Her face closes up as soon as she realizes we’ve recognized her. There’s no apology, no hint of guilt in her body language, and all the anger I’ve buried under weeks of worrying about other things bubbles up to the surface. There’s so much of it that it ties my tongue.
“Hey, guys. Anyone want a cappuccino? I think I’ve figured out how to work this thing.”
I whirl, fury turning the edges of my vision bright red, and hiss at Dane. “She’s the person we’re supposed to work with? She doesn’t know anything about computers!”
“She can’t even work the coffeemaker,” Geoff observes, though the bemused look on his face suggests he’s not a proper level of pissed off about this development.
How dare they make us work with our betrayer without even warning us first?
“I’m not working with her,” I state, and nothing in my voice is wavering now.
“Yes, you are.” Dane’s friendly face is still on, and in a strange way, I feel as though he’s still relying more on our friendship than his position of power to get his way. “She works for the CIA. On this mission, you work for the CIA. Deal with it.”
“She’s not the best person for this job,” I protest, avoiding looking at her. It’s working to staunch the flow of memories that cascade at the sight of her—all the laughter and fights and tears that go with growing up with someone. Knowing someone as well as you know yourself.
Until the day you realize you don’t anymore, and maybe you never did.
Our history almost balances the unbelievable heartbreak of having a sister double-cross me.
“I think if you give her a chance you’ll find that more than a few things have changed since the last time you saw your friend.” Dane stresses the last word, and my tension ratchets up five notches. “You’re not the only ones who have been experiencing enhancements.”
That cuts off any retort that might have been about to roll off my tongue, and I snap my mouth closed. Reaper shouldn’t have access to GRH-18, because as far as the Olders have told us, they’re the ones who developed it. I’ve never considered the fact that since the government is aware of the booster, they might have been working on their own version.
Besides, they must have samples of the original serum if they were able to develop the blocker that allows Dane and the others to avoid being subjected to our abilities. There’s nothing I can do right now, short of walking out of this café and stewing in the car all alone. In here, at least I might be able to learn a few things that will come in handy.
I just have to tolerate Reaper’s presence for a few hours in order to do it.
“Fine. Let’s just get started.”
He nods, then beckons Reaper out from behind the counter. She steps lightly to the row of computers farthest from the windows, which are dirty enough to hide the fact that anyone’s in here. Strange how nothing about her has changed—not her sleek black hair, not her peach cheeks, her thin, short frame, or her natural hesitance about everything in life.
It feels as though her betrayal should have altered her somehow. That living without the Cavies should have taken a visible toll, but from what I can see, she looks better than ever. Certainly better than she had during the few weeks we’d attended Charleston Academy together. Of all of us, acting normal and trying to pretend there wasn’t anything special about us had been hardest on her.
She boots up two computers and then gestures to Geoff and me. “You guys sit here.”
We obey without any further comment, even though my fingers twitch at being so near to her. She leans over my shoulder, her long hair brushing my neck, and punches several buttons on the keyboard. A file pops up on my screen, then another, until fifty of them are piled up on the bar at the bottom of the screen. I’ve figured out how to use a computer well enough to complete school assignments, so this shouldn’t be too much for me to handle. What I want to know is how Reaper has figured out how to do more.
My curiosity trumps my conviction to speak to her as little as possible. “How are you good with computers now? We were in school together two weeks ago and Ella Patterson had to sit with you the whole time in computer science. If she didn’t, you had your hand up every couple of seconds.”
Reaper shrugs, then looks toward Dane for what appears to be permission. He gives her an almost imperceptible nod and she moves on to Geoff’s computer, opening more files for him.
“I’ve had more success lately controlling my ability to manipulate blood on a molecular level.” Her face squinches up over the word manipulate. She can call parts as small as platelets to her, if she wants, so there’s no better word for her gift. “Once I started figuring that out, it translated to computers. It’s weird, but I can, like, see the pieces of code and then change it. Pull it apart, like molecules.”
