Restitution (The Alpha Drive Book 3)

by Kristen Martin

  A couple of hours later, they’d only managed to remove sap from just six of the trees. Emery had pointed out that they needed something reliable to place the sap in, so while they’d waited for the drilltap to work its magic, Torin had teleported back to Chicago to grab some vials from the 7S lab.

  The clock ticked just past the second hour, leaving them waiting on the sap from the seventh tree. The sun was setting and darkness was beginning to fall around them. Emery knew that they’d have to call it a night soon.

  “While we’re finishing up, we should probably look through the journal for another clue,” Torin suggested.

  “Good idea,” Emery commended as she pulled one of the journals out of her bag. “Let’s see.” She flipped past the zagume pages, skimming through the contents of later entries. Torin looked over her shoulder, his breath hot against her neck. The feeling made her shudder and flush simultaneously. She considered asking him to step back a few paces, but the warmth was surprisingly soothing. As she flipped past another page, his hand flew to the journal.

  “Wait. What’s that?” he asked as his finger traced the outline of a four-leaf clover.

  Emery strained her eyes, her gaze following his finger. Within each clove was an inscription in cursive, but it was too small to read. “We need a magnifying glass or something.”

  “The seventh tree is officially tapped,” Riley called out. “That’s twenty-one vials, about three vials per tree.” She counted again to be sure. “Do you think that’s enough?”

  “It’s going to have to be,” Emery responded. “We can always come back if we need more, but right now, we need to get back to the cabin.”

  The group gathered their things and hiked back to the platform. A brief whir later, they found themselves gathered around the coffee table back at her family’s cabin. “I’m not sure where we’d keep a magnifying glass,” Emery pondered as she gazed around the living room, “but we each should take a room and start looking.”

  “I’ll take the living room and kitchen,” Riley offered.

  “I’ll check the attic, again” Torin suggested. “You know, just in case.”

  “Good thinking. I guess that leaves me with the bedrooms.” Emery headed into the master bedroom first, knowing that it was unlikely for her or Alexis to have kept a magnifying glass in their rooms. She checked the nightstands on both sides of the bed, but those were a dead-end. Moving over to the dresser, she rifled through old receipts and single socks missing their pair. Feeling frustrated, she clambered into the closet, swiping her hand along the top shelves. Nothing. She sat on the edge of the bathtub, racking her brain for other hiding places, but she came up dry. Fortunately, Riley’s voice interrupted her anxiety-ridden brainstorming session. “Found it!”

  Emery popped up from her seat and darted into the living room at the exact same time Torin was scrambling back down the stairs. She pulled the journal from her bag and opened to the page with the odd symbol, holding the magnifying glass over the writing. The top area of the clover had the word CORPORIS written across it. Emery moved the magnifying glass to the next clove, which contained the word MOTUS. The last two cloves read MENTIS and SPIRITUALIS.

  “What do you think it means?” Riley asked as Emery finished reading them aloud.

  Emery fell onto the couch next to Torin, feeling stumped. She repeated the words over and over again in her head: corporis, motus, mentis, spiritualis. Spiritualis almost sounded like the word spiritual. The words, they sounded . . .

  A hand flew to her forehead. My mother loved Latin.

  “It’s Latin,” she said hurriedly as she pulled out her phone, typing each word into the search bar.

  “Of course,” Torin said with a small laugh and a shake of his head. “We should have known.”

  “What do the words mean?” Riley presssed.

  “Corporis means physical, motus means emotional—”

  “—and I’m guessing spiritualis means spiritual,” Torin cut in, “which leaves mentis, which has to mean mental.”

  Emery nodded in confirmation.

  “Okay, so we understand what the words are,” Riley pointed out, “but, as a whole, what do you think it all means?

  Emery tapped her finger against her chin as she stared at the journal. “I’m not exactly sure, but if I had to guess it seems that each clove represents a sort of ‘pillar’ of healing.”

