Adaptation

by Malinda Lo

  She felt like she was being dragged down into quicksand. She let herself sink.

  David?

  She could sense his physical presence forming at the edge of her perception. Pulse. Breath. Flesh and bone. A dull pain in his head where he had been injured. His hands, clenched against the thin blanket just like hers. He was in the next room.

  I can hear you.

  Five days later

  CHAPTER 40

  Reese stepped out of the airplane onto the top step of the rolling staircase. Down below on the tarmac of Travis Air Force Base, a cluster of people waited behind a rope, their faces turned toward her. She saw at least two television cameras, several photographers pointing their glinting lenses in her direction, and dozens of uniformed military personnel lined up to create a path across the runway.

  She had been awakened that morning by Agent Forrestal. He walked with a slight limp, and she wondered if that was the only injury he had sustained when the bunker exploded. He informed her that due to unforeseen circumstances, she and David were to be released to their parents later that day. But first he gave her a towel, a stack of clean clothes, and a small toiletry kit, and told her to make herself presentable. There had even been a mirror, and as she combed out her wet hair in the bathroom, she wondered what all this to-do was for.

  Now she knew. The press was here.

  Their curiosity pricked at her like birds pecking at worms in the ground, and as she descended the staircase, it only got worse. She clutched the railing, keeping her gaze down so that she wasn’t blinded by the strobe effect of dozens of cameras flashing in her direction.

  “Reese!” a woman cried. It was her mom, and Reese looked up to see her break through the cordoned-off area and run across the tarmac. The crowd behind the rope burst into excited chatter, their attention temporarily diverted. But when her mom reached the bottom of the stairs, they all turned back to Reese. Her breath was knocked out of her by the strength of their interest. She forced herself to focus on her mom, shutting out the cacophony on the tarmac. Her mom’s face was pale, with rough red spots on her cheeks and dark shadows beneath her eyes. She looked as if she wasn’t entirely convinced it was her daughter emerging from that plane.

  Reese took the last few steps quickly and pulled her mom into a tight embrace. “I’m all right, Mom,” she said, pressing her face into her mother’s wavy brown hair. Something inside herself that had been knocked off center by five days in that hospital room finally shifted back into place. For the first time in days, it felt safe to let herself relax. But when she did, she wasn’t prepared for the result.

  Her mother’s emotions were a riot of anxiety and exhaustion and relief. It was almost suffocating to experience. Beyond that, the shouted questions of the reporters were like stones striking her.

  “How does it feel to be back?”

  “What were the last few days like for you?”

  “Will you be pressing charges?”

  She stiffened and pulled away.

  “Reese?” Her mom looked alarmed.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, gasping. Her shoulders hunched defensively as she tried to block out all the mental noise.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw David coming down the stairs, heading for his parents. During the time they had spent locked in those rooms at Project Plato, their only contact with other people had been when meals were delivered by an armed guard. That had left the two of them plenty of time to practice their newfound ability. At times it had felt as if she only existed on a level of disembodied consciousness, connected to David by an invisible cord. But now, with all her defenses up and pushing against the crowd, she couldn’t sense him at all. She was herself alone again. It was strange: as if she were separated from the world by a glass wall.

  Before her accident, this was how she had always lived. She had never been aware of that glass wall until today.

  Her mom reached out and smoothed Reese’s hair away from her face. This time, she felt only the simple, physical touch of her mom’s hand. “Welcome home, honey,” her mom said.

  Reese smiled faintly. “Hi, Mom.” She was startled to recognize the man hovering behind her mom’s shoulder. “Dad?”

  “Hi, sweetie.” Rick Holloway had the kind of square-jawed, craggy face that aged well on men, but Reese had never realized his dark hair was turning gray. She let him hug her. He smelled faintly like the tea-tree soap in her mom’s bathroom, and to her shock it made her want to cry.

  “What are you doing here?” she mumbled into his shoulder. “I mean—”

  “I think your mom should tell you that,” he said as she pulled away.

  She was about to ask him why when she saw another familiar face waiting behind her father. “Julian?”

  Julian squeezed her into a hug and said, “Welcome back.”

  “What is going on?” she asked as he released her. “Why are all of you here?” She looked around at the gathered group. David and his parents, Winston and Grace Li, were nearby, along with his twelve-year-old sister, Chloe, who was watching everything with barely contained excitement.

  A vaguely familiar-looking woman in a navy-blue suit stepped forward, escorted by Reese’s mother. “Reese, David, let me introduce you to Senator Joyce Michaelson,” her mom said.

  “Hello, Reese,” the woman in the suit said, extending her hand. Her dark blond hair was styled in a short, wavy cut, and she wore a triple strand of pearls around her neck.

  “Hi.” Reese shook the woman’s hand as the cameras flashed.

  “Hello, David,” the senator said.

  David looked wary but polite as he also shook her hand. He was wearing the same outfit that Reese was: khaki pants and a long-sleeved blue T-shirt. She wondered who had picked out their clothes, even managing to get their sizes about right. It would have looked pretty bad for them to be on camera in the stinking, bloody clothes they had been wearing for the last five days. Now they looked like they had come straight from a Gap store.

