A Girl From Forever (The Forever Institute series Book 1)

by Yolanda McCarthy

  “Fern?” Rehan whispers.

  “Yes?”

  I hear him get up, and there’s a slow sliding screech as he drags his bunk across the concrete, nearer to me. Then his sleeping bag rustles as he climbs back in.

  I jump when his hand reaches for mine – we’re only an arm’s length apart. I let him hold my hand between his. He’s warm.

  “I don’t want the stupid serum,” he says.

  “Ok.”

  “Do you?”

  “What?”

  “Because I would understand, if you do. And I’m going to do my best to make sure that after tomorrow, there won’t be any. So if you want some…”

  I picture myself sipping from a bottle that’ll teach my cells how to renew, over and over again. Picture myself never changing, while everyone I know ages normally, and dies. Could I love anyone, find happiness, have children, knowing that I would lose them all? Could I love anyone if I was that different?

  Could anyone love me?

  I was brought up knowing that I was different from everyone outside. Then, these last couple of years, I’ve been different from everyone inside. I finally have a chance to be normal. I’m supposed to be Vol but I’m obviously not, I’ve no talent, and even if I was, there are other Vol around. One day there might be many more.

  I won’t greet them tainted by Forever. I won’t be Forever.

  “No,” I whisper.

  He doesn’t speak again, and I’m not even sure if he’s heard me. But something about his question was soothing, and sleep suddenly takes me as I lie there, my hand resting in his, his thumb curling over mine, my other hand still clasping my mother’s pink scarf.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I’m woken by the sound of gunfire. Rehan and I are lying on our sides, bunks touching, hands almost together. Our eyes snap open at the same time.

  We stare into each other for a second, then he’s up, yanking on boots and coat.

  He spins towards his rifle, across the room with the rest of his kit, where his bunk used to be. I’m crucial moments behind him, still tangled in my sleeping bag as the door slams open.

  We freeze, staring at the gun, at the man behind it.

  Ammo bulges from black webbing at his waist. He’s wearing black uniform with a silver F over his heart. Forever security. His finger hovers on the trigger, the gun pointing at me.

  Absently, words drift into my brain. Words like cyclic rate of fire, seven hundred rounds per minute, effective rate, probably fifteen rounds per minute.

  Nothing useful. I just stare.

  The man assesses us. Looks at me, half out of bed, and Rehan, half in and half out of his coat, gun still too far away. No threat, but the gun swings away from me to point at Rehan.

  We’re helpless. So…

  “I’m so relieved that you’re here!” I try to gush as I climb out of my bunk. I sound about seven years old. I move in between them, bumping into Rehan as he tries to move in front of me.

  Forever won’t hurt me, not outside of a lab. I hope.

  “Can you get me home?” I gently shove Rehan towards the window. He pushes back. I sniff theatrically.

  “I’ve got Fern, plus one,” the man says quietly into his collar, the gun dipping slightly. “She’s asking to go back to the Institute.” He listens, and the gun begins to rise again, and it’s all I can do not to stare into the small black circle that could end everything.

  The man’s surprised I want to go back. What are his orders? What do Forever want?

  “I’ve got a talent!” I babble, “I’m so confused, I can hear all these things, from far away, some near…” I twitch, as if shaking away a sound. “Do you know anything about clairaudience?”

  The slight wrinkle between his eyebrows is the only indication that he’s heard me. “She says she’s clairaudient,” he tells his collar.

  He listens, and his shoulders relax slightly, and I know I’ve said the right thing, made Forever curious about the results of their experiment. Before anything else, they’re scientists.

  “Please walk to me, miss.”

  So I do, stepping in his line of fire. The man shifts to the side, trying to keep the gun trained on Rehan, but he has to be worrying about ricochet in this too small concrete room. I am.

  I long to grab his gun, but that’d probably get us all killed.

  I let my eyes widen. “You’re not going to shoot this guy? KHH stuck him here, I don’t know why.” I pause, step back, like he’s scared me.

