Mila made her way to the heart of the submarine disposing of Shereen Khouri’s identity bit by bit like a snake changing its skin. She removed the black hair wig and contact lenses. She ripped off the white jumpsuit and peeled off the olive skin wrapped around her own caramel flesh. It felt good to breathe, despite the fact that she was inside a steel capsule. By the time she got to the narrow bedroom chamber, she was in her own skin and back to being a version of herself she was getting to know, Mila Norfolk.
“Hello Mother, I’d give you a kiss and a hug, but as you can see, I’m a bit bloody. We better wait until after the shower.” Mila greeted Masae as if she had just arrived from a shopping spree around Europe. She smiled at Masae and tried not to limp as she passed her on the way to the shower. “I didn’t know you would be here.” she yelled, opening the faucet. The water began to splash loudly against the metal floor.
“Oh, Mila, you are bleeding!” Masae appeared concerned, standing outside the door, already accustomed to the charade of a caring mother. “Good heavens, you were shot!” She covered her mouth with a delicate hand as if trying to suppress a cry.
“Nothing serious, really,” Mila examined her body twisting around in front of the mirror. She knew she had to show Masae she was indestructible. “Just cuts and bruises, as always.”
“Still, it looks awful!” Masae mumbled, going back to sitting at the edge of the thin bed. She waited for Mila to be done, peering into the air with the outline of a victorious smile. “You’ve made history, Mila. You don’t know how proud of you I am. You are the first person to escape GITMO and as if that wasn’t enough, you took a detainee from a high security sector. Absolutely marvelous!” she commended her while devising future deals with hands clasped on her lap.
It’s not the kind of thing I want to be remembered for. I took a bloody terrorist out of the place he should be locked in forever; how great is that? And for what? For show? For whom? Mila’s body burned from the inside out. She felt so hot as if her blood was boiling inside her chest. She wanted to punch something, the steel walls, but her fists were bleeding and her shoulder possibly dislocated. The anger she felt inside numbed her physical aches. She stepped under the cascade of distilled water coming from special reactors which removed the salt. She used the most precious commodity aboard sparingly. She rinsed her throbbing and jabbing body as quickly as she could. She washed away in a few minutes the person she had been for a few months.
Mila lowered her head and watched the water splashing against the floor with a hypnotic rhythm. She searched in the broken pieces stored in her mind, the feelings of sadness, regret, emotional pain shattering her heart. She couldn’t be Masae’s daughter, but her expendable, lab-made weapon.
As she turned to let the water fall on her sore shoulders and back, she wondered if Masae would be true to her word. Now that she had pulled off this stunt, could she pursue her studies in Israel as agreed? If Masae was set on playing her mother, she would continue the deception until…When? When would enough be enough? The last drop of blood disappeared down the drain.
“I’m sorry. Yes, we caught them by surprise. Who would have imagined a woman could cause such disarray?” Mila muttered from the shower, her voice fading. She didn’t feel like talking. Yet there was one person missing in the room, and she wondered why. “But where is Alexander? Shouldn’t he be with us, opening a champagne bottle?”
Mila came out of the shower wrapped in the robe Masae had left perched on the wall for her. She tried to dry her messy hair with one arm, feeling like a regular woman for the first time in months. She had just escaped a maximum security prison, but couldn’t dry her own hair with one hand. She gave up and faced Masae, one of the wealthiest person in the planet. She looked so out of place in the windowless, cramped, steel contraption.
“This mission was too much for him,” Masae said casually, studying Mila and trying to hear her thoughts while fanning herself with a hand. The reactors made the temperature rise inside the vessel. “And for me as your mother. I thought I would lose you. But if we didn’t enter hell, how would we know the parameters of your abilities?”
Sure you were afraid for my safety, waiting from a safe distance while I ran for dear life through those heavily guarded corridors. Mila thought in Hebrew, a language Masae didn’t understand. She sat on the bed next to Masae. There was a pang in her stomach or was it in her chest, she couldn’t tell, but it felt like disappointment. She was hoping to see the only person closest to a friend she had. “What was it that Alexander couldn’t stand about this test, anyway?”
Masae sighed and almost shrugged. She glanced around the narrow steel chamber. Dealing with a young woman and trying to be her mother, had its challenges. Yet, it was a small price to pay for what Mila could do in the expansion of Pharma-NorTech and the Norfolk ventures. Masae was set on giving Mila the little comforts of normal life to keep her loyal. Her business intuition advised her that scaring Mila into compliance wouldn’t go well. But, just like Shinji, her younger son, had used Mila’s father to do his dirty work, she would use Mila to do hers far and wide.
“Well, you need to rest. We’ll talk later.” Masae stood and ran her hand along her perfect suit. Everything in her appearance was impeccable. She looked at Mila satisfied with the outcome of the project. It had been a success and now it was time to leave.
Mila nodded. She was indeed exhausted and in great pain. She hadn’t slept much in several weeks, terrorized by nightmares during the night and by Masae’s demands during the day. “I’m sorry, Mother.”
Masae caressed Mila’s bruised cheek, looking genuinely saddened. “I will let you rest, but I have just one more thing for you.” Masae opened a cabinet by her side and pulled out an envelope. She extracted from it a key attached to a Star of David key-chain. She dangled it before Mila. “This is the key to your apartment in Jerusalem. We had an agreement for your collaboration in the family business. I think your archaeological studies are starting very soon, right?” She winked and smiled. “Here, take it and the envelope as well. In it, you’ll find a brand new identity and passport with cash and cards to make your way to Israel. Although, if you change your mind, you can come home with me.”
