by R. D. Brady
But who did they clone him from? She searched the files and finally found something: there was a notation about the original sample coming from a thousand-year-old skull found in Mexico.
Mexico. A chill covered Maeve as she remembered her dreams.
It’s a coincidence. Maybe I heard Mom discussing the original sample or I saw a file.
But even as she thought about the possibilities, she knew they weren’t true. She’d never thought Alvie was created—not like this.
So how come I dreamed about me and Alvie being in Mexico?
Maeve pushed back from the desk, taking a deep breath. What did that mean? What did that make her and Alvie? Siblings? Twins? Nothing?
She knew for cloning to work, the donor egg had to be emptied of all genetic material. So her cell would be only an empty vessel. But still, didn’t that mean she and Alvie were linked somehow?
Is that why I’m having the dreams?
No. That was impossible.
Maeve felt overwhelmed by the revelations she was reading, but at the same time, she couldn’t help but feel a flash of pride—her mother had been the one who had developed the process that allowed Alvie to come into being. She had been the first one in the world to figure out how to clone a living being.
Way to go, Mom.
Maeve returned back to the screen and she noticed a subfolder within the G2 folder. It was titled G1. A sense of foreboding fell over Maeve. She clicked on the folder and as she opened the first file and began to read, she couldn’t help but gasp.
Oh, Mom.
The file detailed the birth and death of the first clone, Ben. He had died only a few weeks after birth. The team, which included her mother, realized that Ben aged quickly due to the maturity of the donor egg cell, which was the reason that they had used a stem cell for Alvie.
Maeve sat back when she was done, her hand to her mouth. Oh my god—G2. Alvie was second generation.
The first had died so quickly. Tears sprang to her eyes picturing how difficult that must have been for her mom. She stared over at Alvie. He had lived, in a way, at least twice before. The idea made her so sad. She knew he couldn’t remember anything from those lives—cloning didn’t work that way—but still, it was a heartbreaking thought.
And then she went still. She flipped through the file looking for her mother’s notes on Ben’s declining health. There. Heart failure, liver failure, and Maeve gasped. He was blind. Maeve’s jaw dropped open as she remembered her dream from the plane. Her startled gaze flew to Alvie, who was sleeping comfortably. It wasn’t possible. He couldn’t remember his past lives, especially not as a baby. But where then had that dream come from?
I’ve never seen this file. There’s no way I could have known.
And that left only one possibility—somehow he was linked to his past lives. The idea was too horrifying and heartbreaking to consider, and yet Maeve knew that somehow it was true.
She stared at the screen for what seemed like forever before she clicked back to the original folder, her heart taking about as much as she could manage. She clicked on each folder again to make sure she had read everything. She’d been so caught up in Alvie’s history that she’d forgotten the reason she had wanted to read his history was to see if there was anything that would help her figure out why he’d been having his spells. But there was nothing there.
I guess Uncle John was right.
On the third to last file, she noticed a small file she hadn’t checked that had been embedded in another file. She clicked on it, already knowing her brain was too full of new information. She needed to sit back and think for a while, synthesize everything she’d read before she added anything new to the pile of data.
But one look at the screen in front of her made any thoughts of ignoring the file disappear. It was a genetic profile. Her mother had ordered it run fifteen years ago. Maeve leaned forward, reading the findings with growing disbelief.
She knew what the findings meant even before she reached the conclusion of the report.
Subject 1 of the A.L.I.V.E. Project has genetic material derived from an unknown biological father, who does not match any of the profiles for any living being on Earth, and a human mother.
Maeve sat back, shock running through her as her hand flew to her mouth. All these years she’d thought Alvie was an alien. But he wasn’t.
He was a human-alien hybrid.
Chapter Forty
Maeve sat staring off into space, trying to come to grips with everything she’d read. Alvie was part human, and he had been created from her stem cells. And her mother had been the one who had created him.
Oh my god.
Maeve didn’t hear Chris return. Her first clue was when he tapped her shoulder. She jumped and looked up in shock. “Chris! When’d you get back?”
“A few minutes ago. You’ve been staring into space.”
She looked up at him, barely registering his words. “Huh?”
“Okay. You’re done,” Chris said, steering her toward the cot.
“No. I just need to—”
He turned her so she was facing him. “Sleep. You need to sleep. Anything you write right now will not be worth much. So get some sleep.”
The suggestion was enough to increase her drowsiness, even though her mind was spinning. “Okay, maybe for a few minutes.” Relief flowed through her body as soon as she lay down, even while her mind churned. Alvie was part human. He hadn’t been stranded here. The U.S. government had created him. But why?
Chris gently pulled the blanket over her. “Get some sleep, beautiful.”
She smiled, already feeling sleep pull at her. He called me beautiful, she thought drowsily even as her mind struggled to stay awake and understand what Alvie’s history meant for him today. And for her.
But her attempts were in vain. She’d slept very little in the last forty-eight hours. And her body was shutting down, with or without her cooperation. A picture of Henning popped into her mind, giving her a jolt. She wanted to make sure Henning left Alvie alone. She needed to stay awake to protect him, but the stress of the last few days and the lack of sleep outvoted her. As soon as her head hit the pillow and she closed her eyes, she was gone.
