Fanfiction: When You Get Older
Back in Sophie’s room, Hanna turned a knife over and over in her hands. It was just a butter knife; nothing she could do real harm with. She hadn’t had a real knife in a while. She tried running the blade of this one across her thumb, just to see what would happen, but it came away without making more than a faint impression on her skin. No blood.
She needed blood.
But she didn’t want blood. It was the one thing her father’s years of tutelage had failed to impress on her; the desire to draw blood, cause pain. She could kill if she wanted to- she had killed, pointed a gun at Marissa Wiegler’s head and pulled the trigger, heard the gun’s report, seen blood and brains spread across the train tracks like spilled pudding. She could aim a gun without her hand shaking, pull the trigger without fear.
She just didn’t want to.
While she’d stayed in Berlin, she’d seen some movies- old film reels in the library, movie night at the homeless shelter. There was death in those films too, men and women (usually men- was she the odd one out, then?) who pulled guns and knives on their enemies and sent their innards flying towards the audience while music soared. That hadn’t made her feel anything. Should it have? There were bodies and cheers and cries of victory, but it was all so empty. Empty eyes, empty songs, empty causes. No victory for her.
She didn’t want to kill.
There was a childish part of her that wanted to rail against the unfairness of it. Why did she have to do this? Why couldn’t she just stay here with Sophie and let Reinhild do what they would? She hadn’t chosen to be their product. She hadn’t decided to be given this information. Why couldn’t she just hand it off to someone who did crave the chase and the blood and go on with her own life?
Back in Berlin, she’d gone to her grandmother’s flat more times than she could count. Perhaps she should have gone to the police while they were there removing the body, but what good would it have done? They would have asked her questions about her mother and father, if she’d seen anyone going into the building. What could she have told them? So instead, she’d hidden until they were gone, leaving the yellow tape fluttering in the breeze from the open window, and then ducked under it. Her grandmother was gone, but her belongings were still there; perhaps they would tell her something that her father had not.
She hadn’t found much. The flat was scrubbed and polished clean, every surface shining dully in the mid-afternoon light. Some of the drawers hung open and empty; perhaps the police had taken things with them. In the bedroom, there had been pictures lined up on the dresser; some of men and women she didn’t recognize (aunts and uncles?) and one that sat slightly off-centre from the rest, resting in a clear glass frame, lovingly dusted and carefully labelled Johanna.
She’d taken it with her. Not to keep- it felt wrong to keep it, somehow- but to study as she sat on her bed in the shelter and traced her fingertips over the face in the photo. It was a bit like her, she thought- same hair. Similar eyes. She tried calling her Mama, tongue stumbling over the unfamiliar word. This was the woman who’d given her that book of fairy tales. Maybe she’d read it to her when she was small; Hanna couldn’t remember. After a careful study, she’d returned the photo to its place of honour on the dresser, and left the flat for the last time. The one time she’d gone back, there were men and women in black clustered around outside, and so she’d left. She wished she’d managed to bring her old photos or the fairy tale book from the cabin, but it wasn’t to be. She wondered what had happened to the cabin. Probably the men who’d come to get her had burned it down.
So much destruction. It made her so tired. Did everything always have to be like this? Why couldn’t she build something instead of tearing it down? She was tired of tearing things down. She was tired of everything ending in a storm of blood and gunfire, when all that was left afterwards was her and a pile of corpses. Sophie was alive; Sophie’s friends were alive; they breathed, they were vital and awake and happy. She wanted that for a change. She wanted to sit on Sophie’s bed and chatter and laugh with her. She wanted to hold Sophie’s hand again, and feel warm and safe. She wanted to kiss her again and be happy because she was building something new and beautiful, and the only thing being destroyed was the ugliness she had lived with, swept away to make the world big and shining and bright instead of the dark, cramped little space she’d been living in her whole life.
But then there was her mother’s picture, and the blood on the floor of the flat, and the paper that had propelled her to England. Her mother hadn’t chosen to be a soldier either, and now she was dead. Her father had- and he was dead, too. Was that the choice? Death at both ends; but her father had lived a little bit longer. And what did she owe her mother? Would Reinhild mould more soldiers from unwilling clay if she didn’t go to London and stop them? Did this mission have to be hers?
The thoughts made her head hurt. With the knife still in her hand, she lay down on the bed, knees curled up under her chin. The questions would still be there when she woke, but at least she could put them off for a little while.
* * * *
Sophie took the long route back to the dorm, zigzagging across campus to make the walk last even longer. She walked with her hands in her pockets, hunched over despite the relative warmth of the spring day. All around her, people were walking in clusters, laughing, chatting, some singing loudly and off-key to the music from their iPods. Some of the were in couples, hands dangling entwined at the wrist, or kissing with loud moist noises that somehow managed to reach her across the walkway. Maybe being suddenly maybe-possibly-gay gave her superhearing. Or she was imagining things.
She fumbled with her keys as she drew level with the dormitory, and had to pick them up before she finally managed to slide them into the lock and turn it. The hallway was, at least deserted. That was a blessing. She wasn’t really up to making small talk with anyone. To make sure she wouldn’t bump into anyone on the way up, she stepped into the lift and jabbed the button that would take her to the third floor, where her room- and hopefully Hanna- would greet her when she stepped out of the lift.
