Unfurl (The Ripple Trilogy) Read online

  The traits I shall keep—the ability to deny the demands of the flesh, fearlessness in the face of danger, loyalty to me alone—to these shall be added the ability to act selflessly. In effect, to act for the good of another before acting for one’s personal good. I observe that this ability guided many of the great leaders of the past to victories denied their contemporaries. Caesar’s armies, intensely personally loyal to him, also fought for Rome. For Rome, that is, for her citizens who would never take up a sword, Caesar’s armies gladly laid down their lives when Caesar asked it of them.

  Self–sacrifice, in acts great and small, I shall teach and reward. When this is added to loyalty and self–denial, I believe I shall at last possess the army I require. They will follow me as Caesar’s Romans followed him.

  Chapter Five

  * * *

  DECENT SOURDOUGH

  · SAM ·

  I was cold as snow and immobilized.

  And someone was rippling while holding on to me. My eyes flew wide as I saw Christian—across the room—move from invisibility to solidity, launching himself at me and my assailant.

  Before I could call out Christian’s name, I’d vanished in the stranger’s arms. I could feel motion. My other senses hovered just beyond my reach, which was slightly terrifying. Maybe this was a side–effect of whatever drug I’d been injected with. But I felt certain I moved. And that meant it could be very dangerous for me to try rippling solid.

  I thought of how I’d seen Christian come solid in my room. How he’d failed to reach me in time. But was he following me somehow? Could I find this out?

  I hesitated to write out a message to Christian. I didn’t know if he’d “see” it, and I feared my abductor might. In fact, my experience of “hearing” Sir Walter, and lately Christian, in my mind had made me wonder if most ripplers except me and Will took this type of communication for granted.

  Fearful that the person kidnapping me could access my mind, I visualized a number–line, and started counting: one, two, three … I could keep this up all day. Or until we solidified and I discovered who’d taken me and why.

  Before we stopped, I reached the eleven–thousands. I felt myself thrown roughly onto something. A couch. Hard. Slippery. Cold. The room was dark, but I felt the sensation of my flesh returning.

  Then a bright light came on, and my eyes attempted to compensate; they couldn’t dilate properly, and the light made them ache. With agonizing effort, I succeeded in closing my eyes. I tried speaking, but my mouth wouldn’t cooperate. I’d been drugged with something that kept me mostly immobile. But excepting movement, my regular senses had returned with my solid form.

  “Welcome,” said a pleasant voice from behind me.

  I couldn’t turn my neck to get a good look at the man who’d spoken.

  “Ah, how impolite of me,” said the man’s voice.

  I recognized that voice.

  Hans.

  Hearing him circling in front of me, I forced my eyes open.

  “Hmm, the relaxant seems to be affecting your speech. Inconvenient, that. I must ask Fritz if something can be done to target the drug’s effects more quickly away from the vocal chords and mouth.” He jotted a quick note on a pad and replaced it inside his jacket. Elegantly dressed, hair an unnatural blond, eyes piercing blue—he looked just as I remembered him from last fall.

  I might be paralyzed, but seeing him again made my skin crawl.

  “So, I am imagining your first question, had you the use of your tongue, would be something along the lines of what it is that I wish with you, yes?” His eyebrows raised a centimeter. “Try blinking once for ‘yes.’”

  Apparently it didn’t occur to him that I might wish to answer in the negative. I refused to blink.

  He looked annoyed, but it passed quickly, his face returning to a smooth and calm mask. “Very well, my dear,” he said. “Let’s give you a few minutes to recover, shall we?” And with that he exited the room.

  My face wanted to frown in anger. My legs wanted to jump up and off the couch so that I could bang my fists upon the closed door. But I was stuck immobile on a white couch in a white–painted room with an impossibly clean white floor.

  Well, I wasn’t exactly stuck. Hans apparently didn’t know I could ripple. My mouth tried to smile, even though the muscles wouldn’t respond correctly. I calmed myself sufficiently and imagined Will’s arms around me.

  Nothing.

  I imagined the clear–flowing stream of Illilouette Creek.

