by Jeff Adams
“They did,” Lorenzo said. “We hadn’t expected that. I—”
“I think I know how we can prevent it.” I sat up again despite my body’s demands to do otherwise. “We can cloak the tablet and make the push on the firewall look like it’s coming from somewhere else.”
“Theoretically possible. We’d have to make some modifications. Might be hard to test that, but maybe.”
“Theo, stop,” Mom said. “You’ve been seriously injured. That shock you took was similar to what a high-power stun gun generates, plus you’ve got some cuts and minor burns from the tablet exploding in your hands. You’re lucky this isn’t a lot worse.”
That explained a lot. Not only was I sore from that check this morning, but I was reeling from some hundred thousand volts of electricity.
“If I were any other agent, we wouldn’t be having this discussion.”
“We would,” Yoshi said. “Just long enough to make sure you were okay before continuing.”
“Why would you say that to him?” Mom shot Yoshi a death glare, which would be a hell of a superpower to have.
“Because it’s true.”
She gave a frustrated sigh as she stood up and walked to the window.
Did I need to be the agent or the son?
We still had to find Dad.
“Do we have the equipment?” I opted to be the agent even as a wave of nausea came over me.
Lorenzo thought a moment, consulting his tablet. “Yeah. Most of it. Testing, though….”
“My MIT adviser has contacts at the university here. Let me figure out how to ask for that without raising suspicion.”
I looked to my watch, and it was gone. Weird.
“All the electronics on you fried,” Lorenzo offered. “Watch, phone, earpiece.”
“Fuck.”
“Theo!” Mom snapped, turning from the window. “Regardless of the situation, I won’t have that language.” She was furious, and it was more than my word choice.
I paused for a moment, considering the options.
“Okay, here’s the deal as I see it.” I looked to the clock on the nightstand. “I’ve got a game in ninety minutes.”
“Theo, no. I can’t—”
I held up my hand, stopping Mom. If I was going to be an agent, I had to be all in.
“Being in the tournament is our easy access to where I need to work. If I don’t play, we lose that. We don’t know if Blackbird knows I’m the one who made the attack this morning, but if they do, I also want to show that they didn’t win. It’ll be rough to play, but I’ll get through it. Lorenzo, if you can get the parts together and start work, I’ll join you as soon as I’m done with tourney events. We need to make another go of this tomorrow. Do we know they won’t try to move out?”
“We’re watching all the traffic going and coming from the area,” Yoshi said. “We’re not completely satisfied that we’ve got the place buttoned up, but we’re monitoring everything we can. We suspect the facility is too large to move on short notice, even if they know we’re here.”
“Okay. We get the equipment ready and make another run tomorrow. Coach, when do I need to be at the rink?”
“I’d say you’ve got forty-five minutes.”
I nodded.
“I need some time with Mom and John. Coach, I’ll see you in the lobby to go to the rink.”
“Theo,” Yoshi said, “we should further debrief.”
“We can do some in the car on the way to the rink, or we can do it after the game. Not right now.”
Yoshi looked at me. It was obvious he was trying to decide if he was going to challenge me. I was certainly on the verge of insubordination, because he was the team leader.
He ultimately nodded. “Let’s leave them.”
Coach and Yoshi headed for the door. Lorenzo held back a moment and handed me a phone from his messenger bag.
“It’s exactly like yours. I uploaded everything from the cloud, so you should see no difference. I’ll pick up a watch while I’m out and I’ll have a tablet later as well.”
I smiled. He had my back.
“Thanks, man.”
He nodded and headed out with the others. The door was hardly closed before Mom let me have it.
“Theodore Reese, what are you thinking? You’re in no condition to continue with this mission, much less play. I can’t—”
“Mom.” I spoke quietly. I couldn’t be mad at her. “Dad’s somewhere and we’ve got to find him. This is our best chance—”
“There’re other people—”
“No. There aren’t.” I stayed calm. “If Lorenzo and I trade places, the response time will be down. He doesn’t think as fast as I do about these types of things.”
“Lorenzo is a highly trained, and I emphasize the word trained, operative and computer tech, what makes you think—”
“He’s right, Katherine,” John said. “Lorenzo’s trained for the field, but Theo’s the better tech for this scenario.”
Mom leveled the death glare on John.
“Exactly,” I continued. “There are situations where he’d outthink me, and we’d be better if I backed him up. This isn’t one of those.”
I went to the closet and looked at myself in the large mirror. I looked like crap. Dozens of small cuts marked my hands, and there were a few on my face too. My palms were a vivid red, clearly first-degree burns.
I thought I looked older too. Maybe it was how I carried myself because of the pain vibrating through me. Maybe it was because life had changed so much in just a few days.
I needed to come up with a story about how this happened, because I wasn’t going to be able to cover up the damage. It was also possible in a group of strangers that no one would ask.
Meanwhile, the story I really wanted was how they’d managed to get me back to the room while I was unconscious. For some reason I imagined a slapstick comedy. I’d have to hear about that one later.
Strangely I wasn’t scared. Not like I’d been after I was bikejacked. Was that normal? All I felt right now was the need to complete the mission.
“It’s going to be okay, Mom.”
