H.A.L.F.: The Makers

by Natalie Wright

  Jack couldn’t agree with Anna. The Crofts were killers. That much was clear. And yeah, they surrounded themselves with hired guns. Lizzy Croft was little more than a Mafia princess. But thugs and guns were a far cry from the kind of control and reach that Anna and Thomas ascribed to them. Jack still questioned where paranoia ended and truth began.

  He kept driving. He didn’t know how to get to a hospital. He didn’t even know how to get off the island.

  “I can help,” Alecto said. She knelt beside Thomas, one hand on his chest.

  Tex had healed Jack’s first gunshot wound, one much worse than the graze his shoulder took today. And he’d watched Alecto lay hands on Erika and heal wounds that she’d inflicted. But neither of those injuries were life threatening.

  “Do you have the strength?” Jack asked.

  Alecto didn’t answer. She closed her eyes and put her other hand on Thomas too. She moved her hands slowly around his midsection and chest. She opened her eyes and looked toward Jack. “I can.”

  “Then do it,” Jack said.

  Alecto was still and perfectly quiet. Anna was quiet as well.

  Jack drove though he didn’t know where to go. He had no map or GPS. He still thought that a hospital was in order, but he didn’t know how to get to one. All he could do was try to put as much distance between them and the Croft penthouse as he could.

  Jack saw a sign for New Jersey and figured that was as good a place as any to find a hospital, so he took the exit. They entered the Lincoln Tunnel and Jack had to fight a panicky feeling at being underground once again. The overhead lights flashed and flickered as they sped under them. It seemed to Jack like they’d never get out of that tunnel and back into daylight.

  Thomas coughed as they exited the tunnel. The unexpected sound broke the silence in the van and startled Jack.

  Alecto pushed herself back from Thomas, her eyes closed and her head slumped slightly toward her chest. Thomas sat up, his long fingers lightly touching Anna’s swollen face. His eyes filled with tears.

  “My butterfly,” he whispered. “I will kill Lizzy for doing this to you.” His voice seethed.

  Anna pulled his hand from her face and put it in hers. “I thought I’d lost you.” She wrapped her arms around him.

  At first Thomas sat and simply accepted her embrace. But after a few seconds, he wrapped his lanky arms awkwardly around Anna. “Me too.”

  Many questions zoomed through Jack’s mind. Questions about the Makers and Robert Sturgis’ involvement in the organization. And he wanted to ask, ‘Hey, what’s up with your mom?’ But he kept his questions to himself for the time being. They had long days ahead of them still. Plenty of time to seek answers.

  Anna released Thomas. “Thank you, Alecto. By the way, we have not been formally introduced. My name is Anna Sturgis. And this is my twin brother, Thomas.” Anna reached her hand out to Alecto.

  Alecto did not take Anna’s hand. It was hard to say if she was snubbing Anna or simply unaware of the custom of shaking hands. “I have a brother too,” she said.

  “You do?” Anna asked.

  “Yes. We are enemies. But he is gone now. You and Thomas are not enemies?”

  Anna tried to smile but winced. “No. We’re not enemies.”

  “I did not know that siblings could be friends.”

  Thomas smiled. “Sometimes best friends.”

  Anna nodded. “You saved his life. Perhaps my aunt Lilly created you to heal rather than kill.”

  Alecto cocked her head to the side. Her eyes remained as blank of emotions as ever.

  Jack had remained quiet, but there was one more thing they needed of Alecto. “If you have the strength, you need to help Anna too.”

  “I’m fine,” Anna said. “Save your energy.”

  “You’re hardly fine,” Thomas said.

  “Only bruises. They’ll heal in time,” Anna said.

  Anna couldn’t see her own injuries. Her face was so swollen, it might have become numb. Or maybe Anna’s good at ignoring pain.

  “Anna, it’s more than bruises,” Jack said. “If she doesn’t do something for your eye – well, you may lose it.”

  Anna slowly reached her hand up to her face. Her fingers trembled as she lightly touched her left eye. Her hand drew away quickly and was covered in blood.

