Four: Late night confessions

A/N: For whoever didn't understand this series of posts called 'Saving the Veblens', it is a continuous story and each post is numbered because it has to be read in order to be understood completely. The first person perspective chapters are from Romi's POV and the third person ones are Nika's. You're free to read it however you want if random-ness excites you. Hope you like it. Happy reading!!

I'd snagged a copy of the full video of the convention from my mother's laptop before dinner. The video was filmed by the company's personal cameraman as a piece of evidence and personally for me as I didn't get to attend any of the public events.

I skipped dinner to avoid the tension and silence at the table, knowing that no one would miss me today. Except maybe Miss Goodwite. Nala would miss her golden opportunity to spill some food down my shoulder without looking suspicious to anyone.

I figured skipping one meal wouldn't be the end of me. So I popped the memory chip into my laptop and snuggled into my makeshift bed with it.

Two seconds into it, I realised that it was raw footage that hadn't been edited yet. It excited me to finally get to see the convention in full fledged without any cuts. The only problem was that it was ten whole hours of footage.

It wasn't like I had anything else to do. With Momo having hijacked my pet project, I had all the time in my hands and so I hit play on the video.

It was half past two and the laptop's battery blinked red. I was too tired to get up and plug it in so I switched it off and rolled over to sleep.A few minutes later the door to the library swung upon and I heard the definitive clicking of heels as someone walked in purposefully towards my bed. 

I'd stuck in my makeshift bed in between the science fiction and the scientific discovery aisle. Right at the conjunction, where the two bookshelves met was where I'd first fallen in love with science and Galileo. The very place where I'd discovered my science-uality.

The woman knew exactly where I was which led me to believe that it was probably Martha, the librarian. Probably here to convince me to go back to my room. Well I was going to pretend to be asleep, so that wouldn't be a problem.

The woman surprised me by sitting down at the edge of my bed. It was only when she reached out and touched my hair did I realise that it was my mother and not the librarian.

For the life of me, I couldn't figure out how she'd found me in the first place. Even Momo didn't know where I disappeared to in the library.

“You're asleep, as always.” mum spoke, breaking the silence of the quiet night. “I can't believe how you can bring yourself to sleep in this library. It's so eerie, it creeps me out to even wander too deep into the stacks in broad daylight.”

I tried to calm down my racing heart as I tried to digest the fact that my mother knew I slept here often and she even visited me when I was asleep.

“I'm so sorry Romi. I didn't want to ruin your project by letting Momo pick that portal kid, though his idea was really cool. But I couldn't really get into a debate with her right that moment because your father seemed to agree with her.” she sighed, but kept brushing my head softly.

“I just.” she stopped, waited for a minute listening hard for some sort of noise. But then continued. “I want you to stop hiding. I want you to go out there and meet new people. Maybe make more friends. There is nothing wrong with having a skin condition. It's not even that bad, you should have seen Grandma Irma’s skin. And she lived as boldly as ever.” 

She stopped stroking my hair and I wanted to protest, but forced myself to stay quiet. She bent down and kissed my head.

“I wish I was a better mother. I'm trying my best, sweetie. I love you Romi, have a good night.” With those words, she turned and left, leaving me alone in the library. 

And for the first time in so many years I had the crazy urge to run to her and wrap my arms around her and call her Mommy.

She was only gone for a few minutes when the library door opened again. I assumed she had left something of hers until I realised it wasn't her. There was no sound of her heels.

“Romi, love. Are you awake?” asked my dad, using the gentle voice he used when addressing tiny babies. He sighed deeply and quite like my mother, sat down on the bed.

“What am I doing? Of course you're asleep, you were so tired this evening. You skipped dinner again. Stop doing that love, it worries me.” he whispered. He reached out and started stroking my hair and I had a strong urge to burst out crying.

What was it with my parents? Why couldn't they talk to me when I was awake? And the thought that bothered me most was how had they found out about my secret aisle? Since how long had they been sneaking in to talk to me while I slept?

“I saw the bird house you made. It was beautiful. And your idea was brilliant and simplistic. I loved it.” he said, his voice sounded like he was smiling. It made me happy that he thought that.

“I wish you'd make more light hearted things like that at the company. The care you put into making them is the most emotion I've seen you express, ever. You rarely ever work with that much love when you're in the lab. You're too serious for a kid your age, love. I don't want you to lose out on all the fun of creating.” he continued. 

I realised that he'd never understood that the reason I always broke my head over serious inventions at the company was to make him proud of me. To get him to love me as much as he loved Momo.

He planted a kiss on my cheek. “I'm sorry for what I did today Romi. I saw potential and fire in that boy. The same fire I see in you. I wanted to give him a chance, not because of Momo, but because I saw you in him. I'll fix everything. I hope you understand.” With that he got up and a few seconds later I heard the door close behind him.

Soon I fell asleep too tired to distinguish between reality and dream.

__

I'd woken up earlier than usual because Martha the librarian wasn't even here yet. I grabbed the power bank and plugged it in and booted up my computer. I still had some time before the cleaning staff came in to do their usual magic.

I started the video where I'd left it off, the part where a kid named Nikita Belikov was starting his presentation. He'd built a portal it seemed and I had to admit that the way he'd explained it, the idea was really cool.

When it was time for him to show how it worked, he turned very fidgety. It seemed like he was nervous about his project’s functionality.

He turned it on and it lit up successfully. That brought a wide smile on his face, admittedly a very charming one. I wished that I could meet this kid in real life. Maybe mum could arrange a meeting and I could talk to him more about science and his portal.

He typed in the commands and tweaked the knobs on the control panel and stepped aside. The whole screen lit up with a blue light and Momo stepped out through the portal, looking slightly confused.

He gaped at her, startled but covered it up with a tight smile. She did her usual saving-the-situation and waved cheerfully at the audience like everything was a part of the plan. 

This surprised me. I realised that maybe this was the portal kid who'd gotten the good idea award. But even though he'd mistakenly teleported my sister, they'd covered it up well enough for it to look like it was a part of the presentation.

And that fact meant that the kid did deserve a first prize. I couldn't tell what had gone wrong.

The video played on and the audience clapped for the boy as he and my sister took a bow together. Then something went haywire. The portal lit up all on its own and the room was suddenly filled with a bunch of monkeys and meerkats. 

This sent the crowd into an excited frenzy as everyone tried to get away from the screeching animals that the portal had coughed up. Even the cameraman was running away, lugging the camera along and the footage showed people screaming and running feet. 

I paused the video, stunned with all the unexpected action I'd just witnessed before I burst out laughing.

The Nikita boy had made a brilliant machine except he'd messed up something small, but significant. I couldn't obviously tell what'd gone wrong solely from a video, I'd have to examine the portal in person.

There was no doubt that he had potential. But the fact that he seemed to know that the portal could be dangerous and yet hadn't fixed it or at least issued a warning was glaringly obvious. His act of stupidity could've cost my sister her life. I couldn't forgive that.

To me, it was a good enough reason to not employ him. But I was no longer in control of that.