Exposed (10 page)

“The obvious fixings,” Skyler said, unpacking his grocery bag onto the coffee table. “We've got graham crackers, we've got Nutella, we've got peanut butter, and we've got Marshmallow Fluff.”

“I think you've got the four food groups covered.” Gaia laughed, somewhat delighted despite herself. If she had to go undercover, at least she'd eat well. “Carbs, sugar, fat … and sugar.”

“You said ‘sugar' twice,” Skyler pointed out.

“I did. It doesn't matter, I'm really into sugar,” Gaia assured him. “Now, what were you saying about classic cinema?”

“Voilà,” Skyler said, brandishing a DVD and presenting it to her like a bouquet of flowers. “We shall pick up just exactly where our formal education left off.”

Gaia glanced down at the cover of the box.
The Godfather, Part II
. Of course. “Excellent. And I suppose when this is done, we'll watch part three?”

“Well, now, that's a question,” Skyler said, play-thoughtful. “You see,
Godfather II
is considered by many—though not me—to be superior to the original. Part three, however, is universally considered to be dreck. However, in the interest of being complete, we may have to watch it anyway. We can play it by ear.”

“Sure,” Gaia said. “I'm all for playing by ear.”

Skyler grinned at her and popped the DVD into the player. Instantly Keanu's face faded to blue, and the screen was filled with the now-familiar image of the FBI warning. Gaia settled back into her usual position, secure under his arm. It was difficult to pretend that she felt relaxed, but she knew she had to try. Maybe Skyler thought he had her fooled. He couldn't have known that Gaia was no amateur. She had learned from the best—steadfast, whip-smart agents like her father and calculating rogues like her uncle or her foster parents. Please. College-boy Rodke was no match for her. She shook his arm off her back and leaned forward, breaking off a hunk of graham cracker and dipping it back and forth in each of the
various jars Skyler had unscrewed.
Mmmm
, she thought, her anger temporarily replaced by a flash of junk-food sugar rush. She might gain twenty pounds figuring out Skyler's game. It was a small price to pay.

Because it wouldn't be long now.

Unfortunately, he didn't have the faintest idea how to do that.

around moping
Memo

From:
C

To:
L

Re:
The evidence

I regret to report that re: evidence, we have none. Can confirm that Rodkes (aka Rodke and Simon Pharmaceuticals) are interested in subject Genesis's DNA, as found within hair sample. Must assume DNA to be used in drug research and development as per recent genetic tampering on subject Genesis.

High probability that research related to antianxietal development; however, to what purpose? More field surveillance necessary. Also, without concrete evidence cannot proceed with countermeasures. Please advise at your earliest convenience.

Memo

From:
L

To:
C

Re:
The evidence

Your suspicions are correct: the likelihood is that Rodke and Simon Pharmaceuticals has designs on creating antianxietal. Hence much interest in the unique DNA of subject Genesis and its response to external stimuli and manipulation. However, you are correct—we need hard, fast proof.

Right now your orders are simple: You are to continue your surveillance. I will do some digging. Unfortunately, for right now the boy is still our best hope. He can get in where we might otherwise be stonewalled. Keep in close contact.

I'll be watching Rodke, the boy, Genesis.

And I'll be watching you, too.

THE RED SOLID BALL INCHED SMOOTHLY toward the corner pocket, rolling along with quiet momentum, suffusing Ed with a false sense of confidence.
There. That's it
, he encouraged the ball mentally.
This game's all mine
.

Random Acts of Disappearance
Without warning, though, the ball veered wildly off to the right.
No, no, it's okay, I can still take this
, Ed thought, gripping the wooden edges of the pool table and leaning his entire body in the opposite direction of the ball's trajectory.
It's not over till it's—

With a loud clanking sound the ball in question banged directly into the eight ball, sending the eight ball shooting straight into the left side pocket. The eight ball landed in the pocket's netting with a dull thudding sound.

Right
.

“Whoo-hoo!” Kai hooted, pumping her arms in the air in an impromptu victory dance. “Winner and still champion!” She laid her pool cue up on the rack against the wall and hugged Ed to show that she was teasing. Sort of.

