by Gwenda Bond
Anyway, she seemed to have recovered. She was acting completely normal—except that she kept circling the wrist of her left arm with her right hand absently, then dropping it with a jerk a few seconds later like she’d realized what she was doing. It was a strange tic. On the trip from the curb to the revolving doors, she did it again.
“You’re really all right?” I asked her. “You seem jumpy.”
“I’m not jumpy,” she said, turning to look at me. “It’s just unsettling that you’re the best option I’ve got.”
Her self-confidence level was annoyingly high, yes, but her confidence in me was less than inspiring. I’d have to change that. She was wrong about whether she was jumpy, but right about the other part. I would’ve helped her with her missing lab and mysterious side effect problem, annoying or not, but it was more important now because she was Maddy’s sister. So I’d force myself not to be distracted or irritated—for the next few minutes, at least—and focus on her.
She made it inside without needing to clutch on to Dante, further proof of her recovery. I slowed to watch their reactions to the buzzing grandeur of the lobby—Dante’s was an impressed double take and Melody raised her eyebrows in what might have been approval as she turned her head to take in the entire space.
“Your first time here?” I asked, a little surprised she wouldn’t have visited Maddy before. But then I’d never seen her at the Scoop offices.
Melody nodded, and for once didn’t add a prickly remark.
Huh.
“Well, don’t let this splendor fool you. We’re going to the basement.” I waved to the guard and signed in my guests, then led us into the grim gray service elevator. Juggling the various parts of my new life was a work in progress, but the most shocking thing was how normal it felt for me to stride in here, like I owned the place, after a few short weeks.
I’d waited to ask more questions of Melody, giving her the ride over to regain her strength. Plus, Maddy would want to know what had happened, I figured.
But truth was, I wasn’t sure. Navigating friendship waters was tricky for me. I wasn’t used to it—I was brand new to it, in fact—and the only thing I really knew about Maddy and Melody’s relationship was that it was stormy. Now that I’d gotten an unhealthy dose of Melody’s attitude, I understood why.
Neither Melody nor Dante said anything when we reached the gloomy lower level. But Melody raised her eyebrows again, this time with semi-alarm at the framed front pages shouting about old catastrophes and corruptions. They stayed up as we reached the office proper.
I’d thought it was dire down here on my first visit too, but now there was no place I liked better in the world. The Morgue might be, well, the Morgue, surrounded by endless tall cabinets packed with crumbling newspapers, but it was also the Scoop’s office. It was home.
My family had spent our whole lives moving constantly to wherever my Army general dad had been assigned. When I walked in here, knowing we were in Metropolis to stay, that this was my place in my city, I felt more at home than I ever had.
Especially now that I had the scent of a potential story.
The other Scoop staffers were at their ancient, oversized wooden desks. Cool and collected Devin was deep into some design project on one of his two giant monitors, while prepster James frowned and typed away at his keyboard, and Maddy head-bopped to whatever was blasting through her space-age headphones.
Devin noticed us first. He had a short afro and an ever-present air of calm, and he nodded to me. “I thought you were finally out doing a story, superstar.”
When James raised his head, his face lit up. “Melody!” he said, fairly leaping out of his chair and crossing the room. Oh, right, he and she ran in the same crowd. He was in one of his usual collared-shirt-and-khakis ensembles. But he looked tired, and his hair—usually glossy and perfect—was almost rumpled.
Before I could ask if he was okay, Maddy chimed in. “Melody?” She blinked at us from across the room and slipped off her headphones. I couldn’t help being reminded how her sister had blinked up at me from the sidewalk. They truly were identical, if completely different in style and mannerisms.
While Melody was the perfect princess with full makeup and bouncy blond hair, Maddy was punk-rock pretty with a crimson-streaked chin-length cut and a never-ending supply of band T-shirts. The one she had on today read Tyrannosaurus Hex, and I alone knew that the band almost certainly didn’t exist. Maddy secretly longed to be in a band, so she made up new band names and created T-shirts for them daily.
“Have a seat,” I said to Melody.
“Hi,” Melody said to Maddy, taking the chair beside my desk. And circling her wrist with her opposite hand yet again.
“What are you doing here?” Maddy demanded, heading over.
I internally cringed. I’d never heard that tone from Maddy before. She sounded nearly as affronted as her sister had when I’d revealed I had no clue what her name was.
Oh, sibling-hood. This was going to be complicated.
And then I saw something else that could get complicated. Dante was looking at Maddy. Like, looking looking at her. Like he might have to pick his jaw up off the floor looking at her. He smiled at her, a wide-open smile, and I thought her jaw might hit the floor too. She shyly nodded to him.
“They’re good?” Dante asked her. “I’ve never heard of them.”
“Who?” Maddy asked.
“Tyrannosaurus Hex,” he said. “Great band name.”
Maddy’s cheeks went as red as the streak in her hair. “Yeah. Um—they’re pretty underground.”
I rescued her. “Maddy, this is Dante. He’s the artist I was interviewing and he helped me get your sister here. I’m guessing you want to know why I brought your sister here? So do I. Melody, you up to telling me a little more about what you were looking for?”
