The soldiers escorted them through a fire door and down several flights of stairs.
“I’m a freaking hero, okay!” Petra yelled, her voice echoing off the concrete walls. “I got the dirt that’s killing the plants. What’d you guys do? Huh? You can’t treat us like this!”
Then her voice broke and she was crying again and saying she wanted to go home, couldn’t they just let her go home?
Anaya took a breath, tried to stop herself from shaking.
Downstairs now: a dim concrete corridor with windowless doors.
The guard unlocked one of these doors and shoved her inside, alone.
Chapter Two
Petra
THERE WAS NO WINDOW, no clock, and Petra had lost track of how long she’d been inside. Her eyes felt rusty from crying. Itchy, too, because she was allergic to her own tears, thanks to her stupid water allergy. Her face was probably a mess.
She’d cried herself out, but panic still paced around inside her, like a hungry animal looking for a chance.
She tried to keep her breathing slow and steady, but it was nearly impossible. She was in a cell, a jail cell. A metal bed with a thin mattress. A seatless toilet. A fluorescent bar in the ceiling. And outside, the earth was crawling with those squirmy things. They must be everywhere by now! What were they going to turn into? Her eyes kept darting to the corners of the ceiling and floor, afraid she’d see them scuttle inside her cell.
Where were her parents? For the first little while, she’d expected the door to fly open and her mom to breeze in and say everything had been sorted out. Mom could be a royal pain when she dug her heels in; she’d have made some calls and busted some heads and everything would be all right. Or Dr. Weber would’ve pulled strings. After all, she worked for CSIS, and that was even more important than the RCMP. But as time dribbled on, Petra’s hopes withered.
She wished Anaya and Seth were in here with her. Seth especially. She felt calmer when he was around. Safer, too. He’d tried to protect her and Anaya when they were getting handcuffed. If the three of them were together, they could talk at least. It would stop her freaking out inside her own head.
How had Colonel Pearson even found out about them?
They’d tried so hard to keep everything secret. It had to be their social worker, that sneak Carlene. She’d been in the room when Dr. Weber had first told them about their cryptogenic DNA. Carlene had tried to hide it, but she’d looked horrified. It was horrifying. You try having alien DNA inside you, Carlene.
Petra could feel her tail squashed in her leggings. It was long enough now that she had to kind of shove it down a pant leg. It made a bulge. Sometimes it even twitched on its own. Which was why she’d started wearing a skirt, to make sure it stayed hidden.
And her legs. Her skin had gotten all scaly and then sloughed off, leaving baby-smooth skin underneath. She didn’t mind the smooth skin, even though it was definitely weird. It was like having dolphin skin. And it wasn’t only her legs anymore.
She lifted her top a little bit and saw how her stomach was getting rough. Her fingers crept around to her lower back: same. It was upsetting to touch. It was like being some weird kind of reptile.
Would all of her skin slough off? Even on her face?
I will not think about this now.
And her tail, how long would that thing get?
Stop it.
If only Dr. Weber had chopped it off when she’d asked.
When the cell door swung wide, her heart gave a hopeful jump, but it was only a female guard with a tray of food.
“What time is it?” Petra asked.
No reply.
“Where’s my mom and dad?”
Nothing.
“Those things that came down in the rain, are they all over the place? What’s going on out there?”
Silence.
“Why won’t you answer me?” Petra demanded.
The guard had obviously been told not to engage. Her eyes wouldn’t even meet Petra’s. By now, everyone on the military base must know she and Seth and Anaya were cryptogen hybrids.
“This is probably against the law,” Petra said. “Just so you know.”
The guard locked the door behind her. After eating, Petra felt swamped by exhaustion. On the hard bed she actually fell asleep. When she woke, there was another tray of food waiting for her by the door. Lunch or dinner? How long were they going to keep her locked up? She paced. She used the toilet. She picked at the scaly skin on her stomach and touched the new, smooth skin underneath. She wished she could change her clothes. Another meal came. She worried some more, slept some more.
