Of Freedom's Fall (Death Prediction Project #3)
Michael Juniper

The military had set us, I and my wife, Mia, up in an apartment on Staten Island. We hadn’t seen our daughter, Hailey, in several months. We were guarded and brought food and lived here twenty-four-seven. With so much time on our hands, one thing I did do was focus on a solution.

Finding a way for some of the kids’ lives us and the other scientists had made so difficult to have a semblance of normal without having to wear earplugs or noise-canceling headphones. It was an implant that silenced people’s songs, normally it would be implanted behind the ear, almost like a cochlear implant for the hearing impaired. For those who don’t want the surgery, I had a separate device that sat just inside the ear and rested, visibly on the outside of the ear.

The outside device had the option of being turned off and on and easily removed by the patient the other is a permanent solution. The two of us had been working on this project for the last several months but one thing we really needed was a test subject to make sure they worked.

The military obviously wasn’t going to hand over Ryker Rathaway to us. That was the last thing they’d want was to lose one of their test subjects. We didn’t even know if Ryker, or his parents because he was still a minor would want the implant or device, it was completely up to them, we didn’t want to take anything else that wasn’t ours to take, we’d done that enough already.

My wife was sitting watching the five o’clock news while I fiddled with one of the non-working devices attempting to get it to work.

“Michael, look at this,” she exclaimed.

I turned my attention away from the device and looked at the TV screen. It showed two of our friends’ children, Tom and Andy who had also been experimented on as babies, they’re parents had kept it a secret from them, they knew nothing about it aside from what they may have remembered. They had decided to join the military without influence or being taken and ended up at the Staten Island Military Base. It had said they were AWOL and to be on the lookout for them in New York.

“They found out and got out. Good. Serves those bastards right for taking children and experimenting on them,” I curse turning back to my device.

“Do you think they were the ones leaking information?” Mia asks.

“I hope so, having your pawns turn on you is the worst thing,” I reply.

“I hope Hailey is okay,” she whispers.

I paused and set the device down on the kitchen table. I get up and go over to her. I wrap my arms around her shoulders.

“Hailey’s a fighter, they all were. They lived through the experiments, they can do anything,” I whisper in her ear looking at the picture of Tom and Andy on the screen.

“I know,” she replies quietly holding my wrists.

“What Leslie lost is worse,” I continue.

She glances in the direction of Kyle’s room checking to see if he heard me.

“Those poor kids,” she mutters.

Kyle had been placed with us when we were locked inside this apartment. I guess it was easier than having us in separate apartments, or him unsupervised. The Novaks had been our friends, so had the Frazers and Calibers, we just all had children at very unfortunate times. The Novaks were the only ones who attempted to really rebuild their lives after the whole ordeal and they’d paid the ultimate price in the end when they tried to fight the DPP. We had no clue what had happened to Andy and Tom’s parents. We had no access to phones, they’d made sure of that after Maya’s escape.

There were some sounds outside the apartments. We thought it was just the guards moving around. Then, we heard something that made us jump. A gunshot.

“Kyle!” I called.

He came running out of the room having heard it, too.

“Uncle Michael, what’s going on?” he asked.

“Go hide in the master bedroom. Go with him Mia,” I state pushing both of them towards the room.

Mia took the little boy in her arms and carried him into the back-master bedroom farthest from the apartment door. I took hold of a kitchen chair prepared to hit whoever came through the apartment door if they were a threat.

The apartment door jiggled and unlocked and opened a crack. A man in his mid-twenties stared at me stone-faced.

“Dad,” I heard Hailey say as she dipped past the man to me and hugged me.

I return her hug quickly releasing the chair. I kissed the top of her head. I looked back at the man, he looked nervous, sad, and apologetic. Leslie appeared beside him.

“Where Kyle?” she asked him harshly.

“He’s in the master bedroom,” I spook quickly not letting go of Hailey.

Leslie looks from the man to me.

“Mia,” I call.

The bedroom door opens slowly and she pokes her head out. Hailey spots her at the same time she does.

“Mom,” she says.

Mia shoots out of the room to her within seconds. They hug and Mia can’t stop touching her hair, like if she lets go, she’ll fade away.

“Is it safe?” she asks glancing at the man in the doorway.

“Harry’s good, right Harry?” Leslie states looking at him.

“Yeah,” he replies nervously.

“Kyle,” Mia calls.

He nervously comes to the door of the bedroom and looks out. As soon as he sees Leslie, he’s like a moth to a flame, he hugs her tightly. She picks him up.

“I missed you, Les,” he whispers trying to hide a cry.

“I missed you, too. I promise I’m never leaving you again,” she whispers.

“Sorry to interrupt the reunion but we have to get you, folks, out of here, ASAP,” Harry replies.

Hailey releases us and we step back. She goes back over to Harry who hands her a key.

“There’s a boat waiting in the harbor, you know where you’re going, right?” he replies.

Hailey nods, “Fort Hamilton,” Leslie says still holding and hugging Kyle.

“Say hi, to Andy for me,” he replies.

“We will,” Hailey says with a smile. “Thank you, for everything.”

“Don’t thank me until I get Ryker and Austin off the island,” he replies. “He’ll be the hardest, with it being a military base and all the cameras there are. I’ll see you on the other side.”

“And Andy will be waiting for you on the other side,” Hailey comments.

“Thanks,” he replies modestly.

I snatch one of the working devices on the table so I had a prototype and can build more wherever we’re going.

Hailey leads the way.

“Cover your eyes, Kyle. Don’t open them until I say so,” Leslie whispers to him.

He does as he’s told. We step out into the hall and there are eight bodies of strangled and shot guards bleeding out on the floor. We are led past them down to a waiting van. Leslie sets Kyle in the seat behind the driver. Hailey goes around to the driver’s seat and gets in. We get in the back.

Harry waves us off.

“What just happened?” I ask once we’re on the road.

“One of the higher-ups got real sympathetic and guilt-ridden and fell in love with Andy, it backfired on the DPP,” Leslie replies.

“So, we’re free?” Mia asks.

“If we make it off the island and to the Freedom Brigade. They’re waiting for us on the mainland,” Hailey replies.

“What are we going to do if they come after us?” I ask.

“I doubt that’s going to happen if the public follows through,” Leslie comments pulling up something on her phone.

The number of signatures that have been garnered over the past week for the Freedom Brigade’s cause of freeing the trapped subjects and the safety of the others to have normal lives.

It sits at a staggering: 975,899.

Less than 25,000 to go.

“They’re already protesting in some states,” Hailey comments.

Leslie shows us pictures of what look like Seattle, Washington where hundreds have people have gathered in front of the courthouse with their signs. We don’t need signatures to fight for justice, some say. Others say, Free the children. Or, they are humans, not test subjects. We weren’t the only ones anymore, the world was seeing what we’d seen years ago, that this project should have been come down on a lot harder when those adults died and when they took those babies instead of being given a slap on the wrist and allowing this to happen now. More were dead now, John, Alice, the Novaks, and Harriet.

We were finally getting a fair fight.