Quicksilver (Carolrhoda Ya)

PART ONE: Demand Load



(The power required by all equipment in a receiver or transmitter facility to ensure full continuity of communications)









“Hey, Niki, do you know the code for juniper berries? I can’t find it on my spinner.”

I didn’t even pause to think about it. “4922,” I called back, stacking cans into my customer’s bag and swinging it onto the counter. “That’ll be $257.29,” I said brightly to the harried-looking woman before me, who appeared to be shopping for a family of eight or possibly just a couple of teenaged boys. “Do you have a Points Club card?”

She didn’t have one, and she didn’t want one either, though I had to mention it anyway because that was part of my job. Like always remembering to check the bottom of the cart for large items and watching out for broken eggs or leaky milk. After a month of working the cash register for twenty-five hours a week, it had become automatic.

Remembering produce codes was part of the job too, though nobody expected me to know all of them. But numbers had a way of sticking in my head. So I didn’t realize I’d done anything unusual until the woman moved on, and I saw Jon Van Beek goggling at me from the next register.

“How’d you know that?” he asked. “I don’t even know what juniper berries are.”

“My mom bought some last week,” I said with a shrug. It was a tiny slip and probably not worth the trouble of lying about. But even after five months in this town, I wasn’t taking any chances. There was still a chance that someone from my old life might be searching for me, and anything that made me exceptional, or memorable, could be dangerous.

“Oh,” Jon said. “Huh.” He turned to greet his next customer, and the tension eased out of my muscles. No reputation as Amazing Memory Girl: mission accomplished. Now if only I could get Jon to stop quizzing me about my plans for the weekend.

It wasn’t that he was bad-looking. It wasn’t even that he was a jerk or at least not that I’d noticed. But his blond hair and farm-boy good looks reminded me of my ex-boyfriend, and I had enough memories of Brendan groping me and slobbering down my neck to last a lifetime.

I glanced at the clock. Five minutes left and only two more shoppers in sight, neither of whom looked ready to hit the checkout right away. I propped the “Next Register Please” sign at the end of the conveyor, switched off the overhead sign, and started spraying and wiping down my lane.

I’d finished tidying the coupon drawer and was stepping back to let Shandra close out my till, when Jon waved to me. “Hey, I’m done in a couple minutes too. Want a ride home?”

The offer was tempting, especially since it was freezing rain outside. But I wasn’t the type to waver once I’d made up my mind, and I’d already decided not to encourage Jon if I could help it.

“No, thanks,” I said. “I’m good.”









I was heading across the parking lot with hands deep in the pockets of my thrift-store coat, collar turned up against the March sleet, when one of the stock boys came sprinting out to join me. “The Regina bus?” he panted, skidding to my side. “Has it come yet?”

He had feathery black hair, cat’s eyes behind rectangular glasses, and a pair of earbuds tucked into the collar of his jacket. Like Jon and most of the other part-timers he was around my age, and I was pretty sure he’d been at the store at least as long as I had. But our breaks were at different times, so I didn’t know much about him beyond his name: Milo Hwang.

“Yeah,” I said. “It went by a couple of minutes ago.”

“Do you know when the next one is?”

“At this hour? Forty-five minutes.”

He swore softly and turned to head back inside. I called after him, “But the bus I take runs parallel to yours, and they overlap in a couple of places. You could take that one, if you don’t mind walking a couple of blocks.”

“Oh. Okay.” He reversed direction and fell into step with me again. “Thanks.”

When we reached the bus shelter, there was a trio of girls huddled together inside, passing a cigarette around and giggling. Milo and I stood beneath the glare of the streetlight, icy rain needling our faces.

“Well, this sucks,” he said after a moment. “You take the bus all the time?”

“Pretty much,” I said. “We’ve only got one car, and I don’t have my license yet. ”

“I used to ride with my mom,” he said, “but then she switched over to the night shift—oh, finally.” The bus had eased itself around the corner and was trundling toward us. It squeaked to a stop and the door rotated open, letting out a blast of warmth.

“Go ahead,” Milo told me, rummaging in his pocket for change. I took the steps two at a time, flashed my pass at the stoic-looking driver, and dropped into a seat, shaking ice from the bangs of my pixie cut.

Milo was still standing by the fare box when the three girls squeezed past him, caromed off each other, and landed en masse on the bench seat along the left side, whooping with hilarity. I could see the driver’s grimace in the mirror, but he didn’t speak. He closed the doors, and as the bus pulled out from the curb, Milo stumbled down the aisle to me.

“OK if I sit here?” he asked.

Usually I kept my eyes closed all the way home, building prototypes in my head. But I supposed a bit of company wouldn’t hurt. “Sure,” I said.

He swung himself in beside me, stretching out his legs and unzipping his jacket to reveal the green store polo beneath. “Nicola, right?” he said. “I’m Milo.”

“Niki,” I said. “And I know.” Remembering people’s names was an old habit my mother had drilled into me—her number one tip for making a good impression. “So are you going to take the bus from now on?”

Milo took off his sleet-speckled glasses and wiped them on the hem of his shirt. “Probably bike it, once the weather uncraps itself. I thought about getting a car, but that’d put a major dent in my university fund.”

There was a rhythm to small talk, once you got into it. It had taken me a few years to master, but now I barely had to think about it. “Which university?”

“Haven’t decided yet.” He pushed his glasses back onto his nose. “You?”

“I’ve got another year of high school first,” I said.

“Oh yeah? I thought you were older.”

I felt older. Actually, watching the girls across from us gleefully snapping duck-faced pictures of each other with their cell phones, I just felt old. I gave a faint smile and left it at that.

“So,” said Milo after a moment, “what school are you at, then? Cartier?”

“I’m not,” I replied. “I’m taking my courses online.”

He nodded, as though it made sense. But he shot me a sidelong glance from behind his lenses, and I knew he was trying to figure me out. Nothing about me screamed shy or bullied, and I didn’t look like I came from a super-religious family. None of the usual reasons that a girl of sixteen—no, seventeen—might be finishing up high school on the Internet seemed to apply.

“And how do you like that?” he asked.

I liked it a lot, actually. Before I went missing I’d been one of the most popular girls at my high school, but all that social stuff had taken a lot of energy. Now I didn’t have to worry about anyone else’s expectations, I could take as many math and science courses as I wanted and get top marks in all of them.

“It’s not bad,” I said.

“So what made you do it?” he asked.

This was why I didn’t go out of my way to talk to people anymore. Because they got curious, and they asked questions. I was debating how to answer when a horn blared suddenly from the darkness, and I heard the screech of spinning tires.

Black ice, I thought numbly, as headlights swept the front of the bus. Somebody’s lost control, there’s going to be an accident—

And then I realized that the driver had slumped onto the wheel, his foot still on the accelerator, and that the bus was drifting into the oncoming lane.

The girls screamed and clung to each other. Milo started to his feet, but it was obvious he’d never make it in time. Caution vanished and instinct took over: I leaped to the front of the bus, shoved the unconscious driver aside, and grabbed the steering wheel.

The road was slick, and I could feel the back end skidding sideways even as I wrestled the front back on course. If I didn’t do this right, we’d spin out across all four lanes of traffic. But even as my heart hammered against my rib cage, my mind sharpened to a crystal point. The bus was a machine. I knew machines. I could do this. I made myself turn back into the skid, feeling the tires like an extension of my own body, until the bus stopped fishtailing and we were on the right side of the road again.

I barely registered Milo hauling the driver out from behind me, but at least those big feet weren’t blocking the pedals anymore. Was that the brake? No, it was the accelerator (another scream from the girls in the back). Okay, that was the brake. I practically had to stand to reach it, the seat was cranked up so high. But a slow, steady pressure did the trick, and in a few more seconds I’d lined us up beside the curb. I killed the engine, yanked out the key, and turned to Milo.

“How is he?” I asked.

Milo crouched beside the man, feeling for a pulse. “There’s no heartbeat,” he said.

My dad had had a heart attack four years ago. He’d nearly died. “Do you know CPR?” I asked, and when Milo hesitated, I tilted the driver’s chin up and blew a couple of breaths into his mouth. “Start with that,” I said. Then I grabbed Milo’s hands and put them on the man’s chest, laying mine over them. “Now do this,” I said, showing him how far to press down. “Keep doing it for a count of thirty. Then do the breaths again.”

I was afraid he’d ask why I wasn’t doing it, but he didn’t. His head was down, his whole concentration on the man. Reassured that he’d got it, I was pulling myself to my feet when I heard a tiny click. One of the girls had raised her pink, glittery cell phone and snapped a picture of me.

Blind fury took over. I marched down the aisle, snatched the phone from the girl’s hand, and erased the pic with a few savage swipes of my finger. “Don’t you dare,” I snapped, and her two friends hastily shoved their own phones back into their pockets.

I dialed 911 and thrust the pink cell back at its owner. “Tell them we’re on the 25 bus just past the corner of Huntington and Caledonia,” I ordered. “Tell them to send an ambulance.” She clutched the phone with both hands and began to gabble into it, while I went back to Milo and the driver.

“I have to go,” I said quietly. “Right away.”

“What?” His head snapped up. “You can’t leave now! The police’ll want to know what happened, they’ll need to talk to us—”

“I know,” I said. “But I can’t stay.” Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, I was starting to shake. I’d just done exactly what I wasn’t supposed to do—something extraordinary, something that would get people’s attention. I crouched beside Milo, bringing myself down to his level, and put a hand on his shoulder.

“Please,” I whispered. I didn’t hide the tremor in my voice. I needed him to feel my desperation. “Milo, you can’t tell the police or the media anything about me. Not my name, not that we work together, none of it. It’s incredibly important.”

He recoiled. “Why? Are you in trouble?”

“No, but if you don’t help me out, I will be. I’ll explain later. But please, Milo. Promise me you won’t tell.”

For a moment Milo’s eyes were as blank as his glasses, and I thought I’d failed. But then he sighed. “All right. I’ll handle it. Go.”

“Thank you,” I breathed. Then I ran to the back doors, shoved them open, and leapt out into the freezing rain.

“Hey!” yelled a voice behind me, but I didn’t look back. I skidded across the sidewalk, flung myself over somebody’s box hedge, and vanished into the anonymous night.





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By the time I got the front door open, I was soaked and my teeth were chattering.

“Niki?” called my mom faintly. “Is that you?”

Crackers frolicked around my ankles, delighted to see me. I swore under my breath as I hopped around, trying to get my boots off without squashing him. “I’m home!” I yelled. “I’m fine!”

“Oh, thank God.” Mom hurried out of the bathroom, wrapping her robe around her. “When I called the store and they said you’d left forty minutes ago, I was so—” She stopped, aghast. “What happened?”

It had been hard convincing my parents to let me take this job at Value Foods in the first place, even harder to persuade them that I could get around the city safely on my own. If they so much as suspected that I’d been in serious danger tonight, it would be the end of my independence.

“It’s no big deal.” I let out a silly-me laugh. “I got on the wrong bus, so I had to walk a couple extra blocks, and a truck splashed me on the way.”

