Don't Look Now

by Michelle Gagnon

  “Yeah.” Mouse didn’t bother glancing up as she left. Amanda got the distinct feeling that the waitress wouldn’t be getting much of a tip this time.

  Teo sat silently in the back of the van. By now he knew everyone’s name. There was Remo, a skinny kid whose jet-black hair hung over his eyes, and Janiqua, a girl who looked far older than her seventeen years. Crystal, Danny, and Hopper were all around his age. He hadn’t gotten much of a chance to talk to them, but they seemed all right.

  And of course, Daisy. Back in Oakland she’d slid into the van and sat beside him, so close their thighs were touching the entire ride. Although that might have been by accident; they were hunkered down as far as possible from the back of the van.

  Once they’d left the farm, the atmosphere had cheered up considerably. The kids passed around a bag of chips and cans of soda and teased one another about how freaked they’d all been by the dead guy.

  Teo didn’t join in. It was still bothering him. Remo and Janiqua had helped Noa and Zeke unload the body. Ten minutes later they were back, which definitely wasn’t enough time to bury someone. He couldn’t stop obsessing over what they had done with it, but didn’t want to ask. He had the feeling he wouldn’t like the answer.

  Daisy bumped against him every time the van took a turn. She was smiling and laughing along with the others now, which just made him feel even more left out.

  How could they all act like nothing had happened? They’d been forced to ride in the back of a van for hours with a dead body. Not that he felt sorry for the guy, exactly—after all, he’d been hired to deliver Teo to people who would kill him.

  Teo wrapped his arms more tightly around his knees. The way the others were acting reminded him a lot of his house growing up, before Child Services took him away. His mother had a similar high, frantic energy as she babbled on, like words alone would keep his dad from beating on them. It never worked.

  “Want some?”

  Teo lifted his head; Daisy was rustling the bag of chips at him.

  “No, thanks,” he muttered.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  “I get carsick.”

  “Oh, crap, sorry.” She pulled the bag away. “That sucks.”

  “Yeah.”

  They sat in silence while everyone clamored around them. Teo had noticed that it was pretty quiet in the front seat, though. Noa’s mouth had been set in a grim line as they hauled out the body.

  “Why are we going to Phoenix?” he asked to get his mind off it.

  “We’re gonna raid one of the facilities,” Daisy said. Her voice was low, but excitement hummed through it. “We’ll rescue more kids, and shut the operation down. Noa and Zeke are really good with computers, they’ll get information off them, then make them crash. It’ll be awesome.”

  “Yeah?” He regarded her thoughtfully; her eyes were shining. “So you’ve done it before?”

  “No, not me,” Daisy clarified. “I mean, I’ve only been with them a few weeks, you know? But I heard all about the raid they did in San Diego.”

  “It sounds dangerous,” Teo pointed out. “Especially if we don’t have guns.”

  “Oh, they always have a plan to handle the guards so no one gets hurt,” Daisy said dismissively. “It’ll be fine. You’ll see.”

  “Guards?”

  “Rent-a-cops,” Daisy explained. “Zeke says they’re better than most, but still pretty easy to trick.”

  “Oh,” Teo said faintly. “So who else has done one of these before?”

  “Janiqua,” Daisy said, indicating her with a tilt of her chin. “And Remo and Danny. I think Turk did all of them.”

  Her voice dropped a notch when she mentioned Turk, as if even saying his name was a bad idea. Teo was finding it hard to repress a growing sense of anxiety. He scanned the animated faces around him; it struck him forcefully that they were just a bunch of kids. Not a real army, not trained to fight guards with guns. All those stories that had impressed him so much . . . this was the reality. They took chances, and they’d been lucky—so far. But what if they weren’t this time?

  “It’s always okay not to go,” Daisy said, eyeing him with concern. “They’re totally cool with that.”

  Teo flushed, feeling like a coward. “Yeah? How do you know, if you haven’t done one of these before?”

  “Janiqua told me,” she said with a shrug. “Chill. It’s really not a big deal. And think about the kids in there. Don’t you want to save them?”

