“Well, kid,” her father said, interrupting her thoughts, “are you hungry? I need to be back at the office in thirty minutes for a meeting.”
She studied his face for a moment, taking in its worn and rugged texture, the jagged scar across his cheek growing more prominent every day. A constant reminder of his past.
“What are you thinking? SmartMeal?”
He seemed to consider this. “How about we go somewhere instead? I love technology, but sometimes it’s nice to sit down at an actual restaurant and have a meal.”
“Yeah,” she said with a smile. “I’d like that.”
She followed her father through the sliding glass doors, out into the dreary Chicago weather. Dark storm clouds rolled in overhead, the threat of rain imminent.
“We’d better move fast,” he said as he picked up the pace.
She followed closely behind him as they searched for a restaurant. In the beginning, she’d been right on his tail, but after about ten minutes, she’d fallen severely behind. And oddly enough, her legs felt like they’d been encased in blocks of cement. “Whoa,” she called out to her father, who was a good fifteen feet ahead of her. “Give me just a second.”
He turned around, a concerned look etched into his already wrinkled face. “Are you okay?”
Rain began to trickle around them. She waved her hand dismissively in the air. “Yeah, I’m fine—” Her voice cut off as her eyes landed on her fingers. Her breath caught as she felt all of the color drain from her face. She blinked again, and then looked up, hoping that maybe it was the reflection of the storm clouds, but it wasn’t.
There, in front of her face, were her fingers, but they weren’t of her normal olive complexion.
No, they were a light shade of grey.
4
“Mrs. Parker, do you remember me?”
Torin sat in a chair across from Alexis’s mother, who was sitting upright in the bed in his guest room. Tiny nodes were stuck all over her forehead and temples, wirelessly feeding information to his holopad. It was rare for her to stay awake for long—her body seemed to shut down after just thirty minutes of waking, making it all the more frustrating when he felt like they were making progress, no matter how slight.
Sandra’s eyes landed on him. Her face was blank.
Empty.
Alexis stood at the edge of the door, her expression matching her mother’s. “What about me?” she croaked. “Do you remember me?”
Sandra’s eyes shifted from Torin to Alexis. He could have sworn he saw a faint blip of recognition on her face, but it quickly faded into nothing. He checked his holopad, just to be sure the nodes hadn’t picked up on anything.
Alexis sighed as her mother continued to stare, speechless.
Torin glanced up from the device. “Mrs. Parker, you must remember something. Tell us what you remember.”
More silence. More emptiness.
Alexis turned to leave and, for once, he didn’t try to stop her. He couldn’t even begin to imagine how difficult this must be for her, day in and day out, not knowing if her mother would ever remember her. He was all too familiar with the pain of losing parents, but in this moment, it seemed that maybe it was better to have dead parents than a living one with no memory.
He turned his attention back to Sandra, her blank stare boring into his, then shook his head. It didn’t make sense. The programming showed that her brain was still active, still functioning. She wasn’t brain-dead. She was able to wake up, to blink, to sit upright, and to fall asleep, but that seemed to be it. Quite the limited range of functionality.
What am I missing?
He tried a few more times, talking to Sandra in different tones and pitches—but still, he received empty, blank stares.
After twenty frustrating minutes, he decided it was time to give up on this round. He laid his holopad on the chair and made his way toward the door, turning to look at her one last time. She was still staring blankly at the wall in front of her. Just as he was about to shut the door, he heard it.
A voice. Barely there, but a voice.
“Nothing,” she whispered. “I remember nothing.”
He nearly slammed the door out of shock. “Alexis!” he called as he rushed back over to his chair. “Alexis, get in here!”
It was the first time Sandra had spoken. And her sentences were coherent! This whole time he’d been worried that she’d forgotten how to speak. Every time he’d asked her a question, it felt as though he were talking to a wall. He’d even considered that maybe she couldn’t hear him at all—that she was deaf and mute. But that wasn’t the case. Sandra could speak. And, even better, she could understand his questions.
Alexis burst into the room and rushed over to her mother, then crouched down to kneel by the bed.
“Can you repeat what you just said?” he asked.
There was a moment of silence before she spoke again. “Nothing.” She looked down at her hands, her voice a hoarse whisper. “I remember nothing.”
“Oh my god,” Alexis breathed, laying her hand gently on top of her mother’s. “You’re speaking. You’re still in there somewhere.”
Torin tried to swallow his excitement. The brain activity on the holopad was off the charts. Keep her talking.
“Mrs. Parker, can you tell us anything else?”
“Do you know who he is?” Alexis asked, pointing to Torin.
Sandra averted her gaze from Alexis to Torin. She shook her head.
“What about me?” Alexis choked. “Do you know who I am?”
A faint blip on the holopad said she did, but Sandra closed her eyes, then shook her head again.
Alexis tried to hold back tears. “I’m your daughter. It’s me, mom. It’s Alexis! You have to remember me!”
Another blank stare.
Alexis slumped to the floor, her body heaving and shuddering as she started to sob.
Torin dropped the holopad, scooped Alexis’s body up off the floor, and carried her out of the bedroom. Her sobs grew louder as he laid her on the couch. Just as he was about to let go, she squeezed her arms tight around his neck.
