SEVEN
Junior
2067. April 11th.
Susan could still remember the first evening she had come back to the Temlane House four months ago. When their third casualty, Number Four, died falling out of that tree and Luca refused to shut down the LifeSpace project, Susan thought she’d never come back here, even if Luca had his creepy henchman follow her the rest of her life.
Then, she found out she was pregnant and LandForce started asking her about things at GenRes. When she finally got the courage to go ask Luca about their investigation, she learned that Luca had ended the experiment after all. That night, she had come back to the House to discuss things with him.
When she arrived, Tom, the elderly butler and groundskeeper winked and smiled at her like a kindly, old grandfather would, and Ida, the housekeeper and cook had embraced her, saying, “It’s good to see you at the House again, dear.” They were such nice people.
And Luca wasn’t bad, either. A little too determined, maybe. A little too ambitious. But who could blame him for that? His father had left him quite a legacy to live up to. And Luca did love her; she knew that. And he would never cheat on her as Charlie had.
Poor Charlie. He hadn’t been able to leave the hospital for three months now.
But the LifeSpace was over and as long as she could keep Luca from doing anything else illegal, then, hopefully, she had made the right choice today. For today, she and Luca had been married, saying their ‘I do’s’ on the back lawn of the Temlane Estate in front of all of their respective family, friends, and associates.
Susan hoped that her tailor was right in saying that her pregnant belly wouldn’t show in the photos.
July 3rd.
Two months later. Susan was lying on a gurney as nursed wheeled her down the hallway of GenRes’ MedFloor toward Room Five. Forcing herself up into a sitting position – not an easy task at the moment considering the size of her abdomen – she gripped her husband’s hand. With a wild look in her eyes, she panted, “Luca! Look at me! You won’t let anything happen, will you?”
“Everything’s going to be fine, Suse,” Luca reassured her. “Nothing’s going to happen.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.” Luca chuckled. “I love you. Now, don’t worry about a thing. I’ve got it all under control, okay?”
As they entered Room Five, they found Brandie Mills, Head Nurse for the MedFloor, waiting for them. “Is everything ready, Brandie?”
“Yes, sir,” Brandie replied dryly.
“Very good. I’ll scrub down, and we’ll get started. Please see that Mrs. Temlane is comfortable.”
“Yes, sir.”
Thirty-three minutes later, the process was complete. Brandie sighed and asked, “How do you want me to make out the birth certificate?”
Luca was holding his new, bawling baby girl out in front of him, staring at her. She was one of the few children to have ever been purposefully delivered by their own father. He handed the girl back to her mother and said, “What was that, Brandie? I wasn’t paying attention.”
“The name,” Brandie said irritably. “For the birth certificate. What’s the baby’s name?”
“Oh. Um…” Susan started to answer. They had discussed and debated and talked for hours before settling on a name, but as Luca looked down at his wife, he knew that the name they had chosen wouldn’t do. Interrupting her, he said, “The baby’s name is Susan Louise Temlane…the Second.”
Two hours later, Luca was bringing both mother and daughter home. “Ida,” Luca called as he opened the door to the house, “help Mrs. Temlane to the couch, please.”
The older woman held Susan’s arm and walked her into the sitting room with Luca carrying Susan the Second right behind them. Once the mother was comfortably seated, Luca handed the child back to her.
After a moment, Susan said, “Luca, she’s cold!”
Luca could hear the worry in his wife’s voice. “What do you mean, cold?” he asked, reaching over to feel his daughter’s forehead.
“I mean cold!”
Susan was right. The baby was cold. Freezing! But she shouldn’t be, not yet. Luca lifted her up.
“Luca, what’s going on?”
Ida had come back into the room, bringing the mother and daughter a quilt, when she heard Susan’s alarm. “Is something wrong?” she asked, worriedly.
“The baby’s freezing cold,” Susan said, glancing at the older woman.
“Oh!” Ida said, wrapping the quilt around the baby in Luca’s arms. “Do you need an ambulance?”
“No,” Luca said quickly, “no ambulance.” He handed the girl back to her mother and said, “Keep her warm! I’ll be back in a minute!”
“Luca…!” Susan protested, but he was already running out of the room and down the stairs.
“What’s going on?” Tom asked when Luca passed him, but Luca didn’t answer.
“Tom!” Ida yelled, “get some more blankets! The baby’s freezing to death!”
In the next room, Tom wrinkled his eyebrows. ‘Freezing to death’? The house is cooled, but it’s the middle of summer. How can she be freezing to death? Unless there’s something wrong with her. Oh, no! There’s something wrong with the baby!
Luca was back twenty minutes later. Tom or Ida must have gone searching in the other rooms for more blankets because Susan was on the couch, covered in them, holding the baby close to her body. “Luca,” Susan said as he ran to her, her teeth chattering, “I’m so cold. I can’t get her warm.”
“Let me see her,” he said. Luca took his daughter in his arms and again felt her forehead and then her cheek and her leg and her stomach. Then he pulled a syringe out of his back pocket and stuck the baby with it in her buttock.
“What’s that?” Susan asked.
Luca didn’t answer. He simply handed the girl back to Susan.
“Luca, what was that? What did you do?” Susan demanded.
“Just wait,” he said. “Trust me.”
An hour later, Susan the First looked up at her husband in surprise. “She’s getting warmer!” And Luca, Tom, and Ida all let out a big breath.
Well, that’s two, Luca thought. Sammy Auger and now Susan the Second. Two mistakes out of nine. But Susan’ll be fine. She’s going to be the strongest of them all. Daddy’s little girl.
July 29th.
Three and a half weeks later. It was late when Luca and Susan finally arrived home. Charlie’s funeral had been in Orlando, where his family was from, and a lot of their Yale friends had been in attendance, not a few of whom had hinted to Luca that they were job-searching and would not be opposed to moving to Base City.
Ida and Tom had put little Susan to sleep. Luca and Susan looked in on her for a moment and then got ready for bed themselves.
“What are you going to do tomorrow?” Susan asked as she and Luca got into bed.