The only way she had any sense of time was by keeping track of food trays. Five. She figured she’d been in here almost two days.
The next time the door opened, a pair of guards entered. This was new.
“Turn around so I can handcuff you.”
“Why?” she demanded.
No reply.
“Where are we going?”
No answer.
“You guys suck,” Petra said.
But she felt almost elated to be marched down the corridor. At least she was out. At least she was going somewhere. She looked at the windowless doors and wondered if Seth and Anaya were behind any of them. No point asking. She was escorted into a big, white, windowless room.
In one corner, a man adjusted a video camera on its tripod. Two soldiers flanked the inside of the doorway. In the middle of the room, behind a table, sat Colonel Pearson. Next to him was Dr. Weber.
At the sight of her, Petra broke into a hopeful smile. Dr. Weber wasn’t wearing handcuffs. Which was a good sign. After all, she was CSIS. She’d stick up for her, and Seth and Anaya. Maybe she’d already convinced Pearson that they were perfectly innocent.
On the other side of Dr. Weber sat a man she’d never seen before. His military uniform was not festooned with colored bars like Pearson’s. He had a big, jowly head with pouchy eyes that held zero warmth. He looked like a corrupt Roman emperor. Or at least the actor who’d played one on that TV series her family liked. His name tag said RITTER.
Petra looked back at Dr. Weber and asked, “Where’s my mom and dad?”
It was Pearson who replied. “We’re questioning them separately.”
“What about Seth and Anaya?” she asked.
“They’re detained as well.”
“You can’t just lock people up.”
She tried to decipher the colonel’s silent gaze, but in the end her eyes slunk away to Dr. Weber, who offered her an apologetic, tight-lipped smile.
“Sit down,” Pearson told her, nodding at the chair.
She glanced back at the soldiers by the door—armed, like she was dangerous!—and then at the guy behind the camera. The red recording light blinked on.
She sat. This was an interrogation. Her mouth was suddenly bone dry. She had to be as calm and likeable as possible. She was good at acting. She got main parts at school. She’d convince them she was helpful and friendly. A friendly alien. Half alien. She’d tell them everything they wanted to know. She tried to make her eyes look as large and innocent as possible.
Colonel Pearson said, “I’ve now been fully briefed by Dr. Weber and consulted with Dr. Ritter, who is heading up a special task force south of the border.”
That meant the US. Petra wanted to ask what kind of task force, and what sort of doctor Dr. Ritter was, but she thought it was best to keep her mouth shut for now.
Dr. Ritter’s large, fleshy hands patted a beige file folder in front of him.
“We have some new test results to share with you,” he said. It sounded like he was chewing something, but she realized it was just his words. Maybe he’d been particularly hard-hit by black grass allergies and was super congested. Or maybe this was the way he always talked.
From the folder he took a big glossy photograph and slid it across to her.
Even before she saw it properly, Petra broke out in gooseflesh. It was obviously a picture of a sk
ull. Inside were the bright silver folds of a brain, like a giant, gleaming walnut.
“This is me?” she asked, her words clicking in her dry mouth.
Dr. Weber nodded. “It’s from the MRI scans we did last week. Before we went to the eco-reserve.”
Petra felt a panicked tightening in her chest. You didn’t get shown a picture of your brain unless there was something wrong with it. She couldn’t handle some new freakish thing about her body. She tried to imagine this was a picture from a textbook. Didn’t work.
“The area of interest is here,” Dr. Ritter said, pointing. “The occipital lobe. That’s the part that governs vision and perception.”
“Why’s it blurry?” Petra asked, looking automatically to Dr. Weber.
“Sometimes you get small glitches,” she replied. “Or that’s what I initially thought. But when I looked at Seth’s and Anaya’s scans, I realized theirs had exactly the same blurred area.”
Petra swallowed. “Why?”
