Chapter 8 - ANTHONY’S GAME
After Anthony’s video, my mother stopped saying everything would be okay.
I respected her for that.
Adults use “okay” when they have no data.
I had spent months building a system that punished bad data.
Maybe fear worked the same way.
We left the precinct through an underground garage. Police changed our route twice. My school moved my classes to a different floor. For three days, I learned math in the library because it had only one public entrance and windows too high for anyone outside to see through.
It was ridiculous.
It was also necessary.
Sofia messaged me during lunch.
DID YOU JOIN WITNESS PROTECTION?
I replied:
NO.
She sent:
THAT SOUNDS LIKE SOMETHING SOMEONE IN WITNESS PROTECTION WOULD SAY.
I laughed for the first time that day.
Then Ms. Patel sat across from me.
“You’re allowed to be scared.”
“I know.”
“You’re also allowed to be angry.”
“I know.”
“You don’t have to be impressive.”
That one annoyed me.
“I’m not trying to be.”
She gave me the teacher look.
It said liar.
I closed my laptop.
“I hate that everyone keeps telling me what I’m allowed to feel.”
“Fair.”
“I hate that Vincent is dangerous and also helped my dad.”
“Fair.”
“I hate that Dad left me letters instead of telling me when he was alive.”
“Very fair.”
“I hate that Anthony took a picture of me.”
Her face softened.
“Especially fair.”
I looked at the GRIDLIGHT model on my screen.
“I keep thinking I should be able to solve this.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s information.”
“No.”
“What?”
“It involves information. That doesn’t make it an engineering problem.”
I stared at her.
“What’s the difference?”
“In engineering, the wire does not lie because it is ashamed.”
I thought about that.
People were worse systems.
They hid faults.
They protected themselves.
They changed stories.
That afternoon, the federal agents returned.
This time they met my mother at our apartment.
They did not question me.
I liked them already.
They said Anthony had likely left New York.
No proof.
No arrest.
Daniel was still missing.
The financial records were real.
Some implicated Anthony directly.
Some implicated people who had worked around Vincent.
A smaller number connected to companies Vincent still owned.
My mother asked the question I was not supposed to ask.
“Is Vincent going to prison?”
The agent answered carefully.
“We are not discussing charging decisions.”
That meant maybe.
I expected the idea to scare me.
Instead it made the whole thing feel more honest.
If Vincent had done crimes, his good choices now did not delete them.
If he had helped my father, that did not erase people he hurt.
People were not math equations where one positive canceled one negative.
The next morning, Vincent called my mother.
She answered in the kitchen while I ate cereal.
“Yes?”
He spoke for a while.
Her face changed.
“What exactly are you asking?”
More talking.
“No.”
I looked up.
She listened.
Then said, “That is manipulative.”
I smiled into my cereal.
Classic Vincent.
She hung up.
“What?”
“He wants your help.”
“With what?”
“Absolutely nothing.”
“Mom.”
“No.”
“Rule six.”
“I regret rule six.”
“What does he want?”
She sighed.
“Anthony sent him something.”
“What?”
“A data file.”
That got me.
“What kind?”
“He doesn’t know.”
“Why me?”
“Because it looks like sensor data.”
My spoon stopped.
“What?”
“He thinks it relates to your project.”
That made no sense.
Anthony did not care about GRIDLIGHT.
Or maybe he did because everyone had watched the news story.
“What sensor data?”
“Ethan.”
“I’m not saying I’ll help. I’m asking.”
She stared at me.
Then called Vincent back.
Speakerphone.
“What data?”
Vincent answered immediately.
“A spreadsheet. Time stamps. voltage changes. breaker failures.”
My skin prickled.
“That’s my building.”
My mother turned.
“How do you know?”
“Because I collected similar readings for GRIDLIGHT.”
Vincent heard me.
“That is why I called.”
My mother swore.
She never swore around me.
I pretended not to notice.
Vincent continued.
“Anthony’s message says, ‘Your kid likes electricity. Ask him what failed first.’”
I stood.
“Send it to the police.”
“Already done.”
“Do they know what it means?”
“No.”
I opened my laptop.
My mother put a hand on the lid.
“No.”
“I’m not contacting Anthony.”
“No.”
“I’m not leaving the apartment.”
“No.”
“I’m looking at electrical data.”
She stared.
That was the problem with having a parent who knew you.
She could see when you had a point.
“If the agents approve,” she said.
The agents approved.
They sent a sanitized copy with no hidden metadata and no executable files.
It looked like a simple table.
Time.
Circuit ID.
Voltage.
Load.
Failure state.
I knew the circuits.
They matched our building.
Not only our apartment.
The whole building.
Data from weeks.
Maybe months.
My stomach tightened.
“How did he get this?”
The agent shrugged.
“We’re investigating.”
I scanned the failures.
Old elevator circuit.
Basement lighting.
Laundry room.
Then our apartment.
The night someone cut the power.
A perfect zero.
Manual disconnect.
No gradual failure.
Obviously.
But Anthony’s message said ask what failed first.
I moved backward through the data.
A small voltage drop appeared three hours before our power was cut.
Not in our unit.
Basement camera circuit.
Then another.
Rear-door access controller.
Then building Wi-Fi repeater.
Someone had disabled the systems in sequence.
“They tested the building,” I said.
“What?”
My mother came closer.
“They didn’t just cut our power. Before that, they shut off the camera line for twelve seconds. Then the rear door system. Then Wi-Fi.”
The agent leaned over.
“Could be maintenance.”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“The timing is too regular.”
