by Robert Reed
“But that’s where I’m going,” I explained. I didn’t mean to sound proud or snotty. I tried speaking matter-of-factly. “He called me and invited me and my folks—”
“You mean an assistant called,” she persisted. “For him.”
“You didn’t actually talk to him,” said her friend.
I hadn’t talked to anyone, actually. But it had been Dr. Florida on the phone, and he had talked to my folks for quite a long while.
“Ryder is having tests done,” Beth explained. “With special equipment at the mansion.”
“But you’re not meeting Dr. Florida,” said the pretty girl. She was like a doll, everything about her face and skin perfect in a shiny, dead way. “Why should he meet you? Why?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted.
“We’re talking about Dr. Florida,” she reminded me.
I kept quiet. What could I tell her?
“It won’t happen.” She wagged one of her long fingers at my face. “You’re making this up, I bet.”
I shifted my weight from one foot to the other.
Then her friend said, “I know you. You’re the kid who remembers things…right? That’s you, isn’t it?”
Beth frowned. These weren’t her friends; I knew her girlfriends. They were classmates, nothing more, and I could tell she regretted having started this thing.
The pretty girl touched me. “You really remember everything?”
“I guess—”
She grinned and stuck out her chest. “All right then. Can you remember seeing a girl, any girl, prettier than me?” Her expression was saying, “This is a joke question, but if you want to answer it anyway, go ahead.” She smiled so her perfect white teeth showed, then she laughed in a soft, careless way. “Think back,” she told me. “Remember all the girls you’ve ever seen anywhere. Okay?”
“Faces take a long time,” I explained. “They’re complicated, and I’ve got to sort through so many of them—”
“I’ll wait,” she announced. She screwed her face into a clever, proud-of-herself look. “Go on. I want you to.”
So I said, “Beth’s prettier than you.” I wasn’t lying, no. But mostly I didn’t like the girl’s manners, and Beth was the first pretty girl that came to mind.
“What Beth?” she wondered. “This Beth?”
Beth and the other girl began to laugh.
“Well,” said the pretty girl, “I don’t think you’re special. Not at all!” Her clever face vanished. She told me, “You’re rude,” and then she faced her friend and Beth. “You’re rude too!”
“Oh, Corrine,” said her friend. “It’s a joke.”
The pretty girl said nothing. She simply glared at us, her fiery eyes lingering on me the longest, and then she walked away with her back erect and her head tilted high.
“She’s full of old actress genes,” explained her friend.
Beth was looking at me. “Whose genes?” she asked.
“I don’t remember,” said the friend. “But her mom’s a crazy fan. She’s got pictures of the woman all around the house.” Then she said, “It’s pretty weird.” Then she said, “Corrine doesn’t even look much like the actress. Not all that much.” She shrugged and said, “Weird, huh? Weird!”
The limousine was waiting in front of our house—a smallish limousine, but larger and fancier than any car I had ever ridden in. Its skin was black and warm to the touch and glossy bright. There wasn’t any place for a driver. It drove itself. A tall woman was standing beside my father, both of them waiting for me. I knew the woman’s face. She was named Lillith. She had been on the pasture with Dr. Florida. “It’s a shame your wife feels ill,” she was saying. “I’m sure she would have enjoyed herself.”
“Gwinn? She would have loved this.” Dad winked at me and said, “Ready, son?”
“Sorry I’m late.”
He said, “No problem. Lillith? This is Ryder.”
“So it is,” she said, her voice pleasant. High and soft and graceful. “I just arrived myself, Ryder. Are you ready to go?”
“He was ready last night,” Dad told her, and he laughed.
I climbed inside the limousine, the doors shutting after us and the electric motor accelerating and the seats beneath us bending to make us comfortable. There were several rows of seats, and we were in the backmost row. I was thinking how Mom wasn’t ill. Not really. Then Lillith touched my knee, saying, “He’s quite excited about meeting you too.”
She meant Dr. Florida. I didn’t know what to say.
