Jaelyn smiled, but Mercy could see the tension behind it. Something was bothering her.
“I’d like to see them now.”
“No. Later will be fine,” she said it as if Mercy didn’t really have a choice, which bothered her and made her a bit suspicious. It reminded her of some of the things her father had been arguing with her about, particularly his doubts about their decision to follow Jaelyn.
Mercy was about to argue when a little hazy cloud settled over her for a moment. She swayed and raised her palms up to press against her eyes. She shook her head and it cleared. She could use a cup of coffee and something to eat. “Are you saying I can’t see my own father?”
The woman blinked, and then her brows knit together over her eyes.
Mercy thought she was probably being a little touchy. After all, the woman had done so much for them.
“Perhaps later,” Jaelyn probed.
“Alright. I guess that’s okay.”
“Good. I want to show you something that is integral to your training. I see that your wall is very tightly shored up. Very good. It is actually tighter than I expected. You have worked on your other, older shield as well, am I right?”
Mercy nodded, “I was just following your instructions. You are a good teacher. I don’t have any threads escaping now.”
“No, not even when you sleep, which is remarkable.”
“Well, I’ve been able to do that for years with the other...Where are we going?”
“We have a laboratory here on site…”
Mercy stopped short, instantly wary. “What do you need…”
“I mean a clinic,” Jaelyn corrected, staring at her intently.
Mercy blinked. “Oh, a clinic, really?”
Jaelyn took a breath and continued, signaling for Mercy to walk with her, “Yes. I think you will find it very interesting, but I must warn you first about the patients. They are very fragile right now and vulnerable to any power fluctuations. They could absolutely not tolerate any of the funneling you were doing just days ago. It would have easily killed them.” She nodded at Mercy’s reaction. “Yes, that is why I had to teach you the wall before you arrived, and why, against your father’s wishes, I wanted you to practice so much.”
“Are...are you sure it is safe, even now?”
“Yes. As long as you maintain the control you have right now, there is no threat to them. As I said, your defense is more than I had hoped for.”
Mercy wondered why, despite her words, the woman seemed disgruntled about that. Wasn’t she doing what the woman wanted? “How did they get so sick?”
“Many years ago, a disease infected all the residents of our home here. It spread so quickly and developed at such a rate that we couldn’t, even with our significant medical knowledge, combat it in time. The only ones who were not infected were those, like myself, who had been away at the time. We were locked out when we returned, until the vaccine was developed by the last surviving doctors. By the time we had been safely inoculated, nearly everyone had perished or was in the later stages of the disease and had no hope of recovery.
“The only ones who were preserved, and those only barely, were a very small number of young children who were quarantined in time. Actually, they weren’t caught in time. They were infected, but were put into a deep hibernation which slowed their bodies’ functions and the development of the disease. They were later treated, but the disease had already done significant damage to them.
“Come, here it is. I am going to place my own shield over us both in here, just as an extra precaution.”
They stepped into a room that looked less like a clinic and more like some kind of ancient religious temple to Mercy. There were...well she couldn’t even count them all, but at least fifty, no, it looked like more than seventy columns lined up in neat rows with no markings on the faces. At the base of each one, there was a computer with a display and a simple input screen. Most of the displays were powered down. It was very stark, in contrast to the highly ornamental style of the rest of Jaelyn’s home.
In the center of the room a young man, probably in his mid-twenties, sat watching them with interest from behind a desk covered with several monitors. Even though he was sitting in a shadow and was hard to see, he looked familiar, which was strange because she knew she hadn’t seen him before…
The man nodded companionably at her, and, despite her recent experiences with strangers, and despite knowing better, she automatically smiled at him. She didn’t know why, it just came naturally. Right away, she realized what she was doing and, startled, she froze in the middle of it. Then, the bizarre happened. He smiled at her reaction and she saw something that she recognized: right there on a strange man’s face was an expression she had seen all her life. It grabbed her heart, that expression, and held it tightly like it had hundreds, maybe a thousand times before.
She gasped and stared at him. Then she tilted her head to see past Jaelyn’s body, which had moved in front of her. “Who is that?”
“That is my assistant. Please don’t flirt with him.”
“I’m not flirting.” As if she would flirt. She was only interested in one smile, and it wasn’t anywhere near Jaelyn’s hidden mountain retreat. What caught her attention was that the stranger had the same amazing smile that her brother Will and her dad had. Mercy stepped to the side to get a better look, but his cheerful look had been replaced with a frown; he got up and walked to the door.
“He has work to do,” Jaelyn explained, turning Mercy toward one of the columns, “as do I, so we’ll have to cut our visit short for today. I want to show you something, before you return to your room.”
She blinked, remembering the purpose of their tour. “Okay.”
Jaelyn bent down and punched a code into the input pad. The wide column started rising. It was big, at least seven feet in diameter, and it had to be large, because it housed another thinner column inside of it. This one did not look like it was made of stone; it was made of clear glass or thick plastic. Inside a yellow liquid floated a body so emaciated that it was barely recognizable as an older child. It looked more like a plucked chicken hanging there with a dozen tubes connected to various parts of its, no...her body.
