[Incubation 01.0] Incubation Page 18

  “I can’t ask her to do that,” Kareen says. “She’s a child, untrained.”

  “I'm asking. She’s smart, resourceful and about your height,” he says in an uncompromising voice. “Your scarf can hide her hair. Saben will be with her. What do you say, Everly?”

  “Of course I’ll do it.” I have no idea what “it” is, but I want to get out of this house. Also, some part of me wants to please Alexander; I’m not sure why.

  “Good girl. Saben, as the mission commander, you work out the details. You know the parameters: identify and neutralize the traitor and convince the IPF that Kareen’s dead. Oh, and bring Everly back safely.” His gaze fixes on me. “You can’t tell Wyck or Halla. Operational details are on a need to know basis; frankly, I’d prefer not having to use you, but needs must. Understood?” His uncompromising tone hints at severe consequences.

  I nod.

  He sags against the couch, clearly exhausted. “Right. Get to it, then.”

  Kareen goes to Alexander as Saben leads me out of the room. “What’s wrong with him?” I ask.

  Saben answers in a low voice. “He was helping move disabled patients from a rehabilitation center when it was hit with a chemical weapon during the Between. He doesn’t know for sure what the agent was—a synthetic compound of some kind—but it’s been eating away at his organ tissue for years. If he’d gotten a full blast, his organs would have more or less disintegrated on the spot. He got just a whiff, but even that . . . The medicine he takes slows it, but he’s weakening.I think sheer stubbornness keeps him going.”

  It nauseates me to think that a chemist would turn his or her skills to such an evil end.

  Saben spends the rest of the afternoon outlining his plan and getting me outfitted. We stain my hands and face with a nut dye to approximate Kareen’s skin tone, and pull a close-fitting black cap over my hair, tucking the blond tresses up inside. It doesn’t work; my hair’s too thick. With an exclamation of impatience, I pull out my knife, bunch my hair in my fist, and begin to saw through it at jaw level.

  After an initial exclamation, Saben leaves and returns with scissors. He finishes the job of cutting off my hair, stroking his hand down it gently when he’s done. I’m amazed by how light my head feels, but I take care not to look in a mirror. The black cap fits fine now.

  We leave the house shortly after dark. I’m wearing two layers of clothes—so I’ll match Kareen’s plumpness—over what Saben assures me is a projectile-stopping IPF jumpsuit two sizes too big. “The only one we’ve managed to get,” he says, “so don’t lose it.”

  Yeah, right. Like anyone could lose a jumpsuit. It weighs more than a normal jumpsuit and the tight weave of the intelli-fabric is almost oily under my fingers. Kareen’s silk scarf conceals my face. I’m wearing a backpack that supposedly contains the clothes and necessities Kareen would be taking to start a new life wherever. My knife goes in a sheath strapped to my thigh. A bladder filled with three pints of Kareen’s blood, collected over several weeks, I’m told, is taped to my torso. If things go as planned, the blood’s DNA will tell the IPF they shot Kareen, and the quantity will tell them she’s dead, even though, hopefully, they won’t have a body. If they have a body, it’ll be mine, and that will screw everything up, as Saben keeps reminding me. Like I need reminding.

  Once in the tunnel, Saben slips a hood over my head. “Sorry.”

  “You trust me to be a decoy and risk my life for some woman I don’t know, but you don’t trust me to know where your headquarters is?” I’m miffed.

  “Sorry,” he says again, taking my hand and leading me to an ACV. We skim through the tunnels, banking several times and making a hard right once, and then I can feel that we’re in the open. When we’ve gone what feels like two or three miles, Saben stops and removes the hood. We’re outside Atlanta, although I can see lights glowing in the city, and the shape of a large dome lit up on the horizon. It makes me homesick. A breeze blows the scent of water from the Chattahoochee River.

  We’re early and Saben glides the ACV to a bluff so we can watch the bridge where the rendezvous is supposed to take place. The plan is for us to approach the old drawbridge and for Saben to give the code. If the response is correct, I’m to walk onto the bridge to meet the station master, like Kareen would have. He doesn’t know Kareen’s name or what she looks like, so I only have to look like her from a distance to fool any watchers. He’ll take me to the next station down the line and Saben will pick me up there, ready with a story for that station master. If this guy is the traitor, Saben expects the men hoping to reclaim Kareen to open fire on me. I’m to spill Kareen’s blood and take shelter in the bridge keeper’s hut until Saben comes. I suspect Saben has more in mind than he’s told me; still, I can count at least forty-two holes in his plan.

