Gina lowered the baseball bat. "What the hell—"

"Christ, Gina!" I gasped. My heart fluttered like a caged butterfly. "You scared me half to death."

Gina pinched my arm.

"Ouch!" I cried and slapped her hand away.

"You feel real," she said. Then she pinched her own arm and winced. "Okay, so this isn't a dream." Gina held the bat like a cane and leaned on it. "So, what brings you to my doorstep at—" She paused to look at her watch. "Four-twenty? Screw this, good night!"

Gina closed the door but I put my foot in the way. "Gina, please, help."

"I can't believe I'm going to loose three hours worth of sleep…" Gina stepped back and let me enter. "I know I'm your best friend, Maxine, and you're mine but this is going too far."

"Do you have any stomach settlers?"

"Umm," Gina scuffled to the kitchen, Norman the Jack Russell following her. "My mom has some Tums here…"

"Good…I'll take anything," I said, sitting on the couch.

She tossed the bottle to me and I downed four of the little chewable pills before Gina plopped down next to me.

"An adult dosage is two, Maxine," she said, touching my arm.

"My stomach hurts enough for two people," I grumbled. "I screwed up so bad, Gina."

She reached into her robe pocket and pulled out a cherry Dumdum pop—her passion. She sucked on it for a few seconds and said, "Are you pregnant?"

"What? Hell, no! I wouldn't be here, I'd be out-of-state."

"I doubt the rest of the country is in any better shape than Seattle, even though it's been almost thirty years since the Pulse…so you're not pregnant?"

I shook my head. "Daddy would freak, especially since my mother died having me. He'd send me to a sanitarium."

"So what's up?" she flipped her streaked blond hair away from her face and adjusted her glasses. "What brings you to my humble abode four hours before I'm suppost to be conscious?"

"Can you keep a secret?"

"I'm biting…"

"Do you know anything about Manticore?"

Gina's mouth fell open, the lollipop falling to the floor. Norman picked it up and ran off. She didn't even try to stop him. "Manticore? Of course I know Manticore! How do you know about it, Maxine? That place is creepy!"

"You've been inside? Gina, tell me!" I grabbed onto her shoulders and shook her gently.

"Ouch, stop it!"

"Gina, please tell me!" I let go.

"Why are you so in need of info about Manticore?"

"Because my mother was Manticore property!" I blurted. "She had the barcode, the military skills, the whole nine yards!"

"Manticore? Property? No way!"

"Yeah, way. My daddy's been hiding this from me until last night. I kinda went berserk and smashed all the pictures of my mother."

"Wait a minute…if your mother was in Manticore…people who are born in Manticore never come out…are you trying to tell me that your mom was one of the escapees of 2009?"

"I guess so."

"You guess so? Deck's been tracking those sons-a-bitches down ever since!"

"Deck?"

"Hello, sweetheart, are you in there?" Gina knocked on my head lightly. "Donald Lyedecker? The messiah of Manticore?"

I shrugged and shook my head, "Daddy didn't mention him. How do you know about Manticore?"

"My parents used to work for Deck before he shut it down."

"Shut it down? Why?"

"None of them were coming out right. They all had some sort of defects. X5's for instance, had terrible seizures."

"My mother was an X5."

"Whoo-ee, this is so cool! My best friend is half X5! So that would make you X2.5, right?"

"No I'm not X anything. Wouldn't I have a barcode and super sight and stuff?"

"I don't think barcodes are passed down, Maxine. Just traits. The barcodes are tattooed on."

"So, when did, ah, Deck was it?, shut Manticore down?"

"About three years ago, after X15's had spontaneous human combustion."

"Do you think it would be possible for me to find him?"

"After what I've just heard, anything's possible."

"So…"

"So?"

"Can I crash here or what?"

"Or what," Gina mimicked. "C'mon. You can borrow Jedidiah's room or you can sleep on my floor. I'd go for Jedidiah's room if I were you—my room is such a mess I can't remember what color carpet I have."

