BROKEN SYMMETRY: A Young Adult Science Fiction Thriller (19 page)

He tensed briefly, his shoulder like rock beneath my cheek
—
but still preferable to a pillow
—
before he sighed and draped his arm over the couch behind me.

I shifted and scooped my hair out of my eyes, letting it flow between us, and breathed in the cologne rising off his chest. Now that he was here I felt better, the tension melting out of my strained muscles, everything healing.

Everything except the ache in my heart.

***

We only got seconds into the movie before the evil queen started talking to the magic mirror. My body went rigid.

“Maybe Beauty and the Beast is a better choice,” said Damian, rising to change the film.

“There’s a magic mirror in that one too.”

“Alladin?”

I nodded. “Alladin’s okay. I think.”

He popped in the disc and came back to the couch. I faded before the end of the first song, and the next thing I knew, Damian was pulling my comforter over me in my bedroom.

I opened my eyes and watched him, stunned by the model precision of his cheekbones, those penetrating, unfathomable black eyes. Just . . .
everything
about him. “You can stay if you want?” I said.

He shook his head. “I have to go back.”

“To where?”

“My place.”

In other words, some dark hangout I would never be invited to. I held his gaze, stretching my body out seductively under the covers. He had a thing for me too. He
had
to.

Or was I just being delusional?

Surely being spunky and fun counted for something. And the fact that I ran cross country and
—
from what I’d been told
—
had a great body and was
striking
.

He popped the chewed end of a cigarette into his mouth and continued to regard me with cold indifference.

Then again, maybe not.

“What’s it like to overlap completely?” I asked.

“It’s fun.”

“No. Tell me.”

He pulled the cigarette out of his mouth and tilted it in his hand, studying it. “It’s like living through two versions of the same life. You have two different sets of memories.”

“Can you always tell which one is real?”

“In the source, I’m aware of both the source and the reflection. Other than that, it feels like I experienced both . . . like I
lived
both. I have to consciously suppress the one I know is fake.”

“Can you do something for me?” I said.

“What?”

“Don’t crossover,” I said. “At least . . . just not for a while, not until you get better.”

“We don’t get better, Blaire.”

“Then stop,” I said. “I can do your missions
.
”

For another moment, he stared at me, and I craved to know what was going on inside his head. Without another word, he rose and left my bedroom. He shut the door gently.

A minute later, the roar of his Mustang shattered the quiet of my neighborhood. I heard it all the way until the sound faded, several blocks away.

Damian represented everything that terrified me about crossover. He blamed me for being suicidal, but he was the one killing himself a little bit more each day, he was the one addicted to crossover.

Soon, he would be dead.

Why was I letting myself fall for him?

***

Charles gave no indication of overlap on Monday; he was good old Charles again, all smiles. Still, it took all afternoon before I could relax around him.

“Okay, here’s the deal you two,” he said, collecting Damian and me into his office, “Tonight’s a big step for us. We’ve breached the outer perimeter of the quarantine zone and slipped in under USAMRIID’s radar, and we’ve gained entry to the assisting labs . . . with rather thought-provoking results.” He shot me a glance. “Tonight we’re targeting the artifact chamber itself.”

“Let me go alone,” I blurted out.

“Blaire,
don’t
,” said Damian.

“He’s a liability,” I said, ignoring the heat in my face and speaking directly to Charles. “He’ll get us both killed. Only one of us can pass for a postdoc. Two is suspicious.”

“Can you hack a security mainframe?” Charles asked.

“I’ll figure it out.”

“She can’t even hack her own cell phone,” said Damian.

“And you’re limping, Blaire.” Impatience flashed in Charles’s blue eyes. “If I hold anyone from this mission, it’s you. In fact, give me one good reason not to.”

“Because that’s my DNA down there, and I can talk shop with the scientists. All he can do is wag his gun around.”

Charles nodded, conceding the point, and glanced at Damian next as if inviting a rebuttal. “Well?”

“She’ll just slow me down,” he said. “I don’t need her.”

“Yes, you do,” said Charles. “Tonight, you need
each other
.” His gaze returned to me. “Are you ready to focus, Blaire?”

Focus? How the hell was I supposed to focus when Damian was killing himself right before my eyes? Still, I couldn’t let myself get pulled from the mission. One thing I knew: he needed me down there tonight.

