Enigma

by Tonya Kuper

  The muscles in my upper body stiffened. “No. He gave me no reason to question his actions. We’d worked together as a training team for a year and a half.”

  A dull burn spread through my chest. I wouldn’t mention how he was my confidant—how he was one of the few who really knew the hurt I felt about killing my friend. I couldn’t tell the Council he was one of two people in the world who had known of my feelings for Josie.

  Josie sat tight-lipped during the briefing, her gaze traveling between me and the Council members.

  “When did you realize Santos was actually working for the Consortium?” Max asked.

  “Not until I saw him try to kill Josie. After the fact, I learned he was after the vial Josie handed off to the Vice President, a request made by her mother. You know her mother? One of the founders of the Resistance, who should be on the premises by now.”

  I shifted to my other leg and peered down at Josie, who was laser focused on the five Council members in front of us. Her bottom jaw jutted forward slightly, her eyes narrowed, and she leaned forward onto her forearms like she was ready to pounce. If looks could kill, the entire Council would be dead.

  Ming wrote something in the file in front of her. Without making eye contact, she continued questioning me. “Yes, Dr. Meg Harper. Did Dr. Harper give you any other orders?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know why Santos wanted the vial of enhancing serum? Was it for personal power? Did he indicate that he was working alone, or did he mention Schrodinger’s Consortium?”

  I threw my hands up, then let my palms fall to the table with a bang. “How the hell am I supposed to know why he wanted the serum?” This had been distracting me for days. “It could’ve been for personal power, but since he did mention the Consortium, and even asked Josie to join them, I’m guessing not. Maybe he’d get more power from the Consortium, or recognition, or glory for hauling in the incomparable Josie Harper.” Josie snorted next to me. “All I know for sure is that he fooled me, and he had to have a source inside the Hub.”

  “Did you, in fact, train Josie Harper?”

  “To the best of my ability, I did.”

  “Did you reveal your true identity to Josie?”

  Okay. I was over this. We needed to finish this up before I got really pissed.

  “Did I tell her that I had to alter my appearance to keep hidden from the Consortium? Yes. Did I let her know I was really her brother’s friend? That she had known me almost her entire life? Yeah, I did. Was it awkward? Yeah, just a little bit. Does she trust me now, though? Yes. Okay, are we done? Josie is in danger. We’re all in danger.”

  I stared directly at Max. “The spy who informed and instructed Santos is here.” My voice echoed off the high ceilings.

  Clasping his hands in front of him on the table, Max closed his eyes for a moment. “I understand your anxiety. I assure you, we do not have a mole inside these walls. We’ve vetted everyone here. We’ve also ordered data analysis for all correspondence with both you and Santos. The odds are that Santos had an informant outside the Hub.”

  Turning his attention to Josie, Max smiled. “Josie, did Santos say anything to you that would give you any indication as to what his motives were with the serum? Or even in killing you?”

  She adjusted her posture to sit taller. Shreeya and Nico, the other two Council members, whispered to each other, covering their mouths with their hands. Rude. Way to make Josie feel welcomed.

  Josie hadn’t talked at length about that night a week ago when she’d killed Santos. “Yeah.” The word came out strangled. She coughed into her hand and stood. “Yes. He said a couple of things. He needed to stop the hand off of the serum because things weren’t what they’d seemed. The VP couldn’t get the enhancing serum. He said if I came without force the Consortium wouldn’t hurt me, but if I didn’t come with him, the Schrodinger’s Consortium would consider me a threat. That’s all I can remember.” A crease had formed between her brows.

  “Thank you, Josie. We’ll be speaking with your mother when she arrives, as well.”

  “They should be here already.”

  “Yes, we’ll look into that. You may sit.”

  Josie sat, crossing her legs and arms. Her fingers played with her jacket. She wasn’t happy about Max’s quick dismissal of her family.

  “Now, moving on to another important issue,” Max announced loudly. “As of this morning, the Vice President’s whereabouts are unknown. The media is reporting that he’s gone on a private vacation, which is not uncommon for a person in his position to do. We hope to get a confirmation on his whereabouts soon. At this time, we will not panic.”

