Unfurl (The Ripple Trilogy)

by Cidney Swanson

Encouraging him to take Gwyn up on her repeated date offers was futile. He wouldn’t hang out with Gwyn sans moi—without me. He wouldn’t do anything sans moi. I had only one option, so far as I could tell.

  Sir Walter had explained to us that by staying in invisible form, it was possible to put off actual sleeping. But eventually, every active rippler would need true sleep. In Christian’s case, he could go six days before he had to get a full night’s rest. Just one stretch of six to eight hours would do, and he’d be good for another week of life spent mostly visible with invisible guard duty each night.

  Christian’s need for sleep once a week had almost been a deal–breaker for Will, who became frantic at the thought that I’d be unguarded for eight hours once every seven days.

  I’d come up with a solution I thought was obvious. “How about if I sleep rippled during the time Christian sleeps solid? That way I’m safe.”

  Will had called me a genius and planted a kiss on my shoulder. Sir Walter had nodded and said it was a good solution. Christian had proposed my spending every night invisible, but Mickie had vetoed that idea.

  “It will stunt her growth,” she said. “Sam doesn’t need that on top of everything else. Plus she’s got parents. With only one night a week there’s a much smaller risk they’ll come barging in and flip out thinking she’s gone.”

  We’d picked Sunday night as Christian’s night of rest. My dad rarely visited my room, but Sylvia popped in sometimes, and this was least likely to happen on a Sunday when she hounded me with get–to–bed–because–it’s–a–school–night.

  All of which meant I had eight hours in which to retrieve my egg. I figured I had to allow two hours each way for travel and an hour buffer in case Christian got up early. He always came to wake me up, and he’d figure out pretty quick I was gone if the air over my bed wasn’t ice–cold. So, that would give me three hours to figure out how to steal something from a (probably) secure facility which might or might not have invisible guards and which would certainly have cameras.

  I spent Sunday surfing the internet trying to learn more about human egg cells. Having picked a time during which Christian was engaged in chanting, I had the screen to myself. What I discovered unsettled me. I hadn’t thought through the implications of what I wanted to do today. I’d had a vague idea that I was going to San Francisco to “get my egg back.” But it wasn’t like I could just pop it back inside me. Eggs were living cells, with expiration dates. Hans and his sibling doctor, Fritz, were presumably keeping my egg alive artificially. Retrieving my egg wasn’t what I needed to do: destroying it would be my job.

  I tried to reason with myself that it was just a cell like the dead skin cells that flaked off my arms in the shower. And in a way, it was just a cell. But it was a special cell. One that represented half of a potential little Sam who could run around and play.

  I shook off the willies by reasoning that the last thing I wanted was for one of my eggs to become a little Sam who could run and play. That was what Helmann wanted and what I needed to prevent.

  A long, quiet Sunday drew to a close at last. Christian said goodnight to Syl and my dad, which was my cue to turn in. He wouldn’t truly let himself sleep until he’d seen me ripple each Sunday. Tonight his thoroughness irritated me.

  “I’m going, I’m going,” I said as he rippled solid up in my bedroom.

  “It was not my intention to hasten you, Mademoiselle.”

  “Sam,” I said. “My name is Sam, not Mademoiselle.” My fear of the next several hours came out as anger directed at Christian.

  “Forgive me,” we both said at the same moment.

  I guffawed and Christian smiled.

  I took a calming breath. “I really appreciate all you’re doing for me. I’m sorry if I seem ungrateful.”

  Christian shrugged just like Sir Walter. “You are giving up a great deal of personal freedom in order to remain with your famille—your family.”

  I flushed. He understood me a lot better than I gave him credit for. “Yeah, well, in any case, I want you to know I am grateful for everything you’re giving up to be here.”

  “De rien,” he said. It’s nothing.

  I took in another couple of deep breaths and calmed myself. Within moments, my skin faded and I disappeared from sight. Dormez bien, Christian, I called out. Sleep well.

  Vous aussi, he responded. You, too. Then he rippled to return invisibly to his room downstairs.

