by Susan Adrian
All the next thoughts are four-letter words.
I lean over, pretending to dig in my backpack, and whisper to him. “What are you doing here?”
He glances at me. “I’m sorry?” His lips hardly move.
“What the hell are you doing here, Eric?”
He shrugs, shakes his head, and drops right back into working on the problems, paying attention to Mr. Vargas.
It is Eric, isn’t it?
I sit up, bang my knee on the desk, and swear under my breath. A few people laugh. Mr. Vargas shoots me a look, but I look straight back at him until he goes back to his talk.
It’s him. He’s pretending he doesn’t know me, but it has to be him. I can’t believe it. My house and my school. They’re invading every part of my life. What am I supposed to do? Play along? Pretend like I don’t know him either?
I did make the deal. But somehow I thought “we’ll post security for you” meant there’d be … oh, security guards following me around at a good distance. Cars tailing me. Not strangers intertwining themselves into my school and my home.
They really are going to follow me everywhere. I can’t hide from them, escape them. I am completely and utterly screwed.
When the bell rings Eric goes to talk to Mr. Vargas, not acknowledging me at all. I wait for a couple minutes, but it gets too stalkery and awkward and I have to leave for world history.
I’m sitting by Chris, trying to straighten my brain out enough for a halfway normal conversation about Operation Massive Lies part 3, the imaginary ski trip I had with my family on Saturday, when Eric comes in and heads straight for Mrs. Skinner, a slip of paper in his hand. He’s in this class too.
She nods, white curls bouncing, eyes crinkling. Mrs. Skinner is ancient—the joke is that she teaches history because she’s lived through it all. It’s not a very good joke. It’s still my favorite class, favorite subject.
My major when I get to Stanford. Remember that too, Jake. This deal’s not all bad.
“Class,” she croaks. “Please welcome a new transfer student, Ed Hanson. Ed, I believe there’s a seat there at the back.”
Eric nods to the room and threads his way through legs to the back. I watch him all the way, eyes slitted. Ed Hanson, huh?
“Have you met him yet?” Chris asks. “He looks fairly normal, for a midyear.”
“No.” I’m still watching. Eric/Ed looks at me and jerks his chin. A stranger’s greeting. “I haven’t met him yet.”
But I have a thing or two to talk to him about.
* * *
After history I manage to hang back long enough to stop him on his way out. I lean in, so only he will hear. “Okay. Tell me. What the flying fuck are you doing at my school?”
He doesn’t take the bait. He steps back, sticks his hand out. “Ed Hanson. Good to meet you. Jake, was it?”
I take his hand and squeeze it, a little harder than I need to. “Really, Ed? This is overkill, don’t you think?”
He tugs his hand away, discreetly flexes it. “I hear you’re a big shot on the tennis team,” he says, loudly. “Maybe you can tell me when tryouts are?”
Tryouts? He’s going to take over tennis too?
“Oh God no. Not another tennis freak.” Chris is at my shoulder, though I don’t know where he came from. “I was hoping for a little variety. Theater, maybe? Music? A rock band?” He puts out his hand, and Eric shakes it. “Chris Sawyer. Nice to meet you, man.”
“Ed Hanson. Just transferred from DC.” He meets my eyes. He’s totally laughing.
He thinks this is funny? I’m freaking out. A government agent—is that even what he is? I don’t know. A government person is talking to Chris right now.
“Oh, yeah?” Chris says, oblivious. “DC to Herndon. You’re moving up in the world. That’s like Hell to Hell’s Kitchen.” Chris is one of those people who gets along with anyone instantly. He could insult you five minutes after he met you, and you’d still like him.
Eric laughs. “As long as the girls wear those short little devil costumes? I am in.”
They start walking down the hall together, and I trail behind, disbelieving. They really do look similar: same height, same basic build. Just one with red hair and one straw colored. My best friend, and my … bodyguard?
Twenty-four-hour bodyguards. Plus twenty-four-hour lying to everyone I know. Involving everyone I know. Shit.
“Hey, what lunch do you have, Ed?” Chris asks.
