Quicksilver

by R. J. Anderson

  “You should see what the guys down at the University of Pennsylvania are doing with these things,” the man went on eagerly, still talking to Milo. “They’ve got ‘em flying in formation, building towers, even playing instruments. They make great surveillance cameras too. Totally the next big thing in military tech.”

  “So if I wanted to visit the makerspace sometime,” I said to the man, “would I be able—”

  “Oh, sure, always looking for new members.” He fished a brochure out of his back pocket and handed it to Milo. “You should come to one of our Open House nights. We just bought a laser cutter, and we’ve got some great projects in the works right now.”

  Never mind that I was the one who knew what a quadrotor was, the one who’d shown all the interest. All it had taken was one not-very-technical question from Milo, and suddenly he was the potential recruit? Seething behind my smile, I said in my perkiest tone, “Thanks. That was super interesting,” and watched the man trot away.

  0 1 0 0 1 0

  “Wow,” Milo said, as the two of us left the museum. “That was some fine sarcasm back there. Too bad he didn’t notice.”

  I sighed. “Like it would have made a difference if he had. You’re the one he was interested in. He probably thinks I liked his quadrotor because it reminded me of a butterfly.”

  “And he probably thinks I’m going into engineering because I’m Korean,” said Milo dryly.

  Hope fluttered in my chest. “You are?”

  He snorted a laugh. “Are you kidding? I can barely keep my bike from falling apart.”

  Stupid, to feel disappointed. But for a moment I’d thought that Milo and I might actually have something good in common. “Oh,” I said.

  “You are, though.” He stuffed his hands into his pockets, a smile curling his mouth. “And you’re going to blow all the guys in your class away.”

  “With my beauty and charm?” I said ironically. “Thanks, but I don’t think their standards are going to be that high.”

  Milo’s smile inverted to a look of reproach. “I’m not talking about your looks. I mean you’re going to be better than they are.”

  “Oh really?” I kept my tone light, but an uneasy feeling was fizzling in my stomach. I hadn’t realized I’d given so much away. “What makes you think so?”

  “Well, your bedroom, for one thing. I know there was a lot happening last night, but I did notice you had a pretty sweet automated system there. So you’re obviously smart. And I thought that flying machine was cool, but when you saw it, you just—” He spread his fingers in a firework gesture. “I’ve never seen you so excited about anything.”

  I could feel a blush sneaking across my face. I pretended to look in a shop window, though I didn’t really need any new handbags or shoes. “So what are you going into, then?” I asked.

  “Guess,” said Milo, and now he sounded resigned, even faintly bitter. It took me a second to process that, but then I got it: whatever his chosen major was, it wasn’t something his family approved of. Either because it wasn’t challenging enough, or prestigious enough, or it just wasn’t the traditional Korean thing to do.

  I stepped back and looked Milo over. Good running shoes—quality running shoes, not just the brand everybody else was wearing, and well broken in. Slim jeans in a classic style. Navy T-shirt with a Nike swoosh across the chest, just visible behind the zip of his dark olive windbreaker.

  All of which could mean any number of things or nothing in particular. But I’d also seen Milo in short sleeves, effortlessly stacking water cooler refills and 20-kilogram bags of cat litter, and I knew what his arms looked like.

  “Something athletic,” I began, and his face lit up. I almost said ballet or figure skating just to see how he’d react, but I’d seen his work schedule and there was no way he had time for lessons. Besides, he didn’t move like a dancer.

  “Phys ed,” I announced. “You’re going to be a gym teacher. Or a coach. Or a personal trainer.”

  “Technically, that was three guesses,” said Milo, but now his eyes were smiling along with his mouth, and I knew I’d got it right the first time. “What gave it away?”

  “You don’t get biceps like that from reading textbooks,” I said. “And no offense, but apart from the earbuds, you don’t seem like the artsy type.”

