“If you were going to do that, you’d have contacted the IPF already.” I know I’m taking a big risk and I hold my breath.
One brow rises a fraction. “Perhaps you’re right. I confess to being curious about why you’re here. You have precisely five minutes to convince me not to summon the authorities. Come in.”
I hang back as he opens the door. “Is there—?”
“I live alone. You’re quite safe until I decide otherwise.”
What option do I have? I follow him inside. “How do you know you’re safe?” I ask once I’m over the threshold. “Maybe I’m a Defiance assassin.” We’re standing in an entryway lit by a domed skylight. Hostas, ferns and aspidistra grow in pots and the smell of damp loam pervades the space.
“Four minutes, thirty-six seconds,” he says.
I’m taken aback that he completely discounts the idea that I might be a threat to him, but then, realizing time is slipping past, I begin. “The locusts are adapting, sir. They’re becoming meat eaters. They killed two men a couple of days ago.”
“Where?”
I shake my head.
He lets it go and motions for me to continue.
“The implications are horrendous. I’m sure you recognize that. I can help. If you can get me back into a lab, onto a team working on locust eradication, I know I can help. I’ve got years of experience—”
“I’m aware.” He cocks his head and considers me. “You’ve taken a huge risk in coming to Atlanta, to me. What do you hope to get out of this? Exoneration?”
“Nothing! I just want to help. I realized I couldn’t stay with—where I was, and not put my skills to use. I know you can turn me in, have me imprisoned and tortured, even executed. I know that. It’s a risk I had to take because I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t try to help.” My words trip over each other. I hope he can hear the desperation and sincerity in my voice.
He turns away and for a stomach-clenching moment I think he’s summoning the IPF. Then, he motions for me to follow him. We traverse a hallway and emerge into a round room with sleek blue and gray surfaces, including a molded series of attached chairs that ring a table where bubbles rise through a liquid-filled center. It's twink. Fonner sits, putting one ankle on his knee, looking relaxed. When he makes a patting motion, I perch on the edge of one of the chairs.
“You’re a curious one, AC Jax. Of course, you’re not an apprentice citizen anymore, and I don’t suppose you go by Jax.”
“Derrika Ealy.”
“Who sent you to me?” he queries suddenly, his voice sharp. He leans forward and pins me with his gaze.
“No one. You were at the trial—you supported me. I don’t know anyone else in a position to help,” I say, “except Loránd Vestor and I don’t know how to find him.”
Minister Fonner continues to scrutinize my face, but then he sits back again. “Still honest to a fault.” He lowers his eyelids and is silent for most of the rest of my five minutes. I’m getting antsy when he says slowly, “I don’t have the authority to vacate your conviction. Not yet. When I’m—if I become premier—then I could . . .”
I tighten my lips to keep from smiling. He’s going to help me.
“So you can’t be Everly Jax. You could still be from the Kube, though. We should stick as closely to the truth as possible. You’ve been training with Dr. Ronan and he has suggested your abilities would be useful to the Ministry of Science and Food Production’s locust eradication efforts. All true. In fact, I can arrange it so Everly Jax’s Kube records become Derrika Ealy’s. She’ll have your less than sterling behavior reports,” he says, “but also your test scores. I will recommend you to Emilia Alden. Oh, yes.” A smile I don’t understand creeps across his face.
“Minister Alden wanted me to come work for her,” I say.
“She wanted Everly Jax to work for her—prior to Jax’s murder conviction and subsequent escape in which three IPF guards were killed.” His tone is meant to put me in my place. “You are Derrika Ealy from here on out. However,” he adds with narrowed eyes, “it might be worthwhile to let Emilia in on our secret. She is one of only two or three people with the access to manipulate the records so anyone investigating Derrika Ealy’s profile will find your DNA. Not to mention I think it’s wise to spread the potential blame if anyone discovers your real identity. I don’t want her pointing the finger at me if you become a political liability.”
I don’t understand the political ins and outs. All I’m worried about is possible exposure. “What if she—?”
