Martina closed her eyes. Almost at once, her body began to shake. She was afraid. She was alone. Fritz would win. Fritz always got what he wanted. Always. Tremor after tremor pulsed through her body. She was five again, locked in a dark room for some sin she hadn’t understood at the time and couldn’t remember now. But she remembered the terror of that lonely night, spent apart from Mutti’s embrace, Katrin’s giggles.
Pulling her knees up to her chest, she curled into a tight ball and rocked. Back and forth. Back and forth. Fritz had won. Helmann had won. Martina was nothing. Just one child among hundreds. Expendable. Replaceable.
She rocked in the dark room. Back and forth, back and forth. Alone.
She remained like that for a long while. And then, as if a match had been struck in darkness, she felt illumination from within. A memory of words murmured while she rocked in Mutti’s arms, back and forth, back and forth, in a creaking rocker. The opposite of alone.
My one and only.
Mutti’s words.
My precious girl.
Mutti’s arms around her. Warm. Healing.
Unique in all the world.
And something inside her stilled. She was not replaceable. She was loved, beloved. Unique.
Her body released one final tremor and was still. She uncurled and opened her eyes, fixing them on the window, not on the bucket.
She was the only one who could help Matteo. Fritz had kept her alive. For his own purposes, to be sure, but the fact of her aliveness seemed suddenly a thing of consequence, of significance.
One person can change the world, Martina. It was something Pfeffer had said to her, that first awful and confused day when she’d been re-awakened last February.
One person. Unique. She was the only one who could save Matteo. And as she asked her mind to figure out how to save him, to solve it like a math story problem, she remembered something
That was it. The other thing Pfeffer had not liked about Neuroplex. You had to dose with Neuroplex much more frequently to suppress the ability to ripple. It wore off more quickly.
It wore off.
How long did it last? Would Fritz have accurate knowledge of this? Pfeffer said it was tricky, adapting the dosage to the individual patient. Height, weight, body mass, and metabolism all played their part.
Pfeffer had adjusted Martina’s dose of Neuroprine several times. You have a metabolism like a little hummingbird, he’d said once, watching her eat. As she had learned, and used to her advantage, the Neuroprine ran through her system more quickly. Fritz would have dosed her for her size, certainly, but he knew nothing of her metabolism, did he?
She frowned, wiping her eyes. Fritz had treated all the children from time to time when they’d been growing up in the compounds. He would have had access to records about her. But there had been hundreds of Angel Corps children. Martina didn’t know exactly how many, but she knew her group of eighty children had been one of several. What if Fritz hadn’t double-checked everything there was to know about Martina? What if he’d been sloppy?
She sat up straighter. She needed to keep trying to vanish. Every, what, half hour? Every fifteen minutes? She had no watch, no cell phone. But there was a tiny window in her room. She could track time by the movement of the stars. She stood and was about to drag the chair to the window so she could stand on it and gaze outside. But then she had another idea. A symbolic gesture.
She reached for the bucket, flipped it upside down, and stood on it, instead of the chair.
She was facing roughly south—she could see Mars glowing softly orange. And she could see a sliver of moon as well.
She found a branch that extended high into the night sky. She could watch as the moon and planets traveled past, 5 degrees of motion for every 20 minutes of time. Who said Helmann’s lessons were useless? Martina smiled grimly and began her tracking of the passing of time.
And in the meantime, she could engage in calisthenics and jogging around the tiny room, to try to force the drug through her system faster. She didn’t know if this would work, but she had nothing to lose by trying.
And so began a strange and wakeful night, Martina climbing onto the bucket, checking the time, trying to vanish, running in place, checking the time again, trying to vanish again. The sky was just blushing pink and orange to the east when her medication wore off.
And this time, she knew exactly who to turn to for help. Smiling, she passed through the wall of prison and into freedom.
