by Rachael Craw
“Jamie and Kitty’s parents. They’re going to take Buffy for us, until we can come home.”
“Right.” She nods. “And they know everything.”
“Yep.”
She rubs her forehead and sighs. “I’m sorry, kiddo.”
“What? You’re doing great. You’ve already recovered so much. The doctor said it would come slowly at first but it’ll pick up. Just keep asking questions.”
“It’s like I can only remember the bad bits.”
I don’t say anything. I don’t trust myself. Breaking the news of Aiden’s death to her and the events that led to the Proxy’s devastating actions was worse than being drowned in the Isolation Tank … or close to it. “We should go down. The van will be here soon.”
“Listen, whatever the council decides today … I don’t want you to make any promises or deals. Don’t let them manipulate you or trap you into something.”
“I don’t think they’ll be offering any deals.”
She pulls me into her arms and gives me the best and worst kind of hug, tenderness that too easily threatens the support structure of my holding-it-all-together dam.
“I love you,” she says.
“I know.”
As we make our way downstairs, I steel myself for dealing with Jamie and Kitty’s parents. I’ve seen them three times since we got back. The first a mess of tears and thanks, Jamie’s life, my quick thinking, their eternal gratitude, wishes – that things were different, that something could be done. I used the words I had, it’s no problem; I’m fine; it is what it is. The other two encounters devolved into rinse-and-repeat variations on the first but with more rapid intervention from Kitty and Jamie. This will be their first time seeing Miriam. They’ve been warned about her memory loss. I only hope the van arrives on time.
Leonard sits in the wingback by the lounge window, Buffy purring worship in his lap. He smiles and rises when he sees us, gently lowering the cat to the floor. She growls and bristles. I suffer my standard inwards ache. He looks so much like Jamie but with all the right dadness – the smile lines and the first signs of silver settling at his temples. Barb gets up to join him, rich-lady jeans and cashmere sweater. Kitty and Jamie stand in back, both with half-apologetic grimaces.
“Evangeline.” Barb first, already teary, her tidy embrace and kiss. “That colour is perfect,” she whispers in my ear. “So beautiful with your eyes. My word, Miriam …” I don’t look back to see how Miriam copes. My eyes are on Leonard, his rueful grin.
He doesn’t say anything, just pulls me in for the dad hug and it’s almost too much. I wonder if it’s imprinted in my DNA, this Pavlovian reaction to the dad gene? Leonard emanates it. If he had ETR it would pulse like a beacon in the bandwidth: safety, strength, belonging, home. It whooshes through me like a warm wind, upending all my carefully stacked Ethan cards and sending them fluttering through me. Ethan. Ethan. Ethan.
He lets me go and it’s all I can do not to cling to him. Thankfully, Jamie swoops in. “Can I have a word, Everton?”
I blink and mumble and catch a glimpse of Miriam’s panicked look before Jamie sweeps me up the hallway and into the kitchen. The sound of Kitty rescuing Miriam behind us.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
“They mean well.”
“I know.”
“Listen,” he backs me into the corner by the kitchen sink, “whatever happens with the ruling, don’t make any deals.”
“Not you too – I’ve already heard this speech from Miriam. It’s not a multiple-choice, pick-your-punishment situation, Jamie.”
“They have no one else like you, a fully matured Shield with all the telepathic strength of a Proxy. There’s no one else in the game with anything like that skill set. You have leverage.”
“Well, that’s a great pep talk but I’m not holding my breath.” I have no idea which way the Council will rule. I told them nothing about Juno Thurston’s scheming and manipulation – I let Knox carry all the blame for what happened in the lower barracks. She’d made no effort to contact me or influence my testimony. Maybe she assumed I would drop her in it. I can’t fully explain my decision to keep quiet. She risked my Spark, my father, my friends, but she also made it possible for me to reach Miriam. I’m not a fool – she had an agenda, to see if I could survive the tank, and I know she killed Knox and Stephanie to protect her investment, but still … she saved my life. Twice. Ultimately, I believe she wants change and if Ethan’s not there to fight for it who will?
