The Amanda Project: Book 4: Unraveled

by Amanda Valentino

  “A playground at a pharmaceutical college?” Callie said. “That would be some pretty young pharmacists-in-training.”

  Nia nodded, grimly. “I don’t think they were training to be pharmacists.”

  The windows were locked, but by pushing hard enough, Callie managed to snap the lock and lift the sash. Hal hoisted himself up and over the windowsill and the rest of us followed.

  “Do you think it’s strange,” he said, “that we aren’t hearing alarms go off?”

  “Yes,” Callie said. “If they took the trouble to encircle an abandoned campus with a chain-link fence and patrol it with guards, you’d think the least they would do was install an alarm system.”

  “Maybe they did,” Nia said. “It could be a silent alarm.”

  “Do you have a sense of anybody coming?” I asked Hal.

  Hal paused for a moment, as though concentrating. He got a sort of faraway look on his face. Then he shook his head. “Not right now,” he said. “But still, we’d better hurry.”

  Walking down the empty hall, we poked our heads into one unremarkable classroom after another, but once we rounded the corner, we noticed a change. When we tried to open doors to peek into classrooms, we found these doors were locked.

  When Nia put her hand on a doorknob, a strange look came over her face. Was she mad? Scared? Upset?

  “I can feel some little kids,” she said. “This was the door to their quarters. They touched it hundreds of times, from the inside only. They used to stare at it all the time. They used to wonder what was on the other side of it. They wondered if the normal world, the world they read about in books and saw in educational videos—they wondered if it was just outside this door. They weren’t allowed to leave.”

  Hal looked at Callie significantly.

  “You want me to—?” she said.

  He nodded. Callie stepped forward and put her hand on the door handle. There was a lever on top that you depressed with your thumb to disengage the lock. When Hal had tried it, the lever wouldn’t move. But when Callie tried, her face twisted for a second and suddenly, the door was open. And the door handle was hanging from a single screw.

  “Nice,” Hal said, high-fiving her. She blushed.

  “Guys?” Nia said, half-joking. “Focus here?”

  We were standing inside a long room lined with small iron beds that were rusting where their white paint had chipped away. Most of the mattresses were gone, but a few beds still had them, thin and forlorn, striped and stained.

  Nia looked around, her eyes huge. “Those kids . . . they must have slept here.”

  Callie drummed her fingers lightly on a bedstead. “What was this place?”

  I decided to check out the set of double doors at the end of the room. They had the same kind of locking handle as the one Callie had broken open, but this time, they weren’t locked. I noticed a plastic panel with a speaker and a button mounted on the wall next to the door below a sign that read BUZZ FOR ENTRY.

  Hal stepped through the doors with me. “This was a school,” he said. In one corner of the large space there was a blackboard and some desks scattered in front of it. A very dusty-looking and long-faded rug was half rolled up in a corner. Low tables and child-size chairs were grouped together in the middle of the room, the chairs turned upside down on the table as if the janitor were coming in to mop. Roll-down maps were bolted to a wall—the map of Europe was dated from the time when the Soviet Union still covered most of Eastern Europe.

  My dad loved history. When we were driving in the car or waiting in lines, he liked to tell me stories about how people used to live, or stories of great figures from times past. One of his favorite things to tell me about was the Cold War, which was going on in his youth—he was born in 1965. Back then, he said, everyone in the U.S. was terrified of being attacked by the Soviet Union. “The U.S. and the Soviet Union were the biggest powers in the world,” my dad had explained. “They wanted to fight, but the two countries couldn’t go head to head because they both had so many nuclear weapons that even the smallest scuffle had the potential to turn into a nuclear catastrophe.” When he was in his twenties, the Soviet Union dissolved. All the countries they had colonized in Eastern Europe went back to being independent and the Cold War came to an end.

  There were shelves off to one side of the room lined with cardboard file boxes. Some were labeled with subject names I recognized: Math, Language Arts, Chemical Science. Others seemed more unusual. What kind of studies were involved in something called “Metric Planning”? “Diplomatic Realities”? Or “Intelligence Maximization”?