  “Tell that to my grandmother,” he said. “She’s the reason I had to suffer through ten years of Suzuki violin.” He mimed bowing and made a screechy noise. “But yeah, you’re right. I’m okay at math and science and business and that other traditional stuff, but I don’t want to spend my life in an office. I like running. I like the outdoors. And … ” He gave a little shrug. “I like kids.”

  Now that I’d put the pieces together, it made sense. I could see Milo being good with children, and I could see them liking him too. But kids were one of the things I didn’t talk about, because I was never going to have any. So I just said, “Well, good for you. I’m sure you’ll be great at it.”

  “Tell that to my mom,” he said wryly. “Or better yet don’t, because I haven’t figured out how to break the news to her yet. She knows I’m into sports, but she thinks that just means I’m going to become an orthopedic surgeon and work on top athletes. The kind of thing that will show everybody how brilliant and hard working I am, and make lots of money.” He gazed into the distance, dark eyes wistful behind his glasses. “When she finds out I got accepted at Laurentian, she’s going to flip out.”

  “Laurentian!” I hadn’t meant to sound dismayed, but it just slipped out. Laurentian University was in Sudbury, my old hometown. “Why there?”

  “They’ve got a great phys ed program, that’s why. I applied to Nipissing and Windsor too, but Laurentian was my first choice.” He cocked his head at me. “Why, does it matter?”

  “No,” I said quickly. “I just—wasn’t expecting it.”

  Milo looked about to say something more, but then a whistle blew shrilly from his pocket. “Probably my mom,” he said, taking his phone out. He frowned at the screen for three seconds, then put it away. “Sorry. You were saying?”

  I wouldn’t have suspected anything if not for the slight catch in his voice. But I’d been reading people too long, and I knew Milo too well by now, not to pick up on it. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Nothing!” His eyes opened wide. “Why?”

  I held out my hand. “Give me the phone, Milo.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Sebastian just texted you, didn’t he? I want to know what he said.”

  He deflated. “How’d you guess?”

  I snatched at his pocket, but he spun away, catching my shoulder and holding me at arm’s length. His grip was gentle, but his muscles were like steel. “Hey! What if I told you it was none of your business?”

  “It’s to do with me. That makes it my business,” I snapped, trying to duck under his arm. He grabbed my other shoulder, holding me steady.

  “All right, calm down. I didn’t want to scare you, okay? And I’m guessing Sebastian didn’t either.” He let go and pulled out his phone, turning the face toward me. The message read:

  –Niki’s in danger. You’re not. Stay close to her, please. I’ll be back as soon as I can.

  0 1 0 0 1 1

  We texted back right away, of course. I had a million things I wanted to say to Sebastian, most of them rude—what kind of idiotic, useless, high-handed message was that?—but Milo talked me down, pointing out that we’d get more out of him if he thought the conversation was private. So I let him try first:

  –What kind of danger? What am I supposed to do?

  After we’d waited twenty minutes and sent a couple more messages for good measure, it was obvious we weren’t going to get any answer. He’d sent the text from an online service, probably using one of the computers at the library, and moved on without waiting for a reply.

  “Maybe he’ll get back to us later,” said Milo. But he didn’t sound optimistic, and I wasn’t either. Sebastian’s la
st message hadn’t read like the start of a conversation. It was more like a good-bye.

  “Jerk,” I muttered, but my heart wasn’t in it. I kept thinking about the way Sebastian had looked back in the diner when I called him a coward—that flicker of guilt and, for one second, anger…

  I’d never bothered to turn on the charm for Sebastian; he’d seen too much of the real me to be fooled. Besides, he was already on my side, for reasons that had nothing to do with my winning personality, so I didn’t need to tiptoe around him.

  Or so I’d thought. But now I was beginning to regret needling him about Alison. Sure, their relationship made no sense to me, but it was also none of my business…

  Though if Sebastian had decided he’d rather take off and leave me in some unspecified danger than tell me why he hadn’t called his girlfriend, then he really was a jerk.

