Loop

by Karen Akins

  “I knocked a picture loose cleaning it, and the rest is history. Lots and lots of history.” I laughed at my own joke.

  “Here, I’ll help.” He bent down and wiped the plaster up with a cloth. Guess Wyck didn’t grow up with a Cleanoo either.

  “Why are you here?” I asked.

  “Looking for you. I passed Charlie in the hall. He said you were still being detained.”

  “Why were you looking for me?”

  “I need to apologize.”

  “Apologize? What do you have to apologize for?”

  His eyebrows knit together.

  “The forced fade,” I said. “It was you.”

  “I thought you already knew. Dr. Raikes decided to check up on Mimi, and he discovered she was already back. He put it together. I tried pinging you first.”

  “I was preoccupied.” With a crashed Porsche.

  “Well, I hoped you’d come back easily.”

  “So I have you to thank for this headache?” It had been pounding like a nonstop Buzz since I’d left my house.

  “I think that fall you took is the more likely culprit.”

  “Oh … yes.” It was hard keeping up with the lies at this point. “Well, maybe if you’d aimed better I wouldn’t have gotten in that mess in the first place.”

  I looked away. I was being unfair and I knew it.

  Wyck called me on it. “What are you talking about?”

  “You undershot it by almost three years.” If I’d arrived only three months later as planned, none of this with Finn would have happened. I’d have picked up Leto’s delivery and left, no fuss.

  “I was going to ask you about that. Your tendrils fought the Shift the whole way. And you had some seriously crazy surges once you got there. What was going on?”

  The surges again.

  “N-n-nothing.” Except that was a lie. Something was different. It had actually felt better than normal. Painless. “What do you mean my tendrils were fighting it?”

  “It was like they had a mind of their own. I tried to force your tendrils toward the right year, but they kept, I don’t know, latching on to a different time. And then there were those surges. No idea what that was about.”

  “Did you report it?” Panic.

  “No. Why? Do you know what caused it?”

  I had a pretty good theory. First the surges on my midterm and then again this time. My QuantCom must have registered John’s and Georgie’s Shifts somehow. Wyck wrinkled his forehead, deep in thought. It wasn’t something I wanted him thinking too much about.

  “Maybe the surges had to do with my concussion.”

  “Well, at least clumsiness is one thing you can’t blame on a transporter.” He scowled. “Not that most of you Shifters won’t try.”

  “You Shifters? What’s that supposed to mean? I don’t deserve that. Not from you.”

  “From you, as in a transporter?”

  “From you, as in my friend.” Or at least I thought he was.

  “Yeah, some friend.” He pushed himself up and backed away. “You swapped your mission with Mimi without even telling me. I covered for you as long as I could. You should be thanking me.”

  “Oh, yes, thank you. You pushed some buttons, and it ended so well.” As soon as the words had come out, I wished I could gobble them back up. I hadn’t meant for it to come out like an accusation of his skills. “Wyck, I’m sorry.”

  I reached out to him, but he’d balled his hand into a fist at his side. He was already halfway out the door by the time I stood up.

  “Wyck!” I started to follow him, but I had to finish tidying up Dr. Quigley’s office or risk dragging Mimi down with me again. Great. Apparently Future Me’s idea of protection involved me alienating the only people left in my life I could still call friends. I straightened the frames and gave each one a final swipe, extracareful on her da Vinci photo.

  “Lights off.”

  In that moment, my mind was made up. Lies, lies, lies. Enough. First Mimi, now Wyck. I was sick of lying to the only people I had left who cared about me. It felt like my lies created a bigger gap than the seven hundred years between the Quig and Leonardo. The faster I shipped Finn home, the better.

  chapter 13

  “BREE, YOU CAN’T!” Mimi threw her body across our doorway, blocking it.

  Shouldn’t have told her.

  “You were force faded yesterday and you’re Anchored. If you get caught cutting class, you’re finished. What could be so important?”

  “I just need some space.” I tried to push past her, but she grabbed hold of me and went limp. By the time I made it into the hall, I was dragging her along on the floor behind me like a lethargic snake.

