Chapter 52: Have We Met?
The pressure behind his ear remained.
Marek waited.
"Yes."
His hand stopped halfway toward the bottle.
For once, Celeste had actually answered the question directly.
"Have we met?"
"Yes..."
Marek stared at the road in front of him.
"Before Day 367?"
Celeste became quiet again.
"Celeste."
"Find Mara."
Marek almost laughed.
He did not. "You keep doing that."
"Doing what?"
"Answering something else whenever you don’t like my question."
"I learned from someone difficult."
Something about the answer immediately bothered him. That same familiarity returned, but this time it was stronger than before.
For a moment, Marek remembered a kitchen table.
He was much younger. He could not tell how old he had been at that time. He probably could not even walk yet. Someone was standing near the sink while two adults argued somewhere in another room.
His mother’s voice was there. She had lowered it for several sentences as though she did not want him hearing whatever they were talking about.
There had been someone else in the kitchen with him.
Marek tried to remember the person’s face.
Nothing came.
The memory disappeared as quickly as it appeared.
’What was that? Was that Celeste? What’s her relationship with my family? Is this the reason why she chose to tag along with me all this time?’
He rubbed one hand over his face. He might be imagining things. Sometimes, the memories one had as a child might already be different from what actually happened. Probably because his brain might still be developing back then. Sighing, he shook his head lightly and thought perhaps he really had been awake for too long already.
Marek looked at his phone.
No network.
He had already crossed multiple districts since leaving the Exhibition Center. W-14 alone had connected places that should have been kilometers apart, and the signal on his phone had disappeared so many times that he had already stopped expecting it to return.
Celeste had never disappeared with it.
"Does distance matter to you?" he asked.
"Sometimes."
Marek frowned. "That’s deliberately useless."
"It’s deliberately accurate."
He looked down at the phone again.
Then, he held the power button until the screen went black.
The pressure behind his ear did not change either. Marek waited several seconds just to make sure, but nothing happened. The pressure remained behind his ears. Then, he turned the phone back on.
"Was that necessary?" Celeste asked.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"I was checking something."
"You already knew I wasn’t using your phone."
"I suspected it. It would never hurt to try. It could hurt if you didn’t."
He reached for his notebook. Three words went into the margin of an empty page.
ROUTE NOT LOCAL
Marek stared at what he had written.
Then he crossed out NOT.
That was an assumption. Distance obviously did not stop Celeste from reaching him, but that did not mean the route itself was non-local. For all he knew, there could be equipment following him that he had simply failed to notice.
Celeste spoke again. "Are you trying to diagnose me?"
"Yes."
"How flattering."
"It wasn’t supposed to be. Weirdo."
"I know, strange-ass boy."
Marek’s pen stopped.
There it was again. That ease.
The way Celeste answered certain things as though she had already known exactly how he meant them before he finished saying them.
Surveillance could explain why she knew where he was. It could explain why she knew what he had been doing during the last few days. However, it certainly could not explain why talking to her occasionally felt like remembering somebody.
Marek closed the notebook and asked, "Were you ever inside my house?"
Celeste did not answer.
He looked toward the street.
’Another one.’
At this point, he had enough unanswered questions that he probably needed another notebook just for Celeste. He was that curious about this entity following him everywhere with her voice. It was the same with the system panel he had been seeing since the day of Awakening.
Earth had awakened on a day that was not supposed to exist. Project Meridian equipment that had been installed before Day 367 that was now measuring routes that should have been impossible. A stranger who might not even have been from Earth had appeared carrying unfamiliar equipment and a black fracture that Celeste refused to properly explain.
And now, apparently, the woman speaking directly into his mind had probably known him before Day 367.
Marek rubbed his forehead. ’Somehow, finding Mara is still the simplest problem I have.’
Because at least that problem finally had a direction.
He stood and adjusted the insulated grocery bag. The twelve packets of noodles occupied more space than they probably deserved, especially when he was already carrying water and medical supplies.
Marek kept all twelve anyway.
The municipal learning center was still several kilometers northeast using the current routes. If nothing else changed along the way, he would probably spend most of the next dark period walking.
’Hopefully she doesn’t move again before I get there.’
Marek started northeast.
He had already crossed the next intersection when the public-address system from the relief center became louder behind him.
Another security announcement. Marek did not pay attention at first until he heard a familiar name.
Dr. Elias Mercer.
He slowed down.
The rest of the announcement became clearer between the buildings.
Dr. Mercer was currently unaccounted for after a security incident at a government holding facility. Anyone who encountered him was being instructed not to approach and to report his location to the nearest government personnel.
Marek looked back in the direction of the relief center.
’He disappeared?’
Dr. Mercer had been under government custody the last time Marek knew anything about him. Apparently, that should not have changed.
Marek took out his notebook and wrote the information beneath Dr. Mercer’s name before putting it away again.
He wanted to know what happened. He also wanted to know who Celeste really was, what the black fracture had been and why Project Meridian could measure roads that no longer followed the distances they used to have.
Unfortunately, all of those problems would have to compete with one piece of information that mattered more to him at the moment.
’And there’s also this theory of mine that dad might be alive all this time... such a headache... but I... I need to move forward. For Mara and for mother.’
Mara had passed through the relief center during the previous light period. He adjusted the bag and continued northeast.
’Just stay there for a little longer, Mara. Please.’