by Mary Weber
Sofi ignored him and turned a corner to discover a lengthy, dimly lit room facing them. According to her handscreen, this was where the other humans were.
A low light flickered on. Then turned brighter to reveal shiny white walls, white flooring, and overhead lamps that rivaled the sun. It was a lab.
Oh.
“Oh gad,” Miguel whispered.
Heller slipped a hand over his mouth, his skin yellowing.
Babies. Children. People.
Up until the age of ten from the look of them, inside biovats in suspended animation.
Miguel strode over to one of the fifty or so giant-size cylinder tubes each filled with blue fluid and a human—hanging from the ceiling like bulbs. They were giving off heat.
Beside the first ten of them was a small incubator, housing what appeared to be a baby of Delonese-like form.
Sofi almost threw up. Her stomach spun. No wonder she’d never seen or heard of a Delonese baby. Or a pregnant adult, for that matter. Were these test-tube Delonese babies? Made from test-tube humans?
“Did you—?” Sofi turned to Miguel, her tone full of horror.
He was shaking his head. “I had no idea this is what they were using them for.” He ran a hand along the side of a tube, disgust and anger emerging on his face. “I honestly suspected they were simply testing and enhancing Earth’s kids. Like what Alis said. But this—”
A sound erupted nearby and Sofi turned in time to see Heller vomiting on the floor. After he finished, he turned to Sofi with the faint hint of a smile. “At least that answers my sex question.”
Sofi scowled as Miguel strode forward. “C’mon, we need to keep moving. In case . . .”
He didn’t finish.
He didn’t need to. Sofi knew what he was thinking.
In case Shilo’s in one of these.
Sofi tried to follow. Tried to walk. Tried to put one foot in front of the other, but her legs wouldn’t budge. What if Shilo was in one of these? What if he’d been used for—?
Think, Sofi. Had she seen this in her visions? Had Shilo shown any of this to her? She shut her eyes and sorted through the pictures in her mind that swelled up along with a new wave of nausea.
No. She’d never seen this before. Oh, Shilo . . .
Miguel’s hand slipped to the low of Sofi’s back. Securing her. Soothing her. Heat rushed up and burned her eyes as she blinked back tears that had no right to be there but somehow insisted. They slid and shuddered and dripped down her cheeks and off her chin to hit tap, tap, tap onto her suit.
“You okay?”
She nodded. “We just need to be sure he’s not . . .” She swallowed and lifted her chin at Miguel and Heller. “We split up and keep searching. I’ll look toward the back-hallway rooms. Miguel, can you take the hall to the left and, Heller, to the right?”
“Yeah, of course.” Heller patted her arm and took off—as if the sooner he got out of there, the better.
“Don’t get caught,” Miguel whispered. “And, Sofi . . .” He turned his gaze to her.
She nodded at him. “I know.”
He paused. Studied her. Her eyes. Then tipped his head. “See you in a few.”
Sofi moved into the next room. This one had more bulbs hanging from the ceiling, but rather than being giant like the previous ones, these were tiny. Barely bigger than a watermelon.
They hung there like small moons, lighting the room with their bluish glow.
Sofi moved closer, her chest clenching.
Parts.
Body parts.
Hearts and lungs were inside them to be exact.
“You guys finding anything?” Heller’s voice sounded nervous in her ear. Tense.
She clicked her com. “Just a room of tiny jars of hearts and lungs hanging from the ceiling. They’re putting off heat like the others. How about you?”
“Yeah, uh . . .” There was an odd shuffling in the com, then he cleared his throat. “I think that’s the same here.”
A sound behind Sofi erupted just as the alarms turned off. “Finally,” Heller uttered into her com. She dropped to the ground and scrambled behind one of the tables. Two male Delonese came in. Speaking in their foreign tongue. Sofi tapped her com from them to translate.
“They blocked our systems so we can’t get a lock on the shuttle.”
