Wild-born (31 page)

I shook my head. “I don’t blame you for this, Dr. Kellogg. Aside from Mr. Koontz, you’re our only friend.”

“Then I will have to work hard to be worthy of your friendship,” said Dr. Kellogg. “But I cannot help you try to escape. Even if I did, we would fail.”

An uncomfortable silence followed, broken only by Alia’s soft murmuring in my mind. I wondered if Dr. Kellogg could hear it too.

Then Dr. Kellogg said quietly, “Was there anything else you wanted to ask me? I may not be able to help you in the way that you want, but I will always be truthful with you.”

“No,” I said wretchedly. “Thanks for the offer, Doctor, but I think I’ve had just about as much truth as I can handle right now.”

I turned my head so that I was facing Alia, and a moment later I felt Dr. Kellogg’s hand on my shoulder. “Hang in there, Adrian,” Dr. Kellogg whispered gently. “You hang in there.”

I didn’t respond. Dr. Kellogg released my shoulder, and I heard the soft hissing of the airlock door as he let himself out.

C
hapter 15: The Telephone Game

Food, water and air. Back in school, my science teacher had listed those on the blackboard, explaining that they were the basic necessities for life. Obvious, really, but you can’t truly appreciate that until you are deprived of almost everything else. A society might sing about “unalienable rights” and “God-given freedoms,” but in the real world, people decide who is entitled to rights and freedoms. For a few days after my nighttime chat with Dr. Kellogg, I felt the sheer crushing weight of nine heavily shielded floors above me in a way that I had never felt it before. The hopelessness of our future here was so painful that I was certain I would go insane.

But when faced with a lack of options, people can adapt to almost any environment physically capable of sustaining life. Forever, if needs be. And I had little choice but to adapt, if only for Alia’s sake, because as Dr. Kellogg had gently reminded me, I hadn’t lost everything yet. I forced myself to calm down and accept my status as a research subject. I remained on friendly terms with Dr. Kellogg. If there was any difference in how I behaved, it was simply that I no longer smiled when people called me Dr. Howell.

And that’s how my story might have ended, with Alia and me living out our entire lives in captivity, if not for a curious dream that I had one night about two weeks into May.

I found myself standing in a field of tall brown grass under a dark and gloomy sky. Off in the distance, there was a wall made of small black stones extending from horizon to horizon. The wall was only about as high as my chest, and as I walked closer to it, I noticed two small human shapes sitting on it. They were just shadows in the distance. I thought I heard a woman’s voice calling my name, and a moment later I woke up.

“I saw Cindy yesterday,”
said Alia during breakfast.

I looked up at her. “Really?”

“She was sitting on a wall with...”
Alia’s telepathic voice trailed off.

“With who, Ali?” I asked, wondering about my own dream about a wall, but Alia didn’t answer.

I forgot all about it during the day’s experiments, but that night I had the same dream again. This time I was much closer to the wall and I could make out the shapes sitting on it. Cindy was there, and next to her, Ralph. They just sat there and looked at me, Cindy watching me sadly and Ralph smiling mockingly. I felt that Cindy was trying to tell me something, but I woke before I could figure it out. Alia didn’t mention anything about her dreams the next morning, and I wondered if the previous day had just been a coincidence.

The next night convinced me that it wasn’t.

“Addy, Cindy was looking for me,”
said Alia when she woke.
“She was sad.”

“Did you have another dream?” I asked.

Alia shook her head.
“It wasn’t a dream,”
she insisted.
“I saw her.”

It had been a vivid dream for me too. Like the first two, neither Cindy nor Ralph spoke at all, but I could feel their desire to. I thought about asking Mr. Koontz, the dream expert, what it meant, but I didn’t see him that day.

The next morning, Alia said to me over breakfast,
“Cindy wants to talk to you, Addy.”

“I know, but I can’t hear her,” I replied. It was the exact same dream again, and I knew Alia had dreamt it too.

“She says that you have to want to hear her. She says you’re blocking her.”

I stared at Alia.

During my testing session later that day, I thought again about talking to Mr. Koontz and asking him what these dreams were. But I already had a hunch, or rather, an ever-so-slight hope, and I didn’t want to speak openly about it just in case I was right. My hope was that somewhere, someone was dreamweaving to us. I was certain it wasn’t Mr. Koontz because, though I had told him about Cindy, I never told him about Ralph. And how could Ralph be there if...

