Alex gave in, this time looking straight at Emma as he spoke. “Initially we raised the hypothesis that Etienne was genetically engineering human DNA in hopes that he would discover new enhancements to fully develop on Opt. By inserting a functional gene into an organism and targeting it to replace the defective one, it basically cures genetic diseases. By knocking in genes or altering gene expression patterns, you can tailor an organism to assimilate the desired enhancements. Once we started discovering new planets, Etienne’s hopes of returning to Opt probably faded, so he started continuing his work here, hence assembling a team. But why leave Beck alive?” Alex rubbed his chin and looked at Lilou.
“You’re right. He was smart enough to terminate Beck, but he didn’t. It was only a matter of time until Beck came back from the shadows to retrieve the altered subjects and continue whatever they had going on. He probably monitored Zoey from the distance because she didn’t pose a threat, and most likely kept the rest of prisoners because they did. Rufus was smart enough to escape, though.”
Jasper rested a hand on Rufus’s shoulder. “He manipulated one of the guards to call him a cab and let him out. As simple and crazy as that sounds. The place where he was being held was deserted when we returned to search it. Wiped clean, no traces of anything remotely suspicious.”
Sweat was gathering on Rufus’s forehead so he quickly wiped it off with the brush of a hand. There was a mix of agony and despair in his movements as he nervously moved his fingers and scratched bits and pieces of his arm and elbow.
It was the first time Rufus spoke, and he did so with concern. “My guess is that he wants to take whatever he can from the remaining subjects to enhance himself! He wants me to control minds, Mia to open portals, and Zoey to keep anyone from making him forget. I’ve seen the fourth, but he was in a zombie state. Who knows what else he has taken from the ones who are not alive to tell?!”
“Not if you get ahold of his mind and control it first, right?” Zoey jumped in, a little too eager and unprepared for his reply.
“I wish. I can only control one mind at a time, and I can’t even do that too well. It’s an on-and-off thing.”
“If he gets his hands on Rufus, he’ll be able to manipulate minds, turn us against each other. We don’t even know how many people stand beside him on this one. I wouldn’t underestimate him,” Lilou warned. “The enhancements he gave you are what you would call illegal and completely unethical for the Alliance. We are enhanced before birth with skills that will help us professionally. To give you an example, we’re given enhanced strategy skills but not mind control—because that would be immoral. The privacy of one’s mind is their own. We can move objects with telekinesis but not living things—in fact, if I wanted to take control of this building and land it on someone’s head, I couldn’t because there’s life in it.”
Emma tried to connect the dots. “But say, for example, if you wanted to pierce my body with a lifeless object—could you?”
“Anywhere outside the Alliance, yes. Because that’s why we’re here, to fight threats. If I could only lift things instead of using them as weapons against your enemies, I would not serve as a soldier.” Lilou rested her hands on her hips. “What Etienne has done is a violation of the code of ethics, not only by murdering innocent humans, but by enhancing subjects like Rufus with completely immoral skillsets. Beck is clearly following his footsteps, and, by the looks of it, Etienne taught him everything he knows and gave him enough tools to keep experimenting. The new Chancellor demanded no more casualties.”
“If you don’t know where Beck is, what he wants, or his ultimate objective, how will you ever have the upper hand?” Emma always asked the right questions.
Jasper mapped the possibilities. If they used Zoey as bait to get to Beck, they could ambush him at the lab. Alex could track everyone with Emma’s help, leaving Lilou as a front-line soldier along with the rest of the team. Her fighting skills were fierce and her mind always ready. He knew her well enough to anticipate she longed for a good battle. Up until now, work on Earth had been a peaceful stroll compared to what she was used to. She’d fought foreign invasions in five galaxies, her enhanced strategy skills at the top of the game. She’d trained Jasper personally for his work as an ambassador. Etienne, too, and that’s what she was afraid of.