“Whatever’s there was interfering with the MRI’s radio waves,” Dr. Ritter told her in his chewy voice. “Luckily the good doctor here also did some functional scans using a different frequency. Those came out very clearly indeed.”
From his folder Ritter took another picture and laid it on top of the first. This one was a grid of four close-ups, all from slightly different angles.
“Here,” said Ritter, pointing to a silver shape.
Petra bent closer, an oily fear spreading through her stomach. Nestled in the wrinkles of her brain was an object that reminded her of a sea polyp with wavy little arms.
She didn’t know anything about the brain, but her gut told her this thing did not belong. Her mind was desperately trying to telescope her away from her body. Somewhere outside this room, a hundred kilometers away, would be good.
“Is it a tumor?” she heard herself ask hopefully.
She’d never thought a brain tumor would be best-case scenario.
“No,” said Dr. Weber gently.
She wanted her parents. She didn’t want to see any more. There was alien DNA in each and every one of her cells, she was growing a tail, her skin was peeling off—but this thing, it was like a little animal living inside her.
“I’m gonna be sick,” she mumbled.
Dr. Weber began to stand, but Colonel Pearson said no and nodded at one of the soldiers. Quickly the soldier moved a small garbage can beside Petra. She turned and retched. Nothing came up but strings of liquid. She spat. Her eyes watered and her nose ran. The last time she’d thrown up, her mother had held her hair out of the way. She’d rubbed her back and said kind things.
If she’d expected Colonel Pearson’s expression to soften, she was mistaken. Dr. Ritter made a phlegmy sound in his throat and folded his fleshy hands.
“You okay, Petra?” Dr. Weber said kindly.
“What is it?” she asked. “That thing in my head.”
Dr. Weber turned to the colonel. “It’s obvious that these children are completely innocent and don’t pose any kind of threat to—”
“That’s not obvious to me at all,” Dr. Ritter said. He stabbed his thick finger at the photos of her brain. “That is a transmitter.”
Startled, Petra looked at Dr. Weber, who nodded reluctantly.
“It produces radio pulses. That’s why our MRI images were scrambled.”
“And Seth and Anaya have one, too?”
“Correct,” Ritter said. He sat back in his chair, studying her. His gaze was so intense, it was like he was trying to bore his way inside her skull.
“Hang on,” she said. “You don’t think I’m actually sending messages to them!”
“We know you are,” Pearson replied tersely.
“When?”
“The morning the black grass started dying, the same morning the second rain fell. Around five a.m., my comms team picked up a powerful radio pulse coming from inside the base. It lasted just under two minutes. We tracked the signal to its source: the apartment where you were all sleeping.”
Chapter Three
Seth
“HOW COULD I BE sending a signal if I was asleep?” Seth asked, bewildered.
From behind the table in the white interrogation room, Colonel Pearson watched him silently, waiting. So did Dr. Ritter, his eyes cold and intent in his saggy face.
Did they actually expect him to answer his own question? Since he’d been shown those pictures—that thing inside his brain—Seth’s thoughts had scattered like puzzle pieces. He was still scrambling to fit them together.
A transmitter in his brain.
A radio signal sent from his head at five in the morning.
While he was asleep—
And dreaming.
He’d definitely been dreaming. He remembered the dream vividly. Over the years he’d had so many like it, but this one had been unique. He’d been flying and had seen his own feathered arms. Below him, Anaya leapt across a field; in a lake, Petra surged through the water. He’d been overwhelmed by an incredible sense of speed and purpose, and right before the dream ended, he’d felt the familiar ache building in his head—and then a sudden release, all the pain torrenting out of him into the sky.
Had that been a transmission? The one Pearson said they’d picked up?
“As I’ve been saying,” Dr. Weber told the two men, “none of the kids are even aware of transmitting.”
Seth was so glad she was here. When he’d first come into the room and seen her, he’d felt a surge of relief. She was here to fight for him, to make sure these military guys didn’t think he was some kind of dangerous mutant.
