by A. M. Pierre
“So? How did she know what I was talking about? I specifically used an intentionally vague phrase—I referred to it as ‘a camera anomaly.’”
“She must have remembered it from your report.”
Dice sat smugly back in his chair and crossed his arms. “That’s just it. It wasn’t in my report. I deliberately omitted it.”
Connor turned to Kaia. “Did you mention it in yours?”
She shook her head. Between her solemn expression and her silence, Connor couldn’t tell if she was scared, freaked out, or really really bored.
He turned back to Dice. “Well, then, she probably read about it in one of the other reports. You know Z’s a stickler for the details.”
“No, it wasn’t in theirs, either.”
Connor raised one of his eyebrows. “And you know that . . . how?”
“Simple. I hacked their accounts and read them both before they sent them in.”
Connor’s mouth hung open. “Let me get this straight: in an effort to prove The Company is spying on your friends without their knowledge, you hacked into your friends’ private accounts and spied on them without their knowledge. Does the word ‘irony’ mean anything to you?”
Dice held his hands up in protest. “I know, I know, but it was a necessary hypocrisy. Set it aside for the moment and look at the bigger picture: they put a camera in our van without telling us and then lied about it when we discovered it.”
“Are you sure you aren’t making some broad assumptions here?”
“Okay, take it step by step. First, I mention the anomaly. This doesn’t surprise her, nor does she even ask what I am referring to. Conclusion? She already knew about the incident. So how did she know? There was no mention of said incident in any reports, and not one of us has spoken with her since we’ve returned. Conclusion? She had some sort of surveillance in the van. The most likely answer is her method of surveillance is, in fact, the camera in question. I will, however, consider another option: they have basic audio surveillance in the van in case of emergencies, and my little freak-out sounded panicked enough that it turned itself on. In such a scenario, they would have to at least consider the possibility that I was correct in stating there was a camera in the van—they certainly couldn’t risk having someone else spying on us. So, assuming an outside group planted this camera, and also assuming The Company wanted to keep their own separate surveillance a secret, what could they do? If they simply brought in a team to scrub the van, they would risk tipping their hand if we saw them. Instead, they would first carefully search our reports for any references to the incident so they could justify an investigation. If that failed, they would wait, hoping one of us would mention the incident during the debriefing. They might even try to drop some hints or ‘conversation starters’ like ‘We’ve had some disturbing reports of other covert groups trying to investigate us. Did you see anything unusual which might indicate that?’ When I brought it up at dinner on my own, their appropriate reaction would have been one of total shock—‘What?! We will definitely look into this further!’ No, instead they denied anything ever happened but simply made the crucial and all-too-common mistake of assuming we had already given them the information when, in fact, we hadn’t. Clear?”
Connor thought about it for a second. “I think so, but I also think you’re missing another very simple possibility.”
“Please, enlighten me.”
“Mr. Brown heard you freak out from the front seat and told Ms. Smith about it.”
Dice opened his mouth to reply, then shut it again as he stared off into space for a handful of moments. “Okay, I’ll admit I overlooked that. But it still doesn’t prove my theory is incorrect.”
“Fine, but I’m not sure I see what the big deal is even if you’re right. Actually, I assumed they already were filming us on our missions.”
Dice’s forehead wrinkled in frustration. “It’s not the camera itself. It’s the fact they put it in without telling us and then lied about it. You don’t do that if you have nothing to hide.” He shook his head. “Whatever. That’s not the only reason I asked you two to come here.”
Connor glanced over at Kaia. “Speaking of which, why just us two?”
“Simple.” He smiled at Connor. “You because I trust you more than anyone else here, and Kaia because something in her report needs clarification.” Dice swiveled to focus on her. “Do you remember those documents you photographed?”
Kaia nodded slowly, but she looked like a kid about to get into trouble. “I took the pictures and swiped them off the camera. I thought I did it right, but if they’re messed up I can’t help you—I didn’t really read any of them. I’m sorry.”
“No, no, no, you did fine, no problem. I was asking if you remembered them as a segue into my next topic of conversation.”
