The Girl Who Could Fly (12 page)

    Instead she used her hand to gently stroke the giraffe’s head. “Hey, there.”
    He leaned into her touch, hungry for the gentleness of a kind word and gesture. Piper brushed the silver patches on his head, and they were so smooth that it felt like stroking velvet.
    “You’re so soft. Beautiful.” She caressed the giraffe’s delicate face and he held still, lest he miss even a moment of her sweet and gentle attention. While there was no way for Piper to know it, her kindness was the first he had felt in a long time, and it took his mind off of the agony of cramped and crumpled legs and the heavy chains that held him to the ground. His sad heart was lifted and the room mysteriously filled with a flickering light that grew brighter and steadier.
    Initially Piper thought the overhead light in the room had been turned on, until she realized that the giraffe’s silver spots were literally glowing like spotlights.
    “Holy moly, you’re like a giant lightbulb!” The beacon inside the giraffe, activated by Piper’s kindheartedness, was blinding.
    “Don’t you worry yourself. I’ll get some help for you and you’ll be outta here in a jiffy. Soon as Dr. Hellion hears about this, she won’t stand for it. You just wait and see.”
    A gruff male voice came from the lab just outside of the giraffe’s room. “Set up the new experiments between the insects and plants.”
    Jessie and Moo had returned! Piper quickly rushed to the door and eased it closed so that she could peep out without being seen. Moo was pushing a dolly full of specimen containers holding harried-looking spiders the size of golf balls. As they crawled about, they rapidly changed color from fluorescent green to orange to yellow, and then back again.
    Piper was on the verge of being discovered, and there was no telling what Moo and Jessie might do if they found her. Rushing back to the giraffe, she gave him one last pat. “I’ll be back. You hear? I’m not gonna leave you like this. Just you hold on.” Then as quiet as a mouse, Piper slid out of the giraffe’s room, crouching low and out of sight. With the little black cricket in one hand, Piper scuttled from one workstation to the next, making a beeline for the red doors. Only two rows shy of success, the red doors came bursting open and a team of scientists entered. Thinking fast, Piper ducked out of sight and remained hidden under a table as the bevy of scientists stopped inches away from her position and conferred.
    “Specimen four-two-alpha is still not responding to treatment protocols. Clinical trials show no improvement or any change whatsoever,” a bald scientist smartly reported in an overly educated, nasal voice.
    “This is a compiled list of the specimen’s pertinent data,” a second scientist continued. “Note here the use of electric shock treatment, chemical cocktails, hydrotherapy, and of course, physical restraint. None provided any statistically significant results.”
    “Mmmm.”
    Piper froze.
    The last voice was low but familiar, and it sent a chill down Piper’s spine. Her line of sight was obstructed by several white lab coats and she craned for a better view.
    “Exterminate it then. It’s unfortunate, but we can’t dedicate resources to life-forms who resist rehabilitation.”
     Once again, it was that same familiar voice that spoke. It was not only familiar, but unmistakable. Piper knew it all too well but even so refused to believe what her senses were telling her.
    “Two separate teams have been dispatched to capture additional species today,” the soft and gentle voice continued. “Uncooperative specimens must be destroyed to make room. By whatever means necessary.”
    The lab coats parted and Piper saw . . .
    
NO!!!!!!!
It was a silent scream. The sort that your soul yells when a piece of it is crushed and dies.
NO!!!!!!!
    As always, Letitia Hellion’s face was breathtakingly beautiful, and she was the very picture of composure. Even as she ordered the extermination of exquisite and delicate life-forms helpless under her care, she did so with the same ease you might ask for more sugar in your tea.
    “I have compiled a list of specimens”—Dr. Hellion handed out pages to the scientists who nodded their heads and took notes—“that must be collected and terminated. Let’s begin with specimen four-two-alpha.” Dr. Hellion led the way and the group followed.
    Piper wondered what had happened to all of the oxygen in the room, because none of it was getting into her lungs. How was this possible? Dr. Hellion was nothing short of an angel, or at least she looked like an angel. But would an angel use words like
destroy
and
terminate
? Did angels bind giraffes, slowly kill roses, and torture crickets? Dr. Hellion’s outwardly beautiful surface had deceived Piper. She’d believed in her, loved her, and had placed her very life in her hands, and now, God help her, she was at her mercy. If Dr. Hellion was capable of such things, then what was in store for Piper? What terrible things would Dr. Hellion do to her and the other kids?
    And yet . . . despite everything, a part of Piper wouldn’t believe what her senses told her. The tender, dreaming part of her held out hope that she was wrong and mistaken and that Dr. Hellion was the savior she presented herself to be.