Not knowing what Beck could do put the optans at a disadvantage, but the Council was tight on staff and they’d have to work with what they had in order to restore their name with the Alliance. It had to be done.
“Rufus, I can’t risk you on the field tomorrow. You’re smart enough to know you’d be a liability if Beck manages to get ahold of you.” Jasper was stern in his decision.
“To hell with that, and you know it!” Rufus clenched his fist, giving Jasper a menacing look. Whatever interest he had in catching Beck was eating at him voraciously.
They spent the rest of the day caught up in strategies, Alex mounting his work station on Zoey’s counter while Lilou and Jasper worked on their glass devices on the coffee table. The “intersat,” as they called it, was the size of an iPad and was made entirely of kalenium, the translucent glass material which optans imported from their neighbors and fellow allies on planet Zii. They used it to create the highest forms of tech and weaponry due to its durability, consistency, and other properties Zoey couldn’t wrap her head around. She stood detached from the crew, sipping on her third coffee and contemplating.
How one could go from having it all to being stripped of everything they’d ever known was beyond Zoey. Yesterday her squad was intact and she had the best job in the world. Today she was an altered, brokenhearted hybrid collaborating with aliens to rescue her kidnapped best friend. Not to mention the same delusional guy was after her head. It made her brain numb.
Proactive Emma was fully immersed in what Alex was showing her: deciphering symbols on the intersat and projecting vivid images of victims, places, and schemes in order to cover all possible angles. This was Emma at her finest in the darkest of hours, still keeping her cool and getting involved to save both Zoey and Sam. She wasn’t allowing herself to break, to give in to fear. In her silk blouse and orange pencil skirt, she hovered above the foreign tech, actively trying to make sense of it—in spite of not being wanted there, with Alexandre rolling his eyes in protest with every given chance.
Alex liked to work alone, undisturbed by anyone, whatever their rank or species. His head worked better in silence, when things were done his way and it was quiet enough to think.
“I’ll order food. Any preferences or allergies?’” Zoey asked and reached for her phone. Jasper’s half-smile widened, fully aware Lilou was going to jump in with a display of human knowledge.
“We don’t have allergies on Opt, the gene was removed ages ago! I studied all about your allergies before being dispatched to Earth, though, so I’m trained to assess you in case of emergency.” Lilou indeed wouldn’t miss a chance.
“Pizza it is.” Zoey announced as she logged on her app. They were not that different after all. They had their intersats; she had her smartphone. They didn’t have allergies, well…neither did she and it was all Mother Nature.
Over the next few hours the plan was set and all she had to do tomorrow was show up. In the back of her mind she knew she was capable of more and found it hard to allow others to take on the hard work, the real work. She wanted to be more than passively involved, but couldn’t risk Sam’s safety by doing something utterly stupid, not when so much was at stake.
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Mia gathered her clothes from the floor and took her time to get dressed and cover the new bruises on her face and back. She even pulled a hopeful smile at herself in the mirror knowing she would join the one she loved. She’d be a step closer to holding him tomorrow and return to freedom once Beck managed to accomplish his mission. She didn’t even care what it was as long as it meant getting her life back.
Everything will be over tomorrow, she told herself over and over again. Beck was not going to ki
ll her. He couldn’t. She had given him everything.
Mia made her way out of the room and walked the narrow hallway only to feel the chill of the white walls leading to the room she dreaded most, pressing the gadgets to her chest and making her way in—the room where she had been held captive and experimented on. The room that every time she set foot in, she imagined she would not live to see another day. The room where she met the love of her life and where she gave up the hope to ever see her parents again.
Mia had been kidnapped from the street leading to her dorm, a street she’d walked countless times drunk, sober, alone, or with her roommate or peers.
On the evening of the kidnapping, was carrying takeout and running to get back as fast as she could in the pouring rain. That was the last thing she remembered, the last view of freedom—a picture of her tanned legs in wet pink shorts and squeaky trainers, her long blonde hair stuck to her cheeks as water poured like bad karma on the one summer day the skies decided to crack.
