“Yes, it’s safer,” Dr. Parker answered.
“How?” I interrupted. “If there are so many people trying to destroy you and your work then I’d think this is the safest place to be. We’re surrounded by heavy artillery.”
“The last traitors came from inside, Drake,” Dr. Parker explained. “They could be here, too.”
“Oh,” I said as if that made everything clear even though living in the civilian world still seemed far more dangerous.
“Well,” Colonel Faber deflected, “we’ll get you to Lake Charles safely. No offense, Dr. Parker, but it’s an odd choice of location to build a new facility. Why not San Diego so you’re at least close to a SEAL naval base?”
“Because they’ll be looking for us there,” Dr. Parker replied. “That’s an obvious choice. Nobody would ever think to look for us here.” Dr. Parker even gestured toward the window like here was such a ludicrous destination.
Other than terribly hot and humid, I didn’t think it looked like such a bad place but we were surrounded by pine trees and bumps along the highway that might pass for hills. The farther south we drove, the flatter the land became, and soon, Highway 171 spilled us onto Interstate 10. Our caravan had diminished to a single Humvee that carried the driver and one other soldier in the passenger seat, and the colonel, Dr. Drake, and me in the back. I seemed to be the only one interested in everything we passed as the driver pulled off the interstate and drove toward the lake.
The colonel motioned toward it and told Dr. Parker, “I suppose if you ever want to test its…” He paused and his eyes flickered to me then back to Dr. Parker. “His immunity to both pathogens and toxins, you could throw him in that water.”
“I won’t be throwing him anywhere,” Dr. Parker responded curtly.
“Yes, Sir,” the colonel said.
“Sir…” I repeated quietly. I studied the doctor sitting next to me and his apparent hold over the armed forces gradually became the one thing that I understood since waking up over a week ago. “You’re military, aren’t you?”
Dr. Parker pulled off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Retired. Mostly.”
“How can you be mostly retired?” I asked.
“He asks a lot of questions for a robot,” the colonel interjected.
“He’s not a robot,” Dr. Parker snapped. “And Drake, you’re quite young. It’s natural for the world to confuse you.” He reached across me and pointed to a building near the lake. “This is where our new Project will be headquartered.”
“It looks like a parking garage,” I observed smartly.
“It is a parking garage,” he said. “For now. The riverboat that used to be docked here was badly damaged by Hurricane Rita and never re-opened. We’ve got a massive concrete structure though that will provide a virtual vault once we’re finished. No one will be breaking into this one.”
It just looked like an empty garage to me so I decided to state the obvious again. “It’s going to take a long time to turn that into a state-of-the-art laboratory.”
“I’m seventy-one now, Drake,” Dr. Parker said. “This isn’t going to be my lab. I’ve been training protégés for years. It’ll be ready in time for them.”
“A Regenesis Project,” I murmured.
“Hm,” Dr. Parker murmured back. “Not bad.”
I didn’t bother telling him that my name for his Project filled me with horror, not pride or even the curiosity he likely suspected.
“What will you do then since this one won’t be finished in your lifetime?” I asked.
“We have a temporary lab,” he explained. “We’re being very selective about whom we trust to work with us this time, including military personnel. After all, Cade Daniels was a decorated SEAL.”
“And the woman?”
Dr. Parker waved a dismissive hand at me. “His girlfriend. We believe she convinced him to turn on us.”
My eyes wandered to the murky lake, and I pretended to be interested in my new surroundings but really, I was just trying to hide my sudden, inexplicable jealousy.
“Drake,” Dr. Parker said, touching my arm.
I jumped and looked away from the scenery flashing outside my window.
“I asked if you’re hungry,” he said. “We can stop before going to the rent house.”
“Oh,” I breathed, trying to calm my racing heart. I seemed half-convinced Dr. Parker was secretly psychic or could just tap a few keys on his keyboard and pry open every thought I ever had. And then he’d know I’d been recalling every detail of that woman’s picture.
