Project Paper Doll: The Trials

by Stacey Kade

  “NorthCross? Yeah, I see it,” he panted. “I didn’t know you hated the highlighter shirt that much.”

  “It’s got to go,” I said. “But that’s not our main purpose.”

  The sidewalks were crowded here, but in front of the mall, clusters of people loitered. Even better, they appeared to be roughly our age. Camouflage. Not enough, but it was a start.

  “We’re going to get lost in the crowd,” Zane said. “Right?”

  “Something like that, yes.”

  According to my father’s training, the best way to lose a tail on foot is to simply give them what they want, what they’re expecting to see. Human beings track based on sight. And when they track in a crowd, they fixate on a single characteristic that makes their target stand out.

  I knew the agents would be zeroing in on my hair and/or Zane’s bright yellow shirt. We could split up and confuse them momentarily. But I didn’t want to take the risk of separating from Zane.

  So a different tactic would be required.

  “Head in and straight for the back,” I said to him as we crossed the street, thankfully with the light this time, dodging tourists, strollers, and people walking with their heads bent over their phones.

  “What if there’s not an exit?” Zane asked.

  “We’re not looking for the exit.” We needed a distraction, sleight of hand on a larger scale. “We’re coming back out the front,” I said grimly.

  He turned slightly, raising his eyebrows at me in disbelief.

  “Trust me,” I said, sounding more confident than I felt. God, I hoped this would work.

  We threaded through the people on the sidewalk, forced to slow down because there was simply no room to run. I could feel the agents gaining behind us.

  I pushed Zane ahead of me through the glass double doors, following on his heels.

  Instantly, it felt like the walls were closing in around me. It was so dim inside compared to the brightness of outside. The air was cool—air conditioners working overtime to deal with the unseasonably warm temperature outside—but heavy with the scent of body spray and new clothing. And the crush of bodies, while exactly what I’d been hoping for, was more unnerving that I’d anticipated.

  I blinked, forced to wait for my eyes to adjust even though I kept expecting to feel fingers locking onto my shoulder.

  Gradually, the dark blobs in my vision turned into recognizable objects and features. The mall was a tall, narrow structure, open in the center with an escalator to access the stores on the upper floors.

  “There.” I pointed to the escalator. “Behind it, not on it.”

  Zane nodded, still too out of breath to argue or question me.

  As we passed a storefront, I focused and pulled a deliberately tattered and torn hoodie in dark blue off a hanging rack near the front, praying it wouldn’t have a security tag attached.

  The sweatshirt slipped off the hanger and moved through the air toward my hand, without a sound, like someone had thrown it to me. Which was, I expect, exactly what the middle-aged guy who got whapped in the face by a trailing sleeve thought was happening.

  He glared at me, his mouth open as if he was going to protest. I stared at him until he dropped his gaze, disconcerted.

  “Here. Put this on.” I pushed the sweatshirt into Zane’s arms.

  He shrugged into it while I kept searching for the other things we needed.

  “Hood down,” I said. “We don’t want to look like we’re hiding.”

  “Then what exactly are we doing?” he whispered to me, shoving the hood back. He zipped the hoodie up, covering every inch of yellow except for a tiny vee in the front.

  “Helping them see what they expect to see.” Concentrating again, I pulled a pale green knitted cap off one of the display mannequins in another store, possibly with less precision than I should have. The blank-faced dummy, her plastic mouth frozen in an exaggerated duck-face pucker, wobbled and then fell sideways, clattering to the floor loudly as I yanked the hat out of the air. Fortunately, everyone was too busy looking at the fallen mannequin to notice the levitating hat or me grabbing it.

  I snapped the price tag off and wrestled the cap over my unruly hair. Then I took the lead, heading behind the escalator.

  It was practically deserted back here, with most people diverting to the escalator instead. The sudden openness of the space was a shock that felt like exposure.

