And it is a military fort, I decide, albeit a private one. Down this hallway, unlike the one we just came through, windows run in a thin stripe about twenty feet up. Like the windows of a bunker.
I try the door behind me. Locked, though I’m not surprised. Two different identi-pads wired to the door latch.
It’s while I’m testing the door that I hear the clearing of a throat. I turn slowly, my eyes drifting first over the military shoes, up well-defined camo legs where the uniform doesn’t quite meet the shoes, to a camo top. From under the hat, Jared peers back at me.
He folds his arms against his chest. “You weren’t watching. Again.” Obviously.
“I might be able to fool some of these identi-pads,” I tell him, changing the subject. “We’ve done it before.”
“Don’t change the subject, Margot.”
I sigh, blowing out my breath in a long whuff. “Fine. I messed up. Can we go now?”
“Finally.” Jared nods and takes my arm, but I think I detect a sliver of a smile.
“And stop saying Margot like it’s a dirty towel,” I throw in imperiously. And damned if I don’t see the smile grow a little more as we cautiously pick our way along the Elephant’s trunk.
Twenty minutes later, we hit a dead end. A massive steel door stands before us, a long, empty hallway behind us. Inset in the door is a small laser platform. A blue shaft of light beams down onto the small tray, coning into a small pool.
Jared lets out a low whistle as he examines the tray. “I thought these were tall tales,” he says quietly, examining the laser system.
“What does that mean?”
“It’s a DNA extraction and encryption security system. So hi-tech even the hi-tech folks don’t have one.” Catching my blank stare, he continues. “The laser extracts a small tag of your DNA, analyzes it, works it into a sequence that it uses to create security codes, which are then used to unlock the system when that sample is reintroduced.”
“But why bother with the encryption?”
Jared looks down at me. “So hackers like Torch can’t get through their security system remotely.”
“Oh,” I say, touching the door. “It must be important, then.”
“What?” Jared eyes me curiously.
“Whatever he keeps behind this door.”
“Well, don’t try it. If it’s incorrect you could trip an alarm that sets off—”
He’s too late. I throw my hand into the blue current of light. It stings and tickles in turn, not truly hurting. I find myself wondering if this is what Splicing feels like, only deeper, like an itch in your bones.
Jared snaps. “Lucy.” He takes hold of my wrist but doesn’t quite dare to pull it from the laser’s sweep.
The light abruptly shuts down. Beside me, Jared tenses. The quiet hum I hadn’t really noticed disappears. Then: a click, so far away and faint I look around for snipers. Before the door glides open soundlessly.
“See? I told you so,” I mug with every ounce of princess I can muster.
Behind the door is a lab. It’s cold inside, so cold it burns. And it’s easily the biggest lab I’ve ever seen. Stretching on at least the length of our father’s house, my view becomes obscured by banks of hulking metal machines, lab benches that stretch up a good eight feet, equipment of all sorts. Beside the door is a coatrack stacked with white lab coats. I slip one of the coats on for warmth as Jared rolls his eyes at me.
He leans down to whisper in my ear and takes my elbow. “For Gods’ sake, Princess, don’t touch anything.”
We walk unmolested—the lab appears to be empty—until we arrive at a set of glass observation windows. I can’t get a good look through the glass, but it looks like a group of wired tubs.
“What do you suppose those are?” I ask Jared.
But even as I utter the words, a man in white scrubs and lab coat appears. He tugs off a colorful kerchief, revealing thin auburn strands of hair plastering over a mostly bald skull.
Thick lines bunch up beside his eyes as the man smiles at me. “Good, you’re here. I thought you’d be another hour or more,” he says quickly, the words strung together in perfect, if slightly odd-sounding, Dominion English.
“Here I am,” I reply. I adjust my legs to stand slightly akimbo, the way my sister does when she’s bored and restless. “So?” I prompt.
“Come on, then. We’ve lots to do today.” He sends me a curious glance over his shoulder. “You’re in a chipper mood for once.”
Jared and I follow the man down a maze of benches, finally stopping in a small Protocols area. I groan inwardly. Jared grabs my elbow and gives me a hard look.
