“Want to grab a bite to eat?” I ask, expecting that today of all days she won’t want to go all domestic on me.
And she doesn’t, offering her response with a hint of wryness in her tone. “We’ll order in. I can’t deal with incompetent staff today. Luke-warm food is easier to stomach. I’m sure you don’t mind. You look like you’re not getting enough nutritious food. Don’t they know their super weapons won’t be much use to them if they starve to death first?”
I carefully keep my eyes on the road, hoping that only seeing me in profile keeps her from reading the surprise right off my face. Fat chance, I realize, as she goes on, not bothering to keep a note of anger twined with grief out of her voice.
“Yes, I know. Your brother told me. I’m certain not everything, but enough. He also made me promise not to tell you, but since he is dead now, what sense is there in keeping said promise?” She goes on when I don’t respond. What is there to say? I have no clue why he kept her from telling me sooner. “I wasn’t going to ask you, but I saw you talking to that man. Is he the one who recruited you? The one responsible for all this?”
When I say that I got my smarts from my mother, I’m not lying. That she comes to the same conclusions I did earlier—and missing a lot of information—is no coincidence. I know I need to tread carefully now. There is no way in hell that I’m breathing a word to my mother of what I’ve been responsible for over the past decade, but I also can’t leave her with nothing or else she will start to snoop, and that’s the surefire way of turning me into an orphan. So I try to stick to the truth as much as possible not to tip her off to the fact that the certainties I offer are guesses at most.
“Yes, he recruited me, and yes, he set a lot in motion to give me the opportunities I was granted, but he has nothing to do with this.” The key to offering a convincing lie is to make yourself believe it. In this case, I really want to.
My mother remains silent for far too long for my comfort. “There’s something you’re not telling me,” she finally prompts.
“There’s a lot I’m not telling you.”
I can tell that she’s looking at me now but I refuse to avert my eyes from the road. I’m good at hiding some of this shit, but not all of it, and today I feel like I’m frazzled enough that too much would slip through. She’d just need to prod at the right point, at the right time, and I’d probably spill my guts. I can’t let that happen.
Maybe she realizes that. Or maybe she doesn’t want to know. Either way, she hones in on a different thing. “I know you did things that you’re not proud of.”
No sense in denying that. “I did.”
“And it stands to reason that things were done to you that you are equally not proud of.”
The power of that deduction… but I swallow my acidic remark in favor of a real one. “They were.”
“How did it come to this? And why did you let it happen?”
I’m spared an immediate response as we arrive back at her house. My mother heads straight inside. I take a few moments to gather the few things we’ve brought back with us, mainly the condolence book and a bouquet of white lilies that I didn’t notice anyone giving to her but she was carrying when we returned to the car. It’s a relief to me that I will be heading back to where I belong tomorrow; that way I don’t have to answer a single phone call or write a thank-you card. I’m sure my brother would have rather had a traditional wake, with lots of booze and glorious stories told to celebrate and commemorate him in style. Instead, I’m heading into part two of an interrogation that I’ve been trying to avoid since I was eighteen years old.
I don’t hear my mother anywhere so I head into the guest room where my duffle is waiting for me and undress, hanging the trousers and jacket, complete with hat, gloves, shoes, and tie to be stored away. The shirt goes in the hamper, and I pull my other freshly washed and dried clothes on. What a difference a few pieces of fabric make—although right now I’d rather be wearing a ratty, old T-shirt and some shorts. My mother’s idea of dressing down is going barefoot rather than in heels, and the dress a different one—in charcoal—but not exactly casual. She wasn’t wearing makeup earlier and nothing has changed about that, but now she looks tired and drawn.
I have absolutely no clue what to do now, so I head into the kitchen and get some coffee started. Not all of my apprehension stems from not wanting to have this conversation with her, but she pokes right at it as she joins me. “If you’re concerned about bugs, I checked while you were hanging up your uniform,” she tartly informs me.
“Is that something you do on a regular basis?” I can’t help it—I have to ask.
There was no mockery in my tone, but her gaze still hardens. “Since there is a chance that someone killed one of my sons in retaliation to something the other did, I like to take precautions.”
Way to make me feel like a failure, Mom—but I don’t tell her that, of course. It’s not like I wasn’t thinking along the very same lines earlier. While I’m fussing with the coffee machine, she takes a seat at the kitchen counter, gazing at the backyard beyond the porch.
“I saw you talking to Dr. Lewis earlier,” she says as I set down her coffee on the counter.
“You know her?”
She takes a moment to formulate her response. “Raleigh told me about her the last time we had coffee. Not much, just that he finally found someone worth hiring. I can’t say I was particularly impressed by what I saw, but that may have been a good thing.”
“May?” I shouldn’t be having fun with questions like that, but I know my mother. Listening to her reasoning is usually… interesting at the very least.
