Quicksilver (20 page)

And I was. Because I knew the truth about Meridian, about what had really happened last summer. I’d just been too much of a coward to talk about it, even to the one person who needed my honesty most.

“Niki?” Mrs. Park was leaning out the sliding door, looking around for me. I stepped back into the light.

“I’m here,” I said.

“It’s too dark outside,” she chided. “Come in now. I have your room ready.”

I took off my shoes and followed her up the stairs to where the spare bedroom waited for me, its double bed draped in white linens. There was a flowery nightgown laid out on the bed, faded but clean, with a set of towels and a new toothbrush—still in the package—beside it.

“You should sleep,” Milo’s grandmother said. “You have had a shock and you must be tired. You will feel better tomorrow.”

In fact it was barely ten o’clock, and I wasn’t tired at all. But though her voice was sweet there was steel in it, and I knew better than to protest. “You’ve been very kind,” I said. “Thank you for everything.”

Mrs. Park gave a satisfied nod and closed the door. I waited until her footsteps receded, then pulled out my laptop and phone. If I was stuck here, then at least I could get some work done.

I was halfway through a resignation letter to my manager when Milo texted me.

–Settled in all right? GPs taking good care of you?

–Very. What did you tell them???

–Same thing I told your dad. Only with bonus stuff about how you were a nice girl and this was totally not your fault. And how we were just friends (sorry about the “just”), but I couldn’t put you up at my place because my mom’s still on night shift, and What Would The Neighbors Think?

–Nice.

And I meant it. I’d been feeling guilty about making Milo lie to his grandparents, but that was essentially the truth, or at least as much of it as they needed to know.

–I’d come over, but my grandmother would give me the stank eye if I showed up at this hour. Still OK to get into the m-space tomorrow?

–Yeah, no problem. Shawn’s letting me in at 10. You coming?

–For a while. See you then.

I finished my letter of resignation and sent it off to my manager via phone, since the Parks didn’t have Wi-Fi. Then I undressed and climbed into bed. But no matter how many binary numbers I counted, sleep refused to come. I couldn’t stop thinking about Deckard and my parents and Sebastian … and now more than ever, Alison.

For the past week I’d allowed the urgency of building the transceiver to push her to the back of my mind, telling myself it wasn’t safe to reach out to her anyway. But Deckard wasn’t in Sudbury spying on Alison anymore. He was here in southern Ontario, looking for me. And what had happened tonight had made me realize just how selfish I’d been to ignore Alison’s letter.

The fear that had jolted through me when Milo told me Deckard was in the store, that sense of being vulnerable and horribly alone … that was nothing compared to what Alison must be going through. Because I wasn’t alone, not really: I had Milo, and I had my parents, and in a weird way I even had Sebastian. But Alison had nobody who understood what she’d been through or how she was feeling. Nobody who was willing to admit it, anyway.

I’d had enough of waiting for Sebastian to do the right thing. It was time to throw away my pride, my guilt, and all the fears that had been holding me back and tell Alison the truth.

I sat up quickly and switched on the bedside light. Then I picked up my phone and started typing.

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The next morning I ate an early, quiet breakfast with Milo’s grandparents, helped Mrs. Park wash the dishes, and thanked them profusely for their kindness. I told them I had plans for the day and wouldn’t impose on them any longer, but I’d always be grateful for their hospitality.

“Your parents,” said Pastor Park. “Are they coming to get you? Or would you like us to take you home?”

He spoke mildly, and the lines of his face were gentle. But there was something unnervingly shrewd in the way he looked at me, and I found myself stammering out the truth before I could even think to lie.

“My parents aren’t home right now. They’ve gone to Toronto for the weekend.”

Mrs. Park gave me a sharp look, and I could tell she didn’t think much of my parents. So I added quickly, “It’s not their fault. They wanted to take me away with them, but I told them I’d rather stay here. I have a lot of work to do on a—a school project, and I can’t afford to leave it.”

