The Haven: A Novel (10 page)

I tried to jerk free. “Let go.” My teeth clenched so hard, I thought I might lose a molar. “You know the rules. No contact between Terminals, especially between males and females.”

“Right,” said Daniel, watching Gideon and me, “because if we loved each other, if we cared about one another, we might fight back.” He pushed away from the computer and let out a tired sigh. “I’m going to bed.”

“Tell me what you’re thinking,” Gideon said. He hadn’t let go of my arm.

I twisted. My stomach tried to leap from my mouth. But I couldn’t give voice to my thoughts. It was too awful. Too
terminal.
His grip tightened.

“You’re hurting me, Gideon.” I tried to wrench free again. His fingers burned into my arm, all the way to the bone.

“Tell me what you know.”

“Stop!” Abigail said. There was no smile. “She doesn’t understand. There’s no way she can see her connection to all this.”

“Oh, she knows,” Daniel said. “She just refuses to get it.” He opened the door and wheeled away, letting the door close with a click behind him.

“Gideon,” Abigail said, and she pulled his hand free of my arm. “Remember how you felt.”

“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.

“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.