Mercy stepped into what little standing room there was between the tank and the walls of the larger, protective column and looked at the girl’s face. “Is...she alive?”
“Yes, just barely.”
“How...?”
“As I said, the disease…
“No, I meant to ask, how long does she have?”
“I don’t know.”
“Isn’t there a cure?” Mercy turned to Jaelyn.
“There is, but it takes years to develop.”
“Really? How many?” The tiny girl didn’t look well enough to have been hanging on for even one year in that state.
“A very long time, Mercy.” Jaelyn closed her eyes and looked suddenly exhausted, and Mercy ducked down under the column wall and laid her hand on the woman’s arm comfortingly.
“Why didn’t you tell us about this before?”
“I am not telling everyone. I am just telling you.”
“Why?”
“Because I want you to give your life for these children.”
“What?” Mercy stared at the woman. Did I hear her correctly?
“I want you to spend your life working with me and my assistant, curing these children. Will you do that? Will you give your life for them?”
She wanted to argue because there was someone else she was living for, but her mouth answered on its own. There was no choice, no thinking. Just the deep rooted, instinctive, “Yes.”
As soon as she said it, she clamped her mouth shut. Her eyes wildly searched the woman’s face at the same time her mind sought a reason for her involuntary response, for any reasonable explanation for what had happened. She tried to open her mouth and deny it, but she couldn’t do that either. She was stuck there in her decision.
Jaelyn watched her fight
and watched her lose. Then it was her turn to lay a comforting hand on Mercy’s arm. “Remember your sin, Mercy. This is how you will find the peace you seek. Here, you will find redemption.”
Mercy found she could speak, “But...my family...my…” My love. I haven’t even had a chance to give it yet.
She’d been waiting a long time for a vision she had had when she was just a girl to come to pass; she’d been preparing for that, for when she would be old enough, good enough, strong enough to be by his side. She had seen that it could happen, and she had been patiently working toward that future for herself and for Scythe. She had wanted to give him that beautiful gift, something for him to hold onto and cherish the same way that she would. In her vision, he had loved her and she had given her love to him and made him so incredibly happy. There was nothing that filled her the way the memory of his happiness filled her. Nothing. But the moment she had said, “Yes,” she had felt something shift inside of her. Was it her own future that had slipped away? Could it happen so easily? Could one utterance steal it from them?
The woman frowned at what she saw in Mercy’s thoughts. “You are such a selfish girl. Have you forgotten already? Let me remind you of why you suffered so much before I took you in hand.” Jaelyn used her connection to Mercy to open up her mind and replay at an incredible speed every instant of her time at Chromatic Technologies, things that, although she had already been over them a hundred times, were still just as horrific to her as they had been the first time. With the skill and clarity that reminded her of Scythe’s ability to revisit memories, Jaelyn’s power pulled out every hurt, guilt, fear, terror, every biting emotion; then she magnified them.
It was horrible, crushingly horrible. Murder. Murderer. MURDERER!
When she was done, Mercy was weeping at the woman’s feet; one hand grasped the woman’s ankle desperately and the other was curled up against her chest.
“What? What, Mercy?” she taunted.
“Please, please stop.” I didn’t mean to. I didn’t want to.
Reading her mind easily, Jaelyn sneered, “It doesn’t matter that you didn’t mean to. It matters that you did. Now, what are you going to do about it?” The woman was triumphant, but she was also frantic; her hands were quivering and there were patches of red lying about her face. Mercy could see through their connection that Jaelyn was shaking so badly because she was weak with relief.
“I am going to give my...my life.” She was sobbing now, for herself as well as for the ones she had killed. And, she was sobbing for him.
“Yes, you are. Now, get up. You have work to do.”
Chapter 38
Morgan sat down at the table after placing her plate in front of her. She raised her eyebrows, her fork hovering in the air, and watched him start to eat.
She asked, “What are you doing?”
“Eating,” he said smoothly, taking another bite and chewing leisurely.
She took a taste of her own food, chewed it for a few moments and then dropped her fork onto the plate with a clink. “What do you want? You never eat in here.”
“Well, it is very nice,” he surveyed the room, taking in the formal dining table, the immense crystal chandelier, and the masterful paintings that hung on every wall. “I probably should spend more time here, especially since it will be much more festive now that we have guests. But, I can’t help but notice that, although Mercy has taken on the…” he waved his hand in the air, as if he were trying to find the word, “duties...you’ve arranged for her, she is the only one awake.”
“So,” she said disgustedly and continued to eat.
He left behind his light tone in favor of one that would get her attention, “Jaelyn, what are your plans for them?”
“Same as every other one we brought, but hopefully with the type of success we are seeing with Edillian. They are strong,” she spoke quicker and louder to forestall the storm she saw forming around him, “and should provide us the same results, if well matched.”
