“Coast is clear,” she announced.
“You’re a little terrifying, you know that, right?” Yutika asked her.
“I know.” Bri grinned.
Kaira let the rest of us walk ahead of her. She was trying to hide it, but I didn’t miss the slight hunch in her normally-perfect ballerina posture. There was a sheen of perspiration on her face, even though it was a cool morning.
“Are you up for this?” I asked quietly enough that no one else would hear.
“I’m fine,” she said in typical Kai fashion.
I didn’t try to argue. I just put my arm around her waist. “Lean on me,” I told her.
“I’m fine,” she said again, but she let me support some of her weight.
Before we reached the doors, I saw everyone else transform into tiny ants on the ground. When I looked at myself, I realized I was one, too.
“I’m not going to be able to hold these illusions for long,” Kaira said, and I could hear the strain in her voice. “Let’s get inside and find someplace to hide.”
One of the other ants opened one of the glass doors, and we found ourselves inside the lobby of a large building. There were high ceilings and marble floors. The place had a very sterile, office-like feel. The air even had an astringent, bleached smell.
There was an elevator bank to our left and a large security desk straight ahead. There were three chairs behind the desk, but no one was sitting in them.
I still had my arm around Kaira’s waist, and I could feel her shaking from the effort of holding our illusions.
“Guys, behind the desk,” I whispered.
As soon as we were out of sight of anyone coming out of the elevators, Kaira dropped our illusions.
The elevator doors dinged. I peeked out from behind the desk in time to see a man and a woman, both of whom were wearing white lab coats, exit the elevator. They walked right past the desk where we were hiding and continued down the corridor. Before they disappeared from view, I saw the man’s keycard detach from his lanyard and sail back to A.J.’s hand.
Yutika flipped her pad to a new page and started to sketch like a madwoman. A few minutes later, we were all pulling on white lab coats just like the ones the man and woman had been wearing. Kaira could have illusioned our outfits, but it was obvious Yutika had noticed Kai’s strain. I gave Yutika a grateful smile.
We left our hiding place and went straight for the elevators. We didn’t speak until we were crowded inside and the doors had shut.
“Which floor?” Bri asked.
“Tenth floor,” A.J. said. “Everything interesting is always on the top floor.”
“What about the basement?” Yutika asked.
“Ooh, yeah. Creepiness points for the basement,” Bri agreed.
A.J. swiped the stolen badge across the keycard pad and hit the ‘B’ button. A green light blinked on, and the elevator descended.
Kaira illusioned all of us so we were unrecognizable as ourselves as we descended.
The elevator dinged, and the doors opened to reveal a hive of activity. There were dozens of men and women in lab coats just like the ones we were now wearing. It looked like some kind of science lab on steroids. There were beakers filled with colorful liquids that steamed and bubbled over. There were all sorts of machines with little test tubes and petri dishes nestled inside.
Someone wearing gloves opened a vat of what I thought was probably dry ice.
“Alchemists,” Kaira mouthed to me.
“I’ll be right back,” I whispered. I adjusted my lab coat so the camera attached to my shirt wouldn’t be obstructed. Then, I walked purposefully away from the elevator bank and between a row of lab benches.
Everyone around me was too focused on their experiments to pay any attention to me. I grabbed a clipboard and pair of goggles off an empty bench and used them to look like I belonged.
I stopped behind different lab tables and pretended to make notations on my clipboard as I tried to read the small print on the computer screens over each work station.
I couldn’t make sense of the formulas, since the chemical symbols on the screen weren’t ones I’d learned about in my high school’s AP chem class. But I did catch sight of a label on one of the beakers.
Magical reduction, 90% for 24 hours, the label read.
An identical-looking beaker beside it had a label that read Magical reduction, 25% for 30 days.
A hand-written note was taped to the lab table between the two beakers. On it was written, Goal: 100% magical reduction, permanent.
The word permanent was double-underlined.
Could this be the same potion Remwald had described, which took away Magics’ abilities?
If such a thing were possible, it could be used to force non-compliant Magics into submission. Remwald could threaten to force them to drink the potion, and the fear of losing their magic would make them willing to do what they were told.
I remembered the look of fear on Kaira’s face when she came face-to-face with Remwald at his estate and realized her illusions no longer worked. I couldn’t imagine what it would do to her if the effect was permanent.
I moved on to a lab station where several of the Alchemists had gathered. I tried to be subtle as I peered around them.
All I could see was a row of petri dishes lined up on the slate counter. One of the Alchemists lifted something with a pair of tweezers. It looked like a strand of black hair. He deposited the hair into a beaker filled with a pea soup-green liquid. When the Alchemist dropped in the next ingredient, I couldn’t help the shudder that went through me. It was a fingernail.
The concoction frothed and hissed. The fluid congealed, like it was putty instead of liquid. It shot straight up into the air. It reached the ceiling at least ten feet overhead, and then fell back into the beaker.
The Alchemists oohed and ahhed as they applauded the guy who had been wielding the tweezers.
“We’re making history,” one of the Alchemists said with a chuckle as he shook another Alchemist’s hand.
