Cristal - Novella (7 page)

“Is this an interrogation, Kerim?” she
hissed.

She could feel her emotions getting out of
control.

“I was watching you and there was a beam of
light coming out from your chest to the ceiling and it bounced back
to the ground. It was like the light was coming through you.”

Kerim took a step forward, approaching her
with caution.

What is he talking about?

Her hands fell to her side. Even though
every cell in her body wanted to escape from the mindless
inquisition, she forced herself to stay put. It was impossible for
her to tear her gaze away from him. If he leaned any closer, their
noses would have touched.

“I don’t know anything about that,” she
admitted, not knowing what else to say.

“When the room was shaking, you were
motionless. Your eyes were empty. But I could see things above your
head.”

Gabriel threw him a look.

“What things?”

“I don’t know how to explain it,” Kerim
continued. “It was like watching a movie from an old projector onto
the white screen. Except the screen was the light that was coming
out from inside you.”

She blinked in astonishment.
That’s
impossible. Does he think I’m going to believe this BS? I have to
get out of here.

“Cristal, did you feel or see any of that?”
Gabriel asked. “Are you okay?”

“No, I’m not okay. I don’t have to stay here
and take this crap.”

She leaped up, bumping Gabriel to the side
as she grabbed her laptop and her backpack and headed to the
door.

She hurried down the hallway with Kerim and
Gabriel tailing her. When she reached the living room, Kerim
grabbed her by the shoulder with Gabriel blocking her path.

“Cristal, you can’t leave now. We need to
talk about this,” Kerim said.

Who the hell does he think he is?

“No, we don’t. I need to go and find Harry.
Let me go.”

She pushed his hand off of her.

“Harry?” Gabriel asked.

She noted the sound of concern in his
voice.

“No, I agree with Kerim. We need to figure
this out as much as we can before meeting Harry and the rest of the
group tonight.”

She couldn’t think properly much less talk
about it.
Beam of light? Projections above my head? What
next?

Just then, her cell phone beeped. She
scrambled to get it out of her backpack. New text message from
Harry. The sound of Gabriel and Kerim’s cell phone text message
ringtones followed soon after.

Zero:
Meet me at the GN University,
Physics Dept., Room 1130 at 6 pm today. Confirm receipt.

She started to type a text back when her
phone started ringing. Harry’s name came up on the screen. She
swiped the screen to answer.

“Yes?” Cristal asked.

“Cristal, checking to see if you’re
okay.”

Harry’s voice seemed serious, but she could
hear a hint of excitement. His phone call should have calmed her,
but she was feeling more anxious than ever.

“No, not really. What were you talking about
earlier? What tests?” she said.

Should I tell Harry about the light that
Kerim saw? No. Don’t tell him anything until I figure out what he
is up to.

“I’ll meet you back at GN and we can talk
then,” he said.

Before she could say anything, he ended the
call.

CRISTAL’S THOUGHTS WERE rattling in her head
like a pinball machine, each one banging into the other.

“I have to go,” she said still staring at
her phone.

“Okay, I’ll drop you off,” Kerim
replied.

He went into the living room grabbing his
helmet off the couch.

“No, I’m taking a cab back to the
office.”

Kerim appeared startled by her response.

“Okay, then. See you tonight,” Kerim said
slowly.

Gabriel stared at her with a look of
concern.

“We should talk about this some more, but
that’s just what I think,” he mumbled to himself.

Maybe Gabriel is right
.
She paused for a moment but then shook her doubts
from her head and walked out the door.

***

Outside the building, she welcomed the fresh
air. She stood still for a moment, taking in deep breaths, hoping
to relax. She looked around. People were scattering on the streets
like the fire ants that used to seek safety from the garden hose
she used to wield on in the backyard of her childhood home.

“There is no signal,” a young man said to
her. He was waving his cell phone. “Do you have a signal?”

