Overtaken

by Mark H. Kruger

  Twenty minutes later, I found myself at the end of my own driveway. The one, singular desire I had was to go inside and let my dad take over with his favorite school-night routine. We’d talk about my day and then his, or at least what he considered safe to my limited security clearance. Then he’d feed me. From the window, I could see that he was hard at work on Mediterranean kabobs and homemade hummus, one of my favorites.

  It just made me feel that much more guilty, because I had already made up my mind about what I needed to do. I became invisible, sneaking in through the garage and silently padding my way upstairs. I knew that if I didn’t do it now, I might chicken out. But my emotions were high, and if I was going to break my dad’s trust—go against the one request he had made absolute—I had to do it right now.

  I slipped into his office, closing the door—my hand wrapped in my sleeve—right behind me. Spying on the good guys. It was a weird sensation. I knew the right way to do it. Plead my case to my dad, telling him everything I knew and all of my suspicions, and then see what he’d offer to share. But what I feared was most likely true: that my dad would choose to protect me above all else and whatever he might share would be too little, too late. If my dad knew anything about Blackthorne, I needed to know now. The deep voice at the theater had impressed upon me that time was of the essence, and that meant slicing through red tape. Even if that red tape was my dad, secret agent for the Department of Defense.

  I pivoted toward Marcus’s vault of a filing cabinet. I didn’t know where he kept the key, but I had a hunch that I could get a preview of its secrets with just my bare hands.

  I leaned over the cabinet and pressed flesh to metal. Immediately, my invisibility transferred to the steel exterior. Jackpot. It was still locked, but I could see the clearly marked tabs of every precisely arranged hanging folder. The first few were incomprehensible to me—words, numbers, places I held no associations to—but about halfway back I had to hold my breath. They were names of my classmates. And judging from those included in their company—Jackson Winters, Oliver Monsalves, Maya Bartoli—they were students who had passed my father’s blood test with flying colors. Or failed miserably, depending on which way you looked at it. There must have been almost two dozen. It had been here all along—a neat catalog of every superpowered student at Barrington High.

  Another name stood out as I poured over them—Topher Hansen. But he seemed like an odd man out. I knew I was circling something with the remaining kids, some commonality. It all came together when I realized the name that was missing: Dana Fox. Excluding Topher and Maya, every kid in my dad’s cabinet was a card-carrying member of Ski Club. This was it. This was the proof I’d been looking for.

  The X-ray preview of the filing cabinet’s treasures was suddenly insufficient. I needed to get inside, to comb through every last file for any mention of Blackthorne. But where was the key? I searched the room high and low to see if it was tucked away in any possible nook or cranny, but I came up empty-handed. Resigned, I pulled two bobby pins out of my messy coif. It was a long shot, but I’d have to try it the old-fashioned way.

  I wondered if Googling “how to pick a lock” put you on the government’s radar, or if I needed to upgrade to bomb research before I’d make somebody’s list. It was something I’d seen a million times in movies and on TV, but I had no clue how to actually do it. The lock gave way after only a few seconds of jiggling. It was a miracle, but considering the week I was having, it was more like the universe was just starting to make good on its debt. With the cabinet open, I was overwhelmed by the amount of content inside. It would take me hours to even speed read every confidential document from the NSA and Department of Defense, and my dad was already probably wondering when I would get home. He had just been slicing the vegetables when I got home, which gave me about another five minutes or so before he’d loaded the skewers.

  Keeping my ears attuned for any sounds on the stairs, I started to scan the contents of every folder for one word, the only word. But page after page, document after document, there was nothing. About halfway through the first drawer, a shrill ring shattered my concentration. The landline was hooked up on my dad’s desk, and he often fielded his calls in here. He never admitted it, but I assumed it was because it was the furthest from my earshot. I had to get out of here—fast. Sliding the folders back to a close and giving them a once-over, I quickly closed the doors and slipped into the hallway just as Marcus reached the top of the stairs, taking them two by two.

  I caught my breath, still invisible but propped against the wall, as he answered.

