by Ari Goelman
Evelyn put her hand on my shoulder. “Lauren. Did you ask Riley about bringing a Departmental agent to her party?”
“Are you joking?” Sasha asked. “Mr. Halston is the Assistant Undersecretary for Civil Affairs. I’m sure there will be tons of Department security personnel at his mansion this evening—”
“And I’m sure Riley will be delighted to see Sasha,” I interrupted. For the first time it struck me that Riley might even be jealous that Sasha was coming with me.
Sasha wasn’t done. “And you know what those security personnel will be doing? They’re going to be keeping the party safe. That’s what the Department does—it keeps people safe. Even if—”
“We should really go,” I interrupted, once again wondering how an alleged undercover agent could have such a hard time keeping his mouth shut. “Can you please shut up and get in the car, Sasha?” Sasha started walking around the car.
Too late. “It keeps people safe?” Evelyn said. “Does it keep the hundreds of thousands of—”
“Evelyn,” my mother said warningly.
“—incarcerated—”
I put my arms around Evelyn and thrust my cheek in front of her lips, muffling the rest of her words. I whispered to her, “Trust me. I have a plan.” Behind me, I heard the car door open and shut as Sasha got into the driver’s seat.
“I trust you less every time I see you with this scumbag—”
“Great!” I shouted over Ev’s voice. “Have a great night!” I climbed back into the car (for the third time) and shut the door.
I waved at my mother and Evelyn as Sasha pulled away from the curb.
“Your sister’s a real spitfire,” Sasha said mildly.
“What part of ‘shut up’ didn’t you understand?” I said. “Don’t talk to my sister. Don’t look at my sister. Definitely don’t lecture my sister.”
“Sorry,” Sasha said, seeming genuinely apologetic. “Really. There’s just something about how much she hates me … It bugs me. Next time I see her, my lips are sealed. I promise.”
I didn’t say anything for a few seconds. Sasha’s car smelled powerfully of the vegetable oil it ran on. Like slightly burned French fries, with a rubbery overtone from the duct tape that had been used to repair the upholstery.
“Sorry about the smell,” Sasha said. “All part of the glamorous life of an undercover agent. I put a fresh coat of duct tape on the seat in honor of our date. Which—um—may or may not actually be a date.”
I snorted. “Hey. Are you planning on wearing your glasses all night?”
“Of course,” he said as he turned onto Bradley Boulevard. “Why wouldn’t I?”
Because we’re breaking into the Department’s computer system. I stared out the window, wondering if I was crazy to be looking forward to the evening as much as I was.
“Will you check the car door pocket for my wand?” Sasha asked. “I can’t show up without a wand.”
I glanced into the car door. “Nope. Just a few pieces of paper.”
“Can you check beneath the paper?” He turned left, heading for the fortified entrance to the highway.
“There’s no room for a wand in the—”
“Just check, will you?” Sasha asked. Something in his voice caught my attention. “Those pockets are bigger than they look.”
I plucked the piece of paper from the pocket and unfolded it.
Don’t talk about tonight’s fun while I’m wearing the glasses. I can’t get rid of them too early, or my handler will know something’s up.
“I need the wand,” Sasha continued. “Can’t be Harry Potter without the wand, right? Hey, did you ever read the Harry Potter comics?”
“Uh. No. Not the books either. Fiction never made much sense to me. The whole true/not true thing, you know?” I carefully folded Sasha’s note and put it in my pocket. “So you’re a big Harry Potter fan?”
Sasha shrugged. “Sort of. The Department is always pushing media toward us. You know, movies we should watch, books we should read, so we blend in better. The funny thing is, their recommendations are generally decades out of date. My handler is always bugging me to watch some crappy movie from 2018.”
Sasha glanced over at me, then back at the road. “Could you check the glove compartment for my wand? I’m almost positive I had it when I walked out of the house.”
I opened the glove compartment and found the wand. To one side there was an old-fashioned SD nano drive, the kind I vaguely remember my father playing movies off when I was little. It had a small green sticky note on it saying Take me! I put the wand on the seat between us and slipped the nano drive into my pocket. “Found it,” I said.
