The Secret
By Cybra
A/N: Still with me, people? ^^ I'm so evil, aren't I? I just love leavin' ya hangin'! You'll notice that I'm using the same full name I assigned Arnold in "He's Gone". The reason is consistency…and "Arnold James Mackintosh Qwilleran" has a certain flow to it. It's unusual, just like Arnold. ^^
Additional Note: I'm going to be gone for two weeks starting Wednesday, June 26th on vacation. I do not know if I can pull off writing Chapter 12 in such a short period of time and be proud of my work. I'm just going to hold off on the next chapter so I don't rush and so that I can answer reviews. Speaking of which, it's time to answer those reviews!
Arreiyenne – Thanks for your comments! ^^ I'll send the "Odds Theory" ASAP.
JESS – It's okay that you haven't been able to review. I ain't mad! Thanks for reviewing anyway! ^^
Sennical – How long…? I have no idea. ^^;;;
Irina – Thanks! But I don't understand that part about "Any clearer and it would be a crystal statue of Arnold!"
LM – Thank you! Thank you! :::bowing:::
Kyra-chan – WEE! It's nice to hear from ya again! And thanks! XDDD
Paradoxal Reality – Thanks! And it's okay that you're a sucker for angst…I love it, too! And I still haven't seen "Parents Day"! ;.;
hyperkitty – Um, I'm afraid that there is no romance in this fic except for the one-sided romance between Maya and Arnold (one-sided on Maya's side, at least).
Disclaimer: Me Cybra. Him Craig Barlett. Him own Hey Arnold!. Me jealous.
Chapter 11: Meeting MayaEven before he opened his eyes, Arnold knew he wasn't at home.
The feel of the room was completely different. Warm sunshine or cool moonlight didn't pour down on his face through the skylight. There wasn't that still-lingering scent of lavender from the candle that had been lit the night before. Even the sheets were different. These sheets weren't made of cotton but some sort of a soft microfiber material.
Besides, his last memory was being injected with something, seeing those two masked men, and then falling unconscious.
He slowly opened his eyes, allowing them to adjust to the artificial lighting that lit the room. He glanced around as far as his peripheral vision allowed him and saw not a single window in the room.
"That's it. I'm out of here."
He sat up and was met by a wave of dizziness. Closing his eyes and brining one hand to his head, he weakly groaned.
"Scratch that. I'm out of here as soon as whatever they shot me with's out of my system."
As soon as the world seemed to do him a favor and stopped spinning, he reopened his eyes and truly looked around the room for the first time, turning his head to catch what his wide-shaped head had blocked from his peripheral vision.
It was a very large room, far larger than his attic room at home. From the ceiling hung an elegant (yet unusual) fan/chandelier combination. The deep mahogany fan blades seemed only to highlight the crystal clear chandelier attached. The room was painted in a very pale jade green that seemed to melt into the emerald green of the baseboard and carpet. The colors suited the rest of the room well.
Across from him was a door clearly made with mahogany paneling, intricately carved with different designs in the wood surrounding the door. To his right and closest to the door was a large entertainment cabinet that was also made from the same dark wood as the desk. (Arnold guessed that it probably held at least a stereo system.) Next to the cabinet was a desk of deep mahogany wood that filled only a quarter of the wall space, a high-powered computer stationed neatly in one corner of the desk. The closest to his right was a mahogany night table sitting right next to the bed with an elegant lamp whose base appeared to be made of green marble. The bed itself was also made from hand-carved mahogany and covered in emerald green sheets of the strange material Arnold had only touched once or twice in his life before now.
As Arnold twisted his head, he noticed that to his left was a large dresser made of hand-carved mahogany as well. Just above the dresser was a large mirror that was surrounded by the same hand-carved mahogany as the rest of the furniture. Next to the dresser was another door. A rather large and elegant emerald green couch with a mahogany coffee table took up the rest of the space, just across from the entertainment center.
Slowly, he pushed the coverlet off of him, suddenly self-conscious. He didn't belong here. It was far too rich and upscale. It was more of a museum than a room in his opinion.
Just as he was about to slide off the bed and onto the carpeted floor, someone slowly opened the door. He froze in shock.
Standing just inside the doorway carrying a tray of food was a young Odd just like him!
She was pretty. Not beautiful. Pretty. Her small – almost elfin – body along with her long, waist-reaching black hair helped make up for her physical faults. Her brown eyes were too close together. And her skin was a touch too pale, like she didn't really go outside very often. Her nose was almost a little too large for her small mouth.
