Loop (8 page)

Right when we turned to leave, though,
whish,
Quigley’s office door slid back open.

“Miss Bennis, Miss Ellison?”

The Buzz question Mimi had asked earlier. No, no, no, no, no. No red flags.

“I need to speak to you two in my office.”

Blark.

Dr. Quigley sat down at her desk as we walked into the small room attached to the classroom. It was more like a closet than anything. The only things that suggested otherwise were a tiny window overlooking the street and a floor-to-ceiling wall of photographs behind her desk. Quigley sifted through the Specialization forms and didn’t look at us but began talking.

“That was an odd thing to ask today, Miss Ellison. Your Buzz question.” The Quig continued to look down, but a half grin hijacked her face. I felt like I’d seen that look before, but I couldn’t remember one instance of her smiling in class. She finally glanced up. “Wouldn’t you agree, Miss Bennis?”

I nodded.

“I’m curious as to why you would ask such a question, Miss Ellison.” Quigley may have asked the question of Mimi, but she kept her eyes trained on me.

“Just a hypothetical,” said Mimi.

“I see.” Quigley started to wave her off, but I couldn’t leave it at that. Not if there was a chance, however slight, that it could help my mother.

“If something like that did happen, hypothetically of course,” I said, “do you think studying the anomaly could help advance medical research for, umm, for—”

Quigley’s eyes narrowed to slits of fake pity. “For comatose patients?”

Once the words were out there—out loud—I realized how ridiculous it sounded. And how much I’d been harboring a secret hope there could be some truth to it. It
wasn’t
true, of course. No progress, no leads, no hope.

Quigley pushed back in her seat. “No. As I explained during class, the ‘anomaly’ would be easily explained by the distractability of human nature.

“So.” The Quig looked back down at her work. “Do you feel I’ve answered your question in such a way that it will never come up again in my classroom?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Mimi.

“Then dismissed.”

Mimi and I slinked toward the door, but Quigley added, “Not you, Miss Bennis.”

Mimi mouthed,
Sorry,
on her way out the door. As soon as Mimi left, Quigley tapped the console on her desk. My midterm materialized midair, inches from my nose. A bright red “D” glowed in the middle.

What? No.
Any assignment but this one. Please. Anything below a C and Dr. Quigley could opt to go back to the site and review the entire mission. She’d see the Haven Signal. And someone in the family probably had found the black market flexiphone gizmo I left behind.

“I’m disappointed in you,” she said.

Not as disappointed as she’d be if she found out what I’d really been doing on that mission.

“I suppose I should send a review committee straight back to this little Chincotuck place to investigate.” She picked at the edge of her square-sharp thumbnail. Squirms of dread wiggled through my torso until Quigley spoke again. “But given your unique circumstances, I’m not sure that’s warranted.”

Unique circumstances.
That was one way of putting it. Six months ago, my mom had landed on the steps of the Institute after an otherwise routine job assignment. Her microchip wasn’t working, and she was shouting incoherent gibberish. By the time help arrived, she’d slipped into a coma. So, yeah. Some people might go with “unique.” I preferred “sucktastic.” Still, thank goodness my teacher could see reason.

“This is your final warning, though. No more mistakes, Bree. You can’t afford them.”

Oh, she had no idea.

Quigley turned back to the forms she was sorting. “Dismissed.”

*   *   *

My rush of relief lasted precisely seven minutes.

I went straight to the computer lab. I knew I should let it go, but it still bugged me that my search results on Muffy van Sloot and the Mastersons had yielded zilch. As if they’d never existed. And if my assignment did come back up with Quigley, the more info I could give her the better.

Two other students were working, so I picked a station in the opposite corner. An audiovisual message from a sender I didn’t recognize popped up. Curious, I opened it and immediately wished I hadn’t.

“Hey, kiddo.” Leto Malone’s ugly mug materialized before me. His gravelly voice filled the air. “Just thought I’d—”

I slammed my hand against his soligraphic mouth and hissed, “Mute, mute, mute!”

The two students peered over at me, but I blocked their view of Leto as best I could. They turned back around to their own work.

“Shrink display. Readable Audio.”

Leto shrank to the size of a chipmunk and his message scrolled above him:

Hey, kiddo. Just thought I’d check in. The boys here’ve been taking bets over whether you went through with it. But I got faith in ya, kid. Little reminder, though. The bank code is due now. As in
now
. Of course, if you didn’t make the delivery, return the goods, no questions asked. But one of those things better be in my hands within forty-eight hours or I’m afraid some unpleasantness might occur.

