Extraordinary Lies

by Jennifer Alsever

  “Will you help me break into the cage?”

  23

  Charley

  Cord looked like he had just eaten an entire pie. Like he’d puke right there on his lap—just like I’d seen Mr. Goldschmidt do about four times in the diner.

  I plopped down next to him in SRI’s lobby. He held a copy of the New York Times open.

  My hair was still damp. I’d showered every day since I passed out at the park, and only now was I starting to feel somewhat human again.

  Cord let go of the newspaper and looked at me as if I’d just climbed out of a grave.

  “Chica!” he said with relief. I liked when he called me that. “Where you been? There’s some serious crime around these parts. We got so scared.”

  I shrugged and waved my hand at him. “I’m fine. You looked like you were going to throw up a second ago. What’re you reading?”

  He held up the newspaper. “This is bad.”

  At the top of the fold, I read the headline, K.G.B. Enhances Espionage among NATO Allies.

  “So?” I asked.

  He pointed to the headline next to it: Vietnam Archive: Pentagon Study Traces 3 Decades of Growing U.S. Involvement.

  “Read it,” he said. “I ain’t getting over it.”

  The story talked about classified documents that showed how for years, the federal government lied about the Vietnam War. Lied. Four presidential administrations planned to prolong the war and expand it, even though they had little reason to believe they could ever win.

  “Wow,” I said. What I didn’t say: Not surprising.

  I looked up and into Cord’s hazel eyes, rimmed in a dark chocolate brown. A sort of devastation painted his face, as if this was something deeply personal. “The government. Them guys was lying about the war for years. They know it ain’t winnable, but none of them presidents was gonna be the one to quit and lose. All them soldiers. All them Americans died in the war for no reason at all.”

  I nodded. It could have been Cord or so many boys I knew.

  “All them guys got sent to Vietnam for America. They sacrificed. Just like my Dad.”

  I curled on the couch and sat sideways so I could look directly at him. I never noticed the dimple on his chin that twisted when he was mad.

  “This whole time, the government keeps us fighting. Keeps everything going and lies about it.” He shook his head and gritted his teeth.

  My body softened. “You’re pretty wrecked. Your beloved military.”

  The color returned to his face and he straightened. His voice became staccato. “The military keeps our country safe, Charley.”

  “Well, of course it does,” I said, shoving the paper in his chest. “But listen. We’ve got bigger issues.”

  “Like what?”

  “Dr. Carrillo won’t let Julia try remote viewing.”

  He tossed his hands up. “So? They don’t let me do nothing anymore.”

  I told him all about Julia and her aunt’s ghost in Chinatown and the guy who followed her.

  “She seen them glowing lights, too?” he asked.

  “No… But now she wants to go to the scene of the crime.”

  “Crime? She don’t know there was even a crime. Why don’t she just take a bus there, or call the cops?”

  “Right. I can imagine her explaining it to the police now, ‘Oh, I’m seeing my dead aunt’s ghost and I think she was killed in the middle of nowhere, America.’” I chuckled.

  “Right.”

  “We’re going to get her into the cage. We’re breaking in like thieves tonight.”

  He grimaced. “Yeah, I ain’t so sure about that idea.”

  “Why not?”

  “She seen a ghost. But remote viewing—nobody can do that yet. That girl Carol goes and tries and dies.”

  “I know.” My ribs squeezed my heart.

  He shook his head and looked at the wall before turning back to me. “How’s she gonna investigate”—he put air quotes around the word—“a maybe-murder from ten years ago? And then, you want me to break into the lab. I’m supposed to risk everything for that?”

  I looked at him blankly. Yes, that is it exactly. Here was a girl who likely kept her head down and zipped her mouth shut. Here was a girl who wanted to finally stand up for herself and find out why her family was a total mess. So yes, that was what we were going to do. Julia deserved our help. Plus, I liked the idea of sticking it to Dr. Carrillo and her creepy SRI experiments.

  “Yup.”

  He grimaced.

