Cheating Time (5 page)

"No, I'm not. It's just that I've been
worried about you, too. I've been fighting tooth and nail to make
it here and actually may have broken a few laws in the
process."

"You didn't," I exclaimed, giving him a
good-natured slap on the chest resting beneath my palm and
relishing in my complete and utter relief that he was finally
near.

"I did, and I'd do it again," he admitted,
and there was no hint that he'd been joking.

It was in that instant when I realized just
how much I'd been missing him. I couldn't help myself. I flung
myself around him again. He squeezed me back. Only it was much
tighter this time. Everything about this hug was different because
with it I felt just how glad Jayden was to have me back. He hugged
me as if he might refuse to ever let me go again, and I was okay
with that.

"I have so much to tell you. You aren't
going to believe any of it," I whispered near his ear.

"We have a few minutes. It might be better
if you tell me before we go out to the barn," Jayden whispered
back.

I pulled him all the way into the room and
away from the door and vent.

"Jayden… this farm isn't what it seems, and
the Coxes are not who you think they are," I said quietly.

As soon as the words were out of my mouth,
he asked, "What do you mean, Carlie?"

"The farm is a front for SNP, an
organization geared toward helping MicroPharm separatists who are
making their way to the Shadow border. Mom and Dad have been
brainwashed by the Coxes and have agreed to help these people," I
said as fast as I could.

Time is of the
essence.

"I know," Jayden admitted. "I just didn't
know you knew."

I was stopped short. It never occurred to me
that Jayden (or anyone other than my parents) would have any idea
what was going on at the farm.

"You know?" I asked.

"Yeah… your dad called and talked to me.
Your parents are willing to do whatever needs to be done in order
to make amends for their part in getting Barone elected and for
every MicroPharm law he's implemented," Jayden said. "What they're
not willing to do is put you, Tawney, or Gran in danger. Your dad
asked me to come here and get all of you away from the farm so no
one will ever be able to associate any of you with anything they
do. He's not going to be happy to find out you know all about SNP
because it's going to be a lot harder for you to claim
ignorance."

"I only know what I've overheard." I
defended myself. "Why didn't Dad talk to me? Why would he call and
talk to you when you weren't even here with us?"

There was no hiding the hurt in my voice.
The reason I competed so ferociously with Jayden came slamming back
to me.
It was for Dad's attention.
The only way he'd ever really noticed me was when I'd been
competing with Jayden,
his prodigy
.
Even hundreds of miles away, Jayden had been the one Dad had
confided in when push came to shove.

"I'm not leaving without them. I'm not
leaving with you," I whisper-shouted. "It's like you said. I
already know too much to leave and pretend I never saw or heard any
of the illegal activities going on here."

Jayden was silent for several minutes. "I'll
let you talk to your dad about that. Right now, we just need to get
going," Jayden said before grabbing my hand and pulling me toward
the door.

I wanted to tell Jayden more about
everything I'd overheard, but there was no reason. If anything, he
probably already knew more than me. I'd had to sneak around and
eavesdrop in order to find out the first morsel about the
activities going on around me.

Jayden didn't have to do
anything more than be the tight-lipped soldier he'd been born
as.

As Jayden led me down the hall and toward
the stairs, I thought more about the conversation between my
parents and the Coxes. It had been months, but it was one I'd never
forget.

After Elle's speech about the importance of
repelling Barone's laws and giving people the option of refusing to
have the MicroPharm implanted within their newborns' hearts, things
had begun clicking for Mom.

"All-all of the people who work on your farm
are separatists…
fugitives
?" she'd
asked hesitantly.

"Yes," Mac had said. There'd been no
mistaking the pride he felt for offering the separatists—criminals
in the eyes of the Aspect government—respectable jobs. Ways to earn
their keep so they wouldn't have to ask for handouts.

I couldn't hear Mom's or Dad's responses,
but I still remembered putting my hand to my mouth in shock.

