A few moments later, Reese let Amber pull off her own shirt, and there she was, kissing a girl, skin to skin, and she wondered, Is this what it feels like to be a lesbian? Amber’s body, like her own, but so unlike her own. Soft. Her skin warm, flushed.
Reese’s phone rang, and at first she barely heard it, enveloped in the haze that descended on her when Amber was so close, but then Amber picked up the phone and silenced it.
“Hey—” Reese said, reaching for the phone.
“Later,” Amber said, and put the phone in the top desk drawer. Then she took off her bra.
The world spun, and Reese had to sit down on the edge of her bed. Amber’s hands slid around Reese’s back and unfastened her bra too, and they lay down, breast to breast, as goose bumps rose all over Reese’s skin.
Reese pulled Amber closer. She couldn’t get close enough. It was extraordinary: the feel of Amber’s skin on hers, the places their bodies fitted together, the way she felt like she would melt if Amber didn’t touch her, and maybe even if she did—
But when Amber’s fingers slid beneath the waistband of Reese’s jeans, she froze. An unexpected panic raced through her, and before she knew what she was doing, she grabbed Amber’s hand and pulled it away, whispering, “Not yet.”
Amber stopped. She lay her head on the pillow, facing Reese, and smoothed back Reese’s hair from her flushed cheeks. “Okay,” Amber said, and kissed her gently on the corner of her mouth. “Okay.”
CHAPTER 19
Amber left at five o’clock so that she could avoid running into Reese’s mom. “I could stay and meet her,” Amber suggested as she put her shoes on.
Reese, leaning on the edge of her desk, crossed her arms. “I don’t think I’m ready for that.”
Amber finished tying the laces on her sneakers. “All right. No need to rush.” She got up from the bed and went over to Reese, cupping her face in her hands to kiss her lightly. “So, when will I see you again? Tomorrow?”
Reese rested her forehead against Amber’s. “I can’t tomorrow.”
“Aw, why not?”
“I have to do some stuff with my mom, and tomorrow night we’re having dinner at a friend’s house.”
“How about Sunday then?”
“Yes,” Reese agreed, sliding her hands around Amber’s waist.
“I’ll miss you.” Amber’s mouth was so close to Reese’s that she could feel the movement of her lips when she spoke.
Sunday seemed an eternity away, but part of Reese was relieved to have the break. Things were moving so fast—too fast. Now she felt as if Amber was waiting for her to say, I’ll miss you too, and the words stuck in her throat. It was easier to pull her closer, fingertips pressing on her back, and kiss her instead. When they parted a few minutes later, Reese said, “I’ll see you on Sunday.”
After Amber left, Reese went slowly back upstairs to her bedroom. It seemed like a new landscape. The quilt on her bed was rumpled; the red dress lay in a lurid puddle on the floor by the closet. The suitcase still glowered in its broken, bungeed heap in the corner. She had to unpack it sometime. It might as well be now.
She knelt on the floor beside it and unhooked the ends of the bungee cords. The suitcase sagged open. She took out the shattered toiletry kit and didn’t even bother to look through it, simply tossing it in the trash. She went through her clothes, piling the salvageable items into her laundry basket and throwing away the rest. She found debate materials too, down at the bottom of the suitcase. A pile of papers, including information about the national tournament, which she recycled. A notebook that she had used during debates to take notes on the opposing team. The cover was warped, and she threw it away. And wedged into one bent corner of the suitcase she found a thin plastic bracelet with a label stuck on it. Her stomach clenched.
It was the bracelet she had worn in that drab hospital room in the middle of Nevada. The letters printed on it were clear and sharp.
