The Impossible Clue

by Sarah Rubin

  Graham pushed past us and took the stairs two at a time. He was in his car and driving out of the car park before Kevin and I reached the bottom of the steps.

  ‘Ugh, I feel disgusting.’ Kevin shuddered.

  I looked around quickly to make sure Mr Ryder wasn’t going to grab us and make us finish the clean-up we were supposed to have started. He must have been busy somewhere else in the building.

  ‘Come on, let’s get out of here,’ I said.

  ‘So is all that invisibility stuff for real?’ Kevin asked as we walked across the crumbling asphalt to where we’d left our bikes.

  ‘I don’t know. Davidson seems to think so, and he has a PhD. He told me so himself.’

  ‘Yeah, but is that Learner guy really that smart? I mean, look at his place. Who lives like that?’

  I hated to admit it, but Kevin Jordan had a point. Dr Learner’s apartment had me asking myself a lot of questions about the so-called genius. It also had me asking myself when was the last time I cleaned my room.

  The trip hadn’t been a total disaster, though. I may not have sniffed out much of a personal angle for my father, but I got Graham to confirm our suspicions.

  Dr Learner was working on an invisibility suit, or at least the first stages of one.

  And Chronos was trying to get their hands on it.

  But I couldn’t believe Dr Learner would sell it to them of his own free will. Not after seeing that drawing on his refrigerator. Or maybe I just didn’t want to believe it. I didn’t want to have to tell Sammy his hero had betrayed him.

  I crouched down to unlock the bike chain. While I was down there, I made a note to throw away my shoes. Kevin stood next to me, leaning back on the chain-link fence. The metal scraped and rattled as it moved.

  ‘Hey,’ Kevin said. ‘What would you do if you could turn invisible?’

  I didn’t look up. ‘I don’t know. Avoid having this conversation?’

  ‘That’s so boring.’

  The lock popped and I stood up, passing Kevin his bike.

  ‘I know what I’d do.’ He grinned.

  I didn’t ask. I was pretty sure I’d be happier not knowing. I just wound up the lock chain and started pushing my bike towards the exit. Kevin pushed his bike beside me.

  ‘I have to admit, it was pretty cool when you took the photo of that guy. Like BAM, we’ve got you now, sucker! I thought he was going to cry. I can’t believe you deleted it, though.’

  ‘What makes you think I deleted it?’

  ‘Uh, I saw you?’

  I raised an eyebrow. ‘I sent myself a copy first. I’m not stupid.’

  I actually kind of enjoyed the look of admiration on Kevin’s face. I was just about to smile when something silver caught my eye.

  ‘What?’ Kevin asked.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ I said. ‘At least, I think it’s nothing.’

  I peered casually through the chain-link fence at the cars parked across the road. If it was the same car, I didn’t want them to know I’d caught on. ‘It’s just I thought there was a car following me and my dad this morning. I’ve been a bit jumpy since then.’

  ‘What kind of car?’ Kevin was looking across the street too.

  ‘A silver Mercedes.’

  ‘Like that one?’ Kevin asked. He pointed his finger through the fence. Almost immediately, the silver car started up and pulled away, kicking up loose gravel and stones on to the car parked behind it.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Exactly like that one.’

  Kevin’s mouth hung open as the Mercedes drove away.

  ‘Wait, were they following you?’

  I checked the number plate against the photo I took that morning. They matched. ‘Looks like it.’

  ‘But why?’

  It was a good question, but I could take a guess at the answer.

  It was someone from Chronos.

  I already knew they wanted the research and they were willing to use Graham Davidson to steal it. It didn’t seem that odd that they’d follow the person Mr Delgado hired to find Dr Learner too. Maybe Dr Learner had to disappear to hide from them. Maybe they’d already kidnapped him. If they were willing to do that much for just the research, imagine what they’d do for the actual suit. I shuddered: Dr Learner might be in serious trouble.

  ‘So what are you going to do? Call the police?’

