The Rebirths of Tao Read online

  “Famous?” Roen perked up. “I mean, my exploits are pretty damn awesome, but I wouldn’t go that far. What’s my rookie baseball card worth these days in Genjix circles?”

  The reference must have been lost on Vladimir, who looked puzzled. “Exploits? Sorry. I wasn’t even aware you were an operative. You’re only known as the human who survived a Quasing transfer. That was thought to have been impossible.”

  “Wait, you mean you’ve never heard of me? I’m pretty sure my Quasing was on several of your most-wanted lists.”

  “Tao, yes. You, not so much.” Vladimir shrugged. “Don’t take it the wrong way. Most vessels are not recognized; only their Holy Ones matter. However, the Genjix did name a project after you.”

  This was a first. Roen would have thought information of this kind would have reached his desk by now. After all, how many people could claim having secret programs named after them?

  “So,” he asked, “how did the project go? I’m assuming it’s not anything cool like saving polar bears or bringing clean water to people in the desert.”

  Vladimir scooped another pancake into his mouth and spoke with his mouth full. “It was called the Tan Transfer Initiative. Body transfer research. The Council wanted to see if what happened to you could be replicated.”

  Roen grinned “Ooh, I even get a fancy name. How did the me transfer go?”

  “Three hundred human deaths in the process. Then they decided to move the experiment to primates. All complete failures before the program was scrapped.”

  “Three hundred!” Roen had trouble processing that staggering number. In a way, he kind of felt bad. He couldn’t help but think he was to blame for those deaths. After all, the project was named after him. “Leave it to your stupid Holy Ones to experiment on humans first, and then go to primates. I guess the bright side is three hundred Genjix agents died.”

  Vladimir grunted. “Anyway, you have questions, Prophus. Ask.”

  All right,” Roen began. “Let’s pretend we’re both smart guys and we won’t lie to each other. By now, you’ve probably surmised that I didn’t find you in the forest by accident.”

  “You knew we were traveling through North America? How? The Prophus surveillance network is in tatters. A traitor then?” Vladimir furrowed his brow. “Couldn’t be the Epsilons. I would wager my daughter’s life on their loyalty. Couldn’t have been the two Pakistanis we lost before crossing into Alaska. We deviated from the original plan by heading south…” His voice trailed off. “The professor.”

  Roen nodded. “Professor Sachin was a good man, and Mawl was not a traitor. He had worked as a Prophus agent since the beginning.”

  “Ladm always said Mawl never seemed to have his heart in the war,” Vladimir said. “So you have me now. What do you want? You must know by now that I am powerless. My Council faction has lost most of its influence.”

  Roen chuckled. “We really don’t care about you, Vladimir. You’re just an added bonus.”

  Realization dawned on the Russian’s face. “Rin. She’s the one you are after all along. You want to capture one of the architects of the Quasiform program.”

  “Capture? She defected.”

  “I see. And the rest of us: Tabs, Ladm, and Brep, along with the vessels. Are we now expendable?”

  Roen stopped smiling and leaned forward. “That remains for you to decide. You see, you have a lot of information we could use. Baji still remembers Ladm fondly from the Decennials and believes accommodations can be worked out. Admit it, as part of Vinnick’s faction, you’re not really down with Quasiform, are you? What kind of life do you think your little girl will live if it happens?”

  “I am also not that disagreeable to it either. We are just instruments of the Holy Ones. If I say no?”

  Roen pulled out a pen and notepad and slid it forward. “You won’t, Vladimir, because you’re out of friends. Enzo already killed your wife and won’t hesitate to gun you and Alex down. You’re in a hostile country where the government will go to great lengths to incarcerate you, and frankly, no one else in the world will help you. We won’t threaten you any more, because blackmailed allies make poor allies.

  “Think it over. If you wish to leave on your own, we’ll cut you loose. If you wish Prophus protection, I expect everything you know about Genjix operations under your financier network written down by this evening. Then we’ll lead you and your little girl through our Underground Railroad to one of our safe zones in Greenland or South America. So what will it be? Prophus help or risk your daughter’s life and be hunted by both sides and every government in the world?”

  Vladimir reached for the pen and tapped the notebook with it several times. “Those are my options? Hardly a choice.”

  “It never is,” Roen grinned as he stood up and went to go retrieve Jill next door. “No one ever picks Greenland.”

  4

  School Day

  So you wish to learn something besides ancient history? Well, we have already gone over my entire time here on Earth. How about we try something different? I have never told this to any of my hosts before. It is sort of an unspoken rule among the Quasing to not divulge our history before we came to this planet.

  However, it is a mostly harmless truth, and I would like to wade through the memories of my home world again.

  Tao

  * * *

  Cameron Tan stared at the history exam question on his computer screen: Was the Alamo the greatest tactical defeat in the history of the United States? If not, then name another.

  This one took him a few seconds to mull over. “I’m going to have to say yes. That could also be the dumbest celebrated event of all time.”

  Except that Texas did not become a state until a decade later.

  “Sneaky Ms Federlin. What do you think then, Tao? Pearl Harbor?”

  That or Chosin Reservoir.

