by A. M. Pierre
Kaia couldn’t imagine living on the streets at her age now, let alone when she was a little kid. “Did you have anyone looking out for you, you know, helping you out?”
He took so long to answer that Kaia thought he might have fallen asleep despite what she was doing, but he hadn’t. When she looked up, the sadness in his eyes had vanished. In its place was a smoldering anger—not like the red-hot fire when he’d knocked out the guard, but a more contemplative feeling that still looked like it would burn your hand off. “No, I didn’ have anyone to help me. There were people, but they didn’ help.” He closed his eyes. “I left. Took a few years, but I left. Went other places. In Roma, still, but other places. Thass’ when I found’em.”
“Who?”
“My friends. Littl’ ones. Like me, but with less food. They had people, too. People who didn’ help. So I helped. I mean . . . I tried to. I tried so hard.” Something in his voice changed, and Kaia looked up to see his eyes shining with unshed tears. “I tried, Kaia, I swear I did, but it didn’t work. It never works.” His eyes flicked away from hers, looking into some distant place beyond the four walls of their container. “You can’t save them. Never. You think you can—they’re right there in front of you—so you try to hold on, but they get pulled away anyway.” Ezio looked back at her, but Kaia wasn’t sure he was actually seeing her. He let out a long, shuddering breath. “And you can’t stop it, you can’t. All you can do is watch it happen and curse yourself while they scream.”
They sat there for a moment, frozen in the silence. Kaia swallowed down the lump that had formed in her throat. “Ezio, I . . .” Her voice trailed away. There was nothing to say. She turned deliberately toward his leg, focusing all her attention on tying off the stitches and bandaging his leg with exacting precision. By the time she had found some super-thin metallic blankets, a couple of inflatable pillows, and some snack bars, Ezio was asleep again. There wasn’t enough room to lie down in their cramped container, so she sat down next to him, tucked a blanket around him and one around herself, and slowly ate her protein bar.
Something bumped her arm—his head had fallen over to rest on her shoulder. She pulled back a lock of sweat-drenched hair which was plastered to his forehead.
No. Nothing to say.
“Good morning, sunshine! Did you sleep well? Did you dream of puppies and kittens here in Great Britain? Or perhaps you were cold and in need of some mittens?”
Alizée didn’t even look at Daisuke as she ran her fingers through her bedraggled hair. “Could you at least wait until I’ve had some coffee before you start bombarding me with rhyme?” She was stretching luxuriantly when she finally spared him a glance. She froze mid-stretch. “What in the name of sanity have you got on your face?”
“What? Did I not get all the jam off? I know I can be messy with my toast, but I could have sworn . . .” Daisuke looked over in a nearby mirror. Nope, no jam.
Alizée gave him her best eye-roll. “I was referring to the countless black dots you have all over your head.”
“Oh, those. Those are markers for my real time facial motion capture system. I know markers might be considered somewhat ‘old school,’ but I’ve had consistently better results when using them in real time rendering.”
“Right, of course.” She massaged her temples. “Who wouldn’t know that?”
“Are you being sarcastic? Your tone sounds like you are, but I can’t be certain . . .”
“Yes, Dice, I am being sarcastic. What you have on your face is odd, unusual, and beyond bizarre, and the fact you are assuming it’s normal makes me want to reply in a sarcastic manner.” A pause. “You’re going to make me ask, aren’t you?”
“Ask what?”
“For the love of—why do you have markers for a real-time-whatever on your face?”
“Oh, right. It’s all part of my brilliant plan. See, I’d already planned for almost every eventuality—I say ‘almost’ only because ‘every’ is pretty much impossible. I mean, what if you were enjoying a picnic in the woods whilst unbeknownst to you a virus had mutated in the chipmunk community and turned them all into tiny rabid attack machines who were drawn to the smell of cheesecake? Would you have brought an alternative dessert just in case? There’s too many eventualities to say you’re ever completely prepared, but once you’ve accounted for the vast majority of the most likely eventualities, I think it’s safe to say—”
“Dice! Dots. On your face. Why?”