  Still nothing.

  It wasn’t that I couldn’t calm enough to ripple. I was laughably calm considering my circumstances—locked away in an unknown location by a known enemy. Whatever Hans had shot inside me, it prevented rippling.

  But why hadn’t Christian prevented my kidnapping? The one and only reason I’d agreed to allow Christian to spend every night in my room, every day by my side, was that he was my back–up plan in case I needed to escape and couldn’t ripple to safety on my own.

  So where was he and why hadn’t he prevented Operation Sam–Snatch?

  “Christian?” I spoke his name aloud. Then immediately I began second–guessing the wisdom of calling his name out loud. What if the room was bugged? Besides, if Christian had managed to follow along, wouldn’t he have grabbed me and taken me back home by now? The truth ran along my spine like an icy finger: I was alone.

  I wrote his name on a paper in my mind’s eye, the method Will and I had used for communication while rippled. Christian? Then I called out with my thoughts in case he could hear them.

  Christian? Are you there?

  The room remained silent.

  I was alone.

  But where? And why? I should have let Hans tell me something. Anything.

  Hans had indicated that the drug would start wearing off. Maybe then I could ripple. I began to test my muscles—tried blinking my eyes, attempted wriggling my fingers. My eyes could open and close better now, but my fingers felt like dead things splayed upon the couch. I gave up on my extremities and tried to move parts of my face.

  Eyebrows. Mouth. After some time had passed—perhaps half an hour—I thought I might be able to speak. My version of “Hans, you bastard,” came out sounding like “Ha–ans, suu buhs–thurt.”

  The door opened suddenly.

  A young man, maybe college age, walked inside. Unkempt brown hair. Bringing a funny smell with him. Nothing gross, just … odd, like the smell and the clinical room didn’t match. His shoes trailed dark granules, dirt maybe.

  “I’ll be caring for your dining needs. Simply let me know anything you’d like to eat or drink,” he said. “Still trouble with speech?” Swiftly, he injected me with something.

  “Augh,” I grunted. The needles were getting old, fast.

  “You should be able to speak in a moment or two,” he said. “Any type of food you’d like, just ask. Sky’s the limit.”

  I felt warm prickles run from my neck and along my spine, down into my arms, legs. I tried wriggling my fingers. Mobility had returned.

  I tested my voice: “Any food at all?” I asked, an idea forming.

  “Yes,” he replied. “Whatever you feel like.”

  “Sourdough bread.” The effort required to speak faded entirely.

  “Sourdough bread?” he asked. “No problem. You want butter? Cheese?”

  I didn’t answer, thinking hard.

  “Just bread, then,” he said. “Okay, anything else? Coffee?”

  “What time is it? And where am I?”

  The blue eyes dropped to his feet. He wore Brooks running shoes. A very expensive pair. “I can’t tell you that.”

  I scowled. “How am I supposed to know if I want coffee when I don’t know what time it is?”

  He gave no answer.

  “Can you get hot chocolate for me?” I asked.

  “Certainly.”

  “I only like Ghirardelli,” I said.

  “Not a problem.”

  “I want chocolate–sylla
berry,” I added, hoping my request sounded innocent. “And some butter and jam.” I held my breath, waiting to see if anything I’d asked for struck him as odd. Apparently it didn’t. “I’m very hungry,” I said. “How long will you be? Or is that a question you can’t answer?”

  He frowned, looking at the list he’d written. “Shouldn’t take long at all.”

  I sighed with relief as the door closed upon the odd smell I’d managed to place.

  Kelp—he smelled of seaweed.

  The black trail of sand left by his shoes confirmed I’d identified the odor correctly. Mr. Room Service had been running recently. With spendy Brooks like those, he had to be a very dedicated runner. One who ran daily and appreciated the challenge of running on sand. I looked at the tiny grains leading to the door. Black and grey. I knew of only two places with black sand beaches. Hawaii and San Francisco.

