Double Helix Collection: A Genetic Revolution Thriller

by Jade Kerrion

  “That is the only reason I’m here.”

  “Can’t leukemia be treated through bone marrow or gene replacement therapy?”

  “Yes.”

  “You came for Luke’s genes, didn’t you?”

  Danyael shook his head. He turned to face Lucien. “I won’t humiliate myself by asking for what you will not give, or give you the pleasure of signing off on my death sentence. I came here to tell you to keep an eye on Luke.” He exhaled a sigh. “I don’t have time to make anything else of my life. In a way, Luke—because he’s my clone—is all I have left to give to the world. I’m counting on you not to let him screw up.” Danyael broke eye contact for a moment, gathering the strength to go on. “My health record is on file at the Mutant Affairs Council. I’ll sign the release so that you can have a copy of it when I’m gone.”

  Danyael had almost made it to the front door when Lucien spoke again. “It appears that I can withdraw the conditions on my donation to the free clinics.”

  Danyael turned to stare at Lucien. “You cut off the funding for the Anacostia free clinic.”

  Lucien nodded.

  For a moment, the only sound was Danyael’s unsteady breaths. “Why?” he finally asked.

  Lucien shrugged, a thin and brittle smile on his lips.

  Teeth clenched, Danyael looked away. When had Lucien become such a vicious and vindictive bastard? Danyael bit back the curse on the tip of his tongue. Lucien still had the money, and consequently, the power. Danyael couldn’t let Lucien zero in his sights on anything or anyone other than himself. “Anacostia needs the clinic, and in a few weeks, I won’t need the job, so thank you for keeping the clinic open.” Danyael looked up and met Lucien’s eyes for the last time. “I hope your hate dies with me, Lucien, and that you’ll finally find peace.”

  Danyael walked out of the front door and shut it before Lucien could slam it on him. Jason glanced up with a frown. “I gather the conversation didn’t go well.”

  “About as well as I expected,” Danyael said.

  “Must have been absolute crap, then. I’m sorry.”

  Danyael shrugged. “It’s done. It’s over.” I’ll never have to see Lucien again, and—I never thought I’d feel this way—but it is a blessing.

  The journey back to Anacostia took awhile, no thanks to rush-hour traffic, and it was almost dinnertime when Jason dropped Danyael off at his apartment complex. Danyael got out of the car, waved goodbye to his brother, and headed up to his apartment. His empathic senses prickled a warning when he reached the fifth floor landing. A man stood outside the door of his apartment, no one he physically recognized. Emotionally, though— “Hello, Galahad.”

  Galahad stepped aside for Danyael to unlock the door and then followed him into the apartment.

  Danyael shut the door behind the perfect human being and stared into the less-than-perfect face. “It’s amazing,” he murmured. Galahad’s straight nose was subtly crooked, his smile no longer even. His features had been altered enough to blunt the immediate impact of stunning beauty, his hair cropped short. His eyes were hazel, and would likely shift between brown and green, depending on the light. “Does your new face feel comfortable?” Danyael asked.

  “I worry that it might fall off or crack when I smile, but Xin assured me that it won’t. In fact, it is a relief to be anonymous for awhile.”

  “Lucky you. Do you have a new name to accompany your face?”

  “Jesus.”

  “Really?”

  “Too obvious?”

  Danyael chuckled. “Did you crack a joke? I didn’t think you knew how.”

  “And I didn’t think you knew how to recognize a joke. What about Gabriel?”

  Danyael nodded. “Gabriel? It’s a common name. It should work. Did Xin say what her plans were?”

  “Does she ever? I’ve noticed that she tends to lay them out like a trap for you to walk into, trusting the authenticity of your responses to deliver exactly the result she wants.”

  “But the assassin’s dead.”

  “The assassin was a child sent to do an adult’s job.” Galahad paced the breadth of Danyael’s small apartment. “I compared the length of its telomeres against the rate of its cell division. Physically, it had only been alive for about a year. It was aging approximately twenty-five times faster than normal.” He turned and fixed his gaze on Danyael. “My donors have been dying for the past two years. This clone wasn’t responsible for the earlier deaths. Xin is certain—and I agree with her—that there are other clones out there, and that their ultimate goal isn’t the execution of my genetic donors. My donors’ deaths serve no personal purpose to anyone. Philosophically, though…”

  “It’s a hell of a statement.”

