Chapter 4 – In Danger
Mom’s voice echoed up the stairwell and through the bathroom door.
“Mireya! Breakfast is ready.”
Glancing briefly at the door, I yelled back. “I’m in the bathroom. Be down in a minute.”
My heartbeat was pounding in my eardrums now, which was rather inconvenient since I really wanted to hear what he had to say next.
In the mirror, Heath kept talking. “I want you to triple your dose of the pills. You need to remember more about who you are and understand what that means for your safety and your future.”
“I…” His face crumpled and his voice broke. There was a long pause before he went on.
“I’m sorry, Reya. I wish things weren’t like this. I tried. I’ve done everything I can think of to convince my father that you are as human as any of us and deserve to live undisturbed, to have rights just like everyone else. But he’s blind to the truth. He still sees you and your friends on the base as… products… building blocks… just the latest iteration in his quest to develop the most advanced artificial intelligence in existence.”
Artificial intelligence? Products?
A flash of memory startled me so much I almost let go of the mirror. A stark white room. Dr. Rex holding a syringe, looking down at me while I lay in a bed—shackled to the bed.
Heath screaming at him, calling him… Father.
Heath was Heath Gideon—Apollo Gideon’s son. And Dr. Rex’s real name was Apollo Gideon. He’d called me his creation, artificial life, an “asset.”
A Genesapien.
My head was spinning, and once again I tried to snap myself out of this bizarre delusion.
Please please please be a delusion.
“When my father examined you today, he was suspicious,” Heath continued. “It’s my fault. I gave you the green pills, and then my failure to disguise my reaction to you today… I was just so excited that you might be regaining your memories. After you left the clinic, I tried to persuade him to keep things as they are, on a wait and see basis. You probably don’t remember, but we had a deal, he and I, that if I worked for him, doing whatever he told me to do, you would be safe.”
Heath swallowed hard, his face appearing tortured. “But the deal’s off. I’ve ‘failed’ to bring him any more rogue Genesapiens to dissect and study. Honestly my search efforts have been half-hearted, and he knows it.”
Heath looked nauseated, and I certainly felt that way. While this guy seemed to care about my well-being, he was talking about hunting teenagers and bringing them back to be murdered.
What kind of person was Apollo Gideon that he would order such a thing?
What kind of person was this Heath that he would ever have agreed to do it?
“He’s tired of waiting,” Heath warned. “And now—because of me—he’s decided you’re too unpredictable to keep around. I’ve made every threat and promise I can think of, but he’s planning to ‘recall’ you. Do you remember what that means?”
His face crumpled, and his voice sounded hoarse.
“I can hardly make myself say it, but I need to be sure you understand. He’s going to have you transported to Gideoncorp where…where… you won’t survive it, Reya. That’s why you have to believe me. That’s why you have to leave.”
For a few seconds I took my hand off the mirror so I could bend over and lean on my knees. Sucking in long breaths and blowing them out, I tried to quell the panicked buzzing in my brain.
This couldn’t be real. Fear and disgust mixed in my stomach, making me feel like I might dry heave—thankfully I hadn’t eaten breakfast yet.
Slowly, I raised my trembling hand to the mirror again. Heath’s recording picked up where it had left off.
“I’m not sure when, but the same thing will happen to your friends at the base eventually,” he said. “My father plans to take all the existing Gebbies out of commission as soon as he’s ready to roll out the next generation of Genesapiens—docile, predictable, ‘improved’ versions who won’t break the rules and go rogue. But you’re first in line. You’ve got about a week. He and I are headed to the Global Tech Summit tomorrow, but he means to do it when we return. You have to be gone by the time we come back. Do whatever you have to do to escape. This is life or death— you have to get yourself out of there.”
There was a long pause in the video, and I thought Heath had finished dropping his horror-bomb, but then he spoke again.
“Everything in me wants to drive over there and just kidnap you and hide you somewhere here in the city where I know you’ll be safe and where I could see you from time to time.”
His voice was rough with emotion. “But that would be no life for you. I want you to live in a place where you don’t have to hide, where you can be free and be yourself and really live. That’s why you have to go to the Haven.”
The Haven. The word sounded foreign and yet familiar somehow.
My mind fed me images of trees, a beautiful waterfall, a cabin, and a dark-haired, dark-eyed boy watching from the underbrush.
“I’ve left directions and supplies for you in the big tree behind your house,” Heath said. “Remember? The one you used to climb all the time when we were little?”
I nodded numbly though obviously Heath wasn’t actually there to see the gesture.
“I wish I could go with you… be with you. But I can’t leave Daniel.”
Daniel. Heath’s little brother.
The memory returned to me now—Heath explaining that his father had created a Gebby child for his grieving wife. A child he cared nothing about. Obviously Heath cared.
“I can keep you safer by staying here, anyway, leading my father and his Retrievers away from you and keeping them busy looking in all the wrong places for the Gebby sanctuary,” he said.
Again his eyes filled with tears, and he sounded choked.
“I dream of a world where you don’t have to run in fear, where you don’t have to hide who you are just to survive. That day will come, but it’s not our reality right now. Until then the best thing I know to do for you is stay away. I can never be with you, Reya, but do not ever doubt that I love you, and I always will.”
The message ended, and Heath’s likeness disappeared. I pulled my hand away from the mirror, pressing it to my chest where my heart squeezed painfully.
I love you, and I always will.
He loved me? If we were so close and he felt that way about me, how could I not remember more about this guy? I definitely didn’t feel the same.
How could I when I barely knew him?
Wanting to watch the message again—especially that last part—I held my palm to the mirror once more. Nothing happened.
I pressed harder, making sure the pad of my middle finger, which still bore the mark from the thorn prick, made full contact with the glass.
Nothing. No video screen, no deep male voice filling my ears and my heart.
Oh no. I know what this is.
This whole thing had been another one of my strange daydreams. It had to be.
The context of this one had no doubt been brought on by the combination of receiving the mysterious gift and feeling an attraction to Milo yesterday.
What—was I really going to leave my home and family and strike out for a place I’d never seen based on an imaginary one-sided conversation with a cute boy?
Mom’s anxious voice broke my chaotic train of thoughts and brought me firmly back to reality.
“Mireya! If you don’t come down and eat right now, you’re going to be late for school.”
“Coming Mom.”
