The Outliers

by Kimberly McCreight

  “Actually, I should go tell Dr. Simons about those gunshots we heard,” Quentin says. “Can I get you guys something to eat? There’s nothing fancy, but we have some pretzels and granola bars and stuff like that.”

  “Sure, thanks,” I say, and to my surprise I do actually feel a little hungry.

  “Great,” Quentin says. “I’ll be right back.”

  “I was so worried when you ran out,” Cassie says when he’s gone, pulling me into a tight hug. “I am so sorry about all of this.”

  “You shouldn’t be sorry. My dad should be,” I say when she finally lets go.

  “I’m the one who wanted to take that stupid test.” Cassie presses her lips together. Apparently, Dr. Simons has told her she’s an Outlier, probably when I was jetting off into the woods. “None of this would have happened if I hadn’t talked your dad into it.”

  “Okay, taking the test was your fault.” I smile, squeeze her forearm. “But my dad should have told you about your results. He definitely should have mentioned”—I motion to the room instead of stating the obvious: that some psychos might come after her—“all of this.”

  “Yeah,” Cassie says. “I guess.”

  “Wait, where’s Jasper?” I ask, suddenly realizing that he’s been gone for a really long time.

  Cassie’s face trembles when she turns back to me, her eyes flooding with tears. She told him about the other guy. And it did not go well. Of course it didn’t.

  “What happened?”

  “You were right,” she manages finally. And the look on her face is so shattered. “I never should have told him. He was so, so angry.” She takes a breath and stares up at the ceiling. “And then he took off.”

  “What do you mean, ‘took off’?” I ask. And the dumbest part is that I feel abandoned.

  “He left,” she says, motioning toward the woods.

  “Really?” I ask. Do I seriously feel like he had some obligation to say good-bye?

  “Yup. Really,” she says, and with this look on her face: he was my boyfriend. I’m the one who gets to be upset, which is totally fair.

  Now I look toward the windows. It’s still dark out. “On foot?” I ask. “He just walked away?”

  “I guess,” Cassie snaps, crossing her arms. She’s defensive, angry. Upset. “He wasn’t so interested in giving me explanations.”

  A little while ago Quentin didn’t want us even walking across the short patch of grass without taking “precautions,” and now Jasper has taken off through the woods? We heard those noises that might have been gunshots.

  “But it’s not safe,” I say, even though I can see that Cassie is already annoyed.

  “Can Jasper not be something else you obsess about, Wylie?” she says sharply. “Let it go. Where he went—it’s not about you.”

  “Okay.” My cheeks flush. Because she’s right about me and my obsessing, of course. And Jasper was her boyfriend, not mine.

  “It was nice that he ran after you,” Cassie says flatly, nodding in Quentin’s direction. He’s helping Miriam fold towels now, nodding good-naturedly as she bosses him around. Giving Cassie and me space to talk, probably.

  “Yeah,” I say. “You know, his dad was killed, too.”

  “Really?” she says, and now she sounds annoyed. Maybe she’s jealous? That doesn’t exactly seem like what it is. But with everything happening to her at once—grabbed off the street, given a special power, hunted by lunatics for said special power, dumped by Jasper—maybe she’s entitled to feel any way she wants to.

  And I so want to make things better for her, but I don’t even know where to start.

  “Jasper will come around, Cassie,” I say, even though I’m not sure that’s true. “He really loves you.”

  But there is a downside to Jasper loving Cassie the way he does. Perfect never bends. It snaps clear in two.

  She nods, but not like she actually believes me. “Yeah, maybe.”

  “Hey, on the upside, you were right. You are basically psychic.”

  I say this even though my dad would hate it. Maybe especially because he would.

  Cassie nods and forces a fake smile. “Yeah, that’s me. Totally psychic. Too bad I didn’t see any of this coming.”

  “So you really don’t—I don’t know—feel anything?” I ask.

  “Not a thing.” She shrugs, her eyes moving to Quentin as he makes his way over. “But whatever, who knows. I don’t feel like I know anything right now.”

