by Sean Platt
We’re the Good Guys.
We’re trying to help.
So I tell myself with every new kid.
For every case like Niko and Irina, there are two dozen good ones — kids who find purpose. Kids who no longer have to feel like rejects. Kids who get to feel special and appreciated for their talents. We shelter them from the worst of humanity. Most of them will go on to live normal lives. Some will get to fight the good fight — to help others like themselves. To protect our country from threats foreign and internal.
God, I’ve been drinking the Kool-Aid!
Walter is pushing his way out of the convenience store, a giant soda in one hand and a bag of salt and vinegar chips in the other.
He pulls the passenger side open and starts to get in.
Once he’s settled into the seat, I stare at him.
“What?” he asks, oblivious.
“What did I say about salt and vinegar chips?”
He laughs, “That they smell like douche?”
“Exactly. Please go back and get something else.”
“But these are my favorite,” he says, and I can sense him wondering if he should charm me.
I raise my finger. “Don’t you dare.”
He gives me an innocent smile. “Dare what?”
“Don’t try that shit on me. Go get something else.”
I close my eyes so he can’t make eye contact with me. “Go.”
“Fine.”
He sets his giant drink in the center console, then opens the door and gets back out with a long sigh.
“Try getting something healthy,” I call out, feeling like a nagging parent. I can’t help it. You spend enough time with a kid feeding himself into an early grave and you start to feel like someone should say something. His parents were never able to say no, something which I’m sure had something to do with his gift, so he has no discipline. It makes him a bit of a man-child who wouldn’t last a day in the world minus his gift.
So I’m a hard ass whenever we take road trips together, encouraging him to put discipline into his life — at least as much as I can with a nineteen-year-old who doesn’t have to do a thing I say.
But I think part of him likes me saying no. Otherwise, he would have long ago attempted to charm me.
And so far as I know, he hasn’t even tried.
He comes back out with another bag of chips.
He opens the door, and before I can chide him, Walter looks into my eyes and says, “Relax, these are salt and vinegar. You like these, okay?”
I nod. “Yeah. Those are fine.”
I start driving as Walter chomps away at his chips.
Weird, I never liked the smell of salt and vinegar, but now my mouth is watering. “Can I try one?”
He hands me a couple. I shove them into my mouth.
They’re tart and sting my eyes, but they’re surprisingly good.
“You like them,” he says more than asks.
“Yeah. I like them.”
We’re almost to Lara’s town when a call comes over the speakers. I look at the dashboard screen and see ARNOLD FAIRCHILD.
“Answer,” I say.
“Hello, Ben?”
Something is wrong in his voice.
“Yeah, what is it Mr, Fairchild?”
“It’s Ella. Something’s wrong.”
* * * *
CHAPTER 24
Ben Shepherd Age 38
The elevator doors open to Sub-Level Three of AD on a sea of averted eyes.
“Where is he?” I ask.
They point toward the Project Karma wing.
My heart is pounding as I run down the hall toward the large double red doors that open into the Project Karma Hangar.
I hate that I can’t run faster, that I’ve let myself get out of shape.
My mind is racing with horrible things that might have happened.
Where is Ella? Is she okay? What the hell was she even doing on a Jump today? She’s not supposed to Jump when I’m out of the building.
I push my way past the guards who don’t even attempt to check my credentials like they have the other times I’ve come down here.
I open the doors.
And I see Arnold standing there beside two open, exposed, and empty Jump Chambers. Eden is standing behind him, staring at the ground, also unable to meet my eyes.
“Where is she?” I yell before I’m anywhere near them.
Arnold looks up at me. “She’s gone.”
“What do you mean she’s gone?”
“On her last Jump, something happened. Same as Eden. Her body died in the Chamber.”
“Where is she?” I scream, grabbing Arnold by his collar, wanting to choke the life out of him.
He falls backward, trying to slap my hands away, but I’m too full of rage to let go.
“Please,” Eden says, “stop it. I’ll take you to her.”
She offers me her hand.
I reluctantly let go of Arnold.
He glares at me.
“Come,” she says.
I refuse her hand, instead choosing to follow her.
She leads us — Arnold is following at a distance — from the Hangar to the medic’s lab.
Ella and Anders are lying on a pair of beds, both dead.
I cry out as I race to her, feeling for a pulse, trying to sense something, anything I can grab, or coax life into.
But she has no pulse.
Her body is cold.
She’s gone dark, no sign of a soul — just like Willow.
“What did you do?” I scream, launching myself at Arnold.
My body locks up before I can throttle him.
He meets my eyes and shakes his head.
He’s using his powers to keep me from killing him.
“This won’t solve anything, Ben.”
“What did you have her doing?”
“Just a routine Jump.”
“That killed them both?”
“I’m so sorry, son,” he says, coming to hug my paralyzed frame. “I’m so, so sorry.”
I want to hurt him for allowing Ella to be harmed.
