The Keystone: Finding Home

by Seren Goode

  It was good I was already on the floor. I lowered my head to my knees. I didn’t feel much better down there, but it wasn’t a bad idea to be closer to the floor anyway, just in case I passed out.

  “Here is the last case note.” I rose up on my knees, and my head craned up, looking up over his shoulder at the screen, my hands braced on his thigh, fingers biting into his skin. He flinched but didn’t move away.

  Case #00045

  Subject: Tar Xanon

  Sex: Male / Age: approx. 64 (1995)

  Birthplace: Unknown

  Status: terminated by Helios Kratos, suspicion of espionage, violation of Foreign Agents Registration Act

  Last Known Location: Gypsum Cave, Las Vegas, Nevada

  Subject: Unknown

  Sex: Male / Age: approx. 14 (1995)

  Birthplace: Unknown

  Status: terminated by Helios Kratos

  Location: Las Vegas, Nevada

  “I don’t know what this means. The status…” I couldn’t say the word. “That’s the same as my mom…” My voice trailed off, and I didn’t finish the thought.

  “Who the hell is this Helios Kratos?” Shim asked, his voice menacing. He hit a key, and the printer in the corner whirled as he started a new search.

  There was a shrill whistle from Jaxon, followed by voices coming down the hall.

  Leaping up, I ran to the printer and grabbed the pages quickly folding and shoving them into my back pocket. Shim was scanning the screen up until the last second, then leaped up just as sandwich guy lumbered back into the room.

  The printer whirled one last time.

  “Hey, what are you kids doing in here?”

  “Where are the bathrooms?” Shim motioned to me.

  “We got lost.” I stepped in front of sandwich guy, pulling his attention away from Shim, who was still standing close to his desk.

  “How did you get access to this floor?” The guy eyed us both suspiciously.

  “Well.” I shook off my earlier daze and launched into Plan B, a dramatic explanation of our mother bringing us to work today and, in an effort to get us out of her hair, sending us off to get doughnuts. However, trying to find a restroom, we got off on the wrong floor and followed someone through the door, ending up lost and…Shim, who was over by the printer now, interjected colorful side comments on our trek. Slowly, we both backed out of the room. Still eyeing us suspiciously, sandwich guy pointed down the hall to a sign that read, “Employee Bathrooms.” “That way. Don’t wander around without a badge.”

  With an apologetic thanks, we took off.

  Skylar, Breeze, and Jaxon were waiting at the elevators. I remained silent for the ride down to the lobby.

  Breeze resumed her narrative from the self-tour of the building’s features. Skylar responded. I could see Shim keeping a worried eye on me.

  ∞

  “GWALD sloow glood!” Skylar had his mouth full of an Indian curry wrap and was taunting Jaxon who had turned his nose up at the truck.

  After our escape from the labyrinth of the Federal Building, we had circled the block, stopping to regroup at United Nations Plaza. Several groups of protesters holding banners and shouting slogans took up one end of the plaza. In the middle, Off the Grid food trucks circled like an old wagon train around clusters of office workers eating their lunches while they baked in the sun on rickety white folding chairs. Shadowing the plaza was the hulking mesh building we had been in earlier.

  Slowly, the heat ate at the white fog in my mind until it just resided at the edges of my vision. I was dying to ask Shim if he had found out anymore, but I was loath to break the spell that fused this moment to the earlier moment—the moment when I still held hope Mom had left us and could come back at any time.

  “Why are we sitting here in these crappy chairs under the sun instead of over there in the grass under the trees?” Skylar asked. The invasion of the food trucks and office workers had pushed the plaza’s regular residents into the edges.

  “Since we arrived, I’ve seen three drug deals over there,” Jaxon muttered under his breath.

  Wide-eyed, Skylar and Breeze mouthed “oh” and continued to shovel in food.

