by Jill Cooper
So, I smile at my friends and family. I swing Mike and Molly around when they charge at me with balloons. When the cake is wheeled out by Mom, I grin so wide my skin feels like it’s going to crack. It’s a giant, six layer butter cream tower, decorated with pink and white edible flowers. If a girl’s going to dream up the most gorgeous cake to celebrate the day, this is it.
“Make a wish.” Mom smiles at me from across the flickering candles. “And make it a good one.”
I close my eyes and blow. When I do so I feel something prick the back of my neck, but when I grab it, nothing is there. I turn around and don’t see anyone behind me except for a group of friends. They are clapping and I’m sure whatever I just felt isn’t of their making.
After the presents are all open and people start to leave the party, it’s just me and Jax in the kitchen. We scrape the leftover cake into a container and pile the pink paper plates into the recycling bin.
“Hey look.” Jax pulls a present off of the counter. “I swear this wasn’t here a minute ago. Why don’t you open it?” He slides it toward me.
Interesting. I pick the present up. It’s wrapped in shiny purple foil wrapping paper with a black bow. The tag says it’s from a friend. A friend. I rip the paper off and lift the lid off the gift. Inside I see a purple wig with sharply cut bangs. Underneath it is a card.
I’m still here. I still exist. You haven’t changed anything. Get busy—LCM
Lara Crane Montgomery.
My future is still out there and she’s pissed.
Jax raises his eyebrows. “Well, that’s an interesting gift.”
“You don’t know the half of it.” I lay the card on top, close the box and dump it in the trash in a huff. I take a deep, shaking breath. I don’t know what she wants. I don’t know how to stop what is happening.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“I think I just want to be alone.” I rush past Jax out of the kitchen and run up the stairs to my bedroom. I don’t know what I’m going to do as I fling myself down on my bed. I need to make a plan, but when I roll over all I see are the two plane tickets on my dresser.
Destination Florida. Not exactly Morocco, but any vacation would be a great vacation. And one I couldn’t wait to take.
Chapter Seven
The vacation is everything I think it will be and that’s the problem.
Rex is fulfilling every dream, every secret wish I’ve had. Even the flight is magical, riding in first class with elegant meals and sweet, non-alcoholic drinks. We have plenty of leg room and the clouds look like fluffy cotton balls as our plane glides through the day’s sky.
Florida is hot, humid, and just sticky enough so that it makes our time in the pool perfect. Hours tick by as we enjoy gourmet meals, relaxing days in the sun. Before you know it, we’re on our last night at the ocean resort. On the beach, we walk the coast and the moonlight glistens across the soft waves. The foamy current splashes my toes.
My hand is in Donovan’s and the longer we walk, the more I feel he’s not really here. His mind is a million miles away. What is he thinking? Is he tired of being here with me?
I rest my head on his shoulder and it’s like he can read my mind. “I’ve been looking for a perfect moment to ask you.” Donovan takes both my hands and I turn to face him. Reservation lines my face and I lick my lips.
“But—” Donovan takes a deep, laboring sigh “—I’ve realized after everything, we make our own moments. And I want our moments to keep on going. I want more moments. Happy ones and not the craziness of the last year.”
I’m afraid he might be breaking up with me. My face falls. “Don, if you could give me another chance—”
“Oh Lara, no, you’re all I want. You have nothing to be sorry for.” He runs his hand through his hair. “I guess I’m doing this wrong because I’m trying to ask you to marry me.”
My heart skips and I stare at him with a fallen jaw. “Marry?”
Donovan goes down on his knee and there’s a black box in his hand I didn’t see before. When he pops it open, the moonlight casts a twinkle off the diamond ring inside the box. A laugh gets lodged inside my throat and I’m not sure, but I think there are tears in my eyes.
“Well say something.” Donovan half smiles. “I can’t stay down here forever.”
I don’t know what to say, but I nod. “Yes,” I say breathlessly. He stands up, sweeps me up in his arms and swoops me down to the side as if we’re in a private dance. I cling on to him as our lips meet and realize marrying Donovan, moving forward, is everything.
