by Andrea Ring
And he and Chris take me by the elbow and hustle me to the car.
***
“That went well,” Chris says as we buckle our seat belts. “What do you think?”
I shake my head. “Ed Stokes has a hard-on for me,” I say. “Or more likely, for my dad. I need to talk to him and see what’s up.”
“Have they ever spoken, that you know of?” Chris asks.
“No, but my dad only shares with me on a need-to-know basis. Sounds like Stokes knows something about the Attic, so it stands to reason they’re acquainted.”
“Not necessarily,” he says. “His area of expertise is the military. It makes sense that he would latch onto the military angle of our story.”
I gaze out the window. “What about you? What was all that ‘see a doctor’ stuff about?”
Chris sighs. “That guy’s gonna die of prostate cancer in four years. Maybe if he catches it early, he’ll survive.”
I turn to Chris and put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s already getting to you, isn’t it?”
“I have a sudden appreciation for what Jack went through when she chose to tell me about my death. Heavy burden doesn’t begin to describe it.”
“Are you sorry? That you have these abilities?” I ask.
“No,” he says firmly. “I’ll stop being so cavalier about them, but no. I wouldn’t be able to help if I didn’t have them. Although…”
“Although…”
Chris sighs again and stares at his hands. “I’m not sure I want this for Nicole.”
I nod. “I know how you feel. You want to protect her. I feel the same way about Tessa.”
He turns his head from me. “I wish that were what I meant, but it’s not.”
I raise an eyebrow at the back of his head. He slowly shifts back to me, avoiding eye contact.
“Nicole…her death date is two months away. The exact date isn’t clear. I’ve just got a timeframe.”
“Oh my God,” I whisper. “How?”
“I don’t know,” he says. “It has something to do with the brain, but I don’t have the medical knowledge to decipher it.”
“Then we should get her the blood therapy now! There’s no reason to wait.”
“But here’s the odd thing,” he says. “Nicole wants it. If I said, you’re becoming a Dweller tomorrow, she’d run right over to the lab and lie down to wait. Last night…I finally agreed to it. We made the decision. It’s a done deal.”
I frown. “Are you saying her death date didn’t change after you decided?”
“No, it did. But before, she lived to be seventy-five.”
“You’re saying…making her a Dweller shortens her life?”
“Exactly.”
I lean my head back against the seat. “That makes no sense.”
“The only thing I can think of,” Chris says, “is that being a Dweller puts her in a position to die. Maybe she tries a dangerous experiment, or maybe some crazy guy shoots her thinking she’s the devil. But whatever happens, we can’t let her have it, can we?”
“Let’s think this through,” I say. “She dies of something brain-related…maybe making her a Dweller causes her to go crazy herself, or to be depressed. Maybe she commits suicide.”
“Doesn’t change the fact that she’ll die.”
“Have you told her yet?”
Chris shakes his head. “I don’t know what she’s gonna say. She’ll be disappointed, probably that’s an understatement, but then she’s gonna be pissed. She might not even believe me. What if she wants to be a Dweller anyway?”
“Erica’s slated to die in two months,” I say. “And we’re going to save her. We can save Nicole, too.”
“I’d rather not go through that,” he says. “I figure if we wait past the two-month mark, we can make the decision again, and maybe her lifespan will increase. Do you see any holes in that logic?”
“No,” I say. “That seems the prudent course. Just take the decision back. But you have to get Nicole on board.”
Chris laughs. “That could be a trick.”
“We’ll put her off,” I say. “The procedure really isn’t perfected anyway, and hasn’t been studied enough. I’ll support you.”
Chris smiles at me. “Thanks. It’s been weighing on me all day.”
I pat his shoulder again. It’s the only comfort I have to give.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chris drops me off at home and heads back to Planarian for more practice with Dad. I plan to join them, but I need to get out of this suit first.
Tessa is fixing lunch for the kids. I give them each a kiss and plant myself at the kitchen island.
“How’d it go?” she asks.
“Fine,” I say. “Glad it’s over.” I nod at her once, our signal that I have things I need to discuss with her, but they have to wait until the kids go to bed. “How was your morning?”
“Super,” she says. “Nicole came over and we spent the morning painting with the kids.”
“How is she?”
“She and Chris decided last night that she’s going to be a Dweller. She’s practically bouncing off the walls.” Tessa shakes her head. “I get that it’s exciting, but there are so many unknowns. I’d be a nervous wreck.”
“That’s because you have common sense,” Free says. “Nicole is more about emotion than logic.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” Tessa says. “Nicole has passion. I admire that.”
“Passion is good,” he says, “but it should be tempered. Don’t you think, Dad?”
“Everything in moderation,” I say diplomatically. “I think you’re both right. Let me go change and we can eat.“
I take a quick shower. I didn’t intend to, but my nerves got the better of me this morning. My shirt is damp at the underarms because I’m trying not to regulate unless it’s necessary, and I just feel gross.
I come back out to grilled cheese and tomato soup. My favorites.
