“Marianne, Sofie is awake. Come home!” Erik tells her on the phone and slowly approaches his daughter’s bed.
How? He looks at her, her ocean blue eyes are facing his. He shakes his head and tries to keep his posture in front of Megan. Sofie seems to be aware of the environment. Your eyes are following the movement of my fingers. How? You should be brain dead.
He grabs his phone immediately and calls the doctor and nurse they hired to monitor her now and then.
Marianne arrives and shortly after they do, too. Erik takes Megan away from the room while they check Sofie and disconnect her from the machines, take the tube out of her throat. The doctor and nurse leave and Marianne calls him inside.
“Megan, come here, please,” Marianne softly says.
Megan enters and sees the blonde child sitting on her bed, talking.
“Sofie,” Marianne begins in Norwegian, “this is your sister, Megan,” she switches to English, “Megan, meet Sof.”
“Hei!” Megan tries to say in a Norwegian accent while waving at her. Reluctant to come nearer.
“Hello, sister!” Sofie’s eyes glow, “you are real.”
“She can’t speak Norwegian, Sofie, but you’ll learn English and you can play together all the same,” Erik explains.
Megan understands that they are talking about her, but can’t comprehend what’s being said.
“She remembers your voice,” Marianne tells her.
“It’s a miracle!” Erik’s tears fall while he hugs Sofie tight.
Only a miracle convinces a man of science to believe in something else. Marianne smiles watching them. She goes nearer Megan and grabs her hand tight.
Marianne and Erik decide that Sofie should be home schooled, they are uncertain if her condition will ever return. They hire a private tutor to teach her English and a Norwegian grad student to teach her everything else.
They buy her a proper bed and change her room to fit a desk for her to study. She’d spend most of her day there, have lunch with Erik and Megan and play after all her studies were done.
She’d dance with them too whenever Megan lost another chess game. Megan wants to take her to the lake, but Erik warns that it’s still too cold and they had to wait a few more months.
Things changed for Marianne after Sofie got better. She starts staying later and later and working on the weekends both at the university and at the organization. She ends her relationship, the sexual part of it, with Edward Hall. She did it in a way that almost seemed like he was the one who ended it. She knew his ego wouldn’t handle it any other way.
Sofie was a fast learner, her tutors thought so. In less than six months she has already an extraordinary conversational level of English, something she tried hard because she wanted to play with her sister. It’s summer and they finally make it to the lake. Erik sets the timer on the camera and they take a photo together.
It’s a beautiful summer day. Megan and Sofie are playing in the garden and Erik is inside in an online meeting. He asked them to stay outside during it and that he’d join after.
Sofie grew a fringe and has a long braid in her blonde hair. Marianne’s artwork. Every day she’d comb and style both her daughters. Megan's hair is now longer than ever.
Megan smiles while chasing Sofie, but suddenly her heart grows heavier. Something makes her heartbeat increase. Is it a smell or a sound? She’s unsure.
Her hands shake and the saliva tastes like iron.
This child is death! The phrase keeps replaying in her head. The man’s voice grows louder than anything else around her.
She starts shivering. Remembering how cold it was on that night.
Deep breaths. She tries to but keeps going back to it. Her breath grows faster than before and her heart feels like it’s about to explode.
“M!” Sofie shouts in a distance but a ringing noise is all she hears.
Calm down. She places her right hand on her chest. Feeling her heartbeat on her hand, on her head. Her hand slowly turns blue, and she grabs it with the other hand.
No, no, no. Stop it! The blue light only gets stronger.
“M!” Sofie comes closer and touches her.
Megan looks up and instead of seeing her sister, she sees a soldier with a syringe. Leave me alone! She fires her light against Sofie, and the girl falls to the ground. Her eyes closed.
“No! Sofie!” she gets down and shakes her shoulders, “no, no, no, please, please, God!” Megan’s tears fall, “please, please, wake up.”
Her voice cracks and she puts her head on Sofie’s chest. She can hear her heartbeat.
“Got ya!” Sofie puts her tongue out and opens her eyes.
“How? Haven’t I hurt ya?” Megan wipes her tears.
“M, du kunne aldri skade meg,” Sofie laughs and gets up, “let’s play!”
“What?” Megan cleans her running nose on her shirt.
“You could never hurt me,” Sofie smiles and wipes Megan’s tears with the palm of her hands.
“How do you say I would never hurt you?”
“Jeg ville aldri skade deg.”
They go back to playing, and Sofie helps Megan practicing the pronunciation of the phrases. It becomes their way of apologizing to one another. Whenever one hurt the other, the one who was hurt would say you could never hurt me, showing they forgive. The other would reply I would never hurt you, meaning they’d do better next time.
