Vortex

by Julie Cross

  “I’m sorry,” Holly said, frustration leaking into her voice. “Can we talk about this later?”

  “When?” Katherine demanded. “It’s nearly eleven. Where are you?”

  “Out,” Holly said firmly. “I’ll be home by midnight, okay?”

  The call ended abruptly. Stewart shook her head and glanced sideways at me. “I guess none of us have to deal with civilian parents. That’s a complication I hadn’t really thought of before.”

  “Lucky us,” I muttered under my breath, but then I remembered Holly’s petrified face when she was standing in my apartment, waiting for me to attack her. She had begged me to let her call her mom.

  Stewart was convinced that it was a code for her team to know she was in distress, but now I wasn’t completely sure I agreed.

  Both of us were silent the rest of the walk to NYU Medical Center. Even Stewart looked nervous about this bold move we were about to make. She started biting her nails while we rode up in the elevator.

  “We can totally do this. Just remember the plan. Drop only enough information to keep him asking us for more,” I whispered as my hand hovered over the doorknob to Dr. Melvin’s office.

  “And don’t tell him that you suck at complete jumps,” Stewart hissed as I knocked softly. “That’s better than any weapon we point at him.”

  Dr. Melvin didn’t answer, but light shone from underneath the door. I tried the door and it opened immediately. The first thing I saw as we walked inside the large office was the giant letters spray-painted in red across the back wall.

  “Japanese,” Stewart muttered. “What’s it say?”

  I stared closely at the symbol before answering, “Eyewall.”

  The word was barely out of my mouth when I heard Stewart gasp beside me. “Oh, God…”

  The panic inside me doubled as my eyes darted to the left side of the office. Dr. Melvin lay sprawled out on the floor, eyes wide open, skin the color of a pale gray sky. Oh, no … this can’t be happening. He can’t be …

  Stewart was already on the floor next to him, pressing two fingers to his neck.

  “He’s dead,” she managed to croak out. “Melvin’s dead.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  JUNE 19, 2009, 11:12 P.M.

  The pulse of my heart … the blood pumping to my ears drowned out all other sounds. Stewart’s mouth was moving. She was saying something to me, but I had no idea what. My gaze moved from the red writing on the wall back to the old man, cold and dead on the floor.

  Finally, she kicked me in the shin and I snapped into action, closing and locking the door. “What do we do now?” I asked.

  She was on her feet now, but the panic in her eyes told me she didn’t know any more than I did. Thomas had been so right about me. Emotions clouded my judgment, distracted me from focusing on a task. But Stewart was by far the most levelheaded agent in our division. It took her about five more seconds of freaking out before she drew in a deep breath and started moving.

  “Put these on!” A pair of latex gloves was thrust in my hands. “Put the computer back together!”

  I spun around, just now noticing the pieces of metal strewn all over the floor. “Data … experiment data … that’s what they took, right?”

  A brief flash of Adam doing the same thing passed through my mind, but only for a split second before I returned to the horror of the present moment.

  “Yeah, that’s what they took.” Stewart crawled under the desk beside me, feeling underneath it. “And they’re CIA … They should know exactly how to do this without leaving a mess. And they sure as hell left a mess.”

  “They … I mean Eyewall wanted us to know they have his stuff?” I tossed components into the now-empty shell that had held the computer.

  “They wanted us to know they don’t agree with Dr. Melvin’s theories,” Stewart said firmly. “They don’t morally agree.”

  Cloning … that was what Eyewall must have discovered about Dr. Melvin. But Healy had said studying cloning, figuring out how to make it real, was one of Dr. Melvin’s biggest regrets. What had he called it? A foolish boy’s dream.

  “You put in the distress code already, didn’t you?” I asked Stewart.

  “I had to,” she said reluctantly. “What else are we going to do?”

  Something under the desk caught my attention. I slid on my back underneath and looked up. Stewart turned over beside me, staring at the same red writing that had caught my eye.

  More Japanese.

  “What does it say? I can’t read Japanese.”

  “Death, murder,” I read aloud. “None of it can be justified unless serving the greatest purpose of all … preserving humanity for centuries to come. The natural state of humanity. Any other form will destroy us all.”

  Silence fell between us as the words sank in, hitting way too close to home. The sound of my phone buzzing caused both of us to jump and hit our heads together.

  “Yeah,” I said, pressing the phone to my ear while sliding out from under the desk. I intentionally averted my eyes from Dr. Melvin’s body. “It’s me … I mean, Agent Meyer.”

  “Is Agent Stewart with you?” Senator Healy said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Is Dr. Melvin with you?” he asked, and I could tell from the way he said those words that he most likely already knew what had happened. Maybe Eyewall had scribbled under his desk as well.

  I let out a breath, trying to focus on answering his questions so maybe he could answer ours. “Yes … but he’s … dead.”

  There was a long moment of silence, and then Healy’s voice came through firm and direct. “I want you and Agent Stewart to go immediately to your father’s apartment. Leave everything just as you found it and lock the door.”

  “No,” I protested. “We’ll wait here with him … with the body. Make sure no one else comes in.”

