The Island Experiment

by Erica Rue

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  1. BEL

  2. LITHIA

  3. DIONE

  4. LITHIA

  5. DIONE

  6. CORA

  7. DIONE

  8. LITHIA

  9. BEL

  10. DIONE

  11. LITHIA

  12. BRIAN

  13. ZANE

  14. BEL

  15. DIONE

  16. DIONE

  17. BRIAN

  18. DIONE

  19. LITHIA

  20. DIONE

  21. DIONE

  22. DIONE

  23. CORA

  24. CORA

  25. ZANE

  26. CORA

  27. LITHIA

  28. LITHIA

  29. DIONE

  30. DIONE

  31. DIONE

  32. CORA

  33. LITHIA

  34. BRIAN

  35. DIONE

  36. DIONE

  37. LITHIA

  38. LITHIA

  39. LITHIA

  40. DIONE

  41. BEL

  42. DIONE

  43. CORA

  44. BRIAN

  45. LITHIA

  46. DIONE

  Thank You

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Erica Rue

  The Island Experiment

  Kepos Chronicles

  Book 3

  Erica Rue

  Copyright © 2019 Erica Rue

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author, except by reviewers, who may quote brief passages.

  Editing by Jessica Hatch of Hatch Editorial Services

  Cover Design by Sanja Gombar, fantasybookcoverdesign.com

  Published by Tannhauser Press

  tannhauserpress.com

  This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to real persons or events is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Visit ericarue.com for more information.

  For Jacob and Valen

  For Jane

  1. BEL

  Belen Sangha rubbed her cheek where the Ven had carved its mark. That day the Vens had boarded the Calypso felt like a lifetime ago, but it had been less than two weeks. The fresh scar felt smooth and tender, even if she couldn’t see the shiny pink spiral that marred her brown skin.

  A buzzing sound caught her attention. She looked around the lab, searching for her prey. It was in here somewhere. She’d come down into the basement of the Mountain Base to upload the datacore, but she’d gotten distracted when she realized she wasn’t alone. Something was down here with her.

  She saw movement out of the corner of her eye. She tracked her quarry across the room, but lost it again when it landed out of her line of sight. Bel deftly wove her thick, dark hair into a single braid down her back to keep it out of the way while she hunted the insect—a red-striped stinger, as Evy, a young Aratian girl they’d befriended, had called it. She’d checked the lid of the container when Evy had shown her the angry red bug, but it had escaped all the same. It must have hitched a ride down here with her.

  She wondered what Evy was up to now. The Aratian settlement, with the Vale Temple at its center, had been the site of their major battle with the Vens. After the battle, most of the Vens were dead. Most of the colonists were alive. She still couldn’t believe it, and a momentary pang of jealousy rose up inside her. She wished things had been different back home, where her colony had been wiped out by the Vens. She had survived and ended up at StellAcademy, just to get stranded out here on a summer internship gone wrong.

  She shook off the thought. The price Kepos paid for victory had been high, and there was nothing she could do about the past. With the information on the datacore, maybe she could find a Ven weakness to exploit and do something about the future. There had been a reason she risked her life to download that data before the Invader was destroyed.

  Bel was in one of the basement labs that Sam had barred all colonists from. Sam, once a researcher on Kepos, had uploaded her consciousness into the Mountain Base computer, merging with its AI in order to better protect the colonists. The lab equipment had long been stored away, leaving the workbenches in the center of the room bare. Surprisingly comfy chairs bordered the empty tables. There was a large screen at the far end of the room displaying the words Upload Complete. Bel had just finished uploading the contents of her manumed into Sam’s systems. She turned her wrist and read the same confirmation message on her manumed. The device was more than just a communicator; she’d been able to download a portion of the datacore onto it before Sam destroyed the Ven ship. She hoped she’d gotten enough to get some answers.

  “That’s the last of it, Sam,” she said.

  The AI responded, “Zane has already given me his translation program. It will take some time, though.” Bel thought her voice wavered at the end. Was Sam starting to sound more human, or was it Bel’s imagination?

  She heard the basement door open. Zane Delapont and Professor Elian Oberon had finally arrived. Zane’s blue eyes found her immediately, and his smile gave her goosebumps.

  “Sam is going to translate the datacore using your program. She adapted it,” Bel said.

  Zane nodded, but he didn’t look happy.

  “What’s wrong?” she said.

  “Can you handle that task, Sam? It will be pretty demanding on you,” he said.

  “Yes, I can. I will use the data you already have to extrapolate a greater vocabulary, though there will still be words I will be unable to translate, or that I’ll translate incorrectly,” Sam replied.

  Zane turned to exchange a look with Oberon, and that’s when Bel saw it. A large, dangerous-looking bug with a red stripe and pulsating abdomen had found its way onto Zane’s back.

  “Don’t move, Zane,” Bel said. “The red-striped stinger is on your back. It might sting or bite.” She looked around until she found something that she could use: a thin, metal panel leaning against one of the tables.

