This Vicious Cure

by Emily Suvada

  CHAPTER 41 JUN BEI

  I SCRUNCH MY EYES SHUT, flailing in the air until the shock of falling from the Comox passes. The ground zooms toward me in a blur of gray until the parachute on my back releases, jerking me into a straighter descent. My fall slows, giving me time to aim away from the trucks and toward the open stretch of grass in front of the lab. I draw my legs into a crouch, tilting forward as I land and somersault twice before falling to my side.

  The soldiers stationed outside the lab start shooting immediately.

  A thud sounds behind me, then another as the others hit the grass. I struggle to untangle myself from the parachute and run for a stack of steel crates near one of the trucks. Fist-size streaks of gray plummet into the ground as I run, sending up sprays of dirt. The scorpions. They unfurl instantly, skittering across the grass, letting out a barrage of high-pitched shots.

  “Come on,” Ruse says, grabbing my arm. He yanks me the last few feet to the cover of the crates.

  Leoben bolts across the grass to us, a rifle gripped in his hands. “Anything from the others? I can’t get through to Cole or Anna.”

  “Nothing,” I shout back. “But they’re coming—they have to. We need them to finish the vaccine.”

  Ruse lifts his gun, aiming at the troops near the lab, and fires off a round. There’s an empty stretch of grass we’ll need to cross to get into the lab, but we’ll be completely unprotected while we’re on it. “We’ll be sitting ducks out there,” Ruse yells, gesturing to the grass.

  “Not for long,” Leoben says, his eyes lighting up as figures hurtle down from the sky. “Looks like Novak was able to get through to Dax.”

  A dozen genehackers hit the ground, but they don’t have parachutes. That’s because they didn’t fall from the Comox with us. They’re safe at Novak’s base and are here through Veritas. They can’t shoot at the soldiers, and they can’t give us cover fire, but they can do the next best thing.

  They scatter, running wildly through the grass, zigzagging into the trees. As soon as they’ve gone, more people flicker into view in their place. The Cartaxus troops are shooting at them, but it’s clear their bullets aren’t hitting flesh, and a shout rises for them to hold fire.

  “How are we going to get you in?” Ruse yells. I follow his eyes to the lab. It’s a straight shot across the grass to the doors, and there’s plenty of cover now that the avatars of the genehackers are here, but the doors are shut. They’re probably locked, maybe even bolted from the inside.

  “I—I don’t know,” I say, looking around. There has to be a way to break through the doors—a grenade, something. A low roar starts up over the forest, a spotlight sweeping across the trees. A Comox swoops toward the lab, its guns lowered, aimed down at us.

  My heart leaps into my throat as it fires a missile and the laboratory’s doors explode. A blinding light flashes, a roar cutting the air. A wall of smoke rolls out from the ruined doors, one hanging from its hinges, the other blown into the lab. The troops near the doors scatter, shouting orders to retreat, and a figure drops from the Comox, a silver parachute billowing out above them.

  They land elegantly in the grass, ripping off the parachute, a rifle looped over one shoulder. Blond hair, bright eyes that grow steely as they lock on me. Anna.

  “Hell yeah!” Leoben yells, letting out a whoop, and another figure hits the ground beside Anna—small and nimble: Ziana. A third lands with a thud beside her, rolling in the grass. A silver parachute floats out behind them. It’s Cole. My stomach tightens as he scrambles to his feet and meets my eyes through the smoke. His face is a tangle of anger, pain, and relief.

  But he’s here—they all are. We might just have a chance.

  Anna looks over her shoulder at the lab’s ruined doors, then back to Leoben and me. “You ready?”

  “Let’s do this!” Leoben shouts. He takes off for the lab with Cole close behind. Ruse grabs my arm to steady me as I rise, and we tear across the grass.

  The sounds of the battle fade as we race into the lab, veering through the wreckage of the explosion that blew out the front door. The floor is littered with broken concrete and twisted shards of metal, the air choking with the scent of plastic explosive. I cover my mouth with the crook of my arm, coughing, and stumble through the foyer.

