Chương 184: 5.23

"Erind dear, I'm so happy to finally see with my own eyes that you're safe," Mom loudly said as she marched towards us. Her voice and her peculiar appearance—although not as weird as other people here in Vegas—made heads turn.

"How's the flight, Mom?" I said as I hugged her. She had to bend down to return the gesture because she wore high heels even though she was almost as tall as Deen without them. She explained that she did it to have a more authoritative air and subliminally command respect given that bioaugmentronics used to be a male-dominated industry. Probably still is.

"It's such a hassle, dear," she replied, heaving an annoyed sigh.

"My flight had a thirty-minute delay leaving Singapore airport—shocking it was only that—so I was hoping you girls wouldn't have to wait too long for me in a crowded airport. But when we arrived here, we needed to wait again because our plane had no place to land!"

"You're lucky with only about an hour in total of delay, Mom. That's basically nothing, considering how things are here," I said, gesturing to the hordes of people.

"And we didn't wait too long, so it's fine." Through the curtain of Mom's white hair, I could see Deen standing awkwardly, waiting for me to introduce her.

"Mom, by the way, this is Amber Deen Leska," I said as I pulled away from her arms.

"Deen sweetie, how are you?" Mom greeted my best friend as if they'd known each other for ages.

"You do look like your mother. I've seen Mrs. Leska in a couple of gatherings maybe a few years ago, although we haven't personally talked." Deen slightly flinched at that; Mom didn't seem to notice it.

"I'm fine, Mrs. Hartwell." She didn't address Mom's statement about her own mother.

"Erind never told me she had a supermodel for a friend."

"Mom, if we're talking about a supermodel body, then I'm much closer to it than Deen," I said, grinning at my best friend.

"I mean, add a foot, or even just half that, to my height, and we're good to go. Deen's too curvy for the job."

"Hey, what do you mean by that?" Deen protested.

"Models are supposed to be super thin like me," I said with a giggle.

"Unfortunately, I didn't inherit Mom's genes and I won't make it to the runway even if I wore stilettos."

"You took after your Aunt Jemma, dear," said Mom, patting my hair as she always did when talking about my height.

"And no, don't comment on what you didn't inherit from Jemma," she hastily added as she saw me look down my chest with a smirk on my face.

"I wasn't going to," I said, grinning at her. Just inside jokes between mother and daughter. Duties that I had to tick off whenever we met. It kept Mom happy, and I kept my face consistent. Everything was in order if I did my part as was expected of me as her daughter.

"Presents!" Mom excitedly said, raising her finger as if she just had a brilliant idea.

"I have plenty of presents for you, girls." She tried to open her luggage while we were in the middle of the floor with everyone passing around us.

"I have chocolates and gingerbread from Switzerland—Cheryl told me it is better compared to the gingerbread we have. Then I got this 'kaya' thing, some sort of coconut jam, I don't know—""Mom, we can do that later at the condo," I said, closing her suitcase and standing it back up. Once Mom set her mind on doing something, she wouldn't care about what others would think. It was kind of amusing that I'd be the one who'd care that we wouldn't bother other people.

This wasn't even about my Rule #4; I just didn't want us to clog the path for the arriving passengers. We were already conspicuous as it was, with Mom and Deen's appearance. She didn't need to hand out presents here like she was Santa Claus.

"The condo!" Mom blurted out as if I had just pointed out something important. People looked at her as if she was getting robbed.

"Before you get your presents, Erind dear, I have to be a mother here and ask if you cleaned our place." I was tempted to say, it didn't get burned down like my other condo, but that didn't feel like something a traumatized Erind would say.

"Yes, I did fix it up," I said, shooting Deen a mischievous look.

"And our empty pantry is also stocked." Mom would get angry at me that I had our 'guest' help with the cleaning and groceries. However, Deen's mind was wandering off somewhere and didn't get my joke. She was staring wistfully at the floor. Oh, come on, Deen. I don't want to deal with your own family issues.

"Bugs, bugs, bugs," I said as I flipped over my mattress to check if something was amiss with my bed.

"If I was a hidden camera, where would I be?" I wasn't even sure what I was looking for. What did bugs—the camera and microphone kind, not the actual insects—look like? Something small that looked electronic? I had already gone through my cabinet and study table. There was also nothing wrong with the windowsill, the floor, and the ceiling. And I didn't find anything in my bathroom. I swear I'd fucking rip out the heart of anyone who'd dare bug my bathroom.

