Human Sister (32 page)

First Brother

S
he stops the Toyota brand vehicle with two canoes attached to its top in front of the gate of the security wall of the Jensen home. As she exits the vehicle she says, “Stay, Rusty. Stay. I’ll be right back.”

She closes the vehicle’s door. The hat, backpack, and sweater lie on the backseat of the vehicle. She runs to the gate scanner. She uses both gloved hands to pull the goggles away from her eyes and down under her chin. She places her face into the hood of the scanner. The security gate, powered by solar panels on the winery roof, begins to open.

She is back in the driver’s seat of the vehicle before the gate fully opens. The goggles are still under her chin. She drives into the yard. The dog’s head protrudes from the partially rolled-down passenger’s window. The vehicle passes a tiltrotor. The security gate begins to close. The grass exhibits suboptimal moisture. Weeds protrude in the garden. Three gardenerbots huddle in hibernation mode outside the toolshed door.

The tires of the vehicle skid to a stop on the flagstone paving in front of the garage. The driver’s door opens. She jumps out of the vehicle. The dog leaps out of the vehicle behind her. She runs to the doghouse, peeks in, looks out over the yard, and shouts: “Lily!” She turns and runs toward the arborway leading to the house door. She calls out: “Grandma! Grandma!” The timbre of her voice exhibits signs of human stress.

The dog sniffs around the garage and the doghouse. The door to the house is heard to open and close. Two minutes, 8 seconds pass. The dog appears to notice me walking down the stairs from the study deck above the house. At the base of the stairs, the dog sniffs my left leg and walks away.

It is midday plus 3 hours, 52 minutes, 41 seconds.

Sara

E
lio and I spread out our picnic dinner in the shade of the old valley oak tree standing alone among rows of vines on the hill just east of our house. It was the end of May, ten days after his eighteenth birthday. Aunt Lynh had called him on his special day and said she was planning to visit my parents in Calgary for a week. She wouldn’t be visiting him in the United States, of course, so they would have to wait until summer vacation to get together.   

“Oh, I forgot to tell you.” Elio handed me our thermos of tea. “I got a call yesterday from Ma. She’s flying back home today. She said she wishes we’d taken more trips together. Weird how parents change. Except to swim meets, I never could get her to take me anywhere.”

After eating, we were serenaded by several crickets while we sat together with our backs against the tree’s deeply fissured bark and gazed up at a cloudless twilight sky in the west. I was dreamily wondering how late our noisy little friends would stay up fiddling into the night when I heard Wilma, one of the security personnel, shouting as she ran: “Sara! Elio! Run home! Hurry!”

Lily, whose hearing was failing, didn’t bark until she noticed Elio and me jump up.

“What’s wrong?” Elio called out.

“I don’t know,” Wilma answered breathlessly. She stopped in front of us, flushed and panting. “Something about androids attacking military bases and hotels on the moon. And I think your parents are on a lunar plane that’s just been hijacked. Now go! Run! Government agents are on their way here. I’ll take care of your things. Get inside the house. Hurry!”

Elio led as we ran between rows of vines, down the hill guarded by the old oak tree, and up a slope to the drive. There, under the archway of locust trees, Elio ran beside me and panted: “I didn’t know there were androids on the moon.”

“I didn’t either.”

“Your parents were going to some conference, weren’t they?”

“Yes. I said good-bye to them last night. It’s a conference on space medicine. They go every year.”

“Do you think they helped the androids hijack the plane?”

“I don’t know. I just hope they’re safe.”

My mind raced: government agents, search warrants, Michael, interrogations, Mom and Dad on a hijacked plane. By the time we got to the arborway leading to the house entrance, my legs felt heavy, and I was out of breath.  

“We’d better get in,” Elio said, pointing toward the throbbing whir of helicopters in the distance.

We found Grandma in her bedroom watching WNN. I glanced at aerial scenes of lunar resorts resembling giant upside-down fishbowls packed with fantastic buildings of organic architectural designs.

“What’s going on?” Elio asked, charging ahead of me.

“They’re just showing the same scenes over and over,” Grandma answered. “Apparently, all transmissions from the moon have been cut.”

“What about Mom and Dad?” I asked.

“Oh, honey,” she said, holding out her arms for me and bursting into tears. “The FBI told Grandpa the lunar plane they were on was hijacked at the same time the attacks on the moon began. Lynh was there, too.”

“What?” Elio gasped.

“Yes, dear. I’m so sorry.”

“But she was supposed to be on a plane to Amsterdam this morning.”

“That’s all I know, honey. That’s what the FBI told Grandpa.”

“Where is Grandpa?” I asked.

“On a conference call with Senator Franklin, the FBI—I don’t know who all. The door is locked, but just ring the bell. He said he wants to talk with you right away.”

Elio and I rang the bell to the communications room. Grandpa peeked out. “I’m on a conference call. Go to your study. I’ll be right there.”

We found that Michael and all evidence of his existence had already been immured. I hoped Grandpa and Grandma hadn’t frightened him, for now I couldn’t even communicate with him to let him know Elio and I had returned safely.

