Omen Operation (20 page)

Chapter Thirty-Three

Hushed chatter was what woke Brooklyn the next morning. She stretched her legs out and felt Porter twitch his foot when her toes rubbed against his ankle. They were twisted up in one another—her knee was tucked between his thighs, and his arm was wrapped snug around her waist. She could taste the sweat on his throat where her mouth was pressed, and he hummed when she continued to squirm, alerting him rather quickly that she was awake.

“If you get up, that means I have to call my dad,” Porter mumbled. “So don’t move.”

His arm tightened around her, and he pushed the palm of his hand up the back of her shirt, feeling along the expanse of her back.

“We have to get up,” Brooklyn said.

Porter yawned and backed up a few inches so he could get a clear view of her face. “We can stay right here, actually.”

“No,” she said. “I need to take a look at your stitches anyways. C’mon, wake up.”

Brooklyn unwound herself from Porter’s long limbs and sat up. Julian was eating an old pastry from the vending machine they’d broken into, and Amber was scrounging around through the bags for more food. Rayce was around the corner, checking on Savannah, and Charlie was against the wall with Dawson. Everyone looked exhausted. Drained. Dirty.

“I would kill for some deodorant right now,” Amber grumbled as she got her hands on a granola bar and tore the wrapper off.

“Don’t talk about it,” Julian said as his face crinkled up into a displeased scowl.

Brooklyn tried to untangle her hair with her fingers to no avail and opted to tie it back into a ponytail with an old rubber band. She would have loved to trek back into the woods and find Nicoli’s cabin—steal a nice warm shower, scrub her skin with some of Plum’s dry soap. But that wasn’t going to happen. As gross as it was to deal with, they had bigger things to worry about than being clean.

“Good morning,” Dawson said as he watched Brooklyn adjust the belt around her jeans.

“Morning, did you get some sleep?” she asked.

“A few hours.”

She tried to smile but it was small and hardly visible.

“You need help with his shoulder?” Dawson asked as he gestured to Porter.

“No, we’ll be fine,” she said.

Porter’s hair was sticking up in all different places. He didn’t bother with trying to tame it and covered his head with the ratty old beanie before he slid his glasses up his nose. He squinted for a moment and then took them off again to inspect them, turning them around in his hands.

“Are my glasses scratched?” he asked and held them out to Brooklyn.

She gave them a once-over and shook her head. “No, it doesn’t look like it. Maybe they just need to be cleaned?”

“Yeah, maybe. I’m surprised they’ve lasted this long,” he said.

“You can clean them while I get these bandages off.” She tugged on his shirt until he took it off and tossed it aside.

The bandages still looked clean enough, and they hadn’t slipped much since the hotel. Brooklyn carefully stripped them away one by one until only a single layer was left. Her hand hovered just above his shoulder. She inhaled a rickety breath. It was terrifying. All Brooklyn could imagine was black blood seeping out from between his stitches as the virus ate away at what was left of him. His personality falling away day by day, his voice becoming unrecognizable, his honey eyes shifting into muted yellow voids. She thought of the memories they’d built together, of his arms around her, and knew that if the bleeding started, those memories would peel up and float away like ash. Porter wouldn’t remember her.

“It’s okay,” Porter said. “Take it off.”

Brooklyn shifted her gaze to the ground when the bandage dropped away. She didn’t want to be a coward, but she also didn’t have the courage to deal with Porter becoming a Surrogate. She held her breath and stared at the concrete.

“Would you look at that,” Porter said lightly. He pinched Brooklyn’s arm and rolled his shoulder around. “I guess it worked.”

She looked up and analyzed the space where his wound was. Fresh silky skin surrounded the small indentions from the stitches. The wide jagged cut from days ago had faded overnight into a tiny sliver of what it used to be.

“You healed…” Brooklyn was breathless. The relief pouring off of her was evident in the smile stretching across her face.

“Yeah, I guess I did. Everyone that was deployed to the camps was injected with a dormant dose of microbes that would only activate if they were prompted by the derivative. I guess the microbes had been in my body long enough to be recognized efficiently.”

“So, you’re like us now?”

“Yes and no,” Porter said. “I’ll be like you; I’ll become stronger and some of my mental capacity will expand, but you’re the hosts. I’ll never be as developed as you are.”

