Burn (17 page)

Leo is now hunched over Christina, and even from here, I can see their smiles. He's brightened this horrible day for her, and I'm grateful. She's not alone, and at the moment, she's not scared.

My eyes settle on Brayton, who's on his feet, his arm slung over Ellie's shoulders. Without thinking too much about it, I head over there, noting that Kellan is slowly walking along the rows of patients, the black light on, staring at their hands and shoes, looking for the incriminating fluorescence. Most people seem too thrashed to even notice him, which must come as a huge relief to poor Kellan. Brayton and Ellie eye him with suspicion, though.

I quicken my pace. Rufus is still sitting in his wheelchair, and Christina and Leo look up as I approach. Rufus sneers at Race. “Happy now? We're defenseless. Easy pickings.”

Race regards him somberly, no doubt recalling all the shouted accusations from Rufus during the board meeting last night. “I have over a hundred agents here, some of whom are gravely wounded. One of whom has just been shot in the back of the head. Angus has ordered the perimeter guards to forbid anyone to go in or out. We are caught here, just as you are, but the difference is that we are on unfamiliar ground and vastly outnumbered. Tell me the logic behind accusing the Core of creating this tragedy.”

Rufus's face becomes a mottled maroon shade. “Tell me why we never had a fire in our factory until you H2 came onto our compound!”

“Maybe the H2 aren't the only ones here,” I say.

“Everyone's been scanned,” Brayton replies wearily, looking like he could collapse again at any moment. “Rufus does have a point. And now we all need to prioritize rebuilding and getting everything back online. All I've been hearing since I arrived on this compound is that we're under threat of imminent attack.”

“We've already taken care of the bigger threat,” says Leo, his pride glowing through the sooty smears on his skin. “We got the satellite defense shield working.”

Race squeezes his eyes shut at Leo's careless disclosure.

“That's incredible,” says Brayton. He looks at me. “I heard rumors you were having trouble accessing the satellites. It's a relief to hear they were wrong.”

“But it won't help us much, considering there are already scout ships
here,
” growls Rufus. “Just like scanning everyone didn't help us. But go ahead and scan us all again if it makes you feel less helpless, boy. Oh, wait. I see Kellan's already at it.” He glares at the young Black Box guard, who is trying and failing to look casual as he walks toward us, holding the wand light over every person he passes, whether they're upright or lying unconscious on the floor. I'm relieved to see that the wand light resembles the scanner from a distance. But then Kellan passes it over a Core agent, and the faint blue light stays blue. Rufus sits back. “That's not the scanner. What the hell is he doing?”

Leo's eyes go wide when he realizes it's the black light, and before I can stop him, he blurts, “Someone tried to steal the scanner again, didn't they? Did they get it?”

Race's jaw clenches, and he looks away. We're playing a game of secrecy, and Leo's giving out information left and right.

Rufus throws up his hands. “Now the scanner's been stolen? I didn't think I could be more ashamed of being part of The Fifty, but apparently it's still possible.” His hands close over the wheels of his wheelchair. “I'm leaving.”

Race steps in front of him. “The compound has been sealed until we find the scanner.”

“I'm a patriarch of The Fifty!” Rufus shouts. “And no H2 will ever be my master!”

Kellan meets my eyes briefly as he raises the black light and approaches Ellie and Brayton, who looks weak but defiant as he turns his gaze to me. “This wand light test was your idea, wasn't it? What do you think you're going to find, Tate?”

“I'm sorry, Mr. Alexander,” Kellan mumbles. “It's just a precaution. It won't take more than a second.”

“We were right here when the lights went off,” Brayton says quietly, his eyes locked on mine. “All of us were.”

Kellan shrugs and moves closer. I stop breathing as the light slides over Brayton's fingers, twined with Ellie's. Nothing. Kellan shines it at their shoes. Nothing. Brayton and Ellie's other hands. Nothing.

I relax a little. Then Kellan moves to Rufus.

And as soon as the light hits the Bishop patriarch's chubby fingers, the fluorescence is nearly blinding. Kellan's eyes go wide. “Guards!” he shouts.

