Boy 2.0, page 14
“We have,” Aaron said, trying to reassure him. “We’ll just be a little late getting back from the protest. Anyway, it’s the only shot we have.”
Mrs. Guzman pulled up to the front gate and honked her horn. Door stood up and Jackson and Doc joined everyone on the porch as Mrs. Guzman walked up to the house.
“I hope Teddy wasn’t too much trouble,” she said.
“Not at all,” Doc said. “He’s funny.”
Mrs. Guzman arched one eyebrow and looked at her son.
“And polite,” Jackson added.
“Oh, we like polite!” Mrs. Guzman climbed the porch stairs and shook hands with the McKays. They chatted a bit while Door got his backpack from inside. Coal and the McKay kids followed him in.
“What if none of this works?” Coal whispered.
“At least it’ll be fun,” Door said.
Coal looked at Door in disbelief. “Seriously?”
Hannah sidled up to Door and folded her arms. “Yeah. Like we’re spies,” she said.
“This isn’t an episode of Itty-Bitty Spies,” Mari said.
Hannah snorted. “Of course it isn’t. This is way better because I’m in it, and I have the most important part.”
“You?” Mari said.
“Yeah,” Hannah said. “I’m the one who gets us in.” Pride beamed from her little face. “I’m the pinch pin.”
“Lynchpin,” Aaron corrected.
“Yeah, that,” Hannah said.
“Let’s go, Teddy!” Mrs. Guzman called.
“Thanks for dinner!” Door rushed out and down the walkway, taking his mother by the arm. “See you guys tomorrow!”
“Are we also going to see him tomorrow?” Jackson asked Doc in a low voice. “He seemed awful comfortable.”
“Stop!” She hit him playfully on the arm. “He’s Coal’s buddy. You bring over anybody you want anytime, Coal. Okay?”
“Thanks.” Coal chuckled. “He is a lot, though.”
“Yeah, but he’s a good lot,” Hannah said. “I like him!”
20.
The bus rolled into the city. Slowly. The ride had moved along quickly at first, but as they got closer, traffic thickened. The reflective Mirror Tech building remained far in the distance.
“What’s going on?” Mari asked.
Aaron checked his phone. “There was an accident. It might take a while.”
“How long a walk do you think it is?” Coal asked.
“Long,” Aaron said, looking at Hannah.
“We’re late already,” Coal said.
“We’re almost there,” Mari said. “It’ll be okay.”
The bus stopped in front of a police officer, who was detouring traffic.
“We should walk anyway,” Coal said.
Aaron went to the front. “May we get off?”
“You know where you’re going?” the driver asked.
Aaron nodded.
“Alrighty, then.”
Aaron took the lead with Hannah’s hand in his. “We’re going to have to move quickly.”
“Good thing I’m so fast,” Hannah said. She took off, pulling him with her.
They kept the silver building in their sights, following a side street that led directly to Mirror Tech. About a block away from the building, Coal found a secluded corner and started stripping while the rest of them stood around him in a face-out semicircle. He breathed deep, calming breaths. Transparent, transparent, transparent, he thought. He focused on his skin. He could feel it begin to tingle, but by the time he was down to his boxers, nothing had happened. His skin wasn’t changing.
“This is taking sooo long,” Mari said.
“And I really have to go now!” Hannah complained.
“That’s not helping,” Coal said.
“Just relax,” Aaron whispered. “But quickly.”
“Thanks,” Coal said.
“Think of it this way,” Door said. “If you don’t get in there and get your files, you might be toast. Military toast. Nuclear toast.”
“Not. Helpful.” Coal gritted his teeth.
Hannah cleared her throat. “Bye-bye, baby,” she sang, “have to skip the jump to dreamland!” The song was sweet and shaky in her little-girl voice.
“That’s not the way it goes,” Mari said.
But Door joined in, trying to follow Hannah’s invented lyrics. Between his deep croak, Hannah’s squeaky warble, and the fact that they were making up words on the fly Coal began to giggle. Then he felt tingly. He took a deep breath. Next thing he knew, he was starting to change.
“You’re almost there, buddy,” Door said, craning his neck to look at Coal.
“Could you turn around, please?” Coal asked.
He felt the strong current of electricity in his skin. Then the transformation was complete. He put everything in his backpack and handed it to Aaron.
“This is freaky,” Door said.