  “Aren’t you eating?” Breeze’s voice sounded faint as if I was hearing her underwater. I looked down at the food in my hand. I had tried to eat a fry when we first sat down, but it had tasted like wood chips. When I swallowed, my throat seized, a lump blocking the path, and fearing it would involuntarily go the other way, I had made the choice to spit it out. My mind was still churning through the white static, numbed. I wasn’t aware of my arms and legs moving or brain processing. I’d felt the same once before when they told me about my mother’s accident—only now I knew it hadn’t been an accident. Sources, I’d been so angry at her for leaving, for not sticking. But now I felt like I was the one that had given up on her.

  “Grace.” I registered Shim’s tentative touch on my shoulder. “Hold on. We will get somewhere soon where you can let it all out.” He grabbed up his boxed lunch. “Guys, come on. Let’s try and find a little privacy.” I saw the others wrap up their remaining lunch and follow along. Walking deeper into the park, away from the Federal Building and toward City Hall, we settled on an open bench along the plaza.

  Shim told the others everything we had found in our search of the Federal government computers, including what his last search on the word “helios” had found—which was nothing. Well, not nothing. It had come up with a security block and a request to reenter username and password. Then denied him access.

  I perked up. Surely, if the government had a name for them, Helios or whatever, then they had more information. But if it required a higher level of security, then it couldn’t be good.

  Somewhere in the middle of the recitation, I had handed over the pages from my back pocket. When they started a discussion over who Tar Xanon and the unknown fourteen-year-old male had been, I stood up. I couldn’t sit still anymore.

  “At least we know they are all together, somewhere,” Breeze said, her tone consoling.

  “I don’t understand why they didn’t know their birthplace. I guess I never realized that even I don’t know where Dad was born. Do you?” Skylar asked Breeze. She shook her head.

  “Yeah, that is weird. Shim, did Kindle ever tell you where she was born?” Jaxon looked at his brother.

  “No, Grace and I noticed that and”—he pointed down at the papers—“this is the second search. Micah and Trystal also had birthplace listed as unknown, but their kids, Jada and Gemma, have Earth listed. Who says that?” His voice rose with incredulity.

  Then there was the third search.

  “Grace.” Shim looked up from the page. “Did you want to talk about this?”

  “Nothing to talk about.” I jumped up, walking ten steps up, then back. Repeat. “They were right all those years ago. I was wrong.” The words seem to scream off the page. Captured. Terminated.

  “What do you mean?” Breeze asked. With a quick nod of permission to Shim, I turned away while he explained I had never believed my mom had been killed in the diving accident and had just learned I was wrong. All those years, I had been blaming her for leaving…

  I felt hysteria bubbling up, and I wanted to let loose with a yell to rival the protestors on the other side of the plaza. No…I didn’t want to scream. I wanted to punch something. Oh, what I would give to be in one of Waters’ dirty fighting classes and get to whale on something. Just hit and hit until it crushed under me. In the back of my mind, the aggression frightened me, but I was too wound up to care.

  “You said ‘Helo-krat-something’ before, but I don’t know what that is. Do you?” Breeze looked at the others who all shook their heads. Shim muttered something, and I strained to hear.

  Seeing my face, Shim cleared his throat and, looking uncomfortable, mumbled, “Helios Kratos were Greek gods of
sun and war.”

  “You speak Greek?” The twin’s gaped at him.

  Sheepishly, Shim ducked his head. “No, I just remember reading it somewhere.”

  “Nerd.” Jaxon made a scoffing noise, but the corner of his mouth turned up, gentling his face as he said it.

  My mind settled into a white-hot anger. Resolve burned in me, rushing out, taking over. “We have to find out more. We need to do everything we can to find out what the ‘helios’ in those reports is.” Or die trying.

  Chapter 13

  Waters’ Story

  Arriving back at Waters’ Victorian burnout, I was ready to hand over our ill-gotten gains and get out of there. I was tired of games.

  The others did not share my view.

  With a congratulatory chant of “Pomp and Circumstance” that carried a hip-hop rhythm and a lot of foot stamping and clapping, Waters presided over our unofficial graduation—which consisted of a sly wink and a slap on the back for each of us.

