I blinked at Gabriel’s confession. He never admitted to being anything but the best.
“But were we right?” I asked, praying he’d tell me, “No, you’re nothing but a conspiracy theorist,” and we could all go our separate ways and not worry about the end of the world as we knew it.
“Yes, you were. There’s another solar event coming, a Second Surge, one that will be far worse than the first.” He paused his typing long enough to glance my way, but Gabriel’s brutal affirmation sucked the air from my lungs.
“What about the six-month timeline?” I urged. “We have to be wrong about that.”
“It’s a moving timeline, but from my calculations—I hacked into NASA to confirm—it looks like that’s a solid estimate as well.”
“Walk her through the rest of it, while Dawson and I work on alternative scenarios,” Cool-Henry suggested while Dawson manipulated a separate board of hologram documents, sorting through them with an efficiency that would have made Lincoln proud. It brought several questions to mind. Had I accidently hooked up with a group of octogenarian savants? Or did my own technical skills just suck in comparison?
“The first Surge was considered a level twelve mass ejection.” I refrained from giggling as Gabriel regarded me sternly. “Paired with the ionized gas from the collapsing star, the wave of radiation that hit the Earth was infused with a certain amount of dark matter, which is what, theoretically, caused humanity’s mass mutation.”
“I’m with you so far.”
“This new event is projected to be bigger. Remember the news report from a couple years ago about a red star exploding, a story the government promptly denounced, right before closing down the Office of Space Affairs?”
I shook my head. “Sorry, I must have missed that one.”
“When a star dies, it has one of two fates. It either goes supernova and explodes, or it dies and forms a black hole. The bigger the star, the more likely it is to go supernova. A hundred years ago, the black hole collapse, combined with a mass coronal ejection from the sun…” As Gabriel explained the vent, I cracked a smile, mostly because his nerdy explanation was so sincerely delivered. “… managed to accomplish a couple of things. It knocked out all tech on the planet, along with mutating a third of our race.”
From the history books, I knew that initial period resembled the Dark Ages. Humans were so technology reliant, the event had knocked out their ability to communicate—satellites, computers, and the internet—and function, as a fair amount of transportation ran on electric motors. Paired with the insanity of random people shooting fire out of their hands, the entire decade was a shitshow of mass proportions.
In the ensuing chaos, people died. Lots of them.
The worst part was, these days, humanity was ten times as reliant on tech. My unofficial estimate, of course. But another event would wipe us out, especially since it was projected to happen in the middle of winter.
“The red star explosion caused concern in the tech world because we knew a star exploding would create more ionized gas, moving at a faster rate, than the collapsing of a black hole.”
I had a feeling I was about to get a crash course in all things nerdy and space-related, so I scooted my butt onto the nearest table and got comfortable.
“But all reports on the explosion disappeared overnight. No mention of it the next day on social media or any science journal. The National Academy of Sciences did a live interview denouncing the report, and a few days later, the government dissolved the Office of Space Affairs.”
“Meaning what, exactly?” I prodded. “It’s not like you to see nefarious plots everywhere you look. The government is always creating and closing departments as they deem fit. I’ve never paid much attention to it.”
“No one does, which is why it didn’t end up on anyone’s radar.”
Gabriel moved the holograms between us until only one remained. “This data is from an old NASA satellite that isn’t active, but its cameras are still recording. The data confirms the star exploded. It had a higher mass than any star recorded, and it didn’t so much explode as it disappeared. But the wave of ionized gas it released has already encompassed several other solar systems. And Pluto.”
“Which means it’s on its way.”
“The government knew this was coming. They hid the information from the general public…”
“They might not have wanted a mass panic, Gabriel,” I reminded him. “Not after what happened last time. From what I’ve read, it was really bad.”
“They don’t,” he agreed. “But that wasn’t why they hid the report and silenced anyone who must have known about it.” His expression turned calculating as he went on, “The main reason for the secrecy, the only reason that matters, was to make money. The Sheltons were developing a procedure to graft stolen magic to biotech, in the hopes it would withstand this Second Surge.”
“How?” I asked quickly, trying not to envision all of those bloodstained beds, the wires, the deadly looking tools, the fact those people were killed just for their magic.
“Devilton was built not as a prison, but as a lab. The purpose of which is to harvest magic, then bind it to technology, and create a new kind of biotech. The doctor you killed?” Gabriel pulled up another document, this one a profile of Dr. Death, complete with an extensive background report. I leaned in closer.
“Yale, huh? Seems like a waste of a perfectly good education.”
“He is—was—the leading researcher on regenerative biotech in the world.”
“He was a sadistic monster,” I countered pleasantly, searching said monster’s face for any sign of humanity. “I mean, just look at him, he looks like a serial killer.”
“Nevertheless, he was chosen by the Sheltons, and the government, to run the program at Devilton.” Another document flew up between us, and Gabriel pointed to the signature and date at the bottom. “Here’s his employment agreement.” There was no mistaking the signature at the bottom: Andrew Shelton, CEO, Shelton Industries. “That was eight years ago, when the government first discovered the exploding star.”
