Inheritance

CHAPTER 6

On Monday morning, Agent Forrestal was waiting right inside Kennedy High School’s front doors with the Defense Department’s Jeff Highsmith.

“Good morning, Miss Holloway,” Highsmith said, smiling.

Reese hated when people called her “miss.” She wondered when the title had lost its aura of respect; now all it did was tell her she was being patronized. “Hey, Jeff,” she said. His smile disappeared.

Across the lobby, Reese saw Diana Warner waiting with David and his family. Reese headed across the mosaic-tiled floor to meet them, her parents following. The school smelled of industrial floor cleaner, along with that indefinable something extra—the lingering trace of thousands of students, their perfumes and deodorants and the faintly musty scent of books—that combined to create a scent that Reese would always recognize as Kennedy High. David saw her coming and stepped away from his parents to greet her with a hug.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hi.” There was no time to linger, because as soon as they had greeted each other’s parents, Diana took them to a classroom that had been taken over by the Sophia Curtis Show’s hair and makeup team.

As the makeup artist poked at Reese’s eyes with wands and brushes, repeatedly asking her to stay still, Diana went over the plans with Reese, David, and their parents. The main interview would be shot in Mr. Murray’s biology classroom, and then Sophia wanted Reese and David to give her a tour of the school on camera. Reese and David were to be interviewed first, and after their portion was finished, Sophia would sit down with their parents.

“What about Highsmith?” Reese heard her mom ask.

“He’ll be observing,” Diana said.

The makeup artist finished touching up Reese’s lips and stood back. “You’re all set,” she said, and handed Reese a mirror.

Reese was taken aback by her own reflection. She wore makeup to debate tournaments, but she had no idea what the makeup artist had done to make her eyes look so big. They looked more greenish than usual, too, and her lips were shiny with some kind of peach-colored gloss.

“You look great,” her mom said from the makeup chair beside her.

“Thanks,” Reese said. She glanced up and saw David standing nearby, flipping through the release forms that the TV producers had given them. His hair and makeup had been finished first, but she hadn’t seen him yet. The stylist had done something to his hair to tame the parts that stuck up in the wrong places, and as he read through the forms, unaware that Reese was watching him, she realized with a jolt that she was about to tell the world—on television—that she was dating him. She had known him for so long, but she didn’t think she had ever seen him the way she did right then. The outfit that Diana Warner had picked did look good on him. The shirt clung to him just enough to show off his broad shoulders, and the jeans fit perfectly. The stylists had put some kind of pomade into his hair that made it seem blacker and sharper than before, emphasizing the clean line of his jaw and the angle of his eyebrows.

He looked up and caught her eye, and she realized she had been openly staring at him. Her entire body heated up and she hoped the makeup she was wearing hid the redness on her cheeks. He grinned and came over to her, leaning down to whisper, “You look amazing.”

She was short of breath. “Thanks.”

“David, Reese, let me introduce you to Sophia Curtis,” said Diana.

Reese scrambled to her feet. The reporter was standing nearby with a small but friendly smile on her face. “Hello,” she said, extending her hand to Reese first.

“Hi,” Reese said. When she shook Sophia’s hand, she had the briefest impression of clear, bright edges: like a cut-glass prism.

“Hi,” David said, shaking her hand as well.

“We’re ready to begin,” Sophia said. “Follow me.”

Though Diana had warned them that Jeff Highsmith would be observing, Reese hadn’t realized that Agent Forrestal and another man in black would be there too. They stood right inside the door to Mr. Murray’s room like guards, and every time Reese glanced in their direction, they were watching her or David. Highsmith took a seat out of camera range and told Sophia Curtis to start whenever she was ready.

She asked Reese and David to begin with what had happened after they left Phoenix during the June Disaster, but as they began to talk about Project Plato, Highsmith interrupted. “That’s classified. You signed a nondisclosure agreement about your treatment there.”

Sophia smiled thinly. “Can they talk about how they felt after they returned?”

Highsmith nodded. “Of course.”

Reese began to tell Sophia about the rapidly healing cuts on her palms that had led her to believe something had been done to her at the military hospital, but Highsmith interrupted again. “Do you have proof?”

