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"Who are you?" I said

The wo

But Nathan did "Hi, Moht now?"

"It turns out ‘dead’ can be a state of ," said the wo the door to her office It was a proper office, too, not aalley This had been the bowling alley e Noas hers "Can I get the two of you anything?"

"I’d like some answers, if you don’t mind," I said "Who are you? Why did Nathan call you ‘Mom’? Are you his mother? Where have you been? Why did you contact rape juice?" asked Nathan

The woe As she went, she said, "To answer your last question first, Sal, I contacted you because you see on, and I felt it was ti because I needed Sy to ask you to play spy for me, I have better-trained people who take care of the messy aspects of the business, and frankly, you don’t h to let you out without a detail trailing you at all ti to reach out You needed to be curious enough to take steps on your own, and free enough to keep going once you’d taken theo out alone"

"And the rest of it? Your name? Do you have a name? Are you Nathan’s mother?"

"I suspected it was you as soon as I saw the note," said Nathan "I couldn’t think of anybody else ould think to use quotes from Don’t Go Out Alone as a code"

"It worked, didn’t it?" She opened the fridge, pulling out a bottle of grape juice "There are glasses in the cabinet behind you, Nathan" She glanced erous cheet from reusable plastic, and none of the ethically questionable waste you can get fro note in his tone "Sal’s asking you some pretty sincere questions Can youto work hed and turned, wheeling her way back toof this day for so long that I suppose I wasn’t ready for the way that it would reatest social skills in the world I never did, but after spending ten years underground, I’ve lost a lot of the fine edges I’d ive me?"

"If you’ll tell est question of all Well, Sal, when I lived with Nathan and his father,and parasitology, and I worked for a ss, assu There was a et even richer And he had a drea, crazy drea the ill effects of our overpurified environ to help It was a fascinating proposal It was innately flawed, and it was going to make millions for him, and for his company, which he called ‘SymboGen’ Maybe billions

"But there were proble, and there was a good chance we could all go to jail for the rest of our lives if things rong My family needed the money I needed to do the work It’s hard to explain that in a way that doesn’t sound crazy, but it’s true--once I heard what he was doing, I needed to be part of it It was all , beautiful possibility So I agreed, as long as Syuarantee lancing toward Nathan, as pouring hi accident that same year Her body was never recovered I had six ot my new identity in order, planted the publications, created the acadeive the No one ever questioned my validity"

I stared at her A blonde wo, talking about working with SymboGen when it was still a s her… there was only one person she could possibly be "Dr Cale?" I whispered

"At the moment, yes" Her smile broadened "It truly is lovely totime And yes, I am really Nathan’s mother Can’t you see the resemblance?"

I frowned at her She had wavy blonde hair, blue eyes, and a roundish face, with no hard lines or sharp angles Nathan, on the other hand, had dark hair and eyes--both inherited fro features They couldn’t have looked less alike And yet, when she turned her head, I could see so of him in the way she held herself, buried in the expectant half lift of her eyebrow and the curl of her lips

"Yes," I admitted "I can see it But how…?"