The door disappears. Three Simutech scientists rush in, wincing at the piercing alarm—Frog, Noodles, and another man. They don’t see us pressed flat against the wall.
“How do we turn it—” But Frog doesn’t make it beyond that before Kudzu attacks.
Benji hurls his shoulder forward as he punches his scientist in the stomach. As the man doubles over in pain, Lana kicks his feet from under him, knocking him flat on his back. Benji grabs the man’s wrists while Lana gets the rope.
Naz lands one, then two, square punches on the second scientist’s jaw. It’s Noodles, the tall, skinny man I saw earlier. He tries to hit her back but she easily ducks his sloppy attempt. He stumbles and within seconds she has one arm twisted behind his back, the razer trained to his head. He jerks, panicked. Naz pulls his twisted arm tighter. He yells out in pain. “Okay, okay,” he gasps, relenting.
Ling’s target, Frog, is the biggest of the three. From his position on the other side of the long table, he has a precious few seconds to size up the situation.
“Don’t make me use this,” Ling warns, aiming the razer steadily as she advances toward him.
Frog shoots both hands up in surrender, looking terrified. I’m thankful I’m wearing the black mask; otherwise I’m sure he’d recognize me.
“Angel?” Ling calls. “Are there any more?”
I hear a dull thump. Someone cries out. Ling whips her eyes to see what’s wrong. It’s Benji’s scientist—Benji has flipped him over to finish tying his legs. But the second Ling takes her eyes off Frog, he punches her in the jaw. She staggers back, stunned. Before she can regain focus, he slams his fist into her stomach. The small razer clatters to the table. With a strangled gasp, Ling drops to her knees.
Frog lunges for the razer. Without time to aim, I flick Mack hard across the room. My knife plunges into his outstretched arm, pinning the sleeve to the table. Frog shouts, yanking his hand around desperately. I bolt forward and grab the stray razer. It’s lighter than I thought it’d be, and I’m not exactly sure how to fire it. But pointing it at Frog is enough to make him freeze. Keeping my gaze on him, I reach over and yank my knife out of the table. “I was aiming for your hand,” I tell him.
Ling limps over and takes the razer from me, then knees Frog in the groin. It’s his turn to groan. “Try that again and I’ll kill you,” she says.
“Clear,” Lana calls. “Let’s go, let’s go!”
Benji has finished trussing up the wrists and ankles of his scientist, who wriggles like a fish on dry land. “Tie ’em or take ’em?” He nods at the other two men.
“Take ’em,” Ling says. “We don’t have time.”
Kudzu hustles everyone out. Ling’s last, shoving Frog out the door, but as she does, I see a silver streak go flying. The mirror matter. It’s on the ground, rolling toward the square of plants at the back of the room. Ling mustn’t have felt it; she’s already out the door. Everyone’s gone. I’m the only one who even saw it fall. Diving toward the plants, I can see it, only a foot down, nestled amid white tubular plant roots. But the gap between the floor and the garden isn’t big enough for more than half a hand.
“No!” I gasp in disbelief. Ignoring the pain, I try to shove my hand in farther, but it’s no good. The space is too small for me to reach the mirror matter.
“Storm, c’mon!” I hear Lana call.
In a panic, I rip away at the plants and clumps of dirt but my fingers find a metal grate at the bottom of the garden. “No!” I cry again, pawing desperately at the grate. It’s no use.
“Storm!” Lana reappears doorway, face incredulous. Without waiting to find out why I’m ripping the garden apart, she hauls me to my feet.
“Wait—” I start, but she doesn’t.
“Go!” she shouts, shoving me out into the lab.
Naz and Ling have their razers trained on Frog and Noodles, keeping the men’s arms twisted hard behind their backs as they wait for me by the door.
“Swab!” Ling yells at me angrily.
I race to join them, flicking the soft swab under the reader. Nothing happens.
“Open the door!” Naz yells at Frog.
“We can’t,” he growls. “Security’s in lockdown—doors only open from the outside.”