As the walls dropped away around her, the drop in her stomach not entirely attributable to the shift in altitude, she began mentally rehearsing what she’d say when she reached her destination. So hey, remember that talk we had this morn- had it really been that short a time?- earlier? About me having a boyfriend? Turns out the reason I don’t is because I kind of have a thing for you, as Fred was kind enough to point out, so could we maybe go out? Sometime? When we’re not busy fighting evil military complexes and possibly overturning governments- well maybe not that, but I don’t think we’ll be making any friends with this. So what do you think?
When had her life turned into some twisted version of a romantic comedy?
The lift shuddered to a stop, sending her stomach lurching with it. When she stepped out, she leaned against a wall for a moment- it wouldn’t do much good to vomit all over Hanna while she was trying to make her grand speech- before she proceeded down the hall. When she reached her room, she paused outside the door for a moment, taking a deep breath, and went in.
The room was dark, the blinds drawn, and it took her a moment to adjust to the lack of lighting. Hanna was curled up on the spare bed, one hand curled around a butter knife, the other tucked under her head. She was perfectly still and quiet, as though she was on the alert even with her eyes closed. She appeared to be asleep.
Well. That was anti-climactic.
She let out a long, shuddery breath, pleased that her stomach seemed to have settled into something resembling calm. Slowly- she didn’t want to startle the other girl- she walked over and sat on the edge of the bed. Gently, she reached over and took the knife from Hanna’s hands. Her fingers slid limply away from the handle, and were left dangling out into the space between the bed and the table. Sophie set it down on the nightstand and put a hand on the other girl’s shoulder. “Hanna?”
She stirred with a soft snuffling sound, blinking several times. “What time is it?” She looked over at the alarm clock.
“It’s two-thirty.” Sophie said. “Did you sleep at all last night?” She’d known the other girl had gone out jogging, but she hadn’t realized that she’d be exhausted enough to be napping right after lunch. Selfishly, she wondered if perhaps she should put the conversation off until later. If Hanna was tired, it clearly wasn’t a good time-
“No,” Hanna said slowly, “I don’t need to sleep. I was just . . . tired.” The contradiction in the words didn’t appear to bother her. She met Sophie’s gaze. “What is it? Is something wrong?”
If you only knew. “No,” Sophie lied through her teeth, “nothing’s . . . wrong, exactly.” Her eyes drifted to the butter knife still sitting on the nightstand. “Are you okay?”
Hanna’s eyes lowered to the floor, but not before Sophie caught a glimpse of something aching and wanting in them. She swallowed hard. It was okay; Hanna still wasn’t looking at her. She could waver for a few moments.
“I’m not a soldier.” Hanna said. She looked back up, and there was that look again- pained and fevered like a trapped animal in a cage, only one that could see someone coming to release it. “I’m not.” Her voice wavered slightly.
“Of course you’re not.” Sophie soothed, reaching a hand out to lay on her arm. Her fingers met string, and she glanced down- of course. The bracelet. In all the turmoil, she’d almost managed to forget about it. Gently, she rubbed at the skin underneath it with her thumb. “You’re my friend, remember?”
Hanna raised her head slowly, on a long exhale of air. Her other hand came up to intercept Sophie’s, and they lay together on the bracelet. Hanna’s fingers were resting on top of hers’, and Sophie found suddenly that she couldn’t breathe. The world had narrowed into the point where skin brushed skin, and things like breath and speech and thought had disappeared from her line of vision. There was only Hanna’s hand, Hanna’s face, Hanna’s voice trembling on the edge of tears but raggedly brave. Hanna was always brave. Hanna had kissed her two years earlier and set them down this pathway that stopped here, now, sitting on her bed, when she wanted nothing more than to kiss her again.
So she did.
She’d never kissed another girl, excepting that once in the caravan, but it wasn’t- in the most technical terms- different from kissing a boy. Lips were lips no matter who they belonged to, and the warm breath that puffed against her face was the same as it would have been with anyone else. There was no beard or moustache to scratch at her lip, and the other girl’s face was lighter and more delicate than any boy she’d ever kissed, light enough that it felt almost violent to bring her hands up to press against Hanna’s face and feel the blood beating underneath her fingertips.
Hanna wasn’t saying anything, but neither was she pulling away. Was this a mistake? Had she overstepped some invisible line doing this, frightened the other girl away, or betrayed some kind of trust that she hadn’t even realized she’d entered into? Maybe she’d ruined everything in one stupid, reckless act that she’d done without thinking because everything was so huge and towering, and she wanted something small and safe, but if she’d ruined it-
Hanna kissed her back.
Long fingers slid around her neck and into her hair, and the kiss deepened as Hanna’s mouth pushed back against hers and sent sparks wheeling across the sky that was her closed eyelids and set a fire burning in her chest- not the light flush that had crept up the back of her neck earlier, but something low and hot and fierce that demanded more fuel, more, more now. So she pressed closer, feeling the other girl’s breasts pressed against hers’- that was new and different, and made the breath stick in the back of her throat. That drive for more was still pushing her on, so she leaned back for a moment to pull her shirt over her head- thank god she’d put on a t-shirt that morning instead of something that required unbuttoning a thousand buttons- breaking the kiss long enough to see the look on Hanna’s face. There was something soft in it, and pure and light, like she’d never seen before.
