Blind Rage (9 page)

“I’ll be right back,” he said in her ear. “Sit tight.”

There wasn’t much else she could do, so she faced forward and listened to the general rowdiness of students talking loudly as they shuffled through the room and took their seats, chairs scraping on the floor and books thudding onto desktops. Papers crinkled as students readied their books and notepads. Tess heard her name whispered, and caught fragments of conversation that made her flush with embarrassment. She heard scuffled footsteps close by.

“You’re Tess Barrett,” a girl’s voice said, barely above a whisper. “I’m Tamara. Tamara Wilkinson. You probably don’t remember me, but I was in your biology class last year.”

“Hi,” Tess said quietly.

She racked her brain and finally put a face to the name. Mousy girl a year behind her, really shy. Tess’s friends had made fun of her, and though Tess herself hadn’t joined in, she’d laughed at some of the mean comments. Until Tamara had saved her butt on a lab project they’d been assigned to as partners. It had been a DNA experiment, and while it should have been easy for Tess, she’d slacked off when studying the section. When it had come time to do the project, Tess hadn’t been prepared, but Tamara had been. She was whip-smart.

“Sorry to hear about your accident,” Tamara said.

“Thank you.” Tess steeled herself for the inevitable comment about her blindness, dreading the days and weeks of pity ahead. But Tamara surprised her.

“I never thanked you for giving me all the credit for that bio lab.”

“You did all the work—you deserved the credit.”

“Well, not
all
the work. But thanks. Well, I better go. Mr. Prescott wants to start.”

Tess stopped her. “Tamara?”

“Yes?”

“Thanks for saying hello.”

“Sure. No problem.”

Tamara Wilkinson didn’t exactly run in the same circles Tess did, but Tess wasn’t all that sure who her friends were anymore. The nothingness that now surrounded her was frightening, especially knowing that anyone could walk up to her and do or say anything they wanted. She was nearly helpless to defend herself. She could no longer afford to be choosy when it came to friendships. She would have to welcome all comers.

Maybe she could establish a rep as a kind of Switzerland of high school relationships. Remain neutral. Refuse to take sides or spread gossip. The idea excited her until she thought about how hard it would be to convince Adrienne and Emily of her sincerity.

Then again, we’re seniors now. Maybe they’d matured.

“Let’s get started, class,” Mr. Prescott said. “I hope you all finished
The Great Gatsby
over the weekend. Before we discuss it, I want to remind you that papers are due Friday. No excuses. Okay, when we left off last week, Nick was . . .”

Tess tried as hard as she could to concentrate on what Mr. Prescott was saying, but her thoughts kept straying. First, she kept replaying the morning’s sequence of events in her mind. She couldn’t decide whether Oliver was as big a jerk as he’d suggested, or if she’d been partly to blame. After all, he’d been trying to make conversation, and it was only natural that he’d be curious about her sightlessness.

I could have been a little nicer, maybe.

The other direction her thoughts led filled her with uncertainty about this whole experiment. Going back to school might not have been such a good idea. She knew the people around her were whispering to each other about her. She could feel their stares burning holes through her, stripping her naked. She realized she wasn’t ready to come back, but now she didn’t have much choice.

Tittering came from the front of the room, and Tess suddenly realized that Prescott had stopped talking. She heard Oliver murmuring, “Excuse me, excuse me,” his voice getting closer.

Then he was next to her.

“You’re in my seat,” Oliver whispered.

“Get your own seat,” a boy said. “I’m not moving.”

“Take a seat, please,” Mr. Prescott called. “We’re wasting time.”

“I’ll be in back,” Oliver whispered in Tess’s ear. “I’ll come get you after class.”

She squirmed in her chair as he fumbled through her book bag looking for a notebook and a pencil. She wished she could glare at whoever was sitting in the seat next to her. She turned her face and scowled, but received no indication that it had its intended effect.

“Tess?”

Tess jerked her head to face forward. “Sorry?”

“You’re familiar with the material, aren’t you, Tess?” Mr. Prescott said.

“What was the question?”

“Come on, people, stop daydreaming,” Mr. Prescott said. “What was the question? Anybody? Jeff?”