  “Yeah, sure,” Teo said. But the truth was, he didn’t really care about some kids he’d never met. He shuddered, remembering the stack of trash bags at the back of the van, that weird heavy thud they’d made against the back door whenever they hit a bump. He wasn’t going to end up like that. Teo decided he’d slip away as soon as they got to Phoenix, like he’d planned.

  Peter slammed shut the laptop, frustrated. A full day of monitoring Mason’s computer, and he had nothing. Less than nothing, really. The guy had done one Google search for a restaurant in the North End, and that was it. No emails sent or received, nothing private at all. He wasn’t even surfing porn sites.

  And if Mason had an iPhone or Blackberry, he wasn’t syncing it with the desktop, something Peter had counted on. He was probably conducting most of his nefarious business on that device. Short of developing pickpocketing skills, Peter had no way of accessing that.

  Which meant he’d have to break into Mason’s apartment again and install the other surveillance tools. They were scattered across the desk in front of him—a couple of really cool tiny cameras that were supposed to provide a 180-degree view, although they didn’t record sound, so he wasn’t sure how useful they’d be. He had bought sound bugs, too, although those were trickier; Mason’s apartment was huge, and Peter had no idea which rooms he spent most of his time in. The last thing he wanted was an earful of whatever happened in the bedroom. The office and living room would be the best places, he decided.

  But to do it he’d have to get inside again, an additional risk he hadn’t counted on. Peter reflected on how close he’d come to being discovered the last time and shivered. If Mason had caught him . . .

  But he didn’t, he reminded himself. And now that he had his bearings, he should be able to do the whole job in under five minutes. Maybe he could get Amanda to keep watch outside the building. . . .

  Just as quickly, he dismissed the idea. Amanda had already had one bad encounter with Mason. He couldn’t set her up for another. And what if she had an episode on the street?

  Peter tilted back in his chair. It was late, nearly midnight. He’d drifted through his classes today in a reverie, wholly absorbed by the Mason problem. During study hall he’d made some headway on narrowing the search parameters for the Pike & Dolan data, but the software program was still returning massive amounts of information. And every day another heap of it was added to the top of the mountain. He’d spent a few hours sifting through emails and reports, but most turned out to be innocuous, about a new line of conditioner they were bringing to market, and the expansion of vaccine lines.

  Nothing related to Project Persephone. In fact, he’d specifically searched for the files he and Noa had found months earlier, when they first hacked into the company’s systems. Not a trace of them remained, so either his bricking had been more successful than he’d dreamed, or someone had systematically eliminated anything incriminating.

  The bummer was that it meant those files might be housed on an entirely different server, one maintained separately from their computer mainframe. And if that were the case, those servers would probably be in a more secure location, where he couldn’t just waltz in pretending to be a visiting tech genius.

  Peter stared gloomily out his bedroom window. The bottom line was, all the risks he’d taken might have been for nothing. He hadn’t heard from Noa, either. He wondered if the hostage had told her anything. More importantly, would she share the information if he had? It felt like they were operating at a growing remove from each
other. Sometimes this all seemed like some terrible, inescapable nightmare he’d been sucked into. And he was in it all alone. He felt a flash of resentment. Where was his army? Instead of a trusted member of the team, he was starting to feel like the guy they kept on payroll to maintain the nuts and bolts of the operation, someone who sat alone at a desk mostly forgotten.

  But it didn’t have to be that way, he reminded himself. The Northeastern division of Persefone’s Army was located right here in Boston. He’d met the leader once, a kid named Luke who seemed okay. Maybe he should try to get more involved with their operations.

  Peter pushed back from his desk and started to pace. He had class in the morning, which meant he had to be up in six hours. But he felt too wired to sleep. All he did now was go to school, and spend time in front of a monitor trying to help Noa. His friends had pretty much given up on him, and he couldn’t remember the last time he’d done anything that qualified as fun.

