Don't Turn Around

by Michelle Gagnon

  “RAM?” Noa asked.

  “Thirty-two megs,” he said.

  Noa laughed. “Seriously?”

  Peter said, “But wait, that’s not all. It’s running Windows 2000.”

  “No.” Noa was dumbfounded. She crossed the room and bent over him, tapping a few keys to call up the system stats. “Wow. This thing belongs in a museum.”

  “No kidding.” Peter sat back in his chair and said pensively, “I thought my folks gave Cody my brother’s old laptop.”

  “Maybe he took that one to work?” Noa suggested.

  “Maybe,” Peter said. “Although it’s not like EMTs have a lot of time to check email during their shifts. Anyway, I don’t know if I’ll be able to access anything using this. If you can spare any time on your MacBook …”

  “You want to touch another hacker’s computer?” She arched an eyebrow.

  “I know, I know,” he said, grinning. “We don’t know each other all that well yet, so it’s early to be sharing computers—”

  “Way early,” Noa said. “And you didn’t even make me breakfast.”

  “Hey, I tried,” he protested. “But Cody printed out a lot of the stuff you need, right?”

  “Right.” All joking aside, Noa was loath to let anyone else touch her computer. It was kind of a geek thing, the way chefs brought their own knives to work. No one else handled the tools of your trade. Still, Peter was right—he’d need something faster than the antique on Cody’s desk. And most of what she was doing today involved matching up files to individual patients—stuff that Cody had printed out, anyway.

  “Fine,” she said. “But I’m not sharing passwords.”

  “Of course not.” Peter looked horrified. “Like that was even on the table.”

  He smiled at her, and she grinned back. Noa was suddenly hyperattuned to how close they were—she’d leaned over his shoulder to examine the computer tower, and their thighs were touching. She was conscious of a sudden tension between them, a strange, almost electric hum. Something in Peter’s eyes shifted, and he leaned closer. “Noa, I—”

  “I’ll get the laptop,” she said abruptly, stepping back.

  Peter didn’t say anything, but she felt his eyes on her as she left the room.

  It was strange. Her ears were burning, and her heart hammered in her chest, which felt abnormally tight again. Yet she doubted that had anything to do with the operation. No, this was something different—and she wasn’t sure she liked it.

  The truth was, Noa had never even kissed a boy, a secret that she guarded closely. Not that they hadn’t tried. Back at The Center, and in a few of her various foster homes, she’d been forced to rebut several attempts to kiss her, and worse. The thing was, she’d never wanted to do that with anyone before. Until now, she realized suddenly.

  Noa caught herself picturing Peter’s lips. They were unusually full for a boy and looked soft, and for just a second she wondered how they’d feel, pressed against her own … she started and shook her head, shoving the image away. She was being ridiculous. The stress of everything that had happened, and the fact that he was being so nice to her—that’s all it was.

  Noa scooped up the MacBook and marched back into the bedroom, hoping that her face wasn’t still flushed. Peter still sat facing the doorway, watching her intently. When she entered, he gazed back at her levelly, as if waiting for something. Unceremoniously, Noa shoved the laptop at him. “Here,” she said gruffly, then whirled on her heel and darted back to the living room without meeting his eyes again.

  Still feeling unsettled, she went to the piles Cody had stacked carefully in the corner last night. After a moment, Peter started tapping away at the keyboard in the next room. The sound was soothing, and her breathing slowed. With effort, Noa forced her attention back to the printouts.

  Somewhere in there might be the name of the kid whose thymus was inside her, Noa thought with dread. She steeled herself. She’d just try to treat the files clinically, as if this was a work project.

  It was easier than she thought, once she got past the initial queasiness. The morning passed quickly. Peter tapped away on her laptop as Noa sifted through files, trying to find commonalities that helped organize them. Cody had told her what to look for: blood type first, then certain markers that would indicate the same patient.

  Whenever Noa passed the bedroom door on her way to the bathroom or kitchen, she stole a glance at Peter. His heel beat a constant tempo against the bare floor. It was oddly comforting, like the patter of rain against windowpanes. For the first time since awakening on that table, she was able to relax somewhat. It was nice to have a respite from looking over her shoulder.

