Tandem

But it was something else Thomas had said that really struck a chord. I have the device that controls it. Removing the anchor might not be possible, but if I could gain possession of the remote, I could transport myself home without anybody’s help. I just had to figure out how to get my hands on it.

“How did you find me?” I asked, glancing at the motionless bodies on the ground. A gun belonging to one of the men lay only three feet from where I stood, and the sight of it gave me an idea.

“The anchor has a GPS tracker in it.”

“You have GPS here?” So running away again wasn’t going to work.

“We had it before you did.” He walked to the end of the alley and glanced up and down the perpendicular street, giving me the opportunity I needed. I crouched down and reached for the nearby gun, slowly, trying not to attract Thomas’s attention while his back was turned. “I was waiting for you on the other side of the street, figuring I’d intercept you there, but then I saw them pull you into the alley—”

When he turned back around, I had the gun aimed at his chest. He lifted his hands up in a gesture of surrender, working his jaw anxiously but saying nothing.

“Give me the device that controls the anchor and I’ll never bother you again,” I said. My voice sounded like it was forged from steel; if I hadn’t spoken the words myself, I wouldn’t even have recognized it. I was trying to make myself sound like Thomas—emotionless, untouchable. The sort of person I knew I wasn’t. But he hadn’t given me any choice.

“I can’t do that.”

“Then I’m going to have to shoot you,” I said, hoping he couldn’t tell how badly I was shaking.

“You won’t,” Thomas said calmly. He stepped forward and lowered his hands.

“Yes I will.” He didn’t seem afraid, which infuriated me. If he kept looking at me in that patronizing, self- satisfied way, maybe I would shoot him.

“No you won’t.” Thomas took another step, and then another, making his way toward me carefully, the way one might approach a frightened animal. He seemed so sure of himself, so confident in his ability to talk me down. With every step he took, I knew I was losing ground. “You don’t even have your finger on the trigger.”

That was because I didn’t want to fire it by accident. But if he insisted … I settled the pad of my pointer finger against the slim metal curve of the trigger. “Problem solved.”

“You won’t pull it.” He was getting closer and closer. I had to shoot him.

“You take one more step and I’ll do it.” It was the last gasp of my bravado. I would never be able to follow through on my threat. “Don’t move.”

His face went white as something on the rooftop behind my head caught his attention. “I may not have to,” he said gravely.

I shouldn’t have done it. I shouldn’t have looked. But I was still rattled from my encounter with Libertas, so I turned to get a sense of what was coming. Of course, the rooftop was empty. We were alone.

I was completely unprepared for Thomas’s speed. His hand shot out as soon as I took my eyes off him and he wrenched the gun from my grip. I watched in rage and frustration as he removed the clip and stripped the rest of the Libertas rifles of their ammunition, swearing under his breath the whole time. When he was finished, he turned his glare on me.

“Never do that again,” he commanded. “You shouldn’t pick up a gun unless you’re prepared to use it.”

“You’d rather I shot you?” I snapped.

“You were never going to,” he said. “Now let’s go.”

“No,” I said, drawing a sharp breath as my vision grew hazy. My lungs burned, and I remembered how far I’d run, and how fast, without stopping. Something’s wrong. The thought floated through my mind like dandelion fluff, small and light.

My knees gave way and I crumpled to the ground. A dull ache throbbed in my temples, radiating through my arms and legs. My eyelids drooped. Everything around me started to go dark, as if someone had smeared my eyeballs with black paint. Thomas rushed forward to prop me up, seizing my chin.

“Sasha?” he called. I reached for something to steady myself and found his left hand. I bore down hard on his fingers, making him wince; nevertheless, he squeezed back.

“What’s happening to me?” I whispered.

“It’s the tandem sickness. You shouldn’t have run.” His voice faded in and out as I fell further into semiconsciousness. “You were supposed to rest. … Shouldn’t have run. …”

The last thing I saw before the darkness overtook me completely was the bright green of his eyes and the slow, fluid motion of his lips as he spoke my name.

 

THOMAS IN THE TOWER / 1

“Good work, Agent.”

Thomas glanced to his right, startled—though he didn’t show it—by the unexpected new presence in the room. “Thank you, sir. You know I do my best to make you proud.”

Even he knew how shallow and obsequious it sounded coming out of his mouth. If Lucas were around, he would’ve scoffed at the first word; Thomas’s brother had a low tolerance for brownnosing. But it was what the General wanted to hear, and Thomas always did what the General wanted, insofar as he could stand to.

“I do know that,” the General said. They stood side by side, watching Sasha’s inert form on the cot in the mission room through large monitors. How many times had Thomas slept on that same cot after hours and hours of meetings and briefings and research and planning sessions? Too many to count. The walls were covered with his notes, maps and photographs, charts and stratagems so calculated they were like equations. It was strange to see her there now, the centerpiece of Operation Starling, just an average girl from Earth.

Well, perhaps average was the wrong word. In fact, he knew it was. Extraordinary was more like it. Amazing. An analog. She had no idea how significant she was, what her presence here meant. She’d gone sixteen years—almost seventeen—thinking she was just a regular girl. It was remarkable how important people could be without even knowing.

“When will she come around?” the General asked.

Thomas shrugged. “That’s up to you. Mo—Dr. Moss said we could wake her any time now.”

He had to stop himself from using Mossie’s nickname. The General disapproved of Thomas’s friendship with the eccentric scientist, though the man’s contribution to Operation Starling couldn’t be denied. Mossie was the only reason they were able to retrieve Sasha. He’d invented the technology that allowed them to pass through the tandem, created the anchors for exclusive use by the KES. Whether he liked it or not, the General couldn’t get rid of him—and he didn’t like it at all. He didn’t trust Mossie, and Thomas didn’t blame him. Mossie was the only person in the Tower who spoke out against him, though even then it was only when he thought the General would not overhear. But the General had spies everywhere, and word had gotten out. Mossie was a liability, but he was also an asset—an asset that couldn’t be wasted.

Thomas expected the General to command him to wake Sasha up immediately, but he didn’t. After all the insanity surrounding Operation Starling, all the rush and the talk of running out of time, the General seemed to be relishing these last few moments of relative normalcy before everything changed forever.

“Did she give you any trouble?” he asked. Thomas always had a difficult time telling what the General was thinking, and now was no different. Only a man like the General could stand before an analog with no expression on his face. He was above it all, even this.

“Not much,” Thomas said. It would be worse for Sasha if the General knew how much of a fight she’d put up, so it was best not to mention it.

The General looked over at him, but Thomas didn’t turn to meet his eyes. It had taken him a long time to learn how not to squirm under the weight of the General’s gaze, but he was older now, tall and broad and covered in lean muscle, not the small, fidgety boy he’d once been. He didn’t scare so easily anymore. He could handle the General.