    Dr. Hellion came to a stop at the lab station where specimen four-two-alpha should have been waiting. But specimen four-two-alpha was not waiting. Instead, the group found an open case with white chemicals in the bottom of it. Dr. Hellion immediately looked to the team leader for an explanation.
    “But . . .” The scientist blathered, looking around the experiment station. “It was right here an hour ago.”
    “What’s the physical description, Dr. Fields?” Another scientist took the chart from Dr. Fields and flipped through it.
    “It’s the
voculus romalea microptera,
” Dr. Fields quickly explained, scrambling about the station. “Easily mistaken for the common field cricket.”
     Shaken from her stunned trance, Piper looked at the black cricket sitting in the palm of her hand and swallowed hard.
This is not good,
Piper quickly realized.
    “Dr. Fields, the specimen has been released.” Dr. Hellion stated the obvious.
    “But . . . but . . .” Dr. Fields spluttered. “We’ve never, it’s never happened before.”
    “Be that as it may, I’m alerting security.” Dr. Hellion flipped open her phone. “Agent Agent, we have a situation in—” Dr. Hellion paused in midsentence as her eye rested upon a single stray Q-tip. Very carefully, she lifted it between two slender fingers and turned it around. A hushed silence fell over all the gathered scientists as the full implication of the Q-tip became clear to them. “—ah yes, Agent Agent, correction, we’ve got a red alert and a possible intruder on level four. I want all surveillance tapes and . . .”
    Piper didn’t exactly know what a red alert was, but she knew that it wasn’t good and that the place was soon going to be crawling with agents. She had to act fast or be trapped. A steady stream of lab personnel had been moving in and out of the red doors since Dr. Hellion’s arrival, preventing an escape without being seen. Piper slid the little black cricket into her pocket and ever so quietly whispered to herself, “I’m as light as a cloud, as free as a bird. I’m part of the sky and I can fly.” When the tingling started, she reached on top of the table above her head and grasped the first heavy object she came upon. Without so much as a glance at it, she tossed it to the opposite side of the room.
    
BANG!
A glass beaker exploded, scaring the science team out of their wits. Taking advantage of the distraction, Piper leapt across the aisle and then dashed across the room until she came to the panel of frosted windows that overlooked the atrium, a dizzying number of stories far, far below. With wild abandon, Piper threw herself out an open window.
    Dr. Hellion turned on a dime. She saw something out of the corner of her eye. That much was certain. She ran to the window and looked down and then up and then side to side. She saw . . . nothing.
    “Agent Agent, I want the exact current location of Piper McCloud.” Dr. Hellion hadn’t gotten to be head of the facility for no good reason—she knew that someone had been in the lab. “In my office? Thank you.”
    It required every ounce of Piper’s energy to fly into Dr. Hellion’s office through the open window. Her body felt like it weighed a hundred million pounds. She hadn’t flown in months and it was almost as though she couldn’t remember how. “Like the birds, I will fly.” She said it over and over again. “I’m part of the sky and I can fly.”
    Panting and puffing and pushing, her feet touched down and her first thought was to call for help. The telephone was sitting in plain view on Dr. Hellion’s desk and Piper immediately reached for it and dialed home.
    It must have been hours before the phone began to ring.
    “C’mon, Ma, pick up.” They rarely received any phone calls from one month to the next at the farm and it would probably catch her mother off guard to hear the unfamiliar ringing. That is, if she was close enough to the phone to hear it at all.
    One ring. Two rings. Three rings. Four rings.
    “Please hear it. Please be there.” Piper expected Dr. Hellion to burst through the door at any moment.
    Ten rings. Eleven rings. Twelve rings.
    “Hello?” Betty McCloud said on the other end of the phone and Piper almost wept with joy.
    “Ma—”
    
Click
. The phone went dead.
    Piper gasped and looked down to find a finger resolutely pressing the disconnect button on the phone. That finger belonged to Conrad Harrington III.
    “What are you doing? Don’t you know what’s going on here?”
    Conrad didn’t react, but instead took the handset away from Piper and, with quick movements, took it apart. A moment later he plucked a small, round disc the size of a button from the earpiece. He held it out so that Piper could see it.
    “Bugged.”
    Piper looked at Conrad as though seeing him for the first time and, in truth, this was the first time he was actually letting her see him. Everything about him was different. He looked taller and more confident and nothing like the whiny, mean child who had been making her life miserable for the last few weeks.
    “But . . . what—”
    “Shhhh. Don’t speak. Just listen.”
    Conrad reached into his pocket and pulled out Piper’s little wooden bird, silently handing it to her.
