The Amanda Project: Book 4: Unraveled

by Amanda Valentino

  He was the government official. The Official.

  Chapter 24

  Again, I remembered what Amanda had taught me. Be cool. Stay still.

  I started collecting my things from the bin that had passed through the scanner, moving as slowly as if I had just stood up from sunbathing on the beach. Forcing myself to yawn, which is contagious, I hoped my deliberate calm would travel Hal, Callie, and Nia’s way as well. It did. It was as if the deep breaths I was taking were slowing them also.

  Callie glanced nervously toward our class, as if she were making sure they wouldn’t leave without us, but then, after she sensed me staring at her, she sighed.

  “Uh . . .” said Hal to the Official. “We have to get back to our group.”

  How was it possible for someone to seem so trustworthy and then transform into someone totally awful? How had it happened just in the course of a laugh? And how had I missed it? I’d believed him. I was generally so good at reading people—too good. But with him, I had failed. Utterly. Like Amanda, he was someone I could not read.

  When I turned back to the group, I saw Heidi. She was staring at the Official in a way I had never seen her stare before. Her eyebrows were angled, her jaw tight, her mouth pulled back in expectation.

  “Look at Heidi,” I said under my breath to the others. I hid behind my camera, taking a picture to capture her expression. “See the way she’s looking at that man.”

  “She knows him,” said Callie.

  I swung the camera back toward the Official in time to see him returning Heidi’s gaze. Right as I pressed the shutter, he winked at her.

  Just then, Mr. Fowler introduced a woman named Jackie, who was going to serve as a tour guide. She led us away from the security check-in and to the starting point of the tour, which was a spot directly under the Capitol’s rotunda. The man who we now believed to be the Official watched us go.

  There are a lot of interesting facts to be learned about the U.S. Capitol, and Jackie mentioned many of them. For example, the dome we were standing under? In the center of it, your voice was trapped, but if you stood anywhere under its perimeter, your voice would travel across it, such that even a whisper at the northern tip of it would be audible to someone standing at the edge that was due south.

  Jackie mentioned that the Capitol contains 16.5 acres of floor space. There are 540 rooms, 658 windows, and 850 doorways. The chambers where the House and the Senate originally met are like little museums now. One is filled with statues, and the other is filled with the desks senators used to sit in. You can see the ink wells the senators used to dip their pens in.

  There are trains underground linking congressmen’s office buildings and the Capitol so that when it’s time to vote, they can rush over. There are special elevators and conference rooms as well. There was so much to learn about which laws were made, and when and how all of it was done—right under this roof.

  Impressive stuff, and I forced myself to pay attention. It was the only way to keep from screaming or running away. The Official! Here in the Capitol Building! I started snapping pictures with my camera, shots of people’s sneakers looking dusty and worn on the shining marble floors, eagles carved into the tops of pillars, their talons vicious and menacing, light pouring through a window that was taller than me, the shadows cast by crenellated cornice work that always reminded me of baby teeth.

  What got my attention at the end of the tour was when Jackie led us up a flight of stairs into a hallway on the third floor and then stopped at a set of double doors. “You all are very lucky today,” she said. “Not every school group gets to see our government in action, but today the Senate is in session and you all will have the opportunity to take a peek.”

  I thought we’d see congressmen and -women banging their fists on their desks, shouting to be heard. Or maybe it would be more like the Republican Senate in the Star Wars movies, where space-dwelling creatures of all stripes board a little speedboat-like mini-spaceship to be transported to the middle of the Senate orb to speak. I thought at least there would be people in the room, even if it wasn’t totally packed the way it is for the State of the Union, when they set the justices of the Supreme Court up on folding chairs in the front row, like they were moms and dads crammed into a classroom on the day of the first-grade class play.

  I wasn’t prepared for the fact that the only senator in the entire room was giving a speech to no one but a television camera set up a few feet from his face. He was talking as if the room were full, but as we filed through the double doors and into seats in the viewing gallery that stretched around the top of the chamber, I realized that no one was listening, not even the pages holding his briefcase nor the guy dusting the carvings in the back of the room.

