Blackout

by Meredith McCardle

  “Caroline!” Bonner calls, raising a hand. My gaze follows, and I see the moment the future vice president realizes it’s Bonner who’s calling her. There’s a fleeting look of disgust, followed by an almost immediate smile that’s sweet as saccharine—and just as artificial.

  I push my way closer, ignoring the hands reaching for my tray. I beeline for a group standing about five feet from Caroline Caldwell and hold the tray out to them while glancing over my shoulder. Bonner and Caroline do a double cheek kiss, and the future VP looks like she’s about to vomit.

  “Well, howdy, little lady. What do we have here?”

  It’s a voice I know. A voice that makes me squeeze the handles of the tray. I turn, and Joe Caldwell is staring at me. I open my mouth, but no sound comes out. I’m violating the first rule of reconnaissance, which is to not be seen by anyone you know.

  Breathe, I tell myself. He’s not going to remember a waiter at one of the countless political fundraisers he’s been to over the years. Don’t draw attention to yourself, and he’ll have no reason to remember you.

  “Sorry?” I say.

  Joe points to the tray. “What is it?”

  “Oh!” I look down. “Salmon and avocado. It’s a chef specialty.” Maybe that’s true.

  “Don’t mind if I do!” he says as he takes one, and he’s talking so loudly I can’t hear what his wife is saying to Bonner. And then there are more reaching hands. Almost a dozen of them, and everyone is chattering, and I’m missing the whole freaking conversation that I need to be eavesdropping on!

  “Deeeee-lish!” Joe takes the last one and pops it into his mouth. “My favorite of the night. Hey, sweetheart, why don’t you go back down to the kitchen and grab another tray of those.” He plops an empty glass onto my tray. “And while you’re at it, get me another of these. Three fingers of Scotch, a splash of soda, two ice cubes.” He pulls out a dollar and shoves it into the top of my vest. His hand lingers a second longer than necessary. Then he flashes me a grin. “For your troubles.”

  A dollar. A dollar. Are you kidding me, a dollar? I have to bite my tongue—literally bite down on it to hold back the words I want to say. I settle on a simple, “Yes, sir.”

  Joe claps the man next to him on the back. I’m already forgotten. So I return my attention to Caroline. Senator Wharton has now joined the conversation. I find Green in the crowd, and he shakes his head at me, like he’s disappointed in me for the momentary attention lapse. I look away.

  “Well, it was lovely to see you,” Caroline says to Bonner, “but if you’d please excuse us, Senator Wharton and I have a few matters of business we need to discuss.”

  The smile vanishes from Bonner’s face. “Um, of course. It was lovely to see you again, Caroline.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  And then Bonner leaves. She passes right by Joe, and his head turns to gaze at her ass for a few steps.

  “Who’s that?” Wharton asks.

  “That,” Caroline says with a sigh, “is Marie Quail.”

  I’m not ready for that answer. I fumble the tray in my hands and have to grab onto the sides to steady it. Joe’s glass tips over but doesn’t fall off. Wharton and Caroline both look at me.

  I clear my throat. “Do either of you have any glasses for me to take?” As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I realize what a dumb question it is. Wharton’s holding a full glass of amber liquid. Caroline’s hands are empty. She looks at me like I’m a complete moron and doesn’t even acknowledge the question. I duck my head and turn to the side.

  “She works in Washington,” Caroline continues. “She probably knows half the men in this room.” It’s clear from her tone what that means. It’s also clear the conversation about Bonner—Marie—whatever the hell her name really is—is over. “Listen, where are we on the energy vote?”

  Wharton starts talking about this senator and that senator and what they expect the vote to be, and I don’t care. Green meets my eyes and jerks his head back, a “come here” gesture.

  “Don’t ever beckon me again,” I say as I sidle up to Green. “Did you hear what Caldwell said?”

  Green stares at me for a second before he nods. “Who in the sweet hell is Marie Quail?”

  And then Senators Wharton and Caldwell are shaking hands, and Caroline taps her husband on the shoulder. “We’ve made our appearances. I’m ready to leave.”

