Involuntary Control (Gray Spear Society) (10 page)

"We forget a lot," Leanna added in an apologetic tone.

Aaron stared at them. "When you're with me, you'll eat healthy food, and you won't skip any meals. No more frozen garbage for you. Now take a bagel and eat it. They're really good. Baked fresh this morning."

Bethany went to a cabinet and took out two red plastic plates. They had ridges that divided the plate into three equal sections. Meanwhile, Leanna picked through the bagels until she found one that seemed to satisfy her. It was already cut in half, and she gave one half to her sister.

They were about to start eating when Aaron said, "No. Plain bread isn't a meal. Try adding cream cheese and tomato."

"But we like plain bread," Bethany said in a quiet voice.

"You need a balanced diet. Don't argue with me."

Everybody watched in fascination as Bethany used a spoon to scoop out a perfect sphere of cream cheese. She deposited it in one of the empty sections of Leanna's plate, far from the bagel. Then Bethany carved out another sphere for herself. Leanna had trouble finding tomatoes slices that were good enough, but eventually, she chose one slice for herself and one for Bethany. These were carefully placed in the last empty sections of the plates.

"You're supposed to put it together like a sandwich," Aaron said.

The twins looked at him with horrified expressions. "You want the food to touch?" Leanna said.

"Never mind. As long as you eat, I guess I don't care how it goes down. The chopped fruit is really good, by the way. Nice and fresh."

"But the different kinds are mixed together," she whined. "It's a mess. We eat separate fruits."

He closed his eyes for a moment as he composed himself. "Next time I'll know better. Food can't touch, it can't mix, and it can't be messy. Still, I want you to eat what you can, and don't stop until you're full. I'm watching you."

The twins nodded.

Marina pulled Aaron aside. "What are you doing?" she whispered.

"Feeding them," he said.

"This isn't a breakfast club. We're supposed to be conducting an interrogation."

"There will be plenty of time for that."

She cocked her head. "Why are you being so nice to them?"

"It's not hard to figure out. Our team has been crippled since Edward's death," he said. "We desperately need to recruit computer expertise, especially now that we're possibly starting a new mission. These twins might fit the bill. They've already established their credentials as gifted hackers, and they can give us a head start on the White Flame investigation. It's a perfect match."

"But their brains aren't normal! They can barely take care of themselves. They've been wearing the same clothes for days, and they even sleep in them. It's a wonder they're not in an institution or dead. If they were part of our team, we'd have to look after them like they were children."

"Possibly." He nodded. "We'll find a way to make it work. I suspect God brought us together for a reason. We can give them the protection and support they need to survive."

"In any case, you can't just declare them to be members of the Gray Spear Society. They have to be tested. Somehow, they have to prove themselves worthy of the honor. Then you'll know it's God's will."

He looked at the twins. They were eating their breakfast one item at a time. After finishing each type of food, they wiped down that section of the plate with a paper towel. The process was painstaking, but at least they were eating. He caught hints of a smile on their faces.

"Let me worry about tests," Aaron told Marina in a soft voice. "I just need a favor from you."

"What?" she said.

"You have to be nice to them."

"I'm nice."

He stared at her.

"Nice-ish." She rolled her eyes. "Fine. I'll trot out my warm, sensitive side, if I can find where I put it. But when we need them to do their job, I'll expect them to perform. They'd better be great hackers for all the trouble they'll cause."

"That's fair." He nodded. "And if they fail to meet my expectations, I'll handle their retirement personally. OK?"

"Yes, sir." She made a sour face.

After everybody had finished breakfast, Aaron said. "It's story time now. Let's hear how two princesses from the Kingdom of Satinia found themselves in Lemonseed, Illinois."

"We were born in the castle," Bethany said.

"And we grew up there," Leanna said.

"It was very beautiful."

"We played in the gardens and rode the horses."

"Hold on," Aaron said. "It's cute the way you take turns, but it's also a little distracting. Bethany, you tell the story. Go on."

Bethany looked around the kitchen. Everybody was watching her, and she suddenly seemed very nervous.

She hates working alone,
Aaron thought. Leanna held Bethany's hand tightly.

"We grew up in the beautiful castle," Bethany said. "We played in the gardens and rode the horses. We had lots of servants, nannies, and tutors. Father let us do anything we wanted as long as we didn't go into town or bother the important visitors."

"You had to stay in the castle all the time?"

She nodded. "Always."

"Sounds like the king was trying to hide his autistic daughters," Aaron said. "Continue."

"When we were nine, we discovered computers. There was an old one in the royal library. We played with it for two days without sleeping. Father dragged us away by our hair to make us stop."

"That wasn't nice."

"We begged him for our own computers," she said. "He bought two, one for each of us. We taught ourselves how to use them. That kept us happy for a little while, but then we needed more equipment. We turned the royal library into a data center."

"Your father didn't mind?"

"Nobody else ever used the library. As long as we were quiet and didn't bother the important visitors, we could do what we wanted."

"He was probably happy about your new hobby," he said. "It kept you in voluntary seclusion."

"Those were good days. The internet answered any question we asked. We learned mathematics and computer science. We took machines apart and put them back together in different ways. We even designed new kinds of computers. Everything was logical. When we were hungry, the servants fed us. When we were dirty, they cleaned us."

He nodded.
Heaven for nerds.

