by Malinda Lo
“You’re so hard to shop for!” Madison cried in frustration. They were at their fifth store, and it was almost four o’clock.
“What about these?” Reese said, pulling out a pair of chunky-heeled brown boots. They were scuffed on the toes and had metal buckles over the ankles.
“Motorcycle boots?” Madison said skeptically.
“Very dykey,” Julian observed. Reese avoided his gaze as she sat down to try them on.
“They are dykey,” Madison agreed. “Speaking of which, did you know that Bri had a crush on you sophomore year? She’s totally disappointed you’re with David.”
“What?” Reese gave Madison an incredulous look. “Briana?”
“Yes, Briana. Why do you think she kept trying to get you to do all those gay things with her?”
“I thought it was because she’s my friend?”
“You can be so clueless sometimes, really,” Madison said severely. “You knew, didn’t you, Julian?”
“Yep.” His face was inscrutable as Reese glanced at him.
“But she never said anything about it,” Reese said, bewildered.
Madison gave her a pointed look. “You never had any interest in dating. You made that perfectly clear. Besides, you’re straight. Why would Bri bring it up if she knew you’d only reject her?” Madison caught the furtive glance between Reese and Julian and said, “Wait. What is up with you two?”
Reese stood. “Nothing.” She didn’t look at Julian as she clomped over to the mirror hanging on the wall near the shoe section. “I like them,” she announced.
“If you wear them with the jean skirt and that gray shirt you’re going to look all country hoedown,” Madison warned her.
“They’re motorcycle boots, not cowboy boots.” Reese pulled one off and looked at the price written on the sticker on the sole. “And they’re only twenty bucks.”
Madison regarded them dubiously. “I guess they’re all right. Kind of badass. Is that what you’re going for?”
“I don’t know. Is that good?” She stared at herself in the mirror. She thought she looked uncertain, not badass. And maybe messy: Loose strands of dark brown hair were escaping from the ponytail she had tucked through the back of the baseball cap.
“Sometimes,” Madison said. “It’s not a bad look for you. Just wear your hair down and put on a nice bra. David will like it.”
“A nice bra? Are you going to make me go shopping for that too?”
“I’m not going,” Julian declared.
“Don’t freak out, Julian. You’re on your own for that, Reese. I don’t have time. After I drop you guys off, I have to go babysit at the Chens’.”
Reese sat down to put her sneakers back on. “I’m going to get the boots.”
“Nice,” Julian said, and when she looked over at him she saw a tiny smile cross his face. The sight of it loosened a bit of the tension inside her, though she still felt as if there was something off between them.
Madison leaned against the wall by the mirror, crossing her arms. “Don’t tell Bri I said anything, okay? I don’t know if she wanted you to know.”
“Sure, I won’t tell her,” Reese said.
“She’s dating that girl Sara now anyway and it probably doesn’t matter, but—just don’t tell her I told you.”
“Yeah. I won’t.” Reese picked up the boots to head to the cash register. She wondered if she should have come out to Madison. But what would be the point of that? Amber was the only girl she had ever been attracted to. Reese didn’t think there would be another.
Just as the store clerk handed Reese her purchase along with a fistful of change, Madison decided to buy a pair of earrings from a rack marked 50 percent off. “I’m going outside for a cigarette,” Julian said as Madison got in line to pay.
“Do you care if I go with him?” Reese asked Madison.
She shook her head. “Go ahead. I’ll be done in five minutes.”
Reese put on her sunglasses and picked up her bags to follow Julian outside. He walked to the edge of the sidewalk and leaned against a parking meter as he lit up. She was about to ask him about the weirdness she had sensed between them when she saw a black town car pull into the loading zone a few feet away. The rear window rolled down to reveal a middle-aged woman with dark brown hair who was looking directly at her.
“Miss Holloway?” the woman called.
“Who’s that?” Julian asked.
“I have no idea,” Reese said, startled.
“Miss Holloway, do you have a moment?” the woman asked.
