“Like the general who incarcerated our royal family—our king, queen, and their four children—and planned to execute them? Starla and David are heroes to us. They saved the royal family by killing the general,” Edrian told her.
“Then why are they on the run and considered traitors according to Earth’s leaders?” Seventeen asked.
“Before she arrived here, Starla overheard your scientists talking. You have an implant in your wrist?”
She frowned. It seemed Two had spilled everything. So she is a traitor after all.
“No, she is no traitor. She told us why you have them. You are to activate it after an assignment or if you are captured. Supposedly it will erase your memories of the mission. Am I right?” Edrian prodded.
She nodded. How much more had Two told them, and why would she give these people classified information?
“Were you to activate that microchip now, you would die instantly.”
“I don’t believe you. Why would they train us for so many years, only to kill us off after the first mission?” Then again, why would Schultz send me on a mission without a way to contact him or bring me back?
“I do not know. We helped to remove the microchips from your friends’ wrists and then sent the implants to our science facility for testing. There was a tiny needle embedded in the device and a minuscule capsule that contained a deadly poison. When activated, it would shoot the contents of the microcapsule directly into your artery causing instant death.”
Seventeen looked from Edrian to Timyt and back again, scrutinizing their faces. Were they telling her the truth? Maybe they were. Like Two and Four, if she knew she would die after her mission was completed, she’d find some way to escape. She had waited too long to finally be free of the confines of the Institute, but was the price of that freedom death?
“Yes, we speak true. I can fetch Starla and David and bring them back here to talk to you tomorrow. It will not take me long. As you have experienced, I fly fast.” Edrian smiled.
His smile was melting her heart, but she hardened herself against his charm. She found it all too much to believe. For the Institute, the doctors, to spend all that time and money on each recruit, only to terminate them after their first mission? It didn’t make any sense. Neither does leaving me stranded on an alien planet. I am the only trainee to have completely mastered the cybernetic suit and wings, and they would want me dead?
“Yes, I’d like to speak to them.” Seventeen had more questions than answers.
“I will fetch them at first daylight,” Edrian said. “Now, I am going to bed. It has been a long day.”
“I’m right there with you, buddy.” It had been an exhausting day. And if the shaft of moonlight drifting through the window was any indication, it was late. Much later than her usual lights-out.
“You are going to bed with me?”
Oh hell. I have to watch what I say and how I say it. Though the idea was intriguing, Seventeen had never slept next to another person before, much less with a man that stirred her blood and made her skin prickle with just a look. Enough! She was beginning to think that her reproductive system was no longer dormant. Her hormones had to be raging out of control to cause such a reaction. “My bed, thank you.”
“You want me to go to your bed?” His smiled widened, and his eyes sparkled with mirth.
He was having fun with her. No one had ever teased her before. She almost grinned back but stopped herself. Don’t give in to it, girl. “Goodnight, Timyt, Edrian.” She hurriedly made her escape to her room.
The bed was a hell of a lot more comfortable than the cot in her room at the Institute. It felt like she was lying on a cloud, it was so soft. Curling up, she snuggled the comforter around her. But sleep didn’t come that easily. Everything Edrian and his father had told her that night constantly flashed through her mind. If Edrian was really going to get Two and Four tomorrow, maybe they could help her make sense of it all.
Seventeen had no idea what Four looked like, but she conjured Two’s pretty face up in her mind. She’d often watched Two at work with the younger trainees and admired her grace and beauty. Imagining herself pointing her phaser at Two, shooting her, and seeing her reduced to a little pile of dust, caused her stomach to roil. She shivered. There was no way she could do it, not even from a distance.
A vision of Edrian’s face invaded her dark thoughts, his sexy smile, his flashing gold-green eyes, his hotter than hell body, and she squirmed. Deep down she wished for his arms, for him to be beside her, to love her and kiss her. Love? She’d never known it. Was this love? Had she fallen for the first hot guy she’d met? A dragon?
The science teacher had taught them that sex was basically a primal instinct to be practiced only for procreation. That romance and love were myths invented by the movie industry, and attraction was merely the excretion of pheromones. None of the recruits would need to worry about it because their cycles and reproductive systems had been made dormant with an implant.
What was wrong with her then? Why did she feel this strong attraction to the dragon? What caused that ache in her crotch? Or the strange feelings in her belly?
For the life of her, she couldn’t figure it out. Yes, he was hot, but he was annoying, obnoxious, overbearingly bossy, and a bully. And he’s a dragon...
Chapter Four
Seventeen couldn’t remember sleeping so comfortably or so sound in her whole life. Peeking around the edge of her door, she didn’t see anyone, and the bathroom door was open. After gathering her clothing, she quickly dashed across the hall.
The shower stall was huge, and Seventeen took a few moments to appreciate the luxury. It felt heavenly to wash her body with the pleasant-smelling soap and her hair with real shampoo instead of the rough, green stuff they were given in the Institute.
