Fanfiction: When You Get Older

[evewithanapple.livejournal.com]

Title: When You Get Older
Fandom: Hanna (2011)
Summary: Two years after her brush with a mysterious girl and an even more mysterious government agency, Sophie is now in her first year of university, concentrating on her studies and trying not to think about the girl who still haunts her thoughts. But when Hanna drops unexpectedly back into her life, Sophie can no longer ignore what the girl represents- to the world and to herself.
Rating: PG-13
Notes: Written for  thelittlebang challenge.

Before I started writing this, I would never in a million years have imagined myself completing a 15 000+ word fic, let alone doing it within the space of four months. It's certainly been a challenge for me

This fic would not have been completed- and would certainly never have been posted- without the input and encouragement of more people than I can count. A million thanks to littledust and mambo-chocobo, who beta read the piece while it was in draft stages. Your work has made this fic what it is now. And another million thanks goes to everyone who cheerlead me on Tumblr while I was in the writing process- sour-idealist, flashandthunderfire, glitterandgrit, glamaphonic, , -redux, dutchydoescoke, and many others. Thanks also go to sentintola, for Britpicking and general advice and support, the artist who illustrated this fic, and the littlebang mods themselves for hosting this challenge. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you all.

 Sophie had a pounding headache

She’d stumbled back to the forms the night before, after visiting the campus bar, imbibing more alcohol than Russell Brand on a Mardi Gras weekend, and getting into a shouting match with her friend Lisa. Now sore, nauseated, and suitably ashamed of herself, she really wanted nothing more than to curl up in bed and not poke her head out for the rest of the day. Possibly the week.

Her alarm clock, unfortunately, had other ideas.

Groaning, she rolled over and thumped the top of the radio, sending the weather announcer’s voice into a blur of static. She threw an arm over her eyes- even the mild sunlight peeping in from between the blinds was too much- and sighed. Bloody beer. Bloody Lisa. What had they been arguing about, anyway?

Oh, right. One of Lisa’s great ideas. She’d been trying to set Sophie up with one of her Sociology classmates- some blond with an overabundance of spray tan and teeth that actually hurt to look directly at- and hadn’t taken too well to Sophie turning her down. Somehow, the first few iterations of “I’m really not looking for a boyfriend right now” hadn’t taken, and she’d had to escalate to yelling. Not that she hadn’t been doing that before the argument had gotten heated. Sometimes she thought that clubs blasted the music at top volume just to keep the entire building from being torn down in a drunken brawl.

“I thought he’d be your type!”

With a sigh, Sophie rolled out of bed, and immediately regretted it as her stomach rolled with her. Gingerly- she didn’t want to puke all over the carpet, especially as it’d just been cleaned- she stood up and twisted the dial on the radio, flipping over to the morning news before heading to the dresser to find some clean clothing. God, even the lingering smell of detergent made her queasy. Never again.

She rooted through the pile of clothes on the top of the dresser- she still hadn’t bothered to fold or stuff the laundry into drawers- until she managed to find a relatively scent-free t-shirt and pulled it on, followed by a pair of shorts. The newsreader was rambling on about some drunk-and-disorderly arrests in town the night before. Apparently someone had had a worse night than her.

“-and in nearby news, the Norwich police force is searching for a young blonde woman termed a ‘person of interest’ after a series of cars were broken into.”

Wait. What? Frowning, Sophie reached over and turned up the volume. The newscaster continued, “no items of value were stolen, though some did report food items missing from their cars, which appeared to have been slept in. Police have declined to comment on what action they plan to take, but encourage anyone with information to contact their hotline at five oh nine, nine six four . . . “

Stupid, Sophie thought, pressing her thumb down on the off button. Stupid, stupid, stupid. What kind of astronomical coincidence would be required for her to show up in Norwich of all places, when Sophie just happened to be at school there? It was probably just some vagrant who happened to be blonde and female. It wasn’t like blonde women were a rare commodity only glimpsed in nature preserves or sad commercials with Sarah McLachlan songs and narrators begging viewers to send in a pound to save the species from dying out. She was being stupid.

The faint scent of bacon was beginning to waft in from under her suitemate’s door, and it made her stomach lurch. First order of business: coffee. Then she had to go and find Lisa, apologize for the previous night’s fiasco, and try to salvage her Social and Political Theory paper before she turned it in on Tuesday and completely ruined her grade.

* * * *

Hanna hadn’t slept the night before.

She had tried going back to the car she’d been in earlier, but it was surrounded by police tape and scowling officers, so instead she fled. After she’d been rousted from several park benches in London, she’d known better than to try sleeping out in the open, but she also didn’t have any alternatives. Spring had begun several weeks ago but it hadn’t yet abated the bite of cold in the air, and although she’d huddled under an awning overnight, she hadn’t been able to fall asleep. She’d left her jacket behind in Dieppe before crossing the Channel because someone had snapped a photo of her, but she missed it. Her shirt was too thin to protect her from the weather, and it was frequently soaked through with rainwater. She shivered, and wrapped both arms around herself.

