Family

Chapter 10

The silence was pervasive as I left headquarters. I had been in the room with Mormont for longer than I thought; the sun, which had been overhead when I left the training facility, was now dipping lower in the sky. In Minnesota, in the middle of summer, it would not set until near nine o’clock tonight, but the shadows were growing long, though it was still hot.

My feet carried me out the front door and I realized not for the first time that I was covered in sweat; some dried, more fresh than should have been possible in an air-conditioned space like I had been in. My legs seemed to work only mechanically, each step sending mild shocks through my body as I slouched my way out the door. I was a mess, I knew it.

A hot breath of wind blew past that felt as though it had been warmed over the heat element of an oven. Even still, it was not enough to drag me out of my fearful, lethargic shuffle. I looked left and right, feeling more like a broken person than I could ever have wanted to admit to.

I didn’t go back toward the dormitory, which surprised me. My feet carried me, taking a concrete path that went in the other direction, toward the woods that ringed the campus. I left the path as I neared the trees, not wanting to go back to my little room, with the little bed and little space provided by the people who now suspected me of betraying them. I felt a flash of anger – a HOW DARE THEY sort of indignation that fizzled a moment later. Of course they thought I was betraying them. My mother kidnapped one of their agents. I came within a few inches of sleeping with a man who works with an organization killing their people – our people. I’d think I was a traitor, too.

My steps carried me into the woods, past the start of the treeline. The sun cast shadows of the tree trunks in angled parallel lines on the pine needle-covered floor of the woods. Small green shrubs sprouted every few feet, but unpaved paths were cut through the woods for the Directorate staff to walk if they so desired, worn down by the tread of countless feet. Some of the meta kids, the teenagers who sheltered here, would sneak out on these trails for something they weren’t allowed to do in the dorms. I wondered why I’d never been warned against it, and realized that they’d always treated me with kid gloves compared to the other metas, even the kids. Was that just because I was so powerful they were desperate to keep me, or was there something else in play?

I went on, into the woods, deeper as the space around the path grew more unkempt and less trod. Trampled brown-orange pine needles were everywhere, the dull gray dirt and sands beneath it holding me up to keep me from falling through the earth – which is how I felt. Like I would collapse and be swallowed up by the earth, and that the sky would fall down upon me and drive me through it. I’d failed, completely, in everything. I had been ridiculously irresponsible on the mission, had compromised us to Omega. Even if I hadn’t gotten our agents killed in the field I had almost certainly been responsible for James allowing Omega to be positioned to kill Andromeda after her escape.

Andromeda. I felt my knees give out when I thought of her. There was something so different about her, and not just because she had been imprisoned in some bizarre containment cylinder that wasn’t unlike the box I was intimately familiar with. There was something in her manner, so different, so alien, that reminded me of someone that didn’t have a lot of social experiences. I could relate. Her powers may have made her different; her odd ability to read others would have made them nervous. She might have been an outcast. Like me.

My gloved hand was on the ground, holding me up as I lay there on my knees. I could feel the emotions racking my body, threatening to escape with violent force, and I tried to suppress them. I wanted to be strong, but I felt my limit, and it was miles back. I had screwed everything up. I imagined Zack’s face, the only man I knew who had ever really cared about me, and remembered the look I’d seen on him in the medical unit – the hurt, the betrayal. Zollers had nailed it: I was the center, whether I wanted to be or not, and I had failed to hold, and everything was falling apart around me. The Directorate had entrusted me with a great responsibility and I had screwed it up completely.

I dragged myself to a nearby tree and put my back against it. I felt weak, barely holding back the raging tide of emotion that was threatening to wreck me. There were other things weighing on my mind, obviously – I didn’t need Zollers to tell me that I had deep, unresolved mommy issues. I blinked my eyes tightly, squinted them shut. I leaned my head against the rough bark, felt the knots and grooves of it bite into the back of my skull. Part of me wanted to push back harder, like I did with everything else except my interrogation, apparently. “Why?” I whispered.

“Why what?” came a sharp voice that caused my eyes to shoot open in surprise. I blinked, twice, to be sure I was seeing what I thought I saw, and not some stress-based delusion. My mother stood before me, her hair back in a ponytail like my own, her face frozen in utter disdain. She stood only feet from me, no gloves, but a business suit and makeup giving her a drastically different look than when I had last seen her. “You’re sitting out here, exposed, with your eyes closed.” She looked at me with a narrowed gaze of her own. “You’re oblivious to the world around you – you didn’t even hear me approach you from behind. If I’d been an enemy, you’d be dead.” She maintained her distance.

“What…” I looked around, as though hoping someone else was seeing what I saw. “Are you…really here?”

She rolled her eyes so hard her entire head bobbed as she looked up and over, as though she were following the path of an imaginary fly ball going over her. “Please tell me it’s the drugs they have you on that are making you this dumb. I never trained you to be this undisciplined, this STUPID about your personal safety.” She squinted at me. “Where’s Andromeda?”