She blinked. “Is- are you okay?”
Hanna gently brought a hand up against her face, pushing aside a hank of hair that had fallen into Sophie’s eyes. “I’m happy ,” she said simply.
Sophie dropped the shirt, leaving it half-hanging off one shoulder. She looked ridiculous, but she didn’t care. “Oh.” she said.
Hanna nodded, smiling, and reached down to take Sophie’s hand. “Are you? Happy?”
It took Sophie a moment to answer; her head was going in dizzy circles, like she’d just gone around a merry-go-round several times in a row. Gently, she untangled her fingers, and brought Hanna’s hand up to her mouth, gently pressing her lips against her knuckles. “Yes.”
Hanna took her finger away. “And you want this?” She ran a hand down Sophie’s neck, skimming the strap of her bra. Sophie shivered. “Yes.”
The other girl swallowed hard. “Are we in this together now?” This could mean so many things.
“I promise.” This was important, she knew; she had promised once before, but she’d broken it. She needed to be honest this time. “I won’t leave you.”
Hanna stared at her for a long moment, and Sophie was afraid, again, that she’d done something wrong. Instead, the other girl took hold of the edge of her shirt and stripped it off in one fluid motion. Sophie took the opportunity to lean forward and kiss her again, and Hanna reciprocated, opening her mouth against Sophie’s. Sophie mirrored the action eagerly, but held back from putting her tongue out just yet. She wasn’t sure just what Hanna did or didn’t know about how these things worked, and having the other girl accidentally bite down on her tongue would be a less-than-romantic end to the encounter. But Hanna didn’t seem to need prompting- her hands were already on Sophie’s shoulders, pushing her backwards onto the bed. Sophie tilted back accommodatingly, keeping both hands on Hanna’s waist so as not to lose contact with the other girl- hands on bare skin. She could feel muscles shifting under her fingers, and felt a pang remembering looking at herself in the mirror, scowling at the round folds of skin at her waist. She’d thought she looked disgusting; but Hanna didn’t seem to mind, as she was gently kissing the spot just above her navel. Sophie shivered.
“Do you . . .” she said awkwardly, sitting up. Hanna crawled backwards to sit on her legs, looking at her expectantly. “Do you know what to do? I mean . . .” Sophie had an idea of what women did in bed together, but it was a vague, half-formed one cobbled together from movies, television, and fits of Googling when she’d been able to scrape up the courage to do so. None of these sources taught her much, and she still wasn’t sure that anything she’d learned was accurate. They hadn’t exactly seemed designed for her anyway, and the lack of certainty left her feeling suddenly nervous at the prospect of trying to put it into practice. Not that she hadn’t been nervous before.
Hanna, on the other hand, didn’t look nervous at all. She put a hand to her mouth, considering, and just watching her fingers tracing over her lips made Sophie’s stomach clench in something very unlike nervousness. She felt like a secondary-schooler all over again, full to bursting with want, without any idea of what to do with it.
“I could help you.” Hanna said.
Sophie had no idea whatsoever what “help” entailed, but she trusted the other girl- hell, if she didn’t, they’d never have gotten this far- and so she nodded and lay back on the bed, trying to regulate the rise and fall of her chest so that she didn’t look quite so much like a panting dog.
Hanna lay down on top of her, with one elbow braced against the mattress to keep her from dropping her full weight, and kissed her again. This kiss was different- the previous ones had been so frantic with immediate need, they hadn’t paused to fully enjoy them. This one was slow and sensuous, with the other girl’s tongue fully in her mouth, moisture gathering on her lips as they pushed against each other’s touch. One of Hanna’s legs was lying between her own, and even that slight pressure made her shudder. Her hands were restless without anything to touch, so she dropped them to the other girl’s chest, touching her breasts properly for the first time- smaller than hers’, but still round, with nipples that grew hard between her fingers. Tentatively, she tried rubbing one, which earned her a pleased-sounding groan. She tried it again, harder, and judging from the sudden pressure of Hanna’s hand digging into her hip, she was succeeding in something. So she slid her hand further down, towards the waistband of the other girl’s trousers.
Hanna gently pushed her hand away. “Wait,” she said, “I was going to help you, remember?”
Sophie blinked. “You did help.” She never would have thought to try that on her own; when they were kissing, it seemed as if some sort of instinctual reflexes had taken over, putting her hands where they needed to be and directing her mouth to do what it did.
But Hanna was shaking her head. “I’m not done yet.”
She started to kiss her way down Sophie’s neck, and then her torso, stopping to worry at one of her nipples with her teeth- Sophie’s hand inadvertently clenched in the sheets when that happened- and down over her navel, to the edge of her jeans. She unbuttoned them quickly enough, but just watching her do it made Sophie feel a bit lightheaded- she had never noticed Hanna’s hands like that before, how deft they were. There were a lot of things about Hanna she hadn’t noticed before. Or maybe she had, and she’d just refused to recognize it.
