“That chin, that chin,” he says with a chuckle, shaking his head. “Still with the chin.”
I knit my brows; he seems to know me well. And then I have it. Vestor! My defense attorney. He was always after me to lower my chin, to look meek in the courtroom. I can hardly believe it. Vestor, who was almost clown-like with his affectations and his lofty rhetoric, is the Defiance High Commander. His first name is Loránd—he’s obviously related somehow to the Victorina Loránd whose grave pointed us here. No matter how unlikely it seems, I know it’s him. I try hard to keep the knowledge off my face.
“I agree with every course of action you’ve outlined,” he says, surprising me. “There’s just one hitch.”
I look a question at him.
“Kube 9 was overrun and retaken by Prag forces yesterday.” He presses a button on a console by his hand and video streams across the blank wall in front of us. It shows total devastation. Kube 9 is cratered and smoking, the tower I slept in reduced to a smattering of rubble strewn across the compound. Worse, there’s a hole in the dome, my dome, which has sagged toward the hole, creating a concave expanse on one side. A cloud that I at first take for smoke boils from the hole, but then I recognize the cloud as locusts when it shifts and rises. Of course the locusts have descended on the dome if it’s breached, summoned by the sweet scent of greenery, of plant life. The crops in there are the finest meal they’ve had in ages, I’m sure. I fold my lips in and swallow hard to keep back bile.
“I’m sorry, Everly.” Vestor pats my hand where it lies on the table. “I know it’s a shock. We have had no contact with Ford or any of the Defiance members from the Kube in twenty-four hours. The Prags released an announcement saying they have defeated the rebel forces that illegally overran the Kube, and that they have prisoners, but we don’t know who or how many. It’s a big setback for us.”
Wyck. His face appears in my mind. I wish I could pray like Halla. I lick my dry lips. “Can you find out? If the Prags have Idris and the others, can you find out and get access to him?”
“Maybe. We have sources. And Minister Alden has even more. If Dr. Ronan reached her, she’s aware of the gravity of the situation. She’ll act quickly once we tell her about Ford.”
I remember seeing my mother and Vestor at dinner one night, at a club I went to with Keegan. They seemed close. I want to ask him if she’s part of the Defiance, but I don’t dare to. Instead, I say, “In the meantime, we need to warn the government about the viro-bombs. It’ll take time to develop the protocol and get all the geneborns processed. Our best chance of saving lives is to keep the bombs from going off. If Idris wasn’t lying about the timing, we have less than twenty-four hours. The more people looking for them—Prags and Defiance and everyone—the better our chances.”
“Agreed.” Vestor rises to his full five-foot-eight. “It’s a time for all Ameradans to stand united against a threat that could destroy us all.”
I nod and push back my chair. When I start to rise, I sway. He catches me by the arm “When did you last eat?”
I try to remember and then shrug.
“Food, then, before you head over to the MSFP.”
He presses another button on the console and issues several orders while I try to process what he’s just said. All I can come up with is, “What?”
“There’s no one better than you, my dear, to be our liaison with the ministry.” He winks, and for a moment, even through the facial distorter, I see the mole high on his cheek. “Remember, I believe in you.”
He knows I know. And it doesn’t look like he’s going to kill me. Of course, sending me back to my mother’s science domain might amount to the same thing. Besides, I have something more important to do first. I have to find Saben. “I can’t go out in public. I’m a convicted killer, remember?” I say.
“Despite the highest caliber defense available in Amerada,” he says, with a return to his old bombast.
“By his own admission,” I say boldly.
Vestor laughs. “Your conviction was all part of my plan, Everly Jax,” he says, throwing an arm over my shoulders and steering me toward the elevator. “Look at what you’ve done, who you’ve become since that day you stood trial, glaring at everyone in the courtyard. Your work at the MSFP, your relationship with Emilia Alden, what you’ve accomplished with locust eradication—it’s all down to me. You have been a great asset to the Defiance.”
