by Jade Kerrion
CHAPTER FIVE
Danyael stared at sculptured features as familiar to him as his reflection in the mirror. The dark eyes, set above the slash of high cheekbones, seemed fathomless; all emotion buried in those dark depths.
But where Danyael was scarred and crippled, Galahad was perfectly whole.
Danyael inclined his head. “Hello, Galahad.”
The perfect human being, the irresistible blend of humanity’s most perfect traits and compelling bloodlines, offered his physical template a faint smile. “Danyael.” He pulled his hands out of the pockets of his black leather jacket; his hands were empty. “I need your help.”
Danyael’s eyes narrowed. What the hell? Did he have a flashing neon sign over his head that said, “Request help from the sucker here?” Danyael released his breath in a sigh. “I can’t help you.”
“The government is hunting me. It thinks I’m killing my genetic donors.”
“Aren’t you?”
Galahad frowned. “Why would I kill my donors? I have nothing against them. Rakehell used their genetic code without authorization; most of them never knew that their genes were used to create me. Like you…you didn’t know until three years ago.”
That’s right. It’s been the worst three years of my life.
Galahad took several quick steps forward and stopped in front of Danyael. “I know you have no reason to care what happens to me. I know I’ve only brought you trouble—”
Danyael shrugged. “Most of it was Zara’s fault.”
Galahad chuckled, and for a single moment, the tension eased from the warmth of mutual understanding and shared amusement. “She does have a tendency to precipitate a crisis.”
“As do you.”
“And you.” Galahad’s retort was smooth and quick. “We are not safe people to be around.”
Danyael stifled a sigh. “You’re stalling. What do you want from me?”
“Connections to people who can help me. They won’t talk to me, but they’ll listen to you.”
“You’re overestimating my influence.”
“Am I? You saved D.C. from Sakti’s attack—”
Danyael shook his head. “I’m in a virtual prison. The government doesn’t trust me any more than it trusts you. Go back to Lucien; he can protect you or hide you—”
“I will not hide.”
“You do what you have to in order to survive. Picking up the pieces…that comes later.”
“You’d know, wouldn’t you?” Scorn laced Galahad’s melodic tenor.
The door opened. “Danyael does, but you don’t.” The voice was mellifluous, identical.
Danyael spun around. His jaw dropped as another Galahad walked in. Danyael’s wide-eyed gaze shuttled between the two men, apparently identical in every way, except that the second held a Glock that he pointed at the first. “No, that’s impossible…” Danyael breathed.
“Of course it’s impossible,” the second man said. His face was grim, his dark eyes narrowed. “He’s not Galahad.”
The first man stared at the second, seemingly as surprised as Danyael was by the appearance of his apparent twin. “Who are you?”
Danyael’s eyes narrowed. Faced with an impossible choice, he had to trust his instincts. His mutant powers reached out, filtering the emotions skittering through the two men. The glare of their mutual suspicion pushed the steady pulse of their hate into the background, but the potent emotion simmered, more pronounced than Danyael had remembered. He chuckled, the sound without humor. He had avoided Galahad for fifteen months, but apparently, it had done little to take the edge off Galahad’s hate.
Danyael inhaled deeply. He had to trust what his empathic senses screamed at him. A muscle twitched in his smooth cheek as he reached out and placed a hand on the arm of the man closest to him, the man who had first entered his clinic. His empathic powers surged, driving a tidal wave of pain ahead of him.
With a sharp gasp, the man collapsed, his eyes rolling up in his head.
The tension flowed out of the second man. Galahad slid his Glock into his black leather jacket and strode forward to kneel beside the clone. He searched for a pulse. “He’s alive.” He sounded startled.
“Of course. Did you expect me to kill him?”
Galahad glanced up at Danyael, his gaze assessing. “I don’t think I know you anymore. Perhaps I never did.” He looked back at his clone. “How did you know?”
“The emotional resonance of clones creates an empathic echo,” Danyael explained.
