Alpha

by Jus Accardo

  “G—”

  “Then the next morning they took you. You were gone so long, I was sure I’d never see you again, and that was when I realized I missed hearing your voice. I needed to hear it. I was crazed that day. Each hour that passed and your cell remained empty, I grew angrier and angrier. I shouted for them to bring you back.” I couldn’t help it. I laughed. “Cora had taken me, but she wasn’t sure what to do with me until that day. That was the day she decided how perfect I’d be for her Alpha project.” I pushed aside the jarring memory of my first session and focused on Sera. “When they brought you back… You were dizzy. Sick. You knew someone was there—that I was there—but you couldn’t remember my name. You couldn’t remember yours.”

  “You told me my name was Sera.”

  “And I said that I was G. When you fell asleep that night, I kept the G but gouged the rest of my name off the wall, wanting to erase the person I’d been. I wanted to start over as G. You couldn’t remember the horrible person I was, and I was glad because I wanted to be better. I wanted to be better for you. A few days after my sessions started, I told them that the drugs they gave me had taken my memories as well. Cora hadn’t expected it, but she was thrilled.”

  “I—” She reached for me, but hesitated, letting her arm fall to her side.

  I pushed off the wall, drawn to her despite feeling—despite knowing—with every fiber of my being that someone like me did not deserve someone like her. She might not remember herself, but I did. She’d been kind to me—even when I’d been cruel. She’d whispered words of comfort and encouragement in those first days—even when I’d threatened her. She’d remembered me—even when she didn’t remember herself. “I hated you in those early days, and I think it was because you made me feel. I came from a place of violence and death. I was numb, and you took that away, and it terrified me.”

  I crossed the room to where she stood, pale and trembling. I cupped the side of her face and tilted her head so that we were eye to eye. “I love you, Sera. I have never loved anyone or anything in my entire life. It doesn’t matter if you hate me for the lies I’ve told, or if you don’t feel the same now that you know the truth, but that won’t change anything for me.” I laughed. “And maybe this is easier for me to do now. I was hollow back then, back in my old life before you. I did what I was told, went where I was told, and felt what I was told. Maybe coming clean now is easier knowing I won’t have to deal with the fallout. If you hate me, I won’t have to live with it because I’m a goner anyway.”

  I sucked in a deep breath, then kissed her.

  I poured everything I had into that kiss. My heart, my soul, and every ounce of life she’d made me feel since waking up in the godforsaken cell. I gave it all back, hoping to hell she could find a way to see past it all, yet knowing in the deepest parts of my heart that she shouldn’t.

  When I pulled away, all she did was stare.

  “Sera? Say something. Please…”

  Her complexion had gone pale, and her eyes were wide and unblinking. She just stared like she’d never seen me before. Her response was to back slowly to the door and slip out, all without taking her eyes from mine. All without saying a word.

  I had my answer.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Sera

  After being asked not to wander the halls of the base, I was directed outside, where I settled beneath a large pine tree. I was on overload. I just needed a minute—or a lifetime—to think.

  I knew I had to have been Ava. But to hear G call me that, to listen as he admitted to knowing about my life, that had been devastating. I wrapped my arms around myself and fought back the urge to vomit. Deep down, a part of me thought the scars were self-inflicted. But thinking and knowing were so incredibly different. To consider that my life had been so unbearable that I’d tried to opt out made me queasy. It churned the acid in my belly and made my head spin with even more questions than I’d had before.

  Despite all of that, a part of me understood why G had kept it from me. Understood and sympathized. I didn’t remember how he’d treated me when he first got to Infinity. I didn’t recall the harsh words. But it all made sense. Sick, twisted sense. He’d gotten to know me. To care about me. And when the time came, and he had the ability to wipe the horrors of my life away, he’d taken it. Could I honestly say that I wouldn’t have done the same thing for him? If I had the opportunity to wipe his slate clean, I would take it in a heartbeat.