I want to hurt that fucking robot in a child’s dead body, the robot that acts like my friend, acts like my wife, has my wife’s memories, but isn’t my fucking wife.
I want to burn this whole fucking place to the ground.
But all I can do is sob while Arnold Fairchild hugs me.
* * * *
CHAPTER 25
Ben Shepherd
It’s been two weeks since my daughter died.
I’m at my desk at the Academy. I told people I’d be in my office until five, so just another ten minutes until I can leave this place for good.
This awful place, part of AD even if the school has its own name, with its fucking secret government programs that live on even though three people devoted to it — four including Anders — are dead. People I loved, gone.
I don’t even know why I stayed two weeks after the funeral, other than some sense of obligation to the children I work with and ensuring that my successor, a woman named Amanda Barrett, knows what the kids need.
I certainly didn’t stay out of loyalty to Arnold Fucking Fairchild.
We haven’t spoken since the day Ella died.
I didn’t even talk to him at her funeral, despite his attempt to console me, or “manage the situation,” as it were.
The sooner I put this place behind me, the sooner I can start over.
I should never have come back.
I should’ve tried to find another way to help Ella with the Jumping. I’m sure I could’ve found someone to help that wouldn’t get her involved in Project Karma. Maybe Kotke would’ve helped me in secret.
Instead, I let fear push me back into Arnold’s arms.
At the funeral, Arnold spoke about how much Ella had loved her job. How she’d told Eden that the only time she ever truly felt alive was while working to help advance science.
Those words felt like a knif
e through my fucking heart.
It was my fault that she found joy in Jumping. Probably because she didn’t find any at home. I was obsessed with my work, helping other kids, and making a difference in the world — never realizing that I wasn’t making the proper difference at home with my daughter.
I’ve spent most waking moments at home going through Ella’s things, getting drunk, and regretting the past decade or so.
After Willow’s death, work became my life to the exclusion of everything else. No friends. No family. Only colleagues and students, none of whom I ever truly connected with.
Hell, the closest thing to a friend I have left is Eden, a fucking robot. My wife’s memories inside her dead twin, frozen as a child for as long as she lives.
Even though it’s not the real thing, it’s good to be able to relive old memories with a clone of her brain. Hell, there are times I almost call her Willow.
I suppose it’s a good thing that Willow’s mind is in a child’s body and not a twin of my adult wife. The line might be too blurred. I might have allowed myself to believe that Willow wasn’t gone. Might have fallen in love with a robot.
Eden has come by to check on me, a few times now during her weekly visits to the school where she works with a few of the shyer, more troubled kids. We have lunch in my office.
Sometimes we talk about work or the children. Other times I talk to “Willow,” where she’ll use a perfect replication of her voice, and it almost feels like the real thing.
Sometimes when we’re done talking, I’m reminded that she’s gone, and her death feels like a fresh cut.
On those days, I start drinking early.
The final few minutes of my last day mercifully pass without any unexpected calls or emergencies.
I sign off on the computer, push my chair back and stand, then give my office a goodbye with my eyes before grabbing the box with my personal shit from the floor.
I take the back way out to avoid running into any students wanting to say goodbye. We already had a “Farewell Lunch” earlier. Several students cried as they hugged me. A few staffers seemed like they’d miss me, too, though I doubt that’s as much to do with liking me as preferring the status quo.
I make it outside to the parking lot, find my car, and pop the trunk.
I stop, startled to see that it isn’t empty.
Eden is inside, lying down, finger to her mouth. “Shh, don’t tell anyone.”
“What are you doing in here?” I whisper, looking nervously around.
A few people are walking to their cars, so I can’t yank her out or carry on a conversation without drawing attention.
Hey, why does Mr. Shepherd have a child in his trunk?
“You’ve got to get out,” I whisper.
“No. There’s something you need to know. Please. Take me with you.”
“I can’t take you with me. You … you’re AD property. They’ll find you, and they’ll arrest me for theft, kidnapping, or something.”
“Please, it’s about Ella.”
I look around one last time to see if anyone’s looking my way. A security guard drives by in his cart but doesn’t even glance my way.
I look back down at Eden. “Okay. I’ll take you to a park to talk, but after that, you’re coming right back here.”
I slam the trunk closed.
I hop in the car, shaking, as I pull out of my space and pull up to the manned gate on my way out. There are two armed security officers, and I can’t help but think that they’re going to stop me.
Stop me on my last day just to make sure I’m not running off with a billion dollar psychic AI stuffed inside a child’s body.
Since I already turned in my security card, I can’t just pull up to the farthest gate and drive off. I have to approach the guards and be let out.
I pull into the exit lane behind a red Toyota. It doesn’t have school stickers on the car or tag, so I’m guessing it belongs to visitors. One of the guards leans toward the driver-side window to say something, then sends the Toyota on its way.
My turn.
I pull up, my heart racing.
I imagine Eden sneezing in the trunk.
