Quickest way out of here…eh, that would be the only way out of here, which is through the front door. Unless there’s a back door… The rest of the hunting crew is probably waiting outside the front door for me. Think, think, think! God…this is the worst timing ever.
“You mean they found us,” Zoë says.
Us… No!
“No—they found me,” I say. “That’s it: they found me. They’re not looking for you two.”
“What are you saying, Annika?”
“If we’re all going to get out of here without any casualties, I have to separate from you two. I’m the only one they’re looking for,” I say.
I search the aisle and find a black wig. I grab a hair tie from the shelf, tie my hair up, and rip open the wig’s plastic case.
“What are you doing?!” Zoë asks.
“Disguise,” I reply. I throw the wig on my head and look back up at them.
“Oh, I see,” Zoë says. She touches up my wig while Marissa glances around the corner.
“Is that them?” Marissa asks. “Who are they?”
You don’t want to know.
“They’re part of that group that’s after me,” I say. “With any luck, they won’t notice us until we’re gone. I’ll go out the back door and meet you guys at the Key Bank building. Call Elijah and the others so they can pick you up there,” I say. I stand up to leave.
“No!” Marissa says, pulling me back down. “They’ll suspect you to go out the back door. Besides, what if something happens to you on your way to Key Tower? Zoë and I will have no idea if you’re in trouble.”
“Riss, I think Annika knows what she’s doing,” Zoë says.
“No offense, but this isn’t just another one of the Metanites catch-the-bad-guys game. This time, the bad guys are the hunters, and they won’t play nice,” I say.
“If we split up, I don’t want you to be left alone. If you’re alone, then there’s a greater chance that they will get to you,” Marissa argues.
“They can’t get to me if they can’t find me.”
“How about I go out the back door, you and Zoë leave through the front door, and Zoë and Elijah will tag you to Key Tower? That way we won’t lose you, and they won’t expect me to come out the back door,” Marissa says.
“It’s a good plan,” Zoë says.
It’s a decent plan… but we don’t have time to argue anymore, and I’m one against two.
“Fine,” I say. “Meet you at Key Tower.”
I stand up and stride toward the door. From my peripherals, I see New-bee and his sister still scanning the room while walking through each aisle. I pass by the store greeter unnoticed and walk outside.
Outside is a zoo. The parade is in full swing, and people cheer as loud as their voices will allow. Candy flies through the air, music plays from the parade floats, and marching bands of bagpipes fill the air with a humming scream. A mass of people walking and standing between the buildings and the orange cones replace the sidewalks.
Seeing Bruce and Dean watch the doors of Cosmogirl’s like hawks, I disappear into the crowd. I walk slowly because the crowd doesn’t give me much choice, and if I go too fast then Zoë and Elijah may lose me.
I spot Elijah not too far away from the hunting crew; he holds his watch up to his ear and nods. Zoë must have told him the plan. I watch Bruce out of the corner of my eye. He whispers something into a microphone attached to his shirt, peers through the crowd around Cosmogirl’s, and mouths the words “black hair”… but how could he know? Did New-bee see me on my way out? Then, our eyes meet.
Damn-it.
I turn and push through the crowd just as he and Dean hustle toward me. I look down the street to see more men dressed in black with steel-toed shoes receiving a message from their earpieces. I glance back only to see if Zoë is still following me: she’s right behind Bruce and talking to someone through her watch. Elijah is further behind them on the opposite side of the road. I turn back around. Time to disappear.
I snatch a green baseball hat off the rack of an occupied street vendor. I bend down and pretend to tie my shoe, and when I stand back up the green had hides my hair and the wig. The simple trick works to get Bruce and the others off my trail, but it works too well. I turn a corner and glance back to see if Zoë is still following me. No. She’s just as confused as Bruce. He barks into his microphone while Zoë stops and talks into her watch.
Shit, I need to let her find me, or at least prevent Bruce from going after her. If New-bee saw me leave Cosmogirl’s, he could have easily spotted Zoë with me.