That struck the right note. Milo’s grandparents exchanged looks, and I could see they were impressed by my commitment to academics. “So, then,” Milo’s grandmother said, “you will stay here until your parents come back.”

“Oh, I couldn’t—”

“Don’t argue with my wife,” Pastor Park told me with a half-smile. “She’s a very determined woman. Now, tell us where you need to go, and we’ll drive you there. Would you like to stop at your house first?”

So that was how I ended up in front of the makerspace at precisely ten o’clock, with clean clothes and a packed lunch in my bag, waving to Milo’s grandparents as they drove away. I was heading inside, still a little dazed by all this efficient care, when Dad texted me with an update.

He and Mom had packed up and left the house last night without any sign of Deckard. They’d left Crackers with our next-door neighbor, who adored him and would spoil him rotten. They were staying at a nice hotel in downtown Toronto, and Mom was going to call me in a few minutes to see how I was getting along.

Which meant that somehow, Dad had convinced Mom that he’d been planning this trip for ages. He’d told her I’d arranged to stay with Milo’s family for the weekend, so she wouldn’t worry about leaving me alone. Then he’d whisked her straight from their Friday night date to a romantic getaway weekend without a hint that there was anything unusual, let alone dangerous, going on.

So when she called, I kept my voice bright and confident. I asked her what shows she and Dad would be seeing and told her to have a great time and promised that Milo and I wouldn’t throw any parties while the two of them were away, ha-ha. By the time I hung up, I felt thoroughly sick of myself.

When I walked into the makerspace, Barry was there, peering under the dust cover at my nearly completed transceiver. I braced myself for another barrage of questions, but when he saw me, he only mumbled a greeting and went back to work on his own project, a vintage radio he was converting to an MP3 player. So I wasn’t busted yet.

Still, the faster I got the transceiver finished and out of here, the better. And I was so close now—two or three hours of work at most. Test the power amplifier, finish up the relay circuit and cabling, and assemble it all in the enclosure. Then all I had to do was install the firmware Sebastian had sent me, and I’d be done. I switched on the soldering iron, dumped out the last of my components, and went to work with a vengeance.

My hands moved smoothly from one task to another, obeying my slightest thought without hesitation. My eyes stayed focused on the board, immune to all distractions, while my mind slipped into a heightened, almost dreamlike state. It had been a long time since I’d allowed myself to sink this deep into a project, and the cautious part of me warned that I might regret it. But I didn’t care anymore. I loved this feeling too much.

Closer and closer. The enclosure took shape beneath my hands, back and sides slotting smoothly into the base. I mounted the transceiver board, slotted in the relay module, and hooked up the cables. Almost complete now—just a few more steps and I’d be ready to power on. I could feel my confidence soaring, the old thrill tingling inside me…

Behind me, Milo cleared his throat.

“Oh, sorry,” I said, blinking up at him. “How long have you been there?”

“Half an hour,” he said. “But don’t let me stop you. You look like you’re on a roll.”

“I’m almost finished,” I said. “Just give me a few more minutes.” I dived back into the enclosure, and the world vanished again.

A few
in this case ended up being
twenty-three
, thanks to my perfectionist streak. Even once the transceiver was fully assembled, I couldn’t declare victory until I’d hooked it up to my laptop and installed Sebastian’s firmware. But when the green light glowed on the transceiver’s front panel, and I saw that the test sequence had run perfectly, I let out a whoop and punched the air. “Done it!”

Milo came over to inspect my handiwork, running his hands over the smooth top of the case. “Looks fantastic,” he said. “Like you bought it from some high-tech dealer. I can’t believe you put all those components together so fast.”

“Neither can I,” said Barry, swiveling to face us. “This is topnotch work, Niki. How do you know all this stuff at your age?”

“I’m highly motivated,” I said blithely. I knew I ought to be more cautious, but right then I was too busy savoring my triumph to care. Besides, the transceiver was finished, so what did it matter what Barry thought of it anymore?

Barry lumbered to his feet and came over. “So when are you planning to take it for a test drive?”