Hanna tugged at the waistband of her underwear, and Sophie obligingly lifted her hips and wiggled to make them come off quicker. The sudden shock of air made gooseflesh rise on her skin, but the greater shock was the sudden pressure of Hanna’s tongue between her legs, and Sophie couldn’t help but cry out at the sensation. The other girl was giving her slow, agonizing strokes, and Sophie was squirming into the mattress, trying desperately not to yell again, for fear of having someone bang on the wall to shut them up. The sensations were making her shudder all over, but something in them- a hesitancy, an almost-bashfulness- told her that Hanna hadn’t done this before, and that made a different, lighter sensation rise in her chest. She could feel sweat beading on her forehead, even though she really wasn’t exerting herself all that much, and something was building in the pit of her stomach- a sort of pressure that she wasn’t quite sure how to define, although she had an idea of what would happen when it peaked. Then Hanna nudged at her clit with her tongue once, twice, and she came with another yell, crushing the sheets into a ball in her fist, panting out the sensation of release as Hanna- Hanna looked at her like a revelation was unfolding right in front of her, and Sophie instinctively reached down to pull the other girl up for another lingering kiss. There was a sharp, salty taste to her mouth, and it took Sophie a moment to realize that that was her.
Hanna rested her chin on her chest. “Did I-“ She broke off with a shy smile. “Did you like it?”
Sophie laughed, and before her reaction could be misconstrued, ducked down to kiss her again. Both of them came up smiling. “Yeah,” Sophie said, “yeah I did.” Part of her was silently berating herself for having waited this long to act on it, as if any of the girls she’d gazed at out of the corner of her eye couldn’t have granted her this years earlier; but looking down at Hanna’s happily flushed face, she thought that really, she preferred it this way. The other girls might have been able to make her feel this good, might have known any number of tricks and techniques that would have left her howling loudly enough to get her kicked out of the dorm altogether- but they wouldn’t have been Hanna.
A thought occurred to her, and she nudged against the other girl until they rolled over, with Sophie now on top. Hanna was still smiling, but now she looked slightly confused. “What-?”
Sophie put a finger to her lips, and the other girl fell silent. She slid a hand down Hanna’s stomach- the top button of her trousers was still undone, but they weren’t off. That was fine. She could do what she wanted without them being properly removed, which was slide her hand inside the trousers and brush her fingers against Hanna’s clit. She was already wet- Sophie felt slightly guilty for letting her own needs be attended to first- and she gasped at the contact. Encouraged, Sophie continued to stroke, drawing tiny circles with her fingertips and pinching with her knuckles until she felt she’d lingered long enough, and pushed a finger inside her. She was rewarded with a gasp; encouraged, she experimented with pushing it in different directions, listening for the changes in Hanna’s breathing as she did so. The response made her shiver a little, a new feeling spreading in the pit of her stomach. She couldn’t put a name to it, exactly, but she might compare it to pride. She crooked her finger up, and pressed it against a new spot; the resulting intake of breath told her everything she needed to know. She kept rubbing at it with her fingertip, sometimes pushing down with her knuckle, until Hanna clenched around her and let out a long, slow breath that let her know that she was done.
Sophie crawled up next to the other girl, and flopped back onto the pillow, tucking one arm over Hanna’s waist. She felt suddenly sleepy- not in her usual, dead-to-the-world sort of way, but a contentment sprung from knowing that Hanna was lying next to her, would be when she woke up, and she no longer had to fret to herself about what she should do about her inconvenient feelings. There was still Reinhild to deal with, and David Jankovic, and the unknown numbers on Hanna’s piece of paper; but for a few hours, all they really needed to do was curl up next to each other and sleep. She closed her eyes.
* * * *
Hanna woke when it was barely light out, with beams of weak sunlight spilling through the blinds and over the bed. She carefully extricated herself from Sophie’s arm- no need to wake the other girl up- and padded silently over to the window. Outside, she could see students starting to stir; a few were making their way across campus, drooping under heavy backpacks and trying to smother yawns with their hands. They were the unfortunate ones who had early morning classes; Hanna could sleep in, if she wanted to.
She propped her elbows on the window sill and rested her chin on her hands. Yesterday afternoon, before Sophie had arrived, she’d wanted to abandon the mission she’d been given entirely- vanish somewhere into the heart of the campus, take up classes, be given a certificate stamped with her name and accomplishments and walk along in the footsteps of those students walking across the courtyard in front of her eyes. Perhaps her mother would have wanted that for her. Not for the first time, she wondered if her mother had gone to school, what she might have studied, if she had dreamed of seeing her own daughter graduate. She couldn’t know. She wished she could. For years and years she’d done what was expected of her; what was she supposed to do when nobody expected anything?
Sophie stirred in bed behind her, and Hanna glanced over her shoulder, but the other girl merely rolled over onto her side and went back to sleep. Smiling, Hanna went to sit on the edge of the bed. Nobody had expected her to love Sophie, but she did. Nobody had expected her to come here- but she had. Really, who would expect her to go to London? Nobody, save Sophie, Fred, and Lisa, even knew who she was, and only Sophie and Fred knew the truth of it. It was all up to her. She sat in silence, turning the thoughts over in her mind, absently carding her fingers through Sophie’s hair.
As the sun rose and spilled through the window, Sophie lifted her head, yawning and rubbing at her eyes. “’Morning.” She sat up, then seemed to belatedly realize that she didn’t have a shirt on, and shyly lifted the blanket to her shoulders. “What’s on for today?”
Hanna looked to the window. “I’m going to London.”
