Silent Siren (Climatic Climacteric Book 1)

by L. B. Carter

  Someone knocked on the wall behind her head. “Coming up to the guards,” said a second, muffled female voice. The engine quieted and their brakes announced a stop.

  “Keep still,” came the light yet sharp threat of Rena’s neighbor.

  Then something settled over her face. Her chains clanked as she lurched. Taking stock, Rena realized it was light—a sheet. She could still breathe. That settled her a bit.

  “Don’t move or speak,” she was reminded. “And don’t breathe. Or else they’ll take you back.”

  They? They as in They? Or did she mean the Stanleys? If that was even their name. Or Stew? Her kidnapper breathed fast making up for Rena’s lack. Rena didn’t do it to obey but because she didn’t know who to trust. If only she could turn into a spectre and sneak out. Where was Nor?

  “What’s this?” came a loud authoritative voice.

  “New model going out,” said a second, male voice from the front of the truck.

  “At this time of night?” the first man sounded suspicious.

  “Check your log.”

  There was a brief pause. “All right. You’re cleared.” Rena’s companion let out a soft and long exhale. “Wait who’s with you?”

  “Engineering,” came the female voice with a slight waver. “I’m needed for the install.”

  “As it says in the log,” the first pointed out slightly exasperatedly. “We need to get going to get this set up at Faneuil before daybreak.” Faneuil. They took her to Boston? Nor said they’d head north.

  “Open the back.” The guard didn’t sound convinced.

  Rena’s company was panting. The door screeched open and a light shot in, sweeping around, taking stock, much like the lighthouse’s light swooping around.

  “Who are you?”

  The legs next to Rena’s head shifted. “Genetic biology department. I work with Katheryn Tate.”

  Rena jerked. Tate. Her kidnapper was Shayna Tate? Was this payback for the clay? Rena longed to cry out, to ask the security guy to help her. She held her tongue. She didn’t want to be stuck in the hospital with Them either.

  “Did that thing just move?”

  “No.”

  Rena held still as footsteps approached on the metal floor. She shut her eyes to try to fade away even further. Just as well because he whipped off the sheet and the backs of her lids turned orange in a sudden glow.

  “Looks human,” he grunted.

  “Then we’ve done our job. Still have to program it to breathe though; it weirds people out with the chest still like that.”

  Rena kept immobile, her lungs perfectly content to wait.

  The man grunted, walked away and leapt to the ground with a loud clap of boots on pavement and shudder of the truck. Rena kept her eyes shut; the cloth remained off. She couldn’t run; she was still tied down. If she called out, there was no telling what would happen—back with Them or somewhere else since the guard thought she wasn’t even human. Was she not?

  The doors swung shut with a shriek of metal on metal. Rena was now prisoner of one of the people she hated most in the world, not knowing what had happened to the most …loved. She didn’t allow herself time to think too long about that word. Nor was family. Was Nor safe?

  “Carry on,” the guard grunted from the other side of the walls caging Rena in.

  They remained silent as they rumbled on and the truck swayed this way and that, the outside noises picking up with honks, other engines. Unless it was a traffic jam, the noise confirmed they weren’t in the hospital she’d been in before; the area around it just wasn’t that populated to have that many cars on the road, especially if this guy said it was night.

  Rena breathed. She had to, to ask her questions. “What—?”

  “I’m sorry,” the voice said again. It didn’t sound like Shayna. She’d never use those words on the Spectre. “We needed to get you out first and foremost. This was the only chance we had; my mom is meeting with her colleague Professor Hutchins,” she put a strange sarcastic emphasis on the title.

  “Mom?”

  “Professor Katheryn Tate,” she mocked with hatred.

  Tate. It had to be Shayna. Rena opened her eyes to look over. It was too dark, almost pitch black.

  “You don’t remember her.”

  Rena shook her head.

  “I figured as much. They’d make you forget your past, for the purpose of their trial. You won’t remember me. I’m the one who named you Sirena—like a Siren instead of XP47. Seems you recalled only that much. Even though we used to hang out.” She sounded rejected.

  Rena frowned. Hang out? With Shayna? Before the accident?

  “When you were allowed to be awake of course and weren’t undergoing tests.”

  “Who—?”

  “I’m Jen.”