She put a hand into the back pocket of her jeans, touching the ragged edge of a piece of paper. She carried very little with her- early on, she had tried carrying a rucksack, but it quickly became too cumbersome, and she had abandoned it in Brussels. This was the only item she’d kept while crossing through Germany and France: a faded bit of paper, creased in several places, the ink running from when it had been doused in ocean water. She had read it so often, she had the words memorized.

Marissa Wiegler

5196749000

RE: David Jancovik

London Branch

The lamb has caught the wolf

Be careful of the rooster

She had read over dozens of times, but still couldn’t decipher it. Who was the rooster? What was the wolf? What did the numbers mean? She had pulled it out of Marissa’s jacket pocket, looking for something- anything- about her mother. Instead all she’d found was a handful of change (she’d spent that in a fast food restaurant- a mouthful of French fries for two euros, that had ended up giving her a stomach-ache anyway) a pen, and the paper.

She didn’t know what it meant. But she could read the words, and one of them- London- clicked somewhere in her mind. London was in England. She knew where England was. Sophie had been from England. Sophie and her family had been kind to her. She could trust them. They might be able to help.

As the morning light grew brighter, she stood, and took her hand out of her pocket. She had several miles still to travel that day, and no transportation beyond her feet. Best to get started right away.

* * * *

Several cups of coffee later, Sophie was feeling better- or at least, “not dead,” which was a step up from how she’d felt when she woke- she scrubbed her face clean, swiped a stick of lip gloss across her mouth, and headed out, backpack slung over her shoulder. She was already fifteen minutes late for class, but hopefully the prof wouldn’t notice if she slipped in the back door.

Fortunately for her, a movie was playing when she came in, and no one even looked up when the door closed. She slipped into the seat next to Lisa, who was watching the film through half-closed eyes, her head resting on her notebook. She cracked one eye opened when Sophie sat down. “Hey.”

“Hi.” she said awkwardly. “So, about what happened-”

Lisa waved a hand. “No worries. You were drunk. I was drunk. Everybody was drunk. Forget it.”

She should have left it at that, but her conscience prodded at her. “I didn’t mean to-”

“Shhh!” someone hissed from across the aisle. Lisa lifted an arm lazily to flip a rude hand gesture in his direction. “No more blind dates. I get it. Concentrate on your schoolwork. Purify your body. All that shit. Let me sleep, okay?” She closed both eyes again. In the background, rapid bursts of gunfire sounded from the television, mingled with shouts and the rattling of artillery. Sophie felt suddenly very tired. Lisa’s strategy seemed like a good one. She folded both arms on her desk, laid her head down next to her, and closed her eyes.

When the class was over- having taken no notes, but watched several hours of History Channel programming- Sophie and Lisa crossed the courtyard centered in the middle of campus. Sophie’s headache, already diminished from the coffee, had largely subsided during her class-induced nap, so the weak sunlight only hurt her eyes a little. She and Lisa were in the middle of an animated conversation about the relative historic merits and artistic merits of wartime propaganda (ostensibly what they were meant to read about for next week’s class) when Sophie froze mid-step.

“Ow!” Lisa yelped, running headfirst into her back. “Warn me the next time you do that, will you? I like to know when I’m about to hit a roadblock.”

Sophie didn’t answer. She was too busy focusing on the opposite side of the courtyard- more specifically, on the figure standing there, half-hidden in the shadow of the overhanging building. She- she assumed it was a she, anyway- was more than a little scruffy, dressed in a long-sleeved hooded shirt and jeans that had seen more wear than washings, with equally beat-up running shoes on her feet. Her hood was pulled up over her face, so Sophie couldn’t see her eyes. But she could see her hair, long and tangled, spilling out over her shoulders.

Blonde hair.

It can’t be.

“Hey, Sophie?” Lisa poked her in the back. “You planning on moving anytime soon? Because I don’t know about you, but I’d rather like to have lunch-”

“I’ll catch you up.” Sophie said faintly. With a shrug and an “if you say so,” Lisa sauntered off, leaving Sophie still planted on the flagstones of the courtyard, staring at the blonde figure. She still hadn’t moved.

It couldn’t be.

Slowly- she didn’t wanted to frighten the person off, and she certainly wasn’t going to go flying across the courtyard like she expected to be swept up in her arms or something- she edged towards the corner. Still, the figure didn’t move. Her steps felt slower than usual, though she was certain that she was walking at a regular pace, and her hands were trembling by the time she reached the far end of the courtyard. Hesitantly (this is ridiculous Sophie, what are you doing?) she reached out and pushed the hood back.

“Hello.”

“Oh my god.” she said, loudly enough for several people nearby to turn their heads. The other girl glanced from side to side, as though she was afraid that Sophie’s voice would call down some weapon-wielding authority figure. Given what had happened last time (oh god) perhaps it wasn’t such a far-off proposition.

“Hanna?” she said disbelievingly. “But you- how- and why here-?”

Hanna held a finger to her lips, shaking her head. “Not here.” She reached out and grasped Sophie’s arm tightly. “Can we go inside?”

“But-” There were a million questions pressing as the back of her throat- where have you been, how did you find me, why were those people after you, and oh hey, why did you slit those guys’ throats in front of me?- but she could tell just looking at Hanna that she wasn’t going to get any of those answers standing in the courtyard. She swallowed. “Okay. Let’s go inside.”