I’m skeptical that he planned it all—no one could have looked far enough ahead to see how everything would turn out after my trial—but I don’t argue. The elevator opens as we approach, and he ushers me in, but doesn’t board it himself. “Lieutenant Juno will get you fed. That’s not her real name, incidentally—for some reason I can’t recall, we adopted the names of folklore gods as our code names.” He grimaces. “Smacks of hubris,” he says, “but too late to change it now.”
That strikes me as funny, coming from Loránd Vestor, master of hubris, and I am laughing as the doors close and the elevator descends.
Downstairs, I’m fed a hearty soup, provided with an MSFP green jumpsuit, contact protocols and passwords, and a new identity. This takes place in a small room kitted out as a clinic with sterile surfaces and a row of glass-fronted steel cabinets containing what look like drugs and medicines of all kinds, as well as appearance-altering injectables and pills. An unsmiling Juno sprays my forearm with anesthetic, and makes a small slit to insert the ID chip and locator. They decide I can keep my red hair, which is new since I left the capital, but give me pills to turn my eyes brown, and use collagen injections to subtly change the shape of my ears, chin and lips to fool facial recognition software. I suffer through the process, despairing of ever being able to reclaim myself again.
I wince when she knocks against my leg, and without asking permission, she rolls up my jumpsuit leg and frowns when she sees my calf. “What barbarian treated this?”
I try to explain about being on the run and Fiere working with what was at hand, but she isn’t listening. Even though I’m anxious to get going, to find Saben and then get to the MSFP, she spend forty-five minutes working the jumpsuit sealant out of the gash, debriding the wound which hurts like hell, coating it with antibiotics, closing it with surgical sealant and giving me an antibiotics inhaler. I’m sweating and exhausted by the time she’s done.
“You’re AC Rose Budd, now,” the woman says as she rolls down my pant leg.
“You’ve got to be kidding me. Really?”
She looks at me unsmiling, either not getting or not appreciating the joke. “Loki picked the name himself.”
Loki is Vestor, of course. Typical that he didn’t go for Zeus or Odin as his code name. “Fine,” I say, swinging my legs off the adjustable table she had me lying on. It doesn’t matter what I’m called.
I find Fiere waiting for me outside the clinic. Despite the facial scrambling goggles, I recognize her immediately by the way she holds herself and her walk. She has been brought up from the tunnels, fitted with a jumpsuit and goggles, and given a code name: Kali. She has assimilated into the High Command in a remarkably short time. I’m not surprised. She was born to lead.
We appropriate two chairs at an unoccupied console and I tell her about the Kube. “We don’t know the fate of Idris, Wyck—anyone,” I say in a low voice. “They could be on the run or taken captive.”
She stills for a moment, but then says, “There’s nothing we can do for them.”
She’s right. “Ves—Loki is using his contacts to find out if they’ve been captured. If so . . .”
“Time enough to consider our options if we locate them in a prison.”
I can see she’s put them in a compartment in her brain and sealed it so it won’t distract from the work she’s doing. I wish I could do the same.
“You’re infiltrating the Ministry of Science and Food Production again?”
It surprises me she knows; but then, Fiere has always been quick to ferret out intelligence information. “So much for secrets,” I
hedge.
She shoots me a sharp look. “You’re not?”
“I am . . . eventually. I’m finding Saben first and warning him.” I say it defiantly, sure she’s going to argue that I owe it to Amerada to get on with my mission.
“There’s a full day left. Your duty—”
“You think I don’t know that?” My tone draws a couple of looks and I lower my voice and lean in closer to Fiere.
“I know exactly how many minutes are left until the man I love may be condemned to die a hideous, agonizing death. If you could have warned Alexander, kept him from the locusts, wouldn’t you have left your post, jeopardized Kube security, told your commander to go to hell if he ordered you to stay put?” Fiere goes white-faced, but doesn’t answer. “Sometimes, one’s duty is to an individual, not to a cause.” I stand violently, knocking the chair back so it clonks against the wall.
