by Teri Terry
I click on the latest one, sent about an hour and a half ago. Darling girl, are you all right? Answer me.
I answer: I’m here now, are you? I don’t expect him to be unless he hasn’t slept all night. We’ve been on a bit of a trip about the place. Sorry I couldn’t answer before.
I wait, click “refresh.” Wait some more. The sun is just peeking above the trees now, and I glance back down the lane, the way I came. I don’t think anyone will wake up—they’ve only been asleep a few hours, and we’re all exhausted—but I reach back behind me anyway to check. All still asleep.
I stretch, settle on the bench, and soon start to doze off a little myself. A bird chirps loudly, and I jump awake. Hit “refresh.”
There is a message from JJ, sent just a few minutes before: Hello? Are you still there?
Yes! Are you?
Yes–at last we are online at the same time. So have you been off on a little vacation?
Something like that. It was rather spontaneous. As in, we had no choice. Will he understand that?
Seemed like a good idea at the time?
Exactly.
Where are you?
At the house of our mutual friend, where I last saw you. He should be able to work out we’re at Patrick’s.
Ah, lovely.
My new friends I told you about are here too.
Perhaps we can work something out, get together again? We could come and meet you partway, perhaps?
That’d be great. Only I’m not sure if I’ll be going.
There’s a long pause. Is he thinking or talking to someone else—Patrick, maybe? Hopefully not Xander. I want to tell JJ not to mention this to Xander, but I don’t know how to get that across without saying too much. What would Xander say if he knew I might be coming? He’d be wondering about Kai—if he’s coming with me.
I’m wondering that too.
But I’d so love to see you. Would pleading help?
I don’t know; give it a try?
I’m dying to see you! I’m practically…desperate!
Some things never change.
But some do: change your mind.
You never know your luck. I hesitate, thinking how to phrase what I need to say. Then go for: Could we make it a surprise party? Though maybe you should let our mutual friend know, since we’re staying at his house. But no one else.
There’s a short pause. Who doesn’t love a surprise?
I’m not sure when I’ll get back online. Nowhere to recharge. So don’t worry if you don’t hear from me.
As usual, you ask the impossible.
I’ve got to go. I need to conserve battery.
All right. xxxxx
I hesitate. One x–on the cheek.
Ooooh, saucy!
Not *that* cheek. Bye.
I quickly log off, and then go to Kai’s mum’s work website to get the phone number for the switchboard. That’ll be all I was doing if anyone notices I took the phone. Then I switch it off.
The sun is climbing a little higher into the sky, but clouds are pulling in, and I shiver. I hope JJ got that I want him to keep all this from Xander and anyone else, for now at least. And that if he did understand, he actually does it. Somehow I think he will.
Eventually I’ll have to face Xander again—I know this somehow; I feel it, inside. But until then I’d rather he didn’t know I’m coming.
Am I going to go with them, or is this just for Azra and Wilf? I don’t know. I don’t feel sure of much of anything anymore.
CHAPTER 20
KAI
IT’S 9 AM., AT LAST: I can try calling the switchboard at a time of day somebody is likely to be there.
“I’m not sure you should make this call yourself, Kai,” Freja says. “Just in case calls are monitored, and somebody recognizes your voice.”
“I’ll do it!” Wilf says. “Azra can’t—a girl can’t sound like a man.”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Can you sound older? Calm and businesslike?”
“Let’s do it pretend,” Wilf says. He mimes a fake phone in his hand. “Ring ring.” He raises his eyebrows at Freja.
“Hello?” she says.
“Good morning. May I please speak to Dr. Sonja Tanzer’s assistant?” He trips over her name a little.
“May I ask who is calling?”
“Bryson.”
“What was Bryson’s first name?” I say. “Should he give a full name?”
“I don’t know. If he’s in the army, wouldn’t he just say his rank or something?”
“What was his rank?”
I frown, trying to remember. “There was a lot going on at the time. I’m not sure.”
“Just make up a first name. You don’t want them to look into the real Bryson and find out he’s dead, anyway.”
“Good point.”
“David Bryson. There you go.”
Wilf practices it a few times, switching the wording around, until we all judge he is good to go.
I dial the number and hand him the phone—he holds it close to me so I can hear but first gives a mad grin. Stay calm, Wilf! I think at him, and he crosses his eyes. What are we doing?
It rings, again and again. I wonder if we should hang up, try again later.
Then there is a click. “UK and World Health Organization Epidemic Research Initiative. Good morning.”
“Hello, this is David Bryson. Please connect me with Dr. Sonja Tanzer’s assistant.”
“One moment, please.”
There is silence, then another phone ringing. A man answers.
“My name is Bryson. Sonja said to call you to set up a meeting?”
