by Danielle Monsch, Cate Rowan, Jennifer Lewis, Jeannie Lin, Nadia Lee, Dee Carney
If he compromised himself with Zel, all his work would be for nothing. None of the others in the upper echelons of the megacorps would support him when he finally took over Gothel Island. And NOMBIO would kick him out.
Langley had to face the truth.
He couldn’t continue his good work and have Zel, too.
In the lower level of his private wing, he stopped and stared at his expensive black shoes. Surrounded by a rich and plush carpet made by weavers—landers who lived forever beneath the smog, his unflawed loafers never saw the ground or suffered marring by dirt. He shook off the maudlin thoughts and strode through the stark, sterile, and barren corridors.
His time with Zel was over. As soon as he got her to the ground.
Chapter Four
‡
Langley wasted no time finding his mère. She was in her office, and though she doted on her only child as much as possible for one such as she, he paced back and forth for an excruciatingly slow half hour in the waiting room. Too long. He considered the ramifications of this plan, doubted, and nearly burst into her office in his impatience. That would not do.
To calm himself, he thought of Zel. He’d never forget his last hungry glance at her. She stood strong, shoulders back, chin up, and her mouth full from their kiss. Bald and still as beautiful as she’d been with the long, luscious, blonde hair. Her elegance had enchanted him, a strong bearing though she wore a simple relaxed pantsuit resembling pajamas as much as prison garb. The bright blue of the fabric highlighted her smooth, pale skin with a blush high on her cheeks, and the defiant sparkle of her blue eyes. She seemed so real to him. Not a fabrication. Not a bio-creation.
She had to be real.
“Come in, Langley.” Mère opened the door herself and dismissed her efficient secretary Nali, a man of impeccable dress who acknowledged Langley with a cool nod as he resumed his position at the waiting room front desk. The man had spent many nights of the past thirty years in Madame Gothel’s bed and begrudged all her time, even with her son. Too many times to count, Langley had wondered if this man was his father.
The large space he entered more resembled a lab than a wealthy corporation’s executive offices. Three walls lined with countertops—cabinets beneath and on top—various stages of reports of bio research, from quaint Petri dishes with who-knew-what growing in them, to tablets streaming data from real-time measurements in medical trials, chemical testing, and lab reports.
“Mère, I won’t take your time. I wanted to let you know not to expect me at dinner tonight. I’ll be in the library tower doing research on the new proposal you’ve been asking for.” He took a deep breath to continue weaving his cover story, to forestall any searches for him or Zel until tomorrow, but Mère looked at him with a blank expression. Then her eyes cleared, as if she hadn’t heard a word he’d said, which was surprising since she’d asked him to join her research for years and he’d always resisted. He’d just told her he’d join her and she hadn’t reacted. What was she up to?
“I’m glad you’re here. Saves me time from finding you.” Mère cast him a genuine smile, and his heart ran cold.
“I can’t imagine why you’d seek me out. You’ve never done so before.” He sat in the nearest chair and ground his teeth against the urge to tell her to spit it out, whatever inspired her lips to stretch across her face.
“I’m happy to report, the experiment you’ve participated in has started with a complete success.”
“Experiment?” He couldn’t possibly be any colder.
“Yes.” Sending her black hair waving, she nodded enthusiastically, the fevered glint in her eye more familiar than a pat on the head when he’d learned to spell his name as a toddler. “Rapunzel Denmark is pregnant with your issue. Now I’ll have two subjects with the secret of the unbreakable hair.”
“Pregnant?” The room spun about him as his mind tumbled through quick successions of shock, despair, and then a burst of joy. He swallowed back a feeling of vertigo and forced the words, “How is that possible? She has a dam.”
“You should see your face, son. Really, it’s time you worked on your professional demeanor.” With perfectly manicured hands, she shuffled a tablet across the desk and an image of a weeks’ old embryo filled the screen. “The test subject had a dam in place to prevent eggs from leaving its fallopian tubes, as all bio-creations have. Unless the makers decide reproduction is an asset. I removed the dam during its first weekly exam.”