“Great.” Sasha approached the interstate entrance, and the gate automatically opened. “Personally, as far as Harry Potter goes, I liked the comics better than the books. Maybe just because they were easier for me, what with the whole English-as-a-second-language thing. You ever read any comics?”
“Not really. No.”
I tapped my index finger on the nano drive in my pocket. If Sasha wanted to betray me, it could have been as easy as that. Put some forbidden material on the nano drive and arrange for it to be found in my pocket. Just having a storage device without a network connection was suspicious enough. (What were you trying to hide, Ms. Fielding? What didn’t you want the Department to know?) But for whatever reason—instinct, vanity, whatever—I didn’t think that was his plan.
Sasha kept prattling about his favorite comics as we drove through Bethesda. His tone was light, but the expression on his face was serious, even grim.
I was feeling pretty grim myself. After saying goodbye to Evelyn and my mother, it had occurred to me that my plan to get into the Department’s computer system didn’t just put me at risk, it put my whole family at risk. It’s funny. I keep thinking I’m done being naïve, and then I stumble over one more blind spot in my judgment.
We drove through Bethesda, toward the Quarter—what used to be the northwest corner of Washington, D.C.
We drove through the gun emplacements at the highway exit and found ourselves in a world of big trees and huge mansions, periodic guardhouses blazing with light despite the energy restrictions.
“Wow,” Sasha said as we drove through the Quarter. “I didn’t think even the top dogs at the Department got paid this well. And why does Riley go to high school with us if she lives down here?”
“She used to live right by me,” I said. “All through elementary school. But after the Emergency, her family got really rich.” I hesitated, vaguely remembering my parents talking a lot about it. Their voices raised. “Her dad bought a lot of property in the Quarter right after the Emergency. It was supercheap at the time. You know, because the Quarter was still part of the city and people were freaked out by what was going on downtown. The suicide bombs, the food riots, and so on.
“Then, when the government separated the Quarter from the rest of the city, and it turned out the Quarter was still the place where all the rich people wanted to live, Mr. Halston sold all the property he’d bought for like twenty times what he paid for it. He was really lucky, I guess.”
“Ah,” Sasha said neutrally. “Sure looks like it.” He pulled up to the front entrance of Riley’s mansion.
“Wait.” I belatedly thought through the story with my newly working brain. “It wasn’t luck at all, was it? He knew the Department would be securing the Quarter. Maybe he was even part of making that decision.”
Sasha turned off his car and shrugged. “Either way—he sounds pretty lucky to me.”
Evelyn’s distaste for Riley’s father suddenly made a lot more sense to me. “Oh my God,” I said. “I can’t believe I never realized—”
A big man in a black tuxedo tapped on Sasha’s window. He was dressed like a waiter, but he had a submachine gun cradled in his left elbow.
“Good evening,” he said cheerfully. “Afraid you guys can’t park here tonight. There’s a spillover parking lot around the corner. Make sure you h
ave your ID handy when you get out of the car.”
Sasha nodded and, in a cloud of French-fry fumes, restarted the car. We found the small visitors’ parking lot tucked just behind a grove of elm trees. As we parked, Gabriella arrived in Tim Donaldson’s car. She was dressed in a kind of sexy-witch costume—a low-cut black dress topped with a big black hat and a white wig. She waved excitedly at me as I got out of the car. “Lauren!” she said. “I didn’t know you were coming. Awesome costume!”
She didn’t mean it about the costume, but she really was happy to see me.
A few more tuxedoed security guards waited in the parking lot to check our identification and make sure no one tried to bring any weapons in. Two of them frisked Tim and Sasha, while a third argued with a kid who wanted to keep his handgun. Gabriella and I were waved on without being frisked, maybe because we were girls, maybe because the guards recognized us. We waited for Sasha and Tim at the start of the path leading toward Riley’s house.
“Are you and Sasha together, Lauren?” Gabriella asked, taking my arm.
