by Jaclyn Lewis
“No. That can’t be right.” Pax is pulling out his own files from Erimos to compare. “See—right here it has you all listed as siblings.”
“But this one’s different. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.” Silas projects the file onto the roof of the cab as proof. We all study it in silence.
“So which one is correct?” Kylee asks.
“I don’t think there’s anyway for us to know that right now. But someone was hiding something.” Paxton answers.
Ember revisits Elise. “Do you think that’s why we have such a connection to her? Why we are different from the other snowflakes?” Her question beckons the whole group to answer, but is probably directed toward Pax—the only one with enough medical experience to accurately weigh in.
The wheels in his mind haven’t stopped turning with all the new information and I can practically see smoke coming out his ears. “Absolutely I do. I think you have a stronger connection to her because you are most like her (assuming you three are her siblings) and that’s what makes you more advanced. The question is, why are her memories the ones Titus used to imbed in all the female snowflakes? And why has he scrubbed her existence from the internet? I’ve tried to cross reference both Andre and Elise before and nothing comes up.”
“And also, does he know who you are?” he adds. “Wouldn’t he have been aware that if he purchased embryos from even twenty-five or more years ago from the same facility where they had undergone this procedure—that he would likely give life to his own children? Has he been looking, waiting for you?”
Then Pax shakes his head, as if arguing with himself. “No—no—if he did, he would have awakened you first. Or he would have done it apart from the others. He would have wanted you to know. I just don’t understand how this happened. Genna, under what conditions are you best able to dream?”
“Me? Well---I don’t know. When I’m sleeping?” I know that’s a stupid answer and we all laugh together. I just don’t really know what he means—I haven’t exactly made an algorithm for my dreams.
The cab driver drops us off at a hotel and we get checked in. Pax has ordered two rooms for us—one for the girls and one for him and Silas. I would have thought it’d be awkward for those two, but so much information has changed the way we think about each other—and so quickly. Silas and Pax are on good terms and I think they are even glad to be looking out for each other now.
“We need to get you to dream, Genna. Stress seams to have induced it a couple of times. I have some sleeping pills in my pack that should put you into a deep sleep and well—I’d say you’ve endured some stress today. When you get up to your room, I want you to take the pills. The rest of us will be in mine and Silas’ room doing some more research.”
Stopping in front of my room, he hands me the pills.
“Come get us when you wake up.”
“Have you had a chance to look for Trina?” I ask him—carefully because I know it’s a painful subject.
“No. I wanted to make sure you all were safe first.”
“Please find out.”
The truth might be painful, but for me the waiting is worse. Will he go back to her if she’s free? Has she been waiting this whole time? And what about his parents? He had a whole life here that was taken and now given back. Maybe he won’t want me after he’s faced with the promise of having it all again.
With a kiss on the forehead, Pax pushes a loose strand of my hair behind my ear.
“OK.” He assures me, and walks toward his own room.
Inside, there’s a fridge stocked with little snacks and drinks. I’m so thirsty I almost open one, but then I see how much they cost and decide that tap water is just fine for me. Even though I’m sure we have the money to pay for it, it just feels frivolous. I take the pills and wait for sleep to set in.
I wonder how long it takes. I wonder if this will even work. How guilty will I feel if all I get out of this is a good nap?
I still can’t believe Titus Camp—founder of the Second Galaxy and the Snowflake Program is my father. I should be proud—he sounds like a brilliant man, but then I remember that Pax said he could be ruthless—planning to murder everyone on Earth.
And what about my mother? What happened to her? I wonder what…
When it does come, sleep crashes over me like a wave—irresistible. I feel my face go a little numb and hear the deep breaths go in and out. In and out…
* * *
I’m nervously waiting in an alleyway with a box—a box small enough I can carry it, but large enough that I need both hands. My heart beats like a drum as I look around me—making sure I haven’t been followed. It’s dark and it has just started to rain with a relentless fury. I wish that I had remembered my jacket, but I always forget. My clothes are soaked through. The city lights illuminate the alley just enough for me to make out the figure coming toward me.
There are a million ways that this could all go south. But I have to try. I have to.
“Elise, you’ll catch a cold out here!” He shouts as he comes closer and puts his own jacket around my shoulders.
It seems that I know the bearded man—in my dream at least. He’s a doctor—but more than that, a trusted friend. Sentimental emotions rise up within me. And also conflicting ones.
I feel like changing my mind about the box—I don’t want to hand it over. But I know I have to.
“It will be all right, Elise. I’ll care for it—protect it--just like we planned. ” He tells me. “Until the time is right. It must be done—for the future’s sake. There is only so much you can do, but you can do this. Go now, before you are caught.”
It must be done. I know he’s right. Tears become one with the rain as I hand over the small black box—knowing I’ll never hold it in this life again.
* * *
I wake up sweating. I couldn’t have been asleep very long. I should get up and go tell the others what I saw. But I’m groggy and I can’t fight the drifting.
Disappointment fills me when I wake up and realize that I didn’t have any more dreams, but I’ve slept for over six hours.
