“A secret academy,” said Kira, “based on the Doc Savage methods. Strict discipline from infancy on, every minute programmed, no outside influences. My great-grandfather took the Doc Savage training and corrupted it, turned it into something else.”

  “Turned it into what?” I asked.

  “Into something that would help him extend his influence and take over the world,” said Kira. “Espionage. Infiltration. Psyops. Murder.”

  “How do you know all this?” I asked. “How can you possibly…?”

  Her look stopped me in mid-sentence.

  “Because I was raised there,” said Kira. “I was trained there. In eighty years, I’m the only student to leave without authorization. I escaped when I was a teenager.”

  I leaned back against the wall. Suddenly a lot of things were adding up. But not everything.

  “Wait,” I said. “So you mean you put up with that evil shit for all those years and then decided to run away? Why? What changed? Did you suddenly grow a conscience?”

  Kira’s eyes dropped. Her voice got soft and low.

  “I can’t talk about that,” she said.

  Something in the way she said it told me to leave it alone.

  “Okay,” I said. “But where did you go? You’re not a teenager anymore. Where have you been all this time? What were you doing—kidnapping innocent college professors?”

  “I promise,” she said, “you’re my first. I’ve been all over the world. Made plenty of money. I’ve been lots of different people, and I’ve covered my tracks pretty well. But the school is still operating, still pumping out graduates. They’re getting better, and smarter, and more dangerous. You cannot believe the amount of evil they are responsible for. It’s everywhere.”

  “And that’s why you needed my help?” I asked.

  She nodded. “I knew you had the right genes,” she said, “but I had to bring out your full potential. I couldn’t tell you the truth until you were ready. Until I knew I could trust you.” She leaned toward me in her chair. “I’m sorry.” That was the first time she’d ever uttered those two words. And somehow, in that moment, I felt sorry for her. I reached over and put my hand on top of hers. I expected her to pull away, but she didn’t.

  The effects of the mezcal had mostly worn off, but now there was something else. I felt like I’d stepped into a different time and place—a world where only one other person knew what was going on. Over the past six months, I’d been afraid of her, I’d hated her, I’d admired her. And now I was having other feelings. Maybe stuff I’d been suppressing. I wondered if maybe she was feeling the same thing. Kira stood up.

  “I think we need to release some tension,” she said.

  Finally, it sounded like maybe we were on the same page.

  CHAPTER 59

  “STOP BEING SUCH a baby!”

  I’d never been touched like this in my life. The pain was intense. But Kira said it was all for my own good.

  I was lying on a massage table behind a set of linen curtains in a corner of the loft. My face was poking through an oval in the table cushion and all I could see through it were floorboards. I was naked except for a towel across my backside. That part didn’t bother me. I’d gotten over my self-consciousness around her a long time ago. But my body was definitely going through some new experiences. Kira’s elbow was buried in the muscles that ran along my spine. I could feel her leaning in with the full weight of her upper body. She slid her elbow up and down, from the base of my neck to the top of my sacrum. I flinched from the pressure.

  “What are you doing to me?” I asked.

  “I told you,” she said. “Deep-tissue massage and myofascial release. Just breathe through it.”

  “I’m trying.” More of a groan than actual words.

  I felt her applying more warm oil to my back, spreading it in a diamond pattern, her palms moving across my shoulders, down my back, and over the top of my hips, then back up again. When she stood at the head of the table, I could see her black tights and bare feet through the opening. Then she was gone again, moving around to another part of my anatomy. Neck. Arms. Hips. Calves. Feet. She used her knuckles, thumbs, and knees. She pressed deep into my muscles and tendons, probing for every knot.

  “Don’t fight me, Doctor,” she said. “Let go.”

  Slowly, bit by bit, my body stopped resisting and gave in. At some point, I crossed the boundary between pain and relief. By the end of an hour, I felt warm and loose from head to toe. More relaxed than I’d felt in a very long time. Years, maybe. Maybe my whole damned life. I could hardly speak.

  “Where the hell did you learn that?” I mumbled.