Four of them rush over before Rufus has a chance to move his wheelchair anywhere. “Take him to the designated holding area,” Kellan says in a shaky voice as Rufus begins to rise from his chair. Kellan wrenches his weapon from its holster and points it at Rufus's head. “Don't push this now, Mr. Bishop. I don't have that scanner to see if you're really who you claim to be, so I'm going to have to judge by your level of cooperation.”

“I was
right here,
” growls Rufus. “This is outrageous.”

“But you might be working with someone who wasn't,” says Race. “And we know you tried to get into the room with the scanner.” He nods at Rufus's hands.

Rufus's mouth snaps shut, and he sinks back into his chair. His eyes glassy with rage, he allows the squad of guards to wheel him from the atrium. He holds his head high and looks neither left nor right. Everyone else watches in shock.

Movement to my left brings my attention back to our little group. Brayton is sagging against Ellie, who is struggling to hold him up. He weakly raises his head and looks at Race. “I need to talk to Angus,” he says, his words garbled. “He doesn't . . .” His head lolls, and he groans.

“I need to get you back to your room,” Ellie says firmly.

“Infirmary,” he mumbles.

“There won't be any space in the infirmary. They're dealing with enough. But I can get Dr. Ackerman to—”

“I'm fine,” Brayton mutters. “I can go by myself. You stay here and . . .”

She rolls her eyes. “Shut up, Dad.” And with that, she guides him slowly toward the front exit, headed for the dorms.

“Maybe Christina should get back to the dorms, too,” Leo says quietly.

She props herself up on an elbow. “No way,” she rasps, looking at Manuel, who nods at her.

“What are you talking about?” I take a step closer to her, recognizing that look of determination on her face. “Remember an hour or so ago when you
almost died
?”

She pushes herself up to sitting. “Remember why we're here in the first place?” she says, rubbing her chest, which makes my fists clench.

Manuel walks over, each step looking like an effort. “We were onto something when the fire broke out,” he says in a hoarse voice. “We need to see if any of the combat vehicles survived. We don't have the luxury of days, do we? We were told the Sicarii could attack at any time, and now that we've been decimated . . .” His look is hard—he's heard the tales of the scout ships, and he's seen the injuries and destruction they caused.

I put my hands up, sweat beading at my temples from the heat of my frustration. I need to get away from here. I need to punch something. All of this feels like my fault, but I can't fix it or control it. Everything is
so
far out of control, in fact, that I'm not even sure where to start. The factory is destroyed. The scanner is gone—and maybe Rufus Bishop is behind it. So many people are dead or hurt.

Where would all of us be if I'd never taken that scanner from my dad's lab?

It feels like a great chasm has opened in front of me, threatening to swallow me whole.

“Tate.”

My attention snaps back to Race. “What?”

“We have things to do.” He inclines his head toward the elevator, guiding me away from Leo, Christina, and Manuel, who are already talking among themselves about how they're going to reenter the factory.

“We need to post guards around any terminal that can access the satellites,” I say quietly. “Leo just announced to the entire atrium that the shield is live. If there's really a saboteur—”

“It's done,” says Race. “I did it before the fire was even under control.”

“Good.” Of course, if those scout ships attack, even that might not help. If the Sicarii can gain control of this compound, they could take the shield down themselves, opening the door once again for a massive invasion. “Rufus was right about one thing—we're sitting ducks.”

“Then we should get to work.” He moves toward the elevator.

“On what?” I snap, staying where I am. I'm so tired. I've done everything I knew to do. And we're still facing defeat.

He hooks his fingers around my elbow and leads me toward the elevator. “On figuring out why the Sicarii want the scanner.”

“Seeing as it's been stolen—how do you propose we do that? Do you really think Rufus will talk?”

“Let Angus deal with him for the moment. He's well-equipped to handle that, and he'll call if he makes headway with Rufus. What he can't do is figure out our technology.” He presses the
DOWN
button, and we wait for the elevator door to open. “Your father built the scanner and the satellite system—and he did it by using the wreckage of the spaceship.”

