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CHAPTER THREE
GIA
It was like I was trying to breath under water. My entire body felt heavy, and my lungs felt like they would explode. Thirty-two hours, fourteen minutes, and six seconds was how long it took them to program my entire body into a tiny chip. They monitored me closely and put me through intense training until I was exactly what they wanted me to be.
I remembered it well because I relived it every time I closed my eyes. Every time I find myself back in the lab, tied to tubes with constant pricks from needles. They wanted to perfect their technology at my own expense. They called me their grand project because I was the culmination of many failed experiments. At least that is what they said. I tried not to think of the other experiments who were living, breathing people like me who did not make it out alive.
They stole me from my life and fucked with my brain so much that I forgot where I came from. The only life I remembered was the one inside the lab. When I had a moment to myself, I would wonder who I really was before the lab. It always felt just out of reach like that thought that slipped your mind, but you were trying to recall it.
The people I have met, the relationships I kept, the ones that loved me, and the ones I had loved…all vanished from my memory. How did I come to exist on a table in the middle of a white sterile room with the same three sets of eyes peering at me from behind surgical masks?
Every time on that damn table I felt immense pain while their soothing voices tried to calm me. They tried to convince me that this was how every human came about and I was the future of humankind. Somehow, we would all be better because of what I did.
No matter how many times they told me it would get better, it never did. The pain got worse with each passing day, and I soon began to adapt to it.
Everything was so tangled in my mind that I did not know the difference between good or bad, possible or impossible. I was driven as if with a remote to do as I was told. If not, I would be erased and turned into dust.
Fear didn’t keep us in check because our emotions had been ripped out of our souls. Well, most of the time.
We never complained because we had no reason to, but the thing that plagued those like me was a dysfunction of the system. Everything was not perfect, and some of us began to start feeling, some of us cried when we felt pain, and some of us hesitated when we took a knife to the throat of our victims.
We were like a female army.
Some of us started to ask questions when promised upgrades refused to work. It left us vulnerable in the field. It was like our brains and bodies worked in detached fragments. Our questions made them nervous.
The last straw was pulled when one of us killed one of them, and it was then they knew they had to abort. They had to shut down the entire project so, they went on an assembly, to gather us together, and put an end to the beasts they have created.
The program that held us together crashed, and nineteen out of twenty of us that were created had to be erased. I was the last one, and my human senses that I had been devoid of for five years was back. I knew my right from wrong, I knew how to love, I knew how to get mad...but the one thing I was not sure of is how to be normal again.
I could not live in the real world without seeming like a potential threat. Morla had been able to hide me, but at the expense of her own life. Until the last subject is found, until I was found, they would not rest.
Not only did I turn out to be a terrible project that could harm someone, but I was also the end of everything they stood for. If the chip in my head came out, I would not only be putting the people at risk, but I would be also sacrificing my entire country, and that was something they feared.
I never asked for this. I never wanted to be the kill switch. What I used to want or need, I was not sure of anymore. I never asked for the choice to be taken away from me. All I wanted was to be alone.
They came after Morla, they took her away from the world that needed her so much. She was kind, brave, and she would help anyone. She was a smart woman, a proud woman whose colleagues looked up to. She promised that when she finished the project she was working on, she would take me far away to the Caribbean where nobody would find us, where the sea was bluer, birds flew freely in the skies, and sang happily, where people loved freely and had smiles on their faces. She was looking forward to that happy moment more than I was, yet The Wonder Project took it away from her just like they took the lives of so many of us.
And now, I am in another person’s life, someone who has no reason to take me in, but if Morla trusted him, I might as well. She knew good people, and if she said Julian, as he introduced himself, was a good person, then he must be.
I had to be careful not to get attached. If I did, I might break down again when another person in my life left, or worse when he realizes the kind of threat I posed to him. No strings, no attachment until the people who were out to get me were gone and buried.
Boy’s Ville, I mused. He said he had come from Boy’s Ville. I knew what that place was and the brutality that accompanied it. Everybody knew because just a month ago before the world started coming down on us, Mayers, the bastard that ran one of the camps had been arrested alongside his henchmen, but the government was still swimming in idiocy since they thought it ended with Mayers.
They hid behind good, and rained pain all over.
Staring at the ceiling, the gentle breeze blowing through the draperies I had opened, and the choir of crickets in the background reminded me that I was alive. Being alive meant I could do something about it. I didn’t know what, but the thought that I was not dead yet was enough motivation.
I suddenly woke up to the smell of cookies; it smelled familiar. It didn’t smell like the ones Morla made, but it smelled so familiar I could sense the taste on my tongue. Mr. Pickles was tucked at my feet, and there was a blanket on my shoulders like I had been tucked in bed by an angel. The feeling settled nicely at the bottom of my belly but was short lived when the thought of how I got here crossed my mind. The room seemed prettier now that lights flooded every inch of it, and the drapes swung happily to the cool breeze that smacked them.
I rolled out of bed and my feet fell into pink wooly slippers. I pulled my feet away from them, located the bathroom to wash my face, changed into clean clothes, then went out to have a conversation with Julian. I was not sure how my entire day would play out now that I lived with him, but I wanted him to know that I came with risks and was ready to face whatever my creators were bringing.
As I strolled down the short corridor to the bifurcated stairs that lead downstairs, I paused. Lights indeed had their impact on this place. It looked exquisite at night, and grand in the daylight. I winced a little as the light penetrated my eyes. This was definitely an upgrade to my little apartment with Morla. It was one of those dreams Morla painted, and I happened to be living in it without her. I sighed as I reached the landing, holding on to the rail for support.
By the huge glass windows, Julian stood barefoot. His back to me, his slacks sitting lazily on his hips, and a t-shirt hugging his frame. Looking at him from behind without his eyes peering back gave me time to assess him without his permission.
Questions danced around in my head as to what kind of man he was, what kind of job he did? How did he survive Boy’s Ville? Did he have scars from his past? How did he know Morla? Was he just a rich billionaire who took in strays? Am I a stray? I sighed silently, and that was all it took to alert him of my presence.
He grimaced over his shoulder with his phone still pinned to his ears. “I’ll call you back.”