Forty-eight hours?
Every last drop of blood in my body drained to my toes as I trudged to my room. All I’d wanted to do was help my mom, pay her bills so she could get decent care. So she wouldn’t end up in that madhouse Resthaven. So there might be some slim chance of her being normal again. Of us being normal again.

I had no idea what to do. I couldn’t make up a pretend bank code. Leto’d check it before he let me out of his sight. But I didn’t have any device to give back.

“Unpleasantness.” That could mean anything. But like any good snake, Leto knew where to strike first to hit deepest. He knew my weak spots, my mom and her skyrocketing medical bills for starters. Or he could turn me in at the Institute and I’d lose the only home I had left. Of course, maybe he had even more—
gulp
—unsavory plans. He didn’t become a top chronosmuggler by passing out kittens and lollipops.

When I reached the room, I put on my everything-is-okay face. Mimi was sprawled on our couch in full mope mode.

“My life is over.”

I bent over and checked her pulse. “Dang it. So close to a single room.”

Mimi held up her QuantCom, lips all pouty. (And yet still magically perky. How did she do that?) “I got tomorrow’s mission assignment. Botany. It’s a full-dayer.”

“I can see why this has compromised your very existence.”

“I was supposed to go to the dance with Charlie.” She chucked her Com on the seat beside her. “So much for that.”

“He asked you to the dance?”
About time.

“Yes. No. Kind of. He asked me if I was going. Does that count?” Mimi curled up in a ball and groaned. “I’m an idiot.”

“You are not. He’s into you; I can tell.”

“You can? Really?” Mimi perked up.

I laughed. “I bet old Bergin can probably tell.” When I said his name, I imagined our headmaster sitting at his desk, drawing matchy-match hearts between his pupils in the Institute roster. “Okay, maybe not Bergin.”

Mimi sighed. “It’s such a bumzoo. I thought maybe this was it, us finally … y’know.” She sat up and wiped away a nonexistent tear. Oh, to have Mimi problems.

“Well, it doesn’t matter now anyway,” she said. “I’ll be in twenty-first-century Maryland.”

Whah?
I scooped Mimi’s Com off the couch and flipped to the top of the mission screen. The date was right around my midterm’s, about three months later. As long as the Mastersons hadn’t found the gadget and destroyed it, I’d be fine.

In the most nonchalant voice I could muster, I said, “Why don’t I switch with you?”

“You have a mission tomorrow, too?”

“Yeah, and mine’s a quickie.” I slid my own Com over to her. “You’d be home in time to primp.”

The glow of the mission screen made Mimi’s impossibly blue eyes even bluer. “Our transporters would be in trouble, too, if we got caught. And our teachers would kill us if—”

“Why should they find out? The people who hire Institute kids to do chrono work hardly ever request a specific student. They don’t care who does it as long as it gets done. Besides, if they catch us, we could feign ignorance. Oops, the roommates switched their QuantComs.”

Oh, there was no way Mimi was falling for this.

“Yeah.” She bit her lip. I braced for the
no,
but instead she threw her hands up in the air. “What the hoo? Let’s do it!”

*   *   *

The next morning, Mimi and I stood on adjacent Shift Pads, avoiding eye contact with both each other and our transporters. I said a silent prayer of thanks that Mimi’s transporter was Charlie, who wouldn’t turn her in even if it meant serving detention himself. And I was assigned to Wyck, who might not be fully awake yet.

“Ready?” Charlie winked at Mimi, and she nodded. Mimi liked the 2060s and
loved
the prospect of dancing with Charlie, so I only felt a tiny twinge of guilt as my roommate faded away.

“How ’bout you, sugar lips?” asked Wyck, looking at me.

“I, umm…” had an overwhelming urge to giggle and gave myself a mental slap.
Focus, Bennis.
“Push the button.”

He laughed. “I didn’t hear the special word in there.”

I cracked a small smile. “Push. The. Blarking. Button.”

“There you go. Happy landings.”

And then I was hurtling through time.

I squinched up my eyes tight as I could and held my breath like usual. But the typical prickles didn’t come crashing over me. Quite the opposite. It was the least painful Shift I’d ever experienced, a sensation of being pulled rather than pushed.

