White Noise (The Inadequate Experiments 1)

11. And Down We Fall

Sera

I clambered out of the taxi, the wind snatching at by hair and scarf. The night was cold enough that my breath turned to clouds, barely visible in the darkness. I smiled to the driver as I closed the door, watching as the taxi slowly rose from the ground and hovered away. I turned to walk into the house, only to be blinded by another set of headlights. I flinched, holding my hand up the block the glare, squinting to see who had pulled up behind me. Had Thomas come home from work early?

A figure stepped out, and the car rose from the ground and drove off – that was when I realised it had been another taxi. I scrunched my eyes closed and opened them again, hoping it would help them adjust.

"Sera? Is that you?"

I found myself laughing. "Tia?" I asked. "Why are you here?"

She skipped over to me in the darkness and linked her arm with mine. "I felt like I hadn't seen you in ages. I know it's only been a week or so, but I haven't seen you since the Java House – and you need to tell me all about Oliver!"

I opened my mouth to protest, but she didn't need light to know it.

"Don't even try to deny it, I know you've been hanging out with him at least once or twice. Everyone at the Java House is so interested, I wouldn't be surprised if they had their own team of spies or something." She joked. "And, well, I actually got a call from Thomas – he and the twins needed to go to a meeting, for netball or something, and with you M.I.A, he asked me to keep an eye on Claire."

I sighed. "She wouldn't like it if she knew she had babysitters."

"That's what I thought, too! So, my cover story was going to be that I wanted to see you and would wait for you to get home, but here you are – no cover story needed."

I laughed as we reached the front door, gripping the door handle in my hand and feeling the familiar tingle of the chip scanner as it read the ID chip in my palm. As I swung the door wide and walked into the house, I turned to Tia.

"Pizza?" I asked her.

Her eyes lit up. "Pizza."

"Sera has returned home, accompanied by Tia Davies." The robotic voice of HANA announced.

"Hana," I called, "order us some pizza for delivery – the usual."

There was a short pause before the AI responded with, "Your pizza has been ordered."

I wandered down the hallway towards my room, Tia following close behind me, and stopped to poke my head in my mother's door. Cooper's words flickered in the back of my mind – it's all thanks to the Scientists that we're like this, Sera. The Scientists... And your mother. – but I pushed them away, closing the door softly as I realised she was fast asleep. I sighed, thankful that Tia had gone ahead to my room. I forced a smile onto my face and followed – Cooper's words were a problem for another day.

I pulled my scarf from around my throat and took my coat off, throwing them haphazardly on the end of my bed before launching myself onto it beside Tia.

"Soooooooooo," she giggled, jabbing me in the ribs, "fess up! What's the deal with Oliver?"

I slapped her hand away, jumping at her touch. "What do you mean, what's the deal?" I covered anything that may have sounded like worry in my voice with a laugh.

"You know exactly what I mean!" She insisted. "You hated him, Sera! And now he's your Soul Mate – how are you even dealing with that?"

I shrugged. "I... I never hated him." I told her. "Not really, it was more... I guess I envied him, you know? I'd wanted to be an actor all my life, and I kind of just felt like he got my dreams handed to him on a silver platter purely because his last name was Jackson."