Genesis Revealed (The Genesis Project Book 2)

by S. M. Schmitz

  “What is this?” I glanced around the lab again and decided to brave being a smartass around Dr. Parker. “Trying to cure cancer?”

  He put a slide onto the microscope and smiled. “Perhaps one day, what we’re learning will lead not only to cures but preventions for all sorts of diseases. After all, I’ve been able to design disease resistance in you.”

  “You’re starting already,” I said. “With a new Genesis Project, I mean.”

  Dr. Parker nodded and stood back from the microscope, holding out an arm again as if he wanted me to look. I could think of few things I wanted to do less, but I approached it anyway and quickly looked at the cells on the slide.

  “This is the beginning,” he explained excitedly. “Isolating desirable genes. Once we’ve selected the traits we want, they’re transferred to a blank reproductive cell.”

  “Blank?” I interrupted. “Where are you getting blank sex cells?”

  “We make them,” Dr. Parker responded. “Fairly easy with embryonic stem cells. About half of the fertilized eggs will never make it out of the zygote stage, and the other forty percent won’t make it past embryonic development.”

  “And the other ten percent?” I asked.

  Dr. Parker looked up at me again and smiled. “Some survive longer than others. Only a few will live long enough to have the chance to survive outside of an incubator.”

  My stomach soured and I backed away from his workstation. “Why are you showing me this?”

  “To let you know why you’re so important, Drake,” Dr. Parker insisted. “You’re the only one who’s survived so far. A true miracle.”

  An airy laugh escaped my throat. “A miracle?” I repeated. I looked around the room again and shook my head. “More like a monster.”

  “Drake,” Dr. Parker sighed, but I shook my head again.

  “I’m no better than Frankenstein,” I murmured.

  I’d never read that book either. The words had just slipped out again.

  “What did you say?” Dr. Parker asked, his eyes narrowing.

  Ethan hurriedly answered for me before I could make this whole situation worse. “He read it on the flight back. Probably shouldn’t have let him.”

  Dr. Parker never looked away from me.

  I was too horrified by what he was doing in this lab to realize Ethan had just lied for me, and his lie could have dangerous consequences for him.

  “Good novel,” Dr. Parker finally said. “You’re nothing like Frankenstein’s monster, Drake. Don’t you see the differences?”

  No, I didn’t actually. I scrambled for an appropriate answer though before Dr. Parker called us both on our lie. “Frankenstein’s monster killed people, didn’t he? Because he was so angry that humans rejected him, and he didn’t want to be alone? He didn’t want to be a monster.”

  Dr. Parker tilted his head at me, studying me, and I resisted the temptation to run out of that room in what would be a useless attempt to escape him forever. “You ignored a direct order in Mosul, Drake. Why?”

  “Ethan told me to.”

  “Ethan didn’t override the command. We’d have a record of it,” Dr. Parker countered.

  “I did,” Ethan lied again. “How else could he have listened to me?” He pulled the small dark blue device from his pocket and held it up for Dr. Parker to see.

  “Maybe it’s malfunctioning,” Ethan continued. “I used it exactly like you showed me and it did work so it must be a problem with sending signals back to you.”

  Dr. Parker’s eyes settled on the device for a few seconds before he nodded toward a table next to Ethan. “Leave it here. We’ll take a look at it.”

  Ethan placed the remote on the table, and I thought he looked like he was relieved to be free from that damn thing.

  I knew how he felt.

  Dr. Parker stood up a bit straighter and fixed me with his penetrating stare again. “Well, Drake. Perhaps I should give you some better reading material.”

  For the third time, Ethan lied for me before I could even answer. “He seems to be interested in Marvel. Told him about a few of my favorites, but I’ve only seen the movies. If you ask me, it’s not a bad idea to show him that some enhanced people are considered heroes.”

  Dr. Parker nodded and forced a smile. “No, it’s not a bad idea. Some of my favorite superheroes growing up were genetically enhanced.”

  “We’re a bit jetlagged, Dr. Parker,” Ethan said. “Anything else you wanted to show him or can someone take us back to the rental?”

