Fallout (Lois Lane) (17 page)

SkepticGirl1:
Gotta go.

I signed off and said, “What?”

“Who were you arguing with?” James asked.

“And don’t say nobody or that you weren’t, because you were,” Maddy said. “Or at least starting to. I know argument face when I see it. And you were flirting before. Don’t deny that either.” She gave me a look that let me know there would be a private interrogation about that later.

Which was okay with me. I’d love to have someone I could talk things over with. See if she thought SmallvilleGuy and I were just friends . . . or something more.

But when I opened my mouth to speak, Maddy went on before I could get a word out: “Was the argument about what we heard and saw today in the study room?”

Devin said, “Lois, it’s time to stop keeping secrets from us. The Warheads . . . they can do things, can’t they? Things they shouldn’t be able to.”

It was nice to see Devin acting more like himself, asking questions again. But I gathered my hands in my lap, my palms gone ice cold.

There was no good move here. If I lied, didn’t tell them anything, sure, they’d be safe—probably—but they’d never trust me again. If I told them the truth, they’d—almost certainly—believe that I was a full-time resident of crazytown.

I knew what I wanted to do. Sometimes you just had to be brave.

CHAPTER 22

I faced them without blinking.
If I wasn’t going to hide the truth anymore, I might as well see the moment they started to doubt me.

“You’re going to think I’m completely crazy,” I said.

“No,” Maddy said, “we’re not. Don’t you get it?”

No matter how animated James got, his glossy brown hair stayed perfectly in place. “We’re not stupid, Lois. Gamers don’t read each other’s minds. Not normally.”

They were willing to listen. They were receptive to hearing what I’d been so certain would make me an outcast of the highest order.

“That’s it,” I said. “Sounds like you were figuring it out already. They might not be mind readers, not exactly, but they are sharing a consciousness. They’re connected to each other.” I paused, then finished, “What we saw and heard from the lab is an experiment using real-sim tech to link the Warheads into one many-headed mind. Project Hydra in action.”

“To what end?” James asked with a frown.

“Now
that
part I’m going to have to get a little more up close and personal to find out.”
And to stop
.

I waited, expecting that even though they’d said they would believe me, hearing it out loud would prove too much. That they’d tell me to hold on a sec, while they called my parents and informed them that I’d lost my mind.

Devin said, “I hope you have a plan.”

It took me a moment to figure out what to say.

“I always have a plan.” And I started to modify mine, which had been in the early stages. Having backup when I went into Advanced Research Laboratories would be better. SmallvilleGuy was right about that. “You guys are sure about this?”

They agreed, nodding without even looking at each other.

“We have to save the
Scoop
,” James said.

I was more than on board with that sentiment. “Agreed. So—”

“Wait,” Devin said. “Before you start, I’m volunteering.”

I didn’t like the sound of where this was going. “I thought you all were.”

He took a breath and said, “Yeah, but you’re going to need a man on the inside.”

“I can’t let you do that.”

The response came in reflex. But even as I said it, I remembered what I’d thought about Devin before. That he was the one on the staff most like me.

He set his chin and shoulders. “Not your call,” he said.

There was no point in arguing. “I don’t like it.”

“Noted,” he said. He hesitated.

His face changed and I recognized the expression on it. It was close to the one Anavi had been wearing the first day I met her, like he was about to tell us something he’d rather not, but had no choice.

“And you should be aware that I know what I’m probably agreeing to here,” he said. “The Warheads have been . . . I think they’re trying to . . . ”

He didn’t want to say it, and so I said it for him. “They’ve been messing with your mind. Inside your head, right?”

He didn’t respond, just looked at me. A long, hard look.

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I couldn’t be sure. The guys at the lab didn’t seem to notice that their little experiment is hungry to grow. That the new people are being
forcibly
recruited. Not that it’s likely they’d care if they did know.” With the possible exception of the sympathetic man. “First Anavi. And now you. I never wanted anything bad to happen to either of you, not because of me.”

“They’ve been bothering me since the other morning,” Devin said. “After we ran the story. And then that attack on my castle—they told me they were coming after me. And they did. But it wasn’t your fault. It’s because I play
Worlds
and I work here.”

I shook my head. “I hate these guys so much.”

“But Anavi’s one of them now,” Maddy pointed out.

