by Melissa West
“Is that…?”
Jackson leans against the door and musses his hair with both hands, before glancing up at the painting. “It’s you.”
“When was this done? And how? Vill’s never met me.” I’m not fighting in the painting, or shooting a gun, or doing any one of the many things that define me. Instead, I’m seated on the ground in a bed of leaves, staring up into the open sky, the trees surrounding me like old friends. I look happy, peaceful, not at all the way I see myself.
“A year ago, I guess. He pulled from my memory. He wasn’t satisfied with my descriptions, so he just…”
I turn to look at him, my heart swelling though I try to push it away. A year ago. That was before I found out he was an Ancient, before we had become…whatever we were. I don’t know what to say.
Jackson lowers his head, scratching his chin uncomfortably, but I can’t take my eyes off him. He glances up sideways, his hair once again shadowing his eyes. “What can I say? For me, it has always been you.” He breaks the connection before I can respond and motions toward the bed. “You can sleep here. I’ll have the floor. If it’s okay we’re in the same room? If you want more space, then I can crash with Vill. Just let me know.”
I shake my head. “No, it’s fine. I don’t want you to leave your room.” I want to tell him he can sleep in the bed too, but I’m not ready for that. I need to get to know him—the real him—separate from all the conspiracy and lies. I have more questions that I can possibly handle, each thing bringing on a slew of new ones.
Jackson tucks his hands into his pockets and nods toward me. “Ask. I know you have questions. I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
I think it through and settle on what I want to know the most. “How is everyone?” I don’t elaborate—he knows who I mean. He has tried to talk to them several times since I’ve been here, each time giving me updates, though I’ve noticed they’re becoming more and more vague.
“The same. Different, but yet the same.” His head bobs once, like the description couldn’t be more perfect. “Your dad is still commander, your mom still a Chemist. Gretchen is still Gretchen. Yet, they’re all different, changed, aged. I don’t know. I think they’re putting on a show for everyone, but inside they’re all someone else now. I think they’re planning something. I don’t know what. And Law, he’s…harder, or maybe he just hates me.”
The memory of Law’s face when he told me he and Jackson were brothers slips into my mind. Even after all this time, it’s hard to process. I want to know more about Jackson’s father, how he became involved with President Cartier, Lawrence’s mother. If it happened while she was with Law’s father—who died years ago now—or if it was before since Jackson is older than Law. I don’t know.
Jackson looks away, and I know he must have heard what I was thinking. I walk over to the shelf Vill built and start examining one of a dozen of the mini sculptures situated there. They are all different. Some are flowers, others strange creatures I’ve never seen before. With each painting or sculpture, Vill’s sanity becomes more and more questionable. I glance up at Jackson to see him smirking at me. “Ah, he’s not so bad. Just…expressive.”
“So you say.” I switch to something less personal. “When can I talk to my mom? Or my dad? Does he still seem on edge?”
Jackson swallows. “Yes. I can’t tell if it has to do with him knowing who I am now or if there’s something deeper going on. I think it’s the latter. Something may have changed there and for whatever reason they can’t or aren’t willing to tell me about it. Maybe once they know you’re okay…We’ll see. Your mom will be happy to see you. She’ll be there tonight.”
My eyes dart up from the tiny tree figurine in my hand. “My mom. What has she said? Does she sound okay? Wait, did you say tonight?” I repeat, unable to keep the excitement from my voice. I love all my family and friends, all of them, but I miss my mom the most. I miss knowing someone was around who supported me no matter what, who thought I could do anything. I miss the straight love I felt when I was with her. I miss smelling her simple, clean perfume long after she released me from a hug. “Can I talk to her now?”
Jackson’s face softens. “We have our first meeting tonight.”
“Tonight?”
“Tonight.”
I smile. Tonight, I get to talk to my family.
Chapter 4
“Hey, there’s food,” a voice calls from down the hall.
Jackson and I step into the main room and the smell of cooked food wafts through the air. “We eat outside. Is that okay?”
I nod and we head outside. It’s dark now, the sky peaceful. Three chairs sit in haphazard order around the front porch, one already full. The boy looks younger than I imagined. He has black hair and olive skin and a look about him that suggests he’s always thinking.
“You must be Vill,” I say, walking over to greet him.
“Indeed. And I know who you are.” He looks at me as though he knows much more about me than just my name or my face. “It’s nice to meet you, Ari.”
Jackson pulls up the other two chairs and hands me a plate of food. It’s full of some cooked greens that look like grass, more bocas, and something else that might be meat—or it could be charred bread. And while the food is different, it’s still food, which again seems odd. I’m not sure what I expected them to eat. Honestly, I’d never given much thought to what they ate.
“It’s real food, if that’s what you’re wondering,” Jackson says, answering my unasked question.
“So what is it?”
“Our diets consist of the vital nutrients necessarily to sustain our bodies. Nothing more. Nourishment over taste, if you will,” Vill says, and I realize that for whatever reason I like him already. He has something pure about him, like he’d never think anything but the most genuine thoughts. It’s refreshing.