“One moment.” There’s a pause. “Ah yes, she left a note. She’s on fieldwork this week but said that since you’re traveling down, you might want to meet her at one of the collection centers? She’s in Chester. If you can be there today or tomorrow, she suggested you might like to join her for her evening walk at six p.m.”
I give Wilf a thumbs-up and mouth today.
The assistant gives more details. He says to go to the center reception and ask for her, but I’m guessing that is because Mum told him to say this, to cover up what she really meant. I know just where she’ll be. But I write it down anyway.
Wilf says goodbye, clicks “end call.”
“Good job!” I say, and we high-five.
“What on earth is a collection center?” Freja asks.
I shrug. “Who knows?”
Freja is on the computer.
“Chester is outside the zone boundary,” she says. “I’m coming with you.”
CHAPTER 21
FREJA
“IT’S ONLY A FEW HOURS AWAY,” Kai says. “We’ll be back tonight, I promise.”
“Call if you have to, but only if it’s important.” I brandish Wilf’s phone; they’ve got Azra’s. “Don’t wear the battery down on that one; keep it off unless you need it.”
Azra rolls her eyes. “We won’t. I won’t let him,” she says, and tucks the phone into her pocket with a pointed look at Wilf.
We’ll be back on a bike today; one of Patrick’s was tucked away in his garage. They must have used the four-wheel drive when they left—there were only five of them after we were gone. We siphon some gas from the car to top up the bike, then tuck the car out of sight in the garage.
“We can’t use this car anymore in case they saw it on the CCTV. We’ll have to find another one,” Kai says.
I reply with something noncommittal. Maybe JJ will come; maybe that issue will be sorted out for us. But I haven’t told Kai about that possibility yet. I want to get today over with first, not distract him from this meeting with his mum. But maybe I’m just putting it off because I know he won’t like it.
Kai said it’ll take two hours to get there. We’re racing
down the deserted highway; I’m reaching now and then—ahead and all around us—making sure we won’t meet anyone in the road or in the air. All is quiet.
He slows as we near Chester. We’d talked this backward and forward and finally agreed to stash me and the bike outside the town walls somewhere. Then Kai will go in the rest of the way on foot, keeping in touch mentally.
I’m relieved not to be meeting Kai’s mum—and not because it might be risky if anyone sees me and works out who I am. Even though it’s completely trivial in the face of everything else, the thought of meeting his mother makes me feel queasy. I bet she could just look at the two of us, have that psychic mum thing, and be all disapproving.
Kai pulls into a backstreet, slows, and stops. “Is there anyone around?” he says.
I reach out again; but like everywhere we’ve come past, there is no one at home. It’s got the unlived, unloved feel so many places we come to have these days. Everyone has either died or run away. The grass is long, yards overgrown, and plants wilted with no one to water them.
“No one is around,” I say. “So, let’s give this a try?”
Ever since JJ hinted at having met Shay at a distance, I’ve wondered: how far away can Kai go before we lose contact? I’ve always assumed it only works at very short range, since I can’t touch someone’s mind from much of a distance at all. But can I stay with him if we establish contact while we’re close? We came early to check.
Kai hesitates, the reluctance he always has to let anyone—even me—touch his mind still there. But he nods. “Come on in,” he says.
CHAPTER 22
KAI
THE LIGHT TOUCH OF FREJA’S MIND IS ON MINE.
Okay, away you go, then, she says. Let’s see how far you can get before we lose this connection.
Freja stays with the bike while I walk on, for five minutes, ten.
Still with me? I say.
Yes. I don’t think we could establish a link at this distance, but I can hold one we’ve already made. Stay where you are, and I’ll catch up.
I wait for Freja. I’d given her a few quick lessons on the bike before we set out today, to make sure she could use it if she has to—and she’s going slowly but doing well. Just as I think that, she almost falls over with it when she stops next to me. I grab the handlebars to steady it while she gets off.
“I’m glad you know Chester,” she says. “I’d be lost.”
“Yes, I know it pretty well. I wonder if Mum somehow managed to engineer being here, specifically? I know just the stretch of the wall she likes to walk along—we’ve been here several times. I’m sure she’ll be there.”
We get as close as we can without being in sight of the wall, then Freja’s touch is back in my mind.
Far enough for you? I say, and Freja nods. She gives me a quick hug that we both wish could be longer. Now tuck yourself away. I’ll be back soon.
You’d better be.
If anything worries you, or anything happens to me, just take off. Get the bike and go, I say. I mean it!
I know.
You have to—for Azra and Wilf. Right?
Right.
She looks lost, scared, but for me and not for her. It’ll be all right. I give her a swift kiss. Don’t talk to me too much once I’m there. I’m not good at multitasking.
I know. You’re a dude.
Brat.
I walk to the end of the road and glance back to check on Freja. She has hidden herself and the bike away between a house and a camper van that was parked there; I can’t see her at all. Good.
Another corner, a few minutes walking, and I can see it: the ancient wall. It stretches around Chester, almost all of it walkable.
