Destiny's Path

by Robyn Steele

  Chapter 21

  We went to Senesi the next day. We didn’t want to waste time. Too many lives were at stake. Marco’s sister and mother, my brother, The Ambrosi’s daughter, and who knows how many others. Everyone wanted in on this. They were upset about what we had learned. Most of our people are peaceful, law-abiding citizens. These activities were appalling to them.

  My parents and grandparents met us there, of course. All the DaMonicos were with us too, as well as Paolo. Caio, Orion and Stella came and the new people I had met. Tizio and Lucia, Cat’s neighbors and grams friends Giovanni and Necko came. There was something wrong about Necko. I couldn’t tell what, I just didn’t feel good around him. I was beginning to not trust my feelings since I had gone over to the Valenci house and found nothing. So subsequently I did not tell anyone about my apprehensions about Necko.

  We went directly to the University in Senesi. This time we did not alert the receptionist of whom we wanted to see. Caio just made her unconscious, I unlocked the door and we went directly to where Pietro had been when we were there before. Clariee and Stella stayed with the receptionist in case anyone else came around or if the receptionist came to. Clariee would cause them confusion and Stella could deflect any weapons.

  A man walked by us as we were walking down the hall. He looked at us suspiciously since there was so many of us. I was worried he might call someone or do something. Grandpa quickly did some ad lib to make it look like he was an employee taking us on a tour. “And this is the research part of our campus.” He said to us as he pointed around the building.

  I held my breath and hoped it worked. The man just kept walking. I sent a message to my mom to cause this man confusion. Hopefully she could do that from where she was. We cautiously proceeded toward the door we had been to previously. Grandpa slowed down when we reached the area, obviously scanning to see who was inside. “Pietro’s here.” He said. “Someone else is with him. There seems to be others in the room behind them. Looks like three. Two men and a woman. Okay, is everyone ready?”

  He received a collective affirmative. We were all way past ready. I unlocked the door, dad walked in first to a very surprised Pietro. “Demetrio! You missed us, I see. You decided to join our cause. I always knew you were a smart man.” Pietro said but he wasn’t fooling anyone. He knew my dad would never join them. Pietro reached into his jacket, I assume to retrieve a weapon of some kind. Before he could reach whatever he was after, I knocked him across the room with just my mind. I was nowhere near him! I was getting stronger! Caio rendered him unconscious. Then grandpa and dad tied him up and gagged him. At the same time, Cruz had kicked the other man across the side of his head landing him on the floor and Caio had made him unconscious. Lissandra and Paolo tied him up and gagged him, as well.

  The people in the other room had heard the commotion and had pulled their guns out. Grandpa had seen them behind the door and warned me silently. I put up a shield around all of us to deflect bullets. When the threesome fired their weapons, the bullets ricocheted off the shield and hit the walls. They had not opened the door at that time and did not know the bullets didn’t hit us. We waited until they had emptied their firearms and then grandpa gave us the signal to go in.

  As we entered the room, I knocked the woman across the room and unto her back. Cruz and Paolo took down the two men and Caio made them all unconscious. We tied and gagged all of them. “It doesn’t seem like a very fair fight.” I joked. “They don’t stand a chance against us. Too bad, though. We don’t care.”

  Marco stood over one man staring. I knew it must be his dad. “I’m sorry, Marco.” I said. I didn’t know what to say. I just felt bad for him.

  “Don’t be sorry.” He said. “He is a monster and needs to be dealt with accordingly. But this is unexpected.” He said pointing to the woman. I could see tears where welling up behind his eyes. He was trying his best not to let them out. This was obviously his mother. How horrible for him to learn that his mother was a willing participant. “I almost would rather believe she was being held against her will. All these years she tried to make me think she was dead! What kind of mother does that?”

  “Someone not worthy to be called mother.” Grandpa answered him.

  I walked over to him and put my arm around his shoulder. “”I’m truly sorry. I can’t imagine how you must feel. But just know that we are all here for you. We are now your family. I know that doesn’t help much now.” I really didn’t know what to say to make him feel better. There was nothing I could say. This was his personal torment to work through. Maybe finding his sister would help.

  “Where do you think they keep the children?” I turned and asked my dad.

  “I’m sure they are close by.” Dad answered. “We’ll just have to look around.”

  “There’s a secret door over here.” Grandpa said walking over and moving a book case. It was a heavy metal door that was locked. That couldn’t stop me, though. I unlocked the three locks that bound the door and we opened it. There was a hallway which we proceeded down. We saw four doors off the hallway. “The children are behind here.” Grandpa said after he looked through the walls.

  Behind one of the doors was a boy about twelve years old. I knew it was Tio before I even asked. I walked over to him cautiously. I didn’t want to scare him. I extended my hand out to him and said, “I’m your sister Talitha. We’ve come to rescue you.” He looked past me to our dad.

  “Dad, where have you been? I haven’t seen you for days. They told me you had deserted us.” Tio stated very mechanically. Although more human than I expected.

