Tears escaped their fleshy prison, cascading down my cheeks as sobs racked my body. My shoulders shook with the ferocity of my terror and grief. That was the moment it registered with both Gaia and Ryder that my mother and I were correct. I had seen our future, and I was certain that it was written in stone with no way to change our path.
Tell them.
With a deep, shuddering gasp, I finally spoke. My voice shook with the revelation.
“King’s coming for us. He’s coming, and the Paradigm will fall,” I stated.
Once the words left my mouth, the room went completely silent, not even our breathing audible. There were no other alternatives. The Fallen Paradigm would be no more, no matter what I or anyone else did to stop it. I may have been warned thanks to the gift Cato decided to impart on me. The burden of seeing the future. The burden of seeing it, but not being able to do anything to change it. Could I tell her that she would die? And at Nero’s hand? It didn’t take long for me to believe that it would be best to leave that out at that moment. It wouldn’t make anything better. It wouldn’t make a difference. Either way, she would die, and our cause would fall to its knees at King’s violence and persistence.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” I wept.
She hushed me and pulled me into her arms, Ryder and Gaia watching us helplessly. Just like me, that had no idea what to do next. There was something I could see in Ryder, though. A determination to make a difference in our fate even though, once seen, it was possibly already too late. It had been in the forest when I broke down, and Ryder talked me off the proverbial ledge. I had been calling myself a murderer, and he had tried so hard to convince me that that wasn’t the case even though death seemed to follow my footsteps with terrifying accuracy.
A robotic click echoed off the walls of the room and a voice, the one of the woman who kept a vigilant watch over the entrance of the building through glass walls, startled us out of our shock.
“Horatia?” she asked, seemingly believing that my mother was still asleep in her bed.
“Yes, Joy?” my mother replied, not loosening her grip on me.
“I apologize, Horatia. I didn’t want to wake you, but a transmission came in.”
“It can’t wait until morning?” my mother persisted.
“No, ma’am. I’m afraid you’re going to want to see this,” Joy stated, her voice taking on a metallic edge through the wires and speakers in the room.
“All right. We’ll be right there.” She pulled away from me but kept her hands on my shoulders as if I would float away if she let go.
“We, ma’am?”
“Yes, my daughters and Officer Ryder will be accompanying me.”
“I will inform them that you are on your way.”
With that, there was another soft click. Then we were leaving the room to find out what the transmission sent had to offer.
The entire time, I felt like I was moving to take my place within the trenches.
Chapter
TWENTY
We stood in what looked to be the control center of the Fallen Paradigm. It was a room I had never once been in so I had not even the foggiest idea of what I was looking at besides the massive and numerous amounts of computer screens. They were the same flat glass computers our government used. The same used within the Spartan Compound where I had been held with my friends and other Specials.
Nausea crept into my throat as I stood between my mother and Ryder, Gaia standing perfectly still on the other side of our mother. She looked anxious, her arms crossed over her chest as if she were trying not to touch anything.
To be completely honest, so was I.
Everything looked so advanced and fragile I didn’t want to be less than five feet from any of it, so I kept my distance as best I could. The room wasn’t extremely large, but big enough to where I had at least that distance in front of and behind me to avoid contact with the equipment. I had zero experience with the stuff, my social status seeing to that since I didn’t work in the government labs like my mother had. As one of their foremost geneticists before being pulled from the Harvest project, she was continuously exposed to new technologies but left her government work at the labs where she felt it belonged. She never brought any of it home and, seeing what I had over the last weeks, I couldn’t say I blamed her for it.
Joy, the woman who had called my mother telling her that something had come through, sat in front of one of the large screens. There was another man in the room I hadn’t met before with brown eyes, short-cropped blonde hair, and a slightly crooked nose that looked like if had been broken a time or two. It didn’t take away from his overall good looks. It made him look more human which I had a feeling he was. A human being with nothing special about his abilities except for a tech-savvy brain.
“So, what was so important it couldn’t wait, Adam?” my mother asked impatiently.
“This came in thirty minutes ago. We had to decipher some of it before we could call you in to see it, but I think we have most of it decoded now. At least, enough to make heads or tails of some of it,” he answered. His fingers tapped lightly on the keys as he worked to pull up the information.
The screen in front of him flashed and then what looked like rainfall of brilliant blue letters and numbers came onto the screen, but Adam wasn’t anywhere finished. The tapping of the keys sounded like a chorus of information all on its own. As we watched in silence, the letters and numbers began to fade away, and documents began to surface. With a flick of his wrist, the documents spread out onto multiple screens, growing larger so the text could be easily read. There were certain words that stood out as I skimmed over them from where I stood.
Project Mila.
Nano.
Invincible Heart.
Fugitive.
John Baker.
I wasn’t sure what to make of the mention of my name or any of the other terms and phrases that my eyes were drawn to.
“Have you been able to figure out any of this, Adam? It all looks like a bunch of documents. Any keywords we should be paying attention to?” my mother probed.
