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He wished he would have held off on the humor. She wasn't stable enough for it yet.
Hell, he wasn't either.
There was a possibility that none of this was real and they were both in shock.
Anything would be more believable than the truth.
Cradling her against his chest, he leaned back against his headboard and he tried to clear his own head.
"How do we keep it all straight?"
He didn't know. It all seemed to be too much. How could he expect her to do something that he wasn't even sure he could do?
"We'll go slow." He finally answered her and tucked her in closer because he could feel her fear. "I know nothing feels right anymore, nothing feels in order anymore, but nothing has changed. Not really. Your name is Paisley Douglas. Your mom is Dougie. You're an only child who has lived in your house your whole life."
"Your name is Jay, and you lived close by. Your house is gone, and another was built in its place. Across from the park are more houses. Mack lived there, but you were already in foster care by then, so you never met her."
"That's right."
"You were born in a pod."
It took him a long time to answer. "Not born. Created. We were created in a pod. Others are born in pods now, but we were created."
"You and your brothers?"
"Yes. We might as well be called brothers. We are closer than any brothers can be."
"Like the way we are."
He kissed the top of her head. "Yes. They are each a part of me just like you are now. We had different mothers and fathers but we're the same. Our DNA was engineered to be the same. Manipulated and changed to be what they wanted us to be. Human but not human."
"You're smart. You can use a hundred percent of your brain."
"We could. It's unsure if that's true now or not. In the future only the smart survives now. Anyone with a low IQ isn't even worth the wasted oxygen. The mind is a powerful thing and power is everything. My world is so different from your world. Trees have all died, so we built fake trees. The sun is so harmful to us we can't even walk outside without protection, so we built a glass dome between us and it. Water and air are polluted beyond repair. We should know, we have done everything to change it, but all attempts have failed. The earth is dying and there is nothing we can do about it."
It was too late. If they had known then what they know now, then there might have been hope but in his time, it was too late. "Lifetimes and lifetimes wasted trying to find new planets, trying to find alien life to save us. Then we started to build a planet for us to live on, but we ran out of time. Twenty percent of the planet escaped. Another ten boarded all the airships we had in hopes of one day finding a new world."
"Then you stumbled onto time travel."
"Not exactly. They had been working on it for centuries. They always hoped that they could send back a team to save the planet, but all attempts failed. The mind is strong enough, but the body is weak. I just reminded everyone that we already had the answer to the problem. The mind can live three, even four lifetimes before it weakens, and bodies are easy to come by. Especially when you can grow them in pods just for that reason."
"How____."
Reading her mind, he looked down at her with a frown. "You're thinking too literally. Not the brain. The mind. It's an easy transfer. They didn't even need us for that. They needed us to figure out how to get us here. Our main issue was getting your bodies to accept us. You can transfer into a fully-grown body, but it isn't easy. In my world bodies are kept just for that reason. They must be kept in pods and have no life outside of their pod. They must stay void and untouched. If their own minds are allowed to process, then it becomes harder to take over. You could even be rejected. In most cases, we would have been rejected. Especially after any real length of time."
"You took over babies?"
"It was our only choice. Chance of success goes up eighty-seven percent. Not ideal but manageable. The biggest difficulty was being able to remember our orders and carry out our mission. A set of protocols had to be made."
"Save the planet?"
"Take over the world and save the planet. We have little concern for people too stupid to contain their on livelihood. From that point on research had to be done. We had to know who had to live and who could die. We had to know who the people of interest were and who would have no impact on the world we wished to build."
"And Jay McCarthy?"
"The first of many mistakes. He was supposed to live, he was even supposed to be infiltrated but not with me. My brothers and I aren't even supposed to be here for another twenty years or so. There were grunt workers for that. People sent to kill. People sent to clean. Prophets and finders to gather troops. Hunters to stop anyone who could get in our way. Jumpers, watchers, sleepers______."
"Pretty simple names for a group of geniuses."
"The army comes first. The second wave will be smarter. Everyone has_____."
He noticed that she had moved away. She watched him with unease.
"Jay McCarthy was meant for Mack."
"In an ideal scenario that would still be the case. We foresaw some complications. It was worth the risk."
"Who are you?"
"That's the component I couldn't foresee. I am Jay McCarthy. A product of my upbringing and I'm also Kael. Created and engineered in a pod. I'm still the same guy who would sacrifice the entire world to save you."
She went back into his arms. "And I'm still the girl who can face anything as long as you're at my side."
