Into The Fire (The Ending Series) (29 page)

So she didn’t
want
to hurt anyone…but she still
ended up killing everyone.
I tried to imagine Tom Cartwright, my best
friend’s scatterbrained, hardworking craftsman father, as Dr. Wesley’s knight
in camouflage armor. But I’d only known him as a troubled, middle-aged man, and
picturing him as a soldier was impossible.

Quietly, I asked, “What were you researching?”

The doctor’s hint of a smile disintegrated. “A base pair on
a specific strand of DNA estimated to be present in a little over 10 percent of
the human population. It held the genetic key to accessing never-before-seen
mental and physical abilities.”

“Like what we’re experiencing now?” I asked.

She nodded. “One of my colleagues hypothesized that—” She
halted, her gaze sharp, assessing. “How familiar are you with genetics?”

I shrugged. “Not very. I took a biological anthropology
class as an undergrad, so I understand Darwinism, natural selection, and all
that good stuff, but being able to picture a pretty, multicolored double helix
is about as far as my DNA comprehension goes.”

With a frown, Dr. Wesley nodded. “I’ll keep it simple, then.
Basically, we discovered the strand of DNA that, among other things, controls
our genetic potential to exhibit an Ability. I discovered the base pair on the
strand that inhibits—or used to inhibit—that potential. All we had to do was
determine a way to delete the inhibiting pair, and then we could really see
what the strand could do.”

I held up a hand to interrupt. “Can you even do that—delete
a gene?”

Shaking her head, Dr. Wesley corrected, “A base pair, not a
gene, and nature does it every day. You have some understanding of evolution,
so you know that genetic mutation, one of the driving forces behind evolution,
is random, correct?” Whatever my personal feelings for the doctor were, I
couldn’t deny her genius. Her eyes practically glowed with it.

I nodded.

“Those natural, completely random mutations generally take
place in three ways: substitution, when one base pair is substituted with
another; deletion, when a base pair is left out; and insertion, when an
entirely new base pair appears. Unfortunately, such mutations are completely
unpredictable, usually harmful, and, for the most part, uncontrollable, not to
mention limited by the reproductive rate of a species.”

Raising my eyebrows, I said, “But…” The genetic changes
caused by the Virus hadn’t been limited to the next generation of humans;
they’d impacted us all, changing everyone who survived.

“But,” Dr. Wesley agreed. “Over two decades ago, a few
months before my husband-to-be helped me flee from the military, I read an
article by a brilliant young microbiologist on something he called ‘gene
therapy.’ Have you ever heard of it?”

Entranced by her story, I shook my head. It was mind-boggling
that the moves leading to the destruction of mankind had been set in play so
long ago, before I was even born. Had anyone known the consequences of their
actions? Had the demolition of civilization been the goal even then? Or were
the key players just looking to make a new, stronger breed of people?

“Essentially, gene therapy is a way to
force
spontaneous genetic mutation, even in a fully grown subject.”

Subject.
I snorted and clarified, “Person.”

“Person, cat, apple tree—anything with DNA,” Dr. Wesley
explained. “In gene therapy, a virus is the delivery method for the
mutation—either to transport a new base pair for substitution or insertion, or
to delete an existing base pair.” Dr. Wesley dropped her eyes, looking at her
hands instead of at me. “Unfortunately, though the virus we initially used was
mostly harmless on its own, our trials proved that the gene therapy was too
dangerous to continue researching and experimenting with.”

“Trials? As in,
human
trials?”

“Well, we couldn’t exactly use a bird, could we? And unless
you know of a secret preserve of Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, our only route
to test the procedure was to try it on our fellow humans.” At seeing the appall
warping my face, she added, “They were all volunteers.”

I snorted again. “I’m sure. So what happened? You said it
was too dangerous. Did the government shut the program down?”

Dr. Wesley shook her head. “If only. The gene therapy had an
unfortunate side effect for most of the test subjects. During the first round,
we only chose subjects who were confirmed carriers of the P-strand.”

“P-strand?”

