Soulprint

by Megan Miranda

  “Hi,” I say.

  “Hey,” he says, smiling.

  “Nice to meet you, Ivory Street,” Casey says.

  “Who are you?” Ivory asks.

  “Casey,” she says. “Don’t you watch the news?”

  I smile at her, but Ivory says, “That’s not what I meant.”

  Ivory eyes the gun but gestures toward me all the same, speaking directly to Cameron. “This is a highly unstable person. You don’t know what you’re dealing with.”

  “She’s not so bad, once you get to know her,” Cameron says, and Casey laughs. God, I love them.

  “We have a few questions,” I say. “You answer, we go, the end. Got it?”

  “I love how simple you assume this will be. Sure. Got it,” Ivory says.

  “I found June’s notes,” I say. “I saw her work. She realized there was a mistake.”

  Ivory is silent, then leans forward. “I’m sorry, was that a question?”

  I hear June’s voice, whispering into my ear.

  224081 - Ivory Street - Edmond

  June was sorting through human data. Important facts she was listing for herself as she figured things out. No part of this was a location. These are people. “Edmond is your husband?” I ask, and Ivory flinches.

  She leans back in her chair, folds her hands on top of her desk, and says, “He was, many years ago. A brilliant PhD candidate, too, if you must know. And he was senselessly attacked while walking home from his lab late at night. He was killed by someone else who worked in the lab. Someone who was not right. So very not right. But nobody knew it, until it was too late.”

  She stands from her desk then, ignoring the gun. “You know who was the first person I looked for in that database? Not Edmond. His killer. And you know what I discovered? He spent twenty years in prison in his past life. For manslaughter. You don’t need a science paper for me to explain that to you. Edmond’s death was preventable.”

  “224081,” I say. “Was that him?”

  She tilts her head at me in acknowledgment. And I am in awe of June. Of what she uncovered. Of what she risked to come here, knowing what she knew.

  June’s math comes to my mind, the numbers across the page, so different from the study. The starred IDs, not matching up.

  There was no mistake in the research papers. “You did it on purpose,” I say. “You self-selected the data. You’ve done it on all these papers.”

  “Data,” she flings her hand, “can be used however one sees fit to twist it. The truth can be anything. We are dealing with human beings here. There’s no control for a human being. Way too many variables. It could be the truth. Evil is evil, Alina, there’s really no other explanation.”

  “Do you really believe that?”

  “Well, it doesn’t really matter, does it? It matters what everyone else believes,” she says. “But this much is true: 224081 was a killer in two lifetimes.”

  “What about the third?” I ask. “Has he died?”

  “224081 owes me a lifetime,” she says, as a chill runs down my spine. “And he’s serving it now, in prison. Do you know what prisoners looking down a life in jail do? They die. They stop eating or find something to hang themselves with when the guards aren’t looking. It’s a twenty-four-hour job, keeping those people alive. Not letting their souls have a fresh start. But soul number 224081 is still living, still rotting. I’ve seen to that.” She sighs, laughs to herself. “Sometimes I think I should’ve done a study on suicides. Maybe showing that their souls disappear. Some sort of incentive. Well, hindsight.”

  Casey and Cameron are shooting looks at each other and at me, but I am riveted by Ivory Street. At the person she is, and the person June must’ve uncovered. Of what Ivory Street must’ve done to June.

  Ivory fixes her eyes on me. “But look at you, dear. A lifetime contained and yet still you try. What a hopeful and beautiful thing you are. Waiting seven years after that failed escape. And still going on. Did you think she might come back for you? Is that what kept you going? I’ve spent a lifetime studying humans. I’m fascinated, really.”

  “Genevieve died. She wasn’t coming back,” I say.

  The lines in Ivory’s forehead deepen as she looks at me, tilting her head to one side. “No, not her. Your mother. Did you think she’d try again?”

  “What? My mother had nothing to do with that.”

