357

A year ago, seven years after my first day in my new body, a new experiment arrived. She was called #358B because she was different than the rest of us. She was three-years-old when she died while the rest of us were born into death. We knew nothing of life outside of our mother’s wombs and this facility. She already had decent motor skills. She could talk and walk. She didn’t have as much to learn. She wouldn’t take as long.

Like me, she was put into the same cell as the experiment before her.

“I don’t like it here,” she explained to me when she sat on the bed, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Don’t you miss your daddy or mommy?” she asked, her blue eyes filling with tears.

“Never met them,” I replied. She looked shocked. “What’s earth like?” I asked in a whisper, praying that none of the guards would hear me.

“It’s nicer than this,” she replied. “The sky, it’s blue. Not gray. The grass is green, not gray. Everything has lots of colors. It’s not gray like here is.”

“Where did you live?” I whispered.

“New York City. My stroller rolled onto subway tracks and it ran over me.”

“What’s a subway?” I asked.

“A train in the ground.”

I searched my mind for an idea of what a train could be. I could explain every aspect of the human body, solve any trigonometry problem in 10 seconds flat without paper or a calculator, but I couldn’t for the life of me get an idea of what a train is.

“What do they look like?”

#358B and I discussed earth for hours until she could not stay awake any longer. Just before falling asleep, she told me that the man who had my body before me was named Frank. He was in a famous band that her mother liked.

I longed to see the surface. It sounded amazing according to #358B. I then devised a plan.