“Well, if he comes around again, do you want me to point him your direction?” asked Selma as she rearranged her remaining tomatoes in the chiller box.
“No, but see if you can get his name. Do you remember what he looked like?”
Selma bit her lip in concentration. “Dark hair, dark skin. About my height. A slimsuit, but not the kind you usually see around here. It looked too flimsy to hold up in real work. I don’t remember ever seeing him in the market before, but he didn’t stand out much either. Not someone I would normally notice.” Jimmy mentally shelved the description and then took his leave of Selma. Most likely it was nothing important, but the first thing Jimmy was going to do when he got home was ask Jax to run an update on the perimeter security for the property. Just in case.
●●●
Back at home, he found Jenna immersed in a project in the office. Her forehead creased, she was drawing lines on a holographic projection, completely oblivious to everything around her. Jimmy stood in the doorway and watched her for a minute. She was still the most beautiful woman he had ever known. Three children hadn’t changed that; she was still slender, but her curves were more pronounced now. Her long golden hair was braided, showing a glimpse of her porcelain neck. Jimmy was tempted to sneak up behind her and plant a kiss behind her ear, but he didn’t want to break her concentration. Instead, he went in search of the children. When Jenna was that involved in a project, she wouldn’t notice if the house were on fire. The kids pretty much had free rein.
A quick glance into the bedrooms showed that Erik was napping on his floor, his head stuck under his bed. Jimmy carefully worked Erik’s body back out and gingerly picked him up. Holding his breath, he laid his son on top of his bed. Erik let out a little moan and rolled over, clutching a blanket. He didn’t wake up, though, and Jimmy breathed out a sigh of relief. The longer Erik slept, the more Jenna would be able to get done in peace.
The rest of the house was empty. Pulling his flipcom out, he sent a quick text comm to Mrs. Smitz. She replied at once that Berry was in her kitchen, helping her make monkey cookies for Jax. She added that Kendra was keeping Jax company in the lab.
After dumping his jumpbag and storing the tomatoes in the small produce locker, Jimmy headed out the back door and crossed the yard to Jax’s lab. At the large outside loading door, he paused for a retina scan, a thumbprint check, voice confirmation, and a profile match. While he waited the couple of minutes for the security system to contact Jax and ask for clearance, he did a quick search on his flipcom, confirming details from Angel’s story. Quintan had publicly tortured and executed fourteen people, including his rival boss Breno Quartos, but there had been no unrest or violence anywhere else in the Red Zone. There had been no retaliation against the QE resort. Presumably any of Quartos’s remaining allies had decided not to draw attention to themselves. Lilah should be just fine.
Finally the loading door slid open, and Jimmy walked in. The area around the door was cleared of equipment and completely empty. The system had contacted Jax, and he had remotely given Jimmy access to the building but had not deigned to come meet his brother in person. Jimmy hadn’t expected it. Instead, he set off wandering through the banks of scientific instruments and tables supporting half-finished electronic projects, knowing that he’d stumble on Jax and Kendra.
Eventually he heard Kendra’s high-pitched voice chattering, and he worked his way around some very tall cabinets in her direction. Just as he rounded the last of the cabinets, he stopped short in shock.
Kendra was standing in the middle of a cleared space in the lab, her feet spread apart and her eyes narrowed. All around her, tiny metal cubes bobbed in the air. Jax stood a few meters away, his arms hanging limply at his side and his mouth gaping open, a forgotten soldering gun smoking at his feet.
“Kendra!” exclaimed Jimmy. Her eyes darted to him, and she covered her mouth with both hands. The tiny cubes meant for the soldering gun clattered to the floor. She uncovered her mouth, her face broadcasting guilt as clear as a summer day on the Terran savanna.
“Hi, Daddy,” she said, her voice wavering. “I was just building towers out of Uncle Jax’s blocks.” Jimmy stared at the little cubes littering the ground around her feet. There had been dozens of them floating in the air as if they were held by invisible strings.
He turned to his brother. “What do you know about this, Jax?”