  This was what made me ask for chocolate–syllaberry cocoa and sourdough bread. Although you could get decent sourdough anywhere in the state of California, the stuff baked in the San Francisco Bay Area had a unique tang. One I hoped I’d be able to identify. And the cocoa? You could buy Ghirardelli hot cocoa at any major grocery store. We even had it in Las Abs. But you could only get special flavors from a Ghirardelli Chocolate Store, and only three of those carried my dad’s syllaberry syrup. The stuff was obscenely expensive and made in very small batches.

  If Room Service brought back what I asked for, it would mean we were within easy distance of three possible locations, all in Ghirardelli Square, San Francisco. If only I could tell Christian where to find me!

  I quieted my mind. Until the man trailing black sand returned, I determined to silently call for Christian. I repeated his name over and over in my mind. I even risked speaking it aloud. But it was useless. No one could hear me. I was alone. At least until the guy in Brooks returned.

  But in the end, he wasn’t the one who brought my meal. Hans delivered it.

  Chapter Six

  * * *

  BACK FROM THE DEAD

  · WILL ·

  We took a train from Paris to Rome because, according to our French friend, “Only mad–men drive in Rome.” But also because Sir Walter’s Citroën lay under the rubble of his ancestors’ castle. My sister buried her nose in one of the journals we’d recovered from Helga’s car, currently under the same rubble. The only time Mick looked up was when we passed through Nice, France.

  “If I ever get the chance, I’m coming back here to see the Marc Chagall Museum,” she said.

  Sir Walter smiled. “It is well worth the visit, Mademoiselle.”

  They had to explain Chagall to me, and they showed me pictures on Sir Walter’s tablet computer. I couldn’t believe someone who’d lived through the attempted–destruction of his entire race could produce works of such playfulness and beauty.

  “His work gave hope to many generations,” said Sir Walter, “But especially, I think, to those who had survived the Holocaust. Such bright colors, such elegant representations of angels, men, and beasts, of the joy of an ordinary life.”

  After that, Sir Walter did some checking on his list of properties Helmann had acquired.

  “I like this not,” he said. “Geneses owns a building quite close to the Musée Chagall. What can he be up to, my cousin? What evil does he now devise?”

  Whatever it was, we were on our way to Rome to find out.

  From Roma Termini, the Eternal City’s massive train station, we taxied to yet another luxury apartment Sir Walter rented with cash. On our way, we’d driven right past the Coliseum and the Forum Romanum, and I’m not exaggerating when I say it just about killed me to stay in the taxi. But then I thought of Sam, of how the sooner we wiped Helmann’s ugly face off the planet, the sooner Sam and I could be together. It helped some.

  We ate dinner at a restaurant called a Trattoria. Mick stuck with pizza, but I took Sir Walter’s advice and ordered this potato dumpling—gnocchi—that was absolutely the best thing I’ve ever eaten. Like a combo of tater–tots and cheese ravioli only a hundred times better. And the velvet–y white sauce? I’m not ashamed to say I shined my plate clean using a hunk of crusty bread.

  “I’m never leaving Rome,” I said as the waiter took my plate away.

  Mickie smiled and coughed a single word into her napkin. “Girlfriend.”

  Which kind of took me down a few notches. Mick must’ve felt bad, ‘cause next thing you know she’s offering to buy us all Italian ice cream. But gelato cioccolato didn’t taste anywhere near as good as Sam’s lips crushed against mine. I let Mick finish my ice cream.

  Sir Walter and I dropped my sister off back in the apartment and then rippled so we could check out Geneses’ Roman headquarters. Sir Walter said things slowed down at night in Helmann’s other offices, so you could maybe have a shot at coming solid if anything interesting was lying around that needed to be borrowed for an indefinite period.

  The headquarters building itself was plain, hardly even marked. A tiny brass sign by the front door said Geneses Internationale. Sir Walter and I slipped through the warm bubble of a solid–glass door.

  Glass rules, I wrote.

  I heard Sir Walter’s soft chuckle, which I figured meant roughly, Fist–bump, dude!

  What are we looking for first? I wrote.

  Anything useful, came the answer.