  She waves her hand. “Of course she did. Seems she lost her nerve a bit after Genevieve’s death. Or maybe she was scared off by how it could’ve been you, dying in that van. I don’t think she has it in her, dealing in lives. Being able to make those decisions isn’t easy.”

  She has succeeded in unraveling me. Because now I’m picturing that bridge, rising up. And I’m wondering if we were supposed to go over the ledge, if that was the plan. If we were supposed to end in the water, if the material across my chest was not for the tracker, but to help me float. If there was someone waiting in the water for us, even then. How close we were, how close we were … And my mother, planning, biding her time, and waiting.

  “I don’t …” I don’t understand, and I look to Cameron to ground me. He is circling closer to me, the gun still pointed at Ivory, like he knows I need him to. I want to linger in this new understanding, let it seep inside and fill me up.

  “Alina,” Cameron says, like he can sense me drifting away, letting Ivory Street distract me, disarm me. She could be lying. She deals in nothing but lies. Focus, Alina. Focus.

  “June’s warnings,” I whisper, finding my voice again, “the names she released. There was never any real danger, was there? There was no indication those people would become violent. Lives were ruined, and it’s your fault.”

  “Everyone starts with the best of intentions,” she says. “Even June. Now let’s not pretend she’s innocent.” Her name, even now, shoots straight to my heart. “Put down the gun, please,” she says to Cameron. “You’re making me nervous.”

  This room is making me nervous. And I’m trying to find a place for everything she’s telling me in my mind, to make sense of it all, make it fit with my understanding of events. It’s too much all at once—my mother, Ivory, Edmond, June. The past life and this one are both different than I thought they were. So much bigger, so much more.

  “The saddest thing is,” Ivory says, “the US justice system refused to do anything with the results of the study. Because we’re a system built on action, not thought. Even after the study, can you imagine?”

  But the study was a lie, anyway. She used only the data that supported her theory, and she acted as if that were the only data. And, for the first time, I’m so grateful for our justice system.

  “But the study enabled us to get further grants, to perform further research, and then, well, then the lovely June Calahan came into the picture. She and Liam hacked their way in—unbelievable, really—and they honestly believed. They truly were something else.”

  “You were the blackmailer,” I say, as I understand what must’ve happened back then. June, releasing information. Everyone knew she was in the database. And Ivory, seeing the opportunity. Getting away with blackmail while using June’s name.

  Ivory shrugs. “Me, the people who work with me … I’m not the only one, dear. I’m just the beginning. Blackmail is the short game. It’s not just money. If a person doesn’t want that information released, we can get them to do near anything.”

  Ava, I think.

  She walks toward us, even though Cameron is still holding the gun.

  The clues weren’t leading me to any shadow-database, they were leading me here. We’re all here, looking for the database, looking for the next step, but this is as far as I’m meant to get. This is the end. This is it.

  What June left me is not access to a database, it’s the truth. It’s the person who was blackmailing, the beginning of the conspiracy, the longest of the long games. A falsified study, the conclusion—that criminal history is passed on—used to blackmail those in power, or those with money.
It’s Ivory Street at the center. The money was never with June. The money was here. It’s in her fancy car and the bricks of her house and the metal points of the fence. June was the scapegoat.

  “Did Liam know, too? Or was it just June?” I ask.

  “I assume they both knew someone was committing blackmail under June’s name, though they didn’t know who. They tried to deny it of course.” I remember her voice on the recorder: I did not blackmail or bribe. The truth will not die with me. It will still be here, waiting for me. “But it wasn’t until after Liam’s death, when June was hidden away with nothing but time, when she apparently mined the database herself before we figured out how she was getting in. I guess it was too late. She copied the data she needed, the souls with criminal activity, and all the relevant variables, and replicated the study on her own …”

  “All this for money? People’s lives for money?”

