by Jill Cooper
“Why would I believe you?”
“Because I wouldn’t have told you any of this if it wasn’t true while you’re recording me.”
Melissa held her hands up. “You caught me. Good eyes to see that sleight of hand, Officer. What do you need me to do?”
“Create a distraction so I can sneak past. If New Haven knows I’m here, they’ll never let me in to the sight. Hell, I may never see daylight again.”
“You think they’d do away with you?”
“It wouldn’t be the first time.” Dirk admitted.
Melissa nodded. “I’ve often criticized New Haven for its global reach. It doesn’t report to anyone, completely autonomous, it out-reaches the FBI and in some cases even the military. I’ve often speculated that it’s really the head of New Haven who runs this country and not the President or Congress at all. I believe they get their orders from Carl Spector, not the other way around.”
Dirk smiled. “Ms. Chang, we’re not on the air.”
“Sorry.” Melissa muttered. “Sometimes I forget. Okay, give me two minutes and you’ll have your distraction. I just hope the police cavity search is gentler this time.”
Dirk chuckled and moved away from Melissa, hiding among the crowd. He used his charm to borrow a baseball cap to hide his face. Then he waited and watched as Melissa threw some pebbles at the police. She began shouting questions, accusations.
“We are members of the free press and we deserve the truth! We won’t be lied to or kept in the dark by our own government anymore!”
Others members of the press riled up and joined her cause. Their voices were one of protest and indignation. Melissa started to push against the police line and then the police took them seriously, pushing them back using their riot gear. When the pepper spray came out, Dirk knew he had his distraction and scooted around the back.
When he was past the police tape, he took off on a full on run. He went two blocks, turned right, and ended up right where Jane’s home had been.
Except it wasn’t.
There was a crumbled foundation and thousands of tons of cement, rebar and brick piled together like a giant Lego tower that was toppled over by a two year old. If anyone was in there, Dirk had no idea how he would even begin to find them and there was no evidence anyone was looking. No police barricade, no officers.
It was like the area was just abandoned.
Dirk’s legs weren’t responding to commands anymore. He moved slowly toward the wreckage and his heart ached for whatever was in it that he’d never find.
In front of the foundations where fires simmered blue and orange beneath the brick, Dirk collapsed onto his knees. A sob lodged in his throat and he pulled the baseball cap off his head. His hand crushed it against his chest; he closed his eyes and his head tilted up to the night sky.
“Officer Chambers.”
Dirk started and stood back up as someone in high heels approached him. He half expected it to be the reporter, but it was the senator.
“To think,” Rebecca Seers said with a click of her tongue, “that there was a half glistening working for New Haven all this time, threatening me…”
Dirk narrowed his eyes. “How the hell did you get here? Leave me the fuck alone, all right?”
“I used my senatorial credentials to charter a jet here.“ Considering all that’s happened, I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that. I needed to find you. Figured you’d be here, Dirk. We need to talk.”
“About what?” Tension built in his chest.
“The world is falling apart if you hadn’t noticed. Glistenings are attacking us and humans are on the run. We could use Jenna right now.”
“You’re the last person she’d want help from.” He stormed off, but she grabbed his arm.
“You think I care what she wants? The largest US airbase was attacked. Glistenings destroyed everything.. They rounded all the personnel up.”
“Glistenings took prisoners?”
Rebecca shook her head with regret. “They killed them all. They didn’t even feed on them, they just killed them.”
“The army…” Dirk couldn’t even finish the sentence.
“There are still a few pockets here and there. National Guard, the reserve, small bases, but the big guns, the bombs--,” Rebecca’s voice trailed off. “They took everything out like they knew what to hit. So yeah, we need Jenna. Maybe if a half glistening talks to them. To Jake…”
He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “So now you want to switch sides?”
Rebecca’s voice was commanding and unwavering. “Now I wish people had listened to me earlier. We pushed them to this. We pushed them like animals until they were in the corner and now, they’re going to kill their masters. Every last one of us until we’re dead. Or worse. Which is why we need her and I can help you get her back.”
