I feel arms around me. One of the technicians, maybe? To my surprise, I find that it’s Jack. Just Jack, pressing me against the fabric of his suit and letting me cry on his shoulder while one hand runs through my hair.
“Hush, it will be all right. I promise.”
I want to rail at those words. How can he even begin to say them when things are so very far from all right now? Yet somehow, said in those calm, certain tones of Jack’s, I find myself believing them. Normally, no one other than Grayson can calm me down like that. Normally, I won’t let them. Except with Jack, it just feels natural. I pull back then, unwilling to stay there with everyone watching me and probably thinking what a foolish little girl they have to look after. I won’t have them thinking about me like that.
When I look round, I see that Sebastian Cook has come down from his control room, and is walking in through the glass partition.
“You’re wondering exactly what you are,” he guesses as he comes forward.
I nod. “I mean, you make it sound like I’m the yeti or something, Mr. Cook.”
“Call me Sebastian.”
I catch Jack’s look there and I get the feeling that his boss doesn’t allow many people to be on first name terms with him. I nod. “Okay.”
“The truth is, Celestra, that we just don’t know who or what you are.” He looks uncomfortable at admitting that, as though the idea that he might not know everything irritates him. “That’s part of why we want to help you so much. We want to find out. We also don’t think that the Others should destroy someone as potentially important as you just because they let their fear of the unknown override their common sense.”
“Why would anyone be afraid of me?” I ask. After all, it isn’t like I’ve been doing anything that people should be afraid of. I’ve been going to school, running track, and all the things every other girl my age does. None of
them
ever gets whisked off to secret locations for their own protection. At least, none that I know of. “I’m not anybody.”
“As I said,” Sebastian Cook points out, “there are the readings to consider. You have to understand, Celestra, that some of those things that have produced even much lower readings have been able to do quite a bit of damage. The Others presumably assume that you would be able to do exponentially more.”
“And because of some sensor result, I’m meant to be a threat?” It seems a bit like SATs. One test, and somehow, everyone thinks they know everything about you. Only I don’t remember getting to study for this one.
Sebastian Cook shakes his head. “Not just a threat, Celestra. An
international
threat.”
There’s an edge to that I don’t like. “You sound like you almost agree with these Others.”
He shakes his head then. “No. I want to keep you safe. They just want to kill you. But I’ve seen those readings too, and we can’t afford to take chances. Particularly not now that the presence of the Others will make the situation worse. Until we have some better answers, you need to fade, and you need to keep Jack near you at all times.”
“Why Jack?” I ask.
“You have an objection to Mr. Simple?”
I shake my head. “No, he’s good.”
“Oh, he’s better than good,” Sebastian Cook shoots back. “He’s one of our best Faders. I think you won’t mind his company too much either.”
He doesn’t exactly wink at Jack as he says that, but he certainly comes close to it. I decide to ignore the implications. It’s not like I really have time to consider them in any case, because at that moment, the people in the white outfits move forward once more.
“Come on,” one of them, a woman, says. “It’s time we got to work.”
She takes my arm, leading me out of the room with all the glass. Since Jack is just behind us, I let her. I don’t know why it should matter so much to me that he’s there, but it does. The room the woman takes me to is small and brightly lit, with a large chair at its center, surrounded by all kinds of implements and mirrors. For the briefest of moments, I think that I’ve been tricked, and that this is all some kind of interrogation room. That’s what you’re meant to have in secret government bases, after all, and I’m wound so tight by now that it just leaps instantly to mind.
But then I recognize some of the things around the chair. They’re the kind of things you might find in a beauty parlor, not in some hidden torture chamber. I let out a sigh of relief.
“Were you expecting something different?” Jack asks, moving up beside me.
“I…” I nod silently. “What is all this? I mean, what is it all for?”
The woman with us smiles over at Jack. “Like he’d know what half of this is for. He’s all natural charm and boyish good looks.”
“Why, thank you, Marlene.” Jack preens theatrically for a moment, and it’s nice to see behind the mask, if only for an instant. Then it’s back to business as he looks at me. “They’re going to change your appearance, Celes. It’s an essential step in the process of fading.”
“Change my appearance?” I repeat, with another look at the chair. Some of the things poised on angle arms around it look vaguely surgical.
“Relax,” Jack says, and I’m surprised to find that I do. “They aren’t going to do anything permanent to you, and it probably won’t hurt. It certainly won’t leave you looking hideous, if that’s what you’re worried about. Just think of it like a really good makeover, and you might find yourself pleasantly surprised.”
Marlene the technician leads me to the chair while Jack stands by. He’s obviously not going to leave. “Jack’s right, for once. Just sit back, relax, and pretty soon, you’ll be saying hello to a whole new you.”
