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  In those last days there, she was changing. Something happened between her and Dallas, Kristie and Carey’s grandson. She has feelings for him. I am sure of it. Rhen has feelings! The thought alone brings a smile to my face. Being around the people in the village, seeing the families and their way of life, seemed to release something in her, something beautiful and different. I want to know what that is, how it happened. I want to sit with her and hear about Dallas. He is so different from her, so different from any of us. He is relaxed, laughs all the time, jokes even in very difficult situations. Fun. That is the word Kristie used to describe Dallas. He is fun to be around. I have never known anyone like that. I cannot imagine anyone more perfect for Rhen than him. She needs fun. Deserves it.

  My heart is lighter, and I stand to search more of my old pod. The memories become less painful. They almost feel healing. This was my home, my beginning. It was not perfect, but it is and always will be part of me. I stand at the door to the isolation chamber. I open the door and memories of my escape from there, of my first reunion with Berk outside after Dr. Spires died, fill my mind.

  “Oh.” My heart feels like it stops. There, on the chair in the corner, is my violin. My violin. I do not care what motives Loudin has for bringing it here, what recording equipment is watching me. I walk over and lift the instrument gently, the way I saw a mother in Athens lift her infant. I want to hold it to me. This is like a part of me that was missing and now is back. I am not completely whole. But with this in my arms, I am healing.

  I place the violin under my chin and glide the bow over the strings, slowly at first, not really playing anything. I just want to hear the sound, to feel it. I close my eyes and find I have a melody, deep within, I have already composed, waiting to be played. So I play it. It is haunting at parts, discordant, cacophonous. But then it changes keys, changes tempo, becomes light, staccato. And then it changes again, an uncertain tune that stops and starts.

  My fingers fly over the neck of the violin as note blends into note, my bow connects them, unites them, covers each string, over and back again. I realize that with all the changes in the song, the melody has remained the same. It may have been obscured, it may have been distant. But it is there. It has always been there.

  CHAPTER 6

  Thalli.” The voice is vaguely familiar, though distant. I am too tired to discern whose it is. “Thalli, you need to wake up. Please.”

  The desperation in the voice forces my eyes open.

  Kristie.

  She is placing a circular object over my nose. The air coming from it is sweet, sickening. I reach to pull it off, but Kristie’s hand pushes mine away. “There is very little oxygen here.”

  The object moves, conforming to my nose, and I am less aware of the air it is producing. As my eyes adjust, I notice Kristie is wearing one of these masks as well.

  “You made these.”

  Kristie nods and helps me sit up. She places a small plastic square over my heart, and the wall screen lights up. My vital signs are all there.

  “Am I all right?”

  Kristie taps on the communications pad clumsily. “Where is the button for . . . ?”

  I take the pad from her. “What do you need to know?”

  “Everything.” With a sigh, Kristie rubs her face with her hands. When she pulls them down, she looks at me, really looks at me. From top to bottom, in a way I have never been looked at before. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “I think so.” I ease to my feet, my head pounding with the movement. “My head hurts.”

  “That is likely from the lack of oxygen.” Kristie walks to the door and holds it open for me. “That should improve soon. Have you eaten lately? Had anything to drink?”

  I follow her, but a million questions fight for precedence. “Why are you here?”

  Kristie stops and turns around. She takes a deep breath, her brown eyes fastened on mine. “I am in Pod C to help keep you alive.”

  “Why was I brought here if there isn’t enough oxygen for me?”

  Kristie pushes me into a seat in the dining area and fills a glass with water. In the silence, I hear the answers she does not want to give.

  “Loudin is using me to make you do what he wants.”

  Kristie places the drink in my hand, her fingers lingering on mine. “Yes.”

  “The electric currents in my room at the Scientists’ quarters—he made you watch that to force you to complete his project.”

