O Superman by Laurie Anderson
Well you don't know me, but I know you.
After a slightly dramatic reunion with the others, we gather around Xander's laptop, all here to check this USB. "Play the first one." Jameson instructs. Xander does as he's told and plays it. Indecipherable words blur into one and create a white noise.
"And the second?" Nash hints, upon hitting play we realize they're both the same awful incoherent noise.
"Try playing them at the same time." I suggest, a lightbulb moment.
Xander makes eye contact with me skeptically as if doubting the idea because it came from me.
He opens an editing operation and overlaps the audios, hitting play.
"Hello Avery." The old mans voice speaks. It's chilling to hear a man I know so much about but have never even heard speak. Something in the air shifts, the atmosphere tense.
"We're strangers, you and I. I imagine thats something you've thought about a lot." Tobias says.
"All great lives should have at least one grand mystery, Avery. I won't apologise for being yours. If you've spent late nights and early mornings asking yourself 'why me?' Well my dear, you are not the only one what is the human condition if not 'why me?'" He speaks.
There's something so utterly tense and untouchably quiet about this moment.
"As a young man, I believed myself destined for greatness. I fought for it, I thought my way to the top, I cheated, I lied, I made the world bend to my will... I got lucky. I can admit that now. I'm dying, and not slowly, either. Why me? Why is this body giving out? Why am I the one sitting in a palace of my own making when there are others out there with minds like mine? I got lucky. Right place, right time, right ideas, right mind. If only that were it." He tells us.
"If you are playing this message, then things have become as dire as I projected. Eve is there, and certain events have led you to finding the tomb that once housed this family's greatest secret. How much, I wonder, have you put together for yourself, Avery?"
It feels eerie as if he's here in this room. Like he can see us.
"But then," he continues, I can practically hear the smile in his voice, "you're not alone, are you? Hello, boys."
There is a physical reaction from all the boys, you don't notice unless you're paying attention like I am. Xander's face softens, Jameson shifts uncomfortably, Grayson tenses up and Nash runs a stressed hand through his hair.
"If you boys are indeed there with Avery, then at least one thing has worked out as I intended. You know quite well that she is not your enemy. And you also know Paris is not either. She's here too, isn't she?"
At the mention of my own name I swallow and fold my arms over my chest.
"Perhaps, if I have chosen as well as I think I have, the girls have reached a place inside of you that I never could. Dare I even say made you whole?"
"Turn it off," Nash orders. But nobody listens, and he doesn't persist because he himself needs to listen to this.
"If you've made it this far, you'll know already that my son had an affair with Avery's Mother and the product of this was Paris Hawthorne."
Hearing him say that makes me physically shiver.
"Much like your sister, you may lie awake at night wondering, 'why not me?' Which is just as eager and burning a question. It would make sense, wouldn't it? Leaving my inheritance to my long lost Granddaughter? To that I say, too easy."
YOU ARE READING
Riches | The inheritance games
Mystery / Thriller"My whole life has always been built around my future.. and it still is but now, you're my future" Imagine you're living in your eldest sister apartment with her abusive boyfriend some nights living in your car to get away, having your younger sist...
