Chapter 17

“We got attacked at the corner of 30th and Lex, Curry Hill,” Akemi said, swallowing her double dose of ibuprofen. “A gang of white men charged us, bragging they were going to make us ‘pretty bitches pay.’ One of them had an aluminum brace from the scaffolding that’s everywhere. He swung at me, and I dodged. Not good enough though, he got a lucky tap on the back of my left shoulder. I came back with a roundhouse kick that slammed his ass into the wall. I picked up his dropped weapon and laid it across his jaw. His face was like, ‘Where the Asian ninja bitch come from?’ By the time I turned around, Leslie was flat on the ground with a man on top of her and Bea was trying to hold onto her blouse and jacket, which were already torn to shreds. I smashed the sonofabitch on Leslie with the pole; I hope I caved in his head. A bunch of Pakistani guys chased off the two on Bea. I gave them all a kiss on the cheek and they blushed.

“Bea and I picked up Leslie, who was bleeding from her head and groggy. Both of us, with an arm hooked under her armpits, carried and dragged her twelve blocks to the train. The first conductor wasn’t going to let us board until a woman conductor came out and told him he would be responsible for our rape. He huffed and puffed. Then he decided to step back on the train, and we didn’t see him again. The woman gave us some wet wipes to clean up the blood, telling us she didn’t ‘want no messes on her seats.’”

Eitan held her good hand and squeezed it gently. Akemi still looked dazed. Her left arm was in a sling to keep the shoulder stable. She sighed.

“I thought I could handle anything, Eitan. I was certain that my nano made me far superior – stronger, faster, smarter – than most everyone else. I could not fight off four men armed with a pole. I was too cocky, too self-assured, too full of myself for my own good.”

Eitan raised her chin, just as she had done to him throughout their teenage years when he sulked. “It’s not the nano, Akemi, it’s called being twenty-one years old. High flying Ivy League college student with an ascendant career already going gangbusters, who wouldn’t think they were hot shit?”

She gave him a wan smile. “When did you get smart? Between me and Sten, you’re the dummy of the bunch.”

Eitan reached over and gave her a slight hug. She hung her head over his shoulder, crying and heaving all at once. He held her with his eyes closed until her crying stopped. When he opened his eyes and released her, he saw Danielle leaning in the doorway, looking at them.

“Leslie’s got a serious concussion,” she said. “The doctor says she needs bedrest for the time being.”

“Can I see her?” Akemi asked, still wiping her eyes with her good arm.

Danielle shrugged. “I’m not her gatekeeper. She’s sleeping now. They gave Bea a valium and she’s sleeping too.”

“I want to see her,” Akemi said, trying to stand up with her shoulder immobilized.

“Fair warning, mom is pissed,” Danielle said. “She and Bea had a lot of words in the conference room, and a couple of doors slammed.”

Akemi waved her off and left. Eitan listened to his sister climbing the stairs, cursing about her shoulder on every step. A sense of being naked and alone washed over Eitan when the silence returned. Squaring his shoulders and taking a quick appraisal of himself, he chanced a glance of the young woman.

“I never asked what they were doing at the federal courthouse,” Eitan said. “I didn’t ask a lot of stuff.”

Danielle looked at him and shrugged again. “The cook left a stew on the stove and sides in the refrigerator. I’m hungry.”

“Of course, she did,” Eitan said to himself, realizing that this woman, her family and their compound reeked of pretension. The village may have been a secure compound as well, but Joseph and Nikki had raised them with different values. Hell, his parents had raised him with a better sense of humility.

He followed her into the kitchen and let her fill a bowl and a plate for him. He scanned the crazy list of meds Dr. H left. After failing to determine any rhyme or reason for the choices, Eitan tried to create the evening dose from a dozen bottles of OTC meds. Danielle had already started to eat by the time he sat down with his large handful of pills and capsules.

Midway through the meal, a middle-aged woman stormed into the kitchen, her hair askew. Her figure in her yoga pants was a bit obscured by the man’s button-down white shirt she was wearing. She appeared ready to launch into a tirade when she did a double-take, espying Eitan with a fork in his mouth. Instead, she chuffed and put her hands on her hips.

“You are the special case that actually forced Jeremy out of his hidey hole,” she said. “I suppose I should thank your sister for that, which may be the only reason I haven’t taken up my shotgun after what she did, putting my daughters in danger.”

Danielle stared intently at her plate and refused to look up. She used her fork to push cucumber slices around various obstacles. Eitan silently cursed his sister for leaving him with the horse apples to clean up while she went off riding with the filly.

“Hi, I’m Eitan, Mrs. Hawthorne” he said without getting up. “Thank you for letting me recoup at your house. I’m feeling much better this evening.”

The woman opened her mouth to speak and shut it again. She squinted at him. “Did he just cure you from that tainted series nitwit Whitcomb released?”

“No,” Eitan said, putting down his utensils. “I don’t have any of the commercial series put out by Hobart Nanotech. I have Dr. Hobart’s personal series, er, his experimental ones, I think.”

The woman considered his words. “So, you, Akemi and the other brother are Jeremy’s private experiments. Interesting. What do you mean, ‘you think?’”

“Long story,” Eitan said, returning to his food.

The woman took the hint and grabbed a plate from the cupboard. After serving herself a minimal amount, she took a seat at the head of the table, where she could turn to both young adults as they ate. She took a bite and sat back, glaring at Eitan.

Eitan gave her a neutral face. “My parents were killed in a car wreck when I was almost ten. The Hobart Foundation adopted me, placing me with the family I have today, including Akemi and Sten, who are also orphans. The first series Dr. H gave me made me terribly sick, but according to my adoptive parents, the nano worked unusually well. Three years later, Dr. H gave me a second series. I may have almost died; they had to place me in an ice bath to control my temperature. Afterwards, the nano worked extremely well again, except that my gut suffered some damage from that first day. At sixteen, Dr. H gave me a third, corrective series as a part of a fecal transplant to repair the damage. My gut is vibrant and healthy today, but once in a great while, there is a residual issue with vitamins and minerals. I need more than the average person.”

“I think you left out a good deal of the story,” Mrs. Hawthorne said, “just like Jeremy does. Should I assume that Akemi and your brother, Sten is it, have the same nano series you had?”

“Not the third series,” Eitan said, grabbing some pills and swallowing them. “Only I got that one and Joseph, my adoptive father, designed the rectal implantation process for the nano. He wanted it as safe as he could make it. As for the earlier series, Dr. Hobart gave us a general accounting but not enough specifics. None of us have seen our files on what nano we were given either. No one has seen our files.”