  “Oh, no, Alina. Not money. Though, to be fair, the money is nice. But control is better. At first, the study was a source for more funding, but it became so much more. Once June began speaking out, we decided we could do the same, attaching her name to it. But more importantly, we could wait. We could use what we knew to sway people, influence policy, public opinion. We could support certain people, get them into positions of power, and then use that information later to force them to act in our favor. The only thing greater than money is power. Who controls the country? Not the president, or Congress, or the people, even. They’re all figureheads. Puppets. Chess pieces. It’s the people in the shadows who determine what we see and how we see it. Who determines where funding goes, what bills go forward, how the media spins events? What gets reported, what gets covered up? Who decides what is wrong and what is right? Perception is everything.”

  I remain silent. I imagine June hearing this same thing and what she must’ve realized: that she ruined lives, yes, and she ruined them for nothing. She was warning people for nothing. She was wrong. I imagine the guilt in her stomach, the regret in her heart. What next, June?

  “Who’s in charge?” I ask. “Is it you? Are there others?”

  She waves her arm. “It doesn’t matter. There will always be someone. The name doesn’t matter, it’s the idea behind it. Ideas do not die, Alina.”

  “How do you get into the database?” Casey asks.

  Ivory turns to look at her. “That I cannot do for you. I’m the one who controls the information, not the one who gets it. There’s a protocol to it. That’s not my part. I only had direct access during the studies.”

  “You can’t,” I say. “But someone can. Who is it?” I ask. Where next, June?

  Ivory remains silent, staring down the empty barrel of Cameron’s gun.

  “We know you can get information. One thing, just one thing,” Casey pleads.

  “I told you I can’t,” she says. And then she smiles. “But I can take you to the one who can. I’ll bring you to him. I’ll trade you for it.”

  But Ivory deals in lives and lifetimes, and I don’t want her anywhere near us. Not any of us. Casey’s about to barter away everything we have. “Casey, want a drink? The kitchen is just down the hall,” I say. I try to use the random eye-movement code that she does with her brother, but I probably come off looking deranged. But this woman broke June, and she would break us in a heartbeat, and I will not give her that chance.

  “Okay,” she says slowly, and they walk, single file, from the office into the kitchen.

  Just in case, I sit at her computer, which she’s already logged into, and perform a search for Ava London, but there’s nothing here.

  I pick up the phone and hit Redial and see the number on the display. Then I sit at her computer and type in the number in the search bar, and her contact list pulls up. Mason Alonzo.

  Alonzo. The Alonzo-Carter Cybersecurity Center. Holy crap. The person she called. The person she works with.

  I was right—it is easier to break a person than to break a code, but June wasn’t the one who did it. Ivory did.

  His information is listed below, the number highlighted beside his name, with an e-mail and a physical address.

  Mason Alonzo is currently a professor of computer science at Elson University back in the city. The address is on campus. Looks like I’m about to see my first college as well.

  I stand up, my nerves on edge.

  I should cover my tracks.

  I should empty Ivory’s gun, sitting beside me on the desk.

  I pick it up, and I point it at the computer, and, remembering what Cameron said about being able to get one shot off with nobody noticing, I fire. The computer makes a noise as the bullet hits metal, but the gun is silent, and this, I think, is the most dangerous type of weapon. I fire round after round, the smell of mechanical burning from the computer, sparks flying, wires sizzling.

  And then I walk out to join them.

  “Time to go,” I say, and I point to the dark stairwell beside the kitchen.

  “What are you doing?” Ivory’s knuckles are white as she grips the counter. Cameron gestures toward the staircase. I walk ahead of them, down the first few steps, just to make sure. But it’s just as Ivory said. A cellar full of wine. Dark and musty. Windowless and comfortless. Cold, but not deadly.

  “Don’t worry,” I say, leading her inside. “Someone’s coming for you, right? In the meantime, this is just a containment.” I close the door, and she pushes back against it. But I’m stronger. I lean close to the door. “It’s for your own protection,” I say. And then I turn the deadbolt.

  She’s still pounding on the door, screaming through it, as we prepare to leave the kitchen, leave the house, leave this all behind.

  “I can give you something no one else can,” she calls. “It’s the same offer I made June. Your freedom. I’m in a unique position to get you out of here. I pull a lot of strings.”

