“Yeah, well. So what about you? Starting a ski team or something?”
“I’m going to do something, but I’m not sure what,” she said. “Perhaps running track or something boring like that.”
“That’s not boring,” Ed told her. “And it comes in handy when you’re running late to catch a bus.”
“Now, you see, that is good common sense,” Tatiana told him. “I knew I would learn good life skills in your American high school.”
The banter between them was easygoing and fun, good-natured and friendly. After a while the heartbreak Ed was feeling receded from the front of his consciousness. Without realizing it, some of the lead in his chest leaked out, just a little. Tatiana had some kind of effect on him. Enough to make him stop seeing Gaia everywhere he looked and start having fun again. For a moment. For a little while.
And it felt—if not all better, halfway normal. For Ed, that was the hugest relief of all.
Low-Rent Drug Deal
GAIA’S NEXT CLASS WAS AP ENGLISH. The class was about halfway through a long discussion of Hamlet; today they were going to watch scenes from the movie versions starring Ethan Hawke, Kenneth Branagh, and Mel Gibson and compare them to one another. Literature via Hollywood.
Gaia had read Hamlet in sixth grade. She really didn’t care what Hollywood had done with it. And quite frankly, the story of a guy whose father was d-e-a-d dead and whose son was haunted by the need to avenge him was completely not what Gaia needed—or wanted—to think about.
It shouldn’t bother me, she told herself. Because my dad is not dead. He’s just missing.
Right. And she was the one who had to find him. Pronto.
Before the between-class bell could ring a second time, Gaia was clear of any part of the school where she might be spotted by someone other than a stray mouse. Contrary to what Vice Principal Bob thought, she had done a lot of studying in high school. But the knowledge she’d squirreled away had nothing to do with The Red Badge of Courage or pi-r-squared—stuff she’d mastered years before and didn’t feel the need to show off about. The most useful information she had acquired in recent months had more to do with blueprints—as in, the layout of her school, from top to bottom, complete with emergency escape routes for times just such as this.
She admired the purpose of the antitruant rules that were supposed to keep her here. But they were getting in the way.
Most of the doors to the basement were wired with alarms, but Gaia had noticed that the school janitors were easily annoyed—particularly by oversensitive bells that went off accidentally when they were just trying to clean up a chem lab spill. At least half of the doors were disabled, a fact she’d noticed when a gang of ersatz bad-kid freshmen had gone through a phase of daring each other to set off the alarms on purpose. It had kept not working. Gaia had noted the location of the dead doors for future reference.
That knowledge came in handy now. She made her way to a corner of the school near the sidewalk and hit the red lever of the door smack in the middle of the word warning. Seconds later Gaia Moore vanished from the smooth tiled hallways of her high school and into the dusty dank basement below.
She heard the metal stairs clank under her feet as she made her way down into the gloom. It was so gross down here, even the most hot-blooded adolescents wouldn’t want to use it as a make-out spot. The heater and water boiler were ancient and had sprung quite a few leaks over the years, creating the kind of moldy environment that silverfish and millipedes found irresistible.
Gaia was sure nobody would be down here. Too sure.
“Who’s that?” she heard a voice say. She froze, cursing herself for not having tiptoed down the metal stairs. The silence around her was broken only by the throbbing hum of the boiler. As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she looked out into the open space of the basement and saw three nervous-looking students peering around, a triptych of paranoid self-preservation. One of them—a kid Gaia recognized as a self-styled wanna-be wise guy—was holding out a couple of mini-baggies of what looked to be weed. The other kids were holding money. This was nothing more than a low-rent drug deal, and it was none of her business.
But before she could melt back into the shadows, something conked her on the head from behind. Her relief turned to fury as she hit the ground, knocked off balance by the sneak attack.
“What the—”
Gaia saw an overgrown hulk standing over her with a lead pipe still held over his shoulder like a softball bat.
“What the hell are you doing down here?” he demanded.
Gaia saw the two buyers race up the stairs and disappear through the door back into the school, a momentary sliver of light announcing their departure. The back of her head burned, and she could hear a loud ringing in her ears. But the dizziness retreated almost immediately. The blow to her melon might have trounced a normal kid, but Gaia was anything but normal.
“Crap, they took their money with them,” the dealer groaned. As he turned toward her, Gaia got a good look at him. His mussy hair was in dire need of a bottle of Pantene, and he wore a denim jacket emblazoned with Megadeth patches over a hooded sweatshirt. Worst of all, his upper lip held a smudge of peach fuzz that she was sure he intended to pass off as a mustache. “Who messed up my deal? Brick, man, what do I keep you around for?”
Brick just glared down at Gaia. His bulk was the most noticeable thing about him: Some pituitary misfire had given him the body of a wrestler, and his shaved head only served to enhance the impression that he had absolutely no neck whatsoever. “She came out of nowhere, Skelzo,” he complained. “I didn’t see her till she was practically on top of you.”
Skelzo walked over and glared at Gaia, who was patiently waiting for these two nonentities to get tired of talking so she could get out of there.
“Girlfriend, you wandered into the wrong part of school,” he told her.
