that him?” Lizzy asked.
“I think so,” Marco said and looked at his diver’s watch. “Fits the description and he’s on time.”
“Is there a code word we’re supposed to use to make sure he is our guy?”
“He told me that he’d recognize us.”
“Not much of a spy, is he?”
“Let’s do it then,” he said and took a step out of the thicket25.
As soon as they were in the clear, Aaron acknowledged them with a nod and started to walk to a grey minivan that was parked near the gas station minimart’s entrance. He opened the driver’s door and slid the passenger door open. Then he got in the driver’s seat, closed the door, but left the passenger door open.
“I guess that’s our cue26,” Marco said.
They walked to the van and climbed into the back.
“You’re to follow the instructions,” Aaron said as soon as they closed the door and gave them a large manila envelope. “There are two passports, the car key, and some money.”
“We have a car,” Lizzy said.
“Not anymore,” Aaron said. “Our people are taking it from your cottage as we speak.”
“Why?” Marco asked.
“It’s not safe to use the same car.”
“Where’s our new ride then?”
“You are sitting in it,” Aaron said and opened his door.
“Wait,” Lizzy said. “Are you leaving?”
“You’re to follow the instructions,” Aaron said and left the car.
They watched him walking quickly across the gas station pavement and getting in a black pick-up truck parked on the other side – which took off the second he had climbed in.
“That was some spy work right there,” Lizzy smiled.
Marco looked inside the envelope.
“Well, it’s all in there: the money, the passports, and the key.”
“Where are the instructions?”
Marco took out a white sheet of paper and looked at it. “I guess this is it.”
***
When they drove back to the cottage in their new car, their old car was gone. They entered the cottage and found a new laptop on the kitchen table and a brand-new iPhone with a charger.
“It says here that we need to turn on the computer. There will be a link to a Zoom meeting on the desktop,” Marco said as he looked at the piece of paper.
“All right,” Lizzy said, opening the device. “We could’ve done it on the phone, though.”
The computer screen lit up and they saw an empty desktop with only one folder named The Link.
“That’s foolproof27,” Lizzy said with a smile.
She clicked on the folder, saw the link, and double-clicked. A Zoom meeting began. The host had already started the meeting, but both his or her camera and microphone were deactivated.
Marco and Lizzy were looking at the screen, waiting for something to happen.
“Are we supposed to do something now?” Lizzy asked, frowning.
Marco looked in the sheet again. “It just says open your computer and use the link.”
“Hello,” she said to the screen. “Anyone there?”
The host’s window showed that the image had started to upload. Someone was joining the meeting. Finally, they saw a pixelated image of an old Black woman in a room with white empty walls. She was saying something, but there was no sound. Marco pointed to the screen, to microphone symbol that was crossed by a red line.
“Your microphone is off,” Lizzy said to the lady.
The woman jerked28 and looked at her screen.
“Oh, my goodness,” they heard her cheery voice. “Is it working now? Can you hear me?”
“Yes, we can,” Lizzy said.
“Good, I’m still getting used to these bells and whistles29,” the lady said, smiling. “What happened to the good old face-to-face, right?”
Marco and Lizzy both nodded, agreeing.
“Anyway, Lizzy and Marco, how are you kids doing?”
Lizzy and Marco looked at each other. “We’re fine,” Lizzy said.
“Oh, good,” the lady said. “My name is Yana. I represent the Committee and I have a lot to tell you today. So, get comfortable.”
***
The next day, Lizzy woke up early in the morning, surprised that she actually slept for a few hours. She felt reinvigorated30, but there was a feeling that she had forgotten something important. She looked at Marco who was sleeping peacefully at her side, and then got up.
She decided to do some yoga, something that she had not done since the day her life dramatically changed a couple of months ago. It seemed that the body remembered all the asanas to relax the brain and the muscles. She was doing the exercises in her underwear and felt the sunbeams on her skin. It was the first time she felt any sense of normalcy in the past two months.
She was still getting used to the idea of being with Marco, which was extremely hard since he looked so much like Mark. It was still confusing, but for some reason she could not explain even to herself it felt right to be with the copy of her ex-boyfriend. It did not feel like she was somehow desecrating Mark’s memory. On the contrary, it felt like she was given another chance to build her life with the same man who happened to have a back-up copy in the parallel world. But… it still confused the hell out of her. She would definitely spend some serious time with a therapist discussing this conundrum if she could.
After a quick shower, she sat down in the kitchen with a cup of coffee to read what Yana, the first leader of the Committee they had met so far, had sent after the meeting. It was a file with the names of people that were connected to Dolion and who were supposed to be actively involved in virus distribution. According to Yana, they had the original variant of the virus. Dolion called it Potestas Dei (Power of God). It was very surprising to learn about that because Lizzy and Marco were under the impression that they had destroyed the virus.
“It takes many variants to get the one you really want,” Yana had told them during the meeting. “Dolion had the final one and you destroyed it. There are still some people who can create a more powerful version and that is why we need to eliminate any trace of it.”
Lizzy looked at the geography of the locations of the Dolion’s Gang–that was what she named it–which was in the file. No wonder they needed passports. It looked like they would have to do a bit of travelling.
“They have a few centers where they develop their new variants. Fortunately, we infiltrated31 our people in all of them. Still, it will not be easy to do what we want.” Despite Yana’s cheerful demeanor32, it was obvious that what she was talking about took a lot of doing.
Lizzy checked the places they needed to go first. Those were two destinations in the US and did not even require travelling by plane.
“We are working on the way to use the uniqueness of your blood in, say, a less dramatic way.