Spiked by Jon McGoran

Author:Jon McGoran [McGoran, Jon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Young Adult, Sci-Fi, Science Fiction
Publisher: Holiday House
Published: 2020-04-01T13:00:00+00:00

THIRTY

Claudia and I were both exhausted, and we fell asleep pretty early. The next morning, we were awake at seven. The sun was up, filling her room with light. I caught a faint whiff of wood smoke, like a fire in a fireplace, or more likely a candle that’s supposed to evoke that smell.

As we went downstairs to make coffee and breakfast, and to check on Chris, I could sense Claudia’s anxiety, her worry about him. She hurried ahead of me, so I was a few steps behind her when she got to the family room and froze. When I stepped up next to her, I saw Bonnie, asleep on the sofa, and Chris, wide awake, smiling beatifically at her.

He turned to look at us, and his smile widened. “Hey kids,” he said. Then he turned back to look at Bonnie. “Isn’t she beautiful?”

“How do you feel, Dad?” Claudia asked, her tone so flat that I wondered if she might be in shock.

“Never better,” he said, with that same smile. “Why?”

“Because you were in like, a coma or something last night,” she said, sounding exasperated and annoyed. A little more like herself.

“Oh, that.” He laughed, condescendingly, it sounded to me. “That was just a system upgrade.” He reached up and touched his Wellplant. “A powerful one, too.”

Claudia said, “Mom!” raising her voice enough to awaken her mother.

Bonnie jerked and her eyes half opened, looking at us, then at Chris. At the sight of him, wide-awake and smiling, she shot upright. For a long moment she just stared at him. Then she said, “You’re back.”

“I was never gone.”

“Bullshit,” she replied, her voice sharp with anger and fear and relief and hurt. “I don’t know where you were last night, but it sure wasn’t here.”

“Baby—” he said, but Bonnie cut him off.

“Girls,” she said, turning to us, “can you give us a minute?”

“Sure, Mom,” Claudia said. She lingered another moment, studying her dad as if making sure it was really him. Then she turned back toward the stairs. I glanced longingly at the kitchen, my system primed for coffee, then I turned and followed Claudia back upstairs. I guess the kitchen wasn’t far enough away.

When we were halfway up the stairs we heard Bonnie snap, “So what the hell was that?”

“Just a system upgrade. A big one. Making my Wellplant even better than before.”

“A system upgrade? With no warning? No scheduling? Sounds more like a system failure. You had us worried sick, Chris. I called the doctor, but they said only the Wellplant’s med team could help you, and when I called them, they said they’d come out here to have a look at you but they never did. What if it had been serious? What if you were hurt, or dying?”

“Well, I wasn’t, honey,” he replied. “I’ve never been better. I can see things clearly for the first time. I can understand complex problems at a level that would have been impossible as a mere human.”

“A ‘mere human’?” Bonnie cut in with a laugh that was absolutely devoid of any kind of mirth.

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