“If I’m Swiss, shouldn’t I be able to speak German or French or something?”
“Or Italian,” Geoff adds, looking concerned for the first time since we left Virginia.
“You guys, there are plenty of English speakers all over the world. No one is going to look at your passport, first of all. Second, they’re not going to think it’s odd you speak English if they do. Half the people in St. Petersburg use it as their primary language.”
“What are we doing in the city, anyway? I thought the virus was coming from Siberia.” My question comes off grumpy, and even I’m not sure if I’m stalling.
“The signal originated in Siberia, but the majority of the deaths have affected people in the St. Petersburg area. At least the ones in Russia. And we’ll mostly be doing research, anyway.”
“I thought we were going to interview some of the survivors,” Geoff says, his eyes narrowed.
“If we can find one who’s still capable of speaking that will be awesome, but mostly we’ll be looking for connections between them,” Dane replies. “We do have an appointment to observe one survivor this afternoon.”
We pull to a stop in a gray alleyway after a ten-minute drive.
“Okay. So what’s the plan?” Nerves aside, I’m ready to get moving. We’re not getting anything done in this car and the longer we sit here, the more potentially disastrous scenarios for the others run through my head.
“There’s an internet café around the corner. It will be empty, because we own it, but from the outside it appears to be a legitimate business. One of our agents—the Cavy our team will be working with—has unlocked the sanctions on the two computers in the far northwestern corner so we’ll be able to search any sites we need to. She’s also uploaded the files we have on the survivors of the virus. We’ve run cross-referencing programs on them but come up empty, so that’s where you come in. We’ll compare them by hand and see what we come up with.”
“And then?” Geoff looks as though he’s just realized what I guessed back in Charleston. They’re just keeping us busy so the other Cavies—the useful ones—can carry out the real mission.
“Then we go visit our survivor, a Miss Nadia Dimitrov, to see if she’s improved at all or can tell us what happened to her. Or why it happened to her. Then we head back to the airstrip.” Dane pulls out a third envelope and checks his passport. “From now on you’ll refer to me as Randoph Spitz. Geoff, what’s your name?”
“Adam Lintz.”
“Okay. Let’s take five minutes so you can memorize the information on your passport, just in case, then we’ll go.”
A whole new bunch of questions thud around in my head, like why anyone would ask us questions if we’re going to be in the internet café alone, why we’re using a public internet café instead of a CIA house somewhere, who our Asset is, but he won’t answer them anyway.
My biggest worry should be not being able to remember the name and address on my passport, but I find that after a quick run-through, the information is locked into my brain.
I look up, surprised, and find a similar expression on Geoff’s face. Could increased memory capabilities be another side effect of the GRH-18 that we haven’t had occasion to encounter until now? We’ve always had the ability to recall things other people wouldn’t, but our minds aren’t technically photographic. It typically takes me two or three times seeing something before I can easily recall it.
Five minutes later, Dane opens the car door and I step onto a street in another country for the first time in my life. It’s barren and so cold that the spots on my face still wet from tears become stiff and frozen. There’s actual snow on the ground, too, but just a dusting. At the airport there had been lacy flurries blowing over the tarmac, but in the city it’s settled on the sidewalks and built up in the gutters of the street, black and filthy. It looks nothing like the beautiful white drifts that show up in movies of Christmastime.
Figures.
My feet are soggy and wet by the time Dane ushers us into the internet café. The windows are dark but not curtained, and the name of the place is in Russian so I can’t read it. There’s a sign outside that’s not lit up, and I assume it says the place isn’t open for business.
Geoff goes in first, muttering something under his breath about bringing us to the coldest place on earth for some stupid time-wasting gig, and Dane puts a hand on my arm, stopping me.
I look up to find my old friend in his face. Concern in his eyes, conflicting with something else—probably duty. “Are you okay, Norah Jane? Really okay? You’re worrying me.”
“I’m fine.” I shake off his hand because I can’t afford to think of him as two different people.
“If something’s going on, you can talk to me about it.”
“So you can run back and tell Marlow all the reasons he should cut me loose? Or all the reasons he should keep me against my will, maybe get me all banged up like he did Flicker?” I curl my hands into fists, refusing to be moved by the startled betrayal in his dark gaze, covered up but not quickly enough.
“It doesn’t have to be like this, you know. We don’t have to be enemies.”
“Maybe not, but it would be nice if you’d stop pretending that us being friends is any more likely.”
He lets me go and I step over the threshold. It does look like the internet cafés in the movies, with its orange neon sign, rows of computers, and tables with printers on one end and a coffee bar on the other. There’s a girl behind the espresso machine with raven-dark hair. She’s muttering over steaming milk, but when the condensed water clears and her face is revealed, my jaw falls all the way open.
Reaper.
Chapter Twenty
Her face closes up as soon as she realizes we’ve recognized her. There’s no apology, no hint of guilt in her body language, and all the anger I’ve buried under weeks of worrying about other things bubbles up to the surface. There’s so much of it that it ties my tongue.
“Hey, guys. Anyone want a cappuccino? I think I’ve figured out how to work this thing.”
