Finding Me (20 page)

He tilted his head and scrunched his brows. “Entry.”

“To my heart,” I said. With a smile from ear to ear, I lifted my head high to see his eyes.

He laughed his throaty laugh again. “Silly princess. I have your heart, whether you know it or not.” His chocolate and mint breath fogged my senses again as he leaned in closer. His lips nearly touching my own. “That’s how I can lead you to another universe with me.” He leaned forward and gently pressed his lips to mine. I felt as if I w suspended in midair. Electric currents of pleasure escaped from every surface of my body. My breath quickened and my fist knotted into his hair. I lost myself in his sweet kiss.

“We have to go,” Chris said. He pulled back and smiled at me.

Still entwined in his arms, I smiled crookedly. I’d tried to forget the real reason we were here. Of course I couldn’t. I swallowed hard.

Considering how annoying my Earth mother was, I wondered if my Tierra mother would be the same. I could barely stand the one I had. To find out there was another one was like getting home from a day of shopping to discover the boots you purchased had two left feet and you couldn’t return them. It just wasn’t fair.

When we exited the conference room, no one looked up in surprise at us. It was as if they knew us and expected to see us.

Chris walked over and spoke to an elderly man who’d emerged from an office nearby. Chris must have asked him a logistics question because he pointed straight as they talked. Chris shook the man’s hand, signaling the end of the conversation and walked back to us.

“Time to go.” He reached down and straightened my blouse. Then he looked up and met my gaze. “Stay by my side and don’t speak – to anyone.” His face was stony. Serious.

My heart skipped.

Everyone walked toward a large neon-red exit sign located a couple feet down the hall. Once we reached it, they all stopped and studied my face. Of course this made me feel self-conscience. Did they think I wouldn’t know how to conduct myself?
What did they think I was, a five-year-old?

“It’s different here. You can’t show too much emotion. They might think you’re a UG. The people here have little to no real emotion. It’ll be evident that you’re an imposter if you move too quick or loud.”
What?
I raised my brow – confused.

“Nerve sensors and drugs implanted at birth are supposed to alleviate crime,” Chris explained to my unspoken question. “Try to mimic what you see us do. Got it?”

My months of lying to my family and friends had prepared me for this. I was a great actress now. “Yes, of course,” I said. Raja was the first out the door. I tried to peek over the others to catch a glimpse of what we would be exiting to but was unable.

When it was my turn to step through the door, Chris held it open only a fraction for me to go through. I placed my foot out the door.

And then, I entered the twilight zone.

Large metal and white objects flew by at breakneck speeds. Swishing off and zooming around like large birds taking flight.

“Cars,” Chris said softly beside me. “Move it.”
Bossy
!

Flying cars whizzed by in every direction my eyes moved. Landing and taking flight with only inches to spare before hitting one another. They didn’t land on anything either. They hovered about an inch from the ground.
Wow!

“How can they ride so close together like that without hitting one another?” I whispered to Chris.

“Because people aren’t driving them. Their automated. You plug in your coordinates. They have a sphere of protection around them. So if they did collide, it wouldn’t be catastrophic,” he said. He pulled me along, my mouth hanging open, drool ready to slap the ground. We walked down a pedestrian-lined sidewalk.

Consumed with the flying cars, I barely noticed the people walking beside us. I checked out the couple in front of us, then behind us. I realized why the UG’s would want to be distinguished from everyone else. No distinction was made between male or female. Or child or adult for that matter. Everyone wore the same hideous outfit in the same color and in the same manner. How odd more people didn’t protest the attire. The only thing that could be construed as emotion was the manner in which the women clung to the men. Or maybe I should say the men held them. Instead of the warm and fuzzy feeling I got when I saw Joseph and Sam holding hands, there was a subservient feel to the way the men of Tierra held to their mates. Like a claim of ownership and not love.

I peered up at the buildings as we passed them. They towered above us, so high I was unable see the tops. They seemed to crest the clouds. “Oh my gosh, that building must be as tall as the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.” I looked at the building across from where we walked and it was just as tall. One building stood out from the others. It was gargantuan like the others, but was in the shape of a giant pickle. The building was all glass and concrete with Victorian architectural details.
This is so freakin’ awesome!

