“See, Margo had grown up with a sister who was autistic. She loved Becca so much, but the autism made it so she could never be close to her. Just when she’d get a glimpse of who Becca was she would slip back into her world and leave Margo with a shell instead of a sister. She swore to herself that she would do anything she could to help find a cure for autism.”
I had so many questions for Dr. Andrews now, but I feared interrupting. I was afraid he would stop telling me the answers to everything I’d always wondered about. Mom never told us anything about her past, her family or her dreams before us. The few times I had asked, she would hug me and say, “This is all that matters, Meg. My world didn’t matter until I had you.” So I bit my lip and listened to his words.
“We were hired by a company called The Institute for Neurobiological Studies but everyone just called it The Institute. They had us both in research and development. Margo was brilliant and had a determination that was mistaken for ambition. She was promoted. The project she was assigned to was beyond my clearance level so I didn’t know details. I just knew the name: The Infinite Project.
“On the day she was given her first tour of the facility housing her new assignment, she called my voicemail and left a panicked message. She asked me to meet her at a coffee shop where we used to hang out. I told you this part on the plane, Meg.”
I nodded not wanting to interrupt him. The boys looked at me inquisitively.
“But I didn’t tell you everything. Margo told me that this project was initially intended to be a cure for autism, but they found if they used it on an average child, it could alter their minds in powerful ways.
“They were testing on human beings, and not just adults, but children and babies, too. These ‘test subjects’ were being held against their will right there at The Institute. She said she saw three young children who had been injected with test serums. Dr. Williams, her new supervisor, talked about dozens of others who had been killed in the development of this formula.
“She was beside herself with grief and fury. She believed her work had been used to hurt children instead of help them. She told me her plan. She was going back to the facility that very night with the excuse that she needed to set up her office so she could hit the ground running her first official day on the job.
“Instead, she was going to steal the children away from the company and hide them, if she could. She hinted she knew where she would be going with them, but she said it would be better if I didn’t know. That way, when asked, I could honestly claim ignorance.
“Though it had only been a matter of hours since her tour of the facility had ended, she had already plotted the entire rescue down to every detail. You know your mom. She’s all about the details.
“She wouldn’t tell me anymore, but I knew it was happening that night. I offered to help her, but she refused saying that she was endangering herself and she wouldn’t risk me or my family too.
“That was the last time I saw Margo.”
Silence enveloped the room as Dr. Andrew’s words sunk in.
Evan spoke first. “We’re the children she rescued.” His voice sounded monotone.
“She’s not our biological mother, and we are not really siblings,” added Alik with hollowness in his voice.
It was my turn to speak. “Now everything’s making sense. That’s why mom always kept us separate from the world—homeschooling, no television, no radio or internet. She didn’t want us to be found.”
“And she didn’t want us to compare ourselves to other children either because she knew the treatments would have altered us and we would be different.” Evan’s mind was working quickly.
“So this company, The Institute, has been searching us all these years and now that they captured mom …” Alik began.
“… They know we’ll come to find her and they’ll try to pick up where they left off with us,” and I finished.
“Metahumans,” Dr. Andrews said. “Margo told me they called you ‘metahumans’ meaning ‘beyond human’.”
Metahumans? What the heck! What was that supposed to mean?
I felt Cole’s hand, warm and accepting, reaching out to find mine. He looked at me with a pure heart as he warmed the chill coursing through my body. I was shaking but hadn’t realized it till now.
“Hey Meg? Remember those documents I told you about back at the ranch? The ones I found in mom’s library?” Evan, ever the realist, was already thinking logically. And here I was still stuck on the fact that the woman who raised me wasn’t my mother. And if she wasn’t my mother, then who was? And my father? Who was he? And these boys I’d always believed to be my brothers, weren’t.
Dr. Andrews spoke this time. “What documents are you talking about Evan? Can you show them to us?”
Chapter 23 Numerous Notes