  I pulled the lid off a box marked SLEEP STUDIES. Inside were four fat accordion files. I lifted one up and read on the front, SLEEP STUDY 17: SIREN STUDY. I pulled out a sheet at random. It read across the top: MARCH 12: DAY 7, SIREN DECIBEL 35. Below I read what looked like a lab report for a very bizarre experiment.

  Test Subjects: C33-4867, C33-2990, C33-1109, C33-9821

  Objective: To measure voluntary and involuntary fight or flight response in test subjects enhanced with extra-genetic sensitivity hormone 5K.

  Methodology: Subjects exposed to gene therapy and varying levels of extra-genetic sensitivity hormone 5K during a nine-month experimental testing program were informed that due to the presence of a (fictional) contagious virus in the dormitory, they were being assigned sleeping quarters in Experimentation Chamber 16, which had been converted to a bedroom laboratory for the purpose of this experiment and equipped with soundproofing, two-way audio channeling, and video monitoring to allow for clinical observation.

  At 20:28, all four subjects were injected with a mixture of sleep-inducing narcotics and, after some initial protest from C33-29901, subjects entered REM cycle at 20:35, 20:42, 20:51, and 21:07 respectively. Siren effect C (British Air Raid) was broadcast into hidden speakers in room at 21:12:00 at 35 decibels (rough equivalent of a foghorn held three feet from the ear).

  At 21:12:12, 21:12:16, 21:12:16, and 21:12:21 subjects’ eyes had opened, and heart rates were increased by a uniform 45%. Later blood work demonstrated increased levels of adrenaline as well as a surprising increase in cortisol. All subjects attempted to remove themselves from leg and arm restraints, with C33-29901 in fact freeing his left hand and partially removing IV tubing such that technicians were required to enter the laboratory, subdue subject, and reinsert the IV needle before trials #2–#14 could be attempted in the same testing period.

  PRESSURE RESISTANCE, I read on another box. In this experiment subjects were pitted against one another—all of them were told that the first to complete a series of intelligence tests would be given a prize. At first they completed the tasks unhindered, but then were required to undergo different testing while encumbered in some way: either wearing a lead jacket, or glasses that obscured their eyesight. At one point they turned the heat up so high that one of the subjects fainted and at another time researchers made the room so cold the report read, “subjects struggled valiantly despite bruising later detected on spots where numb fingers had been clutching pencils.”

  And what was the prize so amazing that these test subjects were willing to work against the odds to complete the intelligence exams? The prize was a week off of “going to the nurse.”

  “What do you suppose ‘going to the nurse’ even means?” Callie asked. We were all reading the reports together now.

  “I’m not sure I want to know,” I said.

  Chapter 7

  On our cross-country trip, my mom kept the cash in a coffee can tucked under the driver’s seat of the RV. Once, at the very end of the trip, she’d taken my sisters out somewhere. I pulled the can out to count the money, and I found a piece of paper, worn and folded many times. We’d been living on the road for a long time then, and were just about ready to move to Orion. I’d been lost and confused the whole time we were on the trip, but this note offered some glimmer of understanding.

  My darling Tina:

  If you are reading this, I must be dead. I pray
that you are safe, that whatever has happened to me has left you alone. In the last few months, I have thought of nothing but how to keep you and the girls safe. I’ve given this letter to a friend, someone I trust, who will be watching us—and you.

  If I’m gone, I beg you to do what I am about to tell you, and to do it fast. Believe me when I swear that it’s the only way. First, sell your piano. There is a man I have worked a deal with downtown—I’m writing his address on the back of this note. He’ll pay cash, which you should bring down to Sam at the lot. He’ll set you up with an RV cheap. The day you buy it, load up the girls and leave town. For a week, keep moving. Don’t stop in campgrounds. Don’t register anywhere. Sleep when you can but mostly just go. Always pay cash. Steal if you have to. Remember—you are saving our children’s lives.

