by Malinda Lo
“I found something,” she said, her heartbeat quickening. It was a report—written in normal English, thankfully—containing results from the various tests she had undergone since arriving yesterday. She began to skim the executive summary.
Report on Status of Clarice Irene Holloway
Dr. Amelia Singh
Blue Base Medical Lab
July 31, 2014
Examination of subject Clarice Irene Holloway, identified as patient 83 (PA83) from her Project Plato chart, reveals that injuries sustained during the car accident on June 20 were treated with experimental medical procedures not authorized for use on civilians.
David banged the filing cabinet shut and joined her, leaning over her shoulder.
“This says—oh my God, this is crazy,” Reese said.
Subject’s sample contains clear evidence of nonhuman DNA, potentially extraterrestrial (Imria). Further analysis is needed, but preliminary results suggest a successful hybrid procedure has been performed. It is recommended that subject be retained for additional testing that may provide information beneficial to Project Blue Base and future genetic enhancement initiatives.
As Reese flipped through the report, stunned, David shuffled through the rest of the printouts until he found a report on himself. “It’s the same,” he said, scanning the document. “It says the same thing as yours.”
The doors to the medical bay suddenly banged open, followed by the sound of frantic voices.
“Shit, give me your papers,” Reese said. She tried to stuff the documents back into the printer output tray, but she was too late. Footsteps pounded into the medical bay and through the open door into Dr. Singh’s office. Someone grabbed Reese’s arm, twisting it behind her and dragging her away from the printer. The papers fell on the floor in a cascade of sheets.
“This is why they should not have been kept here!” Dr. Singh shouted. “The medical bay is not equipped to contain prisoners.”
Reese saw David struggling nearby in the grip of a man in black—it was Agent Kowalski—and across the medical bay two doctors rushed inside with a man on a stretcher. There was an oxygen mask on his face and blood all over his abdomen.
“We’ll take them into custody,” said the man holding Reese, and she realized it was Agent Forrestal. “But you should have locked your door—”
“It was an emergency!” Dr. Singh exploded.
Agent Todd came through the medical bay doors. “What is going on?” he demanded.
Dr. Singh turned on him. “Your charges broke into my office and accessed classified information—”
“Those reports were about us,” David cut in.
“And you won’t tell us anything,” Reese said. “What do you expect us to do, wait around until you decide what to do with us?”
Nobody answered her. In the background she heard doctors reeling off the bleeding patient’s stats as they called for various drugs and equipment. In the distance someone was screaming. The doors burst open, and the screaming came into the medical bay, emanating from a person strapped down to a second stretcher, his legs thrashing wildly.
Agent Todd said, “Let’s take them over to internal for now.”
“They need to be in containment,” Dr. Singh said. “You don’t know what they’re capable of.”
Agent Todd gave her a dark look. “That’s not possible right now.” He looked at Kowalski and Forrestal. “Follow me.”
Reese stumbled as Agent Forrestal pushed her along. “Where are you taking us?” she asked.
“Just move along,” he said, his hand squeezing her arm so tightly that it made her wince.
Powerless to resist, she followed Agent Todd out into the corridor. As she passed the screaming patient, she saw an ugly gash in his side so deep, she glimpsed internal organs. She shuddered. He looked like he had been clawed open.
Once the medical bay doors closed behind them, the sound of the screams was muffled. She glanced over her shoulder; David was being shoved along by Agent Kowalski. Agent Todd led them down the corridor and back to the interrogation rooms they had used earlier. Agent Forrestal directed her into the same room where she had been questioned by John Brennan, and the door was pulled shut. She heard a lock click, and when she rattled the handle, it wouldn’t turn.
She backed away from the door and sat down in the chair. In the one-way mirror she saw her reflection: the color on her cheeks heightened, her hair a mess.
Nonhuman DNA, potentially extraterrestrial. A successful hybrid procedure.
Intellectually, she understood what the words meant, but they seemed to echo in her mind like meaningless syllables shouted in a vast cavern. Extraterrestrial. Nonhuman. Hybrid. They circled around and around like buzzards over a kill. Like UFOs dancing in the night sky. Julian would have a field day with this.
She groaned, running her hands through her hair and tugging it away from her face. She couldn’t seem to get a firm grasp on what she had read in that report. Maybe she was just too freaked out to allow herself to comprehend the words. It was easier to sit here, staring at her reflection in the one-way mirror, and make jokes to herself about aliens.
Because if that report was true, it meant she was no longer human.
CHAPTER 36
The door opened, and Reese lifted her head from her arms. She had fallen into a doze, but it was hard to sleep deeply with the overhead lights on. She was groggy and hungry and confused, and when she saw Agent Todd come into the interrogation room, she asked, “What’s going on? How long are you going to keep me in here?” She had been alone for hours, except for the five minutes they had let her out—accompanied, embarrassingly—to use the bathroom.
“I’ve brought someone here to talk to you,” Agent Todd said. “But this is entirely unauthorized, so you’ll need to keep this to yourself.”
His words swept away the grogginess. “What do you mean unauthorized?” she asked sharply.
