United

by Melissa Landers

  Chapter Seven

  From her window in the backseat, Cara noticed Central Park approaching. She reached forward and grabbed Aelyx’s arm. “Wait, stop the shuttle.”

  He slowed to a midair halt and turned to face her, his chrome eyes searching her as if checking for damage. “What’s wrong?”

  “Where’re we going?”

  “To the safe house.”

  “Why?”

  “Well,” he said in the patronizing voice of a kindergarten teacher, “Aisly just signed your death warrant—”

  Troy raised his hand. “And I might’ve committed treason.”

  “—so I’m taking us where we’re least likely to be shot on sight.”

  “But we’re invisible,” Cara pointed out. “And the shuttle’s quieter than most taxis. As noisy as the city streets are, no one will hear us.”

  Elle caught on, sitting up straighter. “So why not go back and look for Aisly? If she took the stairs from the thirtieth floor, she couldn’t have gone far.”

  “I remember what she’s wearing,” Cara said. “Gray shirt, black leggings. If we hurry, we can find her. She might lead us to Jaxen.”

  Syrine massaged her temples again. She’d been doing that ever since Aisly attacked her in the stairwell. “Forget her; she’s gone. I think we should go to the safe house before your president announces what Aisly put in her head. The soldiers might not help us after that. Larish is still there, and all of our things.”

  “I’ll call Colonel Rutter and explain what happened,” Cara said. She leaned forward and squeezed Aelyx’s arm. “We might never get this chance again.”

  He didn’t reply, but instead gripped the wheel and made a hard left turn that tipped her sideways. The shuttle rocketed back to the United Nations building, and in seconds they were floating above a traffic jam of police cruisers, fire trucks, SWAT vans, and armored cars. High above them, helicopters swept the city skies, but Cara kept her gaze fixed on the sidewalks, searching for Aisly’s petite frame and her long, brown ponytail.

  Troy pressed his forehead to the front passenger window. “I don’t see anything this way.”

  “Same here.” Cara glanced through the windshield. “Make a left at this intersection, and we’ll try the next block.”

  They didn’t find Aisly there either. To give them a wider view of the surrounding streets, Aelyx lifted the shuttle, and Cara squinted at the people below, scanning for anyone in gray. She was starting to worry Aisly had taken a cab when Troy tapped an index finger against his window and said, “I think I see her.”

  “Where?”

  He pointed ahead. “There, past that bus stop, on the right-hand corner.”

  Aelyx brought the shuttle around, and Cara perched on the edge of her seat to peer out the windshield. She held her breath in anticipation while they soared closer. As soon as she spotted the profile of Aisly’s small, upturned nose, she exhaled in relief.

  Gotcha.

  “Hold back a little,” Cara said to Aelyx. “We don’t want her to hear us.”

  They slowed to a virtual crawl and trailed Aisly as she strode down the sidewalk, her ponytail swinging to and fro. Like Jaxen, her behavior seemed a bit bolder than usual, but not as extreme. She passed a silver breakfast cart and stopped, doing a double take. She said something to the vendor and stood on tiptoe to trap his gaze, probably telling him to give her a free bagel. Cara was right. The man handed over a paper-wrapped pastry and a cup of coffee, and Aisly continued on her merry way.

  While they crept behind her over the next block, Cara used her com-sphere to call Colonel Rutter. She didn’t expect him to answer on the first buzz. She barely had time to set her sphere on the console when his miniature hologram appeared, demanding, “What did you do, Sweeney? Everything’s FUBAR over here!”

  “FUBAR?” Cara looked to her brother for a translation.

  “F’ed up beyond all recognition,” he supplied.

  “Oh.” She cringed. “I guess you heard.”

  “That you’re public enemy number one?” Rutter hollered. “Damn right, I heard! By now, every corn-poking yokel in America has heard. The anti L’eihr folks are going nuts—this is exactly what they’ve been waiting for.”

  “It was Aisly,” Cara said. “She got to the president and the Earth Council before we could stop her.”