  As we walked, the sun disappeared behind the clouds and the wind swirled along the sidewalk, kicking up little tornadoes of grit and paper scraps. The empty storefronts suddenly looked menacing, dark windows staring us down, and the scattered tattoo parlors, bars, and used bookshops were no better. I pulled my dad’s coat around my shoulders.

  “What now?” Milo asked. “Do you want me to take you home?”

  Chivalry was not dead, just totally out of its depth. I sighed. “Milo, you don’t have to do this. No matter what Sebastian says, I can look after myself.”

  “Hey!” He sounded stung. “I may be a jock, but I’m not stupid. Even if I thought you needed a bodyguard, I wouldn’t hang around just because some guy I met yesterday told me to.”

  “Then why are you doing it?” I rounded on him. “I’m not exactly a sparkly ball of fun at the moment, as you’ve probably noticed. I haven’t even been that nice to you—” Oh, crap, my throat had closed up and my eyes were prickling. I had to start walking again, fast, so he wouldn’t see.

  “Yeah, I’d noticed,” he said, matching my pace. “But I kind of like you anyway.”

  “You are a masochist.”

  “Not really. It’s not like you’ve been nasty, just uptight. And kind of hostile sometimes, but I don’t blame you. If I’d been through the kind of stuff you have, I’d probably be in a padded room somewhere—”

  “Don’t,” I said sharply.

  “What?” He frowned at me. “I’m not flattering you. I mean it.” “No. I mean, don’t joke about that stuff. Straitjackets and padded rooms and—” I closed my eyes, seeing Alison’s white, strained face in my mind. “Just don’t, okay?”

  “Okay.” Milo sounded subdued. “Sorry.” We walked another block in silence, and then he said, “What I’m trying to say is, you’re so…” He made a vague gesture. “I don’t even know. Just different. But in a good way. I’m trying to figure out how you do it.”

  “Do what?” I asked warily. He’d said in a good way, so I wasn’t ready to hit the panic button yet. But I wasn’t sure I liked where this was heading.

  “How you just throw yourself into things and deal with them. Like that night on the bus. I’d barely tuned in to what was going on when, bam, you jumped up there and grabbed the wheel.” He huffed a laugh. “It was like all the rest of us were stuck in one of those slow-motion dreams, and you were the only one who was awake. Like it had never even occurred to you to be scared.”

  “I was scared,” I protested, but he cut me off.

  “I know you were, afterward. But right then? You were like the perfect athlete. Totally focused.”

  “Only because I didn’t want to die,” I said. “And as soon as it was over, I panicked and ran off. You’re the one who stayed and made sure the driver was okay.”

  Milo gave an uncomfortable shrug. “Yeah, but you had to show me CPR first, and the rest was nothing special. I mean, I couldn’t have done anything else.”

  “Sure you could,” I pointed out. “You just didn’t.”

  He sighed. “Okay, I get it. You don’t want to be a hero. I’m not trying to be one either. But my point is, if there’s danger involved…” He gave me a sidelong look. “I think the two of us make a pretty good team.”

  And with that, I finally understood what Milo was offering. This wasn’t about pity or duty or morbid curiosity; it wasn’t because I’d made some special effort to charm or impress him. He simply liked being around me, and wanted to be friends. A slow warmth spread through me, loosening the knot in my chest. “Together, we fight crime?”

  “Something like that.” He nudged my shoulder. “Why do you think I started working out? All that stuff about going into phys ed was just the cover story. Really I wanted to look good in the super-suit.”

  I threw my head back and laughed, the first genuine laugh I’d had in days. And despite the worries still skulking at the fringes of my mind, it felt good.

  “Okay, Robin,” I said. “Let’s hunt down the Batmobile and go home.”

  0 1 0 1 0 0

  “I’m home!” I yelled as I came in the door, then stopped as I realized Mom was in the living room, barely three meters from me. She was standing at the front window with Crackers tucked under her arm, watching Milo as he jogged away.

  “Who’s that boy, honey?” she asked.

