I brought the phone back. “I didn’t plan on being here.” Which made me think I should have made better plans. If we had moved farther away, my dad and I wouldn’t have been able to work for Mr. Trullite, but maybe Molloy wouldn’t have found us either. Julian leaned against the entryway doorframe, listening to our conversation with high interest.
“I wouldn’t bother you, Maria, if I didn’t really need your help. My dad and Raf got caught up in the sweep. I think they’re on their way to Vellus’s new detention center.” I cleared my throat to cover the cracking of my voice. “I need to get them out, Maria. Raf won’t last five seconds in there.”
“Raf’s in the Detention Center?” Her voice hiked up. “How can that happen? He’s not a—”
“They’re not exactly asking questions before they start shooting.”
“Which is why this kind of thing is completely illegal!” Her voice dripped acid from the phone, and I heard her fingers drumming the desk. I wondered how many other reporters were working late to be disturbed by our spoken conversation. A wave of fatigue pulled on my eyelids.
The drumming stopped. “Well, I can lead with that in my tru-cast tonight. Make the accusation that a regular mindreader was caught up in the sweep. Vellus might be embarrassed enough to let Raf out, and they can’t hold your dad either without charges. This is still a free country!”
Not so much for jackers, I thought, but I didn’t want to say that in front of Julian. Might give him ideas about me joining his revolution.
Maria was just getting warmed up. “I would love to prove that Vellus had wrongfully locked up innocent people—”
“Actually, I had a different idea,” I broke in, before she got too far.
“What’s that?”
“Vellus is holding a press conference tomorrow at the Detention Center. I figured you would be going, and that you might need a couple of assistants.”
There was a moment of silence.
“Well,” Maria said slowly. “I’m not attending the press conference tomorrow.” Another pause. “But I am hosting an exclusive interview with Vellus in the morning here at the Tribune Tower.”
“You’ll have Vellus in your office?” My voice rose. Could we just jack Vellus to release the prisoners? Julian pushed off the doorframe and strode over to listen in. I held the phone slightly away from my ear so that he could hear Maria’s voice.
“Yes,” she said slowly. “I can make the case to Vellus that he’s made a terrible mistake. Arrested the wrong people.” She paused again. “Maybe even give him a list of people who should be released. It will all be live on the tru-cast.”
“Maria, you’re completely mesh, you know that?”
“I’m only going to try to convince him with the facts and the law,” she said. “You’re just going to be there as an assistant, to observe. Right?”
“Right.” I was sure Maria knew I planned on jacking Vellus, but we had to pretend that I wasn’t, so she wouldn’t have it on her mind and give us away. “There’s just one thing.” I peeked at Julian, his face still close. “You’re going to need two assistants.”
There was a substantially longer pause this time. “Who’s the other one?”
“Another jacker.” I wasn’t quite sure how to describe Julian. Friend? No. Hostage taker? Well, that wasn’t exactly accurate. Charismatic leader of the Jacker Rebellion Movement? “He has some skills that might help me… observe.”
Julian nodded in approval of my discretion. Which only made me feel sick inside.
“Come to the Trib Tower tomorrow morning at nine thirty,” she said. “I’ll have press credentials for both of you.”
“Maria, you’re the best.” I hung up. The changelings had crept back down the stairs in their black “contractor” masks. Olivia and Dimitri were sitting on the bottom steps with Joshua standing next to the railing, all listening to my conversation.
Julian leaned away and beamed. “You certainly have a way of making things happen, keeper.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t know.” I couldn’t help a yawn breaking through. “How are we going to jack Vellus without anyone realizing what we’re doing?”
“We can make plans in the morning,” Julian said. “You look like you need some rest.” He waved the changelings from the steps, and Joshua hustled them out the door, off on their mission to gather up pictures of the missing jackers. Julian tipped his head toward the stairs, beckoning me to follow. My legs dragged like fifty-pound weights were attached to my ankles. I yawned again. At the top of the stairs, Julian turned into a bedroom that wafted a scent of lilacs even stronger than the rest of the house. Tightly patterned flowery wallpaper covered every surface, including the ceiling. It peeled at the seams and warped in the middle, like it was a hundred years old. Brownstones like Myrtle’s were too expensive to rehab, so they were abandoned, left to the demens. And now the jackers.
