More so than you can imagine. The elevator dinged its arrival in the distance. I lifted the name of the security guard from his mind. When George arrives, he won’t be able to see me.
Are you invisible? She decided I was probably a harmless flavor of demens.
Only when I want to be. It was one thing to misdirect people’s minds so they didn’t see or hear me, but something different to make myself completely invisible. I had changed my appearance before by jacking in a different image, but never made myself disappear altogether. Yet I was pretty sure I could do it. The mind was good at filling in things it thought it saw—or didn’t.
Maria smiled indulgently, waiting for George to take this somewhat entertaining demens off her hands so she could continue her research. As George entered the castroom, I jacked him to ignore me. I stepped to the side, flush against a wall covered with tru-cast awards, hoping that would make it easier for George’s mind to blend me out of existence. I jacked the command to him hard: I was invisible, nothing but air. When he approached the desk, his mind was already compensating for my appearance, like filling in a blind spot.
Did you need something, Ms. Lopez? His large frame filled the short entrance to the workspace, and his dark face glistened with the slight sweat he had worked up in his hurry.
Would you please escort my friend back to the lobby? I think we’re done here. Maria gave me that indulgent smile again and hoped that I would go willingly.
George scanned her workspace quickly. Sure, Ms. Lopez. Where’s your friend?
Maria’s smile died. She’s right there, George. She pointed and George’s eyes followed her finger and looked right at me. Or rather through me. His mind had decided I didn’t exist, so he only saw a wall filled with tru-cast accolades. He peered over the short workpod wall and scanned the rest of the castroom, looking for the mysterious guest.
I’m controlling what he can see. She jerked back from her desk as if I’d shocked her. She tentatively stood, hands rigid at her side.
George, is this a joke? Maria thought, her dark eyebrows pulled tight.
Joke? George echoed, still looking for the supposed intruder. Maria heard his echoing jacked thoughts, no one here, no one here. She unclenched her fists. George was searching her face now, wondering if she was all right.
Maria hastily thought, I must just be tired. I thought I saw someone. It’s okay, George, you can go now.
Are you sure, Ms. Lopez? George was genuinely concerned that she might be working too hard. She smiled in a reassuring way and tried to keep her thoughts focused on her apology.
I’m sorry to drag you all the way up here, she thought. I’m fine. I’ll be going home soon.
Okay, George thought. I’m gonna make sure to call you an autocab when you’re ready, Ms. Lopez. You know a nice lady like you shouldn’t be working late in the city. He slowly made his way out of the castroom, looking around to be sure he hadn’t missed something.
I had Maria’s full attention now. What’s going on? she demanded.
Can we sit down? This might take some time to explain. She narrowed her eyes, and motioned me to a chair in the corner of her workpod, which I dragged over to her desk. I had started the morning in Arizona, and fatigue was making my legs ache.
I settled heavily into the chair and started from the beginning. Somewhere partway through, Maria remembered she was a reporter and started taking notes on her computer. Doubts haunted the edges of her mind, but when I told her about the camp, she stopped writing altogether.
“Do you have any proof this place exists?” We had resorted to spoken language once she realized I was linking thoughts into her head. She didn’t care for that any more than Raf did.
“I know where it’s located.”
Her eyes went wide. “Coordinates?”
“Not exact, but it’s about 15 miles southwest of Rock Point, Arizona.”
Maria used mindware to pull up the latest satellite images of the area. She gaped at the screen. “There’s nothing 15 miles southwest of Rock Point.”
“Well, there’s camouflage netting over the camp. Maybe the satellites can’t see it? You should at least see the perimeter fence.”
She rotated the screen toward me. “No, I mean there’s nothing there.”
A grayed out area of the screen labeled Information Not Available spanned several miles of the desert southwest of Rock Point. I panicked for a moment, wondering if somehow I had it wrong, but Maria was shaking her head in amazement. “You’ve stepped into something serious here, Kira.”
“It’s really there! I know it is.”
