The Samantha Project

by Stephanie Karpinske

  “You’re just outside of Comfort. We live in the country. Not many houses out here. Just agricultural land. We’re in the basement now. We’ll take you upstairs later.”

  “Let me get you something to eat. Um, what should I call you since I don’t know your name?” Jack asked, getting up.

  “Ellie. That was my mom’s name.”

  Jack stopped. “Was your mom’s name?”

  “My parents are gone.” I paused, still finding it hard to say the words aloud. “They were killed. In a car accident.”

  “I see,” Jack said. “I’m so sorry to hear that. Was it recent?”

  “A couple months ago.”

  Jack and Erik gave each other a look. I tried to hear what Erik was thinking but couldn’t.

  “I would take a sandwich if you don’t mind,” I said, breaking the silence.

  “Of course. Coming right up.” Jack left for the kitchen.

  “Your dad seems nice.” I sat up, feeling back to normal.

  “He’s a good guy. And really smart. Not just book smart. He can figure stuff out. Like we pretty much sustain ourselves out here. Solar panels instead of electric. A well for water. He’s even rigged up a mini wind farm.”

  “Do you not get services living out here?”

  “We could, but why pay for what you can get for free from nature?”

  I didn’t buy it. I got a feeling that they lived that way to hide from something rather than for thriftiness or to help the environment.

  “But you have a TV and computer, right?” I pointed to the other room. “You’ve got some modern amenities?”

  “We don’t have cable or satellite, but we do have a TV that gets the free channels. We don’t watch much TV. Dad listens to the radio a lot. And the computers aren’t Internet connected. If we need Internet, there’s actually some free Wi-Fi hotspots in town.”

  Their avoidance of a modern lifestyle was starting to concern me. Nobody lived like that—well, nobody except crazy people trying to run from society. Maybe they were in a cult, I thought, and had captured me for some type of sick ritual. I looked around trying to figure out how I could get out of the place.

  “We’re not crazy. And we’re not doing any kind of rituals.” Erik smiled.

  “Stop doing that!” I had forgotten that he could hear my thoughts.

  “You know, you can block me from hearing them. I could show you how.”

  “How would you know how to do that? I thought I was the first person who could hear you?”

  “I told you. My dad knows stuff. A lot of stuff. This thought-reading thing we do? It’s all based on brain wave patterns. And you can control those. Here, try to read my thoughts right now.”

  I closed my eyes and imagined our minds connecting. After a few minutes, I still heard nothing.

  “So what did you get?” I looked up, but Erik wasn’t talking. He was thinking.

  “That. Just now. I heard you ask me that question.”

  “That’s because I let you hear that. So you didn’t hear all the other stuff I said?” he asked, knowing I didn’t. “See, it works. I can teach you that, although it will only work with me since nobody else can hear our thoughts.”

  “I still want to learn,” I said, annoyed that he could hear me but could block me from hearing him. “I would like to be able to have private thoughts.”

  Erik looked at me. “Hey, I won’t do it anymore. I can tune out your thoughts. I can teach you that, too.”

  Jack walked in with a pile of sandwiches and some chips. “I wasn’t sure what you wanted, so I made you one ham, one turkey, and one peanut butter. We’ll eat whatever you don’t want.”

  I was so hungry I could have eaten all three. “I’ll take the turkey.”

  Jack and Erik sat quietly while I ate. I could tell they were waiting for me to decide what to do next. Either I would talk or they would, and I wasn’t talking until I knew more.

  “I need to know why you brought me here. What’s the reason for all this?” I asked, looking at them both.

  Jack glanced over at Erik. They both seemed ready to talk, but Jack started. “It’s clear that you’re similar to Erik in some ways. By that I mean that you seem to have abilities that other people don’t have.”

  “Like the ability to hear my thoughts,” Erik jumped in. “And there were other things, too. Like at the diner, I felt like I knew you somehow. I could sense that you felt the same way, about knowing me. And I—I had a dream a few days ago about a girl that looked, well, similar to you.”