“Getting there, I promise. I always knew the police might get involved in our operation—either through a direct call or by seeing us on one of their many patrols around here. In anticipation of such constabulary interference, I formulated a plan. Ta-dah!” Daisuke held up a picture of a middle-aged, pale, balding man.
Alizée’s expression didn’t change. “So, Dice, just to be clear, Ezio and that girl are trapped in a terrorist compound, Mr. Brown is in jail, we’re stuck in a van in a police impound lot, and you’re telling me the key to our salvation is a picture of an old white guy.”
Daisuke sighed. “Oh ye of little faith. We’ve established police involvement was always a possibility. Assuming they arrested one of us, what then? It’s a teensy bit difficult to arrange a jailbreak on a couple hours’ notice. So, I figured, why not get the cops to hand deliver our guy themselves? And why would they do that, you may ask? Because their boss told them to.” Daisuke held up the bald dude’s picture again. “I present to you Mr. Nicholas Moran, acting regional head of OPSEC, or ‘Office of Peacetime Security Enforcement’—London’s name for their bad-guy-tracking, UNID-enforcing, international-vacation-ruining division. And don’t even get me started on the whole ‘we used the “C” in Enforcement instead of making a better acronym’ thing. All they had to do was drop ‘Enforcement,’ and it would’ve worked! So lame.” Alizée was looking violent again, so he pressed on. “Anyways, our cops last night were OPSEC officers, so if their boss orders the release of Mr. Brown, they’ll let him on his merry way.”
“That all sounds lovely. Just one thing—why would the oh-so-powerful Monsieur Moran help us out?” Alizée smiled condescendingly. “Did he accept your friend request?”
“Not exactly. First, I hacked OPSEC’s database and added information indicating Mr. Brown’s an undercover agent. Not especially difficult, but time-consuming. Before we left Mark’s Place, I prepared a photorealistic 3D computer model of Mr. Moran’s head and shoulders, as well as his home office—pulled off some security camera relays I intercepted a few months back, in case you were wondering—and, of course, organized a massive collection of voice samples to help my program morph my own charming voice into that of a middle-aged chain smoker. So, anyway, after I finished hacking OPSEC, I brushed up on his speech patterns, vocal mannerisms, and expressions so I could mimic them precisely. The computers will now use my expressions to generate a living, breathing Mr. Moran in real-time. Ah, but how will those computers know what expression I’m making?” Daisuke grinned. “Dots on my face. Boom, baby!”
“That all sounds rather time-consuming.” Alizée looked at him sideways. “Have you slept at all?”
“Define ‘slept.’”
She actually looked (shock!) concerned. “Come on, you know that’s not good for you—or for everyone we’re trying to save! Yes, you’re a genius, but even your brain has to get tired. You can’t possibly be thinking straight when you’ve been up for 24 hours.”
Daisuke cleared his throat and stared intently at his computer screens. “Yep, 24 hours is a long time to be up, yes.”
Alizée’s eyes widened. “How long was it this time?” No answer. She grabbed his chin and twisted his face towards her. “How long?”
Dice mumbled under his breath. “Forty-eight.”
“Forty . . . are you insane?! You hadn’t slept for more than a day before we even left?”
“I had to do prep work. It happens. Besides, I’m
fine. Stop acting like you’re my mom.”
She crossed her arms. “No, I’m not your mom. I’m one of the teammates whose life you put in danger.”
“Oh, quit being so dramatic, and go eat your breakfast.” He checked the time. 7:00 AM. “Showtime.”
Starting earlier would’ve been wonderful, but his research indicated Mr. Nicholas Moran never looked over work-related items until he sat down to breakfast at 7. In Daisuke’s made-up scenario, Mr. Moran started eating, saw his good friend Mr. Brown had been arrested, and immediately threw down his half-eaten piece of toast to call and demand Mr. Brown’s release.
