Child of Lies

by Eric Kent Edstrom

  Summer recovered her composure. “I get it. The machine here looks like the one in the video. Are there dogs here somewhere?”

  “No.”

  Jacey decided to just say it. Like how Nurse Smith always pulled a bandage off in one, swift yank. “Dr. Carlhagen has raised us Scions to be like the dog that didn’t know the tricks.”

  She led Summer through another door and into a walk-in freezer. Five body bags lay on a wooden pallet. Four were the Progenitors of the first graduating class. The last was a new addition. It contained Dr. Carlhagen’s ninety-two-year-old body.

  Jacey knelt by one of the bags. “Be strong, Summer. I’m going to show you something very disturbing. Don’t run away.” Jacey unzipped one of the bags and opened it to show the forehead, nose, and eye of a dead elderly woman with white hair. The face, saggy and pale, stared past Jacey as if seeing some great horror just over her shoulder.

  Summer covered her mouth.

  “This woman looks a lot like Vin, doesn’t she? Just older,” Jacey said.

  Summer bobbed her head but kept her hand clamped over her mouth. Her huge eyes glistened with confusion and fear. “Why are there dead people in here?”

  ° ° °

  Belle sucked her fingers and squeezed her eyes tightly. The pain in her fingers throbbed like jolts of electricity.

  Damn Jacey and damn that door!

  Belle took some breaths and struggled to stifle her moans.

  After Jacey and Summer had gone into the ward, Belle had scrambled from beneath Nurse Smith’s desk to thrust a hand between the door and the jam. Only her absolute determination to get to Vaughan kept her from screaming in pain when the door slammed on her fingers. Every heartbeat had been an eternity of agony while she waited for those slowpokes to get through the door on the other side of the ward.

  Belle tucked her injured fingers into her opposite armpit as she slunk through the door to the holding room corridor.

  In three seconds, she slipped down the short hall and into Vaughan’s room. She left the light off, relying on the illumination streaming in from the hallway. Tears streaked her cheeks, and she sucked air through her teeth. She needed to ice her fingers, but there was simply no time for that.

  She fumbled with the IV stand, followed the tube to Vaughan’s hand. Jaw clenched, she yanked the needle free. Vaughan groaned as the sedative dissipated from his system. “Is that you, Belle?”

  She shushed him, hand searching his body for the strap buckles. One by one she undid them. “We have to get out of here and away from the campus.”

  “Thank God you’ve finally seen sense.”

  Belle hesitated, surprised by Vaughan’s use of the word “God.” It must have been one of the figures of speech he’d picked up from Jacey.

  “We have to move quickly,” she said. “Do you really know how to open the gate?”

  “Of course I do.”

  She helped Vaughan sit up. He swung his legs over the side of the gurney and then stood, though shakily.

  She peeked into the hallway. It was clear. “Come on.”

  ° ° °

  Jacey zipped the body bag shut and stood, wiping her hands on the pants of her uniform. “A few days ago I told you that the graduates met their parents after the ceremony. I was wrong. This woman is not Vin’s mother. She is what Dr. Carlhagen called a Progenitor. Vin was her clone.”

  “A what? That’s not . . . That doesn’t seem . . .” The effort to deny what Jacey was saying played across Summer’s features the way dappled sunlight swept over the quad as a cloud bank crossed the sun. The sun did not return with Summer’s pained smile. “How?”

  “I don’t know. But somehow Dr. Carlhagen discovered a way to take the DNA from that woman,” Jacey pointed at the body bag, “and make a new baby, identical in every respect.”

  Summer’s hand fell away from her trembling mouth. A tear formed in one eye and tumbled down her cheek. “And he put Vin in the machine, didn’t he?”

  “Yes.”

  “And that woman died. Like the dog.”

  “Yes.”

  “So what happened to Vin? She knows everything that old woman knows?”

  “Yes, and in the process, the girl we knew as Vin was destroyed.”

  Jacey guided Summer out of the freezer, put her arms around her. At first, Summer was stiff, balled up with her arms hugging her reader against her chest. After a moment, she threw her arms around Jacey and clung to her. “That’s horrible. Why would Dr. Carlhagen allow such a thing?”

