Ultraviolet Read online

  It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s over. I’m safe. I’m alive. I’m free. I can figure this out. It’s going to be fine.

  My phone rang. It was Dom.

  “Holy shit!” he yelled into my ear.

  “Hi, Dom. How are you, Dom? I’m fine, thanks for asking, Dom.” I rolled my eyes.

  “Is this really you? This is awesome.”

  “Is what me? What are you talking about?”

  “This clip online. Girl fights pervs with lightsaber. It sure looks like you.”

  “Girl what?” A horrible cold feeling started twisting in my gut.

  “That’s the name of the video. It just popped up in my feed. How did you make that sword appear and disappear like that?”

  I froze.

  It’s online already. People saw. And more people will see. Damn it!

  “Oh wait, there’s a second one?” Dom paused, and then laughed hard. “Wow, you really nailed those guys!”

  “Is that the shield?” I asked with a wince.

  “Yeah, that was awesome!”

  I started walking again, now with my eyes darting around for signs of people pointing their phones at me. “Stop saying the word awesome, please.”

  “Is this that hologram thing you were talking about? But they’re real, they’re solid? You’re a genius.”

  I smiled in spite of myself. “Thanks.”

  “Wow. A hundred thousand views. One fifty. Two hundred.”

  “What! Are you serious?”

  “Yeah, it’s blowing up. You, my friend, just went viral. But don’t get too excited. You’ll be ancient history by the end of the hour.”

  “I hope so.”

  No, I won’t. At least, not for Cygnus and their bloodhounds. I’m going to be very popular with those guys for a long time at this rate.

  “Hey Dom, what do you think would happen if I told the cops, the real cops, that a Special was shooting at me?”

  “Uh, they’d probably arrest you and turn you over to the Special.”

  I sighed. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know. I need to talk to my dad. He’ll know.”

  “Why don’t you just call him?”

  “Are you kidding? He’s a dad. He doesn’t know how to scramble his phone, and he probably wouldn’t do it even if he did know. Besides, he never answers his phone at work, and he won’t be off for another hour or so.”

  “Okay. Well, let me know if you need anything.”

  “Thanks, I will. Just keep an eye on your feeds and let me know if you see anything else about me, okay?”

  “Will do.”

  I hung up and checked the gloves just in time to see the yellow power light fade to green.

  Nice. Good.

  I kept walking.

  It took over an hour to get down to my parents’ neighborhood, and by then the afternoon was really more like evening, which worked out well for me since I didn’t want to have to wait around too long to see them. As I got closer to the old row house, I got more and more paranoid. I kept checking inside the cars I passed, not that there were many cars, but I saw a few that made me nervous. No vans or trucks though. The bicycles all looked civilian enough. I watched the windows of the houses I passed too, but most of the shades were closed so I couldn’t see anyone or anything.

  But no matter how quiet and safe it looked, I couldn’t stop thinking that there were Cygnus agents hiding behind every tree and corner, watching me, waiting to grab me and wrap a bag around my head and throw me in the back of some company car.

  I stopped at the end of my parents’ block where I could see the house. I didn’t dare get any closer. My mom’s green bicycle was locked up in front of the house, but dad’s gray one wasn’t there, so I backed up half a block to a spot where I thought I might see him go by on his way home, and I waited. I didn’t have to wait long.

  A big black car rolled by me a few minutes later, one of the sleek new sedans with blacked out windows, and the only reason they didn’t see me was that I was already hunched down behind a recycling bin in an alley.

  If I’d been ten minutes slower getting here, they would have seen me.

  The car turned down my parents’ street, and I was looking in that direction so I didn’t notice when my dad rolled by on his bike on his way home from work. By the time I recognized him, he was already making the turn onto his street. I jumped up and waved my arms violently over my head, trying to catch his eye, but he didn’t see me and he disappeared around the corner.

  I ran to the end of the block and peered around the corner after him, not daring to yell, not daring to breathe, and I got there just in time to see my mom and dad standing together on their front stoop, talking to a man in a dark suit.

  Frost.

  I hunched there behind some kid’s bike and a rusty lawn chair on the sidewalk and watched.

  First they talked, tired citizens dealing with the overly professional suit.

  Heads nodded and shook. Hands gestured politely.

  Then I saw my dad’s face change, all wrinkled like how he looks when he’s angry, and I knew something was going wrong. He took my mom’s arm and started steering her back into the house. Then Frost held something up, something I couldn’t see, and suddenly my dad looked scared. He tried to move in between Frost and my mom, and I heard a little popping sound muffled by the distance, and my dad collapsed, and before I could even stand up there was a second popping sound and my mom fell down beside my dad.

  I froze.

  I just couldn’t process it.

  Were they dead?

  Did I just watch my parents die?

  Part of me wanted to run over there, screaming my head off, waving a solid light sword in the air, calling the police, roaring at the neighbors to come out and watch me kill the man who had murdered my parents.

  Seriously, I imagined doing all of that, all in an instant.

  But I couldn’t move. I was still too scared of being seen, of getting caught, of getting hurt, or now, killed. I kept picturing that gun in his hand, the gun pointed at me, the sound of it, the sight of that gaping black hole full of bullets, real bullets, and how fast he had drawn it out of nowhere. So I didn’t move.