I wrapped her in a hug. Since the kidnapping attempt, she’d been taking care of me and trying to work the case. Now her husband was missing and I was more in danger than ever. She needed that hug, I think, based on how tight she squeezed. It hurt pretty badly, but I didn’t let her know that.
When she finally let go, she seemed calmer.
There was a knock and Mom let Lorenzo in.
“I wanted to get you a new earpiece before the game, just in case you needed it.”
He handed me the device and I just stared at it. I’d never gotten the info on putting it in and taking it out.
“Oh. Okay.” He caught on that I had no clue, so he took tweezers from his bag.
“Does everyone carry those? Are they agency issue?” I asked. “Shouldn’t these just come with the earpiece as part of the package?”
“I got mine at Walgreens,” Lorenzo said.
“Me too.” John nodded.
I looked at Mom to finish this odd bit of sharing. “I actually use my mom’s. I remembered playing with them at her makeup table when I was little, and when she passed, I decided to take them. I’ve used them specifically for the earpiece ever since.”
I simply nodded. It was the best response to the surreal conversation.
Lorenzo showed me how to put it in and take it out, and I practiced a few times. I dropped it more than once. Frankly I worried about putting it in wrong and having it end up in my brain or something, which they promptly told me wasn’t possible.
“And with that I gotta get going.” I returned the tweezers to Lorenzo.
I stripped out of the sweatshirt I’d been wearing and fished another out of my bag. I caught myself in the mirror again and noticed several small lacerations on my chest and stomach. I could see the slits in the shirt when I further examined it.
Mom turned her head away. How did she
deal with Dad on missions when things got rough? Or was this because I was her son? How did Dad do it when it was her in trouble? As I pulled the shirt on, my hands were tight and stinging. Putting them in hockey gloves wasn’t going to be pleasant.
“Okay,” I said. “Time to meet Coach.”
“What are you going to say if anyone asks about the injuries?” John asked.
I shrugged. “I’ll make it up on the fly. I’m thinking no one’s gonna ask. It’s not like I know these guys.” I turned to Lorenzo. “While you’re getting parts, can you get me some tweezers?”
“Of course.” He chuckled.
“Thanks.”
We all left the room with our various assignments. I knew Mom and John would be at the game and Coach would be there of course. Lorenzo and Yoshi would be gathering what we needed to make another go at the mission.
Chapter Eighteen
THE GAME was even tougher than I thought it would be. The pain was insane. Every stride hurt, not to mention the stinging sensations in my hands. It took everything I had to bury it. I was sucking at the game too, with my response time just enough out of sync that I made a lot of errors. While I didn’t care what the scouts saw, I did want to support the team, and that wasn’t happening.
As I suspected, however, if anyone noticed I was more battered than before, no one said anything. It probably helped I deliberately arrived late to the locker room, so everyone was already focused on getting ready.
Sitting on the bench and drinking water, I gazed through the crowd on the opposite side of the ice. The attendance was higher than I thought a high school tourney would be.
Crap.
Sitting right at center ice, about halfway up the stands, I discovered Eddie. What was he doing here? Were my eyes playing tricks on me? Huge coincidence if that was the case, because the guy sat exactly where Eddie liked to sit for Tigers games.
A stop in play brought a line change and my turn to go out on the ice.
“Winger here.” I spoke softly as I went to my face-off spot. “Snowbird and Shotgun, why do you suppose—” I stopped short. I shouldn’t say a real name on the comm. “Look one section to your right and three rows down.”
“Did you know about that?” Snowbird asked.
That was all the confirmation I needed.
“Nope. He hasn’t been talking to me.”
Talk about complicated. Was this an apology for the other night? It was cool he was here, but I had things to do too. Eddie was going to want to hang, especially since I had a room to myself.
Damn. I had a room to myself and my boyfriend showed up. This should be the best thing ever. How was I going to put him off when I couldn’t give a good reason for it?
As the puck dropped, my mind raced on what to do. Somehow, even with the distractions, my game-playing sense finally kicked in. I received the center’s pass and one-timed it at the goalie. While the goalie deflected my shot, Donny was right there for the rebound and scored. He came at me and gave me a bear hug.
I struggled not to cry out when he tackled me with the embrace. I was going to need a vat of ibuprofen tonight.
“Man, I thought your head was in a computer somewhere with the way you were playing,” Donny said. Was that condescension or concern? “Can we see more of that, please?”
We headed back to center ice. Since we were only out for a few seconds, we planned to stay at least another thirty. The opposition won the face-off, so we were immediately on defense. I managed to block a pass from their center to the winger, but I ended up grappling for the puck because the winger wasn’t giving up easily.
The winger kicked my skate out from under me, which sent me crashing on my butt and back. I don’t think my body had ever taken as much punishment as it had in the past few hours. This time the ref saw the trip and called the penalty. I took that as my cue to end the shift and head back to the bench.
“You holding up?”
It was Coach Daly.
“Barely.” I could hardly hear myself while I talked. “Hopefully I can stay on my feet for the next six minutes.”
I looked across the rink to Eddie. He appeared to be solo. How’d he get here? It’s not like it’s easy for someone our age just to show up in Denver from Boston.
