by Walter Jury
“Use it the wrong way? That’s pretty paranoid,” Brayton says in an amused voice. “This technology could help us do great things. Build great things. And Black Box has the resources to make it happen.” He leans forward eagerly. “You could benefit from it, too, Tate. Your father’s estate would definitely own the majority share.”
He must think I’ve very naïve, or maybe just greedy. “Build great things . . . like weapons, perhaps? That’s what Black Box does, right?”
The eager expression turns rigid. “It could also be used to save an entire species, Tate.”
What has the power to save also has the power to destroy. My father taught me that.
“Why is it so important to be able to tell the difference between H2 and human? I can actually understand why Race Lavin doesn’t want it in the open—he doesn’t want people to freak out when they realize their kids’ teachers and their neighbors and maybe even their senators are aliens or whatever. And maybe he even wants to use it to track down humans and kill us one by one. But you’re human, right? What do you want it for? And with all due respect, please don’t give me more do great things bullshit.”
And that’s it. Like a thread snapping, Brayton’s face changes. The thick flesh of his cheeks goes from pasty to mottled in less than a second. His eyes go from cold to blazing. “Stop messing around and give me the invention!” he shouts.
The golf-shirt gang all pull their weapons at once, but they’re keeping the muzzles low and not aiming directly at me. Yet.
I raise my hands in the air.
The explosion, when it comes, is deafening.
IT ISN’T GUNFIRE.
The golf-shirt gang doesn’t know that, though, and they all throw themselves behind the metal tigers as the second explosion goes off. I take my chance and spin around, relief singing in my veins. Christina didn’t bail. And she followed my instructions perfectly.
The telltale click freezes me in place before I can reach the safety of the concrete pillars just beyond the narrow access road. “Nice trick,” snaps Brayton from behind me. “Very cute.”
I slowly turn around. He’s got his gun leveled at my chest. His hands are steady.
“Tell your friend to come out. Now. Your stupid prank is going to bring the authorities down on us, and I think you understand that they will not exactly be interested in protecting your rights. Or mine. We’re on the same side, Tate,” he hisses.
“Which explains why you’re pointing a gun at me.”
“I’m going to shoot him if you don’t come out,” he calls.
Before I can shout for her to keep out of sight, Christina steps from behind one of the pillars, right into the line of fire. She’s holding something behind her back, and her eyes are wide. “I have it right here,” she says in a high, clear voice. “Don’t hurt him.”
Brayton puts his hand out. “Give it here, then.”
“Catch.”
Christina throws the Gatorade bottle high in the air. It’s swelling like a balloon under the pressure of the chemical reaction going on inside it and is the size of a soccer ball as it arcs up over us. Brayton follows it with his eyes, squinting as he loses it in the slanting rays of the late-afternoon sun. I duck low and dive for Christina, slamming us both against the nearest pillar and holding her head against my chest.
Just as the bottle explodes directly over Brayton’s head.
With my ears ringing, I tug Christina behind the column as Brayton screams and the golf-shirt gang opens fire. She whimpers and presses herself to the concrete. Her muscles are locked, cemented in place by all that fear. She’s like a deer in headlights. And I can’t blame her. This is the second time today she’s been shot at, and at some point, it got to be too much.
I’m trying to decide if I’m going to drag her, calculating the odds of us getting perforated in the half second it would take us to sprint from this column to the next, when I hear the screeching of tires. I peek around the concrete pillar to see a black minivan grind to a halt on the access road, between us and the golf-shirt gang. The passenger door slides open, and so does my mouth.
It’s my mom.
“Get in!” she yells as Brayton’s men start shooting again.
I half carry Christina to the car as several bullets hit the driver’s side. But they don’t go through. Not through the glass, not through the metal.
It’s bulletproof.
“Shut the door, Tate. And put on your seat belt,” my mother says calmly.
I do what she says, and I fasten Christina’s seat belt as well, because she’s staring with wide eyes at Brayton, who levels his gun and fires—straight at her face, even though I know he can’t see it through the dark tint on the windows. The bullet hits the glass with a loud thwack, and she cries out, a sound of pure terror.
Someday, I will pay him back for that.
Two of the golf-shirt gang land on the hood. My mother guns the engine and we shoot forward, but they hang on. I see a flash of red in the rearview and look behind us. “Mom, the cops . . .”
“Sit tight.”
She flips up a small plastic tab on the dash and jabs her finger at the button hidden beneath it. The result is immediate. The two golf-shirted thugs clap their hands over their ears, and my mother yanks the wheel left, then right, throwing them both off. I stare at them as we shoot by, at the blood spurting from between their fingers.
“Something your father installed for me a few years ago,” she says. “High-powered sound waves to disrupt equilibrium and destroy the eardrum. They won’t be able to chase us.”
I stare out the back window and see the cops slowing to a halt next to the tiger statues, where Brayton and a few of his minions are strewn across the steps and lawn. My mom accelerates smoothly and then whips us around a corner. Her eyes flick to the rearview mirror. “Are you all right?”
She’s not looking at me. She’s looking at Christina.