Scrambling for the toothbrush in my pack, I know that I can’t talk to anyone with my breath smelling like a dead rat.
Once I’m presentable (if I can be considered that—even with these weird lines on my face and arms from sleeping), I head down to Silas and Pax’s room to tell them about my dream.
Just like me, they start to wonder what was in the box. We try to make educated guesses based on its size. The others have been doing a little research on their own while I was sleeping.
“I found Trina.” Paxton tells me after the excitement of the Elise dream has died down. “She’s married. Moved on. She looks just the same as when I left.”
The sudden urge to smile and be happy at this news is replaced for his greater good—I know he needs comfort. To mourn his love in a new way. When he’s ready—I will be too.
I wrap my arms around him and don’t say anything---there’s nothing I could really say to make it any less painful anyway.
“Has the moment passed? Can I please share with Genna what we’ve been working on now?” Silas—not one to be overly sensitive at times like this is eager to share his findings.
Kylee and Ember have been assigned research duties and they gather around me like a panel ready to brief a commander.
“First of all, Kylee was put on makeup duty. She’s bought some concealer for our tattoos and some more—er—relevant looking clothes.
Ember has been researching a top headline of the day—the disappearance of a multi-millionaire named Howard Dawson.”
I have memories and knowledge of this man. I can picture him being handed the Nobel Prize in front of an audience of people at a dinner party. A dinner party that I attended—that Elise must have attended. He’s a scientist that proved the dimension theories that specter technology is based off of. For some reason I remember the Nobel moment, but nothing else.
“Howard is the maker of the Dawn Device. Rumor
has it that his yacht sank off the coast of Charleston, South Carolina last week. He hasn’t been seen since. We also found out that there have been an increasing number of disappearances in the last twelve months. Not much to go on there—just interesting tidbit.”
“Ember, pull up the photo of Titus Camp for me.” At that, Ember projects it onto the screen.
This most recent picture shows a well-dressed businessman smiling back at me instead of the raving lunatic I expected. He looks to be about sixty and has greying hair and an unusually stout nose. Even in the photo I can see that his dark eyes are empty and shallow. There’s no depth to this man’s soul. Can we really be the only ones who know that?
He goes on, “Camp Global Commerce is a world-renowned corporation with its proverbial hand in everything from medical advances to international trade to—(surprise)-aircraft engineering. Camp is on an infinite number of boards for many organizations and has even been involved in US politics in the last decade.”
Silas finishes, “And last, but not least—I present to you—the girl who haunts my dreams…and not usually in a good way.”
Of course, Silas has seen her over and over again, but I hadn’t known exactly what she looked like—even though I had been inside her mind a dozen times. I caught just a glimpse of her raven hair in a window once. But now—staring at her—I feel like Elise and I have always been one in the same.
Chapter 21
*
Dr. Mitchell
Silas snores—loud. “Freight train” loud.
It’s not like I could sleep right now anyway. I don’t know if I’ll ever sleep again. Everything I thought was real has changed in one day. As if seeing Earth—healthy and thriving wasn’t enough of a shock, I saw Trina married and happy…everything I dreamed for her.
My thoughts go to Kylee because she has really taken a back seat in all of this. I didn’t really intend for it to go that way—the plan was to go to Atlanta and then head to Paris where her records stated she had been frozen. Along the way I guess things just got—complicated. I know she wants to find her parents too and she’s being so patient.
But we can’t head to Paris just yet. We have got to find Camp’s base of operations and get some evidence on him. All I have is an e-mail—scary at best, but too cryptic to use as evidence and we aren’t even positive it means what we think it means—I feel certain that he wants to destroy Earth and that has the means to do it. But without finding him, we can’t know for sure. Rummaging through my pack, I pull out the data stick and put it in the Dawn device. I project it onto the wall in the bathroom so I don’t wake up Silas.
I pull up the e-mail again:
Elliot,
Everything is almost ready. We are having some problems, but we will back on schedule soon. If you could spare a few troops to send our way, it would be most appreciated.
Amaranthine,
Dr. Titus Camp
I was stumped when I read it the first time, and I’m stumped now. Not only because my computer locked me out the second I came across it back on Erimos, alarms went off throughout the Core which started us on this crazy journey in the first place, but because I don’t know what Amaranthine is. The Dawn doesn’t help much when I search.
Here it is: The definition for “Amaranthine”
Eternally beautiful and unfading; everlasting
Purple in color
I look for more relevant results, but there are none. Cross-referencing with ship, starship, battle cruiser, specter, etc. brings up nothing useful and I’m at another dead end.
We have to find CGC’s base so I go to work trying to track them down. Their web site has a mailing address in Seattle, but I know that could be a smoke trail. After layers of research, I finally find some concrete info that links them to a base outside Las Vegas.
“Gotcha!” I exclaim victoriously when I’m found the image of the base. This is where we have to go.
I guess I can’t avoid sleep forever. It’s 1 a.m. and I have a feeling tomorrow is going to be the longest day of all.