PLATO PA83 HOLLOWAY
What did those letters and numbers mean? She was trying to work out some kind of acronym or code when she remembered the nondisclosure agreement she had signed. Maybe that contained an explanation. What had happened to that? She flipped through the pockets of her suitcase but couldn’t find it. She thought back: She had stuffed it inside, she recalled that clearly, but where? Her gaze alighted on the recycling bin where she had thrown her debate notes. She dragged it over and shuffled through the papers again. There it was. She put the bracelet on the floor and began to skim through the nondisclosure agreement, searching for any sign of what PLATO PA83 might mean. But the more she read, the less she understood—and the more freaked out she became. Phrases leaped out at her as if they were highlighted.
Classified Nondisclosure Agreement An Agreement Between Clarice Irene Holloway and the United States
I have been advised that the unauthorized disclosure of classified information by me could cause damage or irreparable injury to the United States…
I have been advised that any unauthorized disclosure of classified information by me may constitute a violation of the United States criminal laws, including the provisions of Sections 641, 793… the provisions of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act… I recognize that nothing in this Agreement constitutes a waiver by the United States of the right to prosecute me…
Whosoever, through gross negligence… shall be fined under this title or imprisoned… In time of war, with intent that the same shall be communicated to the enemy… shall be punished by death or by imprisonment…
She had signed this document without reading it—Agent Forrestal and Dr. Brand had made it sound so completely routine—and now she wondered what exactly she had agreed to. A lifetime of keeping her accident a secret? And why was the punishment so severe? She had never signed a nondisclosure agreement before, but she didn’t think that death or imprisonment was a normal repercussion.
She scrambled to her feet and went to her desk, dropping the bracelet and the agreement next to her laptop and pulling open her drawer to grab a pen. She saw her phone sitting there where Amber had put it, the voice-mail indicator blinking. She picked it up and pressed the voice-mail button.
“Hi, Reese, it’s David. Just wanted to see if you’re feeling better. Also, I think I had one of those headaches today. Call me when you get a chance.”
He sounded tense in his message, and Reese was about to call him back when she heard the front door open downstairs and her mom’s footsteps in the hall.
“Reese?” her mom called. “Are you home?”
Reese put down the phone next to the agreement. Maybe she could get some more information about it before she called David. She went downstairs.
For as long as Reese could remember, she and her mother had a standing date on Friday nights to watch a movie and eat whatever they wanted, as long as they didn’t have to cook it. Tonight her mom had brought home Thai takeout and the latest Jane Austen movie. Reese could barely pay attention. It was yet another rendition of Pride and Prejudice, starring one of Hollywood’s newest it girls, and as this Lizzy Bennet wandered across the English countryside, Reese tried to figure out how she could ask her mother legal questions without raising her suspicions. She waited until the credits began to roll before saying, “Can I ask you something?”
Her mom was sitting in the armchair, legs propped up on the coffee table with a mostly empty martini glass in her hand. “Of course, honey. What is it?”
“I was researching something today, and I found this nondisclosure agreement that seemed weird to me. It said that if the person talked, they could be punished with death or imprisonment. Is that enforceable? Doesn’t that seem insane?”
Her mom’s eyebrows rose. “Death or imprisonment? I’ve never heard of an NDA referencing that. Lawsuits, yes, but not… what kind of NDA was this? For a corporation?”
“For the government. The United States government.”
“I don’t think anyone could be imprisoned or killed, honey. That does see
m a bit extreme. Can you tell me a bit more about it?”
“Well, it listed these laws—one of them was the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. Do you know anything about that?”
Her mom swung her legs off the table and put down her martini glass. “Not really. That must relate to treason and those kinds of issues. I suppose in the case of treason, people can be executed. They have been, in the past, but not without a massive trial. It’s very, very unlikely to happen.”
“What about imprisonment?” Reese pushed. “Could that happen?”
Her mom gave her a curious look. “It’s more likely than state-sanctioned execution, but… why are you asking this? What are you researching?”
“It’s just something that Julian and I are working on for this blog he wants to start about conspiracies,” Reese lied. She hoped her face didn’t give her away. Her mom was pretty good at scoping out liars.
