The Killing Jar (26 page)

TORONTO INSTITUTE OF PHARMACEUTICAL EVALUATION, TORONTO, NORTH AMERICA

AUGUST 22, 2232

The weight of the two bags and the constant, sharp pain on the left side of her head made her tired and irritated. The prospect of seeing a real, live bug in person gave her the motivation to keep going.

The pharmaceutical complex rose into the sky like the blade of a knife. The windows shimmered charcoal grey and cobalt where they reflected the early morning light. It was one of the tallest buildings in the city. Had it been less centralized, the top would have punctured the dome.

Mable walked until the blade was right above her. In its shadow, the air was cooler.

Inside, the pharmaceutical building was cold and sterile, as all Scholar labs were. A chill rolled up her arms. Too-bright lights shone from square panels on the ceiling. Stark white walls matched the tile floors without a speck of dirt or debris.

Mable hated places like this.

From the lobby, Mable could see the knife-shaped building was a hollow one. From the ground floor, she could look up and see a wrap-around balcony at each of the forty levels.

A Craftsman woman stood guard at a large desk that hid everything below the tops of her shoulders. “Please scan your hand below.”

On the screen, her handprint produced the message:
WELCOME TO TIPE, MS. CRISTOPHSEN
.
A moment later, it flashed to:
PLEASE PROCEED TO TIPE-314.

The woman ignored her as she walked to the elevator on the far side of the lobby.

“Third floor, take the right fork, then the third office on the right side. Dr. Divya Prataban.” She could hear Theo, though not through her ears. Somehow the cam had a more direct connection. From the holes it dug in her skin, Mable didn’t want to know how it worked. She adjusted her hair to fall over the device in case she should pass anyone in the corridor.

She followed Theo’s directions and tried to quiet the pain and apprehension. She needed to focus on the task at hand. From the equipment bag, she pulled the gas canister and let her finger hover over the blue button. She took a good breath and steeled her nerves.

Then she pushed into the office.

The Scholar woman sat at a small metal desk with rows of jars and vials occupying the left side. She had chocolate skin and jet black hair smoothed into a tight bun. Full, candy apple lips pressed together with concentration. Her eyes were on the data streaming across her holographic tablet display, something about anth toxicity levels.

She didn’t see Mable until she was only a few feet away.

“Good morning,” she said with a start. “You must be Ms. Cristophsen. I’m Dr. Prataban. Welcome to the Drug Design Unit.” Dr. Prataban held out her hand with a curt smile and Mable accepted.

“Thank you for having me, Dr. Prataban. I understand you have a big event tonight.” Mable batted her eyes and flashed a warm smile.

Dr. Prataban was disarmed instantly. “Yes, I will present my newest research to the Sector Leader, Dr. Braun, as well as the Dean of Toronto and several prestigious directors. With their approval, we’ll start development of our latest effort.” Her eyes flashed with excitement.

Mable saw how she would do it. “What is the focus of your research?”

“My department has spent the last four years designing a drug we call Anthezine. It has properties that result in the neutralization of anth in the nervous sys—”

And then it happened.

Dr. Prataban looked to her tablet to pull up something. It was a moment of distraction just long enough.

Mable held out the canister and ejected a cloud of blue gas, but the woman struck out at the last moment. Mable inhaled and tasted the sweetness of it, little more than an aftertaste. Dr. Prataban choked on the gas and collapsed against her cold metal desk. Not a full dose, but enough to do the trick.

She’d seen the vids so many times, Mable knew what to do. But doing it in person was a different event entirely. As if she watched from outside herself, she pulled the gloves from her bag and slipped them on. Then she unscrewed the jar of golden liquid and placed it beside the woman’s head. The smell burned her nostrils.

Last, the clamp. Mable paused before she forced open the woman’s mouth. Her genetically engineered features lay lifeless and ugly.

Mable’s eyes focused at the back of her throat, but there was nothing, at least nothing she could see. She fished a flashlight from the bag, no larger than her thumb.

Still the throat was empty.

“Theo, I don’t see it.”

Maybe it was another species. With rough and quick motions, Mable turned the woman’s head and shone the light into her right ear. Again, nothing. Then the left.

Nothing.

Lacking any shred of grace, Mable pried open the woman’s hazel eye. She was beyond relieved she had followed Arrenstein’s advice and put on the gloves. Searching around someone’s eye was a whole other level of revolting.

Mable used the clamp to pop the eye clear out of the socket. It hung across her cheek attached only by the optic nerve. There was no Gleam either. Balancing speed with care, she pushed the eye back into the orbit and moved on to the other.

By then, the Scholar started to come to. Her eyes flittered open and her chest heaved with irregular, desperate breaths.

Fuck.

Mable slammed her elbow into the woman’s temple. It would definitely leave a bruise, but it was better than blowing her cover on the first job.

The next generation of recon teams would watch this video as one of the ‘how not to do it’ examples, her sloppiness glorified for all time.

Satisfied the woman was out again, she popped out the second eye, and still, no bug.

There was only one place to look.

It took considerable effort to turn the Scholar woman enough to access the back of her neck. She had no idea how to tell if there was a bug, a Slight, hiding between the tissue layers.

“Theo, how do I tell if there’s a Slight?” She couldn’t remember. Her thoughts were scattered from the pain and the gas and the stress. Mable needed help.

But there was no answer.

When had he stopped responding? She couldn’t recall.

“Theo!” she yelled with as much volume as she dared.

Still silence.

Mable was no quitter, but there was nothing she could do. Short of cutting into the woman’s flesh in search of a bug that might not even be there, Mable was helpless.

