He shakes his head slightly. “I’m very sorry for what you’ve gone through these past few weeks, Safia.”
“What I’ve gone through? This isn’t about me, Anders. This is about a dead little girl that you could have protected.”
“I’m afraid it’s not.”
She leans back in the chair, shaking her head. “Are you completely crazy?” She wants to shake him. “If it’s not about Olivia, than what’s it about?” Her voice is shaking with the effort of feigned patience.
“I didn’t say it wasn’t about Olivia. I just said it wasn’t about a dead little girl.” He rotates the computer to face her. “I need to show you something, but I need you first to know that if I could have done this any other way, I would have.” He touches the screen, watching her face intensely. An image appears.
“Oh…my…god…” Safia’s hand flies to her mouth and then, shaking, she reaches out and touches the screen. “Is this…is this…real?” She is staring at a ghost.
“Hi, Safia!” Olivia leans into the camera, her face, her smile, her eyes, filling the screen. Safia glances at Anders. She can’t believe it.
“Can she hear me?”
“Yes.”
“Hi, sweetheart,” she answers, bursting out in tears. “You…you’re alive!” She looks so different than the lost little girl curled up on the quarantine cot. She seems so…full of life. “Are you…are you…all right?”
“Yeah, but I miss you.”
“I miss you, too, Olivia.”
She smiles again. “I have my own garden here. Look,” she holds a yellow tomato in front of the camera. “We’re going to plant lots of stuff.”
“Where is here?” She looks at Anders. “Where is she?”
“With my other family,” Olivia answers. “I’m not alone anymore.”
Safia feels light headed, unhitched from herself.
“She’s in the Congo,” Anders answers. “At a private research facility.” He leans closer to address Olivia. “Olivia, can you go and get Miss Shar?”
“What?!” Safia cries. “Shar…the one who helped Dr. Vogler create Olivia?”
Anders slips his hand over Safia’s. “It’s a long story. I promise I will explain it all to you.” Shar appears in front of the camera with Olivia. “Hey, Shar. Can you take the camera and give Safia a tour of the place?”
“Sure,” she nods happily, waves. “Hello, Safia. As much as Olivia talks about you, I feel like I know you.” The camera shakes and then the view rises. Olivia is skipping in front of the camera now and it’s following her through a walled garden and down a pathway. A building comes into view. Olivia waits for Shar, who opens a hidden panel to the right of the door and swipes her hand across it. After an audible click, Olivia pulls the door open and they step inside.
“Pretty high-tech security for the Congo, isn’t it?” She had meant the question for Anders, but Shar had heard her.
The camera lighting adjusts and Shar nods as she once again follows behind a skipping Olivia.
“It took over fifteen years to build this research facility. The hardest part was keeping it off of everyone’s radar.There are reflective panels positioned around the compound and a computer projects images of the surrounding forest onto them, so even if you were standing five feet in front of our gates, you would only see the forest.” The bunker-style hallway ends and an armed guard opens a second door.
“Thank you, Ulrich,” Olivia beams up at him.
“And, as you can see, if that technology ever fails us, we are also protected by more… conventional means.”
Safia watches in fascination as Olivia walks up to a glass door, peeks in and then waves at someone inside.
“They’re having lunch,” Olivia declares as she walks in, the camera wobbling as Shar follows her.
Safia is so light headed, she feels like she’s the one wobbling through the door.
“Miss Safia,” Olivia says, pressing her smiling face close into the camera. “I want you to meet two of my sisters and brother.”
“Sisters…?”
She has positioned herself behind two young females and places a hand on each ones shoulders. They both look into the camera uneasily, chewing slowly. Safia leans closer to the screen and her mouth falls open. Their lanky, patchy arms and mismatched faces…they are chimeras!
“This is Jannie and Verda,” Olivia says proudly. “Jannie doesn’t talk much, but Verda does and she’s teaching me all kinds of new songs.” She points across from her, her face twisting into a feigned scowl. “And this is Lucien.” Shar pans the camera in his direction just in time to catch a boy throw food at Olivia. She squeals off camera and he hoots playfully.
Safia notes the black fur covering one large ear and patches of his face and neck.
“They are bonobo also?” she asks, not being able to take her eyes from the screen.
“Yes,” Anders answers. “And human.”
“This is…” she chokes. “Unbelievable. Olivia has real sisters and brothers.”
“Twenty-six in all that have survived so far.”
She falls back into her chair, shaking her head. “But why…how?”
