The only ways to enter or leave the facility are by air or via the dock at the north end of the island. Once I have the manifest, the plan is for me to finally kiss Jamison Hart and then swim out to the Vivaldi, where Alpha and Romeo will be waiting for me. The Executive won’t suspect that I was doing anything other than killing my target, and Mongoose can finally stop the shipments to Ophidian, whatever they are.
“It’s not as fancy as the Castle,” says Jamie, his voice crackling in my ear. We’re both wearing aviation headsets so we can hear each other. “But you’ll be safe out here, all right? You don’t have to be scared.”
He’s referring to when he picked me up from the embassy earlier. I pretended to be a total mess and rushed forward to greet him as if he really was my boyfriend, my arms wrapping tightly around his neck. His blue eyes were filled with concern as his warm lips brushed against my earlobe. I told him that the policemen had roughed me up before I managed to escape, that they must have been sent by the Executive to force my retirement. It wasn’t hard to get him to believe me.
On the way to Ophidian, I’ve intentionally been acting skittish enough that Jamie hasn’t tried to touch me again. I no longer feel the attraction to him that arose when we first met, and I can’t risk him discovering the revolver underneath my corset. Normally I would have ditched the weapon before getting into the helicopter. But after everything that happened with Mellie Hart, after learning that Jamie might have killed Zoe Evano, there’s no way I’m going to willingly disarm myself.
Even if it is insanely dangerous to have a gun on me in enemy territory.
On an expansive lawn at the center of the island, Jamie offers me a hand and I follow him outside, the giant rotors beating above us in the darkness. He waves off a security team waiting to greet us and tosses the aviation headsets back into the helicopter, not wanting to slow down for even a second. It’s only now that I’m realizing the extent to which being close to Jamison Hart has allowed me to get this far. Anyone else would have been thoroughly searched every step of the way, if they were even allowed on the island at all.
“Come on,” Jamie calls to me, his voice raised over the noise. “I’ll show you around.”
I pretend to be interested in Ophidian as he leads me around the small island, even though I already memorized the entire map back at the Executive. All the buildings are heavily guarded and secured, and the main building is where most of the actual work takes place. There are offices, meeting rooms, research labs, and classrooms, as well as a fully stocked cafeteria. A set of smaller buildings is where employees and guests stay while on the island.
I keep expecting something to seem off, but nothing has really appeared dangerous so far. Some startlingly advanced robots, maybe, and a hovering car that’s pretty cool but would cause havoc on the streets. But I haven’t noticed anything that would merit forming a secret group of operatives, nor have I seen anything even slightly resembling a manifest.
But just as I’m starting to lose hope, Jamie approaches a tall building that wasn’t on the map. I can see a shipping container sitting next to the dock behind it. Just inside the front entrance, there’s a security gate complete with a metal detector, with no less than five guards ready to search us. But we’re allowed to pass through a side gate without even being frisked, and he winks at me conspiratorially, as if we’re sneaking into a place we shouldn’t be.
The revolver feels like it’s burning a brand into my flesh.
I don’t know what I was expecting, but the building seems more like a hospital than anything else. It appears to be vacant in here, though, without any staff or patients to be watched over by the security cameras. An empty wheelchair sits beside an unmanned reception desk, and the waiting room looks like it’s been deserted for a while.
Jamie is already striding down a hallway, not seeming to care whether I follow or not. I hurry to catch up, managing to reach him just as he enters a vast lobby that belongs in a world-class planetarium. A night sky is being projected onto the high ceiling, with shooting stars and realistic planets and vibrant northern lights. For a brief moment, all I can remember is gazing up at the constellations with August after closing one of our missions years ago.
That’s the North Star, he said to me. You can use it to find your way back home.
I can’t see it, I said, shivering in the night air.
He draped his leather jacket over my shoulders before leaning in close, the closest he’d ever been, and pointing straight up into the sky. There.
It’s beautiful, I said breathlessly.
It is, he said.
But when I turned back to August, he was gazing only at me. I could see a brief glimpse of something in his dark eyes, some emotion he didn’t want to admit to anyone, not even to himself. But he glanced away before I could say anything, and the moment was lost forever.
“I need to pick up the manifest from my father,” Jamie says to me. “After I deal with the shipment, we can return to Paris straight away. The hotel guaranteed us a late check-in, so this shouldn’t be too much of an inconvenience.”
Someone has been waiting for us in the lobby. I recognize him from the pictures in his file: Gallagher Hart, a distinguished older man with silver hair and tanned skin. He’s wearing a business suit, looking as if he’s been interrupted in the middle of something far more important, and the expression on his face could only best be described as incredibly pissed off. His file stated that his marriage to Mellie Hart was mainly a way to increase his wealth and power after his first wife’s death. He loved Claire. That much was clear.
He never loved Mellie.
“Of all the idiotic things you’ve done in your life,” Gallagher spits out, striding forward to meet his son. “You actually brought an Executive operative to the island. You do know that she’s trying to kill you?”
Jamie shrugs, his expression darkening. “Back off, all right? She’s on my side now. Just give me the manifest so we can leave.”
