The second Charlie’s eyes landed on the picture of her and Darwin in Bolivia, age six and seven respectively, chewing on stalks
of sugarcane with the sparkling lake behind them, she felt the same stab in her stomach she’d felt in the PAP.
Stop torturing yourself, Charlie!
The last thing she needed before lying to Shira was to wonder why she made her deal with the she-devil and traded her boyfriend
for a chance to shine.
“Charlie?” Fiona tapped her watch. “Shira’s time is valuable.”
“Of course,” Charlie started, ripping her eyes from the wall. “I’m right behind you.”
Mentally replacing the picture of Darwin with one of Allie, Charlie took a deep breath and kept walking,forcing her gladiator
sandals along Shira’s Oriental rug until Darwin’s face slid away from her like a bug on her windshield.
T-Minus 18:00
Fiona led her through a sliding glass door and out to the backyard. The smell of honeysuckle, manure, and the ocean filled
Charlie’s nostrils. On one side of the yard was Shira’s garden, with all manner of exotic flora. There were giant purple roses
of Sharon, wild bougainvillea in every color of the rainbow, huge sunflowers whose heads bobbed and dipped in the breeze like
they were singing backup at an Amy Winehouse concert. On the other side, flanking the gently rolling grass hills that led
down to Shira’s docked sailboats at the water’s edge, were the stables and a small barn. Which apparently was where they were
headed.
Inside the barn, dust motes danced in the refracted golden light of early evening. It smelled loamy and musty and very distinctly
of horse pee. Charlie hadn’t been to the barn in ages. Was it really possible that this dank, noisy place was Shira’s hangout?
“My wittle Cookie mookie! I wuv my wamma, yes I do!” Shockingly, the voice sounded like… Shira’s. Charlie suppressed a smirk
as the mogul came into view in the dim light of the straw-strewn animal pens, filling up the food trough for Cookie, the nasty
alpaca who spat at everyone but her.
“And let’s give beautiful Bill and plain old Hillary their dinner… and—” A gurgling, insistent series of snorts from Althea,
a Vietnamese potbellied pig, interrupted Shira’s baby-talk monologue as she fed her prized peacocks.
Fiona cleared her throat and stepped out of the shadows of the barn toward Shira, Charlie in tow.
“Hi,” Charlie said, noting the mud-smeared rubber boots adorning the feet of one of the richest, most powerful women in the
world. Shira had tucked her auburn curls into an Alpha Academy promotional cap, but even in the musty barn she still wore
her trademark dark glasses. She pressed her lips together in a thin, tight smile.
“G’day, Charlie.”
T-Minus 11:00
Charlie looked up after a quick glance at her aPod timer. Now was when her performance had to be perfect, or she would run
out of time and be ushered off the premises before completing the mission.
“I always thought you had someone to do this”—Charlie waved her hand around the whole animal menagerie—“for you.”
“Oh, this?” Shira unlatched a pen that housed two lambs covered in sky blue wool. “This, m’dear, is what keeps me sane. Reminds
me of the emu farm I was raised on. These little blue lambs were given to me by Ashton and Demi last month—some cloning project
they’re financing, God knows why.”
Stick to your plan,
Charlie reminded herself, swallow-nodding. Charlie needed to keep Shira busy with small talk until her 5:58 phone call.
“So, um, my mom sends her regards. She’s in school, you know. In England. New South Wales. She’s studying art history. She’s
considering getting her PhD—”
“Is that right?” Shira said absently. She bent down to scoop up a baby quail that had become separated from its brothers and
sisters. “And you, Charlie, are you learning anything at this fabulous incubator for talent?”
“I’m learning so much, I can hardly believe it. The teachers here are amazing. This week I’m creating a new circuit system
for a teleportation device I’m working on, and you already know about the nail polish—”
“Mmmm.” Shira barely responded, focused only on the zebra in the corner stall. “Fiona, make a note to call the vet in the
morning. Zorro hasn’t touched her food.”
“Done.” Fiona entered the new task into the clipboard.
“You were saying, Lolly? Full speed ahead, yes? Keeping up with all the gifted girls at the Academy not proving to be too
much for you yet, I suppose.”
“Actually, no…” Charlie trailed off.
