Project Pandora Read online

“Maybe it’s an inside joke.”

  Rachelle sighed. “That’s so unimaginative! Where’s your creativity?”

  “School killed it,” she said gravely.

  “Ugh, tell me about it.”

  Elizabeth stepped into the front courtyard and followed Rachelle to the parking lot. It was empty, save for a few cars and a loitering motorcyclist.

  “Sure you don’t want me to drive you home?” Rachelle asked.

  “It’s fine.” She took out her phone to check the time. “Thomas should be here any minute now.”

  Not only were her parents strict about her dress code, but they also forbade her from driving with her friends. She didn’t even have her driver’s license yet because her parents were paranoid there would be another crash. She had a feeling they were more afraid of a potential scandal than anything else, like they thought she would go for a drunken joyride and run down some nuns and preschoolers. As a result, she was chauffeured around by Thomas, her family’s driver and aide.

  “See you Saturday!” Rachelle said.

  Elizabeth sat down at one of the benches and watched Rachelle drive away. She sent a quick text to Thomas, letting him know she was waiting out front.

  Looking at the cars, she thought about how much she wished she could drive. Then her gaze drifted to the motorcyclist, and a tremor of unease oozed down her spine.

  Dressed all in black, the rider wore a helmet that covered his entire face. The ruddy sunlight reflected off the mirrored visor, making it seem as though his helmet was filled with blood.

  Elizabeth sensed he was staring at her.

  She looked away from him, worried that maintaining eye contact would be an invitation for him to approach her. Even as she turned her head, she reproached herself for being so paranoid. He was probably another student waiting for his girlfriend to get out of a club or sports practice.

  After a couple seconds, she glanced at the motorcyclist again.

  The man hadn’t moved. He was just sitting there. His visor made it impossible to tell if he was looking at her or just in her general direction.

  Underneath his tight leather jacket, the motorcyclist’s shoulders were broad enough to belong to a grown man. He wore no backpack, but maybe it was inside the storage compartment on the tail of the bike. Or maybe he wasn’t a student at all. With his entire body concealed, it was impossible to estimate his age.

  Suddenly, a hand fell on her shoulder.

  With a gasp, Elizabeth shot to her feet and swiveled around.

  “Hey, it’s just me,” Coach Slate said, lowering her hand. “What’s the matter? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  She sighed. “No, it’s just that motorcycle guy.”

  Coach Slate frowned. “Who?”

  She jerked her head toward the man on the bike. “He just, um, kind of makes me nervous. I’ve never seen him here before.”

  “I see.” Coach Slate pursed her lips, furrowing her eyebrows. “Whoever he is, I’m going to have a word with him. He shouldn’t be loitering around after school hours.”

  As Coach Slate stepped onto the asphalt, the rev of an engine ripped through the air. The motorcyclist turned out of the parking lot and sped down the street. Within seconds, he was gone.

  ...

  When Elizabeth was dropped off at school the next morning, she spotted the same motorcyclist parked among the zoo of cars.

  It was unusually warm out for October, and he must have been hot just sitting there. His leather jacket was slung across the bike’s top case. With his muscular arms exposed, he seemed more menacing than before, his black T-shirt tight against his chiseled chest.

  While it wasn’t unusual for students to loiter in their cars or mill around the courtyard before first bell, he didn’t seem like he was just killing time. It was like he was waiting for someone.

  Waiting for her.

  She wondered what Dr. Kosta would have to say about that thought. He would probably call it something like “disordered thinking” and increase the dosage of her medicine, even though she was already taking a cocktail of drugs he had prescribed her.

  Deciding to confront her paranoia head-on, she put on a forced smile and approached the motorcyclist.

  She had taken no more than five steps before the man got off his bike and came to her. Even at a relaxed walk, he moved with a powerful, almost predatory grace. Ink marked his inner forearms, but she was too far away to discern the nature of his tattoos.

