Audrey sighs, and I take note of her reluctance to get medical attention. “Maybe. I don’t want to miss recitation though.”
“I was only going because you were. I can teach you whatever you need. Come on.”
In a rather awkward fashion we make what has suddenly become a very long walk to the health center, which is on the opposite side of campus to where we’d been heading. The rain picks up too as we go, and by the time we arrive, we both look like we’ve taken a dip in a pool.
Audrey groans, lowering herself into a chair.
I try not to act too interested in her injury. Sorry as I am that Audrey’s hurting, I want to know how hurting she is so I can watch for how quickly she heals. Clearly, she’s convinced it’s nothing. Whether it is nothing, or whether she’s covering something up, I’ll need to wait and see.
It’s not much to go on, but it would be nice to finally rule out one person as X.
It would be even nicer if I discovered Audrey is X. Then my mission would be over and I could get her to safety.
With that in mind, I scan the health center waiting room. The main room is large and empty except for chairs along the perimeter and posters about healthy behaviors on the walls. There’s got to be a place around here where the staff keep medical files on the students.
Sure enough, when the nurse takes Audrey back to a private room, she’s carrying a manila folder. “You can go ahead and get back to class or wherever you need to go,” she says to me.
“I was keeping her company.”
The nurse blinks at me behind her glasses. “I think she can handle the rest on her own.”
“Yeah, okay then.” I wave goodbye to Audrey and return to the waiting room. I’ll have to find out about her ankle later.
Before I leave, though, I search the room for cameras and find none inside the main office itself. It’s not surprising based on what I already know about RTC’s security, but it’s useful. I quietly open several of the doors on my way out and poke my head inside. Most are either closets or exam rooms, but one is an office. Rows of filing cabinets line the far wall. I’m sure they’re locked, but that’s not a problem.
Hearing the voices of people entering the building, I close the last door and go back to my dorm. The cabinets will be around later, and so will I.
Audrey returns later that afternoon, claiming her ankle is fine. All she did was twist it. She ices it then limps around until dinner, but by the time we leave the dining hall, she barely hobbles.
“You heal fast,” I say as we walk to the dorm.
“It was nothing. I’ve just reinforced everyone’s opinion of how clumsy I am.”
Yen laughs. “Yeah, did she ever tell you the story of how she fell out a window?”
Audrey turns pink. “I was five. Don’t judge me.”
“You fell out of a window?” I repeat. “From how high?”
“My second-floor bedroom.” She winces as if reliving it. “But hey, I landed on my parents’ deck and didn’t even break any bones. That’s talent.”
I try not to look like I’m assessing Audrey’s ankle or her story. “You fell from two stories and didn’t break anything?”
My roommate is either lucky or a possible mutant. I make another note.
After Audrey falls asleep, I sneak out of our room and head to the health center. My new plan is a lot slower, a lot more time-consuming, and enormously more tedious than causing another AnChlor incident would be, but no one can possibly be hurt by it. My priorities have shifted, and I feel that shift in my gut. It’s uncomfortable. My first priority is still finding and protecting X, but I won’t knowingly harm or risk another student’s life in the process.
At two in the morning, I see lights still shining in many dorm rooms, but very few students are wandering around campus. The rain stopped a few hours ago, and the sky is clear. It’s a small point of luck. If it hadn’t, I’d be leaving muddy footprints everywhere.
Timing my movements to avoid the campus police patrolling just in case, I arrive at the health center unseen. From there, it’s quick work to override the electronic lock, and a few more awkward moves to avoid the hallway cameras. The rest is simple. The building is old, and the interior doors use conventional locks. I’m inside the main office easily.
I pull my tiny flashlight off my belt and look around. Until this point, I relied on the hazy city glow and security lights to see. But in here, all is complete darkness. No windows. I have exceptionally good dark vision thanks to the extra rod cells in my retinas, but even I need some light.