Reese looked at him in surprise. “You’re asking me for proof? You have proof yourself—the Blue Base doctors tested us—”

“That’s classified,” Highsmith said calmly. “I’m asking if you have independent proof.”

“We’re working on that,” David said. “My father’s in touch with several UCSF professors about setting up an academic board to evaluate us.”

“So you’re saying no, you don’t have proof,” Highsmith said.

Sophia stood up. “Jeff, let me talk to you for a minute.”

He followed her to one corner of the biology classroom, where they turned their backs to Reese and David and huddled in front of a poster depicting the evolution of humanity, from Lucy to Homo sapiens. She couldn’t make out what Sophia was telling him, but by the furious tones of her whispers, Reese didn’t think it was anything positive.

David nudged her with his knee, leaving it in place against her thigh. A shiver traveled through her as she registered his presence in her mind. What do you think they’re doing? he thought.

I hope she’s telling him off.

They returned a few moments later, and Sophia said, “Let’s pick up again. How did you feel when you got back to San Francisco?”

They told her about their abilities to communicate with each other mentally when they touched, and Sophia avoided the issue of proof, though she did ask David to elaborate on his father’s plans to form an academic review board. When Sophia skipped over their abduction by the men in black and their time at Blue Base on Area 51, Reese knew that Highsmith had prevailed.

“One last thing,” Sophia said, flipping through her notes. “At the press conference in front of your house, you and the Imrian girl, Amber Gray, seemed to know each other. Did you know her?”

A flash of interest crossed Highsmith’s face, which made Reese immediately wary.

“I knew her,” Reese said. She didn’t want to go into the details, not only because she didn’t want to give Jeff any new information, but also because she wasn’t comfortable telling the public that she had been in a relationship with Amber. She could already imagine the comments online.

“Did you know she’s an Imrian?” Sophia asked.

“Not at first.”

“So she lied to you?”

Reese hesitated, and then wondered why she was hesitating. “Yes.”

“Why?”

“She was sent to keep tabs on me and David.” The government already knew this, so it shouldn’t be a surprise to Highsmith.

“The Imria are in discussions to speak at the United Nations next month, and they say they’re here for peaceful purposes. But they lied to you and spied on you. Do you believe their motivations are peaceful?”

Sophia’s characterization of the Imria—of Amber—unexpectedly stung. Reese found herself wanting to defend them, and it irritated her. “I don’t know,” she finally said. “I hope so.”

The last portion of their interview was shot in Mr. Chapman’s old classroom, where the debate team met after school. Some of Mr. Chapman’s posters were still on the wall, and though the whiteboard had been erased, a ghostly trace of his handwriting remained in shadowed letters that could still be read: Last debate meeting of the year: Thursday at 4 PM.

“This was your debate coach’s classroom, wasn’t it?” Sophia asked.

Was. Reese wished they had never stopped at that gas station in Las Vegas.

“Yes,” David said.

Sophia asked them about Mr. Chapman, and David explained how the teacher had encouraged him to join the team, and how he had paired David with Reese last year. Reese barely noticed that Sophia was nudging them toward the part of the interview she had dreaded the most.

“You sound like a good team,” Sophia said, smiling. “And you just went through a pretty difficult situation that I think would bring a lot of friends closer together. What about you two?”

The question was phrased more delicately than Reese had expected. There was still wiggle room; they could avoid it if they wanted. Reese glanced surreptitiously at David, forgetting that the camera was trained on her. She couldn’t read the expression on his face, and for a long, anxious moment, she was convinced he would deny that anything had happened between them.

“We—” As she started to speak, David reached for her hand. Startled, she sensed him right there with her. He hadn’t changed his mind.

“We’re together now,” he said, and a tentative smile reached his eyes.

She was certain that the makeup was doing nothing to hide the splotchy red flush on her cheeks, but somehow, she didn’t care. Yes. We are.

While Sophia Curtis interviewed their parents in the school auditorium, Reese and David snuck up to the bell tower. It no longer had bells in it, and access was supposed to be restricted at all times, but last year someone had made a copy of the key and hidden it behind the bust of Albert Einstein outside the chemistry lab.

When they got to the statue, Reese reached into Einstein’s bronze collar and pulled out the key. At the end of the hall she unlocked the door to the tower, and she and David slipped through into the stairwell. It always felt illicit to be up here—she had accompanied Julian to smoke a few times—but there was an intoxicating edge to sneaking into the tower with David.