“Sit,” the man says. I do so, slowly, giving myself time to make out the name written below the security tag.
“Dr. Evans,” I say gingerly, “do we really need to do this today?”
The man bustles around loading his instrument tray. “Now Margot,” he chides, “you know we do this every Tuesday.”
The right name, then. A short huff of relief escapes me.
The doctor waves an imperious hand at Jared. “You may go now, young man. She’ll be at least an hour here.”
Jared shakes his head. “Sir, no sir.” He clips his heels together exactly the way we’d seen the guards do when they switched off shifts. “Orders are to remain present today, sir,” he says, his voice dripping with military respect.
A long moment draws out as the doctor regards Jared carefully. “Okay, young man, then you stand over there. We respect privacy around here,” he orders. Jared steps back.
And once again I find myself trapped in Protocols hell.
We’ve been put through Protocols every year of our lives, Margot and I. Testing of our skin, our hair, our organs. Measuring and extracting DNA samples, blood samples, urine samples. They say that with the proper monitoring, they can detect with almost complete certainty if—more like when—a body will be eaten by the Plague, that ticking time bomb lurking in our cells.
In the past year, though, we were put through Protocols more times than anyone else we’ve known. We thought maybe they just weren’t telling us that the Plague had us in its diamond-sharp sight. We thought one of us, at the very least, was a goner.
It hadn’t happened. I’d as soon say the real reason behind all the Protocols has yet to surface. But apparently they are still putting Margot through them.
The doctor pulls out a syringe and a couple of tubes. He’ll draw plenty of blood, then. But when he pulls out a DNA gun, I start to inwardly quake. Is Margot sick?
“Doctor Evans.” I tug on my hair nervously. It’s what Margot would do. “Is that really necessary?”
The doctor stops and puts down the gun. He drops a hand on either side of the Protocols bench he has me on and levels a look at me. “I know you don’t like this, Margot, but—”
“I’m just not feeling well today,” I blurt out.
The doctor frowns, reaches for a thermometer. “Perhaps the shots were too strong.”
“Uh, yeah,” I say. “I’ve been poked and prodded so much I’m beginning to feel like a human pincushion. Honestly, Doctor Evans, I can’t even recall what the shots are for, there’ve been so many.”
The doctor sets down the thermometer with a sympathetic look. “Margot,” he chides softly. “We talked about how you and your sister were born, remember?”
My throat suddenly closes. “You know I wasn’t quite myself. Tell me again,” I whisper. It’s a gamble, but it works. The doctor settles himself beside me, giving me a chance to study him more closely. The lines on his face are unusually thick, slabs of flesh that fold and crease. No one in the Upper Circle would live with such lines. Or live so long. “Well, you’ll recall I first met your parents when they were very young, around your age,” he starts. His face is kinder than I’d first thought, warm with memories from the past.
“It was my greatest triumph,” he tells me with gleaming eyes. “The DNA we seeded into the zygotes—you and your sister, of course. Pure ge
nius.”
The hairs on the back of my neck stir. My stomach roils, the sick rising. A heavy tread thuds toward us. Jared must have smelled my distress and is on his way over, I think to myself.
“I—I still don’t understand what it’s about,” I tell him honestly, mind reeling. How can we be genetically engineered? How could they not have told us?
What exactly did they seed inside us?
“Why did they do it?”
The doctor’s face suddenly crumples, the lines sagging down over his frown as his eyebrows knit together. He pats his lab coat distractedly, looking for something. “I hate what he calls you,” he mumbles, fishing out a pair of OldenTimes round wire spectacles.
“Why?”
“You are not korova.” He rolls out the Russian word for “cow.” “You are a perfect specimen, a true merger between nature and the magic of science, far better than anything we’ve managed before. You and your sister, such a perfect twist to the story when I heard.” He laughs, tugging his glasses off and wiping them with a polka-dotted handkerchief. “Nature has the last laugh.”
“I don’t understand, Doctor Evans. Why does nature have the last laugh?”
