The Unseen Trilogy

by Stephanie Erickson

  “What? You don’t think I can do it?” Folding my arms over my chest and narrowing my eyes, I challenged him to cross me.

  He looked up at me, startled by my reaction. “What? No! That’s not what I was thinking at all. I’m just worried it might be too soon.” He paused. “For work.”

  “Well, don’t you worry. It’s just some spying gig on a real low-profile guy. As far as I can see, his only crime is being a scientist in a suspicious field. It’s essentially busywork.”

  He leaned back in his chair, glancing warily at the file on the table. “Nothing the Unseen does can be classified as busywork, Mac.”

  Although his sentiment tugged at my curiosity, I was still skeptical. I pulled the file closer and opened it to see the photo of the scientist paper-clipped to the top. I’d only thumbed through it quickly, but I’d seen enough to know he studied the toxic effects of chemicals on humans. He was mostly responsible for doing the due diligence for those warning labels you saw on stuff like bleach and brake fluid. Although some of his experiments were conducted on animals, which was a bit disagreeable to say the least, I wasn’t sure how else someone could discover the effects of inhaling too much ammonia mixed with bleach. Scientist I was not.

  “Well, he seems pretty harmless to me,” I said, staring down at the scientist’s photo. Dr. Jeppe had brown hair, cut in an eighties-style bowl with silver-rimmed rectangular glasses covering his brown eyes. He’d worn a white lab coat for the photo, which looked like it had been taken for an ID badge, but that was all I could glean from the photo. Taken from the waist up, it was hard to tell how tall he was, but he seemed slender.

  “Sooo…” He drew out the word. “Do you feel like you’re ready?”

  I closed the file. “I’m not really sure what there is to be ready for, Owen. I don’t even have to leave for this ‘job.’” I put air quotes around the word with my fingers.

  He lowered his voice. “I think you’re taking it too lightly, but that’s just me. All of this has hit you very hard. I just don’t want you to rush into anything. There are others who can do the work until you’re ready.”

  I thought again of what had become of Maddie and Tracy’s twin and sighed. “Maybe. But the scientist will be a good distraction. Besides, no one else wants to take on my busywork.”

  He ignored my last comment and glanced at the big, black computer screens behind him. I wasn’t sure if they’d fallen asleep while we were in the hall, or if he’d turned them off in anticipation of me coming into his space.

  “Either way,” he said before I could debate it much longer. “You’d probably better get to work. Do you know what they’re looking for, or how much time you have?”

  “No.”

  He chuckled. “I love those kinds of assignments.” I didn’t miss the sarcasm in his voice. “Just do me a favor and try to take the scientist seriously. I can assure you he’s not busywork. And whatever intelligence you do uncover on him will be used later in an actual mission. Something you discover could save an Unseen’s life.”

  From my cursory glance, my target just didn’t strike me as the type of chemist who was secretly gassing people with his creations in some creepy dugout in the woods. I felt certain that he wasn’t a threat. “Like what? What could I possibly dig up on this guy that would be that life changing?”

  “I don’t know.” He sighed, clearly searching his mind for a good example. “Oh, I know. What if he has a nervous tic? He scratches his eyebrow when he’s nervous or something like that. You put that tiny detail in your report, and if the person assigned to him sees him doing it, he or she might know the guy’s onto them.”

  “That’s a bit of a stretch. Anyway, how am I supposed to find out he has a nervous tic without meeting him? I’m not even being asked to go out into the field for this one.”

  “That’s just an example. Everything you find out about the guy will be important. Sometimes, you never know how the details are going to add up until it’s too late. Hindsight is a terribly clear picture.”

  His eyes pleaded with me, and the depth of his concern gave me pause. A tiny voice at the back of my mind said, Maybe the scientist is dangerous. But I dismissed it. As far as I could tell, sending someone after him would be a waste of our resources, so anything I put in my report wouldn’t ever be implemented in a real mission anyway.

