by Julian North
“Lara. She was the expert. With everything that happened, you never really knew her… her family ran afoul of the Corporate Council in Korea. She knew about the juches from her parents, I think—that’s how Havelock knew. She was the source.”
Alexander’s brows came down, the way they did when he didn’t get my logic. “But she’s gone. Her whole family. No one really knows where.”
“She and Alissa were close. Alissa might know something. Or maybe she knows where to find Lara. I need to try.”
We walked in silence the rest of the way to Eighty-Ninth Street. A massed army of navy-and-white-attired students awaited us, their hair glittering. Somewhere among them was the girl who had been my first supposed friend at Tuck. The person who had lured me into Havelock’s trap, who had manipulated me worst of all. And I needed her help.
Students noticed us as we approached. They always noticed Alexander and me, although for different reasons. Walking down Eighty-Ninth Street beside him, my hair still wet, an Authority blanket around both of our shoulders, felt like returning to the front lines of a war zone. It would only add to the infamous legend. Beauty and the Beast, reversed. I reminded myself I didn’t care. Maldito riquitos.
I dashed for the showers, luxuriating in the deliciously warm water of this place of privilege, savoring the benefits of hypocrisy. Suitably refreshed, I dressed and slid into my seat next to Alexander in Lit just before Mr. Lynder strode in. He started talking about Joseph Conrad. I fixed my eyes on Alissa’s back. She was a betrayer, and an unapologetic one at that. I understood about her sister being exploited and killed by the highborn. I understood hate. But I didn’t understand why she couldn’t have trusted me. I certainly didn’t forgive her. Now, I needed her to help Mateo, to help Alexander, maybe to save everyone in BC. That meant eating some pride—and my pride tastes like crap.
I waited for her in the hall after class. For months I’d managed to avoid making eye contact with her. As she walked past me, I was struck by her beauty. Her face was a juxtaposition of two ethnicities, her skin silky, almost innocent. But I knew what lurked beneath.
I caught up with her on the stairs. She looked at me, then away again.
“Alissa, I need to talk to you.”
Her head swung back at me. Her eyes were large with surprise, but there was calculation behind them. As always. That mind that could juggle multiple tasks better than anyone else I knew kicked into high gear. She stepped off the stairs onto the administration floor without answering me. I followed. Students streamed past, no one following us—there weren’t any classrooms on this level.
“What do you want?” Suspicion was thick in her voice.
“I need your help.”
She huffed out a noisy breath of surprise. “You must be desperate.”
My blood surged. “Will you speak to me or not?”
She stared at me, then something in her eyes softened. “Let’s go someplace more private.”
“Where?”
“The roof at lunch.”
I didn’t hesitate. “I’ll be there.”
“Just you.” Alissa took a lingering look at me. “I’ve got something to tell you as well.” She turned and walked back to the stairs. She didn’t look back.
Alissa wanted to speak to me alone. She might have guessed that anything I had to say wasn’t appropriate for the halls, but it might have been something else as well. I hadn’t forgotten that the Tuck roof was where Marie-Ann had been murdered. Alissa had been part of that. I would be naive not to have at least considered that Alissa could be dangerous. But I was confident I could handle her—at least physically. I was bigger, faster, stronger. Although not smarter. Certainly not as devious. If I told Alexander or Nythan where we were meeting, they would want to come. Or muck it up. I didn’t want that. If Alissa was willing to help me, I would hear her out. I could trill her, if I had to. I could take care of myself.
I had three more classes before lunch. In World Economics, Mr. Dillard discussed the slave-driven economy of the pre-Civil War American South. Four hundred thousand white families controlled four million slaves. His primary criticism of the system was that it was incompatible with the capitalistic necessity of allowing labor to contract freely for services. He seemed concerned that chipping would create similar economic problems as had been experienced in South America. My fellow students asked and answered questions, recited facts, and speculated on alternate solutions. Their analyses were precise—and chilling in their total lack of moral judgment. The economic rationalism of the Orderists. This was how highborn regarded chipping—not that it was wrong to strip people of free will. Merely, that it might be bad economic policy over the long-term, or that it wasn’t merit-based. I stormed out as soon as class ended, my ears ringing.