  “Why is Kareen so important?” I ask as we wait in the ACV parked behind a clump of dead bushes. “She looks like she’s past child-bearing—why is Bulrush helping her?”

  Saben’s profile is pale in the wash of moonlight. “She was one of Alexander’s med students, and a Bulrush founder. He had to leave the city, go underground, but she was well-placed to both feed us information about what the government knew about Bulrush, and help women and girls who needed relocation make contact with us. Her husband is a government minister. He began watching her, having her followed, and she suspects he intercepted one of our communications. It was only a matter of time before he had her arrested, or, more likely, had her tortured and killed once she gave up everything she knows about Bulrush. She had to leave her children behind.”

  I remember the photo I saw near her mattress. “How horrible.”

  “She’ll probably never see them again. He’ll tell them she deserted them and they’ll grow up despising her. She’s a strong, brave woman. She’s sure her husband won’t want many people to know he was married to a traitor, so only a few of his most trusted bodyguards are likely to be here tonight. She thinks two or three. That’s all there were last night, and I took one of them down. It’s only bad luck that Fiere got hit. They surprised us—that won’t happen again.”

  “IPF?”

  “No, private security.”

  It crosses my mind that maybe the traitor isn’t one of the station masters. Maybe it’s someone at headquarters. What if it’s Kareen herself?

  “It must be incredibly difficult, virtually impossible, for a mother to leave her children,” I say, trying to sound offhand.

  Saben slants a look at me. “It’s not Kareen. Alexander swears it’s not. I trust his judgment.”

  I see movement by the bridge and Saben raises night-vision binoculars. “I think that’s Federico,” he says. “You ready?”

  Butterflies swarm my stomach. I nod, unable to speak. He grips my hand tightly for a moment and then ignites the ACV. I surreptitiously scan Saben’s profile. Can I trust him? What if he’s the traitor? I’ve never understood why he—a geneborn—is with Bulrush. Not a good time to ask. We skim down the slope and approach the bridge. It’s pale stone, ghostly in the moonlight, with a graceful metal arch spanning its length. Pretty. I’m not in the mood to appreciate pretty, though, with every muscle tensed and my brain running over my instructions again and again. We walk onto the bridge. The surface is pot-holed asphalt at first, but changes to a metal grid as we reach the middle. A figure wrapped in a bulky coat steps out of the drawbridge operator’s hut as we near.

  Saben steps forward to meet him. I lag behind, keeping my head bowed. They exchange a few muttered words and I guess Federico got the code right because Saben motions me forward. “She’s all yours,” he says. “Keep her safe. This one’s special.”

  The man grunts a reply and starts off toward the far end of the bridge. He’s stockily built, and walks with a slight limp. With one last look at Saben, I hurry after him, playing my part. Every moment I expect to feel the thud of a particle beam on my back, tearing through my supposedly projectile-proof jumpsuit to shred my innards. I force myself to take long, slow breaths
. The farther we get, the more I relax. Maybe Federico is okay. We reach an ACV he’s got hidden behind the stone parapet. The passenger side is closest and he reaches for the door. As he does, the scarf slips, revealing a slice of my face.

  “Hey,” he says. “You’re not her.”

  He’s not supposed to know about Kareen. He grabs for me. Reacting on reflex alone, I pull my knife and, in one smooth movement, plunge it into his throat, just as he yells, “It’s not—”

  The blade chokes off the words. He makes a horrible gargling sound and claps both hands to his neck as I withdraw the knife. Blood leaks around his fingers. The coppery smell nauseates me, but I don’t have time for that. They’ve got to think Kareen’s dead. Under his starting eyes, I open the front of my jumpsuit and slit the bladder taped to my abdomen. Blood gushes out. Sickening. I breathe shallowly through my mouth. I’m surprised not to hear any voices, any blasts. Who was Federico calling to, if not Kareen’s husband’s bodyguards? Where is Saben? Federico sags against the ACV, croaking. I step away from him to spill the blood over a wider area as quickly as possible. As I do, there’s tremendous whumpf and the ACV explodes.