  The colonel muttered a long string of curses that required no translation whatsoever. “That explains a lot.” He rubbed his jaw a bit too hard, stretching his weather-beaten skin. “The president just held a press conference. She said the Earth Council revoked all L’eihr visas. It’s an immediate expulsion for all nonhumans.”

  “But she’s brainwashed.”

  “Doesn’t matter. She’s commander in chief. I can’t disobey a direct order from her, and neither can any US soldier.” The colonel’s eyes shifted to Troy. “By the way, Sergeant Sweeney, I’m relieving you of your post, effective immediately. When the Marines court-martial you—and make no mistake, they will—at least it won’t be for dereliction of duty.”

  Troy saluted the colonel. “Thank you, sir.”

  Rutter dipped his chin. “As for the rest of you, unless you can unscramble the president’s eggs by tonight, I’m personally escorting Larish and the ambassador to the L’eihr transport tomorrow at zero six hundred hours.” He glanced around the shuttle, nodding at Aelyx, Elle, and Syrine. “I suggest you meet me there. I can’t protect you anymore, and I don’t want you kids going home in body bags.”

  At those words, a beat of silence hung in the air. The colonel was right. There was no place remote enough to hide from the full force of the American military, at least not for very long. Their only hope was to convince Aisly to undo the damage she’d caused.

  “I’ll hold on to this,” Rutter said, lifting his com-sphere. “My commander might’ve ordered me to neutralize you, Sweeney, but she didn’t say I couldn’t talk to you in the meantime.”

  Cara understood the subtext. He would help her as much as he could. “Thank you. We’ll be in touch.”

  The call ended, but it put a damper on the mood. Nobody spoke as they tracked Aisly across three more blocks. Then she crossed another street and stopped suddenly to dig inside her pocket.

  “She’s answering a call,” Cara said.

  Aisly’s device was too small to see, but she was definitely talking to someone, most likely that fasher Jaxen. After tossing her coffee cup onto the sidewalk—never mind the recycling bin at her elbow—Aisly stepped off the curb and hailed a cab.

  “This is about to get interesting,” Troy murmured. “Everyone keep your eyes on that taxi.”

  They followed the car through a sea of identical yellow cabs until it reached the outskirts of the city and merged onto the expressway. There it was easy to track. Cara breathed more easily as they sped along the highway. It felt good to move faster, to do more with her rapidly diminishing time.

  The trip lasted longer than she expected, taking them all the way upstate. Her stomach growled for lunch when the taxi finally pulled to a stop in front of an industrial complex that appeared to be some kind of factory—Nitrate Solutions, according to the sign. No cars stood in the parking lot, but judging by the semis and trailers parked in the loading area behind the main building, the company was still in business.

  “Are we lost?” Cara asked. Maybe the cab had stopped to radio for directions. But then Aisly stepped out of the car, and the taxi drove away. “Guess not.”

  Aelyx hovered outside the property line, just above the trees. “What’s she doing here of all places?”

  Cara poked her brother, the only one of them with a smartphone. “Look up Nitrate Solutions and see what they make.”

  Troy shook his head. “I shut down my phone so the government can’t track the signal.”

  “I don’t like this,” Syrine said. “Let’s go back to the safe house.”

  “She’s going inside,” Elle announced, pointing through the windshield.

  Sure enou
gh, Aisly had managed to unlock the front door. Either that or someone had let her in. Regardless, Cara hadn’t followed all this way to turn back.

  “Set us down,” she told Aelyx. “Between the five of us, we can take her.”

  “Unless Jaxen’s in there with his staff,” Troy added.

  “So we’ll park somewhere close,” Cara said. “Worst case scenario, we’ll run back here and go invisible again.”

  Syrine kept muttering that she had a bad feeling about this. She started massaging her head with more pressure than before.

  “Did you look Aisly in the eyes?” asked Cara.

  “Of course not. I know better than that.”

  Cara chewed the inside of her cheek. Maybe Syrine should sit this one out. “You and Elle stay here and try to contact Larish. See what he can find out about Nitrate Solutions. The rest of us will go inside.”

  With that decided, Cara stepped out of the shuttle, along with Aelyx and Troy. The asphalt scorched her bare feet, forcing her to hop on alternating tiptoes until Aelyx noticed her plight and swept her into his arms.