  Torin sat up from his slouched position. “That seems like a pretty good guess. In order for sanaré to work, it can’t just heal physical wounds. It would also need to heal on emotional, physical, and spiritual levels.”

  Emery nodded her head in agreement. “The last time I was injected with sanaré, not only did my physical wounds heal, I also felt reenergized and renewed—like both my body and spirit had been cleansed.” She wanted to roll her eyes at how cheesy she sounded, but it was the truth. “Torin, I think you might be onto something.”

  “So there must be an ingredient for each clove, if you will,” Riley thought out loud. “The first clue, the zagume, must be the physical ingredient.”

  “Which means there are three more ingredients,” Emery said with a smile, feeling relieved that it was all starting to come together. “We need to examine these journals for any clues related to emotional, mental, and spiritual ingredients.” She grabbed the other three journals from her bag, tossing one to Torin and the other to Riley. “I’ll take two. If you don’t find anything, bring it back to me. Something might stick out to me that wouldn’t to you, seeing as she was my mother and all.”

  “Does this mean we’re pulling an all-nighter?” Torin asked.

  “Hold that thought.” Emery held up a hand as her phone buzzed, a holoicon of her father’s face appearing over the screen. She noticed Torin shudder. “My dad still gives you the creeps, huh?”

  He gave a half smile. “Just a little. You try working for him. It’s terrifying.”

  This time, she did roll her eyes, then answered the call. “Hello?” She excused herself to the kitchen, her expression turning grave as she stood up.

  “That doesn’t look good,” he mumbled.

  “I’m sure everything’s fine,” Riley reassured, her eyes trained on her best friend.

  They sat in silence, waiting until her voice tapered off. Emery hung up the phone and took a deep breath as she returned to the living room. “I have to go.”

  “What?” Riley asked. “Why?”

  Emery looked at Riley, then Torin, her eyes heavy with more bad news. “It’s Alexis. The grey has spread.” Her voice caught. “It’s really bad. And I have to go. I’m sorry.”

  Torin stood up from the couch, journal in hand. “Whoa, not so fast.”

  “Torin, I really have to—”

  He stood firm as he said the one phrase she so desperately needed to hear. “We’re coming with you.”

  25

  Byron sat at the kitchen table with his head in his hands. The grey had spread from Alexis’s legs up to her stomach, chest, and arms. The only parts of her body that remained a natural skin color were her neck and face. He had no idea when it’d gotten so bad. Surely not at their dinner—he would have noticed. Wouldn’t I have?

  He wanted to keep a close eye on his daughter’s condition, so he’d decided to move his office to his family’s home. In order to continue Operation Revive, he’d ordered that two holomonitors remain switched on every hour of every day: one in Alexis’s room and one in the lab. He’d instructed Naia to inform him if they formulated anything that looked promising. So far, he’d received no news. Usually, no news was good news, but not in this case.

  His thoughts were interrupted as the front door opened. Emery strode in with Torin and some blonde girl he’d never seen before. “We got here as fast as we could,” she panted as she hurried to give her father a hug. “How is she?”

  He could lie and say Alexis was doing better, but he knew Emery would see right through it. “It’s not good, Em. If we d
on’t figure out the formulation for sanaré, and quick, I’m not sure we’ll be able to save her.”

  Emery’s jaw clenched. “Don’t say that. We can’t think that way. We’re going to figure this out.” She pulled out one of Sandra’s journals. “We found them, dad. We found the journals.”

  His eyes lit up like a small child in a candy shop. There it was, in her hands. His shining beacon of hope. “Where were they?”

  “In mom’s secret lab in the attic in our cabin.”

  “Mom’s secret lab?”

  “Oh . . . I thought maybe you knew,” she muttered, her cheeks flushing a dark crimson.

  “Apparently, there’s a lot I don’t know about your mother. I guess I really shouldn’t be all that surprised. She was a mysterious one.” He noticed her expression darken with grief, so he quickly changed the subject. “Well, Alexis is asleep right now, so I’m not sure if you want to wait until she wakes up, or if there’s something else you need to do.”

