Cypress - Gen 9 Ch 2

I was still having difficulty deciphering my figurines, even after the breakthrough I had experienced a few weeks earlier. As a last resort, I turned to my dad. In retrospect, I should have consulted him immediately - it would have saved me a lot of time.

I felt a small thrill of excitement as we pulled up in front of the old blue clapboard building that houses the Riverview museum.  One of my dad's colleagues was visiting from Bridgeport, and he had agreed to meet with me.

"Son, this is Mr. Dean, from the Bridgeport Museum."

I was a somewhat put off by the condescending little smile on this Mr. Dean's  face when my dad introduced us, but the guy was supposed to be an expert in ancient inscriptions, so I swallowed hard, and nervously began to explain my theory. 

As always happens when I expound on my favorite topic, I found myself becoming more and more animated until I was totally focused on what I was saying. Finally I felt my dad's hand rest on my shoulder, and I realized that Mr. Dean was attempting to get a word in edgewise.

"Enough already, kid," he chuckled." I'll admit you know your stuff. So let's see these figurines of yours?"

I laid them all out on the table in dad's office, and turned the little tiger over to reveal the jumble of lines etched into the bottom. He carefully took the figurine from my hand and examined the marks for himself.

'See there?" I pointed out. "There are definitely two layers of writing here. I can make out some of the old Chinese characters, but it's hard because there seems to be a second layer of older characters showing through and obscuring them."

Mr. Dean furrowed his brow and studied the faint lines for what seemed an eternity,while I nervously jiggled my foot, waiting for his response. Finally he spoke.

"Hmmm.. I think I see what you mean. There is only one way to be sure, however. You must bring these artifacts to my museum in Bridgeport. I have a state of the art imaging program that will allow me to separate these so called layers, if indeed they do exist."

Bridgeport.

Dad had offered to come with me, and I almost took him up on it. At the last minute, I decided to brave it on my own. At the time, I thought it would be too embarrassing to admit I needed my parent tagging along in order to feel safe. Now, however, I wondered what had possibly possessed me to venture to this confusing metropolis on my own. It didn't help when I knocked on the door of the address my dad had given me, and was met by the most gorgeous woman I had ever seen.

"Uh.. I.. um.. is this.. I mean... is Meloire..."

She rescued me with an exuberant smile.

"Oh! You must be Cypress. Come in! I'm Talia. My dad said to expect you, that you would be staying with them for a few days. In fact, he asked me to stop by here, and wait for you. He and mom had to go out this evening."

I followed her inside, my eyes darting here and there. I had not expected to be stuck alone in an apartment with a beautiful woman - especially one who just might want to take a bite out of me. Dad had assured me that Mel was perfectly safe, but he had never mentioned he had a daughter.

"Um.. y..your dad?" I stammered, reaching up to self-consciously brush my hair out of my eyes.

She smiled again, a mesmerizing smile that should have made me even more nervous, but instead inexplicably relaxed me.

"That's right," she replied. "Mel is my dad. I guess that makes us.. some kind of weird sorta many times removed cousins, doesn't it?"

"I guess it does..."

She glanced at me expectantly, as if she thought I would say something more. When I didn't, she continued.

"So, ah, what brings you to Bridgeport?"

Now, my research and theories are one topic I can talk about forever. I had barely gotten started, though, when there was a commotion at the door.

Two people, who I assumed were Mel and El, practically tumbled into the room, all the while groping at each other in an embarrassingly suggestive way. Talia rolled her eyes at them.

"Meet the parents. I think they do that on purpose to embarrass me."

I tried to laugh at the thoroughly annoyed face she was making at me, but it was hard to ignore what was going on right next to us, and it came out more like a squeaky giggle.

"Y..yeah. Mine do that sometimes, too," I managed to reply.

"Well, let's leave them to it then. Come have a drink with me, you must be thirsty after your long drive."

I've never been one to drink, really, and after only one of Talia's special concoctions, I was feeling more relaxed than I could ever have imagined. Relaxed enough, I must admit, to almost forget that she was a vampire, and that I had a girlfriend.

"Are you going to stand there and stare at me all night, or are we going to keep our appointment with Mr. Dean?"

Her words snapped me back to reality, and I quickly moved my eyes back up to her face.

"Uh.. tonight? Is the museum open this late?"

"It's open all night, but Mr. Dean won't be there much longer. We should go."

"But first, come with me," she said matter-of-factly, taking me by the hand and leading me off into the bedroom. "If we're going out, we need to find you something to wear. I think some of dad's clothes might fit you."

I tried to protest, that my clothes would be fine, but she wouldn't hear of it.

"Hmm.. let's see what I can find that's not red. Ah, here we go."

She tossed a bundle of clothes at me and motioned toward the bathroom.

"Try these."

"How do I look?"

"Perfect! We need to hurry now, let's go!"

The shirt and vest weren't really my style, but Talia seemed so pleased, I decided to make the best of it.

We met Mr. Dean at the museum bar for more drinks. I had a hard time wrapping my mind around that - a bar inside the museum? People in Bridgeport sure do like their juice, I guess. I only hoped I'd be able to still think straight by the end of the night.