“John Baker is mentioned,” I said, taking a few steps toward one of the lower screens. I pointed to his name, my finger hovering over his name instead of touching the screen itself. “Right there. There are some other things in this document. I have no idea what any of it means, but since my name is right up here,” I moved my fingers to hover over it, “I think this particular one is what we need to see.”
Ryder leaned over beside me. His brilliant green eyes glowed brighter as the light from the screen reflected off them, almost taking my breath away in his closeness. I pulled my hand back, so I wasn’t blocking any of the words and watched him scan the document with an incredulous eye. His brows furrowed in concentration and his face grew grim as he read, his lips turning down in a frown.
“What the actual fuck?” he spat. He stood up and looked at all of us in the room, settling on my mother and me.
Gaia ran to the screen. “What? What does it say?”
She leaned down, her long blonde hair hanging over her shoulders, and read it for herself. As her eyes moved, I saw the tears that sprung to life there. But, before she finished, Ryder began to explain.
“Well, we all know who John Baker is now. He is what they are calling the Invincible Heart Project. Basically, a nanobyte enhanced human being made to take you out or bring you in, Mila. They are calling you a fugitive of the government here. A criminal.”
“But I’m not,” I came to defend myself.
“Yeah, we know that, but do you think they’d tell the country that? It’s easier to say that someone is running because they broke the law than to tell them that you are running because of a shady government that wants to use you.”
He had a point. Gaia gasped loudly and stood up with her hand
over her mouth. We all stared at her, the expression in her wide eyes punching me square I the gut. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t speak, but I wanted to know what they did.
“What does it say?” I choked out.
“Wait, looks like we have audiovisual transmission here,” Adam stated.
“Well, open it. What are you waiting for?” my mother pressured.
Joy had been completely silent during the entire thing but now said, “I’ve got it. Adam, continue work on the rest of the documentation. Anything that King signed off on or any of the doctors within Fuji-O’Hara Industries.”
All that could be heard for what were agonizing seconds were the taps of their fingers on the keyboards. The screen in front of Joy flashed a bright blue followed by a series of white flashes as she worked. I didn’t know anything about what they were doing to accomplish retrieving the information, but the white and blue splashes on the screens caused me to worry. Then I saw Joy smile in her reflected image and the screen fizzed in white and black. An image began to take shape on the screen. First, it was extremely pixelated, then began to clear and smooth out.
“Yes, got it!” Joy exclaimed.
The screen turned a deathly shade of blue again, but then returned to the clear image of what looked to be a video conference call between Emerson King and a man I had never seen before. The unknown man’s hair was dark, littered with gray and concentrated at his temples. A full salt and pepper beard covered his jaw, trimmed perfectly, so he still looked professional. Crow’s feet were visible at the corners of his eyes. Grandfatherly. The look in his eyes made me quiver. The look of intelligence that shone out from them was intense, but there was something underneath. Something that came with extreme genius. Something that took years upon years to develop, and I wondered if anyone else noticed it.
Brilliance overshadowed insanity.
And King. King looked just as vividly insane as ever, but there was no hiding the malice that seeped from every pore. Especially when coupled with his dark eyes that were nearly black at he peered out from the screen at all of us. King looked to be within the Spartan Compound or at least in an office that looked eerily similar, while the other man stood in what seemed to be a large patient room with a dark figure lying on a gurney behind him in the background. It was blurred, but I recognized the masses of muscles and the dark brown skin with ease. That was John Baker back there, and he laid as still as the dead. My heart skipped a beat at the sight of it. I had been in a comparable position before at the hands of King’s doctors. Doctor Aserov to be exact. An image of me lying deathly still as a team of gloved hands moved toward me flashed through my mind. I shook it away and focused intently on the video. That was when the men began to speak.
“Doctor Newton, what is our progress with The Invincible Heart Project? Any news?” King asked, his eyes never leaving whatever camera he was staring into.
Doctor Newton. That was a name I had never heard before. I leaned closer to the screen, almost touching Joy’s back.
“Yes, President. I have a few updates.” He moved toward the table where John Baker lay, the camera following him smoothly. “From the look of it, John Baker is taking well to the nanobyte implants. There is no sign of rejection, and his vitals are steady. Perfect, really.” Newton smiled. His eyes gleamed with that same insanity I had spied before he even opened his mouth.
Great, great,” King stated with a nod. “Are there any signs of the formation of a Queen?”
Newton shook his head, “No signs of one at all so, once awake, we will have full control over Subject Baker. There will be no resistance when we send him out into the field to hunt down Project Mila.”
As soon as I heard my name, my stomach dropped, and acid rose into my throat. I felt everyone staring, but chose to ignore it.
“Great news, Doctor Newton. Now, tell me, how quickly can he heal? Will he really be able to resist Mila Hunter’s abilities? We need to be one-hundred percent certain before we even think about waking him and sending him out there. I want this woman dead or alive, and I can’t have her if she kills him first. The ability we can extract from her is too valuable.”
“I understand completely, President. If you would like, I can show you exactly what we’ve found in our experiments. Well,” the man’s eyes went even darker as he looked down at John Baker, “a demonstration, if you will.”
