“It’s us,” I said, my voice slipping from between my teeth. “We’re the body parts for everyone else. Okay? I do get it. It’s us.”
Gideon released my arm. His hand dropped to his side.
Now I held this secret.
And I didn’t want it.
Abigail’s shoulders slumped. Her face was pale.
“Yes,” she said.
I leaned right into Gideon’s face. So close, I felt sick.
“I … don’t … want … to … know … any … more.”
“You have to,” Abigail said. “Or you won’t have the courage to run.”
“I don’t care.”
“We need you to get your memory, Shiloh.” Gideon sounded exhausted. Like he’d spent a week in Isolation. I should think so, given his defiance.
Abigail said, “I can’t leave you here.”
As I watched her, just like that, she sprung a leak, and her eyes watered. It was as if they both were broken.
“You’re malfunctioning.” I felt shaky from the close proximity, because of my own words, because of what I’d seen.
Because of what I knew.
I wanted this all gone! And I never wanted to think of it again.
Take the Tonic. Sleep. No dreams.
“I’m just crying.” She wiped at her face, at the water that reflected the dim light from the computer screen.
“It’s one of the things you’ll do when you don’t drink the Tonic. The medicine keeps us from showing any real emotion.” Gideon’s words seemed a recitation.
This world of mine, this awful world of mine, seemed to grow darker. “Okay. Okay.”
But Abigail didn’t seem to be able to stop. She slipped down the wall, till she sat on the floor, dipped her head to her knees. Her shoulders shook.
“Claudia was the Duplicate for Amy Steed,” Gideon said. “That pageant queen.”
My brain seemed raw.
“And you saw where Daniel’s legs went.”
“We give our bodies to other people.” Had I said those words out loud?
“They give our bodies to other people,” Gideon said. “You’ve seen the results.” He held up his hands like the secret rested there.
“See us, Shiloh,” Abigail said. She spoke with her head down. “I mean, really see us. Not one of us is whole.”
The proof was all around me. Here in the room. And on the computer. In all my classes. The whole of Haven Hospital & Halls.
I sat next to Abigail on the floor.
“There are other ads,” Gideon said. “Some of the people we don’t recognize. But there are schools like ours all over the country. Haven Hospital & Halls plus lots of others that aren’t affiliated with Dr. King.”
“This is why we’re leaving,” Abigail said. “We’re going for help.”
“What makes you think there’s help out there?” I asked. “We’re a trade item. We’re better than money.” I knew the truth as soon as I spoke.
“Shiloh, do you remember when we peeked over the wall?”
I nodded.
“What did you see?”
I shrugged. “Land. The water. The chain-link fence.”
“Past that,” Abigail said. “Way out there.”
“Cars with flashing lights.” It had been so warm that day. So nice to be out. “People carrying signs.”
“Protestors,” Gideon said, “in our defense.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Protestors want us dead. The Whole don’t think Terminals should live. Dr. King—”
“I know. He told us so. Or Principal Harrison. Our Teachers. They tell us.” Gideon bent over the computer. He tapped a few keys, and another ad came on. This time it was a male. He said, “When I lost my Bryan to cancer, I thought about a Replicant.” The camera pulled back and the male stood with a female. “We’d saved his DNA, we knew what was available. We loved our boy and wanted him with us.”
The female nodded. The sun must have been in her eyes because she squinted.
“We did everything we could to save Bryan with the advances available through modern medicine. But we would never take the life of another human being. Not to keep our son alive. It’s not my place to choose who lives and dies. Our boy had a good life. And we want Replicants to have good lives, too.”
Gideon paused the commercial.
“There are people out there fighting for us,” he said. “And you’ve seen them. We’re not alone.”
12
The floor was cold. My hands had gone numb. My brain felt like it might burst open.
“There’s more,” Abigail said.
Gideon shook his head.
Maybe I couldn’t take anything else. Maybe I should never hear another thing. “What?”
“Not yet.”
“I will,” she said, “if you don’t.”
“Tell me.”
“Do you remember, Shiloh, when that male broke into the facility?” Gideon clasped his hands together in his lap. “He came for the Terminal and tried to take her away?”
I nodded. “That was years ago, but I recall the event. Why?”
Neither of them spoke, then Abigail said, “It was only a few weeks ago, Shiloh.”
I rubbed my forehead. “That was when we were younger. All of us were third years. Or fourth at the most.”
“The event happened at the beginning of this year,” Gideon said. “And the male came for you.”
I pushed myself up. “No,” I said, drawing the word out. “That’s not possible. I would retain that information.”
“I was there,” Gideon said. “A friend had already convinced me not to use the Tonic, so I remember.”
“You’re confused.” I tried to make the words more than a whisper.
“I’m not. I saw it. You tried to get away. The male grabbed you, pulled you out of the Dining Hall. You fought him. Security came from everywhere. Dr. King grabbed you by the arm and tried to pull you away.”
Abigail’s eyes were wide and filling with water again.
“The male said you were part of him, Shiloh,” Gideon said. “That he was your father and you were all he had left of his daughter, Victoria.”
