Cheating Time

by T. R. Graves

  The instant the words left my mouth, I'd felt like a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. When his incredulous glare shot at me, it occurred to me that whoever said no good deed goes unpunished had been right. He'd looked at me as if I'd just turned into termites covered by maggots being eaten by roaches.

  "What did you do?"

  His response… his unexpected response had made my cheeks flame as if they'd suddenly caught fire. Rather than back down, I'd shrugged.

  "I-I talked to Xyla. You know… the very pretty girl you were flirting with at the ice cream parlor. I told her you'd meet her for ice cream this Thursday after school."

  His laugh was sardonic. "You… you set me up on a date,"—he'd used air quotes around date—"with the girl in the ice cream parlor. Do I look like someone who needs you to interfere with his life?"

  I'd chewed on the already punctured and bleeding lip and choked on my words. "N-no. I just thought it was the least I could do after… you know."

  "I'll tell you what. I'm going to go because… You know, I don't really have an option now. Do I? But let's just agree that you aren't to interfere with my life ever again. Do we have a deal?"

  I'd wanted nothing more than to run and hide out in my safe room for the rest of my life. Instead, I'd swallowed my pride and bobbed my head.

  "Good. This Friday and every Friday from now on, our survival training will be much more difficult. It seems to me that you have too much time on your hands."

  Without another word to me about that subject or Xyla, he'd turned away from me, walked out the front door, and headed toward the guesthouse he lived in.

  After that encounter, there'd been nothing teasing or playful about Jayden or his attitude toward me. The new Jayden had been business. All business. Because he made me work harder than Tawney and he nagged me tirelessly, I'd accepted the reality that he hated me, that my apology and my attempts at matchmaking had not led to the forgiveness I expected.

  It didn't take long for us to evolve into the team we were today, one that offered snide comments quicker than compliments. Without question, the only time Jayden ever really spoke to me since the parlor incident was to ridicule the fact that I couldn't run far enough, fast enough, or quiet enough. There was no doubt in my mind that our banter was dysfunctional, but it was all we'd known for so long that it was impossible to change.

  Not long after we'd begun the more intense survival training the crush I'd harbored for Jayden fizzled out and flaked away. Instead of looking at Jayden through the eyes of a lovelorn teenage girl, I'd come to equate him with the brackish mildew covering the forest floor that I'd accidentally eaten each and every time I'd face-planted during our intense sparing matches, with the sweat covering us after hours of vomit-inducing hikes, and with the blood and gore that came from the wild game Jayden had forced me to hunt, kill, gut, skin and cook so we'd have one hearty meal every day.

  Making me hate him more, Jayden had refused to let me eat if I'd not killed something that day. That particular mandate was harder on my family than it was on me. It was all Mom, Dad, and Gran could do to stand by while I'd been forced to sit on a log, chewing on the few pine nuts I'd gathered while my family dined on the game Jayden had captured.

  Once Mom tried to silently support me by refusing to eat, but I'd quickly intervened and said, "Mom, you need to eat. I'll be fine. Jayden hates me, and I refuse to let him know he bothers me. I wouldn't eat a bite of his food anyway. If I don't kill it, clean it, and cook it, I won't eat it. It's that simple."

  Mom had angrily glared at Dad, who'd avoided her irritation by looking anywhere but her way. It had seemed the only person comfortable with the fact that I wasn't allowed to eat on those days was Jayden. Taking his charades as far as I could tolerate, he would wait until Mom, Dad, Gran, and Tawney had their fill. Then he would pack up the leftovers and dump them someplace I'd never find them.

  Worse than making me go hungry—periodically—was the way he'd insisted I be able to run. His mantra to me was, Run for your life. He'd claimed that if I could run, I could get myself to safety, so he'd forced me to run in the heat, rain, sleet, ice, and snow.

  This was the reason he was upset. As we ran through the field toward the barn, he worried that I'd wasted years of his training, which of course I hadn't.