  “Hello? Oh, Richard! Thank you for returning my call.”

  The smart thing to do was to take this opportunity to run downstairs and declare my “arrival,” assuring my dad wouldn’t find out about my invisible mission into his expressly forbidden private files. But Richard Cochran was on the line and he didn’t know I was right outside the door. I had gone this far—eavesdropping was just the cherry on top.

  After a series of not-so-pleasant pleasantries, my dad’s one-sided conversation sounded a lot like a brush-off. My dad said he’d been trying to get Cochran on the phone for days. It made me feel terrible. Marcus’s job, not at the hospital but working undercover for the Department of Defense and by association the NSA, had been made exponentially more difficult by my arrival in Barrington and subsequent top-secret mutant status. My dad had spent years penetrating Cochran’s inner circle, but now he had an even bigger priority: me. My dad’s determination to keep me safe was in direct conflict with his number-one mission from Cochran: finding my gifted peers and me.

  “I understand that things are changing at Bar Tech, but now isn’t the time to be making rash decisions. I . . . No. No, sir.”

  I could hear the resignation in my father’s voice. He was letting Cochran take this battle. I just hoped he had a long game.

  “Yes. Good-bye.”

  Crap. I took off down the stairs as the phone clicked against the receiver. Weaving through the living room and kitchen, I slipped back into the garage to grab my backpack and coat, which I’d hidden for safekeeping. As I walked back inside, I shouted, “Hey, Dad!”

  He gave me a hug as soon as I’d unloaded my bag and winter gear. I’d have never known he’d just gotten off a contentious phone call if I hadn’t been there to overhear it. The man had a hell of a poker face. Trying out a lie of my own, I told him how excited I was about dinner, but in my mind I was still riffling through the files upstairs. Why those kids? Was it a coincidence they were all in Ski Club? Dana was recruiting them, but for what reason? And was that why she was so adamant that we become friends? Did Dana know about my power? Had Oliver or Jackson shared my secret? I wasn’t ready to ponder the consequences of that bomb. I was stuck with not enough of the big picture.

  • • •

  The next day at school began with an intense sensation of déjà vu. It was the second day in row I’d arrived with a mission of greater importance than my own education. Despite my bigger goal (the ever-present “What is Blackthorne?”), I had made headway only in the Dana Fox mystery. The phantom at the theater had told me she was a trained Bar Tech recruit and I had betrayed my father’s trust to discover that Dana was now recruiting superpowered kids of her own. While the how was clear—Dana had used her mesmerizing mind to relieve me of both of my friends—today I was determined to delve into the why.

  I took a swing with the first Ski Club member I saw. Grady Walters, you’re up. I caught up to him in the hallway, attempting my most charming smile. We didn’t really know each other, but he was one of those sort of semipopular, sort-of-academic, second-string athletes who never quite excelled at any one thing.

  “Grady! Hey!” He looked nervous. I reined it in. “I’m writing a guest article for the school blog about the resurgence of Ski Club. I was hoping you could answer a few questions for me.”

  Less nervous. “Sure.”

 
I loved the nice kids. Unfortunately, that was about as far as I got. As I walked him to the music wing, I asked as many questions as I could think of that might give me just a glimpse of what was really going on, but was only met with sound bites of sunny skies and picket fences.

  “Dana’s great.” Don’t I know it.

  “Ski Club has brought together a whole new friend group across different cliques.” How sweet.

  “I really feel like I’ve found myself.”

  Come on. This self-help-lingo bullshit was really starting to get on my nerves. But it would continue for the rest of the day. Every member I tracked down and cornered was thrilled to discuss their new favorite extracurricular activity. It was Jackson’s and Oliver’s identical responses on a much larger scale. They were an army of Stepford wives, parroting back exactly what Dana wanted the outside world to hear. I was almost impressed with how much control Dana had wielded over so many people in such little time. Maybe the girl deserved valedictorian as well. At the very least, she could probably talk herself into it.