He tried to rein his temper in, because he needed to understand something critical. She had just said that she was going to use them, and she was including his children. Why would she do that? Hadn’t they turned out the way she wanted? “You said that no more of the People would be used in this experiment, Jaelyn. You swore to me on the day you broke your own oath.”
“I never broke it,” she snapped.
If there was one thing he could always catch her with, it was the horrible choice she had made on that damned day.
“You swore to protect their lives…”
“I did what I could to protect as many as I could!”
“...but you sacrificed ten of them...ten of the weakest sent by you straight to their deaths.”
“I did...you were there...you agreed! Oniesa agreed that it was the best chance we had. It was merely a miscalculation that the amount of power in the weak ones, even for ones as pure as they were, was not enough to sustain their brothers and sisters indefinitely. It looked for a while as if it would. Even you were relieved to see some of them improve for a time. I still believe that the ten, perhaps all twenty lost would not have made it even this far on their own, so ultimately it was worth the risk to find out. You know I regret that day, Morgan, and I have asked you numerous times not to bring it up.”
“I will not keep silent, if that is what you are asking. On that day, I did not agree. I did not agree to any of this. I did not get tricked like that poor girl into pledging my very existence to your cause. I was just unfortunate enough to be born into it. And, Jaelyn, I did not and still do not think that whatever lives you take are worth the lives you are saving. Can’t you see? You have rebuilt the People. They are already here! I am here. My children are here. You have spread the People’s light throughout the borderlands and it flourishes, Jaelyn!”
“Do not talk to me of flimsy imitations. Even your own children carry only half the grace you do. The other half is trash. The only true People outside this room are waiting, like my son, to be set free. We have not finished until every column is emptied and every child breathes the mountain’s fresh spring breeze. Until that happens, you, I, and now Mercy, will do what it takes. Whatever it takes, Morgan.”
“Including killing the People that already live?”
“I have already addressed that.”
“Mercy is less even than her father, yet you would throw him away and keep her?”
“No. There will be no waste. She will free the last. I keep her because we have need of another as strong as ourselves to do our work. I grow weary, Morgan. I need to know that someone will continue on if I should falter.”
“Really? Or, could it be that you are just seeking to replace me?”
“Of course not,” she said dismissively.
“That would be perfect, Jaelyn, because if you use another pure, healthy brother to raise one of your sick children, you really would have bastardized everything you say you stand for. Don’t...don’t talk to me about protecting the sanctity of our people when you so willingly destroy our people’s lives to do it.”
He scooped up his plate and turned to go.
“Alright then,” she said to his back. He stopped at the door to hear her out, but didn’t give her the courtesy of facing her. “Your children may be spared. I do concede your point. They are close enough, for now, to what we are striving for. But you will have to control them. The others, if they prove strong enough, will still serve the purpose of their birth. And,” she traded in her conciliatory tone for one she was more used to wearing, “you will be responsible for finding suitable replacements. Strong ones, Morgan, with a good chance for success.”
He nodded, because he had pushed it as far as he safely could, and left.
Chapter 39
“So you monitor these readings each hour. The program is set to alert you if there are any changes out of the acceptable range, but we check them manually anyway, to be sure. That way, you’ll become familiar with each of the patients, what their particul
ar quirks and patterns are, and can make informed decisions when you need to.”
Mercy nodded expressionlessly. She understood what was being told to her, could replicate the procedures when asked, and did so without hesitation when she was told to, but she did it from the middle of a thick fog. She had hardly slept the night before, until Jaelyn had come in and helped her turn her back on everything for a time. In the morning, it was all back, clear as ever and it had made her muddy. She couldn’t believe what had happened to her, couldn’t quite accept the events that had blown her entire life away and replaced it with something simpler. Quieter.
It was so quiet in that huge room.
“Do you have any questions so far?” Jaelyn asked her.
“No.” No questions. Questions required her to have something important that she was clinging to. She had let all of those things go.
Sigh. “Well, then, on to the next item. Morgan should be monitoring this one, but he is not here yet. This should interest you, Mercy, since you asked about it last night.”
She followed Jaelyn’s finger across the screen, noting the name it hovered over: Edillian. It didn’t ring a bell.
“You asked if there was a cure, and I said that there was, but it took many years to develop. We have just come to the end of our preparation and are beginning to administer the treatments. Edillian is the first in this new phase. His treatment was started three days ago, and we have had very positive results. I expect that it will be completed today or tomorrow at the latest.”
The woman tapped on the boy’s status bar and a record of his vital readings came up. Mercy skimmed down the page. The latest numbers were a complete turnaround from what the earlier stats showed.
“Ah. Now you have questions? Good.”
“How could his weight increase by that much in so short a time?”
“He is regenerating tissue, using his own power. He is just now strong enough to heal himself. Look, here, this...”
“But, couldn’t you do that, heal him?”
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