It was tense when Dawson walked into the tent followed by Rayce and Julian.
Brooklyn sat with her hand over her stomach where Porter had been poking only minutes before. Her palm was sealed over the wound, and she held her breath. Those words, the perfectly synchronized sentence, just couldn’t roll over her tongue and out of her mouth. It stayed put, repeating again and again behind her lips.
“Gabriel and Amber are working on getting a fire going, but the logs are all pretty damp.” Rayce nudged his chin toward Brooklyn. “What’s this all about?”
Say something
Brooklyn swallowed dryly.
Say everything
Her throat closed when she opened her mouth and her lungs burnt.
She was trying to breathe, desperate to speak, and completely one-hundred percent not ready for what was about to happen. She inhaled a tiny breath, glanced at Porter, and then lifted up her shirt.
Smooth skin was revealed, obscured only by miniscule pin pricks from the stitches. The nasty bullet hole that they all had all seen only hours before had been replaced by brand new silky flesh.
Dawson’s mouth went slack. His eyes narrowed when he leaned forward to get a better look.
Julian shook his head. His hand rubbed over his mouth and chin. “That’s not possible,” he said.
“Yes, it is,” Porter said gravely.
The color drained from Julian’s face. Brooklyn squirmed at the sudden tightness in her chest.
“How exactly is it possible for her to already be healed after being shot less than fourteen hours ago?” Julian asked.
“Same way it was possible for her to be up and walking so quickly. She heals faster than the typical person would—” he looked from Julian to rest of them “—and so do all of you.”
Brooklyn heard Dawson’s breath catch, and she heard the whispered protest from Julian when everything started to come together. Rayce loomed behind Dawson, his eyes stayed focused on Porter, who nodded slowly.
“My father is Juneau Malloy, head biologist and development coordinator for the Omen project. I was recruited by him and then placed in ISO Recovery Camp Eleven. My job was to obtain information and analyze the progress of each individual in the camp.”
Brooklyn wanted to close her eyes, but she couldn’t look away from him.
Dawson’s nostrils flared. His fingers curled into tight fists.
“Us?” Dawson asked. “When you say each individual you mean us, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Porter breathed. “That’s exactly what I mean.”
“Why?”
Porter didn’t flinch when Dawson barked at him. He just looked at his lap and tried to mask the pained look on his face by gesturing loosely to Brooklyn.
“Because each of you were given a flu shot when you were between the ages of twelve months and seven years old. Instead of your standard vaccine, what you were dosed with was a concentrated form of two extremely powerful viruses.”
A breathy laugh flew out of Julian’s mouth. “This is a joke right? Like, you’re joking? You have to be, because what you just said is completely insane.”
“He’s not joking,” Brooklyn interrupted.
Four pairs of eyes beamed toward her.
“Keep going,” she said.
Porter glanced at her from under his lashes and licked his lips. “Merging two viruses isn’t easy; it took years of trial and error before they got it right. It was a problem with stability; the cells either died on contact or destroyed the human tissue immediately after introduction. Everything changed when my dad started experimenting with microbes. He hollowed out the cells of proteins and filled them with the conjoined viruses, but it still didn’t work, not until they started reprogramming the genome.”
Dawson wasn’t moving, but it was clear that he was absorbing and processing each detail as Porter spoke.
“They used the microbes to get things done. They’re cells that are grown and programmed by computers, harvested and manifested with code rather than genes. It’s a whole new level of science that we’re just starting to understand. I never got why my dad and his associates were playing with something so fucked-up until he told me what they’d accomplished.”
Porter paused and exhaled a shaky breath. “I didn’t know what it meant. He’d been working on all this shit for years. When he told me they were ready to start human trials, I didn’t know how to react. I was on a plane out of San Francisco, on my way to Denver that afternoon. My father’s always had his home life and his work life separate. I never questioned it until that day. I never really cared. But the Surrogates…they were the first thing I saw when he took me to the lab.”
Julian growled, “Get to the point.”