  The force knocks me flat. I lie winded for a moment, until the heat from the blaze forces me to crawl forward. Now I know why the bodyguards didn’t shoot; they were willing to sacrifice their mole to ensure Kareen’s death. I hear voices. They can’t find me. I drag myself a few more inches and then manage to push to my feet. The burning ACV lights up the night. I glance up and see a man sliding down a rope attached to the bridge’s superstructure. Ah, clever. Footsteps pound on the bridge. One or two men, like Saben guessed. They can’t find me. I’m too wobbly to run far. They’ll be on me in a moment. There’s only one option. I stagger to the river bank. The water flows quickly, dark, deep and dangerous.

  I’ll drown. I can’t. My throat closes up at the mere thought.

  A nearby rock explodes, hit by a beamer blast. The fragments pepper me.

  I have no choice. I can’t die here where they’d find my body. They’ve got to think Kareen is dead. Taking a deep breath, I throw myself into the river. It would be nice if I knew how to swim.

  Chapter Twenty

  The water closes over my head, chilly and dark. I can’t see anything. No gold eyes, no bubbles, no water-blurred face smiling down at me. I sink like a stone. The jumpsuit! Its weight is pulling me down. Holding my breath, I frantically rip my way out of the layers of clothes atop the jumpsuit and tug at the seal. It holds for a moment but then gives. I pull my arms out of it and push it down. It snags on my boots. I scuff them off, shuck the jumpsuit, and finally kick it away with one foot. It continues down. Saben will be pissed. Seeing dark spots, I kick for the surface.

  I can’t help myself, I stick my head out and gasp for air.

  “There she is,” a man’s voice says.

  Beamer blasts streak the dark and plough through the water near me. Sucking in the deepest breath I can manage, I duck underneath the surface. This time, I keep my eyes open, but it doesn’t help much. The water is murky with God knows what and I hope I’m not swallowing enough chemicals to make me glow. I become aware that the current is carrying me downstream, away from the bridge. At first I’m relieved, but then I realize it might sweep me so far that Saben can’t find me. The need for air drives me to the surface again. This time, I’m more in control and manage to expose only a sliver of my face as I gulp another breath. Then I’m down again. A minute later, I rise for more air. The bridge is barely in sight behind me. There’s no pursuit. Saben. He took them down.

  My fierce exultation in our success fades as I try to make my way to the bank. It seems impossibly far away, and my uncoordinated flailings and kickings aren’t moving me closer. I’m tiring quickly. The cold is sapping my energy. It’s getting harder and harder to work my way to the surface for air when the current sucks me down. Something knocks into me, spinning me 180-degrees, and I gasp. My first thought is alligator, but it’s a tree, roots and all. I grab onto a branch which breaks. I grab another and work my way along it to the trunk. Throwing one arm across it, I give thanks and rest for a moment. I’m losing feeling in my hands and feet.

  My toe scrapes the bottom. I’m still in the middle of the river, so this must be a sandbar. I don’t know how big it is, or how deep the water is. Hold onto the log or take my chances on the sandbar? The log is pulling me along . . . I only have seconds to decide. I let go. The log scrapes past me, keeping me off balance as I try to gain a foothold on the sandbar. I manage to steady myself in waist deep water. I’m jubilant for a moment, but then find myself taking a step backward. Another one. The current is pushing me. I can’t maintain my position. I should have stayed with the log.

  Fear washes over me. I don’t want to drown. Another step back. The water is past my waist now. I’m running out of sandbar.

  I hear something over the river’s gurgles. An ACV. It’s got to be Saben. I risk calling out. “Here! I’m here.”

  A dark shape detaches from the riverbank and angles toward me. The pilot doesn’t speak. I think I’ve made a horrible mistake and am about to let the river take me again, when an arm reaches down. “Grab on and I’ll drag you to the bank,” Saben says. Moonlight glints off his hair.