She gives me a sidelong glance that tells me she knows I’m hiding a smile. “Physically, she is not exactly a remarkable specimen. Academically, she has a good track record but not to the point where it’s extraordinary. I was a little concerned about his judgment at first, but since the accident I have come to change my mind. My initial guess was that she was a plant, but in retrospect, that makes no sense at all—a lapse of judgment on my part. Anyone trying to plant a mole wouldn’t go against the type your brother favored, but would have sent him a veritable femme fatale. Also, her lack of traceable achievements and publication stems from the fact that her expertise is not easy to come by and rarely achievable by achievement hunters, which she is not. Simply put, her lack of a splash comes from exhaustive actual work, also on projects that weren’t meant for publication but rather led to pending patents. If her specific work hadn’t predestined her for your brother’s work group, she would have been a great acquisition for the company otherwise, also to keep her off their competitors’ employee roster. And I guess if you spend fifteen hours in a hermetically sealed positive pressure suit under extreme conditions, getting your ears talked off might be a welcome distraction as well.”
“You talked to her, I presume?” That much is obvious.
“Only briefly.”
That leaves one other option. “You went through Raleigh’s files.”
My mother gives me a scandalized look. “Of course I did! I could not access his work computer, but the first thing I did when I was informed of his death was to make several backup copies of everything he left with me, and from our shared cloud account.”
Someone else may be horrified to hear of such a reaction. It’s actually a relief to me. I was worried that she spent the entire time since his death in the state I found her in earlier, but she’s already recovering as we speak. There’s something to be said to have a mother who won’t hold it against you that you’re not there for her in her darkest hours.
But that’s not what my mind focuses on right now. “What files?”
She makes a vexed sound with her tongue. “Parts of his research that after extensive perusal of the material and study of basic organic chemistry I still cannot decipher. Also, that insufferable woman’s recruitment video and two other conversations they seem to have been having last year. It pains me to admit this, but she could likely make se
nse of it all in her sleep.”
“Since he hired her to be his assistant, that’s not much of a surprise.”
The fact that she doesn’t readily agree but instead ignores my point underlines how much it annoys her that someone, in some aspect, is smarter than she is. We share that trait as well—Raleigh tried to explain to me once what he is doing, how the serum initially affected my body, how it keeps affecting me, and how he intends to break that cycle, and all I understood is what I already know: that I signed my delayed death warrant when I got admitted into the serum program. I was ready to punch him in the face once he was done, not because of the constant reminder of how my life will end, if not when, but because of his frustration at how I couldn’t see it all plain as day.
“And you are certain that he wasn’t killed because of your deeds?”
Her question—and the fact that she is repeating it—bring me back to the here and now. “I am.”
Someone else would have been relieved. My mother continues to be annoyed since that must have been her only working theory since she can’t accept what I immediately assumed to have been the truth: that it was an accident. But there is his assistant’s doubt, and the more I think about that, the more her wild guessing upsets me.
“It may have been his own fault, if you can call it that,” I more muse than tell her. “He never told me that he was close to finding a cure, but the very fact that he found someone rivaling his expertise to maybe groom and requisition for his side project as well might have gone against someone’s interests.”
As interesting—and plausible—as that theory seems to me, my mother immediately dismisses it. “What reason would she have had to risk her life? It’s all well and good to presume that every scientist in this country will sell their soul to solve this riddle, but the opposite is the case. I’m certain that if the serum were to only cripple you in the end, your own brother wouldn’t have gotten interested, let alone involved, with it. What does a woman who doesn’t know you and whose only concern is likely how to pay off her student loan debt want to have to do with this?”
“You think they are all motivated by money only?”
“And fame, and the glory of helping people,” she stresses. “Innocent people who got infected with a deadly disease. Not stubborn jarheads who took it upon themselves to become super soldiers.”
And, just like that, she inflates the balloon of suspicions and theories that I have been blowing smoke into the entire afternoon, if not the previous two weeks. I guess it’s human to hunger for extraordinary explanations when the truth, so often, is harsh yet boring. Nobody had any reason to kill my brother. The deal he struck in turn for being allowed to work on finding a cure for the final stage of the serum benefitted all parties involved—he got to try to save my life and that of countless others who had all willingly signed up knowing how they would eventually die; the project gained a brilliant scientist who approached their unsolved issues with new fervor, and in turn agreed to also lend his expertise to their other ventures; but in the end he was just one guy with an overly inflated ego and some intelligence to show for it. The most likely conclusion is that it was indeed an accident, and while tragic for us, with no real consequences in the long run to anyone else.
“Are you happy with what you do?” My mother’s question hits me out of left field to the point where she has to repeat it for it to fully register.
I’m tempted to lie, but ultimately shake my head. I thought I still had years to goof off with my brother, only limited by my own lifespan, and look what happened. There is no guarantee when, or if, I will get another chance like this to sit in my mom’s kitchen, drink coffee, and be honest with her.
“I should be, right?” I pose the question that has, in some fashion or other, been plaguing me for years. “I got exactly what I wanted. Not easily, but I’ve always considered myself privileged to be awarded the opportunity to reach for the stars. And it’s not like I was too naive or blind, and plain stupid not to understand the consequences. I knew things would happen, and I knew that they would affect me. But am I happy?” I give that some more thought. “Until your call, I would have said yes. It’s not all sunshine and roses, but I do what I do because someone has to, and that might as well be the best—me. But now? I’m not so sure about that anymore.”