He ran a finger over the image on the screen. His child.
“Why, you ask?” She continued, though Langley didn’t recall asking the question through his dry lips. “As soon as I had the hair in my care, I knew the only way to market it legally would be if I owned the issue. I removed the dam and made sure you visited it with enough aphrodisiacs pumped into the room to leave no doubt of the outcome.”
Fury like he’d never known erupted, too violent to keep inside. Turbulence forced a clarity he’d never acknowledged before. Never. It went against all his convictions, but it was truth. Absolute truth. “Zel is not an ‘it’. She’s not the sum total of nothing but hair. My child is not, either.”
He snapped his mouth shut so hard he bit his tongue. The pain registered as a reminder. He’d almost gone too far. He needed to remember the plan. This didn’t change it. It only made it more essential. His mère had manipulated him, used him as a stud. Given how he’d wanted Zel, he didn’t regret that, but he could no longer take advantage of Zel. Nor his child.
They were climbing down to the ground from her window. Tonight. Nothing would stop him. Not even the knowledge that if NOMBIO discovered the affair, they’d cast him out in derision and utter contempt. He’d fornicated with a bio-creation. They’d never trust his evidence against Mère. Somehow, he had to end Mère’s research. He’d bungled everything, but he’d do whatever it took to make it right, even give up Zel and her baby. But first, he had to get Zel away from here.
“Of course, dear. You’re so soft hearted. I’ll have to keep you in check so you don’t spoil the child, like I did you. But, I think you will learn, as I have, many things from having a child. Which is why I didn’t just create one from the subject’s DNA. Besides, you seemed a bit bored. I thought you might enjoy a bit of fun.”
Fun. He ground his teeth. Mère was not evil, just narrow-minded and manipulative. She’d never physically harmed him. Neglect and manipulation were more her style. She only cared for her research, not the repercussions. He cared about the repercussions enough for the two of them. That’s why he’d started his NOMBIO mission.
Minutes ago, he’d had doubts about what to do with Zel once he got her out of here, unsure if he should help Zel escape, even at the cost of losing her. But his mère had shifted the world on its axis. Mère would neutralize Zel. His son or daughter would be isolated, like he’d been as child, but worse. Baby Gothel, slated for experimentation—something he’d never, ever allow.
He’d lost the thread of the conversation but Mère cocked a brow and waited for his reply. He gritted a vague, “I guess.”
“I’m getting started right away. I’ve prepped the lab to remove the embryo. It’ll be better cared for under my direct supervision.”
What the hell?
“Better than inside his mother?”
“You’ve already decided you have a son?” Mère laughed. “Yes, you’ll spoil the issue. And, yes, my tests show it’ll be a male.”
Issue. It. Not child.
He had to do something. Immediately. Everything coalesced in his head, the clarity sharper, painful. Zel was a better human than his own mother. The foundations of his life crumbled. His mission, his point in life for years, no longer made sense.
Blanking his expression, he rose and faced the tablet with his child’s chart. He couldn’t read a thing, but he stared, his mind racing.
A small line of text caught his attention. His baby was predisposed to have the same hereditary faulty vision that led Langley to wear glasses. Not much of a de
triment in sight, but enough so Mère planned to alter the baby in vitro to correct it.
His slight corrective lenses had always bothered Mère. She’d designed and tested new eyes for him, but once a year, on his birthday, he denied her requests to implant new, bio-engineered visual organs. She wanted to make him a mod, a modified human, completely against his ideals and the ideals of his work at NOMBIO.
A plan to keep Zel off the lab table formed. He couldn’t take Zel away via the front door. His plan to sneak out using her hair as a rope wouldn’t work in the time he had left. The guards could even now be going to get her. If he tried anything, his mother would have the guards subdue him for his ‘own good’. It’d happened before when he was a teen. He didn’t delude himself he could best a dozen guards with no weapon other than his body. The only thing that would deter Mère was to dangle something she loved in front of her. That something wasn’t him, but what she could do to him. He straightened and faced Mère.