Acting almost simultaneously, Naz and Ling aim their razers at the long, interior windows that separate the lab from the corridor outside, and fire. Two pulses of burning white light hit the window. It shatters spectacularly into a fountain of breaking glass. I duck, shielding my face. By the time I open my eyes, the others are already climbing through the window, still with the hostages. My boots crunch through splinters of glass as I run for the window. Kicking the jagged shards out of the way, I go to swing a leg over the window ledge. “Here.” Lana offers me a hand.
I grab Lana’s hand, but as I do, my boot skids on some stray glass. My free hand shoots out to break my fall but as I slip, I grab a piece of glass still fixed to the window. It slices my palm. I suck in a gasp of shock, momentarily clutching both Lana’s hand and the sharp glass.
“Storm!” Lana cries.
“It’s nothing.” I swing my leg carefully over the ledge, avoiding the shard now smeared with my blood.
Ling, Naz, Benji, and the two scientists are already halfway down the corridor. I clear the window and start running after them, Lana behind me, boots thudding as we run. I glance down at my palm. My hand is balled into a fist and slick with blood. Blood pulses from the cut with every beat of my heart.
“Guys, I can’t see the Quicks from where you came in.” Achilles’ voice is tense through our comms.
“Where are they?” Naz yells ahead of me, all of us still running. The alarm continues to shriek painfully, blue light streaking everywhere.
“I don’t know!” Achilles says. “They’re gone.”
The three Quicks should’ve found us by now. And there were more at the other entrances. Where are they? I catch up to the others. We’re outside the kitchen—the window’s still open, rope still in place.
Naz yells, “Let’s get out of here!”
“But where are they?” I gasp.
“Who cares, let’s just go!”
“Who are you?” Frog asks in confusion.
Benji’s eyes whip past me. “Where’s Angel?”
“Behind me.”
Suddenly, the alarm stops. So do the flashing lights. A weird, eerie silence descends.
“She was right behind me,” I repeat, looking back at the corner we’d just rounded.
Just as the thought forms that we shouldn’t, we all double back to look. And then everything changes. I forget about the pain in my hand.
“What the hell?” says Frog.
“Oh no,” Benji whimpers. “No, no, no.”
The corridor is filled with a sea of gleaming Quicks. The two closest to us have Lana. One holds her hands behind her back. The other has a smooth, chrome hand at her throat, holding her head in place. Her mask is on the ground. She is breathing fast, eyes twitching in terror.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispers. The Quick tightens its grasp, cutting off her ability to speak.
“Lana!” Benji lunges forward a step, his voice shooting high in fear. He used her real name.
The Quicks begin speaking, their collective voices a passionless monotone. “By order of the Trust and Project Aevum, we are authorized to act against individuals found guilty of crimes against the state.” A pause, and then: “We are authorized to execute.”
“No!” Benji screams.
With one flick of its wrist, the Quick twists Lana’s head hard to the left. There’s a soft snap, and her body goes limp. Her blond hair falls across her face as her head lolls forward. When the Quick lets her go, she crumples to the floor.
Lana is dead.
We will be next.
I whip my head to Ling. She’s got a grenade and is taking aim. So is Naz. Ling’s eyes meet mine. “Run!” she screams.
The grenades fly forward. I have a second to spin on my heel and take one, maybe two steps before a deafening explosion blasts me off my feet.
I slam into the wall, hitting my skull so hard I can feel every bone in my head. Smoke and the sharp, abrasive smell of burning fills the air around me. The thick sound of falling rubble—a wall collapsing. My ears are ringing with a scratchy, high-pitched whine. The alarm, the blue light, and a sprinkler system all burst into life at once.
“Run, run!” Naz or maybe Ling yells, but I can’t see them through the smoke and water. I don’t stop to take in the damage of the grenade or to see where the Quicks are. I scramble to my feet. There’s water in my eyes. No, it’s blood. A cut on my head where I hit the wall? I can’t tell because of the mask. Run.