“You’ll know soon enough.”
“Who is it?”
“Amber Gray,” he said.
Her heart seemed to stop entirely. “What?”
He held open the door, and Amber walked into the room.
The moment Reese saw her, it was as though every nerve in her body switched on, and she couldn’t tell if she was angry or frightened or hurt or all of the above. She stood up, her chair crashing onto the floor.
A hint of a smile floated across Amber’s face. “Hi,” she said. The fluorescent overhead lights made her skin look washed out and emphasized the dark shadows beneath her eyes. But on her, it somehow just looked like her eye makeup had smudged, more morning-after than imprisoned-against-my-will. She was wearing an ill-fitting orange jumpsuit with a serial number printed on the front right breast.
“You have fifteen minutes,” Todd said. “I’ll be outside.” He pulled the door shut.
Amber took a step toward Reese, but when Reese backed up, Amber stopped. The half smile on her face disappeared, and she looked away from Reese as if the sight of her were painful. “I’m sorry that I had to lie to you,” she said in a low voice.
The apology was so unexpected that Reese was speechless.
Amber turned her face back to Reese after a moment. Her eyes were sad and shimmering. “I really am sorry.”
Reese couldn’t look at Amber. She picked up the chair and set it upright. “Why did you lie to me?”
“I had to,” Amber whispered.
“Because I was an assignment,” Reese said in a flat tone of voice.
Amber shook her head. “No.”
“I heard you on the street with Dr. Brand. She told you to continue with your assignment. Wasn’t that me?” Her stomach clenched into tight little knots.
“No. It’s not what you think.”
“Then what was your assignment?” Reese snapped, raising her gaze to Amber’s face.
“I was supposed to—to keep an eye on you. Because—”
“You went above and beyond the call of duty.”
&nbs
p; Amber flinched. She backed up until she banged into the door, and she slid down to the floor, knees bent. “You’re asking the wrong questions.”
“Oh, really,” Reese said, sarcasm twisting her words. “What am I supposed to be asking, then?”
“This isn’t about you and me,” Amber said gently. “This whole thing—it’s way bigger than just the two of us.”
Reese was stung. “I’m not saying—”
“Listen to me,” Amber interrupted. “I know you’re angry about what happened. I’m sorry. I really am. I would apologize a million times if I could. But you and me—we’re just at the end of a really long string of events that had nothing to do with us to begin with.”
Reese sat down. “What events?”
“I can’t tell you everything right now. But you should know that we’re here to help you.” The expression on Amber’s face pleaded with Reese to believe her.
“Who’s ‘we’?”
“Everybody who was in Nevada at the Plato facility. And me. We’re here to help you, but your government is going to kill us.”
Reese’s eyes narrowed. “What? That doesn’t make any sense. My government is your government too.”
“No, it’s not. Your government did not approve what we did to you at Plato. They weren’t supposed to find out—at least, not yet. But things got messed up. I messed up.” Amber sounded extremely disappointed with herself, and Reese inexplicably found herself wanting to reassure her.
Irritated with herself, Reese said, “So the Plato people—they’re not with Project Blue Base, right?”
“I didn’t know you knew about that. But no, it’s not the same thing. The biotechnology being developed at Plato is not the same, but Blue Base wants it. And they think that you—and your friend David—carry that information in your DNA now.”
“How do you know all this? How do you know Dr. Brand?”
“It doesn’t matter. The point is: Your government wants to use you and David as guinea pigs. That’s why you’re here.”
Reese gave Amber a frustrated look. “But why are you here?”
Amber’s chest rose and fell as she took a deep breath, wrapping her hands around her knees. “Because you were being monitored by your government in San Francisco, and I wasn’t careful enough. They found out about me. The morning I came to your house—the morning you asked me about Dr. Brand—I was followed by some men in black. On my way back to where I was staying, I called in to report that you had connected me with Dr. Brand”—Amber flushed a little—“and the agents must have intercepted the call. They were waiting for me back at the flat. They kidnapped me and brought me here along with everyone else from Project Plato. They think we’re expendable now because they have you and David. They think they don’t need us anymore. So they’re going to execute us all. It’s scheduled for the day after tomorrow.” Amber seemed strangely calm for someone who had just said that she was about to be killed.
“I don’t understand,” Reese finally managed to say. “I can’t believe the US government would execute you. What have you done? What is Plato? And why are you involved with it?”
Reese saw Amber hesitate. Her face had gone so pale. When she spoke, her voice was barely above a whisper. “Plato is a US government project that was supposed to establish diplomatic relations with my people, the Imria. We’re… not from Earth.”
Reese couldn’t absorb Amber’s words. “You’ve got to be joking.”
Amber’s face darkened. “I’ve been imprisoned in a military bunker for twenty-four hours, and I’m scheduled to be executed in two days. Why would I joke about this?”
“But—but you speak English,” Reese said, and immediately flushed.
Amber raised an eyebrow. “You don’t think we can learn foreign languages?”
“And you look exactly like us!” Reese said defensively. “How can you be a—how can you be not from Earth? I’m having a hard time believing you.”
