The Riser Saga

by Becca C. Smith

  Nancy scooted inside and slammed the door shut. She turned to the driver. “Take us to my house, Gary.”

  “Everything okay out there?” Gary asked as he put down his electronic reader and brought the hover-limo to life.

  “Yeah. Just get us to my house and away from here.” Nancy sank back into the seat next to me and leaned her head against my shoulder in exhaustion. “Sorry I bought shoes.”

  I laughed. The first real laugh I had since everything happened. My adrenaline was amped up to about a billion and I knew the crash would be coming soon.

  Ryan turned to me and put his forehead to mine. He reached up and touched my face with his hand in a protective manner. My heart couldn’t take this. I may have been eighteen, but I was going to croak of a heart attack any second now. His eyes were so intense as they met mine. “Jill’s the trash, that’s why she hates you so much. Don’t ever take anything she says seriously, okay?”

  I could only nod. My voice box would probably squeak something unintelligible anyway. I wanted him to kiss me so badly in that moment, but I knew I’d probably end up missing his mouth entirely and slobbering on his neck or something. I was such a clueless idiot when it came to boys.

  Ryan pulled his hand away and placed his arm around me and included Nancy in the embrace since she was already asleep on my shoulder. We must have looked like quite the threesome to Gary, but he didn’t say a word; he just drove the hover-limo towards our destination.

  It only took a few minutes for the hover-limo to arrive at Nancy’s house. Her street was a typical upper-middle class neighborhood. Perfectly coifed grass separated the parallel lined mansion-sized houses. It used to be cement streets and driveways separating their property over two-hundred years ago, but once hover-cars took over, the need for suburban roads became obsolete and if it wasn’t a landmark or shopping center it was replaced with grass. In dry, hot places like California, large water silos were set at each row of houses (covered from view by trees and foliage, of course) and an endless process of water-filtration and recycling took place to constantly keep the grass watered and green. Residents were required to empty their fuel cell tanks from their hover-cars into the silo to keep the water fresh and replenished.

  Gary landed the limo with ease on the hover-pad in front of Nancy’s house. “Here we are.”

  “Thanks, Gary.” Nancy was alert and awake now as she opened the door of the limo. “Come on, Chelsan, let’s go surprise the parents.”

  “What about Ryan?” I asked, not wanting to part from him just yet.

  “I live a few houses down across the street. I’ll come by later.” Ryan pulled his arm out from under me and gently nudged me to the exit.

  I still couldn’t fathom that he was still near me, that he still wanted to have anything to do with me. I kept on waiting for him to laugh hysterically and tell me it was all a big joke. I really barely knew the guy and yet it felt like we’d known each other forever. I wondered if that was how it was for my mom and dad. I’d never know.

  All three of us stood outside the limo as Gary lifted the limo up into the air and out of sight.

  “Well… I’ll see you later,” Ryan said quietly. He actually looked shy and insecure. It made me wonder if he had been like this when he was tutoring me and I was just too oblivious to notice.

  “Okay. See ya. Thanks for everything.” Okay. Awkward. Neither one of us was sure what we should do next. I think he was debating on whether or not to kiss me, but he was obviously going through some kind of battle inside his head because he was just standing there. And I was just standing there. And Nancy was just standing there.

  “Yeah, okay, bye Ryan.” Nancy had a lot less patience in this matter. “Chelsan, let’s get inside before any more reporters show up.”

  Ryan settled for a wave and a slight nod of his head. “I’ll come by tomorrow.” And he sauntered off to his house.

  I felt Nancy’s hand grab mine and pull me toward her front door. “Come on, crazy girl. You’ll see him soon enough.”

  I let Nancy lead me to her abode. The structure itself was one of the most modern I’d ever seen, but I hadn’t been able to leave a four-mile radius my whole life, so that wasn’t saying much. Her house was essentially three white stucco stories stacked on top of each other like a three-step staircase. Windows lined each wall, promising a bright interior and the glass was already tinted a dark brown to block out the sun for the day, making it impossible to see inside.

  I felt a pang of nerves as Nancy opened the steel front door. Most people had steel doors and sometimes steel window shutters, essentially making their entire house a fortress. With Age-pro promising immortality, no one wanted to risk dying from a random crime or natural disaster, so making one’s home impenetrable became a priority to the general public. Especially for the rich.

  We entered her house and I was amazed at the impeccable décor of the bottom floor. The entry way was painted in soft golden tones to compliment the terracotta tiling beneath us. Directly after the foyer was the living room with a giant life-size holo-TV playing the news. It was like watching a play it was so crisp and life-like. A giant wrap-around black vinyl couch faced the TV and Nancy’s parents’ backs were to us watching the news cast.

  “Mom, Dad,” Nancy said and I could sense the hesitancy in her voice.

  Nancy’s parents immediately turned to see the two of us standing in the entryway. I was put at ease right away when the two of them came running up to us, concern oozing off their faces, like true parents.

  “Chelsan, are you okay? We heard everything on the news. We saw you too, young lady. Look at you, you look like you went on a safari. Go change your clothes.”

