“What happened then?”
His jaw flexed, his throat moved with a hard swallow.
“Adrids never came home that day. The Group kept her in the clinic at their facility. They came for me the day after.”
“Was that when you learned you’d be a father?”
He nodded.
“Were you happy?”
“Initially? Scared.” He shook his head. “I’d never seen a baby up-close in my life, but I’d heard about pregnancies ending early, fetuses dying in the womb. Maternal mortality rates were high, despite our advances in medicine.
“On Keala, Ricread is lauded as a hero. Back then, he was already well on the rise. His team put Adrids under round-the-clock supervision, promising they’d do everything to keep her and the baby alive and healthy. I agreed to whatever testing Ricread wanted to put me through, thinking I was helping Adrids in some way. I realized later that Ricread was simply evaluating me as his next subject at that point.”
“If he is such a miracle maker, why doesn’t he increase the fertility of other men, instead of focusing on you?”
“Ricread may think himself a God, but he is not,” Tairan scoffed. “Despite his genius, he cannot create life from nothing. He cannot revive dead cells or conjure non-existing sperm. For his experiments, he needed a starting point—a specimen with viable genetic material, which men on Keala don’t have.”
“Except for you.”
He nodded slowly.
“The conception of Erix put me on Ricread’s radar. And once I caught his attention, it proved impossible to get away.”
“Wouldn’t that also have made Adrids exceptional? It takes two to make a baby. Where is she now?”
“Adrids died the day Erix was born. The pregnancy was extremely difficult. She slipped into a coma and would have passed away two months before she did if Ricread hadn’t kept her vital functions going. As soon as they got Erix out, they turned her life support off, without asking or even informing me. Ricread declared her body too damaged to maintain even as a living womb.”
“Would he really do that?” I gasped, utterly appalled. “Continue to use her as an incubator?” I couldn’t imagine anyone doing that, even Ricread.
“Knowing him the way I do now,” Tairan replied. “I don’t doubt he would have.”
A rush of cold shivers spread through me at the grave tone of his voice. Wrapping his arm around me, Tairan drew me into his side.
“What did you do then?” I asked.
“After I buried Adrids, my life became a constant race for power against Ricread. The City Defence Forces were still one of the most influential organizations in Atal. I used whatever power I could gain from being in it to wrestle Erix from his hands. I moved my parents in with me, afraid to trust anyone else to look after him while I was at work. I earned the rank of the commander at twenty-six. Ricread and his core team had departed for Earth by that time, and I thought I could keep my boy safe, away from him.”
“What changed?”
“There was a power shift about a year later. Ricread made it to the top of The Science Group, and his organization received unlimited authority to act as deemed necessary to preserve our race.”
Closing his eyes, he rubbed his forehead.
“Within months of this happening, Ricread’s people broke into my home while I was at work and took Erix. My father passed away from heart failure shortly after. I fought for nearly a year to get Erix back, using every legal avenue available. Once it all failed and Ricread personally came back to Keala to take Erix to Earth with him, I walked into his office and offered him a deal.”
“You instead of your son?”
He nodded as his chest heaved.
“I signed my body away for the use of science, effective that day, under the condition that The Group left Erix alone.” Hands clasped behind his head, he leaned back against the couch. “That was the only thing I asked for. And so far, it’s worked. Erix was living in our house with my mother. When she passed away a year ago, a couple of my friends moved in to look after him. He goes to school like every other child did before him. He is the youngest one by five years there. And no matter what, he can’t escape the status of a celebrity being, literally, the last Kealan born. But aside from the regular, non-invasive medical checkup once a year, he is not going through any tests or procedures.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“More than four years ago. They let me see him before I left Keala.”
“Have you had a chance to speak with him since then?”
“No.” His mouth thinned into a firm line, and his eyes glistened in the light of the room.
I took his hand in mine, stroking it lightly. Keeping Tairan away from his son seemed absolutely unnecessary to the purpose of the experiment. I couldn’t come up with any logical reason to do that except it being simply another chance for Ricread to assert his power over Tairan.
“This is incredibly cruel.”
“I hacked into the facility communication system.” Tairan said, meeting my gaze. “I can’t use it too much or risk being caught and stopped, but I’ve been sending letters to my friends in Atal every month and getting updates on Erix from them. Do you have anyone back home you would like to send a message to, Isabella?”
“Me?” I straightened in my seat.
I’d only been here for several weeks, although it seemed like a lifetime had passed since my nerve-wracking wedding day. My family was not one you’d call close-knit. My mom had never been particularly close to any of us. And my sister and I had our share of disagreements. Still, when I thought about home right now, my heart squeezed with longing. Realizing I might never see any of my family again and not know how they were doing was devastating.
“Wouldn’t that mean that you won’t be able to send your letter this month then?” I asked, careful not to give into hope yet.
“I can wait until the month after. You just got here, I’m sure your family members are losing their minds over what is going on with you.”
“The little ones must be missing me,” I agreed, thinking out loud. “Mom and Mary are probably wondering, too. Tony will definitely demand some answers once he gets home. And Dad will, too.”
