Frenzy

by Dawn Brazil

  I start toward them, but Brian spins me around and pulls me into the small hallway that houses the restrooms. The smell of disinfectant and lemon floor polish is strong.

  “Sunshine, please. What Ian has to tell you, I’m familiar with, but I can’t explain the way he can. That’s why he’s here. Don't be upset.” He runs his finger gently across my bottom lip. He trails it down to my chin. “I promise my love won’t change. Ever. Trust me. I can’t say anything else, so don't go scrambling for answers or it’ll only frustrate you.”

  His response only infuriates me more. Should I be concerned his feelings will change? I inhale a deep breath, and count the ceiling tiles… It does seem he can’t tell me, so it’s no point in trying to force him when I know he can be twice as stubborn as me.

  I throw my hands up. “I concede for now. But this is ridiculous. Don’t bring up things in my presence you aren’t willing to share with me. You and Ian shouldn’t dictate when or whether I’m emotionally equipped to handle a situation… especially if it's concerning me.” I know I can’t always process everything emotionally, but I don’t need them to decide things for me.

  “You can be so feisty sometimes.” He pulls my chin up to meet my lips with his. “You’re irresistible when you’re feisty.”

  I push away from him. “Brian, I’m serious.” I feel foolish. Like I’m missing something right in my face. I don’t like the slow burn of my cheeks or the unpleasant knot in my stomach. “I know what’s best for me. Me, I do. You and Ian don’t get to decide that. Ever.”

  I make it a point to stare directly into his eyes. “I’m not as breakable as you want me to be.”

  Chapter 6

  “That’s not fair; I don't think that. This situation is not like anything you’ve dealt with before. We have to be careful about when this is explained. If I ever keep anything from you, please believe I had a good reason for it. This conversation isn’t something you can share with Stacey or Crystal or your parents, either.”

  I’m about to comment, but he holds up his hands to stop me.

  “Stop. I wouldn’t take away your right to make a decision for yourself; you know that. I know how intelligent you are. I don't take that for granted, but I’m not saying anything else. Just know, as stubborn as you are, I can be double that. So, we’re not going to talk about this any more until we meet up with Ian.”

  He turns abruptly and walks off. I stand where I am for a couple seconds and watch him. I don’t want him or Ian thinking I’m incapable of handling confrontation if it arose.

  Brian and Ian stand at the end of the lane, near a rack of bowling balls—away from everyone else. Ian has his back to me, but not Brian. He looks as if he might burst into tears. He draws his right hand up and runs it across his forehead. His eyes shift to me in the corner, and he frowns while Ian continues talking.

  I discontinue my examination of their confrontation because it only confuses me more. I walk into view of everyone else. Crystal has her head bent while she puts on bowling shoes beside Stacey. What time did she get here? Or how did she get here? I’m certain I saw her in the school right when Ian started in with the questions.

  “Hey hon. Where have you been?” Stacey sways her hips back and forth to the music. I squint in the direction of the DJ. I hadn’t even noticed they were playing music. Michael stands beside her with his head bobbing to the beat.

  “Mrs. Muncheon kept me. You know how she likes to talk.” Michael shuffles behind Stacey and pulls her close to him. She continues to grind her hips to the music. I smile. They've been going out much longer than Brian and I. They’ve had so many fights it’s become a common occurrence at least once a month. I always know, however, no matter how angry she is, she can’t live without him. At least that’s what I think because she always forgives him for whatever upset her.

  “Hey, Liz,” Mike answers back. “You okay? You look upset.”

  Do I wear my newfound emotions so openly? “No, I’m okay.” Stacey draws her brows up. She knows I’m lying, but she won’t intrude. She’ll wait for me to come to her because I always do. Only once did she intervene in a personal matter without me asking—we were in the seventh grade, and I didn’t know how to handle an aggressive boy in our class. Stacey talked to him. What she said, I never asked. She’d taken care of it, she said later, and he wouldn’t look my way again.