Mom had to attend an important video conference or something, so I had time to conduct counter-espionage operations in my room. With how much searching I did since we returned home from the airport, I might as well have thoroughly cleaned my room. Deen wanted to chat with me, but I wanted some peace and alone time before my battery would get drained by living with two super intrusive people— sorry, Mom, but it's true. I rebuffed Deen, saying I wanted to rest because I was tired from all the heavy traffic.

I scanned my room once again, wondering where I should search next. How about the lamp on my desk? I had seen in spy movies that they'd put bugs inside appliances because it'd be unnoticeable among the electronic parts. What about my air conditioning unit? It'd be hard to spot a small camera hidden behind the slits. One might be staring at me right now. Should we just move out of this unit? Hold your horses, bitch! I was getting irrationally paranoid—or was paranoia already irrational by default?

What's the worst thing that can happen if someone were out to kill me? Dying wasn't too bad. But I'd rather not get captured for experimentation or shit like that. My eyes settled on the bags I still hadn't unpacked. That could be a good hiding spot for a bug. Bag bug, bag bug. I set about throwing all my clothes out of my bags and onto my bed. Forcefully shaking each piece of clothing, I peeled my eyes for anything suspicious that might drop. And something did. The narrative has been taken without permission.

Report any sightings.

"A bracelet?" I said as I picked it up. It was a rose gold metal band with several diamonds set along its length.

"Why is this here?" This was the expensive bracelet that Deen's sister found near their house at Verde Hills. We did try looking for its owner yesterday but came up with nothing. Deen told me she was going to leave it for her sister to drop at the Home Owner's Association to find who it belonged. She might've gotten mixed it up with her things and ended up bringing it with us. But why was it inside my bag?

"Erind dear!" Mom's voice pierced through my room's door.

"Dinner's ready." That made me smile. It was funny that it was already past midnight, yet Mom insisted we have dinner so we can then eat the desserts she brought afterward. How long would these normal times last? Not forever, that was for sure. There was a knock on my door.

"I'll be right out, Mom!" I loudly said.

"It's me." Deen knocked again before opening the door.

"Do you need help with—? Eh? What are you doing here?" she asked, surprised at all my scattered clothes.

"I, uh, I'm just trying to fix my stuff before Mom checks it." I had a sheepish grin on my face.

"Do you want me to help you? Seems like you made more of a mess."

"I'll deal with it after dinner... super late dinner," I said, waving away her concern.

"By the way, Deen, what's this thing doing here?" I asked, showing her the diamond bracelet.

"Your sister found this outside your house, didn't she?" She took it from my hand.

"I think so... wait, why is this here? Did you bring it from my house?"

"No. I just found it inside one of my bags."

"Really? That's weird. I left by the kitchen counter with a note for Sis."

"I bet it got snagged onto your shirt or something. Then it dropped into my bag when we were packing our stuff into the car."

"Must be," Deen said with a clueless shrug.

"I'll have to text Sis about this in case the owner comes looking for it."

"Erind, Deen!" came Mom's call.

"Girls, where are you?" The two of us stared at each other, then at the piece of jewelry I held.

"I guess we should get going," I said, tossing the diamond bracelet onto my pile of clothes.

"Just tell your sister about this tomorrow."

"Mom's hair started graying when she was like... in her early twenties?" I turned to Mom for confirmation. She nodded at me.

"I think I was twenty to be exact when I first noticed that the number of white strands I had wasn't…average. It was around the time I started dating your father. Imagine my embarrassment." Deen and I looked at each other and awkwardly chuckled.

"By the way, Erind dear. Speaking of dating, do you have any boy—""And so, Mom decided to bleach her hair," I loudly interjected. Deen giggled at that.

"Isn't that right, Mom?" Presented with another topic, Mom expectedly latched onto it, dropping her bullshit 'mom' talk about guys.

"In retrospect, perhaps I shouldn't have done it because it did damage my hair. It would've been much better if I dyed it hazel brown instead of trying to uniformly turn it all bleached blonde.

"After a few years, I accepted my fate and I just let my gray hair be. That was when I realized that people didn't care about it at all; any self-esteem issues I had were all in my head. So, that's a lesson for you, girls. And as the gray strands multiplied, it turned out to be a fashionable accent of sorts. That's what your father told me, anyway." I wanted to comment, that's just how Dad was, but I could barely recall my father.

