by A. M. Pierre
Daisuke knew Connor couldn’t see him, but he glared at him via his computer screen anyway. Not much use trying to impress the girl if you get her killed, is there, moron?
“Hawkeye, we’re through. Clear us a path.”
He makes it sound so simple. “Give me a sec. There are at least ten different spots where I need to cut wires while tripping the fire alarm at the same time.”
“I see a break glass here.”
“Okay, that’s nice. A what?”
“What you pull to set off the fire alarm. If you give me a countdown, I can pull it when you cut the wires.”
So, so simple. “Fine, we’ll try it your way.” Daisuke closed his eyes and pushed his thoughts toward the security wing. Energy flowed through him like cool water, coursing out into the world. He could follow its multiple streams toward ten different destinations—ten copper wires that glowed in his mind like miniature neon lights. “3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . . Now!”
Daisuke envisioned the “water” wrapping around the neon lights, cracking them in two like dry twigs. He felt the pull, the strain as the water did as he commanded, then the relief as the leftover energy flowed away into the world. He opened his eyes and wiped the sweat off his forehead. All the video feeds on his laptop had gone dark, but, more importantly, all the security doors now showed green.
Through his headset, Daisuke could hear the fire alarm screeching and the splatter of the sprinkler systems drenching the area. “You’ve got your opening, Summer Breeze, but it won’t last long. Get out of there.”
“Roger that, Hawkeye. We’re on our way.”
* * *
Kaia wasn’t afraid when the lights went out. Or when the fire alarm started blaring over the original alarms. Or when the sprinklers started pouring water but she wasn’t getting wet. She wasn’t afraid—or anything else, really. The world seemed blanketed in a vague haze. Everything’s fine, no worries. The freaky non-telekinetic British guy is here to help. A flashlight flicked on in the darkness. She could just make out his shadowy outline behind it. “You all right?” he asked.
Kaia looked up. His non-flashlight-holding hand was raised above his head, and water sluiced away from it like he was holding an invisible umbrella. So that’s why I’m not wet. Huh.
“Hang onto me, Kaia, and I’ll have you out of here in no time.” She nodded numbly and grabbed onto his hoodie. Yep, the freaky Brit with the umbrella hand and guard-blasting powers is going to get me out of the highly secured area. All in a day’s work for him. There’s another security door . . . Aaaaaand, it’s open. Of course it is. Still not wet. Still have an invisible umbrella over my head. That’s nice. Don’t like being wet. Especially when I’m running through pitch black hallways escaping lockdown in a foreign country. Dry clothes are best for things like that. Two more security doors. Pointless security doors. Uh-oh, there’s a guard past this one. Guard has a gun. Dumb guard. Guard’s flying down the side hall. Bye-bye guard. The sign up ahead says “Sortie.” That means something. Something important. Ah, right. “Exit.” Yeah, that’s important. “This is it, Kaia! A few more steps and we’re home free.”
The door swung open. Kaia shielded her eyes from the blinding light of the morning sun. She had known it had to be around 10 a.m., Paris time, but it still felt odd to see it was true. Her bizarre protector gestured for her to follow him, but Kaia’s shock was fading enough for some pretty important questions to surface. “Hey . . . where are we going?”
“I told you, we’re helping you escape.”
Kaia took a look around. Their exit had opened out on a narrow sidewalk alongside a string of parked cars, but, while she could see an absolutely massive stream of people leaving the airport from exits further down, no one else was in the area or even headed their way. She shook her head and stopped in her tracks.
Umbrella Boy sighed. “I’m taking you to a secure location where we can help you sort all this out. I’m sorry I can’t be more specific than that. You’re going to have to trust me.”
Kaia pointed toward the crowds leaving the airport. “Uh, why are they . . . ?”
“Odds are it has something to do with the fire alarm I just pulled. Or the bomb threats we called in earlier. Both are distinct possibilities. Anything else?”
Bomb threats?! Great, that’ll probably get blamed on me, too. “Why isn’t anyone else around here?”