  “Mimi, no one’s going to—oof—catch me unless there’s a big—oof—scene.” I bent down and lifted her chin. “I promise to be careful. I won’t get caught.”

  “You’re going to need to do better than that.”

  “Fine.” Only one thing would appease her. “I give you my solemn vow.”

  I could already see the glitterfied friendship barrette or whatever in my mind. I wouldn’t say Mimi looked happy, but she unclamped my leg and sat up.

  “Stay away from the greenhouses,” she said. “Raikes has been in and out all week planting seedlings.”

  “Thanks, Meems.” I gave her a kiss on the top of the head. She didn’t know it, but she’d given me a helpful bit of information in my quest to figure out a way to sneak Finn in, the real reason I was skipping. The greenhouse skylight was out.

  And it was too bad. I didn’t have many options. I started by checking all the common-area windows. Locked. There was the ancient ductwork system but no exterior access. One of the school custodians rounded the corner with a heaping bin of dirty towels. I ducked behind a recycling bin.

  The laundry chute! I waited for the custodian to head into the guys’ locker room and took off running toward the basement. It was perfect. I took the old, abandoned stairs two at a time and pushed open the utility room door. Perfect, perfect, perfect. It didn’t even require hair access. I’d figure out a way to deliver a message to Finn detailing the plan. All he’d need to do was meet me at the base of the chute outside the building. I opened the metal door.

  My heart sank. The hole was minuscule. A two-year-old wouldn’t fit in that thing.

  There went the perfect plan. I trudged up the steps. It was hopeless. Even when I figured out a way to get Finn in the Institute, I still had to get him out of this time. For that I’d need a transporter, and I had driven away the only one who might have helped me without asking questions.

  At the top of the stairwell, I stood as still as possible as a Cleanoo whirred past on the opposite side of the door. This was all Finn’s fault. The more I thought about him, the angrier I got. Whatever Finn was supposed to “protect” me from was of his own making. Well, his and Future Bree’s. It was like they were colluding against me. He hadn’t told me everything she’d said. I knew it.

  I stuck my head out in the hallway to make sure it was empty, then edged out, my back flat against the wall.

  Clickety-clickety-click-clickety-click-clickety.

  I heard them before I saw them. A fleet of tru-ants skittered down the hall past me, tiny robotic tattletales that they were. I raced after them, stomping and squashing their beady little eyes before the sensors could pick me up. But all it would take was one and I’d be—

  Beep-beep-beep. My speak-eazy sounded in my pocket.

  Busted.

  It beeped again, and the droning voice of Dolores, the headmaster’s assistant, came out of it in a nasal whine: “Bree Bennis, report to Dr. Bergin’s office immediately.”

  Blark! I thought I’d caught all the ants. I’d be lucky to avoid a stint mucking the puke carts. Or worse. It was odd that they’d called me to Bergin’s office instead of Quigley’s, oh-she-of-little-mercy. But I’d take it.

  His door was open, and I walked in. His office, which I’d only been in once before, emitted an aura of
reverence. The last time, there were more people in the room than I could count, but it was Bergin himself who had broken the news to me that Mom had been found on the steps of the Institute half-dead and talking gibberish. Today it was just me and him. The air smelled like furniture polish and wool socks.

  He waved me in and slid behind his massive desk with a heavy sigh. It reminded me of a walrus claiming a rock. He adjusted a frame on his desk, which rotated through pictures of his wife. I perched on the stiff-backed chair in front of him. After Mom’s accident, I’d felt a strange kinship with Bergin. If there was anyone else at the Institute who truly had reason to wish the Doctrine of Inevitability out of existence, it was him. His wife had died in one of those unthinkable tragedies, an allergic reaction to the safety foam during a Pod accident. The kind of rare thing that had made people shake their heads and say, “In this day and age, how is it possible?”