  I thought Waters would want to know what we had learned about our parents today, but he brushed it aside, said he didn’t need or want to know—in fact, the less he knew about it, the better. He was, however, very interested in the username and password we had acquired. We had decided it was too risky to take the coin, so we left it. Hopefully, the Mountain of Man would think the password that Shim now had in his hand had fallen off.

  Shim was about to hand the password over to Waters when he paused. He pulled back his hand and tucked the paper back into his pocket. “After you give us the information we want,” Shim told Waters.

  “Then I guess y’all will be buy’n me some dinner, as this story takes a bit to digest.”

  We placed an order at Waters’ favorite nearby takeout. The brothers went and picked it up. Breeze and Skylar wanted to make an occasion out of graduation dinner. I went through the motions of helping them out, but my head wasn’t in it. In the wake of the emotional tsunami, my brain had spun to exhaustion in a what-ifs teacup ride, and now I wanted to curl up and sleep for a week. Instead, I trudged along behind the party planners as they “Martha-upped” Waters’ kitchen.

  The twins took an old door and spread it across a couple of buckets, then pulled in all the remnant chairs from the house to finish off the shabby-chic dining room set. Add in a couple of cans with candles in them and an old painter’s tarp for a tablecloth, and I had to admit, it looked good.

  Waters sat back in his chair in the kitchen, watching us while we worked. As loath as I was to emerge from my furious funk, they made dinner fun.

  After dinner, the atmosphere changed. Waters pushed out from the table, leaning back in his chair as he got comfortable, thoughtfully chewing on the toothpick between his teeth.

  Eventually, we noticed the change in his demeanor and quieted. Waited. After a couple of minutes of silence, Waters launched into his story.

  “Your parents came to me through a mutual acquaintance—his name’s Lincoln. We were in the army together a lifetime ago. Survived the jungle. You’re young and don’t know what war’s like. It changes you. Many of us…well, we never really came home.” He paused. He had a faraway look in his eyes, and his voice was thick, like his story came from a wild place inside him, a deep place that didn’t see much light. After a while, he continued, “People get real uncomfortable to be around. Family expecting things you just can’t give anymore. Sometimes, you get lost. Sometimes, it’s better to…disappear. Lincoln, he was a true friend. He had it rough, and his own demons to fight, but he always kept tabs on me, and he never let me disappear.” Waters looked down at the toothpick he had been working on. “So, when he sent y’alls parents to me, he said two things: they needed help, and they had saved his life.” Water shook his head. “That’s all I needed to know. I helped.”

  I was caught up in the story, and it took me a minute to shake out of the spell his voice had woven. “Did he ever tell you how he met them or how they saved his life?”

  “Nope. Didn’t know where they came from or where they was going. Didn’t need to know. I set them up with some good learning, the same ways I set you up.” He hesitated.

  Shim latched on to that and asked, “But?”

  “I learned some things about them while they was here.”

  We sat up in our chairs, full attention on Waters. He nodded to the five of us. “You all know about modern things. You’re like them typical teenagers: drama, drama, drama, and lots a dumbness.” I suppose we should have been insulted, but we’d grown accustomed to Waters telling us we didn’t know jack. He continued, “But your folks weren’t nothin’ like that. They were truly clueless. They were like refugees, misfits. Smart kids, but they knew nothing about the world. And so very homesick, almost broken.

  “They weren’t family, but they were thick, and they took care of each other as if their lives depended on it.” He nodded. “That’s what it was—like something had happen’d and they knew their lives were at stake.” He shook his head at us, his gaze serious. “You, you’re just playing. I mean, you’re scared, but you ain’t nearly scared enough yet for what you’ve got ahead. You really want to find your folks, then you need to get a lot more scared and a lot more smarts.”

  A chill went through me at his words.

  It was the most Waters had ever spoken to us—well, the most that wasn’t related to B&E—and he had never said this much about our parents before. He kept his time with them shrouded in mystery. We had asked him questions, but he was always evasive, acting like he wasn’t sure we were ready to hear the truth.

