No. She wouldn’t. They couldn’t force her to do it.

Lucy fled from the office of the man who had married her, from the man she had once believed to love. Why couldn’t her feet move faster? Why couldn’t she take bigger strides like Bernardo did when he was in a hurry? Why did her thin, ungrateful legs work only to take short steps? She needed more speed. She needed to escape! But where?

Her sandals scraped the gray floor, causing a rough sound, and the corridor became an echo chamber that gave away her desperation to put some distance from there.

“I won’t do another surgery like that,” she said and shook her head.

The image of little Broga was nailed to her conscience. The boy appeared as a ghost in the same position she’d seen him in the nursery a few minutes ago: Sitting on the floor and surrounded by papers and crayons, drawing on the plastic table as if he were a normal four-year-old child and not a scientific phenomenon who’d been separated from his parents and now from his twin brother to be studied day and night.

His name is Broga, not Binary-C.

In her imagination, Broga’s huge green eyes sizzled curiously, and every time they blinked, time froze. The boy’s beautiful brown hair, smooth like a porcelain helmet, was at her fingertips, and she was able to touch it. In the oneiric version of that frustrated desire, Lucy dared to caress the boy’s head; she did it tenderly, and he gave her a warm smile in return.

Everything looked so magical and ethereal.

Until Broga’s eyes lost the glow of life and turned into two dirty emeralds; his mouth twisted; his teeth got detached from the gums, leaving dark gaps there; a dense drool peeked through his lips, dripping down his chin; and a red thread descended from his forehead, dividing his face in half. Lucy knew that was blood, and it was coming from a horizontal cut the little one had on his head. She also knew that if she looked up, she would see the boy’s brain peeking over his skull. She knew it because she’d made that same cut to the other child, Brun.

In her nightmare, Broga became Brun.

That child will never be normal again. You ruined his life.

“Brun…” Lucy whispered, lost in that hideous hallucination.

Yes, Brun is the boy who lacks a piece of his head because you stole it; not because you believed in the project, but because you dreamed of seeing your name in the annals of science.

Lucy’s heart skipped a beat.

“I won’t,” she said.

If you don’t do it, Bernardo will. Broga will end up just like his brother Brun, with or without you in the operating room.

If she did it, the child would live with his conscience destroyed, but if her husband did it, it was likely the child wouldn’t even leave the operating table alive. Well, maybe it was better that way.

No! Broga doesn’t deserve to be damaged, nor does he deserve to die!

Then, an idea struck her, You must take him. You must run away from this building. Don’t quit, and don’t ask for a transfer as a comfort as Rosa did. Escape. Escape with Broga and do it now!

The air became thin. The ventilation system was working just fine; she was the one who was running out of air. It was anxiety.

No. She couldn’t do it. To take the child and escape from there, she needed courage, and she was a coward. If not, why hadn’t she done such a thing before?

Because you’d never stopped to think about why you couldn’t conceive children. And you didn’t think about it because you never cared. Because you hate your mother. Because getting pregnant and then losing it might have felt awful, but that was better than becoming a mother. That was better than turning the beast you have as a husband into a father. It was only when you destroyed a child’s life that you knew how much they meant to you. You’ve remembered the previous four attempts, and you feared for the fifth. And now that you’ve learned that one has failed as well, you understand how much you’ve lost.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

The thought was enlightening… and chilling; so much so the crying climbed from the depths of her entrails and crawled up her throat. Lucy used her hand as a muzzle to suppress her cry. A sharp pain got buried in her heart, that greedy black heart that had not hesitated to destroy a little boy’s life.

Was she having a heart attack?

Leaning against the wall, Lucy stopped, and she feared she’d fall to the ground. But no. Fate didn’t want her dead. Not yet. The pain slowly subsided. Strength returned to her, and she could resume her pace.

“You may not be a mother,” she said to herself, with the image of her mother pointing a finger at her. “But at least you can act like one.”

Yes, she would take Broga from there.

Turning into a corridor, she went straight to the bedroom area.

She walked fast, though she tried not to cause much noise; it was late and most of her coworkers were sleeping, so drawing attention would be counterproductive. If at that moment someone peeked through one of the doors, alarmed by her footsteps, and asked her what the rush was about, she wouldn’t know what to answer. She never told lies; she was too dumb to make them up, and she would turn red and stutter, and she hated stuttering!

The difficult part would be when she had to take Broga with her. She could go through Security thanks to her IDs, which were stored in her night table drawer; but beyond that, what excuse would she give to the nursery soldiers? And to those guarding the lab’s exit?

Well, she’d think of something.

The corridor was narrow, the lights were white, the walls were gray, and it was full of narrow doors. Her room was at the end. Why the hell did she choose the last room? When they’d moved to this lab, she’d thought it was a good idea, but now, because of that, it was going to take forever to get there.

A noise. She jumped and pivoted to see if there was anyone behind her, Bernardo, maybe. No one.

Next time, don’t be so obvious and act naturally. Her husband was probably still in his office, studying the files she’d given him.

Lucy got into her bedroom. She held her breath and turned on the lights. Although she knew that Bernardo was unlikely to be there, for a second, she imagined him in his pajamas, lying on the bed and reading a book, just as she used to find him when she returned late from her work area. But the two beds in the room, separated by a night table, were still made; no one had used them since that morning.

Standing in front of the two narrow beds, Lucy let out a smile. What an irony! Bernardo and she could be husband and wife according to the law, but there, for the people who worked on the project, they were two scientists who shared the same room at bedtime, and nothing else.

Actually, that’s all we share.

Come on! She didn’t have much time! Bernardo might have called it a day and decided to get some sleep. Bernardo could be heading there; moreover, it was possible that he would open the door at any moment.

Broga. Broga’s counting on you, she recalled.

She turned toward the wardrobe and slammed her foot against Bernardo’s bedpost; the room was really small. She cursed, then pulled a bag out of one of the drawers, and as she unzipped it, ready to load her things, she stopped. Her desire to flee was so strong she hadn’t thought about how she would look carrying the child in one arm and the bag in the other. It would be the perfect postcard of an escape and would attract more attention than necessary.

What would she say if someone asked her why she was going out with her belongings at that late hour, ‘I’ll take the kid to the movies’? No. It was better to leave the bag. She took a small blue thermal blanket, made of a very resistant synthetic fabric; she rolled it and wrapped it with a beige coat of hers made of the same fabric. That would do. It was very, very cold outside.

With her austere luggage under her arm, Lucy opened the night table’s drawer, took the ID that recognized her as a first-rate neurosurgeon of the Binary Project, some cash, and put it into her blue scrubs pocket. Then she reached the bottom of the drawer and found what would be very useful. Bernardo had brought it from another lab.

‘You don’t know when we might need it,’ he had told her then. What an irony! Lucy was sure Bernardo wouldn’t have done it if he’d known she would use it to escape. Hell! It hadn’t crossed her mind to do it until a few minutes ago; why would Bernardo have thought of it?

She closed her eyes. Taking that device with her meant her escape plans were for real, very real. She hesitated for a second and nearly gave up. What if Bernardo decided to look for it today? She gulped.

You’ve already ruined the life of a four-year-old. How will you live knowing that you’ve ruined his little brother’s as well?

No. She took it from the drawer. It was a small artifact, similar to a communicator. She put it into her trouser pocket, turned off the room’s light, and left.