The Innocence Treatment

by Ari Goelman

  “The Department assigned you to follow me?”

  He hesitated, then nodded.

  “Why?”

  “I have no idea. I follow who they tell me to.” His eyes were wide and sincere behind his thick glasses, but I wasn’t sure he was telling the truth. His eyes are pretty distracting, too, honestly. They’re a deep blue the color of the summer sky ten minutes before full darkness. “Someone with a lot of pull must be interested in you.”

  “Shouldn’t you be better at keeping it secret?” I had a sudden urge to grab his glasses and throw them as far as I could.

  “Probably,” he said. “To be fair, you weren’t supposed to be like some super-perceptive girl who would see through my well-told lies. They told me you were … innocent.” His face went still when he said “innocent.” I couldn’t read it at all. It was the first time that had happened to me for days. Funny to think that I used to walk around and every face was like that.

  “Anyway,” he said quickly, like maybe he had let something slip that he shouldn’t have. “You wouldn’t have been on to me so fast if I hadn’t had the ridiculous idea that you might have needed help dealing with a guy twice your size.”

  “I appreciate that. But I still want to know why you’re following me.”

  “I’ll tell you if I find out.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Sure you will. Listen, you can’t let Evelyn know that you’re following me. She’s a little protective.”

  “Wait, are you telling me, a highly trained agent for the Department, to keep my mission secret?”

  “Well. You do seem to have a little problem with keeping things to yourself.”

  He laughed, seeming honestly amused. Then, glancing behind me, where a few other kids were walking home, he said, “I should get going or people will think you’re an informant. See ya.” He waved his hand and started walking.

  I walked after him, lost in thought. Why would a government agent care if other people thought I was an informant? And why would the Department be having me followed? Dr. Corbin, excuse me for asking, but did you ask the Department to have me followed? Why would you want me followed? If I come in for more tests this weekend will you tell me?

  Evelyn was waiting in front of our house when I got home. “What did you want to talk to him about?”

  “Oh nothing,” I said, smiling a little shyly. I obviously couldn’t let Evelyn know Sasha was following me. She’d lose her temper, confront him, and say something that would get her in trouble. “Just … Riley thinks he’s cute and I wanted to see if he was into her.”

  Some of the worry left Evelyn’s face and she just looked disgusted. “Are you serious? He’s an agent for the Department, for God’s sake. And anyway, what is Riley, twelve?”

  Weird to think that a couple weeks ago, I would have thought Evelyn was seriously asking me if Riley was twelve. Even now I had to fight back the temptation to answer her with No, she’s sixteen!

  Evelyn went on. “If she’s so curious, let her ask for herself.”

  “It’s not like she asked me to ask him. I just wanted to know.” I started walking up the stairs to our front door.

  “So. Was he interested?”

  I looked over my shoulder at her and pretended to be confused. “Are you asking me if Sasha ‘likes’ Riley? Aren’t you too mature to ask that kind of question?”

  Evelyn followed me. “Oh come on. What did he say?”

  “No, no. Don’t let me bring you down to my level. I’m sure you have more important things to worry about than … Hey! Stop!” Evelyn was tickling me under my armpits. “Stop it! Okay. Yes. He said if he wasn’t here on official business, he’d definitely be interested.”

  “Oh my God,” Evelyn said. “‘If he wasn’t here on official business’ … What a total prick. What a prick of a prick. Like he’s here on some noble mission instead of to narc on anyone he can. I support the Department’s mission, but I do find these tactics objectionable.”11

  I laughed, relieved that she wasn’t planning to do more than hate him.

  Walking up to my room, I put my hand in my sweater pocket and found a little slip of paper. It said: The tree house, tonight, 10:30—S.

  The crazy thing is—I’m totally going.

  Your slightly

  insane friend,

  Lauren

  CASE NOTES OF DR. FINLAY BRECHEL

  December 8, 2031

  Transcribed from interview:

  When did you start falsifying your journal to Dr. Corbin?

