When she looked at him, her eyes were calm and grounding. “Evelyn Calliope. I know that name doesn’t mean anything to you, but it does to the rest of Parole. That’s because this city is my home, and if you’re in it, you’re safe with me.”
Regan smiled, and she was struck by the way the angles of his face softened. “That makes you sound like some kind of superhero.”
“I don’t know,” she couldn’t help smiling back. “Doesn’t really take superpowers to help someone like this.”
Regan and Evelyn froze on the dark walk along the alley around the side of the Emerald Bar. A rumbling came from underfoot and a light stream of ash sprinkled down on their heads from the mortar above. Evelyn flung one arm out in front of Regan as they pressed themselves against a brick wall and slipped into a doorway, bracing themselves until the tremor passed. It was second nature for her now. Every child in Parole knew that when the ground shook, you stopped, felt for where the vibrations weren’t, and got to solid ground fast.
This time, the little earthquake was gone in around ten seconds. No lasting damage. The city wasn’t always this lucky. Less than half a block over was a gaping hole in the concrete where the street had collapsed.
Regan had just gotten his breathing back to normal when he jumped at another noise.
“It’s okay!” Evelyn said, holding up her hand. In it was a cell phone, screen illuminated. “Sorry about that.” She glanced at it. “I should probably take this. It’s been… a weird night.”
“Oh,” he nodded a couple times. Somehow, this, and the apparent fact that Parole had cell phone service, was one of the most surreal moments of the entire ‘weird night’ so far. “Yeah—yes, sure. Go ahead.”
“Evelyn Calliope.” She listened hard to the incoming call for a moment before a vague frown made her brow furrow and eyebrows come together. “Yes, be right around. Out front. See you there.” She hung up and nodded for him to keep walking. “That was a—I guess business associate of mine, Celeste. She wants to talk to me, right up here. Probably a good idea. If anyone knows about any weirdness afoot tonight, it’ll be her.” Her face brightened. “Actually, she might be able to help you too. If anyone would know…”
“Do you think she will?” Regan walked faster to catch up, hopeful despite himself. It couldn’t be this easy. He had no reason to doubt, but something told him that nothing came as easy as this. Ever.
“If she’s in a really generous mood. Anyway, shouldn’t take more than five minutes. Celeste is… not much of a talker.” Evelyn rounded the corner to the front street and continued on, but Regan hesitated. Some instinct told him to stop. Wait. Watch. Listen.
So he peered around the corner to see a figure in black stepped out from the darkness, and move steadily forward to meet Evelyn in a streetlamp’s pale circle of light.
From here she appeared to be a small-framed woman entirely covered in light-absorbing black, from gloves to boots to high collar. Half of her face was obscured by a wide-banded visor, its mirrored lens reflecting the street in a continuous curve. Her only exposed skin was a deep medium brown, visible in a narrow band across her cheekbones and top of her nose; the rest of her face was covered by the three-quarter helmet, earpieces and mouthparts. Her helmet’s material, like the rest of her stealth suit, seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it. All in all, aside from height, build and skin tone, it was impossible to tell anything about the woman, or maybe girl, behind the gear.
Regan knew her. Instantly, he recognized her. And he had no idea from where.
And just as instantly, his entire brain seemed to explode in alarm bells and nearly-voiced screams of terror. He had never seen her in his life as far as he knew, had no idea what her name was or what she looked like behind the helmet, and there was absolutely no reason the sight of her should make his heart leap into his mouth and his whole system surge with nearly painful adrenaline.
All he knew was his only saving grace – that his current angle behind this corner kept him from her line of sight. She hadn’t seen him yet, and she couldn’t see him. She just couldn’t see him, if she caught just one glance—
An icy chill raced over his entire body. When he looked down, he barely suppressed a gasp, because he didn’t see himself there. The air was slightly distorted, but Regan looked down and saw clear behind… under, through himself. Panic momentarily became fascination.
Then he remembered to run. He tore flat-out toward back toward the Emerald Bar.