  The man is confused and frustrated. He’s just told Forever that he’s bringing me in, he doesn’t want to look like an idiot.

  Behind me, I can feel Rehan burning to rush for the gun, to settle this man to man, to not be sheltered behind me again. I have to get him out of here before he does something manly and stupid.

  I reach out, grab the man’s arm imploringly. His gun arm. “I don’t want anyone to get hurt for me,” I wail. “Please just get me out of here!” I bury my face in his jacket. He smells of cigarettes and petrol, and the jacket is rough on my face, his ammo pressed into my hip.

  A moment passes. Is the man looking at the bunks, pushed close to each other? Weighing up the hassle of a reluctant prisoner versus a willing one? He can’t know who Rehan is, or what his boss will say if I have to be carried out screaming – especially now he’s told them I want to go back.

  In the end, the man jerks his head. “Get out.”

  A moment passes. Rehan wants his gun, but he’s not stupid. I hear the window click, and know that he’s gone.

  After that, things happen very quickly. I’m led back through the warehouse, the man’s hand supportive but tight on my elbow as I pretend not to notice the dark stains on the corridor floors, the hastily closed doors as we walk down the hall. He leads me outside, where dozens of ‘security’ mill around in the early morning light. I see them for what they are, have always been – Forever’s private army.

  No-one speaks as my rescuer-captor leads me to a sleek black car, and stows me in the back seat. Even the engine is quiet as the car pulls away.

  At the end of the street I hear early morning traffic, drawing me back to the real world just as I’m about to leave it behind.

  I look back once, before we round the corner.

  I don’t see a single member of KHH.

  I see a lorry, half loaded, the driver’s door riddled with bullet holes. And I see Forever’s guards watching my car, waiting for me to leave.

  I’m grateful I don’t see more.

  By the time we approach Forever’s gates, I’ve had plenty of time to think of my story. I’ll say that I started hearing things right after KHH kidnapped me. How can they check? My classmate Mark described fragments of conversation mixed with background noise. I imagine it until I can almost hear the screech of car tyres and desert winds in my skull.

  I try not to think of words like dissection or termination.

  I try not to think about the future.

  We’re so close now that I can see the silver F on the gates as they slide open, and despite everything, this feels like home. I want to see my friends so bad it hurts.

  But more than that, I want to see Anna. Rehan. Anna.

  I’m led through the familiar white walls, the outside world retreating behind grey blinds. This place is just the same, but everything looks different, because I don’t belong here anymore.

  I expect them to take me to my classmates, but instead I’m led to an empty room, just two chairs facing each other, a table in between.

  I sit, trying to remember everything I’ve ever noticed about Mark when he’s using his talent. Should my eyes be wider, should I twitch? I try, but I’m not sure I can pull that off, so instead I stare into the distance, angle my head like I’m listening to something far away, and shake my head in confusion occasionally.

  Time passes. Maybe thirty minutes, perhaps fifty. I assume that they’re filming me. A young man walks in, carrying a jug of water and a glass. The water sploshing into t
he glass is improbably loud as he pours. Is he here to interview me? I stare into the distance, try to remember what Mark looked like, anything that’ll help me fake it.

  He leaves without speaking, the door clicking closed quietly behind him. I don’t check to see if it’s locked, I know that it is.

  I sip the water.

  John walks in.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  This is socially awkward – John has lectured me every week for my whole life, watched me grow up on camera, but we’ve never met in person, and there’s more lies between us than truth. He seems younger, more excitable, face to face. Less like a scientist.

  John flashes me a grin as he squeaks back a chair and sits at my table, white coat flapping around him. He looks like a student dressed up as a doctor, not a legendary inventor of a serum that can renew cells over and over again, forever.

  “I’m so excited to meet you properly at last, I want you to know that. Really I am.” His voice isn’t soft, like it was on the videos. “I’ve always wanted to meet one of you.”