“Because, generally speaking, when you’re trying to escape the notice of the police, you stick to places where the police aren’t. Shall we go?” He gestured to a mid-size car with dark-tinted windows. With very dark-tinted windows. She took a step backward. “What’s wrong, Kaia?”
She nodded towards the car’s pitch-black windows. “You hiding something?”
“Well, it’s . . .”
The door to the back seat popped open and an Asian boy who looked to be about 12 years old jumped out. He had a grin on his face and thick black hair that stood out at odd angles as if he couldn’t be bothered to comb it. “They’re tinted so people can’t see us.” His grin got even bigger. “We’re wanted by the authorities. I mean, we’re not wanted for anything bad . . . well, not that bad, but making bomb threats and hacking secure government networks is still illegal, even if it is for a good cause.” He shrugged. “Go fig.”
Kaia started easing away again as her rescuer turned to confront the younger boy.
“I swear, you are the dumbest genius I’ve ever known.”
“Come on—what are you so upset about? You said we were going to tell her the truth. I did.”
“That wasn’t the truth I had in mind, Dice. What I meant was—Kaia, wait!”
So much for sneaking away unnoticed. Should I make a run for it? No, he’d probably blast me like he blasted those guards.
“Please, Kaia. We only want to help. I promise.”
Help me? You’ve just got me deeper into trouble. Maybe if I go back and explain . . . “Collin—”
“Connor.”
“Sorry.” Kaia took a deep breath. You can do this. “Connor, I don’t know how or why you did it, but thank you for your help.” She clenched her fists, willing the words out. “However, I think I should go back.” She tried to smile, but it came out a bit too strained to look real. “No hard feelings?”
Connor thought for a second. “We need to tell her, Dice.”
The younger boy sighed. “Great. I’m going to wait in the car while you make an idiot of yourself.”
Connor ignored him. “Kaia, it wasn’t a computer glitch that flagged you as a terrorist. We set you up so we could break you out. So you would trust us. Not my idea, but orders are orders.”
Kaia just stared. All that she’d been through today—the humiliation of it all, the sheer terror . . . She felt white hot rage building inside her. “Why?”
“You saw what I can do. I can . . . control things. Everyone in our group can. We’re ‘special,’ and we believe you are, too. That’s why we came to get you.” Connor scratched the back of his head. “Could you say something, please?”
She stared at him a moment longer, her usual shyness fading in the face of the fury inside her. Her voice came out low but strong. “Get away from me.”
“Please, Kaia, it’s true, I swear—”
A voice piped up from inside the car. “Told you it wouldn’t work.”
“Shut up, Dice. Please, Kaia—please reconsider.”
She was already walking away. “No.”
“Then I don’t have a choice. I’m really sorry about this, Kaia.” He sounded upset, but the harsh click that followed said something else. Kaia stopped, raised her hands up above her head, and turned back around to see exactly what she’d expected: a gun in his hands. “I didn’t want it to be this way,” he said. “I really didn’t. Now, please, get in the car.”
She didn’t know where the courage came from. “No. No, I’m no
t going to.”
“I don’t want to shoot you, but I will if I have to.”
She deliberately turned away from him, her arms still raised. “Then you’ll have to. And I’m sorry, Connor, but you don’t seem like the kind of guy who would shoot someone in the back. Especially not a girl.”
She hadn’t taken two steps when she felt the impact, just to the left of her spine. The sound followed a split second later—a short, sharp burst of air. So that’s what a silencer sounds like, she thought, as her legs turned to Jell-O.
She felt no pain, only a sense of shock that faded with her vision. As if in slow motion, she saw Connor running up to catch her, and she could have sworn she caught a look of anguish in his eyes.
I must be seeing things, she thought, then the darkness washed over her, and everything faded away.
* * *
“I don’t want to shoot you, but I will if I have to.”
Daisuke cringed and opened his door. Well, cripes, so much for that.
