Honor System (The System Series Book 4)

by Andrea Ring

  While I’m at the hospital today checking on Calyx, she’s spending the day with Jack. She’s bought twenty-one shoeboxes, and she’s decorated each one with one of the kids’ names. Inside each, she’s placed four cans of play dough, a child-sized rolling pin, plastic utensils, and a few cookie cutters.

  We knock on Jack and Tyrion’s door, the boxes lined up behind us.

  “Right on time,” Jack says, already turning back to the kitchen. “Come in and pour yourself some coffee. We’re ten minutes from eating.”

  Tessa and I each grab an armload of boxes and start bringing them in the house.

  “Mom!” Em yells, running over to us. “You brought them!”

  “I won’t ask how you know that,” Tessa says, setting down the boxes and hugging Em. “We missed you guys. What are you up to?”

  “Emmaleth, the program isn’t finished yet. Back to your seat,” Tyrion calls.

  Em rolls her eyes at us and runs back to the carpet.

  We finish with the boxes and join Tyrion on the couch.

  “What are we watching?” I ask him.

  “The life of a star,” he says. “Just a few more moments.”

  Tessa looks at me, eyebrows raised. I shrug.

  The documentary ends. Tyrion turns the TV off and stands before the children.

  “Questions,” he says.

  Diesel’s hand shoots into the air, and Tyrion nods at him.

  “So…since light travels at the speed of light, which isn’t very fast when we’re talking about the universe and the distances that light must travel…the stars we’re seeing at night…they might not really be there anymore?”

  “Correct,” Tyrion says. “We are seeing the light from the stars given off at a time in the past…the exact time it took that light to travel to Earth and reach our eyes. How long ago that was depends on how far away from us that star is. For example, the closest star to us, not counting the sun, is Proxima Centauri. It is four lightyears away. So we are seeing it as it was four years ago.”

  Fifteen stands up. “Wait just one minute! We can’t travel at the speed of light, can we?”

  “We cannot,” Tyrion says. “The fastest we have ever been able to travel is about 25,000 miles per hour. Light travels at 186,000 miles per second.”

  “But that means it would take us 100,000 years to get to the nearest star? What about Star Wars?”

  Tyrion smiles. “Star Wars is a movie, Fifteen. It is fiction. Nothing about it is real.”

  “I know what fiction is,” Fifteen huffs. “But what about the science? I thought science fiction was based on real science.”

  “Sometimes the line blurs between science fiction and fantasy.”

  “But that was my dream!” Fifteen says. “I wanted to travel around the universe and visit other worlds. I thought it was possible.”

  Tyrion squats down and pats his knee. Fifteen walks over and sits on it.

  “Once, air travel was impossible. Exploring the ocean floor was impossible. Finding the love of your life seems impossible. But human beings have done these things. You have great power in here,” Tyrion says, tapping Fifteen’s forehead. “If you want to study space and find a way to explore it, you will.”

  Fifteen frowns. “It seemed a lot easier when I thought you could buy me a spaceship and I could just fly away.”

  The rest of the boys giggle at that.

  Em rises from her spot and walks over to Fifteen. “I would like to go to space, too,” she says. “Maybe we can figure it out together.”

  ***

  We eat pancakes and bacon and fruit as a loud, messy group. I’m starting to get to know the boys better, and I’m learning each one’s unique personality.

  When everyone’s done eating, Tyrion and I tackle the dishes while the girls get the kids situated.

  “You have twenty minutes of outdoor play,” Jack says to the kids. “Then we’ll begin our writing assignment on the stars. Hurry now. Go get the wiggles out!”

  The kids all run out the back door to the yard. Jack gets paper and pencils and begins setting them at each place around the table.

  “You give writing assignments?” Tessa says, biting her lip. “Wow.”

  “We don’t expect too much yet,” Jack says. “Just a summary of the documentary.”

  “Oh. After that, I have a great activity for the kids.”

  “Super. How long does it take? We have elementary baking after writing, but I could bump that until after nap time.”