Julian pointed to a four-poster bed heaped with pillows and a puffy pink comforter that matched the dizzying wallpaper. “You can rest here in Myrtle’s room. There are clothes in the closet—I don’t think your current disguise is the best for impersonating an intrepid young tru-cast reporter.”
My Dutch Apple apron was marred with dirt from our run through Jackertown, and a purple bruise stained my shin. Scratches ran along my legs, left bare below my shorts. Julian was probably right about needing new clothes.
He closed the door on his way out. I kicked off my running shoes and sank deep into the silky soft comforter. All the aches drained from my muscles, and my eyelids tugged themselves shut.
~*~
The next morning, Julian watched me while I stuffed a muffin in my mouth. He was stifling a laugh with his hand, but I didn’t care. I hadn’t eaten since well before my shift with Mr. Trullite, which seemed like a week ago, but was only yesterday around lunchtime. I swept the crumbs off the wooden kitchen table, worn smooth by a thousand uses, and searched for a trash bowl to flush them away. I couldn’t find one, so I dumped them in the sink. Olivia peeked in from the sitting room, watching me with wide eyes and making me wince. Here I was, taking their food.
“Have the changelings eaten?” I asked Julian.
Olivia disappeared before he could twist around. “I’m sure they can take care of themselves,” he said. “You, on the other hand, apparently need help dressing yourself.”
I’d picked the least grandma-like outfit in the closet. My running shoes didn’t exactly go with the black stretch pants that only reached halfway down my calves, but whatever. They were reasonably normal compared to the pink ruffle-collared blouse that made me look like a poodle. It wasn’t a shining moment, but my regular clothes wouldn’t work.
“I didn’t have much to choose from,” I said. “I swear Myrtle is a midget.”
Julian chuckled. The clothes would do. I was more worried about being recognized—especially standing next to Maria—so I had changed my hair color again. Jackertown was short on amenities, and coming up with a decent nano-color had been impossible, so I’d had to settle for a cheap bleach. My hair was now a brilliant shade of blond and the rough treatment had left the short strands sticking straight out. My transformation into a poodle was nearly complete, but it should distract anyone from looking too closely at my face.
Hunger drove me to keep searching the cabinets. “So, won’t it be obvious if I jack Vellus? Won’t his jacked thoughts echo on the boom mics? Someone’s sure to notice that on the tru-cast recordings, even if I jack everyone in the room to ignore it.” I found a bag of homemade brownies, inhaled the mouthwatering chocolate scent, hesitated, then put it back on the shelf.
“Which is why you won’t be jacking him,” Julian said.
“You’re handling him instead?” When Julian was in my dad’s head, I couldn’t tell he was being jacked at all, except that he had instantly lost the desire to whisk me away from Julian’s hideout. Having Julian handle Vellus wasn’t a bad plan.
“It should be undetectable,” Julian said. “Especi
ally if I don’t have to handle him too much. Depends how strong his anti-jacker views are. If it’s simply political posturing, I can handle him from farther away. But if his campaign to lock us up is coming from a deep-seated fear or hatred, I might have to get closer.” He leaned back in his chair. “Hinckley can help us at the Detention Center once the prisoners are released, but I truly wish we had Sasha with us. It’s a tragedy to have an opportunity like this and not have him here to help.”
“Why? What can he do?” I kept searching the cabinets and hit the mother lode with a pantry shelf filled with cans and boxes.
“Sasha is a scribe.” As if that explained anything.
“Which is?” I pulled a box of wheat crackers from the pantry and rejoined Julian at the table.
His face grew serious. “A scribe completely rewrites a person’s mind.”
“Every jacker knows how to wipe memories,” I said around the crackers in my mouth.
