The Gryphon Project

by Carrie Mac

  WITHOUT BEING ASKED, Tariq and Neko got up to make room. At first, Saul gently ushered Nadia in front of him, but that would’ve meant she’d end up beside Clea. She pulled him aside and ushered Neko and Tariq back in first. They slid along the banquette, and then she slid in too. There was only space for one more, and Saul—always the gentleman—gestured for Phoenix to take it.

  “I’m going to go dance some more.” She surveyed the group, cozily squished against each other on the plush red seat. She winked at Nadia. “You okay, hon?”

  Nadia nodded. With a glance at Clea, she pulled Saul’s arm across her shoulders and snuggled in.

  Phoenix wove her way back onto the dance floor. She closed her eyes and let the music fill her veins until she felt as if her heartbeat and the bass were one and the same. When the beat shifted, and she had to find her rhythm again, she opened her eyes and there was Tariq, watching her, a small smile on his lips. Arms folded, he wasn’t dancing, just staring. With an embarrassed gasp, Phee spun away so he couldn’t see her face, but he grabbed her arm and turned her back to him.

  “Where’re you going?”

  “Nowhere.” Phee was breathless from the dancing. She could feel the pulse at her wrist throbbing under his grip, pulsing against his palm. “Why?”

  Tariq let go of her hand to gesture behind him. “Time to go.”

  “You came to get me?” Phee hollered over the music as it kicked back into a drum and bass frenzy.

  “What?”

  “You didn’t come to dance?”

  He shook his head, not in reply to her question, but to indicate that he couldn’t hear her. He took her wrist again and led her out of the crowd to where the others were standing around, bleary-eyed and wan-looking, all of them.

  “What time is it?” Phee asked as they collected their jackets.

  Her question was answered when Gryph pushed open the heavy doors to the alley, and the pale wash of early morning met them with a damp, chilly embrace. And fish stench, of course. Within moments, Phee was freezing, the sweat she’d worked up dancing turning cold. She shivered. Tariq took his jacket off and draped it over her shoulders. Phee had to stop in her tracks, she was so blown over by his gesture. Clea and Nadia were wearing Gryph’s and Saul’s jackets too. It was a boyfriend sort of thing to do. She finally found her voice amid all her excitement.

  “Th-tha-thanks, Tariq.”

  Tariq shrugged. “No problem.” He walked beside her, and they made their way to a squat little diner near the station. A neon sign buzzed atop the roof: “The Balmoral.” Phee had to laugh, though, because the B and the first l were burnt out, so the sign read “The amoral.” The a moral. How appropriate.

  It was packed with ravers crammed into the little booths and taking up every stool at the counter. Only one waitress was working, along with the line cook, and the two of them looked dismayed as Phee’s group made their way in. It was a funny sight, all the colourful costumes of the ravers, against the tired mint green and dull chrome of the wilted diner. Gryph waved to a guy wearing devil horns and a red fun-fur hoody at the back booth, and soon he and his friends settled their bill and vacated so that Gryph and the others could sit. Gryph never waited long for anything, or so it seemed. Phee wondered if that would change if he kept on coming in second. Or third. Or worse.

  The waitress was older than Phee and Gryph’s grandmother, and took their orders for hot chocolate and breakfast specials all around. As they waited for their food, the girls started to yawn— even Clea looked a little drained—and soon Nadia was asleep, her head resting on Saul’s shoulder. Their food came, but Nadia continued to sleep.

  “You have hers.” Saul slid the plate across to Neko. “You’re the scrawny one.”

  When everyone was done, Gryph paid for them all while Saul roused Nadia enough to get her walking, and they were on their way back into the morning, which was at least a little brighter and warmer now.

  “I’ll see Nadia and Phee home,” Saul said when they arrived at the train station. By now, Phoenix was yawning too, and feeling the stretch and ache in her muscles from having danced all night long. Even sleepy, she hoped Tariq might offer to come along, but he didn’t, and soon Saul and the girls were getting on one train, and the others were getting on another.

  “Where’s everyone else going?” Phee asked through a yawn. “Neko should go home too.”