The pure disdain on his father’s face when he glares in my direction is enough to make me flinch. “It’s all an act, Jamison. I know you can’t possibly be this stupid. If you refuse to listen to me—”
“Oh, please,” Jamie snaps. “I don’t need anything from you. If I recall, you’re the one who needs me to help with the shipments. So if there’s anything you want to say to me, you can say it in front of Lily.”
I try to rearrange my features to seem nonchalant, even disinterested, as if they’re having a normal conversation that has nothing to do with me. But this is it. Gallagher Hart is going to discuss the shipments with Jamie and then hand him the manifest, all right in front of me. I’m about to learn where they keep the one thing that Mongoose has been looking for, the entire reason I was drawn into this at all.
“Very well,” says Gallagher, still sounding irritated. “But you’ll deal with the shipments coming in next month, and you won’t be late like this again.” His gaze flickers to me, taking in my bloodied dress with scorn. “Did he tell you where it is?”
“The manifest?” I ask, confused.
Jamie has a guilty look on his face, and I realize there’s something about the manifest that he’s wanted to tell me but hasn’t had the guts to reveal himself. It’s something he’s ashamed of, something that might make me think less of him. For one crazy moment I actually think he might be an aberrant. But no, obviously not. That would have been the first thing he revealed to me.
Not the last.
“To deal with the shipments properly, one needs a manifest,” Gallagher says to me. “And do you know what the manifest is? It’s a program that contains thousands of files detailing every shipment we’ve ever received, including the ones we have planned for delivery over the next several years. Any copy of the program automatically self-destructs, so the original must be kept safe.”
He raises his hands, then touches his left index finger to the center of his right palm for several seconds. A red light starts blinking underneath his ski
n, indicating the presence of a microchip. I stare back at him, trying not to give him the reaction he wants. So the manifest is stored in his hand. Which means...
“That’s right,” he says, smiling thinly. “I can transfer the manifest to any electronic device, including the only one capable of storing a copy as an original: the microchip in Jamison’s hand.”
twenty-five
Jamie’s shoulders are stiff, and he isn’t looking at me. His hand can store information, but he’s… ashamed of it? No, I can see it in his eyes. He feels inferior because he has an ability that comes to him artificially rather than naturally. He wants to be able to do something like this without having to rely on technology, without being tied to his father.
He wants to be an aberrant like me.
Gallagher holds out his hand, and after a long moment, Jamie reluctantly shakes it. The manifest is presumably transferred between their microchips at that point. If these are the only two copies which won’t self-destruct, this is why Mongoose couldn’t figure out where the manifest was being kept.
But it means I have to dig out a microchip from at least one of their hands.
This is going to be a lot harder than I thought.
“You’ve allowed that shipping container to sit on the dock for long enough,” says Gallagher disapprovingly. “You need to deal with it now, Jamison.”
“I’ll do it in my own time,” snaps Jamie. His hand is clenched tightly, as if the manifest might leak out from between his fingers. But after a moment, he reluctantly touches his left index finger to his right hand. As his palm begins to blink red, he grabs his cell phone and stalks out of the lobby without looking back.
Wait. I don’t want to be left in here, alone, with yet another member of the Hart family who’s trying to kill me. As Gallagher gives me a hard look, I feel a sudden jolt of fear. I’ve seen that look before, in the pale green eyes of the butler, on the scarred face of Mellie Hart, and I just know he’s about to try to kill me.
I grab the revolver hidden in my corset and point it at Jamie’s father before he can reach into his jacket.
“We both know I’m not afraid to use this,” I say, my voice edged. “Tell me what’s in the shipments.”
Gallagher gazes back at me without moving, then gives a brief jerk of his head. “I’m not a threat to you, Eliza. I presume Jamison has informed you that I want you dead. All I’ve been trying to do is protect my son. He wishes to take over Ophidian as a way to gain my attention, but he must fail. I’m confident that after you view the manifest and shipment yourself, you will no longer be interested in working for the Executive.”
“Why did you call me Eliza?” I tense my finger on the trigger, trying not to give away anything in my expression. I don’t even want to know how Jamie’s going to react if he walks back in and sees me training a gun on his father.
Actually, he’ll probably just be attracted to me that much more.
“Would you like to see the manifest?” Gallagher is looking at me differently now, almost with pity. I should play along. I’d rather dig a microchip out of his hand than Jamie’s, after all.
“Do it,” I say, not lowering the revolver.
Gallagher reactivates his microchip and picks up a laptop from a side table, pressing his blinking palm against the device. I watch warily as a program opens on the screen. I’m expecting to see blueprints of future technology, designs for hovering cars, maybe even pictures of killer robots, but there’s nothing like that. What I see instead are thousands of documents.
Each one is labeled with a child’s name.
He selects a file at random, then another, and another. Each contains a profile of a child under the age of five, providing every detail about their background: picture, date of birth, parentage, birthplace, nationality, residence, medical history...
And aberration.
“These are the shipments?” I ask, trying to stay calm. “You find aberrant children and, what, send them to the Executive?”