  “Dr. Carlhagen not only allowed it, he started this school in order to do it.”

  “But how could a mother do that to her daughter?”

  “I told you, that’s not Vin’s mother. Vin was a clone of that woman.”

  It was clear that Summer didn’t understand, not because she was too stupid to get it, but because she was overwhelmed. They went back into the transfer room, Summer wiping tears from her face and shivering. “Why are you showing only me this? Everyone needs to know this. We have to get away.”

  “You’re right. We do have to get away. But we can’t take everyone. Not right now. But you have to go now.”

  Summer’s mouth quirked with realization. “Someone’s coming for me. Some woman is going to try to overwrite my mind.”

  “I just found out this morning. Normally, it doesn’t happen until a Scion turns eighteen. But in this case there was an emergency. Your Progenitor is deathly ill, and she’s coming here with armed guards to oversee the transfer. She’ll be here tonight.”

  “How will I get away? Where will I go?”

  “I don’t know,” Jacey said. “We have to find a way out of the campus first. We have to search the island, find some place we can hide out. The woman, Senator Bentilius, says she has only four weeks to live before her disease kills her. I figure we can find some place for you to hide until then. After that, it won’t matter.”

  To her credit, Summer found the internal mettle to straighten up and square her shoulders. She wiped her tears on her sleeve and clamped her mouth so tightly her jaw bulged.

  Jacey felt a rush of pride. Summer was in her Nine, after all.

  She wondered if Dr. Carlhagen realized just how successful the school was at training Scions. It had produced young people of particularly strong resolve. It seemed to Jacey that, in perfecting the Scions, Dr. Carlhagen had made the Progenitors obsolete.

  “Let’s go,” Jacey said. “We don’t have much time.”

  ° ° °

  The sun was well up as Belle guided Vaughan across the quad. There were no Scions about as they were still in classes. “Where do we go?”

  “The garage,” Vaughan said. He squinted against the bright sunlight. He staggered and nearly fell, but Belle caught him.

  “You’ll have to be my crutch for now,” he said.

  She wrapped an arm around his waist to support him. If the need to get away hadn’t been so urgent, she would have enjoyed the physical contact. Belle stood a head shorter than Vaughan, and with his arm draped over her shoulder, she felt small, almost childlike.

  He’s so warm! she thought. She felt her face go hot and hoped he didn’t notice.

  They crossed the quad as fast as Vaughan could manage in his slow shuffle, cutting past the dojo and through the mango grove to the garage. The structure was nothing more than a large shed open on one side.

  The Jeep stood in shadows, its headlights and grill looking like a determined face. Vaughan climbed into the driver’s side and Belle into the passenger side. She had never ridden in the Jeep before, but she’d seen Sensei drive it a number of times.

  Vaughan muttered under his breath. “I hope Mr. Justin returned it. Ah, here it is.” He grabbed a key fob from a storage compartment in the dash. He pressed a button, and the Jeep’s engine roared to life.

  “What about the gate?” Belle asked.

  Vaughan jabbed at a control screen in the middle of the dashboard. It flashed up a menu. “I can open it from here.”


  He revved the engine and tore out of the garage.

  10

  No Food, No Water

  “If we’re going to get past the gate,” Jacey said as she led Summer out of the medical ward, “I’ve got to find the remote. I think you should go back to Girls’ Hall. Get some extra clothes for both of us, toothbrushes, that kind of stuff.”

  “Hurry, Jacey. I’m scared.”

  “I know.”

  Summer headed toward Girls’ Hall, head down and rubbing her arms. She turned frequently to look at Jacey, who waved encouragingly.

  Wishing she felt as confident as she was pretending to be, Jacey headed toward Sensei’s villa, determined to turn it upside down until she found the remote.

  A siren squawked from beyond the mango grove. For a moment, Jacey feared that Senator Bentilius was arriving already. But she had been in holo communication with Humphrey that morning. No way she could travel to St. Vitus that fast. Which meant somebody else was arriving.

