Chapter 194: 5.22

"Is that her?" Deen energetically pointed at a black-haired, middle-aged woman pulling a large pink suitcase. "Is she your mom?"

We arrived at the airport after a grueling two-hour drive through the bullshit that was Las Vegas traffic.

It would've been fine if it was just regular heavy traffic—plenty of those in La Esperanza and all other huge cities—but it was a whole another experience here. Driving through downtown was an assault on the senses, with advertisements and bright lights bombarding us. The tinted windows of Deen's car barely offered any protection. This whole city was one big epileptic seizure warning.

"Nope, wrong guess," I answered. It was almost embarrassing to be beside Deen because she was acting like an overexcited kid at the zoo pointing at animals, drawing unnecessary attention to us.

But then again, Deen could do anything she wanted and it wouldn't count as embarrassing. She’d also always become the center of attention even if she stood still. Covering her head with a paper bag would be less conspicuous.

“Oh, she’s not?” Her hand limply fell, disappointed at her mistake. The woman she was pointing at was thin and short like me; I could see why she’d assume we were related. “Can you give me any clue what I should be looking for?”

“Don’t want to,” I said shaking my head.

“Just one!”

“It’s going to make it too easy to guess if I did.”

Deen narrowed her eyes. “Then that means she’s easily recognizable if one clue could give it away. So I was right that she looks like you.”

I didn't tell her what my Mom looked like, turning it into a game. This was a stroke of genius on my part—a ploy to distract Deen from discussing not seeing her own mother for quite some time. I'd rather not open that can of worms.

Or any can of worms at all.

Worms didn't gross me—I dissected a ton of them as a kid, much to the annoyance of Mom. But I knew that I, a timid young woman, was supposed to be revolted by them. 

And so, it was better not to encounter them because I couldn't be assed to put on a hysterically disgusted face in front of my old toys. Wait, how were worms connected to Deen's mom again? 

Random thoughts floating in my head.

Oh yeah, there was another reason I was playing this guessing game with Deen.

I wondered what her reaction would be when she'd finally see my mother. Never in a million years she'd correctly guess—okay, a million years was too much. She could just point to all the people here at the airport in that timeframe. But realistically speaking, I didn’t believe Deen could correctly guess who my mother was from the arriving passengers.

"Hmm, let's see," Deen said, twirling her finger in front of the glass window like she was about to cast a magic spell. People disembarking from the planes entered the airport and passed below us. We watched them from the viewing deck above. "Who could your Mom be?"

"She's probably still waiting for her luggage or something," I said, checking the display above us. Her flight had just arrived about five minutes ago. "I'm not even sure if her plane had already started unloading people or if it’s still up there.”

Earlier, we saw a long line of planes on the runway, waiting for their turn to take off. I bet there were also planes flying above, having already arrived several minutes ago, but couldn't land yet because of the heavy air traffic.

This airport was incredibly fucking busy. Busier. Way busier than it should be at this time of the year.

That was saying something because McCarran International Airport was already super congested compared to our airport back at La Esperanza on a normal day. Las Vegas, being the prime technological hub of the world when it came to bioaugmentronics naturally would have bazillions of people flying in and out every hour. Not to mention that it was the Greaves Tech Fair this week.

But it was even busier than previous years during Tech Fair week—I had attended the Fair a few times with Mom, so I should know—for one reason.

The Adumbrae attacks at La Esperanza caused the cancellation or rerouting of many flights there as the BID tightened restrictions and tests on the people entering and leaving the city. Similar to Mom's case, many people instead chose to fly to Vegas, the nearest major airport.

The inside of the airport looked like a mall during a mega sale. It was probably more packed than that. If someone showed me a video of the throngs of people here and told me it was the Rose Bowl, I'd believe them.

In a way, it was lucky to have Deen with me because she projected an aura around her that deflected people from coming too close to us. I wasn't sure if they were intimidated by her or thought she was an actress or what, but it was nice to have a sort of bubble around us while wading through the crowds.

The downside was that several people were discreetly, or sometimes not so discreetly, taking pictures of us—or of Deen rather; I wasn't sure if they even noticed me.

"You're probably right," Deen conceded, also checking the display of the flights. Mom's plane wasn't assigned a gate yet for disembarkation. "But I'll remain vigilant and watch out for anyone who looks like an older you."

"You're more excited to see my Mom than me," I observed, chuckling at her behavior.

"She sounds like a nice person and I want to meet her," Deen said. "Why aren't you also excited?"

"Um, we were here last December for the holidays. It was just a couple of months ago."

"Don't you miss her?"

"Of course, I do. But I'm a strong independent woman trying to find her destiny in the big city," I said, grinning at her. "Cue in pop music to start the romantic comedy movie." Both of us giggled.

"Romantic comedy?" Deen said. "Does that mean you're going to find yourself a guy here?"

"No," I snorted at her. "I was just referencing romcom movies as a joke." I was reminded of my meeting with Imani this morning. It was cliché after cliché, from bumping into each other to stopping the thief that stole my phone. 

Everything was too convenient, almost to the point of feeling that it was all arranged. Or am I just being paranoid?

I didn't tell Deen about Imani. Furthermore, I also lied about going out of the condo, giving the fake story that I ordered the food through my phone—it was the delivery guy's fault that the bread got squished.

What would my best friend's reaction be if she knew about my encounter with Imani? She'd probably raise hell if she heard that I was almost robbed. Technically, the robber—or thief? I needed to check my notes on Criminal Law—successfully took my phone, even if I retrieved it afterward, so it shouldn't be considered a mere attempted robbery but a completed crime.

Before I became an Adumbrae, I wouldn't have thought much about what happened—a coincidence, as with so many other things in life. Imani probably had a lucky guess that I lived in a condo. She knew that my friend and I were visiting Vegas, and there weren't that many options where we'd be staying. Still, a condo was not at the top of that list.

