Harmonic (5 page)

C
HAPTER EIGHT

T
he number of people inside CCM that I trust currently stands at four: Laurel, my parents, and Randolph Lattimer. Beyond that, anyone could be the mole. Even Garnett.

Lattimer isn't what I would call trustworthy in the everyday scheme of things. He's certainly not likable. But there's no way he's a traitor. His hatred of the Free Walkers is genuine and bone-deep and terrifying in its vehemence. I try not to think about Monty in the oubliette, at Lattimer's nonexistent mercy.

I refuse to feel sorry for Monty.

When I return to the office, where Garnett is once again checking over the cabinet, making sure the wall of weaponry is perfectly aligned, I don't mention Laurel. Instead I drop the list of frequencies on my desk.

“Hey, partner! Any luck?” His enthusiasm is disorienting, considering what we're up against.

“Possibly. I might be on the wrong track.”

“Won't know unless we check it out,” he says, pulling on his coat. He's clearly thrilled at the prospect—he's bouncing ever so slightly, drumming his fingers on the edge of my desk as he waits for me to get ready.

“These Echoes were initially marked as cleaving targets. But when the teams got there, the frequency had stabilized, so they moved on. We've got five worlds on the list.”

“Only five?”

“That's plenty for one day if you're going to be tracking signals.”

He considers this. “Okay, I'm looking for a trail to follow. But what are you looking for?”

“Anything that doesn't fit.” It's the only way I've made progress so far: find what's out of place, figure out why.

Garnett seems okay with this, if mystified. I'm beginning to understand the way he works. He likes clear tasks: Follow a trail. Arrest a Free Walker. Keep Addison safe. The more nebulous jobs—poke around some old reports and see what you find, wander around an Echo looking for something unusual—make him edgy. I understand, because I used to be the same way. Del's not the only one who's changed.

Garnett, like any other enforcer, prefers threats he can guard against. He doesn't understand that the greatest danger isn't from the threats you fight off. It's from the ones you welcome in.

When we arrive at the first Echo, he begins tracking while I hang back. It's a townhouse development in a south suburb. The whooshing of nearby highway traffic competes with the pitch, making my ears itch. Garnett doesn't hear it; he's too busy checking for a trail to follow.

The trick to following a Walker through Echoes is to listen for the Key World frequency. It's a clear signal you can trace through pivots and across worlds, a sweet sound that stands out amid the off-key pitches of the multiverse.

Garnett crosses a pivot in the middle of the parking lot, and we're in an industrial park crammed with warehouses. Trucks rumble along the pavement, and we dash to safety along the side of one building until he can pick up the trail again. The next pivot leads us to a self-storage place, and he picks the padlocked gate with surprising ease.

I am starting to wonder if he'd get along with Del.

Garnett has said little since he started tracking, and I've kept quiet, not wanting to distract him. Now he glances back at me. “We need to look inside these units,” he says. We're standing between two long, low buildings made of cement blocks. Icicles dangle from the corrugated steel roofs. Rolling garage-style doors are set into the building at regular intervals.

“You can't hear which one?”

“The trail splits here—leads to all of them.” He shrugs. “So we check all of them.”

He opens the first unit with no trouble. There are a few mattresses on the ground, a butane camping stove, a piece of plywood atop sawhorses to make a desk. If I wasn't looking for the Free Walkers, I would assume squatters had been here.

“Got a trail?” I ask him.

He shakes his head.

We work our way down the row—most of the rooms are identical. A place to sleep, a place to work. Some kind of heating element. We hit a room that's been scrubbed clean—the scent of bleach lingers, and I spot a trash can filled with IV bags and needles.

“Lab?” I ask wonderingly.

He bends and lifts one of the spent IV bags. “Glucose. This was an infirmary. Come on.”

They're treating frequency poisoning through intravenous sugar solutions. Effective, I guess, but not a long-term answer. He leads the way to the next unit—and my jaw drops. The same sawhorse-style desks fill the room, and I can see where they've tapped into the electrical line—two outlets, each with a power strip plugged in. “Command center,” he says with a grim familiarity. He's done this before. He knows the setup.