  ‘Do you think the police would believe me?’ I pushed my bike out on to the pavement and Kevin followed. ‘I’ll tell Mr Delgado about it, and my dad. It’s annoying but I don’t think it’s dangerous. It’s not like they’ll do anything to me until I lead them to Dr Learner’s invisibility suit. And the chances that I’ll find it are really low anyway.’

  Kevin opened his mouth to answer back, but he never got the chance. He was interrupted by a plain white van. It stopped right in front of us and the door slid open. The first thing I thought when I saw the inside was, Oh, no, not again.

  ‘Alice Jones?’ An official-looking man wearing official-looking clothes leant out of the van. Even his haircut looked official. ‘Would you mind stepping into the van for a moment? Agent Reed would like to speak with you.’

  Right. Like I was just going to climb into an unmarked van. Kevin must have been thinking the same thing. He had a death-grip on the hem of my shirt, ready to stop me if I made a move.

  ‘Can I see some ID?’ Behind him I could see speakers and screens and displays with impressive flashing lights mounted on the inner wall. There was also a small coffee pot in the far corner, which was probably more important than all of the other high-tech gear combined.

  The man handed me a black wallet. I flipped it open and saw a bronze badge and a photo ID printed with the letters ‘FBI’. I looked at the badge, then at the man. It looked real. Besides, no one would use the name Ian Gerber on a fake ID.

  I climbed into the van, dragging Kevin along with me. I hoped whatever they wanted wouldn’t take too long. I didn’t think Della would believe that dinner was late because the FBI wanted a chat.

  Agent Gerber pointed us towards a woman in the back of the van before he shut the door. Then he sat down in the corner and got out a newspaper. I noticed he’d filled in the sudoku in pen. I also noticed he’d got the top right corner wrong, but didn’t think now was the time to mention it.

  The woman handed me her ID badge and smiled a nice, warm, motherly smile that made me want to confide in her. I bet the FBI trained her how to do that. She wore a boxy blue suit, wrinkled like it had been slept in.

  ‘All right, Agent Reed,’ I said as I handed back the badge. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘It’s nothing for you to worry about. We just have a few questions about Dr Learner and his research.’

  ‘You mean the invis—’

  I put my hand over Kevin’s mouth before he could blurt it out.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry. We already know about Dr Learner’s new project. We have our own sources. We’re interested in signing a contract, but there are other parties interested too. We need to know how far he’s got with the technology, and if he’s given it to anyone else. It’s very important you tell us everything you know. This could be a matter of national security.’

  Great, I thought, now I’ll have to tell Sammy his friend might be a traitor as well as a thief.

  ‘And you think I can help you?’

  ‘Mr Delgado did give you special access to Delgado Industries. The Bureau thought it was a little unusual, but sometimes an outside eye can see things that people too close to a project can’t. Or maybe Mr Delgado had another reason for hiring you?’ Agent Reed watched me very closely. It felt like she was accusing me of something. I just didn’t know what.

  ‘Why else would he hire her?’ Kevin said. ‘Everyone at school knows Alice is great at solving mysteries.’

  He must have been angry. His face was bright red. I was too shocked to speak. Kevin Jordan just stood up for me.

  Agent Reed smiled again, a little bit cooler this time.

  ‘We are
n’t asking her to solve this for us,’ she said. ‘We’re just asking her to tell us what she knows. And we’re asking very nicely,’ she turned to me, ‘for now.’

  I paused. I wasn’t sure how much Mr Delgado wanted the government to know. I mean, if he was trying to land a big contract, did he really want me sharing? Then again, it’s not like I was actually working for Mr Delgado. As far as I was concerned, he’d offered me the ten-thousand-dollar reward for finding Dr Learner just like he’d offered it to anyone who read any newspaper in the area. And so far, all I’d got for my pains was a lot of trouble with a capital T. The sooner someone found Dr Learner the better. I didn’t care if it was me or the Feds.

  ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘Everything.’

  So I told Agent Reed what I knew. And as I told her, I realized that what I knew didn’t even amount to a hill of beans.

  Dr Learner had disappeared. Chronos wanted his research, but they hadn’t gotten it yet, so they tried to use Graham Davidson to get it for them. Only Graham hadn’t found anything either. It made me wonder if there was any research to find. I felt like a dog chasing its tail. I was pretty sure Chronos was behind Dr Learner’s disappearance. They seemed like they’d do anything to get their hands on that invisibility suit.