Porter stumbled to catch himself when Brooklyn threw her arms around his neck and bracketed her knees over his waist. She sealed herself against his body and held on, fingers raking through the short hairs on the back of his neck.

“Remember a couple days ago when you wanted to kill me?” he whispered against the shell of her ear. His hands were large and firm as he held on to her.

Brooklyn wanted to tell him that she’d cared for him for too long to ever go through with it. But instead she said, “Maybe I still will.”

“Maybe,” he parroted.

She let him get to his feet while he complained that the stitches were starting to pinch.

“Do we have any of the medical scissors?” Porter asked as he looked over to Dawson.

Dawson pointed toward the duffle bags. “If we do, they’re in there.”

While Porter dug through the bags and went to work removing his own stitches, Brooklyn found the laptop in Rayce’s backpack and started clicking through different files. There was so much hidden away. Folder after folder labeled with the names of different people all stuffed with notes on progress and capability.

“Charlotte White…” Brooklyn read the name out loud.

Charlie sat straight up and almost tripped to get next to Brooklyn.

“That’s me,” Charlie said as she pointed to row after row of documents.

“You’re name’s Charlotte?” Brooklyn asked.

“Yeah, but I’ve gone by Charlie since I was five. What’s this?” Charlie tapped the screen.

Brooklyn clicked the folder she was pointing at and opened a detailed spreadsheet. Starting at the top were sectioned-off fighting styles followed by different kinds of weapons. From what they could see, their camp supervisor had caught on to just how good Charlie was with a knife.

“Are those his notes? ‘Deadliest when using tactical knives and/or garrotes,’” Charlie read what was written out loud and smirked. “Guess that asshole was payin’ attention after all.”

“Garrotes?” Brooklyn asked.

“Yeah, Davey used to let us practice with them on staged mannequins. You guys didn’t get those?”

Brooklyn’s eyebrows arched up high on her forehead, “No, no, we did not.”

“What else does it say?” Charlie asked. She reached out and turned the screen.

The rest of the notes were about Charlie’s specialties, her fears, and her behavior. Everything was documented in perfect synchronism from the time she’d arrived in the camp to the time the document had been sent to Juneau.

“Why did Davey kill himself anyway?” Brooklyn asked.

Charlie looked torn. “I don’t even know,” she said. “He was a really weird guy, but I never thought he’d do something like that. Once Amber and everyone found the camp, he ran off, locked himself in his cabin, and wouldn’t respond to anything we were saying. Dawson yelled at him, said he was gonna kick down the door, and the next thing you know, we heard a gunshot.”

“You were the only one left?”

“Me, Savannah, Gina, and Phillipe,” Charlie said. “We caught Savannah injecting herself. That’s when Dawson figured out who she was. Gina and Phillipe got scared and took off on their own instead of joining up with everyone else.”

“I’m sorry to hear that…I hope they’re okay,” Brooklyn said.

“It was their choice.”

Charlie didn’t seem to be affected by the loss of her camp-mates. Brooklyn could relate, seeing as she’d hardly even thought of Ellie or Jordan or A.J.…she could only hope that the Surros had been gentle when they took them. The thought left a sour taste in her mouth. She felt like a monster for leaving them behind and felt even worse for ignoring the thought of them.

Brooklyn clicked on another tab that led to a screen full of folders labeled ISO 1, ISO 2, ISO 3 and so on all the way to ISO 274.

“Videos?” Brooklyn hummed.

She clicked on one, and the folder opened up to half-screen. In the video, an older gentleman wearing a pair of circular glasses took notes in a binder. His hair was tucked back into a blue hairnet, and his hands were covered in latex gloves. The skin around his eyes had started to sink with age, fine lines and wrinkles spread out around his nose and mouth. He looked oddly familiar.

“Turn on the audio,” Charlie said.

Once the volume was up, they heard the eloquent voice come through the speakers:

“This is Doctor Malloy with test subject number three for sector one of Isolation, short name ISO. Subject has shown no signs of aggression but has displayed adequate motor functions and the ability to mimic verbal phrases. We ran several tests on neural function. All came back at one hundred percent. Growth is standard; organ development standard and reproductive status is standard as well.’

