because Checker was right—her old mentor’s help might be just what we needed to blindside her.
“If it’s money you want, fine,” I said. “Name your price.”
“What’d I just say? There’s no pile of green in the world that would be worth plopping myself into this bucket of diarrhea tentacles. I taught the kid, remember? She may be sloppy, but harmless, she is not. I like my fleshy parts attached to me, not in bitty bits.”
“But you already tried to stop her,” Checker said. “Isn’t that why you’re here? And now you know she’s impersonating you. Don’t tell me you’re going to let her get away with that!”
“I dunno. Am I?”
Checker’s eyes narrowed. “You want something. You already would’ve hung up otherwise. The girl this Fifer has, she’s—she’s like my sister, okay? Tell me what you want, and I’ll do it. Anything.” His jaw bunched. “Do you want me to beg you? I’ll beg.”
“Oh, tempting! But no. There you go again, Charles, thinking everything is about you.” D.J. turned his face up to me. “But you, you are fascinating. I’ve been thinking about you. In my dreams. Who are you, for realsies?”
A subject I didn’t want to talk about with anyone, up to and including myself.
It’s okay, Vala, said Coach’s voice in my ear. I know who I am.
I cleared my throat. “I’m nobody.”
“Oh, we both know that’s not true. Did you really solve the P versus NP thing?”
“No. You’ve been misinformed.” Technically true. I hadn’t solved it. I didn’t even know if it really had been solved.
D.J. laughed and wagged a finger at me. “Aaaa, you’re such a shithead. I can see why he likes you. Hey, Charles, should she join our cabal?”
Checker opened his mouth, closed it, and then acted like he hadn’t heard the question.
“Spit it out,” I said to D.J. “You may not care about this girl’s life, but we do. What do you want?”
D.J. flexed his fingers against each other and stretched. “I like to build shit,” he said. “Come to my labs. You’re some sort of mathematical professor genius. Promise to give me some new shiny, and you’ve got yourself a deal.”
“You want me to help you build new bombs?”
“I get so bored,” D.J. whined.
“No,” Checker cut in. “No. We’re not doing that.”
“Wasn’t asking you, darling,” D.J. said. “Don’t fuss your pretty heads; I’m not saying I want you to help me use them. I’ll take all the responsibility and stick it up my own ass.”
“Yes,” I said.
“No!” said Checker.
“Glee!” cried D.J., and literally clapped his hands. “Where do you want my gracious self?”
“We’re in the Valley,” I answered. “Are you close?”
“Oh, good, just a shake of a lamb’s tail. I’ll come meet you straight off, soon’s I disarm a few fuses. Message me where.” The video blinked off.
Sudden silence in the garage.
“We can’t do this,” Checker said into it. “Arthur wouldn’t want—”
“Arthur would want us to do exactly this and never tell him about it,” I said. “So that’s what we’re going to do.”
I refused to see D.J.’s aid as anything other than a massive stroke of good fortune. We’d make a plan by the time he got here, and then I’d be able to take him with me after Fifer. She’d have her bombs, but I’d have a bomb expert.
One even better than she was. One who could predict how she would move.
“Don’t force me to make this argument, Cas, please don’t,” Checker begged. “I—it’s Tabitha, I know it’s Tabitha, but—” His hands had curled into desperate fists. “You’re promising new bomb tech to someone who has no compunction about using it on people. That’s so far over the line it’s, it’s not even in the same hemisphere. We’ll figure out something else; we’ll offer him something else—”
“Is this guilt?” I said. “You helped him before so you swore never to do it again?”
He flushed. “Don’t go there. That’s not what this is.”
“No? Because D.J. doesn’t seem all that different from me.” Checker had told me so himself, in the heat of anger, but I could own that truth. “And you seem to be able to help me out all the time without having the arrogance to say you’re responsible for anything I do.”
Checker’s mouth flattened. “Nothing I’ve ever helped D.J. with—or you, for that matter—was ever about hurting people. Ever. You’ve seen what he’s like now. There’s no room for—there’s no justification for this; I can’t—”
“You can’t,” I said. I was calm. “You’ve spent too long around Arthur and Diego. You keep