Willoughby’s voice softens with sympathy. “And that was your experience?”
She hesitates. “Yes, for the most part.”
“You have been gone a full year. Did you, in fact, produce a Bruel child?”
Her face remains impassive, but I can see the shadow deep in her eyes. “Yes, I did.”
“And what happened to that child?”
“She was born with a defect that left her unfit for society. The directors placed her in an orphanage where she will be raised to become a slave.”
Young Willoughby pauses to clear his throat. “These children, they are absorbed into Bruel culture?”
“The ones who pass the Bruel standard of perfection become the next generation. Because of the influx of new genetic material, both males and females of this second generation are usually able to produce their own children. But the gene mutation that causes infertility regains significance in the third generation, so approximately every fifty to sixty years, another crop of women must be procured to supplement the few Bruelim able to bear young.”
She looks down at her hands again. “They always take the smartest, the fittest, those most able to benefit their gene—”
Willoughby breaks off the video feed. “I think that has given you enough to chew on for now.”
It is a tremendous amount of information to take in, and I still don’t know if I believe it. I round on Willoughby. “If you knew all of this, why did you send me and Ethan to Epson City? Why not just inform the Military?”
“You forget. Governor Macron has possessed full knowledge of this information for years. She chose to disregard it. To bury the evidence. Informing the Military of my suspicions would only have led to my imprisonment and the closure of Axis. So I sent you and Ethan. I had to be certain this wasn’t simply a trafficking ring. And if it was not, I hoped the two of you might learn the method the Bruelim use to transport their victims and find out exactly where they disappear to.”
I rise and begin pacing again, wearing a track in the carpet. Every fiber in my body wants to blow Willoughby off as a crazy old quack, but too much evidence supports him. The memory video, Markay’s kidnapping, the DNA results of the prisoners. I need time to process it all. I make for the door, but Willoughby stops me.
He lays a slip of paper on his desktop and shoves it toward me. “This will give you access to the rest of Ruby’s memories so you can watch them for yourself. I will ask you to destroy the card when you have memorized the access code.” He hesitates. “But one thing remains that you need to know about her now.”
I stop dead in my tracks and turn to look at him. I have not forgotten our resemblance.
Willoughby sighs sorrowfully and fiddles with his glasses. “Ruby worked for us for a time, but eventually she disappeared again. We can’t be sure if she was found by the Bruelim and taken back, or if she was killed at their hand, or if she finally decided to take my advice and get off the grid completely. I have a hunch, but it’s simply that. A hunch.”
“What do you think happened to her?”
“I’d rather just give you the facts of the case. It is all we can be certain of. You see, Ruby was pregnant again during that interview. She believed the Bruelim also knew it and were hunting her down. She was terrified that she and the baby would be found. We took extreme precautions. I often encouraged her to drop out of sight for safety’s sake, to no avail. She was determined to find a way back and bring help to those she left behind.”
My pulse quickens. “And the child?”
“We hid the child she bore for its own protection, and in that, we succeeded. Evelyn Parnell grew up knowing nothing of her heritage, but as you fully understand, the state system can prove difficult for a child. And Evelyn was never strong. At age twenty-eight, she was admitted to a psychiatric hospital where she lived out the rest of her life. She died fifteen years ago.” His eyes rivet on my face. “But before she was admitted, Evelyn, too, bore a child.”
I wait breathlessly, but in my heart, I already know what he’s going to say.
Willoughby lets the suspense linger between us before finishing. “That child was you.”
Complete stillness drops over the room. Or perhaps my brain has disconnected from my ears, because I have also lost the ability to see, to breathe, to think. Gray twilight envelops me. Slowly, the world fades back in. I am still standing. Still facing Willoughby. His face reflects infinite sadness.
I fill my lungs with oxygen. “Why didn’t you tell me this sooner?”
“Would you have believed me? Even now you are struggling with the truth.”
I gnaw on the inside of my lip. He is right, of course. If Willoughby had showed up on graduation night with this story, I would have told him to take a flying leap off the lighthouse promontory.
“Ever since I heard about your court case and noticed your unmistakable resemblance to Ms. Parnell, I have planned to bring you here,” Willoughby confesses. “The timing is providential. I believe we have entered the beginning stages of a second Provocation. And I believe you, Jaclyn Holloway, could very well hold the key to unraveling the entire mystery.”
***
I return to my apartment, my brain completely numb. This is worse than being locked in Jud Wilfert’s closet. Worse than the bite of the lash. Because it will never go away. My whole outlook has altered; I can never return to the safe sanctuary I knew in Settlement 56. Those days seem so innocent now, my hopes to escape into Military so trite. How could I know that the world was nothing like it seemed? That it was, in fact, far worse.
The full weight of Willoughby’s revelation doesn’t hit me until I sink onto my couch and lay the access code on my coffee table. The blood of the Bruelim flows through my veins. I share the DNA of the two prisoners locked up somewhere within Axis. Whatever it is they are…I am.
That is the real reason Willoughby took an interest in me as a child. That is why he scanned my brain. That is why he wanted me so badly for Axis. I am one-quarter Bruel.