“Why did Nick react the way he did to Gatsby’s death?” Jeff called out.

Tess squirmed again, feeling her face get hot. “I’m not sure.”

She was furious with herself. Alice had gotten her an audio version of the book, but she hadn’t listened to it yet.

“Come prepared, Tess,” Mr. Prescott said. “No excuses. Jeff, you want to answer that?”

Tess bit back her anger. She wasn’t sure whether it was directed at Mr. Prescott for not acknowledging her obvious disadvantage, or at herself for not doing her homework. Alice had spoken to each of her teachers about what material their classes were covering to make sure Tess was caught up before she went back. Tess wouldn’t let it happen again. She hoped Oliver was taking good notes.

“Sorry about that,” Oliver said after class. “The guy was being a jerk. Next time I’ll find a chair and sit next to your desk.”

She reached down and found her book bag, shouldered it, and stood up. Oliver took her arm and guided her down the row between the desks. She could tell when they transitioned from classroom to hallway by the increased volume of noise as students rushed from one class to the next. The din, coming from all sides, was almost painful. Oliver’s pace was quick. She had to hurry to keep up, and the motion as his gentle pressure on her arm led them in a zigzag pattern was almost dizzying. Occasionally, someone jostled her shoulder or bumped her hip as they passed, but Oliver seemed to avoid outright collisions adeptly.

“How come you don’t read braille?” he said, close to her ear.

Again she was struck by his scent—not strong, not heavy with cologne or deodorant, not musky, just clean. She shook her head and concentrated on the question.

“How come you don’t read Mandarin?” she said.

“How do you know I don’t?”

“Do you?”

“No. I read French, sort of. You’re saying it’s like learning another language.”

“Well, it is. The symbols look nothing like letters in the alphabet, so it’s not like tracing A, B, C with your fingers. And you have to have really sensitive touch. I don’t.”

“Do
you
read Mandarin?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. A little. My mother is—was—Chinese. She moved here when she was very little, but her parents made her learn to read the language as well as speak it. She taught me some characters.”

“Stairs.”

“What? Oh.”

Tess almost stumbled, but remembered Oliver’s code in time to step down.

“Eight,” Oliver said.

Tess counted the remaining seven and found herself on level ground again. She heard Oliver muttering to himself, “Three-oh-four, three-oh-four.”

“Down the three-hundred wing, second door on the left,” she said.

Oliver nudged her gently to the right, and a few seconds later she felt him slow down.

“You’re right,” he said. “How’d you know?”

“I go to school here, duh. I know my way around.”

“Okay, okay,” he whispered. “Pipe down a little. People are staring. I’ll find us seats.”

He steered her to a chair behind a table and sat down next to her. She heard him pull things out of her book bag. The rustle of paper told her he’d opened both a book and a theme pad—the sounds were different.

“You can remember where all the classrooms are?” Oliver whispered.

She shrugged. “I can see it in my head. I just can’t see it with my eyes.”

“But after a year?”

Before she could stop it, a tear spilled from the corner of one eye. Tess quickly swiped at it with her fingers, hoping Oliver hadn’t noticed. She didn’t know how to explain it to him—all the memories, as clear as day. And now nothing.

“Can I tell you something?” she said.

“Of course.”

“Promise not to laugh?”

“Promise,” he said. “It’s not in my job description. Alice would fire me.”

She smiled and relaxed a little. He had a point; if he
was
a jerk, Tess could tell Alice.

“It’s weird,” she said, “my memories are more vivid now than before the accident. You know how memories usually fade with time? You can’t remember who said what, or the clothes someone wore. Even people’s faces start to fade after a while. You forget what they look like. The opposite is happening to me. I can re-create whole scenes in my mind and tell you exactly what people said, where they stood, what they wore. It’s a little scary.”

“Allo!” a voice called. “Bonjour, Tess! Bienvenue. Qui est ton ami?”

“Good morning,” Tess said. “Is that you, Mrs. Villeneuve?”

“En français, s’il te plaît.”

“Bonjour. C’est vous, Madame Villeneuve?”

“
Oui
, Tess,
c’est moi
.”

Tess was about to introduce Oliver when she heard his chair scrape on the floor and she felt him rise.

