I sip my tea quietly for a while. Eugene comes back to the table and sits down again, sipping from his own mug. My brain is on information overload. There are so many directions this conversation could go. I have so many questions. I’ve never met anyone who even knew the Quiet existed, let alone knew this much about it—other than Mira, of course, but chasing someone through a crowded casino doesn’t technically qualify as ‘meeting.’

“Are there other theories?” I ask after a few moments.

“Many,” he says. “Another one I like is the computer simulation one. If you’ve seen The Matrix, it’s relatively easy to explain. Only it doesn’t answer as many things as the Quantum Universes explanation does. Like the fact that our abilities are hereditary.”

I was initially curious about the computer simulation theory, but the heredity angle stops me dead in my tracks.

“Wait, does every Reader have to have Reader parents?” I ask. In hindsight, it’s obvious from what he’s said thus far, but I want it spelled out.

“Yes.” He puts his now-empty teacup down. “Which reminds me. Who are your parents? How could you not have known that you’re a Reader?”

“Hold on.” I raise my hand. “Both parents must be Readers?”

“No.” He looks upset for some reason. “Not both. Just one.” It’s obvious that this is a sensitive subject for Eugene.

Before I can question him about that, he continues, “I don’t understand why your parents didn’t tell you about this. I always thought this was an oral tradition, a story that every family who has the ability passes from generation to generation. Why didn’t yours?”

“I’m not sure,” I say slowly. Sara never told me anything. In fact, it was just the opposite. When I told my moms about falling off that bike and seeing the world from outside my body, they told me I must’ve hit my head. When I repeated the feat by jumping off a roof and told them of another out-of-body excursion, they got me my first therapist. That therapist eventually ended up referring me to my current shrink—who’s the only person I’ve spoke to about this since then. Well, until I met Eugene, that is.

Eugene gives me a dubious look in response. “Really? Neither your mother nor your father ever mentioned it?”

“Well, I didn’t know my father, so he’s the more likely candidate, given that my mom never said anything,” I say, thinking out loud. Based on the confusion on his face, Eugene isn’t getting it. Why would he, though? My history isn’t exactly common for your typical American family. “I was conceived through artificial insemination,” I explain to him. “My father was a guy who contributed to a sperm bank in Israel. Could he have been one of us—a Reader?”

My genius father. What a joke. I rarely tell people this story. Having two moms can be awkward enough. The fact that Sara went shopping for good sperm to have a smart kid—that’s just icing on the cake. But that’s exactly what she did. She and Lucy went to Israel, found a high-IQ donor bank, and got one of them knocked up. I think they went overseas to make sure I would never, ever meet the father. Now you can see why I consider my shrink’s job too easy. Whatever happens, blame the mother.

“What? No, that can’t be,” Eugene says, interrupting my ruminations. “It has to be your mother. Giving sperm like that is not something our people would do. It’s forbidden.”

“What do you mean?”

“We have rules,” he says, and it’s clear something about this upsets him again. “In the old days, all Readers were subject to arranged marriages—hence the whole selective breeding theory, you see. Today things are more liberal, but there are still a number of restrictions. For example, a Reader’s choice of spouse, regardless of how powerful he or she is, is considered personal business now, but the expectation is that he or she be a Reader.”

I file away the mention of ‘powerful.’ I’m curious how one can be more or less powerful when it comes to Reading, but I have other questions first. “Because of the selective breeding thing?” I ask, and Eugene nods.

“Right. It’s about the blood. Having children with non-Readers gets you banned from the Reader community.” He pauses before saying quietly, “That’s what happened to my father.”

Now I understand why this is a sensitive topic. “I see. So your mother wasn’t a Reader? And that’s forbidden?”

“Well, technically, marrying non-Readers and having children like me and Mira is no longer forbidden. You don’t get executed for it, like in the old days. It is highly frowned upon, though, and the punishment for it is banishment. But that’s not an issue in your case. What you’re talking about—a Reader giving sperm—is forbidden to this day, as it can lead to mixing of the blood and is untraceable.”

“Mixing? Untraceable?” I’m completely confused now.

“A Pusher mother might somehow get impregnated by Reader sperm,” Eugene explains. “Readers consider that an abomination, and, according to what my dad told me, so do Pushers. They wouldn’t give sperm either. The risk is admittedly infinitesimally small, since Pushers themselves wouldn’t dare risk getting pregnant that way. Also, mixing aside, Readers like to keep tabs on everyone, even half-bloods like me, and sperm bank pregnancy would prevent them from keeping an account of the whole Reader family tree. Or at least it would require oversight of the whole process, which would be complicated.”

That makes sense. But this leads to only one logical conclusion. Sara, my biological mother, must be a Reader. How could she keep this from me—her son? How could she pretend I was crazy?

“I’m sorry, Darren,” Eugene says when I remain silent. “You must have even more questions than before.”

“Yes. Your gift for understatement doesn’t fail you,” I tell him. “I have hundreds of questions. But you know what? You know what I really want to do?”

“You want to Read again?” he surmises.

He’s spot on. “Can we?”

“Sure.” He smiles. “Let’s ring some doorbells.”