His stomach growls. A loud rumble that reminds him of something else that’s terrifying. He has no food. No water. His mind jumps to the safety course again. There was a lot of discussion in the class about a group of Chilean miners trapped for months who survived by drinking water from industrial tanks used to wash dirty miners’ gloves. Is there a water source down here?
He remembers the funny story about how one of the Chilean miners had both his wife and his mistress show up at the rescue site, a reality show in the making as the world wondered who would win his heart when he emerged. Who did the guy pick? Nico can’t remember.
There will be no one outside holding vigil for Nico, he knows that much. Beyond his love of gaming, there are a few constants in the life of Nico Adakai. One: People always think he’s an asshole. He’s not sure why, he doesn’t intend to be one, but there’s no denying it. Two: He’s a coward, always has been. And three: The people closest to him always leave.
This last thought takes him to another of the 12 Steps: Make a list of persons we have harmed and become willing to make amends to them all.
He thinks of his fiancée—correction, ex-fiancée—Natalie. She loved him. Really, really loved him. She was willing to work things through, even after discovering the credit cards he’d opened in her name. The thousands in debt he racked up.
“You know, it’s not the gambling,” she’d said on that last day. “You might be able to overcome that.”
“Then what is it?”
“You’re incapable of loving anyone.”
“That’s not true,” he said.
“You’re always one foot out the door so you can beat the other person at leaving.”
Natalie is an elementary school teacher, not a psychologist, but she’s watched enough Dr. Phil to be on to something. Nico made the mistake of telling Natalie about his mother leaving him behind to
escape his abusive father, about his father then disappearing. And he told Natalie about Annie, his first love who vanished without a trace.
In the fog of his thoughts—he must be in shock—his mind frolics to Annie.…
Raising her hand in ninth-grade science, one of the only kids listening to the teacher drone on.
Sitting on the top of the monkey bars at the seedy park watching the sunset. The way she smelled of bubble gum. Oh, and her laugh. It was high-pitched, cute, and made her seem softer, less damaged by her time in group homes.
The way she’d get exasperated with Nico and the other boys about their endless “that’s what she said” jokes. They were stupid, but “your mama” jokes didn’t play well in foster care.
In his mind, he’s walking home from school with the others. “How’d you do on the math test?” he asks Annie.
Before she answers, Artemis chimes in. “It wasn’t hard at all.”
Donnie barks a laugh. “That’s what she said.”
Nico sleeps.
It’s dreamless but restless at the same time.
When he wakes, it takes a moment to remember.
He’s in a collapsed mine.
He may never get out.
He hopes they’re trying to find him. That, up top, word is out and there’s a media circus surrounding the effort to save Nico Adakai. Portable lights, digging equipment, the National Guard, volunteers, network news vans.
He thinks of those Chilean miners again. How long were they trapped? It was sixty-nine days, something he remembers only because of the juvenile fascination with the number sixty-nine.
How’d they escape? There was a drill.
For Nico, they’re going to need to work all night, with a big drill, he thinks.
Then he smiles. “That’s what she said.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
JENNA
Jenna darts around the corner onto K Street, past a coffee shop, and into a CVS. The sound of sirens still floats in the air. She thinks she’s lost the woman but can’t be sure.
She takes an escalator to the lower level and makes for the back. There’s no restroom, but the greeting card aisle is empty. She strips off the jacket and fingers the fabric at the seams, checks the pockets. On the back hem, she finds it. A tiny square the size of an ordinary PC dongle sewn into the denim.
Yanking off the wig, she finds a mirror on a sunglass display stand in the back corner and tries to straighten her hair. It’s wet from sweat, disheveled. She finds a bristle brush on a rack and slicks her hair back, runway-model-style. Her cell phone and all her credit cards and money are stowed in the locker at SoulCycle, but she can’t go there. She needs to reach Simon. She still has the burner phone.
It could also have a tracker—she’ll deal with that after. But she needs to warn him.
The burner’s screen is blank. She tries to power it on, but nothing happens. It’s dead. Or they loaded some self-destruct code on the device. It would be just like Sabine and her Corporation operatives to pull this kind of Mission Impossible bullshit.
Back on the main floor, Jenna glances out the window before heading outside. She can’t take an Uber without her phone. Maybe she can get a cab. A cabbie won’t need money up front and might let her borrow a phone for a quick call. Then she spies a bus pulling to the corner of K and Seventh. She runs over, waits for two elderly women to get on. The driver is already moving before the old ladies have found and swiped their fare cards. Jenna steps past them and the driver says, “You forgot to pay, ma’am.”
“Sorry,” Jenna says. “I must have left my wallet at my exercise class. I can get off now or at the next stop.”
The driver sighs, shakes his head, but plows ahead. Jenna sits on the edge of the seat near the back door. She tucks the jacket with the tracker under the seat, the cell phone and wig stuffed inside.
One problem solved. Let that woman follow the bus around for a while.
The bus tugs to a stop, and Jenna jumps out at Ninth and I, near the collection of high-end stores at City Center.
She looks for a cab but doesn’t see any, which isn’t surprising since Uber and Lyft turned everyone into amateur taxi drivers. She spots a guy in a suit riding one of those motorized scooters that are such a nuisance. He has a hipster beard and is gabbing on his phone, zipping along the
sidewalk and around pedestrians too fast.
Jenna decides to do it. As the scooter approaches, she trips forward, knocking into the man. The guy yelps, and they both topple onto the grassy strip separating the sidewalk from the street.
The hipster’s eyes are wide as he looks at Jenna, who has jumped to her feet and is brushing herself off. “Oh my gosh, are you okay?” she asks.
A few people walking by watch, then continue on once they see that no one’s hurt.
He looks up at her, slightly dazed. His suit pants have a hole in the knee, but he’s all right. His head snaps back and forth as if he’s making sure no one caught the scene on their phone—the ever-present risk of going viral for one of life’s embarrassing moments.
The guy says, “You need to watch where you’re—” He stops, apparently computing what’s happening as Jenna scoops up his phone and holds it up to his face, unlocking the device.
“What are you—”
Jenna doesn’t answer as she darts to the scooter, pulls it from the pavement, and rides away.