Sean found himself lingering on the patio that night, and it had nothing to do with Dillon and Carey being in the loft. He could have transited over to the Cameron apartment, new bed, no worries. But John showed no interest in going anywhere. Nor did the professor have any further questions, at least any he was willing to voice. Instead, when the professor finally did speak, it was to ask, “You want to tell me what’s on your mind?”
Sean had to laugh. “You mean, other than how Dillon is getting on with Carey?”
“I think they’ll work this out just fine.”
That startled him. “How can you be so calm?”
“Oh, my world is rocked, all right. But just now all my major worries come down to one thing. Can I trust Dillon to take care of my little girl. And the answer to that seems very clear. Dillon is forthright. It’s a word that’s gone out of fashion, and more’s the pity. But that is the word that describes your brother.”
“Yes. It does.”
“See?” John spread out his hands. “A simple answer to a complex question. Your brother will do his best to do right by Carey. There will always be transitions. And what I don’t want is for my fears, my needs, my loss, to color how they are just now. This is about them, not me.”
Sean felt that same burning lump as before. There was no way to completely erase his own yearnings for the chance to rewrite his family history. But what the professor said applied to him as well. Tonight wasn’t about him. So he decided to speak about the other thing that weighed heavy on him. “Can I talk with you about another problem?”
“Of course.”
He laid it out. The issues they faced and the mystery nobody would talk about with them could not be discussed unless Sean first described how the system worked. He stumbled more over this telling than he had in explaining the new life and worlds they lived in. But it felt good just the same. No clear answers. But here was a mind he could trust.
John heard him out in silence, then went back to studying the night. “So let me get this clear. We have one of those teams—what did you call them?”
“Watchers.”
“On duty out there somewhere.”
“More than one.”
“And we’ve got a squad of . . .”
“Praetorian Guards.”
“On high alert, ready to defend us against an attack.”
“Right.”
“As of yesterday, your former Examiner is under arrest and facing trial.”
“But he’s innocent.”
“And they won’t accept this.”
“The physical evidence is all pointed straight at him.”
“And because of the strange nature of your and Dillon’s new talents, they discount your own findings as unimportant.”
“They won’t even listen to us.”
“But it all comes back to one thing, doesn’t it.”
Sean nodded, loving this conversation. How they were walking along the same unseen path. Totally in sync. “The attack in the Charger.”
“There is something they’re not telling you. Why would they prefer to think this was nothing more than your overactive imaginations at work?”
“Either that or blame it on the Examiner.”
“Someone in the group must at least be willing to consider that you’re giving them a correct account. That you were indeed attacked. In that case, why would this one man put together such an elaborate scheme when he had the power to erase your memories? I don’t buy it.”
“Tirian called us reckless. He said we were a threat to ourselves and others. They’re probably assuming he put this together to show he was right. And keep the blame off himself in the process.”
“That makes sense,” John murmured. “Perfect, logical, irrefutable sense.”
“But there’s something else. They won’t talk about the how. Every time the topic comes up, they shut us down.”
“Which leads you to think . . .”
“That it’s tied to the other thing they won’t talk about. The aliens.”
Sean expected the professor to come back with some dismissive comment. The sort of thing adults were all too good at doing whenever the conversation strayed into uncomfortable territory. But John studied the cloud-covered sky for a time, then said, “Do you remember what I told you the other night about my field?”
Sean thought hard and replied, “Cultural anthropology is the study of how different civilizations develop distinctive traditions, philosophies, values, and ways of life. And your field has been divided into two groups. I forget what they’re called. They look at the same evidence and come up with two different outcomes. And what I need to do is look for a pattern or a motive that might have led to a mistake in judgment.”
“Very good. Excellent, in fact. Tonight I give you an A-plus.”
“But I’ve been trying, and I haven’t come up with anything that helps.”
“Yet. You haven’t come up with something yet. So let’s take this one step further.” John pushed his chair back from the table and crossed his legs. “To truly understand a culture from within, we must first confront a very basic issue in ourselves. Who are we, this group that studies the culture? How do we make sense of something that is totally unfamiliar to us? We run the risk of falling into very real traps. We can rely on our own cultural measuring sticks. We can remain tied at an unconscious level to the bonds of our own upbringing. We can view everything out there through the lens of our own past.”
Sean found himself listening on two different levels. He was taking this all in, trying to see how it fit the patterns he had experienced within this mystery of the attacks. But he was also looking at himself. And reflecting on how this was what it was like to be an adult. Sitting together in the night, parsing out the impossibilities they faced, drawing on the wisdom of others, talking as equals. He had once heard that the greatest challenge every teenager faced was realizing they were not actually the center of the universe. Either they grew through this or they failed at life. And tonight, for the first time ever, he felt as though he was given a glimpse of what lay on the other side.
Then something pinged.
It was far below actual thought. More like a new buzzing sensation at some bone-deep level. Sean had no clear idea of what was happening. Only that it was important, and it was tied to what John had just said.
He spoke as much to himself as to the professor. “So Carver and Tatyana could actually be responding to something in their past, and not the attack on us at all.”
“Not exactly. Their analysis is colored by past experience. You see the difference? They see this event very clearly. But their judgment is tainted by previous incidents that have shaped their vision and their character.” John gave him a minute, then went on, “Tell me, what do you think of the atmosphere at your school?”
His response was instantaneous. “Stifling.”
“What makes you say that?”
Sean described the windowless transit rooms, the careful discipline of point-to-point transits, the absence of doors to the outside world, the way the school itself did not even have windows overlooking the Lothian caverns.
John did not let him finish. “There may be your answer.”
“Sorry, I don’t . . .” Again the ping. Again the sensation of something far below conscious thought.
“Let me give you a for instance from my own field. World War I was the most brutal bloodbath mankind had ever inflicted upon itself, at least in this world. Afterward, all the theories governing our study of other cultures were thrown out. It wasn’t that new evidence was suddenly discovered. Instead, the perspective changed. People of all walks and disciplines were repelled by the error of their ways. Everything that had brought them to this point—culture, civilization, the Western world’s air of superiority—all of it was dismissed. Scholars looked at the world through an entirely different lens. One fashioned through the flames of war and brutality and loss.”
Suddenly Sean’s chair became constrictive. He bounded to his feet and began pacing the patio like it was a wooden cage. Seeking a way out. Hunting. “So you’re telling me that some terrible event happened . . .”
“Perhaps, just perhaps, a cataclysmic event has reshaped their perspective. Not just about this attack. On everything you face. The school included.”
Sean paced and thought and paced some more. Then he realized the professor had spoken to him awhile back, and he had no idea what the man had said. “Sorry. I missed something.”
John actually seemed pleased by being totally ignored. “No, no, it’s good to see a mind at work.”
“I guess I better get to bed.”
“Sean.”
“Sir?”
“Thank you. For trusting me as well as Carey. Someday I hope you understand just how much this has meant.”
Sean stumbled up the stairs, flung himself onto the bed, and was out. At least, until an idea woke him an hour or so before dawn.