Eventually we ended up in Mr. Dean's office, which is a far cry from my dad's little office in Riverview. There were meticulously labeled pottery shards in the process of being reassembled everywhere, and an entire wall of state of the art computers.

Mr. Dean got right to work, photographing the three figurines from multiple angles, and feeding the data into his imaging program. I watched with amazement as he manipulated the data, and before long a three dimensional image of the little gold dragon popped up on the screen. He continued to manipulate the image, and suddenly a string of very recognisable ancient Chinese characters sprang into sharp relief.

"Hmm... fascinating.." the museum director muttered under his breath. "It will take me until tomorrow to thoroughly study these figures. Come back tomorrow evening, and I'll have all my findings ready for you."

That seemed to be a dismissal, as he turned back to the computer as if we were no longer in the room, and focused all his attention on the screen in front of him.  I was feeling pretty sleepy, both from the unaccustomed drinks, and the lateness of the hour, but Talia wouldn't hear of returning home quite yet.

"You can't say you've really been to Bridgeport without experiencing the night life. Come on, sleepyhead, you have to at least see my favorite night club."

After yet another round of drinks at the Plasma 501, Talia turned to me with a question.

"So, do you have a girlfriend?"

I shrugged. "I guess."

Her brow furrowed slightly.

"What's that supposed to mean? You don't sound real enthusiastic about it."

I don't know if it was the juice, or what, but Talia was so easy to talk to, that all my problems with Shante just came pouring out. She patiently sat and listened throughout my whole tirade, without interrupting once. It felt so good just to talk about it.

She didn't say a word; instead, she took my hand and led me out to the dance floor. I really don't know how to dance, and by this time I had had so much to drink, that the room seemed to be fading in and out.  I was having a hard time staying on my feet. Talia must have noticed my difficulties, because she took my hand again, and led me over the small sofa at the edge of the dance floor.

Before I could sit down, my phone buzzed at me. I pulled it out of my pocket and stared at the screen, trying to figure out who was calling me at this hour of the night. I couldn't see straight, and the letters and numbers jumping around just made me dizzier than I already was. I vaguely remember handing the phone to Talia.

"Can you read thish?"

"I'm sorry, he's busy right now. He'll call you back tomorrow."

"Who wazh it?"

"Nobody important. Come on, let's get you home."

I managed to stay awake for the ride back to the apartment, and I let her convince me that it would be nice to relax in the hot tub for a while. But as soon as I slipped into the hot water, I felt myself nodding off. I heard Talia sigh.

"Come on, sleepyhead. The sun's starting to come up. I guess I should get you to bed before you totally pass out, huh?"

I woke the next afternoon in a panic, my head pounding. It was so dark in the bedroom, I was sure I had slept through my evening meeting with Mr. Dean. I hurriedly pulled aside the dark blinds over the window, and winced as the bright afternoon sun came streaming in. Groaning, I let the blinds fall back into place, sending the room back into blissful darkness.

I stumbled out into the kitchen, hoping to find something to eat. I heard a quiet chuckle behind me.

"Heh. I doubt you'll find anything you'd want to eat in there. Here, I'll make you a drink, heavy on the fruit juice. That should tide you over."

I helped myself to a drink from the tray, took on sip, and felt the room begin to spin once more. If this was heavy on the fruit juice, I wondered what Mel's normal drinks were like.

"Whoa there, are you alright?"

I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.

"Heh. So tell me, how is your family? I see your mom's name in the news every once in a while. She's quite the super star athlete, isn't she?"

I knew he was just trying to make conversation, but I was having a hard time concentrating, and soon excused myself to toss down a couple pain killers and flop down on the bed again.

By the time Talia arrived to drive me to the museum, I was feeling a little better. I took a few polite sips of the new round of drinks that Mel had prepared, but I had learned my lesson last night. No amount of reduced anxiety was worth the morning - or in this case, afternoon - after.

Mr. Dean had everything ready for me at the museum.

"See here? I've separated the two layers of writing. You are already familiar with the more recent layer, but look. The older one is in a language I've never seen nor heard of before.  I'll continue to study the data, but with so few characters, I doubt anyone would be able to translate it. Anyway, I uploaded all the data to this thumb drive. Let my know if you discover anything new, and I'll do the same for you. Oh, and say hello to your dad from me."

My mission accomplished, it was time to head back to Riverview. Although I was glad to leave Bridgeport behind, I knew I would miss Talia.

"So, uh.. I guess this is goodbye." I looked down at my feet, and pretended to dust a bit of lint off my jeans.

"Come here, you. You're not getting away that easily." Talia grinned and pulled me into a tight embrace.

Then she whispered for only me to hear, " You are a very sweet boy. I know your true love is out there somewhere, waiting for you. You just have to find her."

I whistled softly to myself as I walked through the front door. It was so good to be home. Smiling happily, I turned toward the stairs. I could hardly wait to pop the thumb drive into my laptop and get started. I was stopped short in my tracks by an extremely disgruntled looking Shante. Oh great. Now what had I done?

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Note: I didn't realize until after I took all the screenshots, that since Talia is a born in-game vampire, she is missing her fangs.