Inheritance

CHAPTER 19

On Sunday afternoon, Reese’s mom drove her to UCSF Medical Center to meet David and his dad. It was a very different experience from the exam she had received against her will at Blue Base. It took all of ten minutes. She didn’t have to get undressed, and her mom stayed in the exam room with her. There was a poster of the circulatory system on the wall, like something out of a biology classroom. A nurse in blue scrubs came in to take her blood and swab the inside of her cheek with a Q-tip. She was accompanied by a gray-haired doctor who introduced himself as Dr. Alan Nadler.

“How long will it take to sequence our DNA?” Reese asked after her blood was drawn.

“Not long,” Dr. Nadler answered. “It can be done in a matter of hours these days, but we’ll need more time to analyze it and compare it with normal human DNA. We’re hoping to work fast, but we’re still in the process of assembling our team and we want to make sure nothing is contaminated. We hope to have preliminary results in a couple of weeks.” As the nurse finished up, Dr. Nadler took the samples from her and placed them in a locked case. “I’ll be overseeing the process from my office here at UCSF.” He removed a card from his pocket and handed it to Reese’s mom. “You can contact me if you have any questions.”

Later that night, Reese was sitting on the couch with her laptop, reading an article about the Imria—“Vatican Believes Imria Are Children of God”—when the landline rang in the kitchen. She heard footsteps, and then her mom’s muffled voice answered the phone. Reese scrolled through the story; the pope had declared that Akiya Deyir’s statements about the miraculous resemblance between humans and Imria proved that God’s hand was at work. During Sunday mass in Rome earlier in the day, the pope had said, “God is great, and there can be no greater proof of this than the fact that He has created another people also in His image.”

“Reese, do you know where Julian is?” her mom asked.

Reese looked up. Her mom was standing in the archway to the living room, phone in hand. “No,” Reese said. “Why?”

Her mom put the phone back to her ear. “She doesn’t know, Celeste.”

“What happened?” Reese asked.

“Julian’s late,” her mom said.

Reese glanced at the time on her laptop. It was almost ten thirty. She hadn’t talked to Julian since school on Friday, and even then it had been only perfunctory. They still hadn’t made up from the fight they’d had earlier in the week. She had no idea where Julian could be on a Sunday night. “It’s still early,” Reese said, but her mom wasn’t paying attention.

“Why don’t you give him another hour or so,” she said into the phone. “It’s not the first time he’s been late.” A pause, and a worried expression crossed Cat’s face. “I know. But there are police everywhere these days—and those soldiers. I’m sure if he ran into any trouble with the protesters, you’d know by now.”

Reese closed the laptop and went to the windows, peeking through the curtains at the street below. She saw the sedan where her government agents were sitting across the street, but otherwise the block was quiet. Every once in a while protesters or tourists still swung by her house to snap photos, but the primary demonstrations took place across from Kennedy High School and at Fisherman’s Wharf. The rest of the city was crawling with cops and the National Guard.

“Call me when you hear from him,” Cat said. “I want to know as soon as you know. Bye.” The phone beeped as the call ended. “Honey, are you sure you don’t know where Julian is? He didn’t tell you anything?”

“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.

“Are you saying you’ve never tried it?” Mr. Hernandez asked.

What are you trying to do? David asked Reese. They’re not going to believe that we don’t know this.

If we tell him, he’ll obviously tell CASS and they’ll want to use us to read other people’s thoughts.

We have to focus on misleading him in one direction only. You can’t throw this in too. Besides, we would know this.

Fine, she thought grumpily. Mr. Hernandez was beginning to look suspicious at their long silence. Go ahead.

“I’ve done it,” David said. “It was by accident. My mom, she—she’s my mom. She hugs me. I could sense her feelings, sure, but I didn’t really know what was going on. It was pretty confusing.”

“Did your mom know you were sensing her feelings?” Mr. Hernandez asked.

“No. Humans can’t—humans who aren’t adapted can’t sense that,” David asked.

Reese could practically see the gears in Mr. Hernandez’s brain turning as he thought about how to use their abilities for the benefit of CASS.

“You need to find out more about that,” he said. “Next week at your lesson, ask about it.”

There was a knock on the door before Jennifer Sims, the assistant principal, opened it and poked her head inside. “Alex? I’m sorry to interrupt—”

Mr. Hernandez stood up, swiftly pocketing the recording device. “That’s all right. What can I do for you?”

“Can I speak to you?” Ms. Sims asked, glancing curiously at Reese and David.