  “Milo,” I said. “You know, from work. He lives around here, so we got off the bus together.”

  “He’s not bad looking,” she mused. “For an Asian.”

  Oh, wow. And she was a pretty nice mom, for a racist. “He’s Korean,” I said wearily, hanging Dad’s coat back on its hook in the closet. “And he’s just good-looking period, okay?” As soon as the words left my mouth I cursed myself. The last thing I needed was my mom thinking I had a crush on Milo Hwang.

  “I didn’t mean it like that. You know what I mean, honey—”

  “Don’t explain, Mom. It doesn’t help.”

  Mom didn’t answer. She was silent so long that I turned—and saw tears in her eyes.

  “I know you’re unhappy, Niki,” she said, letting Crackers go as he began to squirm and whine. “I know you think we’re wrong about everything right now. But we’re only trying to keep you safe. And a year isn’t so long to wait, is it?”

  Oh, no. I did not want to talk about the makerspace. Not after that depressing incident at the science museum, and with so much else on my mind. And now that Milo was gone, the laughter we’d shared seemed to have happened a thousand years ago and a billion miles away. “I already told you, I get it. It’s fine.” I kicked off my shoes and headed down the corridor to my room.

  She followed me. “Sweetheart, please. I don’t want this to come between us.”

  I stopped in the doorway, one hand on the frame. “Mom,” I said with all the patience I could muster, “there’s nothing to talk about. Really.”

  “I know you,” she persisted. “Do you think I can’t tell when you’re upset? If we just sit down together, I know we can work this out—”

  I shut the door in her face.

  In the stillness that followed, the only sound was the catch of my mother’s breath. Then the floor creaked, and in a few rapid footsteps she was gone.

  I slumped against the wall, pinching the bridge of my nose. Stupid, to think I could hide anything from her. She’d taught me everything I knew about reading people; of course she knew how to read me.

  But there was nothing Mom could do to help me right now, and there was no way I could convince her that my being upset wasn’t her fault. Not without telling her about Sebastian and the Vague Text Message of Doom, anyway—but if I did that, she and Dad would panic and move the whole family to Inuvik.

  Which meant the only way to solve the problem was to solve the problem, literally. To find the threat to my safety and eliminate it, before it eliminated me.

  I only wished I knew how.

  0 1 0 1 0 1

  That night my parents and I small-talked our way through dinner without anybody bringing up what had happened. But Mom kept giving me pained looks and Dad’s jokes were a little too hearty and in the end, I couldn’t tak
e it anymore and excused myself without even waiting for dessert. I spent the evening in the basement upgrading my Dad’s old PC and was in the process of rebooting when I got a text from Milo.

  –Have you seen this? Wonder how long it’s going to stay up…

  He’d included a link to a website, so I checked it out. The title read, in too-large orange letters:

  DISCOVER THE TRUTH

  And below it were a series of links to articles with titles like “9/11 Conspiracy”, “Cell Phone Mind Control”, and “CBC Radio — BEWARE!!!”

  I was frowning at the page, wondering if Milo had sent me the wrong address, when I noticed the final link:

  MERIDIAN—Canada’s Dark Secret

  For one frozen second my brain refused to process what I was seeing. I stared at the screen, the letters blurring and refocusing before my eyes. Then, with dreamlike slowness, I reached out and clicked.

  DID YOU KNOW?

  For twenty years the people of Ontario have been unaware of the terrifying experiments being performed every day on them and their families. The truth about the top secret laboratory buried deep within the rock of the Canadian Shield and its covert military-political agenda has been hidden by government collusion and corruption at the highest level. Because of the many mysterious deaths and disappearances ignored by the so-called Canadian “justice” system, the military’s deliberate cover-up of incriminating evidence, and our health “care” network’s conspiracy to stigmatize and hospitalize those who know and dare to speak the truth, the average Canadian remains completely unaware of their danger. But now thanks to the testimony of a brave survivor known as S., the facts can and will BE REVEALED!!!