Gen Four- Chapter Six

I realized I could jump from Mr. Flaxen's arms and run back far too late. My mind couldn't grasp anything that was going on, but my heart still told me to stay with my family and whatever path that took me down instead of running off with this man I didn't really know. Unfortunately, the end of the long underground tunnel eventually came into sight. It slanted upwards where Mr. Flaxen opened a heavy iron door set against the slope of a steep hill. There at the bottom where we exited was a covert, man-made overhang providing protection for the escape car dad mentioned. He must have maintained it well as it turned on smoothly and was full of gas, but Mr. Flaxen grabbed several of the cans of spare fuel anyway.

I was dumped in the back seat as he drove us down the one, earthen road there was to follow. Twenty minutes of winding throughout the trees then brought us to an isolated and unfamiliar back road. Another twenty minutes got us on what had to be a main road. The car zoomed along a speed I'd never felt while the forest broke away to a wide sky and low roar of other vehicles nearby. I saw little of anything but the sky though, for Mr. Flaxen barked at me to stay lying down anytime I tried to peek my head closer to the window. So, I cried. It must have annoyed Mr. Flaxen for he turned on the radio, loud and clear for the first time, to drown out my sniffles and sobs. Such was fine with me. I could just cry harder.

However, not too much more time passed before the several lanes of road merged into just two. Large ridges and the rolls of the mountain foothills became more compact. Turns became more frequent, and I dared to peek my head up once more upon crossing two bridges when insanely tall buildings came into view.

     "Head down!" Mr. Flaxen snapped again.

     "Where are we at?" It was the first question I'd asked, and I expected him not to answer.

     "The city of Aspen Harbor," he did explain gruffly after a moment.

Never heard of it.

Mr. Flaxen threw me glares until I curled up on the seat once more. I held my breath as those massive towers, skyscrapers, consumed us until they devoured even most of that blue sky. Mr. Flaxen fidgeted more and grew antsy each time a sign or light forced us to stop. While more questions danced on the tip of my tongue, my mouth stayed firmly shut knowing I'd likely be rebuked instead of answered. The final fifteen minute stretch of the drive brought us to one of those skyscrapers. It rested at the corner of a block being surrounded on two sides by the near cliff-like sides of a mountain hill.

     "This is where I've been told to go. I'm going to pull around back to make sure we can get in," Mr. Flaxen revealed dryly before looking at me expectantly.
     "Stay down and stay here until you tell me otherwise," I understood.

He just nodded stiffly and checked his phone one more time before parking us at the end of the nearby side-road.

My lungs heaved with relief once he was out of the car. I hadn't realized until that moment how tense his presence made me feel. Mr. Flaxen clearly wasn't inclined to treat me kindly, and the fact that he didn't work for The Company as assumed put me on edge. Who did he work for? What did they do? What was going to happen to me?

Why had grandpa betrayed us?

I dared to let the thought enter my mind right as Mr. Flaxen returned, for now wasn't the moment to lose myself trying to accept either reality. Grandpa had truly given us up for selfish reasons, or dad was as cruel as his words made him out to be. Both torn my heart apart.

     "Ugh, they sent us to such a dump. A whole career of hard work for them, and they offer me this?"

Mr. Flaxen had brought us up a back flight of stairs into a tiny apartment. Needless to say, I wasn't pleased either with the new arrangement. The whole apartment combined was smaller than the living room area of the basement at home. There was only an arch with a curtain leading into the bedroom here too.

I said nothing as Mr. Flaxen walked around surveying anything. No matter how much I wished I'd made a different choice, this was my reality. It was an unfortunate reality where I had little power or say, if any. I had to be good. I had to obey. Who knew what the consequences would be if I didn't.

     "Come here," Mr. Flaxen finally beckoned.
     "Yes, sir."

I stood timidly before him. The intense anger he wore in the hallway had lessened, but annoyance and a lack of care for me dominated his expression.