I key the access code into the holoframe on the wall and pull up the rest of Ruby’s files. The archive contains at least fifty memories. I spend the rest of the afternoon binge watching them in order. I am fascinated by the world I enter and horrified by the part my grandmother is forced to play in it. Ruby shares a housing complex with scores of other pregnant young women. She may leave it only for an hour’s worth of fresh air in the evenings. When she does, I am treated to a spectacular view of snowcapped peaks and a lush green valley—on the other side of a barbed wire fence.
The dinner hour comes and goes without my ever being aware of it. As I begin my thirteenth video, Willoughby delivers an apple and a wedge of chicken pot pie. I’m amazed to find that night has fallen outside my window.
“I thought perhaps you got caught up in your viewing,” he says. “I just wanted to come check on you and make sure you’re handling it all right.”
“I’m fine, thank you.”
“I also wanted to tell you that Caedmon has requested a meeting with me in the morning. She has asked that you be in attendance.”
I nod my head in agreement.
“Very good. I’ve already taken the liberty of bumping back your session with Captain Chase. I’ll see you in the conference room nearest the brig at eight hundred hours.”
I finish my supper and watch three more videos before I force myself to turn off the holoframe and go to bed, but my brain refuses to shut down. My emotions run a huge gamut, from shock to horror, from curiosity to disgust. When I finally drop off, huge bearded men, medical tests, fertility treatments, prison wardens, and barbed wire haunt my dreams.
The next morning, my feelings have solidified into outrage. Toward Governor Macron for covering this up. Toward Willoughby for keeping her secret. Even toward my grandmother, who unwittingly caught me up in this drama. But especially toward the Bruelim. I wad up all that anger and use it to fuel the one thing I am good at.
I go running.
I run five,
as hard and as fast as I possibly can. I don’t appreciate the freshness of the morning or notice the leaves turning to yellow and orange. I see only Ruby. When my muscles scream in protest, I feed them fury. When my lungs cry for oxygen, I pour in rage. I push myself until my wrath burns clean away and there is nothing left inside me but exhaustion.
NINETEEN
I enter the conference room at exactly eight o’clock, after the others have already arrived. Ethan slouches beside Willoughby on one side of the table. Caedmon sits on the other with Colonel Padrillo and Captain Chase. I toss my holoband on Ethan’s lap as I drop into the chair beside him. It reads 29:56.
“What’s this?” he asks blankly.
“I went running this morning.”
He looks down at my time again, and I watch understanding creep over his face. His grin spreads from ear to ear. Then he hooks an elbow around my neck and yanks me against his side, waggling me back and forth. “Woo-hoo!”
I am protesting and giggling and trying to cushion the spot where my head keeps knocking against his collarbone. Finally he releases me. I straighten and brush my hair back in place.
Caedmon is laughing at our antics, Captain Chase and Colonel Padrillo look mildly amused, and Willoughby regards us calmly over the top of his glasses. “Would you care to enlighten the rest of us?” he asks.
Ethan tosses him the holoband. “Jackrabbit here ran four seconds under. She did it, Willoughby! She passed every Military test.”
Caedmon squeals, shoots out of her chair, and grabs my hands across the table. “I’m so proud of you!”
Captain Chase also rises and reaches for my hand. “Nice job, Miss Holloway,” she says in that sultry voice.
“Way to go, kid,” Colonel Padrillo says, throwing me a grin and winking with his non-blackened eye.
“Well, well,” Willoughby says, looking pleased. “Congratulations, Jack.”
“Thank you.” The moment of merriment has improved my state of mind as much as the run. I’m ready to face whatever this meeting might bring to light.
Willoughby clears his throat. “Well, Caedmon, you pulled this meeting together. I assume you have something of importance you’d like to discuss with the rest of us, so why don’t you start us off.”
“All right.” She meets Ethan’s eyes. “As you know, Ethan and I have been working on the forensics behind the kidnapping case. Lately, we’ve focused on the two suspects in our custody.”
“They’re not suspects,” Ethan objects. “We picked them up at the scene of the crime. The victims identified them.”
“Until they stand trial, legally they are still considered suspects,” Willoughby puts in.
I can tell Ethan isn’t too concerned with legalities.
“One of the tests we conducted was subjecting them to different frequencies and amounts of radiation. We’d like to demonstrate that experiment for you shortly so you can see the different behaviors these produced. First, however, I’d like to show you the results of the genome tests I ran on both of the young men.” Caedmon clicks on her holoscreen, and the image duplicates on a large holoframe on the conference room wall. “I’d like to draw your attention to this number right here.” It glows brighter.
“Holy crap,” Ethan mumbles, catching on right away.
“This is the percentage of variance in their genome. As you can see, it falls a full point above the expected range.”
“I’m sorry, Caedmon,” Willoughby says. “I’m afraid the rest of us will need a layman’s explanation.”
“It means they’re not human,” Ethan says.
Willoughby’s eyes flicker to mine and then back to the others. “Then what are they, exactly?”
Ethan shrugs. “There is no taxonomy for this.”
