“Yes, but only to a certain degree. He hasn’t been strong enough before to sustain a more vigorous body. We tried just healing them, early on, but they didn’t survive. They needed more than just physical healing.”
“What other type is there?”
“He needs to replenish a vital portion of his being that wasted under the disease.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Well, it is very complicated. You will with time. For now, just monitor.”
“So, what is the treatment?” She was missing something important, and it was obvious that Jaelyn wasn’t going to give it to her easily. Perhaps her assistant would.
“A nourishing component that we have added to their diet.”
Mercy lifted her eyes from the screen and stared at Jaelyn skeptically. “Are you trying to tell me that your cure-all is some kind of health shake? Why don’t you want to tell me what it is?”
“Because, frankly, you are not ready for that information. I will tell you when you are.”
“You don’t trust me with the information, but you’ll trust me to sit here and monitor these children?”
“The discussion is at an end.” She waited until Mercy looked angrily back at the screen before she continued. “As for Edillian, a crucial moment will come soon. He will finish with his treatment, and I will need to change it out. When that happens, I have programmed an alert to sound, and then I will take care of the rest. You will not be required for that.”
“Then what?”
“What do you mean?”
“After he finishes his mystery shake, what happens to Edillian?”
She smiled for the first time, and it wasn’t hard for Mercy to catch a little of her enthusiasm. “We’ll remove him from the hibernation tank and transfer him to the hospital for post care.”
“Will he still be critical at that stage?”
“We’ll see. With the way things look now, I don’t think so. He will be our first viable survivor for over thirty years.”
“Thirty years?! That’s...so long!” As soon as she said it, her mind caught up with the facts. “Wait. That’s impossible. All the patients are just children.”
“They were sent into hibernation as children. They are still children in terms of maturity and experiences, but their bodies are much older.”
“How much older?”
“The records are there, if you wish to look.”
Mercy started right away. She just couldn’t believe that the technology even existed for such a process. How could bodies be kept for so long without aging?
While she searched, she asked, “Jaelyn, how old are you?”
“I am many years older than I look.”
“Well, you must be, because you seem to be around fifty to me, but according to what you’ve told me, you must be much older.”
“Well…” Jaelyn paused and she lifted her head to look past the row of columns and through the wall for a moment. Then she frowned. “My People are much longer lived than yours.”
“Your people?”
“The records are there. I must…” She looked again at Edillian’s information and, satisfied by what she saw, straightened up. “I must check on Morgan. It looks like he might be getting into trouble. You will stay here.” She walked swiftly to the door and left the room.
As soon as she was sure the woman was gone, Mercy closed the screen she was looking at and enlarged Edillian’s. She clicked the tab and reviewed his history, all the way back to the first date in his file. She stared at it for a full minute, and then did the calculations again.
Over one hundred years.
She shook her head. Not possible. There was no such technology, no way to keep someone young for one hundred years. No kind of drug...or some shake…a nourishing...com…
Her thoughts slowed down and then stopped. Some things just didn’t belong in your head, so your head kept them out, if it could.
Mercy felt the room growing colder around her. She really didn’t...suddenly...she really didn’t want to be in that freezing room by herself, because she had thought of something, finally: a question she wanted to ask.
“Jaelyn?” she asked aloud. “How exactly have you stayed fifty for one hundred years?”
Her own voice echoed back at her with the same question. Mercy tried to not know the answer, but it was hard, because Jaelyn herself had thrown it in her face just the night before.
That’s why she didn’t think Mercy was ready for the information, because less than twenty-four hours before, she had been practically insane with the horror of it. Jaelyn was right. She wasn’t ready. She was not ready to know.
Mercy considered taking a little walk to clear her head. Things were getting too crazy. She was having impossible, irrational thoughts. What she needed was a little air…
Instead, she sat up in the chair, closed Edillian’s history chart, and started to determine which of the hundred columns was his.
-----------
Anora looked at the surveillance video closely and then stepped back and shut off the program. She turned to Cord, who was eating a sandwich and shook her head.
“That’s disgusting. He already ate half of it.”
He examined his dinner, briefly turning the thick bread stuffed with several kinds of sliced meat and a variety of vegetables over and then shrugged. “It’s fine.” Then he took another big bite. “We good?”
“Yes. Aorin placed the order all three times.” Passing by the man slumped over the counter, she walked to the door of the small room that served as the publishing company’s security office and grabbed the handle.
Cord stood and followed her, snatching the tech's soda on his way out and taking a long pull from the straw. “Just leave it, Anora,” he said when she curled her lip at him. “There’s nothing wrong with it. Besides, I need to build up my antibodies.”
She rolled her eyes, waved for him to go in front of her and closed the door behind them. Then she tried to keep her attention on their surroundings and not on the baby that sucked his thumb contentedly and stared at her from Cord's back.
Chapter 40
As soon as he released her, Lena sat up abruptly and gasped at the shape hovering over her in the dark. She immediately pulled on her power and began to shape it.