“Should I talk in front of him?” Melody asked, ticking her head toward Dante. “He’s technically not one of you.”
Graceless, but a fair point.
I had the same sense about Melody I’d had with Anavi, the subject of my first big story. The Scoop staffers and SmallvilleGuy and I had rescued her from a corporate experiment using videogame technology that had turned her into part of a badly behaving hive mind. Anavi and Melody were worlds apart personality-wise, but there was a story here, I could feel it—a weird one.
One that Dante might not be up for believing.
“That’s cool,” Dante said, preventing further awkwardness. “I don’t want to get in the way. I should head back. You got what you need on the mural already.”
“One thing before you go,” I said. “Do you remember the tenant in that building?”
Dante squinted. “I live nearby. I remember there being some business, and one time I saw a weird guy in a suit going in. No one bothered him, so I assume he was good to be there. But that’s about it. Been a long time.”
“Thanks,” I said, but he barely seemed to hear. His attention had settled on Maddy and stayed there.
“I might look for you at school next week to check in,” he said. “Let me know if you need anything.”
“Will do,” I said.
Dante turned toward Maddy, but Maddy wasn’t paying attention. She was watching James wheel the chair from his desk over to sit beside Melody. That meant Maddy missed Dante’s wave to her as he left.
James was oblivious to Maddy’s crush on him in a way that made me want to smack him sometimes. He had eyes only for her sister. I didn’t see him as the right type for Maddy, but that was beside the point. Once Dante was gone, I turned back to Melody. I needed to get home as soon as I could. SmallvilleGuy didn’t usually have “important” things to tell me.
“You were saying?” I prodded the queen. She wasn’t making this easy.
“It’s okay to talk to all of you? No one will blab?” she said.
James put a hand on her arm, and Maddy watched, her eyes narrowing. “Of course,” he said.
“James,” I said, sitting down at my desk, “you don’t usually hang around on Fridays. Why are you here?”
“I work here,” he said. “Including sometimes on Fridays.”
Devin’s desk was beside mine, and he gave my foot a tap with his sneaker. I glanced over, where he clicked the mouse to bring something up on one of his screens, ever the soul of discretion. It was the Planet home page, which I hadn’t seen since earlier in the day.
A headline blared across the top: Ex-Mayor’s Homecoming From Prison Bittersweet.
Oh, riiiiiight.
James’s dad, James Worthington, Jr., had gotten his good-behavior release from prison today, after a year’s time served for various corruption and embezzling charges. That’s why James was here. He was avoiding going home.
Which meant I couldn’t tell him to leave. I nodded slightly at Devin and his screen changed to another site.
“You can talk freely,” I reassured Melody, while I excavated my notepad. “We’ve all seen some pretty strange things, so we’ll believe you. And we’ll keep it quiet.”
“I’m trusting you.” Her eyes skated over to Maddy, then down to her lap as she began to spill. Her voice was soft, and it was the first time I’d seen her less than confident. That included coming back from unconsciousness. “A couple of years ago, there was an ad asking for identical twins, preferably between the ages of thirteen and seventeen, to give blood and DNA samples for some research. They paid in cash. Only two visits required. So I did it. I went to that building.”
Maddy was gaping again, for an entirely different reason than before. “Are you stupid? Why did you need money? Mom and Dad would have given it to you.”
“Mad,” I said, “not helping.”
She sat down on the corner of Devin’s desk. “Sorry,” she muttered, not entirely convincingly.
James was rubbing Melody’s arm in shallow circles that were obviously meant to be soothing, but looked annoying. But Melody didn’t seem to mind. “Where was this?” he asked.
“It was in Suicide Slum. Or just outside it,” I said. “That’s how I ended up running into her today.”
“Oh,” Maddy said, but nothing more.
James frowned at the news of the unsavory destination. He’d probably never been anywhere near that part of the city.
I needed to take control here, if I wasn’t going to stand SmallvilleGuy up. And I wasn’t. “Melody, do you remember anything about the company? A name?”
“It was called Ismenios,” she said, pronouncing it slowly. She spelled it too, before I could ask. “There was a logo with a man fighting some kind of monster on the front door. The guy was weird. It was just him, I never saw any staff. I almost backed out when I got there the first day, but he told me it would be easy, painless.”
“So was it?” I asked. “What did he do?”
“That part was true. It was painless. I barely felt a thing. He took a couple of little vial things of blood and rubbed a big q-tip on the inside of my mouth each time. After the second time, he told me there might be a sense of disorientation that could manifest. I remember he used that word, manifest. He said that there shouldn’t be, but there might. If I ever had any side effects, I was supposed to inform him.”
This guy sounded like Dr. Shady. “This was two years ago, you said?” I asked. “What kind of side effects are we talking—why do you think they’re related?”
“Because the list of side effects he gave, it was specific. I do feel disoriented. Just in the last week. I… It’s like I’m seeing through someone else’s eyes. He said I might feel things like they were happening to someone else. And I have been.”
“I don’t understand,” Maddy said. “How can you have side effects from having blood drawn?”