* * * *
They took the nine-thirty train out of Norwich Station, a still-sleepy Sophie dozing against the window with her eyes hanging half-closed. Hanna, for her part, propped her elbows up on the windowsill and watched the countryside go by. She didn’t seem to need to sleep as much as Sophie did. Maybe that was part of her abnormality. Or maybe she just didn’t need sleep. She watched the view from the window bleed from greenery into industrial grey, and then into a series of billboards and bright lights that made spots dance on the insides of her eyelids whenever she closed them. The train went on rumbling peacefully underneath her.
Sophie woke up just before they stopped at Liverpool Street, smiling a little shyly at her as they disembarked. Once they were out of the station, Hanna blinked in the sudden light. It wasn’t just the daylight in opposition to the relative gloom of the train that startled her, but the omnipresent flashing of billboards, the roar of the surrounding crowds pushing at them as they hurried past- the people. She’d been in cities before, of course, but never one as loud or bright as this. She felt her pulse jump, setting a pounding rhythm against her temple and a churning in her stomach.
“Hey.” She looked to her side. Sophie was there, now fully awake and looking concerned. “You okay?”
She took Sophie’s outstretched hand, and the other girl gave it a squeeze. She glanced back up. The sounds and sights still surrounded her, but they seemed slightly muted now- not by much, just enough to let her tune them out. Sophie’s hand in hers’ felt like an anchor, rooting her to the ground and the earlier silence of their room, and the reason she’d come to London in the first place. The lights and noises wouldn’t hurt her. Reinhild would. And she could deal with them.
“I’m fine,” she said, returning the squeeze. “Let’s go.”
They crossed the street, past the Kindertransport statue- Hanna paused to marvel at the familiar German syllables, though she wasn’t at all familiar with the configuration- and hopped onto a bus. In her hand, Hanna grasped the slip of paper Fred had given them with Jankovic’s address- 179, Avonmore Road- and it had grown slightly damp in her palm, as sweat crept across her skin. Once again, she propped her elbow on the windowsill and her chin on her fist, and watched as London went by. Sophie, sitting next to her, was silent, but her hand rested lightly on Hanna’s, and the warmth of her skin was comforting.
They disembarked at Kensington High Street and walked the rest of the way to Avonmore. The street that Fred’s directions pointed them towards was a quiet one, lined with towering brick houses and neatly kept lawns that stretched out to the road. The house they were directed to was unobtrusive- a red brick building with a small garden blooming beneath the front windows. The lawn was trimmed and empty; all the curtains were drawn.
Hanna stepped up to the front porch, Sophie behind her, and pressed the doorbell. The ringing of the bell was met with silence, which stretched out in the ensuing minute. Sophie turned to go.
“Wait.” Hanna held up a finger to stop her. Inside, her ears could pick up the faint sounds of someone shuffling back and forth. She raised her hand to try the doorbell again when someone spoke through the door. “Who is it?”
“It’s Hanna,” she said, and after a moment’s pause, added “Heller.” How many Hannas did he know?
Another pause. “What do you want?”
She stood on her toes to try and peer through the peephole- it was positioned just above her eye level- but all she could see was a face too blurry to make out. “I want to talk to you about Marissa Wiegler.”
The door was suddenly flung open, and both girls jumped backwards as Jankovic appeared, clutching a revolver tucked under his arm. In the sudden daylight streaming into his eyes, he blinked at them. Evidently they weren’t what he had been expecting. “Jesus Christ, you’re kids.”
“I’m eighteen.” said Sophie, sounding slightly offended. “And so’s she.”
He ignored her, focusing his gaze on Hanna instead. A frown line appeared on his forehead as he took her features in, as though he was trying to remember something. “How do you know Marissa?”
“She tried to kill me.” Hanna said simply.
He snorted. “Well you can’t be that bad, then.” His voice, she noticed, sounded odd- mostly British like Sophie’s, but with faint German inflections on the vowels. “Are you armed?”
Hanna shook her head, and held both empty hands out for inspection. Sophie did the same. He let out a huff of air, and pulled the door open slightly wider. “Come in, then.”
They stepped over the threshold, and Hanna glanced around to see what the inside of the house was like. There was nothing to indicate who he was; the interior was decorated in dark browns and reds, with a carpet rolled down the front hallway and a little dining room to her right. To her left, there was a sitting room, which he ushered them into and unceremoniously sat down in the armchair, after making sure that the curtain was still pulled shut. He gestures to the sofa against the wall. “Go on, have a seat.”
Sophie took him at his word, but Hanna lingered on her feet for a moment, glancing around the room to examine the framed certificates on the wall. One was from something called the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft; another read “Leopoldina Research Prize,” and was framed alongside a picture of Jankovic shaking hands with a man in a dark suit and glasses. Yet another proclaimed him a member of the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge. There were more, too- more certificates (even one in what looked like Russian) and also pictures of him sitting in conference with other men and women, and some of him shaking hands. She felt as though she’d walked into a house of mirrors.
“Please,” he said, gesturing again, “sit.” She did so, perching on the sofa next to Sophie. The other girl was still staring, wide-eyed at their surroundings; Hanna suspected she hadn’t seen anything like it before either.
Now that he had them both sitting, Jankovic didn’t seem to have any idea what to do with them. He stood back up, pacing back and forth and wringing his hands. “Would- would you like anything? Tea? Coffee?”