Coal held up Isadora’s Mirror Tech ID. It looked like it was floating in midair. “What do I do?” he asked. “I can’t walk around with it like this.”
“Um, press it between your hands,” Mari suggested.
“Won’t his hands just turn the same color as the card?” Aaron said.
“Just try it and see,” she said.
Coal pressed the card between his palms, and like the rest of him, it disappeared.
“Whew,” Door said.
“Let’s go.” Mari led the way to the front of the building.
“So!” Door turned around to walk backward. “How does it feel being all . . . free and what not? With all your . . . you know . . . out in the open?”
“Can you pay attention to where you’re walking, please?” Coal asked.
“I’m just asking questions, like, for science.”
“Did you legit say you’re asking for science?” Coal asked.
“I just want some clarity on the situation,” Door said.
“No,” Aaron said. “Nobody wants clarity on this situation.”
“I really, really have to pee!” Hannah yelled. She and Aaron burst through the door and went straight to security. Hannah was doing a dance, which was entirely convincing because it was completely real.
The guard pointed past the security doors down a hallway. Aaron nodded his thanks and took Hannah through. Coal followed close behind them and felt the door swoosh shut behind him.
“You in?” Aaron whispered.
“Yeah,” Coal said.
“Okay, you’re on your own now,” Aaron said. He and Hannah walked toward the bathroom while Coal waited in the elevator bank.
In seconds, one arrived. As someone stepped off, Coal stepped inside. “Eight,” he said. The computer voice repeated, “Eighth floor,” and the elevator took him up.
He got out and stood by the locked doorway of the lab. Through the glass wall, he could see several people working. One of them would notice if the door opened and closed on its own. He needed to wait for someone to come through so he could slip in just like with the elevator. Otherwise, he’d need to wait for The Distraction.
Minutes ticked by. Coal stared through the glass, trying to will one of the scientists to exit, but they were all so focused. Then the fire alarm went off and everyone’s heads popped up as the lights in the lab changed to flashing bright strobes.
Finally, Coal thought.
The scientists looked around, confused for a few seconds before they started to grab their things and head out. Coal waited for the entire room to empty, slipping in as the last person left.
He made a beeline to the inner lab where Dr. Achebe and Dr. Carroll had done all his tests.
He stood in front of the door and took a deep breath.
“Work, work, work.”
He swiped Isadora’s ID card and heard the door unlock. He let out a tense breath and went in.
Just like the day before, the door to the smaller lab clouded over, obscuring everything else from view. The puff of cold sanitizing air made Coal shiver, and his skin wavered into view, then became transparent again. Across the room was the chair where Dr. Carroll had gathered his samples, and to the right was the computer desk. Coal touched its reflective black surface, and the desktop brightened, bringing up the Mirror Tech logo and a search bar. He typed Win Keegan into the menu, expecting the folder he saw yesterday to appear again, but the search results read There are zero files with that name. He checked the recent files. A bunch of folders came up with data from experiments that Coal didn’t recognize. But he opened each one, looking for his name again. He moved quickly down the lists, coming to one labeled Wright, Michelle. The last date opened was yesterday, a few hours after he left Mirror Tech. He clicked it and several photographs came up. The first one was of a woman with dark skin like his own, holding a baby wearing a striped onesie.
He leaned into the desk to get a better look, and the screen tilted. He pushed a bit more, and the screen continued to tilt until it was upright. Coal enlarged the photo until he was staring at a nearly life-sized version of the woman smiling out at him, holding the equally happy baby. He couldn’t stop looking at the picture. She was pretty. She looked happy, and a little bit sad, too. The baby’s eyes were bright, big, and focused completely on the woman’s face. The date on the file was from twelve years before. Coal would have been a baby then, too. There was something about the woman’s face that struck right at his core. The curve of her chin and the way her nostrils flared a little as she smiled reminded him of something. It was like seeing someone in real life who you only knew from a dream.
He took in every detail of the photo. The dark curls of the baby’s hair. The green-striped onesie. The pink of the woman’s nails as she cradled the baby’s back. Then Coal noticed something in the background. A bit of blue-and-gray cloth draped over the woman’s arm that the baby was sitting on. He knew that cloth and that stitching. His baby blanket. The one thing he had always had.
Coal looked into the woman’s eyes again. This time he knew who she was.
