by Jill Cooper
Donovan senses my distress and slings his arms around my shoulders. “Driver, pull the car over. Now.”
The dark partition glass lowers. I star at the back of the driver’s head. He has black hair and is wearing the standard chauffeur cap. He angles the rear view mirror so he can see me and I see a scar running down the side of his face.
“I don’t think that’ll be happening anytime soon, Mr. James.”
My stomach cramps and I squeeze my eyes shut as I grab it.
It’s Rex.
But I shot him. He was supposed to be dead. So why was he here? What did he want and how did this serve his agenda?
“Lara?” Donovan shakes my shoulder. “Are you all right?”
“You best keep your wife calm. Stress isn’t good for the new baby girl, is it, Lara? We wouldn’t want anything bad to happen, now would we?”
“I killed you!” I grit my teeth and breathe through the pain. Whatever it is, I pray the pain is temporary. Rex has me right where he wants me. I’ve never been so vulnerable. Whatever he wants I’m going to have no choice but to hear him out.
Rex laughs. “You just think you killed me. I’m like a bad coin, always turning up. Get comfortable, kids. We’re going on a little ride.”
We continue through the streets and stop at a red light. Rex turns around in his seat and trains a gun on me. Donovan holds his arm across me to protect me. “Now hold up a second.”
“Don’t worry,” Rex dulls on, “I have no intention of injuring the new Mrs. James, at least not yet, but any funny business—”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see a flash of blue as a car races straight toward us. His horn blazes and his headlights drown out my vision. “Look out!” I screech at the top of my lungs as the metal crushes against the side of our limo and we spin toward the guard rail that protects us from the bottom of the Charles’ River.
The inside swirls black and I reach for Donovan’s hand as we flip toward the river. His door slips open and our fingers touch. His face falls open with horror as he slips out the door and tumbles toward the icy river below.
“Donovan!” I scream and cling on to my seatbelt to keep from falling overboard. “Donovan!”
A gunshot fires and everything goes dark.
****
When I come to there are bright lights and I am being wheeled down a hallway. My vision splits and I moan. “Hang in there, sweetheart,” a voice whispers to me and strokes my forehead. It’s Mom and she is struggling to keep up with how fast they are pushing my bed down the hall.
“Mom?” I grab her arms and try to sit up, but can’t. I touch my forehead and feel it’s wet. My fingers are slick with blood. “What happened? Donovan! Where’s Donovan!” I want to cry, but something in me cramps. I grab the side rails of the bed and let out a low, guttural noise.
“We don’t know yet, sweetheart. We’re still looking for him.”
I shake my head and my curls swish side to side. “No. No, he has to be okay. He has to be.” I cry and Mom leans over to hug me.
“It was a drunk driver. Rex is dead. For real this time. He can’t bother you anymore. I promise.” Mom strokes my head.
“We have to get the baby out,” a voice not too far away says. “Please, Mrs. Montgomery.”
Mom nods but I violently shake my head. “It’s too soon. It won’t survive.” But the deep cramps inside me tell me I don’t have a choice. It’s coming one way or another. My lip wobbles and tears fill my eyes. My head rocks back onto the pillow.
“We don’t know that yet, honey. This is the best hospital in Boston for this sort of thing. If your baby is going to survive, it has the best chance here. You know that.”
“Mom,” I whine as they wheel me away. I reach my arm overhead to grab her but I can’t reach her as we go through the double doors into the sterile operating room. “Find Donovan,” I beg her, but I’m not sure if she hears me.
I’m not sure if anyone hears me.
****
When I wake up in a hospital room, I’m free of pain. I sit up and touch my stomach. It’s so flat it doesn’t feel like I’ve been pregnant at all. I grip my stomach and cry out in emotional pain. Where’s my baby? Where’s Donovan?
I glance around the room. There’s no flowers, no cards. No signs at all that anyone has come to see me. In haste, I push the nurse call button repeatedly.