Jedidiah was Gina's 20-year-old brother who was at the convention in Portland with the Drs. Robinson. He had aspects of becoming a neurosurgeon. Dr. Lillie Robinson was a cardiologist and Dr. Charles Robinson was a radiologist.

"So, were you born 'cause your mom was in heat?" Gina asked all of a sudden.

"Excuse me?"

"Your dad didn't tell you Manticore clones were twenty percent feline?"

"He did, but 'in heat'?"

"Yeah. All cats—mainly female—get hot sometimes. And when cats get hot, they get all-ass horny."

"Aw, jeez—over share! Didn't need to hear that!"

"I'm just saying maybe you were just a fluke."

"Well, I happen to know for a fact that my parents wanted kids and my mom was pregnant twice before me but she miscarried. Then I was born and she died. I don't think she was in heat, Gina."

"It must really suck not knowing your mom, huh?"

"It sucks not knowing my dad either," I grumbled. "I'm not going to school tomorrow, Gina."

"Why not?"

"I need some time off. Just to think."

I woke up around noon the next morning. At first I forgot where I was but as my head cleared and saw the marks on my palms where I'd dug my fingernails in, the whole terrible night came flooding back like a nightmare once forgotten. I'd fallen asleep in my shirt and jeans the night before, too emotionally drained and sore from all the slips on the ice I'd made yesterday to get into my pajamas. I walked into the Robinsons' kitchen and found Gina sitting there, scaring the crap out of me once again.

"You have to stop doing that!" I hollered.

"Doing what?" Gina yawned. "I stayed home from school so you wouldn't go nuts and smash all the pictures of my mom."

"Not funny, Gina."

"Coffee, Maxine?"

"Yeah, that'll work."

I poured myself a cup of black coffee and sipped it. It woke me up quickly and helped me focus a bit better. My hair felt damp and oily.

"Your dad called this morning," Gina announced.

The mug slipped out of my hand in surprise. "He what?"

"Great, now look what you did," Gina looked down at the shattered mug. "That was Mom's favorite."

"I'll clean it up," I promised. "I'll pay for the mug. When did Daddy call and what did he say?"

"He called around eight this morning. He said, 'Gina, have you seen Maxine?' and I said, 'No, Mr. Cale, who do you ask?' and he says, 'She wasn't in her room when I went to go wake her up and I've already tried her godmother and she hasn't seen her.' So I go, 'I'm sorry, Mr. Cale. If I see her I'll tell her to call you' and he said, 'Thank you, Gina' and hung up."

"That's it?"

"What did you want me to say, Maxine? 'Oh, yeah, she's sleeping in my brother's room because she destroyed her mom's pictures and is ashamed to come home."

"It wasn't just the pictures."

"Oh? You dug up her grave, too? Knocked down her tombstone and jumped up and down on it? Trampled the tulips your godmother plants there? What? What?"

"You remember that motorcycle I showed you? I told you it was my dad's before he ended up in the wheelchair when he was thirty?"

"The Ninja?"

"Yeah…well, it wasn't my dad's…it was my mother's. I smashed it, too."

"Really? With what?"

"A hammer."

"You go!"

"Stop it, it's not cool. That was my dad's shrine or something."

"I never knew you had the guts to do something like that. I never knew you had the guts to do anything, actually."

"Gina, I'm in such deep crap. I know Daddy never yells, but once he figures out that I was the one who ruined the pictures I'm afraid that all that anger he's had bottled up inside for all these years about my mother's death is just gonna explode and take it out on me."

"I don't think he'd do that, Maxine. You know, if he didn't love you as much as he did, he'd have a real job."

"What's that suppost to mean?" I asked angrily.

"Okay, that came out wrong didn't it? What I mean is, your dad works from the house, right?"

"Right."

