Cheating Time

by T. R. Graves

  I pleaded for them to stop. At least, I thought I did. Instead of words, I heard incoherent moans, groans, and sobs. Finally, they realized they'd never break Jayden. Or my hysterical pleas worked. They left him and me alone, and I lost consciousness again. Or the hallucinations stopped.

  When my eyes fluttered open a final time, I could have sworn I'd been out for less than a few minutes. I was wrong.

  I was in a tent I'd never seen. It was large, roomy, and if a tent could be considered luxurious, I'd say that was exactly what this one was. It had cots with mattresses, and those mattresses were covered with cashmere blankets. Honestly, if I hadn't been hurting so terribly (and I were sweet, innocent Tawney and not mean, hateful me), I'd have assumed I'd died and gone to heaven because there was so much white surrounding me.

  The fact that I was lying on top of a fluffy air mattress and had wrapped around and tucked beneath me one of the pure white blankets felt wrong. I was supposed to be in the forest with Jayden, Tawney, and Gran, making our way to the next safe house.

  There was no way this tent that prominently sported President Barone's favorite color belonged anywhere near our next safe house, because those who support the Safe Passage Network detested the color white and everything Barone represented.

  At least that's what Mac and Elle had told Dad and Mom when they were pretending to be something they weren't, based on Gran's information.

  Getting my bearings and checking for a way out of the tent, I sat up on my elbows and really studied the room, wondering where Jayden, Tawney, and Gran were. At the end of the worm-shaped tent, opposite the only door in or out, I saw a desk. On that desk waved a white-on-white flag. Everything about it, the twenty-six stars and five strips, was white. Only someone up close would know it wasn't a white flag of surrender, but rather the flag meant to symbolize our nation, a country split in half—hence the twenty-six stars and five strips—was on its way toward becoming superior and pure.

  At least Barone's sick and twisted version of superior and pure.

  I knew when I analyzed our nation's statistics that the biggest differences between Barone and Hitler, another man who was determined to create the perfect race, was their very subjective definition of a superior man. Hitler believed the perfect race, the Aryan race, would include a world filled with non-Jewish, blond-haired, and blue-eyed people because he'd been conditioned to think one's coloring and religious preferences made her or him superior.

  Given the statistical changes the MicroPharm had helped Barone bring about, Barone was more scientific and believed that human race's evolution was dependent on him cultivating the types of genes he considered superior (old age potential, strength, intelligence, charismatic tendencies, etc.) and weeding out genes and conditions he considered weak (chromosomal abnormalities, early death potentials, and diseases that drained the nation's government-run healthcare system). Diseases like autism, Down syndrome, cystic fibrosis, and hemophilia… embryos with these genes would not be allowed to survive past the first trimester.

  For me, that simple white flag sitting on that desk proved that no matter who had me and no matter where I was, President Barone was in charge. That didn't matter to me nearly as much as my worry over Tawney's, Gran's, and Jayden's location and safety.

  As soon as I thought about them, I knew Dad was going to be disappointed in my pitiful attempt at being the soldier he'd never had. The soldier he'd never been allowed to have.

  "At ten o'clock tomorrow morning, have the MediChopper land in the clearing near the campsite." A man's voice echoed its way through the flapped door and to me.

  I thought about jumping off the bed and hiding behind it, but the tent—while nice—wasn't big enough for me to get lost in.

  Shooting monkeys in a barrel, I thought, rolling my eyes.

  Before I could find a suitable hiding place or formulate a real getaway plan, the tent's flap snapped open and the oranges signaling a late evening sun flooded the pure white canvas of the tent.

  I'd been caught up and awake. There was no lying back and pretending I was still comatose. The grin belonging to the man before me was too big and too happy for me to put any stock into his cheerfulness. His eyes were a brilliant gold, his face was so beautiful, and—dear God—his body appeared strong and powerful that I couldn't help but wonder if he was a new breed of Surrogate.

  No… he's perfect, but he's no Surrogate.

  "Carles Anise Enoche has escaped death," he sang as he strolled through the tent and came to stand at the side of my bed.

  I wasn't sure why, but I didn't trust him. I didn't trust the feelings he instigated in me. I found him attractive, and no matter how much I wanted him to think I despised him, I just couldn't make hate stick where he was concerned. I was drawn to him, and it infuriated me.

  "Who are you?" I asked as if I were angry with him rather than myself.

  With a wicked little grin, he bowed his head slightly and said, "Ah! It seems as though you and I have not formally been introduced. I'm Thorne Angleton. My father is…."

  "I know who your father is," I interrupted. "Andrew Angleton. What I don't know is where my family is. Where our Surrogate Soldier is."

  My family was an anomaly when it came to treating our Surrogate Soldier like family. For Jayden's sake, I had to pretend as if I barely knew his name. There were serious consequences for Surrogates who became too familiar with Procreates. Surrogates were bred to protect and serve. Not to become so close to us that we thought of them as family.

  Thorne stared at me the way I'd just been staring at him. The admiration embedded within it made me uncomfortable. I squirmed.

  "Where is my family?" I croaked, reminding me that my mouth and throat were as dry as the desert.