The one thing I haven't explored yet. A reluctant, grim smile creeps onto my face. Maybe that's where we'll find the answers that will save us. Maybe that's where I'll discover the key to all my dad's plans. Maybe that's where I'll find him again. “Okay. Let's go take a look.”

AS WE ENTER THE ENORMOUS VAULT-LIKE STORAGE
room
where the wreckage is stored, I talk to Race about what I suspect. “This stuff was stowed on the defense ship that escaped the H2 planet, but I think the Sicarii must have gotten some demonstration of what the scanner tech could do when Congers's ancestor went to that final meeting. Congers himself said as much a few days ago. It can be made into a weapon.”

“True, but maybe it wasn't that powerful, or else his ancestor would have walked away,” says Race as we flick on the lights.

“We don't know that. It could have been so powerful that he couldn't control it, or that it took him out, too.”

Race peers down at the twisted hunks of wreckage. “You think they're after the scanner here because they know exactly what it can do.”

“And maybe because they want to use it against us.”

I kneel next to the biggest piece and brush some of the dust from its surface.

“Then I hope Rufus Bishop and whoever's working with him hid the scanner well,” he says in a grim voice.

I turn to him. “Do you really think he's responsible for the theft?”

“Aren't you the one who laid the fluorescent powder trap?” he says, his red eyes glinting with something like amusement.

“Yeah, but Rufus was in the atrium the entire time.”

“That doesn't mean he didn't scope it out prior to the factory fire.”

“I know, but . . .”—I can't believe I'm saying this—“I think Rufus is a bigoted, paranoid asshole. But I also think he's extremely intelligent and has his own code of honor.”

Race's mouth tightens like he's about to laugh. “Well said. So you think a Sicarii took it? Or do you think he
is
a Sicarii?”

I press my knuckles into the tile floor. “No idea. How are they here, if we've scanned everyone repeatedly and no one is orange?”

“Perhaps Dr. Shirazi will have some answers after she completes the autopsies.”

I nod and return to my inspection of the wreckage. Most of it looks like ordinary-yet-severely-damaged, high-tech gadgetry, in that there are screens and chips and wires. “Maybe we should pull some of these chips out and see if we have any way to interface with them.”

Race's eyebrow arches. “It's quite advanced.”

I mirror his expression. “And yet somehow, my dad built an entire satellite shield from it. And look.” I point to one open control panel. There are fingerprints along its edge, and inside . . . “It looks like something's been removed.” There are ports within the compartment, little odd-shaped holes that are strangely familiar.

“The scanner has ports that looked just like those,” I blurt out as the connection is forged inside my mind.

Race leans in, squinting. “You're sure?”

“Fairly. I thought the ports on the side of the scanner were USB, but they weren't shaped quite right. There were three of them, though.” I jab my finger at each of the three holes where something used to connect.

“So your father removed the chips,” Race says slowly, clearly turning over possibilities in his mind. “And the scanner has ports identical to these—”

“I said it looked like they were, but—”

He holds up his hands, granting me my uncertainty. “It had ports similar to those. So if we knew what they were—or if we could find the missing pieces that fit into them—we could figure out what the scanner's full capabilities are.”

“Which would be awesome if we actually had possession of the scanner,” I say with a humorless laugh. I move to a crumpled piece of debris as tall as my hip and touch one of the chips inside a gaping crack in the panel. As soon as I do, the hunk of metal scrapes along the floor and falls back before I can catch it. The thing splinters, spilling and scattering a dozen different components and chips that had been nestled within.

I go to pick up a few of them, but Race grabs my wrist. “Don't.” He nods at one of the chips, which is oozing something viscous and brown onto the tile. “We have no idea what that is.”

“My mom can help us figure it out,” I say, feeling my muscles tense with energy and curiosity. A clue. A lead. Something to pin my shredded hopes on. We grab a broom and dustpan and carefully scrape the chips and the ooze onto the pan, then carry it to the morgue.