  I grab for his hand and his fingers lock around my wrist. In less than thirty seconds, he’s towed me to the shallows. He lets go of me to set the ACV down a safe distance away. Barely able to stand from exhaustion, I splash through the knee-deep water to the shore and collapse onto the muddy bank. I might be crying. Then Saben’s beside me, lifting me, wrapping me in a blanket.

  “Are you okay?” he asks over and over again.

  I don’t have the energy to answer, but force out one word. “Fine.” I didn’t drown.

  He chafes my bare hands and feet, working his way up my calves. Warmth returns to my extremities. I’m naked except for thin panties and camisole. I don’t care. A gentle hand pushes the sodden hair off my face and he wipes the mud off with a corner of the blanket.

  “We have to teach you to swim,” he says.

  That makes me choke on a laugh which warms me faster than the blanket. Saben helps me to sit up and holds a flask to my lips. “Drink.”

  I take an incautious swallow. The fiery fluid burns its way across my tongue and down my throat, pooling in my stomach and warming me from the inside out. Wexl. I smile fuzzily, understanding why Dr. Ronan likes it. “I didn’t drown.”

  “No, you didn’t drown. Were you expecting to?” There’s whimsy in his voice, but it breaks something free inside of me, or maybe the Wexl does, and I find myself telling him about Keegan, spilling the whole story. I wrap my arms under my thighs and stare at my feet so I don’t have to watch his face while I talk.

  “When I was little, four, I think, the government started an experimental program where they fosted out children from the Kubes—natural borns, of course—to specially approved families who were willing to take them. It’s because the Kubes were getting crowded and there weren’t enough geneborn babies to go around. I went to a family called Usher. They already had a geneborn son, Keegan”—I can’t say the name without shuddering—“but they desperately wanted a little girl. They got me for four months.”

  “What happened?” Saben’s voice is darker with no hint of humor now. He knows something went badly wrong.

  “The son—they wanted me to think of him as my brother—hated me. He was pathologically jealous, I think, looking back on it. He pinched me and hit me and pulled my hair whenever he could do it without getting caught. I was afraid of him.”

  “How old was he?”

  “Eleven. Seven years older than me.” My feet are long and pale, toes water-wrinkled, against the muddy bank. “His parents caught him slapping me once and punished him, and that made it worse. He tried to push me off a train platform, but a bystander caught me before I went over the edge. Keegan got away with it by saying he’d stumbled. Then, one day when his parents were at Assembly, he tried to
drown me. In the tub.” I cough, like I’m gagging up water, even though my throat is clear. Taking another swallow of Wexl, I continue. “His mother felt unwell and came home early and saved my life. I don’t remember that part clearly—just my chest aching for several days after they took me back to the Kube and my throat being sore. I think she did chest compressions to get me breathing again.”

  “He’s still in prison, I hope?” Saben’s voice is cold, but his arm is warm as he puts it over my shoulders and pulls me close.

  “They hushed it up. He was geneborn. I’ve been scared of water ever since. I could never make myself swim in the ocean, go deeper in than my knees, even though I wanted to.” I smile wryly and dig my big toe into the warm, oozy mud. “I should be over it by now, right?”

  “I think you’re very brave.”

  I’m embarrassed and speak quickly to cover it. “I grew up thinking that I’d done something wrong because the Ushers gave me back, that I wasn’t good enough to be part of a family. Then, for a while, I thought it didn’t work because they weren’t my biological family. No real brother would have done that. Then I figured out that Wyck’s dad, his biological father, beat him, and I didn’t know what to think.”

  “Your ideas about family got all mixed up. No wonder. You were only four.” He tugs on a hank of my short, wet hair. “That’s okay. You can be part of the Bulrush family now. You okay to start back?”

  I nod, preparing to stand, but Saben scoops me up and carries me to the ACV. The strength in his arms, the solidity of his chest, and his distinctive earthy scent make me feel strange. It’s the Wexl, I tell myself. I’m feeling rosy-warm all over. He slides me into the passenger compartment and I pull the blanket tighter around me. As he ignites the ACV and we rise, I ask, “The soldiers at the bridge?”

  “Dead. It’ll look like Kareen managed to shoot them before the ACV exploded, mortally injuring her. Investigators will see she almost bled out before falling into the river. No way she could have survived after that much blood loss. The scene will play out exactly the way we wanted it to. You did fantastic.”