“You should have called!” She brushed ice pellets from my hair and shoulders, her brow creased in distress. “It’s too dangerous for you to walk in this weather. What if you slipped and broke your leg? What if we had to take you to hospital?”

For anyone else, the worst part of that scenario would have been the broken leg. But for me, it was the hospital. Doctors poking and prodding me, nurses giving me drugs that could cause violent reactions or no reaction at all. And if anyone decided to take a blood sample, we might as well call up Dr. Gervais and be done with it.

But I couldn’t spend my life encased in bubble wrap either. And when I’d jumped off that bus tonight, wiping out on an icy sidewalk had seemed a lot less scary than ending up on the eleven o’clock news.

Not that I planned to tell Mom about that if I could help it. It had taken six weeks in our new house before she’d stopped being wary of the neighbors and nearly four months before she felt secure enough to start redecorating. She’d even been reluctant to adopt Crackers at first, afraid of getting attached to a dog she might have to leave behind. Now that she was finally starting to settle in, the last thing I wanted to do was unsettle her all over again.

“It wasn’t that bad out,” I said, as I wriggled out of my coat and hung it up to dry. “More wet than slippery. Did you know you have paint on your face?”

“Oh.” She touched the white smear on her cheek self-consciously. “I was just getting into the shower. But you should go first—you must be freezing—”

I shook my head. “I’m just going to change and make some hot chocolate. Go ahead.”

She gave me a doubtful look. I returned my brightest smile, and finally, she sighed and retreated into the bathroom. I waited until I heard the water running, then peeled out of my jeans, put on a pair of flannel pajama pants, and headed downstairs.

“You’re pretty wet,” said my dad, glancing up from the sofa with the TV remote in hand. “What’d you do, fall into the lobster tank?”

“Caught the wrong bus.” I spoke lightly, knowing he wouldn’t make a big deal out of it if I didn’t. Especially since he could see for himself that I was okay. “Who’s playing?”

“Montreal and Toronto. Habs are winning 3-1. Want some popcorn?”

So I grabbed a blanket, wrapped it around me, and cuddled up next to him to watch the hockey game. By the time it went to commercials, I’d warmed up and was starting to relax. But then Dad started channel-flipping, and halfway through the second lap we hit a local news bulletin.

“—taken to hospital. Police are at the scene…”

The reporter stood by the curb, with the bus behind her. By the flashing lights of the police cruiser I could just make out the girl with the pink cell phone, gesturing and pointing as the officers listened to her story.

Dad’s finger hesitated over the button. “Isn’t that…?”

My thoughts flashed ahead, anticipating all the ways this conversation could go. Then I sat up abruptly, the blanket dropping from my shoulders. “Whoa! That’s my bus!”

He gave me a sharp look. “The one you were on tonight?”

“No, the one I was supposed to be on.” I leaned forward, staring at the screen as though mesmerized. “Did you catch what she said? Was there an accident?”

Please don’t let the bus driver be dead. Please don’t let it be my fault.

“… Further details at eleven.”

The darkened roadside vanished, and a model bounced across the screen with a bottle of shampoo in hand. Dad switched back to the hockey. “Well,” he said. “I guess we’ll find out in a few minutes.”

I groaned and dropped my head into my hands. “Great. Now Mom’s never going to let me ride the bus again.”

But all the while, I was watching between my fingers to see if he’d bought it. Because if he saw through my act and ordered me to tell him the truth, I’d be doomed.

“Ah.” Dad cleared his throat. “Good point. Maybe we’ll just finish the game and call it a night.”

Relief washed over me. My gamble had paid off—if only because Dad was even more reluctant to worry Mom than I was. For the moment at least, I was safe.

“Yeah,” I said, tucking my legs beneath me and reaching for another handful of popcorn. “Sounds like a good idea.”





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When the hockey game ended my dad went upstairs, but I stayed in the basement. My nerves were still fizzing, and I knew it’d be a while before I could unwind enough to sleep. So I turned on the ventilator, sat down at my workbench, and plugged in my soldering iron.

I’d always found it relaxing to work with solder, applying precise drops of molten metal to anchor diodes, resistors, and other small components into their proper places—or even better, squeezing a thin line of gel flux along the edge of an integrated circuit and gliding a hoof tip over it to seal the tabs flawlessly in a matter of seconds. There was a warm satisfaction in populating a circuit board that was nearly as good as the afterglow of finishing the project I’d designed it for, and when I was soldering, all my worries seemed far away.

Most people would probably think it was strange for a teenage girl to take such pleasure in building machines, but I’d gotten used to being different a long time ago. And though I’d spent years hiding my passion for electronics, it wasn’t because I was embarrassed by it. It was more because my parents had warned me that showing off my technical skills would make people curious about where I’d learned them, and I had no easy answer to that.

My current project was a Geiger counter, to replace my old one, which had become touchy and unreliable with age. I cleaned the board, soldered the remaining diodes and then the resistors, my tension gradually melting away. By the time I started yawning, it was 12:36 A.M.

Well, at least I was tired enough to sleep now. I stretched, turned off the soldering iron, and headed upstairs. But the pleasant feeling of distraction vanished as soon as I started down the hallway to my bedroom and remembered the bus driver lying grey-lipped and motionless in the aisle. He could be dead now, for all I knew. And when I thought about Milo and those three girls talking to the police, I felt icy all over again. He’d promised not to say anything about me, but could I trust him? And even if I could, what about them?

In the end I went to bed anyway, because I couldn’t think of anything else to do. But sleep was a long time coming, and when it arrived, I wished it hadn’t. Deckard was chasing me through the corridors of my old high school, his boots pounding like drumbeats against the tile. He had his pistol out of the holster, and I knew that if he saw me, I was dead, so I ducked into the music room to hide. But when I opened the equipment closet, Brendan jumped out, laughing at the shock on my face. He dragged me inside and put his hands and his mouth all over me, and I couldn’t make him stop until I grabbed a microphone off the shelf and hit him in the head with it. He crumpled, and when I turned, Alison was standing in the doorway, looking so sad and disappointed that it made me want to cry.

“You’ve killed him,” she said. “It’s all your fault.”

“No, I haven’t,” I protested. “He’s only bleeding a little.” I turned Brendan over to show her, but when I looked at his face, I realized it wasn’t Brendan after all.

It was Mathis, and he was smiling.

I tried to shout for help, but no sound came out. Alison had vanished, and I was alone with Mathis in a cold grey space with no windows, no doors, no escape at all. He grabbed my upper arm so hard I could feel his thumb grinding against the bone, pulled my face close to his, and said in his thick accent, “You can’t get away from me. It’s still there.”

Repulsed, I pushed myself free and backed away. But he only smiled wider and pointed to my arm. I looked down—and saw the chip, bright as a bead of fresh solder, gleaming on the surface of my skin.

I choked on a scream, and woke.

The room was dark, the house silent. Only Crackers’s whine from the foot of the bed and the thump of his tail against the covers as he toddled up to lick my hand told me that I’d made any sound at all.

I touched on the bedside light and ran my finger over the tiny scar above my elbow—the place Dr. Bowman had tried to cut the chip out when I was little, right before I went into a seizure and he had to stop. I couldn’t see anything there now, but then, I never had. Still, Sebastian and Alison had both told me the chip was gone, and I believed them.

I lay back, breathing out slowly to calm my jittering heart. It wasn’t the first nightmare I’d had since I got away from Mathis, but it was the first one I’d had in a long while with him in it. These days it was usually Deckard who stalked me in my dreams, and occasionally some brittle-looking middle-aged actress stood in for Dr. Gervais. Which made sense, because both of them were still a potential danger if I got careless. But I’d escaped from Mathis, and as far as I knew, he shouldn’t be able to touch me or threaten me ever again.

So why was I still dreaming about him?





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When I came down to breakfast the next morning and saw the newspaper lying on the table, I braced myself for the worst. But my mom passed me the croissants and went on reading the classifieds without even glancing up. And once I’d unfolded the front section and flipped to the local headlines, I understood why.

“TEENS STOP RUNAWAY BUS, SAVE DRIVER,” the article began, and beneath it were two school pictures. One was of Milo, minus the glasses and wearing an artificial smile.

The other was the girl with the pink cell phone.

Disbelieving, I skimmed the rest of the story. The details were pretty much what had actually happened, except with the other girl—Breanna Gingerich, apparently—taking charge of the wheel. One of her friends claimed to have helped Milo with the CPR until the ambulance arrived, while the other took responsibility for making the 911 call. Thanks to their quick thinking and courageous teamwork, said the article, the driver had made it to hospital alive, with a good chance of recovery.

I stared at the page, the croissant crumbling forgotten in my hand. I didn’t mind Breanna and her friends taking credit for what I’d done: if anything, I was grateful. I was just surprised they’d had the nerve to pull it off.

No, more than surprised. I didn’t believe it. There was no reason three total strangers, let alone a bunch of giggly girls who couldn’t be more than fourteen, would lie to the police and the media for my sake. Not unless there was something in it for them, and they could be sure of getting away with it.

Which meant that Milo hadn’t just covered for me. Somehow he’d talked the girls into covering for me too.





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“Hey there, hero!” called Jon heartily as Milo came through the sliding doors. “Nice picture in the paper!”

Milo pulled the earbuds out of his ears. “Thanks,” he said without enthusiasm. He stuffed the headphones into his pocket and headed for the stockroom, not even glancing at me.

I was glad he was playing it cool, but it didn’t make my job any easier. I still owed him an explanation for last night.

Halfway through the shift, I switched off with Kayleigh and was heading to the break room when Milo slipped into the corridor behind me. “I feel like a secret agent,” he said. “Do you have the documents, comrade Nikita?”

Nikita was actually a boy’s name in Russian, but I wasn’t going to make myself obnoxious by saying so. “It’s a long story,” I said. “What about later, on the bus? Or have you sworn off public transit?”

“Have you?”

“Not really. What are the odds of anything like that happening again?”

“Zero, I hope,” he said fervently. “But my brother’s home for the weekend and we’re going out for pizza, so the bus is out. Can you give me the short version?”

The break room was empty. No more excuses. I shoved coins into the coffee dispenser and fished a couple of creamers out of the fridge while I waited for the cup to fill. Then I took a deep breath and said, “First, I need to thank you for what you did last night. That was pretty brilliant of you, bringing the girls in on it.”

I wasn’t just flattering him, either: it really had been a genius move. Not only did it give Breanna and her friends good reason to keep their mouths shut, it also guaranteed that any other pictures they’d taken of me would be long gone by now. The only possible glitch was that I’d probably been caught on video, since all the city buses had cameras these days. But how likely were the police to even look at the tape, let alone make an issue of it?

“Yeah, well.” Milo took the coffee out of the dispenser and handed it to me, then started plugging in his own change. “I’m just glad they decided to play along.”

I glanced at the door, half hoping one of the other employees would come in and interrupt us. But nobody did, so I took the plunge. “So. You’re probably wondering why I took off like that.”

Idiot. Of course he was; that was why we were here. “Look, this is really private and personal, so please don’t tell anybody. But a few months ago, before I moved here, something happened to me. Something … bad.”

