by Robin King
“Okay. Let’s talk about some guidelines for surveillance detection.”
Oh, this was going to be fun.
I began, “First, you must be aware of your surroundings at all times. Always keep an eye on vehicles in your area. Surveillance vehicles are generally vehicles that do not stand out. They aren’t too big or too small. They won’t be the most costly or inexpensive, either. The first clue . . .” I continued to quote word for word the entire first page of the section on surveillance detection. Daly kept his eyes on the manual and didn’t say a word.
When I got to the bottom of the page, he still didn’t look up so I continued onto the next page, quoting it straight from my head. It took me about fifteen minutes to complete the section, but I kept reading, my eyes staring directly at Daly while I spoke.
I watched his thick black eyebrows and his cleanly shaven face, imagining he must get his hair cut often because it always looked so perfectly trim. His expression remained constant as his eyes followed the text. While I was envisioning he would make an excellent poker player, he finally glanced up at me.
I waited for him to say something. Instead, he slowly got up from his desk and closed the glass door. Then he opened a locked drawer with a small key from his pocket and took out a square metal box only a few inches wide. He pressed a button on the top. I heard a quiet hum come from the box and then nothing. He picked up another manual, and opened to a random page.
Finally he spoke. “Page 60. Third paragraph.”
I quoted the text on the use of audio devices during covert operations. Before I had finished the paragraph, Daly jumped to another page, and I once again quoted the text and described the picture on the page. Three more times he tested me on different sections of the manuals in front of him, and three more times I read it exactly as it appeared on the page. He finally set the manuals down and looked up at me. I couldn’t read his expression or tell what he was thinking, but there was a softness in his eyes I had never noticed before.
“And you can do this with anything you read in a book?”
I wasn’t sure how much I should reveal about my eidetic memory. Golkov knew about as much as I had just revealed to Daly, and I felt I knew the professor even better than my own roommate. But Daly was my new handler, and his life and mine were to be intertwined, whether I wanted it or not. He needed to know all about me. And not just that. I wanted him to know the real me. I was sick of hiding away a huge part of my life from everyone in it. Even though his superiority complex bothered me, in some ways he reminded me of Tanner. I had always been envious of the confidence radiating through him, and now I saw that in Daly.
“I see the pages in my mind and . . .” I was still debating whether I should tell him of the movies in my head, the exact duplicates of everything I had ever seen, heard, touched, tasted, and smelled. Only my family knew that part of me. “I . . . um . . . I’m not sure if . . . I don’t think anyone else should know.” I couldn’t do it.
My mother’s face appeared and her words echoed in my mind: “Once someone knows something about you or your past, there’s no going back. Just like you can’t erase the things you experience and record from your mind, they will never be able to forget your secret.” She had always stressed that I tell no one about my memory. More than anything she had been worried I would be exploited for it. But up until this moment I had never really had anyone to share my secret with besides my family. This was the first time it had ever been an issue.
“You can be assured that what you share with me will remain in my confidence. This device” —Daly pointed to the metal box on his desk— “is an audio jammer with a built-in bug detector. Millard made it for me last year, off the books. No one will know what has transpired in this office today. Although, Golkov must know about your gift, and some of the other operatives know you helped obtain those documents from Russia. They just don’t know all the details on how.”
“Gift?” I had never thought about my memory as a gift. I appreciated it when it came to school and learning, but there were many times when I resented it.
“Alexandra,” Daly said softly. It was the first time he had used my given name. Why now? “I don’t think you realize how amazing you are.” He cleared his throat and moved from his side of the desk. He stood near my chair, facing me and leaning against the front of the desk. His knees brushed my leg and remained close. Almost too close. “What I mean is that your talent is going to add greatly to what we do here. There are missions that could have been more successful, people we could have helped or even saved, if you had been here before.”
“Didn’t you just tell me the other day to walk away from all of this? If you thought I was so important to your cause here, why did you try to convince me to stay away?” And why do you have to stand so intimately near? My heart began to beat faster, but I didn’t move away.
“I just wanted you to know that being a part of The Company would change your life. I know you understood what we do can be dangerous, but I wanted you to realize that this new career path, if you will, is more than just a job. It’s a way of life. Even when you aren’t training or on a mission, you’ll always be looking over your shoulder. That section on surveillance detection—you’ll use that and other aspects of being an operative now every day of your life, whether you mean to or not.” Daly looked down at me and placed his hand on my shoulder. “I was trying to protect you.”
Protect me? Bitterness boiled inside me like water in a kettle. I wanted to scream. I was tired of feeling like a scolded little child in his presence. I was a college student, living on my own and taking care of myself. I didn’t need him. I sprang to my feet, jerking his hand away from me.
“Thank you, but I know what I’m doing, and I don’t need your protection.” Why did he always make me so . . . so . . . There wasn’t even word in Webster’s dictionary to describe it. I knew we had to work together, but that didn’t mean I had to like him. I whirled around and marched out the door of his office without looking back.
