I backed down, but Jack decided to do it himself, and of course, I went along. There was something about speed that neither of us could get enough of.
In the end, we both drove that night, after Jack egged me on long enough. We drove way too fast on curvy back roads, stayed out too late, and got in the worst trouble we’d ever been in from Dad—even worse than the night I prank called the ambassador in New Delhi. Dad went on and on about what would have happened if his boys had gotten pulled over and taken in, and how Vasterias didn’t need bad publicity.
It logged in as one of my favorite memories with Jack. It felt so long ago. I wondered how Jack was doing now. I still couldn’t wrap my head around the idea I’d be seeing him soon. I wasn’t quite sure what I’d say.
Traffic was bad, and it took me two and a half hours to get from Westchester county to downtown NYC. By the time I was three blocks from Vasterias, I had seen five police cars and was insanely grateful for the black-out windows.
I pulled up to the curb in front of the headquarters, a million memories rushing at me all at once. It looked far too normal. Just another high-rise in the middle of the city. Giant black lettering, VASTERIAS ENTERPRISES INTERNATIONAL, was plastered in 3D block across the front of the building, just above the doors. The Corp had a cover as a chemical company.
I tossed the keys to one of the parking attendants and pushed through the revolving door.
The inside glistened shiny white, the lobby almost crystal looking, with splashes of bright green accents: green vases flanking modern green chairs, and a long, green, s-shaped receptionist desk.
The plump, thirty-something female behind the desk was unexpected. From what I could remember, Vasterias usually liked their greeters young and blond. Jack and I had always enjoyed that. This receptionist did wear a green dress, so at least she matched the scenery.
“Can I help you?” she said.
“I’m here to see…” I glanced around, realizing I had no clue who I was here to see. I’d kind of expected someone to walk out with handcuffs the moment I came through the doors.
“He’s here to see me.” A woman, maybe in her mid-forties, crossed the lobby toward me. She had shoulder-length black hair and wore a trim white dress. Her shoes weren’t green. They were yellow.
“Beckett?” She actually held out her hand and smiled. “I’m Dr. Stanstopolis.”
I took her hand and shook it, quirking up an eyebrow. “Dr. Stands-top-less?” I repeated it just like she had pronounced it.
Dr. Stands. Topless. I choked on my laugh with a single cough. Jack would have eaten that up, and I realized coming to this place made me think of Jack more often than I had back on the farm. This was the life I had with my twin brother. The city, the Corporation. The two of us together.
If Dr. Stanstopolis was bothered by my “cough,” she didn’t show it. She offered me a tight smile, then said, “Follow me.” Her heels clacked against the white marble floors as she directed me toward the elevators. Her round hips did a weird side-to-side swinging thing while she walked. Once inside the elevator, she pressed floor thirty.
The numbers for passing floors dinged away above the elevator door, and Dr. Topless cast me a sidelong glance.
“Nice to have you back. We’re sorry your stay will be so short.”
I didn’t recognize the doctor, but I wasn’t surprised that she knew me. Our dad’s office had been here; sometimes Jack and I met our tutor here at headquarters, or we’d just come up to cause trouble. And then, of course, there were the times Jack was retained here. I would stay, sleeping for days on the couch in Dad’s office until he forced me to go back to the apartment. Those were the times I tried to forget.
Floor thirty looked a lot like floor one, except for the navy blue accents instead of green. And on this floor, there was the young blond receptionist. In navy blue. I followed Dr. Topless down a hall, where she swung open a door into a room that held a white bench, a large window with a view of the hall, and a door that led to a small bathroom/shower combo. On the bench sat a plate holding a sub sandwich wrapped in cellophane and a bottle of water.
Dr. Topless ushered me inside and remained in the doorway, holding onto the handle. I made my way over to the sandwich—feeling the doctor’s eyes on me the whole time—and pressed my finger down into the bun. It felt soggy.
“Someone will bring you clothes to change into shortly,” Dr. Topless said. “Your plane will leave in the morning.”
