Evolution

by Teri Terry

  “I’m not surprised. What is up with him, anyway?” she says. “All this stuff he’s been going on about today: making the world our own, like we can take over or something.”

  I shake my head. “I know. And there’s more.”

  “Tell me about him. Tell me everything that’s been going on.”

  “Some of this is just guesswork. But you know how he told us at that air hangar before we left that he’d been involved in trying to find a cure for cancer in Shetland? Not so.”

  “Then what was it all about—developing a weapon?”

  “No, at least not from his point of view. He was already a survivor. I think everything he’s done all along has been to try to create more survivors. And that’s not all. He’s been deliberately bringing his own people into an epidemic area so they’d catch it, hoping I could work out how to cure them. Playing with their lives. So many died. And, just recently, I think he murdered someone—Cepta. She was the Speaker of this Community, in charge when Xander wasn’t here. I think he’s been experimenting, trying to work out how to create another contagion—to spread the epidemic farther. To get rid of most people and just cure the ones he wants to live: that’s how he wants to make the world his own.”

  She asks me how I’ve worked all this out, and I tell her everything I can. It’s such a relief, at last, to share my suspicions—to not carry them alone—and the more I say the words out loud, the more I can see the truth within them.

  “That’s all just…wow. Hard to believe.” Freja shakes her head. “What do you think we should do?”

  “We’ve got to get out of here, and tell everybody we can, as soon as possible; we have to find a way to stop Xander from trying again to create another contagion. But there is a problem: my friend Iona.”

  “Is that the girl Xander told me you cured? He showed me how you did it—that somehow channeling the dark waves transferred DNA and saved her. It was awesome.”

  “Well, thanks. Iona doesn’t think so, though; she’s been trying to reject what has happened to her. She’s too weak to travel. But I’m not sure I can risk keeping this to myself much longer, even if we can’t leave yet.”

  “What are you thinking of?”

  “Contacting Beatriz, Elena, and the other survivors. You know some of them, don’t you? JJ and Patrick?”

  “Yes, and Zohra and a few more. Could you hail them long-distance without Xander knowing?”

  “I’m not sure; maybe.”

  “Even if you could, are you sure of them all? Would they be on your side, or Xander’s?”

  My eyes are widening. “Are you serious? Could anybody think what he wants to do is right?” But even as I say it, I’m not so sure. And what if they don’t believe me? Either way, someone might tell Xander. Can we take this risk?

  “Look, it’s late. Get some sleep. We’ll both think and work out what to do. Talk again tomorrow?”

  I go to ease Merlin off my knees, assuming he’s asleep, as he’s been so still, but now I see that his eyes are wide-open. He jumps down, and Freja goes to hug me again, but Merlin gets in the way. I want to ask her everything about Kai: how is he? Where is he? But something holds me back. What if he can’t forgive me for not believing that Xander had been a survivor for a long time—and for not telling him that Xander is my father? What if it is only his sister he wants to find?

  I can’t bring myself to ask her, in case the answer is one I can’t bear.

  CHAPTER 12

  KAI

  ROHAN’S AIDE HANDS ME THE TELEPHONE. “Dr. Tanzer is on the line,” he says, and leaves the office, shuts the door.

  “Hi, Mum.”

  “Kai, thank God. Are you all right?”

  “Yes, I’m fine.”

  “You’re with Rohan?”

  “Yes. You didn’t tell me he’s a major general.”

  “We might have gotten to that if you hadn’t run off so quickly. But I’m sorry about the other soldiers being there that day. I didn’t know about them.”

  I know she didn’t, but trust a major general and what do you expect? But I don’t say it. He seems to be a pretty cool guy, considering it all; anyway, Mum and I need to make peace.

  “Let’s just move beyond all that now. It’s all right. There’s something else I have to tell you. He’s told me you know about this force he’s putting together to go to Scotland to find Alex. I’m going with them.” I’d asked him if I could be the one to tell her.

  “You’re what?”

  “Don’t freak out. Please. I’ve gotten insights into Alex. It makes sense for me to go.”

  There’s a pause, a long one. “Be careful,” she says at last. And I can feel all the things she doesn’t say in those two words—that she hates it, and she’s scared something will happen to me, but she’s accepting that I have to do this. And those two words almost make me come undone in a way that a whole long argument wouldn’t have.

  “I will, I promise.”

  “Ich hab dich lieb.”

  “Love you too.”

  Things move quickly that day. There are arrivals by the hour: army, navy, air force, all from different branches of this and that—all immune.

  Rohan has me address the group of almost a hundred that have arrived by that evening: to explain how survivors can influence your mind, how I’ve learned to block them. Just in case it might help.

  We’re moving north tomorrow.

  CHAPTER 13

  FREJA

  I SLIP BACK INTO MY ROOM.

  “How’d it go?”

  I’m startled, spin around. Xander stands there in the dark.

  And it’s so hard to know what to say, what not to say. What is right and what isn’t right have gotten tangled and lost inside of me.

