Tunnel Vision (21 page)

“Oh, but I have a tunnel today, to work on moving the subject. Progress after our breakthrough last week.”

I expected as much. He takes a bag from his briefcase, hands it over. It’s another key, this time a smaller silver one. I close my hand around it, hoping for the beach.

“This one is set up to test your ability to move his hands, arms. Don’t be afraid to go deep, like last time.”

It’s a man. Average in every way: height, size, looks. Hair muddy brown, cropped short. Location: Arlington, Virginia. DARPA headquarters. 3701 North Fairfax Drive, fourth floor, room 420. The room is empty except for the man, a camera, and the table where he sits, arms laid out in front of him. There are items on the table within easy reach: a pen, a pad of paper with some writing on it, a stapler, a paper clip. The man doesn’t move. He simply sits, eyes open, waiting.

It’s creepy. It’s like the guy is a doll, a puppet, just waiting for me to take him over. All kinds of wrong. Still, I keep going.

He’s a little nervous, worried about what this is for. They wouldn’t tell him, except he was to sit here and not move. His fingers twitch, and he stills them.

I feel myself stretching into him, crystallizing. This is where I could probably control him, if I wanted to, if I did it right. I don’t try. I ignore his limbs, dive deeper into his brain, and rattle off details.

His name is Mike Holmes. Research assistant at DARPA. Working on the AFPA project, an electro-optical imaging sensor for surveillance. Though he’s just an assistant. Treated like one too. If they’d just recognize his last proposal—

Far enough. I open my eyes. “Couldn’t get him to move. Sorry.”

Dr. Tenney writes something, flicks a look at me. “Try again, please.”

I go in again, but I still don’t try. I pretend to. I grunt, crease my forehead all up. “Nothing.” I rub at my head.

“Are you certain you’re trying, Jake?”

“Of course,” I say, innocent faced. “Why wouldn’t I be trying?”

He gathers up his things, disappointment stamped all over him. “Well, it can’t happen every time. We’ll try again Friday. Perhaps you’ll be a bit … cheerier then.”

“Sure, doc. I’ll work on my cheery, just for you.”

He rolls his eyes and leaves.

I yawn big, stretch, and wait a couple minutes. Then I wander over to the bed to lie down and wait for the lights to go out. That should be long enough so I won’t waste my time on him walking down the hallway.

I push my hand carefully into the fold between the mattresses, curl it around the notebook. Finally. Showtime.

He sits in Dr. Miller’s office, room 205 on the second floor of the east wing. She’s in a suit again, red lipstick a slash. She pages through his notebook, frowning. “That was particularly useless.”

“I agree,” Dr. Tenney says, his voice a rumble in his chest I can feel. “Something was wrong with him today. He is hiding something, or afraid.”

“Afraid to go further? I’m not surprised.” She clicks her tongue. “He’s smart enough to have grasped the consequences. I suspect that’s why he was trying to get an object from Dr. Milkovich—he is aware of his potential value. He wants to know what we have planned.”

“He cannot be allowed to know anything,” Dr. Tenney says. “He’ll shut down.”

She glares at him. “Of course. I handled it. I don’t think he’ll be doing that again. If he does try anything…” She raises her eyebrows. “Well. Nothing will happen to the boy if he lives up to his potential. But I need better results from you. You did not get any information on Grigory Lukin. And my sources still have not located him. We need more from Jacob.”

I struggle to stay on the surface of Dr. Tenney, to not go deeper, not yet. But I’m sinking. It’s been a long tunnel already. I have to come out for a minute.

I lie still, counting my breaths. Dying to go back in. But I have to pace it. Ninety-nine … one hundred.

I go back. Waste a few seconds on description, location.

“… use this relationship with Proctor,” she’s saying. “Maybe he can extract some information you can’t. I’ll speak with him, and let you know what I want you to target.”

“Have you thought of going to the sister for info on Grigory? He might have contacted her.”

Myka?
He knows how close I am with Myka. I’ve told him, confidentially. I want to scream at him, stop him. Instead I go deeper.

“She’s under surveillance,” Liesel says. “If there is contact, we should know real-time.” Dr. Tenney is impatient, ready to go. She never listens to him anyway. She just wants to hear herself talk, like always.

