by Malinda Lo
“Really?” she said, and then was overcome with shyness. She probably was the color of an eggplant by now.
David laughed. “Sometimes you’re a little dense, Reese. I can’t believe you didn’t notice.”
“Until nationals.” She made a face. “Where I acted like a total dork.”
“Good thing I didn’t give up.”
She smiled slightly. “You’re gonna spin it that way? It’s sort of old-fashioned, isn’t it?”
“Boy meets girl, girl rejects boy, girl dates other girl—”
“I don’t want you to mention her,” Reese interrupted. David looked startled. “I just don’t want to get into it.”
“Sure. I won’t mention her.”
“Thanks.” She ignored the twinge of guilt that rose in her. “So let’s just say we met through debate, we got to know each other, things happened.”
David considered her for a moment. “Right. Things happened. We went through a traumatic experience that revealed the truth about our feelings.” He paused. “It is the truth, isn’t it?”
There was an uncharacteristic note of vulnerability in his voice, and she knew what he was really asking. He wanted to know if she honestly liked him, even after the way she had felt about Amber. They had never discussed it in detail—that would be way too weird—but he knew she had had strong feelings about Amber. For the first time, Reese realized she might have the upper hand in her relationship with David. Before, she had always thought that she was the vulnerable one, because she was the one who froze up and couldn’t deal with her emotions; because David was the guy everybody liked at school, whereas she was just some girl. But whatever had transpired between her and Amber gave her the power to hurt him.
A new tenderness rose in her, and along with it came a sense of responsibility. It made her reach out and put a hand on his knee. “I would never lie to you,” she told him softly. “I can’t, even if I tried.”
He covered her hand with his. Everything was open between them. He could see the truth.
He stood, pulling her to her feet, and when they kissed, it was sweet. Her hands slid around his back, and he was alive beneath her touch, his whole body focused on her, and she trusted him.
CHAPTER 5
Reese knocked on her mom’s door. When she heard her mom’s voice calling, “Come in,” she rubbed her clammy palms against her thighs and went inside. The bedroom was empty, but she heard the sound of running water from the attached bathroom.
“Reese, is that you?”
“Yeah.” Reese closed the bedroom door and headed toward the bathroom. Her mom was washing her face at the sink.
“Your dad said he’d make pancakes this morning.”
It was Sunday morning, and the statement was so ordinary and yet so incredibly unusual—when was the last time her dad had been there to make pancakes?—that Reese temporarily froze.
Her mom turned off the tap and reached for a towel to blot away the water. “Is something wrong?”
“No.” When her mom looked up, Reese looked away. “I wanted to tell you something.”
“What is it?” Her mom straightened and leaned against the edge of the bathroom counter. “You’re scaring me, honey.”
Reese crossed her arms. “It’s nothing bad. I thought you should know—before we do the interview—that David and I are—we’re—we’re together.” Her face felt as hot as a bonfire.
Her mom’s eyebrows rose, and then a smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. She hung up the towel. “I thought you were.”
“You did?” She didn’t know whether to be relieved or aghast. Was she that transparent?
“Well, I knew you liked him.”
“You did?” Now she was definitely aghast. “When?”
Her mom took out a small jar of moisturizer and began to smooth the lotion over her face. “You’ve had a crush on him for a while, haven’t you?”
Reese sat on the edge of her mom’s bed, still facing the bathroom. “Does everybody know?”
Her mom laughed. “I don’t know about everybody, but I’ve noticed the way you look at him. I have to say, that’s part of the reason I was so surprised about Amber.”
Reese stared down at her lap. “Yeah. That’s over.”
“I thought so,” her mom said softly. “I’m sorry. Do you want to tell me what happened?”
Reese hadn’t thought she would want to, but she found herself recounting, haltingly, how she had discovered that Amber wasn’t simply a girl she met by accident but was connected to Dr. Brand. How Amber had been assigned by the Imria to monitor Reese’s reactions to the adaptation procedure. How their relationship had been in service to this assignment. Even though Amber had apologized and insisted her feelings for Reese had been real, that didn’t change the fact that Amber had known what the Imria had done to Reese. She couldn’t help thinking that if Amber had really cared for her, she would have told her the truth.
“She wants us to talk to the Imria now,” Reese said, scooting back to lean against the headboard as her mom came out of the bathroom. “She says they want to help us, but I don’t trust her.”
“I wouldn’t trust her either,” her mom said. “She lied to you and she doesn’t deserve you.”
The harsh tone in her mom’s voice made Reese wince. Reese had been as cruel as she could to Amber the last time she had seen her, but hearing anger directed at her by someone else made her uncomfortable. “Mom—”
“She’s a very attractive girl, and she knows it. You can’t trust someone like her.”
Reese’s face burned even more.
Her mom sat on the edge of the bed, facing Reese. “She took advantage of you, and if I ever see her trying anything like that again—”
“She won’t. I’m fine, Mom.” Her stomach twisted as she said the words. I’m fine, she told herself. Her mom’s face was hard-edged with a kind of anger Reese couldn’t remember seeing before.
