True Storm

by L. E. Sterling

  Jared’s hands squeeze my shoulder and neck. Black spots swim before my eyes as I’m swamped with horror. “What do you mean? Am I going to die?”

  Doc Raines shakes her frizzy nest. “I don’t think so. But I believe it has an important purpose. A function, if you will. Just like good nanotechnology would.”

  “What purpose?”

  Doc Raines bends down to look me in the eye. I’ve never seen her so serious. “It would be so simple to harvest the strains.”

  “Counter-Plague,” Jared murmurs. “Right.”

  “What? What?” I repeat woodenly. But it all makes sense now.

  Lock and key, that tiny voice inside me murmurs. Evolve or die.

  “It acts like an antidote to a snake bite, or an inoculation. See, both the Plague and True Born Talismans remake the DNA in the human body. The difference is, the True Born Talismans make the host subject stronger. The Plague, on the other hand, reprograms the cells in the human body to eat themselves. And here’s where things get interesting. Jared is right. I really think that the stuff your body is producing can be given to others.”

  “Like a natural Splice?”

  Pursing her lips, Doc Raines considers this for a moment. “Yes, we can go with that analogy. There’s nothing natural about it, mind you. You’ve definitely been engineered, you and your sister. Like perfect doomsday clocks in reverse.”

  My head reels. Jared leans in and asks in a low voice, “So how would you go about infecting people with the cure, Doc?”

  “It looks like it could accommodate multi-modal transmission. I think the skin could easily absorb it, for one. If it were to enter the water supply, or were injected… Think about the way the Prayer Tree was made, using a bomb format.” Lasters were rioting on the streets the day the Prayer Tree was created. Margot watched as a bomb was thrown. There’d been an explosion. And a few hours later, right where the explosion had ripped up the concrete, sprouted a tree. A tree that became giant almost overnight.

  “Maybe I don’t completely understand.” I’m trembling from head to foot, and I’m colder now than I’ve ever felt in my life. I must look lousy, too, because Jared puts a hand to my forehead.

  “She’s burning up, Doc.”

  Doc Raines unfolds her crossed arms and spins into action. “Yes, that doesn’t surprise me. Lucy, your body is manufacturing the specimens at a unique, exponential rate. You must have been experiencing the effects for the past few days, haven’t you? You’re liable to feel ill, as though you’ve come down with the flu.”

  The past little while suddenly makes sense: the impression that something was happening in my body, like an ignition switch had been thrown, accompanied by waves of heat and dizziness. I nod and pluck Jared’s hand from my forehead. “You said I’m like a doomsday clock. Am I dangerous?”

  “No, not in and of yourself,” Doc Raines says, pulling a thermometer gun seemingly from thin air and sticking it in my ear. “One hundred and eight,” she murmurs, tucking a swear in under her breath. “We’ve got to get your fever down, Lucy.” She adopts the stern tones of a Protocols nurse.

  “Will it kill me?”

  Doc Raines pauses her whirlwind of activity to consider me. “Not if we’re careful. I think extracting some of the Talismans your body is producing will help. Right now your body is both an incubator and a factory. It’s burning a lot of fuel as it manufactures its code. But if you think about it, factories are rarely self-destructive. There comes a point when the body’s natural defenses will shut down the production. Which also means that the present moment is critical.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask the question but am not so certain I want to hear the answer. Margot’s death has swept me like a raging fire, cold and heartless as it burns out of control. But as an inkling of an idea takes shape, I can see, for the first time, the glimmering outlines of hope: that something good might come of her loss.

  I might be able to wreak a measure of revenge against those who’ve betrayed my sister and me—and against our makers. Maybe we don’t have to be pawns in everyone else’s game.

  Maybe we can be our own destiny, Margot and I.

  Doc Raines looks sad as she stops, one lock of frizz wavering in the currents in the air. “They’re not really after me or Jared, or even Storm.” She doesn’t bat an eyelash. “Are they, Lucy?”

  And in a wash of guilt I understand: the war declared on True Borns, the tanks on the street…are all just bait to get to me.

  …

  The house rumbles and vibrates. Jared hurries to the window, turning feral before my eyes as he curses. Fine fur has sprung up along his wrists and hands and the nape of his neck.

