Mindsiege (34 page)

“This way, Sarah.” Sandra barely acknowledged the man’s instructions. She continued around the half-circle to another door. This door was equipped with another palm scan and finger prick.

The door opened. And my heart stopped when I saw John DeWeese. Sandra stepped behind me and gave me a shove inside.

“What took you so long?” he asked when he saw Sandra, then he looked at me. “I’m so thrilled you could join us, Sarah.”

Why did everyone insist on calling me by that name? I remained silent and just stared at the centerpiece of the room: an exam table of some sort with leather straps at both ends.

I suddenly couldn’t breathe. Jack, Jonas, and Addison chatted inside my mind about possible ways to get me out of the situation I was now in—a position I had put myself in. I barely listened as I watched Dr. DeWeese type on a keyboard, producing a graphic design of a tracker on a large retractable screen on the far wall. It rotated in different directions in 3-D. I drew in a labored breath. My hand clutched at my throat.
Jonas!
I finally mindspoke, letting him enter my mind fully.

It’s going to be okay,
he whispered.
Breathe. I promise I’m going to get you out of there.

What is it?
Jack asked.

Don’t tell him that his father is here. It will kill him,
I said, speaking only to Jonas.
Jack would have to face this sooner or later, but later was better.

It’s your father,
Jonas said
.

Fine,
don’t
listen to me.
It wasn’t like Jonas ever had before.

“Show her,” Sandra ordered Dr. DeWeese.

“Gladly.” Dr. DeWeese smiled.

A video played on the screen. A movie of my father, Sandra, and John when they were younger. They appeared happy. It reminded me of the picture Jack showed me the night he informed me I had been cloned. Images of the three of them. All smiling. Sandra looking up at the two men as if they were her heroes.

“Sarah,” Sandra began. “I once thought your father, John, and I would cure every disease and injury known to man. We would find a way to promise every human on this earth… well, those with the means…”—she smiled—“…the opportunity to live a long, healthy life.”

I watched the screen change from an image of the three scientists to pictures of brains, neural activity, and DNA mapping. It was picture after picture of their research. Pictures of the goat they cloned. And of Cheriana, Jack’s cloned horse at Wellington.

Sandra continued. “No one would ever question the intelligence of your father, John, or me. Nor would they doubt the intelligence of the original owners of the others’ DNA. What we did was study the most brilliant medical minds of our time. We studied my brain activity. Your father’s. John’s. And many others. We cloned those human beings multiple times, hoping for as many successes as possible. Then, within a control group, we enhanced parts of the DNA and brain that we felt would produce a sort of supernatural healer.”

“Seven of us,” I whispered mostly to myself.

Dr. DeWeese’s face turned toward me. “What did you say?”

“I said ‘seven of us.’ There were seven in the control group.”

“Seven of the control group survived. That’s right.” Sandra smiled. “Oh my God. She knows.”

I tilted my head, studying the monster in front of me. What riddle was she spewing on about now? “I know that you’re the devil.”

“How did you know there were seven?” John asked.

If it was possible for my heart to beat any faster, it did. My eyes went in and out of focus. I willed my heart to slow. “You told me,” I squeaked. “That day we talked at Wellington.”

“No, I didn’t. I told you that I had no idea how many of the original clones had survived.” He cupped his chin. Rubbed the stubble across his jaw. “You have the journals, don’t you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” This was bad.

Dr. DeWeese tilted his head backwards, stared up at the ceiling, and let out an enormous laugh.

I didn’t see anything resembling humor in the situation. The female voice overhead reminded us, “LAB WILL SELF-DESTRUCT IN THIRTY MINUTES.”

Neither Sandra nor Dr. DeWeese seemed the least bit panicked.

“Where are the journals, Sarah?” Sandra asked.

It was my turn to laugh. “Your lab is going to blow up or melt in acid or whatever in thirty minutes. You’ve got me locked inside a high-security room. No one knows where I am. And you think I’m going to hand over the one thing my father left behind to protect me? You both are seriously demented.” I turned to Dr. DeWeese. “Does Jack know what an a-hole his father is? Does he know that you’re behind all this?”