     "Thanks to your miserable grandfather, the two of us have been put into the most infuriating situation I've had to deal with in my career. To make this clear, I hate kids. You at least seem smart enough to know I want nothing to do with you and are acting accordingly. Unfortunately, that still doesn't do much to make me feel better about how this all might ruin me. My group is pissed, and I'm pissed. Not a good combination when I was promised utmost security when I agreed to mediate between Spreading Roots and my employer."
     "I..." I mumbled. My mind was blank. "I'm sorry."
     Mr. Flaxen scoffed at my apology. "God, you really have no idea what's going on, do you?"

Was he presenting me an opportunity for the truth?

    "I don't," I replied uncertainly.
    "Well, I don't want you bothering me with inane questions, so let me tell it to you without all the fluff. Your whole life is a big lie. That man on the other side of the wall attacking your dad, that's your other grandfather, Coal Vivid. Russet's dad was killed when he went berserk after he tried to kill Coal, which made Russet seek revenge on your mother's family. He had your dad with a surrogate specifically for that purpose. Your dad ended up being born with some sort of disability or whatever that meant he had no emotions. A psychopath, basically. Every emotion you saw was faked. He was never happy. Never mad. When he told you he loved you, he didn't mean it. Couldn't mean it."
     "H-Hold on a second," I stumbled, frowning at the same time my chest shrank in on itself.
    "This is the truth. I have no reason to speak otherwise. Your grandfather and dad secretly tormented your mother's family. Timber even told me of this one time he tried to kill your mother by pushing her into some lake. Anyway, they ended up killing your great-grandmother and great-great uncle or whatever he was to you while they were in the hospital. Timber eventually lost interest in doing things how he was though, which is why he arranged hits for your two aunts, uncle, and Coal's wife to finish the project with a bang. Your one aunt and your grandmother managed to survive, but your dad is totally responsible for the deaths of Gilly and Merlot. He and Russet accidentally got themselves exposed though, forcing you all to live hiding in that house."

I shuffled a small step back. Strangely enough, I thought of Ms. Cranberry. Of how she told me how blind I was to everything. I guess she hadn't been wrong.

     "Your dad found your mother interesting enough to kidnap instead of kill. That basement was built to be her prison, not to be a safe haven. It was a sick irony Timber kept you down there making you think the opposite. That room you slept in is the same place where he raped your mother. It is the same place where he shot and killed her and your twin."

I froze. My unblinking eyes locked onto Mr. Flaxen's impassioned stare back.

     "T...twin?" I repeated the word, wholly foreign on my tongue. "What do you mean?"
    "That you were a twin, obviously. You had an older sister. Fraternal. Your mother slept with that Arbor guy she was actually dating the night before Timber stole her. His sperm made a baby out of one of the eggs your mother's body released, and Timber's sperm made a baby, you, out of the other egg. Your mother must have hoped Timber wouldn't notice as she said nothing of having slept with Arbor, but Timber said he knew right away. He confirmed it with a paternity test, shot the baby and your mom, and punished whatever doctor had tried to send you and your sister to your mother's family for safety."
     "...I..." My tongue dragged heavily like concrete. "Did my sister have a name?"
     "Cinnamon."
     "Cinn..." I lost my breath before I could finish.

My stare slowly dropped to the floor. My burning eyes still wouldn't blink.

     "You, like everything your father did, are an experiment. One he did in conjunction with Spreading Roots. Recruiting normal people is too difficult, and their allegiance to their families often causes problems. Spreading Roots is working to replace whoever they can with robots, and for the people they do need they wanted to see how an isolated community of them brought up from birth to serve their wishes could work. You were their first test to see how much stimulation, affection, and control was needed. It was going pretty well until your grandfather took matters into his own hands by growing a conscience. Thankfully, it seems like Timber didn't trust him enough to tell him about the tunnel."

Mr. Flaxen paused giving me a chance to say something. However, I had no words. Not in the slightest. He had plenty though.

     "Honestly, I don't know what Russet was thinking. He and Timber will be in jail for the rest of their lives, and I doubt anything good would have happened to you. Your mother's family isn't the way Timber painted them, but if I'd ever deluded myself into having a daughter I definitely wouldn't want to have the child of the man who raped and murdered her dumped on me."