  “What about just overall dumbest?”

  This is a difficult one to choose. I do rank the Alamo right up there with Napoleon’s invasion of Russia for pure asinine decision-making, alongside maybe the Maginot Line. The level of dumb you humans can achieve is quite mind-boggling. However, I will have to go with your mother telling the world about the Quasing’s existence.

  “Someone reminds her every month.”

  And Jill still says she would do it again.

  Mom had heard it thousands of times by now and had tried to always let it slide, but Cameron knew that it haunted her. She was just better at hiding it these days. Still, it pissed him off when people brought it up. Hundreds of refugees and agents passed through her region constantly, and someone inevitably mentioned it.

  When he was a kid, he used to get mad for her and yell at them. She would scold him for raising his voice. Now, he just ground his teeth and kept his mouth shut, though then Tao would scold him for grinding his teeth. There was just no winning between all his parents.

  He had arrived to school forty minutes late, drenched with sweat as he hurried to first period. The class was taking an exam on the United States wars up to the fall of the Soviet Union. Ms Federlin had looked at him with disapproval when he rushed to his seat with ten minutes left in class. She had told him that he could either wait outside or take the hour-long exam in the last nine minutes of class. It was an easy decision; Cameron couldn’t stay after school, so he just tore through the test.

  He had to admit he did lean on Tao a bit more than usual. Still, a minute before the class bell rang, he had finished the last question and hit the submit button. History was easily his strongest subject. Sure, having an older-than-dirt alien who had had front-row seats to the past helped just a tiny bit, but Cameron didn’t think he leaned on his mentor as much as his parents thought he did.

  Keep being delusional, pal.

  As the students were leaving class, Ms Federlin beckoned him over. Cameron held in his sigh and he walked over to her desk. She held up his note. “I know for a fact, Cameron Tan, that you used the same note last month.” She opened
the drawer and pulled out an exact copy of the one he had just handed her. “That many coyotes?”

  Oh Roen.

  “Damn Dad. How did you ever survive in his body, Tao?”

  Moving into you is like upgrading from a tricycle to a motorcycle.

  “Really?”

  No. Not really. Your father is a good man. He just tends to have more mental lapses than other humans.

  “Is there something you want to tell me?” Ms Federlin asked. Her eyes wandered to his bruised neck, courtesy of his Brazilian jujitsu training.

  Cameron shook his head. “Just coyotes, ma’am.”

  We need to work on your lying.

  “Mom and Dad yell at me when I practice lying on them, and it’s impossible to do that with you, so I blame you guys for my lack of preparedness in the fine arts of fibbing.”

  Ms Federlin obviously didn’t believe him either. “Next parent/teacher meeting, I want both your parents here. Do you understand, Cameron? I’m going to have Ms Janice with me. I think we need to have a talk.”

  How many times is she going to try to send you to the school counselor?

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Cameron fled the room before she made him make another promise he couldn’t keep. Getting both his parents away from their operation at the same time would be like trying to get the Capulets and Montagues to set a wedding date.

  That reminds me. Why are you doing so poorly in literature?

  “I’m getting a C, and you’re not much help. You’re obviously not a very cultured Quasing, are you?”

  Sorry. I was too busy fighting the Genjix and trying to prevent the Thirty Years War from happening to attend much theater.

  “So uncouth.”

  This coming from the guy who puts steak sauce on every single dish, including ice cream.

  “Don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.”

  “One more thing, Cameron,” Ms Federlin called as he walked out the door. “This exam is forty percent of your grade. I know you took it because you never stay after school, but in this case, it might not be a bad idea.”

  He shook his head. “No, I’m good, ma’am.” He walked out of the door into the crowded hallways of Eureka High School. At a little over twelve hundred students, this was by far the largest high school in the area, though his parents considered Eureka the smallest town they had ever lived in.

  Cameron kept his eyes on the ground as he navigated the maze of other kids, careful not to bump into any of them with his bulky backpack. Eureka was a tight-knit community. That made it difficult for an outsider like him to fit in. He had stayed with his grandparents, Louis and Lee Ann, down in San Diego, while his parents had gotten their operation up and running, and was home-schooled for most of his childhood. It was only after he had begged his parents every day for almost a year that they finally relented and let him come to a public school. After they were sure there were no Penetra scanners installed, of course.

  The lesson was: be careful what you wish for.

  High school was nothing like he had imagined. Tao had warned him ahead of time that it was its own insular, cruel world, but Cameron had longed for normalcy. Besides, he had been going out on dangerous jobs with Roen since he was thirteen. How much worse could high school be? Boy, was he wrong.

  Cameron was stunned to find how difficult the transition from home schooling to the public high school was. He had a hard time communicating with his classmates. Sometimes, it seemed like they were barely speaking English, as if they had their own language.

  For the students at Eureka High School, Cameron was an enigma as well. He was too socially awkward to fit in with any of the cliques. He just didn’t understand many of their jokes or cultural references or social behaviors. They knew he was smart, though. Many of the cooler kids tried to partner with him during lab experiments but would ignore him in the hallways.

