Shards
Page 18
“So we can’t kill him, and we can’t rescue him. What can we do?” Courtney asked.
Mina and I had talked about this point for many a long hour over the past few nights.
I didn’t exactly have high hopes for my sales pitch.
“We play by their rules,” I said.
I was expecting either dead silence or a violent uproar when this was proposed. I was glad when dead silence won out.
“What does that mean?” Kevin asked, almost too quickly. I wondered why he was the first one to bring it up, but considering the number of times he’d been called a collaborator, I could see why this subject might make him edgy.
Mina said, “The way I see it, the Splinters have given us two options. We cooperate, or we make an effectively hopeless last stand. Now, you all know I’m not one to cooperate lightly with Splinters, and I’m not much for letting the whole town succumb either. So, I’ve given this a lot of thought. I’ve discussed it with Ben, and—”
Greg tried to interrupt, but Mina shot him down.
“Ben is mentioned by name in the treaty. And don’t say we’re not consulting you because that’s what this meeting is for. Anyway, Ben and I agree that for now, the question is just how blind and unconditional the Splinters expect our cooperation to be. If they plan to be reasonable, at least according to their own rules, it may be worth using that to our advantage, to keep holding off war until we’re better prepared.”
“At least long enough to do something about the Slivers first,” I explained, but Greg continued to glare at both of us.
“Exactly,” said Mina. “We have a dangerous common enemy. But if the Splinters are not willing to be reasonable, if they plan to continue taking whatever they want whenever they want regardless of any promises they make to us, then an immediate stand may be the only option. Robbie York is both the greatest immediate threat to us and the ideal test. He has been hired by the Splinters to eliminate Splinter hunters. My father has made it very clear that I am not to be touched, but Robbie has tried to kill me at least twice already, meaning that he is either working with the Slivers or has gone completely rogue.”
“Or that your Splinter-dad is lying, and he wants you off-guard when the Shard shows up to kill us all,” Greg cut in.
“Yes,” Mina agreed. “Or that. That’s what we want to find out.”
“You can’t be serious!” Aldo blurted out suddenly, obviously realizing what Mina had in mind.
“I am,” Mina said calmly.
“What?” asked Haley. “What’s wrong?”
Aldo pinched the bridge of his nose, irritated. “Mina’s planning to provoke Robbie into attacking her again, then call her dad in to catch Robbie in the act and ask him very nicely to do something about it! Is that about right?”
“That, or bringing him before the Splinter Council,” I said.
“WHAT?!” Aldo yelled.
“Relax, we’ve got a plan on how to find them,” Mina said. “Calling a meeting with them may be more difficult, but I’ve got some ideas that I might need your help with.”
Aldo sat down with his head in his hands. “Do you have any idea how many things can go wrong with this?”
“Lots,” I said. “But really, this isn’t as crazy as it sounds.”
“It isn’t?” Aldo said, looking frantically for support around the table and getting none.
“It’s the only way we might save Robbie. Over the summer, Mina and I found that a Splinter had secretly taken over Sheriff Diaz. After we revealed him, he had his . . . episode. Stumbling through the street, acting confused and disoriented, his memory not exactly what it used to be.”
Haley shuddered. She knew that experience well. I squeezed her hand.
“If they don’t want you anymore, if it’s not too late, they spit you out. I’ve felt that happen to people I was in there with,” she said.
“What if Mina’s dad doesn’t care if the Shard breaks the rules?” asked Julie.
“Then we know the treaty isn’t really giving us any protection,” I explained and tried not to be annoyed by the way Greg’s face started to light up. “And killing Robbie may be all we can do.”
“That’s assuming anyone survives Robbie’s next attack long enough to get to Sam!” Aldo shouted directly at Mina and me. “Did she tell you?” he asked me. “Are you going to tell them?” he asked her, jerking his head at the group. “What he’s capable of? What he did to you? Are you going to tell them that afterward you needed me to watch you sleep? Or about what you were trying to do when I found you?”
“Enough,” Mina snapped at him.
I was prepared to physically hold Aldo back if I had to, even though I didn’t want to. What he said, it was a cheap shot, but if I hadn’t had these couple of days to get used to the plan, I could easily understand being desperate enough to sink that low.
“Robbie didn’t just show me scary pictures,” Mina said. “Everything looked and smelled and felt completely real. And they weren’t just things that would frighten anyone. He used things against me that I’ve never talked about to anyone outside this room. There were details no one could have known, even some things that came after I was in the pod, so he couldn’t have been working just from the information it gathered from me. I believe he has the ability to reach into a person’s mind, to find out what scares her, or him, most, and then bring it to life.”
Her matter-of-fact tone didn’t do much for the group’s confidence.
“I’d like to say that the result is just an illusion, that it’s no big deal, that it’s something any one of us could shrug off, but I can’t. I won’t lie to get any of you to help me. I will point out that ignoring Robbie won’t make him any less dangerous, and that both Haley and I are only alive thanks to the timely intervention of an unexpected extra party. It seems probable that the involvement of more people makes his job more difficult, and since he’s already attacked two unauthorized targets, there’s no guarantee he won’t get around to the whole Network eventually, one by one. But if we work together, I believe we can stop him.”
