“So, what can you tell us?” said Klimt.
I ran through what had happened at the store, about the competition and the prize it offered, the dead moth skewered to the door frame by a paper clip, how there was definitely someone upstairs.
“Alexander?” Klimt repeated when I mentioned the name. He was standing at the head of the table, studying the comic AJ had given me. “You’re quite sure that is the name he gave?”
“Yes,” I said a little hesitantly. Was it me or had Klimt’s interest sharpened? “It was weird the way he said it, like he was testing me to see if I recognized it.”
The agents exchanged uninterested shrugs, but Klimt, I noticed, had dipped his gaze into the middle distance. That artificial brain of his was definitely whirring.
“Arrogance,” Mulrooney suggested. “People on power trips expect you to acknowledge every last thing about them. Anything else?”
I bit a fingernail, a habit Mom had tried hard to make me break. “It sounded like more than one person was up there, as if there were … toys running around or something.”
“Jouets?” Chantelle said scathingly.
“I heard small feet on the stairs. Oh, and the radio came on — but only after AJ mentioned it.”
Mulrooney tapped the table. “We need to get in there,” he said to Klimt. “We ought to get a look at this Alexander guy.”
“How?” I said. “He’s kept both of you away from the store already.”
Mulrooney shrugged. “Yeah, but there are ways we can —”
“I agree,” Klimt interjected. “We need to know more. But a forced entry would not be wise. Michael is still our best mode of contact.”
I had a feeling he was going to say that.
He paused as if an alarm had sounded, then opened his jacket and removed a small vial of blue-colored fluid from an inner pocket. I’d seen him sipping this stuff in the back of one of their limousines. It had a methylated smell and flowed with the same consistency as mercury. Viscous, Mr. Boland, my chemistry teacher, would call it. A viscous blue fluid. I had no idea why Klimt was drinking it, and it didn’t seem appropriate to ask. For all I knew, he was having a robot tea break, though the fluid didn’t look like a source of refreshment. He drank the whole vial and put it back. Chantelle and Mulrooney paid it no heed.
Klimt continued, “The intervention by Michael’s teacher was fortunate. It provided a genuine means of withdrawal at a moment when Michael was coming under threat. The threatening behavior, however, and the fact that Michael was not evicted from the store or prevented from entering suggests AJ is aware that Michael has a strong connection to Freya.”
“How?” I cut in. I’d been thinking about this. “Freya’s clever. She changes so fast, people don’t really see it. How did AJ … Alexander, whoever, even come up with the Crow Girl stuff?”
“That is an interesting point,” Klimt agreed, “but one we must put aside for now. AJ will be annoyed that you escaped and will try to engage you again, no doubt. I suggest we make it easy for him.”
“What are you thinking?” said Mulrooney.
“We give Michael back.”
“What?” Had I heard that right? Klimt was planning to send me back.
“There is no reason you should not return voluntarily to the store.”
“Why?” That was crazy. “Why would I do that?”
He tapped the comic. “I want you to enter the competition.”
“But I told AJ I wasn’t interested.”
“Then you will have a change of heart. It is simply a means to an end, Michael.”
Yes, my end, thank you very much.
“Why don’t we just pull them in?” said Mulrooney. “Save ourselves a lot of hassle. These guys are powerful. We don’t know what they’re capable of. Dangerous assignment for a kid, Klimt.”
“If we bring them in, we learn nothing,” he replied. “I believe the director will be particularly keen to explore the … parameters of this case. I hope you are feeling creative, Michael.”
No, I was feeling scared. This was going from weird to weirder. “You expect me to write a Crow Girl story?”
“I could do it,” Mulrooney said, shrugging. “I learned some pretty good yarns in my time in the Marines.”
“No,” said Klimt. “The story must come from Michael. He has to know it well, in case he is questioned about it at the store.”
“And who will illustrate this tale?” said Chantelle.
