“Please begin from the moment you were invited to participate in the research,” a young man said after thanking me for taking the time to speak to them (as if I had a choice) and expressing gratitude for my service to my country and to freedom. He and his partner seemed to be in awe of me, and I basked in it, nagged by a hint of impostor syndrome.
But at one point he asked, “Why do you think they did this?”
I had thought about that question, reaching an answer so bitter it could curdle souls if I shared it. I had no interest in spreading that contagion, although it had already become a political pandemic on its own.
“I’m glad to tell my own story,” I said, “but I can’t tell the stories of the villains. They can speak for themselves.”
He glanced down at a list of questions, momentarily deflated. Then he brightened, having found a way to get what he wanted by another route. “How do you know that they’re villains?”
“By their carelessness, and by the consequences of their actions.” I spoke for the rest of the afternoon on that point, and the two staff members signed off somber and shaken. Facts are stubborn things, and frequently forlorn.
CHAPTER12
Avril had spent the two-mile walk from campus through Madison to see Irene face-to-face for the first time trying to figure out why she felt nervous. Irene had invited her and the other sisters to her house—Irene’s mother’s house—so they could finally meet in person, but they had talked to each other a lot by phone already. They knew one another, right? Berenike was righteously angry, Lillian warily curious, Irene just plain sad, and herself? Thinner than she used to be.
And she knew what death looked like. She’d showered, but the stench seemed to linger, at least in her imagination. More cars drove down the road now, but things weren’t back to normal yet. It was the same with people, and when they passed on the sidewalk, they gave each other a wide berth. The virus had settled down into a severe but survivable cold, but every cold looked like the Prez’s cold from a distance.
She reached a neighborhood filled with three-family bungalows. A sign at the door of one of them said RUIZ STUDIOS. When she walked in, would it be the start of something or the end? She had once thought things could change fast. Well, some things have changed. And even if it took her whole life, she would make sure that certain things would never change back.
She walked up the wooden stairs, footsteps thumping, and waited on the porch for the door monitor to sense her presence.
Berenike barely noticed the passing countryside, going a hundred miles per hour past fields and buildings. The trip from Milwaukee to Madison would last only an hour, and despite light traffic, she worried and scanned each vehicle they encountered. Countermutineers had morphed into something more like pirates, organized crime—although they were sure they were modern Robin Hoods. They had infiltrated scheduling databases and were ambushing traffic, so she’d arranged for herself and Lillian to travel in a truck loaded with automobile parts, poor plunder.
They passed a car sitting on the shoulder of the road. A woman waved for help. Berenike felt bad about not stopping, but she didn’t dare offer help. Instead she called the local sheriff, but through a third party because she couldn’t trust him, either. That sheriff hadn’t declared a clear loyalty either way. That criminal, cowardly …
She was paying too much attention to traffic. She was neglecting Lillian.
“You okay?”
The girl looked up from her display and nodded. “Yeah, I’m doing homework.” She looked down again, grumpy-faced, maybe annoyed at the interruption, maybe anxious and trying to hide it. Kids were changeable, hard to read, and hard to parent. Berenike was sure she was doing something wrong, but what?
The truck pulled into Madison and rolled through some side streets. Almost there.
Lillian knew she was going to like her sisters because she’d talked to them all the time by phone and they were a lot like Berenike. They all looked the same but were different ages and had other little differences, which was weird. Most of all, it was like looking in mirrors that showed what she would be like when she was older. She had a lot to think about before the meeting, though. Irene had promised they could talk to the scientist who’d designed them. He’d answer any question, she’d promised. So she was thinking about questions, and she already had a lot.
Now the truck was stopping, and she could barely breathe. Avril was standing on the porch.
Irene had moved back to Madison and found herself living in a haunted house, haunted by her mother, whose ashes from the crematorium now sat in an urn in what had been her bedroom. The art on the walls haunted Irene—no, it reminded her of how her mother had called Irene a work of art. And how she’d been possessive and perfectionistic about all of her art.
No, stop. Don’t speak ill of the dead.
Instead, she should miss her mother. Miss her, yes. Forget her, no. What if Mamá had known that Irene wasn’t unique? Perhaps it was best to keep her ashes safely upstairs for now. On the Day of the Dead, she’d build a shrine and make some of Mamá’s favorite foods and have a long chat with her, and maybe it would end with some happy memories and a celebration.
Her phone rang, a number she didn’t know.
“Hello, Irene Ruiz?” A smiling man in a brown