Milo kept his head down, watching the cup as it filled. But his shoulders tensed, and I knew I’d got his attention.

“It wasn’t my fault,” I went on in a low voice. “I couldn’t have done anything to stop it—I know that now. But there was an investigation, and it was all over the news, and everybody in my school was talking about it. It was like I wasn’t even a person to them anymore, just a story. The kind of story that follows you around for the rest of your life.”

Carefully, Milo pulled his hot chocolate out of the dispenser and fitted a lid onto it. He still didn’t look at me.

“So my parents and I decided to move,” I said. “We even changed our names, so we could start over.” It was a risk, telling him that. But if he tried to look up Nicola Johnson online and couldn’t find her, I wanted him to know why. “Nobody from my old life knows where I am now, and I want to keep it that way.”

“And that’s why you ran off and left me doing CPR on that guy by myself,” he said.

“Yeah,” I said. “I felt bad, but you were doing all right. And … this isn’t just about me.” I laced my fingers around my cup, watching the steam coil and vanish in the air. “My parents left their jobs and their friends and everything, just to give me a chance at a normal life. I don’t want them to have to go through that again.”

We stood in silence a moment, listening to the tinny pop music from the loudspeaker. Then Milo said, “Okay.”

Which could mean any number of things—okay, I understand what you’re saying; okay, I forgive you for ditching me; okay, I’m on your side. I was hoping for the last one, but I couldn’t be certain until he turned his head, and his dark eyes locked onto mine.

He looked serious. He also looked slightly nauseated, but the disgust wasn’t aimed at me. He held my gaze steadily, and then one corner of his mouth turned up in a rueful smile.

“Wow,” he said. “Life can be pretty complicated, eh?”

I knew, then, what he thought had happened to me. He was wrong, but I wasn’t about to tell him so. At least it was the kind of tragedy that would make sense to someone like Milo, something he wouldn’t find hard to believe.

If only it were half so easy to explain the truth.





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March made one last halfhearted attempt at snow, but it melted as soon as it hit the ground. Then April arrived in force, stealing the chill from the air and washing the grit-dulled streets to a sheen. I took my mom’s umbrella to work three days in a row, until a freak gust turned it inside out and I had to huddle inside my coat instead.

Jon kept offering me rides, and I kept declining them. Milo and I didn’t see much of each other, but whenever our paths crossed, he gave me a nod as if to say, Don’t worry. I’ve got your back. Mom pulled up the carpet in the living room and refinished the old wooden floor, which turned out to be gorgeous. Dad coaxed her into going out for dinner and a movie every Friday, and after their first couple of dates, she stopped worrying about leaving me alone in the house. All seemed well, except for one thing.

I was restless. Worse than restless, I was itchy. Frustrated, short-tempered, and increasingly depressed, because I couldn’t find enough to do with my hands. My mother’s new decorating theme was cozy and organic, the opposite of the airy modern look she’d always gone for before, and the more our house looked like a feature in Country Living magazine, the less use she had for even the most practical devices I could build. I’d already automated my entire room from light switch to curtains, and I’d been warned against piling up too much electronics junk in the basement. So right now I was building a couple of laptops from parts I’d got cheap off the Internet, with a vague idea of selling them and making a profit when I was done.

But I wanted more. I always had, but now I wanted it worse than ever. A chance to build something new and challenging and exciting, something other people could see and use, something that actually mattered. How I could do that without getting noticed by the media was a question I hadn’t resolved yet, but I couldn’t bear to hide my LED under a bushel for much longer. Because six months ago, in a desperate all-or-nothing effort to escape from Mathis, I’d tackled the greatest technological challenge of my life. My synapses had sizzled like white lightning; my body had thrown itself completely into the task; and when I finished the machine and turned it on, the surge of exhilaration was like nothing I’d ever felt before. It was like a dam had burst inside me, and my whole mental landscape had changed.

Ever since then, I’d been constantly bombarded by ideas, and I couldn’t look at the simplest machine without thinking about how to improve it. As I swiped groceries over the scanner and keyed in produce codes, I was envisioning the technology that would make both those tasks unnecessary. When I watched a news report about a mechanical exoskeleton that could help people with spinal cord injuries, I started brainstorming ways to make the device stronger, lighter, and cheaper. At night I lay awake calculating equations to the last decimal point, designing and testing prototypes in my head until they worked without a hitch.

But that was where it stopped. Because my workspace was limited, and even if I could afford the parts, the tools I needed were beyond my budget. My urge to create had never been so strong, yet there seemed no way to satisfy it.

But then I saw an interview in the paper with an artisan who made clocks out of recycled coffee cans, and he mentioned the local makerspace.

“It’s a place where engineers and woodworkers and artists—basically anybody who likes to make things—can get together and work on shared equipment,” I told Dad that evening, as I got up to pull my dinner out of the microwave. “If I go to a few of their events and Open House nights, I could apply to become a member—ow!”

I stifled the gasp, but too late. My mother zipped across the kitchen at the speed of light, turning on the cold tap and dragging me over to the sink. “Honey, it’s hot! Be more careful.”

“Mom, I’m fine.” I pulled free, shaking water from my hands. “It was just a little steam.” I grabbed a potholder and carried the plate to the table, where my dad was looking over the brochure I’d printed out from the makerspace website. “But seriously, it’s perfect. I could make all kinds of stuff there. I could collaborate with other makers, work on bigger projects. And it’s not just for tech geeks either, they’ve got sculptors and musicians and people making jewelry. I wouldn’t even be the only girl.”

I might have spoken too quickly. I might have been a little flushed. I knew I ought to stay calm so my parents would see I’d thought this through and wasn’t just asking on impulse, but I couldn’t. I wanted it that badly.

Dad sighed. “Pumpkin,” he said, “it sounds great. But it’s fifty dollars a month. And if they see the things you can do, it’s going to attract attention—”

“I’m not going to show off,” I interrupted. “I know better than that. I can stick to easier projects when the others are around and do the more complicated parts on my own.”

“But you’ll be going to university in another year anyway,” Mom pleaded. “Can’t you wait until you’re a little older? Until you’ve taken a few courses, and it won’t look so … unusual?”

“Girls in engineering are always unusual, Mom.” Which, I realized a millisecond later, was pretty much the worst argument I could have used with her. In desperation I turned to my father. “I can’t stand playing around with old junk in the basement anymore. I can do so much better. I need this, Dad.”

Dad went quiet, and for a moment I thought I’d won him over. But then he glanced at Mom’s anxious face and shook his head. “I’m going to have to say no, sweetie. It’s not that we don’t trust you, but they’ve got some pretty dangerous equipment in that place. And there are too many things that could go wrong.”

“Like what?” I asked incredulously. “I’m not stupid, Dad. I’m not going to cut my hand off or blow anything up, and I’m not going to let anybody take pictures of me either. And besides, when I go into engineering, I’m going to be working with all kinds of stuff like this anyway. I know you’re scared of losing me again, but you can’t protect me forever.”

Mom got up and hurried out. I could hear her blowing her nose in the next room as Dad said heavily, “I know it’s hard, Tori. When I was your age—”

“Niki, Dad. My name is Niki, remember?” I was furious, but I kept my tone civil. My parents were all I had in the world now, and I couldn’t afford to alienate them. Literally. “And no, you don’t know how hard it is. You have no idea what it’s like to be me.”

Dad said nothing. I picked up my fork and tried to eat some lasagna, but it tasted like old plastic. I shoved the plate away. “I’m going to be late for work,” I said and left.





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My phone clanked at me halfway to the bus stop. I pulled it out and read:

–Sorry, honey. Talk when you get back?





I knew what that meant: Mom was planning to cancel her night out with Dad so they could wait up for me, sit me down, and explain their decision all over again, in the most loving and guilt-inducing possible way.

What it didn’t mean was that their decision was going to change. I texted back with the last of my remaining patience:

–Nothing to talk about. I get it. It’s OK.





I sent it off, then added another:

–Working late. Home at 11. Kayleigh’s giving me a ride.





Which was a total lie, since Kayleigh wasn’t even on my shift tonight. But if Mom thought I’d be gone all evening anyway and that I was in good company, there’d be no point in her staying home.

Value Foods was quiet, since most people had better things to do on a Friday night than buy groceries. Between customers I swapped out last week’s gossip mags for the new issues, listened to Sarah complain about her ex-boyfriend, and watched Milo stack flats of store-brand soda in the bargain aisle. I was counting the cases and calculating the total volume of liquid in my head when Jon piped up that he’d bought an awesome new stereo for his truck, adding a few seconds later that it was raining like Noah outside. I smiled vaguely at the first comment and nodded at the other, while pretending not to notice the hint.

At eight thirty I was sitting in the break room leafing through an old issue of Chatelaine when Milo poked his head in the doorway. “Hey,” he said. “You okay?”

I looked up, surprised. “I’m fine. Why?”

“Just wondering,” he said. “You seem kind of … off somehow. Uptight.”

Was it that obvious? I rubbed a hand across my forehead, trying to massage away the tension. Either Milo had some pretty impressive emotional radar, or I wasn’t as good at hiding my feelings as I’d thought.

“It’s nothing big,” I said. “Just some stuff with my parents. You know how it is.”

Milo nodded slowly, but he didn’t say anything more. I picked at an uncut corner of the magazine, feeling self-conscious under that steady gaze. But when I looked up again, he’d disappeared.

I finished my coffee and headed back to my station just in time to keep the lineup at Jon’s register from turning ugly. But my customer-greeting smile felt more fake than ever, and my attempts at small talk fell flat. It was a relief when the unexpected crush moved on and the store was quiet again.

There had to be a way to convince my parents they were wrong about the makerspace being too dangerous. But though I spent the rest of the shift arguing with them in my head, it was no use. I’d already done my best to convince them—it just hadn’t worked. I rang through my last customer, closed down, and stalked off to the office.

Milo was sweeping the corridor as I came in, dark head bobbing to the rhythm of his music player. He hailed me with a lift of his eyebrows. “Heading out?” he asked, a little too loudly.

“Yeah,” I said. I pulled my coat off the hook, thrust one arm into the sleeve, and was reaching for the other when my phone vibrated in my pocket.

Now what? Irritated, I pulled it out and turned it over. There were twenty-three messages.

It couldn’t be Mom or Dad. They knew I couldn’t answer when I was on shift, and anyway they’d have called the store line if it were that important. It had to be someone drunk-texting the wrong number. I opened the message window, hoping it would at least be funny—and the bottom dropped out of my stomach.

–20:35:23 RELAY ACTIVATED





My leg muscles locked, my whole body trembling with the urge to fight or flee. I forced my stiff finger to move, scrolling through one message after another. Activated. Deactivated. Activated again…

“Whoa,” said Milo, leaning the broom against the wall and pulling his earbuds out. “What’s the matter?”

I breathed in through my nose, telling myself not to panic. Something was interfering with the relay’s signal, or it wouldn’t be cutting in and out like that. So nothing major had happened yet. My parents were still out of the house, so if I got home fast and dealt with this, there’d be no reason for them to suspect that anything had gone wrong at all.