“I see the child will have his vision corrected.”
There’d be no going back. All his previous dreams for the future would die with his next words. Even if he could hide his affair with Zel from NOMBIO, he couldn’t hide modified eyes. He removed his glasses gently and ran a finger along the frame before he put them back on so he could see her expression. “If I’m to be a father, I should be the best I can be. I’ll do what you’ve asked. You can replace my eyes.”
“Perfect. You’ll be perfect, as you always should have been.” She beamed at him, more proud now than she’d ever been before. She’d used so many mods herself, she appeared more as his younger sister than his mère. He could see it. In her excitement, she’d momentarily pushed aside thoughts of doing the procedure on Zel. His lover wouldn’t be lying on that table in a matter of moments having their baby removed from her.
He would be lying there.
“I want you to do it now. Before I tell Zel about the baby.” Maybe he should be a little nervous about what he’d volunteered to do, but an immediate assurance he did the right thing, protected his woman and child, made him go calm. Only weeks ago he wouldn’t have thought of Zel as a woman, not a bitter irony lost on him. He would’ve looked down on someone such as himself, preparing for a mod, taking a bio-creation as lover.
She waved away the concern. “We don’t need to tell her.”
“She’ll figure it out,” he replied drily. “She’ll be the maman of my child. It’s my right to be the one to tell her.”
A strange rush rocked through him and he concentrated lest a grin broke on his face.
“You don’t need to deal with her again.” Mère raised an indignant brow. “I’m removing the embryo and she won’t be necessary.”
“Don’t you think that’s my decision to make?” Tension tightened in his chest and focused his resolve. Not necessary meant many things to Mère—from being ignored, to being put down. Zel would be neither.
His mère’s face burned red as her lips twisted in an ugly frown, but before she could launch into further autocratic decrees, he held up a hand.
“Mère, we don’t need to decide this today. Let’s take care of my eyes. Now. So I’ll be fully healed before the child gets here. And I’m keeping Zel. She’s a useful distraction when I’m in the mood for it.”
“There’s plenty of time to discuss it.” The anger dropped from her features and she tapped the image of his baby. His baby.
He shook his head. If she did his surgery now, she’d wait to do anything to Zel. She was methodical and thorough with every experiment before moving to another. He’d been caught off guard. If he’d known he needed to get Zel out and confront Mère’s guards, he could’ve called in some extra muscle from NOMBIO. But he didn’t have time. Now that she’d told him about the baby, Zel could be gone before he managed to get through to NOMBIO. “I want it done.”
“You’ll be modified. You’ve always insisted you wouldn’t taint your humanity.” She gave him a condescending smile, driving away all doubt, even if he’d had any. He hadn’t left Gothel Island in months. Then all those weeks ago, he’d done as Mère asked and visited her new project, Zel. His life—and his thinking—had capsized that day, but he’d still ignored the deep-seated sea change.
“It’s no more than what you’ve done to yourself,” he replied.
“Let’s go. You are absolutely correct. I will proceed before you change your mind.” She headed to the rear door of her office to her personal lab space, and he followed, pausing at a nearby counter and stared at the screens displaying horrific images and stats from other experiments. His mouth went dry.
“Come. You said you wanted to do this. Don’t dawdle, now. I have the new eyes ready. They’ve been ready for years.” She waved at him to follow her.
“I’m right behind you.” He resisted the urge to push his glasses up his nose.
“I don’t know why it took you so long to agree.” She led him into the lab and to the cordoned off hospital area. “Once you’re recovered, it will be time to put your education to use and come work with me. I let you have your fun, your little rebellion phase. Now you need to get serious. We’ll be unstoppable. The best bio-researchers of all time.”
Mère shoved a medical gown into his hands. He stepped behind a screen and changed.
Two nurses gently prepped him. Too bad Mère hadn’t been more like these matronly women in pale-yellow smocks. The nurses would treat him the same after the procedure, even though he’d be a mod. Prickling heat spread through him from the needle embedded in his wrist. No matter what, Zel and their child were his family, even if he couldn’t have them at his side.
