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“I won’t,” she said. “Quiet. ”
The line was slow, but steady. Aubrey felt like they were being led to their doom—that something sinister was waiting behind that door. But, when they finally got inside, it was just a generic, boring office. Two soldiers sat behind a desk at the front, and the line wound past them and toward a long table where medics were doing something Aubrey couldn’t see. Ten armed men were watching the line.
Aubrey reached the first intake worker.
“Left hand on the desk,” the young soldier said, and pointed to a rectangle that had been drawn on the desk with marker. Aubrey let go of Jack and then laid her palm on the table.
“State your name,” the soldier said, peering at the bracelet on her wrist.
“Aubrey Parsons,” she said.
The soldier turned to the man next to him. “Aubrey Parsons. One-one-seven-W-S-L. ”
There was a brief pause while the man typed on a laptop. “Aubrey Parsons, one-one-seven-W-S-L. Confirmed. ”
The soldier, for the first time, looked her in the eyes. He seemed uncomfortable. “Please proceed to the medics for a cheek swab. ”
“Why?”
“Testing,” he said. “Please move along. ”
Testing. It could be for anything, she told herself. Any disease. The terrorists could have put anything in the air or the water or the mail or the food. But she’d had half a dozen blood tests in the hospital when she’d gone blind, and no one had found any irregularities.
Still, visions of vicious experiments filled her brain: Aubrey, lying on an operating table, tubes and needles everywhere. Or running through some scientist’s obstacle course: How long could she stay invisible? How far could she push it?
Aubrey turned and looked at Jack, who had just been confirmed at the desk. She smiled at him halfheartedly, and then faded out.
He looked confused, but then Aubrey saw him suppress a worried smile. She turned, watching the faces of the guards, but none of them seemed to notice anything out of the ordinary. Even if there had only been a few teenagers, the guards would have questioned whether she’d even been there in the first place. In the long line of faces passing in front of them, they didn’t seem to notice her disappearance at all.
Being more careful than usual, Aubrey gently slid out of line, stepping around the other teenagers and heading toward the medics’ table. There were probably fifteen students between Jack and the medics.
The procedure seemed simple enough: Aubrey watched a boy arrive, and the medics checked his bracelet. A medic then opened a fresh swab kit—it looked like a thick envelope—and wrote the boy’s name and number on it. The medic removed a long cotton-tipped stick from the kit and swabbed the inside of the boy’s cheek, rubbing hard for a few seconds, and then placed the swab back into the kit and set it in a box behind the table.
She could switch her swab with someone else’s. It wouldn’t be hard—just go through the line as normal and then disappear when she was done, transferring her swab into a different kit.
But that was a problem. She didn’t want to get tested—but she didn’t want to just trade swabs. She didn’t want to make someone else end up with her test results. She was tired of making other people pay so she could do whatever she wanted. Sure, she was still being dishonest, but there had to be a way that wouldn’t get someone else hurt.
She looked back down the line. Another problem with this plan was that she was just guessing about who to switch with. She needed someone healthy—someone who the medics would never question. It couldn’t be Jack; Aubrey didn’t know if the tests could tell if someone was a boy or girl, but it was better to be safe than sorry. It couldn’t be Nicole, either; she had that kidney problem that kept putting her in the hospital.
Aubrey scanned the waiting people. Four down was a girl who seemed to be perfect. Tall, slender. She was wearing shorts and her legs looked like those of a runner. Aubrey stepped closer to the girl. Her teeth were straight, she wasn’t wearing contact lenses, and her skin was smooth. It wasn’t much to go on, but it was the best that Aubrey could do.
The girl got to the table.
“Hand on the table,” the medic said. “What’s your name?”
“Kristy Smith. ”
Another medic confirmed it in his laptop—checking her bracelet number against the master list—and then the first set to work swabbing her cheek. He rubbed the cotton inside her mouth for a moment, and then set the swab back into the kit. Aubrey moved quickly, snatching it away immediately and tucking it into her jacket pocket. Then, she gently bumped the kit off the edge of the table.
The medic swore and bent over to get the kit. He was down under the table for a few minutes searching, and Aubrey snuck back into line. Jack had left a space between him and the boy in front, and Aubrey was able to slip in and reappear.
“Oh,” he whispered, smiling. “Hi. ”
She turned and motioned for him to be quiet. Ahead of them, the medic was swabbing Kristy Smith’s mouth a second time.
Minutes later Aubrey and Jack reached the medic’s table, and she went through all of the motions as usual, a surge of adrenaline going through her body as she realized that it all might work.
The medic finished rubbing her cheek and then placed her swab in the kit, closed it, and set it in the box behind him.
As soon as she was away from the table she vanished again, running behind the table and switching out Kristy Smith’s stolen swab with her own. Aubrey was able to make it back to Jack just as he was leaving the testing room.
“How are you?” he said, reaching forward to touch her arm.
“Good,” she said. “I hope. ”
User: SusieMusie
Mood: Tired
I feel like I have a train running through my head. I should never drink. But isn’t Saturday for drinking? Erica says so but I’m the one stuck in the passenger seat while she goes from party to party, getting plastered. Sara isn’t any better. I need new friends.
THIRTEEN
LAURA CLIMBED OUT OF THE torn hole in her tent and peered into the morning light. It was an hour or two past sunrise, but despite all the events of yesterday—and despite having marched five miles into the forest with Ranger Brown over her shoulder—Laura hadn’t been able to sleep.
The sky was cloudy. Rain would be coming soon, probably before noon, which would help in their coming hike. Assuming that the country could spare any manpower, low clouds and heavy rain would hamper any kind of helicopter search.
So much for lying low. Now they’d need to get back off this mountain somehow. There were targets to the east—Alec had been excited about the power plants that dotted this part of the state—but escape might be their first priority.
Standing now, Laura stretched and took a deep breath of the crisp mountain air. Dan was the only member of the group who didn’t have to wear a thick coat in these Wyoming mountains. Something about his abilities gave him a constant feeling of being overheated. Maybe he should have been wearing a coat anyway—maybe it was all in his head—but you couldn’t convince him of that. He said the cold air actually felt good to him. Laura was already shivering as she bent down and got her coat—a puffy purple one she’d stolen from the backseat of a car last week.
Ranger Brown was still where Laura had dropped her, in an uncomfortable slump beside a large granite boulder. She was bound with duct tape at her ankles and knees, and her hands were taped behind her back. As Laura approached, she could see a glimmer of light reflecting off Brown’s eyes. She was awake.
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