One (One Universe) (30 page)

And I froze in place, gasping at the shiny black gun in her grip. Blood roared in my ears. “What the hell is that? Is that real?”

“I’m sure you’ve seen a gun before. It’s for protection.” Mom grabbed my hand and pulled me from the store.

“Protection from
what
?” My voice threatened to erupt in a shriek and I swallowed back my fear. Oh my god. Had she gone crazy?

Something that felt like an electric shock zapped inside my brain, and the world spun. I clutched Mom’s arm as my mind lurched and sputtered. It felt like a computer had switched on inside my head, whirring and buzzing until it was all I could hear. My gaze focused in on the small details of the gun she tried to hide behind her purse - the curve of the handle, the faint etching on the barrel. Thoughts reeled through my head until they clicked in place. Instantly I recognized the gun was a .38 caliber, snub nose revolver by Smith and Wesson.

Even though I knew absolutely nothing about guns. Even though I’d only ever seen a gun on TV.

“What’s wrong, Lexie? Are you all right?” Mom tucked her hand, the gun still in it, into the pocket of her sweater before inspecting me with a worried gaze.

“Do you think I’m all right? You have a
gun
.” And my brain might be broken. It was enough to totally freak a girl out.

“Yes, I do. Now come
on
.” She tugged my arm and I let her speed walk me through the rest of the mall. I was still in too much shock to resist.

Mom and I burst through the glass doors, and as soon as the slap of the humid Ohio summer hit me, I found my voice. “Mom. Stop. What’s going on?”

She kept moving across the parking lot, despite the heat turning the pavement into a shimmering river. “Get in the car. We’ve got to go.”

I dug my heels in until she stopped. Crossed my arms. “How long have you had that thing? Do you even know how to
use
it?”

She threw a worried glance back at the mall doors, tucking a strand of her honey-colored hair behind her ears before turning to me. “We’re two single women living alone. It’s for our protection.”

I shook my head. “What exactly do you expect to happen?”

“Anything can happen,” she said with a frown, her glance flicking past me again. “Now really we need to get home. Will you please get in the car?”

“Fine.” I yanked open the door and slid into the sweltering interior. Mom had us in reverse before I’d even slammed the door shut.

I glanced at her from the corner of my eye as she drove. Her knuckles were white against the steering wheel, and a muscle jumped in her temple. Dread felt like a heavy hand on my chest and I stayed quiet until we pulled into the driveway. She switched the car off, but I didn’t move.

“What’s going on?” I asked softly. “You’ve never lied to me before.”

Mom turned to face me, her eyes serious. “I’m not lying. The gun is for protection. I want to make sure you’re safe.”

“Safe from what? What did you see back at the mall?”

She shook her head. “Nothing you need to worry about. I promise. Now let’s get inside before we melt in all this heat.” She used her firm tone of voice, the one that told me the conversation was over, even though I still had more questions. I had no choice but to follow her into the house and ignore the fear already twisting my insides into knots.

*~*

“Lexie, your Dad’s on the phone,” Mom called from downstairs later that night.

I tugged my headphones off with a frown. The music was the only thing keeping me from freaking out about what had happened at the mall. Now Dad was on the phone? What the hell was going on?

“What does he want?” I called back.

“I don’t know, just pick up the phone.”

I sighed and stared at the phone beside my bed. I hadn’t talked to Dad in over a month. He’d been away on some sort of top-secret research trip to Japan. And before that, he had been busy at work. Talking to his daughter had never exactly been a priority. Why would he choose now, of all days to call?

A sudden lump formed in my throat. Even worse, what exactly was I supposed to say to him? About Mom? The gun? Or that weird flash of knowledge I’d had?

Even worse, that hadn’t been the first time I’d felt that strange zap in my brain and had a weird surge of knowledge. It had happened just a few months ago, while I was taking a math test. All the answers popped into my head without even having to work at them. Yeah, it had freaked me out then too. But I thought it was a fluke. Now I wasn’t so sure.

I pushed aside all of that and took a deep breath. “Hey, Dad.”

“Lexie, honey. How are you?”

I ignored the surge of homesickness I felt at his warm, familiar voice. “Fine. How was your trip?”

