Dawn (13 page)

I hugged him back.

“Good to see you too.”

I looked over to the bay window in the room and found Lux, Kirk, Teegan, and Kale all trying to sooth a very upset Rose. I walked over to them.

“We have literally tried everything,” Lux said, obviously at her wits end.

“And she means everything,” Kirk confirmed, his usually coiffed hair messy from running his fingers through it.

“That kid’s got some lungs on her,” Kale said in amazement. “Man, I never knew a baby could get that loud.”

Teegan patted Kale on the back, sympathizing completely.

“Here, give her to me,” I said to Lux.

Lux stood and placed Rose into my arms. She immediately stopped crying and looked up at me. She took in a cry induced shuddering breath, closed her eyes and promptly went to sleep.

“You have
got
to be kidding me,” Lux said, staring at a now slumbering Rose. “How the hell did you do that?”

I shrugged, silently pleased by Rose's reaction to my holding her.

“She probably just wanted her mother instead of a pink haired stranger,” Ian said from behind me, peering over my shoulder at Rose.

Lux crossed her arms and stared daggers at Ian.

“And what's wrong with pink hair?” She asked, almost daring him to insult her.

Ian looked at Lux. “Nothing... if it's Halloween.”

Lux's expression became tight with anger. “And who the hell are you exactly?  The fashion police?”

Ian gave Lux one of his signature lopsided grins. “No, I just say what I think. You might actually be pretty if you didn't distract people with that hot pink fuzz ball sitting on top of your head.”

I knew coming from Ian what he just said was actually a compliment, but from the murderous look Lux was giving Ian it didn't seem like she was taking it that way. I could almost see the steam billowing out of her ears like a cartoon character in an old Acme Company animation.

“Skye,” Jace called out to me, “could you come over here please?”

“Excuse me,” I said to my friends, glad to be given an excuse to get out of the line of Lux's verbal fire I felt sure was about to erupted all over Ian.

Michael, Jace, and my father were all studying the map Michael had brought with him. It was the same map I marked on four months ago to show where all of the queen's installations were located. Many of them were now crossed out with red X's to indicate Michael's group had destroyed them. But, there were still a lot of them left to take out.

“My dad thinks she would probably take Simon here,” Jace said, pointing to the second Harvester chip production facility in Geneva, NY.

“It's one of the most fortified camps she has left,” Michael told me. “She could have gone to the Stone Mountain facility, but I have a feeling she wouldn't go that far without you being with her.”

I nodded knowing Michael was probably right. The queen still held out hope that she could turn me back into a Harvester.

“Then that's where we go,” I told them.

“We should prepare to mount a full on offensive there,” Michael said.

“No,” I told him. “Jace and I take a small tactical team in first. It'll take too much time to move troops there for what you want to do.”

“I agree,” Jace said, backing me up. “Anyway, how many people did we lose in her attack at the new camp?  Over half?  I don’t think we have enough for a full on offensive attack.”

“We lost three quarters,” Michael admitted. “She took us by surprise.”

“How many people do you have with you?” I asked my dad.

“Six hundred left with us from the Southern Kingdom. We've probably picked up an extra three hundred on our way here,” my dad answered.

“So with Michael's people and your people we might have a couple of thousand?” I asked.

Michael sighed. “It's not enough.”

“Wait,” Jace said, his eyes alight with excitement. “What about the people in the Cain virus infested camps? Like the one in Alliance?”

My father and Michael looked at one another.

“It might work,” Michael said. “Especially after I tell them it was the queen who infected them.”

“But can they be trusted?” My dad asked.

“Not completely,” Michael admitted. “But they'll be mad about what she did to them. We can use that to our advantage.”

“How many camps like that exist?” I asked. “She didn't have them marked on her map. I don't know where they are.”

“I do,” Ian said, walking over to us. “Freddy showed me where the other camps were. I can mark them for you.”

“Ok,” Michael said. “Mark them on the map and I'll go to them myself. They all know me. It'll be one of the few times being Lucena's husband might actually come in handy. I'm pretty sure they all know how much I hate her.”

Ian marked the camps on the map. There ended up being five in all.

“It'll take me some time to mobilize them,” Michael said. “Give me a week.”

“Have them all come here,” my father said. “The camp is secure and there's plenty of space to house them.”

“What about food?” Michael asked. “We can't bring them here just to starve.”