  “They’re taking Clea home, and then we’re staying at Huy’s,” Saul said. “His parents are away.”

  “Oh.” Phee yawned again.

  The three made their way to Nadia’s house, where Nadia stood on her front walk, half asleep and leaning against Saul.

  “I’m going in,” she said thickly. “I’m exhausted.” Saul helped her up the steps but didn’t go inside. Nadia’s parents weren’t fond of him to begin with, and certainly didn’t want to find him in their house at this early hour. “Phee?”

  “Yeah—”

  Saul grabbed her arm. Phee gave him a curious look but told Nadia to go on ahead without her.

  “You have to be tiptoe quiet,” Nadia said through a yawn. “You wake my parents and I’ll kill you.”

  When Nadia closed the door gently behind her, Saul turned on Phee. He grabbed her shoulders hard. “Have you told her?”

  “No!”

  “Then why is she acting all weird lately?”

  “Saul, I haven’t told anyone.” She could see the worry in his eyes. “Not a soul. I swear. Nadia’s not acting any more weird than normal.”

  He let go and sighed. “You better not have said anything.”

  “I haven’t.”

  “You have to promise.”

  “I already did!” Phee brought her voice back down to a whisper. “I won’t tell. Honest. So there’s no point in avoiding me. Acting like a jerk doesn’t make any difference. It’d be nice to have the old Saul back.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You should be.”

  “Well, I am. Okay? Are we good?”

  “Sure.”

  “Good …” Saul paused. “Because I didn’t exactly tell you everything.”

  “No. No way, Saul. Don’t tell me anything more. I don’t want to know.”

  He told her anyway, oblivious to her protests. “I already used my one recon.”

  Phee was suddenly wide awake. She straightened. “What?” She leaned in, not wanting him to have to speak above a whisper. “What did you just say?”

  “Remember when I went back east to visit my grandparents? When Gryph and I were in Grade 8?”

  Phee nodded. Her gut churned. She wished he would stop talking, but at the same time she was compelled to know more.

  “My grandpa didn’t die. He’s still alive.”

  “You died.”

  Saul nodded.

  Phee sat down on the steps, stunned. He was done. He didn’t have a recon left! Her head swam with all the implications. Saul sat beside her and whispered in her ear. “You can’t tell anyone. Especially not Nadia. Okay?”

  “Of course not.” Phee covered her face with her hands and nodded. “I won’t.”

  Behind them, the door opened and Nadia reappeared. “Aren’t you going to meet up with the guys?”

  Saul leaped to his feet. “I am.”

  Nadia glowered at him. “Then you better get going.”

  She let him kiss her but didn’t return it. Instead, she fixed Phee with a nasty glare, and when he’d gone down the steps, she shut the door in Phee’s face. Phee knocked as lightly as she could. The door swung open again.

  “First Clea and now you?”

  “Get a grip, Nadia.” Phee laughed to cover her nervousness. She was afraid to speak to Nadia at all for fear of blurting out Saul’s secret. “Your raging jealousy act is getting a little old. Me and Saul? As if!” With that, she pushed past Nadia and made her way up the stairs to her best friend’s bedroom at the end of the hall, careful to avoid the creaks she knew intimately. Nadia padded along behind her, less careful, and still
fixated on Saul and Phee’s private moment on the front steps.

  “Let it go, Nadia.” Phee stripped off her clothes that smelled of smoke and sweat, and pulled on a pair of pyjamas she’d fished out of Nadia’s drawer. “You’re being an idiot. Go to sleep. We only ever talk about you. You, you, and only you. Okay?” She was angry at Nadia for her foolish assumption, but more so because she’d cut short any opportunity to ask Saul the details about his secret life.

  Nadia stood there for another long moment, an annoyed look on her face. Her room was done in pinks and creams, and there she stood in wobbly heels and a short black dress and glitter dusted along her arms and a flock of bangles on each wrist. “You’re right. I’m being stupid.”

  “Yes. Yes, you are. Now go to sleep.”