"Well, my parents are gone a lot. They neglect me. Look around you, Maxine! If this were your house, your dad would be over at the stove there making breakfast, Mozart would be pouring out the stereo and we'd be dressed. But no. My parents favor Jedidiah and so neglect me by: staying at work late, going places without me, and leaving a house totally empty of food!" Gina stood up and opened the refrigerator to emphasize her point. I peered inside and saw a carton of milk, four eggs, a loaf of bread, a jar of pickles and a package of 6 hotdogs. It was a meager supply, but I didn't think the Drs. Robinson would purposely neglect Gina. "Maxine, your dad is always home. He's there when you wake up and he's there when you come home from school. You don't know what you have."

She was right. I didn't.

Around four P.M. I was struck with a sinus headache. I told Gina, who was watching television and reading a magazine at the same time, that if anyone called I wasn't here and I was going to lay down.

"No one's called all day, Maxine," she said. "Don't worry."

My head hit the pillow and I fell into a deep sleep. I dreamt about my mother again. She was sitting under the cherry tree and I was up in a branch.

"What's heaven like?" I asked.

My mother stayed silent, but smiled wide and climbed up to sit by me on the branch. We sat in silence for a few seconds.

"Mom? What's heaven like? Are angels singing and are clouds made from marshmallows?"

I heard a cracking sound. The branch was giving out! The limb tore from the tree and we were falling…falling…falling…

I woke up quickly. It was dark outside now. My watch said eight PM. I yawned and stretched and went to go find Gina. I found her standing in front of the open refrigerator.

"For some reason, I don't feel like having hot dogs for dinner," she said when she saw me.

"Me, neither."

"You know, my mom left me a hundred bucks in case I needed any extra cash. Want to go out to eat?"

I didn't really, but I nodded anyway.

"Great. Let's go get fabulized. You can borrow my clothes."

I pulled on a pair of bell-bottomed jeans and a red baby T-shirt with an ornate white butterfly on it while Gina put on her black denim jeans and a maroon V-necked T-shirt. She asked me to French braid her hair and I did.

"Where are we going?" I asked as I slipped my feet into a pair of Gina's white high-tops.

"Heck if I know," Gina tied up her black tennis shoes. "I just want to get out of here."

We put on our sweatshirts and stepped out. The air was cold and we decided to walk up and down the street for a few minutes. After about half an hour we decided to eat at a pizza place where most of the kids from school went. After chowing down a whole medium pie, we both felt a little sick.

"I haven't eaten in two days," Gina sighed. "That felt good."

"Yeah, I haven't eaten since I heard Daddy talking about my mom."

"You were really hung up on that weren't you?"

"I was," I admitted. "But not anymore."

"Are you sure?"

"No."

"I knew it," Gina took a napkin and dipped it in her glass of water. Then she took off her glasses and wiped them with the napkin and dried them on her shirt. "You wanna start heading back now?"

"Sure."

We took the long way home, talking the entire way.

"I wonder if my mother had parents?" I said out loud.

"Maybe, in a distant galaxy," Gina said. "She had to have a mother."

"Would it be possible to find her?"

"Nope. Stuff like that was never released. But you know what?"

"No, what?"

"Lyedecker's still alive."

When we got to Gina's building, my heart skipped a beat when I saw the cars in the parking lot: Daddy's Aztec, the Drs. Robinsons' Toyota and Jedidiah Robinson's Jeep.

"Uh-oh," Gina read my mind.

We ran up the stairs and breathlessly stumbled into the penthouse.

"Gina!" Lillie and Charles Robinson exclaimed the same time Daddy went, "Maxine!" The three of them hurried over to hug us close.

One of the two cops crossed his arms and said, "Are these the missing children, ma'am?"

"Yes officer," Lillie Robinson said. "Thank you for coming so quickly."

After the cops left, the Robinsons' gave Gina a lecture about lying to Daddy and leaving without a note and explained the rest of the convention was cancelled on account of snow. Daddy just held me and whispered in my ear,

"I'm sorry, Maxine…I'm so sorry."