Chapter Nineteen

Dr. Little cruised into my room, his hands behind his back while he whistled an upbeat tune.

“And how are we feeling this morning, Miss Dannacher?” he asked in the same melody he just whistled.

“Just peachy,” I scowled, “for someone who gave birth less than forty-eight hours ago.”

“Now, now, things are not as bad as they seem.”

“Not as bad as they seem? You took my baby. You lied to me, and you tried to trick me.”

“And you shouldn’t have been allowed to hold your child immediately after she was born. Then you would’ve accepted the clone baby as your own, and we wouldn’t be in this little predicament.”

“There’s one thing a clone can never understand. A mother knows her own child. Your plan would have never worked anyway.”

“I’m not so sure of that.”

“So what’s going to happen to me now?”

Dr. Little stepped forward and sat down in the chair next to my hospital bed. He tapped his trimmed fingernails on the table next to my bed in the same beat as the song he whistled upon entering. “Your job and the job of all future surrogates will be to give birth to fertile females who’ll be reared by a team of experts and prepared for their future responsibilities as birth mothers.”

“Where’s my baby now?”

“She’s safe. She’s receiving the best care possible. We won’t do anything to compromise her well-being. That’s why she’s under the care of a GenH1 team of professionals.”

“Can I see her?”

“No. But you will see the others when you give birth—that is, before they’re taken away.”

Pretending to go along with the program was more difficult than I thought it would be. “I’m not having any more babies, especially now.”

“But you have to. It’s part of the plan.” He smiled. “Insemination will occur against your will, but we don’t want it to come to that, do we? Everyone else on the team has accepted the plan. You need to do the same.”

“What about Travel? Where is he?”

“The team is still having trouble convincing him that we did the right thing. He’s currently in isolation, but he’ll be moved back into his apartment by this afternoon.” He was lying. I wasn’t fooled by his sick words and fake charm. “He’s confined on the eighteenth floor for the time being.”

There was a ding and Dr. Pickford entered, his forehead shining and his eyes blinking wildly. “Sorry I’m late.” He threw an apologetic, yet worried look at Dr. Little. Dr. Little’s brow wrinkled like he could read Pickford’s mind, their personalities as synced to each other as their Liaisons, making me continually wonder whether or not the two men had been brothers in the past.

Anger swelled over the edge of my heart like a flood, throwing the team’s lies and deception like trash along a riverbank of disgust. “You can both go to hell.”

“That’s no way to talk to the men who are in charge of your future,” said Little, interlocking his fingers and resting them on his gut.

“You mean the men who are going to help Gifford make this the most influential region in the world,” I sneered, remembering the conversation I overheard in the hall. “What are you going to do? Deny them of fertile females?”

He chuckled. “Good guess. You’ve continued to prove you’re smarter than you look.”

Screw you! “When can I be discharged? I want to go home.” Home. This wasn’t my home. My home was a world full of hunger, disease, and other unpleasant conditions, but at least there we were free—free to love whom we wanted, free to have children with whomever we wanted, and free to keep them.

The seven deadly sins did not die with the plague, they just went into hibernation, waiting for the right moment to return, for Pandora’s Box, my cryonic chamber to reopen.

I was their Excalibur, the missing link to their salvation, and once President William Gifford had me under his jurisdiction, he couldn’t resist plucking an apple from the tree of knowledge and taking a bite. Travel and I were their Adam and Eve, but this was no Eden. There was no place like home, and clicking my heels together wouldn’t help.

“You can return to your apartment today if you like. It’s important that you return to a routine of normalcy.”

“Then I’d like to go now. I want to be there when Travel’s brought back.”

“I’ll make the arrangements.” Dr. Little tapped his L-Band.

“Actually, you won’t be seeing Travel, Miss Dannacher,” interrupted Dr. Pickford. “I just came from his cell. That’s why I was late. You see, um, he just asked for my permission to leave the program.”

“What?” Dr. Little appeared genuinely shocked, but Pickford had to be lying. Travel would never leave me—at least not like this.

