A Girl From Forever (The Forever Institute series Book 1) Page 4

  Did Lucas argue that people like me should be killed?

  Is it so unfair, for Lucas and his friends to be restricted to the lifetime they were born with? The world has always been unequal, always will be. Lucas has already lived a much longer life than many.

  None of that matters. If he hates Forever, he hates me, no matter how polite he’s being right now. I guess Rehan hates me too, probably they all do.

  Rehan crashes into the room, his excited eyes all for Lucas. “Dad! She had a data stick in her folder! There’s loads of stuff on there.” Data stick? I try to picture the folder I borrowed from Geraldine’s desk with the book. I thought that there was a pen in there. “Password was still set to default, can you believe it? The arrogance.”

  They’ve got something important, something belonging to Forever, and it’s my fault.

  Lucas stares at him. “I’ll be right out. Wait for me, don’t go through it, the files might lock automatically if you mess with it.”

  “They must have thought it’d never leave the building.”

  “I’ll be right out, wait for me, don’t show the others or do anything with it!” Lucas calls as Rehan dashes back into the corridor. Lucas hesitates – he obviously wants to follow Rehan, but he can’t leave me alone for longer than a few moments. He pulls out his phone, taps a quick message on it, and stares at the screen. After a moment of hesitation, he rushes out of the room, after Rehan. A perfect opportunity for me to escape, yet…

  They’ve stolen something from me, from Forever.

  I need to get it back, before I can escape.

  I won’t let the Institute down.

  Silently, I slip through the battered oak door, and tiptoe upstairs. The steps are wooden, with no carpet, and they creak uneasily under my feet. The sound is covered by the roar of a distant aeroplane.

  The stairs lead to a small hallway. One of the doors is open. Peering through the doorway, I see Rehan, sitting at a desk in a small bedroom, gazing at the tablet screen in front of him. My eyes run over the room, automatically cataloguing the contents for Katrina, for myself. Bed, not yet made up, though someone has piled sheets on top. Cupboards, in the same ancient oak as the door downstairs.

  “So, what’ve you got?” Lucas asks tersely.

  “It looks like a teacher’s notes on students, but it’s—”

  Lucas holds out a hand. “Give it to me.”

  Rehan is baffled. “I’ve not uploaded it all yet—”

  “Don’t!” Lucas commands, snatching the stick out of Rehan’s tablet and shoving it into his own pocket. Rehan stares at him, then past Lucas, to where I’m standing in the hall. Our eyes lock and I freeze, unsure whether to run or try to take the data stick from Lucas.

  Lucas strides to the window, throwing it open, leaning out. He mutters something under his breath.

  There’s the noise I heard before – louder still. Not an aeroplane after all. A helicopter.

  “Dad? What—”

  “They’re coming.”

  “Who are?”

  “Forever. Come with me.” Lucas spins and strides towards me, shoving his way past into the hall. “Leave her here,” he calls over his shoulder to Rehan as he disappears down the stairs.

  “But—”

  Lucas is gone. Rehan and I stare at each other, equally baffled. Then we both dash to the window and lean out as Lucas did, trying to shoulder each other out of the way as we compete to stare across the garage roof. The helicopter is landing in the field, the tall grass blown flat in a huge circle around it. Below us inside the farmhouse, there’s shouting. Someone fires a shot, I think towards the helicopter.

  The helicopter engines turn off, and their silence is more ominous than the panicky whispering downstairs.

  Rehan slams his hand against the light switch, plunging the room into darkness.

  “Outside!” Rehan pushes at me, and I resist, opening my mouth to scream to the tiny black shadows leaping out of the helicopter, swarming towards the farmhouse like army ants. Rehan’s hand clamps over my lips as he tries to force me further out of the window. Is he trying to kill me? I’m not going. There’s an undignified struggle, which he wins as we both flop out of the window and I discover that there’s a garage directly below, hidden in shadows from the helicopter’s view.

  We tumble onto the garage roof, landing on our sides, the fall pounding air out of my lungs that I can’t immediately replace. Rehan’s palm is tight over my mouth.