Jax didn’t answer him; he was still staring at Kendra like he had never seen anything like her before. So this wasn’t some strange new magnetic game devised by Jax.
“How were you doing that, Kendra?” Jimmy asked, keeping his voice neutral.
Kendra looked down at the floor.
Jimmy moved closer and dropped to one knee, lifting Kendra’s chin until they were staring eye to eye. “Hey, I’m your dad. You can tell me anything. As long as you tell me the truth.”
“It wasn’t me. It was Dina. I don’t know how she does it,” Kendra said uncomfortably.
“Who’s Dina?” Jimmy asked, remembering Jenna’s story the night before. Maybe it hadn’t been the wind. But what could it be if it wasn’t Kendra herself?
“Dina talks to me all the time. I can’t see her, and nobody else can hear her either,” Kendra explained, her tone puzzled. “Why can’t anyone else hear her, Daddy?”
“I don’t know,” he answered thoughtfully. “How long has Dina been talking to you?”
“Since I was really little, but I didn’t know her name. I thought everyone could hear her. She would sing pretty songs when I couldn’t go to sleep.”
Jimmy listened patiently. Was this some kind of schizophrenia? He’d heard of mentally ill people hearing voices, but did it show up so young?
“Last summer I figured out that Berry couldn’t hear her. Then I paid attention and learned that no one else could hear her. I asked her about it, and she told me that her name was Dina. She said she was my secret invisible friend, and I shouldn’t ever tell anyone about her,” Kendra explained.
Jimmy frowned. “Kendra, when anyone tells you to keep a secret from your parents, you can know right away that the right thing to do is tell your parents.”
“She said Mommy would be scared and upset.”
There was some truth to that, Jimmy had to admit.
He glanced over at his brother. Jax had quit staring at Jenna and seemed to be captivated by the soldering cubes instead. He wondered if Jax was listening and if he would have any ideas about this. Was there such a thing as schizophrenia that gave someone telekinetic ability? Or was that a ridiculous fantasy?
However, he couldn’t explain away the evidence of his eyes. The little blocks had been floating in midair. Something had to have caused that.
“OK, we’ll talk more about this later,” he finally decided, standing up. “Go join Mrs. Smitz and Berry and help them with the cookies, all right? I’ll clean the blocks up.” Kendra didn’t wait but scurried down the pathway, heading for the door that opened into Mrs. Smitz’s apartment. Jimmy bent down to start cleaning up the scattered soldering cubes.
“No, don’t touch them!” Jax orderly harshly.
Jimmy froze, looking up at his brother in consternation. “You just want me to leave this a mess?” he asked.
Jax didn’t answer him. Instead, he hurried to a nearby table and grabbed a pad of paper and a pen. He strode back to the blocks and started scribbling furiously. Jimmy inched up behind his brother, careful not to touch him, and peered over his shoulder. Jax was sketching a diagram of where all the cubes lay. He was humming under his breath. Jimmy stepped aside, giving his brother space again, and tried to get an answer.
“What could make the cubes float, Jax?” His twin said nothing, only continued to sketch on his notepad. “Is it something Kendra did? Or could it have been caused by something else?”
Jimmy gave his brother several minutes, but when it was clear Jax was t
oo involved in his own version of reconstructing what happened, he gave up and headed back home.
Jenna was still completely absorbed in her drafting, and Erik was still asleep, so with a sigh Jimmy pulled the new parts out of his bag and grabbed his toolkit, starting to work on repairing the portable water purifier. It kept him busy for the next hour; Erik woke up before he was finished and joined him at the kitchen table. He took a break long enough to fix Erik a quick snack, then went back to work on the purifier. All the while, his thoughts were on Kendra and the mysterious floating cubes and dancing leaf figures.
Erik watched him for a couple of minutes, but then he wanted to help. Jimmy retrieved a broken transmitter from a drawer and set it up for Erik, handing him a screwdriver. Hoping that Erik’s own “repair project” would keep him busy until Jimmy finished, he rushed on, trying to fit the C ring back into place quickly without damaging any of the pipes.