  “Sure,” Joe says, and I turn my back as they walk past, but neither of them pay me a second glance.

  Abe finds us in the thinning crowd. “Howe left about five minutes ago.”

  “Anything about XP?” I whisper.

  He shakes his head.

  I sigh. “So should we call this thing? Wharton’s the only one left, and I don’t think it’s him.”

  “It’s definitely not Wharton,” Green says. “He doesn’t have the air. I actually think he’s trying to be a genuine lawmaker and stay away from the nasty underside of politics.” He snorts. “Good luck with that.”

  “I say we head back and have a very serious conversation with Marie Quail.”

  “Who?” Abe says.

  I explain to Abe on the walk back to Annum Hall. As we climb into the closet, I’m thinking about how I’m going to do it. I’m just going to come out and tell Bonner that I know she’s hiding something. I’m going to demand answers.

  But as soon as we get back, all that is forgotten. Because there’s an alarm going off. The same alarm we heard when Orange went missing.

  Someone else has been blacked out.

  CHAPTER 18

  Yellow, Indigo, Violet. One of them didn’t make it back.

  My mind goes right to Yellow—the only one flying solo—as my hand finds Abe’s. His fingers close around mine, and for the moment, every bit of tension, of awkwardness, between us is gone. Green pushes past us. “Red!” He’s racing down the hallway now. “Who? Who’s missing?” His voice is almost panicked.

  Red steps out into the hall, and Yellow is behind him. I blow out the breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. Yellow is safe.

  But there are tears streaming down her cheeks. Big black smudges of eyeliner and mascara drip down her face, and she doesn’t raise a hand to wipe them away.

  And then I know.

  Indigo.

  No. NO.

  Abe throws his arm around my shoulder and hugs me tight.

  “Who?” I whisper, as if daring Red to say the name.

  Then there’s a familiar ziiiiiip, and all of us spin around to see Violet tear out of the gravity chamber. She’s choking and stumbling and holding onto the wall.

  “I tried!” she yells. “They got him! They tried to get me, too. I wanted to go back for Indigo, but I couldn’t. I just . . . It was chaos and confusion, and I don’t even know what happened.”

  She sinks to her knees and gasps for breath, and I feel like someone should go to her, hug her, reassure her. But no one does. We all stand there. My feet are anchored to the floor. Indigo. They were following Secretary Howe. And now Indigo is gone.

  “How many of them were there, Violet?” Red asks.

  Violet swallows. “Two. There were two.”

  “Describe them.”

  She’s still trembling. “I don’t know. I couldn’t see their faces. They were wearing ski masks. They weren’t that tall, not that muscular, but clearly male and trained in combat. They had these long metal poles that whirred and hissed and lit up. One of them grabbed me, one grabbed Indigo, and I just sort of lost him. I was too focused on freeing myself, and as soon as I did, I ran and ran and ran. I was going to project back from where I was, but I just kept running.”

  No one says anything.

  “We have to do something!” Yellow wails.

  Red reaches out and helps Violet off the floor. He has to hook his elbows under her armpits to get her to stand. “Violet, pull yourself together. What did they say? How far into the mission were you?”

  “Neither of them said a single word the whole time.” Her
eyes fly to each of us. “We were hours into the mission. They just showed up at the end, right as—”

  The door to the stairwell bangs open, and the Narc storms through it.

  “What is this?” Her voice is loud and screechy. “What are you doing?” She stares at us individually, and when she gets to me, her expression sours.

  And then she’s in my face. “It was you! You did this!”

  Red lets go of Violet and pushes between me and Bonner. “It wasn’t Iris. It was me. It was all me. Indigo was taken.”

  Bonner throws back her shoulders. “Both of you, my office. Now!”

  Abe squeezes my hand. Violet looks around nervously, while Yellow stares at me with pink, puffy eyes. I try to give her my best reassuring look, but I don’t think it works.

  Red and I follow Bonner upstairs to her office.

  “You can leave Iris out of this,” Red says once we’re inside. “I authorized the missions.”

