Nick is quiet for a long moment.
“Ashe,” he says softly, “do you like me?”
It's unfair of me to ask him to be upfront about his feelings, and not explain my own. But mine are a little more complicated.
“Yes,” I say, almost inaudibly. “But I'm not completely sure why yet, or even if I'm OK with feeling anything for anyone, and I need to figure that all out before... before this goes anywhere.”
“That's OK,” Nick leans across and gently tugs one of my hands from my side. He kisses the inside of my wrist, and a rough sparkle of fire ripples through me. “I'll wait.”
Chapter 22
We spend the next few hours going over the plans, double-checking every final detail. Now that we're in the building, Nick shows me every exit and entrance in person. He points out the control room where the videos will be broadcast from. It's heavily guarded, and the guards look at us at we creep about, so Nick shoves me up against the wall and covers my body with his. The guards look down awkwardly.
“Sorry to be so rough,” he whispers.
My mouth twists into a smile. “This isn't rough.”
Nick bites his lip, a spot of colour rising in his cheeks. He raises an eyebrow quizzically, no doubt wondering how rough he'd have to be for me to feel it. He leans down until his lips are almost against my neck. He's quite tall, I realise. I'm hardly short myself. I'm not used to men being much taller than me.
“All part of the act," he assures me, “just trying to keep them off our tail.”
“It's very convincing.”
Then I feel awkward, because I know I could be more convincing, but I don't want to do that with him now, like this. If I do decide I want to move things forward, I want to do that as myself.
I shove Nick off me –attempting to look playful– and then grab his hand and pull him back to our room.
Shortly after, our earpieces activate.
“Well, hi there partners, this is your friendly neighbourhood Scarlet speaking.”
“Roger that,” Nick responds, while I cringe at the feeling of somebody else's voice inside my ear. “Everything OK your end?”
“All fine here. We're en route. How was the food?”
“Do you really want to know?”
“Talk dirty to me, Lilywhite.”
“It was divine.”
“I hate you.”
Nick grins, and I slide myself into a seat by the window. The sun is setting over the nearby park, and the sleek city is finally awash with colour. Scarlet goes quiet for a moment.
“It's beautiful, isn't it?” Nick whispers.
“Like something out of a dream,” I respond. “The view from our rooftop is pretty special, but this...”
“Otherworldly, I know.” He sits down opposite me. “There are moments when you get why they're so obsessed with keeping things so... perfect.”
“But then...?”
“The sun sets, and you realise a few moments of prettiness aren't worth the darkness that follows.”
Hardly a statement I can disagree with.
Harris' voice sounds in our ears. He performs a few checks, grills us a little more. He and the others are parked nearby. When the time comes to make an exit, I will be heading out in the van, while Nick remains in the hotel to preserve his alibi. The rest of us will hunker down at the garage until morning, when Nick will join us. I don't like the idea of leaving him behind, but he's clearly way more at ease here than I am, and I'm anxious not to stay any longer in this place than I have to. It's comfortable, but I'm still in a nest of vipers.
We gear up and head for the reception, Nick flashing his fancy invitation. We're checked for weapons upon arrival, and my tiny clutch is searched. The pen drive gets through, as Harris assured us it would. They don't know yet how dangerous our information will be, or how my entire body was built to be a weapon in itself.
We're right on time, but already the room is awash with people. They are all ridiculously, unbelievably beautiful... but in a bizarre, crystallised, pristine way. They are all so polished and perfected that they barely seem human at all. Their blood must look more like oil, cogs and gears replacing the muscle underneath their skin.
We are shown to a table –thankfully one made up just for the two of us– and given glasses of bubbling gold liquid. It's as heavenly as everything else I've tasted so far. Nick sips carefully at his.
“Have to look the part and keep my wits about me,” he explains.
“I think I'll be fine.”
I want to neck it back and have another, put that doesn't seem to be how most people are drinking theirs, and I know all about blending in. It's difficult once they start coming around with trays of tiny finger foods. I could eat my weight in them. Maybe Selene's a starving escort who hasn't seen a decent meal in days?
The mayor arrives at seven-thirty. I've seen her before on the big screen in the market place, but never really given her much note. She is a tiny, silver-haired woman with flawless skin and eyes of pure crystal blue. She is swamped with people the minute she arrives. The guards by her side go no where.
Security isn't too tight, but I take a moment to count the number of staff, the number of guards, the unconcealed weapons, the exits. I wish our table were closer to one of them. I don't fancy my odds of fighting my way out of here, a feeling I'm not often confronted with.
I have another drink.
Eventually, someone gets up on the stage at the far end of the room, and a hush falls over the crowd. They introduce the mayor and she takes to the podium.
“Citizens of Luca, honourable ambassadors, esteemed guests,” she begins, “Welcome! It is my pleasure to have you all here tonight, on the 47th anniversary of Luca's founding.”
A small cheer goes out, a round of applause.
“We have done so much in that time...”
My eyes trail off to a man seated not far from the stage. He doesn't look as perfect as most of the party-goers. There are some signs of ageing around his eyes, a greyness in his temples. He's nodding up at the mayor in agreement... but there's something in his face that irks me. Have... have I seen him somewhere else?