“No, thank you,” Hanna said politely. She pulled the wrinkled scrap of paper from her pocket. “I’d like to talk to you about this, please.”
Jankovic fumbled in his pocket for spectacles, then slid them on as he took the paper from Hanna’s hands and brought it close to his face. His lips moved silently as he read it; then his head suddenly snapped up, and he stared at her with something resembling terror. “You- you’re that Hanna? Erik’s Hanna? The little girl who-” He cut himself off mid-sentence, gulping like a fish who had suddenly found himself on dry land. Then he straightened, hand going to the revolver that he’d set down on a side table. “You said you weren’t armed?”
“I’m not,” Hanna said.
He let out a shaky laugh, but he didn’t drop the gun. “Not that it would do me much good, eh? I saw what you did to that woman in the compound, you know. They passed the video around.” The revolver was rattling against his leg. “Is that what you’re here for? To kill me?”
“I don’t want to hurt you at all,” Hanna said quietly, feeling irrationally hurt at the assumption. “I only want to ask you questions.”
He stared at her for a moment, then sat down heavily in his armchair. Taking his glasses off, he rubbed the back of one hand against his eyes. “Very well then.” He set the revolver back down on the side table. “What do you want to know?”
She reached forward and pointed to the paper he was still holding. “Who are the animals?”
He smiled, though it was a little strained. “I’d have thought you would figure it out quickly enough. The lamb is you. The wolf is Marissa. Surely Erik read you Aesop’s at some point?”
“I knew that,” she said, a little stiffly. “What about the rooster?”
He let out an odd bark of laughter. “That? Oh, that’s me.”
Hanna and Sophie exchanged looks, and Jankovic stood abruptly. “Hold on, let me fetch something.“ He left the room at a trot, and Hanna wondered if he was still afraid she’d snap his neck.
“Weird.” said Sophie.
Hanna had to agree. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected, going to see him- another Marissa perhaps- but it hadn’t been this odd, twitchy man who couldn’t seem to sit still for more than a minute at a time. Perhaps he was like those shaking men and women she’d seen on the streets in Berlin, the ones who gave themselves needles. Or maybe it was just her presence that made him so uncomfortable.
Before she had the chance to ponder it further, she heard footsteps tapping down the hallways, and he re-appeared in the doorway with a bulging briefcase under his arm. He dropped it onto the table, sending papers sliding out onto the polished wood surface and the carpet beneath him, and leafed through them, muttering under his breath, before finally pulling one free and thrusting it at Hanna. “Here. Read this.”
Hanna took it in her hand, and turned it around so that she could read the writing. Half the page was blacked out, but what she could read seemed to be some sort of letter or memo.
To Field Agents Allard, Hayashi, Seaver, et all
Be advised that Agent Jankovic, classified Rooster, has broken with the organization, and is henceforth known as a liability that requires termination. Agents encountering Rooster are advised DNE. A team has been dispatched for disestablish procedure. Rooster’s security clearance has been revoked.
Regards,
Department Head Dubicki
“I don’t understand” Hanna said, handing it back.
Jankovic sighed impatiently. “That’s because it’s been censored.”
“If it’s been censored, why would you expect her to read it?” Sophie asked.
Jankovic ignored her. “Rooster is my classification name since I severed ties with them- the one crowing the dawn, see?” He let out another odd, barky laugh. “It’s the standard code name for people who pose a threat to security. When someone pulls out for ethical reasons, they’re assigned that classification automatically. They can never tell if we’re going to go to the press or not.”
“Then what does DNE mean?” Hanna asked. She had a niggling feeling that she knew the answer already.
“Means ‘do not engage.’” He took a glass of water from the side table and drained what was left of it. “I’m not to be approached by any agents who happen to pass me on the street or somesuch unless they have a terminate order.”
“But what does ‘disestablish-’” Sophie began, then stopped midsentence.
He snorted. “Self-explanatory, no? Unless the state of English education’s taken a steep drop since I was in school.” He set the water glass down with a thump. “Means ‘terminate.’ End. Put down. They’re not taking any chances with me, it seems. Not when I’ve got the information I do.”
“Which is?”
He stared at Hanna for a moment as though he’s forgotten she was still in the room, then shook his head. “The paper. Right.” He held it up again. “What else do you want to know?”
“What the numbers mean.” She paused. “And- and information about my mother. If you have it.”
Sophie’s fingers crept over hers and she rubbed a thumb over Hanna’s knuckles. Hanna didn’t take her eyes from Jankovic, but she squeezed her fingers slightly to let the other girl know she’d noticed.
Jankovic tossed the paper down on the table, and went back to rummaging through the mess of files that he’d dropped earlier. Eventually, he pulled out several stapled-together papers, and flourished them. “Here you go. This was the file that we kept on your mother before the project was terminated. I salvaged it when I left.”
Hanna took the papers and scanned them. A familiar face greeted her, pinned to the top of the sheaf; one she had never seen (or rather, couldn’t remember seeing) in life, but one she had looked at almost every day, in the set of photos she used to mark her place in the book of fairy stories. The text under it was printed in typewriter font, and read:
JOHANNA ZADEK
1976-1998
Classification: Active Terminated
Originator: 5196749000
She turned the page. At the top of the next paper was another picture- a peach-faced baby wrapped in a sterile white blanket, with a tagged bracelet wrapped around its left wrist. Hanna squinted at the bracelet. It said the same as the previous page- 5196749000.
