Chapter Six

A Chapter by E.H. Koski

Chapter six of The Life of MC and Me

Chapter Six

The panic waves slow slightly, “Dan, what are you doing here? How did you even get here?”
Dan comes up to me, stepping into the light of the bare bulb hanging above my car. He couldn’t know my address, even the address I have at work is my parents’ home, with a mail forwarding to my own home.

“I followed you. I thought you might’ve noticed when you turned back around, but you didn’t seem to be scared or anything. And that guy you met didn’t look like you told him anything that could be cause for alarm. Anyway, look, I need to talk to you,” Dan looks several times worse than when I saw him at lunch. Dark gray circles make his eyes sag, and his hear is frizzy and uncombed.

“Dan, why would you follow me here? This is my house!” I say loudly, hoping that MC can hear me and know to stay away from the door.

“I can’t talk to you at work, they might overhear. I trust you, and I’ve seen how you have me make a few extra medicines that usually end up missing. I’m not a blind man.”

Fear and anger build in me. “You came here to accuse me of taking medicines?! Are you assuming that I took specimen 246? I didn’t even know her initials! I wasn’t even on the team when she was alive!”

Dan shh-es me, looking as unnerved as I feel. “Don’t talk so loud! What if your neighbors hear?”

I doubted that they would, but I quiet down anyway. “Tell me why you are accusing me of these things. Are you going to frame me for Jack?”

He scoffs. “Jack is an idiot. An unfairly smart moron. But I trust you, you have all the same signs as me.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“You took home specimen 247, you saved MC.”

Having my innermost secrets spoken aloud by someone who shouldn’t have the faintest idea about them nearly makes me faint. I put a hand against my car to steady myself, “You don’t- you can’t- you-”

“But I do know. I’ve seen you take the medicines, compare data. I’ve only noticed because I’m doing the same things!”

My world is slipping away from me, and I fear that I may have hit my head or am having one of my nightmares. Hopefully I’ll wake up soon and have MC comfort me until I can sleep again. My instincts tell me to run inside, to confirm that he is alive and safe, but Dan may follow or hear me yell out for MC.

“Kimberly, deep breaths. Do you want to go inside?” Dan takes a few steps towards me, making me jump away from him.

“No! Don’t!”

The door that lets into the house opens, and I nearly scream at MC to go inside, but falter when he steps out wearing a homemade mask he made for Halloween a year ago. It only covers the top half of his face, leaving his mouth exposed. His eyes, full of more fear than rage, are hidden within the eyes of the lion mask.

“Leave. Our home,” he demands.

Dan is surprised, but begins to beam at MC. “Look at you, you are doing so great!”

“I am Kim’s. Bother. Please leave us,” MC demands again, struggling to maintain his voice.

Oh, Michael. Coming to my rescue as a lion as to hide his identity from Dan. MC comes to me, standing between myself and Dan. If MC knew Dan, he would’ve know that this mask idea wouldn’t fool him for a moment. Dan worked with MC for two years. I’m sure Dan could draw MC from memory even today.

“Stop, go inside,” I say to MC.

“Michael, I’m not here to hurt either of you,” Dan calmly states, still looking over MC with a sense of pride and awe.

MC tenses at his name. “Get out of here.”

“Please, let’s go inside and I can explain. I need your help, please, Kim,” Dan meets my eyes, begging.

Mc looks over his shoulder, waiting for my answer. I sigh, realizing that because Dan has seen MC now, there’s no real sense in turning him away and pretending like I don’t know what he’s talking about. And my curiosity is growing; I need to know what he means by he is doing the same things.

“Fine, but be quick and if you tell anyone,” I start to threaten, but fall up short. I don’t know what I would do if Dan told people that MC is alive.

“Kim, thank you, thank you so much,” Dan looks as if he may start crying.

MC leads me into the house, taking the bag of meats form me and placing the whole thing in the fridge and quickly rejoining me. MC and I sit on the couch and Dan sits on the piano bench facing us.

“Start explaining,” MC growls, removing his mask.

Dan examines his face in full, stilling looking impressed. “Jack is so wrong about our specimens, Kim. The longer they are allowed treatment, the better they become! Look at the two at the lab, they’ve been going for the longest, six whole years! They’re the best Jack has seen. But look at MC! He has been alive for longer than eight and the difference between him, JW, and LB? It’s as if MC is a fully grown man and those two are just babbling children. You’re going to be shocked when you see Melody.”

