The Mod Code

by Heidi Tankersley

  The bullet blasted open the chain on the arena exit and Jack strode into the arena, bandaged, but not limping. His gun was aimed.

  At me.

  “Maybe you’re not supposed to kill her,” he said to the guard, “but I will.”

  63

  SAGE

  “I don’t follow the same orders as you,” Jack said, his eyes narrowing at the first guard who’d pulled his gun, even though all thirteen guards had their guns drawn on him now.

  Jack didn’t back down. He strode across the arena, drawing closer. “You shoot me, I shoot her. She’ll die immediately.”

  The guards and Jack were at a standstill. Jack was within yards of me now, the gun aimed at my head. Apparently, the orders given by Dr. Adamson had been final.

  I trusted Jack, but seeing the barrel of a loaded gun trained on my forehead still terrified me. The sweat and mist covered my face, dripping into my eyes, but I didn’t dare move. I barely breathed.

  “Recruits,” Jack said. “What this girl said—it’s all true.”

  There was a collective pause, as if dozens of minds were all processing the same bit of information at once, trying to make sense of it, wondering if they should believe Jack.

  I’m not sure exactly where it started. I saw a recruit punch a guard standing next to him. Then a gunshot rang out, and all hell broke loose.

  Jack dove on top of me, our bodies pressed to the dirt.

  “Jack!” Imogen shouted at the arena exit. She lifted her cuffed hands away from her body. When had she woken up? Jack aimed and fired, and Imogen’s hands broke free. She dove out of the arena onto a guard.

  Fights had broken out all along the perimeter of the arena. Bullets and darts whizzed by our heads as Jack dragged me across the arena with his gun up.

  “Where’s Beckett?” he shouted.

  “Trapped inside with the mods!”

  Finn had limped, or crawled, out of the arena. He hovered against the building wall, out of the line of fire. Halfway to the wall, something pierced my calf, then another at my waist.

  “Jack!” I cried, pulling out the darts. He shot his gun in the direction the darts had come.

  I felt myself starting to fade as Jack dragged me the rest of the way to the building and set me against the wall behind some shrubbery. Finn moved in next to us, just a few yards away. Jack took hold of my shoulders. “Sage, listen! Listen to me!”

  The background noises were already starting to blend into one dull hum. “You’ve got to fight it. Stay awake. I know you can fight it. Push it away. Focus.” I steadied my gaze on Jack’s sky-blue eyes. They were hard and determined. “Do it,” he said.

  I nodded, lifting my hands from the dirt to grip his arms, clinging for any semblance of awareness I had left, for permanence in the world around me. I focused on staying awake, staying present. I pushed against the fog closing in, and somehow… it held it off.

  Jack stared at me. Sounds whizzed by our heads just on the other side of the shrubs, but it felt like we were the only ones in the world.

  “Are you okay?” he said. “Can you hear me?”

  I nodded.

  “Do you feel it anymore?”

  “A little,” I said.

  “Listen to me,” Jack leaned in, his face inches from mine. “This is what you’re going to do. Take Finn. The helicopter is coming. It’s a ways off, but I hear it. It’ll land at the north end of the property, about a half-mile away. I’m going to get Beckett. We’ll meet you there. Make it to the helicopter. Do you understand?”

  I nodded. “I hear it, Jack—the buzzing. I hear the helicopter.”

  He looked at me, skeptical but nodding. “Good. Take this.” He shoved a gun at my chest and held my gaze. “You have five minutes.”

  I nodded slowly, still working to force away the numbness that threatened to push its way into my mind.

  “Make it to the helicopter. Even if no one else does, you must. You can’t stay. My dad knows what’s in you.”

  I stiffened. “What’s in me, Jack?”

  A bullet whizzed by our heads and Jack ducked, slamming us both to the ground. Finn growled. “No time,” Jack said. “Stay along the wall of the building in the shrubbery until you get around the corner.”

  Jack took my shoulders, talking over the chaos behind us. “Promise me you’ll make it to the helicopter!” He glanced down at the gun. “No matter what it takes.”

