Chapter Two

Aiden

Carter’s sneer and old-fashioned glasses are fresh in my mind when I decide to pay Dr. Burns a visit. She’s the lead psychiatrist on staff and one of my favorite people inside this enormous facility. Without her or Dr. Niels, I’d probably start talking to the walls.

On my way to her office, I pass a window that gives a clear view of the city skyline. It’s drab and far away, but it’s something. I’ve never been downtown, but thanks to the existence of maps and my perfect memory, I can name every street. The nearest high school, university, and gas station, too. Pointless information I wish I could forget, because I may never get to experience them anyway.

I spot a cardinal sitting on top of an oak tree, and I stare at it through the glass, oddly jealous—too bad I wasn’t made with wings. Must be nice to be able to go wherever you want, whenever you want. After only a moment, the bird flies away—no doubt unaware of how lucky he is—and I finish my trek through the empty hallway.

Down on the first floor, Dr. Burns’s door is open, and she looks up as soon as I round the corner. “Aiden, hello.” Pushing the chair back, the always-smiling doctor stands and steps in front of the dark-blue table, which, like almost everything inside AIR, has a polished coating over its surface.

“Do you have a few minutes?”

She nods, grinning, and motions toward the loveseat that’s nearly the same shade of blue as her desk. “For you, always. How are you doing?”

“Okay,” I say half-heartedly, eyeing the abstract orange-and-blue painting on the wall behind her. It complements the couch in an immaculate, Feng Shui way. I once asked Dr. Burns about it, and she told me it was one of a kind, that no other painting existed in the world that was quite like it. Just like you, she’d said.

I never understood what she meant, but it was nice being compared to a piece of art, I guess.

She waits for me to talk, the way she always does when I come to see her. But instead of talking, I inspect the painting some more, then gaze out the wide, rectangular window. This one doesn’t offer much of a view, just a few men walking around, all wearing dark-brown pants and a matching jacket. Security guards.

I want to ask her about my conversation with Carter, about his questions, but I’m not ready to voice my concerns. “What’s it like out there, past the gates?” I finally say. It doesn’t seem right that I understand what Feng Shui feels like yet nothing about what the real world feels like.

Dr. Burns sits in a chair next to the window instead of the one behind her desk. She blinks a few times and crosses her legs at the ankles. “You mean outside AIR?” When I nod, she continues. “It’s—well, it’s like it is in here. Just…bigger.” She hesitates, her brows pulling together regretfully. “Does this have something to do with your last test?”

I shake my head and stare at the dark wooden floor.

Dr. Burns makes a soft sound, like she knows I’m lying. Seconds pass, and then she says, “What would you do out there?”

I look up. “What?”

Casually, she shrugs, smoothing the fabric of her dress over her knee. “If you were allowed to leave, do whatever you wanted for the whole day, what would you do?”

“Uh. Hypothetical situations are pretty much pointless.”

“Who says it’s a hypothetical situation? Do you expect to spend the rest of your life here?”

Hell, I hope not. “No, but sometimes it feels like I might.”

“Niels and I have spoken at length about your future and where you might live. There’s a place a couple hours northeast of Dayton, just past Columbus. A facility a doctor friend of mine works for. Her name is Zoe Miller. She has an open entry-level position you could fill, and she’s even offered her spare room to you if you need. To help get your life started.”

“Really?” I ask hesitantly, not wanting to get my hopes up.

Dr. Burns nods, flashing a smile. “Really. So, reconsider my question. What would you do with twenty-four hours of your own? Sky’s the limit. Tell me the first thing that comes to mind.”

I rub the back of my neck where tension has gathered. “The details aren’t important.”

Dr. Burns’s pleasant expression falters. Her gaze darts around, widening in a way that’s barely noticeable. “You’re obviously thinking about it. If it’s on your mind, it’s important.”

I hold back a sigh, letting my hand fall to my lap. “Dr. Niels once talked about riding roller coasters, and he made it sound like the most thrilling thing on Earth—so maybe that’s what I’d do.”

Staying silent, she folds her hands, her lips pulling tightly together. I rise from my seated position and shuffle toward the glass pane. The view remains uninteresting from this vantage point, nothing like the third-story view of the city I have in my room.

All I see beyond the gates are trees that look never-ending, with green, yellow, and orange leaves blurring together. I imagine a mountain range, can picture waves crashing against an imaginary shore line. I’ve seen so many things on TV, on a computer, through the internet and books. “I don’t know what’s going to happen if…”

Closing my eyes, I push against the anxiety. The anxiety pushes back, burning in my chest, unwilling to back down. I clear my throat and open my eyes. “It doesn’t matter. I failed my last test. I’ll be stuck here forever at this rate.” The admission is bitter and acidic on my tongue. The taste lingers long after I’ve swallowed.