  “Hey,” Owen called out to me before I walked out of his workroom. “Good luck! And congrats on your first assignment.”

  His tone seemed sincere enough, so I nodded. “Thanks.” It hadn’t occurred to me to be excited about my first assignment. It meant I was a contributing member of the Unseen. But I didn’t feel like it, since they obviously didn’t want to trust me with anything important. I wanted to be hunting the real bad guys—killers and terrorists, particularly those who were responsible for Maddie’s death—not chasing after some poor scientist who was probably just guilty of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  As I walked down the hallway, looking for an unoccupied space, I chewed on everything that had happened recently. I found an office a few doors down from Owen’s, and shut myself inside it before setting the file on the desk in front of the computer screens. Owen seemed adamant that the assignment wasn’t busywork, but of course he would say that. He cared for me, so the last thing he wanted was for me to feel bad.

  I should’ve asked him what his first assignment was, I thought. Maybe they gave unimportant assignments to all the newbies.

  The room I settled into was identical to the one I’d just left. Two computer screens and a large, flat-screen television lined one wall, hallway-facing windows lined another, and the other two were covered in dry-erase boards. A long table sat in the center, with chairs on either side so you could spread out as needed. All in all, it wasn’t a bad workspace, if you had to be several floors underground.

  Settling in front of the screens, I typed in the scientist’s name to a Google search, just to see what it would spit out at me. It popped out several scholarly papers on the science behind separating chemicals, as well as his credentials at the University of Michigan. Not much else.

  As I flipped through his file again, reading the contents more intently, nothing in particular jumped out at me. I thought about going back to David’s office and asking him why they were looking into this guy, maybe get some sort of jumping-off point. But then I remembered this assignment probably wasn’t about the guy. It was about keeping me busy until Tracy figured out what to do with me.

  A heavy sigh escaped my lips as I sat back in the desk chair and put my hands behind my head. It was going to be a long week.

  By Friday, I hadn’t come up with anything more. Having little else to go on, I’d printed out his papers, and I was trying valiantly to read through them. But I was a musician, not a chemist. The language was all jargon, and I found myself having to look up every other word. It was at once frustrating and tedious.

  Most of his papers talked about identifying and separating the specific toxic elements of things like ammonia, trichloro (chloromethyl) silane—which I had to look up. Apparently, its toxicity was pretty intense and it was used to bond silicon and chlorine, or something like that—and a few other compounds that I didn’t learn much about beyond the fact that they were highly toxic if inhaled, and some were extremely flammable.

  Then something occurred to me. I pulled up Google again, typing in, “What would happen if you combined ammonia, trichloro (chloromethyl) silane, sulfur pentaflouride, and osmium tetroxide?”

  Nothing popped up, except articles defining what the chemicals were and how they were all ridiculously deadly.

  Leaning back in my chair, I considered the scientist’s seeming fascination with identifying and isolating the most toxic elements of each of these chemicals. Assuming this was a real job, and not just busywork, what could he do if he managed to successfully combine some of the worst elements from each of these deadly chemicals? Could he create a stable super chemical that would be so horri
fyingly deadly, I wouldn’t even expose my worst enemies to it?

  I paused for a moment, considering those who were responsible for killing Maddie. Nothing could be bad enough for them.

  A few minutes later, I had his Facebook page pulled up on one of the screens. His last post—a humblebrag about beating the latest Final Fantasy game—was over a month old. The rest of the posts followed a similar theme: a review of the latest Marvel movie or Game of Thrones episode, a few quick words about a comic book he’d read or a game he was playing. He didn’t post frequently, and he never talked about work. His most recent post about the game hadn’t gleaned any comments or likes, and he didn’t have many friends. But was unpopularity enough of a reason to accuse him of terrorism? Staring at his profile pic, I couldn’t repress the thought that he looked like a sitcom nerd. All he needed was tape on the bridge of his glasses and a pocket protector.

  No, I thought as I slammed his file shut. He was harmless.