He got out just in time to see Connor shoot the girl in the back with the tranquilizer dart. If he’d waited a sec, I would’ve been in a better position to catch her so . . . Ah, yes, there’s the idiot I know, catching her himself when he’s so exhausted he can barely stand. Daisuke ran towards the two of them. “Dude, be careful, you’re going to—” Connor’s knees buckled. “What did I tell you?” Daisuke ducked his head under Connor’s arm and planted his feet in a losing battle to keep all three of them upright. “Vladimir! Help me get them in the car!”
Vladimir, who was a good foot taller than Daisuke and probably weighed twice as much, leapt out of the driver’s seat in a flash, picked up the girl like it was nothing, and carried her to the front seat. That left Daisuke to be Connor’s human crutch back to the car—Connor, who also outweighed him by a ton. “I think you goaded her into that on purpose,” Daisuke managed to get out between gasping breaths.
Connor studiously refused to look at him. “And why on earth would I do that?”
Daisuke smiled, a tight and humorless smile. “I can’t think of a single good reason why.” He managed to slide Connor into the back seat without slamming the taller boy’s head into the door frame and then got in on the other side.
They’d been on the road for a few minutes when Daisuke cleared his throat. “I’m sorry. You know, for popping out and telling her we were wanted. I know it wasn’t the final straw, but it was probably the first one.”
Connor was leaning back in his seat with his eyes closed. “Forget it.”
“So you’re not mad at me?”
“I didn’t say that. I said, ‘Forget it,’ not ‘I forgive you.’ ‘Forget.’ ‘Forgive.’ Important distinction there.” Connor let out a long breath. “I wanted to have it go smoothly for once. Nicely, you know. No dart guns, no excessive force, no permanent psychological trauma.” He rubbed his temples. “Have you got any headache medicine?”
Daisuke passed him the med kit. “You know it’s not good to overextend yourself like that, Connor. And just to show off for a pretty girl, too.”
“But the first meet is the only chance I ever get—not that it does any good. I mean, what kind of relationship starts with a dart in the back? How would you ever explain it later?” Connor suddenly sat bolt upright, looked slightly to his left, and clasped his hands in a broad imitation of a “feminine” pose. “‘Oh, Connor, my little love muffin, do tell the Wilsons the story of how we met. You have to hear this—it’s so cute.’” He turned back to the right and puffed out his stomach like he was a middle-aged man with a paunch. “‘Whatever you say, pudding pop. First, I had her marked as a suspected terrorist. You know, that old gag. Then I “rescued” her from the government agents that I myself had set on her trail. I was going to “nicely” kidnap her, but when she tried to resist, I shot her with enough tranquilizer to stop a horse and kidnapped her anyway. Oh, how we laughed about it all later! Jolly good times.’”
Daisuke wasn’t laughing. “You know you didn’t have any choice.”
“Yes, because that’s going to matter so much to her when she wakes up. ‘So you didn’t have any choice in violently taking me against my will? Oh, okay, then we’re cool.’” Connor flopped back into his seat again. “I don’t even know why we’re discussing this. Even if she had come along with us without me drugging her into oblivion, it wouldn’t have mattered.”
“And why’s that?”
Connor frowned. “Oh, please. No matter how the pick-up goes, the instant she arrives at the mansion and meets Mr. ‘Tall, Dark, and Wounded,’ it’s all over. It’s a universal female affliction. One look into those tortured eyes and they know they’re the only one who can hug and kiss him better.”
“You know, you could try playing the emo card for a change. I mean, Ezio’s not the only one with an angsty past.”
Connor rubbed the kinks out of his shoulders. “Not my style. Think I’ll keep swallowing all of my dark festering emotions until I end up choking on them. Or until I explode in a fiery ball of rage. It’s a toss-up.”
“You could also have a complete freak-out and end up in a corner singing ‘I’m a little teapot’ while we take turns feeding you mashed peas and strained carrots. I’m just saying.”
“Fair point.” Connor closed his eyes again and crossed his arms across his chest with a sort of finality. “Now, before we get back and I am hauled over the coals by Ezio—again—for shooting a new recruit—again—I am going to get some sleep.”