Jimmy had just replaced the purifier on the counter and was trying it out when Jenna appeared in the kitchen.
“Mommy!” exclaimed Erik, scooting off his chair as quickly as he could get his short legs beneath him.
Jimmy darted forward, grabbing Jenna and pulling her close. “Mine first,” he growled, kissing her hungrily. Erik screeched and yanked at Jimmy’s pant leg impatiently. Jimmy backed up a pace and let Erik worm his way in. Jenna picked him up.
“How’s it going?” she asked. “I see the purifier’s fixed.”
“Hopefully,” said Jimmy. “How about you?”
“Well, I think the new restaurant will catch eyes. Mason should be happy with it,” she replied. Erik squirmed, and she put him back down. He headed straight out of the kitchen. Jimmy fervently hoped he was just heading into his room. There was very little he could damage in there.
“I had a shocking afternoon, actually,” Jimmy began. Jenna cocked her head at him, as she pulled a bottle of juice from the cooler.
“Shocking?” she repeated just as she spied the tomatoes. “You found yellow tomatoes!” she cried enthusiastically.
Jimmy grinned, momentarily sidetracked. “I did. Selma’s first harvest of the season.”
Jenna immediately grabbed one and turned on the purifier so she could rinse it off. The purifier made a tiny grinding noise, but then clean water pumped out of the faucet. Jimmy waited patiently while Jenna took her clean tomato and dropped it in the slicer. Then she pulled the slicer drawer open and removed eight perfectly shaped tomato slices. Popping one into her mouth, she put the rest on a plate. Jimmy snatched one from the plate too. He didn’t lust after tomatoes the way Jenna did, but there was no doubt that Selma grew some tasty produce.
“I found Kendra in Jax’s lab when I got back from town,” he said when he had finished his tomato slice.
“Was she bothering him?” Jenna wanted to know as she speared another tomato slice.
“No, I think she inspired a new project for him today,” Jimmy grumbled. Sometimes it would just be so much easier if Jax chose to talk! Clearly, he had some ideas about what was going on.
“I guess that’s a good thing,” Jenna said. “Was that the shocking part of your day?”
“Well, it was what Kendra was doing when I walked in.” Jimmy quickly detailed the scene for his wife. She listened to him in horror, her fork hanging forgotten in midair.
“Well, at least I know I wasn’t imagining things yesterday. What is wrong with her, Jimmy? Is she some kind of freak?”
“Did you just use the word freak?” Jimmy asked, stealing another slice of tomato. Yep, Jenna was afraid and upset. She was probably already wondering if Kendra was going to have a normal life or if she would end up muttering to herself in a dark alley in some forgotten corner of the Union. Kendra’s mysterious Dina was a spot-on judge there.
“I think we should take her to Quintan and let him do a genetic scan,” Jimmy said. This was the conclusion he had come to while fixing the purifier. “We’ve never gotten a conclusive one, and maybe this is related to something genetic, something affected by the gate. Quintan’s medical staff have been tracking people for years. They’ll know if similar things have shown up in others by now.”
Jenna blanched. Jimmy had known that she would be appalled by the suggestion of returning to the Quintan Edge. They would be putting their daughter in the hands of the Quintan Edge medtechs to be poked and prodded like some kind of lab rat. Jenna herself had spent five days in their hands after she traveled through the gate, and she had sworn she would never go back.
“Can’t we just try a regular doctor again? Maybe now that she’s older it will work.”
“We could. But they won’t have seen anyone who has ever traveled through a local gate. They won’t even be able to take that into consideration.”
Jenna put down her fork and rubbed her temples with her fingertips.
“I don’t want to walk back into the Quintan web, Jimmy,” she murmured. “I don’t want to get drawn into the schemes, and I don’t want to risk Kendra. It’s like you said last night: is what she’s doing dangerous? It doesn’t pose a risk to her or anyone else. Maybe we should just be patient and see.”
Jimmy reached across the table and captured one of her hands, squeezing it tight. “OK, we’ll take the wait and see approach. But keep the Quintans in the back of your mind as an option,” Jimmy suggested. “Just in case.”