“Yeah. He gave me a ride.” I deliberately misinterpreted her question, mostly because I didn’t know the answer.
“No. I mean are you guys like…”
“I don’t know.”
“It kind of looks like you’re together.” She surprised me by giving me a hug. She smelled mildly of perfume—the same Marc Jacobs Daisy perfume she’d been wearing for special occasions since we were in ballet together in first grade. “It’s good to see you out with a guy. Weird, but good.”
Tears sprang into my eyes. I know I’ve talked a lot about how fake Gabriella and Riley are, but to them it must seem that their sweet old friend has disappeared, replaced by a moody, not-very-nice impostor. And here Gabriella was, being totally sincere about wishing me well anyway. “Good to see you, too,” I said. “Are you and Tim back together?”
She rolled her eyes. “Haven’t decided yet. He’s all over me tonight, but I think it might just be because Lydia dumped him and he’s horny.”
I shook my head. “No way. Even when he was going out with Lydia, he was always looking at you.”
“Seriously?”
I nodded. Tim was kind of dumb, but he was good-looking enough, and he was definitely into Gabriella.
Her smile faltered and she leaned toward me. “Be careful of Sasha,” she said in a low voice. “I heard he works for the Department.”
“I know,” I whispered back. “I’m just using him for his body.”
She looked shocked. Then we both laughed, even though I, for one, wasn’t so sure I was joking.
The guards finished frisking Sasha and Tim, and we all walked to Riley’s house. I’ve probably been to Riley’s house hundreds of times, but this was the first time since my operation, and it seemed different to me. Bigger, fancier.
Tonight there were jack-o’-lanterns lining both sides of the path to the house. I stopped to scrape my fingernail on one of them to make sure. Real pumpkins. God knew where Riley had gotten this many.15
Beyond the pumpkins the big old trees in the yard were hung with green and yellow lights. Sounds of music and people talking wafted from the house, along with the smells of wood-burning fireplaces. A clutch of people stood smoking tobacco and marijuana cigarettes just outside the front door.
We walked into the house and Riley swept up to us. She gave me and Gabriella a big hug. “Lauren! It’s so great you made it.” Funny thing was, she was being sincere. She’d had a few drinks and they seemed to have washed away a lot of her usual phoniness. She waved at Sasha and Tim. “Did you guys all come together?”
“I drove Tim,” Gabriella offered. “And Lauren got a ride with Sasha.”
“Cool.” Riley’s gaze raced between me and Sasha, obviously with the same question Gabriella had asked a few minutes before. “Glad you all made it. Lauren and Gabriella can show you boys around. The main points are: Bands that way.” She pointed beyond us to what her family called the Great Hall. “Food in there.” She pointed to the living room to our right. “Actually, food and drink are pretty much everywhere.”
“My kind of party!” Sasha said.
Riley laughed. “And some more performances and stuff upstairs.”
A bunch of male voices approached behind us. “Good lord.” Riley’s eyes widened. “I didn’t know he was coming. I … Excuse me.” She rushed past us.
We all turned and watched her greet Handsome Hansel Etgar, the video/music/everything star. It was hard to make out if Etgar was as gorgeous as he was supposed to be. He was wearing big sunglasses and surrounded by half a dozen scowling gangster security guards. His guards all seemed twitchy and irritated, probably at having been forced to surrender their guns at the door. They made way for Riley, closing ranks behind her, until all we could see were the District gang signs stenciled on the backs of their leather jackets.
“Well,” Gabriella said. “That was our two seconds with Riley for the night.” She studied the backs of Etgar’s security guys. “Do you think he really recruited his guards from District gangs?”
“Who cares?” Sasha said. “Let’s find the food.”
We walked into the living room and found—as promised—that there was food and drink everywhere. The walls of the living room had been covered with fake cobwebs that shimmered in the strobe lights. Gabriella moved off to say hi to Charlotte Montauk and some of her other friends, while Sasha picked up a few pieces of sushi and thrust them into his mouth.