“We need Ava,” I said to Jace. “She has to be in the Geneva camp. The queen would want to keep her close to feed her own troops.”

“Let me go with you,” Ian said. “While you get Simon, I'll get Ava and Jackson.”

“She has Jackson too?” I asked.

“He wasn't a part of the casualties,” Michael told me. “She has to have him.”

“Can I come along?” Lux asked walking over to our little group.

“And what good are you supposed to be?” Ian asked. “Plan on scaring the Harvesters to death with your pink hair?  Or distract them because they'll be too busy laughing at you to kill us?”

“I wouldn't tease her too hard,” I warned Ian. “She's a dead shot with a bow and arrows.”

“If stealth going in is what you want, I'm the person to help,” Lux told Ian, boasting but having the skill to back it up. “I suppose you just go in halfcocked with guns blazing and drawing attention to yourself.”

Ian gave Lux his cockiest smile. “It's my specialty actually.”

I rolled my eyes at Ian and turned to Lux. “I need your stealth. Thanks for volunteering.”

Lux winked at me. “No problem. I've got your back.”

Lux noticed Ian staring at her.

“What?” She asked him, not attempting to hide her irritation. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Who exactly
are
you?  Where did you come from?”

“More like when,” Lux said, rubbing the back of her neck as if she were just realizing the mess she was now involved in.

“When?” Ian asked, looking between me and Lux.

“Come on.” Lux tilted her head toward the entrance of the room. “I know where the liquor is.” Lux looked at me somewhat guiltily. “Sorry, snooped around a bit earlier and found some stuff.”

“Snoop all you want,” I told her. “It's not my house.”

Ian held his arm out to Lux and she looped one of her own through it.

“Lead the way to the booze, my little troll doll. It's been a while since I had a stiff one.”

Lux laughed as she and Ian walked out of the room arm in arm.

“You and me both,” Lux said eyeing Ian up and down. “You and me both.”

I watched Ian and Lux walk out of the room and got the distinct feeling Lux wasn't talking about alcohol.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

It was decided we would send in a scout to the Geneva compound to gather some intel before we went there. If we didn't know where Lucena was keeping Simon, we would just be going in blind and wasting time. Michael left to choose someone from his group to go there for us. It wasn't likely they would be back before the next morning with the information we needed.

After Michael left to send his scout to Geneva, Doc Riley called me and Jace into the queen's laboratory.

“I think I found something that might be of use to us in the future,” Doc Riley told us.

“What did you find?” I asked.

“I found the others.”

I felt completely at a loss.

“What others?” I asked.

“The other children,” Doc Riley said like I should completely understand what she was talking about.

“Doc,” I said, “you're going to have to spell it out for me because I don't know what the hell you're trying to say.”

“The other children like you,” she said. “The ones Lucena engineered.”

“You found their genetic codes?” Jace asked. “The ones she gives me to find them.”

“
Oh yes,” Doc Riley said excitedly. “It appears she was able to narrow them down to the ones she knew to be dead and the ones she thought might still be alive.”

“Can I see the list?” I asked, excited by the prospect of what I might find.

“Are you looking for someone in particular?” Jace asked me, not missing my reaction to the news.

“Let me look first,” I said. “I don't want to get anyone's hopes up.”

Doc Riley pulled up the list on the computer screen then moved to let me scan it for the name I was praying to see.

I teared up when I saw it on the screen.

“There,” I said, pointing to the name.

Doc Riley looked over my shoulder. “Piper McIntosh?  Who is that?  Do you know her?”

“Maybe. It was the name Zoe's mother was going to name the baby she was about to give birth to in the past.”

“But Zoe's family was killed in a nuclear blast,” Jace said. “Wouldn't she have died there?”

“Get up for a moment, Skye,” Doc Riley said to me. “Let's see what her file says.”

It took Doc Riley a few minutes, but she finally found Piper's file.

“From what this says,” she said. “It looks like the girl was taken to another camp after she was born. The camp Zoe was in had a surplus of babies so the extra ones were taken to another nursery where there was a shortage of prospective breeders.”

“Does it say which camp she was taken to?” I asked.

“Unfortunately, no. The convoy of children she was in was overtaken by a group of humans. There's no record of where she ended up.”

“If she's still alive, I can find her,” Jace said. “All you have to do is figure out how to upload her genetic code into me.”

