A Stranger Thing (The Ever-Expanding Universe) (12 page)

Which is exactly the moment when the back door opens and Bernard enters, still in the process of zipping up his fly.

“What’s going on?” Bernard asks, clearly unaware of all the excitement. “What’d I miss?”

“Bernard!” the masked woman calls out. Bernard turns at the sound of her voice and squints at her.

“Zee?” Bernard breaks into a killer grin, clearly unfazed by
the new arrivals—or the two Almiri who have quickly tackled him to the ground, binding his hands in front of him. “Babe!” he shouts from the floor. “You came all the way to Antarctica for me? Man, you are a
warrior woman
!”

“Ew,” I say, leaning over to exchange snark with Ducky.
“Babe?”

Ducky’s nose is wrinkled just as much as mine.
“Warrior woman?”
he says. “Who the heck
is
this chick?”

Which I guess is precisely the question Oates is wondering too, because he finally takes the opportunity to peel off the ringleader’s ski mask.

Next to me, my father sucks in a sudden deep breath. “Olivia?” he says, his voice thin and wavering.

I look down at my baby. But there’s absolutely nothing wrong with her, not that I can see. I turn to my dad.

“Olivia.”
He says the name again, whispers it this time. And he’s not looking at his grandchild.

He’s looking at my
mother
.

Um,
whoa
.

I mean, just,
whoa
.

My mother is
alive
? And she’s
here
?

I repeat:
WHOA.

“Miss?”

I snap to, and realize that Oates is waiting for me to respond. I guess he’s been “Miss”-ing me for a while.

I tear my eyes away from Zee—er, my
mom
. “Yeah?” I say. My voice is shaky.

“In the medical closet,” he informs me, “you will find gauze and antiseptic. Please fetch it quickly and meet us in the storeroom.”

“But I—”

It’s too late. He’s already moving down the hall, Zee kicking and screaming the whole way as she and Bernard are dragged in tow by the Almiri.

I turn to my father, who amid the chaos and the confusion is looking . . . pretty calm, actually.

“Dad?” I say as I watch him watch his former wife being led away. “Are you
sure
that’s Mom? ’Cause, well, not to state the obvious or anything, but I thought she was, like, dead.”

He thinks on that, then nods.

“For a woman dead and cremated sixteen years ago,” he replies, still staring down the hall—despite the fact that Oates and the others have already turned the corner, “she’s holding up pretty well.”

“But how—”

“No idea,” he says, snapping his attention back to me. “I guess it’s up to you to figure it out.”

“But—”

“Medical closet’s that way.”

•  •  •

I easily find the gauze and antiseptic Oates asked for, and race to meet him in the storeroom. As I enter the large white space, the lights grow slightly brighter, then fade back to their original brightness, the censors that operate their intensity apparently on the fritz. A quick glance around the storage locker reveals a very weird assortment of items, ranging from sports equipment (rolled-up badminton nets, athletic mats, various balls) all the way to what appears to be a stash of theater costumes and props. Ever since we landed here, I’ve wondered how the Almiri manage to keep themselves occupied for decades or longer in this snowy prison without any computer access. I guess now I’ve found the answer. I shudder as I spy a pair of black-dyed corn-husk wigs, imagining what degree of cabin
fever could ever push a group of grown men to stage a full production of
The Mikado
.

Bernard and Zee are sitting in two folding chairs in the center of the room, Oates standing in front of them. Bernard is slouched casually, right foot up on his left knee, like he’s at a poetry reading. Zee, however, is at full attention, the anger ripe on her face. Their hands are still bound before them, although the two Almiri who led them here are nowhere to be seen. As I approach, I’m shaking so badly, I nearly drop the gauze several times. Good thing baby Olivia is strapped in, or she’d be floor food too.

My mother,
I keep thinking—on an endless loop in my brain.
That right there is my mother. I’m going to talk to my mom for the very first time.

There are so many questions I need to ask my mother: How did she get here? Where has she been for the past sixteen years? Why did my father think she was dead?

Most kids get to start with “goo-goo-ga-ga.”