“Melody?” I ask, the name awaking some slumbering memory.

Dan nods with excitement. “Melody, specimen 246.”

Pieces of the puzzle fall into place. “You took 246, Melody.”

“Yes, MR. Melody Rallus, she was my specimen, the female before MC.”

My heart aches, “Dan… your last name is Rallus. Is she?”

“She is my daughter, yes,” Dan doesn’t seem upset by this. “I wasn’t going to lose her twice. When she died, I offered for Jack to take her into the program immediately. She fit all of our requirements, and I couldn’t just let her go, not with the knowledge that she could come back.”

Dan Rallus has been with the company for a long time, that I knew. For perhaps fifteen years, and spent about two in my position, working with specimen 246, MR.

Dan scowls, “Jack let me watch over her as head, but just a year and a half before he told me she wasn’t filling his expectations. She was to be scrapped. But I couldn’t, I couldn’t. Not my daughter.”

MC and I waited, unable to say anything. Dan finally continued, “Jack let me have one more night with her. And I switched her. I’m not proud of it. But our hospital upstairs has a morgue, and I had to take one of the bodies. It is shameful to think that whoever’s family that woman belonged to received an urn full of ash from my fireplace… But Jack does that all the time to the specimens he collects from upstairs!”

Dan begins to lose some of his control, having emotions rush over him that are plain on his face: rage, guilt, pride, love. I clear my throat, “Dan, how long has she been alive?”

He starts to reassert himself. “Ten years, Kim. She just turned twenty-nine.”

MC has lost all of his aggression, looking timid as a house cat now. “Dan. How is she? Does she. Talk like me? Is she more. Alive?”

MC’s words pain me, but I know how much hope this situation must give him. We have been uncertain about his future; we never knew if he would develop problems the longer he is alive.

Dan grins, looking proud, “She’s doing amazing. She speaks fine now, except when she is tired. She doesn’t need the medicines as much anymore. It’s like Melody never died.”

MC’s eyes water, and he buries his face into his hands. I had hoped that this would be the case for MC, that the longer he kept alive and kept improving, it would be like he never died and had to go through all of this. Jack and I have the same dream, but unlike Jack, I, and evidently Dan, am willing to let it take time. A decade of time, it turns out.

“But, Kim, I messed up,” Dan starts slowly, trying to reign in his emotions before explaining. “I thought that she would be okay to adventure out in town on her birthday. I mean, it’s been ten years since anyone at the company has seen her! I didn’t think she would be noticed.”

“But she was,” I finally understand. All of the commotion at work is because the people in level one did see a specimen, the specimen that was under view of Dan, as well as the specimen that was Dan’s child. It’s unsurprising that the enforcement team haggled Dan all day.

“Jack is suspicious of me, and Patti. Even you, but you’ve never said even one rude word to him. You are his star head scientist, the one who made his specimens live for six whole years. You didn’t even know about Jack or the company when Melody was there. He has little reason to suspect you. But I’ve screamed at him. I threatened him, and demanded that my daughter has a chance. It was that outburst that allowed me to be with her the night before her scrapping date, which allowed me to save her. But I think Jack may suspect that I did something that night.”

“I told him how loyal you were to his cause,” I mention.

“I know. He may like me, but he is furious. He can’t believe that someone would disobey him, not with all of our lives on the line.”

“Does he know. About Melody?” MC cuts in, looking grave.

“No, he just is suspicious. But, I don’t think she can stay at my house in complete safety anymore. Jack knew me, long before all of this. Jack could easily come by my home, and if I deny him entry he will confirm some of his suspicions, then who knows what he’ll let the enforcement team do.”

Again, Dan’s plans finally dawn on me. “You want her to come here. You want me to watch over Melody.”

He looks at me, eyes grave and fearful. This look is a look of a father who is out of choices and scared of losing the life of his daughter a second time. I knew that Dan’s wife died in a car accident, and I knew his daughter died in the same crash. I had thought that Dan was alone. But now I see that he wasn’t ever alone. He may have lost his wife, who must have been in her mid-thirties at the time of her death and thusly too old to be a specimen. But it never occurred to me that his daughter was only nineteen, and perfect for the program. Dan would be losing the last thing he has held onto if MR was discovered. I’m betting that my face looks similar when I think about losing MC.