She shut the door. The lock clicked in place.
And once again, I was waiting.
32
SAGE
The next morning, the door to Jack’s room was shut and the tranquilizer gun sat outside, leaning against the wall. I knocked. No answer.
Fine. Maybe he was still upset about yesterday. Or annoyed at getting woken up so early. I had no idea, but I picked up the gun and went to work. I pulled the hose, shovel, and bucket out of the foyer closet. Once I’d hooked up the hose, I braced myself for the eruption of noise as I turned on the water, and drug the hose to the first cell.
For the third day in a row, Cym tried to bite me. It was constant jaw snapping while I aimed the gun at her. I’m sure if she got ahold of me, it wouldn’t be pretty—and she tried really hard, every time.
None of our animals back home ever acted so violent. The days I got kicked by a cow or a horse, I never took it personally. But she’s not an animal, I reminded myself. Staring into Cym’s dark brown eyes, I found it hard not to take her glare personally. I felt her hatred, both in her eyes and her scream. It was like she knew I was part of the human race, something slightly different from her now, and that she knew I was the cause of her pain. Which, in some roundabout way, I guess I probably was.
The other mods, I tried to talk to. But not Cym. She was beyond rationalizing with.
My finger pulled the trigger. The tranquilizer dart hit her in the gut and I waited until she slumped to the floor before I opened her cage. The rest of the process was very similar to farm life: the shoveling of poop and spraying of cells.
Only, today, five cells later, I found a modwrog dead in her cage.
She laid at the front of her cell, her chest unmoving, jaw loose and hanging open. One hand was wrapped around a bar, as if she’d been calling for help while she died. I tried to push out the thoughts of Finn, the ticking clock that was now his life, the day he would reach this point if we didn’t get him help. Instead, I focused on the dead girl in front of me.
But I didn’t know what to do, so I went back to Jack’s door and knocked again. When no answer came, I called his name.
Still no answer, so I tried the handle. “Jack,” I said, as I pushed the door open, “I need some help with what to do about this—”
I stopped short when I saw Jack sprawled out on his cot, looking nearly as dead as the modwrog I’d come to tell him about.
My chest contracted. “Jack?”
He groaned unintelligibly, and tried to lift his head. When his lips moved I could barely hear him. “Water.”
I crouched next to his bed. Up close, I could see that his eyes were dilated. Sweat soaked not just his white t-shirt but the sheet below him, too. Heat radiated off his body.
I picked up the cup of water that sat next to the bed and tipped it to his lips. He barely lifted his head. His mouth formed to the cup, but he took only a small sip and then dropped his head back to the pillow. His eyes closed.
“Hey.” I shook his arm, trying to contain my panic, but he didn’t respond.
I glanced around the room, as if I might see some clue as to what was wrong. The liquor bottle still lay shattered across the floor. The bandages on Jack’s leg looked fresh, and I couldn’t smell anything that hinted at infection. That’s when I noticed the earbud resting in Jack’s palm.
I picked it up and pressed it into my ear.
“Hello, hello, hello, hello. Come in, come in. SAGE! Can you hear me?”
“I’m here,” I said to Caesar.
&n
bsp; “Oh, good. I heard you talking in there, I just didn’t know if you could hear me back. Listen, he’s bad.”
My chest tightened, and I glanced at Jack’s face. “I gathered.”
“I think it’s from the injection. The liquid that Dr. Adamson shot into his arm. Jack refuses to let me or Imogen sneak into to the lab and gank something that might help. He thinks he’ll get better on his own—said he’s never had anything he hasn’t gotten over. But he’s getting worse. I kept pushing, so finally, he just took out the earbud.”
I scanned Jack’s body with a new level of scrutiny, searching for graying skin, or bubbles, or swelling. Besides the sweat and listlessness, he looked unchanged. I placed my hand on his head. His skin was on fire.
“Why don’t you get his dad down here?”
