MADISON

When we get out from the school it surprises me to find my mother's black Audi right in front of the entrance, "this couldn't get worse," I say to him and think of running but I wouldn't get that far.

"Mrs. Wrestler," Levy politely greets my mother.

"Hello Levy, how are your parents?" asks my mother while I only stare at the floor.

"They are pretty well ma'am," replies Levy and she only nods forcing a cordial smile leaving us in awkward silence. "See you soon, good luck Maddie," he finally interrupts and leaves.

"Suddenly you have time for me... how strange," I say walking to the car and she stops me from my arms.

"Madison, you need to hear what we have to say... or at least hear me," she says taking my face and I just look serious at her gray eyes, shinning for the tears fighting to get out.

"I'm just going to the car," I reply serious getting to let me go and continue my way to it.

Once I am in the car, I force myself to resist the impulse of crying, concentrating on the road and the classical music that tries to relieve the tension. We pass by our house. I look at my mother who just focuses on the road to wherever we are going.

Ten minutes later, we park outside McDonald's and she gets out of the car. I don't know where's she trying to get with all of this but I force myself to get out too and follow her inside the restaurant. "Get a table, I am joining you in a minute," she says like if it's necessary. The place is completely empty.

I sit on one of the tables by the window and wait for my mother. Five minutes later, she gets to the table with two orders of fries and sodas. She sets the tray right in the center of the table and then sits down taking one of the fries and a soda. I rest my back on the back of the plastic couch and cross my arms just watching her eat.

"What are we doing here?!" I ask once I have lost my patience after watching her eat five fries.

"I believe you deserve an explanation about all of this and I am willing to give it to you if you are willing to listen," she says chewing and I want to laugh for imagining the face my father would have had for watching her talk mouthful.

"I want to know everything, from the early beginning," I reply after thinking of it for a minute and she nods. "Without lies" I make myself clear and she nods again.

"When we were younger, I met your father. We studied in the same university. I was studying Medicine and your father Biological Sciences, he was older. Right there, your father met Wen too, they became best friends and they do everything together; they studied the same thing, but Wen had contacts and resources your father didn't have on that time, so it was a big advantage being friends with him. When your dad met me, he was the most passionate man I ever met. He used to talk about his career and his future like it was the most incredible thing in the world. What he used to tell me about everything he was going to do, was unbelievable for me. Years went by and your father graduated with his friend. Wen had enough money to be independent of his parents and get to get in charge of his own lab, he was very stubborn. So, he got an enormous lot and built a house to save appearances about what the place really was. It was a tip from the Control Centre which is somewhere in England."

"Control Centre?" I interrupt and she nods.

"Its full name is The Global Investigation Centre, they were the first ones that started these kinds of experiments that then extended worldwide. They own all the laboratories that exist nowadays, without them none of these could exist. They give the permissions and keep an eye on all of them to make sure everything works as it is supposed to," she explains and I nod. "Since Wen is the one in charge of the lab here in San Francisco, he needed to travel constantly to England to hand in the progress and receive new orders which make it hard for him to handle everything at the same time, so he decided to give the house to your father. He was of his full trust and knew he would lead it exceptionally and he did. A year later, they created their first child. He was beautiful, unfortunately, it didn't go as they planned and they lost Jaison when he was two. They reviewed what went out wrong with him and decided to try again. This time on a girl. By that moment, I graduated from college and was deeply in love with your father. We got married and I moved with him to that beautiful and giant house. It was then when I began to be part of everything.

"Considering that I was a doctor. Wen decided it was convenient that I help in the lab protecting the health of the baby on its way. Excited, I accepted, and they made me sign a lot of papers authorizing me as the caretaker of the baby and that everything that could be related to medicines and other stuff that must be needed to be administrated to the new baby, were going to be observed by me. Nine months went by and it was finally time for the baby to get born. She was the most beautiful baby I ever saw in my life, she was perfect. I took care of her since the very first moment she got out of her carrier and I had to examine her. Each thing and reaction of the baby fitted perfectly with the solicited standards for the experiment, everything was going just like it was supposed to.