Chapter Forty-One
Las Vegas, Nevada
Martin took a seat at the desk in his true office. He was in the building he’d created years ago in anticipation of Project Vault. It was an old warehouse sitting on the outskirts of the Vegas city limits. Most people wouldn’t give it a second glance with its decrepit exterior of peeling paint and cracked windows. But that was subterfuge, carefully crafted to avoid interest. Inside, the warehouse was a state-of-the-art monitoring and security system. And all of it was unknown to anyone beyond a handful of trusted associates. And by trusted Martin meant people he had control over.
In front of him was the list of all the aliens currently in American custody. Some had been captured after a crash but most had been recreated after their bodies had been recovered. Even those that had been alive when caught had died shortly after. All had been carefully recreated through the A.L.I.V.E. Project.
And all were now housed in Area 51.
Martin smiled. He didn’t doubt the importance of the project. Quite the contrary, from its beginning, he had seen the potential and the need for the program. In fact, he failed to understand how the other members of the government, and the MJ12 specifically, couldn’t see the inherent danger that was creeping up on them. The increased sightings meant something was coming. And the human race was woefully unprepared. They needed to know what each species was capable of. The lab could only tell you so much.
Still, he had to admit they had learned a great deal.
But they needed more. The first generation had told them much of what they needed to know about the physicality of the creatures. But the second generation, those were the ones that Martin had taken the keenest interest in because those were the ones that offered him the first glimpse of how they could fight an alien pre
sence.
Of course, for some of the creatures, that required some modification. One alien could only survive in a methane environment. They had been able to successfully create a hybrid with a gorilla that allowed it to breathe the Earth’s atmosphere, and the results had been impressive. The Dulce-AG1, or Blue Boys as they were called, had incredible strength and the bite almost equal to that of an alligator. They were aggressive creatures. Martin smiled again.
And if that could be turned to our side, they’d be an incredible asset.
But even though everyone agreed with the purpose, the means to get there had been left to the scientists, and they were relying too much on the strength of the creatures. But Martin knew that the best soldier wasn’t always the strongest. They needed to know how these guys interacted. How they fought. How they thought. Keeping them restrained 24/7 was not going to show you who they really were. You needed to put their backs to a wall and watch them react. Or dangle a carrot in front of them and give them room to move.
But oversight always argued for safety. Martin knew one day they would understand how foolish their approach was, but by then it would be too late.
No, Martin knew what needed to be done—they needed to find the killers. They needed to see who they truly had to fear and how they fought.
He pictured the scientist who had created the first A.L.I.V.E. subject with distaste. Even all these years later, Alice Leander left a bad taste in his mouth. She was exactly what was wrong with the scientific approach. She had treated that thing like a child and apparently, her daughter was no better.
Martin knew that bending the aliens to their will was only a matter of time. But first they needed to know who to bend. And the modifications in this new generation were an area that still left questions. By necessity, the merged DNA was taken from Earthen animals, many of them domesticated—and that could be a problem. Domestication tended to dull the animal instincts.
But even the non-domesticated animals had been known to come to the aid of humans. There had even been a few cases where gorillas had come to a human’s aid. In one case a toddler fell into the gorilla pen in an Illinois zoo. The three-year-old climbed over the barrier and fell twenty feet into the ape pit. Binti Jua, an eight-year-old female ape, picked up the boy, her own child on her back, and carried him to the zookeepers, keeping herself between the child and the other apes the whole time. Martin needed to know they didn’t have any Binti Juas in his group of Blue Boys. He was not looking for kind-hearted gorillas in this particular group.
Although, if we could direct that to protecting the right humans, that could work. But that was a project for another day. They needed to stay on target and find the subjects that would be the best candidates for Project Proxy. They needed to know which breeds of the fifty-five aliens in their custody were killers—stone cold, without hesitation killers.
And Martin knew just how to pick them out of the bunch. He stepped up to his computer monitor and looked at the computer code his protégé had created for him. It had been carefully inserted into the security code controlling Area 51.
Martin didn’t understand computer coding. It had never been his area, but he could appreciate the beauty in a new weapon. And this code was just that—a weapon, a truly beautiful weapon.
Martin scanned the list and his eyes drifted back to the map he kept on his office wall, all the military bases in the United States marked on it. His eyes drifted toward a base in the southwestern United States.
And now you’re all in one spot. Just one more small thing to take care of and then I can focus on the bigger picture.
His desk phone beeped and Martin hit a button. “Yes?”
“Your transport is here, sir.”
“I’ll be right out.”
Martin spent another moment in silence, letting himself appreciate the magnitude of this moment. Then he leaned down and hit enter.
He turned and strolled to the door, a genuine smile on his face.
Let it begin.
Chapter Forty-Two
Consulting his tablet, Dr. Carlton Sheridan notched off another lab. Five more to go and he would have everyone squared away. Sheridan was a man of organization. Disorganization made him unhappy. Organization didn’t make him happy, but at least he was content. The world was a better place when it was an ordered place.