  In tune with what I needed, Thorne swiveled away from me, snatched open a cart, and brought me a bottled water.

  "I think this will help," he said, shoving the water my way.

  It felt like the same type of olive branch I'd offered Jayden with the granola packs. I wished I had the luxury of refusing his offer just in case the water bottle was full of poison, but I didn't. Besides, if he'd wanted to kill me with poison, he'd have let me die from the snakebites. I grabbed the bottle, drank its every drop of water, and looked around to see if there was more where that came from.

  "Join me at the table. They'll be bringing our supper soon, and I'll make sure you get all the water you want," he promised.

  Again, he was holding his hand out to me. This time, he expected me to take it. Silent, I declined. Instead, I stood on weak and wobbly legs that felt as if someone had been beating them all day with baseball bats. I refused to let him see how much I was hurting or to help me. I didn't know or trust this man, but that wasn't the reason I wasn't letting him help me. Standing on my own two feet was a matter of principle and pride.

  It's all I have.

  The man before me was unimaginably gorgeous and I was absolutely attracted to him, given the way my heart skipped a beat every time he glanced to the side or offered me a lopsided grin. Still, I was too weak to insist I be given a few minutes alone to get cleaned up.

  Who was I kidding? I wanted to strip naked and see what kind of scars I was going to be dealing with and what the lingering effects the poison was going to have on me and my body.

  Rather than ask for the alone time I thought I needed, I walked slowly and carefully toward the candlelit table that had been set for two as if Thorne knew exactly when I'd awaken and he'd been preparing to have supper with me all along.

  After we were both sitting, I asked again, "Where is my family and the Surrogate who was with us?"

  This time I was stronger, and through my slitted eyes and with my I dare you not to answer me again tone, he knew I meant business.

  "So the rumors are true. You are fiercely loyal to your family and prepared to do anything necessary to keep them safe," he said as if he'd not believed them before now.

  "No one needs to spread rumors about me. I'm happy to te
ll you anything you need to know. I am what you see. I have no hidden agendas or political ambitions. I love my family. Yes, that means I am loyal to them. I'm willing to give my life—all day, every day—for any one of them," I said smugly.

  Make of that what you will, Thorne, I thought.

  Rather than get offended or challenge what I'd just said, Thorne stared at me with admiration. The kind that Jayden had been showing me the last several days. When I thought about Jayden, I felt guilty. As if letting Thorne look at me like that was comparable to cheating on the Surrogate Soldier who'd just barely come back into my life.

  "There's not a man in this nation who wouldn't give everything they own for a woman who is loyal to him for who he is, not for his ability to give her a child, not for his ability to provide for her, but for pure and simple love," Thorne said, and he had a look that I'd seen a million times in my family.

  It was the faraway gaze Mom and Gran had when they'd narrowed their sights in on a theory they wanted to research and recreate. My own eyes grew smaller because I was suddenly feeling like Thorne had plans for me to be his own special research project. As the original MicroPharm recipient and Barone's Eve, I didn't want or need to be anyone else's science project.

  "I'm not consenting to anything. You will not draw my blood or analyze my readings, and I won't stand by while you inject hormones into people and force them to be loyal to someone who hasn't earned that privilege through actions or reactions. A MicroPharm-created loyalty would be worse than having no loyalty at all because it would be nothing more than slavery," I insisted.

  Again, a flash of disbelief crossed his face. "How… how did you know what I was thinking?" His mouth dropped in utter curiosity.

  I shook my head. "You forget I've lived with two of the most brilliant scientists in the world my entire life. I know what it looks like when they see a problem that needs to be solved, a hormone that could be used to cure or stabilize an illness or a disease, the next generation of something they've assumed to be perfect. I know what the open-mouthed and faraway gaze means because I've seen it almost every day of my life. I don't know you, and I don't trust you. Because of that, I'd never turn my body, my blood, or my MicroPharm analyses over to you for you to use as part of your research. I just can't do that," I said firmly.

  "You're right. You don't know me, so let me assure you that…" He paused in a scary calm kind of way that exemplified his irritation. "I have never nor would I ever experiment on anyone who didn't give me their express permission. So while it seems intriguing to me that there might be a hormone or a gene that exists within people to make them loyal, I'd never try to recreate it for all the reasons you just mentioned. I mean… look at what happened when your great-grandfather's research associated with life expectancy got released. Let's face it. Life on Earth will never be the same now that the guesswork has been taken out of our natural life expectancy," he said dryly.

  Right or wrong, my instinct was to protect my family, but Thorne's opinion was eerily close to my own. In my heart of hearts, I knew he was right. Still, it was hard to admit aloud because it felt almost traitorous to agree that Gran's seemingly innocent and potentially useful discovery had changed our nation's procreation methods. And not in a good way.

  "And let's not forget that if your mother's MicroPharm hadn't been invented, we wouldn't have to worry about genetic deformities being eradicated, which of course is a very real possibility because your mother is so very good at what she does," Thorne said, and there was a sarcasm about his words that made it clear to me he wasn't on board with Barone's strive for the perfect society. Nor was he a Selma Enoche fan.