Reese glanced at Julian. “I’ll be right back.” He nodded and she walked over to the car. The woman was wearing a dark blue suit and looked altogether ordinary—except that she was in a shiny black town car with tinted windows, and she knew Reese’s name.
“I have a message for you,” she said.
“Who are you?” Reese asked, not moving any closer to the car.
“I work for Charles Lovick,” the woman said. “He would like to invite you and David Li to meet with him Friday evening at six o’clock, if you’re interested in learning more about the Imria and what they did to you.” The woman extended a business card out the window, held between two manicured fingers with nails painted the color of pearls.
Reese stepped forward and took the card. The name Charles Lovick was engraved on the thick, cream-colored stock. She flipped it over, looking for some indication of who Lovick was, and on the back was a handwritten address: 88 Variety Store, Stockton Street.
“May I tell Mr. Lovick you’ll be there?” the woman asked pleasantly.
“Who is he?” Reese asked.
“He’ll explain on Friday. I’ll tell him to expect you both.” The window began to roll up.
“Wait a minute. We don’t know him. We’re not going to meet with a total stranger without any other information.”
The tinted window stopped halfway up. The woman leaned closer to the open half. “If you want to know who the Imria truly are, you’ll go to the meeting. You won’t be offered this opportunity again. Six o’clock on Friday. Don’t forget.” The window closed and the car drove away.
A moment later Julian was at her side. “Who was that? What happened?”
She told him and watched his eyes widen with shock.
“No way,” he said. “Are you going?”
“I don’t know. I can’t believe they followed me here.” She gazed down the street as the car turned off Haight and went out of sight. “How would they know where I am? We snuck out—I haven’t seen any men in black here. And who are they, anyway?”
“They’re either better at tailing you than the MIBs or you have a tracking device implanted in you.” Julian gave her a grin that quickly died as he saw the stricken look on her face. “I didn’t mean that!”
She fingered the hard edges of the business card, an unsettling dread rising in her. The Imria said they wanted to help her; the government wanted to prevent her from telling the truth; and now this Charles Lovick wanted—she didn’t know what he wanted, but she was pretty sure that if it was anything innocuous, he wouldn’t send a stranger in a town car to deliver the message in person. That told her that he—or his people—were following her.
Julian spouted off various theories about who Lovick might be, but she didn’t pay attention. She was beginning to feel extremely pissed off. She was a citizen of the United States of America, and her very own government was making her feel like a criminal by tailing her and censoring her when she had done nothing wrong. Now this total stranger was trying to tell her what to do by ordering her to meet him as if she were his trained lapdog. It was ironic that the only people who seemed to be waiting for her to make her own decisions were those who had changed the fundamental components of who she was—her DNA—without her permission.
She had to be honest with herself. She needed the information that the Imria were offering. If she rejected it simply because she was still torn up over Amber, she would wind up hating herself for be
ing such a wimp.
She pulled out her phone as Madison emerged from the store. “Hey!” she called brightly. “I’m done! Whoa, what’s wrong? It looks like somebody died.”
Reese typed a text message to David as Julian gave Madison the rundown: I’m in for Angel Island. And we might have to make another stop Friday night. I’ll call you when I get home.
CHAPTER 8
Fisherman’s Wharf was awash with tourists dressed in shorts and T-shirts, clothing that was rarely appropriate for San Francisco in August. This Thursday morning was no exception. As Reese and her parents climbed out of the taxi they had taken from their house, she saw a family in matching khaki shorts and Disney T-shirts shivering in the cool wind from the bay. Reese hadn’t been here since she was a kid, when her dad had brought his parents to view the barking sea lions lolling on their floating platforms. She remembered the briny smell of the sea: fish and salt water mingled with the warm, sugary scent of cotton candy.
They had arrived early for the ferry to Angel Island, and as they approached the dock at Pier 39, Reese saw a crowd gathered there. As they drew closer, she realized they weren’t waiting to board the ferry; they were carrying signs like the demonstrators who had thronged Reese’s street the week before. Her heart sank. Had they simply moved from her neighborhood to Fisherman’s Wharf?