He paused again. I stood there frozen as a statue.

     "There we are then. You have the truth, and I don't have to deal with you pestering me. Call me cruel all you want, but at least I have the decency to be honest. It'll be better for you in the long run." He glanced at his beeping cellphone. "I have to go meet with some people who're going to try and fix this mess. I shouldn't have to say it, but stay here and stay quiet until I get back."

Without waiting more than a brief second, Mr. Flaxen checked for the key in his pocket, walked out the door, and turned the lock. I watched him go before covering my face. No tears came out though. I was too empty and drained for them.

An old clock sat on the wall. It quietly ticked the passing of minutes, but for me each tick was the same one over and over again. Time froze absolutely. My torn mind couldn't decide on what part of all this to think on much less decide any feelings. I found myself pondering on random bits to avoid anything big. Perhaps if I had paid more attention in Literature, Mr. Mint would have taught me a word that described feeling everything and nothing at once. I wondered what would happen to Tektite. If she'd begun barking when all those strange men charged through the house, I hadn't heard it. I doubted I was going to see her again.

The blaring wail of sirens pulsing between buildings eventually snapped me out of my stupor. At least, they snapped me out enough to settle a hint of curiosity in my chest. This was the outside world. I might be confined to this room for the moment, but everything only seen on the television was essentially right outside my window. Shuffling over to take a peek spun my head though. It already ached, and my stomach dropped as if I'd tripped realizing how high off the ground I was. The room was on the top floor, which was easily a hundred feet in the air. I'd never gone higher than the roof of our house the few times grandpa let me up there when he worked on the shingles or cleaned the gutters.

Honestly, it was too much to take in. I nearly fell over craning my neck up to see how most other buildings nearby were at least double the size of ours. The unfamiliar stimulation and sense of vertigo thickened the pressure in my skull overwhelmingly. I thus staggered my way to the bedroom where I gained a semblance of balance and relaxation by parking my butt on the bed for hours. The television on the wall, likely the most expensive thing in here, accessed a bunch of stuff I hadn't seen, yet as I sat there watching I didn't take in a single thing. The movements, lights, and sounds were merely the basic input required to keep my head from imploding. I barely even noticed when Merge Monsters came on. The episode was one of my favorites as it largely featured koalamb, but I stared as dully at it as if I was watching grass grow.

The color of the sky blanched from its blue to a bland grayish navy as the buildings blocked the rich warm hues of sunset. How could so many hours have already gone by? What had happened where I was now far from home and anyone I knew with no idea what was going to come with the morning? Right as I began to wonder if Mr. Flaxen was ever coming back did the lock finally turn. He was on his phone listening to someone as he stormed in and over to the table. I hastily turned the television off and stayed still.

     "You had better make sure my salary's doubled for this! Remind them that I'm still the one with all the access to the information they want. You know, the stuff they've been desperately after for who knows how long? Another chance like the one I had with Mountain is not going to come around again. If I'm caught, throwing their resources into a wood chipper all these years would have been a better option. Then they would have at least gotten some confetti for their pity party!"

The other person said something. Mr. Flaxen just huffed an angry goodbye before hurriedly ending the call.

     "Just lay low, they tell me. Yeah, that's going to work. Have them do nothing and hope it'll blow over. Pure genius." Mr. Flaxen stomped here and there mumbling to himself before remembering my presence. He stared bitterly my way and thrust his arm to the side to motion me from my spot. "Out of the bedroom. You stay here for now and don't bother me!"

I didn't even bother with a polite, submissive response. Silence seemed better. My feet hurriedly shuffled me to the couch where Mr. Flaxen gave me one more unimpressed glare. He stormed into the bedroom where the springs in the bed creaked upon himself tossing him there to have his controlled fit. The television's volume blared loud enough to be heard from the other buildings. I sat there allowing the deafening racket to numb my thoughts some more. Honestly, besides that, there was little else to do. After an hour or so the volume was reduced enough to the point where I felt it safe to tip-toe to the bookshelf. An old book about music composition was the first one my fingers brushed against, so it was the one I went with. The words were taken in yet not retained.

