Miracle - Chapter 15: Chapter 15
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Over the next couple of weeks, I conducted more deliberate experiments. I developed the habit of carrying my notebook and Ezra's pheromone blocker everywhere I went, and after multiple forays to the grocery store, the park, the bank, and just roaming different parts of town, I had made some important discoveries.
First, I definitely had a different effect on different people. I only seemed to impact guys who were in or past puberty themselves. Kids and pre-teens seemed oblivious, but anyone old enough for hormonal acne and embarrassing vocal drops had at least some measure of noticeable response when I got up close.
Some seemed disgusted by me, while others had an obviously lecherous reaction. Only a few seemed inclined to act on it, though I had yet to figure out how to predict which ones would. Most gave me dirty looks... of one sort or another. A few, like Marvin, went out of their way to avoid me. I noticed that every time I went to the dollar general he would disappear into the back, and some other clerk came to ring me up. It meant I couldn't pick up cigarettes for Mom anymore, which made her pretty mad, but I told her I hadn't seen her friend at the store for a while and thankfully she let it go.
What had surprised me most was a heavyset guy in his forties who worked at the local Walmart, who behaved in much the same way Pete did. He straightened his vest, smoothed his thinning hair, and blushingly offered me a free Coke from the vending machine by his checkout counter. The difference was, as he scanned my pack of M&M's and the novel I was buying, I got the clear impression that he was gay regardless of my pheromones. I don't know if I would have picked up on it if I hadn't been studying people's behavior all week. But once I realized it I had to give him a smile of solidarity. There was another gay person in Prickly Pear. Who would have thought?
As I walked out the sliding glass doors, I wondered if that guy was as lonely as me.
The second thing I learned was how my moods factored into the potency of what I was giving off. I didn't have any tools to measure output, so my only available gauge was the behavior of men around me, which varied from person to person. It was a maddeningly imprecise way of trying to study the phenomenon, but at least there was enough of a pattern to draw a few reliable conclusions.
Fear was by far the greatest trigger, and that was disturbing because it was hardest to control. Ironically, when I started getting nervous about someone's reaction to me, their reaction intensified—and so did the likelihood that other men in the vicinity would notice me as well, and from greater distances away. That, in turn, increased my alarm, which devolved into a dangerous, self-perpetuating cycle. I learned quickly to excuse myself to someplace private where I could spritz the blocker formula down the front of my pants as soon as someone started giving me the heebie jeebies. I'd spray my neck and underarms too, for good measure. And while it made a distinct difference, just as Ezra promised, I also found myself wondering how much of the effect was a placebo. I believed the spray made me safer, so I calmed down. Which then actually did make me safer.
Had Ezra's tests accounted for that? Or was the 70% figure he'd quoted based solely on the chemical properties of the liquid? I guess as long as it worked I shouldn't have worried about it, but I was curious to the point of frustration. How had he measured it up to this point? Did he have living test subjects? Or had he moved beyond clinical trials to a real world case study—meaning me? Was he using me right now to further his research?
Anger was another state of mind that got me into trouble. In general, if I went out among people while I was in a bad mental place, I ended up attracting a lot more of the scarier kinds of guys. Or the guys that I attracted were scarier about it, I wasn't sure which. That was going to take more experimenting.
I kept the watch on, like Ezra asked, and spent hours trying to determine if its readouts indicated how much pheromone I was giving off. But I hadn't been able to work up the courage to talk to him after his last visit. He hadn't called me either, not even to scold me for cruising around town like I had been. The more data I collected, the more tempted I was to reach out to him. I had so many more questions. Did he know the correlation between mood and pheromone production already? Did he have a way of predicting which men would react with violence? How exactly did the spray formula work? Could the watch be programmed to alert me when my levels were getting bad? That would be incredibly handy.
But every line of questioning led back inevitably to the one he couldn't answer... what in hell the purpose of all of this was. There was no point in asking, so I just kept to myself.