* * * *

She took Hanna to the food court in the main plaza, and ordered them a pizza- she asked what toppings the other girl wanted, but she just looked at her in confusion- as well as a large bottle of Coke and a cookie. (The cookie was for her.) She didn’t yet feel up to touching the pizza, but that hardly mattered anyway; Hanna attacked it with the ferocity of someone who hadn’t eaten in days, possibly a week. Sophie munched quietly on her less-than-lunch (her father would probably tell her off if he knew; the idea was oddly relaxing) and watched the other girl devour her food. She wondered what Hanna had been eating for the past two years, if she had gotten a job- that idea almost made her laugh, Hanna waiting tables- if she’d been eating out of Dumpsters and snatching scraps from abandoned plates. That last thought made her want to reach out and squeeze the other girl’s hand, but Hanna still flinched whenever someone moved too close to her, so she didn’t.

Lisa showed up fifteen minutes after they did.

“Heyyyyyyyyyy.” she said, dropping into the seat next to Sophie. Hanna looked up and cringed; Sophie shook her head, and she went back to chewing frenetically on the pizza. “Didn’t think I’d find you here; I figured you were off puking some more.” It was then that she noticed Hanna. “Who’s your friend?”

Hanna looked like she was contemplating whether to fight or flee, but she still politely swallowed her mouthful before answering. “Hanna.”

“Hanna, huh?” Lisa cocked her head in a way that somehow always meant impending danger. “Don’t think I’ve ever heard Sophie mention you.”

“We met on vacation,” Sophie said quickly, sparing Hanna the necessity of answering. “When we were ki- younger.” Kids sounded like such a weird word in this context; she’d been fifteen at the time, and as much as she cringed sometimes remembering what a brat she’d been, she couldn’t really call herself a child when she’d been sneaking out to ride on motorcycles with boys and swiping absinthe when her parents weren’t looking. But then she thought about the container park and the bright red arterial spray spattering across the pavement and the slapping sound of her flip-flops as she’d turned tail and ran away from her best friend.

She certainly hadn’t been an adult.

“Hmm.” Lisa said. She lay both arms on the table, one crossed over the other, and raised her eyebrows at Hanna. “Hungry?”

“Yes.” Hanna said simply, taking another bite. That slowed Lisa down for a second, and Sophie bit back a snicker. She recovered quickly though, and asked, “So are you going to school here?”

That gave Sophie pause, and her eyes flicked from Hanna to Lisa and back again, waiting to see what would happen. She didn’t have an answer for that either, and she wanted to hear one.

“No.” Hanna said simply. “I’m visiting.” She set the last pizza crust down and glanced between Sophie and Lisa. “Are you . . . friends?” The word slipped from her tongue like it was unfamiliar, too hot to keep in her mouth. Sophie touched her wrist, remembering a warm night in Bahrain and a bracelet woven from multi-coloured threads.

Thank you for being my friend.

“Lisa’s in my History class.” she said.

Lisa rolled her eyes. “Oh sure, that’s all I get? I let her copy my notes-” this to Hanna- “so she doesn’t flunk out. Oh and I loaned her money for drinks last night.” She stood up, slinging her purse over her shoulder. “Anyway, I’ve got to get to PoliSci. Later, bitch.” She punched Sophie lightly on the shoulder as she left, leaving an awkward silence at the table in her wake.

“I thought ‘bitch’ was an insult.” Hanna said.

“It is.” Sophie shook her head, grinning a little in spite of herself. “For Lisa, it’s a term of endearment. She’s weird that way.” She leaned forward, elbows on the tabletop. “So, what are you doing here?”

Hanna drew a piece of paper from her pocket, and laid it on the table in front of her. Sophie leaned forward to read it, but could only make out a handful of words on the page. Her lips moved silently, sounding out the words- London, caught, rooster. “What does it mean? And what’s it got to do with m- with this place?”

“I don’t know what it means.” Hanna said, returning it to her pocket. “Marissa- the woman who was chasing me- had it when she found me.”

A vivid memory flashed before Sophie’s eyes- bright hair and an emotionless drawl that managed to sound cold even as it evoked cactuses and pick-up trucks. She shivered. “But why here?” There was another question on her mind- what happened when she found you?- but she wasn’t going to ask. Probably it made her a coward, but she didn’t want to know.

“You’re the only person I could trust.” Hanna said simply.

Sophie moistened her lips with her tongue, trying to wrap her mind around what Hanna had just said. Trust was a strange word to her- the school used it when it warned students against cheating, by her parents when they told her not to go out too late, by Lisa when she confided in her over cheap booze. It had never been used- towards her, anyway- in situations that involved assassins and dark figures in business suits and guns in their pockets. Certainly it wasn’t used with regards to someone who had broken a promise and fled when she discovered that the world her friend inhabited was too large and dark for her. It wasn’t a word for her.

She said nothing, but Hanna seemed to read her thoughts in her face. “It will be dangerous.” she said, making to stand up. “I can leave, if you don’t want me here.”

Sophie’s arm shot out almost of its own accord and took Hanna by the wrist. The other girl looked down. Still encircling the limb, dirty and tattered, was the friendship bracelet Sophie had given her all those years ago. She swallowed hard.

