Dark Days (13 page)

I turned back to Natalie.

“And that's the only time we ever used the clock,” I said. “The next time, it was actually Marek using it to lure us. You remember, he did it the same day you told me you were certain that Mom would leave me a message sometime soon. The day you told me to go check it.”

“So now you think I'm helping him set a trap for you?” she asked. “After all that we've been through. Don't you remember that I'm the one who asked you to join Omega in the first place? That I'm the one who oversaw your training?”

“I remember all of it, including the part where you said that I should always be careful and assume that anyone who's undead is a Level 2 until they prove otherwise. That it's better to hurt the feelings of a zombie than it is to endanger the lives of your team.”

“I would think you'd make an exception for your best friend. After all, I'm not just a zombie. I'm also part of that team you're protecting.”

I didn't know how to reply, so things were quiet for a moment. It sounds weird, but the thing that caught my attention was that she considered herself my best friend. Hearing that out loud made my feel even worse about it all.

“By the way, I wasn't the only one who showed up at the skating rink that night,” she said. “There was also the zombie who attacked you on the ice. The one who your mother and I had to get rid of. The one who I killed to protect you.”

It had never occurred to me that the zombie had seen the message too. I had assumed she just saw me there at the rink and attacked. But it made total sense that she might have uncovered the code just like Natalie had. My mind was racing in reverse.

“Ahh, now you remember,” she said, reading my reaction. “She must have passed the word along to Marek, because I certainly didn't.”

It was like a punch to gut. I was suddenly short of breath as I thought through her explanation.

“I'm so sorry,” I said. “I forgot all about her.”

Natalie went to say something, but my mother interrupted.

“Grayson and Alex are about to get here,” she said, pointing at a pair of security monitors that showed them both approaching the lab. “Is this a discussion you want to continue in front of them?”

Natalie looked at me for a moment, then shook her head. “No. It's not.”

“Okay,” she said. “Molly, knowing what you know now, do you have anything you want to say to Natalie?”

“I really am sorry,” I told Natalie. “I was just trying to be careful, and I ended up being stupid.”

She seemed unsatisfied with my apology, but with the boys almost to the door she didn't have many options.

“Fine,” she said curtly. “Forget about it.”

“Good,” said my mother. “Because we've got a lot of information to go over.”

Moments later Grayson and Alex arrived, and I tried to act like things were normal between us all. Mom and Milton showed us around the lab, and as they did I noticed Natalie kept her distance from me. Every now and then I caught her glaring my way. I couldn't blame her. I just hoped that the excitement of a new assignment would help distract her from it and make her focus on the work we had to do.

My mother gathered us all around a large wooden table in the corner of the lab and laid out a map of Manhattan.

“Let's talk about RUNY, that's R-U-N-Y,” she said. “It stands for Reinventing Underground New York, and it's Marek's big idea. Through his connections with the mayor's office he has taken control of five abandoned subway stations.”

She marked them on the map. Three were near each other in Lower Manhattan, another was in Midtown, and the last was on the Upper West Side.

“He is converting them into public areas with restaurants and stores and turning them into underground parks,” she continued. “This one even has a playground.”

She showed us an architect's rendering of one of the projects. It reminded me of the High Line, which is in the Lower West Side and is about a mile long. Once, it was an abandoned elevated train track, but now it's a public park thirty feet above the ground. Marek was using the same concept, except he was building below the street instead of above.

“It's like he's taking everything about a flatline party and making it permanent,” said Alex.

“That's exactly what it is,” she replied.

The undead have to go underground for about an hour a day in order to recharge their energy from the Manhattan schist. They often do this at flatline parties, which are held in abandoned sewers and tunnels.

Grayson looked at the drawing and then at all of us. “I know it's Marek and he's evil and all, but this actually sounds like something good. The flatline parties can be scary and dangerous, and this will be much better for everyone. Right?”

“Yes,” said Milton. “It's pure genius. He's taking abandoned property that no one else wants and turning it into something useful. And, if all he's doing is making them safe places for the undead, then we're not going to get in his way. But knowing Marek we have to consider that it may be part of something bigger and more sinister. And if that's the case, we have to be prepared to react.”

“So what's our assignment?” asked Natalie.

“You're going to find out if RUNY is what he says it is, or if it is what we worry it might be,” said Mom.

“Actually,” I said, “someone sent me an anonymous letter about this very thing.”

Everyone looked at me.

“Who?” asked Grayson.

I gave him a look. “I have no idea. That's why I said it was anonymous.”

“And you kept this a
secret
?” Natalie asked. “What's the matter? Didn't you trust us?”

“We weren't supposed to do anything Omega related, so I just kept the letters in my dresser drawer.”

“Letters?” she replied. “I thought you said there was
an
anonymous letter. As in one. Now there are letters, plural.”

Despite her accusatory tone, I tried to keep my emotions balanced.

“I received two letters,” I said. “But only one was about RUNY.”

“What did it say?” asked my mother, cutting off our little back and forth drama.

“There was a newspaper clipping about Marek and the ghost stations,” I replied. “And a single question written on a piece of paper. ‘How is he paying for this?' ”

Mom and Milton looked at each other and nodded. “I don't know who sent it,” said Mom, “but that's the two-hundred-million-dollar question, because we know he's spent at least that much money so far.”

We were all stunned by this number.

“Two hundred million dollars,” I said, shaking my head. “Where could he possibly get that much money?”

“That's the key to everything,” said Milton. “If we can figure out how he's coming up with the money, then we'll have a better understanding of what he's up to.”

