Progenitor

by Cassandra Chandler

  “Not helping,” Vaughn said.

  He was pulling tools out of a box on the floor. It must have already been there before they’d arrived. He hadn’t been carrying it on the elevator. Had they planned this all along?

  The heat against her neck was growing. A beeping sound started up, growing louder and faster.

  “Congratulations, Vaughn,” Porter said. “Looks like you were right about the collar detonating if the signal was blocked.”

  “Run.” Meg licked her lips and spoke again. “All of you. Run.”

  She could feel Dexter right next to her, but she wasn’t angry or afraid.

  “Not without you,” he said.

  Meg clenched her eyes shut. She leaned her forehead against his temple. He stiffened, but then squeezed her arms, as if he was trying to reassure her. There was barely any time left between the beeps.

  “I don’t want you to die,” she whispered. “Any of you.”

  “We won’t,” Dexter said. “Right, Vaughn?”

  “Ah, shit.” Vaughn threw down his tools and grabbed her collar, tugging on it as if he could tear it apart with his bare hands. “Ouch!”

  The scent of blood hit her, metallic and…strange. Vaughn shook his hand briefly, then grabbed her collar again.

  The beeping paused before making a final innocuous ‘beep-boop’. Vaughn’s eyebrows hiked up his forehead.

  “Porter, are you seeing this?” he said.

  “Yes, we are.” Whatever it was, Porter didn’t look happy about it. His smile was gone and deep furrows appeared between his brows.

  The collar cooled. She heard a click. Vaughn leaned back, holding the unlocked and open collar in his hands.

  She was free.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “It worked.” Brock looked over at his dad and laughed. “It worked!”

  “Looks like it,” Dad said.

  They watched the monitor above Brock’s bed as Porter helped Meg to her feet and then out of the Boom Room. Dexter and Vaughn lingered for a few moments, arguing from the look of it. Dexter pointed at the ground, and Vaughn set down the collar.

  As soon as Vaughn stood up, Dexter grabbed his arm and started leading him from the room. Vaughn seemed to be struggling, craning his neck over his shoulder to keep looking at the collar, but then Dexter leaned in and said something that made Vaughn shrink away from him. He didn’t tug against Dexter’s hold as they left the room.

  “What was that all about, I wonder?” Brock asked.

  “Your guess is better than mine. I’m honestly at a loss to explain any of the choices you boys are making right now.”

  Dad tapped a few command buttons on Brock’s bed and the monitor went dark. He sat down next to Brock and stared at him with the same bright blue eyes that Tessa used to have—before they turned gold when she became a werewolf.

  “Dexter and Porter in the same room as a bomb,” Dad said. “I would think after dying for the first time, they’d be even more cautious than before, not pulling a stunt like that.”

  “It was his choice.”

  “Their,” Dad said.

  To him, they would always be “Dexter” and “Porter”. Just like all of the other pairs were two people in his mind. Dad wanted each and every one of his sons to be counted, each life weighed individually.

  It was different for Brock. He’d interacted with each replicant consciousness too often in the landscape of his mind. But he had a feeling those interactions were going to be different in the time he had left.

  “You seriously want me to believe that you didn’t have anything to do with what just happened upstairs?” Dad said.

  “Come on, Dad.”

  “No, you listen to me, son. I’m glad Meg got that collar off. God knows, she’s suffered enough from it. And I’m glad we’ve taken a step to rid our family of further harm from that man Roy.”

  Dad’s shoulders were slumped, and dark circles shadowed his eyes. As exhausted as he must be, he still spoke fiercely when he went on. “Your brothers would do anything for you. Anything. So you tell me why all of a sudden Dexter and Porter are risking a permanent end to their lives for a woman we’re pretty damned sure was sent here to kill you.”

  “I’m telling you, it was his idea,” Brock said.

  “Brock isn’t lying.”

  Dad and Brock both turned to the doorway. Dexter was standing just outside the room.

  “Dexter,” Dad said. “Come on in.”

  Dexter stepped inside, but didn’t come closer than the foot of Brock’s bed.

