I had been hoping for the truth, but all I was getting was an ever-climbing pile of unanswered questions.
I looked at the file list.
Emergency order? What on—? I looked at the date of the second video file again, and my heart slammed to a halt. October 19th, 1993. The day of the Avensana Labs Disaster.
No…
I clicked on the video file.
“Accessing Karalia servers file Emergency Order 10191993,” the robotic voice announced before a video started playing on the screens.
The camera was at an odd angle this time, and it bounced around until a face slid into view. It was Nikkollas Varrook again, but a bit younger and unharmed except for a cut on his cheek.
“Josh—Kiskei, I’m sorry. I had to follow through with their plan or they would have known I wasn’t Eskel,” Nikkollas said to the camera. An explosion shook the video, and he looked away. “Look, I made sure no one was in the building,” Nikkollas said as he turned back to the camera. “And that might tip off the Kakodemoss, but I just couldn’t let a single one of our people die by their hands. So yeah…I might need you guys to come break me out before they crack my head open like a safe.”
There was another explosion, and he looked away as his hand went to a pendant hanging from his neck. He turned it counterclockwise, and his image blurred and changed. His blue horns turned to dusky red, his black hair to honey blond. He turned back to the camera, but he was no longer Nikkollas. He was someone else.
He looked up, and let out a heavy breath like he was steeling himself to admit something. “Gods if this damn building wasn’t coming down around me, you two would never get this out of me,” he said, still looking up before his eyes looked back at the camera. “But look, if anything happens to me—if I don’t make it to the rendezvous—you tell Skye Galathea that I love her.”
Nikkollas’ expression slid into a mischievous grin that looked out of place on the face that wasn’t his. “I bet you two are really fucking shocked, and I would have loved to see your faces when you realized my secret girl was none other than the Arius of Karalia.”
Nikkollas let out a giddy laugh. “Ha! Looks like you were full of shit, Josh, when you said she’d never give me the time of da—”
Another explosion went off, but it was much too close this time, and Nikkollas was knocked to the ground. The camera tipped up to the ceiling as he fell, and as the seconds slipped by a few bits of dust settled onto the lens.
I just stared at the screen in horror, unable to look away. Almost a full three minutes later, the camera righted itself and the same person that Nikkollas Varrook had become—the Kakodaemon with honey colored hair—lifted the camera toward his face. There was a calculating cruelty to his eyes that made my blood run cold. The video cut off abruptly, and the screen returned to the same file list as before. The list with only three items, two videos, and a file labeled AVENSANA. I clicked on the last file in the list, and held my breath.
The screen went black again briefly before the same strange triple spiraling symbol appeared on screen. It pulsed a vibrant ice blue a few times like a heartbeat and then drifted to the upper left corner. A menu appeared on the left hand side of the screen, displaying a set of numbers—one through fifteen—above a long link list.
I took a steadying breath, and clicked on the first number. The screen flashed white, and then displayed a set of information.
Designator: Chan
Birth Name: Stephania Petroff
Identity(ies): Natasha Jordash
Program Status: Inactive — Awaiting assignment
Number of procedures: 1,893
Astari Saiku Status: Failure
Last Mission: 6-16-2012
More Missions
Natasha? Natasha was one of the Kakodaemon experiments? Well that explained a whole hell of a lot.
I looked away from Natasha’s info, back to the numbers on the left hand side of the screen. One through fifteen. The numbers must have corresponded to the children the Kakodemoss were experimenting on. Which meant number eight was Patrick’s.
I was about to click on his number when something caught my attention. Practically screaming at me to notice it. There were fifteen numbers. Not fourteen as Chan-rin had told me, but fifteen.
A sick nauseous feeling settled in my stomach as realization set in, and I looked at the screen in horror. “No.”
There were fourteen before. Before the Kakodemoss had taken—
“Oh, gods, no,” I choked out, feeling the bile raise up my throat.
Please, not Nikki. Anyone but her. I pleaded to the gods, but even as I clicked on 15 I knew in the pit of my stomach what I would find.
Designator: Chan-cen
Birth Name: Nikkalla Varrook
Identity(ies): Nikkalla Varris
Program Status: Inactive — Chipped — In testing
Number of procedures: 18
Astari Saiku status: Pending
Last Mission: No completed missions.
I was going to be sick. They had chipped her. She wasn’t even a Marked One, and they had made her part of the program. But even as I thought about what they might have done to her during those eighteen procedures, something worse surged to the front of my mind.
They had Patrick. They had chipped Nikki…and they. Had. Patrick.
I didn’t want to know—would have done just about anything to not be the person to check—but I knew I had to. Because he was my little brother, and I had to know.
I clicked on 8, my hand shaking so badly I nearly clicked on 9 instead.
