Cheating Time (Longevity, #1)

by T. R. Graves

Chapter 2

  Reunited

  Carlie

  "What?" I asked.

  Other than shushing me, Mom ignored my question and shut the door, leaving me to do as I was told, a million thoughts pinging through my head.

  The earlier surge of adrenaline was back with a vengeance. Jayden's here. For all practical purposes, it had just been Mom, Dad, Gran, and my cousin, Tawney, for the last six months. I'd met lots of people since we'd left on our failed attempt at a vacation. Almost every one of them had thought they knew who my family was—who I was—but none of them really knew me.

  No one would ever know me like Jayden.

  My mind raced as I jumped from the bed. Even without Mom's express order against it, I knew she didn't want me to turn on any lights. She wanted everything we were doing to be kept from the Coxes, the couple who'd been hosting us since we'd left the capital.

  If I had to describe the Coxes' farm, the place we now generously called home, and its efforts—besides growing fresh vegetables and raising farm animals as a front—I'd describe a situation similar to the Underground Railroad. The Safe Passage Network, SNP, members—led by the Coxes—designed and developed ingenious escape routes, recruited thousands of secret members, and had at their disposal hundreds of undisclosed safe houses.

  Based on the secrets I'd learned through eavesdropping, everyone within the SNP network had a single purpose and a common goal for what they did. The single purpose being that of providing a safe passage for MicroPharm separatists as they traveled toward the nation's border with every intention of defecting. The common goal was that of saving the lives of the MicroPharm separatists' families as they made their way toward a different kind of life.

  The Coxes' farmhouse was old, and its walls were thin. Since my room was right above the house's main room and there was a vent that acted as a microphone connecting the two, there were few living room conversations I missed if I listened hard enough. I wasn't proud of myself for eavesdropping, but my family's safety was in jeopardy. Because of that, I made it my business to know as much as possible about the Coxes, their farm, and anything that happened there.

  Listening in was merely a means to an end because I'd known as soon as we arrived there was something significant going on… something that made listening to private conversations more important than the rules of etiquette that said I should respect the owners' and my parents' privacy.

  "Every last SNP resource is used to provide the food, shelter, and passages that keep the separatists and their families under the DOA's radar," Mac Cox had told Mom and Dad one night after they thought everyone else was asleep.

  If I'd not been up wondering what Jayden was doing without me, I'd have never overheard anything about Safe Passage Network, and I'd still be as clueless as Gran and Tawney still were about the farmhouse, its owners (Mac and Elle Cox), and their roles in the network. Since I was morbidly fascinated by the DOA, I'd been all ears the minute Mac mentioned the organization.

  I'd heard of the DOA before that night. The first time had been at school, and as soon as the teachers who'd been talking about it noticed me and my interest, their gossiping had stopped and they scattered like the cockroaches I'd always been sure they'd been spawned from. That night, I asked Dad about them. The way he'd very noticeably blew me off and claimed he had a call to make had only made me more curious.

  A few minutes after that, I stalked Jayden, found him in his room, and asked him the same thing.

  "What makes you ask about the DOA, princess?" he'd asked, clearly hedging and obviously looking around for his own escape route.

  "That doesn't matter. I want to know," I'd insisted, blocking the way to his door.

  He'd run his hands through his hair and sighed heavily. He knew as well as me that I'd never stop asking. After a final deep breath, he'd said, "The DOA, Department of Aberrant, is the enforcement agency charged with hunting down and killing MicroPharm separatists."

  "What the hell is a MicroPharm separatist?" I'd asked.

  Jayden rolled his eyes, acting as if he thought I were an irritating child whose one question and one answer was sure to lead to many, many more.

  He'd been right!

  "All you need to know, Carlie, is they are people who dislike you. They equate you with the MicroPharm, and they hate everything that has anything to do with the device. You. Your parents. Your whole family," he'd blurted before turning me toward the door of his room, ushering me out to the hall, and leaving me speechless after he closed the door in my face.

  Hearing the Coxes talk about the DOA, suspecting through eavesdropping I'd find out more about the organization than anyone else had ever willingly shared, I'd kept listening. I stood up on the bed and craned my ear until I was as close to the vent as I could get, assuming the closer I got to the echoed conversation, the less I'd miss of it.

