“Good news,” Haint says, her voice as excited as Goose’s face as it pops out of the air close to my ear. Goose paces in a manic walkabout, crunching grass under his big feet.
“You’re invisible on purpose?” Pollyanna asks in her best hopeful-smartass tone, which earns her a handful of leaves in the face.
“No. Brat.” Then, toward Goose, “For Pete’s sake, stop tromping around and tell them.”
Goose does as he’s told and perches on the lip of a gravestone, but his knees keep jiggling. “We found some files in Chameleon’s office. They’re keeping Flicker comatose with some major sedatives, nothing more, and in the sensory deprivation because it stops her from teleporting. The files say they’re doing it for her own good, since she’s never been able to master the ability to stay put when she wants to, but that’s a crock of shit—”
“—because they’ve never tried administering the GRH-18 to her,” Haint finishes, the words tumbling out all smooshed together, the letters landing on top of each other in their eagerness.
“You found out what they’re giving us? What’s in it, I mean?” Mole asks, perking up.
Goose shakes his head, frowning. “No, just that GRH-18 isn’t anywhere on the list of meds they have in her chart. Nothing weird is.”
“How long has she been here?” My throat feels dry. I don’t really want to know the answer but I need to.
“Almost a year and a half,” Haint replies, her tone oozing hatred. Funny how much can be communicated by a voice when there’s no face to go along with it.
We haven’t seen Flicker regularly in over two years, but now we have absolute proof that the Olders don’t have our best interests at heart. Flicker appeared to us last month, having been shot through the gut. Now we know she was with them…
My throat tightens around the horror of what they might have done to her. “So, when she came to us last month and said ‘they’re not going to let you go,’ she meant the Olders. For sure.”
We all make eye contact, urge verification from one another’s faces. It’s the Olders who were making Flicker do things she didn’t want to—the Olders who got her shot who knows where, by heaven knows who.
When we found her here, there was no way to know for sure if they’d had her the whole time or “rescued” her from the CIA at some point. But if they’d done that, if they were good guys, why not just tell us? Why trick us with Fake Flicker?
“That makes them the enemy,” Polly manages through clenched teeth.
“Agreed,” Geoff interjects in his thoughtful tone. “But it doesn’t make the government or the people who raised us or anyone else our friends. Maybe we don’t have anything but enemies.”
Impatience steams inside me, like boiling water left unattended in a pot on the stove. I don’t want to be the kind of kid who has powerful organizations for friends and enemies. I want to be normal.
It’s a silly, immature, pie in the sky thought. The sad thing, at least for me, is that it’s clear not one of them feels the same way. They like being different. They might not like our situation, or not having access to all the pieces of the puzzle of our lives, or not knowing who to trust right now, but not one of them wishes they weren’t special.
Only Mole’s expression holds understanding, sympathy. He’s not like me but he cares, and the sorrow painting shadows under his eyes and around his lips pricks my eyes with tears.
“We have each other.” Mole’s blind gaze is on fire as he looks straight ahead, determination setting his jaw in a hard line. “We can count on that.”
I know without having to speak it aloud that though we may go our separate ways after we sort out Flicker, we’re in agreement that the Cavies are paramount. I may envision a life different from the ones they imagine, but there’s no way I’m abandoning a single one of them until we’re out from under the Olders’ thumbs. All of us.
“What else did you find?” Geoff questions, bringing the discussion back on topic.
“Aside from the fact that I think we could probably wean Flicker off the sedatives—and maybe start her on the GRH-18, if it could help her stay in one place—nothing. Not a thing on GRH-18 itself,” Haint says, her hesitant tone setting my nerves back on edge.
“The only other thing we found is the name of a corporation listed on some business correspondence. Money stuff. It doesn’t explicitly say that they’re the ones bankrolling this place, but it’s a place to start,” Goose adds.
“What’s it called?” Geoff’s looking more intrigued by the moment.
“Hatfield, LLC.”
Frustration turns to bitter disappointment, sour on my tongue. “That’s not all that helpful.”
“It’s something,” Haint growls. “If we can get access to the Internet again, we could at least look it up and find out who cared enough to develop the enhancement drug.”
“I’m sorry. It’s good, and you’re right. We need some control over our lives, and knowledge is the only way we’re going to get it.” I glance at Mole, wondering if he’s waiting for me to bring up what we learned earlier today. It seems pretty lame, all told. “We talked to Chameleon. He refuses to tell us what’s in the GRH-18 or how they engineered it to interact with our genomes, but he did…indicate that it might not be healthy for us to quit cold turkey.”
“And he said there’s a tracking component to the serum,” Mole adds. “Right after he said we’re free to go anytime we want.”
