No Time to Die

by Kira Peikoff

  As Zoe’s spinning brain tried to make sense of their exchange, her door swung open. A warm breeze drifted into the car. She peeled her hands away from her eyes and gaped at the man standing two feet away. He was a muscular young officer with a shaved head and intelligent brown eyes.

  “So you’re the wonder kid,” he said.

  “I’m not a kid,” she retorted. “And no one’s abducted me. There’s been a big misunderstanding.”

  “I don’t think so,” he replied, reaching in to grab her hand. She kicked him away and scooted back, leaning up against Theo.

  “Whoa there, little miss. I’m not gonna hurt you.”

  Galileo edged him aside and poked his reassuring face into the backseat, hovering inches above her. “It’s fine, Zoe. Let’s go.”

  She took his hand and hauled herself out of the car just as the officer got into their car’s driver’s seat. Standing on the side of the highway, with her long hair slapping her face, she felt as exposed as if she were naked.

  Galileo ducked his head back into the car. “Guys, get out. Hurry.”

  Natalie and Theo complied without argument, springing out of the car and joining them on the road’s narrow shoulder. They lined up along the metal fence that separated the highway from a field of swaying grass.

  “Where are we going?” Zoe asked, trying to keep her balance. Every time a car zoomed by, the hot wind gusted hard enough to blow her sideways.

  “This way,” he yelled over the roar of the traffic. He led them toward the police car parked behind theirs. It was empty.

  “Get in.” He motioned to the scary-looking backseat, which was cut off from the front by a solid plank of glass. Zoe obeyed, and Theo climbed in after her. Natalie went around to the front and jumped in as Galileo took the wheel and shut the door. Up ahead, Zoe could see their old Civic pulling into traffic.

  Their new car jumped forward with the ferocity of a lion on the prowl. In seconds, they had gotten up to full speed and passed the Civic. Zoe watched it disappear in their wake and then turned to Theo, openmouthed. This time, he acknowledged her sentiment with a dazed shrug. Static noises of the police radio were sputtering in through the dashboard up front, but Galileo hit a switch and silence filled the car.

  “What the hell?” Natalie said. “Do you have some kind of superpower that was invented on the compound?”

  He chuckled, leaning back with one hand on the wheel. “Just quick thinking. The Underground is strategically spread out along a few special routes we’ve carved out, like this one.”

  “We’re on a route right now?”

  “Yep. Besides recruiting scientists, we’ve concentrated most on establishing allies in law enforcement. We’ve made sure to have at least one in every precinct along our routes, just in case of an emergency like this. This plan was made and rehearsed long ago.”

  Zoe tapped on the glass that divided the backseat from the front. She could still feel the adrenaline pounding through her body and was pretty sure Theo could, too. His palms lay flat against the seat and his upper lip was glistening with sweat. Natalie must have noticed as she slid the glass open.

  “Are you all right, honey?”

  He exhaled. “Better than ever.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Oh, nothing, just that you almost got arrested again and I’ve got no money and nowhere to go. Everything’s great!”

  “But she didn’t,” Galileo said. “Don’t worry, Theo, nothing bad will happen to you or your mom as long as I can help it.”

  Or to me, Zoe thought. Right?

  Natalie looked at him. “Thanks. But how can you trust a cop? What if he’s playing you?”

  “I was just going to ask the same thing,” Zoe chimed in, even though she wasn’t. Now that she was away from home, she silently vowed to put more effort into thinking like the grown-up she wanted to be, no matter her age. To start, she’d learn from Natalie’s example and try to think of smart questions. Out the window, a suburban strip mall passed by with the typical big-box stores. It was hard to believe that this mundane landscape was actually an elite organization’s top secret route.

  “The short answer,” replied Galileo, “is, I can’t. So I’ve developed a system that tests loyalty and sincerity. There are no requirements of race or class to be in the Network, which I feel very strongly about. Freedom should never discriminate. But members are initiated only after they pass certain tests, and even then, no one outside the compound knows enough to endanger it. Which is why, I hope you’ll understand, I haven’t been totally forthright about where we’re going. Not until we get there, just in case we get separated and you’re questioned.”