The opposing team managed to tie up the game with four to go.
My next shift was intense as I sprinted the length of the rink three times in less than forty-five seconds. It was the worst suicide drill ever because I was already exhausted. We didn’t break the tie, and the second line didn’t either.
Next shift out was more of the same as both sides kept turning over the puck and rushing back to the other side. I called on energy reserves I didn’t know existed. No scoring again, so when the final buzzer sounded, we shifted to four-on-four overtime.
Ultimately the game went to a shootout. Coach decided I was going to go first. I stepped out and waited for the ref to place the puck at center ice and blow the whistle. I’d already gotten a goal on this guy, and I’d watched during the assists I’d picked up too. I had a fairly good idea on how he moved.
I started slowly as I picked up the puck from the dot and moved directly toward the goalie. As I crossed the blue line, I sped up a bit but didn’t divert my path. We locked eyes but I watched the puck in the very edge of my vision. As I got aligned to the face-off dots, I diverted to my right and he stayed center, but our eyes focused on each other. I drifted farther right and maneuvered the puck with me, winding up to shoot.
He committed to the left, blocking up the net, but I shifted back to my left at the last moment and ultimately backhanded the puck right into the post. The clank echoed in my ears.
Fuck me. I had a wide-open net, and I managed to hit the post. I slammed my stick into the ice as I returned to the bench. As I sat down, several teammates commented that it was just an unlucky break. Thankfully Jamie stopped the opposition.
The second-round shooters also failed, though not as spectacularly as I did. Donny finally got a puck in the net, and the bench cheered for his return. We’d win if the opponent didn’t score.
I stood on the bench, watching Jamie. He was the picture of cool, just like during both games. The skater came in, zigging all around. Jamie didn’t commit. I wasn’t sure what he looked at—the puck, the player, the stick. All he moved was his glove hand. The shooter got close, into the deep slot, before he let the puck go. Jamie confidently caught it in his glove, which he held up defiantly as he skated out of the crease.
We erupted into cheers and spilled off the bench. After we swarmed Jamie to thank him for keeping us in the game, we shook hands with the other team. We’d snagged our second win, no thanks to me.
I was among the first into the locker room and into the shower. I stood under the spray, enjoying the water running over my weary body. The water felt like pinpricks where I had cuts and burns, but I ignored it because the rest of me needed it.
“Hey, Reese,” called our coach. I turned to find him in the doorway to the showers. “Someone’s here to see you.”
Dammit. Really? It had to be Eddie. Everyone else would’ve just called over the earpiece.
“Thanks. I’ll be right out.”
I quickly soaped up to get the hockey stench off me.
“You okay, Theo?” Jamie took the shower to my left. “I know I’ve only played one game with you, but you seemed off.”
“I’m more banged up from this morning than I thought. And that trip in the third just made it worse.” I rinsed and regretfully shut off the water. “I gotta get going. I’ll see you at the dinner tonight.”
“All right. Take care.” Jamie sounded concerned, which I ignored.
In the locker room, I moved quickly to stow my stuff and dress. Despite the fact I had things to do with Lorenzo, I put on my best great-to-see-you face. Eddie was leaning against the wall across from the doorway.
“I thought I saw you in the stands.” I came up and wrapped him in my arms—a move which came with a fair bit
of screaming from my muscles. “What a great surprise.”
He kissed me and squeezed me tight. My body didn’t know what to do with the mix of sensations, between the awesome kiss and the painful squeeze. Hopefully the moan that escaped sounded like enjoyment. Truthfully I wasn’t sure which one it was.
“You too.” He continued to hold me. “I’m sorry I was such a dick before you left.”
“Don’t be sorry. It’s on me for not telling you about this when Coach first brought it up. You should’ve known this was a possibility.”
“It’s behind us.” He waved his hand, as if I needed the extra emphasis. “Are you doing okay, though? You looked rough out there.”
“I got slammed pretty hard in the morning game and it’s painful. Come on, let’s get out of here. There are better places to hang out.” I took his hand and headed for the rink lobby. “So how’d you get out here?” I asked. “It’s an epic surprise.”
“My dad’s here for a conference, so I asked if I could tag along so I could apologize. He shocked me by saying yes.”
Eddie’s dad is an insurance and financial consultant, and while he’s nice, he never seemed like someone who would bring his son along on a business trip.
“Guess what?” I shouldn’t say what I was about to, but I was going to go for it and deal with the ramifications later.
“It must be good. You’ve got such a wicked look on your face.”
“I’ve got a room to myself.”
“No way.” The excitement in his voice nearly matched mine.
“Winger, mute yourself before you say stuff like that.”
Dammit. Mom. I forgot about the stupid earpiece. I’d already gotten used to it in my ear and for this game, they said they’d keep their side muted unless it was important.
I nodded, smiled, and raised my eyebrows at Eddie, going for silent communication.
“Winger”—this time it was Lorenzo—“sorry to break up this minireunion, but I need you. I’ve got some stuff to test if you’ve gotten access to that lab.”
I hadn’t looked at my phone since the game ended, so I didn’t know yet if we had the lab. The lab would have to take priority.