I need an object, and I may never get a better chance. I let myself solidify into him, into his body instead of just his mind. I feel him. It’s familiar, now. I’ve gone into him so many times.

He looks over the desk littered with stacks of papers, books, notes, sliding every which way. So messy. How does she find anything? Nice pen, though.

It’s a silver pen, the kind you get in recognition of something.
Insight
is engraved on the side. Perfect.

She glances at the monitor on her desk, the feed of Jacob’s room. “We’re done. You can go now. Let’s try for better on Friday.” She turns to her computer, dismissing him.

I don’t have long. You want to take the pen, I tell him, as though he’s thinking it himself. Even superspy won’t be able to figure out where it went. There. Pick it up, drop it into your briefcase while she’s looking at her computer. I nudge his body to lean forward, his arm to swing out, sweep the pen off the desk.

He leans forward, slightly, and swipes the pen into his own briefcase. Serves her right, the monumental bitch.

I yank myself out of it, panting, sweaty. Exhausted from the effort, but hyped too.

I did it. I found the right motivation for him, and I got something of hers, something I can use. Now if he just keeps it in his briefcase until Friday, I’ll have one more piece of stealing to do and I’m golden.

Whew.

I didn’t learn much today. Just that Dr. Tenney doesn’t like her any more than I do. They’re watching Myk, and they haven’t found Dedushka.

And Liesel is serious about her threats. But that doesn’t surprise me. So am I.

24

“Dreaming” by Nikki & Rich

That night I dream of Dedushka.

It’s Christmas, the year I was five, and we were in North Carolina. I always go back to that year when I think of Christmas. Mom was six months pregnant with Myka, so it was my last as an only child. I was old enough to understand what was going on but still utterly believed in Santa Claus. Both Dad and Dedushka were there. Plus I got my first real bike with no training wheels, a red one. It was pure magic.

In the dream I’m sitting alone in front of the Christmas tree, piles of presents and scrunched wrapping around me, playing with my new Godzilla. Mom’s in the kitchen baking cinnamon rolls, the sweet, heavy scent making me hungry. But I remember I have to do something. There’s somewhere I urgently need to be. Something about Dad.

I drop the Godzilla and run to the hallway, which is overgrown with bushes and vines creeping up the walls, clogging every inch. I shove my way through, branches slapping my face, my legs, scratching at me. Down to Dad’s office. Something’s wrong. I have to get in.

The door’s stuck shut. I shove at it with my shoulder, again, again, even though I’m too small to budge it. Suddenly it opens from inside and I fall in, stumbling across the room. Dedushka—the Dedushka of 1998, with his still-mostly-black hair and short beard—catches me by the arm, wordlessly turns me toward Dad’s desk.

Dad is lying across the length of the desk, in uniform, eyes closed, EEG wires stuck all over his head. They’re attached to a machine in the corner that’s beeping, flashing a red light.

“No!” I cry, clinging to Dedushka’s arm.

He turns me back to face him, kneels down so we’re face-to-face, and places one finger to his lips. “He is sleeping. Now listen close,
malchik
.
Sushchestvuet ne stydno ne znat, stydno ne lezhit v vyasnit.
”

I stare at him, eyes big.

He grips my shoulders and repeats it impatiently, louder. “
Sushchestvuet ne stydno ne znat, stydno ne lezhit v vyasnit.
”

“I don’t understand,” I whisper, in my child’s voice. “I don’t speak Russian.”

He sighs. He stands, strides over to Dad, and tugs the air force ring right off his finger. Dad’s hand flops off the table, blue, stiff, and I bite back another cry.

Dedushka carries the ring back to me and presses it into my hand. It’s cold and hard. I can feel the raised mold of the eagle against my palm like it’s branded there. “There is no shame in not knowing,
malchik,
” he says, blue eyes close to mine. He speaks slowly, clearly. “The shame lies in not finding out.”

I jolt awake into the dark of my solitary room, his words pounding in my head.

It almost feels like he’s with me, like he was talking to me. Find out all that’s going on here. Yes, Dedushka. That’s exactly what I intend to do.

*   *   *

Friday. Everything starts with me sitting in my room, waiting. This time it feels like there are jumping beans inside my belly.