  “What about you, sir?” Torin interjected out of nowhere. “Doesn’t 7S need you at headquarters?”

  Byron made a wide sweeping gesture with his arm. “Currently, this is the new 7S headquarters. Well, my new office, for the time being. I have Naia on-call to alert me if and when any progress is made.”

  “How’s that going?” Emery asked.

  “Not well. We take one step forward and two steps back.” He glanced behind Emery, realizing that he hadn’t been introduced to the blonde girl. Where are my manners? “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

  The girl was fidgeting with a sleeve on her shirt when she realized that he was talking to her. “Oh, I’m Riley. Emery’s best friend.”

  “Sorry,” Emery said as she turned toward her. “That was rude of me.”

  “Don’t worry about it, pumpkin,” Riley said with a smile. “And don’t mind me. I’m just along for the ride.”

  “Well it’s nice to meet you. It’s always good to add one to the team. We can certainly use all the help we can get.”

  He gave her a friendly nod as he walked over to the holomonitors. Not much had happened. Alexis was still sleeping and the lab technicians were still pouring various chemicals into beakers. He let out a long exhale before turning back around to face his daughter and her friends. “In the meantime, is there anything I can do to help?”

  “Actually, there is something,” Emery said as she pulled the other journal from her bag. “Right before you called, we were going to look through the journals for more clues.”

  He regarded her with a confused expression. “Clues? What clues?”

  Riley pulled a vial from her pocket and handed it to him. “It’s zagume, a special healing sap from a tree in Prescott.”

  He recognized it immediately. “Of course. How did you find out about this?”

  Emery opened the journal to the page with the zagume drawings. “We also found this,” she said as she flipped to the back. “I’m not sure what the four-leaf clover is, but inside each clove is a different word. They’re all in Latin, but we found them to mean Physical, Emotional, Mental, and Spiritual, and we think it has something to do with the formulation for sanaré.”

  He smiled as he traced his finger over the shape. Sandra knew that he loved riddles. It was like she’d left one last puzzle—one last challenge for him to solve. “I think you’re onto something, kid.”

  Her eyes widened. “Really?”

  He nodded. “Do you mind if I take a look at a few of these journals? Maybe see if something catches my eye?”

  “Please,” Torin said as he handed over his journal.

  “Be our guest,” Riley added as she tossed hers onto the coffee table.

  Emery looked at her friends with a confused expression. “I thought you guys wanted to help.”

  “Oh, don’t get me wrong,” Riley said hurriedly. “I’m all for helping. I just think that you and your dad might be better at deciphering your mother’s entries.”

  Emery looked at her father.

  “She does have a point,” he agreed.

  “I guess we’ll let you know when we find something,” Emery said with a hint of disappointment.

  “You misunderstand,” Torin teased. “Riley and I will be on Alexis-duty. Just call us back downstairs when you find something.”

  Two hours later, Byron and Emery had come up with numerous potential clues. They sat at the kitchen table, hunched over the journals like two high school students cramming for finals. Byron’s journal had about double the page-markers than the one Emery was currently working on. He flipped to the next page, his eyes glazing over at the lines and lines of text. He glanced over at his daughter, noticing that her focus seemed to be dwindling as well.

  She met his gaze. “Is anything jumping out at you?”

  He gestured to the many page-markers sticking out of the sides of the journal. “I’d say so. The problem is that there are too many.”

  “We need to narrow them down. Think of it in the context of the four-leaf clover. We already have the physical ingredient, so that leaves us with emotional, mental, and spiritual.”

  “So many of these fall under each of those categories,” he said as he tapped his fingertips against his temples.

  “Try this,” she offered as she took the journal from him. “Go through them and pick out the three that stick out the most. That’ll be the best place to start. Mark them with a different color so we know which ones to look at first.”

