Twelve Weeks Ago
“Guys, this is Sophia.” Audrey drags me to the crowded dining-hall table, her chipmunk cheeks even rounder as she grins. “She’s my new roommate.”
I push hair out of my face, overwhelmed in spite of my training. Audrey’s so full of energy, she’s barely given me time to get my bearings. Though I’ve only known her a few hours, she seems friendly enough. I just wish she were a bit more sedate.
With no other choice, I rush through my initial scan of the room. Four-hundred-twelve students. Fifteen staff. Seventy tables, arranged in twenty-five groups of two, plus twenty around the perimeter. One way in or out, not counting whatever exits exist in the kitchen that I can’t see.
Also, the dining hall is nice. No harsh fluorescent lighting here. No utilitarian metal tables. No bare walls. It’s more like a restaurant than what I’m used to. I hope that means the food will be better too. It can’t be much worse than what I normally eat.
Meanwhile, everyone at Audrey’s table is staring at me, not unfriendly-like, but with curiosity. “Hey.”
Audrey points around the group. “This is Kaitlyn, Emma, Chris, Mark, Mickey, Kyle, Alanna, Laurel, Logan, Chase and Yen.”
The one named Kyle laughs. “Slow down, Aud. Like she’s going to remember that?”
Now it’s my turn to laugh, and I point the way Audrey did just to show off. “Kaitlyn, Emma, Chris, Mark, Mickey, Kyle, Alanna, Laurel, Logan, Chase and Yen. Oh, and I’m Sophia and that’s Audrey.”
A few people clap, and I take a bow.
See? I tell myself. You can do this. It’s just like playing a role. All that studying paid off.
Audrey squeezes two more chairs around the table for us. “Told you—no worries. She can handle it.”
Exactly. That’s why I’m here. Because I can handle it.
“Good memory, new girl,” says Chase. “You see, I can’t even remember one new name.”
You have no idea. But I continue to smile, soaking in their details, committing what I can of them to memory. Alanna has a nose stud. Mark has green eyes. Laurel wears her hair in cornrows. Chase has a scar on his left hand.
I dismiss the specifics of Mickey, Laurel and Yen as unimportant. Their appearances mean they can’t be the reason why I’ve been sent to RTC. Alanna, however, is a maybe. Piercings are a question I hadn’t considered before, but I should. It would be useful to know.
Funny thing, with every sweep around the table, my eyes stick on Kyle. He has some mixed heritage, Asian and white, judging by his bone structure. That means I can’t dismiss him yet. His nose is slightly crooked and he bleaches his hair, which hangs almost to his chin. That’s definitely not significant, but it’s interesting for no good reason.
Also, he makes my stomach knot. Not just insignificant, but uncool.
Halfway through dinner, he catches me watching him, and my cheeks warm. I drop my gaze back to my food, confused. This isn’t supposed to happen.
Two-thousand-ninety-eight students. That’s how many attend RTC. One thousand twenty-one of them are sophomores or juniors. Eighty-five percent of those one-thousand-twenty-one students are of white or racially mixed backgrounds. That leaves eight-hundred-seventy-seven students as possibilities.
I rub my eyes and turn away from the computer screen. Although I knew most of this information going in, it hits me anew now. How am I supposed to find one unknown person, and do it quickly? It’s impossible.
Field paralysis. Though I know it can hit anyone, why did it have to hit me? I’m supposed to be smarter than “anyone”.
I pull my knees to my chest, hating that I feel like failure on only my first day of my first-ever mission. Back home, this assignment seemed manageable. Any task does in a controlled environment. Agents can study tactics, learn to strategize and prioritize, understand how to break things down and plan twenty steps ahead. But out in the field, putting that training to use can be daunting. Paralyzing. It’s why we’d drill. Over and over. Sometimes until we’d want to smash our heads into a wall.
Unfortunately, we never drilled on this task before me. I talked it through, of course. I developed an attack plan, revised it and memorized it. But then, it was remote. The people involved didn’t have personalities. The obstacles I’d face weren’t real. The choices I’d have to make were clear.
Here at RTC, however, the people are real. The obstacles are challenging. The choices are messy. I’m not a machine. I can’t carry on, immune to my surroundings, pretending to be above everything. And I can’t deny that I’m feeling overwhelmed.
