Sentilia

The speeder was on the ground already, but I hadn’t noticed it landing.

K stepped out, and I grabbed his arm. “Wait.” I wanted to try and figure out how to read thoughts before seeing William. “How do I do it? How do I read your mind?”

“Max, I know I said you had to learn all of this soon, but you don’t have to start this instant. Plus,” he added more sarcastically, “My mind is pretty easy to read, actually, you don’t need to read minds to know what I’m thinking.”

“K, please, just...” I needed to know if William really liked me or not. I needed to know what he was thinking when he was around me.

As I remembered I had to watch my thoughts around him, I saw an inch of sadness flash across his features before he said, “Okay, fine. Try to concentrate on my face. I’m so used to protecting my thoughts, this will take a lot of concentration on my part, too,” he chuckled, but it sounded fake, “it’s something that’s supposed to come naturally, so don’t force it too much; just focus on me, and you’ll start getting, um, flashes of emotions. Once you start feeling what I feel, then you’ve got it. And you’ll never have to concentrate as much; every time it’ll come easier. If you don’t get it right away, it’s not a big deal; hardly anybody gets it the first time. You know what? Let me try something that’ll help.” His eyes were serious again, but for the briefest moment. His smile was tentative, testing my mood. But he already knew why I wanted this so bad. I couldn’t protect my thoughts, yet.

We faced each other, a few inches apart. I tried to refocus before lifting my head, and stared deeply into his eyes.

I automatically lost all concentration. Or so I thought.

My disconnection was from reality only; I was now completely engulfed in K’s mind. I started to feel light-headed; I could feel my heart slightly accelerating, my palms starting to sweat. I was literally feeling what he was feeling: in love. I caught short glimpses of K’s car, mixed with flashes of my face, my scent, and my lips inches from his. Along with the visions came a hunger, a passion. K flinched. I could guess he was trying to concentrate on his car, because the visions kept going back to it; he was trying to hide how intense his feelings were, but he wasn’t trying hard enough, it seemed. I remembered K saying that we could only have a general sense of what others were thinking, but this was way clearer than that.

In the end, his concentration failed, and he looked away. I returned to my own thoughts, and I noticed his face was expectant. “Well? Did it work? I completely let down my defenses.”

Okay, so, now what? Did I tell him that it was successful? He usually was so upfront with me, and now he was trying to hide his feelings. He seemed ashamed of the way he felt. Maybe he didn’t want me to know just how much he cared about me. I didn’t want to think this through too much, or he would be able to read my thoughts in turn. In any case, I knew what he wanted to hear. A small part of my mind was still connected to his somehow.

It only took a second before I answered: “Didn’t get it, sorry.” He exhaled but stopped mid-way, trying to hide his relief. It had been the first time I’d seen him on the defensive, and it surprised me.

“Don’t apologize, sweetie. I told you: people rarely get it on the first try.” The right corner of his mouth curled up in a smile, and he said: “Let’s go.”

I was even more surprised that he didn’t see through my lie. Either he wasn’t trying to read my thoughts, or I was able to block them already.

We were at a small blue house that I recognized as Maia’s. Was she going to be there? Would she remember me?

K paused, about to open the door, and said: “You know where we are.” It was more a statement than a question. I nodded.

We entered and Maia was waiting right near the stairs, same as she was the first time I came here, in my dream. In fact, it almost felt like déjà vu.

“Hey guys! Come in, come in!”

We were standing in her small entrance, and seeing my bloodstained filthy clothes, she sent me to change upstairs. Hayden wasn’t there waiting for me this time, but there were some clothes on the ramp; I figured someone other than Maia had to put them there.

I came back down with a swing in my step after washing up, and followed Maia into her small dining room. I smiled back when Hayden came in after us, and greeted me with a shy smile. I wasn’t sure what her name was or if she even knew who I was, so I just smiled back. We all sat around the table, which I noticed was covered in paper pictures. I took a moment to take in how happy I was to be here with all of them. They all looked at me and smiled back; I guess they knew what I was thinking, or maybe it was just clear on my face.

If I had gotten a hostile welcome to the island, this one was totally opposite. Here, I felt like no one was on their guards with me; it was just like being with family.

“Okay! Let’s get down to business,” Maia winked at me, “Maxine, you already know the basics, and you already know all of us. But I know for a fact that you want to know more about your mom, and why she kept this secret from you. Let’s just say I’m the best person to answer most of your questions. So before anything else...hmm...how do I say this?” She was muttering and rummaging through the pictures on the table.

