Page 34 of N8
A knock on the conference room door interrupted his train of thought, and Deputy Milton stuck her head inside. “Sorry to interrupt, Sheriff, but an emergency APB has just been issued. It’s being broadcast all over the state.”
“So?”
The deputy’s eyes raked over their visitors. “It’s about them, Sheriff. The APB says they’re escapees from the Pendlebrooke Mental Institute, and they’re considered armed and dangerous.”
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Sheriff Biggs didn’t movefrom where he stood at the head of the table. “Armed and dangerous?” He didn’t repeat the deputy’s comment as much as he phrased it as a question to them.
“We took the weapons off the guards,” N8 informed him. “We left them in Cydney’s car before we came in here.”
“We figured if the guards managed to catch up with us again, we’d have a way to defend ourselves,” T8 said.
“And Pendlebrooke?” the man included.
“It’s a cover for the labs,” Cydney told him. “It’s where N8 and the others are taken whenever the scientists need to perform tests on them. Yes, it’s a working institute, but they use it to hospitalize the children after they…test them.”
The sheriff gave her a perplexed look. “The children?”
“That’s what the scientists and doctors refer to them as,” Cydney bitterly replied. “They don’t think of these people as real people. Or even as adults. They think of them as experimental subjects. Things to be prodded and poked, and injected with all kinds of chemicals to see how their bodies hold up.”
“Is that why you helped them escape?” Biggs asked her.
“That’s part of it.” She pointed at K8 and F8. “They’ve rendered those two incapable of reproducing. So they ordered me to have sex with N8, hoping I’d get pregnant and hand my baby over to them. That’s when I told myself, ‘No more.’ I couldn’t be a part of those people’s sickness, but I couldn’t just walk away, either.”
“Miss Huddleston, do you know how ridiculous this whole scenario sounds?”
“As ridiculous as being able to split into two separate people?” K8 implied.
The man sighed and crossed his arms over his belly. “Okay. You’re seeking asylum from those people. Want do you want me to do about it? I can’t provide you with twenty-four-hour protection. Heathfield is a small town. I don’t have enough manpower as it is.”
“Is there some place where we can hole up?” T8 suggested.
“We want to remain together,” F8 said. “We’ve grown up together. We’re closer than family. If we have to learn how to survive in this world, we need to be able to share our discoveries among ourselves. That’s how we learn. From each other’s mistakes.”
“And successes,” P8 added.
“They also need to be taught skills, so they can bring in an income and learn about money,” Cydney continued.
That remark made the sheriff’s eyes widen. “You don’t know about money?”
“Why would we need to learn about it?” N8 challenged him. “We were told the world above no longer existed. In order to have a place to sleep, clothes on our backs, and food to eat, we were given computer jobs. We had to work for what we were allowed to have. But at no time was any money exchanged.”
“Computer jobs, eh?” The man’s brows lowered, as if thinking.
Cydney cut him short. “The job was a cover. Those computers were obsolete. They were using five-and-a-half-inch floppies and software that hasn’t been used since the eighties. Every lesson they learned is useless in today’s technology.”
“But they are aware of computers,” Sheriff Biggs insisted.
“Yeah. So?”
“So they had to learn the software they were using.” He addressed N8. “You know about computer commands?”
“Some. Yes, sir.”
“Then all you have to do is learn new software.”
N8 glanced at Cydney, who, for the first time, had a look of expectancy on her face.
