Chapter Four: Too Many Questions

As faithfully as Brownie, the nightmares had been waiting for me all day, and as soon as I tossed and turned myself into sleep, they pounced. One after another they came, the old and the new, begging for attention and fighting for time. There were the old favorites — I was late for a test; I'd completely forgotten to study for the test; I was biking to the test but my bike wouldn't move and I couldn't get off and run. And the newer breeds – I was fleeing the Technocracy but my feet wouldn't move; PJ was standing in the middle of a busy street and I was trying to scream a warning at him but no sound would come from my throat; I was watching, frozen, as Technocratic agents burst into our house to shoot us all. It wasn't even that terrible things actually happened in the dreams – I always woke before I failed or missed a test, or the Technocracy caught us or shot us, or a car struck PJ. It was the sheer terror that I felt within the nightmares that would wake me with a jolt in the middle of the night and leave me feeling panicky and restless for hours. In the beginning I'd mixed sleep aids, but those only held me in thrall to the dreams all night long, unable even to wake so I could read or pace until I calmed down enough to fall back asleep for another round of nightmares. Then I'd tried turbo-caffeinated drinks à la Cyndi so I could avoid sleeping altogether, with the predictable effects on my physical and mental health. Mom and Dad had put a stop to that experiment by counter-spelling my drinks, but neither of them could do anything about the quality of my sleep. These days I just went to bed when tired and took my chances with the nightmares.

Luckily, counterintuitively, the dreams the night the Technocracy almost caught me were relatively muted, as though the nightmarish quality of reality had partially sated my subconscious. Rodrigo's disembodied voice shouting my name did make a cameo in one, but when I woke at 8 a.m. on Saturday, I didn't feel nearly as frazzled as I sometimes did.

I was even dressed and breakfasted in time to help Colette open the bookstore. What a surprise.

"I think they left," was her greeting when I joined her in the shop.

"Who? Mom and Dad?" I yawned. "They always go to that Chinese place for shaobing and youtiao on Saturday mornings." My brain still felt foggy, and I couldn't imagine why Colette was stating the obvious.

"No, sillyhead. Our guests."

Oh, right. Our guests. "Wait, they left?" Hurriedly I checked my phone, but no one had texted me. "Why did they leave?"

Just then, chimes heralded the entry of a mother and an entire host of children, the oldest of whom needed SAT prep books and the younger ones novels for English classes – the usual mix of Steinbeck and Tan, Bradbury and Shakespeare. Helping them track down paperback copies in the specific editions requested by the teachers kept me too busy to brood over yesterday's revelations or wonder where the others had gone, and in any event, Cyndi, Sam, and Ezri soon returned, Starbucks cups in hand, acting like ordinary customers.

"Oh, Natasha," Sam called as the door slammed behind them, "has the Confucius Analects arrived yet?" (From the test prep shelf where the oldest son was comparing the Princeton Review and Barron's editions, the mother glanced over at Sam, impressed that this lao wai was so knowledgeable about Chinese philosophy.)

Before I could answer, Colette popped up. "Yes, I'll get it right away." And she darted off.

"Well, while she's getting it," Ezri said, enunciating for the benefit of any Technocracy spies, "maybe you can help me find a book on mushrooms. I want one with good color photos…."

Still talking a little too loudly, they drew me away from the other customers into the gardening section (located outdoors, appropriately), where they updated me on pieces of the story they'd discovered. Unfortunately, all we had were fragments – Dr. Etrin had already responded with great enthusiasm to Cyndi's email, showing suspicious curiosity as to her whereabouts; Ezri had shared that his mom had vanished fourteen months ago, just like PJ; and under intense questioning (probably by Sam), he'd reluctantly divulged that Rodrigo's voice was so familiar because the Technocrat called him every two weeks to ask if he wanted a "checkup." (What?!) Beyond that Ezri categorically refused to elaborate.

What did all these pieces of information mean? Who could help us interpret them? Sam's mentor had vanished three years ago (Cyndi was already combing the internet for clues, but that would take time), and Ezri's was missing too. If Cyndi and Zig had mage contacts, neither was volunteering the information.

