The Xactilias Project

by RJ Lawrence

  She turned to Romero and smiled.

  "I know you all have plenty of questions," Romero said. "However, these are best kept for another time. For now, I'll be leaving you with Gretchen. In two weeks, I will return to move you to your permanent quarters in the lower levels of the facility and introduce you to the work area, where you will conduct your individual research based on the Xactilias Project's specific needs at that time."

  Romero turned to Gretchen and nodded. Then he checked his watch and reentered the elevator. The guests turned to watch him disappear behind the doors. Gretchen returned to her post, her broad upper body towering above the desk.

  "Please form a line and I'll get you each checked in one-by-one."

  As they registered, she offered each a keycard labeled with a large number.

  "This is the key to your quarters," she said. "Please do not lose it, or you'll be forced to move to a new room, as we do not issue new keys."

  When they'd all registered, she instructed them to visit their quarters and clean themselves.

  "You'll find suitable articles of clothing inside your closets," she said. "Each will be tailored to your individual needs if necessary. Just let us know."

  The guests looked around but saw no staff lurking about.

  "You'll find a button mounted to the wall of your quarters, adjacent to the door," she said. "Should you need assistance, press this button and a recreational therapist will arrive shortly."

  She left the desk again and stood before them.

  "Tomorrow, we will meet at 9 a.m. for orientation, when you'll be introduced to the spa area, cafeteria and recreational facilities, which include a weight room and racquetball court."

  She folded her arms and smiled, her lips pressed firmly, eyebrows raised, as if she expected applause or some other form of giddy feedback. The others traded looks and then dispersed to search for their rooms, muddy feet staggering wearily down a bright, expansive hallway.

  Claire and Nathan followed Alfred to his room and waited. He opened the door and tipped the light switch up.

  "Not 5-star, but it will do," he said.

  Inside, there was a bed, a nightstand, a dresser and not much else.

  "All I care about right now is a shower," Nathan said.

  They entered and Alfred walked to the bathroom.

  "Standing shower," he said.

  "Don't tell me you're a bath guy, Alfred," Nathan said.

  Alfred shook his head and sat on the bed.

  "I may just go to sleep without bathing."

  Claire took Nathan's arm.

  "Let us leave you Alfred," she said. "Sleep well. We'll see you tomorrow."

  Outside, the hallway sat empty, the red carpet fouled by wild trails of dried mud, as if it had been unevenly dusted with bucket-throws of cinnamon. Nathan followed Claire to her room and waited while she slipped her key card into the slot.

  "I look a lot better once I've cleaned up," he said, as he gouged a hunk of mud from his boot.

  "Too bad you can't wash your personality."

  As she opened the door, he smiled and put his hand out.

  "Thanks for the laughs."

  She looked at his dirty fingers and gave them a brief shake.

  "I'll see you tomorrow, Nathan."

  He gave a trademark smile and walked away, sport coat thrown over one shoulder, lips whistling bright notes, as if he walked through his own home on the most ordinary of days.

  She watched him the whole way, head poking further out into the hallway with each step, before he finally stopped and turned back to see only her hair flitting by, and then the shut of the door.

  Chapter 8

  Glenn Foley cannot read, but that is alright. For what he wants, it truly is. A truck driver and proud of it, he scrapes what leavings the world allows him into a life that makes him feel rich, valuable and whole. Others agree with his appraisal. Those others, not peers, but members of his family. For them, he gives everything. For them, he paves paths he never knew.

  Before that, he is of the sorry and blaming, of the can't and never-will. Born into the world strapped with bad genes, clueless parents and no mind of his own, Glenn middles along intentionless for a long while with no real reason to keep going, save the automatics working within his brain.

  Out of school at 14, he spends the first part of his adult life working ditches, mowing lawns and laboring over endless conveyor belts for long hours and laughable pay. With no goals or angles, he is an odds-on favorite for nothing special, until he meets Dawn McWilliams, a local grocery cashier with a similar background and a future that seems parallel.

  But Dawn McWilliams can read, and read more than the printed gossip in the magazines that seduce customers within her aisle. She can read people. And when she meets Glenn Foley, she reads his face and his soul and her future in the depths of his sad brown eyes.

  Twice a week, he chooses her aisle over all others, giving no credence to the length of the line or his wavering will. See their flirtation, but don't judge its tranquility. Within it, there is stirring and bold desire, and the world is shut out by it, and the clocks keep ticking, though there is no time at all.

  Their marriage brings a child and a reason, and Glenn works with Dawn on a lie that paints his abilities in false lights. He becomes a truck driver and stable provider, and his little family prospers, the world oblivious to their makings and throwing up few complaints.

  In the beginning, he speaks of serendipity, of the nation and all its sites. He talks of the mountains, with their coiling roads, the bold ascensions and the terrifying drops, his boot against the break, the pads against the rig's weight, the smells of burning rubber, of sore arms and foreign hotel beds.

  He is gone almost all the time; but at home, on certain days and nights, the child sits at the feet of this hero stranger, while he speaks of faith and persistence, love and duty, the world's largest ball of twine and the St. Louis Gateway Arch.

