“Not as young as I used to be. Everything stiffens up or falls apart when you hit sixty. This way.”
From our vantage point of relative safety, I look over at the MSFP building. Light glows from windows on every floor now and I imagine the guards scurrying to and fro, doing a lab-to-lab and office-to-office search for me. I hope they’re not stupid enough to bust into the locust lab.
“The locusts—”
Alden senses where I’m going immediately. “Don’t worry. The guards are well-trained and reluctant to enter labs when the alarms go off, anyway. They don’t know what experiments we’re conducting, but they know some of them revolve around diseases they don’t want to get. Their rumor mill has us working on combinations of hemorrhagic fevers, chemical agents and synthetic viruses that defy imagination—or even possibility! My deputy will be there by now. The locusts will definitely make recovering Dr. Usher’s body problematic,” she muses.
She leads me around the back of the MSFP building and half-way down the block to her ACV. No driver. “I came alone,” she says, as the vehicle’s doors rise.
Without adrenaline flooding my body, I wonder about her timely appearance. “Why were you at the lab?” I ask, getting into the ACV. I can’t believe how much it hurts to talk.
She seals the doors and the vehicle lifts up with a hum. “Dr. Usher contacted me. Said he had vital news to relay and asked me to meet him there. I told him we could meet in the morning, but he insisted.”
I ration my words to spare my throat. “He found out. Went to Kube and figured out Ealy is Jax. Informed on me to IPF.”
She doesn’t ask how I know, maybe figuring he told me. “Damn it. This is not what I planned—. We need to get you away from here.” She concentrates on piloting the vehicle, but I can see by the set of her jaw and the slightly narrowed eyes that she’s trying to work out how to get rid of me and distance herself from me at the same time. She makes a sharp turn and I wince when I bump the door. “But first, we need to patch you up.”
I assumed we were going to her house, but after a few more turns, she halts the ACV in an unreclaimed residential area nowhere near the Capitol. She unseals the doors and we get out.
“This way. I’ve disabled the ACV’s locator, but there’s no point in taking chances.”
In a half-crouch, she leads me through darkened backyards and across two streets. No one challenges us. She puts out a hand to stop me when we reach a small, dilapidated-looking cottage. The high walls separating it from its neighbors seem to tremble in the breeze, and I realize they’re covered with kudzu. No lights brighten the windows of either neighboring house; it’s not that late so I assume the houses are empty. The whole area has a deserted feel to it.
“What is this place?”
“My safe house—one of them. Another lesson I learned in my twenties.” At the front door, she slides aside a timber and holds her palm to a hidden scanner. A soft click sounds and she pushes the door inward. She immediately disappears into a closet and I realize she’s disabling an alarm system. My brows arch and I can’t help but wonder what combination of forces and circumstance made her set up this hidey-hole. A hiss startles me and I whirl to see the windows are frosting. When they’re totally opaque, Alden activates low-level biolume strips that cast a bluish glow.
“Come.”
She leads me into the kitchen, sits me on a stool, and turns on a tap. With a wet cloth, she begins to dab at my various injuries, cleaning away dried blood that has begun to itch. “The bites will heal,” she pronounces, “but I need to bandage your ear and splint your arm. I can’t set the elbow, I’m afraid. You’ll need to find a doctor who can do that.”
Alexander’s name remains unspoken, but I can feel the thought of him hovering between us.
One cool fingertip touches my neck. “He tried to strangle you. Bastard.”
I nod.
“Looks like he almost succeeded. You’ll need to cover the bruises.”
“Let me see.”
Without a word, Alden taps the sensor that switches the polyglass windows to mirror function. I’m facing a horrible apparition. My left arm hangs awkwardly, dragging down my shoulder. Red welts rise on my face, neck and hands where the locusts ripped at my flesh. Blood spatters my jumpsuit, most of it Keegan’s. The bottom half of my right earlobe is eaten away and the remainder is crusted with dried blood. I put my hand to it. My neck looks the worst, a mélange of black, blue and purple-red bruises encircling it like a choker. The flesh is swollen and puffy.
“This is the second time Keegan try kill me,” I rasp.
“I know.”
