Why do we move houses every time someone in my family gets pregnant? I was 13 when I first noticed the pattern. My aunt Veronica announced her pregnancy at Sunday dinner, and within two weeks, we were packing boxes again. The moving truck showed up on a Thursday morning, same company as always, and my parents loaded our entire life into it without explaining why.
I asked my mom directly while folding clothes into suitcases, and she smiled, that tight smile she always used when avoiding truth. She said something about fresh starts and better opportunities, words that sounded rehearsed and hollow. I counted back through my memories and realized we’d moved six times in my life. Always suddenly, always without real explanation. My younger brother Dany was born in Oregon. My sister Melissa came along in Colorado.
I was born in Washington State according to my birth certificate, though I had no memories of living there. Each pregnancy in our extended family triggered the same response. A coordinated exodus that included my parents, my aunt and uncle, and my grandmother, who we called Grahams. We moved as a unit, always to small towns, always to rental houses that looked temporary even as we unpacked.
The new house in Montana sat at the end of a gravel road surrounded by pine trees and nothing else. The nearest neighbor was 3 mi away, exactly the kind of isolation my family seemed to prefer. My bedroom window faced the forest, and at night I’d watch the darkness between the trees and wonder what we were running from.
Aunt Veronica’s belly grew over the months, and with it came an intensity in the adults that I couldn’t name, but felt constantly. Graham started sleeping in the guest room instead of her apartment in town, claiming she wanted to help with the preparation. My dad installed new locks on all the doors, heavy deadbolts that seemed excessive for a rental in the middle of nowhere.
Mom stopped letting us walk to the main road to catch the school bus, driving us instead, even though it was only half a mile. The pregnancy became the center of everything. Disgusted in whispers that stopped when I entered rooms, monitored with a paranoia that felt clinical rather than excited. I started documenting the pattern in a notebook I kept hidden under my mattress. Six moves in 13 years, each one corresponding to a family pregnancy.
I wrote down every detail I could remember about each location, searching for connections. We’d lived in Washington, Oregon, Montana the first time, Colorado, Arizona, and now Montana again. Small towns, always rental houses, never purchases. My parents both worked remote jobs that allowed for sudden relocation. My dad in software development and my mom doing medical billing. Aunt Veronica and Uncle Philip worked similar flexible jobs, always ready to pack up and leave.
The coordination suggested planning, years of maintaining a lifestyle built around mobility. I found old address labels in a box in the garage, proof of our migration pattern, and photographed them with my phone. When I tried to search our previous addresses online, I found nothing unusual about any of the locations.
Just ordinary small towns scattered across the western United States. Aunt Veronica went into labor on a Saturday morning in December, 3 weeks before her due date. The panic that erupted in our house felt disproportionate to the situation. Graham started making phone calls from the kitchen. her voice low and urgent.
My dad disappeared into the garage and came back carrying a large duffel bag I’d never seen before. Mom told Melissa and Danny and me to stay in the living room and not come out, her tone allowing no questions. Through the window, I watched Uncle Philip help Aunt Veronica into their car, her face tight with pain and something else I couldn’t identify. Fear maybe, but not the normal fear of childbirth.
This was deeper, more specific, like she was heading towards something she’d been dreading. They drove away and my dad followed in our car with Grahams. Mom stayed behind with us kids, pacing the living room and checking her phone every 30 seconds. The hours crawled by without updates.
And when I asked what hospital they’d gone to, mom said it was better if I didn’t know. The baby was born that night, a girl they named Clare, but we didn’t see her for 3 days. My parents left Melissa and Danny and me with a neighbor I’d never met, a woman named Ruth, who lived in the house we’d passed on the way into town.
Ruth fed us casserles and let us watch television, but she watched us constantly with an attention that felt like guard duty rather than babysitting. When I asked when we’d see the baby, Ruth said soon, and changed the subject. My phone had no service at her house, which Ruth explained as a problem with the rural tower, though I suspected she’d blocked the signal somehow. On the third day, my parents returned looking exhausted and haunted.
They collected us without explanation and drove us back to our house, where Aunt Veronica sat in the living room holding a baby that didn’t look anything like the family. Clare had jet black hair when everyone in our family was blonde or light brown. Her features seemed wrong somehow, though I couldn’t articulate exactly how.
Aunt Veronica held her with the stiff awkwardness of someone handling a stranger’s child, and Uncle Philip wouldn’t look at the baby directly. And I tried to ask my parents about the discrepancy that night, framing it as casual curiosity about genetics and recessive traits. My dad’s face went completely blank, and he told me babies change appearance as they develop, and not to ask inappropriate questions.
But I’d seen newborns before, and something about Clare felt fundamentally off. I took a photo of her when Aunt Veronica wasn’t looking, wanting documentation of what I was seeing. Over the next week, the family’s behavior around Clare grew stranger. They took turns holding her with a mechanical rotation that seemed scheduled rather than natural.
