Resilient

by Patricia Vanasse

  I pace around my room, checking out the pictures Mom hung on the wall. If I look closely, I can see that I don’t belong. All of my siblings are redheads like Mom. I have brown hair and dark eyes like Dad, but I don’t have his features. All those years, I never really felt like I fit in, but Dad is still right. He has always treated me the same way he treats my brothers and sister. He might not be a present father, but he loves me in his own way, I guess. I love him, too—very much so, all of them, and I can’t let myself imagine never, ever coming home to them again.

  I hear a noise coming from the outside. I open the patio door and Livia is approaching. She walks straight into my arms and I close my eyes, taking in her sweet scent.

  “You took a while. How did you get here?”

  “I ran over here through the woods. I had to wait on my parents to go to sleep. I didn’t want to take the risk of them checking on me and not finding me in the room.”

  “We need to leave town, Livia,” I say bluntly. “We’re not safe here.”

  She pulls back and stares at me. “I can’t just leave my family, Adam. And where would we go even if we did?”

  “I don’t know, but if we stay here we’ll be putting our families’ lives in danger, and eventually Aaron will come and take us.” She nods and sits on my bed. The idea of leaving town isn’t an easy one, but if we want to keep our loved ones safe, it’s the only way. “Livia, did your uncle come back to your house?”

  ”No, he said he was meeting with someone when Dad dropped him off at the school. He asked if he could use my car for the night. He told us he had a date. I sent him a bunch of texts, but he won’t answer me back.”

  “A date? Does he even know anyone on the island?”

  “No, of course it’s just an excuse. Even Dad thought it was odd.”

  My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I check the incoming call. “It’s Kyle… What’s up, buddy?”

  “I’ve been following him as you asked,” he reports. “He went to a restaurant in Freeland, then he left with a woman and they just pulled in at the Coupeville Hospital.”

  “Kyle, don’t leave. Wait, and if he gets out before we get there, follow him.”

  “So my uncle did have a date, and now he’s taking her to the hospital?” Livia asks in disbelief.

  “I’m sure he’s going to see Stevens.” I look at Livia and she’s staring at the floor. “Are you ready for this?” I tilt her face up so she’ll look at me. She nuzzles her cheek against my hand, and I slide closer to her until there’s no room between our bodies. I lean in, brushing my lips on hers, but before I can kiss her, she pulls away. She stares at me in doubt; I drop my gaze.

  Of course; she’s taking this “brother and sister” thing seriously. If that’s true, then hell, what’s left to happen?

  We get in the Jeep and I head to Coupeville.

  “You better slow down or we’re gonna get pulled over,” Livia warns, glancing at me. I take a look in the rearview mirror—there’s a pair of sporty headlights behind us. I can’t make out the car, though.

  “I think we have company.” She says as a streetlight briefly illuminates the road and the car tailing ours.

  “That’s the car!” she cries. “But a woman is driving it, not Daniel.”

  I turn right into the hospital’s parking lot and get a better look at the car as it continues down the road. “It’s not a Mustang. It’s a Dodge Charger. Which one did you see before?”

  “That one, for sure.”

  My fingers tap the steering wheel anxiously. “Well, they know where we are, and I have a feeling they’re going to wait ’til we come out.”

  I park and we get out of the Jeep, my eyes on the main road the whole time. We pass Kyle on the way into the hospital and he nods at us. He knows to stay here and wait. We walk down the hallway unnoticed—I guess the staff is used to seeing my face often enough. We reach Stevens’ room, but the door is locked.

  “There’s someone inside,” I notice.

  As Livia raises her hand to knock on the door, her uncle opens it. A tall, blond woman is behind him. Livia crosses her arms over her chest and cocks her head to the side.

  “I thought you said you didn’t know him.”

  “We need to talk.” Her uncle looks from Livia to me. “We should go someplace private, because we need plenty of time.”

