Unraveling

by Elizabeth Norris

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  I can’t help smiling at that. Alex looks right at me, and I know my expression says, Sucks to be you. Only then it doesn’t, because suddenly his mom’s attention is back on me, and I’m fighting to keep from shrinking down in my seat. I swear, she’s some kind of human lie detector, and any second she’s going to start berating me for keeping Alex from his real work. “How is your father?”

  “He’s good,” I say, then force myself to elaborate. The more information you volunteer with Alex’s mom, the less likely she is to think you’re hiding something. “He’s been up late working on a new case, but you know him. He’ll solve it.”

  Mrs. Trechter nods. “You can go home now, Janelle. Alex will bring the book by after dinner.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I say as I get up from the table and grab my purse and mocha frappe. “Thank you.” I turn and leave without looking back at Alex. Because we might make each other laugh. And because I know his mom is watching me leave, and she terrifies me.

  Someday, I sort of hope I’m just like her.

  16:09:48:02

  Tuesday my schedule still hasn’t been changed, but my earth science teacher hands me a pass to the library as soon as I walk in.

  I flash my student ID and the pass at the librarian and settle in at one of the computers. I should try to do some of the work I’m missing in the classes I’m supposed to be in, but I check my email first. There’s nothing interesting, so I open up Google, and because Alex’s theory has been on my mind, I type “radiation burns.”

  Naturally, most of what comes up has to do with cancer patients and treatments for sunburn, which is hardly what I’m looking for. And I don’t really want to check out any of the pictures, thank you.

  When I try “radiation poisoning,” a link for a story about the Chernobyl disaster pops up. In 1986 a nuclear power plant in Ukraine had a meltdown. It was considered the worst nuclear power plant accident in history. Twenty-eight people died that day, more than three hundred thousand people had to be evacuated to avoid the fallout, and it’s estimated that almost sixty thousand were exposed and five thousand of those exposed died. And if my John Doe was one of those first twenty-eight people, his autopsy would make sense, maybe. But he wasn’t. And that kind of exposure can’t be solitary.

  No wonder the FBI has my dad on this case.

  A group of freshmen escorted by a teacher I don’t know comes into the library. They’re loud and awkward, and occupying the librarian’s time. I’m tempted to keep reading about radiation poisoning, specifically how someone could harness radiation into some kind of viral form—if that’s even possible.

  But I’ve only got about an hour until I’ll have to head out, so I pull up Eastview’s intranet, log into Alex’s account, and go to work downloading the notes and information I need. The librarian escorts the freshmen into one of the classrooms and begins some sort of presentation—most likely the “How to Use the Library” speech all freshmen have to sit through. I pull out my phone and make a to-do list based on the priority of the assignments.

  “So your schedule sucks?”

  My heart literally leaps into my throat, almost choking me, as I turn to see Ben Michaels slide into the chair next to mine. His hoodie is white today, but he wears it the same as before—over his head, pulled low enough to shield his eyes even though a few stray floppy curls of brown hair stick out. He’s giving me a wry, one-sided smile.

  I want to ask him a million things all over again.

  But the whole clogged-throat thing keeps the words from coming, so I do the next best thing and pull my shitty schedule from my pocket and hand it to him. His schedule probably doesn’t look any better, and he probably doesn’t care—I know that. But somehow, from the way he slumps into his seat and sighs, I think he just might understand. Or at least empathize.

  He doesn’t even give me time to explain. “Algebra?” He laughs. “What, do they want you to teach the class?” He shakes his head and turns to the computer in front of him.

  And that’s it.

  I guess part of me hoped he’d say something else. Volunteer information. Start a conversation. After all, he’s the one who sat down next to me. It’s not like there aren’t thirty other computers in here.