  "You preached run for your life, Jayden. That's what I've been doing. We've been here at this seemingly safe farm, but there's danger everywhere. I haven't had you to rely on or to help me if something happened. I stayed in shape because I knew it would be up to me to save my family if anything happened. I've been here, training."

  I quit sharing for a few minutes, noticing he wasn't saying anything. Then I finished. "Don't get me wrong. I haven't had anyone coming up from behind me and trying to take me down. Dad would never do that to me. But I still remember that if I can't take someone down, I'm to take off running. I'm not to stop until I'm sure I'm out of danger. I remember that loud and clear because you drilled it into my head," I reminded him.

  And he had. I couldn't count on all my fingers and toes the number of times he'd come from behind and pulled me to the ground. When he'd done it the first couple of times, I'd been too dazed to do anything but lie helplessly on the floor of the forest. Then I'd come to expect it, and I fought back. When fighting didn't work, I'd take off running. When I'd run, he followed every single time.

  Believe you me, he'd never held back anything. He'd tackled me, tripped me, and grabbed loose clothing. In Jayden's mind, nothing had been off limits because, according to him, Everything is fair in combat.

  As if he were reading my mind, Jayden said, "Everything is fair in combat, Carles."

  Carles.

  I'd not been called that in such a long time. He was the only person who called me by my real name, if you didn't count my parents when they were frustrated with me.

  It wasn't that long ago when I hated hearing Jayden use my real name as much as I hated him. Right now, I closed my eyes and basked in it, in the way he'd said it so reverently.

  As if he's been missing saying it as much as I've been missing hearing him say it.

  At that very moment, Jayden and I reached the doors of the barn. Without a word between us and without giving Jayden the first chance at helping, I snatched them open. I was ready to find out what was going on, why we'd been called to the barn, and what Jayden was doing at the farm.

  The instant I saw my family huddled in a circle and acting as if they'd never see each other again, I forgot all about everything else. I didn't give a flying flip about ice cream parlors, sociopathic presidents, survival training, separatists, combat training, hate, or freaking MicroPharms.

  All I care about is my family and keeping them safe and sound… and together.

  Chapter 5

  Blame the Gunman Not the Gun

  Carlie

  Once again, the scene before me felt surreal.

  Dad's eyes were glassy and his mood was somber as he wrapped his arms around my tearful mother's waist in a way that made it look as if he were having to hold her up and offer her the strength she needed to keep from crumbling to the ground.

  Jayden, self-proclaimed king of the world and Surrogate Soldier extraordinaire, was as muted as me by what we walked in on. Vanishing into nowhere was his lopsided grin and his smug arrogance.

  Distancing himself from my family in just the way he'd always done, Jayden stepped away from us and moved toward the door as if he were the sentinel assigned to guard us rather than the actual family member he was. I didn't have time to scold him for isolating himself from us. Instead, I ran in the opposite direction and toward my family: Mom, Dad, Gran, and Tawney.

  "Is someone going to tell me what the heck is going on here?" I demanded.

  I wanted to use language a lot more colorful but had the common sense to think those words rather than say them. The last thing my parents would have appreciated was glaring proof that I was quite nearly an adult because that—I suspected—was the sole r
eason we were all cowering inside this barn in the middle of the night.

  "Is all of this because I'm almost seventeen?"

  No one needed to answer me. They were all uncomfortably fidgeting and glancing toward each other like they were trying to decide who was going to tell me what was going on.

  Finally, Mom stepped out of the line and toward me. Face to face and bravely staring me in the eyes, she said, "Carlie, sweetie…" She breathed a shaky sigh. "Sweetie, i-it's time for all of us to separate."

  I'd known since she woke me what was happening. Still, I felt like someone had just socked me in the stomach. With a loud harrumph, I wrapped my arms around my midsection and mumbled through the phlegm clogging my throat.

