“Good work. You’re in.” I finally turn my iScroll back on and Carver’s image looms in front of me. “Livvy will be over this morning in case anyone decides to stop by.”
“Wait a minute.” I’m still trying to wake up, rummaging through the pantry while my coffee brews. I pull the half-filled coffee cup from the brewer and pour in cream. “I’m in what?” I stuff half a protein cake into my mouth. “Who’s stopping by?”
Xavier’s image pops up too. He glares at me. “Were you out all night again?”
“No.” I swallow the cake and try to pay more attention to them.
“The Collective called,” Carver continues. “You have been invited into Raine’s group. Good work. You made quite an impression.”
Not as I remember. “Are you sure? When did they call?”
“Last night,” Xavier says. “I tried to call you to let you know but you didn’t answer.”
His call came long before I met Raine in the park and ticked her off even more than I had earlier. It couldn’t have been her who put in a good word for me. Maybe it was Vina? “Did the Collective say who recommended me?”
“You scored big. It was the Secretary himself. Apparently—”
“What? I never even met him. This doesn’t sound—”
“Would you just pipe it and listen?” Xavier grumbles. I hate that he’s echoing my thoughts from the night before.
“Like I was saying,” Carver continues. “It seems he was there last night and saw you help a boy up off the floor who just happens to be LeGru’s son. Smart move. The Collective quoted the Secretary as saying that he found you to be ‘very gracious in an unpleasant situation.’”
Sheer luck and timing. But if he saw that, he must have seen me grab Raine’s hand too. Is he the one who sent Hap over to choke me? Something about this doesn’t feel right, but if the Secretary is the type who keeps hidden prisoners in the city, choking his daughter’s classmates might be par for the course. Or maybe he’s already checked out my profile and my conveniently rich dad is what did the trick. “What now?”
“Their next meeting isn’t for ten more days but then it really ramps up—you’ll be on nearly every night. The meeting is at the
Secretary’s residence, as most of them are. We’ll check in with you, but in the meantime stay put. The less you’re out and about, the better. Study the files, and make sure you have them memorized.”
I nod. Barely. I’m not thrilled about days filled with nothing but reading files in a quiet apartment.
Carver signs off but Xavier lingers, just looking at me.
“What?” I say. It’s more of an accusation than a question.
“You’ll come have dinner with me tonight.”
“Carver said no more face-to-face contact.”
“What Carver doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”
Some team they are. And I’m in their hands. But I agree to go with him because I’m sick of the food in the pantry, sick of the apartment, and curious about what kind of life Xavier leads outside of a basement.
I sign off and go sit on the living room couch to finish my protein cake and coffee, but I know it’s more than curiosity or being sick of the apartment that makes me want to get out. When I’m alone my mind wanders to places I never want to visit again. I think about where I am and how I got here. I think of all the people I’ll never see again. My parents, my brother, my sister. I think about how building a new life is too much work and how much I still want my old one. I think about all the wasted years trapped in a cube and not a single soul on the planet knew I was there but Kara. And Kara opens another whole new dark corridor of guilt for me to get lost in. I think about her and how I made it and she didn’t, and I still wish I could trade places with her. I hear her voice over and over again, for you Locke … always there. But I wasn’t there for her when she needed me to be. I still miss her even though she wasn’t the Kara I knew anymore. The Kara I loved was gone long ago. That’s the Kara I miss. And Jenna. I miss her too. I think about her even though I know I shouldn’t. She wants me to live life. Move on. Grow up. Can I ever do that fast enough for her?
The Favor at least gives me some relief, something else to think about, an area of my life where I’m making things happen instead of remembering what happened to me.
But if I’m honest with myself, I can’t deny there’s one more reason I want to go to Xavier’s. I can’t get the image of Raine out of my mind. I pictured her over and over again last night as I walked home, and then again first thing when I woke this morning. I see her climbing up the side of her apartment building, and then I hear Dot whispering, Escapee. Is this another odd hobby of Raine’s, or does she have something she’s trying to escape from too?
I shake my head and down the rest of my coffee. Thank God for Xavier’s invite. I can’t spend the whole day and night thinking about the complications of Raine’s privileged life when I have plenty of my own.
A Bot Named Dot
I take a cab for part of the way there. Not because I need to. According to Xavier’s directions it’s only about three miles away—in just about the same deserted section where the Network hid me and Kara in the basement when we escaped from Gatsbro. I’d rather walk the whole way there after being stuck in the apartment all day, but I’ve been in Boston for five days now and haven’t done one of the most important things I came here to do.
I didn’t need Miesha’s reminder. I remember Dot. She’s with me every day. It’s hard to forget someone who gave their— What do you call it? A life? She was a Bot. A half Bot at that. But she had hopes, dreams, she wanted to become more. I guess she didn’t realize she already had.
It’s risky for me to hail a CabBot. I know that. I could get an infiltrator as Dot called them, but her story has to be told so it can be passed on just the way she wanted, the way she hoped it would be. I owe her that much.