Gallagher gives a condescending laugh. “Not exactly, my dear. How do you think Jamie formed his idea for the future? I’m sure he’s told you all about his desire to turn people into aberrants. What he failed to tell you is that we already have a gene therapy which does this successfully. In exchange for converting a small percentage of the world’s population into aberrants, Ophidian receives significant funding and favorable legislation in almost every nation.”
And then he says something that makes me forget how to breathe.
“It just doesn’t work on adults.”
My hands shake as I struggle to piece together what he said, the realization hitting me with full force. Instead of finding aberrants who are children, Ophidian and the Executive are taking normal children and turning them into aberrants. I didn’t choose my fate, but at least it wasn’t forced onto me like this. At least I wasn’t a file in the manifest.
If this is true, I’m never, ever working for the Executive again.
I blindly turn and walk out of the lobby, following the map in my head to the rear of the building. One of the back doors isn’t guarded, and I wedge a silver hairpin into the gap as I step outside, keeping it from locking behind me. I can sense my anger simmering just below the surface, but I don’t let myself feel it. I can’t let myself feel anything right now, because otherwise I’ll lose the ability to behave like an operative who might have to kiss someone or cut open a hand at a moment’s notice. No, far better to be numb, to be prepared for what has to happen next.
Around the side of the building, Jamie is standing next to the shipping container, browsing through the manifest on his cell phone. He’s waiting for several employees to open up the door as security guards stand by with tranquilizer guns at the ready, their faces shadowed beneath black caps.
When Jamie looks up and sees me, he hesitates. “You don’t want to be here for this, Eliza—”
But the shipping container is already open. The security guards seem to understand that I’m not supposed to be touched, though they keep glancing at Jamie uneasily, as if expecting him to change his mind at any second.
I grab a flashlight and push past Jamie, stepping into the shipping container, my hand sending a wobbling beam around the interior. The world around me suddenly feels claustrophobic, as if I’m in the midst of drowning, and the noise of my surroundings has diminished to nothing except for what’s before me.
These are the shipments.
This is what the shipments are.
Staring up at me are ten small children, no older than two or three years, locked in steel cages inside the shipping container. They look disheveled, as if they’ve been in here for hours, and most of them have been heavily sedated.
If not for the flashlight, it would be completely dark in here.
I should say something to these children, make them feel comforted after what must have been the most traumatic experience of their lives. But I’m too shaken to form words that would make sense to small children right now.
I’m so sorry.
Are you hurt? Are you okay?
I’ll kill whoever did this to you—
No, if I stop to think about what they’re feeling and compose an appropriate response for it, I will start screaming.
And I will never stop.
The anger finally surges through me, red-hot and boiling, like a massive firestorm obliterating everything in its path. I stride back out of the shipping container and confront Jamie, still gripping the revolver in my hand, not even thinking about the danger I’m in right now. This is the most highly guarded secret by Ophidian, and I just forced my way into it. I’m one of the few people who knows where the manifest is. They have every reason to kill me on the spot.
No one would ever know.
“How could you?” I spit out at Jamie. I’m too furious to pretend to be in love with him anymore, even if he is my last and only lifeline on the island. “This is what Ophidian has been doing? You’ve been shipping children?”
He
looks put out. “I thought I told you this was obsolete, Eliza. I’ve been trying to stop it. At least with adults, you’d have people who wanted to become aberrants. And we wouldn’t have to waste so many resources on dealing with children.”
Obsolete? Try wrong. Try something that makes me want to rip out his freaking heart and that of anyone else involved in this. Jamie has been helping his father deal with the shipments for who knows how long, and he acts like this is a chore akin to taking out the trash. To think that we were drinking champagne at a wedding while these children were locked in a shipping container, alone in the darkness, for hours...
He’s as guilty as the rest of them.
“Aren’t there enough aberrants already?” I demand. “Some of us were born into this, and it was a curse we couldn’t escape. And now you’re forcing it onto children who didn’t have to bear it at all, who could have been normal...”
Oh, no. Something’s wrong. Jamie is looking at me with pity, the same way his father did, and I just know I’ve missed something again. He gestures at the employees to unlock the cages and remove the children from the shipping container. I’m on the verge of strangling him with my bare hands, but I make myself wait to hear his response. Maybe it won’t be that bad. I mean, how much worse can it get?
But what he says next shatters my entire world, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to put it back together again.
“None of you were born with it.”
“What?” I hear myself ask. I feel as if I’m falling, the blood rushing loudly through my ears, even though I’m standing completely still.
“Ophidian has been turning children into aberrants for decades, ever since the gene therapy was developed,” he says, sounding impatient. “The less powerful ones are returned to their families or put up for adoption or foster care. The rest are sent to their respective governments, which mandate testing so that no one falls through the cracks. Your aberration isn’t a curse, Eliza. It’s a gift from my father.”
Jamie turns away from me, directing the employees and security guards to bring the children around to the front entrance. No one seems to notice or care that I’m still paralyzed outside the empty shipping container. They’re too busy carrying the ten children into the building, into a future that none of them could ever want. And all the while Jamie is assigning predetermined code names to each child based on the manifest: Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta...
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