  We can’t see the helicopter anymore, alone together in a tiny world of brick wall, sky, and trees. The air is still frosty, and cold seeps through my clothes where they touch the roof, a sharp contrast to the warmth where our bodies touch. Hip, thigh, shoulder.

  Rehan rolls so that I’m trapped under him, glaring up furiously through my hair. He’s ridiculously strong, I can’t even shake his hand from my mouth, can barely turn my head.

  “They’re going to kill you, Fern. Forever. You can’t go back there.” As lies go, this is pathetic, I don’t believe him at all. I’ll never believe anything he says, ever again. I strain my muscles, struggling to move him.

  “It was all on the data stick,” he insists. “I’ll show you, but we need to get out of here right now.”

  He lifts his hand cautiously from my mouth.

  “Heeeeeel—” I yell, but at that moment there’s a burst of gunfire below, and my call is lost in the noise. Rehan’s hands slam back over my mouth, and we lie there, silently wrestling in the shadows below the window.

  Boots thud into the bedroom above. I thrash, trying to bang my feet on the wall, but Rehan is bigger and much stronger, using his limbs to pin all of me still. I try to grunt to my rescuers. Rehan covers my nose, cutting off my air. My ears pop as I strain to yell, and the squeak that comes out of me is tiny.

  “Nothing here,” a man’s voice comes from above. A torch shines out of the window, skimming across the garage roof. As we’re below the window sill, the light misses us completely. Whoever’s looking for me, they’re insultingly rubbish at it. I try to bang my head against the roof, anything to make a sound, but I can’t move.

  They’re gone. I let my limbs go limp, staring at the sky, waiting for whatever.

  “I’m really sorry,” murmurs Rehan, lifting his hand from my face and rearing back as I gulp in a huge breath of air, ready for my next scream.

  Then he hits me on the jaw.

  When I wake, I’m lying on a concrete floor in the dark, and the right side of my face is hot and throbbing. The air tastes musty. Rehan is sitting in the corner of wherever we are, completely mesmerised by his tablet. Screenlight flickers over his face as his eyes move back and forth.

  I explore my face with tentative fingertips – my jaw is hugely swollen where he hit me. I’ve been thumped a few times in self-defence, but no-one has ever hit me in the face before, not like that. I’m scared of him now, and I hate it. I know that I should have been scared of him before, but I now realise that, deep down, I still felt that whatever else he was, he was also the boy I’d got to know.

  That boy could never have hit me. That boy does not exist. This man is a stranger, and he’s confirmed everything I’ve ever been told about the Vol. Untrustworthy, erratic. Violent. Dangerous. Evolution gone wrong. Thank god they’re so rare.

  He shifts, and I flinch. The movement catches his attention.

  “Hey,” he says gently.

  I sit up cautiously. My head throbs. I feel sick.

  “There are a lot of things that you need to hear. Then, I’ll take you wherever you want, even back to the Institute. But you won’t want to go.”

  “Where are we?” I rasp.

  “Pillbox in the woods behind the farmhouse. I found it when I was a kid, it was my hide-out from Dad when he was having a bad day. Lucky, or we’d have had no chance, they’re searching the woods. But don’t worry, I’ve pulled branches over the entrance upstairs.”

  As if I’m worried about my rescuers finding us. “How did you get me here?�
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  “Over my shoulder. You need to eat more,” he tries to joke. I stare at him, and his attempt at a friendly smile fades. “I’m really sorry that I hit you, but there wasn’t time to talk and you were yelling to Forever.”

  “Can you blame me?”

  He shakes his head slowly, and walks to me, holding out his tablet. “Read this.”

  I take the tablet without touching him, and he stands over me as I read. The letters dance at first, my head still dizzy, but I see my name, along with those of my classmates, under the heading “Program 9B”. I tap my name, and a series of sub-files appears, labelled with date ranges. I open the most recent.

  “Fern continues to struggle with being the only no-talent, but is otherwise an intelligent and engaging member of the group, displaying increased anti-Vol tendencies in the predicted range for the close of Phase 3. She has offered significant support to Mark and Katrina as their talents have developed, but Katrina no longer needs her and may in fact be held back by her sympathy for Fern (Katrina’s potential is considerable and its enhancement a priority.) Mark’s problems are unlikely to be solvable, and we question whether his talent is likely to be of any practical application, see 9B/Mark/0009b-23092039, rendering Fern’s support there of little value.

