Quicksilver (Carolrhoda Ya) - By R.J. Anderson Page 0,2

on the surface, but how she dressed and behaved, who her friends were, and what she did with her spare time were still a mystery. Would she be more like the real me than Tori had been or less? Which was safer?

Or was I fooling myself to think I could ever be safe again?

I understand, said Sebastian Faraday’s deep, rich voice in my memory, that the data you’ve collected from her is extremely important to your research. And suddenly I was back in that cold grey place with Sebastian and Alison by my side, confronting the man who’d abducted me…

I gave myself a mental slap, and the memory dissolved. Why was I thinking about Mathis and his stupid experiment? He was out of my life now, and I had other things to worry about.

“Niki!” yelled my father.

“Be there in a sec!” I called as I headed for the washroom. “Just putting my contacts in!”

It was the final step in my transformation—grey-tinted lenses, to dull my turquoise eyes to a more ordinary shade of blue. From Tori Beaugrand, the girl everybody wanted, to Nicola Johnson, a new and unknown element in the universe.

I told myself it felt like freedom, and it did. But deep down, it also felt like death.

I eased the contacts into my eyes, wiping the saline from my cheeks and squeezing my lids shut until the sting went away. Then I took a deep breath, forced my shoulders back, and strode out to begin my new life.

INTERLUDE: Inductive Kickback

(The rapid change in voltage across an inductor when current flow is interrupted)

(1. 1)

The day I got back to Sudbury, I’d been missing for fifteen weeks and awake for thirty-five hours straight. I was filthy, exhausted, and longing for home, but I had to take care of Alison first—the relay had overloaded her synesthesia, and she was barely holding herself together. Once I’d seen her safely down the hill and off in the ambulance, I had no strength left, and all I wanted to do was lie on the scrubby grass and breathe cool, fresh air until my parents came to get me. But the rescue workers and the police had their own ideas about what I owed them, and soon a van from the local TV station was circling the scene as well. By the time Mom and Dad arrived, I was a mess of tears and helpless rage.

Guests at my parents’ house parties often compared my mom to a butterfly, because she was beautiful, charming, and had a knack for being everywhere at once. They didn’t realize that behind the gracious smile and light, ripping laugh were sharp teeth and a will of titanium, and that anyone who messed with her family would regret it. Her eyes misted up at the sight of me, but she didn’t break down. She greeted the police officers with a frosty little speech that sent them skulking back to their cruiser, dismissed the paramedics with the assurance that my family doctor was on his way, and with one arm tight around my waist and my father lumbering ahead of us like a human shield, she hurried me past the cameras into our waiting car.

The next two days were a recurring nightmare of examinations and interviews and conversations I’d have given anything to avoid—especially the talk with my parents, when I told them how Mathis had taken me and why. Lying to them, even partially, was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. But they were so relieved to have their only daughter back alive and whole and so anxious not to hurt me any more than I’d been hurt already that they didn’t ask nearly as many questions as they could have. Their biggest fear was of losing me again, and once I’d assured them—truthfully—that Mathis had been dealt with and the chip he’d put in my arm was gone forever, they were satisfied.

And then, in true Beaugrand parental fashion, they closed ranks to protect me from the world. They shielded me from the journalists camped out at the end of our driveway, they kept the police at arm’s length until we’d worked out a statement about my tragic memory loss and inability to identify my kidnapper, and they made polite excuses to all the friends and neighbors who called to find out how I was doing. Lara came to visit on the second day, but only after promising my mother not to ask questions or say anything that might upset