Jamie leans his hand on the cupboard by my head, his worried eyes casting back and forth across my face, a deep vertical crease in his brow. I touch my finger to the groove and smooth it away until his lips relax into a reluctant smile. I stare at the starburst flecks of charcoal, smoke and shadow that make his gaze so beautiful. Then I open my mind to him in the bandwidth, the briefest Kinetic Memory Transfer, a sampling from our moonlit forest glade. He catches his breath and closes his eyes. I hook my fingers in his belt loops and pull him to me.
He moans softly against my mouth. “I know what you’re doing.”
I slip my fingers up beneath the hem of his shirt and stroke the down below his navel. “Last Supper.”
“Don’t say that, love.” He slides his hand up the back of my neck, twisting his fingers in my hair, crushing my lips with his and making my head swim, as he Transfers back to me details from our snatched encounters since. My bedroom, his bedroom, Miriam’s hidden training room, the Gallaghers’ pantry, pool house, gym, the night I showed him my tattoo. A reckless judgement-day philosophy – we’re already in trouble for forming an accord, we may as well forget restraint. He finally pulls his lips from mine. “You’re trying to distract me.”
“I’m trying to distract myself.”
“The van’s here,” Kitty calls. “Barb, Dad. You should probably go out the back. They’re twitchy about civilians.”
Jamie swallows, his fear and longing for me clouding his eyes. He opens his mouth to speak but I can’t bear another farewell between us. I shake my head and whisper, half choked, “Time’s up.” I kiss him once more, a final offering, soft lips and bittersweet tenderness.
There’s the hiss and growl of Buffy being jammed in her carry case and next they’re all in the kitchen, clogging the path to the back door. Leonard and Barb exchange fraught goodbyes with their son but say optimistic things about seeing him soon. Barb cries and hugs everyone. Kitty can’t speak at all. She hugs me, quick, hard, then her brother. She picks up the cat box and exits, trying not to let us see her tears. Miriam gets quiet, a boiled-down readiness, hardening in her core for what’s to come. She nods the Gallaghers out of her kitchen and turns to face Jamie and me. She touches our cheeks.
Heavy boots scuff the porch and a quick rap on the front door. Jamie links his fingers through mine and we follow Miriam up the hall. I have a brief moment of longing for old faces, but it won’t be anyone familiar. No welcoming committee for transgressors. I catch the sound of the Gallaghers’ car backing out of the driveway and admit to myself I don’t believe I will see them soon.
Miriam opens the door and Davis is there. I’m momentarily paralysed by the blast of his signal. I hadn’t been paying attention to the bandwidth. With a small gasp, I slip free of Jamie and push past Miriam to throw my arms around Davis’s neck, a choked cry of inexplicable joy.
He grunts and his arms are slow to come around me. I feel the resistance in his body but I don’t care, I’m too glad – more than glad to see him – to worry about awkwardness or baggage. He gives me a reluctant pat but I squeeze tighter. “You’re here. Which means you’re cleared. Hug me and tell me you’re cleared.”
He snorts and grumbles and gives in, finally making it a proper embrace. “I’m cleared.”
“Ha!” I pull back, still holding him, my stupid tears spilling anyway. “That is the best news. It’s so good to see you. I’ve missed you.”
He twists his mouth, reluctant amusement mixed with pained self-consciousness at
my surprise attack in front of an audience, and behind his eyes the shadow of disappointment. He knows about the accord between Jamie and me. “Take it easy, huggy, you’re giving your boyfriend an aneurism.”
I release him and step back, hot-faced but defiant. Jamie’s face is unreadable. I don’t care – Davis is my friend and he’s here and it’s the best news I’ve had in weeks.
“What’s going on?” Miriam says, reminding me that he’s been dispatched to collect us.
“There’s been a ‘development’,” he says. “Counsellor Thurston is here. The World Council wants to make Evie an offer.”