  “Jackson, please do as I ask. I’ve received a series of messages in the past few minutes, and one of them indicated that your father may have returned from his mission.”

  That was enough for me. I leaped to my feet and Stewart jumped up beside me, ready for orders. “We’re leaving now,” I told him, and then hung up the phone.

  I gave Dr. Melvin one last glance before locking up the door. The ache inside me, the grief, had reached an inconceivable height and I had no idea how to deal with it. The only thing I knew how to do was keep going.

  “Healy thinks my dad’s back,” I said to Stewart as we ran for the stairs, not wanting to bother with the elevator. “He seems to have known about Dr. Melvin … or at least suspected it.”

  * * *

  I think both of us were holding our breath as we busted through the front door of Dad’s apartment. I’d nearly blown my cover when we were forced into a few minutes of polite conversation with Henry, the doorman. And then the tortuously long elevator ride to the top floor …

  “Dad!” I yelled as Stewart shoved past me, heading toward the kitchen.

  My feet started to slow down about two seconds after walking into the living room. I could practically smell the stale emptiness of the place. Panic and grief washed over me as I stood in silence waiting for Stewart to return. I only had to glance at her face to know the answer.

  “Damn it!” I said under my breath as the panic turned to intense fury. Why couldn’t one freaking thing go right? I pulled out my phone and sent Healy a text.

  He’s not here? Then I tossed my phone across the room. It smacked into the wall, shattering the silence. I thought Stewart would be more pissed off than me, but she just sank onto the couch, bringing her knees up to her chest.

  I had to do something productive or the words would keep echoing through my head … Dr. Melvin’s dead …

  The long black piano bench caught my eye. I strode across the room and flung it open, tearing through mounds of sheet music, scattering them all over the floor.

  “Jackson?” Stewart said, lifting her head to look at me.

  “He’s left shit lying ar
ound for us before, maybe we just haven’t figured out his little scavenger hunt.” I was already walking down the hall toward Dad’s room when I heard her sigh and then start to follow me.

  There was a definite edge to my searching of Dad’s closet, but Stewart skillfully ignored the reckless digging, which I really appreciated. It took about an hour to get everything out of the closet and examine it with the careful eye of a trained agent. Stewart was still looking through some pictures stuffed in a small shoe box when I called it quits.

  I leaned against the wall of the now-empty closet, closing my eyes and trying to think of some amazing theory or connection between recent events, something that would help me talk to my dad. I barely noticed the sound of rumbling behind me, and then, just as my eyes opened, the floor split apart below me, literally.

  “Holy shit!” I jumped out of the way of the nearly four-foot hole in the closet floor and spun around, staring at the opening. “I swear I didn’t know that was there.”

  “What the fuck?” Stewart said, looking around my shoulder. “Did you press something or hit a trigger, maybe?”

  “No, I was just leaning against the wall.” I dropped down to my hands and knees, leaning into the hole. A rope ladder hung down, but I couldn’t see where it led.

  “What is this place? How could we have missed a crack in the floor like that? There would have to be some sign of the carpet being able to separate.”

  “Maybe this was for the bodyguards … whoever watched over me and Courtney when we were little. Like a surveillance room.”

  “You’re forgetting that I was that person for two years,” Stewart said. “Don’t you think I’d know about this?”

  I nodded toward the ladder, feeling the thrill of a distraction running through me. “Should we go check it out?”

  Stewart bit her lip and looked out into the bedroom again. “Healy told us to wait here. He could walk in the door any second.”

  “Better make it fast, then,” I said, then I placed a foot on the rope ladder and began to climb down. She’d follow me, I knew she would.

  The area was dark and the ladder was about the length of one flight of stairs. This secret room was obviously connected to the floor below us, but was there an access door? My feet landed on what felt like carpet, and seconds later Stewart’s thud came through the dark. Both of us started feeling around for a light switch. I banged my shins into a table and heard the rocking of a lamp about to tip over. I steadied it and then flipped on the light. A twin-sized bed, neatly made with a dark blue quilt, was right in front of me. The nightstand I had run into sat beside it.

  The room was about half the size of my borrowed studio apartment in Kendrick’s building. There was a bathroom with a shower and a very small kitchen. No microwave or TV. Just a red teakettle sitting on the stovetop.

  “There’s not even a smoke alarm in here,” Stewart muttered. “That’s totally a violation of the building code.”

  “I think the lack of a door is probably the biggest concern.” I walked toward a bookcase and touched the record player that sat on top. Dozens of albums were neatly lined up on the lowest shelf. “Do you think a maid lived here or something…?”

  “Uh … that would be evil, considering how dangerous it is … no fire exit.” She squatted down in front of the bookcase, eyes scanning the records. “Look at all these records. Do people still listen to records? And Hank Williams … Frank Sinatra … seriously?”

  I moved the needle of the record player back into place and sat down on the carpet beside Stewart. “And the books … Return to Paradise, East of Eden, The Old Man and the Sea…”

  “I’ve read that last one.”

  “Me, too,” I said. “Everyone has, right? In school?”

