“Straw, please?” Aaron asked, his eyes looking up at Dr. Saeed. He grasped the sheet, pulled it up to his neck, and waited while Dr. Saeed put a straw into the cup.
“Thank you, Saeed. I don’t know what I’d do without you,” he said, grinning sheepishly.
“Now, now, Aaron. Just relax. I need you to tell me everything you can remember before you arrived here,” Dr. Saeed said in a soothing tone.
Harry could barely contain his desire to burst into the room and demand answers from Dr. Saeed and his father. Fortunately, the Truth Seeker in him knew enough to stay still. He had to watch and listen.
What other information has Dr. Saeed withheld from me?
Tasting the same bitter betrayal Cristal must have felt towards him, he knew this was karma—what goes around does come around.
Dr. Saeed turned away for a moment, his back to Harry. When he turned around, he was holding a needle syringe. He gently pulled up Aaron’s sleeve, wiped his arm with a cotton swab, and injected what Harry assumed was a mild sedative.
Aaron smiled as his body relaxed. “Ah, you always knew how to make me feel better, Saeed.”
Dr. Saeed pulled a chair up beside the bed and sat down. “Okay, are you ready to tell me everything?”
Aaron closed his eyes in affirmation. Harry was baffled. He never remembered seeing his dad like this before—vulnerable and almost childlike.
Harry looked at his watch. Time was ticking by. If he didn’t leave soon, Cristal would reach the black hole, and—the thought of what could happen made his gut wrench. Torn and emotionally sucker-punched, Harry was reluctant to leave. The truth he sought might have been a complete lie. Dr. Saeed and Aaron were both in on something, and now, Harry’s world was turned completely upside down. He knew that whatever secrets those two shared would definitely affect every Truth Seeker, not just himself.
“Do you remember the dinner party at your house?” Dr. Saeed asked in a monotone voice, hypnotically soothing.
Aaron mumbled to himself, his eyes still closed. “Ah, yes. I was telling everyone about our latest findings. About time travel.”
He chuckled quietly, grasping the top of the sheet tightly.
“Go on…” Dr. Saeed prompted him.
“I don’t remember the rest of the dinner. I must have fallen asleep. I woke up and found myself in a lab, just like this. Yes, yes…I remember now. There were people around me wearing hospital masks. I tried to say something, but I couldn’t.”
“Do you remember what they were saying?” Dr. Saeed asked.
“Nothing. No one was talking. I thought that was strange. I tried to get up, but I couldn’t move a muscle. Then they all left the room, leaving me alone on the gurney. That’s when I felt the room shaking. My body started convulsing violently. I felt the air being squeezed from my lungs. I wasn’t scared though,” he said, half whispering.
“Why weren’t you scared?”
“It almost felt like the first time when we almost succeeded. I felt myself slipping out of reality. The atoms in my body were pulling apart; the room was spinning around me. And then there was a flash of white light. Then blackness, like I was falling into a deep endless pit.”
Dr. Saeed frowned, nodding his head as if he was picturing what Aaron was saying in his mind.
“It seemed like I would fall forever, horrified and worried that it would never stop. After what seemed an eternity, I felt all my atoms rush together like a magnetic wave pulling all my cells towards the core of my body.”
Harry was puzzled by Aaron’s words. What was he talking about?
“And then I felt as if a bus had hit me. I thought I was going to die. Then I was stumbling in here,” Aaron said, his eyes opening.
He looked around. “Looks like you have upgraded a lot of things, since I’ve been here.”
He’s been here before? What the --?
“Like I said, it has been five years. Harry and I were trying to continue the work that you started. But this lab, I’ve kept secret. I don’t want GN sticking their noses into our work. I also wanted to protect Harry.”
“Ahhh, Harry. How is my boy?” Aaron asked, smiling.
“He’s not a boy, anymore. He’s a man now with a doctorate. A true genius. Just like you said he’d be,” Dr. Saeed replied.
“Yes, we succeeded in proving my theory. Inducing the chemical changes in the cells of a genius—one whose soul is pure of mortal sin. That was the secret to it all.”
I can’t believe you both used me.
Dr. Saeed stood up and leaned over the bed. “But that doesn’t explain how you time travelled here.”
Aaron’s voice melted into a nostalgic lilt.