“Lexie, you look tired,” Dr. Rosen said, squatting down in front of me and reaching for my wrist. He took my pulse and nodded. “You don’t seem to have a fever or increased heart rate, though. How do you feel?”
“Like I got injected with a brain-altering, nanobot-destroying compound.”
He smiled. “I hear it hurts.”
Dad wandered in carrying a tray with mugs and a teapot. He poured me a mug, and I clutched the warm cup between my hands. “Thanks, Dad.”
“Emmet’s going to need to take some blood and do a quick check-up. Are you up for that?”
I nodded and reluctantly put the mug down. “Let’s get it over with.”
Dr. Rosen followed me to my bedroom where he drew three vials of blood, listened to my heart, and did a general inspection. He frowned several times but didn’t say much until we were done.
“I’m not sure what we’re going to do about the nanobots. I’ll get these samples analyzed, and then we can decide. I’d feel better if I knew how long the drug stayed in your system or even what it was. I’m afraid if there’s still a trace of Grant’s serum, it’ll just destroy any new nanobots we inject. And we need them working if we’re going to keep you safe.”
“So what about going to QT then?”
“I think it’ll be fine.” He smiled encouragingly at me, but I could see from the way he rubbed his hand along his jaw he was concerned. “We’ll get this figured out. I promise.”
Together, we wandered back out to the living room. Dad had made a fire in the fireplace, and he and Asher were sitting in awkward silence in the two armchairs flanking it. Both of them sprang to their feet as we entered.
I curled up back on the couch and grabbed my mug. Dad and Dr. Rosen exchanged a glance, and I knew they wanted to talk about me in private. Somehow, I couldn’t really bring myself to care.
“Call if you need anything, Lex,” he said as they headed into the kitchen.
Asher moved to the couch, tucking the blanket around my icy toes and then perching on the arm to study me. “You don’t look so good.”
“What — a hoodie and a ponytail don’t cut it here in Oak Ridge? I’m shocked.”
“Not what I meant. You look pale. And there are bruises beneath your eyes. If that guy hurt you…” His voice trailed off but not before I heard the threat in his voice.
“I’m fine. Just tired. It would have been much worse if you and my dad hadn’t shown up. How did you know?”
Asher’s lips thinned. “He just felt off. Especially after I’d heard the security bots had exploded. Only someone with some seriously advanced tech could have gotten past them. I just wish I’d gotten there earlier.”
“Well, I appreciate it.” I stared down into my tea as it finally hit me for the first time. My stomach lurched. They’d tried to kidnap me. The liquid sloshed over the sides as my hands started to shake, and Asher leaned forward to take the mug from me.
“It’s okay. You’re safe now, and we’re not going to let them get that close to you ever again.”
“But what do they want? I’m nothing special.” My voice broke, and I had to look away from his intense gaze.
“You haven’t had time yet to figure out what you are, Lexicon. But trust me, you are special.”
His words made me shiver, and I stared into the crackling fireplace, at the flames dancing on the blackened logs. I hated feeling like I stood out, even at QT where everyone else was a freak, too. But special? Did Asher know something about all this that I didn’t?
From the corner of my eye, I saw Asher get up and rummage in his messenger bag before pulling out his laptop. He came back to sit on the couch, his shoulder pressed to mine, the warmth from his body soaking into me and finally driving the shivers away. I felt unexpectedly comfortable with him.
“Ok, so now that Branston has really pissed me off, I think it’s time for some more information.” He smiled slyly and cracked his knuckles. “Prepare to see the master at work.”
I shook my head. “I’ve been searching for information on them since Monday. Even the resident genius can’t find something that’s not there.”
He winked and pulled up a browser. “Watch and learn, grasshopper.”
If I thought I had mad Google skills, they were nothing to what Asher had. He crawled into the Branston website using a hole in the code, and every time they tried to shut him out, he opened a new one.
Asher shook his head, fingers flying over the keyboard. “Whoever designed this site thought they were being sneaky with the .php, but not if you leave gaping holes in your code.” He finally paused and let out a low whistle. “Well, damn. Looks like our Major Grant is on the Branston board of trustees. Along with one of the heads of the National Institute of Science, a few foreign nationals, and three Army generals.” He took a screenshot and saved it to his hard drive. “I can see where they’d want to keep this secret. I don’t think the scientific community would approve of them being so close with the government.”
I peered over his shoulder, but I didn’t recognize the names. And then the page disappeared, replaced by a warning message: “Page not found.”
Asher smirked at the screen. “Too little, too late, guys.” He brought up the code finder in his browser and scanned it quickly. “Just looking for another hole. Now that they know we’re here, they’re searching, too, trying to plug them. But I have a few more tricks to play.”
He pulled up the Run prompt on his Start menu and typed a string of characters. Another window popped up. “This is one of the bots I created to search for deep holes in web codes. It should find us another back door into the site. I want some more information on our Major Grant.”
I watched, lips parted as the code scrolled through. I caught a few strings of letters and numbers that almost made sense. They tickled the back of my brain, like a memory I’d forgotten, almost clicking into place, but then Asher crowed and started typing again.
“Found one. Now we race to get there before they shut us down.” His fingers flew over the keyboard, and I tried to keep up with what he was typing on screen. The website pages flashed by until they stopped on what looked like a personnel file.
Major Timothy Grant.
Asher copied and pasted as much as he could in the five seconds before the site crashed. It wasn’t much, but as we stared at the info, both of us frowned.