By the time I reached two-thirds of the way through the pages, I couldn't stand anymore. I put the book back and stared out the window once more. My cheek then squished against the couch cushion as I slumped in disappointment. The night sky I'd known with its vibrant obsidian black and faint swaths of purple with stars drenching the darkness like a tube of sparkles knocked over had been replaced by that same boring navy with hardly a star or two poking out. I suppose this was the light pollution I'd learned about.

My stomach grumbled.

Oh. Right. I did need to do stuff like eat. Until that moment, everything like that had been swept from my consciousness. I hadn't even gone to the bathroom since this morning. What time was it? Only now did I realize the clock on the wall was broken. It counted the minutes and hours, but it showed a time of 1:13. It clearly wasn't early afternoon, but there was no way it was that late into the night. Whatever the hour was, it was late enough for Mr. Flaxen to judge it time for bed. He'd fallen asleep with the television still faintly playing while he hadn't gotten under the covers or taken his shoes off.

     "Mr. Flaxen?" I asked timidly. The last thing I wanted to do was wake him, but there was no other option. "Mr. Flaxen?"
     "What?" he grumbled as soon as his eyelashes fluttered open.
     "Aren't we going to have dinner?"
     "I ate while I was out."
     "But...I didn't..."
     "What do you want me to do about it? Wait until morning. You're not going to starve."

And with that, he rolled over and lazily worked with one foot to kick his right shoe off.

I shouldn't have expected anything different. After getting his left shoe off, Mr. Flaxen swiftly returned to his dreams. My eyes roamed at how he splayed across the bed like a deformed starfish. It wasn't that I'd held the expectation I would share the bed with him or he would gallantly take the couch so I could have it by myself, but him so overtly quenching any hint of care for my sleeping arrangements dug a pain in deep. It was no wonder Mr. Flaxen never so much as said 'hello' to me before. The other people dad had over would at least acknowledge me and generally smile kindly. Him, however, he treated me like a ghost.

In some ways, that did make this better. I truly didn't have any hopes, and his brutal honesty did halt any from forming that might hurt even more later when they were dashed. Sighing, I numbly searched the kitchen. There was nothing in the fridge, but there was a cup for me to fill most of my stomach for water. Some luck came my way as in the last cabinet I found an old granola bar still in its wrapper in the back corner. It was hard and weirdly sticky, but it didn't taste bad. It satisfied me enough to permit my eyes to close when I laid down.

The couch was lumpy, uneven, and the farthest thing from comfortable. I must have been more exhausted than thought though, for I slept through Mr. Flaxen waking up, being gone, and then coming back. My wake up call was him crumpling up a paper bag used for the groceries and tossing it at my shoulder. I would have been bothered by this more had he not found some decency to have poured me a massive bowl of cereal.

     "My bosses are trying to figure out what to do with you," he revealed as I shoveled the sugary flakes into my mouth. "They're talking with Spreading Roots to see if they want you back, but with the illusion of the test being broken I doubt they'll find use for you. My group is checking if there's any purpose you can serve for us. What benefit we could get from a child, I have no damn clue. A waste of time debating it, honestly."
     "Maybe...maybe you could just give me to the people that came to the house? I might be able to still see grandpa and dad, and even if mom's family hates me..."
     "That would be the easiest solution, but, unfortunately, you know too much. Spreading Roots said they let you in on way too many secrets that would be at risk for coming out if we handed you over to get the government off our backs. It's you they're looking for more than me."
     "I won't say anything," I promised.
     "Yeah, right," Mr. Flaxen scoffed. "I don't believe you, and Spreading Roots certainly won't take the risk even if they decided they do. They already lost the Scarlet Dawn office in the raid."
     "The office was raided?" I stopped eating, stunned.
     "The whole place is swarming with government rats now. Everyone who was there was also arrested."