“What my dear old dad left out was that when he said he was ready to start human trials, he really meant he was ready to find them by using the failed test subjects as bloodhounds. Those subjects are the creatures that hunted each and every one of you down two years ago. The ones you thought were infected.”
Brooklyn pressed her tongue against the roof of her mouth to keep from screaming. She picked at the edge of her nails.
“Surrogates, or Surros for short, are your predecessors. Strong, flexible, fast, but extremely frail in the mind. They can be given a task to retrieve or to kill but not much else. They’re lacking due to the microbes not reversing the aspects of the viruses completely once the proteins were released into the bloodstream. It was apparent that the viruses needed more time to bond and coexist in one host before evolving. They needed to age, to manifest naturally so…a handful of practitioners around the country were given the responsibility of choosing the hosts when their bodies were still young and malleable.”
Dawson’s eyebrows pulled together, and his bottom lip quivered.
Brooklyn felt faint.
“Once you reached the appropriate age, they collected you and started to test your abilities,” Porter concluded.
“And you…” Julian whispered, jabbing his index finger at Porter. “Took notes on us like lab rats and sent them back to daddy? You pretended to care. You…you let us believe that there was a virus out there. You let us suffer—”
Porter interrupted. “It was my job. I didn’t have a choice.”
“You always have a choice!” Julian shouted.
Brooklyn thought it was a twig snapping at first. The click, snap, click. But it dawned on her when she tore her gaze away from Porter and saw Gabriel standing at the front of the tent that what she’d heard wasn’t the sound of something breaking. It was the hammer being pulled back on the pistol in Gabriel’s hand, pointed directly at Porter.
Dawson stopped Rayce from jolting forward. He shot his hand out toward her. “Gabes, put that down,” Dawson eased.
“You knew?” Gabriel whimpered.
Tears dripped down the curve of her cheek, and her voice cracked. “This was all some charade, and you just let us go along with it? What is going on? What the hell am I?”
Her arm straightened, and the gun trembled in her hand.
“Don’t,” Brooklyn gasped suddenly. Her legs dipped when she lurched forward in front of Porter. “Gabriel, don’t shoot him.”
“Tell me what it is,” Gabriel spat. “What are the two viruses?”
Porter’s eyes were wide. He tried to nudge Brooklyn away, but she wouldn’t budge.
“Tell me!” Gabriel yelled.
“Polio,” Porter blurted quickly.
Gabriel’s expression fell flat.
“It’s polio and CJD.”
Gabriel’s eyes crinkled at the edges when she started to cry, which gave Dawson just enough time to knock her wrist toward the ground and gather his arms around her midsection. The gun went off, leaving a hole in the bottom of the tent a few feet away from Porter’s leg.
Rayce snatched the gun once it was wrestled out of her grasp, but Gabriel continued to thrash and kick as Dawson pulled her out of the tent.
Gabriel’s voice was shrill and angry. “Yo
u lied to us, you son of a bitch! You lied! I should kill you!”
It would have been easy for Gabriel to get out of Dawson’s grip, but she let him carry her off even as she bucked and writhed against him, spitting profanities back toward the tent.
Porter’s face was pale and sickly. He didn’t look up when Brooklyn turned to face him. He didn’t say a word when Rayce let out a long tired sigh.
“What else do you know?” Rayce asked. His voice held a tenderness that made Brooklyn impossibly angry. How could someone be soft with Porter after such a confession? How could strong and noble Rayce talk to Porter like he was someone worthy of coddling?
“I was briefed on the project and the desired outcome,” Porter said. He smashed a hand over his ear and rubbed.
“Can you explain why someone would ever choose to infect a group of children with polio?” Rayce asked, staying calm.
“Like I said before, it wasn’t just the virus that you guys were dosed with. It was more than that. The microbes actually changed the identity of both viruses. Polio in its entirety rarely causes any symptoms, but when it does, it’s because the cells enter the central nervous system and destroy certain neurons. When they reprogrammed the genome, they reversed the natural purpose of the virus, so instead of weakening the muscle tissue, it went to work enhancing it.”
