Who We Are (28 page)

Damn, that felt good!
Desire may pretend like everything was normal, but not Darby
. As she turned to exit the store, she was surprised to see Mama was standing inside the door with a look of shock on her face. She knew right away that, somehow, Mama had heard what she said to Nathaniel. With utmost confidence, Desire grabbed Mama’s hand and smiled in a way that told her everything was okay. They walked back to their home in silence.

As they put everything away, Mama turned to Desire. “I don’t have to go to the church today because all the other ladies have their directions on what to do in preparation for the Celebration so I think we should go pick our vegetables for dinner early today and go for a nice long walk in the field. We can talk about your plans for the Fun and Games Committee. Would you like that, dear daughter?”

They looked at each and both knew what she really meant.

“Oh yes, Mama,” Desire said passionately, fully aware that she was playing the charade, but acknowledging that she had no choice. “Let’s pack a lunch to take with us.”

When they were about to leave, Mama paused.

“What is it, Mama?”

Thoughtfully, Mama said, “Perhaps we should stop by Johnny’s workshop today to invite him over for dinner. He has been so kind to our family I would like to be able to thank him.”

“Okay, Mama.”

Desire wondered about the real reason Mama would want to go to Johnny’s workshop. She suspected Mama wanted to know if Johnny knew what was going on. Desire realized that they had ran out of time in the forest the day before, so Desire didn’t have an opportunity to tell Mama what she and Johnny knew, or even that they knew each before they came here. Now she looked forward to sharing her own story with Mama.

They walked quietly to Johnny’s family workshop and Desire was overcome by an urge to run all the way there but she restrained herself. How suspicious would that look? As they approached the workshop, they could hear the buzzing of different machinery in the shop. Mama was a little ahead of Desire and when she approached the door to the office beside the workshop she walked right in and then to the workshop door. She didn’t wait to be greeted and she walked right into the workshop and nearly collided with Johnny just as he was reaching for the door to come into the office.

She brushed past him and looked around at the vast workshop which, aside from making a lot of noise, was essentially empty. She nodded her head as if she was confirming her own suspicions. As she did this, Desire whispered to Johnny that they needed to take Mama to the secret room. He looked at her as if she was crazy. He shook his head no but Desire nodded a firm yes and headed to the secret panel at the back of the workshop. As she walked to the back, she grabbed Mama’s hand and led her toward the rear.

              When she got to the panel, Desire reached for the latch and slid it into the wall. She guided Mama into the secret room. Mama looked a little intrigued, but not really surprised. Aside from the shock she had felt learning that Desire already knew something was amiss here in Hemac, very little shocked her anymore at this point in her life, given all the things she had gone through.

              Despite Desire’s overwhelming calm, Johnny felt extremely nervous and suspicious. He wondered if They had gotten to her since yesterday and now this was a trap. He knew Desire would never intentionally set him up, but not enough of her memory had returned yet and she could easily be manipulated if They suspected anything was awry. He reluctantly followed the women into the secret room.

              Once the panel was securely closed once again and they were safe, Darby ran into Aedan’s arms and hugged him as tight as she could then she planted kisses all over his face.

“It’s me, Aedan, it’s really me. And this, is Sarah Jane Martin.”

Aedan had a concerned and confused look on his face. He waited for an explanation, while surreptitiously planning how to deal with ‘Mama’ if the situation exploded.

“Mama took me into the forest yesterday and told me that she wasn’t really my mama and that she was really someone else, just like you and me. All this time, she has pretended to go along with things. We still have a lot to talk about, but as she talked about her previous life in New York City, suddenly I knew the places and things she was talking about though I still couldn’t remember me in the real world. Then I had the strangest dream and when I woke up, I was me again! I was Darby again! Then today, we went to the staple store and Nathaniel was there. I had already told Sarah Jane what he did to me and when I saw him, he started saying nasty things to me and I gave it right back to him. I told him if he ever came near me again, I would fucking kill him. I think I shocked the hell out of him, but it felt so liberating.” She talked until she ran out of breath. When she paused, Aedan started to laugh and so did Sarah Jane.

              Darby looked at them both, a little perturbed. “What are you two possibly laughing at?”

Aedan took her in his arms and hugged her. Then he stopped laughing and let tears stream down his cheeks. “I thought maybe I had lost you forever. Seeing you just now brought back a flood of memories. Seeing that fighting Irish spirit in your eyes. I missed that, and I missed you. Darby I love you and there is nothing in the world more precious to me than you. I have loved you for as long as I can remember.” They kissed passionately and, for a single moment, they were back on the front porch of Darby’s house waiting for her father to tap on the window to call her in.

Sarah Jane cleared her throat and they snapped back to the present moment. They looked over at her. “This is a bit stranger than I thought,” said Sarah Jane. “I had thought that perhaps Johnny knew something was up, but I never in a million years would have guessed that you two knew each other before all of this, let alone as a couple.” She stepped forward and put her hand out towards the young man before her. “Nice to meet you, Aedan.”

Aedan took her hand and shook it warmly. “My pleasure, Miss Martin.”

“Call me Sarah Jane.”

They all stood there for a moment, each digesting the levity of what had just occurred.

“Well, this may make things a whole lot easier.” Sarah Jane walked over to a little table and set the picnic basket down. She then walked over to the little sink and took a glass of water from the tap and drank it. She turned around to face them.

“So, I gather this is a safe place for us to talk?”