12
Dr. William
My mind remained silent that night, just like it had done every night since I returned from Russia. No dreams, no memories. I didn’t even get the black-and-white static that used to dance around the old television screen back home like little ants fighting over a breadcrumb. This eerie emptiness was far worse than getting no reception. I still had perfect recall while awake, but I expected my subconscious mind to do what it always did and play my memories. Instead, I awoke earlier than usual, feeling unrested and incomplete.
What I needed was an extra-long morning run to help me feel more like myself. The streetlights led my way as I jogged across campus on the sidewalks. Just a few minutes into my run, I began to regret my decision. The joust with Sensei Itosu a few days before had resulted in sore muscles and a tender knee. After only a mile, I was forced to turn back. I ended up walking the whole way home because my knee wouldn’t allow me to run.
The sun peeking cheerfully across the horizon helped me forget my slow pace, or at least lessened the frustration. I stopped and sat on the grass near my building to stretch and watched the sky brighten, beams of light spilling onto my skin. The scene was almost magnificent, but without the Northwest’s majestic mountains it made me feel homesick.
I heard quick footsteps heading in my direction. I didn’t have to look twice to recognize the cadence of William’s stride. He stopped in front of me and smiled, and for a moment nothing else mattered. How did he do that?
“I knew one of these mornings I’d catch you out running.” He put his hands on his knees and took a few breaths.
“Walking would be more like it. I did something to my knee and had to walk back.” Worries about getting to know each other seemed to have disappeared. Maybe we could do this “good friends” thing.
“Really? Let me take a look.” He knelt down in front of me.
My stomach began to tingle. “No, really, I’m okay. It’s probably just a sprain.”
&
nbsp; “I’m no doctor, but I had a part-time job as an assistant to the athletic trainer for the track team when I first got to Brown. I did learn a thing or two about running injuries.”
My attire that day included shorts, and I was glad I had shaved my legs the night before. I put my legs out straight, and William looked at my injured knee along with my uninjured one.
“It definitely seems more swollen on this side. What did you do?”
“Just some cross-training.” I wasn’t about to tell him I took a blow to the knee from a black belt. Oh, and by the way, I moonlight as an operative for a clandestine organization that is intent on saving the world, one puzzle at a time.
William placed his hands on my sore knee and lightly pressed on the ligament. Instead of hurting, his touch brought a wave of warmth over my skin. I used some of the inhaling and exhaling techniques Sensei Itosu had taught me to keep my breathing steady. William slowly bent my leg with one hand, while his other rested on the side and back of my knee. Then he moved it from side to side. I winced.
“Sorry.” He lowered my leg slowly to the ground. “Feels like your MCL. That can happen with a hit to the knee. What kind of cross-training have you been doing?”
“Karate?” It came out as more of a question than an answer. Why can’t I keep quiet? What is wrong with me? I keep losing control of what comes out of my mouth in his presence.
“Karate, huh?” William raised an eyebrow. “Unexpected, yet intriguing. You’ll have to show me some of your moves sometime.” He cleared his throat. “But Dr. William recommends no karate or running for a few days, and some ice to get this swelling down.” He still had his hand on my knee. I tried not to hyperventilate. Friends. Breathe in. Friends. Breathe out. Friends. Breathe in . . .
“Well, I still need to get ready for classes, and I definitely need extra work on my Spanish before 202 starts,” I said.
He released my knee. We rose to our feet and I put some weight on my leg. I knew William hadn’t actually done anything to fix my injury, yet somehow the pain wasn’t as sharp. “Thanks for your diagnosis, Dr. William.”
“You’re welcome.” He reached down to brush some blades of grass off his knees. “So my first class isn’t until ten. We could work on your oral exercises beforehand if you want.” A patch of light crossed his face, glinting off the blue in his eyes before he squinted. “The gardens outside the Rochambeau are quiet in the morning, unless that’s too far from your other classes. I could bring some bagels.”
I should say no. “I, uh, do need the practice. Sure. Thanks, Wil . . . Professor.” Wimp.
He started laughing. “You can just call me William. You knew me before I was ‘Professor,’ and honestly it still feels weird when any student calls me that in English or Spanish.”
“Okay, William. How about eight o’clock?”
“Bueno. See you in a few.” He ran down the sidewalk. I leaned against the stair railing of my building and let myself watch his leg muscles contract with each stride until he disappeared from my view. I sighed and headed to my dorm room.
Casey threw off her covers when I entered. “How was your run? Where have you been lately, anyway? Have you seen that blue cardigan, the one with the pockets? How’s the new job?” Her questions were all over the place, just like her hair. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in, like, forever!”
“Sorry. Golkov’s been keeping me super busy. How are things going with your new guy?” I felt bad my roomie and I hadn’t talked much in the past week, though when I was honest with myself, I knew I’d been avoiding her. She had this way of getting me to talk, and I couldn’t discuss what I’d been up to lately.
“Zach and I are good,” she said with a sigh. “Nothing to report. Mostly just lunch dates and study hours. He’s very studious. My grades this term are definitely looking up, thanks to both of you.” Casey ran her fingers through her hair. The silky black strands fell right into perfect place like she’d never slept at all. “So have you run into your William lately?” She smiled tauntingly.