No one cooed at her or called her pet names or did any of the normal things adults do with babies. Grahams kept a notebook where she recorded every feeding time and diaper change with clinical precision like she was monitoring a science experiment. When Clare cried, which was constantly, the adults responded with frustration rather than concern.
I caught my mom standing over the bassinet one night just staring at Clare with an expression I can only describe as resignation. The announcement came 2 weeks after Clare’s birth. We were moving again, this time to Idaho. The adults presented it as a job opportunity my dad couldn’t pass up, but I’d stopped believing the official explanations.
I watched them pack with the efficiency of people who’d practiced this routine too many times, sorting belongings into categories labeled essential and storage and dispose. The moving truck arrived before we’d even listed the rental house as available. We left Montana on a Wednesday morning, the entire caravan of vehicles heading west.
I sat in the back seat with Dany and Melissa, watching the trees pass and feeling the familiar displacement of another unexplained exodus. Clare screamed for the first 3 hours of the drive until Aunt Veronica gave her something from a dropper that made her sleep. When I asked what the medication was, Aunt Veronica said it was just infant gas drops, but the bottle had no label.
I photographed it when she set it down at a rest stop, zooming in on the unmarked brown glass. The Idaho house looked exactly like all the others. Three bedrooms, one bathroom, white walls, and cheap carpet. Rental furniture that came with the place, mismatched and worn. We settled into the same patterns as before.
School for us kids and remote work for the adults and that pervasive sense of temporary occupation. I started researching genetic conditions that might explain Clare’s appearance, thinking maybe there was a medical reason for the discrepancy. I found nothing that fit. Then I started researching adoption fraud and baby trafficking, letting my suspicions move into darker territory.
The search results terrified me with stories of stolen children and falsified documents and families living under assumed identities. I created a private folder on my phone for evidence, password protecting it and backing it up to a cloud service my parents couldn’t access. Every strange detail went into that folder.
Photos of Clare, screenshots of our address history, pictures of unmarked medication, notes about the timing of moves correlated with pregnancies. My friend Caitlyn from Montana and I stayed in touch through social media. And during one video chat, I carefully asked if she’d noticed anything odd about my family. Caitlyn said we’d always seemed nice, but really private, like we were hiding from something.
She mentioned that her mom had wondered why we moved so suddenly after the baby was born, especially since Aunt Veronica had seemed uncomfortable around Clare at the grocery store the one time they’d crossed paths. Caitlyn’s observation confirmed I wasn’t imagining things. Other people saw the stranges, too.
I asked if she remembered what hospital Aunt Veronica had gone to, and Caitlyn said her mom had asked around and couldn’t find any record of a birth at the county hospital. The baby seemed to have appeared without any official documentation of where or how. That detail struck me as the kind of red flag that should have prompted investigation, but in a small town where people minded their own business, it had apparently just slid by.
3 months into living in Idaho, I found the documents. I was looking for printer paper in the garage when I knocked over a box labeled tax records and papers spilled across the concrete floor. Most were boring financial documents, but one folder stood out. Inside were birth certificates for all five kids in our family, mine included. But the certificates looked wrong somehow.
The paper quality was too new, the printing too crisp for documents supposedly issued years or decades ago. I pulled mine out and examined it closely under the garage light. The seal looked slightly offcenter, and the signature from the attending physician was allegible in a way that suggested it wasn’t a real signature at all.
I photographed every certificate and put them back carefully, my hands shaking with the implication. If my birth certificate was fraudulent, what did that mean about my identity? Where had I actually been born? Who were my biological parents if not the people I’d called mom and dad my entire life? The thought spiraled into paranoia that consumed me for days.
I stared at my face in the mirror looking for features that matched my parents and found nothing definitive. Danny had our dad’s nose maybe, and Melissa had our mom’s eye shape, sort of. But the similarities felt generic rather than specific. I searched for photos of my parents as children and found almost nothing in the house.
The few pictures that existed showed them as teenagers or adults, never younger. Grahams had photos in her room, but when I tried to look through them while she was out, I found the albums were mostly empty. Pages torn out, leaving only adhesive residue. Someone had systematically removed evidence of the family’s past. I called the hospital listed on my birth certificate, claiming I needed records for a medical history assignment.
The receptionist searched their database and told me they had no record of any birth under my name or my mother’s name on that date. When I asked if records might have been lost, she said their digital system went back 30 years with no gaps. I thanked her and hung up, feeling my reality fracture further. Never. My 15th birthday came and went without celebration. The family too preoccupied with Clare to acknowledge the milestone.