  Zane moved closer to me, hiding me with his body. “Ariane, they’re going to see us.…”

  “We won’t be here long enough,” I said, relieved when I spotted the last item on my mental checklist. If I’d been unable to find it, I would have come up with an alternative. Shattering store windows, making the lights overhead explode, something. But this—a fire alarm box on the rear wall—was much more convenient.

  “Ariane.” Zane tipped his head toward the exit in the far corner, the glowing green sign beckoning.

  “No, that won’t help. Can you check for them?” I asked Zane. He’d be able to see over the crowds much easier than I would.

  He turned, leaning out. His whole body stiffened.

  “They’re here. They haven’t spotted us yet, but—”

  Without stepping out from my sheltered position behind the escalator housing, I raised my hand to direct my power and shoved at the protective glass over the alarm with my ability.

  It gave easily, the broken bits raining down on the floor with a distinctive patter of clinking that signaled danger.

  Before anyone could come investigate, I sent the pull bar on the alarm down with another flick of power, scarcely more effort than a thought. And the system responded with bright flashing lights and a piercing wail that rose and fell, grinding against my eardrums.

  “Now. Move.” I grabbed Zane’s hand, unsure if he could hear me over the noise, and pulled him out with me on the opposite side of the escalator. The agents wouldn’t, I hoped, be expecting to see us facing them.

  On the main part of the floor, everyone appeared frozen in place, some still in midstep and gesture, their faces turned up toward the ceiling, startled and confused. This was the freeze part of the fight-or-flight response. It wouldn’t last long.

  Maybe once, people would have waited for someone to give them directions or indicate that it was a test. But now, everyone was trained. Or traumatized. An alarm in a crowded public place, in a large metropolitan area, meant trouble, possibly terrorism, and no one was waiting around to be a victim.

  A couple of girls shrieked, the noise rising above the alarm, breaking the group paralysis. Like a single organism, the crowd throbbed and surged toward the doors at the front.

  Those closest to the doors were pushing, to get space, to get out. The ones in the back, running to join the others. No one was getting left behind.

  The agents were on the opposite side of the central space, forced there by the press of bodies moving in the opposite direction. But they were still watching, shouting at each other.

  I tugged Zane with me, keeping my head level and showing no obvious signs of distress, other than the ones everyone else was making. This was the trickiest part. If the agents recognized us in the crowd, we wouldn’t be able to get free before they caught up with us.

  We merged in with the others, first on the edges and then on the middle, the flow pulling us along, like driftwood on the ocean. Or so I would imagine, if I’d ever seen the ocean.

  My heart pounding, I waited, anticipating the ripple in the crowd as agents pushed toward us, ordering people out of the way.

  But everyone continued to funnel outside without disturbance. After a few minutes of jostling, with Zane using his elbows and size to make space for us, the doorway loomed in front of us, and it seemed like we might just make it.

  I bit my lip. Had we gotten away with it? I couldn’t tell for sure, unable see a damn thing besides all backs, sides, and elbows surrounding me.

  I looked up at Zane, catching his attention by squeezing his hand.

 
“Do you see them?” I mouthed. Speaking aloud wouldn’t help with the noise of the alarm, and I was unwilling to rely on our intermittent ability to communicate by thought.

  Zane craned his head to look back, then he turned to me with an admiring grin. “Two of them are looking around, checking stores,” he said near my ear so I could hear him over the alarm. “The other one is heading straight toward the back exit.”

  I nodded, relieved, my shoulders sagging with it. Give them what they expected—a distraction, an attempt to evade—and then use it against them. Yet another of my father’s lessons that had saved me.

  I felt a pang in my chest at the thought of my father. Was he out there somewhere? Lured into town under the guise of some request from his former employer, the military? The Committee had made it pretty clear that the target, well, targets, were not being held captive, had no idea they were being hunted.

  My father was one of the smartest people I knew. He would have avoided any hint of GTX or Dr. Jacobs. But if the army had found him and asked him to come here for one made-up reason or another, I wasn’t sure he would say no. His loyalty ran deep.