  I nodded again, harder. He jerked me up. “Get going!”

  I peered out between the bushes. Imogen let out a whoop from the corner of the building, motioning us to come. Jack slipped away in the opposite direction. He looked back at me again and nodded, then ducked from the bushes and sprinted toward the door of the west wing.

  I looked over at my brother. “Finn! We have to go! Just a little further, okay buddy?”

  I didn’t have to ask twice before he hobbled up behind me. I grimaced. He looked like he was in pain. But I knew in that moment, he understood exactly what we were trying to do. The need was primal, the instruction simple.

  Flee.

  My first steps were unsteady from the tranquilizer, but I kept my hand along the side of the building as we moved behind the bushes, avoiding the main path that ran parallel to us.

  Shots and fighting rang out from every direction. The bushes allowed us to get all the way to the east side of the building without being seen, but the trek across the beach to the concrete pad would leave us vulnerable, even if we stayed close to the wall.

  A few shouts came from somewhere down the path, but otherwise the coast looked clear. I couldn’t see Imogen, but if we didn’t make a bolt for it now, the opportunity wouldn’t get better. I took a deep inhale.

  “Ready, Finn?” He looked leery. “Let’s go.” I slid out of the shrubs and ran straight into a guard coming from around the corner.

  He jerked back, pulling his gun out of his holster as he did.

  I raised my gun at the same time, hand shaking.

  Jack’s words ran through my head. Promise me you’ll make it to the helicopter. I knew I couldn’t kill someone for it. I knew I wouldn’t. Relief and disappointment rolled through me at the realization.

  Finn lunged through the bushes then, and the guard swung the gun toward him.

  “Noooo!” I screamed.

  Before he could shoot, the butt of another gun hit the guard across the temple, and he dropped unconscious to the ground, leaving Imogen in full view behind him. She smiled.

  We took off for the east side of the building, Finn limping behind. Halfway across the sand, right near the deck, my brother collapsed.

  “We’ll carry him,” Imogen said. Without pause, she reached for his arm. Finn, growled in warning. Imogen pulled out her dart gun and shot him in the belly.

  “What are you doing?” I screamed.

  “His ankle is broken. He probably has internal injuries. He can’t move on his own, and we don’t have time to fight him every step of the way.” She bent down and slid her arms under Finn’s shoulders.

  I slid my hands under Finn’s legs, and we half-carried, half-dragged him across the wet sand. Through the mist, I heard the helicopter drawing closer, could now see the dot in the distance.

  After thirty feet, Imogen suddenly dropped Finn, pulled her gun and shot at a guard that I hadn’t seen coming. She holstered her gun without looking at me, picked up Finn again, and we started moving.

  Jack’s words ran through my head again.

  Make it to the helicopter.

  64

  BECKETT

  The last thing I expected to see was Jack barging into the west wing from the exit door.

  “Sage?” I said immediately.

  “On her way to the helicopter with Imogen and Finn. We’ve got to move fast,” Jack said.

  I nodded as Jack slammed his fist against the button that opened my cell.

  We moved through the building undetected—Jack said all the guards had been called outside to deal with the recruits.


  We exited the door at the far north end of the building. The helicopter already sat on the painted black X a hundred yards away, its blades spinning. Sage and Imogen were halfway across the pavement, nearing the helicopter, carrying Finn between them.

  We started sprinting across the slick pavement toward the girls. I was fast, but Jack was faster, and he pulled away, reaching the girls far ahead of me, taking Sage’s position carrying Finn’s legs and sending her to sprint toward the safety of the helicopter.

  But something didn’t feel right.

  A few guards rounded the corner and shot at my feet. Then Imogen’s. I fired back, and so did Jack. It sent the guards behind the corner again. But no one was shooting toward Sage.

  Why?

  Even as I ran, I couldn’t push away what Jack had said. That the lock on his cell door had just clicked open? Who had done it? And why?

  Dad saved me from the modwrogs. And then said goodbye.

  Dad was leaving the island. And yet, he had found something in Sage that I knew he would never let go of, could never leave behind.

