We had both collapsed into the broken-down sedan. When Diesel woke, the first thing he did was check on me. He reached behind and quickly checked my pulse, and then my temperature. He did this multiple times during the night.
When morning rose, he climbed out of the car and leaned over the backseat window by my head. He watched me sleep, a soft peacefulness calming him. My body shivered and twitched against the cold. He reached down, brushing hair from my face. I twitched and his hand snapped back. He turned away quickly and went looking for water.
I hit the dial and fast-forwarded, catching only moments of our struggles together. In nearly every scene, Diesel’s attention was on me. Every time I looked away, he was looking at me. Sometimes in anxious concern. Sometimes, in blissful daydreaming.
I sped up to the moment Diesel scrambled away from me after our first kiss at Sanctuary. He ran back into his room and slumped against the door. The mirror beside his bed caught his attention. For a while, he just watched himself. His breath quickened. His eyes furrowed. Anger turned him away.
He left the hospital. He marched through the streets. The memory suddenly blackened. I adjusted the knob, trying to find the missing pieces, when the scene picked back up. He was in the church. My name was scratched into the woodwork, into the leather-bound bibles, and along the walls.
In his panic, Diesel stumbled back. Among the scribbles, his eyes focused on one sentence. Don’t trust her. She is a lie.
He set the entire church ablaze.
The jumbled episodes of his mind deteriorating was frightening to watch. I watched myself through his eyes as blood lifted from my palm at the beach, when I pulled the gun on him, when I leapt over the cliff and Quinn chased after me.
More episodes of darkness appeared. He blacked out more often, waking in unknown rooms. Suddenly, we were back at FRIM. The man I watched him threaten in the hallway reappeared in a different memory. Diesel had watched his attention move onto me when I walked into the dining hall. Diesel had threatened him, and the next few nights, stood guard outside of Miranda’s apartment. The same man jumped Diesel. Stabbed him in the side.
My breath shuddered as I sat back into my chair. I had no idea all of this had happened.
More darkness took over. The memories jumped and skipped in hazy shifts. I quickly scrolled forward to a more recent time. Diesel was by himself. He watched the massive black walls of the Elite city from a distance. As time ticked on, he continued to scavenge through old houses and buildings. He was collecting things. Nice looking cutlery. Plates that weren’t smashed. Pots to cook in. Blankets for sleeping. Jackets and shoes that were my size. Every few minutes he checked his phone. Is he collecting these things to build a home with me?
“You’ve gone too far.” Jacky nudged me. I quickly switched the dial back.
Then it stopped. It stopped on the moment Annie died. Diesel watched me fall. Listened to the raw crack of my screams. Tears welled to my eyes, remembering how badly it hurt.
Diesel scooped me up, and in moments I can’t recall, he carried me away. We escaped the Dons, but I didn’t stop crying. I smacked him. I punched him. I kicked and screamed and thrashed in his arms. Diesel gripped me to his chest, holding me still against his body. He tried to console me. He tried to talk to me but I wasn’t listening. His body buckled with desperation. All he could do was hold me. So, that’s what he did.
We struggled for hours like that. Diesel collapsed inside the water pipe with me pinned to his chest. He restrained me from flailing about in my agony. Exhaustion eventually took me away. I fell asleep on his chest and Diesel’s body finally relaxed. He cupped his eyes and tears blurred his vision. He cried silently above my sleeping form, before slipping out to get me food. In the gentlest of gestures, as though afraid of waking me, he reached over and checked if I was still breathing. To make sure I was still alive.
Diesel’s body shook and shuddered in the chair beside me, reacting to the memory. I quickly spun the dial back further and wiped my tears off my cheeks.
I slowed back at Alpha prison. Diesel’s mind seemed to work differently now compared to back then. He didn’t look at me so much. The care for me wasn’t there. We were in Fitzgerald’s office. Diesel looked at all the work on the tables and pinned to the walls. He read the files in glances and I paused the screen.
“Here,” I whispered and pushed away. I left the room quickly.
