The Labs (The GEOs Book 2)

by Ramona Finn

  “He’s marrying her?” someone else gasped at the same time.

  Mara had wanted authenticity, and she’d gotten it. Then, R.L. made a throaty cough, and the comments instantly became more positive.

  “Lucky girl!”

  “They’ll make such a cute couple.”

  “Congratulations!”

  I wasn’t convinced. Neither was Ben, from the look on his face.

  The spotlight grew larger to encompass everyone in the lab. It was strange to see the glares from some of the girls. Surely, they weren’t hoping that one of them was going to get Ben? Weren’t they all related? That was just gross.

  R.L. turned back to the camera and the whole cast went silent again. Still grinning, he continued, “There will be celebrations up here and down in the Geos. I will be sending extra food supplies just for the occasion.” He looked at Ben, giving him a squeeze around the neck. “My son will deliver the supplies personally. You may congratulate him when you see him.”

  I looked up at Ben, who had those irresistible dimples on full display. He was going down to the Geos? This was my chance to go home and see my parents.

  Somehow, I would be on that transport even if I had to charm my way through the entire family to get onto it.

  R.L. pulled Ben and me closer. He held each of our hands and joined them together in front of him, as if he was the officiant in our ceremony. At the same time, clones emerged from the shadows, carrying trays of glasses filled with a bubbly, gold liquid. Every cast member took a glass, with R.L. getting the last one to be handed out. R.L. held our hands with one of his hands and raised his glass with the other.

  “I give you Ben and Tylia, the future of our people.”

  “Ben and Tylia,” the cast echoed, but with a great deal less enthusiasm. They raised their glasses and then drank the liquid within while Ben leaned in to give me a very chaste peck on the cheek. I knew my face was as red as my blood. I didn’t know if I should smile or say something or start to cry. Mara waved at me, telling me to look into the eye of Camera Two. I tried, but I was blinking so fast that she just shook her head. Someone behind me snickered.

  “And, cut!” Mara yelled. Everyone moved quickly off the set. “We’ll now be showing some footage we have of Ben and Tylia. We’re back on with the usual scripted episode in two hours.”

  They had footage of me and Ben? I looked at him.

  “They’ve been filming us in secret. I had no idea.” But he also didn’t seem to care. He was basking in the attention.

  Several scientists who I’d met earlier came forward to offer their congratulations. Very few of them even pretended to be pleased. I was taking away their ‘favored’ son. The star of the show was no longer the eligible bachelor that everyone could fantasize over. I wondered if this was also the reaction happening in the Geos. What was Viv thinking right this minute? And the others… Bree? Rana? My parents?

  I clutched my mother’s pendant, which was hanging around my neck. Behind it, I felt the vial that Skylar Two had given me. The Rejs would hear of this soon. Would they think I’d gone over to the dark side? That I’d fallen for our enemy’s spiel?

  “Well done, my dears,” R.L.’s voice broke me out of my thoughts. He let go of our hands. “Now, rest well. In four days, life will change completely for the two of you.”

  “Sir?” I had to ask before I lost all my courage.

  “Call me Father,” R.L. said, looking down at me with his warm, dark eyes. “You might as well start.”

  “F—father,” I said. It felt all wrong saying it to him while my real father was languishing in the Geos. “My parents—”

  “Say no more.” R.L. raised a finger and then tugged on his shirt. “I know what I said. But there’s been a resurgence of the Cough in the Geos lately, and I wanted to wait until things had cleared up a bit before I sent for them—you know, in case your father was exposed. And, don’t worry, your mother has been receiving regular treatment. In time, my dear, when all is settled, I’ll bring them up here.”

  I opened my mouth to ask when that would be, but a crew of people crowded R.L. and ushered him off the set. I was left holding Ben’s hand as the two of us stood in the middle of the set in awkward silence.

  “Okay, your part is done.” Mara’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “We’re going to need Ben for the rest of the shoot, though.”

  “Yes, of course,” was all I could manage.

