Byron winced as an unexpected shrieking noise filled his cell. His hands instinctively flew up to his ears to block out the sound, momentarily forgetting that they were bound in holocuffs. Riley was now awake, and as he gazed at each of the cells, he noticed each person attempting the same movement and failing. After a few seconds, the shrieking stopped, and a man in a lab coat appeared. The doctor himself.
Matheson.
A chill ran down his spine as he watched the doctor slither to the middle of the room. He typed something into his holopad to deactivate the soundproof walls before he spoke. “How nice to have you all here together,” he hissed as he turned toward Byron. “Your daughter put up quite the fight.”
“What do you think you’re doing, Matheson?” Emery demanded through clenched teeth. “This is illegal. You don’t have the authority to lock us up.”
“So far, no one’s tried to stop me.” A crooked smile crossed his wrinkled face. “You see, I’ve been watching you fight and argue and fight some more over this.” From the pocket of his lab coat, he pulled out the original syringe of sanaré. “Finally, I decided that I’d had enough, especially when I caught wind that Byron here actually agrees with his daughter—that we shouldn’t be ‘messing with the natural order of things’. What a load of crap.”
Emery’s gaze shifted to meet Byron’s, the incredulous look on her face making him feel both guilty and warm at the same time. “Is that why we met for dinner?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper. “You were going to tell me that you agreed with me?”
He nodded. As his lips parted to speak, the doctor interrupted. “Boohoo, yes, it’s all so touching, isn’t it?” he spat. “The point is now that I have the syringe, I’ll be able to continue Byron’s work as if he never had that senseless notion to begin with.”
“That sounds like a giant feat for just one person,” Emery retorted. “Good luck with that.”
An unsettling grin stretched across the doctor’s face. “Where’d you get the idea that it’s just one person?”
Byron’s face fell at the same time as Emery’s.
He watched in both horror and intrigue as two familiar figures stepped through the doors and into the light. Emery uttered a small, pained sound as she shrank to her knees.
Naia and Torin.
46
Emery could hardly believe her eyes.
“Are you kidding me?” she shouted through gritted teeth. Her hands flew up to the sides of her face, the holocuffs keeping her from pressing against her temples. She felt as thought her head were about to explode. “What the hell is this?”
Naia and Torin shrugged, then looked to Dr. Matheson for his response. A tremor of panic rose up her throat as she looked back and forth between them. She could have sworn she felt the back of her neck tingle, and she had to remind herself that the fiasco with Novak was over. There were no more microchips left. The power to control others did not exist anymore, which meant that Naia and Torin had made this decision of their own accord.
She wasn’t sure which was worse.
“You’ve known for a while that I’ve disagreed with your outlook on the mass distribution of sanaré,” Torin said with little to no emotion. “I had no choice but to side with Dr. Matheson.”
His voice was flat, very un-Torin-like.
Without even giving Emery the time of day, Naia looked at Matheson and asked, “Should I round up the others?”
The doctor gave a slight nod of his head. “I think that would be wise.”
Emery shot a look of disbelief at her father, then shifted her attention to Riley and Alexis. The expressions on their faces matched hers.
Emery waited for a sign, a signal—anything—from either Naia or Torin, but they remained steadfast in whatever this “new” plan was. She gaped as they turned to walk out of the room. Just as Matheson was about to follow them, she called out, “It won’t work.” She knew it was a desperate attempt, but it was worth a shot. “Eventually, there will be no one left to save.”
Matheson glanced over his shoulder as he slowly turned in her direction. “And why is that? Because we’re making Mother Nature angry?” he taunted. “Is She going to punish me?”
“Or kill you. That’d be preferable,” she retorted with a straight face.
Riley let out an obnoxious laugh, the sound echoing throughout the underground chamber.
“I highly doubt that. Look where you are. I’m free. You are not,” he mocked with a lick of his lips. “Where’s your precious Mother Nature now?” Like a bully whose taunting had gone too far, the room fell quiet. “Where is She now?” he repeated, his words dripping with condescension.
Byron broke the silence. “I wouldn’t provoke the situation any more than you already have.”
Matheson’s glasses slid down his nose as he moved his gaze from Emery to the Commander. In one swift motion, he pushed them back up onto the bridge of his nose. “And what are you going to do about it? You’re in the same situation as your daughter.” He shook his head. “Pity, really.”
Byron’s hands balled into fists, his jaw clenching, but before he could respond, the doctor turned away and typed a code into the control panel. The holovision lit up, covering every inch of the wall. Matheson smiled as the jingle for the evening news began to play.
“If I were you, I wouldn’t plan on getting much sleep tonight. Or ever, really. Have fun watching the highlights of a world that used to be. Your world.” And with that, he threw his shoulders back and waltzed out the door. The steel contraption slammed shut, sending an echo throughout the chamber.
Emery watched in horror as natural disaster after natural disaster appeared on the screen: hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, tsunamis. This can’t be the end.
“Two-faced snakes,” Riley muttered, louder than she’d probably intended. “I can’t believe they turned on us!”
“After everything we’ve been through,” Byron muttered with a slow shake of his head, “I never thought it’d come to this.”
