Wired (6 page)

Skyler grinned. “Chris wasn't man enough for the task. I told Mom I'd help you.”

“Well, that's awfully kind of you, Your Highness, to come all the way downtown to help your poor, downtrodden sister. I'm sure the fact that there's a beautiful blond along for the ride had nothing to do with it,” Liz said sarcastically.

“That's sisterly trust for you.” Skyler laughed, flashing his even white teeth at Gaia. She suddenly felt flushed. Skyler was hot, no doubt about it, but it
was more than that. It wasn't even that he was checking her out, because in spite of what Liz had said, Gaia didn't see it. But something about him did make her nervous.

Let's face it, just about everything makes me nervous these days
, she admitted to herself. But this was a different nervous. Yet as unsettling as the feeling was, she couldn't turn away from him. She was mesmerized. She loved the fact that he was teasing her, loved the fact that he lumped her into the same group that he lumped his little sister. The vibe between Gaia and him felt familial. It was like he was the anti-Jake—unconcerned with the new bizarro Gaia's constant anxiety. Willing to take care of her. His smile was warm and inviting. She didn't share any of Liz's skepticism about his motivation for offering to help.

She shook her head. It was only a
smile
, for chris-sake.

“You wanna come?” Liz offered. “Hot times at ABC Carpet are guaranteed.”

Gaia smiled again but shook her head. Tempting as the offer was, whatever this magnetic draw to Skyler was, she couldn't act on it. She couldn't let Liz see her spontaneously become her older brother's lapdog. “I should be getting home. But you kids have fun.”

Liz and Skyler said their goodbyes and Gaia wandered off, more perplexed by the day's events than she'd been in a good while.

From:
[email protected]

To:
[email protected]

Re:
Prom

Jake—

I know things have been a little off between us lately; even a freak like me can tell that there's trouble in paradise. And I'm sorry, because I take the full blame. I've been a complete weirdo lately, looking for reassurance and afraid of my own shadow. Nothing like the girl you first met. But I think we can work things out, and I think it's worth it to try. If you can be normal, Jake, I can be normal, too. Apparently I can be normal and cheesy and write totally pathetic e-mails to my boyfriend practically
begging
him not to be mad at me so that we can go to the prom like every other red-blooded American teenage couple….

[delete]

“DAD?” CHRIS PUSHED THE DOOR TO his father's home office open slowly. He knew his dad was busy; after all, Dr. Rodke hardly ever worked from home. And when he was at home, the office was verboten to the rest of the Rodke clan, and it was a given that the rest of the family's activity had to be restricted to a dull roar. Chris knew he wasn't supposed to be bothering his father with anything that wasn't seriously important.

He hoped, then, that his father would agree that his news was important.

Stepping inside the office, he saw his father hunched in front of a flat-screen PC, tapping away intensely at the keyboard, wearing his lab coat for no apparent reason other than pure habit. A small microscope stood to the side of the desk. A stand containing several test tubes lay next to the microscope, small amounts of fluid slopping back and forth slowly. Chris wasn't sure what was in the test tubes, but he had an idea.

“Dad?” he repeated, suddenly less sure of the significance of his information.

His father swiveled in his ergometric chair and looked at Chris as if he were some sort of lab rat that had escaped its cage. One that wasn't really worth recapturing. “Yes?” he asked impatiently. “Can I help you with something?”

“I, uh…” Chris swallowed. “I don't mean to disturb you. I just wanted to tell you that the cops were questioning Liz today. In the park. This morning.”

His father's level of interest instantly soared. He pushed aside the file of documents he'd been so engrossed in only moments before. “About what? Is she in some kind of trouble?”

“No, of course not” Chris assured his father, shaking his head vigorously. “Of course not,” he repeated.

“Then what?”

“She was walking through the park this morning on her way to school, and the cops pulled her aside to ask her if she knew anything about Invince. About God. They were looking for leads “

His father's steely blue gaze mirrored Liz's own from lunch this afternoon. “And did she have any?”