It was a Tuesday afternoon when Maddy came into the house with the mail. I was vacuuming the living room couch when she tapped me on the shoulder and thrust an open manila envelope under my nose.
"Connor, look at this."
I switched the vacuum off and took the packet of paper from her. There was a simple, neatly typed letter on top.
Ms. Madison Hayes,
It is our pleasure to present you with a full scholarship to our distinguished academic program for the 2019 - 2020 school year. Enclosed please find our welcome packet, including the schedule for the upcoming fall semester and a list of items to bring when reporting to the dormitories.
We know you will enjoy the robust education and unique experience our school has to offer, and look forward to meeting you next month!
Cordially yours,
Ruth Armeras, Directress
Brides of Heaven Preparatory Academy
"Scholarship?" I looked up at my sister. "You didn't tell me you were applying for a scholarship."
"I didn't," Maddy said. "I've never heard of this place."
I slid the cover letter to the back of the packet to examine the next document, which was a full color brochure featuring a school logo shaped like a crown, and a photo of an elegant brick building with curving marble balconies. A concrete path lined with pine trees and artistic flowerbeds led up to the front doors, and seated on a garden bench along the path was a group of girls in matching sweater vests, pleated skirts, and tights, bent over a book.
Unfolding the brochure revealed more colorful graphics, overlaid with photos of uniformed girls in classrooms and on athletic courts.
Founded in 1847, Brides of Heaven Preparatory Academy is one of the finest and most exclusive all-girls boarding schools in the United States. Students are admitted by invitation, and enjoy three years of rigorous, inspirational academic programming, with emphasis on maths and sciences, health and wellness, and cultural literacy.
I raised an eyebrow. I loved my sister, but none of that sounded like her forte. Maddy was more the do-her-makeup-in-class, turn-in-just-enough-assignments-to-not-flunk type of student.
Nestled in the beautiful mountains of Colorado, our gorgeously-appointed campus offers an experience like no other: cutting edge technology in every classroom, luxurious dormitories with massage and esthetician services on site, a robust itinerary of social events throughout the year, and what may be our most popular amenity, a sports complex open 24 hours featuring an Olympic-sized swimming pool, indoor and outdoor tennis and basketball courts, top of the line cardio and strength training equipment, and spacious fitness studios offering yoga, dance and martial arts classes.
"Is this a school or a resort?" I muttered, eyeing a photograph of a roomful of girls in green warm-ups doing a bendy yoga pose. It was right next to a picture of a girl's face slathered in pink goop, with cucumber slices over her eyes and a blissed smile.
Our Mission Statement: To nurture each student along her path to a fruitful life, by cultivating nimble minds, strong bodies, and joyful, resilient spirits.
We serve young women from grades ten through twelve.
After the brochure there was a flyer that talked about dorm life, including an organic, gourmet meal plan, and a packing list with both required and prohibited items. Then, a multi-page student handbook. A sheet of paper with a list of dates, the first of which was August fifth, designated "First Year Student Pick-Up, see attached."
The last item in the packet was a page titled Transport Information, and this one was another letter.
Ms. Hayes,
Your home address qualifies for personal pick up and transportation service to the BHPA campus. Your pick-up time has been scheduled for 9 A.M. on Monday, August 5th, 2019. Please be prompt, and have your luggage ready for loading at the designated time. Your travel duration to our campus is estimated at seven and a half hours. You may bring hard copy reading materials of your choosing; personal electronic devices such as cell phones and tablets are not permitted. Meals and beverages will be provided.
Please show this letter to your driver upon arrival for proper check-in procedures. Your reference number is 22C012A.
Thank you,
Your BHPA Welcome Committee
I flipped through this astounding pile of documents again. "There's no contact information in any of this. No address, phone number, email, website... it's got to be some sort of scam."
"That's what I thought," Maddy said.
