The Inadequate Experiments by Sian Webster (read after .TXT) 📕

After walking hand-in-hand with Oliver back to his house, following the discovery of the fact that we were meant to be together, Calliope was the first person I saw. She took one look at the two of us as we walked through the doors of the Jackson’s large house, then shot a pointed look at me. At first, I thought she was silently reminding me to keep the promise I made to her before Oliver and I left for the Compound, but I was mistaken.

“Sera,” she said, her voice strained, “I need to show you something.”

I nodded, perplexed, and she stood up from the leather couch she had perched herself on before starting to lead me into the basement she used as her lab. I took two steps with Oliver by my side before she swirled around, glaring daggers at her brother – a dramatic change in emotions compared to the fact that she was crying to me over his condition just over an hour before.

“Just Sera.” She snapped.

Oliver’s eyes flew up – I was unsure whether in surprise or question – but he shrugged and turned to walk up the stairs.

“Joshua wants someone to help him train for soccer practice!” Calliope called after him. Still, she received nothing but a non-committal shrug from her older brother. Joshua was their younger brother – the youngest of the Jackson children ever since Libby’s death. Calliope’s eyes met mine. “Come on then.”

My brow furrowed. I didn’t often question the inner workings of Calliope’s mind, but that day I was curious. “What are you showing me, exactly? And why can’t Oliver see?”

“Just, quiet, Sera. Chances are he’s still standing in the living room listening to our conversation.” She somehow managed to yell at me in a whisper.

“Does he do that often?” I asked.

The younger girl smirked. “He may claim to hate me doing this, but he has the curiosity of a one-year-old in their ‘why’ phase.”

“And what have you found?” I asked her as we passed over the threshold of the basement. I followed her around the cluttered tables until we came to a projection in the far corner.

“David!” She called out.

The lanky boy’s head appeared from around a corner. “Yeah?”

Calliope smiled at him. “Go play soccer with Josh, will you? He’s been complaining all day that no one will play with him.”

David looked like he was about to collapse onto the floor. I could read his expression like an open book; that smile. He left the room, his cheeks a shade darker than usual. He mumbled a quick hello to me, and then he was out of sight. Last time I had been in Calliope’s lab, I had wondered if she knew that her best friend was in love with her. In that moment, it was obvious to me that she was, and she was using it to her advantage. I half wished I could remember the name of his Soul Mate so I could make them meet sooner, I just couldn’t remember how I found out, or the girl’s name.

“When does David meet his Soul Mate?” I asked carefully.

Calliope shrugged. “Sometime in January, he still has a while yet, and he’s determined to spend that time being in love with me.”

So she did know. “What about you? How long for you now?”

Her eyes glazed over, the ghost of a smile appearing on her face. “Four months.” She told me. “October 26.”

“So,” I asked, changing the subject; I was more curious about why she dragged me down there than why she had calculated the exact day she would meet her Soul Mate. “What did you find?”

Her expression turned from dreamy to serious in about half a second as she turned back to the projection she had planted us in front of. “Well, when we were in the Compound, that night you discovered the truth about your mother—”

“So it was you in Dr Mangan’s office!” I exclaimed.

“Yeah,” she muttered, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “And obviously it was you as well. You’re damn lucky David and I went back in there, because any Scientist with their head screwed on the right way would have been able to put two and two together and figure out that you had been researching your mother.”

I blinked. “Well, uh, thanks.”

“Anytime.” The younger girl rolled her eyes. “Anyway, what I did that night was set up a network link from their interface to mine here – I made it untraceable, silly, don’t look at me like that – and just like we did in Dr Mangan’s office, I can see all the live security feeds, sound and all. I can get to a lot more than that as well, but the security feeds are what I wanted to show you. The feed from the day we left.”

I edged forward, standing over Calliope’s shoulder as she sat in the chair before the projection. She brought up a clip of security footage, the time stamp in the bottom corner the date of when we left, just as she had said. The still image showed Dr Williams, and a Scientist I had only ever seen once; Dr Mangan. Calliope clicked play.

Dr Mangan was pacing behind her desk, and Dr Williams seemed to be cowering in the doorway of the Head Scientist’s office.

“Tell me, why exactly did you let them get away?” Dr Mangan snapped, her voice sharp.

My Scientist flinched. “Samantha, you must know – it was Calliope Rose. Surely someone must have explained it to you—”

“No one has explained it to me, Taylor, because they are either dead or they are too injured to tell me what happened.” Dr Mangan took a deep breath. “So. Tell me. What. Happened.”