My mind turns over these facts—revelations, really—as my eyes scroll through the files on the virus’s first victims. They only serve to amp up my suspicions about why the CIA insisted they need our help, because there’s no way I’m going to find anything. To make matters worse, seeing Reaper has made it hard to pay attention to the jumble of words about their lives and pasts, their hobbies and professions. So when, after going through three of them, the name of a church throws up a red flag I’m more than a little surprised.
A quick check reveals three other victims were part of the same congregation and the familiar prickle of fear dances along my nerves.
It’s like with the passports in the car, and now there’s no doubt in my mind that the GRH-18 is enhancing my recall abilities. There’s definitely something going on with my recall. It’s never happened without me knowing that I needed to be able to remember the things I’m seeing, intentionally committing them to memory.
The church doesn’t seem to matter in the large scheme of things. Most of the victims are members of one congregation or another, and the latter ones listed don’t share the commonality with the first. As far as I can tell, they don’t have anything in common until they do—each of them used to live on or close to a military base near Siberia between the years of 1958–1989. Some grew up there, others were on active duty during all or some of the time period listed; others appear to be people indigenous to the area.
It seems too obvious, at first. Something a computer scanning for similarities never could have missed. The common factor shows up in previous addresses, which might be the reason it missed the child and random victims, but there are enough people here with military service during concurrent years that it should have popped.
I gnaw on my lower lip, wondering if it’s too simple and that’s why the CIA dismissed it.
I’m tired of staring at the computer. The crick in my neck urges me to clear my throat, and everyone’s attention is immediately on me. “Um, a good portion of these people served in the military at some point, all stationed on the Baikonur Cosmodrome. The rest of them were children of those people or locals.”
“Baikonur isn’t a military base,” Dane replies, an encouraging gleam in his dark eyes.
“I looked it up since it’s near the region where all this started,” Reaper offers. “It’s partially managed by the Aerospace Defense Forces and the USSR built it in the fifties. Don’t ask me why they’ve got military stationed there, or did back then. The answer to that isn’t in these files.”
“I saw it, too,” Geoff admits, running a hand through his thick, mouse-brown hair. “I just thought it was too obvious to be the answer.”
I’m about to question Dane about why the scanning program didn’t pick up the obvious cross-point when he looks at his watch and gets to his feet. It’s possible I’m wrong about the capability of their program, but if it can’t even find something as easy to spot as the fact that they all used to be neighbors of sorts, I really don’t know why they’re bothering to use it at all. They’ll say it’s why they need us, but they’re the CIA. Don’t they have some of the most sophisticated software in the world?
I can almost hear Dane telling me that I watch too many movies. Maybe the efficiency of the CIA is another Hollywood lie—Chameleon certainly seems to think so.
“It’s after noon. We’ve got to get going—we’re supposed to be at Fifth Mental Hospital—the sanitarium,” he clarifies, “by one, and the plane takes off at four. I’m thinking we don’t want to take any chances being late.”
“That’s the understatement of the year,” I mutter.
Dane’s either too far away to hear me or ignores the snark, and Geoff does the same, following our agent slash babysitter back out into the slushy mess that is Russia in January. I sigh and toss my paper coffee cup into the recycling canister by the door and look up to find Reaper watching me, a strange almost-smile on her face.
“What?”
“You always thought you were so smart.” The smile turns to acid, eating away the corners of her mouth. “But you really don’t know much of anything. And you’re blind as a bat. All of you.”
The insults hit me like harpoons, thick barbs snagging soft skin and pulling hard. I don’t know why she’s picking on me, and at the moment, I’m too hurt and confused to care.
I press my lips together in an attempt to hide how she’s gotten to me. “Shut up, Reaper. You didn’t see fit to talk to me before you made the decision to walk away from us, so do me a favor and keep up the trend.”
She ignores me, smiling bigger as she flips a switch inside the door. The lights inside the café go dark and she turns a key in the lock. It slides into place with a decisive click.
I guess that means she’s coming with us.
Reaper heeds my request in the car during the drive across town to the local loony bin. I’m kind of surprised to learn there are places like mental hospitals in Russia. I’m not really sure why, but I figured they sent all of the useless and crazy and elderly to, well, Siberia.