The officer, a young man named Antonio, greets me with a smile. “Hey, last day, eh Mr. Shepherd?”
“Yes, I’m afraid so, Antonio. Time to retire so I can finally sleep in for a change.”
“Come back and tell me what it’s like, okay?”
“Will do,” I say as he steps inside the booth to raise the gate. “Good luck, Mr. Shepherd.”
“Thanks, Antonio,” I say, eager to get the hell out of here.
I pull forward, not too fast.
I’m almost out.
“Hey!” shouts a man from behind me.
Shit! They got me.
It’s over.
I stop the car, bracing for the worst.
I look in the driver’s side mirror to see the other guard coming out, a tall blond brick house of a guy named Ludvig.
I watch as he approaches, my heart about to burst.
Please don’t ask me to open my trunk.
Please don’t ask me to open my trunk.
Please don’t—
“Mr. Shepherd?”
Can you step out of your vehicle please, and open your trunk?
I look up meeting his belt buckle in my face. Pistol in a holster beside it.
He leans down, his eyes burrowing into me.
He smiles wide, revealing a perfect set of pearly whites if ever I saw one. “I just wanted to say goodbye, Mr. Shepherd. And thanks again for helping Julia.”
Shit. I forgot all about how I helped his sister, one of the students, deal with one of the rare cases of bullying we’ve had at the school.
“You’re welcome.” I meet his smile with my own and offer him my sweaty palm. “Take care, Ludvig.”
We shake.
He says goodbye.
I pull away from the school eager to reach the park and learn what Eden wants me to know.
**
I pull into the park, searching for a desolate spot.
I find a place behind the tennis courts, hidden well enough behind other vehicles and a thicket of trees.
I stop the car, pop the trunk, and get out.
Eden is climbing out, long red hair falling over her face, making her look like a mischievous child sneaking away from school grounds.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“Let’s get in the car.”
“Okay.”
I get in.
She sits in the passenger seat.
I turn the car back on, and the air blasts us. “Okay, talk.”
She looks up at me with eyes that remind me so much of Willow’s, and Ella’s. It’s even harder to look at her thinking of my lost daughter.
“I don’t want you to leave,” she says.
“It’s too late. I need to go. All that I’ve lost is killing me there.”
Her eyes start to water.
Hell, I never thought that Eden might miss me. I considered that I’d miss her, but it wasn’t her I’d be missing. It was the proxy conversations with Willow.
And ultimately, I felt it was better to make a clean break. If I let myself continue my friendship with “Willow” through Eden, then I’d never leave the school. I’d grow old and die, bitter and alone.
As I see Eden cry, I feel like an ass for not considering how she might feel. Though she was in large part machine, there was some part of the child who had died — some part of Eden — left inside her. And a clone of Willow’s brain. All of that made her something, if not a person. Right?
Something with feelings that I’d not even considered.
Shit.
“I can talk to Mr. Fairchild, get him to give you another position if you want. Somewhere you’ll never see me again if that’s what hurts.”
“It’s not you. It’s the whole place. I need to move on. Ella’s the only reason I came back to work with Mr. Fairchild. And now she’s
gone.”
“What if she wasn’t?” Eden asks.
“What do you mean?” I’m getting annoyed.
Eden’s voice changes, becoming Ella’s. “Did you know that I cloned Ella’s brain?”
My heart skips a beat when I hear Ella’s voice on Eden’s lips.
“Let me live with you. I can be her.” Her voice changes to Willow. “I can be Willow. I can be both of them. You never have to be alone.”
“Why did you clone her brain?”
In Ella’s voice, she says, “Because I didn’t want you to be sad. And, because I didn’t want you to leave us.”
“Leave you?” I ask, surprised to hear a computer program talking like a possessive lover demanding my attention.
“I missed you the first time you left. We missed you. Me and Willow. I wish that we didn’t. While AD built my knowledge base and programmed me, and some of Eden’s memories were reconstructed, for the most part, my whole memories, the ones I think of when I think of myself in any way, come from Willow. I am, for all practical purposes, her.”
“Stop,” I say, my voice on the verge of cracking.
“Stop what?” she asks, using Willow’s voice.
I snap.
I lunge out, grabbing her by the throat, choking her. “You are not my wife. You are not Ella. Stop it!”
She cries out, in Ella’s voice, “Please, Daddy, stop. You’re hurting me.”
My anger, now doused with gasoline.
I squeeze her throat tighter, wanting to shut her up for good. “You’re not her! You’re not either of them. You’re not even fucking human.”
And then there’s something in her eyes.
A flash of pain that reminds me of the first, and only, time I ever truly broke Willow’s heart, after a terrible fight when I said something awful.
That same look is in Eden’s eyes now.
I let go of my grip.
She stares at me, wounded, tears flowing down her cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
She opens the door and gets out of the car.
“Wait,” I call out.
The door slams shut, leaving me alone with my shame.