  “Exactly, but why stop there?”

  “You think you’re a target too?”

  Galahad nodded. “Eventually.”

  Danyael arched his eyebrows. “And for once, you and I actually have a common goal. Who would have imagined it?”

  “I didn’t think you knew how to do sarcasm.”

  “I rarely do, but this occasion calls for it.” Danyael smiled.

  Galahad paused by the drafty floor-to-ceiling windows and peered out. “Why do you live here?”

  “Because it’s two blocks from work.”

  “No, I meant why?” A sneer curled his lip. “It’s ugly.”

  “Is it?” Danyael limped forward to stand beside Galahad. Danyael looked out of the window too. “What do you see?”

  “Charmless cinderblock buildings in need of fresh paint to cover the hideous graffiti. Bars on the windows of this urban prison, the stink of alcohol and urine on the sidewalks. People who walk with their gazes locked on the ground, afraid to make eye contact.”

  “That’s true.” Danyael nodded. “Would you like to know what I see?”

  “Yes.” Galahad’s tone rang with challenge.

  Danyael’s gaze flicked to a teenager sauntering down the sidewalk with buckets of paint. “I see a young artist, practicing on walls because his school doesn’t have the funding for art classes. Every month, he repaints the wall with white paint and starts over on a fresh canvas. People stop to watch because he’s a marvel with brush and sponge.”

  Danyael’s gaze drifted to a woman and child, walking out of a store, its windows lined with iron bars. The woman leaned down to zip up the girl’s faded jacket and then handed the child a hotdog. “I see a mother spending her meager food stamp allowance on a meal for her daughter. It’s not the healthiest meal, but it’ll keep her child’s stomach full for several hours. The owner of the store is a generous man; the cup of coffee she’s holding, she probably got for free…something to keep her warm against the chill of the evening.”

  As the woman and girl passed the aspiring artist, the teenager grinned and waved at them, and they waved back. Danyael paused, a faint smile inching across his lips. Occasionally, he too needed to be reminded of what he saw. “Sometimes, the beauty is harder to find, but it’s always there, in every situation. We are what we choose to see.”

  A knock interrupted him. Danyael left Galahad to his silent contemplation by the window and limped across the room to open the door.

  Laura charged in. “Daddy!”

  Zara walked in behind her. “Are you packed?”

  “No, but it won’t take long.”

  She glanced at Galahad, her eyes narrowing. “Galahad?”

  “It’s Gabriel now.”

  A smile flashed across her face. She strode to the window and peered into his altered features. “Interesting. Xin’s contacts did a good job.”

  Galahad shrugged. He gestured at the vista outside the window. “Tell me what you see.”

  Zara’s gaze swept across the length of the window. She jabbed an elegant finger at several points on the buildings across the street. “Possible street-level threats there, there, and there. I see at least four possible sniper vantage points, but the best and most defensible is at roof-level in that corner building.
You really should close your blinds, Danyael.”

  Galahad glanced over his shoulder, meeting Danyael’s gaze. The corners of his hazel eyes crinkled with silent laughter.

  Danyael chuckled, more amused than resigned. We are what we choose to see.

  He hobbled into his bedroom and threw his toiletries and several changes of clothes into a duffle bag. With her insistence on dropping everything within her reach into the bag, Laura was more hindrance than help, but still, he managed, and within ten minutes, had packed the little he needed for a short stay at Zara’s Georgetown home.

  Zara looked in on him as he was zipping up the bag. She hefted it on her shoulder and shot him a challenging look, as if daring him to protest.

  Danyael shrugged. Chivalry was misplaced, especially when he struggled to support his own weight. He followed her from his bedroom. In the living room, Galahad reached for his ringing cell phone.

  The phone conversation was terse, but Galahad was visibly tense when he hung up. “Another donor just died.”

  “In the U.S.?” Zara asked.