Evelyn stared after him, half-amazed, half-concerned. She wasn’t about to be surprised by anything Parole had to throw at her after all this time, but seeing somebody disappear before her eyes did take a few seconds of adjustment. And a highly anxious young man with severe amnesia, and the ability to disappear entirely… this may be more of a challenge than—
“Evelyn.”
“Celeste!” She turned, almost having forgotten her previous engagement. Previous, very pressing engagement. She’d find him again, Evelyn resolved; he couldn’t possibly get far. The espionage and cyber-security specialist—adept at both bolstering and evading security— known as Celeste was elusive as a cool drink of natural spring water in Parole and her time was twice as in-demand and valuable. Give her half a chance and she’d disappear just as fast as Regan had. “Any word on tonight?”
“Enough to make me sit up and take notice.” Her voice was electronically altered, a custom addition to her Parole-standard gas mask, a model already much sleeker and more lightweight than average. “What happened in there?”
Evelyn considered her… colleague, she supposed, for a moment. This wasn’t going the way she expected. “Well, secrets are your business, Celeste. I was hoping you’d be able to tell me more.”
“You’re the eyewitness.”
“I’m not even sure what I’m supposed to have witnessed yet. Garrett pulled the fire alarm, the building evacuated,” she ran the events over in her own mind as she related them, re-checking for anything she’d missed. “I go back to his room to check on him and he tells me to leave too. It feels like he’s in trouble, but he won’t tell me anything.”
“Mm. Thank you.” The shorter woman turned on her heel and took a step away.
“Wait, wait. That’s it?” Evelyn almost laughed, part confusion, part incredulity. “Want to tell me what you’re doing here? I assume you heard something I didn’t, or else why are we talking?”
“I received an anonymous tip.” Celeste’s voice never changed—her vocal transformer might read whispers and shouts the same for all anyone knew—and it was near-impossible to tell her expression behind it and her visor, but Evelyn could swear she was almost apprehensive. “About an attempt on Garrett Cole’s life. I came to investigate. That’s all.” She paused for a moment, and Evelyn had to wonder what she was thinking. Along with most of Parole, probably. “I could ask you the same question. Your arrival time was quite short, Evelyn. What are you still doing here?”
“Just getting some last stragglers to safety.” And now there was the question of where that straggler had so tracelessly disappeared to. “No sense in leaving anyone here if something’s really going down.”
“And there is.” Her inscrutable electronic tone remained the same, but now it sounded like warning. Or a promise, but not a pleasant one. Evelyn shivered. “Something is absolutely hidden here. Something dangerous. And I will find out what it is.”
“I don’t doubt you for a second, Celeste.”
“Good. That would be a mistake.”
❈
“Hey, I know you!”
Regan barely had time to shut the Emerald Bar door behind him before the voice made him jump almost a foot in the air. He whirled around, eyes wide. The wave that the skinny, 18-ish white boy with curly blonde hair and watery blue eyes looking back at him from the farthest barstool gave him was less than intimidating, but he wasn’t about to trust anything that happened tonight, not until he got his bearings. He didn’t answer, glancing toward the door, wondering
if he could make it in under three seconds. But no, no, that strange woman in all the black was out there, and he’d had such a powerful aversion to seeing her, it had almost been like an actual voice in his head telling him to run, escape, don’t let her see him…
“You’re, um,” The young man was snapping his fingers now, eyes raised to the darkened ceiling like he was trying to fit a name to a face. As he did, Regan’s eyes flicked automatically over his. Dark circles around his eyes, bags below them, healthy color in his cheeks but a little gaunt as if he’d lost weight fast and not safely. Yellow peach fuzz on his chin. The moment Regan realized he was trying to place the young man as well, he realized he’d committed his features to memory. His photographic memory, he dimly registered with some surprise at himself. That made this entire night stranger. The first very clear image he’d have of tonight was a stranger’s face he knew better than his own. “You’re—don’t tell me, okay? I’m trying to get better at this.”
“Yeah, okay,” Regan said slowly, nodding but not stepping closer. “Uh, me too.”
“Starts with a… I’m stuck between an R and a K, dunno why.”