“I want to help you.” she said. “Where do we start?”

* * * *

“So is this your girlfriend?”

Sophie winced. Hanna blinked.

“Kidding!” Fred threw both hands up in the air with an easy grin. “Just kidding, Soph. And who is this lovely young lady you’ve neglected to introduce me to?”

“Hanna.” Sophie answered for her- Hanna hadn’t said a word yet, still blinking in confusion at Fred. “Ignore him,” Sophie muttered, “he reads too many fantasy novels.”

“Au contraire, my friend.” Fred said, with a grand gesture towards his cluttered desk, “I read too little these days. Come sit down.” He pulled a pair of chairs away from the desk behind him, and Sophie- after checking to make sure she wasn’t plunking herself down on a hardcover or a Lego- sat. Hanna perched on the other without preamble. “Sophie says you can help us.”

“Well that depends on what kind of help you’re after, darling.” he drawled. He knew Sophie hated it when he did that. Usually it seemed to be what motivated him. “Would you like an encyclopaedia of Star Wars characters? I can do that. How about a high-spirited debate on old versus new Battlestar Galactica? Because that’s in full supply. Or maybe-”

“Be serious for five minutes.” Sophie interrupted. Hanna, who looked slightly overwhelmed by the litany of pop culture references that had just been thrown at her head, had yet to say anything. Sophie couldn’t blame her. Most of it had gone over her head as well. “She- we need you to help us find some information. But you need to be quiet about it.”

Fred leaned forward, allowing the chair to thump back onto all fours. His eyes were already alight. “What information might that be?”

Sophie nodded to Hanna, who took the piece of paper from her pocket again and handed it to Fred. “I need to understand what this means.”

Fred scanned the paper, one eyebrow raised quizzically. “You couldn’t just . . . Google it?”

“You try Googling ‘5196749000.’” Sophie retorted. “And do you know how many David Jancoviks there are out there? Apparently one of them runs a furniture store.”

“Huh.” Fred had the end of a pen in his mouth, munching on it, his need to get on Sophie’s nerves apparently outweighed by his love of stupid spy stories. Thank god. “Well, the number’s easy enough. It’s a phone line.”

Hanna shook her head. “I tried calling. It said the number wasn’t in service.”

“Well, that is a puzzle.” he said. His eyes were gleaming in a way that usually meant trouble. “Tell you what: I’ll apply my Google-fu to this little problem of yours, and I’ll give sweet Sophie a call when I’ve worked it out. Capice?”

Sophie was about to answer for Hanna again- well, for Hanna, with a few choice words of her own added in- when Hanna said “Thank you.” Sophie’s head whipped around. Hanna was sitting upright in her seat- the kind of posture Sophie had spent years attempting before just giving up and resigning herself to a permanent slump- head slightly tilted, looking at Fred. There was no confusion on her face, just a kind of serenity. “I appreciate your help.”

Something hot and queasy twisted in Sophie’s stomach, looking at Hanna’s face. She looked away, and examined the wall moulding instead. “How long do you think it’ll take?”

Fred shrugged. “Two, three days? Depends on what I can hack into on the school server. They’ve been getting awfully touchy lately. Probably because I broke into Microsoft.”

“He’s kidding.” Sophie said, mostly because Hanna was looking at Fred with something like admiration, and that nasty twist in her stomach hadn’t gone away yet. “Well, see you then. If you’ll excuse us-” And she got out of her chair, pulling on Hanna’s arm as she rushed out of the room.

* * * *

“You know he’s gay, right?”

“Hmm?” Hanna didn’t look up from the bookcase.

“Fred.” Sophie clarified. “He’s got a boyfriend- he goes to school in Edinburgh, I think.” Actually, she’d met the guy; he’d come up to visit Fred last Christmas. He was pretty cute too, though not exactly Sophie’s type. Too short and football-shouldered, not long and gangly and light and that train of thought needed to stop right there.

Hanna had been scanning her bookcase since they returned to Sophie’s room, fingers gently brushing the dusty titles. Some of them, she hadn’t picked up in months. Old textbooks from the previous semester, stuff her dorm-mates has foisted on her when they moved out, Christmas gifts from relatives that she had yet to open. Hanna drew one out, smoothing her fingers along the title. “May I look at this?”

Sophie glanced at it. Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, from her Intro To Lit last semester. The professor had had some strange ideas about literary analysis; they’d spent the first two weeks picking out every adverb used in the first and last chapters and analyzing what it said about the narrators’ state of mind. At the end of that class, she’d been left with a book full of highlighter, an essay about the symbolic significance of water in the novel, and a final grade of 75%. Not bad, considering she hadn’t a fucking clue what she’d written.

“Go ahead.” she said, turning back to the computer screen. “It’s not a bad book, really. Better than some of my other assignments.” Like having to read fucking Madame Bovary for that mandatory French class. She’d skated through that class on SparkNotes and never looked back.

“Hmm.” said Hanna. She set the book down, and drifted over to stand behind Sophie. “What are you writing?”

Sophie hit “save” and minimized the window. “Essay for Intro to Philosophy . I have to prove or disprove Soctrates’ theory that humans can never become wise.” She used finger quotes for the last two words, grimacing; who still talked like that, anyway? Moreover, who thought it was a good idea to ask her if people could be wise? Wise-ass, maybe. She was almost tempted to write that down.

