by Jeff Adams
“Well, yeah, MIT has a team, and that’s still where I want to go. Coach said a scout from Ohio wanted to see more of me and….”
“More of you? When did they see you the first time?”
Shit. I was rapidly getting in over my head. Coach had said the cover was that an Ohio scout invited me. I didn’t think through telling this to Eddie who knew a lot about my college plans to this point.
“They scouted one of the seniors early in the season and they wanted another look at me. Since they’re going to be at this tourney, they reached out to Coach to invite me.”
He sat up in the beanbag and scowled at me. “I don’t get it, so now it’s Ohio? I thought we were staying here. That’s all we’ve talked about. And you’ve scoffed at playing competitively because that’s not the direction you wanted to go.”
“Coach and my parents think I should consider all my options.” We were quiet for a moment before I turned away to stare at the blank TV. “I thought you’d be kinda excited for me that someone thinks I’m good enough to play at that level.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Eddie’s expression soften as he let go a sigh that sounded like he’d been holding in way too much air. I hated that I played him with the gee-I’m-sorry move and tone. I kept stuff from Mom and Dad all the time, but at least they knew the bigger secrets that were in play.
“I am excited, Theo, because I know how much you love to play. But I don’t get why I’m not in the conversation, for the trip or for maybe going to a different school. How is this thing just coming up now? You can’t tell me that you didn’t have an idea that Ohio wanted to see you, or that it was even a possibility. What kind of tournament gives a player less than a day’s notice they have to travel, especially halfway across the country?”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” I said, and at least that was the truth. “Coach told me today and my parents were all for it.”
“Stop lying to me, Theo,” Eddie said tersely. The hard look was back, and my insides tensed up. I’d never heard him like this before. “Is this what you were hiding yesterday? Why you seemed so stressed out? You couldn’t figure out how to tell me that you were making new plans? I don’t expect you to ask permission or anything ’cause that’d be stupid. But I wanna know what you’re thinking. Maybe help you work through things. You listen to me all the time. It should be a two-way street.”
“Maybe I want to see if I’m good enough,” I said, locking eyes with him. I was going to have to go on the defensive if I was somehow going to save this. “Is that okay? I haven’t changed any plans. I’m just checking out this possibility.”
“You’re good enough, and I hate that you don’t know that.” My tactic did nothing to lighten his anger. “It’s bad enough you’ve got all this work stuff that I know stresses you out, and now this. What else is knocking around your head that I know nothing about? What goes on in the secret life of Theo Reese?”
And there it was. What would he think if he knew exactly how many secrets I had?
“It just wasn’t important enough to talk about. Nothing’s set yet.”
“Or maybe I’m not important enough to talk to. Who else knew? Mitch? I bet he knows.”
“Actually he doesn’t. I was gonna call him after I talked to you, because you’re the one who should know first.”
More silence. I was so out of my depth here. Eddie and I had enjoyed pretty smooth sailing, usually only disagreeing over the weird hours. This was a flat-out fight, and I didn’t like it.
I sat forward and reached for his hand. He jerked back when I made contact, as if I’d burned him.
“I think you should go.” He rolled out of the beanbag, struggled to stand up, and moved across the room—about as far away from me as he could get and still be inside the four walls. He didn’t let his healing ribs keep him from getting distance from me. “I’ll see you when you get back.”
“Eddie….”
Before I could get up or even say more, he interrupted me. “Really. Just go.”
With that, he retreated to the bathroom across the hall. It wasn’t lost on me that it was just a few days ago that I ran in there when I couldn’t deal with being in this room.
I really messed this up. I quietly left the room and slipped out of the house. Luckily his parents weren’t in the living room, so I didn’t have to make an awkward goodbye to them.
I didn’t think we’d broken up, but we were teetering on the brink. I had every intention of going through with my plans for MIT. Why would I change that? Not only was I already earning credits there, but I loved everything about the place. Once I was back, I’d make it clear that I’m not pursuing college hockey—outside of pickup or intramurals anyway—and that MIT is my college. Denver will have just been a lark.
I needed to come up with something big when I returned. He wanted to go to that fall dance. Maybe I could turn that into something super cool for us, as a way to apologize for all the stuff going on.
I’d expected him to be happy for me getting put into the tourney. I hadn’t thought about how it looked that I was going, though. Usually all the available scenarios clicked into my head so I could sort through to find the right one. Of course this was unlike anything I’d dealt with before, even though thinking through things was something I typically excelled at. This time I’d really botched it.
Maybe I was too engaged thinking about the mission. There were so many ways for that to go wrong, and it went far beyond hacking into the enemy’s network. There were agents to find and bad guys to capture. It didn’t seem possible to cover all the permutations.
I couldn’t bail on this mission; getting Dad back was too important. His capture was my fault because I hadn’t stopped the hack fast enough. Mom and Dad might be right. Once he was home, though, maybe I should actually set up a computer consultancy and live the lie I’ve been using as a cover for the last few years. Or I could just finish high school and be a regular guy.
It was a lot to think about. Hopefully my brain’s processors wouldn’t overload.