Designator: Aku
Birth Name: Patrick Centrina
Identity(ies): Patrick Connolly, Patrick Centrina, Patrick Galathea
Program Status: Inactive — re-chipped — Awaiting reinstatement
Number of procedures: 4,385
Astari Saiku status: Success
Last Mission: 8-26-2012
More Missions
Subject posses superior visual processing, speed, and memory manipulation abilities…
I just blinked at the screen. Astari Saiku, that was what they had been trying to make this whole time? The star children. The children of the gods. The first daemons. The perfect beings. What we had been before we had been split into three. Before we had become the Kalodaemons, the Kakodaemons, and the Marked Ones.
I stared at the screen in revulsion, the Kakodemoss were trying to play god. They had been trying to recreate something that hadn’t existed for over fifty thousand years—if ever. And they had succeeded.
My eyes darted back up to Patrick’s stats, and I swallowed down the awful taste in my mouth. The Kakodemoss had succeeded in creating a Astari Saiku, but at what cost?
4,385.
The number of times they had injected him, cut into him, scraped and poked and prodded at his brain.
4,385.
No wonder he was so terrified of needles.
4,385.
I was going to be sick.
4,385.
But even as the bile was churning in my stomach something worse settled in and squeezed my heart painfully. The Kakodemoss had succeeded with the Avensana Project, but it hadn’t been their project from the start.
Sometimes the Truth Is the most Dangerous Thing of All
Friday, December 28th
TRAVIS
I marched into Kiskei’s office more angry than I think I had ever been in my whole life.
“You knew, didn’t you,” I accused in a deadly voice, a voice that was almost a growl.
“Knew what, Travis?” Kiskei asked with an exhausted sigh.
“You knew the moment you saw that symbol on Chan-rin’s uniform. You knew what they were doing, and you didn’t say anything! Nualla almost d
ied because of your fucking secrets!”
“Travis, what on earth are you talking about?” Kiskei asked, his brow furrowing in confusion.
“The Avensana Project,” I growled.
Kiskei froze. And it was the look on his face—that look right before the hard, trained mask slid into place—that gave it away more than anything. “I don’t know what you’re—”
“Don’t lie to me!” I shouted as I threw the tiny flash drive onto his desk. “It’s all on there. The studies. The experiments. Everything. All the work that’s been done on the Avensana Project for the last thirty years.”
“The Avensana Project was disbanded over eighteen years ago. Everything it was—everything we hoped to achieve—it died with Nikk,” Kiskei finally admitted, avoiding my eyes.
“Nikk’s not dead,” I growled through gritted teeth.
“What?” he said, looking back up at me quickly.
“Oh, don’t even pretend like you didn’t know,” I said with contempt as I clenched my hands into fists at my sides. “You knew exactly what he was doing. He told you. He left that message. He’s been undercover this whole time as the Kakodemoss facility director Eskel Valerik. Continuing those horrific experiments!” I clenched my hands tighter until my nails bit into my palms just so I could get the next part out without leaping over the desk, and beating Kiskei to a pulp.
“Do you know what they’ve been doing to my brother? Do you?!” I screamed at him, throwing the words as savagely as if they were a blade I could stab through him. “They’ve put him through 4,385 procedures over the last sixteen years!”
“Message? What message?” Kiskei asked in a startled voice.
“The one he recorded just before the Avensana labs collapsed. The one he left on the servers…” I answered, but the more I said the more I realized Kiskei had no idea what I was talking about. That his look of shocked surprise wasn’t an act. Because no one could fake that kind of fear in their eyes.
I stumbled back a step, as my stomach dropped out. I was really going to be sick this time. They hadn’t known. Nikk had been waiting—waiting for years—waiting for them to come pull him out, and they hadn’t even known they’d needed to. He had been trapped there, waiting for a rescue that was never going to come. Because they had thought he was dead.
“Travis, what message?” Kiskei shouted as I turned and bolted from his office, praying like hell that I actually made it to the nearest garbage can.
After I’d thrown up everything that could possibly be in my stomach, I had trudged back to my apartment, and collapsed into my bed with my shoes still on. Mainly because I just couldn’t bring myself to bother to take them off.
It was so much worse than I had ever feared it could be—what had happened to Patrick, and the others. The horror and injustice of it all was unfathomable. The stuff of nightmares. But quite possibly the most sickening part of it all was that my father and his friends had had a hand in it.
The anger I had stormed into Kiskei’s office wielding like a blunt weapon had disappeared the moment that I had realized that Kiskei had never known of Nikk’s last message. But it was now back again, building up like a boiling pot. Waiting to boil over, and destroy the nearest thing. Like a mirror, or a glass or—
“Travis?” someone called out.
—Kiskei.
“Go away,” I called back.
Why the fuck had I left the front door unlocked?
There was a sound, and I looked up. Kiskei was standing in the doorway of my bedroom, his hands in his lab coat pockets. “Travis, I need to talk to you.”
“Well too frakkin’ bad, because I’m all out of give-a-fuck for today,” I said sarcastically as I looked away from him. Because if I kept looking at him I was going to do something regrettable, and I knew it.
It had been hours, but my anger at him hadn’t lessened. If anything, it had grown. Seething and boiling beneath the surface like volcano.
“Travis, I—” Kiskei started, as he neared my bed.
