BROKEN SYMMETRY: A Young Adult Science Fiction Thriller

by Dan Rix

  How the hell was I going to get that thing back? With my legs pumping beneath me and the wind coursing through my hair, I mulled over the challenge, my dad’s disappearance, and his mysterious reappearance two nights ago.

  And that other name I had read on Joe’s report.

  Charles Donovan.

  My dad’s former employer, now a suspect.

  A ring tone interrupted whatever song was playing. I fumbled with the buttons midstride, and managed to accept the call without slowing.

  “Hello?”

  “Blaire, it’s Doctor Johnson.”

  “Hi . . . what’s up?” Speaking broke my rhythm and I gasped for air.

  “Are you okay?” She sounded alarmed.

  “I’m running.”

  “From what?”

  “No. Jogging.”

  “You bring your phone when you jog?”

  “It doubles as a music player, whatever—” I crossed against a red light to a ruckus of squealing tires and honks.

  “I’ll be quick then,” she said. “The blood test confirmed that he is indeed your father.”

  A pang of something. I wasn’t sure what. Loss. The loss of my last hope. Disbelief. Uncertainty. Maybe just emptiness.

  “Uh-huh,” I answered, my voice devoid of emotion.

  “But we found something else too.”

  “In his blood?” I ran through another red. More honks. I was really cruising now.

  “Yes, an unusually high amount of Lysine, probably suggesting a hyperactive pineal gland,” she said.

  “Haven’t gone to med school yet, sorry.”

  “Basically we’re seeing evidence of a chromosomal disorder. Not proof, just evidence,” she said, “Which is why I’d like to do a karyotope test—and run the test on you as well. Would that be alright, Blaire?”

  We had learned about chromosomes in biology. They were the structures inside cells that contained the DNA, of which humans had forty-six—twenty-three from each parent.

  I remembered a few of the chromosomal disorders like Down Syndrome and Klinefelter syndrome; none of them were very good. “Was something wrong with him?”

  “I’d just like to do the test Blaire.”

  “Okay. I guess—” The ring tone sounded in my ears again. “Can you hold on a second,” I said, “I’m getting another call.”

  This one was from Joe Paretti.

  “Blaire, don’t ever call my wife again.”

  “I can call her if I want. She has a public listing.” I hurdled a hedge and spun onto La Jolla Shores Drive, which would take me past the sea cliffs up to The Scripps Research Institute.

  “Where are you, why are you breathing like that?”

  “None of your business, Joe. And I’m on the line with someone else right now. So you’re just going to have to wait.”

  I didn’t know how to switch back to the first call though, and I ended up hanging up on both of them. Oops.

  ***

  Without really thinking, I ended my run along Torrey Pines Scenic Drive, near the spot where Josh and I had stargazed. Of course, barbed wire fence stopped me a hundred yards short. The loops of razors whistled in the wind.

  The quarantine zone.

  I peered through the fence at the cluster of buildings beyond the golf course. Over the past few days, The Scripps Research Institute had transformed into a military compound.

  Ranks of soldiers, olive green Humvees, two helicopters, and even what looked like a mobile missile launcher gathered around towering structures of concrete and tinted glass—I recognized the Immunology & Microbial Science building and The Skaggs Institute for Molecular Biology.

  A dark mass drew my eyes toward the water: the Navy destroyer. Still here.

  Suddenly I made the connection. It wasn’t here on port call, it was stationed here as part of the quarantine. Earlier this week, the military had announced that this was an exercise to test how the community would respond to an outbreak of a virus.

  Despite the heat and my sweat, I felt a chill down my spine.

  I picked back up to a jog and followed the fence up the road to the south security checkpoint at the intersection of Genesee Avenue and John J. Hopkins Drive, where more troops and a handful of Humvees clustered around two guard towers.

  According to Paretti’s report, that was where they picked up my dad.

  My eyes flicked to the South Employee Parking Lot. I noted the security. The fence was no problem—I had slipped under easily—but the soldiers and the Humvees?

  Surely they took breaks. I mean, it couldn’t be harder than breaking into a police station.

  No way, Blaire. They had a freaking destroyer offshore—

  Shouts from the south checkpoint made me flinch. The guards were shouting at me, telling me to step away from the fence.

  I obeyed. By the time I made it home, I had firmly decided—hopped up on endorphins—that I really needed that diary. And I had an idea.

  So far Joe had resisted my attempts. But there was no way he could resist me.

  ***

  That night I grabbed my shortest skirt, my highest heels, and spent an hour dolling myself up with lip gloss, eye shadow, and blush. I even ironed my hair into playful curls.

  If the only way Joe would hand over that diary was if he thought it came with a blowjob, then so be it. Let him think that.

  One glimpse of Barbie Doll in the mirror convinced me; by evening’s end the diary would be mine. All I had to do was surprise him like this and crank up the charm, and he’d agree to anything.

  But it was Saturday, so where would I find him? I dialed his office, which rang twice before diverting me into an automated menu system. I tried his home phone, and he answered with a gruff “Joe here.” I hung up immediately.