“I like the way you think, Doctor. Please proceed.”
When Doctor Newton moved toward the end of the gurney, my breathing stopped, and my heart ceased to beat when the terror of what would happen next flooded my system. We all watched in abject fascination. Doctor Newton’s white lab coat billowed around him, making him seem even more sinister. Then his hands were covered in purple gloves that I hadn’t seen him put on, and his fingers gingerly picked up a shining metal scalpel.
“Oh, my God,” I whispered while Newton moved closer to John’s side. My stomach turned at what I knew was coming.
Gaia shrieked and turned away from the screen, cradling her face in the crook of my shoulder as I wrapped my arms around her. This was what my mother meant when she had said Gaia couldn’t handle anything out in the field and on the front lines. Now, I saw her reaction when nothing had happened yet, not a single drop of blood spilled, she had to hide from it. I had seen far too much at that point to turn away.
Doctor Newton placed the sharp tip of the scalpel to John’s dark flesh, the blade indenting into his skin. King’s eyes widened, but not in fear or horror. It was in fascination. Like he had been waiting to see blood and someone would finally deliver on what had been promised to him when this whole thing started. There was a collective sharp gasp and then a groan of disgust and disapproval at what was being done as we all watched Newton, seemingly one of the highest ranked doctors at Fuji-O’Hara by my observations, drag the blade down John’s skin. Dark red blood welled up in the long gash Doctor Newton’s blade left behind, stretching all the from his shoulder to his elbow along his bicep. The pink muscle underneath was shiny with crimson, but still, John never moved. It sent a chill up my spine, a shiver passing through me I knew Gaia could sense.
Ryder’s warmth came to rest on my other side, his chest pressing against my elbow in a show of comfort and solidarity. My mother only moved closer to the screen, fascination in her eyes while she watched what happened next. Then his hand came to rest on the small of my back, his warmth filtering through the fabric of my thin tank top.
Blood flowed, thick, but then began to change into something else. Small, glittering metal fragments surfaced and clumped in the wound, moving to the edges of it where the skin lay separated from itself. Those same metal fragments began to build a bridge across the gash, pulling the other side of the wound together. As they worked, I couldn’t look away. None of us could except for Gaia who had moved her hands up to cover her eyes even though she wasn’t even facing the screen. After seconds that felt more like hours than anything, the movement stopped. Doctor Newton picked up a square of sterile gauze and wiped the blood and blackened tissue away. Clean, fresh skin gleamed underneath. He was healed completely. Not even a scar visible in the bright medical lamps.
“What the fuck?” Adam whispered.
“My sentiments exactly,” Ryder stated.
“Shhh,” my mother snorted. “It’s not over.”
“Of course, we have not been able to test his limits as far as Mila Hunter’s abilities, but I feel this is a great indication of what he can do. He heals too quickly for him not to be able to recovery from anything she inflicts on him,” Doctor Newton said proudly when the camera moved back to his face. Then he smiled mischievously. “I think he could even stand the blast when Project Mila is in effect.”
“That is fantastic news, Doctor Newton,” King exalted with the same glimmer of evil in his nearly black eyes. “When will he be ready to be taken off the sedation?”
“It’s hard to say, but I have a feeling it’ll be very soon. Maybe the next few days with his progress. Then he will have to go through retraining. His mind has been completely wiped clean except for the essentials like language, among other things.”
“And how is the Core Reactor coming?”
Machine? This was the first I had heard about any kind of machine. Gaia finally removed her face from the crook of my shoulder and looked at the screen, a frown on her lips when she spotted King’s handsome face. The screen flickered a little but came back crisp in less than a second.
“It is progressing nicely. The blood and samples that we had taken from Mila Hunter were exactly what we needed to help us build the mechanism inside that will draw what we need from her.”
“That’s if she doesn’t come willingly. We need to be prepared.”
Doctor Newton nodded excitedly. “The Core Reactor will be ready by Zero Hour and ready for use. All we’ll need is her. The Activator.”
“Dead or alive, Doctor?”
I saw something shift behind their eyes at the exact same moment. Something even more sinister than previously during this video feed.
“If necessary, dead, but alive is preferable. The Core Reactor will work best if Project Mila is still alive. Her blood is mostly reactive when flowing and oxygenated properly. It can still run fine with the dead tissues, but will not work at full capacity. That is what we have been able to gather from our research in building the Core Reactor.”
“Very nice…” King purred at his camera.
“Stop. Stop the video. Please,” I almost begged.
Joy paused the video, the faces of both maniacal madmen staring out at us. All eyes were on me in an instant. I didn’t have to look at any of them to be able to tell. Heat flared in my belly and threatened to work its way up into my throat, but I swallowed it down before it had a chance to cause any further damage than the video already caused. Gaia began to cry quietly, but her muffled sobs were like explosions of pure despair in my ears. Stunned was the only word for what I felt. I felt neither fear nor grief.
The Scorned (The Permutation Archives Book 3) Page 23
