Disruption (25 page)

He was so adamant and wanted so badly for it to be true, so I nodded and cast my eyes down as I replied, ‘We’ll see.’

He kissed me again, and despite all my defences he broke through and stole the last piece of my heart I was so desperately holding onto. Tears prickled as I wondered what would be left of us at the end. When inevitability had its way with me.

Then we broke into one of M-Corp’s most secure labs thanks to Travis’s codes, Gus’s tech and Quentin Mercer’s DNA.

W
e held our breath as we entered a decontamination chamber. The doors slid open and then closed behind us. We waited for sirens to blare, for pounding footsteps, the click of activated weapons. Fear baited me, but I held still and waited for the next set of doors to open, granting us entry to the core lab.

A couple of minutes later they did.

The lab was state of the art, and huge. Dominated by stainless steel, it was narrow but at least one hundred metres in length – easily the largest of any M-Corp lab I’d seen above or below ground. It was equipped with lifts that looked like they went both up and down, confirming that in this core section there was indeed another level below. That evidence alone was enough to ignite my hope that this was really it. Both our research from Garrett Mercer’s computer along with the intel from Travis told us that the negs would be below.

There was a glass wall on the far side of the lab. My body twitched; I wanted to get over there and see what it looked out over. But I had to be smart. Now more than ever. So, instead, I turned my back on the glass wall and made my way towards the large compilation of computer screens at the opposite end of the room.

I called Gus.

‘Hold on a sec,’ he answered.

I heard some rustling, a few choice swear words, then what sounded like a screeching sound.

‘Where are you?’ I asked.

‘Running this show from the road. You didn’t think I was going to hang around for juice and cake at the end, did you?’

I bit back a smile. ‘No, I suppose not. We’re in the lab.’

‘Holy shit, Mags.’ He let out a whistle. ‘I gotta admit, I wasn’t sure you’d make it.’

‘Didn’t think I had the guts?’ I quipped.

I heard a strangled kind of laugh over the tapping sound of him on his laptop. ‘Oh, I never doubted your guts. Hell, I even suspect you’ve got a pair down there.’

‘Charming.’

‘Just thought you might’ve changed your mind, you know. You can insert the zip drive.’

I plugged the zip into the back of the main computer and watched as a black screen flashed and then Gus went to work, drilling holes into the system to keep us hidden and find a way for me to access the prisons we believed Dad was in. ‘I don’t know why you thought I’d change my mind,’ I responded, even as my fist clenched.

‘I guess it was a pretty out-there idea – that
you’d
decide to have an actual life instead of a death wish. Should’ve known better. Nothing will stop you. Is lover boy still alive, at least?’

I glanced over at Quentin. He was pacing near the entryway, head down, as if petrified to come further into the lab. I wasn’t sure he could take much more. My next thought hit me hard.

‘I took his family from him, Gus,’ I whispered.

Gus sighed. ‘Was wondering when you’d let that one sink in.’

‘I took everything from him just to get back what was taken from me.’

‘He’s not the only one you did that to,’ Gus said quietly. After a moment and some more tapping, he added, ‘Look, Mags …’ He heaved another sigh. ‘I’m not going to lie to you, you rate high on the bitch scale. You’re mean, calculated, unforgiving – the list goes on, but under all of that … there’s a good person. You just need to …’ He groaned loudly. ‘Oh, screw it. I can’t do this. Go get yourself a pep talk later from someone who gives a damn. Get your head in the game, Mags. You’re underground, in one of the most dangerous and secret sites the world has ever known. You’ve been to hell and back, and dragged several of us along the fiery path with you to find your dad. Make it all worth something and save the wallowing for later.’ He hit a few more keys and I heard some plastic rustle while I remained speechless on the other end.

When he spoke next, it was over a mouthful. ‘You’re all clear, Mags. There should be a set of elevators you can access, but I don’t know what will be waiting for you below.’

Quentin was slowly making his way over towards the glass wall.

‘I see the elevators,’ I responded, still processing everything Gus had said, but knowing it was the truth.

‘Take them down and then – here, I’m sending the map back to your computer there … Whoa, okay, this place is bigger than I – Mags, this is …’ I heard him swallow.

The map popped up on the screen and my mouth went dry. ‘Oh.’