Charles studied me for another second over the rims of his glasses, then unrolled a map of Scripps and flattened it on his desk, now absent of the articles I’d seen last night. He pointed to the Immunology building. “On the second floor you’ll find a locked security office with feeds from cameras positioned throughout the building, including
inside
the chamber. You’ve already collected the keys that open the office, so you should have no trouble getting in. Bring an external hard drive; your flash drive won’t be large enough.”

“Footage of the artifact,” Damian muttered.

“And every test they’ve conducted going back a month.” Charles rolled up the map. “I’ve gone over each of your preliminaries and everything’s watertight. Tonight, boys and girls, we see what’s down there.”

***

“You two seem young,” said Dr. Anderson, admitting Damian and me into the Immunology building after we’d flashed a half dozen ID cards and name-dropped the entire Scripps Institute roster, his bushy mane bobbing with each bouncy step.

“I’m twenty-four,” said Damian. He didn’t look the least bit convincing in his fake glasses and white coat. More like Clark Kent. He nodded to me. “She’s thirty.”

Dr. Anderson did a double take at me but said nothing.

Thanks, Damian
. “I’m really into herbal skin cream,” I said, covering for his idiocy.

Damian leaned toward the scientist. “Plastic surgery,” he whispered, and gave him a wink.

“Oh, and his balls haven’t dropped yet,” I added. “That’s why he looks so young.”

Dr. Anderson scowled at us and pulled out his cell phone. “Just . . . just let me alert the guards that you’re here.”

He faced away from us to dial a phone number, and Damian glared at me. He mouthed furiously, “What happened to
shop talk?
”

“Please.
Thirty?
” I mouthed back.

Dr. Anderson was raising the phone to his ear. Damian broke away from our quarrel and flung his arm around the scientist, clamping his elbow around his neck. He torqued with his other arm, cinching the choke hold, and the phone clattered to the floor. Dr. Anderson clawed at Damian’s forearms, but lost strength quickly and went limp. Damian laid out his unconscious body.

“Come on,” he said, grabbing my wrist and dragging me down the hall.

A vast white room unfurled behind a glass partition on our left. One of the dozen campus laboratories working around the clock to decode the Aneuploidy-48 crossover genome
—
my genome.

The space rose a full two stories, and from our vantage point on the second floor, the bald heads of blue-coated technicians gleamed under cones of bright light.

Once we’d unlocked the security office at the end of the hall and Damian knocked out the two guards inside, I vented my frustration at him. “You’re gambling with your life and you know it,” I said. “This crossover could have been your last.”

“Well, it wasn’t.” He took a seat at a computer terminal, plugged in a pocket external hard drive, and began typing codes.

“I know you can stop crossing over,” I said, my voice hardly more than a whisper. “I know you’re strong enough.”

The rhythm of his typing cut off, and he swiveled toward me. “And do what, Blaire? Live a normal life? Live like them?” He nodded to the unconscious guards. “I’m way too far gone for that.”

“Have you even
tried?
”

“You think I like what it does to me?” he said. “You think I enjoy this? I’m not like you, Blaire; I don’t get to choose a happy ending.”

“Stop saying that.”

“If you wanted me to stop crossing over, you should have left me in jail. Now quit pestering me.”

“You know, it’s normal
to care about someone,” I said, face hot.

Damian wrung his hands through his hair. “All I ever do is push you away,” he said. “Since I met you, that’s all I’ve ever done . . .” His black eyes swung to mine, and a bemused smirk crossed his lips. “I don’t understand why you’re still trying to save me.”

His words stung, way more that I was prepared for. I turned away from him, biting my lip.

His jaw muscles tightened and he faced the screen again. “There’s two cameras inside the artifact chamber. I’m downloading everything from both.” He finished typing a string of commands and pressed enter. A progress bar started inching across the screen. He opened his mouth to say something
—

A rattle of the doorknob spun both our heads, and I just had time to flatten myself out of view behind the door as a security guard stepped into the room. His eyes froze on Damian at the terminal, and the mug of coffee in his hand dropped. His hand flicked to his holster, and he had his weapon trained on Damian’s forehead before the mug hit the ground.

Damian’s eyes darted to his own firearm, lying on the desk a foot from his hand.