32
GOOD AS DEAD
Nice, France
Fritz’s Lair of Evil was located high enough in the hills to give Martina a fair idea of her location without needing to soar upward to orient herself. She did, however, fly to Pfeffer’s laboratory rather than run there. Flying was faster.
Pfeffer’s habit was to spend mornings in his lab, running off to visit the various Angel Corps cadres after lunch. He only visited each group once every two weeks, so Martina was quite sure he’d be at work this morning. His lab was located back in Montpellier—he’d set up inside the very building in which a different cadre had been placed in a hypnotized state awaiting Helmann’s orders.
She hadn’t liked the building the one time Pfeffer had taken her there to run tests on her along with Friedrich and Georg. She had felt ill visiting it, in fact, tied as it was to Helmann. But now she was grateful she’d returned that one time with Friedrich and Georg. It would have been impossible for her to locate Pfeffer’s lab without that visit.
Invisibly, she climbed through the empty floors and made her way to Pfeffer’s rooms. The lights were out. She came solid.
“Dr. Pfeffer?”
He wasn’t in either of his main labs. She crossed to the far corner, where he had a tiny office. The lights were off there as well, although they flicked on in response to her presence. Pfeffer liked his modern conveniences.
A twinge of fear crossed her mind. Pfeffer had said something about a trip to California. To a place inexplicably called “The Grannies”—Las Abuelitas.
“Oh, no,” she murmured aloud. She searched his desk for a planner, a note, anything. Inside a drawer, she found a receipt for a package sent to Las Abuelitas, California a few days ago. He must have sent something ahead. Or sent it, and later made the decision to follow it. She checked the date. The package had been sent while she was in the Caribbean. She set the shipping receipt on his desk, noting the package had been heavily insured.
And then she sank into Pfeffer’s chair. An hour had passed since she’d left the cell in Nice. By now, Fritz had probably realized she was gone.
She rose from Pfeffer’s desk, becoming invisible in an instant, and began racing back to Nice, her invisible heart wrenching over her decision to leave. Fritz would be furious at her departure, if he knew about it. Had she exposed Matteo to additional danger?
She heard Fritz’s thoughts just seconds before she arrived back at his lair. He was angry. But he was shouting at Georg, not Matteo. For some failure, she gathered. Georg had not retrieved the item Fritz wanted. Research. Notes. On a computer. Georg had brought back the wrong computer—two wrong computers, in fact, retrieved for Fritz’s inspection.
Martina entered the building, hiding herself in a wall to prevent her being discovered as a meandering patch of cold air.
“Send Hansel next time,” Georg was saying. “Or go yourself if it matters so much to you.”
“I think I might send Hansel,” said Fritz, musing.
“Before I go anywhere, I want to see Martina,” said Hansel. “I want proof you’re not mistreating her. We’ve agreed to everything you asked.”
Martina heard Fritz’s thoughts. He did know of Martina’s disappearance. And he was livid about it. But he withheld this information from Hansel and Georg.
“You’ll see your sister when I decide the job has been done to my satisfaction,” Fritz replied calmly. “Hansel, I want you to have a look as well. Report back what you find.”
Martina wanted to shout to Hansel, Ask
him about Matteo! But he was solid and wouldn’t hear her.
“Wait,” said Hansel as Fritz turned to go. “What about the boy? Matteo?”
Had she been solid, her jaw would have dropped.
Fritz didn’t answer right away, as he was issuing orders to have Georg placed under guard. Then he turned back to Hansel. Martina held her breath, figuratively.
“Matteo?” asked Fritz. “Why do you need to know anything about him? Are you in love with him, too?” Then he turned on his heel to leave. “Be back by eleven,” he called to Hansel. Or I might decide to take it out on your brother instead.
Martina heard the unspoken thought. Why hadn’t Fritz said it aloud? He must have decided threatening wasn’t a useful tactic at the moment. This had to mean he wanted Hansel and Georg to trust him. Which was more than he’d wanted or expected from Martina herself.
