by Jade Kerrion
“You don’t think he can do it? He’s made advances in genetics and psychopharmacology—”
“It isn’t about what he’s done. It’s about what he’s going to do. You can’t take that risk.”
Galahad snorted. His gaze drifted away from Danyael’s face to scan the four walls of the cell. “Trust you. Trust him. What’s the difference?”
“The difference is that I don’t hate you.”
Galahad’s eyes flashed back to Danyael’s face.
I don’t hate you.
Galahad’s lips moved, but no sound emerged. Shock made it impossible to speak. Like a befuddled calf, he stared at the alpha empath. “But why?” he managed finally.
“Why what?”
“Why don’t you hate me?
Danyael frowned.
Galahad felt like a student, stupid and slow, under the scathing glare of a teacher.
“Why would I?” Danyael asked finally.
“I’ve attacked you. I’ve tried to kill you.”
“What you do is your problem. What I choose to do in response, including how I feel about it, is mine.”
Galahad lurched forward. He wrapped his fists in Danyael’s shirt and slammed him back against the wall. “Why don’t you hate me?”
“What the hell is wrong with you? Why do you want me to hate you so badly?”
“I want the world to make sense!”
Danyael laughed, the sound genuinely amused. “You’re on the wrong planet, then.”
“You have the power to hurt, to kill. Why don’t you have the strength to seize it, to use it?”
“Because I have the strength not to use it.” Danyael shoved Galahad away from him. “This is my life. I choose how to use my empathic powers; I have chosen not to be a monster. Maybe it’s not the choice you would have made if you were in my shoes, but I like to think that there’s enough humanity in you that you’d at least consider it.”
“But the hate—”
“Hate isn’t a good enough reason to retaliate. I’m an alpha empath; I see what most people don’t. Do you know what I see underneath the hate?”
Galahad could not pull his eyes away from the alpha empath’s intent gaze. In Danyael’s eyes, power shimmered, potent, irresistible and under perfect control.
Danyael spoke quietly. “I see fear. Underneath the hate, I see a child, afraid…and alone.”
Galahad’s heartbeat stuttered. His heart pulsed, aching. Why did Danyael’s words drive him to the edge of tears? After a silent, painful moment, he found his voice. “I am not a child.”
“Physically, you’re not, but emotional age is tied to what you’ve experienced, not how old you are.” Danyael shook his head. He sagged against the wall, his shoulders slumped. “You’re a child, Galahad, and I can’t bring myself to hate a child. I wish I could have helped you. If I were stronger, if I had more time, but…but I’m out of strength and time.” He held his hand out to Galahad. “Let me reset the countdown on the bio-tracker. It’s all I can do now.”
Emotions shaken, his mind in chaos, Galahad took a single step back from the alpha empath.
“Please,” Danyael pleaded softly. “You have hours left.”
“I don’t need you, Danyael.” His voice trembled on the lie. “I won’t let you control my life.” His steps hasty and clumsy, he retreated from the cell and slammed the door on the alpha empath.
Galahad pressed back against the door. His breaths heaved hard and fast in his chest. Danyael’s mutant powers could not penetrate solid objects. He was safe once again from Danyael’s empathic influence. The emotions, the deep and nameless ache in his chest, would disappear. The lie, the need that Danyael had evoked with his empathic powers, would vanish in the light of cold reason.
He was almost certain of it.
~*~
Damn it.
Danyael buried his face in his hands. His cold fingers provided some relief against the fever raging in his body. He cursed again, this time aloud.
“Danyael?” Joyce called softly.
He dropped his hands. “I’m sorry I woke you.”
She pushed herself upright in the bed. “You didn’t. I’ve been awake, listening.”
Danyael’s breath tore out of him in a sigh. “He hates me so much, he’d rather die than let me help him.”
“He’s a child, as you say. Children don’t always know what’s best for them. Many adults don’t either.”
“I should have done more.”