  As I squatted there at the corner, I saw Frost pick up my parents and put them in the car, and then he got in and drove away.

  Now I could move, now I magically had the power to run back to the alley and hide behind the recycling bin again as the car came back up the street and rolled quietly past me for the second time. When the car was gone, I just sat there on the cold concrete and cried.

  I wanted someone to come and find me, to explain it to me, to tell me it was all going to be okay, to tell me what I needed to do to make it all okay.

  But no one came.

  No one explained it.

  And I had no idea what to do.

  Chapter 3

  Negotiations

  I knew I couldn’t sit in an alley, alone and crying, all night long. I’ll admit, there was a brief temptation to do it anyway, just to avoid dealing with everything, but instead I stood up and started walking. It was dark and getting colder. Fewer people on the streets, except for the joggers in their skin-tight pants and weird ergonomic shoes.

  I hate joggers.

  I headed back up toward the harbor, which was still a bad idea but for different reasons than before. The harbor area emptied out by nine or ten o’clock when all the stores and restaurants closed, which meant the only people around were people you didn’t want to run into. But I wanted to get out of the south side and the only way out was around the harbor.

  My phone buzzed. Call from an unlisted number. I didn’t answer.

  A minute later it buzzed again. This time it was a text from an unlisted number, most likely the same unlisted number. It said, “We have your parents in custody. Surrender to the nearest company office or police officer to secure their release.”

  He didn’t
name Cygnus Systems as the company in question. He didn’t need to. I stared at the message for a minute. It helped to know my parents were alive, or at least to believe they were alive. It was hard to believe Cygnus would kill innocent people over some rogue tech, but then… I’d heard the rumors. The sort of rumors you didn’t want to believe, but sounded just believable enough to make you worry.

  I called Dom. No answer. I left him a text to call me, and then I called my friend Mercedes. She answered on the fourth ring, which seemed like a strange number to answer on to me. I know a lot of people don’t like to actually talk on the phone. I think that’s crazy. I pictured her standing there, staring at my name on her phone, trying to decide whether to pick up.

  “Carmen?”

  “Hey Mercy. How are things?”

  “Are you kidding? How are you? You’re all over the news. Are you okay?”

  “Not so much.”

  My voice was steady. Fortunately, I’d gotten all the crying out of my system earlier and now, with the cold air in my face and my nerves all on edge as I walked around the Inner Harbor, my brain felt much clearer.

  “Don’t worry, we’re scrambled, you can talk.”

  I checked my phone to make sure she was right. Not everyone knows how to use their scrambler properly. “Thanks. Listen, so, you know I got fired from Cygnus a little while back, right?”

  “Right.”

  “So, I’ve sort of been using my spare time to invent something, and now there are some people who want it, and they want me, and there’s a Special involved, and my parents are in trouble.”

  “Your parents?”

  I bit my lip to keep my voice steady. “Yeah, they took my parents.”

  “Oh my God!”

  “Yeah, they want me to turn myself in.”

  “What for? You broke the law?”

  “I don’t think so. I think they’re just mad about the competition.”

  “And they took your parents over that? That’s kidnapping! That’s crazy!”

  “Yeah, it is. But this thing I made… it could sort of destroy their whole company. I mean, seriously, if I could sell it to Susquehanna Power or someone like that, I think it would put Cygnus out of business in less than a year.”

  “Wow. Oh, Car. This is bad. What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

  “Is there anyone you can trust, like a cop or a lawyer?”

  “I don’t know any cops or lawyers. Do you?”

  “No. Sorry.”

  As I turned east around the Inner Harbor I glanced up at the USS Constellation, all wooden spars and masts and planks, floating proudly for no apparent reason in the center of the city. They said it was a tourist attraction, but I had never known anyone who had ever been in it. I certainly hadn’t.

  “Hey Mercy, I hate to ask, but do you think you could loan me a couple dollars? My card’s all tapped out and I really could use something to eat.”

  “Sure, no problem.”

  My phone chimed. Transfer received.

  “Thanks.”

  “Hey Car, I have to run. Let me know if there’s anything else you need, okay?”

  “Okay. Thanks again. Bye.”

  I stopped at a vending machine under a streetlight to get some food. The burger came out all small and terrible, but it was hot and reminded me of all the box-burgers I had eaten as a kid, so the nostalgia smoothed over the indigestion. I was almost in Little Italy when I realized that I really had no idea where I was going or what I was doing, and I stopped. The streets were silent and empty. No people, no bikes, no cars.

  I didn’t want to bug any more of my friends and risk getting them into trouble too. Besides, they’d all be like Mercy. No money, no connections, no idea how to deal with this mess. Just good intentions and well-wishes.

  So I texted Dom, “I’m going to turn myself in.”

  He called back immediately. “Don’t do it.”

  “I have to.” I turned around and started walking back toward the harbor. There was a Cygnus office just across the street from the National Aquarium. There would be a guard at the desk. “I have to save my parents.”

  “But you’ll go to jail. Not even a real jail, a private jail. You know what those places are like.”

