Tunnel Vision (10 page)

“Fuck you,” I say. “Just do your job.”

Eric’s gaze sharpens on something behind me, and I turn. Pete’s marching purposefully toward us from his office—you can practically hear the ground thumping. When he reaches us, he stops, folds his arms.

“Hey, Pete,” I say, casual.

Pete looks even more wild today, in a beat-up brown jacket down to his knees. Like a dirty bear. “What you boys up to?” he growls. “You know it’s only supposed to be you, Jake. This place ain’t for loitering. Or messing around. Stupid kids were drinking in here last night again…” He wrinkles his nose. “Don’t need more trouble.”

I nod. “No worries, Pete. This is my—” I pause. “My mate, Ed.”

Eric sticks his hand out. “Hey. I’m going to help with his research. I swear I won’t make trouble.”

Pete ignores his hand. “Where you workin’ today?” he asks. “I’ve got to shovel all the paths, so if you could stay out of my way—”

“Barker Hill,” I say. “I’m doing the 890s.”

Pete nods, satisfied. “Already cleared that bit.” He glares at Eric again. “See you later, Jake.”

He turns and stomps off.

Eric half smiles at me. “Character, huh?”

“Don’t.”

I head up the hill to the left, to the very far corner, Eric on my heels. It’s one of my favorite places to sit in spring and summer—the graves there are up at the top of a nice slope, with a view all around. There are scrubby oaks and a small patch of aspens along the fence. When the leaves are on they make a soothing, peaceful sound, rattling in the breeze. In winter they’re still stunning, tall and straight, with eye patterns on the white trunks. But they’re silent.

I want silent, so it suits me.

I drop my backpack on the ground and pull out my tools: notebook, pen, camera. A copy of
Fairfax County, Virginia Gravestones, Volume IV,
for reference. The first grave today is an oldie, the white marble mottled with lichen and dirt. I take a picture, then write the text in my book. Alda Thomas. Daughter of P. T. and B. P. Springer. 1831–1891. Sixty years.

“What are you doing with these, anyway?” Eric asks.

I look at him—squatting a couple feet back, watching me—then turn back to my notes.

He laughs. “You’re acting like a surly old woman. Just answer the bloody question and then I’ll leave you be for a bit, all right?”

I grunt. “I’m doing an analysis of the burials, and what you can tell about the families and social dynamics of the community by how they buried and recorded their dead.” I challenge him to make fun of it with a look.

He doesn’t. He seems mildly interested. “And do you touch the stones to get information about the people?”

“God, no. They’re
dead
.”

His eyebrows fly up. “I thought you could—”

“I can tell if someone’s dead. But that’s all. Weren’t you there when…?” I remember—when I tunneled with the tigereye, that was before he came. I shake my head. “It’s horrible, like tunneling to a black hole. It makes me physically ill. I asked them not to give me any of those.”

I turn back to the next gravestone. We’re both quiet. They’ll give them to me anyway. He will. We both know that. And lots of other objects I can’t even imagine.

“I’m sorry,” he says. I think I hear him say, at least.

He keeps his word after that and leaves me alone, and I manage to finish the row before my watch beeps, and we head back across the street.

*   *   *

We’re at lunch—me, Jeff, Chris, Eric, and Kadeem, all with pizza. We sit at our usual table. The girls—Caitlyn, Lily, and the rest, including Rachel—sit together four tables down.

It’s the moment of truth, isn’t it? Did she really want to talk to me? Will she acknowledge me with Lily right there?

I don’t know how I liked Lily for so long. I mean, she’s ridiculously hot and all. But … okay, I was distracted by the hot. But now that I’m away from her pull, I can see there’s more than that. Like smart girls. Girls who can talk about politics and graphic novels.

I glance their way, trying not to be too obvious. Rachel meets my eyes, smiles, and waves, small. But a wave.

I grin back, not hiding anything.

When I look away, I catch Eric watching me.

Eric’s cell buzzes. He gives it one look, then jumps up and takes it outside.

“Girlfriend?” Kadeem guesses.

I shrug. But I doubt it. I look over at Rachel again. She’s laughing. She looks so … carefree.

A minute later my phone buzzes. Text message, unknown ID.

