Kayla stood in the shower, letting the water drum down on her back. Outside, in the yard below the bathroom window, Jack was showing Allyson the swing-lo’s controls. In her mind, she kept going over the words of Mfumbe’s letter. It infuriated her to think that Global-1 was wreaking havoc with his emotions and his health with their filthy little nanobots. The miniature technology could do so much good. Leave it to Global-1 to harness its destructive power.

Turning, she positioned her body so that the warm spray could massage her shoulders. A shard of brilliant sunlight found its way past the shade and shower curtain to plant a square of yellow on the white tile wall. Water dripping from the shower gleamed with prismatic beauty in the square, capturing Kayla’s attention. It was so magical, each rivulet of water containing a rainbow. She stared at the dripping ribbon of color and let its hypnotic effect carry her off….

She sees herself standing on a high, twisted ladder mounted on the walled perimeter of a large rectangular rooftop. The person she sees is herself, only very different. Waist-length hair is hopelessly knotted, snarled as though it has never known the stroke of a brush. Some sort of shapeless smock flaps on a scrawny frame. She seems to scan the vivid blue sky with strangely bright eyes.

All the while, she whistles.

The heartbreakingly poignant whistled aria is rich with variety, melodic notes both high and low, some sharp and others sustained for a dramatic, impossible length. And as she whistles into the sky, the face of the whistler is suffused with an inner light emanating from some deep, boundless joy.

The sky darkens ominously as though clouds are amassing at an unnaturally swift pace. A wind begins to beat furiously on the whistling figure, and still she whistles ever louder, as if calling the darkening clouds to her.

Kayla’s eyes opened abruptly and she stumbled back against the tile wall. KM-6! Who else could it be? What Kass had told her was true — KM-6 really was alive!

 

“What could you see from the rooftop?” Jack pressed her later that afternoon when she told her friends about the vision.

Kayla wasn’t sure. She’d been watching KM-6.

“Think,” Allyson urged gently. “It might help us find KM-6.”

Kayla closed her eyes and concentrated, rebuilding the scene in her mind. “There were mountains,” she recalled. “In fact, the building was at the base of a mountain. In the distance, I could see … I think I could see Pasadena.”

“Okay, so it was close,” Allyson surmised. “Anything else?”

“Yes!” Kayla realized. “She was standing on a big metal ladder on the roof. It was huge. And twisted.”

“A double helix!” Jack shouted. “The form of DNA. Allyson, where is GlobalHelix located?”

“Everywhere! They have their psychiatric center in downtown Los Angeles, but their main research and corporate headquarters is right here in the San Gabriel Mountains. And they do have a giant metal double helix on the roof of their building. I know exactly where they’re located.”

“Could KM-6 be living right in the GlobalHelix building?” Kayla questioned incredulously. “Kass said she was hiding.”

“It’s a huge complex,” Allyson told her. “I took a tour of the whole facility with my genetics class in September. She could be right under their noses and they might never know it.”

“I guess we’re on our way to visit GlobalHelix,” Jack said.

 

The swing-lo was the most efficient way they could think of to get to the GlobalHelix facility. With it, they could shortcut the freeway and the winding, mountainous roads. Since it only held two comfortably, Allyson agreed to stay behind. She handed Jack and Kayla cell phones with clips on the back that they could attach to their clothing. “I’ll be here if you need anything,” she said. “If I call you, the phone will vibrate silently.”

The swing-lo caused a mild stir among people they passed on their way out of Pasadena. Jack kept it just above the ground so that only when someone glanced down did he or she realize it had no tires and wasn’t just some new, high-tech, alternate-fuel-burning vehicle.

The freeway was jammed with traffic, and Kayla suggested flying above it. “I don’t want to attract that kind of attention,” Jack argued. Instead, he buzzed around the sides of the cars or just below the freeway, managing to bypass hundreds of vehicles.

When they left the freeway, Kayla expected him to fly high and braced for the adventure. But he stayed low. He’s afraid to try it, she realized as they buzzed along country roads.

Before long, they could see the giant black double helix on top of the GlobalHelix building. It was exactly what she’d seen in her vision, assuring her that they’d come to the right place. When they arrived outside the eight-foot wall surrounding the sprawling facility, Jack’s face grew pale. “Here goes,” he said in a choked voice.

The swing-lo made a whirring noise as he flipped a switch that sent it straight to the top of the wall.