“Think about what you want to say to them. I have no access to the English alphabet for you to type it on my arm device. But since it’s a much shorter distance, I can send a voice message from you. It will still need to be brief.”
Chapter 16
AS PROMISED, TAIRAN sent a message to my sister the very next day. I told her where I was and that I was alive and well. I did not say I was happy.
Neither did I say anything about being pregnant.
Whenever I had imagined having children, my friends and family had always been a huge part of that experience in my mind. But just like my wedding, my pregnancy now was not my own. Instead of feeling joy I would want to share with the world, I was wracked by worry, anxiety, fear, and anger. No matter how hard I pretended to feel nothing at all on the surface as time went by, these emotions wreaked havoc on the inside, wearing me down day after day and week after week.
I caught Tairan gazing at my stomach one day, the soft expression of wonder on his face set an explosion of anger inside me—although not at him.
Any woman, I imagined, would cherish the time spent with her husband, the father of her child, waiting together for the happy arrival.
I was robbed of the chance to appreciate it or the right to enjoy it.
“Don’t.” I placed my hand over his eyes, unable to stand it. “No matter how long it’ll last, it’ll never be more than a subject number in a catalogue somewhere, dissected under Ricread’s microscope the moment it leaves my body, then placed in a jar on display . . .” My voice broke under the swell of ice-cold dread and sorrow.
I said the cruel words out loud to remind myself what was to come, to keep any hope from rising, to stop any feeling. Yet they cut me sharp from the inside. There was no escaping this
pain.
I closed my eyes, struggling to listen to the voice of reason, but the more I actually felt pregnant, the harder it was to pretend or ignore. My stomach grew, my breasts felt sore and tender, and the morning sickness got more intense.
Still I resisted allowing the being growing in my uterus to find a way into my heart, because I had no idea how to mend the void it’d leave behind when it was inevitably gone.
Even if this fetus managed to beat the odds and become a baby, I knew it would never be allowed to belong to me, and I had no idea how to prevent that from happening.
ONE DAY AFTER BREAKFAST, Zavis showed up in our rooms, the screen of her arm device glowing.
“There has been some slight modifications to your daily schedule,” she addressed me, beaming almost as bright as her screen.
“What kind of changes?” Tairan rose from the couch where he had been showing me more videos of Kealan life—the cave system he had visited while still in the Academy.
With all testing and procedures cancelled for the time being, Tairan had been allowed to recover in peace, regaining his strength and body mass.
I hated to see him tense at Zavis’s statement now. My own hackles rose—I rather liked our simple existence of late, and changes weren’t always for the better in this place.
“Walking outside has been added to your list of permitted activities,” Zavis announced, excitement bouncing in her pretty pink eyes.
“Outside?” It was Antarctica, with temperatures well below zero this time of the year. Still, any chance of getting some fresh air—even if frozen—and seeing the open sky again—even if dark—felt exciting.
“And, Commander . . .” Zavis turned to Tairan. “Your health has been found fully restored. You are allowed to resume your regular level of activity.”
He nodded, without saying a word.
I’d noted that Zavis, along with other members of the research team had been abandoning the term ‘subject’ in reference to us. More often than not, they referred to me by name—which Zavis always did anyway—and to Tairan by rank.
Except for Ricread. He still preferred to address me by nothing at all and often spoke about us to his team as if we weren’t present.
Since the confrontation in the clinic, we hardly saw Ricread at all. He seemed to be dealing with us through directives to his people, which I greatly preferred.
“Would you like to go outside now?” Tairan asked, after Zavis left.
“How cold is it out there?”
“Around zero Celsius in the walking area.” He went to get our cloaks from the closet.
“Zero? How can that be—is it heated?”
He wrapped the cloak over my shoulders then put his own on and reached for his goggles. “Come, I’ll show you.”
“THIS IS LIKE A PLANETARIUM!” I tilted my head all the way back to take in the night sky through the high glass ceiling.
We stood in a large, round room, right before the exit to the outside.
“Come,” Tairan urged. “We may see the aurora australis if we’re lucky. I’ve read it’s active this time of the year.”
With his cloak wrapped tightly around him and the goggles firmly on his face, Tairan looked every bit the alien I remembered when we first met.
He checked the entire length of the closure seam of my cloak, from my neck to my ankles, and showed me how to regulate the temperature inside it by sliding my fingers along the hexagonal pattern. Despite the cool air in this room, I felt nice and toasty in my clothes.
The glass entrance opened, and we stepped outside. Cold air touched my face, but it was far from being freezing.
“The walking area runs along the perimeter of the facility.” Tairan pointed at the wide path, lined with what appeared to be thin mesh on the packed snow by the wall on both sides of the glass entrance. Outside of the mesh, the snow piled high in drifts.
“The walking area is heated,” Tairan confirmed my guess.
The outside walls of the facility were of smooth grey, with a soft glow at the bottom to mark the way. We moved along the path, side by side.