  I’d managed to avoid the queen bee herself for most of the day, but we shared last period World Cultures, and there was no way around it. Dana cemented that when she took the open seat right next to me. I wanted to play it cool. The longer Dana viewed me as a nuisance, not a threat, the better off I’d be.

  Dana led with her usual sunshine and small talk. “Ready for the test? I’ve been hearing all day that it’s brutal.”

  “Oh yeah?” I wasn’t about to brag, but I’d been riding a pretty easy A in the course all year. Granted, I’d been to four more continents than Mr. Kile, but we had a silent understanding where I wouldn’t correct him on his pronunciation if he didn’t refer to me as “Barrington’s own world traveler.”

  “I studied a little last night. I’ll be fine,” I said. Maybe it was a little braggy.

  “I hope so. I heard you’ve had a renewed interested in Ski Club, but we can only take members on if they can keep their grades up.” Dana’s smile hadn’t waned an ounce, but the hint of chill that entered her voice had me on high alert. A renewed interest in Ski Club? What was she talking about? I hadn’t told anyone I wanted to go back to that emotional garbage dump.

  Dana continued. “Junior year is just really important, with college applications right around the corner. Hate to see your GPA start to slip.” The longer she went on, the more confused I felt. The bell announced the beginning of eighth period, and Mr. Kile dove right in, handing out the exam.

  As I penciled in my name and the date at the top of the stapled pages, I couldn’t stop thinking about what Dana had said. Her words about Ski Club and the unnecessary droning about my grades just repeated in my head. I tried to push past it, doing my best to concentrate on the multiple-choice questions in front of me. But with each question I answered, the next became more and more difficult. It wasn’t the content itself. I knew the unit material inside and out. It was the actual words on the page. It was like being so tired that you can’t stop your vision from splitting into two. By the time I reached the end of a question, I’d already forgotten how it had started.

  When I glanced around the room, I could see that everyone around me was already on to the essay section. I checked the clock and almost fell out of my seat. We’d just started, but somehow there were only five minutes left. Then I saw it out of the corner of my eye. A languid grin turned up the side of Dana’s mouth. She looked at me when she stood up to hand in her test and I knew. I knew that smile was just for me, and I couldn’t think straight because of her.

  Renewed interested in Ski Club. Hate to see your GPA start to slip. It had been a threat, a threat she’d immediately followed through on. Not because I wanted to go back to Whiteface, but because I had been talking to her minions. Of course they’d reported back and now Dana was marking her territory. She was flaunting her power and leaving me floundering. At least that was what my daily growing paranoia told me. I could hear the whispers already. Nica’s losing it. Losing her friends, her grades, just completely losing her shit. It didn’t matter if Dana had forced me to bomb the test or if it was just the stress getting to me. There would never be any proof. I scribbled in random answers for the remaining multiple-choice questions and handed the rest of the exam in blank.

  I already had my bag slung over my shoulder and bolted from my chair the second the last bell sounded. I had to get away from Dana, and I couldn’t stand to look Mr. Kile in the eye. Storming through the halls, I wanted to vanish and never come back. It had been bad enough to watching Dana manipulate Jackson and push Oliver away from me. But having her inside my head? It was too much. I couldn’t be one of her puppets, but I was starting to realize just how high of a mountain I’d need to climb.

  It took something truly strange to stop me dead in my tracks. By chance, I’d caught the most unlikely pairing out of the corner of my peripheral vision. At a table in the back of the library, Oliver and Chase were sitting and studying. Together. When I was sure they hadn’t seen me, I slipped inside. Gliding into the empty stacks, I triple-checked my surroundings and then went invisible. It felt so easy now. Had Oliver asked for a sit-down? Was he going to tell Chase they were brothers? Or was this one of Dana’s moves? Chase was one of the only people I had left to turn to. It would make sense for her to pull him out from under me. And who better to administer the poison than a jilted best friend? There was only one way to find out. Up on my tiptoes, I headed straight for them.

