by Lee Strauss
I inched the door open and saw Noah’s profile as he sat on the pew staring at the wooden cross above the altar. A guitar rested on his lap.
The door whined as I pushed on it, and he turned, seeing me come in. He didn’t say anything, just went back to staring at the cross. I wasn’t sure what I should do or if he even wanted to see me, but I crossed the dusty sanctuary and sat next to him.
The quiet was unnerving, and I set my gaze on the stream of light beaming in from the higher glass windows. Specks of dust swirled and danced around us.
“I shouldn’t have come.” I finally said.
“No, it’s okay.” He shifted slightly, moving the guitar away. He rubbed his hands along his legs. “I come here to feel closer to my dad. And to pray.”
His eyes reddened and he pinched them closed. “I pray that God will heal my mother, and if not, that she’ll have a peaceful existence until he takes her. And that I’ll have the strength I need when he does.”
He faced me then and our eyes locked with an intensity that gave me goose-bumps.
“I pray that God will help me fight temptation,” he said.
I stared hard back at him, my pulse racing. He still wanted me.
“And how’s that going?”
He slid down the pew until he was pressed against me. He nuzzled my neck with his lips, sending off fireworks. “Not well.”
He swung his legs up, pulling me gently down on top of him, my whole body connecting with every inch of his. My heart raced as he cupped my face with his hands and tenderly kissed my forehead, my eyelids, moving down my cheekbones to my chin.
He traced his fingers down my back, sending a storm of electricity throughout my body. His lips touched mine, soft and warm, and I felt like I was breathing pure oxygen. Our kisses grew harder, full of hope and longing. I wanted to lose myself in him and wondered how things had gotten so passionate so fast.
I’d been with Jackson, but I’d never felt anything as explosive as what I was feeling now.
I reached for the button of his jeans, but his hand stopped mine.
“Is something wrong?”
His chest rose in short breaths. “It depends what you mean by wrong.”
In that moment I considered that maybe he’d never been with a girl before.
I put my hand to my pounding heart, telling myself to breathe.
“I can’t get pregnant, you know.” One of the benefits to being a GAP was fertility could be turned on and off genetically.
Noah went still. “You GAPs don’t leave anything to chance.”
I sat up. “What do you mean by that?”
“I mean... nothing.”
“What? Are we back to that? I know I’m a GAP. I’m worse than that. I’m a clone.”
I pushed myself off his chest and back into a sitting position. “You must really despise me.”
He sat up and reached for my chin. “I don’t despise you. I’m falling for you. You’ve put me in an impossible situation.”
My heart stopped at his declaration.
“I’ll never be what you are, Zoe. What you need. Can’t you see that?”
“I want who you are, the way you are now.” I leaned in closer. “It’s scary, I know, but please, don’t shut me out.”
He closed his eyes. The way his eyelids fluttered, I could tell he was trying to think it all through, weighing out the risks. I couldn’t bear it if he rejected me.
“I’m not asking you to marry me, Noah. I just want to be with you. I’m falling for you, too.”
His dark eyes snapped open and bore into mine with such intensity I lost my breath.
“Really?” he asked.
“Really.”
Then he kissed me again.
Chapter 28
Noah was serious about resisting temptation, and the next thing I knew, we were sitting in the food court with him ordering us sandwiches and coffees.
“How do you like yours?” he asked.
“Sweetened latte.”
He paid cash then handed me my coffee.
“I could pay, you know,” I said.
“Yeah, but I don’t think you should be leaving a money trail right now.”
“I’m easy to find if someone’s really looking for me. Though, I can’t see how they would think I’m a threat.”
“You can get it next time.” He pointed to the clock tower. “Picnic?”
I laughed and followed him.
He guided me up the stairs, fake coughing as the dust swirled around us. The fresh air greeted us at the top as he pushed open the hatch.
“It’s not the Hilton, but it does well in a pinch,” Noah said, leaning against the rail.
I stood beside him and we unwrapped our sandwiches and began to eat. Noah pointed to the horizon over the ocean, between the glass walls of the surrounding towers. Menacing dark clouds rolled like big fists under the crimson sun.
“There’s a storm brewing out on the Pacific. I heard on the news today that we’re in for more crazy weather.”
“Damn climate change,” I said between bites. “Are we ever going to get a handle on that?”
“I thought science had the answers to everything?”
“I thought so, too. But I think our great-grand-people waited too long on this one.”
In addition to massive ice melts, the last thirty years had brought unprecedented flooding and famines to every continent, including North America which also had seen a second dust bowl.
“The worst is over though?”Noah asked.
“I don’t know,” I replied. “Maybe.”
We threw our trash into the common bag, then leaned on the rail, sipping our coffees.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“I’m better now. Ma’s not going to last much longer. I just have to accept that.”
“What will happen to you and your brothers?”
“Jonathon and Davis will go with Skye. It’s already been arranged. I’m eighteen. Old enough to take care of myself.”
“Oh, Noah.”