"Well," I sighed. "I guess we should talk to my parents."

Steeling myself against the inevitable hue and cry, I led the others into the kitchen, where Mom and Dad had returned from their favorite restaurant in Cupertino with a take-out Chinese breakfast assortment – soy milk, long deep-fried youtiao, chewy flat shaobing. At the sight of the two of them sharing a private, almost peaceful moment as they savored their meal, my courage failed me. How could I intrude with the report of their worst fears come true? The Technocracy had identified me and probably the entire family by now, and had kidnapped PJ and, if Sam and Ezri's drug-fueled hallucinations had spoken true, was doing unspeakable things to him. Maybe I shouldn't torment them with fragments of facts yet. Maybe I should wait until we knew more.

While I dithered in the doorway, for better or worse, Sam took the decision out of my hands. From behind me, he greeted them politely. "Good morning, Mr. Lin, Mrs. Lin."

One glance at me and their parent-dar set off alarms.

"Natasha, what's wrong?" Mom demanded.

I hesitated, trying to find a gentle way to break the story.

Nope, nothing was coming to mind.

"Before you start, do your friends want something to eat?" Dad suggested courteously. "As you can see, we have way too much to eat ourselves – " he gestured at the heap of youtiao and shaobing and styrofoam containers full of soy milk – "and we have American breakfast foods as well. Toast, eggs, muffins, cereal, fruit – what would you like?"

Mom was already bustling around the kitchen, pulling out plates, bowls, and utensils, and bringing over folding chairs. Between her and Dad, they quickly had everyone seated at the table with some form of solid or liquid breakfast. "It the Asian feed-people gene," I explained to Ezri, who looked a little bemused as he poked at a youtiao.

"Ah," he nodded and, with an air of teenage nonchalance, took a big bite.

Satisfied that no one was going hungry, Mom turned her attention back to me. "Now what's wrong?"

"Um, okay. So, um, yesterday, I went up to SF and hung out with these guys."

"Where?" she instantly asked. I'd been hoping to leave that part out.

"We were at a bar."

"You didn't get into a bar fight, did you?" My senses tingled as she Prime-scanned me for signs of recent healing.

"What? No!"

"Did you do property damage? Did you get arrested? Is that why you came home so late?"

"No! Of course not! Why would I do property damage? I'm perfectly capable of going to a bar and drinking responsibly, you know!"

At this point, Sam wisely intervened before the conversation degenerated into another mother-daughter screaming match. "Mrs. Lin," he explained, choosing his words slowly and deliberately, "we don't want to alarm you, but the four of us and another friend had a brush with the Technocracy." That was one way of putting it.

"A brush with the Technocracy?" Dad demanded.

Ezri made a dismissive gesture. "Yes, but it was fine because the bartender is a friend and she got us out of there."

From the looks on Mom's and Dad's faces, I could tell that they most definitely did not think that it was "fine." I jumped in. "But that's not what we wanted to ask you. What we wanted to talk about are these dreams Sam has been having." I got excited. "He saw PJ! We can find PJ if we figure out his dreams!"

They sat, stunned, as Sam described the stones with initials and the keystone that said "PJL." Tactfully he omitted the parts with the keystone shouting for help and the JMF stone sobbing quietly, but it was already a hard enough blow for my parents. For a long moment, neither of them spoke. Then Mom said to Dad in a low urgent tone, "They've found us. We need to run."

He replied soberly, "We need to wrap things up here. It will take a few days."

"No, we need to leave now."

I felt as if I were in a nightmare again, one of the ones in which I was trying to shout but couldn't force the air out of my lungs. "What do you mean, 'run'?" I squeaked. "What about PJ?"

"Lin Lan-Tse," Dad said, and I knew it was very serious when he used my Chinese name, "the fact that the Technocracy came that close to capturing you yesterday means that they know exactly who everyone in this family is. That means that we need to run before they come for us."

"But what about PJ? We need to find him!"

"We can't do anything to help PJ," he replied sadly. "His fate was out of our hands the moment we entrusted him to Xavier."

"Xavier?" asked Ezri sharply.

