When We Wake (19 page)

“We are not storming an army installation,” I said firmly. “We’ll have to lure them out before we can sneak in.”

“Definitely,” Bethari said. “Let’s go home and think about how.”

We broke back into Bethari’s house as uneventfully as we’d broken out.

“Oh, thank goodness,” Joph said, sitting up from her mattress on the floor, as I climbed through the window.

I expected her next words to be,
What did you find?

Instead, she yawned, stretched, and said, “I
really
want to go to the bathroom.”

I blinked as she ambled out the door into the hallway. “She’s really not very curious, huh?”

“She used to be different,” Bethari said, handing me some wipes for my eye-shadow-covered face before getting into her pajamas. “But even now, if you were a new serotonin-producing formula, the questions would never stop.”

I laughed and rubbed at my face, watching the purple smudges disappear from the smooth material. “How do these work?”

“I don’t know,” she said, sounding distracted. “Look. I’m not sure how to put this. So I’ll just ask. Are you sure you’re straight?”

My chin jerked up. She was sitting on the edge of the bed and swinging her feet. Her head was tilted at the ceiling, as if my answer was the least important thing in the world.

“Yes,” I said. “I’ve never—yeah.”

She looked at me for a long, searching moment and nodded. “Oh, well,” she said. “It’d never work, anyway. I’m too bossy, and you’re too stubborn.”

“Plus, we don’t screw the crew,” I reminded her.

“Except for you and Abdi and your eighty gazillion babies.”

“Not happening.”

“Oh, Abdi, your beautiful voice, like a chorus of heavenly messengers
—”

I knew she was just teasing, but I couldn’t help the bitterness from seeping into my voice. “Actually, no. He doesn’t even want to be friends in public.”

“Wait,” she said. “Wait,
what
?”

“What?” Joph echoed from the door. “He likes you. He sent you those songs.”

“How do you know about that?” I demanded.

“
What
songs?” Bethari said over me. “Have you two been keeping secrets?”

“Not really,” I protested. “Just that… after music today, Abdi and me talked a bit.”

“Did you, now?” Bethari was sitting upright.

I sighed and told them both about our conversation. “I don’t think anyone saw us,” I said when I’d finished.

“I know they didn’t, or it would be everywhere,” Bethari said. “And what’s this about songs?” she asked Joph.

“Teeg likes the Beatles. And that drummer who had his own band. Abdi found those songs for her.”

“Ringo Starr and His All-Starr Band,” I said. “Not
that
drummer, Joph.
The
drummer, yes.”

She nodded peacefully. “He didn’t have enough to buy them all, so I helped him find the free versions.”

“I didn’t know you two even knew each other,” Bethari said. She was looking more than slightly disgruntled.

“He’s smart,” Joph said. “I like him. Don’t you think he’s pretty, Teeg?”

“He’s all right,” I said, remembering those light eyes looking into mine as we’d made music.

“Oh, I see,” Bethari said, looking insufferably smug.

“You have to remember that two months ago I was in love with Dalmar,” I added, and then wondered about the past tense. I still loved Dalmar, didn’t I? I’d loved him for years when he didn’t
love me, when I’d thought that he never would. Surely little things like him growing up, having a family, and being dead didn’t change that. “Besides, shouldn’t we really be talking about—”

I was interrupted by a knock on the door. I was still wearing my stealth clothes so I yanked a sheet up over myself just before Captain Miyahputri poked her head in, hair tousled around her face.

“Girls, you woke me up,” she said. “Could you
please
go to sleep and save the gossip for the morning? Later in the morning, I should say.”

“Yes, Mami.”

“Sorry, Captain Miyahputri.”

Bethari slipped out to wash up before sleep, and Joph ordered the lights off.

I pulled on a tank top and sleep shorts in the dark—shoving the incriminating clothing under Bethari’s bed—and lay down on my mattress. It shifted around me, redistributing my weight to provide lumbar support.

I stared at Bethari’s ceiling. I was expecting to stay awake for a long time, worrying about what could be concealed underneath that warehouse, and what it had to do with me. And I might possibly devote a tiny, insignificant amount of time to what Abdi had meant by the gift of those songs.

But it felt like only a second later when Bethari shook me awake, her golden headscarf gleaming in the sunlight streaming through the gap in her heavy curtains. “Colonel Dawson is here,” she said, looking nearly as scared as I felt. “He wants you to go home.”

I spent as long as I could getting dressed and packing my bag, trying to calm down. Dawson wasn’t a mind reader, but he also wasn’t an idiot, and I couldn’t afford to give anything away.

While I cleaned my teeth—very slowly—I decided that I should act just like a girl who’d had a slumber party interrupted.

Surly, sleep-deprived, and uncooperative.

So I stomped down the stairs, offered Captain Miyahputri polite but brief thanks, and scowled my way out the door before Dawson could do more than offer me morning greetings.

I slouched in the backseat of the big black car, then glared at Dawson when he joined me.

“What?” I demanded.

“I’m sorry to interrupt your visit,” he said. “Did you enjoy yourself?”