Silas has already gone down to breakfast by the time I wake up. Groggy, I shower, and put on the new clothes Kylee picked up at the store yesterday. I’m thankful to look slightly more “in tune” with my surroundings here. I got so used to wearing scrubs everyday you would think she had handed me a superhero cape instead of just jeans and a T-shirt.
In the lobby, Silas sits with the Dawn Device propped up on the table--prepared to vomit his new knowledge on us as mercilessly as ever.
My hand jerks up in rejection of whatever he has to say.
“Silas let me get my food first, please. Heavens, I haven’t even touched a cup of coffee yet.” The hotel buffet is calling my name. “I don’t want to get stuck in one of your speeches—all the food’ll be gone by the time you’re done!”
He knows I’m teasing and just gives me a dirty look.
When we all have our food we sit at the table and the Dawn Device projects an image in the center. It is the man—the three girls know immediately who he is.
“Andre.” They say unanimously. Of course, they’ve seen him in their dreams before.
Silas starts in on his information overload. “This is Andre LeBlanc. From our memories we already know that he and Elise were lovers. What I’ve been able to find out is that Andre was much older than her and was in fact her professor at a university in Paris. He was a scientist who was discredited by an article he wrote in a medical journal about the future of memory imprinting. Being publically humiliated gave him a common link to Camp…I’ll come back to that…CGC offered him a job after he was fired from the University. Andre didn’t want to leave Paris, but Camp offered Elise a job in CGC’s research department as well. The couple moved to America soon after.
The news reports I found say that only a few weeks later, Andre and Elise were vacationing back in Paris and died in a tragic accident when their car flew over a railing.”
He pauses to say what we all know. “Obviously, from putting our visions together that story is false. We have all seen them being shot at the train station.”
“Do you have any idea why?” Kylee asks.
I remember the story about Camp being discredited. It happened when I was younger, so I chime in, “Titus Camp thought he had found a cure for cancer. People hailed him as hero, and he sold that cure to millions. That’s how he became famous in the first place and made all his money. But they hadn’t thoroughly tested the side effects. Unfortunately, a stronger autoimmune disease would take the place of the cancer and kill the patients just as they were almost fully cured.
There was a huge lawsuit files against him, and everyone distanced themselves from Doctor Camp—discrediting him in the media—canceling his speaking engagements.”
Just then I remember another name…. “He linked up with Howard Dawson later and they founded the planets.”
“The Howard Dawson that’s missing? The Howard Dawson on the news?” Ember exclaims?
“Yes. That can’t be a coincidence; his findings were vital in setting up the Snowflake program. He funded the research for the machines that you were born in.”
* * *
Genna sits next to me in the cab as we head back to the specter and on to Las Vegas. Her hair smells like jasmine, like the hotel shampoo and not that stuff on Erimos that’s totally devoid of all scent. Although, it’s funny, I think I can remember the smell of her hair even there.
I guess we haven’t spoken much—about anything very personal. In fact, I’m almost unsettled by her coolness. Oh, she hasn’t been rude, no—just more unconcerned than I would have thought. She promised to give me the space to get over Trina and I am thankful that she committed to that so literally. Really—I am.
“Well…” I start, but I hadn’t thought of what to say to afterward.
Genna’s head turns to me, only inches away.
“Well, what?” She asks through a smile.
“Well�
�I just wanted to talk to you. About us. If you still want to.”
Even though they all pretend to be doing something else, I can feel Silas and Ember and Kylee holding their collective breath as they stare at us.
Genna’s face burns crimson as she whispers, “I don’t know that this is really the time.”
“Oh no…this is the time.” Silas taunts. “This is definitely the time. What do you have to say, Doctor Mitchell?”
Maybe she’s right…this is probably a bad time. But I’ve been thinking—time is such a silly thing to keep us from saying what needs to be said. There are “good times” for this, and “bad times” for that, but we forget that the promise that “those times” will come to us at all is an empty one.
“I love you, Genna. I don’t care if they know.”
I’m not sure how she will react. She seems like she wants to say something, but before she has a chance I kiss her—a kiss that carries with it all the ice and fire, snow and sunlight. And this time, I think she desires it as much as I do. It’s the most wonderful and scary thing I’ve ever lost myself in and in this moment I realize that with all my scars and secrets, I am loveable because she loves me. It can never be the other way around.
Chapter 21
*
Genesis
I want to hold this moment close, replay it over and over. He tastes like all the dreams I’ve ever had have become matter—something to touch and feel. Ember and Kylee giggle like fourth graders, and Silas has got the taxi driver clapping. I’m so embarrassed—not for the kiss, but the audience.
“You didn’t do much talking.” I tease him in a whisper only he can hear.
“I don’t know what to say about it.” He tells me. “I hadn’t planned to fall in love with you. And I don’t know what the future looks like. I’m kind of a fugitive so I don’t have much to offer you.”
He brushes his fingers gently across the part of my face where the snowflake tattoo is hidden below layers of makeup.