“Don’t lie to me, again! They know who you are apparently, what the hell is ‘Prime Inserter?’”

We are furious, at each other, yelling at the other with reddened face and angers. As ironically as it sounds, I just escaped from one white room, now I am in another, with her, again accusing me of something.

“Don’t you dare calling me a liar. I just saved you, I could’ve left you there.”

I stand up from the chair, which is one of two against the white wall, trying to get some air or distance. The room is about 20 by 20 feet, two chairs just for us to sit against a wall, two doors. We were told to wait in the room, and that’s all spoken to us. Four walls, all painted white, however, they don’t look like paints and are incredibly white, almost like they would grow in the dark. In fact, I am seeing no light switch and lights on ceiling.

She wanted to know where we are, who these people are, what this place is for, all sorts of questions. Only I got no answers, all I have is exactly what we just saw so far She knows as much as I know.

“Those people were coming to kill you, not me! And how could you say something like that to me?”

“Yeah, that came from someone questioning her own brother. You think I don’t know?” I emphasize on the word ‘own.’

I am mad, I’d not leave her there to die, to be shot, after all, she is still my sister I was born to know, but it’s too late to take it back. She stares at me from the chair, she is hurt, so am I. Neither of us saying anything, but only the tick-tock noise from the clock above the chairs.

Interestingly, the clock doesn’t have any hands, just white clock face with numbers — that I can’t read — on the edge, but it does tick somehow. You can’t tell the time from it.

This room, big enough for us to cool down, there are a few feet between us but I feel we were facing right in front of another.

Tick and tock, she stares at me, tick and tock, I stare at her. The look in her eyes is screaming at me, loud and clear without a spoken word, not even a verbal shout, but I can hear her in my mind. It’s a face off, but neither of us is backing down. I might

The door slowly opens ajar, a little head poking through the gap, peeking at us. It’s a little girl with a blond ponytail, maybe five or six years old. I didn’t know they have children around.

She gets our attentions, Kate walks to the door, bending down as she carefully opening the door without frightening the girl.

“Hello there, are you lost?” Kate asks gently

The little girl looks at Kate, motionless and timid. That could be the result of our shouting, or just this girl has not seen a lot of people like us before.

“Do you want to come in?” Kate extends her hand to invite this girl.

The girl looks up at her, then glance at me for a second before taking the inviting hand. She always has a soft spot for children. I honestly don’t think this is a good idea, what happen if the mother shows up and they have the wrong idea why their daughter is in the room with strangers?

Kate leads the way in, the girl has a little doll in her other hand, hugging tight to her chest as they walking in.

“I’m Kate, and this is my brother, Keith. What’s your name?” Kate introduces us to her.

She just stares at us back and forth, saying nothing.

“Maybe she doesn’t speak English,” I whisper at Kate.

I don’t think this little girl understood anything Kate has said. Let’s face it, this isn’t movie, and it seems language barrier ain’t so easy to break by hand gestures. Not only the languages, but cultures, after Kate finally gave up repeating our names for a thousand times, the girl just sat down on floor instead of those two empty chairs.

Kate thought we should follow, and pulled me down to sit with the girl. We are just watching this girl playing with her doll. Kate is still trying so hard to communicate with her, but I begin to think maybe this girl is deaf or even hearing is not part of biological capability.

Eventually, Kate has given up as well, she just watches the girl playing as we wait.

“I know I am adopted,” I say quietly.

Kate didn’t seem to hear that at first, a couple of second later, she turned to me.

“You think that’s why I could bring you in with a pretext? You think I didn’t love you?”

“Of course not. I don’t know. I am sorry that I lied to you, I was angry, and I really didn’t want you to get involved in whatever this is. I don’t even know what this watch is for,” I say as I examining my wrist, looking for that invisible bracelet.

“For God’s sake, Keith Matthew Bryson, adopted or biological, you are always my little brother, you understand me?”

She holds me with both hands, looking straight right into my eyes. There is only one correct answer, I nod at her. We hug for very long time, I almost forgot there is a girl with us, until she started to hum a melody, but still didn’t pay much attention towards us.

Kate apologies for her deception, telling me that we are now in this together, then asking me how I knew.

For some time, I’ve noticed some strange behavior and talking turning into whispers when I showed up. I eventually had to overhear one, I didn’t believe at first, but I started to think more about it. I noticed there was no photos of our mother being pregnant with me, but she had photos with all of my siblings.

I thought those distance feeling was just because the age difference, but our mother being pregnant with me again after so many years, it all became clear, it was just not an unplanned pregnancy, I just couldn’t be a biologic child.

The door opens again, someone has come to get us. We all stand up from ground, but that person is staring at the girl with a look of disbelief like something out of norm.

“The calculation is almost completed, Director,” the person says as the girl walks towards the door.

“Good, please escort Prime Inserter and Ms. Bryson to the briefing room, I will see you both there. Return this to Naomi for me,” the girl says.

She turns back to talk to us in English, although she does sound like a six year old, that person is taking the order seriously, almost as if scaring of the girl or the Director as she is called. She shelves that doll into the person’s hands before walking out of door.

“Oh, that is if you still want this temp job,” she pops her head back in.

Kate is staring at me with bulging eyes, I am sure that I have similar look on my face. We have no idea what the heck is going on.