“Let’s dig in,” I say, and then my phone buzzes. It’s Chris.
“Hey. What’s up?”
“Her death reading has not changed,” he says through gritted teeth.
I glance at Tessa and the kids, wave at them to eat, and then I walk to the front door and step outside for some privacy.
“Did you tell her about the soul reading? Maybe it hasn’t changed because she doesn’t know.”
“I told her,” he says impatiently. “She didn’t want to accept it, but she agreed that two months wasn’t very long to wait. We both agreed! And nothing has changed!”
I grope for an answer, but I don’t have one.
“Okay. This entire situation has changed her death. And she still dies from the same cause?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t know, Chris. Why don’t you head to Planarian. I’ll meet you there, and we’ll talk about it with Jack and Tyrion. Maybe they’ll have some ideas.”
“See you there.” And he clicks off.
***
Chris has already explained the dilemma to everyone by the time I arrive. They’re all sitting on the carpet of the large room on the kids’ floor, throwing ideas out.
“Whatever causes her death, it’s not a physical problem,” Dad says. “At least not one caused by something going wrong with her body on accident.”
“How do you know that?” Jack asks.
“Because becoming a Dweller would fix it. Either she causes the problem deliberately, or something external causes the problem.”
“But if she is not a Dweller,” Tyrion says, “she will not be able to cause the problem deliberately. She will not have that control. So something external happens.”
“She could commit suicide,” I offer.
Tyrion shakes his head. “She will perish from a brain aneurysm. We already went over the cause of death that Chris had trouble interpreting. A gunshot, or taking drugs, or a hanging…these would be different.”
“Is it possible that her date of death changed before yo
u made the decision for her to be a Dweller?” I ask. “Maybe being a Dweller has nothing to do with it.”
“No,” Chris says. “I literally watched the soul overwrite her previous date of death when we made the decision.”
“So what would cause a brain aneurysm?” I say. “Assuming she’s not a Dweller, and assuming the problem’s not physical?”
“I do not know if we can assume that,” Tyrion says. “Maybe the problem is physical, and being a Dweller just does not prevent it. Maybe she does not know enough about her abilities to stop it, or maybe it catches her unawares.”
“That actually makes sense,” Chris says. “At least, I think that’s the first plausible explanation that takes everything into account.”
“Then let’s get her into the lab,” Dad says. “Thomas can hook up to her, today, and see if something’s going on. If she’s going to die in two months, I’d say the problem is already brewing.”
Chris stands and pulls out his phone. “I’ll call her now.”
***
I hook up to Nicole. In about twenty seconds, it’s apparent that there’s nothing remotely wrong with her brain, but I spend a good five minutes checking anyway.
Chris looks at me expectantly.
I shake my head.
He kicks the door open with a bang and stalks out.
When I turn back to Nicole, she closes her eyes, flips to her stomach, and sobs into her pillow.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Nine-month-old babies are not allowed to work. Child labor laws and all that.
So we had to set up a preschool at Planarian. Nicole is the main teacher, with all the proper credentials, and Tessa is an assistant. Mateo and I are just researchers studying the interesting kids.
This morning, Tessa heads upstairs with Em and Free while I check in with Kenneth.
“Anything new today?” I ask. I’m eager to get back to work with Em. She had a breakthrough yesterday, finally blocking out thoughts I sent to her. She still can’t block emotions, but I feel like we’re close.
“They arrested someone for the explosion,” Kenneth says, and I raise an eyebrow at him.
“Really? Who?”
“Tyrion’s research partner at Morula. Barry Tate.”
I flop into a chair. “This is good. At least now we know it’s someone who already had a grudge, and not some unknown wacko.”
“That is the good part. The bad part is that he’s lying about Tyrion’s involvement with the babies. The investigators on the Morula case are actually the ones that tracked this guy down—they’ve been trying to find him for months. This is the bad part. Thomas…it looks really bad for Tyrion.”
“Isn’t it just Tate’s word against Tyrion’s? Plus, we can all back Tyrion up.”
“And we will,” Kenneth says. “We all have his back, but ultimately…we’re taking Tyrion’s words at face value, too. None of us really knows for sure what happened at Morula or how the boys were conceived. Except…”
I cock my head. “Except?”
Kenneth clears his throat. “We have twenty eye witnesses.”
I clench my jaw. “And you think Tyrion will want the boys to give statements, or even be put on the stand, if it comes to that.”
Kenneth sighs. “Honestly, I don’t know. A few months ago, yeah, that would have been my guess, but Tyrion’s a father now. Will he want his children to be outed to save himself? I just don’t know. It’s ridiculous to think about, since there’s no way anyone’s gonna take the word of a baby, but we have to think about it.”
I stand. “Does Tyrion know all this?”
“I called him an hour ago, after I got off the phone with our lawyer. He’s in the lab.”
“He came to work?”
“You know Tyrion better than that,” Kenneth chides. “Of course he came to work.”
***
I find Tyrion bent over a microscope.
“Hey.”
“Thomas,” he says without looking up. “Good morning.”