  As all training and medication to date has failed to manifest any talent in Fern, a period of intense stress is recommended. The KHH asset can provide this, which will also meet other objectives relating to managing the growing size of KHH and also the recent leak. If Fern still fails to manifest during the exercise, termination is recommended. This will further motivate and bond the remainder of the group, and force Katrina to become more independent, which should serve her well in Phase 4. Dissection of Fern’s cerebrum is recommended in the hope that there may be a physical explanation for her flaw which could shed light on the difficulties with Program 2. The exercise will also provide a useful springboard into the first offsite tasking for the remainder of the group.”

  “You wrote this,” I say bleakly, putting down the tablet and pushing it away.

  He picks it up. “I uploaded it from that data stick you were carrying. I’ve not read the whole thing yet, it’s huge, but we should.”

  I’m sick of his lies. I just want all of this to be over. How can I get out of here? If Forever are above us in the woods, all I need to do is get out of this bunker. My eyes skim the concrete walls, and the single exit: a door behind Rehan.

  “Fern, hate me all you like. Don’t you understand what they mean by termination? If you don’t get useful to them, really soon, they’re going to kill you. You’re just a lab rat to them.”

  This last comment stings, it’s too close to my thoughts when John inspects us.

  “At least read your earliest file. It mentions your mother.”

  “I don’t have a mother.” I turn my back on him and he sighs with frustration, moving away, across the room, to lean against the wall opposite me. It’s dark on this side of the room, and I can’t see his face anymore.

  I look at him anyway. “You said you’d take me back if I wanted. So, take me back.”

  “No.”

  Another lie. I hate him so much. I turn away and stare into the dark, grieving for my friends, who must now be awake and afraid for me, and for the Fern of twelve hours ago, so full of excitement and affection for a boy who didn’t exist. Fragments of memory drift through me: Rehan chuckling as I told him about a practical joke Katrina and I played on Luis, Rehan’s stories about the time he tried to clean out an angry horse’s stall at the city farm. What was fake and what was real? No sister. Whose laughing child was it, that he showed me? Where did he steal her face from?

  “What’s the KHH asset?” demands Rehan.

  “How should I know?”

  He sighs in frustration and sits, totally absorbed in the words on his screen… No longer in between me and the door.

  The door isn’t even fully closed.

  It’s a simple decision. This time, I’m not even tied up.

  He glances at me as I stand and stretch, then goes back to reading while I pace around the room, as if deep in thought. My head twinges with every step, but I can’t faint.

  On each pass, I drift closer to the walls. On each pass, he pays less attention to me.

  It’s on my fifth pass that I lunge through the door. I hear a curse behind me and run faster than I’ve ever run in my life, icy air burning my lungs as I pound up concrete steps and crash through branches into the forest.

  He’s stronger, but I’m lighter and faster, and he lost crucial seconds grabbing the tablet. If he catches up with me, I promise myself that I’ll smash it over his head.

  He’s close behind me, but I can’t lose time by looking to see how close. I have to make it out of the treeline, as soon as Forever see me, he’ll stop chasing me. I don’t even know why he’s bothering, he should be running the other way.

  Dawn is clawing through the branches, showing me where the wood thins.

  I can hear the helicopter now, it’s not far away.

  Hear the helicopter? Why are the engines on? I hurtle through the trees and out into the field, in time to see the helicopter flying away. I run into the middle of the field, jumping and screaming and waving, but no-one is looking for me here, not anymore.

  Rehan arrives next to me, but he doesn’t grab me. We both know that I have nowhere to go. He bends, panting, as I sink to my knees. When he takes my hand and leads me towards the farmhouse, I don’t resist. How could they give up on me so quickly?

  “Dad?” Rehan calls as we enter the farmhouse. But no-one answers.

  Because everyone is dead.

  Chapter Five

  They look like they’re sleeping. Rehan lets go of my hand and walks through the farmhouse, rolling over the bodies that face down, checking breath and pulse on everybody. Every body. Looking for Lucas.

