Standby (The Emile Reed Chronicles, 2.5)

by Nicole Sobon

  Sometimes I found it easy to mistake his guards for Programs, because they were just as cool and empty as the machines they helped to enslave.

  “Let go of me,” I snarled. But instead of removing his hand, he only slightly loosened his grip.

  He stepped closer to me and leaned down so that his mouth was near my ear, and he whispered low enough for only me to hear, “We both know how this is going to play out. I suggest you make this easy and come with me.”

  “And why would I want to do a thing like that?” I answered.

  “I am here under your uncle’s orders,” the man stated, as though that should’ve surprised me. “You are to come with me immediately.”

  I glanced down at the gun in his holster before settling my eyes on his hand that still grasped my arm. I knew what awaited me if I followed him: death. And quite frankly? Although it felt as though my heart was breaking inside of my chest, still aching at the loss of Hayden, I wasn’t ready for my story to end.

  When I was ready? Well, I’d have say in how my life ended. Not my uncle.

  “I’m thinking no,” I said. The crowd started moving again as the walk sign flashed. Shoulders of strangers shoved into me. Purses smacked me in my side. Normally, I would’ve been annoyed. But right now? I was grateful for the distraction.

  I pulled myself out from under his hold just as he lunged forward to grab a hold of my waist. But the old man was much slower than me, and I’d managed to grab a hold of the badge in his coat pocket before he was able to grab his gun.

  The gun probably would’ve been the more logical of choices, given that I was rather positive he was going to chase after me firing, but I knew that if I stood any chance at gaining access to Vesta Corp files (and or vehicles and locations), I’d need an activated badge.

  I slipped through the crowds, zigzagging as I did so, hoping I’d lose the guard.

  When I glanced over my shoulder and found him only feet behind me, I realized that wasn’t going to happen. Well, crap.

  I ducked into a nearby parking lot, bee-lining it for the black sedan that sat idle in the back. The dark gray VC engraved on the sides was a dead giveaway that it was a Vesta Corp vehicle. Normally, I would’ve run at the first sight of the car, but right now? That car was my exit, and my chance at finding Emile.

  I ran around the front and reached for the driver side handle, when the door started to open. The second her black pump hit the concrete, I knew that I was screwed. He couldn’t have sent anyone else? He had to send her? The man truly was a monster.

  “Nora.” I hadn’t missed the hatred that had laced her voice. Not that she’d really made it a point to hide it. My mother had never been my biggest fan.

  She stood before me dressed in a black pencil skirt and a white button down blouse. To everyone else, she would’ve seemed like a business professional - not the deadly monster that she truly was.

  “Why the hell are you here?”

  “Your uncle sent me to collect you,” she answered matter-of-factly. “It seems he’s had a change of heart.”

  A change of heart would’ve required him to have had a heart, I thought to myself.

  I had an idea concerning what she was talking about, and I could feel the panic starting to settle in my bones. “And what the hell is that supposed to mean exactly?”

  At that, she smirked. “The contract, Nora.” She leaned over and grabbed a tablet from the pocket of the driver side door. I watched as her fingers moved over the screen before settling over an icon.

  The screen glowed white as the document started to load.

  That couldn’t have been what I thought it was, could it?

  This contract grants (Alexis Ward) _____________ the opportunity to terminate her original contract with Vesta Corp, as long as she completes the tasks given to her by (Charles McVeigh) _______________.

  Alexis is required to complete a total of ten social classes with Program number Thirteen in order for her original contract to be terminated without consequence.

  My mother had read the terms of the contract aloud, as though the exact words hadn’t been engraved in my memory the day that I’d signed it.

  That day had changed everything. That was the day that Hayden had learned the truth. And that had been the day that I’d essentially relinquished my life to my Uncle Charles.

  I had only signed the contract to keep Hayden free. My uncle had sworn that, upon my signing of the contract, he’d let Hayden go, but he hadn’t. And it was only later that I came to find out that he’d never intended to do so.

  That had been his plan all along; to use Hayden as bait to lure Emile, and to regain control of my life before I was able to destroy him.

  Too bad, I wasn’t going to allow that to happen.

  “You need to come with me.” My mother reached for the door handle on the back door, and waited for me to climb in. When she took note of me standing there without making any sort of attempt at moving, she turned her furious stare on me. “What do you think you’re doing? Get in the car, now.”

  “You know what? I think I’m good right here.” I slipped the badge I’d been holding onto in my back pocket, not ready to give up my key to all things Vesta Corp, and I slowly began backing away from her.

  “There is no other way out of this, Nora.” She put an emphasis on my birth name.

  “My name is Alexis,” I answered. “Alexis Ward. I’d suggest you learn to call me by the correct name, Mother.”

  A devilish smirk grew upon her lips. She eased the car door close and took a step closer to me, not even bothered by the fact that we were in a public area in daylight. None of that mattered to her. What mattered was that she brought me back to Vesta Corp as ordered. Dead or alive.

  She held out the tablet towards me, but I shoved her hand away. “Whatever it is that you feel like sharing with me, please, feel free to keep it to yourself. I’m not in the mood for your psychotic blabbering right now.”

  Most people would’ve taken that as their queue to stop talking. Not my mother. For her, that was an invitation to keep going – to plunge the knife in deeper.

