“Anyway,” he continued. “This is where I snuck in and out of the facility back when Sandra trusted me. I was fairly certain they monitored my every move. Or they were too busy with crazy experiments that no one noticed my comings and goings.”
Briana slipped a hairband from her wrist and pulled her thick red hair into a low ponytail. “Well, here’s hoping they don’t monitor this entrance tonight.”
Kyle and I traded worried glances. I then directed my determination at Jonas, who stood directly in front of the retinal scanner. He looked at me for permission to continue.
I nodded. “Let’s do this.” He had better do it quick, before I changed my mind.
But I wouldn’t change my mind. Addison was in there somewhere, and I had to find her. And I had to locate and destroy the server controlling the trackers. Without the ability to alter the trackers, Sandra’s ability to manipulate minds would be lost, and we would have time to remove the remaining trackers.
Jonas leaned down, aligning his eyes with the scanner.
My heart sped up immediately, and my stomach began to churn.
The latch on the door clicked. Jonas wrapped his palm around the handle and pulled. Just like that, we were in.
The four of us entered a dark hallway. The lights immediately flickered on. I felt exposed by the brightness.
We were in the basement of the building. Jonas led the way. We walked wordlessly behind him, careful to make as little sound as possible. The walls of the hallways were a light gray. The doors alternated between a deep gray and navy blue. Nothing like the white hallways of The Program.
I wasn’t sure if it was my imagination, but I thought I smelled the scent of the gas the IIA had used to put Lin and Dia to sleep the first time I entered The Farm. Jonas, is that—
I smell it, too. I’m the only one who might be affected by it because of the tracker, but my device has never been programmed to react to the gas before, so we’ll just have to be careful. He glanced over his shoulder. “Does everyone remember the plan?” We all nodded. Jonas zeroed in on Briana. “You up for this?”
Is she up for what? Strange time to be asking her that.
Briana nodded. The features of her face were tight; her eyes were deer-in-the-headlights big. “I’m already one step ahead of you.”
What does that mean? What is she doing?
She’s already altering what someone would see if they saw us.
I looked behind me at Kyle. Only it wasn’t Kyle. It was Jack. Okay, that’s weird. When I turned back around, Jonas’s tattoos were gone. He was Ty. Briana looked like herself, I supposed, but she and Dia were identical. Who do I look like?
You look like an older version of yourself.
“What?” I asked in a loud whisper. “She made me look like Sandra?”
Will you keep it down? It had to be someone Briana’s seen before and who’s supposed to be here. She couldn’t very well make you look like Dia, now could she?
I sighed. I guess not. But what if Sandra sees us?
Jonas closed his eyes for a moment. We’re only in disguise in case guards or agents see us. Hopefully, it will throw them off. If Sandra sees us, it won’t matter what we look like. She’ll know it’s us.
Well, especially if she sees her twin. Shit!
Jonas furrowed his brows at me. Can we continue?
I gestured with my hand for him to lead the way. The overhead lights hummed—the only other sound besides our light footsteps.
Jonas led us down two halls, each one dark until our motion was detected and lights above flickered on. I suspected armed agents would jump out any minute. I couldn’t imagine how it was possible that we were wandering these halls undetected. Jonas stopped in front of one of the gray doors. The window at the top—at Jonas’s eye level, but not mine—was dark. He reached down, turned the knob, and pushed it open. I raised a brow, surprised that it was unlocked. After looking both ways down the hallway, he ushered us in.
He flipped a light switch. Instead of an overhead fluorescent, two lamps glowed—one beside a full-sized bed, and another on a small black dresser on the other side of the room.
I turned in a circle. Besides a bed and a dresser, there was just a small desk with a laptop and a desk lamp. A couple of textbooks were spread across the end of the bed. A guitar stood in the corner of the room on a stand. This was a teenager’s room. I jerked my head toward Jonas. “This is your room, isn’t it?”
“You lived here?” Briana asked, a little taken aback.
“Of course. Well… until I got my tracker and was allowed to leave the facility. But that was after we moved here to Kentucky. Where did you think I lived before I moved in with Georgia and Fred?”