Kaia blinked. “Oh. Okay. Yes, I remember them.”
“Good. I didn’t find any detailed information in those papers about their organization, but I did unearth quite a bit of info on their business partners outside their organization. Now, your report says you overheard a henchman mention ‘Rossim’ along with a ‘Mr. Hunt.’ What did he say about these two men?”
Her face scrunched up a little as she thought back. Connor grinned. That expression was actually kinda cute on her. Too bad she usually chose “irritated beyond belief” as her default look when she was talking to him. She caught him looking at her and immediately looked away, almost like she was embarrassed. What is up with her? “He asked if us being there was connected to Rossim,” she said, “and he mentioned that something weird had happened to Mr. Hunt’s group.”
A sneaky smile on his face, Dice leaned forward in his chair, resting his chin on his interlaced fingers.
“You do realize you look like a Bond villain when you do that, don’t you?” Connor asked.
Dice ignored him. “There’s something going on here. Something BIG. And I think I’ve found the first clue.” He pulled out a piece of paper from one of the foot-high stacks on his desk. “Here’s one of the pictures Kaia took. This document says they paid Norman D. Rossim a rather large sum of money for unspecified work. I think Mr. Rossim is our bomb expert. Rossim, of course, may not be his real name. In fact, I’m betting it isn’t. Before I get to that, though, take a look at this. He picked up a printout of a news article. “From Galway, Ireland: ‘Growing suspicions concerning a possible local terrorist group were confirmed today when police arrived at the site of a reported commotion.’ The commotion? A series of unexplained crashes and minor explosions behind the walls of a small compound in the area. When the police arrived, they found the place in ruins and the bad guys tied up and waiting to be arrested. The leader of this merry band of miscreants? Mr. Jeremy Hunt. Now here’s an interesting coincidence—I tracked down Norman D. Rossim’s registered movements over the last couple of months, and he was in the country two days before Mr. Hunt had his run-in with his mysterious attackers. If Rossim is the expert, then the comments Kaia heard make sense: Both groups hired Rossim to make bombs, and both groups experienced massive trauma at the hands of unknown invaders after his visits.”
Connor frowned. “So . . . what are you trying to say, exactly, other than you figured out the guy’s name?”
“Seriously? You can’t see it?” Dice stabbed his finger at the printout. “A highly dangerous terrorist cell hires a bomb expert and is subsequently taken out by anonymous do-gooders—does that sound even vaguely familiar? Hmm? Which leads me to this conclusion—” he tapped his hands quickly on his knees like he was giving himself a drum roll “—The Company has another group of elementally-powered operatives. I’m not saying I know where they are or why The Company hasn’t told us about them. I’m saying it’s the most likely explanation given the facts at hand. They sound like the exact same series of events because, essentially, they are.”
“But don’t you think—?” Connor began.
>
Dice put a finger to his lips in a “shhhh” motion. “Wait, there’s more! Look at our bomb expert: Norman D. Rossim. Anything about his name strike you as unusual?”
Connor and Kaia both shook their heads no.
“It’s not the name itself—it’s the letters in it. I thought it looked awfully close, and it is . . . to Mark de Miron!”
Kaia turned to Connor. “Who?”
“The Mark of Mark’s Place who has his pic hanging in the rec room. You know, the one with hair so red he looked like a walking stop sign.”
“Oh, right.”
Dice pulled out a photograph of the photo in question. “‘Mark R. de Miron.’ What does the ‘R.’ stand for? I looked, and I couldn’t find it anywhere. Me—unable to find out information about someone. The mind boggles. But it’s similar enough to our mystery bombman that I started playing around a bit.” He pulled out a blank piece of paper and started scribbling. “If Norman is Rossim’s given name, he probably goes by Norm, right? Okay, so then if you compare Norm D. Rossim and Mark R. de Miron and cross out the shared letters, you are left with ‘o, s, s’ for Rossim and ‘a, r, k, e’ for Mark. Adding each set of leftover letters to their opposite number in order to complete their middle names gives us a distinct possibility—you arrive at ‘Norm Drake Rossim’ and ‘Mark Ross de Miron.’ So then I figured if both are fictional constructs utilizing the same letters, they probably originated from a third phrase.” Dice wrote “Mark Ross de Miron” at the top of a new sheet of paper. He crossed out letters one by one from within the name, and each time he re-wrote the letter lower on the page. He spoke in rhythm with the swipes of his pen. “And . . . this . . . is . . . what . . . I . . . found . . .” He held the paper up next to a particularly proud smile.