“Pandora strand.” She laughed bitterly. “One of my lab
assistants came up with it as a joke. She had no idea how appropriate the name
was.” There was a long pause before Dr. Wesley resumed her explanation. “We
only chose people whose genetic makeup contained the P-strand, but we didn’t
notice the variation among different test subjects. The gene therapy was
designed to take out the final base pair in that strand, which we’d identified
as the Ability-inhibiting pair. But”—she took a heavy breath—“eighty percent of
the test subjects in that first group had an additional base pair, which
inhibited something else entirely, and in those subjects,
that
was the
base pair that was deleted. We hadn’t been looking for it, so we just…missed
it,” she said, an air of defeat in her voice.

So…what does that mean?
I thought about my
experiences in the post-Virus world over the past few months, and I was pretty
sure I’d puzzled out what that additional base pair inhibited. “Let me guess—it
inhibited insanity, and once it was deleted, those people lost it?”

Eyebrows raised, Dr. Wesley nodded. Apparently, I’d
impressed her.
Go me.

“It wasn’t obvious at first,” she explained, “just like the
Abilities didn’t develop immediately. But in time, it became clear. I begged my
superiors to set the project aside. I told them it was far too dangerous, but
they ordered another trial, this time with a random sampling of people who
weren’t preselected based on their genetic makeup. I hated myself for doing it,
but I followed orders, carried out the trial, and cried myself to sleep every
night. Tom was all that got me through it.”

Looking into my eyes, imploring me to understand, she said,
“There were one hundred people in that test group, and ninety-one of them died
within a month of treatment. Not from the gene therapy, exactly, but from
colds, allergies, blood infections caused by minor wounds, you name it. You
see, unlike in the first trial, where we made sure
everyone
carried the
P-strand, we didn’t do so with the second trial group. Ninety-one of them
didn’t carry the P-strand. The strand that was in the place of the P-strand for
those
test subjects”—at my sudden scowl, she amended what she’d
said—“for those
people
related directly to the immune system. Deleting
the final base pair did something that almost completely destroyed their bodies’
ability to heal. It was irreversible, and no matter how—” An uncontrollable sob
choked off her words.

Sympathy welled inside me, but I shoved it away. She
deserved her pain.
She killed Grams…Cam…Callie…her own husband…

Voice cracking under the weight of her sorrow, she said, “No
matter how many hours I spent in the lab, trying to find a cure, they all died.
My superiors wouldn’t even let us contact their families so they could speak to
their loved ones one last time.” After another choking sob, she regained her
composure. “Tom said he would take me away…that we could start a new life
somewhere else, where we would become other people—normal people—and hide from
the horrors of what I’d done. We developed a plan that protected us, and once
we were married and had children, protected our family, for almost ten years.”

Tilting my head to the side, I said, “You disappeared?”

Dr. Wesley’s answering grin was sly. “Better than you can
imagine. Tom and I—we both carried the P-strand, and by some glorious twist of
fate, neither of us had the extra base pair. It seemed like destiny at the
time, like some higher power was guiding us, telling us we were doing the right
thing. So, we gave ourselves the gene therapy treatment and waited for our
Abilities to develop, hoping they would be in some way beneficial to our escape.
You know mine—nulling others’ Abilities—”

“And amplifying,” I said, interrupting her. “The General
only knows about
that
side of your Ability, doesn’t he? I’d imagine he’d
be pretty upset if he found out you could block other people’s Abilities as
well.”

Her eyes narrowed, but she agreed with a stiff nod. She’d
heard my not-so-subtle threat, and it seemed she would continue to cooperate.
“Tom’s Ability proved equally useful. He could alter people’s memories, making
them forget they’d ever seen us. It was the next best thing to being
invisible.”

I stared at her, flabbergasted. Overloaded on insane
information, I’d yet to process the fact that Tom—Zoe and Jason’s dad—had an
Ability, or at least, he’d
had
one before he died of the Virus.
He
died of the Virus.
Suddenly, several things clicked. “The Virus—it was
different this time, wasn’t it?”

“It was,” she said. “It was a modified influenza virus, nearly
universally contagious and designed to take advantage of the weakened immune
systems of the non-P-strand carriers.”

