A four story building, alabaster white, Victorian style, sat in the middle of Washington D.C. It was called Stella Laboratories, a building run by science. What was contained within that building was a blessing for many. But those held in that building felt otherwise and felt little of anything else. A large block of bronze with a stone base stood before the building along the wide sidewalk. Engraved in it was the story of Stella…

… Stella Laboratories was built in 2072 by Doctor Kyle Stella, a doctor of genetic medicine. Before being called Stella Laboratories, it was named Stella Children’s Home. Originally used as an adoption and foster care agency, it was immensely popular as it was the largest and well known child care center in the northern hemisphere. It provided shelter for over two hundred orphaned, abandoned and homeless children of The United States and the Caribbean. As science evolved, Stella Children’s Home became Stella Laboratories. Not long after, it was handed down to Doctor Stella’s son, Doctor Kyle Stella, junior. With the leadership of its new President, the laboratories not only housed homeless or orphaned children, it began taking in young children of impoverished families by order of the American Government. Beginning in 2080, the scientists of Stella Laboratories turned their home for children into a surrogate parent agency. All of Stella’s original children still reside within these walls, along with many who have arrived over the years and they all dedicate their lives into servicing all peoples as surrogate parents, producing children for those who cannot…

Pulling up before the great bronze block was a pearl white Bentley; shiny, gleaming in the winter sun. From it emerged Atticus Thornton, the wealthiest man on the East Coast, and his wife Franka, candidate for the senate of New Jersey. They were dressed in the finest Italy had to offer, wrapped tightly as it was a cold December day.

“Today’s the day, Franka, my dear,” Atticus said, beaming with happiness.

“I certainly hope so,” she sighed as they passed the bronze statue.

As they walked in the building, a wave of warmth overcame them. The caramel colored marble floors and the large chandelier greeted them. Before them, at the back of the welcoming foyer was a check-in desk. Upon giving their names and their appointment time, they proceeded to a stream of large offices in the north wing of the first floor. Over the open doorway of a great corridor read: North Wing: – Doctors’ Offices. Along the walls were paintings. The first was of a young Kyle Stella, Sr. and there were many of his son and a group portrait of the children of the Home, when they were orphans or homeless. The faces of the many boys and girls were no longer as they were. For in the portrait, they were smiling, happy to be taken care of and happy to have a home with Stella. Those faces were different. In the front row was a young girl. She stuck out the most. The eight-year-old had long brown hair pulled into two braids. Her cheeks were red and she held a scowl of discontent on her face. Knobby little knees and ripped stockings under a bright red and blue dress, her hands on her hips as if to further show her annoyance and misery. Her name was Magdalene. The date on the bottom corner of the painting read June 3rd, 2082.

They knocked on the tall mahogany door.

“Come in, come in,” the doctor said.

They opened the door, revealing a room crowded with tall bookcases and before them a charming mahogany desk. There was the doctor; an older man with thinning hair.

“Doctor Wright,” Atticus said.

“Yes, sit down,” he said cheerily, pushing a stack of papers aside. “You must be the Thorntons. Welcome.”

“Yes, we have an appointment with you to choose our surrogates,” Atticus said.

“Of course. Before I take you upstairs, do you have any questions?”

“Yes, actually. We were wondering if natural conception was more reliable than artificial conception,” Franka asked.

“As a matter of fact, yes. We are further studying it to try and advance it and make it a more reliable and accurate form of conception. You can request that the baby be conceived naturally if you wish.”

“Then we would prefer that. We certainly don’t want to put our female subject through the pain of multiple inseminations. It sounds degrading.”

“Mrs. Thornton, I assure you, our subjects don’t mind. And besides, we have raised them in this clinic to provide their services for you. It’s in your best interest. Whatever you wish is my command, of course. Artificial conception is in no way degrading.”

Franka smiled, with a gentle nod.

“Just to confirm,” the doctor said pulling out the couples file from his desk. “Mrs. Thornton you do not want to carry a child, in which case we would have to choose a female surrogate.”

“Correct,” she said. “My husband is infertile but we want children, this was the only way.”