I blinked at her, again. “Wh…Andromeda? You’re…not here for me?”

This time she bowed her head in deep annoyance. “I realize I can’t punish you the way I used to, but could you at least…do me the courtesy…of answering my question.” She strained at the last, the final part of her sentence coming out in a low, growling bark.

“She’s dead,” I said, whispering again. “They killed her. Omega killed her.”

“What?” My mother’s staid expression, perpetually ready to display annoyance as her sole emotion, broke and her eyes widened in shock. “They couldn’t have killed her – they wouldn’t have—”

“They did,” I said, soft, the emotion drying me out, taking away my sarcasm. “One of their soldiers shot her, and would have shot me if not for—”

“No.” She shook her head. “That’s not Omega’s style. They would have wanted her back, after what they did to—” She shook her head again, and I could see the emotions rushing over her face, as she snapped back to masking them, calm indifference returning. “I’m sorry, that can’t be right.”

“I saw her die,” I said. I looked at her, and cocked my head. “Where’s Kat?”

My mother’s arms tightened, folded in front of her on the arms of her suit, which was a perfect match for something Ariadne would have worn. “Not here,” she said. “Why do you ask?”

“Because she’s my friend—”

“Don’t lie to me, Sienna,” she said, with a frank air of unconcern. “I’ve been watching you since you were a child; I can tell when you do it. She’s no friend of yours. You don’t even like her.”

“I…I like her fine.” I reeled slightly. “She…tries to be my friend. If she’s not, it’s not her fault, it’s mine. And she’s…my colleague.”

“Deep concern for a co-worker?” She studied me with a frown. “I doubt it; not for the little cheerleader. No, it’s something else.” She stared at me, sifting into my soul as though she had her hands on me and was draining the answers out of me. She laughed, a short one that was mostly fake, and her arms uncrossed. “They think you betrayed them. Erich Winter thinks you’re working with me.”

“No,” I said in a hoarse whisper. “He thinks I’m working with Omega.”

My mother laughed, a real one this time, originating from deep inside. “Ohhh, that’s a good one. I doubt he really believes that, though you certainly kicked up some suspicions fraternizing with James Fries. I hope you learned your lesson about that particular glass of rotten milk without giving the cow away for free.”

I blinked. “Was that…are you talking about me sleeping with him?”

“I don’t care whether you did or not,” she said, voice cracking like a whip, telling me something else entirely different from her words. “I just hope you didn’t make a stupid mistake that you’ll regret for the next eighteen years.”

I flinched at her words. “Are you…are you talking about…me?”

Her look turned from raging to wary in an instant. “I have to go.”

“Why are you here?” I said, and felt my back press against the tree again. “Did you stop by just to insult me? To add a few more logs on the fires of my insecurities?” I blinked back the tears that had been long suppressed.

“No,” she snapped. “I saw you go into the woods, and I followed you.” She hesitated now, seeming as though she were torn. “I wanted to—”

Something whistled through the air above us and I felt a tingle. I was moving even as Mom’s head was swiveling, looking around us for the threat. I knew, however, that it was coming from above, directly above, and without even thinking I acted, pushing her with both hands. The look on her face was pure shock, and she lanced out with a fist that hit me in the jaw even as she was falling. She hit the ground on her back and used her momentum to roll back to her feet.

I, on the other hand, felt the blow from above, the one that had been meant for her, hit me square in the back and fling me facedown to the ground. My chin, fresh from being hit by her fist, was slammed into a root, followed by my chest, knocking the wind out of me. Stars filled my eyes, the metaphorical sort which were really colored flashes of light in my experience. I saw my mother looking at me for a half-second, her mouth a flat line, before she turned and ran, leaving her high heeled shoes behind in a sprint to get away from the place where I lay.

I stared at her back until she receded from view, my head full of lightness, and my limbs trapped, immovable beneath a net of light that restrained me, hugging me to the earth. I decided not to fight the desire to go limp, preferring instead to just lay there, hoping that the earth really would swallow me, that the sky really would fall down – not a net from Eve Kappler, like what was keeping me down now. I waited, and I heard the footfalls of M-Squad a few seconds later. I felt strong hands reach down, hard like iron, and rip the netting away, and then twist my arm behind me.

I cried out and was pulled to my feet, Clyde Clary standing in front of me, his skin turned a black, rubbery color. It felt like metal. He was leering at me with his stupid grin and had my hand twisted behind me, locking it into place behind my back as he did the same with my other hand, effectively handcuffing me without needing actual handcuffs. “Lookee here,” Clary said. “Caught her fraternizing with the enemy red-handed.”

“If my hands are red, it’s because you’re cutting off the circulation to them.”

“Loosen up, Clary,” I heard another voice say, and I was spun about to face the speaker. Roberto Bastian looked back at me, his black, short-cropped military flattop standing out in the late day shadows. His browned skin looked sallow in the fading light, and his lips were puckered like he was holding back whatever he wanted to say to me. “No need to hurt her.”

