“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“But I will. We will.” I heard her scoff. “We need to find McKinnon. Do you know anything about his whereabouts? Or how to get in contact with Swoon?” Silence. “Please? We could really use your help.” More silence.
I walked through and called Hiro over. “Enough, Hiro. Don’t waste your breath.”
Hiro eased back from kneeling in front of her. She didn’t look at me, or at him. Her head turned toward the ground, jaw clenched. Hiro sighed and stood.
As he reached me, the woman called out. “What makes you think you can save anyone? There’s nothing exceptional about you.”
I grabbed Hiro’s arm. I feared he would tell her about his Soulless blood, or about the prophecy and how special we are. Instead, his voice hung with a quiet sincerity I had never heard before. “If not us, then no one will.” He stepped past me.
I watched him cross the lounge and slump onto the couch. I shook my head. “You should be thanking him. He is the one keeping you alive.” Her expression didn’t alter. I turned and joined Hiro on the couch. “Are you okay?”
Hiro shrugged. “I miss my old life.”
“Ignorance is bliss.”
“Why did you bring me here? Why do I need to see all of this?”
I chewed my lip. “I thought I was saving you.”
“I didn’t ask to be saved.”
“Not everyone has the luxury to ask.”
Behind us, there were three urgent knocks on the front door. Hiro and I both spun toward it. “Police! Open up,” a loud voice called.
“Police?” I mouth, looking at Hiro. “You called the police?”
Hiro shook his head. Another three knocks followed.
“Police! Open the door! Now!”
“Shit!” I ran into the kitchen and grabbed the gun. Hiro followed but fumbled with his hands, unsure what to do.
“Why are they here?”
“I don’t know. A neighbour must have called them. Shit! Shit! We can’t let them catch us!”
“What are you going to do?”
I didn’t know. Instinct told me to arm myself but we had nowhere to run. One pistol against the cops, I may has well just turn the gun on myself and get it over with. Loud blasts dismantled the front door. Two officers and one Sweeper charged the room, guns raised. Torchlights cut through the shadows, quickly finding our faces.
“Get down on the ground!” One of the officers grabbed Hiro by the cuff of his shirt and slammed him against the wall.
“Drop your weapon,” the second officer barked at me. I immediately dropped the gun. “Get on the floor! Now!”
“Don’t shoot! I’m the victim here! The shooter is in the other roo—” The guard shoved me into the kitchen bench. My cheek smacked the counter top and I felt the stitches on my side pull.
The officer spoke into his earpiece. “Report, we have two personnel’s contained! Unit 1414, search the premise.”
“Just scan me,” I screamed. “Scan me! I’m the senator.”
The Sweeper marched forward into the adjoining lounge where the woman was tied up. Red lasers beamed across the apartment followed by clear in its monotone voice. I didn’t have time to question it as the officer wrenched my arms behind my back. Metal cuffs linked my wrists.
“Stop! Just scan me! I’m not the shooter!”
“Ma’am, there’s been a report of identity theft,” the police officer informed me. “Specialized procedures must be followed until we can confirm your identity.”
My chest clenched. “What? By whom?”
“By me, senator,” Eve said.
“Eve?” I strained to see across the room. “But why?”
“A statement about a false identity was made by a Mr Hiro. My protocol dictates the proper authorities must be alerted and the matter identified.”
“She misheard,” I said, trying to convince them. “It was just a joke!”
“Over here!” The sharp bell of the scanner dinged, accepting Hiro’s retina prints. “1L83 scanned positive.”
“We can explain,” I tried again.
“Unit 1414, report?” the guard called over me.
The Sweeper promptly returned. “Area secured.”
“HQ, we are returning with an Asian male, early twenties requiring identity confirmation, 1L83 reported as illegitimate.”
A voice answered through a small microphone. “Confirmed. Report back. Technician has been prepped.”
“You better come with me too.” He lifted me swung me toward the door.
“I am Senator Tea Able and I demand you release me right now or I will have you blacklisted!”