  “Next stop, the shoe store,” he said as he carried her across the parking lot. The moment didn’t last long, but there in his embrace, Cara remembered what she was fighting for.

  “I don’t know,” she teased, wiggling her bare toes. “I could get used to this.”

  Troy skewered them with a glare. “If you two are done making me want to vomit, maybe we can focus here?” He thumbed at the door. “Remember to keep your heads down. Our best weapon is the element of surprise.”

  They slipped inside, and Aelyx set her down on the cool lobby tile. From there, they proceeded through a pair of swinging doors that led to a short hallway and a thicker set of doors marked CAUTION: double hearing protection required in this area. There was no noise, but an unpleasant scent clung to the air, an odd mix of sewage and chemicals, similar to portable toilets at a fair. The narrow walls were covered in occupational safety procedures and government regulations. This was definitely a manufacturing plant, though Cara didn’t see any clues to indicate what kind.

  Troy pushed open the doors a crack and peeked through. “Looks empty,” he whispered, and they continued inside to the main factory.

  The concrete floor was gritty, dusted with sand or dirt. All around, enormous machines stood dormant, each unit connected by long stretches of motionless conveyer belts. Cara glanced around for a label machine or finished products to tell her what was made here, but a faraway clink caught her attention, and she snapped her gaze toward the sound.

  Aelyx and Troy heard it, too. All three of them stared at the far end of the room near the ceiling, where a set of metal stairs led to a catwalk that stretched into the next part of the factory. They’d just started for the stairs when the distant echo of voices sounded from the rear of the building, and Cara tugged both boys to a halt.

  She pointed between herself and Aelyx, then toward the sound of the voices. She hated to split up, but it was the smart thing to do. Troy nodded. He gestured toward the stairs and touched the com-sphere in his pocket, a message that he’d check in when he found something.

  As Cara crept across the factory floor, an eerie chill puckered her skin into goose bumps. She’d toured plenty of factories during field trips, but there was something unnatural about the silence of the machines and the angular shadows they cast on the floor. She reached for Aelyx’s hand, but pulled back and wiped her sweaty palms on her skirt. When she stretched out her arm to him again, he wasn’t there.

  She spun around and found him facing the opposite direction, his muscles tense and his backbone locked.

  “What is it?” she whispered.

  “Your brother,” he whispered back. “He buzzed me on my sphere, but not long enough to connect. I don’t know what it means.”

  “Maybe he pocket-dialed you.”

  Aelyx hesitated. “I’m going to check on him.” He pointed at a nearby stretch of conveyor belt. “Hide under there until I get back.”

  Cara wrinkled her nose. As dirty as the floor was, God only knew what kind of science experiments were growing underneath the equipment.

  Aelyx sighed. “Just don’t go anywhere, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  After she watched him jog away, she turned an ear toward the nearby corridor. The voices were clearer now—one male, one female—and distinct enough that she could tell they were speaking L’eihr. She understood enough of the language to pick out a few words: put them there … along the support walls … nothing left standing. The female didn’t sound like Aisly, and more than that, Cara wondered why two L’eihrs would talk to each other when they could use Silent Speech. She peeked over her shoulder, torn between waiting for Aelyx and moving closer to investigate.

  In the end, temptation won the battle.

  She inched silently down the corridor, keeping her back to the wall and her ears alert. The voices had fallen silent, but an occasional scrape of shoes told her at least one person was still near. The hallway led to a warehouse at the back of the property. At the far end of the room, two mammoth garage-style doors were open, revealing the tractor-trailers Cara had seen from the shuttle. Sunlight cut through the doorways and illuminated the loading bay, but the rest of the warehouse—a maze of wooden pallets and cardboard boxes wrapped in plastic—remained in shadows. It wasn’t until she heard a rattle that she was able to spot someone.

  About ten yards to the left, a redheaded girl stood facing a closed maintenance closet. The girl was dressed like Aisly in a gray tunic over black leggings, but she was much taller and definitely not a L’eihr, as evidenced by the long, scarlet braid hanging between her shoulders. Since the girl couldn’t see her, Cara tiptoed from the mouth of the hallway to a forklift parked in the center of the room, then ducked behind it for a closer look.

