Prototype (10 page)

F
rom an open doorway, the old man nods at a reporter, who must stand to the side of the camera filming his impromptu interview.
“I saw it happen, you see. She was on her way out to tend the garden, same as every day. I’m minding my business on my back porch, reading the
Times,
same as every day. One minute she’s humming and walking; next she’s standing there, still as stone. Then she just collapses. Thought she passed out, you see. I called out to her, of course. She didn’t answer, so I went to check, but she was dead, you see. Just like that. Dead.”

 • • • 

Leigh sets a bowl of yogurt on my breakfast tray, then retrieves her own and continues down the stainless row. “Latest out of BE is that we poisoned Ruby Godfrey,” she says over her shoulder, just loud enough for me to hear over the hum of conversation and scrape of silverware filling the dining hall. “One day I’m going to stop being surprised when they blame us.”

Poison. I cannot help but wonder if that part is true, and if not by us, then by whom? Charles?

I pick up a small bowl of granola. All down the row, person after person reaches under the buffet glass for one thing or another. The aromas of cooked meat and saccharine confections fill the air.

“Do you think she was really poisoned?” I ask, claiming a container of apple juice from amid a sea of beverages.

“No. It was probably the best they could come up with on short notice after the neighbor talked last night.” Her long ponytail swings forward as she lifts a plate stacked with pancakes and a side of syrup from the stainless warming table. “If it wasn’t poison, it would have been any number of things. Strangulation. Snapped neck. Lethal injection.”

And even if this liability had not been the first stage of Daxton’s plan, Declan would have made similar accusations. The only difference being he would have spun the lie in a fashion aimed at getting me back.

I slide my tray off the shelf. “Any word on what really happened?”

Leigh turns with me and we head toward a table where Foster and Miles sit with full plates. “No. Her body went straight to Dr. Travista, and no one’s said a word about it since. Nothing of any use, anyway.”

When we are settled beside the boys, Foster says, “Miles was just telling me about last night.”

My appetite disappears in a deep pit as I exchange a look with Miles. We made it through two of the four cells before calling it a night. Needless to say, I went to bed with my hopes freshly trodden. “I am beginning to think this is a huge waste of time.”

Miles shakes his head. “We have two more to look at, and if your parents don’t turn up there, there’s still plenty more to go through. No worries, Wade. If they’re there, I’ll find them.”

I have no doubt about that, but the question is, will he find them in time? Declan will never give up the search for them as long as I am still in hiding.

Leigh kicks me under the table and beams. “Now, slap a smile on. You haven’t had to get inside a single coffin yet.”

I roll my eyes but laugh.

Miles grins. “Exactly. We’ll head back over after breakfast. You only have me till noon, though.”

I am beginning to nod when the light
tap-tap-tap
of running feet heads right for me, followed by a soft
slap-slap-slap
on my leg. Startled, I find Adrienne in the aisle beside me.

She stomps a foot and lifts her arms. Gives me a high-pitched whine.

I blink. She wants me to pick her up?
Me?

Foster elbows me in the side. “Well, don’t leave the girl standin’ there, Wade. What’s wrong with you?”

I snap out of it and lift her into my lap. Her loose curls tickle my chin and she smells like sweet strawberries. She grips a slate-colored palm tablet in her tiny hand that she slaps screen down on the table as soon as she is settled.

Adrienne fists my spoon and dips into my yogurt. Everyone but me laughs, as I am too busy looking for Noah or Sonya. I cannot believe they would just let her wander off.

Foster points two tables down to the left. Noah nods once at me with a finger raised, then returns to an obviously heated discussion he is having with Sonya. Her back is to me, and she jabs a finger into the tabletop as if making a point. His cheeks are flushed, his lips set in a thin line.

Leigh glances over her shoulder and back. “Still at it, I see.”

I look at Foster, who shrugs and bites off the end of a piece of bacon. Adrienne reaches for the remains of the slice and he hands it over without question.

“What do you mean?” I ask Leigh. “Still at what?”

Adrienne bounces happily in my lap and swings her legs. The heels of her shoes hit my shins, and I have to readjust her position to save myself from the inevitable bruises.