“Shall we proceed to the East Wing first? I’ll show you our females. Then I’ll take you to the West Wing where the male surrogates are.”

Doctor Wright led them back to the foyer to where the elevators were. They went up past the second floor which was where the medical offices were. It was where the females gave birth, where the subjects received their yearly check-ups and where the new subjects were analyzed. The third floor was where the cafeteria was, where the subjects could eat and go to have fun. There was a library and a lounge and a weight room, among some other recreational areas. Although the subjects were confined to the building, the scientists had decided that it would be healthy for the subjects to live in a freer atmosphere. The government also enforced it after multiple counts of “cabin fever.” They got off at the fourth floor and turned right, to the East Wing. They came to a double door and passed through. There was a row of doors on each side of the hall. Twenty-five on each side of the hall, fifty apartments in all. Each door was next to a two-way window where those in the hall could look in and observe the subjects but the subjects only saw a mirror.

“Are these all the women you have?” Atticus asked.

“Well, these are the ones we have that are breeding age. If you count the other four offices we have in the world there are about three hundred females that are of breeding age. Here at this clinic we have about seventeen right now that are still too young to be here where the breeding-aged women live. We get a few new ones here and there from the government. Anyway, you are free to ask any questions about the females as we check them out.”

“What about this female?” Asked Franka, who observed the attractive blonde.

“Hmmm… this one is number 042770. What may I ask are you looking for in a child?” Doctor Wright asked.

“Well, we’d prefer a brunette, as we both are brunettes,” Atticus explained. “We would like a girl, tall like us.”

“Then this is not the surrogate you want. Might I point you to room number 7 just over here,” Wright said as he walked over to the door.

The girl within it was watching TV, munching on an apple.

“This girl is number 091374. She carries the brunette gene although there is a chance for chestnut. She is tall and most of the females in her bloodline are over five-foot-five.”

“What do you think, dear?” Asked Franka, “She’s young, only twenty-two according to her number and she’s beautiful.”

“I think this is the female we’ll have.” Atticus said.

“Are we allowed to meet the surrogates?” Asked Franka.

“No, actually. We don’t want our subjects to form bonds with our clients, it would make them depressed and we wouldn’t want that.” The doctor explained. “Now, I will put her on reserve for tomorrow. Shall we go to the West Wing to choose a male surrogate?”

Number 091374 heard their voices. She had superior hearing, thanks to her genetics. She looked at the clock, awaiting the time when she could leave her room, leave her wing and go to the third floor for lunch and maybe to take out a book or a .C, which was the last form movies were put in. Until then she was going to be angry for she had been chosen yet again for breeding. Her head hung low and she pulled her bed room the wall. Down below near the baseboard was a series of scratches in the wall. There were five scratches and then a line underneath them separating them from another set of four scratches. She added a sixth scratch to the top set and signed as she looked at the bottom set. She’d have to wait about nine months to add another scratch to that set.

“My sixth time going to the breeding chamber,” she sighed to herself. “Maybe I’ll get a fifth baby out of it.”

The top line of scratches represented the number of times she had been chosen to be bred. The bottom line was the number of times she had given conceived and given birth. Six times chosen, five babies. If it kept happening that she ended up not conceiving, she feared what they’d do to her. She had heard through some of the other girls saying that if you fail to conceive a certain number of times the scientists did something bad to you.

“I might tell you that the female you chose is most frequently paired with this male. Number 100573,” Doctor Wright explained pointing into the chamber of a sleeping surrogate.

“Why are they often paired together?” Franka asked.

“I’m not sure. Both are brunettes and together they would produce a tall child. They have been paired together three times already but only two children came out of it, which we looked into and found out that the females fertility rate was low at the time they were put together. We’ve since monitored our females’ hormone levels.”

“He is quite attractive. The two together would produce a beautiful child,” Franka said.

“Don’t always trust beauty,” reminded the doctor. “The most grotesque people can produce the finest looking children.”

“Even then, the two subjects seem like they would produce a healthy baby.”

“Quite. Both subjects have such good genetics that o relative of theirs in the last hundred years has died under the age of eighty. You’ve got to be picky when choosing the surrogate parents of your children and I applaud your decision. I’ll pencil it in for tomorrow and we’ll send them to the breeding quarters. We’ll call you when the female has conceived.