  I peeked to Dad and met his stare. A private conversation needed to happen soon. What had he done all this time, where had he gone? And what did he know now? Looking at him was surreal. For almost two years, I’d thought he was dead. Losing him had nearly undone me while I was on the road.

  “We’ll be reviewing the transcript and recording from Reid’s debriefing on this mission to train Josie Harper and deliver the serum,” Max continued. “We will also investigate the events that led to the death of Santos, but right now we don’t see adequate evidence for extreme action.”

  We will, meaning they weren’t doing it before? A mix of anger and disbelief simmered in my gut. “This investigation needs to happen now. It should have already started.”

  Max held his hand up, as if to calm me. “Please, Mr. Went—”

  “No.” The snarl in my voice gained the Council’s attention. “Everyone in here needs to understand that I was closer to Santos than anyone. And he was working for the Consortium. He couldn’t have worked inside the Hub—our home, the Resistance base—unless he had help. That person is still here and wants Josie dead. They are also still working for the Consortium, the very organization that wants to eliminate most of us in the Hub.”

  Max raised his chin, looking down his long, slim nose at me. “I assure you, and everyone else”—he scanned the crowded room—“there is no way a traitor is among us. Our security would not allow one inside the Hub to go undetected.” His head panned back to me. “Josie, and all other Anomalies, are safe in the Hub.”

  Rage crawled up my throat and burned my face. I cleared my throat, aware that my words couldn’t come out harshly. “We have reason to believe the person who helped Santos is still here. They may be relatively new to the Hub, they may travel more frequently, they may have more correspondence outside the Hub, they—”

  “Our arrivals and departures for the Hub are public record. We already periodically review the documents for security, but you can check them yourself. We are quite certain Santos experienced the same psychotic break that happened to Nick Harper.”

  So we were on our own. We didn’t have the Council behind us. It was up to Josie, Dad, and me. And Cohen, once I found him. Only four of us in the entire Hub. As disappointment took over my brain, panic slinked up my spine. We needed more help. We needed to find a way to eliminate more suspects. At this point, it was just as Josie had suggested—everyone was a suspect until proven otherwise.

  Max glanced to Dad. “Also, fellow Council members, this is a good opportunity to mention that Harrison’s contact, our operative inside the Consortium, sent intel.”

  Dad had a contact inside the Consortium?

  Josie tapped my arm. Her mouth was open as if to speak, but instead she shrugged.

  I leaned toward her ear. “I think we have to take matters into our own hands.”

  She let her head hang and nibbled her bottom lip.

  Max was still talking. “The Consortium labs are working on a way to detect Anomalies.”

  I nearly choked. One of the Council members, Shreeya, gasped.

  Nico, a well-respected Council member about ten years older than me, leaned forward. “Meaning?”

  Max glanced to my dad. “We’re still working on figuring out how it works and how, if at all, it could be combated. We have very few details right now.”

>   Hushed murmurs bounced off the walls. Josie’s head shook slightly as if she was objecting to the news.

  I couldn’t even fathom the idea. If we were born as an Oculi, how did the Consortium have the right to take our abilities away, to change us, to kill us? I opened my mouth to express my disgust and disbelief, but nothing happened. No words came out because I couldn’t even form a coherent thought.

  Max raised his hands again. “Please. This knowledge is confidential and will not yet be shared with the greater Resistance population. The intel is not definite.”

  My dad crossed his arms on the table and his brows pinched. I knew that look. He was thinking. His eyes drew up from the table to meet mine, and his hand went to his temple. Then he saluted me with the index finger slow and discrete.

  Okay, so besides the mole, we probably needed to talk about the new danger from the Consortium. I had a feeling that was the reason my dad was back in the Hub. If he’d been so committed to going undercover for a mission that he let his only living family member think he was dead, only something extreme, something like this, could’ve brought him out of hiding. That meant this was a bigger deal than Max was letting on.

  Ming leaned forward. “Max, Josie’s skills development.”

  “Yes, thanks, Ming. Josie, we are aware that your Oculi abilities are quite advanced. With the threat from the Consortium being real and growing more dangerous daily, you need to be tested. You have the potential to be a considerable asset, and with this new threat from the Consortium, we need you reliable and useful as soon as possible.”

