Santos looked at us with a stern face. The wrinkles in the lower end of her eyes visible, her dark hair falling to the side of her face as if it lost the precision of the bun she had tied it in.
"I called you in because you are old enough now - the three of you," she said.
Harry's face didn't betray any emotion, but I could read the fear he had been dreading for so long. The day when we would likely outgrow the walls of the orphanage and have to handle our lives on our own.
"And this means you are old enough to handle what I'm about to tell you," she continued.
I could see Harry's face transition from contained fear to visible confusion. I mimicked him.
Santos reached out and handed each of us a folder containing our names: Lilian Jones, Newton Fleming and Harry Thomson.
"What I am about to tell you is of the upmost confidentiality. I am going to need you to swear you won't speak of this with absolutely anyone outside of this room."
I thought of Ash. Whatever this was, Ash was outside this room, and could not know.
"I swear," I said without thinking.
"I swear," followed Harry, looking at me sideways as he did.
Newt sighed, and looked away. "What am I swearing to?" He asked. "Can you tell me the degree of burden that knowing whatever you are about to tell us will have on me?'"
I froze. Newt was right. Had I been careless?
"I can't measure that," Santos said. "But its information about you, that I do personally believe you have the right to know. I am breaching legal non-disclosure agreements by calling you here, and willing to face the consequences. If you break your word, I would lose my job, and maybe more."
Newt looked at Santos for a second, weighting her words.
"I swear," he said after a pause.
Santos nodded.
"Are you familiar with the current controversy the Kronos facilities are undergoing?"
My head flashed to the news report the day before. I felt uncomfortable.
"Somewhat," said Harry practically.
Santos looked down - visibly gathering strength to speak. "The accusations are not… what do I say… unfounded."
I saw Newt raise an eyebrow.
"There have been known precedence of Kronos acting unethically to foster the advancement of science through research."
Unethically…meaning? I thought.
I looked down at the file in my hand - with my name on it. "And that connects to us, how?" I asked, testing the sound of my own words. Santos broke my eye contact. Newt eyes went from me to Santos, then landed in his folder. He opened it without any reservations. Santos reached out to stop him, but she restrained herself. It was evident she was not anticipating the files to be opened so soon.
"Hyperion?" he asked. "What the hell is Hyperion?"
I didn't wait to open mine. "Dione." I said, just as clueless. I looked at Harry then, expecting him to speak. We were opening them without asking, but these files were ours. They had our names. Harry looked at Santos as if asking for the permission Newt and I ignored. She waved him off, allowing it. Harry opened his and froze. The concerned expression in his face as he turned towards us gave me chills. "Control." He said.
"Control?" asked Newt. "As in benchmark control group?"
"Control subject," explained Santos, and I felt the world break.
Newt and I exchanged looks - both our expressions as cold as ice.
"Both Fleming and Jones have a genetical alteration that was part of an experiment geared to cure dementia. You two are an example of Kronos acting unethically before the law as I was mentioning."
I was so afraid.
Santos continued. "I can't tell you much because I don't have all the information, but since it is made to cure dementia, I could only assume it has to do with your brains. In follow up interviews I was asked to measure your ability to feel empathy or connection." Santos expanded.
Suddenly all the interviews made sense. I had a brief memory of an older person, a doctor, calling me to a room to ask me questions more than once. We had so many appointments with psychologists and social workers at the orphanage growing up I never thought of it as odd. But now…
"I have this:" Santos said as she showed us another sheet of paper. "It explains the main idea of the experiment, but not more than that. I don't really have a way to know more."
Harry looked down. "May I step outside for a second? I want some fresh air."
Santos nodded, and he did.
For a fraction of a second, Santos's expression showed that Harry's reaction had affected her, which validated him. It communicated to me just exactly how much I was missing out on. I've seen kids look to their parent's expressions after hurting themselves in order to gauge the degree of the damage done. I felt like a kid. I watched him leave the room as I thought about how Harry, thought the most empathic person I knew, didn't have anything. He was control. Yet he was the one needing to step outside instead of it being either Newton or me. I looked at Newt then, he shrunk his shoulders at me. Were we under reacting? I looked at Santos, and she broke my eye contact. I didn't like that she did.
"For the next part of this conversation, I think I would like Harry to be in this room. I want him to listen." Santos said.
"May I go fetch him?" I asked.
"Sure."
As I reached to the door I thought of how I had, throughout the years, learned to mirror Harry, and wondered if this had something to do with what Santos told us. He responded better than me to situations where I had no real clue how to act. I often camouflaged my lack of connection by imitating his abundance of. Me stepping aside to go find him was really an extension of that. An extension of me trying to understand why had he left. Like the miners using canaries to see if toxic gasses leaked, I used Harry as an anchor to assess if a situation was dire. He was my reference canary - and my canary had left the room.
I found Harry just outside the hallway, looking at the street. It was a view that lacked the presence of nature. Only a few plants alongside it, but also a realistic picture of how the world continues to move even though yours stopped. Harry was taller than me - I often noticed that.
As I approached him I placed my hand softly on his shoulders - mindful not to startled him. He turned his head back.
"Hey," he said defeated.
"Why did you leave?"
"Why didn't you?"
"What answer do you want? I didn't feel like leaving."
Harry looked at me. Scanned me. I'm not an emotional person. Why would he care I hadn't act emotionally now either?
"Harry, it is still me."
It was then that his eyes finally softened. He smiled mildly.
"I love you," he said causally. "I don't mean that romantically. I do love you. You and Newt are both family. Whatever happened to you happened to me."
"Isn't that a bit much?" I asked. "Whatever happened to you happened to me? It didn't Harry. That's part of the whole point. Maybe we should first try to get all the information, and understand that there is something that might be different, but not necessarily wrong." I said.
"I'm definitely saying its wrong," he argued. "And if my reaction it's too much for you, then just ignore at and be contempt with less."
It was such an insecure answer - one of those multiple times I just didn't understand him. We were often able to talk so openly, but not always.
"I don't think I see the concept of more or less in the same light as you see it in this context," I said. "More of what, less of what. I am still me, and regardless of how you react - you are still Harry. Either way Santos wants to talk to the three of us, and she is waiting for you to get back before she does. How long do you need to be outside?"
Harry looked at me pensively - unsatisfied with my comment. "Whatever," he said. "Let's head back."