Author's Notes: Thank you reviewers! blackcat05, emma, KMT06055, and pax et libertas.
In this chapter, we get new information about the mystery in Brazil, and Nessie gets new (and unwanted) information about the past.
Disclaimer: The Twilight saga and all characters therein are the creation of Stephenie Meyer. No profit is being made from this fanfiction and no copyright infringement is intended.
Chapter Eight
Revelations
"Carlisle, do you mind if we take your car to the airport?" Bella asked. The gunmetal-grey Mercedes sedan had the most room for luggage. I'd be driving Edward's Volvo. For two people plus two werewolves, and their suitcases, it was necessary to take two cars to the Rochester International Airport. Their flight was arriving at eleven in the morning.
"Of course," said Carlisle.
I'd been jumping up and down with excitement all morning, and channeled my energy into baking several quiches with spinach and bacon, a spice cake, and Charlie's favorite cherry cobbler. I'd found late season Washington cherries at an upscale grocery store in town; they would be a taste of home.
Esme helped me with the baking. "It's going to be a wonderful visit. We'll win over Leah yet."
This was another of Esme's pet projects: convincing Leah Clearwater that we were trustworthy. We were already extended family after Charlie and Sue had gotten married twelve years ago.
I furrowed my brow as I tried to work out that exact connection. Charlie, Leah's stepfather, was the father of Bella the vampire, so Bella was Leah's stepsister, and I was therefore Leah's step-niece, and also the Almighty Imprinted One of Leah's pack brother Jacob.
Phew.
At least Seth wasn't as difficult in temper.
The timer for the spice cake dinged just as Bella grabbed the two sets of car keys. "I'll take care of this," Esme said. "It'll be cooled and ready to frost by the time you get back."
"Thanks!" I said, taking off my apron and following my mother out the door. Jasper had salted the walkways and the driveway last night, leaving frothy borders of snow at their edges. Edward and Alice had put up strings of Christmas lights. Even Rosalie had gotten slightly involved by making a lovely wreath for the front door.
I knew she was more motivated by pride in appearances rather than a love for our guests.
I winced and grabbed Bella's arm, thinking about Rosalie and Leah in the same house over Christmas. It was going to make Rosalie and Jacob seem like best friends in comparison.
"I know," groaned Bella. "They just need to get along. I don't see why they can't. I never had a problem with werewolves or vampires." She handed me the key to the Volvo. "We'll park in the short-term lot. I hope it's not too crowded." She shook out her hands and fingers in a familiar gesture: she was reminding herself to put on her human motions.
At the airport, we stood in the arrivals lounge and waited for the four familiar faces amongst the harried travelers. Bella stood up straight, shifting her weight every so often. I was a little more excitable.
There! I clutched my mother's hand. I could see two very tall heads with black hair and tanned skin.
"I smell them," she said, smiling.
Charlie and Sue followed behind Seth and Leah. I waved wide, and Charlie's wrinkled face lit up at the sight of us.
Seth jogged over and swept me up into a big hug, and then Bella. "Hey! Long time no see!"
"Hi, Leah," I said, smiling at the other girl. Her face was beautiful and bitter, as usual. "Nice to see you!"
"You too, Ness," she murmured.
Then Charlie and Sue caught up. "Bells!" Charlie said, and Bella gave her father a hug. He'd long gotten used to her hard skin and cool temperature, although according to Edward, he always forced his thoughts away from that most-likely explanation. By now it was habit. "And Nessie!"
"Hi, Grandpa!" I gave him a great big hug, and then one for smiling Sue.
"You get prettier every year," Charlie said, patting me on the back. He turned to his daughter. "You… you too, Bells."
Bella blinked innocently at him, and I laughed. "Come on," I said, nudging Seth in the ribs, "we had to bring two cars. I'm driving."
"You're driving!" Charlie said. "I heard something about a sweet sixteen and a new car."
"You'll see it," I promised.
I drove Seth and Leah while Bella took Charlie and Sue at normal speed through the streets. On the way we chattered about little things, the flight and the weather and how school was going for me. Seth had gone to college and gotten an engineering degree. Now he owned his own consulting business in Seattle, living on the outskirts so that he could phase every day.
