Alive To Tomorrow

Chapter Two: Are We Ever Free?

It had been a couple weeks since our jailbreak of sorts from facility five. Geneva and I had found an old ghost town after hopping around for a few days with her ability. She can only do a few jumps at a time before tiring herself out, but we got lucky pretty quickly since we were able to get into a library and search up some abandoned places. The place had been abandoned years ago but was still close to a town so it was our best option. Unfortunately, the old, broken down house had been abandoned for a decade or two, there were spiders everywhere the size of my hand! Geneva didn't understand my aversion to them and would laugh every time I froze up or squirmed around them as she moved to squash it. We got ourselves a fairly cozy set up, we were even able to go into town and get jobs after finding someone to forge some documents for us so that we wouldn't be found out as clones.

Geneva got a job at the town's bookstore, a bit uncharacteristic of her given her reckless nature in a store of things made of paper, but it gave her a role. I could never have worked there, the moment I walked in I could hear all of the rambling inside of the patrons heads as they were reading the stories or coming up with new ones. I ended up getting a job at the coffee shop across the street, I enjoyed the jazzy music they played and peoples minds there were usually fairly quiet until they began cursing themselves out over an email they received or a mistake they made on their laptops. But while they were sipping on their coffee or tea, there was always a moment of bliss that I adored.

I could live like this forever, maybe even open a coffee shop of my own with a bookstore next door for Geneva. Something freezing suddenly began to suffocate my wrist, one look down and I was reminded of why I was here. I could never live a purely human life, as I was so often reminded by the stones hugging my wrist.

"Hey Na- Tori!" Tori was the new name I had been given on my papers, Geneva, or Lila was still getting used to the new name. We still called each other by our regular names at home, it's a bit counterproductive but it lends us a sense of normalcy.

"Are you on your lunch break?" She responded with a nod and a smile, then patted the seat next to her, gesturing for me to join her.

"One second, I need to wrap up some dishes and I'll bring us some sandwiches."

"You're the boss!" Geneva cracked open a book she had been reading the last couple of days. It was a thick romance novel from what I had gathered but even when reading her mind was dulled with an overlaying humming that remained constant.

"Here's your regular ham and cheese and I've got my chickpea salad sandwich."

"I'll never understand how you eat those, just eat some meat!" I never liked the concept of eating meat which must have put off Natalya's parents since the little girl used to eat nothing without meat unless it was a desert. Where I'm really from we live off of plants alone, no other animals or byproducts since most other life on my planet is intelligent, it keeps the peace that way.

"Just eat your pig corpse and cow juice sandwich and let me eat my chickpeas."

"Pig corpse and cow juice! That's a new one, yesterday it was phony bologna and expired calf feed!" I'd been working on coming up with new names for it on purpose, seeing her laugh always brightened my day, it was one of the few times the humming in her mind subsided allowing her laughing to be crystal clear.

Acustomer came through the door marking the end of our lunch break and Geneva walked out the door as I returned to the counter.

"Hi, welcome to Jolly Java, my name's Tori, what can I get for you today sir?" The man stared into my eyes enough to make me uncomfortable.

"Just a London Fog in a mug please." London fogs were one of my favorites, earl gray tea and milk, except I always substituted the cow juice with soy milk.

"With regular milk, almond, or soy sir?"

"Soy please." It seems we have the same order

Really Tori, you're working at a coffee shop. We've been trying to figure out where you went for the last two months and you're at a coffee shop!

I'd recognize that voice anywhere. It was the voice of one of my superiors back when I wasn't occupying the body of Natalya Bentzin. I'd gone with the name Tori on my documents because it was the nickname I had back home for my full name, Toralei.

Two months? What about the twelve years that I heard no word from any of you? I nearly thought you'd abandoned the mission!

I had begun to doubt if the mission was even still on after all this time, I guess it was ridiculous for me to even wonder such things since I was a subordinate.

We had been keeping an eye on you regardless. So you were at a facility then? How come you aren't marked then? They usually don't let you out unless you are. And now you're out here making friends with random people at bookstores, that's a bit strange even for you Toralei.

So they had been watching! But they still neglected to say anything, typical.

I was able to escape before I got marked, then I ran off to find somewhere safe.

I had finally finished making the London Fog for the gentleman I now knew to be one of my superiors.

We'll be in contact again with you soon Tori. Be ready.

"Thank you very much Tori." I was startled for a moment at the voice that used my name. Firstly because it wasn't similar at all to the head voice with which I had just been conversing, and secondly because I forgot that my human name was now Tori and that I was no longer playing the part of Natalya Bentzin.

The superior had left the shop and I could no longer feel their presence in my mind. I had been terrified of revealing Geneva out of fear that they would try to use her as a means to their end by having her use her mutation, or worse, threatening her to get to me.

Worst of all however, was that my superior had said they would contact me, meaning I would likely be extracted and placed elsewhere to better suit their needs. How am I supposed to explain that to Geneva? How am I supposed to hide her from them?