No one comes. I sit there in silence. I throw the covers off my legs and rip the IV from my hands, gasping in pain. But at least that pain is something. I’ve just had a C-section, there should be some pain. I slide down to my feet and the cold linoleum greets my toes. I grip them down against the floor and my legs are like jelly. I can’t put any weight on them at all; they feel as if they would crumble like a house of cards.
“Someone help!” I grab on to the wall to keep from falling flat on my face and make my way over to the door. The knob won’t twist open. I scowl and bang my fist on the door. “Help, please!”
I go on tiptoe to peer out the glass and I see a few people in white lab coats walking around. But no one looks in my direction. Furious, I bang the glass harder and bare my teeth as I scream. My insides are craving what it doesn’t have any more. My baby. I need to see her. It’s more than a want or a desire; it’s a deep physical need.
Finally, I see someone familiar coming toward the door.
Mom. It’s Mom.
I stand away from the door as she opens it so she can step inside. I’ve never been so overjoyed to see her before. “Mom!” I grab her arms and squeeze for moral support, as well as physical. “I need my baby. Where’s my baby?”
She strokes my hair and leads me back into the room. “Lara, it was a great success. Such a great success.”
“Where is she?” my voice demands. “Is she all right? Did she survive? Where’s Donovan?”
Mom helps me sit down on the bed and she rushes to the sink. “I know how real this all feels and for you, it was real. Your body actually felt the contractions. Your head swelled up from the impact of the car crash, just like Rex planned. With this success”—Mom fills a paper cup with water and hands it to me—“we will really be able to change people. Help improve lives.”
I can’t follow a single thing she’s saying. I swallow the water and crush the cup with my fist. “Why can’t you answer my question? Where’s my baby?”
Mom goes down on bended knee in front of me. “There is no baby,” she whispers and I turn away from her. It can’t be true. I know there is a baby. I know I was pregnant. I could feel her. I could feel it all. My body is now aching because she’s gone so how could none of that be real?
“Liar.” I shake my head and Mom stills it with her open palms.
“Lara,” she says calmly but with great power, “we made it up in the virtual reality. Your marriage, the baby, the car crash. We’ve made such strides, these memories are just as real now as anything you’ve ever actually done.”
What she says can’t be true. The clenching in my gut says she’s wrong. The pain tearing through my heart says she’s lying. “Why would you do this to me?” My lip quivers. “Mom…”
She stands up straight. “I’m a scientist, not a mother. You are our subject, for now. And you’re helping us, Lara. You’re helping us discover so much about the human mind. With this information, we can save people. Murderers, rapists. We’ll save people like you from ever being hurt again.”
“But you’re hurting me.” I can barely stand to look at her face as I grip the rails of my bed. “You’re lying to me.”
“No.” There’s anger in Mom’s voice. “I’m not.”
My nose flares. “I was six months pregnant.”
“You thought you were six months pregnant, but you were only plugged in for six weeks. Go look out your window if you don’t believe me.”
With great hesitation, I slide out to the other side of the bed. I stand with my hand on the window and can’t believe what I see. I expect there to be snow, people in parkas and wool caps,
but instead, I see images of summer, lush lawns and lavish trees where people are gathered in tank tops and flip flops.
“We’ve been laying memories into your brain faster, so it doesn’t need to happen in real time anymore. One week is a month. Hopefully, we will get it down to five minutes. Then five seconds. We can reform people so fast, we might not even need prisons any longer. Think of what a better place we can make the planet.”
“This is a trick.” I rub my temples and my hands search under my hair looking for a scar, like the one I sustained in the car wreck, but I can’t find anything. A sob lodges in my throat.
“It’s not a trick. You’re valuable to us and the project. Nothing has been real to you for a long time. This project is as real for you as anything ever was. And it’ll change the world.”
I cradle my middle with my arms and sob, falling against the wall. My mouth is frozen open in a silent sob as the door opens to the room.
It’s him again. Rex.
