Trellis Page 9

  On the corner of the counter she saw the bible Zan gave her and decided to find out what was exactly in it, she grabbed a cup of water, crackers, and the book, heading for the couch.

  Flipping through the pages she quickly realized she had no idea what she was looking at. She needed a starting point. Since the bible wouldn’t have been approved material for curriculum at Trellis, she never knew it existed until she was much older. By then D was so enfolded with her own god issues, and the power she wielded from the surgery she didn’t see a need for learning about God.

  The environment D was brought up in was like a large labyrinth of scientists, nurses, professors, cooks, and security guards that were all there for her; at least this is what it felt like. Later she learned that these individuals were shipped on and off the island called Trellis, in monthly shifts. D was taught four languages in all at Trellis—English being the main language, a little Arabic, Korean, Russian and broken Italian. Broken Italian because she wasn’t taught this in a classroom; she picked it up being around a distinctively Italian mad scientist— Dr. Salvaggi, whose own name means savage in Italian. Which also turns out was his personality trait.

  Most of her movements around the island were astoundingly restricted, confined to inside the high fences that surrounded the complex with only a few outings a year to the beach. She would find out later that they had many of these complexes around the island, each with their own unique purpose for different world governments. Some of these other complexes were maintained to only grow people from infancy and to carry out anywhere from minuscule missions to atrocious tragedies around the world.

  Of course, Trellis didn’t start out as a place to train people to act like mercenary machines against our own country, carrying out missions at the government’s whim for political gain. No, they started out over fifty years ago growing people to carry out missions in different countries; bombings, assassinations, overthrowing governments, and strong threats for political gains. Each person, excluding D, that was sent from the island was expendable. They would never be coming back to Trellis, only to be forgotten by Trellis once the mission was complete.

  After how successful each mission was with other countries the program was turned in to a place different governments would run to every time they wanted a political agenda met for personal gain. Merely a few select people in high offices knew about its existence. In actuality, Trellis controls political outcomes and political agendas, with no law governing it.

  D was never shown love, never given affection, or verbal accolades of any kind unless it came from Treeny. Looking back now, D realized she had been groomed to carry out atrocious acts with no remorse. She was educated only because it would benefit Trellis and whatever sorted task they were going to ask her to do.

  When the surgeries were more of a success than they could have ever hoped for she became like gold. The first time D ever left Trellis for her first mission she was about twelve, accompanied by a couple of male security guards from Trellis that acted as her chaperones. D was flown to Russia — her first time on an airplane. Her only instructions: to act as a niece of a US diplomat and go to a dinner with that diplomat and foreign prominent leaders, keep her mouth shut, read peoples thoughts, and give detailed information on what she found out.

  The evening of the dinner D had been given the prettiest pink dress she had ever seen. At Trellis, she had always wore a white smock/dress, or a pale green pants outfit, or what she knew now to be medical scrubs worn by nurses at hospitals but never real clothes. Therefore, the new dress she received that night was something special to her young eyes, uncomfortable but she knew it was special. D had been given a wide pink headband to hold her short hair back off her face for this special occasion. The pair of dress shoes with a raised heel that molded to her feet perfectly was the pinnacle of the pretty in pink dress ensemble. She loved each piece. She had never felt pretty before that night, she liked it. Even though she felt tremendously out of place in her new pink outfit, she knew it was something she wanted more of, or at least an option for different clothing to choose from for a change.

  An older gentleman named Pavel that spoke English well, had been seated by D at the dinner. He stood out because he treated her with such kindness. At the large banquet table, he instructed that a cheeseburger be cooked for her and the duck with the green sauce slathered on it taken away. Reading his mind D knew he had young children in his life and he felt sorry for her being dragged around with an ‘uncle’ to boring dinners with old people. After dinner, he asked her if she knew the game tic-tac-toe. She did not. He was shocked and proceeded to draw the game on a clean napkin.

  Shortly after they left the dinner, D was asked by her guards what information D had gathered from all the leaders. D did as she was told and conveyed to them everything she had picked up from everyone’s minds. Nothing really seemed too small of a detail for them. The next day sitting in the airport waiting for the private plane she overheard people talking that one of the foreign leaders the night before had been murdered, his name, Pavel.

  Was she the cause? D only did what she was told to do. She sat there stunned with airport noises going on all around her. She heard nothing. Hours and hours, she sat on that plane feeling something new. Something she hadn’t felt before in her short life on Trellis, guilt, and she didn’t like it. D’s stomach twisted so badly she vomited in the isle. The guards feared they messed up somehow. Her behavior was more of a panic stricken daze and when she vomited, they knew they had done something wrong.

  D had been educated enough at Trellis to know what an assassination was and she was sure this murder constituted one. The entire flight back to Trellis D kept thinking about the information she had given the security guards and wondered if that information she had obtained at the dinner warranted a death sentence for Pavel. D knew… Deep down she knew that the information she obtained contributed to this kind man’s death. If her security guards knew anything, they weren’t revealing it, other than feelings of messing up somehow but they didn’t know how they had messed up. That was when she started to conclude, Trellis had sent someone else in to kill Pavel, a clone. Her guards knew nothing of the murder.