"But what kind of scammers give no contact information, and don't ask for anything?" There wasn't even a response form to confirm acceptance of their so-called scholarship.
Maddy shrugged. "Really stupid ones?"
And what kind of scammers spent this much money on a con? The letters and flyers were beautifully printed on thick, expensive paper. They were well designed and there wasn't a spelling mistake to be found. Who took the time to write an eighty-three page student handbook for a fake boarding school?
"Gimme those, I'll just trash 'em," Maddy said, reaching for the papers. I pulled them back a little.
"I'm going to look them over a little more first." Something was bothering me. Like a tickle in the back of my brain, saying I knew more about this than I thought.
I left the vacuum on the living room floor and carried the papers back to our bedroom. Climbed into the top bunk, since Maddy had reclaimed her bottom one, and spread the papers out in front of me. Looked them over again, one at a time.
Strange. The uniforms and institution name were vaguely religious, kind of a Catholic private school vibe. But there were no religious symbols in any of the graphics or photos, no references to God or faith in the text. The tone of the whole thing was presumptive, as if Maddy should have been expecting to receive this, and there was no question as to whether she would want to go.
And I couldn't shake the feeling that this wasn't as strange as it seemed. That something about it was familiar, or at least, that it fit in some way with something I already knew.
I started flipping through the handbook, which laid out a dress code (uniforms for everything, even pajamas); a daily schedule, starting with six A.M. mandatory group yoga (yeah, Maddy would love that) and ending with a lights out curfew at nine P.M.; a list of available elective courses that ranged from baking to mountaineering; a student code of ethics and an entire chapter describing something called the Jewel System, which was a kind of mentoring program; and then a section that talked about the on-site medical clinic. Girls were required to appear for monthly exams and turn in detailed records of their periods, which the handbook called "power cycles."
"Invasive, much?" I said out loud, scanning the text with growing disbelief. This had to be fiction. No school I'd ever heard of had such a bizarre requirement, and I was pretty sure that forcing a girl to submit to that kind of breach of privacy was illegal.
One brief, matter-of-fact sentence at the bottom raised goosebumps on my arms.
If the results of any exam are unsatisfactory, the student may be disqualified from further attendance at BHPA.
"Seriously?" They were talking about physical exams with the same gravity as academic ones. Like, I could understand an ultra-exclusive school kicking a student out for failing a math test. Or history, or whatever. But a medical exam? And one they had to take every month? That was even more ridiculous than making them go every...
"Oh. Shit. Shit, shit, holy shit!" The contract! In all the hullabaloo surrounding the weirdo in the pickup, the clusterfuck that had been the Fourth of July, Ezra's visits and the time in the hospital and the date with Pete and trying to analyze my own screwed up body chemistry, I had utterly forgotten about the contract Mrs. Moss had given me to look at.
I scrambled to the edge of the bunk so I could lift up the wall-side corner of my mattress. The packet was still there, right where I'd hidden it the night before the Fourth. I grabbed it and dropped the mattress back into place. It was three sheets of yellowing paper, stapled at one corner and folded in half. They'd been created on a typewriter, and the ink was fading, but most of the words were still legible.
Elioud Biogenesis Fertility Services
Program Participant Contract
The first page was a bunch of legalese, identifying Doctor Ariel Mekas as the founder of the research institute, and Mrs. Moss—well, Miss Riker, back then—as the contractee. Parties waiving their right to legal counsel. The contractee acknowledging she had been fully apprised of the study risks and requirements, and waiving rights to sue the institute or any of its subsidiaries or employees "for any undesirable effects, either real or perceived, related to her health or the health of the as yet unborn study subject, either before or after birth, or in the event of either participant's death."
"Jesus," I mumbled. Those doctors actually got people to sign off on that?
On the next page it said the contractee was agreeing to receive a subcutaneous treatment, and to comply with a schedule of prenatal exams. I read it carefully word by word, but was disappointed that it didn't say what the injection was, or what it was expected to do. Then it got into the monthly payments that the company would provide after the child was born and passed an initial screening and blood test.
