by Krista McGee
“You can use your relationship to him to your advantage.” James sounds miles away, though he stands just feet in front of me.
“So I should manipulate him the way he manipulated me?” I move toward the door, wanting to run again, to forget what I just heard, go back in time so I would not ever have to know it.
“Thalli, you’re the only one with that much power over him.”
I push past James, open the greenhouse door.
“Wait, Thalli. There’s more.”
I run now. I don’t want to know more. I wish I didn’t know this. I run past the track, past Pods B and A, past the Scientists’ quarters. If Loudin sees me, he isn’t sending anyone after me. Did he hear that conversation? Did he orchestrate it? Maybe it isn’t true. Maybe James is working for Loudin and he just wants me to believe this. Maybe he thinks I’ll be more willing to listen to him now, to work with him.
I stop running because I have reached the end of the State. The massive water reservoirs remind me of time spent with Berk. When I thought being an anomaly was the worst thing that could happen to me. When I thought the whole world was confined to this State. I lean against the cool concrete and slide down, spent. Tears I was holding back burst out and I cannot stop them.
Why is this happening? Why is the Designer allowing it? Why give me a glimpse of him with my violin, a moment of peace, then strip it away, leaving me more hurt and alone than before, more confused? John said I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. But this is too much. I cannot do this. I want to stay here. I want to fall asleep and never wake up. To go to heaven where there is no pain. No ugly truths. No confusion. I lean my head on my knees and drift to sleep.
I am shaken awake by a bony hand. Two blue eyes swim into my line of sight. James. Why can’t he leave me alone? Why can’t everyone just leave me alone?
“Thalli.” James sits beside me, and I hear popping and cracking as he does so. “You need to know everything.”
I put my head back down. “No, I don’t.”
James is quiet for a long time. Too long. I look up and find his gaze on me. “You weren’t born the same way the people above were born. The way I was born. But you are a product of love.”
Love? And Loudin? Those two words seem to be the exact opposite of each other.
“Joseph has always been driven.” James looks out toward the pods. “Even when we were in college. He had to make the best grades, to be valedictorian. He had to get published first and most. We were all in awe of him. Myself included. He seemed so sure of himself. We knew he’d do great things. The rest of just followed his lead, happy to be around him. When the president chose him to head up what would be the State . . . Wow. He wasn’t even thirty, and he had the most important job in the country. He was on the phone with the president daily. He got whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted it.”
I want to stop listening, but I cannot help myself. I never thought about who Loudin was, how he became that man. I just know what he is. I won’t allow myself to feel for him. But if he is my father—even the thought makes me ill—but if he is, I need to know this, to understand him. I do not want to make the same mistakes he did. I refuse to become like him.
“But what he wanted more than anything wasn’t the State. It was a girl.” James laughs softly. “Not even the great Joseph Loudin was beyond the sting of cupid’s arrow.”
Is he speaking of my mother? My mother. I have never in my life put those two words together. It is like another language.
“For a while it looked like he would get her. We weren’t surprised. He always gets what he wants. But then he lost her.”
“In the War?”
James raises his eyebrows. “No, Thalli. She survived the War.”
“Like your father did? Was she here visiting him?”
“No.”
“Then . . . ?”
“She was a Scientist.” James waits for understanding to dawn on my face.
“Kristie?” I can barely say the name. “My mother is Kristie?”
James releases a long breath. “Yes.”
CHAPTER 9
Relief and fear battle for my heart. Kristie is my mother. Loudin is my father.
“Kristie chose Carey,” James continues. I try to still my mind so I can hear him. “Loudin was heartbroken. As heartbroken as he can be, anyway.”
“What happened?”
“It was just a couple years after the War.” James looks up, remembering. “When things started to slow down. For him. The rest of us took time off from the beginning. We had to. But Loudin can work for months on end without stopping. We couldn’t. We’d have poker nights and movie nights, anything to clear our minds of all that was happening. Rebuilding a world was painstaking work. Exhausting. And we lived in constant fear that our safeguards would be compromised.”
I want to sympathize, but I know they were not victims of the War. “But Loudin planned the War.”
James takes in a loud breath. “How do you know?”
“Kristie.”
“I didn’t know.” James shakes his head. “I swear I didn’t. Neither did Kristie or Carey.”
“I know.” I bite my lip. “Your dad knew that too. He knew you weren’t like Loudin.”
James looks away and clears his throat. A minute goes by before he speaks again. “That’s what ended it for Kristie. She was so angry with Joseph. He knew she would be. That’s why he tried to keep it secret. But when she found out . . . I thought she would kill him. Carey held her back, calmed her down.”
“I wish she had killed him.” I feel a little guilty as soon as I say that. But I don’t take it back.
“He meant well. Means well. He really thinks this is what is best for humanity.”
“He is arrogant and homicidal.” My voice echoes off the concrete. “Who cares that he means well?”
James laughs. “You sound just like Kristie.”