Amber pushed herself to her feet. “Believe me or not, but listen to what I’m telling you. My people are coming for us. They won’t allow us to be executed. It will happen tomorrow, so you should be prepared.”
“Prepared for what?”
“We’re leaving, and we want you to come with us. For your own safety.” A drop of perspiration slid down Amber’s temple. “The only way to get out of here is to trip the bunker’s emergency override to the security system. That means that every door will be unlocked to allow everyone out, but you’ll only have an hour to evacuate before everything here is permanently shut down. The whole place will be sealed off and destroyed automatically. So when the emergency override begins, you’ll need to get to the surface as quickly as you can. Bring David.”
Reese crossed her arms. “You sound crazy. Why would you expect me to believe you? Why should I do anything you ask me to do? You still haven’t even told me how you know Dr. Brand. You lied to me before. You could still be lying.”
Amber closed her eyes briefly, drawing in a shallow breath. When she opened her eyes again there was a hard glint in them. “The woman you know as Dr. Brand is my mother. That’s how I know her.”
Reese was stunned. “Your mother?”
“We are watching out for you—I swear. I know this is totally confusing and weird, but I asked Todd to allow me to talk to you for a reason. Because tomorrow everything in this world is going to change. You will understand it all soon enough. But right now, I can’t tell you more than this. The only thing you need to know is that if you believe what your government tells you, you will spend the rest of your life as a guinea pig. We want to help you. I swear you can believe me. I’ll never lie to you again.”
Before Reese could respond, the door opened. Amber moved out of the way. “Time to go,” Agent Todd said.
“Tomorrow,” Amber said. “Reese, tomorrow. When the chance comes you have to get up to the surface.”
Reese stood. “What chance? How will I even know?”
“You’ll know.”
Amber’s mouth was set in a hard line, her gray eyes trained insistently on Reese. The Amber she had known in San Francisco—the girl with the smile that made Reese’s knees weak—had disappeared. All the flirtation was gone, replaced by a fierce demand that Reese believe her.
Agent Todd touched Amber’s elbow. “Come on.” He began to leave the room.
“Agent Todd,” Reese said quickly, “I have to talk to David. If she’s telling me the truth, he needs to know it too.”
He considered her request. “All right. I have to return Miss Gray to her cell, but I’ll come back when I’m finished.” He opened the door and stepped into the hall.
Amber turned to go, but at the last moment she looked back. “Reese. I never lied to you about the way I feel about you. I swear.”
Heat shot through Reese. She remembered the first time she had seen Amber, with her pink hair and her skateboard. From the very beginning, there had been something unusually precise about her. Not a hair out of place. She knew what she was doing.
She still did.
Even beneath the unforgiving fluorescents; even dressed in that ridiculous jumpsuit; even with her face bare of makeup—or maybe because of it—she was magnetic. Reese remembered thinking that pretty was too bland of a word to describe Amber. And it was true; Amber wasn’t pretty. She could be cute, if she wanted. She could be beautiful too. But in her heart, she was a chameleon. And now she presented the face that she wanted Reese to see: naked, artless.
Reese wanted to believe her. But she didn’t trust her.
Looking away was one of the hardest things she had ever done.
CHAPTER 37
When Agent Todd returned twenty minutes later, Reese was pacing in front of the one-way mirror. “I can give you fifteen minutes with David, but that’s all,” Agent Todd said. “There’s a limit to how long I can fool the security system.”
Fifteen minutes wasn’t a lot, but she would take it. “Fine.”
“Follow me.”
&
nbsp; She stepped out of the room into the hallway. “Who are you?” she asked.
He looked at her. “Malcolm Todd.”
Reese shook her head. “You know what I mean. You’re not one of them—like Agent Forrestal—are you? A man in black.”
“I work for the Air Force Office of Special Investigations,” Todd said. He led her down the hall to another interrogation room.
“Why did you want me to talk to Amber? Whose side are you on?”
He didn’t hesitate. “I’m on your side.”
Frustration burned through her. “If you’re on my side, you’ll tell me the truth. Who—”
He cut her off. “Amber Gray has already told you the truth. All I’m here to do is make sure you’re in the right place at the right time.” He entered the code to unlock the door. “Any other questions?”
She shook her head. He opened the door.
David’s interrogation room was identical to hers. He had managed to fall asleep under the bright lights, head nodding against his chest. His feet were propped up on the second chair, which he had dragged around the table.
“David,” she said.
At the sound of her voice, he awoke with a jerk, feet falling off the chair. He squinted at Reese, and then glanced around the room. It was empty but for them. “Reese? What are you doing in here?”
“We have fifteen minutes,” she said, sitting on the edge of the table.
He rubbed a hand over his face. “What do you mean?”
“Agent Todd is giving us fifteen minutes together. I have to tell you something.”
He rubbed his eyes and sat up. “What is it?”
Reese hadn’t had much time to plan what she would tell David about Amber, but she knew there were some things she wanted to keep private. “Did they show you a bunch of mug shots today during your debriefing?”