“We only get one shot at this. He has to believe that you are who you say you are. We have to get you in a position where he lets his guard down.”
All they need is for me to get close enough to the Secretary of Security to find out where he’s keeping Karden—that is, if he’s keeping Karden. I’ll be sneaking through files, reading lips, listening—any slip of information that will help us. They know Karden’s not in the usual temporary detainment center in the city, but there’s no record of any other facility. They’ve tried to find a way into the Security Headquarters to get information but it’s an impassable fortress. Besides, they think the Secretary and his cohorts have their own secret stash of prisoners that would never be in the official records—prisoners they keep for their own purposes.
“I still don’t see how having all this is going to get me into his house.”
“You have to play the part. Xavier will explain later.” Carver is distracted, shuffling through files at the table, one Vgram after another flipping up as he searches for the right one. “These files aren’t indexed,” he complains, shooting a glance at Xavier. “Ah. Here it is, File Twelve. Over here, Locke. I need to review this with you.”
I join him at the table. “This is the layout of his house—at least the last known records of it. It’s the Tudor Apartments. Don’t let the name fool you. His is a double unit and takes up two floors and eleven thousand square feet. He may have made interior changes, but it’s not likely, given the historical nature of the building. It’s going to take you a while so start memorizing the layout. Every inch of it. You won’t be able to bring this with you.” He slides a disk toward me. “Here’s your new ID.”
“I already have a new ID.”
He shakes his head. “That was just to get you here. There can’t be any traces of where you just came from. We have a new history for you. Besides, we decided using your own name is best. There’s no present-day record of a Locke Jenkins anywhere that we haven’t recently created, and we can’t afford slips. Your name is perfect. You’ll answer to it without hesitation. That’s what we need. You’ll be believable as Locke Jenkins.”
I listen as he methodically goes step by step through this new person I will become, even if he has the name Locke Jenkins. I’m the son of a Barrett Jenkins, a resource consultant currently on assignment in Bvlsavia. Livvy will play my mother as necessary. We’ve lived abroad for years but are returning home to complete my education and because of my mother’s undisclosed health problem. He tells me I will be believable because unlike other Non-pacts, I’m physically fit and already have the advantage of an advanced education, not to mention my other special abilities, which will come into play later.
“He’ll do a background check on you, and given enough time and enough digging, he’ll figure out you’re a fake, but before he digs too deep, you’re going to find what we need. That’s why we have to get you in and out as fast as we can.”
We can hope.
He reaches for my pack resting on the edge of the desk. I put my hand out to stop him. I may be on his “team,” but I still guard my own space.
“What’s in it?”
“Just a few things. Personal things.”
“We need to know.”
I hesitate and then reluctantly dump it out. My dad always told me, Save your battles for the big ones. This isn’t a big one. My few possessions tumble across the desk. Protein cakes. Water. The crumpled tissue and pit from the chocolate peach Allys gave me. The Swiss knife Miesha sent along with me. My phone tab. The green eye of Liberty. Kayla’s one-eyed elephant that she had insisted I take along.
Xavier walks closer to take a look. “A stuffed elephant?”
“A farewell gift from a four-year-old.”
He smirks and I think I’m going to smash his teeth in right there but then he catches sight of something else on the desk that interests him more. “Where’d you get that knife?”
“Miesha gave it to me. It used to belong to—”
“I know who it belonged to.”
Carver picks up the knife and looks it over. “It’s the one Karden left at my house the day before he disappeared. He came over while I was gone, and forgot it there. I gave it back to Miesha when she got out of prison.” He runs his thumb over the red enameled casing. “It’s a crude tool. An older model at that. I don’t know why Karden was so attached to it.”
“His father gave it to him,” Xavier says.
“It’s come in handy for me,” I add, without going into details of amputated CabBot fingers.
Carver rolls his eyes. “You can keep it. Just say your dad gave it to you if someone sees it.” He picks up the phone tab. “But this has to go.”
I argue bitterly with him. This is a battle worth taking on. It’s my only connection to Jenna and Miesha. I promised them I would stay in touch. He concedes one last phone call to them when I say they’ll show up in Boston if they don’t hear anything from me—but one call and that’s it. He doesn’t budge on the fact that it must go. “No past connections. I told you. We can’t afford one slip. Besides, this will peg you as a Non-pact. Only the poor use phone tabs. We have an iScroll for you. Here, give me your hand.”
I never thought I’d get another iScroll. My hand is healed where the last one was slashed away. This tattoo is a different color than the last, a swirl of blue and silver. They teach me the basics. One light swipe across the tattoo with a finger to bring up the Assistant. Two swipes and he’s a three-dimensional hologram in my palm. Three swipes and he’s life-sized. The Assistant can connect me with anyone of my choosing within the allowed directory. For communications, they’ve already disallowed anyone outside a two-hundred-kilometer radius. This is how they will contact me most of the time.
He allows me to keep the eye of Liberty. Of course, only because I tell him it’s just a talisman, a bit of green sea glass I picked up in California, which it is, even if it means more to me than that. “Sea glass is pretty rare these days, but you can say you picked it up at an antique store. Go ahead, keep it.” Like it’s a favor.
When the grand inquisition is over, they allow me to go into the bedroom to make a last call to California before they confiscate my phone tab. I only get to talk to Miesha. Jenna is putting Kayla to bed.