The Nancy Experiment

by McKenna, Tess

  “I’m going to find Annika!” Nate shouts back.

  “You crazy?! The place is going to explode!!”

  “I’m not leaving her in here to die!”

  “She can take care of herself!”

  “I won’t leave her behind!”

  “She’s going to be fine, Nate! She’ll make it out of here, but you have to come with us!” Lazzer says.

  He yanks Nate toward the stairs to the sloping hallway, and since he has more rest and strength than Nate, he’s able to fight off Nate’s struggle to break free.

  “I promised Cliff I’d get you back safely. I’m not going to let him down, so don’t you let him down!” Lazzer says.

  Nate surrenders and runs out with the others before the factory goes up in smoke.

  XXXI: Walk Away

  Saturday, April 5, 2065; 9:35 a.m.

  First person

  Whack! Wham! The hunting crew hits me again and again and again. Whack! Wham! Whack! My body, though stronger than the average human’s, suffers at the constant punishment, especially my torso and my head. Whack!

  “That’s enough,” says a low, cold voice.

  The punishment stops, and the men in steel-toed shoes back away from me.

  “And turn that alarm off,” the voice says. The alarm rests.

  I open my eyes and see the man whom the voice belongs to standing at the other side of the small fall-out shelter, ironically the safest room in the factory. His face, his attire, his ominous aura― all exactly the way I remember him. Tall; dark, graying hair parted to the right; dark, gray-green and hollow eyes; broad shoulders, covered by a dark, black shirt; and white, lined pants reaching down to dark, steel-toed shoes. If not for the white pants, I could mistake him for a shadow.

  “Basia Nancy,” he says slowly.

  He treads toward me. Bruce, Eva, and Jericho stand at his flanks, still and apathetic like robots, though they don’t come any closer.

  “I thought you’d be dead by now,” he says.

  “So did I,” I reply. “You really tried your best, doc.”

  I stare back at him. With my back against the wall, my arms extend above my head, my wrists barred by radiation handcuffs nailed into the wall, my toes brushing the floor. The doctor stops, inches from me, and I can smell the blood and sweat on him, and I can almost feel it, too.

  He braces my face with his hand and inspects the fresh cut on the side of my face, oozing red blood down my cheek and dripping onto my shirt. He clicks his tongue and shakes his head.

  “That doesn’t look good,” he says.

  I jerk my face away.

  He sighs, stares down at the floor, and then swings him arm, slapping me across the face. My head jerks to the side, but then I retaliate, turn back to face him, and spit in his face. He wipes away the pink saliva and steps back to his robots.

  “Let’s not prolong this,” he says. “Eva and Bruce, go pay a visit to the boys in the generator room. Marissa will handle the German.”

  What...?

  Dr. Nancy glances back at me as Eva and Bruce leave the room.

  “What? Surprised? You underestimate me, Basia; it’s the most important lesson I failed to instill in your synthetic mind. Of course I know the Metanites would plan an attack on my laboratory… it’s the only thing they have left to do! And as soon as I dispose of your… pathetic friends, I’ll finally put an end to the trouble you’ve caused me.”

  “You think this is over?” I say to him.

  “Your mission failed,” he replies.

  I shake my head.

  “No, you’re the one who underestimates me. You may be able to kill me, but you can’t destroy me. The secret’s out, doctor! People already know what I am and what kind of experiments you do in here, and they’re not going to let you get away with it.”

  “Me?” he exclaims. “I am saving lives in here, finding cures, and creating new ways for humans to survive. What I do, I do in the name of science! You… what you do, you do for your own selfish reasons.”

  “Science?! You kill and torture in the name of science?!”

  “For what is right! For progress! For the advancement of human abilities!”

  “And what about Cassie―your daughter!”

  Dr. Nancy sighs and glances down at the floor. “Cassandra disobeyed me and dishonored my practice. What could I do? She chose her fate.”

  “You’re disgusting.”

  “And look at you,” he says. “You… you’re a machine. A weapon of mass destruction, an instrument engineered in these very walls.”

