by Shannon Hale
This is the fourth mysterious assassination in the past month, leading to speculation—
The story was interrupted by a photo of the guests leaving the building. There were dozens in the photo, but I made out a slight figure with dark hair and a pale face. Were her lips stained blue? What had she shot at the guy—one of the platinum rings GT had given her? Could she simply shoot an ice cube from her water glass, leaving no evidence at all?
I searched Alexander Islinger: onetime business partner of GT; their relationship soured when Islinger accused GT of unethical business practices. Was GT holding the safety of Mi-sun’s family over her head? Guilt like a hatchet cracked my chest. I’d abandoned Mi-sun to wolves.
I messaged Talos.
I’ve read the news. Keeping still is killing me.
His response appeared a minute later.
Yeah, it’s not good. If the team stays together, we can protect one another.
I was disturbed by how happy that thought made me, but I wrote:
I feel sick about Blue, but I shouldn’t abandon my den.
Wilder replied so quickly, he’d been typing his rebuttal before he even received my decline.
They are safer away from you. Besides, we have a responsibility to help our teammates.
I hadn’t responded when Wilder sent another message.
Do you remember what those two can do? They’re with him, and I can’t get to them on my own. I need you. And Blue most definitely needs us.
If GT had gotten Mi-sun to kill for him, then Jacques was in no better shape. It was pointless to try to break away from the team. We’d been re-formed by the tokens, and we would be linked together until we accomplished the Great and Mysterious Purpose. Or if there was no purpose, then until we died.
Okay.
Again, his response was nearly instantaneous.
Call me.
He gave me a phone number in code, for example, “the number of onion rings you ate in our stolen car” instead of one (one was enough—it was my first and last onion ring) and “the number of strands in the necklace” instead of three. At the moment, I couldn’t remember why I’d been avoiding him. It didn’t matter, not with Mi-sun and Jacques working as GT’s assassins. Not with my parents languishing in perpetual danger.
I went into the library bathroom and dialed mentally. The phone rang only once.
“We need to meet,” he said. I’d forgotten his voice already, how it was a little rough and caught on some words.
“Are you working for your father?” I had to know.
“There’s been a pretty aggressive estrangement in the family. He tried to kill me.”
“Okay. That’s good. I mean, I’m sorry, of course, but I’m glad to know you’re not with him.”
“I know what you mean.”
“I feel terrible about what’s happening, but I don’t know if—”
“I’ve tried to get to her, but I can’t,” he said, and I knew he meant Mi-sun. “I can’t figure out a way to break her out of there without your help.”
Any doubt dissolved. I had to help Mi-sun, and Jacques too if he needed me. “I don’t have money for travel.”
“I’ll wire you some.”
“I’ll call you in five days with the details.”
That would give me some time to get out of Florida. I thought I trusted Wilder, but suspicion kept me wary. Even more, I didn’t trust anyone who might be listening in, and I would not lead anyone to my parents.
“So …” He paused again. “How are you?”
“I have to stretch. I’m supposed to work, you know?”
“Yeah, I do.” He paused. “Call me in five days. I’ll be on this phone.”
“Okay.” You confuse me and I’m suspicious and logic says to keep away, I might say, but I can’t anymore. Maybe the token is nothing but a wasp stinger, but I need you so much, more than anyone else in the world. But I said, “Good-bye.”
“Good-bye,” he said, sadly it seemed.
“Wait,” I said, remembering our conversation at boot camp. “I also meant to say, Hello. And how are you? And … and, I miss you. Because, you know, someone should speak those words to you.”
“And mean them,” he said.
“Right. And mean them.”
He said, “I miss you too.”
It sounded like good-bye, so after a few moments of silence, I disconnected.
Five days. I had to get as far away from my parents as I could.
That night I updated them over dinner. Mom brought rotisserie chickens from work. I ate two, bones and all. Food was too expensive for me to throw parts away. Besides, bones were delightfully crunchy. Mom said watching me eat was like being trapped in the scary parts of fairy tales, but she said it nicely.
