by LS Hawker
“I’m happy to train a replacement on the program,” Jade said. “I’m confident another computer scientist would have no problem—”
“I thought we’d worked all this out last night,” Martin said, impatient. “You know what’s at stake.”
“We’ve had time to think about it since then,” Elias said, “and we realize we’re not comfortable with the situation. You crossed a line of ethics by lying about who you are.”
“You should know this better than anyone, Elias,” Martin said. “In times of war, sacrifices must be made.” He smiled around at them all. “Honestly, you think you volunteered for this?”
The silence in the room echoed inside Jade’s head. What was he saying?
“No,” Martin said. “You’ve been drafted. You’ve been selected to do the most important job the NSA has ever undertaken. You’re not volunteers.”
“But by definition,” Berko said, “sacrifice is voluntary. What you’re talking about is indentured servitude.”
“You can’t keep us here,” Olivia said. “You can’t keep us against our will. That’s against the law. That’s kidnapping.”
“Remember you’re being compensated—debt paid off, cash prize, prestigious positions, all that. But you’re required to finish the project, and you’re required to stay here.”
“This is ridiculous,” Olivia said. “This is illegal search and seizure. This is unlawful imprisonment.”
Martin stood silent, his arms crossed.
“Let’s put everything out in the open,” he said. “I’m sure you’re aware it’s standard procedure to run security clearances on NSA employees. In the course of those clearances, we naturally run across certain intel.”
Intel? What did he mean?
The puzzled expressions on her teammates’ faces mirrored Jade’s own bewilderment.
Olivia said, “All right, but I don’t see what that has to do with—”
“Let me be clear,” Martin said. “If you want to leave, you give up certain privileges. Such as the privilege of keeping your personal business private. Your family’s personal business. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”
“You and I must have a different definition of ‘clear,’” Olivia said. “Because what you just said is what I’d call cryptic. And those are rights, not privileges, guaranteed by the US Constitution.”
“If you leave—and you’re right, we can’t keep you here, but if you leave, information will be released. That’s all I’ll say. Information will be released.” Then he smiled around at everyone, and Jade had never been so chilled by a grin before. “Now, I want you all to take the rest of the day off, because for the next three days, there will be very little rest. So make the most of it.”
And he left the room.
Elias held his hands out. “What information will be released?”
Berko said, “Is he talking about blackmail?”
“This is ridiculous,” Jade said. “The US government doesn’t blackmail people to get them to work for them.”
“Sure they do,” Olivia said. “They can justify just about anything with a compelling enough national security interest. And this is about the most compelling reason I’ve ever heard of.” She pressed a finger to her lips, then said, “Elias, did you see any personnel files in that hidden directory you found?”
“I didn’t go through everything—there’s a buttload of stuff in there.”
“Why don’t we go see if we can figure out what he’s talking about.”
They took the elevator down to the lab. There was none of Jade’s and Elias’s usual jostling to see who could get their keycard out first. Berko opened the door and they went inside.
“The script is on this,” Elias said, sitting at his desk and opening a drawer. He tossed a flash drive to Jade.
Jade plugged it into a USB port on her CPU.
“Just log in normally and then click on the file marked FUZZ,” Elias said over his shoulder. “As soon as it’s done running, you can eject it and give it to the other two.”
“Got it,” Jade said.
The hidden drive came up on Jade’s monitor, a long directory with abbreviated labels. She ejected the flash drive. “Olivia,” she said, and tossed it to her as soon as she turned around.
“Thanks,” she said and plugged it in.
Jade scrolled down through the list of files until she came to one labeled PRSL. Personnel? Personal?
“Berko,” Olivia said.
“Thanks,” he said.
Jade clicked on PRSL and a photo of a middle-aged couple appeared. CONFIDENTIAL, it said.
“Found it,” she called out, her competitive streak activated by finding it first. “It’s the one called PRSL.”
A chorus of Thanks rang out and then the clicking of computer keys.
David Harman, b. 1960, ethics professor, NYU, retired. Allison Harman, b. 1962, French Department Chair, NYU.
Jade scrolled down and found medical histories for Olivia’s parents. She didn’t read through it but scrolled down.
Olivia Harman. Convicted of disturbing the peace at Baltimore gay rights protest. Questioned and released, never charged, on suspicion of prescription medication theft from her employer, Greater Baltimore Medical Center.
Never charged. But the NSA knew about it anyway.
Jade gasped, her hand over her mouth.
“What is it?” Olivia said.
“Stop,” Jade called out. “Stop. Don’t open it. Don’t read it.”
But then she herself couldn’t stop reading.
Alicia Renee Deloatch, b. 1969, employed by American Rental Car, Atlanta, GA.
Four live births, two miscarriages. Type II diabetes, diagnosed 2010. Deep vein thrombosis, diagnosis 2012.
Jade felt as if she was peeking into someone’s bathroom window, reading this. She scrolled down.
Berko Deloatch, b. 1993, student.
Acute appendicitis, 2000. Appendectomy, no complications. Chronic migraines, diagnosed 2005.
Jade scrolled down.
Juvenile conviction, sexual assault, female cousin, age nine. Record expunged, court files sealed, 2004.