  “Like I said,” replied Kira, “I’ve been lots of people.”

  Her last big move was a rolling motion with her forearms up and down my back. Like she was ironing me out. Then I saw her feet through the hole again. I felt her hands resting lightly on my head. She curled her fingers through my hair and massaged my scalp. I could feel the skin moving over my skull. It was heaven. After a minute of that, she gently lifted her hands away.

  “We’re done, Doctor,” she said softly. “How do you feel?”

  “Amazing,” I sighed.

  I gripped the towel around my waist and slowly turned face up on the table. I raised myself up on my elbows. Kira was closing the top of her oil bottle and slipping back into her shoes. She looked down at the same instant I did—and saw my erection poking up under the towel. Kira put the oil bottle down on the side table.

  “Autonomic reflex,” she said. “Totally normal.” Then she disappeared behind the curtain. I flopped back down onto the table. I felt flushed and embarrassed.

  Autonomic reflex. It sounded so clinical. So scientific. Maybe that was all there was to it, I thought.

  Maybe.

  CHAPTER 60

  THE NEXT MORNING, breakfast was a little awkward. One reason was the menu. I’d gotten used to Kira’s weird nutrition repertoire. Goji berries, chia seeds, flax, maca, and the rest of it. Some of it I’d learned to like. Some of it I’d learned to tolerate. Some of it I still had to choke down. But now I was staring at a plateful of wet green weeds.

  “What in God’s name is this?” I asked. “And don’t say ‘wrong question.’”

  “It’s kelp. You’re low on antioxidants.”

  Now that she said it, it looked exactly like stuff I’d seen in nature documentaries, waving around underwater. It was seaweed, pure and simple. I pushed the plate away.

  “Thanks,” I said, “but I draw the line at algae.”

  I was a little surprised when she didn’t push back or try to force feed me. She downed the last of her smoothie and wiped her lips with a napkin. She looked serious. She put her elbows on the butcher block.

  “Doctor,” she said, “we need to have… the talk.”

  More awkwardness. I figured this was about my display the night before. Had to be. I cleared my throat.

  “Right,” I said. “I’m sorry about the…” I glanced down at my lap. Kira shook her head.

  “It’s not about that,” she said. She leaned toward me over the kitchen island. “I have a confession to make, Doctor. It’s about me. About you and me. Our history.”

  “Our history?” I said. “I’ve seen our history, remember? Our history is you stalking me, stealing my mail, hacking my router, and spying on me from the bushes.”

  “You’re absolutely right,” she said. “And that’s what I can’t really explain. I think I liked watching you from a distance. I could see how awkward you were. The way you kept to yourself, lost in your own little universe. No friends. No relationships. No adventure.”

  She was right, of course. Her little film had proven the point in spades.

  “I’m a loner,” I said. “Always have been.”

  “To be honest,” said Kira, “I found the whole package kind of irresistible.”

  I sat up in my chair. Was she playing another game? I’d never felt the least bit irresistible. To anybody. I never expected to have a stalker with some strange long-distance crush. Especially one who looked like Kira.

  “And what about now?” I asked. “Now that you’ve turned me into this… this physical masterpiece.”

  She shrugged. “That’s the weird part,” she said. “Now you’re just another guy.”

  I guess I should have been hurt. Or insulted. Or disappointed. But mostly I was confused. What Kira seemed to be saying was that back when I thought I would never have a chance with a woman like her, I actually did. And now that I looked like somebody who might actually have a chance with her, I didn’t. It was a head-spinner. Over the years, I’d been attracted to plenty of women who had stuck me permanently in the friend zone. But this was a whole new zone. The Kira zone. And I was totally lost.

  “Don’t feel bad,” said Kira. “I’m no prize, believe me. I have baggage. I’m not easy to be with.”

  At that point, all I could do was laugh. “Tell me something I don’t know,” I said.

  And that was it. No meaningful looks. No hugs. She’d said what she needed to say, and then she shifted gears. She took the plate and scraped the seaweed into the garbage, where it belonged. At least that was a relief.