Jackson goes back in to grab us drinks, and as soon as he’s gone, Vill leans in close to me. “How are you holding up?”
Good. Horribly. Both answers seem appropriate. I settle on, “I’m okay.”
Vill nods. “The transition can be unsettling.”
Unsettled is the perfect way to describe me, and again, I get the feeling Vill understands me on a deeper level than our solo introduction would suggest. “I like your work,” I say, hoping to change the subject. He looks away, and I sense that he doesn’t like attention.
“My mind operates on a continous cycle. It helps me focus.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean.” I think of my trainings back home with Dad. He required me to train with him personally each morning at six a.m. At first, I worried over what he thought, how I was doing, would I make him proud. But eventually, I learned that if I dropped all thought and let my body take over, that my mind became more focused on the task at hand. Doing something, activating my muscles, helped me in that way. I guess Vill is the same, though our outlets are different.
Jackson comes back with our drinks and takes a sip of his. A single drop remains on his lip and he licks it away. A warmth moves over me, my mind replaying our first kiss, the way his fingertips gently slipped down my face as though I was too delicate to touch with anything but a light hand. I can almost feel them on me now.
I jump up, shaken by the memory, and realizing my error, glance over at Jackson. His eyes burn into mine. He knows what I was thinking, felt my reaction to the memory. I have to control my thoughts around him, now more than ever. I don’t know if I can ever truly trust Jackson again and I won’t allow myself to get involved with someone I don’t trust. Besides, I have more pressing matters at hand, like Cybil, like finding the humans.
Still…the kiss hits in my mind again, this time followed by a sharp stab in my chest. I squeeze my eyes shut and reopen them, pushing the memory as far from reach as possible.
“Are you all right?” Vill asks.
I glance up, embarassed that I’ve allowed my mind to drift so far from reality. “Uh, yeah. Yes, I’m fine. I could use a shower. D
o you have showers here?”
“Of course,” he says.
“Can I take one?”
Jackson sets down his plate. “Sure. After.”
“After what?”
His eyes balance on mine. “The call. Our meeting is in less than five minutes.”
Suddenly, everything inside me is awake and alert.
I follow Jackson back inside and into the kitchen, though all I can see is two stone pits and a silver square that I suppose is a refrigerator. Behind and to the far left of the pits lies a door with thick bolts at the top and bottom, securing it shut. Jackson unbolts it to reveal a set of stone stairs that descend into pitch-blackness. He nods for me to go ahead of him. As soon as the door closes, a light pops on above us, and then Jackson starts down the stairs. We round the corner at the bottom and into a room so alive with technology it makes Dad’s office back home look archaic. Three large screens hang on the back wall, the desk below them full of various tiny figurines, some complete, others unfinished. To the right and left of the screens are various silver boxes, each with green and red lights that take turns flickering on and off. It’s the most advanced room I’ve witnessed since coming here.
“What is this place?” I whisper.
“My office, you could say. It’s where I do research and where I communicate with Earth. No one knows it’s here other than Vill. He practically lives down here, as I’m sure you can tell,” he says, pointing at the figurines. “He actually helped me build it. He’s brilliant. Really brilliant. He’s also the one who figured out how to tap into Earth’s intergalactic satellite frequency. That’s how we can talk to them.”
I take a seat in one of the chairs in front of the main screen. “But how can you send a message to the satellite without Zeus seeing it?”
Jackson smiles. “That’s all Vill. Years ago, Zeus sent a satellite into orbit to create a wormhole that would allow superluminal communication with Earth. Earth did the same, so once both were activated, we had a way of sending a message, using our satellilte, to the wormhole, which then propelled the message directly to Earth’s satellite. As you can imagine, we continued to work on the technology and created a more advanced satellite and a new wormhole a year ago when Zeus began questioning Earth’s leaders’ willingness to coexist. That original satellite was still in orbit, unused, so Vill hacked into it. Zeus will eventually find out, but for now, we have a means of communicating with Earth that is virtually undetectable.”
So Vill is more than an artist, he’s also something of a genius. “How does the satellite create a wormhole?”
Jackson pushes his chair away from the desk. “It uses dark matter to send rotating lasers to a specific place in space. The lasers stir up space until the energy changes and a wormhole is created. The wormhole then allows us to communcate at faster than light speeds. Superluminal communication.”
Jackson flips on the screens, which resemble a T-screen back home but more advanced—much more advanced. The main screen seems to detect what he wants from it without him having to do anything at all.
“It’s like it senses you or something,” I say, edging closer to the screen.
“We tapped into RES transmitter technology so the communicator is sensitive enough to pull from our thought waves. See everything, including thoughts, produces an energy that once released into the reality around us, changes the energy of our surroundings. So, if you’re able to harness it, then virtually anything becomes possible. It’s metaphysics.”
I shake my head. “I’m lost. But it sounds amazing.”
“It is. I’ll teach you, in time. Or Vill can. He gets it on a much deeper level than I do. I tend to rely on my strength, where as Vill leans completely on his mind. He believes the mind can overpower strength.”
“And you don’t agree?”