“When, Danyael, and how? You were in prison and then with the Mutant Assault Group for more than eighteen months. What opportunity did you have to help him?”
“I had fifteen months after that. I could have, but I didn’t. I was tired. I was…” He shook his head; disgust filled his voice. “I was so grateful to be left alone, I didn’t dare raise my head to look around. I didn’t want to rock the boat; didn’t want to lose what little I had left.” He closed his eyes. “I was afraid, like I accused him of being.”
“Oh, Danyael.” Her wrinkled hands wrapped around his fingers.
He inhaled deeply, opening his eyes. “I have nothing left to lose now, though.”
“Still, you’ll want to spend your strength wisely. You can’t save everyone. You have to decide what’s most important. Some people are perfectly capable of saving themselves. For example, the woman you love, Zara, is remarkable. She isn’t just a survivor. She usually finds a way to profit handsomely from disaster, most especially those of her own making.”
Danyael chuckled. “She’s a cat with an infinite number of lives.”
“Her biggest disaster—freeing Galahad from Pioneer Labs—led to her meeting you. You may never have met otherwise.”
He had never quite thought of it that way before. “I suppose not.”
“She will be all right, with or without you. Galahad, on the other hand…”
He glanced at Joyce when her voice trailed off.
She cleared her throat. “Is the world better off without him?”
Danyael’s eyes narrowed. “What are you saying?”
“Unlimited potential, and two hundred or more years in which to spend it. You were right when you said before that Galahad has the potential and the power to change the world. I know you want to believe that he can do the right thing, but he is a child, easily influenced, and you are running out of time. Letting the bio-tracker countdown run out is the safest thing to do.”
It was. Danyael could not dispute that fact, but— He smiled, the curve of his lips rueful. “If I habitually made safe choices, we wouldn’t be here today.”
Joyce patted his hand, laughing. “It is true.” For a moment, she gazed at him. Her smile faded. “I know your resemblance to Galahad has caused you trouble. I’m sorry for the part I played in it.”
His breath caught in his throat. “What?”
“Your father consulted with me for many years as he worked on the Gene Child project that eventually became Galahad. He asked for permission to incorporate my genetic code, and we talked about ways to incorporate his as well.”
“Why?”
“Immortality, Danyael. You wrestle so much with death and mortality that you no longer understand, if you ever did, the lure of immortality. To have your genetic code, pieces of it, preserved forever in the template of the perfect human being, forever part of Noble Prize-winning history…” Her cloudy eyes were dreamy. “It wasn’t enough for your father to design the perfect human being. He wanted to be a part of Galahad too. Of course, it screamed against all research protocols. I told him it would be too dangerous, too unethical to incorporate his own genetic code into Galahad, but yours… You were dead, or so we believed. What harm was there in incorporating a part of you into Galahad? You were your father’s ticket to immortality. The part of him that would live forever.”
Danyael chuckled, but the sound was sad and loaded with irony. “It’s no surprise my father can’t forgive me for being alive. I didn’t just embarrass him, I screwed up his im
mortality.”
“But you’re assured of yours.”
He did not need immortality. All he had wanted was another forty or fifty years.
Danyael stared down at his hands as they flexed and then curled into fists.
Galahad had two hundred years, or six hours, depending on one’s point of view.
Which would it be?
Both Alex and Joyce’s questions nagged at him. Is the world better off without Galahad? Is he fit to live?
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
T-minus four
The questions tore at Danyael for two hours, each minute seemingly an eternity. Alex and Joyce’s questions had been rhetorical; he was certain of that much. They were convinced that Galahad was beyond salvage.
Why?
Was it because Galahad was a borderline sociopath, or because the only thing worse than ambition without morality was talented ambition without morality and mortality?
Danyael halted in his slow, restless pacing of the cell. His teeth clenched against the cramps in his leg and the pounding frustration of questions without answers. Perhaps the better question was why hadn’t he written Galahad off when it was apparent that the rest of the world had?