CHOICE
“Yes.” I nod, and my head swims with the after effects of sedation. I lean back in the van, the vibration of the engine rumbling through my skull. Jamie passes me a bottle of water, a warning look in his bleary eyes. I drink carefully, not wanting to choke or spit. My ears pop like we’re losing altitude. I give Counsellor Thurston as assured a look as I can muster half-stoned. “I want in.”
“Hang on,” Miriam says, rocking in her harness beside me. “You’re not agreeing to anything yet. We need to read the fine print.”
“There’s no contract,” Counsellor Thurston says, looking at Miriam head on. “There’s yes or no.”
Miriam narrows her eyes. “You’re off the Council, Juno. Save the tone.”
“I’m the superior officer in this protocol.”
“What protocol?” Miriam says. “This is off-book.”
“This is still Affinity Project jurisdiction.”
Jamie and I watch back and forth like it’s a tennis match, a clash of wills with more subtext than either of them will let on.
“This is an opportunity for all of us.”
“At whose expense?” Miriam says.
“The Council could force Evangeline to comply,” Juno says. “But they’re offering her a choice.”
Miriam unscrews the lid of her water bottle, not taking her eyes of Counsellor Thurston while she drinks.
“I want in,” I repeat, regretting the hours I’ve spent bringing Miriam up to speed with the politics. She’s like a pit bull. “I thought my life was over. I thought I had nothing to look forward to beyond rotting in a cage while white coats poke me with needles. This way, the Stray Initiative continues. Less children get floated in tanks. Agents are free to … make choices.” My eyes flick to Jamie. “What we do finally has some meaning, some value beyond Asset collection and death squad duty. Real purpose.”
Davis catches my gaze in the rear view mirror and acknowledgement passes between us.
“She’s dangling Jamie in front of you like a carrot,” she says, almost a bark. “You nearly died.”
“Because of Stephanie.”
“Jamie tried to kill you.”
Jamie stiffens in his seat. “That was – I wouldn’t have …”
“He couldn’t. Not with the Synergist link. And I tapped his signal.”
“Next time you mightn’t be so lucky.”
“We have an improved blocker now,” Counsellor Thurston says. “And if Stephanie hadn’t interfered, Jamie would have received his dose. It would have changed the whole situation. Keeping these two apart is counterintuitive to the aims of the Initiative.”
“What about the dangers of signal amplification and the increased risk of spontaneous Sparking?” Miriam counters.
“This isn’t the Affinity Project you grew up with, Miriam. We have a completely different philosophical and practical point of view. We are a small organisation. Morale is better served by agents having the freedom to choose their partners and maintaining their reproductive rights.”
I’m not so out of it that I don’t blush. My heart turns drunken flips at the thought of being with Jamie “legally”. Okay, there’s guilt too, about Helena, and worry – I mean, why doesn’t Jamie look pleased? I hope it’s just the effects of the sedative.
Miriam grinds her jaw. “They nearly died during the Extraction of the Stray – three members of the team wounded in the attempt. It was a joke.”
“Your expertise would be welcome, Miriam. We want all practices improved, streamlined.”
Miriam narrows her eyes; she knows Counsellor Thurston is flattering her.
Juno drops her gaze, gathers herself. “We wouldn’t attempt another Extraction without proper preparation. The constraints imposed by the Executive Council last time were unfair and unrealistic. Ethan,” and her voice pales over his name, “did the best he could with the time, resources and support that he had, which was next to nothing.”
“I’m not blaming Ethan,” Miriam mutters, her eyes on the floor of the van.
Through the front windshield, the desert landscape is dominated by a sandstone mountain. A huge concrete buttress forms an entry to the underground site. Large enough to park an airplane, the wide mouth of the hangar sits open. Davis drives in. The vast transport bay is filled with natural light. It strikes me as shocking, the glimpse of the outside world. This isn’t the Affinity Project compound.
“Where are we?” Jamie says.
“Sorry, Richie Rich,” Davis says from the driver’s seat. “That’s classified.”
Jamie gives him a dark look in the rear-view mirror and Davis smirks.
“It’s a government facility,” Counsellor Thurston says. “The Stray Initiative will be monitored by the CIA and an independent committee for Reform.”
