I stared at the screen for a moment. The numbers were so many; they overlapped each other. The country was far more overrun with Awakened than I could have possibly imagined. I wondered if any of them had managed to die in the nuclear blasts. “But how do you control them?”
“It is simple,” she said, walking away from me and up to the Awakened. I gasped at her close proximity to them, but they just stood there, silent and calm, not noticing her. She turned the male around, showing me the back of his neck. With her finger, she pressed on the base of his neck, and a piece of flesh popped out.
I was going to throw up. There was nothing left in my stomach, but I knew I was going to throw up. This was sickening. Between the tiny bit of flesh was a piece of metal, gold and shining. It looked exactly like…
“A computer chip,” Dr. Cylon said, finishing my thought. “It is in the back of the neck of every SK-521 out there. It is what awakened them, and it is what gives me the control that I have. They each have their own individual signal, and those individuals have their groups as well. I can control their every action…or simply those of the group they belong to.”
“But…but why?” I demanded, my hands rolled up into tiny fists. I wanted to shake her, punch her and throw her against the wall. Why on earth would she ever create something like this? I watched her place the cube of flesh back in its place, right at the base of the neck. No wonder that was a prime spot to aim for when trying to take one down.
She placed the tablet back in her pocket. “Come,” she said. “I will show you.”
We left the room, and I heard the click of the lock behind us. I was on autopilot. My feet were doing the work for me, making sure that I walked alongside her as she took us down a different hallway, which led to an elevator. This time, she typed in a code, and the doors immediately opened. She stepped inside, using her hand on my arm to guide me inside with her. The elevator glided smoothly upward and immediately opened at a new floor.
I gasped.
She nodded, looking proud. “These are our research labs. They are quite impressive.” We went through a series of doors and walked alongside a hallway until we reached one last door. She typed a few numbers into the keypad and pressed her thumb to another pad, and the door slid open.
We were inside an office, not unlike any other office you would see. There was a large desk, on top of which sat a sleek, high-tech computer. The walls were covered in frames, most of them degrees of some sort. I saw Harvard, Oxford and a few others that I couldn’t make out. There were bookshelves along the walls filled to the brim with books, scores and scores of books. The back wall was completely glass and looked out on a huge room. I peeked out, and saw dozens of people, all in white lab coats. Some were on computers; some were working with what looked like chemicals. I even saw a group, bent over an Awakened with a scalpel, cutting into its blue flesh.
“This is where everything started, Miss Valentine,” Dr. Cylon explained, her voice barely more than a whisper. Her eyes were intent on the scene below her, watching it with a mix of adoration and pride, like she was watching her child learn to walk for the first time. “This is where Sekhmet was born. This is where the Z virus was created, and the victims were…awakened, as you would say.”
I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts, to get a sense on the situation that was in front of me. This was too much. “You created the virus as well?”
“That was the beginning of everything. That was the plan from the beginning,” she said. She ran a hand through her hair and gestured for me to sit down in one of chairs in front of the desk.
There was a loud thump as I sunk into the chair. I felt like I was going to pass out and immediately ducked, putting my head between my legs.
“Are you not feeling quite well? Do you require anything?” Her accent made everything she said sound so incredibly charming, but her words were toxic and hard to process.
I shook my head and sat up. “But why? Why would you create the virus? Why would you awaken the victims? It’s sick! People are dying!”
“As they should,” she said softly, but fiercely. Her eyes fell on the lone picture frame on her desk, and her expression softened for a moment. She flipped it around, and I saw the face of a young man, handsome, looking much like the woman sitting across from me. “This is my son. His name was David.”
I swallowed hard. “Was?”
“He died.” Her words were hard, blunt. “Four years ago, when he was eighteen years old.”
“I’m sorry,” I blurted out without thinking.
She nodded, a hard sadness in her eyes. “Ever since he died, I’ve been on this cause, working my way up the ranks at the CDC, creating this facility, doing what I can to change this world.”
She took a deep breath. “David was a beautiful person, the most beautiful person I have ever met in my life, and I do not say this only as his mother. He was intelligent and kind and so incredibly selfless. He could have done so much.”
“I worked hard, going to school, doing everything I could to give him the best life I was capable of. His father wasn’t around. But we did the best we could, the two of us.” Dr. Cylon sighed, remembering. “When he was fourteen years old, he came to me and told me that he was gay, that he had known for a while that he was gay and could not keep it a secret from me any longer.”
I was mesmerized, addicted to the story. I had no idea what it had to do with the Awakened or the existence of this facility, but I had a feeling I was going to find out.
“I was shocked, but I think deep down I had always known this about him. We had come from a traditional family, but I loved my son, more than life itself. I loved him no matter who he chose to love.”
Her hands reached for the portrait again, and she picked it up, looking down at the face of her son adoringly. “The world, it would seem, did not feel the same. He always had a hard time being accepted, but he took it with so much strength. He held his head up high. When he left for university, I had no doubt in my mind that he would succeed.”
“It was two weeks before his winter holidays that I got the phone call. He had not shown up for finals, none of them. I hadn’t heard from him in a few days, but he was an avid student, and I assumed he was too busy studying. It was no matter of concern; I would see him in a few days.”