“Are you communicating with them, Seth?” Dr. Ritter asked in his chewy voice.
“No!”
Dr. Weber said, “My theory is that Seth and the others, since birth, have been transmitting biological data to the cryptogens so they could determine if the kids were thriving in Earth’s environment.”
“Which could only mean their endgame is colonization,” said Colonel Pearson. “And that means an invasion.”
“But only when the conditions are right,” said Dr. Weber. “The children didn’t thrive. At puberty, two of them developed acute allergies. Seth, his entire infancy, suffered from fragile bones and had frequent fractures. It wasn’t until the first big rain that the environment became more favorable for the children.”
“And the cryptogens,” said Ritter. “They’re essentially terraforming our planet, reshaping it for themselves. If they’ve been collecting biological data from these hybrids, as you suggest, they might easily be collecting other important data from them. With their cooperation.”
“I’m not telling them anything!” Seth insisted.
“It also seems clear,” Dr. Ritter went on, “that the structure in their brains isn’t simply a transmitter. It’s also a receiver.” His lightless eyes settled on Seth. “Dr. Weber has told us you have some very interesting dreams.”
Seth looked over at her, feeling a stab of betrayal. Why had she gone and told them about his dreams? The most personal things that belonged to him. And not a lot belonged to him. He didn’t want to share them, and certainly not with Ritter.
Bluntly, Colonel Pearson asked, “Did you dream the morning the second rain fell?”
“It’s all right, Seth,” Dr. Weber said to him. “There’s nothing you need to hide.”
Before today, everything was about keeping secrets. Hiding his feathers. Cutting Anaya’s claws. Concealing Petra’s tail. Telling no one. Just a few nights ago, Dr. Weber had talked about moving them off the base for their own safety, so the army wouldn’t discover their secret.
And now she was urging him to tell the truth. Or was she actually inviting him to play innocent and give Ritter and Pearson as little as possible? He felt terribly confused.
Testily, Ritter turned to Dr. Weber. “You said you could make him cooperate.”
Seth frowned. Had they made some kind of deal? A horrible doubt wormed through him. Had he totally misunderstoo
d things? He’d assumed she was on his side. But then why wasn’t she banging on the table and demanding they let him go, or at least take off his handcuffs? And why wasn’t she wearing handcuffs? Who was she actually working for?
“What’s going on?” he asked.
His voice came out broken. That morning on the field—was it even forty-eight hours ago?—she’d asked him if she could be his foster mother, and he’d said yes. He desperately wanted her to be that person again, the one willing to give him a home, the one he could trust.
“Seth,” she said calmly, “we’ve got new life-forms literally raining down on the planet. The colonel and Dr. Ritter want to know as much as possible about what we’re facing. I agreed to help them with these interviews so I could be present, and be your advocate. They’ve promised me that the three of you will be safe.”
Ritter cleared his throat. “If they cooperate with us. And if you can’t assist us, Dr. Weber, you’ll be removed from the room.”
Fear forked through Seth. He didn’t want Dr. Weber removed. Even if he wasn’t sure whose side she was on.
“Yes,” he blurted. “I dreamed that morning. Right before I woke up.”
“Describe it.”
He told them about the feathers on his arms. How he’d soared through the air. He told them he’d seen Petra swimming and Anaya bounding.
“I think we need to keep in mind that these are dreams,” Dr. Weber said. “We have no idea of their importance, if any.”
Ritter ignored her. “In these dreams are you aware of communicating with the cryptogens?”
“No.”
“But you are aware of their presence?”
“Sometimes, yes. It’s like someone’s watching.”
“You’re flying in your dreams. Where are you going?”
“Toward them, I guess.”
“Why would you want to do that?”
He hesitated. “Because it feels like I’m going somewhere good.”
That was probably a mistake. He wished he could take that back.
“In your dreams do you speak at all? Are there words?”
“No.”
Ritter leaned closer across the table. Seth could hear his nostrils make a little whistling noise.
Hatch Page 2