“A scribe doesn’t wipe memories,” he said. “They rewrite the entire brain—memories, stored knowledge, learned behavior. There are a lot of things that we think are intuitive, like how to walk, that are actually learned behaviors tucked in the recesses of our brains.”
I thought about my complete inability to park in tight spaces—clearly a learned ability I hadn’t quite mastered. “Still, isn’t that just a really big memory wipe?” I asked. “I mean, if I had enough time, I could probably wipe all your memories.”
He cocked an eyebrow at me, watching me stuff in more crackers.
“Ok, maybe not your memories,” I said. “What is the deal with your head, anyway? Why the horror show? And won’t that be a problem when we’re at the Trib Tower?”
“It won’t be a problem.” He dismissed my question with a wave. I wanted to ask Julian more about how his strange brain worked, but he kept talking. “Sasha’s scribing is much more complete than a memory wipe. Everything is gone, right down to key things like personality. It’s like reformatting the storage banks of the brain.” Even Julian looked chilled by the idea, but it sent shivers right down to my toes. “All you are is what you have learned, from the time you start to crawl until the news you saw last night. A scribe takes that away.” He snapped his fingers. “Like that, you’re a different person.”
The shivers worked their way back up and raised the hairs on the back of my neck so they were sticking out like the rest. “And Sasha does this?”
“Yes.” Julian’s soft face grew sharp, bringing out edges I hadn’t noticed before. “It’s a very powerful weapon. One I don’t use lightly, but it would be incredibly useful if we could use it on someone like Vellus. And I think Kestrel is especially deserving of it, don’t you?”
I couldn’t argue with that, although it seemed less cruel to just kill him. If you killed someone, that made you a murderer… unless it was in self-defense. But this scribing thing? What did that make you? If you erased someone’s being, what was the right name for that?
I thought of Sasha’s dark, empty eyes, and the crackers ran dry in my mouth. I slid the box away and swallowed down the last chalky bits. “Well, it’s just going to be me and you in there. If you can handle Vellus into releasing the prisoners, great. But what if he has mindguard security? Or do you think the most famous anti-jacker politician in the country won’t use mindguards?”
“No, you’re probably right,” Julian said. “He’ll have mindguard security, but they won’t be able to defend themselves against my handling, and they can’t jack into your mind. It will be easy for you to keep them under control once I’ve reduced their instinct to defend themselves.” He captured me with his glacier-blue eyes. “We make quite a team, you know.”
I ignored his soft tone. I wasn’t part of any “team” with him, except for this one time. “So, our plan is to get in, handle Vellus to release the prisoners, and then leave?”
“With any luck, we’ll have everyone out in time for lunch.” He smirked, like this was a game he was looking forward to playing, then glanced at the time on the wall screen. “Are you ready?”
I left the crackers sitting on the kitchen table, hoping Olivia might eat them when she showed again.
Julian managed to hail an autocab with his phone, even though Raf and I hadn’t found one for miles the day before. He seemed to have technology and resources that reached everywhere. The autocab dropped us downtown at the Trib Tower, its ornate limestone blocks glinting above us in the early morning light. The last time I was in Maria’s office, I’d had to leave by hydrocopter off the roof to avoid the protesters beating on the revolving doors of the lobby. Today there was no one, only a few businessmen fighting a gusty warm breeze off the Chicago River.
I could reach the entire Trib Tower building and jack any reader inside, but I wasn’t sure how far Julian could reach. “Maybe you can handle Vellus from here, out on the street,” I whispered with my head bent close to Julian. We had to be careful that no one saw us talking, and I wasn’t about to link into Julian’s mind again.
“Unless they’re holding the press conference in the lobby, it’s too far for me to handle him from here.” Which I guessed meant Julian’s range wasn’t any farther than a normal jacker’s. He went back to checking his phone, sending another scrit to Hinckley, who was stationed outside the Detention Center.
Maybe Julian and I could stay to the back of Maria’s office, within range for him, but out of sight so no one would recognize my face. When I was camped out there with the changelings, waiting for their parents to claim them, the cast room seemed to take up the entire floor.