After a moment of pause, I fell silent for the rest of the meal as I returned to eating, much more slowly now. I suppose it was a good thing then that Mr. Nimbus and Mr. Mint had been sent elsewhere. They were at least safe.

Mr. Flaxen finished eating far before me even with pouring himself a second bowl. He disinterestedly showed me what he'd bought before commanding me to clean the dishes while he took a shower. I dutifully obeyed, the work far from demanding, and then waited painfully once the running water reminded me of the other thing my body needed. I seriously still hadn't gone to the bathroom. There'd I'd drank all the water last night, now I had a bunch of milk in me, and me ignoring my bodily needs did not need to a happy bladder. Mr. Flaxen, of course, took a shower so long it drained our access to hot water.

     "I've still got work I can do, so I'll be out for the day. You can watch television quietly, but don't you dare make a peep," he commanded again.
     "Yes, sir," I agreed vigorously.

He glanced me over, perhaps waiting for signs of protest, but my shoulders were squared and my head was held high. That got him leaving with him rolling his eyes. I flew into the bathroom.

And, from there...a routine fell into place. I stayed quiet in the room all day. Mr. Flaxen left around nine and didn't typically come back until ten. There was no way he was working the whole time, so I figured he was finding other means of entertaining himself so he didn't have to be stuck in a small space with me. He barely spoke another word to me after that first morning, and when he did it was an instruction to clean, get out of the way, or be quiet. The bed was always his at night. It wasn't great quality, but its awful mattress was a cloud compared to the couch. That one evening was the only evening where I got a good rest on it. More often than not I stayed awake unable to find comfort enough to drift off. It grew to the point where most nights I moved to the floor for better support. I eventually had to sleep in the bed during the day to make sure my brain got the rest it needed, using the simple t-shirt and shorts Mr. Flaxen bought for my pajamas.

Two and a half long and miserable weeks passed like this. I'd wanting mind numbing, but each day I seriously felt my brain turn more and more into mush. My body literally had a tingling fuzz scattering up and down my arms at the frustration of confinement while my muscles ached and burned.

     "Can't I please go outside?" I requested desperately one morning before Mr. Flaxen was about to leave.
     "Absolutely not," he frowned.
     "I'm going crazy being stuck here!"
     "Then open a window or stand in the sunlight."
     "I'm already doing that, and it's not enough. Haven't you heard of cabin fever?"
     "Of course, but does that mean I'm supposed to care?"
     "You care about yourself, that's for sure. We've been here almost three weeks. Aren't you frustrated about this situation as well? I don't care anymore where I go or who takes me in, so can't you get your bosses to make a decision already?"
     "Brat, you think that's not what I'm doing each and every day? Your grandfather's betrayal had made communication difficult between us and Spreading Roots. It's going to take time."
     "How much more time?" I whined.
     "Who knows?" Mr. Flaxen turned on his heel and abruptly walked away. "I'm heading out. Stay here and stay quiet."

I tried. I did honestly try. Everything I could think to do to entertain myself I did. I ran the bath so I could wash my normal clothes that were getting stinky. For way longer than needed I scrubbed them until my arms were about to drop off before indeed opening a window to let them air dry. A cloth became my companion as I kept on cleaning. Every single inch of the room shined when I was done.

It was only eleven.

I washed the dishes. I alphabetized the books. I made a fancy hamburger lunch. I did crunches on the bed while watching television. The fuzzy feeling lifted only slightly. A threat of a true scream did bubble in my throat upon checking the working clock in the bedroom to see 12:30 on the screen. That was it! I couldn't take it anymore! How did Mr. Flaxen expect me to stay still for another nine hours before he returned at which point all he would do is ignore me? If he could so easily come and go, there shouldn't be a problem with me taking a little walk. Aspen Harbor was huge, after all. I would be nothing more than another face on the street.

Gathering up my courage, I changed into my now dry clothes and snuck down the back stairwell leaving everything unlocked before cautiously moving towards the front of the building.