  Bel quickly positioned the metal sheet to flick the bug away, but it took to flight. When it landed on a table, Bel scooped it into her empty water bottle. She would release it outside later. And maybe throw out the water bottle afterward, just to be safe.

  “Is it venomous?” Oberon asked.

  “I don’t know. Evy found it, but I never remembered to look it up. It looks like it has a painful sting at the very least.”

  “I won’t argue with that,” the professor said.

  “Sam, do you have a database of all the organisms on this planet?”

  “Yes,” Sam said, giving her access.

  Bel searched by a number of criteria, including the order and family she thought the insect might be in, but even its striking color did not yield any results.

  “Sam, it’s not in here,” she said.

  “This database contains all approved species,” the AI replied.

  “That doesn’t make any sense. It can’t be all of them.” As soon as Bel said it out loud, something clicked. “You said ‘approved’ species. This is one of Jameson’s experiments, isn’t it? You mentioned them in your audio logs.” Jameson, often called the Farmer by the colonists, had been a terraforming researcher, like Sam, but he had brought the colonists to Kepos and wiped their memories. He had made himself a king—no, a god—that is, until Sam had stopped him.

  “His unofficial experiments were not permitted to be released in the testing area,” Sam said.

  “Well, permitted or not, it’s here,” Bel replied. “What’s
the testing area?”

  The screen went blank for a moment before a color-coded map of Kepos appeared.

  “This looks like a map I found back on the space station,” Zane said, peering at it. “There’s more detail here, though. The colors represent the planet’s different biomes, and those little triangles must be Kepos’ research bases.”

  “Then the gray area is not for testing,” Bel said. “Is that where he released them?”

  There was a pause. “All of Jameson’s nightmare experiments were confined,” Sam replied. Bel found her answer annoying and purposefully opaque.

  Oberon was frowning. “What do you mean, confined?”

  Bel studied the map while they waited for Sam’s reply. She was slow today.

  The mountain region turned from red to gray at a certain point, but that was quite far from the base itself. Evy hadn’t gone off too far during her bug hunt. Plus, the mountains wouldn’t be considered a confined area. At that thought, she glanced at the lower edge of the map and saw a blip of gray. She reached forward and zoomed out, revealing a gray patch, floating in the sea.

  “An island,” Bel said. “He put everything on that island.”

  “Nothing on the southern island has the capacity to escape,” Sam said. “They were not designed to be as hardy as some of the creatures we seeded on the mainland. Jameson never would have come back to start a colony if he thought what he put on that island could escape.”

  “What’s on the island exactly?” Zane asked apprehensively.

  “I never knew them all, but you could go through his own records.”

  “Can you show us what you do know?” Oberon asked.

  Sam granted them access to another section of the database. “Here’s Jameson’s catalog.”

  There were only a few dozen entries in this one. Some of them were only sketches, but among them Bel found a picture of the red-striped stinger. She read its description.

  “This little guy,” she said, giving her water bottle a small flourish, “is called a percussor insect. He won’t kill you. You will, however, experience extreme pain at the site of the bite for days and sensitivity that can last for months.”

  “Are you certain you’ve correctly identified the insect?” Sam asked.

  “I know bugs, Sam, and this is it. The things from the island aren’t confined. How could he ever think they would be?”

  “Jameson was smart, but arrogant,” Sam said. “He probably thought he could control them. I imagine he had some fail safes in place to prevent this, but he died before he could finish whatever he was planning.”

  Died? Bel thought. You killed him.

  An old maxim her mother used to repeat popped into her mind. Life finds a way. Bel was angry that a scientist would be so careless and then bring these people here, but Jameson wasn’t a regular scientist. He seemed to think he was some untouchable god, and for just a moment she was sad he wasn’t around to see how truly wrong he had been.

  That’s when Zane spoke up. “Bel, check the ‘approved’ database for that fake plant thing that attacked Lithia.”

  After a minute of scrolling, Bel said, “Nothing’s coming up, but I may not be searching for the right thing. I never saw it in person.”

  Zane tried a few more searches, but found nothing. “I’m willing to bet the angler worm is another one of his abominations. I’ll check the nightmare list.”

  “Nightmare list. I like that,” Bel said.

  “Angler worm?” Sam asked.

  “Yeah, beautiful, creepy flowers that grab you and pull you into the ground if you get too close. There’s a little tree in the middle.”

  “I had no idea he actually engineered it. Many of the creatures in his logs were only theoretical. He tossed out a lot of ideas and worked almost constantly. This is very bad. If the things on that island are escaping…”

  “Here it is,” Zane said. “Capitella florianna. A flower worm.” The sketch showed what the worm looked like underground. It had a thick central body, with its head rooted firmly in place by tiny, abundant hooks. Its midsection diverged in many directions, breaking the surface of the earth in order to display its captivating blooms. Its tail also broke the surface, though just barely.

  “The ones I’ve seen have longer above-ground tails,” Zane said. “Like small tree trunks.”

  “This was just a sketch. I guess we can expect some variation. What else is over there?” Bel asked.