“C,” I mouth silently. He’ll have my lunch, for maximum bodyguard time.
Eric checks his paper. “C. What do you have?”
“We both have C too,” Chris says. “You want to hang with us today?”
I wonder if it’s always this easy. The deeper question is, does he do this often?
“Yeah, sure,” Eric says. “Let me see what I have next…”
“English,” I mouth.
He turns in time to see me, and bites his lip. “English, with Fowler.”
“Jake has that too,” Chris says. “You’re both tennis freaks and AP. You’re like twinsies.” He checks his phone, taps the screen. “Caitlyn’s saving my seat in Econ. See you at lunch.”
He takes off down the hall as we arrive at English. I stop Eric again outside the door. “I guess I don’t know what to do here. What I’m supposed to do.”
His face goes serious. “We’ll talk later. Just keep cool, pretend you just met me. It’s a piece of cake. Really.” He grins again and pushes open the door, and I follow him.
Rachel is there, three seats back, wearing perfectly fitted jeans and a pink shirt that makes her cheeks look pinker than ever. She’s writing something in her notebook, concentrating, her bottom lip in her teeth.
“Hey, Rachel.” I smile at her hesitantly, remember her sitting with me at the party. That whole nightlong conversation. That couldn’t have meant nothing, right? She gives me a tight half smile and looks back down. “Hey,” she says, low.
Yeah. It’s been just like that ever since the party. Ugh. But I haven’t given up. Every day I say hi, every day I smile. A thousand ways to mess up your life in one stupid night, and counting.
Lily’s in this class too, which adds to the torture. I steal a look at her, on the other side of the room, talking to Mike Weber. Her hair’s curled today, blond waves down her back. Of course she doesn’t even look at me.
But then I don’t want her to. That’s so over, and I’m glad. I’m way more interested in Rachel … if she’ll ever talk to me again.
I drop into a seat in front of Eric, so I won’t have to look at him and pretend more.
There’s so much going on, in all parts of my life, that it feels like my brain might spontaneously explode. I have to not freak out.
* * *
The next period is study hall. It’s my self-study research period for my senior project—Dr. Mathis, the vice principal, approved it special, so I could have a shot at Stanford. Time to go hang at the cemetery and work on my research.
I can’t think of a justification for Eric to follow me there.
I zip up my coat and trek outside, down the street, and through the familiar gates. It’s different today. It’s still bare, the grass still brown. But the snow melted over the weekend, and it doesn’t feel sad anymore, or creepy, like it did with that guy chasing me through it. Today I have it to myself again, and it’s comforting. Like all these people—friends, almost, I’ve read so many of their stories, sat at their gravestones—went through worse than I have going, and they’re past it now. This is my place.
“Hi, Jake.”
My shoulders sag. I turn, slowly. Eric stands inside the gate, hands in his pockets.
“Hey there, Eric.”
“Ed. You’re going to have to watch that. I’m Ed now.”
I sigh, rub at my chin wearily. “How did you even get permission to be out here?”
“Does it matter? We need to talk. It’s a good time, great place. Is the caretaker here?”
I shake my head
, not even bothering to wonder how he knows about Pete. “He’s here Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday in the winter. Sometimes Fridays.”
Like last Friday, when he saved me from that goon. I wish Pete were here now. But this one I have to deal with myself.
“Good,” Eric says. “Then we’ll have the other days to work. Lesson one: be aware of surveillance. A place this open, you have to watch out for satellites.”
I look up instinctively, as if I’ll see a red-lit camera trained on us from the sky, like a UFO. There’s nothing but gray heavy clouds. Looks like snow later. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Not kidding, mate. We don’t want to attract some analyst’s attention that something’s changed. We need to either do exactly what you normally do, or find a good cover somewhere. I prefer the latter, especially today.”
I want answers anyway. “I have someplace. Follow me.”
I take him up the main drive, past Pete’s little office building, around a couple corners. There it is: the Barker mausoleum. Huge, gray stone, with an iron gate across the front with a big padlock. The place reminds me of Buffy—like a Big Bad vampire is going to crawl out sometime, and I’ll get to witness a major ass kicking. Unfortunately it’s just a stone room with slabs and inscriptions. But I do have a key.