“Oh, I’ve gotta go over Doctor Wezel’s new project proposal. and then I’ll probably spend some time in the lab. I’m sure Lois’ll have things for me to do.” The fact was that Luca had been bored lately. He needed something more to do than running the company and working in his lab. He needed something to keep his interest, something edgier.
The LifeSpace was finished, but those kids were still out there. The problem was that with Nick in jail and Bobby not returning his calls – Luca was sure it was Bobby who had taken and used Sammy at the FederalTown Bank – there was no way for him to track the kids’ progress. Nick and Bobby were supposed to be the ones keeping notes on them. Luca still had Susan the Second, of course, but that was it. All of the other kids had been placed in orphanages and had probably been adopted or transferred by now.
But there was one who hadn’t been put in the adoption system. There was one he had genetically altered who hadn’t been a part of the LifeSpace project at all. The Kines baby! The mother, Bethany, had come in for a routine DNA analysis for her unborn child and that was when Luca first started getting the ideas for different coding sequences.
He could find her again, couldn’t he? Santori had been watching the mother and daughter for him, but Luca knew her name. She wasn’t like the other random couples who would have adopted the rest of the kids Santori and Fraley placed. He could track her down! And he was suddenly starting to get an idea on how to find some of the other kids, too. “I’m thinking of starting a clinic,” Luca said as he pulled the sheet over him.
“Oh?” Susan asked. “What kind of clinic?”
“I’m thinking it will be a discount or even free clinic for the County foster system, private orphanages, families who have adopted kids... Stuff like that.”
“I think that’s a great idea.” Susan leaned over to kiss him. “I never knew you could be so generous.”
2072. March 1st.
Four and a half years later. “Are you finished?” Ida asked little Susan. Ida, Tom, and Susan were finishing dinner in the Dining Room.
Susan nodded.
Ida noticed that the girl hadn’t eaten much of her dinner, but that was normal for her.
“When are Mommy and Daddy coming home?” Susan asked.
“I don’t know,” Ida said. “They have a dinner tonight.”
Ida and Tom could tell by Susan’s face that she was disappointed. Her parents had been gone quite a bit lately, meeting with architects and contractors and city officials. The newest project Luca was throwing himself into was the founding of a university inside city limits.
“We can do something until they get here, can’t we?” Tom asked, trying to cheer her up. Susan didn’t answer so Tom tried again, “C’mon!” he said, reaching behind her and flipping her dark blonde ponytail. “What do you want to do?”
Susan put her head down on the table in a pout, but then quickly looked back up, her big brown eyes suddenly brightening. “Let’s make a tent!” she said. “And watch Chowder! And make cookies! And play house!”
“Wow!” Tom chuckled. “That sounds like a lot to do in one evening! Are you sure you’re up for all that? You are still a little girl, you know!”.
“I’m a big girl!” Susan retorted.
“Okay, okay! What do you think, Idey,” Tom called, “can we make some peanut butter cookies tonight?”
Ida, swinging the Kitchen door open and walking through as she took her apron off, said, “Oh, I think we can manage some cookies. If someone helps me,” she said, winking at Susan.
“I’ll help! I’m a good helper. I know ezacly how to do it,” Susan volunteered.
“Great! Then why don’t you two go along and get started on that tent and I’ll tell you when I’m ready.”
Tent-making had become one of Susan’s favorite games lately. She had discovered how large the Temlane House was and how many good tent-making supplies it had in it. Over the last couple of weeks, she had been making it a goal to see if she could make a tent in every room –
every room except her parents’, of course. She knew she wasn’t allowed to play in there. But she and Tom had even made a tent for her in one of the upstairs bathroom cabinets!
“Where shall we build our tent this time?” Tom asked.
“Hmmm.” Susan thought for a moment and then suddenly exploded with, “the Libary!”
“The Library it is!” Tom agreed and off they went.
The Library, like everything else in the Temlane House, was huge. Jeim, Luca’s father, was the one who had the house built. He had ordered the Library to be made especially large because he liked to have all of his medical texts in hard-copy, rather than in a digital file only.
Tom helped Susan pin blanket corners under the weight of some of the heavier books. She had decreed that these blankets were to be draped downward and from shelf to shelf to serve as the walls and roof for their tent.
When it was finished, Susan said, “C’mon, Tom! Come inside! It’s big enough!” Some of the tents that they had made before had only been spacious enough for Susan to climb into.
“I’m coming!” Tom called. He kneeled down, not an easy task at his age, and crawled through the blanket door.
Inside, Susan had taken one of the books off the shelf nearest to her and was looking at its pictures. It was an anatomy textbook. “Tell me about this one,” she said. Susan liked storybooks, but another of her favorite games lately was pulling random books off the shelf and testing Tom’s knowledge of them.
“Okay,” Tom smiled. “Well, this one is about the human body. It tells how all your little pieces-parts fit together and what they do. Like your heart,” he said, pointing to her chest, “and your brain,” poking her on the head, “and your armpit!” as he tickled her armpit.
When she was done laughing, she asked, “Was this book Grampa’s, too?”
“Yes, it was,” Tom answered. “All of these were.”
“What was Grampa like?” Susan sounded wistful now, as if she were day-dreaming about something warm and cozy.
“Well, he was a very smart man. He helped a lot of people not get sick anymore.”
“Was he nice?”
“He was a lot like your father,” Tom answered tactfully. He had known both of the Temlane men long enough to understand that they were too driven, too focused on their research and projects to be particularly nice.
“Oh,” the little girl answered. Then she leaned in and hugged the old man beside her. “I think you’re my Grampa,” she said.
Tom rubbed her back lovingly for a few moments and then said, “Let’s go see about those cookies, shall we?”
2073. October 14th.
A year and a half later. Six-year-old Susan walked into the kitchen, her ponytail swishing behind her. She was tired of playing with her dolls, and her stomach was telling her that it was time for lunch. On the counter sat the empty box of her favorite kind of macaroni and cheese mix, the kind that had the noodles in the shape of unicorns, and on the stove sat a bubbling pot. Macaroni and cheese was, undoubtedly, her favorite food, followed closely, of course, by chicken nuggets, fish sticks, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and pizza rolls. Ida usually never made her those kinds of things though. They were a treat reserved for the busiest days and today was a doozey. Today was the grand opening of her daddy’s university.