  I look around the room at the four other men standing with their chins raised and their eyes over me. They all think I’m a machine, a monster, just a clone with no sense of identity or morals. I glance at Jericho, but he’s staring at the ground, shadows hiding his face. He holds his hands together behind his back and stands with his feet shoulder-width apart. I look back at the doctor.

  “I am a human―a person… with a mind and a heart just like anyone else. I am not your special, little weapon.”

  “You’re a monster,” he says. “A monster.”

  “No… you’re the monster,” I reply.

  Dr. Nancy’s eyes narrow and his nose pinches up; then, he turns away and paces toward a covered table next to Jericho. He lifts the cover off the table and lets it fall to the floor, then he inspects a large syringe filled with a pale-yellow liquid.

  “You could have been great, Basia. I’m sorry it had to come to this,” he says.

  He holds the syringe in one hand and, with the other, tosses a handgun from the table to Jericho. Jericho catches the gun and scrutinizes its black, rigid structure.

  “A clean bullet wound and some radiation fluid should tell the story of how you barged into my private laboratories and madly attacked my faculty, until a brave, young man stopped you before you could blast him with a deadly explosion of nuclear energy,” the doctor says. “Shoot her, Jericho.”

  Jericho’s eyes stay locked on the gun as he counts the bullets. He glances up at me, those dark eyes cutting deep into mine, and snaps the gun to the ready. He raises his arms, both hands holding the gun pointing at my chest, and his eyes stab deeper into mine. Then, he aims slightly higher and—

  BANG! BANG!

  My heart stops for a long moment; I feel the sparks at my hands; and my wrists fall freely from the handcuffs. I drop to the floor. My heart starts again, and I feel sixty bullet wounds all over my body, so real, yet… not there. I look up at Jericho, who’s still staring into my eyes and pointing the gun at the handcuffs. He shot… no… he shot… the handcuffs… Jericho relaxes the rifle then tosses it to me. I catch it, barely, and then suddenly, the lights go out.

  No… the generator…

  “No!” Dr. Nancy shouts. “Get Her!”

  I jump to my feet and lunge at the first of four blind guards. I slam the guard’s head with the blunt end of the gun, and he falls. I take down the second just as fast. The third and fourth hear the commotion and start shooting five feet to my right. I spin toward them and see their figures from the single light that remains lit in the dark, contained room. I fire a shot at each of their legs.

  “Jericho! Where are you going?! Jericho!” Dr. Nancy shouts out the door.

  Jericho must have left―walked away from the doctor and the ticking time bomb of a factory. I knock out the two guards, wailing and moaning on the floor in the center of the room. I rise to my feet again, and a burning needle stabs into the lower left side of my back. I holler as I feel the radiation seeping into my bloodstream through the needle’s tip. I swing my arm around and connect the rigid gun with Dr. Nancy’s head. He falls, his back landing on the floor. I yank the syringe out of my back and aim the gun at the doctor’s head.

  He stares at me, and I stare right back at him. A fire, stemming from the burning, prickling sensation in my back, grows inside me; within seconds, the fire runs through my whole system like electricity waking a sleeping train. He’s right there, too…
his chest rising-falling-rising-falling and his eyes sparkling with a new kind of fear I have been dying to ignite in those dark, wicked holes.

  “Perhaps I have underestimated you,” he breathes.

  Rising-falling-rising-falling. The fire burns.

  He laughs.

  “Go ahead. You’ve wanted to long enough. Pull the trigger,” he says.

  Pull the trigger! Pull the trigger! Finish him!!

  The fire scorches through me. Keep it controlled. Keep it controlled.

  Hurry it up and shoot him before you both are blown to bits!

  My heart beats out the waning seconds that remain until Dr. Nancy’s factory explodes, and all that evidence of his criminal activity, all that tangible dirt goes up in flames with it.

  Kill Him!!!

  “No,” I say. I toss the gun away from me, into the shadows. “I’m not your weapon anymore.”

  I step over him and walk toward the doors where Jericho left.