SIX
T
he next part takes literally hours. Hours of plucking and teasing and dying. Hours of doing things to my teeth and my skin, hours of procedures that, while they stop short of full surgery, are clearly designed to radically change the way I look. There are never fewer than two or three of the technicians working on me at once, while at some points, there are as many as six, all far too busy to answer questions from me about what they’re doing. After all, it’s only my body they’re doing it to, right?
My hair is the first radical alteration. They dye it, changing it from its usual shining blonde to a brunette shade that’s so deep it’s almost black. They know what they’re doing, too, weaving in highlights and lowlights until the results look, not just natural, but spectacular. With that done, they hand me a set of contact lenses, telling me to get used to wearing them. They’re brown tinted, obviously designed to disguise my natural eye color.
“Though with the identity we’ve chosen, it won’t matter so much if someone notices them,” Marlene promises. “In fact, we’ll give you a couple of spare sets in different shades, and you can change them out regularly. That will keep people guessing, and they’ll think it’s the kind of thing someone like you would do anyway.”
“What?” I start to say. “I don’t understand.”
By that point, though, there’s one of them working in my mouth, adjusting my teeth to what he assures me will be movie star perfection. I thought they were pretty good anyway, but apparently, ‘pretty good’ isn’t good enough for whatever they have in mind. Other people go to work on tiny imperfections on my skin that I’d never even noticed before, using laser treatments I’ve never heard of to get rid of them. They also hurt a lot more than Jack suggested they would.
Jack is there constantly. I’m sure there’s no need for him to be, because this has to be the one place where I’m likely to be completely secure, but he never leaves my side. I guess it’s meant to be comforting, and truthfully, I’m grateful for it, but there’s nothing that can make some of the things they do to me in the name of changing my identity any less invasive. They even go so far as to change my fingerprints, which I didn’t know was possible, making me put my hands on two pads, which burn new patterns into the pads of my skin with yet more lasers. It’s probably the worst thing so far.
Not that they’re trying to make things unpleasant for me. They give me plenty of breaks from it all, but those are short, and even the time away from the chair often features something just as difficult to get through. There’s a whole hour spent with some kind of posture coach, for example, learning to change the way I stand and walk. Then there’s the time spent being lectured on fashion, being told what I should wear and what I shouldn’t. I’m as into clothes as the next girl, but the woman who goes through all this with me treats it like it’s a matter of life and death.
Jack smiles grimly when I mention that to him. “It is.”
I guess so, but even so, all this feels very strange. Some of it seems to have nothing to do with what I would have thought of as changing identity. I get a lesson in applying makeup, for example, learning which tones to use and which not to, learning what suits my face and what just doesn’t work. It’s interesting, even fun, but seriously, how does that prepare me for a shift in identity? It’s almost like they want to make me look glamorous, or something.
I find that suspicion confirmed when the technicians around me finally declare themselves done with the physical side of things. I don’t know whether to sigh with relief or worry about what other sides there might be, but I’m certainly eager to see the results when they bring out a couple of full length mirrors.
For a moment, I find myself wondering who that girl in them is, and who does her hair. Then I realize that it’s meant to be me. It’s so hard to believe that I actually stand right up close to one of the mirrors, searching for some trace of the old me in there. I can find it when I look hard, but I
have
to look hard. All those small changes they’ve spent so long on have added up to create someone who looks so different from me it’s hard to imagine.
She’s gorgeous, too.
I’m
gorgeous, I correct myself, and then feel a little embarrassed about it. Not to mention confused. I would have thought that the idea with something like this was to blend in, but there’s no way the version of me I see endlessly repeated in the mirrors can do anything other than draw attention. I shudder slightly at that, thinking of what it was like even before this, when that hair of mine used to get so many glances and comments. Do I really want this? Given that the alternative seems to be being shot at, I guess I’m just going to have to get used to it.
“Don’t worry,” Jack says, “you’ll adjust pretty quickly.”
Marlene taps her watch pointedly. “Come on, you two. We still have the final stages of the fade to get through, and we don’t have all day to do it.”
“Yes.” Jack doesn’t let much emotion go with that word, but I can tell that he’s not entirely happy about something. I wonder what it says that, after less than a day around him, I can read him that well?
“What’s wrong, Jack?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “The last part of this process… there’s something you should know, Celes.”
“There’s no time,” Marlene says. “Now, will you two hurry up?”
She practically frog-marches me to another room, with another chair.
“There’s more to do?” I ask. “Seriously?”
“Seriously,” the technician says, “now, sit down please.” She starts sticking electrode patches to my head, like she’s planning on some kind of medical scan.
“What are these for?” I ask.
“They’re for your own good,” Marlene says, and before she’s even finished saying it, she’s managed to fasten my arms to the chair with a couple of leather straps.
“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?”
“Please try to relax,” the technician says. “The straps are just to stop you hurting yourself while the machine works.”
“And what does the machine do?” I demand.