Annum Guard: Blackout Part 14

Red raises both hands. He uses one to block the keypad as he enters his code with the other. But I still catch it. 126512. That's easy to remember.

Red swings open the door. "Just so you know, I'm changing that as soon as you leave."

"I didn't look," I say.

"Of course you did." And then he flashes me the quickest of grins. "I would be highly disappointed if you hadn't."

He shuts the door behind us, scoops two papers off the desk, and hands one to me and one to Indigo. I look at mine. A mission summary. I scan it. Almost six years ago, Eta-Violet's mother-met with a Ma.s.sachusetts Highway Department official to discuss a kickback for using a certain contractor during the Big Dig.

I flip the paper over. What is this? A state highway department? That doesn't seem to have anything to do with XP. I mean, it's state government, not federal.

That's another thing I learned about Alpha. Annum Guard is a federal agency. We're not supposed to go anywhere near state governments. But Alpha had his hands in the cookie jars of at least twenty statehouses. It's a freaking mess.

I look over at Indigo. He's nodding. "The Treaty of Portsmouth. Very cool. I've always wanted to see Teddy Roosevelt in person."

"Red, what is this?" I wave my paper at him. "The I-93 tunnel. What can this possibly have to do with XP?"

"Nothing."

Indigo's eyes get big. "Wait, what? XP?"

I shake my head. "But I don't understand-"

"We're not going after XP quite yet. First we're figuring out this blackout thing. Look at the date, Iris. Six years ago. That's right around the time Yellow saw the blackout memo in Zeta's office, correct?"

I draw in a slow breath. "I'm not going to this highway meeting, am I?"

"Nope," Red says. "You're going to break into Zeta's house."

Indigo drops his paper onto Red's desk. "Whoa, whoa, what? Why aren't Yellow and I going on this mission? I mean, wouldn't it make sense for us to do it? We know the place."

Red sighs a long, exaggerated sigh. "Why do I have to keep explaining to you guys the danger of going on missions where you could run into yourselves? Honestly." Then he points at a chair. "Indigo, sit and start talking. Tell us everything we need to know."

He does. Yellow and Indigo grew up in Brookline, in what Indigo calls a "normal house," which, based on what I know about the Masters family, I'm sure is modest code for "huge-a.s.s mansion." Indigo says it's been in their family for generations, so that's clue number one it's not, in fact, a "normal house." Zeta is a security nut, which doesn't surprise me. There are motion detectors and security cameras, but nothing I can't handle. There are also two Dobermans that might pose a problem, as well as a full-time housekeeper named Inez who's been with the family for more than twenty years.

"Am I going to run into an eleven-year-old version of you?" I ask Indigo. "Because that's going to be really weird."

"What's the date of the mission?"

"August 19."

"I don't know," he says. "Yell and I always went to summer camp, but that's really close to the start of the new school year. We might be there."

I really hope not. I hope it's just me and Inez. I can handle that. Oh wait, there are still the Dobermans . . .

"You need to pretend to research the Big Dig for a little while," Red tells me. "A few hours in the library with Bonner watching you. She has to buy this thing."

"Are you going to deactivate my tracker?"

"No. No one is going to be watching the trackers but me. Bonner won't know when you take a detour."

"That seems like a dangerous gamble."

Red sets down his paper. "And since when are you afraid of a little danger?"

He has a point.

"What about me?" Indigo asks. "What does the Treaty of Portsmouth have to do with the blackout?"

"Nothing," Red says. "That's a real mission. We have to keep an air of legitimacy."

I spend the rest of the morning in the library reading up on the Big Dig. The colossal highway improvement project in downtown Boston was supposed to cost $2.8 billion, but wound up taking ten years longer than scheduled to the tune of $14-plus billion. The whole project was plagued with design flaws, leaks, corruption, and death.

What Annum Guard should have done was go back and actually fix this project. Put it back on schedule, hire the right engineers, save the government twelve billion dollars.

Twelve billion dollars. I can't even wrap my head around that much money. But instead, Annum Guard just went back in time and became part of the problem. They probably screwed it up even worse.

Bonner's cell phone chirps, so she bolts out of the library. At once, the room lets out a collective sigh of relief. Violet drops a stack of papers and lowers her head to her desk for a moment's rest. Green wads up a piece of paper and sends it flying across the room, where it hits Abe in the back of the head. He whips around.

"Seriously?" he says.

The interns are seated at desks in the middle of the library. Colton doesn't stop smacking his gum as he bobs along to his music. Paige and Mike keep going through doc.u.ments like nothing's changed.