“. . . are you still mad at me for derailing your perfect pick-up?”
Connor’s voice was already fading. “No, I probably would have had to tranq her anyway. I’m really not good at lying.”
I am watching myself. I know I am dreaming, but that doesn’t help me any. I already know how the scene will end.
I’m inside a house. An ordinary house—too nice to be shabby but too shabby to be nice. There are far more kids than there should be, all running through the handful of rooms with no one paying them any mind. The woman “in charge” is too busy watching soap operas in the kitchen to care.
I watch myself walk up to her, dodging the other foster children, a rare hopeful look on my face. Don’t look like that. You’re only going to get hurt.
I see the sheets of paper in my other self’s hands and wish I could snatch them away. “Mrs. Johnson?” I cringe at how needy I sound.
The woman doesn’t look up from her soaps. “Mm-hmm.”
“I . . . I got accepted into that program—the summer foreign exchange program in France. They said it was a real honor.” No reply. “It’ll only be for a few weeks.” Nothing. “With my sponsors and the money I saved from my part-time job, I already have the full fee.” Still nothing. “I just need you to sign a few forms.”
Without saying a word, the older woman blindly reaches for the papers. She lets them rest in her hand until a commercial comes on, then quickly signs wherever the little “Sign Here” notes tell her to. Her parenting complete, she looks back at the television.
“Th-Thank you, Mrs. Johnson. I won’t let you down.”
“Mm-hmm.”
Stop standing there looking like an idiot. Just turn around and go. She doesn’t care that you wanted to make her proud. She doesn’t care that she’s just made you cry.
Please let me wake up.
Even with her eyes closed, Kaia knew she wasn’t in her own bed. It was (surprisingly) even harder. She heard voices, but they were only incoherent murmurs. The smell was . . . clean, maybe? As far as touch went, she felt the hard surface beneath her but nothing else, except for the sore spot on her back.
My back! I was shot in the back! Wait . . . Something about that seems unlikely. Oh, right. I’m not dead. But I was shot . . . So, what . . . ? It was frustrating, like her thoughts were traveling through a fog without headlights and kept missing each other.
Wit
h a start, Kaia realized the murmuring had turned into a boy and a girl talking.
Boy: “So how’s the scan coming?”
Girl: “Nothing to report so far, thankfully.”
Boy: “Some good news for a change. How long until the drugs wear off?”
That’s it! Drugs! You were shot with a dart, not a bullet! Congratulations, doped-up mind, you figured it out! Yay! Wait . . . what kind of people shoot teenagers with knockout darts?!
Girl: “She should be awake fairly soon. I really wish Connor had exercised some self-control for once.”
Connor. I know that name . . . oh, yeah. Brit-boy. He ran with me through white hallways. He helped me escape. He had an invisible umbrella coming out of his hand. Wait, no, that can’t be right. Jeez, what did they dope me with?
The voices had moved farther away. Kaia took the chance to raise her head up and get a look around. The room was about twenty feet by thirty feet, the walls and ceiling made completely of knotty wooden planks. She didn’t see any natural light, but somehow she knew the wood-covered alcoves lining the walls actually concealed windows, though there was no telling how far the drop might be if she tried to escape through them. A fireplace of irregular stone, thick with soot from past fires, protruded slightly from the wall to her right. A slight decay and roughness throughout the room spoke of many decades of use. In short, the room was old. Very old. The items in the room, however, were not.
Every available inch of space was filled with medical equipment, from massive machines to bins full of syringes, bandages, and medicine bottles. Kaia had never really had a problem with doctors, but the sight of the silver tray next to her bed, filled as it was with needles and scalpels and other scary-looking things, had her sitting straight up in a millisecond. It was only then that she noticed it.
Her clothes were gone. Not that she wasn’t clothed—she was, in a plain white t-shirt and shorts. They just weren’t her clothes. Someone had un- and then re-dressed her. Great. Another indignity to add to the day’s list. Her hand reached for her pendant, but it came away empty. Her eyes widened. She had never taken it off, not once in her entire life. But they had . . .