“How? That’s impossible. And what will happen if they make it back to Earth? The amount of research lost—”
“I’d be more worried about what Earth will say.”
“Earth? If we don’t finish our research, it won’t matter. Their DNA is the only chance we have at rebooting our own and re-growing our population.”
Then they left. She breathed. And tried to absorb what she’d just heard without throwing up.
“Hey, Sof, I think I found something,” Heller said. “You might want to come down here.”
“Me too. You guys—”
“Where?” Miguel replied.
“Next room ov—”
She tapped her com. “Repeat that?”
Nothing.
What the—? She tapped it again and whispered. Still nothing.
It was dead.
Her handscreen suddenly blipped as a message popped up. Ranger.
Sof. I thought you might want to see this. Your mom sent it in a private message I intercepted.
It was a vid.
She clicked on it. Then frowned. It was recorded from her mom’s phone.
A sick feeling emerged in the pit of her stomach as she backed against a corner in the dark. Something told her no matter how hurried she was, she needed to watch it now.
“I had to, Inola,” Ms. Gaines said. “CEO Hart made it clear his investment with us was contingent on our continued success. The other Corps were getting too close. What would they have done had they discovered what we were doing with their kids? With our kids? That we were jacking the games? Corp 24’s Altered would’ve ruined everything.”
“So you had them killed along with my son?”
“They were going to expose us! All that work we’ve put into this company to help people—to make them better!” Ms. Gaines was practically foaming at the mouth. “It would’ve been thrown away. As would our relationship with the Delonese, which you and I have worked too hard to build.”
“It wouldn’t have been thrown away.” Sofi couldn’t see her mom, but she recognized that determined tone. “It would’ve been exposed and broader access given for those cures to the public. As far as our relationship with the Delonese, who’s to say what they would’ve done? Found another Corp? I’m sure there are others out there who’d kill for the chance.”
Ms. Gaines’s eyes were wild. “But if the Delonese knew we’d let their secret escape—with blood on our hands in front of the world—they’d be called into question too. It could rock the entire political system our world has worked too hard to establish, Inola. People would’ve lost faith in them and us. And there would be riots. And likely war. The only reason I blackmailed Miguel was to stop them from accessing those kids on Delon. If you’d kept your daughter under better control—”
The vid flipped over, and suddenly Sofi’s mom was there, shaking her head and blinking back what looked like real tears of frustration.
And for the first time she could ever recall, Sofi felt a twinge of sympathy for the woman.
The rejection. The years of disapproval. Sofi’s eyes fought tears of her own.
“Everything I’ve done has been for this company. Everything,” her mom said slowly. As if she were voicing it more to the camera than to Gaines. “I let them test my own children. Let them use them in the games to further our research so we could help people. I lost my first child because we couldn’t get the cure fast enough—and even after I’d lost her, I left my other kids to pursue that cure for others. But this? This is too much. I wanted a better world for my kids, Gaines. Not a better world at the cost of them.”
The vid ended.
She also sent this over. L
ooks like some coding from Corp 30. Not sure what her purpose was, but there you go.
Sofi opened the file and scanned through it in three seconds. It was some of the deleted items regarding Shilo they’d been searching for that night back at Mom’s Basement, along with the stripped code from Corp 24.
She frowned. And then her lungs imploded. She’d recognize that coding style anywhere.
It was Heller’s.
48
MIGUEL
MIGUEL STARED AT HIS HANDHELD AS THE VID OF SOFI’S MOM and messages from Ranger that Vic had mirrored to him from Sofi’s screen ended.
“Miguel?” Vic said after a sec.
“Yeah. I got it.” He clenched his jaw. “Gracias, Vic.”
He looked up.
And clicked his earcom. “Hey, Heller, you there?”
A pause. “I’m here. Sofi’s not, though. I think her com’s broken or something. Why?”
“Where you at, dude? I’m gonna come find you.”
