Immune (15 page)

Freddy shook his head. The slick bastard had gutted him like a carp on a fishwife’s chopping block. Although the president hadn’t specifically said it, the implication was clear. Freddy’s horrifying nanite story had caused a huge delay that had killed thousands of innocent kids. Kids! Shit. Why couldn’t they have been experimenting on some old geezers nobody gave a damn about.

Tucking the paper under his arm and rising, Freddy took one more pull on his now lukewarm coffee, tossed a buck on the table, and headed toward the register. It was about time to introduce himself to the good people at the Rondham Institute for Medical Research.

The excitement of the trip to Denver for the finals of the National Science Contest should not have overcome Heather’s horror at the president’s announcement that the alien nanotechnology was on track for public release. But somehow, standing in the midst of the exhibit level of the Colorado Convention Center, it did. No matter how self-centered and shallow it seemed, she just couldn’t help herself. They had done it. Their cold fusion project was right up there on the national stage.

As for the other thing, she would just have to have some faith that the US government knew what the hell it was doing.

Heather had ridden up to Denver in the backseat of the family car, cheered by her mom’s and dad’s excited chatter as they drove. Mark and Jennifer had traveled with their own parents, but they had all linked up at the Country Inns and Suites where they were staying. This quick trip over to the convention center was merely to allow them all to get a look at where they would be setting up tomorrow, in preparation for the Saturday event. Standing here on a Thursday night, despite a number of other students scoping out their assigned spots, the exhibit hall felt like a tomb. Something about a huge hall, before it filled with people, equipment, and noise, just felt hollow.

“Dad, Mom, I’m going to grab Mark and Jen and check this place out.”

Gil McFarland smiled. “Okay, but let’s meet back here in a half hour. Everyone’s starting to get hungry, and tomorrow’s going to be a long day of setup and preparation. I want you to be in bed early.”

“Got it.”

Heather found Mark and Jennifer already heading toward her from the 14
^th
Street lobby.

“I see you’re the early bird, as usual,” said Mark.

“My dad just drives faster than yours.”

“No joke.”

Jennifer looked around. “Have you found our designated spot yet?”

“Yes. They marked areas for each entry. We’ll be setting up right over there near the partition between exhibit halls A and F.” Heather pointed across the floor. “They said we’d get more instructions in the morning when we sign in.”

Something about Jennifer caused Heather to look at her more closely. She seemed nervous, her small hands clenching and unclenching as she moved around. “What’s up, Jen?”

Jennifer looked at her curiously. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. You just seem a little wired.”

Mark nodded. “Yeah, she’s been like that all evening.”

“I guess I’m just nervous about being out in front of all these people.”

Mark laughed. “We’re hardly in front of anybody. There must be spots for a hundred finalists.”

“Fifty-four,” Heather corrected. “One from each state, one from the District of Colombia, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, and Guam.”

“Well, let’s take a look around. What do you say we start from the outside and work our way in?”

“Lead on,” Heather said, falling in beside him. Jennifer followed a couple paces back, something that, again, struck Heather as odd. When she got a chance to chat with her friend privately, sans Mark, she’d dig a little deeper into what was going on with her.

The circuit around the outside of the building only reinforced her first impression. It was beautiful, all modern angles and glass, designed to bring the beauty of the Western skies inside. From the outside, the evening reflections in the glass were simply gorgeous.

14
^th
Street, Champa Street, Spear Boulevard, Welton Street, and then back to 14
^th
Street. Each side of the convention center featured its own lobby, although the two largest were off Spear and 14
^th
since the parking areas occupied most of the space on the other two streets. The net effect on a small-town girl was breathtaking.

As they walked back into the 14
^th
Street lobby, Mark clapped his hands together, rubbing them briskly. “Okay, I’m ready to kick a little booty.”

Heather laughed. “Okay, Coach. You know it’s not a sporting event, right?”

“Competition’s competition.”

“Whatever. We’d better link back up with our folks. I told Dad we’d be back fifteen minutes ago.”

Mark shook his head. “By now I’m sure he’s learned to mentally adjust for your time estimates. After all, you are a girl.”

“Ha-ha. You’re so funny.”

As they reached their parents, Jennifer bent to tie a loose shoelace. Seeing his chance, Mark leaned in close to Heather and whispered.

“I need to talk to you privately.” As he pulled back, a slight nod toward his sister indicated the subject of the desired conversation.

Just then, Anna McFarland interrupted. “Enough chitchat. We’re all starving, and you kids need to get some sleep tonight. Everyone back to the cars.”

By the time they finished eating dinner at the restaurant and made their way back to the hotel, it was after ten. As much as Heather wanted to meet with Mark, she was desperate to talk to Jennifer first. Since Jennifer was rooming with Heather, leaving Mark a solo room, the choice was easy. She’d catch up with Mark tomorrow.

When Heather stepped into her room and flipped on the light switch, she spotted Jennifer sitting on one of the double beds. As she started to say hi, the word froze in her throat. Jennifer sat fully clothed in the center of the bed, her arms hugging her knees tightly to her chest, slowly rocking herself backward and forward. And as she rocked, completely oblivious to Heather’s presence, her eyes stared off into the distance, focused on something that only she could see.

Heather turned to go get help, but Jennifer’s soft voice stopped her.

“Heather, wait.”

Heather turned back toward Jennifer, and as her eyes locked with her friend’s, a sudden calmness draped her like a blanket. Somehow, as she stared into those strangely active pupils, all her worries slowly melted away.