“We got her,” Clary said, dumbstruck. “We got her talking to her mom, live and here. What, you want me to let her go?”

“She ain’t going anywhere,” Bastian said, and turned to look back at Headquarters, “so loosen up your grip. It ain’t like you can’t run her down and catch her if she tries to rabbit.” He turned to face me. “And it’s not a crime to talk to your mother, though obviously it doesn’t look good. We’re gonna have to take you to Ariadne,” he said, speaking to me at last. “If you try to run…” He shook his head, almost sadly. “Just don’t. Let’s get this over with.”

“What about Eve and Parks?” Clary said with a nod in the direction my mother had run.

A noise in the underbrush got us all looking, and a wolf slinked out, then stood up on its hind legs as it became a man. Its fur became clothing, the hair atop its head and face becoming a gray beard and a long, bushy mane. “Eve’s aloft,” Parks said, “but it’s pretty clear Sierra got away. Managed to leap the fence and make it to a car. I called Ariadne and the helo’s warming up, but it won’t be up in time to catch her.” He turned to look at me. “What’s your story?”

I swallowed hard. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me,” he said and gestured with a nod of his head to start walking toward the headquarters building.

“I just got done with the interrogator,” I said as Clary put pressure on my arms and started me moving forward, “and I came out here by myself. My mom was apparently on campus to do something and said she saw me and followed me out here.”

“Simple,” Parks said. “Undetailed. She was definitely here. Why would I doubt it?”

“Because the coincidences are piling up,” I said as Clary tugged on my arm, causing me a surge of pain. I looked at him and he grinned. “And the circumstantial evidence of my guilt is gaining more and more circumstances with every passing day.”

Parks chortled, and I heard Bastian clear his throat. “True enough,” Parks said, and lapsed into silence.

I considered the only fortunate part of this being that headquarters would be close to abandoned when I arrived, just as it had been when I left a few minutes earlier, the people who worked there already gone for the evening. I especially didn’t want to face the thought of the people around the campus seeing me in such a state, looking like hell, my face and clothes dirty and even ripped in a couple places from my rough landing after being taken down by Eve’s net. I looked down and saw smudges of brown dotting my grey t-shirt. I couldn’t imagine what my face must look like, but I could feel some of the dusty grit on my forehead and cheek.

The route back to the headquarters building carried us past the dorms, and as Clary led the procession off the path and across the grass, I realized too late what he was doing. Bastian and Parks said nothing until we rounded one of the glassy corners of the building and I saw the boxy outline of the cafeteria and the shapes within. By then it was too late, and as I started to resist, Clary twisted my arm, urging me to go on.

“You are such an ass, Clary,” Bastian said under his breath. Parks let out a hiss of breath to agree.

We walked past the cafeteria’s massive, open glass walls, already committed to our path. Clary marched me on, my arms snugged behind my back in a prisoner-like state, my shoulders hunched and my frame bent so he could control my movement easier. I didn’t look to my right as we passed the cafeteria. I didn’t need to. It was dinnertime, and I had seen silhouettes behind the glass; people rising from their seats and coming to the window to look at me being led along by three members of M-Squad, like a felon, in front of pretty much everyone I knew.

The heat burned in my cheeks and I pushed down the tears again, this time of humiliation and rage, and I tried to quicken my pace, but Clary held me back now, and I heard a little guffaw from him as he slackened his tread to draw out my perp walk. “You having fun with this?” I asked him under my breath.

“Sienna girl, I am having as much fun as I could possibly be having. What’s the matter?” he asked with a laugh. “You not enjoying your fifteen minutes of shame?”

“No,” I said hoarsely. “No, I’m not.”

He chuckled, a sound like a wheezing heifer. “Don’t do the crime if you don’t wanna do the time.”

“Stifle it, Clary,” Parks said.

“What are you getting all up in my grill for, Parks?” Clary said with disdain. “We caught her with a woman who broke into our facility.”

“Talking, Clary,” Parks said. “And nothing else that we could prove.”

“Prove, schmove,” he said. “She’s guilty as hell.”

They marched me through the heavy glass doors of the headquarters building, into the elevator, and we rode up, Clary still affecting his rubber form, keeping my arms locked in place. I felt it every few minutes as he would subtly increase the pressure on my arms. Not so much Parks or Bastian would notice, or enough to make me cry out, but enough to cause me pain. I wanted to hurt him, but even stomping as hard as I could on the instep of his foot (the preferred remedy for dealing with someone restraining you in such a way) would produce only more pain for me.

When the elevator doors opened, I stepped out and started toward Ariadne’s office, flanked by the three of them. Her office was against outside windows. The windows that looked from the cubicle farm into her office had the blinds closed and when we reached the heavy wood door, Bastian stepped in front of me and knocked. He looked down at me from his six foot-plus height, and I caught a hesitancy that verged on remorse. He didn’t say anything, though, and after a moment a voice called from inside for us to enter, and he opened the door.