  It was as if the mere thought disgusted him, and right then I understood that I didn't know anything about him. What I did know was the thought of eliminating babies with identifiable anomalies turned my stomach. And my mother's.

  "You act as if my great-grandfather and my mother meant for their hard work to be used to create the perfect society or to kill babies. They hate that they've had a hand in the world Barone has created. They hate that their discoveries are used this way instead of the ways they envisioned," I defended.

  "What good could ever have come from making these types of technologies known?" Thorne asked with a disbelieving snark.

  "There was a belief by Gran that knowing the date of someone's death would give the scientific community the ability to closely monitor the person and see if there are physiological changes that could be identified and trended among people who were nearing death. He'd hoped that pooling together these trends and mining the data would eventually give him the key to immortality, prolonging life, preventing death… whatever you want to call it," I said through gritted teeth.

  I was trying for reason. I didn't need to be defensive when it came to Gran's or Mom's work. Everything they'd ever done had been done with good intention and for the good of mankind.

  "When Mom saw what Gran could do, she decided there was a more accurate way to track and trend these physiological changes. She invented the MicroPharm with that sole purpose in mind. It was after she began developing it that she realized it could be used for other purposes such as medication administration. She singlehandedly created a world of proactive healthcare. Based on birthdays, the MicroPharm releases vaccinations, and after analyzing physiological readings, it releases medications geared toward preventing illness or minimizing the symptoms of illness. Either way, she never meant for the MicroPharm's most relevant purpose to be that of birth control or pregnancy termination," I assured Thorne.

  He studied me. He was sizing me up and trying to decide if I was delusionally naïve or if he'd made monsters out of ordinary human beings rather than the president who was using innocent scientists' discoveries and their inventions to drive his own agenda.

  When his shoulders relaxed the tiniest bit, I suspected he believed at least some of what I'd said. Before he could utter another word, the door to our tent flipped open and a girl carrying a tray of food entered.

  I'd lived within Aspect's Society long enough to know she was one of the people deemed a servant based on the dress she wore. It had always irritated me to see women in the uniforms that looked as if they'd been resurrected from medieval times and came complete with white shirt, apron, and hood, and a steel gray bodice and skirt. Today (and in my post-snake attack mood) was no different.

  Miraculously, the imbecile who brought these garments back into the modern world had mercy on the women destined to wear these outfits. The clothing designer made the skirts much shorter, preventing tripping, discarded the petticoat, making the skirt less bulky, and offered women the option of a gaucho skirt, giving the uniform some variety.

  Surprising me was the fact that the girl before me had opted for the gauchos. Most didn't because they knew anyone who was requiring them to wear these uniforms preferred the authenticity of the billowy skirt. This girl and her decisions were about practicality, not subservience. I had to respect that.

  I watched her intently as she set before us two tall glasses of ice water, a basket of rolls, and a salad with a green creamy dressing lining the plate rather than the top of the vegetables. I glanced around again and tried to figure out where we were. This meal was more gourmet than survivalist.

  At least not the survival training Jayden had always made me do… and had always told me was the only kind of camping there was.

  As if she were afraid I might look her in the face, the girl shielded her features with the hooded bonnet and by pulling her lovely brown hair down into her eyes. Blending into the background, she was a master at preventing people from getting a good look at her, which only seemed to pique my interest more with each passing second.

  Just as she was about to turn her back on me and prepare to leave us to enjoy the meal she'd brought, I reached out and grabbed her hand. Shocked by my touch, the girl jerked back and toward me. The moment she faced me full on, I realized why she'd been hiding her face.

  Holy crap on a cracker!


  Chapter 15

  Genetic Anomaly

  Carlie

  The girl standing before me was a Genetic Anomaly. She had Down syndrome, an individual with a full or partial extra copy of chromosome 21, and was one of the many people President Barone was working to eliminate.

  With her facing me, I was able to take in all of the traits that told me she had Down syndrome. Her small stature originally led me to believe she was prepubescent. Now I was able to see she was closer to my age. Her almond-shaped eyes and protruding tongue were other very obvious characteristics.

  "I-I… I just wanted to say thank you," I said lamely.

  After seeing how terrified she was, I felt awful for touching her even though I'd only done so in order to thank her for waiting on us, because I didn't like it when people did for me what I should be doing for myself.

  My words meant nothing to the girl. She'd been noticed, and that was something she was supposed to avoid. She moaned as if I'd hurt her and snatched her hand away from me. She tried to run from the tent, but a standing Thorne grabbed her around her shoulders and pulled her into his chest.

  "Shh! Rorie…" he hummed. "She's not going to hurt you, sweetie. I promise."

  He rocked her while he held her tight. I thought about excusing myself, assuming my presence might actually be exacerbating her hysteria. It took a solid ten or fifteen minutes for her to calm down enough for him to pull back and look her in the face.

  He used his thumbs to smooth the tears from her face before saying, "You believe me, right? She won't hurt you."

  Rorie turned her head slightly toward me and watched me carefully before bobbing her head.

  "Good. Now go back to the galley tent and bring the roasted duck you made. You know it's my favorite, and I've been waiting for it all day," he said, pulling her to him and kissing her forehead sweetly.