“Is there an invisible fence here?” I examined the edge of the mesh on the ground as we walked. “Anything that would stop us from running out there?”
“No.” He turned his head to me, lights streaking his goggles in hexagons. “Just the freezing cold of the Earth’s Southern Pole, icy ocean, and vast distance to civilization.”
No fence was necessary to keep us in place.
“There is also an electronic barrier,” Tairan continued. “In the shape of a dome around the facility. It’s not a fence, more like a warning system. The security team gets notified if anyone crosses it.”
“Humans?”
“Yes. There are scientific expeditions on this continent. Ricread doesn't want anyone near here. His orders to Earth’s government were to keep away from the facility, and the warning system is there to let him know if humans disobey his instructions.”
After walking for a couple of minutes, we turned around a corner into compete darkness, with not even the illumination at the bottom of the wall.
“We should see the lights better from here.” Tairan slid his hand out through the opening in his cloak and took my elbow.
“Did you turn the lights off in this section somehow?” I ventured a guess, well familiar by now with some of his creative ways of getting around rules and barriers.
“Just for a little while,” he admitted, the corner of his mouth lifted in the cheeky smile I loved. “Watch.”
With my gaze, I followed in the direction he pointed. A wing of neon green silently swept through the dark sky just over the horizon.
“Wow,” I exhaled, watching another wave rise and ebb in the distance. “I never realized they can be this quiet.” The eerie silence combined with the stunning beauty of the lights was astonishing. Somehow, I’d expected natural beauty of this magnitude be accompanied by some spectacular noise to match, like thunder and lightning.
“What colour are they?” Tairan asked.
“Green, with a tint of aqua blue right there, this time.” I pointed at the curling waves as the Southern Lights moved through the sky in a spectacular lightshow. “Why do you ask?”
“I’ve read they could also be purple-pink.”
“Would those two colours look any different to you?” I moved my gaze to him.
“No. Depending on the saturation one may seem a little darker than the other, but both would remain grey. How different are they for you?”
“Me? To me, green and purple are very different.” I paused, wondering how to explain colours to someone who’d never seen them. “If you think about colours like sounds,” I started, “the light intensity could be compared to the sound volume. Right? There is the two-dimensional range from darker to lighter, just like volume moves from quiet to loud. Now think about all the multi-faceted variations of the sound intonations, individual tilts, accents, and cadence. They all mix and blend together in various combinations, creating something entirely new, like songs and music.”
I watched his face carefully to see if my explanation was making any sense to him. The goggles proved it difficult to figure out his expression, though.
“So, according to that logic, the voice of each person would have its own colour, too?”
“I guess it would.” I smiled. “Yours would be purple, like your eyes, I imagine. Although I’ve heard your voice sounding steely grey, cold and dangerous, at times.”
Sliding his cloak open, he reached for me.
“Yours would be a tangerine orange then.” He drew me closer.
“Orange?”
“Warm and bright. Sweet and strong. I’ve read it is the colour of your Sun, late in the afternoon. When it no longer burns your skin, but gives warmth and life.”
“Is that how I sound?” I leaned into him.
“That’s how you are. To me.” He brushed the side of my face with his fingers.
Needing to touch him,
I opened my cloak, too. Cool air snuck through the opening right away.
“Stay warm, Isabella.” Tairan came flush with me. Sliding his hands along the open ends of our cloaks, he merged them together, like a tent, with the two of us inside.
I wrapped my arms around his middle, leaning into his large body.
“You remind me of the ila flower,” Tairan said softly. If I had to describe his voice in colour at that moment, I’d say the purple had been saturated with warm pink and coral.
“Do they have that flower in the gardens here?”
“No. It’s very rare. But I’ve seen it while cave exploring. It senses any movement nearby and opens up to attract life forms for pollination.”
“Hmm, how does it remind you of me, exactly?”
He cupped my face between his hands.
“When the ila flower opens, it emits light, so bright it can illuminate a large cave all on its own.” He leaned in, brushing his lips against mine in a tender Kealan kiss. “For me, you brighten any room you’re in,” he whispered against my mouth, then kissed me hard, like a man from Earth would.
His lips parted mine as he searched for my tongue with his. I responded, and he pressed me tighter against him, deepening the kiss further, as if he had been starving for me all this time.
I missed this, I realized, hungrily devouring his mouth. Tairan held me close at night, and I got hugs and kisses from him during the day. But now I desperately needed more.
“What is the cologne you wear?” I murmured when he let me come up for air to nibble at my neck. “I can’t get enough of your scent. It makes me want to lick you all over.” Burying my nose in his braids, I traced the shell of his ear with my tongue.
“No cologne.” He breathed against my skin, prickling it with pleasure. “Just olmerberry soap.” He walked me backwards and gently pressed my back to the wall. “And you can lick all you want,” he added, with a smile in his voice.
I giggled into his neck, the sound coming out a little breathy as Tairan roamed his hands along my body. He slid one inside the low neckline of my dress, cupping my breast and rolling the nipple under his thumb.
Experiment Page 15