I have to be careful. Maybe the cameras aren’t on, but Liesel must be listening somehow. If I fail at trying to get the pen, and they realize what I really can do, what I already have done …

It isn’t hard to imagine myself forced to make faraway people do despicable things, without any pretense of helping anyone. If they threaten Mom and Myka, I probably would do whatever they wanted. I’d have to. I don’t know if Liesel and her bosses would stoop that low, if they really are desperate enough. But I can’t risk it.

I can’t fuck this up.

No pressure.

I play
Halo
to keep my hands busy, the volume as high as it’ll go. It helps to blow things up, have the crash of explosions and gunfire and music surround me. When Dr. Tenney comes in I don’t even notice for a few seconds, until he walks into my line of sight, waves.

Here we go.

I save and quit the game before I turn to him. “Hey.”

“Hello, Jake. Would you prefer to sit here, while we talk? I could bring over a chair…”

Panic snatches at me—the plan crumbling under a simple change—but I don’t show it. “Nah. The table’s fine.”

We get settled, and I meet his eyes. We blink at each other for a minute, waiting for the other to start.

I win. “Tell me how you are, Jake.”

“I am
so good,
Dr. T.
Excellent
.”

He makes a note. “You’re using sarcasm as a shield again. I thought we were past that.”

“Maybe I’m regressing.”

He sighs. “Very well. Let’s talk about your family today.”

“I
miss my family
.” I say it fervently, with undeniable truth, and he lifts his eyebrows in surprise, crinkling the skin on his head.

“Let’s work with that.”

“What is there to say?” I ask. “I miss them. I can’t ever see them again, because they think I’m dead. What does talking do?”

“I think you’re progressing, actually, Jake. You’re facing reality. This is good.”

I sigh. “Great. Can we just skip this bullshit for once, and get to the tunneling?”

So I can get that pen.

He tries again. He wants to please Liesel. “I was thinking first we could talk about your grandfather, for a bit. We’ve never explored…”

I shake my head. “Not today.”

He caps his pen—not
the
pen, unfortunately; I’ll have to work harder than that—and lays it on the table. “What do
you
want to do today, Jake?”

Steal your stolen object.
“Tunnel.”

“Really. On Wednesday you clearly didn’t want to—”

“I changed my mind.” I fidget with my hands. “See, I think I figured out how to do it—the controlling thing—and I’ve been waiting to try it again.”

His wet dream, a willing subject who can do what he most wants. His whole body language changes. He leans in, practically drooling, and his drawl deepens. “Truly?”

I nod. God help me, I’m getting good at lying, pretending, manipulating.

He pulls a bag out of his briefcase, passes it across to me.

It’s the small silver key again, the poor fool sitting in an office waiting for me. I go to him for a few seconds, silently, to get a quick glimpse, then I back out without showing it. I list off the details in that deep voice, like I’m still there, narrating.

Don’t fuck it up.

Mike Holmes, average in every way. Hair muddy brown, cropped short. Location: Arlington, Virginia. DARPA headquarters. 3701 North Fairfax Drive, fourth floor, room 420. The room is empty except for Mike, a camera, and the table where he sits, arms laid out in front of him.

There’s a pen and a pad on the table, one near each hand. He could reach them with an easy stretch of his fingers. He waits. Pretty damn weird assignment, sit here a couple times in a week motionless for an hour.

I go quiet, stick my other hand in my pocket—I specially chose the cargo shorts today for their deep pockets—and grasp Dr. Tenney’s notebook. I dive into him instead, silently. Skim past the description, location. Straight into him, as deep as I can fling myself.

He’s worrying about what I’m doing, why I’m silent. He doesn’t want to interrupt, in case it’s part of this new process. He waits for word in his ear that the subject is moving.

But first, I tell him he needs to get that pen out. He needs it to be on the table. It’s lucky. Hadn’t it been lucky, how he’d taken it? It would be lucky for this tunnel too. This critical tunnel, that’ll show his success to them all. But only if he can see the pen.

He needs Liesel’s pen to be on the table. What is the Tunnel doing, quiet so long?

I nudge him to lean to the side, drop his hand into the briefcase, find the pen. I know he’s superstitious. The tunnel won’t work if it isn’t there, in plain sight. It’s lucky.