“What does an NDA have to do with it?”
“I just found one online, and it seemed—it seemed related.” Crap. She was screwing this up.
Her mom’s eyes narrowed on her. “Sometimes in the case of someone who is privy to information they were not authorized to receive, they are asked to sign an NDA after the fact. Does that sound like the agreement you found online?”
“Um, yeah. Exactly like that.”
“I see.” Her mom paused. “Well, I’ll tell you this, honey. A minor—someone who is under the age of eighteen—can’t be forced to sign an NDA like that.”
“Really?”
“Only in very specific circumstances would an NDA hold up for a minor. In situations involving health care in a life-threatening situation maybe, and only in some states. Or, I don’t know, in the case of something so top secret it truly would cause harm to the government. But even then, death or imprisonment is highly unlikely. I don’t think any court of law would uphold that kind of an NDA forced on a minor without parental approval.”
Reese shifted in her seat uncomfortably. Her mom totally knew what she was talking about. “Thanks, that’s very helpful.”
But Reese wasn’t entirely reassured. Now she found herself wondering, if the NDA wouldn’t hold water in court, why had the government asked her to sign it? Were they just trying to scare her? Or had she really seen something at that hospital that was so important, it needed to remain classified at all costs?
After her mom went to bed, Reese entered the term Area 51 into the search engine. She remembered Julian’s first assumptions upon learning where she had crashed the car, and the more she thought about it, the more curious she became. A billion results seemed to pop up in response to her query: websites, images, wiki entries heavy with footnotes and external links. She was drawn to the photos first, clicking through one after another of brown desert, pale buildings seen from above, distant mountains, and clusters of signs:
WARNING: Military Installation. It is unlawful to enter this installation without the written permission of the installation commander. Maximum punishment: $1000 fine six months imprisonment or both.
The landscape in the background behind the signs did look familiar, but was that because everything in that part of Nevada was similar?
She decided to try a different tactic. She could retrace online the route she and David had driven from Las Vegas and see if it ended up in the vicinity of Area 51. She started her search at Ash Springs, where they had bought gas. The interactive map allowed her to zoom in on the image of the gas station, and then she followed the highway north until she saw the turnoff for the Extraterrestrial Highway. When she passed her mouse over a square dot on the landscape, it expanded into a sharp image of the Alien Fresh Jerky sign.
Zooming out, she followed the light gray stripe of road to the west. She didn’t know exactly how far they had driven before the accident, but the only thing between the Alien Fresh Jerky sign and the next highway—which she knew she hadn’t reached that night—was a cluster of flat-roofed buildings and a few empty airstrips. There were multiple pinpoints on the map, left by tourists eager to share their findings. The markers opened into images of a dusty road leading through the desert to nowhere. One photo showed a white truck parked on a hill. All the photos were labeled with the same words: AREA 51.
Was that really where she and David had spent those twenty-nine days?
On impulse, she searched for Area 51 and PLATO. The string of websites that resulted was dizzying, containing layer upon layer of confusing and sometimes contradictory conspiracy theories about extraterrestrial visitors. The more she read, the more she felt as if she had tumbled through a rabbit hole into a dimension in which the ordinary world was less realistic than this universe of shadowy conspiracies.
On Bin 42, she found a post detailing something called Project Aquarius, supposedly established by President Eisenhower in the early 1950s to investigate all UFOs and contact with extraterrestrial biological entities. The post provided a list of black projects associated with Aquarius. Sigma’s goal was to establish communications with aliens; Pounce would evaluate UFOs for space technology; Redlight would recover an extraterrestrial craft; Snowbird would rebuild it. But another project jumped out at her. Project Plato was reportedly established in 1960 with the goal of establishing diplomatic relations with aliens. It also involved cooperation between the United States government and the extraterrestrials to abduct humans for the purpose of biological research.