I didn’t care about the party. I cared about the truth that seemed to be unraveling around me. I started watching my parents more carefully, noting how they interacted with us versus how other parents interacted with their children. They were attentive and caring, but there was something performative about it, like they were following a script of what parental love should look like.
They asked about school and helped with homework and cooked dinner. But beneath every interaction lay a distance I couldn’t quite name. When I hugged my mom, she hugged back, but it felt like she was hugging the idea of a daughter rather than me specifically.
The realization that my entire family might be built on lies made every normal moment feel like a performance I was trapped inside. Aunt Veronica got pregnant again, and this time I was waiting for the pattern. I marked the announcement date in my calendar and started counting down to when the move would happen. Sure enough, 6 weeks into her pregnancy. My dad came home talking about another incredible job opportunity, this time in New Mexico.
The speed of the decision confirmed my suspicions. These weren’t random relocations driven by career advancement. They were coordinated escapes timed precisely to family pregnancies. But what were we escaping from? Who would care enough about our pregnancies to chase us across multiple states? I thought about genetic experiments and government programs and criminal organizations. Each possibility seemed too dramatic to be real.
Yet, the evidence kept mounting that something profoundly wrong was happening. I needed more information, something concrete that would prove my suspicions weren’t just teenage paranoia. The opportunity came when my parents went to a doctor’s appointment with Aunt Veronica, leaving me responsible for watching Danny and Melissa.
I told them to play video games in the living room and went straight to my parents’ bedroom, where I’d noticed my dad kept a locked filing cabinet. I’d watched him open it once and memorized the combination. Four digits he’d entered quickly. 7329. The lock clicked open on my first try, and inside I found folders organized by year going back decades.
Each folder contained documents related to a different location we’d lived. Rental agreements, utility bills, school enrollment forms. But mixed in were other papers that made my stomach drop. Medical records from fertility clinics with notes about experimental protocols, and genetic modification trials.
Consent forms signed by my parents agreeing to participate in something called the Genesis program with compensation listed in amounts that seemed impossibly high. invoices from laboratories I’d never heard of, charging for specimen transport and cellular modification services. I photographed everything with my phone, working as fast as I could while listening for the sound of the garage door.
The Genesis program seemed to be the key, mentioned repeatedly across documents spanning years. I found a letter dated before I was born thanking my parents for their participation in phase 1 trials and confirming their successful delivery of subject one. Subject one, that was me. I was subject one.
The clinical language describing my existence made me feel like a product rather than a person. Another letter referenced Dany as subject two and Melissa as subject three. We weren’t their children. We were experimental subjects born from whatever this Genesis program had done to modify our genetics. The implications crashed over me in waves. Everything I’d believed about my identity was constructed.
My family wasn’t fleeing from danger. They were fleeing from whoever ran this program, taking their genetically modified children and running before someone could take us back. More documents filled in the horrifying picture. The Genesis program was a private research initiative funded by a corporation called Helixbridge Industries.
The program offered couples struggling with infertility a chance to have children through advanced genetic modification. Parents would be compensated generously, and in exchange, they’d participate in long-term monitoring of the children’s development.
The children themselves would be regularly assessed and tested, their biological data contributing to the research. What started as a fertility solution had apparently evolved into something darker. Later documents showed my parents expressing concerns about the level of monitoring required, objecting to invasive testing procedures, and increasingly controlling oversight from Helix Bridge representatives. A letter from 3 years ago showed them formally requesting to withdraw from the program.
The response from Helix Bridge was a legal threat, citing breach of contract and demanding return of all biological assets created through the program. That meant us. Helix Bridge considered us their property because we’d been created using their genetic modification technology. I found emails printed out and filed chronologically. Exchanges between my parents and someone named Dr.
Nathaniel Cross, who seemed to run the Genesis program. Cross’s early messages were professional and encouraging, discussing developmental milestones and genetic markers. But as my parents tried to pull away, his tone shifted to threatening. He reminded them that the children were only possible because of Helix Bridg’s proprietary genetic technology, making us intellectual property of the corporation. He stated that attempting to keep the children without fulfilling program obligations, constituted theft.
The most recent email dated just two months ago was chilling in its directness. Cross wrote that Helixbridge had invested millions in the Genesis program and wouldn’t allow its assets to simply disappear. He’d located our family multiple times over the years and each time we’d fled before he could arrange for proper assessment and documentation.
He wrote that our running was unsustainable and that eventually we’d be found and the children would be returned to appropriate oversight. The casual way he discussed taking children from their families made my hands shake while holding the printed pages. I heard the garage door open and shoved everything back into the filing cabinet, closing it and scrambling out of the bedroom.
I made it to the kitchen just as my parents walked in, forcing myself to look normal, while my mind raced with what I’d discovered. My mom asked if everything had been okay, and I said yes. Melissa and Danny had been perfect. I went to my room and immediately backed up all the new photos to my cloud storage, then started searching for information about Helixbridge Industries online.