When she woke up the next morning there was a notice slipped under her door. She read it aloud.

“Female number 091374 to be bred with-,” The number of the male was smeared and she couldn’t read it. “Stupid printers. Bred with John Doe on December 15th, 2096 at twelve o’clock noon for: Mr. and Mrs. Atticus Preston Thornton.” She said. “That’s today.”

She nonchalantly crumpled the paper up and tossed it into a pile where the other notices were, beside her TV cabinet.

“I have a name,” she snapped, and then fell into sadness. “I have a name!”

It struck nine o’clock and the doorway to the East Wing unlocked. The other females in the wing left their room to go get breakfast. Some were already in the corridor of the wing chatting and conversing. The rule sated that because she had to breed at noon, she was not to leave her room until so authorized by the doctor in charge. Her friends peered in at her as they passed. She was still in her room and her door was closed. They knew why and they felt her sadness. None of them liked to breed and some of them had yet to be chosen and they feared the day when they too would be shut in.

“I have a name,” she said again.

She went back to her bed and pulled an apple from her bedside drawer. She couldn’t eat. Her stomach hurt her and she felt like crying. She always felt like crying when she knew she was going to be used for another couples’ happiness. In the deepest of sadness, she stared into the mirror. She stood in her small bathroom and peered in the mirror after she showered. There was a small number tattooed above her left breast and like a badge it flashed that sacred number 091374. She took some skin make-up and smeared it over the green number. At least they would remove it when she no longer was able to breed. After which she would be used as a laborer or something. She would still not exist in a real society but be used for its benefit. She took a black eyeliner pencil and took it to the area over her right breast and wrote “M-A-G-D-A-L-E-N-E.” Magdalene.

This was something she did often. When the pain and misery of her very existence mad her insane, she erased that number and replaced it with her name.

While she waited for them to take her away, she pulled a small footlocker out from under her bed. On it read in black letters “Sgt. Gabriel F. Rhodes.” She opened it, revealing pictures to the light they rarely saw and books that were faded and dusty. She took out some of the pictures and looked them over. The doctors didn’t like it when she did this. They didn’t want her to “remember” where she came from because it would mess with her. As far as she was concerned, she was already messed with. Most of the pictures were blank on the back, while others had a detailed description of who was in the photo, when, where. Once a week she would take a photo and write on the back. She picked up a photo, four-by-six inches. In it was a small baby in the arms of an older man beside an older woman. Both were young grandparents, forty-eight and fifty. The man was very tall and the woman only came up to his chest.

“Great-grandpa Rhodes and great-grandma Rhodes holding their first grandchild, my father, Logan Rhodes, Jr. At Providence Hospital on May 7th, 2047,” she read aloud to herself as she wrote.

There were about three hundred pictures and only about half of them were labeled. She slipped the photo into a box marked 2045-50 where there were many other pictures already labeled. The doctors hated her photos and they hated the diaries and the letters and the books. They hated that she remembered things.

Just then, Magdalene heard footsteps coming down the corridor. It was noon. She packed up the footlocker as fast as she could and shoved it back under her bed. The doctors came in and with very few words led her to the breeding room.

As they walked her to the breeding room, Magdalene prayed for Jack. Of all the males she had met and been paired with, she liked Jack the best. She spent the most time with him. They often spent time in the lounge, talking or reading in the library. There was something about Jack that intoxicated her.

They took her to the North Wing of the fourth floor. After which, the two nurses left and only the doctor in charge of the breeding was there.

“You have twelve hours,” said Doctor Lawrence.

Magdalene hated Doctor Lawrence. The other doctors were gentle and nice, that didn’t stop her from hating them and their work but Lawrence was different. Amara Lawrence was a mean spirited beast. She was air nosed and cocky, arrogant and self righteous. She looked down upon all the subjects with this grimace of disgust.

“The male subject you’re breeding with is already waiting for you. Make good use of your time here,” Lawrence said with a sneer as she opened the door.