My cut hand bent like a claw, I half run, half stumble down the corridor. Coughing, eyes watering, I shove open the first door I can find, needing to get out of the stinking, itchy smoke before I pass out.
I am in a dark, silent laboratory. Shiny silver benches. A spinning chair. I fall into it, twirl in a circle. Another exit. I stumble through someone’s office. Scratch on a desk, a silent stream of a gently flowing waterfall. A photogram of a family, two grinning kids, Mom and Dad. I’m in another corridor, passing a blue water cooler, knocking over a plant. Where am I? The others? The Quicks?
I fumble my way along the corridor, my head throbbing savagely, the high-pitched whine still invading my ears. No, it’s the comm. It must have smashed when I was thrown against the wall. I pull the broken thing out of my ear. The good news is the staticky, high-pitched whine is gone. The bad news is my lifeline to Kudzu has been severed.
Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpse movement. My heart stops. A Quick? No, just a blue flashing light, circling around the corridor in a never-ending race. I back into an open doorway.
Whoosh. A set of clear doors slams shut, almost taking my nose off. I jump like a jackrabbit and spin around to face an identical set of closed clear doors.
I’m trapped.
I hear a long, low hiss. White clouds of subtly sweet-smelling gas start to fill the small space I’m in. For a second I start to panic—poison gas?—before I remember: This is decontamination gas. Standard procedure for entry into any part of the building with live specimens, like skin or hair. I know this place. It’s Innovation Lab B. It only takes about five seconds, I remember now. I’m right—the inner door to the lab slides open then locks behind me once I’m through. It’ll take another ten seconds or so for the system to reset. I can’t open the doors again until it does.
Both doors are so thick they completely block out the alarm. Silence hangs around me like a shroud.
It’s likely the Liamond system just registered someone entering this lab. But I’m rooted to the spot by the surreal sight in front of me.
Two rows of square glass cases line the room. And in each case, suspended in blue liquid, is a mutant.
That’s the only word I can use to describe them. The first one, on my left, is a baby with a bulbous forehead that billows out as if holding a supersized brain. To my right, a toddler-aged boy with two heads crammed onto a thick neck. One of his faces is so deformed it looks like someone tossed his features on without looking.
They’re not mutants. They must be cloning experiments. Mistakes.
The beep of the decontamination system finishing its reset cycle is enough to startle me out of my reverie. I decide not to go back the way I came—I should put as much distance between me and the bomb site as I can. I force myself to walk down the aisle of horrors to the exit at the far end of the lab.
There’s something covered in so much hair it looks more animal than human. Its long, dark strands hang motionless in the liquid blue. I see a human mouth that all but covers the thing’s face—a ghoulish slash of teeth and gums that stretches from ear to ear.
They all hang silently in their blue-liquid coffins, eyes closed. I have no idea if they’re living or dead or something in between.
I know I should keep moving but I’m captivated by the next one. He’s definitely the oldest and the most human looking, except for a long scar on the right side of his body, as if his skin has been folded inward. Even though he’s completely hairless, he looks strangely . . . beautiful. I give my head a little shake, and wonder briefly if I have a concussion. But the scarred boy is lovely. My feet move toward him.
My eyes drift over a strong nose and pearly skin. The scar travels his body like a road, past his eye, down one side of his neck, his chest, all the way down to his feet.
My face is only six inches from his. I’m realize I’m holding my breath.
His eyes pop open. My heart explodes. It’s alive.
Purple eyes the color of a bruise glue onto me. In wordless panic, I back away.
I hear a familiar whoosh. I know what it is before my eyes confirm it.
A low hiss fills the entrance I came through. Clouds of white steam surround the powerful bodies of two Quicks. Their blood-red eyes cut through the gas, aimed directly at me. The only thing that separates me from them is the inner glass door that’ll open when the system finishes gassing them. I’m dead.
No. The other exit. I have to make it there before the inner doors open. Thirty feet away. I won’t make it. I whirl around and start to run.
The mutants blur on either side of me. I hear the whoosh of the inner door opening. I hear the Quicks.