  We follow him and the woman out of the hospital wing, but I stop him before he reaches the main waiting room. “We’re being followed, sir, so it’s not safe to drive Livia’s car or mine. My friend here can take us.”

  Kyle shows us to where he is parked. The blond woman tells him, “Take us to the Countryside Motel.”

  The car ride is tense and silent the whole way, but when we get to the motel lot, Henry pulls me closer to him and says in a low voice, “It’s not safe for your friend to stay.” The car is so quiet already that he might as well have shouted it.

  “You heard the man,” I tell Kyle almost jokingly. “I’ll call you to pick us up.”

  Kyle shrugs like it’s all he can do. “I’ll be waiting.”

  32 Livia

  We’ve walked all the way to the motel room and safely inside, and still no one has said a word. “Who is she?” I ask, meaning the blond lady my uncle has so far refused to introduce.

  “My name is Emily Castro. I’m a friend of Henry’s.” She offers me a hand to shake but I don’t take it. I look from her to my uncle, who sits down on the end of the bed.

  “Livia, don’t be rude—”

  “I can’t shake her hand. Her emotions right now aren’t very comforting and, lately, I’ve been getting these pictures of people’s lives when I touch them. I don’t really want to see hers.”

  My uncle frowns at me, but he’s not confused—he’s surprised and very calm, considering all that is happening. “I assume you and Adam already know about each other,” he says.

  “Are we brother and sister?” I prod him. “Did you know that and let me date him anyway?”

  “You two are not siblings.” He regards Adam and me, reassuring us both. Relief washes over me. “Livia, you need to calm down, too. Then I can tell you what you need to know.”

  “And what is that? I knew you were hiding something big from me.”

  “What I have to tell you will shatter your world, and I’m sorry for that.”

  That stifles me. I lower myself onto the other bed, and Adam comes to sits next to me. He opens his mouth to say something, but Henry puts a hand up, silencing him.

  “First I want you to know that everything I did, I did because I believed it was best for you. I thought that, by keeping the truth from you, I was keeping you safe.” Uncle Henry takes a deep breath, rubbing his hands against his pants. “It’s interesting that you are always quoting expressions. I’ve lived the last eighteen years quoting the same one to myself every day.”

  “And what is that?” I ask

  “Exitus acta probat.”

  “Ovid,” I say. “‘The outcome justifies the deeds.’”

  Uncle Henry smiles. “You tell me later if you agree with it.” I nod, bracing myself for what comes next. “As you both already know, you two have a lot in common, and what I’m about to tell you is the story of both of you.”

  He hesitates. Adam says, “I’m ready to hear it.”

  Henry sighs and begins with hunched shoulders. “A little over eighteen years ago, I was hired by a secret government agency to conduct a classified experiment. They needed a young doctor, fresh out of school and easy to manipulate. I didn’t know what the experiment was about. They kept me on a need-to-know basis and gave me new tasks every day. I had to have a secret identity and I was not allowed to contact any of the other doctors involved in the case.”

  Uncle Henry stands up and paces around the room. “After a couple of months confined in a subterranean compound, I started running into other doctors and eventually we would meet up at one another’s places for a game of poker. Emily was one of the scientists working on t
he case. When she figured out what was going on, she came to us for help. After her confession, we decided that we needed to look into what was happening in our workplace. Months later, we found out that we were operating on unconscious women, and they were being used to procreate.”

  “Procreate what? Aliens?” Adam asks warily, and Emily chuckles.

  “I see why you would think that you’re an alien,” she says, “but no, they were reproducing humans. The women were implanted with genetically enhanced embryos.”

  “So my dad is right. I am genetically modified,” I say, thinking out loud.

  “Kind of,” says Henry. “They were also injecting the experimental group of babies’ brains with an unknown substance. By the time we were certain of what the project was about and what the agency planned to do with the babies, those women were already at the end of their pregnancies. When we had the chance, three other doctors and I performed C-sections and took every single baby with us. Then we burned down the lab.”

