Cristal - Novella (16 page)

“Ahhh, Harry. How is my boy?” Aaron asked,
smiling.

“He’s not a boy, anymore. He’s a man now
with a doctorate. A true genius. Just like you said he’d be,” Dr.
Saeed replied.

“Yes, we succeeded in proving my theory.
Inducing the chemical changes in the cells of a genius—one whose
soul is pure of mortal sin. That was the secret to it all.”

I can’t believe you both used me.

Dr. Saeed stood up and leaned over the bed.
“But that doesn’t explain how you time travelled here.”

Aaron’s voice melted into a nostalgic
lilt.

“You’re right. We did try altering the
general chemical composition of my nucleic acids. Nothing seemed to
come of it, except for my sudden hair loss.”

Dr. Saeed chuckled. “That wasn’t sudden,
Aaron. It’s just that you hadn’t seen the top of your head in a
really long time.”

Aaron scowled and turned away.

Dr. Saeed seemed to ignore him. “In order to
time travel, you had to be near the vicinity of a black hole, and
there had to be enough power or energy to enable you to transport
to here—the future.”

Aaron rolled his eyes, saying, “I told you,
the energy was coming from inside that room. It seemed that those
masked persons turned on the energy when they left the room.”

“Similar to an X-ray technician going into a
booth before powering up the machine on a patient,” Dr. Saeed
said.

Despite marveling at the idea that such a
machine capable of time travel existed, Harry was seething with
anger. He and his mother had trusted Dr. Saeed. But he was just
using them both like lab rats. Suddenly, he could hear Cristal’s
voice in his head saying those same words to him not too long
ago.

His mother’s journal had mentioned how much
she trusted Dr. Saeed, because he had helped prescribe the
medication she needed to cope with the loss of her husband. He had
driven her to the GN psychiatric visits. But now, Harry doubted Dr.
Saeed’s intentions. Harry didn’t know what his mother, Bina, had
said to her psychiatrist, but he was certain that she never told
anyone about her secret journal.

“And Bina? Is she safe? Did you manage to
test our theory on her?”

“Bina is fine. She finally got over your
death,” he started to say, but he paused and corrected himself.
“She finally got over her loss of you. The tests I conducted on her
were a success, just as we had hoped for.”

Tests? On my mother? Did he kidnap her?

The phone in his pocket began vibrating,
followed by the text notification alert.
Crap.
He fumbled to
turn it off.

He glanced up to see Dr. Saeed frown and
tilt his head. He stood up and started walking towards the closet.
His face had a deathly calm expression, as if he was about to
capture his prey.

I’ve never seen him look like this before.

What was more odd was the fact that his eyes
seemed to be glowing a fluorescent shade of yellow. Harry wasn’t
sure if the shadows in the closet were playing tricks with his
mind, but he wasn’t going to wait to find out.

“Harry? Is that you?”

Harry shook his head in confusion. He
acknowledged in his brain that it was the voice of Dr. Saeed, and
yet it wasn’t. The tone was much deeper with a reverberation that
sounded like nails scratching across a blackboard.

Now, I know I’m not imagining things.

He stumbled backwards, bumping into the
boxes of supplies behind him. Quickly regaining his balance, he
turned and ran out of the closet and back into the lab. He had to
get the hell out of there.

He ran to the doors, flinging them open.
Behind him, he swore he could hear a weird “wooshing” sound.

Holy crap. Don’t look back.

He sprinted down the hallway, rushing past the
security guards. They both called out for him to stop.
No f’ing
way!

He made it into the stairwell, picking up
the pace as he sped like a bullet down two flights of stairs to the
bottom floor where he reached the emergency exit doors. Power
reading a sign written in Hebrew that was pasted on one door,
“Alarmed. In case of fire, push to open,” he slammed his body
against the handles, shoving the doors open.

The clanging of the alarms rang into the
air.

He bolted towards the parking lot.
What
the hell am I running from?

The rational side of his brain told him he
was being paranoid. But his natural instincts told him to run even
faster.

He reached the parking lot and saw that his
car was one of only three left in the lot. He ran towards it,
ripped open the driver-side door, and jumped in, slamming the door
behind him. He jabbed the button to lock the doors while he shoved
his foot on the brakes and pushed the button to start the
engine.

Why I am so frigging terrified? It’s just Dr.
Saeed, for crying out loud
.

Out of desperation he called out, “Mom, if
you can hear me, please help.”

He couldn’t believe that he would resort to
calling out for his missing mother. He must be losing it.

Check your phone. The answer is there.

“Mom?”

He whipped his head around. He was certain
that the sound of her voice was coming from the back seat of the
car. But his anticipation was replaced with a sad disappointment.
No one was there.

“Freak, I must be hallucinating.”

Hurry, Harry, there isn’t much time.

He spun around again. No one else was in the
car.
I must be going nuts.
Why is my mind playing tricks on
me? Something inside him made him pause and reach for his phone.
When he swiped the screen to unlock his phone, he saw that he had a
text message waiting for him.

He wondered if his mother was trying to
communicate with him.

Text message received.

Graphix
: Update: We picked up Lioness
from airport. Mist and Shadow are here in Akko. Sending you video
of Shadow talking to Raffe. Looks intense but u need to translate.
Awaiting your orders.

There was no time to psychoanalyze the
situation. He shoved the gear stick into the Drive position and
pressed the gas pedal to the floor.

In the distance, the sound of the sirens
from the fire trucks was approaching fast. He breathed a sigh of
relief
. Whatever was after him, if there was anything, was
gone.

Hearing a “wooshing” noise again behind his
head, he glanced into his rearview mirror to see what it was. His
heart started pounding fast and hard; fear surged through his
veins.

Something was staring back at him in the
mirror—it resembled Dr. Saeed’s face, but from the yellow glow in
its eyes, Harry was definitely sure it wasn’t human.

***

Anne-Rae
Vasquez
is currently writing
Resist
– Book 2 of the
Among Us Trilogy
. 
Among Us
is a book series about a group of outcasts
(online gamers) who band together to investigate who or what is
behind the catastrophic events happening around the world. 
Among Us
will attract fans of the TV shows
Fringe, Lost, and 4400. Doubt, Book 1 of the
Among Us Trilogy
was
released in November 2013 at the Raindance Book
Festival.

Anne-Rae also freelances as a
journalist for
Digital
Journal
, an online news magazine. Her previous work
includes writing the novel and screenplay for Almost a Turkish Soap
Opera, an award winning feature film and series.  Her other
projects include:  Salha’s Secrets to Middle Eastern Cooking
Cookbook, Gathering Dust – a collection of poems (published by AR
Publishing Inc.) and Teach Yourself Great Web Design in a Week,
published by Sams.net (a division of Macmillan
Publishing).

To find out more about Anne-Rae’s
work, visit her
blog
.