  “That’s C-SPAN,” Jackie whispered to us, sotto voce. “You all know the C-SPAN channel?”

  Yeah, I thought. Like the shopping channel, it was one to flip past.

  It took a lot of concentration to figure out what the senator was actually speaking about, but finally I worked it out. There was an amendment that had been proposed to a bill that was up for consideration. In the amendment there was a paragraph. In that paragraph there was a sentence. And in that sentence there was a phrase . . . a phrase this guy didn’t like. Because it used the word “it” instead of saying “the programs now and continuing.”

  As soon as I figured that out, I slunk down in my seat and let my mind wander. The Senate looks like an old-fashioned school room. There’s an antique wooden desk set up for every senator, but where the teacher would sit there is an elevated dais that looks like the spot a judge might sit in if this were a courtroom. No one was there, of course, except a young woman in a suit who looked like a secretary, stacking papers. Occasionally someone would walk through the room and push in the chairs that were randomly pushed back from the senators’ last departure.

  “I think there might be a vote coming up, so hold on,” Jackie said. “You’ll see all the senators rush into the room for that.”

  But something even more “exciting” happened first. The Official entered the viewing gallery and strode purposefully toward us. He had the same “Who me?” innocent, happy-go-lucky expression on his face, but he clearly wasn’t happy, as I’d originally thought. He was gloating. I had the sudden intuition that if things stopped going his way at any point, we’d see an entirely different kind of expression cross his face, and it wouldn’t remind me in any way of anything I’d known with my dad.

  I exchanged panicked glances with Nia, who had spotted the Official as well. He leaned over to whisper something in Jackie’s ear and she clapped her hands together like a child on Christmas in one of those movies where it always snows and Santa is real.

  “Students,” Jackie said, looking to Mr. Fowler, beaming at him, beaming back at the Official. “I have some really remarkable news. This gentleman here has arranged for four lucky students to have a personal look at the Senate floor.”

  “I’ll escort them down myself and vouch for their, uh”—did anyone but me notice the Official pause?—“safety.”

  “Would you like me to select the students for you?” Mr. Fowler suggested. “There are some real civics buffs in our midst like Allie K. over there, and it would be an honor—”

  The Official cut him off. He pointed—where else?—at Callie, Hal, Nia, and me. “How about those four,” he said. “They look like impressive scholars of American history.” Was he laughing? I couldn’t help but notice that he was looking at us like we should be laughing along with him, enjoying this process, like this was all some kind of great inside joke. I also noticed the tattoo-faced guard had entered the viewing gallery, blocking the door that was our only way out.

  I don’t know what we would have done if the Official hadn’t bent down to whisper, “If you care about Amanda’s safety you’ll come with me without a struggle.” Maybe we would have tried to run? Maybe we would have asked Mr. Fowler for help? Turned to Cisco? Maybe we just could have screamed?

 
; But we believed the Official that we were saving Amanda by doing what he said, so we stood without protest and followed him out of the viewing gallery. Nia didn’t even so much as glance in Cisco’s direction as she left.

  Following the Official out into the hall and down a flight of stairs, I couldn’t help but notice the neat corners of the shoulders of his suit jacket, the trim hair at the back of his neck. He looked like someone who never missed a detail. The shabby briefcase he’d carried when we’d first seen him was gone, and I wondered if that had been part of a disguise—I knew from Amanda that sometimes all it takes is one detail to make yourself come across as entirely different from who you really are.

  I also couldn’t help but notice the guards. Tattoo-Face followed about ten paces behind, and Falls-Asleep-at-Desk was ten paces ahead.

  The Official didn’t threaten us, or even check that we were following. He seemed brisk and busy, smiling at strangers we passed, as if he was accepting their congratulations for participating in Take Your Lame and Surly Teenage Appendage to Work Day.

  Sometimes he even smiled at us.

  We didn’t smile back.