  My chest tightens, and I’m staring in naked shock at my uncle. “That explains the vision I had when you hugged me. I saw fire and smoke, and that’s why I couldn’t breathe. I was there with you, wasn’t I?”

  “Yes.”

  “So we were made in a lab, and you killed our mothers,” Adam whispers. I feel sick to my stomach as I take in the solemnity of his words. I can’t believe I’ve never noticed that my uncle was hiding something this big from me. I always knew he had secrets, but I had just assumed they were about keeping my abilities secret from everyone else.

  Henry sits back down and looks at me. He reaches for my hands, but I pull away.

  “They didn’t even know they were pregnant,” Emily says as if it’s the most mundane fact. “They were women in comas, brain dead, living off machines and abandoned at hospitals by their families. The government kept them alive to run the experiment.”

  “Why would they do such a thing?” I ask in disgust.

  “They wanted to build an army with special soldiers,” Uncle says. “They made you resilient. You can survive almost any weather, any injures, and you are remarkably intelligent. If you were properly trained, you could easily destroy a government from within. A perfect type of spy.”

  “So after burning the place down, what did you do with us?” Adam asks.

  “We drove the babies to separate parts of the country and tried to place them in safe houses,” Emily says. “Henry took Livia to the convent. I took two others with me. One I left at a safe home with parents I knew would love her. The other one I took with me and I raised him as my own.”

  As I listen to Emily talking about the kids she took, I feel this massive pain building in my chest, as if losing something I can’t live without. Her eyes fill with tears, but she’s quick to wipe them away.

  “Did the agency take them?” I ask.

  “The girl, the one I left in northern Idaho. I kept an eye on her. I would drive through her town every six months to check on her. She had a good family a good life, but three months ago, they came for her and they took her. It was like she never existed—no school records, and her family didn’t remember ever having her. The agency completely wiped out any evidence of her.”

  “What about the other one?” Adam asks. “The one you raised?”

  “After I found out they had taken Alexis, I came home and told Dan, the other one, everything. Like the both of you, he was kept away from the truth, but he always wondered why he was special. He believed that there were others like him, and he wanted to submit himself to scientists’ hands to be studied. I was able to prevent that from happening. But once I told him the truth, he wanted to find those like him, so he left to search for you and the others.”

  “How did he know where to find us?”

  “I had a good idea where you all were taken to. I mapped out where he should look.”

  “Have you heard from him?” Adam presses. “Where is he now?”

  “He never contacted me since he left. I’m afraid they have him, too.”

  Adam gets up and walks to the window. He slides the curtains out of the way and peeks outside.

  “What is it?” Henry asks. “Did you hear something?”

  “I heard a car pull up, but it’s not them,” Adam says. He sneaks a glance at my uncle. “So have you always known about me?”

  “No,” Henry says. “You weren’t supposed to be here. Your destination was Alaska. I was suspicious when Livia told me she couldn’t empathize with you, but you weren’t adopted, so I didn’t look into it. The day I saw Stevens at the store parking lot, that’s when I knew. Stevens was one of the doctors who worked with us at the compound. We worked together on the rescue mission—he took the biggest risks of us all, and was almost captured after leaving with two of the eight babies. The agency got one, but Stevens was able to flee with the other baby.”

  “Adam?” I say.

  “That’s right.”

  “Then why am I not able to empathize with him?”

  “It seems to me that Adam may have the ability to block others out so no one can use their abilities on him.” Henry looks at me. “But I don’t know how far your talents have developed. They get stronger as you figure out how to use them. Your empathic ability is unique to you alone, despite what the assassin and Aaron might have told you. It’s one thing to read thoughts, but another to understand the emotion behind them. Since you’ve accepted that as a part of you, you’ve started to develop it deeper. Now you can see more than just inside of someone’s feelings—you can see what they were feeling at any point in their lives. That’s why you have been seeing those pictures when you touch people.”