“Anytime Jack gets a fever—which is only twice in his whole life—his dad went insane with the testing. Jack’s worried if they start in on him now, he’ll be stuck in a lab for the next month and there will be no way to escape without major risk. He said we just need to let the fever run its course. The thing is, at some point, Dr. Adamson is going to come check on him. So either way, if he’s not better soon, we’re screwed.”
“And you still haven’t gone to the lab?”
“No.”
“Do you always do everything he asks?”
“When it comes to his operations, yes.”
I huffed.
“If you don’t get why,” Caesar said, “then you wouldn’t understand. It’s a respect thing. He’d do the same for me.”
I bit my lip, glancing down at Jack. “Can a genetically modified embryo die from something like this?”
Silence on the other end of the line. “I don’t know. I don’t think so, but honestly, I’ve never seen him sick. His immune system is steel.”
“And what’s in the lab that can help him?”
“When I asked him about getting stabbed with the serum, he said it wouldn’t affect him because the liquid floods the system like a bacteria. It happens so fast that most people are mutating within minutes. It’s been thirty-six hours, so I thought he was unaffected. But maybe an antibiotic would help? He has a fever, so obviously, he’s fighting something off.”
“Caesar, can I get to the lab and back without being seen?”
He paused. “Possibly through the vents, but listen—”
“And is there any way for me to get inside?”
“There’s a chance, yes, but—”
“And do you know where the antibiotics are?”
Caesar sighed. “Yes.”
“I’m going.”
“Sage. If someone sees you, they’ll ask questions …”
“If Jack dies, then I’m as good as dead anyway because then how are we supposed to get out of here? So, why not try?” I looked over at Jack again, his chest rose and fell with shallow breaths. “We can’t just leave him here like this and hope he gets better. If anyone asks, I’ll just say it’s because of Finn.”
“Wait. Let’s talk about options. We have options. Ask Jack if—”
“Jack is basically unconscious. And I didn’t sign some operational code of conduct or rank of command at the beginning of all this. Jack’s right. If you or Imogen got caught, our cover would be blown. If I’m caught, I legitimately have other reasons to steal medicine from the lab. I’ll just tell them I was searching for something to turn Finn back.”
Caesar remained silent on the other end of the line.
I gave one last look to Jack. “I’m assuming you’ve got me covered with the cameras?”
“Why does no one listen to me?” Caesar said. “Does my opinion count for nothing? Do I have a sign on my head that reads NOT FOLLOWABLE?”
“Followable? I don’t think that’s a word. And I’m not listening to any other options because we don’t have a choice.”
I went to stand. My breath stopped when Jack caught my arm.
“Don’t do this,” he whispered, his eyes barely opened, but his grip on my forearm was strong. “It won’t help.”
I swallowed, not knowing whether he meant it wouldn’t help him, or wouldn’t help our circumstances. Either way, it didn’t matter. We had to try.
I peeled Jack’s fingers off my arm. “It’s going to be fine.”
Jack slumped back to the mattress, as if his entire reserve of energy had been spent with that simple movement. He groaned, and then coughed. Blood trickled from his mouth.
A lump caught in my throat. “I’m leaving. Now.” I spoke into the earbud to Caesar. “Tell me the way to the lab.”
33
SAGE
“There’s a vent across the foyer,” Caesar said. “Climb in. I’ll direct you from there.”
Without looking back at Jack, I shut the door, leaving him inside his room. When I pulled open the vent grate in the foyer, a few modwrogs let out squeals.
The tunnel led to complete darkness.
“Don’t worry,” Caesar said. “It runs parallel with the floor. Just shimmy your way in. You’ll go for sixty feet straight ahead. When you come to four intersecting vents, take a right. That’s the main hall. You’ll head another hundred feet before you drop out of the vents.”
We stayed silent while I crawled. Caesar didn’t speak again until just after I arrived at the intersection and took a right. “You turning sometime soon?”
“Just did,” I said.
“Start counting the vent openings,” Caesar replied. “The tenth one is where you want to drop.”