“You’re right,” I said. “And she said one was a friend of hers before. Maybe they’re all decent enough and it’s just the experiment. I don’t know.” I caught Devin’s eye. “You ready for the plan?”

“You knowing about what’s been happening makes me feel less like I’m losing my neurons,” Devin said. “I’m ready.”

“So, you’ll be our man on the inside. It
will
be useful to throw them off and to have you there. But only as long as you’re sure that you still want to volunteer to infiltrate them?” I asked.

“I am.”

“And Maddy, you and James will be our backup,” I said. “That okay?”

Maddy shrugged one shoulder, casting a shy glance toward James. Who didn’t even catch it. James said, “Tell me what that means.”

“It means you two are going to have one of the most important jobs of all. You’re going to be the ones who bail us out if things go sideways, off the rails. You’ll show up at—” I paused. “Devin, I don’t think you should hear me explain this part. Just in case.”

“You mean just in case I turn actual traitor?” he asked.

There was a tense silence. That was exactly what I was worried about. I shouldn’t let him do this.

The Warheads were getting stronger, and they wanted Devin. Did he understand what it would mean if they succeeded in getting him?

But he must have. He was nodding. “I’ve felt what they can do. Okay. Just in case.”

“Just in case.” I didn’t even like to contemplate the “in case” we were talking about. “Best if we keep all the elements separate anyway, so that I’m the only one who can really go down for this. I’ll know the full picture, no reason for you guys to. Plausible deniability—you can claim I told you to do something you thought was innocent if we get caught. Devin, you and I can debrief after I talk to these guys.”

Devin didn’t protest, but he gave a lost look around, like he wasn’t sure what to do. “Should I leave?”

Maddy rolled her chair over to her desk and grabbed her fancy headphones, handed them to Devin. “Noise canceling,” she said. “Now you can stay.”

He dutifully put them on and went back to his desk. I worked out with Maddy and James what their jobs would be the next day.

I had one more partner in crime left to convince. And he was the only person besides me who would get to know everything.

*

One of my top five favorite smells greeted me when I got home, still worried but feeling better. A plan always made me feel better. As did pizza.

“What happened to merit a pizza night on a Monday?” I called, heading for the kitchen. Hopefully, it wasn’t to celebrate my imminent departure for military school. I was feeling cautious optimism that Dad and I might have reached an understanding in his office the other night.

Two delivery boxes were open on the counter and Mom had broken out the paper plates. No dishes to wash was a part of the pizza night tradition. Lucy sat at the table tucking into what was probably her fourth slice. She had the metabolism of a hummingbird on an energy drink. Dad was there too, already home and out of uniform in jeans and a T-shirt.

“We hadn’t had one since we got here,” he answered. “Everything go all right today?”

He meant had I met the deadline for proving the story was true.

Not yet, but almost. If everything went like it was supposed to.

But I didn’t feel like explaining about Perry agreeing to an extension. And it wasn’t like I
could
explain the rest:
Oh, yeah, tomorrow I’m going to bluff my way into a fancy lab under false pretenses to expose a secret experiment. And later I have to sneak the bug I borrowed from you back into your office. Nothing for you to worry your pretty little genius military mind about.

“Everything’s fine,” I said. “You guys mind if I take mine up to my room?”

Mom and Dad exchanged one of those inscrutable parent looks they should patent to torture criminals. Finally, Mom said, “Figured you’d be sick of the four walls of your room after the weekend . . . but if that’s what you want. You shouldn’t hold a grudge, hon. We’re your parents and we love you.”

“I know, and that’s not it. Just a lot of work to do. Swear.” I hesitated, then asked, “Can I have my phone back too?”

After another long, silent consult with Dad, my mom said, “It’s in your room, on your desk.”

“Thanks,” I said, and loaded up a plate with two—better make it three—slices before they could change their minds about letting me skip family time.

I had to move slower than I wanted on my way upstairs in order to keep the plate level. SmallvilleGuy and I had left things in an unsettled state that afternoon. But I’d caved on letting the others in on things, so maybe he’d approve. Maybe he’d agree to pitch in more.

My plan needed him. I was afraid that what I had in mind might not work for him, though.

After I locked my bedroom door, I deposited the plate on my desk, removed my laptop from my bag, and slid into my chair. My palms were slightly damp—nerves—but I ignored them. I opened the laptop and keyed in my passwords, pulled up the chat window, saw his name, and only then took a giant bite of pepperoni pizza.

