by Jade Kerrion
The living room of the suite opened into other rooms. Gage ushered Galahad into a kitchenette and waved his hand at a high circular table and two bar stools tucked into a corner of the room. “Have a seat.”
Gage pulled two packaged dinners from the freezer and placed them in the microwave before turning to Galahad.
Galahad broke the silence. “How did you know?”
“Your eyes move.”
“What?”
“Your eyes move. They dart from side to side, always observing. The clones don’t do that. The only time their eyes move is in combat. The clones don’t respond either, not unless I address them directly.”
“So I didn’t have a chance of not blowing my cover?”
Gage chuckled. “Galahad, if you were in my position, do you think you could have been fooled? You would have fooled the others, of course, but not me, not someone with an unaltered will.”
“But the clone who talked to Danyael in Washington, D.C., wasn’t like these. He seemed aware. He seemed to believe that he was me.”
Gage shrugged. “I adapt the hormones and drugs that the clones receive based on their intended purpose. The ones I sent out to kill your donors are different from the ones you’ve seen here. The one I sent to Danyael was different still, spliced with your memories.”
“You sent him to lead Danyael back to you.”
“But he failed. You showed up, and Danyael chose you over him. How did Danyael know?”
Galahad mimicked Gage’s shrug, but said nothing. Gage would never have believed it anyway. Danyael chose the man who hated him more.
Gage continued. “I never intended for the clone to attack Danyael, but that’s the problem with creatures with unaltered wills. You’re never quite certain what they will do.”
“And that’s why you can’t drug Danyael into saying ‘yes.’ He’d need his will to direct his empathic powers.”
“Don’t think I haven’t considered it, but the gamma hydroxybutyrate derivative would render mutants incapable of effectively using their powers. It would be dangerous…stupid, actually, to alter Danyael’s will in any way. It is the only thing standing between an empathic supernova and us.” The microwave beeped. Gage slid his hands into kitchen mitts and carried the two steaming food trays to the table. “Is it true that Danyael only cracks under kindness?”
Galahad shrugged. “So they say.”
“You don’t think so?”
“He also responds to threats on the people he loves.”
Gage sat across from Galahad and peeled back the plastic layer covering his meal. “You’re thinking of Zara Itani, of course. She took out four of the clones, on her own.”
Galahad arched an eyebrow. “Zara? Either the clones aren’t as good as you think they are, or Zara has gotten better. She has never beaten me in a fight before.”
“Perhaps it’s a bit of both, judging from the security recordings I was able to salvage from Sharma’s lab. She sacrificed sixteen of her clones; she appears willing to go to extremes to win.”
“It’s her most charming trait.” Galahad swallowed a mouthful of a stringy beef stew before raising a glass to his lips to conceal the faint smile. Her willingness to do anything, especially kill, to protect Danyael, is her most dangerous. Combined with her impetuousness, fire-first-ask-questions-later attitude…
Zara would fire at a clone without hesitation; in fact, with Danyael empathically linked to the clones, Danyael was in far more danger from Zara than from anyone else.
Anticipation licked its lips. Poetic justice.
The guilt would devastate Zara. It would kill her.
In a fell swoop, Galahad could be rid of Danyael and Zara.
And then what?
Galahad ignored the flicker of hesitation. The prick of uncertainty was no more than the aftereffects of Danyael’s empathic manipulation. I owe Danyael nothing. He leaned forward. “We can both get what we want out of this situation.”
“Oh?” The single word was loaded with skepticism. “Can we? I want Danyael to fix what’s broken inside me. You want him dead. He’s no good to me dead.”
“He’s no use to you alive either, not if he won’t heal you, and if he does, once he does, you wouldn’t care either way whether Danyael was alive or dead.”
Gage inclined his head, acknowledging the truth of Galahad’s statement. “What are you proposing?”
“The only way you can convince Danyael to heal you is by holding a gun to Zara’s head.”
“Retrieving her has proven problematic.” Gage pressed the palms of his hands into a steeple under his chin. “Four of your clones weren’t up to the task.”
“I can retrieve her for you.”
“And then what happens after Danyael heals me?”
“We release Zara and Danyael, and we turn the clones loose to hunt Zara and Danyael down.”
“Zara will likely kill the clones.”
Galahad nodded. “And the empathic backlash will kill Danyael.”
Gage stared at Galahad. “Do you really hate him so much?”
“He took Zara from me.” Galahad pushed to his feet, the resentful memories clawing at him. “She tore me apart when she told me that I…I, the perfect human being, wasn’t good enough for her. And whom did she turn to? Danyael. Danyael Sabre, who is beyond broken.” Galahad could not suppress the grunt of frustration. “Physically, he’s crippled. Emotionally, he’s a wreck. His psychic shields repel normal relationships; he has no friends. But somehow, he manages to take her from me.” A sigh tore out of him. Galahad shook his head. “If he were not an empath, he could never have done that. He could never have convinced her to keep my child from me.”
Gage started visibly. “Your child?”