Smoke and Mirrors.
“So, what are you saying, it’s all a big con?” Connor said. “That Rossim is actually Mark? That he didn’t die but is instead going around the country helping terrorists build bombs?”
Dice shook his head emphatically. “No. I’m saying they’re both constructs—fake identities—created by The Company.”
“So you think The Company not only set up a powered operative with a fake name and then faked his death, but it also has a bomber in its employ.”
“A bomber used to lure out terrorist groups, yes. The problem is I still don’t know what the ultimate goal is—why go to all the trouble? The one thing that seems farfetched is Rossim’s full name. I mean, it works in that it’s a proper name, but it seems unlikely since Norman sounds slightly psychotic for some reason while Drake sounds more like a globe-trotting adventurer with an eye for treasure. Or a duck.”
“All the assumptions you made, and that’s what you think is unlikely?” Connor stopped short as a thought occurred to him. “You were on that anagram site again, weren’t you?”
Dice didn’t say a word, but he wouldn’t look at him, either.
“You know it’s not healthy for you.” Connor got up and stood beside Dice’s computer. “Pull it up.”
The younger boy tried to look innocent. “But I don’t know it off the top of my head.”
“I know you have it bookmarked. Pull it up.”
Dice let his shoulders fall in defeat and did as he was told. Connor leaned over and typed Mark’s full name (or, at least, what Dice thought his full name was) and hit Enter.
“See?” Dice said. “Smoke and Mirrors.”
“Yes, I see it. And I also see ‘Merman Odor Risks’ and ‘Random Smoker Sir’ and sixty-nine thousand other possibilities! Let’s see what Yamamoto Daisuke pulls up. ‘Autism—A Yak Mooed.’ ‘Mama Okay Outside.’ ‘Aide Amok, Yams Out.’ Should I go on? There’s only one hundred thousand left to go.”
Dice finally turned to look at him, and there was desperation in his eyes. “I know I have a bad track record, but I think there’s something solid behind this—you can’t deny the similarities with that other terrorist group’s defeat. Don’t you find it strange?”
Connor scratched the back of his neck. “Okay, yes, I admit it’s more than a little weird. But assume you’re right. What’s the point of worrying about it? So far, all you have is a man sent in as bait to stop terrorist groups. That doesn’t sound like such a bad thing. And if there’s another group of operatives like us out there, it sounds like they’re doing the same things we’re doing—helping people. Odds are we’ll run into them at some point. So what’s the problem?”
Dice ran his fingers through his overly spiky hair. “I don’t know—it’s smoke and mirrors. Maybe the subterfuge is the point. Maybe they just like keeping us in the dark. Maybe it’s all one big experiment, and all we take for granted is a lie. Maybe we’re being trained as soldiers as part of some grand scheme to take over the world. Maybe Ms. Smith is actually a man.”
“And, we’re done.” Connor turned to go and motioned to Kaia to join him. He paused at the door. “Dice, I’m telling you this as your friend: get out of this room. Go for a walk in the gardens, work out in the gym, or even just veg-out watching some telly—but whatever you do, stop looking at that site!”
Connor let the door slide shut behind them. He looked back as it closed, and through the last remaining sliver he caught one final glimpse of Dice. Still staring at his computer screen.
Kaia knew she’d been acting strange around Connor, but she couldn’t help it. In her darkest hour, at her lowest point, when all hope was lost, it had been his face she’d seen. Why him? That moment in training was the calmest she’d been in months. Did her subconscious mind know she needed to be calm to be her best? Or was it some other feeling that had brought his face to the surface?