  I froze, wondering if Erik had experienced the same intimate dream that I had on the bus. I could feel my face blushing.

  Jack continued. “Given all that, we had to talk to you. And this isn’t the type of thing you can just bring up in conversation. When it seemed like you were going to run, we—”

  “You drugged me.” The words made me angry again.

  “Again, I’m sorry for how we went about this. But if you really are anything like Erik, with his abilities, then you’re in danger. You won’t survive out there on your own. You may be very strong and very smart, but it’s not enough.”

  “How do you know all this? How do you know I’m in danger?”

  “Because Erik used to be in danger. Back when I got him. If I hadn’t taken him, they would have, and he would either be dead or locked away somewhere.”

  Erik gave him a look to tone it down a bit.

  “I got Erik when he was a young boy. He had just had a procedure done on him that gave him his abilities. I was sure the procedure would kill him. But it didn’t, and that’s when I took him. I couldn’t imagine what they would’ve done.” Jack’s voice trailed off.

  “Dad, she doesn’t need to know.” Erik seemed uneasy about his past.

  “No, I do need to know. What procedure? What did they do? And who did it?” I had to know more. Erik’s story sounded eerily similar to mine.

  “It was a long time ago. It doesn’t matter now,” Erik said.

  “Of course it matters, Erik!” Jack stood up. “This girl could be part of the same program for all we know. This could all still be going on!”

  I wasn’t prepared for Jack’s sudden outburst. He was a big guy and quite muscular for a man his age. The labor required by his farm had kept him in good shape. When he stood up and raised his voice, it was intimidating.

  “Calm down, Dad. You don’t want to scare her off.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, now pacing the floor to calm himself. “But if this thing is still going on, we’ve got a real problem, Erik. And yes, I mean you and me, not just her.”

  The room was silent as we all thought about what to say next. I figured it was my turn to share.

  “A couple weeks ago, I was captured and held prisoner. By GlobalLife Genetics.” I said the words calmly and looked for a reaction.

  Erik and Jack both locked their eyes on me in shock and disbelief.

  “They did experiments on me,” I continued. “They did a procedure first. Turned on a switch. That’s what they called it. And then I started to get all these abilities.”

  It felt so good to say everything out loud. To not keep it a secret anymore. I still wasn’t sure if I could trust them, but I figured if Erik could read my thoughts, they would know everything sooner or later.

  “GlobalLife killed my parents. It wasn’t an accident. They killed them. To get to me.” Saying it brought tears to my eyes.

  Jack rushed over and put his arm around me while Erik sat, trying to absorb what he had just heard.

  “Ellie, I’m so sorry.” He held me closer and my tears kept pouring. I could tell by Jack’s tone that he wasn’t just sorry for what happened to my parents, but he was sorry for what had happened to me.

  Eventually I looked up to find Erik staring at the floor, his head down and fingers laced tightly together.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked Erik.

  He didn’t answer so Jack did. “We thought it was over. The whole project. We thought it
ended years ago. We assumed that they had given up on it. Erik thought he was safe. We both did.”

  “What project?”

  Jack paused, his eyes watching Erik. “The project that I used to work on. It’s how I got Erik. He spent his first five years in a lab. He was poked and prodded and studied night and day. It was no way for a child—or anyone—to live.” Jack seemed angry just talking about it.

  “Where did this happen? Who did this to him?”

  Erik suddenly looked up and spoke. “GlobalLife Genetics.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Trust

  “Okay, is this some type of sick joke?” I asked. “You’re telling me that you were also in a lab at GlobalLife? In Minnesota?”

  “No,” Jack said. “They have labs all over the world. This one was in California. I used to head up the research division there. I was working on a theory that genes could be manipulated using software and a microscopic computer inserted into cells. It was based on some research I did as a graduate student at MIT. Soon after graduation, I was hired by GlobalLife.”

