“I’ve got to check, Sev. Especially after what you’ve just said.”
I stare at him, my mind going blank. Think! But I can’t think of anything—and I need to. Find something that’ll prove it… Something only we know about… Something that isn’t common knowledge….
“Before, you said you didn’t like me…that it would be revolting,” I blurt out the words as they come to me.
Corin looks at me sideways. “Right. Okay.” He nods. “But if it’s true, shouldn’t you have seen something like this happen, had a warning or something? You’re a Seer.”
I swallow hard. We shouldn’t be talking. We should be acting—doing something. Telling the Zharat. “I told you before, I haven’t had any Seeing dreams here, not for days—not after that one of…” I take a deep breath. I don’t know that the dream I had of Three was a warning, but something stops me from saying his name in front of Esther. I focus on Corin. “I told you something was wrong—that it didn’t feel right. No visits to the Dream Land.”
“Wait,” Esther says, and, for a moment, I think she’s going to ask what the last Seeing dream was of. But she doesn’t. “If the Enhanced have been here a while, why hasn’t a conversion attack happened already?”
“Because the Zharat are a big tribe—and the Enhanced are scared of them, I don’t know!” The answer comes to me quickly. “They ran away when they heard the Zharat’s lorry coming, didn’t they?”
And I think of how the Zharat jumped on the Enhanced Ones’ bodies, destroyed them. Any Enhanced who found that mess would be worried about facing the people who did that. The wild Untamed.
Corin nods quickly. “So when they found out where the Zharat live, they didn’t immediately launch into a conversion attack like they normally do…because they think this tribe is dangerous. So they put a spy in here, instead. Gather information first. Decide the best way to do convert us all with the minimum loss of life for them.”
Esther pales. “But the spy’s been here a week. Maybe even a day or two longer. That’s plenty of time to work out things, prepare… Shit. We… We need to tell Mann—we need to tell the Zharat now. They’re all in danger, and the Enhanced could attack any moment now. We have to raise the alarm, get everyone out, and—”
Voices ring out and cut Esther off.
We freeze.
Angry voices. A man and a woman. Shouting. Arguing.
And then—and then they’re stepping into the washing zone.
Two Zharat. They see us. I recognize them. I’ve seen them about in the gathering room before, I think. The man stares at me, and his eyes go to the uncovered tube behind us. He takes a step forward.
“What are you doing?” His question is slow, careful, but it’s not: How is there an exit there? No surprise at all. Are we wrong about that? Was it there all the time?
Are we wrong about the clone too?
But Jed and Esther and Mart all claim to have seen me. And I definitely believe Esther.
“We think there are Enhanced Ones in here,” Corin says, and then he’s explaining about my clone.
“What?” the man says, glancing at the woman. He turns back to us, a strange look on his face.
And that’s when I recognize him—he’s the man Jed went hunting with, the man Jed was complaining about. He didn’t even know how to hold a spear properly.
I stare at the newcomers. At the man. He’s Zharat. Zharat men should know how to hold spears properly.
It was as if he was using it for the first time.
My eyes widen as it clicks, and I draw my next breath too quickly.
Because it was.
It was the first time.
“They’re Enhanced too!” I yell. “Imposters!”
The man looks at the woman, throws his hands up in the air. “This—”
“What?” Esther’s face fills with alarm.
The man snorts, and I’m sure he’s going to deny it—or do something to prove me wrong—but then he turns to the woman. “And this is exactly why you’re supposed to be guarding this exit—keeping it hidden—since we’re not using the other one now.” He grabs something from his pocket. It’s a radio. “Now we’ll have to export these three, but we haven’t got enough people waiting. Great.”
I take a sudden step back. Esther grabs my arm. She’s trembling.
Get out. Get out. Get out.
“Just kill them,” the woman says. “Either export or kill if they’re going to draw too much attention. That’s what Raleigh said.”
I go cold.
And then another one’s coming. Light footsteps, fast. And—
I come face to face with myself.