He saw me watching. “Didn’t have dinner tonight,” he said around a mouthful of food. He said it cheerfully enough, but there was an undertone to his voice that made me remember the boxes of macaroni and cheese I’d seen in the recycling bin on his porch.
“Does anyone else live in Mazen’s house with you?” I asked.
“Mazen?”
“The house where you live—does anyone else live there?”
Sasha shook his head, jaws still working. “Nah. I’m a lone wolf.” He howled softly and shrugged. “They haven’t sent me out with a handler since I was twelve. They used to shop for me, but that stopped once I got old enough to drive.”
“Sympathetic backstory?” I asked.
“Sure. Also happens to be true.” He took a few more pieces of sushi. “Excuse me. I have work to do.” He scanned the room, jaw working, and made his way to the next table of food, this one laden with Middle Eastern dips and pita.
I watched him make his way from table to table—from meze to grilled shrimp to sausage to pastries and so on. Gabriella and Melissa Spindle found me standing there alone. Gabriella handed me a glass of punch. “Did your boyfriend abandon you for the food?”
“Kind of looks like that.” I realized they were both grinning at me and quickly added, “Not that he’s my boyfriend.” I had a small sip of the punch. It tasted like pineapple juice with a slight alcoholic aftertaste.
Across the hall I saw some of the guys laughing and passing a small pillbox around. “Keep an eye on your cups,” I told Gabriella and Melissa. “I’m pretty sure they brought something to spike the drinks with.”
Gabriella surprised me by laughing. “As though they’d share,” Gabriella said. “Xavier Neufeld brought some E-Love, but only for his paying customers.”
Melissa elbowed me gently. “You’ve gotten paranoid, Lauren.”
“Yep,” I said. What I didn’t understand was why everyone wasn’t feeling more paranoid, what with the surveillance cameras scattered around the room, plus the tuxedoed security guards muttering into their headsets, not to mention the glowering gangster types who had come in with Etgar. Still, I forced myself to smile with my friends. I wanted to at least look like I was having fun.
I kept half an eye on Sasha as he circulated to each and every food table.
I don’t know where Etgar had got off to, but a few of his security gangsters had established themselves around the guacamole. Avocados are so expensive these days that serving real guacamole is sort of like serving cake with
real gold in the icing (which Riley also does at these parties). Sasha squeezed past one of the gangsters, an enormous white guy with a shaved head and teardrop tattoos on both cheeks.
Sasha was so focused on filling his plate with guacamole he didn’t seem to notice the guy’s casually murderous glare. Then, backing up, he glanced at the guy, stumbled, and spilled his entire plate of guacamole on the guy’s pants.
The guy looked down incredulously at the green mess dripping off the crotch of his pants.
I happened to be standing where I had a good view of Sasha’s face. He imitated the guy’s expression so well I couldn’t help smiling. The guy went from incredulous to violent in about half a second. He started to reach inside his jacket where his gun would ordinarily have been, remembered he’d surrendered his gun, and punched Sasha in the face, then in the stomach, then—when Sasha started bending over—in the face again.
Sasha went down hard, his glasses cracking and falling off his face, his nose bleeding.
I don’t remember moving, but suddenly I was across the room standing between Sasha and the security gangsters. In front of me the big bald gangster guy was clutching his throat and bent over. I guess I might have punched him in the throat and then kicked him between the legs. His friends were massing around him, obviously wanting to kick someone’s butt, but not quite ready to attack a sixteen-year-old girl. Or maybe just too conscious of how out-gunned they were. Then Riley’s security men were everywhere, Tasers out, faces grim.
In the end, no one got Tasered. No one got shot. The guy who’d hit Sasha allowed himself to be led out of the party, while the rest of Etgar’s security melted away, presumably to re-form around Etgar himself. Someone got Sasha some ice for his nose.
Sasha’s glasses were totally unsalvageable. They’d fallen off his face and, in the chaos, someone (I presumed Sasha, but maybe one of the quasi-gangsters had done it for him) had crushed them.
