“That’s right,” Clarissa confirms, reading Mona’s expression. “Umayyad Lyons is my mother. Imagine what her reaction might be when she asks me how my day was and I can’t tell her.”
Mona backs away a step and pulls her thumb and forefinger apart.
A triumphant expression flashes across Clarissa’s face. “That’s what I thought,” she says arrogantly. “Now,” she adds, slyly lifting her eyebrows, “let’s talk about next steps.”
11
Heidi
One second, I’m in a hot, dry desert being rushed by a horde of crazed cultists with bloodlust in their eyes, and the next, I’m kissing a stranger and it’s pouring down rain.
Gasping, I leap backward. “Hey!” I yell over the droning roar of rain pounding thick, green leaves. “What on Earth are you doing?”
“I had to get us out of there.”
“By kissing me?”
“I wasn’t kissing you,” the guy argues. “I was drained of charge. I had to take some of yours.” He looks around at the scenery in obvious astonishment. “I thought I only drew enough power to get us outside the compound. Where the hell are we?”
“It sure felt a lot like a kiss when you put your mouth on mine. I don’t care if you’re wearing a purple shirt. I’m not one of those gray girls, so don’t try that again.”
He glances down at his shirt front. “Purple?” he says in surprise. “I don’t know when that happened. You and I should match.” He reaches into his front pocket, pulls out an eyedropper, and brushes the tip against his collar. Instantly, his shirt changes to a gray a shade darker than my tunic.
I gasp. Hyper-color. Who is this guy?
“Well?” he prods. “Where are we, Heidi?”
“Oh!” I exclaim. “I thought that was a rhetorical question before.” I glance around at the jungle canopy and a big drop of rain plunks directly into my eye. I blink the water away and throw my hands in the air. “How am I supposed to know?”
He mimics my hand motions. “Well, we’re obviously not in Region Four anymore.”
I feel my eyes go round and my heart bangs around in my chest. “Um, wait. Region Four? Are you saying we were in the Middle East just now?”
The guy just stares at me levelly.
“But that’s not possible,” I say, my voice faint.
“Obviously, it’s possible – because it’s a fact. You were there. Maybe what you mean is it’s not advisable, in which case, I completely agree with you. Good god, if they ID either one of us…”
His voice trails off and he looks around again, like he expects some minion to come crashing out of the underbrush at any second.
“No, I mean there is absolutely no way I traveled all the way to Region Four from Region One, Sector Seven.”
The guy freezes, and he turns to me slowly. “Excuse me? I’m sorry, it sounded like you said you came direct from old Seattle.”
“Yeah. One minute I was in this meditation studio and the next, well, you know.”
The guy’s eyes are large and alarmed. “But that’s not possible.”
“Oh, when I say it’s not possible, it’s ‘possible but not advisable,’ but when you say it’s not possible—”
The guy cuts me off and grabs my wrist, pressing his thumb against my pulse point. “No, it’s not. Region Four is over seven thousand miles away from old Seattle, with oceans in any direction. You must have broken the trip into multiple hops.”
I twist my arm, freeing my wrist, and I stuff my hands in my front pockets. “So you’re a geography expert, I suppose?”
He answers me like he doesn’t understand I’m being sarcastic. “I’ve had extensive coursework in geography, of course.”
“Great. A college boy.” I’ve heard all sorts of stories.
He still doesn’t seem to interpret my tone correctly. “My school is…unaccredited,” the guy says guardedly. A note of disbelief creeps into his voice. “So you were at Mona’s studio?”
“Yeah, The Healing Well.”
The guy’s eyes widen. “God, I feel terrible for her. She must be going out of her mind.”
I do a double take. “Um, wait a second, back up. I don’t really feel like Mona is the victim in this scenario.”
But the guy’s ignoring me now, pulling a satellite phone out of his pocket and tapping on it. “Crap. There’s no uplink. Where the hell could we possibly be? Nothing’s that off the grid anymore.” He turns to me. “Where’s your GPS locator tag, Heidi?”