The company’s official website portrayed them as a leader in reproductive health technology with cheerful photos of smiling families and testimonials about overcoming infertility. Nothing on the public site mentioned genetic modification or proprietary biological assets. I dug deeper, searching for news articles or legal filings related to Helix Bridge.
I found a few academic papers about advanced reproductive technology, but nothing that referenced the Genesis program specifically. Whatever they were doing, they’d kept it extremely quiet. That night at dinner, I watched my parents and aunt and uncle and Grahams with new understanding. They weren’t kidnappers or criminals.
They were desperate people trying to protect children from a corporation that viewed those children as products. Every move, every precaution, every moment of paranoia made sense now. They’d agreed to something they thought was a medical treatment, only to discover they’d signed away rights to their children’s autonomy. The realization that I was genetically modified hit me in waves throughout the meal.
What exactly had they changed in my DNA? What traits or characteristics had been artificially selected or enhanced? Did the modifications affect who I was as a person or were they just physical? The questions spiraled without answers, and I couldn’t ask them without revealing I’d found the documents. I needed to know more before confronting my parents. Needed to understand the full scope of what we were dealing with.
I created a new email address using a fake name and sent a message to Dr. Cross through the contact form on Helix Bridg’s website. I pretended to be a journalist researching reproductive technology and asked if he’d be willing to discuss the Genesis program. His response came within hours, much faster than I’d expected.
He said the Genesis program was proprietary research not available for public discussion, but he’d be happy to talk about Helix Bridg’s general approach to fertility treatment. He suggested a phone call and provided his direct number. The eagerness of his response felt predatory, like he’d been waiting for someone to show interest. I saved his number and started planning how to gather more information without revealing who I was.
I needed to understand what he wanted with us and whether there was any way to permanently escape Helix Bridg’s pursuit. Aunt Veronica’s pregnancy progressed, and with it came the familiar signs that another move was approaching. My parents started sorting belongings and researching housing in different states.
They had careful conversations in the kitchen late at night when they thought we were asleep, but I’d learned to position myself at the top of the stairs where I could hear everything. My dad talked about maybe going to Canada this time, putting an international border between us and Helix Bridge. My mom worried that crossing borders would leave a trail Helix Bridge could follow, that we were safer staying mobile within the United States.
Graham suggested they finally stop running and hire lawyers to fight Helix Bridge legally. But my dad said the contracts they’d signed were airtight, and any legal challenge would just give Helix Bridge time to find us. They discussed our lives like a military operation, calculating risk and timing and escape routes.
Listening to them, I felt both grateful for their protection and angry that they had created this situation in the first place. I called Dr. cross using a voicechanging app on my phone, disguising myself as an adult male reporter. He answered professionally and started describing Helix Bridg’s mission in corporate language about advancing human reproductive potential.
I asked specifically about genetic modification, framing it as a rumor I’d heard from competitors. Cross’s tone shifted slightly, becoming more guarded. He said Helix Bridge used cuttingedge technology to optimize embryionic development, correcting genetic defects and enhancing positive traits.
When I asked about long-term monitoring, he explained that children born through their program required ongoing assessment to ensure the modifications were functioning as intended. I asked what happened if families wanted to withdraw from monitoring and the silence that followed felt heavy. He finally said that families signed binding agreements understanding the special nature of children created through proprietary genetic technology.
He emphasized the word created, making it clear these children weren’t viewed as naturally occurring humans, but as products of controlled scientific processes. I pushed further, asking if Helix Bridge ever pursued families who tried to leave the program. Cross’s answer was careful but revealing. He said Helix Bridge had significant financial and intellectual property investments in each Genesis child and protecting those investments was a corporate responsibility.
He mentioned that several families had attempted to withdraw without authorization and Helix Bridge had successfully recovered the biological assets in each case through legal channels. Recovered. He used the word like we were stolen property. I asked what happened to children who were recovered and he said they were placed in specialized residential facilities where their development could be properly monitored and documented. Facilities, not homes, not families, institutions where genetically modified
children were studied like lab specimens. The conversation made me nauseous, but I kept my voice steady and thanked him for his time. He asked for my publication’s name, and I gave him a fake one, then ended the call before he could dig deeper. The recording of that conversation became my most valuable evidence. I’d captured Dr.
across essentially admitting that Helix Bridge tracked and retrieved children from families, treating them as corporate property. I uploaded the audio to my cloud storage and made multiple backup copies. Then I started searching for other Genesis families, thinking maybe we weren’t the only ones running.
I found a support group online for families dealing with fertility clinics, and I posted carefully worded questions about programs that required ongoing participation. A woman named Diane replied privately asking if I was talking about Helix Bridge. Her message was cautious, testing whether I was someone she could trust. I confirmed I was and she opened up about her experience with the Genesis program.