“I assumed you lived with Sandra. Just not inside some laboratory.”
“I’ve lived with Sandra most of my life. Usually at some research facility.” He sat at his desk and opened the laptop. His lips tugged downward in a look of sadness I’d never seen on him before. “She lived wherever the work was. I was just part of that work.”
Kyle stood watch at the window.
It was too quiet. Why hadn’t agents descended upon us? Standing over Jonas, I watched him click around on his laptop at what appeared to be some sort of floor plan. “Is that this building?”
“Yes.” He continued to click.
Then, suddenly, a video image popped up on the screen.
“Holy crap!” I leaned in closer.
Briana joined me. “Who is that?”
“That’s Addison,” I said. Addison sat in the middle of a bed, hugging her knees and staring straight ahead. Nothing like the little girl that had jumped on her bed like a monkey back at Wellington. “What is she doing?”
“Watching TV, maybe?” Jonas answered, unsure. He clicked some more and was able to show us a panoramic view. She was watching TV, and she wasn’t moving. At all.
“How are you able to tap into this camera?” Briana asked.
He smiled up at her. “I’m a man of many talents.”
She slapped at his shoulder playfully. I rolled my eyes.
“So, you’ve somehow hacked into their security system? How did you know where she’d be?”
“There were only a few rooms I thought they’d place her in. The residential wing of this facility isn’t that big. And it’s fairly full.”
Addison remained motionless while I continued to study her. She was not the energetic eight-year-old that I remembered. She looked… sad. Even more childlike and innocent than I recalled. I had to get her out of here. A woman walked into her room, her back to the camera. Addison didn’t even look up.
Why was someone walking into her room at this hour? Normal people slept at this late hour.
Then I realized what was bothering me. It was something Jonas had said after I healed Sandra, after Addison had been taken. “Jonas, why is Addison in the residential wing?”
Jonas wouldn’t even look at me. I drilled holes into the woman in the video. Turn around. Let me see your face. As if she could hear me, she turned, walked back toward the camera, and, I assumed, out the door. It was Anita, Addison’s mother and the DeWeese’s housekeeper. She was here.
And I knew what Jonas had meant when he’d said, “Addison was the one that got away.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
“She lived here, didn’t she?”
“Well, not here,” Jonas said. “But she was born in one of the previous research centers.”
Did you know this? I asked Jack. I had pretty much left my mind open to him since he had left me to find Georgia.
No, but it makes sense. I didn’t meet Addison until the summer she came to live with us. I had been told she lived with her father before that. I never questioned it.
Interesting. So, Addison probably didn’t have memories of the research facility where she was born. “Who’s her father?” I asked Jonas.
“None of us really have fathers, Lexi. You and Jack are two of the lucky ones who feel as if you were raised
by a father, and in Jack’s case, a mother, too. Most of us simply have the one person our DNA originated from, and a surrogate.”
“I have parents,” Briana said.
Kyle looked over from his spot by the door. “My upbringing is definitely… complicated.”
Complicated, I stifled a chuckle. That was too nice of a word to describe how each of us was raised. I was raised by an absentee father and by my grandmother, who was the mother of the woman who carried me for nine months then disappeared soon after I was born. It would be a disgrace to give her the title of Mom.
Jonas closed the laptop and stood. “I’ve got what we need. Let’s go.”
“Go where, exactly?” There was a heaviness in my chest. So far, our adventure into the building had been uneventful. Way too easy.
Jonas grabbed a piece of paper off of his printer and crossed the room to the door. He taped the paper onto the back of the door and pointed to a square at the bottom left corner. “We are here.” He stuck the end of a red ink pen in his mouth and pulled, leaving the lid between his teeth. After placing an “X” over his room, he traced a line down what appeared to be a hallway, made one left turn, and then placed an “A” over a square on the right. “This is where Addison is. That’s where Lexi and I are going.”
“What? They’re not coming?” I lifted my head toward Briana and Kyle.