  It’s like she doesn’t even hear him. Bonner’s finger flies in my face. “You’ve been undermining my authority ever since I got here, Iris. You have a real problem with me, and I’m done taking your attitude.”

  “Jane,” Red says, “let’s not—”

  I hold up a hand to stop him. “You’re partially right,” I tell her. “I thought I had a huge problem with Jane. Funny thing, though, turns out my issue is with Marie.”

  Her face goes white.

  I’m not done.

  “And what I want to know is why Marie seems so intent to cover for XP.”

  “I ordered you to let that go. Let XP go.”

  “What is going on here?” Red asks.

  “Why?” I shout at her. “There’s a real threat and a real enemy, and you’re not following the trail!” I turn to Red. “Her name isn’t even Jane Bonner!”

  “What?”

  Then Bonner is on me. She grabs my arm—all five of her fingertips pressing into my bicep. “You have no idea the danger we’re all in.” Suddenly I stop fighting her grip. I hear the fear in her voice, see it lurking behind her eyes.

  “You know who’s behind the blackouts.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Bonner pushes me away as she lets go of my arm. “Give me your watch. It’s going back in the lockbox, back in the safe, and it’s never coming out again. You are on indefinite administrative leave.”

  I blink. “You’re firing me?”

  “Jane!” Red says. “I told you—”

  “Give me your watch.”

  “No. Not until you tell me what you’re doing here, Marie, and who you really are.”

  “I said give me your watch.”

  “And I said no! Who are you working for? Whose pocket are you in?” And then I smirk. “Or should I ask, whose pants are you in?”

  Before I have time to move, her knuckles crack across my cheekbone, and light explodes behind my eyes. I stagger sideways and slam into the side of the desk. Red reaches to help me, but I shake him off.

  I push off the desk and turn to Bonner, fists raised. No one has ever hit me like that before, and every instinct I have says fight.

  But then Bonner raises her hands in submission. “I’m sorry.” She drops into her chair and cradles her head in her palms. Her shoulders shake, and I can tell for sure now that Bonner—Marie Quail—is terrified.

  “This is not supposed to be happening,” she whispers.

  I lean over the desk. “What’s not supposed to be happening?”

  Bonner looks up. “Believe it or not, I’m trying to protect you.”

  “From what?” I bang both fists on the desk. “I think you’re just trying to get rid of me.”

  “Give me your watch. Please. Please give me your watch! This is the only way I can help you.”

  “No, it’s not. You can tell me—”

  “Your watch, Iris!” She holds out her hand, palm up. It’s clear she’s not going to tell me anything else.

  And so I slip the watch over my head and hand it to her.

  “You can stay at Annum Hall until the end of the week.” She gestures to the door. This conversation is over.

  Except that it’s not. She can be scared and try to hide the truth, but I’m not giving up. Not when my teammates—my friends—are in danger.

  As soon as I have my hand on the door, she adds, “I’m serious, Iris. Don’t go digging for answers you don’t want to know.”

  But I do want to know.

  “Well, I’m not quite sure how you expect me to dig, given that you just fired me and all.”

  Bonner narrows her eyes. “Leave. And close the door behind you.”

  I don’t look at Red on the way out. I should have known I’d take the fall for this, no matter what he said. And, as Bonner knows, without Annum Guard, I have no way to figure out who XP is.

  CHAPTER 19

  What happens next is a blur. I stumble past my teammates, past Abe. I mumble, “I got fired.” There are gasps and protests, but I ignore them. I go out into the foyer and instinctively look toward the library, even though the interns aren’t there. It’s just after six in the morning. I go upstairs. I call my mom’s cell. She doesn’t answer. I call the house phone in Vermont. It’s been disconnected. I try her cell again and leave a message. My third? Maybe fourth? I tell her I’m coming home. Even though I don’t know if she’s in Vermont.

  When a manic period hits, she’s a compulsive road tripper. Up and down the east coast, as far as her wallet will take her. I have good memories of riding the Ferris wheel at the Jersey Shore, of pretending to churn butter at Colonial Williamsburg.

