by Alice Reeds
Name: Miles Edward Bahir Echo
V.N.: Oscar Lyel
Date of birth: 09.13.XXXX
Gender: Male
Height: 6’3 (190cm)
Blood type: B+
Family: Leon James Saqr Echo (Brandon Lyel)
Minsar Echo (SELLER)
Victoire Elise Echo (DECEASED)
Subject of expected height and average weight, notable for uncertain personality type, though prone to suggestibility and above-average gullibility. Subject known for adjusting to environment to fit in, manifesting stereotypical behaviors and mannerisms to appease surrounding, and issues with outward show of emotion (possible loss of self? Inconclusive). Subject has above-average grades, some because of unique skill set (proven to be versed in coding, connection to brother) and developed a lack of aversion toward a certain degree of illegal behavior. Nonviolent or aggressive.
This was how they saw me? I felt sick the longer I read their assessment of me, so cold and matter-of-fact. But, more importantly, the names—Echo, not Lyel. All this time we wondered, worried, slowly lost our grip on who we were, yet we were right all along. I wanted to scream, or cry.
Miles Echo.
The next page went into detail about my father, my mother, their genetics and how they might’ve influenced mine, the traits I got from both. None of it was necessarily useful, at least to us.
“Now this is just creepy,” Fiona said incredulously.
Before her lay a bunch of glossy pictures. Each one had a number at the bottom along with Fiona’s initials, FJW, not KJ, the first showing the tattoo on her back—it was real even if they tried to make us believe it wasn’t—followed by picture after picture of her scars in different places of her body. The lighting made her skin sickly pale, the visuals like something you’d find in a serial killer’s den or one of those crime TV shows with the detective looking through pictures of a victim.
The room tilted just a little at the mere thought of Fiona in such a context.
“Morbid.” It was worse than looking at the bodies in the pit on the island. Sure, they were corpses, actual dead people, but those pictures, those files, they were us. Her skin, her body, her life and history marked all over it.
“Thanks, I hate it.” She gathered the pictures together and stuffed them back into the clear plastic folder. Meanwhile I continued looking through my own folder and flipped the page.
“Look at this,” I said, my heart practically slamming into the pit of my stomach, my mouth turning dry. This couldn’t be true, yet the words were there, every suspicion I’d had since we arrived being confirmed. The room. The beds. The two of us, fighting in the U.S. yet united after the crash. When would this nightmare ever come to an end?
Designed Counterpart – Project EROS
Name: Fiona Jane Wolf
V.N.: Kellie Jackson
Date of birth: 11.27.XXXX
Gender: Female
Height: 5’8 (173cm)
Blood type: AB-
Family: Anthony Wolf
Alessia Mayson (—)
Subject notable due to strong personality type, as well as physical strength above average for a female of her age, height, and weight, and unique blood type (to be treated with caution). Subject has average grades but above-average achievements outside of a school setting (see page 5), sports and literature fields of excellence, while science and mathematics are weak points (disqualification for test MGT). Subject was raised as instructed, desired effect manifested, tested, and proven positively.
Success rate: 95%
“You’re in mine as well,” Fiona said, her voice sounding far away. “Does this mean…?”
“We don’t have time, let’s…let’s just keep looking and then think about what this means later.” It took everything in me, every ounce of strength and willpower I could muster to say all of that, to push myself to flip the pages and continue instead of having some kind of breakdown right there. I knew that if I would allow myself to contemplate this now, whatever it was, I wouldn’t be able to stop. The implications were already sitting heavily on my shoulders and heart. The words alone were nearly suffocating. “Seven minutes.”
Page after page my eyes flew across test results, charts, and statistics, most of it things that barely made any sense. Until, at least fifteen pages in, I finally found something useful, the first mention of Berlin, Germany after the word TRIAL. We were right, our bodies had never been there, but our minds had. Berlin really had been our trial.
“Did you see this?” I asked and nudged Fiona’s arm with my elbow. Raising her folder so I could see, she was on the same page as me, an exact copy.
Subjects: 34 (MEBE), 35 (FJW)
Trial status: FAILURE
Self-induced failure through extraction of implants. Subjects at disease risk, quarantine needed. Formula—to be reviewed. Subjects—to be reviewed (#6539). Berlin simulation showing signs of interference, outside or inside. Possible error in formula or coding. Source and cause—to be determined.
Was the entry the result of an error just like we thought? A glitch in the coding that gave me enough clarity to leave myself clues? And what the hell did the number mean next to subjects to be reviewed? I flitted through the next pages and looked for the number. It led to a page with blood test results, the one they’d taken after we arrived, followed by another page of notes written by hand, an assessment of our health.
Voices.
My head shot up, my eyes to the door, my heart sinking. Someone was coming, or at least walking toward us. Taking the folders, we crouched down behind the desk, out of sight should someone come inside. If they came in to fetch someone’s files, though, we were screwed. Oh no.
Fiona closed her eyes. Another voice joined the first one, laughter and louder footsteps—was someone jumping around? How were these people in such a good mood? One of them called out something, but the words were too muffled to understand what was said. Another voice, coming from the other direction, answered.