“Yes,” says Christina, her voice small. Her arms are wrapped around her middle in a way that makes me ache.
My mom turns onto yet another tree-lined road, a two-lane affair dotted with signs indicating we’re near a state park. This is not the way to her house. “Tate, please fill me in. Where’s your father?”
I can’t tell her this now. I stare out the window. “Where are we going?”
“A safe house.”
“For Black Box?”
She laughs, dark and low. “That wouldn’t be very smart right now, would it? Your father and I keep a few safe places, just for us.”
“How did you know to come?”
She arches a sculpted eyebrow. “Your father doesn’t meet with associates at stadiums. How did you get hold of his phone? Have you been fighting with him again? And while you’re at it, please tell me why Brayton Alexander was shooting at you. That is a major violation—” She presses her lips shut.
I set my elbows on my knees and hang my head. “Brayton was after one of Dad’s inventions.”
She’s silent for several long seconds. “Does your father know you’ve stolen his scanner?” she finally asks.
My mouth drops open. “How do you know that?”
“Just tell me.”
I glance down to the backpack sitting between me and Christina, and I fight the urge to throw the scanner out the window and watch it shatter into a million pieces on the asphalt. I would, too, if it wasn’t the thing he died trying to save, the thing he said was the key to our survival. And Brayton probably wasn’t spouting only bullshit—I can believe this technology could be used to do great things. Without my dad, who can I trust to help me figure that out? I stare at the back of my mother’s head. She’s almost a stranger to me. But obviously my dad still trusted her enough to tell her about the scanner.
And now I have to tell her about him. There’s no use putting it off anymore.
“He’s dead
, Mom,” I say, my voice cracking. While I explain how it happened, my mom’s expression doesn’t change. She doesn’t ask questions. She barely says anything at all.
She finally turns onto a gravel road. The woods are so dense here that the trees block out the sun, and there’s no hint of human habitation. After a few miles, she veers down a steeply sloped drive that makes me feel like we’re diving into the trees, drowning in the leaves.
The cabin is in a little clearing, but before we reach it, my mother rolls down the window and places her hand on the trunk of a spindly, smooth-barked tree growing right next to the road. A flap pops open beneath her palm, revealing a small keypad, and she punches in a code.
C21H22N2O2
Of course, it’s not a loved one’s middle name or maiden name or birthday or whatever.
It’s the chemical formula for strychnine.
I’m kind of glad Christina isn’t great at chemistry, because I’m not sure I want her to know this about my mother, that she’s the type of woman who chooses her passwords by lethality rather than sentimentality.
My mother pulls the minivan forward. I’m not sure what punching in that code did for us, but if my father had anything to do with it, the security around this cabin is probably thorough, effective, and utterly deadly.
She hits a button on the visor as we approach, and the door of a ramshackle shed next to the cabin slides open, revealing a bright, modern interior. We get out and follow her through the back of the shed, along a narrow, steel-reinforced hallway, and into the cabin. Christina looks like she’s about to collapse, and when my mother pulls out a chair for her at the kitchen table, she practically falls into it.
My mom holds out her hand to me. “Let me see it,” she says, motioning at the backpack on my shoulder.
I hand it to her, and she unzips it, pulls out the scanner, and turns it on. With no hesitation, she waves it in Christina’s direction. Christina winces as the red light reflects off her face, and then she shrinks before my eyes, curling in on herself, obviously terrified of what my mother is going to do next.
But all my mother does is turn off the scanner and sit down at the table with Christina. “You know what that means, don’t you?”
Christina shrugs. My mom looks up at me. “Dad told us,” I mumble.
She turns back to Christina, who is trembling. “You didn’t know before today, did you?”
Christina shakes her head.
“Almost no one does,” my mother says in a hollow voice. She inhales sharply. “Have you called your parents? Do they know where you are?”
Christina nods. “I called and left a message saying I was safe, but that’s it. And I didn’t use my own phone. We were at a gas station right after everything happened, and I—”
“Called from a pay phone?” my mother asks. “That wasn’t very smart. I’m sure your parents’ lines are being monitored, and it probably told the authorities exactly where you were.”
“I called from a random stranger’s cell phone,” Christina replies with a sudden sharpness that rivals my mom’s. “Because I already figured that out.”
“That’s only a little better.”
Christina’s eyes flash. “I figured it was a lot better than an Amber Alert.”
My mother has already reached into the pack and retrieved Christina’s phone. “How old are you?” she asks Christina as she flicks it open to confirm that it’s off.
“Eighteen.”
“Amber Alerts are only issued for individuals seventeen or younger. And you should probably contact your parents again and remind them that if you choose to take off for a few days, you’re well within your right as an adult to do so.”
Christina blinks, wilting slightly. “But I don’t . . . I’m not . . .”
“She has a good relationship with her parents,” I say, hating the condescending turn this conversation has taken. “She’s never done anything like this before, and I’m sure her parents won’t buy—”
“I can speak for myself, Tate,” Christina says quietly, making my mouth snap shut. She meets my mother’s gaze. “If I can convince them, will it make these agent people leave my family alone?”
