Synthetic: Dark Beginning (21 page)

“What do we have here?” Vaughn held the key up to the torch; the metal was scuffed from a hundred years of getting shoved in and out of pockets.

“Looks like it goes to an ancient jalopy,” said Gus.

“Out of all the keys on this board, this is the only one I’m going to take,” said Vaughn.

Ivan moaned and dropped his face into his hands.
“
Please, god, no!
This isn't happening.”

“What does it go to?” asked Gus, aware from Ivan’s agony that Vaughn had plucked up the holy grail.

“Tell Gus what this goes to,” said Vaughn, shaking the key enticingly. Ivan launched himself into the air to grab it, but Vaughn held it up higher so his hands grasped empty air.

Ivan’s voice shook with grief. “Not my bird, Vaughn. Anything but that. Please.”

Vaughn slipped the key into his coat pocket and patted it through the fabric. “Ivan, your car will be perfect for my next driving lesson.”

Chapter 24

There wasn’t a corner of the fridge that Kora hadn’t searched. She looked through shelves of moldy, shriveled organs that Ruby had saved since her days playing god, and even stirred through a putrid soup where Kora spotted a finger and a nose floating near the foamy top.

“Ishmael, I could have sworn I put the jar with Vaughn’s stomach on that clear shelf right inside the door. Have you seen it?”

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye and turned a suspicious shade of blue.  Ishmael was a terrible liar. He only changed color when he was guilty.

“I’m serious. I know Gus hasn’t touched it. Did you move it somewhere?”

Kora gazed around the lab, trying to guess where he might have hidden it. Ishmael turned to watch her and finally squiggled over to the sink and crooked the tip of his arm at the drain.

She stormed toward him. “You didn’t!”

Ishmael folded four of his arms and nodded his tall head.

“You’ve never thrown anything away your entire life, and now you pick the most important thing in the whole damn lab?” Ishmael zipped into his metal shell before Kora could reach him. “Come back out here! You're getting too fond of that thing.” She pounded on the metal plates but he started up the shower to drown her out.  

Then she heard heavy breathing behind her. Caleb hovered in the doorway, barefoot and dressed in pajamas.

“Not now, Caleb.” The giant tipped his head to the side and frowned. “Why don’t you go back up to your room,” she signed furiously, hoping that might scare him off like the last time, but he stood like a great heap of earth, staring at her hands. “I need to work. Go away.” Kora bent over the sink and bit her nail as she stared at the wide, empty drain. She considered taking the pipe apart. Maybe the stomach was just sitting in the elbow and she could pull it out and clean it off. Ruby would never know that her stomach had once wallowed in slime and coffee grounds.  The idea brought a smile to her worried face.

“MUUUD.” The voice made the blood in Kora’s veins freeze. She slowly turned to see Caleb reaching out to her with the desperation of a drowning man, his mouth still open as if the word continued to vibrate his tongue.

“Why are you saying that name?”

He signed with unusual quickness, his clumsy hands forming a series of letters before his arms floated out to the sides like a bird.

“Mud saw, so I can be free?” Kora held perfectly still, afraid of making any sudden movements in case she snapped him out of his lucid bubble. “Free of what?”

The mist drifted back over Caleb’s eyes until he stared at her with the usual blank expression. She waved her hands before his face and continued to sign her question over and over, but all she got out of him was a big, dumb smile.

“You must be the woman I’m looking for,” said an unfamiliar voice.

Kora jumped.  An old man was leaning against the door. He was worn down to a bundle of tendons, as if something had eaten his flesh to the bone. “How did you get in?” she asked.

“Through the front door.” The man’s voice was dry but surprisingly strong. “I followed that beast down here from the living room. I’m so thirsty. Can I have some water?”

Kora filled a glass at the sink, careful not to let any of the liquid pour down the drain in case it moved Vaughn’s stomach farther down the pipe.

Caleb clomped behind her as she guided the man over to the couch and dropped him onto the cushions. He gulped down the water, breathing heavily when he was done. “I wasn’t expecting you to be so young. I thought a woman who brings monsters into the world would look as old and ugly as Ruby.” He leaned forward and the corners of his mouth drew down like a taught bow as he gazed into her eyes. “But you’re not young at all, are you?”

Kora didn't answer.  She felt as if this strange man could see right through her.