Chapter Fifteen
BY THE time I got to Denver, I thought I might be more nervous about meeting the team and being a good player for them, than about anything else that was happening. Of course the other thing on my mind was Eddie. He didn’t text me back last night, and he hadn’t today either. He also sent my calls straight to voicemail.
It’d been a while since I was on a team where I didn’t know anyone. The roster announcement would take place at the welcome dinner. I’d never done a tournament like that. I was going to have to prove myself to a coach and teammates that I didn’t know. I played good hockey. I knew that. Hopefully I’d be able to focus on the games when it was time, rather than getting distracted by the mission.
I had a lot to worry about. I didn’t want to let my teammates, fellow agents, or parents down.
Our group was staying in the host hotel, which was near the rink. My gear went straight to the rink and was being placed in my locker, which made me a little uneasy since I liked things to be a certain way. I’d deal with that tomorrow by getting there early.
Surprisingly I had a room to myself. I figured Mom or John or Coach would stay with me, but the room was all mine. I liked it for the privacy, but I also felt vulnerable, even though they were in the rooms surrounding me. I refused to let on about that, so I did my best to bury my uneasiness.
I’d brought my secure laptop as well as a tablet. Lorenzo and I had spent hours enhancing the iPad for the mission. It had customized apps that should let me get into the covert network, provided the intel we had was right.
A knock on the door made me jump as I was setting up the normal laptop at the desk. Looking through the peephole, I saw Mom.
“Hey,” I said, opening the door.
“How’re you holding up?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
I went to the desk to set up the laptop so it was ready to go if I needed to use it. I figured it was good t
o have it out for show too, so the room looked properly lived in.
“I’m not blind, Theo,” she said, taking a seat on the edge of the room’s king-size bed. “You’re stressed, more so than I’ve ever seen you. You can still walk away from this, or change places with Lorenzo.”
I swallowed a laugh I knew she wouldn’t appreciate. Lorenzo couldn’t take my place. Not now.
“How would he? He can’t play hockey, so he wouldn’t have easy access to the parts of the rink we need to be in.” I finished with the laptop and closed the lid so it’d sleep. “Besides, even he thinks my skills are a requirement to work through the network security we’re going to encounter.”
We looked at each other silently. I didn’t know what she expected me to say, and I couldn’t read her expression. This was a new thing. Usually she was an open book to me, but during the past few days, I hadn’t always been able to sort out what she was thinking. It’s like she’d put up new security protocols I hadn’t figured out yet.
“You’re growing up so fast,” she said with a sigh. “I haven’t reconsidered involving you in TOS for so long, because you’ve thrived working on whatever they give you. It’s been behind the scenes and mostly safe. You’re out here in real danger now. As Snowbird I know it’s one of the best possible things for the mission, but as Mom I’m terrified.”
Damn.
“It’s going to be fine,” I said. “There’re a lot of people here who won’t let anything happen to me.”
She opened her mouth and then didn’t speak. It just hung open for a moment.
“Can I be completely honest with you?” she finally asked.
I couldn’t say no, even though I was pretty sure I didn’t want to hear what she was going to say.
“I hope you always are, at least as much as the job allows.”
“You say that, about people watching over you, and yet you still got abducted.”
“I know. I’ve thought about that. I’m hoping it just looks like I’m here to play hockey and that they don’t know that I’m any kind of agent. Maybe they’ll think I had a chip because I’m the kid of an agent. In other words, I’m trying not to freak out about any of that.”
“How did I get a son who’s so smart?” she asked.
“Smart would’ve been to stay home. I’m scared too, Mom.” I stood up from the desk chair and went to the window to look out on the leaf-covered grounds. “I have no field training. The computer stuff isn’t a problem, but what if something else happens? The only thing I know is what I’ve seen in Bourne and Bond movies, and I’m not sure that’s helpful.”
I turned to face her but stayed by the window.
“I don’t suppose you can stuff all your training into my head in the next few hours?”
She smiled, and it made me happy.
“I wish it were that easy. Theo, you’re one of the smartest people I know. I think you’ve got a lot of common sense too. Just apply all of it.”
Another knock at the door. This was probably Coach, because we had to go to the opening reception in the ballroom.
I once again looked out the peephole. Indeed Coach had dressed sharp in his game-day attire of dark suit, dark shirt, and colorful tie. I always thought he looked red-carpet ready in this outfit. I dressed a lot more casually in a light blue T-shirt with dark jeans and dark sneakers. I had a jacket to wear too, just to dress up the whole thing.
“Come on in.” I held the door open for him.
“Katherine.” He acknowledged Mom. “Before we go, I want to set you up for comms so you’ll always be in contact.”
He pulled a case from his pocket. Inside was a small black object, scarcely bigger than a sprinkle on top of a cupcake. I’d seen these before because Lorenzo and I did an upgrade on them six months ago, but I’d never used one. He also pulled tweezers out of his pocket.
“I’m gonna put this in your ear and we’ll test it. You should know that once this is in, the six of us will hear everything you say, and you’ll hear everything we say, unless you modify the settings with the app.”