“What do you think?”

Sophie twisted in her chair to look at Hanna, who was now sitting on the bed, looking curious. “Why do you ask?” She hadn’t figured Hanna for a philosopher.

A shrug. “I’m curious.” Hanna looked at her, eyes wide- well, as wide as they usually were- and devoid of the guile and half-hidden smirks she usually saw in the eyes of her classmates. She felt the tension headache knotting at the back of her skull loosen a bit.

“I don’t know.” she admitted. “I mean, I don’t think I’m wise, but maybe other people are. Probably other people are, since they’ve written whole books about this, and you have to be at least a little bit smart to do that. I’m just going to argue that it’s impossible for us to know, because if there’s wisdom beyond us, then we can’t realize it.”

Hanna nodded. “That makes sense.”

Sophie could feel a light flush spreading up the back of her neck. No one had ever said that about one of her essays before; “good grammar” maybe, or “nice word choice here.” The content itself had always been tactfully unremarked-upon. Hastily, she spun back to the computer and pulled the document up again.

From behind her, Hanna spoke again. “Are you going to keep studying philosophy?”

Sophie nearly choked on her laughter. “Me, a philosopher? I don’t think so.” The mental image it conjured up made her giggle in spite of herself. She’d sit on a rock, with a bunch of students clustered around her feet like one of those woodcuts they printed in her textbook. Maybe she’d attach a fake beard to complete the picture. “I’m not exactly the philosophizing type.”

“Then what will you do?”

The words- spoken innocently as they were- felt not unlike a punch in the stomach. Sophie sucked air in through her teeth, then let it out through her nose. Behind her, she could sense Hanna still sitting on the bed, comfortably quiet, possibly perturbed at the sudden silence that greeted her question. How was it that someone who didn’t even go to school and hadn’t seen her in years somehow managed to hit her right where it hurt without even meaning to?

“I don’t know.” she said shortly. Hanna, apparently able to understand the tone- if not the meaning behind it- said nothing.

* * * *

Hanna was restless.

Sophie had gone to sleep an hour earlier- class in the morning, she’d said- and turned down the other bed before curling up in her own. But Hanna couldn’t sleep. She’d prowled silently around the room for fifteen minutes, examining the books on the bookshelf again, aimlessly tidying the desk, and flipping through the book she’d borrowed by the light of Sophie’s penlight. Still, she couldn’t seem to settle in one place.

It used to be that when she couldn’t settle herself, she would go out for a hunt, or to train. Hunting was out of the question now; there was no need for it, and besides, she hadn’t done it in- had it really been years- not since she had stepped into a world of packaged food and domesticated animals. She wondered sometimes if she was even capable of it anymore, after years of encounters with things that sniffed her hand and rubbed up against her instead of snapping or fleeing from her footsteps. Training was the better option- not necessary anymore, really- not since her life had become a series of dark corners and alleyways ducked into to avoid the police, and the only exercise she got was when she had to run away from an approaching car- but she liked doing it, and moreover, she wanted to- needed to- be prepared if-

Well, if she needed to be.

She glanced behind her as she slipped out the door; Sophie turned over in her sleep, but didn’t wake. With a small smile on her face, Hanna closed the door. Going to Sophie had been a gamble on her part; if the other girl even remembered her, why would she agree to help a virtual stranger who appeared out of nowhere spinning stories about spies and government agencies and DNA alteration? She wouldn’t believe it herself. She had expected to be thrown out on her ear (she’d learned that phrase from an abandoned copy of Oliver Twist she’d picked up from a cardboard box sitting on a curb in London) as soon as she explained herself. She hadn’t expected to be taken in, offered food, and given help without so much the bat of an eye (another phrase she’d picked up from books.)

Sophie was- different? Not really. Her speech had slowed down, and she didn’t seem as loud as she had before, but she looked the same. And her voice was the same. There was just something more- subdued about her. Hanna couldn’t put her finger on it. It was like she’d shrunken in on herself, folded and turned inside out so that the outside part of her was dimmer, less noticeable. No, noticeable wasn’t the right word- what was? She couldn’t pick one.

The world made more sense when she was running. With her legs and arms occupied, blood pumping through her brain, everything seemed clearer, the wind shaking loose the debris cluttering up her brain and leaving the space empty for more important things.

Currently on her mind: the paper. She’d turned it over and over in her head ever since she’d found it, analyzed every word, dissected the sentences to see the darkened insides; still, none of it made any sense. Perhaps she was the lamb, and Marissa the wolf? But if that was so, who was the rooster? Lambs, she remembered from her father’s readings, were a symbol of innocence, sometimes associated with the Christian messiah. The wolf symbolized deception and danger, sometimes contrasted with lambs and sheep- a wolf in sheep’s clothing. That made sense. But why the rooster? What did the numbers mean? Who was David Jankovic?