I could feel a story here. I tried not to show it, though. Because I didn’t want to scare Melody off. And because Maddy was scowling at James’s hand on her sister’s arm. “How vivid are these feelings?” I asked.
“Vivid enough that I think they’re real. I’m seeing through someone else’s eyes. Literally.”
It took us all a moment to absorb that.
“Whose eyes are we talking about?” James asked.
Melody shook her head. “I don’t know. But someone’s. It’s a man, I think. I see a lab, like the one I went to but not exactly the same… This one has a big glass tank in it. Once I saw streets—that was today, right before Lois found me. I see him messing with this bracelet thing around his arm.” She lifted her hand, ringing her wrist with the fingers of her other hand. That automatic gesture she’d been doing. “It’s gray, with a few lights on it, a black clasp. Almost like one of those fitness trackers, but more high tech looking. Bulkier. He’s always messing with it.”
“Like some kind of prison tracking device?” James asked.
“I’ve never seen one,” Melody answered, and James dropped his hand from her arm. Embarrassed, if I was guessing right, that he’d reminded everyone about his dad. But Melody went on, “I get woozy too, like he said I might. Dizzy. I was trying to push back, to fight it, when I fell today. And afterward, I feel drained. But then it goes away. Mostly.”
Maddy had placed her own fingers around her wrist, as if in sympathy with her sister’s movements. I doubted she realized she was doing it. That was interesting.
But interesting or no, I needed to get out of here. But not just yet.
“Let’s back up for a sec,” I said. “For these samples you gave, how much cash are we talking? What kind of resources did this place have?”
She swallowed. “Five hundred dollars.”
“Wow,” Devin said. “That’s not pocket change.”
“It was a real lab,” Melody said.
“Even if it was in a bad part of town. And the guy was weird,” Maddy said dryly. “It wasn’t the dumbest thing ever for a girl who knows nothing about that part of town to traipse into it and offer up a blood sample. Twice.”
Melody made a face at Maddy.
“Tell me about Ismenios Labs,” I said, attempting to head off further conflict, even if Maddy wasn’t wrong. I was also mentally tallying how late I was to meet SmallvilleGuy. I was pretty sure our date—or non-date, who knew?—was supposed to have started a half-hour ago. And he’d asked me to hurry.
“The building was clean and nice, no boards or broken windows or graffiti. The upstairs was fancy, but…”
“Weird?” I supplied. She nodded, and I asked, “What was weird about it?”
“For one thing, the doctor or lab guy, whatever, never used anything electronic. I mean, there was electronic equipment—spotless—all around, but he took notes on paper. There were stacks of file folders and filing cabinets. He took notes in writing, not using a computer. Kind of like here, and you,” she said, gesturing at my notebook.
“I’m a reporter, not a creep,” I said.
“She can’t help it,” Maddy said. “She’s judgy.”
Melody tossed her hair over her shoulder. “I am not judgy. Whatever that means. If it’s even a word.”
“Judgy,” Maddy said. There was a real tone of anger in her voice.
Devin met my eyes, and his were wide. We both had little sisters, but we did not have twin sisters. This spat could easily get out of hand.
“Anything else?” I asked.
“He was a whistler,” she said.
Maddy recoiled. “Only serial killers whistle.”
“Serial killers and creeps,” I agreed.
“Are you serious?” Melody asked, leaning forward with wide eyes. She wasn’t playing it calm anymore.
I attempted to calm them down. “There probably has never been a study definitively linking whistling and serial killers. Anyway, you’re alive, if not exactly well. We know the
lab’s not there now, but this Ismenios should be easy enough to track down now that you’ve come to us.”
“I tried searching online, but I didn’t find anything,” Melody said. “Look, you can’t just talk to me at school, if you need to update me. People will see.”
“Who cares?” I asked. I legitimately meant it.
“She does,” Maddy said. “Nothing’s more important than Melody’s popularity.”
Granted, I’d been aiming to make one friend here, and to have a few now was a big deal for me. I understood the need to fit in. But I was mystified. “Doesn’t being popular just mean that a lot of people like you? Won’t they still like you no matter what you do?”
“Did you move here from outer space? No, that’s not what it means.” Melody sighed. “Maybe it was a bad idea coming to you for help.”
“Or maybe it was a bad idea going to some random lab,” Maddy said.
“You didn’t come here for help,” Devin said. “Lois found you and offered to assist. Most people would say thanks.”
His arms were crossed over his chest. He was one of the so-called cool kids, not like Melody and James in the popular crowd, but the sort of effortless cool kid who migrates between groups. But I’d never heard him say a word about maintaining that status, not like Melody. I’d have to get him to explain it to me. Later.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll find your missing scientist and we’ll see what he was up to. We’ll make sure your side effects get taken care of, with no harm to your precious popularity. If he told you to tell him about them, there must be something he can do.”
Not that we can trust the guy, of course. But there was no need to scare her. Her problem seemed straightforward enough, even with the complication of her personality. Of course, I’d probably doomed myself by thinking that. Life rarely unfolded according to any plans I made. Speaking of which…