Yellow jumps out of her chair over to me. "Indigo told me what you're planning."

I raise my eyebrows and give a half-glance in the direction of the interns.

She drops her voice lower. "And I just . . . want to apologize to you. For Dallas."

Dallas. Where my dad died. "I . . . what?"

"When you were tempted by the idea of saving your dad the day he died. I was kind of rude to you, but now I see that I just didn't get it." She blinks. Once. Twice. Three times, and I know she's trying to hold back a tear. "It's taking every ounce of self-restraint I have not to tell you-to beg you-to figure out a way to get my dad a message, to warn him. I . . . I'm sorry."

"Yellow, you don't have anything to apologize for."

And then she throws herself forward, wrapping her arms around me in a hug. I pat her back awkwardly. "Be careful," she whispers in my ear before pulling away. "And try to make sure I don't see you. I'm going to be seriously annoyed if all of a sudden I have the memory of you breaking into my house."

I smile. "That's not actually how it works, Yellow. You'd always have that memory."

"I'm just saying."

"I'll be careful. Really, really careful. I won't go snooping through your thirteen-year-old diary or anything."

Yellow cringes. "That's another thing. If you do happen to see me . . . don't judge me."

"What does that mean?"

"Just remember that I'm thirteen and I really have no idea who I am yet, so don't hold it against me for the rest of my life."

"You do realize you're making me want to go out of my way to find you in the past?"

"Just . . . be nice."

I glance over toward Mike. He's staring at me, and he immediately looks down. I catch Abe's eye, and he looks from me to Mike, then he looks away.

The door opens and Bonner walks in. Yellow heads back to her desk, and I stand. Enough. I need to get out of this room, away from the present.

"I'm ready for the mission, ma'am," I say.

"It's only noon," Bonner says. "I don't think that's enough time to prepare, do you?"

"I don't need to do historical prep. I'm only going back six years. And I've read up on what I need to do."

Indigo is in one of the velvet armchairs. He snaps his book shut. "I'm ready, too. This is the fourth mission I've gone on during Teddy Roosevelt's presidency, so I'm very well aware of the time period."

"And the actual mission?" Bonner says. "A few hours is certainly not enough time to prepare for that."

"No offense, ma'am," Indigo says, "but the only missions we go on these days are reconnaissance. A circus monkey could go on these missions."

I bite my tongue to keep from laughing. I would have left out the circus monkey part, but recon missions are simple. The goal is to blend into the background and observe. You don't need to know more than the basics.

Bonner narrows her eyes at us, but I can see her thinking about it. "Very well. I'll have Red meet you downstairs in ten minutes." She pulls the security token out of her pocket as Indigo and I fly out the door.

"I can't believe she agreed to that," I whisper.

"I know. I thought for sure we'd have to wait until tomorrow, which I think would kill me. Is it weird to say I'm really excited that you're breaking into my house?"

"About as weird as it is to admit I'm really excited to break into your house."

Indigo races up the stairs to change, but I don't bother. My Bonner-mandated outfit will make me look like all the other working drones milling about the highway department. If I was going to the highway department, that is. Besides, these pants are comfortable, and it's easier to break into a house wearing comfortable pants.

Indigo returns wearing ivory pants, a burgundy vest, and a black sport coat, and we go downstairs together. He has a black hat in his hands. Red is waiting for us outside the gravity chamber with two silver cases. He holds out a tablet, and Indigo hesitates.

"Look," Red says, "I know it's really you and not an impostor, but stop stalling. I can't open the cases until you've been ID'd."

Indigo places his hand on top of the tablet.

"Masters, Nicholas. Code name: Indigo. Annum Guard employee number 0020," a robotic voice says. The token stops on a number; Indigo plugs the token into the case, types the number, and waits for the lock to click open. He takes out his Annum watch and clips it to his vest. Then it's my turn.

"Obermann, Amanda. Code name: Iris. Annum Guard employee number 0022."

I slip my watch over my head and open the face. I click the year dial back five turns, then adjust the month and day dials backward as well. I wait for Indigo to finish.

"Ladies first," he says, gesturing to the open chamber.

I look at Red nervously. Can I do this? I have to do this. I think of Orange, how he disappeared on a mission, and that doesn't do anything to calm me.

"Good luck," Red says. We always say that to each other before we project. A throwaway line, like "Break a leg!" or "Have a good trip!" But not this time. This time, I know Red really is wis.h.i.+ng me luck. And I'll need it.

"Thanks," I say. And then I step into the gravity chamber and shut the watch.

CHAPTER 13.

