THROUGH NEW BEGINNINGS
Chapter 2- Questions
|
I used to think that the day would never come
I'd see delight in the shade of the morning sun
My morning sun is the drug that brings me near
To the childhood I lost, displaced by fear
I used to think that the day would never come
That my life would depend on the morning sun
"True Faith" by New Order
I'd see delight in the shade of the morning sun
My morning sun is the drug that brings me near
To the childhood I lost, displaced by fear
I used to think that the day would never come
That my life would depend on the morning sun
"True Faith" by New Order
A banging on the door stirred Kai from the deepest, most pleasant sleep he'd had in ages.
"Up, up, errybody up!"
That wasn't Adam... that was... the AI? No wait... that was Chris Gage. The real Chris Gage. Kai should've remembered their trip back to earth, but he'd become so used to living on the AARC; waking up in a pod every morning was pretty much second nature. Waking up in a bed again was nice... but it would take some getting used to.
Kai yawned and rolled over onto his back, lying spread-eagle. Too bad he wasn't gonna be allowed to stay in bed for too much longer. He'd fallen asleep before he'd even had the chance to enjoy how cozy it was. Kai's eyes fluttered back shut. Surely Chris wouldn't mind if he took advantage of the next five minutes to---
Chris rammed on the door again. "Get up, kid. Breakfast is waiting."
Bed or breakfast... ever the hard decision. The bed was super comfy, and pleasantly warm. But Kai, far too tired at the time to be hungry, hadn't had dinner the day before. Now that he'd had a good long sleep, his appetite was back with a vengeance. Breathing a sorry sigh, Kai slunk out of bed, and gave the mattress a final, loving stroke as he shuffled to the door.
Breakfast it was.
Chris led the three down to a small, bland cafeteria. The food was laid out like a buffet, in appealing fashion. It wasn't the highest quality, but it didn't look bad at all--- and after eating nothing but synthetic food for two months, it might as well have been gourmet. All three teens were eager to dig into a real breakfast, even Adam. Kai intended to make up for lost Calories, and topped off his plate with as much as he could fit.
He piled on eggs and bacon, sausage and hash browns, and topped it all off with a stack of three pancakes, then dumped syrup all over everything. Kai sat down with fork in hand, eager to demolish the first real breakfast he'd seen in months. He tucked in with gusto, fully intending to finish the entire thing.
But there was a problem.
Five minutes into the meal, Kai was already full. And he was nowhere near finished! Granted, he'd loaded up his plate, but he'd been starving from the moment he'd gotten up. He wasn't alone in his struggle to finish; his friends seemed to have the same problem, their plates barely touched. Adam tried to keep eating, occasionally nibbling on a bit of scrambled egg, but without enthusiasm. At last, he gave up and threw down his fork.
Mira followed suit and pushed her plate away. "Why am I so full already?" she wondered aloud.
"Yeah. It's weird," Kai agreed, setting down his fork. "I'm stuffed. And I'm like... never stuffed."
"That's because synthetic food is lower density than real food."
Startled, the three turned around. Anna Abrams stood over Kai's shoulder, too close for comfort, her hands folded behind her back. "It's perfectly designed for an artigrav environment and quite efficient at sustaining the human body, but eating it over a long period of time will shrink your stomach. You should be back to normal in a few days."
Adam mumbled something under his breath.
Anna's unwelcome hands clasped onto Kai's shoulders, sending an electric shudder down his spine. "Well, if you three are finished with breakfast, we can begin the evaluation. Follow me; I'll show each of you where to go." She squeezed Kai's shoulders and released him.
Left with no other option, the trio stood, pushed in their seats, and followed Anna out of the cafeteria.
They dropped Mira off at Ernie Gage's office, while Adam walked away with a kindly-looking man in a white labcoat. Kai followed Anna at a distance, unwilling to get too close to her. He hated the way her hands felt, and he hated the way she smiled at him. He hated her fake nails and her crimson lips. He couldn't explain why, but if his instincts were as trustworthy as he was beginning to think, there was no chance he felt this way for nothing.
Anna Abrams seated Kai in front of her desk and asked him to be patient for a few minutes while she prepared her questions. Kai's gaze drifted all over the little office while he waited. Much like the AARC, this place felt strangely familiar. But this office hit different. Sitting here in this room, with its sterile grey walls, fluorescent lights, and generic waiting room chairs, felt bizarrely nostalgic. Like he'd been here before in some faded, unclear childhood memory. But it was a dark nostalgia--- a variety that made Kai uneasy. Like those fuzzy, unnerving old pictures of empty playgrounds at night, lit only by a single streetlight or the flashbulb of a film camera.