“Just remember who helped you perfect your game,” Ed grumbled.

“The student hath surpassed the teacher,” Kai said
formally, sounding like a cross between a Zen master and an Elizabethan page. “Ha ha,” she added tauntingly, as a mischievous afterthought. She stuck out her tongue.

“Hey,” Ed protested. “Can't you go easy on me? I'm still in recuperation mode. Cut a guy some slack.”

“Uh-uh,” Kai insisted. “You were the one who
swore
you were back in the blush of full health. You were the one who challenged me. And I might also point out that you seemed rather overconfident about the whole darn thing.” She winked at him. “So there.”

“This failure is very, very bad for my ego,” Ed joked. His ego wasn't in especially bad shape these days.

“Ah, but your loss is my brilliant success, so in that sense, everyone's a winner. ‘Everyone,' of course, being me,” Kai pointed out. She giggled and hugged him again. “I'm just kidding, Ed. But you know, no one likes a sore loser.”

“I am
not
a sore loser” Ed countered. Kai raised a quizzical eyebrow at him.

“Okay, maybe slightly sore. Bruised. I'm a bruised loser,” he conceded. “I gotta tell you, though—being out of the hospital? Yeah, it pretty much rocks.”

“I'll bet,” Kai agreed.

“If I can go for, let's say, two consecutive months without, you know, needing some life-altering surgery or being attacked in a park, that'd be a huge plus,” Ed said. He wasn't especially trying to be funny, though.
His life had gotten complicated over the course of the last year, and while he wasn't interested in assigning blame, there was one person who seemed, time and time again, to somehow be involved.

Gaia.

It didn't matter that Gaia was not only not interested in Ed but that lately she didn't even seem particularly keen on maintaining the most minimal level of friendship with him. He was used to Gaia's random acts of disappearance. But she always surfaced
eventually
. Lately, though … well, she hadn't been herself. In fact, the last few times he had seen her, she'd even been crying. Crying was distinctly un-Gaia-like behavior, and Ed wasn't sure how to contend with it. He supposed it corresponded to their no-bullshit policy, but that didn't make it any easier to deal with.

Anyway, in the time since Gaia had come to the Village School, Ed had somehow managed to have his heart broken, to be chased by various men with guns, to see his ex-girlfriend knifed in the park, to endure a dangerous operation that had restored the use of his legs, and … uh, he'd had his heart broken some more. And that was just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. So yeah, he was ready for a month or two of pure, brain-dribbling-out-your-nose peace and mind-numbingly boring quiet.

“Check. One normal life, coming up,” Kai said,
breaking into Ed's thoughts and nearly reading his mind at the same time.

Ed managed a small smile, but suddenly he was distracted.

“Luke, I sense a disturbance in the Force,” Kai said in a robotic tone. Either the girl was a psychic or he was being wildly transparent, Ed decided. He suspected a little of both.

He sighed. “You're gonna kill me.”

“Um, okay. Let me guess,” Kai said. “Gaia?”

Ed shrugged.
Bingo
. “I know. I'm a broken record. A lame, pathetic broken record.” Not only that, but he was a
lucky
broken record—lucky that Kai was cool enough to want to be friends with him and to put up with his moping around, even though they had just broken up themselves. He certainly didn't take her for granted. “Yeah, I guess. Who knows?”

Kai wasn't buying it. “Maybe, or…,” she prompted. She hung Ed's pool cue up and led him over to some comfy couches off to the side of the room. “Tell me.”

“Well, I don't know. I feel like all this weird stuff went down while I was in the hospital. And now I'm out, and it's great, but … I feel really out of the loop. Like I woke up and it was Opposite Day.” Ed stopped, unsure of how to explain what he was feeling.

Kai looked at him closely. She seemed to be weighing whether or not to say something.

“Kai, speak. There's something on your mind.”

She shrugged. “It's probably nothing.”

“Well, if it's nothing, then you don't have to worry about telling me, right?” Ed reasoned. “You've obviously heard something, but you don't think you should tell me.”

“I don't know,” she hedged. “I hardly know Gaia.”

“But…”

“Well, you said yourself she's been acting differently.”