“Wilder is right,” I said. “It’s our responsibility to help Mi-sun and Jacques get away from GT and stop them from hurting anyone else.”
Dad’s shoulders slumped. “So you’re leaving.”
“I don’t like feeling dependent on Wilder. He lied so easily to Ruth. But I have to fix this,” I waved to the apartment that still didn’t feel like home, Dad’s frown, Mom’s gray convenience store shirt with a name tag that read MARIA.
“You’re my baby,” Mom said. “I should be taking care of you.”
“You are,” I whispered. “But if I can help, then I should.”
We were quiet. I ground a chicken leg bone into powder between my molars. Mom and Dad looked at each other. Dad nodded.
“Well,” Mom said, slapping the table, “this is perfect for your schooling. We’ve never done a project on the social systems developed by those who are infected with alien technology!”
Dad groaned and put a hand over his face. “My baby girl …”
“Don’t worry,” Mom said, rubbing his back. “La Peligrosa es fuerte.” Danger Girl is strong.
I handed my dad a knife, handle first. “Here, break this against my hand. It’ll make you feel better.”
He smiled at me through his fingers. “Someday you may grow up and have kids of your own and understand why breaking a knife against your hand will not make me feel better.”
Mom soothed the back of my neck. “Go save the world, la Peligrosa.”
There was little chance of that. I felt so pathetic when I thought of Luther’s superhero plans. The brute token was wasted on me.
We had just enough cash to buy Mom and Dad prepaid cell phones. They wouldn’t be able to call my Fido phone, but at least I could reach them, and I promised to call twice a day—morning and night.
I hugged them good-bye. I could feel everything about this embrace, so aware of their bones, their skin, their hair, the thump of their hearts and inhale of their lungs. They were fragile.
But we couldn’t hide forever. And I couldn’t ignore the tugging that insisted Mi-sun was partly my responsibility. And Jacques too. And Wilder out there, reeling me in.
Chapter 26
I walked to a marina, the sunset at my back pushing my shadow forward, a spindly monster always just ahead.
I’d prepared shoes and a change of clothes in three layers of plastic bags. Adding Fido, I tied the baggage to my chest and dived in. I seized the underside of a cruising boat, hitching a ride away from the oily marina waters and into the Gulf Stream. The current was swifter there, and I swam on alone, exhilarated by the added speed.
After buying the cell phones, my parents had no cash to send with me, but I wouldn’t have taken from their meager funds anyhow. I had a plan to appease my elephant’s appetite: sushi.
I dived under, clocked a large fish over its head, and floated on my back while eating the soft white meat. Better than chicken bones.
All night I swam on my back, kicking and staring at a flawless starry sky. I felt between. My parents behind, Wilder ahead. I wondered, in a poem kind of way, if I existed at all.
Day two I was swimming deep, feeling weightless and strange, when I was knocked hard in the side. Silver against black water, a
dorsal fin sharp as a blade, it circled and came back. Adrenaline flared in my heart. Shark! Big, toothy, scary shark!
Then I remembered who I was. And I ate it.
I coursed through days three and four. The movement of my muscles felt like humming, the kick of my legs a song. I dived under whenever I saw a boat and also just for the joy of it, zooming deep, spiraling, arching, leaving a wake of bubbles to boil away. I was no longer a static thing.
Sometimes I went on land to call my parents and drink fresh water, napping under the sun. On the fifth day I dragged myself ashore for good. My clothes were destroyed by salt and the speed of my swim. Hiding in tall marsh grasses, I tore off the rags and put on fresh clothes from my waterproof packet.
I phoned Wilder. The swim had been like grabbing a nap in the midst of a chaotic day. Now my heart returned to playing washboard on my ribs.
He answered. “That felt like five very long days.”
“Sped right by for me.”