Chapter Twenty-Five:
When Diesel woke, I didn’t know what to do. I quietly feared I had destroyed the part of him that always checked if I was okay. The part of him collecting things for our future home.
With you, it feels like I’m trapped in hell. I cringed and buried my face into my hands.
He woke ninety minutes after the session. His eyes fluttered open, still dazed from the drug. I sat with Hiro in the other room, my hands gripped in prayer. Fear held me back when Diesel emerged from behind the door. He walked across and pulled McKinnon to his feet.
I quickly stood up. “Wait.” Diesel slowed and looked back at me. Words jammed up and in my panic I blurted out the first thing to come to mind. “I want to watch.”
He nodded, and both Hiro and I followed him in. McKinnon was forced into the chair where he was bound to the chair’s arms and legs. Logan and Jacky welcomed us with brisk nods.
“So, did you find what you were looking for?” I asked as I settled into a chair behind them.
“We got a promising lead. An address of an old law firm across the country. Belonged to a double agent gone politician.”
“I’m glad you haven’t left yet,” Hiro chipped in.
Jacky turned back to the console. “Well, it is our machine you’re using.”
“Plus, we did help capture McKinnon. We want to see what’s in his head too.” Logan added.
“It’s done.” Diesel injected the drug into McKinnon’s neck and positioned the electronic pads into place. The screen hummed, lights flashed and sleep soon dragged McKinnon’s eyes closed. We huddled around the screen with anxious participation. Jacky handled the control panels since Diesel was still nursing a headache. Spikes in the readings often gave away to trauma, but we weren’t looking for horrific memories. We were looking for a cure.
A lot of McKinnon’s recent memories took place on the ship. As Jacky scrolled the dial to go back further, bits and pieces bubbled with black dots.
“What’s this?” She scrolled forward again but all the memories bled across the screen with thickening darkness. McKinnon’s seizures violently shook him in the chair, his entire body bucking against the weakening restraints. Jacky scrolled forward again, but every memory was blackened out. “Shit!”
“What?” Diesel eased up in his chair.
“Damn it. This must be some sort of defence against unwanted memory extraction, a way to block the signals subconsciously. McKinnon has already been equipped for memory hackers.”
We all deflated in our seats. “So, we can’t read his memories?”
“Not these,” Jacky said.
Diesel stood and withdrew more of the drug into the syringe. Logan turned toward him. “What are you doing?”
“If we can’t watch these memories, maybe we can go back to a previous life.” He walked across and leant over McKinnon’s body, injecting the drug into the protruding vein in his arm.
“If you put that much in, you’re going to induce a coma!”
“We don’t need him awake for this.”
McKinnon’s eyes fluttered and he slumped unconsciously back into his chair.
“Looks like your idea worked.” Jacky called Diesel back. Unmarked memories skittered across the screen. It was impossible to tell how old these memories were, or which life cycle they belonged to. A loud beep came from the device followed by a spike in the graph.
“We have a core memory coming up.” Jacky turned the dial toward it. Static kicked up around the image. Parts of a laboratory sharpened with detail. The memory thickened and solidified.
“Dam
n!” A young McKinnon punched the wall. Through the speakers, we could hear gargled noises behind him. He turned back to a window where three patients were tied up in the next room. One of the patients’ behaviours was wildly erratic. He twitched, vomited, screamed, and aggressively thrashed against their restraints. The one on the far left had been completely zombified. His expression drooped, eyes glazed and pinkened with disease. In the middle, with tubes pumping blood out of her veins, was a young girl around perhaps eight years old. A scar lined her temple, one very similar to my own left on me by Fitzgerald’s experiments. A Soulless.
“Damn it!” McKinnon said again.
A younger looking Swoon stood beside him, rubbing his face with frustrated exhaustion. “You said you would have it by now. How many of these freaks do you need?”
“Just one. A special one.”
“You’ve had over eighty to play around with.”