  Bergin turned off the frame and looked up. He didn’t look angry. Maybe I wasn’t in trouble after all. It might be he wanted to check and make sure I was feeling okay after my injury. No detention. No more splotches on my record. If anything, he looked distracted. He pulled a thin metal object out of his pocket, an old-fashioned writing pen, and began twirling it between his fingers, clicking the end in and out between twirls.

  “That’s in great shape,” I said, hoping to keep him distracted. As if he’d called me here to discuss antiques. It actually was beautiful. I’d never seen one up close like that. Mom worked with ink tools all the time at the Gallery. She specialized in forgery detection. But I’d never been allowed to touch one of hers. I craned my neck to look for paper but didn’t see any.

  “Hmm?” he said, as if he’d just noticed I was there. Then he looked down at the pen. “Ahh, you know what this is?”

  “A writing pen from the … twentieth century?”

  His jowls puffed in disappointment. I must have gotten the date wrong.

  “Close enough,” he said, and tucked it in his pocket, but I knew it was one more mark against me. A Shifter who didn’t know history. A Shifter who didn’t follow the Rules. Then his head tilted to that angle, and I knew what we were here to discuss.

  A Shifter who might turn out like her mother.

  And that’s when I remembered where I’d seen the men in red scrubs from earlier. They had helped Bergin explain my mother’s condition to me that day. Bergin opened his mouth to speak, then shut it. He licked his lips a few times as if he was trying to taste the words before he spit them out. I slumped into a defensive little ball like I did whenever Counselor Salloway called me to her office for this exact same purpose, to discuss my mom. Along the way, I’d learned that nobody could make you talk.

  “Miss Bennis, a most disturbing matter has come to our attention,” said Bergin.

  “Huh?” There was no way his news could be worse than my imagination. It certainly couldn’t be worse than the last time he had brought me in here.

  “We’ve become aware of the situation regarding your mother’s hospital bill.”

  My heart lurched to a stop. He knew about Leto. He knew about the botched black market delivery. He knew everything.

  “I can explain.” No, I couldn’t.

  “No explanation is necessary.”

  “What … what are you going to do to me?”

  “To you?” Bergin frowned. “I want to do something for you. Or, rather, to connect you to people who can help you with your mother’s medical costs. The Initiative for Chronogeological Equality.”

  My heart resumed thumping, but it was a hollow thud. He didn’t know about Leto. Then I got angry. Why couldn’t they have come to me before Leto had? None of this would have happened. Chicken–egg. It had happened. There was nothing I could do to change it.

  And I desperately needed help, whoever these benefactors were, now more than ever.

  “Why do they want to help me?” I mean, I hadn’t exactly been the poster child for Shifter Excellence lately.

  “Well, to be honest, they think you might be able to help them in return.”

  Bergin chuckled when he noticed what must have been a suspicious look on my face.

  “Nothing unsavory, I assure you. Are you familiar with ICE?”

  “They’re the ones that pay for Buzztabs if someone can’t afford them.”

  “And microchips. One of their functions, yes. I’m on their advisory board. They’ve been following your mother’s case with great interest. There are many within ICE who feel that your mother is the victim of a horrible crime.”

  “What?” I’d heard more theories than I could count about what had happened to my mother, but never that she’d been attacked.

  “The crime of ignorance. And Shifting regulations that weren’t serving her best interests. I know we don’t fully know what happened to your mother that awful day, but we do know one thing: The system failed.”

  “But what does this have to do with me?”

  “Like it or not, Miss Bennis, you’ve become a sympathetic figure to those who want reform in the world of Shifting.”

  “I have?”

  He nodded.

  “Well, I don’t believe my mom tampered with her chip, if that’s what you’re getting at. And Mom was a stickler for protocol on missions.” Well, except for the one glaring exception, the reason so many nonShifters thought she’d tampered with her chip. “If I signed up to be the poster child for some kind of anti-chip movement, she’d flip over in her—”

  My breath caught in my throat, and I curled up tighter.

  “Nothing like that.” His voice turned gentle: “ICE simply wants the regulations placed on Shifting to be more balanced. It will benefit everyone. Shifter and non alike.”

  “So what exactly do they want from me?”