“This would be much easier if you would simply cooperate,” Oates says to them, motioning me over. He doesn’t move a muscle for the first aid kit that I offer him, so I unwrap the gauze and play nursemaid. Zee has a fair amount of bruises on her face and her arms—lots of small cuts. I guess the Almiri did quite a number on her during the surprise attack. I guess
I
did quite a number on her myself when I sat on her.

Whoops.

Still shaking fitfully, I unscrew the cap from the antiseptic cream and dab a little on my mother’s face.

My mom. I’m touching my mom.

She flinches and jerks away. Instinctively I grab her chin to steady her and try again, attempting to form coherent thoughts so I can shape them into words. But I have no idea what I want to say to this woman. To my
mother
. I am, for once in my life, totally speechless. For her part, she’s staring at me. Like, really intensely. Does she know that it’s me? Sure doesn’t seem like it. If she did, you’d think she’d pick a slightly more emotional response than simply glaring icy daggers at me as I tend to her cuts. Maybe she’s just weirded out seeing a chick with the Almiri?

“I’m already aware of who you and your comrades are,” Oates tells Zee while I continue doing my best Florence Nightingale. “But perhaps an exchange of names would be in order? I’m Captain Lawrence Edward Grace Oates, although most of the chaps here simply call me Titus.”

Baby Olivia sleeps silently at my chest, unaware of the momentous family reunion that is going on right in front of her.

“And?” Oates prods when there is absolutely zero response from my mother. “Madam, you are . . . ?”

Zee shifts her glare from me to Oates, upping the intensity from “level-four scowl” to “full-on face melt.” But if there’s one dude she won’t win a staring contest with in this place, it’s the stoic, centuries-old Victorian Brit.

“Zada,” Bernard informs Oates after a few moments of awkward dueling glares between them. “Zada Khoury. We all call her Zee.”

“Well, then, Zee,” Oates continues. “As to the matter of why you are here . . .”

I try to follow the conversation as best I can, to learn more about this woman I clearly don’t know at all, but all I can do is stare at her as I dab more cream on her cheek, taking in every centimeter. She is short, I notice, and scrappy.

“We came to rescue
this
asshole,” Zee says, gesturing with her head at Bernard. Despite her well-formed muscles, my mother obviously hasn’t been eating enough. Her clavicle juts right through her thermal. “Which”—she rounds on Bernard—“is beginning to seem like a colossal misallocation of resources.” Her straight dark hair is cropped close to her head, and although she has a few wrinkles around her eyes, she wears her age well. “Weeks of planning, dozens of assets reassigned, and we get here and find you’re just
hanging out
with our oppressors like this is some sort of Burning Man.” She’s aged a lot from the photos, but dur, they were all from, like, twenty years ago.

“She thinks you’re gonna lock us all up and, like, throw away the key,” Bernard tells Oates, in a tone that practically drips with an eye-rolling
“women.”

Oates shakes his head at that. “Bernard and I have been having discussions of a very different sort since he arrived,” he tells my mom.

Zee merely scoffs. “Let me guess. Talks of love and understanding and a détente with the Almiri.”

“I told you she’s a cynic,” Bernard says with a sigh.

My mother is beautiful, really beautiful. More than the pictures gave her credit for. But I don’t see a smidge of me . . .

“Just be clear on this,
Almiri
,” Zee spits. “Bernard here does not speak for the movement. And we are not so gullible as to
think your kind wishes to come to any sort of ‘understanding.’ ”

“You might find our priorities more in line than you realize, madam,” Oates offers.

Zee immediately rejects the notion with a laugh. “I have a lifetime of experience concerning Almiri priorities,” she tells him disdainfully.

She does?

“That may be true,” Oates responds. “But you have no such experience with me.”

You know that dream where you show up to history class six weeks late and everyone is gabbing on and on about the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, and you just know you’re gonna be screwed on the final because you have no flipping clue what they’re talking about? Well, that dream seems like a safe, cozy place compared to how lost I am at the moment. What movement is my mom talking about? And how does she know anything about the Almiri? I squeeze a bit more antiseptic out of the tube and onto my finger, while in her papoose Olivia gives me a gentle sleep-kick.