“There’s definitely something there,” she said. “This is the satellite blockage that usually pops up over military facilities.”
I leaned back in the chair. She believed me. And while the camp was blocked from view, she knew that meant there was something to hide. I pictured all the trucks that went in and out of the facility. The Feds must not want any evidence of movement in the area.
“I’ll have to get someone out there. Maybe Mack could use that crazy new camera of his with the satellite linkage.” She was thinking out loud now. She was all-in.
“You need to be careful,” I said. “If the Feds find out what you’re doing, they may come in and wipe your mind, not to mention your computer.”
She blanched and pulled her hands back to her lap. “They can do that?”
“Yes.” If I linked into her mind, I could see if the hesitation on her face meant she was going to back out. But I’d promised not to do that, unless she asked.
She nodded to herself. “Then I better make some extra copies.”
She focused on the computer, making backups and sending files off to someone named Haggerty. I didn’t ask and waited a minute before I said, “I also need you to hold off for a couple days before you go public with this.”
She paused in her file manipulations. “Why? You said they were abusing kids in this camp? Don’t you want to stop that?”
I grimaced. “Of course!” The whole point of telling Maria about the camp was so she would blow the Feds’ cover, and they would have to release the changelings trapped inside. “But they’re also experimenting on kids somewhere else, and I need to find out where. That’s where I need your help.” She was still logged in, and I could reach into the mindware to retrieve the information I needed myself. But I didn’t want to abuse Maria’s trust if I didn’t have to.
“What do you need?” Her shoulders tensed again. She had probably been waiting for the other shoe to drop the whole time we were talking.
“I need the home address of Agent Kestrel. He works for the FBI in Chicago New Metro. He knows where the experiments are being conducted, and I need to find out where they’re keeping my friend Laney.”
She bit her lip. “You’re not going to hurt him, are you?”
“I only want the information.” It was a small lie, and I hoped it didn’t show. I wanted much more than information from Kestrel. Some payback for all he’d done would be nice. Maria didn’t need to know about that, and anyway I didn’t have it in me to kill him.
She focused on pulling the information from her system. I was probably asking her to break several laws to get it, but I didn’t care. If there was any chance of finding Laney and getting her out, I was taking it.
“Okay, here it is. He’s in Lincoln Park. Not too far, in fact.” She showed me the address on the screen, and I memorized it, briefly wondering why an FBI agent would live in the city with the demens.
“Thanks,” I said, getting up from my chair.
“Wait, you’re leaving?” she asked. “But I have more questions!”
“I need to go. If you don’t hear back from me in a couple days, it means they caught me. Maybe even sent me back to the camp. Go ahead and cast everything then. If you expose what they’re doing to the jacker kids in the camp, maybe you can even rescue me.” I put on a fake smile. It seemed all too likely that was how things would turn out.
She pulled
a tiny ear-mount camera out of the drawer of her desk and clipped it on. “At least let me get you on camera before you go.” She tapped it and a small green light showed it was filming. “Tell me your name first, and then you can give me your true memories about the camp.”
I reached over and gently tapped the camera off. “You can’t show my face, Maria. Or mention my name.” I wanted to free the changelings, but what would the Feds do to my dad if I went public with everything I knew? That was why I needed Maria. Besides, after this was all over, I planned to disappear. If my face was all over the tru-casts, exposing the camp and outing jackers everywhere, there would be nowhere I could hide.
“If I make it,” I said, “I’ll call you and answer all the questions you like.”
She slowly slid me her card. She obviously didn’t approve, but I didn’t need her approval, and I already had Kestrel’s address.
I tucked her card in my pocket and left.
~*~
I didn’t want to deal with another bus ride, but taking an autocab to Lincoln Park would cost real money. An all-night store next door to the Trib Tower made Simon’s beer-stop seem upscale. I stole a disposable phone and jacked the attendant to load a tally card with real unos, hoping the cameras didn’t get a good shot of me. After memorizing Maria’s number, I threw her card away. If I got caught again, I didn’t want them tracking back to her before she had a chance to do the tru-cast.
