Wake Up Missing (25 page)

Quentin and Ben climbed into the first van with Quentin's parents and Ben's aunt and uncle. Kelly went with Trent; his foster parents wouldn't arrive in Miami until later, so she sat next to him in the van, calmly handing him toaster parts and tools as if being surrogate mother and assistant to a teen science prodigy were something she did every day.

Sarah climbed into the other van with her mom and waved for me and my parents to come, too. As I was about to get in, Brady Kenyon rushed over from his table with Dr. Ames's laptop closed and tucked under his arm. “I need to turn this over for evidence, okay?” He nodded toward the Fish and Wildlife guys. “They'll pass it along to the federal agents.”

I hesitated. “You can't just give it to them. What if—”

“Relax.” He waved a small storage drive. “It's all right here. Every single file. I put it all on my laptop and made three more copies, too. One is on its way to the newspaper in Miami with a friend of mine. I'm putting one in a safe-deposit box. Another one's going home with Kelly. And this one's for you.” He held the tiny black storage drive out to me.

“Thanks.” It was warm in my hand. I started to put it in my pocket but hesitated. Part of me wanted to get as far away from this story as I could. Bury it somewhere and never think about it again. But I knew I had to keep it, so I gave it to my mom, and she put it in her purse.

I looked back at the van. “So, these guys are okay?” He'd
promised we could trust the Fish and Wildlife officers, and I wanted to.

“They're honest as the day is long,” he said. “I'm not going to lie to you, though. With Senator Wiley involved, it's hard to say how deep this goes. But as long as we have this”—he pulled another storage drive from his pocket—“nobody can lie about what happened out there. Your story's not going to get lost.”

“When is it going to be in the newspaper?” Mom asked him.

“I'm guessing we've only scratched the surface, even with our long conversation today, so I'm going to do a lot more digging, and I'm sure we'll run more than one story. But the first one?” He looked at his watch. “If I get moving, it'll break tomorrow morning.” His eyes were alive with excitement or determination or . . . whatever it was, I trusted him. He would tell the truth about the miracle clinic in the swamp. And that was enough to make sure what happened to us could never happen to anyone else.

“It's an incredible story, Cat. What you guys went through . . . you're an amazing bunch of kids.”

“Thanks.” The van was running. Mom and Dad were waiting. And I was ready to go home. “You have everything you need for the article?” I asked.

“Between these videos and the story you told me?” He nodded. “Enough for a whole book.”

Miami Herald

Tuesday, May 23

US SENATOR FACES SECRET SCIENCE CONSPIRACY CHARGES

MIAMI . . . US Senator R. J. Wiley was taken into custody late last night in connection with a plot to perform illegal experiments on six youths at what was once regarded as the nation's premiere head-injury clinic, the International Center for Advanced Neurology, known as I-CAN, located at a former military property in the Everglades.

Wiley, who served as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, resigned from both his committee post and his Senate seat early this morning. He is accused of conspiracy and kidnapping, and officials say more charges may follow.

The conspiracy involved a plan to use reconstructed DNA
from history's most notable scientists and inventors, combined with implanted computer microchips, to create modern-day prodigies for use in weapons research. The six subjects, whose names are being withheld to protect their privacy, had been entrusted to the care of the renowned clinic after they were diagnosed with severe post-concussion syndrome. They managed to escape from their captors after a plot to move them to a new location was foiled by a routine Drug Enforcement Agency roadblock.

All six patients have now been reunited with their parents and guardians. Four sustained no major injuries or illnesses. However, doctors at Everglades City Hospital say one patient has been diagnosed with a brain tumor they believe may be linked to her time at I-CAN, and a second patient who had undergone experiments seems to have had adverse reactions as well. Doctors are not releasing further details at the request of the patients' families.

Police interviews with the four healthy patients led them to a gruesome discovery in the swamp. The body of Molly Louise Turner, “Sawgrass Molly,” as she was known to locals, was discovered in an abandoned plume hunters' camp not far from the clinic. Investigators say she died of a gunshot wound to the head. Records show that the clinic occasionally employed Turner to bring patients to the facility via airboat, and police are investigating whether or not her death may be connected to the clinic.