  “Is everything okay?” Quentin asks when he’s finally standing in front of us.

  He hands me a small bag of trail mix, which I tear open immediately. I’m even hungrier than I realized once I’ve eaten some.

  “Yes, we’re fine,” Cassie says coolly and without looking at him. “Thanks.”

  “Yeah, except Jasper left,” I say. Cassie shoots me an angry look. It did go without saying that I wasn’t supposed to send out a search party. But I’m worried enough about Jasper that I have to say something, even if it makes Cassie mad at me. “Could somebody maybe go look for him? Make sure he’s okay?”

  “He doesn’t want anyone to look for him, Wylie,” Cassie says. And sure enough, now she sounds even angrier. “He wanted to leave.”

  “Someone can at least drive him to town,” I say. “It’s not safe out there in the woods, right?”

  I look to Quentin for support.

  “We can definitely go looking for him,” he says. “But we can’t drive him. We don’t have a car nearby.”

  “You don’t have a car?” I ask. That cannot possibly be true.

  Quentin shakes his head. “Blame Dr. Simons,” he says, motioning toward the back. “It’s another security measure, something about aerial surveillance. But don’t worry, we can still find Jasper. Stuart is not good for much, but he can track anything or anyone. I’ll be right back.”

  As Quentin heads toward the door, I glance over at Cassie, bracing for her to be glaring at me. Instead, she’s just staring in the general direction of where Quentin went. But not really at him.

  “I know you and Jasper are in a fight, but I was just worried that—”

  “Never mind. It’s fine,” she says once Quentin has disappeared out the door. “I get it.” Finally, she looks in my direction, nods some more, like she might actually agree with me now. “Really, it’s okay.”

  My phone vibrates in my pocket then. My dad, it must be. Please be okay. That’s my first thought as I pull it out. My second? You asshole. Sure enough, it’s my dad’s number again at the top of my screen.

  I think there might be somebody following me. I’ve had to reroute again. I’ll still come as soon as I can. But tell Dr. Simons it may be too late. They’re already on their way.

  “Your dad?” Cassie asks, stepping closer and reading over my shoulder.

  I nod as I write back, Are you okay?

  And then we wait, and wait. But there’s no response.

  “He’s still coming, though, right?” Cassie steps even closer. Like she’s going to grab my phone from me. “You have to tell him. He needs to come.”

  “I’m sure he knows—”

  “Is everything okay?” It’s Dr. Simons.

  I hold up my phone. “My dad said to tell you ‘they’re already on their way.’” I say it with an edge. I can’t help it. “Which doesn’t sound so awesome to me.”

  Dr. Simons takes a deep breath and pushes the air out in a long stream. “It’s not ideal, no,” he says with calm efficiency. “But we did anticipate this as a possibility. We have a plan in place. I’d been hoping it wouldn’t be necessary to put it into motion, but we are thoroughly prepared to.”

  Suddenly, Cassie drops herself down hard onto one of the long benches. Her shoulders are hunched, head hanging forward.

  “Cassie, are you all right?” I rush over to her.

  Without saying a word, she leans over and grabs hold of me, pulling me down onto the bench next to her and burying her face in my neck.

  “It’s going t
o be okay,” I say, stroking her head. I don’t know what else to do. “We have all these people to help us. And my dad is going to be here soon. We’re going to be fine. You’re going to be fine.”

  “I’m scared,” she whispers. “Really, really scared.”

  And she’d be crazy not to be. Who knows what North Point will do if they get their hands on her? What they’ll do to any of us?

  “Just make sure your dad comes now, okay? Promise me,” she says before finally letting me go.

  “I will. I promise,” I say, even though he basically just told me he wasn’t coming anytime soon.

  Cassie pulls back and wipes at her tear-slicked face. Then she stares at the ground for a minute like she’s considering something. Finally, she starts nodding. I’m afraid to ask what she’s decided. “I’ll be right back.” She motions to her face. “I’m going to the bathroom.”

  “Will she be okay?” Dr. Simons asks once Cassie is crossing the room away from us.