I graphed it.
Twelve seconds.
Reset.
Twelve seconds.
Reset.
Twelve seconds.
Someone was mapping which systems triggered alerts.
Then I saw a pattern.
The tests occurred every Tuesday.
Same time.
2:14 a.m.
For eight weeks.
My mother stared.
“They were watching us before Ethan met Vincent.”
The room went silent.
That changed everything.
Anthony’s attention had not begun on the sidewalk.
It had begun earlier.
Maybe much earlier.
One agent stepped into the hallway to make a call.
I kept searching.
The data went back ten weeks.
At the beginning, the circuit labels changed.
Different building.
I recognized none.
Then one address appeared in the metadata column.
Aunt Lena’s building.
My mother whispered, “No.”
They had watched her too.
Then another address.
My school.
Another.
The old electrical warehouse.
Anthony—or someone—had been tracing my father’s connections before I ever helped Vincent.
The sidewalk had only made them move faster.
Vincent’s voice came through the speaker.
“Ethan.”
I had forgotten he was still connected.
“What?”
“Stop.”
I looked at the screen.
“Why?”
“Because you found what he wanted you to find.”
My stomach dropped.
The agent came back into the room.
Vincent continued.
“Anthony does not send puzzles because he needs answers. He sends puzzles because he wants attention directed somewhere.”
The agent nodded slowly.
“Misleading target.”
I stared at the addresses.
Our building.
Aunt Lena.
School.
Warehouse.
“What are we supposed to look away from?”
No one answered.
Then my phone rang.
Sofia.
I almost ignored it.
Then answered.
“Hey.”
“Did you submit our names?”
“What?”
“For the foundation lab tour.”
I froze.
“What lab tour?”
“The Moretti Foundation emailed finalists. Saturday. Columbia engineering lab.”
My stomach dropped.
“I didn’t get that.”
“You’re on the list.”
“No.”
“Yes, you are. I checked.”
I turned to my mother.
“What?”
I put Sofia on speaker.
She explained.
Competition finalists had received invitations to a private lab demonstration funded by the Moretti Foundation.
Saturday.
Nine a.m.
Twenty students.
My mother looked at Vincent’s phone line.
“You know about this?”
“No.”
His answer came too fast.
Then colder.
“I resigned from the board.”
The federal agent asked for the email.
Sofia forwarded it.
The domain looked real.
The branding looked real.
One detail was wrong.
The lab room number.
Ms. Patel had once taken me there.
Room 412 was not an engineering lab.
It was a mechanical loading area.
The invitation was fake.
For twenty kids.
Not only me.
Anthony had made the threat bigger.
My mother went pale.
“He’s using children.”
Vincent’s voice changed.
I had never heard that tone before.
“He knows I will respond.”
The agent said, “Then don’t.”
Vincent went silent.
Dad’s letter came back to me.
Judge them by what they do when telling the truth costs them something.
Anthony wanted Vincent angry.
He wanted him moving.
He wanted him to stop trusting police.
He wanted the old Vincent.
The feared Vincent.
I looked at the phone.
“Don’t do what he wants.”
No answer.
“Mr. Moretti.”
My mother looked at me.
I continued.
“He wants you to choose him over everyone else.”
Vincent spoke quietly.
“He threatened children.”
“I know.”
“You do not understand.”
“Then explain.”
Silence.
I remembered something he told me at school.
Fear is not the same thing as respect.
“You said you’re trying to change.”
My mother closed her eyes like she could already see where I was going.
“If you go after him your way, then he decides who you are.”
The line stayed quiet.
Finally Vincent said, “Your father said things like that.”
“Was he annoying too?”
A pause.
Then a small laugh.
“Constantly.”
The federal agents traced the fake invitation infrastructure.
A rented server.
A stolen mailing list.
A compromised foundation contractor.
The Saturday event was canceled before any student went anywhere.
No one was hurt.
But Anthony had succeeded in one thing.
He had proven he could reach into legitimate parts of Vincent’s life.
That night, Vincent made a phone call.
Not to Anthony.
Not to Daniel.
To the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
He requested a formal meeting.
He offered cooperation.
Records.
Names.
Accounts.
Everything he could legally provide under counsel.
When my mother told me, I understood what the phone call meant.
Vincent was giving up control.
Maybe for the first time in his life.
I thought that was the call that changed everything.
I was wrong.
The call that changed my future came the next morning.
At 8:06 a.m., Ms. Patel called.
“Ethan, are you sitting down?”
“No.”
“Sit.”
I sat.
“The director of Columbia’s junior engineering program reviewed your delayed competition presentation.”
My heart jumped.
“Why?”
“Because someone sent it to her.”
“Vincent?”
“No.”
“Who?”
“Sofia.”
I stared at the phone.
Ms. Patel laughed.
“She apparently included a three-paragraph argument about why your sensor system is underdeveloped but worth testing.”
“That sounds like her.”
“The director wants to offer you a summer place.”
I stopped breathing.
“Me?”
“You.”
“Scholarship?”
“Full.”
My mother put both hands over her mouth.
This opportunity had not come from Vincent.
Not from gratitude.
Not from fear.
Not from my father.
From my work.
From another kid who thought my idea was worth sharing.
I should have felt completely free.
Then Ms. Patel added, “There is one complication.”
Of course there was.
“The program’s primary donor this year is the Moretti Foundation.”
I closed my eyes.
Nothing was ever simple.
May you like
But maybe simple was not the same as clean.
And maybe the third option was learning how to accept an opportunity without letting the person who funded it own the meaning.