Everything.
The next morning we get ready to board the plane and my mind reels from how real this all is. The latches on my suitcase snatch closed with the sound of a metal clang. Everything seems so real, so perfect.
But when I glance at the clock and see the hands spinning backward, I know it isn’t. This place is anything but perfect. It’s prison and it’s torture.
Just when I am ready to stay in the virtual reality forever and give up on my life, I am pulled back. It’s like I have gone from living in vibrant HD and now I am pulled down the rabbit trail in old fashioned mono. The harsh starkness hits me like a sterile plexi-glass cage from which I cannot escape.
I promised myself I would never want my virtual reality more than real life, that I would not fall for the dreams, but now I know that’s not true. I’m faltering.
Sitting on the edge of my bed, I stare out past my cage at the vast, white walls. Security paces back and forth, but no one acknowledges me. I’m nothing more than a lab rat. No one here cares if I live or die. If I’m happy or sad, if it doesn’t relate to the experiment it doesn’t matter to them. A deep longing, the deep sadness for something more, weighs my heart down like an anchor.
I’m sinking and sinking and there’s no one around to care. Everyone I care about is gone.
My despair is deep, but Rex can never know. If he does, I’m done. My hand squeezes a fist full of tissues and I dot at my eyes. A giant breath expands my chest as I sit up straighter and when I stand, something on the back of my head tugs on my skin. It stills my breath and I realize something is pinching the back of my head.
My hand reaches behind my curls at my neck and swipes against something against my skin. It feels like metal, something is jetting out from my skin. When I try to tug it off, I feel a pulling coming from deep underneath my skin. My fingers tremble as I realize it’s not just attached to me; it’s embedded under my skin.
Pulling my hair up, I grab my mirror and use it to cast a reflection on the back of the plexi-glass panels surrounding me. My breath catches in my throat at the sight of a port in the base of my skull. It’s like I have a port directly tied into my brain.
My vision splits and my blood pressure rockets. Trembling, I fall to my knees and my stomach threatens to spill breakfast onto the floor. Instead, I dry heave, clench my stomach with my fingers, and my skin flushes hot with rage. Rex has turned me into a thing. An object. I’m nothing more than a science experiment with a cable and cord.
Isn’t it bad enough that I’m locked away from everything I know, plugged into a virtual reality for weeks at a time, getting nutrients from a damn IV and plastic bag?
Now they did this to me, for what? To delete or add any memory they want directly into my brain. I can’t even trust my own memory recall anymore.
Sobbing, my eyes fall to the newspapers Rex has given me. My dreams fade like fog through the harsh light of day. Sunlight is supposed to be warm and bring the promise of a new beginning, but my day always starts with regret. And the realities of my life, my choices, are too much for me to take. My hand trembles as I cover my eyes and am desperate for the screams and sorrow to leave me alone.
All there is for certain is the knowledge I have a port wired directly into my brain and I don’t know how. I don’t know when they did it, but I guess that’s why they gave me such a long summer vacation. They were doing research and surgery on my brain.
My
hands clench into tight little fists and I can’t deny myself the scream any longer. I shoot up in rage and throw my body against the glass. My shoulder fires with intense pain and I fall to the floor.
“I can explain, Lara. If you give me half a moment.”
Rex. I grit my teeth and throw my hair back.
“I don’t want to see you.” I can’t keep the hate and seething anger out of my voice. “Get out of here.”
Rex places his hand on the glass. “We’ve made an incredible breakthrough, Lara. A way for the computer systems here to soothe your brain. Help you with the time travel transition so it doesn’t have to hurt. Wouldn’t you love to change time and not have to deal with the headaches? The bloody noses? I know how bad it was for you last time.”
“You have no right to modify me like this.” I shake as I push up to my feet. “It’s my body. You have no right.”
“Lara—” There’s a warning tone to his voice, but he has no right to warn me of anything.