  Soon, I'd found that standing up or sitting down made little difference when it came to what I heard. Dad's and Mom's responses as they talked to the Coxes had been whispered, meaning it hadn't been nearly as easy for me to hear what they'd been asking and saying as it had been for me to hear the Coxes' comments. It was as if Mom and Dad knew the house's weakness and suspected I'd been up and listening.

  In response to one of my parents' many whispers that night, Mac had said, "If these people make it through the mile-high laser fence separating Aspect Nation from the Shadow World, they're no longer Aspect residents. They instantly become Citizens of Shadow."

  The mere mention of the Shadow World, one despised by Dad and completely opposite of that we lived in, had caused a slew of vulgar words to fly from my father's mouth. I jumped because my father rarely got angry and almost never cursed.

  One of the last times I'd seen Dad remotely like that was when he threatened to ban a thirteen-year-old Jayden from the training room. The two of them had been in the middle of combat training when Dad swiped his hands low and near Jayden's feet. The move had been unexpected by Jayden, and before any of us knew what happened, Jayden had landed on his back and had Dad's foot sitting on his chest.

  "Dammit!" Jayden had sworn, slamming his head back on the mat.

  Dad's triumphant smile had instantly faded. "I won't have foul language in my training room or in front of my daughter. Do you understand me, son?" he'd yelled.

  I still remembered the way Jayden had popped up and dropped his chin to his chest.

  "Yes, sir. I'm sorry, sir," he'd mumbled.

  Jayden adored Dad. The last thing he'd ever wanted was to disappoint the only man who ever cared enough to spend time with him and mentor him. I'd felt as sorry for him in those few minutes as I ever had.

  Dad's anger while speaking with Mac on the night I'd been eavesdropping had been ten times worse than the day he was irritated with Jayden. For me, the difference was I hadn't cared nearly enough about the Coxes to feel sorry for them like I had for Jayden.

  "Calm down, Sam. Let's hear them out. We only know what Barone has told us about the Shadow World. The two of you have been best friends your entire life. We've always trusted him… believed every last word he's said. It's time to take off our rose-colored glasses and listen to what others have to say," Mom had suggested.

  With Mom's permission, Mac and Elle had been off and running. They'd talked about SNP with the love, adoration, and reverence of founders who were extremely passionate about what they did.

  "You have to realize, Sam, these people are willing to become Citizens of Shadow because at least Shadow's leaders don't mandate by law that they put their newborn babies through a high-risk surgery in order to implant the MicroPharm, and they don't make those same parents expose their children to the constant flow of chemicals and hormones administered by the MicroPharm."

  "You know… I-I never meant for the MicroPharm to be mandatory. It was simply supposed to be an option. I wanted parents to be able to make the choice themselves, just like Sam and I did before we had it implanted into Carlie… just like Ron and Christi before they implant
ed it into Tawney. We knew every potential problem and side effect and felt the benefits were worth it. Just because we made that choice doesn't mean every Aspect citizen should be forced to make the same. I wish Barone hadn't made it a law," Mom had said loud enough for me to hear. As the inventor of MicroPharm, she'd defended the device, but I could tell her argument had been half-hearted at best.

  "That's just the thing. In the Shadow, the only chemicals floating through the babies' and children's bodies are naturally occurring. Treatments are isolated to the sick and immunizations are given to everyone the old-fashioned way. Through shots and nasal sprays. The MicroPharm separatists assume the act of helping the body before it needs help makes it weak and susceptible, exposing MicroPharm children to diseases that have yet to be named," Mac had claimed.

  On the heels of Mac's speech, Elle had said, "Selma, you're powerful. You offer more to the world than a choice that's not ours to make. Help us. The two of you have knowledge about the ins and outs of the Aspect government as well as technicalities associated with the device that might help us prove it's not as safe as Barone has led everyone to believe.

  "The way it stands today, we'll never be anything more than people who coordinate safe passages. We all know that getting these people to safety is nothing more than a Band-Aid because the Shadow World comes with its own problems. Famine and civil war being the worst.