And then it was over.

chapter 6

OOF.
The Shift may not have hurt, but the landing stung the soles of my feet like the frickens. I was in the middle of a field, far from prying eyes. My QuantCom registered a bus station half a mile up the road. I had to hand it to Wyck. The boy had good aim.

It was a nice afternoon for the walk, breezy and warm. I’d raided the cash vault before I left. I didn’t want to waste any time scouting out free options, and there was more than enough for a bus ticket. The wizened counter attendant eyed the roll of bills as I peeled back a few layers.

“Where you headed?” he asked.

“Chincoteague Island.”

“Going for the Pony Penning, eh?”

“Pony—? I mean, yes.”

“Be crowded. You got somewhere to stay?”

I nodded, and he shot me a grin. His piano teeth had a few keys knocked loose.

“I’ve considered headin’ up to the island one of these years and buying myself a pony. Got the land for it, but don’t seem right somehow. Penning something up, what was born free like that.”

I thought back to the info I’d read preparing for my midterm, about the feral ponies that had roamed nearby Assateague Island for centuries. “But if people give them a good home, isn’t it a good thing?”

“I s’pose you’re right.” He handed my ticket over. “And it’s an unforgettable sight, what I hear, watching them ponies swim the channel. You enjoy yourself.”

“Thanks.”

The ride took a little over an hour. I kept to myself and curled into a ball as we passed over bridges. At least I didn’t have the Buzz making it worse. But the lack of Buzz only fueled my nerves. An elderly couple offered me a soda to settle my stomach, so my skin must have turned a queasy shade even if I thought I was handling the trip well.

When we arrived at the island, the same couple offered me a ride.

“Yes, please.” This was getting easier and easier. Wyck might as well have dropped me in the Mastersons’ backyard. I’d have Leto’s gadget back in no time.

“Are you headed to the festival?” the woman asked.

“Yes. I’m staying with a family here.”

“What’s the address?”

Crap. What was the address?
I blanked. And I had Mimi’s QuantCom. It wasn’t like I could check.

“Umm, the house is in the Something Estates. Wilson or…”

“Woodman?” A crease formed in the man’s forehead.

“That’s it. Woodman.”

“And you
know
the owner of the house?” he asked, looking me up and down.

“Yes.” Okay, so maybe I should have spent a little more time in the mirror that morning. I was wearing standard twenty-first-century clothing—stretchy T-shirt, faded jeans, scuffed boots—not exactly running with the jet set no matter which century I was in. “I’m friends with their son.”

He let it drop, but the ride seemed to take twice as long as it had mere days before. If I thought I had learned more than I ever wanted to know about wild ponies before, I now knew more than I ever thought possible. The going rate for a pony at the next day’s auction, the most sought-after markings, and the potential fertilizer output from three ponies.

That’s right. I listened to the couple discuss horse poop for twenty minutes.

When we pulled up to the house, they looked around the property uncertainly. The windows were dark, no sign of life.

“You’re positive you don’t want us to stay?” asked the woman.

“I’ll be fine. Thanks again for the ride.” I waved as they drove away.

The doorbell played a cheery tune when I pressed it, but no one came to answer it. I backed up and stood on my tiptoes to see if the Haven Beacon was lit. It wasn’t. Mostly because it
wasn’t there
.

“That’s weird.” The mission date was three months after my midterm, and I hadn’t seen any moving boxes or a
FOR SALE
sign last time. I went around back to the base of the deck, where I had shaken out my shoes. The sand ran through my fingers like water as I sifted the whole area. Nothing.
Dang it.

I walked back up to the porch and leaned on the bell until it played one long note, in case someone was home and playing hard to get. A flash of movement near the window registered in the corner of my eye. The door flew open. A man’s hand plunged out. It grabbed my wrist and pulled me into the foyer.

I twisted my arm to release it, but the hand held on. Tight, yet not hurting me at all. I continued to struggle against my captor, but he adjusted to my every move almost before I made it. My senses jumped to prey mode—eyes darting in the dim light—and took in every detail. Door. Fully shut but not dead-bolted. The air smelled like home-baked bread and cloves. I couldn’t hear anything but the labored breaths that tickled my right ear. The rest of the room was unchanged from my last visit, except for a few new da Vinci sketches mounted high up on the wall. (Now
there
was a man sporting three green candles if ever there was one.)