry. Well, maybe something about particles being matter, or matter being particles, but that even these rules are just, like, experimental facts, not—”
    “We shouldn’t be talking about this, Benny. These are the wrong things to talk about.”
    A drip of sweat slid down Benny’s forehead, stopped briefly at his temple, and picked up speed as it cleared a path through his stubble and fell to the floor. Strange, because it wasn’t hot in the Millhouse.
    “For real,” Joe continued. “The Registry has called us in. And we’ve got no plan, nothing at all.”
    “Yeah, besides, whatever we did or didn’t learn in chemistry is probably useless by now.”
    “Are you even listening to me?”
    Benny tilted his chin. “I already told you. We do have a plan. The book.”
    Again the lights flickered out. This time they stayed off. The second rolling blackout in less than an hour.
    A silence hovered between them. Friends for their entire lives, they were unable to talk about the only topic they should be talking about.
    “It is weird, though, right?” Benny had always had a habit of beginning his thoughts in the middle of a conversation. “When you really think about it.”
    Usually Joe was able to follow the swirling gusts of Benny’s rapid shifts in thinking. But even a few days apart from Benny could make him hard to interpret. “What’s