Everybody looked at Mina, standing at the head of the table, waiting for anyone to join her. Despite all the problems we had had, I knew without question that I would be with her for the long haul. I would be the first one to stand if I had to.
Kevin beat me to it.
“I don’t believe that what you’re doing is the answer, but I do believe that this Shard that has Robbie is too dangerous to let run freely in this town. I will help you,” he said.
I stood next. Julie and Haley weren’t that far behind. Julie punched Greg in the shoulder. He just looked to Mina.
“So let me get this straight,” Greg said. “You want us to help you act as human bait to draw out Freddy Krueger—”
“Robbie York,” Mina corrected.
“Right,” Greg continued. “To draw out a psychopath who can get in our heads and make our worst nightmares come to life, just so we can try to capture him and turn him over to his own people who we’ll have to assume have a sense of justice and will make things right again?”
“Something like that, yeah,” I said.
Greg laughed, standing with Julie. “Hell yeah, I’m in.”
That left Courtney and Aldo.
“You know this doesn’t guarantee that anything will end, right?” Courtney asked. “That they could very well just send in a replacement for Robbie, someone they think they can control more, and that this will almost certainly start up again right after?”
“Of course,” Mina said.
She shook her head, muttering something in Lebanese that I guessed was a bad word.
“Well, I’m not going to be left in the dark after those things came after me, so I guess that means I’m staying close to you guys. But if you want me to help with anything, I want to know exactly what we’re trying to do before we do it, and I want full access to any information I help you get.”
Mina nodded. “On a case-by-case basis, agreed.”
That just left Aldo.
“Aldo?” Mina said.
“Can’t you think of some other way? Some other way that doesn’t involve you just waiting around for this psycho to strike?”
“Aldo, we have to do this,” Mina said firmly. He sighed. He clearly didn’t want anything to do with this plan, but he stood with us.
With everybody on board, the meeting broke up quickly. Mina was still brushing out some of the details for how we would track down the Splinter Council’s meeting place and promised she would give everyone details on the plan within the next few days, so we could finally put it into action. Haley pulled me off to the side.
“Why didn’t we talk about you more?” she asked.
“What about me?” I asked.
“About you and Madison! It’s fine that we’re looking to protect ourselves from Robbie, but what are we going to do about Madison destroying you?” she exclaimed.
I sighed. “It’s not something we can fight. Not now, at least.”
“She drags your name through the mud and all you can say is you can’t fight?” she said.
“Madison doesn’t want me dead. She just wants me to suffer. I have it on good authority that this will blow over eventually,” I said.
“That’s not how it works,” Greg said as he sidled on over to us.
“How what works?” I asked.
“Dead agenting. Lying around and taking it totally isn’t gonna help you out here,” Greg said.
“What’s dead agenting?” Haley asked.
Greg smiled, clearly glad for the opportunity to explain something. “Dead agenting is the fine art of attacking your attackers. Say someone is a threat to you, or they’re exposing you in a way you don’t want to be exposed, you put your resources toward making them look even worse. Dig up some dirt, or if there’s no dirt to be dug up, just make some up and smear it all over them. Cults do it all the time. It’s pretty damned effective, isn’t it?”
He directed the question to me, and though he was smiling, I could swear I saw some sympathy in his eyes.
“So what can you do about it?” Haley asked.
Greg shrugged. “If killing them isn’t an option, there’s always seeing what dead agenting can do for you. Like you said, Eagle Scout, we could always play by their rules.”
I could see over Greg’s shoulder that Mina was done wrapping things up with the others.
“Excuse me,” I said, feeling bad for leaving Haley behind with Greg as I made my way to Mina. She looked up at me hopefully.
“So, that went well, didn’t it?” she asked.
“It did,” I said, watching Haley and Greg continue to talk. They were joined by Julie, and soon after, Haley waved Aldo over. Now that was an interesting group.
“Do you really think this is the right idea? Bringing them all into this with us?” she asked.
“I do,” I said with a smile. “God help me, but I really do.”
The smile she flashed was almost worth all of Patrick’s beatings.
19.
My Kingdom for a Digital Video Recorder
Mina
Things had been better in the days after Halloween, for everyone, maybe for me most of all.
For the first time since I’d come out of that Warehouse alive, I’d gotten a reprieve. Reality was actually better than the probable scenario I’d spent the last month trying to accept.
I had Ben back on my side, and if it had been another of my recent reckless highs that had made me call us friends, I hadn’t come down yet. I hadn’t taken it back. I’d even said it a few more times for good measure. So far there had been no shattering, cosmic retribution. It wasn’t as if I’d offered to sell out our species for him or have his children or let him take me away from all this. We were still resistors, still allies against the Splinters, and we were also friends. A small risk, a small happiness, like stealing from Dad’s candy stash as a kid. After so long following the rules and losing so much anyway, it felt frighteningly good.