“He had me personally research you,” said Lillith. Then she turned to Dad, adding, “He has access to various records. For scientific purposes,” and she paused for a moment. “We’ve tried and tried,” she said, “but we can’t find anyone quite like Ryder. Not anywhere.”
“I’m not surprised,” said Dad.
She was between us and smiling. “Could I tempt you boys?” Beneath our seat was a cupboard, and she pulled out glasses and asked, “Something sweet and cold?” She was as pretty as an actress, I thought. But she was too old to have been tailored. At least in big ways.
I said I was thirsty. A little bit.
She gave me a lemoned Pepsi. Dad wanted the same, he claimed, and Lillith fixed two more and talked to him. She explained the tests and described what might be found. I listened, absorbing without always understanding; some of her words were substantial and nearly incomprehensible. She spoke of scanning the molecular regions of my brain, even the atomic regions, taking tiny measurements and creating a thorough picture. She said, “We can’t make promises,” and watched Dad. Then she turned to me, smiling. “Most likely we can offer clues. Clues as to how Ryder can better manage his skills.”
“First the tests,” said Dad, smiling patiently. “One lurch at a time, I think.”
We were passing through bands of parkland and the city’s newest neighborhoods. The houses were fresh and the lawns treeless and brilliantly green. The mansion itself was west of the city, buried within a long hill covered with flowering trees and smooth-faced leafy trees, antennas of every shape poking out here and there. I had seen the mansion plenty of times on TV, from all angles. Yet today everything seemed new to me. I pressed my face against the smoked glass of the window and watched while we passed through high gates, then drove along a curling road at the base of the hill itself. I saw quite a few men and women wearing dark uniforms and odd guns. I saw planes rising from the flat country to the west and ordinary cars and trucks coming toward us, our limousine shuddering when the biggest trucks roared past. All at once we turned and slid into a narrow valley. The trees touched shoulders above this smaller road, and everything was in shadow. We were driving into the hillside. I saw a patch of deeper shadow and felt a sudden thudding of tires, and we were inside. I saw blackness through the windows, and we swerved and stopped and the doors came open, and I smelled the cool clean scent of scrubbed concrete and eager warm motors.
Lillith said, “Keep close to me, gentlemen,” and stepped outside.
The air was cool and damp. We walked between rows of limousines, and Dad whistled. “Can I take one home? For a while?”
Lillith laughed and said, “I think not,” and steered us through sliding glass doors. Guards and cameras examined our faces. I heard water and then smelled it as we walked along a hallway. The hallway walls were beautiful. They were made from metal foams, very fancy, rusted for character and polished until they shone. Then we were in an open space, standing beside a tall shaft cut through the heart of the hill itself. A glass handrail encircled the shaft, and I grabbed the rail and felt the sweat on my palms, looking upwards and seeing more floors and a blue sky and a thin white cloud moving fast in the wind. Lillith asked for our impressions. “Quite the little shelter,” Dad muttered. He squeezed my shoulder, sounding rather nervous. I’m sure he felt out of place.
There were more floors below us. Water fell down the far side of the shaft, dribbling across stretches of banded red stone. Vivid emerald mosse
s clung here and there, plus odd little trees of electric blue and pink, gold and maroon. An empty pool caught the falling water and reflected the sky. “What do you think?” asked Lillith. “Do you like all of this?” She touched my shoulder for a moment lightly. “Ryder?”
“It’s nice,” I admitted. But nice was a silly, small word. I had never seen such wealth, or even imagined money could be so enormous and obvious—the freshness of the air, the neat perfect lines of every surface, the sense that this wasn’t merely a home and office, no, but something planned like an artist plans a great painting, the colors and forms strange and yet balanced…so well balanced that I couldn’t imagine them in any other state.
I gulped. I asked, “Where’s Dr. Florida?”
“He’s busy just now,” she cautioned. “You’ll see him soon.”
I nodded. He was such a busy man, I thought, and I was taking him from his important work. I knew it. I stood motionless for a moment, feeling so very strange, and then Dad touched me and said, “Our guide’s leaving,” and he smiled to encourage me. “Come on, son.”
