The Samantha Project (34 page)

We did look exactly alike, the only difference being our clothes, the way we did our hair, and how much makeup we had on.
 

“I can’t believe you would say that!” Brittany glared at him, then turned back toward me again. “Look at her hair. It’s all wavy and messy. And she has no makeup on at all. And what is she wearing? Jeans and some baggy t-shirt? She’s probably fat under all those clothes.”

I turned away from her, embarrassed and saddened by what she had said. I felt like I was back in middle school being bullied by Caitlyn. I wasn’t going to sit there and listen to more of her insults. I got up and went into the bathroom, slamming the door shut.

I could hear Erik through the door, yelling at Brittany. “How could you say those things?! You just met her. You don’t even know her. You find out she’s your sister and those are the first things out of your mouth? Even if she wasn’t your sister, who talks that way to someone?”
 

“Okay, okay, enough,” Jack said. “Sam, when you’re done, can you please come out so we can continue this?”
 

I came out of the bathroom to find Erik sitting on a chair across the room, away from Brittany, who was sitting on the sofa, arms crossed.

“Brittany, this is Sam.” Jack pointed at me, then at Brittany. “Sam, this is Brittany. You two are sisters. End of story. I don’t care if you two get along or don’t get along. The fact is that you’re both in danger. Brittany, some bad people are already after Sam and we are fairly certain they’re coming to get you, too.”
 

“Why? Because of her?” Brittany wouldn’t look at me. I didn’t understand why she was so mad at me. I hadn’t done anything. I didn’t ask for a sister. And if I’d been able to choose, she would have been the last person I would ever pick.

“It’s a long story, but you can’t blame Sam. These people have been watching you for years. They know everything about you. And now they want to take you.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Brittany stood up. “I’m done listening to this crap. I don’t know why you’re doing this, and I really don’t care. I’m getting the hell out of here.” Brittany walked to the stairs and shoved Jack to get him out of her way. But he was far too strong. He didn’t move an inch. Erik went over and grabbed Brittany around the waist, throwing her back on the sofa and holding her down.

“Let go of me! I swear, I’ll call the cops. You people are going to jail! All of you! That means you, too, sis!” Brittany was fighting Erik, hitting and kicking him.

“Did you even hear a word we said?” Erik was practically sitting on her to keep her still. “People are trying to kidnap you!”

“And what do you call this?” Brittany yelled back at him.

“
Bad
people are trying to kidnap you. They may even be trying to kill you. We don’t know. But we
do
know that they’re coming for you either way.”

“Fine. Let them try to get me. I can handle them.” We all looked at her small, thin frame. Even with my enhanced muscle strength, I couldn’t take on men with guns.

“I’ve had to deal with plenty of my mom’s boyfriends. When she’s passed out drunk, and they come after me. Let’s just say, I can take care of myself.”

“These people have guns, Brittany. And explosives,” Erik said. “Think you can fight that?”

“So go to the police. Tell them your story,” Brittany said. “You won’t do it because this is all a lie.”

“The people who are after you have connections within the police. Bad cops being paid to do their dirty work,” Jack explained. “If we go to the police, we could be walking right into the hands of the enemy.”

Brittany got quiet and stopped fighting Erik.
 

“I think you and Sam should have some time alone,” Jack said. I shot a look his way to indicate that I had nothing to say to Brittany. He ignored it. “Erik?”

Jack went into his lab while Erik headed up the stairs. “I’ll be right upstairs if you need me.” He closed the door at the top of the stairs.

It was just the two of us. Sisters who wanted nothing to do with each other. Brittany got up and started looking around, trying to find anything that might work as a weapon.

“So how long have you known these guys?” Brittany asked as she rifled through the drawers of an old wooden desk that sat in the corner of the room.

“Just met them,” I said coldly.
 

“You just met ’em?” She stopped and turned to me. “You said you were friends with Erik.”

“I lied,” I said with a blank stare.

“Figures. That’s all you people do is lie.” She slammed the drawer shut, finding nothing, not even a sharp pencil. “You’re staying with complete strangers? You ran away from home and this is the best you could do?” She plopped down on the sofa and put her feet up on the table.

