But he doesn’t show me that article. Instead, he clicks on another tab, pulling up a different article, this one detailing the events of our escape—as much as they’ve figured out, at least.
He pushes the chair beside him out with his foot, and when I sit down, he hooks his ankle around the chair leg and drags it closer, so we’re sharing the same space.
The article has a lot of the escape details right, though they’re missing Dominic completely. But they’ve found the sets of breathing equipment. They know there was a fourth person, but if they have any guesses, they’re not being reported. Honestly, I’m not sure whether it’s better or worse that they don’t know. They’ve traced us as far as the sewer, and then after that we all but disappear. There’ve been reported sightings all along the East Coast, and at bus stops and gas stations all throughout the country. If Dominic has managed to reach civilization by now, it doesn’t appear he has turned us in. “We’re like ghosts,” Cameron says.
“Except ghosts that have to stay hidden,” I say.
The article also details the increased police presence, the helicopters perpetually scanning any region with reported sightings. I haven’t heard any helicopters flying overhead recently—maybe we’re really safe here. Or maybe it’s just the insulation of the building. Part of me doesn’t want to find out.
The other articles we read are about what I might potentially do once I’m out. Whether June has left me instructions somehow. Whether there’s a second shadow-database. Whether I will continue what June and Liam started. Even if the only thing June left for me is the information she might’ve copied seventeen years ago, that’s a lot I could still do damage with. The article is open for comments at the bottom, and the first commenter manages to sum this all up with the following rather ominous line: What she might do, one can only guess; where she might go, one can only dream. About as vague and factless as the article itself.
A-plus reporting right there.
“Cameron, come here,” Casey says. He leaves me at the screen, and I quickly pull up the recent Internet history, searching for the article he didn’t want me to see. I want to know what they’re saying about me. All of it. I pull up the article and quickly scan the words, but it’s not about me at all. It’s about him and Casey and their missing sister, Ava. It’s about how Casey attended a specialized school—how promising she was—while Cameron and Ava remained home, raised primarily by their grandmother until she passed away, and then by the mother he never speaks about. It mentions that Cameron spent time in a juvenile detention center for auto theft.
The article paints Cameron as a criminal, and Casey as a genius, and Ava as absolutely nothing—a figment of our imagination. A girl who is gone, and is therefore irrelevant now.
According to the article, Cameron got out after serving three months, and he reported Ava missing soon after. At which point Casey dropped out of school, and I guess that’s when Cameron went into hiding, taking Casey with him this time. And for what? For this?
“Come see, Alina,” Cameron says, and I close the window and plaster a blank look across my face as I approach.
Numbers scroll across the screen, in lines grouped in three or four, like the printouts in the hideaway underground. Some are starred, just like in the printouts. “Spreadsheets of numbers, that’s the only thing on this one.” She switches hard drives and pulls up the next files. She selects the first one, and it’s a science journal, dated over twenty years ago: “Generational Linkage of Violent Criminal History in Souls.”
My eyes skim the article. I recognize the material, though I’ve never read the original article. It’s the data, and the statistical analysis, the grant funding, the science. I take in as much as I can before Casey closes the document. She opens the next, and it’s an unrelated paper: “Genetic Influences versus Soul Influences: A Study of DNA and the Soul.”
Every file here is a scientific article: “The Role of the Soul in Sociopaths; Correlation of Areas of Extreme Giftedness and the Soul.” Casey opens each article, quickly scans it, and moves on to the next. On the last one, my eyes skim the authors, and I see: Ivory Street.
I grip the edge of the table. “Go back,” I say. “Open the last article again.” She opens the file before, and there she is, right under the title. I point out her name in the list of authors.
“Holy shit,” Cameron says. “Ivory Street.”
We scan through every one, and her name is in every author list. “Why did June have this?” Casey asks. “Do you think that because this Ivory Street person conducted this study, she had access to the database?” Casey gets so excited, she pushes her chair back from the desk. She starts talking with her hands. “Someone had to have access, right? To do the study, somebody needs access. Do you think June got access from her? Maybe she didn’t just break in.”
I look at the name on the screen, and I wonder. Maybe it’s easier to break a person than to break a code.
I don’t know, but Casey’s eyes are wide and hopeful. There’s a pattern here, and I need to find it. There are similarities within the documents that my mind trips over as I skim through them. “Give me some paper,” I say, nudging Casey out of her seat.
“Um,” she says, but she doesn’t object. She pulls a ream from the nearby printer. I don’t know what I’m doing exactly, but something’s taken over me. Like June, stumbling upon this herself. I picture her doing this very same thing. I’m closer. I’m close. I can feel it.
“Okay, I guess, um, you do whatever it is you’re doing … and I’m going to find this Ivory Street.”
Cameron pulls up a chair and props his feet on the bottom of my own. “What are we looking for?” he asks, his voice low, like he’s in on a secret.
“Honestly? I don’t know,” I say. “Get me a pen. Or a pencil. I need one.”
He pulls out the drawer beside me and shows me the collection. “Oh.” I pull one off the top and get back to work.
I’m scanning the documents, jotting down notes for myself—author names, funding sources, data analysis programs, population samples—when Cameron taps the brim of my hat with his finger.
I’m jarred back to reality, but at first my eyes don’t leave the screen.
“So, question,” he says. “And it’s kind of important. You’re left-handed?”
I stop writing. I put the pen in my left hand down. “Not exactly.”
“I’m confused. I thought these papers”—he gestured toward the screen—“I thought that science proved that left-and right-handedness were almost completely tied to the soul. And June was right-handed, if I’m remembering correctly.”
“Just because I’m right-handed doesn’t mean I have to use my right hand.” I flex my fingers, transfer the pen to the other side, where it does feel easier, and say, “When I was ten, I started pretending that I didn’t have a right hand. Now it’s habit.”
“When you were ten?”
“Yeah. When I realized my whole life was bullshit. That I was stuck. That it was … a prison. So I thought if I could convince them I wasn’t June, that they were wrong, they’d let me out. To my ten-year-old brain, this made sense. If science says it’s passed down, and if I’m not right-handed, then I can’t be her, right?”
He grins and taps the brim of my hat again, and I look away, back to the screen. “It’s pathetic, I know. I was ten.”
He’s silent for a long time, and I’ve gone back to working by the time he responds. “It’s not pathetic,” he says. Cameron pushes his chair back, the legs squeaking against the linoleum. “I’m going back to the gym. Hungry.”
Casey raises her hand as he passes but doesn’t make eye contact.
Eventually, I decide to print out the articles and bring them back to the gym, where I can spread them out and analyze them a little better. And eat at the same time.
“Hey,” Casey says, as I’m leaving the room. “Save me dinner.”