Five Weeks Ago
Across the room, Audrey rolls over in her sleep. Nervously, I angle my laptop’s screen so it more closely faces the wall. Audrey’s one of those people who can sleep with the TV on, but I still dread the possibility of her waking up while I’m doing my extracurricular homework. Late-night studying isn’t unusual at RTC. Late-night studying that involves plugging a cable from your arm into your computer, on the other hand… Yeah, I’ve got nothing to explain that.
Luckily, Audrey stays asleep. Must be nice. Yawning, I turn my attention back to the files I just finished downloading. A lot of the information is deadly boring—details of financial transactions spanning three continents. I could wade through it all and try to make sense of it, but that’s something probably best done at an hour other than two in the morning. I put it aside in case I’m ever suffering from insomnia.
The next file I examine is less than promising. Too much of the information was deleted or suppressed before being released. I’m sure it’s on a CIA server somewhere, but cracking the layers of protection around it is an ongoing project. Dr. Wilson might have been a good, though evil, instructor, but I’m not dealing with amateurs here either. So onto the last.
These are photos, supposedly taken of some of The Fours biggest baddies. I go through each one, taking notes on names so I can refine my searches later. Then one photo wakes me from my middle-of-the-night, half-asleep stupor.
I jerk upright, pulling the cable in my arm taut. Pain shoots through me as wire brushes against muscles and nerves. Clenching my teeth, I grasp my open cut with my free hand, yank the cable from my laptop and hold everything in place to quell the throbbing. But my reaction is a reflex, nothing more. The pain can’t distract me. Right now, The Four could drop a bomb on Boston and it wouldn’t distract me.
The man in the photo I’m looking at has coppery hair, a pinched face and a warm smile. His eyes are hidden beneath his sunglasses, but his tie is bright and cheery and familiar. The photo identifies him as Reid Harris, one of the four people after whom the so-called group of Four is named, but that’s not what I call him.
To me, he’s George Malone.
I fall against my pillow, letting my head hit the wall and hoping that might knock some of the stupid out of me. Then I shut the laptop.
My shock lasts for a second. I open the laptop again and study the photo. Yes, it’s really Malone. But no, I refuse to believe this.
So I shut the laptop.
And open it.
Oh, to be a CY and able to process this without my stupid emotions screaming and yanking my thoughts in a million directions. I breathe deeply, once and twice. Then I put the laptop on my desk. Wrap up my arm. Crawl into bed.
Don’t sleep.
Malone or Harris or whoever he is has trained me too well. My brain won’t shut up. By dawn, I’ve reviewed every telling detail that I’ve read or lived, and the details all add up as neatly as two plus two equaling four. Only one question remains.
What do I do about it?