  That wasn’t entirely true, Peter thought, dropping back into his desk chair. The movie the other day had been fun, until Amanda did her spooky walk around the parking lot. He was still torn about whether or not to share his suspicions that she was in the early stages of PEMA. There was no treatment yet, nothing that could be done for her anyway. And what if he was wrong? He’d even toyed with the idea of telling her parents, but that felt like a betrayal. If the situation were reversed, he’d want his parents kept out of it entirely.

  He’d left her a couple of messages today, but she hadn’t called back yet, which made him nervous. Kids with PEMA exhibited all sorts of strange symptoms, including walking in circles and narcolepsy. She didn’t drive anywhere, but still; what if she spaced out while crossing the street? Or zonked out in a place where a creep could take advantage of her?

  He couldn’t let that happen. Next time they met up, he’d talk to her about it. Maybe even see if her roommate had noticed anything weird. After all, that incident in the parking lot might have been something else, he told himself. Like stress from all her classes and volunteering. Maybe he’d exaggerated this whole thing because he’d become obsessed with PEMA.

  Peter couldn’t make himself believe it, though. He’d spent a lot of time on a PEMA ward watching his brother waste away. He knew exactly how the disease manifested itself. And Amanda had been exhibiting classic symptoms.

  Which meant that she was going to die sometime in the next year. The realization hit him hard. His initial reaction had been rage at Mason for hurting her; the end result hadn’t really occurred to him until now. Amanda was basically walking around with a death sentence on her head. And there was nothing he could do to save her.

  The legs of the chair dropped down hard, jarring him as they hit the floor. Peter blinked back tears. Amanda was the first girl he’d ever loved; no, the only girl he’d ever loved, he corrected himself, although an image of Noa flickered, unbidden, through his mind. Amanda was one of the most amazing people he’d ever met: kind, caring, passionate, and fierce. She should have been destined for a long, productive life. Instead, she wouldn’t even get the chance to graduate from college.

  Well, if he couldn’t save her, at least he could punish the man responsible for making her sick. With renewed determination, Peter flipped the laptop open again and started digging through Maurer Consulting’s records. There had to be something here that would tell him Mason’s weakness, and how he could be hurt. And he planned on finding it, even if it killed him.

  CHAPTER

  SIX

  “I count three guarding the perimeter, which means there are probably at least three more inside,” Zeke said, squinting through the binoculars.

  Noa was slumped down in the passenger seat; she could just see over the dashboard. “Can I look?” she asked, holding out a hand.

  He passed her the binoculars, and she peered through them. They were parked on a small rise overlooking the warehouse facility. The building appeared abandoned; the only thing close by was a desolate office park a mile down the road.

  The rest of the group was in a foreclosed-upon house in a half-finished housing development on the outskirts of Phoenix. Yesterday had been a long day of driving; after dumping the body, they’d decided to do it in one long stretch. Which hadn’t been easy; she, Zeke, Remo, and Janiqua had all taken turns at the wheel, and they’d only stopped twice to buy snacks and let everyone use the restroom. But consequently they’d gotten here in record time, arriving a little after seven a.m. They’d spent the morning scouting for a new safe house, then hunkered down to rest up. A little after dusk, she and Zeke drove out to case their target.

  “Phoenix is kind of perfect,” Zeke noted. “Lots of places in foreclosure. I bet they had no problem finding an empty building to rent.”

  “Yeah, the bad economy has really been a plus for Project Persephone,” Noa said drily.

  Zeke issued a short laugh before adding, “It’s pretty close to the highway, too, so we can get in and out quick. We can head straight to the Forsythes from here.”

  “That would be great,” Noa said with a sigh. She could use a few days off. They hadn’t been back to their home base in Santa Cruz, California, in nearly a month. It was one of the few places where she felt safe. The people who had first rescued Zeke lived there, an older couple who had stumbled across what was going on a few years ago. Horrified, the Forsythes had assembled a small group of like-minded people to try and stop Project Persephone. When all their efforts to publicize the experiments were quashed, they resorted to raids, although in a far less dramatic fashion. According to Zeke, they’d mainly snuck into loosely monitored labs in the dead of night, smuggling kids out in maintenance vans. Of course, the Forsythes weren’t exactly young, or trained as fighters; they had been scientists who made a fortune and retired early. And most of the help they’d corralled came from adults with similar backgrounds. So when Zeke and Noa offered to take over the raids and kidnapping intercepts, the Forsythes had accepted with what Noa couldn’t help notice looked a lot like relief.