This
was the Shira she knew and loathed! When would the woman realize that Charlie had a brain in her head? That she had done
more to create the technology on Alpha Island than almost anyone? “I’m managing to hold my own here so far,” she said tightly,
checking her aPod clock yet again.
T-Minus 5:00
(Phew!)
“So, like I was saying, I’m working on this new circuit—the configuration has never been tried successfully before. It requires
a crazy amount of CAD coding, so I’m brushing up on that in my spare time….”
Charlie smiled to herself as Shira’s face went slack from boredom. Technology was never Shira’s strong suit. She paid the
bills to create and maintain Alpha Academy’s technology wonderland, but that was about it.
“And my bunk-mates are great. You know we lost Renee of course. The actress? We’ve been wondering, is someone coming to take
her bed?” Charlie glanced at her aPod.
T-Minus 4:00
(yes!)
Fiona, who’d slipped out earlier without a sound, returned to the barn. “I’ve got Greenspan on hold,” she said lightly, crossing
something off on her touch-screen clipboard. Charlie remembered when that clipboard belonged to her mother. Next to Charlie,
it had been Bee’s most valued possession.
“Oh, enough stalling, Charlie. I can’t be expected to know every little thing. Now you said you had a name for me. Spit it
out!”
Tick tick tick!
Charlie stepped closer to Cookie and stroked the yellow fur on her neck, imploring the alpaca to help her waste a bit more
of Shira’s time.
“Right… by the way, we were wondering if you’d given any thought to holding a competition of some sort for the more musical
Alphas, because a lot of the girls are kind of over the inspirational music relaxation component of lights-out. Some of these
girls are so fickle. I mean, I personally
like
it just the way it is….”
“Charlie! A name!” Shira was standing in front of her now, hands on her slender hips. Her Vietnamese potbellied pig squealed
impatiently.
“Um, yeah. I was just getting to that.”
Charlie looked down at the little blue clones, bleating away in their pen. Out of nowhere, a line of an old song her mother
used to sing to her popped into her head:
Mares eat oats and does eat oats, and little lambs eat ivy. A kid will eat ivy, too, wouldn’t you?
“The girl is named Lambert. Ivy Lambert. She’s been spreading rumors about you, saying that the reason you wear sunglasses
all the time is that your eyes are bloodshot.”
“Bloodshot!” Shira unconsciously pushed her glasses up her nose. “Explain.”
“She says they’re bloodshot…” Here Charlie leaned in dramatically, lowering her voice to a whisper. “From drinking!”
Shira gasped.
“Ivy Lambert,” Charlie repeated for dramatic effect. “She’s got to go.”
“Shira!” Fiona called. “It’s time.”
“Thanks for the tip,” Shira muttered. Charlie the Spy had done her job, and now Shira was on to her next piece of business.
“See yourself out. You don’t want to be late for dinner.”
“No problem.” Charlie smiled. It was almost
too
easy.
0:00
(Step two, complete.)
As Fiona and Shira hurried away, already discussing that day’s performance of Shira’s portfolio on the world markets, Charlie
crept around the stables until she got to the side of the house where the recycling was kept.
Her hands trembling like the feathers on Shira’s baby quail, she flipped open a fuse box on the wall to reveal a keypad, praying
the entry code hadn’t been reset. Charlie typed in the age of each Brazille Boy—16 (Melbourne), 15 (Sydney), 14 (Darwin),
13, 13 (the twins, Taz and Dingo)—and held her breath.
“Come on, come on,” she whispered, staring at the wall where she knew the panel was hidden. Besides hanging around with Darwin,
she’d practically watched the place being built, and she knew it better than anyone. Hopefully, even better than Shira.
Finally!
Three green LED lights flashed and a thin panel in the wall slid open to reveal a staircase to the lower level of the house,
where the control room was.
She darted in, holding her breath until the door clicked shut. Charlie reasoned that she had at least three minutes until
Shira ended her call, and she quickly reset her aPod’s timer.
