by Shanon Hunt
“Yeah.” Layla was overwhelmed with nostalgia. Jonah, Sofia, Nicole, and the two of them. They’d hugged and jumped around, so excited to be chosen, as Mia had introduced them to their new phase of life. God, it’d been so long since she’d seen her old friends.
“Our class was added to an experimental cohort. The five of us were assigned to test an experimental drug called LXR-999. Did you know?”
“The intelligence elixir and the sleep elixir.” Her purification gifts. They’d all gotten gifts.
“Right. But you were removed from the cohort. James selected you to be a carrier, so you weren’t dosed with 999. You weren’t dosed with anything. The carriers were a special class. They’d never take that kind of risk with a carrier.”
“No, I was.” She could hear the doubt in her voice. “I got IV injections every day for weeks.”
“That’s just what they told us. You, Jonah, and I were the control group. They never actually gave us those drugs. They gave us a placebo. They needed to compare the group that got the real drug with the group that only thought they got the drug. That’s how the study was designed.”
Layla squinted at him as she tried to process what he said. “So my elixir wasn’t real?”
“Yeah. I thought it just didn’t take with me. I tried to fake it for a while, but…” He chuckled. “Well, you can’t fake intelligence.”
Another lie from James, another secret he’d kept. You have to give it time, Layla. Some people require more doses.
“What about the sleep elixir?”
“Did you ever feel refreshed after a couple of hours of sleep?”
She dragged herself out of bed every morning after five hours of sleep, and most of the time she felt like she was half dead.
“Sofia and Nicole were dosed with 999. They got the active drug. And there were two other cohorts after ours that also received 999.” He looked down at his hands, wringing in his lap.
“What is it? Did something happen?”
He rubbed both hands on his pant legs and took a deep breath, still talking to the ground. “Nine subjects in total were dosed with 999. They finally stopped dosing after the first subject, Nicole, started having strange side effects.” He looked down again. “But by then it was too late. The damage had already been done. To all of them.”
Trepidation crawled up the back of her neck. “What happened?”
“The drug was meant to improve brain function by increasing the speed at which synapses fired. It targeted genes responsible for regulating neural circuits. But there was an off-target effect. The drug edited a different gene, a gene downstream of the serotonin 5H-T-2A cell receptor pathway…”
He was jabbering. How had he learned all this in such a short time?
“Isaac.” She hated to interrupt. He was obviously upset. “I don’t… I don’t understand what you’re saying.”
He looked up at her. “Sorry. It’s just… The brain is complicated. Some genes have multiple functions and can be activated from different receptors on the cell.” He shook his head and tried again. “They didn’t mean to do it. The science was solid and well-intended, Layla. Don’t blame anyone.”
Layla looked past him at the door he so deliberately closed when he exited. “What is going on in there? I need to know.”
He pursed his lips. “You’ll just have to see it for yourself.”
29
March 2024, California
Nick waited outside the Wilshire Grand for the right moment. It was after two o’clock, and to his relief, watchdog Ernie wasn’t on his throne. But he still needed some cover. He paced in front of the building. After what felt like forever, a trio of women stumbled to the front door of the building, laughing at their conversation. By the looks of them, they were returning from a boozy celebratory lunch. He trailed them inside.
Just as they waved through security, he called out. “Hey, Linda! Wait up!”
They all turned toward him as he jogged through security, waving his badge at the fill-in.
“Hey, Linda.” He picked the least wobbly of the three women and flashed a seductive smile. He held up his badge. “Victor. Don’t you remember me?”
“No.”
The two other ladies moved in protectively around his target and eyed him, glowering, with their hands on their hips.
“Linda, right?” he asked confidently.
She held up her badge. Gloria.
“Oh, shit, sorry about that. How embarrassing. I mean, it was just one night. And it was dark in the club.”
The elevator chimed and they stepped in, facing him in perfect Charlie’s Angels formation, prepared to take him down if he dared trespass further.