  Elizabeth slipped her hand into her pocket, curling her fingers around the ring that held her bicycle, house, and locker keys. Her heart pounded in her chest, swift and jarring. She had the sudden urge to flee to the safety of the school building.

  As the man walked, he kept his right arm held still at his waist, while allowing his left arm a more natural range of motion. This quirk struck her as familiar, but she didn’t understand why until he reached up and took his helmet off.

  “Hello, Elizabeth Hawthorne,” Hades said pleasantly.

  “Are you stalking me?” she demanded.

  His perfect lips quirked in amusement. “Stalking?”

  “You were here yesterday.”

  “Oh.”

  “Don’t try to deny it.”

  “Yesterday, I had a meeting with Principal Brown,” he said, and his smile grew. “I’m thinking about enrolling here actually.”

  While it didn’t strike her as implausible that Mr. Brown might stay after hours for student meetings, she had trouble believing Hades.

  “But why were you just sitting there?” she asked.

  “I don’t like to drive while I’m distracted,” he said. “I had a lot on my mind, so I decided to sit for a while. I wasn’t even sure that was you.”

  “Where were your parents?” she asked, following him to the safety of the sidewalk.

  “I’m emancipated,” he said, tucking his helmet under his arm.

  Elizabeth didn’t know what he meant by that. She had a feeling it had nothing to do with the Emancipation Proclamation she had learned about in her American history class.

  Hades must have sensed her confusion, because he smiled and said, “I don’t live with my parents anymore. I’m seventeen, but I’m considered legally independent. It’s really not something I’d like to discuss in public.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.”

  “My grandparents left me a large trust fund, so I thought I should apply it to my education. Do you know how many of this school’s alumni have gotten into Ivy League schools and gone on to become ambassadors, senators, supreme court judges, and even presidents? This place is practically a breeding ground for them.”

  So he wanted to be a politician. Maybe he had sneaked into the fundraising banquet because he had believed it would be a good opportunity to make connections with governmental leaders. Had he talked to her simply because she was the daughter of a state senator?

  “Anyway, I came by to drop off some paperwork. Transcripts mostly.” Hades smirked at her. “Now, if you’re done interrogating me, can I ask what you were doing at school so late?”

  “Volleyball practice.” Elizabeth looked down at the tattoos on his arms. “You know, tattoos are against school policy.”

  “Good. I’ll just cut off my arms, then.”

  She laughed. “They’re probably going to ask you to cover them up. You’re also going to need a uniform.”

  He glanced at his all-black attire. “This is a uniform.”

  “Of course it is.” She took a closer look at the tally marks on his left forearm and saw that the skin around one of the lines was slightly irritated. “Wait, you got a new one?”

  “Yeah. A couple days ago.”

  “Why?”

  Hades shrugged. “It helps me remember.”

  “Remember what?”

  “Everything.” He ran a finger across the mark. “Life. I have a bad short-term memory sometimes, so this is a mnemonic device I use to fill in the gaps.”

  “If you
keep using tattoos to remember things, someday your whole arm’s going to be covered in them,” she pointed out.

  “Probably.”

  “You’re not the only one with memory problems,” she confessed, surprising herself with her forwardness.

  “Really?” His intense blue eyes regarded her with interest, and a touch of a smile stroked his lips.

  She decided that now wasn’t the time to tell him about her car crash, so instead she backtracked with a white lie. “I mean, I forget things, too. Like, I can’t remember what I ate for lunch yesterday.”

  “I think I might have a way to help you with that,” Hades said.

  “How so?”

  “Let’s go out for lunch Saturday. That way, if you forget what you ate, I can remember for you.”

  She giggled. “You go in right for the kill, huh?”

  “Oh, Elizabeth, you don’t even know. So, what do you say?”

  She almost responded with an automatic yes, but then remembered her plans with Rachelle.

  “I’m going Halloween shopping with a friend, but we can meet beforehand,” she said. “Do you have a place in mind?”

  “Depends. What are you craving?”

