Precedent

Chapter Fourteen

I roll my eyes.

"Again, Franklin?" I ask. "Why is it I always seem to see you from across this room, right after you interrupted something?" Franklin steps around the computer screen.

"I saw everything that happened in the shop," Franklin says. He turns to Taylor. "I know that you have lied to me for fifteen years." Taylor doesn't even look slightly ashamed.

"You pushed me to it," he tells his father, my grandfather. "I needed to follow my own path. I wanted to do more with my mind and talent."

"Look at you," Franklin snarls, "all high and mighty. You always were, just because you got into that stupid school."

"You were just mad that you didn't get in, even when you own the place!" Taylor exclaims. Franklin's face turns red. From embarrassment or anger I don't know. What I do know is that we can't risk a big argument.

"Where is the rest of my team?" I ask Franklin. "Sabrina and Ryan and Danny."

"They're with your mother now," Franklin says curtly.

"I must see them."

I must tell them I succeeded, I finish in my head.

"In time, Olivia," Franklin says in a quite different voice. "My darling granddaughter." I shiver at the name granddaughter. I've never been a granddaughter before. My mother never allowed me to meet her parents, as it would endanger them, and until now I haven't known the parents of my father.

"Did you know?" I ask him. "Did my mother tell you, well, anything?" Franklin replies with a grim smile.

He says, "Venus, Mission Leader, has told me nothing about my son or my granddaughter."

"That's not right," I tell him.

"Of course it isn't!" Franklin exclaims. He sounds scandalized. He probably thinks it's naïve for me to only now come to the realization that he was mistreated.

Well, he's an adult. He had the time warping machine. He could have investigated if it really meant something to him.

"I understand your frustration," I say. I make sure my tone is quieter than before. I hope it implies I want him to lower his tone as well. "I don't think we should confront my mother though." Franklin looks surprised.

"What gave you the impression I wanted to confront her?" he asks. His tone is icy. That's my confirmation that he wants to confront Venus.

However, I say, "Oh, I'm sorry, the way you were talking, it just gave me the impression that you wanted to argue with her about it." Franklin glances at A-M. I take this as a giveaway that he's about to divert the subject.

He does.

"A-M, you're Drew Mason, aren't you?" A-M does not look pleased at being addressed by his former name.

"I used to be Andrew Mason," he replies politely. He's contradicting him, but in a casual way. "I'm just A-M now." Franklin feigns a look of amusement.

"It seems everyone is changing their names now," he remarks. "Venus Ardal became Mission Leader. The juvenile Andrew Mason is now A-M, a curious name if I do say so myself." Franklin looks directly at Taylor. "And my son has, for fifteen years, been Cray Anderson."

I realize, with that statement, Franklin has turned his anger from my mother to his son.

"All those business deals," Franklins says his voice edgy, "all those phone calls, and you never told me you were my son." Taylor rolls his eyes, reminding me too much of the Taylor I knew from fifteen years ago.