I pick at the fraying hem on my jeans, hearing Cole’s voice in my head as clearly as if he were next to me. We were standing outside under the heavy July sun that day, and his skin gleamed with the effort of a brutal training session. I’d just gotten out of my meeting and hadn’t told anyone the news yet. I’d barely had time to process it myself. But Cole knew. He’d probably been told before me. Actually, he might have even recommended me for the assignment. I never asked.
“So you were chosen for the Boston mission.” He beamed at me, making me feel a foot taller, transforming my nervous excitement into something happier. “You deserve it. I know you’re going to do our unit proud.”
That seems so long ago, but I allow myself a small smile. If Cole believes in me, I can do this. I won’t let him down or let myself down. Besides, I know there are people at home who don’t think I’m ready for my first solo mission. People who don’t think I’ll ever be ready.
They can bite me. I fully intend to prove them wrong.
“Nothing is overwhelming unless I let it be.” I say it aloud to hear the sound of my voice. The platitude itself is one I’ve heard more often than I care to count.
So back to the beginning. I simply need to approach this assignment step-by-step, doing my best to not be distracted by classes or by the urge to rush. After all, I can’t stop the enemy from advancing. I can only do my part.
I can make Cole proud.
Taking a deep breath, I silently recite my mission details. I couldn’t bring notes with me to RTC because that would be too dangerous, but I know them by heart.
I am here to find Student X, as I’ve been calling him or her. X is either nineteen or twenty, most likely either a sophomore or a junior, and I have no clue what he or she looks like. A photo of X’s mother is firmly imprinted in my memory, but she’s average all around, so it’s not much use.
Also, a terrorist group is searching for X. That’s where I come in. It’s my job to find X before they do and get X to safety.
I log on to the school’s website. RTC has its own private student and staff directory with names, photos and whatever other personal information people want to share. From there, I can download the list of my eight-hundred-seventy-seven possibilities and create my own database filled with clues that might be useful in identifying X.
All I have for help is one more piece of intel, one that happens to be the very reason bad people want to find X in the first place. He or she is a genetic mutant. Yet, for good or ill, X’s freakishness is not going to be easy to link to anyone. Cole can go on about how I was chosen for this assignment because I’m good, but I suspect part of the reason is that I’m not threatening. I look young and I have a friendly face, the sort people open up to, and I need people to open up if I’m going to succeed. It’s not like X has a telltale birthmark on his or her left arm, or six toes on his or her right foot. Oh no.
Then there’s the possibility that X might not want to be found. In fact, X quite likely doesn’t know he—or she—is in danger, and the enemy could very well be watching. If they sense I’m on to X, they might move. Hell, they might use me to do the hard work of identifying X for them, then swoop in for the kill. That would be failure on a spectacular level.
I can’t fail. Not when Cole believes in me, and not when someone’s life depends on me.
Fast. Discreet. Slick. And blend in like a normal student so the enemy doesn’t know I’m here. No pressure.
Audrey opens the door as I begin working, and I shut my laptop to avoid questions. “What are you hiding out in here for? It’s only the first day of classes. You can’t possibly be doing homework.”
“I’m not hiding. I was…” I suck on my lip. “Was catching up with friends.”
“Ah.” Hands on her hips, she checks out the lone photo hanging over my desk. Me and some of my unit members huddle together at the top of the Empire State building.
Fitzpatrick, the evil overlord who supervises us, had wanted me to bring a fake photo, one that didn’t include my unit members, but I’d pointed out that stealing and doctoring a photo we found online was risky. It was a weak excuse, but Fitzpatrick let it go, so she couldn’t have cared too much. Truthfully, I just wanted a photo of my real friends to bring with me. This is likely to be the only mission where I can get away with that small comfort.
“Who are they?” Audrey asks.
“That’s Cole, Gabe, Summer and Jordan.”
Audrey points at Gabe. “He’s hot. I wouldn’t have transferred if I went to his school.”
I laugh as she pretends to fan herself. “Yeah, and his problem is that he knows it.”
