“Isabella get your sister and get into bed.” My father said pointing up stairs.
The little me looked confused, much like I did when my father said the wrong name, but she walked away.
“Such a beautiful daughter, it would be a shame if she fell into the hands of the terrible Aurora Corporation.” James said turning to the front door. I heard the slam of the door.
I followed behind the younger me up the stairs back to the second floor of the house. I stumbled over a dead man’s body in the hallway and prayed that I was in a new memory.
I knelt down and looked at the man’s body. It was no one that I knew, some random Aurora soldier wearing armor that I hadn’t seen yet a familiar patch on his shoulder gave him away. Two men turned the corner; my father and another man that looked strange. His skin was a light grey color and most of his features were smooth to the point that they looked unnatural.
“I caught him trying to move through the shadows silently. There was a point zero, zero one noise variance. Unfortunately father, I was forced the kill him.” The weird looking man said.
I wondered why this man called my father, father.
“Don’t worry Jack, you did the right thing. They are trying the take Grace and Isabella.” My father said. My head started to hurt from all of the new, weird, information. I rubbed my neck trying to get at the pain.
“What would you like me to do with him?” Jack asked.
“Let’s get rid of the body. A grave by the lake should do. I think it is time for me to take the plan into action to get the girls out of here. I hope that they can find a safer life. I hope that they can get sufficiently lost in the system.” My father said.
Jack knelt down and scooped up the dead body with no effort.
My father opened the door next the where the body lay. Inside the room slept Isabella. I could see the sadness and the age in my father that he was going to have to let us go.
The world began to shake.
I could feel myself losing the dream.
I still didn’t know anything.
My eyes burst opened and I was surrounded by flames. Not my hottest but they were hot. I made them vanish. I saw Alice standing outside of the large spinning ring taking notes on her tablet.
“What happened?” I pushed myself up on the chair and watched the ring slow.
“You have been out for about three hours and about a quarter of the way in, you burst into flames.” She said helping me out of the machine, she handed me a robe.
“What exactly was the large ring for?”
“It is a magnetic restrictor to keep you from sleep walking. It also projects an electromagnetic shield, that thankfully held your flames; much hotter though and you would have melted everything.” She showed me a place on the edge of the ring that had begun to melt.
“I wonder why I did that. None of the dreams threatened me.” I scratched my head.
“What did you see?” Alice asked.
“A few things, first a little girl running through rubble… Then a young me being scolded for saying something mean to my mother while she was pregnant with Isabella. The next was my father having an argument with James Scott, that raises more questions, and sending me to my room, but he called me Isabella. The last memory was my father and someone named Jack finding a dead body in the hallway outside of Isabella’s bedroom.” I explained leaning on the nearest wall.
“There is no way to be sure that what you saw was even the right thing to be looking for and on top of that, you don’t know if what you are looking for is in your memories to begin with.” Alice said inspiring great confidence.
“I guess it won’t hurt to try based on what I’ve seen.” I left the room.
Everything seemed newer then it had in the dreams.
I went to my father’s office to try and log into his computer.
Dark clouds had covered the sky so that when I entered the office it was pitch black. The light flickered on as I walked across the room to the desk at the back.
I sat down in front of the computer. I didn’t even know how to turn it on. I reached up and wiped the layer of dust off the monitor. A blue box appeared in the center of the screen. It read please speak password, with a line flashing at the end.
“Isabella Ward.” I said crossing my fingers.
Sorry incorrect… Try again
“Isabella Madison.” I tried.
Sorry incorrect… Try again… twenty-four hour lock out pending
“Isabella.” I reduced to gripping at straws.
Commencing orientation, please wait while holographic projectors are calibrated.
I breathed a sigh of relief and leaned back in the chair. I was exhausted, but I didn’t want to stop and go to bed just yet.
Chapter 30: Hope
When the holographic projectors were warm, they began to build line by line a perfect replica of my father before my eyes. I stood up from the desk and walked around to the front to look at the perfect recreation of my father.
“Grace.” He smiled clapping his hands together.
“You know who I am?” I asked.
“Of course I know who you are. My programming is based on recorded memory algorithms from your father. So in essence I am your father.” He said lacing his fingers and letting his hands fall very life like.
“Well…Um…” I said stammering.
“I guess I should speak first.” He chuckled.
“I just didn’t expect to see my father.” I said leaning back on the desk and rubbing my eyes.
“Your father worked for a long time to perfect my programming. He knew that you would come here, and deduce the password from those memories.” He said. His smile and movements were very life like.
“How did he know what memories I would see?” I asked.
“He put a trigger in your memory that would set off those memories if you went looking for them. Some were real, some belonged to other people. I’ll bet you are wondering why the password was Isabella?”
I nodded but didn’t say anything. I didn’t know what to say.
“Your father wanted you to find your sister. Just like if she were to have been the one who came here first. She was to look for you.
Now… Here are the ground rules, young lady. First: You are allowed to access the entire knowledge base left behind by your father, except for these fourteen files.” He held out his hand and light blue representations of the forbidden files hover just over his palm.
“Why are they off limits?”
“These are files of things that your father wishes that he had never been a part of, or contain information that is not relevant to our current situation. I wish you to be free of them unless for some reason you are forced to be involved. If you ask the right question they will be unlocked.” He explained, closing his fist making the files vanish.
“Fair enough, what other rules are there?”
“The only other thing is, your father would like you to continue his work, however, that is more of a request, not a rule.”
“Ok then, down to business. I need to know if there is any way with any of my father’s many inventions to track a kinetic user.” I said pacing around the room.
“Ah yes, the AdvaGen satellite system is equipped with a kinetic brain wave detection component that can do what you ask. That is, if you have a profile of the user you wish to find.” He said, showing me an image of dozens of satellites orbiting the planet.