I was glad I’d seen the movie. It was stunning that a man who’d single-handedly saved so many people from going to the Nazi death camps could feel guilt over not having saved more.

  “I can’t believe I’ve never heard of Schindler before,” I said. “They should teach about him in school.”

  “I, too, had never heard of his beautiful and honorable actions,” Chaim said. “I know of the horrors of Auschwitz and Treblinka from my grandparents, but I agree, Schindler’s story should be known.” He turned to Eli. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m still mad at you for making me watch a movie. But this was a good movie.”

  I stood and stretched my back. “I’m emotionally drained. I don’t think I can watch another movie right now.”

  “Next up is a cartoon,” Eli said, holding up another DVD. “That will be closer to Chaim’s comprehension level anyway.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. “You guys watch. I’m going to take a walk, stretch my legs. I’ll be back in a bit.”

  What I didn’t say was that I planned to do a little research. As long as we were in a library, I was going to find out what I could about the KGB.

  Thanks to the paranoia I’d inherited from my mom, I wasn’t about to use the library’s computers to search for information on the KGB. So instead I looked through the microfiche catalog, where I found some old newspaper articles that talked about the end of the Soviet Union and the KGB.

  I found one of interest, and read:

  When the Republic of Ukraine voted for independence from the Soviet Union, it struck the death blow to what had previously been known as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). One week later, the final dissolution of the Soviet Union was formally declared during the Belavezha Accords. Many of the remaining Soviet institutions were taken over by the Russian Federation, including control of the former Soviet Union’s nuclear arsenal and the secret police known as the KGB. The Russian government reported that they were halting all of the former KGB’s outward-facing operations, and their state security would from now on focus on events solely within their borders.

  I shook my head, knowing now that this was utter crap. Of course the Russians wanted everyone to think they’d stopped sending agents out into the world to spy on people, or kidnap them, or even kill them. But I knew now that the KGB still had active agents out in the world.

  And my mom was one of them.

  As I removed the microfiche and turned off the machine, my gaze drifted to the computer sitting next to it. I hesitated. Search histories could be tracked. But then again, it was an anonymous library computer.

  What could it really hurt?

  I shifted over to it, opened the search engine, and looked for news on the incident in my former apartment. To my surprise, I couldn’t find anything. Had it been covered up somehow?

  I sat back and looked up at a bulletin board hanging on the wall, advertising various library events and local services. One of the flyers was for a series of college prep courses, and referenced a website with practice math problems for the SAT. Curious, and admittedly a little bored, I typed in the URL. When I saw a flashing link saying “Get paid for math,” I clicked on it.

  To my surprise, the screen filled with a series of numbers and letters.

  At the bottom were only two words of instruction: “Solve it.”

  Some kind of puzzle?

  I felt a rush of excitement. It had been a long time since I’d gotten a chance to stretch my problem-solving skills. Back in school, my math teachers had often been frustrated with me because although I always managed to solve the problems, I generally found it impossible to explain how. All of their methods for solving problems just slowed me down, so I never used them—instead I just… got to the answer.

  I tilted my head, wondering what the blob of numbers and letters could mean. I wasn’t sure if this was a math problem or a language problem, but maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe I could approach it the same way I’d been learning to understand foreign languages.

  Instead of looking at the individual numbers, I mentally took a step back and tried to absorb it all at once. And as soon as I did, colors appeared in my mind—colors that represented meaning. I tried to relax and just see it all, to soak in the colors. They writhed and shifted as if trying to find a resting spot that made sense.

  And then they stopped.

  I smiled. The seemingly random data had transformed, in my head, into a website address and a keyword: Discovered_Prophecies.

  I typed in the URL, bringing up a new page:

  Opening another browser tab, I signed up for a free email address under my assumed name—and then I filled out the contest’s entry form, using the keyword I’d gotten from the puzzle. When I clicked “submit,” I was told that I would be contacted by email if I was a winner.

  Just then Eli tapped my shoulder. “You ready to go?”

  “Sure.” I closed the browser, rose to my feet, and dismissed the contest from my mind.

  As the three of us turned onto the street that led to the factory, I stopped short. The three-card monte game was being played on the opposite street corner.

  “What’s wrong?” Eli asked.

  I shook my head and started forward again. “Nothing. It’s just, those are the same guys I told you about.” I nodded toward the game.

  Chaim scowled. “Let’s go visit those bastards.”

  He was about to cross the street, and I had to grab him by the arm to hold him back.

  “No, Chaim. I don’t want trouble.”

  “I’ll make sure they never touch you again.”

  I shook my head vehemently. “No. Let’s just go home. Besides, you can’t always be with me. I need to deal with things in my own way.”

  Chaim reluctantly turned and continued down the sidewalk, but he kept an eye on the game. “Jeremiah,” he said, “you and I are going to working on this problem of yours.”

  Eli groaned. “Oh no. Now you’ve done it. You’ve given Chaim a project. I feel sorry for you.”