His mother. He swiped to the next photo. It had been taken at the same time as the previous one. She had almost the same expression. His tiny hand was curled up near his mouth. This time the blanket was in better focus.
The next. His mother looking down. Him drooling with his whole fist in his mouth.
Another. She was staring right into the camera. She looked exhausted. He had slipped down a little in her arms.
The last one. She leaned toward the camera with her hand out in front of the lens. Like she was turning it off. It must have been a series of automatic selfies. Nobody behind the camera. Then how did the photos get here?
He was supposed to be looking for his own files. He knew that. But his mother was right here in front of him. He had to find out more about her. The next set of folders were scientific papers published by Dr. Michelle Wright. His mother’s name. He said it out loud, feeling the shape of it in his mouth. Then he looked through the files. They were all scientific studies. He quickly went through looking for more personal data, a record of himself as a baby, maybe even his name. But nothing like that was in these files.
Coal kept on searching, opening files, reading and checking everything now that he knew she might be there, somewhere. In a report titled “Mimetic Collusion in Chromatophores” he found another photo of her. This time she was standing with Dr. Achebe and Tom. Their names and titles were listed under the photo as a genetics team working with the US government.
Coal knew about chromatophores. They worked similarly to the cells that made up Cornelius’s skin. Instead of using nanocrystals to reflect light and change color, chromatophores absorbed light to change color. Sweat ran down his forehead; they must look like drops sliding through midair. How long had he been in the lab? He had gotten so distracted. The time they’d allotted for him to get his files had probably run out. He knew he should leave. He looked at the door, then back at the screen and clicked on the next file. It opened with a red label at the top: FAILED. He opened the next one, and then the next. One after the other: FAILED. FAILED. FAILED.
Failed at what, exactly? He looked down to where beads of sweat marred the perfect camouflage of his skin. He was pretty sure he knew exactly what those experiments were about. He was looking at the results right now.
It was him.
He was their experiment.
Even though they had been labeled as failures, they hadn’t been because he was there, unseen, reading those files.
His heart galloped in his chest. He could almost hear it over the blare of the fire alarm. He was supposed to delete everything he found about himself. He needed to delete this. The experiments that had made him. But they were the only link he had to his mother.
He moved to the next folder, labeled Zero. Inside was his data, the analysis from yesterday. They had renamed it. Was this what they thought of him? Nothing? Zero? Was it really to keep him safe like they said? Or maybe it was to hide the information. Something else occurred to him: patient zero. The start of something. Like a pandemic. He reminded himself that this is part of why he had come to destroy the files. Whatever had been done to him was something he wanted to prevent from happening to anyone else.
The alarm stopped ringing and the lights in the lab returned to normal. The scientists would be returning to their stations, and Coal would be trapped in there if he didn’t get out soon.
He looked around the table for something he could use to copy the files off the machine, but the desk was completely empty. There wasn’t even a drawer or a place to hold a pen. He searched the rest of the room, through the lab, scattering the neatly arranged equipment. There was no time for care, or neatness, or . . . a beaker crashed to the ground. He stepped over the broken glass and out the door. He checked the workstations in the outer lab until he finally found a couple of memory sticks. Jackpot. He raced back to the inner lab and started to transfer the files.
From beyond the cloudy glass doors, he heard people returning. There were still several files to go. If he couldn’t get out soon, while the doors were still sliding open and closed every few seconds, he’d be trapped.
“Come on come on come on,” he coaxed the machine. This, of course, did not help.
Coal pressed his palms into the edge of the desk and watched as the files slowly transferred over. Then they stopped.
He blinked at the screen, waiting for the transfer to start again. Nothing. Nothing was moving. Nothing was happening.
He looked at the icon for the memory stick. It was full. He put the second one in. Files began to transfer again, but the stream of people filling the outer lab had slowed to a trickle. They were almost all back. He needed to leave.
Beneath his fingers was everything he had ever wanted to know, all neatly packaged and labeled in sets of digital folders. He pulled the second memory stick out of the desk and initiated a dump of every file. Then he started for the door.
When Coal was midway across the room, the doors opened and Dr. Achebe walked in. He was wearing sunglasses and talking into his cell phone. “Not sure what happened, but the fire department left already . . . yes . . . I’m shutting it down now . . . all the important files are on the secure server . . . I can handle this. Will you trust me, please?” He hung up and looked right at Coal.