When she opened her eyes again, she was strapped to an electro-hydraulic operating table, wires stapled to her head, an IV in her left arm. They’d told her she had an epileptic seizure in the middle of the street, and she believed it. She closed her eyes only to open them again a month later. Her parents were nowhere to be found, and Doctor Beck began telling her they’d cured her with an experimental treatment. It was either that or imminent death, and they were eager enough to save her life even if full recovery would take longer and all visits remained forbidden.
She believed it all. How could she not, given the amount of doctors and nurses hovering like drones over her bed? Wires in, wires out. It had taken Beck what she calculated as three days to return and check up on her, all giddy-eyed. That was when he introduced her to Etienne.
“I want to call my mother!” she had told Beck. “All the nurses kept saying to ask you. Does nobody carry a phone here?”
“Phones are not allowed. Even non-ionizing radiation could affect you right now, Mia. You might feel fine, but there’s still a long way to go. Have a little patience. All these people here are working toward your recovery, and your mother is closely updated every two days.” He lied shamelessly behind the softest of smiles.
Mia would later find out the truth: some subjects died within twenty-four to seventy-six hours after altering. The ones who survived needed time for the genetic sequencing to sync and settle. Any major alteration in the emotional spectrum had to be avoided at all costs. Seclusion did not help—she’d never been so long without her family. Much like a pony, she was fed sugar lump after sugar lump until she couldn’t take another wire strapped to her head, nor another “no.”
“You either take me to my mother now or I walk out on my own! I am of legal age to do what I fucking please!” she demanded in a harsh tone, pushing one of the nurses aside. Beck arrived in under fifteen seconds.
“Have a seat, Mia,” he insisted. “There’s something you have to know first.” That didn’t sound okay coming from a doctor. She did as instructed and took a seat on her bed.
A second later, Etienne portalled into the room without warning. It was enough to swallow her words one by one as she pushed her small body into a corner, shivering.
It was with great calm they showed her pictures of her parents, probably taken from a car, and claimed her parents’ lives depended exclusively on her collaboration. They had saved her life; now she needed to give a hand. Days turned into weeks, probably months, as she lost track of time.
She tried to escape twice.
After the first time, they showed her pictures of her dad’s funeral. The second time, they showed her pictures of her mom wearing a cast. There was no way out. They knew if they killed her mom, she’d have nothing else to live for.
It was then when Etienne showed her what he could do, the way he could lift things and bend metal between his fingers. He’d promised her everything she ever wanted if she agreed to this mission she knew nothing of. Beck insisted she wouldn’t be harmed as long as she collaborated, and she’d be set free once she learned to control her powers and come to their aid when required.
“Her powers”—it sounded like the most extravagant prank the universe had ever pulled on her. When she rebelled against them, she woke up bruised. How could she not remember a beating like that? In time, Etienne ceased making her forget by tracing his thumb over her forehead—he wanted her to hold the memory of those gut-piercing fists the male nurses delivered.
It was then when she decided to become somebody else until their mission was over. She dyed her blonde hair chestnut and asked for tattoos to hide her scars. All she had were scars: beating scars, surgery scars, visible and invisible.
It was the first time they’d allowed her to leave the premises, escorted by none other than Professor Trenton Beck. He had always been careful not to hurt her and he was always the one patching her up after a beating. That day, he got her makeup and clothes and promised she would go back to her life soon. The moment she gave into their will was the moment she got everything she wanted—except her freedom. They bought her everything she desired and treated her like she was one of them until nightfall, when they locked her back in her room. The stretcher was soon replaced by a queen-size bed, and colorful curtains completed the princess-locked-away-in-a-tower look.
Days later they’d entered the tattoo parlor together and Beck had asked what she wanted to get, handing her the catalogue. He smiled and asked if she really wanted to go through with it.
