The Outliers (The Outliers, #1)(58)

“What about that police guy?” I ask.

“Officer Kendall? Yeah, he’s friends with somebody here. I’m not sure exactly who,” Quentin says. “But he’s a good guy. He helped us clear out the camp, said he would keep people away for a few days. We needed a place off the grid. Until we can get things figured out.”

“And so why didn’t he just tell us about this once we were in the police car with him?” I ask when we’re almost at the steps to the main cabin.

Before Quentin can answer, the door swings open and two young guys in low-hanging jeans step out. The first is short with a white-blond buzz cut, a beaked nose, and dark circles under his eyes. There’s a tattoo on the inside of his forearm, a small square grid with some circles in it—like a game board. The second guy, much taller with big cheeks, has the same tattoo, but on the side of his neck. Each of them has a laptop gripped under an arm. They’re youngish, but older than Cassie and me. Older than Quentin.

“Oh, hi,” Quentin says to them, startled and kind of nervous. But also like he’s trying to play it cool, which he’s not very good at. “Thanks again for coming all the way up here, guys. I know it’s not the kind of thing you usually do.”

“Mmm, yeah,” the blond guy grunts without slowing down. “Pretty much the f*cking opposite.”

“Later,” the other one mutters, his cheeks quivering as he jogs down the rest of the steps.

We watch them stalk away, lighting cigarettes as they head on foot down the driveway and disappear.

“Who are they?” I ask.

“Um, hacktivists?” Quentin says, his voice rising at the end even more than usual. “But I don’t think they like being called that. They don’t seem to like a lot of things.”

“Hacktivists?” Cassie huffs. Though I’m not sure why this, of all the crazy things we’ve been told, would suddenly seem so absurd to her.

“Level99,” Quentin goes on. “Not that they’ll admit that’s who they are. They are kind of like the CIA, but with tattoos.” He shrugs. “But they did agree to come all the way up here to figure out who breached your dad’s data—things are so out of hand we couldn’t risk them doing it remotely—and to secure our smartphones. They had all the texting and everything blocked temporarily, which is why Officer Kendall couldn’t reach us when you got here. And with the generator out we didn’t even know it was Officer Kendall until he came up to the main cabin, so we were staying out of sight. Just in case.”

“My dad said something about someone getting into his data.” I feel a little relieved to have two tiny dots I can connect, even if it makes my dad more involved, not less. “But he said it was the whole campus.”

“It could have been, I guess,” Quentin says, though it’s obvious he doesn’t think so. “There’s a lot we still don’t know.”

Inside, the main cabin is nothing like the one we were kept in. The furniture is old, but the room is brightly lit and sparkling clean, with a dozen long picnic tables and benches set out in two perfect rows. The windows look new, but more than one is open, the filmy faded curtains fluttering on the crisp breeze. A larger table at the back is covered with a green tablecloth, a couple of stainless-steel coffee urns on top, a stack of white mugs next to it. Like for a crowd, except there’s not a soul in sight.

We’re still standing there next to the door when an old woman, frail but purposeful, comes out from the back carrying a stack of folded towels in her veiny arms.

“Hi, Miriam,” Quentin calls, but carefully. Like he doesn’t want to scare her.

“Oh my!” She jumps anyway, pressing a hand to her bony chest. “I didn’t see you there!”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you. Have you seen Dr. Simons around, maybe with a young guy?”

“They were just here,” she says, looking around, her forehead crinkled. When she doesn’t spot them, she peers down under the table nearest to her as though they could be hiding under there. “Wait, now I remember. Dr. Simons was going to show the boy something on one of the computers in the back office.”

“Okay, thanks, Miriam,” Quentin says, smiling gently as she moves on toward the door. “Miriam was a combat nurse in Vietnam. She has crazy stories.”

“And she knows my dad?” Because my dad has no friends. Then again maybe knowing all these people is just another of his lies.

“Either him or Dr. Simons, I’m not sure. Everybody here knows one of them, or knows somebody who knows them. These days, Miriam is an archivist at the university library. Maybe that’s how she knows your dad?” The library. My dad’s favorite place on campus. “Almost everyone is a professor or a researcher, except for me and Miriam. Dr. Simons was my professor at Stanford before they kicked me out.”

“Oh,” I say, trying not to make my disappointed face.

“Yeah, apparently, they prefer you actually go to class. But Dr. Simons made it so that I could voluntarily withdraw at least. I’m back here, at UMass now. Not as prestigious, but I’ll graduate.”

Cassie, who’s been lingering near the door, finally steps up next to us. “Can we go find Jasper now?” she asks, sounding impatient. “I really need to talk to him.”

She’s not going to confess her affair in the middle of this mess, is she? It was one thing to tell me, but telling Jasper is another thing entirely. “Maybe you should wait until we’re home before you talk to Jasper?”