I stood by the window, sipping the weak brew, eyeing my car parked as close to the entrance as I could manage. It had spent the night bathed in bright yellow light. I’d fastened a small piece of tape across the hood to warn me if anyone had popped it; I’d make sure to check the underside before I got in. Paranoid, right?
“. . . no cause for concern. Russian officials say they’re looking into the unexplained deaths. In other news, last week’s implosion in Chicago that left one person dead has the victim’s family talking.”
There it was, playing out in full color, my shoot from the week before. I hadn’t actually seen it on film yet, and the beautiful crumpling of brick and cement to a tsunami of powder took my breath away, even though at the same instant, it made my skin pop out in goosebumps. As those stones were raining down, they were falling on Jane Hamilton.
“. . . possible irregularities during the demolition. The owner, Dana Carlson, could not be reached for comment.”
They hadn’t even tried to reach me, and there had been no mention of the other owner. How had Halim managed that?
Halim answered on the second ring. “I heard,” he said grimly. “There’s been a leak.”
“What does that mean? Who talked?” I paced the small space. A family came in, chattering, and I moved to the lobby.
“One of the crew, most likely. They haven’t been paid.”
“I told Ahmed to pay them out of the Burnside funds.”
“That account was empty.”
Because Halim had been only too eager to bail his brother out with money we didn’t have. No wonder the crew was angry. I was angry, too. “So they went after me?”
“It’s as much about me as it is about you, Dana. I was the one who let you wire without a permit. Look. We’ll tell the authorities I was training you but that you didn’t place any of the charges yourself.”
A lie. Halim had been there, working alongside me, monitoring everything I did. But I had snipped the det cord. I had stuffed the charge in the crevice that I had drilled. I had placed the charges. And in the end, I was the one who set them on fire.
“Dana?”
“I’m thinking.”
Did I trust him? Was this some ploy the machinations of which I couldn’t understand, or was he genuinely trying to protect me?
“Well, think about this. You don’t want to end up in jail, do you? That’s where they’ll send us if we don’t agree that I was the one who handled everything.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t be talking on a cell line,” I said tartly.
“You need to come back. I understand this is a difficult time for you personally, but you’ve been gone long enough.” When I didn’t say anything, he said, sharply, “Dana?”
“I heard you,” I said.
But I didn’t say I was going to listen.
Wheat fields ran alongside the highway, sprawling all the way to spiky pines in the distance. A semi roared around me, its cargo filled with chickens whose feathery little heads peeked out between the frets of their cages.
Moorhead sat on the Minnesota side of the Red River, crouched in the low shadow of its larger sister city, Fargo. The university dominated the northern part of town, a series of bland buildings following the curve of the river. The School of Public Health was one square structure among many. A student directed me to the top floor.
Fluorescent lighting turned the corridors white. A bitter metallic odor stung the air. Every door had an index card slotted into a metal frame beside it. I stopped in front of one and knocked.
“Come in.”
The two scientists stood in front of a whiteboard scrawled with notations. Dennis Hoffmeyer smiled when he saw me. “Hey,” he said. “Join us.”
“I hope you don’t mind my dropping by.”
“Not at all.”
Bill Neuberger pulled out a chair, a rickety thing on wheels. “Careful. Don’t lean back.”
“Coffee?” Dennis said.
“No, thanks.” I couldn’t sit. I didn’t want coffee. “You said today you might have some answers.”
The men glanced at each other. “We were just talking about that,” Bill said. “You were right about it being nano zinc.”
“We can’t figure out how it’s getting aerosolized,” Dennis said. “It could be during the manufacturing process when the zinc’s added to the sunscreen slurry, but that’s just a guess. We don’t know much about the behavior of nano-sized particles.”
“I’d be surprised if it’s a mechanical process,” Bill told him, and Dennis shrugged. Evidently this was the debate I’d interrupted.
It didn’t matter how the zinc had gotten there. It only mattered that it had. “What about the water samples you took?”
“Looks like it’s in both the lake and groundwater.”
“So the water’s not safe.” Everyone in town had been exposed— moms mixing baby formula, kids brushing their teeth, old folks washing their hands. Everyone in Black Bear needed to stop turning on their faucets and switch to bottled water. Forget about fishing, swimming, and watering their gardens. But how did you stop breathing the air? “What about the soil?”
“Yeah, it’s there, too, but in much lower concentrations.” Dennis glanced at Bill. “You know, it’d be interesting to chart the dispersion. I’ll assign some grad students to this full-time.”
Interesting? I stared at him. He couldn’t be serious. This wasn’t interesting. This was terrifying.
“We should coordinate our efforts,” Bill told him. “I’d like to set up air-sampling monitors downwind of the plant. What’s your timing look like?”
“The important thing,” I interrupted, “is that you both know there’s too much. You know it’s dangerous.”
“Well, that’s the thing.” Dennis looked at me earnestly, the light winking off his gold-rimmed glasses. “We don’t really know. Nanotechnology’s too new. We haven’t established threshold parameters. We don’t know what amount’s safe.”