“How?” Dirk folded his arms and cast a suspicious snarl.
Rebecca handed him a manila folder. “Jenna. I dug up a surveillance vid that was supposed to have been deleted from the senate house after the botched assassination. Care to see who was responsible?”
Dirk flipped it open until he came to a printout. It was grainy, but there was no mistaking that face. Or that nose. “Jameson? He was supposed to be in prison.”
Rebecca’s tongue darted across her lip. “Mr. Finch from Silo Engineering went to see him. Do you think that’s a coincidence?”
“I’m not that slow.” Dirk scowled. “Of course it’s not a coincidence.”
“I think Silo Engineering wanted Jake for some reason, medical, military, who knows. And when he wasn’t here, when they couldn’t get him…”
“They took Jenna.” Dirk set his jaw tight.
“The whole world saw Jenna change on national news, but how Jameson identified her so easily…”
“He didn’t have to.” Dirk said with a sigh. “He knew before.”
“What?” Rebecca glared at him. “And he didn’t tell? He kept this to himself why? Because he loves you guys so much?”
“Because I buried a piece of evidence that proved he knew what Laurel was up to from the beginning. It would have given him a life sentence. I told him if he kept Jenna’s secret and pled guilty, he could get out in twenty years. He took my deal and I had his word…until now.”
Rebecca let out a short breath and her mouth fell open. “Well, aren’t you the upstanding fine officer?”
“We do what we have to.” Dirk snapped. “You think I wanted to see Jenna locked up in a cage? You think I wanted New Haven to get their claws in her?”
“How ironic this all is, for you. Her.”
Dirk ignored her the best he could, but his heart pounded with rage. “How do we find her? Can your contacts locate where they’d take her?”
“Possibly. After what the glistenings have done, most people will have packed up and gone home.” Rebecca sighed.
Dirk grabbed her arm. “You might not care about Jenna, but I do.”
“She put a gun on me.” Rebecca said. “More than once. But whatever it is they want her for, it’s not for the good of the people or Jenna. And for the record, I don’t like to see anyone captured and locked in a cage like a rat.”
“Then you’ll help me?”
Rebecca’s eyes softened. Maybe he looked that pathetic, but in that moment Dirk didn’t care. “As much as I can, but as a senator--.” Her phone chirped and Rebecca pulled it out. At first Dirk thought it was a simple text message, but from how ghostly white she went, he knew it was more serious.
“What is it?”
“It’s a good thing,” Rebecca’s voice was hallow, “that I came looking for you, Mr. Chambers, or I’d be dead. Or locked up in a cage myself.”
“A cage?” Dirk asked, his stomach plummeting.
Her eyes were haunted, void of life. “DC’s burning.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine Wendy
“Wendy?” A pause. “Wendy?”
She struggled to open her eyes. A slow blink revealed bright ligh
ts over her bed and she heard beeping. Falling back into sleep, someone shook her. Wendy moaned and batted her hand at the air to be left alone.
She just wanted to sleep. She was so tired. She wanted to sleep all the time and didn’t even want to eat unless it was a donut. The donuts were her favorite and since being at the lab it was the only thing she had to look forward to. Wendy didn’t know how long she had been kept there. Her room had no windows and she never was allowed to watch television or see the news. She had given up keeping track of the days.
Now Wendy didn’t even know when days started and when they ended. She barely cared since her baby was dead and Jake too.
She hadn’t thought of his name in so long. “Jake.” Wendy whispered, her forehead scrunching.
“Come on, Wendy. We need to sit up and eat your lunch. Please. For me.”
It was Jake. She opened her eyes with a nod. When he gripped her shoulders and helped her sit up in bed, Wendy blinked her eyes and slowly the room came into focus. “I’m sorry I lost our son, Jake.”
“It’s okay.” His voice was different. Huskier. “Just open up and I’ll feed you.”
