Family Confrontation
look at him, but her half-brother was already walking away from their group, calmly joining the agents next to Agent Smyte. Kale turned around and glared back at her, his hazel eyes suddenly cold.
“Kale, what is he talking about?” Jean asked, but he didn’t reply. Dr. Gravin scuttled into position next to him. “Kale, please, tell me!” She hadn’t minded his characteristic silence before, but now it stung her nearly as much as his betrayal did.
“Agents, restrain our two guests,” instructed Agent Smyte, “and keep your weapons trained on them. That young man can be a handful if you give him an inch.”
Jamal stepped forward. “What, are you still sore because I beat your sorry—oof!” A soldier gut punched Jamal, forcing him to his knees.
“Kale,” Jean’s voice trembled as she called out, her eyes darting around the room, “what the heck is wrong with you?” She strained against the unyielding grip of the muscular hands, pressing her forcefully onto her knees. The musty smell of dampness filled the air, mingling with the acrid scent of fear. “These people, his people, captured and imprisoned our father! You saw him suffering in that cell right there! They’ve been hunting us ever since we were born! Why are you doing this?”
“Ah, have you forgotten what I told you, Miss Anderson?” said the doctor, his voice no longer weary. “We only searched for you. We never ‘hunted’ Kale because we never wanted him. His genetic makeup is flawed, subpar, like all the specimens we produced before the embryos in your group. Kale and the other rejects can never reach your level of aptitude and abilities.”
“I’ve had enough of you,” grumbled Kale. “I’m regretting giving you the rest of the antidote.”
“After all the torture you’ve put me through. Who knows what type of permanent damage you caused? I feel like I’m going to pass out any minute.” Dr. Gravin turned toward Agent Smyte. “You should have told me this man was working for you. It would have saved us so much unpleasantness!”
“With the way you both get along like a house on fire, I doubt it,” said Agent Smyte. “No, I always intended the two of you to be different ways to net the same prize. And I think it’s safe to say the results speak for themselves.”
Jean attempted to stand, but the men holding her down were too strong. “Kale, you disgust me. I can’t believe you betrayed me like this,” she spat, her voice shaking. “You’re my brother!”
Agent Smyte smirked. “Once the army rejected Kale, leaving him disillusioned and drifting, we didn’t hesitate to hire him. Even with suboptimal levels of Sepid DNA, he was a useful asset for us. And he still is.”
Jean’s eyes were like daggers as she processed Kale’s betrayal. “You knew. You knew who our father was, where he was, this whole time and—”
“Of course, he knew,” interrupted Agent Smyte. “He was a key operative in the mission that led to the Sepid Azon’s capture by Genesis Sector five years ago. Kale was the one who led your father into our trap, just as he did you.”
“Why, Kale? He’s your own blood.” Tears stung Jean’s eyes and she stubbornly blinked them away. This is not the time to cry.
“It’s because of his blood, actually. Or, to be more specific, his DNA.” Agent Smyte was gloating, without restraint. “Azon is apparently a leading figure in the Sepid colony that came to Earth. His family line contains some of the purest and most powerful genes of their kind and is highly sought after for the Genesis Sector studies and development. We had his DNA on file from a previous encounter. In fact, that’s how we determined its immense value. But without the source, our supply was limited. Of course, Azon is impossible to catch when he doesn’t want to be found.”
“So you used Kale to get to him?”
“Used?” Agent Smyte spewed an ugly bark of a laugh. “Kale practically volunteered! Unlike Azon, we always knew where Kale was. We actively surveilled him ever since he was born at one of our facilities. When Kale took the DNA test for his entrance into the army, I was notified at once. And I suspected that Azon might have been too, given their genetic connection. So I approached Kale shortly after his rejection by the army and told him that his birth father would try to contact him. Kale was so bitter and angry about the rejection, and he blamed his father’s genes for his failure. It wasn’t difficult for me to recruit Kale to our cause and to convince him to set a trap for your father. We have held Azon captive in that cell with us ever since.”
Agent Smyte continued, “Whew, all that was a mouthful! Does anyone have a spare bottle of water?” He casually took a canteen from a soldier and gulped from it, blatantly ignoring the tense atmosphere in the passage. When he was done, he wiped his mouth on his sleeve with relish. “Okay, enough with the exposition. Kale, escort that young man to his cell, would you? I would like a word with Miss Anderson.”