My memories of him were hazy because he had been gone from my life for the past decade.

"Your hair looked great with the gray streaks, Mom," I said, ever the supportive daughter. Facing Deen, I added, "I'll show you pictures of it."

"A few years ago," Mom continued, "there was this new treatment for easily dyeing hair white. I thought, 'why not?' I decided to revisit my old look without the need for bleaching, and here we are." She fluffed the ends of her locks.

"I've heard of that," Deen said.

"Your hair looks beautiful, Mrs. Hartwell."

"And that's the story of Mom's hair color," I told Deen.

"Next up are her eyes."

"Erind sweetie, you're making it sound like there's a dramatic story to them. Have you been watching too many movies again?"

"I barely have time nowadays with all the law schoolwork," I said. And all the fighting and killing and surviving.

"Do tell Deen how you got your eyes. She seems to be interested in them."

"I'm sorry if I've been staring too much, Mrs. Hartwell," said Deen.

"It's rare to personally meet someone with augmented eyes."

"It's fine dear," Mom said.

"It's only been a few years since more affordable models have been made available for the public. Full bionic eyeballs have mostly been reserved for the military and BID agents." She tapped the side of her head as she changed the color of her irises from blue, to red, then to violet.

"But these are not available anywhere. This pair is a prototype model made by a dear friend of mine, Eudora. She was one of the top engineers of Greaves."

"A prototype? And why 'was' an engineer? She's no longer working for Greaves?"

"She had passed away in an unfortunate accident in one of the Greaves' laboratories. That's why only a prototype of this product exists. Eudora wasn't able to complete the final product."

"Oh! I'm so sorry, Mrs. Hartwell."

"My eyesight has been getting worse over the years. I was going to have laser surgery to fix them, but I decided to change them with Eudora's final work to show that she did succeed in completing her prized work."

"That's... that's an amazing tribute to your friend, Ms. Hartwell."

"And so, that's the story of my eyes. Back then, about six years ago, people had differing reactions to... abandoning my eyeballs... as they'd phrase it. However, Erind has been very supportive of my decision. I have no regrets. They've been working great all this time and are very useful for my work."

"Of course, I'll support you Mom," I chimed in.

"Speaking of bioaugments," she said, "what do you girls think of going to the Greaves Tech Fair this Friday?" I knew this was coming.

"There's going to be too many people there," I said, ready with my excuse.

"For sure, there will be many people, Erind sweetie. More so than in previous years because Greaves will unveil its prototype remote-controlled ComExos made for the military. They have made several of those in years past, but nothing of this scale and control. It's as if they have human pilots in them."

"How about we tour the, um, Natural History Musem instead," I suggested, remembering what Imani had told me about tourist spots in the city.

"I don't think that place will be packed."

"We can go there tomorrow," said Mom.

"But for Friday, I have to be at the Tech Fair. I have to deliver a talk at the forum." I blinked in surprise.

"A talk? I didn't know you were going to speak at the event. Weren't you planning to fly straight to La Esperanza before your flight was canceled? If you already had this scheduled—""It was a last-minute thing... very last minute, sweetie. I accepted the assignment just a few minutes ago during my conference with the Greaves people."

"Wow, you weren't kidding about it being last minute," I said.

"Why? What happened? Their designated speaker can't make it?"

"Unfortunately, she had important matters to attend to. It seems that her son went missing. I'm a bit fuzzy on the details, and I didn't inquire further as it wasn't my business. Since I'm already here, and I'm familiar with her topic, they tapped me to take her spot."

"We'll be there, Mom," I said.

"It's just like old times."

"Thank you, Erind sweetie. I know you don't like crowds, but I'm sure you and Deen can find something interesting there. Maybe you have a thing for engineer guys?"

"Mom!"

"Just kidding, dear." A tiny sacrifice for Mom. As her daughter, I was going to the Fair to support her. It was inevitable that I'd be forced to go into hiding when SpookyErind's hold on my body grew, and I could no longer keep a human facade. I should cherish the times I was still normal and doing normal things. Right. It would be nice for a change to do something completely normal after everything I'd been through lately. Even our supposedly normal road trip was anything but. Normal...

at that time I didn't know how wrong I was.