  As I got closer, I could see they were surrounded with books and papers. My worry grew deeper. What if Chase wasn’t Dana’s latest target but rather her link to Bar Tech? Chase was Cochran’s son; only months ago he’d been eager to turn over Maya, his own girlfriend. Here he was now in all of his baby-executive glory—practically a damn student ambassador!

  This time, however, my internal tirade was paranoia. Closer yet, I was able to see the text on the strewn-about papers. It was chemistry homework.

  “So, helium, neon, argon, krypton, xenon are all . . . ?” Oliver asked.

  “Noble gases,” Chase responded. I could tell he was a little excited to know the answer.

  “And what makes them special?”

  “They all have eight electrons.”

  “Which means . . . ?” Oliver looked at Chase, expectant.

  “They’re stable?” Chase thought about it another moment. “Inert.”

  I felt like a jerk. Oliver was Chase’s tutor.

  “Well, okay. I think that does it for today.” As Oliver called their session to an end, the visage of teacher and devoted student fell to reveal two teens not quite comfortable with each other.

  “Uh, thanks. My dad said he’d have a check for you at the end of the week. I’ll bring it to school on Friday.”

  “I don’t mind picking it up at your house, if that’s easier. It’s on my way.” It was obvious to me how eager Oliver was to go to the Cochrans’, but I doubted Chase could see it too.

  “I thought you lived closer to downtown,” said Chase. Either way, Oliver was caught.

  “I do. I’m just over there . . . a lot. You know, friends.” They sat awkwardly for another second. “Hey,” started Oliver. “Can I ask you something kind of weird?”

  Chase was clearly thrown off guard by the request. “Uh, sure?”

  “You’re an only child, right?”

  No, no, no. Don’t go there, Oliver.

  “Yeah, dude.”

  “Me too. I was just wondering . . . do you ever wonder what it would feel like to have a brother or a sister or something?”

  Oh, Christ, Oliver. That is not smooth. He was lucky that Chase wasn’t the sharpest observer of human behavior and the implication went right over his head. He just laughed.

  “It could happen. My dad’s always threatening to marry someone younger. Probably kind of weird, but I’d get used to it.”

  “Yeah, proba
bly,” Oliver said with a hint of sadness.

  I winced through another thirty seconds of awkward silence until Oliver finally got up and left. As soon as he was out of sight, I doubled back into the stacks to go visible again. Safely reappeared but still out of sight, I fluffed my hair a little and smeared on some quick lip gloss. I didn’t want to stop to think about what it meant, but I knew I cared about how I looked in front of Chase.

  “Nica! Hey!” He was packing up but looked happy to see me. I leaned over his study materials.

  “Chemistry, huh?”

  “Yeah . . .” He shifted his weight, a little reluctant to talk about it. “My dad hired me a tutor. I thought I’d be able to blow him off after a couple sessions, but your pal Oliver is persistent.”

  I wanted to know more, if only to hear if Oliver had made it all the way to Cochran Senior yet. “Why the sudden interest in academics?” Heaven help me if he repeated any of Dana’s “junior year” jargon.

  “I wanted to impress you.” Chase could only hold it deadpan for a few seconds. “My dad insisted that I get my grades up. Said they need to be strong enough that I can get into any private school without too much elbow grease.”

  “Are you moving?” I asked, genuinely surprised. Bar Tech was headquartered in Barrington. Why would its CEO be going anywhere?

  “Honestly, I don’t know. My dad can be an impulsive guy. He says we always have to be ready, because he never knows where Bar Tech is going to take him next. Probably gives the same speech to his employees.” He said it like a joke, but there was more pain under the comment than humor. He pushed it off with a rakish grin. “Glad to know you’d miss me, though.”

  The temptation was strong to flirt back and indulge for just five minutes, but my brain and hormones were battling it out. My brain won out. I was too busy shuffling the puzzle pieces to maintain a witty repartee. Where could Bar Tech even move to?

  “Of course I would.” It was true, the best that I could give him. “I have to get home. A lot of homework.” A lame excuse, but the only one I could toss over my shoulder as I waved good-bye. I wasn’t sure if my father was ready to talk, but I was running out of options.