“Bonjour, madame,” he said. “Je m’appelle Oliver Moncrief. Je suis l’aide pour Tess.”

“Welcome, Oliver,” Mrs. Villeneuve said, switching to English. “Tess, it’s good to see you back. Okay, class, say hello to Tess and Oliver, and let’s get started.”

Tess heard a chorus of hellos, most of which sounded bored or indifferent, but a few of which sounded enthusiastic. Most of these kids had been sophomores when she was in this class last year, she reminded herself. A few might know who she was, but most probably didn’t.

I can do this. It will work out somehow.

One year earlier. . .

“It’s the only way, Jimmy, and you know it,” Travis said.

His older brother flinched at the use of the nickname he’d outgrown at ten. Travis didn’t care. James would always be “Jimmy” to him, like it or not.

James had picked the study for this conversation. Bookshelves lined two walls, reaching to an eighteen-foot ceiling. A rolling ladder on a track provided access to books on the higher shelves. Windows overlooking the lake covered most of a third wall, and a fire glowed in a hearth set into the fourth wall. Big, comfortable leather chairs formed groupings in the corners, making it easy to get lost in a good book. Travis and James sat on two large beige couches that faced each other across a low coffee table in front of the fireplace. James’s wife, Sally, stood with her back to the fire, spreading her hands behind her toward the flames to warm them.

“It’s not the only way,” James said quietly. “But I agree it’s probably the most expedient, given the circumstances.”

“It seems so . . . final,” Sally said. “Isn’t there a compromise?”

Travis had hoped to get a decision from James and work out the details with him alone, but James had insisted on Sally’s presence. Travis couldn’t blame him. The situation involved the entire family. Sally had a right to take part in the decision and the planning.

“I’m afraid if we don’t resolve the issue once and for all, these people will always be a threat,” Travis said.

“If not them, it’ll be someone else,” James said.

“That’s the point,” Travis said. “You can’t spend your lives looking over your shoulders. We need to neutralize the situation, take away the motivation to target you.”

“You can take me out of the equation; they’ll still come after the firm.”

“Not if they don’t see any value in it.” Travis paused. “You
are
the company. The soul of it, anyway. If you’re not there, what good is it to anyone?”

“You know how much I hate this.”

Travis nodded. “I know. I had to beg you to play GI Joe games when we were kids. Cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers . . . You never saw the point. Hard to believe you went on to create some of the bestselling video game shoot-’em-ups of all time.”

James stared moodily into the fire. “Anyone could replicate what I’ve done.”

“Then why hasn’t anyone?” Travis peered at him. “Lots of people may be playing with this technology, Jimmy, but you’re the only one who can make it work.”

James shook his head. “It’s only a matter of time.”

“How much time?”

“I don’t know.” James shrugged. “Months. Years. Someone could make an announcement tomorrow.”

Travis ticked off points on his fingers. “No one else has figured out the miniaturization. No one else has figured out the power source. No one’s tried to synthesize scent since Smell-O-Vision in the 1960s, and that was a huge bust. And no one can write code like you; no one’s even close to providing the kind of VR experience I had yesterday.”

James looked puzzled. “Why? What happened yesterday?”

Travis told him about the mission in Afghanistan and what had happened during the test of the prototype avatar, the miniature helicopter.

“You lost it?” James said when Travis finished. He looked incredulous.

“In a manner of speaking,” Travis said. “That’s all you care about?”

“You know how much that cost?” James was turning red.

“Calm down, honey,” Sally said. “I’m sure Travis didn’t mean to lose it.”

“Well, more like destroyed—not lost,” Travis said.

“Oh, that makes me feel a whole lot better,” James said.

Travis could have cut the sarcasm in his voice with a knife.

“We had to take out the terrorist cell before they got away. We called in a missile strike. I got the avatar out, but those bunker-busters send out a heck of a shockwave.”

James rubbed his chin. “Well, at least it won’t end up in the wrong hands. It was the only one we had.”

He watched the flames dance in the fireplace. Travis followed his gaze, but was diverted by the concerned look on Sally’s face.

“How much time do we have?” she said.

“Not much,” Travis said. “You need to get your affairs in order, quickly.”