There was a beat, then, ‘Listen to me,’ Gus said in a voice I’d never heard before. ‘Listen to me, Mags. You need to get out of there. Now. This place is … it’s so much worse than we – Mags, we … we’re way out of our depth here. Turn around and run! Please!’

But I was already walking towards the glass where Quentin had stopped. His arms were wrapped around his body, his hands gripping his back tightly, as if holding himself together.

‘Maggie, damn it! Are you still there?’ Gus yelled.

I approached the glass, drawn by a force I was defenceless against. It was dark on the other side, but lit with intermittent floodlights. My gaze started at the bottom and then moved up, and beyond.

‘Oh my God,’ I said.

We’d always known about the communities. And about the rumours of a much larger community beneath the ground. But this … this was …

‘It’s the size of a small city,’ Quentin said beside me. ‘There could be a hundred thousand people living here. More.’

We watched as armed guards patrolled what appeared to be a combination of experimental zones, buildings and prisons. The area was massive and broken into grid-like sections. Some of the buildings looked like they belonged in urban settings, though they appeared deserted. To the right of the buildings was what looked like more laboratories and testing facilities; they were the size of football fields and made of dome-shaped glass. At roof height, long metal rods lined the ceilings, spaced like lanes in a swimming pool. Other zones looked more like barracks and, beyond that, row upon row of prisons. All with glass ceilings.

If the devil had a name, I was sure it was Garrett Mercer.

And this was where he lived.

I looked around the carved-out space, searching now at my eye level. Amid the dark black granite I spotted another glass wall adjacent. The lab we were in and whatever was behind that other glass wall overlooked a world where they played God.

‘Shit,’ I heard Gus mutter, reminding me I still had the phone against my ear.

‘What?’ I asked on autopilot.

‘Maggie, please get out of there!’ he pleaded.

Quentin seemed to rouse from his thoughts at that moment and turned to me. ‘Put him on speaker,’ he said.

I held Quentin’s eyes for a moment and knew he needed to understand, to know everything he could. I bit my lip, but nodded. ‘I’m putting you on speaker, Gus, and I’m not going anywhere.’ Not until I’d freed Dad from this hell. ‘So just tell me.’

He was rifling through pages and tapping on his keyboard. ‘Okay, okay. You know how we found those population documents on Garrett Mercer’s computer?’

‘Yes,’ I answered. I knew Gus had tried to follow the trail of information and had come up empty-handed.

‘It’s the reason they introduced the poverty tax,’ he mumbled.

‘Gus, what are you talking about?’ I snapped.

‘They’re selling a solution! They’re offering third-world countries a population control. Oh, it’s just so …’ He sounded sick. ‘For the right price, M-Corp can make a country stop breeding.’

The enormity of what he was suggesting was beyond comprehension.

Quentin paled. ‘How?’

‘Disruption,’ Gus said softly.

I shook my head. ‘But they … they can’t. Even if they had a disruption that could make an entire population test as negative, it wouldn’t stop them from naturally having relationships, especially when they aren’t truly negs.’ I glanced quickly at Quentin and then away. ‘Even if they think they’re negs, it doesn’t mean they are. Eventually they would realise.’

‘But that’s what I’m saying, Mags. They
are
really negative! M-Corp isn’t just disrupting the signal; they’re changing people’s pheromones so that they’re sending out a clear offensive signature. Their records show it has a ninety per cent success rate on those treated.’

‘They’re treating us like a virus,’ Quentin murmured.

My eyes found his. ‘Not a virus,’ I said, too many awful thoughts flooding my mind. ‘Like insects.’

He nodded, looking back out over the underground city. He gestured to the domed laboratories. ‘Those pipes are some sort of delivery system. If it were a time of war, they might be gas chambers, but they’re something else.’

I grabbed my side and bent a little, winded by my worst fears.

‘And it’s not just population control,’ Gus added. ‘From what I can see here, they have accounts with every major country’s defence departments, and even large corporations. They’re selling a highly sought-after service. Stripping people to nothing so all they are capable of is work. All the testing shows that once someone’s ambition for relationship and family is fully extinguished, they’re pliable in many other ways. Most of all, they have nothing to go back to, nothing to leave for, so they offer long term –’

‘Shh,’ I hissed, my ears catching a faint noise. Gus stopped mid-sentence.

Quentin stood, alert. He’d heard it too. We looked around, towards the elevator, then the entrance we’d come through. We heard another sound and realised it was the outer door. A red light flickered on above the decontamination room.

