Cade just waved me off. “True, but I was drunk and as we both know, I’m never responsible for what I say or do when I’m drunk.” He gave me a pointed look with that last part as if to emphasize, once again, that the whole encounter from the one time he’d ever been in this bar had been a complete aberration and hadn’t been his fault.
I still didn’t care.
I’d even told him that night after picking him up that I wouldn’t have cared if he had wanted to make out with another man, and we almost got in a fight while I was driving because he apparently thought that was the wrong to say.
I’d kept my mouth shut the rest of the drive back to our apartment building trying to figure Cade out. By the time I got him in his own apartment, I was just as confused as before.
“So what are you then?” Saige asked.
I bit my lip as I searched for the right words, but they wouldn’t offer themselves to me. I gave up and settled for the only ones I could find: words that finally admitted the truth.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “I have to be human because the geneticist behind The Genesis Project used human genomes to select certain characteristics that they wanted in an ideal soldier. I don’t have a mother or father and I was never born. I know virtually nothing about my life before I woke up as a young man in his lab, but since implanting chips in my brain that are meant to control my behavior and thought processes had to take place early on during the gestational phase, I don’t think I was born to a surrogate. He has to have some sort of machine that simulates the environment of a womb but still allows him to access the fetus for implantation.”
“That’s… probably more information than she needs to hear,” Cade interrupted.
I shook my head at him. “I’ve been lying to her for over five months and now, her life is in danger because of me. She deserves the truth even if it is disturbing.”
“You’re disturbing me,” Cade mumbled.
I thought about punching his arm again, but instead, just gaped at him because I realized I’d punched his arm. I’d been programmed not to hurt him, and I’d always felt like I couldn’t possibly hurt him – even if it were only rough housing.
“I hit you,” I said stupidly.
Cade returned the stupid-stare. “No shit.”
“No, I mean I hit you, and I’m not supposed to be able to.”
Cade blinked at me as understanding dawned on him, too. “Holy shit, Drake, how did you get out of the Project?”
I glanced in Saige’s direction again before turning my attention back to Cade. There were so many things I wished she didn’t have to hear or know about me, but I wouldn’t lie to her again. “They had me connected to Parker’s computer through the port, and I knew if I didn’t get off that table and find you both, she’d die. The straps were connected to a support beam beneath the table and I broke it and killed the two guys standing by the bed. I killed another guard in the hallway and took his gun, and managed to get into the woods behind the building then waited in a deer blind until the group that came after me entered my line of sight. Not too difficult to find them in the dark considering the dumbasses never turned off their flashlights.”
“So you just killed them?” Saige whispered.
She gave me that same look from her apartment when I’d ordered her to leave and told her she was in danger because of me. Not only because of me, but from me.
“I had to,” I told her. “If I didn’t, they would have hauled me back in there, and you have no idea…” I trailed off and glanced at Cade again. He’d asked me once what it was like when they tested that port in my arm, and I’d told him the truth. But now, that truth embarrassed me, like it were somehow my fault for not being able to withstand the pain.
Of course, she’d been the reason I fought back and ultimately overcame the impulse to obey Parker. She was still the reason I somehow managed to ignore him even though he never stopped sending those constant directives to my brain.
There was only one way to make it stop. I had to destroy his lab, his life’s work, and eventually, him.
Cade watched me with a look that told me he’d reached the same conclusion. There was no point in running from the U.S. government that wanted their highly sophisticated and grotesquely expensive experiment back. We had to fight, and we’d eventually have to do it here.
“So what now?” Cade asked.
“Now,” I said slowly, “we figure out how to get out of this bar alive since we’re most likely surrounded.”
“Have I told you lately you’re an asshole?” Cade sighed.
I nodded seriously. “A few times just today, actually.”
Cade squinted at me and folded his arms over his chest. “Then stop being an asshole and tell me how we’re going to get out of here. We already know they’re outside because they can follow you. What’s our plan?”
“We can’t stay in one place because that gives them time to assess their options and come up with their own course of action. If we want to survive the next twenty-four hours, we’ll have to keep moving and keep them on their toes.”
“I know,” Cade snapped. “Why do you think I keep asking you what our plan is?”
“They want me alive,” I answered. “So for right now, I’m planning on walking out the front door with a gun to my head and threatening to pull the trigger unless they let us all get into one of those cars and drive away.”
Cade snorted again, but I wasn’t joking. That was seriously my plan.
And when I didn’t smile or look away, he realized that was actually my plan.
“That’s the dumbest fucking thing you’ve ever said,” Cade told me.
I shrugged, and at least this time, he could see me. “You have a better idea?”
“What are you going to do if they call your bluff?” Saige asked.
“I never said I was bluffing,” I responded.
“You can’t just kill yourself, Drake!” she shouted.
The bored and irritable waitress scowled in our direction then went back to playing something on her phone.