Leigh smiles affectionately at Adrienne and says, “They had a pretty serious argument in the hospital wing last night. She isn’t happy about his opinion of you.”

“Which is?” Foster asks.

Leigh leans over her tray and lowers her voice. “The one where he believes 2.0 is his wife and Adrienne’s mother. Sonya is of the opinion that a clone does not an Emma make.”

I smooth Adrienne’s hair down, nonchalantly covering her ears to whisper, “Adrienne should not hear any of this.”

“Can’t be any worse than what she’d be hearing if she were at their table right now,” Miles points out.

Foster twists and leans an elbow on the table, giving his full attention to Adrienne. He pinches her round cheek and grins. “Have I told you about the bugs living in my head?”

“Oh, here we go,” Leigh says with an eye roll.

Foster looks at her with wide eyes and says, “I’m telling you, I can feel them itching around my brain.”

“You can’t feel nanites,” Miles says. “They’re microscopic.”

Leigh elbows him. “Shut up. None of this is appropriate conversation.” She reaches over and picks up the palm tablet Adrienne set on the table by my tray. “Whatcha got here, bugface? Can you say bug?”

Adrienne scrunches her face and says, “Bug,” though it sounds more like “Ug.”

Everyone laughs as Leigh flips the computer over. Leigh’s laugh comes to a halt, her smile frozen on her face. She shows Adrienne, and by extension me, the screen. On it, images slide by at a slow pace. Images of me.

The pictures fade in and out and pull at me with a steel grip. I cannot look away. There I am, lying in the greenest grass, laughing. Painting on the beach in Mexico. Talking to a group of men in military-issue black. More pictures flash by, all of them of me, none of them familiar.

Leigh points to the screen. “Who’s this, bug?”

Adrienne twists around and looks up at me with shining hazel eyes. With palm upright and fingers partially splayed, she taps her thumb to her chin.

The laughter dies at the table, and everyone watches me for my reaction.

“That’s right,” Leigh says, and slides the device back across the table. Her bright green eyes smile at me.

“What just happened?” I ask.

Foster lays a hand on my back. “She signed the word for ‘mother.’”

Tears build, closing off my throat and burning the backs of my eyes. Is this Noah’s doing? Is this part of the reason Sonya has become so angry?

Sonya’s voice startles me. “Come on, Adrienne. Time to go.”

Her tone is harsh, a juxtaposition to how beautiful she looks today. Her usual black curls have been straightened into soft waves that lie past her shoulders. While she wears only a simple pair of dark-green slacks and a pressed white button-down blouse, they accentuate curves I will never know without surgery.

Sonya’s reach is swift and targeted. I angle Adrienne away on instinct, fearing she will get hurt in the pass-off. She is too close to the table and could get caught between me and the lip. Sonya looks too upset to think that far ahead.

“Emma.” Sonya’s voice is firm, low. “Hand her over before—”

“You are causing a scene,” I whisper, glancing furtively around. Hungry attention zeroes in on us from every angle in the room. Noah seems unable to get by Major Reid, who has him stopped in the middle of the aisle.

“Then don’t fight me on this.”

Adrienne, unaware of the tension building in the mere seconds Sonya has been standing there, spoons another lump of yogurt, ignoring us.

I bend to whisper in her ear. “Can you sit in Foster’s lap for a second?”

Foster reaches for her without hesitation. “Come sit with Uncle Foster.” She lets him lift her up, and he settles her into his lap.

Standing, I tilt my head away from the table, and Sonya follows me, though she looks ready to explode.

I stop past the row of tables and out of earshot, sensitive to the fact that the entire room is not as loud as it was two minutes ago. “Maybe Adrienne should not be around while you and Noah are arguing. I can—”

A hard laugh shoots free of her chest. “You’re giving me parenting advice? That’s rich coming from the woman who deserted her family.” In my stunned silence, she closes in on me, arms folded. Her too-sweet vanilla scent tickles my nose. “I’m the one who picked up the pieces and held them together. I stayed up nights feeding her and caring for her when she was sick. I clothe her and bathe her. I plan and care about her future.
I
am, for all intents and purposes, her mother. So you don’t get to do this.”