It was significant who Fritz had thought to threaten, as well, thought Martina. Fritz knew his leverage over Hansel was Georg. Not Matteo (about whom Hansel had less concern) or Martina (whom Fritz didn’t have in possession anymore.) But Fritz had kept the threatening thought to himself. Did he want Hansel to like him?
Martina thought through all of this in a moment. Now, she drifted along behind Fritz, hoping his thoughts might turn again to Matteo. They turned to her, instead. I should have watched her more carefully. She had a larger dose … why wasn’t it enough? Some other trick of Pfeffer’s perhaps?
And then Fritz’s thoughts turned to Matteo.
The boy’s useless to me now, with the girl gone. Should I kill him? He’s as good as dead, anyway, invisible and not a chameleon. Hmmph. Less trouble for me to leave him where he is. And less pleasant for him, stuck like that. A living death. Fritz chuckled aloud, pleased with the thought.
33
BETTER THAN DRIFTING
Nice, France
Where was Matteo? Hidden invisibly? But where?
Martina wanted to scream at Fritz and demand he tell her. But instead of continuing to think about Matteo, Fritz’s thoughts turned to a polemic against the weak of the species and the strong of the species. Martina stuck with him for several more minutes, but he was done thinking about Matteo. With Martina gone, Matteo didn’t matter to Fritz anymore.
Martina let herself fall behind. Let Fritz walk away. She would never find out. She’d felt the finality of his decision. Heard his laughter. She wasn’t going to catch anything slipping out, because Fritz would probably never think of the boy again.
But the important thing—the important thing—was that Matteo was alive. Martina felt hope swelling inside her. She just had to find him.
She just had to … find him.
And he was invisible.
Her heart sank.
She came to rest within one of the building walls. How did you find someone who was invisible? She would have to be close enough to hear him. Martina quieted her mind and focused on listening. She heard many minds, but she didn’t hear Matteo. She heard Georg’s thoughts: a single word repeated like a metronome. Fool, fool, fool, fool. She didn’t know if he meant Fritz or himself or someone else. She pulled her mind away from Georg’s dull repetition.
An hour passed—she watched a clock on the wall. Fritz had left the building, his thoughts concerned with whether, in the end, it would be safe to go himself to find the thing he wanted. His thoughts grew fainter until they were gone.
What should she do? Consult Georg? Would he have ideas? She thought of his inscrutable expression when Hansel had asked Fritz to leave her alone. She didn’t trust Georg. She wouldn’t consult him now. So, was she going to slink around in the shadows, hoping Fritz decided one day to think of Matteo again?
She wished Pfeffer hadn’t gone away. He would have found out what Fritz wanted and how to get it and how to use it to bargain in the right way. The two were peers. Half-brothers. And then Martina realized she could follow Pfeffer to California. It was better than drifting through this building, doing nothing.
She rose and took herself to the airport. She found out where Las Abuelitas, California was. She found out which flight would get her to San Francisco fastest. And then, she placed herself invisibly inside the next plane.
34
TIME TO JUMP
Las Abuelitas, California
By the time she turned fourteen, Martina had jumped from planes several times as part of her training exercises. She wasn’t exactly afraid of the idea today; it was hard to be afraid of things when you were invisible. But the other times she’d jumped from a plane, she’d had a parachute.
In the end, it wasn’t much different from jumping with a chute. She’d kept herself in the cockpit, mostly—but not entirely—within the wall. It was very amusing to hear the captain and first officer chatting about how the heat issue in the cockpit had finally been addressed. Her real reason for riding in the cockpit was to be able to see landmarks clearly. She’d located two as important: Lake Tahoe in the Sierra Nevada range and Yosemite National Park. Once the first officer began pointing out features in Yosemite, Martina knew it was time to jump.
Happily, the plane was already in descent. She waited until they drifted over the last few foothills before abandoning ship. Ahead of her lay Merced, California, sprawling in the hazy distance, and close enough to Las Abuelitas that Martina hoped there would be signs to direct her.