  “I hope so,” I say. “She wasn’t exactly in the best place before this happened. You should have waited until I was around to tell her about the Outlier thing.”

  “Oh, yes, of course I should have,” Dr. Simons says. But almost too quickly, like he doesn’t feel that sorry at all. “I think I was hoping to restore transparency to this situation. There is so much still to make sense of, so many factors and factions at play.”

  “Factions? What does that mean?” Because it sounds like a war already in progress. Though I don’t know why I am surprised that there would be more to the story than they’ve told me so far. “I thought there was one company.”

  “North Point is certainly the immediate concern,” he says. “But there are other elements at play.”

  “What ‘elements’?” My voice is rising. I can’t help it.

  “Wylie, it is imperative that you stay calm,” Dr. Simons says, and like I’ve totally lost it. Have I? When I look around, I feel like everyone has stopped what they’re doing—Adam and Fiona, Beatrice and Gladys—all have turned to look at me. Could I have been screaming my head off and not even realized it? “As I said before, we know that the government is also aware of and interested in your father’s research.”

  “The government?” I almost laugh. Did Dr. Simons say that before? It feels like news to me, but who knows.

  And already the mention of the government has rung a different kind of bell.

  It was a month after the funeral and I was still in no shape to be answering the door. I wouldn’t have, except the man on the stoop saw me look out the window. And then he flashed a badge. Department of Homeland Security. He was hugely tall, his chest puffed out like a steel drum in his cheap gray suit, and his plain gold-rimmed glasses didn’t fit him right.

  “You’re welcome to verify my credentials,” he barked when I still didn’t answer.

  And then he pushed his whole badge through the slot. It fell to the floor with a heavy thud. When I picked it up, it certainly looked real—worn and with a slightly outdated picture. And so specific: Department of Homeland Security. Who goes with that if it was some kind of scam? Regular old police officer would be way less complicated.

  “I’d like to speak with Dr. Benjamin Lang, please.” Like an order from a drill sergeant, when I finally opened the door.

  “He’s not here,” I managed, immediately wishing I’d lied and said that he was in the shower or something.

  “When will he return?” Return? It was off—weirdly too fancy or something for even a federal agent.

  “I’m, um—” Say long enough that he doesn’t want to come in. “It could be a really long time.” But don’t make it seem like you’re alone and unprotected. “But my brother will be home any second.”

  He looked confused—because why would he care about my brother?—then nodded once like a salute and handed me a card: Dr. Frederick Mitchell, NIH. Didn’t his badge say Homeland Security? He did not look like a doctor. But he also didn’t look like an officer of any kind. Just like a giant pretending to be a normal person.

  “I’ll wait out in the car.”

  When I peeked out the curtain a few minutes later, Dr. Frederick Mitchell was sitting there in the driver’s seat—not reading, not looking at his phone. Just sitting there, eyes dead ahead, like a robot.

  I texted my dad. Some freaky doctor from Homeland Security or the NIH is here. Seems sketchy.

  Oh, right. I forgot he was coming. Sorry. Be home soon.

  And sure enough, my dad invited that sketchy doctor-robot man right inside and led him downstairs like there was nothing odd about it or him. I tried to listen at the top of the stairs, but the rest of their conversation was lost, muffled by the basement steps. And I already knew my dad wasn’t going to fill me in on the actual details afterward. Ever since the accident, he’d stopped telling me anything that could even maybe make me stressed, which, of course, only stressed me out more.

  “What was that about?” I asked anyway, once the guy and his barrel chest had strode out our door.

  “Routine grant review,” my dad said with a disappointed shrug. Like the whole thing had turned out to be a lot less interesting than he’d hoped. “Bureaucracy making the world go round.”

  I consider telling Dr. Simons about the man who came to our house. But I don’t want to. Don’t want to multiply the threats, don’t want to be expanding the circle of danger.

  “Wylie, I am truly sorry that you had to find out about your mother this way,” Dr. Simons says. “I had the false impression that your dad had already had the opportunity to explain. But innocent or not, that was an inexcusable mistake. I hope you accept my most sincere apology.”