“She’d better not,” her mom said. She ran a hand through her hair, pushing away the damp dark curls from her forehead. “I want you to be careful, that’s all. I know you had strong feelings for her, and even though I think David is a great guy, you’ve barely had time to deal with what happened with Amber. Are you sure you’re ready to date someone else?”
Reese squirmed. “Of course.”
Her mom gave her a look that said she knew Reese was lying. “If he really likes you, he’ll wait until you’re over Amber.”
Reese’s fingers clenched, crumpling the down duvet in her grip. “I’m over her,” she insisted.
Her mom frowned. “Are you?”
Reese looked at the bedroom window to avoid her mom’s gaze. The blinds were half-closed, exposing slivers of the cloud-covered sky. “Yes. I’m over her.”
Her mom reached out and touched Reese’s foot. Reese sensed the beginnings of her mom’s feelings—concern, doubt—and she pulled her foot away. “Honey,” her mom said.
“I can handle it,” Reese snapped.
Her mom didn’t speak for a minute. Reese watched a shadow move across the sky through the blinds and willed her fisted fingers to relax before they tore a hole in the duvet. “Okay,” her mom finally said. “Then do we need to have a talk about safety?”
Embarrassed, she drew her arms around her knees. “No. You gave me the talk when I was twelve. I know how things work.”
“I’m sure you do,” her mom said wryly. “But if you need anything—a trip to the doctor, whatever—come to me first.”
Reese shook her head. “I know. Jeez, are you going to have this talk with me every time I date anyone?”
Her mom laughed and stood up. She went to the window and twisted the stick that controlled the blinds, opening them to the morning light. “Point taken. I won’t push it. And I do really like David—”
“Oh my God, what is that?” Reese cried. She jumped off the bed and ran to join her mom at the window.
Startled, her mom moved out of the way as Reese pulled on the cord t
o raise the blinds.
The spaceship was moving.
*
Reese ran downstairs and into the kitchen, where her dad was mixing pancake batter. “Reese?” he said, but she didn’t answer. She opened the back door and went outside to look at the sky. The ship was heading north at a smooth, stately pace, and it made no sound and left no contrail.
As it headed out of sight, Reese went back inside, going into the living room to turn on the news. An image of the black spacecraft took up the whole screen as a headline crawled across the bottom: Imrian Spaceship Moves to Angel Island.
In a voice-over, the news anchor was reporting: “—City of San Francisco has been dealing with crowd control problems ever since the Imrian spacecraft took up position over the Noe Valley neighborhood three days ago. Today we have learned that the State of California has granted permission for the ship to land on Angel Island, which is a California state park. The park itself will be closed to tourists for the foreseeable future. The Imrian representatives on board the ship are reportedly in talks with the United Nations to meet with diplomats at the annual meeting of the General Assembly this fall.”
The black walls were a familiar sight by now: The ship was seamless and windowless, without a single distinguishing mark on its surface. Analysts had spent hours on cable news shows speculating about why the ship was so blank, with stealth being the most popular theory.
“The crowds that have congregated daily in Noe Valley to view the spaceship are now moving with the ship as it makes its way over the city to the bay,” the news anchor said.
The scene changed to show a helicopter’s view of the streets of Reese’s neighborhood. Thousands of people were packed onto the sidewalks, and all of them were turning en masse to watch the spaceship fly away. Their signs seemed to sag in unison, the motion of their bodies like a giant arrow pointing north. Even the cars had stopped as people climbed out to watch the flight of the Imrian craft.
“California Governor Anthony Moreno will be giving a press conference in a few minutes to explain the state’s decision to allow the Imrian spaceship to land on state property,” said the news anchor. “There is speculation that Angel Island was selected because it can be isolated, preventing large crowds from gathering there.”
Reese went to the bay windows and peeked around the edge of the curtains. The crowd was paying no attention to her house now; they were rushing in the direction of the ship. Reese heard her parents come into the living room and sit on the couch, but she couldn’t tear herself away from the window. The exodus didn’t take long. The street emptied of tourists in barely half an hour, leaving trash strewn across the road and clumped in the gutters: plastic bottles, candy wrappers, brown paper sacks greasy from the ends of burritos. It was a residential neighborhood, so there weren’t any public trash cans. Reese saw one of the neighbors across the street emerge from his garage with a broom and a trash barrel. As he began clearing the sidewalk in front of his house, she noticed a champagne-colored sedan parked nearby.
A man in a black suit was in the driver’s seat.
Reese backed away from the window, letting the curtains fall shut, and sat down in the armchair. The governor’s press conference was about to start, but she couldn’t focus on the television. All she could think about was the man in the car across the street. The government was clearly still watching her, and it wasn’t even trying to hide it anymore.
CHAPTER 6
On Monday morning, Agent Forrestal was waiting right inside Kennedy High School’s front doors with the Defense Department’s Jeff Highsmith.
“Good morning, Miss Holloway,” Highsmith said, smiling.
Reese hated when people called her “miss.” She wondered when the title had lost its aura of respect; now all it did was tell her she was being patronized. “Hey, Jeff,” she said. His smile disappeared.