“No, I don't think so. I mean, she hasn't bought, used, or sold any Invince, you know. So why would she know who God is?”

“Well, I don't think she would,” Dr. Rodke agreed, somewhat amiably. “I don't think she would at all. Thankfully.”

“She wouldn't really have any idea where Invince came from,” Chris repeated, as though in a trance. “I mean, she's got nothing to do with it. But she might be coming too close.” Chris revealed his true concern. True, the cops hadn't been able to get any information out of him—which was hysterical, in and of itself—and
they certainly weren't questioning Liz for any reason other than the fact that she'd been walking in the park this morning and had seemed the right age, the right demographic for their inquiry. But they hadn't truly had anything to link her with God. With Invince.

With Chris.

Dr. Rodke replaced the pen he'd been holding on the surface of his desk.

“Chris, Liz was asked routine questions by some semi-competent police officers who were simply doing their job. The same questions that would have been asked of anyone walking through the park this morning. As such, she wouldn't be any more suspicious than anyone else. How often do unusual things happen in Washington Square Park?” Dr. Rodke pointed out. Those were the same thoughts that Chris himself had used to rationalize the incident, but they were somehow more comforting coming from an authority figure, a doctor, a father. “There's no reason to be concerned that she is coming too close to the source of Invince. Unless there's something you aren't telling me,” Dr. Rodke continued with ominous finality.

Chris shook his head again, as assertively as he was able. “No, of course not. What would I be keeping from you?”

“Good, then,” Dr. Rodke stated, effectively ending the conversation. “I should get back to work. Skyler's coming by later, and we have some reports to go
through. So may I suggest that you close the door behind you as you go?”

Chris was used to being dismissed Closing the door behind himself was par for the course.

JAKE WOVE HIS WAY ACROSS THE crowded pavement of Spring Street, gracelessly sidestepping the tourists lined up the length of a city block for entrance to Lombardi's. He shook his head, annoyed. True, as one of the oldest brick-oven parlors in Manhattan, Lombardi's had earned its reputation, but Jake wouldn't stand on line for any restaurant in the city. Given that there was always another equally authentic, innovative, or just plain good and cheap place right around the corner, it wasn't worth it.

Besides, all of these people were in his way.

Pushing past an overweight, frizzy blond posing in front of the restaurant's awning, he pulled the rumpled e-mail printout out from the back pocket of his jeans and smoothed the paper as best as he could.
New
information has been procured
, the e-mail read.
Meet me at 121 Canal Street
.

Jake hadn't known that Oliver was maintaining an outpost on Canal Street. Of course, to say that there was a lot about Oliver that he didn't know was an understatement. But it was clear that Oliver wanted to involve Jake in uncovering the threat against Gaia, and that was pretty cool. On a primary, superficial level, of course, Jake was totally worried about his girlfriend. If someone was after Gaia, he was going to go after the bastards and stop them, whatever it took. But even more than that, he liked being singled out by Oliver, liked feeling like he was a part of something bigger than the typical bullshit high school experience. Oliver was playing for real, for keeps, and Jake was glad to be on his team. So when he'd gotten the e-mail, he'd made a break for the Lower East Side without thinking twice.

“Excuse me.” Frizzy was tapping his shoulder, wiping a bead of sweat off her forehead.
Damn
. That was what he got for standing still. He regarded her index finger with as much distaste as he could muster but to no avail. “Excuse me, are you from around here?”

“Uh, yeah” Jake admitted reluctantly, extending no sign of kindness or interest in helping.

“So you know the neighborhood?” She waved a guidebook under his nose, which he ignored.

“A little, yeah.”

“Well, how long is the wait here usually? The book says it can be up to an hour, but that doesn't seem right.” She laughed nervously, willing him to agree with her about the impossibility of it all. Her husband—or a guy Jake assumed to be her husband, judging by the matching his-and-hers Rob Me, I'm a Tourist visors perched on their heads—clapped a beefy arm across her substantial upper torso.

