Ultraviolet Catastrophe (2 page)

Mom usually worked late on Thursdays at the lab where she was in charge of a team of theoretical physicists. They had a staff meeting that ran until six, so I was playing with the new computer board Dad had sent me. It was only credit-card-sized, but he’d thought it would be a great way to help me learn programming. I was pretty good at science, but computers…not so much.

I plugged in the power source and felt the panel start to vibrate. It had been a week since the gun incident, and I’d brought it up over and over, but Mom kept shutting me down. I’d poked in her closet, dug through her desk. Nothing. Not even a scrap of information. So I’d finally had no choice but to drop it.

Hopefully, we could get back to normal now. I hated how pale she looked lately, the dark smudges under her eyes. I hated even more that she was keeping something from me.

I pushed the SD card into the slot on my laptop and opened the directions on how to format the operating system for the tiny computer. A zap sliced through my brain again, and the room spun. I grabbed the edge of my desk and squeezed my eyes shut, but a second later, I already knew all the steps I needed. The instructions popped into my head, almost like I was seeing them on the screen.

“Oh my god.” Sweat beaded on my neck, and my heart thundered like I’d been running. I sucked in a deep breath, then another, but my lungs still felt like they’d stopped working. Tears prickled behind my eyelids, and I scrubbed at my face with my hands to keep them from spilling out.

This was beyond headaches. It was like my brain was possessed. Maybe I had a horrible, cancerous brain tumor. My stomach clenched, and I forced myself to think calmly. I was going to have to say something to Mom when she got home.

I took a shaky breath and finished formatting the SD card. Keeping busy seemed liked a good idea. If I could bring up the weirdness like it was no big deal, maybe we could talk about it rationally. The last thing I needed was for her to freak out. Because then I’d freak out, too. It would be ugly.

“I’m home,” Mom called a few minutes later. By then, my heartbeat had almost returned to normal. Her keys rattled on the hall table, and I padded out of my room.

She let out a sigh as she slipped out of her shoes. “I couldn’t face cooking dinner tonight, so I brought a pizza. Hope you’re hungry.”

“Starving.” I followed her into the kitchen and pulled some plates from the cupboard. Mom dropped the pizza box on the table and switched on the TV.

I chewed the inside of my lip. I should say something now. Before she got distracted.

“I can’t even tell you how awful the staff meeting was today. Vincent kept going on about how his latest research would change everything, would get us millions of dollars in research grants, and then I had to tell him his control group was flawed. He was not happy.” She sighed and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge. “What did you do today?”

I shrugged and took a deep breath. Play it cool. Get her into our normal routine and then slip in the possible brain tumor. “Not much. Finished a book. Watched some TV. Played with that Raspberry Pi computer dad got me. Pretty typical summer vacation stuff.”

“Sounds like fun.” Mom turned to close the fridge door.

“Hey, will you pour me a glass of milk?”

Mom nodded and pulled out a glass. The soft murmur of voices on the TV filled the house.

“Citizens of Los Alamos are recovering this evening from a violent attack on a government building located just outside the city limits. Officials are claiming that hackers broke into a classified server and triggered an explosion that rocked the facility, killing three…”

Crash.

The glass shattered on the floor, but Mom stared at the television, her face as white as the spilled milk.

“Mom? Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

She shook her head and held up a finger. My skin prickled as I turned to the TV and watched smoke billow from a squat, nondescript building in the middle of the desert. A piece of paper fluttered against the wall, and the camera zoomed in to show some sort of logo. A rifle and a microscope crossed like an X on a field of pale blue.

“At this time, officials do not have any suspects in custody and haven’t officially labeled it a ‘terrorist attack’; however, the Secretary of Homeland Security released a statement claiming that they are devoting all their resources to investigating what is ‘almost certainly a threat to our national security.”

The news anchor turned the next story over to his co-host, and Mom stepped through the puddle of milk and turned the TV off.

Her hand trembled. She looked like she had in the mall last week. Like she was going to be sick.

“What’s going on?”

Mom shook her head. “Will you take care of the mess? I need to call your father.”

My jaw dropped open. “Dad? Why?” I couldn’t remember a single time in the last ten years when she’d actually chosen to call him. Now, she’d talked to him twice in one week.

“Lexie, please. I’ll be back in a minute. Just clean it up please.” She grabbed the phone off the counter, rubbing the back of her neck as she left the room.

I did a few quick swipes with a handful of paper towels, dumped them in the garbage under the sink, and tiptoed down the hall to the living room. I pressed myself against the wall so I could peek inside.

“William, I just saw the news. What exactly did they get from Los Alamos?” Mom paced between the couch and the window, the phone pressed to her ear. She moved stiffly, like all her muscles had tensed. “So that really was Grant at the mall, wasn’t it?”

Almost a minute elapsed as my dad spoke. My chest tightened as I waited for her answer.

“Three days? That’s it?” She let out a soft sigh. “I understand. I wish it hadn’t come to this, but we’ve been lucky for the last few years.” Another pause. “I miss you, too. We’ll see you soon.” She clicked the phone off and dropped it on the coffee table with a clatter before burying her head in her hands.

My stomach hit the floor. Miss him? Mom could barely stand the guy. I leaned back and took a shaky breath. She needed to tell me what was going on. Now.