Anna had decorated her office with books and minimalist paintings. Unlike Ma, who kept photos all over her personal space, this woman had none on display--- certainly none that would confirm her apparent relation to Kai. On her desk sat a silver-grey laptop, a neat stack of folders, a candy dish full of peppermints and dum-dums, and one of those daily calendars. Kai peeked at the date.
December 2, 2048. Talk about coming home for Christmas.
"All right... looks like we're all set." Anna loudly straightened the folder against her desk, then laid it flat. She folded her hands. "But before we get started, I thought we could catch up." She smiled.
Kai's head filled with a swarm of bees. Please no...
"So how's my favorite nephew? Feeling any better this morning?"
Kai shrugged, refusing to meet her eyes. "As good as I can, considering... you know."
"Don't worry about it; you'll get your land legs back." Anna nudged the candy dish toward him. "Would you like a candy?"
Kai shook his head. "N... No thanks." Even if he weren't still full from breakfast, he wasn't about to take candy from this nightmare woman. He didn't want to be here with her. He didn't even want to look at her. But he'd face his fears and answer this survey, if only to prove to himself once again that he was a man and not a scared little boy. "Can we just get to the questions, please?"
Anna sighed. She opened up the folder--- labeled STEVENS, K.--- and clicked a pen. "Well, I was hoping we could set you at ease first; I know how stressful the last couple of days have been." Kai's eye twitched. Days? Try months. "But if you're ready... we will begin." She pushed her glasses up her nose, scrutinizing the paperwork. "State your full name."
"Kairos... Stevens."
"Do you remember your middle name?"
"Uh..." He shook his head. "It wasn't on the system."
"Oh?" Anna sounded intrigued. "What did you remember before you found your name on the system?"
"Just... Kairos."
The woman's brow furrowed in thought. She scribbled down a note, nodding slowly. "Better than last time. You just remembered 'Kai'. Although your last name should have been part of the Engage simulation..."
"Last time?" Kai's brow scrunched.
Anna laughed--- an unnerving chitter. "Oh, Kai... sweetie. Don't tell me you don't remember that either."
He shrugged. "OK then, I won't."
"Do you remember your home?"
Kai nodded. "Yep. Little white house with a red door. My room's downstairs in the basement, and I have all my stuff down there..."
Anna beamed. "Excellent! Excellent. I was getting worried there for a moment. We have made progress."
Kai lifted an eyebrow. "Lemme guess. From last time?"
Anna nodded, peering down at the next question. "And who lives with you at home?"
Kai sighed, sobering. "Ma." He dipped his head. "I'm sure she misses me."
"She does," said Anna, with a sympathetic tone--- but to Kai, her sympathy rang hollow. "And she'll be so happy when she sees you remember her too." She wrote in the folder, smiling.
Kai sat up a little straighter at the thought of finally, after all this time, seeing Ma again. He longed for her smiling face, her warm yet frantic green eyes, her comforting voice--- even her crushing embraces he used to hate so much. "Does she know I'm here?"
"She will."
Kai slumped, burning all the harder with longing. Anna's tone had been terribly dismissive. Didn't she care that her own sister missed her kid? That she probably thought he was gone forever?
"Before we break the good news we want to make sure you're all up to standard. If the three of you are at least 90% restored, we'll be able to send you home tomorrow afternoon. Won't that be nice?"
Kai's eye twitched again. He folded his arms. "Yeah. Nice." His tone dripped with bitterness that Anna didn't seem to register. Her ignorance dug further beneath Kai's skin by the minute, enough to chase away the fear. She was going to hear him out now, whether she wanted to or not. "So nice to go home after being literally abandoned out there for three months. Nobody even came out to check if we were alive. You guys just left us there for dead!"
For a brief moment, barely a second, Anna seemed caught off guard. That fake crimson smile faltered, only to spread back over her face with fuller force. She chittered a laugh. "Kai, sweetie. Our data showed us the entire AARC had been destroyed. We had no idea anyone had survived, much less thrived for as long as you did. It must have been in a sorry state."
"It was," said Kai. He looked her straight in the eye, squaring his shoulders. "I tried my best to fix it up. I kept it running for as long as it did. And I'm the one that fixed the transmitter that got us home." He stood and pointed a finger at her. "When you write your report or whatever, make sure you get that down."