Leah lived at home with Sue and Charlie, and she still phased often, more out of emotion than anything else. I was a tad worried about her, to tell the truth, because she had no real interests. Oh, well. It was her life and she had to figure it out for herself. After all, she had a lot of time to think about it.
The house looked like the cover of a Christmas card when we pulled in, all white snow and green swags and red ribbons on the porch columns. Jacob bounded out of the house and there was much back-pounding, hugging, and enthusiasm with Seth, somewhat less with Leah.
Bella helped Charlie and Sue with their luggage up the front steps to where Edward stood on the threshold, smiling. "Hello, Charlie, Sue. Welcome."
"Are you guys hungry?" I asked the werewolves. "And Jacob, you better not have gotten into that cake already."
"It was well-guarded," said Jacob.
"I could eat," said Seth. "The airlines don't even feed first-class anymore."
"Come in, then!"
Our house was large, but it seemed bursting at the seams with holiday cheer and reunion. Sue complimented the huge Christmas tree, topped with a golden angel that looked remarkably like Carlisle. Poor Sue, I thought, touching Jacob's elbow, she knows exactly what we Cullens are and she can't even complain about it to Charlie.
"That's okay, I'm sure the Wicked Witch of the Pack is always up to complain about you vampires," he murmured, laughing into my ear.
Charlie and Emmett fell into a lively discussion about the football playoffs, and the werewolves sat around the dining room table, digging in to the quiche – "It's sort of a brunch," Bella said – while I frosted the spice cake. I got some cream frosting on my cheek and Jacob, pausing to grab a couple beers out of the fridge for Seth and Charlie, laughed at me and wiped it off with a gentle swipe of a knuckle.
"You're cute."
You up for a food fight? I threatened him with the spatula.
"Better not, Bella would snarl at me."
"Why would I do that?" Bella asked, her eyebrows quirked with amused suspicion.
I grinned madly and brandished the spatula in her direction.
"Don't encourage them," said Bella, meaning the werewolves. "Some people never grow up." She sighed dramatically.
"Look who's talking!" said Jacob.
That night, I was in charge of dinner – a rather impressive turkey with pine-nut and rice stuffing – and then Jacob, Seth, and Leah phased into their wolf forms for a nice long run with me. We swung up and around all the way to the shore of Lake Ontario. The wolves howled with joy at being reunited… well, Seth and Jacob, anyway. Leah was subdued, but even she held a quiet happiness at being with their Alpha.
At the lake, they sat on the shore of the glassy cold water, great furry bodies like sentinels. I leaned up against Jacob, one hand on his paw, but I didn't send my thoughts to him. He needed to be in pack mentality for awhile. I'd gotten control over sharing myself years ago.
Instead, I reflected quietly on the mystery down in Brazil. The lines of code stolen from Mendel were like an unopened Christmas present for me. The challenge was delicious. I was already calculating the possibilities… it was as invigorating as this run with the wolves, being able to stretch my mind and solve a problem.
I sighed with contentment, then Jacob sighed, then Seth. We waited for Leah and, after thirty seconds of silence, she finally gave in and sighed, too. I laughed and the others barked.
I took a break from the family festivities a few days later to visit the haunted house. In the freezing cold room I sat at my computer, reveling in the glow of its screen, my fingers dancing across the keyboard so fast they were a blur even to me. I was alone, focused, in another world of symbols and pixels and mystery.
There was a lot of code – PeuChen91 had done well – but my superhuman eyes scanned and remembered, fusing connections together, seeing patterns in the language. There seemed to be pieces of four separate programs and I divided them up, focusing on one at a time. The first I looked at was some kind of analysis program, with Fourier transform equations designed to look for key signals within vast amounts of data. There were four variable triggers.
Four, I thought. Mendel. Genetics. Four variables.
Adenine, Thymine, Guanine, Cytosine. The building blocks of DNA.
So, it must be a DNA analysis program. What it was looking for, I had no way of knowing. But at least I knew that Mendel was looking for something to do with DNA.
Check one.