The door to the records room is unlocked, and I shut off the flashlight once inside. There’s a window in here, and I need to be careful so security doesn’t see the glow. On the floor, I open the e-sheet where I stuck a copy of my database. The sheet isn’t powerful enough to run the database, but I can make notes. After figuring out who the first person I need to investigate is, I pick open the top drawer—Abraham to Callahan—and grab a file.
And bang my head against the cabinet. Are they kidding me? It’s all paper. Not e-paper or e-sheets, but dead tree paper. How annoyingly archaic.
I suppose I should have expected as much when I saw the file cabinets, but I was hoping. It would take long enough to suck the data I need off eight-hundred-seventy-seven possible files, but actually paging through sheets of paper is going to take even longer. Honestly, until I’d arrived at RTC, I had no idea how many people and places still used dead trees. We never used real paper back home.
Gritting my teeth, I grab “Abraham, Michael” and point my flashlight beam inside. I feel a little creepy reading people’s medical files, so I try not to linger on the details, just find the clues I need and move on. Fortunately, the information I’m searching for can be discovered—or not—fairly quickly.
Still, I learn way more about my fellow students than I care to. Broken bones, torn ligaments, appendicitis, Type 1 diabetes—this is all I need to know. Which boy has chlamydia and who it appears he gave it to? That, I could have lived without.
I’m here for hours. By the time I put “Zodrakis, Christine” away, I’ve hit up everyone on my list and the sun will be rising soon. Some people’s injuries and illnesses rule them out easily, but others I can’t be so sure about.
Like Audrey. She was treated for an ear infection her freshman year, but what does that tell me? Ear infections are caused by bacteria. They require an immune system response, which isn’t the same thing as a healing response, and that’s what I actually need to know.
Or what about Chase? There’s a note about him pulling a muscle at a track meet last year, but no follow-up and no information on whether he was able to compete for the rest of the season. So was it not a serious injury, or did he heal amazingly fast?
Because that’s the key to discovering X’s identity—he or she will heal from injuries like no human should. Yet my information about what that sort of healing means in practice is sketchy enough to give me doubts about many of my findings. X could be a good faker too, especially if he or she is trying to keep their mutant status a secret. And seriously, who wouldn’t want to keep that sort of freakishness a secret?
So this is a start, nothing more.
As I lock up and cut through the grounds again, I make plans for next steps. I need to dig deeper into the few details we have of X’s mutations for clues, cross-reference my remaining pool of possibilities with their social security numbers, and get to work hacking into insurance company databases. Oh, and I need to start pestering people like Audrey and Chase for details on their trauma-free medical histories.
Lost in these thoughts, I climb the stairs to my floor and open the lounge door a crack. Then I pause, startled by the sound of a guy’s voice. The lounge is dark, but outside lights cast shadows along the floor. I search for the one that doesn’t match the furniture and determine the speaker is on the other side of the sofa.
Although I doubt another student would think twice about me wandering around in the middle of the night, I have no good excuse for being out this late. If they ask, I don’t feel like concocting one. Then two things happen at once to make it clear I don’t want to be seen. I recognize the guy’s voice as Kyle’s, and I hear him say one word: “AnChlor.”
My grip on the door handle tightens with my surprise. Whoever Kyle’s speaking to it must be over the phone because I can’t hear a reply. After the pause, he adds: “I couldn’t tell. My eyes were burning too much, and I couldn’t see.”
He’s talking about the pep rally. He must be. So much for no one discovering what I did. But how did Kyle figure it out? Or how did whoever Kyle is talking to figure it out?
Few people in the world should be able to recognize AnChlor, and a nineteen-year-old student at RTC shouldn’t be one of them. Not unless that student is me, or someone like me, and there’s only one reason another someone like me might be at this school.
Suppressing a groan, I add another item to my to-do list: investigate Kyle.
Shit. As if I don’t already have enough to work on, and as if Kyle isn’t already too good at distracting me. As if… I close my eyes. As if I didn’t already know X was in danger and an enemy agent might be on the way. Now I have to worry that the enemy is already here.