At the top of the stairs, sandstone archways framed a three-hundred-sixty-degree view of the city. She leaned against the waist-high wall and looked northeast at the downtown skyline. For the first time in a long time, she felt free. Nobody was watching her.

David stood beside her, his arm brushing against hers. “I wonder who put that key behind Einstein,” he said.

“I heard it was Chris Tompkins. He stole it from the principal’s office and made a copy.”

“I heard it was Jamie Yung, and she stole it and made a copy.”

Reese laughed, and the sound of it echoed faintly in the cupola. “I guess we’ll never know.”

“Hey, my friend Eric’s having a party on Friday. You want to go?”

She looked at him in surprise. “Like a house party?” She wasn’t really friends with Eric Chung’s group, and she wasn’t really into house parties, either.

“Yeah.” He smiled at her, and she swore her heart skipped a beat. Who was she kidding? She would go to a party with David.

“Sure, I’ll go.”

“How about I pick you up at seven?”

She gave him a puzzled look. “But Eric lives near you. Why don’t I just meet you there?”

His eyebrows rose briefly. “Because I’m asking you on a date.”

Her stomach flipped. She felt like a dork. “Oh, sorry. I mean, okay.”

He shook his head slightly, as if he thought she was funny, and reached out to smooth a piece of hair away from her eyes. His fingers lingered on her cheek, light as a feather. Her breath caught in her throat. And just like that, both his hands were in her hair, cupping her head, tipping her face up to his while he bent down to kiss her. His mouth was warm and firm on hers, his hands steady, but inside she felt him trembling like a butterfly on a leaf. She put her hands on his waist, drawing his body against hers. She felt the tail of his shirt hanging loose from the back of his jeans, and she ran her fingers under it and the T-shirt beneath, touching his skin. He shuddered in a long, twisting shiver that ricocheted through her, making her legs wobble. She pulled him closer so that she wouldn’t fall. He pushed her gently against the wall of the tower. The ledge pressed against the middle of her back, a hard edge above which was nothing—only the air over the city. A delirious confidence filled her. If she tumbled out of the tower, she would surely float, as if she were made of cloud and sky rather than flesh and bone.

A phone rang, the unfamiliar peal echoing loudly in the tower. David was still kissing her, paying no attention to it, but she realized something was vibrating in her left front pocket. The phone that Amber had given her. “David,” she said, breaking away from him.

“What?” He looked dazed.

She pulled out the phone. Dr. Brand’s name showed up on the tiny screen, and the world seemed to crash to a halt. “It’s Dr. Brand,” she said, staring at the display.

“Are you going to answer that?” David asked.

She flipped the phone open with nervous hands, nearly dropping it as she lifted it to her ear. “Hello?”

“Hello, Reese? This is Evelyn Brand.”

“Um, hi.”

“We’re having a press conference on Thursday at Angel Island, and we’d like to invite you and David to come. We’ll be giving tours of our ship. You can bring your parents if you’d like.”

“Thursday?” I could see Amber again in three days, Reese thought, and she immediately felt guilty. She turned away from David, looking down at the palm trees that marched along the Dolores Street median. “What time? How are we supposed to get there?”

“We’ll have ferries departing from Fisherman’s Wharf at ten AM. Can I expect the two of you? We’d really like to have the opportunity to explain everything to you.”

Reese hesitated. David came to stand beside her. “We’ll think about it.”

“All right,” Dr. Brand said. She didn’t sound surprised. “You can give me a call at this number when you decide. And, Reese, we really do hope you’ll come.”

“Okay. Bye.” Reese ended the call and stared at the phone for a second before looking up at David.

“What’d she say?”

Reese relayed the invitation.

“Do you want to go?” he asked.

She put the phone back into her pocket. She knew that her reluctance to go was all about her issues with Amber, but facing that right now—with David only a couple of feet away—made panic shoot through her. “I don’t know.” She rubbed a hand over her eyes, and when her hand came away it was smeared with eye shadow. “Crap. I have to go wash this off. Can we talk about it later?”

He seemed surprised, but he said, “Sure. It’s on Thursday, right?”

“Yeah.” She headed for the stairs, struggling to hide her sudden anxiety.