Anniversary Day (39 page)

And reports from dozens of places of more clones, just like the ones that had attacked the Moon. Blond men in their twenties were getting scrutinized and, in some places, put in detention.

Not that DeRicci cared. She cared only about the Moon, which was devastated. Rescues happening all over the domes, the body count rising, different alien species demanding to know how many of their people had died, and whether or not the Moon’s governments were responsible. The days ahead loomed, filled with crisis after crisis, and DeRicci didn’t even know if this one had ended yet.

The door to her office opened. Flint and Talia came in. Apparently, Popova and Hänsel had dropped protocol and forgot to inform DeRicci that she was going to get visitors. Which was the second time in less than an hour.

Not that it mattered. Flint could come and go as he pleased.

“We found out who the original was,” Flint said.

It took DeRicci a moment to understand him. Original—the source of all the clones. She wondered why he was being so cautious with his language, and then decided it didn’t matter.

Nothing mattered except resolving this crisis.

“You ever hear of PierLuigi Frémont?” he asked.

DeRicci’s mouth opened slightly. Who hadn’t heard of Frémont? He was one of the worst killers of his time.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” she said.

Flint shook his head. “The question is, have these attacks been planned for decades or were these people hired? And if so, how many of them can be hired out and by whom?”

“You’re going to find that out, right?” DeRicci asked.

“It’s going to take time, Noelle,” he said. “I’m not sure we have time.”

She glanced at the screen. She preferred not to look at it, but she had to. And every time she did, the images had changed. The immediate problems—the fires, the smoke, the destruction—had stopped now. The lack of atmosphere had put out fires, the debris had stopped falling into the broken domes. Only a few places still had events going on, like Tycho Crater with its stupid Top of the Dome resort, but the rest of the domes were in search-and-rescue mode.

“I have the sense that this is all designed so that we chase our tails,” he said.

“I know,” she said.

Designed to have them search and search and find nothing. Designed to terrify and demoralize them.

No one had ever attacked the Moon like this. The Earth was the center of the Earth Alliance, and the Moon was the Earth’s gateway. Someone had just shown that they could get close to the heart of the human communities.

Not that this was her worry. Her worry was to protect the Moon.

“What do you think this means?” she asked Flint. Talia stood beside him, hands folded in front of her, not saying a word. DeRicci appreciated that.

“I think it means this attack was planned for a long time.”

“We had two waves,” DeRicci said. “The assassins, and then the bombings. Do you think there’s a third?”

“There are no ships, right?” he asked. “Nothing surrounding us or trying to invade the Earth Alliance?”

“Not that I know of,” she said. She knew what was going on in the space around the Moon. She didn’t know about the entire Earth Alliance, but she assumed someone would tell her.

“So I’m guessing there isn’t a third wave, or if there is, it won’t happen here,” he said. “We expect it now. They’re doing things we don’t expect.”

“Distract and destroy,” DeRicci said. Then she cursed. She raised a finger to keep Flint quiet, and as she did, she whirled away from him, sending a message to all her contacts in the Earth Alliance.

The survivors among the attackers have told us that the plans they followed had this rule,
she sent.
Distract and destroy
.
These attacks on the Moon will distract the Earth Alliance. I know you’re protecting the domes and the human communities, but expect something else, something that might be even larger, while your attention is focused on the Moon itself
.

Instantly, she got a message back from one of the leaders, asking her what she thought that attack might be. She had no idea.

It’s not my job to figure out what’s happening,
she said.
I’m the only one remaining here who can handle the crisis on the Moon. I leave it to you. Figure this out. Figure out who caused this.

And then she signed off.

She turned back around. Flint was watching her with that alert look he sometimes got, the one that made her feel as if he could see through her.

“Do you think the attack on Armstrong four years ago was a dry run?” Talia asked.

That caught DeRicci’s attention. The girl asked a very savvy question.

“I don’t know. We don’t know any of this. But we didn’t solve that case, and we’re going to solve these.”

“How do you know that?” Talia asked, and DeRicci heard something in her voice. A neediness, maybe, a willingness to believe in resolution, as if resolution made everything better.

DeRicci glanced at Flint. How did you tell a kid that sometimes there were no answers? Sometimes you simply had to live through something and get to the next day. And the next. And the day after that.

“Because whoever’s behind these attacks expected the attackers to die,” DeRicci said. “And not all of them did. We’ll find out what we need to know soon enough.”

If the attackers knew. DeRicci wasn’t sure they did.

She wasn’t sure of anything—except one thing.

Nothing would ever be the same again.

The Aftermath

(Two Weeks Later)

Seventy-two

The grounds of Aristotle Academy were quiet—or as quiet as they could be, given all of the armed guards everywhere. The stepped-up security was mostly visible: the Academy had had top-of-the-line hard-to-see security since Flint helped to upgrade their systems after the Deshin incident.

He didn’t like the armed guards, especially around children, but he had lost that fight with Selah Rutledge. She didn’t want any “bad guys”—her words—to get into the Academy and blow it up.