He’d told me he didn’t know her name, but I found that impossible to believe. He obviously didn’t want me to know this information so I had nothing to call her even though I pulled up her image in my mind all the time.
Dr. Parker sighed irritably. I still hadn’t answered him. “Sure. I read the tourism book you gave me on the flight over here. Let’s try something local.”
He smiled approvingly and asked the colonel to bring us to a good Cajun restaurant. The colonel snorted and said, “Doctor, ‘round here, that’s just a restaurant. Usually, if it’s a seafood place, you can find whatever you’re looking for.”
So he brought us to a café in downtown Lake Charles where a young waitress with strawberry blonde hair kept smiling at me and leaning over the table to point out different items on the menu. That seemed to irritate Dr. Parker, but if anyone had a right to be annoyed, I thought it was me. I finally ordered the crab cakes and gumbo just to make her leave.
Dr. Parker sipped on his water and squinted at her back as she headed toward the kitchen.
“Unfortunately, there are certain variables I should have put more thought into,” he mumbled.
“Want to trade orders?” I offered.
He chuckled and shook his head. “I didn’t mean our lunch, Drake. I’m talking about you.”
“Me?” What had I done—or not done—now?
Dr. Parker nodded. “I put no thought into your physical appearance. Nuisances like this girl wouldn’t be a problem if I’d not left it up to chance.”
I blinked at him because, as usual, he only confused the hell out of me.
“I think,” Colonel Fabre interjected, “he’s trying to say he should have made you unattractive.”
“What difference does it make if I’m not interested in her?” I retorted, realizing too late I’d asked the wrong question. I should have asked, “What difference does it make?”
Dr. Parker waved a hand at me again. God, he could be so annoying. “Doesn’t matter. And we shouldn’t discuss these things in public even when no one else is around.”
I nodded but only because it felt like the right thing to do, and I lived perpetually conflicted between resenting this man’s control over me and wanting to please him.
“I don’t know, Sir,” Colonel Fabre said. “You’ve gotta let the boy get laid sometime.”
I grimaced and both men laughed.
“He’ll be fine,” Dr. Parker responded. “Won’t you, Drake?”
I nodded again even though I was still only placating him. How should I know if sex would ever be an experience I wanted? This girl was pretty, but my reaction had little to do with her. I was still completely intoxicated by the nameless woman’s picture. And I found myself thinking it might be something I wanted to experience with her, even though she apparently wanted to kill me.
The waitress returned with our food and the older men sitting across from me lapsed into mundane political talk. I didn’t know most of the names they tossed around so I largely ignored them and focused on eating, although I found myself wanting ketchup for the crab cakes. I finished eating first so I excused myself to go to the restroom.
As I searched the walls for the familiar symbols, someone tapped my arm. I jerked away and spun around, not overly surprised to see the young waitress standing behind me.
She grinned and apologized. “Sorry. I just wanted to give you this.”
She handed me the restauran
t’s business card. “Um… thanks?”
“Flip it over,” she laughed.
I flipped it over in my palm and looked stupidly at the ten digits and name written on the back.
“Stacy, I, uh…”
“You know, if you’re stationed at Ft. Polk, it’s not that far,” she said.
I bit my lip and decided I didn’t like Dr. Parker implying I had no business with women. He’d given me a body like any other man’s. If he’d wanted a goddamn robot, he should have built one. “No. That colonel is just… a friend.”
“Then maybe you can call me sometime?” she asked, and I heard the hope in her voice. I glanced back toward the dining room where Dr. Parker was most likely still eating, but if I didn’t return soon, he’d come looking for me.
I smiled back at her and put the card in my pocket. “Yeah. I just moved here.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed and touched my arm again. I didn’t jerk away from her this time, but I wasn’t sure I liked it either. “I’m off this weekend. I can show you around.”