  Tears glisten in Kristie’s dark eyes. She seems to have aged ten years in the days we have been here. I know she is older—Loudin’s age—but in New Hope, she was so happy, her face so full of light, she appeared much younger. Now lines crease around her eyes, her mouth. Her cheeks seem to hang. She’s lost weight since she has been here. The light has disappeared from her face.

  “Whatever he is asking you to do, don’t do it.” My fist hits the table and water spills from my glass. “It isn’t worth it. I would rather die than know I helped Loudin accomplish whatever it is he is trying to accomplish.”

  “You don’t understand.” Kristie’s voice breaks.

  “Then make me understand.”

  Kristie reaches over and strokes my hair. I saw her do the same thing to little Nicole, her granddaughter. She sees her children in me and doesn’t want me hurt. But she cannot think like a grandmother right now. I need her to think like a Scientist.

  “You have been away from Dr. Loudin over thirty years.” I push away from the table, out of her reach. “As bad as he was when you knew him, he is worse now. He has had all these years to develop new ideas, to see his original plans come to fruition. I thought he meant well. And maybe in his warped mind, he does. But what he does is wrong. People should be free—like they are in New Hope. They are slaves down here. If you fix the oxygen problem, he will just make more slaves. You cannot help him.”

  Kristie wipes a tear from her cheek. “If it were only that simple.”

  “What are you not telling me?”

  Kristie looks around the room. I could tell her there are cameras here—but I don’t. The air is thick with tension. There is something she is not telling me, and I hate being unaware of what is going on.

  “Where did they take Alex?” Perhaps changing the subject will encourage her to share more freely.

  “I don’t know.” Kristie runs a hand through her close-cropped brown curls. “The Scientists’ quarters, I suppose.”

  “Why did Dr. Loudin really bring Alex? I know why he brought you—to fix the oxygen. I suppose he brought me to punish me for leaving. But Alex? Why him?”

  “I cannot say any more.”

  “Of course you can!” I am standing now.

  Kristie stands and walks with me to the living area, now set up as a medical cube once again. “Please. I need to check your vitals, make sure you’re all right.”

  “All right?” I pull away from her. “I am not all right. I won’t be all right until you tell me what is happening.”

  “I cannot say more.” Kristie repeats this slowly, looking around.

  I walk right up to the wall screen. “I do not care. Do you hear that, Loudin? Do what you want to me. I would rather die than let you continue to rule down here. I have seen what life should be like, I have tasted freedom. And everyone deserves it.”

  “Thalli, please.” Pain laces Kristie’s every word. “You don’t mean that.”

  “Of course I do.” I face Kristie. “And so should you. What does Loudin have on you that makes you so afraid?”

  “Don’t answer that.” I hear Loudin’s voice before I see him. The wall screen is alive, and his hideous face covers it. “Kristie, I believe your work here is complete for today. There is a transport outside waiting to return you to the Scientists’ quarters.”

  Kristie nods and strides to the door.

  “What are you doing?” I am right behind her, my hand on her shoulder, and turn her around. “Why are you obeying him?”

  Kristie shakes her he
ad, tears filling her eyes, then she turns and walks out the door.

  I am momentarily stunned, feet frozen to the ground. When I finally make my way to the door, I find it is locked. I am, once again, alone in Pod C with no answers and no escape.

  CHAPTER 7

  Time for recreation.” A Monitor stands at the door, motioning me out to the field.

  After hours left alone in the pod, screaming for someone to talk to me, tell me what is going on, why I am isolated out here, this Monitor comes and behaves as if this is just another afternoon of recreation. That it is normal. But even she knows it is not normal. She has been living in the Scientists’ quarters, not in Pod B, and she had no one to monitor because all of us from Pod C are either dead or escaped. She, of course, does not think about that. Does not question why she has been called to this pod after so long away. She simply completes the task she was given without question.