The camera panned to the left, where an exact replica of Charlie stood. The clone was perfect, from the color of its lips to the shape of its nailbeds. Everything was in Charlie’s likeness.

“That is the creepiest thing I have ever seen,” Charlie said.

Everyone in the warehouse had made their way around the screen of the computer and was watching intently as the camera inspected every inch of the clone’s body.

The only person who chose not to watch was Porter.

“There are 274 of these videos?” Julian asked.

“Yes,” Brooklyn said.

Dawson pushed the screen down and closed the laptop. “That’s enough of that for today. Porter needs to get ready to try and contact his dad anyways.”

“The only way I’ll be able to get through is if I can beam into the video chat on his phone,” Porter said reluctantly. “And if I do this, there’s a good chance he’ll trace the call.”

“Let him trace it,” Rayce huffed from next to Dawson as he folded his arms over his chest. “We’ll either fight or run.”

“Get everything packed,” Dawson said to Rayce. “We need to be ready in case things get messy and we need a quick getaway.”

Brooklyn hadn’t believed that there were really clones, not until she just saw one alive and breathing on the screen of that laptop. The only thing that came to mind was how hard it would be to get rid of all of them and whether or not it would be cruel. Did those things think? Did they feel or speak or have any inkling that they might be alive?

Did those clones have a soul?

She shook the thought away just as quickly as it had come. Whether the clones had a soul or not, they had to be destroyed.

Every last one of them.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Savannah started to scream when Dawson brought her a bottle of water. Her demands for freedom were vicious and loud, but after a while, they disintegrated into pitiful blubbering. She whined empty apologies and made promises that they knew she would never be able to keep. Her veins were starting to show through the skin on certain areas of her arms, and the bleeding had spread to her ears.

“I don’t know how much longer she’s going to be…normal,” Dawson said as he walked around from the back area of the warehouse. A worried look twisted his lips into a frown.

Porter changed into some of the clean clothes they had left and was using his finger to scrub his teeth with some of the mouthwash from their duffle bag.

“We have about another day until she really starts to freak out,” Porter said.

Dawson looked a little relieved. “We’ll be gone by then.”

“We’re just gonna leave her here?” Porter said.

“We can’t do anything else with her besides put her out of her misery…”

“No,” Brooklyn interrupted. She slung the backpack Cambria had given them over her shoulder. “We leave Savannah here. There’s no need to waste a bullet on her.”

“We don’t have to use a gun,” Dawson said.

Brooklyn’s jaw tightened. “We’re leaving her here. Juneau can clean up his own mess.”

She walked out of the warehouse and threw the backpack into the backseat of the truck. Rayce packed the Escalade. He sighed when she walked over and leaned against the side of the large vehicle.

“I know this is a weird question, but with things going the way they’re going…I just wanna know. When they took Ellie and A.J. and Jordan, did you see what the Surros did with them?” Brooklyn asked.

Rayce was compassionate, and even though he didn’t show his soft side all that often, she could tell that the question was a hard one for him. He closed the trunk and licked over his lips. “They pulled them out of the bus and pinned their arms, grabbed their legs and hands. It happened too fast. I was trying to shoot the ones I could still get to when Amber started to drive. I could hear ’em yellin’ for us all the way down the road and couldn’t get to ’em. We aren’t supposed to hear that shit, girl. We aren’t supposed to hear the people we couldn’t save.”

His words were leathery and heavy. They flapped like wings in her stomach. Rayce was right, though—no one should have to listen to their friends scream for help. No one should have to hear what they’ve heard, see what they’ve seen.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

“Don’t worry about it. I know why you did.”

It was hard to look at him.

They walked back inside together. The warehouse was starting to suffocate her. It’s tall concrete walls and cold floor was beginning to remind her of a cell. Brooklyn crawled on top of a stack of palettes and sat down.

Porter sat in the middle of the room with the laptop open in front of him. He had his glasses on, but they were balanced on the very tip of his nose so he could see over them. His eyesight was changing. Things that were once blurry had started to clear, lines that weren’t defined were now sharp. Brooklyn had lived with the abilities since she was a toddler. She could only imagine what it would be like to get a grasp on them now.