Chapter Seven
Nine Weeks Ago
No matter how clever or well-trained you are, sometimes success is simply about being patient.
I hate being patient. I especially hate it when a life might be on the line.
Kyle’s mysterious middle-of-the-night phone call nags at me all week, but there’s nothing I can do. I mean, I know what I want to do, but the opportunity never arises to actually try it. Despite what I overheard, investigating Kyle is still not my priority. I can’t take unnecessary risks that could get me kicked out of RTC. That would definitely interfere with my ability to find X.
So I wait, and the longer I do, the harder it becomes to concentrate on what I’m supposed to be doing in the first place, as well as all the stupid course work I have to do to keep up my cover. Before the call, Kyle already invaded my thoughts way more than I liked. Now he’s even more relentless. My brain is under Kyle-siege, and I want to shake him for it, although it’s not entirely his fault.
Finally, on Friday afternoon, my patience pays off. The gorgeous October day drives everyone outdoors. Even better is that Kyle and Chase, who’s his roommate, have to leave for a track meet. I have a couple precious hours before they return when the dorm is practically guaranteed to be empty.
After dumping my books, I promise Audrey I’ll meet up with her in half an hour on the quad. What I’m planning had better not take longer than that. Then I slip across the deserted second-floor lounge to the boys’ wing.
Like all the interior doors at RTC, the one denying me access to Kyle’s room uses an old-fashioned lock. Easy to pick. Easier still because I swiped Chase’s key during physics this morning. Honestly, if I was trying to snoop on anyone other than Kyle, I’d probably be done with it already. Most people around here are completely clueless about security. They leave their keys, phones and data sticks all within easy reach.
But not Kyle. I’ve been trying to get his phone to stick a spy app on it since that call of his, and I’ve yet to succeed. He might be the only person here as paranoid about his belongings as I am. That alone is cause for worry.
On the other hand, I really don’t know what I expect to accomplish by snooping on Kyle. It’s quite possible the terrorists searching for X have someone at RTC working on it. But Kyle’s been at RTC for over a year now. It’s hard to believe he might be the one even if he, or whoever he was talking to that night, recognized AnChlor.
Then again, on the other-other hand, people can be bought, tricked or threatened into doing all kinds of nefarious things. That’s what started this whole mess—X’s mother was either tricked or bought into working for the wrong people. So maybe it’s not so unlikely that these people could use a college student the same way.
The thought turns my stomach. I really don’t want Kyle to be caught up in any of this, and it’s not just because I’m friendly with him. I know what I’ll be expected to do if he is involved. Temporarily giving my classmates chemical burns bothered me enough. If Kyle’s up to no good, nothing I do to him will be temporary. And it’ll make chemical burns look like a paper cut in comparison.
Of course, if Kyle’s involved, it means he’s not innocent like the others. I tell myself this, but it doesn’t help much. Not when I start thinking about how much fun I’ve had playing video games with him, or how he’s helped me with my philosophy papers, or how I occasionally stare at his eyelashes and daydream about his lips. I’ve gotten too close to him for the label of “enemy” to not sting on some personal level. My training’s covered this sort of attachment crap, but covering it isn’t the same as living it.
Coming to RTC has made that horribly clear on all fronts.
Noise from down the hall interrupts my unhappy thoughts, returning me to the task at hand. Hurriedly, I use Chase’s key to unlock the door and slip inside without being seen. Once the door closes, I take a deep breath.
Mistake. The room stinks like deodorant, dirty laundry and the empty chip wrappers in the trash can. It would be called Toxic College Boy Stench if I had to give it a name. I want to throw open the window and air the space out, but it’s not my room and I can’t do anything that might give away that I’ve been in here. With a sigh, I consider this extra incentive to work fast.
The room itself, like the hallway, is identical to the ones on the women’s side of the dorm. All the furniture is built into the walls: two beds attached to two desks attached to two closets. Figuring out which desk is Kyle’s is simple. Chase is from Philadelphia and he’s a huge football fan. It doesn’t take a genius to determine that the desk without the green and white Eagles’ lamp belongs to Kyle.