He was obviously eager to see the transceiver working, and I felt bad for not giving him the chance. But I suspected that when the time came to use it, Sebastian wasn’t going to want a lot of spectators.

“Not today,” I said. “I’m not exactly sure when it’s going to work out.”

“Oh, sure,” said Barry, sounding disappointed but not angry, and I thought I was off the hook. But when I pushed the transceiver back against the wall and started draping the dust cover over it, he spoke again. “But, uh, let’s be honest here. This isn’t really for your dad’s birthday, is it?”

Immediately my brain started shuffling through a pack of semi-plausible lies. But when I looked into Barry’s earnest brown eyes, I couldn’t do it. He loved electronics, and he knew radio, and even if I hadn’t really needed his technical advice, he’d been a big help in other ways.

So I looked straight at him and said, “No. It’s meant to beam a quantum-encoded data signal over a distance of 68.4 million kilometers, ordering a certain piece of scientific equipment to turn itself off. And if it doesn’t work, I’m in big trouble.”

Barry regarded me for a few seconds without expression. Then he said, “Thought it was something like that,” and went back to his work.

I was staring at the back of his head, unable to believe it could be that easy, when Milo nudged me.

“Hey, Girl Genius,” he said. “You’ve done an awesome job. Let’s go celebrate.”

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I’d thought Milo was joking about the celebration. But when we got outside and he started marching toward downtown, I realized that he meant it. “Wait,” I said. “I can’t. I need to text Sebastian—”

“You can do that when we get there,” he said. “The Cakery’s only a couple blocks away, and there’s a slice of chocolate banana pecan calling my name.”

So I gave in. Because, well, it was cake. While we waited for the waitress to bring our order, I wrote Sebastian to tell him the transceiver was finished. I expected he’d get back to me as promptly as he had last night, but by the time I cleaned my plate and drank two cups of coffee, he still hadn’t answered.

“He’s probably just busy,” said Milo. “Didn’t you say you’d asked him to lead Deckard on some kind of virtual wild-goose chase?”

“Yeah, but that shouldn’t stop him from answering a text. Especially from me.”

“So you think something happened to him?”

I considered the infinite set of possibilities, most of them unpleasant. He’d lost his phone or had it stolen. He’d been arrested; he’d been in an accident; he’d blown himself to atoms tinkering with the relay…

Or, more likely, he’d just pulled an all-nighter and fallen asleep on the keyboard. I forced a smile. “It’s probably nothing. I’m just impatient, I guess.”

Milo gave me a level look that reminded me of his grandfather. “No, you’re not. You’re worried about him, and you’re stressed out about Deckard, and you look like you’re about to fall over. I’m taking you home.”

Normally I would have resented being told how I felt and what I should do. But the exultation of finishing the transceiver had faded, and I didn’t have the energy to fight. “Fine, but which ‘home’ are we talking about? Because your grandparents seem to think I’m staying at their place until my parents get back. No arguments allowed.”

“Arguments are never allowed,” said Milo. “Not if you’re under the age of seventy, anyway. The last time I talked back to my
halmunee
, she made me stand in the corner and hold my arms above my head for twenty minutes.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. I didn’t get supper, either.” He pulled a doleful face, then grinned at my expression. “Don’t worry, non-Koreans get a free pass. But if you really want to get on her good side, keep your eyes down, speak softly, and eat lots of kimchi.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said.

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Milo was on evening shift that night, so he rode the bus with me as far as his grandparents’ neighborhood and jogged off to Value Foods from there. Once he was out of sight I checked my phone again, but there was still no word from Sebastian.

When I reached the Parks’ house, a car I didn’t recognize was sitting in the driveway. My heart skipped a beat—but then I noticed the Korean flag pasted into its back window. Not Deckard, then. I rang the doorbell and Mrs. Park answered, looking harried but relieved to see me. She scolded me for not calling for a ride, shepherded me into the living room, and hurried back to her kitchen, where something red and sweet-smelling was cooking.