  “Hungry yet?”

  Noa glanced up. “Huh?”

  “I asked if you wanted something,” Peter said, walking out of the bedroom. He stretched his arms overhead. “I’m starved.”

  He licked his lips, and Noa felt her cheeks flush again. She ducked her head to hide it, then turned to check the clock. It was well past noon. “No, I’m not really hungry,” she mumbled.

  “Okay,” Peter said. “If you change your mind, Cody said to help ourselves to anything in the fridge. Not that there’s much.”

  “What time is he coming home?” Noa asked, relieved that he hadn’t seemed to notice the tension between them earlier. Or if he had, he was pretending it hadn’t happened, either. Which was fine with her.

  “Soon, I think. His hospital shift starts at three, so he was just going to run in and … well, you know.”

  “Yeah.” Draw my blood, Noa thought. Poke me with more needles.

  Peter scratched his belly through his shirt. “I’m going to take a shower, too. Unless you want to go first?”

  Noa wasn’t entirely comfortable taking a shower here, but it might warm her up. And she probably smelled pretty ripe. She was on the last change of clothes from Urban Outfitters, too—she should wash some stuff in the sink. “Yeah, I’ll do that.”

  “’Kay. Cody left towels on the edge of the tub.”

  He shuffled off toward the kitchen. Noa went into the bathroom and cranked the water to the hottest setting. Facing away from the spray, she dropped her head and closed her eyes, letting the stream loosen the tight muscles in her shoulders.

  Low voices outside the bathroom door. Cody must have come home.

  Reluctantly Noa got out and toweled dry, rubbing her hair hard. She ran her fingers through it and checked the mirror. The weird thing was that she actually looked pretty good. Paler than normal, which was saying something. But the bags under her eyes had vanished despite her lack of sleep, and there was color in her cheeks.

  Noa pulled on the last clean clothes from her bag and brushed her teeth with her finger. She really needed to get a toothbrush. She made a mental note to ask Cody if there was a drugstore nearby where she could grab toiletries and TracFones for her and Peter.

  She entered the living room to find Peter and Cody engaged in a low, intense conversation. “What’s up?”

  “I found something.” Peter was visibly excited. “Holy crap, though. It’s kind of unreal.”

  “Almost too unreal,” Cody said, sounding skeptical.

  “I think it makes perfect sense,” Peter retorted.

  “Are either of you going to fill me in?” Noa asked wearily. She was starting to feel tired again, and the heat was ebbing from her body, cold edging in from her extremities.

  “I zeroed in on one of the shell companies listed on the property deeds for the warehouse and boatyard,” Peter said. “It wasn’t easy, but I tracked it back to three others, all based with offshore holding companies. And guess who finally turned up as the parent company?”

  “Who?” Noa hated when people asked questions like that. If he knew who was behind all this, why not just spit it out?

  Triumphantly, Peter spun the laptop around so that the screen faced her. Noa frowned. It was the same home page her mysterious guardian angel kept sending her.

  “A shampoo company?” s
he said dubiously.

  “Not just a shampoo company,” Peter corrected, pulling down a submenu. “See? Pike and Dolan have their hands in everything. Pharmaceuticals, consumer products, medical research. They even make that fake sweetener everyone uses now.”

  “They’re one of the largest corporations in the country,” Cody said. “Charles Pike has given millions for legitimate medical research. There’s a whole wing at Boston Medical named after him. I just can’t imagine he’d risk that by getting mixed up in something like this.”

  “Maybe he had a really good reason,” Peter pointed out. “I found this, too.” He clicked through to a different screen that displayed an image of a lovely young girl. She was blond, wan, about their age. The photo would have looked right at home on the cover of a magazine. The headline below it read, Elinor Pike Stricken with PEMA. “Charles Pike’s kid is sick. And look what else I found.”