“Of course they’ll let us leave if they can find us again, no problem.” Goose’s disdain wriggles through me.
“They can’t keep us here without making us into prisoners, and for some reason they seem to want us on their side. But they’re not going to lose track of us again, I agree with that.”
“Also, they don’t know we’ve stopped the GRH-18. Chameleon probably think his threats will force us to reconsider,” Mole says. “If they think they’re able to track us and they’ve still got Flicker, they’ll be confident we’ll come back one way or another.”
“And we will,” Athena speaks up. “We’re not leaving anyone behind.”
Polly gives him a grateful glance. “First things first—we have to figure out what to do about Flicker. Getting her coherent is goal number one, and if we can use the GRH-18 so that she’s not teleporting spontaneously, all the better.” Pollyanna lays down the plan, and no one argues.
I wonder whether they’re all feeling as doubtful as I am about us being able to fix Flicker on our own. We’ve been around medicine, genetic studies, and science all of our lives, but the Philosopher and the others took great pains to ensure we understood as little as possible about our individual mutations and how they work.
Now isn’t the time to throw cold water on the tiniest smolder of hope. It’s more than we’ve had in almost two weeks, and whether we’re all simply in denial or not, we need it.
“You might want to reconsider your priorities after you hear what I have to tell you, children.”
Chameleon’s cold voice comes out of nowhere, but it only takes a moment of squinting to see the depression of grass underneath his camouflaged footsteps. He blends perfectly with the night until he doesn’t, a milky outline at first, then he solidifies into the intimidating old man he is. The look on his face promises that he won’t soon forget that the eight of us were plotting against him.
And that it might not matter now, anyway.
The tension among my Cavies tightens up as we’re joined by more Olders. The rest of them gather, trekking down the hill either alone or in pairs, until there’s no one missing by my count.
The man in charge folds his arms over his thin chest, then peruses our silent circle as though counting heads himself. It makes me think about those who are missing and whether the Olders are ruminating on some of their own who are lost to the government or died during the early years of experimentation. They told us when we first arrived that ours is the first generation to survive with all ten members intact.
Chameleon doesn’t ask where Haint is, leaving me to assume that, at the very least, he knows she’s struggling to control her ability. Mole, too.
It doesn’t take much to assume he can also guess why.
“There’s no reason to mince words, since most of us are aware of what’s happening. There’s a global emergency brewing, and today it escalated into something the United States government isn’t going to be able to ignore. Terrorists in Russia who have been operating in violation of international arms treaties for many years have developed a computer virus that’s able to infect human brains. We don’t know details, because the CIA is run by a bunch of morons who are part of a bureaucracy with fifteen different heads, but we do know this: if they believe any of us have abilities that would be useful in trying to resolve this matter, they will be asking us to contribute.”
Infecting human brains?
It’s real.
“But they can’t find us here. That’s what you said.” Athena’s the first to speak up, but the question rolls around in my mind, too. “How will they ask for our help?”
The lies must go deeper than we thought, because the information the Olders have seems to be more detailed than anything Peter saw on the news or that Athena overheard. I doubt Russian terrorists being involved is common knowledge.
People out there must be panicking. Everyone spends hours a day in front of some kind of device these days. Three faces in particular flash in my mind—Jude, Maya, and my dad—and a surge of fear barrels through my chest. My breath catches, but I force myself to keep it even.
“You are safe at Saint Stephen’s, as long as you want to be,” Chameleon clarifies, putting a hand on the trunk of a tree. It turns rough and brown, invisible against the bark. “But as you know, there are Cavies who consider themselves CIA Assets. Some of those Cavies have talents—telepathy, hearing similar to Athena’s, dream manipulation—that allow them to contact us when necessary. In addition, each generation has a Clubhouse similar to yours. The bottom line is if the CIA wants your help, they’ll find a way to get you the proposal.” He closes his eyes for a moment. “I’m giving you the chance to think about it now, before they’re appealing to your philanthropic side.”
He says it like it’s a filthy word, as though it’s not much different than harboring a murderous sociopathic tendency, and I bite back the urge to ask what’s so bad about caring what happens to the rest of the world.
The Philosopher answers in my mind as sharp as if he stands in front of me, dark eyes blazing with what I’d assumed for so long was passionate concern.
Why should you care about what happens to them, Gypsy? They don’t care what happens to you.
“This is great and all,” Mole begins. It’s so clear to me that he’s working hard to keep his voice strong and nonchalant—normal Mole—but his energy is dipping. “But why should we trust you when you’ve done nothing but keep things from us since we met?”
“Yeah, and by met he means grabbed us on the street and stabbed us in the neck with hypodermic needles,” Goose spits.