“I see. One of those. Pity.” She motions for me to get up. “Come on. You need to meet more people here. Unless you don’t want to.” She adds the last bit uncertainly, like she fears I’m going to reject her.
As if.
Buried beneath my anxiety about my mission is something else I’ve been trying to ignore: the empty pit in my stomach. Although I lied—I haven’t been catching up with Jordan and Summer and Cole—I want to. I want to be with my friends. My loneliness only amplifies the anxiety.
I tell myself these feelings are simply caused by the levels of neurotransmitters in my brain, but that’s stupid. All we are is a bunch of electrochemical reactions. Biologically based machines. But that doesn’t make the feelings any less unpleasant.
What good is being able to reduce everything to numbers and reactions when life itself can’t be reduced that way? Sophia and I are one now. I can’t push myself away from her. It’s exhilarating and terrifying.
And she’s my responsibility. I’m here. I’m Sophia, and I have work to do, part of which is fitting in and being normal so that people will open up to me and I don’t get caught. It’s just an excuse for what I’m about to do, but it’s true.
“Okay,” I say. “What are you doing?”
Audrey grins. “Talking about the Games. Come on. I want you on our team, and we have to plan.”
Right, more planning. Just what I need.
Day five of this mission and the things I’m learning continue to overwhelm me. Don’t mention the work is easy unless someone else says it first. Don’t worry about being on time for class; nobody is. And, perhaps most importantly, don’t laugh at everyone’s obsession with RTC’s beloved Games.
Now what have I learned that actually relates to the point of my mission? Absolutely nothing. It’s starting to piss me off too. I came here with delusions of wrapping this whole deal up in under two weeks. That’s not looking so likely anymore.
Fighting to keep my scowl hidden, I sit next to Audrey in Intro Physics. My attempt to set a trap for X in the student center girls’ bathroom failed this morning, and I can’t risk such a thing again so soon. It’ll draw too much attention.
“What’s up?” Audrey runs a hand through her curls, trying to control the damage the wind caused on our way here.
I pull up our physics book on my e-sheet. Guess I didn’t hide the scowl as well as I thought. “Nothing. Just bored by how much of this is review from high school physics.”
“Least it’s easy for you.” She sighs, then immediately stops primping as Chase and Kyle enter the room.
I’m pretty sure I’m supposed to say something encouraging here, but I don’t know what, so I pretend to be distracted by a hangnail. I’ve never known anyone who’s struggled with math or science.
While I search for words, I watch another girl sit near Chase. She has a large purple bruise on her calf. It’s a good clue, and I make note of it. Still, cataloguing my classmates for bruises is not a very efficient way to go about searching for X.
“I can help you with the math part if you help me with philosophy,” I finally say. That’s another thing I’ve learned so far: philosophy class is going to be torture. Unfortunately, RTC prides itself on providing a classical liberal arts experience, which meant I was advised to sign up for several pointless courses this semester. I thought they’d help me blend in and fill out my schedule, but I didn’t count on some of them actually being difficult.
Audrey’s face brightens. “Deal. I loved Dr. Ken’s class.”
I know this because she’s told me a hundred times since she discovered I was taking it. Audrey took it last spring, and I think she’d have signed up for it again if she could.
“You’re crazy.” But her smile is contagious, and this plan makes me feel better too. No one warned me the whole making-friends business would be so stressful. My friends back home are more like family. We grew up together and are very similar. Audrey, on the other hand, is so different I’m constantly amazed we get along at all.
She starts to say something else, but our professor, Dr. Fernald, enters the room, and conversations die down.
As I expected, the topics we’re covering today are more basics that I learned years ago. My classmates, it seems, have forgotten a lot since high school. This kind of sloppiness would never have been tolerated back home, but back home we never got summers off either. There was no time to forget things.
Since it takes me only minutes to do the work, I let my hair fall over my face to hide the fact I’m assessing the class. Sparked by the girl with the bruise, I search everyone’s exposed skin for more bruises, cuts, scrapes, or anything that suggests unhealed injuries. It’s definitely not an efficient use of time, but what else is there to do during these fifteen minutes?