The door opened, and my vision turned momentarily fuzzy.
“Whatever, leave it for tomorrow,” one of the voices said, male and accented. “Let’s go now, I’m beat.”
“You sure?” the person in the room with us asked. “I’ll be quick.” They came closer, closer…even closer.
“I said leave it, come on.”
The person stopped and then groaned before turning around. “You’re such a baby.” There was laughter in her voice. Her footsteps retreated, and the door closed a few seconds later.
Tipping over, I dropped to my knees, and the file hit the floor with a soft thud. Fiona laid her head against my shoulder. That was close—too close. Struggling, I tried to just breathe, calm down my heart, clear my mind.
“We have to find something about a current trial,” I said, even though I knew we were running out of time. This wasn’t the time for weakness. I had to keep it together, just a little longer. Grabbing the file, I stood back up, and Fiona followed.
With the files back on the table, we went over page after page, looking, searching, reading bits of pieces out of context, trying to find something. It had to be there, our second trial, our purpose, an explanation.
TRIAL: Nautica
Subjects: 34 (MEBE), 35 (FJW)
Trial status: active
Window of Simulation activity: Night / Sleep
Update: XXXX.
Current success likeliness: 39%
Subjects have been far more responsive to implants than in the previous trial, but when asked, they showed confusion, anger, uncertainty. Direct questions about details concerning Nautica were negated. Subjects lack of awareness and memory are signs of possible failure. Subjects to remain in trial until further determined.
This was bad, every red alert flashing in my mind. Failure was something we couldn’t afford. Our time was running out eve
n faster than I expected. The pressure was on to act quicker and come up with a plan. But how do you break out of a place designed to keep you in and from people who invested a lot of money to own you, all the more reason to make sure you stayed in your cage?
There was nothing more on the topic, at least not that we could find quickly, and we had only a minute left. We had to go back, sneak through the hallways, and get to our room before the night bell.
We put the files back where Fiona had found them and left Doc Bowie’s office, finding the hallway outside clear. So was the one after that and the next one as well. I tried to focus, remain alert, but my mind kept wandering back to the files, the information we’d gathered, that hellish thirty-nine percent, and what would happen once it fell to zero.
“Oscar?”
Pamela.
In a split-second decision, perhaps more of a reflex, really, I pushed Fiona ahead, mouthed a quick “Go!” and before she could protest, backed away. Fiona looked so torn and yet she did as I asked her to, turned and continued along. They’d seen only me. She had to get out of there.
“Yes, Pamela?” I said, and tried to put on the most innocent expression I could muster with a touch of confusion. People said I could be convincing in my acting, so I could only hope that was true.
“What’re you doing here?” she asked, worry on her face accompanied by a subdued smile. “Did you get lost? Are you not well?”
“Just an ache from my arm, so I wanted to see if I could get something for that…but I seem to have lost my way at some point.”
“Poor boy.” She exaggerated a sympathetic pout. “Come along.”
Silently I followed her the way we’d come, back toward Doc Bowie’s office, but she didn’t go there. Instead she led me to the same room the nurse had taken me. With that smile still on her face, she handed me what I could only assume were some painkillers.
“Thank you,” I said, trying to sound genuine. Truthfully, my arm really was aching—not nearly enough for me to actually need painkillers, but they couldn’t hurt.
“Pamela? Oscar?” Leon asked, approaching us halfway toward the medical bunker exit. Why him? “Something wrong?”
“Great timing, Brandon. Could you do me a favor and lead your brother back to his room?” Not too long ago, I would’ve jumped around in happiness at the prospect of getting to spend even just a minute or two with him. Now I hoped he would say no.
“Sure.”
Of course.
Neither of us said a word as we walked up the stairs, the echo just as loud as it always was, yet it seemed nearly unbearable to me. The silence between us felt worse and great at the same time. Even if we talked, I didn’t know what I’d tell him besides throwing accusations in his face. I could ask him if he knew anything about those things in our file, our trials, and that project. If it meant that Fiona and I were nothing but a setup, a perfect match that worked out just as intended, our feelings possibly nothing but the result of some kind of manipulations. But there was no point.
I felt sick and cold and disgusted.
“You okay?” Leon asked.
“Just brilliant,” I said flatly.
Leon stepped up closer to me and whispered, “I saw both of you down there, but I won’t tell. I’m on your side—”
“Save it.” I walked ahead, crossed the last couple of feet to our room, and disappeared inside, not sparing him another glance. Whatever he had to say, I didn’t want to hear it.
Chapter Seventeen
The Villa
“Got some painkillers,” I said in a feeble attempt at humor once I closed the door behind me.
“Do you think she knows what we were doing?” Fiona asked, her voice serious, concerned. She moved closer to me but still kept a bit of distance. Not good. She was asking about only Pamela, though; she hadn’t seen Leon.
“No, I don’t think so. I told her my arm was aching and I got lost. And even if she had some doubts, at least she’d doubt only me, not both of us.”
We were quiet for a moment. Then Fiona said, “Project EROS.”