Metal barriers had been set up to keep the street and dock area clear for pedestrians, so the demonstrators were packed close together on both sides. Police officers were stationed at regular intervals, and there was a checkpoint at the entrance to the ferry boarding area, but despite the organized security the whole place felt like it was on the brink of chaos. The demonstrators were chanting something that Reese couldn’t make out yet, but they were clearly angry. The signs they held put them definitively in the anti-Imria camp: DON’T BELIEVE GOVERNMENT LIES, read one. Another declared THE BEGINNING OF THE END IS NEAR. And a whole bunch of them stated IMRIA = NEW WORLD ORDER.
Reese’s parents shepherded her through the tourists and the gauntlet of protesters, but they couldn’t shield her from their emotions. The concentration of their anger was like static electricity on her skin. Their chanting grew louder and clearer as she and her parents approached. “Don’t believe the lies! They’re here to colonize! Protect the US border! Prevent the new world order!”
The chanting began to break up as a new cry arose from the crowd on Reese’s right. She kept moving forward, head down and shoulders hunched, but out of the corner of her eye she saw the crowd roiling as if it were preparing to disgorge someone. A demonstrator yelled, “It’s her! Reese Holloway!”
The sound of her name sent a shock through her. The sensation of the crowd’s anger changed; they turned their eyes to focus on her. As goose bumps rose all over her skin at the force of their attention, she began to hear words in her mind as if her brain had suddenly tuned into someone else’s thoughts. That girl—look—pushing—
She knew instantly that the words were not the product of her own mind. They came from outside her just as the crowd’s emotions did. She remembered David describing hearing voices in his head like surfing through TV channels and catching disconnected snatches of dialogue. Was this what she was experiencing now? Were her abilities changing?
She didn’t like it. Even though she was outdoors, she felt as if she were in a crowded warehouse where every sound echoed, creating a cacophony of psychic noise. She wanted to shrink back, but her parents tried to hurry her along, pushing her toward the onslaught.
“We just have to get through the checkpoint,” her mom was saying.
“Traitor!” someone screamed. “Traitor to humanity!”
Reese Holloway—traitor—traitor—
The metal barrier to Reese’s right clattered over. People poured over it, rushing toward her and her parents. The police shouted at them to get back, and Reese’s dad grabbed her arm, yanking her away. Her mom yelled, “Move! Move!”
A man pushed through the mob and halted directly in front of her, blocking her way. He was breathing heavily and carrying a sign that read IMRIA = NEW WORLD ORDER, but he dropped it carelessly onto the ground as he reached for something inside his Windbreaker. Reese froze. The man’s eyes were wide and crystal blue, focused on her with a piercing hatred that felt like a physical blow to her gut. He was in his twenties, with pale hair cut very close to his scalp. When his hand emerged from his jacket, he was holding a gun.
Before Reese knew what was happening, both of her parents had knocked her flat onto the ground. Her mom’s body shuddered over hers, and Reese could feel her terror, bitter and sharp. Her father threw himself over the both of them, and someone was screaming, “He has a gun!”
Reese was immobilized beneath her parents while other people’s emotions buffeted her from all sides. Anger pelted her like a sudden hailstorm while fear dragged at her limbs. She couldn’t distinguish her own feelings from the others’. She could barely breathe. She heard the gunman’s voice breaking through the cacophony, clear and sharp. “You’ve betrayed your own kind! Hybrid monster.” He grunted as if someone had punched him, and she heard the sound of someone’s body—his body—striking the pavement. The scrabbling, desperate sounds of a struggle reached her ears.
All she could see was the ground. The asphalt was dark gray and splotchy near her head, where something had spilled and left a stain shaped like a pear. The street shook with footsteps. Police officers were nearby, yelling for the man to drop the weapon, to lie on the ground, to put his arms behind his back. The scraping sound of metal across concrete told her that the barrier was being pushed back into place. The chanting slowly began again. Don’t believe the lies. They’re here to colonize.