It doesn't seem likely. The logical, rational part of my brain tells me I cannot have seen this person before. He is too well-dressed to be from the slums, and if by whatever chance he ever frequented the market, it was unlikely that I would forget him so easily. I am usually uncommonly good with faces.
So why do I have this terrible feeling?
You forget faces you don't see often. Your brain changes them in your memory, fades the impression like ink in the sun. Sometimes I think I only remember Gabe's because of Mi.
If I can't place him... and yet I know him... it only stands to reason we did meet, long ago. A scar from my past that never quite healed.
“Ashe?” Nick touches my hand lightly. “Where have you gone?”
“That man...” I point carefully towards him. “Do you know him?”
“I've seen him before, at these events,” Nick replies. “His name escapes me.”
“Who is he?”
“Head of some organisation, I think. A sponsor of the mayor's?”
Head of some organisation. My initial thought –hope, even– was that maybe he was just one of the scientists. There were so many, coming and going all of the time. It stands to reason their faces would slip from me.
Only he wasn't a scientist.
I only saw him a few times, staring at me from the corner of the arena, overseeing my 'progress.' If he ever spoke, it was to someone else. “How is Eve progressing?” over and over again.
Not a scientist. The Director.
My skin freezes. My heart races. I shouldn't be here. What if he recognises me? I have changed a great deal in five years, and my make-up makes me virtually unidentifiable as it is, but that doesn't mean it's impossible. He has stared at my face a great deal more than I have stared at his...
“Ashe?” Nick's voice tightens. “You know him?”
My maker. My captor. My torturer. He is the one who pulled every string, the one who ordered me to kill those I'd beaten... the one who wanted to scrap Mi.
I need to get out of here.
Nick's fingers slip into mine and pull me back into the room. His eyes pour into me, and somehow I am anchored. He mouths, "breathe," and I do. I concentrate on that, and pray the Director doesn't turn around.
I have completely stopped listening to the mayor's speech, but suddenly there is a round of applause, and my old tormentor is taking to the stage.
If there was any part of me hoping I was somehow mistaken, that hope is quashed as soon as he takes to the podium. A shiver spikes through me and I remember, with perfect clarity, watching him watch me. He would stand up on the walkway and observe us, like a king might his peasants in the field.
Don't look at me, don't look at me...
“Dear citizens, it is a great honour to be invited here to speak to you today. I am the director of the Chimera Institute, an organisation that seeks to build a better tomorrow, by researching into genetic disorders that disrupt our ease of life.”
Nick swallows, his grip on my hand tightening. Now he knows who the man is too.
“The Institute has been running for over twenty years now, and we have made fantastic progress towards eradicating...”
How can he stand up there so calmly, smiling about his research, as if unaware that it sanctifies the killing of children? And for what... their 'ease of life'? I no longer want to flee. I want to bolt up there and choke the life out of him. It's tempting; I could certainly reach him before any one could stop me, and once I had him in a hold I could probably break his neck before anyone shot me. I wouldn't be getting out of this room alive though. A part of me thinks it would be worth it, if I saved any future children from his clutches, but I imagine someone else would rise up to head the Institute in no time. I would be saving no one. A pointless sacrifice.
He witters on for some time, talking about all the advances they've created, their progress towards creating a vaccine for the pax. They ought to have done that by now, given how many of us they must have bred. Or maybe they should just genetically engineer all new children, and forget about natural conception entirely. Clearly no one in this room has a problem with a few modifications... so long as they're pretty ones.
There's a voice in my ear.
“It's time,” says Harris.
I nod across at Nick and grab my clutch. A woman leaving in the middle of a speech to go the bathroom is, I'm told, no cause for alarm. The guards let me out with barely a second glance and I head to the first floor bathroom, as instructed. Harris is going to loop the feed between there and the control room. I have five minutes to get up, take out the guards, load the video, and get back down again, at which point the cameras will resume their usual feed and show nothing but a woman leaving the bathroom. If I manage to do it in that time, I'm to slip out into the street and head straight to the van. Even though the cameras should offer me an alibi, Harris doesn't want to risk the guards coming to and identifying me. It's safer to get clear out of the place.
If I don't make it back in five minutes... well, that doesn't bear thinking about.
I follow my first instruction, and check that the room is clear. “I'm in position,” I tell Harris, readying the small timer on my watch.
“Roger. Standby.”
I stand poised by the door, hand on the timer, desperately praying no one else comes in in the meantime.
“Go!”
I slip silently outside. There are still too many people about for me to risk running, but I walk briskly towards the stairs and bolt up them, straight to the third floor.
Thirty seconds.
There's no one in the corridor, so I race down it, slowing just before I reach the bend. There are two guards stationed outside the control room door. I smile at them. “Excuse me, gentlemen, I seem to have completely lost my way! Could you please tell me where–”
“Ma'am, we're afraid we can't help you,” one replies. “We've got strict instructions to–”
I snatch the gun from his belt and smash it into the other one's face. His nose breaks loudly, and blood splatters the carpet. The first one tries to grab me, but I duck out of his way and he hits the wall instead. Grabbing the fire extinguisher from the nearby wall, I crash it against the back of his skull. He goes down, and while the other chap tries to stem his bleeding nose, I do the same to him.