As my gaze roams over Kyle and Chase, Kyle lifts his head, glances at me then returns to his paper. My cheeks warm, and I temporarily avert my gaze, hoping he couldn’t tell I’d been staring at him. It’s stupid. I was only checking him for injuries, yet I feel like I’ve been caught doing something bad. What if he thinks I was looking at him because… What? He’s hot?
That would truly be bad, but I still shouldn’t care what he thinks. He’s nothing to me unless he turns out to be X. For that matter, neither is Audrey or anyone else here. Too bad it hasn’t stopped me from caring what they think or wanting them to like me. Or me liking them.
Stupid, stupid emotions.
Shifting position, I hope to appear less obvious when I return to my examination of Chase. He doesn’t have any visible injuries either. Most people don’t.
So much for that. I need another opportunity to use a real plan. Something that won’t involve booby traps that can fail, or barring that, me “accidentally” tripping people on the way to dinner. Something that will get me out of here before I become friendly enough with anyone to miss them when I leave.
When I turn back to my e-sheet, Kyle is looking at me again. And again, he drops his gaze back to his desk quickly. I’m relieved when Fernald calls for our attention because it spares me from thinking about this.
I’m not spared for long, though. After class, Audrey and I end up walking to lunch with Chase and Kyle.
“Why are you taking physics anyway, Aud?” Chase asks. “Aren’t you an English major?”
Audrey glares at him, but her cheeks turn pink. “Don’t give me crap. I need one more science elective to finish them off. Besides, I like science. I used to be good at it in high school.” She sighs. “It’s the calculus part that’s going to do me in. But Sophia is a math genius, and she’s going to help me.”
I laugh because genius, I am not.
Chase groans. “No, geniuses aren’t good either. They ruin the curve and make the rest of us look dumb.”
“That’s only ’cause you are.” Kyle pushes him into the doorway with his shoulder as we step outside. “So does this mean I’m going to have competition for keeping the highest average in Fernald’s class?” He raises an eyebrow as he looks at me.
I return the expression. “You don’t want to compete with me. I’m very competitive.”
“A challenge then. It’s on, Hernandez.” He kicks a stone down the stairs. “Meet you guys at lunch. I gotta pick something up in the library.”
“Library?” Chase yells after him. “Already? I’m surrounded by nerds.”
While Audrey pretends to take offense, I follow Kyle’s path toward the old stone building. The bell tower atop it is the highest spot at RTC. It’ll be a good place to set up some surveillance equipment this afternoon.
Four hours later, I’m prepared to do just that.
The sun beats down golden on the concrete path. Sweaty from my run, I pull my hair off my neck. I made three complete circuits around the campus for a total of 4.47 miles, including several stops to inspect weaknesses in the stone wall separating RTC’s hallowed educational halls from the Greater Boston morass. Despite school security, this place is as easy to breach as a Walmart grand opening.
And, since it doesn’t appear I’m going to get out of here anytime soon, that’s a problem. The enemy might be coming for X, and the longer it takes me to find him or her, the greater the chance they’ll succeed first. I have to discover how they might arrive and how I can escape if they do. The need to be prepared has been drilled into my head at least once a day, every day, since I was five years old: Five-thousand-two-hundred-fifteen lectures on the topic to be exact.
Adjusting my backpack, which is filled with surveillance cameras, I cross the concrete courtyard into the library. It’s too early in the year for it to be busy, but I like this building with its long windows and musty smell. It’s so different than what I’m used to. I thought different things would make me uncomfortable, but so far, that’s not true. Like Audrey, whose differences fascinate me, the library, which is warm and inviting, does too. It’s one of the oldest buildings on campus, and photos of it a hundred years ago line the entryway walls.
Earlier this week, I’d poked around and discovered the door in the back room that hid the bell tower stairs. According to information on RTC’s website, before everything became electronic, the library’s bell used to ring the hours. These days, the bell only rings on Sunday evenings or special occasions. And it, too, is electronic, programmed to play classical music, holiday tunes and even pop songs. Part of the Fall and Spring Games is for students to guess the tunes. Points go to the team that guesses the most correctly.
I smile at the librarian sitting at the circulation desk, then turn the corner into a smaller side room. From here, her back is to me. I take one more check around, then swing my legs over the gate leading into a tiny alcove.
