Trellis Read online

  Her eyes flickered back to some distant memory, “I don’t know what you call it, but for me Ken, let’s call it a Treeny.”

  Sitting there waiting for her food she thought back to the cafeteria at Trellis. There were certain areas she could amble freely within her building and the cafeteria with Treeny was one of them. D’s only bit of normalcy on the island involved Treeny the cook at Trellis that she had grown fond of over the years always seemed to have something nice to say. She was a tall thin older lady with short wiry grey hair that would always give D extra food when she was working. Every now and then Treeny would sneak some sort of candy, D assumed now must have been handmade by the sweet cook. She was the only person at Trellis whose face would light up when D came into the room. D was not sure if Treeny was fond of her or felt pity for her. Of course, Treeny would never be extra friendly in front of staff, it wasn’t allowed but Treeny would always find a way to make D feel welcomed when she walked in. Like giving her lemonade tea. The one tangle good memory D could create herself. Picturing the clear sapphire glass pitcher with the Trellis emblem Treeny poured the light russet colored concoction from made D smile. Treeny’s arm steadying the heavy pitcher and smoothly tipping it up to transfer the liquid into D’s blue cup she could almost hear the distant sound of ice cubes clanging together.

  Dr. Salvaggi gave everyone on Trellis strict orders not to show D any emotions. They needed to be indifferent around her at all times. The many years that Dr. Salvaggi had performed surgeries, he thought that raising a test subject- such as D- would be best if feelings of sentiments were not introduced in her daily environment, and he thought were essentially of no value. With the ‘projects’ they would be sending her on he saw no need for her emotional feelings to be nurtured. They wanted a test subject that behaved like a robot. Dr. Salvaggi didn’t factor in the strongest variable of all, human nature, and the need for bonding. She found that in Treeny. Human emotions could not be suppressed forever; they would spawn regardless of the absence of sentiment of physical affection. This fact had been the reason why no clone would survive a ‘project’. D assumed because they would show signs of regret and in turn be a burden to the good Doctor.

  Treeny would say, “Child, you are going to trip over that lip if it hangs any lower, smile. It will change your whole outlook on life.” Which would make D smile. “If you don’t start eating more the wind is going to blow you away! Here take another scoop and don’t bring that tray back up here till it’s gone.” In addition, her favorite, “D stands for darling,” Treeny would say with a wink. Looking back now it was the closest she would ever get to a grandmother. She missed her every day.

  Her ability to read people’s thoughts, place ideas in their heads, seizing their muscles, and all mobility for manipulation did not include actual ‘D to person’ mind conversations. Dr. Salvaggi called it ‘thought transference’ and since the first surgery, her ability was growing stronger each day. However, no matter how hard she tried though she could not have silent conversations with someone in her mind where they would willingly reply. She tried many times with Treeny with utter disappointment. There were so many things D wanted to tell her but couldn’t, at least not without being audible. Placing ideas in people’s heads- yes, manipulating their movements and changing perspectives- yes, having them willingly answer her telepathically, or to have a silent conversation- NO.

  D had been sitting in the kitchen while Treeny stirred a large bowl of that evening’s dinner, telling her about what she had learned in Professor Stryker’s class. She had mentioned that D reminded her of her daughter Sienna. D remembered asking her what a daughter was, and Treeny explained what children were. D didn’t get to do this often but for some reason her schedule had been cancelled that evening. Few people were brought from outside Trellis to do work on the island. Since Treeny ran the kitchen, she was an intricate puzzle piece. She cooked for the workers and organized meal plans for the clones.

  While talking to Treeny, D heard her name blasted over the loud speaker to report to the nurse’s station. It echoed through the corridors and the empty kitchen. D raised her eyebrows at Treeny and replied with some urgency, “I am being summoned. I better get going.” Before D left the kitchen, Treeny handed her a bag of homemade chocolate candy and told her to save it for after dinner. She was delighted in this small gesture and plus she loved chocolate!