There was more beneath it, but Hanna wasn’t paying attention. Her mouth moved as she sounded out the number designation again. Then she looked back up at Jankovic. “Is that- me?” she asked. “The numbers? They mean me?”
He nodded. “They gave classification numbers to all the children born in Project Solidus, to keep anyone from getting too attached.”
“But my name is Hanna,” she said.
“I know.” He sighed deeply. “Your mother insisted on naming you, and Erik encouraged her. That probably should have been our first warning sign that something would go wrong.”
Hanna set the papers back down on the table. “Tell me about the project.”
Jankovic stood and walked over to the window, peering through the tiny crack in the curtains before returning to the armchair and running a hand over his scalp. “How much do you know already?”
“I know I was meant to be a soldier.” Hanna said softly. “I know they recruited pregnant women to be test subjects. I want to know where you found my mother. Why you killed her. And who my father is.”
He blinked at her. “I’ve no idea who he is. I doubt anyone else did either. I was a research scientist- I worked with the test subjects to see what change I could affect. Some of them volunteered genetic information about their children’s fathers, but your mother never did. It wasn’t of much concern.” He picked up the glass again, remembered it was empty, and tossed it aside with a disgruntled snort. “When the project was shut down, we had to terminate every civilian who was connected to it, to make sure they wouldn’t speak out. Some were silenced with a contract and a payoff. But Johanna wanted to keep you.”
“So she ran,” Hanna finished for him.
He nodded. “We had no idea Erik was planning to help her until all three of you vanished and his apartment was searched. We knew at that point that all three of you needed to be-“ He paused, apparently realizing what he was about to say.
“Killed,” Sophie said. Her voice was shaking on the verge of shouting.
He nodded unhappily. “Understand, I didn’t- I thought it was worth it, what we were doing. I thought the ends would be worth the means.”
“So what made you quit?” Hanna asked.
He rubbed a hand over his face. “Cowardice, I suppose. Fear. I knew you and Erik were after us. I knew there was a chance that everyone else who had worked on the project would be terminated, just to make sure. I didn’t want to take the chance. So I ran.”
“But you took all this with you.” Hanna said. “Why?”
He picked up one of the papers and took a long look at it. “Guilt? Leverage? I’m not sure. I felt that someone should keep it documented. If I’d left it in my office, it would have been destroyed. And I-”
For a moment, Hanna thought he’d cut himself off to gather his thoughts, or just from sheer excess emotion. Then she registered the tiny pop that came from the direction of the window, and saw a small hole appear in Jankovic’s throat. He opened and closed his mouth several times, as if trying to speak, then slumped forward. A steady stream of blood ran down from the hole onto his shirt, soaking it.
Sophie made a horrified noise.
Without a thought, Hanna grabbed the other girl’s arm and yanked her to the ground, just as the door crashed open. Hanna wasted no time in squirming under the couch, fingers still wrapped around Sophie’s wrists, but not before grabbing whatever files were in reach and shoving them down the front of her shirt.
The sound of footsteps made her freeze in place. Beside her, Sophie was trembling, but Hanna’s hand over her mouth kept her from making a sound, and the skirt of the sofa kept anyone from bending down and catching sight of then. Hanna reached out, ignoring Sophie’s muffled protests, and pushed the skirt up slightly, so that she could see and hear what was going on outside.
“-heard voices.” someone said. By their accent, they sounded British. Another voice scoffed. “Who’d he invite over, the neighbourhood kids?” Two pairs of boots passed by the couch, on the way to the dining room.
“Are we torching the place?” one of the voices asked.
“What are you, stupid? How’re we supposed to explain that to the neighbourhood watch? We’ll scrub the evidence, set him up with a gun, and call the bobbies. Our people rule it a suicide, case closed.”
“I still don’t think . . .” The voices faded as the footsteps receded down the hallway. Sophie was still trembling.
“Now.” Hanna hissed, and squirmed out from under the couch, dragging Sophie with her. On the table, she spied her mother’s file; she grabbed it, and turned to go.
“Hanna-“
She spun around in response to Sophie’s voice, and saw a man- presumably one of the ones whose voice she’d heard- standing in the hallway. Sophie was shaking like a leaf next to her, but if anything, he looked as shocked as she felt.
“Hey-“ he began.
Hanna didn’t wait for him to finish. She grabbed the nearest item at hand- a statuette sitting on the hall table- and flung it at him, aiming for his head. The two connected with a crack, and he dropped to the floor. Off in what she assumed was the kitchen, she heard the other man’s voice. “Jim? That you?”
She bolted for the door. This time, Sophie didn’t need to be dragged- she was running even faster than Hanna was. They spilled out onto the porch, and hit the street, feet still pounding. She thought she heard someone behind them, but she didn’t slow or look behind her, just kept running until they were safely lost in the crowds back on High Street.
Sophie let out a long breath. “Did- are they following us?”
Hanna glanced over her shoulder, but saw nothing but ordinary tourists and parents with small children. “I don’t think so.”