  Stewart shrugged and headed toward the dresser, opening the top drawer. A flash of red above my head distracted me, and I looked up at the ceiling. It was so low I could touch it if I stood on my toes. Writing in red, blue, and black ink scattered across the white surface.

  “Hey, Stewart … look up.” I stepped onto the bed so I could read better.

  “I know that writing,” she said, excitement filling her voice. She noticed Dad’s careful handwriting at the same time I did. “Do you think he used to stay down here?”

  “It’s possible. Makes more sense than it being the maid’s home.” I tilted my head to read the sentence written directly above the pillow.

  I never think of the future, it comes soon enough.

  Albert Einstein

  “Check out this one,” Stewart said. Her voice had lowered almost to a whisper. Both of us had subdued considerably, as if reading these words were an invasion of Dad’s privacy.

  I moved my eyes to the space above her and couldn’t help smiling, despite by earlier mood.

  The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reasons for existing.

  Albert Einstein

  “Wise words,” I said, moving over to find something else to read. The longest sentence of all was written on the wall behind the bed, except it wasn’t Dad’s handwriting. “This one’s Eileen’s writing.”

  I recognized it from my most recent jump back to 1992 when she took notes on everything I had told her.

  Now he has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.

  Albert Einstein

  “You know what annoys the hell out of me about that quote?” Stewart asked. I shook my head, still gazing at the words. “Einstein had no fucking clue how true that statement was. He was being hypothetical. We don’t get that luxury.”

  “No, we don’t,” I agreed.

  “And is there anything besides Einstein on this wall?”

  My eyes dropped to the big red heart drawn under Eileen’s handwriting, and then something else from Dad. I could tell Stewart was reading at the same time as me. Digging for those answers.

  He felt now that he was not simply close to her, but that he did not know where he ended and she began.

  Leo Tolstoy

  My eyes bounced back and forth between Eileen’s writing and Dad’s. Imagining them down here, sitting on the bed, scribbling messages back and forth to each other, it almost felt more real than actually seeing them together in those half-jumps.

  Stewart walked away from me, returning her attention to the dresser drawer she had left open. “This is such a strange place to live. You know … I can’t imagine your dad staying anywhere but his apartment.”

  “Me either.” I walked over to her and saw she had pulled a stack of photos from the dresser. “It’s like he doesn’t fit into this room, but obviously he does.”

  “I was thinking the same thing.” She handed me a picture of Dad and me sitting at the piano. It was the same one I had seen on the mantel above the fireplace when I spent those two hours with Eileen. Stewart paused to stare at a photo of Eileen and Courtney in Central Park. “She’s really pretty. It just seems so strange … They’re your parents, but they aren’t really.”

  “They are,” I said firmly. “More so than anyone else.”

  I picked up a box of matches, buried under more pictures. The words BILLY’S TAVERN were printed in black across the white box. “Do you know this place?”

  “No … never heard of it.” Stewart glanced at the rope ladder and then back at me. “We should go back up.”

  I could see she was worried about the same thing I was: Would the floor close up again? And did anyone else know about this secret hideout?

  Only one way to find out.

  When we had returned to the safety of Dad’s closet, both of us started feeling around the walls for switches or triggers. “Maybe I should lean against it like I did before?”

  “Go for it.”

  I carefully stepped over the hole and pressed my back to the wall. Nothing happened. “Well, this sucks.”

 
; Stewart frowned, her forehead wrinkling with concentration. “Try touching the wall with your hands. It’s possible there’s a biometric fingerprint—”

  The carpet instantly began to merge the second my fingers hit the wall, cutting off Stewart’s explanation. “Okay, smarty-pants … how’d you know that?”

  “Lucky guess.” She watched as the carpet sealed itself shut, leaving almost no trace of a line where the floor was split in half. “I wonder if you have to remove all the weight from the floor to get it to open. I’m sure you’ve never taken every single item out of your dad’s closet, then touched your hands to the wall.”

  “Nope. Can’t say that I’ve done that before today. But it recognized my fingerprints?”

  She shrugged, looking just as frustrated as I felt with the lack of answers. The sound of the apartment door opening jolted us back to the present and we both ran down the hall so fast we nearly plowed into Senator Healy.

  The grim expression he wore wasn’t in the least bit encouraging. “Agent Stewart … Jackson … I’m sorry for sending you here with false hope. Unfortunately, I have some more bad news.”

  He gestured toward the living room couch, but neither of us moved. Stewart was holding her breath, just like me. Healy sighed and turned to face us directly. “I’m so sorry to have to tell you this, Jackson. It seems … well … it seems your father may have made a deal with Eyewall.”

  He’s still alive. I couldn’t help feeling relieved. My dad was still alive.

  “What kind of deal?” Stewart asked. I could see her game face clearly plastered on.

  “Agent Freeman and I have been working on this investigation for a week now,” Healy said. “The EOT that we captured in Germany—Cassidy—escaped, though we thought it was impossible. Agent Freeman also confided in me about a bribe Agent Meyer had been offered several months ago.”

  “What?” Stewart and I both said.

  The grimness returned to Healy’s face, but even worse than a minute ago. “He was offered a cure … something that hasn’t been discovered yet…”

  “Cure?” I asked, feeling utterly confused.