“Yes, I’m afraid so,” continued Dr. Pickford in a fake fatherly tone and a curled lip. “He asked for amnesty and the right to leave the project. He promised to sign a contract guaranteeing his silence, and I agreed, promising to compensate him for his contribution to the program thus far. He plans to leave the region immediately.”

“The region?” I tried to sound surprised.

“Yes, he needs time to think. He’s going to visit his brother in Region Three and then move to a non-disclosed location.”

“I don’t believe it,” I countered.

“Oh, believe it. You will not be seeing Mr. Carson ever again, but don’t look so sad. You still have friends. You have us.”

Oddly enough, Dr. Little sat there appearing as stunned me. He didn’t say another word as my plan of escape expanded into a plan that included not only Gifford but the demise of Dr. Pickford and Dr. Little.

“The arrangements have been made,” Dr. Little announced as he looked up from his L-Band. “You may go back to your apartment.”

The two men stood in sync, and as they left my room I heard Pickford say, “You’re needed on the eighteenth floor.”

Putting on the same pants I wore when I arrived in the delivery room gave me little warmth in a room chilled with deception and fear. The waistband snapped into place, readjusting to my slightly smaller size, but the front panel sagged and wrinkled, missing what it had stretched out to hold.

Kale and a SEC met me in the hall. She smiled and nodded, her cheeks puffing up like she was holding her breath.

“Cassie, it’s so nice to see you again.” She laced her stubby fingers together and gave me a slight bow.

“Thank you” was the only thing I could say.

My nose and cheeks felt oily, and the clean shirt against my sweat-caked skin felt as unnatural and awkward as leaving the hospital room without my baby. I was so sore from giving birth that my first steps were like that of an old woman, hobbling in pain, making anyone who saw Kale and me walking side by side think I was doing a cruel imitation of her stride.

I focused on the audible rhythm of her walking and tried not to think about Travel, who was suffering somewhere within the walls of GenH1, but it was impossible. With each blink, my lashes batted tears down both cheeks.

“A MED’s going to be stationed in your room with orders to dispense a limited amount of pain reliever to you at your request. It’ll also record the times in which the pills have been given and once their effect has expired, it will ask you if you need another dose.”

“So, it’s going to stay in my apartment?”

“Yes, it’s customary during any home-recovery period.”

“Great,” I scoffed. I decided once again that I hated bots, all bots. They were spies, ready to report and record my every move once I was home. At least I was free of the SEC watching my every move. It was relieved of its duties now that I wasn’t with child.

Kale laughed. “Think of it like a piece of furniture, a piece of furniture that’s there to help you.”

MEDs were not as human-looking as the RELAX units, but they were engineered to pacify and appease, ease and relieve. That literally was their motto. The heads of MEDs were capped with short, synthetic hair that was glossy enough to be mistaken for curls of metal string. When they spoke, their vinyl faces stretched in ways that human skin never could, and despite their realistic, faux irises, the dead look in their eyes made it clear that there wasn’t a brain of flesh mounted behind their plastic eye sockets.

“It’s only for a few days, and then the MED will be relieved of its duties.”

When we reached my apartment, she put her hands on her hips and said between breaths, “We should have taken a two-occupancy hoverchair.” She placed her hand on my back and divided her weight between both legs, taking a stance that reminded me of a rooted tree.

“No, I needed to walk. Walking helps me think.”

“And you have a lot to think about.” She patted my shoulder. “I’ve been thinking about things, too, and there’s something I want you to know—your baby has given me and this world new hope.” Kale’s globular face and globular words were so nurturing and motherly that for a moment I actually smiled.

“Now my children, and their children,” she continued, “will live in a world full of optimism instead of fear. Without you and Victoria, we’d be hit with another plague, the plague of anarchy. That’s our fate if we lose you: anarchy and then extinction.”

“I know, but—”

“I understand how you must be feeling right now, but in time, your heart will heal. I believe that, and you need to believe that, too.”

But she didn’t understand. She was incapable of understanding, limited by her inability to procreate. I knew right then that I couldn’t trust her.

“Thank you. I feel better now,” I lied.

“If you need anything, you give me a call.”

After a brief hug, she wobbled down the hall, and I entered my apartment and flopped down on the bed.