  I shrug. “That’s okay,” I say, even though it’s not okay at all. None of this is okay. At least everyone else in the main cabin has returned to their own business. I’m glad to no longer be the center of attention.

  “You should also know that your dad only recently started entertaining the possibility himself that your mother’s death might not have been accidental. It’s not as though he’s been keeping it from you.”

  “Keeping it from me for long, you mean,” I say, looking away.

  Do I want to press Dr. Simons for details about what happened to her? Before I can even decide, the door to the cabin opens. Quentin is already back? And he’s walking fast in our direction. Carrying something too, draped over one arm. I feel sick when I realize it’s my dad’s coat.

  “Jasper was wearing that,” I say when he reaches us. Quentin frowns, keeps his eyes on the jacket as he holds it up. It’s dirty and flecked with crushed leaves. But the worst part? One of the sleeves is half torn off. I jump to my feet. “Where did you find it?”

  “Stuart picked it up in the woods, not far from the driveway.” He glances up at me. “It’s not that cold out anymore. Maybe Jasper tossed it because he didn’t think he needed it.” But that’s not really true and also wouldn’t explain the torn sleeve. I can tell Quentin doesn’t believe that anyway.

  I think again about the way Doug had Jasper up against the wall. My heart is racing.

  “We have to find him. If those people we ran into find him first, they’ll kill him.” I look from Dr. Simons to Quentin and back again. They’re staring back at me like I am blowing things out of proportion. But they didn’t see that look on Doug’s face when he was bleeding against the wall. “I’m serious. They will kill Jasper.”

  “Wylie, wait a second,” Dr. Simons says, talking to me like I’ve gone off the deep end. “Jasper did tell Cassie he was leaving. The fact that he is now gone is not at all proof that something has happened to him. And thanks to Level99 and everyone’s hard work here, we know several things that make me inclined to counsel calm. First of all, according to their own protocol, North Point rarely moves against targets during daylight hours, and it is practically dawn.” But Dr. Simons knows as well as I do that sunrise is still a ways off. “Furthermore, why would North Point alert us to their presence by taking Jasper and then not
advance immediately on the rest of us?”

  “I don’t know, to freak us out? Besides, my dad’s text said they were on the way. We know they’re coming!” I shout, and it definitely makes me seem kind of nuts. I’m not sure I care. “And what about Cassie? She’s the one they really want. We can’t just sit here and wait for them to come for her. We should leave. All of us. Right now.”

  “We can send Stuart to keep an eye on her,” Dr. Simons says, then seems to realize how that might sound. “At a respectful distance, of course. But we can’t risk exposing ourselves by leaving the camp. The vehicles are parked nearly a mile away.”

  And whose idiot idea was that? I think, but manage not to say. I don’t think I actually believed it about the cars when Quentin told me before.

  “It’s a risk to sit here and wait,” I say, trying to sound calm, reasonable. Because I don’t care how many degrees Dr. Simons has or how much he knows about this North Point company, I looked into Doug’s eyes. Waiting anywhere he might show up and finish what he started is the worst idea ever.

  “Maybe Wylie is right,” Quentin says. “I mean, I’m no expert, but it is harder to hit a moving target.”

  “And if all of you want to stay here, then Cassie and I can go on our own. I’m good in the woods. Just the two of us could easily stay out of sight even in the daylight.” I sound so confident, I almost believe myself.

  “As I said before, we have a plan in place to keep everyone secure here. And I cannot let you leave, Wylie. Not without your dad’s permission.” Dr. Simons looks uncomfortable, but determined. “In his absence, I’m your legal guardian.”

  We lock eyes for a minute. Dr. Simons isn’t going to make more of this threat, unless I force him to. Isn’t going to say: we will stop you by force. But we both know what he means. And not just him, but all of them, including Stuart.

  “Let’s ask my dad then,” I say. There is the chance he will have the sense to let me go at this point. He owes me that much.