There was no way that Dr. Achebe could see him, but Coal felt his eyes on him. He shifted to the right, trying to move as silently and slowly as possible. Once he got to the door, he’d just make a run for it. If a door opened and closed on its own, that would be weird, but no one would think it was an invisible boy. It was his only chance. He kept creeping forward, staying as far from Dr. Achebe as he could. Just as he reached the door, Dr. Achebe turned to face him again.
“There’s no way out of this building, Coal,” he said. “I know exactly what you and your friends have been doing.”
21.
Just in case it was some kind of trick, Coal stepped toward the door. When it didn’t open automatically, he pushed against it. It didn’t budge.
Dr. Achebe tossed a lab coat that fell at Coal’s feet. “In case you’re feeling chilly,” he said. “I’m going to avert my eyes while you put that on.” He waited a few seconds. “How does it feel? I mean both physically and emotionally. What’s it like to be invisible?”
Coal didn’t say anything.
“It must feel incredibly safe to slip through the world unnoticed like that,” he continued.
Coal tried going to the edge of the sliding door and pulling it. It rattled a little but didn’t unlock.
“It won’t open for you, Coal,” Dr. Achebe said. “I thought we might talk for a bit. I thought maybe I could fill you in on how I got those files.”
“How do you know where I am and what I’m doing?” Coal asked.
Dr. Achebe removed his glasses and held them out. “Infrared,” he said.
Coal suddenly felt more naked than he had a moment before. He felt defeated. Of course Mirror Tech had more security than guards and cameras. He sighed and put on the lab coat. Slowly, his skin began to turn back to normal. He slipped Isadora’s ID and the memory sticks into the coat pocket.
“I have access to all the security footage from my office,” Dr. Achebe continued. “When someone pulls the fire alarm, security starts checking all the cameras to figure out what’s going on. Your friend from the tour wasn’t hard to spot. Who are the rest of the Scooby Gang?”
“You don’t really expect me to rat them out, do you?”
Dr. Achebe nodded. “What was the plan here, exactly?”
“I was coming to destroy whatever you had on me,” Coal said.
“Before we figure anything out?” Dr. Achebe frowned. “Don’t you want to know why this is happening?”
“I do, but that doesn’t mean you should know.”
“Except I’m in the unique position of being the only person you know who can help you understand yourself.”
Mrs. Guzman pulled up to the front gate and honked her horn. Door stood up and Jackson and Doc joined everyone on the porch as Mrs. Guzman walked up to the house.
“I hope Teddy wasn’t too much trouble,” she said.
“Not at all,” Doc said. “He’s funny.”
Mrs. Guzman arched one eyebrow and looked at her son.
“And polite,” Jackson added.
“Oh, we like polite!” Mrs. Guzman climbed the porch stairs and shook hands with the McKays. They chatted a bit while Door got his backpack from inside. Coal and the McKay kids followed him in.
“What if none of this works?” Coal whispered.
“At least it’ll be fun,” Door said.
Coal looked at Door in disbelief. “Seriously?”
Hannah sidled up to Door and folded her arms. “Yeah. Like we’re spies,” she said.
“This isn’t an episode of Itty-Bitty Spies,” Mari said.
Hannah snorted. “Of course it isn’t. This is way better because I’m in it, and I have the most important part.”
“You?” Mari said.
“Yeah,” Hannah said. “I’m the one who gets us in.” Pride beamed from her little face. “I’m the pinch pin.”
“Lynchpin,” Aaron corrected.
“Yeah, that,” Hannah said.
“Let’s go, Teddy!” Mrs. Guzman called.
“Thanks for dinner!” Door rushed out and down the walkway, taking his mother by the arm. “See you guys tomorrow!”
“Are we also going to see him tomorrow?” Jackson asked Doc in a low voice. “He seemed awful comfortable.”
“Stop!” She hit him playfully on the arm. “He’s Coal’s buddy. You bring over anybody you want anytime, Coal. Okay?”
“Thanks.” Coal chuckled. “He is a lot, though.”
“Yeah, but he’s a good lot,” Hannah said. “I like him!”
20.
The bus rolled into the city. Slowly. The ride had moved along quickly at first, but as they got closer, traffic thickened. The reflective Mirror Tech building remained far in the distance.
“What’s going on?” Mari asked.
Aaron checked his phone. “There was an accident. It might take a while.”
“How long a walk do you think it is?” Coal asked.