From what I’d already seen of this city, I didn’t think there was much else she could show me but I noticed Colonel Fabre pushing his plate away. I had to get back before Dr. Parker found out I’d been talking to this girl he’d called a nuisance. “Thanks. I’d appreciate that.”
Colonel Fabre and Dr. Parker both stood up so I decided to skip the restroom and return to the table. Even though it was only in my imagination, I was convinced I could feel that business card with Stacy’s phone number on it in my back pocket. That meant Dr. Parker would notice it, too.
And what if I told him about it? What if I admitted I didn’t think it was such a bad thing to have friends or even a girlfriend if I decided I wanted one?
“Ready to move on?” the colonel asked.
I nodded and tried not to glance in Stacy’s direction as we left the restaurant.
Colonel Fabre brought us to a peaceful, wealthy neighborhood where his Army vehicle looked hopelessly out of place. It filled the narrow streets so that passing cars had to pull over just to let us by. If Dr. Parker’s intentions had been to remain hidden away from those who wanted me dead, this entire trip had already proven to be a disastrous failure.
We arrived at a house that Dr. Parker had rented near the lake. I had little luggage, only a few changes of clothing he’d given me at the hospital in Mogadishu. He and Colonel Fabre exchanged a few more farewell greetings as I took in my new home. Admittedly, it was far nicer than the hospital. I opened the refrigerator. Not surprisingly, it was empty.
“Hungry again?” Dr. Parker asked. He sounded amused.
I pointed to the empty shelves on the door and told him, “We need ketchup.”
Dr. Parker snickered. “And coffee. Two bachelors like ourselves… perhaps we’re in trouble, Drake.”
I smiled and closed the refrigerator door. “Were you never married?”
“I was. I’ve been divorced for almost twenty years though. Classic case of my job being my mistress.”
“Would you do things differently if you could?”
Dr. Parker sighed and took off his glasses so he could rub his eyes. We were both jetlagged, but at his age, I imagined all of this traveling and adjusting to different time zones had a far bigger effect on him. “I don’t know. I did succeed. But I also had to pay a high price for that success.”
That business card still taunted me, and I licked my lips nervously as I summoned the courage to just ask him. “And what if I wanted to have friends here?”
He put his glasses back on and studied me for a few seconds before sighing again. “Is this about the girl from the restaurant?”
“Yeah,” I admitted. “Why is it so terrible if I go out with her?”
Dr. Parker narrowed his eyes and didn’t answer me right away. I felt small droplets of sweat forming around my hairline and wished I’d just kept my mouth shut. “Because of what you are, Drake. And the risk that comes with other people finding out.”
“People would only find out if I told them, and I’d never do that,” I argued.
“What is it you’re looking for? Friendship? Sex?”
I shrugged because I didn’t know. I’d never even considered friends or sexual partners until he’d implied I couldn’t have either.
“Drake, you have to understand how important you are, how irreplaceable. I’m not trying to punish you. I’m trying to protect you.”
“From a young woman who just wants to show me around the city?”
“From everyone,” he answered. “You can’t trust anyone except for me, Drake. And when I’m gone, you’ll need to be extra vigilant. People will want to destroy you because of what you represent.”
I lowered my eyes, my will far too weak to challenge him. “And what do I represent?”
“Everything we humans could never be. Some people will resent you because you’re better than them. Others will want to control you for purposes I never intended. And that’s why you should keep your distance from regular people, Drake. I made the mistake of trusting the Navy to protect you when the DOD asked me to program you for the SEALs and then one of them tried to kill us. I won’t make that mistake again.”
“Ok,” I agreed, but I wouldn’t look at him. The future he’d painted for me was even worse than my present existence as a freak, a creature that blurred the lines of human and machine. Because the future he predicted meant that without him, I could be turned into the monster I already feared I was.
The next several weeks felt like a repeat of Mogadishu except my surroundings were nicer and the food was usually better. I demonstrated that I followed orders and worked properly but when Dr. Parker wasn’t around, I often pulled out the business card from the restaurant to stare at Stacy’s phone number.
