Christian: I Hope The Afterlife Has Wi-Fi.

It’s been hours since the news broke, and I’m still here—staring at the TV like maybe if I glare hard enough, the universe will apologize and take it all back. Sydney’s name is plastered everywhere, anchors saying it like they’re discussing stock prices instead of nuking my entire life. Sydney. Infidelity. Misconduct. Scandal. Each word twists my stomach tighter, clamps my chest until breathing feels impossible.

I’ve called her. And called her. And called her. Nothing. Straight to voicemail. Which, by the way, is not the soundtrack I need right now.

I know Sydney. This isn’t her. She’s loyal to a fault, the kindest, most Christlike person I’ve ever met.

Logic keeps whispering that she’s probably on a plane, probably asleep, probably blissfully unaware her reputation is currently being roasted alive. But logic?  Yeah, logic’s curled up in the fetal position while fear is stomping around like it owns the place. Every headline makes the world tilt more, like I somehow slipped into the wrong dimension.

The hours smear together— shock freezing me, sobs ripping me apart, anger burning hot, fear cutting cold, denial dragging me back around for another brutal lap. I can’t remember the last time I have cried like this—maybe I never have. Twenty-three. That is the number. Twenty-three accusations. Twenty-three nails in a coffin the world is already building for her, for us. And still—no call. No text. No read receipt. Just silence. Deafening. And I hate it.

I glance at the clock. 1:37 a.m.

My body aches, but not in the muscle-sore-from-training kind of way. This is deeper. Like my bones have given up trying to hold me upright. Still, I force myself to move—slow, mechanical, like I’m being puppeted by obligation instead of will. I shuffle down the hallway, each step heavier than the last, and collapse backward onto the bed like a man walking willingly to his execution.

The ceiling stares back at me—blank, expressionless, as the red digits of the clock glow like tiny demons at war with my sanity.

1:54 a.m.

2:21 a.m.

2:48 a.m.

Time isn’t passing. It’s grinding. And it’s grinding me.

My brain won’t let go—it’s like a bad lawyer cross-examining me with every headline, every interview, every anonymous quote. How could this many people lie? How could they all be wrong? It must be true.

No, this isn’t Sydney. This isn’t even a part of her DNA.

I press my palm against my forehead, like maybe I can squash the doubt right out of my skull.

Then—3:13 a.m.

I shut my eyes, begging for sleep to drag me under, but no dice. Instead, the mental slideshow starts—cities, accusations, “sightings.”

Boston. Bermuda. Oregon. New York. L.A. Chicago. Dallas. Philadelphia.

Chicago.

Wait. Chicago.

I sit up, slow, like my blood just remembered how to circulate.

She never went to Chicago.

I remember it clearly—because that was the week Charlee had a fever that wouldn’t break.

Three nights in a row, the two of us taking shifts by her bed, wiping her forehead, whispering

stories, counting her breaths. Sydney canceled last minute. Canceled Chicago. I

remember how torn up she was—like she was abandoning her teammates. But she wouldn’t leave our daughter’s side. Not for anything.

And now they’re saying she was there? No. Absolutely not.

I stumble off the bed, heart in my throat, nearly wipe out on the corner of the nightstand, and crash into the living room like a man possessed. The remote is in my hand before I even realize I’ve moved. The TV lights up.

“Give me something. Details. I need details,” I whisper, barely able to hear over the roar in my ears.

I grab a pen, the first one I see, and start scribbling—names, dates, cities, accusations—onto the back of a receipt, then a magazine, then an envelope when I run out of space. The ink smudges. My handwriting’s barely legible, but I don’t care.

I check my watch. 4:42 a.m. It’ll have to do. I can’t wait any longer.

I grab my phone and call Cas.

It rings once.

“I told you she was bad news,” he says immediately.

I blink. “What? No—what are you even talking about? You love Sydney.”

“I loved old Sydney,” he says with a sniff. “Before she turned into tabloid Armageddon Sydney.”

I groan. “Cas, I don’t have time for this. I take it you have seen the news?”

He gasps. Loud. Theatrical. “Have I seen the news? Does a bear—”

A long pause.

“…hold grudges against campers who steal their honey?”

Another pause.

“Okay, that wasn’t it. I had something better.”

“Cas. Focus.”

“Of course I’ve seen the news!” he snaps. “What do you think I live under, a rock? Rocks are disgusting, by the way. You ever study microbial buildup in sedimentary strata? It’s basically nature’s garbage lasagna.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose. Hard. “I need your skills.”

There’s a beat. Then his voice drops an octave, full Liam Neeson. “What I do have is a very particular set of skills. Skills I’ve acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me—”

“Cas, this is serious.”

Before he can go full Taken, the doorbell rings.

I freeze.

It rings again.

And again.

And again.

My pulse skips like it just tripped over itself. The doorbell rings again—sharp, insistent—each chime snapping against my nerves like a rubber band.

“Hold on…” I mutter, heading toward the door. “Someone’s—”

Cas, still on the phone: “Oh good. That’s me.”

I stop mid-step. “…Wait. What?”

I unlock the door and swing it open.

And there he is.

Cas.

