Masterminds: Chapters 14–19

I try to quaver “Thanks!” but no sound comes out.

I see the orange first. Cones—a lot of them. At least a few hundred—freestanding, stacked on pallets, and piled in a mound.

“But if it is a cover,” I ask, picturing my mother painstakingly assembling her bag lunch to come to this un-factory, “what are they covering?”

Thirty feet ahead of us, a square of light beckons. I’m guessing it’s some kind of room, since it’s brighter than the dim factory we’ve just come from.

You can almost see her putting together a picture of Serenity with the cameras superimposed on it.

Even when we tiptoe, our footfalls on the iron steps reverberate with a gonglike sound.

SERENITY VOTED #1 IN NEW MEXICO 
FOR QUALITY OF LIFE UNPRECEDENTED 14TH STRAIGHT YEAR

For example, in the Los Angeles Times, Two Dead in Gang Shootout has been nixed, but the piece directly above it, Celebrity Flower Show Opens, has been left intact.

He takes out his iPad and circles the room, meticulously photographing every whiteboard, and the long conference table, which is covered with papers.

It’s the most grueling, exhausting, painful, and unpleasant thing I’ve ever attempted.

Gingerly, Eli eases the grating out of the wall.

The agony in my shoulders is excruciating, and the effort to keep my sneakers jammed against the sides feels as if I’m being torn in two, like a wishbone. It’s an unimaginable ordeal when you can’t allow yourself so much as the luxury of a groan.

Whimpering with exertion, he hauls himself into the main passage and reaches down to help me.

“Come on, Hector,” Malik chides. “Get a grip.”

There are other things too—papers and notes—but they’re too small to read. A few seem to be on school stationery.

“It’s not what you think,” she says emphatically.

The simple process of describing it to Malik on the way home from the factory was almost as harrowing as living through it the first time.

We discovered something momentous about ourselves, but what did it mean?

True, we learned a lot: the factory is a sham; the news and information we get is carefully screened and edited; the Purple People Eaters are spying on the town.

“No way,” Malik says stoutly.

After Tuesday night’s three-hour ordeal, I’m not relishing the thought of sneaking out to the Plastics Works just to hook up to their Wi-Fi.

Undaunted, I do a search for “Osiris.” It churns up millions of hits, not just for the Egyptian god, but for a shoe company, a health club, a hotel, a rock band, and hundreds of other businesses with Osiris in their name.

But when I add the parameter “Serenity, NM,” the results go from all that to zero.

Under Osiris, clones would be created of the greatest criminal masterminds currently in prison. The babies born would be raised by surrogate parents in a fabricated community, geographically isolated and carefully protected from any exposure to illegality, violence, deception, and fraud.

While initially hailed for its scientific approach to social issues, Project Osiris was criticized for its callous use of human life for research purposes and for its lack of endgame.

While initially hailed for its scientific approach to social issues, Project Osiris was criticized for its callous use of human life for research purposes and for its lack of endgame.

The plan referred to a possible shift in experimental protocols once the cloned subjects reached fourteen years of age, but few details were provided on what would happen beyond then.

A fabricated, isolated community—Serenity. Streets with names like Fellowship, Harmony, Amity, Unity.

“No way,” Malik says quickly.
“They’re the same as us,” Eli reasons. “They have a right to know.”
Malik is adamant. “Half of them will think we’re crazy and the other half will freak out and blab.”

Add to that my guilt that I can’t conjure up a single memory of her—not a voice, not a touch, nothing.
Now I know why. She never existed.

“Your guy is a cinch to find. Just scour the prison system for somebody four foot six doing time for felony pain-in-the-butt.”

In gym, I’m a beast in the pool. The emotions I’m suppressing in every other part of my life are coming through in water polo.

I read the description of Project Osiris that could only be us—raised up to our ears in harmony and contentment in a hermetically sealed town.

My climbing wild roses have stopped climbing halfway up the trellis, looking like they could make it to the top if only someone would pay attention to them.

I scale the trellis with a handful of twist ties so I can train the tendrils to reach for the sky.

I’m lucky the factory had so many niches and handholds that let me scramble to the top.

My sneakers are established in the mortar course between adobe bricks, and my hands have a firm grip on the sill beneath my parents’ bedroom window.

I hear their voices from inside, and stifle an impulse to raise myself up and knock on the sash.

One of my feet comes loose, and I lurch, momentarily swinging from the sill.

“Toxic element, huh?” His usual bored drawl doesn’t quite come off. “So what else is new?”