  “Won’t they come after us?” I shout, jogging down the hallway. I stagger to a stop and grip the wall to look over my shoulder. Outside, the muddy grass glimmers with the flash of gunfire and the glow of the flood lamps. Figures are racing between the trucks, scattering into the forest, drawing the soldiers away. The genehackers are creating the perfect distraction, but they can’t hide the gaping hole in the wall. The soldiers will surely see it.

  “It’s okay—we’re covered,” Cole shouts back, pointing to a row of gleaming scorpions skittering into formation at the door. “Let’s just hope these things don’t go feral on us now.”

  I nod, still coughing in the smoke, and follow the others into the hallway. The triangular fluorescent lamps overhead are flickering, making the walls seem to dance and sway. My lungs burn as I run, and it’s taking me too long to catch my breath—but it isn’t just the smoke that’s slowing me down. It’s the infection.

  I stumble, grabbing for a door handle to keep myself upright. Anna and Leoben have already reached the stairs, with Ruse running ahead of them to check for soldiers.

  “You okay?” Cole asks, looking back.

  “F-fine,” I say, choking. I cough into my elbow, and the emerald fabric of the pressure suit comes away spotted in blood. “We need to keep moving.”

  A muscle in Cole’s jaw flexes. He looks behind me at the battle outside, then darts forward, his arm sliding around my shoulders.

  “I’m fine,” I say, forcing myself to walk.

  “Let me help you.” His voice isn’t gentle, but it’s steady. His arm tightens around me, taking half my weight as I stagger to the stairwell and haul myself up. Memories batter me as we reach the upper floor. We spent most of our time up here. The dormitories, the bathrooms, and the medical ward are all on this level. I’ve walked this hallway countless times, and been wheeled down it countless more, bleeding and stitched up and on the brink of death.

  The others are at the top of the stairs. There’s a troop of guards stationed outside Lachlan’s office, waiting for us. Anna and Leoben exchange a string of hand gestures, planning an attack, but they don’t look confident. We’ll be practically defenseless the moment we step into the open.

  “Goddammit,” Anna mutters, tilting her head back. “This is gonna hurt.”

  Leoben’s eyes widen, and Ziana stares in shock as Anna lifts her rifle and runs up the last of the stairs. The soldiers switch formation instantly. There’s no way she’ll take them all down without getting shot.

  But Anna doesn’t need to survive. She can come back from almost any injury—she can die, then wake again. The soldiers don’t stand a chance against someone who’s willing to take a chest full of bullets in order to take them down.

  We’d all be able to do that if I hadn’t deleted the Panacea.

  Anna bursts into the hallway, and I brace myself for a hail of gunfire and the sound of bullets hitting flesh. But instead, everything goes quiet. Anna skids to a stop. I risk a glance and see the soldiers lift their weapons and stand back. The lab’s door swings open, light spilling into the hallway, and a figure steps out, talking softly to the soldiers. It’s Agnes.

  “We’ll be holding fire, Jun Bei,” she calls out. “Catarina and I have reached an agreement. I won’t be trying to release the Panacea. You can come in—it’s safe. Lachlan and I will help you with the vaccine—we’ll do it faster if we work together.”

  I frown, holding Leoben’s eyes as the muffled sounds of gunfire from outside the laboratory fade away, then walk up the stairs to watch as Agnes strides down the hall toward us. The soldiers shuffle around her in a protective formation. I search her face for any hint that this is a trap, but she just looks exhausted. She seems br
oken somehow, like a woman walking to her own execution.

  I don’t want to trust her, but she’s right—fixing the vaccine will go faster with her and Lachlan helping. I might not be strong enough to do it on my own, and they know everything about the six of us—our DNA, our gifts. With their help, we can get this done, though it means putting all of our lives into the hands of someone who infected me just hours ago.

  But if anyone had a chance at changing Agnes’s mind, it’s Catarina. I don’t know what she said for Agnes to yield this easily, but I have to trust it was enough.

  I reach out to push down Cole’s rifle. “We’ll be holding fire too,” I say. “We don’t have time to fight.”

  “What?” Anna asks, her voice sharp. “You’re trusting her?”

