Cheating Time (9 page)

As if he's been missing
saying it as much as I've been missing hearing him say
it.

At that very moment, Jayden and I reached
the doors of the barn. Without a word between us and without giving
Jayden the first chance at helping, I snatched them open. I was
ready to find out what was going on, why we'd been called to the
barn, and what Jayden was doing at the farm.

The instant I saw my family huddled in a
circle and acting as if they'd never see each other again, I forgot
all about everything else. I didn't give a flying flip about ice
cream parlors, sociopathic presidents, survival training,
separatists, combat training, hate, or freaking MicroPharms.

All I care about is my
family and keeping them safe and sound… and together.

Once again, the scene before me felt
surreal.

Dad's eyes were glassy and his mood was
somber as he wrapped his arms around my tearful mother's waist in a
way that made it look as if he were having to hold her up and offer
her the strength she needed to keep from crumbling to the
ground.

Jayden, self-proclaimed king of the world
and Surrogate Soldier extraordinaire, was as muted as me by what we
walked in on. Vanishing into nowhere was his lopsided grin and his
smug arrogance.

Distancing himself from my family in just
the way he'd always done, Jayden stepped away from us and moved
toward the door as if he were the sentinel assigned to guard us
rather than the actual family member he was. I didn't have time to
scold him for isolating himself from us. Instead, I ran in the
opposite direction and toward my family: Mom, Dad, Gran, and
Tawney.

"Is someone going to tell me what the heck
is going on here?" I demanded.

I wanted to use language a lot more colorful
but had the common sense to
think
those words rather than
say
them.
The last thing my parents would have appreciated was glaring proof
that I was quite nearly an adult because that—
I suspected
—was the sole reason we were all
cowering inside this barn in the middle of the night.

"Is all of this because I'm almost
seventeen?"

No one needed to answer me. They were all
uncomfortably fidgeting and glancing toward each other like they
were trying to decide who was going to tell me what was going
on.

Finally, Mom stepped out of the line and
toward me. Face to face and bravely staring me in the eyes, she
said, "Carlie, sweetie…" She breathed a shaky sigh. "Sweetie,
i-it's time for all of us to separate."

I'd known since she woke me what was
happening. Still, I felt like someone had just socked me in the
stomach. With a loud
harrumph
, I
wrapped my arms around my midsection and mumbled through the phlegm
clogging my throat.

As if all it would take to make my parents
change their mind, I shook my head and shouted, "No. No, it's not.
We're a family, and we're staying together. I don't want to go to
the academy. I don't want to leave you and Dad." I glanced in Dad's
direction, praying I could make him see the light. "Dad, you know
without Mom, Barone will use the MicroPharm to turn me into a
mindless, robotic vegetable.

"By the time he's finished with me, I'll be
some kind of frighteningly submissive housewife who claims Aspect
Nation is the only nation, and my uber dominant husband will be
allowed to decide
if
and
when
I have a kid, what sex it will
be, and the kid's every distinguishing feature. All President
Barone cares about is creating his perfect society. I can't be part
of that. Please let me stay with you. Please don't make me go
through that," I begged.

Before that moment, I'd have sworn that
living on a farm surrounded by separatists was the thing that
frightened me the most. Now, I knew going back to the nation's
capital without my parents—
with
Barone—
was a hundred times worse.

Barone, the things he'd done to me and the
way he studied me—
like he had plans especially
for me
—was scarier than anything I could imagine. In the
past, my parents had been there to protect me. Without them, there
was no telling what he would do to me.

As if she could hear my thoughts, Mom
visibly shivered. On cue, the rest of the room grew absolutely
quiet. They all realized that my speaking up, doing anything but
remaining reserved and under the radar, was out of character for
me. Tawney, who'd been curled in on herself sobbing just seconds
before, stood tall and stared toward me, while Gran's furrowed
brows and Jayden's complete attention fixed in my direction.
Comprehending that I was suddenly—and unwittingly—the center of
attention, I gulped back the rest of what I wanted to say.

I have to do what they're
asking. I have to be brave. For them I have to do this.

Dad warned, "Don't ever say anything like
that aloud again, Carlie. There are people who'll consider it
treason and kill you."

It was the first glimpse I'd ever given him
as it related to the knowledge I'd acquired working in Mom's
lab.

He has no idea what I
know.

One of my biggest discoveries came when Mom
had asked me to compile pre-MicroPharm statistics with
post-MicroPharm statistics. It took me several months to realize
the data I'd been given, posted on every website as factual, was
not as accurate as had been claimed.

While analyzing the numbers, I sorted them
in new and creative ways, identifying and pulling to the forefront
statistics that proved the ones published by Barone's cronies were
manipulated to minimize the big changes to our nation's population.
The numbers I'd pulled had been hidden deep within Barone's
statistics and had proven that the MicroPharm had impacted Aspect
Nation's population figures in significant ways, effectively
altering the genetic landscape of the population.

Under everyone's nose and without the first
ounce of suspicion the nation's average age had decreased from 37.3
to 26.7. The nation's average body mass index, BMI, had been
reduced from twenty-nine to fourteen. The nation's average height
for men had grown from five feet and eight inches to six feet two
inches and for women had grown from five feet three inches to five
feet nine. Finally, the average American IQ had increased from
ninety-eight to one hundred and twenty-five.