Eric—Ed—is thrilled. It’s private, well covered from satellites, and apparently hard to bug because of the thickness of the walls. But he doesn’t have too much time for his spy giddiness before I round on him.
“So. You want to tell me who you really are, Ed? I thought you were an EEG tech. Why are you in my school?”
He grins. “I said I wasn’t a doctor. I didn’t say what I was. As of now, I’m Ed Hanson. Fellow student, to them. Your primary DARPA handler, along with Ana Delgado, who will be stationed in your home. But you probably knew that.”
Handler. Great. Good to know the terminology.
“And what’s your job as my handler? To follow me around 24/7?” The thick walls trap the cold in, forcing it into my bones. I shiver and lean against the wall. It’s even colder.
“To route work to you, for one. You’ll work directly through the two of us. But primarily my job is to keep you safe.”
I snort. “I’m sorry. You’re not much bigger or older than I am. I don’t see how you and a housekeeper are going to keep me sa—”
Before I can finish the sentence he whips a gun from his back, cocks it, and trains it on me. It’s dull black, long, with a silencer attached. A foot away. Pointed at my chest.
I gulp, loud. It echoes in the small space.
I’ve never had a gun pointed at me before. In video games, yeah. Lots. In games I’ve shot one a hundred times. It’s different when it’s real.
His expression doesn’t change at all: still, relaxed. He clicks off the gun, and settles it in his back again. “Oh, I think we’ll do fine. You all right, mate? You look a bit pale.”
I press my palm against the wall. That fast … it could happen that fast … Jesus.
I can’t believe he has a gun. At school, even. But he has it to point at other people. Other people with access to satellite pictures, who want to get at me. That guy with the pig eyes who followed me last week, maybe with a gun in his pocket. On second thought, that isn’t really better. I swallow. Drop some of the attitude. “Yeah. Okay.”
“Good. Now, if that’s all the questions you have, I have some work for you to do. All right?”
“Work?” My voice sounds faint. I clear my throat. “But … I have to do my research. If I really want to go to Stanford, my project has to be perfect.”
He raises his eyebrows. “I think you have Stanford taken care of, if I understand it right. Plus there’s that full, willing cooperation?” It’s funny how he can sound so easygoing, look like a farm boy, but now I can hear the steel underneath. Like I can sense the gun there, waiting.
“You can do your research Tuesdays and Thursdays, when Pete’s here,” he continues. “When he’s not here, you’re ours. Plus whatever Ana has for you in the evenings. If we have an object for you, you have to assume it’s a priority. Work comes before everything else. You got it, Jake?”
I nod, slowly. That phrase—full, willing cooperation—is going to haunt me.
“Good. We only have one today, to start nice and easy. Tell me about this.” He pulls a Ziploc bag out of his sweatshirt pocket and tosses it to me. This one holds a small silver key. I drop it into my palm, close my eyes.
Open them again. He has a minicamera out, trained on me. “Wait. What if I get the headache, like before?”
“Ana and I both have your medicine handy. We know what to do.”
I guess that’ll have to do. If all goes well, I won’t need it anyway. I’d done a ton of tunnels before it happened last time. I settle my back against the wall, take a deep breath. Let it come, filling me with warmth.
A man. Fiftyish, small, but powerful. Leathery brown skin, dark hair to his shoulders. Location: Colombia, near the border with Venezuela. Puerto Carreño, in Vichada. An area called Caño Narizón. He’s in a tent, on a patch of high ground in the middle of a vividly green tropical swamp. He sits on a camp chair, reading a report. The bug clicks and bird calls are constant, almost deafening.
“What does the report say?”
I open my eyes, snapped out of it. “What?”
Eric watches me intently. “I need you to read the report he’s looking at. Read it aloud.”
“It’s in Spanish. And you can’t interrupt me in the middle like that. I may not be able to get back.”
“Try,” he says dryly.
I close my eyes. See the guy again, his location.
