One Wish Away (23 page)

“Stopping the next wish?” His hands grab my shoulders and without thinking I fall into him.

“We've been here before, right?” I ask, worry prickling the back of my neck where his hand lightly touches me.

“Yes.” He laughs. “Last night when you were sick and you told me about the…”

“The red Porsche,” I finish. “That's the least of our worries now.”

“I'm all ears. I heard your mother and aunt going at it. Something about hotel bombings and you not knowing how to speak to a Secretary?”

I jump and hit my head against his chest. He winces.

“Sorry.” I rub the spot I hit. “I just wasn't going to tell you about that part.”

“Oh, okay. Secrets now. I see.” He feigns being hurt. At least, I hope he's pretending.

“I wasn't going to tell you because I don't know what I'm going to do yet. But whatever it is… they aren't going to be happy.”

Darren brushes a stray hair off my face and forces me to burrow my head deeper into his neck, breathing deep his musky scent. “Let's start with how your night went and we'll take it from there.”

Darren checks out my window. “No red Porsche.” He sprints out of my room, his footsteps pound down the stairs. In less than thirty seconds he's back. Panting, he says, “No mother, father or aunt around either.” Under his breath he mumbles, “Not terribly surprising.”

I shake my head as he resituates his cap.

“Leave it off.”

“What?”

I nod to his hat. “Leave it off.”

“You don't like it?”

“I do like it. But I like it off too.”

He tosses it on the floor. “Good?”

“Good.”

He claps his hands together. “Okay, so what's our plan?”

I tried, numerous times this morning to convince him this was
my
problem and I would figure out how to deal with it. But it was all just a waste of breath. There's no way he's letting me do this without him.

Darren sits across from me at the edge of my bed. “You're sure you want to do this?”

“I have to at least try. It's like you said. They're not thinking. They see a chance to ‘make the world better' and they're jumping at it.”

Darren tilts his head and I realize he's trying to find the memory of him telling me to
think for them
. He won't find it though. That was reality: version 2.5.

After a few seconds of searching he lets it go and says, “Will the world be better?”

“Does it matter? A better world by immoral means? Is that worth it?”

Darren shrugs. “Some would argue, yes.”

“Do you?”

“No.”

I exhale and fold my legs under me. “This is what I think we have to do.” I can't believe I'm going to say this out loud.

Because his screams still crowd my thoughts. His smile still haunts my dreams. I couldn't possibly fathom why Carl would risk his freedom, his life, to tell someone about the project. I still constantly worry about Darren, wish I never would have told him about the project. But he knew far too much before I even knew what we were getting ourselves into.

And now I'm starting to get it.

Carl must have understood the dangers of this project long before the rest of us. He understood that this kind of power can't belong to a small group of people.

“We have to expose the Cricket Project.”

Darren raises an eyebrow, but doesn't speak, so I continue.

“If we expose the project to the world, then they have to consult everyone. We might not get to grant as many wishes, but the ones we do agree on will be made with everyone's consent. If the countries want to turn into US territories, they can go ahead and do it in
this
reality.”

Darren shifts. “They're not going to want to become US territories.”

“My point exactly.”

Now the other eyebrow moves.

“How can the wish possibly be right if all of the people involved wouldn't agree to it?”

“Touché.” Darren smiles and crawls toward me. He puts an arm on both sides of my shoulders, pinning me to my headboard. “Have I told you how brilliant you are?”

“Uh… no?” My lip tugs and I move my head forward to kiss him, but he pulls back. His gaze searches mine, then moves over my lips and back to my eyes.

“You're brilliant.”

His lips meet mine, warm and soft, sincere and gentle. I didn't realize how much I missed this. My hand grabs the back of his head and forces him closer to me. The kiss is deeper, more urgent. There's something else there too…

Fear.

He pulls away, breathing hard, and whispers, “Let me do it.”

“What?”

“Let me expose the Cricket Project.”

“No.” I shake my head and grab his face so I can see him clearly. “I won't have you take the fall for this. They can't hurt me as much as they can hurt you. My father and aunt are the only two who can work the machine.”

“They're going to know who did it, Lyra.” His words are defeated, his eyes sad.

“I know.” It comes out soft. I can't look at him. Chances are I'm going to spend the rest of my life in jail. Or worse. We should break this off right now, whatever this is.

Darren exhales and my hair flows around my face. His hand rises to my cheek, lingers there for a while and then trails down my shoulder, my side, ending at my hand.

“Then at least let me help you. No telling me it's too dangerous because I don't care.” I look up and watch him run a hand down his face. He lets out an ironic chuckle. “Do you realize how crazy that sounds? The sixteen-year-old girl is charged with saving the world from the evil government. This kind of stuff only happens in movies.”

“Wishing upon a star only used to happen in movies too.”

“Yeah.”

“And the government isn't evil, really. Just… ambitious.”

“Okay.” I nod and rest my head against the headboard. “No complaints from me. If you want in, you're in.”

He puts both hands on my knees. “So what should we do?”

“Well. We're going to need proof. We've got the Kurt Cobain DVD.” I gesture to my bookshelf where I've stored it. “But that won't be enough.” I bite my lip.

“We'll need footage from the inside,” Darren says, tracing a circle on my knee. “Video recordings of the StarCatcher. Pictures of the binders they keep. Possibly even a conversation with the scientists.”

I sink lower into the bed. “There's no way they're going to let me in there in the next two days.”

“We can sneak in.”

I tilt my head and feel my eyebrows scrunch. “I tried that once before and it didn't work so well.”

“You know where you're going now.” He runs a hand through his hair. “This won't work unless we've got proof.”

My gaze shifts to the window. Out to the stars, hidden by the light of morning.

