Origin & Earth (The Orris Project Book 1), page 21
“That’s great! I want to meet her!” and she made off for the house. Garrett followed and called out to his mother, but she strode into the house, then the kitchen. As soon as she set eyes on Lauren, she stopped and said, “Hi! I’m Cynthia, Garrett’s mom. So, are you here to save him from this stupid adventure he wants to go on?” There was a look of excitement and anticipation on his mother’s face that broke Garrett’s heart. Cynthia caught Lauren by surprise, and it took her a minute to put together what was happening.
“Um, no. Actually, the opposite,” Lauren said. Cynthia’s face went slack at first and then grew angry.
“So, you’re a whore?” Garrett’s heart sank. He grabbed both of his mother’s elbows and pulled her back into the living room. He only stopped when he heard Lauren call his name.
“Garrett!” she said, “Stop!” He stopped. “I understand why your mother would say that.” All the idle chatter in the room had ceased. The house was silent but for the cooing of the baby. Lauren clutched the beer bottle with both hands in front of her. “I assure you, Mrs. Rhodes, that we will not marry. I will not gain a single cent from your son’s departure, and I will be heartbroken when he leaves, as will you.”
Garrett’s mother had tears running down both cheeks. “Then why?”
Lauren glanced at the floor and then back up at Cynthia. “Because I fell for him the moment I saw him. I can’t stay away. And I understand completely…” Lauren’s composure broke at that point, “that it will torture me for the rest of my life. But I can’t do anything about it right now.” The two women wiped their tears and regained control of their emotions.
“Do you want a beer, Alan?” Rodney said at half volume.
Garrett’s father leapt at the opportunity, obviously to get away from the drama. “Yeah, what do you got?” He walked over to the refrigerator with Rodney.
Cynthia focused her attention on her grandson. “Give me my baby boy!” Brenia handed her son to her mother, who took the child into the living room.
7
They ate dinner at the round kitchen table, drama free. Brenia updated everyone on all the curiosities of a newborn and all the complications that went with being a first-time mother. Rodney gave the details of their struggles with the new transport drives they were building for OPM, and after some prodding by Garrett, Lauren divulged the story of her unlikely doctorate at seventeen.
After they finished dinner, Lauren shocked the room by standing up and inviting Cynthia to take a walk with her. Cynthia agreed and stood, and the two of them disappeared out the front door. Brenia took the baby, who had been near the table in his bassinet, into the bedroom to nurse. Rodney spoke up once all the girls had evacuated. “You’re in trouble now, Gar.”
Garrett laughed nervously, but Alan answered, “No, he isn’t. Gar, I know this is the last thing you want to hear, but after meeting Lauren and talking to her a little, man, she is exactly like your mom was when we were young. I’m not kidding. It’s scary. Brilliant, strong-minded. It’s uncanny.”
Garrett got another beer out of the fridge. “You were right. I didn’t want to hear that,” he said. Rodney laughed. At the same time, they all heard Brenia yell his name from the other room.
“Sorry guys,” he said, and disappeared to help his wife.
“Seriously, Gar, you and I are a lot alike,” Alan said. “It’s not a huge stretch to imagine we’d have the same taste in women. Lauren is great, but come launch day, it will make things difficult. More difficult than they need to be, I think.” Garrett breathed in and shrugged. “I’m not telling you what to do, Gar, I’m just afraid that your launch date will come a lot faster than you expect, and it will crush your soul if she’s still in the picture. I know it’s going to kill mine.” They both drank deeply from their beers at that moment, and Garrett shrugged again.
“Everything about this will be painful. I signed up for a lifetime of pain. At first, I had comfort knowing how much of the future I would see, but honestly, the reality of it all has been a growing stress,” he said.
His father nodded. “But you will still go?”
“Yes. It’s fair to say I’m less enthusiastic about it, but I’m not less committed. The reasons I wanted to do it in the first place have not changed.”
“And Lauren?”
Garrett finished his beer and immediately got another one. “She doesn’t want me to go, but she knows I have to. She’s brilliant, as you know. That can be a curse. Do you think so?”
Alan received the question with a small smile. “I don’t think so, I know so, Gar,” he said, and refreshed his own beer without explaining further.
“What about you, though, Dad? I know Mom and Breni don’t want me to go, and I know that you’ve said how much it will hurt when I leave, but what do you think? Should I go?”
Garrett’s father leaned back on the counter next to the fridge. “There are a lot of life’s questions that a father feels it necessary to address with his children. I imagine most impart their own life experiences onto their children, either to give warning or to offer comfort. Garrett, I have no idea. What you are asking me is so far from my pool of knowledge or experience that whatever answer I could give you would be nonsense.” Alan took a swig from his bottle and continued. “I can tell you only one thing, because I thought about it a lot after they selected you. As your father, and to be the best father I can be in this circumstance, the only thing I can do is support whatever decision you make. I know that’s not what you wanted to hear, but it is the full truth of the matter. I am your friend and ally, and I will help you in any way I can. But I cannot decide for you.”