Even as the world slipped away, the truth assailed him, sharper and with more clarity than ever: Humanity didn’t mean the same thing to him anymore.
“Go to sleep, son. I’ll take care of everything.”
Eyes glinting, Mère bent over him, and panic seized his chest. She eyed him with familiar condescension. He tried to bolt up, but the thin blanket covering him was too heavy. As he tried to keep his eyes open, to speak to her, to beg her not to do anything rash, he knew he’d made a mistake. He just didn’t know what it was.
He fell into troubled sleep.
Visions of blurry movement, cool touches, and efficient clicks of a woman’s heels filtered through the haze. A straw prodded his mouth. Bennet visited. Langley slept in fits.
When he woke, it was dark. It only took the space of one deep breath for him to remember. Sitting up, the world pitched and yawed. The hoarse word bled through his dry lips, “Zel.”
“Easy.” He recognized Bennet’s voice. His valet put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s only been an hour since they put you in bed. Madame Gothel demanded you not get up for at least a week. She kept you under for three days.”
“Days,” he croaked.
His mistake. It rushed back at him, what he couldn’t remember when his mother put him under. He hadn’t gotten word to Zel that he wouldn’t be back. It’d been days since he’d promised to get her out. She didn’t know her danger.
He had to find out if his plan worked, if his mother had left Zel alone. He lunged up and nausea choked him as white sparks swirled behind his blinded eyes. He took deep breaths until it passed.
“Take it slow,” Bennet mumbled and gripped his upper arm.
Awkward, shaky, and unable to see a damn thing, he swung his legs over the side of the mattress. Bennet helped him from the bed, guided him into the sanitation stall, and after Langley was clean, dressed him while giving an update on the goings and comings of the staff. Nobody had yet to see Zel’s clipped hair. Bennet had taken care of her, himself.
She was unharmed. For now.
“Good.” Langley swallowed, trying to dispel the metallic tang in his mouth and the uneasiness his blindness instilled in him. And he didn’t let himself dwell on the fact he was now a mod, now no longer welcome in NOMBIO, and he couldn’t make amends with the organization since he’d failed his mission. Even if they’d accept h
is evidence, he hadn’t had enough time to piece together a solid argument to have Gothel closed down for good. “Help me to Zel’s tower and then get the data button down to the ground. Get in touch with NOMBIO and tell them I’m coming in.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And make sure you’re careful.” He regretted the commanding tone with Bennet, who was a faithful servant and friend, but urgency made him sharp, on edge.
After weeks of taking the back stairs to Zel’s room, he’d become familiar enough with the walk to make it there blindfolded, but now that he was, he was grateful for Bennet’s helpful shoulder in the unrelenting darkness. More than once, Langley’s nausea made him stop in his tracks. By the time they got to the tower, he’d mustered past most of the physical discomfort.
Bennet slipped a hand into Langley’s pocket. “These are the painkillers. They’re in the bottle. The packet is full of the medicine you can’t skip on. She said it would make sure your body wouldn’t reject the new eyes and it speeds natural recovery times. Take them every six hours. Bandages can come off tonight, in a dark room, but she’d decided to be cautious and wait another day before she removed them. Don’t forget, a dark room.”
“I won’t.” He repressed the urge to nod, keeping his aching head as still as possible. Bennet slid the weight of a pack onto Langley’s shoulders and guided his hand back to the wall.
“Are you sure you’re recovered enough for this?” Bennet’s usual calm seemed completely absent in his worried tone.
“Get rid of the guard.” There’d be no help from NOMBIO. They had no time for him to wait until he felt better. Langley leaned into a doorway, around the bend from Zel’s room, and waited for Bennet to shuffle back past with the guard, who protested, “I’m not to leave my post.”
“This will only be a moment. I don’t have my keys and just need you to open the storage door down here.” Bennet’s voice carried down the hallway and grew distant.