The girl recruit turns to watch us as we walk to the door. No one speaks, but I don’t miss how she leans toward Wes as he passes, like a flower opening its petals in the sun.
Back in the entryway, Wes takes a sharp turn toward the Final Debriefing room. It’s a smaller space than Outfitting, with one metal desk and multiple chairs. Wes and I both sit down. There are a series of buttons in the middle of the desk. He pushes one of them, then sits back in his chair.
I covertly study him as we wait. He’s wearing a blue-striped button-down that clings to his chest. A sports jacket is slung over one shoulder.
The door flies open. Wes jumps to his feet, and I mimic his actions. A man enters the room. He is middle-aged, though wearing it well: his hair is mostly brown, with streaks of gray at his temples, and the creases surrounding his eyes suggest that he smiles often.
He drops a file down onto the desk. “Eleven and Seventeen?”
“Yes, General Walker.” Wes’s words are quick and robotic.
“The results from a District Five city council election in New York City have changed. The original time line has a John McGregor winning by a landslide. In this new time line, he loses by a small margin. The election is won by a young candidate named Alan Sardosky.” The man sounds as though he’s reading off of a grocery list.
“Yes, General.”
“We’re sending you to New York City. Today is August eighth, nineteen eighty-nine. Up until this point, McGregor has been ahead in the polls, but something changes in the next few days. He loses momentum and stops campaigning aggressively, allowing Sardosky to inch ahead of him. By the time the election takes place, in October, he can’t catch up. We need to know what happens near August eighth to affect his performance.
“As you know, time isn’t always a neat package. Someone could have bumped into him in the street differently for some reason. But I want to know why and when that happens. You’ll be trailing McGregor and the people he associates with in these few days. Consider this an intelligence mission. It goes without saying, you do not do anything to further alter the time line.” He flips his wrist up and checks his watch. “Right now it’s eighteen hundred hours. You’ll be brought to the Center at nineteen hundred hours. Get the weapons and money you need before then.”
He taps the file once, a muted sound. “Seventeen, you understand why you’ve been tasked to go with Eleven?”
Seventeen. He’s talking to me. “Yes, General Walker,” I say. The man finally looks up and his eyes scan my face. He stares at me for a minute, his mouth smoothing into a frown. Does he know I’m not her?
I want to sweat, to blink rapidly, to rub my palms together, but I fight against every instinct. After a minute, the general drops his eyes and I almost sigh in relief. “You were the one who discovered the error in the time line, and because of that we’re allowing you to aid this mission. We haven’t concluded whether or not you were the one who created this error in the first place. You will be watched by Eleven. Any misstep, and you understand the consequences.”
“Yes, General.” I force the words from my throat.
“Fine.” He pushes the file across the desk toward us. “In this document you’ll find McGregor’s current address. Memorize it.”
Wes flips open the folder and we both lean over. There are several papers inside, but the one on top is a blank sheet with a handwritten address on it: 32 New Street, Apartment 14D.
I repeat the words over and over in my head.
General Walker reaches over and snaps the file shut. “You’re both free to go. Since you’ll be in the city, you can stay at the Center. Your mission may take you elsewhere, but you need to report back here within six days. I expect a debrief by the fourteenth.”
Six days to be with Wes. Six days to figure out how to get both of us free of the Montauk Project.
Wes turns to the door and I follow him. I can still feel the General’s hard stare on the back of my neck long after we leave the room.
CHAPTER 6
The gun is an anchor in my pocket, weighing me to the seat. It bumps against my hip every time we hit a rough patch in the tar, and I cannot get used to its presence—not even after being on the road for almost an hour.
Wes is quiet beside me. Up front, a guard in jeans and a plain T-shirt drives the nondescript van. Before we left the Facility, we stopped at the Cultural Integration room, where a soldier gave us money and subway tokens. In the Weaponry room, they issued us both guns. I have never shot a gun—I’ve never even held one except for in the time-machine room in 1944—but now I have one pressed to my side. And I’m expected to use it if things go wrong.
I lean my head back against the seat and struggle to keep my eyes open. I barely slept last night, and I’ve been riding a sharp wave of adrenaline and fear since I left my bedroom. Only now can I feel the heaviness of the past few hours settling down on me.
But I can’t sleep yet, not while the guard keeps looking at us in his rearview mirror. I sigh and rest my hand on the seat next to Wes’s leg. My fingers are spread out and reaching, wishing I could span the few feet that separate us. We haven’t