Her family had participated 6 years ago and she’d been trying to get away from Helix Bridg’s monitoring ever since. Diane told me about three other families she knew of who’d gone through Genesis. One family had successfully disappeared by moving to rural Alaska and living completely off-rid. Another family had been found by Helix Bridge and had their children removed through a legal proceeding Diane described as a nightmare.
The court had sided with Helix Bridge based on the contracts, declaring the parents had no legal right to withhold the children from required monitoring. The children were now in a facility in California and the parents were fighting to regain custody. The third family had hired expensive lawyers and was trying to negotiate a settlement where they could keep their children but provide regular medical data to Helix Bridge. Diane said she was considering the negotiation route, but worried it would never truly end, that Helix Bridge
would always have leverage over them. She asked where my family was located, and I gave her a false location. Not trusting even someone who seemed to understand our situation. Trust had become impossible in a world where corporations could legally claim ownership of human children. I showed the documents to Dany one night when our parents were out.
He was 11 now, old enough to understand, and I couldn’t carry this knowledge alone anymore. I spread out printed photos from my phone across his bedroom floor and walked him through what I’d found. Dany stared at the Genesis program papers with a blank expression that slowly shifted to horror.
He asked if it meant we weren’t real, and I told him we were absolutely real, just created differently than most people. He asked if it meant our parents didn’t love us, and I said I thought they did love us in their way, but they had also made choices that put us in danger. Dany cried, not dramatically, just quiet tears running down his face while he processed that his entire existence was the result of a corporate experiment.
I told him about Helix Bridge trying to find us, about the residential facilities where they kept recovered children. He asked what we should do and I said I didn’t know yet but we needed to figure it out together. Melissa was harder to convince. At 9 years old, she couldn’t fully grasp the implications and when I tried to explain, she got angry and accused me of making up stories to scare her. She ran to our mom and told her I was saying weird things about her not being their real daughter.
My mom pulled me aside with a panicked expression and asked what I’d told Melissa. I said I’d been talking about genetics for a school project, which was technically true, and Melissa had misunderstood. My mom’s relief was visible, but beneath it, I saw the fear that came from knowing I was getting close to the truth.
She told me to be careful what I discussed with my younger siblings, that they weren’t ready for complicated scientific concepts. The warning felt less about education and more about maintaining the family’s elaborate lies. I apologized and promised to be more careful, already planning how to approach Melissa differently when she was ready. The move to New Mexico happened quickly, announced suddenly, and executed within 10 days.
We packed up the Idaho house and drove south in the same caravan formation we always used. Aunt Veronica was 5 months pregnant now, obviously showing, and the tension radiating from her was intense. She spent the entire drive clutching her belly with one hand and her phone with the other, checking something compulsively.
When we stopped for gas, I saw her looking at a tracking app that showed nearby vehicles. I realized she was searching for anyone following us, paranoid that Helix Bridge had found us again. The realization that she’d been living with this fear through multiple pregnancies made me understand the haunted look she always carried. Every pregnancy meant another move.
Another child who would be born into this system. Another reason for Helix Bridge to hunt us. The cycle was unsustainable and I wondered how long my parents planned to keep running. The New Mexico house was adobe style set in high desert surrounded by red rock and scrub brush. It was the most isolated location yet.
20 m from the nearest town accessible only by a dirt road that wound through empty landscape. Cell phone service was non-existent without a signal booster my dad installed and the internet came through satellite with frustrating delays. The isolation felt intentional, chosen specifically to make us harder to find.
My dad installed security cameras around the property, pointing in all directions to catch any approaching vehicles. Graham set up a police scanner that played constantly in the kitchen, monitoring law enforcement activity in the region. The preparations felt like we were building a fortress, and in a way, we were. This was where Aunt Veronica would have her baby, and my parents seemed determined that this time, Helix Bridge wouldn’t find us until after the birth was completed, and we’d already moved again.
I spent my 16th birthday helping unpack boxes, and trying to make the adobe house feel less like a bunker. Dany had withdrawn into himself since learning the truth, speaking less, and spending hours staring out windows at the empty desert. I worried about the psychological impact of knowing you were genetically modified, created rather than conceived naturally.
Did it change your sense of self to know your DNA had been deliberately altered? I researched online, finding academic discussions about the ethics of genetic enhancement and the philosophical implications of designer babies. Most of it was theoretical, written by bioethicists who’d never had to live as the actual product of such technology.
None of it helped me understand who I was or whether the modifications made me different in ways I couldn’t perceive. I looked at my reflection and wondered what traits had been selected before I was even an embryo. intelligence, athletic ability, physical appearance. The uncertainty felt worse than knowing.
