Intrepid Page 13

  I tried to get my bearings as a man in a forest-green jump suit approached. I eyed him as he laid his guitar case prostrate and open to demand money from those passing by. American dollars mixed with Euros, but when I really looked at the cash, the shapes of the coins were slightly off. Iago caught my expression and explained, “Within a few minutes, the Knowing kicks in. The nuances of culture shift into place as if you’ve lived here your entire life. Your senses make you adaptable, but just give it a moment to adjust.”

  The man began to strum to the sounds of Barcelona. I sat down on the bench we’d landed next to, and it was like I’d never heard music before. I could hear the origins of each cord as they were struck, and the vibrations rumbled along my nerves in an entirely new way.

  “He was approaching this very spot before we appeared,” Iago said as he sat down next to me. “He had previously perceived this spot to be empty, but let his mind trick him into believing it was his own misjudgment. Jumping into crowds is actually easier than Jumping into emptier spaces. If there’s no distracting crowd, you’re actually more noticeable when you appear out of thin air.”

  The discombobulated feeling Iago spoke of never happened, and I took a deep breath that introduced me to the rushing, stale, body odors seeping out of every passing person. I looked back to the guitar and concentrated on the music instead of the smell.

  “¿Una canción?” the green-clad musician asked.

  My eyes widened as my ears understood automatically. There was no brief moment of trying to translate in my head as the sounds shifted into what Iago called the Knowing. It sounded like the Spanish I knew back in Mrs. Ortiz’s kitchen, but there was something more metallic about the accent. I was equally surprised when I said, “No, gracias,” in an accent that perfectly and metallically matched the man’s as if I’d spoken his language my entire life.

  Everyone in the crowd scuttled by, and it was just as calming as it was unnerving. The Energy bubbled up into the air and into my lungs, and I felt alive with it. I felt in tune with it.

  “You feel it, huh?” Iago’s voice held soft understanding. He whispered, but I could hear him as if he was the only person on the planet. “After my Change, I had trouble paying attention. Football, hallways, classes… Although, Ringo told me to enjoy the way my senses were changing. He said, ‘This is the best you’ll ever feel for the rest of your life, and once you get used to all the heightened senses, you might just forget they had ever been so dull before.’ Except I disagree. For me, it never got old. I especially love the way noise becomes potable, and every once in a while, I still close my eyes and try to drink it all in.”

  “I think I saw you do it before… on Friday. At the pep-rally and the game.”

  “You were watching me? Never knew you cared.”

  “In your dreams, dork-wad.” The insult felt right, and it gave me the peace to fall into a silence and readjust to my new normal. Minutes turned into twenty, and the world pretended neither of us existed.

  I finally had a question that made me giggle. “Are we aliens?”

  His skin crinkled around his eyes when he spoke. “I’ve never thought about it that way before. By some definitions of the word, I guess we are aliens. By other definitions, definitely not. For example, there are some universes where intelligent life from other planets has already been contacted. By a certain definition, those beings are the aliens. There’s even an interracial alien/human settlement out there.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  “Nope. But in terms of biology? You are most definitely human. You just have to remember that for as genetically similar as humans are, we are all created out of different genetic codes. You are human, but you are other. Don’t think about how different you’ve become with this mutation, because you’re just a human with special gifts. Although, maybe I’m wrong in this. Sometimes, you definitely smell much more ape than human.”

  “Har. Har. You’re such a comedian.” I punched him in the arm, hard enough to make a thwapping sound, but light enough not to hurt.

  “Trust me. Questioning your humanity is a slippery slope and makes you lose perspective.”

  “So, there are actually aliens out there?” I asked.

  “Why not? Every universe possesses infinite possibilities, and every Splice effects more than just what happens on Earth. It replicates every star and every galaxy, so it isn’t just multiple Earths being born out of the chaos. Based on the species we have met, we believe that Multiversal Splices are propelled by foreign life forms just as much as they are propelled by human Movers. It’d be a bit narcissistic to think we are the only ones with the power of the Multiverse.”