After about five minutes, Grandpa entered. “You saw the news,” he said. “I don’t have much to add to that. Not yet, anyway. I’m trying to negotiate a deal. The FBI and some other government people want to talk with both of you. They think you may know something, since Sara’s parents—and perhaps your mother, too, Elio—seem to be involved. Now is no time for playing games. I have to get back to my call right away. I must know whether either of you knew or even had a hint of this hijacking or of the attacks on the moon. Sara?”

“No.”

“Did you ever hear your parents talk about hijacking a plane, even hypothetically?”

“No.”

“Did you ever hear them talking about the moon?”

“Just that they were going to the annual medical conference.”

“Did they say anything that seemed special or peculiar about this conference?”

“No.”

“Do you have any idea what their plans are?”

“No.”

“Do you know how androids got to the moon?”

“I didn’t even know there were any on the moon.”

“Good. So you wouldn’t mind if Mr. Casey asks you these and related questions?”

“Casey? But he—”

“It would only involve questions about what you knew beforehand about these matters and what you know about their plans. If you satisfy them that you know nothing about what’s going on, they won’t pursue other questions. At least, that’s what I’m trying to negotiate with the help of Senator Franklin and my attorney, Jane Copley.”

“Are you sure they’ll only ask me about Mom and Dad? What about questions that might lead to Michael?”

“I can’t be sure of anything. They need to quickly find out whatever they can about the attacks on their military bases and about the taking of several thousand hostages. Evidently, there are three members of Congress and four U.S. senators on the moon right now—some conference about space sovereignty—plus similar dignitaries from other countries. The authorities know they can’t make you talk, Sara, so they seem willing to deal.”

“Do I have to do this? You said one question leads to the next.”

“Yes, you do. There’s no other way.” He looked at me sternly for a moment, then turned to Elio. “Did you have any hint that something like this might happen?”

“No.”

“Did you know your mother was going with Sara’s parents?”

“No. She told me she was going home this morning.”

“So you’ll be comfortable with answering the same questions as I discussed with Sara?”

“I suppose—if, as Sara said, the questions don’t lead back to Michael.”

“I’ll do my best. Stay put.”

As soon as Grandpa left, Elio said, “I don’t think I’ll be able to do this. How can I protect Michael if they use that algetor thing?”

His words shocked me out of my own thoughts about whether I was up to another interrogation by Casey. "Don’t worry," I said. “Just concentrate on answering the questions carefully. Casey won’t use the algetor on us because Senator Franklin and Jane Copley will be involved. Grandpa says the intelligence agencies use it only when they can deny using it.”

Grandpa returned a few minutes later. “They’ve agreed to ask questions only about what we know about the hijacking of the plane and about the disturbances on the moon. To keep them to their word, Copley will be there with you in person as the questions are asked. General Renner, Senator Franklin, and a few others who were parties to our agreement will be watching and participating remotely. Some agents are outside right now, waiting to take the four of us to the Federal Office Building in San Francisco for questioning. Are you ready?”

“Not Grandma,” I said.

“I objected, but they said your father is her son, too, and he might have confided in her.”

“But no one will be here,” Elio said. “What if they search the place? What about Michael?”

“I’ll have the security staff watch over things. I’ve already instructed Gatekeeper to allow entrance to everyone and everything.” He looked at me silently for a moment. “I did the best I could, Sara. I felt that the worst thing I could have done under the circumstances would have been to indicate we have something to hide here in the house.”

The interrogation room was small; the ceiling, low; the table, gunmetal gray and bolted to the floor; the chairs, metal, unpadded, cold, and also bolted to the floor; the walls, white and bare, like at home, though at home the walls were familiar, comfortable, bare and white to protect Grandpa’s secrets, my secrets, Michael. Here, the stark barrenness appeared imposing, frightening, one of the props of a place constructed to flay one of one’s humanity, of one’s secrets.

Casey, wearing the same dark gray suit, adjusted a helmet, undoubtedly a brain scanner, around my head and attached a thick glove to my right hand. Intellectually, I was confident that with Jane Copley sitting beside me, I wouldn’t be tortured. My heart, however, seemed to possess a visceral memory of its own and beat hard and fast, frantic to escape.

Casey began with routine questions: What was my name? What day was it? How old was I? At three separate times, he told me to answer his question falsely.

After a few more preliminary questions, he asked me to describe everything I knew about Mom and Dad’s plans regarding their trip to the medical conference. After I completed my statement, he returned to each detail I’d mentioned: Did I have any information about their taking weapons with them? No. Had they ever discussed living on the moon for an extended period of time? No. Had they ever discussed the possibility of living anywhere for an extended period of time other than on Earth? Yes. Where? Mars, asteroids, Jupiter’s moons, other planets in other solar systems, but I’d never had the impression they were actually planning on doing so themselves. The discussions had been speculative. Several times they’d expressed disappointment that we had given up on terraforming and colonizing Mars.