  Bingo.

  I found Joe Paretti’s address online and drove over to his house, a simple one-story in the suburbs with an orange tree for a lawn.

  On the walk from the sidewalk to his front door, I had to tug my skirt down four times. I must have grown a few inches taller since I’d last worn it. It was hardly decent. With each step, I could feel a breeze slipping between my upper thighs . . . where it wasn’t supposed to.

  On the porch, I arranged my hair so it just covered one of my eyes and rang the doorbell.

  His wife answered.

  Uh oh.

  “Is Joe home?” I said.

  She assessed me in from head to toe, and her eyes narrowed to slits. My cheeks burned with shame, and I squirmed in my outfit, struggling to lower my skirt again.

  “I’m Blaire,” I whispered, too embarrassed to speak. “He’s working on my dad’s case.”

  “You’re that girl who called earlier?”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to bother you—”

  “Oh, God.” Her hand shot up to her mouth. “He’s having an affair with you.”

  “What? Joe? Ew, no—what are you talking about?” I blushed even hotter.

  “You little whore!” She opened the door and chased me off the front porch. “You bitch . . . you slut!”

  I ran, lost both my heels, and continued barefoot to my Jeep. Behind me, the wife lost steam quickly.

  I dove into my car, hot and embarrassed, and slammed the door. On the drive home tears stung my eyes.

  I had crossed a line.

  Once secure in my bedroom, I ripped off my clothes, dragged on sweats, and crawled into bed mortified.

  And for what? I hadn’t even gotten the diary.

  ***

  On Sunday, smoldering with guilt and feeling utterly incompetent, I watched my father’s coffin lowered into the ground. Only a few people had attended the graveside service. Josh, some of my friends.
Their parents. But they were here for me, not for him.

  Their sympathy was all that kept me standing.

  We were estranged from the rest of our family. Those who actually knew my father had been at the memorial service eleven months ago. In their hearts, he had passed on a long time ago. I didn’t even have numbers to call.

  “May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace,” said the priest.

  Then it was over.

  Josh gave my shoulder a squeeze. I hadn’t even realized his arm was around me. I linked our fingers and squeezed his hand back.

  Only when I left did I notice them.

  Two figures in the shadow of a eucalyptus tree, watching the ceremony from a distance. I couldn’t make out their faces, though.

  Just two shadows.

  ***

  I woke up drenched in sweat.

  Orange light poured through the cracks in the blinds, igniting the walls and tinting the air crimson. My bedroom shimmered.

  It was light from the street.

  I dashed to the blinds and lifted the corner to peek outside—and the blast of heat made my eyes water.

  Fire.

  A house across the road and two lots up.

  Flames exploded from the windows and slithered up the walls and burst into the sky. Above the house, a rising column of red haze bled into the fog.

  But it was the scene in front of the house that sent prickles through my heart.

  My neighbor was on his knees, begging for mercy.

  A boy stood over him.

  A boy in a yellow leather jacket, not much older than I was, leveling a gun at the man’s forehead.

  At his side a can of kerosene spilled the last of its contents into the grass, and behind him a yellow Ford Mustang GT with a black racing stripe growled on the lawn.

  Yellow and black.

  Like a hornet.

  Finally the distant whine of police sirens cut through the roar, the sound of safety and protection. Of civilization. I let myself breathe again. Thank God—

  A flash, the boy’s arm recoiled.

  The gunshot echoed up and down the street, and my neighbor keeled over, his lips still pleading for mercy.

  I gasped, clutching my mouth to stifle it.

  The boy holstered his weapon and peered up at the burning building with a lazy smile.

  I couldn’t help it anymore. A shriek escaped my cupped hands.

  And despite the deafening roar of the flames, despite the scream of the sirens, despite the double-paned tempered glass windows my father had installed for my protection, the boy heard.

  His back muscles flexed, straining against the tight leather. He swung around, and from a hundred feet away his coal black eyes locked on mine.

  It was like he reached right into me and gripped my heart. I dropped the blinds and backed against the wall, shivering and wheezing for air. My skin buzzed with fear, and I could hear it ringing in my ears, louder and louder.

  Like hornets.

  Chapter 4

  I jolted up in bed.

  A bad dream. The boy, the fire . . . just a bad dream. Yet it didn’t fade—the fear palpitating my skin, the icy cage locked around my heart. I squirmed and clawed at my chest, frantic to free myself.

  But I couldn’t reach my heart.

  Not like him.

  Just a bad dream, Blaire.

  I gave up trying to tear through my ribs and peeled off my sheet, now glued to my stomach with sweat.

  Through a crack in the blinds, my neighborhood appeared dark and silent. The house across and two lots up stood intact.

  No yellow Mustang. No fire.

  No boy.

  Relief rushed through me, but not enough to wash away the unsettled feeling. The house, a roaring inferno a second ago, looked almost too peaceful now.

  Just a bad dream.