  Ben was still grinning, and that crooked smile warmed me. He was so genuinely happy. I didn’t know if anyone else in the whole world would’ve been that happy to be spending the rest of their days with me. Skylar Two’s face came into my head, looking disappointed. I brushed it away.

  “I’ll come over after the shoot no matter what time of night it might be,” he promised, kissing me on the cheek again.

  With that, he walked me to the studio entrance. I couldn’t help but notice that the scientists who were mingling off of the set stopped talking as we walked past them, and I definitely got the stink-eye from one or two ‘lesser’ Farrows. Our partnering was not going to be the happy occasion R.L. and Ben envisioned, and I wasn’t going to be making friends any time soon.

  “How will you stay safe if the Cough is going around again?” I asked. The inconsistent messages I got from R.L. bugged me. I couldn’t help thinking he was hiding something.

  Ben took both my hands in his. “It’s kind of nice to have someone worry about me. You can relax. I’ll stay in my environmental suit the entire time, and there’s a bunch of decontamination showers to get through when I get back.”

  Why did that feel like an insult? As if my people were vermin who had to be fed, but couldn’t be touched?

  “I want to come with you when you deliver supplies to the Geos,” I announced.

  Ben’s smile vanished. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. It’s not safe.”

  “It’s my home.” I wondered if he’d erased that from his memory. “I want to see my parents.”

  He sighed. “I’ll have to get you authorization, and Father’s permission. Let me work on it.”

  “Please do,” I said. “It would mean the world to me.”

  This time, Ben stood in the corridor outside the studio entrance and watched me as I headed toward the elevator that would take me to my apartment. As the doors closed, I waved him away. He laughed and headed back to the studio.

  Halfway to my apartment’s floor, I instructed the elevator to change direction and headed up to the farms instead. I didn’t want to be alone with the TV on right now. I needed space to think.

  The farm area was as quiet as it had been the first time I’d been here. For a second, I wondered where the workers were, or was everything here automated? I walked among the growing stalks of corn, going over the morning’s events. Everything was happening so quickly. In four days, I would be a Farrow. I would be tied to Ben forever, and we would have smaller versions of ourselves walking around the Labs.

  And they would be used to make the Cure. They would be the real heroes.

  “Liar!” Kev’s accusation made me jump.

  I hadn’t seen Kev since that day when we’d been up there together. My heart jumped into my throat. I hadn’t had time to warn him…to tell him about me and Ben. He knew now, though, just as everyone else did. He might have figured out that I’d never been imprisoned or tortured like him. I was a liar.

  “You let me think you suffered, while all along you were flirting with Ben Farrow.” Yes, he’d figured it out. He stormed over to me. His face was puffy and splotchy. He looked like he’d been crying. “You let me go on about how well I knew R.L. Farrow from a vid note he sent me when you were in his company this whole time. I guess I’m not the friend I thought I was to you.”

  “I’m sorry, Kev.” My voice was shaky. “You are my friend. I was going to tell—”

  “Don’t bother,” he said. “It doesn’t matter anymore. You’re going to be a Farrow and I’m nobody. Did you notice R.L. said you wer
e the winner of the Acceptance, as if I never existed? Well, you got your wish. You belong now. Who cares about me?”

  “Kev—” I reached out for him, but he stepped back.

  “No!” He was shouting now, and it echoed off the walls of the dome. “Stay away from me. You’re just like the rest of them.”

  Those words pierced me more than I’d expected. I guessed I’d always been proud that I’d become Kev’s friend, that I wasn’t mean to him like the others in the Geos had been.

  But maybe it was always about me, not about Kev and his feelings. I was as bad as the others. He was right.

  “How can I make this right?” I asked him quietly.

  He brushed me off with a wave of his arm. “One day, you’ll be sorry. You all will.” He whipped around and ran away from me. I tried to go after him, but he screamed for me to leave him alone.

  I watched him get into the elevator. The last thing I saw were his eyes staring at me like daggers piercing my heart. Something broke inside me. I had betrayed my only friend—the only person outside of Ben who treated me well.