  I wait for a second before deciding, Screw it. I’m going to keep asking until I get the answer I want to hear. I turn to Ben’s profile and open my mouth, but pause as I realize he looks almost classically beautiful from this angle—his profile, the shape of his face—it just seems so perfect, and I’m frozen with surprise that I could see someone on campus for two years and not ever take the time to really notice him. He’s handsome in that kind of tall, dark, mysterious, and tortured way. It’s his eyes. They’re brown, but they’re so dark they sometimes look black. And the way he holds himself, it’s like he knows and takes advantage of his bone structure, the fact that his eyes are deep set—they look shadowed. His face is almost strangely blank, and it makes him look sad, like he has some kind of tragic secret, and for some ridiculous reason I wonder what it is.

  He might hide behind the dark, brooding stoner thing, but his face is actually just as perfect as Nick’s or Kevin’s. I can’t help wondering if he gets the same kind of play.

  I squelch that thought down. It’s none of my business what Ben Michaels does on his own time, so I try to look away and decide what I’m going to say, but I can’t seem to concentrate on my computer anymore. I want to keep staring—like if I look at him long enough, I’ll unravel the enigma that is Ben Michaels.

  Then I see his computer.

  He has the school mainframe open and my schedule on the screen. A few keyboard shortcuts, and it’s completely wiped. A blank slate.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Changing your schedule,” he answers, as if accessing the mainframe couldn’t get him expelled.

  “But you can’t—how’d you—”

  He shrugs. “I stole the password off Florentine as a freshman. I’ve been fixing schedules for a couple years now.”

  I look around the library. No one’s paying attention to us, but we aren’t exactly hidden from sight, either. Anyone could glance this way and see the screen.

  “Janelle,” he says, and just the way he says my name—like I matter—makes me turn back to him. There’s no tension lining his eyes; now they look like they could be smiling. “What classes do you want?”

  Junior year is supposed to be the most important year for applying to colleges. And I did follow all the rules—I submitted my class requests on time, I got the paperwork signed off on. It’s not my fault the schedule is all messed up.

  So I tell him.

  Ben clearly knows his way around the software, deftly searching for the course titles. I point to the teachers and class periods I want—and effectively match my schedule with Alex’s.

  When I pick Poblete’s third-period class, Ben cracks a half smile. But I have a moment of panic when he tries to insert me into the class and an error message pops up to declare the class is too full.

  Ben chuckles beside me—I must have gasped or something—and I realized how close we are, how much I’m leaning into him. Close enough that I can feel his body heat next to me. Close enough that I can smell the faint mixture of what I’m coming to know as pure Ben—mint, soap, and gasoline. Despite the fact that we’re not actually touching, I’m leaning over his shoulder, my mouth dangerously close to his ear.

  If he turned his head just a few more inches in my direction, he could kiss me.

  I have no idea where that thought came from.

  I lean back, shifting in my seat.

  “Don’t worry, I got this,” Ben says, gesturing to the computer. “You think you’re the first person who I needed to override to get them into Poblete’s class?”

  Obviously not. He enters an override code, and a class roster pops up.

  “Wait,” I say, reaching for him. “Don’t take anyone out. That isn’t fair.”

  �
��I won’t,” he says, but he’s looking at my hand on his arm, and I pull it back, my face heating up. “I just need to manually add you in, see?” He copies and pastes my student ID into the class roster.

  Which is when it hits me that he has access to EVERYTHING—even grades.

  “It’s so wrong, right?” he asks, as if he can read my mind. “That it’s this easy to hack into the system. To steal a password?”

  “How often do you do this?”

  He shrugs. “I’ve changed schedules for a few people who were freaking out about shit, but mostly I just change a couple of friends’ schedules at the beginning of each semester. Avoid the counseling office.”

  “Have you ever changed … more than schedules?”

  “Like grades?” he says with a laugh. “Of course not.”

  I’m so relieved, I let go of the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.

  “Although I think you’re the first person to recognize it’s the same program,” he adds. “None of my friends have put that together.”

  “If they knew, would they ask you to do it?”

  His head cocks to the side, and I can tell he’s chewing on the inside of his cheek. For some reason that makes me smile.

