“Dude, you can’t do that to my sister when I’m in earshot. I can hear her. It’s totally NOT cool,” said Ilya, suddenly next to us.
“Get lost,” I said.
“You were the one who wanted to stay on mission tonight,” said Ilya.
“Did you find Cole and the others?” Jonah appeared completely unruffled in spite of our brief moment.
“No, they haven’t come down yet, but I did find a handful of variants. They’re either Evonatura employees or some other sort of professionals. No thoughts about food or bathing or where to sleep. If London has street variants, they’re not here,” said Ilya.
“What kind of variations? Or could you tell?” I asked, since he’d piqued my interest.
“I know a variant mind when I hear one because we all think about hiding or blending. It’s not an exact science, but sometimes I do hear a thought related to a variation. There’s a guy upstairs who will shatter glass and eardrums if he speaks out loud. He’s considering having his vocal chords cut for good. He already knows sign language and is passing himself off as a mute,” said Ilya.
“That’s awful. Does he hurt variants too?” I asked.
“Hard to say without asking him,” said Ilya.
“He’s the sort of variant which would interest Ivan. If he can’t function around regular humans, he’d be easy to sell on a post-Compendium world,” said Jonah.
“Should we talk to him? We could use everyone we can get.” I blinked expectantly at my boyfriend and then my brother.
“I don’t think we should risk it. What if he already works for my, I mean our, father. We’d give ourselves up and have to run again with no fresh leads,” said Ilya.
Faith returned with four glowing green drinks in a cup holder tray. Clear plastic cups, lids, and straws let the liquid inside glow through. It smacked of something that would spawn ninja turtles. “These are the Incinerator’s own toxic spills. They’re just vodka and sprite with a capful of that crap they put in glow sticks. Did you know you can drink that shit?”
Jonah reluctantly took a plastic cup. “Are you sure we should drink it?”
“It’s not going to kill us. No more so than the alcohol.” Ilya picked up a cup and took a long generous pull on his straw.
I took an experimental sip. It tasted like vodka and sprite. There was a mildly synthetic aftertaste, but nothing toxic. I took another, much larger sip. Aha—the warmth I’d been craving since my shower. I might stand a chance of sleeping tonight after all.
Jonah followed my lead and took a slurp on his straw, pausing to let the liquid do its work. He leered at me with a devilish grin and grabbed my hand, pulling me off to the dance floor. His touch radiated energy into me, right through my skin waking up every cell in my body.
He leaned down and kissed me, running his hands through my hair. His powerful grip felt restrained, as though his mind fought to control his body. The intensity surpassed our first night together. After we had spent so long mocked by his unstable mutation, first hurting me and then nearly killing him, we were both finally stronger than ever.
“I can’t help myself. I need to touch you. I don’t ever want to let you go. We’re going to make up for some lost time tonight.” His lips brushed my ear as he spoke. His fingers traced the line of my neck and it sent shivers down my spine. So much for sleep!
Chapter 2
We danced and drank in the basement of the Incinerator until my mouth hurt from smiling. Even Melissa had fun. She’d changed into an uncharacteristic black dress. I couldn’t imagine where she’d gotten it. Josh and Cole were back to their regular athletic and skater selves respectively. We didn’t fit together visually, but our emotional bonds were now as palpable as steel cable. I briefly forgot that we weren’t just a pack of twenty-somethings in a club blowing off steam.
Cole crushed a metal napkin dispenser against Josh’s chest and they roared with laughter. Faith juggled a single flame between three candles on three sconces overhead. Jonah turned our drinks into whirlpools. I lifted each of my friends a few inches off the ground as they danced. Nobody paid attention to us, but Ilya threw up a curtain of fog blending in with the dry ice and enclosing our corner just in case.