“Stop,” he commanded, and she jumped. Then she punched him in the arm.
“Holy crap, Ian. You scared me. What the hell are you doing?” She looked around, but couldn’t see anything in the dim room aside from the shape of bodies lying on two rows of beds. “Where are we? The last thing I remember…”
Her eyes skimmed over a profile several beds over. Silhouetted by the light that shone through the door, she could clearly identify the nose, the curve of the forehead and the lips of her brother.
She jerked her head back and stared at Morgan. She flung an arm at him, this time filled with her power.
He grabbed it and, instead of allowing her power to race across his skin, he threw a mental wet cloth over it. Her energy fizzled away under his grip.
“Don’t, Lena. If you use your power, she’ll come quicker and we don’t have time for that.”
“Who the hell are you? ‘She’ who? Do you mean Jaelyn?”
Sigh. “I need to talk to you and your brother and I need to do it quickly. You are in a lot of trouble. Can you work with me for now?”
“Maybe. What’s going on?”
“First, let’s wake Ian and then I’ll explain.” He tilted his head as if he were listening. “Hmm. I’m not sure if she’s on to us or not.”
“She?” Lena asked again, getting up on the opposite side of the bed and backing down the aisle to Ian’s side.
“Jaelyn.” He sat patiently, noticing that she didn’t once take her eyes off him. He couldn’t seem to take his eyes off her, either. Aside from being very cautious and obviously strong willed, she was beautiful; she was just like her mother on each count. It was like...it was like watching his lost wife, except she was
backing away instead of storming towards him with that look in her eye that said he was about to get an earful.
“Ah. A friend of yours?”
She was shaking her brother’s shoulder, something which wouldn’t have accomplished anything useful on its own. Morgan sent his power into Ian, peeling off the blanket that Jaelyn had wrapped him in.
“What are you doing?” Lena barked suspiciously, having sensed his power touching her brother. She turned when Ian stirred and used a completely different tone with him, “Hey, wake up, loser. We’re in trouble again.”
“Shit. Again?” Ian sat up and looked around. “Why are we always in trouble in the dark?”
Morgan knew that they were already talking to each other silently and couldn’t help smiling. It made him want to…reach out, join in. Now that they were in front of him, he was filled with an intense curiosity about them.
My son. My daughter.
It warmed him to see Lena standing protectively over her brother. He hoped that he would have the chance to watch them together more, to talk to them, to get to know them. He wanted them to learn a little about him, too, if they were willing. However, thinking about what he had to accomplish and how much time he had to do it in, he put his curiosity aside. Unfortunately, he didn’t know if they would get a chance at later.
“Don’t use your abilities,” he repeated, after Ian tried with the same success his sister had to use his power cords to entrap Morgan. It was a very simple thing to unbind the cords and send the power back to its user.
He said, in the silence that followed the failed attack, “You have been controlled by Jaelyn since before you saw her. I’m going to show you, right now, how to prevent her control. Assuming you are strong enough, you will be free of both light persuasion as well as the stronger compulsions she has been putting on you.” He really hoped they were as strong as they seemed, because if they weren’t, things were not going to go well after this.
“What do…” Lena began.
“Lena, there’s no time,” he interrupted. He hoped she could hear the urgency he was trying to convey. “We have to get this done before she gets here.”
He jumped right onto the ribbon that already joined Ian and Lena and used it to show them both at the same time how the People slipped into the minds of those around them and distorted what they perceived.
Ian thought, This is not what Scythe does.
Show me, Morgan requested, hiding his reaction to the name.
Ian brought forth a well crafted image of a man of mixed Human and Kin heritage, a man Morgan already knew a lot about. Their close relationship with him was going to cause problems, but he’d have to deal with that later. Time was already very short and if he didn’t get this done, then the problem with their friend Scythe was not going to be an issue.
Ian shared what he had experienced when Scythe practiced on him.
No. That is similar to the way you use your power now, molding it into a tool. What I’m showing you is a subtle technique. He demonstrated, slipping into Lena’s mind and then back out again; he did the same for Ian.
When they could detect it on their own, he continued, Now to prevent it, you must hold your power like this, all the time. He let them see how the field that was always around him was tuned to block out the type of attack that Jaelyn was using on them. You are not making a new wall, you are fine tuning it. No, Lena, it is not a matter of thickness. That doesn’t affect it at all. It is a difference of...He searched for the word...quality, something elemental in the makeup. Now, you try.
Before he was ready, their time was up. Since he was monitoring Jaelyn, he felt it when she approached. He could also tell that she was furious. He told them quickly the last bits of information about the defense and then stepped back from them. He regretfully removed himself from their close bond. The intimate connection of their shared minds was something he had not felt for many years.
He was about to see if waking and teaching them had been worth the risk.
“Ian,” he said aloud, “You wanted to know why I woke you in the dark. It is because I needed to teach you both before you knew this.”
