Incineration (The Incubation Trilogy Book 2) (18 page)

Wrapping my arms around his head, I bury my face in his hair, inhaling the scent of slightly sweaty scalp and clean hair. It’s so perfect I have to blink back tears. “What happens now?” I whisper. “Can we . . . see each other? Is it safe?”

“I think so,” Saben answer, easing me off his lap and helping me up. “There’s nothing to say an up and coming IPF officer can’t spend time with a brilliant young scientist working for the MSFP.”

“If they ever find out who I really am . . .” I don’t want to put him at risk.

“That’s not going to happen. C’mon, I’ve got to get you home. I’m on duty at 0400—I’m going to be the walking dead today, and I’ve got a long trip ahead, transporting special prisoners to their incarceration facility. Not my favorite duty. I’ll be gone a couple of days.”

Feeling better than I have since I got to Atlanta, than I have since the day the IPF attacked the brothel, in fact, I walk back to the apartment with him. He kisses me at the door, but sends me upstairs alone. “I don’t trust myself to leave if I come up with you,” he admits. “I’ll be in touch when I get back.”

I bite my tongue to keep from telling him I wouldn’t want him to leave, squeeze his hand, and slip inside.

Chapter Twenty Two

Two months pass where I’m able to focus on my work during the day and spend time with Saben as his duties permit in the evening. We explore Atlanta, slipping into the area that used to be known as Underground Atlanta, strolling through the grounds of the old zoo (where the empty cages and evidence of Psyche use give me the creeps), walking along the riverbank, and generally acting like two people falling in love, not that either of us uses that word. He even takes me by his parents’ house one evening, and we stand across the street from it, watching through the windows, brightly lit but with shades pulled down, as silhouettes set the table and then sit down to a meal. He wants to introduce me to them, but I retain enough caution to demur, not wanting to risk my freedom or put them in danger.

When his duties take him out of town, I eat with Marizat, bubbly as ever, who keeps me entertained with her descriptions of life in the Ministry of Information where she has access to all sorts of information that doesn’t make it into Assembly broadcasts. One evening, she reels off a list of recent Defiance successes and reveals that the government is ramping up for some kind of offensive action. She has no details, though. I hope Wyck and Fiere and Alexander have survived the skirmishes; I know there’s no point in hoping they haven’t been involved in combat actions.

Another time, Marizat shares her speculations about who will be chosen as the next premier. She seems to think it will come down to either Minister Alden or Minister Fonner.

“He’s so tense these days,” she says of Fonner one night when we’re having dinner in my billet. I’ve actually learned to cook two or three simple dishes. “Everyone in the ministry hates having to brief him because he’s snapping everyone’s heads off. He’s been having a lot of secret meetings, too,” she added, playing with a lock of blond hair. “I had to wait almost two hours after my scheduled time to see him today. He was talking to Minister O’Connell the whole time and they both looked testy when they came out of his office.” She gives me a meaningful look with I fail to interpret.

“O’Connell’s the Minister of Defense,” she prompts.

“So?”

“So, it would be useful to have the IPF on your side if you were making a play for the premiership, right?”

“I suppose.” I pretend I’m uninterested, but the next day I leave an infrared mark on Premier Iceneder’s bronze foot again. I’ve been back to the statue four times since my meeting with the nondescript agent who worked for the MOT, but I’ve never seen him again. It’s a different contact who gives me the code phrase each time. I wouldn’t say I’ve grown comfortable being a Defiance spy, but I’m not as edgy as I was initially. Two days after meeting the contact, I come down with a slight fever but report to serve anyway. Keegan insists on having my blood drawn to ensure I don't have flu. It's a ridiculous precaution given that there have been only twelve flu cases reported in Atlanta this year, but I submit.

I’m lulled into a false sense of security by the sameness of my routine, until one morning in early November when I arrive at the lab. Keegan gives me a slit-eyed look when I come in, and says, “I need to talk to you, Ealy.”

The happiness drains out of me. I’m not late, my latest virus experiment is on track . . . what have I done wrong? I know by his tone that I’m in trouble somehow. “Of course.”

He stalks into his office. I follow, catching the sidelong, sympathetic look Torina throws me. The second I step over the threshold, he seals the door and activates the vapor function that opaques the polyglass walls of the square room. I can’t get out unless he unseals the door and no one looking in can see more than a suggestion of shadows and movement. I swallow hard, suddenly afraid. To disguise my fear, I glance around, noting the displays open above two computers, and focusing, as usual, on the long surface that takes up the left side of the office and holds a collection of virus models. My mind automatically catalogs them as always when I’m in here: influenza, Ebola, streptococcus, HIV, smallpox, several others. They’re modeled in colored polyglass, each eight or nine inches tall, and they’re beautiful as viruses are, some with precise segmentation, others with surface spikes, flagella, or neuraminidas.