“Got it. So no late-night partying and such.”
I struggled not to laugh since I was not exactly the party type. Coach laughed first, though, and then Mom, so I couldn’t contain myself.
She slapped my shoulder as she walked by, headed for the door. “I need to check in with John. You”—she pointed at me—“behave!”
I grinned at her as she left. We needed more lighthearted moments to break the tension.
“Now be still and I’ll get this in place.” Coach picked up the tiny device with the tweezers and went to work.
It was hard not to move because of the tickly sensation in my ear. All I could think of was that gross scene in Star Trek II where Khan put those little mind-control critters into Chekov and that captain guy.
That’s what this whole mission was, trying to zap and get control of little critters. Where was Captain Kirk when you needed him?
“Okay,” Coach said. “You should hear my voice in your ear.”
I nodded. It was weird hearing him twice. The earpiece had a bit of delay, but it worked. It itched a little too, like a bug crawling around. I resisted scratching at my ear.
“You’ll get used to it.” He apparently noticed my discomfort. “I promise.”
Again I heard him twice. That, more than the itch, was going to take some getting used to.
“So when you are addressing comments to someone on channel, you’ll refer to them by their codename,” he continued. “That way there’ll be no guessing who you’re talking to. Lorenzo’s already sent the app to your phone. It turns it off completely, or lets you mute yourself or the external conversation.”
“Oh, so I can party and no one will know?”
“As long as you don’t forget the mute part” came Mom’s voice in my ear.
“Lastly anytime you activate yours, you should always come on with your codename. That way everyone knows you’re on channel.”
“Winger here.”
“Better late than never.” Coach clapped me on the shoulder. “Shall we get going?”
I grabbed my jacket and took a look in the mirror. I fussed with my hair just a bit, trying to get it to lie right. I wanted to make a good impression on my soon-to-be teammates and opponents.
I crossed in front of Coach, and he fell in behind me. Before I opened the door, he put his hand on my shoulder. “Don’t worry, Theo. You’re going to be fine. Nothing’s going to happen tonight.”
“Except I’m about to meet a hundred-something hockey players who are going to wonder why I’m here. I’d almost rather there was something techie for me to do.”
Coach chuckled under his breath. “It’ll still be fine.”
We chattered about the game we were missing back home as we went downstairs. I hated missing two weeks on the Tigers, but at least this was better than sitting out for an injury. We should win this game pretty easily, unless something went wrong. By next week the tracker matter should be solved and life back to normal.
Players and coaches packed the hotel ballroom. No scouts were allowed. This was just a mixer for the players, most of whom were here with coaches as chaperons. As far as they would know, Coach was my only guardian here. John and Mom had tickets as spectators and would blend in with parents here to watch.
Just inside the door was the check-in where I got my official name tag. I was branded: Theo Reese. Left Wing. McKinley High Tigers, Boston, Mass.
Thankfully my arrival didn’t make the entire room turn and look, which was a fear I’d had. Given the small number of tags left on the table, I was among the last to arrive. We were stuck down here until they made opening remarks and team assignments. I also had visions this was going to be like grade school PE. I was usually picked midpack back then, and while I didn’t know how this was going to work, I dreaded being the last pick.
“I’m going to mingle,” Coach said. “Try to have a good time. Remember you’re just as good as the rest
of these guys. Don’t sell yourself short.”
I didn’t know what I was doing. I played a good game, but being in this situation gave me the jitters. I wandered over to the buffet and picked up some little meatballs and some chicken strips along with a bottle of water I stuck in my jacket pocket. At least the food looked good.
I scanned the crowd, trying to size up the group. It pretty much looked like any gathering of high school athletes I’d ever seen. There were a couple of huge guys, who had to be defensemen, who I hoped I wouldn’t come up against. The players gathered together while the coaches had a cluster of their own.
“Hey. Glad to see I’m not the only one standing on the edge of the crowd.”
Luckily I didn’t flinch, even though this guy had snuck up on me.
“Yeah. Just getting the feel of the room. Theo Reese.” I turned to look at the guy.
He raised a fist, which I happily bumped in the universal hockey-player greeting. “Jamie McAllister. You’re another one of the wild cards. Cool.”
“Nice to meet you.” I hoped I didn’t sound too enthusiastic. “How’d you know I was a wild card, though?”
“Player bios went up on the website yesterday. The wild cards were all flagged with asterisks. How’d you get your ticket punched?”
“Ohio wanted to see more of me after they scouted a McKinley game looking at a couple of my teammates.” It rolled right off my tongue like it was the truth. “I hadn’t planned to play in college, but I guess we’ll see what comes of this.”
“Well done, Winger. No hesitation at all.”
It was almost a total freak-out when Coach’s voice came booming into my ear. Hopefully Jamie didn’t see a reaction.
“Cool.” If Jamie noticed any change in me, he didn’t mention it. “I was too wishy-washy at the top of the season. I wasn’t sure if college was even what I wanted, but if I can get a scholarship, it’d be worth it. My coach got a contact of his to invite me. We’ll see. Maybe I’ll get on someone’s radar.”