"Yes," Dad said. "We knew your mentor." He explained to all of us, "We received a letter from Cassandra's Handmaid – " Cyndi and I gave each other quick glances – "telling us that PJ needed to go into hiding and arranging for Xavier to take him to safety. But as you know, both of them disappeared." Mom bowed her head.

"When was this?" Ezri demanded.

"Who's Cassandra's Handmaid?" Sam asked.

"We don't know," Dad told Sam. To Ezri, he replied, "Xavier came for PJ late at night on January 9, 1998."

"But," said Ezri, looking puzzled, "Xavier and I went into the Umbra earlier that day. We got separated. So he came out again, picked up PJ, and then went somewhere else?"

"So it appears."

I protested, "Now we have a lead! We should all work together to figure out where PJ and Xavier and those other kids are so we can rescue them!"

"Rescue them! Are you crazy?" Mom shouted. "Are you even listening to yourself? The Technocracy has taken out the most powerful mages in the world! They assassinated the Council of Nine! What makes you think we can take them on?"

I couldn't believe it. "So you're just going to leave PJ?"

Sam murmured, "We're not the cavalry," and Ezri nodded his assent.

Dad interjected, "Natasha, we love your brother dearly, but we have to be realistic. We simply don't have the power or resources to challenge the Technocracy. The only thing we can do now is save the remaining members of the family."

Childhood is the kingdom where no one has to make hard choices….

"Well, I'm not going. I'm going to stay right here and find PJ."

"Young lady, you are leaving with us and that's final."

"No, we should at least look for him before we run away!"

My friends exchanged awkward looks, clearly asking themselves what was the polite thing to do – play peacemaker? Tiptoe out and leave us to our family fight? Sit there and pretend nothing was wrong?

Analects in hand, Colette wandered into the kitchen, and I seized upon this new ally. "Colette, tell them we have to stay here and look for PJ!"

"It's foolishness to sacrifice the entire family! We are leaving as soon as we can!"

Poor Colette looked utterly bewildered but, at a glance, knew she wouldn't get anything sensible out of us if Mom and I stayed in the same room. "Why don't you mind the bookstore while I talk to them, so there's someone out front?" she suggested to me.

"Fine!" I shoved my chair back with a horrible squealing sound of wood on tiles, and stalked out. With mumbled thanks, my friends quickly dropped whatever bits of food they were pretending to eat and scurried after me, Sam pausing to take the Analects and thank Colette. Behind us, I heard her asking, "So what's going on?"

Back in the bookstore, I manned the register while Cyndi, Ezri, and Sam drew up chairs nearby and we discussed our next move under the cover of a debate over Confucianism. "No, no, no, you're interpreting that completely wrong," Ezri exclaimed while Sam pointed to random passages in the book and shouted, "But Confucius clearly says here that – " and so on. When I walked over to "calm" them, Cyndi whispered that she'd received a ping on her phone apprising her of an odd development online – on a Starcraft form she frequented, a user named Kitsune had posted the name of Sam's mentor, and now other users were bumping it up repeatedly so it remained the first hit. But what did that mean? And who was Kitsune? What did he or she have to do with Sam's mentor?

"Can you contact Kitsune and ask?" I suggested.

Sam, as expected, was adamantly opposed. "No, it's a trap for us, another Technocracy trap. That's how they'll get us."

To my surprise, Ezri agreed with him. "There's a good chance that it's bait. I think we need to find out more before we try to talk to this 'Kitsune'."

"Okay, but how? Obviously my parents don't know anything and don't plan to find out anything. Cyndi doesn't have a mentor that I know of." We raised our eyebrows at her, but she declined to comment. "And Sam's and Ezri's mentors have both disappeared. So whom can we ask?"

"I'm not sure we should be asking for help," Sam pointed out. "We are not the cavalry. The best thing to do may be to keep our heads down and stay out of sight."

Cyndi noted, "Except that's what we've been doing and they almost got us anyway."

"All the more reason not to go poking our noses into things!"

"Let's talk to Jasmine,"Ezri said, suddenly perking up. "She'll know what to do."