Dane’s eyes flick back and forth between my ex-friend and me where we sit next to each other in the backseat, as though he can smell the recent discord the way a pet dog can sniff out a sucker during dinner. Geoff ignores us all in favor of the beautiful, foreign scenery.
The streets and buildings in St. Petersburg remind me of Charleston in the way they’re graciously aging, even if the differently shaped domes and spires mark the architecture as foreign. It keeps my attention until the car turns through wrought-iron gates.
The grounds are unkempt and combine with the old red-brick building with filthy windows to give off a vaguely creepy vibe. Or maybe it’s because I know what sort of place it is. Or it could be the bars on the windows.
The driver, who hasn’t been introduced to us, parks and Dane opens the door, then leads us up the front steps where he presses a buzzer.
“Da?”
“We have an appointment to see Ms. Dimitrov. I’m accompanying her family.”
“Yes.”
A buzzing sound issues from the lock on the door a moment before it clicks open. We all follow Dane again, and it occurs to me that we’re all completely helpless. None of us speaks Russian. If the CIA wanted to put us all away in a lunatic asylum halfway around the world, this would be the way to do it.
No one would ask questions. Everyone who might care about me is either trapped here, too, or at home believing I’ve made the choice to leave them behind. Again.
Salty fear slicks my upper lip, dampens my palms so that they leave a smear on the doorframe as I grab on, desperate to feel something sturdy. The ground has never been solid since we left Darley. Not even with my father, though it might have hardened enough to allow roots with time.
Dane turns around, worry creasing around his eyes and in the center of his forehead. Geoff and Reaper pause, watching me as though I might explode any second, as Dane takes careful steps back to my side. His hand wraps around my arm and it’s not lost on me that he avoids touching my skin this time.
The realization makes me feel the slightest bit better.
Fierce determination shines in Dane’s eyes like a beacon. “Norah, you know me. You may not want to believe that, maybe you even think you don’t, but you do. I might not be who you thought I was when we met, but I do care about you. I wouldn’t do what you’re thinking. Betray you. Leave you alone somewhere like this. You know it.”
His words draw me in and I want to go under, swim in them while they bathe me in light and warmth and friendship. I don’t know why or how this connection formed between Dane and me, but it’s always been real. Tangible. He may have conflicting interests along the way. His job might climb to a higher priority than keeping me happy. But he would never hurt me. Not if he could stop it.
That said, now isn’t the time.
I stick out my chin. “Let’s go in. I’m fine.”
My response does the opposite of what I intend, and relief sparks in his gaze, along with something more that takes me a few moments to decipher. Hope.
I push the moment out of my mind as we move forward, but it burns inside me, making the path clearer. Safer, maybe.
The woman behind the front desk is dressed in a version of a nurse’s uniform. She’s plump and angry, if the scowl on her face is any indication.
“One minute,” she huffs in a thick accent. She must be the same woman who answers the buzzer, since she speaks to us in English.
The lady may be pissy but she’s not a liar. Less than a minute later, a man in a lab coat exits a heavy metal door to the right of the desk, hand extended.
Dane shakes it, displaying a smile of thanks. “Dr. Popov, I’m Randolph Spitz. We spoke on the phone.”
“Yes, of course. You’re the attorney accompanying the children come to visit their aunt Nadia.” He glances down at his chart, a frown tugging on his lips. “I’m afraid nothing has changed since we spoke. She has not regained the ability to communicate coherently. She can speak, but the words are random. Without purpose. Based on the scans of her brain and its current activity, this most likely will not improve.”
“I understand.” Dane motions to the rest of us with a wave of his hand. “We all understand, but she’s the only family they have left and would like to let her know she hasn’t been forgotten.”
“It is unlikely that she will be able to process your words, but of course, medicine does not tell us everything, yes?” His teeth are yellow, like kernels of overripe corn on the cob. “Come along.”