We walked down more hallways, seeing dozens of people moving with a formal sort of energy. Many carried personals, and they spoke to their personals and to one another and watched us in a casual yet careful way. They seemed confused to see a boy in their midst. I held my father’s hand for the first time in years. We came into a lounge full of food smells, one entire wall built from thick glass and an enormous aquarium on the other side. The aquarium was larger than some ponds, I realized. I had to stop and look at the graceful miniature whales swimming near the surface, each one the size of a man—sleek even with their mouths open, their baleens straining the clean bright water for food. Beneath them were sea turtles with shells made from gemstones, or something resembling gemstones. There were brilliant fish I had never seen in any book, never, and some odd little penguins dashing toward the glass. I stared at the penguins, and one gazed back at me, its orange belly and dark eyes familiar. “They’re made from robin stock,” said Lillith. I could see the robins inside them. I felt Lillith’s touch, and she promised me, “We’ll pass this way again. Okay? We have to be going now. All right?”
We passed into another hallway, Dad making jokes. “How many miles are there? Hundreds?”
“In the mansion?” said Lillith. “Counting air vents and service passageways…I suppose a thousand miles, or more.”
He laughed and shook his head. “I’m humbled.”
“Are you, Kip?”
“Completely.”
The laboratory section was deep inside the hill, guarded by thick glass doors sealed tight and strong men with hard, unreadable faces. We were scanned by several means. Even Lillith was scanned. She smiled and told me, “This is where the magic is done,” and the last doors parted for us. A woosh and a woosh, and we were safely inside.
I breathed and concentrated, working to seem utterly normal.
People wore lab coats and glazed stares. Scientists weren’t so noisy as the others. The air was cool and dry, and we walked and turned and entered a large room made small by its machinery. A gray-haired man was watching us. “Is this our young friend?” he inquired.
“Ryder?” said Lillith. “Kip? This is Dr. Samuelson. He’s one of Dr. Florida’s oldest and dearest associates.”
“Emphasis on the old,” he joked. He had a quiet, firm voice and a friendly laugh. He took my father’s hand, then mine, and when we shook I felt all of my hand’s bones. He said, “I’m the last of the dinosaurs. You’re looking at him.”
I remembered Dr. Samuelson from documentaries. He had been with Dr. Florida from the very first days. Had he been on the pasture with us? On the contest day? I tried to find his face—
“Would any of you gentlemen like a refreshment?” asked Lillith. “I’m off to have a late lunch myself.”
Dad said, “Some blue tomatoes.”
She paused. “Blue what?” Then she understood. Dad was joking, and she laughed pleasantly and said, “Indeed, Kip,” and left us. The pleasant laugh quit once she was in the hallway, alone.
I turned and studied the machinery. The room was jammed full of the complicated, interlocking shapes, everything smelling new and scrubbed, every surface bright. “Ryder? Ryder?” I turned to Dr. Samuelson. I wasn’t doing very well, I realized. Feeling embarrassed, I said, “Excuse me,” and hung my head a little bit.
“Why don’t you hop on the table?” he asked me. “Would you?”
Dad was sitting on a little chair, watching everything.
“Should I undress?” I wondered.
“No need,” he assured. Then he handed me a glass full of a thick grayish liquid. “Drink every drop, would you?” It tasted sweet, yet wrong somehow. It was heavier than water or any syrup. “There you go. That’s the boy.” He took the empty glass from my hand and punched buttons on a glowing board. Dad smiled to encourage both of us. “Now, why don’t you lie back on the table? All right?” I was down and looking at Dr. Samuelson’s wrinkled face. He seemed very tired to me. He must be working hard, I thought, and I was thankful and ashamed, in equal measures, for all of this special attention.
“That’s the boy,” he said. “You’ll sleep in a minute.”
The table moved without noise, sliding into the bright new machinery.
“Ryder?” I heard him ask. “Do me a favor? Think of one thing. Only one thing. Concentrate and recall one memory.”