I need to get out of here now. My skin itches like a thousand little ants marching across my skin. My lip snarls. “Let me out of here.”
Rex holds up his hands. “Lara, now just calm down.”
“Stop saying my name like we’re friends. Let me out!” I scream and the space around me reverberates against the plexiglass. For some reason, it sounds very loud. I clamp my hands over my ears. The lights intensify and the nerves in my gut boil. I can’t help but think of the night I was captured. Without meaning to, I reach back in time and my vision starts to blur with the scene from under the bridge, from where I really last saw Donovan.
But they yank me back hard and the pain in my brain sends me crashing to my knees. Up ahead on the ceiling the coils glow gold. They think they have me. They think I won’t want to feel that intense pain in my brain. I’m going to show them all. I’d rather be dead then their test rat any longer.
So I do it again. I reach back and attempt to time travel and this time the pain is so intense that I yelp and fall onto the ground on all fours, barely able to hold myself up with my shaking limbs.
“Stop this, Lara. Stop it!” Rex insists and for the first time I hear panic in his voice.
I raise my head and feel the blood trickling down my nose. “I’m no one’s bitch, Rex,” I whisper, my lip curling into a tremble.
“Get in there. Sedate her,” Rex orders and snaps his finger. Orderlies rush around the cage and I hope they’re too late. I hope this is the final moment.
“Stop it, Lara!” Delilah screams at me as her hand opens to grab my arm. Her eyes are afraid for me, but I don’t care anymore. If she cared so much about me, she would let me go.
“I hope my brain fries.” I reach back to travel in time and my body shakes. The pain hits my head like a freight train. If it’s possible to feel your brain peeling away from your skull I feel it as I jolt onto my back. The white sneakers of the orderlies surround me.
Someone grabs my arm and I stare up at the golden coils now so bright they burn like a hot stove. My body rocks as I attempt time travel again.
The needle slips beneath my skin.
My eyes close but I do it one more time for good measure and feel blood trickling out of my ears. I pray it’s the end. I pray I will feel nothing ever again.
Death can be my only freedom now.
****
When my eyes open again I’m in a bed. I glance around the room and immediately realize I’m not inside my cage. I’m somewhere else. It’s white and sterile with a privacy curtain drawn around me. Machines nearby give off a soft beep—beep. I must be in a hospital, or somewhere fashioned to work as a hospital.
My fingers curl and pain shoots up my arm. I groan and sink against the pillows as everything in the room spins and swirls. I haven’t been this dizzy in a long time. A long time.
There’s an IV in my arm and from the multiple puncture wounds that are starting to fade, I suspect I’ve been here for a week. Maybe more. Somehow Rex and his team of unethical bastards have managed to pull me back from the brink.
Curse them. Curse all of them.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath and hear the curtain draw back from the clink—tink noise of the rings at the top of the rod. Soft footsteps interrupt my swirl of dizziness and my eyes snap open.
The face is fuzzy at first, but I see a white nurse’s uniform framed with brown curls that resemble mine. It makes me think of Mom and my heart aches.
I turn my head and mumble, “Go away,” and close my eyes. My legs shift as she touches my arm, but I stop short of pushing her off.
“It’s okay, Lara. Just remain calm.”
But I don’t want to remain—my eyes snap open and my head lurches up. “Mom? Mom!”
Her eyes don’t register any sort of recognition. She just places a hand on my chest and pushes me down. “Careful, you’re going to hurt yourself.”
My heart pounds inside my chest and I can’t catch my breath. “Mom?” I wheeze out and yank forward, and something yanks at my skull like I am tethered to the wall. I reach up and feel a cord running from the jack at the base of my skull. I am tethered; I am still plugged into whatever system they have planned for me.
“Help me,” I beg, tears in my eyes.
All around me, the machines start to go off. Mom strokes my head, but she doesn’t look like Mom at all. She looks like a mindless drone. Why is she doing this? Why won’t she help me?
Over her shoulder, she calls out to someone. “Her blood pressure is dangerously high. She’s going to start seizing again.”