49
SOFI
SOFI FOUND HIM IN THE ROOM NEXT TO THE ONE THE DELONESE had walked out of.
She was shaking. Her teeth chattering in fury even as her skin felt like someone had set it on fire. “What have you done, Heller?” She walked up behind him.
“What? Nothing, Sof. I haven’t done anything.” He glanced behind her. “Where’s Miguel?”
She stared at him. Then stepped closer and lifted her screen with Ranger’s message. “We have known each other for three years, and I have never not trusted you. So tell me again,” she whispered. “What’ve you done?”
“Hey, I swear, whatever you’re seeing isn’t me. You’re reading into things.” He raised his hands in the air as if defensive. “You’re just upset we’ve not found Shilo, but don’t take it out on me, okay?”
“How’d you get away from the Colinade the day of the explosion?”
“What? I told you.”
She shook her head. “No. No, you never told me. That night I was heading over to meet you at the Basement—I asked. But you never answered.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed as she watched him swallow.
“How did you escape the Colinade?” she said softer.
His gaze grew darker. Glassier. As his breath began to stir heavier. “I tried to help you in the Colinade, Sof. I even warned you—I yelled for you to get back from the window.” He was growing agitated. His hands and eyes animated as if trying to persuade her to understand. “I yelled it twice and then I grabbed your arm and pulled you just before the explosion. Don’t you remember? And I was protecting you from your brother. He’d been infected for years with their genetics.”
She stared, unable to answer.
Sofi was choking now, her body wracking with dry, cracking breaths that were breaking into her words. “What did they pay you?”
“Nothing. They paid nothing. Don’t you see? It’s not about me. It’s about you. About our future. About Earth’s future.”
She dropped the handheld, shoved him against the wall, and hissed, “Liar. What’d they promise you, Heller? Because you cannot look me full in the face right now and tell me that you sacrificed me, you sacrificed our team, my brother, for this.”
“Not you. I saved you. Just before the blast I pulled you away.” His hand reached for her hair. To pet it. To comb it. She didn’t know what the heck he was trying to do. She shoved him harder and yanked her hair away.
He didn’t seem to notice. “It’s what I’ve been trying to show you since the explosion,” he said more excitedly. “That you don’t need any of that. Your mom. Ms. Gaines. Miguel. I’m the one who will always be there.”
Sofi’s heart stopped. What was Heller saying?
His lips turned an odd shade of white, making his smile look like the stiff plastic on the dolls she used to play with. “I’d think you’d be thanking me, Sof.”
“Thanking you? For what? Hijacking our system and almost killing my brother?” Her stomach began to shake. Like a mini earthquake starting in her gut and spreading out through her veins with the warning that something was about to open up inside her chest. And whatever it was, their friendship would not recover. Heller would not recover. She would not recover.
He moved his face closer in the eerie pink light, his expression softening, becoming clearer. More tender. “For saving you.”
What the—?
He patted her shoulder. “Don’t you see? I protected you. I’ve always been protecting you. Here—now. This whole trip. And before. I helped the Corps, but I didn’t let them harm you. I’d never harm you.”
She wrenched away from his sweaty palm. What was he talking about? The shaking grew harder, making her lungs ache. She was disgusted by his touch, his breath. The way he was looking at her . . .
“I made them sign off on it in my agreement to assist them. Ms. Gaines, CEO Hart—they needed to protect the evidence.”
She shook her head. “Heller.” She dropped her voice. Steadied it. Strengthened it. “This isn’t you. You are one of us. You’re the normal one—the good one. You’re my friend.”
His eyes flashed. “I yanked you away and then dove through the door. I saved you, Sofi!” His voice was getting louder now, evoking fears they’d draw the Delonese’s attention. “I saved both of us! That’s what matters!”
“Heller, I . . .” She shook her head again and choked on the words. “What have you done?”
He smiled and shrugged.
She stalled. Dangit, why couldn’t she stop shaking?