  “You―where are you going?!” he shouts at me.

  “Leaving,” I reply. I keep walking.

  “You―No! You can’t run away from this forever! Wherever you go, we will find you and bring you and your friends down! You have nothing on me! In a minute, all this will be gone―destroyed!”

  I turn around. “Actually, you’ll be here, so you won’t be blowing-up or searching for me any time soon,” I say. “And I’m not running anymore. I’m walking away.”

  I slam the door and lock the doctor in the safe room. I sprint down the hall, away from the doctor and the shelter.

  Got to find a way out of here― fast! Got to get out! The air is sticky and still, ripe for detonation. I know I don’t have much time left to get out of here― seconds, maybe. My body feels weak, heavy, and on fire. The radiation running through me drags me down, but I continue to pull myself forward.

  Keep going forward. Find a way out. Find a way out. Find…

  XXXII: The Phoenix

  Monday, April 7, 2065; 9:30 a.m.

  Author’s view

  On the tenth floor of Kenyon, the nine remaining Metanites crowd into a small waiting room outside Moton’s office. They spread themselves apart: Zoë sitting on the sofa with Kono, Kia sitting on the floor with her back resting against the couch, Elijah hunched over on the opposite couch with Nickel, Abraham sitting on a sliver chair by himself, Lazzer leaning his back against another wall, and Nate standing by the window and staring out the glass. They do this not because they want to give themselves space in the tight room but simply because they do not want to be near each other, and most couldn’t say why. They stay motionless and silent; they try not to look at each other, too. They had turned the news off long ago. It was the same ambiguous, useless babble of the incident two days ago played over and over again. They know what really happened, partly. They know enough, yet they waited, in total silence, for Moton to arrive with more answers, like how? Why? Finally, the door creaks open, and in walks Moton with Ms. Grenavich and a tall, dark-skinned man in a tailored suit. They look up at the men.

  “Everyone,” Moton says. His voice lacks the security it usually carries. “This is Mr. Henderson, the Director of the CIA.”

  “Good afternoon,” the dark-skinned, handsome man says. He nods at the teenagers, but they’re unresponsive. “I’m here on behalf of the FBI, MI6, and the staff in Washington, and all want to thank you for your exemplary actions in Tuesday’s disaster. Thanks to you fine heroes,” (the Metanites bite their lips at the word) “no children or innocent bystanders died as a result of the explosion, and we were able to contain the situation, getting all those injured to a hospital in due time and getting the others to a secure location where we will evaluate what crimes they may have committed. With all that you’ve accomplished, given the troubles that came your way this past month, you should be very proud of yourselves.”

  But they’re not. They’re not proud. They’re not even going to pretend to be. They don’t move, they don’t speak, they don’t accept any thanks or congratulations. Because to them, the incident two days ago was by no means a victory.

  “We also want to offer our condolences,” Mr. Henderson continues. “We understand that the loss of three friends, especially in the case of treason, is―”

  “Four,” Zoë interrupts. Mr. Henderson stops and stares at her. “We lost four friends.”

  “I see,” Mr. Henderson says, after a moment of hesitation. “Again, our condolences… We are confident that you, being the strong individuals that you are, will make it through this difficult time.”

  “What happened to them?” Nickel asks. He directs his question to Moton.

  “Izzi Evertt is still in the hospital, but then she will go to prison with the others. Marissa O’Brien will be taken to a high-security prison in Washington,” Moton replies. His voice is momentarily like it used to be.

  “And Dr. Nancy?”

  “Off the grid,” Mr. Henderson answers. “We found his blood in the fallout shelter along with four men who survived the explosion, but the doctor was gone.”

  “So why are we sitting in here when we should be out there looking for him?” Kono snaps.

  “We are compiling information from what remains of the laboratory, but all we have are the children’s testimonies and some fragments of machines we believe came from the black market,” Mr. Henderson replies. “Yes, we are looking for him, but no, we don’t have enough to hold him on yet.”

  “What about Annika?” Kiaria asks.

  Some of the Metanites glance at Nate, but he’s an impassive statue by the window.