  This all came out in a worried rush from Nancy’s mom, while her father hugged Nancy as if he hadn’t seen her in days.

  “You went through the blockade, didn’t you?” her dad mumbled in her ear. “I’m so proud of you.”

  And then I was suddenly being slammed with a hug from Nancy’s mom. “You poor dear.” She held on tight and in that moment I fell apart. It was too close to having my own mom embracing me. I started to cry. And the harder I cried the tighter she held on. “I’m so sorry. We’ll take care of you. You stay here as long as you want,” she kept reassuring me and it made me feel safe and devastated all at once.

  “Give her some air, geez, Mom,” came Nancy’s voice right next to me.

  I relaxed my death grip on Nancy’s mom and she pulled away from me, tears of sympathy in her eyes. “George, get us some hankies.”

  George hurried to the end table next to the couch and grabbed a few handkerchiefs from a small stack and brought them back to the two of us.

  “I’m Vianne, by the way, and this is George, but you probably already knew that.” She smiled as she wiped away her own tears and blew her nose for measure. “And I mean it. As long as you need or want to, you are welcome here. We’ve heard so much about you from Nancy, it’s just so lovely to meet you finally. I just wish it had been under different circumstances.” She kissed my cheek.

  It almost made me break again, but I wiped my tears clean from my face. “Thank you. I really appreciate it.”

  “Your step-father is welcome here as well, where is he?” George was making sure I knew my whole family was wanted. They had obviously seen my fiasco in front of the press with Bruce. My mind went blank. I didn’t know what to say.

  “He died, Dad. Of complications,” Nancy quickly interceded.

  Vianne’s hand went straight to her mouth to cover her shock. “We didn’t know. The news didn’t report it. I’m so sorry, Chelsan.”

  “I think I just need to lie down for a while.” All I could think about was collapsing and turning my mind off, even if it was just for a little while. It was taking too much energy to breathe, let alone carry on a conversation of cover-ups and lies to people who genuinely wanted to help me.

  Nancy grabbed my hand. “I’m taking her upstairs to my room.”

  “Good night. Let u
s know if you need anything,” Vianne said over our shoulders.

  “Night. Thanks again,” I barely called out as Nancy dragged me up a spiraling wrought iron staircase leading to the next floor.

  A long hallway greeted us with the same terracotta tiling as the foyer. The walls were Spanish yellow stucco and the doors were darkly stained oak. There were six doors total and they were all closed. Nancy opened the second one on the right and we entered my dream room (which happened to be Nancy’s).

  First of all, it was huge! At least the size of one of our classrooms at school. Blue seemed to be the color of choice in terms of decoration, from the bed, to the carpeting, to the walls, all different shades of the same deep ocean blue. The entire back wall was lined with shoes. Nancy wasn’t kidding; she literally had hundreds of pairs. It was like she had a shoe store in her own room!

  And then there were the holographic-pictures, and I had to stifle a laugh. The wall facing her bed was covered with holos of Jason Keroff, all with the same serious expression he always had on his face when reporting. She must have downloaded them from the same place I did, since I was seeing a lot of the same ones that I had.

  Wait a minute.

  Jason Keroff gave me his contact info.

  He told me I was in danger. He knew about the exterminators. Or had suspicions anyway.

  “Okay, so I’m obsessed, but so are you, so don’t give me that look.” Nancy had seen my horrified stare and misinterpreted it as shock from seeing her shrine to Jason.

  “No. It just reminded me…” I knew Nancy needed to sit for this, so I led her to the bed and plopped her down. “Nancy, don’t freak out, but Jason Keroff was with the press at the trailer park. He told me I was in danger. It was like he knew what really happened. He gave me his contact information.”

  “Okay, hard not to freak, Jason Keroff, seriously? You’ve got Ryan and Bill, Jason is mine.”

  “Focus, here, Nancy. And I don’t really have Ryan or Bill.”

  “What were you saying about focus?” She smiled knowingly at me and then her tone turned serious. “Right. What really did happen anyway? You didn’t tell me.”

  Sitting on the bed next to Nancy, it unexpectedly hit me that she knew absolutely nothing. Not who my grandpa really was, not about the green smoke, not about Jason Keroff. I had some explaining to do, so I started at the beginning and told her everything, all the way from the very details of my grandparents’ ceremony, to what really happened at the trailer park. Nancy’s eyes widened to the size of saucers in a few places and I could tell she was holding her tongue (a mammoth effort for her). When I was all finished I was more exhausted than I thought possible. And even though Nancy was just bursting with questions, she obviously saw this, too.

  “You need to sleep,” Nancy said as she squeezed my hand with encouragement. “I’ll interrogate you tomorrow.” She smiled.

  “Sleep sounds really good. Do you have a sleeping bag? I can set up over there.” I pointed to a particularly nice corner in her gigantic room. It was a mass of pillows and looked exceedingly inviting.

  “Oh no! Are you joking? Do you think I’m Jill or something? My bed is a double King! No way are you staying on the floor, you’re sleeping up here in my nice fluffy bed.” Nancy seemed almost appalled.

