And then, as I ended to applause, Amanda jumped up onto the stage.
She was dressed all in black like someone who wants to dematerialize in the dark—black jeans, a black turtleneck, and a beret worn not like a French person would, but pulled down over the top of her head to her ears. I would have wondered if she’d been breaking into a bank if I hadn’t noticed her eye makeup, which seemed to capture the stage lights—it glowed and sparkled, white with hints of pinks and blues. On the stage she looked like nothing but a pair of eyes.
Sad eyes. Eyes that were hard to read. Eyes that refused to be questioned.
Why didn’t I say something? Why didn’t I stop the show and demand to know where she’d been? Maybe if I’d tried, she would have told me some of what was going on. She might have told me who was chasing her, or why she needed to disappear. Maybe I could have helped her somehow.
She raised her eyebrows. “What’s next?” she said, and instead of answering her, I started to play a song we hadn’t practiced. It was something that back when my parents used to sing to me at bedtime, was the song my dad always chose. It started with the line “Every time you say good-bye” and was all about the sadness of saying good-bye.
It was a song no one had dared to play in our house since my dad died, but I played it now. It was a song that would have made Amanda sad even if she hadn’t known it was one of his favorites. A song that we never knew why he chose, but maybe he’d been able to presage his own early death. Amanda was nodding as she came in after the first four sad lines, and I knew I would never call her out on being late. Because late, or even missing from my life, she was still here, and when your father is gone, you know that here and gone are two very different ways to be.
Chapter 16
Callie and her mom stood crying and hugging each other for a very long time. Eventually, Mrs. Leary started asking questions about how Callie had found her, and what she was doing here. We didn’t have even a fraction of the time they needed to catch up on everything that had happened to Callie, so Callie told her the quick version, about Amanda, about her disappearance, and about what we’d learned about the C33s when we broke into OCP.
“You grew up there, didn’t you?” Callie said. “I saw that puzzle—the Water Lilies one you said you loved when you were a kid.”
Mrs. Leary was nodding. She squeezed Callie’s hand then looked at all of us. “And so you’re all Amanda’s guides?” she asked. “Hello, Nia,” she said. “Hal.”
Never one to hold back, Nia jumped in, “When you were growing up, did you know my mom?”
“Of course.” Mrs. Leary chuckled, wiping her damp face. “From our early years. She was the first baby I ever got to hold. As she grew, we older girls used to fight over who got to pretend to be her mom and brush her hair and all that. Your mom was also class parent when you and Callie were second graders, and Callie would bring home cellophane packages with hand-calligraphed recipe cards.”
“That sounds like her,” Nia smiled.
“Since I left, your mom has been wonderful, looking after Callie and keeping her safe.”
“I know,” Callie said. “Mr. Bennett explained.”
“Good,” said Mrs. Leary. She turned to me. “And you’re Zoe?” she said. “You’re George Costas’s oldest?”
“Yeah,” I said. “But my dad—”
“I know, sweetheart,” Mrs. Leary said. “I heard about what happened to him and I’m just so, so sorry. You know, I used to look up to your dad. When we were growing up, he and Max, there was just nothing they couldn’t do.”
“Mrs. Leary,” I said, “we believe we’re here because Amanda wanted us to find you. Do you know why that would be?” I thought about Rosie and the mysterious red and blue plastic cards. “Did she give you something to give us?”
Mrs. Leary shook her head. “I’ve never even seen Amanda,” she said. “Only heard about her from other C33s. But I do have something for you to give her.”
“What is it?” Callie asked.
Mrs. Leary ran a hand through her hair, further disturbing her bun. “This is going to take some explaining,” she said. “It’s hard to imagine, but there was a point in my life when I wasn’t afraid of Dr. Joy. After the C33 program was disbanded, after I began publishing and receiving grant funding for my own work, and he was so down and out, I began to feel like he was benign. Pathetic even.
