Project Paper Doll: The Trials

by Stacey Kade

  “Tonight on ABC Seven,” the voice-over announcer said, “one woman’s story of her years at two area corporations and the consequences of her speaking out against their alleged infractions.”

  “They took my son so I’d stay quiet,” Mara continued.

  Well, not exactly. But that was an interesting spin on the story.

  The screen flashed to Chief Bradshaw outside the Wingate Police Department. He looked both angry and like he hadn’t slept in weeks. “I can confirm that my son is missing. He was last sighted in the company of employees from these corporations. We have witnesses.”

  So Mara had been working on this angle before today. Interesting. I wondered what Mara had done to make the chief cooperate, or if he’d just finally figured out that Dr. Jacobs wasn’t God.

  The video ended with a tag about joining them at ten P.M. for the full story. Nothing about aliens, at least. Then again, accusing her former employers of kidnapping her son was already on the edge of crazy. Mentioning extraterrestrial DNA would likely have pushed this story off the mainstream news and into the tabloids, where it would have done no good.

  But it was still Mara blowing the lid off of everything at the worst possible time. Or the best, depending on how you looked at it. Dr. Jacobs and Dr. Laughlin were probably crapping kittens right about now, with this airing right in the middle of the trials.

  A tiny insane part of me wanted to laugh, imagining their confusion and rage, and relishing it. But Mara’s decision to go public had only made things worse for us as well.

  Zane glanced over at me. “We’re screwed. If my face is all over town right now…”

  I nodded, my neck so tight with tension I could hear it creaking.

  “I think we should call the cops,” Teri interjected, reminding me of their presence. “She could be in on it.” She nodded at me. The five of them clustered closer together, staring at me.

  “Does she look like someone who can keep me anywhere against my will?” Zane asked, trying for a joking tone to defuse the situation.

  “So…are you guys like star-crossed lovers on the run?” The blond girl asked with a hopeful smile.

  “Emphasis on star,” I said before I could stop myself, the absurd urge to laugh returning.

  “Something like that,” Zane said.

  “Can I at least have my phone back now?” Elise asked, her expression troubled.

  “Yeah, I’m guessing that scavenger hunt thing was bull.” Teri sounded offended.

  Zane looked down at the device in his hand, obviously having forgotten about it. “Oh. I don’t know if—”

  “Wait,” I said, a vague, niggling concern bursting forth from the dark corner of my brain as a full-fledged and ugly worry.

  I fumbled and pulled my phone from my pocket and clicked the home button. The screen was as blank as the last time I’d checked. No missed calls, no texts, angry or otherwise.

  A slow creeping dread rose over me, like sinking into a tub filled with cold water.

  There was nothing from Jacobs.

  “Give it to me,” I said to Zane.

  He hesitated, which told me all I needed to about Carter. “Ariane…”

  I swallowed hard. “I need to talk to him. Now. I think we’ve got a problem. Another problem,” I amended.

  Zane handed me the phone this time without argument. But the call had ended.

  “Hello, can’t you use your own phone?” One of the formerly bored girls snapped at me.

  “I’m going to see if I can find security or something. Come on.” Teri turned on her heel and started deeper in the park.

  I ignored her, every passing second somehow confirming my worst fear. “It’s Ariane,” I said to Adam when he picked up.

  “It doesn’t matter what scheme the two of you have cooked up.” Adam sounded out of breath but alarmingly cocky. “Like I told him, you can’t distract me with this crap. It’s bullshit. And messing with my sister? How did you even find her? That only shows what kind of amateurs—”

  “When was the last time you heard from St. John?” I demanded.

  “What?” he asked, confused.

  “Have you been in contact with St. John or any of the others?” I asked.

  “Yeah, they confirmed my target.”

  Carter. My heart gave a painful throb, but I forced myself to focus. “When was that?”

  “I don’t know, about an hour ago.”

  “Nothing since?” I pressed.