  He nodded, then started going through the pages again, one by one. As he approached the fifth page, something caught his eye that hadn’t during the first round: a drawing of a stick figure girl holding a shell. He pressed a hand to his forehead as the realization came to light. “I know what the second ingredient is.”

  She looked up from her journal with wide eyes. “Really? That was fast.” She leaned over the table to see what had caught his eye.

  “Look familiar?”

  She narrowed her eyes as she looked at the drawing. “It’s a girl holding a seashell.” She looked at her dad, confused, then back down at the makeshift drawing. “I don’t get it.”

  “When you were little, before Alexis was born, we used to take family vacations to Rhode Island. There was a beach,” he paused as he tried to recall the name, “Pleasanton Beach. We went there every summer until I was deployed. You’d waddle along the sand with your mother, picking up seashells along the way. There was one shell in particular you seemed to have a fondness for.”

  “I can’t believe I don’t remember any of this.”

  “You were so young. It’s understandable,” he said as he cleared his throat. “You’d constantly pick up an achioshell. Your mom swore that every time you brought one to her, her heart would swell with joy. She loved the feeling so much that she brought one home with her.”

  Emery nodded her head slowly, clearly remembering something. “I vaguely recall seeing a seashell in her nightstand drawer. I had no idea where it was from or what it was for.”

  “It makes sense though, doesn’t it? Achioshell could be the emotional ingredient.”

  She regarded him for a moment. “Isn’t it hollow?”

  He shook his head. “If you can find one and crack it open, you’ll find a white pearly liquid, very similar to that of a clam. If I recall correctly, achioshells are only found on Pleasanton Beach.”

  Emery stood up abruptly from her place at the table. “We have to go there.” She gathered the journals, then rushed into the living room, calling out for Torin and Riley.

  Byron stayed seated at the kitchen table, allowing a small laugh to escape his lips. He’d never told Sandra, but the achioshell had done wonders for him too, which is why he’d kept one for himself in his office drawer all these years.

  26

  Pleasanton Beach was surprisingly easy to find. Even though Emery didn’t fully recall the many vacations her family had taken during her younger years, the beach felt eerily fami
liar the minute she’d set foot on it. Byron had opted to stay home to tend to Alexis and any 7S crisis that might arise, while she, Torin, and Riley had set off for Rhode Island.

  The state itself was pretty small, but that wasn’t to say it wasn’t absolutely stunning. The majority of the Rhode Island population hadn’t seemed to embrace the new technology like most of the other states, and the ambiance reminded her of her home back in Dormance. Country cottages and small farms lined the roads, and kids rode their bicycles to and fro, stopping at ice cream parlors and sandwich shops. It was as if teleportation and holo-everything didn’t exist yet. There were even some cars—real, oil-guzzling cars—parked in some of the driveways. It was oddly refreshing.

  Emery smiled as she, Torin, and Riley kicked off their shoes and parked their bicycles against a whitewashed fence. Since the closest T-Port was about ten miles away from Pleasanton Beach, they’d chosen to rent bicycles for the day. Even though her legs ached, she didn’t mind. There was something about this little town and its fierce determination to keep things simple. She closed her eyes and took a deep inhale as a salty breeze swept through her hair. I love it here.

  “Em, you coming?” Torin called. She hadn’t realized how far ahead her two travel companions had gotten.

  “Yeah, I’m coming!” she yelled as she ran toward them, kicking up sand along the way. As she approached the shoreline, she couldn’t help but notice the hundreds of seashells, all different shapes, sizes, and colors. She jumped back as the water hit her feet. “It’s freezing!”

  He laughed at her sudden outburst. “Well, hopefully the shells are on the shoreline and not in the water,” he said as he bent over to pick one up. “You have a picture of what an achioshell looks like, right?”

  She pulled out her phone and searched for the message from her father. A holophoto of the shell appeared above the screen. It was a deep green color, almost identical to a clamshell, but not quite as fan-shaped.