  Until you hear otherwise, change your name every time you are required to write it down. Never use names of people or places on the phone. If you’ve been one place a week, it’s time to go. If you think someone’s following you, hit the road. Do this for a year, and if you feel you are safe, make a new email account at a public terminal and send the words “missing you” to rot1956@gmail.com. Travel two hundred miles, switching directions before you check for a reply. You’ll get instructions from there.

  All I can do is hope and pray you’ll never see this note, that you will never need to read this, that the stuff I’m worried will happen is too terrible to be real. And please know that if there is any way for me to watch over you all from beyond, I will be with you.

  Always,

  George

  The day after I found and read this letter, the coffee can was gone. I must have folded the letter funny or made some other kind of slip-up that let my mom know I’d read it. Still, she said nothing to me. Two months later, when we were living in Orion, I found the coffee can again—it was hidden inside a canister marked FLOUR (no one uses flour in our house), but the letter was gone.

  Callie hiccupped. Or at least I thought she hiccupped. When I looked up from the research files I saw her standing by a shelf of puzzles, holding one in her hands as if it were a bomb that might explode any second. Her eyes were wide, and a tear had slipped out of one of them.

  “What is it?” Nia asked.

  “This puzzle,” Callie whispered. “It’s got five thousand pieces and none of them are the same shape. There’s only one company in Germany that makes puzzles this way.”

  “How do you know that?” asked Hal.

  “Because my mom special-ordered this exact one. Two Christmases ago. She said it reminded her of one of her favorite things she had as a kid.”

  “Oh, man,” Hal said.

  She drew a deep breath as if she could inhale her feelings. “I can’t think about this now. Not now. The guards.”

  “She’s absolutely right,” said Nia sharply, giving Hal a warning glance.

  “What do you think is through there?” said Hal, as if to distract Callie. He pointed to a set of double doors also equipped with a buzzer entry panel—was this some kind of suite?

  This door was unlocked too. Hal opened it and we all stepped into a room that looked like a hospital. Or a doctor’s office. Or something in between. There were examination bays separated from one another by curtains. There were exam tables, a few hospital beds, old metal cabinets with doors hanging off their hinges, ancient machines with leather seats and small screens that looked like they came from the dawn of the computer age.

  In one corner, I saw about a dozen lights on stands, like you’d have in an operating room. Most of the glass on the lamps was cracked and they were super dusty, but they probably had been pretty powerful. “It’s a set-up for surgery? Were they doing operations in here?” Hal wondered aloud.

  “I wonder if this is where they went when they had to visit the nurse?” Callie said.

  “Did they do electroshock therapy here too?” Nia asked, pointing to a bed with electrodes hanging off the side, an ancient-looking machine next to it with a big scary dial.

  “Or was it straight-up torture,” Hal said. “I mean, you look at this stuff, I can see why it would be worth it to take an IQ test over and over in the freezing cold to avoid having to come here.”

  Nia rested her hand on an exam table. “Wait,” she said. “I’m getting something here but it’s faint. Maybe I’d have a better sense of it if we held hands?” It only took me a second to realize she was talking about the charge that seemed to flow among us when we held hands. I guess she thought this might make us stronger.

  Callie and Hal understood this right away too, and we all grabbed for each other’s hands.

  I immediately felt the charge. “Is this helping you?” I’d started to ask Nia, when suddenly, I saw something that pretty much blew my mind.

  I was expecting our contact to enhance Nia’s vision. What I wasn’t expecting was to be able to see Nia’s vision myself.

  As soon as the four of us were holding hands, I felt an incredible urge to close my eyes, and when I did, I saw something that looked like I was watching TV on the insides of my eyelids.

  I snapped my eyes open. “Did you guys—” I started to ask, but Nia cut me off.

  “Don’t distract me,” she hissed. I squeezed my eyes shut again.