“Yeah, that's definitely true,” Ed said, thinking back to her spontaneous crying jag in the hospital, where she'd told him she was worried about what to wear to the prom. “I mean, she's Gaia—she's never, you know, sparklingly normal. But lately she's been really jumpy and insecure.”

“Right,” Kai said, turning Ed's words over in her mind. “Right.”

“But you obviously know differently,” Ed prodded.

“Well, I've heard some stuff, but you know—not from anyone reliable,” she started.

“Yes!” Ed agreed. He himself had heard that Gaia was going to the prom with Skyler Rodke. Sure, he'd heard it from the FOHs, who were pretty much known as Gaia's arch-nemeses (at least, they were thusly known on non-opposite days), but still … it was almost so far-fetched as to be necessarily the truth.

“Anyway, I know you think she's been weird lately, but from what I've heard, she's being her usual self.
You know, tough as nails, doesn't give a rat's ass …” Kai clearly couldn't decide whether or not she was the bearer of bad news.

“Ah, the Gaia I know and love,” Ed said. He was trying to lighten the mood, but even as he said the words, he knew them to be true. It didn't matter how erratic her behavior was or how drastically she tried to push people away—Ed would always care for Gaia. That was just an absolute truth.

“Yeah. Normal Gaia. Except I heard … that she's been cheating on Jake,” Kai finished, looking guilty. “Now I know no matter what people say about her that she's one of your best friends—”

“Most of the time,” Ed interjected.

“Whatever. The point is, you care about her, and you respect her, and I respect
that
. I mean, I know you, and I trust your judgment. So if you think that Gaia isn't the cheating type, I believe you.”

Ed blushed. Not too long ago, he had accused Gaia of cheating on him with her ex-boyfriend Sam. He realized now that even if she and Sam had harbored lingering feelings for each other, Gaia wasn't untrustworthy. He knew it had been his insecurities that had motivated his accusations, and the memory of the things he'd said to her still stung. “No, she definitely isn't,” he confirmed.

“Right. So I just assumed they were cheesy rumors. Besides—what do I care? I mean, the only reason I
even paid any attention was because she's your friend, and I know how much you care about her.”

“I appreciate that,” Ed said softly.

“But then I heard that she was going to the prom with Skyler! I mean, Ed, I certainly don't care who Gaia dates. But if she
is
going to prom with Skyler, then I think you may be on to something with your ‘something's up' theory. Don't you think that's a little strange?” She bit her lip. “Okay, I've said my piece. If you think I'm overstepping my boundaries, you can feel free to ignore everything I've said. But if you think maybe I'm right and something is up … well, do with the information what you will.”

Ed regarded Kai somberly but didn't reply. Something
was
up with Gaia, and he had to get to the bottom of it.

Unfortunately, he didn't have the faintest idea of how to do that. But he'd have to figure it out before too long.

From:
[email protected]

To:
[email protected]

Re:
Back in the day

As in, remember when we used to be friends? Where've you been, G?

Hey-I'm used to you dropping off the face of the planet now and then, but that doesn't mean I like it. Or, truth be told, that I don't worry (yeah, yeah, I know you could eat me for breakfast and that
me
worrying about
you
is like the joke of the century, but there it is…).

I haven't seen you since the hospital, and even though you're not exactly Little Miss Sunshine under the best of circumstances, you seemed pretty down that day. So if you have a moment, I would love to hear back from you. Seriously, no joke. I don't mean to be melodramatic, but you know I'm here. We don't even have to talk about whatever's got you upset. We can just joke around and consume massive quantities of junk food. Or not. Whatever you want. I just want you to know that I'm here.

And I'd
love
to know where you are.

—Ed

JAKE BOUNCED NERVOUSLY BACK AND forth in his seat. The aluminum bleachers were cold and unyielding through the seat of his jeans. And he was stunned to find that he had arrived at the meeting point
before Oliver
. This was unprecedented. True, Jake was twenty minutes early, which was also unprecedented. But whenever he'd met Oliver in the past, he always arrived to find the man firmly rooted in the location of choice, looking like he'd been there for hours.