I stand up straighter as he enters the room. He studies me, but his eyes dart down to Miranda. “Good job. You may go now.”
She hesitates, her eyes on me. “Why does she keep calling me Mom?”
Rex sucks on his bottom lip. “You have your orders. Time for you to get ready for tonight.”
I watch Mom go and wonder what happens tonight, but I don’t say anything as the door closes behind her. It leaves Rex and me completely alone. My mind drifts back to when I met Mom in the coffee shop all those months ago when I first found out I was pregnant. She gave me a message. I thought it meant that in the real world she remembered I was her daughter.
But none of it happened?
It was all part of my virtual reality prison? Real life didn’t feel so real anymore. I didn’t want any part in it.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Rex says. “How cruel I am to rip your family apart like this, but it could just be temporary. We can plug you back in. Donovan can be discovered healthy and strong and your baby, we can place her in your arms. You can go on to have a healthy relationship with both your parents again. Hell, even get them back together if that’s what you want, Lara.”
I don’t say anything because to speak would be dangerous. I turn to the window and gaze outside.
Rex stands close behind me. He’s so close now, I can feel his breath on my hair. “Your arms are aching to hold her, aren’t they? We can make it a reality, more than this ever was. What is left for you in this world anyway, Lara? A mother so under our control she no longer remembers you? A dead boyfriend? The virtual world we’ve created for you answers all your prayers.”
Tears leak out my eyes as my heart is torn apart by Rex’s truths. “It’s not real.”
“It’s real enough.” Rex pulls my hair off my neck and kisses my soft flesh. “For you, it’s real. More real than this. It certainly holds more promise than the present offers you here.”
“What do you want from me?”
Rex gives a brief laugh. “There’s a senator who is opposing Patricia’s call for loosening time travel restrictions. He was the tie-breaking vote last week and, now, let’s just say that Senator James isn’t happy. All we need you to do is go back in time and make sure he doesn’t make it to the senate hearing to cast his vote.”
“You want me to kill him?” My stomach free falls.
“Yes,” Rex says it coolly with no regret or restraint in his eye.
I feel sick and it’s not because I think he’s despicable, it’s because I want to give in. My heart wants to give him what he wants. I want to say yes, but I can’t. My eyes train on the summer scene folding out in front of me.
“I can’t travel in time anymore.” My voice is meek.
“Oh, c’mon Lara. We know you can. I’ll remove the restraint chip from your brain and then you can do what we ask. Then I’ll plug you back into your virtual world and it’ll be like you never left.”
I bite my lip. “What if I change the future and you don’t remember your promise? What if I don’t get my family back?”
“I have no reason not to do what you want if you give me what I want. I am not unreasonable. C’mon then, just say yes. You know you want to.”
“All right.” I take a shaking breath. “All right, I’ll do it.”
When I turn, Rex is smiling and it sickens my stomach. Two guards enter the room and he speaks to them over his shoulder. “Ready phase three, Lara is finally ready to play ball.”
Phase three, I wonder what phase two was then? Then I get it. Phase two was getting me to this place. Vulnerable and confused. Unable to decipher what was real anymore between what was imaginary. I didn’t even care. All I care about is my baby. I want to see her, even if she isn’t real. Even if she doesn’t exist.
Home is the only place I want to be.
I am willing to do anything to get back there. Only now, instead of home being a cozy room by a fire, home is the prison of my own mind.
And I can’t find the will to even care.
****
I am in no condition to time travel and do what Rex wants me to do so I am given time to clean up. I shower and get dressed in a stylish purple dress that complements my brown curls. Of course, I have a chaperone and someone to help me do my hair and makeup. It’s as if they don’t trust me to do it myself.
Not that I blame them because I wouldn’t trust me either. I can barely look at my reflection because it’s perfect. I don’t see the puffy face in the mirror I got used to seeing when pregnant. I don’t see the big, round belly. Nothing here is as it should be, even if this is the part that’s real.
Real, imaginary.