“That can’t be. My recollection is of the incident happening a long time ago. To someone else.”
“I promise, Shiloh. It was you.”
“They take our memories,” Abigail said, standing up, too. “And they change them.”
“For some of us, like you, it takes more to get rid of the stores of information.”
We can get rid of the dreams.
I felt numb all over.
Nurse, telling me to take more and more and more Tonic. Throwing up so much red.
“They are the reason you have to come with us,” Abigail said. “Not just that I need you to be with us. Not just your memory.”
“Who?” My eyes had dried out. Maybe I would never blink again.
“Your family,” Gideon said.
I wanted to say I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I was too stunned.
Gideon tapped away at the computer. The screen changed. Now there was a female, holding a microphone and standing near the wall.
“That’s here,” I said. “That’s right here.” I paused. “How did you get this? It’s…”
“Contraband,” Abigail said, watching the screen. “All of this is.”
Gideon edged the sound up.
“… protests for the life inside the building. But Dr. Franklin King, director of these institutions and hospitals, defends the Haven Hospital and Halls.”
Dr. King wore a suit, one that reminded me of what he wore when Visitors stopped by. His hair was slicked back. He smiled and his teeth looked so white. I felt light-headed, weak-kneed. I needed to obey. Instead, I listened, locking my knees.
“The Genetic Copies we house at our hospitals around the world are well cared for. We feed them the best food, teach them of the world, and make sure every need is met.”
“Genetic copies,” I said.
&n
bsp; “You’ve seen the footage of our hospitals. You know our Copies are fed and clothed and given an education.”
Pictures of filthy rooms and dirty unkempt people, many missing body parts and looking infected, popped up.
Dr. King’s voice continued. “This place was shut down when it was too late.”
Another picture of three starved Terminals stacked next to a wall, one on top of the other.
“But we offer Copies the best of everything, including their dignity.”
There was a close-up of the face of a dead Terminal, lips dried out, eyes bugging. Something wormy moved over the skin.
No one in our little room said anything.
“The good we accomplish far outweighs the negative view some more conservative”—Dr. King hesitated.… A smile crept to his lips—“thinkers might have. Our facilities are the finest. The Copies live a life of luxury. They are not herded together like cattle or, worse, like poultry, but live respectful lives.”
There was footage then of Haven Hospital & Halls. I recognized the Dining Hall. Terminals gathered to eat. This was old. Abigail was just back from surgery. She looked like she was in pain, being fed by Mr. Oliver, a teacher who left some time ago. All the Terminals’ heads were down while they ate. No one looked up. There was no sound but the clinking of silverware.
The camera turned back to the reporter.
“And there are plenty of conservative thinkers fighting against Dr. King and his claims.”
“Watch this part, Shiloh,” Gideon said. “This is important.”
A new female voice. “When you allow your DNA to be duplicated, when someone is grown for you, you, the investor, lose all your rights and privileges to the creator of your Duplicate.” The female hesitated. “These are children. There are babies, too, being farmed, being grown in these places.”
A woman with dark brown eyes looked out at us. My stomach dropped. I knew her. Had seen her somewhere before. She sat next to a man. A memory knocked at my brain.
“Children. Humans. Not just Duplicates—not just Genetic Copies.” Behind her, people marched, chanting and carrying signs that said WE ALL HAVE A RIGHT TO LIFE. And WE USE REPLICANTS. And A HEART IS A HEART. The camera steadied again on the woman’s face.
“Fair treatment is all I ask for those who cannot defend themselves,” she said. “And that we be allowed to own what we have paid for. Our country has protections for the rights of the old and the young, the weak and those who can’t care for themselves. Now we want our rights back.”
The screen froze. Gideon clicked the computer off. No one spoke for a long while. Gideon swung around in the chair. “When we found this information”—he waved his hand back behind him—“I recognized that male from when he came to get you.”
Abigail spoke. “I knew you needed to be a part of this. Because they want you.”
“You’re a link to the outside. And you’re our link, too.”
“If we get out, Shiloh,” Abigail said, “you can go to them. We can help ourselves, and others, too. We need to find those who are out there for each of us. Then we’ll be free. We can live like normal people. Not like wares someone buys and, in the process, destroys.”
Gideon cleared his throat. “You have a family, Shiloh.”
My lips had dried out. My tongue felt useless. “But I’m not theirs. She said she has no right to me. That means Haven Hospital and Halls owns me.”
“That’s true of all of us,” Abigail said.
“Even if my Recipient is gone,” I said, “Haven Hospital and Halls will still sell me to others I might match up with.”
“You’re right,” Gideon said. “You don’t have to be an exact DNA match to give your parts. Doctors have used that method of saving others for generations.”
I looked at my hands. The nails were just the right length. The same as all other Terminals who still had their arms and hands. I was missing a lung. Part of me went to someone else. I was a Terminal, yes. A Copy. A Replicant. And like what had happened with Claudia, I would be used as much as I was needed. “All of us will die like Claudia,” I said.