“Even if you were an Elite, there would be nothing I could do—” A bullet suddenly tore through his mouth, ripping a hole from the back of his helmet and out of his right cheek. He convulsed and dropped. Two more shots drove the other guard into the ground. The Sweeper turned but suddenly swivelled off balance. Its finger clenched, pulling the trigger and unloading fifteen rounds into the roof. It quickly collapsed. Eve’s voice sparked and crashed as well.
I turned around just as the woman grabbed Hiro by the collar and lifted him up. “You lying bastard! You really are Fitzgerald!”
“Wait, no! He isn’t.”
She glanced at me then back to Hiro dangling in her grip.
“They are fake imprints!”
“Cut the bullshit.”
“Our eyes are blanks. These are fake prints. Just listen to me. We can explain—”
“Stop lying to me!” Her grip tightened. Hiro choked.
“Fitzgerald was alive until nearly a year ago. There’s no way Hiro could be him! The ages don’t match up! Think about it,” I screamed.
Her grip waivered. Suddenly, she released him. Hiro hit the floor and clutched his throat. She pointed her gun at his head. “Who are you? And I don’t want your bloody name. Give me your soul code! Now!”
“We’re nobodies,” I answered instead.
“You can’t be nobodies!”
“The system doesn’t have a record of us. We’re unregistered.” I stepped closer toward Hiro, my cuffed arms carefully held out.
She turned the gun back to me. “Enough of your lies. Fakes or not, I need Fitzgerald’s memories. I don’t need yours.”
Sirens tickled the back of my ears as police cars stacked up by the apartment entrance.
“We can help each other,” I said. She cocked the trigger back.
“You can’t shoot her,” Hiro said suddenly. We both looked at him. “Not if you want us to take you to the real Fitzgerald.”
“You told me he is dead.”
“Body yes, but not his mind. We have him locked up outside of the city and only she knows where. We can take you to him, but only if you help us.”
“How can I trust you’re telling me the truth?”
Hiro shrugged. “How else did we get copies of his prints? It’s how we know about his place here and his work on the XCELL. We have him. You are just going to have to believe us.” I gawked at how easily Hiro lied.
She considered it for a moment. Sirens crawled up the tower walls. My eyes flicked back to the door, watching for shadows, listening for the stampede of feet to come racing down the corridor.
She lowered her gun. “God help you if you’re lying to me. The keys to the cuffs should be on the officer. Untie yourself, get my arm and follow me.”
Chapter Twenty:
“Umm, shouldn’t we be running?” I asked, motioning toward the door.
The woman, instead, fired into the window. Despite her efforts, only a small splinter dented the glass. Hiro and I watched anxiously as she proceeded to unload her gun into the same spot, thickening the white scar.
“You’re wasting time. It’s bulletproof,” I finally said, not seeing sense behind her persistence.
“But not shatterproof.”
Helicopters approached the building; their panning searchlights hitting the reflective wi
ndows and bouncing off. She held her wrist up to the white chipped hole where a slit opened across her steel skin and a long drill extended out of her arm. She drilled into the opening, making it bigger as the vibrations splintered cracks into the surrounding glass. Through the hole, she poked through a thin wire that curled against the glass like a vine, following the bed of the cracks. She grabbed Hiro and pinned a tracker to his shirt. “Hold this!” She shoved her detached arm into his chest. “Don’t drop it. And make sure you keep your arms and legs close to your body.”
“What are you going to do?” I demanded.
She spun Hiro to face her so his back aligned with the fractured window, the cracks forming wings behind him. “Once the glass breaks, we have three seconds before security goes into lock down.”
“You don’t mean—”
Suddenly, the wire popped, shattering the glass as the window shivered and broke. She kicked Hiro forward, sending him through the fragmented panel. He didn’t scream. He didn’t have a chance to. Seconds later, he dropped.