She picked up the hospital bracelet and studied the words stamped on it: PLATO PA83 HOLLOWAY. If it was the same Plato, that would mean, first of all, that she believed these conspiracy theories. She didn’t know if she was ready to buy in yet. Second, it would mean that extraterrestrials existed and had in fact visited the Earth, an idea that seemed too far-fetched to be plausible. How could the arrival of extraterrestrials have been kept secret for so long? Third, it raised a ton of questions about what exactly had happened to her—and David—at the hospital.
That was the part that terrified her the most, because even if she didn’t believe these websites, the fact remained that something had been done to her and David at this place that seemed to correspond to Area 51. And she had no real idea what had been done—only that it was so classified, she couldn’t even admit to having been at that hospital. A chill swept over her as she eyed the bracelet.
She suddenly remembered that she was supposed to call David back, but when she picked up her phone, she saw that it was after midnight already. It was too late; she’d have to call him in the morning. While she was holding the phone, it buzzed. She nearly dropped it in surprise. A text message from Amber came through.
> Just found out citywide curfew’s being lifted Sunday. Can I take you out on a date? Dinner and dancing, like the olden days. I will look up some places. XO, A.
It was surreal to be holding the bracelet in one hand and the phone in the other. The collision of the two worlds was jarring. Reese opened the top drawer of her desk, dropping the bracelet in and slamming it shut. Then she texted back: Yes.
CHAPTER 20
Dinner at the Arens house was an island of normalcy in the middle of an increasingly bizarre world, and Reese tried to relax into it. Daniel and Celeste Arens were great cooks, and Saturday night they made honey-barbecued beef ribs and a lemony green salad—“From our farm,” Celeste noted proudly—and roasted sweet potatoes. The ribs were delicious, sticky and spicy-sweet, but Reese still couldn’t forget about the unsettling conversation she’d had with David earlier in the day. She had told him about her mom’s assessment of the nondisclosure agreement as well as what she’d found out online. “Do you think I’m crazy?” she asked, forcing a laugh.
“No, but you might think I am.”
“Why?”
“I thought I saw Agent Menzel yesterday.”
Reese’s fingers tightened over her phone. “You mean one of those agents who brought us back from Nevada?”
“Yeah.”
“Where?”
“Down the street from my house. But
when I went to look, he was gone.” He sounded frustrated. “I swear, I’m not making this up. I’ve been feeling like someone was following me for a couple of days now, but I’ve never been able to see who it was.”
Reese remembered her sighting of the man in black at Cypress Lawn cemetery; she had never told David about it because he had left before she returned to the memorial service. “I thought I saw someone at Mr. Chapman’s funeral,” she said now. “I wasn’t sure, because I never saw his face.”
“Have you seen anyone since then?”
“No.”
On the way to dinner Reese kept her eyes peeled, but she hadn’t seen anything out of the ordinary. She jumped when Celeste picked up her empty plate and asked if she wanted dessert. The dining room was a world away from where she had been in her mind.
“You look like you’ve been daydreaming,” Celeste said. “Anything in particular?”
She shook her head and saw Julian give her a curious glance. “No, sorry. I’m just tired. Of course I’d love dessert.”
It was a strawberry-rhubarb crisp served with vanilla ice cream, and Reese concentrated on each bite, willing herself to focus on what she was eating instead of who might be lurking outside. The fruit had softened into tangy, tender spoonfuls topped with the crunch of brown sugar and oatmeal. As the ice cream melted cool and sweet over the crust, Reese felt the tension in her muscles easing. By the time she scraped the bottom of the bowl, she felt almost normal again.
Julian’s older sister, Serafina, was home that night too, and after dinner the three of them retreated to the family room to play video games. Sera refused to play anything except Cannon Ball, in which they competed to shoot the most number of bubbles out of the sky before being crushed by falling cannons. With three players, it got pretty competitive, and after a few heated rounds Reese excused herself to refill her water glass, leaving Julian and his sister battling it out to the next level.