Of course, Dan and I would both be killed, but not before MR and MC. That part would be worse than our deaths.

“Bring her here, Dan,” I announce. I can’t turn him away, not with the shared feelings we have, nor can I deny MC the feeling of seeing what his future holds for him.

Dan takes a deep breath, holding it and steadying himself. “Thank you.”

While the day had been long and nerve-racking, the night was longer. Dan left to retrieve MR, and told us he would make sure he isn’t being followed. It took him two hours to return, and it was now nearing one in the morning. To busy myself, I made up the guest room in the hallway of my bedroom. I also made MC dinner and tried to eat something myself but found that I was too anxious to do so. MC ate all of his food. He seemed to be more excited than fearful, but I didn’t expect him to be scared. It was my job to worry about him, and now also about MR.

When Dan finally arrived, I had already put away all of the new meats, done dishes, and started some laundry. Dan and MR entered again through the garage, with two duffel bags with them.

“Melody, this is Kimberly and Michael,” Dan introduced us in the living room.

MR was beautiful, with a nose like her fathers but the rest of her looks must have come from her mother. Her jet black hair could’ve matched Dan’s if his wasn’t speckled with gray. Her brown eyes were bright and she politely held out her hand to me, and then MC.

“I wanted to thank you both, just so much,” MR says. “My father was so worried about what would happen.”

Dan was right about her speech. There were no solid breaks as MC’s does, but more soft pauses that weren’t noticeable unless you knew what to listen for.

MC gawked at her, obviously comparing himself to her. He clears his throat, obviously trying to speak his best. “Would you like. For me to show. You to your. Room?”

She smiled encouragingly at him, “That would be lovely.”

MC walked her down the hall, explaining which door was which: the basement down to his room, my room, the bathroom, and finally the guest bedroom where she would be staying. I let them continue to talk, getting into a conversation of their lives outside of the lab. Dan stepped over to me, holding out the duffels.

“This one is her belongings, clothes and whatnot. This one is her medicines and vitamins, as well as the chart for when and what she will be needing,” Dan gave them both to me. “I can’t thank you enough, Kim. I’m sorry I sprung this on you.”

I shook my head. “I understand. You are a worried father, looking for help wherever you could.”

He paused. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course, Dan.”

“Does your boyfriend know about Michael?”

The surprise must’ve shown on my face, as well as the fear of letting people know that MC is alive. “No, no one knows about MC.”

He nods thoughtfully. “Does he like being called MC?”

I can only shrug slightly, because I had never really thought about it. He has always been my MC, but now and then I do call him by his name. I thought that is he would’ve preferred one or the other he would’ve told me.

“She prefers to be called Melody,” Dan states. “Just so you know.”

Dan begins to fidget, not sure what to do now. I put down the duffels and go to him, giving him an awkward hug. “I’ll take care of her, Dan.”

“I know,” he sighs.

Dan goes to melody and gives her a fierce hug, whispering into her ear. She nods, begins to tear up slightly, and finally lets him go. Dan leaves with a final word of thanks to me.

I turn to Melody. “Well, if you need anything you can come wake up myself or MC is downstairs. But feel free to help yourself to the kitchen. I’ll be going to work in the morning…well, in a few hours,” I sigh. “if you could leave me a list of food stuffs that you like I’ll make sure to get them.”

“I really appreciate what you’re doing,” Melody whispers.

Without Dan here it feels a little awkward in the room. I don’t know this young girl, and the way she is holding her arms to herself and chewing on her lower lip shows me that she is nervous herself. Thankfully, MC knows how to break the tension.

“Kim, you get. To bed. Melody and I. Will eat popsicles. And chat before. We go too,” MC smiles at us both, and comes to give me a hug.

I watch them enter the kitchen and sit down at the table with popsicles in hand. MC does most of the talking, but Melody doesn’t seem as nervous as she was a moment ago. I myself feel exhausted so I leave them be and crawl into bed. Fortunately, I am too tired to have nightmares tonight, but I the upcoming nights I may not be so lucky.

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