I feel Jared rather than see him round the corner as the doctor pushes out the words that will change everything. “You and your sister. Lock and key. He can only complete one part of his project with you, Margot. For the other, he needs your sister, does he not? Lock. And key.”
My mind roars, the blood so thick in my ears I think I’ve gone deaf. Lock and key. The tiny birthmarks left behind when they separated us. One in the shape of a lock’s barrel, the other the thin lines of a skeleton key. Sick with the thought, I nearly miss the doctor’s next words.
“And of course, all those babies—they will be useless for what he truly wants.”
Babies? What babies? My thoughts instantly drag back to Margot and what the Watchers stole from her all those months ago. “So why is he doing it, then?” I play along, knowing exactly who “he” must be.
But the doctor just shrugs, a gone-gone gleam of madness in his faraway eyes. “He’ll never be able to synthesize a stable drug from just one DNA set. But he can harvest some of what he needs.”
“For a cure?” I breathe.
“A cure?” The doctor pulls back, surprised, and grabs a DNA extractor. “Ha! My dear girl, why create a cure when you can make drugs that control the symptoms? People will live in hell, but he can almost indefinitely delay the final stages of the Plague. Think of the money he will make.”
Examining me like a favorite puppy, the doctor sighs. “Pity we were never able to reproduce the results we had with you two. Still, he’s hopeful one of the Specials will show some promise.”
Specials. He’s talking about babies. I want to retch, but I catch the telltale deep-green of Jared’s eyes. It’s time to leave before the doctor meets his maker.
Just as I shove off the table, I catch Jared stiffening again, pulling his camo cap farther over his eyes. A muscle in his jaw jumps. Not good news, then. Seconds later I hear them, too, the ringing of loud footsteps down the cold, barren pathways of the lab.
They draw closer. And by the time I realize that two sets belong to a pair of armed soldiers, who fall into attention at either side of the nearest exit, I’m staring into the face of a third man: the smug, handsome face of Leo Aleksandrovich Resnikov.
22
“There you are, Margot.” The smooth lilt of his voice haunts my nightmares. A shudder works its way through me. I clench my fists, trembling, so that I won’t reach out to slap him.
This is the man who stole my sister.
I expected him to look different somehow. But here he is: the same swarthy complexion, the same dark eyes. His hair, which had been down to his shoulders last time I’d seen him, is pulled back in a slick ponytail. I detect the odd gray streak through the sides. The lines around his mocking, lying mouth.
He frowns. “I was looking for you.”
My hands grip either side of the Protocols bench while I shrug. What would Margot say?
I coyly glance up at him through my hair. “I was looking for you, too,” I croon. Then curse myself—what if Margot’s hair is different now? I’ve grown it in the last few months, so it’s longer now, almost as long as hers was.
But is it enough to fool this man?
The doctor steps between Resnikov and me while I frantically search the room for Jared. He’s gone. I can’t seem to see him anywhere, though maybe that’s a good thing for the moment. Even the doctor seems to have forgotten him. A lucky break.
I’m keenly aware that the last time Jared and Resnikov saw each other, Jared wiped Resnikov’s strange twin, Richardson, off the face of the earth.
Sweat beads on my back, rolls down my armpits. Where the Holy Plague fire is Jared?
“Just need her for another—oh, probably an hour or so.”
Resnikov’s voice cuts like a whip. “You’re finished for today, Doctor.” He tilts his head back and regards me, his lips a tight line. “Margot, it’s time for you to get back to your quarters now.”
I shrug again and push off the bench carefully, the way Margot would do to avoid breaking her nails. Smiling with what I hope is Margot’s abundant charm, I tell the snake at my side, “Let’s go, then. Bye, Doc Evans.”
The doctor waves distractedly as I let Resnikov lead me out of the lab, his pet soldiers following behind like armed lap dogs. We pass bench after bench, each one empty save for equipment—genetic analysis equipment, screens for DNA microscopy. Tall fridges for storing samples. But in the shadows of the lab, Jared is nowhere to be seen.
