Beyond The Impossible Chapter 2 The Vanguard

My name is Noriko Null and I've never met my mother before.

There was never a picture of her in the house. Dad never mentioned her unless I asked first, and he always seemed very careful to say as little as possible. All he ever said was that my mother had to go back to Japan when I was very young.

I always asked him why, and the answer was always the same: she was a very busy woman and he'd explain when I was older. I'm eighteen and I still don't have the answer.

While it's not really that rare to be biracial, especially when you live in New York, it's impossible to avoid questions when people hear my full name or see me with my father: he's white and I look distinctly Japanese. Which would be fine if I knew how to answer, but the mystery's always been there for me.

Until this week, when I received a letter from Tokyo...an actual paper letter inside an envelope, with a hundred-dollar bill.

"Meet me at the Empire State Building, 87th floor, next Friday at eight PM. Don't tell anyone. Leiko Tanaka, your mother".

Every fantasy I've ever had about my mother flared up when I received that letter. I still have it in my pocket, together with the hundred dollar bill.

Sneaking out of the house, catching a cab to the other side of the city, taking the longest elevator ride of my life, my heart feels like it's going to explode.

What will she look like? Why hasn't she said a word all these years? Why did she leave me?

An Asian man in a business suit is waiting for me, quickly showing me his card.

I mumble something and follow him. Before you know it we're in some kind of brand new conference room. I couldn't miss the Scion Corporation logo if I wanted to.

There's a woman in front of the window overlooking the city. She's wearing a stark white office suit, in contrast with the very dark hair reaching her shoulders.

She turns and walks towards the table. I don't know why I'm surprised by the resemblance: I knew I'd look more like my mother.

She's beautiful, more than I'll ever be. But beneath the makeup and the confidence that clearly sets us apart, you can see that she's my mother. It's the first time in my life I experience family resemblance and I can't help staring at her. Probably looking like an idiot.

she says.

I feel the weight of my fantasies crashing down. My mother stares at me like she's studying a clinical case. I've never seen so much coldness in someone's eyes.

the lawyer explains very calmly.

I shout at her.

The black hair slips in front of her left eye, but she doesn't even blink as she looks at me and explains:

the lawyer asks, his voice a mix of embarrassment and fear.

She answers something in Japanese. I don't understand a word. All I understand is that I've never felt this insulted and betrayed in my life.

I reach for the letter in my pocket and throw it at her. It's still got the hundred dollar bill inside.

I manage to hold the tears until I've stormed out of that horrible place. There's no way to explain what's going on inside my head right now, but as soon as I reach the elevator I hear a voice:

She startles me: I have no idea how I missed her. Admittedly it's easier to see other people as giants when you're only five feet tall, but she must be at least seven feet. Long blond hair and a yellow office suite that doesn't come even close to hiding the figure of a swimsuit model. Pretty hard to miss.

I tell her.

<…>

This isn't the best day to deal with crazy people, so I decide to ignore her. The elevator door opens, but on the other side there's no elevator: just a grass field. I turn around and all of a sudden I'm no longer in the building.

the woman clarifies.

For some reason I'm not freaking out. Part of me wants to run away, sure, but a much bigger part wants to understand what the heck is going on. She nods approvingly.

I'd laugh if the situation wasn't so absurd. I'm arguing with someone who just teleported me!

I repeat.

she answers, reaching inside her jacket. She shows me something fitting in the palm of her hand: a swirling path of energy, shaped like the symbol for infinity.

It looks like electricity, but at the same time it feels like nothing else.

She leaves the energy glow floating, right in front of me. I stare into her silver eyes, my mother's voice still echoing in my mind. "You will always be nothing", she said.

I hesitate. This is too crazy to be true. But it would be crazier to throw away something like this.

My hand gets closer to the infinity symbol. It's not warm like I thought it would be.

I say, touching the energy.

The energy flows from my hand to the rest of my body. All my pain receptors go into overdrive; I can't move a finger. This is the easy part.

Then the process reaches my head; I feel like somebody's peeling off my brain with a rake and pouring acid into it. Making new space.

Every man, woman and child feels something at the exact same moment, like they've heard a distant sound they don't recognize. They don't know their mind is being linked to mine.

As this happens, the sky over New York is lit by a lighting storm the likes of which has never been seen, mostly because there's almost no cloud. It's literally a storm of knowledge, as the information is reaching it from all over the world.