She wore a simple dress of an earthy brown that reached down to her ankles. A pair of flat-heeled shoes of the same color adorned her tiny feet.
If he'd let his imagination go, he could almost imagine her running free in the wild with a unicorn or two, the horned horses attracted by the open air of innocence she was giving off.
Wait.
He paused for a moment, lowering his shields just a bit.
She was leaking her emotions all over the place in a way he easily recognized.
Not only was she an Odd…
…but she was an Empath as well!
She fidgeted under his scrutiny, clearly nervous without him needing to use his abilities to see.
He gave her a warm smile. "Sorry about staring. I'm harmless. Really."
She giggled, for the first time letting him hear a sample of her voice.
The giggle was light, yet nothing like the bells people would want to assign to a young girl's laugh. It wasn't the tinkling of a wind chime or a flute-like sound either. It was almost like a small trill in the upper ranges of a clarinet, light yet still mellow.
Arnold slid off the bed, landing lightly on the carpet. "My name is – "
"Arnold James Mackintosh Qwilleran. I know who you are." she told him, smiling brightly.
"I don't usually introduce myself by my full name, but that'll work." He gave her a confused look. "But how did you know?"
"I've been collecting articles on you for a while now." Her smile turned a bit shy. "I always thought it was kind of neat that you had two middle names."
"My parents' idea. That way both sides of my family were well-represented." He leaned against the bed a little. "My name was originally supposed to be 'James' but…"
"…'James Arnold Mackintosh Qwilleran' sounds stupid," she finished for him when he trailed off.
"Right. Besides…" His eyes took on a mischievous twinkle as he thought of another way to calm her down. "…how can anybody respect a person whose first three initials spell 'jam'?"
He paused, still smiling warmly, as she giggled. 'Strange girl. Never met anyone quite like her. She's sweet, not sweet like Lila sweet, but still sweet. It's almost like she's not really experienced in what goes on outside of…wherever we are.'
When she'd finished, he said politely, "Well, you know who I am, but I don't have the pleasure of knowing your name."
The young girl tried not to giggle at his almost courtly manners. "My name is Maya McMillan. No middle name. Or names as the case may be."
'McMillan…Now why does that name sound familiar?'
"I hate to seem rude, but…where are we?" Arnold asked, deciding to get right to the point.
"We're at my home. My dad also lives here. A lot of his workers live here with their families, too."
Something in Arnold's mind clicked. "Is your father, by any chance, Sean McMillan of McMillan Industries?"
"Yup!" she chirped. "That's my dad!"
Mentally, he reviewed what he knew about the man from newspaper articles in his mind. 'Sean McMillan. Founder, president, and CEO of McMillan Industries. Hires only Odds into his company. If there isn't a job for an applying Odd, he either finds them a job or makes them one. Well-respected among the Odd community. His workers are – understandably – extremely loyal to their boss. I think he tried running for Congress last year, but not enough people voted for him. Didn't know he had a kid.'
What irritated Arnold was that he couldn't remember where Sean McMillan lived. It would've given him a basic idea as to where he was in the city…
…or even if he was still in Hillwood.
"Do you like your room?" she asked. "I helped pick out everything. I was trying to guess what you'd like from the articles…"
"It's very nice," he assured her. "I just wasn't expecting it when I woke up."
'Now there's the understatement of the millennia!' part of his mind sneered.
Silently asking that part of his mind to kindly shut up, Arnold told her, "I've never had a room like this before. It's very beautiful." Silently, he added, 'Though I wish there were a few windows. Jimminy Christmas, a few days in even a large room like this with no windows would make the most sane person in the world insanely claustrophobic!'
She blushed at the praise. "Thank you." She seemed to notice the way his eyes would dart occasionally to the walls. "I wanted to give you one of the suites with a nice balcony, but Dad told me not to. I don't know why." She turned her attention back to the tray in her hands before she walked over to the couch, sat down, and set the tray down on the coffee table. "Hungry?"
His stomach shot into his throat, almost making him gag. "In a few minutes. Sedatives and I don't get along very well."
Brown eyes blinked innocently. Then they focused on some point on the floor. "I'm sorry that those guys did that, but Dad said it was for your own good. He said that he just didn't want you hurt, and after the first guy scared you, he was worried that you'd hurt yourself trying to get away this time."