“Good.” She let out another shuddery breath. “That’s- good.” Apparently trying to shake off her shivers, she lifted her wrist to check her watch. “Next bus comes in fifteen minutes. Want to take it?”
“Just a moment.” Ignoring the odd stares of the people around her, Hanna pulled the sheaf of papers from under her shirt. She hadn’t been able to grab all of them- some had drifted to the floor on the other side of the table- but there were still enough to hopefully tell her what she wanted to know.
“Yes.” she said, taking Sophie’s hand in her free one. “Let’s go home.”
Epilogue
“It’s funny,” Sophie said, “but I wouldn’t have thought about writing this at all. Not before.”
Hanna stretched out on the grass, extending her arms above her head, enjoying the pull of her muscles. “How is it going?”
“It’s almost done.” Sophie tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, scribbling something on the paper before her. “Hey, would you call me a ‘people person?’”
Hanna considered. “Well, you do talk a lot.”
Sophie threw a handful of grass at her.
After their trip to London, the two had spent days poring over the files Hanna had rescued from Jankovic’s house. Some were incomprehensible- written in so much code that the remaining information was impossible to understand, or heavily blacked out- but there was still enough there to give them a good idea of what exactly had gone on at Reinhild while Hanna’s mother and father (she knew he probably wasn’t, in the truest sense, but she never could quite shake the habit of calling him that) had been there.
It was Sophie who’d suggested sending it all to a newspaper. “That place Fred mentioned, maybe.” She’d said. “They cover this kind of stuff, right? And- he probably had a family. That Jankovic guy, I mean. And the other people who worked on this. Someone should know.”
So she’d written up an e-mail of all of it, and sent it off to the contact person listed on the paper’s site. It had only taken a few hours for them to respond, with more questions than they could fit into a single response. So they went to their office in Birmingham instead. The interview- which had involved sharing all of the files they had found, in addition to giving accounts of their own experiences- had lasted hours. The reporter- a young man only a few years older than them- had scribbled it all down eagerly, and thanked them profusely when it had been time for them to go. On their way out, he’d thrust a paper into Sophie’s hands.
“Take it,” he’d said, “I think you’d be good at it.” Before either of them could ask any questions, he slipped back into his office.
“What is it?” Hanna had asked.
Sophie looked at the paper, and a slow grin spread across her face. “It’s a form for a summer internship.” She looked up. “Hey, you think they’d put me on TV?”
That had been a week earlier. Now, as the term drew to a close, they lay on the front lawn of Sophie’s dorm waiting for her parents to arrive. Hanna was dozing slightly- she’d spent too many late nights recently staying up and poring over her mother’s file until Sophie dragged her to bed- but Sophie was somehow wide awake, frowning and scrubbing the form with her eraser and scribbling in something new. She’d been doing it for a solid hour. Now, at last, she lay the paper down and stretched out on the grass next to Hanna. She closed her eyes. “I think I’ll show it to Mum before I send it in.”
“You already know they want to hire you.” Hanna said, yawning a little. “They wouldn’t have given you the form otherwise.”
Sophie said nothing, but yawned after her. Then she giggled. “You’ve got to stop that, it’s contagious."
“Mmm-hmm.” Hanna picked up a piece of grass and rolled it between her fingers. She glanced at her watch- Sophie had insisted on giving one to her after they got back from London. “Sophie?"
“Yeah?”
“What did you tell your parents about me?”
Sophie rolled her head to the side to look at Hanna. “That you were in the neighbourhood and looked me up, and now you’re staying with me. Mum said you could stay with us for the summer.” She leaned over and kissed her lightly. “Don’t worry about it. Mum likes you. So do Dad and Miles.”
Someone whistled at them from across campus, and Sophie looked up to grin and wave at Lisa. She hadn’t seemed at all surprised to find out that they were- in her words- dating. Neither had Fred. He’s just cuffed Sophie on the shoulder and said “good for you,” which didn’t make sense to Hanna, but she wasn’t going to ask.
Hanna propped herself up on her elbows and looked out towards the parking lot. “I think they’re here.”
Sophie sat up and waved. One of the figures approaching- Rachel- waved back. Sophie grabbed Hanna’s hand. “Come on, let’s go meet them.”
Hanna swallowed hard as they approached, trying to push back the nervousness she could feel climbing her throat. She remembered Rachel being kind when she’d travelled with them, but- that had been before Jankovic, before Marissa, even. Back when she had been a child. How would they react to her now, when she had stumbled uninvited back into their lives and dragged Sophie back into all sorts of danger?
She greeted Sophie with a hug first, exclaiming over how she’d grown since she was last at home. Hanna watched awkwardly, fighting the urge to run away and meet Sophie back at the dorms. Running away from Marissa or the operatives in London was simple enough; waiting to be spoken to was agonizing.
Finally- though it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes- Rachel turned to her, smiling. Hanna let her breath out in a rush. Rachel took her hand. “Sophie says you’d like to stay with us for the summer. Sebastian and I would like you to, if you’re still interested . . . ?”
Hanna took the offered hand, feeling a smile spread across her face. She could feel Sophie’s hand brushing against her free one, and it made her feel happier than she had in a long time.
She nodded. “Yes.” She shot a sidelong glance at Sophie, who was grinning widely. “Yes, I am.”
THE END