“Cherry,” she points out, grabbing a couple of small plates and a large knife. “A favorite, I’m told.” Rosemarie beams at Leandra before looking across the table to me, taking a long moment to examine my hair, my face. She seems to note my changed appearance.
“Philomena,” Rosemarie says warmly. “Our own rebel.” When she smiles, it’s a bit tense, but I pretend not to notice.
“Thank you for meeting with us,” I say.
“I would never turn you away,” she says. “Now,” she adds, picking up the knife and looking around, “who would like a slice of cherry pie?”
None of us answer. Not that I would mind some pie, but I’m not here to taste her cooking. When we don’t respond right away, she chuckles and cuts a large slice. She offers the plate to Leandra, but when she refuses, Rosemarie purses her lips in disappointment.The poet crosses back to the counter to grab the cooled apple pie, unceremoniously dropping it onto the table. She roughly cuts into it, scattering crumbs from the delicate crust, before heaping a slice onto her plate.
“Well, I’ve never been able to say no to apple pie,” Rosemarie sings out. She looks toward the door where Lennon Rose is standing. “You, dear?”
“Please,” Lennon Rose says in response, walking into the room to sit next to Leandra at the table. “It looks great.”
“You helped,” Rosemarie answers as if patting her head. We watch as the poet cuts Lennon Rose a generous slice, apples sliding out of the filling in a gooey thick sauce. She hands it to Lennon Rose and then passes her a silver fork.
Brynn is bobbing her leg under the table, and I reach over to put my palm on her knee to steady it. She swallows hard, wringing her hands tightly on the table.
“We want to talk to you about your plan,” I say, earning a sharp look from Leandra. “You need to rethink it.”
Rosemarie stares at me a moment with no noticeable reaction, and then picks up her fork and takes a big scoop of pie before placing it in her mouth. I wait, unsure of what to say next as she chews. When she’s done, cutting another bite, she measures her gaze on mine.
“You know they plan to kill you,” she says. “The men. This should come as no surprise, but even after everything these men have put you through, they still don’t want you to be free. Prison won’t stop them.”
“Westopped them,” I say. “The corporation is over, Rosemarie. And if the men come after us again, we’ll stop them again. But I won’t let them be a reason to destroy humanity. We don’t need scorched earth. We need compassion.”
Rosemarie pauses, the next bite of pie at her lips, and when she looks at me again, her eyes are slightly narrowed, clearly angry. She sets the fork down, pie uneaten, and glares at me. I see that Leandra is watching curiously; Lennon Rose sits in a kind of amusement. Her pie is untouched, and she’s wholly concerned with what the poet is about to say next.
“Aren’t you being a little selfish, my dear?” Rosemarie asks me.
I flinch, surprised by the question. Offended by it. “What are you talking about?” I ask, trying to keep my voice steady.
“This is a revolution,” Rosemarie says. “And you’re so selfish—only concerned with yourselves.” She looks around judgingly at the others, and Sydney scoffs.
“Why?” Sydney asks. “Because we don’t believe in your bloody cause?”
“I need to use the restroom,” Brynn says suddenly, pushing back in her chair. She rushes for the hallway, and Rosemarie calls to her that it’s the first door on the left. When Brynn is gone, Rosemarie sighs exhaustedly.
“You’ve upset her,” Rosemarie says. “Her disposition can’t handle this kind of discourse. You should know better by now.” She picks up her fork and takes another bite of pie. She turns to Lennon Rose, and nods. “Eat up, dear,” she tells her. “It’s better when it’s still a little warm.”
Lennon Rose nods, but doesn’t eat.
Brynn screams from somewhere down the hall, and as the other girls and I jump, Rosemarie just closes her eyes as if growing impatient. Marcella, Sydney, and I push back from the table and run toward Brynn. We find the door at the end of the hallway still ajar and rush inside.
I gasp, my hand automatically at my throat. Sydney grabs my arm, her fingernails biting into the skin there. Marcella’s eyes are wide and terrified, and Brynn is gasping for breath, looking at us, tears on her cheeks.
We’re not in a bedroom. Instead, it’s a makeshift lab—metal slabs and racks of supplies. Monitors and instruments laid out. And on those slabs are our missing girls, their heads peeled open and their metallic brains exposed, pieces of them missing. Pieces of…themmissing. I think I might get sick. They are fully dismembered and wholly dead.
“I had no choice,” Rosemarie says from behind us. I jump with a start and swing around to face her. My tongue is thick, my throat tight.
“What did you do to them?” I ask, my voice barely a whisper.
“They weren’t awake,” she says. “Not all the girls can wake up—not everyone is capable of that. And so”—she looks over their bodies, not a single hint of sympathy in her expression—“I had to shut them down. I’ll repurpose their parts eventually, create new programs. But for now, they were useless.”
It’s clear now that Rosemarie doesn’t care about us. She wants us to overthrow the world and then quietly fizzle out. Soon, we’llbe useless too, lying here with our heads cut open and our eyeballs missing.
She was never really our mother. She never wanted to be. She just wanted an army.
“What have you done to my friends?” Brynn asks as she starts to sob.