A brief silence fell as we mulled over this plan. On the one hand, none of us but Ezri knew her and she could be a Technocratic spy. Despite their self-confidence, seventeen-year-olds were far from infallible. But on the other hand, she had hidden us from the Technocracy. But on yet another hand, she hadn't been very reassuring about it – her demeanor had proclaimed indifference to our fate, and her Effect had bludgeoned us hard enough to knock us out for several hours. But on another hand still, she hadn't exactly had much time to wrangle over magical subtleties with us with the Technocracy right on her doorstep…. At this rate, I was going to have as many hands as an alien.

Finally, Sam broke the silence. "You're sure we can trust her?"

"Yes, of course we can trust her." Delivered with exasperation.

Another thoughtful pause. "Well," said Cyndi at last, "I would like to ask her a few questions."

So it was decided – whether or not we were the cavalry was very much up for debate, but at least we were an intelligence agency of sorts. Or investigative journalists. Something of that ilk, with an inquisitive bent.

"Right, I'll call Zig and have him meet us somewhere," Sam said and headed outside with Adam to find a payphone.

"How are we getting up there?" Cyndi asked practically. "Can we all fit in Ezri's car?"

We did a quick head count: Cyndi, Ezri, Sam, Adam, me. Technically three of us could squeeze into the backseat, but Adam was really big.

I said rather doubtfully, "I could ask to borrow our car, but I think Mom needs it for grocery shopping."

"Maybe we could put the golem in the trunk?" Ezri proposed.

"That would be so awkward if we got pulled over. Having a body in the trunk?" I exclaimed.

Cyndi groaned. "Not to mention a body made of animated clay?"

Ezri threw up his hands in frustration. "We'll be in trouble no matter what if we get pulled over! Because believe me, the only people who'd pull us over would be the Technocracy."

A rather irate Colette interrupted this fruitful conversation. "Why aren't you helping the customers? I just convinced Mom and Dad not to move to Europe this minute. You were supposed to be running the store!"

Right, about that. Giving her my toothiest grin, I complimented her, "Great job! Now we need to run up to SF for something, so can you watch the bookstore while I'm gone?" Behind my back, I made urgent "get up, get up" gestures at Cyndi and Ezri. As we edged towards the exit, I called, "I'll make it up to you!"

Hands planted indignantly on her hips, she yelled after me, "You'd better!"


As it turned out, Sam had arrived by moped the night before and had had the foresight to attach a sidecar for Adam. Personally, I didn't think the golem should be so visible in public, but if Sam's paranoia were at a manageable level, I wasn't going to say anything. After agreeing to meet at a Starbucks in SF, the rest of us piled into Ezri's car (which I Correspondence and Time warded, just in case). On a Saturday morning, few cars were on the freeway, and our drive passed uneventfully except for Ezri's sudden panic attack over whether we should involve ourselves in all this. Our argument was thankfully interrupted by the arrival of a mail spirit, bearing, of all things, a message from Sam to Jasmine. Stymied by the wards around Twilight, it had identified us as the best surrogates to deliver it. Considering that the note asked Jasmine to meet us at Starbucks and delivering it ourselves would have been absolutely pointless, Ezri rolled his eyes and threw it away. Cyndi did try to call her, but no one answered the phone at Twilight. Given that it was 11 a.m. and all revelers were probably still asleep, it was hardly surprising that a bar would be closed. We did drive past it to confirm what common sense told us.

Arriving before Sam, Adam, and Zig at Starbucks, we commandeered two of the little round tables in a corner and took turns ordering. Ezri, being Ezri, got a coffee, split it between three cups to the barrista's confusion, and added a mushroom to each. Cyndi had a double espresso (of course) and a pastry for the sugar jolt, and at my persistent poking added an oatmeal cup for some minimal nutritional value. While we waited and Ezri toyed with his mushrooms, we speculated as to the Technocracy's plot. Was it experimenting with ways to brainwash all of us "reality deviants"? Was that why they needed Mind mages and neuroscientists?

