Eighteen

 

She wasn’t supposed to leave her dad’s office, but she was hungry. Talia regretted turning down her dad’s offer of dinner before he left on his mysterious errands. She had been mad at him—he hadn’t really taken her side in that whole school-fight thing. He said he admired her for standing up for friends, but maybe she should have thought twice about the time and the venue. After all, things were dicey for everyone right now.

She knew what he meant: He worried that in the heat of the moment, she would reveal her own status as a clone.

He had left it all up to her. She could tell everyone who she was or not, what her life had been like back in Valhalla Basin or not, that she was adopted and her dad’s biological child or not.

So far, she had chosen to keep her background quiet. In fact, she couldn’t see a time when she would reveal it, especially now, when tempers were so high. Since she couldn’t imagine ever telling anyone who she was, she couldn’t imagine letting the information slip in the heat of the moment either.

But she didn’t reassure her dad about that. It irritated her that he worried about it, that he didn’t trust her on this thing.

She had draped herself over her favorite chair, niggling at her homework. Ms. Rutledge had assigned everyone a written essay about bigotry and violence, due the following morning.

Talia hated writing. She saw no point in it. She always did vid essays whenever possible. But this time, Ms. Rutledge had said there’d been too much talking. She wanted everyone to quietly reflect on all that had happened, and perhaps learn from their mistakes.

Yeah, right. Like an essay would do that.

Talia had done some research, not that it helped. Her brain really wasn’t on the science of bigotry. She wanted to keep looking for information about PierLuigi Frémont, or learn something new about Anniversary Day to prevent the new attacks.

Only her dad had told her she couldn’t do anything without him present. He was afraid she’d leave a trail.

If she were honest with herself, she was afraid of that too. She’d left one before, when she was looking for her sister clones. She’d found several of them living very different lives from her, and then her dad told her about the risk she had put them under.

He had helped her bury her tracks, but too late. She had set off a different kind of investigation—not into the cloning her mother had done, but into one of the cloning companies.

She had learned her lesson then, although her dad was afraid that all she had learned was how to cover her tracks better.

On the small stuff, he was right; she did cover her tracks better. But now she left the big stuff for him.

And anything to do with Anniversary Day was the big stuff.

She sighed and set down the pad she’d been noodling on. What she really wanted to do was write a history of Kaleb Lamber’s family, with a focus on their bigotry. But she knew that Ms. Rutledge wouldn’t allow it.

This was one of those moments when Talia wished she had really good friends so she could at least share the idea with someone who would appreciate it, someone who wouldn’t tell on her.

She stood, and debated for a brief moment. Her dad wanted her to stay in the room, but he couldn’t regulate bodily functions like that. She had to leave for the bathroom, so it followed that she could head to the in-house kitchen area too, just to make herself a snack.

She supposed she could ask Rudra Popova to bring her something, but as her dad had told her repeatedly, Popova wasn’t her assistant. She was Noelle DeRicci’s assistant and as such, she had a really important job, more important than running errands for teenage girls.

She pulled open the door and looked around her. No one in the corridors. Of course, she couldn’t tell if someone was monitoring the surveillance cameras. Someone probably was, but she wasn’t going to do anything technically wrong—at least not by Security Building standards. She was only going to do something wrong by her dad’s standards, and then only if she couldn’t argue her way out of it.

The kitchen was to her left. She made a detour into the bathroom so that she could use it as an excuse (and just plain use it), then she headed to heat up something good. She’d learned over the past few months that there was always something yummy here, which her dad (and Detective Nyquist) said was unusual for a government building.

The kitchen was a small room, almost an afterthought, to the right of one of the other offices. A large refrigerator held a lot of fresh foods, the kind that were really expensive elsewhere in Armstrong. A cook-to-order unit had a basic menu, but right next to it stood an actual stove with a warning that flashed whenever someone touched it. The warning informed the user that they had to know how to operate the stove before trying anything.

