Cheating Time (24 page)

"What good could ever have come from making
these types of technologies known?" Thorne asked with a
disbelieving snark.

"There was a belief by Gran that knowing the
date of someone's death would give the scientific community the
ability to closely monitor the person and see if there are
physiological changes that could be identified and trended among
people who were nearing death. He'd hoped that pooling together
these trends and mining the data would eventually give him the key
to immortality, prolonging life, preventing death… whatever you
want to call it," I said through gritted teeth.

I was trying for reason. I didn't need to be
defensive when it came to Gran's or Mom's work. Everything they'd
ever done had been done with good intention and for the good of
mankind.

"When Mom saw what Gran could do, she
decided there was a more accurate way to track and trend these
physiological changes. She invented the MicroPharm with that sole
purpose in mind. It was after she began developing it that she
realized it could be used for other purposes such as medication
administration. She singlehandedly created a world of proactive
healthcare. Based on birthdays, the MicroPharm releases
vaccinations, and after analyzing physiological readings, it
releases medications geared toward preventing illness or minimizing
the symptoms of illness. Either way, she never meant for the
MicroPharm's most relevant purpose to be that of birth control or
pregnancy termination," I assured Thorne.

He studied me. He was sizing me up and
trying to decide if I was delusionally naïve or if he'd made
monsters out of ordinary human beings rather than the president who
was using innocent scientists' discoveries and their inventions to
drive his own agenda.

When his shoulders relaxed the tiniest bit,
I suspected he believed at least some of what I'd said. Before he
could utter another word, the door to our tent flipped open and a
girl carrying a tray of food entered.

I'd lived within Aspect's Society long
enough to know she was one of the people deemed a servant based on
the dress she wore. It had always irritated me to see women in the
uniforms that looked as if they'd been resurrected from medieval
times and came complete with white shirt, apron, and hood, and a
steel gray bodice and skirt. Today (and in my post-snake attack
mood) was no different.

Miraculously, the imbecile who brought these
garments back into the modern world had mercy on the women destined
to wear these outfits. The clothing designer made the skirts much
shorter, preventing tripping, discarded the petticoat, making the
skirt less bulky, and offered women the option of a gaucho skirt,
giving the uniform some variety.

Surprising me was the fact that the girl
before me had opted for the gauchos. Most didn't because they knew
anyone who was requiring them to wear these uniforms preferred the
authenticity of the billowy skirt. This girl and her decisions were
about practicality, not subservience. I had to respect that.

I watched her intently as she set before us
two tall glasses of ice water, a basket of rolls, and a salad with
a green creamy dressing lining the plate rather than the top of the
vegetables. I glanced around again and tried to figure out where we
were. This meal was more gourmet than survivalist.

At least not the survival
training Jayden had always made me do… and had always told me was
the only kind of camping there was.

As if she were afraid I might look her in
the face, the girl shielded her features with the hooded bonnet and
by pulling her lovely brown hair down into her eyes. Blending into
the background, she was a master at preventing people from getting
a good look at her, which only seemed to pique my interest more
with each passing second.

Just as she was about to turn her back on me
and prepare to leave us to enjoy the meal she'd brought, I reached
out and grabbed her hand. Shocked by my touch, the girl jerked back
and toward me. The moment she faced me full on, I realized why
she'd been hiding her face.

Holy crap on a
cracker!

The girl standing before me was a Genetic
Anomaly. She had Down syndrome, an individual with a full or
partial extra copy of chromosome 21, and was one of the many people
President Barone was working to eliminate.

With her facing me, I was able to take in
all of the traits that told me she had Down syndrome. Her small
stature originally led me to believe she was prepubescent. Now I
was able to see she was closer to my age. Her almond-shaped eyes
and protruding tongue were other very obvious characteristics.

"I-I… I just wanted to say thank you," I
said lamely.

After seeing how terrified she was, I felt
awful for touching her even though I'd only done so in order to
thank her for waiting on us, because I didn't like it when people
did for me what I should be doing for myself.

My words meant nothing to the girl. She'd
been noticed, and that was something she was supposed to avoid. She
moaned as if I'd hurt her and snatched her hand away from me. She
tried to run from the tent, but a standing Thorne grabbed her
around her shoulders and pulled her into his chest.

"Shh! Rorie…" he hummed. "She's not going to
hurt you, sweetie. I promise."

He rocked her while he held her tight. I
thought about excusing myself, assuming my presence might actually
be exacerbating her hysteria. It took a solid ten or fifteen
minutes for her to calm down enough for him to pull back and look
her in the face.

He used his thumbs to smooth the tears from
her face before saying, "You believe me, right? She won't hurt
you."

Rorie turned her head slightly toward me and
watched me carefully before bobbing her head.

"Good. Now go back to the galley tent and
bring the roasted duck you made. You know it's my favorite, and
I've been waiting for it all day," he said, pulling her to him and
kissing her forehead sweetly.

With his kiss and the admission that he'd
been waiting for
her
roasted duck,
everything about her lightened. She grinned widely and skipped from
Thorne's arms and out the door of the tent.

Without a word of explanation, Thorne turned
back toward the table, sat back down, and began eating. I suspected
Rorie's meltdown was one he'd seen more than once, something he'd
been dealing with his whole life.

"I-is she your sister?" I asked very
carefully.

