Mindsiege (30 page)

Jonas watched me with concern.
You okay? I can’t come over there, or I’d try to remove some of that pain.

I wiped my nose on the sleeve of my fleece jacket and replaced the bandage on the back of Addison’s neck, despite there no longer being a wound.

As I pressed on the bandage, Sandra suddenly shoved the agent. “You idiot, she’s controlling you.”

I slid off the bed while discreetly stuffing the tracker into the coin pocket of my jeans. The agent gave his head a shake as if he could rid his mind of my voice. Sandra crossed the room and stood directly in front of me, eye to eye. I fiddled with the ring on my finger. How quickly could I paralyze her? And if I bought myself ten minutes, was that enough time to grab Addison and get out of there?

It felt so strange to look at a woman who was the image of what I would become. Yet at the same time, I couldn’t see past her monstrous actions. I straightened, stared deep into her green eyes. Was I capable of being like this woman?

No, you’re not.
Jack was in my head.

Jack.

You think I was just going to leave you?

The door opened, and Sandra spun away from me. The real Ty appeared, with two agents close behind him. The female agent had one hand on the gun at her hip.

“Great. You’re here,” Sandra said.

Ty remained silent. No grin played at his lips. His arms, clear of any ink, hung loose at his sides.

Jonas’s nervous eyes darted between his mother and his twin clone. “Mom, what are you going to do?”

Ty and Sandra didn’t break eye contact. He was so much taller than her, but the vulnerable look on his face made me want to help him.

What’s she going to do?
I asked Jonas, but he didn’t answer. Only watched. His hands balled into fists.

“What happened, Ty? How did you lose control of her?” Sandra asked.

“I don’t know. At first, when I was inside her head, I was able to be Jonas. Not even Jonas knew it wasn’t him toying with her. Jonas was even sure he was falling in love with her.” Ty stifled a laugh, but only for a moment before all humor was gone from his face again.

I glanced toward Jonas. He cocked his head, staring at his look-alike. Did he think he loved me? No, that was crazy.

“Are you admitting that Jonas is stronger than you?” Sandra asked. “That he now knows when you’re calling the shots inside his head? And that he can now refuse your orders?”

Was Jonas stronger than a clone being operated by some computer-generated mindsiege? Surely.

“And are you telling me that you can no longer control Sarah? Make her see exactly what we want her to see?”

I was not liking where this conversation was going. Ty’s eyes widened with fear. He rotated his shoulders back and stood tall. He did not look away from Sandra.

“Mom?” Jonas said.

“Jonas, say goodbye to your brother.”

Brother?

“Mom, don’t do it. It’s my fault, not his. I can help him. Help you work out the flaws of his tracker.”

Don’t do what? I looked from Ty, to Jonas, to Sandra. She looked up at the camera in the corner of the room and gave some sort of hand signal.

Ty’s eyes popped open. He gasped—and then fell to the ground.

His eyes remained open. Still. Glassy.

“Is he…” Dead? Tears flooded my eyes.

Two agents gathered up Ty’s limp body and whisked him out of the room.

My heart beat out of control. I swallowed against the taste of bile in my throat. “You killed him?” My mind reeled. Addison still hadn’t moved.

Jonas’s face was red with fury.

“Jonas, if you don’t want to face the same fate, you will come with me,” Sandra ordered, then turned to the remaining agent. “Show Miss Matthews to her room. She gives you any trouble, tranquilize her.”

Jonas? What’s going to happen?

Don’t fight it.
Even inside my head, I could hear the devastation in his voice. I felt a strong need to reach out and touch him. To console him.
They won’t do anything to you. Remember, they want you here more than they want you dead.

That’s reassuring.

The agent grabbed me by the arm.

I resisted the urge to mindspeak or to paralyze the man. I would listen to Jonas and not fight. For now.