The hallway on the other side of the metal door is lined with what appears to be painted cinder block. The floors are also white, giving me the impression of walking through a sterile tube. There are rooms through the dirty windows on both sides of the corridor, all empty. The sounds of our shoes on the peeling linoleum, our lungs expelling breath from our bodies, echo off the bare walls. We reach the end of the hallway and turn left, then left again, before Dr. Popov pushes open a door that leads to a small, sad courtyard. It’s freezing and there’s dirty snow on the ground, but a single woman sits on a lone bench by a string of holly bushes.
I glance around, feeling uneasy. There are probably security cameras in a place like this, for legal purposes if nothing else. If someone’s loved one escaped and the hospital didn’t know how or where to find him or her, there could be trouble.
On second thought, no one leaves a loved one in a place like this. This is where the government puts people they want to get rid of because they can’t pay. Or for other reasons.
The doctor nods toward the woman, and Dane whirls on him with all the indignation of an angry family representative. “Why is she sitting out in the cold?”
“State regulations. Everyone who is able gets one hour outside every day. It doesn’t seem to bother her.” He turns and bangs back through the door, inside where it’s warm.
“Like she would be able to tell them if it did,” Geoff mutters, shaking his head. “This place gives me the creeps.”
“You and everyone else with a brain between their ears,” Reaper snorts.
“Nice. That’s a really appropriate thing to say at the moment.” My teeth have ground together so hard I might be relegated to eating ice cream for the rest of my life.
“Whatever, Norah. It’s not like she can hear us.” Reaper rolls her eyes and stalks over to the woman, flopping onto the bench at her side. “What’s up, Auntie Nadia?”
The woman doesn’t respond. She’s younger than I expected, maybe not even forty. Someone’s tied a kerchief over her bird’s nest of blond hair but it’s barely hanging on in this wind. Even though it churns my stomach to go so close to her, I sit down and adjust it, tightening the knot below her chin. Then I close her coat where it’s flopped open, fastening the buttons.
Geoff sits on her other side. “Aunt Nadia, do you remember anything about what happened to you? Or why someone would want to hurt you?”
Nadia’s eyes are cast on the ground, then on the sky, then on the trees. They seem to sweep over each of us in turn but it doesn’t take a trained scientist or shrink to realize she doesn’t see a thing.
“Let’s go. We knew this would be a waste of time, Dane. That’s why Marlow told us not to come here.” Reaper’s gray eyes are filled with accusation as they stick to Dane’s face.
He gives her no reaction, if she was looking for one. “It’s Agent Lee. And this is my operation. I’ll run it how I see fit and you will fall in line.”
I’m taken aback by the exchange, by their dislike for one another. It wasn’t apparent until now and I have to wonder whether we would have ever guessed had Reaper not challenged him in the open.
I also have to wonder why we’re here at all if Marlow advised against it.
Nadia’s lips move continuously, a quiet flow of mumbled words clawing free and dribbling down the front of her coat. Some hit her knees, others drop onto the concrete, but very few splatter close enough to pick up. Something catches my attention and I shove my questions about Dane to the back of my mind.
We lean in closer to the broken lady like we’re one body, until most of the words are clear, though they still don’t seem to make sense. They’re connected by nothing except language, and they’re in Russian, anyway, as far as I can tell.
She mutters and scoffs and minutes go by. Nearly an hour passes, but we are all transfixed. I’m not sure why we’re not leaving. Why I’m not bored, not cold, but there’s something about her. As though the words do make sense somewhere in the back of my mind, and in that place, I understand they’re important.
Nadia Dimitrov was born in the mid-seventies, toward the end of the period of common residence between the victims. But she lived up near the Cosmodrome, where so many of the victims lived. If they are connected, and that’s why the hackers chose them as the first victims, maybe it was because they saw something.
“Did something happen to you when you lived in Siberia? Did you see anything weird?” I try.
“Baikonur,” the familiar word slips off her tongue, then again. “Baikonur. Dyatlov. Pervyy raz v proshlyy raz vse vremya. Dyatlov.”
“Did you hear that?” I breathe.
Geoff’s eyes are wide. “Yes. She said Baikonur. The name of that base or research facility or whatever it is up in Siberia.”
My mind spins, dots suddenly connecting with synapses working overtime. “No, the other thing. She said Dyatlov twice.”