Kale nodded bluntly and avoided Jean’s glare as he grabbed Jamal by the arm and led him away with a few of the soldiers following closely behind. Jean expected Jamal to say something, to fight his way out of the clutches like he did when they first met, but he didn’t even put up a struggle. Jamal’s just letting them take him away? She choked back a sob, frowning at the retreating figures. Ugh, this is all my fault. Jean lifted her shirt collar up to her eyes, wiping the flowing tears away.
Most of the other agents and soldiers dispersed as well. Soon, Jean was alone with Agent Smyte and the guards who were restraining her. The dark passageway was utterly suffocating with its bleakness.
Agent Smyte walked closer to her, the echoes of his footsteps feeling like small stabs at her body. He crouched down in front of her and tilted her face toward his with a cold finger.
“I can tell it’s been a long day for you, so we’ll let you get some rest. We have an extensive to-do list on our hands to go through tomorrow for your testing, and you’re going to need every ounce of your alien-hybrid strength for it.”
Jean scrunched her brows. “What are you going to do to me?”
He brushed a lock of her brown hair away from her face, then jerked his hand back when she snapped at it with her teeth. Dismissing her attack with a laugh, he said, “Still feisty, are we? Not bad. And as for tomorrow’s plans, well, why would I ruin all the fun by telling you what they are?” He stood up with a wicked grin on his pencil line of a mouth and gestured to the guards. “You can take her away now.”
Unlike Jamal, Jean wriggled and struggled as hard as she could to release the guards’ grip. She screamed every curse her frenzied mind could think of at Agent Smyte’s retreating back while the guards dragged her down the passageway. Once Smyte was out of sight past the thick steel entrance door, she continued screaming at the guards. “Where are you taking me?! Let me go! What are you going to do to me!” They were about as responsive to her struggles as the dark concrete floor.
The guards didn’t drag her for long. After a few minutes, they roughly shoved her into another nearby cell along the passageway. As Jean stumbled to the ground, she heard a familiar voice. “Jean! Hey, are you alright?”
Jean turned around. Jamal’s blue eyes rolled as the agent at the door fired a taser at him. He shuddered and contorted, a faint smell of burned cloth coming from him, before he collapsed on the hard floor with a thud.
“Jamal!” Jean rushed to Jamal’s side and waited for the small tremors still rippling through him to stop before turning him over. She anxiously pressed an ear to his chest and exhaled in relief when she heard his heart beating. She turned toward the door. “You animals! How could you—”
CLANK. The door slid shut with a heavy finality, and the dark passageway outside disappeared from view. With a small grunt, she pulled Jamal’s body toward the nearest wall and propped him up against it. Knowing that it might be futile, she then went to the door and banged her fists against it anyway. She tried to bang out all her frustration and pain, but the door was as unresponsive as the guards who had thrown her into that cell. Allowing the tears to release from her eyes, she returned to Jamal.
“Are you okay? Why didn’t you fight back? You fought all of those men before. What happened?”
Jamal didn’t respond, even when she shook him. Beads of sweat clung to his forehead. Jean gently wiped them off with her palm. With a ragged sigh, she left him there and scooted over to the opposite wall of the cell. She leaned against it, hugged her knees, and curled up into a ball. The tears flowed freely, and she let them, wishing they could take the hopelessness out of her as they fell.
What’s going to happen to us now? What are those “fun plans” Agent Smyte has in store for me? What am I going to do?
She let out another cry of frustration.
Can anyone get us out of this place? No, because nobody knows we’re here. No one except… A familiar face swam into view of her mental eye. Brown hair cropped short like they did in the army, cold hazel eyes, angular features a bit like her own. Kale.
“Why, Kale?” Jean asked out loud to nobody in particular. “How could you betray us like this? Remember, being alone in foster care with no mother or father? I know what that was like. We have so much in common. I thought you enjoyed having a sister. Did you ever have any actual feelings toward me or was it all one big lie?”
There was no response. With Jamal still out cold, Jean buried her face in her crossed arms. She couldn’t stop thinking about Kale’s betrayal.