“He was still coming around a lot. Every time I published a paper or won a prize, he’d be there, either sending a little note of congratulation or, worse, showing up on our doorstep ‘just for a chat.’ We had him in for dinner sometimes. This was all before you were born. I felt sorry for him, honestly. He didn’t have a steady job, and any money he did manage to come across he poured into this sad little underground lab he insisted was thriving, though I have my doubts—it was nothing compared to the setup he had with C33—mostly he was just tinkering with blood work. In any case, I wasn’t sure he always knew where his next meal was coming from, so when he showed up, I’d make him a bowl of pasta and invite him to sit at our dining room table.”
“Which is gone now, by the way,” Callie said. “Dad had to sell it to pay the mortgage.” Callie swallowed. “Is that really bad?”
Mrs. Leary did a double take. “Is that bad?” she said. “No, no—it’s the least bad decision he could make. Callie, please understand that I left knowing full well how horrible things were going to be for your dad, that he would be shaken to his core. It’s killing me, how much I miss both of you. I knew you were strong, but still, the burden I was asking you to shoulder—I know it was a heavy one.”
“So how could you leave, then?” Callie said, sounding more like she needed to know than like she was accusing her mother of something terrible.
“If I had thought I could stay without putting your life in danger, there was nothing that could have possibly induced me to leave you and Dad,” Mrs. Leary said. “You understand this?” She waited for Callie to answer.
“I understand,” Callie said, almost reluctantly.
“Okay.” Mrs. Leary looked hard at Callie, then returned to her story. “When word got around that I was pregnant, there Dr. Joy was with a chintzy rattle made out of plastic so thin who knew what chemicals would have leached into your mouth if I’d ever allowed you to suck on it. That went into the trash, but I made sure Dr. Joy stayed for dinner and even as he was pumping me for information about how my pregnancy was going—he practically begged me to let him take a look at the ultrasound—I took my turn pumping him. A little wine helped, and by the end of the night I had a very rough, very vague idea of what some of the therapies Dr. Joy had developed and tested out on us. I understood how they worked and I had enough knowledge of the human genome, brain plasticity, and the vascular system for it to scare the pants off of me.
“That very night, I started my research. I had to teach myself a lot of biology, but by the time you were born, I developed some theories about how to reverse the effects of what Dr. Joy had done. You see, Dr. Joy told the government, which was funding his research, that he was developing human prototypes, genetically superior models who could be endlessly reproduced and sent out into our society to, well, conquer the world—he had a vision of an army made up of perfect soldiers, an orchestra composed of only virtuosic players, an Olympics where the United States could claim gold in every single sport, and doctors whose practice combined a rigorous approach to science with a nuanced appreciation of human nature and the ability to inspire their patients to better health.
“Did Mr. Bennett tell you how, as his project developed, he grew even more ambitious?”
Callie nodded.
“That night over the pasta and the wine, he explained it all to me, the top-secret part of this top-secret project. I mean, get the man on the subject of the lost potential of the seventy-five percent of the human brain that neurologists don’t understand, that doesn’t seem to be actually used for anything, and he can talk for hours. It was his dream, he said, to build a person who tapp
ed into all that lost brain potential. It explained a lot, actually, about how miserable it was to grow up under his care. Aside from the experimentation, there was the simple hard-driving rigidity of his parenting style—if you could call it that. No matter what we did, no matter how successful we were, he was never happy. He was always pushing for more.”
“Good old Uncle Joy, right?” I said. “Or would that be Uncle Joe?”
Mrs. Leary smiled. “I guess you heard that nickname from your dad?” she said.
“And Amanda’s mom, a long time ago.”
Mrs. Leary shook her head. “Annie McLean. Who became Annie Beckendorf.” She sighed. “Such a firecracker. You know, when I heard about her accident, after knowing what happened to your dad, Zoe, it was the final straw that sent me underground.
“You see, Callie,” she said, “my basement lab was not enough. By chance I ran into Falk, another former C33, at a conference and we realized we were working on the same idea. He invited me to join him at the lab he had set up here, at the Museum of Natural Sciences. He’s supposedly mapping the genome of a tribe of chimpanzees, but in reality, we’re trying to crack Dr. Joy’s code.
