After Nataloidea, Molossoidea and Epiprocta had heard enough for one day, they thanked me and began back to their village, the twins excitedly conversing in their own language. As soon as Joan said goodbye and followed the other three, I looked down at my wristwatch.
"Gracious!" I commented. "That took a long time."
"Are you going to be late for dinner?" Tony concernedly asked, remembering his promise.
"Yes," I grumbled.
"Well, sorry to hear that," Tony owned up, "Let's get you home."
"What about the plane?" James came in. "You wanted to try out its controls."
"Not today," I rejected.
"Tomorrow, then?" Emilia proposed.
"No," I refused. "When I fly it. I already know how."
"Okay," Emilia accepted, boarding the handcart and motioning Tony and Rico to the handles. "James, could you be a gentleman and tie it back down?"
"Can do," James replied, audibly disappointed but still spirited.
During the climb up the ladder after the silent handcart ride, Tony sensed my frustration with him, along with a sheen of growing distrust.
"In my defense," he piped up, "I had no idea what Joan wanted to do with you. I didn't figure it would take so long."
"You shouldn't have promised anything, then," I argued.
Tony stayed silent.
Back up at the concrete construct, Rico, the last one out, pulled the iron door loudly down into its depression in the floor, shutting out the entrance to the insane world of the warrior women and the slave workers. After we all mounted the linear, Emilia flew us back to my home building, then away, and I could feel that world already becoming distant once again. For the first time, however, this distancing came along with tinge of guilt. For the first time, it no longer seemed amoral to help the foreigners. More importantly, it seemed to me that such a thing could be done without threatening the authority that kept my kind safe. As I left the rebels' linear at the landing pad and started for home, I imagined that the outsiders' conflict could be resolved with little more than a dent in the city's food industry. At the time, this reasoning in no way seemed overly optimistic or wishful.
This time, when I returned to my parents, they seemed unsurprised by my tardiness.
"I hope you won't make a habit of having us wait," my mother remarked, somewhat accusingly, shortly after I returned.
"Sorry, mom," I excused generically. "I was promised that it wouldn't take so long this time."
"I hope the boy you're helping is learning a lot," my father reconciled, hearing this.
As I scooted up to the dinner table, where Jerry waited curiously for me, I corrected, "Actually, It's a lady I am helping."
Detailing my lie, I knew, was risky, but I still felt the need to be truthful when feasible. Unexpectedly, this comment seemed to please both my parents greatly.
"A woman, you say?" my father repeated, sounding vastly more interested. "Do you suppose she's taken a fancy to you?"
"Hardly," I admitted, sorry to disappoint them. "She already has a boyfriend."
"A pity," my mother sighed, as she and my father sat down, "But I'm sure she appreciates your help."
"She does," I compromised, as we all passed around plates of food, taking what we wanted. "She's said as much herself."
Satisfied, my parents both nodded in unintentional unison. Jerry, however, seemed additionally curious as to how far the truth of my story stretched. He recognized Emilia as the girl from my story, and also knew her romantic disinterest in me to be truth, but that dangerous curiosity of his could not be satisfied by such a paltry smattering of details.
After dinner, Jerry asked over a game board, "So what happened today, Damon?"
"What do you mean?" I dodged, looking around to confirm that my parents could not hear us.
"With Emilia," Jerry patiently clarified. "You said she appreciates your help. That means you helped her."
"Obviously," I commented, stalling.
"What did you do, Damon?" Jerry finally asked. "Ghee whiz, quit beating around the bush."
"Nothing yet," I resisted.
"You're not going to tell me, are you?"
"Jerry," I addressed seriously, "This is dangerous business. I know I wanted to keep you informed, but, at this point the less you know about it, the safer you'll be. We need someone responsible to handle this situation alone." As I said this, I absent-mindedly made a poor move on the game board.
"When will you stop doing that?" Jerry lamented, exploiting my flaw and compounding his win, which now mattered little to him. "I'm not a kid anymore, and if you were responsible, you would've bought parachutes by now."
I halted in place, suddenly remembering the parachutes. In my moment of hesitation, I toyed with the idea of purporting to have it as a priority and avoid having to explain more unlawful details. Instead, I took a fresh look around us and whispered, "I don't think we're going to need them. Tony told me the police are not hunting us anymore."