“You sure you didn’t give me a fake name that night?” he called, as the doors closed between them.
He snorted at the stunt and stepped into the next elevator.
The elevator opened on the twelfth floor, and he strode down the hall with purpose until he made a complete lap around the perfectly square layout. He’d studied the blueprints on Abder’s computer. It was a common cellular floorplan with twelve individual glass-walled offices, six interior offices, and six window offices along each of four corridors, plus four spacious conference rooms on each corner. He slipped into the stairwell and walked down one flight, careful to keep his head down and his face out of view of the cameras.
The lobby directory indicated three companies on the eleventh floor, including Big World Enterprises, the only company, according to Jenna, whose web presence consisted of nothing beyond a suspicious landing page. He made the same lap on this floor, this time with his phone to his ear as if engaged in conversation.
At the southeast corner conference room, he spotted the female recruiter. She was unmistakable, her hair tightly pulled back into a severe bun over ears too big for her head, leaning back against the conference table and talking with two men in identical black pants, white shirts, and light blue ties. They looked like a couple of young missionaries.
Nick turned into the next stairwell and climbed half a flight, barely interrupting his pace to shove an elbow through the protective glass over the fire alarm and pull the lever. The piercing shriek of the alarm echoed in the stairwell as he kept moving to the twelfth floor.
Pissed-off staffers were filtering out of offices and conference rooms. They tromped disinterestedly into the stairwell.
“Isn’t this like the fourth time?” someone complained as they passed.
Perfect. He swiveled around and joined the marching herd, exiting again on the eleventh floor. Thanks to city fire codes, electronic doors in commercial buildings auto-unlocked in the event of a fire, to give firefighters easy access into the offices. He checked that the conference room was empty and slipped inside.
He turned in a complete circle to take inventory, then moved to the corner and yanked a surge protector power strip from under the window. He replaced it with one from his bag. Very unlikely to be detected—who noticed a power strip? He did the same with the mouse that controlled the conference room projector, also unlikely to send up any red flags. Finally, he knelt and replaced an iPhone charger dangling from the wall. Winner. A charger was likely to be taken along by whoever—
“Hey, man. What the hell you doin’?”
Nick’s eyes shot up.
“Don’t you hear the goddamn alarm?” the security guard asked.
Nick held up the charger and let it fall into his bag. “Remember the one a few weeks ago? One of those asshole firemen stole my charger and my Kindle. You believe that shit? I’m not falling for that again.” He stalked to the door and joined the guard to head down the hallway.
The guard waved an angry index finger. “Those guys put their lives on the line every day. What’s the big deal if they swipe a thing or two? You rich kids can afford it.” He held the stairwell door open to let Nick walk ahead of him and glanced at the badge clipped to his shirt. “Victor Beaumont. Like the old-time actor?”
Nick beamed. “Yep, just lik
e him.”
Once out on the street, he wormed his way through the mingling crowd. A single fire truck had arrived, and two men sauntered over to the main entrance without the slightest sense of urgency.
“Frankly, I’m happy for a little fresh air,” one woman was telling her friend. “My office is way too stuffy.”
You’re welcome. Nick shuffled away. Damn, it felt good to be back.
He sent a text to Abder—Game on—then turned onto Grand Avenue to find a cab. The blare of a car horn startled him, and as he swung around to make sure he wasn’t the offending pedestrian, he recognized the missionary twinners from the conference room. They were headed east on Fifth Street.
“What are you boys up to?” he asked himself in his best Theo Kojak voice.
He darted across the street just as the light changed. Keeping a safe distance, he followed them out of the Financial District toward the poverty-stricken Skid Row.
30
October 2022, Mexico
The placard above the door read Post-Care Recovery, but as Isaac explained it to Layla, the original name, salvage, was meant to portray the damaged test subjects inside as precious cargo recovered from a shipwreck, ready for restoration. Unfortunately, as time passed and the precious cargo that had been abandoned there was not restored, the name took on a more derogatory connotation.