I hold up both hands. “No. Stop. How do you know my name? Why did you come help me? Who are you?”
He huffs an irritated sigh. “My name is Marston Faulkner. My friends call me ‘Mars.’ You might not be surprised to learn that the number of people who call me Mars is zero. I came to get you because nobody wants a war. Well, you might, apparently, but nobody sane wants a war. I need to report in to Mona and Darius that I’ve secured you, but they got a visual on us. Happy? Now, I need your GPS locator tag because maybe it has two-way communication capabilities, since wherever we are, my sat phone is a brick.”
My hand flies to my ear and the empty piercing hole. I finger the flat spot on my ear where I’d removed the metal stud. “Yeah, that’s uh, back at…what did you call it? The Citadel? In the bottom of a plant pot.”
I watch the cords pop out on Marston’s neck as he balls his fists. “You left tech at The Citadel?” he says through gritted teeth.
“I’ve never taken well to being tagged. Cheap metal makes my ears itch.”
“That ‘cheap metal’ probably cost more chits than you make in a year.”
“Lots of things cost more than I make in a year. That’s not a high bar.”
Marston huffs. “Great. Any plausible deniability our faction had just flew out the window. We can’t claim you were a rogue element when you left behind easily identifiable tech they’ll trace directly back to us. Our truce will be shattered. This just gets better and better.”
Faction? Truce? Rogue element? “You’re obviously extremely put out by the whole thing,” I snap. “You should have just left me there.”
“This is my assignment, and I’m going to complete it. But if it were up to me, I wouldn’t have come in the first place. Nobody should be expected to risk themselves to save you from your own stupidity.” His words spread out and stain the air between us.
“You don’t even know me,” I say, my voice barely audible above the smattering sound of the rain. “How dare you call me stupid?”
Marston glares at the spongy ground beneath us and shifts his feet uncomfortably, but he doesn’t say a word.
I toss my head back, rainwater streaming down my cheeks and neck in rivulets. “I know we just met, but you don’t seem stupid to me. I would never call you that.”
He looks up, a gleam flickering behind his eyes. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah,” I say, balling my fists at my sides. “But you’re definitely an asshole.”
Marston laughs, a wry but unexpectedly deep guffaw. “I’ve got news for you. Once you get to know me, I don’t think you’ll change your mind.”
When Marston stalked off, slapping verdant green plants out of his way and forcing himself through the jungle, I had two options. I could stay behind, completely lost and alone, or I could follow him. I chose to follow the crazy guy, but only because he is somehow connected to the woman who got me into this mess. He’ll lead me to her eventually. Well, that and I have zero desire to hang out alone in a jungle. What if it’s full of leopards? I saw pictures of them in an old magazine once, and they looked like bad news. So I shove my way along behind him.
It’s slow-going, but we’re working our way uphill, and with one more shove of the dense foliage, Marston and I step out of the jungle and onto gravel. I do a double take. Beyond the twelve-or-so-foot-wide gravel strip is a sheer drop off. “Oh my god,” I breathe.
“Yes,” Marston says triumphantly. “I’ve got a signal.” He taps on his sat phone and lets out a low whistle.
He gives me a serious side eye. “I know it’s bad form to ask, but which collegiate group are you with?”
I wrinkle my brow. “I don’t know what you mean by ‘bad form,’ but I don’t understand your question at all. Collegiate group?” My voice grows dark. “I’m a gray, if you hadn’t noticed. I work in one of the factories in Region One, Sector Seven. I wind fiberglass bobbins.”
Marston’s eyes dart from me to his phone and back again. “Deep cover, blah blah blah, I get it, I’ve heard the spiel before. Where are you based? We may be able to defuse the situation a bit if your thesis advisor has the right connections.”
“I…really don’t think you’re understanding what I’m saying,” I venture. “And I definitely know I don’t understand you.”
Marston’s mouth drops open. “Wait. Are you telling me you are actually a gray? Like, for real?”