  I wonder how it feels, searching for the body of your father. I imagine searching for the body of Katrina, or Arlo, the handsome unofficial leader of our class. Some of my fury with Rehan fades. No-one deserves this. Silently, I help him check the bodies. They’ve been killed quickly, cleanly, except for Artie, who put up a messy fight in the kitchen.

  Rehan doesn’t find Lucas, but we find everyone else I’d seen, and six more people I don’t recognise. Rehan seems to have known them. By unspoken agreement, we head upstairs, away from the bodies, towards the room where Lucas left us. “Dad?” Rehan calls, as we walk. I wish he wouldn’t.

  We enter the bedroom. It’s trashed. Is it Rehan’s? I don’t know. He sits on the bed, lost, so I take the desk chair.

  I can’t believe that Forever would do this, but someone has, someone Lucas believed to be Forever. Whatever the reality, I need to know if he blames me – if he’s even more dangerous to me, now. “Was this because of me?”

  He shakes his head slowly. “No. Because of this.” He holds up his tablet. “They let you go, Fern. A ‘period of intense stress,’ remember? But they didn’t plan on you bringing any data outside with you. Maybe I triggered an alarm when I uploaded it.”

  I don’t understand. “You set me up.”

  His eyes meet mine. “Yes. But Forever set me up. Me and the rest of KHH.”

  More lies. If he didn’t fake the stuff on his tablet – and he’s a proven liar, with obvious motivation – then one of his colleagues did. I never even saw a data stick in the folder.

  But the helicopter is gone, and everybody apart from me and Rehan is dead.

  His hands scrabble through the junk on his desk. “My phone’s gone.”

  I clear my throat. “I’m so sorry about your friends, and I hope your father is ok, I’m sure he is.”

  He shoots me a cynical look.

  “But you need to take me back home. I want to be with my family, just like you want to be with yours. If Forever – if they really did this, then they’re not going to stop looking for me, or for the data stick, whichever. We need to end all this.” I want to say, e
nd it before something even worse happens, but that could sound like a threat. And anyway, Forever didn’t do this, would never have done this. It was someone else. Some crazed Vol, or a KHH faction.

  Rehan’s leg is jiggling, his fingers tapping out a silent tune as he thinks. Is he listening to me at all? “Why did they leave the bodies?” he says suddenly.

  I lift my shoulders helplessly. “Why not?”

  “I keep forgetting that you’re so naïve. Why is the house not burning? Did they leave all this for you to see? Is this still part of the ‘intense stress,’ someone’s sick idea of a training exercise? Why aren’t they still searching the woods? It makes no sense that they left.” He freezes. “Did they leave?”

  I want to answer that I’m not naïve, but I can’t, not to him.

  I’ll show him instead. Somehow, soon, I’ll show him which of us is naïve.

  Rehan leaps up and starts grabbing things from drawers and cupboards, ramming a backpack full. “We’ll take the jeep, then dump it, soon as we can. In fact, forget that, we can’t trust the vehicles here anymore. We’ll walk, it’s only a few miles to the nearest station.”

  “Miles?” I’ve never travelled a mile in my life, before yesterday, and he thinks it’s walkable? I frown.

  Rehan shoves the bag into my hands, and fills another.

  “Out of the window again,” he tells me.

  “What? Why? We just came in the front door.”

  “We know that they didn’t find the route we took last time, but we don’t know if they’ve done anything to the doors. Move!” He reaches for my wrist. “Come on, at least you’re awake this time.” That just reminds me that he hit me, and my sympathy over his missing father evaporates. I pull away before he can touch me, and move to the window.

  We clamber over the windowsill, the blistered paint rough on my sore palms as I drop to the garage roof. I don’t even remember when I hurt my hands. Rehan follows me as I drop down to the top of a nearby jeep. He did all this while carrying me?

  Rehan sticks to the shadows, pausing before moving away from the farmhouse. He sprints in quick spurts behind the farm’s outbuildings, towards the trees, like he thinks he’s a soldier or something. I humour him, half-heartedly copying his moves. But I’m not worried about being found. There’s no-one alive here. If I’m wrong, wonderful, they can give me a ride home.