“I’m a different person now,” she replied and scanned the pages looking for something to define her.
She’d covered both of her arms in doves, her back with a huge map of Africa, the place she’d always wanted to explore, and her chest and torso with clocks in all shapes and forms. Freedom and time: the concepts she held onto were the ones she wanted to carry with her for what was left, the reminder of having something to live for covering the abundance of thick scars.
And as their protégé, she watched Etienne and Beck bring people in—pregnant mothers, toddlers, teens, and young adults like herself—submerge them in the molecular pool, oodles of wires and receptors attached to their heads and chests desecrating their humanity. She watched them pierce their veins and monitor their progress.
She watched their beaten bodies cease the fight for life and lost a little humanity every time. When one subject survived, hope came along.
He was not conscious, but he had made it. She wished he would open his eyes, but he was in a dormant state all along. Others came along, sometimes even three at a time, on the same operating tables where she used to lay broken from the inside out. Some met their end on those very tables, some in the molecular pool, and some were released and monitored from the lab. Everyone who ever left the lab on their feet had implanted trackers. Soon they handed her that duty, and she was in charge of writing reports on the survivors’ activity logs. The trackers were complex enough to give exact data on location, body heat, heart rate, and other algorithms she did not know how to interpret herself and was never told how to.
Most survivors passed away not long after leaving the lab. All but one.
Her name was Zoey.
Mia secretly hated her for being allowed the freedom she had been denied, for roaming the streets not knowing she had been altered, for being who she really was for as long as she had left.
Back at the lab, she was soon to become Beck’s right hand—sometimes a secretary, sometimes a nurse for the injured, sometimes an IT specialist.
Everything changed the day subject XP-102.31 opened his eyes and spoke. Rufus.
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“Big day tomorrow, everyone!” Lilou announced, taking her earpiece off and stretching her back like a small panther. She loved Emma and her endless curiosity, she loved to study her at work, figuring out her natural talents and how she had no clue she possessed some of them.
The counter had been invaded by intersats and countless translucent glass gadgets projecting different ch
arts and algorithms into thin air. They never seemed to turn off their stations, the optans, but they did manage to move everything to the coffee table. They were always on call, it seemed.
Jasper spent most of the day reporting back to the Alliance and informing them on the progress they had made. He’d given Zoey an intersat to read as the conversation was being translated concomitantly from whatever language they spoke to English. Jasper had an unrelenting manner in the assertion of authority; it was a side she hadn’t seen before. He seemed so stern reporting to his superiors details of how they retrieved “the female subject called Zoey and male subject called Rufus.” It made him appear detached from whatever humanity she’d seen in him.
She sighed and gave Emma a hopeful look from the comfort of her couch. Emma responded by pressing her lips together in compliance. They were not alone in saving Sam; they had help and support. It made both of them hold on to some sort of hope. It also made them feel small, and both of them wondered if the optans regarded them as…less—since they’d already established that Emma had been, in the best of words, collateral damage.
“Alexandre and Rufus will take the guest bedroom so you ladies can take the bed if that’s okay with you, Zoey?” Jasper gave Zoey a nod and she nodded back. “I’ll be on the couch since I didn’t have the pleasure to enjoy it last night.” He smiled and winked at Emma.
Zoey raised her eyebrows and spun around to prepare a set of pajamas for the girls. She tried to look composed even though thoughts of Sam eclipsed everything else. Visualizing the steps she’d have to take tomorrow, she pushed forward and for the first time in what seemed like a long time, not one thought was spared for the absence of James.
“Nice PJs!” Alex acknowledged Emma’s attire as he sank his face into a steaming mug of tea. She’d gone from silk to Minions in just a day’s work and she still looked effortlessly beautiful. She raised her eyebrows in return, not being able to shake the worry off her face. Leaning her tall frame against the bedroom door, she spoke.
Lost in Amber Page 10