A piercing whine filled the air, so loud and horrible Mable threw her gloved hands against her ears to soften the pain. Damn, it was awful. A screeching, disgusting noise like nothing she’d ever heard.

Mable collapsed. Her head was consumed with pain that spread like fire. She was only vaguely aware she’d knocked over the jar and spilled the pungent fluid across the tile. She kicked out her legs uselessly and kept her hands pinned to her ears. Blood ran between her fingers.

Then only the blackness.

NINTH STREET DINER, TORONTO, NORTH AMERICA

AUGUST 22, 2232

The second time Theo killed someone was undoubtedly worse than the first.

The first time had been an accident. No matter what anyone else thought or said to him for the rest of his life, he knew that other forces had been at work that day. There was nothing he could do to save the boy, nothing he could do to prevent that death.

But the second time was entirely his fault. He left Mable alone on a job, intending to let her fail spectacularly. He never imagined it would put her life at risk, but he should have. He knew what bugs were capable of. He’d seen the files.

An hour after they’d split in front of the café, Theo turned his comms back on. He planned to claim some sort of technical failure if it came down to it, but otherwise, he would let Mable take the fall. She wanted to be on her own anyway.

Instead, he got no answer.

The cam continued to live stream but all he saw were the same white walls of every Scholar facility. Could she really still be in there? Why hadn’t she extracted it yet? Why hadn’t she come back yet?

Theo knew then that something had gone terribly wrong. A knot formed in his gut.

He knew she had her tablet. He could track her position. It took a few minutes to navigate on his wristlet but he got it done. Theo punched the coordinates into his virtual map and was shocked to see Mable was nowhere near the pharma complex. She was two miles away at the Toronto Regional Hospital.

Hospital?

Theo figured that was a good sign, sort of. Dead people didn’t usually go to a hospital. But Scholars almost never went. There wasn’t a need. If a Scholar suffered an affliction worse than a minor injury, it indicated a fault in their genetic makeup. They were outcast to live as Untouchables, unable to contaminate the superior genes of the class.

He had never been in a hospital.

Theo knew there was no chance Mable had made it from the pharma complex to the hospital without being asked for ID. Would they find her alias or her real identity? Did they think she was Camille or did they know she was Mable?

This was far beyond Theo’s capabilities to do damage control.

There was just one person to comm.

And Theo really didn’t want to comm him. Not under these circumstances.

The longer Mable was in the hospital, the more likely they’d find out who she was, if they hadn’t already. So Theo connected the comm.

Nick’s face hovered in the space above the café table, projected from his wristlet.

“What the hell happened?” It was accusation. Nick must have known something was wrong even before Theo commed.

“I, I’m not sure. I lost comms—”

“Arrenstein is on his way. Keep your cover. Stay in the area. You can connect with Arrenstein and get a new transport badge to return to CPI.”

Theo hung his head. “Is she—”

“We don’t know how bad it is yet. You can get more information with Arrenstein. He should be there within the hour.”

Then Nick was gone.

Alone in a strange café in a strange city, Theo was left to wallow in the sting of guilt. To swim in the waves of it. He clasped his hands together, fidgeting his fingers and tapping his thumbs, but nothing could change the facts.

Theo was a terrible person who did terrible things.

He had wanted Mable to mess up, to get caught being cocky and difficult, but not like this. He didn’t want her to be hurt.

When he could suffer alone no more, Theo commed the only person who would understand.

Jane’s dark bangs and high cheekbones appeared above the table. “Hey, how’d it go?” Her smile faded when she saw his expression.

Theo only shook his head.

“You didn’t do it?” she asked.

“No, I did.”

“Then what’s wrong?”

“I think she’s hurt really bad.”

Jane erupted into a wide smile. “Then there’s no way they keep you with her. They’ll have to switch up the teams!”

Theo shook his head again. “I didn’t mean for her to get hurt. What if—” He couldn’t get the words out.

“I know it’s not what we planned, but at least it gets us together. That’s worth it, don’t you think?” Jane batted her lashes.

The answer was a complete, resounding no. Killing someone would never be worth it. Putting someone in danger would never be worth it.

What was he thinking?

“No, it’s not. I made a mistake.”

Her lip took on a considerable pout. “Theo? What are you saying?”

“I don’t want to be on your team. I don’t want to be with you. I don’t love you. You’re a bitch.” Theo thought Mable would be particularly proud of that last line, assuming she lived long enough to forgive him and let him tell the story.

Jane didn’t appear fazed in the slightest. In fact, she seemed more amused than anything. “Love? Really? I thought you were smarter than that. There’s no such thing. It’s proven and documented scientifically. Genetic history is the only real measure of compatibility.”

That was it. The snapping branch. The moment it all clicked.

He wasn’t about to explain it to Jane. She would never understand. She thought love was a mere superstition suffered by lower class people. A religion to blind them to the truth of their meaningless lives.

Theo knew, deep down in the core of his being, that love existed. Maybe not the perfect, genetically viable partnership Scholars envisioned, but it was real. He had seen it firsthand.

Nate loved Casey, wholly, completely, and without care of the consequences.

That was the life Theo wanted. And it was a life he would never have with Jane. It was a life he might never have at all, but it was worth giving up an empty life with anyone else just to have the chance.

“Goodbye, Jane.” Theo clicked off the comm without waiting for her response. Why hadn’t he seen it earlier? Jane was beautiful and intelligent and came from a prestigious family, but those things didn’t matter. He’d clung to his Scholar ideals, refused to let them die.

But only weeks ago, he’d run from them.

Theo wasn’t a Scholar. He wasn’t an Artisan or a Craftsman or anything else. Theo was merely himself, a recon handler with CPI. And he had just made a grave mistake. He could only hope this time, he could fix it.