  I plop into the seat to put my bowling shoes on, and Crystal is staring at me. She grabs her phone and runs her fingers across the keys. My phone dings with a new text message; the message is from her. She says we need to talk about something important. I squint over at her and open my mouth to speak, and she shakes her head like she might not want me to talk now—or she doesn’t want anyone else to know we’re going to talk.

  What’s up with all the secrets today?

  Chapter 7

  Crystal wraps her hand around my arm right before we exit the bowling alley, to remind me we need to talk. I give her a thumbs-up before following Brian out.

  Once we say good night to everyone, we head back to my house; Ian’s following close behind. I tell my parents that Brian, Ian, and I are going to lounge in the yard for a while and talk.

  The sky is clear, not a cloud in sight. The moon shines bright and full in the sky, creating a perfect shimmering of light in the hammock.

  Brian and I sit with our legs hanging over the front. Ian props himself up in a lawn chair on the grass. He starts straightaway. “Everything I’m about to say is in accordance with the Remah Rights and Privileges Statutes, the sections stipulating Disposal of Researchers. I’ve been designated your deposit escort…like a guide to help you with the process. It might be a little upsetting at first—”

  Brian snorts. “A little upsetting.”

  Ian continues as if Brian hasn’t interrupted. “Hear me out before you write this off as unbelievable. Everything I’m going to tell you is one-hundred percent truth.”

  He sighs loudly, like what he’s about to say is taxing. “I know you’ve had a hard time with your emotions here. Chief told me.” I glance at Brian, but he doesn’t return my glare. “There’s a reason for this.”

  Why does he use the word ‘here?’ What does that mean? I’ll keep my questions tucked in the back of my mind for now.

  He continues. “We”—he motions to the three of us—“are from another universe.”

  He pauses, maybe because he thinks I might lose it from what he says. Truthfully, I want to hear him out before I tell him how disturbed he sounds.

  “There are many universes in our solar system,” he continues. “We know this is Earth, but our planet’s name is Remah. Actually, the people who live there call it Earth, too, but for scientific research and for those like me who travel the multi-verse, it’s necessary to create names for each universe. The observable universe—what you refer to as Earth—has the same physical constants as Remah.”

  I decide they’re the best actors I’ve ever met. Well, the only actors I’ve ever met. But I’m pretty certain it’s all a joke.

  Ian continues. “You don’t fit in because you weren’t created for this universe. You’re a ‘researcher.’ Your primary purpose has been to obtain information about this universe.” He pauses again and glances at Brian. “There are a ton of researchers in this universe.”

  I look up at Brian. “Do you believe what he’s saying?”

  He nods. “You should let him finish.”

  I wrap my hand around his chin and pull his face to me. His eyes tell me what I need to know. He believes everything Ian says. My breath catches. What is wrong with them? I’m trapped in an episode of The Twilight Zone.

  Ian clears his throat. “I know it’s hard to believe, L. Like I said before, I’ve never had to explain this to a researcher. They’d always had their awakening.”

  “What’s an awakening?”

  “It’s the time you become knowledgeable regarding your purpose. Every researcher has a dura-chip processor that enables us to track them no matt
er where they are—no matter what universe they’re on. That processor has a built-in feature that triggers an awakening in the researchers.”

  My face scrunches in confusion. “Like some kind of computer part? What? I—”

  Ian shakes his head and interrupts me before I can go off on my tangent. “We didn’t understand it at first. It started as a physical abnormality, a mutation. A single cell acquired somatic mutation—like a cancer cell. Then everything in our world changed.” Brian shifts on the hammock but doesn’t interrupt.

  “Our scientists built hardware that can detect if a woman has the mutation. They were able to incorporate a chip onto the surface of the mutation. This chip allows them to track researchers and collect data.”

  “So I have a mutation with a computer chip implanted on it inside me.” A shudder ripples through me. “What kind of information can this chip collect? And why would they do this?”

