Prodigy (Complete)

Chapter Thirty-One

As he walked aimlessly, he eventually saw the silhouettes of three dark figures emerge from an abandoned subway entrance. He recognized Alex and Milo immediately and inferred who the other woman was.

When Alex reached the street level, she looked around in awe. It was the first time she had seen the old part of town herself. Weeds had replaced much of the pavement, disguising it from satellite images. Then she saw Aris.

“Aris, you made it!” Alex called out ecstatically.

“How’d you know I was here?” he asked.

“Security system.”

“Hi, I’m Mara,” Mara said as she bowed.

“It’s nice to finally meet you. I’m Aris.”

“I’ve heard a lot of good things about you,” Mara said.

Aris smiled at the thought of Alex talking about him to her mother. Milo recognized that as well and became even more jealous of him.

“Can you please tell me what’s going on?” he asked. “Your face is all over the news.”

“We couldn’t just let her rot in prison,” Milo said in a condescending tone. “Someone had to rescue her.”

“Well, aren’t you a hero,” Aris quipped. “Alex is lucky to have you as a friend.”

The remark irritated Milo, but he did not retaliate.

They entered the abandoned subway system together and upon Aris’ arrival, dozens of people greeted him. This made him feel welcome as if he was the guest of honour.

“This is quite the set up you guys have here,” he commented, looking around in amazement.

“Thanks,” Mara replied.

“So this is where you go when you want to hide?” he asked. “Quite literally, you go underground.”

They came up to the equipment room and Aris saw a strange contraption hooked up to a series of really old monitors.

“What’s this thing?” he asked.

“It’s a dream recorder.”

“What does it do?”

“It records dreams, dumbass,” Milo said.

“Milo, be nice.”

“The device simply records a person's brain activity during REM sleep and then creates a digital copy.”

“That sounds amazing. What are you guys doing with it?”

“We recorded Mara’s dream and uploaded that digital copy into my brain. My brain reproduced that same brain activity so I was able to watch her dream in vivid detail in my head as if I was watching a movie.”

“Incredible. What was that like?”

“Well, it was a pretty interesting experience, but the system fried before I could experience the entire dream. However, it wasn’t a complete waste. We managed to obtain a partial transfer of the file so I was able to recover bits and pieces.”

“Why didn’t you just upload the dream back into Mara’s brain?”

“That’s a valid question. We thought my brain may be able to make connections hers could not. We figured since I have no emotional connection to the event, I could get a cleaner analysis of the dream, which would be objective and free from bias.”

“So what did the upload reveal?”

“It was very interesting actually. I saw Mara with Maxim Morrison, they were both quite young and from what I could tell, seemed to be very much in love with each other,” Alex began to explain. “Maxim told Mara he had a secret, but wasn’t sure how to tell her.”

“What secret?” Aris asked impatiently.

“Don’t worry, I’m getting to it. He showed her the plans for the space program. How he intends to build a ship to explore new extraterrestrial minerals, such as gold to put in the atmosphere.”

“Don’t we already have enough gold in the atmosphere?” Aris asked.

“Well, that’s where it gets a little murky.”

“Wait, how is that a secret, we already know about the plans for the ship from the schematics we found.”

“Right, here’s where the secret comes in – the mission is bogus.”

“What do you mean?”

“He has no plans on using the ship for space exploration or to mine gold. The purpose of the ship is to sustain life.”

“Why?”

“Is it okay for me to continue?” Alex asked her mother.

“Yes, it’s fine,” Mara said.

“The dream sequence was a little sporadic, but from what I could gather, he had asked her to go with him. He kept referring to Earth as a “broken planet”, and was trying to convince her to leave it behind and start a new colony somewhere else.”

“Wow, that’s heavy.”

“Wait, there’s more.”

“After that, the conversation shifted to me – their unborn baby. Maxim confessed that he had been conducting secret experiments on me without Mara’s knowledge. He told her I would be very special and would be the first of my kind – a child born with such extreme gifts, that it may be considered the beginning of a new race of humans. I was supposed to be the first of this so-called super race, but there were to be others. Together, we would all leave Earth and form a new colony elsewhere.

“Maxim Morrison had been doing secret experiments on you to make you the way you are?” Aris asked.

“Apparently.”

“Somehow that makes me feel better about myself and less of a loser.”

“I’m glad it makes you feel better, but how do you think I feel?”

“Yeah, Aris, don’t be so insensitive,” Milo scolded.

“So when Maxim told Mara the truth, she became furious and left him. I felt a lot of pain and sadness mixed with anxiety and betrayal.”

“He was no longer the man I loved,” Mara added. “He was power hungry with a malevolent agenda. I didn’t want to be associated with him anymore so I ran away and hid. Being single, young, and poor, I did not qualify for child rearing. I knew if I got back with Maxim I would be okay, but I couldn’t do it. It was the hardest choice I ever had to make. I decided to go ahead with the pregnancy and hide it from the outside world – only a few of my closest friends knew. They helped me so much by bringing me food and taking care of me, they are like my family, and that’s why many of them are still with me today.”

The group remained silent. They had all seen the video of the horrendous labour. Now with a few more details of the back story, they could infer the rest.