“Nanotechnology’s been around for years.” I was confused. “How can you not know what’s safe and what isn’t?”
“It’s only recently that it’s been applied to consumer products on such a large scale. Science has had a hard time staying on top of it.”
“But people in Black Bear are sick.”
“I understand these are your friends and neighbors.” Bill stood tall and authoritative in his button-down shirt with the cuffs rolled up, his beard neatly trimmed. He had the air of a man used to speaking in front of large groups, a little bit of a politician, and I instinctively mistrusted him. “But even though we’ve found a high incidence of nanoscale zinc, we can’t be certain that it’s causing any ill health effect. After all, the incident rate is still within accepted normal parameters.”
“The good news is that nano zinc doesn’t penetrate the skin,” Dennis added, boyishly eager. “The Chinese study you found injected the mice with nanomaterials. You see the difference?”
I wasn’t an idiot and I couldn’t be charmed by his enthusiasm. “It can still enter the body through cuts and scratches. It’s not as if people wash their hands after putting on sunscreen.”
“We still don’t know at what level, if any, it causes problems,” Bill pointed out.
They both sounded so calm. “I don’t get it! I thought you were worried about this. I thought that’s why you dropped everything and rushed to Black Bear.”
“You misunderstand,” Bill said. “We are worried. After all, this is how health threats get discovered. A nurse in Texas was the one who sounded the alarm about the increased rate of anencephaly. And it was a mother in Massachusetts who found out the water supply in her town was giving people leukemia.” He saw the horrified expression on my face, and hurriedly patted the air. “I’m not saying that’s the level of crisis we have here. But we have to be methodical. We can’t just draw hasty conclusions.”
“You’ll at least shut down the plant until you do know.”
“No.” He shook his head.
“We can’t.”
He couldn’t mean that. He didn’t mean that. “I guess that’s the FDA’s job,” I said slowly, feeling my way. But neither man nodded in affirmation. My heart started to pound, and I suddenly regretted my earlier decision not to sit. “But you can recall the sunscreen, right?”
“It’s far too early to take those measures. Our findings aren’t actionable.”
“But you’ve found something that doesn’t belong there! Why isn’t that enough to stop production?”
“There’s been no violation. The plant is operating within EPA protocols.”
“Then change the protocols.”
“That takes time. And studies like this one.”
“We’re at a very exciting point in time,” Dennis told me. “We’re mining new terrain. It’s studies like this one that will reveal the true health risks inherent in nanotechnology.”
“There’s nothing the EPA can do as a regulatory agency,” Bill said. “It’s not like Homeland Security. We have no authority to act.”
“So you’re not going to do anything?” I said, incredulous.
“We are doing something,” Bill replied stiffly. “We’re going to go back and collect more samples.”
I didn’t want to hear about samples anymore. And he could cut out that patronizing tone of his. “Don’t you understand? My sister died from this.” How could they just stand there and do nothing?
Bill flushed. “Look, we can’t just shut businesses down. We can’t just pull products from the shelves.”
“Then tell me who can,” I demanded. “Tell me where I’m supposed to go. Tell me who I’m supposed to talk to.”
Bill crossed his arms. Dennis stared at the papers on his desk.
“Right,” I said with disgust. “You’re the people I’m supposed to turn to.”
Someone called out in the hall; someone else answered. But in here, there was only silence.
“Let me guess,” I said, between clenched teeth. “When you go to collect these samples, you’ll be wearing full protective gear.”
Dennis looked uneasy.
“Respirators?” I shot at him. “Gloves? A hazmat suit? You say you’re waiting for the government to decide whether or not this stuff is dangerous, but you already know.”
“Wearing gear is standard,” Bill said.
“Sure,” I snapped. “Explain that to the people in the plant. You’ll know who they are. They’re the ones in hairnets and latex gloves.”
Like Peyton.
I had to get back to Black Bear.
FORTY-SIX
[PEYTON]
SQUIDS ARE LIKE TORPEDOES WITH LEGS AND EYES. Their tentacles are covered with toothy suckers, and they have a sharp beak for a mouth. The smallest squid is an inch long, the colossal squid over forty feet. No one’s actually ever seen a colossal squid alive; we’ve only found a few carcasses washed up on shore. Scientists guess they must be the legendary sea monsters that terrified fishermen by leaping out of the water in front of their boats and causing them to capsize.
Squids eat their own kind. They eat anything, period. They change their color to match their surroundings and hang motionless in the water, waiting for their next meal to swim by. If they’re threatened, they release a blinding cloud of dark or bioluminescent liquid and escape as it disperses.
Their hunting grounds are the vastest on earth, far larger than all the plains, jungles, and mountains combined. Their brains are enormous and their eyes the most highly developed of all living creatures. Which is strange. Of all the animals in the world, why would one that lives in complete darkness have the best eyesight of all? It makes you think that maybe they’re seeing things we don’t even know are there.
Eric wasn’t waiting for her on the sidewalk, so Peyton texted him. No answer. Maybe he’d slept in or was sick. Leaning against a tree, she watched Mr. Stahlberg drag the trash out to the curb. He waved to her and she waved back. Her dad had forgotten to take out the trash last night, probably wouldn’t remember this morning. He’d been quiet, just grunting hello instead of asking her how her day looked.