“You’re looking perky this morning,” Mark said, pouring a plastic cup of waffle mix onto the waffle iron.

Heather smiled. “I haven’t slept that well in I don’t remember when.”

Mark closed the waffle iron, rotating the handle into the upside-down position and setting the timer. Grabbing an apple from a bowl on the breakfast bar, a hotel perk he planned on taking full advantage of, he slid into a chair beside Heather. As he studied her face, he smiled back. She did look good, damn good. All traces of the worry lines on her forehead from this last week had been erased as if they had never existed.

Well he wasn’t about to spoil things for her this morning by bringing up his own concerns. The Jennifer conversation would just have to wait until after this weekend. So would his other proposal. It would do them all good to lose themselves in the hustle and bustle of the science competition for a couple of days.

A loud buzz from the waffle iron brought him to his feet just as Jennifer strolled into the breakfast nook. Mark froze in his tracks.

Jennifer had done something to her hair, brushed it out or blow-dried it or something. And she was wearing makeup, not too much either. Mark hadn’t ever seen her in the little knit top and snug jeans either. She had even lost the horn-rimmed glasses. Damn, just like Heather, she was drop-dead gorgeous.

“Wow, Jen! You look fantastic.” Heather’s exclamation woke him from his trance.

A broad grin spread across Jennifer’s face as she moved past Mark to grab a glass of orange juice.

“Thanks. Mom took me out shopping the other day. I thought I’d try out a new look.”

“Well you can quit trying. This is it.”

“What do you think, Mark?” Jennifer’s laughing eyes locked with his.

“Uh…Yeah. I mean, you look good.”

Those eyes. Something about the way Jennifer’s gaze held him made it hard for him to break the lock. Never in his life had he seen, in his sister, anything close to the confidence that shone in those eyes, a glow that seemed to illuminate her whole face. Hell, it shone from her entire body. Coming from little Jennifer, it gave him the creeps.

Before he could ask the question that rose to his lips, Mrs. McFarland popped around the corner.

“For heaven’s sake! Do you kids have any concept of time? We’ve been waiting in the cars for ten minutes.”

“Oh my God,” said Heather. “We just got to talking. Sorry, Mom.”

“Hmm. Finish off whatever you have left. We barely have time to get over to the convention center for the start of orientation.” Without waiting for a response, Mrs. McFarland vanished back around the same corner.

Mark folded his waffle into a taco, poured on a dollop of syrup, and began eating as he walked toward the door.

“Disgusting,” Heather laughed.

“Hey, it works.”

By the time they arrived at the convention center and made their way inside the lobby, a large crowd had already gathered around the in-processing and registration tables. The excited babble of voices grew as they worked their way into the room, rising to a buzz that made Mark think of the sound that must be present within a hive as the workers struggled to please their queen. Only here the buzz was all about personal glory. No matter what anyone might say, as he looked around, he could feel it: that growing sense of the glory that awaited the winning team, that sense that, in the matter of intellectual prowess, they would be acknowledged as superior. And just like those around him, Mark wanted it.

He glanced over at Heather, noticing the proud way her delicate chin tilted upward, her eyes misted with a wet sheen of excitement. God she was beautiful.

This was it. This was their time. It didn’t matter that they had the extra advantage provided by the neural enhancement they had received from the Second Ship. After all, that had merely released the potential that had always existed within them. Now it was time for Mark, Jennifer, and Heather to put the world on notice. The future was now.

His musings were interrupted by their arrival at the front of the registration table and the menial task of filling out the forms that presented themselves. Before he knew it, he was back in the exhibition hall, this time one of hundreds working to prepare their stations for the judges. Minutes became hours as their project reassembled itself, his fingers tuning and adjusting each piece of the apparatus, guided by the steady drone of feedback from his sister as she brought more and more of the computer-controlled instrumentation online.

And always at the periphery of his consciousness, Heather hovered, her gaze staring outward into a numeric dreamland that only she could see, her musical voice chiming in from time to time with special optimization instructions.

Evening came so suddenly that it was not until they were in the restaurant adjacent to their hotel that Mark remembered he hadn’t eaten lunch. Dinner passed through his lips and into his stomach with a rapidity that caused his mother to raise a disapproving eyebrow. However, it was Heather’s grin that made him aware he’d dribbled barbeque sauce from the baby-back ribs onto his shirt.

“Sorry. Guess I was pigging out.”

Jennifer shook her head. “There’s not much guessing about it. No use bothering with a napkin.”

Just as he was about to deliver an angry retort, Mark felt Heather’s hand slide up onto his arm. Something about the gentle squeeze of her hand drained the anger from his soul. Her eyes caught him, pulling him deeply into their gentle brown depths. Those lovely brown laughing eyes took his breath, causing his heart to thunder in his chest so that a wave of dizziness threatened to sweep him away.

Then the moment was gone, swept away by the arrival of the waitress bringing the check. Before he knew what had happened, Mark found himself back at the hotel, alone in his room.

And, tired as he was, sleep was no longer an option.

“And now, ladies and gentlemen, I have the great pleasure of announcing the winning entry of the National High School Science Competition.” Dr. Laura Brannigan, professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, the chairperson of the judging committee, paused as she held aloft a sealed envelope.

Heather’s chest felt as if someone had wrapped it in steel bands, the kind used to strap up wooden shipping crates. As much as she had tried to tell herself that it didn’t really matter if they lost, as the third and second place awards had been announced, she had come to realize what a mental liar she was. It did matter to her. It mattered a lot. Pressed close against either side, she could feel Jennifer and Mark gripping hands with hers.