The discussion of chipping brought back memories of Lara’s cold face, her biting remarks. I spent most of Trigonometry thinking about her, all the hate she had for the highborn, and remembering her tragic history. Chipping research in Korea had robbed her of a sibling and sent her whole family into exile in America. I remembered her anger when Alissa had mentioned slavery. Havelock must’ve recognized Lara’s hate and exploited it. The only person Lara ever showed any warmth to had been Alissa. I wondered what she knew about the juche, and if she’d be inclined to tell me. Alissa had reason to hate me as well; I had trilled her, made her my puppet. Not that she hadn’t deserved it.
Class ended and the time to meet Alissa came. I climbed the creaking steps of Tuck. The same steps Marie-Ann had climbed to meet Alissa three months ago, before she’d been pushed from the roof. Her death had paved my way into Tuck. Had she suspected they might hurt her? I doubted it. Before I knew what Havelock had planned, I wouldn’t have believed it either. Tuck was too perfect for that, Alissa too bubbly, Nythan too odd. But underneath the surface of this place dwelled serpents.
Alissa was already there when I arrived. The wind blew her long, dark hair across her face like the flag of a pirate ship. Her eyes had been fixed on the southern horizon but turned toward me as I approached. The corners of her eyes showed hints of weariness I hadn’t noticed before. My steps were slow, deliberate. Our gazes swept over each other. Finally, she spoke. Her first words surprised me.
“It’s good to see you.”
I arched a brow. I hadn’t come here to exchange pleasantries. “I need to know about juche workers. I need to know everything Havelock knew about them.”
Alissa’s chin came down in surprise. “Juche? I-I don’t…” She paused to rally her thoughts. “Lara was the expert. Her father was part of the project back in Korea, before things went bad for him. But I don’t know what else she knew or told Havelock. She was the first of us, you know—she was closest to him.”
“You two were friends. You told me she was the first person who spoke to you when you came to Tuck. Her hate for the highborn, for corps, was at the center of who she was. You must’ve spoken about it. You’re too smart not to have been curious. How did Rose-Hart arrange to buy juche workers? How did Landrew even know about them?”
“Why don’t you ask your boyfriend?” The words were low but bitter.
I took half a step toward her. “If he knew, I wouldn’t be speaking to you. Do you have anything useful to tell me?”
Alissa’s eyes flashed with a whirlwind of indecipherable emotions. For several heartbeats, I wasn’t sure if she was going to spit in my face or try to hug me. Finally, she said, “The juche workers at Rose-Hart were a prototype batch, I think. Everyone was always so secretive—Dillion was obsessed with secrecy. But I heard a few things, and Lara always knew. When we were planning how to get into the Ziggurat, I heard Lara tell Havelock that there would be Russians who looked like Nythan among them, so he would be able to blend in. They were part of the first experiments. I got the impression that the group of juche workers Rose-Hart purchased had been partially re-educated to do the specific work Landrew Foster-Rose-Hart wanted.”
“How did Landrew know how to buy the
m? Or even that juche scientists existed? Regular chipped slaves can’t perform complex tasks. The juche are a secret, even in Korea.”
“I-I remember Lara saying something about greedy men always finding each other. She mentioned some Korean name—I think the person who deposed her father. Ji-ho, maybe, was the name. She told me ‘Ji-ho would never destroy what he could sell. He just needed help finding the right buyer.’”
I nodded, considering her words. “So there was an intermediary. Someone brokered the transaction.” Perhaps the same person who had arranged the juche assassins for Virginia Timber-Night.
“It’s just a guess,” Alissa said.
“Any idea who the go-between was?”
Alissa shook her head. “That’s all I know. Lara never spoke about it again. I didn’t need to know this stuff.”
“Where is Lara?”
