Fox Forever

  Livvy hesitates but leaves, glad to be on her way home to her family. When she’s gone Jenna goes into the kitchen to check in with Allys and Kayla again and I go my room to—

  I told Jenna I wanted to rest, and I’m lying on my bed so I suppose I am, but really I just needed to be alone. I close my eyes.

  Cats and stairs.

  And then the long convoluted story I told to go with it detracted poison.

  How stupid could I be to think she bought it? She was only waiting for me to come clean. She gave me trust but I couldn’t give it back. How many notches have I slipped on her trust meter? But if I tell her about going into the tunnel, I have to tell her everything. She hasn’t called again, and I hope the Secretary isn’t putting her through another one of those scans. She described them as humiliating, but not as painful. How desperate could the Secretary be to get those numbers? If I had them I would give them to him just to make him stop. My head hurts thinking of all the possibilities—a good old-fashioned headache.

  I try to put Raine out of my mind, concentrating on my hip, my back, my arm, trying to hurry the way Carver wants me to. Only a few days before the bits have to become something big. But every thought about the Favor and trying to figure it out drifts eventually back to Raine. And then, Shane. No doubt he was glad I wasn’t at last night’s meeting. Was he hovering over Raine? Letting his arm slip to her shoulder. Sliding his hand along her back.…

  I sit up. I can’t let myself do this. She asked me last night if my world was her world. I couldn’t give her an answer then and I still can’t. Focus on the goal, Locke. That’s what I came here for. Not to—

  Her expression flashes through my mind again, the way she looked just before she left last night. Retreating. Going back to the old Raine. The protective one. The one who keeps her distance. She didn’t even turn to look at me when she answered my last question.

  Hap told me. I’ve thought about her answer over and over again. How did Hap know? Does he simply have access to the Virtual Collective’s files? Or has he been checking on me? Maybe on the Secretary’s orders? Is he just waiting for the chance to get me alone and finish the job he started on my throat the first time he met me? I get the feeling he has the memory of an elephant.

  I walk out to the nook in the living room where V-files and the old crumbling paper plans are kept. I review them again, trying to see if there’s anything I missed, but I have them nearly memorized now. The one file that is conspicuously absent is Karden’s. No file at all in spite of him being what this is all about. I guess understanding him isn’t as important as finding him, but I have to wonder how someone smart enough to orchestrate such a perfect heist had his plan explode into a full-blown disaster at the end, his wife sent to prison, his baby daughter stolen, and the money lost because of missing bank account numbers. He split up the numbers, which seems like a reasonable precaution with so much at stake, but he claimed he had sent the other half. If he did, what happened to them? Miesha said she had only been gone to the market a short time when she came back to the burning house. How did Security Forces even know Karden was there? I look at the note window that Carver wrote out for me the first night I met him.

  797213672084

  Twelve worthless numbers. Nothing to indicate even which country they might belong to, and there are thousands now. Just like the United States, other countries have split into factions. North and South Italy. Eastern and Western France. And at least a dozen new countries from China alone. Any of these countries would be happy to absorb eighty billion duros, and in a matter of days, they will.

  I find myself back at Raine’s file. The information contained in it is all useless to me now. I know the real Raine. I think I might be the only person who does.

  “Your resting didn’t last long.”

  I look up, startled. Jenna’s been watching me from just a few feet away. Raine’s face looms in the air between us. I quickly close her file. “I’ve rested long enough.”

  She tells me it’s time to change my bandages again, and she reapplies the salve. Her fingers are gentle and she says I’m healing well but she’s still concerned about a few of the deeper gashes. Even bioengineered skin can’t be overstressed too soon. “It will tear open just like regular skin. No excessive movement or lifting for a few days.”

  “And I was just ready to go volunteer down at the docks.”

  She smiles and puts her supplies away. “I can’t stay long, Locke. A week, maybe two at the most. The weather will be turning soon.”