  I was about to lower the blinds when movement caught my eye. There, through the second story window of the same house that burned down, the flick of a shadow.

  Someone was moving upstairs.

  I watched the house, hardly breathing.

  The porch light came on, and the front door opened. For a long time, a figure hung back in the darkness, and the chill returned to my spine.

  Then he stepped into the light.

  My neighbor, Dr. Benjamin—I remembered his name now—walked onto his front porch and cinched his night robe around his bare chest.

  Though dark, it was clear he was staring at something in his yard. With a wave of prickles, I realized what. He was staring at the exact spot where his body had fallen in my dream.

  Where he died.

  I climbed back into bed badly shaken. Had Dr. Benjamin experienced the same dream?

  ***

  Unable to fall back to sleep, I rose from bed and meandered through my house, spooking myself with my own dark reflection in the hall mirror.

  My kitchen felt safest, so I plopped myself on a barstool at the marble island, currently piled with boxes of pasta, and watched the oven clock change to 3:34 AM.

  The fridge hummed to life, jolting my already traumatized heart. But I liked the background noise. It was reassuring somehow knowing my kitchen never slept.

  Behind me, an L-shaped black leather couch faced a fireplace topped with a 72” flat screen. Outside the floor to ceiling glass walls, a steaming swimming pool glowed from magenta and blue mood lighting.

  My father’s interior design work had been lucrative. The inheritance he had left me—now managed by New York Life—had helped me prove financial self-sufficiency to the court.

  I fished out my scrapbook and flipped through the clues on his disappearance, keeping one ear tuned for roaring flames and police sirens.

  If only I had gotten hold of his diary; I was beginning to feel certain he had left a message for me in its pages. After all, I was the one who—because I could decipher his handwriting—had recognized the text was reversed.

  He had come back to tell me something.

  And I had let the diary, intended for me only, slip right back into the hands of the police. I had failed him.

  At the thought, an intense, self-hatred gripped my chest and forced me to take slow, shallow breaths.

  I had failed him.

  ***

  I dropped my Jeep off for an oil change on Monday morning. After school, Josh walked me home, bouncing a basketball between his legs.

  “So your dad didn’t remember you at all?” he asked.

  “He thought I disappeared when I was little.”

  “I don’t know, Blaire . . .” He caught the ball in one hand, faked as if throwing it at me—making me flinch—and pulled it back at the last second, because he was palming it. Finally he twirled the ball on his finger. “Stuff like this happens all the time.”

  I punched the ball off his finger, and it bounced down the street.

  “Hey! What was that for?” He glared at me before chasing it down.

  I kept walking.

  When Josh came back, he put his arm stiffly around my shoulder. I tensed briefly, but returned the gesture and put my arm around his waist, letting my head lean against his shoulder while we walked.

  “I don’t know, Blaire,” he said again, “it doesn’t sound that weird—I mean, there’s tons of cases like this where people show up years later acting funny.”

  “So where was he all that time?” I said. “Why didn’t they find him?”

  “Bet they didn’t even try,” he said. “You know they don’t do anything unless you’re a celebrity. Your dad was probably just staying with a friend.”

  We turned onto my street, and I wondered whether Josh would want
to come inside. Whether I wanted him inside. Having a father to scare off boys made things so much simpler.

  “How could he not remember his own daughter?” I said.

  “Don’t beat yourself up, Blaire. He had Alzheimer’s.”

  I let go of Josh’s waist and pushed him away. “No he didn’t.”

  “Hey,” said Josh, pointing up ahead. “What’s all that for?”

  I followed his gaze halfway up my street, where two police cars and an ambulance idled at the curb, lights flashing.

  I balked, thinking they had come for me, before I realized they had cordoned off a yard across the street, where a group of officers and a paramedic stood conversing behind a perimeter of yellow tape. Outside the tape stood a group of doctors.

  It was the house across from mine and two lots up.

  Dr. Benjamin’s house.

  The house I had watched burn to the ground in my dream.

  ***

  I ran the rest of the way up my street and reached one of the detectives as he climbed into his Lincoln.

  “What happened?” I gasped.

  “Sorry, we can’t release anything yet.”

  “But this is my street,” I said. “My house is right there.” I pointed.

  He seemed to appreciate the proximity of my house to the crime scene, because he didn’t shut the door on the face. “Suicide,” he said, “reported this morning.”

  I swallowed. “Was it Doctor Benjamin?”

  “What’s your relation to him?”

  “I’m his neighbor,” I said. “Is he gone . . . I saw him just last night.”

  The dream.

  No, it couldn’t be. Thinking back, I wasn’t even sure now I’d had the dream before Dr. Benjamin came out. It had to be after.

  In fact, I couldn’t even picture what the boy looked like now. All I remembered were his eyes.

  His coal black eyes.

  Just a bad dream.

  The officer raised an eyebrow and hauled himself out of the car. “I believe that makes you our only witness.” He produced a small notebook, folded back. “Mind if I ask you a few questions?”