One Week Ago
“I’m good.” I turn on the lamp over my bed.
Across the room, Audrey points to the clock and silently giggles. Every Sunday at eight my “dad” calls. Like clockwork. Like the meeting it is.
“We need to discuss your next phase,” Malone says in my ear.
“Okay, but I really need to work on this philosophy paper tonight. I’m drowning in work.”
I’m drowning in work. That’s code for: roommate present. Usually Audrey spends Sunday evening in the floor lounge where she can collaborate on homework with others. But tonight, she has to listen to recordings for French class, and she said it was too noisy.
This is a problem.
“Can you leave the room?”
“Not easily.” The lounge is crowded too, and I can’t go anywhere else at this time of night. The library closes early on Sunday evening, and a cold rain is falling outside.
“All right. I’ll text you instead.”
I flop on my pillow and boot my laptop. “Yes, Dad… I’ll email you this week instead… Uh-huh. Love you too.” I hang up and open the mission database on my laptop, wondering what the next phase is going to entail.
“He’s so cute,” Audrey says, taking out one of her earbuds. “My dad never wants to talk to me. Only my mom.”
I roll my eyes. “He’s so punctual, you mean.”
Audrey giggles and puts the earbud back in. I chew on a pen cap because I’m jealous that Audrey has a mom who likes to talk to her. When she turned twenty last week, her mom sent her a cheesecake in the mail.
A cheesecake!
Audrey shared it with me and a couple other people. It was the first time I’d had cheesecake, which no one could believe, and when I discovered that was strange, I made up some excuse about my parents being lactose intolerant.
The point is: it made me more jealous than ever of Audrey’s family. Her normality. She has two parents, divorced; two stepparents, neither one evil; one sister and one brother, twins, still in high school; a dog; two cats; and a huge extended family.
I have one fake dad, who’s actually the man in charge of RedZone, a private intelligence training and research company. I also have a unit. And though my unit members are like brothers and sisters—Cole’s feelings for me aside—I sometimes wonder what a normal family would be like. It’s strange to think about all the things I’ve been denied. I thought everyone else in the world was weird until this mission required I live among everyone else.
That made me realize I’m weird.
Actually, no. It made me realize how incredibly screwed up I am. Screwed up in ways that are going to haunt me for the rest of my life, the duration of which I’ve probably made shorter than ever by my recent actions.
My phone jingles with a text. Good work narrowing the list down to 46.
Audrey laughs. “You’re not going to get any work done tonight, are you?”
I groan and open my philosophy notes. “Doesn’t look that way.” When she goes back to her French homework, I turn my phone’s volume to silent.
You have the dance coming up on Friday, correct?
Y
There might be an opportunity there. A lot of the names on your list cross-check with those who you think are going.
I frown, hoping Audrey assumes my paper is troubling me. Opportunity? That doesn’t sound good.
It would be an ideal time to cause another accident and observe the effects. You could eliminate a good part of the list in one night.
My neck prickles. An accident? What does Malone want me to do—set off a bomb in the hotel? That’s not a rhetorical question. Unfortunately for Malone, I’m not hurting any more innocent people.
I don’t have any more AC.
Like that’s an issue if AnChlor is what he’s thinking. He’ll simply have some delivered to me this week. So I add to my excuse: Not sure anything’s feasible. Too risky. What if X not attending? What if parents freak and pull kids from school? Have seen no evidence of X being in imminent danger. Best to continue as is.
I glance at Audrey as I hit “send”, but she’s engrossed in her work, transcribing whatever French phrases she’s listening to.
Malone writes back a moment later: We received new intel. Threat to X might be closer than we thought. This is taking too long. I indulged your conscience once, but we’re running out of time.
I read this a couple times, my stomach knotting. My fingers shake as I type my response. What intel? What should I be aware of?
Good thing I have my secondary plan already in place. In theory, Malone should be proud of my ingenuity, although that seems unlikely under the circumstances.
I’ll send report later. Remember, this is an issue of national security. Sometimes we must make sacrifices to save many. If this group gets their hands on X, it won’t just be his or her life in danger.
What’s crazy is that before I spent three months at RTC, I wouldn’t have thought twice about any of this. People were targets or objectives or enemies or obstacles. I believed in my higher purpose unquestionably. If Malone told me to bomb an athletic team’s formal for the greater good, I’d have done it.
No wonder Fitzpatrick threatened to wipe my memories. She called me corrupted, but I think it’s more like my brain’s been infected. The real world is a virus overwriting all my programming. What’s even crazier is that I used to wish I were more CY than HY. Before I came here, I had no idea just how CY I really was.
Oh what a tangled web we weave
When first we practice to deceive.
Not only do poor Sir Walter Scott’s lines often get misattributed to Shakespeare, but they weren’t even that brilliant to begin with. But then, Sir Walter Scott never worked for RedZone.
What I’ve discovered since coming to RTC: lies can make things simple.
Another text from Malone: Gas explosions happen.
Yeah, and gas explosions aren’t the only things that happen. My Sophia life is imploding around me. I need to step up my plan before Malone decides to blow away discretion—literally—and tells me to go on a shooting rampage on campus.
Understood. Will consider all options.
Good. We’re all counting on you.
I fight the instinct to toss my phone, which would garner me unwanted attention from Audrey, and instead place it gently on my pillow as if it’s an explosive device itself. Before I can turn my attention back to my database, however, another text from Malone arrives.
Don’t forget to send pics in your dress. Your unit will love to see them.
I fall back against the wall and my head bangs the wood. It takes me a few minutes before I can respond to Malone. Sometimes, there are no appropriate words.