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“Where did you learn how to do that?” Mark asked, watching the whole process in fascination23.
Lizzy smiled. “My mother learned that somewhere in Asia and always cut fruit that way. I guess I picked it up from her.”
“It’s fast,” Mark said and sat down at the table ready to eat.
***
The contact – a short bolding overweight man in his 50s – was waiting for them on the side of the road next to the gas station two kilometers away from the cottage. They walked to the meeting through the forest that Lizzy knew very well. She used to walk here with her mother when she was a little girl. It was a good day for a walk – su
“Is that him?” Lizzy asked.
“I think so,” Mark said. “Fits the description.”
“Is there a code word or a sentence that we’re supposed to use to make sure he’s our guy?”
“He told me that we will know us when he sees us.”
“Not much of a spy, isn’t he?”
“Let’s do it then,” he said and took a step out of the forest thicket24.
As soon as they were in the clear, the man acknowledged them with a nod and started to walk to a grey minivan that parked near the gas station’s minimart’s entrance. He opened the driver’s door and the passenger’s door. Then he got in the driver’s seat, closed the door but left the passenger door open.
“I guess that’s our cue25,” Mark said.
They walked to the van and climbed on the back.
“You’re to follow the instructions,” the man said as soon as they closed the door and gave them a large manila envelope. “There are two passports, the car keys, and some money.”
“We have a car,” Lizzy said.
“Not anymore,” the man said. “Our people are taking it from your cottage as we speak.”
“Why?” Mark asked.
“You’ve been seen driving it and the police has the number license.”
“Where’s our new ride then?”
“You are sitting in it,” the man said and opened his door.
“Wait,” Lizzy said. “Are you leaving? What’s your name?”
“You’re to follow the instructions,” the man said and left the car.
They watched him walking fast across the gas station and getting in a black pick-up truck – parked on the other side – which took off the second the man was in.
“That was some spy work right there,” Lizzy smiled.
Mark looked inside the envelope.
“Well, it’s all in there: the money, the passports, and the car keys.”
“Where are the instructions?”
Mark 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,” Mark was reading from the piece of paper.
“Alright,” 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 foolproof26,” Lizzy said with a smile.
She clicked on the folder and saw a link. She called it up on the screen. The software began to upload the Zoom meeting. The host had already started the meeting, but both his or her camera and microphone were deactivated.
Mark and Lizzy looked at the screen for a minute, waiting for something to happen.
“Are we supposed to do it now?” Lizzy asked, frowning at the screen.
Mark 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, the 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. Mark pointed to the screen, to microphone symbol that was crossed by a red line.
“Your microphone is off,” Lizzy said.
The woman jerked 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 whistles27,” the lady said smiling. “What happened to the good old face-to-face, right?”
Mark and Lizzy both nodded, agreeing.
“Anyway, Lizzy and Mark how you are kids doing?”
Lizzy and Mark looked at each other. “We’re fine,” Lizzy said.
“Oh, good,” the lady. “My name is Yana and I have a lot to tell you today. So, get comfortable.”
***
Next day, Lizzy woke up early in the morning and was surprised to realize that she actually slept for a few hours. She felt reinvigorated28, but there was a feeling that she forgot something important. She looked at Mark who was sleeping peacefully at her side and got up.
She decided to do some yoga, something that she hadn’t done since the day her life dramatically changed a couple months ago. It seemed that the body remembered all the asanas to make the brain and the muscles relax. She was doing the exercises in her underwear and felt the sunbeams on her skin. It felt great. After a quick shower, she was sitting in the kitchen with a cup of coffee reading what Yana had sent after the meeting.
It was a file with the name of the people that were co
“It takes many variants to get the one you really want,” Yana told them during the meeting. “Dolion had the final one and that was the one you destroyed. 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’s what she named it. 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 have our people infiltrated in all of them. Still, it won’t be easy to do what we want,” despite Yana’s cheerful demeanor, it was obvious what she was talking about took a lot of doing.
Lizzy checked the places they needed to go first. Those were two domestic destinations 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. So, we will be meeting at some point soon to do some tests.”
Obviously, the news about how Lizzy got rid of Dolion, and his virus spread to this world as well.
Lizzy went over the highlights of the meeting in her head one more time: the gang was around the world, she will go through some tests, and they will travel. So far, things didn’t sound complicated. The thought was both comforting and disturbing. Today’s list of things was also straightforward29: they would go to a specified address, change cars and someone would drive them to a research facility the Committee had. They would take some of her blood and would do a few tests.
Her life changed so much over the short period of time. Those changes were making her a new person. She was not sure whether she liked that person, but she had to accept and embrace30 the metamorphosis to survive. She felt a pang of nostalgia for the life she had, and a tear spilled down her cheek.
23
с восторгом
24
чаща
25
это наш выход (прим. авт.: что-то, что происходит в пьесе и сигнализирует актеру об определенной линии или действии)
26
неспособен ошибиться или быть использован не по назначению (прим. авт.: дословно «защита от дураков»)
27
привлекательные дополнительные функции
28
обновленной
29
простой
30
принимать