  “Can these aliens Jump like us?”

  “From what we can tell, these life forms are not in the Gaian-verse. And if they exist there, they have yet to discover the technology we have. We could be wrong, but so far we suspect we are the only species able to Jump at this point.”

  “That’s insane.”

  “Ah. You’re looking for insane? Try this one on for size. There is a universe out there where Willie Nelson cut off his braids.”

  “Ha. Yeah right.”

  “No. Seriously! And there’s one where Billy Gibbons shaved off his beard for charity and then decided he liked his face better clean shaven. He never grew it back.”

  My jaw dropped, and I remembered Ringo saying once that Billy Gibbons without a beard would be like experiencing a birthday without presents. When I was young, Ringo’d put on a ZZ Top record while we cleaned the cabin. I’d sing into the dirty-spoon-microphone I was washing, while Ringo’d rock out strumming the invisible strings of the broom. We both had a strange reverence for that man’s beard, and Ringo tried (and failed) for years to make his just as epic. “Can we agree to never go to any of those places? Any universe where Billy Gibbons is beardless must be a dark and desolate place. I refuse to believe it.”

  Iago raised his eyebrows and grinned. “With everything you’ve seen so far, this is the thing you refuse to believe.”

  “Yes! It’d totally defeat the purpose of their ‘Bearded Man’ song.”

  “Well, funny thing there. In the beardless Gibbons universe, the song is called, ‘Sharp Dressed Man.’ Same tune, different lyrics.”

  I shook my head and stood up. “That sounds like a crap song. ‘Every girl’s crazy ‘bout a sharp dressed man?’ Yeah. Right.”

  “Suit yourself. It’s actually a pretty catchy version of it.”

  The guitarist next to us struck up a new song. It was like listening to an ocean wave cracked to a million pieces, and I shivered. I understood what Iago meant by calling sounds potable, and he leaned back on the bench to give me a few minutes to take in the new sounds without his voice weighing them down. I wanted to eat the song up. I wanted mash up every note and turn them into marble so I could examine every colorful crack in their foundations. I stood up and stuck my arms out to spin, letting my arms become helicopter blades and my laughter become champagne bubbles bursting in carbonated Energy. I wanted it to last so much that it, of course, ended.

  The next song he played wasn’t as captivating, and I sat down again. We sat there a few more minutes before my curiosity finally got to me. “Who are we meeting?”

  “We aren’t meeting anyone here. I’m just giving you a moment. We still have one more Jump to go.”

  “Fine. But who is it?”

  “You’ll see. Just enjoy this moment.”

  “Do you really need to keep any more secrets from me? It’d be better if you ripped off everything like a bandaid.” I wanted answers, and every revelation only carried with it more questions. It was making me greedy because I needed more information to turn all my confusion into understanding.

  Before he could answer, my eyes caught something through the crowd. The mop of dark, brown hair. The broad shoulders.

  “Texi, what’s wrong?” Iago asked, sitting straight up.

  I had to be imagining it. There was no way it could have been…
>
  No way.

  But then he looked up and those brown eyes locked onto mine.

  I grabbed Iago’s hand and dragged him up. “We have to go! How do we activate this thing?” I tugged at my bracelet, but the screen wouldn’t come up.

  “What?”

  Iago wasn’t getting the picture, and we were wasting time. I pulled him towards the crowd. Maybe we could hide in the people bustling back and forth until Iago could enter new coordinates for us. We didn’t get far. I crashed into a chest and looked up into a face I’d seen a million times before, but when I looked up into his eyes, all I could feel were his hands around my throat and the fear of getting sucked unexpectedly into the Nothing.

  “Sully!” Iago said.

  “Texi, let me explain.” Sully said, as if Iago didn’t exist.

  I tried to back away, but only bumped into Iago’s chest. I sidestepped them both, and took off running into the crowd, hoping Iago would follow.

