1
I’M FINDING IT HARD TO breathe.
Sweat drips down onto my hands, which cling so tightly to the handlebars in front of me that my knuckles pop out, bone white beneath my skin. Trickles of perspiration trail along the muscles of my arms and onto my thighs; muscles that are screaming at me to stop pedaling. But I won’t.
I’m winning this race: edging, bit by tiny bit, ahead of Caitlin and Hala. Each of us stares up at the screen illuminated on the wall before us. Our avatars, linked to the exercise bikes we are on, creep slowly around the glowing outline of a virtual track. The three of us are getting toward the end of two hours of early-morning training here at Athena’s headquarters.
“Is that the best you can do, Cait?” I say. “I’ve seen grandmothers pushing shopping carts faster around grocery stores.”
I’m gulping for breath but just the fact that I eked out a sentence that long is my way of taunting Caitlin.
“Yeah, Jessie?” she pants. “Well, not mine. She just chases down chickens for dinner.”
I grin. It’s a funny image and just possibly true since Caitlin grew up in a tiny Kentucky town.
Hala doesn’t ever participate in much banter so I just steal a glance at her, a sideways look she won’t catch. Her face is tight with the pressure of riding at this resistance and intensity, her dark hair damp with sweat. She’ll never boast or taunt, and she’s a gracious loser (I should know, I beat her a lot) but she has a competitive streak as wide as a river.
“Slow down,” says Amber, from behind us, her tone officious. “You’re beating your all-time records for speed, but you’re creeping into the danger zone for heart rate.”
Well, that’s a momentum killer.
“Amber!” Caitlin and I exclaim at the same time. Feeling the competition drain out of the room, Hala lets out a mild curse in Arabic. My foot slips off the pedal and the spinning rubber catches on my calf, shearing off a thin layer of skin. I gasp and pause for a moment.
“Sorry,” Amber replies, in a tone that makes it clear how not sorry she is. “But this is training, not an ego contest.”
Amber is head of Athena’s technology department and also oversees our training, which she controls mainly by compulsively tapping data into an iPad. I love statistics and numbers, but Amber is off the charts when it comes to tables and graphs, and she might be just a tad obsessive about logging and tracking everything, from our lung capacity to her collection of old vinyl music records. But that obsessive attention to detail also makes her incredibly good at other things, like finding connections between shell companies and offshore bank accounts. Those are the kinds of connections that help Athena to bring down traffickers, terrorists, and a host of others who target mainly women and children. The kind of people that governments rarely have the time or budget to pursue. The kind of people our bosses, Li, Peggy, and Kit, built this rogue agency to fight against.
I get my feet back onto the pedals, ignoring the scrape on my leg that’s just beginning to ooze a thin film of blood, and Caitlin gets her pace up again too, till we are both matching Hala. But the thrill of the chase has passed. We finish the track without the same intensity, leaving Amber stressing about our mediocre speeds.
“Li’s not going to be thrilled with these results,” Amber says, trailing us all toward the door that leads to the showers. She’s probably right about that. It usually takes an effort of superhuman proportions for Li to offer anyone a word of appreciation.
“Then it’s a good thing it’s only ever you that I want to impress.” I smile.
“Sorry to break it to you, Jessie, but you’re failing miserably—” Amber’s retort is cut short by a message flashing up on her phone. She glances at it and then at us.
“What’s up?” asks Caitlin.
“Clean up and report back to the situation room in ten minutes,” she says.
I’d rather spend the short time we have in the locker room soothing my tired muscles under a scalding shower than wielding a hair dryer, so I leave my washed hair damp and tied back and meet my teammates by the elevator. Hala steps in first and lets a small beam of blue light from the unmarked control panel sweep over her iris. Once it recognizes her, the lift starts to move up.
None of us speak, and Caitlin leans tiredly against the sidewall. So tiredly that her eyes actually close for a long moment. I’m just about to throw her a sarcastic comment about being out of shape, but a concerned look from Hala stops me. We both sneak glances at Caitlin again. Shadows form gaunt dips beneath her eyes and there are fine frown lines on her forehead. Caitlin has decided she wants to slowly come off the anxiety meds that she’s been on since her military tours in Iraq. Maybe that’s not helping, or maybe she’s reducing them too fast. Either way, she feels us staring.
“What?” she asks, opening her eyes.
Always reluctant to get too personal, Hala just shrugs and looks away.
“You look rough, that’s all,” I say.
A tiny sigh escapes Caitlin’s lips, a sound that’s almost apologetic. I wait for her to elaborate, but the elevator door opens and she chooses not to answer but to stride out ahead of us into the corridor that leads to the situation room. Coming down to meet us, as he always does, is Thomas. Like Amber, Thomas has been integral to Li’s team since he was out of college. He runs Li’s many agendas, anticipates her requests, arranges her meetings and travel—and yet to call him an assistant feels like it misses the point. It’s more like he’s an extension of Li’s brain; at least the part that organizes the insane schedule she keeps.
“Good workout?” Thomas asks by way of greeting.
“Workout?” I sniff. “It was a bit tougher than your usual jog around the park.”
Thomas smiles, unfazed by my sarcasm. His hair is swept back and perfectly styled; his three-piece suit and shirt are crisp and wrinkle-free. He sports a pink tie and delicate silver cuff links. I’m quite sure that when Thomas slipped out of the womb, his parents asked, “Boy or girl?” and the midwife said, “Neither. You have a beautiful, healthy men’s fashion ad.”
The door of the situation room clicks open at the touch of Thomas’s pass card and he holds it for us to enter, reserving a special smile for Hala as she passes him. Thomas has a crush on her. It’s become apparent to all of us over the past months, from the longing looks he throws her, not to mention the way he always manages to stock the situation room with Hala’s favorite bran muffins, green apples, and mint tea. It’s crossed my mind that maybe it’s more than an unrequited attraction, that maybe they’re seeing each other—but since Thomas is the soul of discretion, and Hala would rather eat dirt than reveal much in the way of feelings, I haven’t been sure.
Thomas sits beside Amber, who has staked out her usual spot at the long table, surrounding herself with multiple laptops and tablets. Across from us are all three of the Athena founders. Li Chen taps on her phone, which sports a very cool red leather case that matches her crimson tailored suit. As the head of one of the world’s largest privately owned technology companies, Li projects the kind of self-assurance that gives everyone the impression that she is definitely in charge. And not just of Chen Technologies, but of the entire universe.