Most considerately, Kyle’s laptop sits on his desk, along with the e-sheet he uses to take notes in class. Ignoring the e-sheet for the moment, I boot the laptop and retrieve a data stick from my pocket. No surprise, Kyle uses a password to protect it. Although I expected as much, I frown in annoyance. Given this is paranoid Kyle, I assume the password isn’t something stupid. It’s going to take my cracking program a few minutes to get in.
While the program works, I turn my attention elsewhere. I search Kyle’s closet, under his bed and any spot that could be hiding something unusual. All I discover is that he owns a huge collection of weird T-shirts and apparently prefers boxers to briefs. Turning next to his desk, I go through each drawer. It’s not until I try the bottom one that something finally catches my attention.
It’s a page torn from his sketchbook, and the drawing is of me. Kyle’s pretty good at art, and I hold it up for a second, feeling some weird mix of emotions. Amused? Embarrassed? Worried? A little bit of all that, and maybe something more. There could be a hundred reasons why Kyle might sketch me, some innocent, some sinister. I don’t know what to think, but I feel creepier by the second for invading his privacy this way.
If Kyle’s innocent, I promise myself I’ll make this up to him. I haven’t the faintest idea what that will mean, but I know what Cole would tell me: the best way to make amends is to do my job well. Protect the innocent. Stop the bad guys.
I need to get a grip and focus on that. Gritting my teeth, I place the paper back where I found it.
As if to agree with my renewed determination, Kyle’s laptop beeps, letting me know I’m in at last. While my spying software uploads, I poke through his drive. Same as his closet, most of what I find is totally innocent. Besides a few games, it contains mainly schoolwork: class notes, papers, practice MCAT exams and the like. There are files going back for three semesters at RTC.
In fact, when I start to search his photos, the RTC-ness o
f it all overwhelms me. I expected—hoped—to find clues about Kyle’s life outside of school. Maybe he wouldn’t have a ton of pictures of his family, but surely he’d have something. Except he doesn’t. There are no photos of his parents, any non-RTC friends, nor his dog. There’s not even a single picture of all the places he’s claimed to have lived over the years. It’s like Kyle doesn’t exist outside of RTC.
How similar to Sophia, who also doesn’t exist outside of RTC. Damn it.
When I close out the photo folder, I notice one more. Kyle is tidy, maybe not so much in the way he folds his clothes or organizes his drawers, but all of his computer folders are logically labeled. All but this one, that is. It’s simply called Folder. So I click it and find more files and subfolders: Photos, Notes, AnChlor. I open that one first.
Apparently, Kyle’s done some research on AnChlor, hardly a surprise given the conversation I overheard. Yet as I skim, I see nothing he couldn’t have discovered online. Military uses… Nonlethal weapon, restricted class… Made by… Nope, nothing he couldn’t have uncovered through an ordinary search. The questions remain then: how did he connect AnChlor to what I used at the pep rally? How did he learn about it in the first place when most people have probably never heard of it?
Any hope I had of exonerating Kyle’s involvement in something sinister is plummeting fast.
My hope crashes messily when I open the photo folder. Inside, I discover yet another subfolder with my name on it and filled with—what else?—pictures of me. One is a posed photo that I remember him taking of a bunch of us a couple weeks ago. The others were taken without me knowing it. All are recent. One of them is barely a photo of me at all; it looks like he was using his zoom to see what I was typing on my phone. Fortunately, it was nothing important, just a message to Audrey.
The whole thing has a slightly stalkerish feel to it, except I’m not the only one under investigation. Some of the other photos are of people I know: Chase is in there, as is Alanna. There’s also five other students, two girls and three boys whom I know only by sight and the notes I’ve gathered on them, and three more who are in some of my classes. But one thing all these people have in common is that they remain on my long list of possibilities for X.
Revive Page 7