Kaia grimaced. Why did she always overanalyze this kind of stuff? There wasn’t anything complicated about it. Connor was annoying. Connor was a brat. And it was the training she was remembering, not him. It could have just as easily been Gabriela there. Or Vladimir. Or Ezio.
Yeah, but you also like thinking about how nice Connor looked in that sleeveless workout shirt he was wearing back then.
SHUT UP! Stupid inner monologue. Whose side are you on?
She entered her room and gratefully closed the door behind her. She had to get her mind on something else—anything else. She could read a book or listen to some music or—
A present lay on her bed, wrapped in shimmering dark blue paper and all tied up with a silver ribbon. A card lay next to it. “For Kaia.” What on earth . . . ? She opened the card.
This is a small thank you for saving my life. I know it is not much (and a bit old-fashioned), but hopefully it shows in some small way how grateful I am. It was your first mission, and you did amazingly well. I could not be prouder. Ezio.
She opened the package as quickly as she dared while still not tearing the paper. Inside, lying on a folded piece of red cloth, was a thick CD case. Les 50 chefs-d’œuvre de la musique Classique. «50 Masterpieces of Classical Music.» He’d remembered. She couldn’t help the stupid grin on her face or the warmth in her chest. He was so kind, and thoughtful, and strong—
And there was Connor forcing his unwanted presence into her mind again, still showing off his arms in that dark blue workout top.
Part of Kaia wanted to slam her head against the wall in the hopes it would knock out the wild thoughts galloping through her mind. In the end, she decided against a possible concussion and chose instead to go get some air. She didn’t know if there was anything happening in the gardens tonight, but the roof still sounded like a good place to go for a bit.
Or at least it did until she saw who else was up there.
Connor was sitting on a folding chair, with Gabriela sitting next to him. Well, that wasn’t too bad, as long as it wasn’t going to be her by herself with—
Gabriela stood and stretched. “Well, I’m going to go watch that show I’ve been saving. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Good night, Ga
bby.”
Kaia turned to go, but she was too late. “Oh, hey, Kaia! What are you doing up here?”
Connor turned around in his chair at the sound of Gabriela’s voice.
So much for sneaking out unnoticed. “I wanted some, uh, some air.”
The other girl smiled. “You’ve picked a very good place for it. Here, take my seat.”
Right next to Connor. Thanks so much. “Oh, okay.”
Kaia made her slow shuffling way over to the unoccupied beach chair as Gabriela left. She couldn’t even look at him. The moments stretched out into minutes, but when she finally glanced over at Connor, he wasn’t nervously waiting to talk to her. He was tracing pictures in the air with his index finger. “Uh, what are you doing?”
He jumped slightly, as if he’d completely forgotten she was there. “Sorry. It’s an odd little habit of mine.” He pointed up at the night sky. “I like making constellations. I know what the shapes are supposed to be, but I never liked them. Take Cassiopeia—in what universe does a giant ‘W’ look like a woman? Besides, why should some guys who lived thousands of years ago get all the fun? Honestly, most of them either had too much imagination or not enough.” Connor’s voice got a little quieter. “It’s kind of nice, too, to look up in the sky and see a picture I made years before.” He looked over at her and smiled. “I know it might sound stupid, but it makes me feel like I’m home. Like I’m safe.”
Kaia tried to hold his gaze, but she barely lasted two seconds before she broke away.
“Okay, I’ve got to ask—what is going on with you?”
“I-I don’t know what you mean.”
One of his eyebrows cocked upward. “Really. You haven’t noticed that ever since your return from London you’ve been incapable of interacting with me in any normal way.” The corner of his mouth ticked up in a smirk. “You don’t fancy me, do you?”
She turned on him with fire in her eyes. “No, I don’t!”
The smirk spread into a full smile. “Now, that’s more like it. Still doesn’t explain what’s been going on, though. Not ten minutes ago, in Dice’s room, the instant we made eye contact you went red as a beetroot.”
