I struggle. But at some level I almost think I deserve to be shoved into the tank. I’ve been an idiot. I’ve screwed up everything.
I’m the son of monsters, and I almost destroyed Terra Spiker who… even now, even as they drag me away, I can’t quite wrap my head around it… Terra Spiker, who wasn’t the worst person in the world.
– 42 –
The rest of the trip is, shall we say, awkward.
I, the creator, sit by myself while my creation talks shyly with Aislin, and Aislin talks shyly with him.
I, the smart one, am feeling pretty stupid.
I’m thinking about my mother—soon to be in a federal prison. I’m thinking about the vengeful guy who dictated that fate. I’m thinking that Adam is superior to Solo in every possible way.
And I’m wishing Solo was with me.
The bus lets us out a mile from the Spiker campus. We trudge along together for a while down the steep, curving two-lane road, dodging aside to avoid being run over by the occasional BMW.
Aislin and Adam walk together. It just seems natural for me to get out in front a little.
A Porsche comes tearing around a blind corner and nearly hits Adam.
I see the driver’s face. His mouth is a big O. His eyes are wide.
The brakes screech. The car stops a couple hundred yards away. The backup lights glow and the car swerves back toward us.
It stops. The window rolls down. There’s a bland, vaguely familiar, middle-aged man behind the wheel. Complete mismatch between the driver and the car.
“It’s him!” the man cries.
He’s looking at Adam.
“Who are you?” I ask.
“Sullivan. From accounting. I—” He’s confused, clutching the wheel like Wile E. Coyote holding on to his latest rocket sled. “You better look out,” he says at last. “They’re crazy. They’re really crazy.”
“Who’s crazy?”
“All of them.” He spits the words out. “All those scientists. They’re all nuts!”
“What’s happening?” I demand. I put my hands on the door, trying to convince him not to bolt. But he rears back, scared.
“I have no part in this!” he cries. “I just moved the money around. I’m not putting people in vats or, or, whatever they’re planning to do.”
He puts the car into gear and, with a final terrified look, goes tearing off down the road.
“We need to hurry,” I say. “You two go as fast as you can. I’ll run the rest of the way.”
“I can run,” Adam says. Of course he can run. He has amazing legs, incredible stamina, maximized lungs, all the things I gave him.
“Yeah, but Aislin doesn’t so much run as trip and stagger,” I point out.
Aislin makes a face that says
“Adam, take care of Aislin.” I head off.
It’s the first time I’ve run since the accident. I wasn’t sure I’d ever do it again. My muscles are out of practice, but to my surprise, my breathing is smooth and easy. I wish I were in shorts, not jeans, but it still feels good. More than good.
I reach Paradise Drive and leave the cross streets and houses behind me. There’s a bend in the road, with trees on one side and open hillside on the other.
Right, left, right, left. I’m in high gear now. The familiar rhythm lulls me.
Up ahead on my right is the shattered stump of a big pine tree. The small hairs on the back of my neck rise.
The stump is weathered and gray, mangled. The damage happened long ago.
Six years ago, in fact.
I know this place. I forced myself to come here once, when I was about thirteen. I touched the sharp edges of the wood. It was still clinging to life, but I knew it was dying.
Once was enough.
Now, on foot, it’s unavoidable. My throat closes up and my easy breathing is a memory.
This is the place where my father died. This tree is the one his car hit when he went off the road. That drop is the slope his car plunged down.
I want to keep running, but my legs aren’t having it. I slow to a walk. I stop altogether.
I bend over, hugging myself, and I sob.
No time. No time.
I gulp some air and start running again, faster than before, my legs pistoning.
From the road you can’t really see the main Spiker building, just the top floor. I can’t run down the steep driveway. I have to walk in giant going-downhill steps, fighting gravity.
I near the entrance to the underground garage. My mother’s gleaming white Mercedes convertible is in her designated space. She’s never put the top down.
I glance back, wondering how far behind me Adam and Aislin are. I’m scared. I’ve rushed in here like I have a plan.
For the first time in my life, I wish I had some kind of weapon.
I survey the garage for something weapony. My mind’s racing with made-up dialogue.
There’s a fire extinguisher near the entrance. I take it from the hook. It’s surprisingly heavy. How do they expect people to use these things? But I find the size and weight and general metal-ness of the thing kind of reassuring.
Up the elevator. I have to punch in a code to get to my mother’s office. For some reason, my addled brain actually remembers it.
Even now, scared, tired, and a thousand times more confused than I’ve ever been before in my life, even now, with some disturbing montage of Solo and Adam and Aislin and the gangbanger and the scared Mr. Sullivan from accounting, even with the eerie images from the flash drive, even with all of it swirling like a tornado inside my brain, I have energy left over to feel nervous.
Why? Because I’m going to be interrupting my mother.
My mother does not like to be interrupted.
I approach her office on tiptoe. The door to her outer office, the one inhabited by her assistants, is wide open. The computer screens are blank. The lights are low.
The portal—it’s way too impressive and huge to call a door—leading to Mom’s office is closed. I press my ear against it. I hear the murmur of voices. Not happy voices. Angry voices. Of course, that’s normal enough in Terra Spiker’s office.
My fire extinguisher bangs against a planter and instinctively I say, “Shhh!” But I doubt anyone hears. Not over the sound of yelling.
“Hey!”
I spin on my heels. A man and a woman have come up behind me. The woman is small, dark-skinned, with penetrating eyes and an extremely long braid. The man is sweating. He is large in all dimensions and has on a name tag that reads DR. MARTINEZ.