He reached over and stroked my arm. “I’ll be fine. Besides, I’m not alone. I have you now. And you’re going to live forever and take care of me when I’m an old man.”
Was he joking? His lips formed a smirk.
“That doesn’t sound so bad to me,” I said.
He pulled me close and started kissing me. His hands moved up and down my arms, settling on my waist.
I pushed him away gently, laughing. “Resist temptation.”
“Am I going to be sorry I confessed that to you?” he said, setting his forehead on mine.
“Maybe.”
“Thought so.”
I shimmied down the side of the rail until I was sitting.
“Is there something else?” he asked, joining me.
“I went to Jackson’s house last night.”
Noah flashed a sharp, worried look and I answered quickly. “It was fine. His mother was there.”
I could tell by his expression he didn’t care if the King of England had been there. He clearly didn’t like me being anywhere near Jackson.
“He told me about the experiment,” I said.
“So, what’s the scoop?”
“My brother died because he was greedy.”
“What do you mean?”
“He was after eternal life.”
“I believe in eternal life.”
“Not the way Liam did. He wanted to interface his mind with a hard drive, and cyborg his body, so when his organic body finally died, he could live on in a robotic one.”
“Wow. That’s junk.” Noah stretched his arm up and around my shoulders. “I’m sorry. This must be hard for you.”
“I think my grandfather is involved.”
His eyebrows shot up in surprise. “How?”
“I don’t know. He’s a director of that fake company. There’s got to be a reason for that.”
“But there could be a dozen reasons, none of them to do with Liam.”
/> “Except that Liam’s chip opened the door.”
“True.”
“I don’t want to believe Grandpa V had anything to do with this, but I can’t rule him out. Who else did Liam know with the kind of money this type of research would take? And Grandpa V is running for president. He might be thinking this technology could come in handy some day.”
“Even if he did finance it,” Noah said, “He wouldn’t have sabotaged it.”
“Grandpa V has enemies.”
“Zoe, if it’s true that your grandfather was involved with illegal research activities that resulted in a death, and we can prove it, he could go to jail.”
I scowled. “If he’s guilty, then he deserves to go to jail.”
“Okay. What do you want to do?”
“Grandpa’s house in Sol City is well secured but empty. I thought maybe Anthony could hack in and disable the alarm system. It’s not as complex as the tower.”
Noah stared off into the distance.
“Am I pushing too hard?” I said. “I know your life has turned upside down since you started hanging out with me. I understand if you’ve had enough of me and my problems.”
“No, that’s not it. I haven’t had enough of you.” He cracked a smile. “That’s part of the problem.”
“So will you help me?”
“You know, Zoe, two weeks ago, the only crime I was guilty of was disturbing the peace.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “Is that a yes or a no?”
“It’s a yes.”
I beamed at him. “Good.”
My ComRing buzzed. I tapped it and frowned.
“What is it?”
“It’s a message from Jackson.” I turned my palm so he could read it.
Mitchell is dead. Be careful.
Chapter 29
“Mitchell is dead?” Noah said. “And why is Jackson telling you to be careful?”
I rested my hand on his knee. “Jackson was afraid they would try to kill him. I thought he was just exaggerating so he wouldn’t have to tell me who the muscle was behind the experiment. Looks like they killed Mitchell instead.”
Noah tapped his feet, fidgeting. “This is starting to get dangerous.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying maybe we should just leave this alone. Nothing we find out will bring your brother back. We already got caught in the lab by Mitchell. I’d hate for something like that to happen again.”
“Mitchell was a surprise, but we’ll be more careful this time. I know I can’t have my brother back, but I can have the truth. It’s the only way I’ll get closure.”
Noah squeezed my shoulders firmly. “You know I’m not letting you out of my sight. You’re stuck with me. Like glue.”
“I want to be stuck to you,” I said lightly.
He held his hand in front of his face and tapped his ring. “Before we do our daily break and enter, I need to call home.”
“Oh, Noah, I’m so selfish. You should be at home with your mother.”
How quickly I’d forgotten that I wasn’t going to drag him into this. I had to release him to go home, maybe even force him to go. I’d have to figure out a way to find out what I needed to know by myself.
“It’s okay. Skye is there. And Jonathon.”
“Are you sure? What if something happens?”
“They’ll contact me if there’s any change.”
He tapped his ring again and spoke Anthony’s name. He gave the instructions, pausing to ask me for my grandfather’s address and telling him to let us know if and when the alarm system was down.
He turned to me. “Any other criminal activities you’d like me to set up for you, Miss Vanderveen?”
“No, I think you’ve done quite enough, Mr. Brody.”
Noah reached up and stroked my cheek, the tenderness of his touch sending shivers down my spine. Then he kissed me lightly, like butterfly wings touching my lips. We twisted together, kissing and laughing, and I thought it was a good thing, at least from Noah’s perspective, that the space in the clock tower was too small for anything too serious to happen. As it was, the light had dimmed, and a red glow was peeking through the slats of the railing as the sun set.
“We should get going,” I said between kisses. “It’s getting dark.”