She shook her head, knowing full well that
her cell phone was working fine. It was connected to a satellite
and not on a regular cellular network. Harry had made sure that all
the Truth Seekers were able to communicate with each other at all
times.

She glanced down at her phone and noticed
there was a text message from Serena.

Lioness:
We just had a small
earthquake here in Manila. No physical damage but lots of people
are saying they saw weird things. Like visions… Will send you pics
soon.

What? An earthquake in the Philippines too?
She began typing a response when she noticed some commotion on the
corner of the intersection.

A group of teenagers on the corner were
pointing towards the sky. She tilted her head to see what the big
deal was. Something was very different. Angry strokes of crimson
red with charcoal rain clouds hung above them. Streaks of lightning
were crisscrossing each other like an intricate woven rug. If she
squinted, she could make out an image, almost like a painting. The
image of a middle aged woman was becoming more vivid and clear.

I must be seeing things. Have to get out of
here.

She scurried down West 34
^th
Street praying to find a cab that could take her out of the chaos
but abandoned cars were making the normally traffic congested
street even more difficult for cabs to get through. She started
picking up her pace, half walking, half running. She had to get to
GN, which was on Lexington and East 33
^rd
Avenue,
probably a good twenty-five-minute walk.

Pockets of people passed her by, their eyes
opened wide, blinking fast as she raced past them. A woman with
snow-white hair and clear blue eyes caught her gaze. She was
walking towards her, clutching her black purse, her shoes with
thick black heels hitting the ground making a sound like a crack of
thunder with each step. Cristal covered her ears hoping to block
the sound.
Walk past her. Look away.

She tried to avoid making eye contact, but
her eyes were drawn back to the woman. The old lady was now stopped
in front of her raising her crooked finger at her.

Cristal froze, the old lady’s words crawling
into her skull. Her skin felt like fire ants crawling up her
arms.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said, half
believing her own words.

The woman continued, clutching the gold
cross around her neck like it was the only thing keeping her alive.
“It was you. There was a bright light coming down from heaven
through your body into the earth.”

Cristal shook her head and said firmly, “No,
not me! It wasn’t me.”

She yanked her arm away from the old woman
and started sprinting down the street. Her heart was pounding; her
palms sweating as she ran. Her backpack bounced against her and the
straps rubbed against her shoulders.

She kept running, oblivious of the people
bumping into her. The words repeated in her head like a mantra.

“It wasn’t me. It wasn’t me!”

She looked up and realized that GN was at
the next corner. Need to get Harry to tell me what the hell is
going on.

She dodged traffic and ran across the
street. As she ran up to the busy intersection, another voice
entered her head.

“
But it
was
you,
darling.”

CRISTAL’S PULSE WAS RACING, her lungs gasping for
air. “
Was it me?”
she asked herself.

She felt as though she had just finished
doing the 100-mile sprint of her life. It seemed hilarious now that
she was far away from the old lady. Imagine being frightened of a
little defenseless granny. Harry would probably tell her to get her
head checked if she told him what just happened. Deep down inside,
the fear was like lead weighing down her gut. She had to get to
Harry to get some answers.

She pushed her way past the people on the
street and ran across the intersection. Some GN staff were standing
in clusters all around the designated safe areas. She saw members
from her team gathering at the end of the street. She weaved her
way through the crowd, searching for Harry. She could hear comments
as she walked past.

“It’s the climate change that did this,” a
lady from the accounting department said.

“I bet you it had something to do with
terrorists,” another said.

“It was scary. I thought we were going to
die,” a man from the helpdesk support team told a fellow team
member.

As she came closer, the sound of their
voices filled her head. The sound was rising as if someone had
cranked up the volume full blast. She needed to calm down and take
control of herself.

Get out of my head!
She closed her
eyes and slowed her breathing.

It was working. The voices were fading,
except for one. Harry’s.

“Cristal, is everything okay?”

