Thankfully, Ketta agreed to let me “treat” everyone and make the milkshakes without her help.
In the kitchen alone, I worked on my brand new secret recipe- nut milk, ice cream, chocolate syrup… and a whole bottle of my green pills, pulverized by the blender. Heath had said each pill contained a low dose of active ingredient. He’d advised me to triple my dose to make it work faster. I was hoping the full bottle would be enough to fully restore my friends’ memories and ability to think freely.
I wasn’t sure the medication would work quickly enough—or at all-but it was the only thing I could think to do. I had to be in that getaway car tomorrow, and I was determined my friends would be with me.
If Heath had been telling the truth, their lives literally depended upon it.
“Dessert is served,” I announced grandly as I carried the tray of doctored shakes down to the basement rec area.
“Oh wow, those look amazing.” Luz jumped up to help me distribute them.
“Thanks Mireya,” Jolie said. “They do look good. You might be weird, but this was a great idea.”
She added a wink to show me there was no harm intended by the “weird” part.
“I haven’t had a chocolate shake in forever,” Ketta said, taking one from the tray with an eager expression.
“Well, you’ve never had one like this one,” I assured her.
Massive understatement.
My hope was that my friends would finish their shakes and have new mental clarity, their minds suddenly open to the truth-and to the idea of leaving the base with me to seek the
Haven.
There was no way to know if it would work. Only time would tell.
I watched them polish off their chemically-enhanced desserts and enjoyed my own- giving myself a mega dose as well. If I was going to have any hope of leading this escape effort, I wanted my own mind to be as clear as possible.
For the rest of the night as we chatted and watched music vids, I waited for signs of some change in my friends but saw none. One by one they dropped off to sleep.
Disappointed and worried, I finally fell asleep myself, wondering if I’d be making my great escape alone after all.
By early the next morning, things had changed-big time. I opened my eyes to find all my friends awake, alert, and watching me.
I blinked and sat up, my sleeping bag sagging around my waist. “Hi. What’s up?” Ketta spoke for the group. “Is it true?
Still a bit groggy, I automatically said, “What?” then realized there was only one subject that could have put that grave look on all their faces.
“What do you mean, ‘what?’ The stuff you said last night-about leaving the base. About it being too dangerous to stay here,” Ketta nearly shouted.
I nodded and reached out to touch her arm. “Shhhhh. I don’t want to wake your parents.” Then I answered her in a quiet voice. “I wish it wasn’t, but it’s a hundred percent true. I’ve been remembering things lately. Bad things that affect all of us.”
Luz spoke up. “Me too. I had some crazy dreams, and when I woke up, I realized they weren’t really dreams.”
“I’m remembering things, too,” Ketta said. “I… changed. Like I wasn’t even acting like me. And I remember going to Dr. Rex’s office but I don’t remember what happened there. What is going on, Mireya?”
“Yeah, why am I suddenly having all these crazy visions and feelings?” Jolie asked. “And why did I have to pee like, fifty times last night?”
Taking a deep breath first, I told my friends what I’d done.
“I gave you some of the medication I’ve been taking… in your shakes. You had to pee so many times because the meds caused your body to start flushing out the nanobots that have been controlling your mind-and cloaking your memories.”
For the next hour I explained everything I knew, recounting for them my adventures during my previous escape from the base and sharing Heath’s warning about what was going to happen to me only a few days from now if I didn’t manage to escape again.
I told them I wasn’t born but made in Gideon’s lab… that I was a Gebby. And so were they.
Ketta looked shellshocked.
“How is this possible?” she asked. “I mean, I remember when you went to the doctor and then disappeared for several days. I can’t believe I forgot about that. And about how I used to be. It was my idea to leave the base and play hooky before. I tried to talk you into it, but then it’s like I became a different person. Although… based on what you said… I guess we’re not people at all.”
Luz sobbed quietly in the corner, scrunched up in her sleeping bag.
Jolie had tears on her face as well. She was shaking her head back and forth, both arms wrapped around herself in a desperate hug.
“It’s not true. You drugged us. That stuff you gave us is making us imagine things.” Ketta scolded her. “You know that’s not true. Come on-admit it. They’re memories, not imagination. I can tell the difference. Can’t you?”
Jolie scowled. “But we are people. I mean, look at us.”
She held out one arm and pinched her skin. The spot she’d tweaked turned white then red as blood rushed to the surface.
“How could we not know it if we were Genesapiens? I can’t be a… a Gebbie. I just can’t.” I crawled over and wrapped my arms around her.
“I know it’s a shock. It took me a long time to believe it, too, when Heath first told me. But everything that happened after that proved it. And you’re right, we are human. We may have been conceived in a lab, but we’re made of the same stuff they are. We feel the same feelings, think the same thoughts. We have hopes and fears and dreams just like they do. Which means what Apollo Gideon is planning to do is wrong. We can’t just sit here and wait to be put down like unwanted gen-pets.”