There was only one problem. I had no idea why the relay had come online or what it was doing. For all I knew, it might just blow up in my face.

“What is it?” Milo asked again.

“It’s nothing,” I replied, stuffing the phone back into my pocket. “But I need to get home. Right away.”





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“Thanks for this,” I told Jon, climbing into the passenger seat of his rusty 1990 Ford F-150 pickup. Drops speckled the windshield, but the worst of the storm had subsided. “Sorry I didn’t take you up on the offer before.”

“No problem.” He turned the key, and the truck revved to life. Judging by the growling noise it needed a new water pump, but that was the least of my worries right now. “So what’s the hurry? Sure you can’t stop for a coffee on the way?”

I was trying to think of a plausible lie when Milo popped up in the headlights, waving both arms above his head. “Hey,” he said breathlessly as Jon rolled the window down. “Can I grab a ride too? I’m just a couple streets over from Niki.”

“Yeah, I guess,” said Jon, giving me a what-can-you-do glance that I pretended not to notice. Milo climbed in beside me and we started off, splashing through the puddles toward the main road.

Jon switched on the radio, and some country singer began to wail about the hardworkin’ boy who loved her and the harddrinkin’ man she loved. I hoped he’d change the station, but Jon seemed perfectly happy, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel as we waited for the light to turn. “Which way?” he asked.

“Ross Street,” I told him. “Off Hilliard, just south of Caledonia.” I kept my tone casual, though my fists were balled and my foot pressed hard against the floor. Getting home fast might be all I cared about, but I didn’t want Jon getting too curious about why.

“Oh yeah? My grandma lives around there. So how long have you…”

“Hey, Jon,” interrupted Milo, “that arrow’s not gonna get any greener.”

Jon’s mouth puckered, but he pressed the accelerator and swung into a left turn. We drove a few blocks before he spoke again. “You don’t have to keep taking the bus unless you want to,” he said. “Most nights I’ve got the truck anyway, so if we’re on shift together, give me a call and I’ll pick you up.”

“Awesome,” Milo said brightly. “You’re the man.”

I knew and Jon knew and probably Jon suspected Milo knew that the offer had been meant for me. But Jon could hardly say so without being rude, so he forced a smile. “Nah, not really. Like I said, it’s not a problem.”

I almost felt sorry, then, about the way I’d blown him off before. But then Jon edged closer, his thigh pressing mine, and my charitable thoughts vanished in a surge of revulsion. I jerked to the right, crushing Milo against the door. But Milo didn’t protest, or even make a sound. He angled his legs until not even a millimeter of our bodies were touching and kept his eyes on the road.

Jon stiffened, and I knew he’d got the message. I was half afraid he’d stop the truck and tell us both to get out, but he must have decided it wasn’t worth the drama. A sharp turn flung me into Milo again, who let out a barely audible “oof.” Then with a roar we swung onto Ross Street, and I saw the lights of number 28 glowing in the near distance.

“Right here,” I blurted, and the Ford jerked to a halt. I scrambled over Milo and popped the door open. “Thanks, Jon. Night, Milo. See you—” I jumped down onto the driveway and took off, fumbling for my key as I went.

The porch was lit, but the front window was dark, and when I wrestled the key into the lock and shouldered the door open, no one answered my call. Only the light above the kitchen sink and the soft murmur of CBC Radio hinted that anyone might be home, but those were just my mom’s usual antiburglar tactics. I sprinted down the corridor to my bedroom and waved on the light.

At first glance everything seemed normal, from the pile of laundry on my unmade bed to Crackers whining hopefully from his crate in the corner. He didn’t seem upset, just eager to get out, which made me breathe easier. If anything strange had happened in my absence, he’d have been yelping and scratching like crazy.

“Hang on,” I told him, flinging open my closet door and digging through the heap inside. Two pairs of dress boots, a sweater that had fallen off its hanger, a library book on cybernetics that was six weeks overdue … and shoved into the back corner, a cardboard box marked THIS END UP with an arrow pointing sternly at the floor.

Was it safe to look inside? Or was I about to make a fatal mistake?

Yet I couldn’t ignore the danger, and I certainly couldn’t run away and leave my parents to deal with it. There was nobody in the world who could handle this right now, except me.

Don’t panic, I reminded myself. Then I picked up my old hockey stick, slid it under the bottom corner of the box, and flipped it aside.

There sat the relay, a silver egg on a nest of multicolored wiring. But no light came through the aperture, and the seam around its perimeter was intact.

It wasn’t active. In fact, it didn’t look as if it had powered on recently at all.

I exhaled, my tension draining away. There’d been a lightning storm not that long ago, and the monitoring device was plugged in to my old phone charger. Maybe a power surge had triggered a false alarm? I unplugged the charger and picked up the base, relay and all, for a closer look.

Sure enough, that was the answer. One of the capacitors had melted—my own fault for not using a surge protector. I was inspecting the scorched circuits to see how much I’d have to replace when Crackers started to whimper pathetically.

“Oh, all right, you,” I said, setting the relay down on the nightstand and crouching to unlock his crate. He trotted out, tail wagging, and pushed his cold nose into my hand. “I’ll take you outside in a—”

The lights flickered. The clock radio snapped on, blaring, and the remote-controlled curtains whirred open as the room went into its wake-up routine. I dived for the radio and was smacking it silent when a low hum vibrated the air behind me. “Oh crap,” I breathed and spun around—just in time to be blinded by an explosion of white, scintillating light.

Sparks danced across my retinas as I staggered back, tripped over the laundry basket, and fell, cracking my head against the wall. For three vital seconds I lay there in a daze, and by the time I scrambled to my feet, it was too late.

It hadn’t been a power surge that pinged my phone after all. Someone had been signaling the relay, trying to send a transmission through—and now that unwanted packet of information had finally arrived. All six foot three, 185 pounds of him, stretched across my bedroom carpet with his back arched in agony and the roots of his dyed brown hair glinting like gunmetal in the light. For an instant, his body glowed and flickered, and I could see the nightstand through it. Then he solidified and collapsed with a thud onto the floor.

Crackers yelped and scuttled behind me. But I stood riveted, staring at the new arrival. His dark grey uniform shirt was wrinkled and half untucked, one shoulder ripped at the seam as though he’d been fighting. His eyes were closed, and his lips were pulled back from his teeth in a grimace. But he didn’t move, and he didn’t appear to be breathing. Misgiving flashed inside me, and I was stooping to check his pulse when he stirred, groaned, and slowly opened his eyes.

The look on his face when he saw me was extraordinary—but the dismay turned quickly to resignation. “Tori,” he murmured, struggling up onto his elbows. “Your hair’s different. How long…?”

Even in my half-stupefied state, I knew what he was asking. “Since I saw you last? About six months.”

His brow creased in dismay. “Six … no. Is that all, really?”

Some people might have been charmed by the absentminded professor routine, but I had no patience with it. “You just scared the crap out of me, Faraday!” I snapped. “If you were planning to come after Alison all along, you could at least have let one of us know!”

He was silent.

“Is it safe?” I demanded. “Is it over now? Or do we still have to worry about—”

But Sebastian wasn’t listening. He had gone absolutely still, staring at something behind me.

Dread zapped into me, lighting up every nerve in my body. I whirled—

And there stood Milo in the doorway, my phone clutched in one hand.

“Um,” he said in a voice that cracked over two octaves, “you dropped this.”





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I was so furious I couldn’t even be scared. I grabbed Milo by the collar—he was still wearing his green polo from work—and twisted my fist up under his chin. “What are you doing here?” I demanded. “What makes you think you can just walk into my house?”

“Tori,” said Sebastian Faraday in his deep, smooth voice, but I shot him a glare and he fell silent. He had no idea what was going on here, and I was not going to let him pull that Wise Older Brother act on me.

“Your phone fell out of your pocket when you got out of the truck,” gasped Milo, his Adam’s apple bobbing against my knuckles. He had seven inches and sixty pounds on me, but it didn’t seem to have occurred to him to free himself by force. “I only noticed after we drove away. And I knew you’d want it back, so I got Jon to let me off at the corner, but when I got to your place the door was open, and I remembered how upset you’d looked before and I thought…”

He didn’t finish the sentence, but he didn’t need to. Reluctantly I opened my hand and let him go.

“All right,” I said, trying to regain my calm. Maybe Milo hadn’t seen anything, or at least nothing extraordinary. Maybe he just thought he’d walked in on me arguing with my secret university-aged boyfriend. The idea of me and Faraday soured my stomach, but I could fake it if I had to. “So you walked in. Then what?”

Milo blew out his breath and tugged his shirt back into shape. He glanced at Sebastian, at the relay, and a slow grin spread across his face. “That was the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life. What is that thing? Some kind of teleport device?”

So he’d seen the whole thing. The relay going off, Sebastian beaming in, all of it. I sank onto the bed and put my head in my hands.

Crackers leaped up beside me, burrowing under my elbow for comfort. I was tousling his ears, wishing we’d adopted a proper guard dog instead of the sweetest miniature dachshund in the universe, when Sebastian struggled to his feet and came to join me.

“This is my fault,” he said. “I apologize. I should have double-checked the readings before I came through, but I never expected—”

“The readings,” echoed Milo, quavering with glee. “He said readings.”

I snatched up a cushion and flung it at him. “This is not funny!” I shouted.

He caught the pillow and lowered it slowly, eyes wide behind his skewed glasses. “Sorry. I guess I’m a little overexcited.”

“Of course,” Sebastian said, with a gentleness that made me want to kick him. It had taken me years to learn how to talk to strangers as though they were friends, and he made it look as natural as breathing. “It’s not every day you see somebody materialize out of nowhere, and I won’t insult your intelligence by claiming that it’s magic or some kind of hoax. But if you care about Tori even a little—”

“Niki,” I moaned. “My name’s Niki. Sebastian, shut up. Please.”

He looked slightly hurt, but he obeyed. I turned to Milo. “Look,” I said, “I’m sure you’re dying to know what this is all about. But it’s way too complicated to explain. And if I tried, you wouldn’t believe me.”

Milo’s brows lifted. “You think so?”

Never talk down to people, my mother had taught me. If you can’t make them believe that you like them, at least make them feel that you respect them. “It’s not that I don’t think you’re smart enough,” I added quickly. “And I know you’re a good guy. I really appreciated you running interference for me with Jon back there.”

“But?” Milo asked. His guard was up now: he was realizing that I might not be as fragile or vulnerable as he’d thought. And if I didn’t win back his sympathy fast, he might even start to resent me for it.

Time to amp up the emotional voltage, then. I got up and walked to Milo, stopping just inside his personal space so he’d feel his own vulnerability—and mine. “But I’m asking you,” I said in a low voice, “I’m begging you, to stay out of this. To walk away and forget everything you just saw. Because if anyone finds out about this, even my parents, it’s going to ruin my life all over again.”

I held Milo’s gaze as I spoke, silently counting seconds until he shifted and looked away. Good: I’d made him feel guilty. But then he said, “Why should I cover for you and this guy, whoever he is? I don’t know him, and I barely know you. And wherever the two of you got this relay thing, I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to have it.”

