by Peter Telep
Hollis grimaces and works the keypad on the door.
We hustle inside—
And Tommy beams at us. “Y’all come to bust me out?”
“Hell yeah!” I say. “Feels like forever.”
“Forever and a day,” he adds, and then hugs me like a gorilla, patting me so hard that he might re-break a rib. When he’s finished with that happy torture, he grabs me by the shoulders and gives me the once over. “You ain’t no devil dog, but you look pretty good.”
Julie gives him a hug. “We were so worried about you.”
“Imagine that. Well, here I am, little girl.”
That’s Tommy’s pet name for Julie. I’m not sure if she likes it, but she doesn’t complain.
Tommy regards Hollis, who’s leaning in the doorway. “Damn it, son, what happened to you?”
“Stubbed my toe and bumped into a couple of bullets…”
Tommy rushes to Hollis and helps him over to the bed, propping him up with pillows behind his head. He rips open Hollis’s shirt to examine the wounds. As he works, he asks, “What’re we looking at?”
“At least a battalion,” Hollis answers. “Maybe more.”
Tommy bares his teeth, and then tips his head toward Julie and me. “How much do they know?”
Hollis flinches. “Martha, she, well, they’re so young. That’s a lot to handle. The plan was to do it slow, a full orientation, and then some therapy.”
“Tommy, please tell us what’s happening,” I say.
He shakes his head. “That drama don’t matter right now. Get me some of them t-shirts in the drawer. I gotta pack these wounds and get pressure on ‘em. Hurry it up.”
As Julie does that, Tommy catches Keane staring at him. “You got a question, son?”
“Uh, well, name’s Keane. Not that you care.”
Tommy looks to Hollis. “What’d he say?”
“Said his name’s Keane, not that you care.”
“Why are you translating?” Keane asks Hollis.
“Because Tommy doesn’t have a wreath. To him, you’re speaking Heather and not English.”
“But I can understand him,” Keane argues.
“Because your wreath is translating.”
“Oh, yeah.”
Hollis goes on, “You don’t realize I’m speaking Bokko because your wreath is translating it to Heather. It’s why we have only twenty languages on Flora when Earth has over six thousand.”
“So he understands everyone else except me?” Keane asks.
“That’s right. Once you spend more time around him, your wreath will adapt. You’ll speak English, but to you it’ll sound like Heather. Sometimes it takes a few days.”
Hollis shares the conversation with Tommy, who finishes packing Hollis’s wounds with the shirts Julie gave him. After that, Tommy applies pressure with both palms—
But there’s a look exchanged between him and Hollis.
One that scares me.
“So you’re really from Earth?” Keane asks Tommy. “I mean you were born there?”
“Born in the back of a pickup truck in Promised Land, South Carolina.”
“And that’s on Earth?”
“Last time I checked.” Tommy’s eyes widen. “Hey, y’all hold on, I can understand him.”
“Already?” Keane asks. “That’s awesome. I always knew I was gifted—not remedial like they said.”
Tommy smiles thinly. “Roger that.”
“So I can’t believe you’re an alien,” Keane says.
“Yeah, lucky for you we come in peace. Unfortunately, the men out there don’t.”
Tommy curses as the shirts dampen with blood. “We gotta get moving, partner.”
Hollis smiles. “I know. Just save the kids, all right?”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
What if you’re in your persona and connected to someone who dies?
If you’re reading their thoughts, will you experience their moment of death? Do they connect with an after life? Or do they just go dark, like switching off the TV?
Obviously, I’m not the first person who’s asked these questions, and Keane probably knows the answers, but he’s never told us. Maybe it’s too painful for him. Or maybe it’s all so obvious that he assumes we know.
I’m probably overthinking this—
Because I’m frightened to accept an invitation from a man who might die.
Hollis’s persona shimmers beside me, and he extends his hand. “Please, Doc, you have to…”
I take a shivery breath.
The room disintegrates around us.
We stand now in the cool breeze, in the middle of a lush green-and-purple forest surrounded by skyscrapers. It’s like New York’s Central Park, only newer and more colorful.
“Are we near the Palladium?” I ask, letting go of his hand.
He nods. “This is the City of Violet before the withering.”
“I used to live near here,” I tell him.
He draws back his head. “You remember?”
“Sort of. Yellow house. Purple flowers.” I stare into the distance, following the bands of color until they rise through the trees and dissolve. “I was just a baby.”
“Sometimes the wreath helps us recall things from when we were very young.”
“That must be happening now.”
He gives a solemn nod.
“So let’s cut to the chase. Is my dad a bad guy?”
“Depends on who you ask. He’s been called worse.”
My stomach heaves. “I can’t believe it.”
“Doc, let me start at the beginning. I might have some military training, but I’m really a scientist like your father.”
He seizes my hand, and the breeze is gone.
We’re inside a laboratory, staring at a science fair project the size a minivan.