While I stare at my battered reflection, Alden rifles the cupboards for first aid supplies. She piles bandages, antibiotic sealant, swabs, syringes, and other items on the counter beside me and goes to work. I wonder what other items lie hidden in the cupboards of this nondescript little house. I’m willing to bet there are ration cards in several names, and weapons. I am suddenly certain that Alden is proficient with a variety of weapons.
When my ear is bandaged and my arm cradled in a sling, she gives me an injection. “This will help with the pain and keep you alert, as well,” she says. While I’m rubbing the injection site, she opens a small, high cupboard and pulls out a bottle of Wexl. “My true emergency supply,” she says, taking a swig from the bottle. “Want some?” She proffers it.
I nod, conserving my voice. I take a swallow, letting the blue fire run down my throat. It makes me cough which hurts like hell.
“Sorry. Didn’t think,” Alden says, taking the bottle back. She pulls up a stool and hitches one hip onto it. Despite the casual posture, she still looks dignified and very much in charge. “Now, let’s talk about disappearing you.”
The words send a chill through me. Disappearing. A verb, implying action. Events and conversations fall into place when she speaks the words, overlapping elegantly like a fish’s scales.
Feeling like I did when I stood at the roof’s edge and looked down, down, down, I say, “I’m guessing you have some experience with that.”
She gives me a look balanced between puzzlement and wariness.
“Keegan didn’t summon you to the lab tonight,” I say, absolutely certain I’m right. “He didn’t quite trust your motives when it came to me, so he told the IPF when he learned my real identity, not you. If he’d known you were coming, he wouldn’t have tried to strangle me in the lab for fear of you walking in on it and stopping him.”
“Usher wasn’t in his right mind—”
I talk over her, every word painful in more ways than one. “You came because of my DNA registry search. When I called up records for Anton Karzov and Kareen O’Connell, it set off an alarm of some kind. An alert that went straight to the person who deleted their files. You.”
“I’m sure your imagination is a help with your research, Jax,” she begins, giving me a quelling look, “but—”
“Don’t. We’re way past that. You didn’t know I met Anton Karzov, did you? He’s still alive—or was earlier this year—at the lab between here and Jacksonville. I’m sure you know the one. He’s in agony, totally insane, but not un-lucid. He told us about the experiments run by the government, and about the test subjects: non-volunteers, criminals. ‘Enemies of Amerada,’ he called them.”
I slide off the stool and take a step toward her. She doesn’t back away.
She speaks, her voice calm. “The country was in a crisis. The flu was decimating our population. We needed to develop a vaccine. We had to prove to the citizens that we could protect them. We made the decision that, as repugnant as it was, we had to sacrifice the few to save the many.”
“We?”
“The Pragmatists. Fabienne, Oliver, a few others, and I.”
“Not Alexander.”
“Never Alexander. It’s what drove him away for good.”
“And now?”
She waits.
“Kareen O'Connell, the others. What’s the justification now for running s
ecret labs and using non-volunteers as unwilling guinea pigs? There can be no justification. There never was. It’s inhuman.” I’ve gotten louder, but it hurts my throat despite the painkiller, and I drop my voice.
“We are still in crisis,” she says. “Amerada is still vulnerable, terribly, frighteningly vulnerable to disease, instability, famine, outside attacks. There is no other way. The subjects at the labs—they’re heroes, of a sort. They’re given the opportunity to redeem themselves for their crimes against Amerada. When I was at NAR Site 4, I—”
“You.” My eyes widen. “You were the ‘she,’ the lab supervisor, Karzov talked about. You ran the lab we discovered.”
The way she stills acknowledges it.
More of Karzov’s words trickle back. They tumble in my mind, unlocking new associations. “He said he and his wife had applied for a procreation license, that they wanted to have a child. He said something about ‘if she could gestate while at the lab.’ I thought at the time he meant his wife, but that doesn’t make sense. He meant the lab director. He meant you. You were pregnant. He said the lab was set up sixteen years ago—it would be seventeen by now. You paid Vestor to defend me. You knew about Keegan trying to kill me when I was small.” My thoughts barely outpace my words and I'm not sure I'm even coherent. I stare at her in mingled wonder and dismay. “You’re my mother.”