"I know that," Jerry replied, sounding vaguely annoyed. "The police were not at school either, and Tony told me after he found out that I knew we were wanted."
"Jerry," I sighed, gently knocking over my main piece, signifying forfeit. "I know how frustrating it is to be told that you're too young to know things like these, but you have to understand why I'm doing this. I can't let you get pulled into this mess. Do you know what plausible deniability is?"
"I do, Damon," Jerry frostily answered, staring me in the eye confrontationally. "And I don't need it. You're not making me safer by lying to me. You're just making me hate you."
With that suddenly venomous comment, Jerry got up and stormed off to our bedroom, leaving me sitting by the board. As I silently gathered together the game pieces and put them away, I tried to deduce what I had done wrong, and to force those horrible last words out of my head.
Why could Jerry not understand? I was only doing what older brothers should do: protecting him from troubles that had already befallen me. Were he to join Emilia's gang, I knew I would never forgive myself. I dreaded to imagine that his foolish adventurousness would lead him farther astray than I could lead him back from. Briefly, I considered betraying the rebel group solely to keep Jerry safe, only to remember the foreign slaves and the fight to free them. Grudgingly, I admitted to myself that this risk- of me and my family- was worth it.
All the way to bedtime, my mind roiled with this conflict, analyzing the outcome of every course of action, only to have each hypothetical end in disaster. Worst of all, Jerry did not speak to me again for the rest of the day.
Saturday mornings are meant to be lazy and relaxed. For my family, they are a time to unwind and come closer together. But, that Saturday, Jerry had other ideas. All through breakfast he unsubtly leered at me, making it utterly clear that he remained upset with me. I did not feel threatened, as I assumed he hoped; instead, I alternated between feeling betrayed and feeling like the betrayer. All the while, my parents remained oblivious to the tension, smiling at us and one another as they always did.
After breakfast, we all dressed in our formalwear and filed up to the roof. In my father's hovercraft, Jerry and I sat adjacent on the rear bench. Scooting to the farthest edge, Jerry sulked there and slung resentful looks at me. I could no longer take it. I shuffled up next to him and leaned over.
"Jerry," I whispered, loudly enough to conquer the sound of rushing wind and running engines. "I'm sorry about yesterday. All the things I've been doing, I've been doing so I wouldn't make you angry like this."
"Nice job."
Forcing myself to endure, I continued, "This has nothing to do with you being a child. Even if you were an adult, I would still try to protect you."
"You can't," Jerry rejected simply. "You can't keep us adventurous types safe. You can only trust us to do that ourselves."
Taken aback, I stared distantly at Jerry for a moment, trying my hardest to take him seriously. That line was directly quoted from Johnny Adventure, and yet he seemed to mean it every bit as vehemently as every other defense of his own maturity. I tried to decide if his claim introduced a concept more frightening than my previous assumption, or less.
After a protracted ride, my father brought us up to one of the busiest skyscrapers in the city's downtown commercial sector, which housed the bowling alley we frequented. Around this skyscraper and its smaller adjacent counterparts clustered a cloud of relatively dense civilian traffic, which police planes rarely dared to penetrate, but constantly orbited, maintaining vigil.
As had become a habit for me, I ducked my head slightly as we passed near an airplane, as though its pilot might somehow recognize me as a rebel on sight. Only when I brought my head back up did I notice that I was doing it. With a wave of dread, I realized that I would have to break the habit if I were ever to pass as one of them.
After my father landed us safely on a corner of the busy landing pad, and we disembarked and descended the staircase to the penultimate level, the familiar neon lights cheered me somewhat. In this building, the good times rolled; on the top levels, expensive hotels and fancy themed restaurants entertained the rich and romantic. Just beneath them, boutiques for the discerning and specialty shops rested, nestled above the toy stores and food courts for the common man. Interwoven with these rested pinball arcades and even a gymnasium, along with our destination: the bowling alley. Beneath these came bars, followed by casinos and increasingly debauched establishments in the lower levels.
These levels took the form not of flat platforms or even networks of halls, but instead that of thick rings, which wrapped around the hollow shaft that ran the height of the building. In this shaft, a series of counterweight elevators ferried patrons between the building's attractions while their glass sides provided them with an unrestricted view of its material glory.