At this point, I knew she’d probably seen our meeting in my dream, and didn’t feel the need to replicate the experience. She was getting straight to the point; I liked that. I felt comfortable enough around all of them to be upfront and skip the courtesies. I was truly dying to know why my mom didn’t chose to live in this beautiful city, and why she’d kept this huge secret from me. The fact that I was from another species was kind of a big deal in my book.

“First of all, let me show you this genealogical tree I sketched while you were upstairs. The names in bold are people who are pure Sentilians. This is me.” She pointed to her name.

I gaped loudly.

“Wait, there’s something wrong here. My mother is an only child,” I whispered, because I already knew what they would say. I followed the line that went across to ‘Mia White’ with my index, and realized it was trembling. I never knew my grandparents, they had moved away to another part of the world when I was very young, and died in a transporter accident that was never fully explained to me. But I knew their names. That part was right.

I looked up. Nobody spoke. They just stared back. My mouth opened, then closed. I closed my eyes, shook my head, opened them again. And then, in the reigning silence that was heavily laced with tension, I came to the realization that my whole life was a lie. Every single thing I’d known for the past 18 years was a lie. My parents had invented this whole charade and had kept it up for so long, and for what?

I tried to suppress my sudden anger flood and concentrate on the people that were in the room. My family.

Hayden was my cousin. I looked up at her. That’s where the resemblance came from. “Her mother was my mother’s sister.” It was only a thought; I still couldn’t speak.

“She was her twin actually,” Maia said.

For the moment, my only thought was: “Why would she invent so many lies?”

“To protect you,” Maia seemed to be the only one to speak now. K was looking down, and Hayden was looking at him.

It didn’t make any sense. But looking at Hayden, I knew it couldn’t be a lie. “She looks so much like her.” I couldn’t take my eyes off her; that’s what I would have looked like if I would have had my parents’ genes. Or, at least, something like that.

They were all looking at me now, and I felt a light twitch in the back on my head every couple of seconds. I hadn’t really noticed that until the first time I’d really connected with K’s mind. I knew now that the little twitch I could feel was because they were all trying to read my thoughts.

I looked up at Maia, and it seemed like she was holding back. She opened her mouth to speak, and I figured it was best to hear what she had to say then try to read her mind. She was the most experienced of all of us at blocking her thoughts.

“Maxine,” she said, and I saw K and Hayden caution her with their eyes.

“Maxine, I know what you’re thinking,” of course, “and I can’t believe you’ve never asked your mom about this. You were conceived in the most natural way. Your mother was always so opposed to creating her own child. When genes aren’t controlled, anything can happen. That’s why you don’t look exactly like them. But, look at...”

She started flipping through pictures and I felt the tension in the room fade. Her hand clasped a small brown photo album, “...this.” She flipped it open, and handed it to me. “This is your grandfather, your dad’s father. He past away when you were little. Look at him, you look exactly like him.” I would have missed Maia’s eye catching K’s if I would have blinked. K had a light frown, I noticed through the glass table that he was clenching his fists. My eyes turned to the picture.

I gawked.

He had thick brown hair, the same face, and the same rosy cheeks as mine. He was a tall man, a beautiful copper tone to his skin. But what made me believe he was my grandfather were his eyes. It looked like they had been copied and pasted onto my face. The likeness was astounding.

But what petrified me most was that I’d already seen this man before. Well, I hadn’t actually seen him in person.

When I was about eight years old, I had this program that was called ‘paint’; it was a program with which you could draw anything you liked. Its purpose was to develop creativity; it had been given to every child my age as a gift, right after our first visit to the museum.

I had no idea that I had a talent for drawing until I’d tried to replicate a face I kept seeing in my dreams at that time. It was a man, my grandfather, who kept trying to talk to me, but no sound would ever escape his mouth. He was completely mute, to his great frustration. The man constantly haunted me, and I drew him almost by reflex.

It took me three months to complete the digital painting, and when I was finally satisfied with the result, I showed my parents. I was beaming as I waited for their response.

I distinctively remember my mom standing there, mouth opened, for ten minutes. I don’t even think she blinked. My dad had complimented the painting before taking me to my room. He’d said my mom was just shocked at all the talent I had at such a young age.

I came back to the living room a few moments later; my mother explained that the program had somehow crashed, destroying my painting, and that I would never be able to download it again. I had cried for weeks; I’d spent so much time on it, I was so proud of it, and it had all been for nothing. I had experienced loss for the first time.

Once I finally got over it, my mother said that my talent was only average and pursuing a creative route for a career was not what was best for me. I never thought about it again after that.