Aunt Veronica went into labor on a January night during a winter storm that cut off all access to the property. The dirt road became impassible with snow, and the landline phone went dead from ice on the wires. My parents and Grams went into crisis mode, transforming the dining room into a makeshift delivery area with sterilized sheets and medical supplies I didn’t know we owned.
My mom turned out to have nursing training, something she’d never mentioned before. and she guided Aunt Veronica through the labor with professional competence. My dad kept watch at the windows with binoculars, scanning for any vehicles attempting to reach us despite the storm. I stayed with Danny and Melissa in the living room, listening to Aunt Veronica’s screams and feeling helpless.
Hours passed, intense silence punctuated by medical updates shouted from the dining room. The baby came just before dawn, born in our isolated desert fortress, with only family present. This baby looked like family. She had the same light brown hair as Uncle Philip, the same nose shape as Aunt Veronica. They named her Sophie, and the relief in the room was palpable.
Unlike Clare, who’d felt wrong from the beginning, Sophie seemed genuinely theirs. I realized with horror what must have happened with Clare. That baby probably hadn’t been Aunt Veronica’s biological child at all. Felix Bridge had likely found them during that pregnancy and somehow substituted a baby, either taking Aunt Veronica’s biological child or preventing the pregnancy from resulting in a Genesis baby they could track.
The substitution explained the discrepancy in appearance and the family’s strange behavior around Clare. I wanted to ask about it directly, but couldn’t without admitting I knew far more than I should. Instead, I watched how differently they treated Sophie, the genuine affection and connection that had been absent with Clare, and felt sick about what might have happened to the real baby if there had been one.
I took a risk and searched for Clare online, looking for any record of a baby by that name born in Montana during the time frame. I found nothing in public records, no birth certificate filed, no hospital records. Clare had appeared without documentation and would presumably disappear the same way if Helix Bridge decided to take her back.
The thought of a baby being used as a tracking device or placeholder made me furious at the system my parents had gotten entangled with. They’d wanted children and instead they’d become participants in a program that treated humans as intellectual property. Every choice they’d made to escape had dragged more people into the nightmare.
Sophie was now part of the Genesis program by virtue of being born to participants, which meant she’d face the same monitoring and control we all experienced. The cycle continued, generating more children who’d have to run or be recovered. 3 weeks after Sophie’s birth, a car appeared on our security cameras. It came slowly up the dirt road, a black SUV with tinted windows and out of state plates.
My dad saw it first on the monitor in the kitchen and immediately started yelling for everyone to pack emergency bags. We’d practiced this drill before without understanding why. Now I knew this was Helix Bridge finding us again. My mom grabbed Sophie from the bassinet while Aunt Veronica threw clothes and supplies into a duffel bag.
Uncle Philip and my dad were already loading the cars in the garage, working with the speed of people who’d rehearsed this exact scenario. Grahams hearded me and Danny and Melissa toward the garage, telling us to grab only what we could carry in one trip. I snatched my phone and the notebook hidden under my mattress, the only things that mattered. We piled into two vehicles and left through a back trail I hadn’t known existed.
A rough path through the desert that barely qualified as a road. The black SUV reached the house just as we turned onto the highway 20 m away. I watched through the rear window as two men got out and approached the empty adobe building. we’d lived in for less than 2 months.
They’d tracked us somehow, probably through medical records or financial transactions or any of a dozen digital trails we couldn’t avoid leaving. My dad drove fast, pushing the speed limit and watching the rearview mirror constantly. We headed east with no specific destination, just distance between us and the men who wanted to recover their biological assets.
That night, we stopped at a motel in Texas, paying cash and registering under false names. The six adults and four children crammed into two adjoining rooms, everyone too wired to sleep. My parents and aunt and uncle had a whispered argument in the bathroom about what to do next. I heard my dad saying they couldn’t keep running forever, that eventually Helix Bridge would corner us somewhere we couldn’t escape.
I made the decision that night to take control of the situation myself. I was 16, old enough to act, and I had evidence that could potentially expose what Helix Bridge was doing. I waited until everyone was asleep, then took my phone to the motel parking lot and called the number for Diane, the woman from the online support group. She answered on the fourth ring, sounding groggy.
I apologized for the late hour and told her my family had just fled our house because Helix Bridge found us. She became immediately alert and started asking questions. I told her everything about the documents I’d found, about Dr. Cross’s admission that they recovered children, about Clare being substituted and Sophie being born into the program.
Diane listened and then said she knew a lawyer who specialized in bioeththics cases, someone who’d been trying to build a case against Helix Bridge for years, but needed families willing to testify. She gave me a name, Patricia Lel, and a phone number. She said Lel worked with a nonprofit focused on protecting human rights in genetic research.
