The Jump, page 18
I look to my right through the tiny window to the administration room, where I hope to see Mama or Zaza or Ava or Yas or Spider or Han or somebody I love, but all I see is a short-haired Black guy signing something at the desk in a navy jumpsuit and… wait… I notice the bag he’s holding, the clear bag full of the clothes he came here with, the folded purple velvet inside.
My blood runs cold.
“Karim?” I ask before I can realize I’ve asked it out loud.
He turns to look at me, and the moment seems to drag on forever. I know he was booked right along with me, but I can’t believe his bougie ass and I both ended up at the same juvenile detention center. But why’s he holding his clothes? I haven’t seen my clothes since I got here, until now with Officer Hank using them as a bargaining chip. I remember Mama’s amethyst necklace sitting right on the top of that pile, and I shut my eyes in pain at the realization that I probably won’t see the crystal she trusted me with—to keep me safe—for days at least.
This is all my fault. Goddamn it, why didn’t I listen?
Karim’s still looking at me.
The front door of the lobby opens behind him, and a white woman with long black hair and lots of silver jewelry walks in, wrapped in a black fur shawl.
“Oh my god, my baby!” she exclaims, throwing her arms around him and sobbing into his shoulder. He hugs her back tightly and doesn’t take his eyes off me.
Wait, this white lady is his mom? We… both have at least one white parent?
He pulls away from her, takes both her hands in his, and turns to the counter again, where there’s a white young man sitting at a computer. He looks over his shoulder at me, and Karim’s eyes follow until they land on me too. Then, to my surprise and horror, Karim smiles at me. Like, genuinely smiles, not in that weird ultra-capitalist I know something you don’t know and that’s going to make me money typa way he was smiling at me earlier in Thirty Foods, but like, he’s saying… everything’s going to be okay?
Finally the officer escorting me has unlocked the door and swung it open, and I’m ushered not into the rec room, but through the rec room to the administration room!
“What’s going on?” I ask the officer. He shrugs like he’s just as shocked as I am. “Somebody bailed you out, kid.”
I turn to see Karim staring at me, smile gone, face even.
“Don’t think this means I like you,” he says. “I got you out because we have a clue to find.”
The white woman smiles warmly and steps past him toward me.
“I’m Melinda,” she says. “Melinda Horrow. I’m Karim’s mother. I understand you’re one of his, um… internet friends?”
Karim rolls his eyes.
“Mom, could we save the pleasantries until after we’ve won the puzzle?” he asks, turning toward the door and motioning for me to follow. I resist reflexively letting my mouth fall open. If I so much as formed my mouth to say something so rude to Mama, she would have words for me. Actually, she’d probably have no words, she’d be so shocked.
I spot my clothes and shoes in a plastic bag on the front counter, and I swipe it up, following Karim, giving Melinda an apologetic smile as I walk past her.
“Melinda will deal with the paperwork while I fill you in on what’s about to happen,” he says, stepping across the parking lot with the confidence of someone who knew he’d never spend a night in jail. Too much money to have to deal with that shit.
“Wait, wait,” I say, jogging to catch up to him. “I have some questions, my guy.”
“Of course you do,” he sighs. “We’ll get to that in a moment.”
We reach a white Range Rover with huge chrome wheels so clean I can see myself in them, and he holds out his hand to tug at the door handle before grunting in exasperation and yelling back across the parking lot.
“Melinda, the door!”
I hear a beep and a click, and he pulls the door open to reveal a softly lit cabin with striking red leather seats. I’ve never seen a vehicle so absolutely gorgeous. It looks like a hotel on wheels.
“Whoa, this is nice!” I say as he climbs into the back seat.
“Get in,” he says with an air of annoyance to his voice.
“Excuse me for complimenting you,” I say frustratedly before hauling myself up into the back seat. How does this kid have friends?
The door closes with the push of a button to Karim’s left, and he clears his throat.