  As if all it would take to make my parents change their mind, I shook my head and shouted, "No. No, it's not. We're a family, and we're staying together. I don't want to go to the academy. I don't want to leave you and Dad." I glanced in Dad's direction, praying I could make him see the light. "Dad, you know without Mom, Barone will use the MicroPharm to turn me into a mindless, robotic vegetable.

  "By the time he's finished with me, I'll be some kind of frighteningly submissive housewife who claims Aspect Nation is the only nation, and my uber dominant husband will be allowed to decide if and when I have a kid, what sex it will be, and the kid's every distinguishing feature. All President Barone cares about is creating his perfect society. I can't be part of that. Please let me stay with you. Please don't make me go through that," I begged.

  Before that moment, I'd have sworn that living on a farm surrounded by separatists was the thing that frightened me the most. Now, I knew going back to the nation's capital without my parents—with Barone—was a hundred times worse.

  Barone, the things he'd done to me and the way he studied me—like he had plans especially for me—was scarier than anything I could imagine. In the past, my parents had been there to protect me. Without them, there was no telling what he would do to me.

  As if she could hear my thoughts, Mom visibly shivered. On cue, the rest of the room grew absolutely quiet. They all realized that my speaking up, doing anything but remaining reserved and under the radar, was out of character for me. Tawney, who'd been curled in on herself sobbing just seconds before, stood tall and stared toward me, while Gran's furrowed brows and Jayden's complete attention fixed in my direction. Comprehending that I was suddenly—and unwittingly—the center of attention, I gulped back the rest of what I wanted to say.

  I have to do what they're asking. I have to be brave. For them I have to do this.

  Dad warned, "Don't ever say anything like that aloud again, Carlie. There are people who'll consider it treason and kill you."

  It was the first glimpse I'd ever given him as it related to the knowledge I'd acquired working in Mom's lab.

  He has no idea what I know.

  One of my biggest discoveries came when Mom had asked me to compile pre-MicroPharm statistics with post-MicroPharm statistics. It took me several months to realize the data I'd been given, posted on every website as factual, was not as accurate as had been claimed.

  While analyzing the numbers, I sorted them in new and creative ways, identifying and pulling to the forefront statistics that proved the ones published by Barone's cronies were manipulated to minimize the big changes to our nation's population. The numbers I'd pulled had been hidden deep within Barone's statistics and had proven that the MicroPharm had impacted Aspect Nation's population figures in significant ways, effectively altering the genetic landscape of the population.

  Under everyone's nose and without the first ounce of suspicion the nation's average age had decreased from 37.3 to 26.7. The nation's average body mass index, BMI, had been reduced from twenty-nine to fourteen. The nation's average height for men had grown from five feet and eight inches to six feet two inches and for women had grown from five feet three inches to five feet nine. Finally, the average American IQ had increased from ninety-eight to one hundred and twenty-five.

  With my research, I'd had my first scientific discovery, one that had proven that the citizens of Aspect Nation were becoming younger, leaner, taller, and smarter. My hypothesis had included a theory that President Barone had begun using the MicroPharm, the ultimate evolutionary technology, to create the ideal nation.

  I concluded my research with a very subjective determination about how Darwin's Theory of Evolution would have nothing on Barone's actual intervention with evolution. I'd known when I wrote my opinion that Mom would not appreciate the way I'd let my emotions show through in my paper. She'd drilled into me the importance of remaining objective no matter what. That didn't change the fact that my findings had been supported and accurate. They'd been so obvious once compiled that I couldn't pretend I didn't know what was happening within our nation's borders.

  Unlike Hitler, Barone's version of the perfect society had nothing to do with race or religion. He made his decisions in the same pragmatic way a horse owner chooses mares and stallions for breeding, in a way that increased the odds of creating a colt worthy of winning the Triple Crown. Barone wanted citizens that were young and healthy, ones who gave their nation more than they took and required very little support from the government.