All five-foot-four of him, slightly winded, hair standing at attention like he just sparred with a leaf blower. Blazer crisp, pale-blue Oxford shirt, and a tie that’s perfectly centered. Below that?

Cargo shorts.

White socks.

Sandals.

He raises a giant Bink water bottle in salute like it’s the Holy Grail.

I just stare. “You were… talking to me from my driveway?”

He grins, smug as ever. “Suspense, Christian. You only get one shot at an entrance. This—” he gestures to himself “—is showmanship. You don’t arrive. You enter.”

He pauses, chest out, waiting for applause that isn’t coming.

“Totally worth it, by the way,” Cas says, breezing past me into the house like he owns the place.

“I knew you’d need me, so I jumped the first flight I could grab.” He puffs his chest again, like he just parachuted behind enemy lines. “You know how much I hate flying, right?”

I nod, already bracing for the inevitable.

“Me. Trapped in a glorified sardine can. Thirty-thousand feet in the air. Do you know how many strangers I touched today?”

“Cas—”

“Now I have what they all have.”

“All of us inhaling the same stale, microbe-infested, recycled air. I’ve basically inherited the immune systems of seven random people. One guy next to me coughed the entire flight.”

“Cas.”

He swipes a dramatic hand down his face, already wilting under germs only he can see. “I have to cleanse my immune system immediately.”

With that, he beelines for the bathroom and slams the door behind him.

I stand there. Front door still open. Mouth half-open. Brain buffering.

Right. That’s how we’re starting.

I shut the door, take a breath, lean back against the counter. Whatever chaos Cas brings with him—I’m in it now. And honestly? I need him. I need every ounce of his paranoia, his brilliance, his conspiracy-theory laced wisdom.

When he finally reemerges, he’s scrubbing sanitizer into his hands like he’s fresh off open-heart surgery. He exhales, looks up through those oversized glasses, then rubs sanitizer across his face.

“Alright,” he says, all business. “Do you think she did it?”

“No.” The word flies out of me before he even finishes. “This isn’t her. Some of these accusations don’t even line up. She was never in Chicago. A couple others don’t make sense either—I was with her the whole time.”

Cas strokes his chin like a detective in a noir flick. “Interesting. Very interesting. Almost as interesting as the time I dismantled that underground organ trade in Miami—”

I narrow my eyes. “That was a Netflix documentary. You watched it on my couch. With popcorn.”

He waves me off. “Potato, potahto. The point is, this smells off. And not just your air ducts—although, Christian, I can taste the dust in here.”

I groan, dragging my hand down my face. “Cas…”

“Don’t worry, I’ve already started,” Cas declares, cracking his knuckles. “First order of business: cross-reference Sydney’s timeline. Events, travel, appearances. I assume you’ve been tracking her every movement, my good sir?”

I frown. “Cas, I don’t track my wife.”

He gasps—audible, scandalized—like I just told him I don’t believe in the Easter Bunny. “Christian, you wound me. You’re saying you’ve never peeked at her location? Not even once?”

I hesitate. “…Yes, occasionally. That is different than tracking her every movement.”

Why am I even defending myself with him?

He nods approvingly. “Excellent. A foundation to build on. Now—I’ll need all her travel records, event schedules, and, naturally, any security footage you’ve got lying around.”

I blink, frustrated. “I don’t have security footage.”

“Oh,” he says, grinning as he unzips his bag and produces a sleek black tablet like it’s Excalibur. “I do.”

I stare. “I don’t want to know how. Actually, scratch that—I definitely don’t want to know. Just… please tell me whatever you’re about to do isn’t illegal.”

He straightens, eyes glittering. “I will be like a shadow. Silent. Unseen. Moving through the web like—” He snaps his fingers, eyes narrowing in concentration. “Like Batman but without the emotionally crippling backstory and significantly fewer gadgets."

“Okay, so you’re Batman. Great. But what about the legal part?”

“Exactly,” he says, finger-gunning with alarming enthusiasm.

Confidence? No. Mild dread wrapped in hope? Absolutely.

***

The living room glows faintly with the cold blue light of the TV, the fire casting soft, dancing shadows across the floor. Rain taps a steady rhythm against the windows, like a metronome, steady and relentless. I rub my jaw, exhale through my nose, and lean forward as Cas fires off image after image from his tablet onto the TV screen.

Each one snaps into place with surgical precision, like puzzle pieces he’s been stockpiling for exactly this moment. A living, breathing mosaic of secrets unspooling in real time.

Satellite footage.

Ring cams.

Hotel security feeds.

Street cameras.

Flight manifests.

Restaurant entrances.

Elevators. Lobbies. Tarmacs.

Time stamps burn in the corners of every frame.

A map in the corner builds with every new clue, threads stitching themselves together as Cas traces Sydney’s movements with obsessive care—event to hotel, event to plane, event to dinner with friends. Clean lines. No detours. No gaps. No mysterious late-night disappearances.

Nowhere she shouldn’t be.

Cas mutters to himself, bouncing between devices like two AIs locked in a heated chess match.

“No, no, no—that doesn’t line up... unless—wait. What if the algorithm filled the gap for them? All they had to do was imply movement, and the system did the rest.”

