"WHAT???" I screamed outraged, almost choking on a cookie.
"If everyone believes that you are dead, it will be easier to take you," he said, as if he were combining an afternoon walk at class time
"What do you mean by "take me"?" My voice squeaked and ripped, still coughing.
Siever sighed impatiently. His expression looked like someone who wanted to explain Terraforming processes to a two-year-old while distracted with TV shows.
"There is, I imagine you know... a very peculiar device, which people's DNA can be registered and so the person can be located anywhere, living or dead."
"Yes, I know... It was you who invented it. The police use it to track bad guys, missing people, and things like that." I replied annoyed. Of course, I remembered from Applied Genetics classes, where the professor, a fan of revolutionary scientists from all over the galaxy, always quoted the famous Siever's inventions — d*mn it! I still can't believe it's really him!!!
"Great. So, if you disappeared for a long time, the searches would start with this device. And it would not find you here." Siever folded his hands on his knees and stared at me with tremendous intensity. I could not help but feel as though he were really someone very old and wise "The only way for a device of this type not to locate a person is if it is not on an empire planet or if its body has been disintegrated in some way, to the point that there is no trace at all."
"So the last thing we want before I could change your DNA base is for you to have your DNA registered in the galactic system of missing people, or an interplanetary scandal about kidnappings, mostly coming from your planet, which also suffered greatly from Xenophobic War. I do not see how to explain to your mother a way to take you with me, without explaining the cause of your 'mysterious illness' or without using my name or the Empire power, which would be equally problematic and would draw unnecessary attention from your people... then the more easy is to simulate your death. No one searches for the dead. That way, I can unlink your DNA from any database and erase you from existence.
I could only stare at him open-mouthed. In fact he seemed to have thought all details of a plan.
In fact he seemed to weigh the consequences.
And in fact, that involved taking me away.
"I can not do this to them!" I scolded "We've had problems, but nothing to justify!" Now I paced frantically gesticulating. "With what face can I go back and say that I didn't really die?" It had not been a rhetorical question, so I turned to Siever and waited for the answer.
"You will not be back!" He said nonchalantly.
I already imagined that he would give that answer. I had imagined it from the beginning. Then I felt weak again. This time of sorrow.
"There has to be another alternative ... What if I say I ran away? It can not be counted as a kidnapping!"
"Miss Latrell... Alesia... think! You're still underage here. If you run away, it's obvious they'll try to get you back. And also, look on this side look at it this way: if you're said to be alive, there is the possibility that someday someone will find out about you. And if this person want to use you, hurt you, for the sake of some cause, do not you think that following your genetic trail to your family would be the easiest way?"
"I'm sorry you were charged for this curse, but it seems to be your destiny now" Siever paused for a moment, and turned the augmented reality generator between his fingers "so was my destiny too" and he let out a long sigh and stared at the ceiling. "Some years from now, I will not even be able to appear in public, for example... not that I'd been willing to do it anyway for ages before you were born" and was silent for a moment again. "My looks do not change, as yours will not change either. I've being a public figure all my life, the genius kid of the galaxy who was in spotlights and my image had been in focus for years, if I show my face publicly still looking like a kid... questions would arise... and where there are questions, there is a desire for answers. There's still a limit were people can seem young".
"I never thought I had to leave my family... you didn't say…" I felt a heavy knot in the throat forming; never really thought about the future "Where are you taking me?"
But Henry did not answer. He pointed urgently behind me, to the bedroom door, and I turned to look "What…" but when I looked back to my bed, he was not there anymore. I was stunned for a moment. He was gone! I was about to call the void when someone knocked on the front door. So that was it...
"Alesia? Are you awake? May I enter?" It was my father Daril. He probably had an ID card with Alya to open the door to the house and get to visit me in the morning. But he did not wait for an answer. He opened the door slowly and stared at me, his face startled. "Has something happened, dear?"
"Dad... Hey! Hi dad" I did not know how to behave, I knew that at that moment he would be measuring me from top to bottom.
Dad walked over and pressed the back of his left hand to my face gently.
"You look a little better, but still is cold as ice…" He did not hide the worry in her eyes.
"Ah... I'm a little better, yes... don't worry so much." I could not face him remembering the conversation he had just had with Siever.
But Daril gently pulled me back to the bed as if I was afraid that I would pass out like a frozen sculpture, and sat next to me, holding my hands tightly.
"How am I not going to worry, if you're still in this state right after telling me you're about to die?"
I let the surprise escape my face. Had he believed my words?
"Did you believe my story?" I asked.
"I must say it was difficult at first to keep an open mind. But you know I work for the government in the traffic department. I can have access to street video cameras if I request it. And I requested…
"What were you looking for?" I was confused for a moment.
"Well... I checked two things." he said seriously "That in fact since entering the hospital, no camera has managed to record you leaving, and you have not appeared in any recording anywhere until yesterday morning when you came down from a vehicle that is not even available in the market and is not even allowed for civil use on our planet. Not even I could discover its origin of it by the images" I understood where he wanted to go before he finished explaining "so I can only assume that what you told me was true."
"I'm so sorry, dad…" I did not know what to apologize for, but the words just came out.
Daril took a monitor from inside his suit and turned it on, showing a close-up image of the "car" from a side angle. It showed perfectly Siever's face, including his silver eyes from the open door.
"And I know the recordings were not edited, but the vehicle just disappeared from where it was! I mean... are you sure he is who he says he is?" Daril asked uneasily. I could only shrug. "Anyway, I did retinal recognition of his eyes, although they are prosthetics, his data does indeed match those of the young scientist "Henry Siever", but he has stopped appearing in public for over fifty years! And this one still has the same features... these Jomons are really absurd!"
"Hmm..." I wondered how I could explain this without telling him about the Relics, but Daril was not expecting an explanation about it.
"So I do not have anything else to do but believe in you. What can I do to help you?" he asked, distressed.
"I don't really know father... even I do not know what to do, I do not know what will happen to me... he…" I was about to tell about Siever's plan when I remembered that it might be common sense to keep the plan secret — though I had already opened my mouth and spoken so much — if it was to work and protect him, I should agree to take this plan forward.
"You're my dear daughter…" Daril wrapped me in his arms as he usually did when I was little, shivering at the slightest direct contact with my skin. " I'm willing to do anything to help you!"
Suddenly someone answered he, and it was not me. Dad became completely frightened. Siever stood imposingly beside the bed with his arms crossed, as if he were there all the time.
"So let's test how true this is?" he said seriously, his voice coming out of the translator in his hand, for Daril to understand.