It didn’t take long to figure out there was a pattern to Dr. Parker’s absences: He left each day after lunch then returned between six and seven p.m. I had a phone and a car to use, but of course both were constantly monitored just as I was constantly monitored.
One evening, after Dr. Parker returned with hamburgers from my favorite restaurant in the city, I decided to press my luck again. It was partly boredom and partly a desire to see if I could change his mind.
“We’re out of ketchup,” I told him.
He smiled at me and pulled a handful of ketchup packets from the bag.
“When you’re gone, am I going to live with someone else?” I asked.
He’d been ready to take a bite from his burger and his hands froze near his mouth. He looked at me over the rim of his glasses and slowly lowered his hands. “Do you feel like you’re dependent on me? Should I do fewer things for you to prepare you for living on your own?”
His eyes flickered to the packets of ketchup as if I didn’t know that when I ran out of my favorite condiment, I should go to the store to buy more. I did know that, of course. But I’d spent the entire afternoon nervously obsessing over this confrontation. Grocery shopping didn’t exactly fit in with my plans to buy myself a little more freedom. But maybe his concern about my dependency could be used to my advantage.
“I worry I don’t fit in with normal people,” I explained. “They’ll know I’m different and not human. Shouldn’t I be learning how to act normally around others?”
Dr. Parker snickered. “Drake, there are plenty of people in this world who either can’t understand social conventions or just ignore them. Nobody will suspect anything other than that you’re socially awkward.”
“But I don’t have to be,” I argued. “I could be learning how to behave around others now while you’re still alive and can help me.”
He sighed and sat back in his chair. “Is this about that girl again?”
I picked at my onion rings and shrugged. “Partly.”
“We’ve been through this…”
“I know,” I interrupted. “But you just said it yourself: No one would suspect I’m not human so what’s the harm in allowing me to be in relationships with
others?”
“Drake,” he warned, “we’re not having this discussion again. I…” His ringing phone cut him off. He glanced at the number then at me before pushing his chair away from the table and leaving the room to answer it.
I glared at his empty chair, angry that he still stubbornly refused to budge on allowing me to interact with people outside of his small circle. I was deliberating tossing my supper in the trash and pouting in my room like an insolent child when he returned, wearing a strange expression—some cross between excitement and fear.
He pulled his chair away from the table and sat down again, and I decided not to storm off. My curiosity got the better of me. It wouldn’t be long before I understood that whole curiosity and cat expression.
“You know,” Dr. Parker said, “after Virginia, I had to beg the Joint Chiefs for a chance to redeem myself and my work. They claimed we’d paid too high a price for an experiment that might not even work. We can’t take any chances this time. If we fail, it’s not just me, Drake. The entire Project fails. And you do work.”
“Ok,” I said slowly. “Are you finally sending me out?”
“In a way,” he explained. “Not overseas. Not yet. You’ll need a supervisor in the field, and we haven’t selected one for you. We have a candidate in mind, but he’s been on another assignment. He just returned so you’ll be meeting him soon.”
I bit my lip nervously because none of this seemed like news worthy of excitement or fear. I suspected that call had been about something else entirely, and I wouldn’t like whatever it was.
“I’ve told you our enemies won’t stop,” he went on, “and I was right. I assumed they would find us. And they have.”
My eyes widened and I breathed, “He’s here.”
“Yes,” Dr. Parker answered. “He is. And it’s time to visit Cade Daniels and pay him back for what he’s done to us both.”
Chapter 6
The sandy yellow stucco walls of the apartment building bore mildew stains near the ground and along the downspout that leaked constantly from the collected debris in the gutter. I glanced over my shoulder again toward the parking lot where the 1993 Toyota Corolla with the license plate number that matched the one Cade Daniels was believed to be driving still ticked as the engine cooled down.
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