Wendy said okay in a hushed voice, her head falling to her chest. Gently he lifted her head back on the pillow and when she opened her mouth, some soup was spooned in. It was warm and comforting just like the kind her mom made once.
She had been so mean to her in the final days leading up to her death. Wendy couldn’t remember much and when she did, she wished the memories away.
Jake was in a white lab coat and when he leaned forward to wipe some tomato soup away from her mouth, Wendy saw it wasn’t Jake at all. It was the lab technician who was always there, taking care of her. His name was Richard and he wore round glasses and had sandy brown hair. His smile was as warm as his eyes, but he wasn’t Jake.
Wendy ate the soup that was fed to her and she took small sips of juice. By the time he tried to feed her some buttered toast, she turned her head away.
“Just a little more.” Richard coaxed.
She shook her head, lips pressed together.
“Please, Wendy.”
“I’m full.” She muttered. “I don’t want any more. I might puke if you make me.”
Richard sighed. “I don’t want that but you need food in your stomach before your medicine.”
“I don’t want any more medicine.” Wendy’s voice was hushed and tears threatened to spill from her eyes. “Just let me sleep.”
“You sleep too much. We need you awake more. We’re so close to a break through now, Wendy. The gene therapy is working and if we keep it up, the future could be brighter. For kids just like your son that was lost. You’d want that, wouldn’t you?”
Wendy spied his face, but couldn’t tell if he was lying. Or telling the truth. “I’ve given enough. When can I leave? When can I go home?”
“Go home where?” Richard sighed and pushed his chair away from her bed. “There’s nowhere for you to go. I told you what happened to New Haven 56. The glistenings killed your parents when they escaped.”
She scowled. That wasn’t what happened, was it? She could have sworn someone told her something different once. But she couldn’t quite put her finger on it, whatever it was. Off in the distance her voice shouted, “Why didn’t you tell me Jake?”
Wendy shook her head. “That’s not what happened. New Haven killed my parents.” Was it true? It felt true.
“Oh, Wendy.” Richard took his hands in hers. “It’s just one of your hallucinations. Just like the others. Your seizures and the medicine have messed up your mind, but we’re close to a big discovery. If you just hang in there for us a little bit longer.”
She glanced down at her lap. She didn’t know how to trust him. Or if she should.
“Remember when we talked that one time?” Richard’s voice was soft as he tucked some hair behind her ears. He used a wet nap to wash her face. “What you told me about your baby?”
Wendy nodded. “I remember holding him and kissing him. He was crying.” Tears fell from her eyes. “But you said it wasn’t true. He was born stillborn in the diner.”
“That’s right.” He dotted at the corner of her mouth with the cloth. “And I showed you the newspaper articles that confirmed that he was dead. Do you remember that?”
Her mind flashed to the newspaper Vids they gave her. The headline read ‘New Haven Officer Jenna Morgan testifies before Congress’. Wendy knew her name as someone who knew her dad. And her mother, Jane….somehow Wendy knew her but she didn’t remember how. Jane had helped her, hadn’t she?
Told her something important.
Her voice echoed in her ears. “Your daughter is half glistening?”
Wendy’s eyes went wide. If her memories were real, her baby hadn’t been the first half-breed conceived. But her baby was dead while Jenna was very much alive. If her memories were true.
Something told her not to tell Richard about Jenna, so she kept mum while he readied an IV. She didn’t say anything as it was hooked up to her arm.
“Open.” Richard said and slid a thermometer under her tongue.
She was a good patient and her eyes trained on the table across the room. There were plexi containers connected together with blue tubes. In them, a little white mouse ran. He didn’t have a name, but Wendy liked to think of him as Sigmund. She could hear him squeaking as he went along his business.
Must be nice, Wendy mused, to be a mouse with no real worries or problems. To not realize you were locked in a cage.
Richard reclined her bed and he fluffed her pillows, helping Wendy to relax. She took a deep breath and folded her hands on her stomach. “Try to relax.” Richard stroked her forehead.
