“Now what?” Zane asked. He jerked at the knot in his tie until the slippery fabric pulled free from his collar.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I’m working on it. The guards seem to follow them to classes, but surely they don’t sit in the actual classroom with them. If we could just find a way to get a message to Ford or one of the others—”
Zane sighed and sank into one of the plastic chairs across from the piano, dropping his tie onto the seat next to him. “Ariane…” He shook his head. “You’re assuming that they’re even capable of that kind of functionality.”
I frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“You saw how they were.” He leaned forward, as if pleading for me to understand. “The way they moved.” He shuddered. “It wasn’t normal.”
“It wasn’t human,” I said carefully. “But that’s not the same thing, is it?”
His mouth tightened. “What if you didn’t hear their thoughts when they walked by because there wasn’t anything to hear?” he asked. “She didn’t even react to seeing you.”
“She looked at me,” I argued, realizing even as I did how weak that sounded. “Beyond that, their choices were limited if they are under orders to be discreet,” I said. “Besides, not reacting causes confusion in the enemy and—”
“But, see, you’re assuming all kinds of things about their orders and nothing about them,” he said. “My mom said Laughlin controls them. If he’s in control, there’s not much for them to think about, right?”
“You think they’re just…shells.” Empty living bodies, responding only to programmed stimuli. Just the idea made me feel queasy.
“It’s possible, isn’t it?” Zane persisted.
I nodded reluctantly. “Anything is possible.” GTX and Laughlin Integrated had made that more than clear. But that theory—living robots, operating only on command—didn’t mesh with Mara’s experience as she’d relayed it to us. She’d seemed convinced that they hated her. Empty vessels don’t hate. And they don’t stalk, either. So either Mara was mistaken about what she’d experienced (one more vote for her being perhaps less than the best source for reliable information) or these hybrids had very, very good game faces.
My initial inclination had been toward the latter, but now, after Zane had raised the question, I couldn’t completely dismiss it, much as I would have liked to.
I bit my lip. “It was a strategic response.” Or nonresponse, rather. “It had to be.” And I could prove it. All I had to do was figure out how to engage them in a situation where they would be free to speak or otherwise communicate.
“Are you sure?” Zane asked quietly. He held my gaze, those familiar blue-gray eyes warm with sympathy.
Frustrated, I could feel the ache in my jaw from clenching my teeth too hard. What did he want me to say? No, I’m really not sure, but this is the last hope I have, so I’m clinging to it for all I’m worth? I opened my mouth. “I—”
The lights flickered suddenly overhead and then went out, the only illumination now coming from the windows set high in the back wall. Zane leapt to his feet, as though his chair had shocked him. He glanced up at the lights instinctively and then over at me.
I shook my head, adrenaline lighting me up on the inside. I wasn’t doing it. Which meant, unless the school was suffering from an unexpected power loss, they were coming. Guess they’d decided to take matters into their own hands.
“Yeah, pretty sure,” I murmured in answer to his earlier—and now likely forgotten—question.
I turned to check the door—still closed—my chest thundering with a heady mix of anticipation and dread, which felt oddly familiar, almost comforting.
Facing Zane, I said, “Get to the corner. It’s more defensible.”
“And origin of the phrase ‘backed into a corner,’ in case you’ve forgotten,” he muttered. “This is so not a good idea.” But he did it anyway. He trusted me. God, I hoped I was worthy of it.
I moved to the center of the room, putting myself between Zane and the entrance. “Keep your eyes on me,” I said to him. “Don’t watch the mirror.” In the dim light, the mirror could easily be used as a source of confusion or distraction. And with two of us who looked alike already, adding reflections to the mix could make this go downhill quickly.
“Got it,” Zane said grimly.
I should have been feeling the same—determined, resigned, frightened—but I couldn’t help the strange thrumming of excitement in my bones. You are not made for a normal life. Mara’s words echoed in my head.
I ignored them and tightened the scarf around my neck, double-knotting it so it wouldn’t come loose. If nothing else, I needed Zane to know and trust that I was me and not Ford.
I’d just lowered my hands when the door opened, startling me even though I’d been expecting it.
Ford entered in the lead, the two boys behind her. As soon as they cleared the doorway, though, they spread into the same formation they’d held in the halclass="underline" Ford in the front, the other two on either side and slightly behind her.
Facing them, I now had a better view of all three. Ford resembled me as much as I remembered; there’d been no mistake about that. The line on her face looked somehow embedded—a tattoo? Could it be a number one, something to do with her model or version number? But to put it on her face…I shuddered. Neither of the others had a similar mark that I could see.
The guy to her right was considerably taller. His thin frame topped out at close to six feet, still shorter than Zane but surprising for one of us. Ha. Like I knew anything about “us.” But based the Internet research I’d done at home in Wingate, the “grays,” our alien forebears, were usually understood to be quite diminutive. More like the other boy, the one on Ford’s left.
He was the smallest of the three, but he appeared young as well. Perhaps he was the newest hybrid iteration? That would make him Carter, if they’d been named in succession. That left the tall one as Nixon. Carter appeared almost cherubic. His hair had a rebel curliness to it, nothing like the uneven chaos that Ford and I shared or the straight, fine hair that Nixon had. Carter also looked like he might have dimples. If he, you know, ever smiled. He was also the only one carrying an iPad, like the rest of the human students.
“Your human thinks too loudly,” Ford said bluntly, startling me with the suddenness of her voice in the otherwise silent room.
The squeeze of power surrounded me, thicker and heavier than I’d imagined. It was like being encased from the elbow down in thick but mildly pliable plastic. There was also a faint and disconcerting sensation of movement, warm and fluid against my skin, as if it were alive. I could flex my muscles but not move any of my major limbs. Which, of course, was the point.
“Don’t struggle,” I said to Zane, who gave a strangled laugh. He’d probably figured that out before me, having witnessed me doing the same thing to others. I was the one new to it.
“That would be for the best,” the boy—I couldn’t think of him as anything but that due to his size—advised in an apologetic tone. “It will be easier for everybody if you remain still. We don’t want to hurt anyone unnecessarily.”
“Speak for yourself, Carter,” Ford said without even glancing at him. The cold flatness in her voice sent a chill through me, as did Carter’s immediate submission. He dropped his gaze to the floor and closed his mouth firmly, as if making sure no further words would escape by accident.
Crap. “You can’t kill us,” I said. “Discretion has to be part of your mission standards.”