  Mr. Justin hadn’t mentioned a supply delivery.

  Jacey peered down the main drive from the gate. The Jeep sped into view, obviously coming from the garage, wheels spitting up gravel behind it. Belle’s pale profile flashed in the sunlight through the passenger window.

  In three heartbeats, Jacey put the pieces together. Belle wasn’t driving. And the only other person it could be was Dr. Carlhagen. Somehow Belle had set him free, and now they were leaving the campus. Beneath the whoop of the siren, Jacey heard the rattle of the chain-link gate grinding open.

  She shoved concerns about Dr. Carlhagen and Belle from her mind. This was her chance.

  She turned and shouted, “Summer! Summer!”

  Calling on all the speed in her legs, she raced toward Girls’ Hall. Summer stood at the doorway, facing back toward Jacey. The gate siren must have stopped her.

  Jacey waved for her. “Summer, come on!”

  Summer just stood there, shielding her eyes from the sun with one hand and staring.

  Jacey stopped running and jumped up and down, waving her arms. “Come now, Summer. Run!”

  Summer started forward. Jacey waved her arms even harder and started backing toward the gate. “Come on!”

  Summer fell into a jog, reader tucked in one hand.

  “Faster!” Jacey cried.

  Summer picked up speed, ponytail streaming behind her. “What’s going on?”

  Jacey pointed ahead. “The gate.”

  They pounded down the path, past the dojo, past the mango grove on their left and Boys’ Hall blurring by on the right. The Jeep was just passing through the gate. Together, Jacey and Summer sprinted toward the opening, footsteps crunching on the gravel.

  The gate stopped its opening crawl, shuddered, then reversed course.

  Three years older than Summer, Jacey was bigger and faster. She could hear the girl’s heavy breathing and footfalls behind her.

  The opening in the fence shrank second by second.

  Too fast.

  Jacey’s feet slid on the gravel as she stopped in the opening. She braced herself to take the ten thousand volts. She’d do anything to stop it long enough for Summer to get out. She tensed and threw her shoulder against the edge of the gate as it continued to crush closed.

  Nothing happened. Apparently the gate wasn’t electrified while it was open. Jacey pushed with everything she had. Her feet found no purchase on the gravel. She spun, putting her back to the gate, pressing her feet against the steel riser at the opening of the fence. A groan escaped her as she slowly lost the battle against the unstoppable power of the gate. Her knees buckled.

  Summer dove at the opening, falling to her hands and knees with a cry. She squeezed beneath Jacey’s legs to the outside. But then she stopped and wriggled back through, shooting out her hand to grab something.

  Her reader.

  “Just go!” Jacey groaned as the gate squeezed the wind from her lungs.

  Summer grabbed the device and slipped back out. Jacey twisted and wrenched herself free, falling next to Summer, gasping. The gate rattled shut and the siren cut off, leaving the world in a silence disturbed only by their heaving breaths.

  Jacey scrambled to her feet. “Quickly, we have to get away from here before someone sees us.”

  She helped Summer to her feet and started down the gravel road. This was the first time she’d been outside the campus grounds since she’d arrived seven years before.

  “Where are we going?” Summer asked, brushing the dust from the knees of her uniform.

  Jacey didn’t answer right away. She didn’t have an answer.

  They had nothing with them. No food, no water, no familiarity with the terrain. But if they were going to survive for four weeks, they would need all three.

  The answer came to her then. The only answer she could offer.

  “Forward.”

  11

  Very Much Like Chess

  Belle twisted in her seat to watch the gate closing behind them. Two figures stood on the road, but the Jeep rounded a turn before she could see who they were. Belle guessed Jacey and Summer. She smiled at the thought of them running away on foot. Searching for them would provide a nice distraction for Senator Bentilius while Belle and Vaughan found a way off the island.

  The dusty road climbed a hillside in a series of precipitous switchbacks before cresting and descending toward the coast. Ahead, the white line of the southern shore trailed into the distance.