  I knew I should be mad that he’d lied. That I should fear the person he’d been—because he’d never lost it. That person, unlike the person I was, wasn’t gone. He’d tried to bury him, but that heartless soldier would always be there, would always haunt him. But just because that person was still with him didn’t mean he hadn’t changed. A heartless man wouldn’t have cared about someone else. He wouldn’t have tried to keep me from learning the truth. His motives weren’t selfish. They were pure. Misguided and foolish, but pure.

  I was up and moving before I really even understood what I was doing. My feet carried me forward, and I asked for directions as I went, eventually ending up at the science building, in front of the lab next door to Cora Anderson’s.

  I knocked twice, then pushed it open. “Hello?”

  He was inside, standing across the room and bent over a long work table. His hair was shaggy, long in the back and on the sides, and was dyed a dark blue. When he turned and our eyes met, my gray to his dark brown, a wave of panic washed over me, and I had to force my feet to move me into the room.

  “Hi. I, uh, sorry to bother you, but I’m—”

  His eyes were wide, and his lips parted just slightly. Poor guy looked like he’d seen a ghost. “Ava…”

  “Sera, actually.” Another step forward. I could do this. For G… “I’m—”

  “Right! Right, sorry. Sorry. You just look so much like her.” He tugged at the longer strands of hair on his head. “Ya know, with longer hair and stuff. And the still breathing part…”

  “I’m really sorry to bother you.” One more step. My heart was racing, and goose bumps had popped up all over my skin. “I was hoping to ask you a favor.”

  He cocked his head to the side, then squinted. “Sure. What did you—are you okay?” I must have been doing a shit job of hiding it because he stood there, obviously confused by my reaction. “You look ready to pass out.”

  When he made a move to grab me—more than likely to help me to the chair beside his desk—I jerked away violently. I didn’t remember him. Not really. It was more like a hazy feeling. His voice was the ghost that had haunted my nightmares, his watery face one of the many devils that danced in my head. Now that I knew, now that I understood why the sight of Phil MaKaden turned my blood cold, it was hard not to see him as he’d been in my old life. “Don’t. I’m okay.”

  He looked stricken, and in that moment, I believed what Cade had said about him. This Rabbit was kind. He wasn’t like mine.

  “Have they told you? About what’s going on?”

  He nodded, still watching me. His moves were slower now, though. Softer and more controlled. As he walked across to pull over a chair, he kept his eyes on me. “They gave me the rundown. What did you need?”

  “The poison killing G—virus, actually—it’s made from my blood. We thought your Dylan had the antidote, but apparently he’s hidden it.”

  “And he won’t tell you where.”

  “No.” I held out my arm. “Do you think you can…”

  “I know they’d planned on trying to cook up an antidote.”

  I nodded. Good. That was good. But planned wasn’t good enough. Waiting wouldn’t work. We didn’t have time. “Can you—”

  He frowned. “Not sure what other mes you’ve seen, but here I’m a tech guy.” His smile brightened. “Pretty rockin’ one, too. But medic stuff? Not my bag.”

  My arm fell slack at my side.

  “I can draw the blood, though. Get it to someone in the lab and put a jump on it. That work?”
/>   A spark of hope ignited in my chest. “I can’t tell you how happy that would make me.”

  He nodded and slid off his stool, rummaging around in a cabinet before approaching slowly. When he reached me, he said, “May I?”

  I nodded, and he went to work. “You knew me, huh?”

  I swallowed as he tied off the rubber strip and ran the sterilizing wipe across the inside of my arm. “That’s not an easy answer.”

  “Right. They messed with your head, yeah?”

  “Yeah.” The needle was uncapped.

  “But you remember something about me. Not something good, I take it?”

  “Not something good,” I confirmed.

  He slid the needle in, and I cringed—but there was no pain. Unlike the millions of times Cora had jabbed me, quick and heartless, Rabbit was careful and tender. Nothing like my fuzzy memories of the cruel man who’d viewed me as property.