Another head shake. “I don’t know. When her mind recovered from the trilling, she said something about wanting to fight with people who wanted to win. She may have gone to California with her family, but I’m not sure. She had more contact with Dillion than anyone else, except Havelock. I haven’t heard from her. Her viser is deactivated.”
“Did Havelock go there too? He seemed tight with Cali. They trusted him enough to send Dillion and other agents to help with his scheme.”
Alissa’s face betrayed nothing. “I don’t know.”
“Anything else you can remember about the juche workers?”
“No, but Daniela…” Alissa looked at her feet, then back at me. “Listen, I-I’m sorry for what happened. How it happened—”
“What part?” I snapped. “Lying to me? Almost getting Kortilla killed? I appreciate that you are talking to me, and not asking more questions, but it doesn’t make up for what you did.”
Alissa’s eyes hardened. “They’re monsters. The Orderists, their lies… You should understand that. They deserved a taste of the evil they inflicted on others… Kids like my sister… And you saved them. I still can’t believe that. You of all people.”
Her words reminded me of Mateo. If he was here, he would’ve agreed with Alissa, cursed me for a fool, same as she had. But my brother wasn’t known for his wisdom. Neither was Alissa.
“You said you wanted to tell me something. I’m leaving in sixty seconds. So now’s your chance.”
“A waste of words,” Alissa said, shaking her head again.
“Alissa, I don’t forgive you. I don’t trust you. But I’m listening.”
Alissa locked her gaze on me. Her eyes were luminous, intense. “You can’t trust Alexander Foster-Rose-Hart. I know you don’t want to hear that, but—”
I scoffed. “Not trust the person who got me out of the Ziggurat after you betrayed me? Who helped me save Kortilla? You have no right to question him, Alissa. You of all people.” I turned to go, my face flush.
“He has been keeping secrets from you, from everyone. About California. He’s connected with them somehow. I just don’t know how, exactly.”
I spun back toward her, fire in my eyes and my words. “Tell me. Now. Or shut up, forever.”
“He met with a man, here. Harrison Elias-Arkin is his name. He’s a California operative.”
“How would you know that?”
Alissa tapped her head. “Eidetic memory, if you recall from our study sessions. I saw Harrison’s face flash once on Dillion’s viser. It was just for a second, but that’s enough for me. His name came up in the past. Dillion reported things to him, using codes of course. But… well… I might not be Nythan Royce, but I have my gifts.”
“And this man—Harrison—you actually saw him meet with Alexander?”
“He walked out of the headmaster’s office. Alexander left a few minutes later.”
“And you just happened to be there?”
Alissa shrugged. “I was early that day. I spotted him in the main hall on my way into school and followed him. No one else knows he’s affiliated with California, of course, or he’d be in prison. He’s a Manhattan lawyer. But that’s just a cover.”
“When was this?”
“Two days ago.”
The day I was stuck in Bronx City. Alexander persuaded Frost-Bell to send a car for me that morning. It fit that he was with the headmaster that day, even if the rest didn’t make sense.
“Why would you follow him?”
“I’m still a part of this, Daniela. I’m not working with California or Havelock. But I haven’t stopped hating the highborn. There is still the matter of payback for my sister, for Rebecca. Blood—you understand that. This isn’t over for me either.”
I studied her face. Beautiful. Earnest. But I didn’t trust her. “So Alexander happened to be in the headmaster’s office around the same time as someone you think is connected to California. He might not even know that person, or know he is Californian. He might just have been meeting with the headmaster.”
“It’s not the first thread connecting him to California. You remember I told you how we always tried to get someone close to the Foster-Rose-Harts?”
I nodded, remembering. “But it didn’t work. Their servants are nopes, but multigenerational. And Kristolan always could detect a spy.”
“All true. But we only figured that out by trying. We never got the DNA samples we wanted, never got anywhere close to Kristolan or Landrew. The closest we got was getting someone employed by their concierge service.”
“Their what?”