  “Come with me, Doctor,” she said. She headed back toward the door that said UTILITY. “I’ve got something else to show you.” I got up from my chair as she pulled the door open. She had a strange smile on her face. “You probably shouldn’t have too much in your stomach for this anyway.”

  CHAPTER 61

  A FEW MINUTES later, we were standing on a narrow ledge that projected from the side of the building and I was preparing to die. We were about sixty stories up, wearing silver overalls over our clothes and helmets on our heads. Kira said the overalls were fireproof. But fire was the least of my worries. I was way more afraid of ending up as a bloody speck on the sidewalk.

  “Adjust your straps, Doctor,” said Kira. “Like this.”

  The straps were attached to big chrome canisters on our backs. They looked kind of like old vacuum cleaners. I looked over as Kira pulled the loose ends of her front straps down tight across her chest. I did the same. Then I tightened the belt around my waist. I felt the canister press even harder against my back.

  I looked over at Kira like she was nuts, because I truly thought she was. This whole project seemed suicidal. But she wouldn’t back off.

  “Don’t worry,” said Kira. “I’ve bench tested these things a dozen times. Doc Savage knew what he was doing. The thrust and aerodynamics all add up.”

  I’d read about some of my great-grandfather’s inventions. Fluoroscopes for night vision. The first hi-def TV. Ejection seats for airplanes. But I never knew how much of it was real. And I definitely never expected to be standing on a ledge wearing one of his 1930s-vintage jetpacks. That part felt absolutely insane.

  Kira took a step forward. She was standing right next to me, just one foot from the edge.

  “Trust me,” she said. “Trust your great-grandfather.”

  I didn’t. Not for a second. Not when it came to a 600-foot drop. I felt like throwing up. Kira reached over and made a small adjustment to a dial on the side of my jet canister.

  “What are you doing??” I asked.

  “Giving you a richer mixture,” she said. “More power.”

  “Is this another one of your manhood tests?” I asked. “I thought I’d already passed!” My voice was shaky. I sounded desperate, and I was.

  “I no longer doubt your manhood,” she said.

  “I can’t do this!” I said. I backed up against the wall. “This is crazy!”

  Kira pulled me forward again and stood right behind me. Her hands were on my shoulders. She spoke right into my ear. Her voice was calm and reassuring. I thought maybe I could still talk her out of it.

  “Wait! I just need a little more time!” I could feel my palms sweating.

  Her voice was calm and reassuring. “No rush, Doctor. I know you’re nervous. Totally understandable. We’ll go when you’re ready.”

  I took a deep breath. She shoved me off the ledge.

  CHAPTER 62

  I MIGHT HAVE screamed. I don’t really remember. What I do remember is the feeling of my heart thudding and the air rushing up against my face. I was falling straight down, head first. I could see the street and all the traffic zooming closer in a blur. Then I heard a loud bang and a roar behind me. I felt a tremendous jolt. And suddenly I wasn’t falling anymore. I was shooting up into the sky like a rocket, so fast it felt like my stomach was being pressed down toward my feet.

  I looked over. Kira was right alongside me. I saw a bright tear-shaped flame blasting out of the bottom of her jetpack. Her hair was whipping out from under her helmet in little copper-colored waves.

  She flexed her legs and leveled out until she was flying parallel to the ground. I copied her exactly. Got the same result. I was a bad judge of heights, but it looked like we were a couple thousand feet up. We were soaring over the center of Chicago, with skyscrapers stabbing up and all the other buildings laid out like a giant puzzle. The streets were a neat crosshatch pattern. The Chicago River was like a blue ribbon winding through the city.

  It probably took me a half minute to adjust to the reality of what was happening—the fact that we were flying with machines built sixty years before I was born. And that they actually worked. There was no use trying to talk, or even shout to each other. The wind was too loud. But I could read Kira’s body language in the air.

  She was having a ball. And once I realized that I wasn’t going to drop out of the sky like a stone, I started to have a ball, too.