“The girl. Calliope. She had been here for weeks, Samantha. We had no idea. She was under a false name, pretending to be the Soul Mate of David Williamsburg.”

“We had been keeping track of Calliope and David for a while, Taylor. We all knew when they were going to meet their Soul Mates. He hasn’t met his yet. Why on Earth did you let them in?”

“The Scientists are panicking, Dr Mangan. The Inequity endemic—”

“Never mind that, what about Clarissa’s daughter? And Oliver Jackson? Why on Earth did you let her go? It was the first time in years we were able to observe her. We already know the artificial chromosome had no side-effects on her growing up, but can she do anything else? All the traits we added to it? Whatever happened to those?”

“I can confirm, Samantha, that she is just as we hoped. She can even use the Doors without the codes, just as our newest Androids can.”

“What else? Her brain capacity? Is it stronger? Is she on the same frequency as the Androids? Can she hear them?” Dr Mangan pressed.

“Her brain capacity is twice that of any normal human being. She is the strongest Untouchable I have ever encountered. I’m not sure about her brain being on the same frequency as the Androids, but she is very susceptive to the thoughts of those around her. She knocked out an entire room of Scientists with a single thought. Half those Scientists are still unconscious, and a few may never wake up. I do not believe that was the girl’s intention, but it was the result nonetheless.” Dr Williams met Dr Mangan’s eyes. “But she can talk to Calliope Rose through her mind. And the boy she was in love with. Cooper Whittaker. Him too.”

“Who?” I asked Calliope, reaching out and pausing the video. “Who is Cooper Whittaker?”

“He’s gone now, Sera. He’s not important.” Was all she said before reaching out and playing the security feed once more.

Dr Mangan’s eyebrows furrowed and she stopped pacing to lean on her desk. “This Calliope Rose girl—”

“Olivia,” Calliope murmured under her breath, “Calliope Olivia.”

“—is she like Clarissa’s daughter? An Untouchable?”

“We have come to believe so, yes. She is not as strong as Sera, we know that much. But she is incredibly intelligent when it comes to technology – especially ours.”

The head Scientist cursed. “And this Cooper boy, is he an Untouchable too?”

“We’re unsure. But it is the only explanation as to why Sera can talk to both of them through her mind. It’s almost as if – unintentionally – we crafted an entirely new frequency into their brains. They are stronger than normal humans. Immensely stronger. Look at the damage Sera could do with a single thought. They are the future, Sam.” Dr Williams rambled.

“Three Untouchables? When did we ever create more than two?” Dr Mangan said, almost to herself. “Sera and the Calliope girl did enough damage together. We need to track down this Cooper boy. Keep him away from them.”

“Or,” Dr Williams suggested, “we push them all together. Witness the future unfold before our eyes.”

“That could be dangerous, Taylor.” The head Scientist pointed out.

“As could be keeping them apart.”

Raindrops lashed the window pane, white noise reverberating through the walls of the large house as the drops of water struck the glass and raced each other to the sill. Lightning forked through the sky at a speed impossible to calculate, posing unthinkable danger to whatever it struck, yet the forest it entered didn’t even shiver in the swirling wind. No longer than a second had passed since the lightning before thunder clapped over-head, a naturally occurring grandfather clock, telling me it was time to go home, just as it had been for the past week and a half. I never listened to it, though. My home wasn’t home anymore.

I dragged my eyes away from the window and the mesmerising weather, and back to the book that sat on my lap, leaning against my knees as I sat in the window seat in Oliver’s bedroom; my back against the wall, the window beside me. I forced my eyes to focus on the page, to decipher the symbols that served as letters and string them into words, stitch them into sentences, and maybe even pull the threads tighter so they became paragraphs. But my eyes drifted across the words, the letters floating off the page and dancing before my eyes. I sighed in frustration and slammed the book shut, forcing it over my knees and to the other end of the window seat, the gold block letters on the cover gleaming in wake of another lightning strike. I didn’t need to force my brain to read the words to know what they said; A Tale of Two Cities.

It had been that way ever since my Mum died; the one thing I loved enough to distract myself with was unfeasible to me. It felt almost like karma – I couldn’t bring myself to tell her the ending as she took her last breaths, so it seemed only fitting that I couldn’t even read past the first page, let alone that far. For the third time that hour, I reached back over to the book, opening it again in another feeble attempt to read it.

“Oliver!”  A voice was