“I’m one hundred percent certain Emilia Alden won’t turn you over to be executed.” He ghosts a laugh. “She didn’t get to be a contender for the premiership without taking risks. If you contribute to finding a solution for the locust problem, she’ll reap the glory . . . and I’ll make sure she shares it with me.” He’s lost in thought for a moment, a somewhat unpleasant smile twisting his lips. Then, he says, “You’ll need a microchip.”
He reaches for my arm and turns it so he can observe my forearm. Tracing an index finger lightly down the short scar, he says, “As I thought. You cut it out.”
I nod. “When we left the Kube.” I remember Wyck’s knife blade wiggling the microchip identifier out of my arm. I pull my arm away and rub the spot.
Minister Fonner stands abruptly. “This will take a couple of days. You’ll stay here. You will not go out or contact anyone. Remember, I can always ‘discover’ your true identity and hand you over to the IPF. I’d be loathe to do that, Jax—Ealy—because I like you. I couldn’t show favoritism as the supervising proctor, but I always had my eye on you. However, if you betray me, consciously or not, if you compromise my position in any way . . .”
I get the idea. I have to ask one question. “Sir, at the trial, when you said I wasn’t smart enough to plan our escape from the Kube, did you mean it?”
He looks down at me, eyes glinting. “Ealy, I think you have the potential to accomplish more than you can possible imagine. To bring down governments, to change the course of history. I do. I really do.”
Chapter Seventeen
Two days later, I walk a step behind Minister Fonner as he leads me through the hallways of the Ministry of Science and Food Production to Minister Alden’s office. I wipe my clammy palms along my thighs. Minister Fonner has outfitted me in the pale green jumpsuit scientists wear in the MSFP labs. My arm throbs where the new microchip that identifies me as Derrika Ealy was implanted yesterday. I felt a pang when the needle probed beneath my skin, a pang that had nothing to do with physical discomfort. I felt like the real me was slipping away, like Everly Jax was being carefully eradicated. I don’t want to be Derrika forever. I hope there’s a way back, eventually, to being Everly.
I’ve carefully fluffed my wavy brown hair so it covers my ears and forehead so surveillance imagers will not be able to match it via facial recognition. Every time I catch a glimpse of myself in a reflective surface, I’m startled. The greener eyes, the fuller lips and rounded chin, the hair—they’re me, but not me. I push the thoughts away, aware that I’ll need to focus all of my faculties on getting through this day without making a fatal slip.
The few people in the hall—geneborns, all of them—eye us curiously and make way deferentially for Minister Fonner. He gets a fawning welcome from Minister Alden’s aide, and then we’re ushered into her office. It’s largely bare except for a desk, a 4’x6’ touch screen with calculations on it, and a holo-image of a dissected locust. The minister turns from making notations on the display and I recognize her from her appearances at Assemblies. Blond and slim, she holds herself erect—aloof, really, almost canted backward. The web of fine lines around her eyes and a certain crepeyness of her neck put her in Fonner’s age bracket. She wears the green jumpsuit of a scientist, rather than a minister’s white one, and I like that about her. Acute blue eyes rake me quickly before she greets Minister Fonner.
“Oliver.” Her voice is cool.
“Emilia.”
His voice contains more warmth than I’ve ever heard him express and he’s almost beaming at her. If I thought him capable of a relationship, I’d suspect him of having feelings for the MSFP minister. Since I’m convinced he’s no more capable of being fond of someone than a locust is, I wonder what he’s up to with his false display.
“As promised, I’ve brought you the exceptional young bio-chemist I was telling you about, Derrika Ealy.” He touches my elbow. He’s already cautioned me about referring to the truth in any venue. “Always assume you’re being imaged and recorded in a government building,” he said. “Be alert at all times.”
His unconscious echoing of Fiere’s words made my skin prickle.
I step forward. “It’s an honor to meet you, Minister,” I say, “and a privilege to work for the ministry.”
She steps closer and studies me for long enough that I squirm. She seems to be mentally cataloguing the length of my nose, the curve of my cheek, the breadth of my brow, everything about me. “Yes, I see.”
See what? Everly Jax?
“Dr. Ronan recommends you most highly, Ealy.”