The other exit comes jerkily closer as my feet pound the floor. I’m almost there. They’re almost at my back. I can almost feel them. Inside. The doors slide shut behind me. Their hard bodies crash against the door.
I gasp out a cry of hot relief.
Panting more out of fear than exertion, I spin around. The two Quicks are right on the other side of the doors. We stare at each other as the low hiss begins, filling my would-be coffin with cloud-colored gas. They don’t try to break the door. They must know they can’t, and robots, unlike humans, are never overcome with anger or desperation. No, they just wait, freakily immobile and close. I force myself to turn away. I should have a luxurious fifteen-second start on them while the doors stay locked to regas, then gas the two Quicks.
I can’t go back to the kitchen. The Quicks were there and there is no way I can ride the rope down with an injured hand. That leaves the stairs.
Ready. I lower my center of gravity to get ready to run.
Set.
Go. The doors open with a whoosh. The alarm rushes my head with its awful screech.
I race out and around the corner. The corridor is empty except for a low bench and a plant. I see a red sign on a door: EMERGENCY EXIT: STAIRS. Yes. I shove the door with my shoulder.
It’s locked.
I curse loudly and kick the door in a fury. The Quicks will be here any second.
My eyes race around the empty corridor, the walls, the ceiling. . . . They lock on to something. I know what to do. I yank a smoke bomb from my belt and toss it down the corridor. Instantly, plumes of woodsy-smelling gray smoke hiss out of the little bomb, filling the corridor. I watch the smoke rise, body tense. C’mon. C’mon!
There’s a short click, then the water sprinkler system switches on, drenching the entire corridor. Yes.
This time when I shove the door, it swings open.
Blue lights streak everything, even in here.
I take the first flight two stairs at a time. I pass the fifth-floor landing, then the fourth, then the third. I’m back in the woods behind Milkwood, legs pounding, breath rasping. I taste blood in my mouth, warm and salty. I think it’s coming from the cut on my head.
Finally, I reach Level One. I throw the doors open, the alarm reverberating through my body with its incessant high-pitched scream.
I try to run, but it’s more like a lurching, staggering limp, down the empty corridor. I hear shouts. Human voices at the other end, around the corner. I hear the word Aevum. I turn back the way I came, noticing as I do the drops of blood. My blood. I spit out a bit more.
I round the corner and hurtle straight into a scientist.
No. It’s Hunter.
I barely have time to wonder why Hunter is here, now, before he drives me back against the wall. One forearm, strong as steel, presses against my throat. I claw at it, unable to breathe.
He’s going to kill me, right here in the corridor.
I am numb with shock, then I realize, He doesn’t know who I am. I still have the mask on.
I try to choke out his name, but he just pushes his arm farther into my throat.
I can’t breathe I can’t breathe I can’t breathe.
My eyes are wide with terror. I try to signal something, anything, with them.
I’m Tess! Abel’s niece! Don’t kill me! Please, please, don’t kill me!
His eyes don’t leave mine. Then they falter. His head cocks slightly to one side, and he isn’t gazing coldly anymore, he’s actually looking into my eyes. He loosens his grip, enough so I can breathe again. I choke in massive gulps of air, raspy and frenzied.
He’s looking at my necklace. “Tess?” Spoken in quiet, horrified disbelief. At that exact moment, the alarm and flashing blue lights stop.
In one quick movement, he pulls my mask off. I wince as the material scrapes the cut on my forehead.
My hands clutch my throat. I wheeze, “What are you doing here?”
“What are you doing here?”
I pull my knife from my belt and back away from him.
“Tess, I’ve authorized those Quicks to kill you.” He reaches one hand out—to touch or grab me, I can’t tell. Without thinking, I slash my knife forward as hard as I can. It plunges straight into the center of his outstretched palm.
“Hunter, I’m sorry!” I cry before I realize he doesn’t look like he’s in pain. And despite my force, the knife barely pierced his skin.
A tiny drop of blood seeps from where the knife tip is stuck in his palm. It is a vibrant sky blue.