“Adrian?” said Dr. Otis over the intercom. “Focus please.”

I fired another telekinetic shot at the scanner-mounted target in the Lab-C Testing Room. And then another, and another. I was sweating profusely by the end of the session. Before leaving, I looked around once at the Testing Room, at the dreary concrete cave where I spent my days dancing to the doctors’ every demand. This was where Jason Witherland had jumped from in his desperate bid for freedom, and now, more than ever, I understood why. Despite Dr. Kellogg’s warning, I decided that if there was even the slightest chance of escape, I’d take it too. I was never going to live fifteen years down here like Mr. Koontz. One way or another, I wanted out.

I meditated for nearly an hour before bed that night. I hadn’t done that ever since arriving at the facility, and Alia did her best to shake me out of it, but I sternly silenced her and went about my breathing exercises. According to Alia, Cindy said I was blocking her, but I didn’t know how or why. Meditation seemed to be Cindy’s answer to most problems in her life, and as I lay beside Alia in bed that night, I prayed it would work for me.

I was once again standing in the field of brown grass, almost touching the wall. Cindy and Ralph sat there looking down at me. Ralph... What was he doing here, anyway? I felt a chill run through me, and opened my eyes.

The chill, I discovered to my annoyance, was caused by Alia having pulled our blanket off of me as she slept. The luminous clock on the desk showed 2am, and I knew I had little time to re-enter the dream I had woken from. I had to find Cindy and Ralph again. Carefully so as not to wake Alia, I pulled the blanket back so that it was covering us both. Closing my eyes again, I nudged my mind back toward the field of brown grass swaying in the wind. Back to the long wall of little black stones. Back to Cindy and Ralph. Back to sleep...

I felt as if I had been walking for several thousand years, searching, but now I could finally see the black wall off in the distance. As I warily approached the two sitting there, I wondered why it couldn’t just be Cindy. Ralph wasn’t welcome here. I glared at him furiously, daring him to use his psionics on me, but he just sat there wearing his mocking smile. Cindy was also watching me with the slight frown she often wore when commenting on my lack of power balance. I looked again at Ralph, took a deep breath, and cautiously let down my guard.

I immediately heard Cindy say, “Adrian, we are very close now. We are going to try to get you out of there. Ralph has agreed to help us. He has brought some Guardians.”

“We have agreed to try to rescue you and Alia,” Ralph said quietly, “but you have to understand that there are no guarantees. We’ll give it our best shot, but you’re in a real fix.”

I noticed that Ralph didn’t have his usual accent or attitude. And I knew then that there was someone else hiding behind Cindy and Ralph... or perhaps hiding inside of them.

“Who are you?” I asked. “Who are you really?”

Cindy said, “Keep Alia safe. I love you both very much, and I promise we will do everything we can, but we really don’t know much about the research center yet.”

“Who are you?” I asked again.

“We are working on a plan,” said Ralph, “but it may take a while. You have to be patient, Adrian. If it is possible to rescue you, the Guardians will see it done.”

Suddenly the wall vanished along with Cindy and Ralph, and I was standing alone in the field, which became hazy and finally disappeared completely.

“Cindy? Ralph?” I called out into the void. “Where are you?”

I felt a presence behind me, and turning around, I woke.

I was looking into Alia’s eyes, which were wide open and staring back at me.

“Addy, did you hear Cindy?”
asked Alia.

“Yes, Ali, I did,” I whispered.

“I want to see her, Addy.”

“Go back to sleep, Alia.”

I was certain it was a dreamweave now. What else could it be? Mr. Koontz had said that he could project dreams out of the facility, so certainly someone could project in. Whoever it was knew Cindy and Ralph, and knew how to dreamweave to Alia and me. I had never met a dreamweaver before Mr. Koontz, but he had told me that all he needed was an image of someone in order to control the dreams. It seemed possible for the mystery dreamweaver to just hear about us from Cindy and know enough to send dreams to us.