“I didn’t join right away. I stayed in Orion as long as I could, hoping we’d be able to come up with a solution working from there. But then—”
“But then what?” Callie said. “What happened?”
Mrs. Leary pushed a hand through her silvery hair again. “You became friends with Heidi.”
“What?” said Callie. “That’s why you left? Because of Heidi?”
“No. I left after what happened to Annie Beckendorf. That scared me. But your friendship with Heidi was a factor. She had such an effect on you. Just as I was starting to suspect you were developing an unusual power.”
“You left because of Heidi?” Callie said. “You could have just said—”
“It wasn’t the friendship per se,” she said. “It was the vulnerability. I could see what a huge influence she had on you. And I knew that you were special.
“Have you four learned about how some of the offspring of former C33s have . . . powers?”
We nodded.
“You all have them, don’t you?” she said.
We nodded again.
“Callie,” Mrs. Leary said. “Do you remember that day when I was repairing the garden fence and there was that boulder in the way? Do you remember how you easily kicked it aside? Or when Dad needed wood moved and you could tuck it under one arm some days, but others it was really heavy? I could tell something was going on, that as you were coming of age, some sort of power was developing, too.”
“Yeah . . . ,” Callie said slowly.
“I was looking for something like that, some power to emerge that was out of the ordinary and that was it. I’m sure it’s grown, also. One of the things Falk is working so hard to describe and explain is why C33 offspring powers seem to intensify when you are grouped together. It’s sort of the next area of research, though I’m hoping it will remain theoretical. Our only advantage of course is that Dr. Joy did not have access to any of your blood.”
“He didn’t?” Nia said.
“Has your mother ever allowed you to have blood drawn at a doctor’s office?” Mrs. Leary said.
“Now that I think about it, no,” Nia said.
“Mine neither,” said Hal.
“Since my dad died, my mom hasn’t even let me or my sisters go to the doctor,” I added. I’d thought it was because we didn’t have insurance.
Mrs. Leary opened her mouth as if she was about to explain more about our blood when Callie interrupted her.
“I still don’t understand what Heidi had to do with all of this,” Callie said.
“Her mother, Brittney, was an original C33. Did you know that?”
“Yes,” we all said.
“Did you know that Thornhill believes that she was working with the Official?”
“Like we couldn’t have seen that coming,” Nia said.
“You’re not surprised?” Mrs. Leary asked.
“Not after we found all those blood samples in her house,” Hal said.
“Oh! That was what happened to them!” Mrs. Leary said. “Hal, your dad uncovered computer records referring to a backup blood storage bank in Orion. Of all places, it was being stored in a refrigerated room in the back of a travel agency.”
Nia’s eyes opened wide. “We know that place,” she said.
“But before Thornhill could send in some people to destroy the blood bank, it was moved, and no one could figure out where. Brittney had the blood.”
“So Brittney is a bad guy,” Hal said, shaking his head. “It explains a lot.”
“Yeah, like why Heidi tried to run Amanda down with her car,” Nia said.
“Heidi did that?” Mrs. Leary said.
Callie nodded. “But she ran over this other girl—Bea Rossiter—instead,” she said. “And I helped her cover it up.”
“But you also power-played the Braggs into paying for Bea to have reconstructive surgery,” Nia added.
“And you dumped Heidi,” said Hal.
“You did?” Mrs. Leary said. “You were able to do that?”
Callie nodded. Mrs. Leary shook her head in disbelief. “I can’t believe you were able to outmaneuver the likes of Heidi Bragg.”
“I can’t believe I let her manipulate me for so long.” Callie said.
“Callie,” Mrs. Leary said, “look at me. Heidi has a talent, just like you do, just like Zoe, Nia, and Hal. Do you know what her talent is?”
Callie shrugged. “Being popular?” She was joking.