“Humph. Where are you?”
I checked Fido’s GPS. “Near Atlantic City.”
“Great. I’ll be there in an hour.”
“An hour? Wait, where are you?”
“Philadelphia, baby. You’re right on my doorstep.”
I shivered, unsure if it was coincidence or if our tokens could have called to each other across hundreds of miles.
It was January in New Jersey and every cell of my skin seemed to harden against the cold. I ran out of the marsh grasses onto a road and found a gas station, washing my hair in the sink with the goopy pink hand soap.
It took me the rest of the hour to jog to the crossroads he’d named. Following the pull on my chest, I found him in a beat-up gray car with the engine running. I slid into the passenger seat and, without glancing at me, he pulled out.
I felt so right just being near him. My heart seemed to hum happily—or was it my nanites? I leaned back against the seat and sighed without meaning to.
He was wearing sunglasses, jeans, and an orange sweater vest with no shirt under it. I laughed.
“Nice sweater vest,” I said.
“What, this old thing?”
I patted my hair, hoping there was no obvious sign that I’d been in the ocean for days. I didn’t want any trail leading back to my parents. “Where are we going?”
“I’ve got a place—”
“Tell me it’s a secret lair. I’ve always wanted to hang out in a secret lair.”
“Of course it’s a secret lair.”
“Yes!” I glanced at his bare arms and then quickly away. “So, where are you getting your money?”
“I’m not working for him, Maisie. I promise.”
I nodded.
“It’s ridiculously easy to get a credit card under another name, now that I’ve figured out how.”
“Seems a tad unethical.”
“Better than assassinating people.”
His posture was stiff, left arm resting on the driver-side door, his body angled away from me. I told myself the emotional content of his e-mails had played no part in my decision to come here. Mi-sun and Jacques needed me, and working with Wilder was logical. I hadn’t expected him to revert to his pre-Beanstalk, pick-up-line, over-the-top self. And I didn’t want him to.
I told myself lots of things.
He pulled into a drive-through before I could ask, ordering everything on the menu. I went straight for a fish burger. The cooked variety was a whole new experience.
“Where’d you get this?” I asked, touching the woven leather wristband he never seemed to take off.
“From one of those gumball-type machines,” he said. “Years ago at some pokey zoo, my mom gave me two quarters for the machine and this was the prize.”
“Does your mom know about the tokens?” I asked, realizing I knew nothing about her.
“Doubtful. She’s been missing for three years.”
He said it so casually, I choked on a tater tot.
“Missing?”
“GT said she moved back to Russia and was too busy running her charity stuff to call me.” He twisted the wristband. “Apparently I needed billions of nanorobots enhancing my brain before I could figure out the most obvious truth. GT knocked off his wife. Maybe she asked for a divorce. He would never allow that.”
“Wilder, that’s …” I couldn’t think of any adjective strong enough for what that was.
“That’s the wacky Wilder clan!” he said. “Imagine the reality TV possibilities. I didn’t figure it out until I got to using my thinker brain on something other than the fireteam—so, after you left. GT and I have parted ways forever. You know that car accident we stumbled on when we were playing seek-the-thinker? That was Dad’s work. He caused it so he could observe the fireteam in action.”
“And now he’s turning Mi-sun into an assassin.”
“And Jacques. Their weapons are undetectable. They can get in anywhere. And have.”
I was feeling ill, and it wasn’t the second cheeseburger. “How many people have they killed?”
“Twelve that I know of.”
“Oh, poor Mi-sun!”
Wilder nodded.
I leaned back. His presence was like coming into an air-conditioned house on a sweltering day. His pull eclipsed worry for my parents, for Mi-sun and Jacques, for anything.
We were in a neighborhood cut in half by railroad tracks and celebrated by graffiti artists. Wilder parked in a little garage with a pull-down door and led me up some wooden stairs. He unlocked an apartment door.
“How long have you been living here?”
“A couple months.”