“Oh, no, I’m petrified,” she said. “Can I leave now if I promise never to come back?”
“You’ll run straight to the principal’s office,” he scoffed.
“I won’t, I swear.” Gaia was finding it increasingly difficult to play the part of terrified teen, however half-assed her attempt already was. “I’ll get in as much trouble as you if anyone finds out I was down here,” she pointed out. “Just let me go and I promise I’ll forget anything ever happened.”
“Oh, you’ll forget, all right.” Skelzo’s scraggly mouth twisted into a grin. “You’ll forget because I’ll make you forget.”
She rolled her eyes. “What does that even mean?” she asked.
“What?”
“I mean, you’ll make me forget? What, did you read that in a comic book and think it would sound good? It doesn’t even make sense as a threat.”
“Look, bitch, you better—”
“No, you bogus tool, you’d better.” Gaia kicked directly up and into Skelzo’s crotch, lifting him into the air with the force of her blow. He gave a kitten-like mew of pain as he arced backward, and when he hit the ground, he curled into a ball without another sound.
Brick was faster on his feet than Gaia had expected, and he brought the lead pipe down toward her. She rolled to get out of his way, but the pipe still glanced off her shoulder, creating a searing white-hot flash of pain instantly.
“Ow,” she complained, rolling into a crouch and eyeballing her opposition. “Brick, why don’t you just run? I promise you’ll be better off.”
Brick only stared at her, crouching slightly as he poised to swing at her again the second she moved. He was a good fighter, she noted. Or he could be if he trained. This self-taught tough guy was about to find out that brawn wasn’t the only thing he needed to beat some ass.
“I really don’t have time for this,” she complained. Then she shot forward, grabbing him around the waist and pushing him backward onto the floor. Landing on top of his massive frame, she straddled his chest and grabbed both sides of his head, bringing it down to smack against the cold concrete. She heard an “uggh
,” but when she leapt to her feet, the stupid doofus still wanted to come after her. Stealing a glance at Skelzo, she saw he was puking up his guts and clutching his stomach; at least she didn’t have to worry about him. She stopped Brick with a foot to the chest, then moved her foot six inches higher to smack him back down with another shot to the forehead.
Blood splattered where his scalp scraped the concrete. “Shit,” Gaia muttered. These were just a couple of kids in her way, not a true threat, and she didn’t want to do real damage to them. “You total idiot, why didn’t you just back off before I hurt you?” she asked.
Leaving the Moron Twins flat on the floor, Gaia turned toward the trapdoor to the sidewalk that would lead her to freedom. Then she heard a groan. She turned back to look and saw more blood leaking out from Brick’s head wound.
Forget him, she told herself. You have a job to do.
But some sneaky little sliver of conscience yanked her mind back into the basement. These weren’t Loki’s henchmen. They were a couple of stupid pot-dealing teenagers. And if she left them bleeding in the basement, they might not be found for hours—even days.
She gave a hefty sigh and ran across the basement, leaping up the metal steps of another set of stairs toward a door that would trip the alarm. She leapt up and snapped her foot out, hitting the door with percussive force and shoving the door open with whatever was the direct opposite of delicacy. It slammed open with a clang, and the jangling bells of the alarm exploded in her ears.
It would only be a matter of moments before someone came in the open door. She raced back across to the trapdoor set into the ceiling under the sidewalk, throwing herself against it with the strength of a bucking horse. It held fast. She cursed, then threw herself against it again. Obviously it was padlocked from the outside. Gaia looked around wildly, feeling her adrenaline rise as the alarm bells continued to jangle. She wasn’t worried about being punished. She was worried about how this would slow her down. And getting slowed down was not an option.
Her eyes rested on a red fireman’s ax. Never mind that a high school was a horrible place to leave a lethal weapon; she was glad to see it. Angling it between the door and its frame, she placed the sharp edge against the crack and whacked it. Once, twice…and on the third hit she felt the metal hinge snap and give above her hands. She pushed the door open and leapt up, swinging her legs and pushing her arms down so she could reach the sidewalk. She rolled away from the gaping door and came face-to-face with Karl, the hot dog vendor who tortured the students with his heaven-scented Sabrett cart.
“Now, I know you’re not supposed to be out here,” he said, giving an amused shakeof his head.
“I’m not planning on sticking around,” she told him.
“Hey, you want to cut school, go right ahead,” he said. Without another word Gaia stood, kicked the door closed, and raced uptown.
“But you oughta go back,” Karl yelled after her. “Unless you wanna be selling wieners for a living when you’re my age!”
By the time anyone noticed she was gone, Gaia was halfway to Midtown on the 1 train.