“It was okay,” I conceded. “Would have been better if I could have stayed for the end. Joph was going to make pancakes.”

Zaneisha was driving. I relaxed a little when we swept past the turnoff that led to the army base.

“The fact is, Tegan, an excellent opportunity has arisen. We have a wonderful chance to get your story to the world.”

“How do you mean?”

“We’ve arranged an interview for you with one of Australia’s most-watched tubecasters. We go live next Thursday.” He smiled in apparently genuine excitement.

My first reaction was relief that he wasn’t taking me to some interrogation room to have a long conversation about
breaking into hidden databases and trespassing on government property.

My second reaction was pure horror.

“I can’t do that!” I said.

Dawson ignored me. “We’ve had hundreds of offers, of course, but we wanted to be very selective, especially for the first official interview. Your public-approval rating is very high, you know. You make an appealing face for Operation New Beginning.” He made a wry face. “The truth is, Tegan, we can feed people all the facts we want, but until you personalize a situation for them, they usually don’t care. You personalize revival.”

“I don’t want to do an interview.”

His gray eyes glinted steel. “Now, Tegan, you’ll recall that you did agree to make yourself available for supervised media contact.”

“But I don’t know how,” I wailed. “Look what a mess I made with Carl Hurfest before! And I was an idiot in class, twice on my first day! I’ll say something stupid, and people will hate me!”

He actually patted my hand as we pulled up outside Marie’s place. “We’ll take care of that, Tegan. It will all be fine.” He jumped out, and I scrambled after him.

Marie was standing in the kitchen, pouring tea into a mug for another woman.

Dawson beckoned me in. “We’ve hired the best media specialist in the business, Tegan. Meet Tatia.”

I stared at the strange woman, and then at Marie, who shook her head ruefully.

Oh, just hell.

Tatia was short and plump, and her skin was pale and glowing—I mean, she was actually glowing, an effect achieved through the microwires in her long, flowing gown. Her lips were painted black; her eyes were fitted with purple contacts; her eyebrows were covered in something that looked like silver tinfoil; she wore wrist-length lacy, glittery gloves; and her tight black curls were locked in place, refusing to move even when she bounced to her feet.

“Hello!” she perked at me. “Delighted to meet you, chicken. Let’s feed the eyes.”

She circled me, making a complete scan of my body. Instinctively, I crossed my arms over my boobs, and she tutted and pulled them down. When she was finished, she tapped a sparkling lacy finger to her lips. “Bones are good; skin needs some work; breasts a little spoffy, but don’t worry, there are plenty of designers who owe me giggles—we’ll find something! Shame about the lack of height. Now the hair—the hair is feral. Disaster, Teeg!”

“Tegan has been concentrating on her studies,” Marie put in. “And on adjusting to unfamiliar circumstances.”

Tatia shot her a dark look, then waved her hand. “Of course,
marvelous, she’s making a fantasmical effort to assimilate. I can certainly do something with that. But we must always make time for style. I wonder, could Teeg and I speak alone?”

“I—” Marie started.

“Of course,” Dawson said. “Why don’t you both go talk in her room?”

Marie shook her head slightly, but her eyes were resigned. “I’ll be right up here if you need anything,” she promised me.

Tatia dragged me off as I tried to mentally convey that what I needed was a device to teleport me far away from this situation. Surely they had that kind of thing in the future.

Tatia was unimpressed by my bedroom decorations. “All these old, battered buildings!” she exclaimed. “Not quite the giggle, chicken.”

“I like them.”

“Of course, Teeg, of course. You prefer Teeg, don’t you? Viewers love a nickname; it makes them feel more connected. We’ll use Teeg. That Living Dead Girl catch must go. Carl was such a gerty boy to flash it! Well, now we’ve a chance to ruffle his lemons, don’t we?”

I stared at her, and not just because she was using so much slang, I couldn’t entirely understand what she was saying. It was the way she’d inspected me, then my room, as if everything she saw were a flawed piece of furniture she needed to reupholster and polish.

“Teeg’s mostly for family and friends. I think I’d prefer Tegan or Ms. Oglietti.”

“Teeg is better,” she said, her face flashing steel beneath the
sparkle, so fast I barely saw it. I felt the effect, though; it was just like misjudging a jump and catching a rail with my stomach instead of flying over it. Except I was prepared for that possibility when I tried to jump a rail, and not when a pretty, polished woman kicked me in the gut with a three-word phrase and a smile.

She didn’t pause to see if I had further objections; she was off again, talking about skin care and depilatory wands and a million other things I couldn’t care less about. It all washed over me, until I heard “speaking skills.”

“I don’t have any,” I told her.

“Oh, I’ll teach you all the razzle. We’ll rehearse the questions, your answers, and any possible surprises. I don’t think Carl Hurfest will toss you a real badger, but you can’t ever be certain with him, naughty boy.”

“Wait,
Hurfest
is doing the interview?”

Tatia smiled. “Of course. Who better?”

“Anyone!”

She waved the objection away as if it were an irritating blowfly. “He’s sent the questions; your replies are on your computer now. Today you’ll memorize them; tomorrow you’ll—”