Vortex (37 page)

This time I’d gotten the idea to have Kendrick try and touch the closet wall to get
it to open and it didn’t work. It recognized my fingerprints, she had concluded, but
not hers.

“I don’t know who Dad was keeping it secret from. That’s why I haven’t told anyone.”

She walked toward the little kitchen and stopped suddenly in front of the stove. “Do
you feel that?”

“Feel what?” I walked around her so I could see her face. She had the I-just-had-a-brilliant-genius-person-discovery
look.

“An electromagnetic pulse. It’s so slight … you’d barely notice if you didn’t know
the warning signs.”

Electromagnetic pulse … where had I heard that before? “What’s it do?”

“I only know because it was part of my…” Kendrick’s eyes locked with mine, a weary
expression now on her face.

“Specialty training?” I guessed, shaking my head at her. Hadn’t we moved past this
keeping-secrets shit?

“Yeah.” She gave me a sheepish grin. “I only know of a couple places that Tempest
has set up an electromagnetic pulse. But I don’t know exactly what it’s for.”

“The underground hospital,” I said, suddenly remembering being trapped down there
with Marshall when I did that half-jump to 1996 that one time. And that was when the
answer landed right in my brain. “It keeps the EOTs from time-traveling!”

Shock filled her face. “Exactly … Maybe you can try it? See if you can jump?”

I focused my mind as hard as I could on a full jump. A sharp pain shot through my
head, and the second I felt myself splitting apart … doing a half-jump … I pulled
back, just before the room had started to fade.

I sank to my knees, clutching the sides of my head. Black and yellow spots twinkled
in front me. Kendrick was on the floor next to me, resting a hand on my back. I took
a few slow, deep breaths and the pain faded after a couple minutes. I stood up slowly
and smiled at her. “Definitely a force field in here. It wasn’t just a failed attempt.
I’ve never had anything like that happen.”

“There’s one in the lab in France, too, but I have to activate it. I’ve turned it
on a couple times just to understand the body’s reaction to it. You get this short-term
feeling of vertigo and then a wave of nausea. Your dad can probably deactivate this
one as well,” she said, flashing me another grin. “You know what this means, right?”

“Uh…?”

“This little apartment is your family’s personal fallout shelter.”

“That’s why it knew my fingerprints,” I said, watching her roam around lifting up
objects, inspecting everything. “But if all you need is the magnetic pulse or whatever …
why don’t they put it in more places? Why not our whole apartment upstairs?”

“Well, this room is sealed off. If the upstairs or even the entire building was secured
with magnetic pulse, the EOTs could still jump out a window and time-travel that way.
Or run out the door.” She ran her index finger along the records on the bookshelf.
“Besides, long-term exposure to EMP is dangerous.”

“Dangerous? How?”
Should we even be down here?

“A few days or even a few weeks wouldn’t hurt anyone, but months or years could cause
cell mutation and deformities in offspring.” She lifted her head and our eyes met,
both of us putting several things together.

“Those weird dudes I told you about … in the future … the bad future. They were so
freaky-looking. I could see their veins through their skin.” I nearly laughed out
loud at the craziness of this theory. “Do you think we all turn into mutants in the
future? Not us personally, but the human race?”

“What if the future that Emily showed you had so many time travelers they had to control
them with EMP and then everyone started coming out deformed?” She shook her head.
“No, that doesn’t really make sense, because we already know the effects of EMP. They
would figure it out before they let everyone give birth to mutants.”

“Maybe it only takes a few mutants to destroy the world?”

“Or one mutant and the rest clones.” Kendrick’s serious-scientist face dissolved and
she busted out laughing. “God … we have the most messed-up jobs ever.”

She plucked a record from the shelf and handed it to me. “Let’s listen to your dad’s
music, see if we learn anything new.”

“Frank Sinatra,” I said, reading the cover of the album before setting it on the player.
I stretched out on the floor as “Fly Me to the Moon” began to play. “We performed
this song in jazz band … middle school, I think.”

Kendrick leaned back on her elbows, extending her legs beside mine. “What instrument
did you play?”