“Laura Itani.” Galahad grimaced. “She is two years old, and I’ve only just found out the truth. She’s not Danyael’s. She’s too beautiful, too perfect, too whole to be his daughter, but he kept her from me too.” The simmering anger overflowed. Galahad slammed the palm of his hand against the kitchen wall and pressed his forehead against the cool surface. He tried to moderate the bitterness in his voice but it leaked through, his hate stronger than his self-control. “If anyone deserves to be alone, it is Danyael, but instead, I am.” He looked up and met Gage’s sympathetic gaze. “I thought it would be different after Zara freed me from Pioneer Labs. It is different.” His lips twisted, the sneer self-mocking. “It’s worse. I get to see everything I could have had, but it’s Danyael who’s holding it, not me.”
Gage’s brow furrowed. “If Danyael dies, you’re not going to get Zara anyway.”
“No, I won’t. At this point, there is nothing I can do to win her over. Danyael has turned her irrevocably against me. She has tried to kill me. But Laura—” Galahad inhaled deeply, the pressure against his chest alleviating at the thought of his daughter. “I can still have Laura.”
“And Zara?”
“She will either kill herself when she realizes she was responsible for Danyael’s death, or Danyael’s empathic supernova will kill her anyway. Either way, they’ll both die, and they’ll be responsible for each other’s deaths.”
Gage nodded. “Poetic justice.”
Gage had unknowingly echoed Galahad’s thoughts. “Exactly.” Galahad looked across the length of the small kitchen at Gage, his clone. Fifty years from now, Galahad would likely look like Gage. But we are not the same person. We will never be the same person.
“Is that all you want? Danyael’s death?” Gage asked.
“It’s what I ultimately want, but it’ll have to wait.”
Gage arched his eyebrows. “I don’t have much time.”
“I have less.” Galahad tapped his chest. “The Mutant Affairs Council installed a bio-tracker in me with a twenty-four-hour countdown.”
Gage’s jaw dropped. “But—”
Galahad nodded. “Danyael reset it when your clones attacked Joyce’s home, which means I have less than twelve hours before it runs out.”
&nb
sp; “But Danyael would reset it again and again, for as long as he lives.”
“It is unacceptable.” Galahad’s upper lip curled. “It is absolutely intolerable that my life is tied to Danyael, that I’m dependent on his pity if I want to keep living.” He stared at Gage. “Don’t you see? We both need Danyael if we want to live, but as long as he controls the bio-tracker next to my heart, I cannot help you. My hands are bound. If I hurt Zara, he will kill me. And without me, you will never be able to bring Zara in.”
Gage’s lips pressed into a flat line. “It appears we need each other.” He leaned back in his chair. “Tell me about your bio-tracker.”
“I only know what Danyael has told me.”
Gage snorted out a laugh. “It’s probably the truth, then. I studied Danyael’s files. He either tells the truth or avoids the lie. If he told you anything at all, it was probably the truth. Any information you have about the procedure or the device will help me focus my research.” He glanced at his watch. “We don’t have much time.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
T minus six
Space was at a premium in the underground laboratory. The suite Gage had offered to Galahad seemed both small and sparse, but it afforded privacy that the clone quarters—four beds packed dormitory-style into a room—did not.
Left to his own devices, Galahad had explored the laboratory. Large research stations occupied most of the three levels of the laboratory, with small living quarters interspersed between the larger rooms. He found the control room of the laboratory on the highest floor, adjacent to the elevator. Rows of electronics blinked and beeped quietly beneath large flat screens that alternated between views of various rooms in the laboratory, including Danyael’s cell and the surface-level building.
For several moments, he watched the alpha empath, and then turned away, his mind and heart in turmoil. Other than Danyael, Galahad found little in the laboratory to hold his interest and finally returned to his suite, but the thoughts of Danyael pursued him there.
Something was different, he concluded after staring at himself in the mirror in the attached bathroom. With a touch, Danyael had changed something in him, and it was tangible. He did not hate Danyael any less, but somehow, his emotions seemed better anchored and more focused. The barrage of stimulus against his enhanced physical senses had not diminished, but they seemed less distracting; in fact, more advantage than burden.
Danyael changed me for the better, but why?
Galahad glanced up at the knock on the door.
Gage looked into the room and flashed a smile that made him seem a great deal younger. “I’ve figured it out. It’ll take me about two hours to track down the specialized equipment and prepare the room for surgery, but I’ll have the bio-tracker out of you before the countdown hits zero.”
The crushing pressure of pent-up fear vanished. Galahad sucked in a deep breath. “Was it hard?”
“For me? No, of course not. We’re a step closer to solving both our problems. In twenty-four hours, we may have no more use for Danyael.” His gaze was steady. “And then what?”
Galahad returned his stare. Clearly, Gage had something in mind.
Gage stepped into the room. “We are alike, you and I. We were both created in laboratories, raised by scientists who cared nothing for us as human beings.”
“Who raised you?”
“Ehimaya Sadgati, but she lost interest in me when she learned that General Howard had managed to get his hands on Danyael Sabre. She considered me a failed experiment compared to what Danyael could accomplish through his control of the super soldiers.”
“Then you too know what it’s like to lose a woman to the alpha empath. Where is she now?”