Someone was in there.

I grabbed Quentin’s arm and started pulling him towards the back of the long lab, putting as much distance between us and whoever was coming through that door as I could. I shoved him under a desk to the side of the main computers. After pulling the zip drive from the back of the mainframe, I joined him, ducking low and whispering to Gus to stay silent.

I didn’t realise how badly I was shaking until Quentin’s hands came over mine, his warmth settling me. It was amazing how calm he appeared. But then I realised it wasn’t so much a calmness as a resignation.

Did he think that city of negs below us was where he belonged? Where he would end up?

My eyebrows drew together. God, I wanted to tell him. I wanted to go back and change things. Everything.

We still had a few minutes until the decontamination cycle was completed.

‘You okay?’ Quentin whispered. ‘You’ve gone pale.’

My lips pressed together in a straight line as I made my choice. ‘You were right. This thing between us … It’s like nothing I’ve ever known and I’m so scared. But it was never fear that you were a neg, or weren’t enough – it was that I wasn’t.
I’m
not enough, Quin.
I’m
not kind, or thoughtful, or girly, or even all that caring.’ I glanced nervously at the decontamination chamber. I was almost out of time. ‘Most of all, I’m not honest. I made all these sacrifices, gave up everyone and everything to find Dad … Quin, I did something awful to you. I sacrificed you before I even knew you.’

His hand went to my face, cupping it gently, soothingly. ‘Maggie, whatever it is, I forgive you. Trust me when I say there is nothing in this world that could tear me away from you.’

I opened my mouth to say the words. Five little words.

You were never a neg.

But just as I did, the red light above the chamber turned green and we heard the door’s pressure valve release and slide open.

I squeezed Quentin’s hand. Reminding him to stay still and silent.

A single set of footsteps sounded on the marble floor. They reminded me of the clipped sound of Mr Polished Brogues in the parking garage. I concentrated on my breathing. I had the mute upgrade, so I wasn’t about to have a beep-off, but still … It was the principle.

We heard some papers being moved about and then the clinking of something like test tubes. I was too scared to look. So we remained hidden. Listening. With any luck, it was just someone who would leave again soon.

After a few more minutes, we heard the sound of a chair being rolled back and then a creaking sound as the person settled into it.

Then finally a voice. A man.

‘Please don’t hide all the way down the back with your friend. We don’t have much time before the others arrive.’

My M-Band started to vibrate. Before I could think about anything else, I stood, my legs shaking, tears already in my eyes.

He looked like a stranger, sitting in the black wingtip chair, white lab coat over what was a very nice steel-grey suit. Short salt-and-pepper hair. A rigidness to his posture and something missing from his eyes, something that made my blood run cold. But the thing that struck me more than anything else …

He had a nice tan.

‘Dad?’ I whispered.

But the lump in my throat had already answered one question loud and clear. I knew now I would never find the man I’d been searching for, the man I’d spent two years trying to save. Was this what they had done to him? Had they changed him so much? Was there any hope?

‘Dad? Oh my God,’ I said, my voice trembling and my hand going to my mouth.

But as he stared at me, it hit me, what was missing from his eyes … It was concern. And worse. It was love. For me.

I thought of how Sam and Mom felt towards Dad now, and suddenly I didn’t know if the man I’d been hunting for had ever truly existed. If he had, he could never look at his little girl with such disregard.

He continued to stare dispassionately, waiting for me to start putting the pieces together. Once I started, it wasn’t as far from my consciousness as I would’ve liked. I knew that he was smart, that he’d worked hard as a pesticide specialist on pheromone disruption techniques.

I knew that night at Mitchell’s Diner that he’d stumbled across the neg disruption.

I’d just never considered that he …

A hand wrapped gently around mine. I hadn’t even heard Quentin stand. But there he was, beside me, supporting me. He had to be working some of it out in his mind as well.

‘We’re leaving,’ Quentin stated, turning us towards the exit.

My father simply shook his head and raised his right hand steadily, giving us a clear view of his gun, which he pointed at me.

‘At a guess,’ he grinned cruelly at Quentin, ‘I’m willing to bet you’ll behave as long as I have this pointed at her.’ His smile widened, making my insides turn, and he glanced curiously at me. ‘
You
on the other hand …’ He shrugged. But I knew what he was saying. My father didn’t think I’d try to protect Quentin if he had the gun directed at him instead of me.