She walked around to the back of their house, grabbed the handle of the big black can, and rolled it out to the curb.
She texted Eric again.
Still no reply. Even if he’d had his phone confiscated, he’d have found another way to let her know he couldn’t walk to school. After waiting another ten minutes, which made it totally too late to walk, she took her mother’s car and drove.
She found him by his locker, working the combination. He didn’t even look up.
“Where were you? I thought you were sick or something.”
“My mom gave me a ride.”
“Your mom never gives you a ride.”
“She did today.”
“How come you didn’t text me back last night? What happened at Brenna’s party that was so interesting?”
“Nothing.”
“Why are you being this way?”
He banged open his locker. “I’m not being any way.”
“Right.”
“Look, I got into a big fight with my folks last night.” He pulled books from his backpack and shoved them inside his locker.
“Okay.”
“Not okay. It was about you. They don’t want us hanging out anymore.”
That was impossible. The Hofseths were like her family. Eric’s parents loved her. “Be real.”
“I am being real. Dad’s really pissed about what Dana did.”
She stared at him, but Eric refused to meet her gaze. “I can’t help what Dana did. I didn’t even know about it!”
“I told him that. I even told him your dad kicked her out. He still took away my cellphone. We have to cool it for a while.”
“For how long?”
“I don’t know.”
So Mr. Hofseth hadn’t been upset about the mail. He’d been blowing her off. She felt like an idiot, gabbing at him when he only wanted her to shut up and go away. “It’s all right,” she told Eric. “Dana’s moved out. She’s gone.”
“Yeah.” Eric still wasn’t looking at her. He was doing everything but look at her, staring into his locker like there was something really interesting inside.
“What?” she said.
“Nothing.”
She pushed herself between him and his locker, so close she could smell his toothpaste, see the wrinkle in the floppy collar of his shirt, feel the heat coming off his body. “Tell me,” she insisted.
He stepped back. Another beat of alarm pulsed through her.
He glanced at the kids milling around. “It’s not just Dana he’s freaked about.”
She was confused. “I didn’t do anything.”
“I know.” He looked miserable, guilty, angry, all at the same time.
Then she got it, suddenly. An icy wash of betrayal. “Eric!” she hissed.
“I had to tell him. My mom saw your dad at the liquor store.”
“You weren’t supposed to tell anyone!”
“It wasn’t my fault.”
“You are such a loser.”
He frowned, slammed his locker. She’d never seen that cold expression on his face. And she didn’t care, she was so furious.
“Eric!” Brenna called, hooking her arm through his, acting like she didn’t even see Peyton standing there. Acting like she couldn’t even tell they were in the middle of a big fight. “You ready?” She pulled him away, Eric not resisting even one little bit. Maybe it wasn’t the guy from bio Brenna had been really interested in.
The thought nailed Peyton right in the heart.
The bell rang and the hall emptied, lockers banging and doors closing, until Peyton was the only one there.
People weren’t all that different from squid. People ate their own kind, too.
FORTY-SEVEN
[DANA]
JULIE SET THE SLEEPING BABY IN MY ARMS, AND tucked the blanket around the small form, cocooning the infant in sunshine yellow. She looks just like you
did when you were a baby.
I’m not keeping her.
Dana. Chiding. You don’t mean that.
Yes, I do.
You’re just overwhelmed. That’s normal. You’ll feel better after you get some sleep.
Don’t tell me how I’ll feel. She’s just going to mess everything up.
You won’t be alone. I’ll help you every step of the way. You know I will.
Don’t. I’ve already made up my mind.
Time gathered itself like whorls of yarn along a silver knitting needle.
Maybe I could take her, Julie said at last, softly.
So easy. Tell Frank she’s yours. Tell him you wanted to surprise him. You didn’t want him to know until you were sure.
Had I spoken too quickly? Would she see through me? I sneaked a glance. She was looking at the sleeping baby. Tears running down her cheeks.
So it was done.
I’d figured it all out by the time I got to Julie’s house. Frank and Peyton would have to leave town. Frank could find a job somewhere else; his skills were transferable. Peyton could start her senior year there, make new friends, make a fresh start. She wouldn’t be happy, but she’d understand. She’d have to.
Frank’s truck was in the driveway, but Julie’s car was gone. The whole week I’d been there, the car hadn’t been moved, and I’d gotten used to seeing it there. So who was driving it now?
I hesitated at the front door, then knocked twice, hard, before stepping inside. “Frank? You here?”
He was in the kitchen, glass raised to his lips. “What do you want?”
Five o’clock and he was already digging into the whiskey. Things hadn’t gotten better. “I just talked to the people from the EPA. They found nano zinc, Frank. It’s in the plant, the water, the ground. It’s everywhere.”
“Well, good for you. You win.”
“It’s not about winning.”
“No? Then, what is it about, Dana?”
“The whole town’s poisoned. It’s not safe. You and Peyton need to move.”