She gave Magdalene a rough shove inside and slammed the door. The room was dark. It was the size of her apartment but all the lights were off.

“Hello?” she asked.

“I’m here. I just have a headache.”

“Oh, so I suppose you don’t want me to put the lights on.”

“No, can you leave them off?”

“Of course. Um, what number are you? The number on the notice they gave me was smeared.”

“Guess who I am.” He said with a bit of a chuckle, already knowing Magdalene was there.

“Jack!”

“My headache.”

“Sorry. I’m just so glad it’s you. I was worried.”

She rushed to him, throwing her arms around him. He returned the gesture, resting his head atop hers.

“I don’t feel so gross anymore,” she chuckled. “I always get so nervous when I don’t recognize a number.”

“It’s okay. I understand. I’m going to go and see if there’s any Aspirin in the bathroom before I keel over.”

After he slipped away into the darkness, Magdalene sat on the bed, curling her knees to her chin. She looked around the ever familiar room and remembered the emotional outbursts being there caused. Twelve hours, often times with a stranger, grinding on nerves knowing that you were doing the most personal things for someone else’s benefit. At least with Jack, someone who she knows well and someone who she has been with before, she felt better.

“Are you alright?” Asked Jack.

She nodded, but she still wasn’t convincing as tears trickled down her cheeks.

“I don’t believe you,” he said as he slid beside her, tucking her hair behind her ears.

“I can’t do this anymore. Even with you.” She whimpered.

“What?”

“Let’s just not do anything here and let them think that my hormone levels are low.”

“Magdalene, we have to.”

“No. That’s where you’re wrong. We don’t have to. We don’t owe these scientists anything. I refuse,” she became angry, hot tears fell down onto the sheets.

Jack nodded. “Alright, I know we don’t have to. I know. I don’t want to either.”

“Then let’s not. I don’t want to carry a baby for nine moths, give birth to it and have some stranger take it. The children that I gave birth to, the ones we had together don’t even know we exist. I mean, when they tell you that the female you were with conceived, what do you feel?”

Jack sighed. The painful memories haunted him always but they were worse when he was in the breeding room.

“I feel anger when they tell me there was a conception. I count for nine months and then I cry. I cry because I never see my child. Even though the women they put me with I’m not close to, I still feel sorrow because I feel like I’ve lost my own child.”

“I feel that way too. We still have to be strong.”

“How do we do that? They‘ve brainwashed our instincts out of us.”

“The only way that brainwashing is successful is if we believe it, if we pay attention. They can’t tell me something and make me believe it. My parents brought me up to be stubborn. My father said that I get it from my great-grandparents. They were both too stubborn for their own good.”

“We’ll thank them later.”

Magdalene chuckled. “But, let’s pretend that we’re not intelligent beings for twelve hours. If they find out we didn’t do anything we’ll get intellectually flogged. I hate to put us through it again but there’s not much we can do.”

Both wiped the tears from their eyes, trying to be strong.

Magdalene stood before her mirror, wishing she could see out into the corridor. She caressed her stomach, feeling for a foot to kick her hand. With a sigh, a massive and painful sensation came over her. She fell over, dropping to the ground. When she was able to stand up again, the pain hit her.

“I’m going into labor,” she whispered to herself.

She looked at the silver telephone box on the wall. She could call down to the doctors and in an instant they would be up to take her to the medical wing. If she did not call down, know one would no any different and she would be left alone in her room to take care of matters herself. She opened the door a crack and called down the hall. There were some women gathered together talking.

“Juliet!” She called. “I need your help with something.”

“Coming,” Juliet called back.

Magdalene closed the door behind her. One look at Magdalene and Juliet knew.

“You’re going into labor?”

“Yes.”

“We need to call the doctors!”

“No!” She snapped reaching for the phone box and ripping it off of the wall. “We are not calling the doctors. I’m staying here and they will not know a thing.”

“What would you have me do?” Juliet asked.

The two locked eyes. Magdalene’s face was turning red as another wave of pain came again. She let out a cry but clenched her teeth.

“I can’t believe I’m going to do this.”

