Ryan glanced at the computer.
“Eh, we’ll destroy that before we leave,” Jason told him.
“No! It’s got all my research on it, and—”
“Do we look like we care?” Olivia cocked her chin at him.
Jason prodded Ryan again. “You said all space travel is at a standstill. How do you know? How do you communicate with your brother?”
“Email. That’s whenever I can get a connection. I’ve installed a satellite on top of the mountain, but the signal is very sporadic down here.” He let out a deep breath. “As far as I know, a group of terrorists has taken the refueling station on Zahiria. John also told me there’s a viral epidemic on Earth. No space travel is allowed or even possible at this time.”
An epidemic... on Earth? Were her parents, her brother, and sister even still alive? And how would she get back to Earth to find them if space travel had been halted? The portal was a one-way ticket. Was she truly stuck on Brevona? She sure as hell hoped not. Somehow, she had to find out about her family.
She quelled her racing thoughts and focused on Ryan. “You’re hiding from the Brevonian authorities, too. Why?”
He sneered at her. “We’d have to share our wealth with them, and there’s one ingredient they wouldn’t approve of.”
Olivia wondered what kind of ingredient Brevona’s authorities would not authorize. A rare plant? She knew better than to even ask him. “How long has this been going on? How long have you lived in this cave?”
“Over thirty years.”
“And no one knows of its existence?” Olivia was shocked. How had this Ryan guy hidden from the Brevonian authorities for so long, and what kind of secret ingredients was he protecting?
“Nobody knows except for John, and he doesn’t even know where I obtain the ingredients.”
“Not even Schmidt?”
Ryan gave her a sidelong glance. “Why would John possibly share that information with Schmidt? The ingredients are priceless. He would never allow his partner to have that kind of stake in this game.”
The emphasis on partner didn’t escape Olivia. The relationship between Schultz and Schmidt was on rocky grounds, as she had already suspected.
Jason still had the phaser against the man’s chest. “I find it unbelievable how you managed to get all that equipment here without anyone knowing. Do you even realize what your brother and his partner are up to on Earth? That is, besides creating and selling the forever young serum.”
“I don’t give a damn what they do in that facility they run. I’m far too busy with my own research.”
Jason poked him. “You don’t care that they experiment on babies? Children?”
“No, I don’t. He can use the little brats as lab rats for all I care. Using animals in experiments skews the results.”
Twisted bastard. Olivia felt her skin heat, rage building inside her. The man was a monster, just like his brother. She had no doubt if he were on Earth, he’d be right beside his brother at the Institute.
“Where are the ingredients Schultz is waiting for?” Jason demanded.
“What are you going to do with it?”
“It’s a good bargaining tool. Get them,” Jason ordered.
Ryan stood and walked to a shiny metal table with a ton of instruments on it. On a shelf below stood several flasks containing liquids of various colors. He picked one up that had red liquid in it. “This is one of them.”
“Bring it here.”
Ryan came back to the table, then threw the liquid at Jason, but Jason looked like he’d been expecting such a move. He was too fast. He jumped aside, then fired his phaser. Whatever the liquid was, it sizzled where it had landed on the ground, right next to where Ryan had been reduced to a small pile of ashes.
Olivia looked at the fine white dust on the stone floor. “Goodbye, Ryan,” she murmured. “It was nice talking to you. Our conversation was more than enlightening.”
“That’s cold,” Jason said but smiled. “Well, at least we have a place to camp for the night. Let’s go and check if he has anything to eat.”
“Good thing you reacted fast. Whatever that stuff was, maybe some kind of acid, could have hurt you badly.”
Jason shrugged his shoulders. “I anticipated what he was planning.”
“Schultz is going to know something went wrong here if he doesn’t hear from his brother.”
“The man said his connection was sporadic and they only communicated by email. If it is true that terrorists have taken over the refueling station on Zahiria and all space travel is at a standstill, then Schultz knows there’s no way for him to get the secret ingredients for the formula.”
Olivia gazed around the laboratory. Ryan had to keep specific notes of his experiments. What did he do here besides obtain the secret ingredients for the forever young serum? They couldn’t let the lab fall into the wrong hands. “Should we destroy this place before we leave tomorrow?”
“No, we’ll let it be for now. If we’re going to escape, it’s a good place for us to hide for a while. Since no one knows about it, no one will find us here. We can always destroy it later.” Jason picked up a small container, examined it, then set it back down on the table.
“We found the cave. So can others.” She ran her fingers through her hair, troubled with the situation. It was only a matter of time until this place was discovered and there was another entrance that wasn’t hidden like the crevice they had used. Schultz obviously knew how to find it. “What if Schultz sends someone through the portal to the lab if he gets desperate for the ingredients he needs?”
Jason stepped beside her, grabbed her hand and gently squeezed. “The portal is top secret, and I doubt he would send an eliminator here to get the stuff. How would they get back? The portal is one-way, and space travel has been stopped. Besides, the old guy lived here secretly for all these years, and no one ever found the cave or him. We just happened to stumble across it.”
She knew he was right. Schultz would never use the portal to send someone to this lab unless they had a way back, but all bets were off once space travel resumed. “I think our implants might have a tracking device.”