The next block of code seemed to be another search program, but this time it used words in English, French, Spanish, German, Portuguese… all medical terms. Mendel was scanning for reports of the unusual: words like telekinesis, abnormal strength, genius. This must have been why he'd stolen files from medical databases: to run them through his analysis program.
But why?
A sudden association popped into my head about Brazil and science experiments. Breeding experiments. I thought of that movie that I'd watched with Jasper and Emmett, called The Boys From Brazil, about the evil Nazi scientist Dr. Josef Mengele (I shivered… the name was close to "Mendel") and how he'd tried to re-create a young Hitler.
And another memory, not fiction but fact: wasn't that how the other vampire-human hybrids had come about? A vampire who fancied himself a scientist? I would always remember that incredible day in the mountain field near Forks, with the Volturi lined up in front of us, my parents stark with fear, Jacob in wolf form ready to take me and run.
It could hardly be related, though. Brazil was famous for being the epicenter of weird science. Killer bees and the first human clone had come out of that country, too.
The next bit of code had me sitting up, determined to talk to Jasper. He'd wanted missing persons cases, and here, in a line of text, was a name. Govinda Singh. The missing corporate talent-finder from London.
The code was an implant for law enforcement systems, erasing all reference to Govinda Singh, all pictures, all fingerprint and retinal scans. It was similar to the program I'd written to erase our identities so we could start here in Rochester.
This is getting weird. DNA, medical anomalies, and now erasing the identity of Govinda Singh, some businessman from England.
Mind whirling, I dove into the final block. A few minutes later, I shouted, "Yes!" Finally, something concrete to work with: encrypted map coordinates, longitude and latitude, down to the minute.
My fingers were already moving. First I called up a common civilian program that showed satellite images of the entire globe. I entered the coordinates and held my breath as it zoomed in, closer and closer, to Brazil. To the central part of the country. To the deepest cover of the Amazon rainforest. To… a blank piece of green.
There's nothing there.
No roads, no structures, not even the briefest clearing in the trees.
Clearly, I needed more updated information.
I bit my lip and then grinned. I'd never done this before and it took me an hour-long chat with Silvius in the Ukraine to know exactly what to do… it was just past one in the afternoon when I felt ready. The light needed to be good, overhead, and the time zone in central Brazil was an hour ahead of Rochester. I checked the weather quickly: it was clear.
The French should do, I thought. They had good satellite coverage of South America. Plus, their security systems were easily cracked.
I was lightning fast, moving through the French Ministry of Defense like a fiend, in and out before they could even blink, let alone notice me. I used backdoors, personal computers, obscure land lines, zipping through firewalls, dancing through the system.
I felt the soaring triumph of creative trickery. I was faster, smarter, better than they were. I was a ghost in their super-secret mainframe. Their entire military reconnaissance division was open to me.
A few minutes later, I gained control of their most precious Helios 9 spy satellite. It would be passing over the Brazilian rainforest in seven minutes. I rode its currents, loitering there, knowing that I was invisible. The only danger would be when I ordered the satellite to zoom in and take a picture; I would need a minute or two to erase the record.
I lived for this stuff.
I typed in the coordinates and, a few minutes later, the image was clear as crystal on my screen. The satellite image got closer, closer… like a pirate's telescope eye, zooming in…I held my breath, heart thrumming with excitement.
The satellite's incredibly high-resolution cameras were right there, up-close in the forest.
"Bingo," I said out loud.
It was a complex of low-roofed buildings. There was still no road, but the jungle was cleared and the buildings were pale white, possibly metal. The infrared camera simultaneously detected the heat bloom of a powerful electrical generator. Was my friend there? Had she been kidnapped and taken into the jungle?
I saved the image to a separate drive and printed the screen. Then I erased what I'd just done, scrubbing clean any record of special attention to this particular part of the Amazon.
Two minutes later, I was out, and I collapsed backward in my chair as my tension ebbed away. My fingers grazed the edges of the print-out. So, I had the barest glimmer of a picture: Mendel, the hacker, and what looked like a science laboratory in the middle of the Amazon. A missing businessman, Govinda Singh. DNA analysis.
It was a start. I would keep this to myself for now. No need to upset the family. Besides, this was not the kind of thing the Cullens could afford to get involved in. Our game was laying low, and my little projects did not need to concern anyone else. I reminded myself to guard my thoughts around Edward.