I glared and then gave in to her hopeful eyes. “Kind of.” She scooted to the edge of the bed. “Actually, I saw him this morning,” I went on, “and I’m supposed to meet him in an hour. He’s going to help me study Spanish.” I hadn’t told her yet that he was also my new Spanish professor. I would never hear the end of it.
“Ooooh. A date? Hmm. What should we have you wear?” She hopped off her bed and started going through our closets. After the first few weeks of school we had given up on separate closets. Since we kept borrowing each other’s things, it made more sense to keep our clothes in one closet and our shoes and accessories in another.
“It’s not a date, Casey. He’s only helping me study. We are just friends, and I plan on keeping it that way.”
“Then why are you blushing?”
“I’m not blushing. I just got back from running, and I’m heading to the shower right now.” I grabbed a towel and headed down the hall to hide my face.
Casey still managed to get me into a flared skirt and fitted blouse. She insisted I dry my hair and leave it down for my non-date. I drew the line at bright pink lipstick.
A warm fall breeze rustled the leaves of the trees surrounding the Rochambeau gardens. I paused outside the gates and retied the fabric belt around my waist. I didn’t need to be nervous. William had offered to help me study—nothing more. The memory of our encounter that morning played on a loop in my head. Heat rushed to my face each time he placed his hands on my leg. The third time the memory played, I noticed William’s face flushed when he offered to help me with “oral exercises.” It took me until the fifth time through to realize he was staring at my lips.
I started to turn around to leave, then stopped myself. No. I need the help. It’s part of my job to learn other languages. William is going to help me with that. I could do this. It would be like a trial mission. I could learn a new language and be professional about it. I stood taller, straightened my skirt, and strode around the corner.
He was waiting for me in the gardens on the bench where I had sat the previous day. I didn’t even look at him as I sat down on the bench and pulled out my Spanish textbook, glad to have something to keep my hands and eyes occupied.
“How’s your knee feeling?” he asked in Spanish.
“Still aching from my attempt at running.” I tested a few new words from my Spanish book without butchering them too horribly. I rubbed my bad knee.
“Good. I mean, not good it’s aching, just . . . Here, I brought you something.” He handed me a brown paper bag. Inside was an ice pack. “I figured you wouldn’t have time to ice it before we met.”
“Thanks.” I propped my knee up on the bench between us, careful to keep my skirt tucked under my leg, and placed the ice pack on top. Surprisingly, the elevation and the coolness of the ice instantly gave me some relief.
I opened my Spanish textbook. “So where should we start?”
“Actually, I was thinking the best use of time would be to just talk—in Spanish, of course. That way you get the practice you need, and we can get to know each other. How does that sound?”
It kind of sounds like a date. I swallowed. “Okay . . . I mean, està bien.”
“Perfecto.” William opened a small box of bagels and offered me one. I took blueberry and he chose plain. He lathered some cream cheese on top of both and handed me mine.
“You said you lived abroad because of your dad’s work. What kind of work does he do?” I asked before taking a bite of my bagel.
“Oh, he’s a computer engineer. His company has a branch in Argentina, so that’s where we were while I was in grade school. In fact, most of my childhood memories are of our home there. We were there for only six years, but sometimes I still miss it.”
It took me a few seconds to look up a couple of his words in my mental Spanish dictionary. I chewed on another bite of my bagel while I translated my response. “It’s definitely hard to be away from a place you love,” I said. �
�I still miss the apple blossoms, the evergreens, and being surrounded by the mountains.” I stared off into the distance, but actually saw the pictures in my head. “I do feel lucky my dad is out here too. It’s nice to know that I have a piece of home nearby.”
“Your dad lives here?”
I licked some cream cheese off my lip. “Yeah, he teaches American History here at Brown. Professor Henry Stewart?”
“I haven’t met him. But I don’t really hang out much with the other professors. They tend to avoid me, even in the Spanish Department, because I’m younger.”
I was kind of glad he didn’t know my dad. I didn’t need any more awkwardness in my life. And my dad, like most fathers, tended to be overprotective of me when it came to someone of the opposite gender.
I let out a breath. “I totally understand how you feel. I started taking some college classes pretty young, so I have always been younger than everyone in my classes. It was hard to make friends in those classes, especially when I was the only one with braces.” Thanks to my two-year bout with orthodonture, I smiled at William with perfectly straight teeth.
“I went through that horrible phase too. I bet you still looked cute.” Did he just call me cute? This is not turning out how I had planned. Our professional relationship is not going to work if flirting is involved. Golkov definitely did not call me cute.
I played with a strand of my hair. “Even though I’m older now, I still feel weird being the youngest one in my classes.”
“What do you mean youngest? You seem to fit in just fine in my class.”
“It’s also only a 200-level class. Most of my classes are with upperclassman.”
“Wait, what year are you in school?” William asked.
“I already told you it’s my first semester here.” I tried to sidestep the question. I didn’t want him to know I had enough credits to be a senior. I just wanted to be normal for once. At the same time, I couldn’t lie to him—I didn’t want to lie to him. “But I’m taking upper-level classes because I did concurrent college enrollment in Washington. I took classes at the community college and online though Washington State University while I attended junior high and high school. I still have about thirty credits before I finish the classes I need to get my bachelor’s in Russian.”