I shaded my eyes against this blooming lightshow as our elevator bore us down the level of the bowling alley, a journey which took approximately a minute.
At the appropriate level, the bowling alley entrance spread out welcomingly before us, facing our elevator directly. After a brief pause, with which we took in the familiar sight, we all started toward it, unknowingly synchronizing our steps.
Within the bowling alley, the colorful interior design gave us another enthusiastic welcome as we strode past the smooth, futuristically designed snacks bar, pool table and jukebox, and presented our membership cards to the young lady at the shoe kiosk.
After promptly switching to bowling shoes, we selected a quiet lane near the far wall, which eluded overcrowding. As we approached it, I noticed a small group of pleasant-looking teenagers at an adjacent lane. Just seconds later, I did a double-take; one of them was Emilia.
Even through the blond wig she was for some reason wearing, I could recognize Emilia, along with Rico and Tony. James, I noticed, was absent, but a willowy, thickly-clothed brunette who I could not recognize accompanied the three.
As we sat down at our selected lane, I faintly hoped that they would ignore us, only to hear Emilia call out a greeting to us.
"Hi, Damon," she addressed gaily, shuffling up to us.
"Hello there," I replied, acting as though I did not know her, for the sake of secrecy.
"Who might this be?" my mother wondered, seeing this.
Not knowing which lie to use, I looked to Emilia, who promptly curtsied and answered, "I am Emilia Pershing. You two must be Mr. and Mrs. Gottlieb."
My mother and father both nodded, impressed by her manners and seemingly not offended by her leather jacket and jeans, which Rico and Tony, behind her, both wore as well.
"Your son has been studying with us after school lately," Emilia continued. "Along with Rico, Tony and Bethany back there."
At this, the two boys politely waved, not saying a word. The brunette- Bethany, apparently- sat still for a moment, before belatedly imitating her friends.
Jerry, seeing the opportunity that I had been denying him, hastened up to me and pretended to make Emilia's acquaintance.
"Yes, I've heard of you," she greeted, playing along. "Your brother here tells me you're quite the bright bulb."
With that, Jerry dropped his voice to a whisper and pointedly asked, "What have you been studying?"
Understanding him, Emilia whispered in kind, "We've agreed on getting Damon some practice. We're making an actor of him."
While I watched my parents nervously, seeing them bowling the first two turns, I quietly questioned Emilia's decision to divulge our secrets to Jerry. She replied only with a confident look.
After both of my parents had bowled, the hiss of pneumatic machinery and the clatter of clockwork gearing announced the pin machine resetting the pins, heralding my turn to bowl. While I held the bowling ball at the beginning of the lane, I listened carefully to Emilia's whispering, hearing nothing but the pounding of balls landing on lanes elsewhere, the hollow clatter of felled pins and Tony explaining the basic rules of bowling to Bethany.
After I bowled both balls- poorly, for lack of focus- I retired to the chairs and took another look at Bethany, to whom Tony appeared to be demonstrating proper ball grip. Upon seeing her, I felt that unmistakable feeling of having seen someone before, but not knowing where. Certainly, she dressed differently to her friends. Bizarrely enough, she looked to be dressed in old-fashioned flight gear, with men's cargo pants and what looked like a fur-lined bomber jacket. Compounding this look was a fetching scarf, which hung, long and thick, all down her back. The scarf puzzled me. What with this city's equatorial geography, no natural weather necessitated such a garment; only the highest-flying aviators ever used them. As Jerry left Emilia to take his turn, I began towards her, intending to inquire about the scarf's purpose. I then noticed Bethany's skin tone to be tinted slightly red.
All at once, I put it together. My eyes must have widened when I did, because I saw Emilia smirk wryly at my reaction. Presently, I recalled Bethany's real name- she was Buthoidea, Joan's sister from the village. I hastened my approach to Emilia.
"What do you think you're doing?" I implored of Emilia, keeping to a whisper and furtively pointing to the foreigner. "If they find out who she is..."
"They won't," Emilia reassured me. "We're passing her off as mute. She's just here to pick up a bit of language. Maybe even learn a thing or two about our machinery as well."
"Please tell me her tattoo isn't on her neck," I breathed.