His face fell just a little before he recovered. “My son will understand. It’s time you both grow up.” He inhaled deeply, then took a step forward. He had such a kind face, like Jack, yet when I looked deep within Dr. DeWeese’s eyes, I saw something that was completely unlike Jack. Something profoundly corrupt. “Lexi, my son loves you, and for good reason. You were created for him. To complement him. You both are beautifully cloned to be better than Sandra and me. To accomplish miracles Sandra and I have only dreamed of.” He glanced sideways at Sandra, who smiled. I wanted to puke all over both of them. He continued. “You two could change the world. Join us, Lexi.”

I rotated my shoulders back and stepped toward this vile man. “We
are
better than you, but not because you altered our DNA to be smarter. We are better than you for a reason that is beyond your understanding. You… you…” I lifted my hand and drilled my forefinger into my temple. “You two are crazy.”

“You haven’t seen crazy,” Sandra said. She no longer had the calm tone she had when we first entered the lab. “You will tell us where the journals are.”

I walked over to a swivel chair in the corner of the room and sat. Though the blood in my veins raged like a mad river after a storm, I willed myself to appear calm. “I don’t think so.” I had no way of getting out of that room without help, and I was not about to hand over the one thing Sandra needed from me. I had meant it when I’d said I would die first. “Question. If you designed us to be these über-healers, how did the other supernatural aspects of our abilities come about?”

Sandra shrugged. “Those were unintended side effects of the genetic manipulation. But a most welcome bonus.” She smiled. “Not the first major scientific breakthrough based on unintentional consequences.”

“You mean you have no idea?” I asked.

“Well, it seems that some of the abilities are extensions of your personalities,” Sandra said. “From what I’ve heard, you, like me, are somewhat of a control freak.” She glanced at Dr. DeWeese. “Therefore, it makes sense that you can manipulate people’s actions with your mind. Jack, like John, is extremely aware of those around him. So, he can get into peoples minds, talk to them, hear them. According to John, he has been very aware of you since the moment he knew you existed. The fact that he can hear your thoughts and communicate with you so easily makes sense. I could go on, but we simply don’t have time.”

Dr. DeWeese wiped his palms on his khaki pants. He was nervous. He had disappeared before the night of the gala. Did Cathy know that he was with Sandra? Was she part of this? Instinct told me the answer to both of those questions was a big fat no.

“I think it’s time you knew who the real enemy is, Sarah.
We
are not your enemy.” She pointed back and forth between Dr. DeWeese and herself. “You have an opportunity to be a huge part of American history. To be a great service to your country and the world. We want you to thrive, not run from your true destiny.”

“What are you babbling on about now?” I raised both brows.

“We are not the only country developing genetically modified ultra-intelligent humans,” Sandra said. “We were just the first. And the IIA is responsible for assuring that the United States continues to be the best. Other countries have already developed genetically mutated animals and insects that are being used in counterintelligence missions. Spiders, for example, mutated to slip through cracks in the walls with microchips in their bodies designed to spy on important military and political meetings.”

Dr. DeWeese typed on the computer in front of him. A little boy playing in a very dusty street appeared on the large screen. “See this child? He is one hundred percent boy when he’s playing. But when his handlers activate the chip embedded in the center of his brain, he becomes approximately sixty percent robot. The forty percent of him that is human gets him near a group of military generals. The sixty percent of him that is robot records everything those generals say and reports back the location of the terrorists protected by his country… which in turn leads us to launch military attacks at those locations.”

“That genetically engineered boy was created by the IIA,” Sandra said.

“Get to the point,” I said.

“Friends of the United States are willing to pay unbelievable amounts of money for genetically manipulated human beings who can be controlled by a single computer program.” Her voice started to take on an angry edge. “That boy was sold to another country for enough money to fund our future facility for a decade or more.”

I swallowed against the taste of bile that rose to the back of my throat. “You’re running a freak show that grows robotic children so they can be controlled by a computer.” They were growing spies for the international community. “For what? For money?”