Ariadne was standing behind her desk, her dull gray suit marked contrast to the orange cast of the world outside the window behind her. It was early evening now; the sun was sinking lower in the sky and on the other side of the building to boot, so most of the grounds were shadowed, the lawn dark in the shade of headquarters. Ariadne looked at me in surprise, blinked a few times, her gaze swinging from me to Clary, who was still clutching my wrists, and thunderclouds moved in over her brows. “Clary…what the hell are you doing?”

“Ma’am,” Bastian said. “We caught up with her talking with her mother in the woods.”

“Her mother?” Ariadne asked. “Her mother was the intruder?” She looked at me in sharp disbelief.

“Yes, ma’am,” Bastian said. “Eve and Parks went after her, but she managed to get to a car and escape.”

Ariadne stood in the middle of the office, her red hair a perfect match for the light on the trees in the background. “Clary, Bastian, Parks…out.”

Clary tensed and I felt his grip tighten on my wrists. “But—”

“Out, Clary. Wait in the hall.” She said it quietly but firmly. I heard Parks and Bastian move to comply. Clary was rooted in place, though, as if his brain couldn’t quite process what he was been asked to do. “I’m not going to ask you again.”

“She could be dangerous, you know,” Clary said behind me, and I could hear the defensive heat in his voice. “What if she kills you and makes her escape out the window?”

“Then you’ll have a really fun time smearing her all over the campus,” Ariadne said, as though indifferent to the prospect.

Clary seemed to ponder this for a minute before I felt his hands release my wrists. “Oh. Huh. Yeah, that’d be fun.” His heavy footfalls cut a path out the door behind me.

“You want me to leave, too?” I heard a voice behind me and turned my head to see Reed in the corner, leaning against the wall, looking pretty dapper for a guy who’d been out of it when last I’d seen him. He was wearing a black suit and his dark hair was up in a ponytail, a splash of color from his collared dress shirt, which was pink. It actually looked good on him.

“You can stay,” Ariadne said, remaining standing. I realized, not for the first time, that Ariadne was taller than me. She never really felt that way, though, for some reason. She stared at me, and I stared back, and neither of us said anything.

“Well, gosh,” Reed said, “with this being such a great, not-at-all-awkward moment, that’s an awfully enticing offer, but why don’t I just go ahead and mingle with metal head and the M-Rejects while you two hash out whatever dramatic tension you’ve got.” He slipped behind me and opened the door, shutting it behind him.

I stood there, bedraggled, haggard, a torrent of emotions still buried. I didn’t want any of them bleeding out now, or in the presence of any other person, come to it. “Sit down,” Ariadne said, gesturing to the chairs in front of her desk.

“I don’t think I’ll be doing your upholstery any favors,” I said, massaging my wrists where Clary had twisted and clamped on them. They ached, but they were the least of my problems. I tasted blood in my mouth and a pain on my tongue told me I’d bitten it when I hit the ground, though I hadn’t noticed at the time. I was sticky from old sweat and my jaw hurt, along with the rest of my body, a half-dozen aches reminding me that Eve hadn’t been gentle with her application of the net. I guess I hadn’t earned much goodwill with her, though, if I thought about it.

“Sit,” she said, and this time it was quiet, no order, just a gentle invitation, absolutely at odds with what I thought I’d get from her.

I sat, lowering myself into the faux black leather. I felt it hit my back awkwardly, as though it was forcing me into better posture than I wanted to adopt at the moment, making me sit upright when I wanted to slouch and play wounded, wanted to keep out of eye contact so she couldn’t delve into me and see how hurt I was by everything that had occurred.

“What happened?” she asked me, taking her own seat and causing her chair to squeak at the wheels as she slid it to move closer to the desk.

I pursed my lips. “I got done with my meeting with Mormont and went to the woods for a few minutes to just…” I paused, trying to find a way to cover what I really wanted to say, which was to be alone and cry where I hoped no one would see or hear me. “…try and gather my thoughts. My mom said she saw me walking across the campus.”

“What did she say to you?” Ariadne’s eyes were rimmed with concern, and I couldn’t tell in my present state whether it was real or not. My bullshit detector was broken, along with the rest of my emotions.

“She asked me where Andromeda was. I told her.” I thought again of Andromeda, who had saved my life, and how I couldn’t do the same for her. I wished I had taken the bullet and not her. “I asked her about Kat and she evaded.” I felt a shudder as I thought about how Mom had treated me when she wanted to restrain me. “She ripped me a new one about being lax in my habits. Same old story.” There was a gap of silence after that, and I didn’t want to break it, so I stayed as stoic as I could, even as I turned over the insults my mom had hit me with in the few minutes I had talked with her.

