“You, my friend, are right,” he says, “I have a proposal.”
She narrows her eyes. “What kind of proposal?”
“The kind that will blow your socks off.”
“I don’t want my socks blown off.”
“Hear me out.”
She sits on the chair next to the table. He takes the spot opposite hers.
“Okay, speak,” she says,
“I want you to try Absinthe.”
“What!” Aris stands up, almost knocking the chair over.
“It will be a one-time deal.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because I’m going to make a deal with you. In exchange for you trying Absinthe, just one teensy time, I promise to stop wanting to make my old lover remember.”
Aris is taken aback. Benja is obsessed with the man in the white hat. He is the one he wants to take Absinthe. Not her. Suspicion rises.
“Why would you want to do that?” she asks.
“I know you’ve been worried about me.”
“That’s an understatement.”
“I know I haven’t been a good friend to you, and I’m sorry. So I’ve been thinking about it. We only have three months left. Even if I can get him back, it won’t be permanent. I’d gladly trade it for your chance to experience what I did. I can’t describe what it does to me, Aris. I just had another dream. I saw life in the last cycle. Or maybe even more than one. It’s so much more than a dream. It’s reality. An enlightenment. I want you so badly to see as I do.”
Benja’s proposal sounds almost logical—or as logical as he is capable of being. Should she consider it? A chance to see the past is intriguing—if it works. If it does not, then she will at least have factual experience to support her argument against the drug.
But what about the craziness?
There is no way she will end up like Benja, she knows. She is too practical to waste her time on pointless endeavors.
A thought comes to her. Maybe she can buy some time. If Benja has some distance from his obsession, perhaps he will get over wanting to convince his old lover, or whoever that man is, to remember.
“Really? You want me to see it that much?” she asks.
Benja nods. “I love you, Aris. Don’t freak out. It’s not in the romantic way that grosses you out.”
He takes her hand, and she feels the smooth hardness of glass pressing against her palm. She opens it and sees a vial filled with green liquid.
“How did you get it?” she asks.
“I have my ways.”
Aris sighs. “I’ll think about it. Meanwhile, be good. Okay?”
Metis’s fingers glide across the keys of the piano with the quickness of a rabbit running from a fox. He is being hunted by his own thoughts and memories. If he does not run, he will be caught and shredded to bits by sharp teeth and claws.
Aris’s face rises and falls in his mind. He had given up a small supply of Absinthe together with a vial Benja promised to convince Aris to take. If Benja is successful . . . He does not even want to think about it. He feels both hopeful and guilty.
He hears a knock on the door.
Aris?
His heart does a flip, and he jumps up from his seat.
He goes to the door and opens it. There is no one there. On the floor is a piece of blank paper. He pokes his head outside and looks side to side. The street of his neighborhood is still and quiet.
He picks up the paper and closes the door. In the kitchen he finds a match, and with practiced hands, he lights it and holds it under the paper. The heat from the fire burns the words, revealing them: “B @ IC.”
His heart falls to the cavity of his stomach. Many months ago, he held a similar message in his hand, but it was regarding Bodie.
His thoughts immediately go to Aris. Does she know?
Aris runs until her lungs are filled with acid. Her sides feel as if stabbed by knives. The lone white structure of the Interpreter Center stands before her, surrounded by the peacefulness of the trees and expansive lawn.
The grass under her is soggy. Her feet make squishing sounds at each contact with the earth. The cold air smells sweet, with a bit of musk from decomposed leaves and wet earth. The snow is melting.
Please let me get there in time. Please let me get there in time. Please . . .
Her conversation with Officer Scylla runs in a loop in her mind.
“I arrested him last night,” said Officer Scylla. “He broke into the same house he was found in previously and threatened to harm one of the men. His partner knocked Benja unconscious before I got there.”
“What happened to him?”
“Soon after I took him to the station, the Interpreter showed up. She told me that Benja has been under her care. And she needed to take him back for more treatments. You may pick him up there.”
Promise me you won’t let them take my dreams, Benja’s voice comes to her. She quickens her pace. She hopes she is not too late.
She knows what the Interpreter said is a lie. There is no way Benja has been in her care. He would never go voluntarily into the place he abhors. He was enamored of his dreams. So much so that he wanted her to have them too.
She arrives in front of the Interpreter Center, gulping in air, trying to catch her breath. Even though she is dripping sweat, she feels cold.
The voice of an AI speaks, “Please identify yourself and the reason you are here.”
“My—my name is Aris. I’m here to see—see my friend, Benja.”
The wide door opens, and the white interior of the center greets her. In the middle of the vast room is a woman with pale skin and blond hair. Apollina. Her face is as expressionless as the wall behind her. She fits the description Thane gave Aris months ago, except back then she took it with humor. In real life, Apollina’s unsympathetic face
