Doubt (5 page)

When she opened the laptop
, the screen already had the terminal open, ready for her to start working. Kerim shifted closer to her, his knee a fraction of an inch away from hers. She glanced down briefly and moved her knee away.
Is he for real?

“
Do you think you can really decode the encrypted file? Harry seems to think so. But we all know that he has a crush on you.” He turned toward her with a wry grin. 

I could smack him right now.
She tried to focus on the code in front of her, letting her fingers fly across the keyboard. The characters and numbers that flashed before her were comforting. No emotional misunderstandings or tension to deal with—just pure, straightforward code.

Kerim
’s hand found its way to her knee.

Cristal leaped up from her seat,
and her arms were flailing up to push Kerim away, which knocked Gabriel sideways as he was just entering the room. The tray of coffee mugs slipped from his hands onto the table and sent boiling coffee onto Kerim’s lap and her computer.

“
Hey! Take it easy, man!” Kerim cried out.

“Is it okay to grab a girl’s knee where you’re from?” she yelled.

“What the hell are you doing?” Gabriel added, reaching out and grabbing the box of tissues from the table.

Kerim s
tood up, coffee dripping down from his pants to the carpet.

“
You are both insane!” Cristal snapped while pulling the tissue box from Gabriel’s hand.

“
Hey, I need those,” Kerim said.

He reached out for the box.

Cristal pulled the box away, taking a handful of tissues and wiping the sticky brown mess off her computer. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Gabriel’s fists clenched. This is frickin’ crazy. Instead of getting the data for the video chat meeting with Harry, here she was babysitting the boys.

“You know, you’re a real jerk,” Gabriel growled.

“
What did you say?” Kerim asked in a dangerously quiet voice.

“Oh, you heard what I said,” Gabriel said, his eyes blazing.

He lunged towards Kerim, swinging at him. Kerim smoothly turned his body avoiding the punch.
He grabbed Gabriel by the wrist and twisted his arm behind his back.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Cristal mumbled to herself.

Just then, s
he noticed that her hands had started to shake.
Oh, not again!
She needed to get out of there soon. She grabbed her laptop and backpack.

“
What are you doing?” Gabriel asked with his hand still locked behind his back.

“
Where are you going?” Kerim added, letting Gabriel’s arm go.

She stopped and whirled around to face them.

“I don’t have time for this, whatever this is. We need to finish the mission. I don’t know about you but I want to find my dad. Obviously you two only want to arm wrestle.”

Her hands were still shaking. She
walked past the kitchen towards the dark hallway. To her right, she saw a room with a desk and an office chair. A disco ball hung from the ceiling. The few times that she and Harry came to see Gabriel, they never went beyond the living room area.

In the corner of the room were a twin-sized bed and a bookshelf full of action figure dolls.
The bed was neatly made; the wall was covered with posters of video games and 70s music bands.

She
went straight to the desk and cleared the papers off, placing them in the drawer. She put down her laptop and opened the video chat window.

If those two guys want to waste time, she was going to video chat with Harry by herself.

Before she could continue with the decoding, she knew that she needed to calm down. The shaking episodes that used to overpower her in her teens only came about when she was extremely stressed. She used her deep breathing exercise to stop herself from shaking. She knew that if she didn’t stop it, something terrible could happen.

Stop thinking about it and it will go away.

She sank down on the chair and closed her eyes. She took in a deep breath and then let out a long exhale just as her father had taught her.

“
Be careful, Cristal
,” her father’s voice hummed in her head.

After a few minutes of deep breathing, the shaking stopped.

“Are you okay?”

She opened her eyes and
saw Gabriel and Kerim standing in the doorway looking like repentant little boys begging forgiveness from their mother.

“
Yeah, I’m fine,” she replied. “Did you guys make peace?”

Gabriel
lips curled into a smile.

He turned to Kerim and said,
“Hey, how did you learn those cool self-defense moves?”

“I was in the Turkish Army for four years for mandatory service,” Kerim said.

“
Could you teach me some of that? I’m really good at fighting in the game, but man, it would be really cool to be able to do it for real.”