  “I don’t know, beyond what’s in Jameson’s catalog,” Sam said. “I wasn’t a part of his experiments. After a while, I fell out of favor and he found others to assist him. Much of it, though, he preferred to do alone.”

  “I don’t think you can deny that the nightmares from the island are making their way here to the mainland,” Bel said.

  “You might be right,” Sam said, “but I don’t know how to stop them. Jameson’s the only one who did. I’m certain he had a way of controlling them, or he never would have started his colony with those creatures in his backyard.”

  Oberon had been swiping through the database entries. He let out a single, humorless laugh. “Is this supposed to be a dragon?”

  Bel looked over his shoulder at the image. It was a lizard, about the size of a small dog.

  “No wings,” Zane said.

  “But it breathes fire.” Bel summarized its description. “It produces and spits an accelerant, then ignites it with its bifurcated tail.” She looked up. “So, like striking two pieces of flint together.” This was no sketch or digital rendering, but a real picture of a dragon. The idea that, like the angler worms, a fire-breathing creature could escape its confines and infiltrate the mainland set her teeth on edge.

  “What are we going to do, Oberon?” Bel said.

  Oberon wouldn’t even look at her. He closed his eyes and massaged his temples. “This is not something we caused, and therefore, it’s not our concern. We should focus on heading home. I’ve spoken to Victoria about taking the Ven ship.”

  “We’re leaving? We can’t leave without helping them. Plus there are still a few Vens running around.”

  “Bel, it will take some time to figure out how to fly the Ven ship outside of the atmosphere. Victoria and Benjamin are working together to figure out how to destroy the last of the Vens,” he said.

  “If we even can,” Bel said. She didn’t much care for Victoria, the leader of the Ficarans, but if she was working with Benjamin, the current Regnator of the Aratians, Bel would consider that a win. The two groups of colonists, the Ficarans and Aratians, had finally come together to defeat the Vens. She hated the fact that the Vens were still out there, a perpetual threat.

  Zane chimed in. “We don’t have a choice.”

  “Any sightings?” Bel asked.

  “No, but people aren’t doing a lot of exploring right now.”

  “Neither should we. This whole situation is a mess that we’re no longer a part of,” Oberon said.

  Bel crossed her arms. Vens. Dragons. How could Oberon just leave these people to their fate? “And when the dragons make their way here to the mainland?” She couldn’t believe Oberon would leave them to the mercy of a genetic engineering nightmare.

  “Bel, please—”

  “She’s right, Oberon,” Zane said, stepping forward. “We owe it to these people. We helped them defeat the Vens, but there’s still more good we can do here.”

  Bel smiled and grabbed Zane’s hand. Warmth flooded her body. When she looked up at Oberon, some of that warmth receded. He looked completely drained.

  She could see him thinking about it, weighing his responsibility as their teacher and his role in the present colonial upheaval. “What makes you think we can solve their problems for them?” he asked. “What right do we have to intervene? That kind of hubris on the part of one man got them into this.”

  Bel tried to interrupt, but Oberon powered on.

  “Their issues existed long before we arrived, and when the Vens were the primary threat, it made sense to he
lp. We may have been responsible. But now? We have a chance to leave and get them real help. Even though we’re outside the Bubble of Alliance-protected space, I may be able to talk some of my contacts into an evacuation, or at least get them some supplies. Sam can tell the colonists about the island and the dragons, and they can make their own decisions.”

  Bel examined the bags under Oberon’s eyes and felt her own shoulders sag. Maybe he was right. If there was a chance to get these colonists the kind of help they needed, shouldn’t she support that?

  “The professor has a point, Bel,” Zane conceded. She felt him glance at her. “If you really think we can get someone to come back out here, that might be the best option for the colonists.”

  “I do,” Oberon said. “It won’t be easy, but—”

  “And if they refuse to leave?” Bel asked. “They wouldn’t be the first colonists outside the Bubble to refuse.” She had grown up in a colony outside the Bubble. Even the threat of the Vens couldn’t always convince people to move to a safer location.

  “True, but they’ll at least have the choice. Jameson didn’t give them that when he brought them here and erased their memories.”

  Bel nodded, but frowned nonetheless. What kind of choice was it actually? They had just fought for this land and won. The colonists deserved a little peace and quiet after everything. She didn’t think that many would be eager to leave, though, even if they understood the truth of the universe beyond Kepos.

  2. LITHIA

  Lithia Min leaned casually against a Flyer near the entrance of the Mountain Base. Though the views were beautiful, the nature sounds were drowned out by mechanical whirring and shouting from one side of the landing pad to the other. The morning was warm already, and sweat was beginning to form on her forehead, but she couldn’t go inside yet. She pulled her long, black hair into a ponytail to get it off her neck and shoulders, hoping that would help her cool off.

  She stared at her manumed, pretending to read. It was a skill she had practiced many times, moving her eyes across the page and pausing occasionally to look up with a pensive expression. She had been perfecting the art of eavesdropping her entire life. The hard part was not reacting as she overheard Victoria’s frustration.