  An Unexpected Visitor

  I jumped back to avoid Chaim’s leg sweep, and in one fluid motion, he followed it up with a flying sidekick, which I just barely managed to block. Sweat poured down my face as he pressed me backward with a flurry of kicks and jabs. I was nearly against the wall of the cleared break room when he overextended one of his lunge punches and I took advantage of the brief opening to execute a spinning heel kick.

  Chaim’s eyes widened with surprise—but he caught my foot and twisted it away, sending me to the ground with a thud, the breath blasted out of my lungs. Chaim jumped on top of me and pressed his elbow to my neck, declaring victory.

  Eli and a few of the other workers clapped politely.

  Chaim grabbed my hand and yanked me to my feet. “You are doing much better,” he said.

  I felt a little embarrassed at having tried what I’d thought was a somewhat theatrical kick. Chaim had only taught me that last month, and I’d been dying to try it out.

  “I shouldn’t have tried that spinning heel kick.”

  “No, no, no, keep trying that. Your instincts were right. Your execution just wasn’t quick enough. You actually surprised me with that move, and had you spun a little quicker, I wouldn’t have been able to block it.”

  “I guess I just need to practice more.”

  Chaim patted me on the back. “Jeremiah, you’ve only been doing this for three months. I’m shocked at how quickly you’ve picked this up. You’re doing much better than I did after three years of practice.”

  Eli tossed us a couple of towels. “You kept my brother on his toes the entire time, Jeremiah. Soon enough you’ll have him falling on his butt.”

  Chaim scowled as he wiped the sweat from his face.

  The truth was, even though I was getting my butt kicked on a daily basis, I’d gained a lot of confidence in my ability to defend myself. I wasn’t about to go looking for trouble, but if trouble found me… I thought I could handle it. I smiled at the thought of the three-card-monte thugs coming after me.

  Jacek entered the break room and clapped his hands to get our attention. “Put these tables back up. Misha is almost done with the kasha, and if I’m starving, I know the rest of you old ladies must be too.”

  I could tell by the texture of the dough in the giant mixer that I hadn’t added enough flour. I had just bent down to grab two more of the fifty-pound bags when I heard a tearing sound—not from the bags, but from my shirt. I groaned as I reached behind me and felt the torn material.

  I’d bought some cheap secondhand clothes soon after coming here, but lately, all of them had been feeling really tight, especially in the shoulders and arms. I just didn’t think they’d gotten this tight. I’d really started to feel myself getting stronger. I used to have trouble maneuvering those bags of flour, and now I thought nothing of lifting two at a time. In fact, I was pretty sure I could carry more, if they weren’t so awkward.

  I went back to my bedroom to get another shirt, and ran into Eli on his way out. I told him what had happened.

  He shook his head. “Don’t bother trying to sew it, my friend. That shirt is too small for you anyway. I had the same problem when I started working here. I just needed to get bigger clothes.” He pulled open a drawer and tossed me one of his shirts. “Try this.” Then he patted me on the shoulder and left the room.

  I checked the tag—it was an XXL. Certainly it was going to be too big for me. Still, I pulled the giant shirt over my head, only to find that it fit perfectly. Before coming here, I’d been a large. Could I have really grown two sizes?

  I looked at my forearm. It was thick, and when I squeezed my fist, a web of veins bulged. We didn’t have a mirror in our room, but I had a feeling I was probably beginning to look like a taller version of the two Polish brothers, at least in my overall build. I wondered what some of the girls I’d gone to school with would think. I’d never been scrawny, but nobody would ever have called me muscular.

  As I returned to the factory floor, I vowed that sometime soon, I was going to find a mirror.

  I walked right up to the attendant’s booth at the parking garage. It was early, two hours before my shift started, but I was hoping to visit with Moshe. If I could catch him as he was leaving, maybe I could have breakfast with him.

  But the grizzled old attendant shook his head. “Moshe ain’t here. He left about twenty minutes ago.”

  “Thanks anyway.”

  I walked into the parking garage and made my way to my car. I’d been coming here once a month just to warm up the engine before turning it off again. I’d learned in auto shop class that a car could simply stop working if it wasn’t started occasionally.

  As I sat there with my car idling, Leilani wiggled her hips. I smiled as I pulled my notepad from my pocket. The familiar smell of its leather binding reminded me of home. I grabbed a pen and began talking once more to my old friend, writing about everything that had transpired.

  I’d always believed that things worked out the way they were meant to be. And I supposed being here in NYC was just God’s way of telling me, “There are things you need to do here. Things to learn and experience.”

  I wrote down my worries about Mom, and my hopes that she was okay. And I write about the crazy Paryzer brothers and how strange it was to think of them as brothers to me, too. I cared for them more than I would openly admit. They were good people. And I wrote about my exercise and my martial arts lessons.

  Something about writing my thoughts down and seeing them vanish on the paper was a very Zen-like experience for me. The tension in my shoulders and back slowly vanished. By the time I closed my notepad, I felt more relaxed than I had in a long time.