  But… “Shayna?”

  “Ugh, my bitchy cousin. Don’t remind me. I’m glad I don’t live near her anymore.”

  Rena agreed with that adjective. “Where?”

  “Oh, we’re leaving BTI. Which is where you used to live. Where you were invented. Where you were brought, unconscious, last night.”

  Rena froze. She tabled the last part to ask, “Invented.”

  “By Professor Hutchins, who then flips around and tries to use you against your purpose.”

  She had a purpose? The girl had called her an invention, as though her existence, her uniqueness was intentional. “Purpose?”

  “You’re the next generation.”

  That was …anticlimactic.

  Jen knew it too because she let out a little huffing laugh. “I guess to get more specific: you’re the first of the newest advancements in synthetic genetic biologic modification. The intention was to make a new and improved human, sustainable in a climate changed environment; adaptation. Sort of an anthropogenic kick start to evolution that would be too slow to keep up with the changing world, if you will. Human adaptation. At least that was the original point. For others, its more about creating an army of superhumans.”

  Neither sounded good, not much better than freak, or spectre. At least she was human—sort of.

  “With your enhancements, like increased lung capacity, which is why you are great at holding your breath, we can deal with lower oxygen levels. Hence the water tanks they used to test you in. Torture I say,” she snapped. “It’s good you don’t remember that.”

  Water tanks. Rena imagined herself underwater with—with whom? Was the lip-sucking part of her design too? Did they know about that? Based on his shock, it didn’t seem likely. Would they keep her if they knew about it? The hospital at home had stuck her in a tank only a few days before. Did They work for these BTI people?

  Wait. BTI…

  “Stew?”

  Jen harrumphed. “Don’t get me started on that kiss-ass. He’s just like them. Academics,” she spat. “I never wanted to be one of them. Even Dad loved his work, his kids more than me.”

  A fellow enemy of Stew? Did that put them on the same side? But Jenny was taking Rena away from Nor. “Dad?”

  “Mr. Tate. You probably heard of him. He taught chem at the school you were at, if not for long. That was where he went wrong. Too obsessed with science. He let Mom back in. Dangerous game. He got out with the divorce, he should have stayed that way. It was heartbreaking cutting him off from her permanently. And because of that, I had no one else to go to but her. Well, I’ve stuck it to her now. Me and Mark.”

  “Mark?”

  “I guess you don’t remember him either. Though he was the last one with you.” Rena’s mind flashed an image of the gaping mouth, dark beard, sightless eyes. “Maybe it’s better that way. So I can’t ask what Mark’s last moments were like. It haunts me. But it’s better if I don’t know, I think.”

  Rena’s eyes shut again. Her vision. Her dad. Did that make this woman—? No, she said Rena was invented. The necklace at her throat tugged and Rena’s eyes snapped open.

  “Sorry. I gave him that. As a good luck charm.” She let it fall bac
k on Rena’s chest. “He was a better dad than my real one. He was my mom’s boyfriend. Her student, disgustingly enough. I think he really realized how bad a person she was when she started talking to Dad again. Broken hearts do great damage. That’s why Andrew wouldn’t help me save you.” She sighed.

  Save her? From what? She had no idea who to trust anymore. Where was Nor? “Nor?” Rena whispered, fear clutching her lungs as tight as they’d been in that tank.

  “Nor?” Jen sounded unsure of the name. Definitely not Shay.

  “Norton Stanley?” Rena prodded, heart in her throat.

  “Who?”

  “Protect me.”

  “Oh, from the organization I hired?” She shook her head. “I had to get you away from them, too. Stew figured out who they were. They can’t protect you anymore.” Jen tossed them aside like garbage, tossed aside Rena’s family.

  Maybe it was fair; she’d killed Mark. Did Jen know that? Rena couldn’t even grip the locket in comfort; it felt vile like a noose now.

  “Where to?” Rena inquired wearily.

  “We’re taking you somewhere capable of keeping you safe. I thought about terminating you, but then that’d make me no better than the dickwads at this prison.”

  “Prison?” She had been taken to prison?

  “Not a real prison. Well, depends on who you ask. Some say it’s ‘an institution of higher learning.’ I’d say welcome back to BTI, but goodbye is more appropriate here. Here’s to getting you away.”