  “Baking?”

  “The principles of baking are rooted in science,” Jack explains. “It sounds frivolous, I know, but it’s both a life skill and an opportunity to learn chemistry. What is your activity about?”

  Tessa laughs. “Play dough. I made everyone their own box of play dough with their own tools. I thought it’d be fun.”

  “Play dough?” Jack laughs. “Tessa, the boys are way beyond play dough.”

  I ignore the dish Tyrion is holding out to me and turn from the sink. Tessa looks gobsmacked.

  “They’re only eight months old,” she says. “Most people would say they’re too young for play dough.”

  Jack gives Tessa a patient, patronizing look. Uh-oh.

  “I know it’s difficult to understand since you’re not a Dweller,” Jack says, “but—”

  “Whoa,” I say. “Stop right there.”

  The girls both ignore me.

  “So you think I’m an idiot, that I don’t understand what it means to be a Dweller, because I don’t raise my kids like they’re in boot camp?” Tessa’s voice goes screechy, and she gives Jack a death stare. “They’re children. Children. Yes, they’re advanced children, but they’re still kids. I want my kids to have a childhood.”

  “See?” Jack says. “You’re demonstrating right there that you don’t understand us. Dwellers aren’t like normal kids. We don’t want to play with colored dough and make meaningless shapes. We actually want to use our brains.”

  “Playing with colored dough is a precursor to art,” Tessa says. “It encourages creativity. Every thinking being can benefit from that.”

  I march from the sink to Tessa’s side. “Jack, have you forgotten what I do? I sculpt. Tessa paints. Art is important.”

  “I never said art isn’t important,” Jack says. “I can’t believe you’re not backing me up here. You know what these kids can do, and you know how you were as a kid.”

  “I was a brainiac who didn’t fit in,” I say. “All I wanted was to be normal and to fit in with the other kids.”

  “You told me you wanted to work in a lab when you were six,” she says. “So don’t bullshit me now. Your mom didn’t understand you at all.”

  “How dare you,” I say. “My mother shaped me into the person I am, and I think I’m a good person. Being a Dweller doesn’t make you a good mother, Jack. Right now, it just makes you a self-righteous asshole.”

  I go to the back door, open it, and yell for Free and Em.

  “Thomas, do not be hasty. Jack has a valid point,” Tyrion says.

  I turn on him. “No, she really doesn’t. The kids have a lifetime to learn about the stars and how to write an essay. They’re only young once. But that’s not the offensive part.”

  Free and Em come running in, and Tessa moves them out the front door without another word.

  “You just made Tessa feel like shit for no reason. She’s an amazing mother, and she knows exactly what our kids need. I feel sorry for your kids, that they’re learning manners from the two of you.”

  And with that, I follow my family out.

  ***

  “Mom, Jack was wrong,” Free says when we get in the car. “I think you understand Dwellers very well.”

  “Thank you,” Tessa says. “I appreciate that.”

  “You’re practically a Dweller yourself, no matter what Jack says.”

  Tessa sits up straighter in her seat. “I have been around them for a lot of years now. It’d be pretty hard to be married to a
Dweller if I didn’t understand them.”

  “That’s not what Free meant,” Em pipes up. “You have some of dad’s DNA in your cells. You just need the right connections in your brain.”

  Tessa glances at me, but my eyes are on the road.

  “What do you mean, Em?” I say.

  “I could clone the DNA and insert it, and I could make the connections. It would only take a few minutes. I could fix you, Mom.”

  We pull into our driveway.

  “Let’s table this discussion for a bit. Mom and I need to talk.”

  I set the kids up with some play dough at the kitchen table. Tessa has disappeared. I find her in our bedroom, crying.

  “It was the ‘fix you’ comment, wasn’t it?” I say, sitting beside her and rubbing her back.

  She nods.

  “Em didn’t mean there’s something wrong with you. She doesn’t understand.”

  “I’m doomed,” she says. “I’ve put myself in this position where I’ll always be considered the inferior idiot.”

