“Freya,” I said more gently, trying to keep the anxiety out of my voice for her sake. “What did she do? Why are they arresting her? Is she dangerous?”
Freya shook her head. “She doesn’t have a dangerous superpower, but…Oh, Sam…” Her voice trailed off, sounding pained.
I gently began rubbing her shoulders reassuringly. “Freya, talk to me. What’s going on? Did you see something in her head? Why are you so upset?”
“Sam,” she repeated, looking up at me with a tormented expression. “Nancy isn’t who you think she is. She’s been stalking you for a long time, watching your every move from a distance…” She paused. “Always with a different face.”
I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
“Sam,” she repeated, sounding just as tormented. “That woman. She’s an essential part of the shadow company that’s harassing you, as well as a core piece of the illegal cloning organization that resulted in the creation of Rose, since they are basically the same criminal group. She’s also at least partially responsible for the deaths of thousands of children, most of them failed experiments. Perfectly healthy children, who simply didn’t measure up to their standards.”
I felt the blood drain from my face.
Freya then sucked in a deep breath. “But Sam, it gets worse. That woman. She’s also the woman you thought abandoned you by taking her own life, as well as Eden’s first mother. Sam, she’s your ex-wife.”
22: Resolution
Sam Archer
April 27, 2735 – 4 Hours Later – Late Afternoon
I sat in the downstairs living room on the couch, feeling numb to the world, while Freya sat in the kitchen with Jackie Hendricks, just now beginning to finish up telling her everything important she could think of about the woman they’d arrested hours ago. Of course, Jackie was recording it all on her phone, so she could have an official report made later, with Lexi having her phone out too just to make sure there was a copy of Freya’s testimony.
The things Freya was sharing were disturbing on multiple levels, and learning how my ex-wife was alive – through a process of transplanting a person’s brain into a lab-created body, combined with a unique super’s ability, who had the power to make an organ match the health of the body – was all extremely unsettling, to say the least.
Not to mention, the whole reason behind the operation in the first place – offering high paying customers the opportunity to live forever via this method, with the major drawback being that they couldn’t successfully replicate superpowers, even if they could manage to replicate a person’s old appearance.
But picky customers meant a lot of failed clones. A lot of dead children, who were their own separate people, just like Rose was her own separate person. And even those who were allowed to live were still killed, once their brain was taken out and the paying customer’s brain was put in.
And, of course, the ultimate goal for the owners of this criminal organization was to create immortal bodies, but not for their customers. No, they wanted the repeat business.
Rather, the goal, for my ex-wife and those who were in control, all of them being essential in various ways due to their superpowers, was to create immortal bodies for themselves. My ex-wife in particular seemed to have some kind of enhancing ability that was tied to her brain, which meant she kept the ability even when she switched bodies every few decades.
And Eden? She was an experiment to create an immortal female super, with the woman sticking around to have a pretend family in order to keep me close for additional experiments. And Eden’s ‘disposal’ was likewise just a result of the woman coming to the conclusion the experiment had been an utter failure, combined with more promising opportunities coming up around that time.
She still kept an eye on me though. Just in case.
And also because she had a morbid obsession with me, partly out of jealousy, and partly because she loved me in a sadistic way. True sadism – not the fun bedroom kind, but the true life-destroying, soul-crushing, hateful kind.
She loathed me to the point that she sincerely viewed it as love.
As I listened to Freya finally finishing up, tipping Jackie off to a ton of leads that might help them start tracking the organization down, I had Winter leaning against my shoulder on the couch, seeming pretty ‘out of it’ herself. She appeared to be emotionally drained as well, between using her ability to stabilize Freya, and then myself too. Not to mention, she was also probably physically drained from Heidi healing her arm a while ago.
I couldn’t even begin to express the appreciation I felt toward her, knowing the sense of betrayal and shock that had flipped my world upside down would probably be affecting me a ton more if not for Winter.
Instead, I just felt numb.
And, because of that, the best I could offer Winter right now was a place to lean, my hands in my lap with me feeling just as wiped out, as if I needed to sleep, except that I couldn’t sleep. It was literally an impossibility for me.
I assumed Winter must be hungry, considering Heidi used some of her energy for the healing, but she didn’t budge from her spot, pressing into me like she was cold and using my body to try to warm herself.
Lily was upstairs with Rose in her bedroom, the young girl having fallen asleep after sobbing so much, with Heidi up there now too with Eden in her arms, the two women talking quietly as Lily gently ran her fingers through Rose’s black hair.
Again, the issue of safety had come up, Freya emphasizing to Jackie that no one in the organization knew where we lived except for my ex-wife, which meant it