Chubby Airplane
GAIA HAD NEVER BEEN TO CALCUTTA, but she had heard about the wall-to-wall throngs on the sidewalks, the makeshift bazaars where people sold fruit, the crowds that slowed foot traffic to a crawl. Midtown Manhattan on a week-day—especially here, in the part of town called the Garment District—had to be a lot like it, she thought. There were just so many people going to their jobs, from their jobs, delivering things from one job to another. Entire racks of clothes bumped down the sidewalk, bright colors standing out against the gray and grayer buildings, sleeves billowing out as if they were being strutted down a catwalk instead of being wheeled by poverty-income dudes who barely noticed the fabulousness they transported. If she’d wanted to, she could have bought batteries (Energizer!) or a watch (Bolex!) or pirated DVDs of the top ten movies playing in the theaters that week. Or she could have ducked into Macy’s and joined the tourists going up and down the building’s ancient wooden escalators to buy Charter Club ties and sweaters. Or she could’ve gotten on a train bound for suburban New Jersey heading out of Penn Station. But she had no interest in any of this. She was headed for the travel agency.
The avenues in this part of the city seemed impossibly long, probably because they were sandwiched between tall, looming buildings that barely left a wedge of street between them. In some places the sunshine barely hit the pavement; the sunniest day could feel like an overcast mess if you never walked west. The address she was looking for was here, right in the middle of the block, in a storefront that seemed almost abandoned among the bustling wholesale clothing stores and office buildings whose revolving doors never stopped turning.
The travel agency’s storefront was grimy, and the only decoration was a once cheerful cardboard sign in the shape of a chubby airplane announcing new low fares to Yugoslavia. It took a few moments for Gaia to even find the door, which gave a desultory jingle when she opened it. Inside, the gloom was interrupted only by the dust that seemed to have collected in every corner. The dropped ceiling featured broken asbestos tiles and fluorescent tube lights, most of which were either completely dim or flickering faintly. Four industrial-size desks sat facing the center of the room, like a clover-leaf, and Gaia noted that the file cabinets were exactly where they were supposed to be according to Dmitri’s e-mail. She was able to match the room around her to the map in her head perfectly.
Only one of the desks was occupied, by a woman who seemed to be the exact color of the grayish linoleum. “Can I help you?” she asked uncertainly, as if a customer were a rare bird she hadn’t sighted in several years.
“Yeah, I go to NYU, and I intern down the street,” Gaia told her, using her well-crafted cover story. “I was on my way to work when I noticed you’re a travel agency. I wanted to know if you had any ideas for where I could go on my winter break.”
“Oh…I don’t know,” the woman said, staring down at the brochures piled on her desk as if they would crumble to dust if she tried to open them. “We mostly do corporate travel.”
“But look right here!” Gaia pressed a finger onto the top brochure. “It says ‘student travel specials.’ Those look good—can I find out more about them?”
“Oh,” the woman said. “I forgot about that. Well, you can look through it if you want. But you know, I’m not sure if we can help you. I’m not used to booking individual trips.”
“I have to go home, anyway, and check out the choices with my suite mates,” Gaia told her. “Will you be open late tonight?”
“We stay open till seven,” she said.
The phone on her desk gave a bleating ring, and the woman stared at it in alarm.
“Excuse me,” she said to Gaia, who was pretending to leaf through the brochure as she took in the rest of the office.
“Yes. Yes. No, not really. Yes. No. Okay,” she said into the phone. “Not now. I am! Okay. Yes. Sure.” Then she hung up and peered at Gaia.
“I’m sorry, I have to close up the shop right now,” the woman told Gaia.
“I thought you said you were open till seven!” Gaia said in her best complainy-student voice. Inside, she was beaming: Dmitri was right. This place was such a front, it might as well have NOT A TRAVEL AGENCY, KEEP WALKING emblazoned on its sign outside.
“Normally we are, but that was my boss, and he said he wants the place closed up for some reason.”
“Man, this sucks,” Gaia said, still in her college-girl persona. “How am I going to book my trip?”
“Try Orbitz,” the woman told her.
Gaia gave an exasperated sigh and left the agency. Just before she exited the door, she looked back: The woman, who just moments before had been so distracted she couldn’t even focus on Gaia’s request was suddenly going through the contents of her desk with well-organized speed. The soft bafflement of her features had been replaced with a razor-sharp grimace of concentration. Oh, man, was this place a front! In essence, a
file bank for the Organization. Gaia couldn’t wait to come back. All she had to do was wait for this weird chick to clear out and the place was all hers. Better than a playground. And educational, too.
In the meantime Gaia was glad to take a breather from the place. Something about it gave her the willies. The travel posters were all too enthusiastic—and about places where nobody in their right mind would really go on vacation. Clearly they had been fashioned by people with nothing but disdain for the common sense of the average customer. It was as if the Organization were subtly making fun of every unsuspecting civilian who walked through the door. Like they were playing games with people’s lives and it was all the more fun for them that those people didn’t know about it.
She couldn’t wait to rip these jackasses off.
Are you tired of traveling to the same well-worn destinations?
Experience the land of bleak mountains and turbulent rivers. Unite with nature in a sparsely populated region nearly untouched by civilized man. Come face-to-face with the Snow Man—and barely live to tell the tale! Come to beautiful Siberia!
See your representative now.
It may be the last trip you ever want to take!
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Re: Hope you are OK
I feel really bad about how things ended between us and I just wanted to say I hope we can be friends at some point. I wish I could explain why I snuck around and what was going on. But I can’t because slkdfjsghsoioiffdkslf THIS SOUNDS SO STUPID.
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