She scanned his face, the concentration settled in the pinched area between his eyes. It was difficult to distinguish how deep her feelings for him went. He was all long arms and even longer legs with an attitude that’d been large enough to catch her attention right off the bat when they’d first met. The evolution of Porter and Brooklyn might stay in the space between the concrete walls of the warehouse. Maybe too much time had passed. Maybe it was best that they stay right where they were, with Brooklyn taking sanctuary in his arms at night and him holding on to her.

It would be easier that way, but it was too bad Brooklyn wasn’t one for easy.

“I’m dialing in,” Porter said. He looked up at Dawson first and then over to Brooklyn.

Amber and Charlie sat on the floor by Dawson’s feet with Julian. Rayce walked over and took a seat next to Brooklyn.

Dawson nodded, and Porter exhaled a deep, long breath.

The laptop beeped, the screen covered in white snow. Brooklyn watched Porter fiddle with his fingers as he counted down the seconds and hoped his father didn’t answer. That wasn’t the case. Within seconds, a voice came through the static.

“My boy,” Juneau rumbled. “I was hoping to hear from you much sooner.”

The sight of his father took Porter off-guard, and he tripped over his words momentarily. “Dad…yeah, I uh, I didn’t have any other way of getting a hold of you after we left Eleven.”

“Of course you didn’t. Have you got this thing out of your system yet? I’ve been watching my own son run around like some kind of wild animal for five days now. I hope you’ve had your fun.”

“They aren’t animals, Dad…I think you should…” Porter paused and his words faded.

Juneau stared at him. There was a pair of glasses, round and thin on the man’s nose. His eyes weren’t as bright as Porter’s, but they were the same shape. He had a bit of scruff around his mouth speckled with stray grey hairs.

“You think I should…? Go on, Porter. I don’t have much time,” Juneau said.

“I think you should stop. I want you to stop. These people are my friends, and I can’t pretend like I agree with this anymore. Please, please, just let them go, and you can work on another project.”

“You know that isn’t going to happen,” Juneau laughed. “I know what you’re doing, and I know why you’re doing it. I wanted to give you the chance to come back and celebrate the success we’ve had with this, but it looks like you’ve already compromised that, haven’t you?”

Porter’s mouth zipped shut, and his eyes narrowed.

“I have been watching you since the night you left,” Juneau said through a sigh. “And it looks like these Omens are some of the strongest we have. The training will continue. I’m assuming you used the failsafe, correct?”

Porter paused and then nodded.

“And obviously your system has welcomed the virus. You know what that means, don’t you, son?”

“It means I’m a part of this.”

“This is an understatement, Porter. This is the future, and you haven’t become a part of it. You’ve redefined it. Thank you for delivering the Omens to me. We’ll take it from here.”

Dawson straightened his back, and Brooklyn’s heart leapt into her throat.

“Don’t do this!” Porter blurted, eyes wide, filled with hope and love and maybe even admiration. “You’re a good man, Dad. Please, don’t do this!”

“It’s done, Porter.” Juneau sat back in his chair. He looked sad for a moment, head tilted to the side, palms pressed together. He stared at Porter and said, “Goodbye.” The video on the screen cracked with static.

The sound of thrashing heartbeats was overwhelming. Brooklyn got to her feet as quickly as she could and waited for someone to speak. She wanted direction, an idea, a way out, but it sounded like no matter where they went it wasn’t going to guarantee an escape.

“They’re gonna find us,” Porter said. His anxiety was thick like smoke; it tinged her tongue like rotten grapefruit, sour and tangy. “We either stay or we go, and we need to make that decision right now.”

“We go, then,” Dawson said. “Everyone? Yes? No?”

“Yeah, let’s beat it,” Amber said. “We’ll get as far as we can, and then we’ll fight.”

“Looks like that’s our best plan,” Julian added.

Dawson nodded. “Get to the cars.”

Brooklyn turned to make her way toward the exit, but she felt fingers around her hand, holding tight. It was Porter, taking even steps next to her. He gave her hand a light squeeze.

“They’re gonna catch us,” he whispered.

“Yeah,” Brooklyn said quietly. “I think we all know that.”

“Whatever happens, I want you to…”

“No,” Brooklyn hissed. “Don’t say anything.”