And there's where it got interesting.
Item 14. Contractee shall present the juvenile subject once per year for a physical examination, conducted by an Institute medical officer. Contractee agrees that failure to produce the subject for exams as detailed in this clause shall be cause for contract termination, and Institute may seek damages up to and including custody of the juvenile subject.
I blinked, and read it again. Did this thing say that Elioud Biogenesis could take custody of the kid they'd Frankensteined?
And women actually signed this? Had our Mom agreed to that too?
Item 15. Contractee shall notify the Institute upon maturation of the juvenile subject, e.g., within seven days of the subject's inaugural menses.
Item 16. If juvenile subject is deemed a viable candidate for progression in the program, Institute shall refer them for admission to a private, residential secondary school upon maturation. Contractee shall release juvenile subject to the care of the school upon receipt of enrollment invitation. Failure to produce the subject for school participation as detailed in this clause shall be cause for contract termination, and Institute may seek damages up to and including custody of the juvenile subject.
There it was again, that creepy threat about kidnapping a child away from their parents if the parents didn't hold up their side of the bargain. And then, the part that pretty much clinched it:
Item 20. If at any stage in the study period the results of any exam are unsatisfactory, the Contractee and juvenile subject may be disqualified from further study participation.
I grabbed up the student handbook from Maddy's admissions packet, turned to the page about the monthly physicals, and held it up next to the 50-plus-year-old contract. The language was almost exactly the same.
"Maddy!" I shouted.
"What?"
"Come here, you need to see this!"
🧬🧬🧬
Maddy tossed the ancient contract on top of the pile of school papers. "Oh, hell no. I'm not going."
Half of me was relieved to hear her say that. Selfishly, I was petrified of being left here alone without her. But then...
"Didn't Dr. Sarias say you would be safe from our pheromone problem once you were enrolled? This has to be what he was talking about." And it had to be what Mom had argued with those people on the phone about. She'd known this was coming.
"I don't give a crap. I'm not letting them take me off to some freaky Stepford Wives boarding school in the middle of nowhere. Especially if you can't come. All-girls, my ass... you and me have been a package deal since birth."
I gave her a grateful smile. And then, what she'd just said triggered another set of mental dominos. "All-girls..." I picked up the contract again, and flipped to the second page. "Within seven days of the subject's inaugural menses," I repeated out loud.
"Ew, who says 'menses' anymore? And that makes it sound like we're being sworn into office."
"Not we," I breathed. "Just you."
"Well, yeah. Last I checked you don't have to worry about the joys of bleeding through your pants once a month."
"No, I mean... that's why they don't want me. Why they didn't want Timmy Riker either. It's why they wouldn't give Mom any money for me." None of you so-called experts bothered to tell me I was having twins. I bet you'd have paid double if the second one was a girl. I met Maddy's eyes in confoundment. "I'm a boy."
"Um. Yes. Was that in question?"
"They only want girls. Whatever they're doing... they only want girls."
She took a second to think about that. "Whoa."
"It fits, doesn't it?"
"I guess. But why?"
And just like that, I was back to my original theory. "Why else? They're obsessed with periods. And all this stuff about physical health, 'a fruitful life,' and shit, even the name of the damn school." Dr. Sarias' words to Ezra were sounding in my head. How about you focus on the new crop of brides instead? You could just put in for the Eljo's sister. I was on the verge of hyperventilating. "Maddy, they're definitely making breeders."
"But what about—"
"No, I know, I don't have an explanation for everything yet. But I'm going to get one."
"Huh?"
I pulled my phone out of my pocket. Raised my wrist so my own features were reflected in the watch face. Ezra, you need to call me. Right fucking now. After a second, my watch thumped twice. I took that to mean he was refusing, and I wasn't going to accept no for an answer.