“Michael Mormont gave me his recommendations of what we should do with you while he continues his investigation,” Ariadne said, breaking the silence. She had her fingers palm down on the desk, and stretched out in front of her on the black surface.

“Draw and quarter me?” I suggested. “A public flaying? Whipped naked through the campus at noontime?”

“He recommends we take you into custody,” she said softly, and I didn’t react. I didn’t know if I had it in me to even try to run, assuming I had anywhere to go other than my house, where they would surely catch me in less than an hour. “But I want you to know,” she said, catching my attention even as I felt my body slacken, as though I could slide out of the chair like the emotional jelly that I was by this point, “that the Director and I have discussed it, and we’ve discarded his recommendation. We don’t believe you’re the traitor.”

I felt a slight warmth, amazement, and felt a choked sensation in my throat. “But…what about all the things that have gone wrong…James…and I mean…what I did…”

“Mistakes,” she said, soft again, “not malicious.” She pursed her lips. “But we trusted the three of you to get the job done when we sent you on assignment, one that ended up evolving into something of vital importance at a time when we’re under more pressure than ever before, and we find you’ve been drinking on the job and…taking random men back to your hotel room who turn out to be spies for our enemy.” She said it softly, like everything else, and it wounded me even worse. “Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

I coughed, fake. I needed to clear my throat. “I don’t have anything that doesn’t sound in my head like an excuse.”

“I’m disappointed,” Ariadne said. “I guess I’d come to expect more out of you than this.”

“You didn’t even want me to go on this assignment,” I said quietly. “Remember? You were still holding a grudge from when I took Eve out of the air with a rock.”

“I wasn’t holding a grudge,” she said. “Scott is immature and acts like it. Kat’s a sweetheart, and she’ll go along with whatever he says because they’re attached at the…” She blushed. “…because they’re attached. But you,” she said, and leaned forward, fingers interlaced, “you always marched to your own tune. Since the day you got here, you’ve consistently been one of the strongest metas not only in power, but in personality, weathering adversity I couldn’t imagine.” I could see by the look on her face she was telling the truth. “You never let it weigh you down, and you never followed anyone’s orders if you didn’t want to do something. You’d let the whole Directorate hate you before you caved on doing something you didn’t believe was right. Remember Gavrikov?” She stared at me. “So I sent that girl out on an assignment, and when she didn’t show up, I guess it surprised me.”

“I can do better,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“I know you can,” she said sadly. “And I hope you get a chance to prove it. I know you hate me, but the Director and I have invested a lot of faith in you. I just hope it pays dividends at some point.” She looked down. “But right now it’s not looking too good.”

I started to respond, I did. I wanted to say something about how bad I’d screwed up, about how much my judgment had been off, and how I really didn’t hate her. But I waited a moment too long and there was a knock at the door. “Come in,” Ariadne said, and the door opened to show a small, geeky guy with glasses and kind of a bowl-shaped haircut that reminded me of pictures I’d seen of the Beatles. He was wearing hipster glasses, which I hate. Unkempt, a ragged overshirt with holes in it covering a t-shirt underneath with the name of some band on it I doubted anyone had heard of.

“J.J,” she said with a nod. “Progress?”

“Big time,” he said with a smile, and stepped into the office.

“Just a second,” she said, and looked out the door behind him. “Reed, you can come back in now.”

Reed appeared at the door, sliding into the room unmussed and without a word. He resumed his place in the corner and I watched a cell phone slip into his pocket from one of his hands. He really did look good in the suit, but his persona was off somehow; I realized after a moment his expression was guarded, more closed than I’d ever seen before from him.

J.J., as Ariadne had called him, sat in the seat next to me, a tablet computer in his hands. Tufts of cat hair streaked his dark blue skinny jeans. “So, the basics of what they did here were a deeper encryption than just relying on the normal OS security protocols—”

“J.J.,” Ariadne said, “I don’t care about that. What did you find on the computer?”

“Wait,” I said. “Is this about the laptop I recovered from the Omega safehouse?”

“Right,” the hipster geek said with a nod. “I’ve made sure it was clear of spyware, tied it into the network, and backed the contents of the hard drive up onto our servers so you can access it from your computer.” He waved to the laptop on the work hutch behind her. “But here’s the gist: a list of U.S. Assets for Omega – though they don’t quite call themselves that on their internal docs,” he said. “It’s kinda vague, but I got some analysts sifting through it now. Looks like street addresses for safehouses, facilities, the works. Some names of employees.”

“Anything in the immediate area?” She looked at him and his gaze popped up from the tablet computer.

“A guy here in Minneapolis,” J.J. replied. “James Fries? Looks like they’re paying for him to live the high life; he’s got a condo in downtown.”

“And I would love to visit and throw him out of a window to show my gratitude,” I said.

“And wouldn’t defenestration be a simplistic approach?” Ariadne said with a raised eyebrow. “One incubus dead on the Omega side isn’t going to win us this war. I’ll put surveillance on him, see if he leads us anywhere interesting.”