  “Yes, I am.” Agnes’s steely eyes meet mine, and I see a flash of the look she gave me when she left me with the scorpion. I see the horde of Lurkers, the pigeons detonating in Entropia, and the scientific torture chamber she built in this very lab. She’s a monster. My hands curl into fists at the sight of her and the thought of all the pain she’s caused. I want nothing more than to run up the last of the stairs and drive a blade into her neck. I want to make her suffer for everything she’s done, and all the misery she’s caused.

  But she and I are not so different. We’ve both hurt and betrayed people while trying to bring humanity into a better, safer world. I turned on everyone who trusted me when I started working on the Panacea. Everything I did, and everything that Lachlan did to help me, has all been to usher in a new world, and that’s exactly what Agnes has been working for all this time.

  I can see now that it was a mistake, and something tells me Agnes can see it too.

  “She isn’t going to release the vaccine is she?” Anna asks. “I’m not making her into a hero.”

  “I won’t be releasing it, no,” Agnes says. “That will fall to Dax and Novak.”

  Ruse’s eyes narrow. “You’re not claiming any credit for this?”

  She shakes her head. “That’s what Catarina and I decided would be best. We need to unite people. Between Novak and Dax, we’ll be able to reach everyone—the genehackers and the civilians. The vaccine needs to come from both of them, and it needs to be pure and open. No more games and lies. It’s the only way to end this war.”

  Ruse stares at me. “You’re giving up the Panacea? But it worked. I saw the Lurkers.”

  “It’s too dangerous,” I say. “The Panacea is a weapon. I just didn’t realize it until now. I deleted it, like I should have done weeks ago. I should have focused on rebuilding this world before I tried to start a new one.”

  “What about her?” Anna asks, glaring at Agnes. “What happens to you after this?”

  “I’ve done what needed doing,” Agnes says. “Cartaxus has fallen, and we’re fixing the vaccine. Now somebody needs to stop this war before we lose too many people. The easiest way to do that is to tell the world the truth about what I’ve done. I’ve always wanted what’s best for the people, and this is what’s best for them now. So come on, we don’t have much time.”

  She turns and heads back to the lab, still surrounded by the soldiers.

  “This is messed up,” Leoben says, watching her leave. He takes my arm to help me up the last of the stairs and down the hallway.

  “Yeah, it is,” I mutter. “But it’s the only way.”

  Cole swings open the door to Lachlan’s lab, and my breath catches as we step inside. Cat is standing in a corner of the room, coughing into her hands, her face ashen. Her avatar flickers as I look at her. It looks like the infection sweeping through me is hurting her as much as it’s hurting me.

  Lachlan is standing in the middle of the room, jacking a cable into the arm of the limp clone of Catarina. He looks up, his gray eyes locking on mine, softening as he sees me.

  “You made it,” he breathes. “Come in, darling.”

  I stagger into the room, grabbing the side of the metal table in its center to steady myself. The genkit on the wall has been spun up, six cables already jutting from its side. Catarina said that Lachlan needed all five of us to rebuild the vaccine so that it’s free of the Panacea’s code. He and Agnes will focus on that, and then they’ll feed the code to me. I’ll need to join it with Catarina’s DNA so that it can run without relying on Hydra as a vector. That means doing two things at once—splitting my focus between Cat’s DNA and the vaccine, solving puzzles in both at the same time to figure out how they merge together.

  The only way to do that is by fractioning, but the implant is weak. I don’t know how it’s going to handle a fraction. I don’t know how I’ll handle it either, in the state I’m in. My mind already feels like it’s stuffed full of cotton balls, and it’s going to get worse as the fever spikes.

  I grab one of the cables, jacking it into my cuff, and slump into a chair. The genkit’s interface spins into my vision, but it’s blurred, my focus already foggy from the fever. “I need to fraction to finish this code,” I say, “but I’m losing strength fast from this infection. If we don’t get started now, it’s only going to get harder for me.”

  Lachlan’s eyes narrow, but he doesn’t argue. He passes cables to the others. None of them look thrilled by the prospect of jacking one of Lachlan’s cables into their arm, but this isn’t an experiment. Nobody is forcing us to do this. Cole, Anna, and Leoben press the cables to their panels, and Ziana presses it to the center of her chest, where a single metal node lies beneath the skin for analyzing her DNA. I tilt my head back, diving into the genkit’s architecture, searching for the readings from the clone of Catarina.