I opened my mouth to deny it, to tell him he had it all wrong—and then, in a flash, I realized what a fool I’d been. Why bother wasting time on persuasion, when the real solution was far more simple?

“Go ahead, then,” I said coolly, stepping back. “Talk to your friends or the media or anyone you want. Tell them the girl you work with at the grocery store has a teleportation device, and you saw a guy beam right into her bedroom. Nobody’s going to believe it.”

“Not even when they see the video I took on your phone?” asked Milo.

My stomach twisted like a Mobius strip. I made a grab for the phone, but he held it out of reach. “Not yet, Niki. Or is it Tori?”

I wanted to body check him into the doorframe just for saying that, but I held myself back. “Fine,” I said between my teeth. “What do you want? Money?”

He looked startled. “No! I only meant—”

“He didn’t take any video,” said Sebastian calmly. “He was too surprised, and it happened too fast. Give her the phone, Milo.”

Milo blanched at the sound of his name. His upraised arm wilted—and I snatched the phone from his grip. A scroll through the contents assured me that Sebastian had been right: no video, no pictures, no evidence of any kind. He’d been bluffing.

“You’re still wearing your name tag, by the way,” Sebastian told him and flopped backward onto the mattress with his hands folded serenely across his chest. “Niki, can I borrow your laptop? I need to check a few things.”

Unbelievable. He had no idea what a disaster he’d caused just by showing up, and I had no idea what he was doing here, and for all I knew that relay could go off and beam us both back to Mathis any minute. Milo looked apprehensive; there was no telling what he’d do next. And yet Faraday was acting as though it was one big happy pajama party, and all we needed was a couple of movies and some popcorn to make everything perfect.

“Absolutely not,” I told him. “My parents’ll be home any minute, and if they find me talking to a couple of strange guys in my bedroom, it’s going to be awkward for everybody involved.”

“Ah. Yes, good point.” Sebastian sat up again and took his wallet out of his back pocket, thumbing past several different bank cards to peer into the empty billfold. “Well, then, we’ll go elsewhere. I just need to stop at an ATM first.”

“No, we won’t,” I said. “I have to be here when my parents get in, or they’ll panic.” I pulled my old cell phone out of the monitoring device and tossed it to him. “My number’s in there. Call me tomorrow.”

“All right,” said Faraday, putting the phone and the wallet away. “Do you want me to take the relay as well?”

The offer surprised me, but it was also reassuring: it meant he didn’t think it was dangerous, at least not at the moment. “Okay,” I said.

“What about your friend here?” Sebastian asked. “Is anyone expecting him home?”

“Not likely,” I said, before Milo could answer. “His mom works the night shift, and his brother’s at university.”

“Good. Then I’ll take care of him too.” Sebastian picked up the relay and headed out into the corridor. “Come on, Milo.”

“Please tell me he’s not going to snap my neck and hide my body in a Dumpster,” said Milo, and I could tell he was only half joking.

“No,” I replied, “but the last person who tried to get the relay away from him ended up beaming themselves into space. So I wouldn’t try anything, if I were you.”

He gave me an exasperated look. “I’m not a thief, okay? And I’m not an idiot either. I wasn’t trying to threaten you. I just wanted to find out what was going on.”

“Well, it looks like you’re about to,” I said. “Tell Sebastian he can borrow the green jacket out of the hall closet, if he needs one. Have a nice walk.”

Without waiting for an answer, I pushed Milo out into the corridor and slammed the door behind him. Then I pressed my forehead against the wood, closed my eyes, and clenched my teeth until I no longer felt like screaming.





0 0 1 1 0 1



It was midnight before my parents got home—they’d gone out for drinks after the movie. I could tell because my mother was giggling as the two of them came through the front door, and they both became very straight and solemn when they saw me.

“Hi, pumpkin,” said my dad. He smelled of beer, but I could tell he wasn’t drunk, only mellow. He propped my mom against the wall and stooped to peer at me, looking more like a tame bear than ever. “You all right? Something bad happen at work?”

He’d forgotten about the makerspace already—that was how little it meant to him. How little he understood. And yet I knew he didn’t mean to hurt me. He was only trying to protect me—and despite everything that had happened last summer, part of him still believed that he could.

He was wrong, but I didn’t want to be the one to tell him so. If things went bad with Sebastian and the relay, he’d find out soon enough.

“It’s okay,” I said. “Just—this guy at work keeps hitting on me. Not harassing me,” I added as Dad started to bristle, “but he’s been hinting around, hoping I’ll go out with him. And I don’t want to.”

“Which one?” asked Mom, struggling out of her coat. She knew most of my regular coworkers by sight, since she shopped at Value Foods every weekend. “That Chinese boy?”

Actually, Milo’s family was Korean, but I wasn’t going to get into that now. “No, Mom. Jon. The blond guy who works the express lane.”

“The cute one?” She gave an owlish blink. “What’s wrong with him?”

She’d liked Brendan too. “I’m not interested, Mom. That’s all.”

“You’re too picky,” she told me with a shake of her head. “You’re seventeen and you’ve only had one proper boyfriend! I’ll never be a grandmother at this rate.”

She spoke lightly, smiling all the while so I’d know she was only teasing. She didn’t really expect me to be thinking about marriage and children at this age. But I knew enough Latin to remember in vino veritas, too. I wanted to tell her not to get her hopes up, but if there was ever going to be a good time for that discussion, it wasn’t now.

“So you’re saying I shouldn’t hold out for a guy like Dad?” I said, and the flush in Mom’s cheeks deepened as Dad kissed her temple.

“Oh, no,” she told me with a hiccup of laughter in her voice. “You absolutely should.”





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When I woke up the next morning, there were two texts waiting for me. The first one came from my old cell number and read:

–Sunrise Café. 11 am. Pancakes?





Trust Sebastian to tell me nothing that I actually wanted to know. I texted back:

–Pancakes first. Then I kill you. WHAT HAPPENED???





While I was waiting for his answer, I opened the second message, from a number I didn’t recognize. It said:

–U OK? GET UR PHONE ALRITE?





Great. Jon had made Milo give him my number before he let him out of the truck. I was trying to think of a polite way to ask him never to text me again when Faraday’s reply came through.

–Milo says French toast is better. Also, no need for violence. It’s all fine.





Which didn’t tell me much either, except that Milo was there and that Sebastian thought he’d solved the problem somehow. Probably by telling him my entire life story and trusting to Milo’s inner goodness, which wasn’t my idea of a workable solution at all. Muttering a few swear words, I kicked off the duvet and headed for the shower.

“I’m meeting some friends downtown for breakfast,” I called over my shoulder twenty minutes later, ruffling my still-damp pixie cut with one hand. “I’ll be back in a few hours, okay?”

“Friends? You mean some of the people from—” Mom came out of the kitchen and stopped dead in dismay. “Oh, Niki. Are you really going to wear that?”

I looked down at myself automatically, though I already knew what I was wearing. Dark tights under frayed jean shorts, a long-sleeved tee with a barely visible pattern of sine waves across the chest, and a brown suede jacket I’d nabbed from Goodwill last week. Tori Beaugrand would never have worn anything like it, but that was kind of the point. “Why not?” I asked. “It’s clean, and it fits.”

She gave a little sigh. “Yes, I suppose. Never mind.”

As I headed outside, I was still puzzling over her reaction, and then it clicked. Back in my old life, I’d always left the shopping to my mom—not only because I didn’t particularly care what I wore but because she had such definite ideas about what clothes would suit me and help me fit in. But now I was Niki, the rules were different, and this outfit was all my doing.

It wasn’t that I looked bad. It was just that I didn’t look like her daughter.

A brisk walk and an eighteen-minute bus ride later, I walked into the Sunrise Café to find Milo and Faraday sitting in the booth at the back corner, building a tower out of coffee cups, cutlery, and packets of peanut butter and jam. They were so absorbed in the task that neither one looked up until I sat down next to Milo, who jumped, swore, and dropped his fork under the table.

“Good morning to you too,” I said, and he looked sheepish.

“Sorry. I just wasn’t expecting you yet.” He shuffled over to give me more room and began disassembling the pyramid into its component place settings. “So, Sebastian invited me along. Hope that’s okay.”

I shot a this-had-better-be-good look at Sebastian, who met my gaze mildly and slid a menu across the table. “Milo and I had quite a talk last night,” he said. “About the top secret research facility I work for—excuse me, used to work for. A place called Meridian.”

My breath stalled in my throat. I stared at him, mouth frozen in an O of disbelief.

“Would you rather I lied?” said Sebastian.

There was no answer to that, at least not that I could think of. I pulled a serviette out of the dispenser and unfolded it with deliberate care. “Go on,” I said. “What else did you tell him?”

As it turned out, Sebastian had told Milo pretty much everything. How he’d grown restless with his employers’ restrictive policies and decided to take a sabbatical and do some research on his own. How he’d discovered that one of his fellow scientists was doing experiments with far-ranging effects on civilians—particularly a young woman named Alison Jeffries, who had ended up in a psychiatric hospital after exposure to one of their devices. How he’d talked to Alison and learned that another girl had been with her at the time—a girl named Tori Beaugrand, who had since vanished without a trace…

“Do you want me to stop?” Sebastian asked, and I realized I’d shredded the paper napkin into confetti.

“No,” I said, brushing the pieces away. “I want to know everything he knows.”

“Look,” said Milo uneasily. “We don’t have to get into this. He told me they kidnapped you with that relay thing and that they were doing experiments on you. I didn’t ask for details.”

I gave a little, dry laugh. “Did he tell you they’d been experimenting on me my whole life?” That had been one of the worst moments of the whole ordeal, when I found out who’d put the chip in my arm and what it meant. That, and realizing I was never going to see my parents or my friends again.

“Actually, no,” said Sebastian. “That’s your story, not mine. All I told Milo was that when I realized what they’d done to you, I went back to Meridian. I found where you were being held, released you, and sent you back home against my colleague’s protests. Then I stayed to make a full report of his unethical behavior to the senior staff. But … things didn’t turn out quite as planned.”

Even I hadn’t heard this part. “Why not?”

“I’d rather not go into that now. Let’s say I decided it would be prudent to get out while I still had the chance. And that I have no desire to work for Meridian or anyone associated with it ever again.” He ran a long finger down one edge of the menu and flipped it open. “Ready to order?”

Milo and I traded glances, and I could see he was as unsettled by the gaps in Sebastian’s story as I was. “So what now?” Milo asked him. “You’re just going to hide out here and let it happen? Let them go on doing to other people what they did to Niki?”

“No,” said Sebastian, not looking up from the menu. “And I have no intention of letting them do it to Niki again, either. But she’s perfectly safe at the moment, as are you. If there’s any threat of that changing, I’ll look after it.”

I had my doubts, but I wasn’t going to argue. Not in front of Milo, anyway. “So,” I said slowly, “Milo’s on board with all this? You trust him?”