Make an excuse, come meet me in the band room. Now.-E

I don’t even question. I say I’ve got to go see Coach Brammer and head out to the band room. It’s a small soundproof building off by itself behind the gym. It’s always locked during the day so nobody will skip off with the instruments. But the door’s open. Eric’s standing inside.

“How did you get keys to the band room?” I ask, incredulous.

He shakes his head. “You underestimate us. Close the door. I’ve got work—and this one’s an emergency. They just messengered it over.”

I sit at a desk, and he hands me a Ziploc bag. It holds a long silver chain with a pendant of two fish twined together. An emergency? Like somebody’s going to commit a crime right now and I have to witness it or something? I drop it into my hand, close my eyes.

It’s a woman. She’s medium height, skinny, hair in a dark bob at her chin, wearing business clothes. Her eyes are bright blue. Location: an empty, run-down office building, the west side of Detroit, along the river. 1800 West Jefferson Avenue. She sits in a chair, her feet bound, her wrists tied behind her back. There’s something in her mouth: hot, dry, sawing at her lips. A gag. She’s crying behind the gag, little panting sobs. A man stands in front of her, watching. A normal looking man, except for the very large knife in his hand. He presses the point of it against her cheek, slicing the skin, filleting her, as she screams—

“That’s enough, Jake.”

I open my eyes. My hand is pressed to my right cheek, still holding the pendant. My throat is raw. I must have screamed myself. I’d felt the pain of the knife. The panic of that woman. The helplessness.

That is happening to her right now. For real.

Eric paces on the other side of the room, talking intently into his phone. After a couple minutes he puts it away and sits at the desk next to mine. We both stare forward at the wiped blackboard, the music stands jumbled in the corner, the collection of drums. It all seems farther away than that woman. I pinch the back of my hand, hard, to bring myself out of it.

“Is she gonna be okay?” I know better already than to ask who she is, what’s going on.

“If we get to her in time. We’d have had no chance without you.” He turns to me, his voice marked with respect. “She’d have been long dead by the time we found her, without you. You okay?”

I nod slowly, feel my unmarked cheek with my thumb. In slow motion I put the necklace back into the bag, seal it, hand it to him. “Maybe you can give this back to her.”

“Maybe.” He’s silent a bit longer. “That one might help you understand, Jake. Why we push you. What you’re doing—what you’re going to do—is critical. People’s lives will depend on it. If you can do that every time, a lot of people.”

I’d never thought of a situation like that one, where I could actually, tangibly save someone. I hadn’t thought DARPA, a research agency, would have people in situations like that.

Wait. I frown. “That necklace wasn’t from DARPA, was it?”

He looks at me, steady.

“They messengered it … but it was from someone else. Like the CIA or the FBI. Other agencies do know about me, don’t they? I thought Liesel was hiding me from them? That you guys were the only ones who knew?”

He shrugs, back to the freckle-faced innocent. “That answer’s above my pay grade. You’ll have to talk to Dr. Miller.”

Crap. If the CIA or somebody else already knows what I can do, I’m in even deeper than I thought. No wonder I have all the security. But if Liesel lied to me about that, what else did she lie about?

“You ready to go back?”

I do go back: to lunch, class, tennis practice. But all of it—lectures, problems, serves, even Rachel and Chris—seems flat. Unreal. I can’t get my head out of the woman, the knife slicing her cheek open. All the surreal complexities of my life since last week. I can’t just go back to normal after that. After her.

As I turn out of school that night, a blue sedan that had been parked on the street falls in behind me. I’m tempted to wave.

But if I’m right, there’s a black car following
them
.

11

“Living a Lie!” by Daniel Zott

The last couple of days have been crazy, nonstop. This morning, I have to make time for Myka. It feels like I’ve been dropping that ball, and that’s the one I can’t drop.

We’re in the car, out of Ana’s hearing. Our safe zone. “So,” I ask. “What were you talking about last night, after Glue? What are you worrying about?”

It’s scary to ask. It’s not like I want Her Geniusness to figure out what’s going on. But ignoring won’t work with Myka.

She’s quiet for a bit. She braids her hair as we drive, with small flips of her wrists. “You,” she says finally.

“What about me?”

Quiet again, while she thinks how to say it. That’s how she works: everything deeply considered. I’ve seen her take half an hour to decide what kind of sandwich to have. You have to be patient, wait for her. I watch the road unfold, dingy snow piled on the sides.