“They are human,” Caedmon refutes, “just as a wolf is canine. But in this case, the drift isn’t natural at all. These DNA sequences have been tampered with.” She clicks the holoscreen to a new image. “I ran their genetic codes through a holoware program that breaks them down into individual components. They both contain similar anomalies. Here you can see the patterns that fall within the normal range.” She indicates long strings of brightly color-coded sequences. Then she points out small glitches of gray. “But here and here and here, the pattern breaks. The chemical composition actually changes. This is not a natural occurrence.”
“You’re saying these have been purposefully altered,” Willoughby states.
“It looks that way to me.”
“How would these changes affect a person physically?” Ethan asks.
“I couldn’t say without a lot more study. They could be undetectable on the surface but profound at a cellular level.”
“And could these cells—brain cells, for instance—react differently to outside stimuli?” Ethan asks shrewdly. “Say, to radiation?”
Caedmon smiles. “That is my belief exactly. If you’ll look through the glass into the interrogation room, we will demonstrate how the behavior of our two suspects changes in the presence of electromagnetic radiation.”
We gather around the observation window overlooking a table where Major Norvis is speaking with the two prisoners in the next room. I tense up immediately.
“It’s two-way glass,” Caedmon reassures me. “They can’t see us.”
Willoughby frowns. “Why is Major Norvis involved?”
Ethan answers. “Major Norvis has involved himself of late, displaying a sudden interest in the two prisoners. We agreed to let him interview them.” The hint of a smile plays at his lips. “Only he doesn’t know we will be increasing the intensity of radio waves passing through the room. These are long wavelengths that have no effect on normal humans, but watch what happens to the prisoners as we slowly increase the frequency.”
Caedmon fiddles with the controls on her holoband. The two young men have been conversing politely with Norvis. Suddenly, their heads come up. Their eyes fill with intensity, as if they are listening to something only they can hear. As they do, I notice how alike they look—both big, with swarthy skin, dark hair, and light gray eyes.
“A little higher,” Caedmon narrates.
Now the men begin straining at their handcuffs. One of them rises to his feet and rushes the door, slamming himself heavily against it when the knob does not turn. The second picks up his metal folding chair and throws it against the glass of our window. We jump back in alarm, but the pane is shatterproof.
Major Norvis has leaped into a corner, his eyes bulging, his comb-over awry, and his own chair raised in front of him like a shield. When their efforts to batter their way out of the room prove unsuccessful, the prisoners suddenly turn their eyes on him.
“Shut it down,” Ethan commands.
Caedmon’s holoband goes dark. The men instantly revert to a state of calm. They retrieve their chairs and sit down as if nothing out of the ordinary has occurred. Major Norvis backs toward the door, watching the prisoners warily and holding his chair at the ready. He raps loudly to be let out.
I see Ethan’s lip twitch as he speaks into his holoband. “Lawson, Thomas, get the prisoners back in their cells.” I also notice Willoughby’s heavy frown as Major Norvis leaves the interrogation room.
Caedmon directs us back to the table. “That, I believe, is the explanation behind the recent kidnappings,” she says when we are seated.
“It does seem too coincidental that not one new disappearance has been reported in Epson City since the radiation levels dropped,” Colonel Padrillo notes.
“That’s good news, at least,” I say.
“It may not be for the girls who weren’t recovered,” Ethan puts in.
“Why wouldn’t it be, if the drop makes their captors less aggressive?” Caedmon asks.
“Because to me it reads like some kind of signal. Like whatever mission they were tasked with is over.”
“They have to be somewhere,” she counters. “Unless they’re dead.”
“They’re not dead,” I put in. I’m the only one w
ho has seen Ruby’s memories.
“Beyond reach, then.” Ethan shrugs. “Just my gut feeling. And the fact that Emerson is moving away from the city seems to confirm it.”
“Excellent work, both of you,” Willoughby says. Then he turns to me. “I think it’s time for Jack to share the angle she’s been working on.”
I take a deep breath and look at the faces around the table. “I think it’s a safe bet that the women from Epson City have been taken…somewhere. In the Axis video archive, we have memory scans from the one woman who escaped the Provocation.” I fill them in on everything I know about the Bruelim and Ruby’s experience with them, holding back only my own connection to Ruby Parnell. Captain Chase and Colonel Padrillo wear expressions of skepticism, but to my surprise, neither Ethan nor Caedmon seem shocked. I think they’ve already seen enough in their own research to prepare them for anything. “Willoughby and I both believe we’re experiencing a second Provocation,” I finish.
Ethan almost looks relieved that he’s not the only crazy one. “Ruby’s story fits with the reports I’ve been reviewing in the evidence files. It’s obvious the Provocation was some type of invasion. But I think we’re dealing with something far beyond our understanding. I’ve got multiple sworn testimonies that claim people vanished into thin air. Photos of dead bodies that mysteriously came back to life weeks later. How do we explain this stuff?”
I can’t believe I’m asking this, but the unexplainable is growing increasingly normal. “Any spaceships?”
“No. Nothing extraterrestrial.”
“Unexplainable phenomena aside, two things don’t make sense to me,” Captain Chase says. “First, where do they go? How can a civilization of potentially millions hide in the western mountains?”
Recompense (Recompense, book 1) Page 23