He took a few moments to get his breath. “Ah yeah, must get back to the life of crime.”
“Have you heard from Anthony?”
Noah checked his ComRing. “He left a text.” He let me see it. It said, DONE.
We held hands all the way back to Sol City. Electric fibers seemed to disperse from his touch, cocooning my being and making me giddy. Was this what falling in love felt like? No one in LA gave us or our PDA a second look, and I liked it that way.
My heart stopped for a moment when Noah entered Sol City with Liam’s chip, but again there was no problem. It was Sunday. Tomorrow Paul would probably close up all accounts associated with Liam, and I’d have no way of getting Noah inside.
Which meant I’d just have to go outside.
I could move. Get a job. Be like them.
I could.
We got to my pod–Paul had re-instated my use of it because he believed Noah was no longer part of my life–and I spoke the name of a park close to my grandfather’s house. “Vanderveen Park.”
Noah raised his eyebrows. “You have a park named after you?”
“Among other things.”
“No Brody parks or any other Brody thing that I know of,” he said.
He was underlining our differences. Why did he keep doing that? I supposed it was wise not to forget them entirely. I tried to imagine what the future held after whatever happened next with my grandfather, after Liam’s mystery was solved.
Noah was taking in the Sol City sights: the pristine grounds, the organized traffic control, the creative architecture, the breath-taking landscaping.
“It’s mind blowing,” he said.
“I know you said before that you’d never... but now, maybe, if you had a sponsor, you’d reconsider?”
Could he ever be convinced to become a GAP?
A flicker of disappointment gripped me when he shook his head. “I could never live in a place like this. Sure, Sol City is beautiful, but I’d never fit in. I don’t have the right look, and I don’t have the right philosophy. That will never change.”
We arrived at Vanderveen Park. I’d chosen it because it was widely used and showing up at my grandfather’s house with my pod while intending to break and enter wouldn’t be very smart. The sandy beaches the park breached had remnants of the day’s surfers and picnickers. New arrival partiers logged in for the evening, even though the wind had picked up.
I parked the pod and said to Noah, “Follow me.”
He grinned. “I plan to.”
We walked two blocks south until we came to the gate at the end of a long drive. The old Victorian-style mansion was painted pale grey and had a short iron rail lining the roof top. The security lights that remained on 24/7 had been turned off, which gave the big house a Gothic aura.
“No bats?” Noah said, staring.
The wind whipped off the ocean and through the oak trees that surrounded the house and dotted the extensive yard. I pulled my hair off my face and tied it into a knot. Dark clouds along the horizon added to the haunted affect.
“Anthony does impressive work,” I said.
“I only hang out with the best.”
He motioned to the iron barricade. “I imagine the gate is locked?”
“I know a way in.”
I pushed through the hedges that surrounded a wire fence. We had to balance over tall, dark rocks that jutted into the ocean. The wire fence continued into the Pacific, deterring would-be trespassers.
We came upon a small cove behind the rocks that was hidden by the hedge.
“The fence is pulled up over there. You can’t see it because of the hedge. We spent a lot of time here with Grandpa V and my parents when we were yo
unger, before he started pursuing politics. It's a short cut to the public beach.”
I wiggled headfirst under the fence, wincing as the wire scraped along my back. I wasn’t as small as I used to be. It was harder for Noah, and I pulled up on the wire to help him through. Once inside, we raced across the vast lawn. Lightning streaked the grey sky, followed by a loud crash of thunder.
“Quick,” I said, dodging under a covered patio facing the ocean, just as a deluge of water fell from the sky.
“Now what?” Noah said, shaking water from his head like a puppy.
I pointed to an upper-level window. “The lock on that window is broken. Whenever my parents would travel, Liam and I were shipped to Grandpa V’s. We never told anyone about the lock, because it gave us a way to sneak out and get back in again.”
“How do you get up there?”
I pointed to an oak tree planted near the back of the house with a large branch that almost brushed against the window.
I climbed first with Noah right behind me. Once on the gable, the window opened easily. I swung my legs over the sill and landed with a soft thump on the floor.
The room had a day bed with a lace covering and a slew of pillows. An old-fashioned sewing machine in a wooden cabinet sat next to it. Three headless seamstress mannequins lined one wall adding to the eeriness of the night. Lightning flashed across the darkened room and Noah jumped.
“What is this place?”
“It’s my grandmother’s sewing room. She was into fashion design when she was younger.”
“Creepy.”
I turned on the flashlight feature of my ComRing and Noah followed suit.
“Where is your grandmother now?”
“She was almost ten years older than Grandpa V, too old to take advantage of the gene alteration procedure to extend her life. She died before I was born. Grandpa was devastated. He never remarried and never got rid of her stuff.”
The hallway outside the room was lined with pictures. Noah flashed his light along the paintings. All were expensive or priceless and by famous artists, new and old.
“Grandpa invests in art,” I explained.
Even though we were alone in the house and the security was turned off, I still felt compelled to whisper and walk softly.
“Grandpa’s office is downstairs. Let’s start there.”