SkepticGirl1:
Metropolis has been holding out on me.

SkepticGirl1:
Their pizza is amaaaaazing.

In the chat window, there was no typing message, no nothing, for half a slice. Then . . .

SmallvilleGuy:
You’re not mad at me for fixating on the not going in alone thing?

SkepticGirl1:
Nope.

SkepticGirl1:
You were right. I told them and they believed me. We have a plan.

SmallvilleGuy:
That’s good.

SkepticGirl1:
They don’t know my whole plan, though.

SmallvilleGuy:
Why not?

I inhaled, let the breath out with a sigh. I reminded myself again: sometimes you had to be brave.

SkepticGirl1:
Do you think you could figure out a way into the real-sim sandbox environment where they’re running the experiment? Get a character version of you into it, I mean. Who could then interfere with the visual part of the cue. You do already have a way to contact the guy we think is most likely to help us disrupt the experiment. He might be willing to steer you in the right direction.

I stared at the screen so hard my eyes felt like they were burning. Waiting and waiting. He wasn’t typing for the longest time, and then he was.

SmallvilleGuy:
Maybe.

The unenthusiastic reaction was what I’d warned myself about. So why did it make a disappointed pang shoot through my chest? I couldn’t pretend it was the pepperoni.

SkepticGirl1:
Devin’s going in as one of the Warheads—acting like he is one—but if what you said before is true . . . I don’t want to just get pictures and expose what they’re doing. I want to stop it. Break the link. Set the Warheads free.

SkepticGirl1:
And it seems by the founder guy’s logic, what we have to do is disrupt the linking process during the visual and audio sequence that is the cue. The one that’s been strengthening them would probably be best—so we need to disrupt it at the end of the session.

SmallvilleGuy:
Inside and outside the environment, you mean. That’s why you were asking if I can find a way inside?

SkepticGirl1:
Seems like the best bet to cover all bases. I can handle the outside. But I need someone inside the sim environment to work with me, and you’re the only one I think can do it. This might be Anavi’s only chance to not be one of them forever. Maybe some of the rest of them deserve saving too.

I didn’t give him time to respond.

SkepticGirl1:
So . . . can you help me?

There was nothing to do but wait and see if he’d come through.

SmallvilleGuy:
Lois.

SmallvilleGuy:
I can’t risk getting caught in there. Even as a character.

SmallvilleGuy:
If they traced me somehow and came here . . .

He wasn’t going to help.

I knew this was a possibility. But it didn’t hurt any less because of that. It might have hurt more.

I’d wanted to be wrong.

SkepticGirl1:
I’m not going to bother asking who you are this time.

SmallvilleGuy:
You don’t know what I’d give to be there for you. To tell you the truth.

I thought back to what he’d said earlier, when he was trying to convince me to do what he just said he’d love to—to tell the others the truth. He’d said my friends would have my back.

He was right. Any real friend would.

Were we real friends? I had always believed that we were. I
felt
like we were that, at a minimum. He knew more about me—and knew me better—than anyone else in the world. The idea that my sense of what we meant to each other could be fake, that it wasn’t true . . . I was not prepared for that.

SmallvilleGuy:
I can’t. I can’t risk it. Lois, I wish I could.

I set down the pizza slice. My eyes were burning, but I took a deep breath. I wouldn’t cry.

SkepticGirl1:
If it’s too much of a risk then it’s too much.

SkepticGirl1:
I’ll send you the details anyway, just so you have them. You’ll be the only one besides me who knows everything. Maybe what I can do on my own disrupting on the outside will be enough. I’ll just have to go big.

I visualized the inside of Dad’s cabinet. I’d return the bug, but there was something else I’d have to borrow from his stockpile of goodies this time around. I could put it back after all this was over.

SkepticGirl1:
I’m taking along a prism flare.

SmallvilleGuy:
You’ll be careful, though?

The hits kept on coming. He hadn’t changed his mind, even though he must have known how disappointed I was, and how much I needed him to come through.

But I had to pretend that it didn’t hurt. When bravery didn’t turn out like you wanted, there was always that option. The fact he couldn’t see me would make it easier. Besides, sometimes it felt like I’d been playing pretend my whole life.