“I’ve got to get back to training,” I say shoving up from the couch. “Let yourself out.”
***
Granby’s on edge this morning. His commands are harsher, his voice sharper, and he paces like a cat on the prowl. The hazy orange glow of the rising sun rests on his face; outlining new wrinkles that I swear weren’t there yesterday. He must’ve gotten some news. I’d ask him about it, but not in front of the others.
He calls Drake over while we’re halfway through our set of prone rows. I keep my head arched up, trying to listen in on their hushed discussion. Both of their faces tense, their eyebrows crinkled. Drake nods once and looks up toward the armory. I follow his gaze and drop my arms to the grass at the sight of her. Why is Pollen here? And in uniform? No way her own brother would allow her to join, especially after just having a baby. Had I known this would happen I would have said something to her when I saw her in the infirmary yesterday.
At the end of the set I can’t hold back any longer. I approach Granby.
“What’s going on? Why is she here?” I turn to watch Pollen and Drake. She’s staring at me again, but the distance that separates us is too vast for her to eavesdrop on our conversation.
“She opted to join this morning. Her doctors gave her their release, so there’s really no reason to hold her back. I asked Drake to help her warm up.” Granby tilts his head slightly. “Marcus, have you remembered something?”
“No. I just . . . I don’t think she should be training so soon after . . . She shouldn’t be joining at all. She’s a mother now.”
“I agree wholeheartedly, Marcus. I wish she would reconsider. Or at least wait a little longer to regain her strength. But despite our personal feelings, I can’t deny her the right to serve in our army if she chooses and is fit to join. It’s against our policy.”
I glance back at Pollen, bending at the waist and struggling to touch her toes as Drake stands by, instructing her.
“Isn’t there something you can do?”
“I’m sorry, Marcus.” Granby shakes his head ruefully.
There’s nothing more I can say to Granby. He already agrees with me. She shouldn’t be here. I don’t want her here. Is this about me? Is she trying to get close to me again? Has she any idea how badly she wounded me?
When Pollen finally joins the rest of us, we’re about to take off on our morning run around the perimeter. The eight-mile run along the hills and valleys of the inner perimeter is not the easiest terrain even for a seasoned runner, especially one who just gave birth less than two weeks ago. She has no idea what she’s getting herself into. She’ll probably give herself a stroke trying to prove herself.
Drake and the nurse—Timber, I think—flank Pollen on each side as we begin the run. Nicron and Jansen join me and our feet pound the ground in sync in a steady rhythm.
“What’s on your mind, bro?” Nicron asks.
“What do you think?” I growl.
“I know it doesn’t look like it, but it’s not about you, Marcus,” Jansen adds. A few soldiers race past us on either side.
“How would you know?”
“Pollen’s been wanting to join the army ever since Evie was taken. She’s bound and determined to get back at the Trinity for everything they’ve done. I just hope she doesn’t push herself into a coma.”
“She’s an idiot,” I mumble.
“Yeah, but she’s got some guts,” Nicron adds.
“And some damn rocks in her head.” Nicron and Jansen laugh, though I don’t see the humor in this situation. I sneak a quick glance back and see that she is lagging way behind, but Drake and Timber are hanging steadily at her side. I turn back and charge forward into a sprint. I need to get her out of my head.
Much to my surprise, and dismay, Pollen made it through the run. In under two hours no less. I remember she said she used to run in high school—even saw some trophies in her bedroom at her house. She must have been keeping up while she was pregnant.
While she leans over to catch her breath, she glances up at me and entraps me in her emerald eyes. As painful as it is to look at her, I can’t seem to look away; like there’s this gravitational force that won’t release us. But when Glenn approaches her that magnetism diminishes, allowing me to rip her from my sight.
Our next drill is the assault course. I’m among the first to run it. I climb the twenty-foot rope wall with ease, slither under the barbed wire in no time, and scale the flat wall with little struggle. The exercises, as intense as they are, have become child’s play for me. After I finish the course I pace along the edge of the weaver obstacle and watch my fellow soldiers weave their bodies over and under the long planks of the arched ladder. I the distance I see that Drake is hanging behind with Pollen, the last to enter the course.
Before I started the course I overheard Granby telling her to take it easy. Somehow I don’t believe she will. Pollen starts off like she’s running a fifty-yard dash and I shake my head at her naïve determination. When she disappears behind the rope-climbing wall, the first obstacle, I’m sure she’s given up. But after a full minute her braided chestnut hair appears over the apex.
I watch more diligently than I should as she takes each obstacle with a kind of vigor that I just know will get her hurt. I cringe every time she drops to the ground, never quite landing on her feet. By the time she reaches the weaver the exhaustion is evident in her entire body. Her sprint has transformed into a stumble and she can barely move forward without dropping to her hands and knees every few steps. Drake attaches himself to her, urging her to stop, but she somehow finds the strength to push him away violently and move forward. Halfway up the weaver, something happens and I find that I’m holding my breath. It’s almost like slow motion. She reaches for the plank and misses. Her body smoothly unfolds from the contraption and she plummets to the ground, landing in a quick anticlimactic thud. Her body shuts down and she lies there, as lifeless as a decomposing corpse.