I know what you bastards are doing. If you think you're turning my sister into some kind of Nephilim baby factory, you can all go to hell.
Three more seconds later, my phone rang.
First, I definitely had a different effect on different people. I only seemed to impact guys who were in or past puberty themselves. Kids and pre-teens seemed oblivious, but anyone old enough for hormonal acne and embarrassing vocal drops had at least some measure of noticeable response when I got up close.
Some seemed disgusted by me, while others had an obviously lecherous reaction. Only a few seemed inclined to act on it, though I had yet to figure out how to predict which ones would. Most gave me dirty looks... of one sort or another. A few, like Marvin, went out of their way to avoid me. I noticed that every time I went to the dollar general he would disappear into the back, and some other clerk came to ring me up. It meant I couldn't pick up cigarettes for Mom anymore, which made her pretty mad, but I told her I hadn't seen her friend at the store for a while and thankfully she let it go.
What had surprised me most was a heavyset guy in his forties who worked at the local Walmart, who behaved in much the same way Pete did. He straightened his vest, smoothed his thinning hair, and blushingly offered me a free Coke from the vending machine by his checkout counter. The difference was, as he scanned my pack of M&M's and the novel I was buying, I got the clear impression that he was gay regardless of my pheromones. I don't know if I would have picked up on it if I hadn't been studying people's behavior all week. But once I realized it I had to give him a smile of solidarity. There was another gay person in Prickly Pear. Who would have thought?
As I walked out the sliding glass doors, I wondered if that guy was as lonely as me.
The second thing I learned was how my moods factored into the potency of what I was giving off. I didn't have any tools to measure output, so my only available gauge was the behavior of men around me, which varied from person to person. It was a maddeningly imprecise way of trying to study the phenomenon, but at least there was enough of a pattern to draw a few reliable conclusions.
Fear was by far the greatest trigger, and that was disturbing because it was hardest to control. Ironically, when I started getting nervous about someone's reaction to me, their reaction intensified—and so did the likelihood that other men in the vicinity would notice me as well, and from greater distances away. That, in turn, increased my alarm, which devolved into a dangerous, self-perpetuating cycle. I learned quickly to excuse myself to someplace private where I could spritz the blocker formula down the front of my pants as soon as someone started giving me the heebie jeebies. I'd spray my neck and underarms too, for good measure. And while it made a distinct difference, just as Ezra promised, I also found myself wondering how much of the effect was a placebo. I believed the spray made me safer, so I calmed down. Which then actually did make me safer.
Had Ezra's tests accounted for that? Or was the 70% figure he'd quoted based solely on the chemical properties of the liquid? I guess as long as it worked I shouldn't have worried about it, but I was curious to the point of frustration. How had he measured it up to this point? Did he have living test subjects? Or had he moved beyond clinical trials to a real world case study—meaning me? Was he using me right now to further his research?
Anger was another state of mind that got me into trouble. In general, if I went out among people while I was in a bad mental place, I ended up attracting a lot more of the scarier kinds of guys. Or the guys that I attracted were scarier about it, I wasn't sure which. That was going to take more experimenting.
I kept the watch on, like Ezra asked, and spent hours trying to determine if its readouts indicated how much pheromone I was giving off. But I hadn't been able to work up the courage to talk to him after his last visit. He hadn't called me either, not even to scold me for cruising around town like I had been. The more data I collected, the more tempted I was to reach out to him. I had so many more questions. Did he know the correlation between mood and pheromone production already? Did he have a way of predicting which men would react with violence? How exactly did the spray formula work? Could the watch be programmed to alert me when my levels were getting bad? That would be incredibly handy.
But every line of questioning led back inevitably to the one he couldn't answer... what in hell the purpose of all of this was. There was no point in asking, so I just kept to myself.
It was a Tuesday afternoon when Maddy came into the house with the mail. I was vacuuming the living room couch when she tapped me on the shoulder and thrust an open manila envelope under my nose.
