Chapter Nineteen
Nineteen
A message from Kass was waiting in her inbox when Dani woke in the morning.
I had a lot of fun last night:) I can’t stop thinking about you
She was glad her bed was lofted so that McKenna couldn’t see her blush. She typed a reply right away.
I had the best time too:)
Wanna do it again soon?
Dani bit her thumbnail to stopper the happy giggle in the back of her throat.
Yeah, of course I do, she typed. Anytime. Well, anytime I’m not working. Which I know is a lot. I’m sorry.
Don’t apologize for being a hard worker. I’m busy with family stuff this weekend (ugh), but maybe next week sometime?
For sure. I’ll let you know when I get my schedule. Everything OK?
She lay there waiting for his response for five minutes, but nothing came, and she wondered if she shouldn’t have pried when he’d been purposefully vague.
Finally, Dani forced herself to get up and get ready for class, trying to ignore the voice in the back of her head that said she’d screwed up again.
When she came back, she’d gotten a response.
Oh yeah, all good. Just got a lot going on at home. I’ll swing by the café on Monday and we’ll make another date, though:) Promise.
Holding you to it, Dani wrote back, and though Kass didn’t reply, that floaty, smiley feeling carried her through the rest of the weekend.
The tail end of Dani’s cheerful mood kept her apprehension to a manageable level in the lead-up to Silva’s meeting on Monday morning.
She’d even managed to put her run-in with Dr. Rodriguez out of her mind—well, mostly.
The rest of the crew must have had a good weekend, too, because the atmosphere in the dream lab was noticeably lighter than the last time they’d met.
Dani felt the optimism in the air as she and McKenna entered—five minutes early, of course—and found their spots on the cot next to Oliver, who seemed to have more sparkle than usual.
“I think I had a breakthrough,” Oliver told the pair. “I bought some more DreamLite and I’ve been experimenting with adding it to a decoction of some other herbs. I drank some of my first batch last night and I slept three hours without dreaming. Not straight through, obviously, but still.”
“That’s amazing,” McKenna said.
“For real,” Dani said, leaning against Oliver. “Maybe we won’t need to steal the formula after all.”
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” Oliver said, but they seemed pleased at the compliment.
Even Wyatt and Katya seemed to be in better spirits than usual—they weren’t at each other’s throats yet, anyway.
Wyatt straightened up and adjusted the cuffs of his shirt when he saw McKenna come into the room, his awareness of her painfully obvious as the girl arranged her long limbs on the cot and studiously ignored him.
Katya made a face at him, but it was low effort, and she actually gave Dani a small smile as she sat across from her.
Dani was so surprised that it took her a second to smile back.
Their joint mission must have scored her some points in Katya’s book, somehow.
She didn’t get it, but she wasn’t complaining.
Silva, positioned at the front of the room, looked up from her quartzpad. It seemed she wasn’t immune to the wave of positivity permeating the group, smiling broadly as she scanned the five faces before her.
“Welcome back, all,” she said. “I’m pleased to see everyone in such good humor—and well you should be.
We’ve had quite a successful week, and it’s satisfying to see our work starting to come together.
But before I forget—our newest member!” She reached out an arm in McKenna’s direction like a magician’s assistant revealing a ta-da moment.
“McKenna Amari, welcome to the team. It’s good to have you on board, as you’ll be essential to our agenda this week.
As will you, Mr. Shalhope, in case you were planning to inquire. ”
Wyatt, who’d been poised to ask precisely that, deflated back down onto his cot.
“But first,” Silva said, “a review of what we’ve done this week. Mx. Izumi, would you care to start us off?”
“Sure,” Oliver said. Dani shot a significant glance at Katya, hoping the other girl would take the hint—and the lead, when their turn came.
Dani hadn’t really been expecting to have to present to the class today.
“I got in touch with my contact, and they said they can get two of us in as participants for the study this Wednesday evening. I’ll have to message them again once we decide who’s going—but yeah, I think that’s squared away. ”
“Excellent,” Silva said. “Misses Lionet and Novak? How was your little expedition to The Sand Bar?”
“There were a few hiccups,” Katya said, adding, “but we managed them.”
“What kind of hiccups?” the professor asked, one meticulously shaped eyebrow going up.
“Oh, just that there was a password to get in. It’s a pretty exclusive bar, not just a place OLabs people hang out.”
