If anything, Nari’s description of the extraordinary mental enhancements brought on by the nanites were understated. And according to the alien leader, the nanites had been busy recording everything I had experienced since they’d been injected five months earlier.
On a whim, I reached back to the warehouse for the words Ming had spoken to his true comrades after incapacitating the Taiwanese commandos. He had spoken Mandarin, but I could still replay each and every word. Not only that, I could now understand them.
Perfectly.
As Nari had promised, my mind was tapping into an onboard database, accessing it in such a way that it seemed like my own knowledge, my own memory.
Which meant that Nicola was almost certainly right about Tessa. I had been shocked that she had known Mandarin. But she hadn’t. Not until she had needed to. And then she knew it automatically, which she could have done for every language spoken on Earth. Automatically, with help from our little friends.
I always knew that she was brighter than me. But who could have guessed that she had actually been playing dumb. I now realized there had been countless instances when she had asked questions to which she had already known the answers. As smart and knowledgeable as I had found her to be, she had been holding back, not wanting to appear superhuman.
All of this flashed through my now well-oiled mind in just a few seconds. Even so, I had missed what Nari had been saying.
“Sorry,” I said to the alien. “Could you repeat that?”
“I was saying that I think we should stop here for now. I’ve given you plenty to think about. But I’d like for Brad to hold back. I have a few things I’d still like to discuss with him. Things that don’t require your presence.”
I thought about this. “Understood,” I said, rising from my chair as Tessa followed suit beside me. “I’m not sure how much of what you’ve told us is true,” I said as I prepared to exit the room. “But I can say this. It’s been quite the tour de force. Regardless of your veracity, you’ve put on a dazzling show.”
“It’s all true,” said the alien simply.
“I’m sure it is,” I replied with an insincere smile.
One way or another, I vowed to find out.
PART 6
32
I sat on a thirty-foot cliff with my legs dangling over the edge, gazing at the sandy beach below and the waves forever rippling onto the island. Exotic birds flew overhead. Now that I could telescope my vision at will, I had a new appreciation for birdwatching.
I had asked Tessa to give me forty-five minutes of alone time, so I could digest everything we had heard in isolation, and I guessed I had just a few minutes remaining until she rejoined me.
I dreaded the coming confrontation with her, but it couldn’t be avoided. Best case she had lied to me for noble reasons. Worst case, our relationship was a sham. Simply another manipulation by Nari and his Galactic Federation.
Given everything I knew, it was hard to imagine it wasn’t the latter.
My newly optimized mind had reviewed much of what had happened since I had gone on the podcast, but it was of no help. I had to confront Tessa, and then Nari, if I wanted any hope of separating fact from fiction.
I couldn’t begin to guess at the consequences of confronting her—confronting them—but in this case, consequences be damned. And I planned to get right to the point, something I’d been itching to do since she regained consciousness in the helicopter.
Tessa joined me right on schedule. As I stood and walked over to her, she attempted to embrace me, but I rebuffed the attempt, no longer even trying to hide how cold I was feeling toward her.
“Jason?” she said anxiously. “What’s wrong? You haven’t been yourself since Australia.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Really?” I snorted in contempt. “You haven’t been yourself since—ever. Right? At least around me. Is anything about you or your past true? Do you care about me at all?”
Tessa shook her head in horror and looked almost panicked, something I had never witnessed before. “Jason, you’re starting to worry me,” she said softly.
“I don’t doubt it,” I replied. “Worried that your cover’s been blown? Well, you should be. Because it has been. I know you weren’t born on Earth. I know you’ve been working for Nari for many years. And I know you’ve been enhanced with Nanites for much longer than five months.”
Her eyes widened but she didn’t reply.
“Do you deny it?” I bellowed.
Tessa shook her head. “I don’t,” she said weakly. “But I can explain. My background isn’t what I’ve described. But I do care about you. Deeply. More than you could ever know.”
She looked distinctly ill, and tears began streaming down her cheeks. “I love you, Jason,” she said emphatically. “More than I thought it was possible to love. You have to believe me.”
I stared into her dazzling blue eyes, and they appeared to be the loving eyes I had come to know. I had seen what a good actress she was, but even the best actress couldn’t produce this volume of tears at the snap of two fingers.
Relief washed over me as my intuition told me she really did love me. She really did have my best interests at heart. And as long as this was true, I was sure she had good explanations for the rest.
Even sobbing, her eyes were alive with intelligence and personality, her bearing was regal, and her girl-next-door beauty barely waned. But as she stood in front of me, seemingly vulnerable, a sick feeling erupted inside the pit of my stomach.
“Nanites,” I thought at my microscopic passengers, “are you able to stimulate the release of tears on command?”
“We are,” came the immediate reply, an answer that felt like an ice pick stabbing into my chest.