  “Oh, come on,” I said, slapping his chest. He looked at me sideways with a look that was charming and sweet. When our eyes locked, a twirly feeling filled me. I’d noticed. All of it. That brush of his hand on my arm. Leaning against me when the bus turned a corner.

  He looked away, and the look was gone, wiped clean.

  “Oh, Cord,” I said. “I know you’re not all about that whole goody-two-shoes thing you claim, picking berries and reading Shakespeare on the hillside.”

  “I didn’t read no Shakespeare.” He smiled, and it lit up his eyes.

  “Yeah, but it fits with the wholesome boring thing.” I smiled, resting my arm on the back of the couch and holding my tilted head with my palm.

  He did that little high-pitched silent laugh. Complete with grin and squinty happy eyes.

  He sniffed. “I got stuff happening at home. My dad and his stroke. Celia. Luke. Carol. Joey.” He paused and looked at his lap. “And I’m probably getting married.”

  I’m sure my whole face fell. I could’ve guessed all this. I had known after touching his hand the other night, yet I couldn’t shake the disappointment. Of course a good guy like that was taken.

  I hid the thoughts with a long blink. “She pregnant?”

  “Wha—”

  “Stella. The girl you’re supposed to marry.”

  “No!” He looked away, and his cheeks flushed. After a long awkward pause, he added, half to himself: “Stella, she’s good.”

  “Yeah, sounds like the perfect spouse. Super in love, you are.”

  “Marriage… it makes sense. Maybe I’ll work for the government or the mine.”

  “What would you even do for the government? The lying, stinking government?”

  “They ain’t all liars. Maybe I’m a spy. I dunno, a psychic soldier? My dad, he expects me to—”

  “To fight for a war that’s unwinnable. That’s what you said! Really, it’s just what you do,” I said. “Like how you pick berries. But you also marry the girl next door. You never watch TV and you pretend you’re not dying to go out and live a little and be stupid.”

  “Stupid?” He frowned. I hadn’t realized before how perfect those dark eyebrows were. How they framed the hazel eyes like picture-perfect umbrellas.

  He craved a little adventure. His friend Sweater was kind of a jerk at times, his hand told me. And that Sweater kid let him down a lot. He was selfish. He was a little like me. But Cord liked what people like us brought to the table. I could feel it. “You know, stupid. Be crazy? Do things that only young people do. Have some fun.”

  He gazed at me for a long while, and I just stared back at him, challenging him. Finally, he shifted on the couch, and I caught a whiff of a flowery perfume. Next to him sat a folded piece of pink stationary. It must’ve been a letter, probably from Stella, sprayed with her obnoxious perfume. How romantic. How ridiculously stupid. I’d never do something like that for a guy.

  I picked up the letter with two fingers, letting it swing back and forth between us. “This from Stella?”

  He hesitated and then nodded.

  “Ahh,” I said, putting it back on the couch. I placed my palm on the paper, glimpsing a few of the words tucked inside that letter. Generic loopy lines like I hope you’re enjoying yourself. Celia cut her knee. I’m planting peas. Not the mushy love letter I expected. Then the familiar rush of energy came, and I saw the truth: A girl’s giggle. A lilting voice that sounded like syrup. A log house. A back yard, someone behind
a big pine tree.

  Her dark hair came into view first. Then a flash of skin. A low male voice. I couldn’t see through the branches of the trees. The sound of someone eating? No, kissing. Another glimpse and there she was, rolling around on the pine needles in her backyard with another guy. Stella.

  She rolled until she was on the bottom and the guy was on top. Long shaggy hair. And then, a face. Cord’s best friend, Sweater.

  I pulled my hand away from the letter like it was a scorching hot stove, and my stomach churned. Cord frowned, then glanced at the pink paper. He had to have known I’d seen something. Knowing what she did ripped my heart in two. I couldn’t imagine how Cord would feel if he found out she was messing around with Sweater.

  Does everyone lie? Yep, Cord, everyone lies.

  “So, tell me,” I said. “How should we break in?”