Davis parks the van. He opens the side door and releases the auto lock on our harnesses. Jamie and Miriam and I struggle free, our muscles slow from the sedative. We climb out of the van and take in the bustle of activity around us. I reach into the bandwidth, surprised by the messy static. I pick only two or three active signals beyond our group.
Counsellor Thurston watches me. “Yes, Evangeline?”
“Civs?”
Jamie and Miriam exchange looks of alarm. Davis folds his arms.
“Most of these people are engineering contractors but yes, there will be non-active staff, mainly in medical and admin, but we’ll have a couple training with our successful candidates.” She nods us towards the main doors leading off the transport bay. No sign of elevators or stairwells and I can’t deny the sense of relief.
“You mean Strays?” I say.
“Strikers,” Counsellor Thurston says, a note of contained enthusiasm in her voice. “Gabriel is already making excellent progress with the trainers.”
“Gabriel?” Jamie asks before I can.
Counsellor Thurston pushes through the heavy swing doors. A wide corridor of cut sandstone, the high ceiling unfinished natural rock set with a central row of industrial lights interspersed by deep fissures. It’s hard to tell if they’re natural formations or engineered but they filter wells of sunlight into the bunker. Miriam and Jamie stare, as quietly awed as me. “Our first Striker,” Counsellor Thurston says. “The boy you extracted from Jackson Heights.”
“He’s here?” I nearly crash into Miriam’s back. Nothing is going like I thought it would. This morning, I had been bracing to face the jury, bracing for sentencing; somehow that now seems less terrifying than the thought of having to come face to face with the boy Jamie and I both tried to kill. But there’s another part of me that roars with triumph and thrills with defiance on Ethan’s behalf. It worked. He was right. We were right. It can be done. A flip-the-bird moment at old-school Affinity and Knox’s sick legacy of mindless hate.
She leads us past workmen installing heavy glass doors at the end of the corridor, set with security scanners and a retinal readout. A touch of Affinity design. We step out into a vast gymnasium-sized room. The noise and smell is a little overwhelming. The walls, like the corridor, are cut sandstone and the sweeping ceiling high above our heads is unfinished rock. More industrial lights but also irregular fissures casting beams of sunlight over the floor. The smell is a concrete mixer pouring a section of floor. The noise is the bellowing voices of multiple engineers and roaring equipment as building takes place all around us. One half of the gy
mnasium has been completed and laid out for sparring and training. The sight of it stirs a reluctant sense of homecoming and welcome familiarity. I catch Davis watching my reaction. I widen my eyes at him and shake my head. He nods and raises his eyebrows. It’s nothing like the oppressive architecture of the Affinity Project and more like the Bat Cave but with less angst.
“The dorm rooms are up on the left, still under construction,” Counsellor Thurston says, her expression controlled, her tone professional, but there’s simmering glee underneath. Pride. Vindication. “You can see the mess hall is almost complete beneath it.” I glimpse tables and chairs, a counter and industrial-sized kitchen. It all looks out on the gym. “To the right the medical wing is already complete. A communications room. Several meeting rooms. The holding cells are set in the back, nothing like the lower barracks. This is all state of the art, military-grade. And … no ReProg.”
I don’t have words. All around us people move back and forth, ferrying equipment, checking blueprints, shouting orders, installing windows and doors and unloading furniture. Miriam brings her hands to her hips. “You can’t have pulled this off in a month.”
“It was a pre-existing facility decommissioned by the military. This is the retro-fit for our needs.”
Miriam looks like she’s swallowed something poisonous. “Evie hasn’t agreed to be your poster girl for the Initiative, and yet it seems like you’ve taken it as a given.”
Counsellor Thurston doesn’t give an inch. “Knox’s campaign to undermine the Initiative brought to light essential failings in the fabric of the Affinity Project, a culture of prejudice and within its ranks a subversive party whose deliberate and repeated violation of the Reform painted a damning picture for the World Council.”
“Yes, well, you took care of the Knox problem, didn’t you?” Miriam says, raising her eyebrows, her mouth hard.