I throw my hands out to my sides, palms out. “Do you think I’d dress like this if I didn’t have to?” My mouth snaps shut for a second as the meaning of his statement truly hits me. “Wait…are you telling me some people disguise themselves as grays? Like, on purpose? And you think I’m one of them?”
Marston doesn’t answer my question; instead, he asks another of his own. “So when you went to Mona’s shop, you just walked in off the street? Like a paying customer?”
“I don’t make enough chits to afford a service like that. My friend – well, coworker, but I think friend – Clarissa got a free card from her supervisor and she took me with her.”
“How long have you known Clarissa?”
That’s a weird question, but among all the other weird stuff that’s gone on today, it’s one of the tamer things, so I answer without thinking much about it. “Two weeks. Some work assignments rotated at quarter end and she was transferred to my floor.”
Marston tilts his head. “And you had no idea – none – what was going on at Mona’s studio?”
“Of course I didn’t know it was a den for human trafficking. Do you think I’m insane? Listen, I’ve had a rough few weeks. But when Clarissa told me meditation could turn off my brain and make me stop thinking for a while, I was all in. Maybe that was stupid. I mean, you already think I’m stupid, and maybe I was for being so excited to stop obsessing for a few minutes that I would literally try anything, but honestly who wouldn’t?”
Marston draws in his breath to say something, but I hold up a finger to stop him. “So yeah, maybe it was dumb to go in there and put myself in a vulnerable position or whatever, but I didn’t do anything wrong. One minute I’m lying on the floor meditating, and the next thing I know, Mona knocked me out and sold me to slave traders.”
“No, you’re wrong about that. That’s not what happened.”
“I wake up in bed next to some rich guy in freaking Region Four and you’re trying to convince me that I wasn’t trafficked? And I’m the one who’s stupid? Please.”
“You were in bed with someone?”
“It wasn’t like that,” I snap. “Nothing happened. Luckily.”
Marston shakes his head back and forth. “Incredible.”
“Well, I’m so glad you feel that way, because I’m pretty bugged about it, to be honest.”
“Do you know where we are right now, Heidi?”
“No, but if you say we’re in Region Four, I’m definitely calling you on that one. This is not a desert.”
“We’re in Region Six. Specifically, Old Kerala, India. Which is more than two thousand miles away from our point of origin. Uh-oh.”
“What now?”
He looks at his phone again and swallows hard, his Adam’s apple traveling up and down in his neck. “We’re in Periyar Park. I’ve got to jumpstart my recharge.” He sinks to his haunches, scoops up a handful of gravel, and inspects it appraisingly. He plucks three smaller chunks of rock out of the pile and lets the rest spill back out of his hand onto the ground. He pops the three chosen rocks in his mouth and, with a grimace, swallows them dry.
My mind goes blank for a second, then I shake my head. “Nope. It’s the drugs.”
“Huh?” Marston says, his voice strained. He massages his throat.
“Drugs,” I repeat. “There is no Healing Well, no meditation. There’s no missing GPS earring, there’s no terracotta pot in Region Four or horde of minions chasing me. You probably don’t even exist. No offense,” I say, holding up my hands before he can protest. “Now that you’re not being mean and rude for no reason, you’re actually pretty tolerable – and not bad to look at. Thanks, brain,” I say, tapping the tips of my index and pointer fingers against the side of my head. “Somebody slipped me something bad. I wonder how long I’ve been hallucinating? Have John and I even broken up? Hey, maybe I imagined that whole thing too.” I look around, wild hope blooming in my chest. “I just have to let it wear off, run its course.”
Marston takes me by the shoulders and stoops so that he’s looking straight into my eyes. “You’re not on drugs.”
“Yes, I am. This is an incredibly detailed hallucination, considering I know nothing about Region Six. Or Region Four, for that matter.”
Marston talks like nothing I just said to him registered. “I thought you were a Master’s candidate trying to make a name for yourself or attract attention from leadership or whatever. I’m sorry I was so rude. I had no idea you were a civilian. I don’t think this has ever happened before. Heidi, your friend Clarissa probably isn’t who you think she is, and Mona definitely doesn’t run a meditation studio. Not a real one at least. You’ve been drawn into something a lot more complicated than that, and I’ll try to explain it to you when we get somewhere safe.”