  But I didn’t have time to mourn the death of our friendship. I was going to see my parents soon. That thought alone gave me comfort. I was headed back to the Geos. I was going home.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Getting into the environmental suit while the transport was coming in for a landing was tricky, to say the least. But I had spent so long talking to Ben as he’d piloted the small shuttle that I was the last one to suit up. I felt so grateful to him for getting me my permit, and simply for letting me come back home, that I’d let the time slip away even as the EFs reminded me several times to get my suit on.

  The blue and white suit that covered me from head to toe crinkled loudly as I slipped my arms into the sleeves. Two EFs, one a girl and Killian—Ben’s personal guard—had to help me fasten the seals located on the back of my arms, legs, and head. As soon as the last one was sealed, the entire suit made a sucking sound and the fabric tightened around me. The suit now fit me like a second skin. It was tight, but not uncomfortable, and it didn’t make any noise when I moved. The EFs placed my helmet on my head as Ben landed the shuttle. Strong winds created by the valley where the Geos’ entrance stood shook the transport. It made me stumble and I knocked my head into the transport wall. The EFs gasped, but I told them I was fine. They were so much steadier on their feet, I felt a bit stupid for losing my balance. The female EF, who had a gentle voice and pretty smile, helped me into a seat and adjusted the face plate on my helmet so that it gave me an unobstructed view of everything. “Walking around in these takes some getting used to,” she said. “Just don’t go through tight spaces, and watch for tears. Even a small cut could be dangerous.”

  It was a strange experience to have EFs helping me instead of threatening me. It would take time for me to get used to the fact that these EFs now worked for me and not against me.

  “And don’t fall into the temptation to take this off,” Killian added. “We don’t know how severe the latest Cough mutation is.”

  “Mutation?” I’d thought R.L. said it was a resurgence. “How bad—”

  Ben had powered down the transport engines, and he walked into the cargo area where we were. He was already in his suit. The EFs stood at attention. I didn’t have a hope of getting an answer from them now.

  “You look ready to go,” he said to me with a broad smile. His voice was a little muffled through his helmet. “I like this look on you.”

  The fabric of my suit made walking difficult at first. It was a little stiff, and I felt rather self-conscious moving about in it. Getting off the transport, I hadn’t realized that I was walking with my arms away from my body.

  “You look like a robot,” Ben said, all but bent over laughing.

  My face heated up, which made my entire suit feel very warm.

  “Shake your arms and do some twists,” Ben suggested. “It’ll loosen up the fabric.”

  I did as he advised, and within a few minutes, the suit felt better, and I managed to move about more naturally. Ben held out his hand to me as we walked off the transport and into the open air of the surface. It was a cloudy morning, and I could see the wind blowing through the trees even if I couldn’t feel it through the suit. I took a careful breath, reminding myself that the suit would filter out any possible viruses in the air. Only after several breaths could I relax. We followed the EFs past clusters of trees, some of which had no leaves on their branches. The leaves had fallen and lay beneath our feet like a carpet. They made a crunching sound as we walked over them. The EFs led us to what looked like the side of a small hill covered in vines of green and yellow foliage. They moved the plants aside to reveal a dark, metallic door. Large, red letters painted on the door warned us that only authorized personnel could open this door. This was the way into the Geos. One of many. I’d walked through one once, during the Acceptance. My heart skipped a beat as I thought about how far I’d come since that moment. Never in my dreams had I imagined I’d be coming home with Ben Farrow as my intended partner, dressed in an Elite environmental suit.

  “Just stay close to me today,” Ben said as we walked through the door. Two other doors, side by side, greeted us. Behind them were two separate elevators.

  “But I want to see my parents!”

  He took my hand, and even through the layer of gloves, I could feel his warmth. “I’ll let you know when it’s safe to leave me to go to your parents. We don’t yet know how the people will react to our good news.”