  “Jack is one person—”

  “No, Thomas. She’s not alone. Em thinks I need to be fixed. I don’t have the memory or abilities all of you have. Even my own mother is a Dweller! I will never measure up, no matter what you say.”

  “I love you. The entire family loves you. You’re more than worthy.”

  “Love does not equal respect, Thomas! I will never get any respect in this family. Either I become a Dweller, or I’m crushed.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I say. “I fell in love with you just as you are. I respect every part of you.”

  “You’re one person,” she says quietly. “One person who’s not even around all that much. And you just proved my point—you called me ridiculous.”

  “I said your words were ridiculous, not you.”

  “Same difference.”

  “Don’t put words in my mouth,” I say. “Give me the same respect you demand of me.”

  “Don’t call my words ridiculous,” she says. “Don’t belittle my feelings.”

  “I’m not. I just think Jack said something stupid. Our parents don’t feel the way she does. And you know Tyrion—he has a superiority complex a mile wide, even among Dwellers.”

  “My own children see me as broken.”

  “That was one thoughtless statement from Em,” I say. “Free didn’t agree with her.”

  “He didn’t disagree, either.”

  A knock sounds at our door.

  “Yes?” I call.

  “It’s your son, Free Gabriel Van Zandt. May I come in?”

  Tessa smiles through her tears. “Yes, Free.”

  “I can’t reach the door handle.”

  Tessa stands and opens the door. “Yes?”

  “Em is a bit upset,” he says. “She knows she hurt your feelings.”

  “It’s not her fault,” Tessa says. “Tell her I’ll be in to speak to her in a minute.”

  “Okay. But also, I want to tell you my feelings on the matter.”

  Tessa opens the door wide, and Free runs over to the bed. Tessa gives him a boost on his behind, and he tumbles onto the comforter. He rolls to his stomach and props his head in his hands.

  “I knew a lot about you even before we met,” he says. “I listened to what everyone thought of you. And no one had one bad thing to think. Some of the thoughts were even hard to believe. I didn’t know a person could be so nice and loving.

  “So when I asked for Dad to raise me, I knew I’d be getting you, too. I liked that idea. Tyrion treated us nicely, but the other man, he was clinical. I wanted kindness and love, the kind that comes from a Mom and Dad who love each other and their family. So I chose you.

  “And I think you have to understand where Jack is coming from. She had a decent childhood and was treated well, but there wasn’t a lot of warmth, and she had no intellectual encouragement beyond the basics. She was frustrated a lot of the time. No one understood her. Many called her a freak. She’s just trying to right the wrongs of her past, as she sees them. She still loves you, Mom, and she respects you as a person. She just can’t see past her current position of Mother. It’s like she’s been given a mission and has to fulfill it in some fanatical way. Does that make sense?”

  Tessa looks at me. “Does that make sense to you?”

  “A bit,” I say, “but it doesn’t excuse Jack’s behavior today.”

  “I am not here to excuse her,” Free says. “Only to explain. I love you very much, Mom. I wouldn’t want anyone else to be my mother.”

  Tessa bursts into fresh tears, and Free crawls over and puts his tiny arms around her.

  “Do not become a Dweller unless it is your wish,” he says. “Dwellers have their own challenges. And I think you’re perfect just the way you are.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  The immediate staff won’t let me in to see Christopher Calyx. I try to find a doctor who knows me or Kate or Kenneth, but I come up empty.

  I do have one possibility, though. I have Chris’s phone, and I have his memories. I just need to speak to his wife.

  I spy Nicole Calyx in the waiting room speaking on her cell phone. I recognize her immediately—yeah, I said I wouldn’t pilfer Chris’s memories or thoughts when I hooked up to him, but he thought of his wife when Jack explained his aura to him, and I caught the image.

  She’s beautiful, blonde, and wearing clothes that look like she’s slept in them for two days.

  She clicks off and shoves the phone in her purse.

  “Mrs. Calyx?”