Holy crap!
I'd thought.
They're all so
nice.

I'd been suddenly irritated at the loose way
the slur
fugitive
had been tossed
around my entire life. I'd been brainwashed into thinking they were
all horrible people who were the most dangerous of the dangerous.
The
fugitives
I'd met at the farm
were anything but menaces to our society. After being exposed to
them, I'd learned they were loving parents and grandparents who'd
done nothing more than refuse to allow Barone free rein when it
came to their babies' healthcare.

"You know as well as we do that the
insertion of the device is just one of the many unpalatable
features of Barone's
Reproductive
Law.
There are other components that are offensive
enough for people to defect rather than continue living with the
law of our current government.

"Their precious newborns—
healthy
and
happy
—are all that matter. They've convinced
themselves that the MicroPharm implant and its drugs are unnatural…
were designed to control their children by constantly injecting
them with drugs meant to keep them docile and sedated."

Mom had intervened again. "I agree with
their right to decide. I really do, but I promise you the
MicroPharm wasn't intended to be used as a weapon geared toward
making these children submissive. I never meant for it to be used
that way," she said definitively.

"We're not suggesting it was, Selma. We're
simply sharing these people's fears with you. If you join us,
you'll be able to explain your side… you'll be able to help people
make an informed decision because they, too, will know the real
risks. Right now, Barone himself creates the propaganda associated
with the insertion. In it, there's an insinuation that the baby
without it will die at an earlier age than those who have it
inserted," Elle explained.

"That's just it, Elle. They might. Deadly
infections and diseases such as MRSA, meningitis, septicemia, and
HIV are nonexistent in the children with the device. Most of that
is by design, but some of it has to do with the device's ability to
evolve. To eradicate the disease from the host's body long before
doctors and scientists would ever even be able to isolate the
potential problem."

"There are those of us who understand that
MicroPharm has its benefits, Selma. We just believe people should
have the right to decide. That's all," Mac had assured Mom.

Mom continued as if he'd not said a word.
"There are still lots of malignancies that the MicroPharm can't do
anything about, and of course, there are accidents. For the most
part, if the accident is bad enough, there's nothing the MicroPharm
can do but control the pain. I've tried to do more. Sometimes…
sometimes there's just not anything you can do," Mom had mumbled
just loudly enough for me to hear.

I'd been upstairs and in my bedroom
supposedly asleep or I'd have gone to her. Her voice had taken on
that faraway flat tone that told me she was about to get lost in
one of the many things she'd not yet been able to accomplish, a
cure for death.

A freaking cure for death
is the task Barone had given her.

She'd nearly gone mad trying to do what he'd
asked of her. She'd worked morning, noon, and night trying to
maximize life expectancy
. As one of
her helpers, I knew she'd been performing research she'd called the
Longevity Trials
, naming her
spinoff trials after Gran's
Longevity
Theory
.

The trials were geared toward looking at
long lifespans in several different ways. First, Mom had been
testing a few theories designed to prevent or minimize trauma- or
malignancy-related deaths. Second, she'd been testing other
theories aimed at manipulating the genetic makeup of cells in ways
that might actually prolong life without inflicting life-long
abnormalities in the subjects or their offspring.

One of the theories—
I
may never know which one
—had become an obsession of
Mom's and had quite nearly turned her into a caricature of a mad
scientist. By the time she had her breakdown, she'd been more than
just sleep deprived. She'd gone years on barely any rest and over a
week on almost none.

On the day our car had broken down and as
soon as Elle had laid eyes on Mom, she realized Mom needed rest
more than anything else. The ease with which she'd diagnosed Mom's
condition told me just how good of a clinician Elle was. It had
been the quiet gentleness behind her explanation about how Mom had
been physically and mentally exhausted that had me sitting up and
taking notice… that brought Mom's bizarre behavior into focus for
all of us that day. According to Elle, we'd all been too close to
Mom and watched her downward spiral happen so slowly that we had no
idea how close to suicide she'd been.