Daisuke already knew who he was going to ask for when the station picked up. Of the two officers the night before, one had definitely seemed more reasonable. All he had to do was affect the proper level of bureaucratic outrage and imply the direst of retributions, and they would be falling over themselves to let Mr. Brown go. That was assuming they didn’t try to verify his identity using some unknown countersign. And that his computers didn’t crash due to the strain of the insane amount of rendering he required. And that OPSEC’s resident hackers hadn’t flagged his patched-in data file as fraudulent within the past few hours. And that . . . Daisuke shook his head as if violently disagreeing with the pessimistic voice in his brain. Whatever. It has to work, so it is going to work. End of discussion. He made the call.
A bored-looking officer answered—and immediately straightened up when he saw who was calling. Who he thought was calling. “Mr. Moran! Good morning, sir!”
“Yes, quite.” Daisuke struggled to get the right level of controlled anger and annoyance in his voice. “I need to speak with one of your officers, a Mr.—”
“Yes, sir. We are aware of the issue, sir. Transferring you now, sir.”
Daisuke tried not to show his surprise. Another man appeared on the screen. Daisuke didn’t recognize the face, but he knew the voice from the night before. Daisuke opened his mouth (and thus Mr. Moran’s mouth) to speak, but never got the chance.
“Mr. Moran, this is Officer Tyler. I want to apologize, sir. It wasn’t until we checked Mr. Brown’s OPSEC file this morning that we discovered his undercover assignment. I have already begun the paperwork for his release, and he should be out within the hour.”
“Uh, thank you. That will be all.” Daisuke hung up. He swiveled in his chair to grin smugly at Alizée. “See? Piece of cake.”
They bought me a violin. I was there when it happened, and I’m watching it happen again, but I still can’t believe it.
“Do you like it, dear?”
Do I like it? Do I like it? It’s only the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Don’t just sit there—say something, you idiot!
“Yes. Thank you.”
Wow. Good thing you didn’t show any more enthusiasm—you might’ve hurt yourself. At least Mr. and Mrs. Liu seem to think it’s enough. Mrs. Liu’s hands are fluttering like they always do when she gets excited. Her hands fluttered like that when she took me shopping for clothes for my first day of sixth grade. They fluttered when she and her husband watched me finish my first violin solo. They did not, however, flutter when they returned me to Children’s Services. I saw her face. She was crying. So why . . . ?
“Oh, I’m so glad you like it. I know it’s not anything special, but if you decide you really like playing it, we can definitely upgrade later. Isn’t that right, Richard?”
Mr. Liu smiles and nods. He never said much, but his smiles were so kind they wrapped you in an invisible blanket of warm fuzzies. I hadn’t seen too many adults with smiles like that. Still haven’t.
Mrs. Liu is still going strong. “I’m so glad you decided to join the school band. I know you’ll be great at it. You have an artist’s soul. I can tell.”
The violin looks so elegant, with its graceful curves and richly stained wood shining against the red velvet. I reach out a single finger to touch it, convinced it will disappear if I do anything more. No one has ever bought me anything this nice before. Not even close. And I can say with absolute certainty no one has ever said I have an artist’s soul. How could a gawky eleven-year-old who barely speaks more than a sentence at a time even begin to explain what all this means to them? “Th-thank you. I mean . . . thank you.”
Pathetic.
But Mrs. Liu doesn’t seem to think so. She hugs me. Actually hugs me. And then she says something I can also say with absolute certainty has never been said to me before. “I am so proud of you.”
Hasn’t been said since, either.
Kaia wasn’t sure where she was at first. She knew it was dark. She knew her back felt stiff and her butt felt sore. She knew her arm was vibrating wildly. Oh, and a cute Italian guy was asleep on her shoulder.
She jerked upright as awareness came flooding back. She stopped the vibrating alarm on her watch. 7:30. Half an hour until their rescue. That should be enough time to eat a quick breakfast and put everything away. The only thing she really wished they had was the one necessity Dice could never fit in a backpack—a bathroom. It’s only half an hour, she told herself. You can wait that long.
She reluctantly pushed Ezio off her shoulder. “Time to get up.” He grumbled slightly. She smiled to herself—she could let him sleep for a few more minutes. She dug through her backpack until she found a small brown package marked “Breakfast for Two.”