  With a nod and a yawn, Nadia got into her pyjamas and crawled into bed, and within moments she was asleep beside Phee. Phee listened to her best friend’s steady breathing, trying to match her own with it. But she couldn’t calm down, let alone sleep. She was worried. About everything. Gryph and his dangerous trajectory. Saul and his illegal status. Thank goodness sleep finally took her against her will, because her mind would’ve careered on like that forever. When she did finally sleep, she fell into a dream of that pulsating music. She was back on the dance floor, with Tariq. At last, a respite from her worries. She wanted the dream never to end.

  DISCLOSURE

  She got kicked out of her dream when the baby next door—whose open nursery window was right across from Nadia’s—started wailing just after eight, which meant that Phee had had about two hours of sleep. After that, Phee lay awake, thinking while Nadia sprawled across most of the mattress, her arm flung over her head, snoring heavily. This, of course, made her think of Saul, and how he made fun of Nadia’s snoring. Saul. Dear Saul. And his secret. Saul had no recon left. Phee figured he’d told her only so that she’d realize how serious the situation was, how important her discretion. She wouldn’t tell a soul. And she wouldn’t ask him about it. She’d behave as if he’d never told her at all. It was a heavy, dark secret, and she could respect that.

  She and Nadia met the boys for a late brunch at a restaurant across the street from the arcade. It was a popular pancake house, and it was a weekend, so the place was full of families with children laughing and crying and running around, high on the sugar from their Belgian waffles. At Phee’s table everyone was tired from the late night, so the talk was minimal, the coffee refills plentiful.

  “Salt,” Gryph mumbled. And Phee passed him the salt.

  “Ketchup, please.” Saul nodded down the table at the red bottle. Phee slid it to him, careful not to give him any sort of funny look. How could he just carry on, life as usual, dousing his scrambled eggs with ketchup? She was finding it hard. She had so many questions. How had he died? Who had reconned him and where? How could he pass as a three-per?

  Phee watched Saul eat his breakfast. He held a piece of toast in one hand and used it to shovel up his eggs. What about his parents? They both had doctorates in the sciences and the two of them were working as consultants for a regional task force on … on what? Phee tried to remember. Something about microbes in air particles. Was that a lie too? Were they even his real parents? What was his home life like? She’d never been to his house. But Nadia had, and Gryph. She’d ask him about it. Discreetly, of course.

  HER CHANCE CAME when she and Gryph made their way back to the Shores later that day for a family supper. Her auntie Trish and uncle Liam and their three-year-old twin boys were coming up from Brampton, where they lived in a three-per suburb of other IT executives. It was Eva’s father’s eightieth birthday. Oscar was bringing in lobster from the East Coast, which he’d done every year for over a decade. She and Gryph were walking through the mall, taking a short cut.

  “What’s Saul’s house like?”

  “What do you mean?” Gryph was distracted, keeping his eyes on something ahead of them. Phee stretched up, trying to see what he was looking at, but she didn’t notice anything remarkable. The mall was busy with shoppers and weekend traffic, but as far as she could see, nothing out of the ordinary.

  “I mean, like …” But Phee wasn’t sure what she meant. She didn’t want to say anything to tip him off to her curiosity. “Is it neat and tidy?” She had this idea that one- and two-pers lived dirtier lives. After all, the more valuable a citizen, the more recons you were assigned. Which meant, conversely, that less educated, less valuable people didn’t know well enough to keep a nice home. Or, furthermore, didn’t have the means to pay someone else to keep it tidy for them.

  “Of course it is. Mr. and Mrs. Morrisey both work from home.”

  “Well, that doesn’t mean they keep a nice house—”

  “Look, Phee … go over there if you don’t believe me. I’m telling you, Saul’s mom is a neat freak.”

  “What’s she like? Does Saul look like her?”

  “What kind of dumbass question is that?”

  “I was just asking.” Phee heard the nerves in her voice, the way it tightened and went higher.

  “Why?”

  “Because.”

  “Because why?” Gryph gave her a look, a warning. “Saul is my best friend. Not yours. He is none of your business, in fact. So stop with the questions.”

  “Okay,” Phee said. She’d pushed it too far, and by Gryph’s reaction, she’d hit on something.