“Yes, Chloe. They are all enormous,” said Raja. She had a hint of irritation in her voice that I recognized even though she walked in front of us. “Stop drawing attention to yourself.”

“But how can they… I mean they’re all so big…how can they…?”

She sighed loudly. “The intelligence on this universe greatly surpasses any of the other universes. They’re smarter. So they do everything better.”

“We’re going to ride the subway,” Chris announced. “It’s much like the system on Earth, but each destination is reached in two minutes or less because of hover technology.”

Like a giant graceful ladybird ready to take flight, the subway station loomed before us. It had wings. The wings spanned 50 feet and its cottony white exterior stretched out and appeared ready to soar atop the humongous stony buildings surrounding it. Chris led us down the steep steps that would take us to the subway platform. I noticed that everything here was also encased in a cocoon of white.

“Chloe.” A strange voice called from above our heads. Startled, I looked up.

A haggard woman with disheveled hair stared back. Her makeup was smeared and looked as if she’d put it on in the dark. When I looked at her, she gasped.

“Chloe! I knew it was you. Chloe,” she screamed after me again. Her old, wrinkled face brightened and her eyes bulged. She pointed a long shaky finger and smiled, revealing a set of perfectly white teeth. I stopped, stared, and thought how out of place her smile was compared with the rest of her.

“Chris, who is she?”

He tugged at my arm gently to propel me forward. I didn’t budge.

“She seems to know me…should I recognize her?” Just then, three huge men dressed in black emerged from thin air by the old woman’s side. They held long club-like black sticks with a red beam jutting out the end of each.

The old woman turned her attention away from me as they approached her. One of the men aimed the club at her head. A red beam flashed, spinning out from the club toward the old woman’s forehead. I gasped. Chris yanked me forward hard before I could see the impact the beam would have on the woman.

But I could imagine.

I shivered.

“Keep moving. Think hard about what just happened,” he whispered. “Why would that woman call you Chloe? No one here would call you that.” I turned to stare at him.
What was he saying?
He squeezed my hand a little tighter. “Anyone who recognized you would call you Amanda.” His words penetrated and my breath caught. Realization of who that was registered.
The ENO.

“Oh no,” I said. “How could he find us here? What does that mean?”

“It doesn’t mean anything, Chloe. Chill. That definitely wasn’t the ENO,” a feminine voice echoed in my head. I knew it wasn’t mine. My head popped up and I threw a look at Sam. It was her, it had to be. I shot her a huge grin and tried to pull away from Chris. But he held me tight around the waist.

“Stop that,” she barked in my head. “No emotion. Remember? But I’m totally stoked that you can hear me. I can’t wait to give you a huge hug once we’re alone.”

“Calm down, Sam,” Joseph said. He pulled her closer to him. She turned and buried her hand in his and didn’t look back at me.

In deep contrast to the exterior of the building, the platform loading and unloading area dramatically changed. The interior curved walls were covered in large metal steam vents and illuminated with flashes of bluish green bubble lights that sent jolts of color sporadically into the air. The dark tiled platform was full of people. But all that could be heard was the continual shuffle of feet as they hit the pavement below. Not even the distinct whimper of a child could be heard.
How odd.

The rail car arrived, also suspended in the air. It had dark metal on the outside with green horizontal lines, much like the subway cars on Earth. The glass doors parted and we walked into the large metal car.

“Joseph’s very protective of Sam,” I thought in my head to Chris. “It’s endearing – they really love each other, don’t they?” I hadn’t considered the fact that I couldn’t hear him yet.

“They do,” he replied back in my head. As clearly as if he’d said it aloud to me. I jerked my head up, thrilled I could hear him, too. He squeezed my hand lightly. “I’m, as Sam would say, stoked that you can now hear me. But you have to remain calm. Oh, and just so you know, I think about you all the time. You’re my own personal addiction. So don’t get freaked if you hear your name in my thoughts a lot.”

I closed my eyes because I knew I’d grab him if I didn’t. “That’s so sweet.” What girl would get freaked by that?
Was he serious?