***
October 2009
Despite all her work, Marianne is always there at bedtime, to say goodnight to her daughters and is always there in the morning to style their hairs. She tucks Sofie in, kisses her goodnight and meets Megan, does the same and goes back downstairs. Erik sits on the couch, takes off his glasses and faces the wall.
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Sofie only pretended to be asleep and hides on the top of the stairs. Fully aware that her parents didn’t want her up so late.
“Anything bothering you?” Marianne asks.
“Sofie seems to be stable,” he replies in Norwegian, “our life could be better in Sweden or Norway. In any country in Eurasia, really. I expected the war to be over by now, yet here we are. We should leave.”
Marianne sits next to him. “Megan can’t travel.”
“She can. It’s a matter of papers.” Erik scoffs.
“Illegally you mean…” Marianne faces him.
“Legality and morality are two different concepts, Marianne,” Erik sighs.
“She’s seen as government property. What do you think they’ll do if we try to move her away? They’ve seen her potential as a weapon. They are looking forward to the day that they can use it.”
“You are willing to let her commit the fatal flaw? Kill people?” Erik looks away.
“She’s incapable of killing anyone. If they try to use her, sure, she can scare the other side, scare the Five, but she won’t commit the fatal flaw if she destroys some buildings.”
“How do you know? What do you know about the fatal flaw?”
“Do you know what’s said of Matthew Moore? How he got his?”
“Yes, I know. I also know that not everyone who has it has done what he did.”
“It always comes from an unforgivable action. Megan would never hurt anyone. Right now, my focus is keeping her alive. Every day she doesn’t control properly her ability, the generals suggest putting her down,” Marianne’s voice breaks.
“But she controls it…”
“Here, because she feels safe. Because of her attachment to Sofie. But there, in that place, she either can’t use it or misdirects it every single time. Edward Hall told me she has one month to either control it or she goes back there.”
“Why haven’t you told me?”
“Because I’ll fix it!” She holds back her tears, “I have to… that’s no place for her to be in.”
***
On the next morning, Marianne is combing Sofie’s hair when the girl starts weeping, quietly at first, until it blows into a full wailing.
“What’s wrong, Sofie?” Marianne asks.
Erik and Megan meet them and see the girl uncontrollably crying.
“I… I… I want out of here. I’m tired. Every day here. Every day,” she says in Norwegian, “I want to go with you today, mom. With you and Megan.”
“You can’t come with us, Sofie. That’s my work. It’s not a place for a kid.”
“Megan goes there.” She keeps crying.
“Because that’s where Megan studies, Sofie.”
“Please, I want out of here. I want to go,” Sofie keeps shouting.
“Mum, please!” Megan grabs her hand.
Edward, the generals… none will be pleased. But hell with it. She nods and drives them there.
***
“Why is your child here?” Edward Hall asks when they get to the testing level.
“Erik had to work in the office today and I had no one to leave her with, she’ll be by my side. Megan, go with Edward, please.”
Megan goes with him and enters the testing ground while Marianne and Sofie watch from an upper balcony. Next to them are the generals. Sofie sits on the floor, playing with her toys. Making explosion sounds with her planes. When she puts the plane down, she taps with her right hand index and middle finger two times on her leg. She grabs a doll and does the same.
You know, don’t you, Sofie? How much we worry about Megan? You feel it. You sense it. Even if we try to hide it. That worry is now on you, too. I have to protect you from it. Marianne keeps watching her play and taps her fingers.
The tests begin. They order Megan to destroy a wall they put there for her made of concrete. Megan raises her right hand, and it slowly turns blue. Everyone is ready to be disappointed already.
Megan takes a deep breath, closes her eyes, and when she opens them, she fires against it. Destroying it immediately.
“Yes! Finally!” Edward Hall shouts while the generals clap.
“Mom, can I meet Megan there?” Sofie asks Marianne in Norwegian. Instead of waiting for the answer, she runs barefoot.
“Your shoes, Sofie!” Marianne smiles.
Sofie runs and shouts for her sister on the training ground. Megan hugs her. The generals ask for Megan to destroy something else and she does it without any problem. Marianne meets them and hugs them both.
After the practice, Sofie and Megan stay in a play room and Marianne meets with Edward and the generals.
“The specimen can control it. It’s time to use it,” one says.
“If that’s what the president wants,” Edward Hall nods.
“With all due respect, gentlemen. The specimen can control it, we’ve seen it. But it’s purpose is to go against the Five and the Ariston community. Or has that purpose changed?” Marianne asks.
“It hasn’t, Dr. Olsen.” Another general replies.