I pull up a stool next to him. “Is it?”
He lifts his head and smiles ruefully. “I should enjoy my freedom while I can, should I not?”
“Your freedom?” I gasp. “Jesus, you think you’re going to jail?”
“Prison is the likelier possibility, and yes, it is likely.”
“No. Not when you have Jack and the boys. Not when you’ve worked so hard to make things right. We can’t let that happen.”
“I will try to prevent it, but the legal system is not about honor or second chances or making things right. It only matters whether or not I broke the law.”
“We need a plan,” I say. “What’s the plan?”
“I continue to tell the truth,” he says. “There are three other people at Morula who know that Barry grew my sons, and I have to hope that at least one of them will also tell the truth. Unfortunately, they are the same people that I blackmailed in order to gain access to the boys, so the truth alone may not help me.”
“What did you blackmail them with? You didn’t get any money from them, did you?”
“Two were falsifying data in clinical trials, and I threatened to blow the whistle. One was having an affair with Barry, but she is married with two children. I threatened to call her husband.”
I cringe. “Well, you wanted to ensure that the boys weren’t harmed, and ultimately, you were the one who blew the whistle on Morula. And then Barry tried to blow us up. I think you’ll be okay.”
“I have a meeting with our lawyer at ten. As you say, I am not really concerned about the blackmailing, but if all of these people lie and say I grew the boys…Thomas, I will have no defense.”
“But that doesn’t make any sense,” I say. “Why would you grow them and then have to blackmail people to work with them?”
“It makes perfect sense!” he growls. “Let us say I grew them. Then Barry and my superiors find out about it, and they take me away from them until they can figure out what to do. So I have to blackmail them to work with the boys again, but before Morula can come clean, I steal the babies away in the middle of the night so that Morula cannot have my research. So that I can profit off of it without them. It makes perfect sense.”
“But they don’t know about the blood you engineered, right?”
“No. But if it comes out, a case could be made that it is their research. I was working there at the time I created it.”
I hang my head.
“But I also planned ahead for that. I sent letters to each of them, including Barry, three weeks before the night you arrived, giving them my notice. And I did not cash my last two paychecks. I was not technically employed there when I perfected the blood, but I was using their facilities, and I insisted on showing up every day so that the boys were cared for. It is a very gray area. I doubt there is a legal precedent for it.”
“It’s a moot issue if they don’t know about the blood.”
“The boys know about it,” he says quietly.
“They won’t interview the kids,” I say. “We won’t let them.”
“Barry might know about their abilities,” Tyrion says. “I do not know how much the boys revealed to him.”
“Look, you know I’m the last person who would ever advocate lying, but this…we just don’t tell them. If Barry says the boys can talk and read minds, the police are just gonna think he’s crazy.”
“Then why has Planarian built a lab for children?”
I sigh. I really don’t know how to answer that.
***
Detectives visit the lab in the early afternoon. With our lawyer present, all of us are questioned.
I stick to the truth. No one asks me about Tyrion’s research, or about the boys’ abilities.
They ask about Tyrion, how long I’ve known him, how well I know him.
They ask me about his background.
Our lawyer objects, and I don’t have to answer that question.
They don’t mention the night I was at Morula. M
aybe they don’t know.
I leave the interview feeling itchy. I didn’t lie, but I also didn’t tell them my entire truth.
Which is okay, strictly speaking, but I still don’t feel right about it.
Dad said to me once that I just need to get over it, that sometimes I just need to do what needs to be done, even if it’s shady.
Dad would be proud of me.
For what that’s worth.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Tessa’s on me as soon as we get the kids asleep.
“Has Chris talked to you about him and Nicole?”
I stretch out on the couch. Tessa pushes my legs aside to sit.
“No. I’ve barely seen him lately. I’ve been working with you and Nicole and the kids, and he’s been doing whatever it is he’s doing. The soul stuff.”
“He told Nicole he wants to stop trying to have a baby.”
“Makes sense, since she’s slated to die soon.”
Tessa frowns at me. “You say that with absolutely no sensitivity whatsoever.”
I sigh. “I’m sorry. What with her…condition, having a baby doesn’t make a lot of sense.”
“She has two theories,” Tessa says. “Want to hear them?”
I nod.
“One, getting pregnant might change her fate.”
“That’s a big might when you’re talking about a child.”
“And two…she’s convinced that Tyrion never intended to give her the blood to make her a Dweller, so no matter what decision she and Chris had made, it didn’t matter.”
I sit up. “So she thinks Tyrion is dooming her to her death?”
“She didn’t come out and say that…but since Tyrion is under investigation, she thinks he won’t want to have anything to do with the research until things are settled. So whether it’s Tyrion specifically, or just the circumstances…either way, she feels she’s getting shafted.”
“It makes sense, I guess,” I say. “It’s possible that actually making her a Dweller will save her. We don’t know.”
“Thomas, you know how I feel about this line of research, you know I’m not a fan. But if it could potentially save her, don’t we have to do it?”