  Adam walks up to stand next to me and I rest my head on his shoulder. “At least we aren’t siblings,” he says.

  I can’t help but laugh. “At least.”

  But Henry plows on. “Now, we don’t have much time. What exactly did Aaron tell you?”

  “You know him?” I ask in surprise.

  “He was just a kid when I first came to the compound. He belongs to the first batch of genetically enhanced humans made. The agency did the first experiment six years before you were born, and the babies had some defects. They lack any type of emotion and they had to undergo intense training before they could pass for normal in society; even then, some of them still cannot. They are mostly presented as soldiers, spies, made to do the dirty work.”

  “How many of them are there?”

  “Four of them and eight of you,” Emily says. “You’ve met Aaron and Camilla.”

  “Camilla? You mean Ms. Johnson?”

  “Didn’t you notice there’s something odd about her?”

  I shift uncomfortably. “Yes, but I wasn’t sure. She shields her emotions very well.”

  “It’s because she doesn’t have any,” Emily explains. “She has a shield, but there’s nothing behind it.”

  “Aaron also said they will send someone for us Sunday morning,” Adam inserts.

  I feel my uncle’s emotions in turmoil. He fears for me and for my family, but he doesn’t want to see me go—and he knows he has no choice.

  “I’m glad you took care of me,” I say, reaching out to grasp his hand. “Otherwise, I would have never known what it’s like to have a family and be loved. But if the ends justify the means, only you can know that. You’re the one who has to live with what you’ve done, but I can only thank God for putting you in my life.” I push myself forward and give him a hug and squeeze my eyes shut so I won’t cry.

  “Henry has been planning for this day all your life. He has a plan and it’s the only way for you to be safe,” Emily says, though I’m hardly paying attention to her.

  My uncle takes my shoulders and holds me, steadying me at arm’s length; his shaking resolve says that I should listen.

  I pull back and look at him and Emily. “And what do you propose we do?”

  “There’s so much more you need to know,” he begins quickly, “but we don’t have time. I’ll write y
ou a letter tonight explaining everything I know about you and your abilities—for now, you need to do exactly what I tell you to do and trust that it will work.”

  “We have everything planned out,” Emily says. “I have new passports for both of you. We’ll say that Adam had an argument with his father and he moved out. You, Livia, couldn’t let your beloved go by himself, so you followed him.”

  “So my parents are going to think I eloped?” I ask, incredulous. “That’s not fair to them.”

  “Livia, that’s the way it has to be. Your parents might even guess the truth—they know you’re special,” Uncle says. “You’re stronger than you think, and you can do this.”

  “You both are going home to write goodbye letters to your parents and hide them where they can’t be discovered beforehand,” Emily says, her tone all business. “We need to keep everything looking normal until then. The agency can’t think that you are planning an escape, so you have to act like nothing is going on. Go to the homecoming dance tomorrow, and at 10 p.m., that’s when you’ll leave.”

  “Where are we even going to go?” Adam asks.

  Uncle Henry retrieves a paper from Emily’s bag and spreads it across the desk in the room. It’s a map with red pen marks over it, and I lean in closer to look at it. “Are we heading to Alaska?” I ask, frowning at the scale of the map, the national borders, the arrows north.

  “I have a cabin secluded in the middle of the wilderness,” Henry says. “It’s right outside Noatak National Preserve, and the only way for you to get there is by plane. I’ll have someone I trust to fly you. He’s already expecting you.”

  Adam eyes the map with a guarded stare. “And how long are we supposed to stay there?”

  “For as long as it takes for you to master your abilities. You’ll need to train to fight and to survive. It shouldn’t take long—read the books and notes I’ll be giving to you. They will help you understand what your abilities are designed to mature into, what the first batch of subjects are able to do, and how you can defend yourselves against them. After that, you must find the other kids. Together, you’re stronger.”