Talia knew how to operate a stove—she’d learned from her mother years ago—but that warning on this stove always scared her silly. She opened the refrigerator door to see if someone had left something prepared, something she could reheat.

“Your father works here, doesn’t he?”

Talia jumped. She hadn’t realized that anyone else had come into the room.

She closed the door and turned around. A slender woman with wedge-cut black hair leaned against the wall, arms crossed. Her hair had reddish purple highlights that matched the trim on her black suit.

The woman smiled, then leaned forward, hand extended. “I’m Wilma Goudkins.”

Talia stared at the outstretched hand, like she had seen her father do when he didn’t approve of the person who owned it.

Goudkins finally pulled her hand back, then smiled again, softly. She probably thought the smile was conciliatory. Instead, it seemed embarrassed. “And you are?”

“I’ve never seen you before,” Talia said coldly. She wasn’t about to tell any stranger who she was.

“I haven’t been here long,” Goudkins said.

“Obviously.” Talia looked her over carefully, didn’t see any weapons, and so turned around. She opened the refrigerator door again.

“There’s a leftover meat pie,” Goudkins said.

The meat pie did look good, but Talia wasn’t about to take it now. She removed an orange, then closed the door. She leaned over to the cook-to-order unit, punched in the number for the only thing that tasted remotely like food, and hoped it wouldn’t take long.

She wasn’t fond of the cook-to-order taquitos, but they were better than nothing.

“So you’re here often enough that you don’t have to put an ID into the cook-to-order unit,” Goudkins said.

Talia rolled her eyes, happy her back was still to the woman. No one had set up the identification part of the cook-to-order unit because everyone figured that only authorized personnel would be on this floor. But again, she wasn’t going to say that.

The unit beeped. Talia opened the drawer and removed six steaming taquitos. They smelled good, which told her just how hungry she was. Normally those things smelled like dirty socks.

“Are they any good?” Goudkins asked.

“Why would I make something that isn’t good?” Talia asked. She put the taquitos on a tray and then added the orange. She grabbed a bottle of water, and carried it all to the door.

Instead of saying “excuse me” or politely asking Goudkins to move, Talia just waited. Finally, Goudkins smiled that uncertain smile again, and stepped to one side.

Talia walked past her and headed straight to Popova’s desk. Goudkins probably had a reason to be here, but Talia was hoping she was unauthorized. The woman had annoyed her so much that Talia wanted to see an arrest.

Popova sat at her desk, her long black hair pulled back. She had big circles under her eyes, and she’d lost so much weight that she looked like she might break.

Talia’s dad never said anything about the changes in Popova over the past few months, but Talia had noticed. One of the guards here said that Popova had been in love with the mayor and the mayor’s death nearly broke her.

Talia had offered condolences when she found out. Popova had thanked her, teared up, and left the room. Later, DeRicci made Talia promise not to speak of Popova’s relationship again.

“Hey,” Talia said. “I got some crummy taquitos. You want one?”

Popova lifted her head and smiled. Unlike Goudkins’ smile, this one was filled with good humor. “What an offer. Did they come from the cook-to-order unit?”

“How’d you guess?”

“Why don’t you let me order you something edible from one of the restaurants around here?”

Talia smiled. “Then who would we palm these taquitos off on? That Goudkins woman?”

All the humor left Popova’s face. “Did she talk to you?”

“Yeah,” Talia said. “Is that a problem?”

Popova’s mouth thinned. “What did she want to know?”

“If my dad worked here,” Talia said. “I didn’t answer her. Who is she?”

“One of the investigators the Earth Alliance keeps sending. She’s the most annoying person.” Popova stood, and handed Talia a small pad. “Here’s a list of restaurants that we order from. Just get yourself something.”

“Where are you going?” Talia asked.

“I’m going to tell that woman not to bother us,” Popova said.

“Can I watch?”

Popova frowned at her. “I thought you were hungry.”

“I am, but if she leaves the kitchen, I can heat up something from the fridge.”

Popova laughed. “Come on then. Let’s take care of this problem once and for all.”