“What happened?” I whispered.
“He was killed, murdered by two of his fellow students,” Dr. Cylon said, her voice returning to its harsh nature. “They followed him one night as he left the library late at night. They invited him out for drinks, but they had no intention of friendship. They beat him until he stopped breathing.”
I gasped. “That’s horrible.”
“Yes. It tore me apart. David was the beginning and the end of everything that mattered to me. His death nearly killed me.” She took a deep breath and straightened herself up. “But it gave me a mission, Zoey.”
I felt my heart sink.
“The world is wrong. The world is broken. When we came to this earth, whatever way you believe, we were a clean slate. But over the thousands of years that we’ve been here, we have dirtied that slate. We’ve become an embarrassment, an abomination of the species. We are weak. We need to start over.”
“I created the virus. It was so easy to do,” she said, a note of pride in her voice. My sympathy over the loss of her son was dissipating quickly. “It was created to target the immune system. Those with the strongest immune systems would survive. I wanted the strongest of us all to survive. We released it in the water supply. So simple.”
“I don’t see the point,” I admitted, my voice low. “Why kill off those with weak immune systems?”
“I wanted the strongest of us to live. I wanted to rebuild the world, to start fresh, but I still needed people. So I worked out a way to have the strongest of us all survive,” she explained, looking at me as if I were simple. “Free of disease, free of alcoholism and affinity to drugs, free of the darkness that creeps up and makes us so evil.”
“So you created the virus,” I said, feeling anger rising in my throat, “to rid the Earth of the so-called weak ones. But the Awakened? What was the point of those?”
“That, I must admit, was a stroke of genius, on my part.” She smiled widely at me. I stared at her, my face hard, refusing to show her any form of emotion. I was angry, furious and terrified at the woman standing in front of me. “We stole the bodies, because we wanted to study them to see the effects of the virus, but we didn’t need so many. We had been working on these chips for so long, and it suddenly clicked together. It took a while, but we managed to use the chips to reverse the effects of death. We had our own built-in army.”
She stood up and walked back to the window overlooking the labs. Her hands were folded behind her back as she surveyed the scene below. “Of course, they turned out a little differently than we had expected. The unfortunate look of them, well, they ended up looking quite scary. I’m not quite sure what caused the blue tint to their skin pigment, but frankly, it wasn’t that important.” She shrugged her shoulders elegantly.
I stood up as well, my fists clenched. I could be across the desk and have her down on the ground in less than two seconds. I wanted to. “You’re not making any sense, Dr. Cylon…”
“Razi,” she cut in. She smiled over her shoulder endearingly, as if smiling at her daughter. I felt the fire of anger in my stomach and had to resist the urge to punch her.
“Razi, fine,” I said, dismissively. “Fine, you had an army at your disposal. But why release them? Releasing them caused even more people to die, especially after they dropped bombs on the major cities. I thought you wanted to rebuild the world with the survivors.”
“Oh, I did. I do.” She turned away from the window and came over to me, her dark eyes meeting mine. “But I wanted the strong, the strongest of the survivors. I wanted those who could survive no matter the conditions. Those who would survive the outbreak of the SK-521s, sorry, the Awakened, would be the strongest. The bombs were unfortunate but that was outside my control.” She sighed, a sorrowful look on her face. I had never seen such a forced expression.
“I want to create a utopia with the smartest, strongest people that are left in the world. The people who want to live are the ones that I need to create it. I’ve created a virus, awakened millions of dead people and perfected an army. Sekhmet, the warrior goddess of the Egyptian pharaohs, would be so proud. I am fighting for the world. I am healing it.”
She looked at me appraisingly. “You are one of those, Zoey, one of the survivors. I am so proud of you. I am so excited that you are here to become part of this new world.”
I swallowed hard. I wanted nothing to do with this new world that she had planned. She was playing God, taking nature into her own hands and I wanted no part in it.
“What do you think?” Razi asked, spreading her arms wide, as if to show off the encompassing nature of her facility. “Are you ready to join my utopia?”
“I want to see Ash,” I said immediately. “Now.”
She sighed, looking at me with disappointment. She was quiet for a long time, and I was sure she was going to refuse me. “I see,” she finally spoke. “Very well. I will take you to him.”
We left her office behind and continued through a winding maze of hallways, elevators and even a few flights of stairs. We kept going lower and lower, the air around us becoming thicker and colder. I could see white puffs of breath escaping my lips, and I wrapped my arms tight around me as I followed her.
“Where is he? Ash? Where did you put him?” I asked, looking at the doors we were passing. They were strong, steel, with a small window at the top. They looked like prison doors and I knew, deep in my gut, that Ash was behind one of these doors.
I was right. She stopped in front of one of them and pressed her thumb to the pad. The door sprung open, and she stepped aside, letting me walk in.
Ash was on a chair, not unlike the one that I had just been occupying earlier. His own room was so different though, so dark in contrast to my lighter room, and there was no one in here, just the steady beep of his heart on the monitor. He was completely out, but looked unhurt.