  Even to a child that wasn’t his, wasn’t even wholly human.

  I pictured him as I’d last seen him, watching me run from GTX, his face grave but proud.

  And my imagination immediately transformed that image into a photo, slipping free of a manila envelope and falling into Ford’s hand. I wondered if they’d given him to her intentionally, knowing that her appearance would disarm him. Possibly long enough for her to kill him.

  My free hand contracted into a fist reflexively, fingernails digging into the palm of my hand, the bite of them a reassuring reminder that I was alive and free and there was still time to stop Ford and save my father.

  Assuming he was even here. It was possible that they’d found someone else.

  Next to me, Zane picked up my tension, whether through the grip of my hand on his or something more ephemeral, like the whisper of a stray thought. He bent down with a worried look. “What’s wrong?” He glanced around, searching for a new threat.

  “Nothing. We’re fine,” I said, forcing a smile.

  And we would be. As we crossed out in the bright sunshine, I refused to let myself consider any other possibility.

  OUTSIDE, ARIANE KEPT US WITHIN the cloud of our fellow evacuees, leading me through as they milled around, using them as cover for as long as possible.

  “Where are you supposed to meet Adam?” she asked when we reached the corner, moving swiftly to the right so that the buildings would block us from view. “And when?”

  The sharpness in her expression was a little alarming. This was Ariane on a mission, certain, unrelenting, and not entirely human. Or, not human in a way that I’d seen in everyday life. She was focused but distant, a contradiction but the truth, regardless.

  “You think Adam’s going to help us?” I asked. “He’s as douche-y as he looks, trust me.”

  She shook her head. “If Justine thinks about it, she’ll realize that’s our only move. We need to beat her there.”

  I hesitated. “We were supposed to meet at an alleyway, not far from Hole in One. I can show you where it is, but I don’t see what—”

  “They wouldn’t have assigned Carter as Ford’s target. That means he’s yours. You didn’t look at the packet, but Adam did. He can tell us what it said about Carter, or what he remembers of it, at least,” she said, her words clipped, maybe because we were moving so quickly but more likely because she was just in that warrior mode. “We find Carter, and he’s the key to Ford.”

  Now I got it. “Because they’re connected. Or will be, once they’re in close enough proximity.” I frowned. “Does it work that way?” I pictured Ariane and myself walking around the streets of Chicago with Carter out in front of us, like a human…well, an alien/human metal detector set to a unique frequency to find his missing comrade.

  “I don’t know for certain. Do you have another plan?” Ariane asked with no hint of humor.

  I held my hands up in surrender, which brought her hand, still held in mine, up as well.

  She looked over, startled, and a faint smile flickered at the corners of her mouth before disappearing beneath that hardened veneer.

  “I’m supposed to meet him in…” I searched, looking for an indication of the time. No watch, no cell phone. A flashing bank sign with the time caught my eye down the street. 10:59. “Sixteen minutes.”

  Ariane raised her eyebrows.

  “What? I thought it might take some time to convince you to listen to Justine,” I said with a shrug.

  She nodded, her mouth twisting. “I can’t imagine why.”

  “For the record, I still think it was a good option,” I said quietly.

  “It…was,” she admitted. “I might have gone. I would have had some leverage, and it would have been nice to see what they had, maybe even meet…” She shook her head, then shrugged, her thin shoulders moving stiffly. “But it’s not possible.”

  And where did that leave us at the end of all of this? I guess that was something to worry about after we survived, assuming that we did.

  Following an extended and circuitous route, which involved some doubling back, we reached the block with the designated alleyway with a few minutes to spare.

  After establishing that no one appeared to be watching, Ariane led the way to a Starbucks that was perched midway down the block.

  The air-conditioning attacked with a wall of freezing air as soon as we stepped in, and I shivered, despite the heat and the hoodie Ariane had given me to wear. This feeling of constantly being sick, or on the verge of it, was wearing.