“I think we need both, but I have a hard time buying the mind over matter thing, at least as a fighter. We need our minds, sure, but strength closes a fight. Anyway.” He points at the screen. “There’s a small delay, but we should be receiving the feed any moment.”
The screen is black except for a tiny yellow dot that flickers in the center. After a while I assume nothing is going to happen, then the screen shifts and I’m staring at a long table full of people in business attire or all black Engineer clothing. I glance from one to the other, taking them all in, when my eyes find the far left side of the table and it’s all I can do not to hug the screen. Seated at the end is my dad, dressed in his usual Engineer attire. His commander pin glints in the light. He smiles a bit when he sees me, then washes it away and threads his fingers together on the table, all business. My mom is beside him, wearing her Chemist lab coat, and unlike my dad, she doesn’t try to surpress her joy. A hand goes to her mouth and I can see tears in her eyes. She smiles and I smile back.
I don’t want to look away from them, but I can tell this is a formal gathering of important people, and the Operative in me rises to the surface. I take a seat beside Jackson and eye the rest of the group. There is one empty chair on the opposite side and left from my dad. Jackson notices the chair as well and nods toward it, but before either of us can ask if we should wait on the person to arrive, a door behind the table opens and Lawrence enters the room, only he no longer looks like the Lawrence I remember.
His easiness has been replaced by a rigidity that is so foreign on him I have to look twice to be sure it’s really him. His hair is cut short and gelled, and he’s wearing the standard Parliament suit—crisp white shirt, black coat and slacks, red tie. He doesn’t look at me as he takes his seat, and suddenly I’m aware of the mood in the room. Everyone is tense. Some nervously glancing around. Others tapping their fingers together. It’s as though this conversation holds tremendous importance and must be handled with care.
Lawrence nods to an older, balding man beside him, seated across from my dad at the right end of the table. The man is dressed exactly like Lawrence and half the other people at the table. He stares forward, glancing from Jackson to me. “Thank you for joining us.”
Jackson sits back in his chair. “Of course, though we didn’t realize this was a formal meeting.”
I’m impressed with Jackson’s forwardness, though the look on the gentleman’s face says he doesn’t share my opinion.
“I am Kelvin Lancaster, Lead Chemist and acting President of the United States.”
“Wait, President?” I say. “Law, what happened to—?”
Kelvin interrupts. “All will be explained in time, but for now, we have important matters to discuss.”
Jackson tenses beside me and I know he’s thinking what I’m thinking. Who does this guy think he is? I eye Dad to find him staring at me, a hard look on his face. His head twitches almost imperceptably. He’s telling me to wait. I straighten in my chair, forcing patience. “Very well.”
Kelvin nods. “Thank you. As Mr. Castello has informed you, I’m sure, we are communicating through a satellite frequency that taps into an unused satellite orbiting Loge. The frequencey is secure, for now, though we have no way of knowing how long that security will remain. For that reason, it’s important that we discuss all important matters and actions immediately.”
I glance briefly to my parents, and then say without pause, “Mr. Lancaster, we appreciate the urgency of the situation, but I have to ask why you expect us to assist in whatever plan you’re about to offer? Your people created execution bases for all infected humans, sentencing them to death, including myself. Why would I trust you now?”
Dad sits up to answer, but Kelvin raises a hand to stop him. “Your point is valid, Ms. Alexander, but please understand that we witnessed one of the fastest epidemics in human history. We had no way of knowing why people were becoming infected and felt it necessary to quickly act to protect humankind. It was a tough decision. As all decisions such as this are hard. But we now know our error and have acted accordingly.”
“Meaning you are no longer killing the infected?”
Kelvin motion
s toward my mother, who speaks. “Ari, we have treated all who remained on Earth, and are happy to report that we have suffered no more casulaties. It took three experimental healing serums to develop the cure, but we found one, and all execution bases were destroyed. I think we agree that those early measures were rash, if not horrendous.” Whispers of assent sound around the room. “We will not be making the same mistake twice. We want to get our people home.”
“And that brings us to you.” Kelvin leans forward, his eyes squarely on me. “We have reason to believe that Zeus Castello plans to attack Earth in two weeks time. We would like to prevent this from happening, while simultaneously bringing all humans back to Earth.”
Jackson sits up. “And what about the Ancients who want nothing more than a peaceful life? What are your plans for them?”
“We are prepared to allow them to come to Earth permanently,” Kelvin answers.
“If…?” Jackson asks.
Kelvin returns his gaze to me, and Law speaks up for the first time. “Ari, we have devised a plan that we believe will work, but for that plan to be successful, we need to remove our greatest threat.”
“Which is?”
Mom looks down, and Dad shakes his head, both clearly upset.
“What is it?” I ask, glancing from them back to Law. “What are you asking me to do?”
“You won’t be alone,” Law says. “We have two Operatives on Loge to help you, both undercover.” I picture Cybil, wrapped in cloths. She must be one of their spies, but how can she be of help if she’s all but comatose? “It’s dangerous, we know that, but we can’t think of another option. It’s either this or—”