  The helicopter loomed on the pad in front of us.

  The realization hit me hard, a punch to my gut as I sprinted toward the helicopter.

  “It’s Dad!” I shouted to Jack. “It’s Dad!”

  Through the roar of the blades and the twenty yards of mist-sodden distance between us, Jack turned.

  I watched the revelation cross over his face, followed by a look of complete horror, which mirrored my feelings exactly.

  Jack dropped Finn’s legs and shouted Sage’s name just as she was jumping onto the helicopter.

  Dread settled deep in the core of my being, and somehow, I just knew.

  I was losing her again.

  65

  SAGE

  Jack called out my name, urging me to go faster, but I’d arrived. I made it to the helicopter. I was safe. And the boys and Imogen weren’t far behind.

  I jumped inside and scrambled for the middle, making room for the others.

  By the time I registered Dr. Adamson’s face and the gun he aimed at me, the helicopter had already started rising. I felt the blood drain from my face.

  I dove toward the door. He wouldn’t shoot—not to kill, anyway, not if what the guards said was true. Before I could make it even halfway, he’d yanked me back, wrenching my arm and handcuffing it to a chair.

  The doctor stood and wiped a stray strand of hair from his forehead. “Do you get regular periods, Sage?”

  “What?” Mortification flooded my body.

  Before anything else could be said, Jack swung into the copter, his gun aimed at Dr. Adamson. Jack’s eyes flickered from me to his father, his expression revealing nothing. No surprise, no fear.

  “Perfect. Jack made it just in time,” Dr. Adamson said. “Here to save the girl, as expected.”

  The impossibility of Jack somehow climbing inside the helicopter—with us already ten or fifteen feet in the air—it made me wonder if there was anything Jack did that impressed his father.

  Dr. Adamson held the bar above the seat next to mine to stabilize himself against the tilting from the helicopter. He talked in a regular tone, one that would normally be drowned out by the sound of the helicopter blades spinning above us, especially with the air blowing in through the open door. And yet, I could hear his every word.

  “That’s a yes, then?” he said, looking at me. “About your period?”

  I stared at him, unable to comprehend all that was happening.

  He nodded. “Good. Because Jack’s sperm certainly won’t be eating any of your eggs, not with the code that’s inside of your DNA. Still, I did want to confirm they were actually there. Don’t worry, the embryos won’t look like you two at all. We’ll modify the surface genes so they’ll easily fit into the countries where they’re purchased. They won’t even be related when we’re finished with them. Just the deepest layer of coding will be in order—that’s the important part.”

  The doctor surveyed me, gun still aimed at my torso. “Quite brilliant of your father, really. To blanket the code so well inside of you. I have to admit, I wasn’t expecting that a drop of serum would open you up like this. It’s making me wonder what a whole plunger full of it would do. Jack’s powers were heightened because of it. I imagine we’d have the same results with you.”

  Dr. Adamson’s voice grew fuzzy in my ears. This couldn’t be happening.

  I saw Jack glance toward the pilots, perhaps assessing whether attacking them would send us to our sure and sudden death. Maybe that’s exactly what he wanted to do.

  “You both feel it, don’t you?” Dr. Adamson continued, gun still lifted waving between Jack and me. “The natural pull to each other? A draw that is supposed to be there in all of us, something humans lost over thousands of years of our cells shifting into something weaker than we were created to be.”

  Jack didn’t respond with a contradiction to his father’s words. So he felt it too?

  Jack’s face reflected none of the horror I felt inside at Dr. Adamson’s words. But then again, he’d had his entire life to perfect the art of masking his emotions.

  “Oh, come on, Jack,” Dr. Adamson said. “Put the gun down. Close the door and get settled in. It’s a two hour ride to our next stop. You’ve had a busy morning.” Dr. Adamson looked at me. “Of course, I wasn’t expecting that you’d release every last modwrog, nor that Jack would go back for Beckett. But I suppose I can’t predict everything.”

  Jack’s eyes flickered from his father to a pack hanging just above his dad’s head. A red cord stuck out from the side of the pack.