“I don’t know what will happen if I do,” I said. “I never thought they’d do anything like this. Honestly, Saige, if I’d even suspected…” I remembered that voice trying to warn me to leave her alone the day I met her in the burger restaurant. That had been my voice, my own suspicions that I could be endangering her, and I’d ignored it. If they killed me as soon as I opened that door or forced me to pull the trigger, I completely deserved it. “I don’t have a Plan B. And no matter what I am or how good Cade was at his job, this isn’t Hollywood. We can’t sneak out through some hidden passage or go out there guns blazing and expect to kill them all before they kill us.”
“Guns blazing?” Cade teased. “You need an update to your English language program.”
I flipped him off and reminded him he’d been the one who taught me that expression.
He waved a dismissive hand at me and retorted, “I must have been drunk. Like I said: I’m not responsible for anything I say or do when I’m drunk.”
“Yes, you are. And you’re going to quit drinking starting now.”
He pointed at his glass and arched an eyebrow at me. “It’s water.”
“I’m serious, Cade. It got out of hand the past year and a half. I’m sorry I drove you to it, but…”
“You?” Cade interrupted. “Who the hell told you that?”
I shifted uncomfortably and took a long sip from my water.
“Let me guess,” he continued. “One of them just got transferred across the country and the other one conspired to ruin your life.”
I just nodded because sometimes, I really did feel like a complete idiot.
Cade leaned on the table toward me so he could lower his voice. We’d been sitting in this mostly empty bar discussing genetic engineering and murder, but this was what he didn’t want the irritable waitress to overhear. “You aren’t what I was trying to forget. What those bastards are doing is. Once I realized you’re not a
machine like they wanted me to believe and they’re just going to keep churning out more people and trying to control them, that’s what got to me. It’s sick. But that’s never been your fault. Now don’t ever make me say this again. Once was bad enough.”
I nodded again and quickly glanced up at Saige who was watching me. I still couldn’t read her expression.
I pushed my water away and slid out of the booth. “Stay inside behind the wall until you hear someone assuring me they’ll let you reach your car. Which one is yours?”
“Green Plymouth.”
“That’s the best car you could find to steal?” I asked.
“Hey,” Cade protested, “I was in a hurry. Next stop, we’ll look for a Porsche, ok?”
“Who uses a Plymouth as a getaway car?” I teased.
Cade pushed me toward the door and muttered, “I almost hope they’ll shoot you.”
I smiled at him as my hand rested on the door handle and told him, “There’s only one way to find out.”
Chapter 12
As soon as I stepped outside, I shouted at the men whom I knew were hiding in the periphery to hold their fire. I’d disarmed several of the dead guards and had one of their pistols pressed beneath my chin. It didn’t take long for Parker to respond.
Drake, what the hell are you doing?
I called to the men hiding around me, “Tell him if he doesn’t let all three of us get out of here, I’m pulling the trigger.”
The buzzing in my mind stopped for a few mercifully quiet minutes as my message was relayed and Drake considered a response. I flinched when it started up again.
How far do you really think you’ll get? We’ll leave Cade alone, but…
I didn’t wait for the message to finish. “No! You’ll let us all go. I never wanted to exist in the first place, and you’re threatening the one reason I’ve ever had to appreciate being alive. Don’t fuck with me, Parker.”
Another quiet pause. I’d gotten so used to the constant static in my mind that when it stopped, the world around me seemed oddly loud, even though we were in a remote area of Virginia.
Ok, Drake. Cade can leave with the woman if you return now.
I snickered and shook my head. “We’re all leaving together, and if you make me tell you again, it will be the last thing you ever hear from me.”
I heard shuffling behind me as Cade moved closer to the open doorway. He probably anticipated another bullshit stalling tactic from Parker and my impending death and was trying to figure out if he stood a shot of getting out of that bar alive. I didn’t ask him or turn around to find out.
The pause between messages was far longer, and for the first time, I worried Parker would call my bluff, except I wasn’t really bluffing. I didn’t want to die, but death was preferable over returning to The Genesis Project. Finally, the message came through I’d been waiting for.
All right, Drake. I’ve instructed everyone to hold their fire.
“Cade and Saige are getting in the car first. I won’t lower my weapon until we’ve driven away. Do you understand?”
Another pause, although a short one.
Yes.
“Get in the car,” I ordered Cade and Saige.
Their bodies entered my line of sight and I tried not to let my eyes linger on Saige’s face and her terrified expression. As soon as they both scrambled into the green Plymouth Cade had stolen, I followed them. Cade didn’t even wait for me to close the door before he peeled out of the parking lot, throwing dirt and gravel behind us.
I waited until we were several miles away before lowering my arm and taking a deep breath. Cade shook his head at me and told me, again, “That was a dumb plan. Next time, use all that intellect they gave you to come up with something better than ‘I’ll threaten suicide.’”
“It worked,” I pointed out.
“It won’t work every time,” he warned. “Parker will eventually think you’re just bluffing and call you on it.”
I didn’t bother telling him I was pretty sure he’d almost called me on it just now.
Instead, I turned in the passenger seat to look at Saige in the back. She kept her eyes on the road in front of us.