“Who would be here to track us? No one from Earth... and the Brevonians have no idea we are here. Come on. I’m hungry.”
Jason let her through the doorway Ryan had entered to fetch the juice. Inside was a small kitchen with a cooking unit, sink, and a double door cooler.
“He must have a generator somewhere,” Jason concluded.
Olivia opened the doors of the cooler and gasped in surprise. The cooler was stocked with luxury food, items that had never been available to the recruits. “Look, meats, fruit, and that looks like cheese. At least from pictures I’ve seen. And bread. We can have a feast before we set out to go after the insurgents.” Olivia grabbed a loaf of bread, some sliced meat, cheese, and a tub of what looked like some kind of berries, then brought her bounty to the table.
Jason stepped up beside her and placed two plates on the table, then refilled their glasses from the pitcher of juice he had retrieved.
She sat down and heaped her plate and dug in, surprised at how hungry she was. She barely had an appetite at the Institute. After her hunger was slaked, she pushed her plate away. “I wonder how he managed to get all of this food. It was fantastic, but I couldn’t eat another bite.”
“Me either.”
He smiled at her, and it almost took her breath away. How could she have ever thought this man was as cold as ice. The hard expression had been erased and in its place was warmth. Her fingers ached to graze the strong lines of his jaw. She almost shivered in anticipation.
“We should try and get a few hours of sleep before we head out in the morning.” Jason pulled her from her musings.
Olivia glanced at the bed, tamping down the crazy feelings he invoked. “Hardly big enough for two.”
“We can share. The floor is just a tad hard, and these chairs are uncomf
ortable.” Jason shifted in his seat.
Yes, the chairs were uncomfortable as hell, and the floor was just as bad, but share a bed with him? She had never slept with anyone before. Sleep made you vulnerable to attack. They were taught that at the Institute. She knew deep down that Jason wouldn’t harm her, but how in the hell was she going to quell her body’s reactions if they were lying so close to each other? Was he fighting the same draw she was? Nothing could happen if they were both fully dressed.
She laid on the bed and shifted closer to the edge to make room for him. “I wish there was a way to turn these bright lights off. Do you see a switch anywhere?”
Jason looked around before he joined her. “I don’t see one. Just close your eyes and get some rest.”
It felt strange to lie so close to someone else. To a man. A damn handsome, sexy man that made her pulse race and her skin prickle with heat. She tried to sleep but couldn’t. At first his nearness unrattled her, her body hyperaware of the man lying next to her, but when his breathing changed, she relaxed. He had fallen asleep quickly, and the soft purr he made was soothing.
Eventually, she dozed off, only to startle and reach for her phaser when an arm flung across her waist, and Jason turned and snuggled close to her. Her heart did a somersault, thumped against her ribs. At least, it felt like it was banging her ribs. She’d never been this close to anyone in her life. Maybe before the Institute, but those were details she couldn’t remember. Except for a man swinging her high and around in a circle, laughing, happiness... her mother’s arms around her. She’d been happy once, so long ago. Would she ever find it again?
Jason’s arm around her tightened, sending a flurry of jitters through her body. Hunger pooled in her belly. An aching need so acute it felt as though her skin had burst into flames. This reaction was so much more than the prickling awareness she had been experiencing. She wanted to turn into his embrace, longed for more of his enticing heat, and the feel of him pressed so firmly against her.
Olivia realized suddenly. These are pheromones at work. I’ve read about them. He’s awakening a response in me, feelings a woman has toward a man she likes. Do I like him? Yes, I’m really starting to.
She imagined him taking her in his arms and wondered what it felt like to be kissed, for a man to hold her and whisper sweet words, like in the books she’d read, like in Gone with the Wind.
Does he feel the same about me? We’ve learned so much about each other in such a short time. Would it matter to him that she was part cyborg? A woman with implanted hair, a fake arm and leg, and cybernetic patches on her face?
Her thoughts racing, she snuggled closer to Jason and tried to relax. For just a few moments, she could forget everything else and dream that they had a future together.
Chapter Six
When Olivia finally woke, Jason’s arm was still around her abdomen. This time she succumbed to her earlier urge and turned to face him. He looked young, almost so boyish in his sleep that she hated to wake him. She slid her hand up his chest and gently shook his shoulder. “Jason, we should get going.”
He opened his eyes, the heat in his gaze making her shiver. He leaned toward her and kissed the tip of her nose, then quickly drew back and removed his arm.
“Sorry,” he mumbled as he stood up. “Did I keep you awake?”
“It’s okay. And no, I slept a little.”
Olivia was gobsmacked. The kiss was nothing like she had ever read about. It was a loving gesture a parent shared with a child. But it made her heart race and her body yearn for more. What would it feel like if those soft lips caressed hers? All she wanted to do was to reach out to him, pull him back on the bed and explore these strange feelings he invoked. Snap out of it.
“I’ve got no idea what time it is.” Olivia changed the subject to relieve the awkwardness. He looked almost as unsettled as she felt. Was it possible that this pheromone thing was affecting him, too?
