Attention: ALL
Subject: Reservations of Common Areas
Don’t forget to register when using common areas for private events to prevent overcrowding.
—Dr. Tanner, Planning
I needed to get out of here, now, before his secret slipped out of me. It was something I’d known, that I knew, but it hadn’t clicked into place in regards to an invasion until right now, because the idea of ships invading—Mom said a fleet! How many was that?—hadn’t become real yet.
I didn’t want it to. Because when it did, I’d have to consider the looks on their faces, the utter hopelessness, and that I already knew too many things through family osmosis, things like the trust’s main defenses were its relationships with the other security bases and its strained relationship with the free states. That an invasion could mean the end of Faraday’s dream.
How close this must feel to Andrek. No wonder he was so far away. I knew he wasn’t throwing out a welcome mat for the RC, but who else would believe him? If my parents knew, would he be in operations getting questioned instead? Would I?
Should I? Since I was bald-faced lying to my parents’ faces about Viveca, when—this got packed in my head somehow too—she was all, “Brand Masters isn’t the type to give up,” and “If I don’t do something to stop him now, it’ll be too late?”
Oh.
She knew this was coming. She’d always known.
Ohhhhh.
I’d heard her right, but I’d listened wrong, all wrong, and I didn’t know her reasons, but I knew I was on her side. Brand Masters had to be stopped.
I crossed my heart solemnly. “I vouch for Viveca then. The only unusual thing is how much I think I like her. And that she might like me back.”
Nobody reacted, at least that I could tell. Which made sense, because the rest of them were pinned securely to the reality that had ships were headed to us—invasion ships, with soldiers that zip down from the sky and kill sisters. But I was thoroughly loosened from the entire reality board, not going to breathe again until I planted my face into a pillow and screamed everyone’s secrets before they swallowed me whole or squeezed me out.
I had to leave. Now.
“Let me know if you want our last meal delivered from the kitchen, you know, because end of the world, wooooh.” I wheezed a laugh as I climbed from the void to my legs and out of the chair. “Or whatever. Bye bye now.”
“Lane,” Mom said, and Andrek was still not back to the moon. “We can’t take her off the suspect list. That’s out of our hands.”
“But we can suggest she be moved to the end of that list,” Dad offered. “So long as you understand you’ll need to keep your distance for a while, until she’s cleared too.”
“No,” was all I could make myself say.