“Of course for money. You think the type of medical research and healing miracles we’re working toward comes cheap? You could be a part of this. You and Jack. You would want for nothing.”

Money? She thought I would bow down to her highness for money?

I eyed the computer in front of Dr. DeWeese. “So, that machine controls every person with a tracker?”

“The ones I’m in control of, that’s right.” Sandra looked pleased with herself. “Look how easily Ty got inside your head. And his manipulation was completely from a computer program.” She pointed to the computer Dr. DeWeese had been typing into. “He wasn’t cloned to do so. As you saw, I had complete control over him.”

Well, not
complete
control, I wanted to argue.

“If I wanted him inside your head, he was inside your head. If I wanted him inside Jonas’s head, who then got inside your head and forced you into a freezing swimming pool, then that’s what happened.”

“All because of the tracker?”

“That’s right.” Sandra was starting to use her hands a lot to over-explain some grand point. “And you’ll be a part of this. A part of something so huge. Or…” She tilted her head side to side. “Or you’ll be eliminated by those who will not risk information about our division of the IIA being released into the world.”

An imaginary darkness fell over my entire existence. I didn’t want the world to know that we were magical healers. But how could I knowingly allow these people to grow children to be used in this way? To be manipulated beyond their control? Was human life no longer sacred? “Terminated? Like you tried to do the night you ran Jack and me off the road?”

“That wasn’t me. You think I want my most prized creations murdered in a car crash?”

That almost sounded sincere. But if what she was saying was correct, then others had tried to kill Jack and me, and would continue to do so. I tried to suppress a laugh, but couldn’t. It bubbled up and out of me, but quickly turned to an escaped sob. “What about Ty?” I remembered the image of Ty’s glassed-over eyes when Sandra decided he was no longer useful. He was just a machine to her. I swiped at a tear that had escaped. “Is it true you birthed Ty and Jonas? You carried them as your own babies?”

“That’s right.”

“Yet, you felt nothing when you killed him in cold blood. Premeditated murder in the first degree.”

“I needed to prove a point.”

“Which was?”

“That I could.”

The speaker crackled overhead. “LAB WILL SELF-DESTRUCT IN TWENTY MINUTES.”

Dr. DeWeese’s face paled. I wasn’t sure if it was because he wasn’t aware that Sandra murdered her own son, or because this lab was set for some sort of death in twenty minutes—with him still in the bowels of The Farm.

“As you can see, we are about out of time. You can join us voluntarily, or I can force you. But it’s time you decide. Surely with everything I just told you—”

“That’s what all this was. You making your case to get me to join you?” I stood from my swivel chair.
Jonas, Jack, are you seeing this? Could it be that one computer is controlling every tracker?

It gets better than that.
Jonas said.
The hard drive in the computer behind Sandra pops out of the computer from the back of the machine. If we can destroy that, we destroy the database of trackers currently in existence. There’s probably a backup, but getting that one will buy us some time.

“You will join us. We can protect you. We have no intention of keeping you locked inside one of our facilities forever. You can have freedom to roam, just like Jonas.”

“Freedom. Just like Jonas. You mean your other son that you admit to controlling with one of your trackers? So, you want me to give you permission to place a tracker at the base of my brain? Stuck to my spinal cord? So that you can what? Control my every move? My thoughts?” I circled the room. The two doctors watched me. Their eyes never left me. I understood what it felt like to have a laser pointed at the middle of my forehead.

“It’s not like that. Jonas is happy. He’s always had the liberty to live his life and learn how to use the incredible powers
I
gave him. We would be a team.”

I almost laughed. She had no idea how little she was able to control Jonas.

“Did you make this offer to my father? To join your team?” I asked Dr. DeWeese. “That night he came to you because he thought Jack and I were in danger. He trusted you. It obviously wasn’t you that he was afraid of, was it?”

“No, he’s always known this day would come. He knew the international intelligence community would eventually demand that you and the others help with the IIA’s cloning program. But don’t you see? We are able to protect you here the way he would have wanted.”