I felt genuinely sleepy when Jonah took my hand and waved goodbye to our friends. A nervous giddiness mingled with my fatigue. Then I briefly pictured taking Jonah home to meet my family and the thought made me sad. He would have to settle for meeting Gemma—if we found her. I felt sadder still. Tears leaked from my eyes as I climbed the stairs behind Jonah. I wiped my eyes carefully before we reached the tenth floor.
Jonah unlocked our room and gestured for me to go in first. I liked those little gentlemanly gestures. He sat down on our bed and gestured for me to do the same. “What’s wrong? You’re upset.”
“I was thinking about you meeting my parents. If I’d been a normal girl, then Rubin wouldn’t have murdered them. You’d just come over one day and my mom would make dinner. They wouldn’t impress you, but you’d be their idea of a great catch. You’d be all handsome, wearing a polo shirt and talking about your science degree. Gemma would be so jealous.”
“I’m sorry your parents were taken from you. When this is all over, I’ll take you to meet my cold, clinical doctor parents and you’ll see the whole family meet-and-greet is overrated.”
“We have to get Gemma back, before Ivan fully wipes her mind, before anything awful happens to her.” Desperation seized my heart and I felt my lungs constricting.
“We’ll get her back. Don’t forget that together, our little crew is a force of nature. We were goofing off tonight, but we’re all at our peak strength now.”
“All of us?” I asked with wide eyes.
“I took my first maintenance shot while you were in the shower. The supply of serum I have now will last for months. We’ll get to Ivan within a week, two tops. And I’ll get back to a lab perfecting synthesis of this formula before I run out. Ilya can help me get access to a mass spectrometer—assuming we’ll need to break in somewhere to use one—and from there, I’ll take it on my own. You don’t need to worry about me ever again.” Jonah leaned over and kissed me.
I kissed him back softly. I wanted to savor him this time, before that biological energy returned and blotted out my thoughts. We had a whole night alone together and didn’t know when it would happen again.
I stopped to take off my shirt and Jonah unbuttoned his, never taking his eyes off me. His smooth white chest had a sprinkling of fine black hair. I hadn’t looked closely before now. I ran my hand across his pecs feeling the contrast of taut muscles, soft skin, and smooth wiry hair.
“Not as nice as yours, is it?” said Jonah with a wry smile.
“Just different,” I smiled back at him.
Jonah reached behind my back and unhooked my bra with a snap. He kissed me again before I could ask how many bras he’d unhooked before he learned to do it with quick flick. That primal power he infused me with in the club returned with a vengeance and I let go of everything.
Breakfast was more like brunch by the time we got organized the next morning. When Melissa stopped to book our rooms for another night, the old lady with dyed plum-red hair at the Berwick Hostel ‘front desk’ recommended a nearby pub called The Lazy Toad.
My stomach had not thanked me for the four over-priced Toxic Spills I’d consumed. Our hostel’s room came with two bags of tea, a teapot, and a hotplate. We hadn’t bothered to try brewing a pot.
The Lazy Toad had the exact accessories and smells I’d expected from a British pub. A red phone booth occupied the far corner. Old deep-frying permeated the air. The walls were a warm cream color, covered in pastoral paintings and portraits of contemporary royalty including Princess Diana and Queen Elizabeth II. It occurred to me that the proprietors were catering to tourists more than locals. Did British pe
ople really crave images of the countryside and pseudo stars from an archaic aristocracy? I figured it was still a mixed bag or the local tabloids would be out of business.
Customers occupied most of the tables when we arrived, but a harried young woman cleared and wiped down a large booth for us. It took nearly half an hour, but she eventually served us the breakfast special, eggs over-easy, back bacon, sausage, beans in red sauce and fried tomatoes. She left two bottles at the table. Malt vinegar and something she called brown sauce.
“Now that we’re all good and hung over, who wants to float the first idea on how to hit Evonatura?” said Josh as we all took our first few bites of food.
“They have a regular alarm system, I know that much. Assume this office is operating as normal. Their CEO Claude Mueller is a complete hard-ass in his own right. He’s unlikely to shut down or even close temporarily on Ivan or Tatiana’s say-so,” said Melissa.