Stunned into paralysis, Jade stared at the phrase sexual assault. She couldn’t look away from it.
She heard from behind her a loud gasp. She swiveled around and saw Berko, his face slack and his hands noticeably shaking, his eyes wide behind his horn-rim glasses.
“I can explain,” he said, his face drawn, seeming thinner.
“Berko,” Jade said.
“You have to listen,” he said, his voice pleading. “We went swimming.”
“What’s he talking about?” Elias said, but went silent as he read, and then frantically scrolled down.
“No,” he whispered.
Olivia turned around, her hands over her mouth. She looked at Berko, horrified. And then at Elias the same way.
Jade couldn’t stop herself. She turned back to her monitor as Berko babbled behind her.
“I was helping her go to the bathroom,” he said.
“No,” Elias said again.
“Later her mom accused me of fondling her, which I did not do,” Berko said, his voice cracking and frantic. “My record was expunged, which is why I’m completely baffled as to how it got in here—how they . . . found this information. My aunt and my mom always had a contentious relationship. Since they were little, my aunt tried to get Mom in trouble. This time she succeeded.”
Nausea clogged Jade’s gut. She wanted to scrub her eyes with steel wool. She didn’t want to know any of these things, not about sweet, studious Berko. And then Jade couldn’t help herself. She read Elias’s record.
Juan Diego Palomo-Gutierrez, b. 1967, Mexico City, d. 1996, Reno, NV. City councilman.
Elias Juan Diego Palomo, b. 1990, ensign, United States Navy.
Hit-and-run accident, county road, New Mexico, 2007. Car repaired, no accident report filed. Driver of other vehicle killed.
She turned slowly an
d Elias sat with his back to the keyboard, his legs splayed and head back, hands on either side of his face.
Olivia stared at him, openmouthed.
“You killed someone?”
“It was an accident,” Elias said. “I was visiting my uncle in New Mexico. I was helping him on this ranch he was working on. We’d been working our asses off and I was driving down a country road, and I was so tired. And I fell asleep. The next thing I know my uncle’s pulling me out of the driver’s seat and shoving me in the passenger side, and then he guns it and we tear ass out of there. Tio had weed in the car, and he panicked. He told me I had to keep it a secret. If I was arrested for careless driving, I couldn’t go to the Academy, and if I didn’t go to the Academy, I wouldn’t be able to support my mom and my brothers and sisters. I was a kid. I was scared. It wasn’t until a week later that I found out the other driver died.”
He covered his face with his hands, leaned forward, and began sobbing.
This was so awful. Everything was stripped away. They were all exposed.
Well, three of them were.
Jade turned back to her monitor and scrolled down, her skin covered with hot, painful prickles.
Pauline Marie Brazier Veverka, b. 1968. Arteriolateral sclerosis, diagnosis 2016.
Prescription: Prozac. 350 mg. January 1999-present. Prescribed due to severe postpartum depression after first delivery. Taken through second pregnancy.
Possible causal link to second child’s autism.
Chapter Thirteen
Berko continued talking behind her, but she couldn’t understand any of the words.
Was it true? Her mother had never mentioned she’d taken antidepressants during her pregnancy with Clementine. She remembered Pauline telling her, “I couldn’t stop crying. I couldn’t do anything but take care of you. You know how a lot of moms want to harm their children when they’ve got postpartum? I was the opposite. I couldn’t let go of you. Couldn’t put you down. Couldn’t be away from you. But that meant I didn’t shower or cook or even talk to your dad.”
No wonder her mom felt so guilty about Clementine. No wonder she’d fought so hard to secure her treatment and benefits.
But then, like a low-simmering pot of water, her rage at Robert and Pauline for depending on her to figure out how to communicate with Clementine came to a full rolling boil. Because she believed deep down she would indeed be stuck with Clem forever. She’d never let this thought creep into her conscious mind before, and now that it had broken through it brought another, uglier thought with it. The wish that Clementine would be killed in some accident. The wish that Clementine had never been born.
Jade squeezed her head between her hands, her eyes clamped shut, willing these thoughts back into the attic. But they refused to get out of the living room. They were here now to stay, with their feet up on the coffee table. And Jade herself was pure evil. Pure. Evil. Clementine couldn’t help what she was. It wasn’t her fault. It was Pauline’s.
It was Jade’s for causing the postpartum depression that compelled Pauline to take the meds during her second pregnancy.
She started to cry.
This was the selfishness Jade never knew existed in her mother. She’d been willing to risk Clementine’s health and welfare for her own comfort and well-being.
Maybe that wasn’t fair. Jade had never experienced depression, but she wondered if it was a real thing, or just self-indulgence? Was it a bid for attention? Jade didn’t know. But she’d never doubted her mother like this before, and she didn’t like it.
Why did the NSA have this information? Had Mom’s doctors provided it, or had the NSA gained access to her medical records?
This meant they knew everything about everyone.
No one should know this much about people, no one but God.
Scrolling down.
And there it was.
Jade Veverka. Twelve payments to essaymills.com during attendance at Carnegie Mellon University.