I stare at him, feeling my mouth fall open.
A clatter of pounding feet. Our heads spin in the direction of the sound. Three Quicks at the far end of the corridor, running toward us.
I wrench Mack back and yank a grenade from my belt. I pull the pin with my teeth and toss it in their direction. With lightning reflexes, the Quick shoots up a hand and bats the bomb back to me. The bomb sails back down the corridor, hitting me in the chest, then bounces to land just a few feet away. It’s about to explode.
Hunter grabs me, putting himself between me and the bomb. For the second time tonight, a white-hot explosion rips through the world. Hunter and I are swept off our feet, shooting forward like a missile. He spins his body as we start to fall. His back crashes into the ground, protecting me. It feels like being wrapped in a brick wall. We skid across the slick floor, to a halt.
I push myself away from him, crawling on all fours, coughing. The biting smell of the blast fills my mouth and nostrils.
Hunter stands up quietly, uninjured and not coughing. “Tess . . .”
I see an exit sign glowing red above a door.
I pull myself up. As soon as I put weight on my left foot, a jagged spear of pain shoots through my entire body, and I cry out. My ankle.
“Tess,” he says again. I don’t stop. Limping over, I try the door. It’s locked.
I jam Mack between the door and the frame, trying to pry it open, shoving my shoulder against it again and again and again. Panic transcends pain. I have to get out of here. Like a wild thing, I pry and shove until suddenly, almost magically, the door shoots open, and I stumble out into in the night.
I gulp the cool air, my breathing rattled and frantic.
It can’t be true. But it is. I had seen it. Blue blood. No pain. The world dips and whirls around me, and I struggle to stay upright.
Hunter, always so curious, always slightly out of step with me.
The mutant with the long scar down his body. That’s why I was drawn to him. He was Hunter. Hairless and deformed but he was Hunter. A version of Hunter. A mistake. A failed attempt to clone a human.
Hunter isn’t human. Hunter is an artilect. Hunter is Aevum.
I draw in a shuddering breath. To my left is a sliver of brightly lit street that leads to the front entrance. Movement—half a dozen Quicks flash past the top of the alley. I freeze, my heart in my mouth. No, they aren’t headed this way. I spin around and begin limping right, toward the back of the building. Smoke billows from a few open windows, its stench turning my stomach.
I am once again at the back of Simutech. To my right, I recognize the loading dock, and beyond that, the entrance of the alley. To my left, the street continues onto the empty plaza and the lone water fountain.
I force myself to run toward the plaza, each step more painful than the last. On either side of me are silent, shuttered loading docks, or the backs of other large buildings, all dark and empty.
My breath is coming in croaky rasps. My ankle throbs, already starting to swell. Then there’s the deep cut on my hand, the one on my head, and my ribs feel bruised: I am a bloody, broken mess.
As I near the end of the street, I breathe in the ripe, sweet smell of oranges. I realize this is Orange Grove Plaza, one of the bigger plazas in the Hive. My foggy mind tries to put the geography together.
I need to find Kudzu but there’s no way I can find Milkwood on my own. The only place they’ll know to look for me is Abel’s. It’s not safe there, now that Hunter and presumably Abel know I’m with Kudzu, but it’s my only option. I have the vague impression I’m heading west. If I keep going in a straight line, I should eventually clear the Hive and be in Liberty Gardens.
Like most plazas in Eden, Orange Grove is circular with a large white water fountain in the middle. Boutiques in beautiful stone buildings, now all closed, ring the empty plaza. Running straight across feels too exposed. I wait ten seconds to make sure no one else is around. Then I slink up to the first set of boutiques and begin moving in front of their curved windows, making my way to the other side of the plaza. I have to clear about ten storefronts to get all the way around.
Almost immediately, I hear a quick, rhythmic tapping. It’s the sound of Quicks running. They are coming this way.
I could never outrun them. Freezing won’t work either, not when they’re actively searching for me. I’m in front of a florist shop, but of course it’s locked.
My body won’t move.
Run.
But I have nowhere to go.