3. News from Corizen
Jenna watched Kendra anxiously for the next week, but when her daughter showed no sign of doing anything out of the ordinary, she finally began to relax. Maybe it had just been some kind of random event. Something that wasn’t likely to repeat itself. Then worries about her daughter were driven completely out of her mind by some unexpected, extraordinary news.
“Jenna!” Her mother’s voice was breathless.
“Yes?” Jenna replied anxiously. Her mother had commed her with a high-priority signal, and it was the middle of the night. She knew it had to be something important, and she was immediately fearful that something had happened to her father, who was an Armada
admiral.
“Andie’s alive.”
At those two words, Jenna froze. Was her mother having some kind of truly mad breakdown after so many years? Jenna’s sister, Andie, had disappeared while piloting an Armada skiff before Jenna and Jimmy had even met. Jenna’s mom had struggled with Andie’s disappearance and had never really let her go, even when Andie’s skiff wreckage had finally been found, though it had been a long time since she’d talked about it. Andie had been gone for more than eight years. What had brought it all up now? Had her mother been dreaming?
“Mom, what are you talking about?” she asked warily.
“We got a deep-space comm from Casey Morten tonight. He found her.”
This made even less sense. A comm from Casey? Casey was Andie’s childhood best friend. He’d grown up on the same Armada military base, Jenna’s and Andie’s neighbor. His mother had been good friends with their mother. In fact, Jenna had secretly married Jimmy while attending Casey’s wedding to Jo Cruz. Casey’s marriage had lasted only a year; after the divorce he’d been very bitter and reckless. Last she’d heard, Casey was on some special assignment for the Armada on the planet Corizen. She shook Jimmy, who was snoring softly at her side. Of course, he didn’t stir (he hadn’t even heard the high-priority chime). She shoved him a bit harder.
“What?” he mumbled groggily.
“What do you mean, Casey found her? He’s not even on the planet, Mom.” She tried to sound perfectly reasonable, keeping the worry out of her voice.
“No, you’re right,” her mother agreed, her voice getting animated. “He found her on Corizen. Her skiff was shot down by Zorian outlaws, and they gave her to some Denicorizen smugglers. They took her off-planet to Corizen. She’s been living on Corizen all this time!”
“What?” shrieked Jenna, her mother’s words finally falling i
nto place. Jimmy sat straight up in bed, his eyes wide. He stared around the room wildly, pulling his gun out from under his pillow. She shook her head at him. They weren’t under attack. (Ever since the night all those years ago when Zane had surprised them in bed, Jimmy had slept with his own fingerprint-coded gun. Nothing like experience to teach even Jimmy to be paranoid.)
“I don’t have a lot of details more than that. He said he would comm again soon, though.”
“Why didn’t Andie comm us herself?” Jenna wanted to know.
“Andie?” repeated Jimmy in confusion.
“Casey said there are some complications, but he couldn’t give us any details because it’s classified and related to his assignment.”
“Some complications? That’s all he could tell us?” Jenna’s voice was rising. She was going to get hysterical in a second. Her mind was having trouble processing this. Her sister was alive? But she couldn’t talk to them herself? What was wrong with her? Was she OK? Jenna knew that Corizen was in the middle of a bloody civil war. They couldn’t find out Andie was alive just to lose her all over again!
“He had one more detail for us,” her mother added, her voice cracking oddly. “She has a daughter.”
“A daughter?” Jenna repeated in shock.
“Who has a daughter?” Jimmy asked, looking at the holographic display of Jenna’s mother. He was still confused, not fully awake yet.
“Andie does,” Jenna’s mother explained with a hitch in her voice. Jenna knew what her mother was thinking. What had Andie been through? Would she even be the same person? Eight years on Corizen!
“Andie has a daughter,” Jimmy said. “You mean I’m finally an uncle? That’s fantastic!” He turned to Jenna and mouthed, “Is your mom OK?” Jenna nodded. Of course Jimmy’s first thought was the same that Jenna’s had been, that her mother had finally cracked.
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