“No. Too many people. Too dangerous.” He placed his hands on Briana’s shoulders and stared straight into her eyes, pausing a moment before he spoke. “If I give you the word, you and Kyle leave. Georgia and Jack are at this door.” He pointed. “You knock three times slowly. Georgia knows how to open it from the outside.”
“What if you need help?” she asked, her eyes searching his.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “What if we need help?”
“Then we’ll mindspeak to them.” Jonas replied. I can control Briana. She doesn’t know it. And Kyle can hear me, he just can’t answer back for some reason. To any of us.
Please promise me that I’m around when you tell Briana that you can control her mind. If you thought I was upset… I laughed.
“Let’s go,” he said, ignoring me.
Briana looked from Jonas to me and back. “Be careful.” She pulled me aside and lowered her voice. “I promised Jack I wouldn’t leave you.” She wrung her hands and glanced nervously toward Jonas.
I grabbed one of her hands and squeezed. “I’ll be fine. We’ll alert you guys if there’s trouble.” I didn’t believe we’d be fine. Not for a second.
Is Georgia ready? I asked Jack.
She’s ready. We’re ready. Use your ring if you need to and run like hell if something goes wrong, okay? Promise me.
I didn’t.
~~~~~
Jonas and I crept down a hallway farther away from the door through which we entered, and farther away from Jack. All was quiet: nothing other than the light sound of the rubber soles of our shoes.
We just have to round the next corner, Jonas said. Addison is the second door on the right.
Lexi, something’s wrong. Jack was in my head. Three government cars just pulled up to the curb at the back of the building. Strange for the middle of the night, don’t you think?
I rubbed my chest. My heart beat so loudly I was sure Jonas could hear it in the middle of this silent hallway. I began concentrating on pocketing information, attempting to keep him out of my head—even though my previous efforts to do this had been mostly unsuccessful.
I watched the back of his head. He didn’t react. I could only assume I’d been able to shut him out. For now. I simply couldn’t risk Jonas aborting our mission when we were this close to Addison.
Anyone getting out of the cars?
Not yet. We’re tucked behind some bushes.
Jonas and I continued around the corner and stopped in front of a dark blue door. I heard distant sounds of a horn or something. An alarm, maybe. What is that?
Don’t worry about it. Let’s keep going. The look on Jonas’s face didn’t comfort me.
We slipped inside the room. Addison still sat in the middle of her bed, staring straight at the TV—but the TV wasn’t turned on. I looked from the TV back to her. “Addison?” I whispered.
She didn’t move. What had they done to her? This was not the little girl I met last week.
Lexi! You’ve got to get out of there, Jack yelled. They know you’re there. An agent just rushed by us saying your name into his wrist microphone.
I couldn’t leave. I wouldn’t leave Addison. Not like this.
I don’t believe it. Jack said, panic behind each word. We were wrong. It wasn’t Cathy. It was… Lexi, listen to me. Stop whatever you’re doing and turn around.
What is it? What’s wrong?
Jonas stiffened. The movement was slight, but he obviously heard me.
Sandra just got out of one of the vehicles with… Jack’s voice trailed off.
I stretched my fingers, then curled them into fists at my side. Who’s with her? Talk to me, Jack.
Jonas turned and stared at me. My eyes darted from him to Addison, who looked so tiny, just sitting there as still as a statue in the middle of a hospital bed.
My dad, Lexi! My dad is with Sandra.
I cringed at Jack’s words. I squeezed my eyes tight. Was there no one we could trust?
Jonas slipped his hand into mine and squeezed. “We’re here. This doesn’t change anything.”
I knew getting inside The Farm had been too easy. I’d have to help Jack with this latest shocker later. Jonas was right. We were here and Addison needed us. I had to focus. Jack, I need Georgia to pay attention. Something’s wrong with Addison. I’m going to see if I can dislodge her tracker right now. She’s not moving. It’s like they’ve shut her down, mentally. She won’t even speak to me. She’s comatose. And Jack? I closed my eyes tightly for a moment. Anita is here.