"What do you think that scarf is for?"
I laid my head in my palm. "Blast it, Emilia, you're going to get us all caught! And why didn't you just cover the thing with makeup?"
Emilia stopped for a moment, thinking.
"Did you catch that, Tony?" she asked, turning around. She pointed to her throat indicatively. "Next time, we should use makeup."
"What do you mean, next time?" I questioned.
"Damon," Emilia began, as Tony sat down next to her, "We do this all the time. We've gotten pretty good at disguising them, and they've gotten nicely acclimatized to the noise and size of the machines we have here. I mean, the engineering that went into this city is pretty astounding when you step back and think about it."
Just before I could reply, Tony added, "And speaking of acclimatization, we still need to get you into the cockpit of that plane."
"I thought we agreed to do that on Sunday morning," I checked.
"That's the mission itself," Tony differentiated. "It would be best if we could get you used to the control layout before that. We don't even have to-" before he could finish, Rico called him back to the lane for an unspecified reason. "Hold on," he excused, leaving.
"We don't even have to get you airborne," Emilia finished, knowing what Tony intended to say. "We could do it on Sunday morning, with the stunt itself, but it wouldn't be as good."
"Emilia," I sighed, "I don't know if you could tell, but I've already upset my little brother in balancing this with my life, and I have pledged a lot of inconvenient hours to this cause already."
"I know this is hard for you," Emilia sympathized, looking me in the eye, "But this is serious business. Just look at James- the poor boy devotes all of his time away from his father's workshop to the one in our base. It used to be that he'd spend all that time with his sweetheart. These days, he sees her about as much in two months as he used to every week, and he has to keep his business with us a secret from her."
"That's terrible," I allowed, "But what can I do about that?"
"My point was," Emilia clarified, "That extremes like that are on the table. We might need a lot more out of you by the time this is finished."
"And what about keeping it a secret?" I asked, quickly changing the subject. "Is it so crucial?"
"Yes," Emilia answered. "That's why it was so important that your little brother found out about our operation. We don't let anyone on the outside find out. Even Peter doesn't know the whole story."
"Oh, Damon," my mother called, "It's your turn. And what were you two lovebirds whispering about?"
"She already has a boyfriend, mom," I reminded, embarrassed.
"I already have a boyfriend," Emilia reinforced, sounding only vaguely annoyed.
"I know you want me to grow up to start a family when I get older," I told my mother, as I walked by her, "And I intend to, but she's taken."
This seemed to offend my parents more than I had intended.
For the rest of our time at the bowling alley, Jerry took every opportunity he could get to speak to Emilia, who happily obliged. Even while I tarried at the chairs, waiting for my turn, there was nothing I could do to prevent Jerry and Emilia from undoing all of my efforts to keep him safe. I began to formulate how I would protect him now that he knew all about our plans. As I did, it crossed my mind that he alone could do that, but I hastily denied this.
I spent the rest of the game in uncomfortable silence. Even when my father lit a cigarette and began to smoke, I scarcely noticed the scent. To my surprise and mild dismay, Emilia's game moved much, much more slowly than ours, and she remained when we prepared to leave.
"Damon," Emilia called to me, just as we left the alley.
I froze in place.
"Could you come down and study with us a three in the afternoon today?"
"What for?" I implored, frustrated.
"You know..." she began, trying not to sound suspicious. "Just for warm-up. Jerry is invited."
Piecing together that Emilia referred to acquainting myself with the patrol plane, I sighed heavily and consented, "Fine, fine... but there is nothing for Jerry to do there."
"Jerry is coming to your study group?" inquired my father.
"Apparently," I lamented.
"You shouldn't begrudge him your company, Damon," my father critiqued. "He may be a long way behind you all, but he could learn a lot."
"Yeah, Damon," Jerry uselessly reinforced. "Ghee whiz, I'm not going to trip on the doorsill and break my neck."
"Fine," I mumbled resignedly.
On the trip back home, I took comfort in observing that Jerry seemed no longer upset with me. Partially, I surmised, this had to do with his 'winning' against me, such as our contest was to begin with. Faintly, I hoped that the danger he had succeeded in bringing upon himself might teach him caution.
