she said.
Right. I did wish Reese would let go of my hand but it wasn’t hard to guess that her feelings would be super-hurt if I made that request.
We turned a corner and she slid the ID card on a lanyard around her neck into a slot next to a windowless door. “You’ll get your own card soon,” she said, and I pretended to be reassured. She dropped my hand so she could push the heavy door open with both of hers.
I stepped into the room after her, and my jaw dropped at what this average office façade had kept hidden.
The room was enormous, much like the NASA mission control rooms I’d seen on late-night cable TV. I was technology challenged, so I wasn’t one hundred percent sure, but I was at least fairly confident that even the most advanced ordinary humans generally didn’t work on holographic screens. Seriously, holograms. A few dozen people—well, fae—stood between desks and sat on rolling chairs monitoring the hovering images in front of them, occasionally poking a finger in the air to pull up different iridescent images or change screens. It freaked me out.
The entire room around them was sleek and spotless and silent, with silver gleaming desks and high-polished floor. Each fae had wore a small earpiece though none seemed to be talking to anyone. They just listened.
Every fae in the complicated, intimidating room turned to stare at me, ID tags dangling from lanyards around their necks.
“Uh, hi,” I mumbled, though no one but Reese could have heard me. They watched me for a moment, turning around to glance at screens every few seconds before their work consumed them again and they turned away. Reluctantly.
The air was charged here with something I couldn’t identify. Urgency, certainly. But there was a sense of pride, as if the workers weren’t just toiling for a paycheck. They worked as one efficient machine with age-old coordinates set to one common goal.
The common goal was the Olde Way, I understood, and I suddenly itched to take my part.
“Welcome to The Root,” Reese said with that pride. “Our monitoring center. I work at that pod over there, and my job is routine confirmation of the location of all the tracking bugs, and to intercept signals. It’s a big city, and it’s important to keep track of what’s going on in all the homes.”
I couldn’t be hearing that correctly. “Hold up,” I said. “You have bugging devices in every house in D.C.?”
“Not every house,” Reese said. “Just the houses with one or more child between 6 and 11, the age range for exfoliation of primary teeth.”
She must have confused my stunned expression for lack of basic understanding, because she clarified, “Baby teeth falling out. Kids grow and lose 20 primary teeth, and we can’t catch them all, but I still say we have a pretty good track record. Approximately 87 percent. Well,” she faltered, “more like 70 percent right now. But you’ll be working on that.”
“Sorry,” I cut in, “I’m still stuck on the bug thing. How do you know what houses to bug?”
“Public records like birth certificates,” she said. “School records, Registry of Deeds. Information is pretty easy to find.”
“What is it you’re tracking, exactly?”
“Innocence.”
“I don’t follow.”
“When a tooth falls out, it exposes the innocence essence we need. The bug can sense it, and emits a signal. We intercept the signal, but we have to do it fast, because the bug has a time limit. It can only sense it when it’s strongest, when the tooth first falls out. We lose the signal quickly, so The Root is staffed around the clock.”
Despite my amazement at what I was hearing, I was impressed with Reese. I usually considered perkiness a personality flaw, but in her element, she knew her stuff. “How do people not find tracking devices in their own homes?” I asked.
“Oh, they find them,” Reese said. “When a bug gets squooshed, the Research and Retrieval Department has to ask a collector
Right. I did wish Reese would let go of my hand but it wasn’t hard to guess that her feelings would be super-hurt if I made that request.
We turned a corner and she slid the ID card on a lanyard around her neck into a slot next to a windowless door. “You’ll get your own card soon,” she said, and I pretended to be reassured. She dropped my hand so she could push the heavy door open with both of hers.
I stepped into the room after her, and my jaw dropped at what this average office façade had kept hidden.
The room was enormous, much like the NASA mission control rooms I’d seen on late-night cable TV. I was technology challenged, so I wasn’t one hundred percent sure, but I was at least fairly confident that even the most advanced ordinary humans generally didn’t work on holographic screens. Seriously, holograms. A few dozen people—well, fae—stood between desks and sat on rolling chairs monitoring the hovering images in front of them, occasionally poking a finger in the air to pull up different iridescent images or change screens. It freaked me out.
The entire room around them was sleek and spotless and silent, with silver gleaming desks and high-polished floor. Each fae had wore a small earpiece though none seemed to be talking to anyone. They just listened.
Every fae in the complicated, intimidating room turned to stare at me, ID tags dangling from lanyards around their necks.
“Uh, hi,” I mumbled, though no one but Reese could have heard me. They watched me for a moment, turning around to glance at screens every few seconds before their work consumed them again and they turned away. Reluctantly.
The air was charged here with something I couldn’t identify. Urgency, certainly. But there was a sense of pride, as if the workers weren’t just toiling for a paycheck. They worked as one efficient machine with age-old coordinates set to one common goal.
The common goal was the Olde Way, I understood, and I suddenly itched to take my part.
“Welcome to The Root,” Reese said with that pride. “Our monitoring center. I work at that pod over there, and my job is routine confirmation of the location of all the tracking bugs, and to intercept signals. It’s a big city, and it’s important to keep track of what’s going on in all the homes.”
I couldn’t be hearing that correctly. “Hold up,” I said. “You have bugging devices in every house in D.C.?”
“Not every house,” Reese said. “Just the houses with one or more child between 6 and 11, the age range for exfoliation of primary teeth.”
She must have confused my stunned expression for lack of basic understanding, because she clarified, “Baby teeth falling out. Kids grow and lose 20 primary teeth, and we can’t catch them all, but I still say we have a pretty good track record. Approximately 87 percent. Well,” she faltered, “more like 70 percent right now. But you’ll be working on that.”
“Sorry,” I cut in, “I’m still stuck on the bug thing. How do you know what houses to bug?”
“Public records like birth certificates,” she said. “School records, Registry of Deeds. Information is pretty easy to find.”
“What is it you’re tracking, exactly?”
“Innocence.”
“I don’t follow.”
“When a tooth falls out, it exposes the innocence essence we need. The bug can sense it, and emits a signal. We intercept the signal, but we have to do it fast, because the bug has a time limit. It can only sense it when it’s strongest, when the tooth first falls out. We lose the signal quickly, so The Root is staffed around the clock.”
Despite my amazement at what I was hearing, I was impressed with Reese. I usually considered perkiness a personality flaw, but in her element, she knew her stuff. “How do people not find tracking devices in their own homes?” I asked.
“Oh, they find them,” Reese said. “When a bug gets squooshed, the Research and Retrieval Department has to ask a collector
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