“Shouldn’t be much longer until we can replicate our subjects’ abilities without needing any human carriers at all,” the other man replied. He cleared his throat. “I’ll admit I don’t approve of the way we keep the mothers caged like hens.”
“A necessary evil, my friend,” the first replied.
I had no idea what they were talking about, but I couldn’t ignore the sick feeling that was growing in the pit of my stomach. I strode back to the others, who were hovering around an empty lab table and pretending to be busy. I returned the clipboard and goggles to the bench where I’d found them.
A man carrying a tray with hundreds of petri dishes was walking by, and I paused to let him pass.
“How’re the new specimens?” the other man asked without looking up from his tray.
I looked around before realizing the man couldn’t be talking to anyone but me.
“Um, fine,” I said.
The other man stopped in his tracks.
“You new? I haven’t seen you around before.”
“Yep, I just started.” I studied my clipboard as my heart pounded a frantic rhythm in my chest.
I could feel the other man’s scrutinizing stare even though I kept my gaze studiously fixed on my clipboard.
“Holy shit. You’re not an Alchemist…you’re a Nat!”
The exclamation was loud enough to attract the attention of all the surrounding Alchemists.
A desperate idea came to me before my panic got the best of me. I only hoped I was right.
“I just tested some of the magical reduction potion.” I gave the man an easy grin. “Works like a charm, apparently.”
The other man’s pinched expression relaxed, and I knew my guess about those beakers had been right.
“Amazing,” the Alchemist murmured. He picked up some kind of metal sensor from his lab table and waved it in front of me. Blinking red text appeared on the screen.
The Alchemist squinted at the text, and then his face pa
led.
“No, wait,” I said.
It was too late.
The Alchemist lunged for his lab table and slammed his hand on a large, black button. A blaring alarm rang out as red lights all along the wall started to flash.
Other Alchemists started to race toward us. I shoved the man’s tray so it went flying overhead. The Alchemists screamed and abandoned their chase as they scrambled to catch the experiments before they hit the ground.
The two Alchemists nearest to me transformed into identical replicas of Director Remwald. The men looked at each other in a desperate kind of confusion.
“Graysen, get out of there!” Kaira yelled.
As I ran toward the elevator, I realized everyone else in the room was illusioned to look like the Director, too.
I dove into the elevator with the rest of the Seven.
“It’s me,” I said, just in case there was any doubt, since I had no idea what I looked like right then.
“Well done, team,” A.J. said, gasping for breath. “Nice and subtle.”
The doors slid shut.
“You know how unsettling it is when you do that?” I asked Kaira, who spared me an exasperated look.
“We have to get out of here,” Yutika said, on the verge of panic.
“No,” Kaira and I said at the same time.
Pounding came from the other side of the elevator doors.
“They’re going to break in!” Yutika squealed.
“I’ve got it locked,” Smith said, his eyes closed. “They won’t be able to get in.”
“Tenth floor,” I told A.J., who was wielding the badge.
“My heart can’t take this much excitement.” A.J. clutched at his chest as he swiped the stolen badge and hit the button for the tenth floor.
The light next to the sensor turned red. The elevator stayed where it was.
“Fiddlesticks,” A.J. muttered.
“Try a different floor!” Bri commanded.
A.J. tried the ninth. The button turned red again.
“Hurry up!” Yutika yelled.
“Trying!” A.J. replied. “This badge doesn’t get us anywhere except the basement and first floor.”
“Relax,” Smith said. He closed his eyes, and then the elevator started to move.
“If you could do that, then why did I bother stealing this useless thing?” A.J. demanded, tossing the badge in a dramatic arc across the elevator.
“If you’d asked, I would have told you not to bother,” Smith replied without opening his eyes.
A.J. threw up his hands and huffed.
I watched the digital numbers climb until we reached the tenth floor. Bri pushed her way to the front, motioning for us to get behind her.
“Open it just a little,” Bri told Smith. “I’ll go check things out and come back once it’s clear.”
The doors opened enough for Bri to slip through. As soon as she was out, Smith closed the doors again. I listened for the sound of bullets striking her titanium skin, but it was quiet.
A few minutes later, Bri’s voice came from the other side of the door. “All set, guys. Come on out.”
I was the first one out of the elevator, and I tripped over something in my path. I looked down to see it was man in a guard’s uniform. There were three others nearby. All of them were lying motionless. I couldn’t tell if they were unconscious or dead, and I didn’t much care.
“Combat Mags always think they’re so tough.” Bri grinned as she smoothed a crease in her dress. “But all those fancy punches don’t do jack for them against someone like me.”
“Remind me never to get on your bad side,” A.J. told her.
“Well, stop stealing my skin products and you’ll never have to find out.”
“It’s not my fault they make my complexion extra dewy,” A.J. complained.
Before Bri could reply, the other elevator next to us dinged. Two guards burst out.
The first guard was holding the biggest knife I had ever seen. The man threw the knife, which moved through the air in a blur. It pinged off Bri’s titanium skin and skittered across the floor. Bri lunged at the man. They collided. I heard the man’s muffled oof when his fist came into contact with Bri’s titanium throat. She head-butted him, and the man slumped to the floor.
