Merged Read online

  The last thing I should do is go see her. The surest way to get caught is to return to the scene of the crime. But I have to. There’s bound to be a bunch of people there taking photos, so I get into disguise, which pretty much means covering my T-shirt with a hoodie.

  By the time I get to Rosa’s neighborhood, I’m feeling twice as nervous as I did in the alley. My hastily-made plan is to loiter in the bodega up the street and case the scene from there. That is, if the store owner lets me hang out without buying anything. When I get near, I’m surprised there’s no crowd. Is it possible no one noticed something that colorful? I stroll by the alley, trying not to seem like I’m obviously looking for something, pushing my hoodie slightly to the side.

  It’s gone! Take This Cup is gone.

  The brick wall is still intact, though it looks like it’s been acid-washed, leaving not even the slightest haze of color. It’s as if my painting was never there. I’m used to my work being ruined, but not this quickly. Or thoroughly. Why would someone go through the trouble of erasing Take This Cup from an alley wall?

  I look up at Rosa’s fire escape. Maybe she saw what happened. I count the windows and figure out which apartment is hers. After making my way to the front of the building, it only takes a few random buzzes on the panel before someone lets me in. The entryway smells like urine. I make my way up the sticky stairs, and pass an old man sleeping on the landing between the second and third floors. The sound of gunfire blares from behind a door, and I’m seriously hoping it’s coming from their TV. My unease grows with every step.

  Rosa’s door is ajar. I push it open a crack. “Hello?” I’m greeted by silence. I push the door open a bit further and peek in. “Rosa?”

  Even from the hallway, I can tell they’ve moved out. And in a hurry. There’s the stuff you take and the stuff you leave. Her place is strewn with the things that weren’t important enough to pack up.

  Then it hits me. No painting. No Rosa. Abandoned apartment.

  I need to leave. Now.

  “I have to tell you about something I did.”

  I lead Sister Mo into her office as dread latches onto me. I shut the door, sit in the chair in front of her desk, and tell her what happened, not daring to leave anything out. I brace myself for her reaction.

  “There is a chance no one saw that photo,” she says in her thick, Kingston lilt.

  I want to believe her, but it all happened too fast to be a coincidence.

  She crosses herself. “Good Lord willing.”

  I follow her example, needing all the blessings I can get. Lesson learned: street artists and photo ops don’t mix. I’m sorry, Rosa. I thought I was doing something nice for you. And yeah, I admit it. I was showing off, too. My pride getting in the way again. I can only pray she’s okay.

  Sister Mo studies me with her deep-set eyes, and I swear she’s been aware of every thought I’ve ever had. “The girl who saw your painting, did she say she was leaving today?”

  “No.” Rosa would’ve told me. We talked about everything.

  “Does she know who you are?”

  My stomach clenches as I think it over. “I never told her my real name or where I live.”

  Sister Mo gets a distant look, as if she’s seen the ghost of someone who used to piss her off. “Don’t go back to that place, you. I’ll call the Chief, and we’ll learn what we can learn.”

  She means this. The family tree of St. Catherine’s includes a council member, two state senators, more than a handful of lawyers and, yes, the Deputy Chief of the New York City Police Department. Couple that with a bishop who owes Sister Mo a few favors, and you get the idea of her pull.

  But because of me, she needs to admit all is not right at her orphanage. If they discover I’m a vandal who stays out all night, people may start to question if Sister Mo is properly watching over her wards.

  If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll make sure this doesn’t screw things up for her or St. Catherine’s.

  Lake

  My eyes snap open. I’m not dead.

  I blink a few times to erase the blur. Two people wearing white lab coats and anxious expressions are focused squarely on me. I squint at the blinding light overhead.

  The male scientist says, “Her occipital lobe is functioning properly.”

  Good to know. And I can still hear, which means my temporal lobe is also operational. My racing heart begins to decelerate.

  “What is your name?” the woman asks me, over-enunciating each word.