Her voice came out as a muffled whisper. “Please,” she pleaded. “Just stay for a minute.”
“It’s okay,” he coaxed, his eyes on the bedroom door. He had to get back to the room. Sandra was awake. And talking. Who knew when he’d have this opportunity again? Unfortunately, Alexis’s arms were wrapped around his neck like a boa constrictor.
“Listen to me, okay? Your mom is awake. And she’s speaking,” he tried again, hoping she’d release her death grip on his neck. “We should be celebrating, not crying.”
She sniffled, her grip loosening. “Torin, my own mother doesn’t remember me. She doesn’t remember that I’m her daughter.”
One at a time, he slowly removed her arms from his neck, watching as she sank back into the couch. “But she spoke. And that’s progress. That means we’re getting closer, even if it’s just a tiny step.”
She nodded, wiping tears from her eyes. “I just want her to remember me.” Her lips quivered. “She’s all I have left.”
“That’s not true. You have Emery. And you have me.” His eyes darted back to the bedroom door. As much as he wanted to comfort her, he was wasting time. “I’m going to go back in there and try to talk to your mom some more. You stay here and relax, okay?”
She sniffled again before nodding her head.
He gave her a half smile as he walked back toward the guest bedroom. He took his time, not wanting to seem too eager. As he pushed the door open, he hoped to see Samdra still upright and awake, but much to his dismay, she was laying back down, asleep.
With an irritated sigh, he picked up his holopad. Twenty minutes of nothing, a brief moment of something, and ten minutes of coaxing Alexis. That was his thirty minutes. And now Sandra was asleep, which meant he’d have to wait until she woke again before he could get his next thirty minutes.
He took his place in the chair, his eyes focused on the holopad’s data. It wasn’t much, but it was a start. And truthfully, that was all he could really ask for at this point in time.
5
Byron stared at his daughter from across the table, not wanting to focus too much on the discoloration of her hands. The rain had gotten so heavy that they’d rushed into the first available restaurant, a Mediterranean café, a few blocks from 7S Headquarters. Now he sat facing his daughter, unsure what to say or how to comfort her.
After a long silence, Emery finally spoke. “What more can you tell me about the program mom designed? About Alpha One?”
He leaned back in his chair, studying her face intently. “What do you want to know?”
She raised her hands and wiggled her fingers. “Well, as I’m sure you’ve noticed, my fingers are now a lovely shade of grey.”
He chuckled through his worry. She really was her father’s daughter. Most people would panic at the sight of any abnormality, especially greying fingers, but not Emery. She knew that panicking wouldn’t help anything, so instead, she made light of the situation, which is exactly what he would have done. Even though their world was still in a state of turmoil, he couldn’t help but feel blessed to be reconnected with his daughter again. She’d grown so much over the past few months and he was grateful he’d been there to witness it.
If only Sandra were here to see it.
The clinking of plates interrupted his thoughts as the waiter served their food. Byron waited for him to leave before responding. “I’ve told you about Alpha One, how it started, what it was used for . . .”
She nodded in confirmation.
“I think what you’re really asking for is the outcome of the project. What the side effects were from the serums. Am I right?”
“I guess so,” she managed through a mouthful of hummus.
He took a swig of his drink before continuing. “I don’t remember much. But from what I can recall, those who were under lethargum for extended periods of time did exhibit odd symptoms once released from the simulation.”
She paused, mid-bite. “What kind of symptoms?”
“I don’t remember seeing any sort of skin discoloration.” He scratched his chin. “But soldiers did fall ill. Their bodies and minds moved at decelerated rates, their muscles and joints ached. We tried to organize a number of focus groups, but many of the participants didn’t make it—”
Her face fell. “Didn’t make it?”
He sighed. “What I meant is they didn’t survive in time to participate in the focus groups. We needed a large sample size to ensure our results were conclusive. Unfortunately, that was a luxury we couldn’t afford.”
She chewed on her lower lip as she considered this. “Couldn’t you have just used sanaré? To keep them alive?”
He shook his head. “Sanaré would have healed all of their wounds. We were trying to discern the cause of the illness—whether it was from the lethargum, or something else.”
She reached for her napkin, her fingers catching on the frayed ends. “So you just . . . let those soldiers die? Even though you could have healed them?”
He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. When she said it that way, it made him look like the bad guy. “I assure you, we would have healed them if we could, but we ran out of sanaré—”
“Ran out? You’re the Commander of the Seventh Sanctum. I’m sure you could have made more,” she pressed.
“That’s enough, young lady,” he scolded. “We couldn’t make more. The ingredients are quite difficult to come by and the process in itself is incredibly complex. You have to believe that if we could have saved them, we would have.”
She was silent as she took another bite of her gyro wrap. “So what was the final outcome?”
He tapped his fingers against the table, then sighed. “Inconclusive.”
“Well,” she grunted as she tossed her napkin onto the table, “that’s not exactly the answer I was hoping for.”
He stared down at his tightly clasped hands, his knuckles turning white from the pressure. She was right. His directive all those years ago had been to determine the effects of both lethargum and sanaré. And he’d failed. It’d never crossed his mind that his research on Alpha One would ever come full circle.