“And then, after you’ve done that, I can…?” I mimicked throwing something over my head. I didn’t mean it, not really – I don’t think.

“We’ve got bigger concerns than revenge,” Ariadne said, but her look was muted sympathy. “We’ve got a final tally of over a hundred and eighty dead nationwide – that’s agents, retrievers, metas and all else.”

“That doesn’t sound too bad,” J.J. said with a shrug. I didn’t like him.

“That’s about three-quarters of our agent assets,” Ariadne said. “And every one of them had people they left behind – mothers, fathers, wives, husbands, kids in some cases…”

“Oh,” J.J. said in muted surprise. “Well, when you put it like that it sounds bad.”

“Could be worse,” Reed grunted from the corner, drawing my attention back to him. A pall hung over him, a blackness of mood I couldn’t quite place, it was so at odds with the flippant guy I’d known since he offered me a ride after knowing him for ten seconds.

“How?” Ariadne asked, slight amusement causing the corners of her mouth to curl in a faint smile.

“You could be a meta in India,” he said without pause. “Their government has been running a training facility like what you’ve got here, where they’ve been sheltering metas – about four hundred of them. They’ve even been taking them in from other neighboring countries with offers of good money and a high standard of living.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” J.J. said with a shrug. “Working for the government would have some benefits, I’m sure. Like maybe some past indiscretions could be evaporated without having to do a hack job—”

“They’re all dead as of this morning,” Reed said darkly. “Every last one of them.”

“What?” Ariadne’s eyebrows arched up and she sat back in her chair, stunned.

Reed seemed to seethe with pent up energy in the corner, every word coming out as though he were about to explode. “They’re dead. The whole compound was destroyed.”

J.J. seemed to maintain a detached, ironic tone. “Did their government wipe them out? Because that’s not cool.”

“No,” Reed said, staring at J.J. in disbelief. “That would not be ‘cool’,” he said, mocking the techie. “But indicators do not point to the Indian government.”

“Omega?” I asked, and traded a look with Ariadne.

“Don’t know,” Reed said, “but it doesn’t sound like their game. I don’t know if you knew this, but about six months ago in China—”

“Right.” Ariadne seemed to awaken, leaning forward. “That Chinese government facility that was destroyed.”

“Taking three hundred plus metas along with it,” Reed agreed. “This hasn’t been a good year for the meta population. We’re down by nearly eight hundred in the last few months, and there were only about three thousand of us to begin with.”

“Why would you put all your metas in one place?” J.J. mused aloud. “I mean, it just seems like an invitation to get them wiped out.”

“No one thought we were in any danger of extermination until now,” Reed said with a little acrimony. “Our reports out of China were vague; there was even a hint it could have been the Chinese government behind the whole thing.” He blinked and turned his head toward the wall. “Doesn’t look like it now, though. Looks pretty much like an outside job.”

“So someone’s wiping out metas?” Ariadne asked, sitting back again. “I mean, if China was an isolated incident, you might be able to write it off as an isolated occurrence, but…” She looked at Reed. “How did you get this information?”

“I just talked with my superiors in Italy,” Reed said. “They were…hesitant to give me much over an open communication source like a cell phone, but…anyway, I got the basics and gave them an update.” He shook his head. “The good guys seem to be in a spiral here. Feels like we’re fighting blind. I sense they know something about the troubles you’re experiencing, but I’ll need to call from the secure line at my apartment to get the full updates.”

Ariadne stared at Reed. “Why don’t you go do that?”

Reed smiled. “Because my apartment is in Milwaukee.”

“Damn,” I said. “How the hell do you keep up with your HQ when you’re on the road?”

“Well,” he began, “we had cell phones that we thought were unbreakable – until about six months ago, when we caught an Omega spy in Florence who had a copy of our encryption protocol on him.”

“They’re starting to seem rather adept at this sort of penetration,” Ariadne said. “They’ve compromised us as well; Andromeda claims we have a traitor in our midst.”

Reed nodded. “Doesn’t surprise me. Omega is very slick, and they’ve got more than a few teeps on their side to deploy for these purposes.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, confused. “What’s a teep?”

“TP,” Ariadne said, drumming her fingernails on the desk. “Telepath. Mind readers. How many do they have?”

“No idea,” Reed said with a shrug. “No names, no certainty; just whispers, rumors that they use them for spying.”

“Oh wow,” J.J. said. “So we’ve got people walking around reading our minds?” He twitched. “Ah…can I have some time off until we get this resolved? I mean…I’ve got information that they really shouldn’t have, after all. I could work from home.”

I looked at him seriously. “Is it about your unhealthy relationship with your cat?”

His eyes widened and his jaw dropped open, making him look even more ridiculous than his glasses and haircut already did. “How did you know about my cat?” He blinked. “Are you the mind reader?” He whimpered. “It was only the once, I swear.”

