Chapter 23: "Dad: don't freak out."

"How goes it?" Solomon Zond's voice cut through the hum of the air conditioning unit. Cal and Juliet looked up from the partially unrolled parchment and numerous computer printouts that surrounded them.

"We've got the whole thing scanned into the computer," replied Juliet, waving a hand in the direction of the keyboard and monitor. "Our algorithm gave us a transliteration from that and we're checking and translating it now."

"We're working through, a page at a time," added Calvin. "I check the transliteration and Juliet starts translating."

"It looks like a story," continued Juliet, handing the pad she was working on to the Professor. "Possibly another part of the story of the Ring. The sections in parentheses are those where we have to guess at translation either because we can't be sure what is actually written on the parchment, or because we simply don't know that word yet."

"Okay, how far have you got?" Solomon asked, handing the pad back to Juliet.

"It's slow going," answered Cal. "The transliteration is more or less done, and when I'm finished checking that I'll start translating too, but neither of us is really familiar with Nabatean, so it'll take longer than if it was in Aramaic or Egyptian or something."

"We're about a third of the way through the translation," shrugged Juliet. "At this rate we'll be here until midnight!"

"Do your best," nodded the Professor, "but don't overdo it. I'm ordering food: any preference?"

"Anything with noodles," replied Calvin, helpfully, turning his attention back to the printout and parchment before him.

"Chinese," suggested Juliet. "Maybe some dumplings?"

"No squid!" Cal added without looking up.

"Chinese, dumplings, noodles, no squid, got it," Solomon grinned. "I'll send Nikko through when we get back with it, then maybe there'll still be some dumplings left by the time you join us."

By the time Solomon and his son returned, Calvin and Juliet had finished checking and correcting the transliteration and were heading for half way through the parchment translation. The hieroglyphs on the metal box had taken minutes to identify and their translations were passed on to the rest of the team before the first forgotten mug of coffee managed to get cold. The parchment had been another story.

Scanning the parchment had allowed the computer to compare its symbols with those in the program the two philologists had created. Translation, however, was not so easy. Sections of the text were damaged or missing, and the program could only identify that which it recognised. It wasn't as bad as trying to teach a computer to read cursive, but it wasn't too far off. That meant someone, Cal, reading through the transliteration and comparing it with the printout and parchment. Twice the work, perhaps, but the goal was to continue adjusting the program until they could trust it to do the task at least reasonably accurately. That meant it had to learn from experience too.

Translating the transliteration also held pitfalls. In the absence of vowels and punctuation, grammar became a minefield. Egyptian grammar and verb tenses were confusing enough, but this puzzle would take all Juliet and Cal's combined skills. There were still a lot of blanks, for all that they were two fifths of the way through the scroll, but as they neared the more protected interior, those blanks got fewer. The symbols were clearer. The structure was more obvious. The story made more sense. Linguistically at any rate!

The common rooms, as Vincent had called them, included a dining room with a table easily large enough to accommodate the whole team. It was rarely used, though, with the kitchen table serving for scattered breakfasts and the linguistics lab table providing a larger surface on the less rare occasions the entire group were gathered in the building for dinner. This time, however, the parchment and its associated paperwork took precedence, and Solomon found himself setting out the food on mats already placed amid cutlery and crockery already laid. Maggie and Vincent appeared from the kitchen with serving spoons and bowls, solving one mystery at least, and the meal was ready and waiting by the time the younger half of the team arrived with the clues to another.

"It's definitely linked to the legend of the Ring of Truth," said Juliet, passing the rice round to Vincent. "There's no doubt about that."

"Problem is," continued Calvin, helping himself to noodles, "we've no way, yet, of knowing how it's linked. It's probably not contemporary, because the language and script are different, but that doesn't mean it's not a copy of some contemporary items. On the other hand, it could just be someone writing down a legend handed down orally, which would mean there might not be much truth in it at all, like the stories of the Arthurian grail and Camelot and so on."

"What, Camelot's not real?" Nikko asked, his voice rising to the sarcasm. "Next you'll be telling me there's no Santa Claus!"

"Yeah, yeah, don't go pulling any teeth out either," quipped Calvin, grinning.

Professor Zond poured himself a glass of water and brought the conversation back on track. "So, possibly a legend, duly noted, but what did this legend say exactly? Any hints on where to look next? We've hit a wall with the Egyptian box."

"Well, I offered, but you wouldn't let me," added Nikko.

"Not yet," Juliet replied, shaking her head. "No, this is more like what the Ring can do, maybe even how it does it. There's a lot of gaps and patches we're really not sure of, but one passage mentions a vessel and another refers to the ring as something that we're reasonably sure translates to conduit."