  I gave the cover a quick kiss. “Better than any expensive therapist, and infinitely cheaper.”

  I shoved the notepad back into my pocket, turned off the car, and began the walk back to the factory.

  And as I walked, I encountered something that, in hindsight, I’d been hoping to see for quite some time now.

  The three-card-monte game.

  With a smile on my face and a strange feeling of confidence, I approached.

  Just as before, the dealer and his friend were working together, trying to bring in a sucker. The dealer barely glanced at me—it was clear he didn’t recognize me—but his bearded accomplice narrowed his eyes when I walked up. I gave him a smile, and then I saw it: a look of recognition.

  He paled.

  The dealer looked up, following his friend’s gaze, and now he recognized me too. He scanned me up and down, then loudly announced, “Cops are coming, sorry, folks.”

  As everyone quickly dispersed, including the dealer and his friend, I read the dealer’s thoughts.

  That steroid freak is gonna ruin my business.

  Within the threads of those thoughts were memories of the broken jaw he’d received from Jacek. And there was an emotion there, too. Anxiety. Or maybe even fear.

  I laughed aloud at the realization that he was afraid I might follow him for some revenge.

  I couldn’t see anything in the darkness, but my heart was racing, and my chest was tight I couldn’t breathe. A burning erupted in my stomach and spread to my hands and feet, and I screamed.

  A pair of lavender eyes came into view. They blinked once—and the pain dulled and disappeared.

  I heard a rattling exhalation of breath, and a woman’s voice pierced my mind.

  “Jeremiah…”

  I lurched upright in my bed. Eli and Chaim were sound asleep, and the only sound was the thundering beat of my heart.

  What the hell was that nightmare about?

  It was Saturday, and Eli had once again brought us to the library for some movies. As he stood in line to check out a video from the media specialist, I logged into one of the computers and scanned the latest US and world news. I wasn’t sure exactly what I was expecting to see; but because working at the factory didn’t leave much room for me to have a clue what was going on in the real world, I’d begun to feel sort of isolated. Kind of like being in a weird Polish cocoon. And besides, I was curious about current events.

  While I was there, I logged into my email, and was surprised to see something in my inbox. The subject line read: Finalist notification for the Global Hackers Contest.

  My heart raced as I opened it.

  From: Awards Committee (Awards@GblHack.nsa.gov)

  To: Jeremiah Yoder

  Subject: Finalist notification

  Attachment: Verify_User.exe

  Jeremiah,

  I’m writing to inform you that we’ve reviewed your submission, and you are one of the contest finalists.

  Attached to this email is a timed application that will display an encoded message on the screen. You will have thirty seconds to decrypt the message and type the hidden password.

  Failure to type the correct password will eliminate you from the contest. Failure to submit a password in the time allotted will eliminate you from the contest.

  Good luck,

  Candace Owens

  Contest Administrator

  Thirty seconds to decode an encrypted message and type some password.

  I took a deep breath and clicked on the attachment.

  A string of numbers and letters appeared:

  12e3a816247cc35cff2ccbd60104038c

  Below it was a thirty-second countdown timer.

  I leaned back in my chair and let the numbers speak to me. They wriggled with colors and meanings, and it took only ten seconds before they had snapped into formation.

  I typed exactly what I saw.

  Jeremiah_5:1

  The coded message disappeared, replaced by the words You will be contacted.

  I frowned. It had been too easy. And weird that the answer was simply my name plus a couple of numbers. Maybe the winner would be based on whoever entered the password the fastest? I felt pretty good about my time, but…

  I saw Eli walking toward me, so I quickly logged off.

  Eli grinned from ear to ear. “I got the Lord of the Fellowships!”

  I returned his smile. “Awesome.” I’d always wanted to see Fellowship of the Ring. All those years I’d had the poster, I’d never actually seen the film. Now I couldn’t wait.

  I watched with amazement as the Balrog and Gandalf confronted each other. The ultimate evil pitted against a paragon of good. I was literally on the edge of my seat.

  And then I felt a prickly sensation—and had the unmistakable feeling I was being watched.

  I twisted in my seat, and saw nothing. It was so strange. I would have sworn someone was there, maybe looking at me through the tiny window in the door. But as quickly as the feeling appeared, it vanished, and I went back to the movie.

  “Fly, you fools!” Gandalf cried.

  Chaim leaped away, and his back foot slid on the icy ground. I attacked with a front snap kick that he barely blocked, then I continued my forward progress with a flurry of kicks and punches. I was keeping Chaim in a complete defensive mode.

  I’d been focusing on improving my speed, and the results were significant. But I was also learning just how good of an opponent Chaim was. His defenses were great, and I found myself getting frustrated as I chased him around the park. I sometimes wanted to scream, “Stop and fight like a man!”

  But Chaim was being strategic. He was working on my impatience, trying to get me to make a mistake.

  And when I did—that’s when he’d let me have it.

  I sent a lunging punch at Chaim, but he twisted away and sent a spinning back kick at my head. It would have probably knocked my lights out, had I not ducked.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25