Chapter 16
(Pollen)
A snake coils around my bicep, squeezing my arm tighter and tighter with each pulse of my heart. It widens its mouth, making idle threats with its opalescent fangs. From the sharp angles of its teeth oozes a vile liquid that singes my bicep. It loops around, squeezing even tighter. Just when it is about to break the bone it releases with a hiss and slithers from me.
“Pollen? Are you awake?”
My eyes flutter open. Timber leans over me and brushes her hand gently across my forehead. When my eyes fully open she smiles in relief. My head feels like it has been crushed and my body feels like it has run a double marathon. Confusion sets in.
“What happened? How long have I been out?” I ask. Timber removes the blood pressure cuff from my arm.
“Only about thirty minutes. You collapsed on the course, remember?
“Oh, right.” Granby warned me not to push too hard. Glenn warned me. Drake warned me. Timber teased me. And yet here I am.
“I told you you were pushing it,” a prominent male voice calls out from the corner. I gather my elbows beneath me and raise my upper back up to twist my head. Drake is leaning casually against the corner of the room with his arms crossed, just as my father used to do.
“Drake helped me carry you to the clinic,” Timber says smiling in his direction.
“I thought you guys considered me too soft. I was trying to prove you wrong.”
“It wasn’t about you being soft, Pollen. You just had a baby. You haven’t been physically active since Crimson. Granby knew you couldn’t physically handle the course this soon. He was just looking out for you. Me, well, I thought you were too soft.” An impish grin stretches across his face. That’s the brother I remember from my childhood. I scour the exam table for something to throw but come up short, so I just stick out my tongue in a childish display of rebellion.
“I gotta get back,” Drake announces, pushing himself off the wall. “I’ll see you later?” He looks longingly at Timber. She smiles brightly and nods.
“You rest
up and listen to your doctor, Pollen.”
“Yeah, yeah. Get out of here,” I say.
“I’m serious.”
“Okay.” I glare at Drake until the door shuts behind him, and then I turn my attention back toward Timber.
“So you and Drake . . .”
“I’m sorry, I should have asked you first,” Timber says. She hops onto the exam table by my feet.
“No, I think it’s great!”
“Really? I was so worried you’d be mad at me.”
“Timber, you’re the closest thing I have to a sister. I couldn’t be happier. I just hope he hasn’t moved in on you too fast. You know, after Yoric.”
Timber frowns. “Yoric and I talked about this before he left on the mission. He told me if anything were to happen to him I should move on. Initially I didn’t want to—it felt like I was betraying him. But there’s just something about Drake. We seem to have this unspoken connection. Maybe it’s because we’ve both lost someone we loved. I really think I’m falling for him.” Timber peers at me through the corner of her eyes as she smirks, gauging my reaction. Pushing myself upright, I grab her shoulders and hug her from behind. It’s nice to feel some emotion for a change, even if it’s not my own happiness.
“Anyway,” Timber says as she hops off the table and stalks toward the door, “I’m going to go get Dr. Sexy so you can get out of here.”
“Hey Timber.”
“Yeah?” she pokes her head back through the door.
“You think you can front me some pain meds? I’ve got a killer headache.”
“Of course.”
We share a brief smile as she leaves the room.
After a quick reprimand from Dr. Yipolis and instructions to eat, drink lots of water, and rest for the remainder of the day, I’m on my way back to Drake’s apartment.
I tap my foot impatiently in the nearly empty waiting room while waiting for the elevator, which is aggravatingly slow today. I scan the room looking for something to distract me while I’m waiting, but all I see are the same still life paintings of irises on the wall that I’d spent weeks studying during my prenatal appointments. Then I glance at Vi, the receptionist, recalling the last encounter we had. Since I’m still waiting I ask her once again to call the lab and see if Myra is available.
“She said she’ll be here in about thirty-five seconds.” Of course. Not thirty seconds or a minute, but thirty-five seconds. Typical scientist.
“Really?” I’m stunned. After waiting all this time with no word from her, she’s finally going to see me. Now maybe I can get some answers.
I trail Myra as she escorts me down the brightly lit corridor, passing by blood-drawing stations and several rooms marked ‘Radiology.’ I haven’t been down this corridor since I first arrived at Ceborec, when they ran an arsenal of tests to check on my general health and x-rayed my ankle that broke while escaping the runaway train in the Web.
We finally enter a laboratory that looks like a cross between my high school chemistry class and something out of a science fiction movie. I could literally be on an alien spacecraft now and wouldn’t know the difference. Rows of cluttered countertops with built in desks, sinks, incubators and other random gadgets fill the length of this massive room. A door is propped open at the far corner where darkness lurks within. I follow Myra reluctantly, keeping my elbows tight at my side to keep from touching anything, as if I were wandering an antique store filled with priceless valuables.
“Have a seat,” Myra says as she pulls an extra rolling chair in front of a flickering computer monitor that looks like it’s at least thirty years old. I glance at a stack of Petri dishes shoved back behind the monitor along with some labeled containers next to a scale, before my attention turns to the screen. Most everything on it looks like a foreign language to me, so I simply focus my attention fully on Myra.