  That sounds like Dave’s research, I thought. And MIT? That’s where Dave went. And Jack seemed to be around Dave’s age. “You wouldn’t know a guy named Dave Osterman, would you?”

  “Of course I know Dave. He and I were on the same research team at MIT. Wait. How do you know him?”

  “Dave is kind of like my adopted uncle. I’ve known him my whole life.”

  Jack’s mind seemed to be putting the pieces together. “Dave and I started at GlobalLife around the same time. But he went to some college town in Minnesota. I haven’t talked to him for years. Well, since I took Erik.”

  It finally made sense why Dave had sent me to Texas. He wanted me to find Jack. He knew Jack would help me. “Um, I don’t know if this is a bad thing, but Dave told me to come down here. Right before I escaped from GlobalLife.”

  Jack looked worried. “That’s not possible. There’s no way he could know where I went. Erik and I have lived off the grid for years. Unless . . .”

  “Unless what?” Erik asked.

  “Well, back when we were grad students, I told Dave that someday I would like to retire in this part of the country. Texas hill country. I told him about coming here as a kid and how it felt like I was in a western movie. Thought it would be a nice place to settle down someday. But that was so long ago. I can’t believe he’d even remember that.”

  “He was desperate to tell me where to go. I’m sure he didn’t know for sure that you would be here,” I said, trying to calm them down. “And he didn’t even say where in Texas. I only came here because I had a feeling—like something was drawing me here.”

  “We have to leave here,” Jack said to Erik. “We need to start packing up all of the equipment.”

  “Hold on,” Erik said. “If GlobalLife knew about us, why haven’t they come here? Why aren’t they here now?”

  Jack stopped. “Ellie, when we got you, we couldn’t detect any tracking device on you. Did you deactivate it somehow? Or did Dave?”

  “My necklace,” I said, holding up the silver chain. “Dave gave this to me. It scrambles any GPS tracking so they can’t find me.”

  “That’s it? You’re relying on a necklace?” Jack asked anxiously. “You could lose it! It could fall off! How could I be so careless even taking you here? Erik, we’ve got to deactivate her internal tracker. Now! We can’t wait.”

  Erik sensed my confusion. “Ellie, what my dad is saying is that GlobalLife inserted a tracking device into your cells so that they would never lose track of you. I had the same thing when I was younger. But it can be turned off. My dad knows how.”

  Jack explained. “It’s a simple thing. We’ll give you something to relax, then I’ll make a small incision and it’s done. Nothing to it.”

  “No. Absolutely not. No more procedures.” I got up and walked out of the room.

  Erik followed. “I know it sounds scary, but you can trust my dad. I mean, come on, we just told you stuff we haven’t told anyone. Ever. We want to help you. But this can’t be one-way. You can’t put him and me in danger by leaving a trail that leads them right to us.”

  I thought about Jack’s story. I wondered if he really did know Dave. I wanted to trust him, but after what I’d been through, I couldn’t be too safe. I went back to the bedroom and stood right in front of Jack.

  “Tell me what you know about Dave. Every detail.”

  Jack look surprised but played along. “Okay. Well, it’s been a long time. Back in school he was quite the prankster. And a lady’s man. He was also very ambitious. Said he would start his own genetics lab, which he did. He was a genius in computer code. I was jealous at how good he was. I think he could write code before he could speak. It came naturally to him. Let’s see, what else. We both loved sci-fi movies. We’d spend hours trying to figure out how time travel would work or how life would look on other planets.”

  “Not enough,” I said. “I need details. Details only Dave would know.”

  Jack started telling me about the pranks Dave used to pull back in grad school. They were the same stories I’d heard Dave tell at Sunday dinners. Then he talked about the one serious girlfriend Dave had and how they broke up because he picked starting a business over having a wife. I remembered Dave saying it was one of his biggest regrets.

  “So when did you lose track of Dave?” I asked.