“Mom?” I call, immediately recognizing the whine of a bone saw coming from behind the closed doors of her autopsy room. When he hears it, Race winces and tells me he'll wait outside.

A moment later, the whine stops abruptly, and my mother leans out of the chamber. She's wearing goggles and gloves. A face mask is tucked beneath her chin. “Tate,” she says wearily. “I've just gotten started. Dr. Ackerman was going to assist, but once again he's got his hands full.”

I glance around, noting the hum of a mass spectrometer against the wall. “Are you sampling those anomalies? Any signs of a parasite or anything like that?”

“I have a handful of odd cellular and chromosomal findings, but that's it. I've done the thoracic and abdominal dissections. No findings that indicate parasitic activity.” Her lips press together for a moment. “In fact, all three of them seem perfectly healthy apart from the bullet wounds,” she says in an unsteady voice, reminding me that two of the men she's been cutting open had been her friends for years.

“What are the odd findings? You mean the weird secretory glands in their skin? Did the other two bodies have them, too?” I ask, trying to bring her to a more objective place, where she can think of them as a collection of lab results instead of dead comrades, at least for the time being.

She switches into scientist mode quickly. “All three bodies had the additional secretory glands. I haven't had time to further examine their function, though. But I've confirmed the DNA profiles as Charles and George, so even if the Sicarii somehow took them over, it didn't change their basic genetic makeup. However, their chromosomes are somewhat strange. The telomeres are unusually long, and their levels of telomerase are off the charts.”

“Telomeres . . . like, the ends of their chromosomes?”

“Correct. The parts that protect the DNA sequences from degrading or mutating.”

“Aren't they associated with aging or something?” It was all over the news last year, the idea that telomerase, this enzyme that causes those telomere endcaps to lengthen, might slow the aging process.

“That's the theory. As chromosomes replicate, they degrade, resulting in a loss of genetic information and integrity. Telomeres keep that from happening as quickly, but they shorten over time, and when they get too short, the cell stops dividing and dies. Lack of telomerase and short telomeres are common in people with various premature aging disorders.”

“And both George and Willetts have a lot of telomerase.”

Her dark eyes are steady on mine. “The deceased Core agent does as well. Far beyond the normal range. Basically . . . immortal.”

My mouth drops open. “Like, they'd stopped aging?”

She nods slowly. “I've just started the intracranial examination. Perhaps I'll find some answers there.”

She's cutting their skulls open to look at their brains, hence the sound of the bone saw. “I just wanted to drop these components off,” I say. “They're from the ship wreckage. I'm wondering if you can take a look at these?” I hold up the dustpan full of oozing chips.

She frowns and blows a wisp of hair upward, away from her face. “When I'm finished.”

“I think these might help us figure out what the scanner was supposed to be used for,” I tell her. “And what Dad meant when he said it was the key to our survival.”

She eyes the chips as I set the dustpan on the stainless steel lab table in the center of the room. “He might not have meant the specific device. He may have been referring to the overall tech—”

“No,” I say firmly, my throat getting tight. “I was there. I know what he said, Mom.”

She stares at me for a few seconds, and then the lines in her expression soften. “Okay. When I find a stopping point, I'll take a look.”

I thank her and join Race in the hallway. He's leaning against the wall with his eyes closed, and I wonder if he's slept at all since arriving on the compound just over twenty-four hours ago. As much as I want to hate him, like Rufus, I feel a begrudging respect for him and the pressures he's been under. He's not the cold, merciless machine I thought he was when he was chasing us to get the scanner, and I understand his desperation now. He also cares about his agents, and he seems to regret what happened with my dad. I wonder what Dad would think if he knew we were working together now, if he'd be furious or if he'd understand that I have no choice.

It's one more thing I'll never know about Frederick Archer.Race opens his eyes when he hears me coming and pushes himself off the wall. “How are the autopsies going?”

I fill him in about the secretory glands my mom discovered in the men's skin, as well as the strange telomere and telomerase findings.

“But no signs of the parasite?” he asks.

“None.”

His jaw clenches. “So we still have no idea how they move from host to host.”

