S. Bodeen - The Compound

I shifted him up a bit to get a better grip.

He giggled, revealing two tiny front teeth.

“Do you like him?” Lucas padded over dressed in similar pajamas. “That’s Quinn.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“So do you like him?”

Quinn patted my face and inspected my nose. I cringed, but still squeaked out a reply. “He’s cute.” He was.

Lexie came back out and took Quinn. “Thanks. Wasn’t that bad, was it?” Lexie set Quinn inside a playpen.

My hands trembled as I wiped my sweaty face on my shirt. I wished my heart would stop pounding so hard.

Lucas pulled on my shirt. “We can do Legos now.”

“Yeah, okay. You go get ready and I’ll be right there.” I waited until he couldn’t hear me, then I said to Lexie, “We need to talk.”

On the other side of the room, Lucas dumped all the Legos on the floor.

Quinn squawked.

Lexie reached down and hoisted Quinn out of the playpen. He grabbed a fistful of her hair. She winced, holding his hand so he couldn’t yank any more. Lexie hid her face in Quinn’s chest as he squealed.

“Lex, you don’t have to go along with any of Dad’s plans.”

Her reply was muffled. “And see how long it takes us to starve?”

“I just had a talk with Dad. He showed me the lab.” She didn’t say anything. “He said he’d talked to you.” She nodded.

“It’s true? Have you been to the lab? Seen what he plans to do?”

Lexie fixed her dark eyes on me. “If it was the only way, I would do it.”

I tried to make my voice sound as kind as possible, not exactly a practiced skill of mine. “Lex, even if there were more, you would come to love them, just like you love these ones.”

She chewed on the inside of her cheek, then set Quinn on the ground where he crawled off toward Terese. “Meet me later. In my room, after Terese has gone to bed.”

“Why?”

“I need to know what you know. I have to decide what to do. Eli, we’re wasting time.” She laughed without sounding the least bit cheerful. “How stupid is that? We have all the time in the world, years and years. Yet it’s all so urgent.”

“Eli!” Lucas sat amid a mountain of Legos, waving. “I’m ready.”

Lexie left before I could catch her, so I stayed with Lucas. We built a tower halfway. I wanted something bigger. Digging in the closet, I lifted a container from the top shelf and discovered a shrink-wrapped, unopened box of Legos, along with other unused, brand-new toys.

Another one of Dad’s stashes. I found a bag of balloons and told Lucas I’d be right out. I blew up a few, red and purple and green. I opened the door and freed them. They floated out toward the others and bounced along the ground.

Lucas clapped. “Yay!”

The little girl stopped playing and stared.

Terese called out, “Go get it, Cara!”

Cara kicked one, traipsing after to kick it again.

Terese held Quinn as she picked up a balloon. She held it out to him.

He grinned. “Bub-oh.”

I didn’t understand. “What did he say?”

Terese giggled. “Bubble. He thinks it’s a bubble, like in the bubble bath.”

Bubble baths? Of course. Of course the children had bubble baths. Of course they had that part of childhood. What else had I missed all that time?

Terese enunciated her words. “It’s a balloon, Quinn. Balloon.”

“Boon?”

Terese nodded. “Yes, balloon.”

“Boon. My boon.”

My face flushed. My upper lip broke out in sweat. I excused myself.

In the hallway I squatted, leaning my head against the wall. As much as I’d tried to remain detached, unaffected, I’d been touched. Touched and affected. Because no matter what I might call them, no matter what the unholy reason for their creation, the simple fact remained: the Supplements were a part of me. They were part of all of us.

As I sat there considering the Supplements and their intended purpose, Dad’s other repugnant solution for the food shortage, it made me wonder. Had we become godless?

Were we so removed from the world of before that we would actually consider such things to be commonplace?

Mundane?

Another fact of life?

God forbid: not immoral?

I’d been a practicing selfish worm for so long. Basically my entire life. Why was I suddenly so opposed to doing the very things that would ensure my continued existence? Given the context, the circumstances that no one had ever faced before, there really wasn’t a precedent. We were it. Was it the right thing then? To do what was necessary, no matter what?

I had never made a point of seeking out right and wrong. The right answer depended entirely on whether the outcome benefited me. Right or wrong, this outcome would definitely benefit me, more than any other outcome had before.

This time, however, I felt it. I felt it in my head. I felt it in my heart. Dad’s solutions were wrong. And for once, I was not going to do the wrong thing.

We had not become godless. The Compound had just distracted us. We still needed to live by rules of the old world, even if those rules didn’t exist anymore. They were a line that could not be crossed. For the first time that I could remember, I was going to take a stand.

I wasn’t Eddy. Didn’t pretend to be.

But I could still, for once in my life, do the right thing.

LATER, I SHOWED UP AT LEXIE’S DOOR IN A T-SHIRT AND jeans. I was barefoot. My hair was down and I tucked it behind my ears.

Lexie opened the door, wearing a white terry robe.

I had one just like it. We all did.

Her hair was damp and loose, looking like she’d showered recently. She seemed a bit unsteady. She ushered me inside, not saying anything. Janis Joplin was loud on the stereo.

I hadn’t been in her room since the first night in the Compound, when Dad had taken us on the tour. There had never been a reason for me to go in there and she certainly never had a reason to invite me. The room looked different. The Arabian Nights theme had been replaced by abstract murals with earthy tones. They were skilled renderings that impressed me.

“Did you paint these?”

She rolled her eyes. “No, we hired outside help.”

I studied the artwork more. She must have spent a lot of time on it. Strange to think such a change had occurred without my knowing about it.

But then, the walls of my cocoon were thick.

She sat down on her bed. The cover was a simple white crocheted bedspread over a pink satin comforter. Dozens of pillows in various colors, no doubt carryovers from the harem motif, covered the headboard. Lexie crossed her legs and stretched her robe down to cover them.

“Dad told me… about his solution to the food problem.”

Her eyes narrowed. “I’ll do it, you know. If that’s what it takes. I already decided.”

I took a step toward her. “You can’t!”

She crossed her arms and leaned back. “You don’t get a say.”

I sat down on the edge of her bed. “Please. Just listen to me.”

Her chin tilted down and she looked sideways at me. She shrugged. “Fine. Talk.”

“Lex, everything about it is wrong. Cloning a human is… frickin’ twisted. In so many ways. It’s like playing God, creating another life like that.” I shook my head. “And the reasoning behind it, that’s even worse.”

“Want to hear my reasons?”

I did. “Yeah.”

She held up one finger at a time as she said the names of the three children in the yellow room.

“I don’t understand.”

She sighed. “Don’t you see? If I start producing clones, I can save them. Lucas and Cara and Quinn. We won’t have to… use them.”