“He’s also sitting right here,” said Milo, “and getting tired of being talked about in the third person.” He flicked a creamer, and it flipped 180 degrees and landed neatly in its original spot. “Anyway, I let Sebastian couch-surf at my place last night and I didn’t even touch your precious relay, so give me a little credit—oh, hi.”

This last was to the waitress, who was standing by the table with order pad in hand. Hastily I skimmed the menu and handed it back to her. “Pancakes and back bacon,” I said. “Oh, and coffee.” I waited until she marched off again, then turned to Milo.

“Sorry,” I said. “But after what I went through, it’s hard for me to trust anybody. It’s nothing personal.” Then I pulled out the tiny, tentative smile that meant I know I screwed up, but I’m cute, forgive me?—and it worked. Milo smiled back.

“Good,” said Sebastian. “Milo, I think you’re in. But could Niki and I have a private word? Just for a minute?”

“Uh … yeah, sure,” said Milo, looking taken aback. “I was going to the washroom anyway.” He slid around the curve of the bench, and Sebastian got up to let him out.

When he’d disappeared, I leaned across the table and hissed, “Why is he here? We need to talk. Alone.”

“I know,” said Sebastian. “But I owed him a favor for letting me sleep on his sofa. And after what he saw last night, I don’t see how we can keep him out of it.”

There was a faint reproach in his voice, and it annoyed me. “Well, it’s not my fault,” I said. “I only kept the relay because I couldn’t find a way to destroy it, and I was afraid to leave it behind. How was I supposed to know you were going to show up? Especially after what you said to Alison—”

“I didn’t think I’d get the chance,” he said. “You’d only been gone a few seconds when Mathis came in.”

Heavily armed, no doubt. After the way Sebastian had double-crossed him to help Alison and me escape, he must have been furious. “Then what happened?” I asked.

“The negotiations were delicate,” Sebastian said. “They included a brief standoff with weapons, a message he really didn’t want me to send, and a long and tedious argument about ethics. But eventually we worked it out.” He took a sip from his mug and folded his hands around it, inhaling the steam. “This is excellent coffee.”

I didn’t find Sebastian as easy to read as some people, but hiding behind a coffee cup was a bad sign. There was more to this story that he wasn’t telling me, and I had a suspicion I knew what it was about.

“Does Alison know you’re back?” I asked.

The cup froze on his lips. He lowered it to the table, a slow and deliberate motion. “No,” he said and then more cheerfully, “Oh look. Pancakes.”

I gave the waitress a tight smile as she began setting out the plates, silently willing her to hurry up and go away. But she’d only been gone two seconds when Milo returned from the washroom, so I had to admit defeat.

I wasn’t out of ammunition yet, though. I waited until Milo was happily distracted pouring syrup over his French toast, and then I caught Sebastian’s eye and mouthed, “Coward.”

He kept his expression bland, as though he hadn’t noticed. But I saw his jaw tighten, and I knew the shot had gone home.





0 0 1 1 1 1



By the time Sebastian, Milo, and I had finished our breakfast and about three cups of coffee each, we’d come to an agreement. Milo promised to keep his mouth shut about what he’d seen in my bedroom last night, as well as everything we’d just told him, and that he wouldn’t mention the names “Sebastian Faraday” or “Tori Beaugrand” to anybody ever. And in return, since Milo was so curious, Sebastian pulled the relay out of the old camera case he’d brought with him and explained a few things about how it worked.

I’d heard the “matter is information” speech before, and I already knew about the relay’s built-in propulsion system, as well as its camouflage and self-defense capabilities. So I propped my chin on my hand and counted the wall tiles until Sebastian said, “Niki, would you mind opening it up for us? Milo wants to see inside.”

Until last night I hadn’t worried about touching the relay, because I’d thought it couldn’t send or receive transmissions anymore. Now that Sebastian had proven me wrong, I wasn’t nearly so comfortable with it. “Is it safe?” I asked.

He gave me an odd look. “Would I ask if it wasn’t?”

It was hard not to wonder what the restaurant staff and other patrons were making of all this. But at the moment nobody was even looking our way. I sighed, and Sebastian dropped the relay into my outstretched palm. I let my fingertips rest on its brushed metal surface for a moment, then gripped the top half and turned it.

The casing opened, revealing a lattice of gleaming filaments and a bubble of silvery liquid. “Wow,” Milo said, leaning closer. “What is that stuff in the middle? Mercury?”

“It looks similar, doesn’t it?” said Sebastian. “And since the best translation I can give you for its scientific name is quicksilver, it’s an understandable mistake. But it’s no substance you’ve seen before. It’s a form of programmable matter: a superfast information processing and transfer medium that makes the most sophisticated modern computers look like an abacus. And no, before you ask, I don’t have the recipe. It’s classified.”

What Sebastian didn’t say and I didn’t feel like saying either was that the chip in my arm had been made from the same substance. I’d seen it used for other purposes as well. But when Milo reached over to poke the gleaming liquid, I slapped the fork out of his hand. “Are you trying to get yourself fried?” I demanded, then closed up the relay and pushed it back to Sebastian.

“So what are you going to do with it now?” Milo asked, as Sebastian tucked the relay back into its case. “If it came from Meridian and you’re not working for them anymore, aren’t they going to want it back?”

“If they do, they’ll be disappointed,” said Sebastian evenly. “Because as soon as I get the chance, I’m going to destroy it.”

Good, I thought, but Milo recoiled. “What? Why?”

“Because it’s experimental technology, and it’s dangerous,” said Sebastian. “Now if you’ll excuse me…” He got up and whisked the bill off the table.

“Wait,” I protested, but he cut me off with a shake of his head.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “It’s on me.”

“I still don’t get it,” Milo said, while I watched Sebastian walk to the register and tried not to cringe with guilt. “So what if the relay’s experimental? It obviously works fine, or Sebastian wouldn’t have used it to get here.”

“Trust me,” I said distractedly, “you’d have to be either desperate or a masochist to put yourself through that thing. It might only take a couple of seconds in real time, but it feels like you’re being fed through a quantum sausage grinder for about eight million years.” Just thinking about my last trip made me feel queasy. And Sebastian had done it three times.

“Okay,” said Milo, though I could tell he wasn’t convinced. “But you could still use it to send other things, right? You could revolutionize the shipping industry—”

“No, we couldn’t,” said Sebastian as he rejoined us, shrugging my dad’s old jacket back onto his shoulders. “Because to make it work, we’d need a second relay and a computer fast enough to process all the information, and we don’t have access to either of those since I left my job. Believe me, Milo, it’s better this way.”

Milo nodded reluctantly, and the three of us headed out onto the street. But we’d only taken a few steps before Sebastian made an exasperated noise and started patting down his pockets.

“I’ve dropped my phone,” he said. “Or rather, I should say, your phone, Niki. Go on, I’ll be right with you—” and he dashed back inside the cafe.

So much for my hopes of getting Sebastian alone for a real conversation. Not only did he show no signs of wanting to send Milo away, but it almost seemed like he was avoiding me. Was it Alison he didn’t want to talk about? Was this his way of keeping me from asking about her?

If so, it wasn’t going to work. Milo couldn’t stick around forever, and the minute he left, I’d confront Sebastian and get the truth out of him, whether he liked it or not. I leaned against the cafe window, watching a gaunt old man with a mustache feeding the pigeons in front of City Hall, until Milo said abruptly, “I looked you up on the Internet last night.”

If anybody but Milo had said that, I would have taken off like a rabbit. But he’d heard Sebastian call me Tori, and he knew I’d been through a bad time last summer. Given those two clues, it wouldn’t have been hard for him to sleuth out the rest. “And?”

“The articles said you couldn’t remember where you’d been or who’d taken you. That the police had no leads, so the investigation had been closed.” He sat down on the narrow windowsill beside me. “Why didn’t you tell them about Meridian?”

I watched the old man stoop to let a snow-white pigeon peck grain from his outstretched palm. There was something sweet and sad about the way he craned toward her, as though he were the one begging and not the other way around. “Because I knew nobody would believe it.”

“Why not? I did.”

“Oh, come on, Milo. If you hadn’t seen Sebastian come through the relay with your own eyes, would you have believed there was a device that could reduce people to subatomic particles and beam them halfway across the—the planet? Let alone that some wacked-out scientist at a top secret research base had used it to kidnap a teenage girl?”

“Point,” said Milo. “But there’s another thing I don’t get. Why you? What was so special about—”

“Stop right there,” I said. Earlier this morning I’d told Milo more about my past than even Sebastian thought he needed to know. I wasn’t going to make that mistake again. “What they did to me and why is none of your business. But it wasn’t because I was special, believe me. It was because I was disposable.”

Milo was silent. Then he said, “I don’t believe that.”

Anger sparked through me. “You think I’m lying?”

“No. I think they are.” He drew breath to explain—then glanced at the window behind us and frowned. “Where’s Sebastian?”

“Probably in the washroom,” I said, but Milo had already pulled open the cafe door and ducked inside. With a sigh, I dusted myself off and followed.

I was standing by the table we’d left behind, idly drawing patterns in my spilled orange juice, when Milo reappeared from the back corridor. “He’s not in there.”

I gave him a blank look. “Then where is he?”

“You tell me,” he said.

Apprehension tingled inside me. I pushed the swinging door open and walked through.

Milo was right; the washrooms were empty. But there was a fire door leading out into the back lot, where the smell of grease and rancid potato peelings mingled with the exhaust fumes from a truck idling nearby. I stepped onto the pavement and looked around. Aside from the truck driver, there was no one in sight.

This was crazy. There had to be some mistake. As a last resort, I pulled out my phone, called my old cell number, and let it ring, listening for an echo in the distance.

No sound. No answer.

Sebastian Faraday had vanished.





0 1 0 0 0 0



“I don’t get it,” Milo said as the two of us sprinted across the diner’s back lot, heading for the street. “Why would he ditch us like that?”

I had no answer. Until now Sebastian had seemed so calm, so perfectly in control. He’d befriended Milo, made a deal with him—and as soon as everything was settled, he’d panicked and run off? It made no sense. Skidding to the curb, I shaded my eyes and scanned the pavement in both directions. No telltale flash of green from my dad’s borrowed coat, no scarecrow figure loping away into the distance. He’d disappeared so completely, it was almost as though…

I spun back to Milo, whose bleak expression told me he’d been thinking the same thing. “Maybe he was wrong about the relay,” he said. “Maybe it wasn’t safe after all.”

Could Sebastian have made such a careless mistake? Assumed the relay was dormant, only to have it activate and beam him back to Mathis against his will? The idea was chilling, but the more I thought about it, the less plausible it seemed.

“No,” I said. “That’s not what happened.”

“How do you know?”

“Because it’s too neat. If it was an accident, it could have happened any time, not just when he was alone. Why would he leave us and go back in the cafe unless he—”

My phone buzzed in my pocket. With a startled glance at Milo, I raised it to my ear.

“Hello?” The voice was young, female, and unfamiliar. “Hi,” I said warily. “Who is this?”

“It’s Lindsey, from the Science Museum. Have you lost a phone? Because a guy just dropped one off at the front counter, and this was the only number in it.”