“And
you
created it that way, didn’t you? You
created
it to kill everyone.” Too angry to wait for an answer, I repeated my initial
question, “Why?”
Why’d you create it? Why’d you leave your family? Why’d you
kill everyone? Why?

Dr. Wesley met my eyes, then immediately looked away.
“Gregory—General Herodson—had been one of the lower officers overseeing my
project in the beginning. He and I had gone on a few dates before I realized my
feelings for Tom, and he convinced me to check his DNA for the P-strand. Like
Tom and me, he was a viable candidate for the gene therapy. He convinced me to include
him in the second trial, which I shouldn’t have done because it invalidated the
random selection process, but I did it anyway, hoping it would make him more
amenable to letting me leave.”

Raising her furious gaze to mine, she said, “It didn’t. Tom and
I escaped before Gregory’s Ability was strong enough to really control anyone’s
minds, but once we were gone, he had several decades to strengthen and perfect
his control…to plant people where he needed them. And for the past twenty-four
years he’s used
my
Ability—or half of it—to make his even stronger.”
From the fury in her
voice, I could tell how much she hated him.
Good. At least we agree on that.

Dr. Wesley took a few deep breaths, then said, “During the
ten years Tom and I were gone, Gregory built up his own mind-controlled army
within the military, and eventually he found us.” She sounded utterly
despondent. Broken.

Oh God…I
can’t
hate her.
I wanted to scream.

“We’d gotten married and had two children at that point—a
young boy and a girl little more than a baby—and he threatened to kill them if
I didn’t join him…work for him…be his
plaything
.” She spat out the final
word, and for once, I didn’t squash my sympathy. “He told me he loved me and
needed me, and that if I attempted anything to be free of him—end my own
life…try to end his—he would kill my children and husband. He had people ready
to destroy my family if I hurt him or his plans in any way. He called it his
‘contingency plan.’” With liquid blue eyes, she begged me to understand. “So
you see, I had no choice. My children—”

“Are the only reason you’re still alive,” I said, standing.
Honestly, it was mostly a bluff. I couldn’t kill her, not now that I knew the
truth of who she was and why she’d created the Virus, but she didn’t need to
know that.

Dr. Wesley eyed me warily. “So you know.”

“That Zoe and Jason are your kids? Yeah.” I took a step
closer to her desk and held out my hand, palm up. “You have a master key. Give
it to me.”

She ignored my demand. “Will you tell them I’m here?” Her
eyes were filled with equal amounts of hope and dread.

“No. I hate lying to them, but the truth would hurt them so
much more than if they go on thinking you’re dead.”

“They would hate me. Thank you for—”

My face twisted into an ugly sneer. “I’m doing it for them,
not for you,” I spat. “They’d blame themselves, because if you
had
refused the General and let them die, everyone else might’ve gone on living. At
least, that’s how they’d see it.”

She flinched like I’d slapped her.

“Give. Me. Your. Key. If you don’t, I’ll tell the General
about the other half of your Ability and the neutralizer,” I said, an icy chill
coating my words.

Dr. Wesley reached into the pocket of her lab coat and
pulled out an inconspicuous key. She placed it on my palm without touching my
skin.

“Does it open his office?”

She shook her head. “Only
he
has those keys.”

“Do you know why he sent a Re-gen to my people’s camp?”

“No, I—” Her face filled with worry. “Are they alright?”

“They’re fine.” Reluctantly, I added, “Zo and Jason know you
didn’t die in the car crash. They found a letter you wrote to Tom—”

“Oh God,” she whimpered as tears leaked from her eyes.
“How…how’d you figure out who I was?”

I started stringing the key onto the cord with the red card
and the guard’s warehouse key. “You look like an older version of Zoe. I’m
surprised I didn’t suspect sooner, but you
were
supposed to be dead,
so…”

“What are they like?” she asked softly.

I sighed, really not wanting to ease her pain, but I could
hear Grams chiding me in my head:
I didn’t raise you to be so heartless,
Dani-girl.
“Zo and Jason are…they’re two of the best people I’ve ever
known. Strong, smart, stubborn…I love them both very much. I’d die for them,
and I’m pretty sure they’d do the same for me.”