"Connor, look at this."
I switched the vacuum off and took the packet of paper from her. There was a simple, neatly typed letter on top.
Ms. Madison Hayes,
It is our pleasure to present you with a full scholarship to our distinguished academic program for the 2019 - 2020 school year. Enclosed please find our welcome packet, including the schedule for the upcoming fall semester and a list of items to bring when reporting to the dormitories.
We know you will enjoy the robust education and unique experience our school has to offer, and look forward to meeting you next month!
Cordially yours,
Ruth Armeras, Directress
Brides of Heaven Preparatory Academy
"Scholarship?" I looked up at my sister. "You didn't tell me you were applying for a scholarship."
"I didn't," Maddy said. "I've never heard of this place."
I slid the cover letter to the back of the packet to examine the next document, which was a full color brochure featuring a school logo shaped like a crown, and a photo of an elegant brick building with curving marble balconies. A concrete path lined with pine trees and artistic flowerbeds led up to the front doors, and seated on a garden bench along the path was a group of girls in matching sweater vests, pleated skirts, and tights, bent over a book.
Unfolding the brochure revealed more colorful graphics, overlaid with photos of uniformed girls in classrooms and on athletic courts.
Founded in 1847, Brides of Heaven Preparatory Academy is one of the finest and most exclusive all-girls boarding schools in the United States. Students are admitted by invitation, and enjoy three years of rigorous, inspirational academic programming, with emphasis on maths and sciences, health and wellness, and cultural literacy.
I raised an eyebrow. I loved my sister, but none of that sounded like her forte. Maddy was more the do-her-makeup-in-class, turn-in-just-enough-assignments-to-not-flunk type of student.
Nestled in the beautiful mountains of Colorado, our gorgeously-appointed campus offers an experience like no other: cutting edge technology in every classroom, luxurious dormitories with massage and esthetician services on site, a robust itinerary of social events throughout the year, and what may be our most popular amenity, a sports complex open 24 hours featuring an Olympic-sized swimming pool, indoor and outdoor tennis and basketball courts, top of the line cardio and strength training equipment, and spacious fitness studios offering yoga, dance and martial arts classes.
"Is this a school or a resort?" I muttered, eyeing a photograph of a roomful of girls in green warm-ups doing a bendy yoga pose. It was right next to a picture of a girl's face slathered in pink goop, with cucumber slices over her eyes and a blissed smile.
Our Mission Statement: To nurture each student along her path to a fruitful life, by cultivating nimble minds, strong bodies, and joyful, resilient spirits.
We serve young women from grades ten through twelve.
After the brochure there was a flyer that talked about dorm life, including an organic, gourmet meal plan, and a packing list with both required and prohibited items. Then, a multi-page student handbook. A sheet of paper with a list of dates, the first of which was August fifth, designated "First Year Student Pick-Up, see attached."
The last item in the packet was a page titled Transport Information, and this one was another letter.
Ms. Hayes,
Your home address qualifies for personal pick up and transportation service to the BHPA campus. Your pick-up time has been scheduled for 9 A.M. on Monday, August 5th, 2019. Please be prompt, and have your luggage ready for loading at the designated time. Your travel duration to our campus is estimated at seven and a half hours. You may bring hard copy reading materials of your choosing; personal electronic devices such as cell phones and tablets are not permitted. Meals and beverages will be provided.
Please show this letter to your driver upon arrival for proper check-in procedures. Your reference number is 22C012A.
Thank you,
Your BHPA Welcome Committee
I flipped through this astounding pile of documents again. "There's no contact information in any of this. No address, phone number, email, website... it's got to be some sort of scam."
"That's what I thought," Maddy said.
"But what kind of scammers give no contact information, and don't ask for anything?" There wasn't even a response form to confirm acceptance of their so-called scholarship.
Maddy shrugged. "Really stupid ones?"