My voice is gone by the time I reach the last words and they come out as a strangled whisper. I feel as if the night sky has fallen down on me and I am tangled in the black and the blazing stars, the cold of outer space and the burning heat of solar flares. The weight crushes me and my head spins. I put a hand on the stool to steady myself. I’m surprised that it’s solid, unmoving, sturdy. I grip it with both hands like I’ll never let go.
“In a manner of speaking,” she says calmly. Rapid blinking betrays her, though. “I’ve always thought that being a mother entailed more than supplying a gamete and giving birth. Frankly, I thought you had figured it out some time ago.”
“How could I—?” I should have, I realize. All the clues were there. I had proof upon proof that she has the capability to manipulate the DNA registry that has no records for my parents. Then there was her unusual interest in me. I thought I was so special that I believed her blather about needing me, above all other scientists in Amerada, at the MSFP. My emotions are so jumbled I can’t decide if I’m pleased she wanted me, her daughter, nearby, or if I’m offended that she didn’t really value my scientific abilities as much as I thought.
“Why did you leave me at the Kube?”
“We don’t have time for this conversation now,” she says, turning away.
I put a hand on her arm and wrench her around. “We’re talking now. I’ve waited seventeen years for this.”
She gives me a cool look and peels my hand off as if she’s detaching a leech. “Very well, but we’ll get ready while we talk. You’ve got to get clear of the city before sunrise and I’ve got to get back. As it is, my deputy will wonder why I didn’t show up for all the ruckus.”
She leaves the kitchen and returns minutes later with a clean jumpsuit, a messenger bag like the one I used to carry, and a washcloth. “You can’t wander around the countryside covered in blood,” she says handing me the washcloth. It has a soap pod wrapped inside it.
She motions to the sink and I obediently wet the cloth. I hesitate, shy about stripping in front of her, but she turns her back and I wonder if that isn’t why she wants me to wash—so we don’t have to look at each other while she talks. Suddenly eager to be free of Keegan’s blood, I slide my arm out of the sling, awkwardly shuck the torn and bloody jumpsuit, and begin to soap myself.
“I’d been back from NAR Site 4 less than two weeks when Alexander left me. He’d told me . . . but I didn’t think he’d really go.”
Oh, my god. Alexander’s my father. The air whooshes out of me like I’ve been sucker-punched. That means Idris is my brother? Remembering the one time he kissed me, I scrub my lips. It’s too much to take in at once so I focus on Alden’s words.
“He took our son. You were a week old. You have to understand, rebuilding Amerada was the most important thing to me—had been for years. Alexander left because of my work, because of what I was trying to accomplish for the country. If I abandoned it after he left—devoted myself to mothering you—it would all have been for nothing. The sacrifices . . . losing Alexander . . . it needed to mean something.” Her voice is strained. “I decided it meant I was born to strengthen Amerada, to assume a leadership role. I couldn’t be distracted by taking care of an infant.”
“So, the Kube.” Scrubbing my belly where the blood seeped through the fabric and adhered it to my skin, I look at her. The slim back is rigid, shoulder blades standing out like wing stubs. “Did Proctor Fonner know?”
“He suspected. Leaving you at Kube 9, with Oliver, was a mistake, but it was close by. I should have taken you to Kube 13 or even all the way north to Kube 5. I had taken the precaution of erasing any evidence of our relationship from the DNA registry, back two generations, so there was no proof, but I suspect Oliver spent sixteen years plotting how to use you against me. I knew he would keep you safe, at least, not let you fall into the hands of enemies who might threaten you to gain concessions from me, or punish me. It wasn’t all about me; I was afraid for you, too. Some of the factions I’ve had to deal with are ruthless—they wouldn’t think twice about killing a child. I thought it best that there was no connection.”
“Alexander. Does he know?”
“You were a week old when he left. As far as I know he doesn’t know anything about you, other than your gender.” Her tone is wistful and I wonder what she’s remembering.
Clean now, I wiggle into the new jumpsuit as best I can one-handed, and re-insert my arm into the sling, which gives instant relief. “I’m dressed.”
