Shock Read Free Page B

humanity! But the damn thing won’t deflate and it won’t burst. It’s still hanging out in my head, looming and bouncing like a permanent purple storm cloud.
    Oh my God. What was that conversation? We’re worse than strangers. It’s like we hate each other. She actually hates me. This feels terrible. Cutting off Gaia is like cutting off my own leg—losing it completely, not just having it paralyzed. But she’s been lying to me, and I’ve got to get rid of her now, before I get in even deeper. It’ll be better this way in the long run.
    The trouble is, how do I make a long run with only one leg?

Plausible Cover Story
    She should have been able to tell the difference between a masked operative and the president of the Shakira fan club.

Yellow Sticky
    THANK GOODNESS GAIA HAD OTHER things to occupy her mind. Her phone finally snapped out of its reverie and went through to Dmitri. Gaia thanked the God of Unpredictable Cell Phone Service and put the phone to her ear.
    â€œDmitri,” she said. “It’s Gaia.”
    â€œHow are you this morning,” he said.
    â€œI’m all right,” she lied.
    â€œI thank you again for rescuing me and bringing me back,” he said. “My apartment is very comforting to be back in. It is not so much dustier than when I left it.”
    â€œWell, good,” she said. Was this why he had called? To chat about his one-bedroom in Chinatown?
    â€œI wonder if I can ask for your help,” he said, answering her unasked question with his polite segue. “I think I have some information that may be of assistance in finding your father. But I need you to help me get to it. Are you opposed to a little breaking and entering?”
    Now this was getting interesting. “Not if it means getting more information about my father,” she told him.
    â€œThat is good. Your father trained you well.”
    â€œI guess. So what’s the deal?” she asked him, impatient.
    â€œI don’t want to say on the phone,” he said. “I’ve sent you instructions via e-mail. You can go retrieve them.”
    â€œWhy won’t you just tell me?” she seethed.
    â€œToo much to tell,” he said. “Too many details. You need to see them and commit them to memory. You should know that this is how things are done in the Organization.”
    â€œYeah, but the Organization should know that e-mail is never secure,” she retorted.
    â€œThis one is. It’s encoded and contains a self-destructing virus. It can only be read once.”
    â€œOkay, fine.”
    â€œYou can check in with me if you have any questions. Otherwise I will expect a visit from you when you’ve completed the task I’ve laid out for you.”
    â€œOkay.” Gaia snapped her phone shut and started to head for the front doors of the school just as the bell rang.
    â€œGaia Moore,” a voice boomed from behind her. She turned to see Vice Principal Lorenz—the grooviest school administrator on the entire East Coast. Lorenz never wore suits, preferring jeans and a sweater, or khakis if he really had to dress up. His thick salt-and-pepper hair had only recently lost its extra ponytail length. Most students liked his get-to-know-you attitude—he acted like the tormented poems of the literary-magazine crew were genius and even thought the cheerleaders were following their bliss. And he liked everyone to call him Bob. Even Gaia thought he seemed cooler than your average schoolhouse bureaucrat—on a normal day. But at this moment he had a distressingly friendly look on his face, like it was time to have a talk . And Gaia didn’t have time for one of those.
    â€œIt looks like you’ve got somewhere to go,” he said.
    â€œNo. No, I was just walking…past the front door, to my next class,” she said. She had to get to a computer and then bust out of school to complete Dmitri’s assignment. She