  “Tank,” he says thickly. Another spatter of gunfire sounds in the distance, an echoing one closer by. “How many exits you got, Doc?” he asks, his features melting once again into a gorgeous man’s.

  “Three. What’s going on?”

  “I suspect they’ve come to call on us.”

  Doc Raines whirs into action. She throws test tubes into bags, then jumps into the walk-in and returns with trays curling with icy vapors.

  Jared steps into her path. “Just what do you think you’re doing, Doc? We’ve got to go.”

  Doc Raines flips a corkscrew from her eyes and stares at Jared balefully. “I’m not leaving our samples here for them to find. Lucy.” She nods at me. “Grab my instruments, please. If we become separated, we need to meet up at the sugar refinery near the port.”

  “Sugar?”

  My disbelief must show, as Doc Raines arches an eyebrow at me. “Doesn’t look as though you’ve got a lot of choice but to trust me, Lucy. But yes, Storm put together a backup lab for me there.”

  She’s right. I have exactly two people on my team at present. Three of us against an army of Dominion’s finest, including tanks that haven’t been deployed in a generation. All looking for me.

  And no sister to keep you careful.

  The world tilts again as I consider this heady freedom. No Margot to worry about, except the pieces of Margot locked inside me.

  “A backup lab?”

  Not a second later, a light blinks off and on in Doc Raines’s lab coat pocket. I hear the buzz as she extracts the small phone and taps it on.

  “Yes.” Her tone curt and sharp as a scalpel, Doc Raines smooths a hand over her hair. I watch as her eyes harden into cold planets.

  I think it’s an accident that I can see her fingers trembling. Then, a moment later, she extends the phone to me. Her eyes are round as marbles. Her face has gone white as a winding sheet.

  “It’s for you.”

  Jared pounces before I take the phone. He holds my wrist close to his ear, a warning light in his eyes. I bend in and listen to the quiet hum of air and wonder if it’s Storm calling. Then the world drops out from under my feet as the familiar voice that has shaped my life spills into the sterile lab.

  “Lucinda.” It’s a harsh voice, bitter with cold.

  “Father.” Panic floods me. How does he know where I am, who I’m with? “What do you want?” I’m glad I sound harsh and full of hate, not like the quivering child I am inside.

  “You foolish little girl.” His voice is thick with contempt. It’s a tone I’m familiar with: the scathing tenor he uses on business partners who disappoint him.

  My heart pounds. Sweat gathers on my neck and back and hands. I clear my throat. “I said, what do you want?”

  I’m shocked when a tinny laugh echoes through the phone. “I want you, of course, my darling daughter.”

  “I think at this point we can firmly establish that I’m not your daughter.”

  “Legally you are. And True Borns are holding you against my will.”

  Jared hisses as I walk myself through his logic. It’s still not enough to warrant tanks on the streets, but then again, Lukas Fox has friends in the highest of places.

  “What’s going to happen, Father,” I mock, “when I tell the senate and the rest of the world that you’ve been
pedaling fake Plague Cure?”

  His voice is sinuous and thick. “Which is why I need to get my darling daughter back. Think of the millions of souls who can be saved.”

  “You’re sick,” I spit, overcome by rage. Jared’s lips rise in a snarl, but he curls a hand over my arm, holding me steady. Reminding me I’m not alone. But I’m lost in a storm that has been brewing, unbidden, inside me. And it breaks with the suddenness of a Flux storm.

  “You killed my sister. You killed my sister, you murderer!”

  A pause. I hitch a deep breath, readying myself for whatever bullets will next fly from my mouth.

  “That was a mistake that I regret,” he breaks in.

  It’s not lost on me that this is the first time in my life I’ve heard my father come anywhere near apologizing for anything. But it doesn’t make a dent in the inferno whipping about inside me.

  “Because you figured out you needed her. And now it’s too late.”

  “I didn’t kill her, Lucinda. A madman killed your sister.”

  “Wes wielded the ax, true.” I grab at my neck, feeling the memory of his blade. “But he was your hand. We heard you. I heard you.”