  And then not good memories of Mom’s shouting matches with a security guard at the Met, after he asked her to keep it down and to stop screaming at everyone in the gallery that her work was better than Rothko’s. I was thirteen. I remember how I felt being escorted out through a security entrance, the deep shame down to my toes.

  I answer the door when I hear the knock because I know it’s Abe. I don’t say anything. He doesn’t say anything. I tumble into bed, and Abe lies behind me, wrapping his arms around me like a blanket. I let myself melt into him.

  For a second, I let myself imagine that I’m back at Peel, that I get a big do-over of my junior year. And then for another second, I imagine I’m not at Peel, not at Annum Guard. That I’m just a normal girl living a normal life, about to start my senior year of high school. I have a boyfriend, maybe even a summer job, and I’m starting to think about college. How nice would that be? To have my biggest problem in life be the SATs rather than bringing down a corrupt ring of time-traveling criminals.

  And then I close my eyes.

  Before I know it, I’m waking up. I’m alone, and I roll over to look at the clock. It’s eight twenty-seven. I blink. Did I sleep the entire day?

  I know the answer as I push myself off the bed. I feel drugged. Woozy. I always feel this way when I get too much sleep. It’s definitely night. But still, I slide open the door and peek out the window in the hallway. The sky is a hazy, pinkish purple fading into a deep mauve along the horizon.

  I look down at the floor. There’s a silver tray with a sandwich wrapped in wax paper and a lidded glass bowl full of grapes sitting outside my door.

  Abe. I bend over and pick up the tray. This has to be Abe.

  I should go to him. Or to Yellow. Or to all of them. I should come up with a battle plan. I should let them know I’m not going to take this lying down. But instead I wolf down half a turkey sandwich, take a quick shower, and get back in bed.

  Naturally, I’m not tired. Battle plan it is. I sit up and lean back against the headboard.

  Options. I could force Bonner at gunpoint to open the safe and give me back my watch. But what good would that do? I’d still have no idea how to bring down XP—is it Secretary Howe? Maybe?—and let’s not forget about the tracker in the base of my skull.

  I could go to her and try begging, playing to her weaknesses. Maybe if I act brave enough, she�
�ll want to help me. I laugh. Why am I even factoring her into this? She’s a fraud. No, what I should be doing is finding out everything I can about XP before I’m cut off for good. That seems like an obvious step one.

  I bolt into the hallway and knock on the door two down from mine. Abe answers right away.

  “You okay?”

  “Never better,” I say as I push my way inside. His room is identical to mine. Single bed centered on the wall straight ahead, dresser to the left, closet and bathroom to the right. But his is painted a light blue while mine is lavender. “Thanks for the sandwich and grapes. I was starving.”

  “I figured.”

  I slide Abe’s closet doors open. “I need some bugs. What do you have available?” I kick a pair of sneakers and a pair of dress shoes out of the way until I find the small metal safe in the back of the closet.

  “Bugs?” Abe sounds confused, then he looks down at the safe. “Surveillance bugs? Who are you spying on?”

  “I’m going to pay our interns a visit. Now. While I still have the chance.”

  “You do realize what you’re talking about is illegal, right? You don’t have a court order.”

  “What are they going to do if they find out? Fire me again?” I drop to my knees. “Is the combination still eleven-oh-three-twelve-seventeen?”

  “Of course.”

  That gets my blood flowing. Abe picked that code freshman year. It’s my birthdate, followed by his. I enter it into the keypad, and the light flashes green. I open the lid to the safe—to Abe’s toolbox. “Do you have any ultrasonics in here?”

  “Probably not.” Abe reaches over, lifts the safe, and sets it on his bed. The two of us sit on either side. “I know I have at least one RF, though.”

  I scrunch my nose. RF bugs use radio frequency, so they’re really easy to detect, but they’re cheap, so that’s a plus. Ultrasonics are my favorite. They take a sound and convert it into a signal way above what the human ear can hear; then you can intercept it and convert it back into a normal tone. They’re much harder to trace. But they’re also pricey.