She opened her eyes to find Harry staring at
her intensely. A wave of relief swept through her body until she
noticed Joanna beside him, clutching onto Harry’s arm as if she
were holding onto him for dear life.

Cristal wanted answers but not to the
expense of having Joanna listening in.

“Harry, we need to talk.”

Harry must have noticed Cristal’s anxiety.
He glanced down and pulled his arm from Joanna’s vice-like grip.
Joanna put on a show by glaring at him, crossing her arms and
pouting.

What a spoiled brat,
Cristal
thought.

“They’re doing a head count,” he said,
switching back to Cristal.

“Good to know,” Cristal replied.

“Can you take me home?” Joanna asked,
tugging at Harry’s arm. Harry shook his arm free, the expression on
his face reflecting his irritation.

“Are you listening to me?” she whined.

He responded but his gaze never left
Cristal’s face.

“Joanna, calm down. After they give us the
all-clear
signal, we have to go back in.”

“You’re the manager! You can let us go home,
if you wanted to,” she said.

Cristal gritted her teeth. Patience with
Joanna was not her strongest quality.

“Get a hold of yourself, Joanna,” she
finally snapped. “At least you’re okay, so stop acting like such a
bitch.”

“Okay? I’m NOT okay,” Joanna blurted out.
She waved her arms to emphasize her point. “None of this is
okay!”

“Do you realize what happened today?”
Cristal asked, her anger rising.

“No, duh. We had an earthquake,” Joanna
replied, rolling her eyes. “Right, Harry?”

Joanna turned to him with her hands on her
hips.

“Tell us. Was that an earthquake?”

Harry gave her a dirty look.

“This is not the time or the place,” he said
quietly.

Out of the corner of Cristal’s eye she saw a tall guy
standing beside her. She looked up and was surprised to see Kerim.
How did he get through the traffic jam
?

“Alleys, side streets and sidewalks,” Kerim
said.

It wasn’t the answer that made her queasy. It was
the fact that Kerim knew exactly what she had been thinking.

The sound of a horn blast coming from the
building filled the air, indicating that it was safe to enter the
building. Kerim and Harry were standing toe to toe.

“Yeah, Harry, tell us if that was an
earthquake,” Kerim said.

“This is not the time nor the place,” Harry
repeated, narrowing his eyes.

He motioned to Cristal to go with him
towards the building.

“See you at six tonight, Kerim,” he
said.

Cristal would’ve followed Harry. Technically he was
her manager at GN although, her working there was only a cover to
hack into the GN networks. But then again, Harry was the leader of
the Truth Seekers and normally she never questioned his commands
when it came to fulfilling their mission. Debating with herself,
she found herself with a dilemma.
Do I go back to work with
Harry and spend the next few hours acting as if nothing
happened?

Then she did something out of character.

She tucked her arm in Kerim’s and pulled
herself closer to him, causing Harry’s eyebrows to shoot up.

She could feel Kerim’s stare but he played
along, placing his hand on hers. If anyone else were watching, they
did look like a couple.

“See you tonight,” she said to Harry.
“Kerim, let’s go.”

She smirked imagining the steam spewing from
Harry’s nostrils.

Joanna must have been enjoying the show
because her smile was stretching wider and wider and Cristal could
see a glint of glee in her eyes.

Cristal thought,
I’m not as predictable
as you think, Mr. Doubt.

“Your ride awaits you, my lady,” Kerim said,
giving Harry a friendly wink. He was definitely enjoying Cristal’s
tactical maneuver.

Cristal smiled to herself, letting him guide
her away. She glanced back to confirm that Harry was watching them
very carefully. She wondered what thoughts were running through his
mind right now.

She pulled Kerim’s arm, urging him to pick
up the pace.

“What’s the hurry?” he asked.

“No hurry,” she said. “I want to get away
from this crowd.”

He squeezed her hand reassuringly. They
walked hand in hand until they reached the intersection. She turned
back to see GN staff walking into the building.