by Anne Tibbets
Ric’s jaw was clenched and his face was red. He tossed plates and utensils on the table and banged around the refrigerator, noisily looking for something. When I asked him how his search for a hacker had gone, he shook his head and cracked some eggs into a bowl. I put the tablet of names on the counter, my hand resting on top.
“Ric...” I began.
“No one is willing to touch the Auberge mainframe,” he fumed, beating the eggs as if it were their fault. “They’re all afraid after what happened to Tym.”
“Oh. But Ric—”
“And I don’t blame them!” he barked, shaking too much pepper into the bowl. “Even Tym’s buddy, Eron, won’t touch it. It’s a fucking nightmare. I don’t know what we’re going to do. We’re fucked. We’re totally fucked. I can’t believe I fucked this up so badly.” He pivoted on his foot and in a fit of anger threw the fork he was using to scramble the eggs across the room. It ricocheted off the brick oven and skittered to the opposite side of the kitchen, leaving a trail of egg across the tiled floor.
Ric gripped the kitchen counter and balled his hands into fists. “I’m sorry, Naya. I’m so sorry.” His anger quickly dispelled into despair, and he lowered his head, resting his forehead against the copper counter. “Sorry doesn’t even begin to cut it.”
I went to him, placing my palms on his shoulders as he fought to control his breathing. “Hey,” I soothed, bothered by the news, but mostly by Ric’s loss of hope. “We’ll figure this out. It’s just going to take some time, that’s all.”
He stood upright.
My palm went to his cheek, and he pressed his face into it.
“Time?” he breathed. “We don’t have time. I’m sorry, Naya. I just don’t—”
A buzzer sounded.
Ric stiffened.
My hands dropped as I searched the room for the source of the sound. A small screen flashed green beside the kitchen light switch. “What’s that?”
Ric put up one finger to silence me. He mouthed the words “Front door.”
Before I had time to register panic, he ushered me into the pantry closet with the canned goods and closed the door.
In the darkness, I listened, a rising anxiety beading on my brow.
Heavy footsteps approached.
“Hey,” Ric said with a forced nonchalance.
“What are you doing here?” asked another man’s voice. It was vaguely familiar.
“I’m not allowed to visit my own family’s estate?” It sounded like an attempt at light-hearted humor. But given the other man’s response, I didn’t think it worked.
“You hate it here.”
“Doesn’t mean I can’t come by every now and then,” Ric said. “Besides, I thought you were at a conference in East.”
It was the older brother, I realized.
This could be bad. Very, very bad. I’d left the tablet with the list I’d stolen from the office on the kitchen counter, right out in the open. My heart quickened. I leaned forward and tried to peer through the louver slats on the pantry door, but couldn’t see a thing.
“Conference is over,” the brother said.
“Done so soon?” Ric asked.
“No. It ended early due to a security breach at headquarters. You wouldn’t, by chance, know anything about that, would you?”
“What kind of security breach?” Ric teased.
“Someone got in the mainframe server room,” the brother said, “and tried to erase some data. You never answered my question.”
“Tried to erase data?”
“Ric.” The brother’s voice sounded like a warning.
“How will I know if I’m involved unless I know what was done?” Ric chuckled half-heartedly.
The brother snarled. “If you did this, you’d better come clean now, because so help me, if I find out you were involved and didn’t tell me... I’m up to my neck with this one. If this gets blown, we could all end up over the wall.”
“If what gets blown?”
“Dammit, Ric! Was it you or n—” The sentence ended midword.
“What is it?” Ric asked, a shard of concern in his tone.
“Who else is here?”
My breath caught in my chest as my stomach clenched. With shaking hands, I searched in the darkness of the pantry, trying to find another means of escape. Each wall was lined with shelves of canned food and jars. It was pitch black, and I couldn’t make out the ceiling to see if there was attic access or not. Plus, the more I moved, the more I was afraid of being heard scuffling around.
Trapped.
I stilled, frozen with fear.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ric said.
“There are two plates on the table, moron,” the brother spat. “Who’s with you?”
Ric sighed. “Charle, you need to sit down a moment.”
“The hell I will. Who is it?”
I held my breath.
“You’re probably scaring the living hell out of her, and you wouldn’t want to do that.”
“Her, huh? Why wouldn’t I want to scare the hell out of her?”
He was doing a pretty good job so far.
“We’re in a bit of a mess. And you’re going to help us out,” Ric said.
“What makes you think I’m going to help you? You still never answered my question about the break-in.”
“You’re going to help us because I know what you’ve done.” Ric sounded so calm, almost sinister. It made my skin crawl.
“What I’ve done?” The brother grunted. “What have you gotten yourself into?”
“You promise to help us?”
“I’m not promising anything.”
“You will once you see.”
“See what?”
“Her,” Ric said. It almost sounded like the snarl of an animal.
There was a long pause. The next time Charle spoke, his voice cracked. “Who?”