I whirl, fury turning the edges of my vision bright red, and hiss at Dane. “She’s the person we’re supposed to work with? She doesn’t know anything about computers!”
“She can’t even work the coffeemaker,” Geoff observes, though the bemused look on his face suggests he’s not a proper level of pissed off about this development.
How dare they make us work with our betrayer without even warning us first?
“I’m not working with her,” I state, and nothing in my voice is wavering now.
“Yes, you are.” Dane’s friendly face is still on, and in a strange way, I feel as though he’s still relying more on our friendship than his position of power to get his way. “She works for the CIA. On this mission, you work for the CIA. Deal with it.”
“She’s not the best person for this job,” I protest, avoiding looking at her. It’s working to staunch the flow of memories that cascade at the sight of her—all the laughter and fights and tears that go with growing up with someone. Knowing someone as well as you know yourself.
Until the day you realize you don’t anymore, and maybe you never did.
Our history almost balances the unbelievable heartbreak of having a sister double-cross me.
“I think if you give her a chance you’ll find that more than a few things have changed since the last time you saw your friend.” Dane stresses the last word, and my tension ratchets up five notches. “You’re not the only ones who have been experiencing enhancements.”
That cuts off any retort that might have been about to roll off my tongue, and I snap my mouth closed. Reaper shouldn’t have access to GRH-18, because as far as the Olders have told us, they’re the ones who developed it. I’ve never considered the fact that since the government is aware of the booster, they might have been working on their own version.
Besides, they must have samples of the original serum if they were able to develop the blocker that allows Dane and the others to avoid bein
g subjected to our abilities. There’s nothing I can do right now, short of walking out of this café and stewing in the car all alone. In here, at least I might be able to learn a few things that will come in handy.
I just have to tolerate Reaper’s presence for a few hours in order to do it.
“Fine. Let’s just get started.”
He nods, then beckons Reaper out from behind the counter. She steps lightly to the row of computers farthest from the windows, which are dirty enough to hide the fact that anyone’s in here. Strange how nothing about her has changed—not her sleek black hair, not her peach cheeks, her thin, short frame, or her natural hesitance about everything in life.
It feels as though her betrayal should have altered her somehow. That living without the Cavies should have taken a visible toll, but from what I can see, she looks better than ever. Certainly better than she had during the few weeks we’d attended Charleston Academy together. Of all of us, acting normal and trying to pretend there wasn’t anything special about us had been hardest on her.
She boots up two computers and then gestures to Geoff and me. “You guys sit here.”
We obey without any further comment, even though my fingers twitch at being so near to her. She leans over my shoulder, her long hair brushing my neck, and punches several buttons on the keyboard. A file pops up on my screen, then another, until fifty of them are piled up on the bar at the bottom of the screen. I’ve figured out how to use a computer well enough to complete school assignments, so this shouldn’t be too much for me to handle. What I want to know is how Reaper has figured out how to do more.
My curiosity trumps my conviction to speak to her as little as possible. “How are you good with computers now? We were in school together two weeks ago and Ella Patterson had to sit with you the whole time in computer science. If she didn’t, you had your hand up every couple of seconds.”
Reaper shrugs, then looks toward Dane for what appears to be permission. He gives her an almost imperceptible nod and she moves on to Geoff’s computer, opening more files for him.
“I’ve had more success lately controlling my ability to manipulate blood on a molecular level.” Her face squinches up over the word manipulate. She can call parts as small as platelets to her, if she wants, so there’s no better word for her gift. “Once I started figuring that out, it translated to computers. It’s weird, but I can, like, see the pieces of code and then change it. Pull it apart, like molecules.”
My mind turns over these facts—revelations, really—as my eyes scroll through the files on the virus’s first victims. They only serve to amp up my suspicions about why the CIA insisted they need our help, because there’s no way I’m going to find anything. To make matters worse, seeing Reaper has made it hard to pay attention to the jumble of words about their lives and pasts, their hobbies and professions. So when, after going through three of them, the name of a church throws up a red flag I’m more than a little surprised.
A quick check reveals three other victims were part of the same congregation and the familiar prickle of fear dances along my nerves.
It’s like with the passports in the car, and now there’s no doubt in my mind that the GRH-18 is enhancing my recall abilities. There’s definitely something going on with my recall. It’s never happened without me knowing that I needed to be able to remember the things I’m seeing, intentionally committing them to memory.
The church doesn’t seem to matter in the large scheme of things. Most of the victims are members of one congregation or another, and the latter ones listed don’t share the commonality with the first. As far as I can tell, they don’t have anything in common until they do—each of them used to live on or close to a military base near Siberia between the years of 1958–1989. Some grew up there, others were on active duty during all or some of the time period listed; others appear to be people indigenous to the area.
It seems too obvious, at first. Something a computer scanning for similarities never could have missed. The common factor shows up in previous addresses, which might be the reason it missed the child and random victims, but there are enough people here with military service during concurrent years that it should have popped.
I gnaw on my lower lip, wondering if it’s too simple and that’s why the CIA dismissed it.