  “Good.” Suddenly, Gryph stopped mid-stride. Phee craned to see what he was so fixed on, and finally she did. His eyes were locked on a boy up ahead at the electronics store. He glanced around to be sure that the clerk was distracted, and then he clearly and obviously slipped something off the counter and into his pocket.

  “He just stole something,” Phee marvelled. “In plain sight!”

  “Hey, you! Stop!” Gryph took off after him. “You stay here, Phee,” he called over his shoulder.

  Screw that. Phee ran after him, straining to keep up to his athlete’s pace. The boy ran ahead of them both, checking frantically over his shoulder every few steps, only to find Gryph on his tail.

  The crowd of shoppers cut away to let Gryph through. “Someone stop him!” Gryph yelled.

  The thief looked over his shoulder again and, on seeing Gryph neatly closing the distance, deked off to the right and broke into a flat-out run. But he was no match for Gryph, who easily caught up and tackled him, and they both fell to the floor. Phee was panting, feeling the familiar asthmatic tightness in her throat when she finally caught up. The two boys tussled on the polished-tile floor, the sound of the waterfall at one end of the food court drowning out the thief’s protests. While Gryph might’ve been the stronger sprinter of the two, he didn’t have much experience with fighting. The boy managed to wrench one hand free and punch Gryph hard in the temple. Gryph shook his head, dazed.

  The boy seized the moment and slipped out from under Gryph. He sat on him and punched him in the temple again.

  “Stop!” Phee cried as the boy leaned all his weight on Gryph’s throat with a forearm. “Help!” Phee spun around, not sure what to do. “Over here!” She waved her arms at the two mall security guards running down the concourse. She turned back to Gryph, just as the kid pulled something from his pocket with his free hand. He lifted it up and it caught the light. A knife!

  “Gryph!” she screamed, pointing helplessly. “He’s got a knife.”

  “I see it! I see it.” Gryph dug his chin under the kid’s arm and shoved him off. Another heave and he flipped the smaller boy and was on top again. He pinned the boy’s arm with the knife under one knee and sat on his chest. A crowd gathered, curious.

  “Let us through,” one of the security guards ordered.

  “Let me go, asshole!” The boy, enraged and embarrassed, gave one last mighty shove, knocking Gryph off balance just enough to get his arm free. Still pinned under Gryph, he stabbed blindly at him, landing two or three good jabs.

  Gryph toppled to the floor, and the boy scrambled to his feet, practically b
acking right into the security guards. They grabbed his arm and twisted it until he dropped the knife.

  “Gryph!” Phee fell to her knees beside her brother. “You’re hurt!”

  “It’s not bad.” Gryph pulled his hand away from his stomach. His fingers and palm were red with wet blood. She pushed aside his hand and lifted his shirt. Just above his navel, a wide, oozing cut arced across to his rib cage.

  “Oh, my God, no!” Phee shouted. “Call an ambulance!”

  IT SEEMED LIKE FOREVER but it was probably only moments before Phee heard the sirens as the ambulance shuttle drew up outside. She stepped aside to let the medics attend to Gryph’s gash. Phee called her parents and told them to meet her and Gryph at the hospital.

  “I’m not going to the hospital,” Gryph growled as the paramedic doused his wound with an antiseptic solution. “Tell them I’m fine.”

  “You’re not fine.”

  Phee was right. Because he was still a minor, he couldn’t refuse, and the paramedics insisted that he needed to be stitched up at least, if not further checked for internal damage. They also insisted that he be carried out on the stretcher, despite his objections. People were taking pictures faster than the security guards could stop them, and by the time they reached the ambulance, the images had already been uploaded to the local media.

  “I can walk at least.” Gryph made to stand, but the paramedic pushed him back onto the cot.

  “Help us keep our jobs here,” he said with a glance to the enormous TV screen mounted at the street corner. There was Gryph, larger than life, his bloody stomach for all to see.

  “Then could we get out of here at least?”

  Phee didn’t think he sounded all that annoyed at the media attention, which was odd. This sort of thing was not okay with Chrysalis. They liked him to appear when and where they wanted so that he could say exactly what they wanted. Gryph managed a smile and made a peace sign before he lay back and let himself be strapped onto the stretcher.