The second guard took one look at his fallen partner, put his hands in the air, and backed into the elevator.
“I locked all the elevators, so no one else is getting up here until I say so,” Smith said as the rest of us piled out into the hallway.
“Stay behind me,” Bri ordered, her expression serious again. “There might be more of those guys already up here.”
We waited behind the wall of the elevator bank while Bri went forward to clear the way.
“Oh my God.”
CHAPTER 40
What?” Kaira demanded. “Bri?”
When Bri didn’t answer, we all stepped out from the safety of the wall. I braced myself for more Combat Mags or Alchemists. There were neither.
I went motionless at what I saw.
We were standing at one end of a long hallway, which was lined on either side with what looked like prison cells. Metal bars and a heavy-looking metal door enclosed each one of the cells. There must have been forty or fifty identical cells. They each contained a cot, toilet, and sink, and were eerily similar to the jail cell where I’d spent the night after I was arrested.
Dread prickled down my spine.
As I walked forward, I saw each cell contained a heavily-pregnant woman.
“What is this?” Kaira demanded. “What are they doing with all of you?”
The women sat or lay on their beds. They all wore hospital gowns just like the one Elizabeth Nelson had been wearing. Some of them watched us with little interest; the rest ignored us completely. No one answered Kaira’s question.
“They’re drugged,” Michael said, his voice tight with anger.
He went up to one of the cells and put his hand on the bars. The woman got up from the bed and waddled over to Michael. I was concerned she might tip over. Her stomach was so round, and she moved like she was drunk.
“Careful,” Michael told her, and the woman immediately righted herself.
“Their minds feel the same way Elizabeth’s did, only worse,” Michael told us.
I clenched my hands into fists. What the hell were they doing to these women? And why were they doing it?
The woman reached a hand to Michael through the bars, and he took it.
“Can you tell me what’s going on here?” he asked.
The woman’s words were slurred, and she struggled to keep her eyes open. “Keep us drugged until the baby’s born, and then take away the baby.” She patted her rounded stomach, and then her eyes closed again.
“Why? What do you they want with you and your baby?”
At Michael’s question, the woman forced her eyes open.
“Baby’s a Super Mag.” She patted her stomach again.
“What does that mean?” Kaira asked, her voice higher than usual.
“The Alchemists were talking about carriers, too,” I said, feeling a little unsteady as a terrible suspicion took root in my mind.
The woman started to cry. Michael leaned closer and murmured gentle words to her. Feeling my own tension start to melt away at the sound of Michael’s voice, I shook myself and walked farther down the hall so I wasn’t so close to the Whisper. That was when I noticed a manila folder tucked in a metal compartment on the wall. I grabbed it and started flipping through it.
Subject: 02144
Race: Natural
Occupation: Accountant
The next pages contained the results of an IQ test, a logic test, and a math test. From what I could tell, the woman’s scores were about average.
The other pages were the results of various medical tests that seemed fairly routine. There were also ultrasound pictures of what was clearly the woman’s unborn child.
There was nothing else to indicate what th
ey would want from a pregnant accountant of average intelligence. And then, I got to the last page. There was a black-and-white image of a man, who appeared to be somewhere in his thirties. A short paragraph beneath the photo detailed that the man was a Level 1 Clairvoyant, and that he was deceased on May 15, 2070, which was a week ago.
I handed the page to Michael, feeling nauseous.
“Ask her if she knows who this man is,” I told Michael.
The woman’s voice was a little slurred, but her answer came immediately.
“Baby’s father.”
I looked at Kaira, whose eyes were wide with emotion.
I went to the next cell, falling back on logic to confirm my suspicions before I let myself react. The woman inside the cell was passed out on her cot, her protruding belly rising and falling with each breath.
Subject: 01586
Race: Magic, Level 2 Telekinetic
Occupation: High school math teacher
The following pages contained the same medical tests and ultrasound photos. The last page was of a man, also recently deceased. He was a Nat.
And that was when all doubt fled my mind. These women were here because their unborn children were the product of a half-Natural, half-Magic union.
The folder slid out of my hands, which had gone numb. I leaned against the wall before my legs gave out beneath me. I squeezed my eyes shut, desperate to erase the sudden image of Kaira’s face on one of the women locked in these cells.
No, that voice shouted inside my mind. Never.
“Pleaseeeee!”
The terrible cry came from the next cell over, and the sound of it turned my blood to ice. Two steps brought me face-to-face with the woman in the next cell. For a moment, all I could do was stare.
She had been trying pry apart the metal bars of her cell. She’d managed to bend one of the bars slightly, but not enough for it to be useful, and that small bit of progress had cost her. Her hands were covered with blood, and many of her fingers were swollen and bent in gruesome, unnatural directions. Her face was deathly pale, but it was the expression in her eyes that stole my breath.
I’d never seen such pure suffering in all my life.
“Please,” she groaned again. Her voice was scratchy, like she’d blown out her vocal cords from screaming. “Help me.”
The Nat Makes 7 (Mags & Nats Book 1) Page 29