  “Senator Michaelson helped us get you home,” Reese’s mom explained. “We’re very grateful to her.”

  “I’m so happy I could be of assistance,” Senator Michaelson said, a concerned look on her face. “I was so worried when Cat contacted me with your story. Let me be the first to extend apologies to the both of you on behalf of the United States government for any distress you may have been caused in the last few days.”

  Distress? Reese had no idea how to respond to that. The reporters, the cameras, her family—it was all overwhelming.

  Her mom put an arm around Reese’s shoulders, steering her away from the reporters. “You ready to go home?”

  “Please,” Reese said. “But what about David?”

  “He’s coming too. I’ve already arranged it with his parents.”

  The reporters followed them to the edge of the tarmac, where several cars were parked. Reese heard her father saying, “We’re not taking any questions now. We’ll issue a statement later.” Then he and Julian closed ranks around her, and she couldn’t see the reporters anymore as they herded her toward her mom’s car.

  They left Travis Air Force Base with a police escort, blue lights whirling with the occasional blip of the siren to cut through traffic. David’s car was directly behind theirs.

  “How are you feeling, honey?” her mom asked as she drove. “How did they treat you? Senator Michaelson wasn’t clear on where you were being held.”

  “I’m just… tired,” Reese said. She didn’t want to discuss it yet. “Can we talk about it later? What’s been going on? Why were you all here to meet us?”

  Her mom glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “The day you were taken, I came home to find a letter from the Air Force Office of Special Investigations stating that you were being removed for additional testing—a follow-up to your accident. I called the number on the letterhead, but nobody would tell me anything. That’s why I contacted Senator Michaelson. I knew her from when I worked for her fresh out of law school at the
DA’s office. She agreed to look into it. I was still waiting for an answer when Julian called me on Saturday morning.”

  Julian was sitting next to Reese in the backseat. “That’s when a video was posted on the Hub,” he said. “Things went crazy when it hit, and Bin 42 got a billion links to it, so Keith asked me to reformat it for the site in case it was taken down.”

  “Why would it be taken down?”

  “Because it was surveillance-camera footage from a classified military base. It had location data embedded in it that corresponds exactly to the coordinates for Area 51. And it had you and David on it.” He looked at Reese and hesitated.

  “What?” she prompted him.

  “It also had Amber on it.”

  She braced herself and asked, “What does the video show?”

  “It shows the desert, and in the background this spaceship is landing. And then you see you and David running toward it, and suddenly Amber knocks you over, and—are you okay?”

  Reese rubbed her clammy hands over her new khaki pants. “I’m fine. What else is on the video?”

  “It shows these silver things coming out of it—they look like robots—and they come and take Amber into the ship and then it lifts off.” Julian couldn’t hide his excitement. “It’s amazing, Reese. It’s freaking amazing. It’s evidence of extraterrestrials.”

  “Let’s not jump to conclusions,” her mom said.

  “What else could it be?” Julian asked. “We don’t have the technology for a ship like that. The way it moved was insane.”

  “The technology is pretty advanced,” her dad said from the front passenger seat. “But that’s still being analyzed by aviation experts.”

  “Anyway,” her mom said, “after Julian called me to say he saw you on this video, I asked your father if he could help find out if the video was genuine.”

  “I contacted an expert I’ve worked with in the past, and they determined that it wasn’t a hoax,” her dad said.

  “Then I contacted Senator Michaelson again and told her about the video,” her mom said. “I also sent it to CNN.”

  Reese’s eyes widened. “You sent it to CNN?”

  “It never would have made as much of an impact on Julian’s website—”

  “It’s not really my website—”

  “—as it did on CNN. Your father’s expert went on the air to explain how he had determined its authenticity, and then I went on the air along with your father and David’s parents to identify the two of you and Amber, and to demand that the government explain what was happening in the video.”

  “When did you do this?” Reese asked.

  “It aired on CNN four days ago, on Monday,” her mom said. “Right afterward, Senator Michaelson tried a different angle in getting information on your whereabouts. She’s on the Senate Armed Services Committee, and she eventually took this to the Secretary of Defense and had a meeting with him yesterday. This morning she called me and said that you and David were coming back today.”

  The police lights ahead flickered, as blue as the emergency lights in the bunker. Something was still unexplained, though. “Who uploaded the video?” Reese asked.

  “Nobody knows,” Julian said. “That’s the big mystery. I think somebody was working on the inside like a double agent.”

  “That’s just speculation,” her mom said.

  “There’s been a lot of speculation,” her dad said.

  “The media went crazy over the video,” Julian said. “Not only do you have a genuine image of a spaceship landing, you have the revelation that Area 51 actually exists—”

  “The government is still denying that’s where the video was shot,” her dad said.

  “It was totally Area 51,” Julian insisted. “And then you’ve got you and David, two ordinary high school students, running out of Area 51 toward a spaceship, and then this mysterious chick Amber basically throws herself in the line of fire to prevent you from getting shot, and—”

  “Wait,” Reese interrupted, staring at him. “She did what?”