  Alecto didn’t wait for more discussion or to be asked twice. She moved herself closer to Anna and placed her fingers on Anna’s face. Her fingertips spread from her brow bone to her high cheekbones.

  Anna gasped in pain. But Alecto didn’t withdraw her fingers. She kept them pressed firmly to Anna’s face.

  “Try to remain calm.”

  Thomas took Anna’s hand in his and watched as Alecto used her telekinesis to slowly heal Anna’s wounds.

  “It tingles,” Anna said.

  Every few seconds, Jack stole a glance in his rearview mirror. With each fleeting look Jack took, Anna’s face was less swollen. The color faded from deep purple to red and finally to Anna’s normal pale pink.

  After many minutes of intense healing work, Alecto collapsed away from Anna. “I have done all that I can.” She grabbed a jacket off the floor of the van and wrapped herself in it. “I must rest. Please do not disturb me.” She lay down and curled herself into a tight ball.

  Anna held her arms out and inspected them. The bruises and swelling were gone. The rope marks around her wrists a thing of the past.

  Anna pushed herself up and Thomas grabbed her hand. “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “I want to look at my face in a mirror.”

  He pulled at her. “No. Stay here. You can look –”

  Anna pulled her hand away. “No, Thomas, I need to see now.” She angled herself through the seats and plopped into the front passenger seat. Anna flipped down the visor and stared into the mirror.

  Jack couldn’t see her face full on, but he didn’t have to. The gash Lizzy had sliced into Anna’s face was across her left eye. All Jack had to do was turn his head to the right to see that, though it no longer bled, there was still a deep, angry gash over Anna’s eye.

  Her hand trembled as she lightly touched the scar. She didn’t cry and said only, “This will take a while to get used to.” She turned to Jack and wore a sardonic smile. “What do you think?”

  Jack stole peeks at Anna’s face while trying to keep to his lane in the heavy traffic on its way to New Jersey. The gash itself was raw and red. Over time he figured it would age to a pale sheen like most scars. It marred her flawless beauty, but even a six-inch-long scar on her face couldn’t make Anna Sturgis ugly.

  But what the knife had done to her eye was another matter. Jack didn’t doubt that Alecto had done all that she could to heal the eye, but the brilliant blue iris was gone, replaced with a milky white color that clouded the entire eye.

  Jack didn’t know how to answer Anna’s question. Anything he said would likely be of no help to her. “Can you see out of it?”

  Anna covered her right eye with her hand. “A little. Everything’s cloudy.”

  “I wonder if it’s permanent?” Jack asked.

  Anna shrugged her shoulders. “Don’t know. But right now that’s probably the least of our worries. Where are you taking us?”

  “Thomas suspected we wouldn’t be able to go back to his apartment, so we brought all the essentials with us. And after how it went down, I’m thinking we should get as far away from NYC as possible. California’s about as far from NYC as we can go without getting on a boat or plane, so I’m thinking California it is.”

  “You read my mind, Jack Wilson,” Anna said.

  With Anna’s help, Jack found his way to I-70 west, and after a couple of hours on the road, he finally relaxed a bit. He was glad to see skyscrapers in his rearview mirror. With each passing mile, he shoved the vision of dead men – men he’d killed – further and further down. He began building a thick, sturdy wall around those memories. His journey was not over. The worst was likely yet to come. He’d need
to be strong if he was to survive it, if he was going to do a better job of guarding Anna than he had of protecting Erika.

  And as she slept in the seat beside him, he was surprised to realize that he was compelled to do just that.

  53

  STURGIS

  Sturgis had spent six weeks behind bars at the Miramar military prison. It required her to taste the life she had forced on those who opposed her and on those who simply knew too much. The irony did not escape her.

  She rose when the fluorescent artificial daylight and the clang of metal doors to their cages signaled wake-up time. She was compelled to sleep when her lamp was extinguished, forcing her to end her writing. The food was horrid and the work mundane. She had a PhD in genetic engineering from MIT and a master’s degree in biochemistry from Stanford, yet she had to spend her days in the prison laundry, washing and folding clothes. Before she was taken by Croft’s men, she had never done her own laundry a day in her life, always having had the means to hire others to perform such pedestrian tasks so she could focus on what she considered to be more important work.