  Which, honestly, was not a useful answer at all if you ask me. I wished I had eyes to roll for times like this. I let Sir Walter take the lead. He found an office marked Signore Pepe, Vice Presidente, and we passed through the door. It was this dark old wood, all polished like Bridget Li’s counters back in Las Abs. I tried to smell it or taste it, but I wasn’t Sam, and to me it pretty much seemed like wood.

  Sir Walter aimed us for a set of file drawers; there was no computer on the desk. Rippling solid, he flicked a key card in front of the lock, and the file drawer swung open.

  Coming solid myself, I murmured, “Nice.”

  Sir Walter turned to me with his forefinger pressed to his lips. Universal sign for shut up, already. I looked over my friend’s shoulder. Everything was in Italian, which I couldn’t read, so after awhile I started getting bored and also sleepy from being solid at night. I fumbled around in my pockets for something to write on. Finding a flattened empty gum pack, I grabbed a pen off the desk and wrote:

  I’m rippling. I’ll stick to yr right side, close.

  Sir Walter looked up and nodded.

  I felt a lot more alert once I rippled out of my tired body. Seriously, I needed to get back to running just so I could get back some energy. Sir Walter sighed heavily enough that I wrote him, Quiet, remember?

  He gave a sad little half–smile and a nod my direction and then rippled invisible.

  I find nothing apropos of the recent purchasing by our friend, he said, apparently using the term “friend” a bit more loosely than I would have done. Then he muttered, Mon Dieu, c’est impossible, which I understood just fine even if I didn’t see any impossible things in the locale of this office.

  What’s impossible? I scribbled on my notepad.

  Listen, do you not hear something?

  He was right; I heard voices. I hear talking, I wrote.

  I hear the signature of one whose thoughts are most familiar, said Sir Walter.

  Helmann? I wrote.

  No, no, he said, his voice with an eager edge. Do you not recognize this man’s thoughts?

  Dude, I wrote, basically ‘deaf’ in that department. You’re the only person whose thoughts I’ve ever heard.

  Quite, quite, said Sir Walter. But I thought perhaps the thoughts of your sister’s advisor might come through to you.

  My sister’s WHAT? I wrote, so fast the letters looked like scrawl.

  It is Monsieur Professeur Pfeffer whose voice you hear approaching us even now.

  Excerpted from the personal diary of Girard L’Inferne.

  Circa 1990

  A Corps of one thousand chameleons. This is what I shal
l require. Thankfully, I need not couple with a thousand mothers this time to produce the offspring I have need of. Technology is a most excellent servant.

  Fritz has no lack of racially–pure volunteer surrogates from countries newly free of Soviet domination. Hunger, for food and gold, are our allies at this time. Most propitious, this falling away of the walls separating East from West in Europe.

  My one thousand chameleons shall do more than Hitler’s hundreds of thousands. He cleansed only millions of humanity’s dregs. My purging of humanity shall be numbered in billions.

  Chapter Seven

  * * *

  CALL IT PENANCE

  · SAM ·

  Hans entered the room pushing a little trolley like you get in a hotel room. My cocoa had been poured into a ceramic mug, but I could smell the spicy scent of syllaberries rising with the steam.

  I knew where I was, at least.

  “I thought we might breakfast together, as we have much to discuss,” said Hans, smiling as he removed the covers from plates containing thick, sliced sourdough with butter and jam for me and brown rolls with deli meats and cheeses for him. “I really find it impossible to keep up with the myriad beverages young people today consume. I visited a coffee shop last weekend only to discover my simple coffee with a splash of cream had at least fifteen words to its description. And then I had to specify the temperature at which I preferred to drink.” Hans smiled at me as he offered a crisp cloth napkin across the trolley after draping one upon his own lap.

  “So it’s morning now?” I asked.

  “Ah, yes, I believe it is,” he said, briefly consulting a cell phone. He held it a second longer that necessary, like he wanted me to notice it.

  “That’s my phone,” I said, accusation in my voice.

  Hans sipped his coffee and arranged cheese upon one of the rolls. “May I assume that you would prefer your parents not worry as to your whereabouts or state of, ah, health at the moment?”