  I stopped talking for a moment, and thought about what I’d just said.

  If Chronos was asking Graham Davidson to reproduce Dr Learner’s work, it meant that they didn’t already have it. They were probably following me hoping that I would lead them to Dr Learner or to his briefcase. I’d felt pretty smug about my deduction before. But now I realized it meant my main suspect had to be innocent. Chronos R&D wouldn’t be trying to find Dr Learner if they’d kidnapped him.

  ‘Wait,’ Agent Reed said, stopping me mid-sentence. ‘You say Dr Learner’s lab assistant thinks there’s a functioning prototype?’ Agent Reed bore down on me, her motherly brown eyes suddenly turning professional.

  Kevin couldn’t stop himself. ‘Yeah, he thinks that Dr Learner used the invisibility suit to escape!’

  ‘That’s what Graham says, but it doesn’t seem possible,’ I chimed in.

  Agent Reed wasn’t listening to me any more. She’d clearly got what she was after. She turned her back on us and picked up her phone, waving at the other agent to show us out. He did, quickly.

  As we climbed out of the van and back on to the street I could hear Agent Reed saying ‘Hello Director. We’ve confirmed it.’

  But I didn’t hear anything after that. The door slammed shut before she could say another word.

  Kevin turned to me. ‘Why didn’t you tell them about the car that’s been following you?’

  ‘Agent Reed didn’t seem interested in me.’ Plus I didn’t like her or Agent Gerber and the thought of asking them for help made my teeth ache. But Kevin had a point. I might not get another chance to report them.

  ‘Hey!’ I banged my palm against the side of the van.

  The door slid open again. Agent Gerber looked down at me. He clearly hadn’t been to the ‘friendly faces for children’ class yet.

  ‘What?’

  ‘There’s one more thing.’ I got out my phone and started scrolling through the pictures. ‘A car’s been following me since Mr Delgado asked me to look for Dr Learner.’

  ‘Really?’ he said. I could tell he didn’t believe me.

  ‘Yes, really. I have the registration. It followed me and my dad home from Delgado Industries, and it was here just now. They drove away in a hurry the second this genius,’ I jerked my head in Kevin’s direction, ‘pointed at them.’

  I handed Agent Gerber my phone. Agent Gerber looked at the picture and clicked his teeth. ‘Fine, I’ll make a note of the number plate in the file. Be careful walking home.’

  He shut the door again. I got the feeling he wouldn’t open it again no matter how hard I pounded on it.

  ‘Wow,’ said Kevin. ‘That was the FBI. We talked to the FBI.’

  For someone who lived to break the rules, Kevin seemed pretty excited.

  ‘Hey, wait a minute,’ he said. ‘If they were watching Dr Learner’s apartment, why didn’t they come and help us? They knew we were in there, and they must have seen that Davidson guy breaking in. We could have been in danger!’

  ‘The same reason the guys in the silver Mercedes didn’t come rushing in. They wanted to see what we’d find.’

  ‘Are you going to keep looking for him? For the doctor?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe.’ It was a lie. I knew I’d keep looking. I was as bad as my father once I got started on a problem. Leaving it unsolved would drive me crazy. I didn’t even care about proving Mr Delgado wrong any more, or at least not much. I just wanted to be able to tell Sammy the truth. Even if I didn’t like the way he followed me around all the time, he deserved to know what really happened to his friend.

  Kevin stared at me.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re not normal, are you?’ he said after a long pause. ‘Here, give me your phone.’

  He took it out of my hand and started pressing buttons.

  ‘There, that’s my number. Call me if you think you’re going to find him. Don’t go alone.’

  ‘You’re joking?’

  Kevin handed back the phone. ‘You’ve seen movies, right? All I’m saying is, don’t be that girl. Call me, or your dad. Whatever.’

  ‘Fine, I get it. I’ll call someone. Now can we go? I told my sister I’d cook dinner.’ I threw my leg over my bike and pushed off. Kevin was right behind me.