The contraption resembles a motor or air conditioning unit, with hoses, wires, and pipes creeping like veins across bundles of cylinders twice as large as scuba diving tanks. The tanks are stacked on either end of the device and painted red like cartoon sticks of dynamite.
Extending from each bundle is a giant gun barrel. The barrels face each other and look like laser cannons stripped off the Battlestar Galactica.
Between the cannons is a wreath-shaped object lying on its side and glowing green just like our personas. The wreath is suspended about three feet off the ground, with a staircase leading up to its edge.
After a loud thump, followed by a continuous hum, a pool of crackling energy erupts within the wreath. The energy looks like those tiny lightning bolts inside a generator that makes your hair stand on end.
I get the impression you’re supposed to walk up the stairs and go for a plunge straight into the pool.
I crane my neck toward a shadow behind us. It’s my father approaching the device, typing notes onto a tablet computer shaped like a bookmark.
“Whoa. He looks so young.”
“This is before you were born, when he and I and the rest of the team were just starting out.”
I’m overcome by a warm, nearly indescribable sensation that says Hollis loves my father like a brother.
“Something’s happening.”
“Don’t worry, that’s just me. I’m giving you that now. You can feel it, right?”
My eyes grow even wider. “Yeah. My Dad was like family.”
“He took a chance on me. He taught me everything, and he trusted me with everything, even you.”
“Me?”
“I lived a good life back on Earth, but never too far from you and Julie. As they say, we were all strangers in a strange land.”
“How come we never saw you?”
“Because we wanted it that way. None of it was your fault. You were just kids, and we wanted you to have normal lives, but we always worried. What if you got hurt and were rushed to the hospital? If they did a cat scan on your chest they’d find your wreath.”
“You’re right. I’ve never been to a hospital.”
&n
bsp; “You remember when you broke your arm? The doctor came to your house, right?”
“He did. So you protected me and Julie?”
“I’m not the only one.”
“Tommy.”
Hollis nods. “He’s the only human your father ever trusted with our story, but he doesn’t know everything. And there are others we left behind.”
“Can we ever get back home?”
“You will.”
“Do we get there using the engine?”
“Martha told you?”
“No, when I was gassed, I think I heard you talking about getting us to the engine or whatever.”
Hollis lifts his hands in dramatic fashion toward the device. “Well, Doc, here it is.”
“Cool. Can we use it again?”
“Not this one. It was destroyed.”
“Why?”
“First let me tell you how it works, and that’ll take us to the rest of the story.”
“Okay.”
“We start with some questions. What if certain particles are linked together? I’m talking about particles smaller than atoms. I could put one here and one on the other side of the planet. I could turn one, and the other one would turn because they’re linked. Do you follow?”
“My father worked with stuff like that. So yeah, I know what you mean.”
“Good. Anyway, we found something beneath the city, a laboratory like this one, and it belonged to the First Ones. We spent ten years there. They had quantum computers like we’ve never seen before. So we used some of their technology to make sure those linked particles would react the same to anything they encountered.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean if one gets wet here, the other one gets wet there.”
“Okay, yeah, I get it.”
Hollis stammers, groping for the right words, but then I realize it’s not words he’s looking for. He’s overcome by emotion. “Doc, the First Ones gave us these four planets with people and culture so similar that it’s a miracle. When I went to Earth, I couldn’t believe it. I cried. It was like I never left home. But I’m worried now about Earth and Halsparr and Galleon.”
“Why?”
“I’ll tell you, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Back to those particles... the ones that are linked... what if I take some of those, let’s call them the home particles, and I put them on a nuclear weapon underground. And then I take the other ones, the away particles, and I put them on ordinary objects like cups, pens, and flowers. Question: if I blow up the nuclear weapon with the home particles, will the away particles that are linked suffer the same reaction?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do.” He grabs my hand again.
We’re back in the park. Only there’s no park, just a broad plain of ash walled in by the devastation. The whole world’s been drawn on a blackboard with chalk, and even the sky’s been drained of color.
He closes his eyes. “Those maniacs got their hands on just one bomb, but they turned it into ten using home and away particles.”
“They did this?”
He turns away, lowering his head. “We didn’t realize it, but we had just created the perfect terrorist weapon. You could walk into the president’s office clicking a pen, and no one would know you’re about to end the world.”
“But how did this happen? Wasn’t your stuff top secret? How did the bad guys get the idea?”
He faces me, clearly bothered by the question. He thinks a moment then answers, “It was all classified. And we never meant to create a weapon. We were working on something else. In fact, the concept I just told you about, with home and away particles, is how we built the simultaneity vortex, or what we just call the engine.”
He yanks me back to laboratory and gestures toward the contraption. “The damn thing actually works. Only problem is, it’s a one-way ticket. If you want to get back home, you need an engine on the other side.”
“You can’t take it with you?”
“We never figured out how to reduce the size or how to get the entire device to transport itself, along with the subject.”
“So there’s another one on Earth.”
“Yes, and your father put it together. He took as many pieces as he could, especially the artificial wreath, which is the most important part. It took him a few months to build another engine.”