“But how did you know he was the clone?”
Their gazes met once again. Danyael shrugged. “He hated me less.”
Surprise flickered through Galahad’s dark eyes, but he did not respond to Danyael’s statement. Instead, he studied his unconscious clone, turning the clone’s face to the side, as if searching for minute differences. Galahad shook his head. “How can this be? Until three years ago, my genetic code was a secret buried in the technology vaults of Pioneer Labs. How can there be a similarly-aged clone of me?” He looked up at Danyael. “Are you sure he’s my clone?”
“He’s a close enough replica of you to create an empathic echo, but only a genetic test will confirm if he’s a clone or just a near match.”
“Did he kill my donors?”
“He said he didn’t. Are you killing your genetic donors?”
Galahad frowned. “What do you think?”
Danyael inhaled deeply and released his breath in a soft sigh. “No, even though you tried to kill me once.”
The frown curved into a smirk. “Ah, but I didn’t succeed, and I have nothing against my other donors. I wouldn’t waste my time.”
Danyael chuckled. Now that sounded like the Galahad he knew—the Galahad who, in his early days of freedom, had learned much, perhaps too much, from Zara, an assassin with a decidedly rotten attitude.
“I need confirmation. Do you have equipment here for a genetic test?” Galahad asked.
Danyael shook his head. “No. The local hospital does, but they’d trigger an alarm if I submitted a blood sample that mapped to your genetic code.”
Galahad pushed to his feet, grace in motion, unhampered—as Danyael was—by crippling injury. “I know where I can run the tests. Will you help me?”
“You don’t need my help. You have Lucien. He has money and influence. I have nothing; I can’t even walk without pain.”
“He doesn’t have the credibility that you do with the government.”
Danyael shook his head. “I don’t know where you’re getting your information.”
“The government trusts you.”
Danyael waved his hand at the shabby surrounds of the clinic. “Does this look like trust to you?”
Galahad paced the length of the narrow corridor. “I can only imagine the hatred and bitterness you must feel toward the government for what it did to you—fourteen months in a maximum-security prison, tortured and drugged out of your mind, and then five months with the Mutant Assault Group, emotionally blackmailed into training the super soldiers. And then, as a reward for ending Sakti’s attack on the city, the government pardoned you, but still labeled you a ‘terrorist and traitor.’ It imprisoned you within a twenty-mile radius of the council, dumping you into a dead-end job that pays slave’s wages.”
Danyael clenched his teeth against the anguish that smashed into his psychic shields, trying to break free. “The job was Lucien’s doing.”
“What?”
Danyael looked up, meeting Galahad’s gaze for a brief moment before he turned his face away. He had to conceal the pain glistening in his eyes. “Lucien blocked every other employment opportunity in the area. The free clinic in Anacostia was the only place that would hire me.”
Galahad chuckled. “Did you ever imagine that your one-time best friend would go so far out of his way to ruin your life? Did you ever think that he would choose me over you?”
Danyael closed his eyes against the swell of hate and fisted his hands to keep from striking
out at Galahad. Graceless in his haste and anger, he turned his back on the perfect human being—the embodiment of everything he had lost—and limped toward his office.
Galahad’s mocking tone vanished. “And that is why the government trusts you.”
Danyael froze in mid-step. “What?” He looked over his shoulder.
Galahad’s smile was thin. “I taunted you with your most painful memories. A lesser man would have attacked me. With your empathic powers, you could have killed me, but all you did was walk away.” His gaze traveled along the length of the featureless wall before focusing once again on Danyael’s face. His black eyes were intent. “I know the monster inside you. Everyone does. The government could have locked you away in a windowless cell for the rest of your life, but it let you live free among people, acknowledging that it is only your self-control that stands between your deadly emotions and an empathic meltdown that could drive thousands of people to suicide. If that’s not trust, nothing else is.”
Was it? Danyael turned away, his emotions rioting into a storm that spun in frenzy, railing against his exquisitely cultivated psychic shields.