“Check, check.”
My body was small enough to fit through the vent tunnel without my back rubbing like I knew it would for anyone taller. But still, I had to keep my elbows slightly bent in order for my head to have space. My knees and palms burned. After what seemed like half an hour, but what I knew was only three and a half minutes, I came to the tenth vent opening.
“I’m here.”
“Stick your hand through the grate and remove the screws.”
“Doing that now.”
“Okay. Listen to me,” Caesar said. “You’re about five paces from the lab. You will need to drop down into the hallway when I give you a coast clear. Facing the lab, there is a closet at nine o’clock. Go inside and wait. Things start up in the lab around 5:15, so you should only have to wait in the closet a few minutes before one of the doctors comes to swipe his card. The doors shut slowly. You should have time to slip out and catch it before it fully closes. The medicines are in the outer room. Did you get all that?”
“Yes.” I pulled the two screws up through the slits in the vent and set them down.
“Sit tight. Someone passing underneath you in about thirty seconds.”
I leaned back against the vent, hugging my knees to my chest.
After ten seconds, I could hear footsteps in the hallway, the sound of boots on the concrete floor. I watched through the vent as a guard passed beneath me. My heart sped up. Should I have come? Should we have planned this out better? Would Dr. Adamson kill me if he found me?
“Okay, you’re clear. Time to exit,” Caesar said, interrupting my thoughts. “You’ve got maybe a minute and a half. Make sure to lower the vent back over you before you drop.”
It was too late now to question whether this was a good idea. I did as Caesar instructed; lifted the vent, slid out, dangled down into the hallway on my elbows, and pulled the vent to rest on top of my head. Then I lowered to my hands. When I dropped to the ground, the skin on my fingers scraped away against the metal cover. I landed on the concrete and rolled to standing.
“Two guards coming in forty seconds,” Caesar said.
I ducked into the closet across the hall, settling between a mop and shelves filled with cleaning solutions. If anyone opened the closet, I was finished.
I listened while the guards walked past the closet door and continued down the hall.
“Now we just wait for a doctor,” Caesar said.
I examined my scraped fingers. Nothing that wouldn’t scab o
ver. Adrenaline pumped through me, my chest tightening with every minute we waited.
Eventually, Caesar spoke. “You ever seen the movie ‘Rabies Gone Viral’?”
“Excuse me?” His comment took me so off guard, I didn’t think I’d heard him correctly.
“One of my all-time favorites. Rabid dogs, dark woods, lots of farmers. A few helpless women and children.”
“Oh. Um, no. I haven’t seen it.”
“Huh,” Caesar said. “You should. Twenty seconds.”
I heard the footsteps approaching, the faint noise of voices talking.
“They’re opening the door. Entering now. Get ready …” Caesar’s breath picked up. “Alright. Go now. Move quick and stay low so they don’t see you through the window.”
I ducked across the hall, closing the closet and slipping my foot silently in the lab door just as it pressed my shoe into the door frame. I exhaled.
“Nice work,” Caesar said. “Hold until they move to the next room. They’re almost there.” I felt vulnerable in the wide-open hall, trusting solely on Caesar’s screen views.
“Okay, move. I don’t know when they’ll be back, so grab and go. The medicines are in the cabinet against the far back wall. I think they’re organized by liquids and pills. A liquid injection will work fastest, don’t you think?”
Sounds good to me, I thought but didn’t dare talk out loud.
Inside the lab, cabinets lined every wall. A small island sat in the middle of the room, a sink in its center. I moved toward the cabinets in the back, my heart pumping hard in my chest. My hands yanked open cabinet doors until I came to the liquids. Clean white labels marked the contents of the bottles.
I glanced around, then whispered, “What am I looking for here? Anything in particular?”
“I don’t know exactly. Anything ending in ‘mycin’ maybe?”
I thumbed through the bottles. “Erythromycin, Clindamycin, Gentamycin.”
“Just grab a couple and get out of there.”
The Mod Code Page 12