Already my chest felt lighter. The freedom of the walls and roof falling away danced relief all over me as a bottle of water refreshes a parched throat. My body used to copious amounts of exercise thanked me for the rapid pace of my speed walking down the sidewalks. It took most of my energy to not sprint like a cheetah. There were constant stop signs and lights that would force me to halt at every block, and running like that would draw unwanted attention. No one otherwise paid attention to me like I figured. People were far more concerned about where they'd be having lunch.

My one big goal aside from getting out of the building was getting to the beach. Aspen Harbor, naturally, was set against the ocean, and from the brief glimpses I could see from the building the ocean wasn't a difficult thing to find. A half hour or so of traveling south broke past the tall skyscrapers into more familiar one or two story buildings that then broke away even more. There I stood at the top of a slope where grass soon gave way to a vast expanse of sand and waves. What also gave way was the sand to my shoes. Heeled footwear didn't exactly work well in walking to my destination. Thus, I took of my socks and shoes to hide them in a thick patch of tall grass.

Enough of me remained aware that I really shouldn't be spotted. The beach proved relatively empty for the time of day, but it being emptier meant that I would stand out more. I enjoyed the strange squishiness of the warm sand attempting to devour my foot with every step. The unique tang of the salt water sent my nose to heaven with its scent while the wind rich and crisp swirled around me with an energizing vigor. I very nearly jumped believing I'd find the ability to fly. More than any of that though, peace settled within me at the sight of the horizon. This was the first time I was seeing it for myself instead of on the television. That seemingly straight line was the rounded form of the world. As I found an isolated spot at the end of the beach past more patches of grass, again and again I stretched forth my hand to trace that line and pretend to grab it. I envied the boats bobbing out there on the waves. Maybe I should become a sailor.

When I stepped into the water, I closed my eyes and finally felt truly calm. My shoulders relaxed, my temples stopped aching, and what I buried deep inside disappeared. Like this, I could simply be standing back in the river at home. Opening my eyes would find me there with Tektite running madly like normal. I'd walk the grassy hills back to the house where grandpa would be working on our afternoon snack while dad would be raring to play against me in a racing video game I'd gotten good at. That life hadn't been bad. How could I have complained about it all breaking when now things were actually broken? The Company supervisors had been right. How selfish my actions had been.

Unfortunately, opening my eyes didn't bring anything back. I stood where I stood, and that wasn't going to change. At the very least, there were little ways my connection to home wouldn't fade. I found a little rock much like the faintly rainbow ones I'd found for grandpa and me while searching for one to skip. I pocketed it tenderly while spending the rest of my time bouncing rocks against the waves or wading here and there in the shallow depths.

I spent two hours at the beach. Worry constantly ate at me after a point that every additional minute away from the building was far too long, but each time I attempted to head back my body began hurting again. Having never dealt with experience physical pain at the thought of being in a certain location, the protest pulled me to the shore again and again. What I never could have known is how fatefully such a pattern would play out.

The sun dried my feet quickly once I finally convinced myself to return. My socks and shoes snuggled my feet comfortably, and this time the walk went slower as I took in the lights, sights, sounds, and smells of the wide world surrounding me. The city was definitely an experience after having lived in the quiet country. I couldn't say if I liked the atmosphere better, but...it didn't matter what I liked or wanted. What I saw when I rounded the corner had me ducking behind a brick border wall enclosing several large flower bushes. Police swarmed the front of the building. Mr. Flaxen was there as well. He must have come back early. The choice had cost him dearly, for my gut choked with an icy chill watching him be escorted to a cruiser parked on the side of the street.

     "I'm telling you, I have no idea who you're talking about!" Mr. Flaxen's loud and angry voice reached me. He spoke mainly to the blue man, the one wearing a fancier uniform than the rest. "I hate kids. What would I know about some little brown brat?"

The blue man replied, but his words were calm and composed and too soft to hear. I began slinking away as Mr. Flaxen was guided into the car, and I dashed off completely as the blue man began surveying the area.