He swiped to the next screen—Subject 198, code name Catalina-AG2. It required a self-contained burn unit along with the usual lab and medical requirements. The unusual request didn’t cause Sheridan to bat an eye. He had no curiosity about any of the experiments being conducted on the base. His job was to make sure everything ran smoothly, and if anything fell out of that purview, well, it simply wasn’t his concern.
He nodded at the guard, who keyed open the door. Sheridan stepped in. Two scientists were already inside along with their guards. He frowned. He liked to get in before anyone arrived but with so many arrivals in the last forty-eight hours, that just wasn’t possible.
One of the scientists, a male in his early thirties, was in the glass enclosure next to the transport box. The second, a female in her late forties with strawberry-blonde hair, was crossing the room to the enclosure when she stopped to frown at Sheridan. “Can I help you?”
“I’m Dr. Sheridan.”
“Oh, it’s a pleasure. I’m Dr. Gaddolyn.” She extended her hand with a smile.
Sheridan looked at it with distaste. Why did people insist on a greeting whose only purpose was to spread germs? He grasped her fingers lightly. “Pleasure.”
Dr. Gaddolyn frowned, looking down at her hand before putting it in her pocket. “Um, well, I think we have everything we need.”
“I’ll need to check the desktop and make sure that everything, including security protocols, were correctly installed.”
Dr. Gaddolyn waved toward the desk area. “Of course. Dr. Aziz and I were just about to unbox the subject.”
“Don’t let me disturb you,” Sheridan said as he strode past her.
He made his way to the desk, which was set up next to a large lab table and a console for controlling the environment in the room and in the glass enclosure. He quickly brought up the diagnostics, checking that each file was correctly installed before checking it off on his tablet.
A thunk followed by a curse pulled his attention. In the enclosure, Dr. Aziz was attempting to lower the crane, but it had only made it halfway down before stalling.
Sheridan frowned. That wasn’t supposed to happen. The cranes had just been installed in almost all of the new labs, and he’d been assured by the crew that they all worked perfectly. He scowled. This is why I check everything personally to make sure they’re working properly—to avoid these issues. Rushing guarantees mistakes.
He strode over to the glass enclosure and keyed his way in.
Dr. Gaddolyn whirled around. “Dr. Sheridan, you are not allowed to be in here.”
“I am allowed to be anywhere there is a problem.” He walked over to the control panel on the wall and quickly brought up the schematic for the crane. He glanced up at the ceiling, noting the small cable jutting out from the tile. “One of the power cables has been caught.” He waved to his guard. “Bring the ladder in here.”
The guard shook his head. “I’m not your lackey. I’m here for your protection only.”
Sheridan glared at him. “Fine.” He headed to the other side of the room. There should be a ladder in the closet. He opened it. Yes. And this is why organization is critical. As he pulled the ladder out, a scream pierced the lab.
Sheridan dropped the ladder and it fell back against the closet with a bang as he whirled around. A thick, dark gray tentacle was wrapped around the neck of Dr. Aziz. The doctor’s eyes bulged, his face turning purple, and then with a snap, his neck was broken.
Dr. Gaddolyn stood frozen in place. “Get down,” the guards yelled.
Gaddolyn dove for the floor, but not before a tentacle reared back and cut her along the chest with a long razor-like fin
on the side of the tentacle. Blood poured onto the ground.
The guards opened fire. The creature leapt away at an incredible speed, wrapping itself around one of the guards and turning him so he faced the other two. The man’s eyes grew large. One of the tentacles snapped out and caught one of the other guards at the neck. The man dropped his weapon and grabbed for his throat. Blood pooled through his fingers and drenched the front of his shirt.
Sheridan ran for the door.
“Do not open that door!” the remaining guard yelled.
Sheridan ignored him.
The guard backed out of the room, firing at the creature. He glanced over at Sheridan. “I said—”
And that small distraction was all it took. The creature whipped out its tentacle and wrapped it around the guard’s leg. It yanked and he flew backwards, his head crashing into the hard tile floor. The creature pulled the guard forward, and Sheridan could only stare at the large blood trail that followed.
He fumbled for his keycard and slammed his hand on the alarm. Klaxons blared to life, though he knew they were contained to this floor. No other floor would know there was a problem.
He waved his card at the reader and it continued to glow red. He waved it again and again, but the telltale green of release never showed itself. He stared at his card in disbelief. They had assured him that it opened all doors, in an emergency state or not.
They lied to me.
A hiss sounded behind him. He turned. The creature was only four feet tall, but its six tentacles draped out another six feet. Its face looked like an octopus’s with its round head and beak. But the beak was exceptionally sharp looking, and its skin was a blue green. It slid forward in an undulating fashion.
Sheridan backed up as far as he could, closing his eyes and turning his head. The being stopped only a few inches away and then leaned forward, smelling or inspecting him. Sheridan wasn’t sure which, and he didn’t open his eyes to find out.