“I didn’t run away from home. Erik didn’t tell you everything. I was captured by the people that are after us. They took me prisoner. They drugged me. They ran tests on me. Very painful tests. After weeks of that, I was somehow able to escape. Honestly, I don’t even know how. It’s all a blur.”

“Why didn’t you go home? Tell your parents?”

I looked at her, realizing that we hadn’t told her about my parents. “They killed my parents.” I said it slow so it would sink in. She looked surprised but wasn’t getting all that I was telling her.

I said it again, even slower. “They killed OUR parents, Brittany.”
 

She didn’t move. She just stared at her feet on the table. “I thought you were adopted.”
 

“No. My—our—parents didn’t know about you. We were conceived in a lab. I was given to my—our—parents. You were placed in a surrogate. Then you were adopted.”
 

I could see her trying to take it all in. Trying to imagine what her parents looked like. What they might have been like. How her life would have been different with them.

“Listen, Brittany. If they knew, I swear, they would have done anything to get you back. Anything.”

“Tell me about them,” she said flatly.

“Um, okay. They were super nice—to everyone, not just people they knew. And they were funny. Well, Dad’s jokes were kind of corny but . . .” I tried to think of what to say. There was so much I missed about them. “Mom really loved holidays. Always made a big deal out of them, decorating the entire house. Dad liked to cook. He made dinner almost every night. And he loved making breakfast. He made great pancakes. Mom always made the eggs. It was one of the few things she could cook. She was more of a baker, always making cookies or cakes.”

I glanced over at Brittany. A stream of tears was running down her face.
 

“Brittany? Hey, I’m sorry. I said too much.” I went and sat next to her. I felt horrible. I had gone on and on about how wonderful my life had been. How wonderful my parents were. I painted a picture of this perfect home. But it was everything that Brittany had never had. Instead she had an abusive, alcoholic mother who brought home strange men that Brittany had to fight away. She grew up never knowing if her mother would have food on the table. She had to live in a trailer with a partially collapsed roof that probably leaked water when it rained.

“I’m so sorry, Brittany. I really am.”
 

She sat there, still staring at her feet. “I don’t understand why they would give you a perfect life and put me in hell.” She wiped the tears from her face.

“I don’t know either,” I said, not wanting to tell her Jack’s theory. “That’s what we’re trying to tell you. They’re bad people, Brittany. A person’s life means nothing to them. They use people and they get rid of people. We’re all disposable to them. And I don’t know why. I don’t understand it.”

“I hate you,” she said, looking directly at me.

“What? Why?” I backed away.

“I just do. I hate girls like you. Smart girls. Looking down on girls like me. I hate you.”

“Where did this come from? I never said I was smart.”

“I can tell that you’re smart. Probably got into some fancy college. What are you gonna do now? You’re missing school. Now you won’t graduate.”

“I’m done with school. I graduated early,” I mumbled.

“Hah! Just like I said. Smart. It’s ’cause your parents gave you everything. You had stuff I didn’t have, like violin lessons and dance lessons.”

I wasn’t sure what to say. I hadn’t had those things, but I had grown up with plenty of other advantages.
 

“And I hate you for knowing them. Our parents. You had them all to yourself. For 17 years! And I hate you for that!” Tears started rolling down her cheeks again.

I went to give her a hug but she shoved me back. “DON’T touch me. I don’t care what they say. I am
not
your sister.” She got up and stormed into the side bedroom, slamming the door behind her.

A few minutes later, Erik came downstairs. “Where is she? What happened?”
 

“Let’s see. She hates me. She hates me some more. Oh, and just to be clear, she hates me.” I smiled sarcastically. “But I don’t care for her either, so we’re even.”

“Sam. Come on. That’s not fair. How did you think she was going to react?”

“I don’t know, but not like that. She blames me for everything. She even said she hates me because she thinks I’m smart. That doesn’t even make sense.”

He sat down next to me on the sofa. “She’s angry because you had everything she didn’t. Good parents. A house to live in. Food on the table.”
 