  Over a span of decades, he dips in and out of his family's life not for want but necessity. If he could, he would be there always; but he can't, and they know it and understand. He goes on this way for as long as he must; his back constricting to a permanent arch; his soul grayed by all the missing, body ruined by years of bad food. By the end, he is broken down and used thin. But his victory extends outward; for his daughter is educated and pulled forth by the gravity of her promise, with abilities that are confusing to him, but wondrous just the same.

  Claire hears this story enough until its weight falls against her every choice. A torch pushed into her diminutive hand at an early age, she carries a slim flicker of reason for her parents' woe and quickly becomes the embodiment of their hope. They know neither the inner workings of the world's secrets nor the strings that others use to make it spin. But they know enough to recognize that she wields the power to someday see each and both at the same time, and they recognize this gift while she is at a very young age.

  At 13 months, she is talking in completed sentences. At 18 months, she has memorized the alphabet and knows the colors in English and Spanish: red and yellow, aureolin and fawn. At two, she can count to 20 in three different languages and do simple arithmetic using only her fingers. At four, her parents enroll her in a Montessori school and she learns Spanish in just over a month.

  Every day, she rises early with a constant, compulsive drive to learn, her mind receiving an almost sensual ecstasy from it, her brain like a heart in love. To her, learning is not of mastering; it is of experiencing. Vivid and absorbing, it penetrates and arouses, its absence causing pain, its presence, relief.

  To her parents, it is a troubling addiction, and no amount of ordinary play will coax her from it. When knowledge is withheld, her mood turns gray and she becomes anxious and withdrawn. She must know everything about everything: lizards, grasses and planets, organic sediments, minerals and rock.

  Sometimes she wants traditional cartoon stories at night. Mostly, she wants books on natural history. These, her parents
use to train her in toilet habits, a sizable stack fixed strategically to keep her in place.

  The schools are no good for Claire, a feeble curriculum, the lessons but pointless tasks. They ask her to solve 6+8; she makes 36-piece origami forms on her dining room table. They give her Frog and Toad Are Friends; she reads Les Miserable at home. How long can you anesthetize a child before you finally put them to sleep? This is the question her parents ask themselves every day.

  The playground expounds on the classroom's folly, the other children distrusting of this odd figure before them, venomous in their response. She tries hard to be like everyone else, failing miserably in almost every way. At home, she becomes sleepless and depressed until her abilities turn from gifts into something to wish away.

  At last, she is moved ahead several grades against the resistance of the school heads, their brows pressed with worry, mouths uttering warnings regarding social inadequacies. But in the end, her parents agree: what could be worse than this? For it is just as difficult to kneel or stoop as it is to stand upon toes.

  At first, the move offers improvement, but soon, she is stretching the teachers past their abilities. The older students will spend a year on their textbooks; she sucks them dry within the first several days. Ultimately, they craft personalized curriculums and teach her on the side. But the more they feed this mind, the greater its cravings, until their cupboards are empty, and the deprivation returns.

  They visit a private school for the gifted, and her test scores astound. There, they craft improvised parallel curriculums that soar above the heads of the gifted others. She ranges far beyond her classmates, mostly fixated on a newfound world of subatomic particles. At the conclusion of the program's fourth grade, the school heads agree she can go no further in such an institution.

  Through personal connections, the head master secures a meeting with an influential representative from a prominent research university devoted to engineering and applied science. He is a doubtful man with big gray unkempt brows that have begun to hang over his eyes.

  He meets with her parents and the head master for only a short time, and then she is placed alone in a cold sterile room before a tall varnished table that comes to her chin. There, the stern figure slaps a stack of papers under her nose, its questions requiring answers that will measure her IQ.

  As he paces the width of the table, she populates each field, her hands appearing infant-like as she scribbles against the paper. When she stops writing, he snatches the test away, his eyes darting about the pages, his tired face made bright and pale by unbelieving. The exam's IQ distribution chart ends at 145; somewhere beyond, lies Claire.

  Chapter 9

  For nearly a week, the guests wandered the facilities without responsibilities, dipping in and out of hot tubs, taking massages, and drinking at the bar. In the mornings, the room lights would ignite automatically, a gentle combination of pinks and yellows that flared gently and considerately, until the senses enlivened, and the rooms took on a warm, comforting glow. For meals, they met together in a large but comfortable cafeteria, the food like something from a dream, with flavorful meats, brightly colored fruits and rich, flaky pastries that were always fresh, delicious and warm.

  In the early afternoons, most gathered in the little round courtyard, where they sat among the sweet scent of flowers, chatting over coffee beneath willowy trees that shaded courteously the soft, green grass. Most kept tightly within the circles established during their journey; Claire, Nathan and Alfred no different, the three of them together the majority of the time, trading stories and theories, growing closer and happier for it.

  At night, Alfred would usually retire early leaving Claire and Nathan at the bar, where they pried at each other's layers with subtle tactics both cunning and kind.

  "Tell me about your research," he said one night, as he sipped a small glass of bourbon under an amber light.

  "It mostly revolves around experimental research on human aging," she said. "Strategies to replenish DNA telomeres to make cells immortal and thereby prevent aging."