I stare at myself—at the girl who looks exactly like me. At the clone.
For a second, the girl who looks like me seems shocked. Then she laughs. Her laugh even sounds like me. Tension pulls through my body.
Esther shouts something, but her words get lost.
Corin lifts his head a bit higher, but nods. Then he throws me behind him, just as the Enhanced me comes toward us. I trip on the patchwork hide, fall, end up sitting, dazed.
“Stay away from us!” Corin shouts. He raises the knife.
“Just get them through there!” my clone screams at the other two—the two Zharat who aren’t really Zharat. The two imposters.
“There’s no one out there—we weren’t scheduled to take the next lot until tomorrow!” the man shouts.
“But they know we’re here. We’ve got to get them out before they tell everyone.”
I stand up slowly, lean against the wall. My vision blurs a little.
We weren’t scheduled to take the next lot until tomorrow.
My eyes widen.
Girls and women have gone missing, and there are Enhanced Ones here. They weren’t gathering information while they were waiting to start converting us after all. They’ve been taking us all along…in small groups. Cutting our numbers down slowly…until we’re a manageable size to mass-convert all at once?
Nyesha’s missing.
I make a small choking noise, remember Mart’s words… Oh Gods—he heard me planning a conversion attack.
And the next day—that was when that second group of girls went missing, wasn’t it? Because of my clone? I picture her lying in wait with more Enhanced Ones, grabbing the girls as they leave the safety of the Fire Mountain, dragging them away, ready to be converted….
And that other group—the first group who went missing when they were fishing, getting food for my wedding feast—they never returned either. Was that my clone too?
I gulp, feel sick. Then I see a hand closing over Nyesha’s mouth, right here in this room, see her struggling against the Enhanced Ones, just before they knock her unconscious and take her out their new exit.
I gulp.
Oh Gods.
“Just kill them,” the woman says.
And suddenly there are guns out. Semi-automatic pistols. They’re going to kill us? Not even try and convert us? Unless the bullets in these guns aren’t lethal…and she only said Just kill them to scare us?
A barrel is shoved into my face before I even see it coming. I twist around, see another one go to Corin, and to Esther. Corin fights with the knife, but then it’s kicked from his hand; it clatters onto the floor several feet away.
It’s the man who holds the gun on me. The man who looks so much like a Zharat. My head whirs. How many of them are here? How many have been living among us, replacing the Zharat? Have I spoken to any?
And why didn’t the Dream Land warn me? Because I’d already ignored their warning about not going outside—even though I didn’t mean to go out there with Jed? Do the Gods and Goddesses and spirits no longer trust me? I swallow hard. Death—no, Waskabe—told me I wouldn’t be given many more chances. But I didn’t go outside after that, did I?
“Hey!” Corin shouts. He’s holding his hands up, and I see the whites of his eyes flash. “Hey, we’ll walk. We’ll go willingly with you. Just put the guns away.�
�
My gaze jerks to him, alarm fills me. Join the Enhanced? Willingly. I shake my head at him, no, we can’t!
“Not a chance,” my clone screams. She’s holding the gun on him, and it makes me feel strange seeing her in front of Corin. She’s dropped the imitation of my voice, my accent now. She just sounds annoyed, and her words are heavy. “Not a bloody chance. You really think we’re stupid? The moment you’re out there, you’re going to run.”
“All together. On the count of three,” the woman says.
Esther whimpers.
“One.” The woman smiles.
The man in front of me moves the gun closer, until its barrel is an inch from my forehead. It seems to get darker, something’s blocking the light, or my eyes aren’t working.
“Let us go!” Corin shouts. But he doesn’t move. “You’re not actually going to kill us!”
My clone steps closer to him, and I see her whispering something into his ear. Something I can’t hear. The skin on the back of my neck prickles.
“Two.”
Cold metal, against my skin.
“If you kill us, they’ll hear the gunshots—they’ll know you’re here,” I say quickly.