  The redhead seemed frustrated, tugging on a handle that wouldn’t open. There was a sign affixed to the door. In bold lettering easily visible from Cara’s position, it stated PUSH, DON’T PULL. As the girl stared at the words, she grabbed the handle and jerked it back with a grunt. When that didn’t work, she growled and stomped a foot.

  Whoever she was, she couldn’t read English.

  Cara was still puzzling over it when a voice from behind drawled, “Hello, Cah-ra.” She slapped a hand over her heart and whirled around to find herself face-to-face with Jaxen, who stood there with both hands in his pockets, grinning at her as if they’d bumped into each other at a party and he wanted to ask her out.

  “Jaxen,” she breathed. She noticed he didn’t have his staff. That was one point in her favor. “Always a pleasure.”

  “I see you’ve found my new friend.” He lifted a hand to indicate the redhead. “How appropriate that you were drawn to her.”

  Cara didn’t answer him. She was too busy taking note of the exits and calculating the quickest path back to the shuttle.

  “I believe an introduction is in order.” He motioned for the redhead to join them. “This is Rune. I named her myself. It’s the L’eihr word for improvement.”

  Cara was vaguely aware of the girl’s presence, noticing in her periphery when she reached Jaxen’s side. Then she looked at the girl in earnest and did a double take. Or maybe a triple-take. It was hard to tell because her brain couldn’t reconcile what her eyes were trying to tell her.

  It was as though she’d stepped in front of a mirror. Rune was identical to her, right down to the freckles on her nose and the slight cowlick at her left temple, the one no amount of hair gel could ever tame. Cara stared, unblinking, at the girl, who didn’t seem at all shocked by their freakish physical resemblance. Rune simply looked her up and down, tipping her head at Cara’s hips as if asking herself Do my thighs really look that big?

  Then it clicked. This was Cara 2.0. A replicate. Since Jaxen couldn’t have the real thing, he’d created an “improvement” to bend to his will.

  But wait. That was impossible.

  Even with her stolen DNA, it
would take nine months to incubate a clone, and then an infant would emerge from the womb, not a fully-grown seventeen-year-old girl. No one could generate an instant carbon copy of a human being. Cloning didn’t work that way.

  “What did you do?” Cara mumbled, still transfixed by her own face, which was now glaring back at her in annoyance.

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Jaxen asked, and turned to admire the girl. “I cloned you. I admit; I had some help. The Aribol possess remarkable technology, among which is the ability to manipulate the aging process.”

  Cara remembered her conference call with Zane and how he’d seemed to recognize her before they’d met. Now it made sense. He’d helped create the clone, and in return, Jaxen had agreed to wreak havoc on Earth—something he probably would’ve done for free. What she didn’t understand was why the Aribol thought they needed him.

  “I’m pleased with the results,” Jaxen said, even as he straightened the clone’s braid and brushed the front of her tunic as if unsatisfied. “I was afraid she would be too different from you—that she wouldn’t have your spark. But she does. Her passion is so fierce it rivals even your own. So I named her Rune.”

  Improvement.

  Cara huffed a sarcastic laugh. “This is what you consider an upgrade? She can’t even read.” Her voice raised a pitch as hysteria set in. “And in no timeline of any alternate dimension should there exist a version of me who is illiterate!”

  Jaxen shrugged. “She’s young. Just a few months old.” His hand wandered down her back and settled low—disturbingly low—at the base of her spine. “I’ve been using that time to teach her … other skills.”

  Cara gasped so hard she nearly collapsed her own lungs. “You sick, perverted pig!”

  In true Jaxen form, he threw back his head and filled the warehouse with echoes of laughter. It went on and on, his ribs shaking until he cradled his stomach as if the hilarity had given him a cramp. “Cah-ra, Cah-ra, Cah-ra,” he said, wagging an index finger at her. “Get your mind out of the gutter. I was referring to her motor skills, like walking and hand control. I can use my talents to transfer concepts to her mind, but still, these things take practice.”