  I look at her, realizing I had nearly forgotten about her first- generation Bio Gel and its limitations, but I’m overwhelmed by the thought of her leaving too. It’s comforting having her close. Someone familiar. More than familiar. She’s a piece of my past—and I had always hoped, my future. When I left California, that’s what I held on to. That one day, after I had lived life the way she asked me to, I’d return. Jenna and I have history together. She’s someone who knows everything about my past, including all of my mistakes, and still cares about me anyway. I get up from behind the desk. “Jenna, I’m sorry. I would never take a chance with your life. You know how much I care about you. I just didn’t think when I—”

  She puts her hands up to stop my apology. “Locke, I’m fine, but I can’t take a chance on getting caught here in a freak early freeze. They still can’t predict these things precisely—the weather can have a mind of its own. And Kayla does need me, but for another week or two I’ll be all right.” Her sky blue eyes fix on mine for a few seconds before she turns and goes into the kitchen, and I feel a strange twist in my gut. It had always been Jenna I loved. It was Jenna I was trying to hurry and live for, to catch up to her three lifetimes.

  I walk to the kitchen doorway and watch her. She rinses a few dishes by hand, out of habit I suppose. Some things from our past we just can’t leave behind. Her hair is still the beautiful silky blond it always was, still seventeen on the outside, even though there are lifetimes hiding on the inside. She’s still the Jenna I always loved.

  I walk up behind her and touch her arm. She turns to look at me. She would never let me kiss her before. Will she now?

  “Jenna…”

  She looks at me, confused. “What is it, Locke?”

  I step closer to her, looking at her face, her eyes, her lips, all the memories of Jenna that I held on to when I was trapped in that hopeless world for so many years. For decades. Every eyelash that I counted to keep from going insane. Her hands, the slant of her nose, the way her hair fell across her shoulders, the glimmer of each blond strand in my imagined sunlight, the sound of her voice, every ripple of laughter I ever remembered played over and over again to mask the screams of Kara. Every memory of Jenna that helped keep me alive.

  “I have to know, Jenna. Once and for all.”

  She exhales a slow deep breath. “Yes, I think you probably do.” She reaches up and touches my cheek, pulling me closer, kissing me. Her lips linger on mine. I feel their softness, her tenderness, her warmth.

  Slowly, I pull my lips away from hers.

  Jenna.

  But the reality isn’t the same as the dream. It’s different now. She’s not the same girl I knew. I hear her words again … None of us are who we once were. How is it that she knew this all along, but I didn’t? I do love her, but not in the way I thought I did. Not in the way I had always imagined. Our lives race past me. All the times before. All the times with Kara when we were three. We held hands. We crossed a line. We made one another braver. All the things that Jenna meant to me at a certain time in my life.

  I search her face, not knowing what to say. “I—”

  “I know. I love you too, Locke. There’s a bond between us that won’t ever be broken. But I don’t love you in the same way I loved Ethan.” She squeezes my hand. “And you don’t love me in the same way that you love Raine.”

  I close my eyes. Hearing her say it out loud unhinges something inside of me I had locked away. I was afraid to even think it o
r believe it, much less say it. I have nothing to offer Raine. No life. Not even—

  I blink, not sure I can even say it now. “Raine’s not like me. She’s different.”

  Jenna shakes her head, biting the corner of her lip. She knows exactly what I’m talking about. “There’s nothing wrong with different, Locke. Get over your BioPerfect. Get over the technology. Get over it. Focus on what you have. She’s like you in the ways that matter.”

  I see Raine’s eyes, glistening, looking into mine, wondering if my world could be her world. I remember the ache of wanting it to be so but saying nothing, hurting her, pushing her away with my silence.

  The way I love Raine.

  I need to tell her.

  True Character

  Wispy clouds cross the moon, thick cottony threads trying to become more, a new season trying to make its way into Boston. How many times did I ignore these subtle clues when I lived here before?