  I saw a kid sitting on the table. He was little—seven, maybe? Definitely in elementary school. “Criss-cross applesauce, Morton,” said a nurse in a brisk, businesslike voice. I couldn’t get a fix on the woman’s face—her whole body was a blur of white nurse’s uniform—but I could see the boy clearly. He had a pointy chin and ears that stuck out beyond his short hair, and his cheeks were sunken in a way that told me he was afraid. “I’m extra scared of those things,” he said, lip trembling. “I’m more scarded-er than the other kids. I’m the most scarded-er.”

  “You’re all scared,” the nurse grumbled.

  The nurse peeled a foil top off a glass vial. I saw an extra-long needle and an empty glass vial on a tray.

  “I want my mommy,” the boy breathed. His eyes were wide, his breath was coming fast. I could see that he was about to cry. Or maybe pee in his pants.

  “You don’t have a mommy,” the nurse growled. “Your mommy didn’t want you. That’s why you’re here.”

  Suddenly, Nia let go of our hands. “I can’t look anymore,” she said. I saw that Callie had tears in her eyes.

  “I hate this,” Hal said.

  “Can you imagine—?” Nia asked. She shivered.

  I couldn’t even talk about it. How could anyone do that to little kids? To keep the others from seeing the tears that were forming in my own eyes, I looked away.

  I was going to bring up the subject of how we’d managed to see the vision that Nia was having, but just then, I saw the file cabinet labeled “Subject Profiles.” These must have been the nurse’s, to look up the treatment protocol for each of the kids who’d come to see her.

  “Guys,” Hal said. “Look.”

  He slid open the drawer, and it was full.

  Jammed, actually, from front to back with folders, each labeled not with a child’s name, but with a number. Each number began with C33.

  “Look up C33-2990,” I said. “That’s the kid who was fighting off the experiments.”

  Hal pulled it out of the file and passed it to Nia. She opened it up and gasped. “2990 is Max Beckendorf.”

  “Thornhill?” Callie breathed.

  “Look,” said Nia, turning so we could all read the file.

  At the front of the file was a summary paper, stapled to the folder’s inside left-hand cover. It read: C33-2990, indicated that the “Subject’s Name” was Max Beckendorf. There was a space for “Original Name,” but whatever name was written there had been covered over in thick black marker. There was a line for “Genetic Therapies,” another for “Surgical Enhancements,” and another for “Immuno-Tech.” We didn’t know what any of these things meant, which made them all the more grisly. And this kid had endured a lot of them, too. I thought about that poor lit
tle guy in Nia’s vision.

  Following the list of therapies was something called “Talents.” Max Beckendorf, C33-2990, apparently had many, including: Leadership, Self-Discipline, Self-Sacrifice, Strength, Endurance, Ideological Commitment to Concepts such as “Honor” and “Service.” At the bottom of the summary sheet there was a write-up, which read like the most messed-up report card in history:

  C33-2990 is an early and fine example of an enhanced warrior prototype. While possessing a keen intelligence and ability to think strategically, 2990 is capable of great personal sacrifice, endurance, and long-standing suffering in the pursuit of ideological concepts. As a prisoner of war, the subject will tirelessly conceive of, test, and execute well-planned escape attempts, always drawing in other, weaker members of any “team” of which he feels himself to be part. Kind to animals, younger children, and anyone he deems weaker than himself, 2990 is a fierce combatant when paired with equally matched opponents—such as C33-1780—in boxing, martial arts, or other pre-combat activities. Recently, 2990 has been conducting a romantic relationship with C33-3496, which he is taking great pains to keep secret from research staff (and believes he has been successful).

  The rest of the file consisted mostly of updates, of records of experiments conducted and treatments received, weekly physicals, regulation of vital signs. Never did it once list a birthday, though the last physical put 2990 at nineteen years of age.

  All of these files and entries, including the write-up in the front of the file were signed and dated by Dr. John Joy.

  With shaking hands, Hal immediately pulled the file for C33-3496. It was Annie McLean. “That must be Amanda’s mom,” Callie said. “So they were high school sweethearts. That’s adorable.”

  Nia looked at her with one eyebrow raised. “This wasn’t high school.”

  Callie tucked her hair behind her ear. “Oh, right.”