I chocked and ran to the window edge. Wind and noise kicked up. Sirens rolled over the city chatter as footsteps closed in behind us. Stray bullets cut the walls of the living room. Voices shouted at us to freeze. Seconds after Hiro, the security shutters crashed down. She tackled me over the edge just as the metal barrier hit the frame behind us. The city spun upside down. Wind broke around my body, whooshing past my ears. I felt heavy in my downfall, arms out and helplessly pedalling through the air. I sucked my breath in, too stunned to scream. Part of me expected to hit water. An arm ringed my torso, digging into my ribs. She stopped me from flipping head over heels and straightened us into a pinpoint. The searchlights of the helicopter followed us down.
Among the thumping wind, an engine purred. Something fast approached from our left. A soaring dome, egg shaped and large, shot toward us. It split into halves and snapped shut around us, concealing us inside its metal stomach. I slammed into the curved floor of the pod as it decelerated its speed. Pain roared, squeezing my lungs. The narrow space squashed us together, twisting my limbs around hers. The entire shell vibrated beneath my flattened cheek when it suddenly crashed, breaking concrete. The top popped open again and the woman stepped out, dragging me out with her. I stumbled to find my feet. I took the painkillers and popped one too many into my mouth. Hiro emerged from his pod, embedded in a crater a few meters away among frayed tyres.
“Move it! Move,” She ordered.
We ran forward into a neighbouring warehouse with the helicopter’s searchlight stuck to our backs. We ran inside and slammed the double doors closed behind us. The woman looped a chain through the handles to lock it. “This way.”
We continued to follow her down a set of steps and into an underground tunnel. Once we crossed the threshold, she detonated a bomb, caving in the entrance. The dark tunnels curved around the underbelly of the city before she pointed to a ladder for us to climb up.
At the opening of the manhole, she moved the rim across and stepped out among a stream of people. No one seemed bothered by the one-armed woman climbing out of the sewers. We followed her out into the open streets. Hunched into her leather jacket, she took her arm from Hiro and led us to a vandalised roller door a few blocks down.
“Go. Quick!” She hoisted the roller door up at waist height and Hiro and I quickly ducked underneath. She followed, allowing the metal door to drop shut behind us. Inside the garage, women and men stood in tight social groups against the walls, black heavy makeup creating illusions of skulls across their faces.
“This way.” As soon as she opened the back door leading into the house, thumping music exploded from within, rattling the walls and sending vibrations up my skin. People danced. Jumped. Bounced off each other, heads swaying to the erratic beat of their music. Neon lights flickered against the dark backdrop, hazy smoke smelling of muddy grass curled in the air. We squeezed through the jostling bodies, my hand clutching Hiro’s sleeve to ensure I didn’t lose him, and we followed the woman up the stairs. She took us to a bedroom at the end of the hall, the music now quiet behind the closed door.
A man working with his head bowed over a cluttered desk spoke up. “What am I reattaching this time, Jacky?”
“My arm.” The woman, Jacky, walked over and placed the arm on the table. She sat down on the chair beside him, facing us.
“So it was just a rumour then?” He asked without looking up. “Should’ve known it was too good to be true.”
“Not exactly. I’m not quite sure what to make of them yet.”
He stopped and looked over his shoulder. Much like Jacky, sections of his body had been replaced with mechanical counterparts. His grey eyes buzzed as they moved, looking over us.
“Recruits?” he asked. “Don’t seem your type.”
“Actually, she’s 1L58 and he is 1L83.” The older man suddenly picked up a wrench and turned toward us. I shielded Hiro behind me. “Relax, it’s not him,” Jacky quickly added.
“You said 1L83! That’s Fitzgerald! That’s Mao!”
“Yes, but also no.” A small smile lifted her mouth. “Apparently, they are fake.”
“You believe that?”
“At first no, but you and I both know Fitzgerald was a forty-eight-year-old white male this cycle. It’ll be impossible for him to be in this twenty-year-old Asian boy’s body.”
“It’s called memory transfusion.” The man advanced closer. “I’ve heard it’s been successful with some applicants.”