“So what?” Reaper asks, still bored. Her fingers are pale as she stuffs them in her armpits.
“It’s where those kids were found. The cross-country skiers in the fifties.” Everyone returns blank stares, which forces me to recall that none of them were present when I stumbled across the research that day. “There was a group of college kids found dead under really strange, suspicious circumstances that were never explained. In Dyatlov Pass.”
Reaper looks stumped. Dane appears to be mulling it over. Geoff blows out a huge breath, rustling the shaggy hair on his forehead that needs a cut. “What do you think that means? That they’re connected somehow—the dead kids and the people who were targeted by the virus?”
“I don’t know.” It’s tenuous, at best, but what if the people who lived there somehow found out what happened back then? Or that something’s still going on? “I guess we’ll have to file it away for later.”
“Well, there’s no way to get into it now, that’s for sure.” Dane checks his watch again, an annoying habit he’s picked up since we met at the airport earlier today. They drilled the importance of being back there on time into all our heads, but we’ve got alarms set on our phones and the sun in the sky—it can hardly be past two.
He seems annoyingly unimpressed by the connection, as if maybe it’s dumb to be excited about it. It’s probably nothing.
“It’s two-thirty. Anyone hungry?” Dane asks.
“I am.” Geoff puts hands over his stomach as it growls, punctuating his statement. “If you think we have time to stop and still make it back to the plane.”
“We have time. Eve here knows some workable lunch spots, I’m sure, since she’s been on the ground for a good ten days now.” Dane waits for her to respond.
It’s reluctant when she does, as though getting rid of us as soon as possible holds the highest slot on her to-do list for today. “Sure. There’s a great little café down by the canal. On the way back to the airport.”
For the second time today, which is two times more than I prefer, I find myself trusting Reaper in an unfamiliar town. It’s not like there’s much of a choice, but getting back on that plane and back to the other Cavies is at the top of my list.
Along with getting ahold of another damn computer. Because I don’t care what Dane says, this is a clue. It has to be.
The café is cute, and the location charms me as best it can in my current mood. My bowl of soup—potato—manages to warm me up and the accompanying sandwich on pita bread fills my belly. Everyone else seems in a better mood after some food and coffee, and even Dane’s shoulders have fallen from where he’s had them hunched around his ears all day. We’ve got about forty-five minutes to get back to the airfield, now, and I’m itching to go.
“Did the others have any luck?” I ask, sucking down the rest of my coffee.
Dane’s been typing away on his phone since we got here, so I figure he’s been updated on progress.
“Yes, they did. Haint was able to get into a restricted area, and with the help of one of the Olders, they retrieved some files that could allow us to triangulate the exact location of the origination point for the virus. We’re working with the Russians to check its veracity out now.”
This trip might actually turn out to be worth it—they’ve got the location, we’ve got a lead as far as how victims were being targeted, at least in the beginning, and maybe Mole’s group had success, too. And none of us are hurt or captured. Major bonus.
I get up and toss my trash in the receptacle, then grab everyone else’s, too.
Dane flashes me a hint of his old smile. “Are you ready to go or something, Mary?”
“Ja,” I reply in a horrible imitation of a German accent. If I were in charge of my genetic engineering, I’d ask them to give me something cool and helpful, like being able to speak any language I hear.
At least that might help me get a real job one day.
He snorts. “That is about the worst German accent I’ve ever heard.”
“Not all of us have secret training in these kinds of things.”
The banter almost makes me forget why we’re here. That we’re not Norah and Dane. We’re Agent Lee and Gypsy. The cold blast of air outside the café helps smack me back into reality. We all trek back to the car, rubbing our hands together to keep warm. Reaper’s halfway in the backseat when a spray of something hot splatters my face.
I reach up to touch it. My fingers come away slicked with bright-red liquid—blood.
My heart kicks into overdrive when I see Dane standing by the back of the car, blood gurgling from his neck. There’s skin missing, like someone ripped it off. The shock on his face, the way he pales and presses a hand over his wound, shoots cold fear into my chest.