  He pursed his lips and nodded.

  "Have you made any strides?"

  She sipped from a glass of red wine and nodded.

  "Major strides; however, any sort of telomere-based anti-aging treatment is apt to increase cancerous growths and therefore increase mortality."

  He nodded and lowered his head, his finger tracing the wet circle on the bar top where his glass had been.

  "What's the nature of your research?"

  He looked up at her and smiled.

  "Experimental methods for cancer prevention."

  They sat quietly after that, their minds pondering the meaning of these things and others. The mystery of the Xactilias Project. The mystery of each other.

  The next morning, everyone congregated as usual in the cafeteria, where they filled their trays with thickly-cut bacon, sausages, fresh berries, warm strudels, croissants and tarts. Like every other day, Alfred blended into the line and filled his tray with a wealth of rations, his face bashful and apologetic, as if he had taken each morsel from the plate of a starving child.

  Once he'd acquired his share, he surveyed the tables and found Claire and Nathan sitting across each other, their trays samely glutted with far too much food. He hurried across the room and took a seat next to Claire.

  "Every day I come into this room, my mind recalls the story of Hansel and Gretel," he said, as he raised a fork.

  Nathan nodded.

  "I've gained at least five pounds," he said, his words distorted by a mouthful of half-chewed food.

  Claire watched him and scowled.

  "Close your mouth. That's disgusting."

  He smiled broadly, his cheeks pregnant with food.

  Alfred took a sample from his tray and gently placed it inside his mouth. He lifted from his chair and took a long look around the cafeteria.

  "Why do you suppose all the rooms in this place are round?"

  Nathan glanced about and shrugged.

  "Tell us about your research, Alfred," Claire said, as if she hadn't heard his comment.

  The old man swallowed a mouthful of food and brushed a few stray crumbs from his mustache.

  "I'm afraid it's not as fascinating as yours," he said. "It's mostly centered on practical solutions for utilizing water to produce hydrogen fuel." He stabbed his fork into a chunk of ham and held it for a moment. "Long before that, I was quite fascinated with neurological research. However, it didn't suit my abilities."

  He raised the ham to his lips and then pulled it away.

  "Sometimes, you have to choose to either pursue a passion in a limited capacity or apply your abilities to more practical Xactiliass that will allow you to acquire the lifestyle you desire."

  Claire started to say something, but he cut her off.

  "I did always enjoy neurological research, though. It was all I could think about as a boy."

  Nathan passed a look to Claire, who gave a small apologetic smile for getting the old man started.

  "When I was 12, I entered a school science fair with a project in which I manipulated rats into doing quite remarkable things."

  Claire winked at Nathan, who grimaced a little.

  "What sort of things?" She asked.

  "Well, let’s see,” he said. “I taught one to stack blocks, and another learned to use a small key to open a door within a maze."

  Nathan stopped eating.

  "How?"

  "Oh, it was really very simple. I got them addicted to amphetamines. They'd do anything for it. Plus the drug itself made them quite adept at picking up new skills."

  They all ate quietly for several minutes, others finishing up their meals and filing out the room.

  "Well, did you win?" Nathan finally asked.

  Alfred looked up, his face contorted a bit, as if he'd forgotten the nature of the conversation.

  "Oh, no," he said. "Another student invented a sock with a pocket on it." He shook his head and smil
ed. "The judges were captivated."

  A man approached the table.

  “Mind if I join you?”

  Nathan turned to look at him.

  “Howard! Good to see you. Of course, take a load off.”

  He sat next to Nathan and placed his tray on the table.

  “Claire,” Nathan said. “This is Howard.”

  Howard shook her hand. Alfred looked over Howard’s plate, which held two hardboiled egg whites and some boiled asparagus.

  “A meager appetite amidst such gluttony. Are you dieting?”

  Howard looked at his plate.

  “Oh, I’m afraid my stomach wouldn’t tolerate much more than this. It’s been a problem of mine for years.”

  They all frowned for Howard.

  “It’s not such a tragedy,” he said. “I’ve grown used to it.”

  Nathan nodded, as he shoved a forkful of food into his mouth.

  “Yeah, he’s fine,” he mumbled. “Don’t worry about Howard.”

  They all returned to eating, a slightly uncomfortable silence between them.

  "I know,” said Howard. “Let's play useless facts.”

  "Fire it up," said Nathan, as he scooped another heap of food into his mouth.

  Claire looked at Alfred.

  "What's this?"

  Alfred shook his head.

  "Apparently one attempts to impress the other with factual oddities which have no discernible use."

  Nathan pointed his fork at Alfred and spoke through a full mouth.

  "It has to be interesting, though. Otherwise, you lose."

  Howard nodded.

  "I'll start." He cleared his throat. "Flamingos get their color from the carotenoid pigments in the algae and crustaceans they eat."

  Claire jabbed her fork into a pile of green beans.

  "I can think of discernible uses for that information."

  Nathan swallowed his food.

  "Ignore her, Howard. She doesn't get it."

  He thought for a moment.

  "People have been chewing gum for more than 5,000 years."