I drove back home, thinking to myself over and over, I know where they are.
Three days before Christmas, we sat around the table at dinnertime. All fourteen place settings were laid out, the white and gold plates, the crystal goblets, the candles. Esme was having a grand time hosting the humans.
Only six plates had food on them, of course. The rest of the Cullens sat with Carlisle at one end of the table, Esme at the other, everyone else in the middle, sitting still and comfortable.
Despite the fine settings and the cool statuesque vampires sitting about the long oval table, there was a definite air of informality. Charlie was telling of all the changes in Forks since we'd left – a new traffic light installed, a new Chinese restaurant opened, the old gas station closed – while Seth and Jacob joked with Emmett and Jasper.
Alice was offering to tell Leah's fortune. She still wanted to find some way to foresee werewolves. "Can I read your palm? Perhaps if I touched you it would help!" Alice said.
Leah looked at her like she was insane.
"Or perhaps if you really decided on something – like writing down a word – maybe I could see the results of your actions, instead of just you?"
"I'll write down a word, all right," Leah muttered.
"Excellent!" said Alice, clapping her hands together.
I poked at my dinner, eating only the meat, an extra-rare prime rib. As I moved my knife back and forth, my fingers glittered; I'd put a tiny fashion diamond on each nail. I noticed Alice's approving look toward my dark red satin blouse, too. The material moved like liquid blood under the lights.
"Jake, I'm warning you," Bella was saying. "You are on… threat level orange, or whatever."
I perked up. It was so funny when Bella and Jacob fought, because it was so unpredictable.
"Come on, Bells, it'd be fun. Charlie trusts me, right?"
"Not really," Charlie contributed.
I threw Jacob a quizzical look.
"I want to take Charlie on the Harley," he mouthed.
"Ohhhh," I said. "You should, Grandpa, it's fun!"
Charlie's mouth dropped open. He glared accusingly at Bella first, and then Edward. "You… you let Nessie ride on a motorcycle? My only grandchild?"
"She has her own driver's license, she can make her own transportation decisions," Edward said, sounding apologetic.
"Sounds like Jacob needs another punch in the jaw from you, Bella," Charlie grumbled.
"What?" I laughed.
I missed the panic in Bella's eyes, although it hit the corner of my awareness like a tiny needle that I ignored. I missed Edward's stillness.
"Oh, yeah!" Charlie said. "Back when they were teenagers, Bella punched Jacob. Right in the jaw. Almost broke her hand doing it, too." He chortled.
"You didn't!" I gasped, laughing. There was a slight, possessive pain that Bella had tried to hurt Jacob, ever, but this must have been when she was human. That was a funny thought, my then-fragile mother so enraged at Jacob that she threw a punch.
Edward, suddenly tense, said, "It's an old story, not worth telling, who wants another beer? Charlie?"
But I giggled again, undeterred. "What did Jake do to deserve that?"
"Oh, he kissed her," said Charlie.
The world narrowed into a tunnel. My clear vision was blurred for the first time in my life. All I saw was Charlie, telling an old story. All I heard was, he kissed her. He kissed her. He kissed her.
My fist curled around the stainless steel knife and it snapped in half.
The table went silent. In the corner of my awareness I saw Edward's horror, Bella's fear, the stressed silence of everyone else. At the center of this maelstrom was Jacob, hands up and eyes pleading, and Charlie, shaking his head and smiling and unaware that anything was wrong.
Alice took a few choked breaths. I knew a dozen futures were crashing around her.
I felt like someone had stabbed through my diamond-strong skin. I felt my heart burning inside of me, into a pile of grey ashes. Jacob… and my mother… Jacob and Bella… before I was… my thoughts dissolved into a long scream of disbelief.
With a titanic effort I turned to my father. I read the sad confirmation in his face. He looked like he wished it weren't so.
NO. I flung the word, perhaps out loud, perhaps in my thoughts. I didn't even know the difference anymore. Then I stood up, ran from the room, and leaped up the first staircase, then the second, then the third.
I stood gasping for breath in my room, doubled over. Then I reached under my bed and pulled out a suitcase.