Susan looked at the stove and wondered when the lunch would be ready. Sometimes, she liked to have Ida cut up hot dogs into little pieces and mix those into her macaroni and cheese. But not today, she thought. Today was a day to relish the unblemished taste of unicorn-shaped noodles bathed in creamy cheese sauce.
But then, as Susan watched the steam rising from the pot, she noticed that a fire had started on the burner underneath! Her instincts kicking in, she immediately turned and ran through the entry room, past Ida vacuuming, and out the front door.
A second later, Ida came out. “Susan, what are you doing? Get back inside. It’s almost lunchtime.”
“There’s a fire!” Susan protested.
“A fire? Where?” asked the elderly woman, quickly turning around and scanning the house.
“On the stove!” exclaimed Susan.
Ida quickly walked back inside the house, calling for Tom. A moment later, they both came out. Tom was laughing, but Ida looked angry. “Susan!” she snapped. “Get in here!”
“But…”
“Now!”
Dragging her feet, Susan reluctantly followed them back into the house, sure that it was going to burst into flames at any moment.
Reentering the kitchen, Ida pulled Susan up to the stove. The burner was still aflame. “Is this the fire?” she demanded.
“Yes.” Couldn’t she see it was the fire?
“Why didn’t you tell me about it?”
Susan was confused. She looked at Tom. “Tom told me to run if I see a fire.”
“Susan,” Tom said gently, “you don’t have to be so afraid of such a little fire like this. Watch.” He motioned, and Ida turned a dial on the stove. Susan watched as the fire quickly died down and then winked out.
“See?” Ida asked. “It’s as easy as that. A little bit of cheese just spilled over onto the burner and got too hot. No big deal, okay?” Susan nodded. Then, Ida kneeled down, putting herself at eye-level with Susan, and making her voice softer, reasoned, “Now, Susan, what if there had been a real fire in the house and you didn’t tell anybody? What do you think would have happened to Tom and me? And your mom and dad if they were home?”
Now Susan knew where she was going with all this. “You would have gone outside too,” Susan assured her.
“But maybe not. Maybe we wouldn’t have if no one told us. Maybe we would have seen it too late. You have to tell people when you think there’s a problem, okay?”
“Okay,” Susan muttered. She did feel kind of silly now for being so afraid of such a little fire. She told herself that she wouldn’t be afraid of fire ever again.
“Now, eat your lunch,” Ida said to Susan, setting a bowl for her on the table, “and then we have to go. Tom, go get cleaned up.”
“…And so it is my honor to present to you Luca Temlane,” Mayor Gillespie announced, “for the introduction of Temlane University!”
Everyone in the crowd clapped as Luca shook the mayor’s hand and stepped to the podium.
“You hear that?” Ida asked, leaning over to Susan. The girl was smiling the widest she had ever smiled. “All these people are here for your mom and dad!”
“Thank you! Thank you!” Luca began. “I am so glad to see all of you here today…”
An hour later, Ida, Susan, and Tom were walking back up to the House. “When do you think Mom and Dad will be home?” Susan asked.
“Oh, I think they’ll be at the university pretty late,” answered Tom, opening the front door.
“They’ve got Dinner and other festivities to go to yet,” Ida continued. “Now, why don’t you go on and play?”
“Okay,” agreed Susan, running off as Tom shut the door behind them.
In her room, Susan looked at her dolls and quickly decided she wasn’t in the mood to play with them. She turned and looked at her makeup, then at her computer, then at her books, her science bench, her art table, her movies, and was bored by all of it. She didn’t know what she wanted to do. Then, she got an idea. She would play a trick on Ida.
Slowly, quietly, Susan tiptoed down the stairs. When she had reached the main level of the House, she put her back flat against the wall and sidestepped toward the Kitchen door, doing her best to act like a secret agent sneaking up on someone. She could hear Ida humming and mixing something around in a bowl. Whisk, whisk, whisk went the spoon, scraping the bottom and sides of the bowl. Susan hoped it was brownies she was making, but knew that it probably wasn’t.
After a moment, Susan heard Ida put the bowl down on the counter and come walking toward the door. Ida pushed the kitchen door open, hiding Susan behind it. When the door swung shut again, Susan burst out with the loudest yell she could muster.
Ida gasped and turned, her eyes wide. Susan laughed hysterically. “Got you!” she breathed between laughs. Ida snatched at the air and then slumped, collapsing on the floor. “Ida?” Susan asked, suddenly serious. “Ida?”
Ida did not answer. She only stared up at the girl. Now it was Susan’s turn to be scared. “Tom!” she screeched.
Tom came running. Taking one look at the fallen woman, he turned and ran to call Emergency Rescue. By the time the ER’s hovercar arrived, though, it was too late. Ida was gone.
“Oh, Idey!” Tom sobbed, throwing himself over her body on the stretcher. He quit the House a week later.
2075. July 22nd.
Another year and a half later. “Come along, Susan,” Mr. Edsall ordered. “It’s time to study your chemistry.”
“I don’t want to study chemistry!” eight-year-old Susan yelled, flopping herself down on the couch.
“Susan!” Mr. Edsall bellowed, but it did no good. Susan just sat there, crossing her arms and legs, and anchoring herself to the couch cushion.
Since Ida’s death and Tom’s resignation, the Temlanes had no end of behavioral problems with Susan.
Within a week of Tom’s leaving, Luca had the House fully staffed again. Now, instead of having two older people handle everything, the House had a maid, a butler, a House Manager, a groundskeeper, a tutor, and a nanny, all of whom were young persons with plenty of energy.
But Susan vehemently insisted that she did not like any of the help and was not shy about letting them know that. Right now, it was the tutor, Mr. Edsall, who was feeling the full force of her distaste.
“Susan! I’m only going to tell you one more time! Get upstairs, and let’s do your chemistry!”
“No! You can’t make me!”
“Susan!”
“I’m not doing it! You’re not the boss!”
“Argh! Fine! I don’t have to deal with this! I’m leaving!”
“Good!” Susan yelled. Tears streamed down the girl’s face as the tutor slammed the front door behind him.
