It was a utilitarian, almost industrial kitchen, very basic, but large. Redmond stood with his back to me, brewing coffee. “Hello, Callie,” he said without turning.
“How did you know it was me?”
“Your footsteps are much lighter than Hyden’s or Ernie’s. And I knew you’d come looking for me.” He turned and smiled. “Want some?” He raised the coffee carafe.
“Sure.” I looked at the counter and saw various cereals in glass jars. “I thought you Brits only drank tea.”
I took a cup and stirred in some milk.
He put his finger to his lips. “Shh. Don’t tell the queen,” he said with a twinkle in his eye. “So I hear you’re living in Helena’s house?”
“She left it to me. Half of it. The other half goes to Helena’s granddaughter. Once I find her.”
“I know Emma. Met her several times. And her mother.” He looked down.
“I’m sorry.” I sipped my coffee.
Emma’s mother—Helena’s daughter—would have been a Middle, of course. Whenever anyone spoke of Middles, it brought up the sadness. I didn’t know her. Whether Redmond had known her well or not, anytime the conversation went to losing a Middle, it brought on the memories of all the Middles you’d lost. It would just make both of us sad. I wasn’t going to let him go down that path.
“What’s Emma like?” I asked.
“All the ladies in that family are stubborn and opinionated. Must be in their genes. Especially Emma. Thought she knew how to fix the world. Typical Starter, as you call them.”
“If you see her, will you tell her about her grandmother? And her inheritance.”
“If I do, I’ll tell her.” He stared at his coffee. “What’s it like living in Helena’s house?”
“Beautiful. Feels like she’s still there.”
“She was quite a gal,” he said. “She wanted to save the Starters. If only she had known that the man she hated the most had a son, a Starter who shared her goal.”
I thought about Hyden. He was so complicated.
“What’s wrong with his arm?” I asked. “Do you know?”
“His arm? You mean his whole body, don’t you?”
I was totally confused.
“I should let him explain it to you,” he said.
“Was he injured?”
“Just don’t touch him and you’ll be all right. Once I accidentally brushed his hand. It took a week before he relaxed around me again.”
“And he trusts you?”
“As much as he trusts anyone.”
That reminded me of his father’s warning.
“Do you know his father?” I asked.
“I know of him. And what he wants to do. If he can get ahold of the full technology, he’ll have no qualms about selling it to the highest bidder—a terrorist regime or worse. And that’s why I’ll put up with living like a gopher.”
“Can’t we just reclaim it? Get the rest of the Metals and find a way to eventually remove or nullify the chips?”
“We can’t take it back. We need to work on countermeasures.”
“Why not just give it to the government and let them work on it?”
“Hyden doesn’t trust them. I’m not sure I do either. It’s an outrage, locking up homeless Starters in institutions.”
I saw his point.
“Redmond, for someone to connect to my chip, they’d have to have access to the technology. But only Hyden and his father have it, right?”
“Far as I know.”
I thought about the voice that had sounded like my father. Where would he have gotten access to the technology to get in my head anyway? One more reason it couldn’t have been my father.
When I found Hyden later, studying a pad in his tech lab, I asked if we could talk. He was working with equations I couldn’t decipher. Redmond was on the other side of the lab.
Hyden got up and walked me to a conference room. We sat at chairs around a table. A fat, leafy plant decorated the middle of the table, with a grow light aimed on it.
“This space is perfect for thinking. And private conversations,” he said. He opened a drawer under the table and pulled out two Supertruffles. “You look like you could use one of these.”
He tossed me one, making sure we didn’t touch.
“What did you want to talk about?” he asked as he unwrapped his Supertruffle.
“Don’t worry, it’s not about you.” I fiddled with my Supertruffle. “Your father pretended to be my father.”
“He did? When?”
“The day of Prime’s demolition. He sounded just like him. Even knew our personal code phrase.”