Silence.
Jack? I’m sorry about your father, but I need you to stay with me. I’m not leaving without Addison.
I’m here. And so is Georgia. She’s ready. She can hear everything you say. Please be careful. And hurry. There are six agents entering the building with my dad and Sandra.
Jonas grabbed Addison’s hand. “Her hand is freezing.”
I brought up the image of her brain. The same brain I had studied and healed all too recently. Instead of brightly colored neurons firing like fireworks, the activity in her head was slow and the coloring of the neurons and surrounding tissue was dull, almost brown in color. I moved around in her head. A strange coating covered many of the surfaces I knew to be responsible for processing information. I kept searching. When I reached the spot at the base of her brain, I saw it—the tracker. The tissue around the tracker, and along a path from the tracker to the back of her neck, was bruised. I would need to extract the tracker the same way it went in.
Georgia, you with me? You see the path we need to take?
Yeah, I see it. But what happens if we fail?
I studied how the tracker was lodged. If I were to move it as it lay, the prongs would puncture her brain and spinal cord in several locations. I couldn’t predict how much injury that would cause, or if I could heal her fast enough to prevent long-term damage… or death.
We won’t fail. Can you see each of the prongs? There are eight of them. Just like a spider.
Yes, I see them.
The prongs all come from tiny holes in the tracker, I explained. I need you to slide each prong back inside the tracker itself.
I watched silently. It was slow going. It took more than a minute before the first prong was hidden inside. While I witnessed Georgia working a miracle, I smoothed Addison’s hair and tried to pocket all of my emotions and thoughts.
I heard the commotion of approaching footsteps. I looked at Jonas, who was typing away on the computer.
When the footsteps registered with him, he met my gaze. “They’re coming.”
Lexi, I can’t see Addison’s brain anymore, Georgia said.<
br />
Sorry. I pulled up the visual of Addison’s tracker again, while I spoke to Jonas. “You have ten seconds to convince me that you didn’t know John DeWeese had been working with Sandra. If you’re not honest with me, I can’t promise how hard I’ll work to make sure you make it out of here with me.” With my thumb, I fiddled with the ring on my middle finger. I imagined the paralyzing liquid sloshing around inside the pearl.
“What are you talking about?” I felt his eyes studying me. I continued to monitor Georgia’s progress. “Of course I didn’t know.”
I didn’t take my other hand off of Addison. Georgia had managed to tuck in five of the prongs. Keep it up, Georgia. You’re doing great.
“What are you up to?” Jonas asked.
I felt the intrusion into my head, different from Jonas’s normal entrance. This presence blew in like a thin fog, elusively sliding in and around crevices. This was not Jonas, but Ty. I immediately began moving pockets around, hiding thoughts and feelings. I tried to categorize and pocket the image of Addison’s brain the way Jonas had taught me.
He grabbed my arm and jerked me up. “What have you done?” He shoved me hard across the room, then turned to Addison, who remained still.
I scrambled to my feet and ran to the door. Instead of swinging it open with my shaking limbs, I turned the steel lock, locking us inside. I wasn’t leaving without Addison. And I couldn’t take Addison in her current state.
Ty, in Jonas’s body, grabbed Addison’s head roughly, lifting her hair and examining the back of her neck. There was a bandage covering the spot where the tracker had been inserted.
Kyle, Briana, you guys have to get out of here. Try to make it to the back door. Use whatever force you have to use to get out of here.
Jonas/Ty turned. He tilted his head. A slow, sly grin spread across his face. At the same time, I felt the stabbing presence of his mind invasion.
I had to focus. I kept one mindful eye on the tracker inside Addison’s head, and one on the contents of my own head.
Lexi, I want you to stop what you’re doing to Addison, right now.
This time it was my turn to grin. I was tired of these mind games, and for some reason, by concentrating hard on his presence, I was able to shove his demands to the side. I had full control over my actions. For the moment, anyway. I pushed away from the door, and stepped closer to him instead of backing away. “No… Ty… I won’t.”
Mindsiege Page 22