Elle was right, and few
things frightened me more than knowing my mother was that sick
without me realizing it.

In the space of a heartbeat, Mom began
sinking back into the depression that had overcome her when she
realized she could not prolong life no matter how many hours she
spent testing theories. Much like she had that first day, Elle had
heard the desperation in Mom's voice.

"Selma, I'm going to get you a cup of tea.
Which flavor would you like?" Elle had asked in a soothing manner
meant to calm Mom's nerves and bring her back from the brink of
despair.

Elle's ease with Mom had been the primary
reason we'd taken up residence at the Coxes' farm for the last six
months. She'd worked miracles on Mom, and for that, I'd forever be
grateful. To this very day, I had no idea what Elle had been
putting in the tea, but I did know she'd insisted Mom drink it
several times a day and sleep at least eight hours every night.
Turning into the perfect patient, Mom had been doing just that, and
I had to believe her drastic improvement had something to do with
her following Elle's orders.

Under Elle's care, Mom's entire attitude had
become happier and more carefree than ever before. By all accounts,
the quietly patient Mom of the last six months was the complete
opposite of the highly motivated woman who'd spent the majority of
my life tied to her lab and determined to do whatever necessary to
please President Barone.

Basically, Mom had stopped
drinking Barone's caustic Kool-Aid and switched to Elle's herbal
tea.

And that was the crux of my problem. I knew
firsthand that Barone and his intentions for Mom were dangerous to
her mental health. What I didn't know was how lethal Elle's
political aspirations were to Mom's life. While there was not one
thing she'd ever done to raise my suspicions, I had a gut feeling
Elle considered Mom a dispensable pawn in SNP's war against Barone
and his barbaric regimen.

The distrust I felt for SNP in general had
me worried that my parents had jumped from the frying pan with
Barone into the fire with the Coxes. Despite their pleas suggesting
they had everyone else's best interests in mind, I suspected the
Coxes were leading my parents down a path they shouldn't be
following.

One where they'd never
allow me to follow because of the dangers awaiting at the
end.

On the night when I'd stood on my bed
listening to my parents and the Coxes, I could tell by the clinking
of cups as they were rested on their saucers that Elle had brewed
and served her infamous calming tea. Approximately twenty minutes
later, their fate had been sealed when my still anxious mother had
asked, "If-if we were to do this, how much danger would Carlie,
Tawney, and Gran be in?"

Mac had answered, "The risks are minimal,
Selma. Now… in order to keep things like that, we'd ask that you
get Carlie and Tawney off to the preparatory academy a few weeks
before they are due to turn seventeen. We don't want Surrogates
coming here and collecting them. Those damn Surrogates are infamous
for their snooping. In order to keep them from poking around the
farm, we'll have to arrange to have Carlie and Tawney picked up at
a location away from here. The good news is that should be a
relatively simple task."

Speaking for the two of them, Dad shocked me
when he said, "We agree to that. Still, we need to know with as
much notice as possible if there is any danger coming this way. We
want to get them out of here. We'll stay if we have to, but we
won't put any of them at risk."

Mac's response had been eager. "Agreed."

Mom's voice was still faraway and small when
she said, "I-I'll never work for Barone again in my life. No one
knows this, but he's using the MicroPharm to kill babies that
aren't perfect in his eyes."

"What did you just say, Selma?" The shock in
Elle's tone had not been lost in the distance between the living
room downstairs and my room upstairs.

Dad had answered for Mom, and his emotions
had been almost as flat as hers. "She read a top secret report
Barone had commissioned. It included a summary of the long-term
benefits of utilizing the MicroPharm to perform selective
termination as fetuses are identified as having genetic mutations.
According to the report, each termination could save the government
approximately four million dollars over the course of the child's
lifetime. As if that weren't enough, there was a suggestion that
the MicroPharm should be used as constant and consistent birth
control in order to save the government even more money."