But here he was, staring right back at me on this piece of paper.

I knew they were probing my mind but it didn’t matter, because it meant that either I’d seen him when I was really young and was able to remember his face subconsciously, or—and this was the more disturbing alternative—he was trying to get through to me in my dreams, like K had been doing in the past weeks. Now he was gone and there was no way of knowing what he had been trying to tell me then.

I lifted my gaze—the picture was a lot to take in—but looked back down almost instantly.

Something in the background caught my eye. There was something wrong with it.

I immediately tried to concentrate on blocking my thoughts. I didn’t exactly know how but I concentrated on another picture near me, hoping it would work, while I processed what was in front of me, in the back of my mind.

It was not that the tall mountains made it seem like an altered picture. I was almost used to seeing them on this island now. But it was the speeder parked a few feet away from him that indicated something was off.

The speeder was the exact same model that we had just ridden in. A model I’d never even seen before today. K said that they were the ones who invented new transports before sending the models to the mainland. Either this model was invented some 20 years ago, or this man was still alive.

Something was off, I knew it. I felt it. Something Maia was trying to hide from me. Something others didn’t want me to know.

Was I going haywire? I raised my head and tried smiling.

She was about to narrate my mother’s story, so I shut the album before anyone else could see the speeder, and plunged my intrigued eyes in hers. I didn’t want to raise any suspicion, so I focused all my attention on what she was saying.

“Your mother was born here. She was always happy, and she loved the way we live here. I never understood why she decided to go live with the dwellers. She was still young then—around 20—she told us simply that she had to try and integrate their society. In order to do that, she had to marry your father. They had met here, but he didn’t live here; nor did he want to. At the time, there were rumours going around about the island, and some people got curious. That’s why your father came here, to check it out. He stayed for a few days, and left uninterested by the way we lived, but with your mother as his prize. You see, your mother couldn’t just walk into California and requested to join their society. The Advisors knew about us, but they didn’t like us very much. Like you already know, they are only keeping us here because we are useful to them. So, she married him, or whatever it is they do, and the Advisors took it as complete integration.

“We stopped talking at that point, we lost contact. She totally gave up on the rest of her family to live with you and your dad. Eventually, when we heard rumours that the Advisors wanted to eliminate us, we found out that she had been welcomed to be part of the Advisors. The first Sentilian to ever be invited.”

“That’s where you come in,” K said.

Maia ignored the interruption; “We started thinking about ways to lure you here. We weren’t sure it was a good idea to involve you at first, but it was the only way to get to your mom: through you. We already knew you were curious about our way of life when you started paying regular visits to the historical museum. We were, um, keeping tabs on you.”

The story seemed completely normal to her, as if she was expecting me to believe every word that she said. But it sounded completely ludicrous, as if I didn’t know my mother at all. It was like I knew nothing about my own life anymore. Like I was just reborn...as an alien, in a half-alien family. My mom kept it secret from me my whole life. She had a family I knew nothing about, and she’d lied about her past. What was the problem with that picture? Why did I still have problems believing it?

“Maxine, you have to believe us, we need you to,” K said, pleading.

It didn’t make any sense. “Why do you needme? And why do you need to talk to my mom?” What was I going to do to help them? Weren’t they all brilliant psychics, among other incredible talents I wasn’t aware of yet?

“Well, I know Elis has told you some things about the Advisors...” It sounded like a question. The others looked at K now, not knowing exactly how much I knew. Before they could start probing my mind for answers, I cleared my throat: “He told me that the Advisors were scared that you’d start a war against yourselves, bringing them down on the way.” I remembered only too clearly every word he had said:Those women are trying to integrate us to your way of living. They think that we, living like our ancestors, will fall upon the same wars and tragedies, and destroy ourselves; maybe bring down some of your people as we go. They think we are not as civilized as they are and will, therefore, crumble apart. We’ve been living like this for so long, it’s just a different lifestyle, nothing is wrong for us, everything is perfect. And even if it wasn’t, it’s up to us to learn from our own mistakes, not the ones made a thousand years ago. They’re insisting on converting us, and each time our resistance turns into anger, and more anger. As we have become downright bitter to their offers, it’ll soon turn into violence. That’s what they want, I think, to prove their point. Instead of letting us live happily and letting us be, they will eventually make us blend in.

Make us blend it.I shivered; I’d already seen what that meant.