"During their life, each child has a person assigned to gain his or her trust and is in charge of getting the child to feel safe. It is called the guardian, and in this case, it was me. I was always with that baby, it amazed me way too much everything she could do. She began walking when she was six months and to talk a month later. She demonstrated that she was a pretty intelligent child. At her two years, she managed to read whole sentences and at three, well she could do everything, including math. It was impossible not to get attached with her... with you," she tells me and I nod with a lump in my throat. "The tests were always really hard for me, I had a great love for you and watching them hurt you without being able to do anything, broke my heart. The worst of them all, for me, was your first physical test when you turned one. With that, they defined if you were or weren't apt to continue. For your luck and disgrace, you passed the test and you got your code. It is a tattoo and the pain when getting it, is awful. Holding you still during that moment was the worst part and worse it was to watch your father and Wen unexpressive to it, they seemed like they didn't felt anything. You were just a child that didn't deserve any of that."

A tear gets out of her eyes remembering that moment and she cleans it immediately. I, on the other hand, feel like I will burst out crying at any moment listening to all this. "You were on the experiment for four years," she continues.

"Four?" I ask surprised and she nods. "I read they don't end until the kid is seven years old."

"That's what is expected," she says. "Unfortunately not many reach that age. The tests are exhaustive for such little kids. When you were four, the Control Centre assigned you a test to see if it was possible to give you immunity against any disease after you were born. That test shouldn't have entered in your range of the experiment, but Wen felt so confident about you that decided to take the risk."

"What were they supposed to do?" I ask and she takes a sip of her drink before continuing.

"They were a kind of vaccines, each one should have protected you against five different diseases. They were ten injections, that had to be applied in different zones in pairs, which means: two on each leg, two on each arm and two in the neck," I frown trying to imagine that and she nods reading my mind. "It was terrible, but we did it, you were a really brave kid. The first two injections didn't cause any problem, they were one on each arm, they didn't cause anything apart from the pain of the injection, but you could manage that. The next two, on your legs, caused a bit more problems. The first one made you said it hurt so much, but we assumed it was for the place we put it in. We injected the second one in the other leg, and when we asked you what you felt you said it was burning, we continued anyway. The one in the neck was the one that caused more struggles, your heart rate increased so much. We thought it was for the pain and the cries you were letting out what was forcing your heart so much, but you were insisting on what was burning in your leg and that it was heading to your stomach.

"We let you rest for half an hour and to my eyes, you weren't good at all. Your pressure was insane, it was hurting you and you weren't breathing well. I knew something was wrong and I told Wen to stop the test because it was too much and you weren't a bit okay. The answer was that he wasn't going to leave the test inconclusive, so he connected you to a breathing machine to help you and continued with the test. Half into the second round, you were exhausted, you couldn't even find enough strength to keep crying. You told them to stop and they should have respected that, it's a rule, but they didn't. I begged Wen to stop, told him that your body wasn't resisting, even your father insisted this time. Wen, clinging, said there were only two more left. He injected the next one and your body was about to collapse. I couldn't resist seeing you that way anymore, so I impulsively pull the machine from the ceiling and turned it on for you."

"The lamp?"

"It's called the Signefrex, it stabilizes the vital signs. It was supposed to lower your temperature that was above the sky, regulate your breathing and control your heart. While the machine was acting, they couldn't do anything to you, not even move you, so it relaxed me a little for the fact that you were safe."

"What happened with Wen?" I say trying to imagine his reaction.

"Oh, he was mad, he was just an injection away from finishing it all. He scolded me for using the Signefrex without previous authorization. The machine can only be used at the end of the tests. He assured me he would use it once it was over but I didn't believe a word he said. I was so deeply in love with you. So much that it was impossible for me not to try to protect you," I force her a smile when I see her crying and place my hand on hers. She saved my life.

"How did I get out of there?"