  “I…no. I’m still waiting for further instructions.” He sounded puzzled and much younger suddenly. “Why?”

  “Listen to me,” I said quickly. “This is not a trick or a ploy to get ahead. I think we’re in trouble.”

  “Like I care about what you guys—” Adam began.

  “All of us,” I hissed. “We’re exposed. Someone went to the media. The game is up.”

  At this point, Jacobs and company only had two choices: try to hide the evidence or destroy it.

  And we—Adam, Zane, Ford, Carter, and me—were the evidence.

  They’d invested millions of dollars in us. But if they were caught with us—living proof of illegal experimentation on humans, extraterrestrial life, and years of government deception—the damage would be far worse than anything you’d see on a balance sheet.

  They were going to burn it down and salt the earth, just to be safe. They had to.

  “But that’s what I’m trying to tell you. It doesn’t matter. I won,” Adam crowed in my ear. “I found my target; the deed is done.”

  Even though I’d suspected that already, hearing it was much, much worse. “You killed Carter?” I asked, my voice cracking. Carter with his shy smile and his earnestness. He hadn’t deserved this, not that kind of death, not this kind of life.

  Adam made a sound of disgust. “I did my—”

  There was a strange, loud pop, and then a rustle of clothing and a loud clattering as if Adam had dropped the phone and it bounced a couple of times before landing.

  “Hello?” I asked, a chill skittering over my skin. “Hello?”

  There was no response but the wind moving over the microphone for a few seconds and the faint sound of people talking and laughing.

  “Hey, hey, buddy, are you okay?” A tentative male voice, not Adam’s, came through the cell, but it sounded distant, as if the guy was near the phone but not speaking into it directly.

  Then a woman started screaming, panicked and screechy.

  I jerked my head up at the sound. It wasn’t just coming through the phone pressed against my ear but through the air as well. Fainter but still recognizable.

  He was here. Adam was in the park somewhere. Or, at least, that screaming woman was, and I had a very bad feeling I knew what that meant.

  I ended the call, taking the extra step of deleting it from the list of recent numbers, and then turned in a circle until I could pinpoint where the noise was coming from. There, from the northwest, the direction the cab driver had told me to go to find The Bean.

  “Stay here,” I ordered Elise and the others, and tossed her phone to her before bolting in the direction of the screaming woman.

  “Ariane?” Zane called after me, and I could hear the alarm in his voice, but I couldn’t stop to explain. Not now.

  Even though we were outside, I could feel the walls closing in on us. Which was ridiculous. If I was right, I never ever had to worry about being captured again. I should have been far more worried about the faint, imaginary tickle of a target painted on my back.

  I weaved my way through crowds rather than taking the clear, open space to run. And to my surprise, I reached my destination unharmed.

  The Bean sat in a large, open plaza ahead of me with picnic tables lining one side.

  I saw Carter first, his pale hair a bright spot in the sun.

  Still wearing his Linwood Academy uniform, he was stretched out on one of the picnic benches, his arms crossed over his chest as if he were sleeping, taking a break from playing tourist and bask
ing in the sun. But the only movement came from the wind ruffling his hair. Anyone who bothered to look and really see would be able to tell that something was different, not right. The spark that meant life was missing.

  “Ariane,” Zane said breathlessly as he arrived at my side. “What—” He stopped, his attention arrested by the scene unfolding off to the right, about 100 yards away from Carter. No one else had noticed Carter yet. They were too preoccupied with a more obvious bit of drama playing out.

  The woman whose screaming had led me here had finally subsided to a quieter hysterical sobbing, but a small crowd had gathered. And yet in the true way of it, no one was getting too close (though several were recording the whole thing on their phones), except one guy on his knees who was attempting CPR.

  Zane stiffened suddenly, and I knew he’d seen it…him. “Oh my God, is that—”

  I jerked my head in a nod. “He must have been hanging around, waiting for instructions after…after Carter.”