Some hours later, Juliet emerged from the bathroom. Her face was red and glistening with perspiration. Her eyes were watery and tired. There were soft cries coming from the bathtub where Magdalene lay. Cradled in her arms lay two babies; twins.

“Which one is being adopted?” Asked Juliet peering back into the bathroom.

“This little girl here,” she replied softly. “I’ll name her Maverick. Even though the Thorntons will name her something else she will always be Maverick to me.”

“What will they do with your son?”

Magdalene’s face grew cold as she tried to think of anything else.

“They will raise him and in eighteen years they’ll toss him in the West Wing with Jack.”

Before Juliet could speak another word, heavy footsteps were heard coming down the hall. Closer. Closer. There was nothing they could do. When Doctor Wright passed the window, he and Juliet locked eyes. It was then that Magdalene heard the door open and saw Juliet freeze, speechless, terrified.

“What is going on here!” Wright hollered, taken aback.

Maverick let out a cry. Magdalene was finished. Her son was finished. She feared the consequences of keeping the birth secret, although she knew somehow it would fail. Juliet rushed to take the boy away from Magdalene. Magdalene jumped to her feet, her Maverick crying in her arms, still covered in towels and blankets. The bathtub showed evidence of what had happened and the towels discarded on the floor did as well.

Doctor Wright called for nurses, who showed up in a flash. They grabbed the boy from Juliet, who was then dragged kicking and screaming back to her room. Magdalene guarded Maverick with everything she could. She clawed at the nurses with her free arm and kicked at them. They finally got the baby from her. She fell to the floor in a puddle of tears, burying her face in her knees, crying into her skirt. She had been beaten.

“Nurse Mills, please escort 091374 to the psyche ward,” Wright said.

“My name is Magdalene Rhodes!”

“You have no right to do this,” Magdalene said in a tired monotone.

“This is a government building operated by the finest and most advanced science on the planet,” Wright corrected.

“Well, I’m sorry to rain on your parade but you’re not God,” Magdalene hissed. “You took my children. All of my children.”

“They’re not your children,” Wright growled. “You just carried them. They’ve been legally adopted and a pretty penny went right to this nation’s government. That same money will be used to fund technological advancements.”

“You’re despicable. That’s all you are. You’re too concerned with fame and fortune. You might as well be a machine, you have no heart, no compassion, no emotion.”

“Alright then… Magdalene Rhodes, why don’t you enlighten me on what you think about this operation seeing as you seem to be the smart one here.”

Magdalene stared him down. Around her was a stream of two way mirrors. Once again, she only could see herself which meant many people were looking in, listening. What could she say? She was already in trouble for what she had done. They were holding her in the psyche ward. She was in the detention chamber. Then she thought, and thought quickly: the books in the library that she had read, the brainwashing techniques of the scientists when she was growing up, the memories of her life before she was eight-years-old and the movies she had watched of relatives and predecessors. All these things that were right there in front of her, things that surrounded her and the doctors were her weapon against them.

“When I was eight-years-old my parents died in a car-accident. When you found out that I had the perfect genetics the government sent me here instead of sending me to live with my great-aunt Ella and her children, my aunts and uncles. The government ran a “background” check on them and they failed somehow, someway. They only did the background check to make it look good but I was coming here by default. I remember that. When I came here, the nurses and the doctors tried to raise us, but somehow I just don’t think you’re method of raising and a real parents method of raising is the same thing. You raised us into believing we had a condition, you told us that it was our jobs to be here and to serve people with our genetics. Many of the children here believed it and serve you blindly. The government made you build us libraries and lounges, game rooms and a plethora of cafes and places to make us feel more normal, to give us a feel for reality so our human instincts didn’t come back and so we didn’t go stir crazy with cabin fever,” Magdalene’s words flew from her mouth slow and clear, but she did not let up her bitterness and her intelligence. “Every child that came out of me you took, and that is wrong. That is very wrong. You had no right to take my children even if they were doomed from conception. This is a spit in the face of human rights, human dignity.”

“How is it that you know all of this. How is it that you, a scientific subject could possibly conceive all of this information?” Doctors Wright’s words were just as bitter but they dripped sickeningly with sarcasm.

