Tunnel Vision (33 page)

I come out of it. I don’t think I want to see anymore.

I can’t be sure. But what if Dad isn’t being experimented on, like me, like Dedushka? What if he’s doing the experiments? It looked like he was on the other side of the table, trying to get someone like me to tunnel.

But he
knows
how messed up that is. He’s warned me all my life not to let the government see, not to let anyone know. Why would he encourage anyone to—

Wait. Maybe the military or the government
did
find out about my tunneling, two years before I thought they did. Maybe Dad went away to work with them, help them find out how to do it, instead of letting them take me. He could’ve made a deal to protect me.

I feel better instantly. It makes sense. I hate the idea of him working with anyone to try to make other people tunnel. But it explains both why he left in such a brutal way, and why he would be encouraging someone to tunnel now.

I have to talk to Dedushka.

*   *   *

When Rachel heads off to find somewhere to pee, I wake Dedushka.

“Yakob,” he mutters, throwing his arm over his face. “If the train is not ready, I do not want to hear.”

“I tunneled to Dad.”

He lowers the arm, squints up at me.

“And … I saw something weird.”

I have his attention. He sits up, scoots back slowly against a box, groaning as he goes. “The girl?”

“Gone for a few minutes.”

He yawns. “And so?”

“I don’t think he was the subject, Dedushka. I think he was running a test. Trying to get some guy to tunnel. He was all disappointed when it didn’t work.”

Dedushka’s face hardens. “
Deerma,
” he says under his breath.

“Someone must’ve known about my tunneling, and he made a deal,” I say fast. “To protect me. Right?”

He sighs, folds his gnarled hands in his lap. “I fear,
malchik,
it is more messy than that.”

“Messy?”

He drops his chin. Sighs again. “Okay. I tell you the whole thing, the quick version. It was 1958. In Russia. I was seventeen years old, a pup. Poor as a clod of dirt, and that is all we had, my family, a farm with dirt and no potatoes.” He stares off into the train yard like he’s somewhere else.

A hallucination of Eric plops himself on the ground next to Dedushka. He sets his chin in his hands like he’s listening, captivated. I watch him to reassure myself he’s a hallucination. Dedushka can’t see him. He keeps going.

“The army men come by and offer to take me with them, give me money and take me away from farm, so I go. Of course I go. To Moskva they take me and others, to the big screaming city. But we do not go to fight wars for Khrushchev, like we think. We do not get uniforms—we do not even get pay. We are taken to a building with many levels, under the ground where it is dark when the lights are off, where it is concrete and cold. It is explained that they will do experiments, that they try to improve the powers of the mind. Set off unused areas of brain. We will be superhuman, they say, and still they will pay us when we are done and we will go home with piles of money. As better people. New people.

“I am foolish, and I sign. What else would I do, at seventeen?”

He doesn’t look at me, but I know he’s thinking I signed too—in a different way. I did.

“I let them inject me with needles, let them do tests. For months, different medicines, different tests. I feel sick sometimes, but they take good care of me.”

Eric grins at me and flips me off. I concentrate on Dedushka.

“We go on, months, and then I start to notice I am different. Most times I am fine, usual. But when they do tests, they play me voices on the tape recorder, and it starts to happen.”

“The voices,” I say. “With dead people.”

He gives me a stern look, like an offended owl. “I tell this story.”

“Sorry. I’ll shut up.”

“Yes.” He looks down at his hands again, touches the plain gold wedding ring he still wears even though Babushka has been dead for thirty years. “It is not working how they want, but they still find ways to use it.
You
know. But it is terrible, these dead visions. And I am only one it works with. My friend Vladimir, Milena … I meet her there … they have medicine same as me but nothing happen. Milena, she overhear that the others will be sacrificed, they are not useful, know too many things.” He meets my eyes. “Sacrificed means killed.”

I nod. It doesn’t shock me anymore, what these people do. All of them.

“We make plan to escape. Vladimir, me, Milena. Together. Milena has idea to take serum with her. To use to bargain, if we need it. Instead when we get to America she goes to school for chemistry. She work on it, years, until she made an antidote. She made it stop in me, these horrible dead things.”

“She was a chemist? Like Myka?”

He smiles, full. “Like your sister,
da
. Myka is very like Milena.”