Josh and Cole frowned as they ate hungrily. Jonah and I had stopped to listen, while Faith seemed completely content to savor her meal.
Ilya contemplated the scenario pensively. “I can listen in from a distance. And we can watch who comes and goes. We’ll establish who’s working there and when we’re ready, we can corner them one by one on the street outside.”
“Corner them and what?” I poked at my cold leftover beans.
“Incapacitate them.” Cole nodded at Josh who appeared to agree.
“Exactly how do we do that?” I said.
“How far are you prepared to go? I mean, we, how far are we prepared to go? Are we talking about public exposure? Or something more permanent?” Melissa regarded Josh and Cole as if to say she approved of force.
“We’re trying to disrupt their operations, exposing them if necessary.” Jonah’s tone suggested caution.
“We tried exposing them the ‘right’ way and we failed miserably, getting a journalist killed. Maybe coming out is inevitable for variants,” said Ilya flatly. He gave Faith a ‘Why not?’ expression. Faith’s frown at my brother reassured me.
“It’s not fair to make that decision for every variant on the planet. We could call the local cops and report Evonatura for creating a dangerous illegal substance. If we can get them shut down, we might buy some time. We can pool our photos, knowledge, and evidence. We’ll start tweeting it or publishing it ourselves somehow,” I said.
“What evidence have we really got? Nothing that would inspire the police to act quickly. Nothing that would go viral on any form of social media. You might find it necessary to take harsher measures than a little embarrassing publicity. Bloodier measures. Convincing people will take time, time we don’t have. Even so, if everyone knew about us and accepted us, that knowledge and resulting warm fuzzies won’t immunize them to Terra Nova.” Melissa’s intense expression unnerved me.
The image of the coyote’s gruesome death in the Mojave leaped straight into my mind’s eye. I shuddered. I wondered how long Melissa had really wanted to get away from Ivan. Either way, she was ready to go to war now.
“So, you want us to start assassinating people?” Faith made a stabbing gesture with her fork.
“I’m saying it might be necessary. Our first goal is to get Terra Nova out of Ivan’s hands, for good. But after that, if we don’t have all the information, we can’t be confident we’re stopping everything.” Melissa glanced at each of us earnestly.
I believed her and her words sank to the bottom of my stomach like a stone. Jonah’s dejected expression matched mine.
“Isn’t that what The Compendium is supposed to cover? We’ll use it to make a checklist. We go one by one. Bam. Bam.” Cole pounded his solid left palm with a meaty right fist.
Ilya ran a hand through his hair to steady himself. “She’s worried that any or all of the companies and people involved have projects on the side, initiatives inspired by The Compendium, but not tracked by it. Even a little homemade contagion or mutant pet is a problem.”
“True, but we’re talking about catastrophes here. I say we pour over The Compendium and come up with a list of threats. From there, we can categorize level of severity, location, and strategies for stopping each,” said Cole.
I saw the wheels of his analytical mind turning behind his eyes. He hadn’t humanized the problem yet.
“That’s all fine and good, but while you’re creating a spreadsheet and an action plan, Ivan will head off to wherever the hell he plans to release Terra Nova. He’s scrapped his original timeline now that he knows we’re trying to stop him.” Melissa leaned forward as her voice gained volume.
“We all agree Terra Nova is our first target, right? The single Compendium project that can kickstart a human extinction,” I said.
Everyone nodded.
“All right,” I said. “We can morally take whatever measures are needed to put a stop to it, a certain and final stop. We’ll just have to see how things unfold and respond accordingly.”
Jonah fixated on the wall ahead with grim determination. “It does simplify things for now. We can move on to a more systematic approach to The Compendium after we eliminate Terra Nova.”
I pored over the table, pausing at each pair of eyes. “Don’t forget about my sister. We need her back. That’s not optional.”