When Ayla Woods, the former staffer at Viola’s Christian Home, called Susan the First at GenRes, it took nine full minutes for her to answer her phone. Finally, she heard her say, “Susan here!” in a hurried voice.
“Susan, it’s Ayla.”
“Yes, Ayla. What’s up?”
“Well, I thought you should know that Mr. Edsall left…for good. He said he quit.”
“Ugh…” Susan moaned. “That’s the third one! Okay. Can you ask Mr. Taylor to hire a new one, please?”
“Yes, ma’am, I will do that.”
“No, wait a minute. Cancel that. I’ll handle it later.”
“Okay.”
Dropping her phone back into the pocket of her lab coat, Susan the First stormed down the hall of Research Floor Three, entered the elevator, impatiently waited for it to open again as it carried her downward, and then stormed down the hall of the Med Floor. She flung open the door to Room Five. Luca was there, along with a couple of nurses, performing surgery on a temporarily removed fetus. The mother and the unborn child, both of them being still connected to one another by the umbilical cord, were completely sedated.
“We lost another one,” Susan announced.
“Lost another what?” Luca asked, not looking up from what he was doing.
“Another tutor! Susan’s managed to drive another one off!”
“Okay,” Luca said disinterestedly, wondering why his wife was bothering him with this now. “Have Taylor hire a new one.”
“I was going to, but then I got another idea. Let’s send her to school!”
“School?” Luca blurted. His voice sounded as if he had taken a bite of something rotten.
“I hear the schools in Base City are excellent,” Susan said.
“But still, Susan, a school? Our tutors are much better! And she gets one-on-one attention! No school can provide that!”
“I know, I know! But we can’t keep a tutor. And she needs to be around other kids. She’s eight years old, and she’s never had a friend her own age.”
Luca didn’t answer. Whenever Susan started talking about something he didn’t agree with, he would stonewall her until she dropped it. If she didn’t let it go, then she would be forced to do something on her own. At least then, he wouldn’t have to make a decision or fight about it.
“I’m sending her to school!” Susan concluded.
August 26th.
A month later, Susan the Second went to school for the first time. She didn’t want to go. Ayla almost had to drag her from the House to the car. But then, when they got there, Susan put on her most determined face and walked straight into the building. Ayla followed and made sure everything was settled in the office, but then Susan was on her own.
She didn’t say much that morning. She would answer the teacher’s questions if put directly to her, but that was it. When the other students tried to talk to her, she ignored them.
This lasted until lunchtime, when a girl named Melody Shore invited Susan to sit next to her. She did so, and they sat in silence for a while until Melody noticed that Susan was eating her celery sticks, but not too much else. “Here,” Melody said, putting her celery on her tray. “I don’t like them. You can have them.”
“Thank you,” said Susan softly.
Then she heard Amber’s voice a few seats down call, “Take mine too!” as three more celery sticks landed on her tray. Amber had thrown and made a perfect hit. “My parents say I have to eat them, but I never do!”
Then Lamar, sitting across from Amber, threw his celery onto Susan’s tray. That was when Susan got angry. “I don’t want them!” she yelled, picking up handfuls of the raw vegetable and throwing them back at Lamar and then at Amber. She had been willing to accept Melody’s gift, but not these others’.
One of the sticks hit Amber square in the face, and she screamed.
“Whoa!” commented Melody.
Jeff Perez, one of the most obnoxious boys to ever attend Base City schools, was sitting at another table across from Susan and saw the whole thing. Impulsively, he yelled, “Food fight!” and threw his celery across the table at his friend, Brad. Within seconds, the whole cafeteria was in an uproar. Flying celery was quickly replaced with mashed potato and chocolate pudding munitions.
Mrs. Byrd, the school cafeteria monitor, turned around – she had been chatting with the lunch ladies – and ran over, blowing her whistle as loudly and as shrilly as she could. The cafeteria abruptly quieted down, all except for Susan. She was still crying and blindly throwing things. Mashed potatoes and pudding streaked her hair, her face, and her clothes.
Mrs. Byrd hurried over to the girl and constrained her arms at her side. “Okay, okay! That’s enough now! Stop it!” Bawling, Susan slumped down and laid her forehead on the table, looking very much like a beaten and apprehended felon leaning their head against a Force car.
“Who started this?” Mrs. Byrd demanded. There was no mistaking the anger in her voice.
Everyone except Melody blamed the new girl. Melody kept quiet, afraid that maybe she had inadvertently started it by giving Susan her celery.
When everyone unanimously agreed that Susan did it, the little girl raised her head and yelled, “I did not!” in an anguished voice.
But Mrs. Byrd wouldn’t listen. “All right,” she announced. “Everyone to the bathrooms! Get cleaned up! And then go outside for recess!” But then she leaned down to Susan – she still had her hands on Susan’s shoulders – and ordered, “You stay with me!”
When all of the other girls had exited the bathroom, Mrs. Byrd said gently, “Come on, Susan. Let’s get you cleaned up.”
Mrs. Byrd kindly helped Susan wash her face and rinse her hair and dab the food off of her clothes. Then, kneeling down and looking at her, she said, “Well, I can’t say you’re as good as new, but those stains on your clothes will remind you and the other kids of what not to do. I know this is your first day here, but you’re going to have to learn.” Then, she took Susan by the hand and walked her back into the cafeteria. The lunch ladies were busy shaking their head and cleaning up the mess.
Mrs. Byrd said to Susan, “Now, because it seems you were the instigator of all this, you’re not going to get to go outside for recess today. I want you to stand right here in this corner and watch the ladies clean up your mess.”
Leaving the little girl there in the corner by the door, Mrs. Byrd went over to talk to one of the lunch ladies again. Susan saw the two ladies laughing. She also heard the happy squeals of the other kids playing outside, and she felt hurt and angry all over again. I didn’t do anything wrong! she thought. I just didn’t want all their blasted leftovers! What’s so wrong about that? I didn’t yell ‘Food fight!’ I didn’t mean for Ida to die. And now they’re all outside having fun, and I have to stay in this blasted corner! Well, I am going outside! I don’t care what that old Byrd says! She won’t know I’m gone anyway! She just keeps talking! And with that, Susan quietly walked out the double cafeteria doors, through the hall, and out the back door to the playground.