  At first, Kira took the lead, and I followed what she did. She was like a ballet dancer in the air. A total natural. I wasn’t quite as smooth, but I was getting the hang of it. I realized that I could control my position in the air by dipping my head and adjusting my arms. When I tucked my arms tight against my sides, I swooped down. When I lifted my arms out to the sides, I rose back up. After I got a little confidence, I straightened out and shot out in front. The sensation was unbelievable. It was a mix of lightness and speed and amazing power. I had to hand it to my ancestor. I’d never felt anything like it.

  Lake Michigan was off to the east, looking like a big green carpet. I banked to the left and headed out over the water. Kira was right behind me. I tucked myself into a dive and plummeted down until I was about thirty feet above the surface. When I passed over a lake freighter, I was close enough to see the crew looking up and pointing. The lower I got, the faster it felt like I was going. It was a total rush, and I was loving it. I lost all sense of time. I wanted it to last forever.

  Suddenly I felt a lurch from my rocket pack. Instantly I dropped about ten feet. I looked over at Kira, who was flying right next to me. The flame from her rocket was coming out in short bursts, with little belches of smoke in between. I felt another lurch, then a loud pop. Then I started to spin like a pinwheel, end over end. My vision flipped between sky and water. Sky and water. And then only water. I hit feet first.

  I sucked in one last breath, and then I went under, sinking fast. I saw Kira plunge in a few yards away. She sank down in a cloud of bubbles until she was out of sight in the murky lake. I couldn’t see the bottom. But I knew that’s where I was headed. With fifty pounds of metal strapped to my back, it’s not like I had a choice.

  CHAPTER 63

  I STARTED TO panic. The light was fading above my head and the water under my feet was getting blacker. My lungs were on fire. I wrestled with the straps around my chest and middle but they wouldn’t budge. I lost all sense of space. There was nothing but murk all around me. I tried to swim up, but it was no use. With my jetpack attached, I was dead weight.

  About five seconds later, my boot landed on a long piece of metal. I had reached the lake bottom. I spun hard to the left. Something caught on the strap behind my back. I felt around with my bare hands and realized that I had fallen onto a pile of cement and rebar. Pure terror shot through me. After everything, that’s where I was going to end up—wrapped around a pile of construction debris at the bottom of Lake Michigan.

  I saw a blast of white in the distance. Then I saw Kira swimming toward me out of the dark. Her jetpack was gone. So was her helmet. Bubbles were blowing out of a device attached to her face.

  When she got close, she went blurry. I was starting to pass out. She grabbed at my strap fasteners and yanked them open. I felt the weight of the jetpack drop away. I was loose. But still drowning.

  Then Kira was in my face, holding up a set of nose plugs attached to something that looked like a toothpaste tube. She yanked off my helmet. She jammed the plugs into my nostrils and twisted the top of the tube. I felt a rush of air into my lungs. I clamped my mouth shut and inhaled through my nostrils. My head instantly cleared. I was breathing again. Kira gave me a thumbs-up. I think I nodded. I wasn’t sure what was happening. I only knew that I was alive.

  Kira started kicking her way through the water. I followed right behind, trying to keep her in sight in the murk. After a few minutes, the water started turning green again.

  Suddenly there was a ripple of light above. A few strokes later, my head broke water. I opened my mouth and took in the fresh air. Deep, long breaths of it.

  “Pretty ingenious, right?” Kira’s voice, yelling from a distance. I twisted around in the water. She was about twenty feet away, holding up her breathing apparatus.

  “Thank your great-grandfather for these!” she shouted.

  All I could do was shake my head and spit out some lake water. I was starting to wonder how many lives I had left. We were still about fifty yards from the shoreline. I could see a modern building with white pillars overlooking the lake. The Oceanarium of the Shedd Aquarium. We started swimming toward it.

  As we approached the shoreline, I could see crowds of families on the curved sidewalk in front of the building. There was some kind of water festival going on. I saw kids and balloons and costumed characters dancing around. The outdoor sound system was blaring Disney music.