  As I added the papers I’d printed to the file, I hoped this would be the last I saw of Dr. Jeppe.

  The following morning, I had a meeting with David to report my findings.

  “So, what did you learn about Dr. Jeppe?”

  Refraining from the urge to roll my eyes proved quite difficult. “That he’s fascinated with highly toxic chemicals.”

  “And?”

  “Not much else to be honest. He has several papers published about separating the particularly toxic elements out of certain chemicals like ammonia.” I picked that one because I wasn’t quite sure how to pronounce the others.

  “Isolating only the toxins?” He seemed to think about that for a moment. “And how does that strike you?”

  “To be honest, I don’t know. I’m not a chemist, David. I don’t even know what’s possible. I guess there’s a possibility he might be trying to learn how to combine the toxins into a super chemical or something, but I don’t even know if that’s possible for one thing.”

  “Is there another thing?”

  “Well, I don’t really think he’s that dangerous. Just because he’s chosen a somewhat dangerous career, why should that make him an automatic target? From the looks of his Facebook page, he’s too interested in playing video games in his spare time to be plotting a major terrorist attack.”

  “Are you so confident you can judge someone’s character from Facebook?” Although his question seemed accusatory, his tone was genuine, like he really wanted to know how I’d come to my conclusions based on the information available to me.

  “No. I suppose not. But he doesn’t exactly have many of the common characteristics of a criminal. Wouldn’t it be a better gamble to use our resources elsewhere? On more of a surefire danger?”

  “The atypical ones can be the most deadly. Not because they’re more manipulative or sadistic, but because they’re unexpected.”

  His comment gave me pause, and we sat in silence for a few moments.

  David sat back in his chair, his eyes looking at me without seeing me. His hands tented around his full mustache. “Yes, well, thank you for your work,” he said absently.

  “I’m not sure how much help it was,” I said, somewhat startled by his abrupt dismissal. Atypical or not, I was still convinced the scientist wasn’t much of a threat.

  My comment snapped David back to our conversation. “I won’t know for sure until I’ve read your report, but I’m sure I’ll find it very useful. Thank you, Mackenzie.” He leaned on his desk, all business now. “You’re to return to your training with Tracy this afternoon.”

  “I am?” A mix of excitement and nerves washed over me.

  David smiled as I squirmed in my chair. “You are. Don’t be late.”

  I stood up immediately, not wanting to give him time to change his mind. “I won’t. Thank you.” I rushed from his office, only to realize it was only eight thirty in the morning. My afternoon training session with Tracy was still hours away, and I knew Owen and Mitchell were both busy working on their own jobs. I paused at the library, but my demons were already sitting on the piano bench. There wasn’t any room for me, so I moved on.

  For the first time in a while, I didn’t really want to be alone, but the only company I had was my haze. I ended up in my room listening to a Royal Concertgebouw recording of one of Mozart’s concertos, letting the strings sing away the seconds until I had to meet Tracy again.

  6

  Tracy was sitting in her usual chair when I entered the training room. Her outfit of cargo shorts and a dark green T-shirt was completely wrinkle free, and I found myself wondering if she ironed her cottons. It didn’t seem outside of the realm of possibility.

  “Please,” she said, gesturing toward my chair. Her tone was upbeat and friendly, and it unsettled me. Where was the stern, let’s-get-to-work Tracy I’d come to know?

  Eyeing her nervously, I took my seat and fidgeted with the drawstrings on my hooded sweatshirt.

  “First of all, I’d like to apologize for my behavior.”

  My eyes shot off the floor and straight to her face. “What?”

  She didn’t repeat herself. “I was unprofessional. Moving forward, I will strive to not allow it to happen again.” She eyed me. “Despite the surprises you are sure to throw my way.”

  I nodded, not sure what to think. To my mind, her behavior had hardly been unprofessional. I was the one who’d overstepped my bounds by invading her memories. Clearly, the mistake was mine.

  “I’m sorry I overstepped.” I hesitated. “And I’m sorry about your sister.” The words came out almost in spite of myself—I needed to say them.