You still there? I say.
You bet.
Can you sense anyone around me?
There’s a pause.
No. But it might be a bit too far away to tell for sure. I’ll let you know if I do.
I walk along the inside of the wall, below it, so I can cover ground faster. I’m still ten minutes early but unlikely to be first: Mum is always early—she’s one of those people who think on time is late. I bet she’s already there waiting.
I pass another section of the wall.
Nearly there, I think.
Good luck, Kai. I hope it goes well. Freja isn’t sure that it will. I’m not either, but I’m also as desperate to see Mum, to know she is okay, as I’m sure she is me.
I’m approaching the stretch that is her favorite spot of the wall: there are views all around. It’s too open to risk going up there, but just beyond it are stairs down. That is where I go.
I see her before she sees me. She’s pacing back and forth in a small area in the shadow of the wall.
And I walk faster now until I’m almost running. She turns and sees me and does the same. Then her arms are around me, tight.
They feel thinner than they were. I pull away a little to look at her, still surprised somehow that I’m taller than she is, even though I have been for ages. She’s always been such a larger-than-life figure in my mind that it doesn’t seem right.
I touch her hair.
“More gray, I know,” she says. “The world—and you—have done that.”
“Sorry.” There’s a bench off to the side. She draws me to it, and we sit there. She holds my hand like she will never let it go.
“What is with all this subterfuge, Bryson?” She stresses the name. “I told you before, I’m sure we can get you out of whatever trouble you are in if you just come to me.”
“You might be wrong there, and there are things I have to tell you. How much time have you got before you’re missed?”
She sighs. “Not long, maybe twenty or thirty minutes. Is that long enough to convince you to stay?”
“No.”
“Say what you have to say, and we’ll see. But first I have something to tell you. You were right about the antimatter cause of the epidemic. I’m sorry I didn’t take you more seriously before.”
“The authorities know this now?”
“Yes. And that survivors carry antimatter.”
“That may be so, but they don’t spread the epidemic.” She raises an eyebrow. “I’ve been around them and others who haven’t been sick—they don’t get infected.”
“We need to study them more to be sure, but we still have trouble finding survivors to study. This collection center and others like it are places we are testing the immune to screen for survivors who’ve slipped through, and we’re taking samples from the dead to study. All to try to make more sense of this epidemic.”
“Alex was behind it all—the particle accelerator at Shetland. He has to be brought to justice.”
Her eyes open wider.
“Alex has met justice, Kai. Whether he deserved it or not is not for me to say. He died.”
“When?”
“In a fire, at a survivor research facility—”
“That was faked somehow. He didn’t die there. I’ve seen him since then.”
She frowns. “There have been reliable reports—”
“You didn’t believe me before when I told you about antimatter causing the epidemic. Believe me now. He had an arrangement with SAR, the Special Alternatives Regiment of the army. They were deliberately engineering a weapon in a secret lab in the Shetland Islands, and it got out.”
Her eyes move from my face to something over my shoulder, and I turn.
There is movement behind me, a man stepping forward around the corner. He’s not in uniform, but he is one just the same—he has that army look. I spring up from the bench, ready to run.
“Please, Kai, wait,” Mum says, just as I hear Run! from Freja in my mind, and I pause, caught between the two pleas.
“This is a friend of mine,” Mum says. “I want you to talk to him. No one else is here. Tel
l him just what you told me.”
“I thought you’d have realized this was to be private.”
“I did. But I trust him. Kai, this is Rohan. He’s been assigned to investigate the epidemic. This is your chance to tell someone in authority what you want to say.”
He holds his hands forward, shows he is unarmed, and walks toward us. “Kai. I’m pleased to meet you, though concerned. Your mother is breaching protocol and taking me with her.”
My eyes are going between his and hers, and finally I sigh. All I can do right now is trust in her, even as I can feel Freja’s fear, which is making it hard to do so.
“Do you know about SAR’s role in the epidemic?” I say.
He inclines his head.
“First I’ve heard of this,” Mum says. She glares at Rohan—is she annoyed he has withheld this from her?
“Do you know the identity of the scientist who directed the project?” I say.
“We’ve only determined aliases at this point.”
“It’s Dr. Alexander Cross.”
His eyes turn to Mum. “Your ex-husband?”
“So Kai says. He’s reported to have died, though Kai denies that. You have to know—he’s always hated Alex. I’m not sure you can take anything he says about him as unbiased.”
“How do you know he was involved?” Rohan says to me.
“Not just involved—he ran the whole show. Alex said so; he admitted it. He made out like he was really trying to find a cure for cancer, and then the epidemic accidentally got out, but I find that hard to believe.”
Rohan asks for more details, and I give them, but part of me is also aware that Freja is coming closer. I’m silently urging her to turn around, to go back, while trying to answer his questions at the same time.