  The line falls static and empty for a moment before my father’s voice pumps in again. “The doctor’s house is surrounded with tanks and an entire squadron. I’d like you to come out first. Keep your hands on your head or they’ll shoot. We’ll let the True Born and the doctor come out second. If they cooperate, they’ll not be killed.”

  “Go to hell,” I snarl, and click the phone off. I haul it back to hurl it at the window when Jared plucks it from my fingers.

  “We’ve got to go, Luuuuu,” he says. I watch as his face swims into brown and black zigzagging dots. “Luuuu? Luuu, honnnn…”

  Which is all I hear before the world crawls to black.

  …

  It seems like hours later that I’m dragged away through a river of tears, tears raining down on the world like red death. I feel as though my body is floating, fragmenting into a hundred pieces. Rough hands grasp me. A buzzing sound fills my ears as the world swims back, and I surface from the dream. I blink and try to anchor my eyes on Jared. A ferocious light pierces my eyeballs and wavers back and forth.

  “Good.” I hear the low, rumbling tones of Doc Raines. “She’s responsive.”

  Somehow I’ve ended up on the floor, head cradled in Jared’s lap, which explains why his face is upside down. I try to move but am racked with a sudden intense chill that puts my body into spasms.

  “Dammit.” Doc Raines opens her medical bag and pulls out a hypodermic. She thrusts it into my neck before I can say a word. Moments later, the chill melts away in a sea of warmth. “It’s not going to last long.” She cocks an eyebrow at Jared. “Let’s get moving.”

  And the windows explode with a parade of bullets. So much for amnesty.

  Glass shatters across the room, spilling out like confetti in thick shards. Holes the size of my palm riddle the opposite wall. Jared plucks me up into his arms as though I am no heavier than a rag doll and crouches through the row of glass-coated benches. We arrive at a door tucked beside the walk-in fridge, all but unnoticed. Doc Raines is already there ahead of us. She keeps her body low to the ground while she lifts her thumb to the Identi-pad. The door shucks open to reveal a passageway. “I built an escape hatch,” she says, dry as toast.

  I’m locked in weightless, spinning vertigo as I’m carried over an invisible threshold, down a set of dimly-lit stairs. Jared’s hands are warm anchors on my flesh. I can feel each trip of his heart as he breathes, in, out. And despite everything, despite bullets and tanks and my father, I feel safe.

  Doc Raines’s voice floats up from below. “One more flight.” A crack of light appears, and I catch the frizzy blur of Doc Raines’s hair as it bobs out of sight. “This way.”

  I can feel the rumble of the tank, echoing up through the floor and in Jared’s bones. I squeeze my arm tighter around his neck. “Whatever happens—don’t let them get me.” I swallow. “Kill me first.”

  In the darkness, Jared’s face is a smear of white that lightens with each step. And then he’s gazing down at me with wild, soft eyes. “No one is ever going to take you from me, Lu. Not even if they try to pry you from my cold dead hands.”

  A rattle of gunfire below. Jared stalls and pushes his back against the narrow stairway. He shifts some hair away from my ear. “Can you stand?”

  “Think so.” My feet come under me, and for a moment it’s like I’m back on the large cruise liner that took us across the ocean. Everything sways. My heart stammers in my chest as I wait for the wave of dizziness to pass.

  “Lu?” Jared props me up against the wall, his lips curling down in concern. “Don’t move, okay?” Touching his ear, Jared begins to whisper into his implant communicator. “We’ve hit some trouble at Doc Raines’s house. Never mind why we’re here. Long story. Can you get a crew to the sugar refinery? Yeah. Be there in a few hours.”

  The silence of the stairwell is suddenly wrecked by a shrill yell, followed by another dash of gunfire. Jared eases himself down the stairwell and waits by the open door. He peeks his head out and returns to me a moment later, pulling at a lock of his blond hair.

  “Okay, Princess. Don’t fail me now.”

  I glare at him imperiously. “When have I ever failed you?”

  Jared’s dimples flash as he contemplates this. “Never, Lu. Not once.” His lips come down, smooth and soft against mine. He scrapes my lower lips between his teeth and takes my face gently in his hands, tilting me slightly to better capture my mouth.