“It went really well. I think Quantum Technologies is going to be opening a new branch in Tokyo.”

My stomach clenched and I clutched the phone in my suddenly sweaty fist. “Are they sending you over to open it?”

Dad let out a surprised laugh. “Oh no, that’ll be someone else’s job. I just went to scope out the location and talk to some of their scientists.”

I forced my hand to relax. I barely saw Dad now, it wouldn’t really matter if he moved to Japan. Much. “Cool. So, um, what’s up?”

“I wanted to see how you were doing.”

“I’m fine.” Mostly. If I didn’t think too hard about what had happened today.

Oh my god. Was what he was calling about? Had Mom said something? But that was unlikely, she never talked to Dad if she could help it.

“Your mom said you’d been having some headaches lately. Are you still taking your ADHD meds?”

Well evidently she’d told him
something
. “Yeah, of course. It’s nothing, I’m sure it’s just the heat.”

“Just make sure to tell your mom if they get worse, okay? I worry about you.”

I frowned at the mouthpiece. Mom had basically said the same thing earlier when she explained about the gun. My skin erupted in goosebumps. “Why are you guys so worried about me all of a sudden?”

Dad paused, then said softly, “We’re your parents. It’s what we do.”

“Not like this. It’s like you guys are watching for something. What, am I suddenly going to develop magical powers?”

“Of course not. There’s no such thing as magic.”

“It was a joke, Dad.” I rolled my eyes. Sometimes I wondered if the job description for rocket scientists had a no sense of humor requirement. “Just forget it. It doesn’t matter. I’m fine.”

Another awkward pause stretched between us. “So how’s that little project of ours going?”

I gritted my teeth. The little project wasn’t so little, especially after he’d abandoned me to work on it alone. “It’s just fine. No thanks to you.”

“Sweetie, I’m sorry. You know how crazy it gets here at QT.”

“I know that you dumped some circuit boards and project plans on my desk six months ago and expected me to take care of it. Well you know what? I did. The quantum sensor is up and running, I attached the thermometer to the heat sink, and it’s ready to start reading the gamma ray spectra of nuclear materials. If I had access to any. Look at me, I’m a freaking genius for figuring it out.”

Dad cleared his throat uncomfortably. “What did you do about the infrared sensitivity?”

“I re-designed the bolometer to measure the electromagnetic radiation.”

“Wow. I’m impressed. That’s really advanced work.”

And I’d figured it all out on my own. When he suggested the project, I’d thought finally we might have something to work through together. Something in common. Obviously, I’d been wrong.

I didn’t bother to respond, and Dad finally cleared his throat before saying, “So I was thinking you could come visit me before school starts, and you could try out the sensor in my lab. I’d love for us to spend some time together. I haven’t seen you in months.”

Whose fault was that? But I bit back my angry response. I learned a long time ago that the drama wasn’t worth it. “We’ll see. I have plans with some friends next weekend. And then school starts up again in a few weeks.”

“Honey, I think….”

“Anyway, was there anything else? Mom’s calling me for dinner.”

The line between us practically throbbed with hurt feelings, but finally he said, “No, that’s all I had.”

“Well, glad you’re home from Japan. Talk to you later.”

“Love you, sweetie.”

“Bye, Dad.”

I clicked the phone off and threw it down on the bed. He couldn’t be bothered to visit more than twice a year. How dare he try to guilt me into feeling bad about our lack of relationship?

My head throbbed even worse than usual and I rubbed at my temples. It was seriously none of Dad’s business if I’d been having headaches. He’d lost the right to care when he left us ten years ago. He meant well, but Mom and I were just fine on our own.

Maybe I’d ask if she’d let me learn how to shoot her gun too.

CHAPTER TWO

Mom usually worked late on Thursdays, so I’d taken over making dinner for us that night. It had been a week since the gun incident, and I’d brought it up over and over, but Mom kept shutting me down. I’d poked in her closet, dug through her desk. Nothing. Not even a scrap of information. So I’d finally had no choice but to drop it.