The whole family was already at the breakfast table when she entered the kitchen. She stopped in her tracks just inside the doorway, shocked when she saw Two at the table. Next to her sat a handsome young man. He had to be Four. “Two?”
Two pushed her chair back and ran toward her. For the first time in her life, Seventeen experienced a tight embrace. It felt strange. She stood stiffly within the circle of Two’s arms, not sure how to react.
Affection—touching, a way to spread germs and disease. Yet it felt right, it felt good to be so warmly greeted and hugged by someone she knew. Well, sort of knew. What did she really know about Two? Not much, except that Schultz had labeled her a traitor.
“Come and eat first. Then we’ll talk.” Two pulled her to the table and the empty chair next to her.
“I got up very early and brought them back here to talk with you.” Edrian handed her a glass of juice.
“You’ve just made my assignment a lot easier,” Seventeen mumbled, though she regretted the words immediately. She’d pretty much decided that killing people was not for her. Especially offing someone she knew.
“Yes? And how? You have no weapons.”
She felt decidedly uncomfortable. Sitting there eating breakfast, next to both her targets, and they obviously knew why she was there. The food smelled wonderful, but she’d lost most of her appetite. To kill someone from a distance was easy. But sitting here socializing with them—specifically Two—made her task a lot harder, especially after the friendly hug Two had just given her. Four was different because she’d never seen him before. He was a complete stranger. Two, she’d known her whole life... well, sort of.
Two nudged her out of her musing. “Seventeen, we know why you’re here. After breakfast, we’ll talk. Just the three of us. Eat your breakfast. Bidiana is a great cook, and the food is to die for. Nothing like the cardboard stuff we used to get in the Institute.”
“The food wasn’t that bad. Don’t forget what conditions on Earth are like—too many people, not enough food, and a lot of crops are contaminated by insecticides and stuff. The doctors were looking after our best interest.” She watched Two load her plate and won
dered how she’d eat all of it.
“Not what they gave us at the Institute. It was all supposed to be super healthy, but I guarantee a lot of it was prepared from freeze-dried products and powders. We only ever had chicken, and that’s because they bred their own. And only twice a week, a tiny piece for each for each of us,” Two said while buttering a chunk of bread.
Seventeen had no idea why she was having this conversation. The food in the Institute was tasteless, and they each got very small portions. She ate some of what looked like scrambled eggs and a piece of sausage that was on her plate. The bread was still warm. Bidiana had to have baked it that morning, and it tasted so good she had two pieces of it.
After almost everyone had left the table, Edrian asked, “Do you mind if I join the three of you? Let us go for a walk and talk outside.”
He led them to a small park. Several stone tables with flat rocks as seats stood near the edge. He pointed at one of the tables and set a jug filled with juice on it, along with some glasses. “This should do.”
After the four of them sat, Two began the portentous conversation. “Seventeen, you are here to kill us, right?”
Seventeen looked at Two’s beautiful face and nodded. Two’s eyes showed a kind expression in them. She didn’t seem at all like the hardened killer she was trained to be.
She felt the need to be brutally honest. “Yes, I am. Doctor Schultz told me you have both defected. It is an act of treason, punishable by death. We were taught that from when we were young.”
Two reached across the table and held Four’s hand. “David and I chose to live. That’s a very different matter from defection. Choosing life over death can hardly be called treason.”
Seventeen didn’t miss the interplay between the two. There was much more than camaraderie between them. “Edrian told me the implant in our wrists is not to wipe our memory of a mission but to poison us.”
“It is true. I overheard an argument between Schultz and Schmidt about the implants. The memory wipe is a lie.” She released Four’s hand and rubbed her face. She seemed agitated, almost upset. “I should have tried to find a way to tell everyone, but I was afraid no one would believe me or worse, Schultz or Schmidt would find out what I knew.
“We are a highly kept secret group of eliminators, and neither the Institute nor WLO will take any chance of the population on Earth or other planets finding out about us. In the case of Four’s and my mission, we would have been found dead at the scene, proving without a shadow of doubt who killed the general. The dead can’t talk. WLO and the doctors had already given us fake identities. Four would have been remembered as impersonating General Robert Winston, and I was posing as a princess from a fictional planet. No one would be the wiser of our origins, except that Four was from Earth and I was from the planet Afrania.”
“Edrian said you are regarded as heroes. Your mission was completed successfully.”
“Here, yes. But the general I killed was in league with others on Earth, and the powers that be have a plan to take over Brevona. Knowledge of who we are would interfere with their plans. Can you imagine the interplanetary uproar if the Institute and its work were no longer top secret?”
Seventeen thought about the implications of what Two was saying. Earth’s people would be known as barbarians for the treatment and experimentation the Institute conducted on children and babies. Though the Institute was the only family she knew, the atrocities they performed in the name of science and world protection made her sick. Some of the trainees had been remodified to such an extent they were more machine than human.
“You’re not making sense. Why would Schultz send you to kill the general if the end goal is eliminating the royal family from power? What exactly was your assignment?”