But the Enhanced just smile, they don’t even seem worried about it. Yet the shots will make a noise—there are no silencers attached to the firearms, not that I can see…
And they’re going to kill us.
My throat squeezes a little. “You can’t kill us.”
“We’re tranquilizing you,” the man says to me. “We know who you are.”
Of course they know who I am. My clone’s one of them.
I breathe deeply, taste darkness behind my front teeth, try to work out what to say next, how to make them listen. I take several deep breaths, feel my heart stutter, and—
My clone screams.
I jerk forward, movement to my left. The tube. The dark shape and—
“Get out of here!” the Enhanced man shouts, but his words aren’t for me.
The gun moves away from me, toward the tube entrance where a bulky, dark shape fills the gap. My heart starts racing, my eyes narrow. Can’t see what it is.
Corin swears, then suddenly he’s by my side, grabbing my hand. He pulls me to the right, behind the Enhanced—the Enhanced who have turned away from us. Their guns are on the new shape. That’s when my eyes finally work.
And I see it.
I see the silverback mountain gorilla a second before he moves right into the room.
For a second, I just stare, can’t comprehend it.
The silverback’s big. Massive. Huge, domed forehead and dark eyes. Light flits around him, makes his silver fur look darker and—
He charges.
I throw myself backward, drag Corin with me. My hand reaches for Esther, but I can’t see her. Someone screams. An Enhanced. And then there’s dust, flying up. So much dust and—
“Get out!”
A gun goes off.
The gorilla screams—strangely high-pitched. Then he grunts, low, throaty. Sounds that echo off the lava walls. Then he’s moving again, stretches up slightly. Got to be at least six feet tall, fills the cave.
“Get out!”
“Not that way! Could be more!” the Enhanced woman shouts.
I look up, see my clone going for the tube. The exit’s clear now, as clear as we can see. She gets there, and then she’s blocked from sight as the silverback swings his weight around. He’s big. So big.
“Don’t look it in the eye!” the man shouts, and then I can’t see him, and there’s more movement.
Angry barking fills my ears.
“Sev!”
Corin pulls me to him, pulls me across the channel of running water. I trip, step into it, end up soaked up to my knees, but he drags me out.
I see Esther, not far away. She’s got the knife now, and a Luger—from one of the Enhanced, must be.
Another gunshot goes off, but it’s not from hers.
“No!” she shouts, and she’s turning. “Don’t shoot it!”
But the Enhanced One’s aim isn’t good. The bullet bounces off the lava wall, fractures into pieces that fling back. The gorilla turns, eyes on the man. Charges again. Slapping sounds fill my ears.
I can’t look away. Blood pounds through me. The gorilla grabs the Enhanced man. He screams, and the silverback—
“Sev, we’ve got to get out now!”
And then we’re running. I can barely breathe; we’re going too fast. Behind us, the Enhanced man screams. Proper screams. Last screams.
“Are you all right?” Corin looks from me to Esther, starts to slow down. She nods, and then Corin’s reaching for my arm. “Sev?”
I nod, feel bile rise in my stomach.
“Come on.” He pants, face red and shiny. “We need to warn the Zharat now.”
Manning blinks at us. “Impersonating?”
His gaze goes to me, and I wince, expect him to say something about Jed and the attack—but he doesn’t.
He just shakes his head, then laughs a strident laugh for exactly three seconds before stopping abruptly. His eyes cross to Esther, and a strange look takes over his face for a second.
I step closer to Esther, and Corin barges in front of us, puts himself between the Zharat leader and us. I swallow hard. We shouldn’t have brought Esther to him like this, I know that. But we had to find Manning, he’s the leader—he can spread the word sooner among the Zharat than anyone else. We had to see him.
And give him the opportunity to kill you for stabbing Jed.
But he hasn’t said anything about that. And I don’t think the chief’s treating me differently. Something tells me he doesn’t know…yet. So where’s Jed? He’d moved from our room. But he hasn’t come to Manning?