She shook her head, sending her hair whipping to and fro in the breeze. She’d been trying to puzzle it out for the past three years, and still it made no sense. Instead, she shifted her thoughts to Sophie. Had she been happy to see her? She seemed to be, if a bit startled. That made her happy. It had been a long time since she’d had someone happy to see her- actually, it had been a long time since anyone had really seen her at all. For two years, she’d stayed in Berlin, alternating between sleeping in a shelter for those without homes and prowling the streets. She’d gone back to her grandmother’s house several times (Grandmother, what a nice big smile you have-) back to Grimm’s, and several times to the park where she’d last seen her father. She didn’t know where he was buried, if he was buried. She wished she did.

When she wasn’t exploring, she spent her time at the public library. After a failed attempt at taking a book with her that had resulted in several alarms going off, the librarians had been happy to give her a card. She’d spent hours in the history section, leafing through volumes about Ludwig the Swan King, who built palaces all over the country and drowned in Lake Starnberg; Martin Luther nailing his theses on the church door of Wittenberg; and Nicolaus Copernicus’s discovery of how the earth rotated around the sun. It was all like something out of her book of fairy tales. Then she’d read further, found thick, dark swastikas illustrating articles about events called Kristallnacht, where windows were smashed and shopkeepers beaten; trucks full of people packed away like livestock, driven away and never seen again; and a man named Josef Mengele who injected babies with strange chemicals to see what he could make them do. That afternoon, she had set the book down in a cold sweat and walked out of the library into the bright afternoon sunshine. It hadn’t taken the chill out of her bones.

Was that her?

Was she an experiment?

What about the people who had made her? Were they disciples of Mengele, following in his footsteps trying to create the perfect being? The Ubermensch, the books had called it. Was that her? Was she their prodigy? Did that make her one of them? When that thought had occurred to her, she’d had to run and be sick behind a nearby rosebush.

She had never gotten an answer to that question.

What had she been thinking about?

Sophie. She’d been thinking about Sophie. Sophie who’d taken her in without blinking (well, maybe a little), Sophie who’d loaned her a book, Sophie who, two years ago, tied a bracelet around her wrist and called her a friend. No one else had ever called her that before. She’d kept the friendship bracelet- it grew dirty and battered with the years, and she could no longer really see the colours of it, but she’d never taken it off her wrist. She’d developed a habit of twisting it around her fingers when she was nervous, which had resulted in several of the threads fraying, but still it held together. She needed it sometimes, to remind her.

Though she wasn’t out of breath yet, she slowed to a walk. The sky above her was beginning to lighten, so she checked her watch- four in the morning. She’d been running longer than she thought- hadn’t Sophie gone to bed around one? She must have lost track of time. She turned around and started to jog back to the dormitory. Perhaps she could sleep for a few hours before going back to work.

* * * *

Dear stupid little brother. Having fun? Probably. While you’re hanging out in South America, I’m getting actual work done. Try it sometime. Say hi to mom and dad for me.

Oh, and by the way, remember Hanna? Turns out she’s here now! None the worse for wear (no thanks to you.) I’ll be sure to say hi.

Sophie leaned back in her chair and stared at the computer screen in front of her. It had been about three months since she’d spoken with her parents or brother face-to-face- they were backpacking in South America- so she’d been keeping in touch by e-mail. So how exactly did one go about saying “I’ve met up with that odd girl from our camping trip when I was fifteen who may or may not be wanted by the government” in an e-mail? Perhaps she should put it in a postscript.

When she’d found out that Miles had told the agents where Hanna had gone, she’d flown into a rage so prolonged that her parents had bypassed scolding her because- according to them- she was expressing her trauma from having been interrogated. Sophie was pretty sure it was code for “she’s snapped,” but to be perfectly fair, she hadn’t given them much of an impression to the contrary. After she was done shouting at Miles, she’d curled up in the back of the van and refused to talk to anyone for days. They’d driven across Europe in silence, occasionally punctured by failed attempts at conversation, while she stared out the window hoping for a miraculous flash of blonde hair.

She still hadn’t entirely forgiven him.

With a sigh, she turned back to the computer screen and deleted the postscript before hitting “send.” Hanna was a topic she didn’t need to bring up with Miles. It would only end in tears.

Instead, she opened another e-mail document, and typed her mother’s address into the “sender” bar. Then she stared at the blank screen and blinking cursor for a few minutes.

Dear Mom. How are you? I’m fine.

Dear Mom. School is going well. How’s Bolivia this time of year?

Dear Mom. Still no idea what I want to do with my life. Still thinking uni was a mistake. Can I come home and live in the guest room? I promise I’ll pay rent.

With a sigh, Sophie leaned back from her computer chair and glanced out the window. Out on the grass, some upperclassmen were tossing a Frisbee back and forth while others lounged on picnic blankets. They had a stereo set up, and some of the notes drifted gently up to her window- something by Radiohead- along with the pollen-drenched spring air. She sneezed.

“Bless you.”

Sophie spun around. Hanna was sitting up in bed, already regarding her with that unnerving calm, head cocked slightly to one side. She seemed to notice Sophie’s startled expression, because she said “Was that not right?” Her expression didn’t change, but there was a slight crack in her voice.

Sophie tried to scrub a last bit of sleep out of her eye. “No, it’s fine. Just- don’t startle me like that, okay? I didn’t even know you were up.”

“I’m sorry.” she said. “I didn’t sleep much last night. I didn’t mean to get up this late.”