Silence hangs heavy in the air. The landscape in my imagination disappears as I stare out the window. According to my studies and Dr. Niels, there are sparse amounts of mountains in Ohio, no ocean views, just a few rolling hills and small lakeside beaches. But if it meant freedom, I would be happy with a desert landscape environment, like in Arizona and Nevada.

Dr. Burns is quiet for a few moments before she responds. “Carter said you failed?”

“No.”

“Then why do you think you failed?”

I shake my head and turn around, pressure coiling in my gut. “I just do. It’s—”

A loud knock on the door interrupts us, and I flinch as the scanner beeps, turns green, and the door slides slowly open. Carter enters the room with heavy footsteps, wearing a frown and sporting serious eyes behind those glasses. “I’m sorry to intrude like this, Melanie, but we need to speak about something.”

“I can come to your office in half an hour,” she says, adjusting the collar of her light-pink sundress.

“We need to speak now.” Carter’s voice is like iron—clearly the guy is incapable of anything besides unyielding harshness. “Some things have come up.”

She nods.

No one is in a position to tell him no.

He might not see the smallest inkling of fear etched into her features, but I do.

“Of course. Well, Aiden, I guess we’ll continue our chat later.” She smiles hesitantly, seeming to tell me, Don’t worry.

But how can I do anything else?

…

I understand the consequences of failure. I remember that conversation with Dr. Niels from nearly a year ago like it was yesterday. Even without a perfect memory, I doubt I’d forget.

“Aiden,” he said, “these tests mean everything. They won’t always be easy, and I can’t promise they’ll always make sense. You have to trust me. The procedures used to save your life are…very new to everyone. We need to make sure you’re healthy. Just know you’re capable of so many things, and these tests will force everyone else to see.”

“And you?”

“No.” Dr. Niels lit up, his bright eyes twinkling like it was the greatest day of his life. “I already know the things you’re capable of.”

With a sigh, I press one hand to my forehead. Maybe he can convince Carter to give me a retest. Yeah right…

As I consider the likelihood of that, there’s a knock on my door. My bedroom within the facility doesn’t get many visitors, and only one person would come to my room this late in the evening. He usually does at least three times a week. Sometimes he just sits with me, watching movies. Occasionally, I can convince him to play a video game, though he completely sucks at first-person shooters.

“Would you like to take a walk with me?” Dr. Niels asks after he steps inside.

I nod, eager to leave the dark room with gleaming metallic panels for walls, the place where I often drown myself in worries and fear. After pulling on a pair of dark sneakers, I follow him into the dimly lit hall. He stays quiet until I finally ask him where we’re going.

At the end of a corridor, Dr. Niels puts his palm against the door scanner, and after a succession of beeps, it opens for us. “To the courtyard.”

Outside. Somewhere I rarely get to go.

My chest burns with a mix of excitement and lingering uncertainty from the test with Carter.

“It’s nice out there tonight,” he says as I follow him. “Less humid than usual for June. Thought you might like a little stargazing.”

When we enter a large corridor, we pass two women talking softly to each other. I expect them to question where we’re going, or at the very least eye me suspiciously, but they don’t seem to notice us. Niels leads me through a secured door. My limbs thrum with anticipation.

“With the way you talk about it, how could I not?” He always talks about the constellations with reverie. He knows most of them by heart, and because of my studies, I can name every single one.

Tipping his head back, he laughs, too. “I do find the stars fascinating. Hopefully you haven’t grown tired of hearing about them.”

I can’t imagine feeling anything other than ecstatic wonder at the stories he tells me about the constellations, of how they came to be. It comforts me, the way I witness in movies and on TV, when parents read their child a bedtime story.

My favorite is the mythology of Orion, who inherited his talent and strength from his mother, then went on to become the greatest hunter in the world. The tale of Orion doesn’t end well, like most mythological stories, and I try to focus on the happy part but always end up wondering what having a mother would be like—what inheriting parts of her would feel like.

Wondering gets me nowhere. I might’ve had a family before the accident. A mother and father, maybe a brother or two. But since no one was able to identify me after the accident, and no one ever came looking for me, I’ll never know what it was like or what it could be like.

I wait while Dr. Niels places his palm against another scanner. This door, unlike the previous one, also requires a retina scan. All the doors that lead to or from the outside do.