  The other prisoners talked behind her back and sneered at her. There were no friendly smiles or commiseration. The guards had made sure that all the other prisoners – former soldiers one and all – knew that she had been convicted of knowingly endangering those in her command. That made her the lowest of the low and worthy of no show of respect by other inmates.

  She’d been in prison over six weeks and had received no phone calls. Even if she had been allowed visitors, she doubted anyone would come see her. She had no friends. She’d never had time for a social life. Her work was her life.

  Her brother, Robert, knew what had happened to her. But he’d keep it from his wife and children like he kept everything about the Makers part of his life from them. And he couldn’t contact her or come see her. To do so would put his life at risk. She knew how it worked. Croft had practically branded her with the mark of a pariah. She was persona non grata, and anyone seen as showing her a kindness would be held to a high level of suspicion.

  It came as a complete surprise when two guards came to her door after dinner and said her attorney was there to see her. It was doubly shocking since she hadn’t been given the opportunity to hire a lawyer.

  They put her in handcuffs, which she thought was unnecessary. But she did not protest. She didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize the meeting. She didn’t know who she was seeing, but it was the first opportunity she’d had to talk to anyone.

  The guards escorted her through the prison and to a wing she’d never seen before. A guard swiped a keycard, and double doors swung open to a carpeted hall with offices on either side. Skylights flooded the corridor with natural light.

  She wished she had something to wear other than the dreadful orange top and matching bottoms. The color orange made her look green. Her grey roots were showing and her skin was dry. If her mother had been there to see her, she would have gasped at how horrid she looked. “If a woman wants power, she has to look like a model and act like she has balls made of iron,” her mother would say. Sturgis had done what her mother advised. Her reward was a prison cell.

  A guard opened a door with a window in it and gestured for her to enter. It was a typical meeting room with a table and chairs, white walls and blue office carpet. There were no visible cameras, no phone and no intercom. That didn’t mean the room wasn’t bugged. She had to assume that it was.

  A man sat at the table with his back to the door. You should never place yourself with your back to the door. You should know better. It was the man who had informed Croft that the greys had arrived. The man that had given Croft all of Sturgis’ work on the H.A.L.F. program. John Sewell. She was tempted to wrap the chain between her cuffs around his neck and choke his last breath out of him.

  He rose when she entered and held out his hand. “Ah, Lillian Sturgis. I’m Jacob Adler. So very nice to meet you.”

  She glared at him and walked past his outstretched hand. His hand was likely clammy, as it always was. His face was red as usual, looking like he’d just run a mile in the heat. Some things never change.

  Sturgis took the seat opposite him. She had the commanding view of the door. She wondered if his choice of seat had been purposeful, calculated to put her at ease. She put her cuffed wrists on the table.

  Sewell called out to the guards. “Please, uncuff my client while we speak.”

  “Sorry, Mr. Adler, is it? Orders are that she must be cuffed at all times when not being supervised by a guard.”

  “I’m her attorney. I hardly think she poses a danger to me.”

  Yes, I do.

  “She poses a danger to everyone. You’ve got thirty minutes. We’ll be just outside the door here if you need anything, Mr. Adler.” The guards exited and closed the door.

  Sturgis stared icily at Sewell. She watched him squirm uncomfortably in his chair.

  Sewell pulled at his collar, trying to give his thick neck some breathing room. “I’m sure you can appreciate the danger that I’m putting myself and my family in by coming here,” he whispered.

  “You’ve been in danger since you first set foot in A.H.D.N.A.” She did not whisper.

  Sewell let out a nervous cough. “Yes, well, I think you know what I mean. This is different.”

  Sturgis sat back in her chair, letting her cuffed hands rest on her lap. “Unlikely. But I’ll admit my curiosity is piqued, so tell me what brings you to speak to the evil Lilly Sturgis? Does Croft need me to decipher one of my formulas? Need help understanding the proper nutritional components required to keep a hybrid in top condition? Or did you come just to get the satisfaction of seeing me humbled?”