“All?” Doc Riley scoffed. “You may have to wait for me to get a degree in genetic engineering before I can work that small miracle, my boy.”

“You don't think you can figure it out?” I asked, losing what little hope I had quickly.

Doc Riley sighed. “No, I don't think I can, but we may have someone who would be willing to help us with this...and that other matter you asked me to look into.”

“It's ok,” I said. “I told Jace about removing the chip. Who do you have that might be able to help?”

“We captured one of Lucena's scientist, a surgeon who used to perform the chip implants.”

“Does he know how to get the chip out?” I asked, daring to hope we found the miracle worker I needed.

“I'm not sure yet,” Doc Riley said. “He's doing some research on the matter, but he did tell me it might be impossible, just like we've always thought.”

“But, why is it impossible?” Jace asked. “Would it actually kill Skye if you tried to do it?”

Doc Riley opened a drawer located directly underneath the computer in the counter it sat on and pulled out a white notepad and pencil. She quickly sketched out the shape of the brain and parts of its interior.

“The chip,” she said to us drawing a little black square dead center inside the brain, “is sitting on something called the corpus callosum. This part of the brain is composed of a flat bundle of neural fibers and connects the left and right cerebral hemispheres which facilitates communication between the two sides. It contains over 200 million axonal projections. If we take the chip out and cause damage to the corpus callosum, it might not kill you directly but it could leave you in a vegetative state which is just as bad as death if you ask me.”

“But I can heal myself,” I said, desperate to find a loophole. “Maybe I can heal any damage that's done while it's happening and minimize the side effects.”

“The side effects bring a host of problems of their own,” Doc Riley told us, not looking at all optimistic.

“Like what?” Jace asked. “Besides the possibility of her becoming a vegetable.”

“Well, you could lose your eye-hand coordination, develop a repetitive speech pattern, have severe headaches, vision impairment, and ...” Doc Riley looked at us both as if she were reluctant to say the next possibility, “seizures. The seizures could range anywhere from mild to severe. There's simply no way of being able to predict. It will all depend on how much damage is done.”

I took hold of Jace's hand and looked up at him by my side.

“I have to try,” I told him. “I can probably heal most of the damage, but if something happens that we can't foresee, you'll end up having to live with the consequences too.”

“You won't become a vegetable,” he said with confidence. “And you'll retain your eye-hand coordination. Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to run in that field of wheat chasing after Rose and Simon. I can deal with the other possibilities as long as you can because in the end it's you who will have to suffer through them, not me. I will always be by your side, no matter what happens.”

I squeezed his hand and felt myself on the verge of tears again as I wondered how I got so lucky to have a man like Jace fully support my decisions.

I looked back at Doc Riley.

“If this surgeon thinks he can figure out a way to take it out without killing me, I want to try.”

“There will be no trying, child,” Doc Riley said. “There is no going back once the procedure is started. It's all or nothing.”

“When we return from rescuing Simon, I want to do it. I assume I'll lose all of my Harvester abilities afterwards?”

“Yes, you'll lose your super strength and agility plus the other things like sensitive hearing and eye sight. All of those advantages will be lost.”

“Ok,” I nodded. “I can live with that. But not until we have Simon back. So, talk to this surgeon and start to prepare things while we're gone.”

“As you wish,” Doc Riley said, accepting my decision but obviously not liking it.

I could tell by the way Doc Riley was looking at me that she wanted to tell me something else.

“What is it?” I asked her. “What else do you need to say?”

“I think I may have figured out how you were able to regain your humanity.”

“How?” I asked, daring to hope Doc Riley was about to answer a question I had been asking myself since Hope's death.

“It actually dawned on me once I learned the exact position of the chip,” she told us, drawing a little circle underneath the corpus callosum.

“What is that supposed to be?”

“It's where the pituitary gland is situated. One of its many functions is the release of oxytocin.”

“The chemical responsible for feeling love?” I asked.

Doc Riley nodded. “From what you told me of your experience after becoming a Harvester, I believe your love for the people around you, like Zoe and Ash, started the initial production of oxytocin in your system. That's why you helped them escape. And when Hope died and shared her love with you, it was like receiving an overdose of the chemical. Somehow that major release of oxytocin did something to the chip which helped you regain most of your humanity.”

“Can we use that?” I asked, becoming excited. “Could we simply overload Harvesters' systems with oxytocin and give them back their humanity?”