    Piper clutched the precious wooden bird to her heart and tears obscured her vision. Was nothing she knew or saw real? With her own two eyes she’d watched Conrad throw her bird down the garbage chute. “But how—?”
    “I created a replica,” Conrad quickly explained, putting the reassembled phone in place. “I took your bird with one hand and threw the replica in the rubbish with the other.”
    Piper’s mouth opened, but there were no words.
    “There isn’t time. Dr. Hellion is on her way. She’ll suspect you but she’ll have no proof. I was watching your progress on the surveillance cameras and know everything. I’ve done what I can but you must follow my lead and make sure the cricket stays in your pocket. If she catches you or it, all will be lost. Just do what I tell you to.”
    That was when Piper knew that Conrad knew everything, had always known. That he was actually trying to protect her and that they needed each other.
    And that was when Piper McCloud’s greatest enemy became her only ally.
    As fate would have it, Piper was given less than four seconds to retroactively relive all of the events of her last months in a staggering journey that reordered by 180 degrees everything she’d accepted as real and true to be fake and lies, so that her head was spinning and her knees were shaking and she no longer knew which way was up or down. It was that precise moment when the door to the office burst open, and Dr. Letitia Hellion stood on the threshold and fixed her piercing eyes upon Piper’s white, trembling face.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

L
ETITIA HELLION was gently panting from her sprint out of the testing lab, Piper was on the verge of hyperventilating, and Conrad subtly slumped his shoulders and allowed his facial features to return to their normal look of sullen complaint. For an agonizing three seconds, there was silence.
    At the precise moment that Piper was sure her chest might break open, or that she’d burst into tears or faint, or some combination of all three, Conrad threw himself upon the awkward quiet. “It’s Piper! She’s hiding something,” he blurted, roughly shoving Piper forward at Dr. Hellion.
    Piper’s mouth flew open. What happened to the Conrad she had just been speaking to? He had become an entirely different person.
    “Is that true, Piper?” Dr. Hellion was amazingly calm, her eyes gentle and kind. “Are you hiding something?”
     “Tell her.” Conrad sulked.
    Piper looked at Conrad in mute dismay. What was she supposed to say?
    “What is it, Piper? You can tell me.”
    “Bella stole something and Piper saw it,” Conrad tattled.
    “What?” No kidding, now Piper was utterly lost.
    “I saw everything and if you don’t tell I will.” Conrad turned to Dr. Hellion. “Bella had this little, black bug in her hand when she was leaving. It looked like a cricket and she showed it to Piper when no one else was looking.” Conrad smugly turned to Piper as though he’d just put one up on her.
    Piper looked at Conrad and marveled at his complete genius.
    “Is that true, Piper?” This revelation made Dr. Hellion relax and sit down at her desk.
    “Well.” Piper didn’t have as much practice as Conrad, but she tried her best to play along. “Bella was walking and . . . well, I saw it in her hand and, um—”
    “And then Bella let Piper touch it before she hid it in her pocket,” Conrad finished quickly.
    Dr. Hellion nodded carefully, looking between the two children. Her eyes gave nothing away, and as usual her face was as calm as a lake of still water. “I see.”
    “I warned her she had to tell.”
     “Piper, for your information, students aren’t permitted to interact with specimens unless supervised. Conrad is correct that it is your duty to report this.”
    “I’m sorry, Dr. Hellion. I don’t want to break any rules.”
    “Yes, I know that, Piper.” Dr. Hellion paused, looking between the two of them. “And what is this I hear about a fight?”
    Conrad looked genuinely surprised, and even consulted Piper with a confused expression as if to see if she knew what Dr. Hellion was talking about. “No. There was no fight.”
    Piper couldn’t get over how convincing Conrad was. It was eerie.
    “Nurse Tolle reported that Piper’s bird was thrown in the garbage,” Dr. Hellion persisted. Once again Conrad’s amazement could not have been more genuine.
    “As you can see for yourself, Piper’s holding her wooden bird right now.” Conrad nudged Piper and Piper held up the bird.
    “I see.” As usual, Conrad had all of his bases covered. Something told Dr. Hellion that if she asked the other children, they would tell a similar story, and it was even possible that by tomorrow Nurse Tolle would claim that he’d misreported the incident. There was nothing to be gained from questioning them further, even though Piper’s eyes were as wide as two moons and her knees were shaking. “Well, that certainly explains everything. Thank you for coming forward. You may return to the dormitory now.”
    “Good night, Dr. Hellion.” Conrad turned to leave and Piper followed him. Before they could reach the door, Dr. Hellion’s phone rang.