He’s reading a report. He turns a page and grunts to himself, pleased. Things are going well.
Usually I have only a general description of the person, a sense of their surroundings, and what they’re feeling. I try to focus on the page in his hand. It swims, blurred, the words jumping. Then it starts to come clear. The weird thing, though, is I don’t actually read the Spanish words in front of me. I understand what he’s reading.
Semisubmersible run up the Orinoco River a success. Have successfully run four times to Barrancas, each time carrying 1.1 tons of product. Recommend building another submersible ASAP. Best place to build in forests near Puerto Ayacucho.
He closes the report, sips at a strong, sweet drink, and laughs.
I come back. Eric is happy, no steel underneath at all. He turns the camera off, tucks it in his pocket, and reaches for the key. “That’s your first real work. Well done, Jake. We’ve got the location of a major drug runner, and know where to get proof, where he’s going next.”
I rub my head. I don’t have a headache, but I do feel a little off, woozy. My watch beeps: the alarm that it’s time to start packing up. That seemed short. “We’ve got to get back.”
He nods. “You’re right. We have lunch with Chris.”
Ugh. The lying and pretending part—especially to Chris and my family—is harder than tunneling on demand. At least that I’m good at.
I’m the only one who’s good at it. And I just identified the location of a Colombian drug runner. Huh.
Definitely something to get used to.
9
“Sister” by Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds
I was right about the snow. It’s wet, with heavy, fat flakes piling up fast. I have to drive slowly, peering through the windshield. My tail is slogging through it too, a blue sedan trailing thirty feet behind like a loyal dog.
Myk is quiet in the back, chin on her fist, watching the snow. When we pull into the driveway, Mom’s car is in the garage and there’s another car—a white, unmarked van—in the second space. Dad’s old space. I meet Myk’s eyes in the rearview mirror.
“She is here.” I make my voice all menacing, and do a vampire laugh. “You ready?”
I’m not ready, after a day spent with Eric Ed at my side every bleeding second. I could use a little breathing space between handlers. But
I can deal—it’s my bed to lie in. I have to help Myka with this one.
She takes a deep breath, thinks, then shakes her head. “I don’t think so.”
I pull behind the van, kill the engine. In the sudden silence I turn, so I can look at her square. “You know this has nothing to do with you, dorkus. Right?”
She looks at me sideways, her eyes wet. “No.”
“I’m serious. Mom doesn’t think you need watching, or that you’re not helping enough. She just had this offer, and it was too good to refuse.”
She shrugs. “It feels wrong, having a stranger here. Why is she doing it? I don’t get it.”
She feels it, somehow: that this isn’t as simple as it seems, a housekeeper who just happened to fall in our laps. She just doesn’t know what it is. And she won’t. Ever.
“It’ll be all right,” I say, gentler. “I swear. I’ll make sure it’s all right for you, one way or the other. Okay? Trust me?”
She tucks her hair behind one ear, eyes on me, and nods. If I ever let her down on something I really promised, I think it’d break both of us.
“All right,” I say. “Let’s go face the dragon.”
That probably isn’t a good thing to say. Not positive. But it does make her laugh, and that’s all that matters right then.
“Hello,” I call when we come in and drop my keys in the bowl. I set a hand on Myk’s skinny shoulder.
There she is, sitting at the table with Mom, drinking coffee.
Christ, she looks like Salma Hayek. Midthirties, Latina, gorgeous smooth skin. She’s wearing a black sweater, her hair pulled back in a low bun. I cough with the surprise of it. Her mouth curves up, dark eyes on me.
“You must be Jacob and Myka.” She stands and stretches out a slim hand, a silver bracelet dangling from her wrist. “I am Ana Delgado. So nice to meet you.”
The accent is faint, but there. She really is Spanish, or Spanish-speaking, not just as a cover. Or she’s really good at accents. I wonder if she has a gun hidden in a back holster too.
She takes Myka’s hand first, then mine. Her handshake is firm, strong. She smiles again, this time at Myka. “I hope you do not mind so very much my coming to help here. I believe this situation will work out well for all of us. Perhaps we can be friends, in time?”