Everyone had been on edge since the Anniversary Day attacks, some more than others. Armstrong, which was relatively untouched—if you could count an assassination of the mayor untouched—slipped into business-as-usual sooner than every place else. But the human residents still walked around like they’d been hit with a hammer. Many of the permanent alien residents seemed shell-shocked as well, although it was harder for Flint to see the obvious signs.

All he knew was that everyone, everyone, was tense and irritable and, underneath it all, frightened.

Especially Talia.

She walked beside him now, her shoulder brushing his. She had dressed carefully this morning, a sign of nerves for her. He’d learned that early in their relationship. When Talia was frightened or nervous or angry, she wore clothes like armor, as if they could shield her from anything bad that might head her way.

The stone path curved across the well-manicured lawn. Flint had come in through this particular side door because he found the walk to the entrance soothing.

So in some ways, he used things to calm himself, just like his daughter did.

“I still think this is a bad idea,” Talia said.

“I know,” Flint said. He kept his gaze straight ahead. He didn’t want to see her expression or he might give in. “You’ve made that clear for the past three days.”

“And you haven’t listened.” Her voice rose. “You need me on this research, Dad. You’re the one who said it: We’re the only ones who can do this.”

He hated it when she hurled his own words out at him. He sighed and stopped walking. He put his hands on her shoulders and turned her toward him, not because she was going to look away, but because he knew the movement annoyed her.

She needed to separate from him for a while. Just like everyone else, she needed to get back to a normal routine. And she needed to remember that she could stand up for herself, that she could be independent and alone.

She couldn’t be beside him all the time, even if her fears made her want to stay at his side.

But he couldn’t tell her that. Not again. The first time he had said it, she had gotten so angry that she shouted for ten minutes. But she didn’t storm out of the room, and he knew that was a bad sign. She had to be away from him, even for a short period of time.

So talking to her didn’t work. Instead, he had to convince her that leaving was her idea. And that wasn’t working either. So he did what he could to annoy her.

Even though he wanted her to remain at his side. In fact, he never wanted to lose sight of her again.

Which told him just how panicked he was, deep down inside.

“Yeah,” he said to her, his voice down. “I said that about the research. We are two of the only people who can do it, and we’re ahead on it. We’ve done a lot in the past two weeks.”

Her eyes narrowed. She knew he was going to add “but…” “So that’s why we should continue,” she said before he could say anything else.

He sighed. “It took years to set this up,” he said, then corrected himself. “Actually, it took decades. Which means that we’re looking at something really big here.”

“I know,” she said. “That’s why we have to hurry.”

“We are hurrying,” he said. “And we’re not the only ones working on it now.”

He glanced at the school. The doors were still open. The school day hadn’t begun yet. And, more importantly, no one was around them, listening to the conversation.

“I think that discussion we had on Anniversary Day was accurate,” he said softly. “I think the assassinations were the first wave, and the explosions were the second. I think there will be a third—”

“Which is why I can’t waste my time learning Moon history,” Talia said.

“That’s exactly why you need to be here,” Flint said. “I don’t think, and Noelle doesn’t think, and others don’t think, that the third wave will happen on the Moon. I think Noelle was right when she said this is war. I think these attacks are on the Earth Alliance, not just the Moon, and I think the next will be just as devastating as Anniversary Day. I also think that attack was planned when this attack was—twenty or more years ago.”

“So the research—”

“Is what these guys expect,” Flint said. “They’ve set up trails and tracks that we have to follow, but they’re going to lead us astray. If we hurry, which is also what they expect, we’ll make huge mistakes.”

She frowned. He realized he hadn’t said this to her before.

He lowered his voice even more. “If I were planning these attacks, I’d do the next one a year or more from now, after we’ve relaxed our guard, after we’ve gotten used to daily life again, after our new security measures become routine. And then I’d attack some place unexpected, some place that would send a different message, and I’d make that attack just as devastating and inexplicable.”

She stared at him for a long moment, looking wan and terrified. Then she smiled. But the smile didn’t reach her eyes, so he knew it was forced.

“It’s a good thing you’re not planning these,” she said.

“I’m worried that whoever is planning them is smarter than I am, Talia,” he said. “This person is certainly more patient than I am. I couldn’t wait twenty or more years to launch an attack, no matter how effective I’d believe it would be.”

She hadn’t moved from his grip. Her frown deepened. “I want to find out what’s going on,” she said.

“Me, too,” Flint said. “But we have to go back to living, Talia. If we don’t go back to our lives, then this person or these people really have destroyed the Moon.”

Her eyes filled with tears. Then she blinked them away. She raised her chin. “I’m going to be bored,” she said.

“I doubt that,” he said.

“I’m going to hate every minute that I can’t figure out what’s going on,” she said.

“I doubt that too,” he said.

“I’m never going to think things are normal again,” she said.

He nodded. “That I believe.”

She shook herself out of his grip, then she leaned forward and, to his surprise, she kissed him on the cheek.

“Be here on time, Dad,” she said. He had promised her that he would pick her up when school got out. “I’m going to want a progress report. And there better be progress.”

He grinned. He wondered if that was his first real grin since Anniversary Day.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said.

“Good.” She nodded at him, and then she sprinted to the front door, leaving him behind.