  “That kinda sucks, ya know? I’m not a bad guy. Have a few bad habits…” He lifted his free hand to his lips and made an inhaling motion with a boyish grin. “But I’m really not a monster. Not here, anyway. Drag to know there’s a dick version of me running around out there.”

  He withdrew the needle and taped a piece of cotton to my arm. I forced a smile. “I’m sure there’s more good than bad.”

  He smiled. “I’d bet my hands on it.” He fidgeted with the needle a moment before setting it down. “I, uh, can take a peek into your head if you want. Ya know, since you’re here?”

  “Peek into my—”

  He tapped the side of his head. “You’re the one with the chip, right? Or is that your friend as well?”

  Oh my God. It hadn’t even occurred to me to ask him about the chip. I’d been so worried about G…

  “They were planning to give me a crack at it, anyway,” he rushed on when I hadn’t answered. “Long as you’re okay with it, that is.”

  “Yes!” I realized I sounded like an overenthusiastic child. “I mean, that would be great. Thank you.”

  His entire face lit up. “Killer! This is the shit I live for.” He clapped his hands and kind of jumped. “I’ve been tinkering with chips lately, with Cora’s help, and I think we’re moving in the direction of the ones the guys have now.”

  He patted a large chair on the other side of the room. He had an odd-looking tube in his hand, with red lights and a small keypad.

  “Is this going to hurt?”

  He waved the tube-thing. “Nah. This bad boy will just give me a general reading. Chip power, where exactly they have it embedded. Just some basics. You won’t feel a thing. Promise.”

  I nodded and settled into the chair…and waited. Rabbit moved the device back and forth, over the top of my head, down the sides, and around in a circle. He had an odd look on his face, which worried me, but I didn’t ask. Knowing Cora, I didn’t want to know. Maybe she had the thing booby-trapped.

  For ten minutes, he skimmed his device back and forth, up and down, all without saying a word. There were a lot of hmms and huhs—even an ahh…but no words.

  Finally, when I couldn’t stand it anymore, I said, “Are those sounds of joy or anger?”

  He set the device down and straddled the chair across from me. “Well, I guess that depends on your point of view. From mine, it sucks salty balls. From yours, it’s probably more of a cute kitten playing with those balls.”

  “So, that means…?”

  “There’s no chip in there, Sera. Your head is empty. I mean, not empty. Your brain is in there. Fluid and goop, too, but nothing manmade is floating around inside.”

  “That’s impossible. Couldn’t your machine have just missed it? The last of Cora’s tech was a little more advanced, right?” I didn’t want to insult him, but he had to be wrong. There was no way the whole chip story was…a lie.

  Oh my God…

  Rabbit shook his head and grabbed the tube thing, flinging it up into the air, then catching it again and giving it a good wiggle. “Designed this baby myself. Trust me, your head is clean.”

  I jumped from the chair and whirled around, almost knocking Rabbit backward. “I have to go!”

  He fumbled and called out an apology for whatever slight he thought I was fleeing from, but I ignored it and burst from the building.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  G

  It’d been almost an hour since Sera walked out. I tried looking for Cade or, God help me, Noah—any kind of semi-friendly face. What I encountered was actually the opposite. Everywhere I went on the base, people stared. There were whispers and pointed fingers and angry glares. It was understandable, I guessed. Understandable—and all too familiar.

  Before Cora yanked me from the reaper’s grasp, I’d been a monster. Coldhearted and emotionless, I’d obeyed my orders without question. Our world was at war. Not with another country or alien enemy, but with each other. Our own people were the targets of the government’s wrath. Obey the rules and conform to the regime or pay the piper—and I was one of the pipers.

  It was fitting, me going out like this. It’s how fate had intended me to shuffle off anyway. The day Cora Anderson had found me was the first—the only—time I’d hesitated on an order. I’d been called to a house to relocate the child of a couple who hadn’t paid their taxes. I was almost across the field with the kid when I hesitated. I set her down, not 100 percent sure why at the time, and told her to run home—just seconds before a crowd of angry villagers came at me.