  When she got to the nurses station it was empty so she sat down and waited. She could see over the fence in the distance the dark blue water of the ocean and the white puffy clouds in the distant turquoise sky. D waited, and waited, and waited. Out the window, she could barely make out two figures moving around on the sandy landscape. About the same time, she heard two men outside by the open office door and she read their thoughts. “NO! NO!” she screamed. She had to of heard them wrong. She ran to the hall, the two men stood there watching her in a panic; they knew she read their thoughts, their thoughts dripped of guilt.

  The two figures in the distance were Treeny and a guard. She was punished for being friendly to D, treating her normal, and possibly disrupting the program’s objective. The two men in the hallway tried to grab her and even though she had never halted someone before, her cerebral controlling ability took over before she could thoroughly process what happened. D quickly paused the men with her thoughts and pushed them away. D ran to the front door in a panic manipulating every person she met, ‘MOVE’ her brain would scream! She ran as fast as her lime green flip-flops would let her. She finally reached the large gate across the courtyard and mentally made the guards push it open; she had to get to her. This was unreal she kept thinking, first Pavel and now Treeny!

  The more she ran, the sand became softer and harder to push through, but she shoveled through it dragging her feet. She finally reached the sand dune out of breath, there D saw Treeny lying on the sand… She had been shot... The guard standing over her was holding a gun in his hand and a shovel at his side. His thoughts were indifferent, he took this sweet lady’s life, and his thoughts told her he didn’t care. The only person on the island with any kindness, he stole that, and someone ordered it done, Dr. Salvaggi. There were better ways this could have been handled, easier, cleaner ways but this was no doubt a mind game with the workers on the island. What better ways to create loyalty than to make someone kill for you?

  D fell to her knees and lay there sobbing. She couldn’t hear one thought coming from her. No more kind words, no more smiles. What happened next was pure emotion, an emotion that she knew hid deep inside of her, and could explode again as it did that day on the beach at any moment. Also, one of the biggest reasons she didn’t let people close to her. D sat up, she could see her light green smock turn the darkest blood red from Treeny’s bullet wound. D turned to the guard and forced him to hold the gun up to his own head, which was a struggle for her mind. He fought it. D and the guard went back and forth, he would lower the gun, and she would mentally make him raise it again to his head. This went against his nature, to take his own life, the gunshot rang out- she had won. The guard the shot Treeny fell to the ground and his thoughts were no more. She slumped back over Treeny. The guards that were running towards her stumbled backwards at what they just witnessed and voluntarily threw their guns as quickly and as far as they could away from them. The frightened expression on their faces was the only thing she could read. She had scared them so badly they could not form a single coherent thought for minutes. By this time there was an audience standing around her ready to take her back to her fenced in home. D took control of everyone’s thoughts and held them back until nightfall, she had never felt anything so mentally excruciating and she eventually passed out. D woke up days later restrained to her bed in a cloudy drug induced stupor. Dr. Salvaggi was not going to take any more chances. Especially now, since he knew what D was capable of doing. D later found out that the guard that took Treeny’s life was in fact a trained clone.

  …

  Ken brought her food out with a side of
flavored onion rings; the cook had been trying something new and wanted feedback on what she thought. Well, Ken you may have redeemed your tip…

  The food would have tasted amazing if she hadn’t made herself sick thinking about Treeny, thank goodness she had quite a bit to take back home. However, the cheesecake did not make it, she devoured every bite of it, and now she was feeling the heaviness sit in her gut.

  She looked at the lemonade and tea concoction sitting in front of her and lifted it to her lips slowly. As the first bit of sour touched her tongue she clinched her eyes tightly closed and instantaneously Treeny popped up in a vision so clearly D could smell the flavors of the cafeteria on the island. Treeny with an apron on, the feathered wings positioned on the upper corner of her apron, the brightness of the sun as it flooded behind her beloved friend, and Treeny’s face lit up as she smiled at D. A single tear pushed it’s way out past D’s tightly squeezed eyelids and trailed down her face.