  He could hear my thoughts. I hadn’t considered how that might hijack my plan.

  Think sleepy thoughts, I commanded myself. I decided to listen closely to Christian’s thoughts, which would keep my mind occupied and serve to notify me when he drifted off to sleep.

  So I listened while he chanted a Psalm or two. I heard his prayers to God (for my safety, for the well–being and success of Sir Walter, Will and Mickie.) And I heard as his heart called out a night–time prayer for the souls of a dead wife and child: his own? I wondered. Finally, I heard only silence.

  I rose and rippled solid, hurriedly throwing on black sweats and a black jacket. Cliché, but there’s a reason people wear black on missions requiring stealth and anonymity. I caught my reflection in the mirror. I looked tough and determined, which made me smile, but the smile basically ruined the effect.

  Next came a little exercise I’d devised for myself but had been unwilling to practice while Christian could see me. I walked into my bathroom and opened the junk drawer where I kept a splinter removal kit. Opening the small box, I removed a bright sharp sewing needle.

  Taking the needle in my right hand, I held out my left. My goal was to train myself to ripple fast enough that I wouldn’t poke myself with the needle. Hans and Ivanovich had been scary–fast with needles. I needed to be faster.

  It took ten tries, but finally I vanished before the needle made contact. What I discovered was this: I had to disconnect from my fear of the needle. If I focused on my goal (rippling) instead of my fear (the pain), then I could succeed. These were things Coach had drilled us with again and again. I smiled. Who knew? Maybe I’d be a better runner now, too.

  “Focus on the prize,” I murmured, shaking my head at the parallel with running.

  I made two more attempts and beat the needle both times.

  The clock beside my bed informed me I’d used one precious hour, but I’d made it a lot more likely that I could vanish quickly under threat. I took a few steps towards my window, rippled and exited my house from the second floor. The liquid embrace of the glass was certainly reason enough to try this, but I also wanted the chance to make my way down through “thin air,” something I hadn’t tried since the showdown with Helga in France. Once again, the air felt heavy and liquid–like. I “swam” my way down to the ground and took off running for San Francisco.

  Snow drifted down as I left Las Abuelitas. When I dropped in elevation below a thousand feet, the snow turned to a soft rain. Will had told me about running invisibly in the rain: it was as magical as he’d described. The rain fell through me as I raced along the road, outpacing most cars, which slowed for the wet roads. The rain should have tickled, and it almost did. This would be what it felt like to be tickled if you weren’t ticklish. Pleasant. Funny. Soothing. It put a smile on my invisible face.

  I felt invincible. I would march into Helmann’s medical facility and destroy that egg. No one would see me. No one would know it had been me. I was a ninja, dark as night and twice as invisible. I threw my head back in laughter, drinking in the rain that couldn’t reach me, could only tickle its way through me to the ground.

  By the time I reached San Francisco, the rain had stopped. In its place, a thick fog swathed the city. Moving through fog felt like passing through a dusting of flour. Along streets still busy at midnight, I glided in silence. I arrived at my destination—a narrow side street—and looked up at the building that housed my egg. Top floor—the tenth. I pushed upwards and swam my way past the second floor, third floor. Curious, I tried something different from a
swimmer’s stroke. I imagined myself pushing off like a hawk. The fourth through eighth floors flew past me. I imagined stopping and I halted. I could see the windowless tenth floor just above me. I took a slow breath—I imagined doing so, anyway—and passed through the stone exterior of the building.

  A thousand grains of sand flowed through me, more substantial–feeling than the fog or drops of rain. I yearned to linger here, to sense the motion within the solid wall. But I had a job to do. I pushed through the exterior until I found myself inside the building, hovering two feet above the floor. Which just didn’t seem right. I lowered myself so that I could at least pretend the floor supported my feet. I’d entered a room I didn’t recognize, but the building was narrow. A single hallway ran it’s length. From the hallway, I felt sure I could find the room I needed.

