Destiny: The Girl in the Box #9 (22 page)

“That could have anything in it,” my mother said, sounding like a cross between a mother and paranoid FBI agent. I slid my finger under the seal of the envelope and opened it. “Anthrax, anyone?”

“Does that fall into the category of diseases and infections we're immune to?” Reed asked as I slid the note from the envelope and read it once. Then again. “Well, don’t keep us in suspense,” he said after a minute, “what’s it say?”

I blinked and read it quietly one more time. “It says, ‘To Sienna Nealon: I am in your debt. I will be at the Japanese Garden at Como Park Conservatory tonight at nine p.m. Won’t you speak with me?’”

“Well, that doesn’t sound like a trap at all,” Reed said. “You’re not going, of course.”

“I am going,” I said. I could feel the tautness in my chest. The timing was … fanciful. But then, if it was him, time was his plaything, so it would make sense that he’d know his help was needed, and now. “I have to.”

“Wow, I was pretty sure my sane sister walked in here, but now she’s gone and there’s a crazy person in her place,” Reed said. “Why would you even consider taking a mystery invitation from someone that’s made it appear in your office?” He took a couple steps toward me to look over my shoulder. “Does it even say who it’s from?”

“Yeah, it’s signed,” I said. I stared at the elegant, flowing handwriting that was exquisite in its detail. Just like the perfectly aligned plant on my desk. “It’s signed, ‘Shin’ichi Akiyama.’”

“Random person asks you to meet in a darkened garden at night, you leap at the invitation,” Reed said. “I know you had an unconventional upbringing,” he grinned at my mom, who stood staring into the office quietly, eyes fixed on the bonsai, “but I would think that you’d have learned a good, healthy fear of strangers—”

“He’s not a stranger.” I looked up from the invitation, staring at each of them in turn. “Not really. Shin’ichi Akiyama … is the only man Weissman has ever feared.”

Night had fallen, and I was sitting in a van outside the Como Park Conservatory. It was a massive glass structure that extended a hundred feet into the air in a dome shape, with greenhouse-shaped protrusions jutting out from the center dome like spokes from a hub. White metal struts separated each pane of glass. It was lit from the outside, and the beautiful setting made me wonder what it was like in the daytime.

“The Japanese garden is outside,” my mother said, a little quietly. She had been sedate all day, ever since the security breach. I had expected a more vocal debate from her, the way I’d gotten it from pretty much everyone else, but she’d been virtually silent about the whole thing.

“Does anyone else think this is capital-C crazy?” Reed asked from the driver’s seat. Scott was sitting next to him, and nodded along without saying anything. “Okay, I just wanted to make sure I hadn’t had a psychotic break with reality.”

Dr. Zollers was sitting in the seat just behind me and had said almost as little as my mother had. “Are you sure you want to do this?” To his credit, he didn’t try to discourage me. At least, I thought it was to his credit. If he was walking me into a trap, I might not find it nearly so creditable.

“I’m sure,” I said, unfastening my seat belt. “Just wait here.”

“Um, no,” Reed said, “we’re going in with you.”

“Akiyama invited me,” I said. “To bring others feels … rude, somehow.”

“Really?” Reed asked. “Because to me it feels insane to do otherwise. You’re talking about walking into an uncontrolled setting while we’re at war, and you’re going to do so while keeping your backup a few hundred feet away.” His eyes grew dark. “This is the sort of thing I’d expect from someone who’s too stupid to live, not from you, my normally tactically smart sister.”

I felt my stomach rumble and knew he was right; yet for some reason, I knew I had to do this. There was something about the invitation from Akiyama, as crazy as it sounded, that told me I needed to accept. I’d looked at the security footage, and there was something … familiar about him. He’d looked straight at the camera, and his face … I’d trusted him instantly for some reason I couldn’t define. Something inside told me that I needed to be here, right now. This was an opportunity that we desperately needed. If Akiyama would help us, and we could kill Weissman …

… the war would be over. Not even Sovereign could stand against Akiyama’s power. Not after we had removed all of Century’s support mechanism from beneath him.

“Why did the invitation say he was in your debt?” Scott asked. He’d been nitpicking this point for hours.

I still didn’t have an answer for him. “I have no idea.” I glanced at my cell phone, letting the faceplate light the van in the dark. The only other light was being shed from the streetlights around us.