Kayla laughed with delight. “Final level,” she said as they hovered there. Tight-lipped with anxiety, Jack flew it over the wall and landed next to a building. Gleefully, she patted his back. “You did it!”

He nodded, breathing heavily as color returned to his face. “At least we know now she really can gain altitude, even though we didn’t go very high.” He turned to face her. “Did I ever tell you I’m terrified of heights?”

“Yes, you did,” she replied.

“Well, I just discovered that fact hasn’t changed.”

“Are you okay?”

He sat still for a moment, breathing deeply. “I thought I was going to be sick, but I’m okay.”

From behind the seats, they took the white lab coats Allyson had given them and put them on. Jack had gone online and hacked into their personnel files for a copy of the GlobalHelix ID badge, to which they’d added their own scanned-in photos. “If we hit an eye scan we’re toast, but this will get us in the door,” he said.

It took the two of them to lean the swing-lo up against the building and behind a bush. From there, they walked around front and in through the glass doors. They made no eye contact with the security guards at the long marble front desk but concentrated on appearing like they belonged there, walking purposefully toward the bank of elevators in the center of the sunny lobby.

Oustide the elevator, they scanned the list of floors and departments. Jack poked her and flared his fingers. Glancing up at the list she saw that the tenth floor, at the top of the building, was where they’d find the department of nanobiotechnology. When the crowded elevator arrived, she knew which button to press.

When they got there, they hurried down the quiet hall until Kayla suddenly stopped short, listening intently to a sound that had come into her head.

I can see you. You can see me if you keep coming closer. I’m waiting for you, sister.

“What’s wrong?” Jack asked.

“KM-6 just contacted me telepathically.”

“Are you sure it’s her?”

“No. But she called me sister. She says she can see me.”

“Contact her back,” he suggested.

Kayla closed her eyes, concentrating. Tell me how to find you. I am on the top floor. I just got off the elevator. Where are you?

“Any reception?” Jack inquired softly.

Kayla didn’t want to lose focus and held up her hand for him to wait.

A girlish giggle filled Kayla’s mind, followed by a whistled note. Turnthecornerturnthecornerturnthe corner. The telepathic words came in a nursery-rhyme singsong.

“She’s around the corner.” They hurried to the end of the long hall and skidded to a stop as they raced around the doorway to another long corridor.

It was empty. That’s what they thought at first, but then they spied a lone figure at the far end, mopping the floor.

Hurrying toward her at first, Kayla slowed as she got closer. The young woman didn’t stop mopping or seem to register their presence in any way. A mass of tangled brown hair was held back loosely with a rubber band. She wore an ill-fitting shift with a smock over it. She was skinny, almost painfully so. Kayla couldn’t help but think that she probably ate like a … bird.

This was KM-6, the clone she’d seen. There was no doubt. But she wasn’t what she’d expected.

I’m hiding. You can’t see me. It was a child’s voice that came into Kayla’s mind.

Don’t be scared. It’s me, your sister, Kayla spoke telepathically. Her message was received. KM-6 swung her head around to stare straight at Kayla with the wide-open black pupils of a dark-eyed bird.

 

“She’s got some form of autism,” Jack realized after repeated attempts to talk to KM-6 failed.

You don’t have to talk out loud. We talked mind to mind before. Let’s do it again, Kayla tried, contacting KM-6 once more.

KM-6 dropped the mop she’d been clinging to and turned her face to the wall, wrapping her hands over her head.

Kayla’s mind was immediately flooded not with words but with pictures. They came to her with rapid-fire, dizzying speed: A baby living in staff housing facilities, right here in the GlobalHelix complex. Nurses sneak in to feed her, care for her, a succession of different caretakers come and go. The cleaning staff adopts her, caring for her at night. As she grows, they make her a bed in a utility closet. She works with them. This is her home, the only one she’s ever known.

“Why would the nurses and cleaning staff do something like that?” Jack asked when Kayla told him what she’d seen.

“I can’t be sure, but I bet I know,” Kayla said. Along with the pictures, she’d received emotions from KM-6. She loved the nurses and cleaning staff. She was safe with them. It was the GlobalHelix scientists and doctors she feared. “It seems like she was born right here, maybe in a synthetic womb. She’s KM-6 which means she has the most avian DNA in her. They weren’t happy with the way she came out — and so they called her stillborn and planned to kill her.”

“And some nurses whisked her away, reported her dead, and the staff here secretly raised her,” Jack supplied.

A consenting hum in Kayla’s mind told her they had gotten it right.