Page 29 of Winterveil

Professor Blanchard was Valeran’s proverbial mad scientist. Ordinarily he was squirreled away in his office, drinking bright blue energy drinks of his own invention and examining MRI scans of echidnas. The thought of him having any proximity to Giselle made Nadiya’s chest tighten.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll do it.”

“Good girl.”

Dr. Iver gave her that uninhibited smile that always put her mind at ease. It reminded her of being nine, ten, eleven, playing under the desk in his office or clinging to his arm. It was not the same smile he used with his students—thin-lipped, cryptic. And it was not the same smile he’d used the first time he’d put a gun in her hands.

When Nadiya retreated to her bedroom that night, she saw that Dr. Iver had replaced her old nodes with new ones, in a pristine plastic case. She felt strangely queasy as she undressed, examined her reflection carefully in the mirror, and then ran her tablet’s flashlight up and down her limbs, checking for unnoticed cuts or bruises.

Finding none, Nadiya put on her pajamas and sat down on the edge of her bed. Her hand hovered over the plastic case, but she didn’t pick it up. She lay down without attaching the nodes, hair spreading across her pillow, and turned off the light. For some reason she didn’t want her usual oblivious slumber. For some reason, she wanted to dream.

Interstitial

SUBMITTED: NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE [ARCHIVED] [PUBLICLY ACCESSIBLE, NO CLEARANCE REQ.]

DEFECTED EAST GERMAN SCIENTIST ABDUCTED BY SOVIET INTELLIGENCE

April 22, 2037

West Berlin, Germany—Prominent German scientist Moritz Satow was kidnapped by Soviet operatives while making a supervised visit to his family near Dresden in East Germany. He was accompanied by two members of the BND—German foreign intelligence—and received a local police escort. According to German chancellor Torben Hauke, “all reasonable measures were taken to assure Dr. Satow’s safety.”

Despite these precautions, Dr. Satow vanished from his family home in the early hours of April 13. His disappearance was initially reported by Dresden local papers, causing public confusion, until, in a press conference late Tuesday night, Chancellor Hauke admitted that Satow had been kidnapped.

Dr. Satow first made headlines in 2033, when he defected from the Soviet-controlled government of East Germany. After first illegally crossing the Berlin Wall, he was then granted official refugee status and swiftly drafted into the science and technology sector of the BND. There, he presumably passed Soviet secrets to the West German government.

Satow’s kidnapping has caused international uproar. In an official statement, NATO has demanded his safe return, and twelve member states, including Great Britain, have drafted a separate statement aimed directly at the government of West Germany, demanding to know how such a valuable asset was allowed to slip through their hands.

“Family is essential to life,” Chancellor Hauke said during the press conference. “Dr. Satow is a human being. It is my ethical responsibility to ensure that he is treated with the dignity afforded all people, and the rights granted to all German citizens. Dr. Satow happened to be making this journey to visit his ailing father, who has since sadly passed away.”

Hauke went on to state that further details about Satow’s abduction would not be shared with the public, as “it is now a confidential matter of national security.” However, he assured that “every effort will be made to retrieve Dr. Satow, both for his own safety and for the recovery of the sensitive information he possesses.”

Ten

Spring 2037

Rural Virginia

The article was circulated via the school-wide alert system. At precisely 12:00 a.m., one hundred and thirty-nine tablets lit up, jolting every student at Valeran out of bed. Klaudia, who was already awake, closed the volume from Columbia’s latest Institute of War and Peace Studies Conference, clicked on the link, and read.

At breakfast that morning, every table in the dining hall was alive with conversation. Theories and fears flew wildly. Some of the students were frenzied, flushed and gesticulating. One of the first years looked near to tears.

Mikhail was more composed. “It’s bullshit,” he said. “I don’t think he was kidnapped. I think Satow defected. Hauke is just trying to save face.”

“Defected back to East Germany?” Jane frowned. “Why would he do that?”

“Because Russians have better booze?” Mikhail shrugged.

“They do not.” Jane giggled, then turned to Klaudia. “Klaudia?”

“No comment,” she replied.

Julian had not said anything—yet. He had continued to eat meals with them, breakfast and dinner and sometimes even lunch, too, if their schedules aligned. He had begun to engage in casual, friendly conversation with Jane and Mikhail. Klaudia had even observed them making each other laugh.

It soured her stomach. Socializing was easy for someone like him. Someone with nothing to lose.

But he rarely said a word directly to Klaudia, and vice versa. It was clear, from the last time they really spoke, what he thought of her. The air between them felt both electric and cold.

“I don’t see how kidnapping is any less humiliating for Hauke than defecting.” Julian spoke up at last. “He still lost an asset—either through incompetence or guilelessness.”