It was only a few minutes later when Mrs. Byrd found Susan sitting by herself on the hill. “Okay, missy,” Mrs. Byrd said, grabbing her hand, “I guess you want to go to the Principal’s office, after all.”
When Mrs. Byrd had told the principal, Mr. Laubacher, what had happened, he asked, “Susan, do you have anything to say for yourself?”
“I didn’t start the food fight,” she answered sullenly.
“But you did go outside when Mrs. Byrd told you not to, didn’t you?”
Susan didn’t answer.
“I’m going to have to call your parents and send you home for the day, Susan. You’re new here, so I hope you’ll spend the rest of the day thinking about how you’re supposed to act in school.” Then, he told his phone to dial Susan the First’s phone number.
When she answered, he said, “Mrs. Temlane, this is Dr. Laubacher at Base City Alpha. Could you come by the school, please? There’s been an incident with Susan… No; she’s fine. But she’s gotten herself into a little bit of trouble here, and I think it would be best if she went home for the day… Thank you. I’ll see you soon.”
2077. June 1st.
Two years later. With Danny and Melody living with them now, the Slates needed a bigger house. And financially, that need couldn’t have come at a better time, because Jim had just received word that, as of the first of the next month, Protector General Willoughby would finally be retiring and he would be taking his place. Plus, they would be receiving the money from Richie and Paméla’s life insurance soon.
Now, Jim, Doranne, Eric, Danny, and Melody were all out looking at houses. The one they were at now was by far the nicest. And it was huge. It even had an indoor pool and rec-room.
“And that’s the Temlane House,” the realtor was saying, pointing to the estate next door when the family was finished with their tour.
As the family looked over, they saw a young woman and a girl roughly the same age as Melody, Eric, and Danny going into the House. Melody waved, and the girl waved back.
“Thanks,” Jim said to the realtor. “We’ll think about it.”
“What do you think?” Doranne asked when they were in the car.
“It’s nice,” Jim said. “Expensive though. We’d still be paying for it even after I retired.”
“Well, we don’t have to keep it that long,” Doranne said, “just ‘til the kids move out.”
Jim nodded in understanding. That was something to think about.
“Do you know that girl?” Danny asked Melody in the backseat. Danny recognized her from school, but she was in a different class than he was.
“Her name is Susan,” Melody answered.
“Susan Temlane,” Jim clarified, “the Second. Daughter of Luca Temlane and heiress of the GenRes and Temlane University fortune. The kind of girl you want to marry, Danny-boy.”
“Jim!” Doranne chided, smacking his arm.
“What?” Jim asked, laughing. “I’m only saying he ought to set his sights high is all. He must have thought she was cute to ask about her.”
Danny’s face was red as he said, “No, I didn’t.”
Jim laughed. “What about you, Eric?”
“What?” Eric asked, taking one side of his headphones out.
“Did you like her?”
“Uh…yeah, the house was awesome, Dad!”
That night. Luca had been keeping tabs on Melody ever since he had found her and her mom again in Newsprings. He was aware that Bethany had died and had not been happy when Melody turned out to be the niece of the Deputy PG. Now, Jim, was the PG, and since Richie and Paméla had died in the terrorist attack on the satellite system, he was also Melody’s guardian.
So far, Jim’s relation to Melody hadn’t been a problem for Luca. As far as he could tell, Jim knew about the Auger boy, Luca’s ‘mistake,’ but nothing more, and Fraley hadn’t used Auger for years. Jim had also never been able to pin anything on him from the LifeSpace experiment and Roger’s accusations. So Luca had decided to take a chance. The day after Jim and the family had looked at the house next to him, Luca had called the realtor anonymously and arranged to pay a third of the house’s mortgage so that she could offer Jim a reduced sale price. He said he was simply a citizen of the city who was grateful to the Force and wanted to express his appreciation to the new Protector General.
The family moved in, with Jim none the wiser to Luca’s ‘donation,’ and Luca was happy to have Melody that much closer. She was getting older, and the ability that Luca had programmed into her DNA should start to manifest in the next year or two.
June 12th.
A week and a half later. “Melody!” Doranne called.
“What?” Melody asked, walking into the kitchen.
“That was Ayla Woods on the phone.” Melody had no idea who Ayla Woods was. “She invited you over to play with Susan.”
“Temlane?” Melody questioned.
“Yes, Temlane. Next door. Who do you think I meant?”
“I don’t know. Does Susan want me to come?”
“Well, that’s why Ayla called. Do you think she would invite you over if Susan didn’t want you to?”
“I don’t know,” Melody admitted. “Susan’s kind of weird. I mean, I know her. She sits with me sometimes, and I try to be nice to her. But she doesn’t ever say anything. It’s like she’s there, but she’s not there. Usually, I let her sit there and don’t say anything because I know she doesn’t want to say anything.”
“Well, why don’t you go over and see?”
“Okay,” Melody agreed. If Susan didn’t want her there, then it wasn’t like she would have far to walk back.
Melody knocked on the front door of the Temlane House, and Ayla answered it. “Hi, Melody!” she welcomed. “Come on in. How’s your aunt?”
“Um…she’s good,” Melody answered, taken aback by the question. She had no idea who this woman was.
“You don’t remember me, do you?”
Melody looked at her and shook her head. “No. Sorry.”
“Well, that’s okay. I remember you. Your mom used to bring you to church before…well, before the attack.”
Melody nodded.
“Anyway, I’m good friends with your aunt, Peggy. Susan’s out by the pond.”
Ayla showed Melody to the back door and called, “Susan! Your friend’s here!”
Susan turned and saw Melody walking toward her.
“Hey!” Melody said. “What are you doing?”
“What do you care? You only came over because Ayla asked you to.”
“Yeah, so? Do you want me to leave?” Please say yes, please say yes, so I don’t have to try to figure you out.
But Susan didn’t answer. Instead, she picked up a rock and flung it out onto the water, watching it skip a few times before it finally sank.
Okay, Melody thought. If you’re not going to answer, then… She picked up a rock up and flung it, just as Susan had.