“Someone with a talent for drawing,” Klimt said. “Preeve claims she will be stable by tomorrow morning.”
“You mean Freya?” I gasped.
He seemed surprised by my reaction. “Can you think of anyone better?” He slid the entry form across the table. “It says nothing about collaborations, Michael — even with an undead girlfriend.”
“Holy cow.” Mulrooney whistled. “That’s kinda radical.”
“C’est ridicule,” Chantelle said with a snort.
For once, I was with her all the way.
Me, write a comic book story with Freya?
It was more than ridiculous. It was plain nuts.
Despite my protests, Klimt would not be swayed. Immediately after the briefing, he took me deeper into the facility, to the lower levels of the craft and to Preeve’s laboratory, though it was more an engineering workshop than a place of bubbling flasks. Everywhere I looked, there were pieces of equipment fed by electrodes or curly wires. They had transferred Freya here, holding her in a transparent cube that floated three feet off the floor, suspended by Mleptran gravity filters, Preeve said. He was quick to inform me that the cube could be imploded by a sequence of buttons on a console he alone controlled, an action that would suck the entire contents into what he called a “structured” black hole — from which, of course, there could be no escape. I guessed this was a warning for me, in case I went for his neck again.
Freya was kneeling with her back to us, dressed in a plain white sleeveless robe. Her feet were bare, no sign of claws. Gone were the feathers that had lined her arms. Her crazy black hair was as tangled as ever, sitting on her shoulders like a nest of brambles. I felt so sorry for her. Despite her threats on the cliff, she didn’t deserve to be caged like this.
“How is she breathing?” I asked. The cube was filled with mauve-colored gas. As far as I could tell, there were no air holes in the walls.
Preeve said to Klimt, “How much does he know about Mleptran technology?”
“Enough to know it has kept the girl functioning.”
And that was as much as he was going to tell me.
“Can I speak to her?”
Preeve allowed himself a dubious smile. “She’s not exactly what you’d want in a dinner guest.” He tapped a button on his console to activate a speaker. “You have visitors.”
Freya didn’t move.
“Turn it,” said Klimt.
Preeve hit another button. The cube rotated one hundred and eighty degrees. Freya, head down, clutched at her knees. Her pale white arms were red with scratches. She was noticeably shivering.
I stepped forward and touched the side of the cube. It felt smooth, like a newly varnished pebble. The gas darkened at the point of contact as if it recognized that someone was trying to communicate. “Freya,” I whispered.
No response.
“She’s cold,” I said to Preeve.
He peered over his glasses at a data stream on a nearby monitor. “No, her environmental status is excellent. Her physical signs are good.”
“Then she’s frightened. Does she have to be stuffed in there?”
I looked at them both. Neither gave an answer.
“I want to be alone with her,” I said to Klimt.
That brought a grunt of contempt from Preeve. He took off his glasses and polished them on a corner of his lab coat. “If you think I’m leaving you alone with this equip —”
“Michael is right,” Klimt said.
Preeve did a double take. He fumbled the glasses back o
n and pushed a hand through his wavy hair, wrecking his near-impeccable parting. “I’ll remind you this is my laboratory. You have no authority on this level, Klimt.”
“Then I must either immobilize you,” said Klimt, “or place you in a closet for the duration of Michael’s dialogue. Ten minutes,” he said to me. “You know what you have to do.”
He turned toward Preeve. The scientist jumped like a frightened rabbit, dislodging one arm of his spectacles. “The director will hear about this,” he hissed. And he scuttled out, with Klimt in close attendance.
I turned to the cube. “Freya. You heard them. I don’t have long. Talk to me. Please. I can’t help you unless you speak.”
Slowly, her head came up. Her face was gray, like a limp wet rag, so gaunt you could have hung a hat off her bones. “Hey, boyfriend,” she said. Her voice echoed out of a speaker somewhere, not quite in sync with her mouth.
“Hey,” I said shakily. I could hardly bear to look into her sad brown eyes.