“Yes ma’am, this room originally was just a hollow space between the workshop and the house and I fixed it up to be my little haven. I check it daily for wiring or recording devices and I can tell you with 100% certainty that nothing is out of order or tampered with.”

“What about your parents?”

“They exist only in the minds of the townsfolk. They are figments of everyone’s imagination. I suppose they are part of the experiment to see how far They can alter a person’s memory and beliefs.”

“Okay, you must listen to me now.” Sarah Jane’s tone became quite serious. “Although I would truly love to know all about you two and who you once were, as well as what you know now about our current dilemma, I don’t want you to tell me another thing. I will share with you all that I know, which I think is quite a bit. If things go differently than I think and you two escape, I will be the first person They probe to see how much I know. I suspect that they already have a comprehensive dossier on each of you though and who you once were, but I don’t want them to be able to ascertain what you know about this place. Aedan, I appreciate the security checks you conduct on this space on a daily basis, but I still do not feel comfortable talking here, as it may look suspicious if we are to come out of the workshop later today. If the neighbours see us, it would surely raise suspicions, especially if they have already seen us leave here before, unbeknownst to us.”

Aedan thought about this for a minute, then said, “I can appreciate all of that, Sarah Jane, but I must say that based on all that I know of Hemac, this is the safest place for us to talk. If we go into the forest, we run the risk of being caught. We can never be certain who may wander in there. We should stay here and when you need to go, the workshop backs onto the forest and I can lead you back to the part of the forest beside your vegetable fields. If we time it right, you can walk back to your house the same time you normally would when done picking. If we are done earlier, no one will be the wiser.”

Sarah Jane walked over to the single armchair across from the couch and sat down. She took a few deep breaths. “Desire can fill you in later on the things I shared with her yesterday, which were mostly about my prior life and how I came to be here in Hemac. By the way, did you know that Hemac actually stands for Human Experiment Memory Alteration Camp?

“I haven’t figured out exactly who is behind this place. This community has existed since 1973 and They have conducted various experiments since the beginning. It wasn’t always memory experiments, though. They have used many vulnerable people over the years to test Their wicked theories. They have conducted fertility studies in an attempt to genetically alter a fetus to produce superior humans. They have tortured people in an attempt to measure precise methods for extracting information from people without killing them.

“Those are the ones I know about; however, I am sure there are more. In a sense, we are lucky to have been pulled into this experiment since, for the most, it is the least physically painful. I think they are also studying human behaviour in addition to altering our minds. They select a diverse group to work with so that they can understand how different variables affect their methods. For me, the memory implant worked, but what I never told them was that my original memory was never suppressed. I assume it may be the effects of my prior heroin use, but it doesn’t really matter why it never worked – at least not to me. I am not sure how you two came to be here, but as I said before, the less I know about you, the better.

“What else do you know?” Aedan asked.

“Have you noticed that there are no births? Children are never born here, they just appear here. I’m pretty sure They sterilize the men or the women or both so they can control births. As you know, there are presently just four children here, and I assume they were snatched from their mothers in the real world.” 

There is one exception however, and that is Papa. He is the one successful specimen that they created in a lab and “born” into this community.”

“How do you know all of this?” asked Aedan.

“When we go for our weekly check-ups at the Clinic, they use these appointments to tweak our memories. They either add new memories when new members get added or they take memories away if someone suddenly disappears. Most folks don’t even know they go to clinic for a weekly check-up because they give us amnesiacs while we are there and all we know is that we are waking up in the morning. We actually lose an entire day every week and so who knows what day it really is in the outside world. Anyway, I never did let on that none of the medications or treatments worked on me. Ironically, my former occupation prepared me well to lay in silence and not react to what was happening to my body.”

Aedan looked confused. “But that doesn’t explain why I don’t remember any of this. The memory alteration has never worked for me either, and I have pretended that it did.”

“I don’t know for certain, but perhaps despite the memory alteration not working, the amnesiacs did. Anyhow, we don’t have much time, so I must continue. When I go for my checkups and They believe me to be unconscious and incapable of remembering anything, They speak very freely about what has already happened, what is happening presently, and what is about to happen. I recently learned that the experiment is drawing to an end. The development of the land around this community is getting too close and They feel that they have enough data to perform more specific experiments with much smaller groups. Although the airspace is restricted here, there have been too many close calls and they are worried about being discovered.

“Now that made me curious. I wonder, will our memories be restored and we would all get sent to walk back into our old lives? I am sure you can both imagine how disastrous this would be. How on earth can they successfully return more than three hundred people to their lives as if nothing happened?

“I have learned that they have a plan to vanquish this whole community and destroy all the evidence that it ever existed. I overheard a couple of the attendants in the Clinic laughing one day. They thought it was funny to watch us all prepare for the Celebration of the New Year without having any clue that we are all scheduled for execution that day. When the clock strikes midnight, we will all be gone. They are planning to exterminate us all. The Celebration Hall is really a giant death hall. Behind the walls are lead walls that will allow them to turn the whole to town to a pile of dust.

“Another time I heard them laughing about the “stupid tourists” who would come to visit this pioneer town replica not knowing at all what really went on here for years. You see, they know they can’t erase a whole community and so they designed it originally to look like a rebuild of a pioneer community to disguise this once they were done. In one short week, it will be like we never existed here. There is one exception, however, and that is Papa. He is their crowning glory of success. Because they have controlled his mind since he was born, they plan to reprogram him, so to speak, and introduce him into the real world as some sort of minion.