  Dr. Parker continued to look at me as if he were contemplating strapping me to a table right then to dig around in my head, discover what bits of coding weren’t cooperating with him, find out why I had a personality that could be horrified or could lie or be so normal. I doubted Ethan was stupid enough to think Dr. Parker believed him about the remote malfunctioning, but for whatever reason, it didn’t look like he wanted to call us on our lies in front of his employees.

  I chewed nervously on my lip as we waited because I wanted to tell Dr. Parker he hadn’t succeeded at all and this entire Regenesis Project would fail, too. He’d made me, but I didn’t want to be his pet project. If any of these zygotes survived, I didn’t want them to become his pet projects either. But he stopped sizing me up long enough to tell Ethan we could leave. One of the guards in the hallway offered to give us a ride back, but Ethan turned him down.

  “We’ll walk,” he said.

  “That’s over seven miles away,” the guard argued.

  “Yeah, and we run that daily,” Ethan snapped. “I’ve been stuck on a plane for twelve hours. I need to move for a while.”

  The guard just shrugged and let us leave. Truthfully, I was quite tired and didn’t want to walk seven miles back to the house Dr. Parker had rented. I just wanted to sleep. But Ethan had lied for me, which almost certainly meant he’d risked his career for me, and I had to know why.

  Ethan didn’t speak to me until we were about a mile away from the old doctor’s office where Dr. Parker had already begun his research again.

  “You should be more careful,” he said, his voice low and quiet.

  I stepped over the root of a tree that had pushed its way through the sidewalk and tried to unscramble his warning before giving up. “About what?”

  “About letting on that you know things you shouldn’t, for starters,” he answered.

  The hot, humid air suddenly seemed thicker and more difficult to breathe. “Why do I know some things if I shouldn’t?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not a scientist, Drake. I guess he couldn’t make you totally forget everything.”

  I stumbled over the next buckle in the sidewalk and fell forward, catching myself on the rough concrete and scraping my hands. Ethan pulled me to my feet again, and I rubbed my bloody palms on my pants. “Virginia…” I whispered.

  Ethan nodded and urged me to keep walking. “That’s why he really sent us. Wanted to see if it triggered any memories.”

  “No memories,” I confirmed. “Just a weird feeling that I didn’t want to be there.”

  Ethan nodded again. “Don’t blame you.”

  “Why didn’t you use the remote in Mosul?” I asked him.

  Ethan slowed down and ran his fingers through his dark brown hair. “Because I didn’t need to. And I knew I didn’t need to treat you like a robot.”

  “But you just lied for me,” I interrupted. “And I’m almost positive Dr. Parker knows you’re lying.”

  “So am I,” Ethan agreed.

  “Then why did you do it?” I persisted.

  “Look, I wasn’t in Virginia. And the official line is exactly what Parker is telling you now. This woman and Cade and some ex-SEAL turned weapons smuggler destroyed the Project, except up until a month ago, they were also telling us they abducted you and were holding you for ransom. Then one day, we get word you’ve been rescued in Somalia, but Parker had to do some damage control… like he was just resetting a goddamn computer to its factory settings. I didn�
�t really know you, but I knew Cade. And I never believed a single thing they tried to shove down our throats about him. Cade is a good man. And he’s a damn good SEAL.”

  “Cade,” I repeated. “When he said he knew me…”

  Ethan looked over his shoulder as a car passed by then stepped closer to me. “Just be careful, Drake. Your entire life right now is a lie, and Parker knows he failed again. You’re not the blank slate he thought he’d get. One day, he might decide it’s not worth letting you out of his reach.”

  I inhaled a quick breath and shook my head. “I’d rather die.”

  Ethan lifted a shoulder at me. “You think your friends would just abandon you now? Maybe next time, you should listen instead of trying to kill him.”

  “Why are you helping me?” I asked.

  Ethan smiled and motioned for me to keep walking. “Because Cade asked me to. Besides: You’re one of us. And we take care of our own.”

  One of them? Hearing that I belonged filled me with a sense of pride Dr. Parker had always failed to instill in me—just one more failure on his long list.

  “So what now?” I asked.