  I summon the answer, although it takes longer than it should. “Lake Summers.”

  She makes a note in her tablet, looking more than a little relieved. Then I remember why. Losing one’s self-awareness was on the long list of risks in the Informed Consent Agreement I’d signed.

  My throat constricts, and I blink back tears. My brain hasn’t become inert matter, but I should know the woman’s name. It isn’t coming to me.

  “Water,” I croak. “Please.”

  The pock-faced male scientist places a straw between my lips, and I suck in the warm, chalk-flavored liquid. I can still taste; my parietal lobe is undamaged. Since I have the capacity to inventory my senses, my reasoning and problem-solving functions must also be intact. The nerves in my face convey to my brain that a tear is sliding down my cheek. It slips between my lips, and I savor its saltiness.

  I’m still here.

  “Can you move your fingers and toes?” the woman asks.

  I wiggle on command and smile in relief. The motor neurons in my spinal cord fired and successfully transmitted a message from my brain to my extremities. I rub my index finger against my thumb. I’m able to feel the scar, which is reassuring. Touch is the first of the five senses to develop in a human embryo, and it plays a crucial role in physical and mental health.

  “How old are you?” The woman asks.

  This answer comes more easily. “Sixteen.”

  “Perfect.”

  High praise, considering most two-year-olds can tell you their age.

  The woman’s chestnut-brown hair shines in the light. My brain can recognize colors, so the connection between my retinas and brain hasn’t been damaged.

  “Will you let my dad know I’m okay?” I ask, surprising myself. The final phase of the procedure—the most intrusive, since it involved the transfer of emotions—must have loosened the nails in the coffin where I normally bury my feelings about him.

  The male scientist’s frosty, gray eyes briefly meet mine, and it feels like the temperature dips five degrees. “We’ll contact your father once you’ve merged.”

  His clipped English accent unleashes my memory. Cecil is his name, and I distinctly remember not liking him. But he’s correct. I need to merge before anything else. A wave of nerves flutters through me. I take a deep breath. I can do this. I can merge. And once I do, my new life will unfold.

  And so will hers.

  I shut my eyes and search for some sense of Sophie Weiss. An awareness to let me know she’s in there. A tingling sensation resulting from our compounded thoughts. Something that feels different. But there’s nothing. The pings of my heart monitor betray me. I feel a touch on my shoulder and refocus on the woman’s kind face. She’s from Wisconsin. If I can remember that, why can’t I recall her name?

  “You feeling okay?” she asks.

  I nod, even though my feelings are as chaotic as an unstable biochemical reactor.

  “Why don’t we let you sleep?”

  Even though her tone is caring, she’s not saying this just to speed my recovery. The dream state is where Sophie and I will work together. The loss of my own dreams is a small price to pay for what we’ll accomplish.

  They wheel me to a subterranean room that feels about as cozy as a gas station bathroom. The woman scientist assured me that once I’m a Nobel, they’ll move me from this square, cinderblock cell to a lovely room with a window.

  I squeeze my eyes shut and try to sleep.
The electrodes stuck to my head don’t exactly help. I tug a few strands of my long, auburn hair from the sticky adhesive, then begin listing the elements in the Periodic Table. My body slowly relaxes into the orderly world of chemistry, where everything reacts as it should.

  Deborah. That’s her name. The beaker-sized knot in my stomach loosens a little.

  Eventually, I fall asleep. But I don’t dream. The next night, it’s the same. The Darwinians tell me not to worry. They explain that it may take a little time before my mind learns how to process Sophie’s thoughts along with my own.

  Despite their assurances, dreams continue to elude me.

  Lake

  I turn my head at the click of my door’s lock releasing. I’ve been told this precaution won’t be necessary once I’ve merged with Sophie—which still hasn’t occurred.

  “Take a walk with me,” Deborah says.