  Gliding across the room, empty but for a few humming computers, I approached the door and slid through it. Solid wood. Nice. The building was old. I felt a second twinge of regret that I didn’t have time to simply play in the facility, moving back and forth through its fascinating surfaces. Something to tell Will about the next time we talked. My heart squeezed tight and I set the thought aside.

  Lights glowed clinically bright in the hall. I felt exposed. Then I remembered Christian’s use of the wall as a place to hide. The type of person who worked in this building would be all too aware of what a sudden cold spot in the room meant. I flowed into the wall. Only wood and hollow spaces, a few wires, prickling and zing–y with what? Electricity? I moved forward down the wall, passing the room where my egg had been surgically removed.

  I shuddered and moved on to find the room Helmann had referred to as the “stasis chamber.” Or maybe the stasis chamber was something inside the room. I would soon find out.

  I took a deep breath and looked into the next room, the one that held my egg.

  Unfortunately, my egg wasn’t the only living thing in there.

  Hans, bowed over a microscope, sat in the quiet room.

  Excerpted from the personal diary of Girard L’Inferne.

  Circa 2007

  I am led to a conclusion most unexpected and unpleasant: populating the world with leaders who bear my DNA will not serve me.

  Not only do I fear the appearance of mental illness, which has been statistically significant, but now I observe an even graver problem. Perhaps forty–five percent of my newest children exhibit an intolerable lack of obedience. I will have obedience. This rate of failure is not acceptable for the future. I will not waste further effort creating progeny who cannot, because of stubbornness or mental illness, serve the greater good.

  Of course, my Corps will still serve me in other ways.

  Chapter Twenty

  * * *

  SLEEPER

  · WILL ·

  When I returned an hour and a half later, I could hear my sister speaking excitedly in this loud voice she reserved for actual people, as opposed to when she muttered to the computer or to herself. Sir Walter must have returned while I was running.

  I shoved the door open and walked inside. Mick’s forehead was wrinkled as she paced before the fireplace. When I entered, she looked over at me all worried.

  “Bonjour, young Will,” Sir Walter said to me. “Your run, was it pleasurable?”

  “Sure,” I said, mopping my sweaty forehead with a shirt–sleeve. “It was great. What’s up?”

  Sir Walter glanced at my sister.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “Ask him.”

  “I have visited Montpellier and found the building occupied, once again, by invisible bodies. However, they were of too great a size for me to bring into solid form and then return, should that prove necessary,” said the old man. “I am wondering, considering your own size, which is superior to mine—”

  My sister interrupted. “He needs you for back–up.”

  I frowned. “Yeah, sure. Can I grab a shower first?”

  “But of course,” said Sir Walter.

  Walking down the hall to the shower, I noticed Sam’s white shirt was gone. Probably Mick picked it up. I thought about asking her for the shirt back, but this time I listened to the voices telling me, Dude, seriously not a good idea.

  I cleaned up, feeling better both from the run and the prospect of doing something. As Sir Walter and I sped towards the southern coast of France, a tiny question ate at me.

  You sure we’re doing the right thing, chasing down bodies in empty buildings? I wrote. Pfeffer seemed to think there was some project coming up that Helmann wanted to tackle himself. Shouldn’t we maybe focus on figuring out what that is?

  The “release of angels,” said Sir Walter.

  Yeah, I wrote, remembering the odd phrase. I’m thinking whatever an “angel release” is, it’s not good news. Shouldn’t we try to find out more about that?

  Helmann is not in the habit of posting his plans for all to see, my friend. It is not simply a matter of walking into one of the headquarters of Geneses and looking at a calendar, said Sir Walter.

  You found important stuff, I wrote. Like that video.

  I was fortunate. As were we in overhearing Pfeffer and Franz. Sir Walter paused. I am, as you Americans say, simply “going with my gut” in this investigation of Helmann’s Montpellier building. It strikes me as most ominous, my cousin’s acquisition of property in the midst of those he desires to eliminate from the human race.

  Uh, yeah. I’d call that ominous for sure, I wrote.

  We traveled in silence for several minutes.

  And yet, said Sir Walter, I feel certain my cousin waits for something. Almost, I can feel him as he holds himself in check … waiting …

  Hey Sir Walter? Can you hear the, uh, “signature of his thoughts” or whatever you call it?