“Long,” Aaron said, looking at Hannah.
“We’re late already,” Coal said.
“We’re almost there,” Mari said. “It’ll be okay.”
The bus stopped in front of a police officer, who was detouring traffic.
“We should walk anyway,” Coal said.
Aaron went to the front. “May we get off?”
“You know where you’re going?” the driver asked.
Aaron nodded.
“Alrighty, then.”
Aaron took the lead with Hannah’s hand in his. “We’re going to have to move quickly.”
“Good thing I’m so fast,” Hannah said. She took off, pulling him with her.
They kept the silver building in their sights, following a side street that led directly to Mirror Tech. About a block away from the building, Coal found a secluded corner and started stripping while the rest of them stood around him in a face-out semicircle. He breathed deep, calming breaths. Transparent, transparent, transparent, he thought. He focused on his skin. He could feel it begin to tingle, but by the time he was down to his boxers, nothing had happened. His skin wasn’t changing.
“This is taking sooo long,” Mari said.
“And I really have to go now!” Hannah complained.
“That’s not helping,” Coal said.
“Just relax,” Aaron whispered. “But quickly.”
“Thanks,” Coal said.
“Think of it this way,” Door said. “If you don’t get in there and get your files, you might be toast. Military toast. Nuclear toast.”
“Not. Helpful.” Coal gritted his teeth.
Hannah cleared her throat. “Bye-bye, baby,” she sang, “have to skip the jump to dreamland!” The song was sweet and shaky in her little-girl voice.
“That’s not the way it goes,” Mari said.
But Door joined in, trying to follow Hannah’s invented lyrics. Between his deep croak, Hannah’s squeaky warble, and the fact that they were making up words on the fly Coal began to giggle. Then he felt tingly. He took a deep breath. Next thing he knew, he was starting to change.
“You’re almost there, buddy,” Door said, craning his neck to look at Coal.
“Could you turn around, please?” Coal asked.
He felt the strong current of electricity in his skin. Then the transformation was complete. He put everything in his backpack and handed it to Aaron.
“This is freaky,” Door said.
Coal held up Isadora’s Mirror Tech ID. It looked like it was floating in midair. “What do I do?” he asked. “I can’t walk around with it like this.”
“Um, press it between your hands,” Mari suggested.
“Won’t his hands just turn the same color as the card?” Aaron said.
“Just try it and see,” she said.
Coal pressed the card between his palms, and like the rest of him, it disappeared.
“Whew,” Door said.
“Let’s go.” Mari led the way to the front of the building.
“So!” Door turned around to walk backward. “How does it feel being all . . . free and what not? With all your . . . you know . . . out in the open?”
“Can you pay attention to where you’re walking, please?” Coal asked.
“I’m just asking questions, like, for science.”
“Did you legit say you’re asking for science?” Coal asked.
“I just want some clarity on the situation,” Door said.
“No,” Aaron said. “Nobody wants clarity on this situation.”
“I really, really have to pee!” Hannah yelled. She and Aaron burst through the door and went straight to security. Hannah was doing a dance, which was entirely convincing because it was completely real.
The guard pointed past the security doors down a hallway. Aaron nodded his thanks and took Hannah through. Coal followed close behind them and felt the door swoosh shut behind him.
“You in?” Aaron whispered.
“Yeah,” Coal said.
“Okay, you’re on your own now,” Aaron said. He and Hannah walked toward the bathroom while Coal waited in the elevator bank.
In seconds, one arrived. As someone stepped off, Coal stepped inside. “Eight,” he said. The computer voice repeated, “Eighth floor,” and the elevator took him up.
He got out and stood by the locked doorway of the lab. Through the glass wall, he could see several people working. One of them would notice if the door opened and closed on its own. He needed to wait for someone to come through so he could slip in just like with the elevator. Otherwise, he’d need to wait for The Distraction.
Minutes ticked by. Coal stared through the glass, trying to will one of the scientists to exit, but they were all so focused. Then the fire alarm went off and everyone’s heads popped up as the lights in the lab changed to flashing bright strobes.
Finally, Coal thought.
The scientists looked around, confused for a few seconds before they started to grab their things and head out. Coal waited for the entire room to empty, slipping in as the last person left.
He made a beeline to the inner lab where Dr. Achebe and Dr. Carroll had done all his tests.
He stood in front of the door and took a deep breath.