  ‘You have a sister?’

  I don’t know how it happened. But somehow I found myself talking to Kevin Jordan. No, not talking. I was telling him things. I told him about Della, and how the audition process was making her a little crazy. How Dad was busy on a story and now Mom probably thought he was neglecting us. I told him how I wished I could solve my family like they were some sort of maths problem, balance the equation and get a nice neat answer.

  ‘That way, maybe I could make everyone equally happy, you know? And it would be fair.’

  I regretted it the instant the words were out of my mouth. But there was nothing I could do to take them back, and trying to cover them up would make it even worse.

  ‘Anyway, enough about me,’ I said. ‘Isn’t this your street?’

  ‘Nah, I’m going into the city. I’ll ride with you.’

  Side by side in the late afternoon haze, it was hard to tell if he was teasing me or trying to be nice.

  It was a relief when we finally got to my house. I pushed my bike up the steps as quickly as I could. Kevin offered to help, but I told him he’d done enough for one day.

  ‘Listen, about the money . . .’ Kevin put his foot on the bottom step, but I stopped him.

  ‘My dad isn’t home, so you’ll have to come by some other time.’

  ‘No, it’s fine. Just tell him to forget about it.’

  Kevin hopped off the step and back on to his bike.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I called after him.

  ‘I don’t need the money,’ he yelled back, and then he rode away, pedalling like his life depended on it.

  The list of things that made no sense just kept getting bigger.

  The inside of our house was quiet. Dad probably had to stay at the paper until his deadline. I ran upstairs to take a shower and get some fresh clothes. There was no way I was touching food until I was clean. As I opened my bedroom door, I took a deep breath and prepared myself to pretend I hadn’t heard a word of Della and Mom’s conversation. Just because I don’t like acting doesn’t mean I’m no good at it.

  Della preparing for an audition was a force of nature. Specifically, a tornado. My room looked like it had been turned upside down and shaken. Hard. Clothes from all of the drawers and wardrobe lay scattered across the floor and draped over the furniture. Sheet music and manuscript pages littered the bed. The air bed was propped up, covering the window. Della was doing the splits in the middle of the floor
, her head pressed all the way down to her knee. I picked my way across the room and found a clean pair of pyjamas.

  ‘Oh my God, Alice. You stink.’ Della sat up, turned her waist 180 degrees and put her nose to her other knee. ‘What have you been doing?’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it. I’m going to shower.’

  I turned to walk out, stepped on something sharp and hopped the rest of the way to the bathroom. I turned on the shower and stood under the spray with my eyes closed. The hot water stung where my scalp was sunburnt, but it was worth it. I used the rough side of the sponge to scrub myself clean. I wished I could scrub the day away as easily as the dirt. It had been nothing but one long string of disappointment and dead ends.

  Everyone I’d talked to seemed to think that Dr Learner was out there, turning invisible. I just didn’t buy it. Sure, one day someone would figure out how to bend enough light to make an invisibility suit, but Dr Learner made his breakthrough six months ago. Even if he’d developed new technology that would make an invisibility suit possible, there was no way six months was enough time to build a working prototype. Especially if he didn’t let anyone help him. Something else had to be going on. The problem was, all anyone had seen was the tape of Dr Learner disappearing from a locked room, and they jumped to conclusions before learning all the facts. It was sloppy, bad logic and it made my skin itch.

  I tipped my head back to rinse the bubbles out of my hair and found myself wondering what the point was. If Dr Learner had finished the suit, why did he use it to disappear at all? And what was he using it for now? I knew he hadn’t sold it to Chronos, since they were still out there looking for it. Besides, if he needed money, he could have just taken the diamonds. I breathed out hard, blowing water off of my lips.

  No matter how I did the maths, Dr Learner running away by himself didn’t add up. Someone else must have made him disappear. But if that was true, why didn’t we see them on the security tape? I shampooed my hair again. If I wanted to find Dr Learner I needed to figure out how he got out of his office. I must have missed something when we were there. Once I knew how he did it, I’d know who helped him. And if I knew that, finding him would be simpler than solving x = 1 + 1.