“We can’t link into Maria’s head to talk, you know,” I said. Julian kept his attention on Hinckley’s scrits. “It will just give us away if she knows too much of what’s going on.”
“Agreed.” He peeked at me through his lashes. “Maybe we should have secret signals. One wink means jack, two winks means don’t jack.”
I wrinkled my nose. There was no part of this that was funny.
“Or,” he said, “you could simply scrit me your thoughts, if you have an urgent need to share them.” He returned his attention to the phone.
“What if Vellus brings a whole squad of mindguards?” When my dad came into the mages’ converted factory, Julian seemed distracted into losing his grip on Molloy. Maybe. “Are you sure you can manage that?”
“I can manage it.” He didn’t look up.
“What about when they realize we’re jackers? What are you going to do? Give everyone a sudden urge to fulfill the mating instinct?”
He finally peered up, looking affronted, which would have been funny if I wasn’t dead serious. My dad and Raf could be locked up in Vellus’s prison, and this was my one chance to get them out.
“If things get out of control, I’m pretty sure I could induce a riot.” His shoulders stiffened. “In any event, the mindguards won’t know I’m a jacker, although I’m sure you’ll be hard to miss. But it won’t matter. I’ll handle any panic out of them; you take care of the jacking part. Just keep calm, and it will be fine. How about you earn your keep in this operation by doing some reconnaissance?”
I must have touched a nerve.
I shook my head and reached into the lobby. The guard was simply a mindreader, and we hadn’t caught his notice yet. I mentally pushed past the lobby to the cast station, where a crew was prepping for the interview with Vellus. They were all mindreaders intent on getting the lighting set and the cameras ready, so that must be where we would do the interview, instead of Maria’s office like I had thought. I flitted across the ten floors up to Maria’s office: nothing but readers, mostly reporters working the Saturday tru-cast. No sign of any jackers: mindguards, rooks, or otherwise. On the tenth floor, I searched but couldn’t find Maria. I had a small panic moment until I pulled back and scanned the elevators and found her whizzing to the ground floor.
“There are no jackers inside,” I said, “but Maria’s almost here. We should go in.”
Julian pocketed his phone, and we pu
shed through the revolving doors, automatically linking into the security guard’s mind and rooking as mindreading junior reporters. At least, I linked in. I couldn’t detect Julian’s presence in the guard’s mind. I glanced at Julian, but he was focused on the elevators, which had just slid open.
Maria stepped out in her heels and black tailored suit, camera ready and clutching a scribepad. Her bright red shoes clicked across the marbled lobby floor. She passed through the weapons detector, eyes darting over Julian and then settling on me, with a skeptical look for the hair and tattoo. Talking out loud with her was out of the question, so I linked into her mind. Her normal mind-scent hinted of freshly cut apples, but today a sour nervousness was laced through it. There was no trace of Julian.
Hello, Katelyn. She concentrated on my name as her thoughts broadcast to the guard. He didn’t look up. She handed me a thin, filmy badge. Don’t lose this. The words Katelyn O’Hara PRESS were stamped across an official Chicago Tribune logo. It was an ionic patch that would adhere once pressed, so I smoothed it onto my poodle-like blouse.
Julian gave a slight bow of his head. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Lopez, I heard faintly through Maria’s thoughts. He must have linked strongly enough, just short of jacking, that I was able to hear his linked thoughts. How could he be in her mind at all without me sensing him? Julian was a puzzle that was hurting my brain.
Glad you could join us, Michael. She didn’t have to concentrate on his name as much. For all she knew, Julian’s name was Michael. You come highly recommended from your junior reporting at the Morning Star. She smoothed a badge across his collared shirt that had Michael Madigan PRESS stamped over the logo of the Morning Star.
Thank you, Julian thought with a smile. I’m hoping to get a promotion soon.
I resisted rolling my eyes.
Once Vellus arrives, Maria thought, I’ll let him get settled in before I pound him with questions. Do you have a list of people who have been detained without due process?
Closed Hearts (Book Two of the Mindjack Trilogy) Page 10