  “I don’t think so. I mean, the guys who are my friends wouldn’t—they know I wouldn’t do it. And most of the other guys we hang out with, they don’t care enough to ask.” I’m tempted to tell him not to befriend any AP students because nobody cheats as much as they do, but I don’t. Because technically that’s me—I’m an AP student.

  “What do you want last period?” Ben asks.

  After I’m inserted into the right Spanish class, Ben prints my schedule and looks down, refusing to meet my eyes. My breath catches, and I wonder if he’s going to say something about the accident.

  “So I’m not saying you would, but usually when I do this I make the person swear they won’t tell anyone.”

  My insides plummet. “What, you don’t want eight hundred people asking you to schedule them?”

  “No … it’s not about how many people are asking,” he says. “It’s more about why they’re asking, if that makes any sense. If it’s ‘Oh, counseling messed up my schedule and won’t fix it,’ okay. If it’s ‘I want a teacher who will let me cut class and not take attendance,’ I don’t want to bother.”

  “Honor among cheaters?” I ask. And immediately regret it, because he glances up at me and looks pained—like I’ve insulted him.

  “It’s just…” He sighs. “I don’t always make the right decisions, and I get that.” He shrugs. “But at the end of the day, I want to be able to look myself in the eyes and say I believe in them. I want to know I’d make each one again.”

  I do know. It makes so much sense, my chest aches. Right should be about conviction. For all of my condescending comments about everyone else in this school, I can’t think of anything that I choose to believe in, that I choose to stand for. Except maybe Jared.

  “And would you?” I ask, my voice barely above a whisper. “Would you do it again?”

  Something in his face changes, and he pushes his chair back and stands up. I’m talking about more than my schedule now.

  But he just shrugs. “Even I know Janelle Tenner shouldn’t be in earth science and algebra. They would have fixed it for you eventually. Why not speed up the process?”

  “Thanks,” I say, but I don’t feel it. Inside my eyes are watery and my throat is tight. A heaviness weighs down on my chest. Because that isn’t at all what I wanted to hear.

  I sit there for a long time after he’s walked away. I replay each moment in my mind—the accident, what I saw and felt, almost running into him in the office, seeing him at lunch the other day, this conversation. He’s not what I expected at all.

  I replay it all. Over and over, like I’m trying to memorize each detail and figure it out.

  Until someone touches my shoulder and I can’t help but jump.

  “I’ve been calling you,” Nick says with a laugh. “Come on, let’s hit off-campus for lunch.”

  I don’t roll my eyes, even though I want to. We just went through this yesterday—how does he not remember? “Nick, I can’t—”

  “Don’t worry. Coach is at the gate. I already talked to him, and he said he’ll let you through.”

  He flashes me such a big smile, I instantly feel bad for thinking the worst when he’s actually planned ahead.

  I should be giving him a chance instead of second-guessing his motives, without looking down on him because he has different priorities than I do.

  “Sure,” I say, and even though I would have said it was impossible, Nick’s smile gets even wider. “If you don’t think either of us will get in trouble.”

  He holds out his hand and pulls me out of my chair—his skin warm to the touch. “I’m Teflon, baby, trouble rolls right off me.”

  I laugh, and this time I do roll my eyes. Because I’m not sure I’m laughing with him or at him. But of course that was his point. It’s just the cheesy kind of thing he says, but somehow when he says it, it’s funny—I like that he doesn’t take himself too seriously.

  I text Alex to see if he wants me to bring him back something, and as Nick leads me out into the parking lot, I look up to see Elijah Palma smoking some kind of homemade cigarette and staring me down.

  Only as we lock eyes does it occur to me that for someone who’s allegedly a stoner, Ben Michaels didn’t smell at all like smoke.

  15:19:53:38

  “You’re not going to believe what I found,” Alex says as he slips into our library cube and slides the soundproof door shut. He’s leaning back, just barely balancing the weight of what looks like six more mega hardcovers to add to the twenty-something that are piled up around me. I want to laugh at his excitement—I love when he does his “I’m determined to solve this” thing. But I don’t laugh, because that’s a lot more reading.

