Part 5 (1/2)
She sighed. This was the hard part. She hadn't been thinking that clearly when they moved to Armstrong. She didn't want a dad. She didn't want this dad. Her mom had told her some things about him, and while some of them were good-You got your looks from him, you know. That's why you're so pretty; or You have his talent with computers. I guess I shouldn't be surprised at how smart you are You have his talent with computers. I guess I shouldn't be surprised at how smart you are-most of them weren't.
Like the way he wouldn't come visit her. (How could he, when he didn't know she existed?) Or the way he never acknowledged her birthday. (She didn't have a conventional birthday, but she didn't know that then.) Or that he made it clear that he didn't want her or her mom. (Which was the biggest lie of all.) But it took Talia a long time to lose those lies. Because losing them meant losing even more faith in her mom.
Her mom, the ma.s.s murderer.
”What did you guess?” her dad asked.
He wasn't going to stop questioning her. He wasn't going to let this go. And that was an annoying part of him.
When he had something he needed to know, he didn't let up until he knew it.
Talia sighed and put her feet on the floor. She rubbed her sore cheek, still not meeting his gaze.
Instead she looked at the edge of the desk-the desk that hid she didn't know how many computer screens and how much information, the desk that he wouldn't let her touch, not even after six months of begging and trying to prove herself worthy.
”Well,” she said, ”I got the stuff from the city about me. And I thought about it for a while, about the viable line thing. Then I did the math. If Mom was going to make clones to get her out of that lawsuit, she had to start them before Emmeline was born or she had to fast-grow them.”
Her dad started. He hadn't thought of that, clearly. And that surprised Talia. She figured he thought of everything.
”It's illegal to fast-grow,” he said. ”There's too many problems. Most of the clones don't develop.” ”That doesn't stop people,” Talia said. ”There's some places that deny they do it way too much. They gotta be doing something.”
”So you checked them out,” her dad said. ”All of them. I only found Speidel. You know, the one that made me. Speidel doesn't have the technology to fast-grow.”
He nodded.
”Then I looked through all of Mom's records to see if there was billing from any other cloning company.” Talia had taken all of her mom's stuff, as much as she could, anyway, and had left it in the open in her dad's apartment, figuring he could look through it if he wanted.
He kept walking around it all as if it were toxic or something. As though he didn't want to know. Maybe she should have taken a hint from that.
”I couldn't find anything, which I thought was kinda weird,” Talia said. ”So I looked to see if the records went back that far. They kinda did, but they didn't. Like there wasn't legal bills-”
”Aleyd paid the court costs,” Flint said.
”Yeah, I figured that out,” Talia said. ”So I figured, okay, what if Mom didn't pay for the clones? What if Aleyd did?”
”Good reasoning,” her dad said.
Talia felt her cheeks warm. His compliments meant something. Mostly because they weren't idle. But she didn't want him to know that.
She didn't want him to know much about her, really. For a while, she'd thought she wouldn't stay, that she'd get emanc.i.p.ated or something. But after a while, she realized that idea was kinda dumb. He did care about her. And she liked him, even if she wasn't going to tell him that.
”What did you do next?” her dad asked. He wasn't going to let this go-and this was the part she didn't want to tell him. Everything from here out.
She straightened her shoulders. ”Well, most corporate stuff is supposed to be public record unless it goes through attorneys, right?”
”Right,” her dad said. ”Even though it isn't always. Not everyone follows the rules.” ”I figured with all the lawsuits going on, Aleyd would pretend to follow the rules. No shady stuff to make the charges worse or anything.”
Her dad nodded.
”So the next time you and me went to Oberholst, Martinez, and Mlsnavek-”
Those were the lawyers that her mom had told Talia to contact if there was ever any trouble, the lawyers her dad ended up hiring to help him adopt Talia because they were already in place on Callisto when he found her.
When Talia first moved to Armstrong, she and her dad had to see those lawyers a lot, especially Celestine Gonzalez, who handled the closing of all her mom's affairs.
Talia said real fast, ”I checked in their computer system and I found some bills from the right time. Well, kinda the right time. I figured fast-grow, but these were from-”
”You what?” her dad asked.
Her cheeks heated even worse. He didn't miss anything. Her mom might have missed the part about digging into Oberholst, Martinez, and Mlsnavek's files because she would have heard the fast-grow part. But her dad was methodical. He didn't seem to miss anything.
”You broke into a law firm's computer system?” he asked.
Like he hadn't done anything like that. She knew about the files he had from that other law firm, the ones he and Maxine Van Alen were giving to that pretty reporter woman. But he didn't know Talia knew. It was just that she paid attention to everything because if she didn't, then she might miss something-and she'd missed so much growing up that she didn't want to make that mistake again.
Not with anyone.
Especially someone she wanted to trust.
Like her dad.
”I didn't exactly break into their system,” Talia said. ”I just looked at stuff I wasn't supposed to.” ”That's breaking in,” he said.
She shook her head. ”I had permission.”
He frowned.
”Seriously.” She sat up, feeling animated. She was proud of this part. ”n.o.body thinks anything about a kid in a waiting room. Especially if you behave and have a handscreen for homework and are dressed real nice. Y'know, you say please and thank you a lot, and you smile at the people who talk to you and you're just friendly. Y'know?”
He didn't say anything. She recognized the expression. He was going to wait her out. She hated that.
”Anyway,” she said, wis.h.i.+ng this was over, but not knowing how to completely get out of it without telling him the truth, ”I asked one of the a.s.sociates if there was some public computer I could use. I knew there wasn't. But I figured she'd set up some kind of firewall that I could get through on some computer. I said I needed to check some references that weren't on the public links for this homework a.s.signment I had.”
The left corner of her dad's mouth twitched. He was trying not to smile. That lifted her spirits a little.
”So she takes me to this bank of screens in this room off the waiting area. Turns out it's what they call the law library, and theoretically, none of the computers are networked with the firm's computers. But they are because they wouldn't have a link access otherwise. I did my homework, then looked at their billing records from Mom's time just to see if they paid some cloning place. And they did. Only it was a month or two before Emmeline was born.”
Her dad let out a small sigh and stood, turning his back on Talia. For once, she didn't take it personally. She saw the look in his eyes just before he moved. It was a combination of hurt and anger. He was really furious with her mom, but he'd never said that. It made sense, though. If everything he said was true, and it sure looked like it was, Mom had lied to him more than she had lied to Talia.
He kept his back to her. He didn't say anything, and she didn't like the silence. If he was going to be mad, he might as well know the worst of it. ”That was about the time the Earth Alliance found out about the deaths in the larval colony,” Talia said.
”I know.” He ran a hand through his hair. The curls sprang back up like they were specially programmed or something.
”So, I think, you know, she might have planned stuff.” She didn't want to think about her mom that way, and she couldn't stop thinking about her mom that way.
It p.i.s.sed her off and made her sad and worried her all at the same time. ”We don't know her plans for certain,” her dad said. ”Yeah, but we can guess-”
He shook his head as he turned around. ”The billing records were Aleyd's, not your mom's. In the last stages of a pregnancy, there are a lot of opportunities to collect DNA. She went to Aleyd's doctors because it was a free service. For all we know, they're the ones who set this up.”
Talia swallowed, and to her surprise, her eyes filled with tears. She wiped at them angrily. She had thought for so long that her mom had done this, that this other interpretation felt like a gift. ”Would they do that?” she asked, her voice shaking.