Someone steps from behind her as my vision begins to dampen. Rex smiles at me cruelly and puts a hand on Mom’s shoulder like he owns her. “Give her something then, dear Miranda. We can’t have the subject uncomfortable, can we?”
My eyes close. I can’t keep them open any longer. “You bastard,” I whisper and feel the cold, hard needle slip beneath my skin.
***
Time passes but I am unaware of how much, just that suddenly I am conscious again. Though I’m not fully awake, I am able to think and able to remember.
Remember.
The pain of the last events hit me hard. I’m thirsty and my head aches with a dull pain, but it’s certainly hurt worse. Still, I don’t want to ask for water or see if someone can help me, not if it means opening my eyes to see my mother no longer cares about me, that all Mom wants is to complete her experiment even if I am the lab rat.
But none of that makes sense. I haven’t known my mom long, but I’ve known her long enough to know she loves me. So why would she do this? Maybe she is under duress. Maybe she is doing it all to save Molly too, just like I am.
My mouth is so dry I can’t help but moan and shift in my bed. When I do so, the pain is much worse. My eyes pop open and they are dry like sandpaper. The ceiling above me is white and my fingers stretch out, looking for the nurse call unit. The cool plastic is between my fingers and I trace the outline of the button before I push it.
It isn’t long before the patter of soft feet come into the room. “You’re awake,” she whispers and I know the voice. I know it’s Mom.
“Water?” I croak out.
“Just a second.” She hurries off to the sink and I listen to the thap of the cupboard as she gets a cup and the whizz water of streaming into the sink. Once it’s filled her hand cushions under my head to help me sit up high enough to sip through the straw.
All the while I study her face, looking for signs of stress. I look for signs she is upset, just as I am, but I can’t find any. Her face is neutral. It’s not happy, but it’s not sad either.
“Thanks.” I lay back down and she inclines my bed to make me more comfortable. She tucks her hair behind her ears just like I’ve watched her do a dozen times, but she’s so calm. I can’t believe the woman who cried at my hospital bed last year could be acting like this now. “Don’t you remember me?”
She picks up the clipboard at the front of my bed and flips through the pages. “I remem
ber you from last week, if that’s what you mean.” Mom scribbles some notes on the pages.
Last week? I’m losing so much time. I’m growing up in this damn prison even if my prison now is a hospital bed.
“But nothing before that?”
Mom glances up at me and our eyes lock. Slowly she shakes her head. “Should I?”
The words are so callous my eyes fill with tears. “How can you say that to me? How?” I whisper.
Nothing changes on her face. Nothing. She squeezes my foot. “I need to alert Mr. Montgomery of your condition. I’ll be right back.” Mom moves to leave the room and sweeps the hair off the back of her neck. That’s when I see it. That’s when I know what’s going on.
A USB port just like mine. She’s been plugged into the system. And my guess is they have deleted Mom’s memories. She doesn’t remember me at all.
I grip the sheets in anger and toss my head to the side. The pain in my chest isn’t just emotional, it’s physical. My ribs ache like they are going to crack and the machine around me beeps like a fast heartbeat. I feel like I’m on the verge of a heart attack.
My own mother has no memory of me. Somehow they’ve removed them all.
And for what? For what?
“I told you I’d explain if you gave me half a minute,” Rex says from the foot of my bed.
“You.” I huff and twist my wrists. If I wasn’t strapped down to this bed, I would strangle him. “Are you trying to torture me, sending my mother in here?”
“Truthfully? Yes.” Rex moves closer and sits down in a seat. “We needed a top scientist to complete the system, someone who knows it inside and out. Miranda was our only option, but through the first six months, she was uncooperative. She refused to help us read the data. We had no choice.”
My eyebrows rise. “You could let us go!”
Rex laughs. “Oh, darling Lara. Don’t you know me well enough now to know I will never let you go? Miranda will study you, take care of you, and in the end, our system will be functional. It won’t be long now. We have several test subjects who will prove whether we have been successful.