  Since then she had researched his murder and uncovered that the male Trellis clone that murdered Pavel then committed suicide. Pathetic and yet millions of people have fallen for the crimes the clones commit and then blame it on mental illness. The clone that murdered Pavel did die, but not by his own hands. He was disposed of after the mission was complete.

  They returned to Trellis and she immediately asked for a meeting with Dr. Salvaggi. D had requested meetings before but it was to request that she had more outdoor time each day instead of classroom time. It was always denied. He was the least friendliest person on Trellis, although hardly anyone was extra friendly to her. Well, the exception was Treeny, the cook in the cafeteria.

  In fact after going to the dinner in Russia, she realized how she was being treated on the Ranch was not the norm. At the dinner, people smiled at her and were genuinely concerned about her comfort. D had read no one that was faking his or her emotions towards her. Up until that dinner, she had a no benchmark of emotional measurement when reading people’s emotions. People’s real emotions.

  In Dr. Salvaggi’s office, she sat down on the black plastic and metal chair in front of his messy desk. She waited quietly for him to come in. While she was sitting there, she noticed papers stapled together stamped ‘Confidential’ in bold red letters. She picked it up and began flipping through it. More missions for her: Korea, Middle East, another one in Russia.

  It was all coming together. Why she had been taught these languages were beginning to make sense to her. Would she be the reason more people would die? She heard Dr. Salvaggi’s thoughts as he moved down the hallway and she quickly placed the papers back on his desk.

  She knew if she told him her concerns, he would understand and she wouldn’t have to go on any more missions. She was naive.

&nbs
p; “Yes, D? What can I help you with today?” He asked in his Italian accent.

  “Well, I have a lot of questions and I’m not sure where to start?”

  “Start with question one. I don’t have a lot of time.”

  Straight to the point, he never hid his impatience from anyone. He admired her, not in a respectful way, but in a way where he admired his handy work. She was nothing more to him than a successful surgery. His only successful mind altering surgery.

  “Someone was murdered in Russia after the dinner. Was I the reason? Was the information I gave the reason Pavel died?”

  He immediately straightened rigidly in his chair, grabbed a pen, a file from a locked cabinet door, and began writing. Of course, she could read his thoughts as he scribbled frantically in Italian —“Subject D is showing signs of guilt and remorse after Russian mission,” then he wrote the word “FASCINATING” in bold letters. He looked up at her with a smile, an extremely scared, fake smile.

  He stared at her for a moment as wordless communication passed between them. He was studying her and this new revelation, and she was reading his every thought.

  After some time he finally broke the silence and spoke with a clipped tone. “D, you have nothing to feel guilt about,” of course his brain thoughts were telling her something completely different than his actual words were.

  His eyes were soulless holes as he continued to spew out contradicting words, “What happened in Russia had nothing to do with you.” In a shifting transparent attempt to change the subject, he asked if she had liked the pink dress that was sent for her to wear in Russia. Even if she weren’t a mind reader, she would have known he was trying to change the subject.

  She answered yes with a nod and conceded in getting anything productive handled that day. It wouldn’t be for a few more months before she got up the nerve to try to control him and the people around her. She was used on a few more missions, but these other times she would be placed in an exceptionally controlled environment, with no outside information leaked to her in any way. Each time she was sent from Trellis, she was getting a taste of what the outside world was like and she liked it, and a plan to leave started to take shape, a plan of escape that even to this day she was not sure how she pulled off so easily.

  Chapter Eight~

  D opened her hazy eyes and realized she had drifted off reading the bible that now lay closed on her chest. Looking to the corner of the room at the big wooden round wall clock, she sighed. It was past noon, and she was starving. No chocolate vitamin shake or frozen potpie would fill her appetite today. She wanted a steak after seeing what Banks had in his fridge earlier.

  She lay the bible on the coffee table, picked up her dishes, and moved them to the sink. D lived within minutes of a great steakhouse and that was where her belly was leading her. Grabbing her wrap, she adjusted it around her shoulders, snatched up her bag, and headed out, locking her door firmly before she left. Taking soft steps down the stairwell she tried to avoid all the creeks and pops in the wood, she must have made some noise because she could hear Zan instruct his uncle to be kind to her when she came through the doorway.

  D could take the side entrance of the building and it had crossed her mind but she allowed them to rent the space for the bookstore, i.e. she will use it as she pleased. She didn’t like living alone, yet she had to be alone because hearing people’s thoughts 24-7 took its toll on her. The bookstore was a good fit and they had to agree to let her use the stairwell for personal use to get to and from her loft. Although, she always tried to get back before they closed the store up in the evening. Interacting with Mr. Zhao and Zan brought a little normalcy into an otherwise un-normal world as crazy as that sounded. In a strange way, she like being locked into the building at night when the bookstore closed, guessing it reminded her of Trellis, after all that was all she knew for so many years of her life- being locked up.

  She reached the bottom of the stairs and gave a wave to both Mr. Zhao and Zan who were busy with customers that had thankfully just walked in the front door.

