Fade Read Online Free PDF Page B

like SATs. One test, and somehow, everyone thinks they know everything about you. Only I don’t remember getting to study for this one.
    Sebastian Cook shakes his head. “Not just a threat, Celestra. An international threat.”
    There’s an edge to that I don’t like. “You sound like you almost agree with these Others.”
    He shakes his head then. “No. I want to keep you safe. They just want to kill you. But I’ve seen those readings too, and we can’t afford to take chances. Particularly not now that the presence of the Others will make the situation worse. Until we have some better answers, you need to fade, and you need to keep Jack near you at all times.”
    “Why Jack?” I ask.
    “You have an objection to Mr. Simple?”
    I shake my head. “No, he’s good.”
    “Oh, he’s better than good,” Sebastian Cook shoots back. “He’s one of our best Faders. I think you won’t mind his company too much either.”
    He doesn’t exactly wink at Jack as he says that, but he certainly comes close to it. I decide to ignore the implications. It’s not like I really have time to consider them in any case, because at that moment, the people in the white outfits move forward once more.
    “Come on,” one of them, a woman, says. “It’s time we got to work.”
    She takes my arm, leading me out of the room with all the glass. Since Jack is just behind us, I let her. I don’t know why it should matter so much to me that he’s there, but it does. The room the woman takes me to is small and brightly lit, with a large chair at its center, surrounded by all kinds of implements and mirrors. For the briefest of moments, I think that I’ve been tricked, and that this is all some kind of interrogation room. That’s what you’re meant to have in secret government bases, after all, and I’m wound so tight by now that it just leaps instantly to mind.
    But then I recognize some of the things around the chair. They’re the kind of things you might find in a beauty parlor, not in some hidden torture chamber. I let out a sigh of relief.
    “Were you expecting something different?” Jack asks, moving up beside me.
    “I…” I nod silently. “What is all this? I mean, what is it all for?”
    The woman with us smiles over at Jack. “Like he’d know what half of this is for. He’s all natural charm and boyish good looks.”
    “Why, thank you, Marlene.” Jack preens theatrically for a moment, and it’s nice to see behind the mask, if only for an instant. Then it’s back to business as he looks at me. “They’re going to change your appearance, Celes. It’s an essential step in the process of fading.”
    “Change my appearance?” I repeat, with another look at the chair. Some of the things poised on angle arms around it look vaguely surgical.
    “Relax,” Jack says, and I’m surprised to find that I do. “They aren’t going to do anything permanent to you, and it probably won’t hurt. It certainly won’t leave you looking hideous, if that’s what you’re worried about. Just think of it like a really good makeover, and you might find yourself pleasantly surprised.”
    Marlene the technician leads me to the chair while Jack stands by. He’s obviously not going to leave. “Jack’s right, for once. Just sit back, relax, and pretty soon, you’ll be saying hello to a whole new you.”
     
     
     
     
     

SIX
     
     
     
     
     
    T he next part takes literally hours. Hours of plucking and teasing and dying. Hours of doing things to my teeth and my skin, hours of procedures that, while they stop short of full surgery, are clearly designed to radically change the way I look. There are never fewer than two or three of the technicians working on me at once, while at some points, there are as many as six, all far too busy to answer questions from me about what they’re doing. After all, it’s only my body they’re doing it to, right?
    My hair is the first radical alteration. They dye it, changing it from its