I smile, picturing my teacher and remembering our many hours together in the Kube’s lab and dome. “I hope he’s well.”
“Irascible as ever. He was my teacher and adviser at university.” She smiles, but then shoots Minister Fonner a sharp look. “You’re sure we’re covered on this, Oliver? That no one will figure it out. You know—”
“As long as you’ve done your part.”
“Of course I have,” she snaps. With an effort, she turns to me and gives a tight smile. “I’ll take you along to the lab, Ealy, and introduce you to your supervisor. After that, well, I doubt we’ll see much of each other. Ministry affairs and administrative bullshit take up far too much of my time. I wish I could be back in the lab, working alongside you and the other scientists, but my time is demanded elsewhere. Oliver, I’ll see you at the Premier’s meeting.”
He takes his dismissal with an ironic nod, stepping aside so we can precede him out of the office. I look over my shoulder at him as Minister Alden starts briskly down another corridor. I don’t think I like him, but he’s gone out on a limb to make it possible for me to be here, and he’s kept me safe the past two days. He’s made it clear, though, that I can’t expect help from him if I get into trouble or someone discovers my real identity. Parting from him, I feel like I’m leaving my only connection to who I was behind. He catches my eye and gives me a measured nod. I choose to interpret it as encouragement, rather than as a warning that if I screw up the consequences will be dire. Derrika Ealy is on her own.
The MSFP building, like so many government buildings, I’ve figured out, is a pre-famine era building that has been reclaimed and retrofitted since the Prags took over. There’s polyglass in the windows and newer aeration and sanitation systems, but the basic structure is decades old. I can see that in the slightly warped flooring and the walls with faint imprints of photos or pictures that hung years ago between or beneath the digital images of today. I’m surprised, therefore, when we turn a corner and enter a hallway of laboratories with cutting edge equipment, computers and fittings.
“Ooh,” I breathe, hit with a sudden zing at being back amongst microscopes and centrifuges, Bunsen burners and pipettes, precision and discovery.
Minister Alden smiles with understanding. “These labs, and our teams of scientists and technicians, are the one thing I’m proudest of from my time as minister. We’ve made some hugely important discoveries here. And I’m sure there’ll be more.”
I’m hardly listening, I’m so eager to get to work.
“Ealy.”
She reclaims my attention with her serious tone. “Before we go in, I should mention that you’ll be working in close proximity with someone you may remember from . . . your prior life.”
I light up inside. Who could it be but Dr. Ronan?
“You’ll have to be on your guard. I don’t expect him to recognize you, but—”
The lab door slides open, interrupting her. A man in a green jumpsuit steps out, auburn hair glowing beneath the lights. The color makes worms of anxiety writhe in my stomach.
“Ah, here he is now,” Minister Alden says in a tight voice. “Keegan, I want you to meet your newest team member, Derrika Ealy. Ealy, this is the supervising scientist, Dr. Keegan Usher.”
It can’t be. I’m drowning, unable to reach the water’s surface, my lungs burning with the need for air, staring up at a pale face crowned with auburn hair. I take a gasping breath as my new supervisor turns his gold eyes on me and holds out his hand, keeping his elbow close to his body. “Welcome.”
It’s all I can do to touch his hand for the barest second and mutter something like “Nice to meet you.”
“I’ve seen your record—very impressive. Happy to have you on the team,” he says, no hint of suspicion in his voice. In fact, he sounds friendly, welcoming.
If he hadn’t tried to kill me thirteen years ago, when I was four and he was eleven, I might have been fooled. I’m barely aware of Minister Alden leaving as I take in every detail of his appearance. He’s changed, of course. He’s no longer the eleven year old who bitterly, murderously, resented the abrupt appearance of a little “sister” fosted with his family because his mother longed for a daughter but the government wouldn’t grant them another geneborn infant to parent. They had settled for me, a natural born being raised at nearby Kube 9, but returned me after only two months, after the second “accident” that almost killed me when they left Keegan in charge. He must be—I do the math quickly—twenty-four now. I can still see traces of the boy he was in the slightly off-kilter nose, the wide mouth, and the high forehead. He’s much taller, though—well over six feet—and his voice has deepened. I don’t think I would have recognized him. I can only pray he doesn’t recognize me.