  How could I have ever believed that was right? How could I have berated myself for not being more like that? I slip on recreation shoes—slower than necessary—and follow the Monitor out the door. I touch my nose. Kristie’s invention is still there, allowing me to breathe normally. I decide to run hard and fast. I haven’t pushed my body since I have been here. I was so active in New Hope and in Athens. We walked there much more than we do here. I rode horses. Of course, I also ran down stairs and through hallways and was chased by those who wanted to capture and kill me. I cannot allow myself to think all was ideal there. But it was far better than here. Freedom—even with its problems—is superior to the confines of life here in the State.

  The Monitor stands at attention as I reach the track. I step on it and run slowly at first, then faster. If life were still as it were, I would have to run seventeen laps. One for each year I have been alive. Almost eighteen, as the year is close to ending. All of us in Pod C turn a year older when the calendar says a new year has begun.

  I turn the corner on the tenth lap, and I see James Turner in the distance. I pick up speed. I do not want to speak to him. But I know he is coming for me. No one else is here. No one but the Monitor. And as I turn the corner on the eleventh lap, I see him stand beside her, point to the Scientists’ quarters in the distance. She looks at me, then at James, and then she walks off. James stands in the spot she vacated. Watching me. His shoulders are slumped, poking out of his thin shirt and pointing at me like weapons. I keep running. I have six more laps to go, after all.

  James walks toward the track as I slow down. “Will you walk with me to the greenhouse?”

  It sounds more like a command than a request, and I bristle. My muscles are begging to be used more. I have missed the exhilaration of pushing my body. I enjoyed the last few laps when my mind could not focus on anything but running, all other thoughts gone.

  “Please.” James looks at me with those eyes, so like John’s, and I acquiesce. We walk in silence to the greenhouse. He opens the door and allows me to enter ahead of him. Then he closes the door behind him. “I need your help, Thalli.”

  “You need my help?” I turn to face the older man. He is playing with the leaves on a bush at his side. The leaves are yellowed. Most of the plants in here are dead or dying. With no Pod C to feed, this greenhouse need no longer exist.

  “I have been thinking about what you said about my father.” He lifts his head and stares at a spot on the ceiling. “How he died . . . how happy he was. I allowed myself to forget who my father was. I needed to believe he was deluded and sick.”

  I take a step forward, wanting to hit him. But James is so frail, I am sure I would knock him down with just a touch. I do not know if John can see me, if there is a window from heaven to earth for those who have gone on. But if there is, I do not want him to see me mistreat his only son.

  “He was neither delusional nor sick.” I stare at James until he looks down at me. “John Turner was the best man I have ever known.”

  “Making me the worst.” It wasn’t a question. James closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “I know that now. I am sorry I did not see that before. I can’t tell you how sorry I am. It took almost dying to see what my life has become.”

  “Almost dying?” Is he trying to make me feel sympathy for him?

  “Oxygen deprivation.” His gaze flickers to Pod C. “My organs began shutting down. I barely made it . . .”

  Waving my hand, I motion for James to stop talking. I don’t want to hear any more. He is alive. His father is not. Pod C is not. They died so that men like James would have enough oxygen. He was saved because they died. And if Loudin gets his way, others will likely die as well. “So stop Loudin. Refuse to do whatever it is he has asked of you.”

  “It isn’t that easy.”

  “I am tired of hearing that.” I fold my arms tightly against my chest. “It is an excuse. Because you are afraid.”

  “I am no longer the only Geneticist. I may have the most knowledge, but there are others who would continue my work should I be unable to. It would take them longer, but they could do it. Eventually. My stopping won’t solve the problem. It will only delay it.”

  “What is the problem then?”

  James leans against the counter and sighs. “Loudin wants me to create another generation. That was always the plan. Every fifteen years, a new generation. He is moving the date up slightly, since Pod C was . . .”

  “Murdered?” I want him to hear the word. Feel the truth of it.

  “Yes. They were murdered.” James twists a yellowed leaf from its bush. “The oxygen levels in the State have been compromised. Kristie is fixing that. Finally. We will be able to move the new generation into Pod C when their gestation period is complete.”