I stood rooted in place. The pit of my stomach was in my feet. The pantry door opened with a creak. Ric stood in the doorway, then stepped forward. He whispered into my ear, “You can come out. But I don’t want you to scream or shout. All right? It’s not good for you or the babies. Think you can do that?”
“Why would I scream?” It was just his brother, right?
“You promise?”
“All right, I promise.”
“Then brace yourself, and come on out.”
Brace myself?
I couldn’t imagine what he was getting at.
I stepped out of the pantry. Ric was next to me, eyeing me with a furrowed brow and holding open the pantry door. Standing across the kitchen was a man in a business suit, fiddling with his tie. He had a smile that took up nearly half his face. I recognized him immediately.
It was the asshole.
“Oh my God,” I gasped.
I saw his face fall in recognition just as I opened my mouth to scream. I followed my first instinct.
“Run!” I shrieked. Whipping around, I smacked face-first into the open pantry door.
There was an explosion of pain in my cheek, then I hit the floor, a scream stuck in my throat.
Charle cussed on the other side of the kitchen, but Ric was by my side within seconds.
“Oh my God!” I burst again.
“Ric, you selfish son of a bitch!” Charle bellowed.
“Are you all right?” Ric asked me. He helped me sit up.
“It’s him!” I cried, tears of terror filling my eyes. “Him!”
“I know,” Ric said, and he gave me that look I hated, the one where he seemed to think me pathetic.
“Do you realize what you’ve done?” Charle was shouting.
“It’s the guy!” I blurted, scramblin
g to my feet. I tried to pull away to run, but Ric had a firm grasp of my arm. Didn’t he understand? “The guy from the Line!”
“I know,” Ric said again. He squeezed my arm with his hand and ran his thumb up and down the skin of my inner arm, but I wasn’t reassured.
It stopped me. “The one who let me go,” I added.
Ric nodded solemnly.
I felt the wind escape my lungs with a hiss.
“This will be the end of us all!” Charle yelled. “Including Anj. You selfish son of a bitch!” He headed out the kitchen door, slamming it behind him.
“He’s leaving. He’ll tell them where I am!” I shouted.
“He won’t. He knows he’s screwed if he does,” Ric said.
I pulled my arm free. “Wait. What?”
“He has no choice but to help us.” He was strangely calm under the circumstances.
I wanted to slap him, to scream, to pound him in the head. I gripped the counter to keep from falling over with rage. “You knew the manager was your brother?”
“Yes.”
“When? How?”
“You said the man who turned you loose was a twitchy guy with a creepy smile. My brother works for Auberge. The moment you told Tym and me at the warehouse... It was an educated guess.”
I was speechless.
He let it soak in.
The whole time he’d known, and he’d never told me. I felt a mixture of anger, betrayal and something else. Something I couldn’t quite place. It was as if I was thankful and sympathetic toward him at the same time. I could only imagine what a burden it had been for him, knowing his own brother was a piece of Auberge’s plans for me, whatever they were. Tym had known too. That explained why they’d both gone ballistic at the warehouse. But neither one of them had told me, which made my bones shake with fury.
Was I really that fragile? Were they so afraid I would crumble under the pressure?
Apparently so. That only pissed me off more. But then something else crossed my mind and I felt a violent twist in my brain.
The list of names!
“There’s something you should know,” I said.
From the expression on his face, I could tell Ric didn’t like the sound of it. “Yeah?”
“Here,” I said, and I went around the kitchen island and snatched up the tablet I’d left. “Your brother had a list of names in his desk, and I’m on it.”
“A list?” Ric looked as if I’d slapped him. “What kind of list?”
“I’m a carrier.”
“A what?” He seemed so confused, I knew I was doing a horrible job of explaining it.
“In the office, there’s scientific files,” I said. “I found them while you were gone. I don’t know what it’s about. It was all a bunch of molecules and medical research. But this list? They’re called ‘carriers,’ and my name is on it.”
I pulled up the list on the tablet and showed him. Ric winced.
“If he’s the one who let me go,” I said, “he’s part of it. He could explain to us what’s going on with me!”
Ric shook his head, turning away from the tablet, as if he didn’t want to believe it.
“Maybe he knows why they impregnated me and set me loose.”
This time, Ric was shaking. He said tersely, “I hope you’re wrong.”
We stared at each other for a moment in silence, both aware but not expressing our separate wraths. Then both our eyes went to the door where Charle had exited.
“There’s only one way to know for sure,” I said.
Ric sighed. “Come on.” He moved away and rummaged in a few kitchen drawers, coming up with a length of rope. “How are you at tying knots?”
* * *
We found Charle in the office, rummaging through the tossed desk, pushing aside tablets in a panic.
Outside in the hall, Ric handed me the rope and took the list of names, then went inside, closing the door behind him. I waited a few minutes in the hall, listening to Ric’s efforts to try to calm his brother. Charle was furious about the files, the broken desk drawer. He kept asking Ric what he knew.