A moment later, Mom sighed and marched out of the living room. Her gaze narrowed as she saw me standing near the door. “What did you hear?”

I pressed my palms against the cool wall. “Enough to be completely freaked out. What is going on?”

“We’re going to take a trip to visit your dad this weekend. How about you start packing?”

I shook my head. “Uh-uh. You’re not getting out of it that easily.” Panic twisted my stomach into one big knot. Mom and I were close. I told her everything. And, until this past week, I’d thought she did the same with me.

Her brown eyes were full of fear, but she put on her best everything’s-okay-voice. “Nothing to worry about, but your dad needs to see you about your ADHD meds. The clinical trial is almost up, and they need to finish collecting data on you.”

I blinked. “Why didn’t he tell me that when we talked last week? And what does that have to do with the news?”

“Nothing at all. Just jolted my memory. Besides, it’s been a while since you’ve seen your dad. He’s been talking about you coming to visit. Now’s a good time before school starts.”

That was the
last
thing I wanted. Anger shot through me. I was tired of the lies from both of them. “I’m not going to Tennessee. I’m not doing anything until you tell me what’s going on.”

“Watch your tone, young lady.”

I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at her. I hadn’t even gotten started with the attitude. I could do this all night if I had to.

And Mom knew it. She threw her hands up. “I can’t talk to you rationally when you’re like this. I need to go make a few calls. And since you can’t be trusted not to eavesdrop, I’m going to my room. Go ahead and eat without me.”

She turned and walked away down the hall. I stared after her. Hurt and fear fought to take hold, and my arms slid down to wrap around my waist. I could count on one hand the number of times Mom and I had seriously fought. But this was different. I’d never seen her like this before.

She was scared.

I shoved the last of my clothes into my suitcase and glanced around my bedroom to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything. My mini telescope and my Albert Einstein action figure were neatly positioned beside the T.A.R.D.I.S. cookie jar I’d gotten for my last birthday, and the dust that had covered my bookshelf since I’d gotten my tablet was gone. Mom had made me clean while we were packing, so there was a distinct lack of Lexie-mess in the room. She’d even insisted I box up some of my other books and knick-knacks while I was at it. A weird, forced spring clean in the middle of August.

“Almost done?” Mom asked, leaning against the door. “Did you make sure to pack those extra clothes and books?”

“Yep. I have a full suitcase, an entire box of stuff, my diary from third grade, and the kitchen sink. Seems a little overkill for a weekend visit.” I arched an eyebrow at her, but she shook her head, her eyes still shadowed and haunted. I knew I was being melodramatic, but I’d tried arguing, begging, pleading, and tricking her into telling me what was going on.

Mom remained tight-lipped.

We were on the road an hour later. Mom’s Buick sedan was old but comfortable, and the passenger seat cushioned me as I watched the flat Ohio countryside slowly give way to the green hills of Kentucky. She drove with her lips pressed together, only the soft murmur of the radio to break the silence. The silence that had seemed to fill all the space between us since that little incident with the gun.

My fingers drummed against my knee in time to the whirr of the tires on pavement. I’d never visited Dad in Tennessee before. He’d always come to us. First, in Washington when I was little. Then, in Ohio when we moved there three years ago. Every time it got more and more uncomfortable.

I couldn’t wait to deal with the awkwardness this time as we danced around the fact that we barely knew each other anymore.

I watched a pair of horses chase each other across a pasture. The soft hills of Kentucky grew into the Appalachian Mountains, their peaks lavender-gray in the distance as we approached Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

The Secret City.

I’d done my homework, of course. As soon as Mom had let the name of where Dad was working slip, I’d dug around the Internet and found Oak Ridge was one of the sites of the Manhattan Project, the World War II effort that produced the first atomic bomb. It had been a secret, government-run town until 1959, and then Quantum Technologies had taken over the former government buildings and science facilities, as well as added buildings of their own. Once, the whole town had worked for the U.S. government; now, most of them worked for QT.

The car slowed as we pulled into town. Gas stations and fast food restaurants lined the wide street, giving way to a several small strip malls and a grocery store. It all looked perfectly normal.

And then we drove into the downtown area.

A large, yellow sign reading “Welcome to Oak Ridge” greeted us, bearing the symbol of an atom surrounded by ellipses. A few kids on skateboards hung around the park by the main square, doing kickflips and ollies on the stairs. I watched one try to nail a landing, but he slipped instead. I sucked in my breath, thinking for sure he’d land on his butt, but the board flipped on its own at the last minute, a tiny jet of fire moving it to land beneath the kid’s feet.

I gasped. It was a freaking hoverboard!

A thrill of excitement made my skin prickle with goosebumps. Maybe Quantum Technologies wasn’t just a research facility. Maybe this whole trip wouldn’t be completely wasted. If I could bring one of those back with me to school…

Mom stopped at the red light, and I scanned the rest of the street. A young couple picnicked under one of the large oak trees while, across the green, a kid was playing catch with her golden retriever. I smiled as the dog leaped and bounded after the ball.

And then ran right through a big, blue mailbox like it wasn’t there, catching the ball on the other side. The dog’s plumed tail wagged frantically as it trotted back to the little girl. Through the mailbox. Again.