“I didn’t pay for your bail because I feel sorry for you,” he says, looking me up and down. “Although that wouldn’t be so unfathomable. I paid for your bail because I knew if you stayed in there, you might die, and if you die, it’ll cost my parents months, maybe years, of therapy to help me get over the guilt enough to lead a productive life.”
It takes a moment for all of that to sink in, but I have to smile.
“So… you do feel sorry for me.”
“I feel sorry, preemptively, for my parents’ wallets,” he insists, reaching down and opening his bag of clothes, pulling out his precious purple suit. He smooths out some of the wrinkles and refolds them along the crease down the front. “The police are the real degenerates, if you ask me,” he mutters. “Can’t even fold a suit correctly.”
He has no idea just how degenerate-like they are.
And then I realize, I have to tell him what I know.
“Karim, did they ask you anything when they interrogated you in there?”
“Interrogated? No, I told them I would have no conversations with anyone until I’d consulted with a lawyer.”
“So they didn’t take you back? To anyone’s office?”
He looks at me questioningly now.
“No,” he says. “Did they take you back? Please tell me you didn’t talk.”
“I didn’t talk,” I say. “But… they wanted me to.”
“Of course they did.”
“No, no, they wanted me to take a plea bargain.”
“Of course they did.”
“They wanted me to identify protesters,” I finally blurt out. “And the officer said, without us, there is no order.”
He stops folding and looks at me. Then he reels his head back in the ugliest laughter I’ve ever heard.
“Are you saying the police are behind the Order, Jax? You can’t be serious—”
“They are! And doesn’t it make sense? They sought us out. The forum. Kids with skills, man. Think about it—we forum kids know how to solve clues. How to hack into things, some of us. How to track down dirt. They want us in jail so they can force us into plea bargains—identify protesters, and we’ll let you go. Maybe. If we feel like it.”
Karim’s face betrays his skepticism, and my heart sinks.
“Come on, man, you have to believe me.”
“Why would I trust you when you’ve been working against my team all this time?”
“If you won’t believe me, believe the captain of the DUCKLORDS! He was in there too!” I snap, turning toward him now, clenching my fists in my lap at the realization that I’m now in the exact same position Rodrigo was in, trying to convince this guy that the whole thing was a setup. And then, as karma would have it, Karim follows the same logic I took with Rodrigo.
“Very clever, Jax,” he says, setting the delicately folded suit on the seat between us. “Convince me that the whole puzzle is a trap so that I pull my team out before we fall right in the hands of the police? I have to admit I underestimated you—”
What can I do?
What can I say to convince him?
I pick up the plastic bag full of my things—my clothes, my shoes, my phone, and Mama’s crystal. I pull the necklace down over my head before I do anything else, and then I click the home button on my phone and open my messaging app.
ME: Hey everyone, I’m okay. I’m sorry for everything. Yas, you were right. Pull out now. This whole game has been a setup. The Order isn’t what they say they are. I’ll explain later. Go home!
I hand the phone to Karim, and he glances at it like this is some new trick of mine, but I jab it closer to him and he takes it skeptically, reading quietly as silence settles into the car.
The driver’s door swings open, and Melinda climbs in with a sigh.
“Oh, the release paperwork they made me fill out in there,” she seethes. “This all has to be a huge misunderstanding, one they’ll pay for. The money we donated to that police memorial can go right back into our bank account, if you ask me.”
The money they… what?
Karim, a Black kid, has at least one white parent who donated money to a police memorial? In this city?!
He looks up at me and hands the phone back.
“Well?” I ask, pity for him settling into my chest at the realization that his parents are funding a group that’s potentially about to ruin our lives and the lives of our friends.
He clears his throat and leans back in his seat, fingers resting on his lips in thought before he says brokenly:
“Here.”
He hands me his phone, where I find the next clue lit up across the screen.
YOU’VE PROVEN YOUR WORTH. NOW PROVE YOUR DEDICATION.