Using his abilities to scan for a lie, Arnold quickly realized that she was either telling the truth…or telling what she thought was the truth.
"Don't worry about it," he advised, walking over to sit next to her. "Anyway, I'm just kinda rambling. I'm not always totally coherent when I first wake up."
'Liar,' that same irritating voice in his head whispered.
If he was self-conscious before, he was even more so now that he was sitting next to Maya. Her dress was made of a material that was never supposed to wrinkle. His street clothes were rumpled from having been slept in. She was perfectly at home in these rich, classy surroundings. He felt like a piece of gutter trash that had been mistakenly brought in.
Thinking of nothing else to say, he glanced down at the breakfast tray. He nearly sighed with relief when he saw perfectly ordinary eggs sunny-side up, two sausage links, and a perfectly square piece hashbrown casserole on the china plate. A crystal glass of milk was neatly placed on the tray along with a linen napkin, a silver fork, and a silver knife.
His stomach seemed to immediately lose that earlier queasiness left over from the sedative and demanded to be fed. If he remembered correctly, he hadn't eaten since noon yesterday. If he'd had dinner, he didn't remember it.
Maya laughed as she heard his stomach growl. "Eat up! I'm supposed to tell you the house rules while you're eating anyway."
"Thanks," he said just before he started attacking the eggs, barely managing to save himself from looking like a starved animal.
If she noticed that he was eating a little faster than normal people usually ate, she didn't comment. "Dad says that you can go anywhere you want as long as you have an escort. He doesn't want you getting lost and there are certain areas you're not allowed to go in. If you don't mind, I'll lead you around. I'm not allowed to go in those same places of the building." At his confused nod, she continued, "There's no phone in here even though there are wall plugs for phones. You have a link-up to the Internet, but you can't get into e-mail, instant messaging, or message boards. Sorry."
'Blast! There went my chances at communicating with the outside world!'
"Other than that, it's mainly straightforward basic rules. Like, no sliding down the staircases, no rollerblading indoors. You know. Basic stuff. You shouldn't have any problems."
"Once I get the feel of this place, am I allowed to wander off by myself?" the boy asked after swallowing a bite of sausage.
"Uh…I dunno. We'll have to ask Dad sometime."
He swallowed a bit of the hashbrown casserole before asking, "Why aren't we allowed to go in certain rooms?"
"Company stuff. And lots of it."
'Aha! That's right! Sean McMillan's corporate headquarters doubles as a housing facility for himself and, apparently, his workers! That's just outside of Hillwood!'
"Where else can we go?"
"Well, there's the library, the indoor pool, the garden on the roof, the outdoor pool on the roof…Lots of places. On the whole, it's a very small section that we're not allowed to go in."
Suddenly, Arnold realized something. "Uh, Maya? This is all the clothing I have."
"Don't worry about it! One of the maids bought you some new clothes. They're in the drawer. If something doesn't fit, just tell one of the maids, and they'll exchange it out. They're really nice. They'll be the ones cleaning the sheets and everything."
"Oh."
"I almost forgot!" She pointed to the door between the couch and the dresser. "That leads to your own private bathroom. The maids clean that, too."
The words "private bathroom" almost blew him away. He couldn't remember a time in his life where he didn't have to share a bathroom. This would be a nice change.
Having heard all that she needed to tell him, he listened to her chatter as he continued his breakfast.
~@~
Sean McMillan could hardly believe his dumb luck.
Not only was Arnold an Odd; not only was he a Level 5 Empath…
…Arnold was also the same boy his daughter had become infatuated with through newspaper reports.
He smiled to himself as he continued signing papers in his office.
Empathic ability didn't really run in families. When the right sequence of genes was present, you had an Empath. If the basic sequence wasn't exactly correct, no Empath.
And right there in the same building was a matched set of the same age.
True, Maya was only a weak Level 1, but it didn't matter. The sequence of genes was there.
And in Arnold, the sequence of genes was perfect.
McMillan was positive that that was the reason Arnold had started out as a Level 5.
And if that sequence could be passed on…
The leader of McMillan Industries smiled.
The pair was only nine, and Arnold truly didn't know Maya yet…
…but there was a chance that the future McMillan had in mind would continue in future generations.
McMillan reached out and picked up a glass of water, holding it slightly raised in a private toast to his daughter. "May you gain your heart's desire, Maya."
He swallowed a sip from the glass, set it down, and returned to his paperwork, still smiling.