Malinda Lo - Inheritance

“That’s not it.”

“Then what?”

His breath whooshed into the phone. “I didn’t like Amber. That’s all. I was distracted by that.”

She was surprised. If he had been distracted, did that mean he was jealous? She was unexpectedly flustered. “Oh. Um, well, we can try it again sometime when she’s not around.”

“You promise?”

She could hear the smile in his voice, and heat crept up her neck. “Yeah.”

“So… are you okay with my dad setting up that academic review panel thing?”

She had forgotten they were discussing scientific testing of their abilities. “Oh, yes. That would be good.”

“Okay. Well, let me call you back after I talk to my dad about it and I have more info.”

“All right. I’ll talk to you later.”

After they hung up she saw the voice-mail light blinking on the phone, and she remembered Julian. She called him back without checking the message, and he answered on the first ring.

“Dude, your house is on TV twenty-four seven!”

“I heard.” She picked up her coffee again. “I looked outside for, like, one second and the mob started rushing toward the house.”

“It’s insane,” he said, but he sounded more thrilled than scared. “I can’t believe you’re back and there’s a giant freaking black triangle over your neighborhood!”

“Whoa, calm down,” she said, laughing. “This is like your dream come true, isn’t it?” For as long as she could remember, Julian had been obsessed with UFOs and aliens. He probably knew more about UFOs than most of the people outside her house.

“Well, if you hadn’t been abducted and stuff, yeah.”

She smiled. “Thanks.”

“Hey, I tried your cell first but it said the number was no longer in service.”

“Yeah, it blew up with Blue Base. Which totally sucks because it had information on it about the government’s supersoldier project.”

“You have to come on Bin 42 and talk about it—about everything,” Julian said excitedly. “David too.”

She hesitated. “I don’t know. We have to think about it.”

“What’s to think about? Isn’t it important to share the truth with the world? You can’t let the government get away with what they did to you.”

“It was the Imria who did this to me,” Reese objected. “They adapted me, or whatever they call it.”

“An adaptation procedure.”

“Yeah. That.”

“There’s more to it than that and you know it. The government has been covering up the fact that they’ve been in touch with the Imria since 1947. There’s definitely a cover-up going on about the June Disaster—there’s still been no real explanation for why or how those birds went crazy. There’s all that Project Blue Base stuff you and David found out about. That lab report you guys found proves that the government was behind the June Disaster. You have to tell the world.”

He sounded so impassioned that she knew he wasn’t going to like what she was about to say. “We have to think about it. The fact that Agent Forrestal shut us down yesterday means this is serious.”

“I never said this wasn’t serious. It’s totally dead serious.”

“Then you should understand we have to think carefully about the repercussions—”

“But yesterday you wanted to go public! You were all, ‘We’ll tell the world and then nobody will control us.’ ”

“Actually that was your idea.”

“Which you agreed with! Are you saying you don’t want to tell the world anymore?”

“No. But there are a lot of things to consider. We have to prove that we have these abilities, for one thing. Nobody’s going to believe us just because we say so. And we have to figure out how to use our abilities too.”

“So you’ll go to the Imria, right? They did this to you, and they’re offering to help you understand the adaptation procedure. Why don’t you talk to them?”

“I don’t exactly trust them.”

“You don’t trust the government, do you?”

“No.” She scowled. “I don’t know who to trust.”

“You can trust me . And I’m telling you, you have to come on Bin 42 and tell your story. You have to at least give me that lab report so I can post it online.”

“That report is just a piece of paper. The government could easily say it’s a fake, and who’s going to believe me over the president? Did you read what people are saying about me and David online? They think we’re just two dumb high school kids. We can’t overturn decades of government lies just by talking to a website.”

“Change happens one person at a time,” he insisted. “You could be that person.”

“Maybe, but one person against the entire United States government?” She remembered the National Guard troops standing across the street, the helicopters circling overhead, the police outside. The government was taking this very seriously. She hadn’t realized that when she and David rushed outside to talk to the press. Now she knew enough to be scared.

“I don’t think you get it.” Julian sounded frustrated. “Do you understand how big this story is?”

She couldn’t believe he had said that. “It’s not a story. It’s my life . Did you see the soldiers outside my house?”

“Whoa, okay, I’m sorry,” Julian said quickly. “I didn’t mean it’s just a story. I meant that it’s really, super important. The US government should not be able to kidnap its citizens. You can’t let them get away with that. And that’s not even getting into all this crazy genetic engineering they’re doing with Imrian DNA. They’ve been hiding this from the world for decades. That is not okay.”

“I know. I agree, and I want to make them own up to it. But I don’t know the whole story yet. David and I don’t know how our adaptation abilities work yet. We have a lot of things to figure out. You have to give us some time.”

Julian exhaled into the phone. “All right.”

“Let me think about things. I’ll let you know if we want to talk to Bin 42, okay?”

“Yeah.” He sounded disappointed. “So what’s up with you and David?”

She was startled by the change of subject. “What?”

“You were making out with him yesterday. What’s up with that?”

“I don’t know.” She was embarrassed. “Look, I have to pee. I’ll call you later.”

“Sure.” He had a teasing tone in his voice.

“Bye, Julian,” she said, smiling.

She hung up and went to the bathroom before returning downstairs with the phone. As she passed the archway to the living room, she saw Agent Forrestal standing in one corner. She halted in surprise. Her parents were on the couch, and a strange man was seated in the leather armchair. When he realized Reese had arrived, he stood, holding a folded piece of paper in his left hand. He had short dark hair, dark eyes, and a very white smile, which he flashed at Reese as he extended his right hand to her. He was dressed in a slightly rumpled gray suit. “Good morning, Miss Holloway. I’m Jeff Highsmith. I work with the Defense Department’s Office of Public Affairs.”

She crossed her arms over her T-shirt, conscious of the fact that she was bra-less in her oldest pajamas. “What are you doing here?” she asked.

Jeff Highsmith retracted his hand as if it was totally normal that she had refused to shake it. “I’m here to set up some interviews for you.”

Reese glanced at her parents. Her mom had her lawyer face on: closed off and expressionless. Her dad, on the other hand, looked extremely skeptical. “You shut down our press conference yesterday,” Reese said to Highsmith. “Why would you want us to do interviews now?”

“We didn’t feel that an impromptu press conference on your front steps was an appropriate way to present the extraordinary experiences you and your friend David have gone through. We’d like to offer you a bigger platform to tell your story to the world.”