He’s been at this for hours—running on licorice, Dr. Pepper, and pure, unfiltered intellect. His laptop chirps. His tablet flashes. His mouth moves faster than sanity should allow.

Then—

He stops.

Mid-thought. Mid-swipe.

Eyes wide.

“I think I found it,” he says.

Quiet. No flourish. No theatrics.

Which somehow makes it worse.

My pulse stutters. I sit up straighter. “Found what?”

Cas doesn’t answer right away. Instead, he flashes me a crooked grin and mutters something about government surveillance and the weaknesses of brand name security cameras. Then—without warning—the main TV lights up.

Articles flood the screen. Stacking. Layering. Multiplying.

Different outlets.

Different bylines.

Same language.

Same framing.

Same insinuations.

“It starts here,” Cas says, pointing. “Right here.”

A clock appears in the corner of the screen.

Counting backward.

“Fifteen seconds,” he says softly. “That’s all it took.”

The footage rewinds.

Podium. Applause. Medals catching the light. Sydney’s eyes still glassy from the anthem. The interviewer asks about the wins—then pivots. Politics. A loaded question dressed up as curiosity.

Sydney hesitates. Just a beat. Then answers carefully. Calm. Measured.

The clock hits zero.

The first article appears—quiet, buried on page four.

They don’t accuse her. Not yet.

Cas swipes.

Page three. The language shifts. Implication. A single allegation. An unnamed source.

Another swipe.

Page one. The volume explodes—multiple allegations, multiple anonymous sources.

Then syndication.

Then it goes viral.

Cas highlights a paragraph.

Then another.

Then another.

Same phrases. Same verbs. Same framing.

Different logos.

“They didn’t need evidence,” he continues. “They needed velocity.”

My stomach turns.

Cas pulls up grainy party footage—low light, bad angles. Different cities. Different women. Same hairstyle. Same jacket color. Cropped just enough to invite assumption.

“She was never there,” Cas says flatly. “But the footage existed. So they repurposed it. Context laundering.”

He freezes a frame. Zooms. Enhances.

Then—points with a dramatic flair.

“Boom!” he crows, like he just exposed Bigfoot staging the moon landing.

I look at him. Then at the screen. Then back at him.

Cas gasps like I just called his mother ugly. “Are you serious right now? Do you not see this? The timestamp predates the event it’s supposedly documenting.”

Of course, I saw it. I saw it as soon as he put it up on the screen. But here’s the thing about Cas: you let him have the win. Always. Trust me, I interrupted him once, and let’s just say the fallout made Chernobyl look like a bonfire.

Now he’s pacing in front of the TV like a squirrel that discovered energy drinks, remote in one hand, tablet in the other. He freezes the footage again, jabs his finger at the screen like he’s unveiling the Da Vinci Code.

He whirls around and leans in close, eyes practically vibrating with excitement. “You know what this means, don’t you?”

I sigh—because I already know where this is going. “The media made the whole thing up.”

Cas points both index fingers at me. “Ding ding ding! Now you’re thinking like a paranoid person! Welcome to the club! Population us.”

“Who,” I ask, “made it up?”

Cas grins like I just handed him a dessert menu and told him calories were a myth. “Oh-ho-ho, glad you asked.” He adjusts his glasses with a flourish that somehow makes him look both brilliant and entirely unhinged. “The original story originates from one source,” he says. “Then gets pushed—strategically—to everyone else. EHB Media Inc.”

I blink. “How do you possibly know that?”

Cas shrugs like it’s obvious. “How do you not? I literally just showed you the files. Also—” he lowers his voice conspiratorially, “you don’t want to know how I got them. Let's just say... plausible deniability is your friend right now.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Remind me again why you don’t work for the CIA?”

“Because I like pizza and free time,” he says cheerfully. “And the CIA frowns on both.”

Right. Of course.

“Why Sydney?” I ask, rubbing my jaw.

Cas’s grin fades. He brings up the timeline again. The interview. The clock. The first headline.

“They didn’t like her answer to the political question,” he says simply.

I swallow.

“So they just attack anyone who disagrees with them?” I ask.

Cas shrugs, like this is the least surprising thing in the world.

“Attack, undermine, discredit—dealer’s choice,” he says.

He adjusts his glasses, peers at me over the rim, eyes cutting sharp now. Focused.

“This isn’t new, Christian. We’ve been hearing about this for years. People just didn’t want to believe it—because believing it means admitting the referee’s been betting on the game.”

I shift in my seat.

“So, what—we just send the evidence over to EHB Media and Sydney’s cleared?” I ask.

But the words taste wrong the second they leave my mouth.

Cas laughs. A short, humorless sound.

“Truth doesn’t go viral,” he says. “Conflict does.”

He taps the desk in a slow, measured rhythm.

“This wasn’t an accident,” Cas says quietly. “It was a deliberate attack.”

He looks at me, and whatever humor he had is gone, replaced by something precise and dangerous.

“They won’t care about the truth, so we’re going to have to make them choke on it.”

Great.

Declare war on the only force more powerful than governments—the media.

Brilliant.

I hope the afterlife has Wi-Fi.