  “Why didn’t you?” I ask.

  “Put myself in the same room as psychics?” He snorts. “I don’t think so. Your teachers took beta blockers every day, to counter any talent intrusion, but that’s… Not really my thing.”

  “I’ve got a talent now – I’m clairaudient. Like Mark.” It’s a struggle to keep my voice even.

  He smiles gently as he shakes his head at me. “We both know that’s not true.”

  “It is! I can’t control it, but I’m sure that with time—”

  “That young man who was in here earlier? Telepath, our best. I’m afraid he didn’t sense any talent on you at all.”

  No, no no. I’m still useless to Forever, but now he knows I’m lying to him, that my loyalty has been compromised. More importantly…

  Who was that ’path? There shouldn’t be any more telepaths in the Institute, just my classmates. I scrabble for another ruse, but all I can think is the word termination. I feel cold, then hot, as my body starts screaming at me to do something. Anything. But all I can do is sit.

  “So there’s no need for you to pretend anymore. Which is wonderful! Because we’re finally able to have a proper conversation. You have no idea how much I’ve longed to be frank with one of you.” He whips out a remote control and the ceiling camera droops with a forlorn beep, turning off. “Nice to be private, don’t you think? We can say what we like – both of us. Cards on the table, as they say.”

  If Fern still fails to manifest during that exercise, termination is recommended…

  “I don’t have any cards.” My voice is husky.

  “No, I suppose not. But I need to explain.”

  Analysis of Fern’s cerebrum is obviously recommended in the hope that there may be some physical explanation for her flaw…

  My tongue is dry, sticking to the roof of my mouth.

  “This is a unique opportunity for the program,” he continues, “but you need to know what’s going on, to give valid feedback. So. You already know that you’re not like the others, it’s your very lack of talent that makes you special, don’t you see? You have all of the genetic code which should carry talent, but you’re as dead-headed as me. We have tried – you have no idea how we’ve tried – to bring out talent in the Institute staff, in me…

  “But, no matter how active we make the relevant genes, we can only bestow talent on those we inject in utero. Which is why we needed your mothers, of course, and so began the whole family saga aspect which we would have preferred to avoid. But… You!” He spreads open his hands, as if in admiration. “If we can work out what’s gone wrong in your brain, we’ll know what to change in ours.” He beams at me.

  “You want psychic immortals? Why don’t you just give the serum to Vol children, instead of killing them?”

  “Oh no, that doesn’t work at all. If an untreated – shall we say, ‘normal’ person drinks the serum, ageing halts for a year.” Only a year? That’s not what the press release said. “They need an annual booster. Take those forever, and you’re renewed again and again, effectively immortal. Hence the name. People think it’s about living forever, but actually the name was chosen because the obligation lasts forever… I digress.”

  He leans forward earnestly. “A side effect, we discovered, occurs if a pregnant woman drinks the serum. As expected, her aging halts for a year, but also, the baby develops some kind of psychic talent shortly after puberty!” He taps his pen against the table, musing. “Until then, the child develops normally, and even after talent appears, there’s no impact on its ability to age. Very odd, and a fascinating insight into the link between aging, cell renewal and the latent ability in all humans – well, embryos anyway – to develop psychic talent. Even more oddly, if the psychic child is exposed as an adult to the serum, their talent fades away and yet aging stops – permanently.” He drums his fingers on the table. “No need for boosters.”

  I grope for something to say, anything to buy time. “So you can create talents if you inject an unborn baby, and you can swap that talent for immortality when they’re grown up. No forever obligation. They’re free. But you can’t create psychic immortals, or give yourselves talent. And you can’t make yourselves live forever without having boosters every year.”

  John nods, and the eyes that look at me are those of a jealous man. “We’re trying, of course we’re trying, so you see where we got our little batch of ‘Vol.’ Think of yourselves as a side-effect to the most significant experiment in the history of Mankind, a stepping stone. Perhaps one day there will indeed be psychic immortals, as we told you that you were. But we’re not there yet.”