  The clock struck two o’clock in the morning and I slipped into the darkened hall, wearing jeans and a black top. It was the closest thing to robber attire I had. Within a minute Minnie and Henry stumbled out of their rooms. Henry wore bell-bottom pants and some shiny disco shirt. Not at all appropriate for breaking and entering. Minnie stood in fuzzy pink pajamas and her hair tied up in two little-girl pigtails.

  Cord sauntered out slowly, stretching and yawning. Next, Julia. Her typical neatly pressed hair looked messy. When they saw Henry, both of them shirked back.

  “Where’s Samuel? He’s not back yet?” Julia asked.

  “Telling you,” Henry said. “He dropped out.”

  “I reckon not,” Minnie said. “We talked about all this. He was hell bent on helpin’ find answers and contributin’ to science.”

  “Naw, I’m sure—” Henry said.

  Minnie put her hands on her hips and turned square to face him. “He wouldn’t let no antics chase him away,” she said.

  I stepped between them. “I bet we’ll find some clues about where he might’ve gone. In Dr. Carrillo’s office.” It was a lame suggestion. I knew it. Julia’s aunt wasn’t more important than Samuel. But I kept on going. “We’ll kill two birds with one break-in.”

  Henry gave a thumbs up. “You bet. We get into Carrillo’s place, get this book that you saw her use to tell you where to go in remote viewing, right Minnie?”

  “Yeah…,” she said, frowning. She so didn’t trust him. She looked at me again.

  “Book?” Julia asked.

  Minnie turned to address Julia—putting her back to Henry. “The book got all those geographical coordinates that are supposed to tell y’all where to find those places with your mind.”

  We needed the key too, though. “You said she keeps the key to room with the cage in her office, too?” I asked quickly.

  Minnie nodded, so tired, like her head was tied by a piece of thread.

  Julia and Minnie both eyed Henry as we made our way down the metal stairs. Our footsteps rang too loud on the stairs.

  Sleepily, no one said a word in the lobby. No one said a thing as we crossed the lawn to the SRI building. And no one talked as we tiptoed down the long dark hallway in the Dungeon, beneath the exposed pipes, conduits, vents, and snaking wires.

  When we got to the dead end of the hallway, Henry turned to me. “You got the hairpins?” he asked.

  Julia’s jaw went slack as she watched me hand over two bobby pins to him. When I’d told Henry what we’d be doing, he’d volunteered to lead our little break-in—which was perfect, because I had no idea how to pick a lock.

  I held my breath, and the four of us stood close to him as he squatted down by the doorknob. He pulled the rubber tip off one pin and pushed the second one into the lock and bent the end into a handle. Then after a couple seconds of twisting, the lock clicked and he swung open the door.

  “How’d you know how to do that?” Julia asked.

  “TV,” he said.

  Inside Dr. Carrillo’s office, I ran my hand over the wall and then hit the lights. The bulb overhead cast a yellow haze in the room, which smelled like Dr. Carrillo—stale coffee, paper, some sort of rubber scent that I couldn’t put my finger on. The place was a total disaster. Papers covered the top of the gray metal desk. Folders and books were stacked waist-high on the floor. A half-eaten apple sat on the file cabinet. She was worse than me.

  “I would have pegged her for a neat freak,” Julia said before adding under her breath, “like Mother.”

  “What now?” Cord rung his hands. “There’s gotta be alarms or cameras in here.”

  I shrugged. I hadn’t thought of that. “Just hurry. Look for anything related to coordinates for this Mandaree place.”

  Henry picked the lock to Dr. Carrillo’s desk and glanced up with a charming smile. My baffled look melted off my face, and instinctively I batted my eyes. Oh boy, I drank in his cheekbones and the crooked angle of his nose. He took a pen and small pad of paper out of his back pocket and began copying down information from manila folders.

  “What’re you looking at?” Cord asked. I looked at him and felt that sour feeling of guilt. Cord was so sweet, and we had a connection. But Henry was more my speed.

  Henry answered without looking up. “Curious. I got to get as good as you guys at this stuff.” Henry still scribbled. “I’ll look for the goods on Sammy-boy.”