  “Yes, in West Virginia, within an hour’s drive of D.C. The assassins are systematically working their way up the list, killing my donors in order of their increasing contribution to my genotype.”

  “Where is Danyael on the list?”

  “He’s first on the list, so he’s not in any danger until two others drop dead.”

  “But your clone tried to kill him back at Pioneer Labs.”

  “Xin thinks it was opportunistic rather than intentional. She wants you and me to protect the remaining donors.”

  Zara shook her head. “I’m not leaving Danyael unprotected.”

  Galahad glanced at Danyael. “Then I guess he’s coming along.”

  ~*~

  The conference room at the Mutant Affairs Council headquarters overlooked a scenic bend in the Potomac River as it snaked its way through Alexandria. Danyael stood by the window, his face impassive as he absorbed the heated emotions in the room, dampening their fire and infusing a semblance of calm rationality.

  He was an alpha empath. That task should have been easy, but it was not when the conversation seemed to, inexplicably, involve his future without giving any credence to his input.

  Alex Saunders scowled across the length of the oaken conference room table at Xin. “No, you cannot take Danyael from D.C., especially not at a time like this. And you most certainly cannot remove Galahad. I’m taking him into custody.”

  “On whose authority and on what grounds?” Xin asked, her voice cool. The Chinese woman was slim, her long black hair tugged into a messy knot that left tendrils to frame her narrow-featured face. She did not spare a glance at Zara and Galahad who sat on either side of her.

  “By his own confession, he was with the senator an hour before the senator died.”

  Galahad interjected. “I did not kill him.”

  Alex ignored him and focused at Xin. “Galahad is still the primary suspect in the death of his donors, even if your little charade back at Pioneer Labs took the media attention off him—”

  Xin shook her head. “There is no evidence—”

  “And until there is evidence one way or another, Galahad will be held in custody. You know that we cannot risk any more deaths, especially in light of the identities of his surviving donors.”

  Danyael looked up. “Who are his surviving donors?”

  “Besides you?” Alex said. “Patrick Seneca and Joyce Ong, a Singaporean.”

  “Wait. The Patrick Seneca?”

  “Yes, our secretary of state.”

  Danyael cursed under his breath.

  Xin spoke again. “Ong’s the next target. Our best chance of finding the assassins is by laying a trap around her.”

  Alex shot Galahad a narrow-eyed glance and then frowned at Xin. “And you intend to send the primary suspect to protect her?”

  “Galahad is innocent,” Xin insisted.

  Alex snorted. “Even if he is innocent, even if someone else is killing his donors, they die only when Galahad is in close enough proximity to be a suspect in their deaths. By sending Galahad to Singapore, you are actually putting Joyce Ong in danger.”

  “As opposed to leaving Galahad here, in D.C., where Patrick Seneca and Danyael are both in danger?” Xin asked.

  “They won’t be in danger,” Alex insisted. “As you’ve said, Ong is the next target. We hold Galahad in custody. If anyone else dies, then we have evidence that it’s not Galahad.”

  “Forget the evidence,” Xin said. “We’re out of time and we’re running out of donors. We have to find the trail back to whoever is killing Galahad’s donors before the evidence consists entirely of dead bodies.”

  Danyael glanced at Xin. “Why?”

  Xin sat back in her chair, her face expressionless, but Danyael sensed the turmoil and discomfort that coursed through her. “We’re dealing with age-accelerated clones, spliced memories, and emotions authentic enough to fool an alpha empath. If you’re not worried, you should be. Whoever is behind this has duplicated the perfect human being. Who’s next? Our business leaders? Our national leaders? Do you have any idea what kind of disaster would entail if we can no longer trust the identities of our world leaders?” She drew in a deep breath. “It’s like Sakti all over again. It smells of a conspiracy. I need evidence and I need to get someone inside to get it for me.”

  Danyael turned his face away. Alex had borne the brunt of Danyael’s anger over the injustice of his imprisonment, but Xin, as Danyael had found out later, was as much a co-conspirator, if not actually the mastermind, in the events that unraveled the fabric of normality from his life. Xin had convinced Alex to change Danyael’s threat classification, which sent him to a maximum-security prison for life. When the early hints of Sakti’s connection with the Mutant Assault Group had surfaced, Xin sent Zara and Galahad to infiltrate Sakti and collect the evidence of Howard’s treachery. The events had snowballed into an avalanche, and culminated with Sakti’s attack on Washington, D.C.