“You look well.”
I swallowed hard. “Thanks.”
“Wanna grab a soda and take a walk along the cliffs? We could catch a movie after if you like? What do you say, Michael? Still making paper chains for me? Still writing my name on your beating heart? Still wanna hold my hand?” She extended her hand like a ballerina — then let it drop.
“I never meant for this to happen, I swear.”
“But it has,” she said, her voice cracking. She guided her hair behind her ears. “Look at me. Goth and then some — ’cept I can’t seem to spread my wings anymore. I’m not the crow girl you thought I was.”
“They’re curing you, Freya.”
She lowered her head, shaking it like a slow-moving pendulum. “No, Michael. There is no cure. They’re poking me and prodding me and taking what they need. And when they’re done, they’ll wrap me in a bag and drop me in the trash and no one will ever know. I’m nothing but a rat in Science Geek’s maze.”
“No. I’m gonna get you out.”
“And do what? Invite me home for tea again? I’m dead, Michael. Dead to your mom and my dad and school. Dead to the flowers and the fishes in the sea. Dead to the beautiful world we knew. My name’s on a cross. I can’t go back. I’m nothing now. You can’t even call me human. I’m like a moth flying hopelessly around a light.”
“No. I can save you. I can put this right. They’re going to train me to control my reality shifts. When I perfect it, I promise I’ll make things better than they were.”
“Oh, sweet. Make me taller next time, will you? And make me sing like soft falling rain. And hey” — she flipped a hand — “I’ve always wanted to walk and talk and sleep with the animals. That would be so cool, wouldn’t it?”
“I mean it, Freya.”
“No, Michael, you don’t. They’ll train you to do the things they want, which won’t include a happily-ever-after for me. I’m dead. Accept it. Let me go.”
She swung her head sideways, looking distressed. The data stream went crazy for a moment, spewing out line after line of numbers. I heard a dull beep and saw a puff of green gas mix in with the mauve. As soon as Freya breathed it, she calmed again.
I pulled the comic book out of my pocket and pressed the cover flat to the tank.
She stared at the artwork for two or three seconds. It was hard to tell if she was spooked or fascinated. “You can draw. Whoopee. You got my hair wrong.”
“Not me. Someone else did this.”
Her gaze flicked up to meet mine. “Who? I was careful, even in the garden center. You’re the only one who ever saw me with wings.”
So I told her about the competition and everything that had happened at The Fourth Enchantment. “There’s a lot of weird stuff going on right now, especially with crows. This Alexander guy has tapped into you somehow.”
She stared at the drawing again. “That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard.”
Well, thanks a bunch. That was me, done with the Good Samaritan angle. “All right, stay here and un-die all you want to!” I threw the comic at her. It fluttered to the floor like a stunned bird. “Sit and shiver in your stupid cube! I tried to help you. I tried to make it better. Remember that, next time you’re flying around a light!”
I headed for the door.
“Wow,” she said quietly.
The softness of her voice pulled me up mid-stride.
“And I thought I was the feisty one.”
I dropped my shoulders.
“All right,” she called before I could walk. “What do you want me to do?”
I paused and filled my lungs with air. “Klimt wants us to enter the competition.”
“Us?”
“I write, you draw.”
“Then what?”
“Don’t know.”
“You trust him?”
“Some. I don’t have much choice.”
“Got a story?”
“Not yet.”
She paused to think.
“Okay, I agree — on two conditions.”
I turned to face her. “Klimt won’t let me make deals with —”
“Two conditions.”
I counted to myself, calmly. “All right. Say it.”
“I write the story as well as draw it. You’ve no idea what it’s like to be a crow.”
That was fair. I nodded. “What’s the second condition?”
“I want to be like you, a UNICORNE agent.”
“What?”
“Can’t help you if I’m trapped in a cube.”
“You mean …?”
Oh, my sweating armpits, she did. I could see it in her eyes.