“Yes, yes but listen, it’s a certain type of mutation we need. Each patient zero, or Soulless, mutates in different patterns. The chemical Vronic in their blood is what makes them immune to the reincarnation disease. The lack of memories, the lack of a soul imprint, their blood rising in salty water is all linked, but in our infected brains, the Vronic is just too strong. It’s not compatible.”
“Then make the dosage weaker.”
“It’s not a matter of just turning the dials. It’s similar to a cold virus. Each one is slightly different. Slightly unique. The pattern I need is something between SQ40 and SQ50, but it has to mutate naturally. I cannot fabricate the genes. Unfortunately, there are too few Soullesses being born for us to run the numbers. If we don’t find the right Vronic sequence in our next cycle, I’m afraid it’s over.”
Swoon shoved away from the table. “You said the D400 would hold.”
“I couldn’t have predicted its limitations to these scales. It’s too much. Drifters are our first stage; second, the illness will utterly decompose the human psyche. We won’t be able to understand our own delusions. It will become utter chaotic. If we don’t do something drastic to numb the insanity, the reincarnation gene will dissolve us away. I’m talking human extinction. We have to start with phase two.”
“What’s phase two?”
“Neutralizing the masses. With the Vronic I’ve taken from the Soullesses, I have created a drug so powerful it destroys our ambitions and emotions. I’ve called it XCELL. With no ability to decode our own thoughts, the insanity bug will be neutralized. We will purely run on the three basic instincts. Eat. Sleep. Sex. I will continue my research on every Soulless I can get my hands on, but…I just don’t believe there is a cure for our condition. This is our next best bet to save humanity.”
“What about us?” Swoon cut across him. The expression on McKinnon’s face must have said enough as Swoon’s body tightened in revolt. “You expect me to eat this poison?”
“The alternative is that.” McKinnon pointed to the violent drifter screaming so aggressively he tore his own vocal cord. “With my XCELL, the human race will have a fighting chance of survival.”
“Does Elite Keel agree?”
“Keel has had his head stuck in the sand for decades. He and his precious mercenaries think they know more than me, but I can show you right now there is no cure. The XCELL is our only way.”
“You’re turning us into…into…brain-dead animals!”
“Better animals than tortured lunatics.”
“I didn’t pay you over twenty billion dollars to turn me into a zombified meat sack.” Swoon slammed his hand down.
McKinnon promptly stood as though expecting backlash. “I’ve already linked the drug to the S.O.S.’s grid. We can’t outrun this, not even your Cryo-tanks will be able to keep you locked up forever. Think of it as a bullet to the head, just one quick bang and it’ll be over.”
The memory blurred and eventually faded. McKinnon’s body slumped against the chair with blood trickling down his nose. No one spoke.
Disbelief. Shattered hope. Dread. I looked over at Diesel, knowing this had been his ticket out. The purpose behind his existence. By the time I glanced his way, Diesel had already left.
Hours passed as night crawled up behind the chipped, uneven towers. Storms covered the stars, shielding the moon from looking down on us. Rain fell in thick sheets, creating puddles across the roads. The sky, the city, the people, the distant laughter of children playing, something about this world felt different than yesterday’s world. It had dulled into grey. Lost its significance.
I saw the end in so many things. I saw the horrors of the XCELL, and the horrors if we didn’t release the drug into the population. I saw Annie’s face. I saw Diesel’s. I saw myself dissolving into the dirt.
“Nadia.” Hiro gently touched my shoulder. The news devastated the entire group. No one spoke because there was nothing left to say. Hiro sat down beside me on the curb of the road. The weight of our crumpling existence pushed us down. The cries of the people, searching for food, searching aid, it hollowed into a ring of our impending destruction. Every day they fought not knowing their end had already been decided. That everything they held dear would crumple between their fingers.
I broke down. I cried hard, unable to understand the justice in this cruelty. Why do we deserve this? My heart thumped hard in my chest, deepening my pain, trying to comprehend what this meant for Diesel. For Jacky and Logan. For Annie. For Tristian. For everyone.
“I thought…I didn’t…” I sobbed but I couldn’t finish my sentence. It just didn’t matter anymore. Hiro pulled me into his shoulder. The rain hit harder, pulling my hair against my face.