  "It's our obligation to have the law repelled. That can't happen as long as Barone is president. You know that as well as we do. No one should have to live in fear that if they refuse to have this device inserted into their baby's heart, they will lose everything: home, job, freedom, and, if caught… their life."

  As much as I hated to admit it, the Coxes had been right. Mom and Dad were the perfect informants because neither would ever be suspected of being MicroPharm separatist sympathizers given the facts that Mom had invented the device herself and I represented everything they despised.

  I'd also known that Mom and Dad wouldn't have even been considering anything Mac and Elle were suggesting if President Barone hadn't released Mom from her job as the chair of the National Genealogists Committee without giving her the option of stepping down. Barone had said publically that it was for her own good right before he'd suggested she had some mental health issues she needed to sort out.

  In a solid show of support for Mom and against Barone's direct orders, Dad had resigned as Secretary of the Department of Defense. The entire incident had happened so fast that I'd learned about Mom losing her position on the committee and Dad's resignation while flipping through channels on my MicroGlasses, computerized glasses, while riding the lightrail home after school.

  The instant I'd made it home, Mom waved off my questions of concern and announced her and Dad's plans to take us on a family road trip, one that required them to pull Tawney and me from school just so we could join them in touring Aspect Nation.

  The next morning, my parents had lived up to their words. Dad had claimed freedom and victory the entire time he packed our car, and right before we embarked upon a life away from the spotlight of the president and his remaining minions, Mom had shouted—within the confines of our car—wishes of ill will to anyone who'd been part of the professional sabotage against her.

  The first hundred miles, Mom had ranted, raved, and made it known that she'd been angry with everything she'd been forced to endure after the other scientists, ones she'd considered friends and colleagues, had convinced Barone that she was longer fit to hold any place on the committee. She complained that none of them cared that she'd been the one who'd envisioned the committee and that she'd been the one to insist it would be necessary in order to make sure the Aspect Nation's massive genetic database be used ethically… to make sure the information was never accidently accessed, sold, or shared.

  Right after that incident, Mom and Dad had been disgruntled and disillusioned, making them easily swayed. Realizing there was only one person Barone looked out for had been especially difficult on Dad because Barone had been his best friend since kindergarten. It had been hard on Mom because she assumed Barone's loyalty to Dad and our family would have been reciprocated.

  She'd been wrong.

  Without saying it aloud, I'd understood that the late-night conversation, the way my parents were even entertaining it, meant they'd made the conscious decision to follow Barone's lead and look out for themselves and our family. If that meant taking a stand against Barone, as had been suggested by the Coxes, they'd been prepared to do just that.

  As unbelievable and preordained as it seemed, we'd met the Coxes purely by accident. We'd been traveling for less than a day when Dad's military grade vehicle broke down a few miles from their farm. After Elle, a trained homeopathic healer, had realized Mom had been in no state for travel, they'd taken us in and offered us a place to stay overnight. Elle and Mom and Mac and Dad had become good friends almost immediately. One night turned into two nights, and two nights turned into six months.

  If Jayden had been with us the whole time and I didn't know the SNP was headquartered below the barn, I could honestly say the Coxes' influence along with the restful and relaxing atmosphere of the farm had turned us back into the family we should have been all along.

  The problem is I know what I know, and I need to tell Jayden. He's the only person who can help me get my parents away from the Coxes' brainwashing and back to the capital where we all belong.

  I cursed myself for not asking Mom the questions that had shot to mind as soon as she'd told me Jayden was at the farm.

  Where did he come from? Why was he here?

  If I weren't being pumped full of drugs to normalize my emotions, my head would be aching with anxiety. Rather than think much more about what was going on, I decided to put on my clothes, go downstairs, and ask my questions.

  See Jayden.

  Dressed and still in the dark, I was sitting on my bed and tying my shoes when my door creaked open again. I thought it was Mom and mumbled, "I'm coming, Mom. I'm almost finished."

  "Take your time, princess. We only have an entire army of soldiers coming for you. I wouldn't want to inconvenience you."

  JAYDEN!