8
Cynthia and Lauren had walked down to the road and almost to the next block before either of them said a word. Finally, Lauren spoke.
“I was afraid that meeting you would go badly,” she said. “Garrett was going to talk to you and your husband tomorrow night and schedule a day for us all to meet. I’m sorry it happened this way.”
Cynthia raised her eyebrows. “Well, I understand now. I love my daughter dearly, but she is a scatterbrain. She arranged this whole evening, had all the information, but did not connect any of the dots.”
“She is really sweet. I met her an hour and a half ago and she has already hugged me twice,” Lauren said.
Cynthia laughed and stopped walking, turning to face her. “I apologize for what I said earlier, but despite that apology, I feel that you are going to make this entire process twice as hard on my son, or more. I don’t even want him to…”
“He has to go,” Lauren said, cutting her off.
“If you’re not in it for the money, then why is it so important to you that he goes?” Cynthia asked. Lauren started walking again, and Cynthia followed. She gave Garrett’s mother the same explanation she had given him when he asked her the same question. “So, what’s the difference if you leave him now or wait for the launch? If you do it now, he’ll be over it long before he leaves!” Cynthia said.
Lauren had been looking at the sidewalk, then looked up at Garrett’s mother. “For two reasons. First, I don’t think it’s my place to decide for him. That might seem contradictory, since I told him I would only commit to him if he fulfilled his role as envoy, but that goes back to the reason I don’t want him to quit. If he wants the relationship with me for these several months, I will not tell him it’s the wrong thing to do. It’s not my place to tell him how to feel.
“The second reason is that as long as he feels that way, I am all in. He is one of the most, or the most impressive person I have ever met. He will affect more people and more cultures than anyone else in the history of all things. He is magnetic, and it is my wish to support him all the way up to and even after the launch,” Lauren said.
Cynthia frowned. “How can you possibly support him after the launch?”
“Comms,” Lauren said, not knowing what reaction to expect when she answered, but not expecting the reaction she got. Pure elation.
“Comms!” Cynthia yelled triumphantly. “I’m so stupid! How in the world did I not think of that before?!”
Lauren smiled, relieved by the reaction. “They will only be one-way, though,” Lauren said. “You know, he won’t wake up until… well…” This fact did not discourage Cynthia in the least.
“Yes, I know. But I can talk to my baby. I can talk to him as much as I want all throughout the rest of my life! And he will get all my messages, someday, he will get them all! Thank you, sweetie!” She hugged Lauren, and Lauren understood where Brenia got the habit.
9
Twenty minutes after they left, Cynthia and Lauren walked back into the house and then the kitchen, where Garrett and Alan were discussing the survival mechanics he would have to employ once out among the stars.
“They’re back! Have you two girls come to a truce?” Alan asked.
Cynthia lightly slapped him on the side and said, “I have to drive home, don’t I?” She snatched the beer bottle out of his hand and took a sip.
“Not necessarily. It depends on how badly you want to get there alive.” Cynthia shook her head and rolled her eyes.
“So, Mom,” Garrett said, “where do we stand?”
Cynthia took a moment and breathed. “I still don’t think that what you two are doing is smart. You will be the architects of your own misery,” she said. Alan was nodding behind her. “But you are both adults, and if you decide to go on this way, I will not cause either of you any more grief about it. We’re about to have a hell of a year.” Garrett hugged his mother, a moment later reaching out and pulling Lauren into the hug. Alan laughed quietly behind them and reluctantly tipped his bottle up to the heavens.
10
Lauren unlocked her apartment door, and they both walked in. Garrett sat down hard in one of the dining room chairs.
“That was rough,” he said. “I’m sorry it all happened that way.”
Lauren put down her bag and keys and put her arms around him from behind. “It’s fine, it’s over. All of that stress is over.”
“This half is over, my parents. What about yours? You’ve never even talked about them,” Garrett said. Lauren’s demeanor lost all humor. She walked around and sat on his lap.
“There’s not a lot to tell,” she said. “My dad passed away when I was four years old. There was an accident where he worked. My mother died when I was twelve. When my dad… it crushed her, and she started taking pills to manage her depression. She ended up taking a lot of different medications. My sister, Denise, is convinced that mom waited until she turned twenty, because that was the legal age at which my sister could adopt me, but one night, she took them all. She swallowed a mix of pills… over two hundred. She didn’t wake up.”
“Wow, I’m so sorry, Laur. That’s horrible,” he said.
She leaned into him. “It was so long ago now; I came to peace with it a long time ago. But if you notice Denise ‘mothering’ me, you’ll understand why.”
Garrett hugged her. “Yes, I certainly understand why she would.” Lauren lifted Garrett’s hand from her thigh and placed it on her side, under her shirt and just below her ribs on the bare skin. She stretched up and kissed him. She then moved his hand to the small of her back and kissed him again.