Alissa flashed half of a smile. “A service that arranges things for rich people. Things that their existing servants aren’t good at. They helped the servants, you might say. For example, making travel arrangements out of the country, arranging travel visas, that sort of thing. The Foster-Rose-Harts could have a dozen people working for them, but it’s unlikely any of them are particularly knowledgeable about that.”
“You infiltrated a highborn travel service? What’s that got to do with Alexander?”
“Through them we learned that he went to Mexico when he was supposed to be at a nature retreat in Arizona. Each time a flight plan was filed for Arizona, but each time he switched planes and flew to Mexico instead. One time we believe he brought a bag of diamonds worth several million dollars with him. We tried to follow him, but he always lost us in Juarez.”
I felt a wave of dizziness, but I kept my eyes hard and fixed on Alissa. “What the hell does that tell you?”
“I don’t think he stayed in Mexico. I think he traveled to California from there. In secret.”
“You have any proof of that?”
She didn’t flinch. Her eyes dared me to call her a liar. “Not directly. But it’s no crime to travel to Mexico. Why the deception? Fake flight plans? And he went through a lot of trouble to make sure he wasn’t followed.”
“How many times?”
“Twice a year, since we became aware of it.”
“You know nothing. Except he met with the headmaster. And went to Mexico a few times.”
“Come on, Daniela. There is something there. Something he doesn’t want anyone to know about. Including you—based on the look on your face.”
I sneered at her, but it was more anger than skepticism. “How come no one ever said anything about this to me? You and Lara liked your secrets. But Nythan would’ve told me.”
Alissa gave a bitter chuckle. “We thought you drugged Alexander. We didn’t know you were planning to date him instead. It was a dead end, anyway. I only really thought about it because of you and him—it seems like you two are together. Then I saw Harrison. You should know.”
I didn’t want to believe her. “Why do you care?”
“Because it wasn’t an act, Daniela. I know I didn’t tell you about the plan with the Waste. Havelock is calculating. I know you hate me for what happened. But I wasn’t lying about being your friend. I wasn’t pretending with you. That’s why you feel so betrayed—because it was real. And we’re still more alike than you want to admit.”
“Why should I possibly believe a
word you say to me? About what you feel, about Alexander, about anything?”
Alissa’s chin came up, a queen preparing to offer a sacrifice. “Trill me, if you really need to be sure. You’ve done it before. We both know you can. I won’t resist. Take the truth from me by force, as you did inside the Ziggurat.”
I struggled to keep the surprise from my face. She was offering her mind to me? I had done the same to Kristolan, but I’d never intended to allow her to control me. Alissa knew I could make her do my bidding. She didn’t know about the cost to me, though—that trilling might be driving me mad.
“I will,” I heard myself say, my voice a whisper. I expected her to back down. She didn’t.
Alissa shut her eyes. I looked within myself, searching for a connection to the strange power my modified genes had bestowed upon me. The cold came to me effortlessly, like the familiar embrace of someone dear; I pushed it out at Alissa, feeling for her mind. It found her quickly. I knew her; I had known her thoughts and her will. Her mind’s defense was a wall of elegant marble, just as it had been several months ago. Only now a gaping hole sat in the center. I sensed her emotions: regret… and worry. Our minds shared a memory of my first day at Tuck, after I’d lost my race to Alexander. She’d come after me so I wouldn’t quit. It had been her mission, but I realized that she’d wanted to do it. She saw herself within me. She thought she understood me. She was wrong. But I didn’t want to invade a mind if I didn’t have to.
“I believe you,” I said to her.
Chapter 16
I wanted to speak to Alexander.
More precisely, I wanted to grab him by the neck, haul him someplace dark, and scream at him. Afterward, he needed to give me a completely innocent explanation for why he was in the headmaster’s office the same time as a Californian spy. I wanted to know if that man had anything to do with getting me out of Bronx City, and I wanted to know why Alexander never told me about his trips to California—if he had indeed gone there. I gritted my teeth. How dare he make me find out anything from Alissa!
