My husband, Mark, has always been way closer to our 13-year-old son, Leo, than I am. I figured it made sense—as our son got older, they just had more in common. They talked about cars, played video games, and shared a dry sense of humor that I sometimes felt excluded from. But I was happy they were close. Every mother wants their son to have a strong bond with his father.
For the past six months, they’d been going to “soccer practice” every Friday. Mark told me Leo wanted extra coaching to make the varsity team next year. Every Friday at 5:00 PM, they’d pack their bags, grab a couple of Gatorades, and head out, returning three hours later, sweaty and exhausted.
At least, that’s what I thought… until I found out it was a lie.
It started when I found Leo’s cleats in the bottom of the mudroom closet on a Friday evening—ten minutes after they had supposedly left for practice. How could he practice soccer in sneakers?
Driven by a sudden, gnawing intuition, I got in my car and drove to the local park. I went to surprise them at the field—but they weren’t there. The field was empty, save for a local peewee league on the far end. I approached their coach, a man Mark had mentioned dozens of times. He looked at me blankly and said he’d never seen Mark or Leo before.
That night, I sat in the dark kitchen until I heard their car pull into the driveway. When they walked in, they looked disheveled. Mark was wiping dirt off his jeans. “How was practice?” I asked, my heart hammering against my ribs. Leo didn’t even blink. “Great! As always! I think my footwork is really improving.”
I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. If I confronted them then, they’d just make up a better lie. I needed to see for myself.
I waited. I spent the week in a state of quiet hovering, watching them exchange secret glances over dinner. When Friday finally rolled around, I didn’t say a word. I watched them pack their “gear” and drive away.
I gave them a five-minute head start before I followed. I stayed several cars back, my hands shaking on the steering wheel. They didn’t head toward the park. Instead, they took the highway, heading toward the industrial district on the edge of town—a place of warehouses and overgrown lots.
What I saw… was way worse than I ever expected. My first thought was to call the police when their car stopped near a dilapidated, rusted-out warehouse with a flickering neon sign that simply read “THE PIT.”
I parked across the street, hidden behind a dumpster. I watched Mark and Leo get out of the car. They weren’t carrying soccer balls. Mark was carrying a heavy, metallic briefcase, and Leo was wearing a dark hoodie, looking over his shoulder like a criminal.
They entered the warehouse. I waited two minutes, then crept toward the side door. The sound hit me first—a rhythmic, mechanical grinding and the roar of a crowd. I pushed the door open a crack and slipped inside.
The warehouse was filled with people, but it wasn’t a gang or an illegal fight club. It was a makeshift arena. In the center, under high-intensity floodlights, two robots were tearing each other apart. Sparks flew as a circular saw on one machine sliced into the chassis of another.
I looked toward the “driver’s pit.” There stood Mark and Leo. Leo had a massive remote control in his hands, his face tight with a level of concentration I’d never seen at the dinner table. Mark was leaning over him, shouting instructions, acting as his “chief mechanic.”
I walked up behind them just as Leo’s robot—a sleek, terrifying machine with a hydraulic flipper—sent its opponent flying into the Lexan glass wall. The crowd erupted. Leo and Mark hugged, jumping up and down in pure, unadulterated joy.
“Nice hit, Leo!” Mark yelled. “That’s my boy!”
Then, Mark turned and saw me. The color drained from his face. Leo’s jaw dropped.
“Mom?” Leo squeaked, hiding the remote behind his back. “I thought you were at yoga.”
“Soccer practice, huh?” I said, crossing my arms. “The coach said you were a natural.”
Mark stepped forward, looking like a teenager caught sneaking out. “Honey, I can explain. Leo is a genius. He built that bot from scrap parts in the garage. But he was worried you’d think it was ‘nerdy’ or dangerous. He wanted to be the ‘athletic son’ he thought you wanted.”
I looked at the robot—a mangled heap of steel and wires that my son had engineered with his own two hands. I looked at the grease stains on his forehead and the way his eyes finally sparkled with honesty.
“You lied to me for six months,” I said, keeping my voice stern for just a moment longer. “I was terrified you were out doing something illegal.”
“I’m sorry, Mom,” Leo said quietly.
“Well,” I sighed, looking at the arena. “If you’re going to be a mechanical engineer, you’re going to need a better publicist. And Mark? If you ever lie to me about ‘soccer’ again, you’re sleeping in the garage with the robots.”
Now, our Fridays look a little different. We still head out at 5:00 PM, but we don’t bring Gatorade. We bring a soldering iron, extra batteries, and me—the loudest fan in the front row of The Pit.
I followed their taillights through the winding backroads, my headlights turned off to avoid detection. We had left the suburbs far behind. The trees pressed in close, their skeletal winter branches clawing at the sky.
When their car finally stopped, it wasn’t at a field or a stadium. They pulled into a gravel turnout near an abandoned quarry, miles from any cell service. My first thought was to call the police when their car stopped near a rusted iron gate that led down into the pit of the earth.
I parked my car a quarter-mile back and hiked through the brush. The air was cold, smelling of damp earth and something metallic—like copper. I found a vantage point on a ridge overlooking the quarry floor.
Below, a single industrial work light flickered. Mark and Leo weren’t alone. A black SUV was parked there, its engine idling, puffing white exhaust into the night air. A tall man in a long charcoal coat stood waiting for them.
My heart froze. I watched my husband—my kind, predictable husband—open the trunk. He didn’t pull out a soccer ball. He pulled out a heavy, Pelican-brand tactical case. He and Leo walked toward the stranger with a synchronization that suggested they had done this dozens of times before.
The man in the coat opened the case. Inside, cushioned in foam, were several small, sleek cylinders—vials glowing with a faint, bioluminescent blue hue. Even from the ridge, I could see the way Leo watched the man’s face. My thirteen-year-old son didn’t look scared; he looked calculating.
The man handed Mark an envelope. Mark tucked it into his jacket without counting the contents. Then, the stranger knelt down and shook Leo’s hand—not as an adult greets a child, but as a peer greets a partner.
“Is the next batch ready?” the man’s voice drifted up, thin and raspy in the cold air.
“The stabilization is difficult,” Leo replied. His voice was cold, devoid of the high-pitched innocence I heard at the breakfast table. “The heat in the home lab is inconsistent. We need the industrial centrifuges soon.”
Home lab. I thought of the “science project” Leo had been working on in our basement for months. The one Mark insisted I stay away from because the “chemicals were sensitive.”
I realized then that the “soccer practice” wasn’t a cover for a hobby. It was a cover for a business. My husband wasn’t the leader; he was the driver. The muscle. My son, the straight-A student, the quiet boy who loved Legos, was the architect.
I backed away, a twig snapping under my boot. Down below, Leo’s head snapped toward the ridge. His eyes, caught in the flicker of the work light, looked predatory.
“Dad,” I heard him say, his voice perfectly calm. “We’re being watched.”
I didn’t wait to see Mark’s reaction. I scrambled back to my car, my lungs burning, the gravel slicing into my palms as I fell and climbed back up. I made it to the car, fumbled the keys, and roared back onto the main road, driving until I reached the bright, fluorescent safety of a 24-hour gas station.
I sat there, staring at my reflection in the rearview mirror. Ten minutes later, my phone buzzed. It was a text from Leo.
“Practice ran a bit late tonight, Mom. We’re picking up your favorite pizza on the way home. See you in twenty?”
I looked at the text, then at the empty road behind me. I realized that if I went home, I would be walking into a house filled with strangers. If I called the police, I would be turning in my own child.
I put the car in gear and started to drive, but I didn’t head home.