  Tracy cleared her throat. “Yes, well. What’s done is done.” I wasn’t sure if she was referring to my invasion of her mind or her sister’s death, and she didn’t give me a chance to sort it out before she started talking again. “I’d like to talk about why you didn’t make it all the way into my mind.”

  “How would I even know if I did make it all the way into your mind? I was seeing your memories, your thoughts during those memories. What more is there to see and do in someone’s mind?”

  “Lots of things. Hear someone’s live thoughts, for one thing. Controlling them for another. But those are lessons for another day. Today, I want you to tell me what went wrong.”

  I hadn’t really considered that something had ‘gone wrong’ as Tracy put it. To me, I made it past all of her defenses. That had been my only goal, and I hadn’t given any consideration to what might be past that. But when I thought back to the moment I was torn from Tracy’s mind, I knew immediately why my time inside her mind had ended with that memory.

  “I was upset.” That about summed it up.

  “Upset?” She frowned at me, as if she were unfamiliar with the emotion.

  “By your sister’s death.”

  “I see.” She hesitated before moving on, as if searching for just the right way to help me. “Mackenzie, the people we hunt will have far more disturbing things locked away in the corners of their minds. You must guard your heart against whatever you may see, or you will be found. If you are found inside the enemy’s mind, you could be lost to us forever. Worse, the things they would do to you would make whatever you had seen seem like child’s play.” Concern etched lines around her eyes. “I fear this may be your fatal flaw. Sympathy.”

  I snorted. “It could’ve been empathy if they hadn’t hurt Maddie.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Be careful of your grief. I think you’ll find vengeance a terribly unsatisfying path to follow.”

  “How do you know? You never pursued your sister’s killer.” I clapped my hand over my mouth. My tone was judgmental and almost accusatory. “I’m sorry. I don’t know where that came from.”

  “Yes. And that’s why I advised you to be careful of your grief. It can turn on you in a flash.”

  Leaning forward, she rested her elbows on her knees. “Today, I want you to try again. I want you to show me that you can maintain your control and successfully worm all the way into my mi
nd. But…” Her eyes turned deadly. “If you so much as breathe a word about anything you find there, I will personally flay you.”

  Swallowing hard, I nodded. “I wasn’t aware you knew how to do that.”

  “I would learn,” she said, her voice low and menacing. In response to my nod, she said, “Let’s get to work.”

  “Tracy, I…” I hesitated, uncomfortable with the arrangement. “Couldn’t we do this exercise with someone else? That way you could guide me along. And your secrets wouldn’t keep me awake at night.” Hopefully, I could choose someone whose secrets weren’t as heavy as Tracy’s, though I knew too well that everyone had some kind of darkness in their past. The muted sound of the gunshot that had killed her sister echoed in the back of my mind, making me shudder.

  “No. It should be just the two of us.” But she didn’t say why; she just quirked her brow and gave me an expectant look.

  Apparently, the discussion was closed, so I figured I’d better suck it up and get to work.

  This time, I found my way to her wall much more quickly. I also worked my way through her memories faster, trying not to stay too interested or focused on any one thing. It helped me make better progress, and it also saved me from learning anything else that might haunt me.

  When it came to watching her sister get shot again, I still couldn’t guard myself against the force of the memory. It was too much, too needlessly violent, too heart wrenching. So I focused on maintaining my control instead. Tears streamed down my face as I worked past that brick in the wall. Birthdays, school days, summers, vacations… I watched all of it stream past until I finally found myself in a dark space. I didn’t want to call it a room, because I could see neither the walls nor the floor. My feet rested on darkness, and it also surrounded me. But somehow, I could see myself clearly, as if some dim, unknown light source hung over my head. I searched for it above me, but there was nothing there.

  “Tracy?” I called, not sure what to do or where I was.

  She’s done it. I heard her, but it was more of an echo than her actual voice. You’ve done it, she corrected.