The two of them stood there, silently throwing stones until Susan had another idea of what to do with the current rock in her hand. Checking to see that Melody was facing away from her, Susan casually threw her rock underhand, aiming it so that it would land squarely atop Melody’s brown-haired head.
The rock bounced off, and Melody’s hand immediately flew to her head. She turned accusingly toward Susan and Susan watched as Melody’s face turned from indignation to pain. It looked as if Melody was about to cry.
Running toward them, Ayla said, “Susan! Why would you do that?” But without waiting for Susan’s answer, she took Melody by the hand and said, “C’mon, sweetie, let’s get you some ice.” With her other hand, she grabbed Susan’s ponytail and led her along behind them.
Inside, Ayla sat Melody down at the bar in the Kitchen and was picking through the girl’s brown hair for any signs of blood on the scalp underneath. Finding none, she made a Ziploc baggie full of ice and put it on her head. Then, turning to Susan, she again asked, “Why did you do that?”
“I wasn’t trying to hurt her,” Susan mumbled. “She was going to leave, anyway.”
“Of course, she was going to leave!” Ayla snapped. “She has to go home sometime! I don’t know what gets into you!”
Bursting into tears, Susan ran out of the Kitchen and up to her room.
Half an hour later, after Ayla had called Doranne to apologize and sent Melody home, she went upstairs to check in on her ward. She knocked on Susan’s door, and when Susan didn’t answer, she opened it. Across the room, she saw Susan’s window open with the recently removed screen propped against the wall.
“Susan!” Ayla gasped, running to the window. She looked out, and there was Susan, staring down from the roof into the pool below. “What are you doing?” Ayla called. “Get back in here!” We’re on the second floor!
“I’m leaving!” Susan sobbed.
Ayla climbed out of the window and, though afraid, walked out toward the girl. “Susan, I’m sorry I yelled at you. Please come back inside.”
“Ida died. Tom left. Mom and Dad are never here. Someday, you’re going to leave, too, and Melody will leave and…”
And Ayla understood. Susan pushed people away so that she wouldn’t get attached to them, so that she couldn’t risk losing them. “Oh, Susan,” Ayla said, wrapping her arms around the girl, “I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to stay right here with you.”
August 5th.
About nine weeks later. After that first incident at the pond, Susan’s attitude had grown a lot better toward Melody, and the two had become good friends. Now, the girls were together in the Temlane Living Room, cuddled up with their pillows and sleeping bags and eating popcorn with Ayla, watching Father and the Tornado. It was a good movie, and they had all seen it a dozen times.
Susan and Luca came in the front door. “Hey!” Susan the First said, and gave her daughter a hug. “Hi, Melody!”
“Hi, Mrs. Temlane,” Melody greeted.
“What are you girls up to?” Luca asked.
“Watching a movie,” Susan answered. “Melody’s going to spend the night. Ayla said it was okay.”
“That’s fine,” Luca said as he walked up the stairs to his room.
“Fun,” Susan the First commented. “Well, good night!” She hugged her daughter again and then followed Luca up the stairs.
The movie ended a few minutes later, and Ayla yawned. “I think I’m going to go to bed too. Are you two going to stay down here or are you going upstairs?”
“We’ll probably camp out down here,” Susan said.
Once Ayla had gone, Susan turned to Melody. “So, what do you want to do?”
“I don’t know. What do you want to do?”
“Do you like scary movies?” Susan asked, reaching for the remote control. “Dad doesn’t care, but Mom and Ayla never let me watch them. I always have to wait until they go to bed.”
“I guess so,” Melody said.
They watched one movie about a Japanese girl who had been killed and then kept coming back and possessing the bodies of her killer’s family and friends to make them attack him. During most of the movie, the killer had to keep killing his family to stay alive, but they finally got him at the end.
Susan was going to watch another one, but Melody was falling asleep on the floor, so she turned off the TV and lied down next to her. “Is it true that your mom and dad got killed in that terrorist attack? The one with the satellite system shutting down?” Susan asked.
Melody didn’t answer, and Susan wondered if she had offended her. Either that or Melody was sleeping and hadn’t heard the question. But then Melody did answer. “My dad and stepmom were killed then,” she said. “My mom died a long time ago when the Chinese bombed us.”
Susan was silent for a moment and then said, “I killed my nanny… Not on purpose. It was a few years ago, and I jumped out to scare her. She had a heart attack and died.”
“I’m sorry,” Melody said. She thought she heard Susan sniffling, but couldn’t tell for sure.
Then there was a big sniffle, and Susan said, “She died right over there.”
It was dark, and Melody couldn’t tell where Susan was pointing. “Where?” she asked.
“Over by the Kitchen.” The Living Room, where they were lying, opened into the Dining Room and Melody knew that the Kitchen door was on the other side of it.
Melody thought about that for a moment. A woman died in this house, right over there. She had been killed. It had been an accident, but still…what if she was a ghost? What if she had stayed here because she had been killed here and she was haunting the house now? What if the ghost was here now, watching her?
“Susan,” Melody asked, “is that you?” She had felt something pushing down on the edge of her sleeping blanket as if someone was standing on it.
“What?” Susan asked. Melody sounded afraid, and that made her afraid.
Melody didn’t think it was Susan on her blanket. She was close, but not close enough to be touching her. “Can you turn on the lights?” Melody asked. Susan gave the command. Melody’s eyes shut against the light for a moment, and when she opened them again, she didn’t feel anything on her blanket anymore.
“What’s the matter?” Susan asked.
“Um…nothing. I think my blanket was caught on something.”
Susan turned off the lights, and they both settled back down.
“You know my brother?” Melody asked.
“Yeah.” Susan had met Danny when she went over to Melody’s house, but she didn’t know him very well.
“He likes you,” Melody said.
“He does?”
“Yeah. He told me.”
“Then how come he never talks to me when I come over?”
“Because he’s chicken. Do you like him?”
“Hmm,” Susan considered. “I don’t know. Maybe.” And Melody fell asleep while Susan thought about the idea of a boy liking her.
August 8th.
Three days later. “Hey, Danny, guess what?” Melody said, teasingly.
“What?” Danny asked, looking up from the archaeology book he was reading on his tablet.
