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did know she'd insisted Mom drink it
several times a day and sleep at least eight hours every night.
Turning into the perfect patient, Mom had been doing just that, and
I had to believe her drastic improvement had something to do with
her following Elle's orders.
    Under Elle's care, Mom's entire attitude had
become happier and more carefree than ever before. By all accounts,
the quietly patient Mom of the last six months was the complete
opposite of the highly motivated woman who'd spent the majority of
my life tied to her lab and determined to do whatever necessary to
please President Barone.
    Basically, Mom had stopped
drinking Barone's caustic Kool-Aid and switched to Elle's herbal
tea.
    And that was the crux of my problem. I knew
firsthand that Barone and his intentions for Mom were dangerous to
her mental health. What I didn't know was how lethal Elle's
political aspirations were to Mom's life. While there was not one
thing she'd ever done to raise my suspicions, I had a gut feeling
Elle considered Mom a dispensable pawn in SNP's war against Barone
and his barbaric regimen.
    The distrust I felt for SNP in general had
me worried that my parents had jumped from the frying pan with
Barone into the fire with the Coxes. Despite their pleas suggesting
they had everyone else's best interests in mind, I suspected the
Coxes were leading my parents down a path they shouldn't be
following.
    One where they'd never
allow me to follow because of the dangers awaiting at the
end.
    On the night when I'd stood on my bed
listening to my parents and the Coxes, I could tell by the clinking
of cups as they were rested on their saucers that Elle had brewed
and served her infamous calming tea. Approximately twenty minutes
later, their fate had been sealed when my still anxious mother had
asked, "If-if we were to do this, how much danger would Carlie,
Tawney, and Gran be in?"
    Mac had answered, "The risks are minimal,
Selma. Now… in order to keep things like that, we'd ask that you
get Carlie and Tawney off to the preparatory academy a few weeks
before they are due to turn seventeen. We don't want Surrogates
coming here and collecting them. Those damn Surrogates are infamous
for their snooping. In order to keep them from poking around the
farm, we'll have to arrange to have Carlie and Tawney picked up at
a location away from here. The good news is that should be a
relatively simple task."
    Speaking for the two of them, Dad shocked me
when he said, "We agree to that. Still, we need to know with as
much notice as possible if there is any danger coming this way. We
want to get them out of here. We'll stay if we have to, but we
won't put any of them at risk."
    Mac's response had been eager. "Agreed."
    Mom's voice was still faraway and small when
she said, "I-I'll never work for Barone again in my life. No one
knows this, but he's using the MicroPharm to kill babies that
aren't perfect in his eyes."
    "What did you just say, Selma?" The shock in
Elle's tone had not been lost in the distance between the living
room downstairs and my room upstairs.
    Dad had answered for Mom, and his emotions
had been almost as flat as hers. "She read a top secret report
Barone had commissioned. It included a summary of the long-term
benefits of utilizing the MicroPharm to perform selective
termination as fetuses are identified as having genetic mutations.
According to the report, each termination could save the government
approximately four million dollars over the course of the child's
lifetime. As if that weren't enough, there was a suggestion that
the MicroPharm should be used as constant and consistent birth
control in order to save the government even more money."
    That time the curses that made their way up
to me had come straight from Mac. "We knew he couldn't be
trusted."
    Dad kept going. "Basically, Barone was
considering the use of the MicroPharm to medically sterilize woman
and men in order to prevent all of the accidents that happen today. According to