  Through the gaps in the crowd, Adam was plainly visible on the ground, his face turned skyward, his immediately identifiable bright yellow shirt now stained an equally bright red, blood seeping out beneath him and spreading out like thin angel’s wings.

  And yet, no one was panicking, no one was running away. His assassination had been subtle, handled with the utmost discretion. He would be seen as a victim of random violence in the park, not a target of any kind. Unless you happened to know better.

  “We’re definitely in trouble,” I said.

  ADAM WAS DEAD. SHOT, IT LOOKED LIKE. Or maybe stabbed. Oh Jesus.

  There was so much blood. I could smell it from here on the breeze from the lake, that strong metallic scent that coated the back of my throat. I’d smelled it only once before…when I was dying. That scent brought back an instant and visceral flash of the fear and intense bone-quaking vulnerability I’d felt in that moment.

  Had Adam felt the same thing? Had there been enough time for him to realize that all of the blood and confidence were draining out of him? He’d been so sure he was better than everyone else who was competing, better than me.

  He was right in that, at least. He’d had more time, more practice, with his new skills. But it hadn’t saved him.

  Adam was dead, and all of his strength and abilities had not saved him.

  I blinked, feeling myself wobble as the realization ricocheted through me. Adam had behaved as though he were invincible—which I guess I thought meant maybe I would be too, once my treatment was finished—but Adam was wrong. There was always going to be someone who was faster, stronger, or smarter to defeat you. And in this case, that someone had found and soundly defeated Adam.

  But who? Guns, or knives, weren’t Ford’s natural inclination. And they definitely weren’t sanctioned parts of the competition. Discretion was supposed to be key.

  “Come on.” Ariane pulled hard on my sleeve. “We need to get out of here. Now.”

  “But…” I looked back at Adam, alone in a crowd of strangers. I didn’t like him, but just leaving him there felt wrong.

  Then, as I turned to face her, I caught a glimpse of white-blond hair and a too-still form on one of the picnic benches.

  It was Carter, laid out like one of those statues on old tombs in England our Ancient History teacher had shown us in class, the ones of the really old knights or whatever.

  “Ariane,” I said softly.

  Her empty expression didn’t change. “Move with them.” She tipped her head toward a gaggle of elementary-school-aged kids, laughing and tripping as they passed about twenty feet away from us. They were running circles around their weary-looking adult chaperones, all of them oblivious to the death near them.

  After a moment of hesitation, I hurried after them to catch up, one more adultish figure on the edges, and Ariane joined me.

  At my side, Ariane slipped her phone from her pocket, dropped it to the ground, and crushed it beneath her heel, pausing just long enough to stomp a couple extra times to be sure.

  I stared at her. All this time she’d been so careful to keep up the illusion of participation in the trials. But destroying the phone meant they’d immediately know something was up. “What are you doing?” I asked in a hushed voice.

  She didn’t answer, just reached down the collar of her shirt and pulled the vitals monitor off her chest, the adhesive giving way with a reluctance that I could hear and taking layers of skin with it, I knew from experience.

  But Ariane’s face remained impassive as she folded the plastic edges together, the middle giving with a snap before she discarded it as well.

  “They’re cleaning house,” she said. “I believe that’s the expression.”

  “What does that mean for us?”

  “Mara called out Jacobs and Laughlin. The Committee can’t take the risk that someone will find us and tie them to the program. They waited until Adam took Carter out, and then they shot him. And we’re next.”

  Instinctively, stupidly, I hunched my shoulders. As if that was any protection from a bullet.

  “The trials are over. They’ll get rid of us so we can’t be evidence, and then they’ll just restart the program later,” she said.

  “Isn’t that kind of a good thing?” I asked cautiously. “If we can just avoid—”

  “We won’t get out of this alive,” she said.

  “So what now?” I asked, fighting the urge to turn and search the rooftops.

  “We need to get out of sight, reevaluate, figure out a new plan.” But the grim set to her jaw told me more than I wanted to know. She wasn’t sure there would be a new plan.