Anna Abrams only smiled, still frustratingly fake. "I'll be sure to make a note."
"Who do you live with at home?"
Mira twirled a lock of hair between her fingers, leaning sideways in her chair. "My mom and dad," she answered.
Ernie Gage smiled, nodding as he wrote. "Very good so far."
Mira sipped her cup of hot cocoa while her eyes floated across that large photo on the man's desk for the fifth time--- of two near-identical brothers, just different enough to not confuse the two. Ernie was a little shorter and a little stockier, and had a much pointier nose, but his other features were nearly indistinguishable from his famous brother's. Ernie's preference for muted sweaters also set him apart; he wore a black one now, highlighted by dark gray stripes. His plum suit jacket, which he'd been wearing before the interview, now lay draped neatly on the back of his chair.
There was something genuine and down-to-earth about their rescuer, something trustworthy. He'd been nothing but kind to her, and had spared no effort making her feel at ease in his office, with the comfy chair and all the familial memorabilia out on display. The tasty cocoa helped too.
"Do you remember your birthday?"
"May 7th, 2032."
"Excellent." He wrote down the date. "Boy. What a year your sweet sixteen has been, huh?"
Mira chuckled joylessly. "It's been a year all right. And I don't even know what all happened. One moment we were at Kai's house, but... digital. The next we were in space, and..." She swallowed the sudden fear that seized her throat. "We had no idea how we got there. None of us can remember a thing."
There was a long, hard pause from Ernie. He inhaled. "We sent you there for your own good," he answered. "I'm not sure what else I can say about it. I'm sorry we didn't come looking for you. It must've been hard not knowing."
"Mr. Gage?"
"Hmm?"
Mira twirled that one lock of hair. "You all clearly know more about this... situation than we do. Can I ask you some questions?"
Another long pause. "You can ask," said Ernie at last. "I might not be able to answer you."
"OK!" Mira sighed. "OK. That simulation in those pods was so... lifelike. Even more than the Hollow. How did you create something like that?"
Ernie half-smiled. "It's a bit complicated to explain."
"Try me. I'm pretty good at complicated." Mira smiled lightly, hoping it would encourage the man to share.
"I suppose so," said Ernie, writing something down. "I've heard you're quite the puzzle solver, Mira."
"I do like a challenge," said Mira.
The corner of Ernie's mouth twisted upward. "I'll keep that in mind." He set down his pencil and aligned it parallel to the edge of the folder. "I'm a straightforward guy myself. Chris has always been the cryptic one in our family."
Perfect, Mira thought. She couldn't have gotten a better person to question. Finally--- plain, simple answers, no strings attached. "OK. So... why were we in those pods to begin with? Was it something to do with our memories?"
"In short, yes."
"And... the system, when Kai finally got to that information... it said we had brain damage? Like... amnesia?"
The man nodded once. "I invented the ENGAGE pods for situations just like yours," said Ernie. "For people suffering... all kinds of things, really. Not just memory loss. Using all this new technology to not only entertain, but to restore something to the mentally ill, to the disabled, something that was lost. HollowCorp was impressed with my ideas and I'm... truly grateful for their resources helping me bring that vision to life. Yet..." He bit his lip.
"Yet... what?"
"I shouldn't say." Ernie sighed, shaking his head. "I admire your curiosity, but..." He shrugged with his hands and clasped them back together. "There are things I'm not supposed to say to the six of you, and I'm not sure how to give you answers without, well... giving you answers. You'd be better off asking Chris; he's better at answering questions without actually answering them."
Mira sighed, slumping back. Helpful.
Ernie sat in silence for a moment. Silence, save for the tapping of his pencil against the desk. Then he yanked open one side drawer and grabbed a sticky note pad. He removed one note and folded it over, sticky side in, then began to write. "So, you say you like a challenge."
Mira sat up. "Yes."
Ernie half-smiled. "Just because I can't tell you, that doesn't mean you can't find that information out for yourself. The key..." He passed her the slip of paper, "is knowing where to look. It's all a matter of finding the right door."
Mira took the paper, expecting directions. Instead, she laid eyes upon a random mix of numbers, symbols and letters. Hexadecimal, perhaps? One thing was for certain: it was some kind of code to crack. She half-smiled back, slipping the note into her pocket. "Thank you."
Ernie acknowledged her understanding with a nod and an admiring smile.