Just before the agent led me from the room, I looked back at Addison. She still hadn’t moved, but when I focused on her eyes, they shifted and looked directly at me.

~~~~~

We made three turns before the agent unlocked a door and shoved me into a room. I spun and lunged toward him, but he easily deflected my attack. He closed the door and locked it with a key hanging around his neck.

The agent was not a large man. No more than five foot eight, but he looked solid, and his biceps threatened to bust through his white button-down.

“Turn around,” he said, his voice brusque.

“Why?”

He pulled a syringe from his pocket that held a few milliliters of a bright yellow substance. Holding it up, he stuck a needle on the end and pulled the cap off. “I don’t want to use this, but I will.”

I turned. The room was empty except for a single bed and one swivel chair typical of a doctor’s office.

“Where were you, Sandra, and Dr. DeWeese coming from so late tonight?” I glanced over my shoulder at him.

“What?” He capped the syringe, tucked it in his back pocket, then forced my arms out to my side and proceeded to pat me down. “That’s none of your business.” I eyed my special ring—a ring I wanted to use, but the time wasn’t right. Not yet.

But you want to tell me anyway. Where’d you go tonight?

“We spent the afternoon at the track and then dinner,” he answered. The agent continued to search my body—for weapons, I assumed. I was thankful I hadn’t brought a gun. When he reached my bottom, he stopped, pulling my phone out of the back pocket of my jeans. “You won’t be needing this.” He stuck my phone inside his other pants pocket.

Dang. “You got back awfully late. Why?”
Where else did you go?

“We had dinner at Palmer’s, that lasted until just before—” He stopped, grabbed me by my shoulders and spun me around. “You’re mind-controlling me.”

No, I’m not. No one is inside your mind. Who else was at Palmer’s? What were they discussing?

“Just John, Sandra, some investors, and other IIA agents. They were discussing final evacuation and destruction of the labs.”

“Evacuation? Sandra’s moving the labs?”

The agent’s shoulders straightened. “You
are
controlling my mind.” He pulled the syringe from his pocket.

“No, I swear I’m—”

He jammed the needle directly into my neck. I faded fast.

~~~~~

I awoke with a massive headache. Not sure if it was from removing the tracker from Addison or the drug the stupid agent injected me with.

I was alone. And I had to pee.

Welcome back.

Jonas. What time is it?

Six a.m.

I drilled my fingers into my temple. I wished I had a needle to stick straight into my eye to release the pressure building there.
Where are you?

I’m not far. I’m trying to get back into Sandra’s good graces. Convince her that I’ve been working for her all along. That I brought you here like she wanted.

How do I know that’s not exactly what you did?

You don’t.
Jonas sounded sad. Tired.
You’ll have to do something completely out of character and have a little faith.

Ouch
. I had faith. Just not in people very often.
What’s the plan?
Besides finding a bathroom. I scanned the room. No doors other than the one I entered through.

The plan is to sit tight until I tell you otherwise. And try to behave. Don’t control any minds. Sandra has ordered all agents to keep you under if you give them any trouble. They all have trackers in the backs of their necks and have been trained to know when one of us is inside their heads. They only take orders from two people.

Sandra and John DeWeese.
I squeezed the bridge of my nose.
Did you know about Dr. DeWeese?

I suspected.

Jack?
I asked.
Did he know?

He has suspected as well. But that didn’t prepare him for seeing it with his own eyes.

He said nothing to me.
A tinge of anger flared across my cheeks. Anger with myself, I thought. For not being someone Jack could trust with his suspicions.
Where is he?

He returned to Wellington. To regroup.

Regroup, huh. I pocketed my thoughts the way Jonas taught me. Trust no one—my father’s words from the letter he sent me after his death. Sit tight? No way. I pushed myself out of the very uncomfortable bed and walked to the doorway. It was locked, of course, but only with one simple bolt. Still, it was a steel bolt.

What about Georgia?
I asked Jonas.
Where is she?
I wondered how bad her seizure had been the night before.

Seth has her at the hospital, one building over, recovering. Kyle is with her. Why?

No reason.
I worked quickly to hide what I was thinking.

Lexi, I mean it. Don’t do anything stupid.