Kristie’s voice, like mine? The thought is so foreign but comforting somehow. “Was that when she left?”
“Yes, five of the Scientists left the State.” James rubs his eyes. “Loudin was beside himself for weeks. Angry, hurt, scared. At that time he had no way to track them. We didn’t know if they lived or died.”
“So he made babies to get over her?” Loudin—whose idea it was to remove emotions—was completely controlled by his?
“I made the babies.” James places his hands flat on the ground beside him. “I was the Geneticist . . . am the Geneticist. He came to me privately, asked that each generation have a product of Kristie and him. I thought it was just romantic. And I guess, at first, that’s what it was.”
“Something changed?”
“He looked in on the first child often.” James shakes his head. “Until he saw he was functioning just like all the others, doing his job and nothing more. He did the same with the second generation.”
“That one is a woman, isn’t she?”
“Yes.” James turns his blue eyes on me. “You’ve seen her?”
“Yes.” The confirmation takes my breath away. A brother and a sister. A mother and a father. The words seem to float around me, circle me—caressing and choking me at the same time. Brother . . . sister . . . mother . . . father. My throat constricts and tears burn my eyes. Brother, sister, mother, father.
“She functioned normally as well.”
“So I was the first anomaly.”
“The first that came directly from Loudin, yes.”
“There have been others?” People like me? Those who think and feel? Who spent their lives feeling like they don’t belong?
“Those like Berk, who were chosen to be Scientists. I do not remove any potential cognitive or emotional functions from them.”
“But you removed mine?”
“I treated your embryo the same as all the others, yes.” James looks away. “Loudin insisted.”
“And he watched me?” The thought is repulsive.
James sighs. “He was thrilled the
first time he got the report that you were exhibiting unusual behavior.”
“When was that?”
“You were barely walking. But you’d go the opposite direction from everyone else. The Monitors didn’t know what to do.”
“What happened?”
“Loudin observed you and blamed the Monitors for your behavior. He told them not to report anything again until you were past the preschool years.”
“And then?”
“They reported your behavior then—you didn’t complete assignments as directed and you argued with your music Tutors. He said the same thing. Wait until you were ten, then fifteen.”
“But when I broke down in the performance pod . . . ?”
“At that point he had discovered the pockets of survivors and was planning to send emissaries to them. He determined that you would be the best person to send. You hid your differences for seventeen years, demonstrating an advanced intellect and adaptability. And you were his. Like I said, he is proud of you.”
“He isn’t proud of me.” I think of this man who destroyed the world and killed people at his whims. “He is proud of his DNA in me.”
“You’re probably right.”
“I am definitely right.”
“But whatever reason, Loudin has a weakness for you that he doesn’t have for anyone else.” James stands, his bones cracking with each movement. “You can use that power to help your friends in New Hope, Thalli.”
I don’t say anything. I have too much to process. James seems to recognize that because he walks away, leaving me sitting at the edge of my world.
CHAPTER 10
I cannot stay here. I have to move. I have to do something.
I need to find Kristie and Alex. We have to get out of here. I do not care what James says, I don’t want to work with Loudin. I don’t want to be anywhere near him. I want out of the State, away from these memories. I want to go back to New Hope with Berk and Rhen, back to the little church and the horses and the orange trees.
I cannot just walk into the Scientists’ quarters and grab Kristie and Alex. I don’t even know where they are. And as soon as I leave this area, the cameras will pick me up.
I stand and walk around the water reservoirs. I recall being here before and seeing a button somewhere. An alert button. It was installed because there are no cameras here, before the communications pads were perfected. If I find it and press it, maybe I could divert the Monitors long enough to sneak into the Scientists’ quarters.
There! It is high. Too high. Even with my arm stretched as far as possible, it’s too far. I look around. There is nothing here to stand on. I jump, touch it, but I still cannot press it. I need a running start. I’ll go back, race toward the wall, and then throw myself into it. The potential result outweighs the potential pain. I take several steps backward, then push my legs as hard as they can go. One step before I reach the wall, I leap.
A siren screams out my victory.
I ignore the pain in my knees, the blood flowing from where they struck the reservoir. I race to the Scientists’ quarters. The doors open and Monitors pour out. I press myself against the side of the building. Monitors do not even look in my direction. They are running out to the reservoirs. Afraid, likely, there is a leak or some other catastrophe. Dr. Williams is out too, moving slower than the Monitors, strands of her gray hair coming out of the normally perfectly contained bun at her nape. She is typing on her communications pad, calling out instructions.
I remain plastered against the wall until the Monitors are out of sight, then I race to the door. In their haste, it has not been closed all the way. I breathe a quick prayer and sneak in as quietly as possible, then open the door from the stairwell to the hallway. Empty. But I still don’t know where, exactly, to go. Alex is likely above, Kristie below.