Heat rushes up my neck to my face. This conversation has little to do with Adrienne and everything to do with manipulating my guilt. She wants to hurt me and knows exactly where to strike.

“And to be honest,” she adds with a hint of condescension, “your own rights are still up in the air as far as I’m concerned. You look like Emma, but until I have solid proof of this so-called
transference,
you’re just another body who, unfortunately, looks like someone we used to care about.”

The final blow holds the sting of a slap. I add two steps between us, blinking back the tears sneaking into my eyes. “That was unnecessarily cruel. Even for you.”

“Cruel is you showing up here and tantalizing Noah and Adrienne with a possible future, when you have every intention of leaving the second it’s all clear.”

“I would never— That is not—”

I stop scrambling for words when I realize the entire room has gone quiet. Everyone has stopped pretending to ignore us, and our private conversation just echoed throughout the hall’s acoustics.

“Oh no?” she continues, undaunted. “Isn’t that what you told me the day you showed up out of the blue?”

Noah appears and jerks Sonya around with a grip on her upper arm. His expression is set in hard lines. The amber in his eyes flares with simmering heat. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“Excuse me,” I say, and start for the table. I will not be a part of this argument any longer. Sonya’s arrows are dipped in acid and expertly aimed.

“Emma,” Noah says, and it is as if he literally has to tear his glare off Sonya to look at me. “Watch Adrienne for me. Sonya and I need to go have a talk.”

What he asks of me gives Sonya ammunition, but he offers me more time with Adrienne. I cannot pass this up. I meet Sonya’s heated gaze. She is wrong about me. I will not hurt my daughter. What I will do is tear down the world to stay with her.

“Take your time,” I say to Noah.

They pass me just as I retake my seat and resettle Adrienne in my lap. I hug her small frame to me and kiss the top of her strawberry-scented head. I move my yogurt closer. “Still hungry, sweet girl?”

Foster takes my quivering hand from the bench seat between us and squeezes. “About those nanites . . .”

L
eigh invites me for an afternoon run in the hub’s gym, and I do not decline. Running has been my therapy for so long, and after my argument with Sonya, I need to clear my head now more than ever.

What I really need is to forget about Noah for a while. I hate the way my thoughts keep returning to their argument over me, and the way it makes me feel.

I find black track shorts, a white fitted tank, and running shoes in “Emma’s” box. It feels odd wearing her things, but another part of me is strangely connected to these superficial bits of my past.

We step onto the empty blue-and-gray-striped track, which encircles a small arena where people train in some sort of martial art. The atmosphere is thick with the scent of sweat and rubber matting. A seven-foot glass partition separates us from the grunts, the curses, and the occasional laugh. Mirrors make up the outside wall, giving the impression of a much larger space than we are actually in.

Leigh spends the first three laps talking about the men and few women training: how long they have been with the resistance, who sleeps with whom . . . She does not say so outright, but it is clear she has few friends in the group. Being that I find Leigh a good person, I doubt this has anything to do with personality. She just simply does not let a lot of people in. I understand this, though. I trusted face value once, and that did not work out so well for me in the end.

Halfway through our fourth lap, I catch a glimpse of Foster strolling up to the group in the center arena. His new leg stands out among the other flesh-covered limbs around him.

I slow to a stop and draw a deep breath into my burning lungs. I approach the glass, watching Foster settle into a sparring match with the current instructor. He is very good.

Leigh leans a shoulder against the partition glass and wipes her upper lip with the back of her hand. Sweat glistens on her exposed shoulders and heaving chest. Those green eyes scan me root to tip as her hand comes to rest on a jaunty hip. “So what’s going on with you? You’ve barely grunted two words since we got here. Still bent up over what happened at breakfast?”

I am, but Sonya and her accusations are not the only things on my mind. The sparring match in progress across the room blurs as the last few hours play back in my mind. How the GI room was full of jokes and heart-pounding anxiety but ended in silence and blinked-back tears.

“Miles did not find my parents in the other two cells.”

She lays a hand on my back. “Oh, I’m sorry. But hey, it’s not over, right? Lots of places to look.”