  I saw in Mom's face that she was silently screaming and begging for me not to say anything more about what I knew to be true. She didn't need to tell me my findings were as secret as they were dangerous.

  "If not us, Mom… who? If not now, Mom… when? If we don't tell people what we know now, who will?" My voice was quiet and pleading.

  In some ways, those words and my desperation behind them tore Mom up more than anything I'd said or done in the last few minutes. Her mouth opened. At that moment, I was sure she had enough information to fill dozens of books and that she'd like nothing more than to share her every secret with me.

  In the end, she shook her head and remained quiet, deciding it was safest for us all if she kept what she knew to herself. I could tell by looking at her that she knew more than she'd ever told me… more than I'd heard through eavesdropping. I could also tell that she didn't believe now was the time or the place for her to share her information with me.

  Maybe one day, I thought sadly before determination won out. No… not one day. Today. She needs to come clean today.

  I was just about to open my mouth and insist that her secrets—Barone's secrets—be aired here and now when Dad stepped between Mom and me and leaned down into my face. Just like the night he'd admitted he'd been forcing Jayden to spend time with me, he'd decided I needed a healthy dose of reality, and he was going to give it to me.

  "Carles Anise Enoche, you and I need to speak outside," he said, wrapping his hand around my arm and dragging me toward the door where Jayden stood watch.

  Jayden stared at Dad's hand on my arm like he wanted to snatch it off me. In the end, he respected Dad's position enough to stand mute and let us pass without saying or doing anything.

  Coward, I thought, rolling my eyes his way.

  Dad's disappointment, the solid grip he had on me, Mom's pleas coming from behind us (begging Dad to forget what I'd said), and Jayden's willful ignorance exasperated me.

  Instead of speaking near the barn where we could be overheard, Dad pulled me toward the reek of the chicken pen. The hens were beyond perturbed that we'd had enough nerve to get so close to them. They balked and clucked so loudly that our words were quite nearly drowned out. Only Dad and I would ever know what was said, and that's exactly what he wanted.

  "What in the hell are you doing, Carlie? Do you have the first inkling of what's going on here?" Dad's words may have been discreet, but there was no missing his anger.

  "I-I'm just trying to figure everything out. We've been here for six months. I might know a few things, but Mom knows more. I can't understand why she's not telling everyone who will listen what President Barone is doing. It's the only way to get him out of office," I said, my voice small.

  Like a pin popping a helium-filled bal
loon, Dad's stare burst my fervent appeal that we do the right thing.

  "And who, pray tell, do you think the citizens of this great nation are going to blame for giving him the technology he's used?" he asked.

  Stopped short, my brows raised as the realization sank in. It had never occurred to me that anyone would believe that my objectively thinking and sensible mother, my compassionate mother, would ever invent anything that was specifically geared toward killing people in pursuit of the perfect human race.

  That is not who Mom is.

  "I-I didn't think of it that way," I mumbled.

  "That's right, Carlie. Now you're getting it. They'll hold President Barone responsible for its uses, but they'll blame your mother for inventing the MicroPharm. She'll become a villain alongside the president. She'll be in more danger than she is now if that happens because people want to blame the gun and not the gunman, the laws and not the lawbreakers."

  "I'm sorry, Dad. I-I hadn't thought about that," I said quietly.

  "That's really the problem here, Carlie. You don't think before you speak. You and your mother are so much alike. Like her, you'll do great things. You need to learn from her mistakes. After she made her discoveries, she knew they were important. She wanted the world to know about them. She wanted them to be used for all of the great things they could be used for.

  "Gran warned her there would be people who would want to use them to carry out genocidal activities. She refused to believe the technology she'd so carefully developed would ever be used to murder and manipulate." Dad took a long, angry breath. "Do you see where that got her? Do you see where that got all of us? Learn from her. Learn from us," Dad said, waving his hands around the farm, showing for the first time since we'd arrived just how disgusted he was with where we'd ended up.

  "I…" My voice was hoarse and cracking. "I never knew."