  “Salvaggi,” D muttered breathlessly, “You will pay.”

  D took a long breath and began gathering her left-over food items and paid the waiter, she also left Ken’s full tip on the table.

  D passed a young straggly man on the sidewalk. She heard his thoughts; he was planning to take the old lady’s purse across the street.

  D sighed, “Never a peaceful day…”

  She quickly ran up to him trying not to spill her food containers and with her thoughts on Treeny and the guard, she was not as kind as she could have been. She slipped into his mind easily and inspected the traffic on the street. Impulsively and obstinately D ran him right into the side of a moving bus. Probably not the most prudent response she could have come up with but nonetheless a particularly effective one. He slammed against the bus and then back on the curb in pain, scuffed up with a bloody mouth. Witnesses on the street started to scream and shout while running towards the bloody coward. D methodically pushed the bus accident scene from their minds and they began turning back to their own lunch-time routes again forgetting this happened. She placed the thought in coward’s mind to go to the Citizen Control station directly, confess to all he’s done, and never steal again. Although, she knew full well that would go against what his natural instinct would want but she did all she could do, short of having the city bus run him over, which did cross her mind.

  D knew he was a drug addict and wanted money for his addiction. She had tried on several occasions to cure addicts of their dependencies. To do something selfless that didn’t benefit herself. Or perhaps, she did the addict experiment out of boredom with her normal mind control routine. Whatever the reason, she was doing something positive with her mind that had been created to harm. It had worked, as far as she knew on a few drug addicts at the clinic she had found and infiltrated. The other addicts, the ones that it didn’t work for long-term, they would go straight back to using after some time. D had begun to wonder about the strength of her abilities and then she started to notice something unusual case after case. Some of the addicts were more persuaded than other addicts. But why? How was the need for drugs overwriting her abilities?

  When using her capabilities to change viewpoints or erase certain memories in a non-addict, it always worked; Banks excluded. This however was backwards with the drugs addicts. The drugs always seemed to win against her mind changing powers. D could only change desires, and the drugs, well, they changed the cell makeup of the body, and their drug-memory was stronger than anything she could overcome with the brain. If they were going to stop the drugs, it had to come from within; they had to be stronger than the substance they were placing in their body. Very rarely could she manipulate the desire of hard-core drugs out of someone’s desires.

  D continued to make her way back to the bookstore with her leftovers in two white plastic containers.

  ‘I really am carrying precious cargo,’ she thought with a smile. She hadn’t eaten a full meal in weeks and this was well worth it, calories, and all.

  While she was walking along minding her own business she heard someone’s thoughts scream, “There she is!”

  D’s eyes widened, ‘Who was that? Who were they thinking about? Looking for?’ She glanced around the street, and then in a panic, rushed to the coffee shop at the corner, entered in a haste, then ducked behind a large cardboard cutout. With her heart pounding, she was trying to formulate a plan of escape.

  So many thoughts were flying around the small cafe she could only hone in on a few of them with her mind racing. She tried to silence everyone’s thoughts in the little coffee shop so she could hear what was going on out on the street, searching through thoughts one by one. She looked carefully out the window and saw some men walking towards her in CCD uniforms. She grabbed on to one of their thoughts and realized they were not looking for her. They were planning tee times for golf and meeting girlfriends. She scanned the street and concluded she was nuts. No one was looking for her. At least not now, not here, and she could finally breathe. Her legs were wobbly and she sank back against the decorative brick wall, still listening to the buzz on the street from pedestrians.

  She didn’t know why she seemed more jumpy than usual this past week. Of course, no one knew her here, no one would even know where to find her or start looking. As far as Coughlin remembered he dropped her off at the airport to fly out of DC and it didn’t hurt she planted a falsehood in their minds that they walked her to the gate themselves. She was growing exhausted of all the lies she had been living, weaving them whenever the need arose. She hated that she had to look over her shoulder at all times, that at any moment she could be snatched up and zipped back to Trellis and Dr. Salvaggi’s surgical landmine of experiments.