Displeasure darkened Silva’s face, though it didn’t seem to be directed at Katya. “I apologize for my lack of foresight,” she said, and made a note on her quartzpad. “It won’t happen again.”
“It was honestly fine,” Katya said calmly.
She was downplaying the whole thing, and Dani remembered how resistant she’d been to showing Silva any kind of weakness.
“Dani was quite clever and made friends with a guy who was on his way in. We were pretending to be interns, and apparently interns aren’t allowed—but he let us go in with him. ”
“Quick thinking,” Silva said. “Well done, Miss Lionet.”
To her dismay, Dani glowed from the praise.
“Once we were in, it was pretty easy to talk to people. We found someone who worked in security, a recent hire named Lily, didn’t catch her last name.
Dani did her thing, and we learned that only three people have access to the hydroponics lab: Dr. Rodriguez, the CEO, and the Head of Security.
To get in there, you need a badge belonging to one of them, or you need to override the security system on that floor manually. ”
“Bravissima,” Silva said, commending them with a few light claps. “This is just the information we needed. I think it’s safe to say your mission went impeccably, ladies.”
“Well,” Dani said, and her voice came out louder than she’d planned it to. Everyone looked at her, and she felt her face get hot. “Well, there was, um, one more thing that happened. On our way out, we kind of—um, we kind of ran into Dr. Rodriguez.”
Silva’s smile slid from her face, but she stayed still, gazing unwaveringly at Dani. “Dr. Rodriguez? Did she recognize you?”
“Oh yeah. Immediately. And she was not exactly happy to see me.”
“Cazzo.” Silva put a fist to her mouth. “That is indeed a hiccup.”
“It was fine,” Katya interjected, giving Dani an annoyed look. “We played it off like Dani was there to get quotes for her article. Dr. Rodriguez probably hasn’t thought about it since.”
Dani found this highly unlikely. In fact, the more she thought about it, the worse she felt about the whole interaction.
Dr. Rodriguez knew her real name, and undoubtedly knew plenty of people at Fox’s Leap.
What if she called someone at the university and asked about Dani, discovered she wasn’t on the school paper at all?
There was no doubt Dr. Rodriguez could pull some strings to get her punished.
Maybe Dani wouldn’t face the review board in the end—maybe Dr. Rodriguez would use her influence to have her scholarship cut or get Dani kicked out before it could even happen.
She didn’t say any of this, though. She waited to see how Silva would react. The woman was studying Katya, weighing her words. “We’ll have to hope that’s true,” she said at last. “And we’ll have to make certain that Miss Lionet isn’t recognizable when she returns to OneiroLabs this Wednesday.”
“Wait, what?” Dani said. “You want me to go back in? But I have to work that night.”
“Then call out,” Silva said, and the glacier white in Dani’s mind told her that the professor had spoken more coldly than she intended. “Or find someone to cover.”
“Y-yeah, I mean, of course, but—isn’t it too risky to send me again? Haven’t I been around OneiroLabs stuff a little too much?”
“A fair question,” Silva said, her chill warming by a few degrees, “but I’ve thought this through.
I believe your ability is of far more value than it would be to keep you sidelined from fear of the risk.
And in any case, that’s why we brought your lovely friend on board.
I trust you have the skill to come up with disguises for Miss Lionet and Mr. Shalhope here? ” she asked McKenna.
“Of course,” McKenna said, tossing her hair. “Just tell me what you want them to look like, and I’ll have it ready.”
“Nothing exciting,” Silva said, which took some of the wind out of McKenna’s sails. “I want them to be as uninteresting to look at as possible. The last thing we want on this particular venture is attention.”
“So it’s me and Wyatt?” Dani asked miserably. She really, really, really did not want to do this one. “Are you sure we’re the best choices?”
“I’m absolutely certain,” Silva said. Her tone had flint in it; she wasn’t open to arguing about this. “We’ll be in contact with you every single step of the way, thanks to Mx. Izumi. They’ll be running comms through a telepathy device they’ll provide.”
“It’ll be a little shell that goes in your ear. They make particularly good conductors of telepathic communications,” Oliver said. “I’ve already got some I can use; I just need to enchant them.”
“Miss Novak will be monitoring security from off-site and instruct you as needed,” Silva went on.
“As for Miss Amari”—here she cast an appraising glance at McKenna—“well, I think her skills will better serve us elsewhere. Mr. Shalhope is essential thanks to his teleportation abilities, and you, Miss Lionet? Well, your gift may be needed. Does that clear things up for you?”