  “What about Ford?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  Seeing Ariane so uncertain like this was enough to make me feel as if the world were tipping and I needed to find something to grab hold of to keep myself from flying off into space.

  “Will Elise and her friends be okay?” I asked.

  She paused, the faintest hesitation in her response. “I don’t know. I think so. They’re fully human, and they don’t know who sent them on the trip. Carter is…They let Adam kill him because he’s like me and that saved them the trouble. Two deaths, one bullet.” Her voice was choked with justifiable bitterness.

  “Ari, I’m sorry.” I wrapped my arm around her shoulders, pulling her closer.

  She slipped out from under me. “Not now. They might be looking for a couple, especially if they know Adam took your place.”

  I tried to tell myself that she was right, not to mention still reacting to Carter’s death and this new, incredibly messed-up situation we’d just found ourselves in.

  But I still felt a flash of frustration. If she was right, she wasn’t the only one who was going to die. And maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t the only one still trying to adjust.

  Dying once, technically, had not made the prospect of a second go-around any more appealing.

  We joined the streams of people, moving toward the shopping on Michigan Avenue. It was relatively easy to feel sheltered by the number of people around us, but that was an illusion.

  “What exactly are we looking for?” I asked, more for something to say to ease the agitation I could feel growing inside me, like my internal organs were all set to vibrate.

  “I’m not sure yet. Maybe that.” She pointed to a banner in the distance. ULTA HOTEL: LUXURY SUITES. OPEN DURING RENOVATION!

  “Another hotel? Are you serious?” I asked.

  “We need a place to keep our heads down for more than a few minutes at a time without attracting any attention. I’d consider breaking into a condo building, but the odds of us being identified as outsiders are much higher in that case,” she said.

  The elementary kids and their teachers peeled off at the next intersection, heading for the next block up while we continued down Michigan.

  Ariane picked up the pace to attach us to a quartet of elderly people.

  By crowd surfing in this way, never by ourselves, always on the heels o
f a larger group, it took us longer to reach the hotel.

  I found myself imagining a cover story for us with each group, as if that helped project a cover over us. With the old folks, I was a dutiful grandson and she was my reluctant, kind of rebellious girlfriend. When we joined a group of city kids, clearly cutting through on their way to somewhere much cooler, we were cousins (from opposite sides of the family) from the hopelessly dorky suburbs. With the three nuns, in full black-and-white garb, we were two trouble-making students who couldn’t be left alone with the others on the class field trip, therefore requiring direct nun supervision. I didn’t actually know if that was how it worked in a Catholic school; I was just guessing.

  Ridiculous, yeah, but it made me feel better.

  Then finally we were crossing the street to reach the main entrance for the Ulta. The signs of renovation were more obvious now. Scaffolding lined the structure on the lower levels, and two huge green Dumpsters were filled to overflowing with chunks of drywall and other debris.

  “Okay,” she said, as we headed toward the doors. “Just follow my lead.”

  “Uh…” Before I could ask what that meant, she was crossing the threshold into the lobby.

  Then, to my surprise, she grabbed my hand and beamed up at me.

  I started to respond, smiling reflexively, before I noticed the flatness in her gaze. That’s what people talk about when they say someone is (or isn’t) smiling with their eyes. She was faking it.

  “It’s not that expensive? Daddy will get it for me?” she said in a singsongy voice that pitched upward at the end of the sentence, like a question.

  Ariane was, as always, an amazing mimic when she wanted to be, thanks to all those years of observing the people around her, and right now she sounded exactly like Cassi Andrews from our school. Cassi had never, in all my years of knowing her, stated anything with confidence. She was like a contestant on a perpetual game of Jeopardy!, where everything must be phrased as a question in a breathless surprised voice. A flake, in short, and the furthest thing from Ariane’s true nature.

  I struggled to play my part equally well, though I wasn’t exactly sure what, or who, I was supposed to be. “Okay, if you say so.”