And what kind of scammers spent this much money on a con? The letters and flyers were beautifully printed on thick, expensive paper. They were well designed and there wasn't a spelling mistake to be found. Who took the time to write an eighty-three page student handbook for a fake boarding school?
"Gimme those, I'll just trash 'em," Maddy said, reaching for the papers. I pulled them back a little.
"I'm going to look them over a little more first." Something was bothering me. Like a tickle in the back of my brain, saying I knew more about this than I thought.
I left the vacuum on the living room floor and carried the papers back to our bedroom. Climbed into the top bunk, since Maddy had reclaimed her bottom one, and spread the papers out in front of me. Looked them over again, one at a time.
Strange. The uniforms and institution name were vaguely religious, kind of a Catholic private school vibe. But there were no religious symbols in any of the graphics or photos, no references to God or faith in the text. The tone of the whole thing was presumptive, as if Maddy should have been expecting to receive this, and there was no question as to whether she would want to go.
And I couldn't shake the feeling that this wasn't as strange as it seemed. That something about it was familiar, or at least, that it fit in some way with something I already knew.
I started flipping through the handbook, which laid out a dress code (uniforms for everything, even pajamas); a daily schedule, starting with six A.M. mandatory group yoga (yeah, Maddy would love that) and ending with a lights out curfew at nine P.M.; a list of available elective courses that ranged from baking to mountaineering; a student code of ethics and an entire chapter describing something called the Jewel System, which was a kind of mentoring program; and then a section that talked about the on-site medical clinic. Girls were required to appear for monthly exams and turn in detailed records of their periods, which the handbook called "power cycles."
"Invasive, much?" I said out loud, scanning the text with growing disbelief. This had to be fiction. No school I'd ever heard of had such a bizarre requirement, and I was pretty sure that forcing a girl to submit to that kind of breach of privacy was illegal.
One brief, matter-of-fact sentence at the bottom raised goosebumps on my arms.
If the results of any exam are unsatisfactory, the student may be disqualified from further attendance at BHPA.
"Seriously?" They were talking about physical exams with the same gravity as academic ones. Like, I could understand an ultra-exclusive school kicking a student out for failing a math test. Or history, or whatever. But a medical exam? And one they had to take every month? That was even more ridiculous than making them go every...
"Oh. Shit. Shit, shit, holy shit!" The contract! In all the hullabaloo surrounding the weirdo in the pickup, the clusterfuck that had been the Fourth of July, Ezra's visits and the time in the hospital and the date with Pete and trying to analyze my own screwed up body chemistry, I had utterly forgotten about the contract Mrs. Moss had given me to look at.
I scrambled to the edge of the bunk so I could lift up the wall-side corner of my mattress. The packet was still there, right where I'd hidden it the night before the Fourth. I grabbed it and dropped the mattress back into place. It was three sheets of yellowing paper, stapled at one corner and folded in half. They'd been created on a typewriter, and the ink was fading, but most of the words were still legible.
Elioud Biogenesis Fertility Services
Program Participant Contract
The first page was a bunch of legalese, identifying Doctor Ariel Mekas as the founder of the research institute, and Mrs. Moss—well, Miss Riker, back then—as the contractee. Parties waiving their right to legal counsel. The contractee acknowledging she had been fully apprised of the study risks and requirements, and waiving rights to sue the institute or any of its subsidiaries or employees "for any undesirable effects, either real or perceived, related to her health or the health of the as yet unborn study subject, either before or after birth, or in the event of either participant's death."
"Jesus," I mumbled. Those doctors actually got people to sign off on that?
On the next page it said the contractee was agreeing to receive a subcutaneous treatment, and to comply with a schedule of prenatal exams. I read it carefully word by word, but was disappointed that it didn't say what the injection was, or what it was expected to do. Then it got into the monthly payments that the company would provide after the child was born and passed an initial screening and blood test.
And there's where it got interesting.