  Cord scowled and turned to scan the shelves. Henry clearly didn’t affect everyone else the way he did me. Julia gnawed on her cheek and tapped her foot, an irritating sound that felt like a time bomb in my chest. I was just about to tell her to cut it out, when I spotted something dark tucked inside a box of red wires.

  “This it?” I yanked out a thick black book.

  “Well, ain’t that the berries!” Minnie said. “Don’t it look like an atlas? Has all these locations from all over the world.”

  I sat on the floor next to Minnie, and we flipped through pages for several minutes until finally we found the coordinates for Mandaree, North Dakota.

  “Check this out.” Cord held up a typed report. He brought it to me, and together we read it. It was a CIA report by a guy who called himself a CIA analyst. A Rudolph Keronin:

  Classified. Severodvinsk Naval Base, Russia.

  “Isn’t this the place Dr. Carrillo asked you to go? That one experiment?” I asked. The one he failed.

  “Yeah.” His voice sounded breathy. Together, we looked closer at the paper.

  Data for URDF-3: 650 miles north of Moscow near the Arctic Circle. It seems unimaginable to conceive how Ayala sketched a crane that so resembled the one at URDF-3. That is, unless he actually did view it through psychic means. Or rather, he could have received information from someone with knowledge of the URDF-3. Was he supplied data for disinformation by the KGB? There was no control study to discount the possibility that Ayala could talk to other people.

  “What the—” Cord asked too loudly, and Julia shushed him. “They think I’m some Soviet spy. Me! A Soviet spy!” Disbelieving, he laughed.

  We continued to read: The KH-9 spy satellite photographs from September showed no canal at the water’s edge; only flat tundra.

  “But I seen water. A canal.” Cord threw his arms up.

  “This has nothing to do with Sabrina,” Julia said, inhaling and pressing her palm to her forehead.

  I turned to Cord. “Wait,” I said. “They said this whole project was about research. But they’re using us.” As spies. Without our knowledge.

  At the end of the transcript was a short report dated this week that read: New images captured by the KH-9 spy satellite over Severodvinsk reveals a massive submarine tethered alongside a naval dock. This is something the intelligence community has never seen before. We believe this is a prototype for an entirely new generation of nuclear-powered ballistic-missile submarines.

  The next few pages showed all these photocopies of black-and-white satellite images of the naval base.

  “You were right in your prediction, Cord!” I said.

  “See? Told you.” Cord slapped his thighs. “Them pictures prove it. I was a ps
ychic spy and I didn’t even know it.”

  “But they didn’t believe you,” I said.

  “I’ll make them.”

  “But you can’t tell them you broke in here.”

  He didn’t get to answer. Julia’s voice cut through the air. “Glad you saved America from the Soviet submarine, Cord,” she said. “But we’re going to get caught.”

  I thought it was pretty damn cool that Cord saw the canal before satellite spy photos did, and I was dying to see the reports for my own sessions.

  Minnie held up some keys. “Y’all, I found that key to the cage. Let’s get on outta here!”

  Julia bit her lip and gazed off to the corner of the room, clearly deliberating. What was the holdup? This was why we came. This was why she was so uptight. We needed to bolt and get in that cage.

  “What if I can’t?”

  “Can’t….” I said slowly.

  Julia’s voice sounded desperate. “I move things when I’m angry. But it doesn’t mean that I’ll have any control of this or that it even applies to remote viewing. And … what about Carol.” She gulped and looked at the floor. “Look what happened to her.”

  “Minnie tried and didn’t die,” I said quickly. Annoying and cheerful. Carol was a freak accident, right?

  “True, true.” Minnie raised her hand. “Still alive.”

  “You have to try. That’s all,” I said.

  “Now?” asked Julia.

  “Now.”

  24

  Julia

  The Faraday cage loomed in the dim light, looking more like a medieval torture device than some kind of magical transportation box. The room felt just as eerie. Cracks ran up the mint-green walls and cobwebs stretched out in the corner of the room. I rubbed the goosebumps off my arms.

  Minnie leaned close to me. “Julia, sugar, you get this done, and you’ll be grinnin’ like a possum eatin’ a sweet tater.”