“That’s actually close,” Mrs. Leary answered. “Her talent is for making people do what she wants them to. It was something Dr. Joy was trying to do with Brittney when she was in C33, but it never took. He ended up just making her beautiful and then when the beauty treatments had such a detrimental effect on her character, he tried therapies to make her more likable. He made her into someone the average American would identify with even if she’s richer, thinner, and better informed than they are. He built, ironically, the perfect anchorwoman, which is of course what she became.
“But what he wanted was more like what Heidi has become. Someone deft at using all those attributes to build power, who doesn’t just persuade others to follow her example, but seems to be able to co-opt their own thoughts and instincts—convince them for brief periods of time that their only chance of happiness flows through her.”
“Wow,” said Hal. “That’s so evil.”
“It is,” Mrs. Leary agreed.
“It’s what happened to you,” Nia said to Hal. “When Heidi sweet-talked you into handing over Amanda’s box.”
“Now you know,” Callie said. “That wasn’t your fault.”
“No,” said Mrs. Leary. “No one can resist her. Or at least, it is very, very difficult.” She turned to her daughter. “But you, Callie, apparently you can?”
“It wasn’t that big of a deal,” Callie said.
“It was a huge deal,” Nia insisted. “Remember what happened to me when I tried to stand up to her in middle school?” When Nia had exposed Heidi’s cheating, Heidi retaliated with cruel public humiliation for Nia, involving a boy Nia had a crush on. It had long-lasting effects on Nia’s social life.
“Whatever,” said Callie, blushing.
“I hate to say this,” I said, checking my watch. “But if we don’t head back to the meet-up with our group, Nia’s brother is going to call the police or send out the cavalry or something. There have been some guys following us around all morning,” I explained to Mrs. Leary.
She closed her eyes like she was fighting off a sudden headache, then opened them again. “If there was any way to do this that wasn’t putting you in danger, all of you, believe me…”
Callie took her mom’s hand. “Mom,” she said. “I know.” I could see that Callie was fighting back tears. But also that she was going to be strong. She was going to summon all her strength to convi
nce her mom she was going to be all right, even if she wasn’t sure of that herself.
“Before you go, take this,” Mrs. Leary said, passing Callie a bottle that looked like cough syrup.
“What is it?” Callie asked.
“It’s the result of nearly a decade and a half of research. I call it the enhancement eraser. It’s a liquid—I hope it’s effective—that identifies and targets any synthetic or introduced genetic material in your body. Not to be too technical, but it then triggers an immune response against the foreign or enhanced material.”
“Huh?” Hal said.
“The tricky part of it was finding the enzyme that could distinguish between your body’s regular DNA, and DNA that has been added on. Chromosomally, of course, they’re distinct, but the trick is to synthesize a material that will correctly identify and unbond from those materials.”
“Was that explanation supposed to help make this more clear?” Callie asked.
“Okay,” her mom said. “Drink one tablespoon of this liquid, and everything that came from work Dr. Joy did to your parents will be erased.”
“So we should drink it now?” Callie said, laying her hand on the bottle’s lid as if to unscrew it.
“No,” Mrs. Leary said, laying her hand on top of Callie’s. “Not yet. You need your powers still. To help Amanda. To protect yourselves. What I want is for you to give this to Amanda. If Amanda no longer has her powers, she can no longer be of any use to the Official. His interest in her will evaporate, as will Dr. Joy’s funding. Imagine our lives without this mess.” We could see Mrs. Leary’s eyes glowing with the excitement of her idea. “Gone,” she said. “Poof.” She snapped herself back to attention. “Now,” she said, lifting her chin in an attempt, I could see, to be brave. “It’s time for you all to go. You’ll need to run.”
“Mom—” said Callie. You could see how almost impossible it was for her to leave her mom now. As if there were a string of rubber cement stretching out between them, the longer she stayed, the harder it was going to be to separate.
“Callista, go!” Mrs. Leary said, and she turned on her heel, left us in the bushes, and walked briskly back up the Institute steps to return to her secret lab.
The Amanda Project: Book 4: Unraveled Page 13