As soon as my father touched us down, I quickly vaulted from the hovercraft and pursued a wayward Jerry through the halls into the elevator, then down to our suite, leaving our parents on the top floor, waiting for its return. I began to doubt my earlier guess that Jerry's frustration with me had boiled away.
"Why are you following me?" demanded Jerry as soon as we reached the locked door of our home.
"Because we live here," I answered obviously.
"But why are you chasing me?" Jerry clarified. "Why did you run after me like that?"
"Because you were running too, and... I wanted you alone," I explained. I leaned in close. "Jerry," I whispered, "I know how smart you are. I know you can think on your feet. I know you can take care of yourself in any reasonable situation. But this is not a reasonable situation. I'm starting to think there is nothing I can do to change your mind, but I don't care what Emilia tells you. You just... can't... handle it. Why won't you listen to me when I tell you that?"
"Listen to you?" Jerry repeated, tears forming in his eyes. "You're one to talk about listening! Do you think I was just sitting there while you told me about what happened to the men outside the city? What are you afraid o-"
"Hush!" I growled, frightfully scanning our surroundings for eavesdroppers. Thankfully, none were present.
"So why won't you listen to me," Jerry continued, his voice quavering, "when I tell you that I know how bad this is? I know danger when I see it, okay, Damon? You knew it when you were as young as me, and I know it now, too!"
Even though I had braced myself for Jerry to blow his stack at me again, I could not have been prepared for that last sentence. He was wrong about my younger self, however, and the only reason he had an eye for danger, I knew, was because I had showed him. It had to be. Just as I patched together my rebuttal, I noticed my parents approaching. Immediately, our argument flickered out. As we stood up straight, on either side of the doorway, I tried not to look uncomfortable, and Jerry tried not to look furious.
Presently, my father drew out our key and unlocked the door while I mumbled an apology for leaving them behind. Incredibly, neither he nor my mother seemed at all aware of the tension between Jerry and me.
Several awkward hours passed in the suite as we each attended to our separate affairs. The only I word I heard from anyone else between our return and 3:00 PM was a quick exclamation of sudden remembrance; my mother had forgotten to stop by the antique shop on the way back from the bowling alley, which she always did. Instead, she simply tended to the collection of wartime-era figurines on the shelf in her room, which she always hoped to add to with her shopping trips.
The time for my departure crawled to the present, and, the exact moment it did, I bade a terse farewell and prepared to hear and accept Jerry's insistence on coming. He did not say a word. Instead, my father calmly addressed me before I left.
"Champ, there is something I want to talk to you about," he addressed, in his gravest voice.
I sat down at a convenient chair, chambering convincing lies as he approached.
"Son," he began, "Do you know what is wrong with Jerry? I just tried to talk to him, and something is wrong that he is tight-lipped about. Your mother and I cannot do much that he hasn't already done. You were like this, too; both you kids pretty much raised yourselves."
I let out a small but genuine smile at this comment.
"Any idea, sport?" my father prompted.
"It's the study group," I explained, slowly unfurling my web of lies. "Jerry wants to come with, but there is nothing for him to do there. He would just get bored."
"Are you sure that's all of it?" my father rightly questioned. "He doesn't get between you and Emilia, does he?"
I opened my mouth to protest, but he quickly and gently stopped me.
"I know, I know," he conceded. "She's not your girlfriend. I understand that. Your mother really, really wants it to happen. She doesn't understand you taking so long because she found her dreamboat just out of high school. My point is, a little kid can still make things awkward."
"That could be it," I ambiguously lied. "If I'm honest, I'm not certain what is troubling him. He is too upset with me for me to help with anything, but he will get over himself in a few days."
"I understand," my father softly concluded, getting up. "Thanks, son. You're dismissed, soldier."
Slowly and suspiciously, I let my guard down, having difficulty believing that my father had been unsuspicious of my sudden and lengthy absences. Shrugging my shoulders, I hastened away.
On the landing pad, just as I approached my linear, I saw a police plane buzz overhead at minimum speed. Rather than cower or duck down, my reflexive reaction was to curl my fists and adopt a fighting stance. A better reaction, I recognized, but still unbecoming of a spy. Gloomily, I realized that this practice I would be getting tomorrow would prepare me only for the easiest parts of impersonation.