  “So you’re like the spider in the web,” Natalie said. “You weaved it and now you’re holding it together.”

  “I’m sure that’s how Les Mahler thinks of me. To him, I’m a tarantula.”

  “So what if something happens to you?” Theo asked. “What would we do?”

  “Yeah,” Zoe said. “Then what?”

  “Well”—Galileo’s blue eyes met Zoe’s in the rearview mirror—“you’ve found the Network’s Achilles’ heel.”

  She swallowed hard. “You?”

  “The truth is, it all depends on my expertise and connections. I do have safeguards in place that I can’t disclose. But if anything did happen to me, things would be very difficult.”

  “Then what are you doing driving us out in the open like this?” Natalie snapped. “Can’t you hire someone to do this kind of thing?”

  “I often do. But this time is different. You and Zoe are the two people the Network was born to recruit. Our whole central mission is to figure out and defeat the cause of aging. So how could I let anyone else be in charge of transporting you? I know all the ins and outs of the Underground, every ally in every city, every backup plan by heart.”

  “He’s kind of a control freak,” Theo whispered to Zoe. “Don’t you think?”

  “Yeah, and I’m glad,” she whispered back with a smile—too big of a smile, but she couldn’t help it. He’d acknowledged her again, and this time, let her in on his own private observation. She wondered if it was possible—in spite of her freakishness—that he could find her the slightest bit attractive.

  “But there’s one other thing,” Galileo was saying to Natalie, “that you need to know.”

  “What?”

  “I assume you’re familiar with the Archon Prize?”

  She snorted. “That’s like asking a physicist if he’s ever heard of the Nobel.”

  “I don’t know what it is,” Zoe said, embarrassed but too curious to resist.

  “It’s a competition that was developed a few years ago by a bunch of old, really rich guys to incentivize progress in finding the cause of aging,” Natalie explained. “The goal is to submit breakthroughs by the deadline, and then a bunch of experts are going to get together and assess which is the most promising. The prize is twenty million bucks for further research.”

  “And,” Galileo added, “you can submit anonymously. We’ve identified this competition as a way to pull in significantly more funding for the Network, which has expanded so fast that we need the capital desperately. But combined with the bad economy, we’re headed for trouble. Our investors are shrinking just when we need them the most.”

  Natalie cocked her head at him. “So you spent a quarter million bucks to get me out of jail?”

  He switched hands on the wheel and looked at her. “I’ve read every paper you’ve published. It’s the smartest investment we’ve made.”

  In the backseat, Zoe saw Theo smiling proudly on his mother’s behalf, though Natalie threw her outstretched palms into the air.

  “But you’re betting the house on me! What if it’s all for nothing?”

  “You know what they say in Vegas,” he said. “Go big or go home.”

  “When’s the deadline?”

  “December thirty-first.”

  Her mouth hung open. “That’s six months away!” />
  “That’s right.”

  “Impossible!”

  “Nothing’s impossible when you have the kind of talent and resources I’ve gathered.”

  She buried her fingers in her glossy brown hair. “And if we don’t make it in time?”

  “Then we don’t make it. But right now,” he said, “you and Zoe are our best hope.”

  I’m needed, Zoe thought with a sense of awe. I’m needed by something so much bigger than myself. She turned her wrists over and studied the blue-green veins intertwining under her delicate skin. It was amazing to think that the blood coursing through her thin veins might contain the secret to human longevity.

  Theo was watching her. When she looked up, he smiled too quickly at her—an attempt to mask his morbid fascination. She could see in his eyes the visceral urge to recoil.

  “I’m still human,” she said.

  He opened his mouth, looking guilty, but said nothing. She turned away with a pang in her chest. Even if she did contribute to some paradigm-shifting breakthrough, would she always remain an unloved freak? And how many years of loneliness was she looking at? For all the awe and specialness she felt, nothing could overpower the tragedy she knew was hers and hers alone.