“Sure, but just for a minute. I’m in the middle of a meeting.”

“I have to get to soccer practice,” David said.

“I’ll be right back,” Mr. Hernandez said. “We still have to talk about your missed assignments from last semester.”

With that, he left, following Ms. Sims into the hallway. The door closed with a click, and David muttered, “This is taking too long. My coach is gonna kill me.”

Reese slid out of her chair and ran to Mr. Hernandez’s desk. “Watch the door,” she said.

“What are you doing?” David said in alarm.

At the desk, she grabbed Mr. Hernandez’s briefcase. “The door,” she said again. “Keep an eye on the window.”

There was a narrow rectangular window set in the door to the classroom, and she could see half of the back of Mr. Hernandez’s head. She knew she was taking a risk but she wanted to get something on him—anything—that could prove who he was. She rifled through the briefcase, finding only lecture notes and class seating charts.

“Hurry,” David said, moving toward the front of the room so he could see the window more clearly. “I don’t think he’s going to take long.”

She unzipped the inner pocket of the briefcase and found a set of keys on a San Francisco trolley keychain, a flash drive, and a tablet computer. She pressed the power button but was immediately confronted with a password screen. She put it back, frustrated. Mr. Hernandez didn’t even have a wallet in there. She pulled the sides of the briefcase apart, scrutinizing it for any other inner pockets she hadn’t seen. Next to the loops that held a few pens she found a plastic compartment made to hold business cards. She tugged out a few pieces of paper. There was a dry-cleaning receipt from a year ago, a card for an Italian restaurant in Washington, DC, and a folded piece of paper.

“I think they’re wrapping up,” David said, urgency in his voice. “She’s giving him something. You’d better stop.”

Heart racing, she unfolded the paper. It was a sticker about the size of a HELLO, MY NAME IS badge, except this was a temporary ID. Under a black-and-white photo of Mr. Hernandez was the name Andrew Vargas. There was a seal to the right of the photo, and beneath the seal it said WHITE HOUSE VISITOR PASS, VALID 1/10/13 ONLY.

“He’s coming back,” David warned her.

She shoved the ID, the receipt, and the business card into her pocket and made sure the briefcase was standing upright in roughly the same spot, then raced back to her desk. David barely made it to his seat in time. The instant he sat down, the door opened and Mr. Hernandez came inside. He looked irritated as he pulled out the recorder again.

“Where were we? Next weekend, you’re going to ask your Imrian teacher about using your adaptation with humans.”

Reese tried not to breathe too rapidly. The pieces of paper in her pocket felt like giant rocks.

Mr. Hernandez gave her a suspicious look. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” she said quickly. “I—we’ll ask.”

“I really have to get to soccer practice,” David said. “Is there anything else?”

Mr. Hernandez went over to his desk and opened the briefcase. Reese held her breath, but he didn’t seem to notice anything amiss. He returned with the small plastic device that Reese had thought was a USB drive. He placed it squarely on David’s desk. “This is a camera.” He pointed to a tiny button on the side of the device. “Here’s the shutter.” Then he showed them a clear bump on the tip that looked like a miniature bulb. “That’s the lens. Just point and click, and make sure you’re a couple of feet away from what you’re photographing. We have reason to believe that the Imria have an adaptation chamber on board their ship. They’ve released several reports about the science involved in the adaptation procedure, but there are holes in the research. They’re not revealing everything. One of the major gaps is the way the adaptation chamber actually works. Your job is to find the adaptation chamber and photograph it from as many angles as you can. Then you’ll bring this camera back to me and my team will look at the photos and determine whether you need to take additional shots.”

David fingered the camera. “But we don’t know where the adaptation chamber is.”

“It’s your job to find out,” Mr. Hernandez said.

Reese stared at their fake teacher. “How are we supposed to do that?”

“I suggest you start by asking them.” He leaned on the edge of the desk nearby. “You’re their first successfully adapted subjects. You have more right than anyone to view the place where you were adapted.”

“You think the adaptation chambers where they adapted us are in the ship?” she asked, surprised.

He nodded. “There’s no other place they would be.”

She swallowed. David looked unnerved. If that was true, they had spent a lot more time in that ship than they remembered, and that disturbed her. Had Eres Tilhar visited them while they were unconscious? Had Amber?

“The General Debate of the United Nations begins on September fifteenth, exactly three weeks from today,” Mr. Hernandez said. “I’ll expect you to find the adaptation chamber and bring me those photos before then.”