I wasn’t sure what to say. The man I loved, and thought was dead, just reappeared. I was sure that I looked like an idiot as I stared back at the two men blankly. Lockley was staring at me but also somewhere else, while Robert gave me his full attention.

 Robert and Lockley began to walk towards the dome that was outlined by the skyline. Robert stopped without turning around said, “Are ya’ comin? We’re on a tight schedule here.”

I picked up pace till I was only a few feet behind. We walked in silence. As we neared the dome I could tell it was a building, but there was no way of telling what was inside.  The doors were large and I anticipated what would happen as Robert Pressed a sequence of numbers on a keypad and held his thumb to a scanner, both gadgets I was sure weren’t there before. The doors opened as the keypad and scanner disappeared back into the wall.

***

The building was not what I expected, not at all. I expected several rooms, but it was all open space with just a large loft looking over everything. I looked where I though Robert still was, but he was no longer at my side. He was up on the loft beckoning me to follow. I don’t know why I kept doing as he told me, but I felt like I owed it to him.

I trudged up the set of stairs that led to the top of the loft. Once I got up, I was exhausted. Robert moved over to a large lever, pulling me over to it with him. He reached up to pull the lever. I finally got the courage to say something, “What does that do?” I would have settled for any other sentence, but that string of words worked just fine.

“Well, Maribel, I’ll just have to show you what it does,” Roberts face showed ­­­excitement for a brief moment; then he pulled the lever without giving me time to reply. Then, we were falling. It was a tube, going at a downward angle, very fast. Then we stopped.

I looked around myself, straining my eyes to see in the dark. That was a bad idea, because several bright lights came on above my head. I realized we were several feet below the ground. We were in a hidden lab, where no one would ever think to look. I saw what seemed to be human bodies, but they were different, deformed. Each body seemed to have its own pedestal, and they were individually surrounded by glass.  I looked around myself again, trying to find Robert.

He stalked up behind me, with my knowing. “How do like them? Years of trying, failing again and again, but now…” Robert’s voice trailed off. He sort of danced over to the bodies, weaving his way between them. I was still confused.

“Robert, what, exactly, is going on in here? What are these bodies? Why are they here?” I was surprised by my calm tone. I was still examining the bodies, I forced myself to take a few steps closer to get a better look. Robert began to answer my questions as I recognized the bodies.

Danya was the first one I recognized. She was disfigured though, and there were several of them. I looked up to see one that looked like Robert.

Then he was standing in front of me. “Are you listening to me?” he had been talking to me and I missed everything he had said to me.

“Sorry, what?” I said innocently, knowing I had figured it out already. He began to explain again.

“Ah, Maribel. That day, when the plane crashed, we died. Well, not you, but our daughter and I. Lockley has been working on this for years, he was delighted when he realized you were being relocated to his town. The only way, he knew, to get you to come out here, was be force. Jake was a mere pawn, his parents were in on it though.” I was astonished at the fact that I been tricked so easily, and that it was all true.

He continued, “I was finished long ago, but according to Lockley, it’s harder to clone kids. He says it is because adults are done growing, but kids are supposed to grow. He found some of our DNA at the house after the fire. He cloned us, but it took several attempts. These are the earlier tries,” he gestured toward the clones we were closer to, “The newer ones are at the back. Would like to see them?” I nodded, wondering if this Robert was the same as the old Robert. He led me to the back of the long room.

I looked at the child’s newer clones; they were not disfigured at all. “Why are you not done? They look normal,” I asked, debating weather or not I wanted this.

“Oh, their bodies are done. It’s that, their minds aren’t. We tried to make them grow to what their age would be right now, but that kind of technology is long to come. Most people don’t even think this kind of technology is possible.

“We don’t know if they will grow afterward either. There are still several things we’d like to know before we bring them to life.”