He gazed back up at his daughter who was absentmindedly staring out the rain-splattered window. The conversation was over.
I’m going to fix this, he silently pledged. I promise.
6
It was the same routine she’d had for days. Wake up. Have breakfast. Slip on a black dress. Coat her lips in red. Teleport to St. Augustine Cemetery.
Emery stood in front of Mason’s grave. The yellow roses Torin had brought over a week ago were wilted, dying. Just like everything around me.
Kicking her shoes off, she knelt and leaned against the headstone, the dead grass tickling the backs of her legs. A loud sigh escaped her lips as she gazed up at the cloudless sky. “You’re up there somewhere,” she muttered to herself. A cool breeze swept through the cemetery, a musky and familiar scent filling her senses. It smelled just like him . . . what she could remember, anyway. She inhaled deeply, wanting to savor anything and everything that reminded her of him.
A twig snapped in the row of trees behind her, breaking her from her tranquil state. She pulled herself up from the ground and dusted the grass from the back of her dress. Her eyes focused on the thicket, searching for any sign of movement, but there was none. Her imagination seemed to be running away from her these days. She’d half expected to see Torin hiding behind the brush, but the wilted roses indicated that he hadn’t been back. That was probably a good thing.
Mason wouldn’t want him here anyway.
But in all reality, how long could she go on being angry with Torin? Mason was gone, and there was nothing she could do to fix that. It hurt like hell, yes, but shutting one of her closest friends out wasn’t the answer. Then again, how was she supposed to look Torin in the eye without seeing Mason’s murderer?
It was an accident. Torin didn’t mean to kill Mason. It was either him or me.
The cemetery was getting to her head.
She swept her hand along the top of the headstone, watching as small particles of dust and grass danced into the sky. She didn’t want to leave, but staying any longer wouldn’t do any good. What’s done is done.
She closed the wrought iron gate behind her and walked over to the T-Port. As she stepped onto the platform, she realized that she didn’t want to go back to Arizona just yet. There was nothing for her there. So, she decided to go the first place that popped into her mind.
“Downtown Los Angeles,” she instructed the machine. A brief whir later, she found herself standing in the middle of a bustling city. People milled about as shopping bags floated next to them on holocarts. A glowing white café sign at the far end of the street caught her eye. The door slid open as soon as she approached it.
The café was especially crowded for a weekday. She eyed the numerous SmartMeal machines behind the counters. The only employee in the place appeared to be busy flipping through articles on his holopad. With all the technology around, it was surprising to see an actual human employee. He was probably there strictly for appearances’ sake.
She strolled across the smooth, transparent floor until she reached one of the machines. She scanned her fingerprints before ordering a latte, watching as the machine identified her and deducted the appropriate dollar amount from her family’s account. The mug materialized under the machine, followed by a steady flow of light brown liquid. When the mug was full, she grabbed it by the handle, then took a seat in one of the empty holochairs.
The remote on the arm of the chair lit up as soon as she sat down, and she skimmed through the different options, realizing that she could change the appearance of the chair by adding cushions, different fabrics, and other features no one in their right mind would ever need. Luxury had become a necessity
for most people, but not for her. She liked to think she still knew how to enjoy the little things.
She exhaled a long sigh as she took a sip of her latte. The warm liquid soothed her throat and instantly made her feel better, if only for a moment. As she drew the mug from her face, her eyes landed on her discolored fingers. They were truly unsightly. Purchasing some gloves may be next on the agenda.
She set the mug down on the holotable as she gazed around at the other patrons. Everyone seemed to be deep in conversation with the holoversions of their friends. It was actually kind of sad. Does anyone hang out with real-life people anymore?
After finishing her latte, she hopped down from the chair and walked through the door that led outside. As she walked along the sidewalk, she couldn’t help but notice that something was off. The majority of the people in her line of vision were moving slower than usual—very different from the bustling city she’d witnessed just an hour ago. A man approached her, slowly, his feet taking an entire two Mississippi’s to leave the pavement. As he got closer, Emery noticed that his face was colored a sickly shade . . .
Of grey.
She gazed down at her hands, then balled them into fists before darting past the man. As she approached more and more people on the sidewalk, she noticed that almost all of them had a grey tinge to their skin, whether it be on their hands, face, arms, or legs.
What is this? What’s happening?
Doing her best not to panic, she eyed the nearest T-Port and rushed over to it. Why is everyone turning grey?
She stepped onto the metal platform, then instructed it to take her to 7S Headquarters. There was someone she needed to speak to immediately.
7
Byron sat at his desk, mesmerized by the changing landscapes displayed on the holowindows in his office. One minute he was staring at a serene beach setting, and the next he was looking at a snow covered forest of pine trees and evergreens, the colors so vivid, he could have sworn he was standing in the middle of a winter snowstorm. Thoughts of his wife and their two daughters filled his head. They were happy thoughts, although he didn’t have many of them. But that could all change now that Novak and his beloved Dormance were gone.
Restitution (The Alpha Drive Book 3) Page 2