  It’s a tempting offer. I have my answers, but I still can’t see how to get from here to freedom on my own. If it’s even a possibility in this lifetime. And now Ivory is offering it to us.

  But the price will be our silence.

  Noise can be dangerous. But there’s also a danger to silence. It’s everything we discovered, still going, for seventeen years. It’s a gun firing with no sound. It’s me, on an island, with no voice.

  “We’ll take our chances,” I say.

  I picture June running for the woods, looking over her shoulder.

  And then I realize.

  June said no.

  I can see her now, so clearly, running from this home, stopping at a bank, not even worried about the police picking up on it. She was terrified for her life. She left herself a message, just in case, like she promised she would. The truth will not die with me. But she never made it back to the hideaway.

  I am not the danger, she had said. I am not the threat. I am the bell, tolling out its warning.

  More than that, she was going to blow the whistle.

  I hit my palms against the closed cellar door, and Casey sucks in a breath. “You got her killed,” I say. “You did it.”

  “I didn’t do anything,” Ivory says. “I’m not a killer.”

  “No,” I say, “you just pull the strings, right?”

  But she doesn’t respond. I want to feel anger, for how June and I have both been wronged, some drive for revenge, but instead, I am filled with a surge of adrenaline, of appreciation, of awe. What June was willing to do for us both.

  “Alina?” Cameron asks. “What next?”

  “Let’s go,” I say.

  Cameron gives me a look, but he doesn’t question me. Doesn’t even hesitate as he swings his bag over his shoulder. He doesn’t look back.

  “Where are you going?” Ivory asks. “What do you think you’re going to do? You won’t get far, Alina. June didn’t. You won’t.”

  “Let’s go,” I say again. This was the end for June, but it will not be for me.

  “What do you think you’ll do?” she calls. “You have nothing.”


  “Don’t you remember?” I say. “I am the bell, tolling out its warning.”

  And right now, I am the threat.

  I am the threat and the warning and the whistle, all rolled into one. June made mistakes, and she tried to right them, and I think how hard that must be in your own life. To admit to it, and to try to change.

  I wonder if I owe her this, or if maybe I owe myself this.

  June died for this, and I may yet, too.

  “I’m going to the source,” I say to Cameron and Casey outside the house. “I’m going for the proof.” For June, for me, for everyone. I will not ask them to risk anything more, to come with me any farther. If I have to go it alone, I will.

  I run straight for the car, in broad daylight, in the middle of the street.

  They follow me.

  Chapter 23

  It takes two hours to arrive on campus. It’s just outside the city, but close enough to not be segregated from the community. People of all ages wander the sidewalks in front of the buildings that border the city streets, but as we drive through the entrance, the street narrows, and the people disappear. I’m not sure whether it’s because it’s summer or because it’s almost dinnertime, but this place feels like a ghost town.

  Cameron navigates the winding side roads, following signs for different sections of campus. Expanses of grass extend out to either side, and old stone and brick buildings break up the landscape. Once we pass the buildings, we find ourselves on an alley street with several homes that all look alike—as if they were built as part of the school but converted to homes later. The address for Mason Alonzo is for a brick home on this alley. “Should we check it out?” Casey asks. “He’s not home, right?”

  “Right,” I whisper, imagining him on his way to Ivory. Cameron backs out and retraces our path a bit. We leave the van in visitor parking and walk the rest of the way. Mason’s home is about halfway down the street. We don’t stop as we walk past it, but I take my time looking in the front window as we pass. The house is old, narrow, covered with ivy, and has turrets like a castle. Mason may not be home, but the house is not empty. I can see through the window, through the open curtains, two teenagers, or maybe a little older, and a woman I’m assuming is their mother, sitting at the dining room table. They’re mostly ignoring each other—the boy looking down at his cell phone under the table; the girl moving pieces of food around the plate; the woman bringing dishes in and out and answering the ringing telephone—but there’s still a wave of jealousy stirring inside me.