I let out an exhalation. “You’re covered in cat hair…” I looked at him in pity. “…and ew. Ew. A thousand times, ewww.”

Ariadne stared at J.J. as he wilted in his chair, then turned back to Reed. “Why don’t you let us fly you to Milwaukee? We could use your organization’s assistance and whatever information they have, if they’re willing to provide it.”

Reed considered her offer for about a second. “I’ll take you up on that. Flight time is a hell of a lot better than a six-hour drive each way. I’m sure they’ll be willing to render some help because I’ve been told to cooperate with you; it’s just a question of how much. I mean, it’s pretty obvious we’ve got some common enemies here.”

“Though they’re becoming more uncommon by the minute,” J.J. said.

“Nice,” I said with a glare. “Did you come up with that one all by yourself, Catman?”

“Go ahead, Reed,” Ariadne said, picking up her phone. “I’ll have a chopper spun up and ready to fly within the hour.” She looked to J.J. and then to me. “I think we’re done here, unless either of you has anything else to cover?”

“I’m good,” J.J. said. “But seriously, can I work from home?”

“No,” Ariadne said and started to dial numbers. “And Sienna?” She caught my gaze as I was standing. “Try and stay out of trouble,” she said as gently as she could manage.

I followed J.J. and Reed out the door, and watched techno-hipster make his way through the maze of cubicles. Parks and Bastian were engaged in a conversation, Clary lurking next to them, trying to act like he was involved in it as they both studiously ignored him. Eve stood behind them at a distance, coolly watching. When I emerged from the office she walked toward me. I locked eyes with her and she with me. The scarring on her head and face had faded since last I saw her, although she looked odd without hair. She made a move to shoulder check me out of the way so she could enter Ariadne’s office, but I evaded her with quick footwork and gave her a cold look in return. She let a cruel smile show, flashed at me along with a pointed finger that she proceeded to wag. “What do you want us to do with this one?” she asked Ariadne, and kept her finger aimed at me.

“Leave her be,” Ariadne said. “Can you come in and shut the door?”

“You want us to come in, too?” Clary called from his place next to Parks and Bastian, craning his head and leaning to look in the open door of Ariadne’s office. Bastian shook his head, eyes closed, and Parks let out a sigh. Clary didn’t notice. Eve, for her part, remained still, back against the doorframe.

“No,” Ariadne said. “I just need to talk to Eve.”

She walked into Ariadne’s office and shut the door behind her. “What?” Clary said, responding to something either Parks or Bastian had said that I didn’t hear. “Ohhhh.” The big man nodded, and a wide smile crept over his face. “Right.”

“What the hell is wrong with that guy?” Reed asked me as I followed him toward the elevator bank. He tossed his thumb over his shoulder toward Clary with a perplexed-bordering-on-irritated look on his face.

“A lot,” I said, not looking back. “What do you think of this India thing?”

“I’m fine, by the way,” Reed said, pushing the button for the elevator. “In case you were wondering.”

I looked him up and down. “You seem to be doing better than me, that’s for sure. Very slick.” I held up my hands. “No need to get all snooty; if there’s one of us standing here that looks like they’re not doing well, I don’t think it’s you.” I waved my hand up and down to encompass him from head to foot.

He cracked a smile. “You’re tough. I’m sure you’ve faced worse.”

I let out a breath. “Doesn’t feel like it today. Today makes me wish I’d taken you up on that offer to visit your employer.” He started to say something but I waved him off. “Don’t say it. I’m not that serious about it.”

“So what happened?” The elevator dinged and he indicated I should go first. The mirrored back wall of the elevator gave me a look at myself. I was smudged with dirt from top to bottom, my nose had blood underneath it, and there were a few scrapes visible on my face that I hadn’t realized were there. Nothing too deep, but enough that blood was visible beneath them. They’d all be gone by morning.

“My mom snuck onto the campus, unleashing all sorts of pandemonium for me because they caught me talking to her,” I said, dabbing at my nose with my sleeve. It came back with droplets of blood. “Now I’m under suspicion of betraying the Directorate.”

“You know,” he said after a pause, “you could come with me.”

“I said ‘don’t say it’.” I dabbed again. The blood had started to dry and crust on my upper lip. My eyes were red, though not from excess crying, because I’d barely shed more than a single tear. More likely from restraining it. “I’m in enough trouble right now without adding another reason to think I’m a traitor. God knows what the investigator would think about this conversation if he heard it.”

“Investigator?” Reed cocked an eyebrow at me.

“Yeah,” I said. “They’re trying to root out the spy.”

“And they were questioning you because you knew who this person was?” He eyed me, and I saw a little cold fire in his eyes, and caught it in his tone.

I turned to him and gave him a patronizing look. “My mom is the Directorate’s Public Enemy Number Two right now, and I almost slept with the closest thing to a face we have for their Public Enemy Number One.”

