Free Girl Fights Back (Go No Sen) (Emily Kane Adventures) by Jacques Antoine

like any
other. There is no magic pill, no special gene, no short cuts. Just a lot of
hard work.”
    “Those guys at the concert, is that
why they attacked us? Did they think I’m some sort of freak?”
    “I don’t know what they thought.
All the world thinks you’re my niece, with no special connection to Yuki. But
if our secret’s out, then we’re gonna have to approach things a bit differently
from now on.”
    It took Emily a
while to digest all this information. Her entire life seemed to have been
turned upside down. Everything she had grown up believing about herself and her
family, such as it was, had been snatched away from her. She felt dizzy. But
there was one comforting thought pulsating at the heart of all the confusion.
Whatever else might turn out to be false, she knew without a doubt Yuki loved
her. And now she knew why. She traded an abstract dream of a mother for the
absolute truth of her real mother. Her mother had been with her for her entire
life. Her mother loved her! Mei Li hadn’t cared enough to take her with her
when she ran out. She cast that canard into the oblivion it deserved and
embraced the mother who so palpably loved her. Emily’s feelings gradually
changed from perplexity and rage to a warm feeling of confidence verging on
joy.
    Yuki would have a similar
conversation with Cardano some time after they arrived in New Mexico. He needed
to know everything about her father’s research, about what the Chinese thought
he had done, and what Meacham and perhaps Burzynski were just now coming to
believe. He would not be able to protect them all effectively unless he had the
full story. He would also have to know the truth about Emily. He would be
shocked and angry, though mainly at himself for not guessing the truth about
her sooner. The news about the Chinese would be worse than he had suspected,
and he became fairly certain Meacham’s renewed interest in Yuki must have come
from something he learned about the Chinese program. This thought would change
his entire perspective about the plans he had made for them, for his family,
for everyone. It was clear that if they really believed there was a mutation
hidden among them, so to speak, they would stop at nothing to get control of
it.
    George asked Emily to take out the
papers in her pack. She rummaged through it and found a lot of cash, at least
twenty thousand, a safe deposit box key to a bank in West Virginia, a birth certificate,
a social security card and several passports. The birth certificate recorded
the live birth of a baby girl seventeen and a half years ago on a US military
base in Okinawa, Japan. Her name was listed as Michiko Tenno, which hearkened
back to the family name of Yuki’s maternal grandmother. They chose it to
conceal any connection to Yuki’s father. George Walker was given as the child’s
father, using his middle name, which was also his mother’s maiden name. They
had gone to great lengths to create a document she could use in perfect safety.
It was a valid birth certificate; she was really born there to those parents.
George was confident this identity would withstand careful scrutiny and not put
her in danger. This is who she truly is. She could safely go anywhere in the
world as Michiko Tenno, US citizen.
    One of the US passports identified
her as Michiko Tenno, as did the social security card. They were consistent
with the identity established in the birth certificate. This was a valid
passport, duly supported by the official State Department records. Two other US
passports and one British passport identified her as Emily Chung or Emily
Hsiao. A third US passport identified her as Emily Kane, born in Hawaii, but
the date of birth showed her to be now eighteen years old. These were very good
forgeries. She could probably get through a border control facility using one
of them. But if she were arrested and these passports examined closely, they
would probably be discovered to be fakes. One last passport, from