Effigies didn’t live long. The truth of it still terrified me.
“Regardless, she’s the best equipped out of all of us for the job. Besides, it’s not like it’s a dictatorship. If she gets out of line, we can do something about it,” I told her, but I wasn’t too confident about that.
“Yeah.” Chae Rin’s expression darkened as she cracked her knuckles. “I’ll do something about it. Better believe it.”
Great. I sighed as Chae Rin went on ahead. As if I didn’t have enough to deal with. An Effigy brawl was the last thing anyone needed. But these days, despite our “arrangement,” you could never really know when one bad day would get us there. We were a team. We were supposed to be. I kind of wanted us to be.
Maybe “team” was too strong a word.
4
AT WELL OVER SIX FEET, director Chafik with his stocky build towered over all of us, except maybe for Lake, who was model tall in her own right. After a short greeting, we followed him into the facility.
There must have been one standard design for all Sect facilities. So far I’d been in two headquarters—one in Argentina and one in London—and the twisting, sterile corridors looked just the same. Communications, too. Once Chafik typed the security code into a keypad by a set of wide silver doors, and once the small screen scanned and verified his face with a gentle blue light, the door slid open and there it was, two stories of busy agents in suits hurrying past one another as they carried information to different stations. Most of the agents sat at rows of computers, typing away at a furious pace, speaking into headsets to whom I could only guess were agents in different parts of the facility, or maybe even agents at other facilities.
Since the Sect was an international nongovernment organization, they had facilities all over the world, some specifically for training agents while most were for base operations. Others, like the headquarters in London, were equipped for training Effigies. Not this one. This one was more research-based than anything else. Judging by what Chafik told us, their Research and Development building was even bigger than the one in London. That’s where they’d taken the mysterious young soldier.
“We are holding the body there,” said Chafik in an accent that made it sound as if he were slurring his words a bit. “First we will perform the autopsy and then continue on with other examinations. It will be a few days before we can send over any information from our findings.”
Director Chafik’s thick black beard stretched to his ears. The wrinkles across his face may have come from age, but I was sure the permanent frown lines cutting across his sandy brown forehead could only be attributed to having an intense stare as his resting face. As he and Belle kept pace with each other through Communications, I could see that they both matched in the severity of their expressions. It was like each was trying to outserious the other.
“Thanks, we appreciate it,” I said, my footsteps heavy against the tiled floor.
I looked over at Belle, who probably had the flash drive still on her somewhere, maybe in the pocket of her checkered flannel shirt. It was a delicate dance, trusting the Sect without trusting too much. Natalya’s own parents had warned us against them, and as it turned out, they’d had a point. The Sect was involved in Natalya’s death. But we were still part of the organization, still party to their rules. And if we were going to recapture Saul and get to the bottom of the mysteries that surrounded him, we had no choice but to work with them. Even though there was no telling how many agents had played a part in Natalya’s demise.
Agents. My mouth dried again, and my chest felt tight just like it always did whenever my thoughts drifted to him. I squeezed my eyes shut. Don’t think about him.
Shaking the half-formed thought away, I crossed my arms over my chest, about to speak again when I caught the eyes of some agent who swiveled back around in his chair in an instant.
Sigh. Now that we were here, some of the agents couldn’t help but peek up from their computers to take a gander at us. No matter how many weeks it’d been, I still couldn’t get used to the curious, unsubtle glances of those who didn’t, couldn’t, see Maia Finley the Girl because to them, I was only, always, Maia Finley the fire Effigy. They gave us that quick, self-conscious look, the kind people give when they know they shouldn’t stare but can’t help it. Lake stood a little taller when she noticed their eyes on her, while Chae Rin sighed with obnoxious volume. Belle never seemed to care. I, on the other hand, shifted on my feet, uncomfortable in my skin. It was like walking into every room perpetually smelling like a litter box.
“You said you had some info for us?” I said once he’d reached a terminal at the center space of the room. Unlike the rows of benches in front and behind us, this small, circular area just had the one terminal with two flat-screens sutured together on the surface. I guess this was specially made for the director of the facility. “What kind of information?”
Chafik gave me with a curt nod as he tapped the computer screen awake. “Yes. Rousseau has told me the circumstances by which you came to find the body. You tracked an Effigy frequency to the desert.”
“Yeah, we figured it was Saul’s,” Chae Rin said before adding under her breath, “But after finding that other guy instead, we’re not so sure anymore.”
Every once in a while, when Chafik was deep in thought, he’d breathe out a deep, baritone grumble like the one I heard now. It sounded a little like the earth should have been trembling beneath my feet. “Yes. This is a strange situation. Stranger than usual. Our facility has been checking for Saul’s spectrographic signature.”
I perked up. “And?”
He only needed to tap the computer screens with his fingers to bring up the satellite map of the world. A dull red circle blinked over the Sahara hideout like a pulsating heart. The thick green words hovering over it spelled out LAST WHEREABOUTS.
“This is the only signal we’ve been able to pick up in weeks,” Chafik said.