  Ming smiled at us. “Josie, if you are half as good as they say this soon after your seventeenth birthday, you are valuable. You are a remarkable weapon. We need you.”

  My lungs shut down for a few seconds. Weapon? A weapon was a tool, not a person. Weapons were often targeted. Making Josie a weapon would put her further at risk. Everything about this label and idea felt wrong. I opened my mouth to protest, but I also knew it wouldn’t help right now.

  Josie’s forehead scrunched as she nodded to Ming. “Okay. I’ll do anything I can.”

  “We’ll plan on assessing you tomorrow morning.” Max stood, and everyone else at the long table followed his lead. “Public records are open to you, Reid and Josie. We won’t prevent you from taking independent precautions and looking at the records yourself, but we just can’t allocate the resources to it. We’ll alert everyone if and when we have more information about the Consortium chemical weapons. We’ll all meet tomorrow morning. Dismissed.”

  The Council members, my dad, and Dee all moved out from behind the long table and down from the platform to the door.

  That was it. We were done.

  We hadn’t resolved anything. We needed a team to investigate the traitor. We needed protection for Josie. Frustration itched the surface of my skin, covering my whole body, but there was no scratching it away, no immediate relief. There wasn’t an easy way to solve problems when our leaders abandoned us.

  Everyone passed by me and Josie without a second glance. We were being disregarded. I had been treated with more esteem when I was seventeen than I had in the last couple of hours. I didn’t know some of the Council members, sure, but this was something bigger.

  There had definitely been a shift since I’d left the Hub.

  Dad walked alongside Max out the door.

  Josie stuffed her hands in her pockets and let out a huff, plainly distressed and confused. Hell, I was, too. I watched Jared, Ming, and Shreeya leave the room, one after the other. All new members to the Council since I’d left. Any of them could be the mole, or all three of them could be.

  An armed trooper stood behind us, waiting for our departure so he could lock the room. I swept my hand toward the door, prompting Josie to go before me. “Let’s go find your room and come up with a new plan.” Once in the hallway, away from the trooper, I lowered my head to whisper within her earshot. “This isn’t the same Hub I left. Something’s off.”

  5.

  Josie

  We hustled out to the garage from the council room, where the vague smell of gasoline and oil lingered. Fewer people were around than on our way to the meeting. Reid pointed to the largest opening in the garage. “There.”

  Our feet moved in unison, the sound of our steps reverberating off the rock walls around us as we entered the hall. Maybe “tunnel” was a more appropriate term since the circumference was large enough to fit SUVs on a two-lane highway. Two random troopers walked past us from the opposite direction.

  Once they were past us, without looking at me, Reid gave my back a gentle slap. “You okay?”

  I mumbled, “Yeah.” I wasn’t okay, though. The Hub, the new info, the shutdown from the Council, it was all too much, too soon.

  “Cohen texted me your room number.” Reid glanced at me. “Let’s go let you chill for a few minutes. Regroup.”

  I let my fingers skim the rough surface of the rock wall. “Sounds good.” The varied colors of earth were fascinating, and the random iron oxide stains were strangely warm and welcoming. We walked in silence down the long hallway, but my mind was utter chaos.

  Reid’s dad, Harrison, was back from the dead. I couldn’t imagine how Reid was dealing with that life-changing revelation. It did reignite my hope that my own dad could still be alive somewhere. Was it logical at this point to think he was alive? No. But in the last couple of weeks, I learned the world didn’t always work logically. The changes in my relationship with Mom were proof.

  The hallway widened into a long, cavernous room. Each side had two floors of doors that opened to the middle of the room, a walkway and railing surrounding the rooms a level up. It resembled an old motel, only dug into rock.

  Aware of the cameras everywhere, Reid led me up the stairs to the second floor without touching me. All I’d wanted a couple of weeks ago was to be eighteen, to have freedom and choices. Now I was getting my own place and I no longer wore my mother’s tight leash, just like I’d wanted. But this independence made me feel kind of empty.

  Pausing in front of my door, he held the key out to me. “Obviously you can lock and unlock the door without the key, but we encourage Oculi to conserve energy where they can.”

  I pulled the gold key out of his hand, making sure not to make skin contact. I unlocked the door, let it swing open, and reached around the corner to flip on a light.