“This was their headquarters?”

“A cell base camp,” he corrects. “Count the beds—ten people at most, which is a decent size.”

“They live like this?” This isn't a heated storage unit. Chicago's winters are brutal. I can't imagine spending more than an hour here, much less overnight.

“They
choose
to live like this,” he snaps. “And considering the damage they're doing, it's more than they deserve.”

I start to correct him, to explain what Laurel and I found. But he's in no mood to listen, and his sudden vitriol makes me cringe. I put my hands up, placating him. “Where do we go now?”

“We find the next pivot.” He stomps outside. I follow as he searches out a rift at the end of the row. He reaches inside, then draws back and curses.

“What's wrong?”

“Key World.”

Tracing a Walker's signal through Echoes is easy if the trail is fresh. But once they cross to the Key World, their signal matches everything around them. Auditory camouflage, impossible to track.

Which doesn't stop Garnett from trying, once we return to the Key World. He checks every nearby pivot but he can't pick up their trail.

“They must have gone out of range,” he says, the muscles in his jaw jumping. We're back in the townhouse development, and he stares at each of the buildings as if they might be hiding a cell. Maybe they are, but unlike in Echoes, we can't sneak inside to check. We're visible here, and that means we have to be cautious.

We make our way back to the SUV. “Ready for another one?” he asks.

It's dark, and I'm freezing, and we've crossed so many pivots, my ears are ringing. “Let's call it a night. We can go again tomorrow. We'll cover more ground because we know what to expect.”

It's clear from the way he grits his teeth that he'd rather keep looking, but all he says is, “You're the boss.”

Before we head back, he rummages in the glove compartment and hands me a chocolate bar. “You're looking a little rough.”

I bite into it, savoring the snap and sweetness. It takes only a moment for the sugar to kick in, soothing the worst of the frequency poisoning. If you can boost your system with enough sugar early on, you can ward off the symptoms, but I was too focused on our hunt to remember. It's a rookie mistake, and I'm annoyed with myself.

When Garnett finishes his own candy, he says, “You spent a long time in the Archives today.”

“Did I?” I shrug, though my chest feels as fluttery as a fresh pivot. “Filtering out the reports is a slow process. We ended up having to look at each one individually.”

He grins, a sly twist of the lips that tells me to be careful. “I figured you were trying to spend more time with that archivist. Laurel, right?”

I fold the wrapper precisely, gathering my thoughts. Del's obsession with origami makes sense now. It helps you stall, helps you focus, helps you play it cool. When the silver paper is as small a square as I can make it, I say, “That was a long time ago.”

I don't know if he's trying to be chummy or creepy, but it feels like a warning. He knows what I'm doing, even when he's not around.

“No crime to have a relationship,” he says, and grins. “Literally. I'm Enforcement, and I'm telling you: nothing illegal about you two.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence. But it's not in the cards for me right now.” To emphasize my point, I pull out the report for the world we just visited, comparing it against the readings I took with Eliot's phone.

“You're all about the job, huh?” At my nod, he adds, “I get it. That's why we're such a good team. Maybe after this you could transfer to Enforcement. Make it official.”

“That wasn't the deal I made with Lattimer.” Garnett's a nice enough guy. He's a little intense, a little unsettling, even if he's good at what he does. But I'm not interested in teaming up permanently. I want to finish this without getting Laurel or Del into trouble, and then I want life to get back to normal.

“Things change,” he says, and then we're back at CCM, and I can escape the too-warm confines of the car.

•    •    •

When I get home that night, Del is sitting at the kitchen island, working her way through an enormous bowl of cereal. She's changed out of her pajamas, I notice.

“Did you go to school today?” I ask, though it's foolish to get my hopes up.

“Amelia's,” she replies. “Iggy needs walking, and it wears her out.”

“Do you think it's a good idea to spend so much time over there? All you're going to do is sit around and miss him.”