  Raine is like me in the ways that matter. I learned that detail by detail, night after night, hour after hour, as one conversation rolled into the next, as time got away from us because we always had more to say. The devil isn’t in the details. Raine is. She’s every detail that inhabits my waking hours, and my sleeping hours too. Every step, thought, and breath of my day leads back to her.

  As I pass the park, it’s quiet. Whatever Security Forces crawled through it yesterday are gone now, and any evidence they found was packed up with them. How much of my BioPerfect did they scrape up from the ground in the park? How much did I leave behind, dripped in a blue trail through the tunnels?

  I’m making it, step by step, block by block, standing straight, not hunched, counting my breaths until I see Raine. My hair is perfectly tousled over my eye to cover a cut that the paint wouldn’t, my clothing loose and baggy to cover bandages, no excuse in mind yet for the gashes on my lip and cheekbone that still show. But none of that really matters to me now as much as seeing Raine and telling her the things I should have said before.

  I’m early. A full forty minutes early. If the Secretary wants to haul me off to his office for another impromptu grilling session, I want to make sure there’s still time to talk alone with Raine before the others come.

  This time when I step out of the elevator, I’m greeted by Raine.

  She looks at my face and then down at my hands, registering how much I’ve healed in just one day. I see the distance in her eyes. She wants to ask about my rapid recovery but then that would mean she cares. She’s still angry. “Why are you here so early?” she asks instead. “I haven’t even—”

  I kiss her. She hesitates for only a second. “Someone might see—” but then her fingers are sliding along my chest, wrapping around my neck, sliding behind my head, through my hair, pulling me close. My hands gently cup her face, Raine, pulling her closer, sorry that I ever pushed her away, but finally that’s what I have to do again, and I pull back. She takes a deep breath, her cheeks flushed.

  “Raine, I have to talk to you. About last night. Is there somewhere we—”

  “Not now. I have to get ready first. If my father sees me like this when everyone arrives, I’m not sure what will happen.”

  Her hair is loose, falling across her shoulders. She wears a thin loose-fitting white shirt with the sleeves rolled up and smudged pants like she just came from her rooftop garden.

  “Give me twenty minutes,” she says. “I have to shower and change.” She walks away and then turns, looking at me sternly. “We won’t have long. Make sure you have something to say this time.”

  I nod. Maybe I’ve only slipped to an eight on the trust meter.

  She disappears down the hallway and I step into the living room to wait. It’s less painful to stand than to ease myself in and out of chairs so I walk around the room, examining the artifacts the Secretary has collected. Maybe as I wait I’ll come across one of those bits that Carver has instructed me to find fast, but it mostly looks like expensive things a designer has collected for him. Items are artfully arranged on shelves and in nooks, a Chinese vase, silver filigreed masks, an antique tortoiseshell letter opener, things with no personal connection other than being suited to his tastes like the antique sword hanging behind his desk.

  In the far corner, on a shelf almost out of view, I find three beautiful leather-bound volumes that look like antiques too, but when I pull them out I see they’re photo albums, not casual snapshots but professional photos taken for special occasions. Something personal at last. The first album has pictures of Raine as a toddler. The first photo is one of Raine dressed in a matching red dress and hat, held in the arms of a woman with auburn hair and a beaming smile. Raine’s other mother. I turn the pages, one after another, some with Raine alone, many with her mother, but only one with the Secretary present. He never did know what to do with me. And yet, he saves these pictures.

  I look at the next album, Raine as an older child, five, six, seven … always smiling with her mother. At least she had that much, an adoptive mother who cared about her. Was this woman really unaware of how the Secretary obtained Raine, or was she so desperate for a child that she didn’t care? And finally the last album, beginning at about age twelve, only a quarter filled, probably because her mother died. The last picture is of the whole family, her mother, gaunt with a weak smile, Raine with a brave one, and the Secretary not looking directly at the camera but instead gazing somberly down at his wife and Raine. Worry or burden? Was he already wondering what to do with Raine once his wife was gone? Keep her or give her away?