I asked, “Which one?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Try your oldest memory. Can you?”
I tried. I knew a likely moment—a memory so old that it was close to vague—and I blinked and felt myself turning tiny, ever so tiny, and the happy young faces of Mom and Dad drifted over me. They were waving, their gestures silly and their voices twisted into baby talk. I was full of strange passions, simple and relentless. I thought of food and saw my pink hand in the air, and somehow I stuffed the hand into my mouth and chewed it with my gums, the salty skin delicious. Suddenly there was laughter and strange faces over me, and I felt so scared. All those strange faces, staring and joyful, and me bursting out into tears—
Then I was awake. The machinery was throbbing, then it was silent, and the table moved and stopped and a voice I recognized said, “What do you think, John? Ice cream for our hero?”
Dr. Florida was sitting beside my father. He was looking straight at me and smiling, and he drummed his long hands on his knees.
Dr. Samuelson was watching him. So was Dad.
“What’s your flavor?” asked Dr. Florida. “What would you kill to eat?”
“He loves peppermint,” said Dad.
But I said, “French vanilla.”
“Not peppermint?” Dad shrugged his shoulders and said, “I thought you loved peppermint.”
“Not so much anymore,” I confessed.
Dr. Florida rose and said, “Either way, you shouldn’t eat now. It’s too soon.” He grinned and laid his flattened hand on his own belly. Then he gave me a wink. “John? Why not get us a gallon of our best French vanilla? I’m taking our guests into my office. For a chat.”
Dr. Samuelson said, “Be glad to.” He looked at all of us, his eyes lingering on me. Then he left.
I blinked and took a shallow breath, studying Dr. Florida. There wasn’t any raincoat today, and no hat. He was wearing ordinary trousers, dark and simple, and a nearly white shirt. I could see shiny instruments in the shirt pockets, and I heard them rattle when he moved. His hair was streaked with gray and white and combed backwards. His pale skin was freckled. “You want to see my office?” he asked. “I don’t give tours to everyone.”
I said, “Okay,” with a soft voice.
“Well, up! Up!” He laughed and waited for us to rise.
Dad was beside me. He grasped the back of my head as we walked into the hallway, saying, “This is something,” with a weak voice. His hand felt damp and nervous; I sensed him trembling. I’d never seen him so nervous about anything. “Quite something,” he mana
ged. “Goodness.”
“How do you feel?” asked Dr. Florida. “Ryder?”
“Okay.” I wasn’t nearly so nervous. I had been scared of being scared, but I didn’t have any chance now. He’d come while I was asleep, and now he was here and everything felt natural. I felt as if I’d known him for a very long time. “I feel fine.”
“That brew you drank? It contains a mild sedative.” He stopped at a massive metal door with the name Doctor Aaron Florida beside the jamb and a black button under the name. It was a fancy thumbprint lock. He touched the button and the door slid open without sound, and I saw an enormous desk and all kinds of screens built into two walls—TV screens and personal screens of every size—and he let us sit on the swiveling chairs in front of his desk. He sat on his own chair. He seemed so very tall, even sitting. “I was talking to your father while you were down and out,” he said. “I was explaining what the data mean and how they’re coordinated by my fancy toy. It might be several weeks before we can assemble a complete portrait. At the earliest. But if we can help you, we’ll help. I promise you.”
I didn’t know what to say. I thought about my wonderful luck, me being here with him, and I heard concern in his voice and thought what a wonderful man he was. Surely.
“Say thank you,” prompted Dad. “Ryder?”
“Thank you.” But the words seemed too small to matter.
“You slept a long time,” Dr. Florida told me. “You gave your dad and me a chance to talk about you.” He nodded and smiled and said, “I learned about your friends, and everything. Ryder? One of these years you’ll look back on these times and see the gold in them. Believe me.” He winked and his eyes seemed to twinkle. “Friends and fun and challenges eventually met. That’s the gold in growing up.”
Dad grinned and nodded, appreciating the words.