Still Not Dead, page 20
“You are,” I say quietly.
“Why’d you go and do that, Dinton?”
I ignore the chills shooting down my spine. “I, uh, I wanted to see if it would work.”
“Ha!” Mrs. Corrigan says, laughing and looking at Paolo’s mom. “Ain’t that a hoot? You went and blew the doors off your mom’s entire mission just so you could see?”
When she puts it like that, I feel very bad.
“My friend Paolo’s deathdate is in four days,” I say.
“Hmm,” Mrs. Corrigan says, chewing on her bottom lip thoughtfully before tilting her head and smirking at me like I’m a moron. “You think I don’t know that, Dinton? You’re talking about the son of one of my best agents, who happens to be seated right next to you! And may I remind you that this Paolo is the reason Agent Diaz was assigned to your case in the first place.”
“You may,” I say. I can’t help myself.
“Well, ain’t you a sassy one,” Mrs. Corrigan says with a twinkle in her eye, like she’s always enjoyed a good smart-ass comment. “I like you, Dinton. In fact, Agent Diaz, if you wouldn’t mind giving us a moment alone, I would greatly appreciate it.”
Paolo’s mom looks up, surprised. “You want to be alone with Denton?”
“That’s what I just said, isn’t it?”
“Right, of course, sure.” Paolo’s mom pushes back her chair and stands up. “I’ll wait outside with Lin.”
“Wait wherever the hell you want, my love. Just give us a minute.”
“Sure.” Paolo’s mom and I make eye contact before she leaves. If she’s trying to convey something nonverbally, I have no idea what it is. She walks out of the room and shuts the door.
The mood instantly shifts with the departure of Paolo’s mom. I examine Mrs. Corrigan’s desk as I wait for her to speak. I can feel her staring at me, but I don’t want to look back until she starts talking.
“So we have a bit of a situation here,” she finally says, most—if not all—of her levity gone.
“Yeah…,” I agree, even though I don’t exactly know what she’s talking about.
“This virus your mom and her crew created, you know, as part of their little plan to eliminate mandatory deathdating in this country…”
She pauses, as if waiting for me to affirm what she’s just said. I don’t. “Well,” she says with a mirthless smile, “you seem to be the first activated carrier of it. And as you demonstrated on that Gutierrez fellow, you have the ability to nullify other people’s deathdates. We were afraid this might happen.”
I don’t say anything. Something about this room, all harmless clutter at first, now feels dangerous. If I were to shout, if I were to scream, no one would hear me.
“Because, you know, Dinton, knowledge is power, and deathdates are the ultimate knowledge. We need them.” The more I stare at Mrs. Corrigan, the more I realize she and HorribleCop actually look alike; they have the same facial structure. If it turns out they’re related, then I’m legally required to hate her. “They give this country a sense of order and organization that it simply didn’t have decades ago.”
“Plus,” I say, feeling some probably misguided sense of courage, “if we got rid of them, the government would lose out on all those millions of dollars from the pharmaceutical company that makes the ATG kits, right? All those senators and congresspeople whose campaigns are paid for by Epistemex.”
“No, no, no,” Mrs. Corrigan says, vigorously shaking her head. “Your mom’s been feeding you propaganda, and it’s simply not true.”
I give a slow shrug. I try to do it in a way that seems badass, but it ends up looking more like my shoulders are twitching.
“Don’t be foolish, boy,” Mrs. Corrigan says, giving me a look like, What’s wrong with your shoulders? “This ain’t about money. It’s about the well-being of all Americans.”
I don’t believe that. In fact, her words are making my mom’s mission seem more justified than ever. If I can somehow get out of here, I’m going to unassassinate the crap out of this woman on Monday.