I nod but cannot loosen the hopeless feeling entwined around me, heart and soul. “I am beginning to wonder if I should keep trying. Noah is right; my parents can take care of themselves if Declan finds them. They do not need me for protection.”

“But that’s only one reason you’re looking for them,” she says sagely.

Closing my eyes, I nod. It is only that I am loath to admit, even to myself, that I am wasting my time.

I back away from the glass. “If I find my parents and they discover what I am . . .”

“What you are? You mean human? Don’t let the things Sonya said earlier—”

“Sonya has nothing to do with this.”

“—get to you. She’s just pissed about this thing between you and Tucker. I can’t blame her, but she had to know this would happen.”

Of course she would bring up Noah when I am currently working hard to forget he exists. “Nothing is happening.”

She laughs and pushes off the glass. “Whatever you say.”

I do not want to argue, so I step back onto the track and put one foot in front of the other, moving into an easy jog. The soft tap of each step has lost its calming effect.

Leigh appears beside me, arms pumping and ponytail swinging. “I hope you don’t think I’m prying—”

I bite back a groan. “If this is about Noah—”

“Uh, no. I can take a hint. Subject dropped.” When I do not respond, she continues. “With my room being across the hall, and the fact that I’m an insomniac on a good day . . .” She trails off, seemingly unsure if she should continue.

I glance over to find her focused on the track ahead of us, her lips pursed in a thin line. “Where are you going with this?”

“You’ve been having nightmares.”

My toe catches the rubber and I stumble to a stop. This is the last subject I expected her to broach.

Leigh slows and backtracks. She takes a couple of labored breaths and swallows hard. “It’s nothing to be ashamed about,” she says, and takes another wincing breath, pulling her hands up to her hips. “If any girl comes out of a WTC free of nightmares, she’d have to be soulless. I guess what I’m getting at is that if you need to talk, my door is open.”

She has somehow managed to introduce two topics so uncomfortable I would rather turn myself over to Declan than discuss them. Correcting her on the true nature of my nightmares will only lead to questions I do not want to answer, so I say, “I will be okay, but thank you.”

She wipes sweat from her upper lip and stares past me, seemingly a million miles away. She continues as if I had not said a word. “I guess you could go to the doc for all the recommended medications. All the best from the west, their quick mental-instability fix. Except the past is still there no matter how regulated the happy thoughts become. She doesn’t get that.”

Now I am lost. “She who?”

“Sonya.”

And we are back to the other name I hoped to avoid, but my curiosity has been piqued, so I do not mind as much. “Why would Sonya not understand?”

“Because she was born and raised free. She’s only here because the resistance needed doctors, and word is she stayed to be near Tucker. They joined the same year.”

Her gaze travels to the center of the room and, more specifically, to Foster. He pays us no attention while trying to wrangle a wooden gun free from his opponent.

Leigh returns to our conversation, tightening her ponytail. “I’m not saying she doesn’t know what she’s doing. She’s a great doctor. Just wish she understood she can’t fix everyone and everything with a drug or procedure.”

“From what I have seen, it is all about the science with doctors. Dr. Travista tried to cure his girlfriend of infertility and she ended up brain-dead.” Like Emma.

Leigh huffs out an angry breath and glares toward the ceiling. “What is it with men thinking infertility is a problem? Why can’t they just accept us the way we are? I mean, look at Sonya. All she can think about are the clones, and finding a way to cure herself. God help anyone who stands in her way.”

“Sonya cannot have children?” I ask.

She shakes her head. Thanks to her small tirade, I now have answers to questions I did not realize I had. So many things make sense now. Not only am I the woman who can potentially take Sonya’s family, but I represent a cure to her infertility.

Leigh looks into—past, really—the room again, and I suddenly see her in a whole new light. Her anger has nothing to do with Sonya, or doctors, or even men in general.

“You cannot have children either?” I guess.

She glances at me and away. “No, and I’m glad you brought it up.” She shifts her weight. “I’ve been wanting to ask—”

The door to the hall slides opens and Major Reid steps through. He looks around until his gaze lands on me. “Burke. With me.”

