Jesse dropped us off at the complex in the middle of the night. Our farewells were mostly brief with Jesse and Raiden having to get back to their respective homes for curfew. Cindi said she'd be fine; her grandmother was considerate. Lynn was less open to discussing his home life. After the three of us parted, in addition to agreeing to meet again tomorrow to discuss what to do with the blackbox, we each went back to our apartments as discretely as three teenagers sneaking through a refurbished factory-complex could. I lingered a little on watching Lynn skulk, as if I could learn something about him if I just watched him closely. Just what kind of person was he really? Will he just forget about Cindi and I after this whole thing with the Saints blows over? I wondered what kind of life he had behind his apartment door. I imagined he maybe had divorced parents, maybe an older brother or sister, maybe he lived with a big mean dog too.
When I returned, I thought that David would scold me for being out so late without telling him. However, he seemed more worried than actually angry. As I came in the front, he was waiting for me at the island, with only the light of the kitchen lights lit. He had dark bags under eyes and he seemed sluggish. He had asked me quietly where I had been. I asked him the same, but he dodged my question, turned it around on me and where I'd been. I'd be lying if I had said I wasn't annoyed with the way he brushed off my own worry. I wanted to be angry with him, furious that I could not get a hold of him when I had to.
I could tell he was exhausted though. I was exhausted too. There came a point in the conversation we had around his kitchen island that we both realized we were just too exhausted to carry on and retreated to our respective rooms. He watched me leave the kitchen through foggy glasses. My hand rose to wave goodnight, but I suppressed the instinct.
It was like we were strangers again. Or have we always had this distance between us? Maybe I just noticed now because I had no other choice.
My room was a mess. I closed the door and surveyed the dirty laundry, the books and loose newspapers strewn across the room. Looking on top of a plain desk and dull bed, imagining what it might have looked like if things had gone a little more differently. In the few years I lived there, it never really felt like mine. It was a place to sleep and work. And I was fine with that. When I opened my closet, I was greeted by an elaborately drawn post board with thin red strings leading from photo to photo, clipping to clipping, map to map. It was like a detective's post board, pinning clues in hopes that the big picture would shine through the dangling string and blurry photographs.
I uncapped a red marker and drew a circle around where the construction lot was. It was near Inner Easton; just a stone's throw from the hospital and the museum.
I pulled out my phone and tried to look up the location. It did not take long to figure out who owned the lot. "ATLAS," I whispered. I traced my finger along the board. It followed a piece of string towards a newspaper clipping.
COURT OPENING QUESTIONS FOR ATLAS IN RECENT EVENTS.
The clipping showed a picture of my mom standing outside, addressing a crowd of reporters. Their microphones were uncomfortably close, like birds pecking at an open palm overflowing with seeds. She stood tall with shoulders cropped in a bold charcoal suit. Her eyes said something akin to "look and watch me". My mom was a lawyer, which was partly why we were able to afford an apartment in Midtown. I remembered her leaving to work every morning, usually in a suit and carrying a suitcase overflowing with case reports for a courthouse too involved in petty civil cases to really give her a chance at making sweeping changes in the vein of a city prosecutor.
David hadn't said much about her career, but apparently from the little bit of information I found--and was provided with thanks to David's archival connections--told me that ATLAS had been her big chance at tackling a city-wide class action lawsuit. Her smile in her photos showed how ready, how hungry she was to tear them apart. I still didn't quite understand the full extent of the case. She died before she could finish the trial. I had my suspicions before, but with what I remembered and how reporters discussed the trial, nothing really stood out to me in the vein of corporate meddling. But now I wasn't sure.
It comforted me to think about my parents taking on their own challenges. It made me feel like I was following in their footsteps.
I sat down at the edge of my bed. I pulled out the blackbox and turned it over. It felt like a glass jewelry box. My finger followed the middle seam, as if it were a wedding ring's case waiting to be opened.
What was it?
Now that I finally had it back, I didn't know what to do with it or where to even start. I've never seen anything like it. Or felt anything like it. I dropped onto my bed examining it like an exotic toy. When my eyes finally gave in to the exhaustion I allowed my body to sink into deep sleep.
As I fell asleep, I felt an odd tugging at the back of my head. Faint whispers, like I was listening through a tin-can phone. A voice called out to me, as if throwing out a liferaft at sea.
"Monty. Monty it's me," she said.
"Dharia?" I asked. I saw a thin visage in the fog. Like someone's reflection on a rippled stretch of water.
"Yea, it's me. Listen, I'm not sure how long I got, but I have something important to tell you."
"How are you doing that?" I asked. My hand pulled across the air, pulling back transparent filament. It was magic.
"Dream stuff, don't you remember?"
"Honestly I thought I hallucinated everything."