  Shoot. I don’t know. A few weeks after the operation. At first, it was just a little bit here, a little bit there. Mostly around things that Evelyn said or didn’t say. Editing any statements that might have given someone the impression that Evelyn was in any way opposed to the Department’s methods. Which, of course, would be totally wrong—Evelyn’s a big supporter of the Department. Like any right-thinking person. (laughs)

  Still, once I realized that anything I sent Dr. Corbin might well get back to the Department …

  I understand. You were worried about the close association between Paxeon and the Department.

  Ha. The “close association.” Nice one, Dr. Brechel. I don’t think they drugged me today, but I still think you’re pretty funny.

  And did you falsify more as time went on?

  Of course I did. The more aware I got that everyone was not my friend, the more I falsified. And once I guessed that the Department was having me followed on behalf of Dr. Corbin, well, shoot …

  Mind you, as of four days ago, you can find something pretty close to my honest journal entries online. I’m not suggesting they’d be the healthiest thing in the world for you to read, but then again, by now it’s probably too late for you to back out anyway. If you’re curious, just do an Internet search for “Lauren Fielding” or “the Innocence Treatment.”12

  You’ve mentioned this before, but just to be clear—you kept two versions of your journal?

  (laughs) It does sound kind of crazy when you put it like that, but who else was I going to talk to? I didn’t want to get anyone I trusted in trouble. (long pause) Speaking of which—is there any chance I could get a notebook and a pen? I’d like to start keeping a journal in here, too.

  I don’t see why not. Let me make a note. I’ll have them bring you a tablet—

  Not a tablet. Not a computer of any kind. Just a paper notebook and a pen, please. I don’t want anything with a network connection.

  Ah … It’ll have to be a blunt pencil, given your history of attacking orderlies. And of course, if you attack anyone—

  I think we can be pretty sure the next violent episode that I’m involved in will be decisively directed at me. Pencil or no pencil. What did you say today’s date was?

  December 8.

  I genuinely don’t get why I’m still alive. Even if I gave you my password now, even if they took my post down, it’s not like it would help them. Too many people would have seen it.

  Lauren. I promise you. That’s not why they hired me. No one has mentioned any secret passwords or online material that we have to take down. I know you’re good at telling when people are lying to you, so tell me. Am I lying?

  (long silence)

  You believe you’ve been hired to help me. That doesn’t make it true.

  JOURNAL OF LAUREN C. FIELDING

  Monday, October 27, 2031

  Hi Dr. Corbin,

  Nice seeing you this weekend!

  Okay. That’s a lie. Honestly, it sucked seeing you.

  You know why it sucked? Because you were lying to me. Not just with your words (“No, Lauren, I have no idea why the Department would have someone following you. Are you sure about that?…”), but with your expression, with that kindly little smile. It’s like a plastic Halloween mask. I don’t know how I missed it, even at the height of my naïveté. It freaks me out, honestly, how totally fake you are.

  You were happy to see me, that much was true. But you weren’t happy the way a normal person is
happy to see someone. More like … it reminded me of this show I saw a few years ago about people trying to catch a monarch butterfly during what everyone knew was the monarchs’ last migration before they went extinct. I remember the look on this one guy’s face when he caught his butterfly. You were happy like that.

  Anyway, I don’t think you have any doubt that your operation worked, so I don’t understand why you’re so eager to get me back into your lab. Do you mean to change me back to how I used to be? Is that it? I don’t get why you’d bother. In fact, I don’t get why you’d bother fixing me in the first place. I’ve done some research in the last few days and it makes no sense. As best I understand it, Paxeon is more or less the research brain of the Department. So why would you want to help me?

  I’m almost tempted to believe your explanation about how “a bit of paranoia is completely natural given your completely innocent state beforehand.” It is weird that pretty much everyone I know (except Evelyn) has turned out to be a liar. Even my father, for God’s sake. Maybe I’m not super-perceptive—maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Gabriella really does love the way my head looks all stubbly and studded with scars. Maybe you really do want to help me out of the goodness of your heart. And maybe the moon really is made of delicious green cheese. None of that seems too likely, though.