“In addition to converting the ghost stations, he's also been doing some other unusual things that appear to be completely random and unrelated,” said Mom. “But with Marek, nothing is really ever random. It just looks that way until later on when you see the big picture.”

“What types of things?” asked Natalie.

“Out of the blue he donated a lot of money to support the research of one of my colleagues at CCNY,” said Professor Stimola. “She's a historian who specializes in the American Revolution.”

I instantly thought of the man who attacked my mother and me. I turned to Mom and said, “The guy in the boathouse. He was reading a book about the Revolutionary War.”

“It gets better,” she replied as she picked up the book off of a nearby table and handed it to me. “This is the book he was carrying.”

“
Defending Manhattan: New York City During the Revolutionary War
, by Denise Hendricks,” I said, reading from the cover.

“Denise Hendricks is the professor who Marek is suddenly funding,” said the professor.

“That does seem like a big coincidence,” said Grayson.

“Does she have any particular expertise about George Washington?” I asked.

The professor nodded. “She does. In fact she's writing a biography of him right now. Why do you ask?”

“That was the second anonymous letter,” I explained. “It had a map of Manhattan locations that related to Washington, and a note that told me to ‘Reserve a place in history.' ”

“Any other letters or secrets we should know about?” asked Natalie.

I shook my head. “No. That's it.”

I couldn't tell if Grayson and Alex noticed the tension between Natalie and me, but they were probably too excited about the new mission to pay any attention to it.

“What else has been going on with Marek?” asked Grayson.

“There's a company we want to find out about,” said Milton. “The Empire State Tungsten Company.”

“Back to the man in the boathouse,” I said to Mom. “According to his business card he was their vice president.”

“That's right,” she said. “The company has come up a few more times in relation to Marek and the Unlucky 13. For example, they just sponsored a fundraiser for the NYPD's brand-new Departmental Emergency Action Deployment Squadron.”

“The Dead Squad,” said Alex.

“Another amazing coincidence,” she replied. “We think these things are all related. We just haven't been able to figure out how, and recent developments have made it almost impossible for us to go above ground to look for answers.”

I was trying to figure out what “recent developments” meant when Milton explained.

“She's referring to my brother's current medical state,” he said.

We all exchanged confused looks.

“How do you mean?” asked Alex.

“Marek's doctors were able to rebuild him using body parts from my cousins and from my brother Cornelius,” he said. “It's quite remarkable, actually. But apparently his body is beginning to reject those parts that came from cousins, while those that came from Cornelius are working perfectly. It seems as though he needs a closer genetic match to make the repairs permanent.”

Grayson was the first one of us to really understand what he was implying.

“Do you mean he wants your body parts?” he asked.

“That is
exactly
what I mean,” replied Milton.

“As a result, Milton has to keep an extra-low profile,” Mom added. “The Dead Squad is looking everywhere for him. They're also on the lookout for me, because they think I'm the way to reach him. That's why we need your help. You can cover more ground than us. You can solve this.”

“I've got a plan,” said Natalie. “We can only be together as a group at school or else the trackers will go off, right?”

“That's right,” said Mom.

“Okay, each one of us will take a specific area,” Natalie said, turning to the Alex, Grayson, and me. “Then we'll rotate working in pairs and help each other out. That way we'll follow all the possible leads but also be more likely to see how they come together.”

Alex looked to Milton and Mom. “Now you see why we made her the captain.”

Mom laughed. “Good choice.”

Natalie smiled but otherwise ignored the compliment. She was doing what she did best.

“Grayson, you're going to find out everything there is to know about the Empire State Tungsten Company. Get Zeus on it and start hacking away at every computer database you can find that may be able to help.”

“Got it,” he said.

“Alex, you know more about the NYPD than all the rest of us combined. Try to figure out as much as you can about the Dead Squad, how they work, and how they're trying to find Milton and Molly's mom.”

“My uncle Paul should be able to help with that,” he said.

Too much was riding on this, so I decided I had to speak up. “Actually,” I said guiltily, “there is something else that I forgot to mention that might be a big help with that.”

Everyone looked at me, curious as to what it could be.

“What is it?” asked Natalie. “Another anonymous letter? I thought there were only two.”

“No,” I responded, more than a little wounded. “I have one of their walkie-talkies. It's set specifically on the band the Dead Squad uses to communicate.”

“Seriously?”
said Alex. “How did you get it?”

His was not the only expectant look.

“Officer Pell, the one-eared cop who threatened us. Well, the other day he attacked me in Central Park.”

That was all I had to say for my mom to respond. “Molly, what did I tell you about—”

“I wasn't doing anything Omega related,” I said. “He just saw an opportunity and he attacked me. I had my backpack with me; he must have been tracking me at the time.”

“Where were you exactly?” asked Mom.

I took a deep breath. “The Blockhouse up in the northwest corner of the park. It was quiet and secluded and we were all alone.”

Now the most intense look came from Natalie. The Blockhouse didn't mean anything to the others the way it did to her.

“What were you doing at the Blockhouse?” she asked.

“I was just out exploring. I read about it in a book and wanted to check it out firsthand.”

Judging by her expression she didn't necessarily believe this explanation, but the others had no reason to suspect anything so I just kept going.

“Anyway, he attacked me and I beat him back. I don't think I killed him, but I may have. I used the walkie-talkie as a weapon and took it without even realizing I had it with me.”

“And what did you do with it after that?” asked my mother. “Have you been eavesdropping on them?”

“No. I turned it off and stuck it in my closet,” I said. “I haven't touched it since then. I only kept it because I thought it might be useful in case something like this came along.”