by Talis Jones
“Who cares why,” Nyx hisses. “Kill the project.”
“Why hasn’t anyone else noticed what they’re creating?” Win ponders.
I rub my eyes tiredly. “Probably because no one is working on the project as a whole so they see only pieces, answering only partial questions, also they think they’re targeting Aggressives and when you think of it that way, these vaccines are Hail Mary’s.”
“She’s right about the Aggressives,” Arcas agrees. “That’s what everyone fears, becoming a rabid monster and/or dying. These vaccines are pointed in a direction to prevent that.”
“Convici knows,” I seethe. “She must know. They both do. Does Van know? Who else might know?” I slam my hand on the table. “How am I supposed to help perfect drugs that will finish what these egomaniacs started?”
“You don’t,” Remi snaps angrily.
“I’m only here to be useful,” I say quietly. “If I won’t be useful of my own volition, I’m sure they’ll find ways of forcing me to be useful.”
“So be useful,” Yosef decides. “Just be slow about it and let us work out the rest.”
“What?”
“Buy us time,” Yosef explains. “Slow down the project, hit dead-ends, sabotage it in tiny ways, what-the-hell-ever you need to do to buy us time to finish our project.”
“Cut the head off the snake?” I ask remembering what Arcas told me about their hatred for Dr. Convici.
“Two birds, one stone,” he nods.
No better plan pops into my head so I give in. “Alright, but I need to understand it better. There’s a reason why I asked Arcas to help me analyze their progress.”
“I’ll sketch out what to look for,” Arcas promises me. “We’ll figure out a way to hide it, study it, and change it.”
I nod. “Fine. They need me to decipher Dr. Xi’s notes for the final piece so I can buy time with that as well.”
We discuss things in hushed tones a bit more before Arcas and Maddy shove things onto a light-hearted plane when the table beside ours begins to fill. I eat my burger and fries, my mind spinning nonstop the entire time. At least my reputation spares me from having to participate and force laughter up my throat.
How do I end up in these situations??
Remi notices my distraction and he nudges my shoulder gently with his own.
I turn to look at him. “I won’t let them hurt you,” I promise fiercely. “I won’t.”
Part Three
History is Best Served Hot
Twenty-Three
A pounding pain pulses in my head, dancing from over my right eye to the occipital lobe in the back, eluding my attempts to banish the infernal headache. I let out a tired sigh as I stretch my back and stare at the papers sprawled across my desk. When a light knock comes at the door I nearly wilt with relief at the interruption.
“How’s it going?” Remi asks with a knowing smile.
“It’s going,” I grumble.
“Here,” he offers. Handing me a coffee, I clutch it close and breathe in its warmth.
Glancing around feeling as if there are a dozen cameras staring instead of just the one that supposedly doesn’t even capture audio, I lower my voice before asking, “Where’s Arcas? I haven’t seen him lately.”
Win walks in and, hearing my question, answers before Remi. “Out on assignment with Maddy. They all are, actually.” Scowling down into his own cup of coffee he mutters under his breath, “Lucky bastards.”
“Win, Remi, you know you can leave whenever you want, right?” I remind them as I always do. And as they always do, they tsk and turn their heads. “Fine, but you don’t have to be camped in here with me. Go walk around or something.”
“I don’t like it here,” Win complains darkly.
I lean forwards with what I vaguely recognize as motherly concern. “Someone giving you a hard time?”
Win rolls his eyes. “No. It’s just this place in general, the rhythm you can set your clock to, the hive-like obedience of the people here…” He shudders. “I just don’t like it.”
“Welcome to the daily grind,” I smile. “This is how the world worked. Before, anyway.”
“Then maybe a thanks is in order for shaking things up,” he teases.
Remi gives his cousin a sharp jab with his elbow and I try to keep the memories off of my face.
“Sorry, Morgan,” Win apologizes swiftly. “I was just joking…”
“Yeah, I know,” I say, waving away his apology. “It’s fine.”