  “So what do you think?” Zeke asked. “Same plan as San Diego?”

  “They’ll be expecting that,” Noa said, scanning the scene below through the binoculars. Even at this distance, the sight of the warehouse turned her stomach. It was a nondescript, dusty-brown building that could have doubled as an airplane hangar. No windows visible, and a single door at each end. It looked a lot like the place where she’d woken up after they’d operated on her. No matter how many rescue missions they did, she’d never gotten used to seeing a facility in person. “I think we need to try something new.”

  “Yeah, but what?” Zeke asked. “We don’t have enough cash for anything fancy. Unless you want the Forsythes to send a money order . . .”

  “We won’t need anything fancy,” Noa said. Her jaw clenched as she watched two of the guards chatting as they smoked cigarettes. They appeared relaxed, casual. Like they could care less about the fact that kids were being sliced open a few dozen feet away. “I’ve got an idea.”

  “Awesome.” Zeke flashed her a grin. “I love your ideas.”

  She snorted.

  “No, seriously,” he added in a softer voice. “You’re the brains of this operation. We wouldn’t have gotten anything done without you.”

  “You were doing plenty before we even met,” she reminded him, shifting uncomfortably. If anything, sometimes she thought that her involvement had only made things worse on everyone. Maybe it would have been better if they’d been quieter about bringing the fight to Pike & Dolan. But no, she’d gone trumpeting about her little army all over the internet. A flash of the commando’s dead body swept through her mind, and she winced.

  “You’re crying,” Zeke said with surprise.

  Angrily, Noa wiped the tears away with the back of her hand. She hardly ever cried. She’d always thought it was a ridiculous display of weakness, a physical tic that didn’t accomplish anything. So why was it happening now? “I’m fine,” she sniffled.

  But Zeke was
already reaching across the long van seat for her. She stiffened as his arms wrapped around her. “It’s okay,” he said soothingly, drawing her to him. “Just relax.”

  At the feel of his breath on the back of her neck, Noa experienced a flash of panic. The tears were one thing, but as he held her and murmured something unintelligible into her hair, she felt . . . something else. Something even more unsettling. She liked this, she realized. She wanted to lay her head against his shoulder and wrap her arms around him, too. She wanted . . .

  Abruptly, she pulled away. Noa ran a hand through her hair and slid all the way to the opposite side of the van, pressing herself against the door. The air seemed thick, cloying, like there wasn’t enough of it to fill her lungs.

  “What’s wrong?” Zeke asked, his voice filled with hurt and confusion. His eyes, usually so unreadable, were suddenly bottomless enough to drown in. “I was just trying to—”

  “I know,” Noa interrupted, wiping her cheeks again to get rid of stray tears. “Thanks.”

  “Yeah, sure,” he said, still staring at her fixedly. “Anytime.”

  “We should go,” Noa said. Suddenly, she had no idea what to do with her hands, or where to look. She felt hot and flushed, like she’d suddenly developed a fever. “The others are waiting.”

  Still, he didn’t move. Noa avoided his eyes, focusing on the building below them. Without the binoculars it was hard to discern details; it was just a mass of brown, nearly indistinguishable from the sandy lot surrounding it.

  Another minute passed, the silence heavy and palpable. Noa’s mind raced. She was being ridiculous. Zeke was her friend, maybe even the only person on the planet she could trust completely. She’d overreacted—he’d just been trying to make her feel better.

  Noa turned to say that she was sorry, but Zeke had shifted in his seat to stare blankly out the windshield. His jaw was set, and he looked angry. As she opened her mouth to speak, he turned on the ignition and threw the van in reverse, spinning it around and tearing back toward the highway.