  “None of those things.” Sewell glanced back at the door. Seeing no one there, he pulled a briefcase from the floor, opened it and handed Sturgis a manila-colored file folder.

  The folder held only two pieces of paper. One was a blank sheet of white paper. The other was a photo. It was black and white and grainy, but it clearly showed Alecto getting into a van and her niece Anna standing beside the van. And standing with Anna was that Wilson kid that she was pretty sure she’d ordered back into a cell.

  Sturgis’ heart fluttered away in her chest, but her facial muscles were well practiced at remaining stoic no matter the situation. She studied the photo, taking in every detail. Though it was of poor quality, she couldn’t help but notice that Anna’s face had taken a beating. Whoever did this to her will pay.

  Sturgis closed the folder and sat back again. She looked up at Sewell and said nothing, giving the impression that she had looked at a photo of a shoe or patch of bare dirt rather than of her beloved niece with a beaten-up face getting into a van with her human-hybrid creation.

  “She’s okay. They all are.”

  “All?”

  “Thomas was with them.”

  A quiet, involuntary gasp escaped Sturgis’ lips. Thomas? He rarely left his apartment. He was brilliant but like a small child when he ventured out into the world. At least that was how she remembered him. Sturgis had rarely left A.H.D.N.A. recently and had not seen Thomas for over five years. It was hard to imagine him going toe-to-toe with the likes of William or Lizzy Croft.

  “And what can you tell me of this Wilson kid? Hard to imagine Croft would let someone go who’d seen so much,” Sturgis said.

  “He … escaped. And found his way to Anna. He – aided and abetted the infiltration of the Croft penthouse and the, um, theft of H.A.L.F. 10.”

  Sweat beaded on Sewell’s upper lip. He pulled a white handkerchief from his suit coat pocket and wiped his brow. He was more nervous than usual. Sewell put the soggy handkerchief back in his pocket.

  Is he feeling guilty about helping Croft take me away from my work?

  “Why are you really here, John?”

  Sewell cleared his throat. “These – fugitives – stole a valuable item of property. Mr. Croft’s property.” Sewell took a pen out of his shirt pocket and flung it across
the table to Sturgis. It slid on the smooth, faux-wood tabletop and landed next to her cuffed hands. “Any information you may have leading to a successful recovery of this property could lead to your release. You may have inside information.” He emphasized the word inside.

  Sturgis regarded Sewell’s face and studied his eyes. There was a time that he’d looked up to her. Idolized her even. It seemed like a lifetime ago. Before their work had gotten so intense. Before they’d had their first success. They were both younger then. More carefree. She was softer then too, less hardened by the hard choices she’d had to make. And his crush, though he’d never acted on it, had been obvious.

  He looked at her now with the same admiration in his eyes that he’d had all those years ago. Before he’d found out she was a part of a conspiracy to terminate the lives of all those women who’d been used to give birth to the H.AL.F. children. Before she’d thrown Dr. Randall into house arrest. And before she’d gone so far as to order three teenagers killed rather than risk them telling her secrets. He was trying to help her though why he’d risk his life now to do so she couldn’t know.

  What changed for him in the last six weeks that I’ve been here?

  Sewell checked his watch. “We don’t have much time. The guards will retrieve you soon and take you back to your cell. This is my only opportunity to – to get the information needed to … That could lead to your release.”

  Sturgis picked up the pen and wrote. Her writing was tiny and neat. She filled every inch of the page front and back with the details she’d taken note of during her time at Miramar. She had a lot to say and not much space, so she focused on the details she thought were most important.

  “We have less than two minutes,” Sewell said.

  She scribbled madly until she was out of blank paper. She pushed the paper back into the file and shoved it back across the table to Sewell. She grabbed the pen and though she wore handcuffs, was able to tuck it inside the neck of her shirt and work it into the band of her bra.

  Sewell opened the file and pulled a small plastic spray bottle from his case. The bottle was eyeglass cleaner. At least that was what it said on the label. But as Sewell sprayed the page she’d written, the tiny print disappeared. The page was again blank both front and back.