She had been expecting a couple of meal bars and maybe some juice boxes, but she wasn’t even close. Inside was one little container with a picture of scrambled eggs and sausage on it, another with oatmeal, and yet another with granola, blueberries, and milk. Also included: a miniature coffee pot resting perfectly on a single teeny tiny stovetop burner, which sat atop a minuscule fuel tank. She pulled out the instructions. “Step 1,” she read, “Open box. It appears you’ve figured that one out on your own. Congrats. Now onto more difficult maneuvers, like opening a water bottle. Oooh, scary. Step 2: The incredibly difficult process of stirring hot water into freeze-dried food. To begin . . .”
Kaia smiled to herself. Ezio was right—Dice definitely didn’t leave them unprepared. It looked like they would have a decent meal in about ten minutes.
Which was when she started getting worried. “Ezio. It’s time to get up.” No response. “I have freeze-dried scrambled eggs with sausage crumbles,” she said in a sing-song voice. Still nothing. Kaia put a hand on his shoulder. “Ezio . . . Hey, Ezio!” He mumbled slightly, but nothing else.
Maybe he’s a heavy sleeper. Maybe he’s really exhausted from all the tension and the fighting and the ripping stitches out and having them sewn up by a girl who couldn’t make a potholder. Or maybe . . .
An ice-cold knot formed in her stomach. She had a drowsy half-memory of waking up in the middle of the night. Ezio had sounded like he was in pain, so she had given him another pill. She knew the medicine made him sleepy, but her watch had said 1:20 and the meds only lasted six hours. It was ten ’til 8 now. He shouldn’t still be this doped up. The knot in her stomach got colder as she dug out the pill bottle. Dosage: Take one every eight hours.
Eight.
It was eight hours.
Something so simple, so stupid, but so important. He might not even have been in pain—he might have been having a bad dream. She had (slightly) double-dosed him, and now—using the most optimistic of estimates—he wouldn’t be back to normal for another hour and a half.
And they were supposed to be ready in 10 minutes.
* * *
“We’re supposed to be there in 10 minutes!” There wasn’t a whole lot of room—or height—to pace within the van, but Daisuke gave it his best shot. “What is taking him so long? We can’t very well drive out of here without our driver!”
“I do have a license, you know,” Alizée said.
“Granted, but I suspect even the rent-a-guards at a low-level impound lot might get suspicious if a supposedly unoc
cupied vehicle started moving. Worse still, I can’t even call the station to ask ‘what’s the hold-up?’ The real Nicholas Moran wouldn’t call back—why would he? They said ‘released in an hour,’ and said hour isn’t even up yet. I was just hoping they would be scared into faster action.” Daisuke sat heavily down on a nearby seat. “It seems the paperwork of bureaucracy trumps the pants-wetting fear of high-ranking superior officials.” He ran his fingers through his even-wilder-than-normal hair. “Let’s hope Ezio and Kaia have things under control on their end.”
* * *
“Please wake up. Please? We kinda need to get out of this crate if we want to not die, and you’re kinda the only one who can do that, so kinda wake up please?” Kaia wasn’t sure how long she’d been tapping Ezio’s shoulder, but it clearly wasn’t doing anything. She cringed slightly, then hauled off and slapped him as hard as she could. He jerked backward, and his eyes opened half-way. Kaia cradled his face in her hands so she could aim his eyes in her general direction. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you, but I really really need your help and it’s already after 8:00 and I have no idea when Dice will be here but we need to be ready to move and I really am very sorry I hit you and—” his eyelids fluttered shut “—don’t you dare fall asleep on me again!” she yelled, and backhanded him on the other cheek.
“Wha-? Wha’s goin’ on?” Ezio tried and failed to focus on her. “Oh, Kaia.” He flopped a hand onto her shoulder. “’m sorry.”
Kaia tried to concentrate on his words and not his hand. “A-About what?”
“Shouldn’t’ve left ya ’lone back there. Shouldn’t’ve split up. ’Cuz we split that guard found ya. No good. My fault.”
“No, don’t say that. Things happen. It’s not your fault.”