“You’re telling me,” Emery scoffed.
“I don’t think we should panic just yet,” Alexis interjected.
They all turned to face her, looking at her as if she’d lost her mind.
She took a steadying breath as she locked eyes with her sister. “Torin would never betray you, Em. And I don’t think Naia would either. They’ve been nothing but helpful. They wouldn’t turn on you—”
Emery cut her off. “Well, people change. Wouldn’t be the first time.” Her thoughts flickered to both Warren and Mason. But Mason was under the microchip’s control. It wasn’t his fault.
As if he could read her mind, Byron asked, “You don’t think Matheson’s somehow found a way to reactivate the microchips, do you?”
Emery shook her head. “Torin never had one. I don’t think Naia did either.”
The four of them sat there, puzzled, the evening news blaring from the holovision.
Emery looked over to her father’s cell. With a deep breath, she uttered the words she’d hoped she’d never have to say again. “What do we do?”
47
A cloud of guilt hung over Torin as he followed Naia and Dr. Matheson down the corridor. It only took a minute or so to reach the laboratory. He half expected to see all of the 7S lab technicians busily working away, but the lab was completely empty.
Dr. Matheson spun around to face them. “I trust I can leave you both to it,” he said.
Keep your mouth shut. Let Naia do the talking.
“Yes, sir,” Naia stated firmly.
“Good.” He checked his holowatch. “I have another appointment to get to, but I’ll be back in about three hours.”
“See you then,” Naia said with a nod of her head.
Torin watched as the doctor turned to leave, finding it odd that he didn’t even bother to dispose of his lab coat on the way out. Now that was a man with a Napoleon-complex. As soon as he was certain the doctor was out
of earshot, he turned to look at his partner, but Naia was already looking at him.
Her expression fell. “Did you see the looks on their faces?” she whispered.
He let out a long sigh as he slowly nodded his head. “I feel terrible.”
“Me too. But we couldn’t tell them,” she reasoned, more to herself than to him. She chewed on her lower lip. “Better for them to be in the dark.”
“Right,” he muttered, although he was highly unsure of himself. “Right?”
She shrugged. “Oh, Torin. I don’t know.”
He bobbed his head back and forth in uncertainty. “If we had told them, it would have been too obvious. Matheson would have caught on. And we’d be out of luck.”
She inhaled a long, calming breath. “My thoughts exactly. We can’t worry about them right now. We have work to do.” She checked her holowatch. “And only two hours and fifty-three minutes to do it. Think it can be done?”
“Well, seeing as we have the A-team on it,” he gestured to her, then to himself, “I’d say we’re more than well-equipped.”
A small smile tugged at Naia’s lips. “Damn, I hope you’re right.”
He gave her a wink, as he clasped his hands together. “Not to toot my own horn, but it wouldn’t be the first time.”
48
The natural disasters were like something out of a series of nightmares, only growing in frequency and severity. Although it had been less than an hour since Dr. Matheson, Naia, and Torin had left, Emery couldn’t help but feel as though she were watching the end of the world as she knew it.
“Turn it off!” she shouted, knowing full well that no one could hear her. Even if they could, they probably wouldn’t do anything about it anyway.
Her thoughts flitted to Naia and Torin.
Traitors.
Was she bitter? Of course she was! After everything they’d been through together, having anyone turn on them was the last thing she’d expected. They’d been through too much and shared a special connection where betrayal was completely out of the question. Or so she’d thought.
Her feelings of betrayal faded momentarily as Alexis spoke up, attempting to calm everyone down, but even Riley, who was normally composed and unruffled, wasn’t having it.
“Wake up and look around, Alexis,” Riley scoffed. “Naia and Torin aren’t coming back. They’re not on our side. It makes you wonder if they ever were.”
“Don’t say that,” Emery and her father said simultaneously.
“Naia is loyal to a fault. She must have something up her sleeve,” Byron pointed out.
“And Torin wouldn’t turn on me. Especially after everything we’ve been through—everything that happened with Mason. He just wouldn’t.” Right? She tried to silence her own nagging doubt, but it lingered like an unwanted guest.
Alexis seemed to sense her uncertainty. “Right. I don’t think we have anything to worry about.”
“Are you kidding me?” Riley retorted. “Never mind the fact that we’re stuck underground in prison cells where no one can hear us. No one knows where we are. I think we have plenty to worry about.”
Sirens blared from the holovision. Emery had to shout over the sound to be heard. “We have to trust them! We really don’t have much of a choice.”
Riley rolled her eyes. “Well, I hate to break it to you, but I don’t trust them. And you shouldn’t either! If they were planning something all along, then why didn’t they tell us?” she demanded.
The sirens stopped their howling, finally allowing Emery to gather her thoughts. As much as she hated to admit it, Riley had raised a good point. It seemed unlike Torin and Naia to plan something on their own. Had they said something discreetly to her that she wasn’t remembering? With all of the distractions as of late, it was hard to determine what bits and pieces of their conversations, if any, had any underlying meaning.
She thought back to her many conversations with Torin as they’d searched for the ingredients, the clues, the journals . . .