  “It’s the big story,” Julian said, as if he were pitching a feature to their journalism teacher. “The cable channels, the news sites, they all think Amber is the hero, blocking the bullet from hitting you.” Julian paused, giving her a sympathetic look. “They all want to know who she is and why she saved you.”

  Reese’s stomach fell. “Did you tell them anything?” She had never expected she might be outed in the national media.

  But Julian shook his head just slightly. “Only her name.”

  “It’s up to you if you want to say anything more, honey,” her mom said. “The press hasn’t been able to find out much about her. She was enrolled as a student at Winthrop Academy in Massachusetts and at the Hunter Glen School in Arizona, but her parents haven’t come forward.”

  Reese turned her head to look out the window, drawing in a shallow breath. She tried to remember what exactly had happened that day, but all she could recall was the impact of Amber’s body on hers, pushing her onto the ground. Then the pain that tore through her abdomen as if someone had reached inside and ripped out her guts. She hadn’t known where the gunshot came from. She hadn’t known Amber had taken the bullet for her. But now all she could think of were Julian’s words: They all think Amber is the hero.

  CHAPTER 41

  There was a mob of reporters outside the house in Noe Valley. Two television-station vans were parked on the street, and cameras flashed as Julian, Reese, and her parents climbed out of their car. David and his family were right behind them, and Reese tried to shield herself from the flurry of questions tossed at them as she hurried up the steps to the house. Her mom unlocked the door, and then they all crowded inside, shutting out the press.

  “They’re quite aggressive, aren’t they?” David’s mom, Grace, observed.

  “We’ll give them a statement later tonight, once we’ve talked things over,” Reese’s dad said.

  Reese slipped into the living room while her mom asked David’s parents if they wanted anything to drink. The coffee table and couch were strewn with empty takeout containers and newspapers, as if her mom had been besieged here for weeks. Reese picked up one of the papers as she heard her mom and the others head down the hall to the kitchen. It was Tuesday’s front page, and a giant black-and-white photograph—slightly grainy as if it had come from a security camera—took up the entire top half. It showed a spacecraft lifting off from the rocky desert, its landing gear still not fully retracted. A smaller inset photo focused on three people: one lying on her back on the ground, and two others crouched over her. With a shock, Reese recognized David, Amber, and herself.

  David had followed her into the living room, and he leaned over her shoulder to look at the newspaper. His closeness made her unexpectedly uncomfortable, and she handed him the paper and moved away to sit on the edge of the couch. He gave her a short, questioning look, but she busied herself by collecting the empty takeout containers. Why did she suddenly feel shy around him?

  “My parents told me about what happened,” he said. “Did yours?”

  “Yeah,” she said. She stacked the containers on the end table and started to gather together the newspapers.

  David sat down beside her and dropped a hand on her knee. His touch made her stiffen, and he pulled away. She flushed. What was wrong with her? After all they had gone through, she was still acting like a jerk. She was relieved when Julian came into the living room and sat down in the armchair. “Is that the picture?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” David said, passing it to Julian. “My parents said you played a big role in getting us out of there.”

  Julian shrugged, but he was obviously pleased. “Nah. I just saw the video and called Reese’s mom.”

  “Did you ever get anything from the video we shot at the warehouse?” David asked.

  Julian shook his head. “It was too dark. I tried to lighten it up, but I couldn’t see much. The only thing I got was the license plate of that car, and I h
aven’t been able to look it up.”

  “Oh my God, I almost forgot,” Reese exclaimed, dropping a pile of newspapers on the floor. She reached into her bra and pulled out a folded piece of paper. “I didn’t want them to take it off me if we were searched today,” she said self-consciously. She spread out the paper on her knee; it was the first page from the report she had read in the avian lab.

  “I totally forgot about that,” David said. “The pages I took must still be in my pants back at the hospital.”

  “What is it?” Julian asked.

  Reese passed the paper to him. “I think it’s connected to the June crashes.”

  Julian’s eyes widened as he read. “No, I think this is the June crash.”

  “We found a lab full of birds at—at Area 51,” Reese said. “That’s where that report came from.”

  Her mom came into the living room with a tray full of teacups. She set it on the coffee table and asked, “What report?” David’s parents and sister came into the living room as well, and Reese’s father followed, carrying folding chairs.

  “Reese lifted a top-secret document from Area 51,” Julian said.

  Her mom frowned. “Let me see that.” She took the wrinkled paper from Julian and scanned it. “I don’t understand. This is about birds.”

  “They’re genetically altering birds with alien DNA,” Reese said. David’s sister, Chloe, sat down on the couch beside David, who scooted over to make room for her. His leg brushed against Reese’s. She forced herself to hold still.

  “Alien DNA?” her mom said skeptically. “And who’s ‘they’?”

  “Project Blue Base,” Reese answered.

  “Shit, are you serious?” Julian cried. “Sorry,” he said to the assembled parents.

  “What’s Project Blue Base?” her mom asked.

  “It’s a classified defense project to create genetically enhanced soldiers. Super soldiers,” David explained. “That’s where they were holding us.”