  She refuses to tell me if I’m the only Candidate who hasn’t merged, but I must be. If there were others, Cecil wouldn’t look at me the way he does each time I admit another night has passed dreamlessly. It briefly crossed my mind to lie, but I’d skew their results. I may be desperate, but I’m not a cheater. Or a saboteur. To me, the Scientific Method is as sacred as the Ten Commandments.

  I set aside my book and leap to my feet. “Where are we going?”

  “I’ll explain when we get there.”

  About now, I’m up for cleaning toilets in a boy’s locker room if it means escaping these four depressing walls.

  Dr. Deborah Duvaney is my assigned Guardian during my awake-life. We’ve spent a great deal of time together this past week, trying to determine why I can’t dream. Last night, she brought me a cup of warm milk with nutmeg. Since milk has tryptophan, an amino acid that induces sleep, I’d been hopeful. It was delicious, but it didn’t work.

  Deborah passes her crystal keycard in front of the reader to unlock my door. I follow her click-clacking heels down the white, unadorned hallway. This secret research facility used to be a school, and its opulent exterior hasn’t been altered, but beyond the entryway they’ve eliminated every vestige of The Flemming Academy’s old-world charm.

  “Here we are,” Deborah announces in front of a white door labelled Sanctuary.

  It seems we’re now trying meditation. Or prayer.

  She steps aside, and I blink in surprise. The room appears vintage, making me feel as if I truly am a student in an elite boarding school in upstate New York. The ceiling is adorned with dark, wooden beams, and the fireplace’s ornately carved marble mantle is stunning. One of the walls is lined with books that appear to have actually been read, and I yearn to revel in their titles. There’s even a plaid, wool blanket draped across the back of a worn, leather couch, and a vase of real-looking, white roses on a coffee table

  Deborah clears her throat. “We find a more relaxed setting tends to help in these situations.”

  My stomach clenches. These situations? Am I being released from the Nobels Program?

  The room’s ambiance transforms from tranquil to its true purpose: a place to console. When Grandma Bee was first diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, the doctor delivered the news in a similar setting. As he explained that Grandma Bee was already in the middle stage of the disease, my dream of graduating high school early and taking the full-ride scholarship to Stanford University vanished.

  While researching the horrors my grandma would experience in the late stage, my new reality took root. I vowed she wouldn’t be displaced from the only home she’s ever known. Dad wasn’t there for Mom while she was sick; it was Grandma Bee who’d cared for her daughter-in-law. Now, it was up to me to be my grandma’s caretaker.

  I’m not complaining. I love her. I have to keep reminding myself that the disease is responsible for her personality changes. Still, caring for her was the most demanding thing I’ve ever done—and it’s only going to get worse.

  Deborah gestures to the couch.

  I select the stiff-backed chair and trace my scar. The nine-year-old memory flickers to life. It was the first time my grandma trusted me with a sharp knife. In less than a minute, I slashed open my thumb, bloodying the carrots. Grandma Bee held my hand tightly while they stitched me up. I don’t remember where Dad was, but he wasn’t the one promising chocolate ice cream afterward.

  “Lake, it’s been more than a week, and—”

  “I’ve been thinking about her soul,” I say, before Deborah has a chance to do the deed.

  She blinks a few times. “Excuse me?”

  “Sophie’s soul. What happened to it after her body and her consciousness were separated?” If Sophie exists in my mind, but I’m unable to merge with her, is she stuck between this world and the next?

  “That’s not something you should concern yourself with.”

  From Deborah’s pained look, she wants me to drop it, but this could be the final time we ever interact. “I read about an experiment where a body was weighed before and after the person died. There was a twenty-one-gram difference, which was attributed to the soul leaving the body.”

  “This isn’t approp—” she cuts off her own words with a frown. “Is this what you’ve been thinking about?”

  “If there is a heaven, Sophie is going to need her soul.”

  Without empirical evidence, it’s difficult for me to embrace the concept of heaven, but Grandma Bee has never questioned her belief that she’ll be going to a better place. We stopped letting her drive after she got lost going to the church she’d attended her entire life. Dad promised to take her there after I left.