But Ric ignored all that and tried to find out what he knew about me and what a carrier meant and about the list. But it seemed the more Ric talked, the angrier Charle got. Finally, when Ric flat-out asked Charle for the mainframe passcodes so we could check the system for my name, Charle told Ric to fuck himself, and then I heard scuffling.
“Naya!” Ric bellowed.
I came in to find Ric pinning Charle’s arms behind his back. He had his brother’s face crushed against the wall.
“You idiot! Do you know what you’re doing?” Charle fumed.
Ric wrestled his brother into the rolling office chair, and after a bit of work, we tied him to the chair with the rope.
“We’re all dead now, don’t you realize that? You’ve just signed our death declarations!” Charle hollered.
Once he was in the chair, he wriggled around for a bit, trying to free himself.
That seemed to make Ric more determined. He took up the other tablets on and in the desk, then sat on the desktop, reading silently to himself.
“What else does it say about me?” I asked him. “Does it say where I’m from? Or where to find my family?
“No.” Ric shook his head. “It’s some sort of genetic experimental research.”
“Research on what?”
He looked me square in the eye, his expression grim. “Remember the news broadcast? Auberge is experimenting on citizens. It’s called the Genesis Project. I think the carriers are the subjects.”
My worst fears realized, my head flooded with a new multitude of questions and emotions. Anger laced with fear. Determination overcome by desperation.
“I’ve been experimented on? When?”
“Remember when you said the nurse on the Line put you under, and we thought that was when you were impregnated?”
That made sense to me. “Are the babies the experiment?”
“You two don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” Charle snarled.
Ric glared at his brother. “Yeah? Why not?”
“You think you’ve got some sort of evidence there? You don’t. That list means nothing.” I could tell from the way he was looking at Ric, there was a shred of truth to his words. “Those names don’t exist. If you go to the broadcasters with that, Auberge will kill the whole story, the whole project, and there’s no way for anybody to find out otherwise. They’ve already erased all those people from the system, including Naya. That list is useless.”
“It’s useful enough to make you sweat,” I pointed out.
He scoffed and looked away.
Ric waved me over to see the list. “If all these names are erased, then you’re in the clear, Naya. We did it!”
“Don’t get all pleased with yourselves,” Charle grumbled. “Auberge erased the names on purpose. They don’t want any record of the girls or their offspring. But believe me, they know who you are.”
“Just shut the hell up,” Ric snapped at his brother.
“Fuck you! You don’t even know what I’ve done to cover your ass.”
“I never asked you to!”
“Fat lot of good it did—because my ass is in the fire too. Who do you think Auberge went after when some idiots tried to erase an identity that wasn’t supposed to exist? Me! That’s who.”
“Forgive me if I’m not crying for you,” Ric said. “Serves you right.”
“Serves me right? Why, you little fucker!”
“Stop it!” I yelled. “Just stop it!”
Charle and Ric both slammed their mouths closed.
“What is the purpose of the Genesis Project?” I asked Charle. “Why don’t they want a record of the carriers
? What kind of experiment was done on me?”
He turned his head away and stared blankly at the wall. The whole truth was in him someplace, and I was determined to get it out. I left the desk and stood in front of him.
“I deserve answers,” I said.
“Don’t we all,” Charle scoffed, avoiding my eyes. His tone was so toxic I could tell it was rubbing Ric the wrong way.
“Hey, show some respect,” Ric warned his brother.
“Oh, look at Prince Charming, defending the little whore.” Charle laughed.
I wanted to smack him, but Ric reached across the desk at Charle, sending tablets, the pair of scissors and the desktop computer crashing to the floor. I blocked Ric’s blow, not letting him pound him, but it took all the strength I had not to let him do it. If we got violent, I feared he’d never cooperate, and there were too many things I needed him to tell me.
Ric pressed into my back and jabbed his finger at Charle’s face. “Don’t talk to her like that.”
Charle only laughed.
“Ric,” I said.
His eyes went to mine.
“That’s not going to get us anywhere.” I wrapped my arms across my chest and tried to think, leaning against the desk again.
I kept coming back to the same point. I’d known my release was suspicious. At the time, it just seemed off. In fact, the news that I was experimented on wasn’t even that shocking to me.
It was obvious Auberge had ulterior motives.
But to experiment on the babies...
That seemed inhumane, even for a totalitarian corporation like Auberge.
If Charle knew what they’d done to my babies, then I had to get it out of him, and given his stubborn streak, I didn’t think attacking him would get me the answers I wanted.
I had to play it cool. Even if inside I wanted to dig his smarmy eyes out with a spoon.
Ric backed off and snatched the scattered tablets off the floor. He tossed them back onto the desk.
Charle stopped laughing. “Oh, I get it.” He was obviously gearing up to say something else to set Ric off.
Finally, I turned around to face Charle, and he almost choked on his own words from the look on my face.
“I have some questions.” I sat on the desk across from him and tried to look intimidating.