TAKE BACK THE TOP. ONE LAST EVALUATION.
COUNTLESS LIVES FOR FORTUNE 5 ON THE STOCK EXCHANGE.
KICK A CAN. BURN A BARREL. BANG A DRUM. BE THE CHANGE.
WELCOME TO THE END. YOUR FINAL DESTINATION.
A KNIFE IN THE HEART OF AN EVIL CORPORATION.
“You know where it leads?” he says.
“Can? Barrel? Drum? Change? That line means oil,” I say.
“There’s only one oil corporation on the Fortune Five list,” he says. “And that’s Roundworld.”
I nod.
I believe him.
And I know exactly why this puzzle would be taking us to the top of the Wells Porter building. That’s the heart of Roundworld’s operations. Their headquarters. It’s high-profile, the perfect excuse for the police to arrest us all.
If creeping around alleys and hopping onto buses and scanning products in Thirty Foods wasn’t enough, sending us to the top of a building where one of the most heavily scrutinized anti-planet corporations lives is sure to be.
“Let’s go,” I say, pulling my seat belt and clicking it into place.
“Before they’re arrested.”
“Or worse.”
“Step on it, Mom, we haven’t got all night!”
Han
Hold up, Han,” comes Spider’s voice from behind me as I creep the car along the block, bringing it to rest along the curb on Fairview Avenue. I can see Roundworld’s headquarters just a few blocks ahead, an unassuming brick building with spotless windows and the word “MANTLE” written sideways in huge all-caps letters along the door. All the buildings Roundworld owns are named after things like this—elements or pieces of the planet or endangered species. Performative, all of it, if they continue doing what they do.
I turn the key to shut the car off and look over my shoulder at Spider, who’s still engrossed in his phone.
“Just got a message from Jax,” he says, handing me the phone. I read it in silence.
JAX: Hey everyone, I’m okay. I’m sorry for everything. Yas, you were right. Pull out now. This whole game has been a setup. The Order isn’t what they say they are. I’ll explain later. Go home!
I can feel the anxiety swelling up in my neck like an allergic reaction.
“Well, I guess we’re pulling out now, then,” says Spider in frustration. “Goddammit.”
I look up through my windshield, wondering if this is really Jax texting us this, and from where. What if it’s the cops? What if they’ve read our message history for context, and now they’re hoping one of us texts back so they can trace our phones and find me and Spider?
And then I look up and see a sea of black. Black everything. Black cars, black suits, black cameras, black microphones with flashing lights everywhere, flickering like popcorn as a woman in a white sweater with shoulder-length white hair exits one of the cars.
Everything around me seems to stop. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. She’s walking up the front steps to the glass doors, bombarded on all sides by flashing lights and cameras and microphones. Is that… It can’t be.
“Whoa,” comes Spider’s voice again. “Is that Celea Beale?”
Of the Duwamish tribe.
I’m surprised he knows who she is. But I guess it’s Spider’s job to know all the prominent people in Puget Sound. A creeping, cold feeling snakes its way through my body as the dread sets in.
The meeting is tonight.
“Aren’t they supposed to be meeting with Roundworld soon? Is that what they’re here for?” asks Spider rhetorically.
This can’t be coincidence. The final clue found on the evening of the high-profile meeting between Roundworld and the Duwamish? I refuse to believe it.
But before I can let that sink in, something else catches my eye. It takes several seconds before I can process that I’m watching Yas and Sigge, flipping through scaffolding and leaping up onto railings after each other, leapfrogging up the side of the Roundworld building.
Without a word, I get out of the car.
“Han?” comes Spider’s voice. “Where the hell are you going? Didn’t you read what Jax said?” But I don’t have time to explain. Either Yas is here to solve the puzzle and in danger, like Jax said, or Yas is here to solve the puzzle and needs our help to make it there first.
Either way, I have to get to that building, and I have to get in, past all those lights and mics, without anybody seeing me.