“Susan’s coming over! She’s going to spend the night!”
“Oh?” Danny said, suddenly nervous and excited. “That’s nice.”
“Whatever! You know you like her!”
“Do not!”
“Do so! I already told her you did!”
“What? When?” Danny asked, suddenly alarmed.
“A couple days ago!” Melody laughed.
“Melody!” Danny huffed, throwing a couch pillow at her.
And then the doorbell rang. “She’s here!” Melody teased, as she ran to the front door.
Susan came in, carrying her sleeping bag and a book bag. Her dark blonde hair was up in a ponytail as always, and Danny thought it was the cutest thing he’d ever seen. Just be cool, he told himself. Pretend that Melody didn’t know what she was talking about.
“Hi, Danny!” Susan said, looking past Melody and smiling into the living room.
“Uh, hey,” Danny said, throwing up a hand to wave, but also trying to sound casual.
Both of the girls started giggling, and Danny’s ears felt hot.
“What do you wanna do?” Melody asked.
“I don’t know,” Susan said. She had brought some scary movies over, but it was too early to watch TV.
“You wanna play Nintendo?”
“Sure,” Susan shrugged.
Melody led the way into the living room, and Danny got up with his book to leave.
“Aw, c’mon, Danny, don’t leave!” Susan said. “Play with us. Please. For me?”
Wow, Melody thought. Susan’s laying it on thick. Does she like him back? I didn’t think she had it in her. “Yeah, Danny,” she said, “you can play with us if you want.”
“Um, okay. I guess. Just not the dancing game.”
But a couple of minutes later, all three of them were watching images of themselves moving to the music, while they tried to follow the dance steps on the screen.
Danny, by far, was doing the worst. He was about to quit when Jim and Eric came in.
Eric was holding a Tasty Crème cup and sucking on the straw. His baseball pants were all grass-stained. “Hey,” he said, waving his baseball mitt into the room.
“Hey,” Melody said, barely looking away from the game.
“Hi,” Susan said, looking a little longer.
“You win?” Danny asked. He didn’t really care about Eric’s games, not since he had quit the team himself after the coaches kept calling him Tasty Crème Danny last season. So what if he had asked before every game if they were going for ice cream afterward? It was as if they thought the ice cream was the only reason he was on the team. It was, but still, they didn’t have to say it. Anyway, Danny thought it was still nice to ask Eric about it.
“Yeah,” Eric said. “Nine to three. And we went out for ice cream again afterward.”
“You want to play with us?” Melody asked, her eyes still glued to the screen.
“Sure,” Eric said. “I just gotta go change,” and he started walking up the stairs.
“And take a shower!” Jim called after him.
The four kids played game after game with Danny getting all the more jealous because Susan kept looking at and talking to Eric. ‘What position do you play, Eric?’ ‘Are you good?’ ‘How many games have you won?’ ‘How do you get your hair to spike up like that?’ ‘What’s your favorite movie?’
Eric wasn’t initiating any conversation with her, Danny noticed, only answering her questions, but it didn’t matter. It was clear that Susan liked Eric and not him. Eric, the baseball player, versus Danny, the bookworm. Well, that’s okay, Danny told himself. I didn’t like her that much, anyway.
Doranne came in at midnight and told them all it was time for bed. The two girls went up to Melody’s room and put in one of the movies that Susan had brought. It was a stupid one about dolls who somehow came to life one night and killed the little girl who owned them and then her family and eventually the whole neighborhood before the Force Deputy figured out who was doing it and burned down the house the dolls were in.
After the movie, both of the girls agreed that it wasn’t very scary.
“You want to try something?” Susan asked.
“What?”
“It’s called Bloody Mary. I’ve never tried it, but I read on the internet that it’s super scary.”
“What do you do?”
“You turn all the lights off, and you stand in front of a mirror, and you spin around three times, saying, ‘Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary,’ and you then, you see this old woman with a knife.”
“Can she hurt you?” Melody asked.
“Not if you turn on the lights real quick. It’s like she’s trying to get revenge on people for them killing her baby, but she can only come out if you summon her and only in the dark.”
“Weird.”
“Do you want to try it?”
“No.” Why would she?
“C’mon!” Susan pleaded. “It’ll be fun! It’s not real.”
“I don’t think so,” Melody said.
“Look,” Susan said, standing up and walking toward the light switch on the wall. “I’ll stand by the light, and if we start to see her, I’ll turn on the light.”
Melody wasn’t sure, but she stood up and walked toward Susan. The dresser, with the mirror above it, was on the same wall as the light switch.
Susan turned off the light and took a step in front of the mirror. “Ready? Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary,” Susan said, spinning, but then stopped. “You’re not doing it.”
“I know,” Melody said.
“Well, you have to do it.”
“Fine,” Melody sighed.
And the two girls started spinning and chanting in unison, “Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary.”
As she was spinning, Melody saw something in the mirror out of the corner of her eye. It looked like two red, beady eyes coming out of the glass. She tried to stop, but she was in mid-spin. When her eyes came around to the mirror again, the red eyes were closed. There was a sudden crash of breaking glass, and both girls screamed.
Susan tried to go for the light switch on the wall, but she was too dizzy. She fell, bouncing off the corner of the bed and then landing on the floor.
Melody stepped over her and hit the light as Jim opened the door. Doranne was right behind him.
“What’s going on?” Jim asked. “What was that noise?” He saw Susan lying on the floor. “Are you all right?” he asked, walking over to her.
Susan sat up, and Jim looked around the rest of the room. He saw the broken glass of the mirror all over the dresser. He walked over to it and picked up Melody’s alarm clock. It was upside down on the dresser, but still on, running off batteries. “Did you throw this?” Jim asked.
“No,” Melody said, still standing with Doranne at the door by the light switch. The numbers on the alarm clock were red. Had that been the ‘eyes’ that she had seen in the mirror? But how did her alarm clock get all the way over to the dresser? It should be over by the bed on the nightstand.
“Then how did the mirror break?” Jim asked, getting gruff now.
“I don’t know,” Melody admitted.
“We were just playing a game,” Susan said.
“Fine,” Jim said, “It’s coming out of your allowance,” he told Melody and then went downstairs to get the vacuum.