  Exhaustion set in. This had been one of the most eventful days of her life, and the hum of the engine was lulling her to sleep. She laid her head against the window and closed her eyes. No one bothered her, even when they pulled off at a deserted rest stop to stock up on food and stretch their legs.

  When she woke, twisting her neck back and forth uncomfortably, the sky was deepening to a violet dusk. Their surroundings had changed. Rather than a highway through a dense forest, they were passing through a small town with an upscale main street filled with small boutiques and restaurants. Beyond it, roofs of suburban houses sprawled out in rows. She wondered where the brown-eyed police officer was, and how soon he would come to meet up with them. Uneasiness plagued her. What if he really was untrustworthy?

  “We’re almost there,” Galileo announced. “Tonight we’re staying at the home of Julian Hernandez, a wonderful friend of the Network who’s volunteered to host us. Once we arrive, we’ll all eat and shower and rest. We’ve got another big day of driving tomorrow and will be starting out at dawn.”

  “Not in this cop car, right?” she asked.

  “No, the officer needs it back, so he’ll be dropping off a clean rental later tonight. No one looking for you will have any lead to it.”

  She didn’t protest, despite her anxiety over going somewhere unknown. Last summer, it had been intimidating enough to make the move to Northeastern, only a few hours away. But she wasn’t a little girl. She could handle it.

  She lifted her arm to roll down the window for some fresh air—

  Her arm stayed still.

  She tried again, but it was as stiff as cement, and the stiffness was spreading rapidly. She could feel it propel through her like venom, the all-too-familiar symptom of her worst nightmare.

  Help, she gasped. Get my pills!

  The thoughts were clear, but no words came out. Her tongue flapped uselessly as her limbs started to flail. She tried again, struggling against the blackness that was engulfing her.

  My pills!

  Theo’s distorted voice reached her ears from far away, as though he were shouting into a well.

  “She’s having a seizure!”

  His hands clamped down on her wild arms.

  Then the world went dark.

  CHAPTER 17

  Washington, D.C.

  8:03 P.M.

  Les knew something was very wrong. After he’d landed back in Washington, D.C., he’d learned that the black Honda Civic, NY license ADL 4671, had been spotted along Interstate 70, near Wheeling, West Virginia, at 5:15 P.M. A cop car left the nearby station at 5:18 P.M. to find it—and hadn’t been heard from since. The Civic had also vanished—no other sightings had been reported, even though the AMBER Alert continued to flash on every major highway along the East Coast.

  It was now just past 8:00 P.M., and the sky was darkening along with his mood. The sunset he normally enjoyed through his office’s west window now seemed repulsive, as if the sky’s colors were bleeding upon the open wound of the horizon.

  He couldn’t stop pacing across his office in the committee’s headquarters. Zoe and Natalie were in that Civic, he was sure of it, along with the mysterious driver who had to be one of Galileo’s underlings. Where could they have gone? He’d lost track of how many times he’d called the police dispatcher to check on the missing cop car, but there was no news. It frustrated him that the small-town precinct in West Virginia—from which the cop had originated—had not yet retrofitted their squad with internal GPS trackers, so that missing car could not be traced. The more time went by, the farther away the fugitives were getting.

  His only hope was the clue Zoe’s parents had given about her medication. Her mother guaranteed, with tears in her eyes, that she would suffer a seizure within hours unless she took it. Les had spent the entire day spreading an alert, with the help of the FBI’s Science and Technology division, to every major hospital and pharmacy within five hundred miles to watch for either the admittance of a girl matching Zoe’s description or the prescription call-in of the rare medication she required.

  Every time the black phone on his desk rang, his heart leaped. Every time, he pictured the face he now knew well, though had never seen in person—her cornflower blue eyes, her freckled nose, her pink lips. Was she wise enough to be afraid, he wondered, or clueless about the dangers that awaited her in the grip of the Network? Despite her restricted capacity, she had to know that the potential for exploitation of her body was staggering.