  Peter hit a few keys, and a video filled the screen. It featured a tall, broad-shouldered white guy in his midfifties. Charles Pike’s hair was gray but his eyebrows remained black. He had strong features, a slightly prominent chin, blue eyes. Pike looked confident and sure of himself: clearly a man accustomed to getting his way. He stood behind a podium, in front of a large banner that read, The Pike Center for PEMA Research. Peter hit another key, and Pike’s voice spilled out of the speakers. “… a blight on our times, the potential loss of an entire generation isn’t something I’ll countenance. Which is why I’m asking all of you to join me in donating generously, in hopes of finding a cure for PEMA.”

  Peter tapped another button and the man fell silent. He waved a hand at the screen. “He goes on like this for a while.”

  The video kept running, and Noa stared at it. Charles Pike looked so … normal. Impassioned, but ordinary. Yet he might be the one ultimately responsible for what had happened to her. At the thought, a chill ran down her spine.

  “I’d heard that his daughter had PEMA. But still …” Cody rubbed a hand across his face. “I don’t know, this whole thing just keeps getting crazier.”

  “You said they aren’t close to finding a cure,” Peter said. “And Pike’s daughter has been sick for nearly a year now. She probably doesn’t have much time left. He might have gotten desperate.”

  “The files date back more than a year,” Noa said in a low voice.

  “What?” Cody asked.

  “I said, they’ve been doing this for longer than that.” She couldn’t take her eyes off the photo of the girl. She recognized something in her eyes, a haunted quality. “The testing started before she got sick.”

  “There’s a lot of money to be made here,” Cody acknowledged. “If a company could find a cure, or even a vaccine, well … it would be worth a fortune.”

  “That explains why Bob’s involved,” Peter said bitterly.

  “Maybe he’s trying to spare other parents the pain of what they went though,” Cody said gently. “He and your mom probably don’t have any idea about the experiments P and D were conducting.”

  “Sure. They probably thought Mason and his thugs were some sort of candy stripers,” Peter retorted.

  Cody shook his head. “I know it’s tough, Peter. But we should give them the benefit of the doubt.”

  “Do what you want, but I’ll keep doubting them,” Peter said. “So what now?”

  They all fell silent.

  “You’ve got all the data related to Project Persephone, right?” Cody asked.

  “Yup. They probably have copies, though.”

  “They don’t,” Noa said.

  “How do you know that?” Peter’s eyes narrowed.

  Noa backpedaled, saying, “I mean, even if they do, they can’t get to them right now.”

  “That would explain why they keep coming after you,” Cody acknowledged.

  “I’m the key.” Noa suddenly understood what A6M0 had meant.

  Cody and Peter were both looking at her oddly.

  “The key?” Peter asked. “What does that mean?”

  “Nothing,” Noa said. “Just … we should probably find out for sure what they did to me, right? Since they keep coming after me, I must have something important that they need.”

  “Maybe,” Peter said, eyeing her. “Or maybe they’re just worried you’ll tell someone what happened.”

  “Who would believe me?” Noa pointed out. “I’m a foster kid who’s done time in juvie. You think anyone would listen if I said that Charles Pike hired people to kidnap and experiment on me?”

  “No, I guess they wouldn’t,” Peter acknowledged. “So why do they care so much?”

  They all fell silent for a minute. Finally, Cody cleared his throat and said, “I can take you to get that X-ray now.” He glanced at his watch. “He said any time after noon would work fine.”

  “Great, let’s go.” Noa crossed the room and grabbed her jacket, then started to gather up her laptop.

  “Oh, are you taking that? ’Cause I thought I’d stay here and keep working on stuff,” Peter said apologetically. “Now that I know what to look for, I thought I’d track down some of Pike and Dolan’s real-estate holdings. You know, places where they might be keeping … others. Like you.”

  “I need to take it with me,” Noa said.

  “Seriously? I mean, it’s not like—”

  “It stays with me,” she said sharply.

  “Jeez, relax. I was just—”

  “Why don’t you come along, Peter?” Cody interceded. “I’m sure Jack has a wireless connection you can piggyback on.”