  “We talked less and less after he moved to Minnesota. Right after he sold his business to GlobalLife, I started learning the real story behind what was going on at the GlobalLife lab that I worked at in California. I wish I’d found out sooner. I would have stopped Dave from selling his company. But I didn’t know what was really going on until I found out what they had done to Erik. After they did the procedure, or ‘turned the switch’ as you said, they had all sorts of experiments planned for him. That’s when we ran. After that, I never talked to Dave again.”

  Jack’s stories convinced me that he knew Dave. “Okay, you can disable it. The tracking device.”

  Erik took me to the other downstairs bedroom. Inside was a sophisticated matrix of high-tech screens and computers. Some of the screens had shots of the outside, which I assumed was their security system. Other screens were linked to the various computers. One side of the room had a table, like an operating table. There was a locked cabinet filled with vials, pills, and basic medical supplies.

  “Uhh, this is a little too freaky for me. I think I’m changing my mind.” I started to back out of the room.

  “When you live off the grid, you have to do your own medical care,” Jack said as he started preparing the area. “Otherwise, you end up with medical records. And the medical records of someone like Erik would draw attention.”

  “But you’re not a doctor. You’re not trained,” I said as I watched Jack getting bottles and a strange-looking needle from the cabinet.

  “I taught myself medicine, Ellie. I’m not a brain surgeon, but I know a lot. And I’ve done this procedure on Erik.” Erik pulled up the sleeve on his t-shirt to show a small scar on the inside of his arm.

  “It was a long time ago, but don’t worry,” Erik assured me. “He’s done other stuff since then. He’s hurt himself many times working on the farm and he’s even stitched himself up.”

  I reluctantly walked over to the table. Jack had sterilized it with some solution that made the air smell like a hospital. Jack pulled out a men’s white t-shirt and tossed it to me. “You can put this on. We need your arm bare.” Both men turned around while I quickly changed shirts.

  I lay down on the table. My hands were shaking, so Erik took my right hand in his while Jack prepared my other arm, cleaning it with another smelly solution. “Now I can numb this area, or I can give you something to knock you out if you think you need that.”

  I looked to Erik for advice. “I can’t remember much of it, but I don’t remember it hurting at all. And I was just a kid. I would go for the numbing.” Erik held my hand tighter
and moved in closer to me. “Just talk to me and keep looking this way. And before you know it, you’ll be done. I think we have some suckers upstairs,” he said, smiling at me.

  I rolled my eyes at him, then looked at Jack. “All right, just numb it. Let’s get this over with.”

  The procedure took about a half hour. I didn’t feel a thing. Erik talked to me about music, listing bands he liked that I’d never heard of. Hearing his voice and having his hand around mine relaxed me. I almost didn’t want it to end.

  After the procedure, Jack ran some tests to look for any other tracking devices. He couldn’t find anything. I was free to take off the necklace, but I couldn’t do it. It was my only link to Dave. I prayed that he was alive and safe and that GlobalLife had not assumed he had had any role in my escape. But I knew that he would get at least some of the blame. And for that he would be punished. I couldn’t imagine they would kill him though; He was too smart. They needed him.

  Jack and Erik took me upstairs later and showed me the rest of the house. It looked just like a regular house. Nobody would ever guess that there was a fairly high-tech lab hidden in the basement.

  We had dinner and I told them even more about what had happened at GlobalLife. Jack said that the experiments they ran on me were much more complex than the ones they had done on Erik years ago. Then Erik talked about how he’d learned to use his abilities by trial and error over the years. And how I would now have to do the same. What I learned at GlobalLife was just a small part of what I was capable of.

  “We have a lot to talk about, but it’s late and I need to get some sleep,” Jack said, getting up from the table. “Erik, you get her what she needs, will you? Towels, blankets. There’s clean ones downstairs.”

  Erik nodded. “Yeah, I know.”

  “Goodnight, Jack,” I said as he left.

  “Wanna go sit on the porch?” Erik asked, getting up to put our dishes in the sink. “It’s a warm night. And you can see the fireflies in the field. It’s really cool the way they light it up.”