T-Minus 3:00
Pulling a pair of silver work gloves out of her skirt pocket, Charlie raced down the stairs, heart in her throat. Not daring
to turn on a light, she groped in the near-blackness toward the closet where the mainframe was kept. Inside, hundreds of tiny
red, blue, and green lights blinked along the tops of dozens of connecting ports. The room was like a giant bowl of Skittles-fettuccine,
crammed with thousands of wires in every color of the rainbow, draped over every nook and cranny of the closet. So much electricity
happening in one place would normally look beautiful to Charlie, but now instead of seeing the wonder of technology in action,
her heart sank. How on earth would she find it? She stood frozen in place, not knowing which way to turn. Her phone vibrated
in her pocket, indicating two minutes had already passed.
Don’t wimp out now
, she told herself sternly, praying Shira’s call would run long. Treating the room like a geometry problem, she reasoned the
wires connected to the cameras would be closest to the bank of computers in the basement.
Gently parting a curtain of wires marked
RESIDENCE
, she crept toward the right-hand wall of the closet. Standing on her tiptoes, she found it: a vertical box with a neatly
typed label on it marked
SECURITY
.
Clapping her gloved hands together, Charlie went to work. She disconnected the output wire, switching places with the input.
For good measure, she typed a few system-scrambling commands into the keyboard attached to the mainframe.
Mission accomplished!
Taking the stairs two at a time, Charlie darted out of the closet, then bounded up the basement stairs as fast as her feet
would take her. Sliding the panel closed again, she dashed for the side gate, thankful that the sun had dropped low in the
sky. Channeling her inner Catwoman, she ran silently away from the house and hurried toward the Pavilion.
As she dashed down the walkway toward safety, the soft pink tropical twilight was suddenly drained of all its candy-colored
streaks. A dreary front of gloomy slate gray quickly covered the whole island. Charlie shivered, looking up for a second before
running even faster, her heart pounding in her ears.
Either Shira had just discovered that her precious cameras no longer worked, or she’d just realized that Ivy Lambert didn’t
exist.
JOAN OF ARK
MAIN DECK
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21ST
7:09 P.M.
The wind whipped through Skye’s white-blond waves as Taz took on more speed, throwing the boat’s steering wheel to the right
in a series of twists that showed off his broad shoulders and golden tan.
“I can do the circumference of the whole lake in seventeen minutes!” he yelled into the rushing wind.
“Go for it!” shouted Skye, leaning back against some rigging and feeling her hair whip around her while she squinted at the
mountains surrounding the lake for signs of life. So far, so good: The only audience they had wore pine needles, not binoculars.
It was a relief to be doing what she did best—basking in the attention of a cute boy. A founding member of the DSL Daters
back in Westchester (they prided themselves on making super-fast connections with boys), Skye knew that hanging with a hottie
on a boat was smack in the middle of her comfort zone. And now that the cameras were down, Skye was free to enjoy her relapse
with a serious case of Taz-Mania. When he suggested she join him for an after-dinner joyride on Shira’s yacht, the
Joan of Ark
, she had jumped at the chance.
Thanks to Charlie, it was Alphas Gone Wild—just the way Skye liked it. On her way to meet Taz, Skye had passed a cluster of
girls planning a midnight trip with Melbourne to hike up the mountain just past the arts building and soak in the natural
hot springs. Another group was going on a late-night swim on the beach with Dingo, and the Beyoncés had teamed up with the
J. K. Rowlings to create an island-wide version of capture the flag. Everyone seemed to be having fun again, but she was pretty
sure she would be the talk of breakfast tomorrow if she decided to blab details of her night. After all, none of the other
Alphas got a private tour around the lake—or a Brazille boy all to herself.
Taz took the boat expertly through the teal water in the center of the @-shaped island and Skye shivered, feeling the wind
whip through her teeth and through the thin cotton fabric of her pearlescent white minidress, which she’d worn because it
seemed nautical enough and because it made her legs look ten miles long accentuating her Clarins-assisted tan. She yanked
down a pair of pale pink dance sleeves. (Thankfully, she hadn’t set fire to
all
her trademark accessories—just the one pair, for symbolism’s sake.)
We are so Kate and Leo right now!
Back in Westchester, the night before Skye boarded her personal Alpha plane to Alpha Island, where magazines and TV were off-limits,
she had paged through an
Us Weekly
and spotted a headline that read, “Beefcake Brazille Boy’s Swift Split!” She had no idea if Taz had ever actually dated Taylor
Swift, but she knew it couldn’t hurt her chances that she shared the singer’s long platinum wavelets, slender waist, and B-cups.