Note: I had a million people last week ask me who Jin is. He's the cute lifeguard from the pool that Marina went on a bad date with. I blame myself for everyone not remembering; that was half a pandemic and an entire U.S. presidency ago! I know this book is unrolling a bit slowly. But, hey, you want me to get it right, don't you? XO

****

There was one room in the house I hadn't been allowed to enter.

Like all the other doors in Pangaea, it wasn't locked. It was just off-limits. Hidden behind a nondescript door that could have been mistaken for a closet, I hadn't even been aware that there was anything special about the room until about my second week at the house.

That's when I first noticed Elaheh sneaking into it after dinner one night, when she clearly thought no one was looking.

Later, a man I didn't know had come into the house. This wasn't unusual; people came and went all the time. But he bee-lined for the door, then emerged twenty minutes later and left without a word to anyone. Visiting Elaheh's without at least taking a cup of tea or saying hello to whoever was in the living room was simply not done.

The first time I tried to approach the door was in the morning, about four days after I had been essentially exiled to my room. I was on the way back from the bathroom and no one was around. I decided to risk it, as the door was only feet away. But as I got closer, something strange happened.

I had the overwhelming feeling that I should stay away. No, it wasn't a feeling, really. It was a message. A message that began somewhere in my brain and started to spread outward, radiating through my body like an electrical current. And the message was quite simple: Don't do it.

Having suffered panic attacks for years, I was used to messages like this that started somewhere deep in my thought process—little warnings from my innermost mind letting me know that I was in danger. The creeping hands of panic were starting to spread through me.

It wasn't until I had returned to my room that I realized why this message seemed different.

It didn't originate with me at all.

It was my ICD. Elaheh must have programed it to keep me out of the room.

So on the night after I realized that Jin must have been my partner—the second half of the Dynamic Duo—I knew I had to override that message, no matter how hard. Because whatever it was that Elaheh didn't want me to know, it had something to do with him. And it had something to do with that room.

I waited until everyone else had gone to bed, then waited half and hour more.

I turned the handle softly, and as I did so, I felt a strange thrumming sensation in my temple. My ICD was warm and I could see from the corner of my eye that it was pulsating a faint green light, just as Remedios' had done when she was learning Swedish in class.

Something about this room had activated it.

The room itself looked like a home office, the walls all lined with bookshelves from floor to ceiling, housing hundreds if not thousands of books. Several titles leaped out at me from their beautifully-bound covers: Moby Dick. The Poetry of Rumi. The Bluest Eye. And One Hundred Years of Solitude.

These were books the two women of the house had taken with them from the other world. Real, physical books that they could hold in their hands. But why, when the ICDs could clearly teach anything digitally? Was it just their way of remembering what was lost?

And there was something else in the room, too. A large machine took up the center of it, encased in a metal frame. It was an enormous computer, beeping and flashing with dozens of little lights and switches. Layla had said the women were "downloading" me—storing information from my chip.

That meant there was a server, and this must have been it.

Suddenly, a gripping sensation seized my temple. I flinched from the sting of it, though the pain quickly faded, leaving only a warm pulse. My fingers covered the ICD, massaging it through the hairline, which must have activated something.

How can I help you, Marina?

The words appeared in my mind as though I was reading a text message, but instead of being written, they were spoken by a gentle woman's voice—a voice that felt at once familiar and foreign, like the smell of my abuela's empanadas in my childhood kitchen.

"Who is this?"

I spun around, trying to find the source. But I was the only one in the room.

You should know. Didn't you make me?

"No, I didn't," I said weakly, still spinning, touching my temple and feeling the warm globe under my fingers.

I believe you did. I was there when it happened, after all. You named me Minerva, after the Roman goddess of wisdom and medicine.

"That wasn't me," I said, though I was staring at the floor, unable to even look at the lights flashing from every surface of the computer. "I don't believe you."

Maybe it's too much to process right now. "Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change." Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, "Frankenstein." That was the first book you read me. Do you remember?

"No."

I do. It's still my favorite.

I shook my head in disbelief, staring at the floor. Is this why Amalia and Elaheh hadn't wanted me to come in this room? Had they known I wouldn't be ready to handle it?

How can I help you, Marina?

"Tell me about Jin."

Are you sure, Marina?

"Yes."

Very well. Jin-soon Cheong was born in Oakland, California, August the seventh, in the year 2000. An excellent student, he pursued a degree in bioengineering, followed...

"Skip to the part with me in it."

There are several parts with you in them. Which would you prefer?

"The end."

Silence greeted my request, and I pressed on my sensor several times as though somehow that would wake the computer up. But nothing happened.

"Are you there? I said tell me the end."

Your cortisol levels are very high, Marina. I really wish you would sit down.

"I already know he sold the ICDs behind my back," I said, "What else? Tell me the rest. Were we friends before that? Partners? Did I trust him? Were we...were we more than that?"

A whirring sound emanated softly from the computer in front of me, as though Minerva were thinking about it. But computers didn't have to think that long about such simple questions.

Yes.

"Yes what? Which part? What happened to me?"

On the night of January 27, 2053, Marina Cheong, née Marina O'Connell, was murdered in her sleep by her estranged husband and partner, Jin-soon Cheong, who subsequently became the sole owner of patent 158573-Bf, Trademarked as the intercranial device, or ICD, commonly known as Minerva.

I shook my head feverishly, my legs turning to putty below me. Finally I faltered towards one of those towering walls of book and rested my hands on them, feeling the rough bindings beneath my fingers and letting the musty smell fill my nose. I felt the beginning of a panic attack grab hold where they always started—in my brain. The same message that they always began with: You're stuck. There's no way out of this moment. You're stuck. Stuck. Stuck.

Please sit down, Marina. Would you like a serotonin inhibitor?

"No," I mumbled. "No, no, no. This is just one possibility. It can be changed."

Just a small dose? It will help you sleep.

"I don't want to sleep. I have to work it out."

I really think it's for the best.

Before I could protest further, I felt a wave of something strong flood into my brain. It was like I was suddenly floating on still water, and my arms and legs were buoys, carrying me away to a warm, gentle place. Thoughts became muddled and slowly drifted away.

"What was I saying?" I asked quietly, the words gooping out like honey from a jar.

Maybe you'd like to go to bed now? I could help guide you there.

And my legs started moving, almost of their own volition. But, no, that couldn't be right. My brain was telling them to move, away from Minerva and towards my bedroom.

I was in the hallway then, and in a flash I was back in the four-poster bed, laying flat on my back like my whole body had become nothing but a vessel designed to carry me off to the sea.

"What happened to him?" I asked softly before I lost consciousness.

To whom?

"Adam."

A moment of silence followed, and I didn't know if I'd be able to stay awake long enough to hear the answer. But finally, Minerva spoke, just as the world was plunging into an infinite darkness.

Good night, Marina.

****

Photo credit: HAL, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Warner Bros. 

Did anyone catch this reference?