  I asked my father yesterday, when he was driving me home from your office, “Dad, how did you find Dr. Corbin in the first place?”

  If I was someone else I probably wouldn’t have noticed how my question startled him—he didn’t say anything and his face stayed perfectly still. But his knuckles whitened as he squeezed the steering wheel and his hands jerked right just a smidgen.

  “Actually, she contacted me,” he said. “I always hoped you could be a little more … independent, and she said she might be able to help you.”

  “Oh.” I watched the countryside go by for a little. It’s a nice drive out to Paxeon headquarters—it’s located due north from our house, so you don’t see all the burnt-out buildings that you get near the District, nor the gray military bunkers you get in Virginia. It’s mostly farms and forests and the occasional small town. “So Corbin contacted you out of the blue?”

  He hesitated. “Yeah.” I read the lie in half a dozen little things. He stopped glancing at me every few seconds, instead keeping his eyes trained on the highway, even though there was hardly anyone else on the road, and anyway, the car pretty much drives itself on the interstate. He started tapping the steering wheel with his right forefinger.

  I pressed him. “Didn’t it strike you as weird? That a Paxeon scientist would offer to help me? Don’t they mostly do work for the Department?”

  His forehead wrinkled. “Well,” he said reasonably, “Paxeon is a huge research institution. I think Dr. Corbin took an interest in your case for the pure science of it. Plus maybe as a way of giving back.”

  “So you never met Dr. Corbin before last year?”

  “No.” Lie number two. Which, okay, was pretty much the same as lie number one.

  “Dad … Please. Tell me the truth.”

  He shot me a quick glance. I’ve noticed this: Most people (not you, Dr. Corbin, but most people) don’t like lying. Not about important things.

  “Okay,” he said, abruptly relaxing. “Sorry. It just … It takes some getting used to. The new Lauren.”

  “You’re used to being able to lie to me.”

  He snorted a little. “Only to protect you, sweetheart. The truth can be uncomfortable.”

  “So make me uncomfortable.”

  “Your mother and I first met Dr. Corbin about eighteen years ago. Years before she started working for Paxeon. She actually helped your mother and I get pregnant with both you and Ev.”

  And this, finally, was the truth. Harder to believe than the lie.

  “What?” I said. “You needed help? But Dr. Corbin isn’t a … a fertility doctor.”

  “She’s a geneticist.” He fidgeted with the car’s audio console. “Dr. Corbin was doing some consulting with fertility clinics back then. She pioneered the DNA-manipulation techniques that allowed your mother and me to conceive. I think she always felt a little guilty that you came out”—he reached over and gently touched my scarred, crew-cut head—“a little different. So it wasn’t totally out of nowhere that she wanted to help.”

  “What? Why didn’t you tell me all this before?”

  He sighed. “When you’ve been keeping a secret for sixteen years, it’s hard to stop. We never wanted you to be any more self-conscious about being different than you already were.”

  “You didn’t even tell Ev?”

  He shook his head. “She had such a heavy load to carry anyway.”13

  By which he meant the heavy load of being my sister. Fair enough, I guess.

  His explanation for why you helped me would have made sense if I hadn’t just met with you and seen the way you were looking at me.

  I spent the rest of the ride home thinking of those old fairy tales where the witch or evil fairy or whoever helps someone, and then comes back years later to take their baby. Like Rapunzel, where the pregnant mother wants lettuce from the witch’s yard, and the witch gives it to her, but then—surprise! she tells her she’ll be back for the baby.

  Point is—I don’t think it was an accident how I came out. Were you trying something with Evelyn, too, and it didn’t work? Or was she the control and I the experiment? Is that why you messed me up? Just to see what would happen and then to see if you could fix me? Did you learn something useful at least?