I moved closer to him and lowered my voice in case Brittany was listening. “It’s not
my
fault that she didn’t have those things. I feel bad for her. Really, I do. But I can’t take the blame for things I had no control over.”

“I know. Just give her some time alone. We dumped a lot on her all at once.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Maybe after she’s given it some thought, she’ll only hate me for 99 reasons rather than 100.”

The door behind us opened and Jack came over. “Sam, I’ve been running more tests on your DNA. We need to talk.”

“Shouldn’t we talk about what to do with Brittany?” Erik asked.

“What’s there to talk about Erik? She’s stuck here. If she goes home she’ll be walking into a trap.” Jack thought for a moment. “Okay, yes, we should talk about it. But I need time to think about that situation. For now, let me show you this.” He set his laptop down on the table in front of us and pushed Erik aside so he could sit between us on the sofa.

“You see these lines here? They’re markers. Genetic markers.” He pointed to the screen. “They tell me exactly where Sam has the enhanced genes. That means I can go directly to those spots and see how they’ve programmed the software that controls that specific part of her genes. So I went in and did that right here. You see?”
 

“Yeah, Dad, but we don’t write software code. And I don’t know about Sam, but I’m not that up on genetic science.”
 

“I am,” I said. “My dad taught me a lot. Genetics was his area of research. I was supposed to work with him this spring in his lab. I was supposed to go to Stanford in the fall and study genetics.”

“Well, I’m impressed, Sam,” Jack said as he pulled up a new screen on the laptop.
 

Erik looked surprised. “Me, too. Math is more my thing.”

“Yes, Erik is like a human calculator,” Jack said. It hit me that the three of us really didn’t know that much about each other than our connection with GlobalLife.

Jack continued. “So you know how genetic sequencing works and how scientists are able to manipulate genes by inserting DNA through vectors and—”

“Yeah, that’s kid science,” I said, smiling over at Erik.

Jack sat back for a moment. “Well, your teachers and modern textbooks don’t tell you about all the really cool stuff they can do with genes now. To be fair, I’m sure
they
don’t know. Many in the science community don’t even know this stuff is going on. The research I was doing 15 years ago at GlobalLife was cutting edge back then, so imagine what they’re doing now. Remember how I said that we were working on programming genes like you would program a computer?”

“Yes,” I said. “It’s the same type of research Dave did in Minnesota.”

“Well, they’ve really advanced the technology and it’s amazing.” He moved up to the laptop again. “See right here? This strand of DNA? And this marker?”
 

I nodded. Jack continued. “The marker actually has a very tiny computer in it, telling your genes what to do. It’s like a mini processor. And I was able to analyze the programming for this one spot.”

“How did you do that so fast?” Erik asked.

“Because I recognized the program, Erik. They’re still using some of the same programs I built. Sure, they tinkered with them a bit here and there, but the basic structure is mine.”

“Is this supposed to make me feel better?” I asked. “Because I thought we decided this genetic manipulation was a bad thing, at least the way GlobalLife is doing it.”

“Yes, of course it is. Sorry to get off track. I’ve just been out of the research world for so long that to see something actually work is well, nice. But the bottom line is that by using some of my programming, they’ve left the door open for me to find out exactly what you can do. Which is good, Sam. The more you know about your abilities, the better able you’ll be to perfect them and use them to protect yourself.”

“So what about Erik? Will this help you know how Erik’s enhanced genes are programmed?”

“I’m not sure yet. He doesn’t have those markers, so it’s harder to locate the programming. Plus the software they used on him looks archaic next to yours. But I’m sure I’ll be able to learn some things by comparing his genes to yours.”

“I don’t understand. Erik and I are almost the same age. Why is the software for my enhanced genes so much more advanced?”

“I wondered that, too. My guess is that they were able to regularly update the software in those genetic markers because they had access to you. Every time you went for a vaccine, they could have been updating something in those sections of enhanced genes. Or when you went to the doctor, they could have done it then. If you’re like Erik, you don’t get sick, but were you ever in the hospital for anything?”