“That's all I do anyway,” she says. “At least at Amelia's, I'm not doing it alone.”

True enough.

“How's Lattimer's project?” she asks. “Are you saving the day again?”

I'm surprised she can bring herself to ask, so I ignore the snark. “I have an office. And a partner.”

Her eyebrows lift.

“He's okay,” I say. “A little weird, but . . . nice, I guess. And good at tracking.”

Del frowns. “That not good.”

“Because he's weird?”

“Weird's fine. Nice is fine. Weird-but-nice-I-guess is what girls say when a guy creeps them out and they don't want to sound like a bitch.”

I force a laugh. “According to you, I have no problem sounding like a bitch.”

“Sure, when you want to. But you
don't
want to, because this is work and Lattimer's watching. You're too worried about making a good impression when you should be watching your back.”

“Not everyone's like Monty,” I say gently. “Garnett's a little odd, but we want the same thing. He's not a problem.”

Unless he's the mole.

She shrugs and returns her attention to the bowl in front of her.

Someone knocks at the front door and she jerks, a reflex left over from Lattimer's visits. I don't think it's a good idea for her to see anyone from the Consort right now. She's too raw and messy, wearing her grief like an open wound.

But when I open the door, I'm the one who feels exposed. Laurel is standing on the porch, hugging herself against the cold. It's the easiest thing in the world to take her by the hand and draw her inside.

“It's freezing out there,” I scold. “Did you walk from the station?”

“Drove,” she says through chattering teeth.

“Come in.” I tug her toward the kitchen and pray that Del won't cause trouble.

“Cocoa? Tea? Coffee?”

“Cocoa sounds good,” she replies, and catches sight of Del. “Hi. I'm Laurel.”

Del nods and turns to me, eyebrows raised. When I turn away to busy myself with the saucepan, she says, “I'm Del.”

“Nice to finally meet you.” Laurel smiles and the dimple comes out. “Share some cocoa?”

For a moment, Del studies the two of us—and then turns on her heel and bolts upstairs.

“Sorry,” I say, passing Laurel a mug with an extra-big helping of marshmallow fluff. “She's having a rough time right now.”

“No problem.” She warms her hands on the white stoneware. “Nice kitchen.”

She's never been here before. Never met my family, never seen my house. I feel bashful, letting her see this aspect of my life. And ashamed that I never shared it with her before today. How hard would it have been to bring her here for dinner? My parents know I'm gay. My mom stopped asking about cute boys in my trainings sessions by the time I was thirteen, instead dropping gentle hints that if there was someone special, I was welcome to bring her home. Del has always known, cheerfully pointing out possible girlfriends and wondering who would be willing to date someone as uptight as me. I can't blame them.

I didn't bring Laurel home because it seemed too official. A statement about something I didn't want to draw attention to, and a statement to her about our future—when I was already worried we didn't have one.

“My mom likes to cook,” I say. “Are you hungry?”

“Nope.” She takes a sip of the cocoa. “Sweet.”

“Sorry. Habit.” I forget that she doesn't Walk as much as I do, so frequency poisoning isn't a problem. “I can make you something else.”

“I didn't say it was bad. Just sweeter than I expected.” She licks at a bit of marshmallow fluff clinging to her lower lip, eyes laughing.

My hand slides across the island of its own accord, the tips of my fingers brushing hers.

“I hate to sound like my sister, but what's up? I wasn't expecting to see you. Not that I'm complaining.”

She straightens and beams at me. “This came through right before I left work tonight.”

She pulls a sheet of paper from her back pocket and unfolds it, smoothing the wrinkles. “Interrupted cleaving. This afternoon.”

“Lattimer came in and spoke to Green. It looked like a big deal, so I found some extra work to do until she left, then pulled up the file. And voilà. Free Walkers in action.”

“You shouldn't have done that. You could get in trouble.”

“Too late,” she singsongs. “Anyway, if we go now, we might be able to follow the trail.”

“That's Garnett's job.”