  Walking out to the gloomy street, she began her stroll to the restaurant. Her mind wondered back to Colin Banks, well wondered back to his shielded thoughts. He was definitely an amazingly structured and disciplined individual that loved his job and family. She didn’t think he was a product of Trellis, more likely he was a freak of nature but she wasn’t about to discount any theories.

  She knew one thing without a doubt, ‘If Trellis found out I could not read his thoughts they will use him. The question was how? Will they experiment on him, dissecting his brain to see why he was different? Would they brainwash him to come after me? Should I leave him alone all together? Could I leave him alone? I seem to be pulled towards him like a hurricane towards a population of sleeping people…’

  She thought back to the other day in the SUV when Coughlin picked her up at the CCD headquarters and trusted she didn’t give anything away. Optimistically she hoped he knew nothing about her not being able to control Banks or not being able to read his mind. She was pretty sure she played it off as, ‘I was in control, that I wanted to be held this long by Banks and Hinkle, and I wanted Coughlin involved’. The truth was D didn’t want Coughlin involved nor had she wanted to be held at the CCD as long as she was. She only wanted to transfer the information about the run-ins with the Austrian extortionists. It wasn’t her job to chase them down, and it was by complete accident she even knew what she knew anyway about them. Sitting at a stop light one day a limo pulled up next to her and she heard thoughts that shocked her from the people inside the limo. She followed them and recorded more information, bank numbers being read, phone numbers, offshore accounts, and politicians being blackmailed... D followed them a few days and that was when she realized that the CCD had been following her following the cartel, and taking surveillance the entire time, thus, she was inadvertently involved.

  Wanting to visit the CCD Headquarters for years but knowing that would have been a violation of the terms Trellis and D had worked out, she was afraid to chance her freedom. She knew she would pop up on every surveillance camera and facial recognition program in the building with no good reason for being there if she walked in to gather intel. In no way was she to get close to any high official unless otherwise asked, she was in no way to walk into any military or government building unless otherwise asked, and above all else, she was to stay out of Washington, period. When she was picked up at the airport, it was on a layover from Northern Cape, only a pit stop it looked like from anyone on the outside. She knew once they found the cartel that was filtering US currency and blackmailing US politicians that she would be forgotten, written off as a child. D wanted to get close to the CCD agency to read people’s thoughts and see if anyone there was involved with Trellis. D needed close enough to read people’s thoughts. To get to the heart of the operation. To grab any mental intel she could. However, she heard nothing. D was no closer to closing down Trellis than aliens landing on the White House lawn.

  In the SUV, she did grab the thought about the mole named Agent Casey and then she attained more information from Agent Billy Hinkle. She didn’t have time to research the intel threat now but it would be thoroughly followed up on after the Fort Knox job.

  ‘The mole Agent Beth Casey, AKA The Knockout Beauty would surely lead to something. Of course, any information would be great at this point,’ D thought.

  Banks was a solid wall for her that day at the headquarters. She hoped when he got home he turned on his computer so she could access to a little bit of his life. She was enormously curious on what made him tick and what kept her out of his thoughts.

  D reached the restaurant and a beautiful woman seated her by the window right away. She already knew what she wanted so no need to look at a menu that would only confuse her and make her stomach want more, she intended on ordering plenty anyway.

  D looked at the male waiter and read the name Ken on his nametag.

  “Miss, how are you on this lovely
day?”

  “Ravenous. You are right though, this is a lovely day.”

  “Considering all the unpredictable weather we have been having lately, today is certainly an appreciated surprise. So, what can I get your ravenous self,” Ken asked with a smile.

  “Ken, I will take a petite filet mignon medium well, baked potato with sour cream and butter, steamed broccoli no cheese, Caesar salad, wheat bread with garlic butter and a Northern Cape silk chocolate cheesecake for dessert.” Just when Ken thought she was done she continued, “I will also take the spinach cheese dip with house chips as the appetizer, and a bacon cheeseburger to go.” Her total would be one hundred forty-seven dollars, and tip; this wasn’t the first time she had ordered this. She knew there was no way she would ever eat all of it. They would have to box it up but that just meant she’ll have something to eat the next few days and would put off her need to go to the grocery store. Win. Win.

  Ken thought to himself, “This girl should weigh as much as a bus eating like a hippo! Ravenous was the perfect word!”

  ‘Well, Ken you lost your tip, you smart-alecky food policeman.’ D glared at him.

  Ken peered at her small frame sitting at the large table and asked hesitantly, “Anything to drink?”

  D took a deep thoughtful breath and she suddenly wanted an old familiar beverage. Do you have lemonade?”

  “Yes, you would like lemonade,” he answered as he began writing down the word.

  “No, Ken. I want half lemonade and half tea in one glass.” She corrected him knowing the thought he had in his head had pictured two glasses.

  “So you want tea and lemonade in one glass?” He asked perplexed.

  “Yes, half tea, and half lemonade.”

  He furrowed his dark eyebrows together as he wrote down this peculiar directive and asked, “So, you want an Arnold Palmer, half tea and half lemonade.”