  He was her only hope of rescue. But as to what he was planning to do when he found her—a grim possibility was already crossing his mind. This was war; not just between Galileo and him, but between man and nature, hubris and restraint, future destruction and present salvation. Sacrifices would have to be made. He thought of all the future people whose lives would turn freakish, who would suffer untold consequences for agreeing to try an experimental drug if one were wrought by Zoe’s DNA. It shocked him when he really thought about it, the suffering that scientists could carelessly inflict on others under the auspices of good.

  It would be simple to divert the blame.

  The phone jingled, piercing the stillness of the office. He sprinted to it and pounced before the second ring.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s me.” Benjamin Barrow, the committee’s second-in-command. “Any news?”

  Les sighed. “I’d call you.”

  “Still no sign of the Civic?”

  “Not for almost three hours.”

  “It doesn’t make sense.” Barrow’s tone was irritable, bordering on disapproval. The subtle note piqued Les’s fury—as if he wasn’t doing everything possible, flying to New York and back, meeting the girl’s family, making every damn phone call he could think of. And where was his esteemed colleague? Attending some fancy bioethics conference in California, enjoying a bunch of free food and adulation, in the midst of the most serious case of their careers.

  “They’re going to have to stop for gas at some point,” Les said through clenched teeth. “All area stations have been alerted.” He didn’t add the part about the hospitals and pharmacies as well, in case Barrow decided to demean his strategy before it had a chance to work. “When will you be back?”

  “As soon as I can. My talk is tomorrow night. Try to keep things under control until I get there.”

  “Thanks.” Les didn’t even try to conceal his sarcasm. Jerk.

  He hung up before he said anything he would regret.

  It was agitating how quickly the phone rang again, as if touching its cradle triggered the ring.

  “What?” he snapped, assuming it was Barrow calling back.

  “Uh, is this Les Mahler?”

  “Speaking.”

  “This is Officer Laughlin calling
from the Thirteenth Precinct in Columbus, Ohio. We just got a call from the CVS pharmacy on Parsons Avenue that the medicine on the special alert was called in about five minutes ago.”

  “Columbus, you said?”

  “Yes. You want us to send a SWAT team?”

  With a few nimble clicks, Les brought up a map of Ohio on his 27-inch monitor and zoomed in. If the Civic had continued on Interstate 70 going east after passing through Wheeling, West Virginia, at 5:15 P.M., it could feasibly be 150 miles away, placing it right around—yes!—Columbus, Ohio.

  “Get them there ASAP,” Les instructed, “and I’ll send in reinforcement if need be.”

  “You got it.”

  Les stared at the map. “You’re four hundred miles northwest of D.C.?”

  “Thereabout.”

  “Change of plans. Let’s keep this quiet. I want you to send an unmarked car. Plainclothes cops. Have them trail whoever picks up the drug. One little bee could lead to the whole hive.”

  “So no arrests?”

  “Not right away,” he said, thinking of the FBI’s air fleet at his disposal. “Not until I get there. I’m on my way.”

  “You got it.”

  Les smirked as he hung up: a certain condescending partner wouldn’t learn the news until it was too late for him to share in any of the glory.

  CHAPTER 18

  Columbus, Ohio

  8:10 P.M.

  Zoe awoke to the sensation of a cold wet compress against her sweaty forehead. Her mother’s arms tightened around her from behind, hoisting her up. Wait, not her mother. The arms were covered with brown hair, strong and muscular. And then she remembered: Galileo.

  “You’re back,” he said, in a voice filled with relief.

  She struggled to sit up, fighting nausea. She was stretched out against him in the leather backseat of the cop car. Theo and Natalie were in the front, watching her through the divider.

  “Slow,” Galileo commanded.

  She sank back against his arms, closing her eyes. “What happened?”

  “You had a seizure. We couldn’t find your medication.”

  “Oh my God.” In her mind, she could see the bathroom cabinet where she had forgotten the bottle. A lump clogged her throat. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Why was she so absentminded? Why couldn’t she be more responsible?