“Saxophone.” I closed my eyes, listening to the song, feeling something familiar sweep
over me. “I wonder if I’ve ever been down here. Before yesterday, anyway.”

Kendrick started to respond, but my phone rang, and when I read Parker’s name, I had
to answer. “Yeah?”

“Is Kendrick with you?” he asked immediately.

“Uh … yeah, she’s with me. We were getting some stuff from my dad’s place.”

Kendrick froze, listening intently.

“Great. Healy wants both of you to get your asses down to the underground hospital
wing,” Parker said.

“Did he say why?”

“He wants you to talk to Agent Collins,” Parker said, then added, “To interrogate
Agent Collins. He asked for you specifically.”

I hung up the phone and looked at Kendrick. “Have you ever done an interrogation before?”

“Nope. Never.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

JUNE 20, 2009, 3:00
P.M.

Healy stood in front of the locked door, preparing to punch in a code. He paused and
glanced at me again. “Remember the techniques Agent Parker showed you … Give him something
he wants and ask for twice as much in exchange.”

I had spent a couple hours observing Parker mentally breaking down the other three
EOT prisoners, trying to find out who was leading Eyewall, who called the shots, and
how and when all this started. The only thing we got from the three agents was Collins …
he called their shots. Now we needed to know who pulled his strings.

“Right … got it.” I wiped my sweaty hands on my jeans and took a deep breath.

“He asked to speak to you. He’s ready to crack,” Healy said, even though I’d heard
this a dozen times already today.

The door opened and I walked in alone, trying not to jump when it slammed shut. Collins
sat on the tile floor, leaning his back against the wall. His arms were folded across
his chest and he looked much calmer than the others had.

“Agent Meyer … Took them long enough to bring you in,” he said in a quiet nonthreatening
tone that made me even more nervous.

“I had things to do.”

“Of course.” He gestured toward the table in the middle of the room and we both sat
down in chairs across from each other. “Since my future outside of this place is a
little up in the air right now, I need to ask you something.”

“Me first,” I said, pointing to my chest.

“Fine.”

“What’s going to happen to all your other agents now that their leader is locked up?”

He smiled at me. An arrogant smirk. “We have backups, just like Tempest does.”

“Right … because the world’s going to end if you don’t stop us.” I rolled my eyes
and waited for the sarcastic reply he’d most likely throw my way.

“Honestly, I’m not sure. The battle has gotten too big to keep track of … to grasp
the main reason we started this fight.” He leaned forward, his eyes beaming into mine,
X-raying my brain. “And I really don’t think I’m the only soldier feeling a little
confused right now. Right, Agent Meyer?”

Okay, I officially suck at interrogating.

I decided to take the less mature route. “So … I heard you got beat up by a girl?”

He laughed and leaned back in his chair again. “Yes, I sure did. We knew she was with
Tempest, but I honestly believed she was the brains in your partnership. The combat
skills caught me off guard for a split second, which I’m sure you know is long enough.”

“He’s not going to kill you,” I said, following the questioning plan Parker had made
for me. “Healy won’t kill you … not if you agree to help us.”

“You mean tell you who my boss is?”

“Exactly.” I sighed with defeat, knowing he wasn’t going to tell me. Of course he
wasn’t going to tell me.

“Are the rumors true?” he asked, switching subjects abruptly. “I wasn’t the only one
to get beaten by a girl?”

“Well … I’m not being held prisoner by the opposition.”

“‘Opposition’ is a very loose term, Jackson. You’ve been in the CIA long enough to
have learned this.” He stared at me again in that same intense way that made me feel
like my thoughts were on trial.

“Why did you want Holly … Agent Flynn to be locked up with me yesterday? What was
the purpose of that experiment?”

“I’m using her to get to you,” he said without hesitation. “I’ve had questions for
quite some time and the one person who was actually starting to find answers is dead …
murdered, coincidently, and I don’t doubt your division’s involvement.”

“Adam,” I muttered under my breath.

“That’s right.” He leaned forward again. “Are you recording this? If I were you, I’d
shut the tape off.”

Something in his face, his voice, indicated that we were about to go “off the record.”
I turned off the tiny recording device attached to my sleeve. My pulse raced and I
wasn’t even sure why.