“Unless we stop it,” Gideon said.
I recalled parts of the moment when the doors had swung open and that male had come to the Dining Hall.
He’d grabbed that Terminal.
It was you!
Tried to carry her away.
Not her! You!
She’d fought him.
I had fought him.
And given away my freedom.
“We’re not alone,” Abigail said. “Shiloh, we have each other. And the Whole out there, the ones you saw protesting, if we get away. You have people waiting.”
I couldn’t even nod.
“This’s enough for one night,” Gideon said. “Go back to your rooms. Don’t make lengthy eye contact with each other tomorrow. Don’t talk to anyone you shouldn’t. And no one speaks of this meeting. Anyone who talks will have to be disposed of.”
I blinked, trying to soothe my dry eyes.
“We have to defend ourselves and our Cause,” he said.
“I understand.” My voice didn’t sound like me at all. Maybe I now used the voice of the person who had my lung.
* * *
Abigail and I walked back in darkness, sticking to the blackest shadows, out of the way so no one would see us.
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” I asked.
Abigail touched my elbow with a fingertip. “I didn’t know how. And I haven’t known that long. It’s been over a month since I walked in on Daniel and Gideon.”
There was no sound here in the basement except the pad of our feet on the stone floor.
“We always explore together,” I said. “It’s like you fooled me.”
“No, Shiloh, it wasn’t that at all.” Abigail stopped.
I waited, arms folded.
“I couldn’t sleep. I tried to wake you and you wouldn’t budge. You’d been taking the Tonic a lot, for dreams and maybe so you would forget about the male coming for you. You wouldn’t wake up. So, I left on my own.”
I rested against the wall. I felt too tired to go on.
“That night I saw Daniel going down the hallway and I followed. At first, I thought maybe he was a spirit or something.”
I understood that.
“So I followed him, but I didn’t bother them. You and I sneak around. I figured it was the same thing.”
I waited.
“I got up again. I had a vague memory of the wheelchair and I wanted to see if I could find Daniel on my own.”
“Okay.”
“You were sound asleep that night, too. In fact, you’d not gotten out of bed for days, you slept like you were…” She paused.
I knew. “Like I was dead.”
Abigail let out a long sigh. “I knew you were alive. I put my finger under your nose to see if you were breathing.” Her hand went to her stomach like the remembering caused her discomfort.
“That time I saw Gideon. He came in from outside and he had snow on his jacket. He told me about the resistance, about the Cause, and here I am.” She raised her palm up. “Isaac had just been taken away.”
“But that happened last week.”
She shook her head. “The Tonic messes up time. Slows it down. Speeds it up.”
We started again toward our room. My insides trembled, like my muscles might fall from the bone.
“Daniel and Gideon told me everything, including the break-in by the male.”
We were in the hall outside our room. Over the fireplace I could see the clock and the time. It was almost two in the morning. We’d only been gone two hours? How could that be? It felt like weeks had passed since I’d dreamed of ripping off Gideon’s arm.
“And then,” Abigail said, “Isaac didn’t come back.”
We hurried to our beds, past Mary and Elizabeth, who both slept without moving.
I stepped out of my clothes and folded them, placing the pants in the bottom drawer and the T-s
hirt in with the other old work clothing. I pulled pajamas out from under my pillow and slipped them on. Then I climbed into bed, turned over—back to the window—and closed my eyes.
From across the room came Abigail’s voice. “They let me join, Shiloh, because I know you. You are our hope.”
I didn’t answer.
Do you have your suitcase?
It’s there. By the dresser.
You won’t be gone long.
I don’t want her to come.
She’s part of the plan. To see what will happen.
No.
Get your things, please.
I nod. Start the walk. It’s so far. The corridor is dark as a hole. Cold as the snow. There are voices. And a screen with blue lights.
Then I am on the bed. Something cries out. Once more.
The voice echoes. Comes into my mind over and over.
We’ll get rid of the Disease. Send this heart where it belongs. Stop them from taking over the world. Put things back to normal.
Brightness stabs at my eyes. It’s in the back of my head, sharp. The light shines on faces. One I don’t recognize.
No! she says.
I’ve changed my mind, she says. I don’t care what I’ve signed.
There’s the knife, slicing down my breastbone, opening me up, like chicken in the kitchen.
I’m the only one who survived this crash.
Hands reach, pull out the blackness that fills me. Tug it away. It aches, tears. I feel the tendons separating from the bone. The blackness turns to blood.
Look at my legs.
They have my heart. Steam rises. I smell something awful.
I’m in the hall.
No heart, one lung, Daniel in his wheelchair. Abigail motions for me to follow her. There’s Gideon.
We’ll take more than your heart, he says, smiling.
They sew me up.
But the bleeding will not stop.
From the corner of the room, I see her.
The female who shakes her head, and she leaves.
HAVEN
HOSPITAL&HALLS
Where You Matter
Established 2020
Note to all Staff
Please be aware and report all murmurings and unusual behavior as we discussed in Faculty Meetings: facial changes, thoughtful discussion, being too alert.