“And the other?” Rayce asked.
“Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease…I never understood why my father was so obsessed with it. It was unstable at its core, and the side effects from trying to develop it were severe. The disease itself is caused by prions. It deteriorates the brain, causes rapid memory loss and psychosis.”
“Psychosis…” Brooklyn echoed.
“It was trial and error with the Surros. The virus was too volatile; it needed more time to adapt to the body to do what it was supposed to. When it was introduced to them, my father and his colleagues tried to speed up the process, make it immediate, but it didn’t work. The prions corrupted the microbes like any bacteria would, and the result was a group of subjects that were physically enhanced but mentally broken.” Porter cleared his throat and adjusted his glasses. “All of you were successful. You’re mentally sharper, more accurate, and incredibly strong.”
Julian rolled his eyes. “And all this? What for? To have a bunch of high school and college students pass a few tests? To fly off a few charts? What are we to them, a new record?”
“No,” Porter said briskly. He looked at Brooklyn before his eyes turned toward Julian and Rayce.
“You’re weapons.”
Chapter Eleven
Brooklyn lifted herself off the floor of the tent and walked out. The air was bitter cold. It rushed past her lips, into her lungs, chilling her from the inside out. Her eyes felt as heavy as the conversation. Even though it had been cut short by her sudden departure, its impact would last a lifetime.
Human beings weren’t meant to be weapons. Not to the earth, not to each other, not to the species they shared the planet with. Yet there they were, in the middle of the woods, trying to run from a fate they’d never chose. None of it seemed real. Not in the slightest. She looked down at her hands, blotched violet and blue from the weather. Her veins stood peeked through the olive skin on her wrist. It was difficult to look at them, spindly and thin, knowing that the blood coursing within them was tainted.
“Hey.” Amber said, appearing at her side. “I didn’t hear much, but I heard enough.” She raked her fingers through her hair, shrugging her shoulders. The fire pit finally sparked to life. “You don’t look good, kid.” She wriggled her nose and poked Brooklyn in the arm.
“I’m not good,” Brooklyn said blandly.
“Keep it together.” Amber grabbed a small water bottle out of a bag next to the fire, shoving it against Brooklyn’s chest.
Brooklyn rolled her eyes. “You obviously didn’t hear shit if you’re telling me to keep it together.”
Amber was small with cropped black hair and broad shoulders. Her petite build wasn’t at all threatening, nor was her mousy, grating voice. She shoved Brooklyn back with both her open palms, lifting her chin proudly. “I’m telling you to keep it together because, if you fall apart, guess what? Time-bomb blondie over there’s gonna flip her shit. So is your cutie-pie traitor boyfriend if she doesn’t actually kill him by then. So, woman up.”
Surprise squirmed across Brooklyn’s face. She stumbled back, catching herself on one of the logs adjacent to the fire. Snarling at Amber, Brooklyn snapped, “He’s not my boyfriend.”
Amber gave a wry smirk, accompanied by the arch of one of her thin brows. Her head lolled to the side, a challenge sparking in her dark eyes.
Brooklyn’s face simmered red. She squirmed to get back on her feet. It would’ve felt good to blow off steam, to jet forward and back-hand the smug look off of Amber’s face. However, in the end, she was right. Brooklyn needed to collect herself, and she needed to do it quickly.
“I’m gonna cook something,” Amber said. “Are you hungry?”
“Yes,” Brooklyn said.
“I’m not the one whose gonna tell you everything’s gonna be a-okay, dollface,” Amber’s voice dropped to a soft whisper. “I been through too much shit m’self to lie to my friends, you understand?”
Brooklyn nodded. Even though she understood, she still didn’t like being put on the spot.
“Where did Ellie and A.J. go?” Brooklyn asked.
“Getting more firewood,” Amber pointed past the bus and into the woods.
“And Gabriel?”
“Dawson dragged her somewhere that way,” Amber laughed. She gestured loosely over her shoulder, digging through a large duffle bag for cans of soup and a few loaves of bread. “If I were you, I’d let him calm her down, go back to that tent, and do some learnin’.”