His sketch in the journal.
Her eyes grew wide as she tried to suppress her smile. He’d been planning something all along. From the very beginning, he’d always encouraged her to have a back-up plan—and she’d always brushed it off. Seems he’d taken his own advice and created a Plan B.
As much as she wanted to tell her father, sister, and best friend that everything was going to be fine, she knew she couldn’t. While she didn’t know the reasoning behind Naia and Torin keeping their strategy under wraps, she knew well enough to trust their judgment.
So that’s exactly what she planned to do.
49
“I can’t believe I brought this with me, especially here,” Torin said with a shake of his head. “Not the smartest idea.”
“You had to,” Naia reassured. “Without it, we’d be starting from square one. And I highly doubt we’d be able to create a blueprint from scratch in three hours.”
“Speaking of,” he interjected, “time check?”
She glanced at her holowatch. “One hour and fifty-seven minutes.”
A loud sigh escaped his lips as he surveyed the laboratory. Machine after machine beckoned for him to come closer—unfortunately, he was clueless where to start because he had no idea what any of these machines were capable of.
Enter Naia.
“We’ll be focusing on the machines at the far left of the room,” she said with a gesture in that direction. “Why don’t you pull out the journal? Maybe it will help spark my memory.”
Trying to keep his hands from shaking, he did as she said. Although he’d never say it out loud, or to her face, he sure hoped she knew what she was doing, seeing as she’d been the one helping the FCW while discreetly being on 7S’s side the entire time. If she couldn’t remember how to transfer the liquid sanaré into a gas capsule, they were downright screwed. There was very little chance that he could figure out such a complex transformation in a little over an hour.
He handed her the journal, face open to the page with his sketch, and studied her face closely. She was a difficult one to read, but after a few moments, her brows relaxed and a small smile tugged at the corners of her lips.
“E-VAP 800,” she mumbled to herself. Her eyes flitted from one machine to the next.
“What does that mean?” he pressed.
She waved her hand in the air absentmindedly and darted toward one of the metal monstrosities, almost dropping the journal along the way.
“E-VAP 800,” she repeated again, as if this were supposed to mean something to him.
He followed her and whirled her around, then placed his hands atop her shoulders to steady her. Her eyes locked on his with a fiery intent so strong, he almost felt the need to look away. “Naia, I can’t read your mind. And saying E-VAP 800 over and over again isn’t making things any clearer.”
“Right. Sorry.” She chuckled quietly as she nodded her head. “The E-VAP 800 is what we used to created the lethargum and sanaré capsules.”
“I’m guessing E-VAP stands for evaporation?”
She nodded. “That is correct. We’ll need to empty the original formulation from the syringe into one of these petri dishes,” she explained as she grabbed the clear plastic container from underneath the machine. “We then place the dish into the chamber and activate this rod,” she said, demonstrating as she went, “to scan the ingredients in the formulation. If we want to keep all of the ingredients in tact during the liquid to gas transformation process, we select the Preserve All option.”
He bent down and studied the machine closer. “And after that, it just spits out a gas capsule?”
Her lips pressed into a thin line. “Not exactly. It creates the gas and locks it in this chamber.” She pointed to a long cylinder at the far end of the machine.
Torin chewed on his lower lip, deep in thought. “So, basically, what you’re alluding to is creating a capsule, something that will contain the gas and also allow fo
r release.”
“Precisely. What would be even better is to create a machine where we can insert the gas cylinder and have the gas easily transferred over to the capsule.”
He narrowed his eyes, trying to understand what she was getting at.
“Okay, it’s pretty obvious that the state of, well, the world, is highly unstable. We need to get the sanaré into gas form immediately. If anything should happen to this machine, or if Matheson should catch onto us, at least we’ll have completed the first step in the process.”
He gave her reasoning some thought, nodding at each point she’d made. “How long does it take for the E-VAP 800 to transform the liquid into a gas?”
Without a second’s hesitation, she answered, “It takes seventeen minutes and thirty-two seconds.”
He couldn’t help but laugh. “Wow, how precise.”
But Naia wasn’t laughing. “Time is everything in situations like these.” She tried to hide a shudder, but failed. “As a world-renowned hacker, I thought you’d understand that.”
For some reason, her jab hit home. “Believe me, I do. Time has been against me more times than I can count.”
“Then what are you doing just standing around? Start working on the capsule machine. I’ll get the E-VAP started.”
His face fell at her harsh tone, but as soon as he saw her wink over her shoulder, he smiled. “You got it.”
Fifteen minutes into the E-VAP transfer, Torin had almost completely sketched out a machine that would transfer the gas from one container to another. He sat back in his chair as he looked at what he’d drawn. It was truly some of his best work. He glanced over at Naia, who was decked out in a white lab coat, white latex gloves, and safety glasses that kept falling down her nose. She looked ridiculous, but he didn’t dare say anything.
“How’s it coming?” he called out from the other side of the room. It took a moment before she turned around to face him. From the crease in her brow, he could tell she was deep in concentration.
Restitution (The Alpha Drive Book 3) Page 18