  “Now?” he repeated. “Now I think it’s time to figure out who you’re going to trust.”

  The Boardwalk by the lake had only a few pedestrians on it, and all of the benches were empty so I sat in the one closest to my car to wait. Since it faced the lake, I had my back to whomever might walk behind me, but if Ethan had been telling the truth, I had no reason to fear Cade Daniels and Dr. Parker certainly didn’t want me dead. I’d been watching sailboats and joggers pass for almost an hour when I heard footsteps behind me. I reflexively tensed and the footsteps stopped.

  “Here to kill me?” Cade asked.

  “Are you here to kill me?” I asked without turning around.

  “No,” he answered. “If I’d wanted to kill you, I would have shot you in my apartment.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “I already told you why. You’re my friend, whether you remember me or not.”

  I finally looked over my shoulder at him and snapped, “Stop saying that.”

  I couldn’t stand the idea that years had been stolen from me, an entire life I’d lived with someone who considered himself my friend. How could it be gone? Cade just shrugged and stepped around the bench to sit on the other end. He folded his hands in front of him and watched another sailboat lazily crossing the calm waters of the lake.

  “How did Parker explain being in Mogadishu?” he asked.

  “He said you destroyed the Project’s facility, and I’m the only survivor. He brought me there to…” I sighed and rubbed my eyes. I’d come here instead of going to bed like I’d wanted, and I was so damn tired.

  “You know,” Cade said, “when I first met you, I was convinced I really had been assigned to a cyborg. You didn’t know how to act around other people. What to say. You sure as hell wouldn’t have said something like, ‘Wrong, asshole. Just a rookie mistake.’ You would have just shot me the moment you confirmed I was your target.”

  “Ethan told me you asked him to help me out,” I said.

  Cade finally glanced at me and shrugged a shoulder. “He was originally assigned to you, you know. Before me. I’m a bit younger than him so when an important assignment came up, he got shuffled and I ended up in Virginia babysitting a guy who didn’t know how to act like a guy.”

  “I’m not sure what that means,” I admitted. “I don’t seem that different than anyone else.”

  “Dude,” Cade laughed, “it took me like five years to train you to pass for somewhat normal.”

  “Five years,” I whispered.

  “Yeah,” Cade whispered back. He turned his attention to the lake again, and I watched another jogger as they ran past us. I wasn’t even sure if I was angry or sickened that I’d led some life prior to the only one I could remember, that my memories could be so easily deleted and I could be so easily reprogrammed. But it’s not like Dr. Parker had any intention of allowing me to find out. Whether he had followed me or had someone else do it, he knew Cade was sitting next to me and new directives screamed in my mind. I closed my eyes and curled my fingers into fists.

  He’s trying to manipulate you, Drake. Why are you just sitting there listening to him?

  “I don’t know,” I whispered aloud.

  “Drake,” Cade said. “You beat him once in order to protect Saige. She still needs you. Ignore him. You can do this.”

  I shook my head and through clenched teeth told him, “I have no idea who that is.”

  “Yes, you do,” Cade insisted. “You remember her. I spent over five years working with you, and you don’t get distracted. You don’t make mistakes. You hesitated in my apartment because some part of you recognized her voice.”

  “Stop saying shit like that!” I yelled. I just wanted the noise in my mind to stop.

  “I can’t,” he sighed. “I gave up everything to help her when you sent her to my apartment in Virginia that night. My family, my friends. I can’t go near them anymore without endangering them. My only chance of getting my life back is by helping you both again. Besides, after me, he’ll send you after her. You going to kill her, too, Drake?”

  I blinked at the water and dug my fingers deeper into my palms. Dr. Parker’s commands hadn’t stopped. In fact, they’d only gotten louder, more urgent. My head ached from the barrage of noise.

  “You can beat him,” Cade reiterated. “Ethan already called me. How do you think I knew you were here? He told me he talked you out of following an order that could have gotten you killed. He made you override Parker’s command on your own. You know you can do this.”

  “I don’t,” I insisted. “It’s different. The urgency… it’s different.” And that urgency kept getting stronger, more frantic, compelling me to act just like the aching pain from holding my breath too long. Eventually, I knew my body would ignore what I wanted and breathe.