“If something happens to me…”

Brooklyn stopped and turned on her heels. “Something is going to happen to all of us. And it’s going to be the worst thing that we’ve ever been through, but I’m not in any way, shape, or form going to say goodbye to you or anyone else right now.”

“That’s not what I was going to say,” he protested angrily.

“Well whatever it is, you can save it, okay?”

Porter chewed on his bottom lip and stayed quiet, following as she hurried toward the door.

Amber, Charlie, and Rayce climbed into the large white Escalade while Porter, Julian, Dawson, and Brooklyn piled into the truck. The walkie-talkies they’d made use of when they’d left the first camp were out of juice, which meant they had no way to communicate back and forth.

“Wouldn’t it make more sense for us all to get in the big white one?” Julian asked.

“No,” Dawson breathed. “It’ll be better for us to be in separate cars. If they get a hold of one group, it might give the others enough time to make it out.”

Rayce made sure everyone in his car was situated then hopped out of the driver’s seat and jogged over to the truck.

“Where we goin’?” he asked.

Dawson tried to think on his feet, but it was difficult to come up with anything. They were at a complete loss, trapped like rats in a maze.

“We go north toward Canada,” Dawson said.

Rayce looked scared but he nodded. “I’m followin’ you.” His gaze traveled to the back seat where Julian was sitting and rested there for a moment. There was a very real possibility that none of them would see each other again.

“They’ve got good seafood up there, I hear,” Rayce said.

Julian nodded, scared. “Yeah?”

“Yeah, I’m takin’ you when we’re outta this mess.”

“Yeah, you are. When we make it out of this.”

Rayce nodded, looking up and down Julian’s face, and then he walked back to the white Escalade and slid into the driver’s seat.

Brooklyn thought it was a good idea not to say goodbye because of just how permanent that goodbye could be. She turned around and looked out the back window. Amber was in the front seat, looking as tough as always. Her eyes were strong, and her back was straight. She was twirling one of her throwing knives between her fingers and winked at Brooklyn.

“Let’s go,” Dawson said.

The truck lurched forward. Brooklyn fumbled to find Julian’s hand in the back seat. He gripped it tight and scooted closer to her. They didn’t need to say anything. It’d always been the same deal with them. They don’t leave without each other. In the end, whatever happened, whoever they lost, they didn’t lose each other.

It was early afternoon, but the fog outside was grim, darkening the little bit of light that shined through the clouds. The docks weren’t crowded and as they drove toward the end where the path merged with the main road. Brooklyn thought maybe they had a chance to escape. Maybe they’d left in enough time to bypass Juneau and his people.

The mist was thick. They made the turn on to the main road and saw a set of four black vans idling next to the sidewalk.

“That’s them isn’t it?” Dawson said.

Porter gnawed on his lip. “Yeah that has to be them.”

“Julian, grab the bag under my seat,” Dawson said over his shoulder.

Julian reached down and unzipped it. There was an array of different guns and knives.

“Where’d you get all these?” Julian said as he lifted up one of the sleek black pistols.

“Camp Fourteen,” Dawson said. “Rayce has a bag in his car too.”

“And you want us to do what with them?” Julian asked.

Dawson wasn’t shy about speed and slammed his foot down on the gas as they drove down the road toward the highway. Brooklyn wasn’t wearing a seat belt and almost toppled over into Julian. She looked behind her out the window. Rayce was keeping pace behind them. The four vans sped up and drove parallel to the truck, two on each side.

“If they get close enough, shoot them,” Dawson said.

Porter immediately shook his head, “We can’t risk that—there’s innocent people everywhere. What if a bullet strays off and hits a kid or something?”

“That’s why I said if they get close enough,” Dawson repeated.

Brooklyn reached down by Julian’s feet and grabbed one of the guns. She handed it to Porter, who was reluctant to take it, and then grabbed one for herself

“You think they wouldn’t leave a bunch of guns with military-trained super humans,” Julian mumbled as he strapped a large knife to his belt.

Brooklyn stared out the window. Her heart pounded. Adrenaline rushed into her fingertips, and her thoughts exploded from whispers into screams. Every natural part of her wanted to clam up, to give in to being out of control. That would have been the appropriate reaction, distress, tears, and belligerence. But she was balanced. Her focus was sharp, and she felt every muscle in her body poised on a trip wire, ready to fight.