Across the lobby, Reese saw Diana Warner waiting with David and his family. Reese headed across the mosaic-tiled floor to meet them, her parents following. The school smelled of industrial floor cleaner, along with that indefinable something extra—the lingering trace of thousands of students, their perfumes and deodorants and the faintly musty scent of books—that combined to create a scent that Reese would always recognize as Kennedy High. David saw her coming and stepped away from his parents to greet her with a hug.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hi.” There was no time to linger, because as soon as they had greeted each other’s parents, Diana took them to a classroom that had been taken over by the Sophia Curtis Show’s hair and makeup team.
As the makeup artist poked at Reese’s eyes with wands and brushes, repeatedly asking her to stay still, Diana went over the plans with Reese, David, and their parents. The main interview would be shot in Mr. Murray’s biology classroom, and then Sophia wanted Reese and David to give her a tour of the school on camera. Reese and David were to be interviewed first, and after their portion was finished, Sophia would sit down with their parents.
“What about Highsmith?” Reese heard her mom ask.
“He’ll be observing,” Diana said.
The makeup artist finished touching up Reese’s lips and stood back. “You’re all set,” she said, and handed Reese a mirror.
Reese was taken aback by her own reflection. She wore makeup to debate tournaments, but she had no idea what the makeup artist had done to make her eyes look so big. They looked more greenish than usual, too, and her lips were shiny with some kind of peach-colored gloss.
“You look great,” her mom said from the makeup chair beside her.
“Thanks,” Reese said. She glanced up and saw David standing nearby, flipping through the release forms that the TV producers had given them. His hair and makeup had been finished first, but she hadn’t seen him yet. The stylist had done something to his hair to tame the parts that stuck up in the wrong places, and as he read through the forms, unaware that Reese was watching him, she realized with a jolt that she was about to tell the world—on television—that she was dating him. She had known him for so long, but she didn’t think she had ever seen him the way she did right then. The outfit that Diana Warner had picked did look good on him. The shirt clung to him just enough to show off his broad shoulders, and the jeans fit perfectly. The stylists had put some kind of pomade into his hair that made it seem blacker and sharper than before, emphasizing the clean line of his jaw and the angle of his eyebrows.
He looked up and caught her eye, and she realized she had been openly staring at him. Her entire body heated up and she hoped the makeup she was wearing hid the redness on her cheeks. He grinned and came over to her, leaning down to whisper, “You look amazing.”
She was short of breath. “Thanks.”
“David, Reese, let me introduce you to Sophia Curtis,” said Diana.
Reese scrambled to her feet. The reporter was standing nearby with a small but friendly smile on her face. “Hello,” she said, extending her hand to Reese first.
“Hi,” Reese said. When she shook Sophia’s hand, she had the briefest impression of clear, bright edges: like a cut-glass prism.
“Hi,” David said, shaking her hand as well.
“We’re ready to begin,” Sophia said. “Follow me.”
*
Though Diana had warned them that Jeff Highsmith would be observing, Reese hadn’t realized that Agent Forrestal and another man in black would be there too. They stood right inside the door to Mr. Murray’s room like guards, and every time Reese glanced in their direction, they were watching her or David. Highsmith took a seat out of camera range and told Sophia Curtis to start whenever she was ready.
She asked Reese and David to begin with what had happened after they left Phoenix during the June Disaster, but as they began to talk about Project Plato, Highsmith interrupted. “That’s classified. You signed a nondisclosure agreement about your treatment there.”
Sophia smiled thinly. “Can they talk about how they felt after they returned?”
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p; Highsmith nodded. “Of course.”
Reese began to tell Sophia about the rapidly healing cuts on her palms that had led her to believe something had been done to her at the military hospital, but Highsmith interrupted again. “Do you have proof?”
Reese looked at him in surprise. “You’re asking me for proof? You have proof yourself—the Blue Base doctors tested us—”
“That’s classified,” Highsmith said calmly. “I’m asking if you have independent proof.”
“We’re working on that,” David said. “My father’s in touch with several UCSF professors about setting up an academic board to evaluate us.”
“So you’re saying no, you don’t have proof,” Highsmith said.
Sophia stood up. “Jeff, let me talk to you for a minute.”
He followed her to one corner of the biology classroom, where they turned their backs to Reese and David and huddled in front of a poster depicting the evolution of humanity, from Lucy to Homo sapiens. She couldn’t make out what Sophia was telling him, but by the furious tones of her whispers, Reese didn’t think it was anything positive.
David nudged her with his knee, leaving it in place against her thigh. A shiver traveled through her as she registered his presence in her mind. What do you think they’re doing? he thought.
I hope she’s telling him off.
They returned a few moments later, and Sophia said, “Let’s pick up again. How did you feel when you got back to San Francisco?”
They told her about their abilities to communicate with each other mentally when they touched, and Sophia avoided the issue of proof, though she did ask David to elaborate on his father’s plans to form an academic review board. When Sophia skipped over their abduction by the men in black and their time at Blue Base on Area 51, Reese knew that Highsmith had prevailed.
“One last thing,” Sophia said, flipping through her notes. “At the press conference in front of your house, you and the Imrian girl, Amber Gray, seemed to know each other. Did you know her?”