“Why is that?”
Such a simple question, but it doesn’t have a simple answer.
“I don’t know?” I finally offer when nothing else comes to mind. “Maybe I’m like every other idiot who’s fighting the good fight elsewhere and buys into the bullshit that we’re doing it to save our families and loved ones at home? Or so our brothers and sisters, our sons and daughters don’t have to do what we sacrifice our bodies, minds, and souls for? Maybe if I actually did what everyone thinks I do, things would be different? I don’t know.”
She studies me with that special calm of hers that usually puts me at ease, but today it sets me off. I don’t know why I feel so raw all of a sudden—sure, the day of my brother’s funeral can’t be a trigger for anything. It’s strange to have a dark night of the soul moment in the middle of the afternoon with warm sunlight filtering in through the kitchen windows, but it’s kind of fitting my mood.
“You know that I will only ever judge you by your actions, not some incomprehensible social constructs,” she says when the silence between us goes on for too long. “And as your mother, I will always be biased in your favor.”
“It’s not actions alone. It’s just as much intent.” I hate how much this conversation makes me doubt myself, but maybe that’s exactly what I need. “You know that I don’t do well with authority,” I start.
She quickly interrupts me. “That is an understatement. And, quite frankly, I have always wondered why you were so hell-bent on joining an organization that thrives on authoritative hierarchies.”
I offer her a wry smile. “It’s less authoritative at the top. And at first, I didn’t mind so much. I liked the structure, and they didn’t exactly leave us that much spare time to think about pretty much anything. But it only took the second green-behind-the-ears, fresh-from-college lieutenant who knew shit all—and a lot less than the NCO he was ignoring—for me to realize that I wasn’t going to hack it as anyone’s subordinate.”
“I could have told you that if you’d asked,” my mother tartly remarks. “And it would have been a colossal waste of your intellectual capabilities.”
Trust it to my mother to twist a compliment into chastisement. “So I did what seemed like the natural conclusion—I did my very best to get into every special training that seemed useful while studying my ass off to get a degree as soon as possible so I was eligible for the officer training track, all the while working on building up a reputation that would predestine me to get into the really good programs.”
She gives me an idle blink as she sips her coffee. “You tell me all that as if I didn’t know it already.”
And this is where I get my impatience from as well. “I was getting to my point.”
“Please continue, then.”
“So gracious of you.” We share a smile, if a small one. Matching wits with my mother is something I’ve missed while being out in the field. I love shooting the shit with the next guy, but this? This is special. And today is the first time that I realize it may very well be a luxury that comes in an extremely measured quantity. I push that thought away quickly—that’s the last thing I need. My point… right. “Guess in all my plotting and planning, and working myself to the bone, I forgot to question the motives of the people who were backing and pushing me. I knew that many things were running deeper than I realized—I was just the tool doing the work, after all—but when I finally got a first glimpse behind the curtain, things were uglier than I expected. And then I got into the planning part of the missions, not just the resulting action, and—”
I’m momentarily afraid I will have to finish that sentence, but she doesn’t make me.
“Such is the crux
of the naive youth,” my mother observes, looking slightly self-satisfied—her version of “I told you so.”
I shrug, trying to decide how graphic I should get in my explanation of just how much I’d underestimated what I would have to do, but drop the point unmentioned. It’s bad enough that I’ll forever carry those stains on my soul. No need to wipe some of that ichor on hers.
“Have you ever considered deciding against continuing along that path?” she wants to know. “I know that you have refused several opportunities for promotions. Might that be the way out? Or you could also go into training your successors. Your brother found great fulfillment in teaching, although at first he was concerned of how his ego would react to being confronted with minds fresher and possibly brighter than his.”
“I have, but I’m not sure that my soul can take sending someone onto the very same trajectory that I’m trying to jump off of.”
“Ah, soul,” she muses. “Such a fragile concept.”
“Using the term ‘conscience’ would imply that I have a guilty one, which I don’t,” I remark. Her gaze turns a little doubtful, making me explain. “Do I feel guilt for some of the things I’ve done? Yes, but I did them for a reason, and at the time I had a very solid foundation to base my actions on. None of those actions have ever cost me much, if any, sleep. But a lot of these actions have left marks and scars, and ‘soul’ is a fitting term for that.”
Theology—not something I’d advise getting into with my mother. She can make a convinced atheist feel stupid for having faith in concepts that are as much religion as self-declared religions are. That she gives me a pass now is almost a disappointment.
“To use a more colloquial phrase, if it kills you to do your job, why continue to do it? You could always continue your studies, or open your own business. I doubt the world has run out of need for independent defense contractors yet. You must know a few people who you could hire on the spot.”
Beyond Green Fields (Book 1): Beginnings [A Post-Apocalyptic Anthology] Page 12