But evidence may be hard to come by. The I-CAN compound itself burned last night. Officials aren't sure if the blaze was arson or if the buildings were consumed by the wildfires that have ravaged South Florida in the past five weeks of drought and lightning.
Investigators will spend this week sifting through the remains of the facility for evidence, but they believe all of the clinic's papers and equipment were destroyed.

However, one of the young patients escaped with a facility-owned laptop computer, and digital security-camera records recovered from its hard drive show multiple video recordings of two doctors discussing the project. Clearly audible conversations make it apparent that they were aware of one patient's rapidly declining health and chose not to notify her family in order to keep the project secret. Additional files recovered from the computer suggest that the clinic operators used retroviruses, a common gene-therapy technique, to introduce genetic material from long-dead scientists into the damaged brain tissue of concussion patients. The computer also contained numerous folders with research information on such notable scientists as Thomas Edison, Marie Curie, Albert Einstein, and Robert Oppenheimer.

Officials are investigating leads that suggest the genetic-engineering program may have been part of a larger government project to create a new super-weapon for use against Al-Jihada and other international terrorist groups. However, Senator Thomas Huggler, Wiley's colleague on the Armed Services Committee, denies any knowledge of the program.

“We are shocked and horrified at this news,” Huggler said in a phone interview from his residence in Houston. “If investigators find that Senator Wiley was indeed part of such a conspiracy, I can assure you that it was on his own, without the knowledge of this committee.”

US Attorney General Russell McNair says his office is
conducting a full investigation, and there will likely be Congressional hearings as well.

In addition to Senator Wiley, the clinic's two staff physicians, Dr. Rudolph Gunther and Dr. Mark Ames, also face charges. Gunther, who has recently been the target of an unrelated U.S. Fish and Wildlife investigation into illegal trafficking of endangered butterflies, is in the Everglades City hospital recovering from a broken leg and is cooperating with investigators. Ames, who is the nephew of Senator R. J. Wiley, is missing after reportedly being attacked by an alligator in the swamp. He is believed to be dead, but officials have yet to recover his remains.

I set the newspaper aside.

“Well?” Mom looks at me across the table.

“He pretty much included everything. Now what?”

“Now . . .” She eyes the paper, then looks over at Dad. “Now they'll do their investigation and try to find out who knew what . . . whether it was Senator Wiley acting on his own, or if the whole thing runs deeper than that.”

“Do you think they'll find out the truth?”

Shades of maybe pass over their faces like colors on the mood ring Aunt Beth bought me at the fair once. They want to promise me yes, of course they'll learn the truth. But they don't lie.

“They'll try,” Dad says.

“I hope so,” Mom says. “But no matter what, you're safe now.” She stretches past her coffee and my orange juice to brush my hair behind my ear, then comes over and wraps her arms around me.

All morning since we checked out of the inn and settled in for breakfast before our flight home, she's been reaching over to touch me. First my hand, then my cheek, then a palm under my chin, as if she can't quite be sure it's me.

But it is.

The same old Cat. Mostly.

Fiddler crabs scuttle between the weathered deck planks under our table, and the rising red-orange sun glitters on the rippling water.

Kelly comes out of the kitchen, tying her apron behind her. “So, what'll it be this morning?”

“Eggs and home fries with toast, please,” Dad says.

“I'll have two poached eggs and a grapefruit, please,” Mom says.

“Chocolate chip pancakes for me. Thanks.” I hand Kelly the menu. “Thanks for everything.”

“Can't imagine what you folks went through. If this had happened to my boys . . .” She shakes her head, tears welling in her eyes, and gives me a quick hug before she leaves for the kitchen with her order pad.

Somewhere, from over the trees, an osprey calls, and I smile. But my eyes fill up with tears.