Gabriel threw him a fake punch to his stomach.

Kerim doubled over. They began fake wrestling together, bumping into the doorframe.

“
Okay, boys. Are you guys done yet?” Cristal said, relieved that they were no longer at each other’s throats.

Suddenly, a high-pitched sound blasted into the room
knocking the action figures off the shelf. The floor began shaking beneath her feet. She paused for a moment, wondering if she was causing this. She looked at her hands. They were steady and she noticed too that her breathing was even.
But I stopped shaking. This shouldn’t be happening.

She glanced up to see Gabriel
’s hand on the doorframe and the other one holding onto Kerim’s chest, his eyes closed tight. Kerim’s arms were outstretched, his hands holding onto the doorframe. His eyes were staring at her, wide open; his face pale.

Her multiple experiences with the room shaking
, minus the high-pitched sound, made her relatively calm despite what was happening. As if in a dream, she watched in slow motion her laptop slide off the desk along with her mouse, the jar of pens and other miscellaneous office supplies.

Her chair seemed to sway with the waves of turbulence, almost as if the legs had shock absorbers attached. Although the shaking seemed to be in slow motion for her, she knew that it wasn’t the same for Kerim and Gabriel. She could see the doorframe shaking violently, the wall almost seeming like it was going to implode. For brief instances, it seemed that Kerim and Gabriel disappeared into thin air.
Freak, I’m seeing things now.

She opened her mouth to call out to them but the thunderous roar around them muted her voice. It seemed like hours but really was only seconds later when the floor stopped shaking. She noticed that the high-pitched sound had also vanished. Everything grew eerily still.

Kerim let go of the doorframe, his arms falling down to his sides. Gabriel was still clutching to him; his eyes closed.

“
Oh!” Gabriel whimpered.

After a few seconds, he opened one eye and looked around the room. He glanced up at Kerim who was
glaring down at him. He half-smiled, letting go of Kerim.

“
I mean, wow that was really friggin’ amazing, huh?” Gabriel said.

Kerim
pushed Gabriel aside and rushed towards Cristal.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

She
gave him a thumbs up but was still unsure if she were the cause of what seemed to be a mini earthquake.

“Yeah, I’m okay.”

What just happened here? Was it an earthquake or was the shaking isolated to the room?
So many thoughts were filling her mind.

Kerim bent down to pick up her laptop.
The light from the screen was still on—a good sign that all her work was not lost.

“
Looks like your laptop is just as tough as you,” Kerim said, while placing the computer back on top of the desk.

On the screen, the video chat window was open, and Harry and Joanna were watching them.

Joanna’s mouth was wide open, her eyes wide with shock. Harry was grinning from ear to ear. He was speaking, but there was no sound. Behind them, people were picking up things off the ground. From what Cristal could make of it, they were mostly cups, cutlery, and overturned chairs.

Cristal reached over and pressed the volume button until Harry
’s voice was audible. Gabriel came over and stood behind her while Kerim moved to the other side.

“
…that was spectacular, guys. Dr. Saeed and I were working on some tests. We believe we are closer to proving my father’s theory. We want to talk to all of you in person tonight. I will text you the details.”

CRISTAL
STARED AT HER monitor in disbelief. The video chat window went black.

“
Were you in on this?” Gabriel asked, turning to her.

Cristal
said, “No,” and sat back.

Suddenly Kerim leaned towards her, grabbed the chair’s armrests with both hands and spun her chair towards him. With his hands still
on the armrests, he leaned over and looked directly into her eyes.

She heard
Gabriel ask, “What was that, guys?”

Kerim’s eyes seemed to be shooting accusations into hers while she was trying to process what Harry had told them.

“You were very calm during the whole thing,” he said to her raising one eyebrow.

She stared back, not one to be easily intimidated. She could hear Gabriel moving around behind her.

“She didn’t seem calm to me,” Gabriel said.

Kerim tilted his head
towards him.

“
Gabriel, you had your eyes closed the whole time.”

She felt her body relax for a moment.

“Well, not the whole time,” Gabriel replied. “Okay, most of it.”