  Rena didn’t want to say goodbye. She wanted Nor’s arms wrapped around her, for the first time in her life. In fact, she refused to let him go, opening her mental box wide, fists curling. They’d made her a killer, even if they didn’t realize it. She’d gotten free once—at the car crash, before Stew took most of her memories.

  And Nor wouldn’t let her go either. He and Reed would hunt her down, even if it wasn’t Nor’s job. She believed that. She trusted him.

  Probably Stew and these Professors would be on their tails too. Maybe somewhere safe couldn’t hurt. Could she trust Jen, her so-called old friend, who’d helped her escape supposed torture?

  “Where are you taking me?” she repeated, with force.

  “To Valerie.”

  For more in the Climatic Climacteric series, look for book two, Faded Flare.

  Read the first chapter for free by signing up for my newsletter at www.LBCarter.com.

  Fire is spreading.

  Who will bask?

  Who will burn?

  A handicap is only one if you let it. In the case of Henley Brinkley, it was a tool to improve upon herself. Until recently, she was a hard-working scholarship student at a Boston university—a prestigious position—generating technology to handle the changing climate. That is, until she learned the clause in her contract meant literal termination upon completion...

  Now, Henley’s on the run to warn her sister before she follows in her footsteps.

  When you knowingly step into the enemy’s clutches to learn at their very hands, having an escape plan is essential. But when nerdy Buster Acton finally looks up from his research to dart out the door, his conscience recognizes a girl he can't leave behind—she could be an asset...

  With the girl, and the two he intended to break out, Buster—whose real name is Ace—has to modify his mission to protect the nation from travelling solo to being part of a team.

  Outrunning the brightest minds in the country isn’t easy. The only way to reach their families across the country with their respective warnings in tow is to expose their secrets and learn to hold hands, intertwining android and flesh fingers...

  Before the their own tech designs catch them.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  First and foremost, thank YOU, reader, for picking up my book! It was a huge leap for me to put my story out there and I appreciate you ingesting it. For indie authors like myself, it’s a massive delight, let alone incredibly important for spreading word (my words), if you could leave a review—even just a single word.

  My debut novel wouldn’t have come to fruition—especially while simultaneously completing a PhD degree in Earth Science—without the encouragement and support from my friends, family and role models—my Green Team. The authors and exemplary humans: Ednah Walters, a fellow doctor in chemistry (may she rest in peacefully in Valhalla); S.T. Bende, a fellow #gluttonforgrowth who deserves the biggest #nerdfistbump; and C.L. Monaghan, a fellow #EdnahsPinkLadies, who deserves an extra special toast—more appropriate would be an entire-bottle cheers—for sparing time to give much-needed kicks in the bum, advice, hands-on help, and inspiration. Through them, I’ve found great friends and cheerleaders—Lorna Richmond (beta-reader extraordinaire), Kallie Kannon, Jeannie Wilhelm, Jaime Lingerfelt Rodriguez, Hollian Rickman, Chanell Renea, Stephanie Hassenplug, and Lauren Long.

  Massive thanks to my rose with the Ocean Eyes—my apple—for his eternal patience with endless writing hours on top of full-time work and extracurricular busy-ness, and to my cat for teaching me how to write on a laptop… without a lap.

  I also want to give a shout out to Logomakr, and credit to the wonderful photographers whose generously shared art is featured on my cover (via Unsplash): Tim Huyghe, Martin Sattler and Fernando.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  L.B. Carter is a bookworm, grammar fiend, doctor of geology, and native New Englander who refuses to own a purse that can’t fit her kindle. As such, her novels are a myriad of fantasy, science, mystery nature, humor and romance. Like her favorite book, Le Petit Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, L.B. believes what’s important to the heart is not seen with the eyes… but sometimes visible with imagination.

  Curled up in front of a fire with a book, with fairy lights, a cup of spiced hot chocolate, and something she baked, is her happy place. When not writing, editing (notice all the Oxford commas), designing, working her day job in science communication, or reading, L.B. enjoys baking, hiking and travelling, though not leaving behind her snuggly, orange lap-cat, Ty.

  Follow L.B. Carter on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, and sign up to receive her newsletter on her website—www.lbcarter.com—to learn more about her and get the latest news on her books.