As I drove us in my 4x4, Uncle Nick looked nervous, scent sour and anxious.
“It’s okay, Uncle Nick. Um, I let Spencer know that we’re on the way. He’s so excited to see you,” I soothed. “We are all so happy to have you back.”
I’d called Spencer as I made coffee for Uncle Nick, because I wasn’t showing up with his dad unannounced. Also, I wanted to ask before letting Nick wear one of his suits. Uncle Nick didn’t fitin mine, and if we were bringing him to the party, he needed to be dressed accordingly.
Shit, how was Auntie Ilena going to take this? Good, I hoped.
“Oh.” Nick frowned. “Nothing makes sense. I wasn’t even in this country. How did I get here? The last thing I remember is leaving for work and reminding Spencer to be on time so that we could run some experiments. How could I have been unconscious and unidentified for so long?”
Uncle Nick looked a lot like I remembered, just a little older, and completely grey-haired. He seemed fit and healthy, just a little haunted.
If I’d lost over twenty years of memories, I’d be haunted too.
“Do you remember your research?” I asked, glancing over at him as we drove.
“Why wouldn’t I? Oh, I need to call Demitra. She probably won an award for our work, didn’t she? Does Spencer help her now? Did he become a scientist, or does he work for his grandfather? Though I suppose it would be one of my brothers. My parents are probably gone.” He frowned. “So many people are gone. And you, you’re all grown up.”
“Your father is still alive and here actually. Very spry for his age. Your mom passed away only a couple of years ago.” This made me hopeful that Uncle Nick and Auntie would still have plenty of time together. Though his other parents passed years ago when Spencer and I were young.
“Oh?” His hand went to his heart. “And Ilena is well.”
“She made us so much food last night,” I chuckled, recalling our feast. “I think she’s a little lonely. She travels a lot.”
“Oh. I didn’t mean to leave her alone.” Nick’s brow furrowed.
“We know, Uncle Nick. Spencer has a biotech company. Basically, he took what your fathers taught him about business and what he learned from you about science and uses it to fund projects that will change the world. Grace, and my other mateWes, work for him,” I told Uncle Nick, going back to the topic at hand.
He remembered his research. Huh.
“I still don’t understand how I got here.” His fingers tapped nervously on his thigh.
“Um, Uncle Nick, do you want to know what happened?” I didn’t want to hide this from him.
“What happened?” He sucked in a breath.
“There was a super collider explosion. Almost everyone thinks that you died in it–including your wife. I went to your funeral,” I admitted. “Many people died that day. Spencer had left right before it exploded, and he was fortunately okay.”
“Thank goodness for that. Oh.” That stricken look reappeared, then went thoughtful. “The super colliderexploded?What were we doing that day? I don’t remember. Did we rip a hole in time and space and somehow I ended up someplace else? Was there a time push? I never asked them exactlywhenI ended up in the hospital, and they didn’t tell me how many years I’d been there. That would explain it.”
I didn’t know what a time push was. But I was guessing he thought a super collider explosion could somehow make him go forward in time and possibly move locations?
“What about Demitra?” he added.
“She was there with you that day. Um, do you remember your other research?” I asked. “We know about the omegas, well, we being my pack. Spencer also knew that you didn’t die in the explosion and eventually shared that with us.”
Nick froze. “You know about the omegas? That’s dangerous knowledge.”
“Yeah, though not everyone knows. Auntie doesn’t. Beyond the barest basics, there’s a lot our pack doesn’t know about what happened. One thing we are aware of is that the super collider didn’t explode because of an experiment. The TemporalAuthority made good on its threats to shut down your project. They took you and Dr. K away, exploded the super collider, and not only did many people die, it made people afraid to carry on your type of project,” I said as I drove.
He swore in Greek.
I continued, “You haven’t been in a hospital unconscious for all these years. You’ve been in Temporal Authority prison for your crimes. I think it’s stupid that they did that. Helping omegas is really noble. They let you out for good behavior, but they took all your memories because it’s one of their rules. While we knew that there was a possibility of you coming back to us, we weren’t expecting you, because we weren’t sure if they’d actually let you go.”
“This is a lot…” He was quiet for a moment. “You’re telling me that those temporal agents, the ones we were told not to worry about, arrested me, imprisoned me for years, then took my memories?” His eyes teared as he looked at me.
“Yes.” My heart broke. I loved Uncle Nick. He’d taught me so much over the years.
His head bowed. “What about Demitra?”