  “For now, just your assurance of support.” He smiled. “Don’t worry. When the time comes, they’ll have some easy public relations task that you’ll be happy to help with.”

  “And in return, they’ll pay all my mom’s hospital bills?”

  “Yes, now I know you have free options available, but—”

  I snorted. He was talking about Resthaven. I would do anything to keep my mom out of that place.

  “Where do I sign?” I interrupted.

  Bergin smiled and handed me a form and a stylus.

  “I hate to have to even mention this,” he said, “after all you’ve been through, but some of your recent activities have been, shall we say, less than commendable. Switching missions, a forced fade. These are the kinds of actions that could corrode relations between Shifters and nonShifters. Some might even say they reflect negatively on your mental state.”

  My breath snagged in my throat. Bergin’s words packed a hidden warning, and we both knew it.

  “ICE is investing a lot into your mother,” he said. “Please don’t make them regret their decision.”

  “Absolutely.” Flaming piles of blarking turds. I had to get rid of Finn. Now.

  “Excellent. And I think that…” Bergin’s voice faded away, and with a startled expression he turned his gaze to the doorway. “Yes?”

  I flipped around to see what he was looking at. Dr. Quigley had stepped into the room. She glued her eyes first on me, then on Headmaster Bergin.

  “We had a meeting,” she said.

  “We did? Oh, of course. Come in.” He turned back to me, his demeanor suddenly brisk. “That will be all, Miss Bennis.”

  “Can we talk more later?” I asked.

  “I’ll keep you updated.”

  “But—”

  He looked up at Quigley again with a strained smile, then back at me. “I said that will be all, Miss Bennis. Tut-tut, don’t want to keep you from any more of your classes.”

  I glared at the dean on my way out of the room. Who did Quigley think she was, barging in like that? An anger-fueled pressure built behind my ears as I stomped toward the gymnasium. I gulped down a couple of Buzztabs without bothering to stop for a glass of water, my second dose of the
day.

  No. My third.

  My Buzz had been so wonky since that midterm. It felt like my tendrils were being pulled ten different directions at once, but there was no way I was going to report it. Gym was the last class I felt like going to, but Bergin wouldn’t file skipping class under “commendable.” There were only twenty minutes left when I arrived.

  Coach Black tossed a gravbelt at me and grunted, “Aerial day.”

  Tall heights. Loved them about as much as water.

  I cinched the belt up and buoyed a few feet off the ground, did a little jazz-hands thing, and kind of kicked my feet around. Maybe it would appease him and he wouldn’t make me go any higher.

  “Nope,” said Coach. “All the way up to the top mark, three flips, then you can free float.”

  “But—”

  “You got a problem with that, Bennis?” He pulled out his whistle and gave a tiny tweet to Patrice Wallingham and another transporter who were bobbing along the ceiling chatting. I expected him to reprimand them, but he just smiled and waved them on. Coach Black was one of the few nonShifter teachers at the school, and he always played favorites with the transporters. I scowled and had started to say something I’d regret when a strong hand wrapped around mine and gently tugged me upward.

  “She’s good, Coach.” Wyck flashed me one of his infamous come-hither grins and only let go when we reached the mark. I panicked, grasping the air for something to hold on to, but there was nothing. He slipped his hand around my waist to steady me.

  “Easy there.”

  Tweet-tweet.

  Coach pulled his whistle out of his mouth and made a V at me with his stubby fingers in the universal I’m watching you sign. Then he rolled his arms over each other.

  The flips.

  “We’ll do it together,” said Wyck. He placed his hand at the small of my back and guided me forward. The world tumbled around me. I had no idea how long I’d been spinning when he grabbed me by the shoulders. “Whoa there.”

  It took me a moment to recover my equilibrium.

  “So you’re not still mad at me?” I asked.

  “About that, I’m sorry I stormed off last night.”

  “No, I shouldn’t have blamed you for how the mission went.” I kept my eyes glued to his. If I didn’t, I’d go back to panic mode. “Transporters always get the crap end of the stick. I’m the one who needs to apologize.”