“Sweetie, are you all right? Does your head hurt?” Mom reaches for my hand.

“No, it feels okay. That medicine's working.” The doctors at Everglades City Hospital gave us the same kind of medicine Dr. Ames had at the clinic, and even though that creeped me out, it worked. Most of what they'd done at I-CAN, leading up to Phase
Three, was actually good for us—the oxygen and light therapy and exercise—so I'll keep getting those treatments once I get home. They've already helped so much.

But none of it can erase what happened, and that's why I can't stop crying.

“What is it?” Dad leans forward and squints at me, but there's nothing he can see. No scratch or bee sting or bruise. Some hurts are invisible on the outside.

Mom rummages in her backpack and pulls out a linty tissue.

“Thanks. It's just . . . hard.”

“I bet.” Mom takes a deep breath, holds it, and sighs. “I wish there were more we could do.”

“Yeah.” But there isn't. I told Mom and Dad everything that happened in the swamp. Everything I could. But there's so much I can't explain.

In some ways, I'm the same Cat—same brown eyes, same freckles, same sweet tooth, even at breakfast—but in other ways, I know I'll never be the same again. And it's not just the experiments or the medicine at the clinic that changed me.

I don't know if I'll ever look at a doctor the same way, or read a news story without wondering which parts of it are really true. I do know I'll never turn away from someone who needs a friend. I've promised myself that.

“I'm all right,” I say. “It's a lot to think about, is all.”

Mom reaches over and tucks my hair again, even though it's barely had time to come untucked.

“I'm okay. Really.”

But I wish I had a crystal ball to tell me if Kaylee will be okay,
if Trent will ever get his old personality and memories back. But I don't. So I can only wait for news.

About Sarah and Quentin and Ben, too.

I hope lots of things for them . . . that Quentin will get great report cards and a scholarship someday, one to make his grandma proud.

That Sarah will get to play hockey again, that she'll win every game and somehow get better at math and meet a boy she likes as much as she liked Trent.

I hope things get better for Ben so he can ride horses again, and laugh. I hope one day he understands, really knows in his heart, that he matters.

I hope their lives will be good ones.

And I have hopes for me, too. As soon as I get home, back to my clay, I'm going to start a new osprey sculpture.

I want to run cross-country next year.

I want to join art club with Amberlee.

And I hope things work out with Lucy, too. She called while I was away, Mom said, and she wants to come over when I get home. Maybe that means we'll be friends again, but I won't give up who I am to make it happen.

That's one way I'm a little different.

But I'm still me.

It's more than I can explain to Mom and Dad. So I tell them again, as Kelly sets down the pancakes and I reach for my fork, “I'm okay.”

They nod like it makes sense. But they weren't there with me, at the clinic and all through the swamp. So there's no way they
can understand the mix of flying joy and squeezing awful sadness that caught my heart when I heard that osprey cry.

But it's a part of me now—like Molly, and Quentin, Sarah, Ben, and Trent and Kaylee, like One-Eyed Lou and the water that fell from the sky into the air plants to wait for us when we needed it most. It's all a part of me now, sure as my DNA.

If you weren't there, if you didn't almost lose everything—lose
yourself
—you can't understand what it's like to wake up missing—and then, like a gift, get yourself back.

Both
Wake Up Missing
and my previous novel
Eye of the Storm
(2012) are science thrillers. The spark for
Eye of the Storm
was a combination of things—a news piece about the possible impacts that climate change could have on weather and an article about a physicist who believed that blasting thunderstorms with microwave beams might stop tornadoes from forming. Those news features made me wonder . . . What if the weather got worse? And what if some of us learned how to control it? Those “what if” questions get my mind spinning, and sometimes, it all comes out in a book.

Wake Up Missing
began that way, too. I'd seen a news report on the epidemic of concussions among high school athletes in the United States and the effects that post-concussion syndrome could have on kids' sports careers, academic lives, friendships, and very selves. I've always been interested in genetics—what makes a person
that
particular person—and those two ideas combined to create Cat's story.