The last of my doubts melted in a gush of molten fury. The next time I saw Sebastian Faraday, I was going to strangle him.

“Yeah, it’s mine,” I told the girl. “Thanks. I’ll be right there.”





0 1 0 0 0 1



The Science Museum was three blocks down from the cafe, on the other side of the street. As Milo and I raced up to the doors, we barreled into a family coming out. I exchanged breathless apologies with the mother, Milo caught the toddler and plopped him safely back in the stroller, and the two of us plunged inside.

Coming out of the sunshine, it took my eyes a good five seconds to adjust. But once I’d blinked away the dazzle, I spotted Lindsey at once. She was leaning over the front desk, pressing an admission stamp onto a little girl’s hand, while her parents waited by the entrance gate for her to buzz them through.

“Hi,” I said. “I’m Niki. You have my phone? It’s an old Nokia, black with a silver keypad.”

“Oh—yes—wait a second. I’ll be right with you.” She pressed a button and waved the family through, then stooped and retrieved a bundle from beneath the counter. “Is this jacket yours as well?”

Green cotton canvas, folded into a neat square. “It’s my dad’s,” I said. “Thanks.” I dropped the old cell into my purse and shook out the coat, feeling its slight weight. “There wasn’t … a bag with it or anything?”

Lindsey shook her head. “Just what you have.”

I’d figured as much. So not only was Faraday gone, he’d taken the relay with him.

“Now what?” asked Milo, as I turned away. “You want to keep looking for him?”

I draped the coat over my arm, slowly smoothing out the folds. I didn’t really care who had the relay, as long as it didn’t fall into the wrong hands. And I trusted Sebastian, even if he was annoying. If he said he was going to destroy the relay, then that was what he would do.

“There’s no point,” I said. “He knows what he’s doing, or at least he thinks he does. He’ll come back when he’s ready.”

“Or maybe he won’t,” said Milo, watching me sidelong. “Are you okay with that?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” I asked, and then I realized what he was implying. “Oh, no. No way. And also, ew.”

“Well, you seemed to know each other pretty well…”

“Ew,” I repeated fervently.

Milo grinned. “Okay, okay. Just checking—” He broke off, staring at something in the air behind me. “What is that?”

I turned, following the line of his gaze past the front desk and into the atrium, where a crowd was watching a demonstration. The children bounced and squealed, while the adults gazed up toward the ceiling, heads swiveling in unison…

Then I saw it. A miniature flying machine, small enough to fit in my two hands. It hummed low over the audience, flipped over, and shot straight upward, out of sight.

All thought of Sebastian Faraday evaporated from my mind. I dug into my purse for the admission fee, shoved it across the counter to Lindsey, and slapped my hand down for the stamp.

“Hey, wait for me!” said Milo. The gate buzzed open and the two of us shot through, straining for a view of the little machine. It paused in midair and executed a triple flip, then dropped six feet before pulling up to another hovering stop.

“That is so cool,” Milo murmured. “I want one.”

I did too, but I was pretty sure it hadn’t come from the gift shop. X-shaped, with a propeller on all four spokes and a microprocessor wired into a superlight body, it had the unpolished look of a home electronics project rather than some prepackaged kit. As the machine went through its radio-controlled paces, I looked around for the maker.

And there he was on the far side of the atrium, a stocky, bespectacled man with thinning hair and a goatee. An LED name tag that said “Make!” was clipped to his shirt pocket, and he clutched a control box in both hands. I slipped around the edge of the circle and came up behind him.

“Hi,” I said to the man. “That’s a quadrotor drone, right?” “Yep,” he said absently, thumbing the controls. The drone flipped over again.

“And you built it yourself?”

The quadrotor’s battery was draining, and the propellers had begun to sputter. The man scurried forward and caught it as the crowd broke into applause. “Thanks for watching!” he called. “Check out our information table before you go!” Then he ambled off, my question apparently forgotten.

Annoyed by the dismissal, I watched as he packed the quadrotor away in its case and carried it toward the exit. There beneath a poster reading GET EXCITED AND MAKE THINGS stood a table covered with refrigerator magnets and brochures—all bearing a logo I recognized.

My heart did a 180. I chased after the man and tapped his elbow. “Wait a minute,” I said. “You’re from the makerspace?”

“That’s right,” he said, thick brows rising. “You’ve heard of us?”

“There was an article in the newspaper,” I said, as Milo strolled to join us. “It sounds fantastic. Is that where you built the quadrotor?”

“Uh, yeah.” His poise seemed to have deserted him. His eyes skittered past mine and focused on Milo, as if looking for reassurance.

“How long did it take you to build?” asked Milo.

That opened the floodgates. Immediately the man relaxed and started expounding on the schematics he’d used and all the challenges he’d had to overcome in the construction process, popping the case back open and pointing to one part of the machine after another as he talked. By the time he’d finished, Milo looked slightly dazed, but I’d seen as much as I needed to know.

“You should see what the guys down at the University of Pennsylvania are doing with these things,” the man went on eagerly, still talking to Milo. “They’ve got ‘em flying in formation, building towers, even playing instruments. They make great surveillance cameras too. Totally the next big thing in military tech.”

“So if I wanted to visit the makerspace sometime,” I said to the man, “would I be able—”

“Oh, sure, always looking for new members.” He fished a brochure out of his back pocket and handed it to Milo. “You should come to one of our Open House nights. We just bought a laser cutter, and we’ve got some great projects in the works right now.”

Never mind that I was the one who knew what a quadrotor was, the one who’d shown all the interest. All it had taken was one not-very-technical question from Milo, and suddenly he was the potential recruit? Seething behind my smile, I said in my perkiest tone, “Thanks. That was super interesting,” and watched the man trot away.





0 1 0 0 1 0



“Wow,” Milo said, as the two of us left the museum. “That was some fine sarcasm back there. Too bad he didn’t notice.”

I sighed. “Like it would have made a difference if he had. You’re the one he was interested in. He probably thinks I liked his quadrotor because it reminded me of a butterfly.”

“And he probably thinks I’m going into engineering because I’m Korean,” said Milo dryly.

Hope fluttered in my chest. “You are?”

He snorted a laugh. “Are you kidding? I can barely keep my bike from falling apart.”

Stupid, to feel disappointed. But for a moment I’d thought that Milo and I might actually have something good in common. “Oh,” I said.

“You are, though.” He stuffed his hands into his pockets, a smile curling his mouth. “And you’re going to blow all the guys in your class away.”

“With my beauty and charm?” I said ironically. “Thanks, but I don’t think their standards are going to be that high.”

Milo’s smile inverted to a look of reproach. “I’m not talking about your looks. I mean you’re going to be better than they are.”

“Oh really?” I kept my tone light, but an uneasy feeling was fizzling in my stomach. I hadn’t realized I’d given so much away. “What makes you think so?”

“Well, your bedroom, for one thing. I know there was a lot happening last night, but I did notice you had a pretty sweet automated system there. So you’re obviously smart. And I thought that flying machine was cool, but when you saw it, you just—” He spread his fingers in a firework gesture. “I’ve never seen you so excited about anything.”

I could feel a blush sneaking across my face. I pretended to look in a shop window, though I didn’t really need any new handbags or shoes. “So what are you going into, then?” I asked.

“Guess,” said Milo, and now he sounded resigned, even faintly bitter. It took me a second to process that, but then I got it: whatever his chosen major was, it wasn’t something his family approved of. Either because it wasn’t challenging enough, or prestigious enough, or it just wasn’t the traditional Korean thing to do.

I stepped back and looked Milo over. Good running shoes—quality running shoes, not just the brand everybody else was wearing, and well broken in. Slim jeans in a classic style. Navy T-shirt with a Nike swoosh across the chest, just visible behind the zip of his dark olive windbreaker.

All of which could mean any number of things or nothing in particular. But I’d also seen Milo in short sleeves, effortlessly stacking water cooler refills and 20-kilogram bags of cat litter, and I knew what his arms looked like.

“Something athletic,” I began, and his face lit up. I almost said ballet or figure skating just to see how he’d react, but I’d seen his work schedule and there was no way he had time for lessons. Besides, he didn’t move like a dancer.

“Phys ed,” I announced. “You’re going to be a gym teacher. Or a coach. Or a personal trainer.”

“Technically, that was three guesses,” said Milo, but now his eyes were smiling along with his mouth, and I knew I’d got it right the first time. “What gave it away?”

“You don’t get biceps like that from reading textbooks,” I said. “And no offense, but apart from the earbuds, you don’t seem like the artsy type.”

“Tell that to my grandmother,” he said. “She’s the reason I had to suffer through ten years of Suzuki violin.” He mimed bowing and made a screechy noise. “But yeah, you’re right. I’m okay at math and science and business and that other traditional stuff, but I don’t want to spend my life in an office. I like running. I like the outdoors. And … ” He gave a little shrug. “I like kids.”

Now that I’d put the pieces together, it made sense. I could see Milo being good with children, and I could see them liking him too. But kids were one of the things I didn’t talk about, because I was never going to have any. So I just said, “Well, good for you. I’m sure you’ll be great at it.”

“Tell that to my mom,” he said wryly. “Or better yet don’t, because I haven’t figured out how to break the news to her yet. She knows I’m into sports, but she thinks that just means I’m going to become an orthopedic surgeon and work on top athletes. The kind of thing that will show everybody how brilliant and hard working I am, and make lots of money.” He gazed into the distance, dark eyes wistful behind his glasses. “When she finds out I got accepted at Laurentian, she’s going to flip out.”

“Laurentian!” I hadn’t meant to sound dismayed, but it just slipped out. Laurentian University was in Sudbury, my old hometown. “Why there?”

“They’ve got a great phys ed program, that’s why. I applied to Nipissing and Windsor too, but Laurentian was my first choice.” He cocked his head at me. “Why, does it matter?”

“No,” I said quickly. “I just—wasn’t expecting it.”

Milo looked about to say something more, but then a whistle blew shrilly from his pocket. “Probably my mom,” he said, taking his phone out. He frowned at the screen for three seconds, then put it away. “Sorry. You were saying?”

I wouldn’t have suspected anything if not for the slight catch in his voice. But I’d been reading people too long, and I knew Milo too well by now, not to pick up on it. “What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Nothing!” His eyes opened wide. “Why?”

I held out my hand. “Give me the phone, Milo.”

“Excuse me?”

“Sebastian just texted you, didn’t he? I want to know what he said.”

He deflated. “How’d you guess?”

I snatched at his pocket, but he spun away, catching my shoulder and holding me at arm’s length. His grip was gentle, but his muscles were like steel. “Hey! What if I told you it was none of your business?”

“It’s to do with me. That makes it my business,” I snapped, trying to duck under his arm. He grabbed my other shoulder, holding me steady.

“All right, calm down. I didn’t want to scare you, okay? And I’m guessing Sebastian didn’t either.” He let go and pulled out his phone, turning the face toward me. The message read:

–Niki’s in danger. You’re not. Stay close to her, please. I’ll be back as soon as I can.





