I kept glancing at Bhagya throughout the discussion, and couldn’t help miss the satisfied glint in her eye. She was in complete agreement with everything they said. The Freehome group was too passive, too slow moving for her thirst for revenge. This group was exactly what she was looking for.
* * *
When I got back to the lab later that evening, I watched Bhagya carefully, waiting to see if she’d fill me in on her visit to the Underground terrorist group. Although I half expected her to do so, I wasn’t overly surprised when she didn’t. And that lead me to conclude that although she wanted me to work with her in bringing down the chancellor, she had her own, personal agenda, in which I was only a pawn.
* * *
I followed Jazza and his sidekicks each day for weeks, hoping they'd lead me to the Patriot. Nothing of note ever happened and I grew frustrated.
They attended one more Underground meeting, where the members reported on their progress on finding the components they needed to make letter bombs and incendiary devices.
Six weeks after we were impregnated by the automated IVF program, it was time for our first ultrasounds. Trips to the toilet were becoming more frequent, which was downright annoying at school, and I was beginning to show a little bulge, though not as obviously as Bhagya, since she was so much slimmer. Suyin and I were the only ones experiencing morning sickness. ‘All day sickness,’ she called it. I found it unpleasant, frequently losing my breakfast, but it tended to settle down quickly after that.
Back in the lab’s gynaecology unit, I was the last to be scanned. Wearing a hospital-provided pair of white slacks and long sleeved top, I lay on a long white couch beside the ultrasound machine.
“Lift up your top,” Dr. Jeong said.
I looked up into his impassive, angular face and had to fight back the urge to smash my fist through it, as images fled through my mind of him dissecting my brother and the young echolocator boy.
“Chelsea?”
“Sorry.”
“Are you cold?”
“Just a little nervous,” I lied.
“There’s no need. All I’m going to do is run the scanner over your womb, take a few photos, and we’ll be done.”
The doctor spread a lubricant over my midriff and began to slide the scanner over my skin, pausing every now and then to take photos and type notes into his terminal.
The touch of the scanner in his hand sent waves of revulsion and nausea flowing through me. I fought against it, trying to think of other things, but it was a losing battle. My stomach started reeling and I put my hands to my mouth.
Seeing I was about to be sick, the doctor quickly handed me a vomit bag. Rolling to the side, I proceeded to bring up my breakfast, continuing to retch long after I’d emptied my stomach.
“This been happening to you a lot?” he asked.
“Not like this,” I replied.
“But you have been experiencing morning sickness and vomiting?”
“For about two weeks.”
He ran his hand over his clean-shaven jaw. “We’d better keep you overnight for observation.”
Great, just what I wanted – to be closer to this amoral murderer.
“Is the baby okay?” I asked, suddenly concerned.
“The fetus appears normal for a six week pregnancy.”
It’s a baby, not a fetus! I wanted to shout in his face, but nodded instead. His time would come. I was counting down the days.
They put me in a hospital room with an IV drip in my arm, while the other three girls were sent back to the first floor. As far as I could tell, I was the only patient in the whole hospital.
Chapter Twenty-Three
After lying in bed for a few hours with nothing to occupy my thoughts except daydream of Dr. Jeong and the rest of the geneticists getting what was coming to them, the doors to the elevator at the end of the corridor opened. Worried doctors and nurses rushed into the hospital, pushing a gurney on which lay a white haired old man clutching his midriff and groaning in pain.
When they ran past my room, one of the nurses paused long enough to frown at me and pull my curtain closed, putting me into isolation. I realised then that the old man was none other than the chancellor.
A moment later, I heard the group pass through a set of security doors, which meant they had gone into either the operating theatres or the intensive care unit.
I wondered what was wrong with him, feeling a guilty pang when I found myself hoping he was on his deathbed. I doubted it would make any difference, though. The councillors surely believed in the chancellor’s work and would continue it if he was gone.
As I lay there all alone in the ward, I realised I had a great opportunity to do some snooping about. So thinking, I pulled the IV tube from the back of my hand, and pressed a folded tissue on the puncture wound. Sliding out of bed, I quietly pulled back the curtain and listened carefully, making doubly sure no one else was present.
I could hear the whir of computer fans and other hospital equipment, but no other sounds, such as someone breathing. Feeling confident, I walked slowly up the ward’s winding corridor until I reached the doors leading to the operating theatre and ICU. Listening carefully, I could make out voices coming from the ICU. Moving closer, I leaned my ear against the door.
After eavesdropping for a couple of minutes, I ascertained that the chancellor had developed a painful urinary tract infection, something he suffered from with frustratingly regularity. The chancellor was conscious, and quite vocal making it known that he was displeased in the doctors and geneticists inability to treat the problem. They were apparently preparing to give the chancellor a cystoscopy, something he was objecting to most strongly. One doctor suggested that his enlarged prostate was stopping his bladder from emptying entirely, allowing bacteria to accumulate and cause the infection. Another disagreed with that prognosis, saying they had checked that out previously, and rejected it as being the cause.