But if Imani was observing us, which faction was she connected to?

And more importantly, how the fuck did she know we'd be here in Vegas? She knew where we were staying, and presumably was already staking out our place because she seemed to have followed me into the bake shop earlier today. That could only mean she already anticipated we'd be arriving.

Again...how?

Only Myra was aware of our trip, but we told her that we'd be leaving early today. Well, we did leave La Esperanza today...but told her a different time. Who else did we tell about our trip to Vegas?

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The cops manning the checkpoint on the bridge out of La Esperanza? Could one of them be connected with Dario's secret organization? Or was Deen's house being monitored or something? I wouldn't put it past a secret organization involved in experimenting with artificial Cores to monitor their test subjects.

Actually, it should be expected that they'd keep tabs on their experiments, especially Deen with her very useful powers. I should've been more prudent with observing our surroundings.

Whatever the truth of it was, people who I didn't want to know where I was...knew where I was. Fucking annoying.

I shuddered at the thought of cameras and shit like that in Deen's house. Once we got back to our condo, I was going to turn the place upside down for cameras and bugs.

"Do you watch romcoms?" Deen asked, returning my thoughts to our conversation. "You don't look like the type."

"I don't," I replied. "I'm more a horror movie type of girl."

“Is that so? Then I hope that means you won’t looking for a guy here.”

I rolled my eyes. "That’s the farthest thing from my mind right now."

Deen didn't continue talking. She had a goofy grin on her face as she expectantly waited for me to get her joke, which was...I have no idea.

"What are you on about?" I said. "What's the problem with a guy? Is it because I might fall in love and then confess that I'm actually an Adum—"

Deen's hand flew to my mouth. With wide eyes, she hissed at me, "There are so many people here!"

"Yeah, I know," I mumbled behind her palm. Pulling her hand away, I continued, "That's why they won't hear me. I can barely hear you."

"But it's too risky. You should be more careful."

I sighed. "Fine, I'll be careful...Mom." Deen's stern face cracked and she smirked at me. "What were you on about with me finding a guy anyway?" I said. "I don't understand what you were trying to tell me."

"Oh that," she said. "I was trying to jokingly remind you that we were supposed to be together."

"Together?" I said. She tilted her head, indicating that I should know what she was talking about. I raised a brow at her while the cogs in my brain ground against each other. I bet this was something inconsequential to me that slipped my brain. We're together? "I remember! Back at the diner—"

She tried to cover my mouth again. I parried her away. "I haven't been to any diner," she vigorously whispered. "But yeah, I was referring to your very misplaced lie that we were together," she added in her normal voice.

"Very misplaced?" I grinned at her with embarrassment. "Sorry for that. I really didn't think that one through. And...um...we should go visit a diner sometime." She glared at me. "I'm sure you'll enjoy the food there."

Deen opened her mouth, about to reply. 

But then, her head snapped to the window beside us, spotting something below that got her attention. "Is she your Mom?" she said, referring at another wrong person. 

Our guessing game continued for ten more minutes. Deen wouldn't stop pointing to every short woman with black hair she'd see. Eventually, I got tired and told her that although I wouldn't give her a clue, I'd tell her if I saw Mom. 

Deen then switched her questions from, "Is that her?" to "Is she around?"

Several more minutes passed and waves upon waves of passengers arrived. And then, fucking finally! "Mom's here," I told Deen, straightening up and leaning forward closer to the glass.

"Really?" Deen said. "Is that her over there? The woman with the animal print pants?"

"Three more guesses," I said, "and we'll go down to meet her." Deen didn't choose correctly and Mom had already walked out of view. We hurried to the escalator as other people waiting for their families also rushed down to meet them.

"Deen, remember what I told you, okay?" I said after we extracted ourselves from the sardine can that was the escalator.

"About what?" she asked as she locked her gaze with mine. I tapped the side of my eye. She nodded. "Right. About your glasses?"

"Yep. Don't forget that Mom doesn't know that I've worn glasses. My eyesight deteriorated last semester, and I kept it a secret from her. She's big on protecting eyesight."

"But you're healing now, aren't you?" She waved her hand in front of my face. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

"Two. You do know I can see those clearly even before? I told you that I only needed glasses for reading. And yes...I started healing when I became..."

"Shhh."

"I wasn't going to say anything. Don't be so uptight."

I was faced with a face-inconsistency problem. Hahaha, I didn't intend that wordplay. I only started wearing glasses—fake glasses—for my law school face. In fact, Mom always reminded me to take care of my eyesight in law school; she had many lawyers friends who wore glasses. That was also the case even for law students; most of them had glasses. And that was the reason I decided to copy them.

So I had to concoct a story to fix the inconsistency between what Deen knew—or thought she knew—about me, and the actual truth that Mom knew. My prized work of fiction that would soon be sold in every bookstore was that turning into an Adumbrae healed my eyes. I was extremely proud of fabricating this story on the fly.

Deen would take care not to mention that my eyes ever had a problem or Mom would be suspicious. If Mom insisted I'd go visit the doctor to get checked, then we'd be screwed because we didn't have a dose of Suppressor with us. By becoming my 'accomplice' in supposedly covering up my eye problems to protect the secret that I was an Adumbrae, Deen and I strengthened our bonds. This was killing two birds, probably more, with one stone.

Deen elbowed me then nudged her head in the direction of a passenger. "Look at her. The tall woman with mirrored sunglasses. White hair? Do you think she bleached that?"

"Maybe," I said with a shrug. I controlled myself not to show any reaction.

The woman with white hair took off her sunglasses. Deen gasped. "Her eyes are glowing blue! Augs?"

"Erind sweetie!" The woman waved at us.

"Welcome home, Mom!"