Since we weren't getting anywhere, Ezri decided to grow some mushrooms in the trash can. He worked an Entropy effect to distract the barista, "accidentally" spilling coffee and asking for towels. While he cleaned up, he scattered some spores on the damp towels before tossing them in the trash. What he hoped to accomplish by growing mushrooms in a trash can in Starbucks I wasn't sure, but before I could ask, Sam, Adam, and Zig entered.

"Good morning!" Zig greeted all of us cheerfully. " What's up?" He looked as crumpled as if he had slept in a dumpster. I decided not to ask where he'd spent his night.

"Has Sam updated you on our plan?" Ezri asked, scooting his chair over to make room for them.

"Yep," said Zig. " We're going to talk to Jasmine."

Sam scanned the other customers suspiciously before leaning over to whisper, "I sent her a message asking her to meet us here."

Ezri rolled his eyes at that. "We know. The spirit couldn't get through the wards at Twilight so it gave us the message to deliver."

"Oh, for —" Sam was so exasperated he couldn't even finish his curse.

"Language," warned Adam.

"I didn't swear." Sam glared at it.

"Well," Cyndi broke in. "Why don't I set up a warded phone call to Twilight? Ezri?"

"Yep, let's." A few keystrokes later, Cyndi nodded at him, and he dialed Twilight's number (which he'd apparently memorized). The conversation with Jasmine, unsurprisingly, was terse. "Hey, Jasmine, it's Ezri. Uh huh, no trouble at all. Everything's fine." A pause. "Want to meet us at Starbucks so we can talk?" A longer pause. Ezri winced a little. "Okay, okay, fine, we can come over. Ten minutes is fine. Okay, see you then." He clicked shut his phone and shrugged.

"Twilight in ten minutes?" Zig asked. "Thought it was closed. How're we going in, man?"

"It's open now."

Sam, naturally, focused right on the logistics. "It's open? How are we going to have a private conversation with Jasmine then? Also, how are we getting in there? We can't just all walk up to the front door. The Technocracy is just waiting for us to make a mistake like that!"

Ezri rolled his eyes again. "Relax, Sam. I wasn't suggesting that."


Indeed, ten minutes later, the rest of us tiptoed (well, stomped slightly less loudly in Adam's case) around the back of Twilight and slipped down into the dungeons while Ezri strolled in the front disguised via a Life Effect as a homeless urchin. (Although why he thought it was realistic for homeless, underage urchins to stroll into bars was quite beyond me.) After a tense, blind wait in one of the bedrooms — Cyndi had botched her attempt to hack the security cameras and drained her laptop batteries — Ezri came to fetch us. At Sam's dubious look, he explained that Jasmine had said the wards in the bar were stronger.

Trying to act normal, we followed him up a dank narrow stairwell and emerged into the room where we'd been cornered by the Technocracy not a day ago. There was the long bar where we'd sat, there was the door through which Rodrigo's voice had blared…. And now everything was quiet and peaceful, a few blissfully ignorant Sleepers lounging about the tables enjoying a solitary mid-morning beer. As before, a stern-looking Jasmine stood behind the bar, wiping down the surface and keeping an eye on the customers. This time, though, as soon as she saw us, she ordered loudly, "Everyone out! The bar is closed."

The Sleepers looked up blearily.

"But I haven' fineeshed…" one started to protest.

A glare from those fierce eyes cut him off. "I said, the bar is closed. I want everyone out now. Unless you don't plan on coming back here again, Tim?"

Mom would kill us if we treated any customers this way. Although sometimes I certainly wished I could. "How is this good for business?" I murmured to Cyndi, who only quirked a distracted smile.

It did take some more time for all the customers to settle their tabs and stumble out, but once the last one was on the sidewalk, Jasmine shut and locked the front door. "Now, what do you want from me?" she demanded, crossing the room to put the bar back between herself and us.

Ezri opened his mouth, but Sam burst out, "What the f— " Adam poked him hard — "happened yesterday? What did you do to us?"

She stared at him icily. "I saved your lives, did I not?"

"How? Why? What did you do?" Sam demanded again, voice shaking.

Cyndi intervened at this point. "I think what Sam is trying to say is that we appreciate what you did for us yesterday." She gave him a meaningful look, and he dropped his gaze to his hands, which were trembling uncontrollably.