0 1 0 0 1 1



We texted back right away, of course. I had a million things I wanted to say to Sebastian, most of them rude—what kind of idiotic, useless, high-handed message was that?—but Milo talked me down, pointing out that we’d get more out of him if he thought the conversation was private. So I let him try first:

–What kind of danger? What am I supposed to do?





After we’d waited twenty minutes and sent a couple more messages for good measure, it was obvious we weren’t going to get any answer. He’d sent the text from an online service, probably using one of the computers at the library, and moved on without waiting for a reply.

“Maybe he’ll get back to us later,” said Milo. But he didn’t sound optimistic, and I wasn’t either. Sebastian’s last message hadn’t read like the start of a conversation. It was more like a good-bye.

“Jerk,” I muttered, but my heart wasn’t in it. I kept thinking about the way Sebastian had looked back in the diner when I called him a coward—that flicker of guilt and, for one second, anger…

I’d never bothered to turn on the charm for Sebastian; he’d seen too much of the real me to be fooled. Besides, he was already on my side, for reasons that had nothing to do with my winning personality, so I didn’t need to tiptoe around him.

Or so I’d thought. But now I was beginning to regret needling him about Alison. Sure, their relationship made no sense to me, but it was also none of my business…

Though if Sebastian had decided he’d rather take off and leave me in some unspecified danger than tell me why he hadn’t called his girlfriend, then he really was a jerk.

As we walked, the sun disappeared behind the clouds and the wind swirled along the sidewalk, kicking up little tornadoes of grit and paper scraps. The empty storefronts suddenly looked menacing, dark windows staring us down, and the scattered tattoo parlors, bars, and used bookshops were no better. I pulled my dad’s coat around my shoulders.

“What now?” Milo asked. “Do you want me to take you home?”

Chivalry was not dead, just totally out of its depth. I sighed. “Milo, you don’t have to do this. No matter what Sebastian says, I can look after myself.”

“Hey!” He sounded stung. “I may be a jock, but I’m not stupid. Even if I thought you needed a bodyguard, I wouldn’t hang around just because some guy I met yesterday told me to.”

“Then why are you doing it?” I rounded on him. “I’m not exactly a sparkly ball of fun at the moment, as you’ve probably noticed. I haven’t even been that nice to you—” Oh, crap, my throat had closed up and my eyes were prickling. I had to start walking again, fast, so he wouldn’t see.

“Yeah, I’d noticed,” he said, matching my pace. “But I kind of like you anyway.”

“You are a masochist.”

“Not really. It’s not like you’ve been nasty, just uptight. And kind of hostile sometimes, but I don’t blame you. If I’d been through the kind of stuff you have, I’d probably be in a padded room somewhere—”

“Don’t,” I said sharply.

“What?” He frowned at me. “I’m not flattering you. I mean it.” “No. I mean, don’t joke about that stuff. Straitjackets and padded rooms and—” I closed my eyes, seeing Alison’s white, strained face in my mind. “Just don’t, okay?”

“Okay.” Milo sounded subdued. “Sorry.” We walked another block in silence, and then he said, “What I’m trying to say is, you’re so…” He made a vague gesture. “I don’t even know. Just different. But in a good way. I’m trying to figure out how you do it.”

“Do what?” I asked warily. He’d said in a good way, so I wasn’t ready to hit the panic button yet. But I wasn’t sure I liked where this was heading.

“How you just throw yourself into things and deal with them. Like that night on the bus. I’d barely tuned in to what was going on when, bam, you jumped up there and grabbed the wheel.” He huffed a laugh. “It was like all the rest of us were stuck in one of those slow-motion dreams, and you were the only one who was awake. Like it had never even occurred to you to be scared.”

“I was scared,” I protested, but he cut me off.

“I know you were, afterward. But right then? You were like the perfect athlete. Totally focused.”

“Only because I didn’t want to die,” I said. “And as soon as it was over, I panicked and ran off. You’re the one who stayed and made sure the driver was okay.”

Milo gave an uncomfortable shrug. “Yeah, but you had to show me CPR first, and the rest was nothing special. I mean, I couldn’t have done anything else.”

“Sure you could,” I pointed out. “You just didn’t.”

He sighed. “Okay, I get it. You don’t want to be a hero. I’m not trying to be one either. But my point is, if there’s danger involved…” He gave me a sidelong look. “I think the two of us make a pretty good team.”

And with that, I finally understood what Milo was offering. This wasn’t about pity or duty or morbid curiosity; it wasn’t because I’d made some special effort to charm or impress him. He simply liked being around me, and wanted to be friends. A slow warmth spread through me, loosening the knot in my chest. “Together, we fight crime?”

“Something like that.” He nudged my shoulder. “Why do you think I started working out? All that stuff about going into phys ed was just the cover story. Really I wanted to look good in the super-suit.”

I threw my head back and laughed, the first genuine laugh I’d had in days. And despite the worries still skulking at the fringes of my mind, it felt good.

“Okay, Robin,” I said. “Let’s hunt down the Batmobile and go home.”





0 1 0 1 0 0



“I’m home!” I yelled as I came in the door, then stopped as I realized Mom was in the living room, barely three meters from me. She was standing at the front window with Crackers tucked under her arm, watching Milo as he jogged away.

“Who’s that boy, honey?” she asked.

“Milo,” I said. “You know, from work. He lives around here, so we got off the bus together.”

“He’s not bad looking,” she mused. “For an Asian.”

Oh, wow. And she was a pretty nice mom, for a racist. “He’s Korean,” I said wearily, hanging Dad’s coat back on its hook in the closet. “And he’s just good-looking period, okay?” As soon as the words left my mouth I cursed myself. The last thing I needed was my mom thinking I had a crush on Milo Hwang.

“I didn’t mean it like that. You know what I mean, honey—”

“Don’t explain, Mom. It doesn’t help.”

Mom didn’t answer. She was silent so long that I turned—and saw tears in her eyes.

“I know you’re unhappy, Niki,” she said, letting Crackers go as he began to squirm and whine. “I know you think we’re wrong about everything right now. But we’re only trying to keep you safe. And a year isn’t so long to wait, is it?”

Oh, no. I did not want to talk about the makerspace. Not after that depressing incident at the science museum, and with so much else on my mind. And now that Milo was gone, the laughter we’d shared seemed to have happened a thousand years ago and a billion miles away. “I already told you, I get it. It’s fine.” I kicked off my shoes and headed down the corridor to my room.

She followed me. “Sweetheart, please. I don’t want this to come between us.”

I stopped in the doorway, one hand on the frame. “Mom,” I said with all the patience I could muster, “there’s nothing to talk about. Really.”

“I know you,” she persisted. “Do you think I can’t tell when you’re upset? If we just sit down together, I know we can work this out—”

I shut the door in her face.

In the stillness that followed, the only sound was the catch of my mother’s breath. Then the floor creaked, and in a few rapid footsteps she was gone.

I slumped against the wall, pinching the bridge of my nose. Stupid, to think I could hide anything from her. She’d taught me everything I knew about reading people; of course she knew how to read me.

But there was nothing Mom could do to help me right now, and there was no way I could convince her that my being upset wasn’t her fault. Not without telling her about Sebastian and the Vague Text Message of Doom, anyway—but if I did that, she and Dad would panic and move the whole family to Inuvik.

Which meant the only way to solve the problem was to solve the problem, literally. To find the threat to my safety and eliminate it, before it eliminated me.

I only wished I knew how.





0 1 0 1 0 1



That night my parents and I small-talked our way through dinner without anybody bringing up what had happened. But Mom kept giving me pained looks and Dad’s jokes were a little too hearty and in the end, I couldn’t take it anymore and excused myself without even waiting for dessert. I spent the evening in the basement upgrading my Dad’s old PC and was in the process of rebooting when I got a text from Milo.

–Have you seen this? Wonder how long it’s going to stay up…





He’d included a link to a website, so I checked it out. The title read, in too-large orange letters:



DISCOVER THE TRUTH





And below it were a series of links to articles with titles like “9/11 Conspiracy”, “Cell Phone Mind Control”, and “CBC Radio — BEWARE!!!”

I was frowning at the page, wondering if Milo had sent me the wrong address, when I noticed the final link:



MERIDIAN—Canada’s Dark Secret





For one frozen second my brain refused to process what I was seeing. I stared at the screen, the letters blurring and refocusing before my eyes. Then, with dreamlike slowness, I reached out and clicked.



DID YOU KNOW?





For twenty years the people of Ontario have been unaware of the terrifying experiments being performed every day on them and their families. The truth about the top secret laboratory buried deep within the rock of the Canadian Shield and its covert military-political agenda has been hidden by government collusion and corruption at the highest level. Because of the many mysterious deaths and disappearances ignored by the so-called Canadian “justice” system, the military’s deliberate cover-up of incriminating evidence, and our health “care” network’s conspiracy to stigmatize and hospitalize those who know and dare to speak the truth, the average Canadian remains completely unaware of their danger. But now thanks to the testimony of a brave survivor known as S., the facts can and will BE REVEALED!!!





The article continued for several more paragraphs, getting more rambling and disjointed as it went on. The quasi-journalistic style vanished halfway through, replaced by a first-person account of the writer’s abduction and torture at the hands of Meridian scientists. They had implanted a tracking chip in his arm and taken him to a place with locked doors and no windows, where they performed brainwashing and mind-control experiments on him. They had injected him with hallucinogenic drugs, put a helmet on his head that made him feel as though he were floating in space, and sent him to be interrogated by men in grey uniforms who claimed to be visitors from another galaxy…

I shoved back my chair so hard it nearly tipped over. The room spun around me, my stomach churning with it.

But Milo was still texting:

–Sounds pretty crazy. Maybe that’s why they haven’t shut it down.





I didn’t reply. I was too busy taking slow, shuddering breaths, willing the fury inside me to subside.

I knew he hadn’t meant to upset me, much less make me angry. He’d been trying to help, in his own misguided way. But right now, with those words glowing coldly in front of me, I wanted to snatch the phone out of my lap and hurl it through the computer screen. Not just for my sake but for Alison’s too.

But I had to say something to Milo, or he’d start to worry. I gave myself five seconds to mutter all the swear words I could think of, and then I picked up my phone again.

–And you wanted me to see this? Why?





–I thought maybe we should get in touch with this guy. See what else he knows.





–Why would we do that?





There was a long pause. Then Milo replied:

–Because it’s Meridian that’s after you. That’s the danger Sebastian was talking about, right?





That was when I knew I had passed beyond fear and anger into some kind of macabre hysteria. Because the first idea that leaped into my mind after Milo said that was to e-mail the address on the contact page and suggest an article called “How Meridian Reads All Your Text Messages, OMG!!!”

I suspected Milo wasn’t in the mood for black humor, though, and the website owner would probably appreciate it even less. I had to go back to deep breathing for a while before I felt calm enough to reply.

I’m not sure yet, I began, only to erase the words and start over. I was tired of lies and evasions: I’d spent a lifetime pretending, and sometimes I hardly knew what the truth was anymore.

I hope not, I tried again, but that wasn’t right either. So finally, I just gave up and typed:

–Yes.