    “Yes, Agent Agent. What about the surveillance tapes? What sort of computer error? I find it hard to believe that nothing can be retrieved. I see.”
    Conrad didn’t look or speak to Piper all the way back to the dormitory, and by the time they returned, it was already bedtime.
    “Lights-out.” Nurse Tolle patrolled the dormitory hallway.
    In a state of shock and anguish, Piper waited for thirty agonizing minutes in her room after lights-out. During the wait, she tried to calm her nerves by tending to the little black cricket, whom she decided to name Sebastian. She’d never known anyone named Sebastian, but it struck Piper as a very grand name, and the more she watched the cricket, it became clear to her that he was a very, very fine and elegant creature indeed. She created a little house for Sebastian on her desk using a small box, and he seemed thankful for her efforts and settled into his box for the evening.
     The instant Nurse Tolle completed his second night check, Piper flew out her window and landed in Conrad’s room, where she found him completely dressed and calmly packing a case on his bed.
    “What is going on here?”
    “I would have thought that was obvious even to you by now.” Conrad wasn’t in the least surprised to have Piper suddenly come flying through his window, and continued to calmly place books and files into his case.
    “But, but, they’re hurting all those beautiful creatures,” Piper blathered, on the verge of hysterics. “I saw that giraffe and the turtle and the rose and so many others. It’s not right. We’ve gotta get out of here.”
    “For once, you are absolutely correct on all accounts. I couldn’t have put it better myself. Unfortunately, getting out of here wasn’t possible to do until you arrived. I needed a flier to make an escape work. But now that you’re here and you’ve got your head on straight, we can go.” Conrad closed his case and Piper realized that he had actually packed up all of his belongings and was ready to leave that very instant.
    “You mean we’re gonna leave right now? Just like that?” Piper took a step back, unprepared. Too much had happened in too short a space of time and she was reeling.
    “Like you said, what are we waiting for?”
     “But . . . well, I mean, shouldn’t we tell someone? Do something?”
    Conrad sighed, put his case down. He seemed older than his eleven years, and he crossed his arms over his chest and looked at Piper like a parent would a confused child. “Oh, so you want to go through all that song and dance. Alright, let’s get it over with so that we can get out of here.
    “I’ll start at the beginning. Here, you’d better sit down, this might take a while.” Conrad pointed to the bed and Piper sat on the edge of it, her eyes wide. He spoke with strained patience, as though he’d gone through this a million times, which he had, if only in his own head. “First of all, did Dr. Hellion ever tell you what this place, this institute, is called?”
    Piper thought back and realized that Dr. Hellion hadn’t, nor had Piper ever asked. “Uh, no, she sure didn’t.”
    “And what about the logo? Have you seen this around?” Conrad pointed to a piece of stationery with the letters I.N.S.A.N.E. printed neatly across the top. Piper nodded. She’d seen it everywhere, they all had. She’d never given it any thought, though. “These letters stand for the Institute of Normalcy, Stability, And NonExceptionality, or I.N.S.A.N.E. to make things a little less wordy. I.N.S.A.N.E. is a perfectly constructed, faultlessly operated facility with only one purpose—to make everything and anything that passes through its doors normal. It is one hundred percent effective in this task. Since its inception, it has crafted a seamless and systematic process that ensures absolute results.”
    Conrad reached for the lamp on his desk and switched it on. Because he’d taken out the normal lightbulb and replaced it with a black bulb, the light suddenly exposed to Piper white writing on every square inch of Conrad’s room. Late at night when everyone else was sleeping, Conrad had been hard at work. Trust a genius to devise a foolproof way to hide his secrets in plain view. Formulas were scrawled across walls, there were diagrams on his door, charts covered the desk, and even the ceiling wasn’t spared his handiwork. All of which was undetectable without the black light.
    “Holy moly!” Piper had to crane her neck to take it all in.
    Conrad pointed to a diagram on the door, trying to focus Piper. “Over here you can see how it all starts with tracking devices that have been positioned across the globe. They quickly identify and isolate a specimen that shows itself to be exceptional, whether it be a bird or a fish or a human.” Conrad next pointed to a larger diagram with an array of arrows and formulas. “As soon as a positive identification on a creature is established, it is then flagged by satellite. Retrieval units are immediately dispatched to apprehend it. From the moment the specimen is flagged, an electronic surveillance net is thrown over it, making it a sitting duck. By the time it is brought down here into the facility its fate is sealed. Make no mistake, there is only one way out of here, and that is Dr. Hellion’s way.”