“Of course not,” said Jonah.
“How brainwashed is Gemma? On a scale of zero to ten, zero being not at all and ten being irreversible,” I asked Melissa. I hoped like hell she was going to throw me a bone and say something mildly comforting.
“I can’t know what she’s thinking. She might just be playing along with them. But maybe she really drank the Kool Aid,” said Melissa, shaking her head.
“Make an educated guess,” I said sternly.
“She seems dedicated. I’d say seven, maybe eight.” Melissa’s features conveyed sympathy, but I still felt a swell of anger in my heart.
Faith leaned back with her hands behind her head. “Shit, that’s not good. Can we afford to roll this in?”
“We’ll give her the benefit of the doubt.” Cole glared at his insensitive sister.
“Are we ready to go to Evonatura now?” Josh checked something in his vest.
I realized with sudden panic that Josh still had his gun. Before I said anything, Ilya nudged me.
“I think I can manage a little camouflage once I get the rest of this food into me,” said Ilya.
We finished our breakfast quickly and Cole paid for everyone. I wondered briefly what his credit card balance had climbed to in the past few weeks. How much cash did we have collectively? We’d have to find out soon.
Ilya led us to an alley down the street from The Lazy Toad. It was a grimy alley much like where we’d arrived. The smell threatened to destabilize my breakfast.
“Okay folks, hang on to your hats.” Ilya closed his eyes. I waited for a tingling sensation, but nothing came. Slowly my friends became blurry and I blinked my eyes again and again. The air around me felt thick, like a dense moist fog. I blinked and blinked until I stared at six strangers.
A businessman with short blond hair, wearing a charcoal suit, stood where Jonah had. He seemed generally unremarkable unlike my striking boyfriend. In Cole’s place was a similar young businessman in a suit and tie, bulky like Cole, with similar dark brown eyes. The dark slicked back hair shone in sharp contrast to his regular ultra short cut.
Faith had become a clean cut dark-skinned teenager in a school uniform. Only the girl’s black dreadlocks hinted at her real identity.
Josh was an older man in heavy canvas pants and a plain gray T-shirt. His tool belt suggested trades of some sort.
Melissa was a young mom. She had brown hair in a plain ponytail and wore a pink jogging suit. Her plain face was bare of makeup.
Ilya himself had transformed into a street punk, a stereotype of what y
ou might expect to see in a rough London neighborhood.
I walked around the corner to the glass window of a laundromat to see my reflection. I had messy blond hair and a stretchy gray sweater with rips throughout over skintight light blue jeans. It wasn’t my style, but the girl in the window looked interesting.
“When we get there, we’ll have to split up to avoid drawing suspicion.” Ilya stepped up to the window beside me. His voice hadn’t changed and the effect was unnerving.
Everyone else joined us. We all stood for a moment gawking at our new selves.
“Irina, you come with me. Jonah and Cole can stay together. Then maybe Melissa and Josh with Faith on her own, like she’s waiting for someone,” said Ilya.
“Okay, everyone follow me,” said Melissa.
Chapter 3
Evonatura’s office turned out to be a trendy narrow building made of clean brown brick. I’d been expecting a slice of Frankenstein’s castle, but this building echoed a townhouse brochure.
We followed Melissa briskly past the entrance. Ilya pulled me into an alcove two doors down and gestured at everyone else to keep moving.
“So what do we do now?” I asked Ilya.
His punk disguise frowned at me with an unsettling intensity. “Pretend you’re trying to find something in your bag. It’ll give me a chance to listen to the building and we’ll seem natural while stopped. It’s that or start making out.”
“Gross. That’s not even funny.”
“Yes it is. Learn to handle a joke.”
“I’m telling Faith you said it.”
“Go for it. She’s never shot a messenger.”
“There’s only so long I can keep digging through my bag,” I said as a young hipster couple walked past us.
Terra Nova (The Variant Conspiracy Book 3) Page 2