“My mother…” I course-corrected as soon as the words came out of my mouth. “Sophia Shelton had a major hand in establishing the prison. What was the full extent of her involvement?” Sophia had been my mother the same way a snapping turtle lays eggs and then eats some of them, but I remembered her clearly. Better than I remembered my father, who floated in and out of the house at odd times and pretty much ignored me.
Dad was a non-entity, but yeah, I remembered Sophia just fine.
Gabriel searched my face with his do-you-really-want-to-know look, and I managed a shallow nod in return. “Andy…” He snapped his lips shut as I motioned for him to continue.
However ugly this situation turned out to be, there’s nothing worse than killing your own kid. Or having someone else do the deed.
“Sophia had her hands in this from the beginning,” Gabriel said, pulling up more and more documentation, one item being the hateful video I’d watched a million times as I drove from Seattle to New York. “She laid the groundwork for the design, brokered deals between government officials, and promoted the prison heavily once it was completed.
“She set the foundations for this entire operation.” He looked as disgusted as me when he added, “I’m really sorry.”
“Well, we don’t get to choose who our parents are, do we?”
“No, we do not.” Looking at him through the video of my mother spewing lies, I realized we hadn’t come so far from when we were kids. We still hurt over our parents’ casual negligence, and we still saw the world the same way. As something to be conquered, not something to be feared.
“What a pair, huh?” I murmured, watching his face transform, a tentative smile splitting his face. “I guess it’s a testament to us both that we’re still standing.”
Gabriel had had my back far more times than I’d ever had his; he protected me when I needed him, encouraged me when I doubted myself. The two
of us had spent far too many days sharing our innermost secrets for me to doubt him now. He was watching me intently, focused on me with that unflinching, preternatural intent, the air between us crackling.
This was a new beginning for the both of us, a chance to put our ugly pasts behind us.
And just like that, me and Gabriel were a team again.
In my mind, at least.
28
“I still don’t buy the fact that nobody else knows,” I observed through a mouthful of cold pizza. “It’s a big world, with cell phones and the internet and a million different ways to transmit data. There has to be someone else besides us who’s aware of the situation.”
“The prison is full of people who know,” Henry put in, carefully cutting his pizza with a knife and fork. “How do you think I knew where to start? There were too many Elementals from the scientific community remanded there to be a coincidence. The frustrating part was, I could never corroborate anything concrete, just the same story over and over. The government and the Sheltons, covered their tracks well. Once my questions started drawing attention… people disappeared. Elementals are a skittish bunch to begin with, but once my informants began vanishing, nobody would talk to me.”
“We didn’t hear from you for a whole month,” Dawson interjected, her red lipstick long gone as she mowed through yet another slice. “We thought they’d killed you,” she told Henry matter-of-factly. “Once they knew you were poking around the Sheltons, I was surprised they didn’t.”
Dawson, it seemed, distrusted everyone, even Henry, who carefully put down his utensils to confront her in what I assumed would be a sedate battle of wills.
“I was careful, Daws. You know how careful I am.” His face tightened as he reminded her, “You asked me to go. You’re the one who sent me, remember?”
“I did, but I didn’t know you’d be gone forever, I’m not getting any younger, and it was a year of nothing, I’ll remind you.”
I looked between the two of them, pointing at Henry, then Dawson. “You two…?”
“Yes, us two. Don’t let the gray hairs fool you, missy, I can still enjoy a good roll in the hay.” In my opinion, Dawson was just a bit defensive. Henry blushed a little but didn’t contradict.
“Whoa, cool your jets. I wasn’t suggesting anything. It’s just… surprising.”
“What, that human beings can have sex into their golden years?”
“No, that he can put up with your weird clothing choices.” I looked between them pointedly. “I mean, look at him. He looks cool. You look...” I flapped my hand up and down at her garish outfit, purple today, her matching shoes, and jewelry as Henry cleared his throat loudly. Dawson sat back and glared as I finished lamely, “Like… uh… royalty?”
Henry leaned back and picked up his silverware, a relieved look on his face.
“Back to business,” Gabriel scolded from his workstation, which looked more like a combat center, with all the screens he had up. He hadn’t eaten, so I slid two pieces of pizza on a paper plate and carried them over to him.
“Eat. Now,” I ordered him, and he complied while he talked us through the reports up on the screen.
“I’m about halfway through the initial reports from Office of Space Affairs. A lot of the classified data was redacted, so I have a program working to rebuild the documentation.”
“Why?” I asked curiously. “You know the nuts and bolts of the thing, that’s good enough.”
“I want proof that will hold up in court, hold people accountable, especially the…”
“Sheltons will never serve a day in court, and it doesn’t matter how much proof you have. Once that wave gets here, we go right back to the stone age. Well, most of us. From what I’m hearing, the rich will get richer, just like always.” When Gabriel looked affronted, I laid a hand on his shoulder. It was the first time I’d touched him since I’d arrived, and beneath my hand he tensed, then relaxed.