Finally, out in the night air, I breathe deeply, soaking in the scents. I’m grateful for the thin material of my T-shirt. It’s not humid, but it’s still at least eighty-five degrees.

I’ve never been further than the Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Center’s fenced-in facilities, and this is the closest to freedom I ever get—when the wind blows against my face, lifting strands of hair away from my forehead. After my near-death experience, the doctors at AIR warned I might have some unexpected side effects—my memory, strength, and speed—so they weren’t comfortable releasing me into the world. Guess it’s not so bad, since I don’t have a family to get back to, and like Dr. Burns frequently reminds me, I won’t spend the rest of my life in here. AIR has rehabilitated a couple patients who went on to continue their lives outside the building, so I’ve been told, and I cling to that hope.

What would it be like to live in a house where you could come and go as you pleased? No locks. No scans. No secret codes. What would it be like to grow up with a name, to have memories of being a kid, to have a bedroom full of items accumulated over years? What would life look like if the accident never happened?

I take in the sky littered with stars, staring at one brighter than the rest, flickering in the distance. After a few moments of silence, I glance at Dr. Niels to find him staring into the empty space beyond the tall, metal fence. There’s something on his mind. I don’t usually press or pry about his thoughts, knowing he’ll share everything with me when he chooses to. Tonight, though, my nerves eventually get the best of me, and I ask.

Dr. Niels smiles, but it never touches his eyes. “Since I was a boy”—he moves closer to the fence, his salt-and-pepper hair shifting with the breeze—“I’ve always been fascinated by science. By our human bodies. How they work and what we can achieve through science in regard to using artificial life to improve quality of life. I wanted to see how far we could go. And look at you. There’s no one like you. You’re nothing less than a miracle. I can’t deny how much you’ve surpassed any expectations I might’ve had.”

“Doesn’t always feel like a good thing.”

“But, Aiden.” He turns away from the fence and steps closer to me, placing one firm hand on my shoulder. “Don’t you see how unique you are? The simple fact that you are standing here next to me is a truly wondrous thing. All life is precious, but yours…”

His thoughts don’t calm my nerves. Not even a little bit. He makes it sound like my life is somehow more meaningful than others, but I often find myself wondering if I have a place in the world. With no family and no past, do I truly belong anywhere? “What was Carter testing me on?”

Dr. Niels face remains neutral, but he rolls his shoulders, rubbing his thumbs against his middle fingers—nonverbal cues I don’t see from him often. He then wraps his arms across his chest, craning his neck to the sky as I’d done only minutes before. “Carter insisted on meeting you before you’re released from my care. ‘No’ is not something he likes to hear—especially not from me. He’s the one who says whether we’re allowed to continue allocating money toward our projects. I counter-insisted this meeting be something you viewed as a test, since that’s what you’re used to.”

And as their patient, I’m their project. “It sure felt like a test.”

“In a way, it was.”

My jaw locks from irritation at his vagueness. Silence stretches, and I shut my eyes, breathing deeply. “I think I failed.”

When I open my eyes again, his dark-grayish brows pull together. “You didn’t fail. Carter is an intense person, and I know he seems hard to please. He’s opinionated and aloof, incredibly serious about his job and what goes on inside this facility. He wants you to be able to leave AIR just as much as the rest of us do.”

Can’t tell if he’s trying to convince himself or me.

…

An hour later, I’m imagining I’m still looking at the night sky instead of the white plastered ceiling. The quiet stillness inside my room is interrupted with a loud beep beep.

Is that…a fire alarm? Whatever it is, I’ve never heard it before.

“Testing lockdown protocol,” a monotonous, computerized voice says from the speakers hidden within the walls. The words are muffled slightly from the metal walls and door keeping me inside my room. “Code eight five nine. Testing lockdown protocol.”

I go to the door, but when I press the button to open it, nothing happens. I hit it again. It remains closed. What the…

The alarm continues, and so does the voice. Other noises filter through the door, though I can’t determine exactly what I’m hearing. I run my palms over the metal, fingering the edges like I’ll suddenly be able to pry it open. My finger mashes the button a few more times.

I blow out a breath of frustration and move to the small, rectangular window that looks out into the hallway. The glass distorts the view, but I can still make out the shapes. There are men in dark clothes, all of them wearing helmets. They look kind of funny, moving together through the hallway without breaking formation. Then I notice the guns.

My heart seems to skip as I stare through the glass. I’ve never seen anyone inside AIR carrying a weapon, let alone a whole squad toting heavy automatics. This is a research hospital. What kind of hospital has a lockdown protocol that involves guns?