No one finds a True Born who doesn’t want to be found, Storm told me once. I never thought I’d one day pray that was true.
Resnikov tightens his grip, now an iron band around my arm. I don’t respond, don’t even look at him as he murmurs, “I thought I told you not to go wandering around by yourself.”
It’s only then I look into his face. He’s handsome—or handsome enough, I reckon. But as cold a prince as I’ve ever seen. And I detect a darkness there, lying buried deep in his soul. But I want him to see the truth. So I blink, tell him, “But I wasn’t alone.” A cloud passes over Resnikov’s face until I say, “One of your pet monkeys brought me down there.”
He grumbles, but his grip eases. I leave my arm in his, remembering that Margot was always less creeped out by Resnikov than I. We move quickly down the hallway before stopping at a set of identi-pads. I watch as his eyeball is scanned, his DNA extracted and analyzed. It’s more secure than the most popular Splicer Clinic, I think to myself. Meaning, he’s clearly hiding a lot. Maybe the doctor is right and Resnikov really is working up a partial cure. The door snicks open and Resnikov leads me over the threshold into another wing, this one decorated like a home.
But when the door snicks closed behind us, guards left outside, I realize that not only am I alone with the man who helped destroy my family—we’re likely to run into my sister at any second.
And worst of all: my best weapon, in the form of one undoubtedly pissed-off True Born, is locked outside.
“You look different today, Krasavitsa.”
Resnikov stops and takes my chin in his fingers, studying me in the recessed lighting of the living quarters. I don’t get more than a glance at my surroundings, but my initial impression is one of wealth and ease: a chandelier of spun crystals hangs twenty feet above our heads, tracts of Persian carpets woven with delicate white flowers set in a blue field line the long hallway, also dotted with treasures and tall wooden doors.
What does “krasavitsa” mean again? My brain frantically filters through the many phrases a diplomat’s daughter knows, from “Pass the dinner rolls, Your Eminence,” to “Where did you get that lovely dress?” It’s thinking of the bored diplomat’s wives in all their finery that brings it back. My mind stutters to a halt.
Krasavitsa. Beautiful girl.
I force myself to look back at him, the man who
stole my twin. Scrubbing the hatred from my features, I smile flirtatiously. “So do you.”
Resnikov grabs my wrists and tugs me gently toward him. There’s a glint in his eye I don’t like, especially when he places one of my hands against his chest. His heart thumps loudly beneath my fingers. Slack-jawed, I dare not pull away, even as he draws me closer, closer.
When his lips brush mine, I think I might be dreaming. It’s gentle at first, the warm, dry whiskey scent stealing over me. Then his mouth slants slightly. It comes down to claim me.
I’m trapped. And I’m kissing my enemy.
It’s Resnikov who breaks the kiss a second later. He touches his lips a little ruefully. “I do seem to lack all control when it comes to you.”
I reckon I’ve stumbled upon a secret my sister is going to have to spill when I find her. And then I’ll throttle her. Blinking in shock, I step back and stare at my sister’s captor, hoping my anger doesn’t show.
His next words tumble out with a sigh. “You’re angry,” he says, bringing my fingers to his lips. “I promised I’d give you more time.”
“My sister,” I choke out, incoherent with rage. I realize my mistake immediately but it’s too late to try to cover up. The best I can do is to bluster through.
But Resnikov just nods, as though he was expecting this kind of outburst. “Yes, I did promise. Like I said, my sources saw her in Dominion about a month ago. She did receive your letter.” Resnikov lets my hand drop and leans against a wall, arms crossed. He regards me warily from under hooded eyes. Like a fighting lover, I realize.
Luckily, he mistakes the reason behind what I assume is my ashen hue.
“Don’t worry so much, darling.” He smooths a hand against my hair. “I promised I’d bring you your sister, and I will deliver that promise.” His dark eyes probe my face as he cups my cheek gently, his fingers splaying the length of my jaw. “My dear, I hate to leave you, but I have urgent business I need to attend to. Don’t forget. If you want to see your parents again, you’ll do as I wish.”
True North Page 22