Since I’m on the run from the cops now.
I know South Lake Union well, down to a few padlock combinations on some gates behind the café we’re next to. There’s absolutely no way into the building named “MANTLE” without walking through the front door and scanning a badge.
A person wheels a big orange trash bin up from a ramp leading down to a loading dock behind MANTLE, and I crouch behind a tree, grateful that it’s night and my brown sweater makes for perfect camouflage.
“Fine—go, then,” says Spider. “I’ll just be figuring out what Jax meant and looking into this before you walk straight into a trap.” And I hear the car door shut behind me. I’m sure he’s confused and frustrated, but it’s almost better that he stays here while I get into the building.
The janitor parks the trash bin in front of the shallow steps leading up to the glass front door, where I see a spacious lobby with a thirty-foot wall that’s cascading with running water. In front of that is a security counter, where I see a guy in a bright red hat.
Fear creeps through me, fastening me where I am behind this tree, as I realize there will be no walking through the front door of this place if he’s here. Lucas was the same guy who shot a gun through a window in the middle of a crowded grocery store to frame Jax and Spider, over a cryptology puzzle.
There’s no way I’m going near him.
But I look back at the janitor, who’s now wheeling the orange trash bin farther down the way. He turns around and sweeps some leaves into his dustpan before walking even farther away. I look about twenty feet ahead of him at an empty chip bag sitting under a tree, and I know he’s likely going to sweep it up, so this is my chance.
As quietly as the wind, and as sneakily as a rat, I slink forward close to the building, keeping to the shadows until I can safely make it across the street.
The janitor sweeps up the chip bag, and I hope the noise of the crinkling masks the sound of me putting both hands on the edge of the big orange bin, lifting my knees to my chest, jumping inside, and replacing the lid over my head. I quickly cover my mouth with my hood, and I wait.
It’s pitch-black in here, and so dusty, but I take out my phone and watch it light up with a text from Spider.
SPIDER: What the absolute fuck was that stunt?? What if that guy wheels you out back and tries to pour you into a dumpster?
I smile.
ME: He won’t.
The janitors with orange bins store them inside the Roundworld buildings. They’re not emptied into dumpsters until the following morning when the daytime janitors arrive. It pays to pay attention. One of the things I love most about myself.
SPIDER: And what the hell am I supposed to do here while you go creeping around?
ME: What you do best.
SPIDER: I mean, duh, I’m already doing that. Finding plenty on the members of the Duwamish, but coming up empty on this meeting. No livestream, no minutes, nothing.
I wish I had time to help, but it’s in Spider’s hands now.
ME: Good luck. g2g.
And we’re moving.
I can hear the wheels rumbling over the pavement and the door swing open as I’m wheeled into the lobby. The sound of the wheels grows soft, as I’m sure we’re rolling over finished concrete, or marble or granite—something smooth and glossy. I can hear shoes squeaking against the floor, and I hear Lucas’s voice now, tense with suppressed rage.
“Listen, asshole,” he growls. “I’m offering you four hundred dollars and no more. I’m being more than generous, and you’re lucky I have that much cash on me.”
“I told you, I cannot be bought,” says the security guard. “Now, you’ll have to leave, or I’m going to have to call someone to escort you.”
I stifle a giggle. Is Lucas really trying to buy his way into this place? He’ll be lucky if that guard isn’t working for the Order.
But just as I hear the elevator ding, I hear a sound I’ve heard before, late at night walking past bars and during the day when people get into skirmishes on the bus. The hollow thud of a fist against a face, and the rustling of clothing.
“Hey!” comes the security guard’s voice. Those squeaky shoes ring out closer and closer, and I hear Lucas’s voice way too close.
“Shut the door, shut the door!” he hollers. I can hear that he’s shoved the janitor out of the way and is frantically clicking elevator buttons, but the security guard’s voice booms again, also close.
“Young man, please exit the elevator. The authorities are on their way.”