  And he was right.

  I was coming to realize—to know—our parents weren’t who we had grown up believing them to be. They hadn’t just met in a foster home and become friends; they had lived a hard life on the streets, and they had been afraid and had to make difficult choices. How did you prepare yourself for this kind of truth? We needed to know more.

  “Do you know who was after them?” Shim asked.

  Waters shook his head.

  “Please…I want to understand. Can you tell me more about what my mom…” I stumbled through the words, choking on them. Remembering that each piece we learned was part of a larger puzzle, I added, “…what all our parents were like back then?”

  Waters hesitated. Was it loyalty to our parents or his inability to give anything away for free that was holding him back?

  Shim pulled the slip of paper out of his pocket and waved it in front of Waters. “It’s part of the deal,” he reminded him.

  Waters’ face hardened. His black eyes drilled into Shim. “All right, I’ll tell you a little something about them and then answer one question from each from ya,” he said grudgingly.

  “How do we know you won’t lie?” Jaxon asked.

  Anger flared in Waters’ eyes. “You don’t.” His harsh retort was a reminder this man was very dangerous. Just because our parents had sent us to him didn’t mean he could be trusted.

  “Deal,” I quickly interrupted the harsh response Jaxon was poised to deliver. Shim gave Jaxon a glare that said if he didn’t shut his mouth, Shim would shut it for him.

  Mollified, Waters looked at me as he started. “They was a funny-looking group. Called themselves family, like they were all born together, but you got them two older Indian kids, a golden boy, a pretty young Black girl, and your momma, about the palest white girl I’d ever seen with that odd green hair—just like yours.” He laughed. “A real kaleidoscope of a family.” He paused, searching for the words. “They were all still getting to know each other, like they’d only met a little while back.” Waters eyes turned soft as he remembered. “Micah was in charge, and he took their safety real serious. That boy was green. They’d been running for months, and he’d learned a little, but you could tell he had lived a privileged life, all book smarts, but didn’t know a thing about how to survive on the streets.”

  “He was closest
to Trystal. He would talk to her and confide in her.” Waters gave a fake shiver. “Cold girl, but she was always there for him. Got to say, after she left, never saw her again. All the rest would come and visit, stop and say ‘hello,’ drop stuff off, but not Trystal. She had moved on.”

  I shifted impatiently. I didn’t know who these people were, and while the context was interesting, I was impatient for him to get to the important people. Waters shifted his gaze to Breeze and Skylar.

  “Now your papa, Arie, he was one of them kids everyone was just drawn to. Nice-looking boy, more confidence and charm than was good for him. Girls loved him. He was what they call a ‘well-bred’ type, but he never looking down his nose at a body. All these years later, he still comes by and checks in, seeing if I need anything. Real class act. He was kinda Micah’s unofficial lieutenant. A problem-solver. And oh, boy, did Micah need him, ‘cause I ain’t never seen so much trouble as your Momma.” He turned and looked at Shim and Jaxon.

  “Kindle was well named, ‘cause she started more fires than a loose cigarette in a dry grass. She just couldn’t help herself. If someone said the sky was blue, she would argue it was red, just for the sake of arguing. She fought it, but she was a pretty girl with an ugly temper. She was clever and a survivor. Of all of them, she the one coulda made it on her own. But she stuck with them.”

  Shim shifted, looking uncomfortable with Waters’ description, and Jaxon looked ready to tear into the old man, and that wouldn’t get us anywhere. Waters was watching Shim and Jaxon, reading their reactions.

  “Yep.” He eyed Jaxon. “You got that same fire in your belly, but you’re not as likable.” He laughed fondly at a memory. “We was talking about it when she was here last summer.”

  The brothers both leaned back, surprised, and the anger in Jaxon’s face diffused. I thought the brothers lived in Las Vegas. That was a long way for Kindle to come to visit.

  “And you”—he turned his attention to Shim, studying him for a minute—“you look like your father.” Shim’s brows screwed up like he had eaten something that made him sick. He started to break into Waters’ monologue.