“That’s why we had Agent Diaz assigned to you so many years ago,” Mrs. Corrigan continues, “to put everything we had into understanding this thing inside you and to see if she could dig up any leads on your lunatic mom. We were trying to anticipate any problems before they happened, stamp ’em out. ’Course, you know it all got bungled the night you were supposed to die…but it’s worked out in the end. Agent Diaz had the brilliant idea to tail her son’s little girlfriend. Led us straight to your mom’s apartment.” My heart sinks. They followed Millie. “We got a team combing through that place as we speak, looking for information.” My mom should never have trusted me. I’ve ruined this for her. I want to barf. “And we’re gonna take you down to DC, deal with this virus. Get you back to healthy again.”
She smiles in a way that’s trying a little too hard, and my bullshit detector blares. I’m not sure what’s going to happen to me in DC, but I don’t think it’s going to be a positive experience.
“Is that what you guys did to Matilda, too?”
“Huh?”
“A woman named Matilda was taken by the government a couple of years ago, because she’d lived through her deathdate.”
“Oh,” Mrs. Corrigan says, tapping her fingers on her desk. “Sure, I remember her. She’s been relocated. Got a whole new life in a whole new city. She’s doing quite well.” She says it in this way that makes it sound like a lie, but it’s hard to know for sure.
Regardless, it creeps me out. I stand up.
“Come on, Dinton. No need to get uppity. Please, take a seat.”
I could make a dash for the door, but Paolo’s mom and Agent Lin, not to mention that third agent upstairs, will be there to stop me. I’m a rat in a maze. I sit back down.
“Thank you,” Mrs. Corrigan says. She grabs a tissue from a cardboard cube in front of her and blows her nose loudly for seven or eight seconds. “You know,” she says, sniffling and wriggling her nose, “I believe you met my brother. On your deathdate.”
And there it is. HorribleCop is her brother. Of course he is. And she’s HorribleLady.
“He said you fancied yourself to be a real rebel, but I frankly don’t know what he’s talking about. You seem like a pretty considerate fella to me.” HorribleLady leans forward over the desk. I’m pretty sure I hear some of her bones crack. “See, I’ve got a bit of a personal conundrum, Dinton. And I’d like to share it with you, and only you. That’s why I made Agent Diaz excuse herself.”
I clutch the wooden arms of my chair. What the hell is she about to say?
“I’m sure you’re not aware of this, but my deathdate is in three days.”
I was not expecting her to go there. “Oh yeah, no,” I say, calling on any minimal acting chops I have. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Well, thank you. Now, technically, I retired from being head of the USDLC a week ago. But everyone knows I love my work, my work is my life, blah blah, which is why they think I got you meeting me in some post office basement instead of an actual government building. ’Cause I’m retired.”
“Oh,” I say. “But that’s…not the reason?”
“Hell no, Dinton! I’m about to die. It’s time to leave this work shit behind me. You think I want to be in here, threatening some teenage boy? Anyone who tells you their work is their life is really just scared and alone. I want you to remember that.”
“Okay…”
“The fact of the matter is, Dinton…” HorribleLady takes off her glasses for a moment, closes her eyes, and rubs her skinny fingers against them. Then, in a flash, the glasses are back on her face, her eyes once again boring into me. “I don’t want to die.”
“Oh,” I say.
“I want you to pass me that virus.”
I try to say What? but I’m speechless.
“You heard me,” HorribleLady says. “Whatever you need to do to get that virus into me, I want you to do it.”
Ew, gross. After three tries, I’m able to spit out the word: “But—”
“But what? You can save some random guy in the ass crack of Brooklyn, but not me?”
“But you…” I run my tongue around my very dry mouth in an attempt to loosen my speaking muscles. “You just spent all this time saying how you need the deathdate system in place and how you’re going to stamp the virus out. So asking for me to pass it to you seems kinda…hypocritical?”
HorribleLady stares at me like I’ve just asked if we could continue our conversation with our pants off. “Dinton,” she says. “I do believe in the deathdate system. I think it’s vitally important for society that we all know when we’ll die, and I have devoted most of my life to making sure that system runs smoothly. But that doesn’t mean I’m ready to die now.”