Sophie snorted. “Welcome to university.”

A tremulous smile touched Hanna’s lips, and Sophie found herself smiling back. There was a lightness to the moment, the shared expressions and little jokes that she hadn’t experienced in a long time- a lack of expectations, almost. Like Hanna didn’t care what she said or how she said it. She felt a sudden burning at the back of her eyes, and was surprised to find that there were tears there.

“Is something wrong?” Hanna asked.

Sophie shook her head with a sniff. “Nothing, it’s stupid. PMS.” At Hanna’s confused look, she added “Never mind.”

Hanna nodded, and sat in contemplative silence for a moment. When she asked “Do you have a boyfriend?”

Sophie, in the midst of taking a deep breath, nearly choked on a mouthful of air. “Do I what?”

“Have a boyfriend.” Off Sophie’s bewildered look, Hanna elaborated, “You said your friend Fred had a boyfriend. Do you have one as well?”

What the hell would make you ask that? Christ, as if Lisa wasn’t enough. Now she had two friends breathing down her neck about her love life. “No.” she said shortly, “I don’t.”

“Why not?”

“Why-” Jesus, wasn’t just saying “no” enough anymore? Next thing she knew, she’d be giving a detailed history lesson on her failure of a love life, up to and including having not actually having been interested in a boy since she was sixteen, like some great big l-

And there was that word again.

“Because I don’t want to.” she said shortly. There was something like hurt on Hanna’s face, and her forehead was creased with worry. Oh, wonderful. Now she had to feel guilty about not wanting to talk about her car crash of a love life, in addition to having to explain it in the first place to her bizarre friend who had dropped out of nowhere to bring all of this up again when it didn’t need bringing up because Lisa had done the same thing two days ago. It was like playing bloody whack-a-mole with her own increasingly unstable sexuality.

They sat in uncomfortable silence for a few moments. Then the quiet was broken with the ringing of Sophie’s cell, and she reached over to pick it up, carefully avoiding Hanna’s eyes. “What’s up?”

“It’s me,” Fred’s voice crackled from the other end of the line. “I think I may have found something.”

* * * *

“I don’t know what the hell you guys have gotten yourselves into,” he greeted them as they walked into the computer lab, “but whatever it is, I’m pretty sure it’s illegal.”

“Good morning to you too.” Sophie said dryly, dropping into the chair next to him. Hanna, still silent, sat down behind her. “What did you find?”

Fred spun back to the computer screen, and pulled up a tab. “I haven’t cracked the numbers yet, but, I did track down this Jankovic guy. Turns out he works in London-”

“Yeah, we kind of knew that already.”

Fred threw her a look over his shoulder. “Well someone took her concentrated bitch pills this morning, Hold on. I’m not done. He works for this company called Reinhild- not easy to find, by the way- and from the looks of it, they’re some sort of military contractors. They’ve got an office in London, but they mainly seem to operate out of Berlin. Hence the German name.” He grinned smugly. “Want to know what it means?”

“Not especially.”

“Well it’s Germanic, obviously. Means ‘battle advisor’ in whatever weird ancient Slavic language. I couldn’t quite crack open what it is they do for the military- that part of their website’s locked up tight- but given what they’re calling themselves, I can hazard a guess. Especially-” he pulled up another tab- in light of this.”

Sophie peered closer at the screen. “What is it?”

“Some lefty newspaper. Like Mother Jones, but even more so. A few years back, they did this big expose on Blackwater- you know, that American contractor company?- and in the middle of the article, I happened upon this part here.” He tapped a few keys, and a section of the text lit up in yellow.

Sophie leaned forward, peering at the screen. She could feel Hanna leaning close behind her, close enough that her breath was ghosting over her ear, and struggled not to shiver.

Hanna read out loud, “The company also has roots in other countries, spread as far as China and Germany. The Reinhild Corporation, with connections in Paris and Copenhagen, has many varied ties to Blackwater, including a shared contract with the Sudanese government. “ She sat back on her heels. “What does that mean? What does Blackwater do?”

“They’re like an army,” Sophie said slowly, remembering the lessons she’d been given in her ninth year social studies class. “Only they don’t belong to the government- they’re just hired by them for whatever they need. They’re-”

“Social security,” Fred said, drawing quotes around the words with his fingers. “Mercenaries, basically. They do whatever their bosses tell them, and since they’re not official, they can duck regulations. There was a big fuss about it during the Iraq war- people finally woke up and realized how fucked up the whole thing was.” He snorted. “Doesn’t seem to have slowed them down anyway.”

For the first time since their argument, Sophie looked over at Hanna and held her gaze. “So- if they’re military-”

Hanna nodded. Neither of them said a thing out loud, but their thoughts were the same: mercenaries in a container park, and a drawling American with a gun and a too-polished smile.

“They’re after me.”

Fred’s head whipped around. “What?”

Both girls ignored him. Sophie’s focus was all on Hanna. “What do they want with you?”

“That paper I showed you.” Hanna took a deep breath. “Not this one, the one from before. The one that said I was abnormal.” There was that wobble in her voice again. “That’s why they want me. They think I can do something for them.”

“Hello?” Fred shouted in the background. “Third person in the room? Hasn’t had any of this explained to him? Very confused? Anyone mind telling me what the hell you two are mixed up in?”

