“Did you know our dad?” I pretended not to want to know anything about my father in front of mom. She would always get this seriously pained expression on her face when I would bring up questions about our dad, so eventually I stopped asking. But this was a rare opportunity to ask about him from someone who may have known him and wouldn’t feel hurt answering my questions. Or so I thought. My peripheral vision I caught Dr. Andrew’s face turning white. What the heck? Was my dad a serial killer or something?
“Yeah, I knew him. Sorta.” He answered noncommittally. “All I know is that he wasn’t ready to be a dad and took off before Evan was born leaving your mom to raise the three of you by herself. That’s what your mom told me.” He looked really uncomfortable. Hum.
I decided to drop that for now. There were other pressing questions, and I didn’t know how much longer he was going to put up with the queries. “What trouble do you think mom is in?” He took a deep breath and a sip of the soda the flight attendant put in front of him.
“Listen, Meg. A long time ago, your mom and I were working for a company we thought was trying to develop a cure for autism. Do you know what autism is?”
“I know just the basics.”
Dr. Andrews put on his metaphorical white lab coat and started explaining, in way too much detail, autism. He lost me pretty close to the start of it so rather than let him see me start to pick at a string on the edge of my sleeve; I decided to interrupt, “Um…Dr. Andrews, please don’t think I’m rude, but you’ve completely lost me.”
“Oh, I’m sorry Meg. I get pretty passionate about autism. It’s something I worked on for so many years.
“Okay, here are the highlights: 1) autism happens in the brain 2) we don’t know exactly what causes autism 3) the level of functionality varies a lot from patient to patient 4) the standard treatments are simply medicines that help regulate the symptoms of autism and 5) there is no known cure.”
“That was better, thanks.”
“No problem,” the doctor said with a likeable smile then continued his story, “So you can imagine how excited we were to learn that some of our work was being used to generate a serum that had a lot of promise. The company was experimenting on living subjects. They saw a lot of potential in the path your mom was going with her ideas. She was given a promotion and put on the Neurobiological team that was working on a highly top-secret division of The Institute. They called it ‘The Infinite Project.’
“I saw her the day she had been given her first tour of the facility.” Dr. Andrew’s face took on a distant, haunted expression as he remembered. “She looked grief stricken. She was going on and on about her life’s work all being ‘for nothing.’ She wasn’t making a lot of sense.
“I thought she was just over worked. I mean, it was impossible to think of Margo as incoherent. She’s the most organized, precise, detailed person I’d ever met. And here she was on the verge of tears and babbling something about ‘babies.’ I offered to drive her home, but she insisted on going back to the lab. That was the last time I saw her.” He stopped talking, but it didn’t look like that was all he could have said. I could see it in his face. There was much more to the story.
“I’m really tired, Meg. Do you mind if we continue the inquisition when we get to the house? I’d like to close my eyes for a while.” He wasn’t lying about that. It was as clear as the nose on his pale face. He needed quiet.
I nodded and looked around to check on Alik and Evan. Alik was drinking his complimentary beverage like it was the most delicious thing he’d ever experienced—actually moaning with joy. And Evan, well he was playing with the button that leaned his chair back, then upright, then back, then upright. Then he started playing with the folding trey, up and down, then up and down. The final straw was when he located the “Sky Mall” magazine in the pocket in front of him.
Oh, my goodness. I gave apologetic looks to the passengers in front of and behind the boys. I’m sure they were irritating the heck out of them with all their bumping, reclining, and generally strange noises and comments. I was feeling like we couldn’t be more conspicuous. Then I heard a loud, mournful howl coming from the cargo hold under the floor. Shut up, Maze! I yelled in mind, but on the outside I just sunk deeper into my seat. Oh yeah, we just blend right in.
Chapter 12 Meanwhile, Back at the Ranch
Three black luxury SUVs rolled up to the Winter’s ranch house. Once stopped all the doors flew open and out poured men wearing nondescript black suits. They walked with a purpose to the front door. The first to arrive wasted no time with the lock. He unloaded one clean shot into it and kicked in the door.
Once in the house, they split in teams of two and swarmed the rooms. Every drawer was spilled, every closet riffled through, every mattress was tossed and sliced open and every cushion stabbed.
Margo’s computer was unplugged and carried out to the SUVs. Anything ever typed, saved, erased or received on this PC would be resurrected in hopes there was data on the metas that could be recovered.