  How much havoc was Xin actually responsible for? Likely, all of it.

  Alex spoke up. “But why send Galahad? You can’t possibly know that he’s innocent. You have no more evidence of his innocence than I have of his guilt.”

  Xin tilted her head and offered Alex a smile. “Have I ever been wrong?”

  Danyael inhaled deeply. No, Xin had never been wrong.

  Alex turned to Danyael. “You can sense a lie. What are your empathic powers telling you?”

  Danyael shrugged. “I can’t get a clean read; Galahad hates me, so it’s impossible to tell for certain. I don’t see why he’d want to kill his donors, though. He has nothing to gain.”

  “Hatred doesn’t have much use for rationality,” Alex said.

  Xin pushed to her feet. “Let me put it this way, Alex. Galahad is under the jurisdiction of the National Security Agency. The decision is mine; I’ll take the risk, and if I’m wrong, I’ll take the heat.” Her gaze drifted across the room. “And as for Danyael—”

  “Danyael goes along,” Alex said. “If you’re wrong, Danyael is the only one who can stop Galahad.”

  “Very well,” Xin conceded, as if it had been her intention all along.

  “No.” Danyael took a single step back. “No, I’m not going. I can’t go to Singapore.”

  Alex frowned. “Danyael—”

  “I have things I need to do here.”

  “Nothing is more important than this.”

  “I’ve told you, I will not be an assassin for the council.”

  Xin leaned forward in her chair. “Danyael, as a class-five threat, you’re under the jurisdiction of the NSA, not the council. Alex can’t order you to go, but I can.”

  “Or what? You’ll throw me back in prison?”

  Xin rested her chin on top of her interlaced fingers. “I have the authority to do that. Is this what it has to come down to, Danyael? Threats instead of reason?” Her gaze flicked to the Lebanese-Venezuelan assassin seat
ed to her left.

  A cold fist closed around his heart. Zara. Xin would use Zara as another card in her hand if she had to.

  He had to make sure she didn’t. Danyael flung an arm out at Galahad. “What reason could you have for sending me? I can’t keep up with him.”

  Alex held up his hand, interjecting himself in the conflict. “Danyael, you’re the only one I trust.”

  Trust. There was that word again, like a chain around his neck, an anchor dragging him down.

  Alex sighed. His eyes seemed tired. “Danyael, if it’s about the—”

  “No,” Danyael cut him off. Like Zara, Galahad was a natural predator. Danyael could not afford the faintest hint of weakness. His façade of strength had to hold, even though he was dying. He looked up and met Xin’s cool gaze. “I’ll go on one condition. I want your word that if I die, you will remove the class-five threat status from my record.”

  “When you’re dead, does it matter?” Xin asked.

  “Laura shouldn’t have to live under the shadow of my criminal record. I want it expunged.”

  Xin nodded. “Deal. I’ll contact the NSA country manager in Singapore. She’ll meet you at Changi airport.”

  Alex held up his hand. “One more thing. I want a level-one bio-tracker installed in Galahad.”

  The Chinese clone tensed.

  “Our responsibility is the protection of this country and its people,” Alex said. “If you are wrong, we must be able to end the threat.”

  Galahad looked confused. “A bio-tracker?”

  Zara held up her fingers an inch apart. “A chemically modified electrode that is implanted next to the heart. It’s a time bomb. It is programmed to stop the heart when the clock runs down, unless the controller resets the timer.”

  The reek of Galahad’s fear swamped the conference room. “No…”

  Alex pushed to his feet. “I cannot release a possible killer back into society without an installed bio-tracker.” He looked at Danyael. “You will control it.”

  Danyael shook his head. “No, this is wrong. I don’t want—”

  “It’s for your own safety, Danyael. Galahad will be motivated to keep you alive, if only because you control the bio-tracker.”

  Galahad’s hate, the scent of it pungent and sour, flared into focus.