“Don’t even think
—
”

I leapt out from behind the door and shoved the guard with all my weight. I might as well have tackled a marble statue.

He squeezed the trigger, and the gunshot rattled my brain. But the impact of my body had nudged his arm off target; behind Damian’s head, the CRT monitor popped in a shower of sparks and glass.

The guard yanked his arm around and leveled the barrel between my eyes. I stared, frozen, down its black throat, as his finger whitened on the trigger
—

The explosion jolted my body, spiked my system with adrenaline. In slow motion, the guard’s knees buckled and he sank to the floor, a splatter of blood and brains dripping from the wall where his head had been.

Damian lowered his gun, still smoking, and yanked the flash drive out of the terminal. “We got enough. Let’s go.”

***

Damian squealed to a stop in the alley behind ISDI, and we brooded in silence while the garage door swung open with an electric hum. The cops were still far behind us, their sirens a distant wail. I needed air.

I yanked the handle and clambered out, slamming the door behind me. I heard the driver’s side open and shut, and a moment later, Damian grabbed my wrist.

“Let go of me.” I tugged my hand free and stormed away from him, toward the street. Behind me, he got back in, and the Mustang revved up. Tires squealed, and the car roared past me and skidded sideways, blocking my exit out of the alley. The vehicle’s turbulence whipped my hair across my face and where it passed two yellow streaks lingered in my retinas.

Damian stepped out and leaned against his car, arms crossed, directly in my path.

I stopped right in front of him. “Move.”

He pointed over my shoulder. “Source is that way.”

“I’m staying down here. Where you
aren’t
.”

The whine of sirens approached our block. He raised an eyebrow. “Do I have to drag you back?”

“Or you stay and I’ll go back. Isn’t that what you always wanted? Even better than death.” I spun and marched back toward the garage.

He grabbed my elbow and whipped me around. “Not yet.” He pushed off the car and closed the gap between us, inch by inch, until our bodies touched. I kept my eyes locked on his, but up close his scent invaded my mind, drugged me.

“If I was a reflection, would you have shot me in the head like that
—
without even flinching?” I asked.

“I know you’re not okay with the killing,” he said.

“Damian, I’m not okay with what you’re doing to yourself.”

“I know.”

“And what you said to me,” I whispered. “Say you’re sorry.”

“I’m not sorry for trying to protect you,” he said, his palms enfolding my waist. His eyes held me captive, blacker than the midnight above him. “I’m sorry for what I’m about to do.” The heat of his breath brushed my lips, made my heart quiver, and I felt my own hands instinctively tracing up the side of his torso, clasping his back. “Oh, and Blaire, this is the real me.” And he kissed me.

***

A police cruiser rolled past the alley, sirens muted, and a spotlight swung over us. For a moment the peaks of Damian’s gelled hair blazed in the glare before the light moved on. The car slowed, and the spotlight jerked back to us.

I pulled away from Damian and had to squint my eyes. “What was that for?” I said, still dazed by his kiss.

“So when I die, you know how I really feel,” he said.

I smiled. “I already knew how you really felt.”

The squad car lurched over the curb and drove into the alley, right up to Damian’s Mustang. Two officers jumped out, guns trained at us.

“Get on the ground, now!” one shouted. “SDPD.”

I blew the officers a kiss, and we slipped into the shadows. While they clicked on their flashlights, we darted into the garage and up the stairs.

Damian plugged in the external and started the file transfer, and we crossed back into the source. I immediately pushed him up against the wall and stood on my tiptoes to kiss him again. His fingers caressed my hair and brushed the bare skin of my neck, shooting chills down my spine.

The weight of him pushed me backwards, and his hands dropped to my lower back and squeezed me even closer. I inhaled sharply, and the smell of his sweat burned in my lungs.

I leapt and wrapped my legs around his hips, crossed my ankles behind him. He gripped the underside of my legs to hold me airborne, and his palms slowly ascended the length of my toned hamstrings . . . going
where?
His fingers brushed my inner thigh, setting fire to the sensitive nerves
—
I gasped and snaked up his torso, coiled my arms around his neck and dug my nails into his scalp, biting and exploring every inch of his lips with mine. I felt his hand readjust under my butt, one thumb hooked over the waistband of my low rise jeans, now slung dangerously low on the small of my back.