Corin snarls. “Just listen. They’ve infiltrated. They’ve been in here…ages. Those girls that went missing—the Enhanced have been converting them.” He breathes hard, looks at me for a second, and I nod—I told him and Esther on the way here what I’d worked out, and they both saw it too. “They were taking the girls when they were outside, but those latest women weren’t on a hunt. They were taken, straight from the den. The Enhanced even said something about scheduled conversions—that there are certain times when they take us. And there’s a bloody great hole in the wall of the washing zone where they took the women through.” Corin grips the back of his neck, rubs it hard. I know he’s having a hard time controlling himself in front of this man. “You have to raise the alarm—they know we know about them now. They’re not going to leave it any longer; it’s going to be a conversion attack, a massive one—starting any minute. They’ll call backup.”
But Manning shakes his head again. His eyes are still on Esther, and his lips twitch. I step even closer to her. “If the Enhanced was here, our Seers would know. And my men ain’t heard nothing.”
“But those girls did!” I shout. I don’t even know if Kyla or the other girl saw this, but the words just fall out my mouth. “And we’ve seen them, the Enhanced—you’ve got to do something!”
Manning bares his teeth as he steps nearer. Corin straightens up, pushes Esther farther behind him, leaving me more vulnerable to Manning. “You do not mention those beings ever, those frauds. They have contaminated—”
“Are you even listening to us?” Corin shouts. “No, don’t come any closer. And stop looking at my sister. There are Enhanced in the cave, living among us, using Zharat bodies, pretending to be us. And you’re not doing a thing about it?”
“Because you’re lying—”
“You believed us about the gorilla,” Esther says. Her voice wobbles, and I glance at her quickly. “You sent your men down there, no questions asked. And you’ve sent them right down into the heart of the Enhanced Ones’ plan—they’re using that room as a base. And one definitely got away—she’ll be getting backup, and then they’ll come here and convert you all. They’re not going to waste time, not now we know about them.”
Manning laughs. “G
orillas in the caves be quite common.” He cracks his knuckles. “They like licking salts from the walls. But if an Enhanced One was here, we’d know. There’d be signs.”
“But you’re not listening!” And then I’m shouting and I’m filled with so much rage and my whole body’s shaking and he’s just not listening. “We had no idea until Corin found augmenters.”
Manning looks at me with a strange look, taking in my white dress? Then: “Given how you seem to have lost all status, I don’t think you’re in any position to tell me what to do.”
I start to shake my head. This is a waste of time. If Manning won’t raise the warning among his own people, we’ll have to.
“What the hell?” Corin shouts, balling his fists. Then he steps closer to Manning. “Are you Enhanced too?”
“How dare you,” Manning says. “How dare you suggest such a thing.”
“Then bloody do something! Protect your people.”
A dangerous look crosses Manning’s face, makes me think of blood and death. “If there’re Enhanced Ones in that washroom where the gorilla be, my men will see them. If I get confirmation—either from them, or from one of my Seers—I will act.”
Corin swears loudly, spits at the floor. “Don’t ignore the facts. Ignorance is not bliss. Ignorance is death.” It’s Rahn’s survival lesson, number five.
“But this is giving the Enhanced more time,” I say. “You need to find out which of your people are really Enhanced Ones, and you need to get rid of them—not give them a chance to regroup and make plans—”
Corin slams his fist into the air. “This is stupid. We’re going now. We’re not staying to be converted and killed.”
He turns, grabs Esther and me, pulls us out of the room with surprising strength, and—
We crash into men.
I scream as I’m pushed away, against a wall. And I’m trying to turn, trying to get ready to fight the Enhanced. But they don’t come at us. They’re not—they’re Zharat, I think. Aren’t they? No. We don’t know. Don’t know anything anymore. My head pounds.
The men go straight for Manning’s room, ignoring Corin who’s shouting at them. I recognize one of them. Mart. My blood burns.
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