“Let me show you around, Ealy,” he says. Putting his eye to the iris scanner, he waits for the door to slide open and flaps his wrist to motion me in.
I wince away from his touch when he puts his hand to my elbow. Trying to cover my discomfort, I scoot inside and pretend to be enraptured by the lab. Actually, there’s no pretending necessary.
“This is twink,” I say, gazing around, wide-eyed.
“We’re proud of it,” Keegan responds, pleased with my enthusiasm.
The lab apparently runs the length of the building and is divided into eight or ten workstations and an enclosed office space I assume is Keegan’s. The stink of heat and dissolving bacteria tells me an autoclave is working, and the hum and click of working equipment indicate the lab is busy. Stainless steel gleams, glass sparkles, and lights blink on equipment more modern than we had at the Kube. I spot a handful of people, two in scientist green and the rest wearing technician blue.
Keegan—I’ve got to think of him as Dr. Usher—escorts me around and introduces me to the scientists. Both are geneborn. The first is Dr. Torina Zimmerman, a thirty-ish woman with short brown hair and chipmunky cheeks, and the other is Dr. Wu, slightly older, with a goatee and wire-rimmed glasses that make me wonder why he hasn’t undergone vision correction. Dr. Usher introduces the technicians simply as “our lab help.” The group reacts to me variously with curiosity, indifference, and veiled hostility. I tuck away my impressions to think about later.
As he shows me the workstations, Dr. Usher quizzes me about my qualifications and experience and I am grateful that Minister Fonner has been able to give Derrika Ealy my real history. I relax as I talk about my work with Dr. Ronan in the Kube and my growing interest in viruses and the role they might play in locust eradication.
My ease disappears when he says, seemingly innocently, “Being from Kube 9, you must know Everly Jax.”
We’re in an enclosed space off the main lab that houses locusts in every stage of development from egg pods to adults, with separate, labeled mesh cages holding nymphs, instars of various sizes, and hoppers. The clicking of the bodies as they hop against their mesh walls, and
the buzzing of adults’ wings, almost drowns out his question. I gulp before answering. “Uh, yes, of course. We were in the same year.”
“Did you ever suspect she was capable of murder?”
Of course he knows about the trial. I try to read him, to figure out his interest. Is he merely curious, like any citizen might be? Or is there more to it? Does he suspect me? I see no sign of it in his avid expression. He reminds me of the way some of the Kube kids looked the time a boy whose name I forget was mangled by a thresher. I fight the urge to defend myself. “We weren’t close. She pretty much kept to herself. Why? Did you know her?”
I expect him to lie, but he surprises me. “She was fosted with my family when she was little. It didn’t work out. Not surprising. I’ve got a meeting to attend. Let me turn you over to Dr. Zimmerman. She can give you an overview of her work. I think you’ll find it fascinating.” He slaps his palm flat atop one of the cages, jarring the locusts loose before leading me out of the room.
I obediently follow him, wondering why it was “not surprising” that I ended up back at the Kube. Because he’s a sociopath, I tell myself. Somehow, though, I don’t think that is the reason he has in mind.
I spend the rest of the day hearing about on-going projects at the lab, being shown around other labs at the ministry, and learning my way around the building. It’s exhausting remembering to respond when people address me as “Derrika” or “Ealy,” and guarding everything I say. I’ve taken Griselda’s words to heart and am determined to watch my tongue. The less I say, the less chance there is that I’ll betray myself with knowledge I shouldn’t have.
At the end of the day, I make my way out of the ministry alone and walk to the new living quarters the ministry arranged for me. It’s a four-story building, purpose-built to house single government workers. It’s two blocks from the Capitol area, ensuring no one needs electricity ration cards or ACVs to commute to serve. It reminds me in some ways of the Kube, except it’s vastly more modern, shaped from translucent composites in shades of blue and green. My billet is on the second floor and I climb the stairs, check the number on the card I was given, and let myself into the compact space by pressing my index finger to the biometric ID pad.
Incineration (The Incubation Trilogy Book 2) Page 12