Before me are two heavy wood doors. One leads to offices. The other leads to the tower stairs. Both were locked yesterday. The librarians wear key chains around their wrists, so stealing the key will be harder than picking the lock, especially when I have tools designed for that purpose.
I stick my ear to the door and try the handle to get a feel for it. The latch gives.
Blinking stupidly, I step back and push the door open an inch. Okay then. Either someone left it unlocked by accident, or someone is already up there. Since it’s only my first week, I decide to play dumb if I get caught.
The door hinges creak as I push it open another few inches. Holding my breath, I look over my shoulder for the librarian, but she doesn’t notice. Quickly, I slip through, close the door behind me and climb the five narrow flights of winding steps to the top. No one meets me on the stairs, and when I reach the end, I find the final door to the outside hangs slightly open. I press my eye to the crack.
A blond boy sits on his knees on the rough floor facing south. A gust of wind sends his hair flying, and he turns left for a second, shielding his face. It’s Kyle.
Great. I have an assignment to do, and it doesn’t include guys who wear weird T-shirts that say Sweet Cartwheeling Jesus on them. What does that mean exactly?
Whatever. That’s one mystery that’s not my problem. Not when the enemy could show up any day. Yet, like Kyle’s hair, it interests me, and that is as good a reason as any to leave the tower this afternoon and come back when he’s gone. I don’t need distractions any more than I need an audience while setting up cameras.
But I don’t move. I want to know what he’s doing up here. I want an excuse to talk to him even though talking to him is a bad idea.
“Courage isn’t about not being scared,” I hear Fitzpatrick say in my head. “It’s about being scared and doing what’s necessary regardless.”
That settles it. Not the part about courage, but knowing that if Fitzpatrick were here, she’d tell me to come back later. Screw Bitchpatrick.
I open the door and step onto the tower. Kyle scrambles to his feet. Halfway there, he sees me and stops. The oh shit expression on his face fades as he flings those bleached locks out of his eyes. “Sophia?”
“Last I checked.” I shut the door behind me all but the crack that Kyle left it, and join him by the southern railing. His shoulders relax as he settles back down. “Awesome view.”
I’m not as tall as him—I’m not tall at all, even for a girl—so my nose barely clears the railing when I’m on my knees while Kyle clears it with his chin. Still, I can see well enough despite my literal shortcoming. The Boston skyline rises from beyond the Charles River, piercing the perfect baby blue above. Boats, rendered to nothing more than amorphous shapes in the distance, glide by.
Kyle smiles, and my insides do an annoying dance that is unfortunate for so many reasons. “Yeah, it is. That’s why I’m here. What about you?”
“I was curious.”
“Ah.” He rests his chin on the rail. “I wondered if you could see me up here. We’d be in deep shit if we got found out.”
“Couldn’t see you. Not when I looked up anyway.”
He narrows his eyes. “Most people don’t look up.”
“I always look up. Especially when I’m trying to figure out if people are going to see me sneaking around.”
“And I was hoping you came up here to talk.”
We both duck farther into the tower as a group of seagulls soars disturbingly close.
I sit back, leaning against my pack and wondering if I’ll get a chance to install my cameras today. “Since it took a while to figure out which door I needed to get up here, I assume you came up so no one would find you. That suggests you don’t want to talk.”
“True. But I’d talk to you.”
“You are talking to me.”
“Also true.” Kyle fights the wind over the direction of his hair. His bleach job needs touching up in the back. Half-inch black roots show through. “I guess that works out well then.”
Self-consciously, I tuck my own hair behind my ear. “It does. So did you pick the lock to get up here, or did you get lucky like I did and find the door unlocked?”
He grins and pulls a key from his pocket. “Don’t need to pick a lock if you know where they hide the spare.”
“Aha. So is that what you needed to get at the library earlier?”
He makes an innocent face. “Maybe. But I do pick a mean lock, not to brag or anything.”
“No, obviously you would never brag. You’re totally humble about your physics grade too.” I roll my eyes. “So let’s see—that covers lock-picking and breaking-and-entering. With your mad math skills, I bet you can also count cards. What other criminal tendencies do you have?”
“None that I’m aware of. You?”
“The same.” Plus a few hundred other tricks he doesn’t need to know about, although none of them are criminal exactly. They can merely be used that way.
