The Keeper. Part 1. An Invitation - страница 26

Yours sincerely,

David James Mills

Minister of Defence

‘For further testing!? What, they’re really going to make me go there?’ he asked after reading the memo several more times.

His mother laid a hand gently on his shoulder.

‘The general said you’d just be needed to help them to open the box again, thats all,’ she said.

‘But you’ll be coming too though, right?’

‘No, we can’t, Arthur. Anna is much too little to be going somewhere like that. And, in case you’ve forgotten, Sasha is finally up for promotion next week.

‘Yeah… But…’

‘The general has, however, just been speaking with your father, and after explaining everything to him, he has agreed to go with you.’

‘Papa? Really!? But… he’s on a business trip to America.’

‘Not anymore. They’re sending a plane for him as we speak.’

With his father on his way back, it had been agreed that they would leave the day after next. The general, on his way out, had taken Arthur to one side for a private word and had told him that he was confident that it wouldn’t be for long. Despite this though, Arthur couldn’t shake off the feeling that it wasn’t going to be as simple as just helping them open the box and then being able to leave again, especially when he remembered the contents of the letter.

Things at home had remained tense after the general and the others had gone. One minute his mother would be angry with him for having found the box in the first place, and the next she was hugging him, telling him it would all be OK. His stepfather, in his turn, had taken it upon himself to keep reminding everyone that because Arthur was going to a special government division, that it meant that he’d have to be on his best behaviour at all times. Even his baby sister, sensing that something was up, kept crawling past his room, popping her head in, and screaming out until she found him. Fortunately, by evening they had managed to calm down a bit. The day after tomorrow still seemed far enough away to be able to push it to the back of their minds.

Arthur, for his part, had been trying his best not to think about it at all. Ironically though, the more he’d tried not to, the more his mind kept conjuring up dark images of mad-looking scientists deciding that it was going to be a matter of national security to keep him there for the rest of his life.