A relieved expression crossed Jason’s features, but then he pointed at a clock on the far wall. “It’s five o’clock. We need to find the other door Ryan mentioned. We’ll leave that way instead of the crevice.” He gazed around the room. “He must have a bathroom, too. I’ll go and investigate.”
Olivia shifted to the edge of the bed, stood, and stretched. “Let me know if you find it. I’ll go and get us some more food. Maybe we should pack some to take with us.”
“After we do the job, we can come back here. It shouldn’t be hard to find it again.” Jason took off to see what he could discover.
Olivia thought about the insurgents. The idea of killing them did not sit well with her, but according to Schultz, they planned to kill the king and his family to take over the palace. She couldn’t allow that to happen. Especially not to the children. They were innocents.
When Jason had shot Ryan, it had not bothered her one bit. Then again, the man was a cold-hearted, greedy bastard, just like his brother and Schmidt.
She brought food and juice to the table and had just sat down when Jason came back.
“I found another door. It opens into a very large cavern that has several tunnels leading from it. I also found a bathroom of sorts.”
“Of sorts?” She scrunched her nose. The kitchen was very modern with the cooler, sink, and cooking unit. She hoped that whatever bathroom was in the cave would at least have plumbing.
He chuckled. “Yeah. You’ll see. Go to that far corner where that red cupboard is. Close to it is a door. It’s the bathroom.”
Olivia headed toward the red cupboard he’d pointed out, found the door, opened it, and looked in amazement at the interior. There was no real toilet, at least not like one she had ever used, though she didn’t care. As long as she could relieve her bursting bladder. It was small and compact, and it didn’t look as though there was any water source hooked to it. At its base was a large drawer and there were large bags of what looked like shredded bark beside it. Water dripped into a large barrel from a pipe that stuck out of the ceiling.
In the corner of the room, she saw a shower, but it was no ordinary shower. She guessed it to be a sonic shower. She’d learned about them. They were used on spaceships on longer journeys. A sonic shower used pulses of ultrasonic sound to dissolve dirt and grime. She wondered if one felt as clean as using water and soap.
It was nice to know that they could come back here after completion of their mission to get cleaned up. Mission... She sighed. If it weren’t for the fact that the insurgents were planning another assassination on the royal family, she’d scrap the assignment and disappear for good. With Jason...
She splashed her face with water. It was icy, but she felt refreshed afterward and then hurried back to the table. Jason was already busy filling his stomach. “Interesting bathroom.”
He grinned. “Yeah. Nice to know we can clean up later.”
She filled her plate with some of the meat and cheese, then grabbed a chunk of bread. “How do we get back in? That first door had a keypad and needed a code. What about the other door you found?”
Jason held up a set of keys. “They were hanging next to the door. It has an old-fashioned lock.”
“We never asked him what the secret ingredients were.” Olivia munched on the bread and cheese, which she found she really liked.
“He probably wouldn’t have told us. Are you ready to go?” He stood and picked up his plate and glass. “Let’s get our mission over and done with and then we can plan our escape. Maybe we can begin fresh on Brevona, start a new life.”
“That’s if Schultz and Schmidt don’t send eliminators after us like they did for Two and Four. Schultz said they had defected, were traitors. They sent Seventeen to kill them. All three died.” Sadness filled her heart. She hardly knew Two and Seventeen, hell she didn’t really know any of the other girls, but they had been raised together in that shithole. She pushed herself from the table. “I’ll pack us some food. There must be something around here we can use for that.” Still biting
from her sandwich, she began looking around the room while Jason returned their dishes to the kitchen. “Look, a backpack.” She held it up triumphantly as he entered the room.
“It’ll take us a while to get on the rebels’ trail. Tell me about Two, Four, and Seventeen. What happened? I didn’t know Four, we weren’t allowed to communicate, but we were family of sorts.”
She gazed up at his troubled face. She could see in his expression that Jason felt the same about Four as she did about Two and Seventeen. “The doctors didn’t tell you?”
He shook his head. “No. Only that Four had died during his mission.”
She stepped up to him and took his hand in hers. She didn’t know how to comfort herself much less another person, but somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew that when her father or mother took her hand, she always felt better. “Two, from the female division, and Four, from the male division were sent on an assignment to take out the general who had captured the royal family. The pig was going to execute them publicly as entertainment for his guests, then assume the throne. Two and Four eliminated the man, then defected. I think they decided to escape. Maybe they knew about the implant? Although I don’t know how they could have known unless Two was given a note like I was. Schultz and Schmidt sent Seventeen after them. She died in the process of eliminating them.”
He stared at her intently, his hand still holding hers firmly. “I agree with you. I think they tried to escape. I was never going to activate the implant. I refuse to lose my memories. Maybe they felt the same?” He took a deep breath and released her hand. “I wish there was a way to warn the other trainees about the implants.”
“I was warned by Twelve. Maybe she warned the others in the female building, too. For now, we need to complete this mission.” Olivia stuffed as much as she could in the backpack. She even found some bottled water in the back of the cooler.
Jason stuck several flashlights into the pack and zipped it closed. “I don’t know where the tunnels from the cavern will lead us. Maybe to the other side of the mountain. Is that where we want to go?”
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