“India. She is the head of their national scientific search council—a quasi-diplomatic role, which keeps her from being extradited to stand trial in the U.S.” Gage sat without invitation across from Galahad. “After Danyael halts my accelerated aging, I will deal with her. She abandoned me. She left me to die, not unlike how Danyael’s mother tried to murder him. She first introduced me to the cruelty of the real world.”
Galahad set aside his electronic tablet. “And was that when you started killing my genetic donors?”
“It was a child’s response, born of neglect, of rage.” Regret stained Gage’s voice. “I was a year old when I first saw you on a media channel, but my body was already the same age as yours. Each day I aged visibly while you stayed young. A normal life was simply not within my reach, but you lived in the real world, enjoying every moment of it, protected by powerful friends…doing nothing with your life.” The anger and the spite that had infused Gage’s voice several hours earlier in Danyael’s cell had given way to a quiet sorrow. “I envied you. With every fiber of my being, I wanted to be you. I wanted you to notice me. Believing that you cared about your genetic heritage, I created the other clones and sent them to kill your donors, but you didn’t care. You didn’t notice.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t care to know,” Gage corrected. “I envy your confidence, your certainty that you are an individual, unique and perfect, in spite of the fact that thirty people, all imperfect, contributed their genes, knowingly or unknowingly, to you.” He paused, as if choosing his words. “There is much we can learn from each other.”
“Is there?”
Gage leaned forward, his voice earnest. “Since you were freed, you have lived abundantly, recklessly, as have I. We could learn so much from each other. You have access to society and people of influence, and I…I have spent my years in study and research. I expanded the boundaries of science and technology. Imagine what we could do together, you and I.”
Galahad studied the face of the older man before him, the man he would some day resemble. The dark eyes sparkled; the smile was slight but persistent. He recognized Gage’s expression the same way he would have recognized it on himself. It was hope, rare and precious. “What do you imagine?” he asked quietly.
“A world that finally understands perfection and values it. A world that makes sense.”
A world that makes sense. Wasn’t that exactly what Galahad had been craving? A world where the answers made sense?
Gage continued speaking, his quiet voice infused with a plea. “We are related. We’re brothers.” He waved his hand to encompass the both of them. “This is the closest thing we’ll ever have to a family. People will likely mistake us for father and son.” He chuckled.
The sound warmed Galahad. Brothers. Family. Father and son. He loved the sound of those words, but the cynical part of his mind, no doubt Zara’s influence, checked the immediate response. “Family…” He turned the word over in his mind. Oddly, a memory of Danyael flashed—their first encounter. Sick with pain and dizzy from blood loss, Galahad had stared up at the face that was identical to his. His brain tripped over the impossibility of it all. Shock and fear numbed his tongue.
But Danyael had offered hope and promised life. “It’s going to be all right.” The alpha empath’s hand gently closed over the open gunshot wound in his abdomen. A gentle heat emanated from the contact, and the pain eased from Galahad’s body before appearing in the clenching of Danyael’s jaw. Yet Danyael did not withdraw his hand until the pain vanished. Darkness encroached on Galahad’s vision, and he relaxed against the sheets, enveloped in dreamless sleep.
Galahad had woken the next morning to find his injury fully healed without a hint of scar tissue to remind him of where he had been shot.
He still remembered, though.
He pressed his hand against his stomach, against the memory of the injury Danyael had healed. In freeing him from Pioneer Labs, Zara had shown him that compassion could be instinctive. In healing him, Danyael had demonstrated that compassion could also be deliberate, in spite of the conditions stacked against it.
Family.
But Danyael controlled the timer on the bio-tracker nestled against his heart. The anger and hate flared back into focus. He would not l
ive or die on the alpha empath’s whim.
Galahad forced Danyael out of his mind. He pushed to his feet and extended his hand to Gage. “We’ll help each other; we’ll find our way in this world together.”
“Excellent!” Gage beamed. He stood, glancing at his watch. “I have to get started. I’ll be back in two hours.” He walked out of the room, leaving Galahad alone.
In two hours, Galahad would have his life back in his control instead of in Danyael’s hands. Now that was hope, true hope, not the temporary relief Danyael’s healing offered.
Galahad left his room and traveled down the now-familiar path to Danyael’s cell. He did not hesitate in front of security console and punched in the code to open the door.
His first glimpse into the room drew him up short. Danyael was not in the bed. Instead, Joyce slept, the blankets pulled up to her shoulders.
“Galahad.” Danyael’s voice was pitched low.
Galahad followed the sound of Danyael’s voice and found the alpha empath lying on the concrete floor on the other side of the bed.
Danyael pushed up on one elbow. His dark eyes flicked past Galahad’s shoulder as if to confirm that Galahad were alone. Relief flashed across his face. “I have to reset the bio-tracker.”
Galahad held up his hand and shook his head. “Gage is removing it in two hours.”
“What?”
“He figured out a way to remove the bio-tracker.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Why?”
Leaning heavily against the wall, Danyael dragged himself upright. “The bio-tracker embeds into the heart; its four claws cut through the pericardium—the protective sac outside the heart—and through the three layers of its outer walls before locking into the endocardium. If Gage removes the bio-tracker, you’ll bleed to death, if you don’t have a heart attack first.”