Whatever.
I’m locked inside a room with nothing but a bed and a chair, Jonas. I can’t even go to the bathroom. Which I need to do, by the way.
I looked up at the camera in the corner and waved. “Hey, assholes. I need to use the bathroom.”

Jonas laughed.

I sat in the chair, crossed my legs, and twirled my ring round and round. I’d give anything for a gun right now. Except they would have taken it, right along with my phone.

We need to remove your tracker.

We will. At the right time. I can’t chance Sandra figuring out that we’ve discovered how. She hasn’t noticed Addison’s tracker missing yet, but she will. And when she does…”
His voice trailed off. He didn’t need to take that thought further.

So, Ty?
I asked.
Were you close to him?

There were several seconds of silence before Jonas mindspoke.
He was my brother. Sandra carried us both. My DNA was altered, much like yours and Jack’s. Ty’s DNA wasn’t changed from the original. He was given a tracker soon after birth that artificially altered his DNA, giving him almost identical mind-controlling capabilities to mine. The idea was to see if the scientists could manufacture the trackers with the mental powers.

By placing the special abilities inside an electronic tracker, they could have complete control over any human being,
I clarified.

Right. What you witnessed yesterday was Sandra realizing that I was stronger than Ty. In other words, the genetically engineered clone—me—was stronger than the manufactured form of the same person—Ty. And Sandra wanted to prove a point.

Which was?

That we are expendable when we’re no longer necessary to her experiment. Ty let her down, and she killed him
—
to show you, and probably me, what she’s capable of.

I shivered. Either someone had just turned on the A/C or the memory of Sandra’s action cut right to my heart, freezing the blood being pumped through my body.
And Sandra needs me because she can’t get the medical healing part correct.

Exactly.

I sat up straighter. Seemed to me she couldn’t get the mind-control part right either, or Ty wouldn’t be dead. I knew what Sandra was after: the most important thing Dad gave me before he died. I reached for the starfish and key hanging around my neck underneath my T-shirt. She wanted the information Dad had encrypted on the website—the DNA mapping that could be translated into what Sandra needed to create her army of healers. So, did Sandra need me, or information she was sure I had access to? At what point would Sandra decide I was no longer necessary?

The door clicked, and in walked a woman in a white lab coat. Beneath the coat she wore a short black skirt and a dark purple silk blouse. Her jet black hair was slicked back into a tight ponytail, and she had an air of snootiness. She had to be a doctor of some sort. “Come with me.”

I wiped my hands on my jeans, stood, and followed her. “Could I possibly use a restroom?” I mean, did they really expect me to hold it forever?

“Yes.”

“That’s it? Just yes?”

We didn’t walk long before she ushered me into another room. This one was quite different. Very much like a dorm room and like Jonas’s room he had shown us the night before, except this one was decorated for a girl. A bed decorated with a lavender comforter was pushed into the corner of the room. There was a desk and a small dresser.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“This is your room, Sarah.”

“Since my friends call me Lexi, I’m going to assume you and I aren’t friends.” We stood just inside the small room—a room much more decorated than the last one I was in. I fiddled with the ring on my finger and studied the lady in front of me. “So, are you a nurse or something?”

“I am a clinical neurophysiologist.” She enunciated each syllable. I could have sworn her nose rose further into the air as she spoke.

“Well, that must have taken quite a bit of education. You must not have done very well in school.”

She pursed her lips, and inhaled through her way-too-pointy nose. “Why do you say that, Sarah?” She said Sarah like it was a bad word.

“Well, I just assumed that only the bottom students, or maybe doctors that were fired from hospitals that helped people, would end up at a research facility that experimented on innocent children. I didn’t mean anything by it.” I shrugged and walked farther into the room.

“Mmmm-hmmm.”

She closed the door and left me in this room that had a much more homey feel to it. And a more
permanent
feel. A chill galloped down my spine. Nothing about my situation would be permanent. I promised myself that. Thankfully, it did have a bathroom.