I’m tired of thinking of it all. I just want to forget and if can do that, I think I’ll be the happiest.
After a quick snack, I sit on my hospital bed. They hook a cable into my port and I wait for my chip to be deactivated. When it is, I can tell something is different. The colors are more vibrant and when people move it’s like a trail of color is left behind them, like an airplane tail.
When the door opens, it is Patricia James herself.
I suck in my breath. I haven’t seen her since, well, I’m not even sure when. A year? Maybe longer at this point. And it’s a little awkward since I killed her in the virtual reality.
Her heels click along the tile and she tosses a manila folder down into my lap. If she feels anything for me at all, pleasure or hate, I can’t tell.
“What’s this?” I open the folder and see photos of a blond man. He is probably in his thirties. Good looking and a suave dresser in fancy suits. There are also photos of a wooded area and a series of classic cars.
Patricia crosses her arms and studies me. “Marcus O’Reily. It might disgust you, but you need to stop him. If you do, you can go back to the little play world Rex has set up for you. Why he bothers, I don’t know. I’d rather just be rid of you.”
I put the folder down. “You need me.”
Patricia laughs like I said something horribly funny. “Please.” She spits out the words in haste. “Not much longer, we’ve been successful with our experiments. Soon, we will have our own time travelers, ones we can actually control and predict. We won’t need you.”
“And then you’ll what, kill me?” As if that answer should surprise me.
“If you prove not to be useful, yes. I’ll deal with Rex one way or another.”
I don’t understand why Rex wants to keep me around, not like I am going to admit that to Patricia. But I also wonder why he went through so much trouble when all I did was cause him and the people he worked for grief. I wonder, too, why he doesn’t just strip my mind of my memories like he has done my mother. Rex is a bad guy, I get that, but something about what he’s doing doesn’t make sense.
Two guards enter the room and Patricia speaks to them over her shoulder. “Secure her in the cage.” To me, she adds, “don’t try anything funny, Ms. Montgomery. We will be monitoring you.”
She slaps her hand into mine, leaving a vial behind. When I
tilt it side to side, blue liquid sloshes inside. This is it, a portion of poison that will smoke out a good man from the world. I’ve agreed to do the devil’s work.
If Patricia James is Satan, I just became her minion.
Chapter Eleven
They take me down the hall toward my cage where I will be monitored and sent to travel back in time to stop Senator Marcus O’Reily from voting against Patricia James. As we make our way there, I can’t help but gaze down the hallways and the series of steel doors that are locked tight. Not only that but they are under heavy guard.
What secrets could they be hiding in those doors?
My cage is as I left it. For me, it feels like months since I’ve seen it, but in reality, it has only been a few weeks. I move my magazine out of the way to sit down on the bed and I uncover a pink sticky note in my handwriting.
Take me.
Underneath it is a ball point pen in a shiny, golden case. I take it and slide it into my pocket before anyone else can see it. Gazing around the room I check to make sure everyone is calm and I am satisfied no one saw my sleight of hand.
The implications that I am able to travel in time to leave myself notes is huge. It means at some point I have been able to travel back without being monitored. I was successful.
If I was successful once does that mean I can be successful again?
I lay down on the bed and Delilah enters the cage. She puts the usual sensors on my head and my finger. She strokes back my hair and I think it’s just the usual setup process, but I can tell behind her green eyes she’s nervous. My eyes follow her as she busies himself with checking my cables and the usual monitors around me.
But then Delilah leans down to my ear. Her mouth is right against my skin and she focuses on the wires her fingers fiddle with. “They can’t really monitor you,” she whispers. “They’re faking. They’re trying to use you to figure out HOW to monitor you. This is all preliminary data.”
I try to keep my expression neutral, but I draw a shaking breath and my chest rises and falls with the release of air. Delilah leaves as footsteps approach and I wonder why she would risk telling me this. I guess I really do have a friend on the inside, but will it be enough to warrant an escape?