Is it because I see something else in him, or am I blinded by the fact that he wears my face?
Danyael closed his eyes and rested his fevered forehead against the cool concrete wall. He sighed, weary. He needed rest and he needed to eat, but the pain and the nausea did not permit either. Exhaustion leeched through him. His body was starting to collapse under the excessive demands.
He did not have six weeks; he was certain of that much. Time was a luxury no one had; not Galahad, not Gage, and not Danyael. He had to act before he no longer could.
But act how? Do what? Danyael fisted his hand against the wall. Why was everyone looking at him to judge Galahad? Why did he have to make all the goddamned decisions?
Would you rather have someone else make them?
He chuckled, the sound ironic. For the past three years, he had struggled to control and direct his own life, but could only watch, helpless, as it careened into disaster. Someone else—Alex, General Howard, Xin, and sometimes even Zara—held the reins, and they had cared nothing for him beyond the fact that he was a pawn in their larger game.
He held the reins now over Galahad’s life.
What do I do? Wreck it, the way everyone seems to expect me to, or trust what my empathic senses tell me—that he’s as blinded as I am by the fact that we share a face…that his hate is focused, and once I’m gone, he will settle down and grow up. He wants Laura; he wants his daughter, he wants a family. Do I trust him to be good to her long enough for her to save him?
Danyael inhaled deeply. Perhaps that was the only question that mattered. Laura had saved him; could she, with her unconditional love, save Galahad too?
Warmed by the thought of his daughter—no, Galahad’s daughter—Danyael smiled. Against all odds, Laura had pulled an alpha empath back from the brink of suicide. Perhaps it was time to return her to her real father and let her save him too.
The lock slid back and the heavy steel door swung open. Two clones entered the cell, one carrying a tray of food. Teeth gritted against the hell of pain that he knew would follow, Danyael dropped his crutch and reached out, locking his hands around each clones’ wrists. Physical pain surged out of him—wrenching, excruciating pain—more than enough to knock them out, though not enough to kill.
The clones collapsed. Danyael screamed. He dropped to his knees, doubling over as the pain ricocheted back into him. His vision flashed blinding white. No, he would not lose consciousness; he could not. Clawing past the agony, he dragged air into his burning lungs and forced himself to keep breathing until the pain settled and his vision cleared.
Joyce’s face was the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes. She muttered something in Chinese, probably cursing his stupidity, but her thin arms wrapped around his shoulders as he pushed upright.
He took the crutch she held out. “Stay here.”
She wrung her bony fingers together. Her lips pressed into a tight line; she nodded.
Danyael limped from the cell, his weight resting heavily against the crutch. It would not have taken much more than a muscle tremor to send him crashing to the floor.
He jerked to a stop outside the cell door, his stunned gaze traveling across the cavernous central shaft around which the laboratory was built. The bridges and stairs that crossed the gaping hole were little more than interlocking steel wire frames—sturdy enough for people with two good feet, though particularly hazardous for a person on a crutch. Lights shone from some of the rooms across the three floors, each room accessible from the external corridor that encircled the shaft. A muscle twitched in his smooth jaw. His grip tightened on his crutch, and he stepped forward.
He first searched the lowest of the three floors, looking into the lighted rooms adjacent to his cell, but found only storage lockers, a kitchen, and an empty dining room. He looked up at the tangled web of bridges and stairs. His heart pounded in his chest. Sweat glistened on the palms of his hands. He shook his head. The absurdity mocked him; he had been less afraid leading the super soldiers into battle against Sakti.
It’s just a bridge.
Without rails and with a several thousand foot drop.
“Don’t look down” was not possible; he had to look down to safely position his crutch. Darkness yawned up at him. Nausea churned in the pit of his stomach, and he closed his eyes against the sway of vertigo.
It’s just a bridge, and if Zara saw me now, she’d have a laughing fit.
