Delusional Page 25

  I walked outside where I spotted Ethan sitting down at a table that gave him an unobstructed view of the river and the hundreds of buildings that towered above it. Besides Ethan, there were only about five other people seated around the stone patio outside, which gave me a much-welcomed break from the overwhelming amount of loud chatter and boisterous laughing inside. I took a deep breath of the crisp, fresh air, and the slight coldness invigorated my lungs and body.

  “What’s up?” I slid into the seat next to Ethan. He was wearing a new pair of jeans, and a plaid shirt that must have been in his room. I glanced down at the baggie sweatshirt I was wearing, paired with a clean pair of jeans, a welcome change from that dirty, tattered, nano-tech clothes from the White Knights.

  “Oh shit.” He put his hand to his chest and looked at me with wide eyes. I laughed, as he breathed hard for a second, trying to gather his thoughts. “I thought you were...”

  I smiled, even though I could sense his fear as his voice trailed off.

  He shook his head, the anxiety disappearing from his face as he regained his composure. “No seriously, you could’ve given me a heart attack.”

  “Alright,” I smiled, “I’ll make sure to make myself known next time.”

  “For real, for all I know you could’ve been a creepy clown or a shark.”

  “A shark?”

  “Yes, a shark! You’ve never heard of land sharks before? They are scary enough to make a strong, grown man like me cower in fear.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, right.”

  There was a short silence where the only sounds were that of the waves crashing against the metal barricade that surrounded the island, and in that moment, I couldn’t keep the visions of Dulce and Antonio from flooding my mind.

  I sighed, “This sucks.”

  Ethan put a hand on my shoulder, and when he looked into my eyes that refused to glance up from the ground he knew exactly what I meant.

  “It has to get better eventually.” He looked up at blue sky above and then back at the blue water as if he couldn’t tell one from the other. “There’s no way this can continue forever.”

  “Maybe it’s all in our memories—locked away in the past. Maybe that’s what Danielle will help us with. Maybe she can finally end this all.”

  “No,” Ethan’s voice was raw with emotion, “I don’t trust her. I feel like she is a parasite. I feel like all of them are parasites, and that this,” His arms were outstretched pointing to the beauty all around us “This is just not right. There’s something about everything that I just don’t-”

  His voice cut off, and both of us stared up at the man that stood above us both startled and perplexed. “Hello,” The man smiled and offered an outstretched hand, “I’m Congressman Justin Winslow.”

  “Um, nice to meet you.” I half-heartedly shook his rough, large hand. The Congressman unfortunately had a receding hairline that started so far back that his forehead appeared to be ten inches tall. I completely ignored every other feature on his body, and stared distracted by his odd, gray, frail hair.

  “Your name’s Natalie Parker, right?”

  Ethan shot me a half worried, half confused glance as I said, “Yes, it is.”

  “Well it’s a pleasure to meet you Natalie,” His smile was wide, and his teeth were white from an abundant use of whitening strips. “May I sit down?”

  “Uh, yes of course.” I gave him a rather weird, perplexed look as he sat down across from us and sighed abruptly.

  “So, Natalie, I hope you don’t mind but I have something very important to tell you.”

  “N-no,” I said stuttering, “Go ahead.”

  “Well, a while back, before the Great Crash, I actually used to know your mother.”

  “You knew my mother?” I looked at him in shock.

  “Yes, Veronica Parker,” He smiled there was a warm way about him that made it easy to tell why he was a politician. “Me and her were both Senators, I was a Republican, and she was a Democrat, but we both become united on some very… important issues.”

  “How well did you know her?” Part of me was in disbelief and wanted to test him, while the other half wanted to uncover as much information as possible about my family that apparently existed.

  “Oh, your mother and I were very good friends. Before she moved out to Arizona we would go out to dinner with other politicians and lobbyists, and we both worked on writing various pieces of legislature together.”