  “Texi! Wait!” Iago screamed. Even though his voice floated behind me, I knew he was at least trying to follow. I dodged elbows, I ignored curses from people I bumped into, I wove through and found a path through the stream. I prayed for an escape, but instead I ran into another chest. Sully was in front of me again before I could blink. I backed up and turned to run towards my left, but he was there again. Sully seemed to exist everywhere I wanted to go within the crowd of people. Why wasn’t Iago getting us out of here?

  “Texi,” Iago said from behind me. I turned to see that I had nowhere else to run except in Iago’s direction. That was when a new thought occurred to me—one that made me feel epically stupid. Iago? Was he working with my ex-best friend who had tried to kill me? Iago brought me here, where Sully was, after all.

  The park was full of hurrying elbows and distracted viewing, and my claustrophobic heart made me burn in all kinds of ways. I wanted out. My eyes began to swirl, and I took a deep breath to steady myself so I could think.

  But I couldn’t think standing between Iago and Sully. I could only feel stuck.

  Liam

  “…if someone should demonstrate that I am one thing and many, what’s astonishing about that? He will say, when he wants to show that I’m many, that my right side is different from my left, and my front from my back, and likewise with my upper and lower parts—since I take it I do partake of multitude. But when he wants to show that I’m one, he will say I’m one person among the seven of us, because I also partake in oneness. Thus he shows that both are true.”

  -Socrates speaking to Parmenides

  -S-1000, V-3234333-L987689875, Stag.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  When you don’t know something, go back to what you do know. It’s what Saltadors are trained to do. There was so much I thought I understood that I’d let myself grow complacent with assumption. I needed to redirect my beliefs, and in order to do that, I needed to return to their origins. I needed to remember why I thought what I thought and why I believed what I believed.

  Nobu told me plenty before he left, but he still wasn’t telling me something—something big.

  I thought about Texi and all the lies she was learning truths to. How could I have known we’d have so much in common? But then again, what did I know? There were plenty of other people better equipped for this job than me, and yet, I was expected to help teach her about her role in the Multiverse. In a way, I was moving up the Watcher hierarchy. Only Level Three Watchers were allowed to train Saltadors, but this was not the promotion I’d been hoping for.

  I looked out into the skyline, trying to stretch my vision far out into the horizon. Maybe I’d see Nobu’s pterodactyls in flight—tiny dots in the distance that looked like sea-eagles back on Geeta. But there was nothing out there but clouds and sunshine.

  “Why me?” I asked out loud. I wasn’t asking the question to whine. I’d already come to terms that things were going to change, but there had to be a reason for misdirecting me all this time.

  I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed. I’d always had big plans for myself. Saltadors honor our parents’ donation by doing whatever we can to strengthen our Familial Generational Line. When we are old enough, we learn the major accomplishments and failures of our matriarchal line, and we are taught to add only great deeds to the list of things our ancestors have done. Through this, we Stand on the Shoulders of our familial Giants, and encourage future generations to aspire to the same level of greatness. This is why, for the Martinezes, I wanted to become the youngest Grande Master in the history of Watchers. So far, in my line, we had eight Grande Masters (none of them appointed before the age of thirty-three), two Presidents of the Gaian Order, and one Director of Operations for the Calvary. To reach Grande Master by the age of twenty-five was to be my great addition.

  Now, this would never happen. I’d need to readjust my own expectations of what great deeds I could actually accomplish to honor my line.

  I remember wondering about what types of deeds existed on my patriarchal side when Nobu first explained how it worked. When I asked, he responded with a joke, “Don’t worry. If you ever find a girl you like, just take the genetic test before anything romantic happens. Obviously, if she shares your last name, you don’t want to go there, but if you’re not sure, always check that you’re not related. One time, I almost made out with my second cousin, and I was so thankful I tested him before. That would have been way too awkward.” Nobu always had the most ridiculous stories.

  “That’s not what I’m concerned about,” I said.