  I don’t think I could have smiled if someone was holding a gun to my head. I felt like I had sandbags tied to my ankles. With every step I felt the dread sink lower into my gut. Was this the end? Was this when we all got tied to a hospital bed in a basement prison, like Thornhill?

  I was sure we would never see our class again. I was sure I wouldn’t see my family. I looked at the other guides. Did they understand how bad this was?

  They must have. Hal and Callie were holding hands. Nia gave me a strained look that showed a lot more fear than she’s usually willing to reveal. We had to think of a way to escape. If only we could talk without the Official hearing. If only we knew what was coming—I remembered the van Hal said he’d seen when we almost got caught at the Vietnam Memorial. Was that waiting for us now? Mr. Fowler wasn’t the brightest bulb in the firmament, but wouldn’t he at least recognize that we were missing?

  I remembered with dismay all the tunnels Jackie had told us about, linking the congressional office buildings. We could travel quite a ways before anyone even knew we were missing.

  Then the Official opened a door and we followed him into the floor of the Senate chamber. Just as he had promised, we were standing on the dark blue carpeting, facing the dark paneled walls, looking down over the curved rows of polished wooden desks, up to the dais. We could see kids in gray pants and skirts placing a red carnation on every senator’s seat. When I looked up, there in the gallery was my class, with Mr. Fowler waving down at us madly and everyone else looking bored. The senator who had been speaking into the C-SPAN camera was leaving as we came in.

  But then he turned to face us and all the joviality in his expression was gone. “Don’t move or say a word,” he said to us.

  The woman stacking papers up on the dais turned to look at him sharply and I wondered for a second if we were saved. Maybe he’d forgotten she was there? Maybe she’d rescue us? Then I saw who she was. Blond, beautiful. I remembered her from the Riveras’ porch. Nia, Callie, and Hal had been inside and I’d been watching from afar. Cisco had opened the door and the woman had introduced herself as Waverly Valentino, Amanda’s aunt. Cisco hadn’t believed her, and it turned out that he was right.

  Now, I could see the woman was watching the four of us, an I-told-you-so smile spreading on her lips. The Official gave one glance in her direction, then he turned and I had a feeling he was about to deliver some bad news, when the befuddled senator reentered and passed within a few feet of us.

  Like watching someone draw a curtain across a lit window at night, the Official changed his expression by muting certain features and turning others on. I once read that psychologists in the 1950s analyzed the thousands of micro movements humans are capable of making with their faces, coming up with a catalog of the combinations that we use to communicate to the world. We cannot consciously control those movements, but it seemed that the Official could. He was so dexterous he could turn his face into a mask. Gone was the evil android, gone was the gloating bad guy, gone was the kindly grown-up. Instead, we were faced with someone who did indeed seem like a government official—officious, impersonal, bland.

  “Forget something?” he called out to the senator.

  The man held up a hand in a kind of salute and kept shuffling along. “Glasses,” he finally said, seeing what he’d been missing on a desk.

  I had a flash of a thought. Maybe there was something we could do to get his attention without the Official realizing we were signaling for help. Every idea I had felt impossible—like writing a note and sticking it into his pocket. There wasn’t enough time.

  The Official seemed to have read my mind. Under his breath, he said, “He’s completely useless to you. It’s stunning that in our age of television someone that old still appears on top of things in a reelection campaign.”

  Then he gestured for us to move forward to a row of chairs that had been set up right behind where the television camera had been taping before. The chairs were squeezed up close to each other, and because I was still so scared, I was grateful to be pressed right up against Nia and Hal.

  I was getting used to the electric tingle that criss-crossed my body whenever the four of us were touching, and now it felt kind of comforting. It reminded me that we were stronger when we were together. Maybe we still had the power to resist?