The corner of her eye twitched.
"He's back. I can feel Paradigm trying to pry open my dreams again. I was thinking about what you said earlier. I'm sorry for cutting you out. I should have listened to you and Cindi when you were trying to explain to me what happened."
"It's fine," I said. I still felt guilty about springing that on her. It was something we should have been more careful about explaining. "You were right to kick us out. It wasn't fair to you."
She smiled warmly.
"I'm ready now."
I told her what Cindi and I have been trying to accomplish in the last few days. Dharia seemed to take it all in stride. As we reached the last few hours, her eyes widened as she heard about the confrontation with Brady.
"What a mess. You just decided to try and break into an abandoned construction lot filled with gangster wannabes? Honestly Monty, I'm a little impressed." She skipped a beat. "And you're very, very, very stupid."
"Fair enough," I admitted.
"But on the other hand, I do have to give you and Cindi props for sticking your necks out like that." She watched me with some hesitation. There's more that she wants to say. "So you guys think this 'blackbox' is the reason why I can, well, do all this?" She waved her hands around.
"Yea, pretty much. I don't know why, but I got this sparkly feeling when I first touched it. The same thing happened when I met you, Paradigm, even Brady. I knew that it's connected. And it all started the night the AADs began."
"The night you, Cindi, and Lynn stumbled onto it? That was also the day that a bunch of unexplained lights appeared in the sky. One of the nurses believes it was aliens."
"I don't know about aliens, but they could have been connected to what's going on too."
Dharia swayed a little bit on her toes. Her eyes darted around uncomfortably in swing with her awkward movements.
"I kinda don't know what to do with myself here," she says. "It's like I'm using a supercomputer but I don't know how to turn on the browser. Does that make sense?"
I was puzzled. I didn't exactly know how to respond. "Like, there's more that you could do?"
"Think about it. I remember how much control that total jackoff had over everything. And I remember that power that seemed to just ooze out from my finger tips when I had shut him out. There's gotta be more that I could do."
"Don't push yourself," I said firmly. "You still don't know what it even is or how to control it."
"It's real," she said. "As real as anything, I guess."
"Do you think you could reach out to Cindi too?"
She rubbed her arm. "I don't know. I don't want to scare her, or pry into her dreams."
I nodded. Maybe that was too much to ask of her.
"Yeah, sorry. Doesn't seem like something I should ask of you."
"Maybe I could try someone else?"
"You sure?"
She shrugged. "Why not try? Although, it was hard enough to try and catch you. I might not be able to keep a connection going."
"Can you try Brady?" I asked. It sounded risky, but I had to know if she could. She grew silent.
"I'm not sure if I can. I haven't met him before and I don't have a connection to him. Let me try." She squeezed her eyes closed and began to rub her temples. Something in the space shifted, as if a whirlpool was starting to form. Then, she stopped and brought her hands down.
"No luck?" I asked. She shook her head. "This is good," I continued. "We're learning the extent of your…" What exactly was it? I thought back to LAZAR-US and the shelves lined with superhero comics. "...Your abilities?"
"More like superpowers," she said as she looked down at her hands. "This Paradigm guy, he's got them too." She looked up at me. Her curious smile faded. "How did he know?"
I racked my brain for an answer. Nothing came.
"Monty, be careful. He might know you have the blackbox."
I nodded.
She continued. "You don't understand. The little bit I've gathered from his prying tells me that he's still hoping to get his hands on that thing. Monty, I'd be careful if I were you. Especially for the people around us. Who else do you know may have been near the hospital?"
"Other than Cindi who visited, I can name a handful of people I personally know."
She nodded. Her eyes narrowed in determination. "I'm gonna see what I can do on my end. What's your plan?"
"My plan?" What exactly was my plan? I had been so determined to get the damn thing that I didn't think of what would happen after we actually got it. I had school tomorrow. It's not like I had more vacation time to deal with things.
Wait, she insinuated that anyone at the hospital could be compromised. Where had David been all day, then? Was it possible he could have been compromised? I did not know. That blindspot had set me on edge. I started to imagine what that may mean.
"My plan is to wait and see what happens. Cindi and Lynn I'm sure feel the same way. The last thing we need to do is draw more attention to ourselves."
Dharia's expression switched. She looked at me with the same kind of concern Casey would look at me with. It was something I was used to. Though, that didn't mean I was entirely fond of it.
"What?" I asked, maybe a little more pushy than necessary.
"I didn't tell you what happened to make me like this," she said. "Next time you visit, I'll talk. I just, don't want to do it here."
"Okay," I said, relieving some of the tension in my shoulders. "Tell me when you're ready."
She smiled and the ripples soon drove the dream away, leaving me with a restful sleep long overdue. I dreamt of my mom holding the blackbox. Just like me.