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.