  “I don’t believe that,” he said. “The night you were ordered to kill Saige back home, you refused. You sent her away. You did that on your own.”

  The directive to kill him became unbearably loud. I felt my body moving as if by reflex—the need to breathe overruling my own conscious thoughts—and slowly uncurled my fingers. He was wrong. I couldn’t ignore this. I couldn’t control my own body when Dr. Parker refused to allow me that freedom.

  “I made a mistake at your apartment,” I said. “It won’t happen again.” I reached for my pistol in the holster beneath my shirt but for the second time that week, her voice stopped me.

  “Drake, you don’t want to kill him!”

  Dr. Parker’s commands reached hysteria in my mind. My hand moved away from the holster to clutch the side of my head as I moaned from the pain of his internal screaming. The directives came quickly, mercilessly.

  Kill her first, Drake! She’s more dangerous than the others combined. Do it now!

  I felt fingers wrap around my wrists as they tried to pry my hands away from my head, but I pulled away from her and tried to scramble backwards. There was nowhere for me to go. I was still sitting on a park bench beside a dirty lake in a city. She reached for me again and with her other hand, forced me to look at her. “I am not letting you go,” she said. “It will always be you, Drake.”

  What are you waiting for? Kill her!

  “No,” I groaned.

  You are disobeying orders! She will lead to our destruction!

  “I don’t care,” I whispered. I tried to close my eyes again, but she wouldn’t let me do that either.

  “Look at me, Drake,” she ordered. I wouldn’t disobey her. I opened my eyes. Her chestnut hair was pulled back into a ponytail and her pale gray-blue eyes stared directly into mine. She was so close to me, I could feel her hot breath on my face.

  “Get out of here,” I begged. “Please.”

  “We aren’t leaving you,” she responded. “And if Parker can hear me, he can go fuck himself. He’s not taking you from me.”
<
br />   I shook my head, but a gunshot broke through the frenzied static in my mind. People may have screamed. I couldn’t tell over the deafening noise between my ears. I saw Cade drop to the ground and I thought he yelled, “Shit!” But between the noise I couldn’t block out and my confusion over Saige’s presence, I had no idea what was even happening.

  I could only hear her.

  “Jake!” she yelled.

  “Drake!” Cade shouted. “Sniper on the second floor of the Civic Center! Keep her alive!”

  They were the only words that broke through the turmoil inside me. Keep her alive. I had to protect her.

  I pushed her to the ground and fell in front of her, grabbing the pistol from the holster. A figure on the walkway of the second floor darted behind a concrete pillar, but at this distance, my chances of hitting him with a Glock rather than a sniper rifle were slim. I felt her fingers wrap around my t-shirt and she pressed her forehead against my back. Between the never-ending noise and her touch, I felt perilously close to shutting down, to jumping into the filthy lake and putting myself out of my own misery.

  “He’s dead,” she sobbed.

  At first, I thought she meant Cade, who still lay on the ground in front of me, his own pistol pointed toward the Civic Center, as useless as mine.

  “He’s not even hurt,” I told her, oddly conflicted by my assurance to this woman that the man I’d come so close to killing was alive and unharmed.

  “No,” she sobbed. “Jake is dead! They shot him!”

  And that’s when my eyes trailed over Cade’s body to the one lying in front of him, the blood and shattered bones and clumps of tissue disfiguring what used to be his face. My stomach soured as Saige’s tears soaked the back of my shirt. I lifted my eyes to the second floor of the Civic Center again and flinched as Dr. Parker sent out a new stream of urgent directives.

  “Cade,” I said quietly. “There’s a motel across the street behind us. They could have vantage points no matter which direction you try to escape.”

  “Yeah,” he muttered. “What else is new?”

  “We’re going to have to take out that sniper if we want to live,” I said, ignoring yet another reference I couldn’t possibly understand. All I could understand at that moment is that my head would likely kill me before anyone else, and I had to save this woman. I wasn’t convinced my life was in danger but considering I’d die to keep this woman alive, the sniper might as well be shooting at me, too.