"Conduit for what?" Maggie frowned.

"That's what we don't know," replied Cal. "I mean, sure, we could easily assume it's this 'power of God' that the Ring is supposed to possess, but who knows: it might be a conduit for anything!"

"Anything like what?" Nikko shrugged. "The long awaited zombie apocalypse? Alien invaders? Abba's greatest hits?"

"I don't know," Cal shot back, "but isn't that the point? This could be one huge Pandora's Box! The parchment might be some kind of warning: like what might happen if we go about this the wrong way or if the Ring gets into the wrong hands."

"Like in Raiders?" Solomon supplied.

"Totally like in Raiders," agreed Cal, pointing his chopsticks at the Professor. "And we do not want to end up like those guys!"

At the corner of the table farthest from the door, Vincent sat in pensive silence, mechanically making his way through his meal. Quietly placing his chopsticks side by side on his plate, he rose. "Excuse me, I see the water jug needs refilling."

Taking the jug, Vincent made his way to the door, passing Nikko as he did so. The light double tap on Nikko's shoulder went unnoticed by the rest of the group. The jug was barely half full when the team's youngest member excused himself and joined Vincent in the kitchen.

"I believe the time has come to make your new-found abilities known to the rest of the team," said Vincent, coming straight to the point.

"They'll freak," replied his pupil. "Dad especially!"

"Can you envisage any situation in which they would not?" Vincent enquired mildly. The water jug now full, he turned the tap off and turned to raise an eyebrow at Nikko.

Nikko extracted a can of soda from the fridge. Staring blankly in front of him in thought. He sighed and looked down at the can in his hand, as if in search of inspiration. Inspiration found him: it was the same type of soda as the can he had first moved.

"Okay," he told the soda. He looked round to Vincent and said it again. "Okay. Okay, let's tell them." Nikko paused. He looked away, frowned, then looked back to Vincent. "How?"

Vincent smiled. He reached out and took the soda can from Nikko, holding it up before the young man's eyes. "Perhaps this is something better shown than told."

When they returned, the rest of the group were debating whether Juliette should remain that evening to work on the parchment, as she wanted to do, or go back to her apartment and 'accidentally' bump into Anthony tomorrow, as they had initially planned. It sounded like Solomon was losing. Nikko returned to his seat empty handed, earning him an odd look from Cal and Maggie. Vincent placed the water and soda on the table before him. Something in the delicately deliberate way he did so caught the attention of Juliet and, subsequently, Solomon. A curious, watchful silence descended, awaiting explanation.

Solomon's eyes flicked up from the can to Vincent. "Since when did you drink soda with your meals?"

"The can is not for me, it is for Nikko," replied Vincent. "There is something we believe you should know, and the time has come to tell you. Better: to show you."

From the corner diagonally opposite to Vincent, Nikko spoke up. "Dad: don't freak out."

Solomon's attention was instantly riveted onto his son. "Why would I…" A movement from the centre of the table caught Solomon's eye, cutting him off and bringing a frown to his face. Everything on the table had moved aside to make a clear pathway between the waiting soda can and Nikko's hand. "What?"

With a flex of fingers, Nikko brought the can to his hand. The reaction was not exactly what he expected. There were no screams and exclamations, no hysterics; there was simply stunned silence. At least for a few seconds.

"That's new," commented Maggie, at last, her eyes still wide, just like everyone else's.

"Is it?" Calvin demanded, punching Nikko none too gently on the arm. "You told me that wasn't you. It was, wasn't it?"

"What. Just. Happened," Juliet enunciated, not taking her eyes off the soda can.

"Dad," Nikko repeated. "Don't freak out. Dad?"

Solomon closed his mouth. He swallowed. He closed his eyes. He breathed. He looked at Vincent. When he spoke, it was slowly, clearly, and carefully controlled. "How long, exactly, have you known that my son has unexplained, telekinetic abilities?"

"Merely long enough to ascertain what those abilities were," replied Vincent, his voice as placid as his features.

Solomon's voice hardened. "How long?"

"Only a few days," admitted Vincent. "I stumbled across the knowledge after escorting our spy from the premises."

"Last Thursday," nodded Solomon. "And you didn't tell me because?"

"He didn't tell you because I asked him not to, Dad!" Nikko shouted from the far end of the table.

Now Solomon's attention was entirely on his son. "And how long, exactly, have you known you could do this?"

Nikko shrank back from his father's glare, his jaw tightening with the ghost of that old defiance that had kept them apart for so long. "A while," he retorted. The adult he had become fought back the unruly teen he had been. "Two years," he answered, his tone softening.

"Two years!" Solomon bellowed, slamming his chopsticks down on the table and leaving a smudge of oily satay sauce on the cloth.