“Regan,” he confirmed tentatively. Couldn’t be harm in admitting one of the only things he knew for sure. And at least this kid hadn’t set off any immediate alarm bells like the mysterious woman in the street outside.
“Yeah! Tip of my tongue, I swear.” He smiled and the dark circles under his bright eyes faded instead of deepening as they did on some people. “You’re with Jay and them, right?”
“Who?” Regan took a step closer, intrigued despite himself. “Was that another letter?”
“Ha, funny and badass! I like you.” The young man seemed oblivious to Regan’s deepening confusion, sitting up straighter on his stool and scratching one ear, as if listening to far-off, but unexpected and slightly annoying music. “I’m Cai, by the way.”
“Sigh?”
“Cairus. It’s cool if you don’t remember me, I know I’m not one of the real crew.” Cai shrugged and slowly rotated on the stool, leaning back against the bar. “Someday, though. Garrett’ll give me a chance. A real one, not just a ‘listen and keep your mouth shut’ chance.”
Regan took a moment to run back over all this. It was gibberish, mostly. But important gibberish. Somehow, either this strange young man had mistaken him for someone else—unlikely, he caught the name ‘Garrett’ in there somewhere, the same one Evelyn had mentioned, they had to be connected—or… he knew Regan. And the same very strong, very insistent, almost-an-actual-inner-voice instinct screamed for Regan not to let on that he didn’t recognize him back.
“Well, I really hope you get that chance,” he said in what he thought was a smooth, encouraging tone, heading over to sit at a nearby stool. He realized that from here he actually had a much better vantage point out the window and could see the silhouettes of Evelyn and the woman she was meeting—what had she called her? Celeste?—parleying below one of Parole’s sputtering streetlamps. “You only need one.”
“Hey, thanks.” Cairus grinned and looked down quickly. “I know it’s probably not the smartest thing in the world, and I know how it sounds—everybody wants to be a superhero—but I just wanna help, you know?”
“Yeah. I hear you.” Regan nodded, trying to keep one eye on him and the other on the window.
“I mean, Parole would be so screwed without Ev—Miss Calliope, and Garrett, and Radio Angel. And they’re just the ones like, up on stage, in the spotlight!” He looked back up at Regan with excitement and a slight flush lighting up his young, tired face, starting to talk with his hands a little as he warmed to his subject. Regan sat very still and let him go, listening hard for anything useful. “But the guys behind the scenes, like—I dunno, behind the curtain? In the wings? You and CyborJ and…” He trailed off. Stared into space. Slowly his energetic spark faded and his hands lowered to rest on his knees.
“You, uh… okay there?” Regan asked reluctantly. Suddenly he was sure that he shouldn’t. Actually, he was becoming increasingly uncomfortable in this room. He should probably get out of here. Now. But the young man—Cairus, he had a name, and he knew Regan’s—had just been so excited, and now he looked almost… afraid.
“That’s weird. I… huh. Guess I don’t actually remember.”
“Oh.” Regan shifted uncomfortably. “Well, give it a little. I’m sure it’ll come to you.”
“No, um…” Cai scratched his head, making his loose mop of yellow curls ruffle and shake. “This is—this is weird, I don’t… suddenly there’s just like… nothing? I can’t remember anything. Like, any of these guys’ names. Or girls, or—or other people, and…” He swallowed fast, sharp Adam’s-apple jerking as his face paled. “And I love them, you know? They’re like… they’re my heroes, and their names are just… and their faces, I…”
Regan held very still. He knew this exact feeling. Eerily well.
“Oh, my God. They’re gone. I… I know they’re not, they’re somewhere, I just can’t rem—this is bad. This is so bad? It’s… they were here and now they’re not. It’s like I’m alone.”
His heart began to pound. Cairus might as well be reading his mind and relaying his own thoughts and feelings of terrifying loss and isolation.
“I gotta go.”
Regan watched, paralyzed with a sudden wave of shock as the young man slid unsteadily off his stool and headed shakily toward the door. Suddenly, among all of the bewildering strangeness, he knew one thing with crystal clarity, the same way he knew he had to escape the woman in the street.