“The government listens to you. It trusts you. Help me, please.”
The last word had sounded pained on Galahad’s tongue. He was probably not accustomed to begging for help, or to having his requests turned down. Danyael shook his head. “Why should I?”
“Because you’re the only one I know who will give me a fair shake. You always have.”
“A few times too many.” Was that neon light flashing the word “sucker” again?
“I ask for one more. I did not kill my genetic donors; help me prove it.”
Danyael turned, the motion slow and awkward as he swiveled on his crutch, and stared into a face identical to his. The only difference was a nearly invisible scar that marked Danyael’s face from his right cheekbone to his chin. It was another injury he did not recall. He had far too many of those from his unremembered childhood.
And wasn’t Galahad equally, if not more, damaged from his childhood? He had spent the first twenty-five years of his life as a prisoner and test subject at Pioneer Labs, and then the first several months of freedom influenced by Zara who was, on most days, not the best role model. In combination, it was a surefire way to develop into a sociopath. Perhaps the wonder was not that Galahad was a first-class bastard, but that he was as normal as he pretended to be.
And where would I have been if Lucien hadn’t saved me? I’d be dead, or a larger threat to society than Galahad could ever aspire to be.
Could Galahad be saved? Did he want to be?
“What do you need?” Danyael asked.
Relief flashed over Galahad’s face; gratitude fluttered across his emotional spectrum. “I can find what I need at Pioneer Labs.”
But Boonsboro, Maryland, was beyond the boundaries of Danyael’s twenty-mile virtual prison. Danyael hesitated before reaching for his cell phone and calling his controller.
Mu Xin picked up the call on the second ring. “Hello, Danyael. Isn’t it a little late for a friendly chat?”
As a rule, they didn’t do friendly chats. Danyael was much too wary of the NSA analyst who was the clone of Fu Hao, a 1,200 B.C. Chinese high priestess, warlord, and queen. “I need permission to travel outside the city.”
“Where are you going?”
“Maryland, for a few hours. I’ll be back by morning.”
“Sure. I’ll log your clearance in the system. Have fun, Danyael.” She hung up on him.
Danyael frowned at his cell phone. “Damn it.”
“What?” Galahad asked.
“Xin didn’t ask for details.”
“Xin the all-knowing? She’s your controller?”
Danyael nodded. He released his breath in a sigh. “She’s playing me for a fool. Again.”
A sardonic smile flashed across Galahad’s flawless features. “What would she do for fun, otherwise?” He nudged his chin down at his unconscious clone. “I have a car around the corner. Let’s go.”
~*~
An hour and a half later, Danyael and Galahad pulled into the parking lot outside the blackened husk of Pioneer Labs. The charred walls of the octagonal structure cast a long and ominous shadow over a moonlit lawn overgrown with weeds. Danyael stepped out of the car and waited as Galahad hauled his unconscious clone over his shoulder. Danyael’s gaze drifted over the building; he had not been back to Pioneer Labs since the night of his ill-fated confrontation with his father, brother, and Galahad.
“Is this place occupied?” he asked, surprised by the sealed doors and the biometric security system installed beside it.
Galahad nodded. “Yes, by the abomination, the only one that survived the massacre three years ago. The building is structurally sound, though the NSA deters trespassers by encouraging all appearances to the contrary.”
“The NSA controls Pioneer Labs too?”
Galahad shot him a glance. “Are you surprised to find Xin’s finger in every stew? You shouldn’t be. The only question you should have for her omniscient highness is what devilry she is up to now.” He shrugged, shifting the weight of his clone. “Move aside. The door’s programmed to open for me.”
Galahad stepped up to the biometric scanner and peered into it. A thin orange light flashed horizontally and vertically across his right eye, scanning his iris. The light on the security panel changed from red to green; a heavy lock slid back and the door opened.
Galahad stepped in and turned left, toward the western wing. “The abomination has free run of the eastern wing. I’d suggest giving it a wide berth. Fortunately, the laboratory is this way.”