  “Thank you for keeping your word,” Dexter said.

  “What word?” Dad looked back and forth between them.

  “We told Brock that we would take care of Meg and her collar problem, as long as Brock left our Porter body when we said to, and didn’t attempt to rejoin us in any way until everything was resolved.”

  “I wondered why Brock was settling for the monitor instead of a front row seat,” Dad said. “Why no sound?”

  Dexter opened his mouth to speak, but paused for a moment. “There were things we might have needed to discuss that we didn’t want you to hear. Even we need our privacy sometimes.”

  That was the first time Brock had heard any of the replicants say that. He thought they liked their connection.

  As exposed as he usually felt with them, he never conceived of them wanting privacy, too. Yet another way he’d been taking them for granted.

  “I guess it wasn’t as much of a risk for you, since you’re all planning to kill yourselves anyway,” Brock said.

  Dexter’s gaze snapped to Brock, casting a baleful glare at him.

  “What?” Dad gasped.

  “Busted.” Brock just smiled back.

  “You’re planning to do what?” Dad yelled.

  Dexter actually flinched. Brock did, too.

  Dad never yelled.

  “They were planning to kill off sets of replicants to see if reducing the load on me would help me survive tomorrow.” Was his birthday really that soon? A shiver ran through Brock. He shook it off. “But now that plan is off the table.”

  “It never should have been on the table in the first place.” Dad stalked over to Dexter. “Why didn’t you ask me? Why didn’t you talk to me about it?”

  Dexter again started to speak, but then shut his mouth and looked away. Dad pulled him into a hug, squeezing tight enough that Brock’s chest ached in sympathy. Dexter reached up and awkwardly patted Dad’s back.

  “We knew you’d say no,” Dexter said. “And we didn’t want to upset you.”

  “Upset me?” Dad sputtered. He leaned back, grabbing Dexter by his arms and giving him a shake.

  Brock wanted to laugh, seeing the most terrifying Blade—the one that vampires and werewolves only mentioned in whispers—let a frail human push him around. But the look on Dad’s face, the way his voice cracked as he spoke, chased away the thought.

  “How do you think I would have felt after you were gone?” Dad said. “You’re my sons.”

  “Eli—” Dexter said.

  Dad cut him off. “You call me ‘Dad’, dammit.”

  Yelling and swearing? Yeah, they’d pushed Dad way too far.

  “I know you think you don’t feel the way others do,” Dad said. “The way humans do. But you’re wrong. There’s love in you. Love in all of you. For your brother. For your sister. And for me.”

  The look on Dexter’s face made tears well up in Brock’s eyes. Dexter’s lips stayed parted, and his expression went slack. Not in the normal inscrutable way, but almost like he was awestruck.

  Brock wanted so desperately to peek into Dexter’s mind, to see what he was feeling. But after everything he’d learned, everything they’d been through so recently, he wouldn’t dare cross that line.

  Dad hugged Dexter again, and this time, Dexter hugged him back. When they pulled apart, Dad looked over at Brock, and said, “I think I have an idea.”

  “What?” Brock asked.

  Dad shook h
is head. “I need everyone in on this one. Dexter, check in with Porter and make sure Megan is resting comfortably in her room. Then I need him and Vaughn down here now.”

  “Meg has already recovered from all of her wounds,” Dexter said. “Her healing abilities are even better than Marcus and Tessa’s.”

  “Thank goodness for that,” Dad said.

  “Porter is asking her to wait for us in her room.” Dexter smirked. “Vaughn is hooking her up with a ‘romcom’ marathon. He and Porter will be here in a few minutes.”

  “That’ll give me time to call your brothers.” Dad stretched out his arm, revealing a watch that looked just like Vaughn’s.

  “When did you get one of those?” Brock asked.

  “It was a gift from Vaughn so I can monitor the stasis pods more closely,” Dad said. “I can also use it to do this.”

  Several square sections of the seemingly blank wall next to Brock’s bed flickered with light. Six of them. They resolved into screens with every single replicant on them.