“We’re here,” Chris announced.

I took a deep breath as I prepared to exit. What would I see this time?

More of the Twilight zone.

Chapter 17

In a moment, I’ll be face to face with the woman who gave me birth in this strange universe,
I thought. Who will, or was, supposed to look identical to my Earth mother. But whom I suspected would be as different from her as I was from Raja. Now that I was already here, turning back wasn’t an option. I put one foot in front of the other, forcing myself to keep moving.

I didn’t say anything to anyone else. Not speaking seemed the appropriate action. At least until we arrived at our final destination. I feared I’d give us away with any emotion that alerted authorities to us. And it hadn’t been explained in detail how bad that could be, but based on those guys who showed up to quiet the old lady, I assumed it would be terrible. A shiver tore through me at the thought of what they might do to her.

Or what they’d already done to her.

I wasn’t an overly dramatic person. By nature, I was reserved, especially in the presence of people I didn’t know. But I was having a difficult time controlling my desire to talk and show emotion here. Hiding my emotions proved a perplexing task, though I often hid them purposely on Earth.

I wanted to gather the world in a giant hug and kiss everyone.
What the hell’s the matter with me now?
I wanted to sing, dance, and twirl around in the midday breeze. Not much of a breeze blew in under the walls of the subway station. But I still wanted to frolic in what little breeze entered.
Stop, Chloe.

I recognized these things weren’t my normal characteristics but I assumed it was the excitement of being somewhere I shouldn’t be. Doing something I shouldn’t be doing. Wrapping my arms around Chris and kissing him until we floated again sprang to mind.
Mmm.
Wanting to kiss Chris wasn’t an entirely new desire, though.

My longings weren’t merely thoughts drifting in the wind any longer. They had taken flight and pulled me away from Chris in the opposite direction.
I want to explore.
He grabbed hold of my arm and led me with him and the others. “What’s the matter with you? Calm down,” he whispered beside me. “Are you okay?” He gazed at me as if he were a doctor examining me.

“I’m fine,” I said, not meeting his gaze. I did, however, see Sam shake her head to dispute my assertion. “Shut up, Sam.” I squinted my eyes and glared at her with the most evil stare I could muster.

“Calm down. At least until we get out of sight of other people,” Chris whispered. “I should have seen this coming.” I noticed he smirked in Sam’s direction.

When he focused his attention back on me, I’d placed the ends of my hair in my mouth and began to chew. “Shit. Stop that,” he ordered. He pulled my hair from my mouth and tucked it behind my ear. It kinda tasted good. Like some exotic fruit.

His hand had caressed my earlobe and now a flurry of butterflies attacked my belly. I stared at him longingly for a moment. It felt as if my heart would shatter into a thousand tiny pieces from the sensation of his skin touching mine. Enraptured in the moment also, he stared back with unabashed adoration, biting down on his bottom lip.

Raja shouted incoherent threats at Chris in his head until he snapped out of it. He spun around, caught hold of my hand and then pulled me along with him.
She makes me sick.
I could smack her right now for ruining my moment. But I was distracted by the growl of my stomach.

“I’m hungry. Can we get something to eat?” I shouted.

“As soon as we get where we’re going,” Raja said. But it wasn’t in her usual annoyed voice. I stole a glance around Chris and she looked back with a mischievous smirk. I quickly ducked my head back and pondered her strange demeanor.
Why is she smiling?

No one spoke as we stepped off the train. They led me through a long hall that connected what appeared to be an older rail line with a newer line. Dreary gray walls lined the station here and offered no appealing view for my hungry eyes to feast upon.

Instead of concentrating on the lack of scenery before me, I watched the people who walked about with amazement. They had the exact mannerism of robots. With the exception of their appearance; they didn’t appear to be human at all. They had no emotion, like androids from a science fiction movie. It reminded me of the movie
The Stepford Wives
. All the people of Tierra reminded me of those women. Their husbands had wanted submissive, obedient wives, so they altered them to this androidian state of permanent submission. The women robots in the movie were mechanical in their behavior. I found it amusing – the idea of such a thing – though I didn’t think it was meant to be a comedy.