“I said, GO AWAY!” I screamed as I launched myself at him.
I wanted to hurt him—needed to hurt him. I wanted someone—anyone—to hurt as much as I did. But I especially wanted him to.
I swung my fist at Kiskei even though I knew it was useless. Even though I knew he would stop me. But as my fist met his flesh I realized he hadn’t.
I pulled my hand away from his face slowly, just staring. And I just stood there for a stunned moment wondering if it was all real.
“I hit you,” I pointed out in an uncertain voice, breathing heavy.
“Yes, genius, I am aware of that,” Kiskei said sarcastically, rubbing his jaw.
“You didn’t move,” I sputtered, still in shock.
“Naw, really? What gave you that brilliant bit of insight?”
“Why?” I was too stunned even to snap back at him.
“Because…I deserved it,” Kiskei grumbled. “And it was the only way to shock you enough to see some fucking reason.”
I looked back at him in confusion.
Kiskei let out a heavy, exasperated sigh. “You may like to think this proclivity for explosions of yours is just some residual teenage angst. But I have news for you kid, it’s as much a part of being a Centrina as that genius is.”
Kiskei moved his jaw around, and glared at me. “Gods, you punch just like Josh.” I raised an eyebrow at him. “Don’t ask,” he said, holding up a hand.
“I wasn’t going to. I really don’t give a fuck why my dad punched you, he’s dead,” I said savagely as I pushed past him and walked down the hall to the kitchen, the anger bursting through my temporary shock.
I pulled a glass from the cupboard, and filled it with water. Then I took a swig, and swished it around my mouth before spitting it into the sink. As I stood back up I gulped down the rest of the glass. Then I placed it carefully back down on the counter so I wouldn’t be tempted to throw it at Kiskei.
Gods, and to think this jerk was almost my father-in-law.
But the thought just made me think of Parker and the fact that she still wasn’t talking to me. And that just made me want to curl up in a ball on the floor and drink. A lot.
“So why are you here?” I asked as I leaned against the counter, and folded my arms across my chest.
“You might have been wrong about a lot of it, but you were right about some of it,” Kiskei said as he moved into the room. “I had my suspicions when I saw that symbol on Chan-rin’s clothes, but I knew for certain the moment they pulled that thing out of your brother’s back.”
“So why didn’t you do something?” I asked accusingly.
“You think I haven’t?” Kiskei asked in disbelief, his eyebrows shooting up. “I’ve spent the last four months trying to figure out how in hell the Kakodemoss got a hold of our research and our tech. Furthermore, I’ve called in every favor I’ve ever earned to bring in Amurai from across the world to help protect Karalia and find the Kakodemoss base here. I’ve—”
“Well that’s fan-fucking-tastic. You’re doing something now so everything’s just peachy,” I snapped sarcastically as I rolled my eyes. “Well, fuck you! Where the hell were you when my little brother was being jabbed full of so many needles we don’t even know what the fuck he is anymore? Where were you when a Kakodemoss agent infiltrated The Embassy and nearly blew Nualla to the fucking stars, huh? Where were you when all the other shit went down that was caused by your fucking experiments? Because you sure as fucking hell weren’t here ‘protecting’ us! I’ve nearly lost every person who ever meant anything to me because you couldn’t do your fucking job!”
“Hey! Do you think I don’t know that?! Do you think I don’t blame myself everyday that nearly all my friends are dead because I couldn’t keep them safe? That children—my friend’s children-were used in experiments I de
signed?” Kiskei shouted back as he moved purposely toward me.
“You may hate me right now, Travis, but I can promise you that you will never hate me as much as I hate myself. So go ahead, hate me. Hate me for listening to Kass. For helping make those chips. For thinking I knew more than the stars,” Kiskei continued to shout as he gestured wildly. “But you cannot blame me for not saving someone I didn’t even know needed saving!”
“They wouldn’t have needed saving if you hadn’t made those damn things in the first place!” I screamed at him, as I moved within striking distance. One of us was going down, and it wasn’t going to be me.
“I know that! But blaming me won’t bring them back, either, Travis! Trust me, if my death could bring them back, I would do it in a heartbeat. But the universe doesn’t work that way, and you know it!”
I opened my mouth to hurl more angry words back at him, but I couldn’t. He was right. I hated him for it, but he was right. No matter what I did—what anyone did—I would never be able to turn back time. Never be able to save my parents. To save Patrick from all those experiments. There was nothing—absolutely nothing—I could do. And what I hated more than anything in the world was that helpless feeling. Of things being completely out of my control.
I dropped my eyes and unclenched my fists. I had been clenching them so tightly that there were angry red cuts in my palms, and a small trail of blood had started to snake its way across my skin. “What am I supposed to do, then?” I asked in a low voice, my bottom lip quivering.
Don’t cry, you idiot. You’ll never forgive yourself if you cry right now.
“What?” Kiskei asked uncertainly, caught off guard by my sudden change in tone.
The Other Side of Truth (The Marked Ones Trilogy Book 3) Page 32