“The general was going to execute the king and queen and their four children. The powers that be didn’t want that. Also, the general had plans of his own that did not include Earth’s ultimate goal—to take over Brevona. But I don’t even want to think about that episode in my life anymore, let alone talk about it. To summarize, David and I had to attend a celebration where I could get close to the general. He was a sex crazy pig. I had to seduce him that evening and then kill him while he had his way with me.” Her body trembled, a repulsed look twisting her features.
“Oh my God! Did you... I mean...”
“I don’t want to describe what happened. I wish I could wipe that from my memory.”
The tear that slid down Two’s cheek could not be faked. Not from an assassin that had been trained to hide their emotions. It wrenched her heart to see the woman in such pain. She wanted to reach out, console her in some way, but she didn’t know how. The feeling confused her. It was almost as if her heart had been ripped open.
“I’m sorry, Two.”
“Please... Call me Starla. David and I both remembered our names from before we became recruits.” Starla wiped the tear from her cheek and continued her story. “I had explained to David about the implant, and what it would do to us. Like you, he didn’t believe me at first, but after I killed Nimera, he figured out what Schultz, Schmidt, and WLO had planned. The guards would find the general murdered and us both dead at the scene. It would be explained that we voluntarily committed suicide. It makes me ill to think that’s what happened to the young women the Institute already sent out on missions on Earth over the past few years. If they’d known about the poisonous microchip, I doubt they would have activated it. David and I chose to live and decided to escape.”
Seventeen’s mind was swirling with the implications of what she was hearing. “The Brevonian government isn’t hunting you anymore? I understand you saved the royal family from death, but what about the general’s men and the others that were in league with him?”
Edrian chipped in. “The king called off the search for Starla and David upon learning that they would be in danger from their own people. He wished to reward them for their actions and decreed they are free to start a new life here on Brevona. The rebels are being taken care of, and now that you are here with us, the threat to Starla and David has been eliminated.”
The threat from her had been eliminated but not the danger from the Institute. Seventeen had no doubt that Schultz would send another assassin to take her place. And now she would be a target as well.
Seventeen studied David for a moment. He was a nice-looking man with honest, very blue eyes. She glanced from David to Starla, then back again. “I don’t understand how you could remember your names. Your memories were wiped when you came to the Institute. I was a baby, so I have no memories at all from before the Institute. David, what do you think of all this?”
“Apparently not all memories were erased. I remember quite a bit, and Starla has flashes of images.” He gave her a kind smile. “What do I think? At first, I thought Starla’s story was crazy. I didn’t want to believe it, but on the other hand, I wasn’t about to test her story and activate the implant. Like Starla, I didn’t have a death wish. Edrian had their physician remove the implants and took them to their scientists. They proved that they contained a microscopic capsule filled with poison that when activated would kill us instantly.” He showed her his right wrist.
Seventeen saw a small scar, about half an inch long. “How did Schultz and Schmidt find out that you escaped?”
Starla answered her question. “The delegates from Earth that were invited to attend the celebration. David impersonated one of them. The other two were General Fitzgerald and Sir Forsythe, also members of WLO. David arrived the conventional way, in a ship. Schultz sent me via the portal, as you know. The delegates were to stay on Brevona for a week, witness the execution of the royal family, and attend the celebration for the crowning of the general. When Fitzgerald and Forsythe returned to Earth, they would have reported everything to the world leaders, including the fact that David did not come back with them.” Starla heaved a sigh. “Which was the plan all along, but we were supposed to be found dead on the s
cene. The news spread fast that we killed the general. Forsythe and Fitzgerald would have passed the information to WLO who, in turn, would have informed Schultz and Schmidt.”
She was beginning to believe Starla’s crazy story, and she was starting to think of her as Starla. Two was just a number. A designation the Institute had given each of them based on order of arrival.
“I was shocked that Schultz was sending me to kill two of our own. It didn’t sit well with me. But I dared not question the order. He told me you had defected and were traitors.”
Starla patted her hand, a look of understanding on her face. “To refuse a mission or argue with the doctors would have caused your disappearance. You know that some of the girls vanished suddenly without us ever knowing what happened to them. I suspect now that they rebelled against the rules, or argued, and were eliminated. Had you refused to kill us, the same would have happened to you.”
David cleared his throat. “Starla and I have talked a great deal over the last few weeks. What the doctors are doing is reprehensible. They are taking children, possibly abducting them, experimenting on them, then brainwashing and training them to become ruthless killers.”
Seventeen had to agree. Though she knew no other life, she hated the Institute and what it stood for. Her only taste of freedom had been her flight training, and she had longed to escape the doctors’ clutches. Fear of the unknown, and having nowhere to go, had kept her from taking off—and loyalty to the other trainees.
Starla poured a glass of lemonade, then told her, “Before I left, I managed to steal a piece of kohl from the makeup kit in wardrobe. On the way to the portal, we ran into Twelve. I hugged her and quickly wrote a warning message about the implant inside her good hand. I’d hoped to warn her so she could warn the others. I know it may have been too late. Has she been sent out on an assignment?”
Virama Page 4