“I agree that gives you a slight air of suspicion—”

“Air?” I snorted and turned back to the mirrored wall, pushing at a scabbed cut in my eyebrow. “Reed, I think that qualifies as a cloud of suspicion, but a big one, like the kind you’d find surrounding a hurricane.”

He didn’t answer, and the elevator chimed as the doors slid open, revealing the marbled floors of the lobby and a darkening sky beyond the glass windows and doors at the front of the building. “Maybe,” he conceded, “but I don’t buy this idea that you’re betraying the Directorate.”

“Neither do Ariadne and Old Man Winter, apparently,” I said as I stepped out into the open lobby. “But I wouldn’t blame them for at least harboring some suspicions because of it.”

“Don’t let it get you down,” he said with a muted smile and put a hand on my shoulder, shaking me slightly.

I looked at his hand as though it were contaminated and he froze. “Thanks, dude,” I said sarcastically. “I can tell you totally mean that, bro.” His eyes widened, and he stammered. “Sorry,” I said. “I probably came on a little strong with that one. I just meant…” I closed my eyes and shook my head. “I appreciate you trying to cheer me up.”

“Yeah.” He kind of wobbled. “Well. Um. I will see you…when I get back from Milwaukee, I guess.”

I raised an eyebrow. “If this was a horror movie, I’d tell you to rethink that last line – it’s pretty close to ‘I’ll be right back’.” I thought about it for a second. “Actually, my life has resembled a horror movie in a few details lately. You might want to rephrase that.”

“I’ll be fine,” he said with a roll of the eyes. “But I do want to talk to you about something when we have a little more time.”

“It better not be a recruitment offer,” I said, “because if it is, I swear to you—”

“It’s not,” he said. “I’ll see ya later, okay?”

“There you go again.”

He laughed and pulled his hand back into the elevator as the doors slid shut behind him.

My walk across the campus was long. It was evening now, the sun close to setting, glaring at me from the horizon with an orange stare. I shuffled back to the dormitory building ignoring the looks I got from the few people still making their way around the campus. It was worse when I entered the building; dinner was wrapping up and I caught stares and gazes from a dozen people, none of whom I really knew. The whispers were mostly inaudible but totally comprehensible; and I didn’t even bother to enter the cafeteria where the smaller dinner crowd could have an opportunity to talk about me while I sat by myself and pretended to ignore it. I was edgy enough I might not have pretended, actually, and the last thing I needed was to get into a fight with someone right now.

The air conditioner was working overtime in the hallway to my room, blowing cold air out of the overhead vents as I walked down the hall, windows to the sunset-tinged campus on one side and plain white walls on the other. I was so hungry that I felt my mouth drool at the smell of food from the cafeteria, but I knew I’d have to be contented with whatever snacks I had in my room. The aroma of beef told me they were having that oh-so-rare treat, prime rib, but there was no way I was going to brave the lunacy of the crowds tonight, even for that. Besides, I could still hear the crowds in the cafeteria, and they didn’t sound quiet: they were boisterous, there was discussion (probably about me), and I wanted no part of it.

I opened the door to my room, which, as usual, was unlocked. I had grown used to the small print of S. Nealon on the door’s name plate, as though anyone who didn’t know couldn’t just look at the directory in the main hall entry to the dorm building. I didn’t have anything worth stealing, just the Directorate-issued stuff that everyone else had in their rooms, so I usually didn’t bother locking the door. Part of the reasoning for that was because I really sucked at keeping track of things like keys, so I didn’t want to have to carry a key with me all the time just so I could lose it every day.

I came in and shut the door behind me, letting the back of my head thud against it. My day had consisted of waking up in the medical unit, telling my bosses (and inadvertently my ex-boyfriend) that I’d nearly slept with the enemy, getting to see one of my colleagues vent his righteous rage against my mother, getting interrogated by my psychiatrist (sad that I need one of those) then an actual interrogator (sadder that I’d need one of those); then I capped everything off by getting insulted by my mother, restrained by my co-workers, perp-walked in front of everyone I know, and then lectured by a woman who acts more like my mother than the real one. Best. Day. Ever.

Oh, and Kat was still missing. Joy. I bet she had a better day than me. I frowned and thought of the box. Maybe not.

I flipped the light after standing there for a minute in the dark, and I took my first uneasy steps toward the bed. I stopped, and cocked my head, curious, at a small object lying on the bedspread. I took a few steps forward and bent over to take a closer peek.

It was a watch. A gold band with links gave way to a clasp, and the face was kind of pearlescent, with a rainbow sheen that refracted in the light as I picked it up. The numbers on the face were roman numerals. At the three o’clock position was a number for the day, and the second hand was ticking along, counting out each moment as I stared at it. There was a shred of paper threaded beneath the band, and I looked to my desk; it was from the pad there, torn out, and something had been written on it. I pulled it out and opened it at the fold, blinking as the words registered in my mind, sticking there, sending my head into an even worse spin than it had already been in.

Your father would want you to have this.