  “Well what was she like?” I didn’t know whether to believe him or not. He could say some random hundred-year-old lady on the side of the street was my mother who adopted me. But there was a warm vibe that emanated off him, that I innately trusted.

  “She was very sweet.” He looked me sincerely in the eyes. “Your mother was a very good person, she was always concerned about people, sometimes too concerned. She was smart, likable, and she had a certain way about her that I can’t really explain. She always had the people’s best interests in mind, even if that meant going against political norms.”

  A rebel. Suddenly a wild picture appeared in my mind of a woman who had long, flowing hair, a fearless attitude, and a sharp witty way about her.

  “Did you ever meet anyone else in my mother’s family?”

  Ethan shot me a stern, nervous look.

  “No, no,” He shook his head almost hastily, “Me and your mother’s relationship was strictly related to business and business only. The few times we mentioned other topics she talked about having two kids, a boy and a girl, and there was talk for a bit about her scientist husband, but suddenly I believe they got divorced or something like that, I’m sorry I can’t remember.” His tone suddenly turned frantic, and his eyes shifted around, unable to look at me directly.

  “No, don’t be.” I studied him. His brown eyes were lined in very long eyelashes, and his face had a pleasant warmness to it. Something about what he was saying hit somewhere so familiar in my brain that it made me feel uncomfortable and scared.

  He coughed into his shirt, “So, I didn’t just come here to tell you about your mother, I wanted to help you guys get her back.”

  “That would be amazing.” I leaned in, adrenaline beginning to rush my body.

  Ethan cleared his throat to interrupt the conversation, but we both ignored him.

  “It may be possible for you not only to see your mother again, but your whole family if they are in fact with her.” He paused and gulped anxiously. I finally saw a break in the man’s confident stature. “This may be a shock to you, but I know for a fact that your mother and anyone else in your family are in Area 51 and I can help you get them.”

  “Woah,” I was too surprised at first to have an immediate response. It took a second for my brain to process the information, another second to digest it, and a whole other second before I had developed an adequate reaction. Area 51. My family is in Area 51. I shuddered as the images of the hundreds of people yelling madly, and the evil, lanky man with orange hair appeared in my mind.

  Ethan glared at him with a furious expression on his face, and a sharp, belligerent look in his eyes. “You can’t trick me. What do you think I’m stupid?” Justin’s face loosened as all emotion flooded out of him. “You’re a humanoid. You’re just here to try and lure us into Area 51 so that President Ash can finally stare us in the eyes and kill us with his own bare hands!”

  “Excuse me, I think there is a misunderstanding-”

  “No! No! No!” Ethan pounded his fist on the table in a fit of pure rage. The few people outside looked at our table bewildered. The trauma and panic seeped out of Ethan’s skin like smoke rising from boiling water. “You will not lure me in with your seductive words this time! You will not deceive us! We aren’t going to fall into President Ash’s trap again. We aren’t gonna get tricked by another stupid humanoid, who President Ash himself is probably controlling right now!”

  Justin’s face was full of panic, and I could see a genuine sorrow in his eyes. “Look, I’m sorry I didn
’t mean to offend you.” His hands were up now, begging for mercy from the wrath of the bullets in Ethan’s words. “I just want to-”

  “No, shut up.” Ethan cut him off, despite me sticking out an arm to hold him back. “I don’t care what you have to say, it won’t change the truth. Just go. Please just get up and leave!”

  The man hurriedly stood up with a terrified look in his eyes and without saying another word left in a haste to the warmth of the indoors. There was silence for a minute where I stared at Ethan in a state of seer anger where I contemplated screaming wildly at him or slapping him across the head. I did neither.

  “What is your problem?” My voice was austere, but quiet comparatively.

  Ethan didn’t respond at first but, he just sobbed into the pair of jeans he was wearing.

  “I’m sorry,” He tried to hide the tears in his eyes, “I’m sorry, j-just I can’t go back there! We can’t risk him being another humanoid! We can’t risk falling into his trap again!”