“Fuck you, man!” shouts Lucas before I hear his shoes squeak through the elevator doors and down the hallway. He’s sprinting, but he probably won’t get far.
My blood runs cold.
“Karim?” I ask before I can realize I’ve asked it out loud.
He turns to look at me, and the moment seems to drag on forever. I know he was booked right along with me, but I can’t believe his bougie ass and I both ended up at the same juvenile detention center. But why’s he holding his clothes? I haven’t seen my clothes since I got here, until now with Officer Hank using them as a bargaining chip. I remember Mama’s amethyst necklace sitting right on the top of that pile, and I shut my eyes in pain at the realization that I probably won’t see the crystal she trusted me with—to keep me safe—for days at least.
This is all my fault. Goddamn it, why didn’t I listen?
Karim’s still looking at me.
The front door of the lobby opens behind him, and a white woman with long black hair and lots of silver jewelry walks in, wrapped in a black fur shawl.
“Oh my god, my baby!” she exclaims, throwing her arms around him and sobbing into his shoulder. He hugs her back tightly and doesn’t take his eyes off me.
Wait, this white lady is his mom? We… both have at least one white parent?
He pulls away from her, takes both her hands in his, and turns to the counter again, where there’s a white young man sitting at a computer. He looks over his shoulder at me, and Karim’s eyes follow until they land on me too. Then, to my surprise and horror, Karim smiles at me. Like, genuinely smiles, not in that weird ultra-capitalist I know something you don’t know and that’s going to make me money typa way he was smiling at me earlier in Thirty Foods, but like, he’s saying… everything’s going to be okay?
Finally the officer escorting me has unlocked the door and swung it open, and I’m ushered not into the rec room, but through the rec room to the administration room!
“What’s going on?” I ask the officer. He shrugs like he’s just as shocked as I am. “Somebody bailed you out, kid.”
I turn to see Karim staring at me, smile gone, face even.
“Don’t think this means I like you,” he says. “I got you out because we have a clue to find.”
The white woman smiles warmly and steps past him toward me.
“I’m Melinda,” she says. “Melinda Horrow. I’m Karim’s mother. I understand you’re one of his, um… internet friends?”
Karim rolls his eyes.
“Mom, could we save the pleasantries until after we’ve won the puzzle?” he asks, turning toward the door and motioning for me to follow. I resist reflexively letting my mouth fall open. If I so much as formed my mouth to say something so rude to Mama, she would have words for me. Actually, she’d probably have no words, she’d be so shocked.
I spot my clothes and shoes in a plastic bag on the front counter, and I swipe it up, following Karim, giving Melinda an apologetic smile as I walk past her.
“Melinda will deal with the paperwork while I fill you in on what’s about to happen,” he says, stepping across the parking lot with the confidence of someone who knew he’d never spend a night in jail. Too much money to have to deal with that shit.
“Wait, wait,” I say, jogging to catch up to him. “I have some questions, my guy.”
“Of course you do,” he sighs. “We’ll get to that in a moment.”
We reach a white Range Rover with huge chrome wheels so clean I can see myself in them, and he holds out his hand to tug at the door handle before grunting in exasperation and yelling back across the parking lot.
“Melinda, the door!”
I hear a beep and a click, and he pulls the door open to reveal a softly lit cabin with striking red leather seats. I’ve never seen a vehicle so absolutely gorgeous. It looks like a hotel on wheels.
“Whoa, this is nice!” I say as he climbs into the back seat.
“Get in,” he says with an air of annoyance to his voice.
“Excuse me for complimenting you,” I say frustratedly before hauling myself up into the back seat. How does this kid have friends?
The door closes with the push of a button to Karim’s left, and he clears his throat.
“I didn’t pay for your bail because I feel sorry for you,” he says, looking me up and down. “Although that wouldn’t be so unfathomable. I paid for your bail because I knew if you stayed in there, you might die, and if you die, it’ll cost my parents months, maybe years, of therapy to help me get over the guilt enough to lead a productive life.”
