Perfect Cover (The Squad 1)

“Have a seat.” Zee gestured, and I sat. Post–herkie torture, my body was fundamentally opposed to standing for any extended period of time.

When Zee sat down behind her desk, her eyes watched me carefully, and I frowned. “I am so not in the mood to be psychoanalyzed,” I told her.

Zee flipped her glossy black ponytail over her shoulder. “Been there,” she said. “Done that. You’re not that interesting.”

I folded my arms across my chest and waited.

“Actually, I thought you might want the rundown on everyone else.”

“Say what?”

“Let’s face it. You’re not exactly Miss Sociable. You didn’t know any of the girls this time last week, and I’m pretty sure you hated all of us anyway. Now you’re a part of the Squad, and, correct me if I’m wrong, you’ve decided that Tara is tolerable, and you’re trying awfully hard not to like Lucy. You still haven’t forgiven the twins for the Stage Six, you’re mildly threatened by April, you think Bubbles has the IQ of a doorstop, you’ve already created a mental list of dictators whose personalities resemble Brooke’s, you can’t understand what Chloe’s problem is, and my PhD freaks the hell out of you.”

It was like she had me in some kind of freaky cheerleading mind meld!

With another hair flip, Zee crossed her arms over her chest, matching her posture to my own. “How’d I do?”

I didn’t answer.

“I take it that means I did well? Know you better than you know yourself, et cetera, et cetera?”

“Didn’t you have something to show me?” I asked.

“Sure,” Zee said. She pushed a folder across the desk, and I picked it up. Not sure what to expect, I opened it.

The first thing I saw was the numbers. I got numbers. They were comfort food for my brain. I read the labels, examined the axes of the graphs, and flipped through the pages.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Ideal profile for an operative,” Zee said. “Aptitude tests, IQ, EI, personality diagnostics. The works.”

Then Zee slid another folder across the desk.

I opened it, and as I digested the data in front of me, Zee explained.

“That’s the breakdown for the Squad,” she said. “I didn’t label the different individuals, but you get the drift. There’s some EI/IQ tradeoff, and the personalities vary, but they’re all good at keeping secrets, they all know how to command a situation, they’re all incredibly intuitive about the strengths and weaknesses of others, and they’re all extraordinarily loyal.”

Without a word, Zee slid another folder across the table. Unable to help myself, I opened it.

A little girl with dark hair, glasses, and a serious expression on her face stared back at me.

“That was taken the day I graduated from high school,” Zee said. “I was eight.” She shuddered. “I know, I know, the bangs are hideous, and it’s more than obvious that my mother was still picking out my clothes….”

She trailed off. “I didn’t start picking out my own clothes until grad school, you know? And I never hung out with people my own age. I think that’s why I was so into psychology. I always thought that if I could understand what it meant to be normal, I could just sort of fake it. And then one day, someone comes along and offers to pay me to do it all over again. They styled my hair, they made me over, they gave me a car, and they put me on a cheerleading squad with nine other teenage girls.”

Zee paused. “And those nine other girls? They would have died for me. A couple of times, some of them almost have.”

I didn’t know what to say.

Without a word, Zee handed me another folder. I opened it, and Lucy stared back at me.

“She’s a perfectionist,” Zee said. “She’s got this really incredible drive to be good and nice and sweet and happy, and she doesn’t do anything unless she can be the best at it. She had an older sister, but the sister died in a car wreck when she was nine. Lucy being Lucy is pretty much the only thing that kept her family together.”

Zee pushed another folder across the desk. I didn’t open it.

“That one’s Chloe,” Zee said. “You gonna open it?”

I thought about it and then shook my head. “You going to give me the Cliff’s Notes anyway?”

“But of course.” Zee twirled her hair absentmindedly as she spoke. “Chloe was, in layman’s terms, the world’s biggest dork. Kind of chubby, socially awkward, really into Star Wars.”

As Zee dished, I couldn’t help but think that maybe the Gossip Girl/profiler pairing made sense. I mean, wasn’t a profiler just someone who knew everything about everyone to the point that they could practically see inside their heads? And wasn’t a gossip queen pretty much the exact same thing?

“Star Wars?” I couldn’t help but ask.

“She’d kill me if she knew I was telling you this, but yeah. Star Wars. She spent the majority of fourth grade building a functioning light saber.”

The next time Chloe made a computer geek comment, she was so incredibly toast.

“Chloe moved to Bayport when she was eleven,” Zee continued, “and she was drafted to the program immediately.”

“She joined the Squad when she was eleven?”

“No,” Zee said. “She was befriended by a cheerleader who more or less Stage Sixed her all by herself. This girl strong-armed Chloe into joining the cheerleading squad and molded her into the Chloe we all know and love. Four years later, both girls made varsity. Now they have this sibling love/hate thing going on.”

Zee paused then, and I got the feeling that she was waiting for me to catch up.

“Brooke?” I guessed.

Zee nodded. “Brooke. She’s been in the program longer than anyone. She was raised for it, and she’s been slated for Squad captain since she was like nine. Brooke turned Chloe into her own little Brookeling, and ever since the whole Jack Peyton thing, Chlo’s been gunning for the captain spot.”

This was, in some horrible, sick way, fascinating. I think the way I felt listening to Zee was the way most people feel watching soap operas. You know, on some level at least, that you shouldn’t want to watch it, but you just can’t help yourself.

“And then you come along,” Zee said. “And all of a sudden, there’s another techie girl on the scene, and Chloe’s feeling a little bit threatened. Add to that the fact that your makeover reminds Chloe of what Brooke did for her, and the fact that you’re the only one Jack is currently interested in, and voilà, you’ve got Chloe.”