“Yes,” Lee said. “As I said, this is a play date.”
“But—” He looked at the children, at Shannon, back at Lee. “Aren’t you…I mean…”
“Worried about hiding the fact that they’re gifted?” Lee smiled. “No. Chinese culture sees things differently. These children are special. They bring honor and success to a family. Why wouldn’t we love that?”
Because someone who works for my old agency could call you at any moment. “The rest of the world doesn’t see it that way.”
“The world is changing,” Lee said softly. “It has to.”
“What about the academies?”
The man’s face darkened. “Someday, when this is all over, people are going to look back at those in shame. It will be like the internment camps in the Second World War.”
“I agree,” Cooper said. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m an abnorm, too.”
“I assumed. Most of Shannon’s friends are.”
“And my daughter…” He hesitated. Didn’t want to say it even now, even here. Why? Are you ashamed of Kate?
That wasn’t it. It couldn’t be. It was fear, that was all. Fear of what would happen to her.
Right. But all that negative emotion, all that desire to have her hide her ability, isn’t there some part of you that wishes she were normal? If only so she wouldn’t face this risk?
It was an ugly thought. Cooper tilted his beer up again and found it empty. “Aren’t you afraid that someone will make them take the test?”
“That’s where being Chinatown Chinese has advantages. The government doesn’t know about these children.”
“How?”
“Some of us went abroad to have our babies. Others use local midwives who don’t record the births. It’s a risk, because they don’t have the resources of a hospital if things go wrong. A stupid, terrible way to do things. But right now it’s worth it.”
The DAR had long suspected that there was a significant population of unreported abnorms in immigrant communities. It was a loophole the agency meant to close, but like a squeaky staircase in a house on fire, other issues took precedence. These communities rarely made trouble and so had been left alone. But watching the children play—they’d moved to a new game, where a little girl spun once, then closed her eyes and answered detailed questions about everything in the room, down to the number of buttons on Alice’s dress—Cooper saw a whole generation of abnorms growing up right under the noses of the DAR, unreported, untested, untracked. The implications were enormous.
Want to call Director Peters, let him know?
“A lot to take in, huh?” Lee smiled. “I’m so used to it that I forget the rest of the world isn’t. Don’t you love watching them play together? Children who aren’t taught, from the earliest age, that they’re monsters. That they’re abnormal. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Cooper said. “Yes it is.”
Later, after the party had ended, after parents had collected their children and said their good-byes and left with Tupperware containers of leftovers, Lisa led him and Shannon to a small room off the hallway decorated in pastel shades and posters of Disney princesses. A lamp shaped like an elephant glowed on a night table beside a single bed.
“Alice’s,” Lisa said, apologetically. “She can sleep with us tonight. I’m sorry there’s not separate rooms.”
Cooper looked over at Shannon, but whatever she might have felt about the arrangement she didn’t telegraph beyond brushing a loose lock of hair behind her ear. “No problem,” he said.
“I’ll get some blankets.”
She returned with a sleeping bag, set it on the bed with a spare pillow, then said, “I hope you’ll be comfortable.”
“We’ll be fine. Thank you.” Cooper paused, said, “It means a lot to me that you let us into your home.”
“A friend of Shannon’s is a friend of ours. Come anytime.” Lisa looked around the room, hugged Shannon goodnight, and came to Cooper. He waited for her to calculate whether he was a hug or a handshake, but she didn’t hesitate, just gave him a quick hug. Then she stepped out of the room and closed the door.
Shannon tucked her hands in her pockets. The movement tightened the shirt across clavicles delicate as bird wings. “So.”
“I’ll take the floor.”
“Thanks.”
He made a point of facing the other direction as he kicked off his shoes and socks, unbuttoned his shirt. Decided to keep his pants and undershirt on. Behind him he heard the faint rustle of fabric, and his mind flashed an image of her pulling her shirt over her head, imagined a delicate cream bra over caramel skin.
Whoa there, Agent Cooper. Where did that come from?
He chalked it up to a long day of shared adrenaline, underscored by male chemistry, and left it at that. He slid into the sleeping bag, rubbed his eyes. A moment later, he heard the click of her turning off the elephant, and the room went dark. Pale green stars glowed on the walls and ceiling, swirling constellations of an idealized night sky, one where the stars had neat points and sharp edges and were only barely out of reach.
“G’night, Cooper.”
“Night.” He folded his hands behind his head. He was too old to be sleeping on the floor, but too tired to care. As he lay there, staring at the stars of that better sky, he found himself thinking back to the game, the looks on the faces of those kids as they played with toys barely imaginable to most of the world.
It had been six months since last he’d seen his children. Six months of pretending to be someone else, of burying the life he loved in order to fight for it.
When it came down to it, everything he had done was for his children. Even the things he had done before they were born, before he’d even met Natalie. It was a truth he never could have understood until he’d become a parent, and one he would never be able to forget.
The world is changing, Lee had said. It has to.
Cooper hoped he was right.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The man was waiting for them.
He was as big as Cooper remembered, broad-shouldered and muscular beneath pudge; a man who didn’t lift weights because he lifted heavy things for a living. He looked right at home in the loading dock.
“What the hell?” He spat the words as Cooper and Shannon climbed the steps.
“Excuse me?”
“Paying for my ID. You trying to be the big man? You think you know me?” The abnorm shook his head. “You don’t know me.”
“Whatever.” Cooper started past, but the big man grabbed his arm. The grip was stone.
“I asked you a question. What do you want?”
Cooper glanced down at the man’s hand, thinking, Twist sideways, right elbow to the solar plexus, stomp the arch of the foot, spin back with a left uppercut. Thinking, So much for good deeds. “I want you to get out of my way.”
Something in his tone made the man hesitate, and the grip loosened. Cooper brushed his sleeve, walked past.
“I didn’t ask for this. I don’t owe you nothing.”
He stiffened, the irritation growing. Turned. “You do, asshole. You owe me six months of your life. The phrase you’re looking for is ‘thank you.’”
The man crossed his arms. Held the stare. “I’m not anybody’s slave. Not Schneider’s, and not yours.”
“Bravo,” Cooper said. “Congratulations. You’re an island, alone unto yourself.”
“Huh?”