“I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to get back to you, Pollen. I’ve been throwing myself into research to try and understand exactly what is going on.”
“Do you?”
“I’m getting close, but it can be difficult to interpret raw data when they are in such an underdeveloped format.”
I waste no time getting right to the point.
“Granby said I have the same genetic marker as Evie. What does he mean?” I shift awkwardly in my seat. Part of me is frightened to ask, but I have to know.
“That’s correct.” Myra types roughly into the keyboard and a holographic representation of a double helix rises from a glassy black circle on the desktop. The image rotates like a carousel, allowing me to view it at all angles. Myra taps a few more keys and it enlarges, so that we can view a small portion of a DNA strand.
“How much do you know about genetic code?” Myra asks.
“Not much,” I confess. I now wish I’d paid more attention in my biology classes, instead of drawing silly hearts and ‘Pollen Mallek’ in my textbooks.
“Then I won’t bore you with the details. This is a representation of your DNA. There is a specific nucleotide sequence in this strand that differs from most human beings. There’s an adenine where there should be a thymine.” Myra uses the tip of her pen to point out the strand in question. “I’ve checked most of the records from the Ceborec community and, as it turns out, you, Drake, and Evie are the only carriers of this specific mutation.”
“So what does it do? How are we different?”
“According to the trials conducted at Crimson, this particular mutation produces an amino acid sequence which causes fluctuations in DNA replication, most notably, a genetic acceleration.”
“Okay . . .” My mind is a thunderstorm of chaos. Whatever Myra just said went completely over my head, out the door, and took a bus to no man’s land.
“In other words, you and Evie have a gene that speeds up the process of evolution.”
Now there’s a word I know. From what I remember, evolution took millions of years to occur in the course of human history. It’s theorized that humans evolved from primates and certain genetic traits were lost and added through the centuries.
“But how could they possibly know that? Evolution takes—”
“A very long time, yes. But they conducted studies, first on fruit flies because of their short life spans, and then on other short-lived subjects. They found substantial differences within just a few generations of offspring.”
“Differences?”
“Multiple immunities, acclimation to extreme temperature fluctuations, even physical appearance, such as longer wingspan.”
I take a moment to close my eyes and let this new information sink in. The gene I carry can change the human race in the course of a few lifetimes. And the Trinity want it and will stop at nothing to get their hands on it.
“So why Evie? Why didn’t they take my blood? Or Drake’s? Why take it from a child?”
“Because her blood is pure and untainted by environmental influences. I believe they were keeping you as simply a backup plan in case something happened to Evie.”
“And that’s why they were willing to give up Evie for my son.”
“Precisely. Not only would they have access to his blood, but also the stem cells.”
“And that’s bad . . .”
Myra nods slowly. “For us,” she finishes. “I’ve been searching the flash drives for some information that could tell us why the Trinity is bound on separating this genetic marker. What I’ve found is a detailed diagram of what I can only assume is a ‘master race.’ A human race that is stronger, more intelligent, more resilient. A race that will never go extinct. One reason why they released the virus was to exterminate the weakest of our species. Upon the discovery of your very special gene, they intend to inject it into all new fetuses, then expose them to extreme conditions, forcing their bodies to adapt.”
“But how will this benefit them? They aren’t even going to be around to find out if it works. Unless they’ve found some crazy gene that extends their lifespan for hundreds of years. Oh, ple
ase tell me they haven’t!”
Myra chuckles at my panic. “No, at least not that I’m aware of. I don’t know why. Perhaps it’s just the craving for power. A god complex.”
I marinate in the juices of this new knowledge for a few minutes while Myra tinkers around with the keyboard some more. The holographic image disappears. So the Trinity are redesigning a human race to colonize A1D3. A master race. An army of survivors. Like a switch, my curiosity is turned back on.
“Granby said something else. Something about an army of the survivors at Crimson and a mind-altering drug?”
“Those were some very interesting trials to read. Evidently, they held off on applying the drug, because there was one particular test subject that did not succumb to the processes. They called this person Test Subject X.”
My mind reflects all the blood testing performed on Evie while we were locked up at Crimson. Could they have tested this drug on her? Could she be Test Subject X?
“After reviewing and altering the drug over a dozen times no discernable impact could be identified on X. However, when they applied the same drug to a handful of other subjects, they found it worked perfectly at numbing their individual instincts.”
“So what, this drug turns them into robots?”
“No, not really. The test subjects had full control over their actions. They were not forced in any way. What this drug does is it takes away inhibitions and opens the mind to brainwashing, so to speak. So for instance, a young woman with a fear of flying could be trained to pilot an AG-52 jet and would have no qualms when asked to perform. We believe residents at Crimson are being brainwashed and trained to launch an attack on Ceborec. And we believe this is happening all over the world at other COPS and Trinity stations.”
With my brain in a whirlwind of mixed emotions I excuse myself, thanking Myra for talking with me, and head back to the apartment for some much needed rest. I’ve got to be back on my game tomorrow. No time to waste.
Chapter 17
(Marcus)
The Trinity Page 10