It takes a moment for all of that to sink in, but I have to smile.
“So… you do feel sorry for me.”
“I feel sorry, preemptively, for my parents’ wallets,” he insists, reaching down and opening his bag of clothes, pulling out his precious purple suit. He smooths out some of the wrinkles and refolds them along the crease down the front. “The police are the real degenerates, if you ask me,” he mutters. “Can’t even fold a suit correctly.”
He has no idea just how degenerate-like they are.
And then I realize, I have to tell him what I know.
“Karim, did they ask you anything when they interrogated you in there?”
“Interrogated? No, I told them I would have no conversations with anyone until I’d consulted with a lawyer.”
“So they didn’t take you back? To anyone’s office?”
He looks at me questioningly now.
“No,” he says. “Did they take you back? Please tell me you didn’t talk.”
“I didn’t talk,” I say. “But… they wanted me to.”
“Of course they did.”
“No, no, they wanted me to take a plea bargain.”
“Of course they did.”
“They wanted me to identify protesters,” I finally blurt out. “And the officer said, without us, there is no order.”
He stops folding and looks at me. Then he reels his head back in the ugliest laughter I’ve ever heard.
“Are you saying the police are behind the Order, Jax? You can’t be serious—”
“They are! And doesn’t it make sense? They sought us out. The forum. Kids with skills, man. Think about it—we forum kids know how to solve clues. How to hack into things, some of us. How to track down dirt. They want us in jail so they can force us into plea bargains—identify protesters, and we’ll let you go. Maybe. If we feel like it.”
Karim’s face betrays his skepticism, and my heart sinks.
“Come on, man, you have to believe me.”
“Why would I trust you when you’ve been working against my team all this time?”
“If you won’t believe me, believe the captain of the DUCKLORDS! He was in there too!” I snap, turning toward him now, clenching my fists in my lap at the realization that I’m now in the exact same position Rodrigo was in, trying to convince this guy that the whole thing was a setup. And then, as karma would have it, Karim follows the same logic I took with Rodrigo.
“Very clever, Jax,” he says, setting the delicately folded suit on the seat between us. “Convince me that the whole puzzle is a trap so that I pull my team out before we fall right in the hands of the police? I have to admit I underestimated you—”
What can I do?
What can I say to convince him?
I pick up the plastic bag full of my things—my clothes, my shoes, my phone, and Mama’s crystal. I pull the necklace down over my head before I do anything else, and then I click the home button on my phone and open my messaging app.
ME: Hey everyone, I’m okay. I’m sorry for everything. Yas, you were right. Pull out now. This whole game has been a setup. The Order isn’t what they say they are. I’ll explain later. Go home!
I hand the phone to Karim, and he glances at it like this is some new trick of mine, but I jab it closer to him and he takes it skeptically, reading quietly as silence settles into the car.
The driver’s door swings open, and Melinda climbs in with a sigh.
“Oh, the release paperwork they made me fill out in there,” she seethes. “This all has to be a huge misunderstanding, one they’ll pay for. The money we donated to that police memorial can go right back into our bank account, if you ask me.”
The money they… what?
Karim, a Black kid, has at least one white parent who donated money to a police memorial? In this city?!
He looks up at me and hands the phone back.
“Well?” I ask, pity for him settling into my chest at the realization that his parents are funding a group that’s potentially about to ruin our lives and the lives of our friends.
He clears his throat and leans back in his seat, fingers resting on his lips in thought before he says brokenly:
“Here.”
He hands me his phone, where I find the next clue lit up across the screen.
YOU’VE PROVEN YOUR WORTH. NOW PROVE YOUR DEDICATION.
TAKE BACK THE TOP. ONE LAST EVALUATION.
COUNTLESS LIVES FOR FORTUNE 5 ON THE STOCK EXCHANGE.