Mia had insisted that Isaac never speak the word.
“ ‘Because they aren’t scrap salvage,’ ” he said. “Those were her exact words. I didn’t even know what it meant.”
Layla followed Isaac through two sets of doors, like entering a prison, and as soon as she stepped into the corridor, she realized that’s exactly what it was. These weren’t the clean, comfortable observation rooms of the infirmaries and testing centers. These were cells with cement floors, cinderblock walls, minimal furniture, and steel bars to protect the rest of the Colony from what someone in a powerful position considered to be salvage.
Salvage. Layla knew what it meant, all right. She’d done intakes with recruits who’d grown up in junkyard vehicles—cars, buses, anything with a roof. The thought that a human might be described that way filled her with outrage.
Isaac stopped in front of a cell. The walls were covered floor to ceiling in disturbing drawings scribbled with crayons, faces with the eyes scratched out and wild-haired monsters with long pointed teeth and claws. Random words and sayings were scrawled between them: They’re hee-ere and When can I die?
“This is Nicole.” He spoke softly, perhaps hoping the occupant wouldn’t hear him.
The woman who lay on the cot facing the wall was rail thin. Her once long, bushy hair had been buzzed in a military haircut.
Layla clutched the bars. This couldn’t be her Nicole, with a round, freckled face just perfect for her pudgy little frame. Her Nicole, who danced about like a little kid who needed to pee, so desperate to pass on the latest juicy gossip: Layla, oh my god! I have to tell you something!
No way it could be the same woman.
“Nicole?”
The woman rolled over and put both palms on the floor, slithering off the bed onto her hands and knees, a lioness on the prowl. Her round face had grown so thin that Layla could see prominent cheekbones now, and her wide eyes appeared sunken, as though they’d been sucked into her skull.
“Laaaaaay-la,” she breathed. “So nice to see you.” She tilted her head completely sideways and stretched her lips into a grotesque smile, exposing her gums. She had no teeth.
Layla stopped breathing.
Hand over hand, Nicole pulled herself up to standing, her face just inches from the bars. Still with her head tilted in that unnatural way. She held up her hands so Layla could see that her fingernails had been removed, then put both index fingers into the corners of her mouth and stretched, pulling her lips so tight that Layla winced, expecting them to tear. It reminded her of that cat. The one from Alice in Wonderland, that terrifying Cheshire cat.
Layla drew back.
Nicole released her red, stretched lips and laughed, the piercing, maniacal cackle of a witch. “Teeth and fingernails and hair are poison.” Then she dropped back onto her hands and knees, cranked her neck around, followed by her body, and slunk back to her cot. She curled back into the fetal position facing the wall, her arms wrapping around her head. “Isaac, get that fucking cunt away from me. Those hideous teeth! And hair. It’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen.” She went into a retching fit that sounded unfeigned.
“Oh my god,” Layla breathed.
Isaac pulled Layla away. His voice was low. “I’m sorry. She’s … well, she’s not usually so mean.” He stepped quickly in front of Layla and peeked into the next cell, then shook his head as if he were embarrassed. “You might want to look away.”
“Okay.” She looked to the right, directly into the ghostly stare of a woman she didn’t recognize. A long stream of drool hung from her gaping mouth.
From across the corridor she heard grunting, like a pig. Don’t look. Don’t look. But her curiosity got the better of her, and she glanced back toward the animalistic noise.
“Oh, god.”
Stark naked, leaning over and gripping the bars with one hand, the cell’s occupant was masturbating feverishly with the other. He howled and climaxed just before she turned away, his ejaculate splattering the floor of the corridor. His eyes were fixed on her, his mouth open in a freakish blend of surprise and euphoria.
Layla’s hands flew to her eyes so fast they made a smacking sound.