“It was successful once. With a child born of severe brain damage. It’s never worked with anyone else. But still…”
“We’re not who you think we are.” I quickly stepped forward. “I understand you have history with Fitzgerald, but so do I. I am not the senator. You already know that. My name is Nadia and we came here for McKinnon.”
Jacky scoffed and turned to her friend. “They think if they can get to McKinnon they can ‘save humanity’.”
The man’s body relaxed slightly, but he didn’t put down the wrench. “Well, isn’t that a refreshing motive but I wouldn’t be putting too many eggs in that basket. The Elites are just a façade.”
“I’ve seen McKinnon with my own eyes. I know he is working on something to do with a serum.”
“Is that so? Do tell. Where did you see him?” Jacky asked in a mocking voice.
“In Alpha prison while Fitzgerald experimented on me.”
This new bit of information straightened her posture. Her smile dropped. “You’re blacklisted?”
“I’m not.”
“Then why were you in Alpha?”
“Because I was born without any reincarnated memories. Fitzgerald kept me there to study me. He may have been looking for a mutation in my DNA.”
Jacky and the man looked at each other briefly. He put the wrench down and leant against the table with his arms crossed.
“How did you escape?” Jacky asked.
“Another inmate got me out. We climbed through the pipes in the furnace where they burn the bodies.”
“And Fitzgerald?”
“We took him with us. Used his prints to gain access to his home and work.”
“And this inmate of yours, is he blacklisted?”
“He’s my friend—”
“Is he blacklisted?”
I steadied my voice. “No. He was in Alpha under the guise of another identity. He wanted Fitzgerald’s work on the XCELL drug and the formula for the D400. Now that I’ve answered some of your questions, how about you answer some of mine? Like, what do you want with Fitzgerald?”
Jacky leant into her chair. “It’s not Fitzgerald we want. It’s Mao.”
“Is Mao a past life of his?”
“Mao is the son of a bitch who took away our future.”
“What does that mean?”
She gritted her smile. “In the process of creating us, Mao took away bits of our identity. Crucial bits, creating black holes in our minds and replaced them with a sequence designed
to fry us when activated. Now, when we reincarnate, the spot where our memories are meant to be will instead shatter our consciousness.”
“Imagine it like a virus that opens when you reboot a computer,” the man explained. “We’re just trying not to hit the restart button.”
“But why? Creating you for what?”
“To become the perfect spy. We obey, we gather intel for him and deal with delicate information and when we are no longer useful, he can switch our brains off. He has placed a bomb inside our heads that no hypnotic drug or technician’s serum can decode. No doubt, he probably thought we would be dead by now. Our survival is a secret from him, if he knew we were still alive he’ll either destroy our minds remotely or toy with us. Mao is dead but Fitzgerald remains as our only connection to Mao’s memories. We need him to pluck out the information.”
Hiro’s face had gone white, guilt pulling on his expression as though it had fingers to pinch and tweak. “So that’s why you replace your human bodies with machines. To improve your chances of survival, and to beat aging.”
“How long have you been living like this?” I asked.
“Eighty- five years. I’ve had to replace nearly everything, but even so, what is left of my organic brain is deteriorating faster than I can repair it.”
“You’re over eighty-five years old?” Hiro gasped. “Wow, you look amazing.”
I smiled at the red in his cheeks. “Well, you’re over one hundred, don’t forget.”
Jacky and the man exchanged confused looks. “He was frozen,” I quickly explained.
“Not Cryo-quarantined?” Jacky slowly rose from her chair. “The Cryo-quarantined are among the worst human beings in history. The mass murderers, the ruthless dictators, the sadistic freaks whose sole purpose is to burn and destroy. They are beyond the blacklisted. They are labelled unfixable and to be isolated like a plague.”
“He isn’t,” I quickly said but my voice waivered. My memory of Diesel surfaced, remembering his desires. I am a virus to this planet. I want to poison it. Burn it. Kill it. Diesel was Cryo-quarantined. I remember the Enforcer reading his true prints at Alpha prison. My body clenched up. I will never be anything more than a criminal.
Soul Finder (The Immortal Gene Book 2) Page 18