“Yes, exactly,” Maia answered. “They’ve always been scared about that. But they kept us here because we were useful to them. We invent almost all their new technology, which they take years to understand. Sentilians who integrate the society are bound to live like humans, work like humans; they don’t get to touch anything that could result in them surpassing the humans, and revealing their identity. No one on the mainland has any idea about any of this mess; the Advisors are keeping this really quiet. A few decades ago we started slowing down on what we show the humans. We realized that sending them all of our work and advancement in exchange for a chance to live here—hidden and almost shunned—is unfair. We’ve always been gracious with the humans; heck, we saved humanity. The air filters, the ‘moment of consciousness’, that was all us, Max. But they still threaten to eliminate us every chance they get. They’re trying to scare us and they don’t realize the power we have against them. Things are really getting serious Maxine, they could attack us at any minute.” She looked down. “They think we’re building up a revolution, and they want to stop it before it happens. They have no idea what we’re capable of.”

“What? They don’t know what we do?” I was completely including myself now, and it seemed almost natural. Hearing what the Advisors were planning on doing made me want to separate myself from them, from their society. It was inconceivable to me, after all these years of the Sentilians being here, that they didn’t know about our...special abilities. In fact, it was a very good thing; something that gave us an edge against them. We had so much on our side, I didn’t quite understand the panic in the room.

The small twitch I could feel in the back of my mind stopped. I knew then that they had stopped probing my mind. Their faces all fell at the same time.

“Maxine, they have guns! They won’t come here to talk. If they come here, it’s to use that kind of force in order for us to join their society. Anyone who doesn’t cooperate will be killed. We don’t believe in using guns against them; that leaves us almost defenseless.” I wasn’t sure if the alarming feeling I got was from the tone of her voice, the look of fright on her face, or the simple fact that maybe I could already successfully read their minds. Maybe it was a combination of all three.

“What...what canIdo?” They seemed to think I could help their situation somehow. Was there something I was missing?

“Max, your mom is part of the Advisors now. I’m guessing they told her about all of this, or else, how could you have known? You’re the one who put the words in Elis’ mouth—it wasn’t any of us. Somehow, you were able to subconsciously read your mom’s mind at some point, and when you started the dreams it all came to the surface. Maybe they’ll tell her before it happens, maybe not. Look, I know Serena would never condone this. She’s still one of us, forever, whether she likes it or not. The Advisors might have invited her to their circle of command innocently, but they have no idea what they’ve done.”

“They probably want to keep their ‘enemy’ close. And it’s a good way to do some upfront research.” It was Hayden who had said that last part.

Maia’s face was full of desolation now: “Look, she’s our best chance at stopping this before it happens. I know everyone thinks I’m crazy to go to her because she left us, but I know her, I’m sure she won’t let any danger get near you...I mean...us. We tried to contact her, but it’s clear she doesn’t want to talk to us. If we want her to listen, it has to be you. You’re the one that has to talk to her.”

Maia went quiet. Everyone did. If I concentrated enough though, I could hear the silent pleading in their minds. As if I had a choice.

But something still eluded me. All this was based on the fact that I somehow, on some level, was able to read my mother’s thoughts, and then dreamed about someone else revealing all of it to me. Didn’t it all seem a little...premature? They were putting a lot of trust in me, trust on a hunch? Because no facts were involved at this point—they just assumed that because I had alien blood that all of this was true.

“Max, even with everything we just told you, even if you took all of it surprisingly well, there are just so many things you don’t know still, things we don’t have time to tell you, things that are just not my secrets to tell. You need to take a step back, stop overthinking, and trust us. You don’t have any other choices right now.”

So what now? I would go tell my mother what her evil colleagues were planning, with no proof whatsoever of my accusations, and hope she would believe me? It seemed almost foolish. My mom always seemed to downplay everything, like nothing was ever a really serious problem. I knew very well she wouldn’t take me seriously unless I chose exactly the right words. This wasn’t going to be easy. And it’s not like I could really use any of my still-to-learn freakish mind tricks on her: she was a full-fledge E.T.

And, then again, why shouldIbelievethem? I had assumed that what they were saying was true because I had a dream about Elis telling me about it, and then another one where I could see the peacekeepers shooting at people on the island. But, all of my dreams were pretty much a making of our combined imagination.

I hesitated: “You have...no proof at all of what you’re saying?” I tried not to sound condescending.

“They have asked us many times to join them. Our answer has been no every time, because of their conditions.” I could see their faces began to fall, as my hope started to diminish.

There was a moment of silence.

“Max, take my hand.” Out of the pessimistic cloud surrounding us, K’s mood seemed suddenly lighter.

Confused, I took his hand and let him lead me out of the house, after throwing a last glance at the hauntingly desperate faces of the girls.