“I know something’s going on with you, Jake.”

I go from zero to sixty on the adrenaline scale, gripping the steering wheel.

“I just don’t know what it is yet,” she says.

I relax my grip. Breathe. Listen for what she actually does know, so I can do damage control.

“You’ve been acting strange since last Friday. Since that guy chased us. You’re jumpy, distracted. And you just act
weird
.” She finishes the braid, wraps a clear plastic band around the end, lets it swing behind her back, and finds my eyes, challenging. Adding up the evidence in her mind. “Are you doing drugs?”

I laugh in surprise. Everybody with the drugs. “Since Friday? No. I swear, Myk, I’m not doing drugs.”

“Then what is it? You can tell me.” She lifts her chin. “I can deal with it.”

I shake my head. “I can’t.”

“So there
is
something. I knew it. Now you have to tell me.”

I swallow. She’s too persistent to lie to outright. Once she starts something, she’s like an ant on a scent trail. She’ll go over or around anything to get to what she’s after. She’ll never believe everything is normal. But above all else I have to protect her. She can’t know anything about me and the government, the deal.

I have to confess a problem, but not the real one. Something she can relate to. What does Myka understand best?

Duh.

“Okay,” I say, like it’s a tough decision. “I’ll tell you. But don’t tell Mom yet, okay?”

Her eyes get big, and her lips press tight together like she’s already keeping it in.

We come to a red and I have to stop, shift. I look at her in the mirror. “I know you’re the smart one and all. But my advisor talked to me last Friday. There’s a chance—a really good chance—that if I kick ass on my project, I’ll get into Stanford. He knows the assistant dean of the history department, and he ran into him last week and talked about me. They’re interested, Myk.” I pause. “Stanford.”

“Really?” Her breath gets fast, she’s so excited. “But Stanford rejects ninety-four percent of their applicants.”

“I
know
. That’s why it’s such a big deal, dorkus.”

I drive for a while, tap on the wheel, and let her think about it. I even let myself think about it. With a Stanford degree in the public history track, I can get a job at a heritage site, or a museum. Ever since I first toured the Smithsonian on a second-grade field trip, I’ve wanted to work there. Work with real, significant artifacts like the Declaration of Independence. The original flag that flew over Fort McHenry. Silver-print photographs of the Civil War. Maybe I could do research and discover something important. Maybe even do tours for school kids like Myk.

“Stanford,” she echoes. “That’s awesome.”

“Sorry I’ve been weird,” I say, pressing it home. “I’ll probably have to put in a lot of extra hours and stuff, making sure the project’s perfect, keeping all my grades up. But I’m so close. It just kind of made me crazy.”

She sits back in the seat, eyes shining. “Promise I won’t tell Mom and ruin the surprise.”

Something shifts, and I realize what I’m doing. Cold, hard lying. To
Myka
. It actually hurts, like a fist clenched in the pit of my stomach. She’s the one I didn’t have to hide around, ever. Didn’t lie to. The only one who knew the real me.

But I have to do it to protect her. Don’t I?

And they did promise me Stanford. So maybe it will come true, Stanford and the Smithsonian and all that goes with it, just like I said. And then she’ll never know I lied.

*   *   *

When I walk into English, Rachel’s there, looking up at me. “Hey, Jake.” She smiles, her lips red today. Her dark hair’s pulled into a low ponytail, but there’s one strand loose, touching her cheek. I want to tuck it back behind her ear. At the same time I like it just like that.

I drop into the seat next to her, thankful Ms. Gieck (yeah, that’s her real name) doesn’t assign seats. Eric sits in front of me.

“Hey,” I manage. “What’s going on?”

I am. So smooth.

She looks down, rubs one finger across a dent in her desk. “I’m sorry I freaked out after the party.” She shifts in her chair, still focusing on the desk. “That was … weird.” She looks up, her eyes meeting mine. “Was that real? Or a trick?”

To my relief she doesn’t look disgusted or put off, like everyone did at the party. Just curious. Still, I don’t know what to say. If I say it was a trick, that makes me less of a freak. Look how much trouble I got into already by sharing. But if it was a trick then she’d think I lied, made up that part about her dad.

I can’t lie to her.