THE PRODIGIES

Chapter XIII

Mr. Axel is a very straight forward man. He doesn't beat around the bush. He's strictly business, and that makes him hard to figure out. He only speaks when spoken to. He's all stiff and rigid, and it makes me uncomfortable. I don't take my eyes off of him as he leads us to a clear box that is located in the center of this open area. He types in some long ass code as we wait impatiently for them to tell us what we need to know. Penelope is close to him. She walks at the same pace as he does. They seem to be close. Too close to just be coworkers.

I hear a clicking sound indicating the doors being unlocked. Mr. Axel goes to open the door and Penelope follows him. My sisters and I enter, and we look around. There's a twin size bed, a sink, and a counter that has many folders on it. I try to crane my neck to see what each folder says, but that doesn't help. There's a TV on the counter as well. Below the TV is a mini fridge. Nothing in the room seems to be life-threatening, but this is not an ideal room for three young women. On the opposite side of the box, across from the counters, there are three stools. Mr. Axel and Penelope go get the three stools and place them in between the bed and the TV monitor. They motion for us to sit down, and we do. Bree is in the middle. Mila and I are on her sides.

Like I mentioned before, Mr. Axel is all business. As soon as we're in place, he begins talking.

"So this story goes back 47 years. Your maternal grandmother, Terri Pullins, was among 20 women who were selected for a clinical study. Each woman was pregnant, and each woman was injected with a vaccine called prota-cedrix."

"Never heard of it." Bree reports, her face stern.

He continues.

"That's because it was created for an unofficial project conducted by the US government. More specifically, the SFA or the Special Forces Agency. Their job is to build weapons for war. The wars that the citizens of the world aren't even aware of. Over the years, their creations have gotten to be more powerful than anyone could've predicted. They expanded their creations. They didn't just want to build inanimate weapons. They wanted to have humans as weapons. They've come up with vaccines that they've given to soldiers and spies to make them stronger, faster, and even more intelligent."

Mr. Axel stops for a second to make sure we're still with him, but then resumes.

"In 1973, the SFA came up with a new project, Project PC. This project needed women who were expecting. They had to be injected with prota-cedrix, which is a mix of the vaccines that were used on those soldiers and spies, but there was a new element added to the vaccine: lyxina. It was created by a world-renowned scientist. No one outside of the government knows of this element, but it has highly reactive properties. They thought that it could only be used on unborn subjects. That's why the women had to be pregnant."

"Wait a minute." I interrupt him.

"For this lyxina to only be able to work on unborn species, which I'm assuming is because it has to be able to manipulate the DNA before it fully forms, that means these women would have only been a few weeks into their pregnancy when they were injected."

"That's correct. Now, there's always a possibility that a subject could be jeopardized and unfortunately, all 20 of the women died."

"So how far along in their pregnancy did they get?" I ask.

Mr. Axel slumps his head, just a little as he speaks.

"Only six made it to full term."

My mouth shuts, and I clench my teeth so tight that my jaw starts hurting. Mila has both of her hands over her mouth in shock. Bree just solemnly shakes her head. Neither of us is able to comprehend how sick this is. I almost want to stop this history lesson, but I can't. It's too interesting. We're learning that our maternal grandmother died all because the government wanted humans to be literal weapons. It's so much to process.