“Let’s go to bed.” She stood up and walked toward the bedroom. After getting a few steps away, she stopped and turned to him. “You can get the wrong idea this time.” She turned and started walking again, removing articles of clothing as she went. Mesmerized, it was only after she was out of view that Garrett got up and followed her.
Chapter 9
D.C.
1
The fourth and shortest stint Garrett did on Earth was the easiest by far. From the time he awoke to the time he was up and crawling out of the small crevasse within which he had gone under, it had only been ten minutes. He was pleased to find the temperature pleasant and see daylight as he approached the opening, but he realized it was fading into evening when he emerged.
He took full advantage of the remaining light and descended the mountain on the remnants of a trail he could still see. After half an hour, the last of the light was already dimming. The motor traffic that he could hear below encouraged him, and he resumed his descent, hoping to reach a road before it was too dark to go on. Another half hour passed, and he slowed his pace. He was afraid of impaling an eye on a barely detectable branch. It was much darker, but the traffic was also much louder, and he could see artificial, electric lights smoothly passing before him. If I can at least make it to the road, he thought, I can walk by the moonlight. Garrett pressed on at a slower, more careful pace until he reached the edge of the wooded area, when his feet first landed on mechanically cut grass. He was at the road, save having to climb a rather steep embankment. Once reaching the summit of the small hill, he came up against a sturdy metal rail meant to prevent wayward vehicles from sliding out of the lane. He climbed over it so he could walk on the level surface, observed the traffic for a moment, and then walked in the same direction as the vehicles on his side of the road. Traffic in the opposing direction had their own separate road, which ran parallel to the one on which he stood.
Garrett walked west for another hour, watching the sun set before him as he went. He passed a blue and red sign with no information but the word “Interstate” printed in a narrow red band on top and “78” in large print in a blue one below. On a separate metal placard was the word “west.”
Many times while he walked, he heard the louder engines of trucks and busses approach and then pass him. Around the end of the first hour, he heard a new sound, a low, guttural noise that sounded loud and almost panicked. A large truck, appearing to be a cargo transport vehicle, passed him, but it was slowing at a rapid pace. Near to where he walked, it had pulled over into his path, and several lights on the back of it blinked continuously. A man dropped from the cab of the vehicle and walked along the side of the truck toward him. He said something, but Garrett could not make out any of the words. Finally, once the man was closer and only visible by the oncoming lights from the traffic behind him, he said again, “Hey man! You’re gonna get yourself killed out here! You can’t walk on a highway!” He was a heavyset man of thirty-five or forty years. His skin was pale, and he had a beard trimmed close to his face. He wore a shirt with a pattern, corrective lenses, and a cap.
“Should I walk on the grass, then?” Garrett asked, and pointed to the other side of the guardrail. The man put his hands on his hips and rocked back in his posture.
“No, man! I’ll give you a ride. Where are you going?”
Alarm rose in Garrett’s mind, because he had no answer to the question. He hoped that a generic answer would suffice. Riding in the truck with the man could be beneficial. If he was good enough to stop and help a stranger, he might be helpful in other ways. “I don’t know. I can tell you that my name is Garrett. I have money, but none that will do me any good here. Ultimately, I need a place to change my money and then find lodging.” The look of confusion on the man’s face turned to a grimace, and then back to confusion, mixed with suspicion.
“That’s weird, man. You aren’t running from the cops, are you?” he asked. Garrett did not know what cops were, but he was not running from anyone.
“No, um…” he gestured to the man.
“Bill.”
“No, Bill. I’m not running from anyone. I arrived here from France many days ago and have been walking since. I have not had the occasion to change my money yet and have a great need to.”
“Jesus, man, you could’ve just changed it at the airport! And who only carries cash anymore? Don’t you have any cards? The exchange rate gets applied automatically. Whatever, we have to get off the road. Come on back to my truck,” Bill said, and turned to walk back to the vehicle. Garrett followed. After making a feeble effort at opening the door, Bill opened it from the inside and Garrett climbed into the cab.
“What in the hell are you wearing?” Bill asked. He looked at Garrett with more of his signature confusion.
“Forgive my dress. I know it is not period appropriate, but it is all I have at the moment. I can’t buy anything more modern until I can change my money.” Garrett reached down into his bag to retrieve one of the coin satchels. He opened it. Each of his two satchels contained half of his oldest Roman money, topped off with the dozens of gold Napoleons he had received in exchange for his printing wages. He plucked a few of the coins from the purse and held them out in the bright cab light for Bill to inspect. “This is the money I have.”
“Well, damn.” Bill leaned in closer to examine them.
“You can touch them, Bill. It is all real money.” On Garrett’s palm were two gold Napoleons and a copper Roman piece he had received from the Clotz family, almost fifteen hundred years before. Bill picked up the pieces, surprised by the weight of the Napoleons.