Thinking they would be occupied for some time, I went over to the nurses’ station situated in the middle of the corridor. Heart thumping like a jackhammer; I sat nervously at one of the nurses’ stations. I had received elementary computer training in the lab before I was sent out on assignment to Newhome Proper, so I knew enough to bring up the computer’s file directory. From there, I clicked through folder after folder, looking for anything that could relate to the Plan.
I couldn’t find anything that did, but I did find a folder titled ‘Longevity.’ Opening it, I quickly browsed through the subdirectories, taking care not to click on any files or documents lest someone discovered they had been opened recently. The names of the directories and files, however, were quite revealing in and of themselves.
File names included Stagnant Cell Research, Senescent Cellular Elimination, Regenerative Embryonic Stem Cell Research, Gene Expression, and more. I recognised some of the words from biology, but much of it made no sense to me. All the same, I memorised as much of it as I could, figuring that if I gave the words to Ryan to run past Tori, him being a university biology lecturer and all, he would know what they were about.
Finding nothing else of interest, I returned the computer to the condition I found it in, and hurried back to bed. Only after I was back under the covers was I able to relax again, my racing heart slowly coming back down to earth.
Rolling onto my side, I put the IV tube under my hand and arranged it so it looked like I had accidently pulled it out in my sleep, and then slowly drifted off.
I was discharged from hospital early the next morning. Mr. Cho gave me a pep talk about time running out to find the Patriot, and sent me back to school.
I got there a few minutes early as usual, and feeling nauseous from morning sickness, sat down heavily in my chair and rested my head on my arms.
“You okay, mate?”
Looking up, I saw Mehmet sitting backwards on the chair in front.
“I’ll live.” I grimaced as the nausea ramped up a notch.
“You sure? You loo
k off-colour.”
“Breakfast wants to make a reappearance.”
He leaned back.
“Don’t worry, it’s not contagious.”
He leaned back all the same.
“Right lads, take your seats,” Ryan bellowed as he walked through the door.
The boys scrambled for their respective seats and Ryan called out the roll. When he got to me and I called out “present,” he paused. “You got something for me, Brandon?”
“Ah, no?”
“Your absentee note, you know, since you weren’t here yesterday and your parent’s didn’t call you in sick.”
“Right. I’ll bring it tomorrow,” I replied, and then doubled over when an even stronger wave of nausea rolled through me.
‘You ill, Brandon?” he asked. I could see his unspoken question in his eyes – had someone tried to poison me again?
“No. Ate something yesterday that didn’t agree with me.”
Ryan snapped the roll shut. “Right. To sickbay with you, then.”
I grabbed my backpack and stood, but had to put a hand on my desk to steady myself when the world rocked violently from side to side.
Strong hands grabbed my arm. “Come on, mate, I’ll take you.”
“Thanks, Mehmet.”
As the bell hadn’t gone yet, we had the corridors to ourselves. All the same, the journey still seemed to take forever, as I had to pause every time a fresh wave of nausea hit home. Focusing on taking deep breaths, I straightened up and concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other.
“You should’ve stayed home,” Mehmet said.
“Thinking you may be right,” I said, wondering why the morning sickness was so bad today.
Reaching sickbay, he helped me to lie on one of the aluminium framed, wire-sprung cots the school used as sickbeds. Sickbay was a moderately sized room situated next to the school office on the first floor. It was supposed to be supervised by one of the staff, but no one was present.
“You’d better get to class,” I said.
“Not leaving you like this.”
“It’s okay, Mehmet, I’ve got this,” Ryan said, striding into the room, deep worry etched all over his face.
The Turkish lad flashed me a quick smile and made his exit. Ryan closed the door behind him and sat on the cot across from mine.
“Are you hurt? Did Jazza and his boys attack you again?”
“No.”
“You sure someone didn’t slip something into your food or water this morning?”
“Yes, Ryan, I’m sure.” Feeling my stomach begin to heave, I sprung from the sickbed and lost my breakfast in the bin placed between the cots. It was over relatively quickly this time. I didn’t keep retching ad infinitum, just a few times, for good measure.
“Right, I’m taking you to the hospital,” he said,
Slumping back against the wall behind me, I waved him away. “This will pass soon, it always does.”
“What are you talking about?”
I searched his eyes, and seeing the suspicion there, realised I’d gone and put my foot in it.
“I’m six weeks pregnant, Ryan.”
“You’re what?” he asked, his face going white as he stared down at me.
“You heard me.”
He pushed himself off the cot and staggered back several steps. I watched a myriad of expressions flee across his face, settling finally on anger. “What are you talking about, Chelsea? I never in a million years pictured you as that kind of girl.”
“What kind of girl?”
“The kind who sleeps around!”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Angry, I pushed myself off the floor. “Seriously, do you ever think before you open that stupid mouth of yours?”
“Who is he, then?” he growled, coming closer. “One of the boys at school? Mehmet maybe? Or someone at the lab?”