  Hmmm, sighed my friend. He learned, whilst we were children, to cloak his thoughts within the confines of his own mind. It was in response to my ability to “hear” him that he developed this shield. But I catch his emotions, at times, when we are near one another.

  Can he hear your thoughts if he’s close by? I wrote.

  He is, in this area, deaf as the proverbial pot.

  I didn’t recognize the proverb, but I felt relieved.

  The ability to transfer thoughts is a de Rochefort trait, said Sir Walter. And Helmann has not a drop of de Rochefort blood within his veins.

  Guess that’s why I’m stuck writing you, huh? No de Rochefort in me either?

  Sir Walter laughed. You have the heart, if not the blood, of a true de Rochefort. You remind me greatly of Chrétien.

  I figured this was a compliment. Until I thought about how Sam might think the same thing, in reverse. That depressed me.

  We’d reached the outskirts of Montpellier. Sir Walter guided us towards a newer part of town. This isn’t at all like that part of Paris where Helmann’s other building was, I wrote.

  Sir Walter replied, In recent times, there were great projects of redevelopment within this town. After Algeria gained independence from France in the last century, the population of Montpellier grew dramatically. I fear it is no mistake that Helmann has acquired property within a population of immigrants to France.

  Wasn’t the south of France one of the last hold–outs for safety if you were Jewish during the Second World War? I wrote.

  Yes, replied Sir Walter. Even today, France harbors the largest population of Jews in Europe—more kosher restaurants exist in Paris than in New York.

  Helmann must hate that, I wrote.

  Indeed, said Sir Walter.

  Sick bastard, I thought for probably the hundredth time. I needed to upgrade my insults.

  We arrived and since Sir Walter had already visited the building, we didn’t have to do the boring–as–heck zig–zag through all the floors. Instead, we shot straight up to the top floor where he’d located bodies. I’m pretty used to the whole idea of not having any substance, but there was something creepy about standing in a room of invisible dudes. And what would we learn when we brought a b
ody out of hiding?

  Sir Walter dropped my hand to go “grab” the body. There wasn’t anything for me to watch until he came solid with the body. So who were we waking up: friend or foe? I stared into empty space, waiting.

  Then, I saw Sir Walter come solid, arms around a man who looked asleep. For a minute, Sir Walter gazed at the sleeper, waiting to see if he’d awaken on his own. When this didn’t happen, Sir Walter wafted a vial of smelling salts below the man’s nose.

  We waited.

  And waited.

  Maybe three minutes passed. The dude on the floor didn’t look North African. He was pale as sunrise. And blond, his hair cropped in a buzz–cut.

  Coming solid beside my friend, I asked, “You think he needs another whiff?”

  “Perhaps,” said Sir Walter. He waved the vial under the guy’s nose again. I could see why Sir Walter needed me along. Thin and wiry, the young man sleeping on the floor was close to my height. Sir Walter remained solid at the guy’s side, looking puzzled and frustrated.

  “Levez–vous!” he said aloud. Wake up.

  The guy didn’t even twitch.

  Gently, Sir Walter jiggled the guy’s shoulders.

  Nothing.

  Sir Walter did his sigh that meant, “I am feeling very frustrated right now, but I’m too French and polite to say anything.”

  He jostled the young man’s shoulders one more time, a bit harder. Still nothing.

  After another minute, Sir Walter stood. “If you would be so good as to replace this body, I should like to bring the others into view.”

  One at a time, Sir Walter brought out four additional blond–haired guys, all of whom looked more or less the same age. And all of whom looked like they were sleeping. None woke up for Sir Walter.

  After a couple more “I’m really frustrated” sighs when the fifth guy wouldn’t wake up, Sir Walter spoke to me. “We return to your sister,” he said, “If you would be so kind.” He indicated the sleeping form.

  I crossed to the man’s side. They all had this look up close that I didn’t like at all—like guy–versions of Helga. I wrapped an arm around him on either side, and rippled us both invisible.