I felt my heart flutter with anxiety again, but I ignored it, forcing myself to calculate.
My biggest advantage: I was inside Laughlin’s facility, undetected. For the moment. It was, as I’d told Zane, a one-time opportunity.
Ford’s distraction had been intended only to cause confusion and pull focus away from Nixon, Carter, and me long enough for me to slip deeper into the facility.
I didn’t have that luxury anymore. But maybe I didn’t need it. I knew from Mara that Ford and the others had previously used loopholes in Laughlin’s commands to slip outside the facility and stalk Mara. For example, Laughlin may have told Ford to go to her quarters, but he didn’t say stay. Or how long to stay, even. She just couldn’t leave permanently. And rather than punishing her for finding these gaps, he’d seemed amused by them, if Mara’s telling of it was in any way accurate. He’d altered their orders at some point, obviously, because the stalking had stopped.
But how many people here knew that? Would someone watching question my wandering the halls, especially if I didn’t try to leave the facility? The distraction had been intended to address this concern, but maybe I could do it without that.
Laughlin was so certain of his control, so sure that Ford and the others wouldn’t challenge him because they needed what he had. Did others have the same faith in his power?
I’d seen no signs otherwise.
I bit my lip and immediately released it, figuring that would not be a Ford move.
The final and largest issue was simply, was it worth the risk to try?
No! My human side shrieked. Just stay here and hope for the best.
But that nonhuman part of me had run the odds and gave the equivalent of a shrug. It depends on what you value more: the slim possibility of permanent freedom or the certainty of a few final days.
You’d get a chance to find Zane to apologize, to tell him you were wrong. To spend those hours together.
True. But what good were those hours when we both knew the end was coming and it would be ugly? Jacobs would find me, and any chance of a life would be gone. Then I would have to do anything and everything he said, just to keep him from using Zane as “motivation.”
The certainty of that impending doom would color my last encounters with Zane, assuming he would even accept my apology and want to spend time with me. It would be misery with every breath counted, every second ticking away on a clock neither of us could see. And when fate caught up with us in the form of a GTX retrieval team, who knew what would happen? I couldn’t guarantee Zane’s safety unless I surrendered willingly, which went against every unnaturally fragile bone in my body.
I looked to my right and the curved wall only inches from my face.
Carter had given up trying to signal a few minutes ago, after my lack of response.
I could only imagine what he was feeling, abandoned by Ford and ignored by me. He and Nixon had both taken a chance, and neither one of them had done anything to deserve this result.
I turned on my side and started tapping out my new plan, quickly and quietly.
You’d think with all the experience I’d had blending in, pretending to belong, that wandering the halls as Ford would have been easy.
After all, I didn’t even have to pretend to be human this time.
But my whole body was shaking, particularly as I passed through the gallery. It took every bit of self-control I had to keep from stopping to stare and mourn.
I stuffed down the human emotions rioting in my head—Look, do you see what’s going to become of you? Why couldn’t you just wait? You would have been free tomorrow—and kept moving, the clear and analytical voice of my alien side a welcoming presence.
According to Carter, the Quorosene was kept locked in a safe in Laughlin’s office, both of which they were strictly forbidden to approach unaccompanied. From the layout Ford had quickly described at the school, Laughlin’s office was aboveground, on the fourth floor. I had to find my way out of the maze and to an elevator that was somewhere near the doors to the parking garage.
So the security team monitors would, most likely, be expecting me to slip outside to further torture Mara or whatever other nefarious errands Ford had devised on her various field trips before Laughlin restricted them to the facility. (Speaking of which, how exactly had she managed all of that? Had she stolen a car? Managed to get Carter and Nixon on a bus? I had no idea, and all of the possibilities seemed equally unfathomable.) They would not be expecting me to approach his office. Which, I hoped, meant it would catch them off-guard and scrambling.
Or it might mean that they’d jump all over the panic button the second I headed for the elevator.
The cameras above my head, scanning the hallway with a faint mechanized whir, felt like living, breathing beings, watching over my shoulder and tracking my every move.
The good news was that, as Ford had predicted, after Laughlin’s evening visit almost everyone had left. I passed two white coats who were too busy arguing over something to even give me more than a glance. I suppose that, unlike GTX, the sight of Ford and the others moving through the halls wasn’t uncommon. The door on their room didn’t even lock.
Still, moving quickly as I could, without looking suspicious, was imperative. I didn’t want to get caught in the middle of a security shift change or something. Ford had said this time of evening was best for the attempt to reach Laughlin’s office. With no other information to go on, I had to trust that she was right in that, at least. But the sooner I was back in the hybrid room, the better.
Finally, dozens of bad paintings and fake trees later, I found myself at the double doors to the garage.
I didn’t so much as pause, passing the doors and then making a sharp left when the hallway ended. To hesitate in this instance might truly mean death. Anyone watching had to believe I was acting under orders.
The elevators were where Ford had indicated they would be.
I pressed the button, UP my only option, my finger slippery on the plastic, and it lit up immediately.
Watching the numbers glow above the metal doors in descending order, I was reminded of the last time I’d been waiting on an elevator and trembling with nerves.
It had only been a few days, but it felt like years ago that Zane, Rachel, and I sneaked out of GTX. Well, sneaked out of the lab part. We’d most assuredly gotten caught before crossing the threshold outside.
Maybe it was the memory of that moment, but when the bell chimed gently, signaling the elevator’s arrival, I stepped to one side.
The doors rolled open, but no one burst out. No demands for me to “Hold still and do not resist” emerged.
When I peeked around the corner, the space was empty except for a brightly colored poster on the wall advocating the necessity of a flu shot, and quiet but for the buzzing of the fluorescent bulbs overhead.
I stepped in and pressed 4. No special key or key card required, which was good because Ford hadn’t prepped me for that.
Then again, perhaps security would be that much tighter on the actual floor.
I braced myself, preparing to fight. Even if I was confronted, I might have a chance if they weren’t ready for me. Uncontrolled, unconnected me. Ford, Carter, and Nixon were so interconnected that that had to work against them in situations like this. I wanted to save Carter and Nixon, yes, but I didn’t know what it was to feel someone else die. That fear had to slow their responses. There were three of them, which made them three times as vulnerable. I was risking only myself. As much as I’d hated being alone—one of a kind, lonely and isolated—it was a saving grace in this situation. The more people to whom you were attached, the greater your exposure.