He has the worst timing; not to mention the use of Declan’s name grates on my patience more and more with every use. He turns his back and disappears as if I will obediently follow behind.

I fold my arms and wait for him to reappear. Beside me, Leigh bites back a smile, mirroring my stance. I lean close and whisper, “What do you think this is about?”

“No idea.”

When he finally reenters the space a moment later, he looks thoroughly perturbed. “Mrs. Burke. I need you to—”

“I heard you.”

He swings an arm at the exit in a wide, sweeping arc. “Then let’s go.”

“First, you will have to give me a clue as to where you are taking me. Second, a ‘please’ would go a long way.” I would add the request to discontinue the use of that name, but he is incorrigible.

Reid glances between me and Leigh. His cheeks turn a light shade of pink, which I gather is from anger rather from embarrassment. “Lieutenant Colonel Tucker would like to see you in his office.
Please,
” he finishes with a forced smile and gritted teeth.

My heart
thunk
s triple-time against my sternum. I do not want to see Noah. Not after what happened this morning. He will want to talk about Sonya. He may even apologize for her, which is not his place; nor will it erase the words she spoke.

Leigh tilts her head toward Reid. “You should go see what Tucker needs.”

“I guess so. See you later.”

I follow Reid out. He walks ahead, slapping the shoulders of and slinging funny remarks at the men we pass without sparing so much as a glance in my direction. At the end of our second hallway, I start to turn right, but he takes the left. Opposite the direction of Noah’s office. Where is he really taking me, and why lie about it?

I hang back and ask, “Where are we going?”

Major Reid halts and lets his head fall back. After a sigh, he swivels around. “I already told you.”

“You said we were going to Noah’s office.”

He points straight up. “Upstairs. In Tucker Securities.”

This gives me a jolt of surprise. “We are below Tucker Securities? In Richmond?”

“Last I checked, you didn’t need to know all the answers.” He starts back down the hallway. “Let’s go.”

Reid leads me to the command center, and for once, nobody stops what they are doing to take notice of me. They continue to chat and laugh. Two men sitting in different stations toss an oblong brown ball back and forth. The wall monitors flash with different video streams.

Reid stops at a set of shiny copper doors that part in the center. He presses a round button that lights up on contact, then folds his hands in front of him. He stares at the doors, tapping two fingers against his arms as if to some unheard beat. Finally, the doors part to reveal a box with a bright white light inside.

Oh no. I have heard of these. “An elevator? Why not just teleport in?”

He steps inside. “No one teleports directly into the building from here. At least twenty-five percent of our people go in to work every day. That many men, that many hidden port signatures . . . Sort of gives up the fact that we’re hiding something.” He focuses on the wall to his right. “On or off, Mrs. Burke?”

I step aboard and try not to think about how the floor creaks. About the fact that my life hangs in the balance. Literally held by cables connected to this ancient piece of technology. “Is this thing safe?”

He laughs in a way that says my question is the most ridiculous thing he has ever heard, and punches a series of numbers on a keypad. He never answers me, but I do not care. I am too busy memorizing his eight-digit security code.

We arrive at our destination seconds later and he allows me to step out first. Dark tan Berber carpet leads under a solid glass wall into a spacious office surrounded by windows. The furniture—desk, chairs, and tables—is either cherrywood or covered in dark leather upholstery. The little bit of wall space is off-white.

Reid and I stand to the far left side of the office watching as a clean-shaven Noah stands behind his desk, buttoning his suit jacket—a grayish-blue pinstripe. The jacket forms around his tight frame with each button, causing warmth to swirl in my belly.

I immediately glance away, forcing my lungs to draw breath. I cannot keep doing this to myself. Will I ever be able to look at him without reacting this way? Do I want to? I am beginning to think some twisted part of me enjoys the torment of wanting a man I cannot have.

I return my attention to Noah, who watches the door leading out of his office expectantly. “Can he see us?”

“The glass is one-way and soundproof,” Reid says. “No one will know we’re here.”

This is good to know, because had Noah’s visitor seen me, my entire world would have turned upside down.

Declan enters the office and strolls across the space to meet Noah’s waiting handshake, his gorgeous smile brightening the room.