“Look, babe,” Bernard interjects, and for a long second my neural transmitters are so assaulted, I can’t hear anything else.
The dude with the musty beard calls my mother ‘babe’?
Ew ew barf barf ew. I steady my breathing and do my best to focus, reaching once again for my mother’s face.

Maybe, I think, despite the initial evidence, this woman really
isn’t
my mother. Because as hard as I search, I can’t even find a hint of my face in hers.

“Oates here is an okay dude, all right?” Bernard goes on. “I’ll totally vouch for his upstandingness.”

“I should have left you to rot the last time you tried to pull a stunt like—”

But Zee doesn’t get to finish, because I have dropped the antiseptic on her foot.

Her chin,
I realize suddenly.
I have her same angular chin.

“Miss?” Oates is looking at me curiously as I scoop the tube from the floor. “Are you quite all right?”

“Um,” I start. Like I said—brain-mouth connection no worky. “May I speak to you in the corner for a moment?”

Oates narrows his eyes ever so slightly as he considers my request, following up with a quick nod. He gestures to the door. I struggle with the cap on the cream like the world’s biggest chromer, then finally give up on the whole thing and walk to the corner.

“Everything all right?” Oates’s voice is a whisper, his eyes darting to the captives in the chairs several meters away.

“Uh . . .” I’m not entirely sure how to answer that question. “No?” I answer at last.

He nods. “Tell me, then.”

I look over Oates’s shoulder to my mother, who is staring at us with equal parts curiosity and rage. “So . . . that woman?” I say slowly. “Zee?” Oates nods again. I bounce Olivia gently while she snores. “Yeah. She’s sort of . . . my mom? My dead mom? And, like, she hasn’t figured out who I am yet? And I don’t really know what to say to her.”

Oates takes this new information in and seems to process it carefully. Then he does what, I suppose, any good Brit would do in such a situation. “I’m going to make some tea,” he replies.

“But—” He’s moving for the door. He’s not really going to leave me
alone
here, is he?

“Where do you think you’re going?” Zee asks, possibly thinking the same thing as me, although probably not for the same reason. “That’s it, run to tell your masters about your latest catch!”

“If the conversation does not go to your satisfaction,” Oates tells me, handing me his toy popgun, “you have my full permission to shoot her.” I stare at the thing, bewildered, before tucking it into the only convenient spot I have available to me—Olivia’s papoose, the hilt snuggled against my baby’s cheek.

I’m not gonna lie. The girl looks pretty cute with a gun.

“Er, thanks?” I tell Oates.

He only nods in return, then exits.

I stroll back to Zee, doing my best to hold my head up high. This is it. The moment that will change my life forever.
You’re my mother,
I open up my mouth to tell her.

But she has no time for me. Instead, she turns to Bernard. “Explain yourself, Bernard,” she bellows at him. Honestly, if I were the dude, I’d at least pretend to be a
little
chagrined, because I know for a fact that this lady packs C-4.

But Bernard only shrugs. “I knew you’d never come on your own, so I had to find a way to get you here.”

Zee’s up on her feet in a flash. With one swift sweep she kicks out the front legs of Bernard’s chair, landing him flat on his back. She looms over him, glowering. “Why, Bernard?” she shouts. “Why would you do such a thing?”

“These guys aren’t our enemies, Zee,” Bernard says,
looking not at all put out that someone looks ready to rip his throat out. “They’ve been oppressed by the Almiri power structure too. It’s like, they’re prisoners, right? But it’s a prison of their
mind
. We need to set them free. These guys could be our way in. Unless, of course, you’d reconsider my idea of going straight to By—”

Zee moves to kick him in the balls, but Bernard raises his bound wrists in surrender. “Okay, okay! No, then. So this is our best shot.”

“I’m through with these ridiculous schemes for some sort of flower-power reunification,” she heaves. “We should’ve left your sorry ass to freeze out here. And
you
”—she jerks her chin in my direction, suddenly turning her venom on me—“I didn’t know the Almiri had started keeping pets.”

Zuh?

“Zee,” Bernard says quietly, picking himself up off the ground. “The baby’s a girl.”

Zee stops, her spaz attack momentarily put on pause. “Oh God.” She looks at Olivia, then me, squinting hard. “You don’t even
know
, do you?”