Eve and Adam

– 31 –

It’s a gray, halfhearted dawn, cold as hell, a fairly typical San Francisco morning, no matter the time of year. The fog isn’t as thick or as low as it was last night. It looks as if it might burn off later.

Solo will wake at any moment. And when he does he’s going to ask me for the flash drive, and we’re going to find a place to upload it.

The sequence of events that will follow is lurid, even in my imagination. I see my mother with her manicured hands in chrome handcuffs. I see federal agents swarming all over Spiker, demanding passwords, hauling computers off to labs that can crack them open and make them spill their secrets.

I see my mother in jail. An orange jumpsuit.

She hates the color orange.

I see her in court. She’ll have great lawyers, of course. But the damning evidence will come from her own daughter. At the very least she’ll have to sign some kind of a deal. She’ll lose her business.

The horrors will end.

But so will the work on Level One. Projects that might bring relief to millions or save tens of thousands of lives. Some kid in Africa lives or dies because of what I decide.

This is too much to think about. I need to focus on what matters. I’ve been manipulated, used, a guinea pig. I’m a mod, in Solo’s casual phrase. A genetic experiment.

To achieve this, terrible crimes were done and nightmarish horrors were created.

I close my eyes and see the monsters in their vats.

I blink them away, focusing my gaze on the stack of my dad’s paintings piled haphazardly against the wall.

They’re good, some of them, really good. Still lifes, landscapes, a few hastily sketched faces. Charcoal, mostly. Some watercolor. There’s one of me as a baby, with chubby cheeks and a single tooth.

My hand freezes on the last canvas. It’s my mother. The oil pastel my dad attempted, then abandoned.

It’s been worked and reworked. I can feel him struggling with the gaze, the smile.

Smiling has never been my mother’s strong suit.

Still, there’s a soft vulnerability to the eyes. A gentle sweetness to the mouth. This drawing was done by someone who loved my mother deeply. Without reservation.

I think back to the endless fights and icy silences. Is it possible, beneath all that high-octane drama, that they really loved each other? Did he see something in her that I can’t see?

I take my own sketch out of my jeans pocket. It’s smeared at the folds. I compare it to the portrait of my mother, studying the strokes and smudges, moving an imaginary pencil over my drawing.

“Whatcha doing?”

Aislin joins me. She’s still a mess, but beautiful in her tough-but-not-really way. She squeezes herself against the cold and lays her head on my shoulder.

“Let’s go outside,” I suggest in a whisper. “Don’t want to wake Solo.”

She grins. “Are you sure?”

The breeze is brisk and smells of fish. I look down at the water. There’s a sea lion gazing back up at us hopefully. No doubt it expects breakfast. I’m not sure the sea lions in the bay ever actually fish anymore. I think they just wait for bits of burger and chalupa ends.

“I got nothing,” I say. I display my empty hands. The sea lion dives smoothly and disappears.

“You should sleep,” I tell Aislin.

“Mmm. Should. I don’t really do ‘should’ all that well.”

I smile. “I’ve noticed.”

“You do ‘should.’”

“Do I?” It’s a genuine question. I’m not sure I know the answer.

“That was some scary stuff. On the computer,” Aislin says. She sounds tentative. She’s feeling me out.

“Yeah. Stuff from a horror movie.”

“What are you going to do?”

I heave a big sigh. “I don’t know yet. According to you I do the right thing. But what’s the right thing?”

She laughs. “Really? You’re asking me?”

I look at her. “You know, Aislin, I don’t always agree with what you do. But you are a good person. All the way, deep down, you’re a good person.”

She squeezes my hand, but she doesn’t believe me.

“Tell me, Aislin. What do I do?”

She heaves a sigh that’s an echo of my own. “It’s a hard thing to go against family,” she says.

“My mother deserves it,” I say. “If she’s really responsible.”

Aislin laughs a little bitterly. “Remember when my dad had that mistress, Lainey, and my mom kicked him out? For a while. Then she let him come back. And my mom’s obviously got a drinking problem, but I think he still loves her. And despite everything I’ve done, they still haven’t thrown me out.”

“They don’t even know where you are,” I say. “Really, Aislin, are we using your family as some kind of example?”

It’s harsh. It’s thoughtless. I know it as soon as I say it.

“Actually, they do know where I am,” Aislin says evenly. “Or at least where I was. I told them I was staying with you up in Tiburon. It’s not my fault I’m not there anymore.”

I absolutely should drop it. But I’m exhausted. I’m confused. I have all kinds of great excuses. “Gee, sorry my problems got in the way of my saving your butt.”

Right there, I stick the knife in our friendship. The one thing I never wanted to be was the bitch of a rich girl.

I hate myself. It’s immediate, I don’t have to think about it, I hate myself. I want to cut my own tongue out. But it’s too late.

There’s a long silence. Aislin gives me time to take it back. But I don’t. And I don’t know why, except that I’m so hating myself I feel like I deserve her anger.

She heads inside. I stand, gripping the railing, thinking how unfair it is that I’m having to hate myself when I really just want to hate my mother.

The door opens again and Aislin comes back out, carrying her purse. She brushes by me.

I say… I say nothing. I’m that messed up. I say nothing.

It’s some kind of overload. Too much of too much. I have the feeling I desperately need to cry. And I just don’t have it in me to deal with another crisis.

I hear her shoes moving away down the pier. Then she’s gone.

Self-pity rushes over me. Can’t she see that I need her to stick with me? Doesn’t she know what I’ve been through? I was nearly killed. I found out my mother’s a criminal. I escaped with my life from some creep who works for my mom.

Or at least, Solo escaped. And took us with him.

Am I a hundred percent sure he’s told me the truth? I don’t even know him. One kiss—even that kiss—doesn’t make us best friends forever.

No, bitch, your BFF just walked away.

Well, I’m sick of Aislin’s neediness. And I’m suddenly wondering if I’m just being manipulated by Solo. After all, he’s good with technology. Maybe all those pictures were a fake. Maybe this is all some elaborate fraud to let him hurt my mother. He hates her enough to do it.

Maybe I just need to grab a taxi and get back to Spiker and tell my mother…

No. No, I know that’s bull. I healed in days from something that should have taken months. That much, at least, is true.

And my gut tells me those pictures were real.

They return to me, unwanted, like some hideous slide show. The pig. The girl. That tattooed freak, standing in the room of freaks.

The tattooed guy. It clicks: He’s the same guy who came rushing from Solo’s room.

Maybe he’s the bad guy. Maybe he’s guilty and my mother is innocent.

As bad as that is, it would be so much better than the alternative.

At least I owe her a chance to explain. Right?

I’m freezing. I’m going to get my phone and call her. I’ve turned off the tracking so she can’t use it to find me. There’s no risk.

I have to give her the chance. She may be a cold bitch, but she is, still, my mother.

And if she can’t explain? Then I give Solo the flash drive.

Inside the warehouse it’s not much warmer, but it’s some improvement, at least. I go to my purse.

Solo is no longer on the couch. He must be… He must be where, exactly?

“Solo.” Nothing. “Solo?”

I know then. I begin the careful, then increasingly desperate, search that will confirm what I already know: The flash drive is gone.

And so is Solo.