“No, it isn’t,” Remi chastises Win sternly. “People died, cuz. Her best friend died and she went to prison. It isn’t funny.”
I think about it for a moment then shake my head. “No, it was funny. Win’s joke, not the reality obviously. If you can’t laugh, if you can’t grasp onto those silver linings, then how do we find the strength to keep living? I need you guys. You make me laugh. You help keep me from sitting and spiraling down into the painful, horrifying truth of the past.”
Remi looks about to protest so I reach out and place my hand over his. “What’s done is done. Now let’s make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
“What if it does,” Win whispers almost to himself.
A deep breath cycles through my lungs before I answer, confessing one of my greatest fears. “If I fail, again, I’m not sure I’ll survive it.”
“Then we won’t fail,” Remi swears.
Win nods sharply. “No one takes down the Horseman.”
Grinning I turn back to my coffee. “Damn right.”
“So, did you crack the code, yet?” Win asks eagerly.
Glancing down at Xi’s journal and my meticulous notes, I feel my hands turn clammy. Ever paranoid, I choose not to answer. “What I still don’t understand is why.”
“Why what?” Remi frowns, not following.
My lips press into a hard line. “Why all of it.” Why did Dr. Xi do all that he did? Why did Dr. Convici do all that she did? Why are Tori and Liz doing what they’re doing? Why the experiments? Why the sabotage? Why the “vaccine”? Why why why…and to what end?
“Go socialize with the others,” I order, standing up briskly. “I’m going to go have a chat with Tori before she can disappear again.”
Silence is all I hear through the door, but I knock anyway and am somehow unsurprised by the answering invitation to enter. Tori sits behind her desk with her feet propped up on top, ankles crossed.
“To what do I owe the pleasure?” she asks congenially.
Smiling out of habit, I take a second and waver between tactics. Deciding on a direct attack, tired of the lies and games these people play, my smile turns cold. “Why am I here?”
Tori looks bemusedly stumped. “I believe we explained that two years ago when we invited you to join our team. How is your progress, by the way? I admit I did not think about how much there would be for you to relearn.” She shrugs. “Ah well, I’m not the science person.”
“Yes and where is Dr. Convici?” I wonder for the thousandth time.
The woman’s face tightens. “Indisposed. You know how geniuses are – eccentric, fickle, averse to social interaction…”
“A stereotype,” I dismiss coldly. “I met your sister and however brief that meeting was, I know enough to know that she is not a recluse. I was top of my class, but I am not nor ever have been a ‘genius’ so I just have to ask again. Why am I here?”
Irritation wars with her desire to keep things friendly. “Vanguard gave you the journal, did he not? I’m sure he explained why we need you, someone who is familiar with Dr. Xi’s mind and has a penchant for codes, to help decipher it?”
“Yes, he did tell me that and you’re right, I was,” I confirm. “But so was Dr. Convici and she was far more brilliant than I so I can’t help but wonder why after all of these many many years, she hasn’t been able to crack it.”
“Is,” Tori snaps. “She is brilliant.”
“Oh good,” I smile. “So she isn’t dead then. I admit the though
t did cross my mind considering the only evidence of her in Python is her determined ghost battling against Dr. Xi’s.”
“Of course she’s not dead.”
“Then tell me, Tori. Why am I here? Why am I the one assigned to design a drug that can suppress those special abilities that keep cropping up in the wake of your sister’s bomb?”
Tori’s face pales in an interesting combination of fury and fear.
“Tell me, Tori, and maybe I’ll help.” I toss the offer at her with an arrogance I cultivated as Gan and wait for her response.
Tension sucks the air out of the room, not a sound to be heard, until at last her chair creaks as she shoves her boots off of the desk and leans forwards.
“You will help,” she sneers. “You have no choice. I own you.”
“No one owns me,” I reply calmly. “So give me a reason to stay.”
I remain still as her eyes scour me, searching for a bluff. “I need you…to bring my sister back.”