Shame choked her. She’d been stretched so thin in undergrad, needing to maintain an A average and work part-time jobs, so she’d cheated. If this information got out, CMU would most likely take her degree away.
If her parents found this out, they’d never look at her the same way again.
But didn’t everyone cut corners in college? Fudge the facts? Do whatever it took to get their degree?
She had devolved into an excuse-making phony. But at least her transgression paled next to Elias’s and Berko’s.
This thought stopped her cold. Who the hell did she think she was? A privileged white girl whose biggest problem was an autistic sister and the desperate desire to be better and smarter than everyone else. It was pathetic. Jade turned back around, and her friends were in varying states of panic and despair.
“So it looks like . . . we’re staying,” Jade said, the eye of the storm, calm, or maybe in shock.
“You had to push it, didn’t you?” Berko said to Olivia, his eyes red. “You had to ask why we had to stay. Why didn’t we just finish the project like we promised? And now you all know . . .”
Olivia’s face was devoid of color, but she turned on Berko and snapped, “This is not my fault.”
“You have to believe me,” Berko said, looking around at everyone.
“We do, Berko,” Jade said. “It was a misunderstanding. And Elias, what happened to you could have happened to . . . anyone. Seriously.” She didn’t know what to say to Olivia, who turned her eyes toward Jade.
“If this comes out,” Elias said, “my life is over. I’ll lose everything.”
“Everyone will be ruined,” Olivia said. “Except Miss White-bread Goody Two-shoes Homecoming Queen Jade.”
Jade gasped at this.
Why was Olivia pissed at her? She didn’t do anything.
“My BS could be rescinded,” Jade said, defensive.
“Bitch, please,” Olivia said. “The only bad thing you’ve ever done in your life you did just to make yourself look good.”
“You’re such a reverse snob,” Jade said, anger rising. “Getting arrested for protesting did the exact same thing for you. You’re a radical, getting arrested to fight for someone’s rights. I’ll bet you begged the cops to cuff you.”
“You and your small-town myopia,” Olivia said, “can go straight to hell.”
“I may be small-town,” Jade said, “but as far as myopia goes, you can’t seem to see past whatever the trendiest cause is. What is it this month? Keystone species? Alternative energy?”
How quickly they’d all turned on each other. Having their secrets revealed had turned them all into rats.
“I’m going to call Dan,” she said quietly. She picked up the landline phone and pressed the receiver to her ear. It was silent.
“My phone’s dead,” she said.
Everyone picked up their receivers. They did exactly as Jade had, listening, looking, listening again.
All chairs turned slowly toward the center and the four of them contemplated each other, Jade’s own feelings again reflected on her coworkers’ faces.
This wasn’t an outage or an interruption of service. This was a deliberate attempt to keep the team from outside contact.
“Let’s go back to the house,” Berko said. “Let’s try the phone there.”
But Jade assumed the landline in the house was as dead as the ones in here.
They all walked out and got on the elevator. A tense, brittle, electric silence descended as they avoided each other’s eyes while the elevator car rose. It was the longest ride of Jade’s life.
Outside, the sky had darkened and a thunderstorm threatened, but it would likely push off to the south. Lightning flashed on the horizon.
They trotted toward the house and went inside. Jade strode into the kitchen and was startled by a man she’d never seen before in workman’s coveralls facing the back of the pulled-out refrigerator.
“Oh,” she said, her hand to her throat.
He turned around, his hand go
ing to his hip, and for a split second Jade thought he was going to pull a gun on her. But he reached toward the kitchen island, on which his tool belt rested. He twisted a dial on a walkie-talkie strapped to the belt then turned back to her. “Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to scare you. I’ll be out of your hair in a minute.”
“It’s fine,” she said, catching sight of the keycard on a lanyard around his neck, which read Connor Lemaire. “Thanks for taking care of this, Connor.”
“Sure,” he said, startled she’d used his name. “I’m almost done.”
She turned and as casually as she could, picked up the wall phone. It was dead. She didn’t want him to know they suspected the phones were cut off on purpose, so she said, “Oh, hey, the phone’s out. Can you fix that too?”
Without turning around, he said, “I’ll let them know in the main office.”
Jade walked out of the kitchen and said, “Guy’s here fixing the fridge. He’ll be done in a jiff.”
All four of them gathered in a knot in the living room. “No phone here either, huh?” Elias murmured and Jade shook her head. “I’ll go upstairs and grab my satellite phone. We’ll wait until he leaves to use it.”
Jade brightened, grateful they had a military man on their team. Elias mounted the stairs and Jade made eye contact with Olivia, which made despair germinate inside her. Jade wished she could take back what she said to Olivia, about begging the cops to cuff her. She wished she could grab it and stuff it back in her mouth, gag herself with it. She also wished she hadn’t gotten a glimpse of what Olivia really thought of her.
A heavy scraping noise issued from the kitchen, and Jade figured Connor was putting the refrigerator back in its proper place.
Jade heard rumblings upstairs. She heard clunks and bangs. The noises came louder and more frequently, followed by “Shit!”
The maintenance man appeared in the doorway, wiping his hands on a towel. “All done,” he said. “You can put your food back in there.”