She turns around, face devoid of emotion. “Good.” She passes me the messenger bag. “I’ve put ration cards in here for you. Use each one only once—the names associated with them are even less real than ‘Derrika Ealy.’”
I accept the bag which feels familiar. Inspecting a worn spot on the strap, I realize it’s my bag. I look at her, astonished. “This is—”
A small smile relieves the gravity of her face. “Vestor gave it to me after you were convicted.”
“He knows?”
“We’ve been—allies—for a long time.”
Is “allies” code for “lovers?”
The weight of the bag gives me hope. I open it and withdraw my Little House on the Prairie and my feather. Tears start to my eyes but I blink them away. Lifting the book, I ask, “Why this book? What were you trying to say to me?”
Her brow creases. “I’m not sure I understand. I’ve never seen that before.”
“You sent it with me to the Kube! It was in the suitcase with me.”
“The suitcase wasn’t even mine. It was in the storage area at NAR Site 4, along with other effects. No one knew or cared that I took it. The book must have been inside it.” She shrugs.
The irony of it hits me. All my life I’ve searched this book for a clue to my parents, for the message I thought they were trying to convey, and it was an accident. It’s only meaning lay in what I assigned it. There was no meaning, nothing beyond the words on the page. Ma and Pa Ingalls’ relationship with Laura had nothing to do with me. My breath hitches as I try to get my mind around the idea that Little House, which was a sacred text for me, a connection with my parents, a secret communication that needed to be decoded, was only a book. I can’t do it; the book still feels special, important.
Alden’s other words trickle through to me. Other effects. The suitcase belonged to a prisoner, one of the unfortunates experimented on at the secret lab. I stare at the book in dawning horror. Did that prisoner love this book the way I did? Did she—it feels like a book a woman would have owned—miss it when it was taken from her and tossed aside like so much trash? In her agony, did she yearn to re-read Lau
ra’s adventures? Swallowing hard, I tuck it safely into my messenger bag. Just because it didn’t come from my mother doesn’t mean it’s not special.
“Do you know where you’ll go?” Alden interrupts my thoughts.
To the Defiance. I don’t say it aloud. I left the Defiance because I wasn’t sure they were right in wanting to bring down the government, and because I knew I could better serve the country by finding a way to extinguish the locusts. Now, I know the Defiance is right—a government that uses human beings for medical experiments has to fall. The Prags don’t recognize everyone’s humanity and that makes them unfit to govern. Alexander saw it years ago. It took me too long, but I see it now.
“I’ll find someplace,” I say, shouldering my bag.
She eyes me and I get the uncomfortable feeling she reads me too well. “Only two other people have seen what you saw in the DNA registry,” she says.
I know from her tone that they’re both dead. From out of nowhere I become convinced that my predecessor, Dr. Notelmo, was one of them.
“I should have you killed.” There’s no passion in her voice; it’s an analytical observation.
“Or disappeared.”
She shakes her head. “Death is the only reliable silencer.”
I head to the door. There will be no sentimental mother-daughter farewells. I toss a last jab in her direction. “I guess mother love is good for something.”
She shakes her head. “Do you understand nothing, Jax? It’s your potential that makes me hesitate, your scientific genius that can do so much for this country, not the biological link we happen to share.”
“You can tell yourself that,” I say, opening the door onto the cold night.
“Do you feel differently about me than you did half an hour ago, knowing I’m your mother?”
I turn and study Emilia Alden as she stands in the hallway, face showing nothing but mild curiosity, pulse jumping in her neck. It reminds me of Keegan. This woman conceived me with a husband she loved, carried me in her womb and abandoned me at a Kube. She fought to drag Amerada out of the Between and establish programs to make sure all citizens had food to eat. She established the RESCOs and conducted hideous experiments on other citizens “for the good of the country,” and put herself at considerable risk to make sure I survived my trial and had the opportunity to eradicate the locusts. I’m leaving here to fight with the people who are out to destroy what she spent most of her life building. I don’t know how I feel about her, not really. I offer her the only truth I have right now.
Incineration (The Incubation Trilogy Book 2) Page 24