Keegan elevates one of the displays to eye level and swivels it so I can see it. It shows a DNA fingerprint. It’s not labeled, but my feet start to tingle and go numb when Keegan asks, “Do you know what this is?”

“A DNA fingerprint,” I say, as coolly as possible.

He hacks a harsh laugh devoid of humor. “I should be more precise and say, do you know
who
this print belongs to?”

I stand mute, desperately trying to figure out where he’s going with this. I’m afraid to say anything for fear it will be the wrong thing.

“You.”

I’m about to ask where he got my DNA sample when I remember his insisting that my blood be drawn to test for flu. He’d said I looked feverish and wan and insisted. “You didn’t need to sequence the DNA to find out whether or not I had the flu,” I say, hoping he’ll put the slight tremble in my voice down to anger over his invasion of my privacy, rather than fear. “There are laws against unauthorized access to DNA records.” And I’d broken them myself looking at Wyck’s record. Oh, irony.

Keegan waves away the legalities with an impatient wrist snap. “The only laws that apply in my lab are the ones I sanction. What I want to know is, why are you in disguise?”

He knows who I am. The fear chunks into me like an axe and I stiffen. There’s no way out, nowhere to run. I have to brazen this out. “I’m not in disguise . . . what do you mean?”

Putting his forefinger on a column on the graph, he says, “Here. You’re genetically coded for blond hair and blue eyes, and yet here you stand, a green-eyed brunette. It piqued my interest, so I transcribed the exact colors and do you know what I got?” He enters a command and a holo-image materializes in front of us. It’s me with platinum hair and blue eyes, looking way too much like the real me, the Everly me, only with a rounder chin, plumper lips, and indefinably different ear shape.

“You know who I think this looks like?” he says in a voice like cold steel. “I think—”

“Fine, just say it,” I erupt. “I look a little bit like Jax. If you knew how sick I am of being compared to her, of never measuring up to her brilliance, well, you’d understand why I wanted to change up my look a bit when I came to Atlanta. She’s the reason I wanted to leave the Kube. Up until her trial, she was everyone’s—Dr. Ronan’s—idea of the perfect student-scientist, working twice as hard as anyone else, putting in more hours, making more worthwhile discoveries, earning all the awards and recognition. Well, it made me want to vomit.” I pitch my voice low in imitation of Dr. Ronan’s rumble. “‘Derrika, if you’d only put in a few more hours, you’d be making the same progress as Jax.’ ‘Be more precise with your notations, Derrika—you don’t see Jax making those kinds of errors.’” I make a spitting noise. “You can’t blame me for not wanting to look like her, too, when everyone was already comparing our test scores, our contributions in the lab, and our dedication to science.”

Keegan rears back slightly, brows arched. My diatribe has surprised him. I can’t feel my feet anymore and I try scrunching my toes under to revive them. If I have to make a run for it—

“I can see where that would be . . . irritating,” he says slowly. “So you changed your hair and eye color because you knew you bore some resemblance to Jax?”

I nod. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have spoken to you so sharply, but you can’t understand what it’s like to be constantly overshadowed by that butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth bitch.”

A grim smile stretches his mouth. “On the contrary, I know exactly what it’s like.” Cocking his head, he looks me up and down. “So, you must have been pleased when she ran away from the Kube?”

“Pleased? Try ecstatic,” I say. “The only thing that ever made me happier was seeing her convicted of murder. But then she escaped.” I shrug. “Typical. She’s always been given a pass.”

I hold my breath, hoping he buys it all. If not . . . I use my peripheral vision to try and spot something I can use as a weapon.

“I didn’t know you felt so strongly about her,” Keegan says.

His voice is back to normal and he’s sizing me up, looking at me like he’s discovered something about me he likes. I know what it is: he’s pleased that I apparently hate Everly Jax as much as he does. He thinks he’s found a like-minded ally.

I shrug. “It’s not something I’m proud of. Besides, there was nothing to gain by speaking against her. Dr. Ronan, the proctors—they didn’t want to know the truth. It just made people think I was jealous.”

He reaches out one long-fingered hand and loops a few strands of my hair over his palm. “I like your hair this color. It’s more . . . serious. Richer.”

