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NINE
Outside the Jumbo Jungle, Ana showed Tabby a photo of Esme Santoro.
“You need to find this kid, make friends, and bring her to us, okay?”
“What if she doesn’t wanna be friends?”
“You’ll find a way to make her.”
“The thing you said?The manpi… The manpu…”
“Manipulate.Yes, that thing.We believe in you,kotyonak.”
“Okay.”Tabby clenched small fists by her sides.“Okay.I do this.”
Laurie Santoro was sitting alone at a table overlooking the ball pool, and she didn’t look good.Haggard, chewed ragged around the edges.She stared into a steaming mug shaped like a hippopotamus as painfully enthusiastic “fun managers” shepherded kids around an inflatable obstacle course.Fuck, the noise.Ana grimaced faintly as we headed for the café’s counter, and I began to yearn for the brutal isolation of Base 13.
“Are kids always this loud?”
“When you get a bunch of them together, yes.”She opened her purse and offered me a tiny package.“You want earplugs?”
“Thanks.”
Our mugs were shaped like an owl and a penguin, neither of which lived in a jungle, so I figured the staff had decided to use poetic licence.What I needed was horilka, but we had to make do with coffee and cupcakes.The cupcakes had cat ears and whiskers.Paulo would have been in heaven here.
Tabby waded gamely into the melee, and although Ana’s expression was one of bored resignation, she didn’t take her eyes off her daughter.We’d selected a table near the back (a) because it was quieter and (b) so we could watch Laurie without her noticing us.
“All these years we dreamed of a normal life,” Ana said.“And then normal turns out to be watching two kids beating the shit out of each other with inflatable flamingos.”
“I still can’t believe you have a child.”
“Some days,Ican’t believe I have a child.But I wouldn’t change things.”
“Not even the soundtrack?Whatisthis?”
“It’s the Baby Shark song.”
“Now there are sharks in the jungle?”
We stared at each other for a beat and then began laughing.What else could we do?This situation was entirely absurd.If General Zacharov could see us now, he’d give himself an aneurysm, which, quite frankly, would have been far too kind an end for him.
Ana reached across the table and squeezed my hand.“I know we’ve had a hard week, but I’m glad you’re back in my life.”
“Same.”
The word fell out of my mouth, an instinctive response, even though Ana’s reappearance had turned my life upside down.Life in Baldwin’s Shore had been safe.Far from perfect, but safe.Now my future was filled with difficult decisions.
“So, you and Alexei?”
I choked on my coffee.“You can’t ask me that.”
“Why not?”
“Because…because we didn’t cover meaningful human interactions in our training.”
“So you’re saying you don’t know what you’re doing?”