  ‘Absurd, it was my imagination. No one knows I’m here,’ she reasoned as she tried to shake the tremble that had begun to quake her knees. She could control everyone she had met since leaving Trellis, with one exception and she was on a mission to find out why Banks’ mind eluded her.

  Back in her loft, she put the food in the fridge and then sat at the large window looking down on the street below. Watching the people from this high up gave her peace, she could not hear their thoughts which helped the zinging in her mind. She could people-watch without knowing exactly the intimate details they were thinking, she could only guess. It had become a game for her. D heard her computer beep and she knew Agent Banks must have turned on his computer. Her little remote device was working as planned.

  D rushed to her laptop and waited. Any moment now, whatever he browsed would pop up on her screen and she would find out some detail why he was so special, at least she hoped it would be that easy.

  Agent Banks was perusing his bank account activity and paying a few bills.

  ‘Agent Banks, you have quite a savings for a CCD agent.’

  D wasn’t surprised how disciplined he was in his personal life with his finances; it seemed appropriate behavior after witnessing his organized home- anal. If she were a betting girl, she would bet this account was one of many accounts he probably had.

  Next, he moved on to email when a woman popped up on a live chat window, a sandy colored hair woman with steel-green eyes.

  “Colin! I miss you!” She chirped with enthusiasm.

  “Hey, Sis, I miss you, too,” he admitted with a softness D hadn’t seen in him this far.

  “How’s Spudsy?” She asked, cheerfully.

  “Good, way too much energy,” he replied as if he was annoyed by the overactive canine.

  “Col, he is a puppy. Give him some time.”

  ‘Puppy! That beast was a puppy?’ D scoffed.

  “He’s not so much a puppy anymore. How’s school going?” He asked her abruptly.

  “Alright, I guess. I met someone. I really think you would like this guy.” She explained, no doubt an attempt for some sort of approval from her brother.

  His face hardened. “No, I probably won’t, what is he going to school for?” His voice thick.

  “He’s not in school. He is taking a year off but he wa
nts to be a lawyer.”

  “A lawyer? Guess what, Sis?” He asked with his tone hopeful.

  “What?” she inquired, gleefully like a puppy herself.

  “I don’t like him. Also, when I ask how school is going I would like a report on actual classes, not your latest infatuation.” He informed her flatly, with no emotion on his face.

  She took a deep breath as if to start an argument then silently conceded, the look on her face suggested— he had just popped her gleeful infatuation bubble. Colin Banks definitely said what he thought. D could see he felt like he needed to protect her, possibly from previous experiences with her choice in men.

  Realizing he upset her he quickly changed the subject, “Oh, my apartment alarm went off this morning and had to come back here after I got to work. I thought Spudsy must have set it off.”

  “How does a dog set off an alarm?”

  “That is what I would like to know. While I’m thinking about it, I’m leaving out early tomorrow morning and won’t be back till late Sunday, you won’t be able to get a hold of me.”

  “Why?”

  “I need to get away. Spudsy is going to a weekend kennel.” He said as he looked down at a stack of papers acting like he was reading them to avoid any more questions.

  “Ah, one of your Daniel Boone weekends. Tell the guys hi.”

  “The guys aren’t coming. Well, Sis I need to get going, I want to get to the gym before I cook dinner and I still need to take Spuds to the dog park tonight.”

  “You think with all those muscles you would find a girlfriend.” She added judgmentally, then under her breath joked, “Or, just keep one.”

  He looked up at her and narrowed his eyes unapprovingly at her remark.

  “You had that coming.” She smiled back.

  “Maybe…” He admitted through clinched teeth.

  “Hey, Col, be careful this weekend.”