KICK A CAN. BURN A BARREL. BANG A DRUM. BE THE CHANGE.
WELCOME TO THE END. YOUR FINAL DESTINATION.
A KNIFE IN THE HEART OF AN EVIL CORPORATION.
“You know where it leads?” he says.
“Can? Barrel? Drum? Change? That line means oil,” I say.
“There’s only one oil corporation on the Fortune Five list,” he says. “And that’s Roundworld.”
I nod.
I believe him.
And I know exactly why this puzzle would be taking us to the top of the Wells Porter building. That’s the heart of Roundworld’s operations. Their headquarters. It’s high-profile, the perfect excuse for the police to arrest us all.
If creeping around alleys and hopping onto buses and scanning products in Thirty Foods wasn’t enough, sending us to the top of a building where one of the most heavily scrutinized anti-planet corporations lives is sure to be.
“Let’s go,” I say, pulling my seat belt and clicking it into place.
“Before they’re arrested.”
“Or worse.”
“Step on it, Mom, we haven’t got all night!”
Han
Hold up, Han,” comes Spider’s voice from behind me as I creep the car along the block, bringing it to rest along the curb on Fairview Avenue. I can see Roundworld’s headquarters just a few blocks ahead, an unassuming brick building with spotless windows and the word “MANTLE” written sideways in huge all-caps letters along the door. All the buildings Roundworld owns are named after things like this—elements or pieces of the planet or endangered species. Performative, all of it, if they continue doing what they do.
I turn the key to shut the car off and look over my shoulder at Spider, who’s still engrossed in his phone.
“Just got a message from Jax,” he says, handing me the phone. I read it in silence.
JAX: Hey everyone, I’m okay. I’m sorry for everything. Yas, you were right. Pull out now. This whole game has been a setup. The Order isn’t what they say they are. I’ll explain later. Go home!
I can feel the anxiety swelling up in my neck like an allergic reaction.
“Well, I guess we’re pulling out now, then,” says Spider in frustration. “Goddammit.”
I look up through my windshield, wondering if this is really Jax texting us this, and from where. What if it’s the cops? What if they’ve read our message history for context, and now they’re hoping one of us texts back so they can trace our phones and find me and Spider?
And then I look up and see a sea of black. Black everything. Black cars, black suits, black cameras, black microphones with flashing lights everywhere, flickering like popcorn as a woman in a white sweater with shoulder-length white hair exits one of the cars.
Everything around me seems to stop. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. She’s walking up the front steps to the glass doors, bombarded on all sides by flashing lights and cameras and microphones. Is that… It can’t be.
“Whoa,” comes Spider’s voice again. “Is that Celea Beale?”
Of the Duwamish tribe.
I’m surprised he knows who she is. But I guess it’s Spider’s job to know all the prominent people in Puget Sound. A creeping, cold feeling snakes its way through my body as the dread sets in.
The meeting is tonight.
“Aren’t they supposed to be meeting with Roundworld soon? Is that what they’re here for?” asks Spider rhetorically.
This can’t be coincidence. The final clue found on the evening of the high-profile meeting between Roundworld and the Duwamish? I refuse to believe it.
But before I can let that sink in, something else catches my eye. It takes several seconds before I can process that I’m watching Yas and Sigge, flipping through scaffolding and leaping up onto railings after each other, leapfrogging up the side of the Roundworld building.
Without a word, I get out of the car.
“Han?” comes Spider’s voice. “Where the hell are you going? Didn’t you read what Jax said?” But I don’t have time to explain. Either Yas is here to solve the puzzle and in danger, like Jax said, or Yas is here to solve the puzzle and needs our help to make it there first.
Either way, I have to get to that building, and I have to get in, past all those lights and mics, without anybody seeing me.
Since I’m on the run from the cops now.
I know South Lake Union well, down to a few padlock combinations on some gates behind the café we’re next to. There’s absolutely no way into the building named “MANTLE” without walking through the front door and scanning a badge.