I called Patricia Lel the next morning from a rest stop while my family was buying breakfast. She answered with a professional greeting and I launched into the situation as clearly as I could manage. I explained about the Genesis program, about the contracts that gave Helixbridge ownership of children, about the recoveries and facilities and forced monitoring.
Patricia asked careful questions, probing for details and evidence. I told her about the documents I’d photographed and the recording of Dr. Cross. She became very interested when I mentioned the recording, saying direct admission from a Helix Bridge executive would be powerful evidence. She explained that she’d been working on a class action lawsuit against Helix Bridge for 3 years, gathering families willing to challenge the Genesis program contracts.
The case argued that contracts granting ownership of human beings were unconstitutional and void, regardless of the genetic modification involved. She needed more families to join the suit to establish a pattern of abuse and make Helix Bridg’s practices undeniable. I asked what would happen to us if we joined the lawsuit, and Patricia was honest about the risks. Helix Bridge would fight aggressively, using their resources to drag out proceedings and intimidate families.
We’d have to testify about our experiences, which would mean revealing our locations and making us findable. The legal process could take years, and there was no guarantee of winning. But if we did win, the president would protect not just Genesis families, but potentially anyone involved in genetic modification programs in the future.
She said the case was bigger than any individual family, that it would set boundaries for how corporations could interact with human genetic material. I told her I needed to discuss it with my parents, and she said to call back whenever I was ready. She gave me her personal cell number and said she was available anytime, day or night. The call felt like the first step towards something other than endless running.
Convincing my parents was harder than I’d anticipated. That evening at the motel, I told them I knew about the Genesis program and Helix Bridge and everything. My mom’s face went white and my dad started to speak, but I cut him off. I said I’d found the documents, talked to Dr. Cross, recorded his admission, and contacted a lawyer.
I spread out my phone showing the evidence I’d compiled, making it clear this wasn’t a conversation where they could deflect or lie anymore. The silence that followed felt eternal. My mom finally asked how long I’d known, and I told her months. She started crying, apologizing for getting us into this situation, for making choices she couldn’t reverse.
My dad sat heavily on the bed and put his head in his hands. Grahams looked at me with something like respect, saying I’d done good work documenting everything. Aunt Veronica and Uncle Philip just looked defeated, like they’d known eventually the truth would come out. I told them about Patricia Lel and the lawsuit. I explained that we had a chance to fight back instead of just running forever.
My dad immediately said it was too dangerous, that exposing ourselves would give Helixbridge the opportunity to take us. I argued that they’d found us anyway, that running wasn’t working, that we needed to try a different approach. I said I was tired of moving every time someone got pregnant. Tired of living in fear.
Tired of being treated like property instead of a person. Dany spoke up, supporting me, saying he’d rather fight than hide. Even Melissa, who hadn’t wanted to believe any of it, said she was scared of moving again. My parents exchanged a long look that seemed to communicate an entire conversation. My mom finally nodded, and my dad pulled out his phone to call Patricia Lel.
The decision was made. We were done running. We were going to fight. Patricia met us at a law office in Dallas 3 days later. She’d brought two associates and a stack of paperwork that documented the class action suit in meticulous detail. 10 families were already involved and she needed at least five more to meet the threshold for class certification.
Our participation would bring the total to 11, putting them over halfway to their goal. She explained the legal strategy which focused on two arguments. First, that contracts granting ownership of human beings violated fundamental constitutional rights regardless of how those humans were created.
second that Helix Bridge had engaged in coercive and fraudulent practices by not fully disclosing the extent of monitoring and control they’d require. She showed us testimony from other families describing invasive testing, psychological manipulation, and threats when they tried to withdraw. The pattern of abuse was clear and documented. Patricia said, “We had a real chance of winning, especially with Dr.
Cross’s recorded admission and the documentation I’d gathered.” The lawsuit was filed in federal court 2 weeks later with our family joining as plaintiffs alongside the others. The media attention was immediate and intense. News organizations picked up the story of families fighting a corporation that claimed ownership of genetically modified children.
Public opinion split sharply with some people supporting our right to autonomy and others arguing that Helix Bridge had legitimate intellectual property interests in their genetic modifications. Bioethicists weighed in on both sides. Religious groups condemned genetic modification as playing God.
Tech libertarians defended Helix Bridg’s right to protect their innovations. The case became a national debate about the intersection of technology, corporate power, and human rights. Our names were public now, which meant hiding was no longer an option. Patricia arranged for protective orders and security consultations, and we moved into temporary housing provided by the nonprofit funding the lawsuit.
Helix Bridg’s response was swift and brutal. Their lawyers filed motions to dismiss, arguing the contracts were valid and enforceable. They claimed the families had entered agreements voluntarily with full knowledge of terms and were now trying to reneg on obligations they’d willingly accepted.
