Immortal Mistakes

too valuable to damage

May 30, 2029

Hi Chloe,

I'm finally allowed to write to you. The camp director must have gotten sick of all our complaining about how we (the regular twins) wanted to see you (the immortal twins) even if it was just by hologram. We know people use holograms all the time now because Daniel and I snuck into the director's office one night when she wasn't here and she had left her message board on. And we know she goes to see your camp too because we read her messages. So she's seen you and you've seen her. We call her Octavia. Is that what you call her? Andrea says it is. She's one of the twins here. She says she knows what her twin Susan is seeing and thinking and that you are all pretty much doing the same things as us which is school and testing and not being allowed outside the compound. But she says that your compound is in the desert and it's hot and red. We're in the mountains where it snows a lot but that's okay because we're allowed to skate on the lake that's inside the fence. I try really hard to see what you are doing but I can't see anything. Daniel can't see his twin either and he thinks Andrea is making it up.

Octavia said she would take the letters next time she goes to your compound. She's stopped lying about it now because she knows we know. She thinks we'll be quiet if we get to write one letter to you. She doesn't know us very well. We're like you, we're too valuable to damage. That means it doesn't matter if we don't follow the rules. They're not going to wipe our memories or damage our DNA. It would ruin the experiment.

She said that we can tell you everything because she's already told you, that she told you when she told us. She says she wants us to know what is happening because we are an important part of the future. We are all working together to build a better human race. She said if we didn't do this, we would all die out soon because genetic diseases would kill us. That's why we have to stay here and we shouldn't try and break out like we did a couple of months ago. She said this is the safest place for us and if we leave they can't protect us. Protect us from who? I can see why people might hate you and your friends because you are immortal but we aren't. We are the 'controls'. We're the same as everybody else. They don't keep us here for our safety, they keep us here because they don't want to lose track of us. They need us for their stupid experiment.

You know what they're doing right? They're tracking how our genes change and mutate over time compared to yours. They're watching to see whether we get sick and which genes make us sick. And they won't treat us when we get sick. They'll keep watching us and just let us die. We're only 15 now and already one of the boys has died from a type of cancer called leukaemia. I heard the nurses saying that cancer runs in families. You know that Mum died from brain cancer. That means that I might get it too. Or Jenny or Grant. At least if they get it, the doctors on the outside will try to fix it. Here they won't.

That's why we tried to escape. We don't want to be kept here until we get sick and die. We want to go back to our families. You must want that too. We never asked to be part of this. It's not fair.

I don't know if she really will take these letters and if she does whether that means they won't let this year's letter from the others through. I'm sorry if they don't but I really wanted to tell you what's been going on. We'll keep bugging her until she lets us talk to you. Happy Birthday for tomorrow. I'll eat a piece of cake for you.

Love,

Katie