“For a long time now,” he said, speaking in a low, barely audible voice, “I’ve been
working on my own assignment. Building a team that could help me with a difficult
project. And until recently I thought you were hiding the answers from me, but now
I’m starting to believe you know even less than I do.”

“About what?” I asked, leaning closer to Agent Collins.

“Do you know anything about my background? How I ended up in the CIA?” I shook my
head. “My father was an agent … so was my grandfather.” He reached in his pocket,
removing a beaten-up wallet. An old photo slid out onto the table. “That’s my grandfather …
in 1952.”

I looked down at the photo and nearly fell out of my chair. The blond-haired, middle-aged
man stood next to a younger guy, maybe nineteen or twenty, with dark hair. My dad …
Agent Collins’s grandfather was in a picture with my dad … in 1952!

I sat there staring at the photo with my mouth hanging open. “How…?”

“How is your father, a man not much older than me, in a picture with my grandfather,
who died two months after this photo was taken? Kevin Meyer shouldn’t have even been
born when this picture was taken.”

What. The. Hell?
Agent … you’re an agent … think this through. Be logical.
“How do you know for sure this was taken in 1952?”

“I did a fair amount of research. Agent Silverman was my lead man on that project.”

My stomach twisted, leaving me with a sick feeling. Adam … I needed Adam right now,
more than ever. “If I look up your grandfather in the database, I’m going to find
this man and that he’s deceased?”

“Yes.” He stared at me now, more intense than before. “This is what’s kept me with
Eyewall for so long. The idea that you guys are messing around with…”

“Time,” I finished for him.

“Time.”

“And you think my dad did this? He went back to 1952 and met your grandfather and
took a picture with him?” Was it possible? Could he be like me? He looked right around
the age he had in 1992.

“I really don’t know,” Agent Collins admitted, letting out a sigh.

This was the first indication or sign of stress that he’d revealed during the entire
questioning. “What’s going to happen to Holly? You picked her for this project and
now you’re here…?”

“I don’t know. I’ve done everything in my power to keep her out of anyone else’s control,
but now … it won’t be easy for her.” He ran his fingers through his hair—another sign
of stress. “She’s on her own and I’m not sure she can survive.”

I had never appreciated honesty more in my life than I did right then. So much that
I decided to return the favor. “I’ve messed around with time … a lot … but not how
you think. And Holly doesn’t know me, but I know her … or at least I used to.”

He looked completely mollified. “So it is true … your father can—”

“Not that I’m aware of,” I said. “I didn’t ask to be like this. I’m still trying to
figure everything out, just like you. I haven’t really chosen a side, either.”

Agent Collins glanced at his watch. “You’ve exceeded the standard time limit. They’ll
come in here soon to make sure I haven’t attacked you.”

“Right.” I couldn’t think straight enough to ask the questions we had left hanging.

He placed the photo of Dad and his grandfather in my hand. “Keep it … Find out what
it means.”

“Okay.” I tucked the picture into my wallet and headed for the door.

“Jackson?”

“Yeah?”

“As far as Agent Flynn goes … be very careful. If anyone in my division suspects she’s
even a little less than an enemy to you, she’s dead. You’re not doing her any favors
by surrendering and handing over your weapon.”

I sucked in a breath, but made an effort to force a nod and say, “Thank you, Agent
Collins.”

Parker jumped up from his chair outside the door. “Dude! Why’d you turn off your communications?”

I shrugged and turned my back to him, glancing around the hall. “That was pointless.
I got nothing. The guy’s a brick wall.”

Regardless of my proclamation that Collins had given no useful information, I still
couldn’t be saved from a couple hours of note-taking and dictating with Parker and
Freeman. We went over the record and recordings (if we had them) of every interrogation
from today and then analyzed them from multiple angles. By the time we had finished
I wasn’t even sure if Kendrick had left or stuck around. But it didn’t take me long
to find her.

Kendrick was in the lab, deep into some unknown project. The second I walked into
the room, I was immediately overwhelmed by the absence of Dr. Melvin. This was his
place. A room he used to create projects—like Axelle.