One-and-a-half minutes.
I take the gun and step into the control room. Two horrified technicians look up at me. I point the muzzle at one of them and hand her the pen drive. She trembles. Pity surges inside; she's just doing her job, after all. Is she even employed by the corrupt mayor? She could be just hotel staff...
Toughen up, Ashe, no time to be timid.
“Broadcast this,” I instruct.
I was trained to load it myself, in case they refused, but this way is quicker and less bloody. It takes perhaps thirty seconds to download. The entire thing is only a minute long, and I have to stay to watch all of it, to ensure they won't stop it the second I leave. I am forced to re-watch the entire bloody incident, with Rudy's voiceover booming in my ear.
“This is your doorstop, Luca... this is your doing.”
The image focuses on the body of a small child. A slightly older one is wailing beside him. One of the technicians gasps. She looks at me, the guilt on her face palpable.
“I... we didn't know...” Her voice sounds like she's swallowed glass.
My throat tightens. “Because you didn't want to,” I say shortly.
The timer on my wrist buzzes. I have ninety seconds left.
“You've seen it now,” I tell them. “Do something about it.”
I turn to leave the room, but someone is blocking my path. A young man, the same age as me, with dark hair and eyes of azure. Handsome, clean-shaven, and unlike the Director, instantly recognisable. It may have been five years since I last saw him, but I never quite forgot his face. Neither, apparently, did he forget mine.
“Eve,” he smiles.
I swallow. “Adam.”
Chapter 23
“You know, I always hoped I'd run into you again,” Adam continues, as if utterly oblivious to the horror pulsing through me. “I thought maybe I'd be sent to track you down one day. But meeting like this? How... fortuitous.”
“Ashe?” says the voice in my ear. “Did you load the video?”
“Yes,” I say stonily, ignoring Adam's confusion. “But I've run into a snag. I'm not going to make it back on time. You need to get out. Get everyone out.”
Even if by some miracle I manage to evade Adam, I now have five witnesses about to identify me from previous footage. They'll see me coming in with Nick. They'll interrogate him in my stead. His alias may be blown for good, but he'll be safer out. He'll be alive out. Who knows what the Institute will do to him if they suspect he knows me?
Harris goes very quiet. “Roger that,” he says. “Try to get out when you can. We'll... we'll be in touch.”
“Thank you.”
Adam's smile widens. “Not acting alone, I see. Has Eve fallen from paradise? Found a devil to take you in?”
“I escaped a devil,” I hiss at him.
He scoffs. “And found paradise?” He gestures to the frozen image of the wrecked marketplace.
“Everywhere is paradise compared to the Institute.”
Adam looks very amused by this. “If you say so.”
“I take it you're here on business?”
“Accompanying our dear Director, yes. He thinks it's time we stepped out of the shadows a bit.”
“He'll find that harder when I set his precious Institute on fire.”
Adam's smile wavers, just a little. His face becomes crueller. “That's what you tried to do last time, isn't it?” he sneers. “How'd it work out for you?”
Gabe. He knows about Gabe. They must have brought his body back. Oh God, what did they do to it
, to him? What did they do to the shell that held one half of my soul?
My fist rises up to punch him, but he is too quick for me and before I know it I am pressed against the back of the door. A chair goes flying. The two technicians shriek and scuttle to the corner.
It has been a long time since anyone has fought me like this, with strength that matches mine, with nothing held back. Mi and Abi have never been a true match for me. Adam is. He always was.
“You're out of practise, Eve,” he hisses in my ear.
I drive my free elbow into his stomach and spring to the other side of the room. “Not quite.”
I gesture for him to advance. His foot swings round and collides with my outstretched arm. Pain slides out along the bone. It is not broken, not fractured, but it came close. I had forgotten what this could feel like.
While I reel from the move, his fist comes crashing down. I roll out of the way. I'm closer to the door now, but I don't think I could outrun him. The alarm has gone off; back-up will be here at any minute. Soon it won't just be him I'm facing, and I can barely beat him alone. I am not prepared for this fight.
Adam comes crashing into my middle, trying to drive me towards the floor. I hit him squarely in the back of the neck and tumble over him, but he grabs my leg before I can right myself and yanks me to the ground. He goes for my face and narrowly misses. I catch his arm before it makes contact, but his weight crushes down on me. I press against him with all the force I can muster. Concrete would yield more easily.
“You should come back with me,” he says, grinning. “I could do with the challenge.”
I want to yell, never or I'd sooner die, but all I can manage is a feeble, “I can't.”
But then I remember why I can't. I can't because Gabe died to get us out. I can't because Mi, Abi and Ben are here, my family is here, my home is here. I can't lose to him. I won't.
Something inside of me shifts, like a fire fuelled. My muscles pulse and tighten. I push back against him, until he is the one struggling against me. I rise over him, and my gaze glides to the gun lying nearby.
The Phoenix Project: Book I: Flight Page 11