  “You gave my mother the serum. But she’s – not immortal?” I picture Anna’s face, so like my own. She must have had you really young, Rehan said. Yet she hasn’t had any boosters, she’s been hidden away in the lake district, scared to go out.

  “Not unless she’d already has serum as an embryo, or her ancestors had!” chuckles John. “She got an extra year of life, that she doesn’t even know about – quite the bargain. Then, not receiving boosters after that year, she began to age again.”

  Did she, though?

  Keep him talking. “What about the Vol? They have talent.”

  John’s eyes twinkle. “Well, you don’t need to know all that to give feedback on your experiences, do you?”

  If talent was made by serum…

  “Are they side effects, too?”

  He gives me a little smile, like a parent encouraging a particularly stupid child.

  “And this all started how? The Institute just wondered what would happen if it messed with foetuses’ genes?”

  “Oh, the Institute came long after,” John says airily. “Initially, in Germany, the program was simply to make the serum. They knew that it was possible, it had been done before. It was the forties, a terrible time for humanity but an incredible time for science. Since then, Forever has been trying to eliminate the need for boosters, studying the serum’s effect on foetal development. The serum alters the genes in utero, so why doesn’t it halt aging? Fascinating. We didn’t know then, what would happen to those children at puberty. Quite by accident, we’d created psychics. And,” a grimace, “we didn’t find out what we’d done for decades, by which time the original subjects had dispersed.”

  I shake my head. I was taught that Vol evolved, a random genetic mistake, but… “You’re telling me that there are no Vol. Just children you experimented on in the womb. Who all developed talent.”

  “Except for you.” John shrugs. “Third generation children usually get it when they’re a touch older – things do get complicated if a subject is allowed to breed. That’s how we found out what was happening, you see. It’s truly fascinating, the way the serum works, the multiplication effect. But no-one else has failed to develop any talent at all.”

  “Maybe I was exposed to the serum again? Has my aging stopped?” I don’t know what I want his answer to be.


  “Hardly! We keep very careful records of every dose, as you’d expect.”

  Our weapons instructor last year was very flirty with me, could he have dosed me, as an intended kindness? I’m not going to get time to find out, but there is one thing I want to get clear. “The Vol murders – you’re hunting down those who escaped the earlier experiments. Their children.” I meant it as a question, but it’s not one, not really.

  “That’s a dramatic way of looking at it. I hate what we have to do, we all do. No-one wants to hurt children. But for those dosed in utero, the genetic changes are permanent and they breed true. We can’t allow an accidental side effect of our experiment to ripple through the gene pool, that would be incredibly irresponsible. Who knows what the impact would be.”

  “The impact would be that one day everyone would be talented – except those born before it spread through the gene pool. Forever’s immortals would end up the only non-psychics in a world of talent. The least powerful, instead of the most.”

  “That’s quite enough context.” He whips out a notebook and flaps over a page. “We need your feedback, it’s your opportunity to make a real contribution to the program despite your lack of talent. Tell me what was it like, being raised here. Were there any cracks in our story?”

  My head’s spinning with all the new information. There are no Vol. Just children descended from some horrible wartime experiment in Germany. Rehan’s grandmother? Great-grandmother? I’ll never get the opportunity to ask him. I answer automatically. “No. You were very convincing.”

  The only sound in the room is his pen, moving against the paper. When he stops writing, stops finding me interesting, that’s the end. So I keep talking. “I didn’t find anything strange. I wanted to go outside the Institute grounds, we all did, but we thought you’d take us when we turned eighteen, like you said. And we hated the Vol.”

  “Wonderful. And – speaking objectively, of course, not for you personally – did we get the balance right between the “Forever’s new dawn of humanity versus Vol” cover story, and preparing you to function during missions in the real world outside? For example, were the movies you were exposed to an adequate cultural insight? What was a surprise outside?”