“I was once a man of God,” he continued, “raising my voice to warn everyone about the dangers of Mirafield.” He reached up to cradle Kora’s face. “And here, in my hands, is the keystone of that unholy place.  Crush you, and the whole empire will crumble.” 

He slipped his hands around Kora's neck and squeezed.  She tried with all of her strength to push him off.  She'd easily tossed Vaughn thirty feet, but was completely helpless against this withered, dying old man. 
Randall had me chipped
, she thought as her vision dimmed.

Then out of nowhere, Caleb’s fist came down on the old man’s head and drove his spine through his decrepit flesh like a nail through rotten wood. Kora climbed to her feet and rubbed her neck as she stared at the smashed body sprawled on the floor before the couch.

“What happened? Why did he do that?”

Caleb drew back his lips to reveal yellow teeth in black gums. He kicked the man’s crumpled body and it flew across the floor in an explosion of blood and gore. He pointed to himself, raised his arms and crossed his fists before his face like the statue of a pharaoh.

“No Caleb.” Kora backed away. “I’m grateful to you for saving my life, but I can take care of myself.”

A rumbling growl boiled up his throat. He repeated the same signs over and over as he stomped toward Kora like an enraged bull. She fled through the tunnel leading to Ruby’s office and pounded against the panels in a desperate attempt to find the door to the secret passage, but nothing opened. Caleb caught her around the waist and pressed her against the wall with his massive bulk. She screamed and he covered her face with a hand to quiet her. Panic burned through Kora and before she could think, she struck out and hit Caleb in the chest as hard as she could.  Caleb flew down the tunnel like a cannonball until she heard a loud bang like a clap of thunder.

She opened her eyes to see Ivan and Vaughn standing in the hall before her, while Gus hung halfway through the open panel door. They rushed past her into the lab where Caleb lay moaning on the floor. He’d slammed into the wall with such force, that a crack had spread to the ceiling and loosened a pane of glass that fell and exploded in all directions.

Ivan cradled Caleb’s head on his lap. Blood ran down his face and Kora tore through a cupboard until she found her first aid kit.  She squatted down beside Caleb, but Ivan swatted her away.
“How dare you touch him. Gus, get her out of here!”

Gus took Kora by the arm and pulled her away, his normally humorous face tight with anger. “What’s going on? Is that another body over there?” He dragged her over to the corpse of the old man who lay curled up in a pool of smeared blood, his spinal cord protruding through the muscles in his neck. “That looks like Max, though he’s hardly recognizable.”

“I can explain,” said Kora. “That man came in here and attacked me, and Caleb killed him.”

“And as a sign of your thanks, you decided to hurl Caleb into the wall?”

“Caleb went crazy after he killed Max.”

“So they both attacked you? Then how come you’re the only one here without a scratch?”

Kora pawed at her neck.  “Isn't it red and bruised where he strangled me?”

Gus scowled at her neck.  “No.  It looks fine.”

“Dammit!” she mumbled, “I've already healed.”  Kora glanced at Vaughn who was helping Ivan haul Caleb up off the floor. The giant weaved, blood gushing from his mouth as he stumbled on unsteady feet.

“I can help him. I’m an excellent doctor. You know that, Gus.”

“Ivan doesn’t want you near Caleb right now and I can’t say I blame him.”

“She’s a murderer,” screeched Ivan from the doorway as Vaughn led Caleb down the hall. “I want her out of the house, now!”

When they were gone, Gus turned back to Kora. “Start from the beginning.”

Kora rubbed her face and tried to arrange her words in her head. “Something came over Caleb. He said the name Mud aloud and I thought I could get him to say more, but his mind just seemed to snap closed as soon as I asked him questions.”

Gus’s eyebrows shot up. “He spoke?”

“And signed that Mud wanted me to be free. If I’d had more time, I might have gotten more out of him but then the old man collapsed in the doorway.”

“You and Caleb sign to each other? You never mentioned that before.”

Kora wished she'd been more open with Gus when she had the chance. “It's hard to explain. I didn't think you'd believe me.”

Gus paced the floor in front of her. “I don’t know what to believe, Kora,” he said.  “I saw with my own eyes how you blasted Caleb down the hall into the lab. Just look at that crack.” He hobbled over to point at the fissure that appeared to be spreading through the wall.

“I’m as shocked as you,” said Kora.  “I didn't know I was capable of such things, though I did do something similar to Vaughn when we first met.”