Standing perfectly still, I try not to recoil as he releases the hair, letting it slide through his fingers. “Thank you,” I say stiffly. “If that’s all, Dr. Usher, I need to check on the status of the nymphs I transduced with the latest strain of carrier virus.”

“Of course.” A gentle
thwuck
tells me he has unsealed the door. “You’ll have an interim report by the end of the week?”

“Absolutely.” I’m gone on the word, slipping out before the door is fully open. Relief and adrenaline flooding my system, I hurry to the locust lab and let myself in, needing a moment to compose myself before facing Torina or anyone else. That was too close. I play the encounter in my mind. I am pretty sure I allayed Keegan’s doubts for the moment, at least partially, but I know my days here are numbered. He’s watching me. I am going to make a slip, say or do something that renews his suspicions. Then, I’ll be dead. I am utterly convinced of that. He’ll kill me himself, finish what he started thirteen years ago, and expect a hero’s accolades for ridding Amerada of the convicted murderer, Everly Jax.

Forcing myself to concentrate on the locusts, I note my observations. The early results are highly encouraging and I have to tell myself not to get excited.  Too many times, experiments fail to yield the expected results later in the trial and I’m determined not to get my hopes up too high. My interim report for Keegan will be cautious in tone. As usual, I become absorbed in my work and the next time I look up it's midway through the afternoon and I’m starving. I grab a quick bite and return to the lab, spending time on the computer to compare some of my data with Allaway in Australia.

Allaway shoots back a message with news of his team’s success at developing a recombinant DNA approach to eradicating the locusts, manipulating the DNA to make the modified male insect stronger (so they can outcompete) and female-specific dominant-lethal. The altered DNA expresses as an autoimmune response during ovipositor development, which only females undergo since the ovipositor is their egg-laying mechanism. I get the implications immediately. Any female born with the new genetic change will die. Males will not die, but will continue to mate. Thus, the males carrying the genetic change will search out non-modified females to mate with and half their offspring—all the females—will die. This continues until there are no more locusts because there are no females to have them. It’s genius.

Buzzing with excitement, I tell him about the viral vector I’ve been developing and suggest it would be perfect for delivering the recombinant DNA his team is working on. We would “infect” the locusts with the mutated DNA, just like people get infected with the flu or any other disease. Realizing it’s late and that Torina is about to depart, leaving me alone with Keegan whose office light is still on, I hurriedly make a few notes and head for the door. Keegan’s voice stops me as I pass his office.

“Ealy.”

I pause, take a deep breath, and return to his doorway, careful not to enter. He’s sitting behind his desk, head lowered slightly so he’s looking at me from under his reddish brows. He taps a stylus rhythmically on the desk surface.
Tick, tick, tick.
After a moment, he says, “I’ve had a communication from one of Minister Alden’s aides. The minister plans a trip to Atlanta Dome 2 tomorrow morning—something to do with a new strain of supposedly locust-proof lettuce they’ve developed—and she has invited you to accompany her.”

I can tell my being singled out has irritated him. Any ground I might have gained this morning by professing to hate Everly Jax has been lost by this invitation. Perhaps I can regain his favor by declining? “I don’t know if . . . my experiment is at a delicate stage—”

He shakes his head impatiently. “Invitations from the minister are command performances, Ealy. You’ve been honored—this lab has been honored—by her attention.”

“Then, of course I’ll go,” I say, shifting from foot to foot.

“Her vehicle will depart at zero-seven-hundred. Be here half an hour early. You don’t want to keep her waiting. Remember you’re representing me—the whole lab—during your interactions with the minister.”

“Certainly.”

His eyes slide over me in a considering way and I sense he’s going to invite me in for further conversation or maybe even to join him for dinner. I forestall it with a bright smile and, “I’d better get going then. I want to be in bed early so I’ll be alert and on time.”

His heavy jaw shifts to the side but then he gives a curt nod and returns his gaze to his reader.  I back away from the door and then turn, hurrying out of the lab, down the hall, and away from the MSFP building. For a fleeting moment, I think about what I’ll tell Halla about Keegan, before remembering that Halla and I, to all intents and purposes, don’t inhabit the same planet anymore. Strange, how the habit of years intrudes. I deliberately exclude Halla from my thoughts and think instead about Saben. I wish I could talk to him and tell him about the day’s developments, but he won’t be back from his mission until late tomorrow. The thought of Saben warms me and I hold the memory of our kisses close as I walk back to the apartment.