“Y’know those libraries you built for us. We read those books, whether we absorbed the words or not. I read those books and I learned from them. My mind is a library in and of itself and you cannot deny that. Growing up and listening to you regurgitate all your science and your rules never did a thing to me. All you did successfully was made me question what love is or whether happiness is right. But just because I question them doesn’t mean that I am blind to them.”

Doctor Wright stared dead into her eyes. They burned. It was as if a fire raged from her pupils to his. He felt weakened although he could not show it.

“I remember my great-grandmother just a little bit and I remember her personality. Do you know what she would say to you? She would call Stella Laboratories a baby farm and you would be the fat, ugly, redneck farmer.”

“You will serve three days in the detention room,” Wright said. “Nurse Kissinger, Nurse Hatcher, you know what I want to see in three days. I don’t want those words coming out of that mouth.”

As he left in quite a huff, Magdalene was able to hold the evilest of grins on her face and a sharp twinkle in her eye.

For three days Magdalene was fed cruel words. They were words trying to destroy her own thoughts, her own free will. The nurses tried to beat her down. They did not feed her unless she behaved herself. They said they would only let her eat if she told them what they wanted to her or if she thought what they wanted her to think. Magdalene starved.

On the third day, when the doctor came back in, she saw him talking to the nurses who had been taking care of her. A look of annoyance came about his face. He rubbed his bald spot, and let his head drop, showing his frustration. With hands on his hips, he endured about five minutes of bad news from the nurses. Magdalene only felt hunger, and satisfaction in what she had done. Her face was pale and her eyes puffy. She hadn’t eaten in three days or got proper rest. Then Doctor Wright went in her room.

“What are you trying to accomplish?” He asked.

“Either to break free or break you. I don’t care which at this point.”

“Do you think that you’re going to get the children back?”

“I don’t think so. I know I am.”

“No, you are not going to get the children back. The female twin has gone with the Thorntons and the male twin is up in the nursery. We’re going to use him here,” he said most sarcastically and evilly.

Magdalene sighed gruffly. She knew what she had to do. Whatever they were going to do to her she had to find a way to escape it. She needed to get to Jack and the rest the would figure out together.

“You do realize what’s going to happen to you now?” He asked, speaking to her as if she were a child.

“No, I don’t know what’s going to happen to me. Why don’t you tell me. Tell me what the lords of Congress and the gods of the Senate have decided for me.”

“You’re being released to the government.”

Her eyes widened. That can’t be good, she thought.

“You have twenty-four hours to pack all of your belongings and then they’re going to come and take you.”

“Oh, well I can’t expect anything less. I mean, I’ve noticed that the only thing you do with broken things is send them away to be destroyed or used for something else. That’s all I am to you, isn’t it. A thing. I can tell you‘re afraid of me. You have a hard time looking me in the eye and you tap your pencil. You‘re nervous around me because I know too much and that‘s bad for business.”

He ignored her. Another sign of weakness is Magdalene’s eyes. He changed the subject.

“Before you’re moved to a government facility, we are obligated to grant you one request.”

Perfect. They left themselves open for a low blow and Magdalene was going to make sure that they got it a lá Rhodes.

“A last request?” She asked, then went into innocent girl mode. “Well, I suppose. Let me see 100573, Jack. Just to say goodbye.”

Doctor Wright sighed, nodding his head. Despite the fact he despised misbehaving subjects, he had to let them have their last requests.

Nurse Elliot was a mean woman. She had this permanent scowl like someone smacked her in the back of the head on a bad day and her face stayed that way. She didn’t like Magdalene either. She led Magdalene up to the West Wing to Jack’s room.

“You have three hours,” Nurse Elliot said with a sneer. “Get on with it.”

Magdalene walked in. Jack was sleeping. After the nurse’s footsteps were no longer heard, Magdalene woke Jack up.

“Jack, it’s me.”

“What?” He said rubbing his eyes.

“Magdalene.”

“Oh my god! How are you? The baby? What about the baby?” Jack cried leaping to his feet. “What are you doing in my room?”

Magdalene could not smile. It was not the time to smile.

“They took them, Jack. I gave birth to the babies three afternoons ago and the Thorntons took the girl.”