“Work, work, work.”
He swiped Isadora’s ID card and heard the door unlock. He let out a tense breath and went in.
Just like the day before, the door to the smaller lab clouded over, obscuring everything else from view. The puff of cold sanitizing air made Coal shiver, and his skin wavered into view, then became transparent again. Across the room was the chair where Dr. Carroll had gathered his samples, and to the right was the computer desk. Coal touched its reflective black surface, and the desktop brightened, bringing up the Mirror Tech logo and a search bar. He typed Win Keegan into the menu, expecting the folder he saw yesterday to appear again, but the search results read There are zero files with that name. He checked the recent files. A bunch of folders came up with data from experiments that Coal didn’t recognize. But he opened each one, looking for his name again. He moved quickly down the lists, coming to one labeled Wright, Michelle. The last date opened was yesterday, a few hours after he left Mirror Tech. He clicked it and several photographs came up. The first one was of a woman with dark skin like his own, holding a baby wearing a striped onesie.
He leaned into the desk to get a better look, and the screen tilted. He pushed a bit more, and the screen continued to tilt until it was upright. Coal enlarged the photo until he was staring at a nearly life-sized version of the woman smiling out at him, holding the equally happy baby. He couldn’t stop looking at the picture. She was pretty. She looked happy, and a little bit sad, too. The baby’s eyes were bright, big, and focused completely on the woman’s face. The date on the file was from twelve years before. Coal would have been a baby then, too. There was something about the woman’s face that struck right at his core. The curve of her chin and the way her nostrils flared a little as she smiled reminded him of something. It was like seeing someone in real life who you only knew from a dream.
He took in every detail of the photo. The dark curls of the baby’s hair. The green-striped onesie. The pink of the woman’s nails as she cradled the baby’s back. Then Coal noticed something in the background. A bit of blue-and-gray cloth draped over the woman’s arm that the baby was sitting on. He knew that cloth and that stitching. His baby blanket. The one thing he had always had.
Coal looked into the woman’s eyes again. This time he knew who she was.
His mother. He swiped to the next photo. It had been taken at the same time as the previous one. She had almost the same expression. His tiny hand was curled up near his mouth. This time the blanket was in better focus.
The next. His mother looking down. Him drooling with his whole fist in his mouth.
Another. She was staring right into the camera. She looked exhausted. He had slipped down a little in her arms.
The last one. She leaned toward the camera with her hand out in front of the lens. Like she was turning it off. It must have been a series of automatic selfies. Nobody behind the camera. Then how did the photos get here?
He was supposed to be looking for his own files. He knew that. But his mother was right here in front of him. He had to find out more about her. The next set of folders were scientific papers published by Dr. Michelle Wright. His mother’s name. He said it out loud, feeling the shape of it in his mouth. Then he looked through the files. They were all scientific studies. He quickly went through looking for more personal data, a record of himself as a baby, maybe even his name. But nothing like that was in these files.
Coal kept on searching, opening files, reading and checking everything now that he knew she might be there, somewhere. In a report titled “Mimetic Collusion in Chromatophores” he found another photo of her. This time she was standing with Dr. Achebe and Tom. Their names and titles were listed under the photo as a genetics team working with the US government.
Coal knew about chromatophores. They worked similarly to the cells that made up Cornelius’s skin. Instead of using nanocrystals to reflect light and change color, chromatophores absorbed light to change color. Sweat ran down his forehead; they must look like drops sliding through midair. How long had he been in the lab? He had gotten so distracted. The time they’d allotted for him to get his files had probably run out. He knew he should leave. He looked at the door, then back at the screen and clicked on the next file. It opened with a red label at the top: FAILED. He opened the next one, and then the next. One after the other: FAILED. FAILED. FAILED.
Failed at what, exactly? He looked down to where beads of sweat marred the perfect camouflage of his skin. He was pretty sure he knew exactly what those experiments were about. He was looking at the results right now.
It was him.
He was their experiment.
Even though they had been labeled as failures, they hadn’t been because he was there, unseen, reading those files.
His heart galloped in his chest. He could almost hear it over the blare of the fire alarm. He was supposed to delete everything he found about himself. He needed to delete this. The experiments that had made him. But they were the only link he had to his mother.