“Yeah, well, it's probably not right,” Jake agreed, squinting over her shoulder. He thought he could make out familiar Village School figures in the distance—this was prime shopping territory, and the chicks from the Village School were champion shoppers—and he was utterly disinterested in running into anyone from school right now. He had more important things to think about.

“Right, that's what we thought,” breathed the husband with a sigh of relief. “An hour. That's crazy.”

Jake was already striding south and east, done with the couple. They had their guidebook, after all. “Yeah, it'll definitely be longer than an hour,” he called as the light at the crosswalk changed abruptly. “More like an hour and a half.”

He decided to chance it and darted across the street. Cars tended to travel down these side roads more slowly, anyway. If he hadn't been so single-mindedly
focused on his mission, Jake would have seen the tourists' jaws drop in dismay. As it was, he pushed down the street briskly, completely unaware.

JAKE CUPPED HIS RIGHT HAND OVER his eyes to deflect the sunlight and glanced again at the female figure across the street. In her hands she clutched a large, glossy shopping bag embossed with the BCBG label in addition to a few smaller bags from Fresh, Mavi, and a couple of other downtown boutiques. “Guys,” she called, waving her bounty in Jake's direction. “Guys, is that Jake?” It was Megan, and right behind her was Laura, sucking down the final dregs of her overpriced frozen gourmet premium blend greedily and absentmindedly tossing the plastic cup into the closest garbage can with aplomb. “Uh-huh, I think so.” Even over the New York traffic, he could hear their screeches loud and clear.

Normally Jake would have tried to elude them, possibly pretend he didn't see them, but it was way too late for those kinds of shenanigans. So instead he
turned to face them. He knew whatever expression he was making must have betrayed the fact that he was less than thrilled to be running into them, but they didn't seem at all deterred. In fact, it was with great determination that Megan led the pack across the street to where he stood. And he waited, as if without choice, tapping his foot impatiently and peering intermittently at his watch.

“I
thought
that was you!” Megan exclaimed triumphantly once they were all gathered on the same corner. “How random to run into you!”

Jake had been thinking the same thing but was much less pleased about it than Megan seemed to be. “Doing some shopping?” he asked, simply because he couldn't think of anything more interesting to say.

“Totally. I saw this really cool dress the other day and knew I had to have it for prom.”

“Actually” Melanie cut in, “they had a ton of cool stuff there. At the store. Some dresses that would look amazing on Gaia. Do you know if she's picked out anything yet?” She gazed at him pointedly.

Jake blinked. Melanie obviously thought she was being discreet, but he couldn't be bothered either way. He had no idea whether or not Gaia had started looking for a dress yet. If he had to guess, he'd say no, given that she practically had to ransack her closet anytime he took her anywhere fancier than Gray's Papaya. But they hadn't even talked about prom yet.
Jake had sort of forgotten it was coming up, now that he had bigger things on his mind. And Gaia … well, Gaia wasn't the type to work herself into a State of neurosis about something like the prom. Or at least, she hadn't been when he'd first fallen for her. Lately he wasn't so sure. “I, uh, don't know, to be honest,” he admitted. “If she has, she hasn't shown me yet.”

“Ooh, maybe she wants it to be a surprise,” Megan offered. “You know, like the groom not seeing the bride's dress before the wedding.”

“Yeah, just like that,” Melanie said witheringly. “Except this is the prom, not a wedding.”

“Well, you know Gaia,” Tammie oozed in a tone that could possibly be construed as less than sincere. “Whatever she wears, she'll look fabulous.”

Jake grinned. “That's definitely true. I'm not too worried about it.” He stole another peek at his watch. It was getting late. He couldn't waste any more time with these girls and risk making Oliver wait for him. He knew timing was everything with these little spy game interludes.

“Oh, do you have somewhere to be?” Melanie teased.

“Actually, yeah, I do,” Jake replied, struggling not to reveal his impatience. “I'm in kind of a hurry. But if I talk to Gaia, I'll mention that you guys wanted to take her shopping.”