Illumination
Chapter Eighteen

Jack looked around nervously as she and her friends walked into the study room. It looked like a better-lit, smaller version of the Archives, complete with a giant, stuffed bat hanging overhead. A crackling, Illumination fireplace roared and belched white sparks in the corner. Adjacent to it was a circular desk where the doctor sat, reading a news projection on a holopad and stroking his chin absently. He was a tall, stiff man with mussed, dark brown hair, a slight mustache, and a sharp jawline, much like his son. He looked like he did in the picture that Jack’d seen at Connor’s house, only much older and redder in the face.

“Good evening, sir,” Sierra said meekly, folding her hands in front of her chest. She was surprisingly the first one to step forward, rather than her older brother.

“Sierra, is it?” Doctor Alpin asked, pushing the holopad to one side of the table, as well as the skull of some weird, monster-like creature. It looked like an Apex to Jack. “Please, come closer, all of you. Sit down.” He cleared his throat and stood up, striding over to the fire and pulling a stack of small chairs over to the other side of the table.

Once Doctor Alpin had returned to the desk, Jack and the others sat down in the arranged chairs. They were clearly meant for kids, and she felt embarrassed to be looking down upon by this stranger. Act nineteen, she reminded herself. “Thank you so much for allowing us to stop by here,” Robin said, resting his hands on the mahogany table and holding the doctor’s gaze steadily. “It means a lot.”

“I’m not that sentimental,” their host admitted with a wry smile, staring straight ahead over their heads at the door. It was quite unnerving to be looking up at his chin. “But you are very welcome.” He reached down and punched a button on his holopad.

After a moment, Victoria’s image was projected in the room. “Sir?” she asked briskly. It looked like she was dusting some sort of mantle in another room. “What is it?”

“Is dinner prepared?” Doctor Alpin seemed to be very attracted by the door; he continued to stare straight ahead at it. “We said six, yes?”

“Of course, Doctor Alpin. Would you like me to bring it in?” Victoria said, already abandoning her automatic duster on whatever table she was standing next to and heading off, holopad bumping up and down in her hand.

“Please,” the doctor requested, leaning even further back in his chair.

One minute later, the maid bustled in, carrying three silver platters on her arm precariously. “Here you go, sir.” Victoria bent over at the side of the table and pushed the platters off onto the desk between Doctor Alpin and the five teens. “Enjoy.” She backed up through the door and closed it again before anyone could comment.

“Please, eat. We can talk after.” The doctor smiled warmly at them. Jack dug into the rich, gravy-drizzled steak with relish. If this is his bad mood like Victoria said, he must be a total saint when he’s happy. But she still forced herself to stay on guard.

This action was justified when, halfway through their meal, Doctor Alpin pushed aside his plate, which was still steaming, and asked, “So, where are you all headed to? What brings you into the better neighborhoods of New Earth?”

Jack gulped and turned to Robin, who was frozen, fork halfway to his mouth. No one else seemed any better, so she forced herself to put the bite of beans that she’d been holding down and say, “Oh, we’re part of a class taking a historical trip. We just got separated from our group.”

“College class, eh? She must be one talented girl, then.” Doctor Alpin pointed his knife at Sierra, almost accusingly. Jack’s sister shrank back in her seat.

“She...is,” Robin said in a miffed tone. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder. “She’s our younger sister. She got leave to come with us because our mother can’t take care of her.”

“Oh?” Doctor Alpin said, tapping his fingernails on the table and slicing his food into bite-sized pieces. “Interesting! Tell me about where you’re going. What have you learned so far in class?”

Liam was practically squirming under the burden of the lie. Jack’s brain frantically tried to come up with something. He knows. But how? Sierra was turning red in the face and Robin stared straight ahead at the stone fireplace. Only Bailey was continuing to eat, keeping her head tilted up as she swallowed unhealthily-sized chunks of the chicken that Victoria had given her. “Well?” the doctor prompted.

“We’re going to 186,” Liam finally admitted, sighing as his shoulders slumped under the tension. Jack shot a glance at him but decided to stay quiet. I don’t know what else to say other than the truth anyways. “The solfect colony.”

Instantly, a change passed over Doctor Alpin’s face. He hesitated, then stood up in an abrupt fashion and pushed his plate away, the edge clinking against Jack’s platter rudely. Striding around to them, he began to pace back and forth, his eyes stormy and his face clouded. “Who told you about that? Did my son tell you?” Here, he gritted his teeth audibly. “Connor?!”

