“We know!” they said in unison, although some said it with exasperation and others with fear.
“We want to help,” Nikola added. “We can do this.”
“We’ll be careful,” the girls promised in unison.
The babies started to sing then. “Half a pound of tuppenny rice, half a pound of treacle. That’s the way the money goes, Pop! goes the weasel. Every night I get home, the monkey’s on the table, take a stick and knock it off, Pop! goes the weasel.”
“No, no, don’t knock him off the table. That will make him mad.”
Louise woke up. By the clock on the nightstand between her bed and Jillian’s, it was 4:26 a.m. She peered at it sleepily while she marveled at how vivid the dream had been. The alarm was set for 5:00 so they could feed Joy before her parents woke up. Should she even try to get to sleep again? The play was on next Wednesday and she hadn’t worked on it much, what with Joy, Nikola, and everything taking up her attention. She could spend the half hour making sure she was ready.
She sat up, stretching.
Nikola padded out of the darkness to snuggle into her arms. Unlike her dream, he felt of unyielding metal bones and hydraulic muscles, but at least his fur was the same warm softness. “Don’t worry, it’s just a song. We don’t really knock him off the table.”
She gasped. “You know what I dreamed?”
“Yes.” Nikola seemed to think it was perfectly natural for joint dreams. He pressed closer. “It was nice that you could come and visit us.”
“Do the others have names?”
“We’re discussing possibilities. We think Nikola Tesla Dufae is awesome. We all want great names, but we’re in disagreement as to what is cool.”
Nikola’s use of pronouns was now frighteningly clear. Louise had slipped into the idea that he was only one person, but in truth there were four little people trapped inside one very limited shell. Four lives that were dependent on her and Jillian. And even if they found someone who was willing to act as surrogate mother, there was a chance that only one or two of them would be born.
She hugged Nikola tightly. She had thought that if they got the embryos stored someplace safe, she and Jillian would have years to plan. Now she wanted to find a way to make them real as quickly as possible.
Nikola tilted his head as if listening to something distant. “Oh, my, that can’t be good.”
“What?”
“The monkey just looked up ‘how to build a bomb.’”
29: Flying Monkey Does What Flying Monkey Does
Tristan waited for them at the train station. Except for one yawn, there was no evidence he’d been up late, endlessly digging through the Internet. The twins tried to act surprised and not annoyed at all by his presence; they’d suspected he might be waiting for them. Their plan was to tag-team him so they could take turns reading over his search history.
“So, does your family have plans for next Friday?” Jillian started her distraction run. Louise slid on her gaming goggles so Tristan couldn’t see what she was accessing. He’d started the night by hacking into the school’s computers and pulling up student records. No surprise there. But he’d also tapped the records of all the employees too. Odder yet, he’d done detailed background checks on a weird selection of them. Mr. Howe. Miss Hamilton. Those made sense. Miss Gray. Less sense. Teachers whose names she didn’t recognize. No sense at all.
“Next Friday?” Tristan seemed completely confused.
So was Louise. She went back and checked which student records he’d pulled. He had only looked at seniors and juniors. He’d ignored the fifth-graders completely.
“Next Friday is the Fourth of July!” Jillian said. “It’s why we’re having the play on Wednesday instead of Friday. Everyone who goes on vacation leaves early Thursday so the school made the last day on the second.”
Actually they were supposed to get out of school the second week of June. By law, the school had to hold classes for a hundred and eighty days. A broken water pipe in the fall, a blizzard in February, and then the bombing had pushed the last day into July.
The babies said Tristan had been researching bomb-making.
Earth for Humans said that the bomber Vance Roycroft had gone rogue from their organization and claimed that he’d built a terrorist network totally separate from them. Police had confirmed that they found evidence that he hadn’t worked alone but so far hadn’t released any information on the other bombers.
To find a bomber, someone would need to know the basics of bomb-making. Tristan obviously thought that Roycroft’s accomplice was a teacher or one of the older students. But why did Tristan think someone at Perelman was a terrorist? Pure location? Or did he know something more? And why had Ming sent Tristan alone to Perelman to find the bomber?
“The Fourth! Oh, yeah, I forgot. Jet lag and everything.” Tristan yawned again, this time wider. “It’s still the middle of the night for me.”
“The fireworks are a big deal around here,” Jillian babbled, hopefully intending to work around to something more interesting. “We go to our Aunt Kitty’s place in Hoboken; she has a balcony overlooking the Hudson River. We have chicken and corn on the cob and apple pie.”
“How cliché,” Tristan said.
“Not cliché, traditional.” Jillian kicked the platform, obviously wanting to kick him. “The chicken is Jamaican jerk, not southern fried, and we have black beans, rice and peas, and ginger beer.”
“You don’t look Jamaican,” he teased, because he knew exactly what they were, at least as far as their mother’s side. Did Anna know who their father had been?
“Our grandmother was,” Jillian stated. “And she was a very wise woman. She always said that family meant what you made it to mean.”
The train squealed into the station. Louise pushed up her goggles and focused on following Jillian on to the train. All the cars were crowded, and they had to huddle together around Tesla.
Louise’s phone vibrated. She checked it, careful to keep the screen angled away from Tristan.
“We want to see the fireworks!” the text read. “Take us with you!”
She glanced down and Nikola gazed up her, face surprisingly hopeful for it being robotic. His tail thumped against her leg.
She typed “Ok” and put away her phone. She had no idea what to tell their parents, but there was no way she was going to leave Nikola alone. She patted Nikola on the head, and he leaned against her, tail thumping with happiness.
“He’s looking for the bombers.” Louise explained her theory while they camped out in the girls’ restroom before homeroom.
“Here?” Jillian cried and dropped her voice back to a whisper. “At the Perelman School for the Gifted? Are they nuts as well as morally retarded?”
“The target was right across the street.” Louise pointed toward the art gallery, which was still full of artwork from Elfhome. None of the teachers had left mysteriously, so if Tristan was right, the person was still here and possibly waiting for another chance.
“There’s like a million people within range of the remote control.”
Nikola had been prancing around them singing “Fireworks! Boom, boom, fireworks bloom.” He paused and said, “Actually it’s estimated at three million during the daytime.”
Jillian pointed to Nikola as if that totally proved her point.
“What do Sparrow, Yves, and Ambassador Feng want?” Louise said.
“What do those three have to do with the bomber?” Jillian cried.
“They want the zone expanded,” Louise said. “How could they make sure that happens? By convincing a bunch of racist idiots that setting off a bomb in Manhattan would be a good idea.”