"One day there was a fire in the stables." Bethany frowned. "My favorite horse was killed. The servants blamed revolutionaries, but we didn't know what the word meant, so we looked it up. The internet told us the people of Satinia were very unhappy."

"Your father was a cruel man," Aaron said. "He tortured and killed anybody who challenged his authority. Oil money paid for his private army of thugs. Most of the population of Satinia lived in terrible poverty."

She lowered her eyes. "We told him the people were mad at him, but he wouldn't listen. He threatened to take away our computers if we ever mentioned it again."

"Was that the end of it?"

"No!" She gave him a sharp look. "Our family was in danger and we had to do something. We worked secretly. Even the servants never knew about our activities."

"Go on."

"We hacked the websites the revolutionaries were using. We tricked them into walking into traps. We disrupted their communication and forwarded their email to the police. Many were captured because of us."

Aaron raised his eyebrows. "And no doubt killed. How old were you?"

"Sixteen."

"Let me get this straight. At an age when most girls only care about clothes and boys, you were conducting covert counter-revolutionary operations."

Bethany nodded. "It was easy. The revolutionaries were stupid."

Aaron gave Marina a meaningful glance. She sniffed.

"We fought against the revolution for two years," Bethany said, "until an angry mob stormed the gate. Our father was beheaded and the rest of the royal family was hung. Leanna and I escaped using secret tunnels under the palace. One loyal servant came with us, a man named Haykal."

"And you took the Eye," Aaron said.

"It's our most important family relic. We couldn't let the peasants have it."

"The new government of Satinia wants it back. For some reason they think the peasants deserve a little compensation after centuries of suffering under an oppressive, autocratic regime."

She stared at him blankly.

"Continue," he said. "That was five years ago. What happened next?"

"We travelled in disguise for months. Haykal protected and guided us the whole time. Without him, the revolutionaries would've caught us within a day."

"Sounds like a wonderful man."

Suddenly, Bethany began to cry. She leaned on Leanna, and the two sisters wept in each other's arms.

Aaron chewed on a bagel while he waited for them to calm down.

Finally, Bethany continued, "We needed a safe place to hide, and Illinois is on the opposite side of the world from Satinia. It wasn't easy to get here without a real passport."

"You can buy fake identification."

"We were spending all our money on bribes. When we were stuck in Spain, Leanna and I hacked into the government computers. We created official Spanish passports and mailed them to our hotel."

"That's impressive." Aaron glanced at Marina again.

She stubbornly didn't react.

"So," he said, "jumping ahead a bit, you came to the sleepy town of Lemonseed. Not a bad choice. Nobody would think to look for exiled princesses and a giant diamond necklace out here in the land of beans and corn. What happened next?"

"We needed more money," Bethany said. "Haykal tried working as a farmhand, but it wasn't enough. Leanna and I discovered we could get paid as internet consultants. For years we installed corporate websites and designed custom firewalls. We became known as top experts in computer security. By the end we could just pick the customers we wanted."

"I expect consultants with your skills would be in great demand. All this work was done under fake names?"

She nodded. "Our clients never knew who we really were. We made enough money to buy two houses and lots of computers. Haykal took good care of us. He told us to eat and sleep when we were supposed to. He cooked and cleaned. He never complained about anything. He was the nicest servant we ever had."

"Sounds like a great life. What went wrong?"

She became sad again. "Six months ago, Haykal went out shopping and didn't come back. Leanna and I didn't know where he was. It was terrible. When he finally came home days later, he couldn't tell us anything. The whole period was missing from his memories. He had burns on his hands, but he didn't know why."

Aaron grimaced. "Was he OK, otherwise?"

"No." She shook her head. "He was different. He didn't smile and laugh anymore. He walked around his bedroom at night instead of sleeping. After four days like that, he sat on the train tracks and waited for a train. He never even said goodbye."

There was silence in the kitchen.

Aaron walked over to the window and looked out. A line of single story homes occupied the foreground, and beyond them were cornfields. The sea of green stalks stretched to the horizon. Millions of identical plants were growing in perfect unison thanks to the miracle of modern agriculture. The sight reminded him that man and God weren't so far apart.

"When we identified the body," Bethany said, "the coroner told us he had seen a lot of strange suicides lately. We checked the county records. The suicide rate in Lemonseed this year is 200 times the national average, and it's just Lemonseed. The surrounding areas are normal."

"Why do you blame White Flame Technology?" Aaron said.

"We did more research and found more clues. Many residents of Lemonseed are employees of White Flame, but
none
of the suicides were. Every death was in a home that had no affiliation with the company."

He faced her. "A remarkable coincidence."

"The government sent two different scientific teams to investigate, but they found nothing wrong. We discovered all the scientists were being paid by White Flame."

"Why hasn't the media reported any of this?"

"A year ago the local newspaper and radio station were quietly purchased by a foreign company named International Media Properties."

"Let me guess," Aaron said. "A subsidiary of White Flame."

"Correct," Bethany said. "And the new mayor of Lemonseed is a former employee of White Flame. He still collects a
very
generous pension though. The chief of police has the same deal." Her voice was getting faster and louder. "Even the ambulance service is secretly run by White Flame. They control this town completely."

"For what purpose?"

She shrugged. "All we know is people are dying and they're covering it up."

"And of course you couldn't tell anybody because you're hiding from the government of Satinia."