Mila jumped of the bed forgetting her aching leg and shoulder. She received the key and held it tight inside her fist. A key that by itself didn’t mean much, but to her it meant the opportunity she was waiting for. “Thank you, Mother, thank you!” Mila tried and failed to contain her excitement. Her eyes were still shining with joy when a thought popped in her head, a request that could potentially cost her everything she had just been granted. “What about Azer? Could you drop him back into the camp? You’ve got what you wanted, could you please send him back?” Mila pleaded, gazing at the key in the palm of her hand, ready for Masae to snatch it, taking her request as a weakness in her.
“He isn’t your concern. He’s been claimed by an important client,” Masae answered icily, stretching her arms to find her balance as the vessel swayed. “I’ll send Alexander in to see you. Get some sleep when you can.”
“But, I thought…” Mila sat on the bed bemused. She didn’t feel terribly sorry for the terrorist as Masae’s actions might have not been in his best interest if he was alive. Everything Masae did was a power display with a message. Breaking Azer out of GITMO had been a message, addressed to whom? To governments? To powerful buyers of death. She heard Masae at the end of the narrow passage say something about Alexander …
“Mila, can I come in?” Alexander called from the entrance, banging his head on the frame as he stepped into the chamber where two were a crowd. “Are you ready?” He rubbed his forehead, placing the medical care case next to Mila.
“That’s our routine. Have you heard about the power of habits?” Mila said with a smile, confirming to herself she was happy to see him. She exposed her injured flesh, gazing at him and at her ensemble of wounds. “As you can see, Shereen’s synthetic skin protected mine, but it wasn’t bullet-proof.”
Alexander’s intelligent and cautious eyes examined her leg and each injury. “You were so lucky,” he exclaimed, disinfecting his hands and putting on gloves.
“That’s what the doctor in Atlanta said.” She shrugged with her one good shoulder. “It isn’t as in the movies. You know, a guy gets shot in the leg but keeps moving as if nothing happened.” She shook her head. “But, of all the editing you did on me, couldn’t you make me unbreakable or regenerative?”
“Are you asking for an upgrade?” Alexander met Mila’s gaze, before moving on to her limbs in need of attention. He decided to alleviate her shoulder pain first before it got worse. It was already deformed and swollen. “Let’s first take care of your arm.”
“It hurts like hell!” Mila closed her eyes. Now that the excitement was over, she was acutely aware of every ache, as if seeing him was her cue to let go and feel everything. The vessel’s movement and the antiseptic’s scent were making her nauseous.
“Please, lay on your back.” Alexander asked her gently.
Mila did as she was asked. She averted her gaze, anticipating the pull. She stared at the metal walls protecting them from the ocean waters around them.
Alexander held her wrist with both hands, keeping her arm straight. He pulled and guided the ball of the arm bone to the shoulder socket. “As you know, it’s never too late for any kind of editing you want to go through,” He replied, helping her to sit. He knew it hurt, but she was stoic and kept silent. She only winced at the pull. Alexander thought about her supposedly enhanced nature. He had news for her, but didn’t know yet when it would be the right time to tell her. He unwrapped the sling and placed the support around her arm. “Let your arm rest, will you?” He smiled looking at the wounded leg. “Now… I’ll clean the tissue a bit deeper to prevent infection, and apply a waterproof dressing. If you rest and care for your body, you’ll heal on your own as every normal human being,” He meant to say: without any editing.
Mila grabbed Alexander’s arm, forcing him to stop. He patiently returned her gaze. She searched in his bright eyes, but couldn’t figure out what was inside his mind. What was he saying?
“Why! You aren’t as euphoric as Masae. I have exceeded your expectations, haven’t I? Your experimental rat has survived yet another test.” Mila let go of his arm. She shook her head in disbelief, but a side smile appeared on her lips. “I understand.”
“You understand what, precisely?” Alexander asked, wrapping another layer of gauze around her leg.
“I’m one scientific achievement you can’t share with the world,” Mila scoffed, glancing at him sideways.
Alexander didn’t respond. His hands remained laborious, carrying out his task methodically as always. It wasn’t the time or place to tell her about his regrets, his conflict, and his plans.
Mila glared at nothing in particular, her mind far away. She began to speak. She had no one else to tell how she felt. “After all this, I’m so scared, Alexander. This fear can’t be overcome by fists or weapons at the time of the fight. It’s a kind of terror that grips your soul and grinds it piece by piece. It is a terror that wakes you up at night and leaves you soaking wet as your heart bangs rapidly in your chest like a ticking bomb, ready to combust and consume you. Yet, it doesn’t go off. You lie back, drenched in your fear, completely frozen in place because the terror continues even when your eyes are open,” Mila said with trembling lips. She thought of every marine she had encountered. They had a purpose regardless of their personal stories: to do the right thing, to protect the people and their nation. They weren’t enhanced humans or super soldiers. They were everyday heroes, and she was a designed experiment for evil, but not for long.
“The mind can hurt more than the body,” Alexander whispered, examining her one last time from her head to her feet. He considered whether to call it what it was: the mental dealings of a traumatic experience, or in her case, of several traumatic events. “There is always a record kept in the wires of the brain and the fibres of our bodies.” You are not alone. There are people who love you and have never stopped looking for you. They’ll soon find you, is what he wanted to say. But he couldn’t.
Mila sighed and grabbed the enveloped Masae had given her. “She is letting me go to Israel!”