Ben still had to hide at school, and for appearances’ sake, we still had to avoid being seen together, but we kept in near-constant messaging contact, and all signs indicated he was also in much better spirits. Haley and Kevin helped shepherd him from class to class, and he allowed it with only minor protests. Haley had also started to visit Aldo and me occasionally during lunchtimes, when we’d talk her through whatever we happened to be working on at the time. Aldo was uncharacteristically welcoming toward her. He actually seemed to be enjoying her company, and if I was honest, so was I.
I was actually having trouble deciding which was better, having Ben back, or having myself back. As sickening as it was to know that my brain had been tampered with, it was also a tremendous relief to know that it hadn’t simply decided to collapse on its own. I wasn’t unsalvageably defective after all. I was not doomed to death or uselessness by rapid, unstoppable mental deterioration.
However, I wasn’t quite back in peak mental condition. My nightmares were more frequent and vivid than usual, always featuring the Shard-Robbie and that one particular night in my room. There were also odd moments, even during the daytime, when bits and pieces of it would resurface in response to ridiculously tiny reminders.
The recollections usually stole a few seconds from me, a few breaths’ worth of violently gagging on nothing and feeling that imaginary grime as if it were still layered under my skin, before I could put them aside again.
But this was far from the first incident that had given my brain these kinds of processing errors. This was no new, dangerous, potentially fatal malfunction. I knew it would fade out after a while into the ordinary background nightmare rotation.
All we had to do was neutralize the Shard-Robbie, and eventually I’d be okay.
Of course, all our plans on that front were pretty serious long shots, but I’d take a long shot any day over no plan at all.
So, with my whole Network in position for the boldest move we’d even considered since the latest treaty signing, I counted it the beginning of a pretty good Saturday morning when Greg and I leaped the fence into Alexei’s backyard.
Alexei’s house is fairly small, suitable for the drama teacher he masquerades as more than the high-ranking Splinter he is. I’ve only broken into it a couple of times, and I wasn’t planning on adding to that tally today. All I’d ever been able to do inside was bury a few temp bugs and run. It’s impossible to search it for anything worth finding, even an electrical outlet, without leaving evidence. The garage alone gives a clear enough preview of what’s inside, with its ceiling-high stacks of knickknacks and photographs, and books on baffling subjects, supported by sheaths of mildew-encrusted cardboard that don’t live up to the technical definition of the word “box” anymore. But, thankfully, there’s just enough space between them for Alexei to park the front half of his car. Greg and I were able to duck under the half-rolled garage door with no picking or breaking and start work on the car itself under nearly full cover from the street.
When I shone my flashlight through the window, it reflected off the screen of a big, ostentatious GPS, ridiculously advanced for anyone human to keep in an insular little town like Prospero.
Perfect.
I kept the flashlight trained on the window while Greg slipped in the artfully-sculpted coat hanger, more for my benefit than his. I wanted to watch. This was a skill I still hadn’t quite mastered on my own, partly because whenever Greg did start to explain what he was doing, he tended to get sidetracked.
“See the manual lock down there? This kind you just have to rock to one side, and they make it as easy as possible so it doesn’t feel jammed up already when it’s brand new. But you can do that with those smooth vertical ones too, the ones that are a bitch to lift up no matter how low friction the workings are, so why doesn’t everyone just use those instead?”
I didn’t need to offer so much as a shrug for Greg to
continue with, “I’ll tell you why. Four words: most stolen vehicles list. Sounds like a bad thing, but it’s like the Oscars of cars. The more often a car gets stolen, the more people will think it’s worth stealing, so it must be worth buying. And that’s partly true, but the savvy car companies know they can boost their numbers with shitty security features like these.”
The lock clicked open as if to underscore his point.
“Now, GPSs, those are really sinister. I mean, if we can use them to track people without their knowledge with just a few modifications, can you imagine the government and marketing spyware they have to come preprogrammed with?”
“Is the chatter really necessary?” Courtney piped up over the party line. “I can’t hear myself think.”
“You’re on lookout duty,” Greg answered her as he opened the door for me. “What do you have to think about?”
I climbed in past Greg and turned the flashlight back on the GPS.
“You with me, Aldo?” I asked.
“Is it one of the cheap attachable ones, or is it wired in?” Aldo skipped to the point. I could picture him waiting in my room, surrounded by his collection of instruction manuals.
“Wired in.”
“Okay, you’re going to have to start the ignition.”
“Pop the hood,” Greg prompted me immediately. I did, he disappeared under it, and after approximately sixty-seven seconds, the engine started with a roar.
The GPS booted up, and I read Aldo the model name that flashed across the screen.
“Passing mark A,” Kevin announced from his spot three blocks north, concealed in a borrowed, tinted minivan from his dad’s lot.
Greg cursed from under the hood.
The timing was always going to be tight. Alexei had a fairly predictable schedule, but it very rarely separated him from his car. His Saturday morning walk to the used bookstore was all the time we were going to get.
“We’ll make it,” said Aldo. “Go to ‘Account Settings’ and add the new email,” said Aldo.
“Mark B,” Ben alerted us from his spot in the tiny gas station convenience store, less than a block away, within view of Haley’s intercept point.