  She had a feeling that Hades didn’t have much money to spare on frivolous things, in spite of his trust fund. While his clothes were clean and fit well, they weren’t designer brands. He wore a cheap wristwatch with a cracked face, and his tactical boots were creased and well-scuffed, though polished to a glossy finish.

  She didn’t want to suggest a restaurant that wasn’t in his budget. Besides, it would be fun to go somewhere super casual and pretend to be someone else for once.

  “Hamburgers,” she said.

  “Hamburgers,” he repeated, smirking in amusement. “I was expecting something like Italian or sushi.”

  “No, I want a big, greasy, artery-clogging hamburger.”

  “Your wish is my command, Miss Hawthorne.”

  “There’s a place called Reggie’s,” Elizabeth said. “It’s in Adams Morgan, on 18th Street.”

  She had never eaten at Reggie’s, but she had heard from friends that the hamburgers there were to die for. It was the kind of cheap, retro establishment her father wouldn’t be caught dead in. The perfect place for a casual first date.

  “How does eleven o’clock sound?” he asked.

  “Perfect.”

  Hades took out his cell phone. Once again, she was struck by the phone’s simplicity. She doubted it even had an internet connection. How could he survive without an iPhone?

  “What’s your number?” he asked. “I’ll text you later.”

  She told him.

  Before they could continue their conversation, the bell rang. Her heart sank at the sound.

  “I need to go to class,” Elizabeth said, wishing she could talk to him some more. She was tempted to risk her perfect attendance for another few minutes, but in the Hawthorne house, a single tardy warranted grounding.

  “I know,” he murmured.

  As he turned toward the parking lot, she reached out and grabbed his hand. He looked back, a flicker of surprise racing across his features.

  “This is a nice school, so you really should enroll here,” she said, giving his hand a gentle squeeze.

  “We’ll see how it goes.”

  “Bye, Hades.”

  “Good-bye, Elizabeth.”

  She looked back as she passed through the gate and found him standing where she had left him, helmet in hand. Even with the sunlight bright upon his face, coldness had drifted over his features. He was no longer smiling, and his eyes were narrowed ever so slightly.

  An inexplicable disquiet swept over her at the sight of him. His face was like a lovely mask, and she sensed something lurked behind it. Something hateful and unforgiving.

  Then the anxiety passed, leaving her feeling embarrassed and ridiculous. Why would she think such a thing?

  As she made eye contact, a radiant smile spread across his lips, and he lifted a hand in a wave.

  Elizabeth found it surprisingly difficult to smile back.

  Correspondence Retrieved from P.W.’s Home. Target Terminated.

  Dear Phil,

  Please keep what I am about to tell you between us. If this message falls into the wrong hands, I fear that it will mean the end for both of us.

  Project Pandora is the brainchild of three people: Charles Warren, Dr. Francine Miller, and Dr. Eric Finch. I believe that Dr. Finch is dead. He had an unfortunate boating “accident” off the coast of Maine six months ago, and his body was never recovered. However, I know for a fact that the other two are still very much alive.

  Francine Miller lives in Colorado, near the Academy. She and Finch invented the artificial wombs that the Project’s children were produced in. As for Charles Warren, he is still a mystery to me. He is the one who provided the initial funds for the Project, and over the years he has played an active role in raising the children. I have tried to learn more about him, but his true identity continues to elude me. I suspect his name is a pseudonym.

  In your earlier correspondence, you asked me for records detailing the gestation process to accompany the photographs in your article. While I haven’t been able to acquire any records as of yet, I can give you a detailed description of what will one day become the first chapter of my autobiography. You have my permission to include this following section in your article.

  But first, to answer your previous question, the vast majority of the embryos were acquired illegally. The Project has ties to multiple IVF and infertility clinics across the country, whose names I will provide you as soon as I can find them. They selected the embryos based on the parents’ profiles, with race, education, and health history playing a large role in determining donors. The donor criteria was, and still is, just as stringent as the Lebensborn program that inspired the Project. Only the cream of the crop were chosen, which is ironic, considering how many of the children have begun displaying sociopathic and suicidal tendencies.