"Yeah," Zig added. He'd seated himself at the bar and pulled out a pipe. "It was really cool, man. What you did, I mean. Not the part where the Technocracy almost caught us." He put the pipe in his mouth and inhaled deeply.

Jasmine was unappeased. "This one doesn't seem to think so." She jerked her head in Sam's direction.

Cyndi continued in her peacemaker role. "We're just scared, and confused. We don't know what's going on, we don't know whom we can trust, and we just found out a lot of information we don't know how to process." She gave the most concise summary possible of the arch and the initials and the disappearances, but even then Sam protested every other sentence that we were giving away too much. "We were hoping you could help us," she concluded, resolutely ignoring Sam. (Zig leaned precariously over from his bar stool to give Sam a comforting pet on the shoulder.)

Throughout the recital, Jasmine's expression had remained unchanged. "Fort Ord," she said crisply. "Find out what's going on there and I'll tell you more."

"Fort Ord?" Ezri asked.

"'S down in Monterey," Zig explained helpfully.

"I know that." Ezri seemed to be on the verge of losing his temper. "What does Fort Ord have to do with anything? You were my mom's friend. Why won't you tell us anything? Why won't you help me?" Toward the end, his questions turned into a plea, and for once he sounded scared, and seventeen.

His mother's friend gazed implacably at him and then at each of us in turn. "Consider it a test to see if you're trustworthy." At that Sam sputtered furiously, while Zig raised his eyebrows in amusement. "Find out what's happening at Fort Ord and return here. Then we'll talk."


Back out on the sidewalk, dismissed as abruptly as those Sleeper customers, we made our plans. Cyndi would take the rest of the day to investigate both Rodrigo and Fort Ord, and Zig would inquire on the streets about missing people with initials on our list. We'd reconvene again the following morning to discuss their findings.

It was a good plan, but it left me with nearly a full day to kill — wait, bad choice of words. I'd never felt more helpless. PJ was being tortured by the Technocracy, Mom and Dad wanted to drop everything and run away, and my friends and I were all on the Technocracy's hit list. What was I supposed to do with myself when there wasn't anything useful I could do? I felt jumpy and restless, and I just couldn't bear the thought of facing Mom and Dad, who'd be anxious and unhappy (and it was all my fault, or at least it felt like that, for giving us away to the Technocrats), or Colette, who'd be anxious and unhappy and annoyed (and it was my fault again, for abandoning her when I was supposed to help run the bookstore).

A responsible, mature adult would go home, console her parents and apologize to her sister, and help them analyze the options open to the family.

Right. Maybe another day.

Instead, I hopped on a bus to Chinatown and bought more herbs. After all, you never knew when they'd come in handy, right? I took my time with my selection, too. Then I had lunch at a hole-in-the-wall dumpling place, taking so long with my meal that the owner came over to inform me that she needed to close down the restaurant between lunch and dinner. After that I rode the bus around the city for a few hours, resolutely reciting poems in my head to block out any other thoughts. Finally I dragged myself home in time for dinner and another fight over whether we should run or stay. By the time I walked in the back door, Mom had already packed half our possessions, and there were boxes and packaging tape everywhere I looked. She'd even gone into my bedroom and started to sort my clothing, which I found particularly irritating.

Suffice it to say that Dad and Colette wisely absented themselves during the loudest part of the screaming match.

Eventually, after the dust had settled, Brownie and Cookie had slunk out from under various beds, and Dad and Colette had emerged cautiously from her room, where they'd probably been performing a rational, mature analysis of our options, Dad proposed (and Mom and I reluctantly — for opposing reasons — agreed) that they would leave in exactly one week. They needed time to prepare for our escape anyway because, as Dad pointed out, vanishing without a trace takes careful planning.

That meant I had seven days to find my brother.

Spent from the fight, I wearily climbed the stairs to my room. As I shut the door behind me, my phone pinged with text from Cyndi. "Just got this message," she wrote. "From Cassandra's Handmaid. 'Your info, your mission.'"

And what was that supposed to mean?!