Slowly, Sophie shifted her gaze from Hanna to Fred. “I think you’re better off staying confused.”

“The hell I am! And even if I was, it’s a bit late for that, isn’t it?” He crossed his arms. “I’ve been pulled into this mess now, so you can’t just take off and not explain. I want answers.”

“Just because you Googled some stuff-”

“No, he’s right.” Hanna interrupted. Both Sophie and Fred turned to face her, startled. She leaned forward, hands on her knees. She addressed Fred, “If I tell you, will you help me?”

Fred looked between the two, and blew out a heavy sigh. “Doesn’t seem like I have much of a choice.”

Hanna nodded. “You should sit down. It’ll take some time to explain.”

* * * *

“Shit.” Fred said.

Sophie was inclined to agree.

“So-” he continued, “you’re saying that some kind of shady government organization bred you to be a super-soldier, killed your mum and dad, and now they’re looking for you? And they may or may not be connected to these Blackwater/Reinhild people, one of who was a crazy lady from Texas with a gun who you shot in the head?”

“Yes.” Hanna said simply.

Fred leaned back and ran a hand through his hair. “Shit,” he said again.

“No kidding,” said Sophie. She looked over at Hanna. “So what do you want to do?”

The other girl shook her head slowly. “I don’t know,” she said. “I think the next step is to find out what the numbers mean. They could lead us to Reinhild.”

Sophie bit her lip. “We know where Reinhild is, though. We could hop on a train to London and find them any time. The question is whether or not we do.”

“Actually, I think Hanna’s right,” Fred said, sticking the end of his pen back into his mouth. “We have the numbers, but we don’t know what they mean yet. We have this Jankovic guy’s name- and his address, by the way- but we don’t know what he does.”

“Works for Reinhild, obviously-”

“Or maybe not. Maybe he’s someone on the outside. Maybe he’s another super-soldier-”

“I’m not a soldier.” Hanna said quietly. There was an ache in her voice that made Sophie’s chest tighten. She reached out and took Hanna’s hand in hers, giving it a small squeeze. Hanna didn’t squeeze back, but her grip was warm and solid.

“Right,” Fred said slowly, glancing between the two of them. Sophie fought the sudden urge to tug her hand away. “So he could be another- genetic modification- and maybe they’re after him as well as you? Or maybe he’s a spy, like that American woman.”

“She wasn’t a spy,” Hanna corrected him, “she was a field agent.”

“Whatever.” Fred said, with a slight roll of his eyes. Sophie kicked him under the desk. “As I was saying, we don’t know who he is or how he’s involved, or what the numbers mean. So I say we stay put for now.”

“We?” Sophie raised an eyebrow.

Fred waved a hand in front of him dismissively. “Not saying I’m going anywhere when you do go after them. I’m staying right here. I’ll run the whole operation through the computer. The Charlie to your Angels. But I’m not storming any evil corporations. I’m not the genetically modified super-soldier here.”

Hanna’s face twitched, and Sophie found herself wanting to slap Fred. Instead, she stood up quickly. “We should go.”

Fred sighed, and rolled the chair back towards his desk. “If you want. Oh, but Sophie-” she half-turned on her way towards the door- “can you hang back for a mo’? I wanted to ask you something.”

Hanna hesitated at the door, but Sophie nodded to her. “Go ahead. I’ll catch you up.”

She took a seat in the chair across from Fred, who gave her a long, level look. She shifted uncomfortably. “What?”

His eyes narrowed. “Do you have a thing for her?”

Oh god. “Why is everyone so interested in who I have a thing for all of a sudden? It’s none of your business anyway. And I’m not gay.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t say you were.”

“Well, good.” She could feel a hot flush creeping up the back of her neck, unpleasantly different from the one she’d experienced while chatting with Hanna earlier that morning. “Because I’m not. So why would you think I’ve got a thing for her?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Fred rolled his eyes and pitched his voice up a few octaves. “’What do you want to do, Hanna? You’re not a soldier, Hanna! Here Hanna, let me hold your hand and glare at Fred for you, but in a purely platonic way, obviously, because it’s not like I like you or anything.’” He dropped his voice back to normal and gave her a look. “Well?”

“You’re an idiot.” Sophie said shortly. “And stop saying ‘like.’ We’re not in secondary school anymore.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“I already gave you an answer-”

“No,” he corrected, “you said you’re not gay. That’s not the same thing.”

Sophie said nothing.

Fred leaned forward in the chair, and put both hands on his knees. His voice was gentler when he spoke again, which pushed Sophie dangerously close to cracking. “Look, Soph, I get it. It’s hard. I’ve been there. Your head’s all messed up and you don’t know what’s up or what’s down any more, and the only thing that makes sense is the one thing that’s making you confused. Believe me, I know. But denial’s not gonna help. And it’s not going to make it go away.”

Sophie scrubbed at her eyes with the back of her hand. The skin came away hot with tears. “So what am I supposed to do?”

Fred’s face was grave. “I don’t know. Talk to her, I guess. Because if this spy shit is really going to go down? I’m thinking you’ll want to have it out sooner rather than later.”

END PART ONE - PART TWO