I walk away without looking back. I’m almost to the tunnel entrance when Juno catches me up, and steers me toward another exit. She opens a hatch and tells me to follow her down the chute that it reveals. I do, sliding down a polished metal tube that spits us out in another tunnel. I follow Juno in silence for what feels like a mile, turning corners four times. When I can see light in the distance, she slips a mask over her face, reclaims my goggles, and points toward the light.
“Thank you,” I say.
She nods and is already turning away when I start toward the tunnel’s end.
Chapter Seventeen
Thirty feet later, I emerge cautiously and find myself in an abandoned store with a faded sign saying “WASHATERIA” hanging by a single screw. It smells like soap and feels gritty underfoot. Outside, I’m in a cratered parking lot that once fronted a pet grooming business, a pawn shop and a mortgage lender, according to the signs. Twilight is encroaching, which gives me cover but reminds me that we’ve used up two of our three days. By this time tomorrow, the viro-bombs will detonate if we haven’t gotten to them first.
I need to get to Saben. The need has become a painful knot tucked under my sternum, aching with every breath. I need to see him, hold him, reassure myself that he’s still okay. I don’t think beyond that moment. The trouble is, I don’t have a safe way of communicating with him or finding him. My choices boil down to the IPF base where he’s stationed, which I could just maybe gain access to with my MSFP credentials and a tale about Minister Alden needing Saben for a special task of some kind, or his parents’ house. He’d taken me to see his parents’ house once and we’d stood across the street from it, watching his shadow parents and sister move around inside.
His parents’ house is the less risky option and I decide to start there since it’s evening. With any luck, he’s eating with them. Even if he’s not there, maybe they can get a message to him. They don’t know me, but his sister, at least, knows of me because he got her to call me at the Kube lab.
Walking half a mile toward the city center, I reach more populated areas and find an ACV scooter kiosk. Using my new Rose Budd identification, I free a scooter from the rack and mount it. My aching calf is grateful for the respite. There are fewer people on the street than usual. I get lost once, but then find Saben’s street.
My heart sinks when I pull up outside the house. It’s dark. No sign of movement or human presence. I bite down on my lip, swamped with disappointment. Light and a song sung by a woman pour from the open window of the house to the left. Her happiness and obliviousness make me even sadder. She’s almost certainly geneborn, living here, and she doesn’t know about the horror that’s coming. Dismounting, I lean the scooter against a fence railing and approach the house, a restored two-story from the late twentieth century that indicates Saben’s parents were favored by the Prags. The fact that they were given two geneborn children to raise also speaks to their high status. From my point of view, it’s more important that they loved Saben enough to help him escape when the government got impatient with his lack of physics ability. He was bred to be a physics genius, and his aptitude and love for art flummoxed everyone.
I start up the flagstone walkway. A slight breeze plays with wind chimes hanging from the front porch, and the tinkling makes me jump. Instinct urges me to approach from the rear. I go with my gut and melt into the shadows at the side of the house. I see and hear nothing to give me pause as I hug the wall and make my way around to a wood gate guarding the back. It’s unlocked, but it makes a sound between a squeak and a moan when I open it. Cursing silently, I leave it open and edge around the corner.
A rectangle of light slaps across the darkness and I freeze. The back door of the neighbor’s house has opened. I duck my head so my pale face won’t give me away. The singing gets louder, and there’s the muted splash of water on dirt. I have no idea what the woman next door is doing, but I mentally urge her to go back inside. She does. The door closes and I let out the breath I didn’t realize I was holding.
An arm clamps over my chest and a forearm presses against my throat. I gag and react instinctively, driving an elbow backwards and snapping my head back simultaneously. That nets an oof, and a slight slackening of the hold against my throat. It’s enough. My attacker is taller and much heavier than I am, and I have no leverage, so I can’t throw him. Instead, I twist in toward him and bring my knee up. He blocks me with his thigh. Both of his arms come around my back and he’s crushing me against him, pinning my arms to my sides, squeezing the air out of me. I’m about to head butt him again, when my brain processes his scent.