She pushed through the windshield of the plane, because passing invisibly through glass was much nicer than passing through metal, and then she allowed herself to dive, spin-drifting over the flatlands below. The landscape glowed, golden fields, dark-leaved orchards in military rows, and behind it all, undulating foothills of velvety brown, folding in and out of one another. Dark spots clustered in the seams where the hills sloped together, and Martina began to identify pines and oaks. Not the cork oaks of Provence, but broad, spreading trees whose branches seemed to beckon her to Earth.
Martina noted an arterial road crowded with vehicles and swooped down to follow it. Before long, signs directed her to Mariposa—“Butterfly”—a name she recognized from her earlier mapping exercise before she’d left France. Shortly afterwards she read signs directing her to Las Abuelitas on a winding side road.
By now the sun was setting, hanging lazily over a range of coastal mountains, toward the Pacific Ocean. She yearned to gaze upon the ocean, but her fears for Matteo’s safety had been growing with every kilometer she’d put between them already. She kept to the quiet highway and pushed forward to Las Abuelitas.
She approached the tiny green sign marking the city limits at dusk.
It occurred to her that she might not be the only “rippler” in the area. And that her thoughts might be overheard. In case Pfeffer had audio-savant caméléon friends in the area, she decided to play it safe by masking her thoughts with other sounds.
Only then did it occur to her she had no idea how to find Pfeffer.
THREE
Las Abuelitas, California
Present Day
35
THIEVERY
Las Abuelitas, California
Martina started her search for Dr. Pfeffer listening for the echo of his thoughts. The town was small—less than one kilometer square, Martina estimated. Which meant she should have no problem catching the familiar sound of his thoughts. Unfortunately, since they weren’t touching, he would lack the ability to hear her thoughts. She listened, wandering the streets, but she didn’t hear him.
As night drew on, she began to despair. He might just be sleeping, but what if he’d traveled somewhere else? She consoled herself with the thought that there was a package—a valuable package—on its way here. He was probably just asleep.
Martina felt wide awake, but she was invisible, where it was impossible to feel sleepy or hungry or achy or, well, anything. From tricks she’d played on Matteo, she knew non-caméléons sometimes got drowsy when they rippled, but, being a caméléon herself, she’d never experienced anything but a sort of heightened alertness when invisible.
She knew she should be tired—would be tired when she solidified. When she counted the number of hours she’d been awake, she came up with a very big number. In six days, she’d barely caught two full night’s rest. Once she came solid, exhaustion would hit her fast and hard.
Pfeffer had to be asleep or solid or both. That was the obvious explanation. And she should get some sleep, too, so that her mind would be at its best tomorrow for making plans to rescue Matteo with Pfeffer’s help. To sleep, she would have to find a place to curl up back inside her body.
She dreaded coming solid and feeling that punch of fatigue. After passing up and down the main boulevard of Las Abuelitas, she decided to investigate the high school to find a quiet corner in which to rest. The marquee outside said SEE YOU NEXT FALL, which she took to mean the school was closed for summer. Drifting invisibly through a series of offices, she discovered a sleeping cot, stationed in what looked like a nurse’s office. She came solid and settled on the cot.
Ouch. She was exhausted.
But that was before her hunger kicked in. She wasn’t just a little hungry. She was I-could-eat-a-flock-of-geese hungry. Her stomach roiled and growled and insisted she eat something. Now! Nosing through the nurse’s station, she discovered peppermints, packets of instant coffee, and chewing gum. The coffee, she avoided, not wishing to forestall sleep. Neither the gum nor the peppermints helped her hunger. In fact, chewing the gum made her even more aware of how badly she needed something to chew.
So much for sleep.
Martina haunted the halls of the school, finding a vending machine with packets of crisps and stale-looking biscuits. Chips and cookies, she reminded herself. She was in America, not Europe. British English was useless here.
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