  “That boy of yours has turned out to be a valuable Program,” she said. She reached for the car handle and opened the door, but she instead of climbing inside of the car, she turned to face me.

  Plunge the knife in deeper why don’t you? I thought to myself.

  “So what, are you just going to keep him as your new toy now?”

  My mother leaned on the car, her hands crossed over her chest, and her cold eyes locked onto me. “No, of course not,” she answered. And for a second – just a second – I thought that she might’ve had a heart after all, until she said, “He was constructed to lure his sister, and now that we’ve done just that, he will be handed over to the research team.”

  And then he’d be deprogrammed and stored away in a restricted access area, where my uncle Charles would slowly begin rebuilding his collection of Purged Programs. A collection that I was rather sure I’d be joining in no time.

  I had gotten so wrapped up in my thoughts that I’d nearly missed the most important detail in her statement. He was constructed to lure his sister, and now that we’ve done just that, he will be handed over to the research team. “No.”

  It felt as though someone had taken a sledgehammer to my chest, forcing the air out of my lungs. The pain was surreal. This had all been my fault. I didn’t have the right to be upset, to be hurt, but I was.

  With each passing second, the cracks in my heart grew wider. I’d thought my heart had broken when they hauled Hayden’s lifeless body from the room. That had been nothing compared to the pain I’d felt now.

  I’d done this. I had destroyed the lives of an entire family with one choice, one decision, all because I’d been blinded by my own selfishness.

  “Did you really think she wouldn’t come for him?” My mother arched her brow. “The girl is just as weak as you are. She feels for the boy just as you do. There was no way she wasn’t going
to go in search of him; we just helped lead her back to him.”

  I stood there silently, trying to appear composed when, on the inside, I was breaking down.

  This wasn’t how things were supposed to end.

  I was supposed to fix things. I was supposed to keep them both safe.

  “It was rather easy too,” she’d continued. “You see, while Emile wasn’t traceable, the car she’d taken possession of? Well, that was.”

  “We fed the information to the guard’s tablet, essentially giving her everything that she needed to find her brother, and to lead her back to where she belongs.”

  And it wouldn’t have taken much effort on their behalf.

  Programs were aware of the main facility, but they were never given information concerning the secondary locations – a security precaution. Why? While the main facility acted as a body donation center, the other facilities didn’t bother to hide what they were. They were hidden, and difficult to come upon without any sort of knowledge of what to look for, but if a stranger had somehow stumbled inside? They’d know the truth.

  It would’ve been hard to miss the posters my grandfather had plastered all over the walls years and years ago. And it wasn’t exactly like most body donation centers had a plaque displayed with the word Perfecting Our Society for the Future engraved on it displayed on their walls. Nor did they have bloody bodies laid out along steel top tables with metal parts surrounding them.

  “You weren’t supposed to take them. That was the deal, or are you just going to overlook that part?”

  I thought back to the last time we’d had this conversation, and how she’d told me Hayden had known too much for them to allow him to go free. But they’d overlooked the part where my uncle knowingly took him into the family business and trained him with the Programs, not because he needed more white coats, but because he wanted Hayden.

  It was okay to teach him everything when it was useful for them, but when it came down to him possibly overthrowing them? Well then, they had to destroy him.

  It was screwed up, and wrong on so many levels, yet their stone-cold hearts were incapable of seeing that. They lacked empathy, for anyone other than themselves.

  “Don’t make this harder than it needs to be, Nora,” she said. Her voice was void of any sort of emotion. Seriously, the woman lacked a maternal bone in her body. Most mothers didn’t knowingly try and lure their children into a death trap. Then again, most mothers gave a damn about their kids.

  I glanced over my shoulder, taking note of at least three guards holding a stance near the exit. “How many came with you?” I asked, biting back my anger.

  “Ten, and they’ve all been authorized to use force if necessary.”

  The way I looked at it, I had two options: I could go with her, and act as though I intended to comply, or I could chance it and run, which would most likely result in my death.

  The probabilities of either working out for me were slim to none, but that didn’t matter, because I knew that I needed to get to Emile, before they ended up deprogramming her for good.

  “Tell them to stand down,” I muttered. “I’ll come willingly.”

  A smug grin formed upon her lips and she eased herself into the driver side seat. I followed suite and climbed in behind her, expecting the car to be empty.

  Waiting in the back seat, a large needle laid out across his lap, was my uncle. “Hello, dear,” he said, reaching for my hand, but I pulled away.

  “What the hell is going on?” It was a stupid question really, especially since it was quite clear was what taking place. I just wasn’t ready for it. This wasn’t going to be my ending. I wouldn’t allow it to be.

  “Surely you didn’t think I’d only send your mother?” he asked, arching a brow at me.

  “I don’t see why you both needed to be here.” When my uncle came around, that usually meant that someone’s time was nearing its end. He was the Grim Reaper; the one person you didn’t want to come across on the street, because death would follow shortly after. “I said I’d come, did I not?”

  “That may be the case,’ he answered, toying with the needle on his lap. I went to reach for the door handle just as my mother hit the lock button. “But you’ve been known to go back on your word, and well, we needed to be sure that you were planning to follow through this time.”

  Before I could utter another word, he lifted the needle and plunged it into my thigh.