Kerim’s eyes met hers causing her body to tense up again.

“Before you answer, Cristal,” Kerim said, “I want to know, can we trust him?”

He
pointed at Gabriel.

“
Hey! Wait a minute!” Gabriel cried out.

She shoved her chair back, releasing Kerim’s death grip on the chair, forcing him to stand up. She looked from Gabriel to Kerim.
Question is, can I trust either of them?

“If you really want to know…” she said drawing out the words like maple syrup dripping out of a bottle.

She could see Gabriel pleading with his eyes for her to continue.
Oh, no, here we go.

“
This isn’t the first time this happened to me.”

Gabriel leaned back on the desk, his mouth open in astonishment.

“
What do you mean?”

Kerim moved towards her, kneeling down on one knee. He placed his right hand on the armrest. His steel grey eyes searched hers. It felt like he was digging into her mind for answers.

“Do you want to know what I saw, Cristal?” Kerim asked in a low voice.

Her arms felt as if they were paralyzed, her legs stiff.

Kerim continued, “
You
started the earthquake and the bright light, right?” he asked in a hypnotic tone.

Cristal clenched her fists and struggled to get up.
Why can’t I move?

Summoning all her strength and will power, she managed to push Kerim away. She stood up, causing him to stumble backwards onto the desk. This time she leaned in towards him, planting her fists on her hips.

“Is this an interrogation, Kerim?” she hissed.

She could feel her emotions getting out of control.

“I was watching you and there was a beam of light coming out from your chest to the ceiling and it bounced back to the ground. It was like the light was coming through you.”

Kerim took a step forward, approaching her with caution.

What is he talking about?

Her hands fell to her side. Even though every cell in her body wanted to escape from the mindless inquisition, she forced herself to stay put. It was impossible for her to tear her
gaze away from him. If he leaned any closer, their noses would have touched.

“I don’t know anything about that,” she admitted, not knowing what else to say.

“
When the room was shaking, you were motionless. Your eyes were empty. But I could see things above your head.”

Gabriel threw him a look.

“What things?”

“I don’t know how to explain it,” Kerim continued. “It was like watching a movie from an old projector onto the white screen. Except the screen was the light that was coming out from inside you.”

She blinked in astonishment.
That’s impossible. Does he think I’m going to believe this BS? I have to get out of here.

“Cristal, did you feel or see any of that?” Gabriel asked. “Are you okay?”

“No, I’m not okay. I don’t have to stay here and take this crap.”

She leaped up, bumping Gabriel to the side as she grabbed her laptop and her backpack and headed to the door.

She hurried down the hallway with Kerim and Gabriel tailing her. When she reached the living room, Kerim grabbed her by the shoulder with Gabriel blocking her path.

“Cristal, you can’t leave now. We need to talk about this,” Kerim said.

Who the hell does he think he is?

“No, we don’t. I need to go and find Harry. Let me go.”

Sh
e pushed his hand off of her.

“
Harry?” Gabriel asked.

She noted the sound of concern in his voice.

“
No, I agree with Kerim. We need to figure this out as much as we can before meeting Harry and the rest of the group tonight.”

She couldn
’t think properly much less talk about it.
Beam of light? Projections above my head? What next?

Just then, her cell phone beeped. She scrambled to get it out of her backpack.
New text message from Harry. The sound of Gabriel and Kerim’s cell phone text message ringtones followed soon after.

Zero:
Meet me at the GN University, Physics Dept., Room 1130 at 6 pm today. Confirm receipt.

She
started to type a text back when her phone started ringing. Harry’s name came up on the screen. She swiped the screen to answer.

“
Yes?” Cristal asked.

“Cristal, checking to see if you’re okay.”

Harry
’s voice seemed serious, but she could hear a hint of excitement. His phone call should have calmed her, but she was feeling more anxious than ever.

“No, not really. What were you talking about earlier? What tests?” she said.

Should I tell Harry about the light that Kerim saw? No. Don’t tell him anything until I figure out what he is up to.

“I’ll meet you back at GN and we can talk then,” he said.

Before she could say anything
, he ended the call.