  “No son, I haven’t deserted you. I am here to take you home.” Dad had tears in his eyes as he walked over and embraced his son.

  Tio was reluctant to believe anyone. I’m sure they had been brainwashing him. However, dad was able to break through to him. They had obviously built a bond while he was there. I don’t think the kidnappers counted on that. They underestimated the power of a parents love. That was obviously something they didn’t understand. No parent who loved their child would do what they had done to theirs. Tio and dad embraced and dad was able to convince him to leave. Seemed like Tio had learned to trust dad. That would be beneficial in his adaptation to our world.

  The next room had a girl that looked my age but could have been a little older. Immediately Marco ran to her and picked her up hugging her relentlessly. He kept saying her name and calling her my sister trying to get her to see who he was. She was alarmed at first and fought him off but then recognized him and began to cry. “They told me you were dead. They said you were killed in the plane crash. I thought all I had left were mom and dad.”

  “You are safe now. You will never have to see them again.” Marco told his sister.

  “Mom and dad? I will never see them again? Where are they?” She asked.

  She was obviously confused and brainwashed. She would need some deprogramming. “I will explain everything on the way home.” Marco said.

  “Home? This is my home. We have to stay hidden because the world has discovered our abilities.” She protested.

  “So that is what they told you. Our home is very much still there. Our family and friends and neighbors are all there. They have told you a lie to keep you confined to this prison. I will show you.” Marco coaxed his sister.

  “I’m afraid.” She said.

  “Do you trust me, sis?”

  “I want to… but I don’t know if I can.”

  “That is a start. Just come with me. You will see.”

  Marco finally convinced his sister to leave with him. He left the building with her while we continued to look for more victims. Dad took Tio and left the building also. The four of them left in a car to grams village to wait for us. The rest of us continued on.

  The next door we opened revealed a young woman about the same age as the last one.
She was afraid of us since she didn’t know any of us. We tried our best to convince her we were friends. She was very distraught and we were unable to convince her to trust us. We were just going to have to take her home and deprogram her. We had decided to take her to the governing committee for that. We left her in the room for now so we wouldn’t upset her any more.

  Behind the next door was a woman about my mom’s age. She told us her name was Antonia Ambrosi, the wife of Armondo Ambrosi. She had been held captive all these years but had not been allowed to see her daughter. Her husband kept telling her if she would join their cause he would let her see her daughter. She never did comply. She said they took her into the doctors and had her eggs harvested though. She was devastated about that. She was also afraid they had done the same to her daughter. We took her to the young woman in the other room. Instantly she ran to her and embraced her, sobbing. “Gini! You are here! Have you been here as long as I have? My dear daughter!” It took the young woman a while to recognize her mother and accept her after she had been told she was dead. However, she slowly gained recognition of her mother, realizing she wasn’t dead and that she had been lied to.

  The last door down the hallway opened up to a nursery. There were four cribs lined against the walls. There were babies about two years old sitting in the cribs. They seemed intelligent. They spoke as if they were a couple years older. It seemed they were only in cribs to keep them confined. The sides of the cribs were taller than usual. They reached up to the ceiling. One toddler stood up and asked me to take him out. He said he needed to go to the bathroom and that the attendant was late coming in to take them. They must have been on a schedule for everything. All of the cribs had computer screens on the headboard. The children were engaged in learning activities on the computers.

  Just then a woman walked into the room. She began to scream and run for help. I instantly stopped her, covering her mouth. The others helped me tie her up and gag her. At this point we didn’t know how involved she was with this operation. “That’s just Margot. She is one of our nannies. She takes us to the bathroom and brings our food.” One of the babies told us.

  “And what is your name, sweetie?” I asked him as if I was talking to a normal two year old.

  “My name is P231.” He said. I wasn’t sure if I heard that right. That was a number, not a name.

  “Well, you are adorable, whatever your name is.” I told him.

  “My name is P211.” Said the girl in the next crib.

  “My name is P101.” The other girl said.

  “My name is P255.” The other boy said.

  “Well you are all adorable, even though you have funny names.” I said.

  “Our names are not meant to be funny. They are simply the number of the test tube we were made in. Some didn’t take and then they got two girls and had to keep trying to get two more boys. You see, it’s pretty simple. P101 was the first test tube to work. P211 was second. P231 was third and P255, that’s me, was fourth.” P255 informed us.

  That was so sad. They don’t even treat them humanely. I guess they aren’t human but they don’t treat them like people. Test tubes! That’s outrageous. “Well we are here to take you to real homes and give you real names. And treat you like real children!” I told them.

  “We are supposed to be here. We are going to be the first generation of the super Teletrians. We are destined for great purposes which we will learn when we get older.” P101 told me.

  “Okay. We’ll play along with that a little bit. Your destiny is now to go with us and learn the true beings that you are meant to be. How’s that?” I said.

  “If you are our destiny, we will go with you and learn.” The babies all agreed.