I smile back. Eric vanishes, with a grunt. Thank God. They seem to be shorter lately.

Rachel walks quietly up behind Dedushka. She puts a finger to her lips, to show I shouldn’t interrupt his story. I stare at her for a moment, decide she’s probably not a hallucination. And it’s okay to let her hear the rest. She’s in deep already.

“That’s why you never liked TV or radio or movies,” I say, suddenly understanding. “Dead people’s voices.”

“Dead people everywhere.” He shakes his head. “
Da
. I still do not like, in case it happen again.”

“And then what?” I ask. “What about Dad? What’s his power?”

Dedushka stills. A cricket chirps behind us, loud. We can distantly hear the people moving the train, talking to each other.

“Your papa does not have an ability like you,” he answers. He puts both hands to his cheeks and rubs his beard hard. His voice drops. “He always wanted one.”

Oh. Ever since I found out he disappeared more or less voluntarily, I’d assumed Dad was like me. That he had a power like mine he’d always hidden, and he’d been forced to use it in some way like I had. That we’d get together and be some sort of super family.

Crazy, I guess.

“He’s normal?”

“Ivan is very smart,” Dedushka answers. “Dangerous smart.” He shrugs. “Again, like your sister, perhaps. But … as I say, Yakob, he wanted one his whole life. Desperate want. So this thing he is doing—”

Rachel shifts, jarring a box, and Dedushka whips his head around faster than I thought he could. She walks forward, cool, and sits next to me, curling her arms around her knees.

He stands stiffly, stares down at us. “Enough for now. I must go walk, stretch these old muscles before this train jump.” He turns away without another word, and disappears behind the boxes.

Which leaves me and Rachel. Alone, for the first time since she helped me escape. Sitting close enough to touch. It makes me nervous. Silly, considering everything else I have to be nervous about. Now including Dad, and whatever’s up with him …

I glance at her sideways. Does she even remember the kiss? It’s burned in my brain. I don’t even know how often I’ve thought of it over the past few months. Relived it. And here she is, real. Next to me.

“I’m not sorry,” she says.

I blink. “Not sorry? About what?”

She scoots over another inch, so our legs really are touching. It makes me dizzy instantly. “That I came. I know it’s dangerous, and stupid. But I … I was so happy to see you. Alive.” She touches my cheek again—delicate—and moves closer. “I never thought … do you remember when I kissed you?”

I lean in and kiss her in answer. It isn’t the same as my memory. That was a surprise, and new. This is right. Warm and soft and
her,
electric, sparks fizzing all through my blood. It’s like we fit together. I melt into her, into the kiss, in a different way than tunneling. This moment.
Finally
.

There’s the unmistakable click of a gun hammer. Then another, and another.

We freeze, both of us breathing in unison, foreheads together.

“Mr. Lukin. So nice to find you.”

Rachel’s eyes go wide, scared. I drop my hand from her neck and pull back slowly.

“That’s it,” the voice says. A deep voice, smooth. A man. “No sudden moves. I can see you’ve done this before.”

I turn, still slow, and shift so my body is between the man and Rachel. He’s tan, good looking in a flashy way, short black hair peppered with gray. In a dress shirt and pants. Oh, and he’s pointing a gun at me, and there are three goons behind him, all built like trucks, all with guns trained on us.

He steps toward me, keeping his eyes on mine. “Yes, very good. Cuff his hands in front of him, so he can’t tunnel anywhere.” One of the goons comes and yanks me to my feet, snaps my wrists into metal cuffs.

Just like that, back where I was.

“I want you to understand how serious I am, Mr. Lukin,” the man says. “I am not one of your government pansies who has to follow rules. I have no rules. If I want to kill you, if I want to kill this girl—” Rachel makes a squeaking sound. Again I try to shield her. “I will do it. There is no one to stop me.”

I swallow hard. Somehow I believe him. But if he’s not government, not Liesel’s, who is he?

“I also know, in detail, exactly what you can do,” he continues. “And I’m not going to let you trick me like you did them. Until I sell you to the right bidder, you’re not going anywhere I don’t tell you to go. In your head or otherwise. Got it?”

Sell me?

I nod slowly. I wonder where Dedushka is. Hopefully safe away from this. And Rachel—

“Now what shall I do with the girl?” he asks, tapping his cheek. “Kill her, or bring her with? I so hate these
choices
.”