A person wheels a big orange trash bin up from a ramp leading down to a loading dock behind MANTLE, and I crouch behind a tree, grateful that it’s night and my brown sweater makes for perfect camouflage.
“Fine—go, then,” says Spider. “I’ll just be figuring out what Jax meant and looking into this before you walk straight into a trap.” And I hear the car door shut behind me. I’m sure he’s confused and frustrated, but it’s almost better that he stays here while I get into the building.
The janitor parks the trash bin in front of the shallow steps leading up to the glass front door, where I see a spacious lobby with a thirty-foot wall that’s cascading with running water. In front of that is a security counter, where I see a guy in a bright red hat.
Fear creeps through me, fastening me where I am behind this tree, as I realize there will be no walking through the front door of this place if he’s here. Lucas was the same guy who shot a gun through a window in the middle of a crowded grocery store to frame Jax and Spider, over a cryptology puzzle.
There’s no way I’m going near him.
But I look back at the janitor, who’s now wheeling the orange trash bin farther down the way. He turns around and sweeps some leaves into his dustpan before walking even farther away. I look about twenty feet ahead of him at an empty chip bag sitting under a tree, and I know he’s likely going to sweep it up, so this is my chance.
As quietly as the wind, and as sneakily as a rat, I slink forward close to the building, keeping to the shadows until I can safely make it across the street.
The janitor sweeps up the chip bag, and I hope the noise of the crinkling masks the sound of me putting both hands on the edge of the big orange bin, lifting my knees to my chest, jumping inside, and replacing the lid over my head. I quickly cover my mouth with my hood, and I wait.
It’s pitch-black in here, and so dusty, but I take out my phone and watch it light up with a text from Spider.
SPIDER: What the absolute fuck was that stunt?? What if that guy wheels you out back and tries to pour you into a dumpster?
I smile.
ME: He won’t.
The janitors with orange bins store them inside the Roundworld buildings. They’re not emptied into dumpsters until the following morning when the daytime janitors arrive. It pays to pay attention. One of the things I love most about myself.
SPIDER: And what the hell am I supposed to do here while you go creeping around?
ME: What you do best.
SPIDER: I mean, duh, I’m already doing that. Finding plenty on the members of the Duwamish, but coming up empty on this meeting. No livestream, no minutes, nothing.
I wish I had time to help, but it’s in Spider’s hands now.
ME: Good luck. g2g.
And we’re moving.
I can hear the wheels rumbling over the pavement and the door swing open as I’m wheeled into the lobby. The sound of the wheels grows soft, as I’m sure we’re rolling over finished concrete, or marble or granite—something smooth and glossy. I can hear shoes squeaking against the floor, and I hear Lucas’s voice now, tense with suppressed rage.
“Listen, asshole,” he growls. “I’m offering you four hundred dollars and no more. I’m being more than generous, and you’re lucky I have that much cash on me.”
“I told you, I cannot be bought,” says the security guard. “Now, you’ll have to leave, or I’m going to have to call someone to escort you.”
I stifle a giggle. Is Lucas really trying to buy his way into this place? He’ll be lucky if that guard isn’t working for the Order.
But just as I hear the elevator ding, I hear a sound I’ve heard before, late at night walking past bars and during the day when people get into skirmishes on the bus. The hollow thud of a fist against a face, and the rustling of clothing.
“Hey!” comes the security guard’s voice. Those squeaky shoes ring out closer and closer, and I hear Lucas’s voice way too close.
“Shut the door, shut the door!” he hollers. I can hear that he’s shoved the janitor out of the way and is frantically clicking elevator buttons, but the security guard’s voice booms again, also close.
“Young man, please exit the elevator. The authorities are on their way.”
“Fuck you, man!” shouts Lucas before I hear his shoes squeak through the elevator doors and down the hallway. He’s sprinting, but he probably won’t get far.