  “So you are going to create more people who will blindly follow Loudin?” I think of what Kristie said, how it took many attempts to perfect the State born, how babies were discarded, “mistakes” were righted. And James Turner was responsible for all of that. The thought sickens me.

  “I can’t.” James seems to fall in on himself, his face crumbling. “It took forty years, but I see now that Loudin is wrong. That he has to be stopped. His plans go far beyond this State. He wants . . .”

  “What?”

  “Now that he knows there are survivors and he can locate them, he wants to rule them too. He isn’t content to be in charge of the State only. He is looking toward his legacy. He had been confident we were all there were. When he discovered there were others . . . he set all this in motion.”

  “All what?”

  “Everything.”

  My stomach feels like brass. “What do you mean, everything?”

  James looks right into my eyes. “I mean, everything. You, Berk, Rhen, my father. He planned your escape. You played right into his hands. He watched you in Texas. He saw you were going to the other village. He waited for the right time to return for you.”

  The room begins to spin, and I lean both hands against the counter to steady myself. Loudin planned our escape? How is that possible? He watched us? Knew where we were? I thought God orchestrated that, that he allowed us to go. But it wasn’t God. It was Loudin. Loudin the all-seeing, all-powerful? I don’t know who I am more angry at—Loudin for doing this or God for allowing it.

  “How do I know you aren’t another part of Loudin’s plan?” I narrow my eyes at James. “You could just be acting like you’re sorry, pretending to want to help. Loudin knows how much I loved your father. He knows I’d be sympathetic toward you if you had a change of heart.”

  “I am asking you to help stop him.” He straightens.

  “Why are you asking me? Why not do it yourself?”

  “Because, Thalli, he has a weak spot for you.”

  “Of course he does.” I laugh at the ridiculousness of that statement. “That’s why he tried to kill me, why he has me kept prisoner here.”

  “It is why he knew you would escape the annihilation chamber, why he watched with pride as you went to that other village—”

  “Athens.” I want him to k
now they are people. Real people. “And the other village is New Hope. The village where your father died. New Hope.”

  “All right.” James swallows hard before continuing. “He saw you in Athens. He was delighted that you wanted to save the others—the people from New Hope. He did not intend for you to be an anomaly, but the fact that you were was another source of pride. Your intellect and courage were far beyond what they were designed to be.”

  “Why would he be proud of that?” I think of Loudin, so calculating, so rigid. Why would he enjoy seeing his plans not fulfilled?

  “Because”—James takes a step closer—“Dr. Loudin is your father.”

  CHAPTER 8

  What?” I am screaming, but my voice seems to come from somewhere else. I feel like I am somewhere else. A dream, maybe. Not reality. This cannot be reality. “I don’t have a father.”

  “Everyone has a father.” James sounds like a Monitor now. “All citizens of the State were created from the basic ingredients of life, stored here in the State from before the War . . .”

  I cover my face with my hands, and he stops. I took biology. I know how children are created. I do not need a lecture on that. “I had a donor, but not a father.”

  “Dr. Loudin was your donor. He insisted that each generation have one of his children. You were his from Pod C.”

  I think of the woman I saw from Pod B, the one with my hair and eyes. My sister? The thought is beautiful and horrifying at the same time. As much as I long for family, especially after seeing the families in New Hope, I never, ever wanted to be related to Joseph Loudin.

  “He takes pride in your unique qualities because he sees that his genes are stronger than my science.”

  His genes. Dr. Loudin’s DNA is mine. His blood runs through my veins. I am like him? No. No, I refuse to accept that. I refuse to accept his pride. Now I wish I had been like everyone else, just to spite him, just to show him he is no one, nothing. My very existence has made him believe he is as great as he thinks he is. I have given him the confidence to look beyond the State to the world, to believe he can conquer all of it.