I was to do whatever the Harper men commanded of me. If I disobeyed, my punishment would fall to them. They had bought me, and in the eyes of the council, I didn’t own myself. But, then again, to them I didn’t deserve to. According to their doctrine, I was weak. Filled with such reckless wantonness that I could only corrupt, never lead. So, while the council abandoned the naturals stationed in compounds, we were forced to be the servants of the men left in the headquarters.
If only they knew the person responsible for their continued power was a woman. Was that why she did it? Some cosmically sick joke? The supreme creator a woman. It was wild.
Or did she really do it because she thought the world, and everyone in it, too dark and twisted to save? She had told me the code for the fail-safe. Whispered it into my ear gleefully. I still had no idea what any of it meant. And while the older members of the council had to know Abrams was female, these pissants had no idea.
It was no secret that soon their bloodlines would die out. That one day, the chosen ones would be the only ones left—a perfect species to carry out our civilization, a civilization molded and created by the council itself. That would be their legacy. So, these younger children, boys not smart enough to carry out their father’s work, sons of man-made Gods, pranced and lived in the headquarters with no purpose.
Lives of frivolity that went unchecked.
The first time I was locked in the closet was on the third day of my servitude. I was punished because Richard had accused me of spitting in Terrance’s tea when he wasn’t looking. I had stood there, holding the tea tray while the boys lazily sat around the table, and watched as Richard spat into the cup. After Terrance drank from it, Richard nearly fell from the chair laughing. When the boy, who couldn’t have been more than fourteen or fifteen, raised his eyebrows at me and whispered mischievously to his brother, I never would have dreamt he would accuse me of such a ridiculous action.
This petty act left me dumbfounded. I was used to seeing people who thought they were better than me take for granted the lavish lives they were given, but this overwhelming sense of mean-spirited silliness wasn’t something I had ever truly experienced before.
These boys, villains who enjoyed terrorizing Regan and me, weren’t so different than the naturals who lived in the compounds. Neither set of people had any true purpose guiding them through life. But I wasn’t sure what made these boys so hateful. They appeared to have everything just within their reach. Thinking back on the people who shared their lives with me within the walls of the compound and the Isolationists who struggled to find freedom, I began to hate the Harpers.
Knowing full well I wouldn’t be stupid enough to let his younger brother see me spit in his tea, Terrance yanked me by the hair and threw me into the closet. Once I was inside, I realized all of the shelves had been removed, and there was a deadbolt on the outside.
This space had never been used for storage.
The second time I had been locked in the closet was because I had failed to guess that Terrance had wanted me to set out his light blue silk shirt instead of the white one. I was supposed to read his mind.
The unfairness of it was enough to drive me insane. But somehow, I kept my mouth shut. James. James. James. It became my daily mantra. I waited for my father’s man on the inside to reach me. Any time an errand sent me outside of the Harper family quarters, I held my head up, hoping someone would recognize me. But the days turned into a week and I had no sign of my father’s man.
The third time I was forced into the closet was because Terrance was bored. He called me into the family study and demanded that I entertain him. “You must have some sort of talent. Show me,” he chirped, chucking the book he was reading across the room. Had I not served time at Templeton, the sight of the book would have shocked me. The council had long ago outlawed them, but the council often picked and chose what rules they followed.
I looked Terrance up and down. There was a part of me that was slowly becoming infected by the nastiness that spewed from these boys. I wanted to tease him, laugh at his ugliness. God, or whoever created him, had certainly given no attention to the construction of his face. Comically wide, Terrance’s teenage face was covered in acne. It was too plump for the rest of his body. His head looked as if someone got confused and switched it with a much bigger man’s by mistake. Bushy eyebrows and gapped teeth.
I wondered why his father, one of the world’s most gifted scientists and leader of the council, didn’t fix him. Perhaps Harper didn’t worry too much about his sons; I barely saw him around the living quarters.
Behind the greasy elder son stood a beautiful gleaming piano. There was a talent I could show him, but it wasn’t one I was willing to part with. Playing it for him would feel like I was giving him all the moments connected to it—the moments when I’d still looked up to my father and the moments when I’d fallen for James.