  He had a point. Hopefully, their reaction would be better than what I’d gotten from the Elites. In the last two days since R.L.’s announcement, I’d dropped more things because of being ‘accidentally’ bumped than I had in my entire life up to this point. Food was dropped into my water when I wasn’t looking, random people would ring my apartment doorbell and then run away, and nobody—not a single Elite—had stopped to congratulate me. It was as if I was the new villain in the Labs who everyone loved to hate.

  The larger of the two doors opened, revealing an elevator that could easily have fit the entire cast of The Cure and several cameras in it. This was one of the cargo elevators that I’d heard about. Occasionally, the Elites would send us surplus food, and when they didn’t use the Sky Tubes, they’d use these elevators to move their crates to the food distributors who waited on the other side of the elevator. It was on these occasions, I remembered, that we’d get a visit from one of the Farrows. Just like today.

  Killian ordered the other EFs to strap the crates of food we’d brought onto wheeled platforms. They moved them into the elevator. The crates were sprayed with some kind of decontaminant before the heavy door slid shut. Killian keyed in a code that started the elevator rumbling downwards. Then Ben and I stepped into the second elevator. Killian and the female EF joined us. This one was much smaller, big enough for six people at the most. Ben held my hand as we remained silent while the elevator descended. I wondered if he could feel my heart racing.

  I was coming home. I couldn’t wait to see my parents.

  The dim hallway that we stepped into was unfamiliar to me. I couldn’t imagine where we were in the Geos. Ben and I went through a series of tunnels where we were sprayed with the same decontaminant as the crates, and then large fans dried us off before we came to another door. On the other side was a dark room filled with crates stacked on top of each other. They lined both sides of an aisle. Ahead of us, I saw the EFs moving the crates we had just brought with us.

  Ben held onto my hand all the way down the aisle. I could feel his muscles tense with each step we took together. Was he nervous?

  At the end of the aisle was another door, and I was beginning to wonder how many layers there were to the Geos that I didn’t know about. But this door opened up into a familiar hallway. Along this path were doors—doors made of different materials like wood, with symbols on the front.

  My throat tightened. This was where we’d trained for the Acceptance. As we walk
ed past the door that had been my room, Ben stopped. He turned to me with his crooked smile.

  “This was where we first got to know each other,” he said, his face reddening.

  I could barely breathe at the memory. I remembered how terrified I’d felt all the time, not knowing if those were my last days or not. “Yes,” I managed to say. I hoped he didn’t hear my discomfort.

  The other doors we’d passed held people who were dead today. Cassie, Jade, Sorel, Jax, and Jason. Slaughtered by EFs at R.L.’s command. The old familiar knot in my stomach twisted.

  “We should keep moving, sir,” the female EF spoke, breaking me out of this memory. Ben pulled me along until we came to the one door I knew would lead us to the Union Hall.

  “Ready?” Ben actually looked excited.

  I exhaled and fogged up the lower section of my face mask for a second. My heart was racing—and I couldn’t tell if it was because I was glad to be home or if I was scared of what they’d think of me. “As ready as I’ll ever be,” I answered.

  Two EFs, Killian and the female guard, stayed with us as the others went off to distribute supplies. They followed us into Union Hall. We entered through the back of the small stage under the giant TV screen. I remembered this place. I’d been here once—the day we’d left for Acceptance training. It was dark with lots of panels coming down from the ceiling. I’d never noticed how similar it was to the show studio. There was a crackling sound and, beyond that, the familiar sound of voices—Union people mingling on their breaks or on their way home from shifts.

  Music blared out to the hall and people quieted. I recognized the opening tune for the show, and R.L.’s voice following it.

  “As promised, extra food supplies have been delivered in honor of the celebration that is to come.” His voice boomed across the cavernous hall. How many times had I stopped on my way home or to work and listened to announcements like this? And now I was on the other side. It almost felt like a dream—as if nobody like me could be in this position right now. My heart sped up. I took several deep breaths and squeezed Ben’s hand. If he hadn’t been holding on to me, I might have collapsed into a pile of goo. “And also in honor of their union, my son Ben Farrow and Tylia Coder wanted to greet you all in person. Please welcome Ben Farrow and Tylia Coder!”