“What?” Gus stopped pacing and stared at her.

She needed to keep her mouth shut.  Every sentence was making things worse.  “I haven’t been hiding anything—I swear.”

“I think you’ve been hiding everything. You were right. You’re not what we thought you were. I should have believed you when you said that.”

“I didn’t mean that I was dangerous or anything. I meant that I was…”

Gus waited. “What? What the hell are you, Kora? Tell me. I’m listening.”

“I don't know.  That's the honest truth, Gus.  I came here to find out and now I'm just more confused than ever.”

“Well, so am I.”  Gus closed his eyes and tipped his head back. “Look, I’m tired as hell but I should go up and see how Caleb’s doing. There might be something I can do to help.”

“Please ask Ivan—”

“This is a time for family. You should go back to Mirafield where you belong.”

“Family…yes of course.” Kora’s cheeks stung as if Gus had just slapped her in the face.

He fished around in his pocket and pulled out a set of keys. “We didn’t find the catacomb, but we found where Ivan hides all the car keys. Here’s the one to Ruby’s Rolls.” He tossed it and she caught it in midair.

“But I don’t know how to drive,” she said.

The hint of a smile crept onto Gus’s face. “It pretty much drives itself.”

Kora smiled back.  She would miss him. “Thanks for everything you’ve done, Gus. You’ve been a good friend.”

He nodded before disappearing into the hall. Kora heard the quick pop of the secret panel and then silence. She looked down at the key in her hand.  She couldn't go back to Mirafield now.  Not with what she knew.  Alex would have a party if she found out Kora was synthetic.  Probably get Randall to beat the hell out of her.  Kora shuddered at the thought.

“Having a rough evening, my dear?” Ruby drifted into the lab from the direction of her office holding a large goblet. “I thought I heard an earthquake a few minutes ago, but the epicenter seemed to be somewhere down here.”

Kora wondered if everyone within a mile radius was on their way to the lab tonight to destroy her. “You should know better than to get drunk the day before an operation,” she said, making no effort to sound welcoming.

“Won’t hurt anything.” Ruby took a large swig from her cup. “It helps shrink the brain tissue so there’s less swelling.”

“Go back to your room and sleep.”

“How can I rest when it sounds like a boulder slammed through my basement?” Ruby spun around until she spotted the crack in the wall left by Caleb’s head. “So there was a boulder.”

Kora wasn’t sure what to say so she kept quiet. The last person she wanted to explain anything to was Ruby. Luckily, Ruby seemed to have other things on her mind.

“I wanted to ask you,” Ruby staggered forward until she was standing directly before Kora, “will I know myself when I wake up after the operation? Will my memory be damaged like yours was?”

“I’ve never performed the operation before, remember? If I do it, you probably won’t wake up at all.”

“Of course you’ve done it before. I think you finally know that, don't you?” Ruby took another drink and wiped her lipstick-smeared mouth.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Yes you do.” Ruby’s face twisted into a grimace. “You saw your little old self when you visited my storeroom today, didn’t you?”

It unnerved Kora that Ruby knew about this trip; she’d forgotten that everything in the house was bugged except her lab. “Gus said that you made models of all your mutants before you created them.”

“All my favorites. And you, my dear, were Caleb’s blushing bride. Unfortunately, none of the arachnids or cephalopods worked out. It would have been fabulous to have that giant spider roaming the castle. But what did you think of yourself?”

Kora shrugged. “Not much.”

“Since you don’t seem to remember, sweet daughter, I’ll fill in your memory. You were ghastly. After you finished Vaughn, I convinced you that the poor boy would die of fright the moment he awoke and saw your face, so you agreed to hand him over to me. You didn’t have long to live anyway. Like all the others, you were dying in the most hideous way imaginable.  You left a trail of slime everywhere you went like a big slug.”

“All thanks to sloppy science in that movie set lab of yours.”

Ruby snorted before descending into a coughing fit. She took a drink from her goblet that cleared her throat. “Mirafield let you build a new body. It was supposed to resemble your old one but, as usual, they didn’t follow my orders.” She looked Kora up and down with a sneer. “But what a waste. You could have made something like that Alex, but instead you turned yourself into this mediocre thing. And because you no longer stink of carrion and vaguely resemble a human, you think Vaughn will fall for you?”