  My head spins. I stare up at him. “You don’t think we’re going to make it, do you?”

  His silent breathing is confirmation enough for me. “I should never waste a single opportunity to kiss you senseless, Lucy Fox. I shouldn’t waste a single moment not telling you—”

  But I don’t hear the rest of his words. The high-pitched whine of incoming bombs drowns them out. Behind us, the night explodes.

  Jared flattens me against the wall. “Plague Fire,” he curses. As flames lick up the walls, the True Born pulls me down the rest of the stairs. He stops just shy of the door and peers out before dragging me out and around the corner. Seconds later, a belch of smoke and flame erupts from where we just had been standing. The streets fill with noise as people stream out from their houses.

  “C’mon.” He tugs me into the fray, and I follow, shucking the white lab coat, letting it land on the street like a lifeless body.

  We turn the corner. A soldier in full riot gear blinks and rounds his rifle on us. “You’re under arrest!” His gun shakes from side to side as he trains it on us.

  Jared neatly plucks the rifle from the startled man’s grasp. He hurls it to the ground so fast the soldier barely has time to register. I don’t even catch the movement when Jared’s hands rip the man’s helmeted head until it makes a loud thwacking sound. He sinks noiselessly to the ground. I shiver with dread as Jared steps over the corpse and grabs me under the armpits to swing me over. He takes my hand without a backward glance as a platoon of heavy feet tramps our way.

  “They’re coming,” I whisper. I know Jared hears me, though he doesn’t make a sound. He runs us over one alley, across another street where the sidewalks are lined with car hotels on either side. He drags me to the second one, stopping only briefly to look in the window before hauling me up and throwing me into the top car of the four-car-high lodging.

  By the time I’ve scrambled to sit on a rock-hard vinyl seat, Jared has jumped in behind me. He darts his head around, looking to see whether the soldiers have spotted us. The car smells like unwashed bodies and rotting food and something that stinks a bit like old car oil. There’s a huge rip in the seat that we’re on, the vinyl cracked and exposing a chunk of musty yellow foam. I open my mouth to complain about our hidey-hole when two pairs of wide brown eyes and shags of brown hair peek over the front seats at us.

  “I thought you checked t
his one out,” I hiss at Jared, who stares at the children as though they’re enemy soldiers.

  “I can’t see in four cars up, Princess.”

  “Shh. Don’t scare the children.”

  Two young boys by the look of things. Raggedy kids with the gaunt, hungry look of Lasters. One boy’s mouth hangs open while the other scratches his head.

  “Our pap said no strangers.” The head scratcher leans back to take us in.

  The snarl melts from Jared’s face. “Your pap is smart.”

  “You’re a stranger.”

  “Yep. But how about we be friends for a moment until the bad soldiers outside go away. How about it?”

  The boys seem to think about this, conferring with each other with a look. It reminds me so much of Margot and me that I’m hit with a stab of wild pain. The head scratcher clears his throat. “Yeah, okay.” The gaping-mouth kid, clearly the younger of the two, leans over to his brother and whispers something behind a folded hand. It’s too faint for me to catch, but a quick glance at Jared tells me he’s heard. Then the head scratcher is back, an all-too-wise look on his face.

  “Rupe says five bucks.”

  “Five—what? Robbery!” Jared crosses his arms and glares at the children, who rightly enough pull back and rethink the matter.

  The young one, Rupe, pulls a sticky finger from his mouth and points out the window, toward the street. “Soldiers.”

  Jared and I immediately duck down. The head scratcher leans over the seat and smirks. “Five bucks,” he repeats.

  “Shark.” Jared’s eyebrows meet in annoyance, but he pulls a bill from his pocket with a hint of a smile and hands it over. The boy takes it, turning it over and over like he’s never seen its like before.

  “Listen, mister, we don’t got change.” The boy tries to hand it back, but Jared waves him away.

  “The first five is for keeping quiet now. The second is for keeping quiet after we’re gone. Not a word to your folks, right?”

  The boys exchange another look. Then, satisfied, the head scratcher nods. “Deal.”

  Rupe points. “Soldiers gone in there.”