Danyael raised his head and sniffed the lavender-scented air. “Why does it smell of spring in here?”
“To confuse the abomination’s sense of smell if it escapes from the eastern wing and give people a fighting chance of getting away before it tracks and hunts them down.”
“And the chill is to save on the electric bill?” Danyael asked.
“The abomination has an accelerated metabolism. The cold minimizes the chances of it overheating. Besides, no one lives here.” Galahad led the way down the corridor, and a robotic cleaner scurried after them, wiping up the wet dirt that both Danyael and Galahad had trekked in.
Danyael had few memories of Pioneer Labs, and most of them were hazy, blurred by fatigue, and loaded with emotions, all of them painful. He sectioned the memories off, and instead studied the laboratory with fresh eyes. Long rows of thin florescent tubes cast a soft white glow over the seemingly endless corridor, flanked on one side by closed doors and on the other by glass-windowed research stations, each equipped with state-of-the-art equipment, even though three years must have passed since they were last used. In its heyday, Pioneer Labs had been more than just cutting-edge; it had defined the boundaries of genetic research, and then stepped beyond them.
Galahad dumped his unconscious clone on the operating table in one of the research stations. “Do you have what you need here to run a genetic analysis?”
Danyael glanced around the room. Most of the equipment he recognized from his four years at medical school. He searched in the metal drawers and found a full selection of medical implements. He nodded. “We’ll run an analysis, and a cell culture too. Here, let me get a sample from you to compare against.” He swabbed at the crook of Galahad’s elbow with an alcohol-soaked gauze pad, and then used a syringe to extract a vial of blood. With swift and precise motions, he set the tube aside, and pressed a Band-Aid over the pinprick in Galahad’s arm.
He turned to the clone, but tossed a question back at Galahad. “Can you find a blanket?”
“What for?”
Danyael glanced over his shoulder. Wasn’t it obvious? “For him.” He nudged his chin at the clone. “It’s cold in here.”
Galahad’s brow furrowed, but he shrugged and walked away, returning several minutes later with a blanket that he draped over the clone. “How long will he be out?”
&nb
sp; “I don’t know. Depends on his tolerance for pain. If he’s indeed your clone, then I’d say, ‘not nearly as long as we’d like.’” Danyael slipped two vials of blood into a small and bulky machine set on a countertop, and then turned on the machine. It came to life with a low and satisfying hum. “This place is a geneticist’s wet dream.”
“Is it? Tell me what these machines do.”
As Danyael worked on the cell culture, he described the workings of the analyzer and the much more complicated DNA recombinant machine that allowed scientists to create hybrid DNA strands.
“Did you learn all this in medical school?” Galahad asked.
Danyael nodded. “After I graduated from Hopkins, I briefly contemplated staying on for a Ph.D. in genetics and genomics.”
“Why?”
“It’s fascinating to contemplate the size and scale of genetic ‘accidents’ that had to conspire to create an alpha empath with my kind of power. I won’t deny it; I thought that perhaps I could use my genetic code to track down my parents. Of course, how could I have known that just two years later, the entire world would know who I was, and what my father had done with my genetic code?”
“But why didn’t you stay on for the Ph.D.? Why did you choose to work at the free clinics instead?”
“In the end, I realized that where I came from didn’t matter as much as where I was going. I can make a bigger difference at the free clinics than stuck in a lab.” Danyael hobbled across the breadth of the room and slid the cell culture onto the stage of a microscope. He peered in through the ocular lens as he fine-tuned the focus.
For a moment, he stared in silence at the nuclei of the living cells he had extracted from the clone. His eyes narrowed. Was it possible? He clicked on a button to capture several time-lapse images, and then stepped aside for Galahad. “Take a look.”
Galahad peered into the microscope. “What am I looking for?”
“What do you know about biology?”
“Next to nothing. It wasn’t part of my core curriculum at Pioneer Labs.”