Wendy focused her eyes on Sigmund as her feet were put into stirrups and when the clamp was placed inside her, she gasped for breath. Her hands gripped the handrail as Richard counted backwards from ten.
When the syringe was inserted up to her ovaries to remove more eggs, Wendy bit down on her lip hard enough to draw blood.
And she fought the urge to scream.
****
“I see three lights.”
When the words left Jenna’s mouth, it took all of her restraint not to spit, swear, or do some combination of the two. But for her plan to work, which really wasn’t much of a plan at all, they needed to believe she was conditioned. They needed to believe she was theirs.
She thought she might have been in the small room for days, but she couldn’t say with certainty. The music and the extreme temperatures made time impossible to gauge. Jenna had meals and her morning sickness was tapering into the extreme category so a good amount of time had to be passing.
“What is your name?” The voice over the speaker boomed.
“Jenna Morgan.” She said with a happy octave in her voice. “I am happy and content with my life.”
“And where is your life, Ms. Morgan?”
Jenna swallowed and tried to keep contempt out of her eyes. “Wherever New Haven tells me it is.”
“What is your favorite thing to do?”
“Follow orders. I will do whatever New Haven tells me to.”
The speaker clicked off and the lights were eradicated. The door behind her opened and men came in with fresh clothes. She was untied and Jenna rubbed her aching wrists as she was dressed by the personnel, but this time her body didn’t hurt as much. Part of her felt happy to see them, happy to be dressed, and when they asked her to follow, Jenna did.
“Congratulations.” One said. “We’ll see you to your room now. How are you feeling?”
Jenna glanced down at her belly and put her hand to it. Still mostly flat, but she could feel it wasn’t. “Hungry.”
He put his arm around her shoulders. “You’ve been awarded some great privileges. We put some books in your room and even got you some slippers.”
“Wow.” Jenna said with surprise and glee. “That just takes the cake right there.”
The room she was showed to was large with a sma
ll bathroom and a sitting area like she might actually entertain guests. There was a fruit basket with chocolate on the table. It was like being welcomed at a resort. Jenna resisted the urge to sneer.
The man handed her a small paper cup with a series of pills in them. “Just some prenatal vitamins for your baby. We need it to be born healthy and strong.”
Jenna put the pills in her mouth and pretended to swallow before tucking them under her tongue. “For the safety of my baby.” She said with a smile and headed into the bathroom as they allowed themselves out.
In the bathroom she spat the pills into the toilet and gave it a good flush. Coming down off the drugs would be hard, but if she was going to break out, that was exactly what she was going to have to do.
****
“Push Jenna, push!”
Jenna gritted her teeth, her hands on and held her swollen exposed baby belly. It was too big for just for being in the seventh month of her pregnancy. “I can’t, Mom.” Her eyes were wide with fear. “It’s too soon. Too soon.” She closed her eyes, tears falling as more contractions tightened in her belly. “I can’t lose my daughter.”
Jane gripped her hand. “If you don’t, you both die. Now push. And we’ll deal with it.”
Propping herself up, Jenna shoved her chin into her chest. Jane gripped her hand. “Momma, don’t leave me.”
“Not on your life.” Jane said. “Have I ever left you? Even when it’s been hard? Now who is my sunshine?”
***
Jenna gasped and her eyes fluttered open as her hands gripped her stomach. Still flat, thank god. Dreaming about the past was never good, but dreaming about giving birth to a stillborn while being in your first trimester as a prisoner in New Haven, was even worse.
Her neck was covered in sweat. Jenna rolled out of bed and walked into the bathroom to splash some water on her face. She pressed the towel into her face and let out a huge sigh of relief.
She heard the door open to her room. “Is everything all right, Jenna?” It was one of the female officers.
Jenna rolled her eyes before plastering a smile on her face and edged out of her bathroom. “Everything is fine. I just woke up and felt a little warm.”