“Mom's working on it. She said she'd take a break to look at those chips, though. Even if we can't figure out the Sicarii, maybe we can find a way to beat them.”

He crosses his arms over his chest once we reach the elevator banks. “We could do that a lot faster if we actually had the scanner.”

“Maybe we should go check how Angus is doing with Rufus,” I suggest.

It feels a little weird as we stride down the administrative hall together, me and Race Lavin, teaming up to fight a common enemy. I mean, on Thursday morning—just
three
days ago—I was choking him out on the floor of a Walmart. But he's a calm, steady presence at my side, and right now, that makes me feel less alone in all of this.

We find Angus in the CFO office, mostly by tracking the hoarse barks of Rufus's outrage.

“Did he confess?” Race asks as we enter. Rufus is nowhere in sight, but I can hear his grumbling coming from an office down the hall.

Angus glances at us and shakes his head, which is when I notice Congers across the room, tight-lipped and grim as he talks into a com device. My stomach drops. “Is he talking to the defense stations? Have they spotted scout ships?”

“No, thank God. No sign of them,” says Angus.

“Yet,” says Race.

Angus gives Congers a concerned look. “We're bringing in another suspect. Rufus said he only approached and touched the keypad on the secure room after seeing someone else there.”

Race looks back and forth between Angus and Congers. The tension in this room is stifling. “Who?”

“My son,” Congers snaps before returning to his conversation. He's telling his agents to stand down, and he's obviously getting some pushback.

“If he really saw someone in the hallway who shouldn't have been there, why didn't he report it immediately?” I ask.

“Because of the fire in the factory!” Rufus roars from the other room, his gruff voice accompanied by the rattling of what I can only assume are handcuffs. Rufus must be close to having a stroke.

“Weren't you working with Rufus on the security system?” I ask Congers as he ends his phone call.

He nods. “Just before the fire broke out, Rufus was supposed to be checking the surge protection in the circuit breakers along this hallway.”

“Making it either the perfect opportunity or an unfortunate coincidence?” Race says.

Angus scratches at his beard. He's got grime smeared across his shirt, and his sleeves are rolled up, revealing his massive, freckled forearms. “I'd been in here all morning since you put that stuff on the door. But maybe five minutes before the fire, I'd left to go to lunch, and when I reached the atrium, I sent two guards from the main entrance back to my office to guard the scanner. It couldn't have been unguarded for more than a minute or two.”

Kellan walks in with two other guards, surrounding a cuffed Graham Congers, who is stone-faced and pale. “Sir, I did what you asked. The guards searched Mr. Bishop's quarters, and they're in the process of searching the Core agents' quarters as well. We haven't found anything yet.”

That's the reason Congers was telling them to stand down. No doubt the Core is pissed at having suspicion cast on them again. The whole thing is exhausting and frustrating. Someone has the scanner, and I'm desperate to have it back in my hands. It's a vulnerable feeling, not knowing who the enemy is. For all we know, Rufus is being controlled by something that's infiltrated his body and mind.

Kellan jerks his head toward Graham and touches the black light wand at his belt. “His hands were covered in the vitamin solution. Bottom of his shoes, too.”

“Because I was here and touched the keypad,” Graham snaps. “I told you that already.”

“Why?” Congers demands. “Why were you even in this office?” He looks utterly disgusted with his son, and my gut clenches.

Graham turns to his father, their gray-green eyes locking in a silent battle. “I wanted to catch whoever was trying to steal the device,” he says. “And I saw someone go in after Mr. McClaren walked out.” He looks away, swallowing hard under the anger in his father's expression.

“Did you recognize him?” Angus asks, his gaze slanting toward the office where Rufus is being held.

Graham looks at me and then at Angus. “Yeah. He's one of you guys. Pale-blond hair.”

“Brayton?” I ask.

Graham shrugs. “I don't know his name. He's a middle-aged guy. He was starting to punch in a code when I peeked in here, but he stopped when he saw me and took off.” He points to a back hallway across the suite. “The guy was sprinting. I was suspicious.”