  “Okay, I’m sending out initialization code to gather results now,” Lachlan says, his eyes glazing. “This will let us strip the vaccine away from the rest of the code. It might be uncomfortable, but it won’t hurt you.”

  A hum pulses through my panel, rippling up my arm. I can feel it—a tightness spreading along my muscles, bringing up goose bumps on my skin. I try to block it out and step into the quiet place in the center of my mind, forcing my focus into a single, unwavering flame. The results from the clone of Catarina start to flood in, and the flame erupts into a bonfire.

  “It’s working,” Agnes mutters, though I can barely hear her over the storm in my mind. She and Lachlan are running code through me and the others, using the results to piece together the vaccine. The code they’re working on starts to roll through my panel, ready for me to merge it with Catarina’s DNA. I can see both sets of results spooling across my vision at the same time.

  It’s time for me to fraction and merge them together.

  I let my shoulders drop, staring at the scrolling feeds of data, pushing against the fracture inside my mind. The wall between Catarina and me still feels weak, but it holds as I nudge at the crack inside myself, trying to force my thoughts into two separate streams. My eyes blink open, waiting for the lab to split into two, for the people sitting and kneeling around me to double, but nothing happens. I frown, pushing myself harder, the strain making my breathing hitch, but I can’t seem to take myself over the edge. The results from Catarina’s clone keep flooding in, and I grope inside my mind for that hidden fissure and hurl myself into it again. Still nothing.

  All I can feel is a shuddering, aching feeling racking my body. A skeleton of code is rising from the data spooling from Catarina’s clone, but it’s useless on its own. I need to merge it with the vaccine, and the only way I can do that is by fractioning. I grit my teeth and try again, but all I manage to do is send a spike of pain into the base of my skull.

  The flickering of Catarina’s avatar grows wilder, her eyes scrunching shut as the wall between us wavers. Her eyes are blank—she’s struggling, and a chill licks through me. This is more than the infection, more than the fraction. She’s been lying to me. The implant is weaker than I thought, and it’s crushing her.

  She’s not holding on. She’s losing herself.

  “Catarina,” I gasp, my focus wavering. “Cat, what’s happeni
ng?”

  She just shakes her head. “I’m fine. You’re so close—keep trying!”

  I urge myself toward the fraction again, but her image flashes wildly, and my control wavers.

  “You have to fraction!” she cries. “We only have one chance!”

  “No, I won’t lose you!” I say, my chest shaking.

  Catarina’s eyes blink open, and the storm in my mind suddenly goes still. She flickers in and out, but my hold on the fraction is strengthening. My thoughts are starting to split, like a single candle separating into two flames.

  “Wh-what are you doing?” I ask.

  She stares at me, her face white, her gray eyes growing wide. “I know what I need to do,” she whispers. “I know how to save us.”

  “No!” I shout, gripping the arms of the chair, my chest heaving. “Stop sacrificing yourself to save the world—just hold on!”

  “But I’m not saving the world,” Catarina says, standing shakily. “I’m saving you—all of you. You’re my family, and this is what I have to do.”

  The feeling of her presence inside me rises, whipping into a storm that beats against the wall between us.

  “Cat, don’t—” I start, but her eyes lock on mine, ablaze.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispers. “I love you.”

  Then her eyes roll back, and she disappears.

  “Cat?” I shout, but the word barely leaves my lips before the wall inside me crumbles. My focus rocks like a ship on towering waves, hurling me toward the fissure in my thoughts, forcing me closer to the fraction.

  My mind stretches and splits, and I let out a scream.

  CHAPTER 42 CATARINA

  MY VISION SPLINTERS, A ROARING filling my ears. I land hard on a concrete floor and roll to my side, gasping for air. I’m still in the Zarathustra lab, in the room with the floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over the mountains. A storm is raging outside, rain lashing the glass, the sky dark with rumbling clouds. A flock of pigeons wheels through the rain, their cries low and melodic, their feathers shimmering a vivid, electric green. But there was no storm raging when we flew in on the Comox, and there were no pigeons, either.