Item 14. Contractee shall present the juvenile subject once per year for a physical examination, conducted by an Institute medical officer. Contractee agrees that failure to produce the subject for exams as detailed in this clause shall be cause for contract termination, and Institute may seek damages up to and including custody of the juvenile subject.
I blinked, and read it again. Did this thing say that Elioud Biogenesis could take custody of the kid they'd Frankensteined?
And women actually signed this? Had our Mom agreed to that too?
Item 15. Contractee shall notify the Institute upon maturation of the juvenile subject, e.g., within seven days of the subject's inaugural menses.
Item 16. If juvenile subject is deemed a viable candidate for progression in the program, Institute shall refer them for admission to a private, residential secondary school upon maturation. Contractee shall release juvenile subject to the care of the school upon receipt of enrollment invitation. Failure to produce the subject for school participation as detailed in this clause shall be cause for contract termination, and Institute may seek damages up to and including custody of the juvenile subject.
There it was again, that creepy threat about kidnapping a child away from their parents if the parents didn't hold up their side of the bargain. And then, the part that pretty much clinched it:
Item 20. If at any stage in the study period the results of any exam are unsatisfactory, the Contractee and juvenile subject may be disqualified from further study participation.
I grabbed up the student handbook from Maddy's admissions packet, turned to the page about the monthly physicals, and held it up next to the 50-plus-year-old contract. The language was almost exactly the same.
"Maddy!" I shouted.
"What?"
"Come here, you need to see this!"
🧬🧬🧬
Maddy tossed the ancient contract on top of the pile of school papers. "Oh, hell no. I'm not going."
Half of me was relieved to hear her say that. Selfishly, I was petrified of being left here alone without her. But then...
"Didn't Dr. Sarias say you would be safe from our pheromone problem once you were enrolled? This has to be what he was talking about." And it had to be what Mom had argued with those people on the phone about. She'd known this was coming.
"I don't give a crap. I'm not letting them take me off to some freaky Stepford Wives boarding school in the middle of nowhere. Especially if you can't come. All-girls, my ass... you and me have been a package deal since birth."
I gave her a grateful smile. And then, what she'd just said triggered another set of mental dominos. "All-girls..." I picked up the contract again, and flipped to the second page. "Within seven days of the subject's inaugural menses," I repeated out loud.
"Ew, who says 'menses' anymore? And that makes it sound like we're being sworn into office."
"Not we," I breathed. "Just you."
"Well, yeah. Last I checked you don't have to worry about the joys of bleeding through your pants once a month."
"No, I mean... that's why they don't want me. Why they didn't want Timmy Riker either. It's why they wouldn't give Mom any money for me." None of you so-called experts bothered to tell me I was having twins. I bet you'd have paid double if the second one was a girl. I met Maddy's eyes in confoundment. "I'm a boy."
"Um. Yes. Was that in question?"
"They only want girls. Whatever they're doing... they only want girls."
She took a second to think about that. "Whoa."
"It fits, doesn't it?"
"I guess. But why?"
And just like that, I was back to my original theory. "Why else? They're obsessed with periods. And all this stuff about physical health, 'a fruitful life,' and shit, even the name of the damn school." Dr. Sarias' words to Ezra were sounding in my head. How about you focus on the new crop of brides instead? You could just put in for the Eljo's sister. I was on the verge of hyperventilating. "Maddy, they're definitely making breeders."
"But what about—"
"No, I know, I don't have an explanation for everything yet. But I'm going to get one."
"Huh?"
I pulled my phone out of my pocket. Raised my wrist so my own features were reflected in the watch face. Ezra, you need to call me. Right fucking now. After a second, my watch thumped twice. I took that to mean he was refusing, and I wasn't going to accept no for an answer.
I know what you bastards are doing. If you think you're turning my sister into some kind of Nephilim baby factory, you can all go to hell.
Three more seconds later, my phone rang.
End of Miracle Chapter 15. Continue reading Chapter 16 or return to Miracle book page.