  Dad promises a lot of things.

  I wince when recalling all the times I’d believed him as a kid, like how he’d figure out a way to keep us from getting evicted from our house. Then there was the time he told me the kids at school wouldn’t notice I only had one pair of shoes. And, the band will call any day now to ask him back. His favorite: none of the jobs he applied for were worthy of his talent.

  Before I left, I asked Pastor Mayer to call Dad if Grandma Bee didn’t show up for church. I know the nurse could bring her, but it means so much to her when she can show off her family. Dad owes her this. We’d have been homeless if Grandma Bee hadn’t taken us in.

  Deborah begins to pace across the richly-colored Oriental rug, halts abruptly, and faces me. “Lake, do you believe Sophie is already dead?”

  Deborah told me Sophie selected me because I rated in the highest tier for tenacity—which I think is a compliment. That trait had never failed me. Until now.

  “Please, Lake. I need you to answer truthfully.”

  My eyes drop to my chewed fingernails. “When I first woke from the procedure, I assumed Sophie made it, too. But now, after all this time … I’m no longer certain.”

  Deborah’s forehead creases into an exclamation point. “I need a few minutes.” She rushes out, and the lock clicks into place.

  When the man in the gray-blue suit offered me this opportunity, it felt like my family had won the lottery. I’d just been awarded first place at The American Chemistry Club for the second year in a row, which is what probably put me on the Darwinians’ radar. But if I don’t merge, Dad will no longer receive their huge payment. That money allowed us to hire a full-time nurse to live with Grandma Bee, freeing me to come here and do miraculous things.

  The ticking clock on the mantle marks each passing minute as my thoughts spiral into freefall. If I had merged, Grandma Bee would’ve been cared for by a professional with the skills needed to deal with late-stage dementia. If I had merged, Dad could’ve had another chance at making it in the music business. And, not unimportantly, if I had merged, Sophie would’ve had a second lifetime to discover how to end the ravages of Alzheimer’s. Maybe, just maybe, in time to cure Grandma Bee.

  Together, Sophie and I would’ve made life-expectancy tables obsolete.

  Instead, I let everybody down.

  The Darwinians

  “Impossible!” the raven
-haired man says. “Protocol requires that they remain isolated until they merge.”

  Deborah stands across the conference table from her three bosses. “Lake is spending too much time alone. That’s why I want them to meet.”

  “This could easily backfire,” the white-bearded man says. “The girl is questioning if Sophie is dead, while the boy already believes Bjorn has detached. We have to take extreme caution not to magnify any subconscious beliefs.” He takes a moment to gaze upon one of the portraits. A woman with salt-and-pepper, curly hair. “It may not be possible for the subjects’ minds to overcome such obstacles.”

  “They have names, you know,” the woman rasps.

  “It’s prudent at this point not to foster emotional attachment.”

  “But what if they can help each other figure out how to merge?” Deborah asks.

  “They’re strangers,” the bearded man says.

  “Strangers who have something unprecedented in common.”

  The bearded man nods at the door. “Give us a minute please, Doctor.”

  “I believe they’ll be less anxious if they realize they’re not the only ones experiencing difficulties,” Deborah says with determination.

  They hold their discussion until her footsteps trail off.

  The raven-haired man speaks up first. “It’s quite concerning that Sophie hasn’t appeared yet.”

  “Have you ever known her to give up on anything?” the bearded man asks. “One way or another, she’ll break through.”

  “I’m starting to have my doubts.”

  “Don’t be so insensitive,” the woman says. “Sophie is more than a test subject.”

  “I apologize. I didn’t mean to imply … I blame the girl.”

  “The girl?” the woman challenges. “After learning what we did from Sophie’s autopsy, Lake’s chance of success was—”

  “We have to respect Sophie’s decisions,” the bearded man says. “She took her time finding this Candidate, and I have to believe they will merge. Need I remind you of what will happen to the girl if they don’t?”