“You’ve done enough,” Hiro whispered. “You’ve done everything you could. You should be proud. And…I don’t think we should give up.”
“Didn’t you hear what McKinnon said? It’s over!”
“But it’s not over because we’re still here. We can still make this world a better place. Even if it’s just for today, or for just one person. As long as we’re capable, let’s make it better.”
My breath shuddered against my chest. The warm rain washed the tears off my face as though it too was trying to console me. “Why? What’s the point?”
“Because we matter. We deserve to be happy, even if it lasts only moments.”
Hearing those words felt like doors closing against the violent storm. It softened the wind. It warmed the air. It lightened the dark. Much like that closed room, my mind went still. It settled, and I smiled. “That’s…that’s really beautiful, Hiro.”
With his arm wrapped around my shoulders, I tucked my head into the curve of his neck. “I think we have to ask ourselves the question again. What do we want?”
“I don’t want anything, not anymore.”
“So, why are you crying so hard?” I paused on the question. Hiro shuffled around to look at me. “What do you want?”
Immediately, without even needing to think, I knew my answer. It became so much more obvious inside my closed-off room. The one person I thought about. The one person I promised to save. Promised to love. Promised to protect. The one guy who checked on me while I slept, and who held me as I fell apart.
“I want Diesel to be happy.”
“I think he wants you to be happy as well.” Hiro gave me a playful nudge “Nadia, you have this ability to make people feel like people again. For the longest time, I felt like I was just a number. My world was only labs and empty promises but you saved me. You got me out of that tank. You let me live. I think, in a lot of ways, that’s what you’ve done for Diesel too.”
I laughed softly and gave Hiro a hug. “Thank you. I’m going to go talk to him.” I scrambled up and ran back inside into the office where Logan and Jacky were set up with McKinnon attached to the machine.
“Hey, you guys seen Diesel anywhere?” I slowed at the door.
They were watching McKinnon’s memories again, in particular, the moment we see what was going to happen to the drifters in the next cycle. I tightened up at the inhuma
n gargle. The screaming, the terror, the pure insanity.
McKinnon’s young voice explained. Each patient zero, or Soulless, mutates in different patterns.
“Guys?” I called out again.
Jacky turned toward me, her head propped in her palms, her body slumped in defeat. “This… this is our worst nightmare.”
I stepped forward. “Listen, I know it seems dark but just remember, we still matter.” They glanced at each other, confused. I quickly shook my head. “No, I mean, you still matter. Even if it’s in moments, you deserve to be happy. Wait, I’m saying it all wrong. What I mean is…” My attention shifted back onto McKinnon’s memories.
It’s similar to a cold virus. Each one is slightly different. Slightly unique.
“Wait a minute.”
But in our infected brains, the Vronic is just too strong. It’s not compatible.
The pattern I need is something between SQ40 and SQ50…
Keel has had his head stuck in the sand for decades. He and his precious mercenaries…
My mind traced back to FRIM, back to the Blue Dons, back to the moment I picked up Hiro’s file and read his number.
Hi, Soulless number forty-two. I’m number sixty-six.
“Oh my God! We’re not numbered in order, it’s our mutation number.” I slapped my hand to my mouth. “It’s Hiro!”
“What?” Jacky turned around.
“Hiro is SQ42 It’s Hiro! It’s Hiro! McKinnon said he needed Vronic between SQ40 and SQ50 to get the cure, but he never had Hiro. He didn’t even know Hiro existed because Elite Keel and the Blue Dons had hidden him. They were unfreezing him for a reason. Oh my God, what if that reason was the cure?”
Logan and Jacky quickly rose from their seat. “You guys are McKinnon’s experiments?”
“Not exactly, but I believe what McKinnon needs for his antidote is inside of Hiro.”
“Are you sure?” They looked at each other, sceptical.
I nodded. “It’s a chance! It’s the best chance we have! We need to wake up McKinnon!”
Soul Finder (The Immortal Gene Book 2) Page 24