Tonight we were going to have pizza and watch a movie. Our usual Thursday night date. Hopefully we could get back to normal. I hated how pale she looked lately, the dark smudges under her eyes. I hated even more that she was keeping something from me.

I pulled the ingredients out of the fridge for homemade pizza. Quick, easy, and my favorite. After a while, it had kind of turned into our thing, though Mom had made me add a salad to the menu. Parents and their vegetables.

Tonight I was going to try something a little different - a new sauce. I needed the distraction of trying something new, and maybe the change would be good for both of us. I pulled the recipe up on my tablet and scanned through it. Seemed easy enough for a white sauce. I put a couple of tablespoons of butter in the saucepan and then started to add the flour. I paused and chewed my lip. Was the milk next, or the garlic?

A zap sliced through my brain again and the kitchen spun. I threw out my hand to steady myself against the counter and a second later, the whole recipe popped into my head, almost like I was seeing it on the screen.

“Oh my god.” I dropped the whisk in the pan and moved to the sink. Sweat beaded on my neck and my heart thundered like I’d been running. I flipped the faucet on and splashed my face, but the words and images still floated behind my eyes.

I sucked in a deep breath, then another, but my lungs still felt like they’d stopped working. Tears prickled behind my eyelids and I scrubbed at my face with the kitchen towel to keep them from spilling out.

This was beyond headaches. It was like my brain was possessed. Maybe I had a brain tumor. Or cancer. My stomach clenched and I forced myself to think calmly. I was going to have to say something to mom. But not right now. Not upset like this.

I folded the towel carefully and hung it back up. Then I went back to the stove to finish the sauce. Keeping busy seemed liked a good idea. If I could bring up the weirdness like it was no big deal, maybe we could talk about it rationally. The last thing I needed was for her to freak out. Because then I’d freak out too. It would be ugly.

The pizza went into the oven a few minutes later. By then, my heartbeat had almost returned to normal. I glanced at the clock, then quickly set the table

“I’m home,” Mom called, as if on cue. Her keys rattled on the hall table as she dropped them and she let out a sigh as she slipped out of her shoes.

“Dinner ready yet? I’m starving,” she said, coming into the kitchen and snapping on the TV. “It smells wonderful.”

“New sauce. Hopefully we like it.” I chewed the inside of my lip. I should say something now. Before she got distracted.

She kissed me on the cheek and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge. “I’m sure it’ll be delicious. What did you do today?”

I shrugged and pulled out the big salad bowl full of lettuce and put it down on the counter. Deep breaths. Play it cool. Get her into our normal routine, then slip in the possible brain tumor.

“Not much. Finished a book. Watched some TV. Pretty typical summer vacation stuff.” I grabbed a knife out of the drawer. “Want tomatoes?”

She nodded. “Sounds like a good day. Hey, Leslie at work said that new sci-fi film is really good. Want to go to the movies this weekend?”

“The one about the robots? That would be cool.” I pulled another tomato from the bowl and started chopping. “Hey, will you pour me a glass of milk?”

Mom nodded and poured two glasses. The soft murmur of voices on the TV filled the house. “Bad news from government facility Los Alamos today. Hackers broke into a classified server and downloaded a terabyte of top-secret military plans. An explosion rocked the facility, killing three…”

Crash.

One of the glasses shattered on the floor, but Mom stared at the television, her face as white as the spilled milk.

“Mom?” I set the knife down on the cutting board as my heart jumped. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

She shook her head and held up a finger. My skin prickled as I turned to the TV and watched as smoke billowed from a squat, nondescript building in the middle of the desert. A piece of paper fluttered against the wall and the camera zoomed into show some sort of logo. A rifle and a microscope crossed like an X on a field of pale blue.

“Until the culprits are found and the records retrieved, the government is treating this as a matter of national security.” The news anchor turned the next story over to his co-host and Mom stepped through the puddle of milk and turned the TV off.

Her hand trembled.

“What’s going on?” I asked. She looked like she had in the mall last week. Like she was going to be sick.

Mom shook her head. “Will you take care of the mess? I need to call your father.”

My jaw dropped open. “Dad? Why?” I couldn’t remember a single time in the last ten years when she’d actually chosen to call him. Now she’d talked to him twice in one week.