Jolie was nodding along as I spoke, but I couldn’t tell whether she was convinced or if she’d just lost it and gone catatonic.
Luz let out another sob and a gasp. Apparently she did believe me and was heartbroken over the knowledge.
I wasn’t thrilled about it myself, but I’d seen Gideon in action. We didn’t have time to curl up in a ball and grieve-no matter how tempting it might be.
We had to save ourselves.
“Someone is coming just before sunrise to drive me away from the base. Remember the slow gate you told me about, Ketta? The one at the East entrance? That’s where I slipped out last time. The driver will be waiting in a car about a quarter mile from the gate.”
Glancing at the clock and then the still-dark basement window, I added, “That’s in about two hours. Will y’all come with me? You’ll have to decide quickly.”
To my immense relief, they all agreed to escape with me.
“What about Matt and the rest of the guys?” Ketta asked, rising to her feet. “We have to warn them, too.”
Tears sprang to my eyes. I’d been thinking of the other kids on the base as I’d lain awake for hours last night. I wished I could turn into a superhero and save everyone, but that really was a daydream—this was reality.
And they had some time. I wasn’t sure how much, but the only way I could help the other kids on the base was to leave it. I would find a way to help them once I reached the Haven.
“The driver is only bringing a small vehicle, not a bus-there won’t be room to transport everyone,” I said. “Besides, a big group of us leaving at once would definitely attract atten- tion and end up getting all of us all caught. I know it’s awful-I don’t want anything bad to happen to them. But I don’t know how to help everyone.”
Reaching into my bag, I pulled out the three pill bottles I had remaining the ones Heath had left in the tree for me and held them up.
“Even if he brought a bus and we could all manage to sneak out and reach it undetected, how could we convince everyone else in time?”
Holding up the pill bottles, I said, “I mean, maybe this would be enough for all the kids on the base, but a big dose took basically all night to work on the three of you. There just isn’t time before the driver gets here.”
Luz lifted her head, her tears stopping suddenly. “But they could take the green pills after we’re gone.”
“How?” I asked. “Even if I left these here, we won’t be here to explain anything to them. What would convince them to take the pills?”
Though her face was still red and puffy, Luz actually smiled. “They won’t know they’re taking them. You know where my dad works, right?”
“Yeah, the base water department.”
“That’s right. And I just happen to know the door code at the water treatment plant.”
Jolie perked up. “You’re going to put the pills in the water supply?”
“That’s right.” Luz looked extremely satisfied with her brilliant solution. “We can grind them up, and I’ll sneak into the facility before we leave. I’ll meet you all at the East gate when it’s done.”
Ketta’s devastated expression brightened a shade.
“I could leave Matt a message-tell him not to read it for a couple of days. By then the water will have taken effect-hopefully. If not, we’ll already be far away.”
“What would your message even say to get him to follow us- and bring everyone else along?” I asked.
She waggled her eyebrows, her old saucy personality returning full force. “You leave that to me. That boy will be hightailing it to the Haven. I guarantee it.”
I loved that my friends were on board, but the plan to save the others seemed like a real long shot. There was only one thing to do.
“You all go ahead to the Haven without me,” I said. “Meet Syd at the car. I’ll stay here and wait for the water to take effect on the others. Then in a few days when they’re ready, I’ll find a way to talk to them and convince them.”
Heath had said I had a week. Hopefully that would be enough time.
“After I’ve made them understand what we’re up against, we’ll sneak out through that same wonky gate then figure out what to do from there,” I said.
“But Syd knows you-not us,” Ketta said. “What if he refuses to drive us?”
“Tell him it’s what Heath wants and he won’t get paid if he doesn’t. I don’t remember Syd all that well, but one thing stands out to me – he was very motivated by money.”
We agreed that Ketta and Jolie would pack quickly and head to the rendezvous spot, and I would go with Luz to the water treatment plant as a lookout.
First Ketta went and got her parents’ coffee bean grinder from the kitchen and brought it back to the basement where we ground up the pills into a fine powder.
“I hope this will be enough,” I said, handing the bag of pulverized drugs to Luz.
“Me, too. Who knows? Maybe it’ll even turn my parents into reasonable people.” Jolie sat back down-hard.
“Oh. My parents. Am I ever going to see them again? How can I leave without saying goodbye?”
“Look at it this way,” Ketta said. “If they’re anything like my parents, they’d get shot trying to defend you when the soldiers eventually come to take you away and recycle you at Dr. Rex’s orders. I feel like I’m not only saving myself by leaving, I’m saving my mom and dad, too.”
Jolie nodded and got back up again to start packing.
Before Luz and I headed out the door, I popped my head back in. “Make sure to take jack- ets. I remember it getting kind of cold in the mountains at night.”
Would I ever see those mountains again? Would my friends be able to find the Haven without me?
Heath was going to be furious when he found out I’d stayed behind, but I knew it was the right thing to do. I didn’t have a choice, and I didn’t have time to worry about Heath right now.
I had a water supply to drug.