    Conrad smartly tapped the corner of what appeared to be an ostensibly ordinary Snoopy calendar that hung on the wall. Immediately it unraveled to the floor like an accordion, revealing still more diagrams, charts, and numbers. “First the specimen is placed under observation and carefully studied; scientists document and record all physical and behavioral characteristics, creating an exhaustive dossier of information, which is then used to isolate a chemical that will stop it from doing whatever it is that they do not consider normal. After years of trial and error, they have found that the appropriate drug administered to the specimen will promptly alter its brain patterns and physiological chemistry. Once that is accomplished, the bulk of their work is done, and all that they need is time before the specimen will revert to normalcy. They know that if the specimen does not use its ability for a certain period of time, the ability will be lost forever. In other words, you have to use it or lose it.”
     Conrad paused to let that information sink in before moving to the formulas on the opposite wall and continuing more quietly. “While the vast majority respond to the right drug, there are exceptions to the rule, and in those rare cases Dr. Hellion will resort to more radical and invasive means. She’ll have the specimen surgically torn apart and put back together again. She’ll use gene therapy, alter its DNA, maim the offending exceptional characteristic, and finally, if all else fails, destroy the specimen altogether. That is what they are doing on level four.”
    Piper’s face was deathly white, and she was trembling slightly. As she didn’t seem like she was on the verge of completely losing it, Conrad took a breath and continued.
    “But the human specimens, like you and me—well, we are their greatest challenge. Other creatures only require physical and biological alterations, but with us, with the human animal, an additional layer of difficulty is added because of this.” Conrad pointed to his head. “The psychological, intellectual, and emotional aspects of the human being make us much more difficult to manage and control. It’s taken the researchers a while, but they now understand that to successfully rehabilitate us and create lasting normalcy, they must make us want it, embrace it, and see its value. Otherwise it doesn’t work. And how do they do this? By befriending us, giving us what we want, making us comfortable, and if at all possible, gaining our unwitting complicity in our own demise. Something they accomplish all too easily in most cases.” Conrad gave Piper a pointed look and Piper filled with shame, looking away miserably. Why had she wanted to believe Dr. Hellion? Why had she said that she wouldn’t fly when flying was all that she’d ever loved?
    “It’s all very subtle, of course, and their reasoning is flawless and logical. If it didn’t make sense, our brains wouldn’t accept it and we wouldn’t go along with it. They know if we don’t use the ability we will soon lose it, and they’re astute enough to realize that the most effective way of accomplishing this is by distracting our attention and refocusing it onto the normal and mundane. Old Hell has a masterful grasp on the delicate balance between encouragement and gentle persuasion toward normalcy, while at the same time negatively reinforcing any unapproved behavior until all traces of the talent are extinguished altogether. Too firm a hand and we’ll resist and rebel. It’s much easier and more effective to distract us and keep us happy and calm. They don’t truly teach us anything to keep our brains quiet and inactive. Their rigid schedule is designed to lull us into a stupor, while they silently and secretly go about the real work of killing our talent once and for all.”
    Conrad’s words, not to mention all the numbers and diagrams, began pressing in on Piper and her head started to feel like it was spinning. She held on to the bed to steady herself while Conrad leapt atop his chair and started pointing to his work on the ceiling.
    “You see, they employ a two-pronged approach. Breaking a subject down mentally is half the battle; the other half requires drugs. And how do they do this, you ask? In the food. The delicious, entirely amazing food that is perfectly tailored to your taste buds is made precisely so that it will mask all of the chemicals they’re shoving into it. And they’re pumping a lot of chemicals into you each and every day, make no mistake. All the while they carefully observe your reaction to them until they isolate just the right drug that is going to make you a little slower, stop you from thinking quite like you did, maybe even make you mildly happy, but extremely docile.
    “As soon as that happens—and they are getting better and faster at it each and every day—you no longer want to use your ability, and at the same time the physiological balance inside your body alters, never to be the same again. Their methods are simple, effective, and foolproof. One day a kid wakes up and seems to remember that there was once something that they could do—something special, something different—but for the life of them they can’t remember what it is. But they won’t mind so much because they’ve got an incredibly comfortable bed and their thoughts stretch only as far as their next meal and how good the food will be, and for the most part they are given anything and everything they ask for. So they figure, why fight it? Without actually realizing it, they’ve sold themselves out for a cushy bed and a raging food addiction.
    “We’re like rats in a maze down here and the only way we’ll get out is by being normal.”
    Piper hadn’t realized that she’d stopped breathing somewhere in the middle of Conrad’s speech, and suddenly she gasped like a fish pulled out of water.
    “No.” She shook her head. “No.”
    “Are you going to lose it? Because we’re on a schedule here and we really don’t have time for you to get into a flap.”