  “Yes.”

  I hold out my hand. “My name is Thomas Van Zandt. I’m one of the researchers that met with your husband yesterday. I was with him in the explosion.”

  She shakes her head. “They said someone else was him and that they walked away. How?”

  “I got very lucky,” I say. “Here. I have his phone for you.”

  She takes it, staring blankly at the cracked screen.

  “I was wondering, hoping really, that you could get me in to see him.”

  “Are you a doctor?” she asks. “You look too young to be a doctor.”

  I hesitate for a heartbeat. “Yes, I’m a doctor, but I don’t work here. The staff won’t let me in.”

  She looks around the room, as though searching for an answer.

  “I don’t know,” she says. “I don’t know you.”

  “I won’t do anything,” I say. “I’d just like to see him and assess his condition. He wanted me to help him, Mrs. Calyx.”

  She narrows her eyes. “What are you saying? Did he speak after the accident? He’s been in a coma.”

  “No. We spoke beforehand.”

  “You’re implying he knew what was about to happen?”

  God, how do I get myself into these binds? I can’t sit here and explain the Dwellers and Jack without sounding crazy.

  “It’s a long story, and I’ll tell you about it sometime, but he did want me to be his doctor. How can I prove that to you?”

  “You can’t. You don’t even have any injuries. How do I know you were in the explosion, too?”

  I sit in a chair and sigh.

  “He called you right before,” I say. “He told you he loved you. You asked if this was your husband, and what did you do to him, and he laughed and said you deserved to hear him say it.”

  Nicole covers her mouth with the back of her hand.

  “He told me you fold his shirts for him. That you bought one of those templates to fold a perfect shirt.”

  She carefully lowers herself to the chair beside mine. Then she laughs.

  “Of all the things to tell someone.”

  “He also told me how you met on the street in New York. You said you’d have coffee with him if he bought you a slice of pie, too.”

  “He would never have said any of those things to a business associate,” she says. “Never. He doesn’t give personal information.”

  “He told me about the deaths of his parents and grandma and
wife, and how—”

  “That’s enough,” she says. “The doctors…they say he’s brain dead. You’re so young…can you really help him?”

  “Absolutely.”

  She stands. “Then let’s go.”

  ***

  “Let me clear the room,” Nicole says as we pause outside the door. “The bloodsuckers are in there.”

  I nod in agreement and she enters the room.

  “Nik, I’m glad you’re back,” Mr. Curtis says. “The doctors want to speak with you.”

  “What about?”

  “They want to know if you want to file an appeal. Since Chris had the DNR in place, but the emergency team didn’t know it, the hospital’s ethics board can look at the case and decide to remove life support, based on his condition and his wishes.”

  “It hasn’t even been two days,” she says. “I can’t give up on him this soon.”

  “But there’s no brain activity, honey,” he says. “You heard what they said—”

  “Get out.”

  “Nicole, I know this is difficult, but Chris wouldn’t want—”

  “I said, get out. You work for me, and you don’t make decisions for me. I’ll call you both if there’s any change. Now, go.”

  I flatten myself to the wall beside the door and try to look busy. The two men come out, as wrinkled-looking as Nicole.

  “She’s a widow, but she just doesn’t know it yet,” Curtis says. “Call Tracey, Bob, and Douglas. All hands on deck. We need a plan in place for succession, and all his holdings are gonna pass to her. She’s not up for it, and we both know it. Call an emergency board meeting for tomorrow. We need to figure out how to keep her out of things.”

  They slip right by me, lost in their conversation.

  I open the door and step inside.

  It’s the usual setup. Nicole is sitting by the bed, tears in her eyes.

  I kneel before her. “There’s hope, Nicole,” I say. “I can bring him back.”

  “How? If he’s brain dead, how?”

  “Do you trust me?”

  “More than I trust those lawyers.”

  “Then give me your permission.”

  She sniffles. “What are you going to do?”

  “Wake him up.”

  ***

  “I can’t…I don’t like blood,” she whispers.