  Jack whispered something under his breath without moving his lips, something Dr. Adamson was sure not to hear over the sound of the helicopter, “Trust me?”

  I nodded once.

  And in one movement, too fast for me to see it all happening, Jack shoved his father to the side, grabbed for the backpack, shot my handcuff free, and swung us both toward the door.

  Jack was holding my arm and jumping. My body surged forward, following the same path.

  But for just a millisecond, my foot caught on the chair, and it was enough time for him. Dr. Adamson’s entire body came crushing down on top of mine, and I slammed belly first to the floor of the helicopter.

  If the breath hadn’t been knocked out of me, I would have screamed. Jack dangled in the air, a hundred feet above the ocean, holding onto my left arm. I gripped his forearm. He struggled to reach the slick landing skid with his right hand while still holding onto the backpack—which I assumed contained some sort of parachute.

  Over my shoulder, Dr. Adamson yelled into the wind. “I’m not letting her go, Jack! And you’re not leaving without her, so you might as well climb back up here and get used to the idea that this is happening. Your embryos will open up possibilities for the world!”

  I saw confirmation in Jack’s eyes at what his father had said. He knew it was true. I knew it was true. Dr. Adamson would follow through on everything he said.

  And Jack wasn’t going to drop without me. He wasn’t going leave me behind. And that was the worst thing of all—to have the two people Dr. Adamson wanted so badly in the very same place.

  I couldn’t let that happen.

  If Jack had a plan for falling with me, surely he had a plan for falling without me. My hand loosened on Jack’s arm, and his palm slid down to my wrist, the sweat and wetness of our skin making the movement smooth and easy.

  Our eyes met. Jack knew what I was doing. He wrapped the landing skid with his free hand. His fingers struggled to make purchase over the wet metal as his other hand slipped a bit more from mine.

  “Sage! No!” I saw it in his eyes—the desperation, the fear. Not the fear of falling, but fear of leaving me behind.

  I bit my lip and nodded at Jack. “I’m sorry,” I said, relaxing my hand completely.

  Jack slipped from my grasp. His right hand gripped the landing skid as his body blew in the wind.

&n
bsp; We weren’t far from the island. I could still see Beckett, Imogen, and Finn surrounded by guards below. Jack would land in the water. He’d swim to shore just fine. They’d figure out a way to get out. Perhaps my dad was still coming to the other side of the island at the time he originally promised. Perhaps Finn could still live. Perhaps it was all possible.

  But this, this—all that Dr. Adamson had planned—couldn’t happen. It could never happen. No matter what else worked out.

  The doctor’s body still crushed down on mine, a vice grip on my torso, his lemon scent consuming me. He must have realized Jack’s weight was gone, because I felt him struggling to drag me back inside. Could he know what I was about to do?

  “Jack!” Dr. Adamson said. “Get up here, now!”

  It needed to be quick then.

  Stretching as far as I could, pulling against the grip of the doctor, I reached my fingertips toward Jack’s hand on the landing skid.

  “Sage.” Jack spoke in a regular voice. He didn’t shout. He said my name softly, meant for only me to hear. He was trying to reason with me, but his sky blue eyes were pleading.

  My fingertips connected with his, and a final shot of electricity flowed between us. I bit the inside of my cheek and pushed his hand off the landing skid.

  “I’m sorry,” I said again.

  But I don’t know if Jack heard me. He was falling toward the ocean.

  He slung the pack on his shoulders as he fell. He said nothing, shouted nothing. Within a few seconds of dropping away, he pulled the cord that released the parachute.

  I let Dr. Adamson drag me fully into the helicopter. I smiled inside, satisfied at my small victory. The doctor had a look of debate on his face, processing the risk of going back for Jack.

  “My dad’s almost here,” I said. “We’ll all get away if you go back.”

  I had no idea if that was true, but I was hoping he would think I knew something he didn’t. The helicopter hovered in the air, the pilots obviously waiting for orders.

  “Just go!” he finally said. “We’ll come back for him. Send orders for someone to get into that water and get him contained.”