"First time was right after we fitted the first pieces of the ring together," Nikko sighed, paying far more attention to stirring the noodles on his plate than the flush of colour in his father's face.

Cal's gaze wandered into the misty halls of memory. "After you fitted the first pieces of the ring together, you mean." He looked up and caught Juliet's eye. "D'you think maybe…"

"Maybe that made Nikko the conduit?" Juliet finished, looking from Calvin to Nikko.

Solomon was still sputtering at the head of the table. Opposite him, Maggie rose. "Solomon, could I have a word with you?"

"Huh? What?" Solomon replied, looking round from his son to his friend.

"A word, Solomon," repeated Maggie. "In private. Now."

Ignoring the others, Solomon obediently got up and followed Maggie from the room. "How are you so calm right now?"

"Why are you so surprised?" Maggie countered, rounding on him as soon as the door of the kitchen closed behind him. "Don't you remember why we're doing this? Have you forgotten how this whole thing started? When the Veritas Foundation opened this building and you first stepped over the threshold, I was right there beside you: do you remember why? You asked me to help you finish what Haley started and you said to me, right out there on those steps, before we walked through those doors, that you needed someone you could trust not only with Haley's work, but with Nikko too. You told me the truth about what happened to Haley, as far as you knew it at the time, and you asked me to keep an eye on Nikko. You were worried about him, and not just because he had lost his mother. You have been waiting for something like this to happen to him for a dozen years and change, and then there's the Ring on top of that! And don't tell me that boy's put your nose out of joint because he didn't own up to having a brand new set of superpowers: you didn't tell him your suspicions at all!"

"But!" Solomon sputtered, throwing up a hand to defend against Maggie's tirade.

"But me no buts, Solomon Zond," Maggie brushed away the gesture. "You have your secrets and he has his. He's as entitled to them as you are and if you blow a fuse in there because he's taken two years to tell you what you've secretly been worrying about for twelve you risk undoing all the progress you two have made since he joined the team!"

Solomon sagged. Maggie was right: she usually was. The stubbornness, the secrets, the impulsive, even sometimes rash, emotional outbursts: these were all traits Nikko had inherited from him, not from Haley. It was why they had drifted further and further apart in the first place. He couldn't let it drive a wedge between them again. He set his hands on his hips and nodded, downcast.

"How much does he know about Haley's disappearance?" Maggie asked, her voice dropping to the soft gentle tones she so often felt the need to employ when talking to Solomon about her best friend. It was like probing an empty tooth socket: the further you got from the time of the damage, the less it hurt, directly; but even when the pain was so dull you barely noticed it, the empty socket itself still reminded you there was something missing.

"I'm not sure," he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "More than he thinks, probably."

"How so?"

Solomon looked up, folding his arms in front of himself like a man building a barricade. "He used to have nightmares: almost every night at first but gradually they got less frequent. I'd hear him screaming for his Mom and go through to wake him, but as soon as he was awake he couldn't remember the dream. Just light, he would say. Really bright light."

Maggie nodded. She laid a hand on Solomon's shoulder. "I think maybe it's time to join some dots. Not right this minute, but after dinner, definitely. First, though, there's a reason your son chose now to tell you this. We're going back in there and you are going to listen to him and show him you love him: secrets, superpowers and all."

"Show him how?" Solomon frowned. "He's my son: of course I love him!"

"Trust me, Solomon: he needs to hear it from you, whether you straight up tell him or just show him by listening and treating him like the adult he is. Maybe the unconditional love and acceptance of a parent should be a given, but the truth is it's not. Sometimes you need to hear or see the evidence of it before you can really believe it."

"Speaking from experience?"

Maggie spat out a wry laugh. "The only evidence my parents showed me was the door. If Haley hadn't been on the lookout for a roommate I'd have been sunk. That, however is a story for another time and what's left of dinner is getting cold."

Maggie unfolded an arm in the direction of the door and, like a penitent scolded child, Solomon preceded her back to the dining room. The quiet ripple of whispered conversation ceased at his return.

"I, that is, Maggie and I, think there are a few more things we need to discuss about, well, about topics that might be a bit too heavy for the dinner table, Nikko. They might have a bearing on these new abilities and what they mean. While we're eating, though, why don't you tell us more about how they started, what they're like? And while you're at it, you could please pass me the soy sauce?"

Nikko looked at the bottle sitting well within arms reach of his father. "Dude, it's right there!"

Solomon held up a waiting hand and raised an eyebrow at his son. Nikko rolled his eyes and made a small gesture with one hand. Solomon felt the bottle arrive in his hand. He grinned at his son. "Thank you."