“Filled with experimental drugs,” Pollyanna adds for good measure.
Chameleon pinches the bridge of his nose, again playing the father losing his patience. “You are Cavies. We are Cavies. None of us has a life that is ours alone. You were most likely told this from a young age, but your brief stint in the real world gave you ideas. Ideas that you deserve answers to your questions, that you have a choice other than to continue to be living, breathing experiments. Do not believe it.”
It’s a crap answer, one that brings my blood to a raging boil. How dare he suggest we have no right to decide for ourselves where we go from here? That we don’t deserve to know what we are, the extent of our capabilities, and who is interested in enhancing and researching them.
The bottom line is that he’s not giving us a single reason to trust him or the others sitting with us in this graveyard. Maybe that’s his point. That we can’t trust anyone, and he’s not exempt.
It’s not a fun thing to contemplate, but maybe that’s just our reality. After all, I couldn’t even trust my friends in Charleston, or my father, with the truth, instead spinning a web of lies to ensure they can’t get in.
Because, at the end of the day, the truth doesn’t belong to just me. It belongs to all of us, every Cavy, and since our secrets put us all in jeopardy, they aren’t mine to tell.
“What about Flicker?” Pollyanna asks, her blue eyes as fragile as a robin’s egg in the light of the rising moon. The Olders’ eyes stray to Fake Flicker, who startles just enough to prove our point.
I catch the redheaded woman from earlier, the one who tried to help Mole after his seizure, watching me with an expectant gaze. She doesn’t look away, raising her eyebrows at me instead. As if she’s impressed.
“What about her?” Chameleon asks.
I glare at him and his eyes lock on mine like a missile. My heart thuds but I push away the idea that revealing our hand will make them turn on us, on the offensive. If we want to be equals in this game, we need to start demanding to be treated that way. “We know she’s upstairs in that sensory deprivation tank,” I snap, pointing at Fake Flicker. “That one’s a fake.”
Chameleon sends a tired nod toward Fake Flicker, and Sepasiph emerges from inside Flicker’s likeness. Once she’s standing in front of us, I give her a long look. Nothing about her posture or expression suggests she’s sorry for lying—or for basically spying on us for the past two weeks—but I guess she doesn’t have a reason to be. In her mind.
It only fuels my rage. “Why didn’t you tell us you had her? And if the GRH-18 fixes us, makes us stronger and more able to control our mutations, why aren’t you helping her?”
“Your friends at the CIA could tell you more about the first years that your teleporter was away from Darley.” Chameleon nods to Mist, the tall, lanky, quiet Older to his left. “He encountered her while on a mission for them—she was injured when we brought her here. We put her in a medically induced coma and into the tank to ensure she wouldn’t teleport during her distress.”
“But you’ve been giving her the GRH-18, right?” I ask, waiting to see if they’ll keep lying. “So, why is she still in a coma?”
“Your Flicker is the first Unstable Cavy we’ve had the privilege of hosting, but our research in the area is far from complete. We’re not certain the GRH-18 would be strong enough to keep her here in her current, semiconscious state. It seemed better to study her until we’re sure we won’t lose her again.”
“So, you’re just planning on letting her rot away in there?” Polly asks.
“On the contrary. If the seven of you would like to take responsibility for her safety, we will bring her out of the coma immediately.” Chameleon gives us a smile that’s all teeth and ghoulish in the half darkness. “Of course, should you choose to leave Saint Stephen’s, we will have to discuss your continued access to GRH-18.”
“Fine.” My teeth are clenched, my heart pounding as though it wants to explode in the face of their shameless manipulation. “We don’t want it.”
“Are you sure?” His beady gaze flicks to Mole, then to where Haint hovers invisibly at my side, her hot breath on the side of my neck.
“Yes.” Mole’s knuckles are white as he grips the edge of the headstone behind him. He’s barely holding himself up.
It’s a tad odd that they don’t seem all that concerned about being lit on fire, but maybe they’re confident in their own abilities to counteract any loss of control on our parts.
Nerves rattle around in my middle, because there’s always a chance that just because the Olders have lied about some things doesn’t mean they’re lying about trying to help us. If the GRH-18 lets us heal quickly, if it improves our talents and lets us access them around the CIA, maybe we shouldn’t be so hasty.
Not to mention, he didn’t lie about the adverse effects. Mole and Haint are proof enough of that.
“We won’t be around to assist you in the coming days, I’m afraid; most of us will be leaving in the morning on business. I cannot say when we’ll return.” He frowns, clearly unhappy about whatever turn of events is taking them away. He hadn’t seemed that upset about it in his office earlier, but something has changed. “If you would like to come with me, I’ll show you how to wean your friend off the drugs immediately.”