  In some rare cases, members of the organization have also contributed their own children. Francine Miller is one in particular. Her son was among the first to be born into Project Pandora, and I fear the progeny is as twisted as his mother, but that is a story for another time.

  Now, for the prenatal ward. I would like you to visualize a large room that is 120 feet long by 40 feet wide. The floor and walls are covered in white tile. There are no windows.

  Spaced within several feet from one another are the artificial wombs. There are twenty at this time, although they are not always in use. Though the Project began eighteen years ago, space and funding limitations have kept the Academy’s population in the low hundreds.

  The artificial womb resembles an industrial pressure cooker—a cylindrical steel chamber. There is a camera on the inside of the container, but I am afraid you’ll be able to see very little through the cultured amnion, just a throbbing stew of veins, membranous tissue, and amniotic fluid.

  The sealed compartment is kept in perfect equilibrium. Sensors on the fiberglass interior scaffold monitor the conditions inside the chamber and continuously feed stats into the Academy’s mainframe.

  If one of the fetuses expires, it is removed from the vat for dissection. Samples of the amniotic fluid and cultured placental tissue are harvested for further study, and after being thoroughly sanitized, the machine itself is carefully examined for any structural flaws or worn-down parts. This is not an unnecessary precaution. We have lost thirty fetuses due to mechanical errors in the last five years.

  Seventy percent of the embryos selected for the Project are male, just another part of the profile. It has been decided that once both genders in the first generation reach maturity, sex cells will be harvested from the prime specimens to provide for a second generation. In that sense, the Project’s supply of future subjects will be limitless.

  Twenty more wombs are currently being designed. There are slightly over 300 children so far, most of them in thei
r teens. Charles Warren hopes to reach the 600 milestone within the next ten years.

  More information will follow. I have been asked to speak at the 45th annual bioethics conference in Philadelphia, and I must prepare.

  Until then,

  Benjamin Klausman, MD

  Case Notes 7:

  Hades

  As night fell over Washington, D.C., four visitors gathered in the game room of the Georgetown safe house. The men laughed and jostled elbows. The single female in attendance—a tall, imposing woman whose ink-black hair was fashioned into a loose bun—sat at the poker table, regarding her ebony cigarette holder in stiff silence.

  As Dimitri greeted the four guests, Hades leaned against the wall with his arms crossed. His gaze swept from the men to the single woman. Her face was vaguely familiar, and he wondered if he had met her before, perhaps during a former gathering. He had a poor short-term memory, and there were massive chunks missing from his long-term memory, so it was impossible to say for sure.

  “So, is this a child of Pandora?” a man asked, glancing at him. He had thinning brown hair and protruding eyes magnified behind thick glasses. He reminded Hades of a man he had once bludgeoned to death with a crowbar.

  “Yes, but I’m afraid he’s a failure,” Dimitri said, chuckling as he dealt out the first round of cards. “Unsuitable for the Project.”

  The woman looked at Hades. Her striking blue eyes narrowed, and a wisp of smoke curled from her lips. “Dima, I believe the term you are looking for is outlier, not failure. In spite of his shortcomings, A-02 is still of great value to Project Pandora. He dealt with the rat in Philadelphia, did he not?”

  “He did,” Dimitri said, his smile thinning. Hades knew he hated being called “Dima,” and judging by the way the woman had emphasized the nickname, she must have known it, too.

  “And he has taken care of many other traitors and nuisances, correct?” The woman took a drag of her cigarette, paused, and exhaled. “Remind me, what is his exact kill count?”

  “Eighteen.”

  “Outlier,” she repeated, punctuating her statement with a nod of her long cigarette holder.

  “Forgive me, Francine, I forgot how attached you feel to the Project’s children,” Dimitri said drily.