He could not let Cairus leave this room.
❈
“I have to say, I’m getting a little worried,” Evelyn folded her arms and tapped her elbow with her nails. “I’ve never seen Garrett like this.”
“What was he like, exactly?” The mysterious Celeste always played her cards close to her chest, but Evelyn had never seen her quite this pokerfaced before. She had yet to see or hear her without her voice alteration device or wide, visor-like shades. Not for the first time, Evelyn wondered exactly how she could see at night. Maybe some kind of infrared night vision. Given her colleague’s reputation for near-psychic levels of technological information gathering, she wouldn’t be at all surprised.
“Nervous. Almost seemed desperate.”
“Desperate for what?” Whether consciously or not, Celeste was mirroring her posture, folding her arms and standing with her small feet set far apart. Nobody even knew how old she was. Given her height and build, Evelyn suspected she was actually a teenager, but had no evidence to support that. Certainly no hint of adolescent immaturity in any of her frighteningly efficient takedowns, cybersecurity-evading deductions or ruthless stealth operations. But then, Parole did make you grow up fast.
“To clear the bar. To get everybody out of there. Even me.”
“Anyone left inside now?”
“I’d assume Cairus Maddox and Jenny Strings,” Evelyn said slowly. “Garrett’s pragmatic but he’s not about to kick any kids out of their home. Celeste,” she spoke up as her shadowy counterpart actually turned to leave. “Mind if I ask a couple questions now?”
“Quickly, please.” She didn’t move, but didn’t turn around either. Evelyn got a good look at one of the only identifying, personal-looking details in Celeste’s gear; tiny studs in the shape of silver stars on the exterior of her headphones, like stylized, practical earrings.
“You said someone actually tipped you off that there was going to be an attempt on Garrett, specifically?” Evelyn spoke fast, as requested, and thought faster. Something here was bothering her, and she felt driven to identify it before Celeste melted back into the shadows and disappeared for good. Finding her when she didn’t want to be found was the devil’s own work. “Not a general raid on the Bar, Garrett Cole himself was a target?”
“I never reveal my sources, you know that.”
“I didn’t ask who. I just asked if someone said Garrett specifically.”
&
nbsp; “Yes, they did. Sounded quite convinced. I evaluated and concurred. I wouldn’t have come personally if I thought the source was unreliable, or the threat implausible.”
“I know,” Evelyn said smoothly. “Your judgment’s always been more than sound.”
“And now I’ve decided to end this conversation.”
“I don’t like this, Celeste,” Evelyn followed, catching up easily with much longer steps even though her fellow… agent? Evelyn was an undisputed heroine, but what did that make Celeste, really? She’d never quite been sure. She didn’t stop, that was for certain. “The Emerald Bar—this whole district, actually—it’s under my protection. I have the right to know what’s going on. Especially if it involves Garrett’s safety. That could very easily become my safety, my family—”
“And I have the right to protect my clients’ privacy.”
“If you know more about this than I do—”
“It’s safe to say I know more than most of Parole put together.” Now she did look up and Evelyn saw her own determined face reflected in her mirrored visor. She had to wonder what Celeste saw. “But don’t worry, Evelyn. I have the situation well under control.”
“I have to admit, your track record is good.”
“The best. As is yours. We simply work in different arenas. I’ll leave you to yours, if you leave me to mine.”
Evelyn let her go, and she didn’t reply or look back. Celeste had never been confirmed for any kind of Chrysedrine enhancement, but she thought that the mysterious, semi-masked figure with the star-studded earphones disappeared into the shadows as easily and completely as the other, much less-composed disappearing act she’d seen tonight.
❈
Cairus Maddox knew who Regan was.
And now he was walking out the door.
He couldn’t walk out that door. Regan’s brain screamed at him, so loudly and clearly that it almost had a voice he could hear. Stop him, do not let him leave, do not let him leave and tell anyone Regan was here, he was never here, if that boy leaves and talks, everything’s over, plan’s ruined, no escape, no hope, no, no, no—
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