I thought about what might have been happening outside while we were trapped down here. In order to save us, Cindy had searched out Ralph and somehow got him on her side. Ralph was a former Wolf, so he had probably known where the Psionic Research Center was. And Ralph would have Guardian friends to help him, such as a dreamweaver.

I wondered what Cindy had promised Ralph for his aid. Could it be possible that she had agreed to rejoin the Guardians? I felt horrible thinking about what I must have put her through for my refusal to listen to reason at Mark’s house. I knew that even if we managed to escape, things would be very different.

At the moment, however, Alia and I were still trapped down here, and this was our chance for freedom. I would apologize to Cindy later, and I would make it up to her if ever I could, but right now I had to think about how to help them get us out.

Another two dreams later, I was convinced that the Guardian dreamweaver could not hear anything that I was saying in my dreams. The connection just didn’t work both ways, so I had no way to return a message or ask any questions.

I had also discovered that dreamweaves, just like normal dreams, fade away quickly once you’re awake. I had to make a conscious effort to quickly recall everything I had seen and heard as soon as my eyes opened. It wasn’t easy, and I probably lost a fair bit of information, but I learned that Cindy was hidden somewhere near the facility, along with Ralph and about ten other Guardians.

The reason they hadn’t stormed the place yet was that none of them knew what kind of defenses the facility had. Even Ralph had never set foot in here before. Cindy, or rather the dreamweaver controlling her likeness, told me that if the odds proved too great and a good plan could not be formed, the Guardians would have no choice but to abandon the attempt and leave us here. I knew that the real Cindy would never say such a thing, but it was a crushing blow to hear it from her mouth.

Three more nights passed, and the Guardians were not any closer to forming a plan. In the most recent dream, Ralph had hinted that they were considering giving up the rescue, and I woke up in a cold sweat.

I desperately wished I could somehow return a message. It was, if anything, even more frustrating knowing what was happening above us and being unable to respond, especially since I knew I could help them get the very information they needed. Were they really going to abandon us? I knew Cindy wouldn’t, but alone she couldn’t do much. We needed the Guardians’ help, and to get it, I had to help them first. But how?

Fortunately, no one but me could hear Alia talking about her dreams, so when she did, I kept quiet or changed the subject. I felt sorry for Alia because she so wanted to talk about Cindy, but I knew it was the only way to keep this a secret.

I racked my brain for an answer to my communication problem. Alia would never be able to reach Cindy, even if Cindy was standing at the entrance to the facility and there was no shielding at all. Ten stories down was just too far. If I could only get Mr. Koontz to dreamweave back to Cindy just like she had used a dreamweaver to send her messages to us...

But that was impossible. Every room, every corridor, even every toilet had surveillance cameras and microphones. There was simply no way to talk to Mr. Koontz without letting Central Control in on our conversation.

Unless... I thought for a moment. Yes, there was a way. It was dangerous, even reckless perhaps, but it just might work. If I failed, I would be lucky just not to be killed, and Alia would lose her only protection here. I knew what was at stake. I did, as Dr. Kellogg had suggested, think very carefully about everything we stood to lose. It was because of my recklessness that Alia and I were trapped down here. Perhaps my solution would prove to be equally disastrous, but the Guardians had already been on site for at least eleven days, and they might not be around much longer if I didn’t contact them soon.

That night, as Alia pressed herself up against me and closed her eyes, I turned onto my side and put an arm around her, pulling her even closer. Afraid that the camera would see my mouth move, I turned my head slightly, bringing my face so close to Alia’s that I was almost kissing her. I knew from watching my sleep-hovering videos that the surveillance camera could see surprisingly clearly in the dark, but I didn’t want to pull the blanket over our heads because it would look too suspicious. When I opened my mouth, I tried to make it look like I was just taking a breath, and I did my best to keep my lips and cheeks from moving as I whispered, “Alia.”

Alia opened her eyes.
“Addy?”

“Keep your eyes closed and listen to me,” I said in a whisper of a whisper. I could barely hear my own voice, and I prayed that the microphone wasn’t sensitive enough to pick up what I was saying. Alia must have sensed how nervous I was, because her whole body became rigid, but she did as I told her to. I closed my eyes too, but kept one slightly open so that I could be sure Alia was keeping hers shut. For all anyone would know, we were sleeping.