I’m tired of staring at the computer. The crick in my neck urges me to clear my throat, and everyone’s attention is immediately on me. “Um, a good portion of these people served in the military at some point, all stationed on the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The rest of them were children of those people or locals.”
“Baikonur isn’t a military base,” Dane replies, an encouraging gleam in his dark eyes.
“I looked it up since it’s near the region where all this started,” Reaper offers. “It’s partially managed by the Aerospace Defense Forces and the USSR built it in the fifties. Don’t ask me why they’ve got military stationed there, or did back then. The answer to that isn’t in these files.”
“I saw it, too,” Geoff admits, running a hand through his thick, mouse-brown hair. “I just thought it was too obvious to be the answer.”
I’m about to question Dane about why the scanning program didn’t pick up the obvious cross-point when he looks at his watch and gets to his feet. It’s possible I’m wrong about the capability of their program, but if it can’t even find something as easy to spot as the fact that they all used to be neighbors of sorts, I really don’t know why they’re bothering to use it at all. They’ll say it’s why they need us, but they’re the CIA. Don’t they have some of the most sophisticated software in the world?
I can almost hear Dane telling me that I watch too many movies. Maybe the efficiency of the CIA is another Hollywood lie—Chameleon certainly seems to think so.
“It’s after noon. We’ve got to get going—we’re supposed to be at Fifth Mental Hospital—the sanitarium,” he clarifies, “by one, and the plane takes off at four. I’m thinking we don’t want to take any chances being late.”
“That’s the understatement of the year,” I mutter.
Dane’s either too far away to hear me or ignores the snark, and Geoff does the same, following our agent slash babysitter back out into the slushy mess that is Russia in January. I sigh and toss my paper coffee cup into the recycling canister by the door and look up to find Reaper watching me, a strange almost-smile on her face.
“What?”
“You always thought you were so smart.” The smile turns to acid, eating away the corners of her mouth. “But you really don’t know much of anything. And you’re blind as a bat. All of you.”
The insults hit me like harpoons, thick barbs snagging soft skin and pulling hard. I don’t know why she’s picking on me, and at the moment, I’m too hurt and confused to care.
I press my lips together in an attempt to hide how she’s gotten to me. “Shut up, Reaper. You didn’t see fit to talk to me before you made the decision to walk away from us, so do me a favor and keep up the trend.”
She ignores me, smiling bigger as she flips a switch inside the door. The lights inside the café go dark and she turns a key in the lock. It slides into place with a decisive click.
I guess that means she’s coming with us.
Reaper heeds my request in the car during the drive across town to the local loony bin. I’m kind of surprised to learn there are places like mental hospitals in Russia. I’m not really sure why, but I figured they sent all of the useless and crazy and elderly to, well, Siberia.
Dane’s eyes flick back and forth between my ex-friend and me where we sit next to each other in the backseat, as though he can smell the recent discord the way a pet dog can sniff out a sucker during dinner. Geoff ignores us all in favor of the beautiful, foreign scenery.
The streets and buildings in St. Petersburg remind me of Charleston in the way they’re graciously aging, even if the differently shaped domes and spires mark the architecture as foreign. It keeps my attention until the car turns through wr
ought-iron gates.
The grounds are unkempt and combine with the old red-brick building with filthy windows to give off a vaguely creepy vibe. Or maybe it’s because I know what sort of place it is. Or it could be the bars on the windows.
The driver, who hasn’t been introduced to us, parks and Dane opens the door, then leads us up the front steps where he presses a buzzer.
“Da?”
“We have an appointment to see Ms. Dimitrov. I’m accompanying her family.”
“Yes.”
A buzzing sound issues from the lock on the door a moment before it clicks open. We all follow Dane again, and it occurs to me that we’re all completely helpless. None of us speaks Russian. If the CIA wanted to put us all away in a lunatic asylum halfway around the world, this would be the way to do it.
No one would ask questions. Everyone who might care about me is either trapped here, too, or at home believing I’ve made the choice to leave them behind. Again.
Salty fear slicks my upper lip, dampens my palms so that they leave a smear on the doorframe as I grab on, desperate to feel something sturdy. The ground has never been solid since we left Darley. Not even with my father, though it might have hardened enough to allow roots with time.
Dane turns around, worry creasing around his eyes and in the center of his forehead. Geoff and Reaper pause, watching me as though I might explode any second, as Dane takes careful steps back to my side. His hand wraps around my arm and it’s not lost on me that he avoids touching my skin this time.
The realization makes me feel the slightest bit better.
Fierce determination shines in Dane’s eyes like a beacon. “Norah, you know me. You may not want to believe that, maybe you even think you don’t, but you do. I might not be who you thought I was when we met, but I do care about you. I wouldn’t do what you’re thinking. Betray you. Leave you alone somewhere like this. You know it.”
His words draw me in and I want to go under, swim in them while they bathe me in light and warmth and friendship. I don’t know why or how this connection formed between Dane and me, but it’s always been real. Tangible. He may have conflicting interests along the way. His job might climb to a higher priority than keeping me happy. But he would never hurt me. Not if he could stop it.
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