Doranne and Jim cleaned up the broken glass and then went back to bed. Melody and Susan kept the door cracked open and tried to sleep, but it was hard. Every noise the house made scared them again, and they couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened.
2078. July 8th.
The next summer. “Okay, I’m done,” Susan announced, taking off her visor and gloves.
“What? C’mon!” Danny protested. “Just because I was winning!” He, Melody, Eric, and Susan had been playing a game called Search on the PlayStation Virtual. The game had twenty-three different environments you could enter into using the virtual reality visor, gloves, and leg wraps. The goal was to find the objects hidden in the area faster than your opponents. In the mode that they had been playing, they were on a tropical island, independently following clues to a buried treasure and Danny had almost found it.
Melody and Eric took their equipment off, too, as Susan suggested that they go out and ride bikes.
Danny acted as if he didn’t hear her. They watched him as he walked in place, still engrossed in the virtual reality of the game.
“We’re leaving,” Melody threatened.
“But…” Danny wanted to say that he had almost found the treasure, but he sighed and said, “Fine.” He took off the visor and the rest of the gear and followed them out.
Susan had ridden her bike over from next door and rode it around to the garage, waiting for the others to get theirs out.
As the three children emerged, Susan called, “Race ya!” and began pedaling through the driveway toward the backyard.
Eric and Melody were right behind her with Danny trailing after.
The Slate’s house sat on a hill. It wasn’t a big hill, but it was high enough and steep enough to get a little speed going down. When Susan got to the edge of the driveway, she steered her bike off of the pavement and went sailing down. Eric and Melody came racing after her. Danny, however, stopped at the top of the hill, not sure if he wanted to go down or not. Last time he did, he hit a slick spot and wrecked.
As the other three went down, they had to take their feet off the pedals because the wheels and the gears of the bike were turning too fast for their legs to keep up with them. Danny, Eric, and Melody, all saw Susan reach the bottom. They saw her bike suddenly stop and her body somersault over the handlebars.
Eric and Melody skidded to a stop, jumped off their bikes and ran to her. When they reached her, they were both horrified by what they saw. Susan’s neck was twisted so badly that her head was actually tucked completely under her chest. Her right arm lay limply at her side, bending the wrong way at the elbow. “Susan!” Eric called again, as Melody began to cry.
Danny came running down, and Susan stirred. She pushed herself up onto her knees with her left hand and straightened her neck as she lifted her head to look at them. All three of the others stared in amazement. Susan turned and sat down. Then she noticed her arm and squinted at it in confusion. She knew something about it wasn’t right, but couldn’t tell what it was. Then, she realized the problem. She swung her arm inward from the shoulder and watched as her forearm came back into its proper place. “What happened?” she asked, as astonished as the others.
“I don’t know!” Melody said.
“How did you do that?” Eric asked.
“I don’t know!” Susan answered.
“Are…are you hurt?” Danny asked.
Susan checked herself over. “No!” She was muddy and grass-stained from her landing, but other than that, there wasn’t a mark on her. The three followed Susan’s eyes to the bike behind them. Her front tire was firmly wedged in a small sinkhole.
Susan stood up and brushed herself off.
“You’re sure you’re not hurt?” Danny asked incredulously.
“I’m sure!” she answered.
“But I saw you…!” Melody started.
“We saw you…” Eric corrected.
“I know!” Susan said.
Then they all stood there, thinking, trying to make sense of what had happened.
After a moment, Susan bent down and squatted on the ground. She put her fingertips flat on the ground, but kept her palm in the air and her arm straight. Then she slowly pushed down on her fingers. Everyone watched as the girl’s fingers bent the wrong way and then finally stopped, completely flat on the ground. They were perfectly perpendicular to the rest of her hand. Again, they all stared at her hand for a moment until she picked it up, flexed its muscles, and straightened her fingers.
“Wow!” Eric breathed. “Did that hurt?”
“No,” Susan answered. “Punch me.”
“What?”
“Punch me. It won’t hurt.”
Eric looked at Melody and Danny. Danny shook his head, but Melody said, “Do it. But don’t do it too hard.”
Eric wasn’t sure if punching her would hurt her or not. Nothing else seemed to. Curious, he took a couple of steps up to her and punched her in the arm. It wasn’t much more than a tap, but they all watched her arm bend inward to receive the blow.
“Do it harder,” she ordered, and he hit her harder. This time, her whole arm was straight except for her bicep where he hit her. That portion of her arm had bent backward to receive his blow and was now extending back as far as Eric’s arm could reach. It was like he had taken that section of her arm and pushed it back without disturbing the rest of it.
“Weird!” Danny said as Eric pulled his fist back and watched Susan’s arm slide back into place.
“Try it on me!” Eric said.
So Susan smiled, reared back, and punched Eric as hard as she could on his arm. “Ow!” he laughed, as he brought his other hand up to rub the place where she had hit him.
“I guess it doesn’t work on you!” Susan laughed.
When Eric finished rubbing his sore spot, he asked, “Do you think we should tell anyone?”
“No!” Danny answered immediately.
“No,” Melody agreed, shaking her head.
“Why not?” Eric asked. “Her dad’s like a doctor or something, right? He’d probably think it’s neat.”
“It’s too weird!” Danny said.
“It’s her dad!” Eric countered.
“It’s too weird,” Danny repeated. “He’ll make her do things… test things.”
Susan, considering all this, was reminded of the horror movies she liked to watch. They all had mad scientists cutting people up and experimenting on them and turning them into monsters. “I’m not going to tell him,” she decided.
“But…” Eric tried.
“I’m not going to tell him!” Susan strongly reiterated.
“Okay,” Eric said, giving in.
And for the next two weeks, all four of them tried different experiments on Susan’s body. She would purposely fall wrong, or she would jump out of tall trees. She even had Eric try to whack her hand with a hammer a couple of times, but nothing hurt her. Her body always bent to receive the blow and then straightened back into place. She found that she could keep her body parts rigid and in their normal positions if she concentrated, but if she wasn’t thinking about it, her body would react automatically to avoid the blow. And so Susan, very quickly, lost all fear of physical danger.
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