  “I want to explain things to you,” the Official said once we were seated. He spoke with a bored equanimity. That could have been part of his disguise—no one could hear us from the gallery but if he seemed to be berating or threatening us, Mr. Fowler might have noticed. (Well, he might have if he were anyone but Mr. Fowler.) In any case, this was an altogether new iteration of the Official’s many faces, and it would have been calming if we weren’t all aware of the sinister intentions his bored pro forma speech was meant to disguise.

  “The bottom line is that you have no more outs,” he said. “I know you’re thinking that if you’ve been able to keep from getting caught this long, you have a chance of escape now. So let me tell you now: I haven’t wanted to bring you in until just this moment. I’ve been watching you. I saw you kids cleaning Amanda’s graffiti off the vice principal’s car, and I watched you, Zoe, as you watched them.”

  “We’re not afraid of you,” Nia spat out.

  “Well, good for you, Miss Rivera,” said the Official, and it sounded like he was talking to a three-year-old who’d just learned how to use the potty. “Though you probably should be,” he said, chuckling at his own joke. And then he was back to being a kind, disinterested grown-up concerned only about our safety. “The problem with teenagers today is they think they’re immortal. They think nothing bad can ever happen to them. That’s why they end up in gruesome car accidents, or jumping off trestle bridges where they’re not supposed to swim.”

  “We’re not doing any of those things,” Nia said. “We’re not the ones making the danger. You are.”

  The Official shrugged. “It’s up to you,” he said. “If you want to keep running, I’ll keep chasing, but you won’t ever be out of my sights. Don’t think there are things I will do and things I won’t do. Your parents can’t help you. By involving yourselves in all of this, you’ve already put your brothers and sisters in danger. Surely, you don’t want to put them at any greater risk?”

  Hal could not mask the spasm of regret and fear that crossed his face. I could tell that he was thinking of Cornelia—wishing that he’d never gotten her involved. He’d told her about their dad, about the stuff we’d found at the college, about the C33 program as far as we’d understood it. Why hadn’t he anticipated the danger though, told her to go underground? To stick close by their dad? Anything.

  I felt the electricity intensify as all of us considered the risk we’d exposed our families to—I was thinking of Iris and Pen, how both my parents had sacrificed so much to keep us safe, and how I’d thrown it
all away.

  “Though frankly,” the Official went on, speaking almost to himself now, “the closer you get to Amanda, the closer I get to Amanda, so I’d almost just as soon have you on the run as have you in my control.”

  “You said you already had her,” I said.

  “Did I?” the Official mused. “Well, the important thing is that I’ll have her soon. She’ll come running after you. I want you only because having you in custody will lure Amanda.” The Official yawned. “But I promised Joy I’d deliver you all to him in one piece. He wants you to participate in his research. And frankly, once we bring in Amanda, locking you all away for the rest of your lives as human lab rats is fine with me.”

  “It won’t work,” Hal said. “There are too many good people fighting against it.”

  The Official fixed Hal with a stony stare. I could feel Hal shrink back down to a nub of fear.

  I felt the fear too, creeping into my body like some sort of fast-moving frost. I was trying not to panic, to not beg. But I didn’t know how long I could hold out.

  Just then, I started to hear a shrill ringing noise. For a second I thought it was coming from inside my head. My mind was so filled with fear and adrenaline, and questions—it made sense that it would just start ringing. What was going on?

  Chapter 25

  The noise wasn’t my imagination. The kids distributing carnations looked up, laid down their flowers, and filed quickly out of the room. Above us, I could see that our class was standing. As Jackie intoned in her nasal voice about “orderly lines” and “no talking” and “proceeding to the nearest marked exit,” Mr. Fowler was counting heads, making sure that everyone was where he could see them.

  I can’t believe it took my brain that long to process the idea that this was a fire drill. A fire drill? In Congress? Who knew?

  Before Mr. Fowler had a chance to finish his count and then remember that we four were downstairs, the Official called up to him. “Mr. Fowler,” he said, projecting his voice with the confidence of someone running for president. He had to talk in between bleats of the alarm. “I have your students here, and in the interest of safety, I will personally escort them to the school group’s rendezvous position on the Capitol lawn.”