“Saben,” I squeak at the same time he asks, “Everly?”
His grip loosens and I slide down his body. “What are you doing here? How—?” His voice cracks. His arms tighten again, but this time it’s to lift me up in a hug. I work my arms free and throw them around his neck, burying my face in the crook between his neck and shoulder. A slightly smoky odor clings to his skin and he tastes like salt. I’m sobbing and laughing at once. I meld every part of me against his hard body, wanting to absorb him through my skin. “Saben,” I murmur over and over, as if repeating his name links us together so tightly we can’t be pried apart.
He looses his grip a fraction, only enough to lower his head and kiss me. I kiss him back, opening my mouth to his tongue. Tangling my fingers in his short hair as best I can, I pull him closer to me. Our kisses start out hungry and move to fierce. He mashes my lips against my teeth, and says my name once on a groan. Desperation colors our passion. He pulls back before I do, scans the area, and says, “You’d better come inside.”
I follow him silently, our hands linked. We enter into the kitchen; I pay no attention to the decor, my entire being focused on Saben. A warm, yeasty smell hangs in the air and I get the feeling this is a happy house, full of love and laughter. It’s quiet, though, and I still for a moment, listening. It’s too quiet.
“Where are your parents? Your sister?” I ask.
“Gone.” He opaques the window’s polyglass with the push of a button and activates the door’s three locks.
“Gone? Where?” I follow him into the front of the house where he repeats the window opaquing and door locking procedures.
“To a cabin my parents own in the Smoky Mountains. It’s been in my mom’s family for generations. It’s remote, isolated.” Done securing the house, he looks at me, his face grim. “Something bad is coming, Ev.”
I know that, but how does he? “What do you know?”
He pulls me down onto a clay-colored sofa facing the now blacked-out windows. I squish into the soft cushions; it would be bliss if I weren’t so tense. I pull my boots off and put my feet up, leaning against the sofa’s arm. Saben sits beside me and pulls my feet into his lap. As he talks, he massages them gently.
“I know that the government is worried. My unit—the whole IPF—was put on the highest alert level this afternoon. They issued us bio-containment gear and masks. There weren’t enough to go around, only about one for every third soldier, but I got a set.”
“Thank goodness,” I breathe. That level of
protection should keep him safe if he wears it whenever he’s in contact with people.
“I gave mine to my sister,” he says.
A sound of dismay escapes from me. His hand tightens around my foot. “What’s going on? You know what it is, I can tell.”
“It’s rabies.” My gaze fixed on his dear face, I tell him everything. About Idris and Jereth, the virus and how it targets only geneborns, the bombs, the attack on the Kube and the probable capture of Idris and the others, and my meeting with the High Command. Everything. “Dr. Ronan must have gotten to Minister Alden and convinced her,” I say. “That would explain why the IPF has been put on high alert and why they’re issuing bio gear. I’m sure they’re also working on the DNA excision process and a vaccine, but nothing they do will keep thousands of people from dying if those bombs go off.”
“We’ve been tasked to look for them,” Saben says, working his fingers through my toes and bending them backwards. The stretch feels so good, I almost forget the disaster staring us in the face. “We’re using sniffer drones tonight, when the streets are clear and people won’t be alarmed by them. My commander implied they were conventional explosives, planted by the Defiance. I guess they’re trying to keep everyone from panicking, or maybe he wasn’t told either. I can see why the government is keeping the details secret—can you imagine the panic, the destruction and chaos if the truth got out?” His eyes widen slightly at the thought.
“It doesn’t bear thinking about.” I’ve already thought about it way too much. “Your commander was half right,” I say. “Although Idris was not acting for the Defiance when he did it. Vestor was appalled when I told him what Idris had done. He’s working right now to find ways the Defiance can help locate and defuse the bombs.”
Regeneration (The Incubation Trilogy Book 3) Page 18