She’s making my brain hurt. She and my mother want the exact same thing: for HorribleLady to live through her deathdate.
“But…you don’t see how you’re completely contradicting yourself?”
“Oh boy,” HorribleLady says, staring at the ceiling and shaking her head. “You’re not one of those semantics guys, are you? Nitpicking over the meaning of every word? Look, there’s the entire system, right?” She holds out one of her long-fingernailed hands. “And then there’s one person.” She holds out a finger of her other spindly hand. “What I want for myself can sometimes be different than what I want for the whole system.” She sticks the finger out over the desk toward me. “Can you understand that?”
“Yeah, you’re saying that you believe in the system as long as it doesn’t apply to you.”
“You’re just a kid, all right, Dinton?” HorribleLady stands up, her volume rising. “You’re not gonna be able to understand this, and you don’t need to. All you need to know is that your life will be made way easier if you do this for me.”
This is happening faster than my mind can process. I’m sure there’s an opportunity here, but I don’t know what it is yet.
“How?” I ask.
“What?”
“How will my life be made easier?”
HorribleLady slinks back down into the cracked black leather rolling chair behind the desk. “Well, for a start,” she says, “the government will get off your back. Let you live your life in peace.”
“So you won’t take me to DC?”
“Hwell, that’s the one thing I can’t do for you, unfortunately. We have to nip this situation in the bud, nullify that virus in you, make sure everyone’s actually dying on their deathdates from this point forward.”
“I thought you didn’t care about your job anymore,” I say. “Just staying alive.”
“There you go with those semantics again, see?”
I don’t think she actually knows what semantics means.
HorribleLady steamrolls onward. “But after we stamp the virus out, you can live your life.”
“As Denton Little?” I ask. “I can go back to New Jersey?”
“Oh God, no,” HorribleLady says. “Nobody can know you lived. Even I don’t get a free pass as far as that’s concerned; I’ve got a whole new identity planned for myself for after you help me out, once the world thinks I’ve croaked. But I promise: we’ll make sure you’re taken care of. Get you a new name, new life, set you up somewhere nice. Just like that woman Matilda. Hell, maybe even give you a free ride to college if you play your cards right.”
“Would I be able to go to Paolo’s funeral? On Tuesday?”
“Hmm.” HorribleLady bends behind the desk and comes back up with a bottle of Pellegrino in her hand. She takes a long sip; the glugging sound makes my skin crawl. “I don’t think so, no. Didn’t you already pass him the virus anyway? We’re gonna have a ton of agents stationed there in case he survives his deathdate, too. Make sure we don’t have a repeat of what happened with you.”
“Don’t worry,” I say, seething. “He’s not going to survive.”
“Good. ’Cause we really can’t afford to let anyone else live through their deathdate.”
I can’t believe the contradictions coming out of this woman’s mouth.
“Other than you,” I say.
“I know this seems unfair to you,” she continues. “But that’s how everything seems when you’re a teenager. You’ll get over it.”
I chew my thumbnail. I want to explode.
I come up with a plan. It’s a long shot, but it’s all I have.
“All right,” I say. “I’ll give you the virus.”
“Yes!” HorribleLady says. “Now, that’s the spirit.” She clasps her hands together and tucks them under her chin. “So how does this work?” She’s a kid in a candy store. “It transfers through saliva, right? Do you want to spit into my bottle?” She holds it out for me. Gross.
“No, I can’t do it yet.”
“What do you mean?”
“It won’t work right now.”
HorribleLady continues to hold out the Pellegrino bottle. “Don’t lie to me, Dinton.”
“I’m not,” I say. “It won’t work until it’s within forty-eight hours of your deathdate. That’s the window of time when your DNA will accept it.”
“Then how’d you pass it to your little friends? It wasn’t their deathdates.”