  “When did Vaughn install all of these?” Brock asked.

  “They were already here,” Dad said. “Vaughn was able to get them working again while you were ‘resting’.” He used sarcastic air quotes to make sure Brock knew he was aware that most of those times, Brock had actually been either observing or borrowing a replicant.

  “We hear there’s a new plan,” Brad said.

  “There is.” Dad glared at Brad through his screen. “And don’t think you’re off the hook for that lame-ass other one.”

  “Us?” Brad said. “Why are we the one in trouble?”

  “Because you’re always the one doing stupid shit,” Dexter said.

  Brock felt his jaw drop. He’d never heard Dexter say something like that before.

  “Since when do you guys talk like this?” Brock asked.

  “Since always,” Brad said. “Just not when you’re around.”

  “Show some respect.” Zach and Carey wore matching glares on their identical faces.

  “Please don’t,” Brock said. Everyone stilled to the point that Brock wondered if the monitors had frozen. “I meant it when I said I was sorry. I meant it when I said I was done borrowing you—except for that stunt Dexter pulled earlier.”

  “And making out with Meg using Porter’s body?” Brad grinned while all but Lee seemed to try to glare at Brock through their monitors.

  “We were… That was…” Brock shook his head. “I was trying to put her at ease so we could get her to the Boom Room.”

  Brad snickered.

  “That’s enough,” Dad said, glaring at Brad’s monitor.

  “And he left as soon as we asked.” Porter strode into the room, Vaughn right behind him.

  Vaughn stared at all the faces on the monitors. “Wow, it’s really a party in here.”

  “It’s a family meeting.” Dad walked over to the bed and put his hand on Brock’s shoulder. “I know the last few years have been hard. And the way you learned about all this… It was a shock. A trauma. I’ve tried to help as much as I could, but you had to come to it on your own.”

  “Come to what?” Brock asked.

  “Understanding,” Dad said. “Yourself. The others. You’re finally seeing your brothers as I always have. As family.”

  Brock nodded, his throat too tight for words. It had taken him too long to get his head out of his ass. But reuniting with the family he’d known before his eighteenth birthday, finding Tessa…changed… He had to face it now. This was his family, strange as it was.

  “This seems kind of personal,” Vaughn said. “I can come back later.”

  “Didn’t you hear him when you came in?” Brock asked. “It’s a family meeting. We need you here.”

  “I, uh…” Vaughn’s eyebrows hitched up. He cleared his throat, then said, “Thanks.”

  Porter clapped his hand on Vaughn’s shoulder, pulling him against his side in a hug as he cast a big smile at him.

  “This is so awkward,” Vaughn said. “Okay. What’s up?”

  Dad walked closer to the monitors. “Brad had the brilliant idea that he and his brothers should kill themselves to reduce the load on Brock before his birthday.”

  “It wasn’t him.” Mal spoke in a low, calm voice, as always.

  Brock kept his gaze away from Mal and Colm’s monitors. It was too close to looking in a mirror. Brock hadn’t seen himself for so long, he could almost forget what he truly looked like—the scars that were put there by Roy.

  “We came up with the plan,” Colm said. “Start with the most recent pair, and reduce the load until Brock can function again.”

  “That’s really noble, I guess,” Vaughn said. “But super grim.”

  “If they’d come to me about it, I sure as hell would have said no.” Dad glared at each monitor in turn, then at Dexter and Porter for good measure. “And we might have been able to come up with a better idea sooner.”

  “Which is?” Mal asked.

  Dad smiled, but his gaze was fixed on Vaughn.

  “Reduce the load,” Dad said.

  It took Vaughn about a second to mirror Dad’s smile. “The stasis pods. We put them in now.”

  “We thought of that,” Zach said. “Our link with Brock isn’t something you’ve been able to quantify or explain. The only way to be sure—”

  “Is to try,” Dad said. “Your stasis pods are ready. We’re all right here. The sooner we do this, the better it’ll be for your brother. The better the chances that you’ll all survive.”

  The monitors with Mal and Colm went dark.