Whitewashed walls losing their wash, bare bulbs dangling, carpet rubbed bare in spots like a mangy dog’s coat. And what exactly leaked from the apartment upstairs to leave those brown stains on the ceiling? There was a mattress on the floor, loose blankets, a computer, a little fridge and a hot plate, and some bags of food.
He watched me take in the place.
“I’ve been lonely,” he said.
“I can see that.”
“Dad won’t look for me here.” Wilder turned his back, took off the sweater vest, and put on a gray sweatshirt and a navy sailor coat. So he’d worn the vest just to make me laugh. “He thinks I’m like him and would never choose to live in squalor. Besides, it’s cheap. I’d rather not steal more than I have to.”
A tablet in a keyboard attachment sat poised atop a cardboard box. We knelt on the floor, and he showed me the files he’d been keeping, tracking Jacques’s movements, his father’s, likely places to find them next.
“What about Mi-sun?”
“She’s been off-radar for a bit, but Jacques never leaves Dad’s side.”
“Maybe we should combine forces with Howell,” I said. “Someone tried to gas me and my parents in our house, but it’s seeming likely that it was GT.”
“I don’t know what Howell’s plan is in all this, but I have no doubt she’s shady.”
He showed me patents Howell had recently filed for an energy source powered by titanium dioxide nanotubes, an improved defibrillator, parts for a robotic exoskeleton—things I had invented with the techno token. I was about to get seriously annoyed until I yawned.
“You should sleep.”
“It’s still day,” I said, though the afternoon was yellowing around the edges like old paper. Those days of swimming had depleted me.
“Go ahead,” he said, nodding toward the mattress without looking away from his computer. “I’ve got work to do.”
I pulled a blanket over my face to block out the light that slithered in through the ratty blinds and dreamed I could fly.
Chapter 27
I roused to hunger, morning light, and the clicking of the keyboard.
“If we’re going to find Jacques, we’ve got to get moving,” Wilder said without looking up from his tablet.
The space beside me on the mattress was warm. I glanced around: no sofa, no second bed.
“Did you sleep next to me
?” I asked.
The keyboard clicking paused. “Sorry. I’ve been lonely,” he said again, still looking down.
I took a shower and didn’t want to put back on my slightly briny clothes, so I borrowed a pair of Wilder’s jeans, rolled up the cuffs, and belted the waist. I wore a sweatshirt that hung past my hips.
When I came out of the bathroom, Wilder smiled at me. His expression caught my breath. We didn’t talk about it.
Philadelphia was locked up in a bitter cold that January, high noon rarely peeking above negative ten degrees Celsius. No one was out except Wilder and me. We put on coats and hats just so we wouldn’t draw notice.
“Didn’t realize it till winter hit,” he said, “but I’m pretty indifferent to cold.”
“These improvements aren’t random.”
“So, what task requires five people with brute strength, techno know-how, spontaneous armor, and long-distance shooting, all tied together by a thinker, who can withstand the cold generally and oxygen deprivation for up to twenty minutes?”
I shook my head.
“Yeah, I don’t know either. But given the tokens’ likely origin from beyond our solar system, it must have to do with … with …”
“Aliens?” I knew why he hesitated. I felt ridiculous even saying it.
“I assume our purpose is noble,” he said, “but what if we are the advance guard of alien invaders, and at their signal, we’ll start rampaging—”
“You think we’re wasp-stung caterpillars?” I said, explaining about the zombified bugs enslaved to watch over wasp larvae.
“No, that doesn’t feel right.”
“Wilder, I don’t think there is any mission. Most likely that asteroid with its alien time capsule had been wandering the universe for millions of years before randomly drifting past Earth.”
“I know that’s the most logical conclusion, but I … I feel like we … like the fireteam has a real and imminent purpose, and if I wake up slowly enough I’ll remember the dream that tells me what it is, or if I turn the right way I’ll see it, or …” He shook his head.