  “G?” I turned and saw Sera rounding the corner. She was pale and winded, but the expression on her face wasn’t one of fear.

  “You okay?”

  She threw herself at me, arms wrapping around my neck as she let out a strangled cry. “She lied. There’s no chip.”

  I didn’t return the embrace, instead pulling away, sure I’d heard wrong. “How… Are you sure? One hundred percent—”

  “There’s no doubt. Rabbit checked.”

  “Rabbit? You went to see Rabbit?”

  “Since we couldn’t get Dylan to spill, I thought maybe he could help with an antidote…”

  “You went to see Rabbit for me?”

  “How can you sound so surprised?”

  I blinked at her. Once. Twice. Three times… “What I told you before—”

  “Was what one Phil MaKaden did. Obviously, it wasn’t easy. But he’s not the Phil from my world. This one is different.”

  “And the other stuff I said? The things about me? About my life before? About the fact that I lied to you?”

  She hesitated. “I—”

  “Guys?” Cade poked his head around the corner. “We need you in the briefing room.”

  Sera shuffled from foot to foot before letting out a soft sigh. “We should probably get down there.”

  “Yeah.”

  …

  “Cade filled me in, and I want to be sure I have this whole thing straight,” Karl Anderson said. He stood at the front of the room—it kind of looked like a classroom—and was bent over a thick notebook. When he lifted his head, our eyes met, and he gave me the smallest nod. “An alternate version of Cora Anderson abducted Miss Fielding and yourself and kept you locked in a non-government version of the Infinity Division for scientific experiments. Is that right?”

  “Correct, sir.” I hadn’t had much interaction with the other Karl Anderson. A passing visit as he and Cora popped in on daily tests, then when he was with Sera and me for that short time. But the difference was instantly obvious to me. This version had a presence. It was commanding, but also trustworthy and loyal. This was not the kind of man who would hurt people for money.

  “She’s poisoned you. Is that right, son?”

  Again, I nodded. “They created something from Sera’s—Ava’s—altered blood and put it in a pod they implanted. The pod has been damaged, and the poison is leaking out. Well, not really a poison, sir. It’s more like a virus.”

  Karl frowned. He turned to Cade. “And we’re sure your brother doesn’t have the antidote?”


  Cade’s expression twisted into an angry scowl. “He won’t tell me where he hid it. Nothing is going to make him come clean, Karl. He’s back where he started. We’d have a better chance of the virus just evaporating away on its own than convincing him to help us.”

  “And you’re okay?” Karl turned his attention to Sera, who was sitting next to me. “This malfunctioning chip they said was in your head is working fine?”

  “Actually, it’s not there,” Rabbit said from the far corner of the room. “My guess is Cora lied to keep her in line. Make her think she had to come back.”

  Sera nodded. “Without me, she can’t make more of the virus.”

  “And she doesn’t have the flash drive.” Karl folded his arms. “It was destroyed?”

  “It was,” Sera said. “But what if she found her way back home and somehow recreated it?”

  Karl glanced around. Cade and Noah, Rabbit in the corner, Sera and I sitting in the chairs at the front, and two people I didn’t know, who’d been very quiet on the far end of the room. “Then this is still a threat? She could possibly recreate this virus and let it loose anywhere. Even here.”

  “We know she tried to follow when I brought Ash here,” Noah said. “She couldn’t get to us, though. This version of my mother is the worst of the worst—and she’s smart. More than that, she’s motivated. If she wants Ash dead and has that virus, she won’t need to get to her. She can just let it go.”

  “Then we need to consider this an active threat.”

  “Agreed,” Cade and Noah said at the same time, while the two nameless people in the corner nodded silently.

  “And you have a plan?”

  “We had a plan, sir,” I said. “It involved drawing her here and forcing her to help Sera.”

  “But that’s not needed anymore, correct?”

  “Correct,” I confirmed. I was still thanking the higher powers that she was going to be all right.