  He was also very athletic, a physical specimen who had the football coach drooling the first day he walked into gym class. Couple that with his years of martial arts training, Cameron could have made any of the sports teams, but didn’t sign up for any of them. In a small school, almost everyone was on at least one of the sports teams. Most of the athletes were on all the teams. It was the only way the school could fill an entire roster. Cameron’s lack of participation and his quiet demeanor had earned him the scorn of the jocks, while his frightening intelligence, due entirely to Tao – at least according to Tao – made him the subject of gossip among the faculty.

  Basically, school sucked, and it sucked hard. The worst part was, when Cameron had tried to talk to his parents about it, begging his parents to home-school him again, they flat out refused. Unfortunately, Pandora had opened the box, and it couldn’t be closed again.

  His dad just shrugged and chuckled. “Ahh, the good ol’ days. Don’t use your super powers to hurt anyone.”

  “I don’t have any,” Cameron had responded. “Tao doesn’t do anything special.”

  Hey now, Tao had said.

  “That means you’re not using him right,” Roen had replied. “What’s for dinner?” As usual, once the topic moved to food, the conversation was over.

  Cameron floated from class to class: math to English to Chinese (Tao insisted). Then lunch. Then gym class, and last was biology. Most of the classes just blended together. Tao was merciless with his education, making sure to teach him above and beyond what the teachers even knew. He was studying at a much higher grade level than what was being discussed in class, and for the most part, could teach the classes himself. He had learned, however, that no one liked a smart-ass, so he tended to keep quiet.

  In his final class of the day, he was partnered with one of the prettiest girls in school. Well, more like she was using him to get a good grade while he did all the work. As unfair as that sounded to Cameron, it suited Tao fine, since his mentor somehow turned every dissection into a lesson about combat anatomy.

  Do you see that ligament? Humans have something similar. Cut it and they lose all control of their lower extremities.

  “Yeah, but if I can get a blade there, why not just slice upward?”

  Because I guarantee that part of the anatomy is armored, at least too much for a blade. That ligament portion cannot be armored without hindering range of motion.

  These fascinating lessons would sometimes go on for an entire hour, to the point he forgot why he was in class to begin with.

  “What are you doing?” Heather, his lab partner, said from her seat at the end of the table. She detested getting the formaldehyde on her skin. “You’re supposed to be cutting into its chest, not playing with its legs. Come on, class is almost over, and we didn’t get any of the steps done.”

  Cameron looked up at the clock; school was ending in five minutes. In the next four, he got through all fourteen steps of dissecting and pulling out the frog’s heart and lungs.

  He slid the tray over toward her. “There you go. You can take this stuff away.”

  Before Heather could protest, he grabbed his bag and walked out of the room. Cameron was fully aware, after all, that she needed him more than he did her, and that most of the people who wanted to partner with him didn’t really want to be his friends.

  They were just using him; they were temporary relationships, like almost everything else in his life. Even his parents. Cameron remembered his earlier years, when it seemed like there was always only one parent around. Sometimes, he remembered not seeing Roen for months, or his mom would have to leave him with his grandparents for long stretches at a time.

  The only real permanent thing he had was Tao. Tao was always there. Tao never left him. Not that he could, but his Quasing was his best friend, teacher, and the one soul Cameron knew he could always rely on. Sure, he was a snarky bastard sometimes and a taskmaster to boot, but Tao was the rock, the one stable presence in a sea of constant change.

  Cameron navigated the crowded hallways and made his way toward the bike racks. While most of the other kids had
team sports or glee club or student council or some other after-school activity, he knew he had to be home as soon as possible. He had promised Roen he’d help with the new guests. Besides, he was intrigued by that girl. He had never met a host his age before.

  Oh dear.

  “I’m just curious.”

  About what? There are dozens of girls your age at school you can be curious about. Why a Genjix, of all people?

  “Because…” He stopped in his tracks. “Because she might understand what it’s like. These other kids don’t. They couldn’t.”

  Mutual attraction through shared alien experiences. How positively romantic.

  Cameron left the building and proceeded toward the bicycle racks next to the stadium. He wandered down the hill and noticed the football players lining up one by one, working on blocking drills and rushing techniques. He watched with an expert eye as the players’ hands slashed at arms, knocking each other off balance. The pulling and pushing; it was all very t’ai chi. Cameron caught himself reflexively mimicking their actions and improvising on how he would have done it instead. He was just as big as these linemen, but just by seeing them move, he knew he could take them. Well, most of them.

  “Having thoughts about trying out this year?” Coach Wannsik walked up next to him carrying a pile of orange cones. “You know, we could use another guy on defense.”

  Cameron blushed. “Thanks, but I don’t have the time. I have chores to do at home.”

  “He thinks he’s too good for us, coach,” one of the players coming up from behind snickered. “Has to protect that smart-ass brain of his.”

  “It’s a good thing you don’t have anything to protect,” Cameron shot back.

  Well done. Point to you.

  “Stow it, Bill.” The coach turned back to Cameron. “You too, Cameron. Think about it. You know, colleges love students who are balanced academically and athletically. If you like, I can chat with your parents at the parent/teacher meeting.”