“Back?” I frown. “Back from where?”
“From insanity,” she sighs.
Tilting my head I let my thoughts flood forth like a wave and when it recedes I examine the beach to see what’s been left behind. “You were given the ability to control other people’s emotions,” I probe.
Tori nods.
“What exactly did Liz receive for her deeds?”
Meeting my eye, her spine stiffens with defensive pride but her eyes beg. “She lost all control of her own.”
Counting in a breath of four, holding it for four, then releasing it slowly, I absorb her words. “So she’s in a padded cell unable to focus, unable to work, unable to help herself even though she’s likely the only person who can.” A dark, somewhat amused sound escapes my throat. “What torture it must be for her.”
“And for me,” Tori barks. “She’s my sister! It didn’t happen all at once. She seemed fine, unaffected, then she started slowly destabilizing over the years. About ten years ago she completely snapped.”
“That still leaves plenty of time beforehand for her to halt her own demise,” I question.
“It took a while to discover the journal,” she admits with a touch of righteous exasperation.
Tucking away a stream of questions about the journal, I hold my focus. “Why don’t you use your own gift to counter hers?”
Clearly a sore topic, Tori looks away biting her tongue. “Because I can’t!” she spits out. “It only works for a moment. The longer I try to control her, the quicker I’m drained. If I give her an hour, I suffer a migraine for a day. If I give her a day, I am unconscious for a week. I can’t give her enough time without suffering for it.”
Unaffected, I merely blink. “So sacrifice yourself. Give her the time she needs to cure herself.”
Tori looks aghast. “I’d die.”
“Hmm,” I answer. “So you’re comfortable sacrificing the world, but not yourself. And all for the ruthless woman who already caused our people to suffer just to destroy a rival. A rival she failed to destroy, by the way.”
It’s a wonder her teeth don’t shatter with how tightly Tori clenches her jaw.
Pushing on, collecting those pieces washed up on the shore of my mind, I conjecture, “Perhaps it wasn’t just to destroy Dr. Xi. Perhaps she knew exactly what she was doing. Perhaps Dr. Convici chose to play the long game knowing that not only would her rival be crushed, but the method would one day bring the world to kneel down in docile, puppeteered worship. How big does your sister dream, Tori? Oh, I apologize, did.”
Standing, I smooth the wrinkles from my clothes. “I like you Tori, even though I’m wondering if I shouldn’t.”
Turning to go, Tori finally unlocks her jaw for one last plea wrapped in threat. “Will you help her?”
I send her a piercing look. “Yes.”
Twenty-Four
“You said what?” Win gasps outraged.
“I said I’d help her,” I repeat, not looking up from my pencil jotting down more of Dr. Xi’s deciphered journal.
“But why?” he demands exasperated.
Setting down my pencil, I look up at Win with patience. I understand his confusion, after all I still wrestle with that promise. “Because I do not torture people. Because I can help. Because everyone deserves a second chance. I forgave her years ago and now I can help her.”
Remi sits in the corner, his arms crossed tightly over his chest, remaining silent yet his silence is loud in its disapproval.
“I can’t decide if you’re stupid or naïve,” Win shakes his head.
I raise my eyebrow sternly and he backs down quickly with a mumbled apology.
“I know it isn’t a natural reaction to an enemy,” I offer, “but it’s the right one.”
“And if Python decides to use it on all of us?” Remi asks quietly.
My throat swallows thickly with fear. “Then she will be stopped,” I vow.
“But you’re still giving her the chance,” he accuses.
Nodding slowly, I continue to hold his betrayed gaze. “Yes, she deserves a chance.”
“But the knowledge will already be out there!” Win presses. “Anyone could replicate it even if Convici comes out of her torture a saint.”
“No,” I say sharply causing both of their spines to straighten. “Nothing will be computerized. The moment I’m done with it, Xi’s journal will be destroyed and my notes with it. I will keep the formula, written in my own code, and even that will be destroyed once finished. The only way to recreate the drug will be to reverse engineer it and only Liz can do that, which is why I have a backup plan in case she chooses the wrong side.”
