I grimaced, remembering belatedly that I was, in fact, sort of, in a twisted way, asking him for a favor. “And my brother, you’ll let him go too,” I added, though it lacked the force and conviction of my earlier outburst.
Another long pause. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” Dr. Jacobs said carefully. “But if there’s a situation involving Quinn, I’d be happy to look into it.”
Bastard.
Someone in the background murmured then, and there was a loud rustling noise. Covering the speaker so I couldn’t hear, perhaps?
“Stay where you are, Zane,” he said a moment later, his voice sharp with tension and more than a hint of eagerness. “We’ll have someone there in forty-five minutes. Less, perhaps.”
Greasy relief welled up at his reassurance, and I hated myself even more.
“Or my betrayal is free?” I laughed bitterly.
“You’re doing the right thing,” Dr. Jacobs said with a calm certainty. “She doesn’t belong out there in the world. It’s too dangerous.”
“For you or for her?” I asked wearily. I wanted to cry, but everything in me felt dried up and empty.
“I know you think I’m a cruel man,” he said, “but I’m just trying to protect—”
I hung up before I could hear the end of that lie. It was the same one I was telling myself.
Ariane would rather die than go back to GTX. I knew that. She’d told me as much.
But I couldn’t just let that happen. Alive and in a cage was better than dead. To me, at least.
So because of my weakness, I’d taken away her choice, making me no better than Dr. Jacobs.
Just as she’d said.
21
Ariane
UNDER OTHER CIRCUMSTANCES, I MIGHT have been fascinated—and horrified—by the differences in life at Laughlin’s facility. I’d never imagined that anything could make me look upon my experiences at GTX with something that vaguely resembled fondness.
From what I could tell, Ford and the others had very little by way of possessions, beyond strategy manuals, weapon instructions, and books like The Art of War. There was a stack of magazines on a table to the side of their cubbies, but they all seemed to date from the last year, starting probably right around the time Dr. Laughlin had decided they needed to be “humanized.” Maybe Carter’s iPad served the purpose of additional entertainment/acclimation to human culture, but I was willing to bet that he’d acquired that technology only upon starting at Linwood. And neither Ford nor Nixon seemed to have one—by their choice or Laughlin’s, I wasn’t sure.
And to make it worse, where I’d been left to my own devices except when being tested, creating an illusion of free will, their schedule was strictly regimented.
Exactly ten minutes after our return from school, Nixon and Carter had begun to change clothes, and I had to scramble to follow suit, careful to keep my back—and the GTX tattoo on it—against the wall. There was no privacy. And no room allowed for my hesitation. Clearly, this was their usual postschool routine.
For precisely one hour, Nixon, Carter, and I ran on treadmills in a smaller room down the hall. Then there was another hour of battle simulation in a different room, one equipped with a large projector and screen, technology that was evidently intended to allow us to run through “real” scenarios. It mostly involved ducking and covering behind simulated corners and using our abilities to strip mock humans of weapons before they could fire on us. Once I got the hang of it, I did well enough to keep up, but I had no idea how Ford normally fared. I hoped that, if she was the reigning champ, anyone monitoring would think Ford was just having an off day.
After that, three-minute showers in the completely exposed bathroom unit in their quarters. (I’d kept my gaze glued to the tile wall to avoid seeing Carter and Nixon, and I’d worn my workout T-shirt in to keep my GTX mark covered. It didn’t matter if Ford didn’t usually do that; I’d had no choice.)
It was now 5:47 P.M., and we were sitting down at the small table in their room with meal trays filled with some unidentifiable paste, brought in during our absence.
I was exhausted but jittery with adrenaline. Because this was it, the moment of—well, not truth, but massive deception. According to Ford, Dr. David Laughlin visited during their dinner every night. At 5:45. Knowledge of that visit and its timing was integral to our plan.
Which was actually very simple. Laughlin and Jacobs—and maybe Emerson St. John too, though who knew?—were all so busy trying to eavesdrop on one another and plant spies in the other organizations, we were going to use that against them.
I was here as Ford. And Ford, as me, would use Zane’s phone to make a call. It didn’t matter to whom. Just so the call registered with whatever cell tower was nearby. Dr. Jacobs was surely monitoring the phone and would mobilize to track “me” down. But Laughlin, with his informants in place within GTX, would also likely hear about the call almost immediately afterward. And he’d be unable to resist the temptation—or so I hoped—to gather up his men and snatch “me” out from his careless competitor’s nose, especially since “I” was so close, practically in his backyard. Thus providing a substantial distraction that would focus everyone’s attention elsewhere and allow me enough time/freedom to get into Laughlin’s office and back out, undetected.
There were only two tricky parts to this equation. Ford had to lead them on a merry chase but not actually get caught. If she did, this would likely end in a stalemate, which would not help us. Plus, I needed Ford to be back at the school by tomorrow morning so I could hand off the Quorosene and we could switch back, without anyone the wiser. Then they could disappear at the first opportunity available for the three of them and I could vanish with Zane. At least until we knew for sure that the trials had been canceled.
All of that meant the timing for our distraction—the phone call that would lead them to pursue Ford as me—was crucial. Ford had suggested, then, that it needed to be the end of the day, when there were fewer people on staff, and after Dr. Laughlin’s daily check in with his own hybrids. We couldn’t risk him coming back unexpectedly.
But Dr. Laughlin was now two minutes late.
It took everything I had to keep my leg from jouncing beneath the table. I wanted to ask Carter if it was normal for him to be late, but I couldn’t, of course.
It didn’t matter, though. Given what I’d seen of their clockwork schedule, I suspected a two-minute discrepancy was significant. In the back of my head, a voice screamed, “CAUGHT!” over and over again.
Had Ford accidentally started her distraction too soon? The timing on this plan had to be precise, a fact I’d emphasized repeatedly, much to her annoyance. But she’d seemed to understand. Or so I’d thought.
Against my will, I glanced up at the case in the hall bearing her name. Who knew what she was thinking or what she would do with that kind of threat hanging over her head? The niggling possibility that she’d simply walked away, taking my money and ID, wouldn’t leave me alone. Although that wouldn’t explain Dr. Laughlin’s tardiness.
I shifted restlessly in my seat before I could stop myself.
Carter, catching my gaze, shook his head. I wasn’t sure if he was trying to tell me to hold still or not to worry. Either way, it wasn’t helping. I felt like a mouse with my teeth sunk into a suspiciously convenient piece of cheese, waiting only for the sudden rush of air and the crack of a metal bar on my neck.
A dull ache in my stomach started, and I was pretty sure it was only partially due to the protein paste I was forcing myself to choke down.
When Dr. Laughlin finally bustled through the open doorway, his lab coat flapping behind him, it startled me. I’d already grown used to looking up to find the hallway empty.