“This isn’t about proving anything, Gabriel,” I pointed out, noting Henry and Dawson watching us closely. If Dawson pursed her lips any harder, her mouth would disappear. “This isn’t even about right and wrong. Those matters can be sorted out later, depending on survival rates.
“This is about beating the Sheltons at their own game.”
When everyone stared at me blankly, I embellished.
“You’re pretty good at the technology stuff, aren’t you? The Sheltons just want to get richer. What would happen if you developed something similar? A form of biotech that worked the same way, yet… was free? Everyone would have access to it, which means fewer casualties, right?”
His eyes lit up, and he looked at the screen with renewed interest. My hand was still on his shoulder, and I debated taking it off. It had been there too long for the removal to be anything but awkward, but if I left it…
“You have a basis for the science.” I gestured at the screens. “You have a rough understanding of the process, horrendous as it is. Now all you need to know is how to implement it.”
“I’m not harming a single soul,” Gabriel bit off angrily.
“Of course not,” I told him, completely affronted that he thought I’d suggest such a thing, and my hand slid off his shoulder. “But if you can steal magic… couldn’t it be freely given? I mean, what if I gave you some of my magic…” I formed a pencil-sized finger of blue flame that broke through the hologram, light swirling as my magic passed through the image. I nudged a small bit off my finger, where it landed on his desk, burning brightly for a moment before winking out. “I’m willing to try, if you are?”
“It’s been tried before,” he said tightly. “Tried and failed.”
“But not by you,” I pointed out. “By corporations only interested in making money, whose bottom line was more important than people’s lives.”
“Actually…” Gabriel began, “I’ve been working on…” Behind me, Dawson cleared her throat loudly, and then Gabriel shook his head and busied himself by taking down the screens, one by one. “Never mind, we should focus on the problem at hand.”
“I know you, D,” I urged him quietly. “You could do this. It’s better than spending the next six months trying to get someone to take the blame. This would actually save lives.”
“The second Surge is supposed to happen in six months, Andy.”
“I know. But let’s say you succeeded, let’s say you came up with an interface that worked? How would that define the post-Surge landscape this time around?”
“If only parts of the grid went down, we could salvage many of the major cities. This would keep large portions of humanity in a more stable situation, which would lower the death toll.”
“What about food?”
“We have to stabilize food delivery systems that don’t rely as heavily on transport, since last time personal transportation was hard hit.” A report from the department of Agriculture flew up between us. “Relying on local and regional food chains is an option, short-term, but we’d need a new delivery system for urban areas.”
“We’d need food, shelter, and water to stabilize quickly, and this is supposed to take place in January. The Northeast will be buried in snow.”
“One step at a time, Andy,” he murmured. “We can’t solve everything today.” It was silly, but I liked how Gabriel said my name. Like he’d never stopped.
“What’s your timeline on this?” I asked, more willing to rely on his calculation than any government scientist. “I know you’ve calculated it.”
“According to the research documents, they’re estimating this solar event will take place over fourteen hours.” At least he didn’t say mass ejection again. “It’s due to occur roughly the same time as the wave of ionized gas hits the Earth,” Gabriel explained.
“Plain English for us non-science geeks.”
“This will bad. Far worse than before.”
“Why?”
“Uh, because fourteen hours is long time to be bombarded with radiation.”
H
enry and Dawson joined me as Gabriel typed furiously, then pulled up a 3-D sphere of the Earth. “This is where the majority of the radiation hit last time. Western Europe was impacted first, then as the Earth rotated, North America was next. We took a direct hit, lasting about two hours. The wave passed over the planet, sparing parts of eastern Europe, Asia, New Zealand, and Australia.”
I’d always wondered why the US had the largest Elemental population in the world, and I’d always chalked it up to dumb luck. Who knew there was a scientific explanation? Gabriel, that’s who.
“This time it’s not eight hours. It’s almost double—fourteen hours of radiation.” Gabriel looked grim. “This could be a mass extinction event. New technology might not make a difference.”
“But what if it could?” I countered, not willing to admit failure so soon. I refused to believe life would end in six months. Refused, I say.
“Depending on when it hits… if the event happened over fourteen hours, the best time would be at sunrise in California. That way, it would catch the western edge of the US and remain out at sea for the next seven hours before it hit Japan, Russia, and Indonesia.”
He paused. “We’ll be caught in between two separate events, the ionized gas coming from the collapsed star, and the solar flares coming from our own sun. In the end, it’s all just conjecture, as no one can estimate how these two opposing forces will react when they collide. Not even me.”
I’d never heard Gabriel sound so vulnerable, which made me a total sucker for what he had to say next. “Stay in New York, Andy,” he urged softly as I noted how long his eyelashes were. I was a sucker for nice eyes, always had been.
“Stay with me in New York and help me figure this thing out.”
My heart did a weird thing as he added, “Just like old times.”
29
We ended up deciding nothing that first day.
Betrayed by Blood: The Shelton Family Legacy : 1 Page 19