  He knows. He comes closer, takes my hand, holds it gently in his like it is a precious thing.

  “Doing the right thing is often the most difficult path to take,” he says. “But you do know what is right—for us and everyone like us. Don’t you?”

  And the doubt eases inside. I nod.

  He smiles. “Tell me.”

  And I do tell him, everything Shay said, even though it means that his smile is soon gone. It tears into me to know how much this betrayal is hurting him. How much Shay is hurting him. That’s what she does, isn’t it? She betrays those closest to her. First Kai, now her father. She doesn’t deserve either of them.

  “Shay intends to leave, to tell outsiders our plans?” he says. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. There is no doubt.”

  “Let me see—every word,” he says. He joins with my mind and sees the whole conversation I had with Shay, not just the words but every nuance of feeling in her aura as she said them as well.

  “Ah, Shay,” he says, his voice heavy with sadness. “First your mother, now you. I’d so hoped you’d be different—that being a survivor made you one of us. But I was wrong.”

  “You can’t trust her,” I say. “Not anymore.”

  “No. I can see that now.”

  “You have to stop her.” And the pain of what Shay would do fills both of us. It’s such a waste of what she could have had with him, as his daughter.

  But then his smile returns. “Thank you for doing this for me, Freja. And I’ve just had the most wonderful idea: Shay’s life will have meaning. She’ll be the beacon to lead us out into the world.” He holds me closer. “And you will be by my side.”

  CHAPTER 14

  CALLIE

  THERE ARE TOO MANY THINGS jostling around in my mind, and sleep leaves me early. There’s a barely-there brightness at the window. It’s almost dawn.

  Can what I saw with Jenna actually be true? Was it what happened to her in the fire that made her into a contagion?

  She was burned alive: like Cepta.

  I still can’t understand why someone would want to do thi
s. And who could it be? There’s only one answer, one possibility, isn’t there?

  Xander.

  Jenna’s feelings—approval for me, hate for Xander that is pure and strong—vibrate inside of me.

  I need to talk to Shay, but she’s been so distracted, so worried about Iona…I don’t want to wake her this early. I lie in bed with everything churning through my mind until finally I decide, that’s it. I will talk to her. I can’t leave this.

  I get up, stretch. I’ll make her tea to apologize for the early-morning wake-up call.

  I walk through the front room to the kitchen. Iona is still asleep on the sofa, which she’s claimed as her place. Shay is right to worry. The water and snacks we’d left next to her haven’t been touched. She’s so pale, so still, that I reverse my steps. Go close to her, then closer, until I can see the faint movement: she’s breathing.

  “Iona?” I say her name softly. “Would you like some tea?”

  She stirs but doesn’t answer.

  I make three cups anyway, leave one next to Iona with extra sugar in it, just in case she does drink it—it might help her.

  I knock lightly on Shay’s door and open it.

  Her bed is empty.

  CHAPTER 15

  SHAY

  I’M SHIVERING. There’s heavy dew on the grass. Cold drops flick up on my ankles and bare legs from my sandals as I walk across Community to the research center. I hold my arms closer around myself.

  There are red and pink streaks across the sky from the early sun—dramatic slashes of color that defy rather than blend into black cloud. With the eyes of a survivor, not even a sunrise is a simple thing anymore. And what is that saying? Red sky in morning, shepherds take warning?

  Freja?

  Still she doesn’t answer. She’d hailed me from my sleep earlier, said she’d found something interesting in the research center, to meet her there, and then—nothing.

  What could it mean?

  I reach out around me as I walk, but all I find is a sleeping consciousness here and there, including in Xander’s house. He’s sound asleep. That makes me breathe easier.

  Merlin is in front of the door to the research center. His eyes are wide, his fur ruffled as if he’s had a fright—his aura too. I bend to pet him, and he meows an urgent story. My misgivings multiply. What has him so freaked out?

  I reach again for Freja: there’s nothing. Has something happened to her?

  When I open the door, Merlin gets in my way, almost trips me up, and I have to shoo him away to go through and close it before he can follow.

  I walk down the hall.

  Freja?

  Still she doesn’t answer, and I can’t sense her anywhere either. Unless she is deliberately blocking me—which wouldn’t make sense, since she’s the one who asked me to come. The only place I know that would stop me from sensing her at close range is the quiet room: the room Cepta put Beatriz in a while back to see if she could find a way to reach outside of it. She couldn’t, and if Beatriz couldn’t, then I’m willing to bet no one can. Could Freja be in there?

  Down the hall, down some stairs, around a corner—I remember the way. The lights turn themselves on for me as I go, and switch off behind me again.

  Finally I reach the hall with the quiet room, but have I taken a wrong turn? It looks different. There’s been work done on the walls or something?

  I walk along the hall, and there it is, in the midst of the changes—the door to the quiet room. It’s ajar.

  Freja?

  Still she doesn’t answer.

  I walk up to the door, push it open a bit more to look inside. It’s empty.

  Then something slams into me from behind and pushes me into the room.