He moved to the next folder, labeled Zero. Inside was his data, the analysis from yesterday. They had renamed it. Was this what they thought of him? Nothing? Zero? Was it really to keep him safe like they said? Or maybe it was to hide the information. Something else occurred to him: patient zero. The start of something. Like a pandemic. He reminded himself that this is part of why he had come to destroy the files. Whatever had been done to him was something he wanted to prevent from happening to anyone else.
The alarm stopped ringing and the lights in the lab returned to normal. The scientists would be returning to their stations, and Coal would be trapped in there if he didn’t get out soon.
He looked around the table for something he could use to copy the files off the machine, but the desk was completely empty. There wasn’t even a drawer or a place to hold a pen. He searched the rest of the room, through the lab, scattering the neatly arranged equipment. There was no time for care, or neatness, or . . . a beaker crashed to the ground. He stepped over the broken glass and out the door. He checked the workstations in the outer lab until he finally found a couple of memory sticks. Jackpot. He raced back to the inner lab and started to transfer the files.
From beyond the cloudy glass doors, he heard people returning. There were still several files to go. If he couldn’t get out soon, while the doors were still sliding open and closed every few seconds, he’d be trapped.
“Come on come on come on,” he coaxed the machine. This, of course, did not help.
Coal pressed his palms into the edge of the desk and watched as the files slowly transferred over. Then they stopped.
He blinked at the screen, waiting for the transfer to start again. Nothing. Nothing was moving. Nothing was happening.
He looked at the icon for the memory stick. It was full. He put the second one in. Files began to transfer again, but the stream of people filling the outer lab had slowed to a trickle. They were almost all back. He needed to leave.
Beneath his fingers was everything he had ever wanted to know, all neatly packaged and labeled in sets of digital folders. He pulled the second memory stick out of the desk and initiated a dump of every file. Then he started for the door.
When Coal was midway across the room, the doors opened and Dr. Achebe walked in. He was wearing sunglasses and talking into his cell phone. “Not sure what happened, but the fire department left already . . . yes . . . I’m shutting it down now . . . all the important files are on the secure server . . . I can handle this. Will you trust me, please?” He hung up and looked right at Coal.
There was no way that Dr. Achebe could see him, but Coal felt his eyes on him. He shifted to the right, trying to move as silently and slowly as possible. Once he got to the door, he’d just make a run for it. If a door opened and closed on its own, that would be weird, but no one would think it was an invisible boy. It was his only chance. He kept creeping forward, staying as far from Dr. Achebe as he could. Just as he reached the door, Dr. Achebe turned to face him again.
“There’s no way out of this building, Coal,” he said. “I know exactly what you and your friends have been doing.”
21.
Just in case it was some kind of trick, Coal stepped toward the door. When it didn’t open automatically, he pushed against it. It didn’t budge.
Dr. Achebe tossed a lab coat that fell at Coal’s feet. “In case you’re feeling chilly,” he said. “I’m going to avert my eyes while you put that on.” He waited a few seconds. “How does it feel? I mean both physically and emotionally. What’s it like to be invisible?”
Coal didn’t say anything.
“It must feel incredibly safe to slip through the world unnoticed like that,” he continued.
Coal tried going to the edge of the sliding door and pulling it. It rattled a little but didn’t unlock.
“It won’t open for you, Coal,” Dr. Achebe said. “I thought we might talk for a bit. I thought maybe I could fill you in on how I got those files.”
“How do you know where I am and what I’m doing?” Coal asked.
Dr. Achebe removed his glasses and held them out. “Infrared,” he said.
Coal suddenly felt more naked than he had a moment before. He felt defeated. Of course Mirror Tech had more security than guards and cameras. He sighed and put on the lab coat. Slowly, his skin began to turn back to normal. He slipped Isadora’s ID and the memory sticks into the coat pocket.
“I have access to all the security footage from my office,” Dr. Achebe continued. “When someone pulls the fire alarm, security starts checking all the cameras to figure out what’s going on. Your friend from the tour wasn’t hard to spot. Who are the rest of the Scooby Gang?”
“You don’t really expect me to rat them out, do you?”
Dr. Achebe nodded. “What was the plan here, exactly?”
“I was coming to destroy whatever you had on me,” Coal said.
“Before we figure anything out?” Dr. Achebe frowned. “Don’t you want to know why this is happening?”
“I do, but that doesn’t mean you should know.”
“Except I’m in the unique position of being the only person you know who can help you understand yourself.”