  Belle rubbed her arms and tried to shake off the feeling she’d crossed some invisible barrier that had taken her a thousand miles from the campus. She had never seen this part of the island, and she was surprised by how different it looked. Scrub brush, wildflowers, and hardy, tall grasses blanketed the rolling landscape. Occasional trees, bent and wind-gnarled, reached skyward.

  Vaughan steered the Jeep westward, plunging them into cool shade. Natural fences of impenetrable thickets paralleled the road on either side, their leafy tops arching overhead and, in places, forming a tunnel through which the Jeep rushed.

  “They were supposed to prune these when they came for supply deliveries,” Vaughan said. A very Dr. Carlhagenish sourness colored his voice.

  “Are you okay?” Belle asked, eyes narrowing.

  “I’m fine.” He patted his cheek and widened his eyes in an exaggerated manner. “It’s strange. I feel Dr. Carlhagen’s memories in my mind as if they were my own. The pruning is part of the procedure during supply delivery. There’s a team that’s supposed to keep these limbs in check.”

  Just as he spoke, they drove through a section so overgrown that limbs slapped against the windshield. Vaughan slowed the Jeep and patted his pants pockets. “Where are they?”

  “What are you looking for?” Belle asked.

  “My pills. Mr. Justin brought me my pills.”

  “Mr. Justin came to see you in the medical ward?”

  Vaughan jerked his head as if coming awake. “No, no, no. I asked him to fetch my pills. He gave them to me after—”

  Belle knew what he was going to say. Mr. Justin had given him some pills right after Dr. Carlhagen had transferred to Vaughan. Jacey had mentioned something about Dr. Carlhagen’s addiction to painkillers.

  “Never mind,” he said. “Jacey surely confiscated them while I was unconscious.” He scratched at the thin growth of beard on his chin. Having been strapped down for several days, he’d had no opportunity to shave. “I need to eat. What did you bring?”

  “Bring?” Belle gave him a long, exasperated stare. “I didn’t bring anything. I came straight from a meeting with Jacey.”

  Vaughan swore, then clamped his mouth shut. “I’m sorry. I’m starving. What was this meeting with Jacey about?”

  “Apparently an important Progenitor named Senator Something-or-Other is coming to transfer to her Scion.”

  “Bentilius?” Vaughan asked incredulously. “What the hell is she thinking?”

  Belle studied Vaughan closer. She’d never known him to curse.
Clearly he was still struggling with the residual effects of Dr. Carlhagen’s persona.

  “The senator is apparently very ill. Near death. You know who she is?”

  “Yes! Well . . . not exactly. I remember her, but I’ve never met her before. Dr. Carlhagen did, though, many times. She’s a powerful political operator in North America. Her Scion is . . .” Vaughan rapped his knuckles on the steering wheel, then snapped his fingers. “Summer! Is that right?”

  “Yes. When I came to get you, Jacey was taking Summer into the transfer room to explain to her what was going on.”

  “Why would she do that? It seems cruel.”

  “I’m pretty sure she means to have Summer escape or hide someplace.”

  “The senator’s people will find her eventually,” Vaughan said. “I know it sounds cruel, but the best thing would be to let the transfer happen.”

  “That’s what I said!” Belle allowed herself a thin smile, enjoying the fact that Vaughan agreed with her for once. “But Jacey’s so idealistic. She doesn’t understand the chess game.”

  “Ah yes,” Vaughan said. “It’s very much like chess. So knowing that, you came to free me to get away because . . .” He considered it, then smiled and gave her an approving nod. “Because you know that once the senator discovers her Scion has gone missing, she’ll lock down the whole island. And even after she’s overwritten Summer, the armed guards will never leave. And you’re next to be overwritten.”

  “You said you knew a way off the island. I want to get away from here. And since you have access to Dr. Carlhagen’s memories, you can help. Jacey still wants to overwrite you, by the way.”

  Vaughan wasn’t listening. His head drooped forward, and the Jeep slowed.

  “Vaughan?” Belle said, patting his shoulder. His head lolled to one side. Fighting down a flush of panic, Belle took hold of the wheel and kept the vehicle aimed straight down the road.

  “Wake up!” She shoved him harder.

  No response.