  “Here. Sit.” Ariane gave me a push toward one of the tall chairs at the front of the store, where a counter against the windows overlooked the street. We’d be able to see Adam approaching from either direction.

  “I’m fine.” I waited while she paid for two bottles of water at the register.

  Bottles in hand, she nudged me toward the tall chairs with her elbow, and this time I followed the suggestion.

  When I sat down, sideways in the chair to keep my face in profile to the street, the room shifted, tilting a little. I grabbed the edge of the counter, bracing myself on it to regain my balance.

  Alarmed, Ariane set the waters down on the counter immediately and moved toward me, grabbing my shoulder. I reached down and pulled her closer between my knees, locking my hands behind her back.

  “What did you do?” she murmured, rubbing my arm, distress showing on every line of her face. Gone was the impassive and clinical soldier she’d been on the street only a few minutes ago.

  It was a rhetorical question, but one I felt compelled to respond to. “I’m fine,” I repeated.

  She reached up and laid her hand across my forehead, fingers cool against my overheated skin. It felt so good that I closed my eyes for a second, leaning into it.

  When I opened them again, she was watching me, worried.

  “You look like a Smurf in that hat.” I tugged gently at one of the strands of her pale hair that had escaped on the side.

  Her eyes went wide, and her hand fluttered away from me and up to the knit cap without touching it. “It’s green. I believe their predominant color is blue. And their hats are white.”

  I loved that she took her pop culture/human studies so seriously. “So…an alien Smurf.”

  Her eyes grew shiny with tears suddenly.

  “Ariane, I’m sorry,” I said, panicking. “I didn’t mean—”

  She put her hand across my mouth, muffling my words.

  “Hi,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve had a chance to say that yet.” She smiled, which made a tear slide down past her nose to hang on the edge of her upper lip.

  I pressed my mouth in a kiss against her palm before tugging her hand down. “Hi.” Then the goofy grin that she always brought out in me broke through, despite my efforts to fight it. My face actually felt strained, stretched from it.

&
nbsp; “I thought you were dead,” she whispered, her breath hitching.

  My smile faded. “I know, I’m sorry. It was the only way.”

  “Is this permanent?” Her gaze drilled into me. “The changes.”

  “Yes…well, maybe.” I shoved away thoughts of the boosters of virus I needed too often. “It depends on how my body reacts to the virus. It was a little more…sudden for me than for Adam. Emerson is still tinkering with it.” That was a mild way of putting it.

  She looked down. “I’m so sorry for what happened, Zane. I never meant for you to be caught up in the—”

  “It was my fault,” I said flatly. “I was the one who called Jacobs. You had a plan, and I ruined it.”

  “We’ve been over this. You were trying to save me. You did the best you could, the only thing you could do,” she said with a fierceness that was supposed to convince me of her words.

  But all it did was remind me of the inadequacy of my actions. I’d wanted to keep her alive, and the extent of my power in that situation had been to make a phone call and get her captured by the slightly lesser of two evils. Yep, that had been my best.

  Not anymore.

  Ariane reached up, touching my cheek lightly with her fingertip, her eyes searching mine. “What happens if you stop?” she asked. “Can it be stopped?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Can he…Emerson”—she hesitated over the name as if it were foreign or the first time she’d said it—“reverse the effects?”

  I jerked back, as if she’d suggested physically taking something away. “Why would I want to do that?”

  She looked at me, her gaze focused at a point between my forehead and the back of my skull. She was trying to read my thoughts.

  “Stop,” I said sharply.

  “You needed it to save you, and you have no idea how sorry I am about that. But you’re okay now, and you don’t know what the consequences might be,” she said, pleading.

  Actually, Emerson had been pretty clear about those after I’d woken up in the lab. The long-term effects were unknown, obviously. It wasn’t like there were years of studies and research behind this with human test subjects. If my body eventually accepted the changes, I’d be fine, more or less. If not…well, that’s when things would get significantly bloodier.