“How about this,” Darren says. “I'll ask Cindy if I can borrow her car. I'll tell my parents I'm staying at your house. You tell your dad you're staying at my house. We'll grab some electronics stuff from the store so we can record the footage.

“Then we sneak into SEAD. Grab some shots. Get out. And then launch it for the world to see.”

When he says it like that, it sounds simple.

But things rarely go according to plan.

Convincing my father to allow me to stay over at Darren's couldn't be described as easy, but I'm not sure there's a word more simple than easy, so that's what we're going to have to go with. He's so caught up in the manufactured version of world peace that he's more than happy to have his troublesome daughter watched by someone else.

And my mother? I saw her briefly when she came home for dinner. I don't think she made eye contact with me once. On her way out she said she was meeting coworkers for drinks. “Don't wait up for me.”

No problem there.

“It's nice that Cindy lets you use her car.” It's not a particularly fancy car. I'm certain I'm sitting in an old milkshake, but I won't complain.

“Yeah, she's pretty cool.” He takes his eyes off the road and searches my face. “Do you like her?”

“Sure. She seems nice. From what I know of her.” I turn my head to look out at our town, Harrison High a few blocks away. When I look back he's still stealing glances at me. “What?”

“It's just… aren't girls usually jealous?” He's looking at the road again. I can't quite make out his expression with only the streetlights.

I shrug. I guess I never thought anything of it. “You and I were friends before we became… whatever?” I laugh and shift in my seat. I'd love to hear what he has to say for this one.

“Boyfriend and girlfriend, right?” He runs a hand through his hair and I bite my lip, realizing he's nervous.

“I guess. I don't know. It doesn't feel right for us. I'm not sure why.”

“I know what you mean,” Darren says as he turns into the electronics store. “It doesn't seem… enough.”

“Exactly,” I say with a sigh.

He jumps out of the car and I follow him around the back. At least we're not breaking in here. Darren has a key.

He sifts through the shelves, grabbing what he thinks we need as I wait by the counter. I know physics, statics, dynamics, power, and energy, all that good stuff. But when it comes to the programming and the actual electronics, I don't bother to try and outdo Darren.

I can't get my mind around these things because they don't seem to have a definitive answer half the time. In math, and most sciences, the answer is definitive, makes sense. Sure there are exceptions, but once you understand those it's pretty black and white.

But when Darren is messing around with this fancy equipment or a computer program and it doesn't work, he somehow knows the little things to do to make it work. Intuition or something, I guess.

“I've got everything. Let's go.” He runs for the door.

“Wait! We have to pay.”

Darren stops. “We're just going to borrow it, Lyra.”

“It's stealing.”

“Not if we return it. This is expensive stuff. We'd have to pay with a credit card and I don't have one.”

“I do.” Well, it's the one I share with my dad which means—

“He's going to see it on the bill.”

“You said I won't get away with this anyway.” Suddenly every shadow in this place feels like a government official ready to halt our plan.

“Well, giving them the road map sure isn't going to help.”

“I can't steal it, Darren. I'm trying to show the means don't justify an end. That goes for everything. Not just wishes.”

He scoffs at my words and throws the stuff in his arms on the counter. “We are going to be in so much trouble.”

I tap my foot as he rings everything up. I have no idea what else to do with this nervous energy. I
could
come up with a plan to get into the SEAD building. But that seems close to impossible so I keep pushing it off.

“Your total today, Miss, is $675.23. But, since you're so beautiful, I'll give you the 10% store discount for beautiful women.” He hits a button and $607.71 pops up on the screen.

“Thank you, sir.” I throw him the card and even though we're trying to make this less terrifying, I can't help but notice his hand tremble as he slides the card through.

I sign the receipt, which he shoves underneath the others in the register.

We each take a bag and he forces his hand in mine. It's sweaty, or mine is sweaty, or both. Even the light in the parking lot seems brighter than usual. I scan the area, looking for anyone or anything out of place.

Nothing I can see.

*

It's perfect that Darren's parents and sisters went to his Uncle's house for dinner. Gives us a place to get ready.

I sit on his bed and bite my lip as he puts together the stuff we bought and explains the pieces to me. We've each got a hidden microphone to pin to our clothing and a handheld video camera. Two flashlights. I know how to work those.

“Let's get dressed.” Darren gestures to the bathroom down the hall for me to use.

It's practically impossible to put on spandex pants and a too tight top when your hands are jumping all over the place. Somehow I manage and when I stand back to look in the mirror, I am surprised.

My strawberry blonde hair looks a bit fierce against my pale complexion and dark attire.

I guess black is my color.

“I'm ready.” I knock on Darren's door and walk inside.

“Wow,” Darren whispers.

I never thought I was the sort of person that needed that look from somebody. Thought I was better than that. Turns out, if given by the right person, it's definitely something everyone should experience.

Darren walks over to me and runs his hands up and down my arms.

“You should break into top-secret buildings more often.”

I slap his shoulder and turn to walk down the hall. As I descend the stairs I glance behind me and shake my head as I catch him watching my butt.

It's nice he thinks that about me. And it's especially nice to know that he cared about me before he thought… what he's thinking now. I know most guys wouldn't give me a second look. But I really only want one guy anyway.

After we jump in the car and are headed down the road, Darren asks, “What's the plan for getting past the gate?” He checks his rearview mirror every ten seconds.

“I don't have one. Hopefully the night guys don't know I'm not supposed to be there.”

“Then throw this on.” He tosses me his jacket and I do as he says. “All black will look suspicious.”

“You can't be in the car with me. They check the cars top to bottom. They'll never let you in.”

I close my eyes and wait for the tirade. The car slows so I open them again.