“That’s right,” she said. “I do nothing unless Science Geek lets me out. That’s my price for helping you: freedom.”
In the operations room, we talked about it. First suggestion: a foreign exchange student. That was Chantelle’s idea for Freya. If we were going to release her back into the world, she would need a plausible identity and a convincing disguise. Both would be easy enough to arrange.
Not for one member of the team. “Excuse me? Ex-cuse me? Have we just landed on Planet Preposterous?!” Preeve was pacing the room, flinging his arms like a white-coated orangutan. He smoothed his hair into place. It immediately flicked right out again. “We can’t let her loose on the street! These demands are ludicrous, Klimt. The girl is holding us for ransom. Why are you even considering this?”
“Because the logic is sound,” the android replied. “Freya is the key to this file. A file that cannot be resolved while she remains imprisoned.”
“But we can’t contain her outside,” Preeve blathered. “She’s a ticking bomb. She could blow at any moment.”
“Then you must see to it that she does not.”
“This is madness,” Preeve burbled to anyone who would listen. “Even if the girl can be readied for release, I would need to run more tests. I need more time to be sure we can control her.”
“Pains me to say it,” Mulrooney spoke up, “but I’m on Preeve’s side for once. It’s bad enough throwing Michael back into the mix, but the girl just ramps up the danger. I’m also with him on the issue of time. Chantelle’s idea is interesting, but Michael would need to prime his mother. We can’t just send him home with the girl.”
“What?!” I gasped. “She’s coming to MY HOUSE?”
“That is what exchange students do,” said Chantelle. “Once released, she will need somewhere to stay. Would you rather she built a nest on the cliffs?”
Klimt turned to her and said, “Can you glamour Michael’s mother and sister into accepting Freya right away — as a visiting relative, perhaps?”
I sat up straighter than a troupe of meerkats. “No! You’re not gonna mess with Mom or Josie.”
“I’m not hearing this,” Preeve sang in the background. “La-la-la-la-la!”
“No,” Chantelle said in answer to Klimt. “The child would be easy to turn, but the mother is likely to become confused. She would soon begin to resist th
e effect. It is better that Michael simply persuades her to take part in an exchange scheme.”
“Won’t work,” I said. Everyone looked at me. “Exchange visits happen in the summer, not during school terms. Mom would know right away I was up to something. Anyway, there would have been letters from school. Stuff to sign. It’s a terrible idea.”
“I might have a better one,” Mulrooney said. He dropped his hand to the table, rolling a pencil back and forth under his fingertips. “You say the sister would be easy to manipulate?”
Chantelle nodded.
“Then how about a sleepover?”
“A sleepover? With a girl?!” I squeaked. “I can’t have Freya in my BEDROOM! Mom would go nuts.”
“Pour l’amour de Dieu,” Chantelle tutted. “He means with Josie, idiot.”
Mulrooney nodded. “I suggest we let Chantelle glamour Josie into thinking that Freya is her BFF, then have Josie invite Freya to the house. That way, Freya gets a taste of freedom, and Michael has a chance to read the story before we send them to the comic store.”
“What do we do with Freya in the daytime?” said Chantelle. “It would be dangerous to let her roam around freely, even under supervision.”
“You forget, she is our captive,” Klimt replied. “We do not have to submit to all her demands. We will keep her in the complex during the day so that Preeve can monitor her.”
“Huh,” Preeve grunted from down the room.
“Sounds good,” said Mulrooney, rocking back in his chair. “A night at Michael’s house can be her reward for toeing the line, plus it’s a good opportunity to test her disguise — that might be important at the comic store, too. How easily can you get to Josie?”
Chantelle lifted one shoulder. “There is no reason Ms. Perdot, the popular substitute French teacher, should not pay a visit to the school. There is also the question of how we deliver Freya to Josie, but that should be easy. I can drop Freya into the crowd as the children are leaving school, having already planted a suggestion in Josie’s mind to make sure she recognizes her new friend.”