S. Bodeen - The Fallout

“What about Mom?” I asked. “And Terese? And the little ones?”

“I’ll see them soon.” Dad let out a loud breath. “Come now. Let’s not spoil our reunion. There’s plenty of time for talk.”

And then I looked at Eddy and Lexie. They were so happy. Why? Why weren’t they freaked out that we’d been drugged and taken against our will?

And then it all hit me. Not only Dad being alive, but him orchestrating our arrival on the island. A plan that must have been in motion almost since the day we arrived back in Seattle.

“I’ve gotta sit down.” I went to the nearby glass dining table and dropped onto one of the white damask chairs.

Dad had been behind all of it.

Tony finding Lucas that day couldn’t have been a setup, because I’m the one who left Lucas alone. But Tony could have been following us for a long time, simply waiting for the chance to befriend us. Maybe a setup had been coming, and opportunity had simply presented itself early when Lucas went out the emergency door.

Tony. Tony had been the one who’d leaked our outings to Barron. Had to be.

Which meant Dad had been in on it all. Tony was on the payroll.

The trip to Colorado had been just the right moment to get us in the jet, to bring us here.

Eddy asked, “You all right?”

I shook my head.

He said, “I’ll get you something to drink.”

I nodded.

Dad had come and sat at the head of the table, while Lexie sat on the chair to his right, smiling up at him. He placed a hand on her cheek.

Eddy set a tumbler of ice water down in front of me and I held the cool glass for a moment, and then stuck my hands on my face.

I was so hot.

After a long drink of the water, I set the glass back down. I looked at Dad. “You planned it. All of it.”

“Eli, now’s not the time for debate,” said Dad. “We’re here together, can we simply—”

“No!” I slammed my hand on the table. “I need to know.”

“All right.” Dad sighed. “I needed to get you all here.”

Lexie said, “Eli, we’re here. Dad’s here. That’s all that matters.”

“Are you kidding me?” My voice got louder as I continued, asking. “You’re fine with Tony lying? Drugging us?” I glared at Dad.

“Daddy?” Lexie frowned. “What’s going on?”

Dad walked over to the sidebar and picked up a small pair of silver tongs. “Now that you’re here, I’ll tell you everything.” He plucked out an ice cube from the matching silver bucket and dropped it into a glass with a clink . “I became aware of Dr. Barkley’s research—”

“What?” Goose bumps rose on my arms.

“Who is that?” asked Lexie.

I said, “He’s a doctor at the Progeria Institute, where I visited. YK funds his research.” I looked at Dad, waiting.

Dad continued. “As I said, I became aware of Dr. Barkley, and his discovery, a few weeks before Eddy and Eli’s ninth birthday.” He dropped another ice cube. Clink .

I sucked in a quick breath and Eddy stiffened beside me.

Lexie frowned at me and Eddy. “What’s so special about your ninth birthday?”

“Our ninth birthday was… the camping trip. When we entered…” I couldn’t say it.

“Oh.” She frowned and looked back at Dad.

He put a couple more cubes in his glass, poured himself some water, then took his drink over to the glass wall on the opposite side of the room. My father stared out at the jungle for a moment before speaking again. “His discovery was… astounding, to say the least.”

Eddy asked, “What discovery?”

When Dad didn’t answer, I explained. “He’d isolated the compound that triggers aging.”

“Really?” Lexie asked Dad, “What did that have to do with anything?”

He lifted his arms out to his sides. “It had everything to do with everything!” He dropped his arms, still grinning as he walked back over to us and sat back down in his chair. “Dr. Barkley’s discovery meant so much more than just a potential cure for progeria.” He leaned forward. “It was a possible cure for aging itself.”

Eddy cleared his throat. “Is aging something to be cured, though?”

Dad laughed. “Spoken like a true teenager. Wait until you’re thirty or forty or eighty. Then you’ll understand.”

Lexie asked, “What does this have to do with Tony?”

I wanted to know that myself. How Tony got involved in Dad’s scheme to get us here. And who the dude really was, because it was apparent he was no skateboarder from the wrong side of the tracks.

“At first I wasn’t completely sure what we had,” Dad said.

“Wait.” I held up my hand. “You skipped a bit, don’t you think? How about telling us how you got your hands on the research?” I only had a hunch, but I had to call him out.

Dad shot me a scathing glance and sighed. “Fine, fine.” He twirled the fingers of one hand in the air. “I had it taken.”

I knew it.

Eddy asked, “Why would you have to do that?”

“Yeah,” said Lexie. “Couldn’t you have bought it?”

Dad scratched his chin. “I did buy it, really. I wrote Dr. Barkley a very significant check after the fire and—”

“What fire?” Eddy burst out.

“There happened to be a fire at his research facility and I provided the funds to get him back on his feet. Start up his research again.”

“Wait.” Lexie hadn’t acted like the conversation was worth listening to, but now she had a serious expression on her face. “Was the fire before or after you took his research?”

Dad didn’t answer.

So I took a chance and said, “The fire was a cover-up. For the robbery. And you ended up with the research and no one was any wiser.”

“Very good, Eli.” Dad smiled at me. “You always figure out my secrets, don’t you?”

Yeah, I guess I did.

Then why did it feel like he was still hiding something?

Eddy fidgeted in his chair. “So what did you do with the research?”

Dad leaned back in his chair. “I took it with me into the Compound. Spent years with it.”

“How?” I asked. “You were busy with the cloning.”

Eddy asked, “What cloning?”

Dad waved him off. “I’m not God. There was never going to be any cloning.”

“But that room, the lab…,” I said. “I saw it!”

Dad shook his head. “You saw exactly what I told you to see. Did you open any of the tanks?”

I swallowed. “No, I—”

“Why not, Eli?” asked my father. “Why didn’t you check for yourself?”

Why didn’t I? “Because I—”

“Because you believed what I told you.”

I nodded.

Dad laughed as he rubbed his hands together. “Of course you did.”

Lexie said, “What were you doing if you weren’t… trying to clone things?”

Dad looked at me. “I was decoding the key to aging.”

“Why?” asked Eddy.

“I know,” said Lexie. “Mom spends a fortune on antiwrinkle cream.” She nodded. “You could make a fortune on antiaging medicine. Everyone would buy it.”

Maybe I was right about the vaccine for antiaging. Maybe he had done it after all.

Dad tilted his head slightly to one side. “Not quite what I was thinking…”

Confident with my answer, I said, “A cure for aging. The fountain of youth. People wouldn’t have to get any older ever again.”

Dad smiled at me. “I didn’t want to just stop aging.” He nodded at Lexie. “Or find a cure for it. I wanted to do more.”

Eddy said, “More? How could there be more than that?”

Dad looked at me. “Eli? Don’t you have this figured out?”

No one said anything. Suddenly, I felt my heart pound faster and my hands started to tremble. I didn’t want to hear him say what he was going to say. Because it would not be anything good.