I fall for a few seconds before I land on my feet. I'm standing in the broom closet-the place we always land when using the chamber-and I barely even wobble. I've gotten good at this.

I need to hightail it to the Park Street T stop, across Beacon Hill. I jog. I'd break into a full sprint, but that would attract attention. So I keep to an "I'm late for a doctor's appointment" pace-or maybe a "meeting a friend for lunch in ten" pace.

There's a C-line train pulling in just as I drop a token into the slot and slip through the metal turnstile. I'm thinking about how I should pick up a couple of tokens as souvenirs-in the present, they've been replaced with cards-as I hop onto the train and take a seat by the window. The train is half empty.

It's a quick ride aboveground to the St. Mary's stop, and then an even quicker walk to the house. I memorized the directions. A right on Carlston Street, a left on Ivy, and there's the house. And then I laugh because, just as I suspected, this is not a "normal house."

It's a ma.s.sive, three-story, redbrick home that stretches nearly half a block. There are four chimneys that I can see, and I don't even want to guess how many bathrooms there are. It baffles me that people actually grow up in houses like this. Houses where there are maids and nannies and chefs. Being around wealth has always made me uncomfortable. There was plenty of that at Peel. It's so completely opposite to everything I know.

I decide my best bet is to go around to the back. The yard has a black iron fence, but I hop over it with ease. I pause, listening for those two Dobermans that I'm very sure would like to rip me to shreds. I don't hear anything. I'm walking toward the house when I hear it: barking and the rumble of eight legs charging toward me. I freeze. I have pepper spray and a couple of tranquilizer darts in my back pocket, but I'd really rather not. Really. All I can think of is Dos running to greet me, and how I'd want to murder anyone who pepper-sprayed my dog.

The dogs round the corner and I make myself relax. I even smile at them and hold out my hands. The dogs stop short in front of me.

"Shadow and Raven." I say their names in a low, slow voice, and their ears perk up. "Hi, puppies. I'm not here to hurt you. I'm a friend."

The bigger of the two approaches me first. This must be Shadow. He sniffs my hand, so I open it. There's a dog biscuit inside, and he s.n.a.t.c.hes it out of my hand. Raven nudges her way forward, and I let her sniff the treat in my other hand before giving it to her. And then I reach out and gently put my hand on her head. She lets me, so I slide my hand down and scratch her ears. I'm hit with a pang of sadness. Before I left, Indigo told me that Raven died last year.

"You guys have a scary reputation, but I know you're just sweet little pups."

I pull away and walk toward the back door, and the dogs let me go. Obstacle one, out of the way. I glance up at the camera hanging over the door. Obstacle two.

According to Indigo, there are no cameras inside the house, which makes sense. Can you imagine growing up in a house where a camera tracked your every move? He also said there's another one over the front door and half a dozen others guarding the first-floor windows. But if I come in the back, this is the only one I need to contend with.

I scoot around so I'm behind the camera and look in the window. I see a sunroom. Behind that is the kitchen. I nod my head, close my eyes, and map my location. There's a dining room and a formal living room and a parlor-whatever the h.e.l.l that is-on this floor. The second floor has Zeta's bedroom and, more importantly, his office. Yellow and Indigo have bedrooms on the third floor.

I peer into the window again. There's no one in the kitchen. This is my chance.

I reach into my bag and pull out a pair of black gloves, which I know look very suspicious in the middle of August, but I yank them on my hands. Then I sling the bag over my shoulder, put my hands on the window ledge, and hoist myself up. The window box heaves a creaky sigh, and I silently pray it doesn't crack and break off. I scoot along the edge until I'm close to the door. I keep one hand against the window for balance and with the other pull out a can of spray paint from my bag. I use my chin as leverage to get the cap off, then I shake the can and spray the camera lens black.

Obstacle two, conquered. I jump off the window box, put the spray paint back in my bag, and dust myself off. I try the doork.n.o.b, but it doesn't turn. Of course. I pull out the lock kit I have tucked into my front pocket. The simple hook pick should do it, so I slide it out of the leather pouch and into the lock. A few jimmies to the left and it clicks unlocked.

And now for obstacle three.

I turn the k.n.o.b, and the alarm immediately blares. A series of loud, one-second-long beeps fill the house. I shut the door behind me, beeline through the sunroom and kitchen, and make my way to the stairs, to the door on the side of the staircase that Indigo told me about. I swing it open and hurl myself inside, settling behind a vacuum cleaner as the alarm continues to wail.

Footsteps thunder down the stairs over my head.

"Nicholas!" a woman shouts. "I told you that you weren't to leave this house until you've finished unpacking your camp bag!"