  “The clone? This is where things get complicated,” Mr. Henderson says. “As you’re all aware, the girl you know as Annika is no ordinary person; she’s the clone of Basia Nancy. Because we could not find her body among the ashes and debris left from the explosion, we planted Basia Nancy’s corpse in the fallout shelter. That way everyone believes that Basia Nancy is dead.”

  The Metanites perk up and glance at each other, their eyes alive again. Even the statue by the window breaks his stance.

  “Wait, you couldn’t find her?” Elijah asks. “So she could be alive?”

  “Unlikely,” Mr. Henderson replies. “Several people were in the laboratory when the explosion occurred, and there’s no trace of them either. We believe the bodies vaporized, including the clone’s.”

  “But you’re going to plant a body to make everyone believe Basia Nancy is dead?” Lazzer asks.

  “Basia Nancy is dead. And yes, we already decided that this would be the best story to tell the world. According to the world, the clone never existed and Basia Nancy is a deadly terrorist, and for now they have to believe that. No one can know about the existence of the clone. Is that understood?” Mr. Henderson asks.

  No one raises any objections.

  “I’m guessing that last little bit is off the record, right?” Abraham asks.

  “We should be wrapping up the final debriefings today, and then we will leave Kenyon… until we meet again,” Mr. Henderson says.

  He glances at the door, ready to leave, then turns back.

  “And, I’m sorry about your friend, Annika. She belongs here among you,” he says.

  Nate turns his back to the window and stares at the carpet by Kiaria’s feet. The others dig their nails into their palms, bite the inside of their cheeks, clamp their eyes shut― anything to hold back the emotions.

  “Elijah,” Mr. Henderson calls. He motions to the door.

  Elijah doesn’t move. And then, “No.”

  “Son…” Mr. Henderson says.

  “I’m staying.”

  The FBI Director sighs. “Alright. June, then…” he says, and he leaves the small room.

  Moton still stands in front of the teenagers, looking over them with heavy gray eyes.

  “So that’s it?” Kono speaks up. “They’re just going to leave us alone?”

  Moton half-grins.

  “The Metanites are part of Kenyon, and Kenyon is a pro
gram of the government. We’ll always have to deal with them, but yes, they are giving us some space. I want all of you to take the rest of the week off―and I mean it. Don’t go looking for something to fix,” Moton says.

  “Moton, why is the FBI leaving us alone?”

  “Because Annika is dead,” Lazzer says.

  “She wouldn’t be dead if we had gotten her out before the factory blew up,” Nate says, while he opens the window.

  He punches a hole in the screen then climbs onto the ledge.

  “Nathan―” Moton calls, but Nate flies out the window into Cleveland.

  Moton sighs and dismisses the Metanites. He catches Zoë before she leaves with the rest of them and asks her to keep an eye on Nate. She nods and follows her friends out into the hall. The door closes, and Moton sits down on one of the silver chairs. Ms. Grenavich stands behind him and rubs his shoulders.

  “They’ll be alright… they’re a strong group. The first loss and betrayal is always the worst, but they will make it through this,” she says to him.

  “I made a mistake, Jackie. I let them down. You were right: I cannot save all of them,” Moton says.

  “But we must always try,” Ms. Grenavich says.

  Moton smiles and takes her hand.

  A hooded teenager sits alone in the spacious New Promise Church and stares at the floor. A middle-aged man walks out of confession, glances at the veiled adolescent, and then strides out the church. The hooded figure looks up and advances into the small confession room. The teenager sits on the edge of the white-cushioned chair and looks around the room. It’s a close-fitting room with a wooden carving of Jesus on a cross hanging on the wall in front of the chair; below the cross is a confession prayer nailed to the white wall; and next to the chair is a Chinese partition that parts the room in half.

  “Good afternoon,” the priest says, after the teenager remains silent.

  The priest is Father Jack Warnock, who, with his caretaker’s permission, opened confession to help those disturbed by the incident two days ago.

  “Good afternoon, father,” the teenager replies.