  “The Secretary doesn’t like those to be viewed.”

  I glance over my shoulder to see Hap setting a tray of tea on a table. I flip another page. “Then why does he keep them?”

  “I don’t know,” he says. “But before he returns home, I would advise you to put them back where you found them.”

  I turn around. “The Secretary isn’t here?”

  “There was a security breach two nights ago. His duties have required additional attention. But he’s due back later this evening.” A security breach? Just at the same time I went down into the tunnels? Since when did his duties include securing supposedly abandoned tunnels? This only confirms that the tunnels are home to more than half-dogs.

  I place the albums back to where I found them. “Thanks for the tip.” If there was ever a time I needed to butter up nugget-head this is it. “And thanks for the tea too. I don’t need anything else. You can go.”

  He doesn’t move.

  “I won’t touch any more albums if you’re worried,” I add.

  “I’m not worried. For an Eater and Breather, you appear to be a fast learner.”

  Eater and Breather?

  Besides Dot, I’ve never heard another Bot use that term. Dot used it in a soft, endearing way. Hap uses it with utter contempt. I know Raine is his priority, even above the Secretary. Is that what this is all about? He resents me and the way I’ve wormed my way into her life? He must have been aware of every single night she went down the rope ladder to be with me. He used to be her lone confidante. Now she has another.

  I take a step closer to him. “I’m not trying to replace you, Hap.”

  “And that would be quite impossible, considering your abundant limitations.”

  I grin. “I’ll remember that.”

  For the first time I see the expression on his nugget-head change, his eyes narrowing like a cat that’s come to an understanding with a mouse, the closest thing I’ve seen to satisfaction on his face. He nods.

  “Dorian has the night off,” he says. “So I’ll excuse myself now to finish preparing tonight’s refreshments.”

  As soon as he leaves, I waste no time heading down to the lower level. How long do I have before Raine returns? Ten minutes? Fifteen?

  * * *

  The Secretary’s office is in disarray, as though he left in a rush. Drawers and files are open. A half-finished drink still sits on his desk. His haste could be my gold mine. I race through the open files first, but
there are only four memos that all seem to be standard bureaucratic transmittals. Trying to open up something else could be tricky, perhaps sending the whole system crashing, or setting off alarms if I touch the wrong file. Instead, I look through the drawers. Paper trails are rare these days, paper itself seldom used except for certain types of documents, and the only paper I find of consequence is a small handwritten note on a torn scrap of paper, yellow and brittle with age, that shows an address:

  1407 Bridgemont, Cambridge

  I compare it to notes on the Secretary’s desk where he jotted down some random tasks, including an appointment at 7:00 with LeGru. The handwriting doesn’t match. He didn’t write this note. I commit it to memory and put it back just as I found it, tucked in a corner of a lower drawer. I return to the files. I’ll have to take a chance and hope I don’t freeze or crash the whole system as I try to open additional files. My finger hovers over three possible folders identified with icons, no names. I briefly close my eyes. Concentrate, Locke, which one? I open my eyes and touch the one with a red triangle and hold my breath. A hundred subfolders spring into the air in front of me. A hundred. My eyes scan across them, bare titles that give little clue as to what’s inside. There isn’t time to hunt and peck. I zip my finger across the whole first row. A hundred more files fly into the air, the room a virtual littered mess of folders and files.

  Time ticks wildly in my head. Seconds count. I scan as fast as I can and I’m almost to the end of the bottom row when I spot something. Blueprints for a lighting grid. I press it and a dozen more files open. Immediately I recognize the Old Library Building, but then something far more interesting—

  “What are you doing?”

  I look up. Raine is in the doorway.

  What can I possibly say? I’m lost? Curious? I just stand there and she steps closer, her expression incredulous. “What are you doing?” she repeats.