Inheritance

“No,” Reese said. It wasn’t strange for Julian to be out somewhere, but it was strange for his mom to be worried about it. That meant Julian probably wasn’t answering his phone. Reese went back to the couch and opened her laptop again. The screen still showed the article about the Vatican. As her mom went back to the kitchen, Reese pulled her own phone out of her pocket. She sent Julian a message: Where are you? Your mom called my mom to find out.

While she waited for him to text her back, she opened a new tab in her browser and searched for Corporation for American Security and Sovereignty. She had looked it up after the meeting with Charles Lovick and had found nothing, but she wanted to try again. This time she focused her search on blogs, real-time feeds, and the news. Still nothing. As a last-ditch effort, she went to the Bin 42 forums and searched for CASS there. Several posts were returned that used the words corporation, security, or sovereignty, but not all at once. The closest thing she could find was a theory about something called the Majestic 12, which was a committee of twelve men supposedly formed during the Truman Administration to investigate the crash at Roswell. Unfortunately, the follow-up comments revealed that the alleged government documents that proved the existence of the Majestic 12 were now believed to be a hoax.

She closed the screen and picked up her phone again, but Julian still hadn’t responded to her text.

* * *

The phone rang again after midnight. Reese had gone to bed by then, but she couldn’t fall asleep. She was concocting all sorts of terrifying scenarios about Julian being picked up by CASS, or getting in trouble by challenging the anti-Imria protesters. The sound of the phone made her sit straight up. She heard a door open downstairs—her dad, probably, coming out of the guest room—and then the door across the hall as her mom ran down to the kitchen. Reese threw off her blankets and followed.

By the time she got downstairs her mom was on the phone already, a shocked expression on her face. Reese’s dad was leaning against the door frame to the guest room, his arms crossed.

“But how did he get there?” her mom asked. “It’s not exactly easily accessible.” There was a pause, and Cat pushed her curly hair out of her eyes. “I’m glad he’s all right. Thanks for letting me know. Do you want me to come with you tomorrow?” She rummaged in the junk drawer and pulled out a notepad and pen. “Yeah. Eight AM. I’ll tell work I’ll be in late.”

Reese crossed the kitchen, leaning over the counter to read the note her mom had scribbled down. It read 9 AM Fish Wharf. Reese’s gaze snapped to her mom, who was watching her and had one finger raised. Wait, she mouthed.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” her mom said, and hung up.

“What’s going on?” Reese asked.

“Julian went to Angel Island.”

“Angel Island?” Of course. He must have tried to volunteer for the adaptation procedure. “But how? It’s not like there’s a regular ferry service.”

Her mom shook her head, replacing the phone in its base. “Celeste wasn’t sure, but I think Julian hired someone. They’re sending a ferry first thing in the morning, and I’m going with Celeste to pick him up and talk to Dr. Brand.”

Reese’s dad went over to her mom and rubbed a hand over her back. Reese tried not to stare. “I’m glad he’s all right,” he said.

“Yes, he’s all right,” her mom said. “But he’s about to be grounded for the rest of his life.”

* * *

Julian obviously was not at school on Monday morning. Reese’s mom had asked her not to tell anyone where he was, so when her friends wondered aloud about his absence, she didn’t say a thing. It helped that they all knew she and Julian were fighting, so they didn’t push her. When she saw David at lunch, though, she told him silently about Julian’s Sunday night trip to Angel Island.

I’m going over to his house right after school, she thought to David. He should be home by then. I have to find out what the hell he was thinking.

David took a bite of his turkey sandwich. You can’t go right after school. We have to meet with Hernandez. I saw him earlier and he told me he wants us to report in today.

She mixed up the rice and beans on her cafeteria plate. What about soccer practice? Don’t you have that?

Yeah, but he didn’t seem to care. We’ll just have to make it fast.

Principles of Democracy was the last period of the day. She and David had planned what they would say, but who knew if Mr. Hernandez would buy it? During class, she fidgeted in her seat, her right leg bouncing up and down as she watched Mr. Hernandez drone on about the Bill of Rights. Behind him, Mr. Chapman’s posters depicting the Constitution and the branches of government still hung on the wall above the whiteboard. Mr. Hernandez hadn’t bothered to change much about the room, although Mr. Chapman’s personal photos had been removed. Reese kept waiting for Mr. Hernandez to slip up during class, but so far he had managed to bluff his way through the lectures pretty well. Maybe CASS had hired someone to draft a bunch of lesson plans for him.

At the end of class he walked down the aisles, returning their essays on the First Amendment. As he dropped Reese’s paper on her desk, he leaned over her and said in a low voice, “I’ll see you after class.”

She glanced at her essay. He had given her a C, writing, “Interesting argument, but unsubstantiated,” in red pen. She had argued that the protesters across the street were allowed to voice their opinions because the government needed to give the public a place to vent their complaints, even if the government had no intention of bowing to demands for disclosure or anything else. “The First Amendment,” she concluded, “can thus also be used as a smoke screen behind which real dissent is ignored or even silenced.”

She fumed over the grade. Mr. Chapman would have given her a better one. It was a well-thought-out essay, and she was sure that the only reason she had gotten a C was because Mr. Hernandez didn’t like her thesis. When the bell rang she took her time putting her stuff away, waiting until the room was mostly cleared. David, who sat a couple of rows away from her, turned to look at her. “What’d you get?” he asked.

She moved into the seat next to David. “C.”

He shook his head, a tiny smile on his face. “I told you you should have written something else.”

I’m not changing my opinions just because our teacher is a fake, she retorted silently. She watched Mr. Hernandez slide his papers into his leather briefcase, which was resting on top of his desk in the corner of the room. When the last student departed, Mr. Hernandez went to the door and pushed it shut before turning to Reese and David.

“All right, let’s get started.” He turned a nearby desk around to face them and sat down. Then he pulled a digital recorder from his pocket and flicked it on. “Tell me what happened on Saturday.”

David began to relate their story, and as Reese listened, she saw Mr. Hernandez’s expression change from bland indifference to skepticism. She realized that David’s explanation of susum’urda sounded strange, but the whole thing was strange. It was difficult to convey the quality of intimacy they had felt when Eres Tilhar touched them.

“Can you read the teacher’s thoughts when she touches you?” Mr. Hernandez asked.

“She guided us,” Reese said. “We only saw what she wanted us to see.”

“So if someone were touching you, could you also do the same? Could you make them believe something about you that’s false?”

“No,” Reese said. “You can’t lie. And the other person would know you were lying.”

“How?”

She tried to explain what Eres had said about the body’s physical actions in response to an emotion, but either Mr. Hernandez wasn’t getting it or she was doing a poor job of explaining.

“This ability to share consciousness—other than you two, it only works among the Imria, right?” Mr. Hernandez asked.

“Yes,” David said.

“So if you were to touch a human being, would you be able to sense their consciousness? Their thoughts?”

The question raised red flags for Reese. “Do you want us to test it out on you?” she said before David could speak.