“Only if your family has absolutely no idea where you’ve gone,” my mother says in a hard voice.
“Mom, I—” I begin, but apparently I’m not wanted in this conversation, because this time it’s my mom who interrupts.
“She could tell them where we are, Tate.”
“I’m sitting right here,” snaps Christina. “And I won’t. I mean, if I really wanted to, don’t you think I would have by now?”
My mother stares at her for a long minute, and it’s easy to see the sizing up that’s going on. Christina’s scared of my mom, but she’s not about to let anyone roll over her. And my mom . . . I think she’s decided she likes Christina, even if she doesn’t trust her yet. There’s a glint of admiration in her eyes as she reaches into her bag and pulls out a black cell, one that looks like my father’s, and is likely as untraceable. “Use this,” she says, handing it to Christina. “Tell them you’re with Tate.” She pauses for a moment, her lips pressed together, and then adds, “Tell them his father was killed in an accident, and that you’ll be traveling with him to attend his father’s funeral upstate. Promise them you’ll be home soon. We’ll deal with long-term plans later.”
Christina takes the phone. She stares at its smooth face, and then composes a text. I don’t need to ask her why she’s not calling them. I know. She might have put up a strong front just now, but she’s close to the edge, and if she hears their voices, she won’t be able to hold it together. I lean forward, wanting to put my arms around her, tell her I’m sorry, anything, anything to wipe that fragile look off her face, but Christina turns away, giving me her back.
I stand up quickly. “Where’s the bathroom?”
My mom nods toward the hallway. “Second door on the right.”
I force myself not to run straight there, so desperate am I to escape the tiny, terrible sound of Christina’s tears hitting the screen of my mom’s untraceable black phone.
I sit on the edge of the tub and count each breath, in through the nose, out through the mouth. I get to my feet and stare into the sleek, stainless-steel-framed mirror. I take off the baseball cap and examine my face, the cut over my eyebrow, the bruising on my cheek, the grief in my eyes.
My mother did not react to my father’s death like I thought she would.
She’s acting like I told her he went on a business trip. No tears. Not even a grimace or a whimper. Only action. Rationality.
It hurts more than I can explain. My mom’s a scientist, so rationality is kind of her thing, but this is huge. And I thought they still might feel something for each other, that even though they weren’t together, they shared something special. My dad would never admit it, but come on. As smart and cagey as he was, as coldly logical, the man couldn’t keep himself from using her middle name as his freaking password. And my mom, I was certain she was the same. Hell, the last time I was at her house, I was snooping around and found a picture of them in her desk drawer, taken about five years ago, judging from my mom’s short hairstyle at the time. It looked like someone had snapped the pic at a party, when they weren’t aware of being watched. The intimacy of it, facing each other, the way his head was bowed toward her as she smiled up at him . . . the feeling of intruding upon their privacy was overwhelming, and I shoved the picture back into the drawer and shut it tight. I thought it meant something, that she kept it there. That she still loved him. I guess not.
I have no idea how long I spend in the bathroom, but when I emerge, I am instantly aware of the smell of garlic and onions, the sound of something sizzling in a pan . . . and the warm laughter of my mother. And my girlfriend.
“Did he really think that would work?” my mother asks.
Christina snorts. “Of
course he did,” they both say at the same time.
I guess they’ve patched things up. I consider standing out in the hall, eavesdropping, but then I realize how hungry I am and let the scent of food lead me back into the kitchen. Christina is standing at the stove, poking at the sizzling vegetables. There’s a glass of wine sitting on the counter next to her, which is a little weird because Christina doesn’t usually drink—and Mom hasn’t ever offered before.
My mom pulls a jar of sauce from the cabinet. She smiles and holds it up when she sees me. “I’m not here very often, so the food mostly comes in jars or boxes, with a few exceptions.”
“At this point, I don’t care. I’ll eat anything,” I say.
I open and close a few cabinet doors and finally find myself a glass.
“Wine?” my mom asks.
I stare at her. “Really, Mom?”
She looks down at the glass in her hand. “You and Christina have been through a lot. This might help you relax.”
“No, thanks.” I don’t want to relax. I want to figure out what’s happening—and what to do next.
Her gaze sharpens for a moment, but then her expression is smooth again. “There’s well water, then.”
I fill my glass at the tap and sit down at the table. “Where’s the scanner?”
She dumps the sauce over the onions and garlic and takes over while Christina sits down at the table. “I put it in my bag.” She points with the spoon.
“How long have you known about it?”
“I’ve known about the technology for years. I consulted with Fred as he figured it out, but he’s the one who created the scanner . . . after we separated.”
I run my tongue over my teeth, watching her carefully. I’m dying to ask her about Josephus, if she knows him, who he is, but something holds me back. Maybe it’s the way her hands are too steady, her smile too easy. If she was close enough to my dad to know his secrets, how can she be so calm? I’m not sure I can trust her—but I’m not sure I can trust anyone at this point. I decide to stick to more obvious stuff. “I get why this Race guy wants the scanner. He doesn’t want humanity to know they’re being ruled by aliens, right?”