  “But we won’t.” I put a hand on his back. “We won’t.”

  “Well, how do you know that?” He ripped his head out of his lap and glared at me with tears brimming off his eyes. “What makes you think that we will go in there and come out alive?”

  “We are practically dead now.” Before I knew it, I started to cry right with Ethan. “We need to go. We need to get our memories back; it’s our only shot at escaping this. It’s our only chance, and if it doesn’t work, I’d rather be dead.”

  Ethan shook his head and hit himself hard on the thigh. “I know. I know.” His voice was firm, but the horror was visibly overcoming him in his clenched fists and eyes that appeared white with fear. “I just—I just can’t do this anymore. I can’t lose another person. I know you can just push your emotions to the side and continue on like a dysfunctional robot, but I can’t do that Natalie. I’m a freaking human being, who feels pain, and feels love, and I’m a human being who can only take so much.”

  “You’re not the only one.” We both stared at each other and into our eyes that were each spiraling into an endless pit of identical emotions. “But I know that we need to do this. We played a role in creating this broken world. And I’ll die trying to fix it if I have to. And I can’t even begin to take one step forward in that journey if I don’t have my memories.”

  “You really just want to keep fighting this war? You really want to keep fighting even after we have lost everything? Because I don’t. What Antonio said that night is actually starting to make sense, I finally understand him.” He took a deep breath, trying to let some cool air into his seething lungs. “I hate this. I really do. I hate this more than anyone. I hate this gap. I hate constantly searching for something to fill the giant hole in my heart and brain. But I can’t keep letting the hole inside me continuing to get bigger. Natalie, if this keeps going on there will be nothing of us left. We can’t just keep blocking things out and soldiering onto the next battle. I can’t just forget about Dulce, who might be getting eaten alive by those people, or Antonio, or Colton, or the White Knights, or the horror we endured at the hands of President Ash. I can’t just neglect the life that we were given right now. I can’t afford to lose another person. And Natalie, I’m afraid that if I lose you, I will be broken.”

  There was a painful silence for a minute. I could feel his words acting as bullets that threatened to explode the wall protecting my sanity and cause my mind to become inundated with an abundance of darkness. “Ethan, but you won’t lose me. We won’t lose each other.” I moved my hand to lock with his. “We will make sure that whatever happens that we will do it our way. And even though there’s no telling what’s going to happen, one thing is for sure: if we keep living with these empty hearts and keep on living with most of our lives missing we will perish. We will die with a massive regret, and huge void of uncertainty. We have to at least give it a try, whatever that means.”

  “I know. I know.” He sighed the frustration coming to the surface of his face.

  He looked at the water that pulsed ever so slowly with current. “So, are you saying that we should go back to that guy and ask him for help? Risk that he could be a humanoid?”

  I thought about it for a second, but then shook my head. “No, we will ask Danielle for help. She might know a way that we can hack into Area 51 and retrieve our memories remotely, or maybe she can help us go in there and get them directly from the computers inside. In fact,” I started to get up, a new burst of energy coursing through my veins. “I’m going to go find her right now.”

  “Wait, no.” Ethan grabbed my forearm before I could walk away.

  “What?”

  “I’m coming with you.”

  “Oh,” I smirked, “So someone I see wants to get his memories back.”

  “No shit.” He got up and started walking ahead of me towards the door. “I want my life back too. I just don’t want anyone I care about now getting hurt because of it.” He held the door open for me. “Natalie, y’ know it isn’t all about our past memories,” All the anger in him had subsided and now he had a special gleam in his eyes when he glanced at me, “It’s about the memories we make today too.”

  For a second, I didn’t respond, and my silence was amplified by the fact that everyone that was once in the cafeteria had receded to perform their daily tasks. At first, I didn’t quite get what he was implying, but then I looked at him, and the sparkle in his eyes when he glanced at me, and I finally got it. “Making good memories ain’t a bad thing, just to really appreciate them we need to be able to really understand our emotions and know our past.”