I make a mad dash across the parade, causing float riders and marchers to shout at me. That gets her attention, and theirs. Back to square one.
Think, think! I see a young woman ahead of me with a similar stature and height. She walks alone, and wears the same green jacket that I have on. It’s perfect. The only difference is her black hair pulled into a ponytail while I’m wearing a hat. I follow her instead of turning right on Route 20 Twenty to get to Key Tower.
Behind me I hear Bruce and Zoë making their way to the other side of the street. I will have a solid twenty-five meters ahead of them by the time they make it to my side of the street, but Bruce didn’t come alone, and the hunting crew won’t take their eyes off me now. An idea flashes through my mind.
The woman ahead of me turns a corner, walking toward the Key Bank building and the end zone of the parade. Just before I disappear around the corner to follow the woman, I drop the green hat on the ground and pretend like I’m putting my hair into a ponytail. When I turn the corner, I dodge behind a line of vendors and carts and pull off the wig.
Just as I had hoped, Bruce falls for the bait and follows the woman with the black ponytail. Zoë follows them, but I will be able to reach her by the time we get to Key Bank. I rejoin the crowd and glance back at her; she has no idea I’m ten feet in front of her. And Bruce… I’m right behind him. I survey the area one more time: men wearing the same black suits and steel-toed shoes drive a float about fifty meters ahead of me and park it on my side of the road? How did they get a float?
“She’s heading north West Third. How much time we got?” Bruce says into his microphone.
Something is wrong. Something is definitely fishy. Black hair, a float outside the parade, time running short… oh shit.
“Yeah, she’s right in front of us, just a minute away from—wait,” Bruce says. “Damn-it! That’s not her! It’s a decoy.”
“Shit,” Dean says.
“You think she’s working with her?” the voice from the microphone yells. It’s New-bee’s sister.
“No, but she’s got to be on this road somewhere,” Bruce says. “She’s got to be watching.”
“What about the decoy?” Dean asks.
Bruce hesitates. “Plan stays the same… we’ll give her a little St. Patrick’s Day surprise in twenty seconds—teach her what happens when she gets outsiders involved.”
I watch the two men with steel-toed shoes exit the float and run away. The woman I followed walks closer and closer to the float. I study the float and find what I’m looking for.
I dip into the closest alley and pull Zoë into it as she walks by. She first tries to throw a punch before she realizes it’s me; then she looks dazed.
“Annika? But who is—?”
“Stay here and tell Marissa and Elijah to abort!” I order. I don’t give her a chance to argue before I run back onto West Third Street.
Fifteen seconds.
I chase down the black-haired woman as fast as the crowd will allow me. All these people around me, they are all regular people, innocent and ignorant of the danger they’re approaching. But I can’t save them all. The woman is now a few steps away from the float.
Six seconds.
I grab the woman by the arm and pull her away from the abandoned float. She’s startled, but her surprise makes it easier for me to pull her away. I keep running; I don’t know how big or small it’s going to be.
The float behind us explodes, fire, gas, and flower petals bursting behind us. The force of the explosion sends both the woman and I flying into the air then falling to the ground. Fire roars, and singed pieces of the float land around us.
A high shrill rings through my ears, and the screams around us seem to come from a mile away. I open my eyes to see a blur of smoke and colors. My nose is wet with…blood? I feel the heat on and around me—my arm is on fire! Holy shit! I tear off the green jack and throw it as far away from me as possible. Thank god it was only that on fire. I need to get out of here.
I turn to the woman: she’s gaping at me in either fear or bewilderment. I rise to my feet and pull her up with me. Grabbing her by the wrist, which is broken… sorry. I let go, grab her forearm, and pull her away from the explosion.
My vision clears and the ringing dies down. Once the woman and I stumble out of the cloud of smoke, I see pedestrians running madly through the street and away from the smoke. The woman’s ankle is twisted, making it difficult for her to walk. I guess she can’t run away from me even if she wanted to. I lead her to a nearby bench a safe distance away from the smoke. Bruce and the hunting crew are still around somewhere, so I need to get out of here, fast.