  We decided to hit S&E, the science and engineering library at UCSD, because his aunt works here, which means she’ll let us in and she’ll report back to his mom and tell her that we’re studying. And we are, just not anything school related.

  “Please tell me it’s something productive and not another outdated copy of Maxim? Just because your mom won’t let you read it, doesn’t mean—”

  Alex ignores me and dumps his books onto our table with the rest of them. I try not to be annoyed—though I don’t try too hard. Adding more books to this stack hardly seems to solve our problem. I’ve got everything from the 9/11 Commission Report to a Michael Crichton novel, not that any of it has turned out to be particularly helpful so far. The Crichton novel and a couple of other thrillers are pure fantasy or speculative fiction grounded in paranoia and conspiracy theory. And some of the more scientific bioterrorism books read as a sourcebook or guidebook for how to handle an outbreak. Then there are the true accounts of outbreaks of smallpox in the Soviet Union and Ebola in a Washington, DC, lab.

  In other words, nothing even remotely helps me figure out how my John Doe ended up dead of radiation poisoning while he was driving a truck.

  “You going to tell me what’s so exciting?” I ask. My phone starts vibrating against the table, but I’m not a hundred percent sure where it is under all these freaking books.

  Alex grins before leaning forward and picking up one of the thickest books and thumbing through it. “I was looking through The Handbook of Viral Bioterrorism and Biodefense, and I found this.” He opens the book wide to page 428, where the chapter heading reads “Biological Warfare of the Future: Viral Bioengineering.”

  “Right now bioterrorism is based on bacterial agents,” Alex says. “Category A are the worst, like anthrax—they spread easily and quickly, and could lead to a wide-scale outbreak.”

  “I know that. Everything we’ve read so far says that.”

  “Which is why this book is so cool. It’s speculating what’s next. Viral engineering isn’t that far off. In fact,” he adds, pushing the book toward me, “lo
ok right here. It asks whether radiation can be harnessed into a transmissible virus. And it gives a detailed explanation of what geneticists might have to do in order to come up with something that could be engineered.”

  He’s still smiling. Which doesn’t make sense, now that we’ve just proven finding information on how to become a bioterrorist isn’t all that hard.

  But I’ve seen this look before. It’s the same look Struz and my dad get when they’re close to cracking a case, like they’ve discovered the secrets of the universe. It makes me think Alex is doing the right thing by deviating from his mother’s life plan. He doesn’t want Stanford undergrad and Johns Hopkins medical. He wants West Point and the FBI—like my dad. And the thought of Alex actually working for my dad someday makes me smile.

  Then it hits me.

  “Wait a minute,” I say. “Maybe we’re coming at this from the wrong angle. Maybe it doesn’t matter how the virus is being spread—someone from the CDC can figure that out. What’s important is the countdown.”

  I stand up and push in my chair, stretching my legs. My phone vibrates again, and this time I see that it’s Nick. Again.

  “Let’s say, for argument’s sake, someone has managed to engineer a virus. Whether it’s radiation poisoning or not, it’s ugly and it’s going to kill people. So how does picking people off one at a time—what does that have to do with the countdown?”

  Alex gasps and sits up straighter. “That’s how they connect!” He looks at me, and I’m tempted to prompt him to tell me, but I know better than to interrupt his train of thought. “The UIED. It’s not a bomb. J, it’s something that will disperse the virus. Make it airborne or make it catch fire.”

  A shiver moves between my shoulder blades. “But why would terrorists give the FBI a heads-up like that?”

  “Because they’re sociopaths? I don’t know, but it makes sense. If the UIED goes off, the virus goes airborne, maybe it’s some kind of chemical explosion that triggers it. And maybe the FBI got their hands on the UIED earlier than they were supposed to. Or maybe the terrorists want us to know it’s coming. Think of the panic it would incite. And isn’t wrecking our way of life part of the whole terrorism package?”