“No, he didn’t. Sir, please,” Robin began, standing up to match the taller man’s steps. “It’s of our own accord. Not as bad as Li—I mean, Liam, made it out to be. Your son had nothing to do with this.” He looked scared, as if he’d had experience with the doctor’s rage before. Jack frowned as she turned her chair around to join him.

“You put these ideas in my son’s head, didn’t you? You spat this filth like you did at flight school, you unbearable wretch! No wonder you were forced to drop out,” the previously calm doctor roared, his face flushing crimson. “I will not deal with your trash in my house!” Jack gasped at these harsh words and prepared for a fight.

“Doctor Alpin, what are you—” her brother began, but was interrupted by a quiet, yet disturbingly unearthly wail from behind him.

Sierra had stood up, now switching from “Don’t Kill Jack” mode to “Kill Doctor Alpin” mode. “That’s my brother you’re talking about,” she said in a low tone, then repeated it again, as if for emphasis. This time, it was accompanied by a series of expletives that Jack was pretty sure no one in her family had taught her.

The tension in the room was quickly boiling over, and Jack felt it prickle at the base of her neck. “We should go. We don’t need another enemy,” Liam whispered at her elbow, face inches from hers.

“Yeah, what makes you think that?” she shot back, watching as Sierra and Robin faced off silently with the doctor. “I thought you’d enjoy hearing the silence, after all the times I’ve screamed at you and called you names.”

“You think I’d compare you to this guy? Please. I’ll never get tired of hearing you scream at me.” The Brit frowned as he pushed his plate aside and stood up.

Something inside Jack softened as she joined him in backing away from the table, but she shoved it down. Probably indigestion. “Sir, we’re sorry to have disturbed you. Please let us leave in peace and we’ll be on our way immediately.”

“Come on, Jack, we’re going,” Robin hissed in a worried yet angry tone, gesturing at Dr. Alpin, who started forward without a word.

The silence was broken as the teens hurried down the hallway, packs in tow. “Come back soon!” Victoria called from in front of the parlour, where she’d just emerged.

They ignored her, swimming in disturbed thought, until they reached the door, where all five of them turned back one last time. Doctor Alpin was standing next to the study door, one foot in, one foot out. His cheeks, normally pale and gaunt, were tinted crimson. “You have been warned. I let you stay to eat dinner and rest for the drive ahead, but you are no longer welcome here! Your poisonous lies and false ideas will get you in trouble with parties beyond my control once you learn the real truth about the Apexes!” At this last part, he trembled all over and his face turned white with fear. Apexes? What does he mean?

The five teens staggered down the steps and turned on each other as the gate shut behind them. “I’m sorry,” Sierra blurted out, dashing forward and pulling Jack into a crushing hug. “I...I don’t know what happened back there. No meds messes with me. I’m messed up, okay?!”

“Everything is messed up.” Jack rested her chin on her sister’s head. Liam, Bailey, and Robin stood by at a distance, waiting. “Come on, let’s go.”

“No, it’s not. It’s me.” Sierra hunched her shoulders and buried her face deeper into Jack’s uniform collar. “It’s my fault. Sometimes I replace this sort of stuff just holds me back, and sometimes I don’t want to get out of bed and just bury myself under the covers, y’know? And other days, I don’t know what I’m doing with myself. The other day, I felt like a rock, but nothing like it. Useless, weighted down, unable to get up and do anything good...but not like rock in that I’m not steady, I’m not firm, calm...are rocks calm? I just look at you and Robin and even those two-” here she pointed at Liam and Bailey “-can function, meanwhile I just tag along and sit here and cry. I just want it to be okay--”

“Sie, calm down! It’s going to be okay.” Jack ran her thumbs down her sister’s red cheeks. It was like a door had been opened; she could see the scratches on Sierra’s face, the dark circles under her eyes, the dull shine that reflected her own face back at her. “Come on, let’s head back to the buggy. We need to get going.” Jack racked her brain for anything else, but all she found were the doctor’s words. The real truth about the Apexes...it’s like we’re running in circles. Where’s the solution? With the solfects, or with the Apexes? Or with both?

Robin held open the door for them as Jack and Sierra climbed into the buggy, the former helping the latter up and giving her a hug as they sat down. Sierra pulled away and looked out the window as the doors closed and the buggy rumbled back onto the street. She’s a seperate piece of the family, Jack thought to herself, resting her face in her hands. We’re a puzzle, aren’t we? A really messed up puzzle with pieces that don’t fit together.

The snow beat down harder as the buggy drove on through the night.