With my research, I'd had my first
scientific discovery, one that had proven that the citizens of
Aspect Nation were becoming younger, leaner, taller, and smarter.
My hypothesis had included a theory that President Barone had begun
using the MicroPharm, the ultimate evolutionary technology, to
create the ideal nation.

I concluded my research with a very
subjective determination about how Darwin's Theory of Evolution
would have nothing on Barone's actual intervention with evolution.
I'd known when I wrote my opinion that Mom would not appreciate the
way I'd let my emotions show through in my paper. She'd drilled
into me the importance of remaining objective no matter what. That
didn't change the fact that my findings had been supported and
accurate. They'd been so obvious once compiled that I couldn't
pretend I didn't know what was happening within our nation's
borders.

Unlike Hitler, Barone's version of the
perfect society had nothing to do with race or religion. He made
his decisions in the same pragmatic way a horse owner chooses mares
and stallions for breeding, in a way that increased the odds of
creating a colt worthy of winning the Triple Crown. Barone wanted
citizens that were young and healthy, ones who gave their nation
more than they took and required very little support from the
government.

I saw in Mom's face that she was silently
screaming and begging for me not to say anything more about what I
knew to be true. She didn't need to tell me my findings were as
secret as they were dangerous.

"If not us, Mom… who? If not now, Mom… when?
If we don't tell people what we know now, who will?" My voice was
quiet and pleading.

In some ways, those words and my desperation
behind them tore Mom up more than anything I'd said or done in the
last few minutes. Her mouth opened. At that moment, I was sure she
had enough information to fill dozens of books and that she'd like
nothing more than to share her every secret with me.

In the end, she shook her head and remained
quiet, deciding it was safest for us all if she kept what she knew
to herself. I could tell by looking at her that she knew more than
she'd ever told me… more than I'd heard through eavesdropping. I
could also tell that she didn't believe now was the time or the
place for her to share her information with me.

Maybe one
day,
I thought sadly before determination won out.
No… not one day. Today. She needs to come
clean today.

I was just about to open my mouth and insist
that her secrets—Barone's secrets—be aired here and now when Dad
stepped between Mom and me and leaned down into my face. Just like
the night he'd admitted he'd been forcing Jayden to spend time with
me, he'd decided I needed a healthy dose of reality, and he was
going to give it to me.

"
Carles Anise
Enoche
, you and I need to speak outside," he said,
wrapping his hand around my arm and dragging me toward the door
where Jayden stood watch.

Jayden stared at Dad's hand on my arm like
he wanted to snatch it off me. In the end, he respected Dad's
position enough to stand mute and let us pass without saying or
doing anything.

Coward
, I
thought, rolling my eyes his way.

Dad's disappointment, the solid grip he had
on me, Mom's pleas coming from behind us (begging Dad to forget
what I'd said), and Jayden's willful ignorance exasperated me.

Instead of speaking near the barn where we
could be overheard, Dad pulled me toward the reek of the chicken
pen. The hens were beyond perturbed that we'd had enough nerve to
get so close to them. They balked and clucked so loudly that our
words were quite nearly drowned out. Only Dad and I would ever know
what was said, and that's exactly what he wanted.

"What in the hell are you doing, Carlie? Do
you have the first inkling of what's going on here?" Dad's words
may have been discreet, but there was no missing his anger.

"I-I'm just trying to figure everything out.
We've been here for six months. I might know a few things, but Mom
knows more. I can't understand why she's not telling everyone who
will listen what President Barone is doing. It's the only way to
get him out of office," I said, my voice small.

Like a pin popping a helium-filled balloon,
Dad's stare burst my fervent appeal that we do the right thing.

"And who, pray tell, do you think the
citizens of this great nation are going to blame for giving him the
technology he's used?" he asked.

Stopped short, my brows raised as the
realization sank in. It had never occurred to me that anyone would
believe that my objectively thinking and sensible mother, my
compassionate mother, would ever invent anything that was
specifically geared toward killing people in pursuit of the perfect
human race.

That is not who Mom
is.

"I-I didn't think of it that way," I
mumbled.

"That's right, Carlie. Now you're getting
it. They'll hold President Barone responsible for its uses, but
they'll blame your mother for inventing the MicroPharm. She'll
become a villain alongside the president. She'll be in more danger
than she is now if that happens because people want to blame the
gun and not the gunman, the laws and not the lawbreakers."

"I'm sorry, Dad. I-I hadn't thought about
that," I said quietly.

"That's really the problem here, Carlie. You
don't think before you speak. You and your mother are so much
alike. Like her, you'll do great things. You need to learn from her
mistakes. After she made her discoveries, she knew they were
important. She wanted the world to know about them. She wanted them
to be used for all of the great things they could be used for.

"Gran warned her there would be people who
would want to use them to carry out genocidal activities. She
refused to believe the technology she'd so carefully developed
would ever be used to murder and manipulate." Dad took a long,
angry breath. "Do you see where that got her? Do you see where that
got all of us? Learn from her. Learn from us," Dad said, waving his
hands around the farm, showing for the first time since we'd
arrived just how disgusted he was with where we'd ended up.