They portrayed themselves as victims of theft, saying the families had benefited from expensive genetic modification technology and were now refusing to fulfill their end of the bargain. They filed counter claims seeking return of the children to appropriate oversight, essentially demanding custody. The legal arguments on both sides were complex involving contract law, constitutional rights, property law, and bioeththics.
The judge assigned to the case seemed overwhelmed by the novel questions, and hearings stretched across months as both sides presented expert witnesses and arguments. I testified in a preliminary hearing about finding the documents and my conversation with Dr. Cross.
Sitting in the witness box at 16 years old, describing how a corporate executive had casually discussed recovering children like they were lost inventory felt surreal. Felix Bridg’s lawyer tried to discredit me, suggesting I’d misunderstood Dr. Cross or taken his words out of context. I played the recording in court, letting his voice fill the room with phrases like biological assets and specialized residential facilities. The judge listened with an increasingly troubled expression.
When the recording ended, she looked at Helix Bridg’s legal team and asked point blank whether their client was housing children in institutional settings against their parents’ wishes. The lawyer gave a careful non-answer about protecting research investments, which basically confirmed everything.
The preliminary ruling went in our favor with the judge stating that Helix Bridg’s practices raised serious constitutional concerns that warranted full trial. The trial itself lasted 6 weeks and became a media spectacle. Families testified about their experiences with the Genesis program, describing the initial promise of overcoming infertility and the subsequent nightmare of corporate control.
Expert witnesses debated whether genetic modifications made children fundamentally different from naturally conceived humans. Bioethicists argued about where to draw lines around corporate ownership of modified genetic material. Psychologists testified about the trauma of being treated as property. Helix Bridge brought their own experts arguing about the billions invested in research and the need to protect intellectual property rights.
They claimed that without strong protections, corporations would stop funding genetic research, depriving infertile couples of potential treatments. The arguments were sophisticated and nuanced, making it clear this case would set major precedents regardless of how it was decided. The jury deliberated for 4 days before reaching a verdict.
We waited in the courthouse cafeteria, unable to eat or focus on anything else. When the baiff finally called us back to the courtroom, my heart was racing so hard I thought I might pass out. The jury foreman stood and read the verdict. They found in favor of the plaintiffs on all major claims.
The contracts were void as unconstitutional attempts to establish ownership over human beings. Helix Bridg’s monitoring requirements were ruled coercive and unlawful. The practices of recovering children and housing them in facilities were declared violations of fundamental human rights. The jury awarded damages to each family and issued injunctions preventing Helix Bridge from pursuing or contacting any Genesis families without their explicit consent. The courtroom erupted in reactions. Families crying with relief.
Reporters rushing to file stories. Helix Bridg’s lawyers immediately announcing they’d appeal. But for that moment, we’d won. Helix Bridge did appeal and the case went to the circuit court, then ultimately to the Supreme Court on narrow questions about genetic modification and property rights.
The appeals took two more years during which we lived in constant uncertainty about whether the verdict would be upheld. But finally, the Supreme Court issued a ruling that affirmed the lower court’s decision in strong language. The opinion stated that genetic modification of human embryos, regardless of complexity, did not create corporate ownership rights over the resulting children.
The court declared that human beings could never be property under the constitution, and contracts attempting to establish such relationships were void on their face. The ruling was celebrated by human rights organizations and condemned by some biotech companies, but it stood.
The Genesis program was officially shut down and Helix Bridge faced criminal investigations in multiple states for their practices. We stopped moving. My family bought a house in Colorado, the first property we’d ever owned, and we settled into a normal life with astonishing normality. I graduated high school, applied to colleges, made plans for a future that wasn’t defined by running.
Dany and Melissa adjusted more slowly, carrying psychological scars from years of instability, but therapy helped. Sophie grew up knowing her story, but free from the fear that had defined the rest of our childhoods. Aunt Veronica had another baby 2 years after the verdict. And this time, there was no move, no panic, just normal pregnancy and normal joy.
The pattern that had defined our existence was finally broken, and the freedom felt almost disorienting at first. I stayed in contact with the other Genesis families through a private support group we created. We shared our experiences adapting to normal life and supporting each other through the lingering trauma. Some families stayed together, strengthened by what they’d survived.
Others fractured under the strain of secrets and fear. I learned that Clare had been returned to Aunt Veronica and Uncle Philip by Helix Bridge after the verdict. Though building a relationship with a child who’d spent her formative years in institutional care proved complicated and heartbreaking, the system had failed these children in ways that couldn’t be fully repaired. But at least now they were free.
I wrote a book about my experience, published when I turned 21, hoping to document what had happened and prevent similar programs from emerging. The genetic modification debate continued in academic and legislative circles. But at least there were clear legal boundaries now about treating modified humans as autonomous individuals with full rights. We’d stopped running and that simple fact felt like the greatest victory possible.