“So what happened today?” I force the words out.
“With the Brownstoners, you mean.”
“Cute,” I say as he swings toward the pool table. Not green, this one; a dark teal setting off the copper rails.
He arranges the set. “Fancy a game?”
“You mock me.”
“Your friend Goosey’s rubbing off on me.” Jamie swipes one of the cues from the rack. “I wouldn’t mind if he actually rubbed one off on me.”
“Indeed?”
“Indeed,” Jamie says. He offers a cue. “Am I his type?”
Type. I literally can’t escape this.
“I’ve never known Goose to abstain from indulging in pleasure of any sort,” I say.
Jamie crouches into position. “Excellent news.”
“Pray tell.”
He calls the first shot. “Mostly what we expected—shit I’ve seen before. They’ve got the Doctor Kells: The Early Years stuff, her twin experiments, crap from Horizons like my generous psychological profile, yours, Mara’s, The List.” The cue ball spins and sinks the striped 6.
“The List?” I wonder how ignorant I can pretend to be. Daniel’s a known quantity to me, but the relationship between Mara and Jamie—I can’t be sure. Especially not after this afternoon.
“The Kells list.”
“Right. I’ve never actually seen it.”
Jamie looks up, sets his cue up right. “Shut up.” A lift of my eyebrows. “You’ve never seen that?”
“Am I going to have to bribe you with sexual favours in order for you to tell me about it?”
“Don’t you wish, love. But I know all the places you’ve been.”
“Did you take a photo?”
Jamie shakes his head. “But Mara took one.”
I race to check my mobile—there are indeed a thousand texts from her. Some pictures, some just blocks and blocks of text. She’s coming round to Leo, it seems. Even Sophie. And is sharing literally every detail with me. Well and good. I scroll through for images as I skim her texts. Finally, I see it—initials, our last names— I walk back to the pool table, staring at my phone. “This it?”
Jamie takes it, swipes to zoom in. “Yup,” he says, popping the p.
Double-Blind
S. Benicia, manifested (G1821 carrier, origin unknown); side effects(?): anorexia, bulimia, self-harm. Responsive to administered pharmaceuticals. Contraindications suspected but unknown.
T. Burrows, non-carrier, deceased.
M. Cannon, non-carrier, sedated.
M. Dyer, manifesting (G1821 carrier, original); side effects: co-occurring PTSD, hallucinations, self-harm, poss. schizophrenia/paranoid subtype. Responsive to midazolam. Contraindications: suspected n.e.s.s.?
J. Roth, manifesting (G1821 carrier, suspected original), induced; side effects: poss. borderline personality disorder, poss. mood disorder. Contraindications suspected but unknown.
A. Kendall: non-carrier, deceased.
J. L.: artificially manifested, Lenaurd protocol, early induction; side effects: multiple personality disorder (unresponsive), antisocial personality disorder (unresponsive); migraines, extreme aggression (unresponsive). No known contraindications.
C. L.: artificially manifested, Lenaurd protocol, early induction, deceased.
P. Reynard: non-carrier, deceased.
N. Shaw: manifested (G1821 carrier, original); side effects(?): self-harm, poss. oppositional defiant disorder (unresponsive), conduct disorder? (unresponsive); tested: class a barbiturates (unresponsive), class b (unresponsive), class c (unresponsive); unresponsive to all classes; (test m.a.d.), deceased.
Generalized side effects: nausea, elevated temp., insomnia, night terrors I stare long enough for Jamie to snap his fingers in my face.
“You kosher?”
“Dandy,” I say, though my voice faded at the edges. I feel dizzy, light-headed—I can count on one hand the times I’ve felt ill, and all were in the presence of Mara. But she’s nowhere near here.
“Jamie,” I say, placing the phone down, more for something solid to hold on to than anything else. “It mentions the Lenaurd protocol.” I lower myself over the cue and call, “Three, side pocket.”
A shadow passes over his face as I sink the ball. “Yes . . . .”
“As in, Armin, Abel, et cetera.”
“Yes . . . .”
“As in, the man who created the blueprint for the shit-box FKA Jude.”
“Yes.”
“When was the last time you saw him?” And, done.
Jamie’s breath catches, but he recovers quickly. “Why?”
“I think he might be why Stella’s missing,” I say plainly.
Jamie shoots at a ball, and it bounces off. “Then you should probably ask him about it.”
“Perhaps I would, if I knew where to find him. Unsurprisingly, you haven’t answered my question.”
“I’m not Lukumi’s keeper.”
“Is that even what you call him?”
“Actually, no, but I liked the wordplay.”
“Grand.” I roll my eyes. “How old is he?”
“Dude, can we not?”
“Why’s it such a mystery?” I saunter to the other end of the table, because I’m not that interested, just asking out of bored curiosity, obviously.
“Doesn’t have to be,” he says, feigning indifference, but even without Goose, I hear that rise in pulse, that tell-tale heartbeat. “We all got letters and something with them. You don’t wear yours, but you know where it is, don’t you?”
“I do,” I say. Mara keeps them in a tiny sewn pouch that she slips into every pocket or carryall. They’re with her, always, but I don’t have to look at mine to know every etching, each curve and line by heart—ours are mirror images of each other’s, not meant to form one whole. I glance at Jamie—the silver blinks through the collar of his shirt as he leans over the table, but I can’t quite get a glimpse of how his was cast. I can’t see which side is the feather and which is the sword.
“So put it on and ask him your questions yourself.”
“Is that what you do?” I press. “Have you asked him why your friend’s gone missing? Why we’re killing ourselves?”
Jamie makes as if to line up his pool cue, but he’s restless and edgy now. He stands straight. “It’s not like that.”
“Of course not,” I say. “I don’t understand—he’s supposedly the Architect of some Better World but can’t achieve it without using us as tools—”
“I’m nobody’s tool.”
There it is, a thread I can pull. “You are though,” I say. “You report to him, don’t you?”
He sighs, leans his cue next to one of the clocks, and hitches up on the table’s edge, his legs long enough now that he can barely swing them.
“Your letter,” I say, and watch the shadow pass over Jamie’s face. “Whatever you read made you commit, at that moment, to the mission of a man who’s been manipulating us for months—years. God, decades even. Before we were even born, in my case.” Still he was silent. “Maybe in yours as well,” I finish, hoping to provoke an answer. To get that much from him, at least.
“Like you said, he’s trying to make the world a better place.”
“How? Has he told you that? Has he told you exactly how?
Jamie’s quiet, which is all the answer I need.
“That letter doesn’t define who you are. Or what you do. That’s your choice. Only yours.”
“You’re right, it is.”
“Not your parents’.”
There’s steel in his eyes, now. “You don’t know anything about my parents.”
“You’re right,” I say. “And I barely know anything about you, except that Mara loves you, and she doesn’t love lightly. But three people’ve died, and someone you know is missing, and you’re in a position to ask someone who claims to have all the answers, but you won’t?”
Jamie is silent, but he doesn’t avoid my gaze. He’s not rattled.
“What happened to thinking for yourself?”
At this, Jamie just rolls his eyes. “Classic splitting.”
“Pardon?”
“Didn’t all those years in therapy cover this? Splitting: Everything’s black-and-white with you. I’m interested in what the professor’s doing, so to you that means I’ve given up my autonomy. It’s all or nothing. Good or evil.”
I lean against the wall, languorous, casual. “Is that right? Explain Mara, then.”