“Yeah, that—”
“Let’s not talk about it,” she said, a certain bit of hopefulness in her voice, as though not talking about it would make it disappear from our memories, though I knew for a fact it wouldn’t. Those words had hooked themselves into my mind with a steely grip, something so very unsettling, cold, and awful spreading through my mind, a slowly manifesting doubt I wanted to uproot at the source.
The room. The two of us. Designed counterparts.
Stop. Stop. Stop!
“Thirty-nine percent, you read that, too, right?” I asked, and Fiona nodded. With a sigh, we sat down on our respective beds, the fact that she was suddenly so far away instead of next to me emphasizing how off everything already felt.
“Thirty-nine percent,” she said. “Nautica… At least now we know why Doc Bowie asked about ships. How they decided that I, of all people, am the right choice for a nautical-themed trial is beyond me, even more than the whole pharmaceutical company thing before.”
“But that’s all just so…” I paused, looking for the right word but coming up short. It was too much, too complex, too confusing and terrifying. “And the rest of the files, those assessments of us? And that girl screaming…”
“That was fucked up. I’m going to hear that in my dreams—more like nightmares.”
Restless, I got up and paced the room, tried to block out those screams, the sight of her, of the guy who was with her, and everyone standing around them and watching them like they were lab rats. Did Leon know about this, the way Briola tortured people? If so, how could he live with himself and also not do anything about it? I couldn’t even recognize him anymore, the person he’d become, the fear I felt of him so unexpected and shocking. I used to trust him with my life, and now I feared he might be the one to cause my death.
“Did you notice the woman next to Doc Bowie?” I asked, my mind racing even more.
“She looked like Gail, didn’t she…but that’s impossible.”
“Is it, though?” Slowly I was getting a headache. Perhaps those painkillers would be useful after all. “I think I saw her once before, during our first time at breakfast, but she was gone so quickly, I was certain I’d imagined it.”
“Another person back from the dead.” Fiona shook her head. “At this point it feels like death isn’t an actual concept to these people anymore.”
“It’s all just a giant play on a stage, though I never auditioned to be an actor in it.” None of us did, none of us would if given the choice, but free will wasn’t a concept at the Villa, either. Nothing was off-limits, not even our feelings, in general and for one another. No, stop, don’t. It might also just be a trick. “But at least we know for sure now that it is only a farce. Echo and Wolf, both were there as our actual names, as well as those of our parents, while Oscar and Kellie were just alternatives. They tried so hard to make us believe otherwise, but now we know the truth.”
Fiona got up from her bed as well, ran her hands through her hair, her brows pulled together in a troubled frown. “All that shit about us, about me, in those files. The way I was raised, like selling me wasn’t awful enough, the deal seems to have even come with instructions. It makes me sick. But I’m also so confused, angry, and lost, and there is so much hate and sorrow inside me I feel like I might combust any minute now.”
Pushing aside all my worries, the whispers of doubt, I closed the distance between us and pulled her into a tight hug. She grabbed fistfuls of my shirt and held on as though her life depended on it. Regardless of everything, I wished I knew how to help her, aid her, heal her heart, but there was nothing I could do. I couldn’t save her from this, from herself, from her past, from the people who should’ve loved her most yet betrayed her the worst.
“You know what the most fucked-up part is?” she asked. “
It’s not Carla. I thought it was her, but I was wrong. It’s my father. I always thought our relationship was dysfunctional in every possible way, but I had no idea how wrong it truly was.” The words kept on coming as though a dam within her had broken, her grip on my shirt tightening. “It wasn’t just his disliking of me, no, it was them telling him to be this way, and his blatant refusal to say no. Instead he went and did as requested, the go-ahead for an endless ego trip handed to him on a silver platter. I’m his only daughter, and he did this to me. Was I truly this worthless to him? That he didn’t mind? That he thought it was okay, that it didn’t matter, since I would end up in this place anyway and never get the chance to become an adult facing the world beyond high school?”
My heart broke for her even more, the distress and hurt so evident in her voice and words, the terrible effect all of it had on her. I could understand it, at least to a certain degree, even though everything she’d gone through had been so much worse. She’d always tried her best, but based on her files it was clear that that wish and hope had been pointless from the start, an unattainable goal.
I rubbed circles over her back. “Hey, no, don’t say that.”
“How can I not, though?”
“It’s not true. He is a monster, and so is Carla, and what they’ve done is inexcusable and wrong.”
“What if you’re wrong?”
“My IQ would kindly like to disagree.”
It was a stupid thing to say, but worth it. She chuckled ever so briefly. I knew I’d made the right choice by not telling her about Leon and what he said. This was already way too much for her. She didn’t need to worry about that, too, him having seen us both where we shouldn’t have been.
Maybe, just maybe, our brotherhood still meant enough to him that he wouldn’t rat me out.
“What they did was wrong, your family and mine,” I continued. “Our fathers suck, Carla is a monster, and Briola are a bunch of soulless demons that deserve to be slain.”
“What do you think they were doing to that girl?”
Her scream echoed through my mind again, her agony-marked face flashing before my eyes. A cold shiver ran down my spine. Shut up, shut up, shut up.