It was surreal: the absurdly hilarious rhyme of the demonstrators’ chant. The hard, pebbly surface of the ground, reminding her of the asphalt outside Blue Base, where the blast had thrown her into the hot desert. The immobilizing pressure of her parents’ flesh and bone against her, their child. They would die for her, and she was overwhelmed by the knowledge of it, heavy as weights tied to her ankles.
Finally, when she felt as if she might be suffocated by it all, her parents helped her up, still surrounding her, still preventing her from seeing what was happening, and herded her the last fifteen feet toward the security checkpoint. Police officers in their black uniforms pushed her through the gate. The scent of the bay, salty and sour with yesterday’s fish, filled her nostrils. Ahead of her the ferry to Angel Island waited like a safe house, the ramp reminding her of the ramp that had emerged from the belly of the Imrian spacecraft.
“Go, go!” her mom said, pushing her up the ramp.
Her legs wobbled as the ferry rocked in the water of the bay. They wouldn’t let her look back. They pushed her inside and onto a padded, disturbingly warm seat. Her head spun from the aftermath of the attack. She was still trying to separate out her own feelings from the tangled threads of everyone else she had just encountered. There were voices all around her and inside her, and she couldn’t tell them apart. Her mom was on the phone yelling at someone. Her dad spoke in hushed, urgent tones to a stranger. Someone apologized over and over. Reese. Reese. A person thrust a cup of water into her hands, but she pushed it away. Then her mom was seated next to her, holding the cup to her mouth. The liquid was cool against her lips, but she gagged.
“I don’t want it,” she muttered.
“Honey, are you all right?” her mom asked, rubbing her hand over Reese’s back. A jolt of anxiety went through Reese, and she cringed away from her mom. She pushed herself out of the seat on unsteady legs and lurched across the slanting floor of the ferry, banging into another row of seats.
The door to the deck was ahead of her, a yawning window of bright light. Her vision was blurred. She went for the door. Her dad tried to stop her, but she shook him off. “I need some air,” she said. She stepped out onto the deck, and there was San Francisco Bay and the sky, blue and slate gray, and she sucked in a deep breath of briny, fishy air and thou
ght it was the best-smelling thing in the world.
She leaned against the railing, staring down at the water, and breathed.
Slowly, she came back to herself. She realized that her parents were standing a few feet away, watching her. “I’m okay,” she said to them. “I just needed some air.”
Her mom came a step closer.
“Please don’t touch me right now,” Reese said.
Her mom stopped. “Is it your—your adaptation?”
“Yes.” She swallowed something acidic and looked toward the dock. A line of police officers blocked the bottom of the ferry ramp. Beyond them the demonstrators were a mob of signs and motion, but she couldn’t see the man who had drawn the gun. “Where’s David?” she asked. “Is he here yet?”
“No,” her mom answered.
Reese pulled her phone out of her pocket and found David’s number. Her hands were shaking.
“Honey, why don’t you sit down?” her dad said, trying to sound soothing.
She paid no attention to him, lifting the phone to her ear as she continued to scan the dock for any signs of David. His phone rang and rang, but he didn’t answer. She hung up, feeling queasy. “Who are those protesters? Were they in front of our house?”
“I don’t know,” her mom said. “I think some of them were, but these people are much better organized.”
“I think we should go back inside,” her dad said. He looked worried. “I don’t like being out here. We’re too exposed.”
The implication of his words was clear. He thought there could be more protesters with guns. Suddenly the cool tang of the air over the bay didn’t feel so good to Reese. She let her father usher her back into the ferry, where she saw several other people milling around. There were reporters holding microrecorders, photographers and video camera operators. There were a few politicians, too, recognizable by the flag pins on their lapels. Reese and her parents sat down in a row of overly soft seats on the side of the ferry farthest away from the dock, and Reese kept an eye on the main entrance. She saw Senator Michaelson come in, and her mom went over to talk to her. She saw other reporters gathering together to compare notes. A couple of police officers entered, looking frazzled. Finally, just as Reese was beginning to completely freak out, she saw David and his parents coming up the ramp.