  I sprawl on the floor, scramble up, turn, rush to the door—

  It bangs shut.

  CHAPTER 16

  KAI

  A HAND IS PUSHING MY SHOULDER, a voice saying to wake up.

  “What?” I say, still half-asleep.

  “The major general requests your presence at an interrogation. Get up. Hurry.”

  I throw on some clothes, and then, rubbing my eyes as we go, I’m led to a small room with a glass wall on one side.

  “You can sit there and listen. They can’t see you.”

  I sit down. Through the glass is a soldier I haven’t met, with Rohan next to him. And opposite them is…Lieutenant Kirkland-Smith. No way. Somehow they’ve gotten their hands on that nasty piece of work, the one who tried to kill Shay and would have killed Freja given half the chance? The other half of the equation behind what happened at Shetland?

  “…have to know what you’re dealing with,” Kirkland-Smith is saying.

  “We’ve got a pretty good idea,” the other soldier says—he’s doing the talking. Rohan sits and listens.

  “Survivors aren’t human, not like you and me. They’re dangerous. They can’t be allowed to live.”

  “We know now that they aren’t carriers of the epidemic, that that belief was false.”

  “That isn’t what I mean.”

  “So, explain: what do you mean, then?”

  “When we moved in on Alex Cross at his Northumberland house we had a SAR prototype bomber to deal with the survivors. But one of them knocked it out of the sky. It crashed, killing those on board.”

  “And how did they do this?”

  “There was no antiaircraft fire, no weapons of any sort. One of them did something—however they do these things, with their mind—and the pilot and copilot’s hands froze on the controls. They couldn’t move.”

  I’m not sure Rohan believes him, but I was there. I saw it happen. It was that girl, wasn’t it? Beatriz. A child. She just looked at the plane—and it fell out of the sky.

  “At your arrest earlier today, you said you had vital information that you would only give directly to our command. Is that all you have to say?”

  “No. There’s more. I know where Alexander Cross is hiding. We tracked him at last. If you hadn’t interfered—well. Let’s say your problem would have been gone by now.”

  “Where is he, then?”

  “In Scotland.”

  “Be more specific.”

  “I’ll take you.”

  “Tell us.”

  “No.”

  Afterward there’s a tap on the door, and Rohan comes in.

  “Can’t you inject him with something to make him tell you?” I say. “Or twist his fingernails off or something?”

  “Bloodthirsty, you are. No, we’ve decided to play his game, at least for now. He knows Alex; he might be useful.”

  “He wants to find survivors and kill them all.”

  “He seems to have some…issues, for sure.”

  “What did you think about what he said—about the bomber?”

  He shrugs. “Sounds like nonsense?” he says, but he says it like a question. He wants to know what I think.

  “I was there. It crashed. I couldn’t say how it happened for sure, though. But just think about it for a moment. If a survivor could do such a thing, and a bomber was sent there to kill them all—you couldn’t argue much more strongly for self-defense.”

  “True. Yet this is alarming from a military point of view, to think someone could do that. Just one person is all you need—no large guns or other equipment. How do we guard against that?”

  “Easy. Keep them on your side.”

  CHAPTER 17

  FREJA

  I FEEL WEIRDLY ON FIRE MYSELF. Every nerve and fiber of me is tingling. Fear, excitement, dread are all mixed up, churning inside of me.

  Shay will be our beacon to the world, Xander said. I knew what he meant: he explained it all when he confided in me about his plans. We need another contagion, made in fire—to cleanse the planet. To make it ours.

  And I’m part of this?
/>   It’s appalling, cruel…

  Necessary.

  I can’t sit still; I can’t…

  Everything that is happening—that is going to happen—to Shay is her fault. Isn’t it?

  I need something…. I don’t even know what it is.

  Yes, I do. I need to see Xander.

  I’m about to hail him, but someone beats me to it.

  Freja? The split second when I think it might be Xander turns to disappointment: it’s JJ.

  Hi, JJ.

  How’re things? Are you settling in there—or perhaps you’d like to come and visit us? It’d be good to see you.

  No! I mean, I’m happy here.

  How’s Wilf holding up?

  Wilf’s name brings a twinge of guilt. I haven’t seen much of him since we got here. I haven’t tried.

  All right, I think.

  Freja? Is everything okay?

  Yes! Everything is amazing! I love being here—with Xander.

  Ah. I see. Is that how things are?

  Honestly, JJ. Not like that. He’s just so…And words fail me.

  So old? So silver-haired?

  Stop it.

  Sorry. Just want to know that you’re okay. Is anything going on over there?

  No. What do you mean?

  Nothing. Let me know if you need anything.

  Sure. I’ve got to go.

  I push JJ out of my mind.

  That was a weird conversation. Has Xander considered what he will tell the other survivors? Of course—he must have. He’s Xander.

  I try hailing him now, but get the mental equivalent of a busy signal. He can’t talk now; he’s doing something else.

  Too wound up to sit still, I head out the door—to get out of these four walls.

  I have to talk to Shay.