“Does that not bother you?” Reed said. “I don’t see how you can be so calm when everything about this stinks—”

“I don’t know!” I said, sighing. “I don’t know, okay? Every minute we’re in this fight with Century, I question myself. Did I make the right moves the day they raided our dorm and killed all those people? Was I a fool to turn down Erich Winter’s offer of help before he died? Did I screw up majorly by not just accepting my fate and killing Bjorn when Winter told me to?” I lowered my voice. “Am I a fool for not going to Sovereign now and telling him I’ll marry him and do whatever he wants if he’ll call off this extermination?”

Reed started to interrupt but I shushed him. “My life is a train on a track right now. Most people get to make a million choices every day, from the inconsequential to the important, choices that steer their lives. I’ve got one big one—should I fight Century or run? And a thousand tactical decisions to make from there that will lead to one of two basic outcomes—we’ll either win or we’ll lose. And if we lose, you’ll all die.”

“Which is why I can’t figure out why you’re making this choice right now!” Reed’s pent-up fury exploded out of him. “This smells like a setup. Like an ambush. Like you’re just leading us right into the mouth of the lion so we can get good and dead quicker than we would otherwise. We have a plan. We could hit those safe houses, start wiping Century off the map—”

“You’re missing it,” I said with a faint smile. It was mournful, not mirthful. “If we do that, we accomplish one thing—we winnow their numbers down from the one hundred they had when they started. But they’re gonna take everything they have left and throw it at us at that point. They may already be moving to do that.”

“Then we fight them!” Reed said. “I like fifty or forty or thirty to eight odds better than I like eighty to eight. If they’re gonna come, let’s do some damage first.”

I shook my head. “And that’s the point. We can’t win the war that way. Even if we grind them down to thirty to eight—assuming no one dies on the raids—we’ll be able to take out maybe another ten of them before we go down.” I felt all expression leave my face. “And then the rest will just move on with their plan. Wipe humanity off the board, or whatever they’re going to do. The way we are currently playing the game, we … will … lose.” I hit every word with extra emphasis. “It’s inevitable. Like destiny.”

“So instead we just throw the game away right now,” Scott said with a scornful sigh.

“No,” I said. “We hedge a long-odds bet. And it is long odds, I’ll be the first to admit it. Akiyama is coming to us at an insanely convenient time, if he’s really coming to help us. But I’m willing to risk a trap—a confrontation—if it will give us a chance to change our fate. Because I see where we’re going, how this war is going to play out for us … and I can’t …” My voice broke. “I can’t do it. I know you think I’m cold and heartless, but I can’t stand by and lose you all one by one in attrition through raids then watch while Weissman rallies everything they have left so he can inflict painful and punishing deaths on each of you in turn.”

I shook my head and my hand found the handle for the van’s door. “Scott, Reed … wait here. Keep your eyes peeled.”

“Sure, suicide guard duty sounds like fun,” Reed said, sullen.

“I don’t want you to be on suicide guard duty,” I said. “If you see trouble coming … I want you to run.”

There was a silence in the van. “Are you freaking kidding me?” Reed asked. He turned his head all the way around to look at me. “You think I’m going to run?”

“You were just arguing tactics with me,” I said. “What sense does it make to throw all of our lives away in an ambush?”

“Slightly more sense than it makes to walk into the ambush in the first place,” Reed said hotly. “If you die, we’re done. Do you realize that?”

“No, you’re not,” I said, shaking my head. “I’ve got nothing extra to offer the cause except the skills my mother taught me.”

“You have the power—”

“I don’t,” I said with a sigh. “I don’t. If it’s in me somewhere … I don’t know how to use it. However Sovereign does it … I don’t know how to do it. My souls hate me. The one thing they have in common is that. They don’t want to help me; they want to see me die for what I’ve done to them. I can’t figure out how to force them to give me their power. I’ve tried. I can’t get them to so much as give me a moment’s assistance …” I bowed my head. “I’m just another soldier, Reed. Which is why I’m willing to take this gamble.”

Reed pursed his lips tight. Scott sat next to him, refusing to even look back at me. “Stay in the van,” I told them. Reed grudgingly nodded. “Run at the first sign of trouble. I need to talk to Zollers, and then I’ll send him back to you so he can warn you if something comes this way.”