He didn't say anything. He poked at his
salad, tore at the bread, and pretended as if I'd not said a
word.

Finally and just when I thought he was
passive-aggressively refusing to answer me, he said, "Rorie is…" He
cleared his throat uncomfortably. "My twin. Barone insisted my
sister be aborted in utero, but my parents refused to do anything
that would risk my life. Against my parents' wishes because they've
wanted to put her in Asylum, a preparatory school for others with
genetic deformities, I've spent my entire life teaching her things
that will make her functional. I've done that so she'd have
something to offer people if anything happened to me, so she'd have
options other than that of a preparatory school for Down syndrome
rejects."

"I think what you've done for your sister,
what you did with your sister just now is…" I gulped around my
embarrassment. "Wonderful."

Thorne stopped chewing, gulped as loudly as
I'd just swallowed, and nodded. "She's my sister. What else would I
do?"

"I know a lot of people who would be ashamed
of her… who would send her to a home rather than spend the first
second with her, teaching her skills that will take her through
life," I said before mustering every ounce of humility I had to
offer. "You were right earlier, Thorne. I don't know anything about
you or your family. I do know I admire you."

Having been prepared to tell me exactly what
he thought about me and my prejudices, Thorne seemed taken aback by
my confession. He stared toward me with an open-mouthed gaze.

"What?" I asked, spearing a piece of lettuce
and shoving it into my mouth.

"I-I've just never met anyone who didn't
think Rorie should have been selectively aborted," Thorne
confessed.

I shrugged. "It sounds to me like you
haven't been surrounding yourself with very good people."

He bobbed his head and said, "It seems you
might be right, Carles."

Like me, he ate his salad, and this time, he
was eating it because he enjoyed it, not because he was trying to
avoid talking to me.

When Rorie came back with a tray loaded down
with even more food, she seemed a little more comfortable with me.
She didn't work as hard hiding her face and had even let the bonnet
fall back and hang around her neck.

She beamed when I said, "Rorie, this is
absolutely the best roast duck I've ever had."

Seeing how happy I'd made his sister, Thorne
grinned just as widely. His mouth dropped for a second time when I
hopped up, pulled another chair up to the table, and said, "Eat
with us, please."

Several emotions crossed Thorne's face.

Worry.

Gratitude.

Acceptance.

Deciding he would share his sister with me,
he stood and held the chair for her. Nervous, she was clearly not
comfortable with what I'd suggested, until Thorne said, "I agree
with Carles. You should eat with us, Rorie."

She laughed with excitement when Thorne
dumped the bread in the middle of the table and used the plate to
share our portions with his sister. She rocked happily in the chair
and giggled as her brother served her.

Soon the three of us were eating. Thorne—a
man I'd never met before today and now wholeheartedly admired—and I
went out of our way to praise Rorie on her cooking and the meal's
presentation.

Right before we were finished eating, she
reached across the table, put her tiny hand over mine, and said,
"My brother likes you, Carles."

Rather than be embarrassed by her or get
angry that she'd broken some social rule, Thorne chuckled.

"Rorie, you're not supposed to tell people
personal things about me." He glanced wistfully over to me and
winked. "We've talked about that," he scolded her with a grin on
his face that told both of us she wasn't really in trouble.

"But you do. You've never let me meet one of
your girlfriends. I like Carles, too. I want you to marry her,"
Rorie said seriously.

Thorne shook his head. This time he was a
little stricter with her. "I'll never marry anyone, Rorie. I'll
take care of you forever. Just as I've always said I would."

"No. I want you to marry. I want you to be
happy. Carles makes you smile," Rorie insisted.

When Thorne looked over and saw my face
burning, he waved Rorie to a halt. "That's enough, Rorie. You're
embarrassing, Carles."

Rorie squeezed my hand tighter. "I'm sorry.
I didn't mean to. I just like you so much," she said sweetly.

I put my hand over hers and said, "I like
you, too, Rorie, and I don't have to be anything to your brother
for the two of us to be friends."

"You'll be my friend?" she asked,
surprised.

"I already am," I said before leaning over,
squeezing her hand with both of mine.

"All right, you two. Rorie, we have another
guest who should be here any minute. Why don't you bring the
Surrogate's meal in here? He can eat while we talk about our trip
back to the preparatory academy."

Rorie couldn't get up fast enough. She loved
her brother and was determined to do anything he asked of her.

"I-I'll be back, Carles. I'll be back," she
assured me before leaving.

I'd purposefully waited to ask questions
about my family and Jayden until she left. I got the feeling Thorne
went out of his way to make sure she wasn't kept in the loop as it
was related to his plans. What I didn't know was if it was for her
protection or for his. Regardless, I respected his decision.

"Who is the
Surrogate
?" I asked calmly.

No matter how kind Thorne was to his sister,
I was determined to keep my family's love for Jayden hidden. Jayden
was a Surrogate, and there were those who thought of them as
second-class citizens. Others didn't consider them citizens at
all.

"Jayden St. Romaine is on his way here."

I wanted to sigh in relief. I wanted to be
the lovelorn teenage girl and run from the tent and wait for Jayden
to arrive.

"Why didn't he travel with me?" I asked.
Calmly. Cooly.

Thorne's stare darted up to me. He'd spent
an entire life trying to hide his affection for his sister. He knew
what hidden love looked like in much the way I knew when Mom and
Gran were contemplating a new experiment..