  The bed was bigger than my room in the trailer and it felt ridiculously comfortable. “Thanks,” was all I had the energy to say. I almost blacked out on impact when I lowered my head to a pillow.

  I could barely hear Nancy saying good night as I drifted off to sleep.

  Chapter Three

  Sunday September 19, 2320

  The whole morning was spent answering all of Nancy’s questions. She was the most fascinated by the fact that Vice President of Population Control Geoffrey Turner was my grandfather.

  “The one time I wish I could flaunt something in Jill’s face,” Nancy grumbled out loud. “If she knew that her daddy’s head honcho was your grandpa! The most powerful man in the world! It’s too juicy!”

  “Not that juicy. He tried to have me killed, remember? And me living means his only son dying.”

  “Yeah, but Jill doesn’t know that!”

  “Nancy, telling Jill anything is basically telling Turner.” I could tell Nancy’s gears were churning, trying to find a way to rub this in Jill’s face, but I had to make sure she kept it between us two.

  “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Nancy groaned.

  We were sitting in her back yard on a swinging bench secured between two trees. She was lazily pushing it with her foot causing it to swing crookedly. Nancy’s property seemed to stretch on forever once you reached the back. There were several trees and lots of foliage in the main yard and in the back was a thick row of forest running down the entire street. I knew this was only an illusion of course. Each block of houses had a line of trees eight to ten rows thick in their back yards to follow with the Environmental Code of Oxygen policy. The kind of trees also showed how expensive the neighborhood was, the lower middle class, had bamboo, Nancy’s was pine, and zones as rich as Bill’s were cherry blossoms and bonsais. It was weird how everything was so divided by how much money you had. Trailer parks like mine didn’t even have tree policies, we just lived near wild flower and oak disaster zones so it made the planting of forest rows like Nancy’s moot.

  “What about the ritual? Does it sound familiar to you at all?” I asked, wanting to bring the conversation back to figuring out how I had my gift in the first place.

  “I can think of a couple of things. I’ll transfer some of the books I found to your reader so we can both get in research mode. I’m more interested in your father’s spell. He somehow managed to manipulate Turner’s hex and flip it back on himself. Sorry.”

  She must have seen me cringe when she mentioned my father’s death. Up until recently my father was just an imaginative figure that died of natural causes when I was born. Now, not only knowing, but seeing my mother’s vision of the way that he died, it was difficult not to be upset. “Don’t be sorry. I want to figure this out. I just didn’t know how hard it was going to be.”

  “We’ll do this one step at a time. The first thing we need to know is exactly what spell Turner used. Then we can deal with… the other stuff.”

  We searched all morning in our readers. Nancy knew what she was looking for when it came to what I saw, but there’d always be one thing different in the ceremony. And it wasn’t just a simple thing like candle choice or the kind of knife he used, it was sacrificing a goat or severing a limb. So needless to say we’d have to search elsewhere. I asked if Turner could have made up his own spell, and while Nancy thought that might be possible, she still wanted to find the base spell he used.

  “This is very powerful mojo we’re talking about here, Chelsan. This isn’t your run of the mill curse. He made you and your mother die. That’s as serious as it gets.” Nancy leaned back on the vinyl sofa. We had moved to the living room once the Recyclers made their rounds on her block. Their machinery was so loud sucking up all the garbage from each house it made it impossible to concentrate. I know I shouldn’t complain, everyone’s garbage ended up in Clean-Ups’ fertilizer and mulch trucks, but listening to a giant vacuum cleaner sucking up slurpy garbage made me a little queasy.

  “Why do I get the feeling that a spell that powerful wouldn’t be found in a library download?” I was starting to feel like this was hopeless.

  “I know, right? There has to be some way we can get access to books like that.” I could tell Nancy was getting frustrated as well.

  “Maybe I should call Jason?”

  “Yes, please.” Nancy was immediately perked. “He‘d definitely have access to stuff like that.”

  I smiled at Nancy’s enthusiasm for calling Jason Keroff. I almost wanted her to do it. The thought of picking up the phone and dialing his number made my palms sweat. “I’m kind of nervous,” I admitted to Nancy.

  “Don’t be. He asked you to call him. It’s not like you’re some kind
of stalker that tracked down his number and are trying to get a date. Your mother and your entire neighborhood were just exterminated and he wants to help you. You are the one in control, okay?”

  Nancy’s speech gave me some confidence. I had to stop thinking of Jason as someone better than me just because of who he was. I kept reminding myself that when I met him yesterday, I didn’t feel anything. I wasn’t nervous, I wasn’t excited, I was just blank. That was good. I had to pull on that, if I had any chance of making this phone call without barfing.

  “Okay. He said no cells, just landlines.” I took a deep breath as Nancy practically squealed reaching for the phone receiver. I grabbed it out of her hand and put it against my ear. “I’m so nervous,” I blabbered. I couldn’t hide it, especially not from Nancy.

  “Do you want me to do it?” Nancy was serious and concerned. I could tell she genuinely felt my pain, but as tempting as it was, I knew I had to be the one who called.