“You know what, Ryan? I forgot how much of an absolute idiot you can be.”
He grabbed my arm. “Who’s the father, Chelsea.”
I poked him in the forehead with my finger. “Whatever happened to trusting me, Ryan?”
“Trust you?” He pointed to my stomach. “This is the ultimate betrayal of trust, Chelsea. I thought I meant as much to you as you mean to me. How could you go and sleep with someone out of wedlock? I never thought you’d be that reckless. The magistrate often hands down a death sentence to women caught committing fornication or adultery. You know that, right?”
My temper suddenly got the better of me. I pushed him aside, stormed from the room, and ran unchecked through empty corridors until I ended up on the roof. Grumbling at Ryan under my breath, I found a shaded spot beneath a potted rosebush in the garden. I sat down and lamented that he suspected me of sleeping around, of being so irresponsible that I would risk being arrested for sexual misconduct. He should know me better than that.
That brought back the painful memory of the way he reacted when I told him I was one of the much sort after mutants outlawed by the chancellor. Although he had declared his undying love for me seconds before I told him I could echolocate like a bat, after that revelation he looked at me as though I was some kind of freak. And then he let me walk away, my heart breaking. Sure, he came back later and told me it didn’t matter, that it didn’t change his feelings for me.
I guess I should have expected him to react like that about the “I’m pregnant” bombshell. What other way would an unmarried woman get pregnant? But he could have given me the benefit of the doubt by asking me what happened. I mean, rape was unheard of in Newhome due to the segregation of males and females, and because convicted rapists received the death penalty, but it was still a possibility. Why did Ryan immediately accuse me of sleeping around?
After struggling to sort through the tumultuous thoughts and emotions that raged through me, I eventually headed back downstairs and to attend a double period of chemistry.
“Feeling better, are we?” Mr. Li asked when I walked through the door.
I looked at him in surprise, wondering how he knew I’d been ill.
“Mehmet said you were in sickbay,” he added.
“Right. Yes, stomach problems – seems to have settled down now, Sir.” I took my seat at the back and tried somewhat unsuccessfully to follow the lesson.
I kept to myself during recess and lunch break, having no desire to bump into Ryan. Unfortunately, my timetable conspired against me. I had history class for the last two periods, and Ryan was the teacher.
That turned out to be one of the most awkward experiences of my life, as I did everything I could to avoid meeting his gaze. I read my textbook or looked out the window when he spoke, concentrated on the others students when he walked around the room, and made no effort to answer any of his questions. I also spent twenty minutes doodling on a blank piece of paper, writing down the words and phrases I saw on the computer in the nurses’ station.
The home time bell sounded and the students made a mad dash for the door. When I was the only student in the room, I walked over to Ryan and slammed the piece of paper onto his desk.
“Brandon,” he began.
“You want to do something useful, Ryan? Find out what these words and phrases mean,”
He glanced at the confused jumble of words and doodle art. “Where are they from?”
“They’re files on one of the lab’s computers.” With that, I stormed from the room, half expecting, no, hoping, he’d call after me and apologise for what he said this morning.
But nothing. He just watched me go, saying nothing and making no effort to apologise. I walked home clenching and unclenching my fists in frustration. Yet again he was proving to be a disappointment, letting me down when I needed him the most.
I realised I was being childish and over reacting, but I was finding it hard to rein in my emotions.
A crazy thought crossed my mind on the way to North End, and before I knew it, my feet changed direction and I was headed for my parents’ flat. I had a sudden, pr
essing need to see my father and hear his comforting voice. I needed someone to unload my burdens to, and I could think of no one better than him, now that I no longer had the ability to be comforted by my twin brother. The only catch was that my mother would be there too, and I couldn’t begin to guess how she would react when I rocked up unexpectedly on their doorstep, considering she never visited me in prison.
My father told me their new address during one of his prison visits, so I had no trouble finding the place. Their flat was a small, two-bedroom affair on the seventh floor of one the ten-story apartment blocks.
I lifted my hand to knock on their door, but hesitated, my heart in my throat, wondering if this was a mistake. In the end, it took all my effort to knock since all I wanted to do was turn tail and run.
My father opened the door and stood there, mouth open in shock.
“Brandon?” said Mother. She was standing back from the door, her voice tinged with false hope. My heart shattered and I realised I made a mistake. She knew my brother was dead, but seeing me in his clothes, masquerading as him, caused her to question the truth.
“Quickly, come in,” Father said, standing back.
I stepped over the threshold and pulled off the sports cap as he closed the door beside me.
The hope in Mother’s face shut off as soon as she realised it was me and not her precious son.
“What are you doing here, Chelsea? How is this even possible – you were given a life sentence!” Father said, taking my hands in his.
“I wanted to see you.”
“The prison told me you’d been transferred to another facility, but they refused to tell me which one, not even when I made a formal complaint to the magistrate. I’ve been beside myself with worry.”
Forager - the Complete Six Book Series (A Post Apocalyptic/Dystopian Series) Page 115