“The Five alone. If the specimen goes against James Williams now, even without Amy Anderson, do you think it would even tickle the Five? Don’t get me started on the Aristons. All very talented, experienced deviants. We use the specimen against any of them now. It wouldn’t last and we’d lose the strongest weapon. Also, it’s only 12 years old.”
“Meaning?” The first general asks.
“Do you want the strongest specimen alive on our side? If you think that thing is it already, you are wrong. A second ability as strong as the first, imagine the potential.” Marianne smiles.
“The fatal flaw,” Edward Hall adds.
“Let’s have it doing it now.” Another general steps in.
“If it does it now, the second ability will be weak. All the studies show that the closer to 16, the better…” Marianne walks around the room facing them.
“We don’t have 4 years, Dr. Olsen.” The first general says.
“We keep only thinking about this war,” another general says, “but what about our true enemies?”
The other generals nod. Edward and Marianne face each other.
“The government is worried about this war because of casualties. People are tired of burying their loved ones. But we are winning. We have 4 years. The Five? The Aristons? They are the ones who don’t. Dr. Olsen, now that the thing can control it. What else can it do?”
“We’re about to find out, general,” she smiles.
***
March 2013
Marianne combs Megan and Sofie’s hair. They all have breakfast together with Erik. Megan and Marianne leave and Erik and Sofie stay.
Megan is on the training ground, shooting against everything that she can, destroying entire blocks of concrete and destroying only small parts that are hidden from her inside metal boxes.
The generals come in and asks Marianne to meet them. They pass by Saif in the hallway.
“Morning, Saif,” Marianne smiles.
He smiles back but avoids looking at her directly, which she finds odd. Maybe he’s having an odd day.
Marianne enters the room. Besides the generals, Edward Hall is also there.
“Please take a seat, Marianne,” Edward says.
The generals put in front of her photos of Erik outside the Eurasian embassy.
“What am I supposed to be looking at?” Marianne asks.
“This is your husband, Erik Bergen, yes?” he mispronounces his name.
“Yes.”
“For the past year, he has repeatedly met with the ambassador of Eurasia.”
“Mmm, what about it?” Marianne fakes a smile.
“We have obtained a copy of the documents that are being produced there and a copy of some of the communications,” he puts down four passports. One with Erik’s photo, another with Marianne’s, one for Sophie and one for Megan. All with fake names and Swedish nationality. He shows her the transcriptions.
My child is a war weapon for the Americans. Allegedly against the terrorists. But how long until they use her against Eurasia? My wife doesn’t know that I’m here. Please, help me. I’ll take her against her will if necessary.
Marianne takes a deep breath and Edward puts his hand on her shoulder.
“I understand what this all seems. I’ll talk to him. Erik is impulsive, but he can be reasoned with,” Marianne finally says.
“Dr. Olsen, we’ve asked you here to inform you that we’ve taken action against your husband-”
Taken action. Marianne’s temperature drops to below zero. What does that mean?
“He had a car accident on the way to the store today. You’ll get a call in a few minutes from the hospital. Unfortunately, he didn’t make it.”
Marianne gets up promptly and goes back to the training ground. She smiles and brings Megan back to the car and drives off home. She calls Sofie’s tutor and, in the same tone as before, asks them to stay later today. During the ride, the radio station plays an ABBA song. Marianne increases the volume, to Megan’s surprise. Megan sings it out loud and Marianne holds back her tears. Smiling even.
“Go meet Sofie. I have to go to the university,” Marianne looks away.
“Mum,” Megan grabs her hand.
“Please, Megan,” Marianne’s voice breaks for a second, “go meet Sofie. Play with her. I’ll come home later.”
She drives off to the hospital and identifies the body. Someone quietly approaches from behind.
“Dr. Bergen,” the man says.
“It’s Olsen,” she wipes her tears and turns around, “who the hell are you?”
“I’m Eurasia’s ambassador in the States. I’ve met with Mr. Bergen-” he swallows his saliva.
“I have nothing to say to you. Leave. Now.” Her tone sharpens.
“Please, Dr. Olsen. We experienced a security breach... We are willing to help you and your daughters safely depart the country.” He whispers.
“You are incapable of helping anyone. If you hadn’t tried, Erik would be alive now. And please, do not pretend that any of this is out of the kindness of your heart. You are interested in her ability. You want the weapon, the same as the Americans.” Marianne pushes him and the man leaves.
***
As soon as Marianne enters the house, Sofie and Megan run downstairs and meet her. She greets the tutors and tells them they can leave.
“Dad,” Sofie’s eyes are filled with water.
“Mum, where’s dad?” Megan holds her sister’s hand.
“There was an accident-”
Sofie runs back to her bedroom and slams the door. Megan faces Marianne and they stay in silent. Her right hand turns blue momentarily and her eyes lose the life they had gained in the last years.