  “That’s what scares me. Our past. What if it’s just a million more years’ worth of terror pain, regret, and misfortune bundled up into a package from hell? What if our memories were worth forgetting?”

  A shiver ran through my spine. My biggest fear, my worst nightmare that I had managed to block out behind the wall in my brain. Just with those words Ethan unlocked a chilling terror that ran through every one of my bones. I glanced out at the grass fields and bright, lush flowers that dotted the landscape of the island, visible through the expansive window at the front of the building.

  “Then we will forget them.” I looked down the long hallway we had just made a right turn into. It was covered in fresh, beige paint, and polished granite floors. “Then we will forget them.”

  Right at that moment the elevator doors slid open silently, and Danielle appeared smiling in front of us. I jumped back startled, bracing my hand against the wall.

  “Holy shit, you came out of nowhere.” Ethan stared at Danielle looking like he was about to pee his pants from the surprise. I noticed her black women’s suit and black high heels that were so tall that they caused her to tower above me, meanwhile she was normally around my height.

  “Oh wow, we were just looking for you,” I blurted the words out of my mouth before she even had a chance to speak. “We wanted to ask you a question about-”

  “Oh, that’s great,” Danielle smiled, and her voice had an annoying, polite ring to it. She had a way about her that made it seem like she didn’t interrupt me, even though she blatantly disregarded what I was about to say. “What a coincidence this is! I was just looking for you guys too. I actually need you guys to come to a meeting.”

  She just stared at us with a smile swallowing her cheeks that miraculously managed to stay frozen and plumped up no matter what her facial expression was.

  Ethan looked confused. “Um what is the meeting about?”

  “It’s actually going on right now,” Danielle’s voice was way too high-pitched and ecstatic as she said it. “I wanted you guys to come so we can discuss your future with the Retributioners.”

  “Uh okay.” Ethan eyed me out of the corner of his eyes.

  “Yeah sure.”

  “Fantastic!” She waved a hand in the air. “Let’s go right now, everyone else is waiting in the conference room.” She stepped forward into the elevator cheery-faced.

  Etha
n and I both glanced at each other with apprehensive glances on our faces. The elevator door shut and began its ascent. I glanced over at her eyes that whizzed around, probably looking at her ICL. The way she looked at us with that special glow in her eyes caused the hairs on my arms to stand straight up, and it made me wonder what was hidden beneath those eyes to make her act so weird.

  The elevator doors opened at the top floor, and we followed Danielle’s hectic pace to the conference room. All the hallways on the floor were the same as the first, besides the fact that the granite was changed to soft, white carpet.

  “After you,” Danielle smiled as she held the oak door open and ushered us into the conference room. I could almost smell the layers upon layers of makeup doused on her face. In front of us about twenty people sat with their hands neatly folded on the table. One person however instantly stood out, I couldn’t have missed him if I wanted to due to his massive forehead. Justin’s eyes met mine with a solemn glance, and I looked away.

  My cheeks flushed immediately, I felt like the one kid who didn’t get the memo to wear a red shirt on school pride day. Every set of eyes instantly turned to us silently, some patting their nicely ironed suits, as they looked at us expectantly.

  “Sit down,” Danielle shut the door and motioned to two seats positioned directly at the head of the long, stained, wooden table. Oh great, now everyone has a great view of my long sleeve turquoise shirt and baggy, gray sweat pants.

  I sat down, and peered around nervously at all the men who had a clean, professional way about them that made me feel inadequate and looking like I just woke up certainly did not help my self-confidence.

  I brushed a strand of messy hair out of my face and focused on Danielle, who stood at the opposite side of the table, as she began to speak. “Good morning, now that we have Natalie and Ethan here, we can continue with our meeting. As I was saying earlier,” She glanced at the holograph that was being projected onto the wall behind her. “These two are the two most vital individuals to our mission.”