  “I thought the whole point was to keep a low profile,” Peter grumbled.

  Noa glared at him, and he raised both hands in surrender. “Fine. I’ll get my jacket. But it’ll just take longer this way.”

  The table was about two feet too short for her, so Noa’s lower legs hung off the edge at an uncomfortable angle. The room reeked of sickly-sweet disinfectant mixed with animal piss and wet fur. A shelf on the far wall held medicine jars labeled DOGGY TREATS, KITTY TREATS, and REPTILE TREATS.

  She swallowed hard. Above her, the beige camera gazed down blankly like a giant, malevolent eye. Cody’s high-school buddy, Jack, finished draping a heavy lead sheet over her lower body.

  “Sorry about the table length,” he said. “It’s really not built for people.”

  “That’s okay.” Noa forced a smile.

  Cody was standing in the far corner, facing the monitor that the images would appear on. Peter was in the waiting room outside. She wondered how much Cody had told his friend Jack. The vet seemed only mildly perturbed by the fact that a person was using his X-ray equipment. This had to be an unusual occurrence for him, though.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  Noa nodded.

  The machine clicked a few times.

  “Okay.” Jack stepped forward and pulled off the lead shield.

  “That’s it?” Noa asked.

  “Yup. All digital now,” the vet said cheerfully. “So we get the results instantly. You can go look, if you want.” He turned to Cody. “I got a retriever coming in that was hit by a car. You okay to see yourselves out?”

  “Yeah, man. Thanks again.”

  “No problem.” Jack smiled, turning to Noa. “Nice meeting you. Come on back if you need deworming.”

  He left the room, chuckling at his own little joke.

  Cody’s smile faded the instant the door closed. He bent over, examining the screen. Noa hesitated, then slid off the table and went to stand beside him. The monitor displayed an enlarged black-and-white image. Pale white ribs stood out in sharp relief, like slender fingers. Under and around them, she could discern a bunch of lumpy-looking masses.

  “So?” Noa finally asked, after a minute had passed without him saying anything.

  Cody didn’t meet her eyes. “We were right.” He pointed. “This is your heart, here. And beside it, this smaller one is probably your original thymus. Next to that, well … this shouldn’t be here.”

  Noa eyed t
he mass. It was almost as large as her heart. “What does the thymus do, anyway?”

  “I talked to a buddy today who’s specializing in endocrinology,” Cody said. “Basically, your thymus gland produces and educates T lymphocytes.”

  Noa looked at him blankly. “Was that English?”

  He laughed. “Sorry. Do you know how the immune system works?”

  “Kind of.” Noa shrugged. “It keeps you from getting sick, right?”

  “Exactly,” Cody said, warming to the topic. “And specific types of cells combat disease. But those cells don’t start out knowing how to do that. When you’re first born, the thymus provides kind of a boot camp for immune cells. It trains them to become T cells, which are the white blood cells that fight infection. By the time you hit puberty, all those cells know their business, so the thymus shuts down.”

  “So what would giving me an extra thymus do?” Noa asked.

  “I did a little research today during my break, and there have been a few studies,” Cody said. “Remember those mice I told you about, the ones that are born with an extra thymus?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Well, in their case, both thymuses shut down at the same time. So the second one was just superfluous. But one researcher theorized that if you managed to keep at least one activated, you might be able to use it to develop newer, stronger T cells. Maybe even ones that could be trained to fight specific diseases.”

  “Like PEMA,” Noa said slowly, following his line of reasoning.

  “Exactly.”

  “So now do we test my blood?” Noa said.

  “If you want,” Cody said. “I realized this morning that I hadn’t asked, I just assumed you’d want to know. It’s fine if you don’t, though.” He gazed at her with a look of concern.

  “I want to know,” she said decisively, holding out her arm. “Let’s get it over with.”

  Cody pulled out a small kit. She turned her head away as he rubbed the inside of her elbow with an alcohol pad. He was good; she barely felt the needle as it pierced her skin. Watching her blood pump into the vial, Noa asked, “Do you think it’ll be positive?”