  The real bitch of this is I can’t ask you these questions. I can’t even tell you I know you’re lying. The second you know I’m onto you, I’m pretty sure you’ll figure out a way to force me back to your facility. I have no idea why, but I could see it on your face this morning—there’s no way you’re letting me go.

  So I have to let you think that I’m still a naïve little girl, while I use whatever freedom I have left to figure out what’s going on. Along those lines, I’m going to delete this entry and write a whole new one to send to you.14 One with lots of exclamation marks!

  Your friend

  (but not really),

  Lauren

  JOURNAL OF LAUREN C. FIELDING

  Tuesday, October 28, 2031

  Hi Dr. Corbin!

  Nice to see you over the weekend. You asked me to think about this question: is it easier to tell when some people are lying than others? The answer is definitely yes.

  My old friends—Riley, Gabriella, and all the others—they’re totally easy to read. Like this morning, Riley came by my locker and gave me a big hug and said, “Lauren, you look so gorgeous today! Your hair is really starting to come back in!”

  Everything about her said she was lying. Her voice—a little higher pitched than usual. Her smile—bigger than her real smile. Even her eyes, staring just above my shoulders instead of looking at my face when she talked.

  I think she really was trying to be nice, so maybe it shouldn’t bother me. Thing is, Dr. Corbin, it does. I don’t like people lying to me, even if it’s just to be nice.

  Funny thing is, Sasha told me he liked my hair today, too, and I totally believed it when he said it. Sasha is much harder to read than Gabriella or Riley. Maybe it’s his glasses making it harder to see his expression, but he almost always seems sincere when he talks to me. I guess this might just mean he’s a better liar than anyone else I know. It should make hanging out with him more stressful. With Riley and Gabriella, at least I know where I stand. With Sasha, everything he says could be a lie.

  And yet. He’s super good company. We’ve started walking home together pretty much every day.

  Today I picked him up at his locker on my way out of school. “What’s with the scarf?” he said as we walked out the back door. It was a warm afternoon, almost summer-warm, but I had a big silk scarf wrapped around my head.

  “Spare people the sight of my bad hair day slash month,” I said. “Not to mention the sight of
me picking at my scabs.” (Which are still super-itchy, Dr. Corbin!)

  “I think your hair looks great,” he said casually.

  “Yeah? What about my scars? You like the way they look?”

  “On you? Sure. You want to see some ugly scars?” He lifted his shirt and showed me a scar going from under his belly button to just under his right nipple. It was raised and pink, about as wide as a finger, and looked like no doctor had even tried to stitch the skin together afterward.

  “What’s that from?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “The exciting life of an undercover agent.”

  That rang false. I don’t know where his scar came from, but I’m almost sure it had nothing to do with working for the Department.

  You want to know what’s funny? Catching Sasha in the occasional lie makes me trust him more. It gives me more faith that the rest of the time, when I think he’s being sincere, he really is.

  It’s hard to tell: am I actually getting good at telling the difference between truth and lies, or is it all just in my head? What do you think?

  Your friend,

  Lauren

  CASE NOTES OF DR. FINLAY BRECHEL

  December 9, 2031

  Transcribed from interview:

  Reading your entries, it sounds like you became good friends with Sasha Adams despite the fact that you believed he was a Departmental agent specifically assigned to spy on you.

  Yeah, well. Unlike everyone else, he didn’t miss the old me. The kind, stupid, pretty me.

  Interesting how you refer to the old you in the third person, as though you were a different person.

  C’mon, Dr. Brechel. Of course I was a different person. Corbin killed the old me as surely as if she lopped off her head.

  About Sasha Adams: is it fair to say you found him attractive?

  (laughter) It’s fair to say most inanimate objects would find Sasha attractive. Not just because he’s so good-looking—although he is very good-looking—but because he has that way of concentrating on you. Most guys, they look at you, and you sense them checking out your boobs or thinking about a movie they watched the day before or whatever. Maybe just zoning out and thinking about nothing at all. Sasha had this vibe, that when he looked at you, he really looked at you.