I spun around, facing Razi. “Why is he here? Why isn’t he upstairs, with me?”
“He’s sick,” she said simply. I looked at her, horrified. “Nothing serious. We think bronchitis, perhaps strep throat. He was trying to hide it from you, but we noticed it right away. He will heal but…” She sighed again, looking disappointed. “He is not strong, not like you. He really serves me no purpose.”
“He serves me purpose,” I protested. “He’s important to me.”
“That is human weakness, emotions,” she said, sharply, pushing me out of the way, to stand next to Ash. “To be part of this new world, you need to find a new mate, a strong one. Holding on to those who would only make you weak is a false move, Zoey.”
Razi leaned over Ash, running her long fingers over his forehead, smoothing out the wrinkles of stress. “I’m not cruel though, of course! I will allow you to say goodbye.”
This was all happening too fast. It seemed like it had only been hours (though I had no idea how long I had been under) that Ash and I had been on the road, heading to what we thought was Sanctuary, and now we were captured, kidnapped by this crazy doctor playing God who I was pretty sure was going to kill the boy I loved. I was not ready to say goodbye. I was not ready to join this ridiculous utopia that she thought she was creating. She was crazy, and all these people that she had upstairs working for her, they were crazy as well. They had been killing innocent people on a false cause, and they weren’t stopping anytime soon.
She woke Ash up gently, coaxing him awake. His eyes flew open and darted around wildly, taking in his surroundings. His lip curled at the sight of Razi; this was definitely not the first time that he had seen her, and his previous experience had not been good, judging by the disgusted look on his face. His eyes wandered and fell on mine, and I felt a sense of relief as I crossed the room toward him.
“Zoey,” he breathed. “You’re all right.”
I nodded. “Of course. Are you okay?”
He coughed loudly. “Of course I am. Never been better.” He tossed a glare at Razi who didn’t flinch as she watched us. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m…I’m…” I started to say. I could feel tears building up, and the words got caught in my throat. How could I tell him that we were trapped, stuck with the people who were responsible for the deaths of everyone we loved and cared about?
“She’s come down here to say goodbye to you,” Razi cut in, pressing a few buttons on the machine. There were so many wires connected to it, and I was sure that at least one was connected to Ash in some way. I watched her apprehensively, afraid that there was one button, a simple button, that could just end his life right then and there.
Ash turned to glare at her, and I stepped back. “Should I be grateful to you, Doctor Cylon, that you brought her down here to say goodbye? Did you tell why I am forced to say goodbye to her? Did you tell that I didn’t fit into your ridiculous idea of a perfect world?”
I gaped at him. “You know?”
“Of course,” Ash spat out, though his venom was aimed at Razi, not me. “She told me that you were the only one that they wanted. You were strong, and I was weak, and I would only hold you back.” He met the doctor’s eyes squarely. “They’re going to kill me.”
“No!” I shouted, looking over at Razi, who was still regarding me calmly. “No, you can’t do that. This is ridiculous.”
“I am building a perfect world, and I cannot afford you to be emotionally weak. He is sick; his immune system is not as strong as yours. He would be a waste to keep around,” Razi explained, no remorse in her voice.
“You’re sick,” Ash yelled at her, struggling against his bonds. “You’re a sick woman, and you’re acting like you’re God, like it’s a game, but you’re taking away innocent lives. Who gave you this power? Who decided that you could do
this?”
Razi didn’t answer. She blinked her large dark eyes at us and used her hands to wipe off imaginary lint off the perfect creases of her blazer. She was too far gone to be reasoned with. She’d been planning this for the past four years, and there was no stopping her from her objective now.
“You should just kill me too,” I said angrily. I saw Ash shake his head out of the corner of my eye, but I refused to look at him. “I want nothing to do with this new world you think you’re creating.”
“That is not going to happen. Say your goodbyes,” she said, firmly. “I’m tired of this. I have better things to waste my time on.”
Ash shifted, turning his head toward mine, a smirk on his face. “Can I get one last goodbye kiss, Zoey?”
All the words that I wanted to say, the “I love you” that I needed to say, were stuck. I couldn’t get them out. Now was the time. It didn’t matter if he didn’t feel the same; I needed to say it now. I leaned forward and pressed my lips tightly to his, feeling the sparks dart through me. I went to pull away, but the look in his eye stopped me. “Now,” he whispered.
It took me a moment before I realized what he said. I nodded slightly, watching Razi out of the corner of my eye, just a short length of space away from me. She was completely unprepared.
“Now!” he urged, and I moved. I whipped around, catching Razi around the waist, spinning her to face me. I caught a quick look at the surprise in her eyes before kneeing her in the gut and sending an elbow to her throat and then her head. She collapsed quickly, slumping to the ground.
“God, I always forget how fast you are,” Ash said, staring at her body on the ground. “Get me out of here, will you?”
I raced back to his side, yanking the needle out of his hand and the wires pasted to his chest. I fumbled at the metal cuffs around his wrist unable to find a clasp. I thought of Razi’s fingers, gentle on the cuffs that had released me earlier. “Hold on.”
The Awakened Page 22