  No one knew what they were like. No one had ever been released from one.

  “Yeah, I realize this plan of mine blows. Give me an alternative.”

  “I will. We just need some time to think.”

  “Every minute we spend thinking, my parents are spending as prisoners. No. I’m getting them out right now. They don’t deserve this. It’s my fault, my mess.”

  “But they were shooting at you!”

  “Yeah, I know.” I walked a little slower and wiggled my fingers in the tight mesh of the gloves. My amazing, stupid gloves. I took them off my hands and left them in my jacket pockets.

  “Look, just come over to my place, crash for the night, and we’ll think of something in the morning, okay?”

  “Thanks, Dom. But I can’t. I have to do this.” I didn’t have to, actually. And I definitely didn’t want to. But my feet kept walking toward the Cygnus building anyway.

  “What if it’s a trick or a trap, and they don’t let your parents go?”

  “Then I’m screwed.” I shrugged.

  “No, come on, stop. Just stop for a minute.”

  “Bye, Dom.” I hung up.

  He called back. I ignored him. It was easier to walk up to the building without Dom reminding me of all the reasons not to, of all the things that could go wrong. I was just one good excuse away from turning and running. Instead, I opened the door to the brightly lit lobby of the Cygnus building and walked up to the desk.

  The guard was an older man in a gray uniform who frowned at me. He looked like he frowned a lot.

  “Carmen Zhao to see… uh, Mister Frost, I guess. I think he’s in security.”

  The guard nodded and picked up the desk phone and started punching numbers and muttering to people on the other end. I didn’t try to listen. I didn’t look around. I looked at my feet and hoped that it would all be over soon.

  I hate waiting.

  “He’ll be with you in just a few minutes, if you want to take a seat.” The guard pointed to the couch on the other side of the lobby, and I sat down, alternately glancing at the front doors and at the rear elevators.

  A few minutes passed. More like twenty.

  A car pulled up in front of the building and I watched a man get out and walk to the doors.

  Frost.

  Watching him walk through the doors and approach me was my first real look at him, after he broke into my home, shot at me, chased me, and abducted my parents. He was pretty bland to look at. Clean shaven, short black hair, cheap black suit. He nodded to the security guard and then walked up to me. I stayed on the couch, my hands in my pockets, my stomach in knots.

  “Miss Zhao, come with me.” He said it very calmly. In fact he sounded as tired as he looked. There was nothing smug or condescending about him, no barking orders, no threats. Just another boring guy in a suit.

  I stood up and walked with him back to the car. He opened the door to the back seat, but then held out his hand. “The gloves.”

  “No.” I stepped back. “Not until my parents are home.”

  “I can’t let you walk around with a weapon like that.”

  My mind raced. “I don’t have them on me. I hid them. Let my parents go, and then I’ll tell you where they are. Okay?”

  He sighed.

  “And they’re not weapons, anyway. They’re tools. They’re every tool. Screwdrivers and spatulas. They’re to help people, and to save money.” The sales pitch sounded pretty pathetic, so I stopped. There’s a reason I’m an engineer.

  “Anything that can hurt someone is a weapon.”

  “Wow, really? Then you must be terrified of paper. All those little cuts.” I didn’t mean to be that snarky. I really didn’t. But I was halfway bet
ween angry and terrified, so I wasn’t really focused on being nice.

  He scratched his eyebrow and shrugged. “Fine. Get in. Let’s go.”

  I got in the car and we drove away.

  I stared out the window, watching the streetlights slide past in silence.

  “Sorry about earlier, on the roof,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I shouldn’t have fired, but I had never seen anything like that before, that shield of yours,” he explained. “It looked like a weapon.”

  “Oh.”

  “This is off the record, of course. Cygnus would never admit to any wrong-doing, so…”

  “Yeah, right.” I frowned. It felt wrong to be having a casual conversation with him.

  “I saw the clips of you this afternoon,” he said. “You’ve had a busy day.”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Your parents are fine. I had their pharma profiles when I made the tranqs, so they were never in any danger.”

  “You… you used customized tranquilizers on them?”

  “Standard procedure.”

  “Oh.”

  We were heading away from downtown, northbound on the expressway, and then we swung off onto a road I didn’t know. Residential area, pretty old houses.

  “So what happens now?” I asked. I didn’t really want to know, so much as I needed to know before the anxiety made my chest explode.

  “When we get to the office, your parents will be released and given a ride home, and you’ll head upstairs to chat with the boss.”

  “The boss?”

  “Your former boss. Brian Rosewater.”

  “Brian? Brian did this?”

  “No, you did this. Mister Rosewater is just the paper-pusher who co-signed your non-compete agreement, so he’s the one who has to deal with you breaking it today. Company policy.”

  “My non-compete? That’s what this is all about?”

  Maybe this wasn’t so bad. Brian was a decent guy. I had worked with him for eight months. Maybe we could work something out. I could give Cygnus the specs for the holo projector, maybe even get my old job back. Win-win. Everyone looks good, everyone gets rich.

  By the time we pulled up in front of the office building, I was feeling almost hopeful.

  “Wait, where are my parents?” I asked.