“Sofi.” He calmed his breathing and tone. As if speaking to a child or wild animal or butterfly that was likely to flit away in the summer breeze. “We need the Delonese’s technology.”
“Not at the cost of our children, Heller. Not at the cost of Shilo.”
He spread his hands out as if he were opening an imaginary holoscreen to visually explain a game. “I didn’t know about the kids here or the body parts. I swear—I didn’t know they were taking them for other . . . experiments. But a few human lives in trade for the tech and resources and energy the Delonese offer? Compromise is the only way we survive. Maybe choosing to sacrifice a few for the greater good isn’t always black and white.”
Her throat was quivering now. Apparently so were her hands and arms, and suddenly there was water on her cheeks, leaking from her eyes. “Heller, you sacrificed my brother. Even if he’s not dead, you were willing to let him die—to kill him.”
“I had to—don’t you see that? Our world—the Corps—humanity must protect our future. It’s a responsibility we all have.”
“Then you should’ve sacrificed your own life for your cause rather than choose another.”
He stopped and frowned, his expression turning thoroughly confused. “But they need me.”
She stared at him as the tears kept falling and her legs went weak and her chest began shivering at the horror of not just his words . . . but his absolute elitist belief behind them.
And then she punched him across the jaw hard enough to knock him out.
50
MIGUEL
MIGUEL’S HANDSCREEN BLIPPED AND A MESSAGE POPPED UP. He glanced down as he desperately made his way through the maze of rooms and hallways that had all begun to look the same. White rooms with shiny white floors and rows and rows of med cots. “Sofi,” he whispered.
“Sofi!”
Why wasn’t her earcom working anymore?
“Miguel, you there?”
He jumped, then swiped the screen. “Vic?”
“Heya, dude. I’m sorry, but I thought you might wanna see this right away.” The AI’s blue eyes stared up at his. “After hearing Alis and Ms. Gaines, I decided to run a different kind of search—you know, on Corp 30’s medical files. And I came across this.” She moved her hand and slid a vid from her holodesk onto the screen. Her voice adding quietly, “Please tell Sofi I’m sorry.”
The image lit up the dim. It was definitely a Delonese file, newer than any created from Earth tech, b
ut still older than what he usually saw of theirs. It was angled from the ceiling peering down upon a scene. In this same type of room, same flooring, same weird overbright lights he was currently standing under. The audio was silent, but in the vid he could see Sofi swearing up a storm while strapped down to a hoverbed.
Oh gad.
Miguel began to run faster.
51
SOFI
“SHILO!” SOFI WAS SHOUTING NOW. HE WAS HERE, SOMEWHERE—she knew that as surely as she knew this place. The room she’d stepped into after leaving Heller was all white with bright lights and those doors—endless doors. She recognized it from her dreams as strong as her own reality. Her gaze bounced around frantically while her stomach roiled because all of this was too familiar.
Oh, Shi.
There. The door at the end of the hall. White. Sterile, just like the rest of the floor and walls that were lit and bathed in fake sunlight.
Sofi, something in her head cautioned.
She ignored it and began running for the room—even as everything within reeled and bucked and screamed to stop—until it became a heartbeat in her head, chanting, Don’t go in there, don’t go in there, oh heck, Sofi, don’t go in there.
Sofi, her head yelled. Except she didn’t care. She wasn’t listening.
She busted through the door and slammed into a blank space of blackness. She stalled as the sterile scent of her nightmares hit her full in the face. Blinding. Confusing her.
She shoved the door open all the way, and the light flicked on to reveal a medical room unlike the others they’d seen.
She froze.
Something clicked. The smells. The plastic curtains hanging like partitions around the metal cots. The showerheads that she knew—from an experience more real than any dreams she’d had of them over the past years—contained a sanitizer that burned so bad she thought her skin was sloughing off. The needles gleaming in the warm glow that shot her body up with chemicals and cured things like the asthma she’d been miraculously healed of. Before they took a load of her blood.