Isaac grabbed her by the arm and dragged her to the end of the hall. “I know, I know. It seems scary and, well, bad. But the doctors are working on repairing the damage. They’ve had several treatments, and believe it or not, they’re getting better. That’s what they tell me, anyway.”
“What happened?” she whispered. “Why are they like that?”
“Their serotonin levels are off the charts. It’s like a bad acid trip they can never come down from.”
Finally, a language Layla could speak. She’d seen acid trippers come through the recruiting center. Most of the time, she rejected them. The risk of hallucinogen persisting perception disorder was too high, especially for long-term abusers. She couldn’t risk a disturbance in her Colony caused by a flashback that might last hours or even days. But the tripping behavior she witnessed in the recruiting center was nothing like what she just saw.
Isaac seemed to read her mind. “From what I understand, the altered perception and the synesthesia they experienced initially has created a new reality in their minds. Even though they’re cognizant and can remember past events, they’ve forgotten what normalcy is. It’s like they’re living in a dream world every day. They have dramatic mood swings, but some days are better than others. Yesterday I played an entire game of Go Fish with Nicole.” He smiled at the memory. “She thought we were on a boat with fishing rods, and for the rest of the day, she kept asking when I’d bring her fish dinner.”
All this time, and Layla hadn’t bothered to look up her old friend. She’d buried herself in her work and her happy life with James. Nicole had given up her life in the poisoned world. She’d worked just as hard as Layla had, suffered every day for the gift of purification. And hers was to live in a prison cell as a freak. The Colony—her Colony—was responsible for this.
“How long has she been like that?” she finally asked.
His silence was answer enough. Since the beginning.
“And Sofia?”
“She didn’t make it.” He didn’t look at her as he led her to a staircase. “She took her life. It was a year or so ago, they told me.”
“How?” she whispered. She didn’t know why she asked.
“She pulled all her hair out. Stuffed it down her throat until she died of asphyxiation.”
Layla felt the muscles of her face tighten with fury. She wanted to scream. She wanted to hit someone. Saving the human race isn’t a marathon. It’s a sprint, and it doesn’t come without sacrifi
ce. Somehow, in all the time she had nodded in agreement with that mantra, she never thought about who was in that lot or what they would sacrifice.
“You came here to see the praefuro,” he said. “They’re downstairs. Follow me.”
She didn’t want to go. Her gut told her to turn around and walk away before it was too late. But from somewhere deep inside, a different mantra bubbled up from her poisoned life.
And the truth shall set you free.
31
March 2024, California
Nick slid into the shadow of an overfilled dumpster as the twinners entered a church. Maybe they really were missionaries of some sort. Hadn’t the host at the bistro said something about a religious pitch? But not even a minute passed before they stepped back through the ornate arched wooden doors and continued on to Crocker Street.
Nick had seen pictures and news stories of the homeless camps on Skid Row. He’d once written a feature on the homeless crisis across the nation, including images from all the major cities. But what he was looking at now was like nothing he’d seen before. Police barriers blocked the entrance to Crocker Street in both directions, with graffiti-covered signs that read No Motorized Vehicles Beyond This Point. Not even half a block beyond the barriers, a long string of portable toilets lined both sides of the road. Jesus, there must’ve been a hundred. The stench was unbearable, and he wondered when the last vacuum tanker had come through. All that could be seen beyond the toilets was a sea of tents, sleeping bags, blankets, and cardboard boxes. The entire street had become a homeless camp. That was the city’s response to the growing problem: a closed road and a hundred unattended portable toilets.
Nick had thought himself worldly. He was a journalist. He was in touch with the people; he was one of the people, in fact. He sat at Darcy’s bar for a Guinness and indulged the grumbling patrons—I only made thirty bucks today. How’s a man supposed to feed a twelve-year-old boy on thirty bucks?—before falling into his rickety twin-size bed in his studio apartment. He thought he understood the suffering that plagued the country.