The moment of silence between us spreads into a lull. I stare at the bell, pretending it interests me when really I’m trying not to stare at Kyle.
There’s an inscription around the top of the bell in what appears to be Latin. No one’s ever bothered to give me instruction in Latin. Back home, it was determined I could pass for belonging to a handful of ethnic groups. The languages of those groups are the only ones anyone bothered to teach me. I wouldn’t mind learning Latin, though. Maybe I’ll teach myself while I’m here. RTC offers classes in it, naturally.
Except I shouldn’t be signing up for extra classes. Classes aren’t my priority at all. Gathering intel is, something I’m not currently doing unless Kyle is why I’m here, but I have no reason to suspect that. Not yet anyway. Maybe when I’ve gathered some of that intel, I’ll know differently, but out of eight-hundred-seventy-seven possibilities, Kyle, has only a 0.001 percent chance of being X. I don’t require any intel to know those are bad odds.
Kyle taps my leg with his green Converse. “So I haven’t gotten to talk to you much. Where did you go to school before RTC?”
Oh, crap. The personal questions. With so many people gathered around the table at lunch and dinner, and with Audrey being so chatty, I’ve managed to avoid prolonged conversations with Kyle. Part of it was luck. Part of it was intentional. Conversations with Kyle feel faintly dangerous.
So I hesitate, playing with the cuff on my hoodie. “A different school,” I say at last.
“Really? I’d never have guessed.” He kicks me lightly, and I blush. “What school? Where?”
I have a story to tell him, complete with a doctored online history documenting it. But the lies don’t roll off my tongue as easily with him as they have with the others who’ve asked. Something about Kyle is different. Or, honestly, something about me is different with Kyle. Emotions aren’t always all they’re cracked up to be.
“A small college in Pennsylvania,” I say, aiming to be as vague and truthful as possible. “You’ve probably never heard of it. Very different from RTC.”
“How so?”
I fold and refold the cuff, trying to perfect the crease. “Technology focused. Big on science and computers, that sort of thing. Which I decided wasn’t my sort of thing. So that’s why I’m here. What about you? Where are you from? I mean, when you’re not at RTC?”
Kyle stretches out, his face turned to the sky. “Everywhere. My parents do a lot of moving. That’s why I love it here. This has become the only stable location in my life.”
“You don’t like moving around? I’d love to travel.” That much is true. It’s why coming to RTC is such a big deal and why it was such an honor that I got chosen. One day I’ll see more of the world than I can imagine, but for now, I’m deemed too inexperienced. I have more training to complete, which I think is insane. I’ve been training my whole life. If nineteen years can’t prepare me for missions, nothing can.
Worry flutters through my gut. There are forces back home that think just that. I will never be ready. My unit will never be ready. We are mistakes.
I have to prove them wrong for all of our sakes.
Kyle shrugs, and I snap back to the present. “I like going to new places, but it gets old after a while. I’m just glad I don’t have to keep changing schools anymore. It sucked having to start over somewhere new every year. I couldn’t wait to get to college.”
“Yeah.” I get this pang in my gut when I think about it. Guilt over those I left behind and over the way Kyle makes me feel. “But maybe that’s not always a bad thing. This is a fresh start for me. A new me—the RTC me.”
Me as Sophia. Although it’s strange, I’m starting to like it.
Kyle drops his gaze from the sky to look at me again. “Yeah, I get that. I have an RTC me too. It’s different from the home me. I thought that made me weird.”
“It might, but I won’t tell if you won’t tell.”
“Done. And I won’t tell that you sneak up the bell tower if you don’t tell that I sneak up the bell tower.”
I laugh. “Also done, but we’ll have to coordinate schedules so we’re not sneaking up at the same times.”
“I was hoping you’d say we should coordinate so that we are sneaking up at the same times.”
That would seriously interfere with my plans. Bad idea. But then again. “Well, maybe both.”
“Good.” Kyle scoots closer. “So what other classes are you taking? What else do you do—sports, music, drunk unicycling?”
I laugh without feeling it. Right. The things normal students do. Fortunately, I have this all worked out. Unfortunately, it means I have to lie again.