  “Well, it can collect the temperature outside and inside, the PHz in the glass of water you drank before bed, the level of gravitational pull the sun has on an object in your room right now. The chemical makeup of anyone you are intimate with, and much more. ”

  “Seriously.” The nerd in me can’t help but be impressed. Either he’s an excellent storyteller or he’s the most delusional person I’ve ever met. “But why?”

  He sits up straighter. His eyes alight with an emotion I don’t understand. “It also gathers psychological information. It can record the brain’s response to certain situations. For instance, how you and your mother interact—how that affects you. Or the relationship you have with Chief. It doesn’t record the events that occur in the relationship, only how your brain responds to these events. Or how your body reacts—like do you sweat when you have a nightmare? Do you get flushed when you kiss?”

  I take a deep breath, ready to reveal the flaws in his story. He also still hasn’t answered why they do this, if this is even true.

  “Okay, I understand I have this chip—”

  “You’re female. You’re born with it,” Ian interrupts.

  “Only females have the chip?” How convenient.

  “Yes.”

  “Why make researchers in the first place?” I ask.

  “For the most obvious reasons, to research. To learn as much as we can about human emotion, about other cultures, about other universes. Knowledge provides a freedom and privilege unmatched to anything else. Remah’s at the top of the other universes because of the research that’s been conducted. The cloned researchers were the perfect vehicle for this.”

  “So I look like someone else? I mean, you said clone, right?”

  “Yes, you and your sister are identical.”

  “I don’t know if you’ve heard about the deaths. These girls look like me.”

  “I have.”

  “Could someone be targeting researchers to kill?” I’m not sure if entertaining this conversation is a grand idea, but I know I don’t want to end up on a slab for my parents to identify.

  Chapter 8

  “Yeah, Chief and I believe the deaths are connected somehow. The only problem is, my government must not know about this. We don’t produce as many clones as you seem to have. They’ve only ever produced two clones for one Remah woman. These girls must be clones, but there isn’t one mention of a mutation or the processor after they’ve performed the autopsies,” Ian says.

  “That is strange,” Brian says, sitting up straighter.

  “Researchers are expendable, but producing the number you seem to have is reckless. We don’t want to cause them any unnecessary harm,” Ian says.

  “I’m expendable? That doesn’t sound cruel to you? Do I look like an experiment? Like a lab animal?”

  “No, L. It’s not like that. Well, I guess it started that way. But everything is—”

  “If I’m not from this planet, how did I get here?”

  He sighs, softly. “You were born here.” His thick brows scrunch. “A lot of researchers were… are.”

  “So my mother and father are also researchers from this other universe?”

  “No,” he corrects me. “You weren’t biologically conceived. You were genetically conceived. Your donor body—we call her your sister—had a sample of her DNA abstracted while still in the womb. Almost like identical twins. We’re careful to only choose women from the universe we are gathering intel from who can’t reproduce naturally to carry researchers.”

  “Do the women know they’re carrying these alien babies?” I can’t imagine my mother volunteering for something like this.

  Brian and Ian laugh at once. Brian laces his hand with mine, “Sunshine, you aren’t an alien. None of us are,” he whispers. I don’t even glance at him.

  “We come from the same planet,” Ian says. “We exist in the same real time. We share the same space. We can’t see one another with our natural eye, but we found a hole in time, a wormhole. Our scientists harnessed the energy from this hole, and this enables us to travel from this universe to ours without harm or detection.”

  “So, how do they do this without the parent’s knowledge—because I’m assuming that’s what you’re saying?”

  For half a second, he actually looks guilty, or maybe nervous. I can’t definitively say. “Remah doctors are posted at numerous hospitals. They choose families that’ll provide a stable, safe environment for the researchers. After the birth, the doctor implants the chip before the child goes home from the hospital.”

  Without consent, this seems immoral, but I don’t say anything. I’ll reserve my judgement of his people until the end. Plus, there are a million other questions floating in my head.

  “Where’s this worm-hole?” I ask Brian.