The doorway was blocked by a figure standing in it, and the small amount of light that shone into the room was cut off as well. Then, the light was everywhere, blinding them. When their eyes adjusted, they stared back and forth from Jaelyn, who was dressed in wrath, and Morgan, who so clearly resembled Ian that they must have known he was…
“Father?” Ian asked, completely astounded.
“It’s not him, Ian,” Lena snarled, keeping an eye on the dangerous one. “Father and mother both died. Besides, take a look. He’s at least eight years younger than you. He just looks like him. Who the hell are you?”
Jaelyn wasn’t interested in their little reunion, “Morgan, what are you doing?”
“Waking Arathian and Nalelena. You said that I could.”
“No. I said that they would be safe. This is utterly ridiculous. They will muddle everything. Put them back down and report to the lab.”
“Put us down?” Ian objected. “What, like a dog?”
“Oh, no. That’s not happening today, Jaelyn,” Lena declared. She and Ian were both glowing.
“No, Jaelyn.” Morgan shook his head slowly and determinedly.
“This will not be forgiven, Morgan,” she threatened and then concentrated fully on them. He felt how much she had to let go of nearly everything else she was focusing on in order to face them. That meant that she still hadn’t rested enough from her journey, so she wasn’t anywhere near her full potential.
They might have a chance after all.
“I didn’t think it would be, Jaelyn,” he said. “And, just so you know, I’m not going to let you harm them.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve become protective after all these years of turning your back on them.”
She tried to slip her way past Ian’s guard. His shield wavered for a second, but then it shifted until it was the right frequency.
Jaelyn practically spat at Morgan. “What did you do? You’ve threatened everything I’ve worked for. You don’t know their minds, Morgan. They’re not compatible for this work, for what needs to be done here. They’ll ruin everything. Do you think I’ll let that happen?”
“How will they ruin your plans, Jaelyn?” He was building up his wall, something he rarely did, because she was drawing in so much power that it was clear she was readying herself for something lethal. He had known that she would be angry, but her reaction was more than he had expected.
“We don’t know or care about your plans,” Lena snapped. She didn’t seem to be aware that she and Ian were both leaning away from the woman.
“You see? They don’t even…”
“You were meant to join us in our research, sit by us here in our home in the mountains, reap the benefits of our glorious wealth, but you were too soft. I saw it early on. Too soft to be of use. So, then, make them harder. Make them practical. Let a life of difficulty make them value what we have here.”
Morgan felt his stomach drop. He couldn’t believe what she was saying. He accused, “You...you never had a vision? You told me that it was the best for them, that leaving them here would cripple them. You made me think they were at risk here. You...you broke apart my family...broke my wife...for that? So you could have a pair of lab technicians?” He felt things breaking away inside of him, the long strips of metal that made up the robot that mindlessly followed, tirelessly obeyed and dutifully accepted her decisions peeled off and fell with a noisy clamor to the ground. And underneath...
“It was the only way to make them be strong, unlike their father. But it turns out that you are of the same cloth after all. Now, you can join that pathetic wife of yours. I have my work and it won’t be interrupted by you.”
Underneath was a son of the People, born for the third time.
Morgan released every person in the room just before she struck at him. Then he was flung across the bed behind him. Th
e force of the blast knocked him onto his back and his head smashed into the metal bars along the side of the next bed. Then he dropped down between the two beds, his head and shoulder smacking the ground at the same time, and curled up reflexively into a ball. Stunned from the blow and the fall, he didn’t have time to defend against her next attack: a sharp psychic spike that drilled into his mind.
White...bright white to go with the intense pain. He heard screaming and he thought he might have been the one doing it. He wasn’t sure, but if he wasn’t, he wanted to start on it right away because it felt like a series of bombs were going off in his head. The pain scoured the inside of his brain, scratching and tearing as if it could find a way out by digging straight through his skull.
He was definitely the one screaming.
Somebody was holding him, and she was speaking, but he couldn’t understand a word of it. Then a tingling warmth traveled up his arm and into his head. The moment it encountered the spike Jaelyn had driven there, the pain dampened to a manageable level, and he shakily gathered his wits and his power together and pushed Jaelyn out. He collapsed flat onto the floor from the tight fetal position he had wound himself into and concentrated on breathing and calming his shaking body and holding in the bile that crept up his throat. When he could, he waved away the young girl who was leaning over him, folded himself into a sitting position and looked around.
Most of the patients in the room were huddled behind the scant protection of their beds, keeping their bodies close to the wall. There were several lying, unmoving, on the floor. Lena was one of them; she had a nasty gash in her head that was spilling blood onto the tile. Ian stood over her and was reaching out and trying to get a hold of Jaelyn with his power, something Morgan could have told him was futile. There was no way he could…
Jaelyn was pushed back to the door, grabbing her chest and cursing.
Morgan stared. How did he get past her defenses?
He examined her closely. She was even more worn out than he had thought. No, she was completely out, which meant that she would be looking to replenish herself…
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