I turn to run away, but the black-haired woman gently touches my arm. I spin back around and she’s staring at me like she wants to say something. Does she know who I am? What does she want to tell me? Got to get out of here… I nod to the woman and jog away.
Then I feel it. The sun peaks out from behind the clouds. I gasp and fall to the ground, shivering in the heat. My body enters a deep shock of pain. I can’t move, and the more I try the more pain hits me. Everything around me is chaos; inside me is worse.
“Annika!” I hear.
I see Zoë run toward me and kneel down next to me. The sun hides behind the clouds, and I sit up.
“Annika, are you alright?” she asks.
Well, I wasn’t blown to smithereens, and I’m no longer frozen in pain… I nod to her. She helps me back to my feet, but I stumble and fall back down. I look across the street.
“Zoë… look,” I whisper. I point to Bruce and Dean who are looking straight at me. I can’t make out their expressions.
“Zoë! Annika!” Elijah yells.
He comes sprinting in from the opposite direction with Marissa and Lazzer behind him. A black sports car pulls up, and Izzi, Nate, and Abraham climb out. The Metanites form a circle around Zoë and I, and I watch Bruce and Dean leave.
“Zoë, you okay?” Elijah asks.
“I’m fine,” she responds. “Help Annika.”
“Good god, I thought you said it was a little problem!” Izzi says.
“Here, give me your hand,” Nate says to me. He drops his crutches and holds out his hand.
“What?” I ask. I don’t take his hand, so he grabs mine and swings me onto his back.
“We’ll meet you all back at Kenyon,” Nate says to the others.
“No, I can walk,” I say, and it’s true. I’ve gone through worse.
“Are you crazy?” Elijah says to me. “Who knows how many more bombs there are around here! No way you’re walking anywhere.”
“I’ll be fine.”
“You’ll be safer with me if you fly,” Nate says. We hear a fire truck a few blocks away. “We’ve got to get out of here, fast. Izzi, can you give us some coverage?”
“As far as I can see you.”
“What about you, Nate?” Marissa asks. Nate doesn’t seem to notice her and he leaps into the air. I glance down, but he isn’t there—we’re invisible.
“Hold on tight, Annika,” he whispers.
VIII: Hardly a Victim
Monday, March 17, 2065; 9:25 a.m.
First person
“Hold on, Annika… Hold on…” Nate’s voice echoes in my ears. The sun comes out again, and I’m drifting out of consciousness. Soft flakes of snow whiz by my face as Nate soars over the rooftops of Cleveland. Snow… the last big snowfall I remember before returning to Cleveland hit when I was in Austria…
Nighttime. Snow falls blissfully around me with the lamplight in the distance the only way of knowing the soft snowflakes are real. I’m lying in a semi-frozen stream under an old stone bridge. I listen to the water trickle by me and into a gutter at the side of the bridge, then there’s footsteps splashing in the water.
She’s standing across from me, dressed all in black, and holding a dagger in her left hand. Like she needs a dagger. Her dark, grayish-green eyes pierce me through, more painful than when she pulled the dagger out of my arm, and more painful than anything she could say to me. Her dark brown hair, her dark eyes, her preference to her left hand, her stature…just like me.
She’s shouting at me. I know these words by heart. I hear them every day, every night. Those words, they ignite a fire in me, and the more they burn the more desperate and angry I become. The fire burns.
A strong beam of nuclear energy shoots from my hand, striking the girl through the chest. The beam disappears, and the girl falls to her knees. I want to go to her, to catch her, to help her… but I don’t want to help her. I can’t move, I can’t speak, I can’t do anything. The girl collapses with her eyes still open—that piercing look now one of shock and pain—and her body falls frigid and heavy.
The others’ heads are poking out from behind the bridge. They saw. They know what I did.
“Basia,” one of them says. I stare at the young girl with curly blonde hair, and I’m still unable to move.
“She’s dead,” another one of them says.