With all of the tension in the air lately, it’s a miracle I don’t suffer a constant migraine. Finally Remi lets out a resigned sigh and my shoulders drop.
“I trust you,” he decides. “What’s the backup plan?”
“The less who know, the better,” I insist. “Plausible deniability and all that. Especially if they manage to get the other ‘vaccine’ working without me.”
“The one that turns us into mindless sheep,” Win remembers with disgust.
“Humans are already sheep,” I shrug. “At least for now we can choose who to follow.”
“The plan, Morgan,” Remi growls, refusing to be distracted. “What is it?”
Knowing he won’t let up until I give him something, I say what will reassure him. “You said you trust me and that information is between Yosef and I.”
A dark, satisfied grin curls his lips and he gives an approving nod.
My hands warm against the two steaming cups of coffee I ordered from the kitchens and I sigh in relief when Van’s office door is already open so I don’t have to knock with my foot. As I step inside my presence lifts his head before zeroing in on the caffeine I’ve brought to share.
“Is one of those for me?” he asks a bit hopefully.
Grinning, I set one cup down on his desk. “Yes it is.”
Van reaches for it but his fingers curl away just shy of the cup. Narrowing his eyes at me he asks, “Why?”
With a teasing huff I sit down in a chair and take a sip of my own steaming coffee, my eyes tearing up at the heat. “Mistake,” I wheeze.
“You’re failing at charming me for whatever it is you want,” Van laughs with a shake of his head.
“Yes, well, I’ve never been particularly charming,” I grumble. “Or at least I’ve never really had to try.”
“So there is something you want from me.” He arches an elegant eyebrow and waits for me to give up the game. The thing is, being hopelessly transparent can be a charm in itself.
“Can’t I just be here to say hello?” I ask innocently.
“No.”
Rolling my eyes, I sit up. “Fine, but stopping to say hello is part of why I’m here, you suspicious gnome.”
His eyes brighten at the playful insult. “Gnome, am I?”
I nod. “A rudely suspicious one.”
“Mm,” he accepts, “but it’s on
ly fair I am this way when it comes to you.”
“Me? Why? What did I do?” I protest.
Van shrugs. “I suppose it isn’t you so much as those hellions you protect. Salt in my coffee, dye in my soap, sealing every item in my office with plastic wrap…”
Fighting a smile I try to scoff. “They would never.”
“Of course not,” he says dryly. “And you would never be sent ahead to distract me.”
A genuine blush heats my cheeks. “I didn’t know that’s what they were having me do.”
“At first,” he presses.
“At first,” I admit sheepishly.
With an amused huff he waves away my guilt. “Such antics are my own doing for trapping two wild ones in this facility for so long.”
“The first prank wasn’t even a month after our arrival,” I point out.
“Exactly. To them that probably is a long time to be cooped up.”
I think back to them in prison and feel glad they were able to break out and escape as quickly as they did. I doubt the guards would have been as good humored about their shenanigans as Van surprisingly seems to be.
“You don’t strike me as the prankster type,” I wonder skeptically.
“I’m not,” he answers seriously. “I had blue hands for a week. But I like them. Besides, what’s a prank now and then when it keeps them happy which in turn keeps you happy and working. So long as their tomfoolery doesn’t affect our work here.”
Finding an opening to return to my original reason for the coffee, I ask with a touch of surprise, “What does it matter if I’m happy here or not? Happy worker, happy boss?”
Van tilts his head and watches me carefully, likely checking for signs that I’m not happy here. “We’ve known each other for a couple of years now and I know you are not what they say you are. I wouldn’t want to be the person who set you free only to cage you again. Morgan, I…I want you to be happy here.”
Tilting my own head, I say, “You do know that I am not free here, right? I am not free to walk out the front door and never look back.” An unamused snort escapes me. “Well I am, but the bullet in my head would prevent me from going far.”