  “Oh shit,” Vaughn said. “Like now now?”

  “I guess they liked my idea.” Dad turned to Brock. “Are you ready for this, son?”

  “I have less than twenty-four hours till my birthday.” Brock nodded. “It’s now or never.”

  Dad nodded, already lowering the back of Brock’s bed. As soon as Brock was flat, Dad started pulling off the electrodes that stimulated his muscles, probably not wanting anything to complicate things further.

  Vaughn ran to the control panel next to Brock’s bed and started frantically typing on it. “Sure, why not?” he said. “It’s not like this wasn’t already our last resort scenario. Let’s just pull the trigger now.” He looked up at Brock and said, “Bad metaphor.”

  “Let’s hope.” Brock smiled at Vaughn, trying to reassure him. Both of them.

  “Mal and Colm are in their stasis chambers,” Vaughn said. He turned to look at the monitor above Brock’s bed. “Wow, that was fast.”

  The screen now showed a split view of Malcolm’s safehouse and Vaughn’s ubiquitous scrolling data. Their panic room was mostly taken up with two huge shining silver cylinders with small glass windows on the front just above their faces.

  “I’ve activated the sequence that should put them in stasis,” Vaughn said. “I really hope this works. Systems nominal. Vital signs stable. Brain activity lowering. Metabolics slowing down…”

  A wave of energy hit Brock like a nuclear bomb going off. His back arched up off the bed as he sucked in a huge breath. His skin felt electrified, and his limbs twitched uncontrollably.

  He could hear someone yell, “Hold him down. Hold him down!” over a high ringing in his ears. The room faded in and out.

  A voice said, “He’s stabilizing. How are the others?”

  “Uh… On the floor?”

  “Vaughn! Check on them.”

  Vaughn. Dad. They were in the room with him. Along with Dexter and Porter.

  “They’re already getting up,” Vaughn said. “And I’m kind of busy here handling Mal and Colm remotely. Everything seems to be working as we expected. Their biosignatures are in full stasis.”

  “Son?”

  Brock’s vision was blurred, and his ears felt like they were stuffed with cotton. Gradually, everything came back into focus, starting with his dad’s eyes.

  “Are you still with us, son?”

  The ringing noise stopped. The loudest thing he hea
rd was his own breath. Brock lifted his right arm above him and made a fist. Muscles corded his forearm.

  Was that really his arm? It was huge. But even with the muscles, he didn’t feel the heaviness that usually kept him pinned to the bed. He lowered his arm back to his side.

  “Brock,” Dad said. “How do you feel?”

  Brock pushed himself up—pushed himself up so he was sitting, with nobody’s help. His dad’s jaw went slack, and his eyes widened so much, Brock could see the whites all around his irises.

  “I feel…” Brock took a deep breath, rubbing his hand across a chest he didn’t recognize.

  It wasn’t just that his body was twice the size he was used to after only moving around in his replicants’ bodies for so long. His lungs felt expansive. His muscles receptive. He was functional.

  He laughed, then said, “I feel good.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Meg paced in her room. She knew she was supposed to be resting, but how could she rest when she was finally free?

  She had so much to tell everyone, so much to explain. So much to make up for.

  While Porter had examined her and made sure the last of her injuries healed properly, she’d told them as much as she could. She didn’t think she’d ever talked that much or that quickly.

  Vaughn had already figured most of it out. He’d understood her message. She let out a shaky breath, still amazingly relieved and grateful they’d picked up on it.

  But before she’d had a chance to properly apologize, there had been an emergency. Something must have gone very wrong for everyone to run off the way they had, leaving her alone.

  She tried not to think about that. Her being alone in the large house. Marcus and Tessa in stasis. Dexter and Porter and Vaughn who knew where. Brock deep below the house with Eli.

  “Brock.” She slowed her steps, but her mind spun ever faster, making up one nightmare scenario after another.

  Maybe the collar had exploded after all. Maybe it had somehow compromised their systems. There could have been an emergency at another base.

  Something could have gone wrong with Brock.