And after she was done laughing, she would have wrapped an arm around his waist and helped him across.
The thought strengthened him. Danyael smiled and opened his eyes. He looked down, inhaled deeply, and planted his crutch at the intersection of the thin steel wires. He took a single step onto the bridge.
The rapid thump of his heart did not slow, but he noticed it less as he crossed the bridge a step at a time.
He had almost made it to the end of the bridge when his crutch slipped. He jolted forward, and his crippled leg punished the sudden motion with a vicious cramp. His leg wrenched and his weight collapsed beneath him. He hit the bridge hard. The impact slammed the air out of his lungs.
For a moment, he laid there, his chest heaving, as much with pain as with relief. He dragged himself back to his feet, reached for his crutch, and pushed forward. He made it across the bridge safely, but he stopped at the stairs.
Danyael threw a glance at the seemingly endless plunge off either side of the stairs. His leg was too weak, his balance too uncertain. His breath shuddered out of him. Out of options, he lowered himself to the ground and wrapped his crutch under his left arm. His weight resting on his right side, he dragged himself up the stairs. Progress was humiliatingly slow, but he arrived on the second level.
He paused for a moment to catch his breath. His heart rate did not slow down, though. Panic gnawed at him. He had to move faster before the clones regained consciousness and set out to look for him. They would cover the distance he had traveled in a fraction of the time.
Danyael stared at the bridge over the yawning chasm. Fifty feet separated him from the relative safety of the external corridor that encircled the second floor. Keep moving.
Time crawled, each moment accentuating his slow and awkward progress across the bridge. If he had amputated his left leg, he might actually have been better off—no less awkward, certainly, but at least he would not have had to contend with the erratic bursts of pain.
Teeth gritted, Danyael crossed the seemingly endless expanse of bridge and reached the external corridor. It was not protected by rails either, but at least he could press up against the walls. The first lighted room he came across was an empty laboratory. He would have turned away, but the large freezers against the wall drew his attention.
Danyael twisted the doorknob and pushed against the door. He hobbled to the
freezer, pulled the freezer door open, and plucked out a test tube to study its label. A shiver shuddered down his spine. The test tube contained a blastocyst, a collection of cells in the early stages of human gestation, and it was marked with Galahad’s name.
He took a single step back and stared at the vials packed into the freezer. There were thousands of test tubes, perhaps tens of thousands of them, each one containing the potential to turn into a clone of the perfect human being, each one age-accelerated into a schizophrenic train wreck.
Danyael did not hesitate. He replaced the vial, and then reached up to adjust the freezer settings. If he pulled the plug, the freezer would go dark. An alarm would probably go off and a backup power system would kick in. But if all he did were to alter the temperature and the light settings, the cells would defrost and begin dividing again. The ultraviolet light would then damage the replicating DNA, either turning the cells cancerous or killing them.
Unless someone was particularly observant, the cells would be damaged beyond use within hours. His actions would not keep Gage from creating another set of clones, but the stash of several thousand would be gone. Danyael shut the freezer door and glanced up. His gaze settled on a door on the far side of the small laboratory. Dark eyes narrowed.
His crutch tapped a steady rhythm across the tiles as he crossed the room. The second door opened into a room filled with horizontally stacked growth chambers, each one containing a fully grown clone floating in a gel-like substance. Oxygen and nutrient tubes pumped air and nutrient-laced fluids from machines into the clones, but the chambers were otherwise unmonitored.
Danyael’s jaw tightened, but he did not hesitate either.
He flipped up the lid of the chamber. The gel was cool, and the clone’s skin was soft and smooth. Like a child’s.
He braced against the heartache, although he was grateful that he did not have to deal simultaneously with guilt. His empathic powers attuned to the biorhythms of the clone’s body and coaxed the heart into slowing. Beneath his touch, the heartbeat faltered. Without resistance, the clone passed from life into death, without waking, without pain.