  It was odd that these babies were almost like robots in their action and speech. However they did not show signs of attachment disorder. When we removed them from the cribs and held them, they put their little arms around us and cuddled up to us. “Strange.” I thought aloud. “They seem to be well adapted to interaction with people.”

  “Nanny Margot cuddles with us all the time. She sings to us and rocks us.” P101 told us.

  “So does Nanny Beatrice. Only she isn’t here as much. Only on weekends. Nanny C. comes in at night. She doesn’t hold is.” Added P211.

  “I guess you are pretty attached to Nanny Margot.” I observed. “We should probably take her with you to help the transition.” We took the babies and their nanny to a waiting car to be taken to the village. We were not expecting to find babies so they had to stop to buy car seats on the way. The DaMonicos chauffeur drove them to the village. Aunt Cat went along to take them to her house. Tizio and Lucia drove along behind the limo to help.

  “We need to find where they are storing the DNA.” Dad said. “There are no more rooms in this hall. There must be another place where they are. Let’s go see what we can find.” We went back to the original room. Pietro and the others were awake now, although they were gagged and bound. Giovanna and Necko volunteered to take them back to the village and keep them at their house until we got back.

  Everyone thought that would be good. I still had my reservations. Something just wasn’t right about Necko. But then again, maybe my intuition skills were not that good. I did have the intuition to go to Valenci’s house and there was nothing there. “Someone go back with them to help them.” I said. I didn’t mention my gut feelings, just that they needed help controlling them. My mom and Cruz’ mom decided to go with them to help.

  We needed to get them out of the building so we waited for the work day to be over and most people had gone home. Caio went out ahead of us to make anyone we encountered unconscious before they could see us. The rest of us took Pietro and the other three guys and Marco’s mom out to the waiting vehicle. We put them all in the back of a cargo van, tied up and gagged. They were able to transport them unseen. Giovanna and Necko drove them back and momma and Clariee followed in another vehicle.

  The rest of us searched the building for the stored DNA. We found a vault in the basement. Inside was a freezer. And yes, inside of the freezer was the frozen eggs and DNA. Bingo! We had found them. Now what? Do we destroy them or do we return them to the people they were stolen from?

  “I say we destroy them so there is no chance of them falling into the wrong hands.” Caio said.

  “But they are labelled. What if the people they were stolen from want them?” I countered.

  “They don’t have a need for them. Our people never have fertility problems. If they did, which they don’t, someone else could spell them to be cured. So what would they do with them?” Caio said.

  “Good point. But what if they wanted them. Shouldn’t they have that option? Shouldn’t that be their choice? They belong to them. They have already been taken from them without their permission. I would feel better if we gave them control over them now.” I argued.

  “Let’s take them with us and then take a vote and include the victims they were taken from.” Grandpa said.

  “Fair enough. That sounds good to me.” Alessandro agreed.

  “Is everyone in agreement.” Cruz asked. We all agreed. We packed the DNA and eggs into a portable cooler we found there that had temperature control to keep them frozen. We did a quick scan of the rest of the building to see if we were missing anything. When we were sure there was nothing more there, we headed back to the village.

  Driving back seemed so nice. I felt like I could finally relax and breathe a sigh of relief. I think we have finally put an end to this. The only thing left is to find the people from grandma’s village that kidnapped me and Cruz. That could wait. They were just trying to smoke out my dad. It wasn’t that crucial to find them immediately.

  Cruz was driving our rented SUV. Lissandra and Paolo were in the back seat. We were just chillin to music and enjoying the ride. Then it hit me. “I just realized w
hy I had the premonition to go to the Valenci’s house. We didn’t find anything there so I assumed my intuition was not very good. But now I get it. I felt the need to go there so Marco would see us. He helped a lot in finding what we needed. We needed him on board.”

  “Yea. So you now know your intuition is spot on. What’s the big epiphany? We all knew that already.” Cruz said.

  “No that’s just it! I didn’t know that, so I didn’t pay attention to another premonition that I had! Who is with Necko?” I worried aloud.

  “Pietro and his gang.” Cruz answered.

  “I kept feeling we shouldn’t trust him. I had a feeling about him but couldn’t quite tell what it was. I figured it wasn’t real and so I never told anyone. OMG! What have I done?” I worried.

  “We need to hurry and get there! Maybe we can catch them before they get away.” Lis was optimistic.

  “I’m sure they didn’t go home or even to the village. They’ve gotten away to who knows where.” I sadly responded. “I will need to let the others know.” I texted my dad and grandpa and Cat to let them know what I had realized. Our joy ride had just become very somber. We rode the rest of the way in silence. It was disappointing that we had lost Pietro and his gang.

  Sure enough, when we got back we discovered that Necko’s house was empty. They had escaped into hiding. Momma and Clariee had lost track of them about halfway there. Necko had shook his trailers. The good news was my intuition was good. The bad news was I had let the bad guys get away.