The girl with the blonde curly hair walks up to me and takes my hand. She doesn’t thank me, she doesn’t scold me, she doesn’t say anything to me…but she holds my hand, and that’s enough.
I look again at the girl who body is frozen in the stream. She can’t be dead…but she is. I killed her.
“Annika… Annika…” a voice calls to me.
My eyes flutter open. I stare at the ceiling of a familiar hospital room, bordered by blurry faces I assume to be the Metanites.
“Here! She’s waking up.”
I close my eyes and sit up. When I open my eyes again, I see myself on a white bed surrounded by the Metanites, a large machine that’s connected to a tube and a needle in my arm, and a metallic table with a bowl of red water with a bloody washcloth in it.
Ughh…great. What’s worse: the crowd, the needle, or the blood? Ten of the Metanites stand around the bed, including a Japanese girl with long, straight hair whom I assume is Kono. Zoë is the only one missing. Nate and Marissa are closest to me, and everyone is staring.
“Hold still for me,” Nate says.
He’s four inches from my face and shining a small flashlight in my eyes. I jolt backwards.
“Geeze,” I say. I pull the needle out of my arm and throw it on the ground. Amazing that it doesn’t break.
“No, don’t—” Nate says, but he can’t stop me. “Just relax and take a deep breath.”
“What is it with you and sticking needles in me?” I say to him.
“I told you she wasn’t going to be happy,” Abraham whispers.
“It’s an IV, and you needed it. When we landed on the roof you were unconscious, so Nickel and Xander helped me carry you down here,” Nate says.
“I carried Nate,” Nickel says.
“And I carried you. Nate didn’t mean to make it sound like you’re fat and heavy and needed all three of us to carry you. You’re actually quite light,” Xander says.
Izzi elbows him and rolls her eyes when he glances over at her.
I look down at the rest of my body. My jeans are cut on one side, revealing a leg with first-degree burns. I’m burned on my arms too, and my other leg is wrapped in tight, white gauze.
“Who…?” I ask.
“I did,” Nate says. “You should probably not pull that off, too.”
I can’t think of anything to say, so I just glare at him. Who does he thin
k he is? I don’t need a doctor every time I need a little Band-Aid.
“So what happened?” Xander asks.
“Well, the bad guys planted a bomb for Annika, and then…boom,” Zoë says. Her voice comes from a chair behind the crowd surrounding me. Kiaria slides over, and I see Zoë rubbing ointment on her burnt wrist.
“Thanks, Zoë… so insightful,” Xander says.
“Zoë and I found Annika downtown at the parade,” Marissa says.
“How?”
“Tracking device in my shirt.”
“And you didn’t let us know? What were you thinking?” Lazzer says.
“Clearly they weren’t thinking,” Abraham says.
“I knew, and so did Elijah,” Kiaria says. “They made sure they had back-up.”
“They did the right thing not to tell the rest of you,” I say. “I would not have agreed to come back if more of you had shown-up.”
“See, we knew what we were doing,” Marissa says. “Everything was under control.”
“Oh yeah, you guys had everything under control…”
“Alright, enough,” Nate says. “Just tell us how you got from the parade to blowing-up West Third.”
“Well, the guys who came after Annika before showed-up, so we needed a fast way back to Kenyon. The plan was to split up with Annika in disguise and Zoë tailing her, but it didn’t work as well as we had hoped. They caught on, and… I’m not sure what happened after that,” Marissa says.
Marissa looks to Zoë, and she looks to me because she doesn’t understand what happened either. Now everyone is staring at me and waiting for my explanation. What do they want me say? I mean—the bomb went off, and that’s that.
“I got them to follow someone else who mirrored my disguise. It would have worked, except for the bomb. When they figured out they were following the wrong person, they decided to set it off anyway,” I say.
The Metanites look around at each other, but Zoë keeps staring at me.
“Whoa, whoa, wait… are you saying that…that bomb was meant for you…to kill you?” Abraham says. He looks to Nate. “Is that true? Did you look at the explosion?!”
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