  Before I found the switch, Reid caught my arm. “Can I help you sweep your room? Better safe than sorry.”

  I stepped to the side. “Safety first.” That’s what I needed to say for the cameras since maybe he shouldn’t be hanging with me in my private quarters. I needed a reason for him to be in my room. When really I just wanted all this to be over, to treat Reid like my boyfriend, to say someone wants to kill me, of course you’re coming in my room.

  Reid flipped on a row of lights just inside the door. I closed the door and followed close behind him. An electronic device appeared in his hand. “What is that?”

  “It detects bugs and cameras. They have them in the garage, but I forgot to grab one.” The small machine helped calm my anxiety a notch.

  My room was more like a tiny apartment. The carpeted living room area had enough room for the beige sofa and coffee table. Reid moved to the kitchenette that held a small table, checking the cupboards and appliances. I followed Reid into the bathroom, then into the small bedroom furnished with a twin bed, bedside table, and a dresser. The only closet held empty hangers and a couple of towels. The smooth, painted walls were the most impressive feature of the place. From inside the miniature apartment, I would’ve never guessed we were underground, besides the lack of windows.

  I sat on the bed, letting myself sink into the mattress and allowing my shoulders to slump. The softness of the brown comforter surprised me, but I kind of longed for the ugly paisley bedspread hidden away in New Mexico. “Reid.”

  He sat next to me and pulled my hand into his, callused and warm. “I know.” His brows furrowed. �
�We’re back to the drawing board with no plan.”

  Weapon. The words Ming had said pinballed inside my head. She was right. I’d killed someone only days before and I hadn’t laid a hand on him. I was a weapon. I didn’t want to be a murderer, but I could be a protector. “They called me a weapon.”

  “Josie—”

  “It’s okay. If I’m a weapon, I’m going to learn how to use myself, so I can protect my family. Without knowing my limits and without experience, I’m unreliable in a fight, and I can’t be unreliable with this traitor around. Every day counts, every minute. Especially once Mom and Eli get here. I have to be able to protect them.” Desperation had leaked into my voice despite my efforts to hold my fear in check. My throat ached.

  I pulled my hand free from Reid, and sprang from the bed. Pacing to the other side of the small room, I opened the drawers of the dresser just for something to do. I didn’t want him to see me struggling.

  Reid’s hands clamped onto my shoulders, giving a light squeeze. The warmth of his palms seeped through my shirt, helping relax my muscles. I shrugged and stretched my neck as he massaged my shoulders, kneading my back with his thumbs.

  “Everyone is a suspect besides you, me, and dad. I think Cohen is clear, too. Cohen and I can help you practice and can help keep you safe.” His hands paused. I didn’t realize how much I enjoyed his little massage until he stopped doing it. “My dad doesn’t do much Pushing and Retracting anymore, since he reserves what’s left of his energy supply for emergencies. But he’ll look out for you. You have to be with one of us at all times. Always. Remember? Strength in numbers.” His hands slid from my shoulders to my upper arms. “As long as the traitor hasn’t recruited help, two of us would most likely take him down.”

  I turned slowly and he removed his hands from my arms to interlace his fingers in mine. “I’ll convince my dad to pressure the Council on an investigation. We can’t give up on the leadership after only one try.” His light blue eyes were big and inviting. Patient.

  I was beyond grateful to have Reid watching out for me and rallying others to do the same, but I didn’t know Cohen and hadn’t seen Harrison for years. I’d accept their extra eyes, but I would still watch my back. I’d learned my lesson from Santos. I didn’t want to make Reid feel any worse, so I’d just stay quiet on the topic. Reid was right, though—the more people we had working against the mole, the better our odds at finding them. And beating them if it came to it. “I agree. We need backup. We have to have some kind of support doing this. I mean, dear Loki, we’re trapped in a freaking mountain with a person who has aided an attempted murder. And where in the hell is my family? Why isn’t the Council concerned about this? My mom and Eli could be stranded. Or what if there was an accident? Oh.” My heart missed a beat. “Reid, what if they were kidnapped. Or—” The pitch of my voice had climbed. “What if they were killed? How would we know? How long are they going to wait to do something about my family not being here yet?”