“I passed it, but their bodies didn’t accept it. They’re immune now. I’m telling you, the virus will only work to cancel a deathdate if it times out the way I’m saying. That’s why I had to go to a random funeral to test it out.”
“Okay, you can give me your spit now, and I won’t drink it until I get to the forty-eight-hour mark.”
I cannot believe I’m having a conversation about my spit with a high-ranking government official. “That might work. But I don’t know how long the virus will stay active in my saliva once it comes into contact with air.” I’ve stolen this biological idea from something I heard about sperm once, but maybe it’s true with the virus, too. Who the hell really knows? “We could try that, if you want to risk it.” I shrug, and this time I’m more successfully badass. “It’s your funeral.” Zing!
HorribleLady leans back against the cracked leather of her chair and slowly taps her fingers against the desk. “All right, then. We’ll set something up for Monday morning, before my funeral. You’ll pass me this virus, and we’ll send you down to DC, and then off to your new life. That sound about right?”
“I guess so,” I say.
“We’ll obviously be keeping you in our custody until then. I didn’t know about these time conditions, so I’ll have the USDLC get you set up somewhere nice in the meantime. Agent Diaz will be with you. But given her low success rate when it comes to keeping you in her care, Agent Lin will be there, too. Just to make sure this goes as planned. Incidentally, not a word of this to either of them. Or anyone else, for that matter. If I do find out you’ve said anything, that virus won’t be the only thing getting stamped out. You know what I mean by that?”
I nod, too furious and terrified to speak.
HorribleLady nods back and looks down at her papers, like she has important business to attend to in this post office basement. “Agent Diaz!” she barks.
The door opens, and Paolo’s mom pops her head in. “Yes, ma’am?”
“We’re done here. Slight adjustment to our plans: we’re gonna keep the boy in the city a couple of more days. With you and Agent Lin.”
“Oh,” Paolo’s mom says, clearly confused. “But, uh, my son’s going to die on Wednesday, so I’d like to get back to spend time with him.”
No. My long-shot plan becomes a zero-shot plan without Paolo’s mom.
“You’ll be with Dinton till Monday morning. Then you can take all the time with your boy that you want. Sound good?”
Paolo’s mom looks at me, and I try my best to make my eyes convey desperation.
“All right,” she says, after a few moments.
“Here,” HorribleLady says, scribbling on a piece of paper and passing it over to Paolo’s mom. “You and Lin take him to this address, get settled in. I’ll be in touch with updates. Go on, then.” HorribleLady flips a hand at us and looks back down at her work. Paolo’s mom ushers me out ahead of her.
“Oh, and, Diaz?” HorribleLady says.
“Yeah?”
“Better put those handcuffs on him after all.”
“See what movies they have on pay-per-view,” Agent Lin says from his position by the door.
“I don’t particularly care,” Paolo’s mom says. “You can see yourself when it’s your turn.”
We’re in some nice Manhattan hotel where everything is red. I am sharing a room with Paolo’s mom and Agent Lin. It is very weird.
“Geez, Diaz,” Agent Lin says. “Lighten up.”
I’m on one of the double beds, my arms behind my back, handcuffs chewing into my wrists. I’ve found an awkward way to contort my body so that I can lie down and sleep. I give it a comfort rating of one star out of five.
Paolo’s mom is on the other bed, while Agent Lin stands guard by the door. They’re taking shifts.
None of us have talked much. We had a silent car ride from the post office, an audience of raised eyebrows as I was paraded through the hotel lobby, and now an almost entirely silent stretch of hours in this hotel room. Paolo’s mom and Agent Lin were not expecting this. They were thinking they’d escort me down to DC, and that would be the end of their responsibilities. I can tell they don’t understand what the point of keeping me here is.
Which is why I am going to tell them.
Well, not Agent Lin. Just Paolo’s mom. If I can get her alone for a minute.
“If they have something starring The Rock, we’re watching it,” Agent Lin says.
It doesn’t look like it’s happening tonight.