  “I don’t know where it is,” Brian says. Something in his voice makes me feel… odd…about seventy-five percent weird.

  “The hole is inside a physical structure. It was hidden to protect it from the elements of this universe, and from the elements on ours.”

  “How’s it hidden?” Despite my doubts about what he’s saying, I’m intrigued.

  “It’s inside a building.”

  “A building.” My pulse quickens. “Is it white and surrounded by trees? Like cactuses… with a large antenna on the roof. With no grass, no windows or doors—right off a dirt road?”

  “Yes.” Ian leaps to his feet, knocking over the lawn chair he sat in. The chair skids across the grass and he stands so close his nose hair is visible. “Do you remember?” He peers at me with bulging eyes. Umm… okay. Calm down.

  Brian pushes him in the chest and he backs up a step. “No. But I’ve dreamed of this place, at least twice that I can remember.”

  Ian narrows his eyes at Brian.

  “I have seen it. How else would I be able to describe it with such detail? I’m right. That’s it. The building in my dream is the one you’re talking about.” Does that make everything he’s saying true? Now, I’m a multi-verse traveling, alien clone.

  “Could this mean my awakening is coming soon?”

  “I don’t know.” Ian scurries after the chair and plops back in it. “You should’ve had your awakening by now. It’s getting dangerous for you, the longer you’re here, especially with the murders.”

  “What? What do you mean the longer I’m here? I have to go to Remah?”

  “Yeah,” he says. It feels like someone punched me in the abdomen. I grab Brian’s leg for support.

  “No,” Brian says. He slides his hand over mine. “You don’t.” Neither Brian nor Ian speak again. I weigh everything I’ve been told, and have too many unresolved issues with what he’s said. I’m supposed to willingly go to this other universe. What would I even do there? How long would I have to stay?

  “Okay,” I say, standing. “That’s enough for one night.” I stretch my arms over my head.

  “There’s more,” both Brian and Ian say. Wow. They agree on something.

  “I don’t want to hear another word from either of you tonight. Period.” I don’t know
if I believe everything they’ve said or not yet. I don’t know if I can fully corroborate their story. I do know that four girls have been killed who resemble me. That, with this information, cannot be a coincidence.

  “But we don’t—”

  “Nothing.” I yell, when Ian protests. “I don’t want to hear anything else.” Brian’s mouth is turned down. I stroke the side of his face. “Tomorrow. I promise. I’ll hear it all. Everything. I won’t interrupt.” Tonight, I need to determine if I believe what I’ve learned. My mother can help me to validate some of this, I’m sure. I can’t listen to any more of this until I speak with her.

  “I’ll be here first thing,” Ian says. “We have to finish this, because time is running out.”

  I cringe as his words sink in. I might have to go to this foreign place soon. I rise from the hammock to walk Ian to the fence. Brian doesn’t move. He sits still, with his head bowed in his hands.

  If I were a worrying woman, I’d panic from Brian’s dire expression. With what emotion I do have, I only pity his quiet disposition about this matter and his loathing of Ian.

  I’m almost positive that’s not appropriate to say, so I keep my mouth shut as I walk Ian out.

  Chapter 9

  Once Ian reaches the fence, he turns to Brian and says, “I’m her friend, and I want what’s best for her, too. Don’t go filling her head with false hope. We know how that situation turned out. My dad’s still hurt about that. And your family took something from me I can never get back.”

  He walks off, leaving me standing at the gate with a loss for words. I close it slowly. Brian’s head is bent into his hands when I turn. When I reach him, I place my hand on his shoulders. His eyes are puffy and red when he glances up. Has he been crying? I rub my hand across his face and catch a tear on his left cheek.

  I wipe the tear away. Instead of sitting beside him, I sit in his lap; he cradles me like a child for a while. We don’t speak. I don’t inquire about the tear. Guys aren’t supposed to cry, right? I don’t understand the gender enough to answer that, but I’ve never seen him cry in all the months we’ve been together.