“Unfortunately, you can't administer oxytocin intravenously. It can't pass through the blood-brain barrier. Even if it had a chance of working, we don't have the infrastructure to produce large quantities of the chemical.”

“So that's what happened to Jace's father too?” I asked. “His love for Jace over-rode the programming to love the queen and no one else?”

“Yes,” Doc Riley said. “That's what I would have to assume.”

So, love actually could change the world. Image that.

“What if I get mad?” I asked her. “Do I have to maintain a certain amount of oxytocin in my system to stay the way I am now?  She tried to break me, Doc Riley. She made me torture Jace and Simon...”

“Skye...” Jace began.

“No,” I said to him. “I have to know. I
need
to know how vulnerable I am to her influence.”  I turned my attention back to Doc Riley. “If she made me mad enough, hate her enough, is it possible I could turn back into a true Harvester?”

Doc Riley sighed. “I suppose it's possible, but I can't tell you for sure, child. I don't have enough information to make an informed hypothesis. I don't exactly know how the oxytocin is working to disable that part of the programming.”

“But it's possible?” I pressed.

“Anything is possible.”

I closed my eyes and nodded my head. Just as I thought. I was still in danger of becoming a monster again.

I opened my eyes. “As soon as we come back with Simon, I want the operation. I don't care what it does to me. I can't live with this fear that she'll change me back into that thing again.”

I expected the two of them to argue but they didn't. I got the feeling they understood my mind was made up and no amount of arguing would change it.

“All right, child,” Doc Riley said. “I will have things prepared to perform the surgery when you return.”

“Thanks, Doc,” I said. “Now, if you'll excuse us Jace and I need to talk.”

“Of course. It's getting late. You should get some sleep for tomorrow.”

Jace and I walked out of the laboratory and found Kirk, Teegan, and Kale in the living room. Teegan was holding Rose who seemed to be content in her arms.

“We may have found someone who can handle your daughter,” Kirk said to me relief in his voice. “If Lux hadn't been so adamant about holding Rose herself, we might have figured this out a lot sooner!”

“Good,” I said. “Because as soon as the scout comes back you guys will be in charge of keeping her safe and happy. You might as well get used to being called Uncle Kirk and Aunt Teegan by them by the way. Apparently, you play an important role in their lives in the future.”

“Skye,” Kale said, “where's Ash?  I thought he would be here with you.”

I explained to Kale why Ash wasn't with us.

“That woman is seriously screwed up,” Kale said with a shake of his head. “Completely off her damn rocker.”

“Yeah,” I said, “you’re speaking to the choir on that point.”

“So, the plan is for you to kill her?” Kirk asked.

I nodded.

“Can you do that?” He asked. “Saying you’re going to kill someone and actually doing it are two totally different things.”

“You sound like Ian,” I said. “Where are he and Lux at anyway?”

Kale snickered with a roll of his eyes. “Upstairs in one of the rooms.”

It took me a few seconds to understand what Kale was actually telling me.

“They're having sex?” I asked in astonishment.

Kale blushed. “Well, it's either that or they're jumping on the bed. Take your pick.”

I'm not sure why I was surprised by this news but I was. They were two consenting adults after all. I wasn't exactly in a position to place judgment on their behavior.

“Well, I guess the rest of you are welcome to find rooms of your own in the house.” I walked over and took Rose from Teegan. “Jace and I will be at my house.”

“Your house?” Jace asked.

“Yes,” I said. “I had a house here. I would rather not stay in the same home our fathers are. Things are awkward enough around them.”

I looked back at my friends. “Help yourselves to anything you want here. We'll be back tomorrow.”

As we drove through town, I instructed Jace on where to go. When we entered the home I used when I was Harvester, I half expected Grace, the queen's old nanny, to be inside. I knew that wasn't possible since the queen had stabbed her longtime companion with a butter knife through the heart to prove a point to me. It had been the first time I saw a soul depart from someone.

We found some food in the kitchen and made a quick meal. After I gave Rose some warm milk, Jace found a large clothes basket and made a pallet out of towels and sheets in it to act as a portable crib. While I took a shower, Jace rocked Rose to sleep in the bedroom.

When I came back into the bedroom with only a towel wrapped around my body, Jace was laying a slumbering Rose in the makeshift crib. He turned to face me, and I dropped the towel.