“Don’t hurt her,” I say, hoarse. “Leave her here.”

“That wasn’t one of the options.” He tilts his head at one of his men, and I tense. But the guy comes forward, snaps another set of handcuffs on Rachel. “She might be useful … as leverage.”

I breathe. It’s something. As long as we’re not dead, and we’re together, there’s a chance.

I try to look back at her, but I’m pulled forward by the elbows, face-to-face with the man. His chin juts out, too big, and he has thick, dark eyebrows. But mostly I see his eyes. Bright, bright blue. Totally insane.

I should struggle, think up a plan. But he’s right—I can’t tunnel like this, not now, and this guy genuinely, utterly scares the crap out of me.

“Nice to meet you,” he says. “I’m Mr. Smith. I know what you’re thinking … and you’re right. It would’ve been much better for you if Liesel Miller had found you first.”

He gestures to his men, and they walk me and Rachel with them through the boxes, out the gate of the train yard, and into the back of a waiting car.

I never would have believed it, but I think he might be right.

As soon as we pull away he opens a little box and takes out a syringe. Before I can even say no, the sharp end is in my arm, and the cold tingle blasts through me. That’s all.

38

“The Jig Is Up” by Quasi

I come to on a plane, strapped down into a seat, my cuffed hands on a table in front of me. It’s some kind of a private jet, the seats in sets of four facing each other. Mr. Smith is across from me, his crazy eyes steady, watching. Two of his goons are in the aisle seats, blocking us in.

I check, panicked, for Rachel. She’s awake and okay, across the aisle with the third guy, facing me. She’s strapped down too. I meet her eyes. She’s terrified.

Hell, I am too. I squirm against the straps. But I’m on a plane. I really can’t go anywhere.

Through the little windows I see the sun, just coming up in a blaze of orange. I don’t even know when it is, where we are. We might be out of the country already.

The claustrophobia hits bad, my whole body starting to tremble. I’m completely trapped.

“What do you want from me?” I try to sound bold, like Bond or something, but I don’t think I do.

Mr. Smith tilts his head. He has a strong nose, sharp lines from his nose to his mouth, to that standout chin.

“Oh, I want
you,
Mr. Lukin. I’ve been looking for you since you escaped Montauk. You will fetch such a pretty price.”

This is the “private people” Liesel always warned me about. But I didn’t think they were real. I imagine all the people this guy could sell me to.
Jesus
.

“I’ve taken your bag, with the gun. Was that Liesel’s?”

I don’t answer. I stare at my hands, trembling on the table, the cuffs rattling. Liesel mentioned a Mr. Smith, in the park. Does he
know
her?

“A gun and an object. A twofer. Well done.” He actually does sound impressed. “But you don’t need that anymore. As I said, I’m not sloppy like she is, so you won’t get away from me. I’ve taken everything from your pockets. There will be no tunneling. Understand?”

I still don’t respond.

“Look at me,” he snaps, in a voice that makes me look. “No tunneling. Now. Mr. Lukin.” He sits forward in his seat. “I know your father is alive. Where is he?”

I gape at him. How could he possibly know that? Liesel didn’t even know that.

Don’t admit anything.

I slowly shake my head.

“No?” he says, his voice toxic. “No what? No, he isn’t alive—because I know very well he is, hiding in a hole somewhere—or no, you’re not going to tell me where he is?”

I swallow hard, meet his eyes. “I’m not going to tell you anything.”

“You’re not?” His eyes shift. “Really. Somehow I don’t believe you.”

He looks at Rachel. The guy with her pulls a knife—a huge, sharp knife—and presses the tip into her cheek. She screams.

That woman. That woman I tunneled to, so long ago, the knife slicing her cheek open … I strain against the straps again. I can’t reach him.

“It’s fairly simple, Mr. Lukin,” Smith says. “You two seemed quite intimate when I found you. Surely you don’t want her sliced into bits. Face first, too. Would you like to tell me now what I want to know?”

Not Rachel. Not like that woman. “
Please
. Stop.”

He shrugs. “No need to beg. It’s very easy. You tell me what I want, you do exactly what I want, and your girlfriend—oh, and your sister and your mother, I can get to them too—will be fine.
Where is your father,
Mr. Lukin?”