“Are you ok?” I asked her.
“Are you serious?” she hissed.
Cade snorted and told her, “Aren’t you used to his stupid questions by now?”
Saige ignored him. So did I.
“Physically, I mean. You’re not hurt, are you?” I asked.
“Why would I be hurt? You told me you’d been ordered to kill me and to find Cade, so I did. And now you’re here, and I’m supposed to believe you’re not going to end up killing me anyway?”
“He won’t kill you,” Cade answered before I could even fully process what she’d said. “Besides, our only chance of surviving now is destroying The Genesis Project, and if we destroy all of Parker’s equipment and research, no one will be able to even try controlling him anymore.”
“I feel so much safer,” she mumbled.
The annoying static in my mind started up again with more feeble attempts to convince me to stand down and return to the Project. As Cade drove and I watched the black asphalt in front of us, my fingers absentmindedly traced over the port in my arm. I could imagine Parker’s voice issuing the commands, even though they were soundless messages, just words directed to my brain.
Drake, you’re not well. Let me help you.
My fingers reflexively tightened around my arm and I flinched as the metal in the port bit into the surrounding nerves.
“Give me your knife,” I told Cade.
He glanced at me then looked down at my arm before meeting my eyes again. “You’re joking.”
“No. Give me your knife.”
“You are not doing this in the car.”
“Just give me your goddamn knife,” I sighed.
Cade shook his head but pulled out the pocketknife he always carried with him. “Remember that conversation about being normal? This is not normal.”
“Of course it’s not normal,” I retorted. “I have a computer port implanted in my arm.”
“And instead of waiting until we’re at a motel or something, you’re going to try to dig it out in a moving car!”
“Oh my God,” Saige groaned.
I didn’t turn around to look at her again. What difference did it make if I continued to horrify her? When she’d found out the truth, she’d shot me a look of utter revulsion. I couldn’t blame her, but I couldn’t forget it either.
I took my t-shirt off and put it under my left arm, which rested on the center console.
“Drake, are you crazy?” Saige shrieked. “You’re going to bleed to death!”
“No, I won’t. It’ll heal quickly enough.”
“He’s crazy,” she shouted at Cade.
Cade just shrugged. “If so, it took him long enough. I would’ve gone crazy in that room when they woke me up.”
I snorted and heard Saige chastising me for finding anything funny right now, but I’d pressed the tip of Cade’s knife into the skin around the black and blue rectangle that had served as a visible reminder of my differences, of my servitude, for five years now. I registered the sharp pain of the blade as I dragged it below the tiny magnets that would hold the computer’s cord in place, but I was more focused on the fact that I was actually doing this.
And of course Parker knew.
The buzzing static reached a panicked, mind-splitting decibel, but I slipped the blade of the knife beneath the incision I’d just made. Blood trickled down my arm and formed a crimson pool on the light blue t-shirt I’d been wearing moments ago.
“I’m going to be sick,” Saige muttered.
“Don’t watch,” Cade told her.
I glanced up at him then took a deep breath before pushing the blade beneath the skin through the incision I’d made. I pulled the knife out of my arm and pressed against the port. Tiny, bloody clots fell onto the t-shirt and I picked one of them up, rubbing it between my fin
gers so I could see the silver metal that had helped Parker immobilize and invade me with a simple digital command.
Cade kept trying to watch me and the road at the same time, and he was making me nervous.
“Cut it out,” I demanded.
“Dude,” Cade said, “is that some really lame pun?”
It took me entirely too long to figure out what the hell he was talking about.
“No,” I said. “You’re going to get us in a wreck. Keep your eyes on the road.”
“You’re cutting shit out of your arm!” he protested. “How am I not supposed to watch?”
“I have to get the chip out, too,” I told him.
I had no idea why. Removing the chip in my arm wouldn’t stop Parker from sending these constant barrages of annoying messages, but I’d realized I could rid myself of something I’d detested as long as I could remember. It was the only visible and accessible part of me that had kept me tied to The Genesis Project, and by removing it, I was removing Parker from my life and my fate.
I would excise my own demons.
“I’m going to throw up,” Saige murmured.
“Like I said: you probably shouldn’t watch then,” Cade responded.
I smiled then concentrated on my arm again. I’d stopped pressing against the port and the skin was already healing. I picked up the knife to make a deeper incision so I could remove the chip, but Saige cried, “No, I’m really going to throw up!”
Cade glanced at her in the rearview mirror as he pulled off the highway. “I really hope we don’t get shot in the head while you’re puking on the side of the road.”
The car rolled to a stop and Saige tumbled off the backseat. Cade sighed but opened his door, too, so he could check on her. I watched them for a few seconds before pressing the blade deeper into the incision and angling it beneath the chip. I could hear them outside and tried to focus on their voices instead of the pain, but that proved impossible. I’d severed whatever held the chip in place, quite likely nerve fibers, but I couldn’t remove it. I needed tweezers or something that could grab it.
Genesis Rising (The Genesis Project Book 1) Page 9