After hailing an autocab with the small, silver phone, I swiped my tally card to pay for the fare and programmed an autopath to Kestrel’s address. Turned out he lived in one of the rehabbed brownstones that had been brought up to range codes by reducing the number of occupants and restructuring the floors so there was additional space between them. That kind of rebuilt housing didn’t normally come cheap, but then Lincoln Park was still in the city, surrounded by crammed apartments and wacky neighbors. Maybe it was affordable on an FBI salary. I guessed Kestrel didn’t worry about living with the demens since he was a jacker.
I rubbed the fatigue from my eyes and scanned the ten levels of the apartment building. Only five were occupied, and Kestrel was asleep on the top floor in a light, scattered dream state. I was tempted to run a few nasty guilt-inducing dreams through his mind. Instead, I jacked him deep into unconsciousness, so he wouldn’t wake until I was ready. I convinced the bellman to accompany me to the tenth floor and unlock Kestrel’s apartment, erasing the memory from his mind once he was back in the elevator.
I hesitated at the open front door. Since Kestrel couldn’t get into my head, he couldn’t control me mentally. Yet I wasn’t strong enough to simply extract Laney’s location from his mind without help. And physically, I was still a sixteen-year-old girl up against a grown man, and I didn’t like those odds.
I carefully stepped into the tiny apartment. Apparently, an FBI salary didn’t buy you much floor space, even in the city. I checked that Kestrel was safely unconscious in the bedroom as I poked around his apartment. Maybe I could jack into his e-slate for information about Laney, if I could find it.
The apartment was immaculate, and I couldn’t find anything at all related to his work. He must keep his e-slate in his bedroom. And maybe his gun. I edged my way back to the bedroom. He was still breathing the deep, slow breaths of the unconscious. I switched on the light, knowing it wouldn’t wake him.
The bedroom was likewise spotless. I searched the walk-in closet, lined with identical navy G-man jackets and white, collared shirts. I was about to give up when I found his gun holster and cuffs hanging on the door. I took them down. Maybe I could use the gun to threaten him. Make him to tell me where Laney was without fighting him in his head. The hefty gun was cold and simply looking at it was making my hands sweat.
Maybe not. Plus, I didn’t want him to get ahold of it and shoot me.
I searched for a place to hide the gun where he wouldn’t find it, but where I could still grab it if things went badly. I pulled open a dresser drawer and started to stuff it under some t-shirts. Something dark and heavy was buried there.
Another gun.
I pulled the large-muzzled weapon slowly out of the drawer. It was a dart gun.
Kestrel may not be afraid of the demens, but he seemed to fear jackers. Which made sense, given all the ones he had sent to the Camp of the Flies.
I quickly checked all the other drawers and the nightstand by his bed. He didn’t have any more weapons stashed away. I buried his holstered gun deep in the bottom dresser drawer and dragged Kestrel across the bed to handcuff his limp arm to the bedpost. Dart gun in hand, I perched on the edge of the dresser facing him.
Time to wake up.
I jacked into Kestrel’s mind to bring him up from that deep unconscious state. It took him a minute to come to. He squinted at the lights shining behind me. When he realized he was cuffed to the bed, fear pulsed through his mind. He pushed me out of his head, and the pressure of his mind built on mine.
“You!” he hissed, and I wasn’t sure if he was angry or frightened. I didn’t care.
I shot him.
He stared in horror at the dart that had stabbed him in the chest, right through his navy-striped pajamas. It only took a few seconds for the juice to pull him under. Not so fast, Kestrel. I reached into his mind and sped up his heart. As it pounded blood through his system, it cleared out some of the drug. His mind scent was pungent and made me gag on the peppery smell.
He awoke gasping for breath. Mentally hindered by the drug, he gave me a wild-eyed look and clutched his chest. He was convinced that I was giving him a heart attack. I figured now was a good time to ask.
“Where’s Laney?”