The look on Gabriel’s face was still etched cruelly in Brooklyn’s mind. She’d looked angry…menacing. She’d looked so scared.
But Amber was right.
“Tell those boys I’m cooking,” Amber called to her when Brooklyn got up, heading back toward the tent.
Brooklyn nodded, hesitating for only a moment before she unzipped the front of the tent and stepped back inside.
Porter sat with his legs crossed in the middle of the tent. Rayce stood, but now Julian was sitting down at his feet with one leg pulled up against his chest.
“You okay?” Julian asked, patting the space next to him.
She swayed awkwardly on her feet. “No.”
“Oh, good. Come sit.” He rubbed his hand in a circle and patted the ground again.
“Where do we go from here? Who are we running from?” she asked as she sat down.
Porter bit down on his lip. “I was just explaining to them that, at this point, I don’t really know. They’re not going to stop trying to catch us, and ultimately…”
“They will,” Brooklyn finished. He nodded.
Rayce shrugged. “We’ll kill them all.”
“Down boy.” Julian tilted his head back to look up at him, elbowing Rayce in the shin. “In all seriousness, though, where should we start? Do we hide? Do we fight?”
Soft pops came from Porter’s knuckles as he cracked them nervously against the heel of his palms. “I don’t have answers like that, and I can’t tell any of you what to do or how to handle this. I can try to get a hold of my dad, but I doubt he’d trust me. After all, I helped destroy a few of his toys and assisted in the escape of genetically modified specimens.”
“Don’t say it like that,” Brooklyn sighed. She mentally kicked herself for not having more control over her mouth.
“That’s what you are, Brooklyn,” Porter said. “You’re smarter, faster, and stronger; you have an incredible memory and acute senses. All they see when they look at you are statistics. It’s how we’re all trained to look at you.”
“I’m not a spreadsheet,” she growled.
“No, you’re not,” he said through pursed lips, “but the best way to beat the enemy is to think like
the enemy.”
“And how do we know you aren’t the enemy?” Julian piped, shifting closer to Brooklyn.
Porter stayed quiet, twiddling his fingers in his lap.
If she could have disregarded the entire situation as a whole, Brooklyn would have. She would’ve run away, only looking back once she was far enough that everything behind was a blur.
Somehow, it felt like her options had dwindled down to none. There was no way out of the cage that trapped her, and even if there was, she didn’t know if she had the courage to leave her friends behind.
Porter kept talking of strength and speed—it didn’t make any sense. A cluster of revelations had suddenly been dropped on all of their shoulders, and she wasn’t strong enough to bear the weight of it. She wasn’t fast enough to escape it.
“I don’t expect you to trust me…”
Julian interrupted Porter with a loud laugh.
“But I want to help you as much as I can…I want the chance to earn your trust again.” Porter looked up and peered at Brooklyn shyly.
It was silent.
Rayce exhaled a long breath. Julian tapped his fingers against the floor.
“We’ll talk to Dawson and Amber,” Rayce said.
Brooklyn felt relief slide off of her like freshly melted snow.
“We should eat,” Brooklyn said.
Porter didn’t move when the three got up and exited the tent.
“Hey,” she stared at him over her shoulder. “I’ll bring you some, all right?”
Porter’s eyes were glassy. He looked away, hands twitching nervously in his lap.
“All right?” she repeated sternly.
“Yeah, all right,” he said.
Brooklyn stepped out of the tent. As she fastened the flimsy makeshift door, she heard Porter swallow a small, exhausted sob.
Chapter Twelve
The soup was tepid. The taste of it was bland over Brooklyn’s tongue even though it was filled with spices and vegetables. Still, she could appreciate its warmth.
Dawson and Gabriel emerged from the shadows beyond the trees.
They looked disoriented. Gabriel’s cheeks were bright red. Her eyes were swollen. She had her arms folded around herself like a shield and shuffled nervously next to Brooklyn when she sat down.
Omen Operation Page 7