Anders leans forward. “Hey, Shar. Pan to Olivia.” The camera sweeps the room and finds Olivia sitting cross legged on a thatched rug, combing a doll’s hair. “Hey, Olivia?”
“Yes?”
“We’re going to have to sign off now so I can talk to Safia, is there anything you’d like to say to her before we go?”
“I miss you,” she says into the camera. “Are you going to come and visit me?”
Safia glances at Anders. He nods and she suddenly feels the weight of the world lift from her chest. Olivia is alive and she can see her again!
“As soon as I can, baby. As soon as I can.”
Olivia smiles and blows her a kiss. “I love you.”
Safia touches her face on the screen. “I love you, too.”
The screen goes black. Safia glances around the room as if it’s foreign to her. Then she spots the urn.
“Wait a minute,” she says. “They did DNA tests…”
“Naphie,” Anders answers, following her glance. “She had a heart condition. Died when she was eight.I was betting on the fact they’d only identify the remains by finding the bonobo genes.”
Safia was beginning to put things together. “So, you bombed the hospital?” He sat in silence, letting her mind work. “Then this…her faked death…was planned, has been planned for a long time?”
“From the moment Ivan realized it was her only hope of being free. That’s when he involved me.”
“What did happen to Dr. Vogler? Do you know?”
“Against our wishes, he left the Congo. He had some more frozen embryos hidden in a fertility clinic in France he wanted to save and bring here, but he was caught. They made it look like an avenging mob killed him, but it was an assassination.”
“An assassination? More human-bonobo embryos?”
“Yes.”
“From other unsuspecting women like Sue?”
“Yes.”
“But, who gave birth to the children?”
“Being a surrogate for someone, no questions asked, who can’t carry their own child? Not difficult to find, especially in a war torn region with a sixty five percent poverty rate. We’ve helped these woman feed their own children.”
“My god,” she stares at him. “But why? Why would he make all of these children, knowing how the world was going to react to them?”
“In the beginning I think it was to save his beloved bonobos from extinction and I also think he was too optimistic, maybe naive. In some strange way, these were his children and he loved them. He thought they would eventually be accepted.” He leans forward on the table. “And that’s where you come in.”
“Me?”
“Yes. You know more than anyone that these children must be protected. We need you to fight for their rights, for their right to live beyond the walls of a research facility
in the Congo. For their freedom.” He smiles softly at her. “Feel up to it?”
“A good fight?” she laughs. “Always.”
“Good,” he stands slowly, reaching down and pulling her up with him. “It’s not going to be easy, or even fair.” She is only inches from him as he tenderly pushes a strand of hair behind her ear.
“All’s fair in…war,” she teases, letting herself enjoy the scent of him for the first time, the heat his body is putting off, the intensity of his gaze.
“And love,” he whispers, his lips brushing her ear, her cheek and then her mouth. He pulls her close to him, pressing his lips to her hair. Safia lets her arms slip around his waist, lets herself breathe in the moment. It has been a long time since she felt this amount of joy. He pulls back, cups her face in his hands and smiles. “Give me a few months, and we’ll get you out there to visit her, okay?”
“Okay,” she smiles.
“Okay,” he gives her a final, soft kiss and then motions to the urn. “I’d like to take Naphie back with me.”
“Sure,” she remembers something. “Hold on a sec.” She goes to the bedroom and returns with Olivia’s repaired bear. “Can you give this to Olivia for me?” He nods, taking the bear from her arms. “Oh and thanks for well, you know,” she smiles softly, “Washington…being my knight in shining armor and not killing anyone.”
He touches her face one last time. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he smiles. “See you soon.” And then he is gone.
It all has the texture of a dream.
She walks across the apartment, feeling like she’s walking on air and opens the blinds. She looks out at the city, one small city in one big world, so many people to convince. She thinks about all the people who have helped her along the way, her friends and family, the hospital staff, Giorgio the artist, even the people that sent Olivia cards and support.
Yes, it was going to be a fight, but she was not going to be alone.
# # #
Would you like to read Sarah Raine's story? Find it here on Smashwords!
SAHARA'S SONG: Sarah Raine is in over her head. She has been seduced into joining an experimental program that combines the hidden power of the mind with the power of sound. By the time she realizes the destruction she’s helping to create, it’s too late to get out
Shannon Esposito is a Florida science and mystery writer. She is obsessed with all things impossible, improbable and downright bizarre. You can connect with Shannon online by visiting:murderinparadise.com
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