I opened the door to the van and stepped out into the brisk, pre-autumnal evening. I held the door open as my mother joined me wordlessly, and then Zollers followed from the back seat. I slammed the door and listened to the finality of the sound as it echoed over the empty road.

“Do I need to say it?” I asked Zollers as he fell into step beside me. We were walking along a concrete sidewalk toward a gate at the far end of the building.

“You want me to coerce them into leaving if things get hot,” Zollers said in his usual, mild sort of way. “I’ll try. They’re both struggling under the burden of strong emotions that would be driving them in the opposite direction. At least, Reed is. Scott …” He shook his head.

“He’s a mess,” I said.

“I’ve seen worse,” Zollers said. “He’s haunted by that experience in Vegas. I’ve counseled people through similar things, and I think I can bring him around, given some time.”

“Time …” I said, staring over the gate. I knew the Japanese Garden was over there somewhere. “Let’s hope I can get us some of that.”

“The man waiting over there
is
Shin’ichi Akiyama,” Zollers said, “or at least he believes he is. I can read that much.” He smiled. “Assuming you believe my word.”

“I believe you,” I said, and I did. “You haven’t steered me wrong yet. Warning me not to trust anyone at the Directorate, trying to guide me from a world away, sending me the visions of Adelaide so I could find that secret room in Omega Headquarters—” I froze as his face bore a deep frown. “What?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about in relation to this … Adelaide?” Zollers said, his face creased with uncertainty. “I never gave you any visions that I know of. I just tried to keep an eye on your psyche, help keep you as stable as possible from afar. I have no idea who ‘Adelaide’ is.”

I blinked, trying to rack my brain. “But … I was having these visions in London, and I was sure you gave them to me. How else would—?”

“It’s almost nine o’clock,” my mother said, a little abruptly, from beside me. “We need to get you to your meeting.”

I cast a last look back at Zollers, who was already retreating back toward the van. “Please,” I said.

“I will do what I can,” he said.

“Come on,” my mother said, more than a little tense. I could feel the tension radiating from her in a way I couldn’t recall ever experiencing before. She jogged toward the gate and leapt over it with one good jump. I followed and landed on the pavement with all the delicacy of a kid playing hopscotch.

“That’s a little weird, isn’t it?” I asked my mother as I shot one last look back to Zollers. “I had these visions, fully-formed, of a succubus who worked for Omega in the eighties, and—”

“That’s a little weird,” my mother said, cutting me off as she led the way up the path.

“What’s wrong with you?” I asked as we veered off the road onto a path. Plants and bushes surrounded the path, well-tended greenery that marked the start of the garden.

“Nothing,” she said, not turning to face me. She kept on, a couple paces ahead.

“Something’s up,” I said, and hurried to catch her. I matched her stride and looked at her face. It was all seriousness.

The path turned slightly left, and I could hear water running ahead. A still pond lay on our right, and my mother stopped without warning. “I’m going to wait here,” she said. Her face was shrouded in darkness. There were few lights here, only a couple lamps shining in the darkness. The tranquility oozed over the scene, and I noticed leaves crunching underfoot for the first time as I came to a halt.

“Okay,” I said. “Why do I get the feeling you’re betraying me?”

She stood partially in the shadows, and I heard a faint sigh. “I assure you I’m not. But … before you go …”

“Oh, boy,” I said. “Don’t say goodbye or I’ll really think you’ve walked me into a trap.”

She didn’t move, the shadows of the overhead branches hiding her expression. “I wanted to tell you … I’m sorry.”

I looked around, turning my head in a slow circle. “Seriously, is Weissman going to come jumping out at me right now?”

“No,” she said, a little cautiously. “But I need to tell you something.”

“Maybe you could start by explaining what you’re sorry for,” I said, eyeing her more than a little warily. My paranoia was in full swing, even though I knew—somehow—that I was supposed to be here.

“I’m sorry for what I put you through,” she said. “I’m sorry it was necessary. I’m sorry I locked you in the box all those years. I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough, wasn’t smart enough, to see any other way to keep you safe.” I couldn’t see her face in the shadows. “I’m sorry I had to break your spirit to keep you down. And most of all … I’m sorry you couldn’t live a normal life.”