“I am someplace safe. My dorm at the factory, I expect. Tucked into bed, sleeping it off. I probably haven’t even missed a shift, or someone would have come in and woken me up by now. Have you ever heard of lucid dreaming? Man, I wish I could do that. I’d take control of this whole thing and…well, I don’t know what I’d do. This is actually kind of pleasant now that you’re not being a jerk. This is so vivid and detailed, I might as well enjoy it before I wake up.”
“We can’t stay here,” Marston says.
“Why not?”
Almost the instant the words are out of my mouth, a roar emanates from the forest we just emerged from.
“Because the problem with Periyar National Park is it’s a tiger sanctuary,” Marston says.
“Dammit, brain,” I mutter. “Why did you have to go and ruin this?”
The greenery rustles behind us and I see gleaming eyes peering out, followed by another gigantic roar, so loud, I’m afraid the gravel road will crumble beneath us and we’ll tumble down the mountain. But it’s just my imagination and my imagination can’t hurt me.
Marston grabs me the way he did in “Region Four,” but this time, he doesn’t kiss me. “I’ve got charge,” he says. “Wrap your legs around me.”
“What?”
“Just do it,” he barks.
Thanks, brain. We are back on track. I jump up, throw my legs around his waist crisscross style, bury my face in his neck, and squeeze my eyes shut. It feels like I’m pressed all over by small suction cups and the whole world seems to rattle around me. It wasn’t like this before. I imagine this is what it would feel like to ride on an out-of-control wooden cart, in the dark, with a mammoth octopus coiled around me.
There’s a slight pop and then I can see light behind my tightly squeezed eyes. I ease them open. I’m still in Marston’s arms – my imagination hasn’t changed that – but our surroundings are different now – though not by much. We’re still surrounded by lush greenery, but we’re not on the edge of the gravel road anymore.
Marston’s mouth is set in a grim line. “We didn’t get far, did we? I’m not going to risk drawing out your charge again, though. God only knows where we’d end up.”
“So my imagination didn’t transport us out of the tiger park?”
Marston scuffs his shoe against the gro
und, looking exasperated. “This isn’t your imagination, Heidi. This is really happening.”
“Sure, it is.”
He shakes his head, staring at this phone. “Damn, I lost my signal. I could really use some backup here.”
“Let me just make somebody up for you,” I suggest. “This is my hallucination, after all. I’m in charge.”
Marston spares a look for me that might be described as amused, if not for the obvious thread of frustration. “Go ahead.”
“Okay, what kind of a sidekick are you looking for?” I ask seriously. “Like, are we taking a muscle-bound commando-style person, or more of a brains-over-brawn type?”
“Surprise me,” Marston says wryly.
“Maybe a little from column A and a little from column B,” I decide. I press my lips together, cross my pinkie and ring fingers on both hands, the way I’ve seen the upper castes do, and I think hard. But nobody magically pops into existence. “I don’t really know how to do this,” I say apologetically. “Let me try again.”
Marston takes a deep breath and rolls his eyes a little but gives me a shrug. “Fine, live it up.”
I go through the motions again, and this time, I hold my breath for good measure. Still nothing. “I’m not sure why it isn’t working,” I say.
“It isn’t working because you aren’t dreaming or making this up as you go,” he says. “But you can feel free to keep trying while we walk. Watch out for tigers.”
12
The Studio
“Don’t you have anything better to do than run me out of tea?”
“It almost seems like you don’t appreciate our company, Mona,” Clarissa says in a smarmy voice.
Mona grits her teeth and grimaces. “I just don’t enjoy shopping for tea.”
Clarissa sets her cup on her saucer. Darius takes another slurp, but his attention gets caught by the computer monitor. He bangs his cup on the desk with a rattle. “Her GPS pin shows movement.”
Destination Unknown (Lumen Academy Book 1) Page 6