  “I know, dork-wad. Grow a sense of humor, why don’t you.”

  “Sorry. Humor doesn’t grow on trees,” I retorted.

  When Texi was nine she gouged a huge scratch on the left side of Corbin’s truck from driving too close to a cluster of mesquite trees. He lost his patience for once, and when he said, “Money doesn’t grow on trees, child,” Nobu and I nearly died of laughter. Apparently, for the old man, nothing grew on trees, not even leaves, and it became a timeless joke between the two of us.

  “Clever,” Nobu said.

  “So? My father’s line?”

  “Using one familial line is just a clean way of classifying. You have your Familial Generational Line, which is how many generations of Saltadors within your specific family exist. Then you have the Saltador Generational Line, which is how many generations of Saltadors exist after the first Explorers. So, the Martinezes have sixty-three Familial Generations, and the Saltadors have eighty-one. You, my friend, are a sixty-two, eighty. Congrats. In terms of greatness on your patriarch’s side, you have no legal claim to it, just like they have no legal claim to the greatness you will one day find. However, you do have access to all good deeds through the collective Saltador experience. You don’t have to limit where you find inspiration, Liam.”

  In the end, my name was just a scientific classification rather than a familial tie. The Gaian Order does, for the Generational Familial Line purposes, attempt to place children with Watchers in the same line, but that isn’t always the case. In terms of a loving family, I had Nobu for a implied brother and Corbin for a sometimes-present father, but neither shared my last name.

  Texi? Her Generational Familial Line was a mystery, and for all I knew, she was born out of a petri dish. She wore the Nicholson name but was not a part of the Nicholson Familial Generational Line. They gave her the nomenclature, because they didn’t know what else to call her.

  Even with her naming, she was a problem without a solution.

  Helping Texi through all of this was not something I felt equipped to do. How was I supposed to remain objective when I had direct contact with the subject? That same damn question kept tugging at me. Why me?

  Maybe I needed to look some place else besides my memory.

  I stood up and brushed the sand from my legs. There was a large, white rock under a palm tree behind me, and I walked over to it to sit down with my legs in a pretzel in front of it. I pulled up the forums and commanded the bracelet to, �
�Project on rock.” I ran my fingers through the air, swiping the screen to the speech I wanted to hear. It was the ultimate spark of inspiration for the Calvary, and I pulled it up to watch the video feed of Dr. Maxina Planck. She stood at a podium with her stern nose and crisp words. Even when the woman was smiling, she looked like she was perpetually frowning. She was speaking at the Planck Activation Bracelet Revelation Party for Gaia Corp, and it was the staple speech to play when a Saltador forgot what a Giant was.

  Dr. Planck was a Giant all right.

  I pressed play and sank back into the sand to watch.

  “Are we sure that Energy can be neither created nor destroyed? We take this to be a truth, but we also take the following to be true:

  “Everything has an Origin and every Origin is in some form the spawn of Creation.

  “If this is true, wouldn’t Energy have an Origin and therefore have, at least once, been Created? I do not deny that the current act of creation we witness with our eyes is merely altering what already exists, because creation as we know it is just the shell of Creation as we have yet to understand it.

  “What I wonder is, where did Energy initially come from, and beyond that, I wonder what would happen if we found the Origin of Energy?

  “Think outside of what you think you know. Let your imagination consider what would then happen if we could harness it to Create an Energy that doesn’t currently exist?”

  I paused the feed and thought on the words. This was the woman who made Gaians realize the difference between Multiversal Creation and creation. The second was the illusion of Creation—the feeling we get when we take what already exists and reform it to something else. When we make things. But the Calvary wanted to control real Creation—the Multiversal kind. They made Texi because they wanted to command the power of choice and the ability to orchestrate the Path. During the Humanitarian Project Trials, the Calvary quoted this speech. Their defense was they were simply attempting to do as Dr. Planck suggested: harness Energy to Create more. They believed that if this was possible, then the subjects could regenerate the Splicing of dying universes.