I take the stairs down. It is riskier, going to where the Scientists’ laboratories are. But Kristie will know better how to escape. My knees are aching and my lungs burning, but I keep going, until there are no more stairs. This hallway is empty as well, but full of noise. Muffled voices, mechanical beeps. The soft whir of machinery.
I will be a target if I simply walk out. My clothes alone will give me away. My once-white shirt and pants are wet with sweat, brown with dirt, red with splotches of blood that has leaked through the knees. I freeze as a female Assistant comes out one of the doors. An Assistant with a spotless uniform and a communications pad that opens every door.
I go back into the staircase, searching, hoping the Designer will forgive me for what I am about to do. I have no other choice. Nothing. I find nothing in here I can use, so I pull my shirt off and wait at the door. The Assistant walks by. I open the door, then shove it into her, knocking her off balance.
In the instant she reaches for her communications pad, I throw my arm around her neck and pull her into the stairwell. She is stunned. Nowhere in their training is instruction on how to respond when attacked. I use this to my advantage. Recalling the way the soldiers in Athens captured me, I pull her hands behind her back and use my shirt to tie her hands together. But I need her clothes.
Ugh.
I need her to be unconscious. Otherwise she will start fighting back instead of just staring at me, dumbfounded. I am crying as I force her down to the ground.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Apologizing while trying to knock someone unconscious is ridiculous, but I cannot help myself. When her eyes roll back in her head, I stand, watching her chest to make sure she is not dead. There. I see it. Slight, but there is movement, a rise and a fall. I turn her over, removing the restraints and taking her clothes.
I try to push away thoughts that this is terrible. That this is something Loudin would do. But what choice do I have?
I pull my hair back into a ponytail, use my old shirt to wipe my face and hands as clean as I can make them. Should I restrain the Assistant? I look at her, half naked, pale. I cannot do it. I can only pray she is out long enough for me to find Kristie and Alex and plan our escape.
Keeping my head down and my eyes on the communications pad, I open the door. My face stares back at me. A warning appears below my image along with a command to find and return me to the Scientists’ quarters. I can only hope they assume I am too intelligent to be in the very place where they want me.
A Monitor comes out of a door halfway down the hall. I keep my head down, tapping on the pad as if I am engaged in a conversation. The Monitor passes me without a glance, hurrying to the elevator where he is, no doubt, going to try to find the girl whose face is on his communications pad.
I try to be as nonchalant as possible as I look in each window, left and right, down the impossibly long hallway. My heart leaps into my throat when I see Dr. Loudin in one of the windows. He is turned to the side, eyes on a screen. I start to move on, but a blur of blond hair stops me.
Alex.
Alex is behind Loudin. He is looking at the screen also, his arms folded. He is shaking his head and saying something—loudly—I cannot understand.
I need to get his attention without alerting Loudin. I look at my communications pad, at my face, surrounded by glowing red lines. A button below the image reads Target located.
I press the button, type in Pod C greenhouse. A loud beep comes from the screen in front of Loudin.
I rush to the next room. No one is here. I step in and look through the window. Loudin leaves the laboratory and walks toward the elevator. Alex is not with him.
I wait until the elevator door closes and then I make my way to Alex. He is not alone. Loudin has left a Monitor there to guard him. I take a deep breath, then open the door with authority.
“Dr. Loudin asked me to take the subject to Pod C.” I pray the Monitor does not look up. He does not. But he does tap on his communications pad.
“I have not received that instruction.”
Alex has seen me now, and he is moving toward me. He is far more familiar with strategy than I, so I try to communicate with my eyes that he nee
ds to figure out a way for us to get out of here.
Alex stumbles—right into the Monitor, and the man’s communications pad flies across the room. As the Monitor stands, Alex punches him hard in the face and he crumbles to the ground. I wince at the sight.
“Come on.” Alex grabs my arms and propels me from the room.
“Kristie,” I whisper. “We need to find her.”
“Loudin sent her aboveground for the day to do some testing.”
“Perfect.” I race toward the stairwell.
“No.” Alex pulls me back. “We don’t have the equipment we’d need to escape. We go up there and we die.”
I groan. I hadn’t thought of that. The last time I escaped from here I was unconscious. Berk and Rhen did all the planning. I just went to sleep in the annihilation chamber and woke up outside.
I look into the room at the far end of the hall. An empty laboratory. I use my communications pad to open the door. It smells stale. Dust covers the surfaces. We walk farther in and see a small office. Dr. Spires’s office.
“We should be safe in here.” I close the door to the office and sit below the window. If anyone were to look in, all they would see is an abandoned room. “This belonged to a Scientist who died several months ago.”
Alex sits beside me, his side pressed against mine, providing a warmth I wasn’t aware I needed. “He’s out of control.”
“I know.”
“You know?” Alex’s sky-blue eyes fasten on mine.
“What do you know?”
“Loudin has an entire world-domination plan,” Alex says. “He wants to go to every surviving village, gain their trust, connect the State to them.”