"You were under the Signefrex for all the rest of the day, but you didn't seem to get better. I took off the machine and check you up on my own. I took a blood sample and they examined it looking for any sign. The result was that one of the vaccines didn't have the pathogens fully deactivated and you acquired a combination of those five diseases and as if it weren't enough, you presented an allergic reaction to another vaccine, that's why you were feeling the burn in your little leg. You had an incredible mix of symptoms, you weren't a bit stable. Wen opted to retired the machines that were keeping you alive. To his eyes, you weren't useful for anything anymore and less in your condition.

"There wasn't anyone that could have stopped that except for the Control Centre, Wen let them know about the situation, but it was impossible for me to remain arm crossed to that. So I called the Centre and repeated what happened, they got to the same conclusion Wen did but I decided to attack them with the facts and their own rules. I began saying that the test shouldn't have been made on you because it wasn't part of your experiment area, they admitted their mistake but they argued that sick you weren't useful even for your area, that the best option was to let you die. Then I told them that you asked for them to stop and that changed everything. Wen omitted then when he talked to them, so they made him fully responsible for what happened and he got penalized for going against medical advice, and for the fact that they continue against your will. They ordered Wen to keep you alive and to do everything in his power to heal you with plenty of treatments that he had to pay himself. If at the end you got cured, everything would continue the way it was before and he was going to be able to keep the lab and his permission for experimentation.

"Did he agreed?"

"He didn't have any other option, but he kept arguing you weren't useful anymore which gave me the idea of soliciting your real liberation. There were plenty of requests and it took them a whole year to evaluate the options and risks until they opted to accept my request. Of course, Wen wasn't happy with the decision, he affirmed that the blame was mine and that I interfered with his orders and the test, plus he declared I got attached to you and that I didn't interrupt for the fact of the test's risk but for the affection I had for you. They accepted their objection and I got vetted from the lab for three years starting to count from the birth of the new child and they established I could not be assigned as a guardian again."

"Was that all?"

"You fully recuperated when you turned five, you returned to be a pretty healthy and active girl. In order to get you out of the lab, your father and I had to sign hundreds of agreements related to you. Mainly that we should keep you away from the lab and from knowing anything related to what happens in there till you were fully able to understand it, also that we needed to stay one hundred percent concentrated in the work at the lab, and some other stuff of less importance. Once we finished with the papers, they took your code away and you started to meet the world. You never gave any trouble and your first two years out, I was every single second with you."

"Why can't I remember anything?"

"You were so young when all that happened, your memory wasn't fully formed yet and there was so much stuff that you learn in such a short period of time that you trashed all the old and unimportant stuff," she says and I force a small smile. "This was the first place you met when you got out of the lab, it was your favorite place when you were young." I look around, and for some reason, my eyes get full of tears. I remember coming to this place way too much in my childhood but I didn't remember it being my favorite. I don't even remember coming here with her.

"And this," she says taking one fry from my -still complete- order, showing it to me. "This was the first real thing you ever ate in your life. It was the most incredible thing in the world for you, you wanted to eat hundreds of them," she laughs as she talks and at the same time tears start falling from her eyes. "I did everything I could trying to give you the childhood you deserved. You even went to school which we thought was useless since you already knew anything they could teach you in elementary. But it was the perfect way to keep you away from hearing anything that was going on in the lab. I got called plenty of times by your teachers to let me know you got a pretty incredible intelligence for your age."

"My school knew I was an experiment?" I say startled and she shakes her head.

"No one should've known, the only ones aware of that were your father, Wen and me. Your teachers thought you were gifted, you seemed perfect for them."

The rest of the afternoon my mother spends it talking about everything she is able to remember from when I was younger and I feel like my head is going to explode for all the new information, nevertheless the most important stuff keeps messing around in my mind: I almost died, my mother saved my life and she tried her best to give me a happy childhood. I can't remember absolutely any moment with her but judging for the way her eyes shine while telling me everything.

I know she's telling the truth.