He couldn’t catch his breath to answer out loud. Don’t know anyone named Laney, he thought. With the drug inhibiting his brain, I could tunnel in and pull out the information I needed. I remembered the agonized look on Simon’s face when Molloy and Andre scoured his brain for the truth, and it wasn’t pretty. If Kestrel didn’t tell me soon, I’d do exactly that.
“Where are all the inmates you perform experiments on?” I slowed his heart rate a bit, so he didn’t burn through the juice too fast. I needed him impaired if I was going to dig through his mind. Red splotches mottled his face, and his breathing slowed.
He decided I didn’t have the stomach for killing. I’m not telling you anything, Kira. His hatred for me was like an acid stinging the back of my throat, and he struggled to push me out of his head again, but he was too weak. His eyes went wide and fear sped up his heart. I slowed it back down again, and he blinked, confused about what I was doing.
You’re lucky I’m not a monster like you, Kestrel. Although it was surprisingly satisfying to shoot you.
I’m not a monster, he thought. I send the monsters to the camp.
Is that how you justify sending little kids to that place? You’re one of us, Kestrel. How can you think that’s okay? I was wasting time talking to him, but I couldn’t seem to stop. Part of me wanted to know how he could do this to his own kind.
You don’t know what kinds of monsters are out there.
Oh, I have a pretty good idea. And I’m looking at one of them.
Surprisingly, he didn’t disagree, but the drug dose was fuzzing his thoughts. A picture flashed through Kestrel’s mind of his mother and father broken on the floor, eerily like Laney’s nightmares. Only this image was true, and the people were dead. Kestrel struggled to push me out of his mind again, his face twisting from the exertion.
I supposed that image of his family explained something about Kestrel, but I didn’t care. I only wanted to find Laney. Tell me where you keep them, I commanded. A picture of a familiar hospital floated up through his mind. The Great Lakes Naval Hospital, where my brother and I were born. My stomach flipped.
The hospital was enormous, filled with people and probably cameras. Not to mention it was on the base. Getting in would not be easy. I needed to know precisely where the prisoners were, if I had any hope of getting them out. Where? I commanded him a
gain.
Kestrel resisted much harder this time. I jacked deeper into his brain. He let out a moan but couldn’t stop me from sifting through his true memories to find what I needed.
Kestrel walking down the stairs to the basement. There was a secure door, 1B, requiring the wave of a special passring he wore and entering a code. 0309. Someone’s birthday. No biometric IDs, so that would help. A hallway with holding cells and a room with double glass doors at the end. An experiment room. The smell of antiseptic choked me. A tray of needles and a girl strapped to a table. She had dark hair poking out of a cap on her head. Laney! A technician injected her with something. It was the second dose they had given her. She was unconscious and didn’t flinch when the needle went in.
I pulled out of the depths of his mind. They were already experimenting on Laney. I didn’t have any time to waste with Kestrel. I needed to get her out of the hospital now. If she was still there. If it wasn’t already too late.
You can’t stop them, Kira, Kestrel thought. This is bigger than just a few changelings. The people in charge of this… they won’t stop until they get what they’re after, no matter what you do.
Who were these people in charge, and what did they want? My mind flashed to the possibility that what they were after was me, the genetic link. But why? Were they just trying to stop more jackers from being made or born? Or was it something more than that? But Kestrel was stalling and I needed to get to Laney before it was too late.
No? Then maybe I’ll just stop you. I pulled completely out of his mind and waited until he opened his eyes.
Then I shot him again. “That’s for stealing Raf’s true memories,” I said as his mouth dropped open. I shot the final dart into his chest. “And that’s for killing Simon.”
Kestrel’s head lolled to the side as the drug took him.
“It’s better than you deserve.” As he slipped into unconsciousness, I wiped my entire visit from his mind. Part of me wanted him to remember that I had been the one to shoot him, to make him regret what he had done to Simon and Raf. But I needed to buy some time to get Laney out, and it wouldn’t help if he woke up knowing where I was headed.
What Tomorrow May Bring Page 23