“Where’d he get the rest of the parts? Home Depot?”
Hollis grins weakly. “Your father’s a smart and influential man. The way he tells the story, he strolled onto the campus of Stanford University and borrowed a few paper clips. Whatever he did, it worked. He was the first Floran to reach Earth and return.”
With his smile tightening, Hollis points to a group behind us. They’re dressed for travel, wearing caps and backpacks. In fact, their clothes look normal, not the uniform-like stuff from the Palladium.
I spot my father. He’s clutching a baby. That must be me. My dad’s crying. And there’s Julie’s mother, Alina, and this little girl, just two years old, it’s her! Julie! I was right. Her mother must have been on my father’s team. Why else would she be there?
I put my hand over my mouth. I’ve seen pictures and videos of us when we were kids, but this is too real.
Hollis speaks quickly, “We escaped as the bombs went off. We destroyed all the files and hardware so we couldn’t be followed. We thought we left Solomon here to die. But we were wrong. All of us except your father. He knew Solomon. He knew he’d come back. So he prepared.”
“Who’s Solomon? Was he on your team?”
“He was your father’s research partner. They even grew up together. But then, behind our backs, he sold some of our data. He thought he was just dealing with a competitor. He thought he’d get rich. But all he did was hand over the power of God to the Monkshood, and he didn’t even know it.”
“Are the Monkshood the crazy ones who had the bomb?”
“Yeah. They’re religious fanatics. Once they brainwash you into joining them, they force you to eat this flower that poisons your wreath.”
“Who’d want to do that?”
“Desperate, lonely people looking for answers. The same type who join cults on Earth.”
“I don’t get it. Why do they hurt themselves?”
“They do it as a form of protest. They think Flora and the rest of the seed worlds are an experiment. Supposedly, we’re all just lab rats being observed by the First Ones—and our mission is to escape. They thought by nuking the planet and killing themselves, they’d free us all.”
“So why didn’t everyone blame them?”
“Because your father kept our work hidden—even from the government. We were afraid they’d take it away.”
“And that made you look guilty.”
“In the eyes of the media, yes. We never thought Solomon would act so greedy. Martha told me that when the smoke cleared, your father was taking the blame for everything. It was his company that played with fire, and now he’s the most hated man on Flora, kind of like Hitler or Osama bin Laden on Earth.”
“Are you kidding? No way. Not my father. I can’t listen to this anymore!”
Hollis’s aura begins to fade in and out, and his tone grows urgent. “Doc, you have to hear me out. I made a promise, and I won’t break it.”
“What promise?”
“That if something like this ever happened, that if we weren’t sure if your father was alive or dead, one of us would show you the truth.”
“You mean there’s more?”
“Much more.”
“Is it worse than this?”
Hollis won’t answer. He just takes my hand—
Before I can pull away.
CHAPTER TWENTY
I refuse to open my eyes. Hollis has to ask me twice. My mouth’s dry. I’m trembling so hard that my teeth chatter.
No, it can’t be any worse.
I crack open one eyelid and steal a glance.
We’re on a sidewalk, and the stre
et’s lined on both sides with purple flowers that smell like mint-flavored Tic Tacs.
I lift my chin, and my cheeks grow warm in the sun. The trees bow in the breeze. I hear music, maybe a violin playing softly in the distance.
When you think of an alien planet with two moons, you assume the houses will be futuristic domes or other weird-shaped buildings. You imagine floating cities or war-ravaged places like those on the outskirts of the Klingon Empire. You picture something strange and unfamiliar.
Something alien. You don’t think of those perfect little neighborhoods straight out of a Disney movie.
But here we are. Bright yellow house. White picket fence.
My home.
And it makes you wonder if the Monkshood isn’t too far off base... can our planets really be that similar?
“Where are all the cars?” I ask Hollis.
“They’re banned in this part of the city. Everyone uses, well, they used to use, the rail. And that’s why it took your father so long to get here.”
“What do you mean?”
He winces, as though he’s said too much, too soon again.
“You know I still have a lot of questions about this place. I’m thinking the gravity’s stronger than Earth’s. The days must be longer or shorter. How high-tech is everything, even though we’re so similar? Do they have games like we do?”
“Doc, don’t change the subject. You’ll be okay. You can handle this.” Hollis leans toward me, like he’s about to faint, but then he blinks and recovers. “Follow me.”
As we head for the front door, I call out, “Wait.”
“What?”
“I’m scared.”
“I know. Me, too.”
“You are?”
“I never wanted to come back here, but I owe this to your father. And to you.”
He swings open the door—
And behind us everything changes.
The sun’s gone. The wind howls, and the air’s clogged with dust. The flowers have been chewed down to stems.
“What’s happening?”
“That night, there was a huge sandstorm. We get a few of them each year.”
He yanks me inside and slams the door after us.
The howling wind is replaced by a loud crash from the other side of the house. Like glass shattering.