“Wait what?”

“The babies.”

“There’s more than one?”

“Yes, Jack. I had twins. A boy and a girl. I named the girl Maverick for my own sake.”

“What about the other? A boy?”

“Yeah. I didn’t have the time to name him. I gave birth in my bathroom. Juliet helped me. We kept it quiet until Doctor Wright came by and saw. I spent the past three days in the detention hall being brainwashed and mentally thrashed by nurses. I haven’t eaten anything. Jack, because of my misdemeanor, the government is coming for me. I’m not breeding anymore and I don’t know where I’m going.”

A tear drew up in Jack’s eye. His face had gone pale and his gaze went to stone.

“What?”

“Seeing you was my last request. I’m here because they let me see you. Only for three hours.”

“I came to tell you something and to propose something else.”

“Okay. What do you have to tell me?” He asked, beckoning her to sit on the bed beside him.

“I wanted to tell you that… despite all the brainwashing the scientists have used on us, I still have some of my instincts. Although I’m not sure of a lot of things and I can’t think for myself on some cases, I know one thing for absolute certain. I know what love is. I know that I love my twins, and the other babies I gave birth to. I know that loving them is a natural thing that all mothers feel. I’d do anything for those babies. I also know that I love my twins’ father. I know that.”

“I know what love is too. My dreams have been haunted for months. I’ve been thinking about the baby you were carrying. I ached because I knew that I wanted the baby. I also know that I love you too.”

Magdalene smiled. The two exchanged an awkward but sweet real first kiss. It was the first kiss or display of affection each had received outside of the breeding chambers.

“Now I have a proposition for you,” Magdalene said.

“Anything.”

“We are going to save that son of ours. We are going to take him and we are going to break out of here. I know that we can do it if we do it together. I want to free the rest of the subjects and the children. We have to stop this practice.”

“Is this what the slaves did in the old south? Revolt?”

“Yes, I think it is. I remember reading about Nat Turner. The slaves in those days all got together and planned out the revolt. They ganged up on their oppressors and killed them. In the night hours, all of us here outnumber the doctors and nurses.”

“Okay. How do we get the others involved?”

“When you all go to lunch, spread the word. Here’s what you’ll do because I will be locked in my room until you free me. On your way back from lunch, jam the gears that close the doors to this wing. Have Juliet do the same for the East wing and tell her to give me a signal through the two-way mirror when she does. At midnight tonight, we’ll leave our quarters and the doors to our wings will be opened enough for us to break out. Then, I’ll take some of the girls and we’ll go and rescue the children on the second floor. You and the men guard us and fight of any doctor, nurse or security guard.”

“And what if they call the police? We’ll have to find a way to cut off the telephone boxes. When we get outside what do we do? We‘re going to have to do something really drastic. Burn down the building perhaps.”

Magdalene rubbed her face really hard, then nodded, agreeing with his ideas.

“I’ll let everyone know at lunch today,” Jack said.

“Then it is a plan?”

“Yes.”

Magdalene flopped back on the bed.

“What would you name our son?” Jack asked.

She thought for a moment. What would she name her son?

“Matthew,” she replied. “I’d name him Matthew.”

“That’s a different name. I‘ve never known a Matthew before”

“It was my great-grandfather’s name. He died before I was born but my great-grandmother talked about him a lot. I remember her saying how much I look like him. When I found out I was coming here, I took all the family DVD‘s with me and they‘re both on a lot of them. I think that’s how I know so much about my family, through all the photos and movies.”

“I wish I knew about my family,” Jack sighed. “Matthew is a good name for a son, though. I don’t know my last name or else he could have a full name.”

That afternoon, while the rest of the girls were at lunch, Magdalene sat in her room, looking through her photos as she packed them up. She took out another one that was unlabeled. She wasn’t in it and neither was her father. She had never seen the photo before but she knew who was in it.

“Great-grandpa Rhodes, Great-grandma Rhodes, their children Ella, Logan… Wait a minute,” she thought. “Is Ella still alive? She’d be eighty-five. That’s under the life expectancy and my relatives have always beaten the life-expectancy.”