Enemy Inside (Defectors Trilogy) (35 page)

That did it. He sighed in frustration and looked at me as though trying to memorize my face.

I met his gaze, but I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to pour out my heart with Jared and Mariah five feet away, so instead, I wrapped my arms around his waist and buried my face in his shirt. He squeezed me with uncharacteristic force and planted a kiss on top of my head.

“Please be careful,” he whispered into my hair.

My chest filled with warmth at the tenderness in his voice, and I gripped him tighter.

“Are you ready to go or what?” Mariah asked. Her voice was dripping with boredom and irritation.

Reluctantly, I pulled out of Amory’s arms and turned to face her. “Let’s go.”

Logan appeared at my shoulder. I could tell she was trying to look like her old self — confident, lethal, ready for a fight — but her face was too pale, pinched in fatigue, and her shoulders slumped a little.

My skin crawled as I folded my hands behind my back and allowed Jared to loosely fasten another set of zip ties on me. I didn’t like the feeling of the plastic cutting into my skin, but I knew I could wriggle out of them if I needed to. Mariah had Logan’s upper arm in her bony grip, and her sneer told me she was enjoying it. Jared had his big hand resting loosely on my shoulder, as though he was afraid to touch me with Amory watching so closely.
 

Before Mariah and Jared could push us forward, Greyson elbowed in and wrapped an arm around my neck. I breathed in deeply to soak up the comforting, familiar smell of him. He was much taller than I remembered. Greyson pretended to hoist me off my feet in an intense hug — just enough to pull me out of Jared’s grip.

“You don’t have to do this,” he breathed into my neck.

“Yeah, I do.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“No. Stay with Amory. If anything goes wrong —”

“I know. Don’t trust Mariah for a second, though. She’s planning something — I can just feel it.”

He released me quickly and moved to Logan, folding her carefully and with mild awkwardness into his arms.

“Be safe, okay?”

She nodded, flashing him a cocky grin that made her look stronger.

“Jesus,” muttered Mariah, rolling her eyes and shoving Logan forward.
 

Jared cleared his throat and pushed me to follow Mariah and Logan toward the elevator.

Mariah stabbed the “up” button, and the rover over the sliding door swiveled in to focus on us. The light turned red, and a security camera focused in on me. Jared made eye contact with the person on the other side of the camera, as if to say all was well and they had us under control — two criminals ripe for World Corp’s experiments.

Like any parking garage elevator, this one had sticky black tracks of dirt on the floor, grimy walls, and old gum wrappers collecting in the metal crevices. It gave no indication that we were headed up into the bowels of World Corp International headquarters until a robotic female voice sounded.

Welcome to the Infinity Building, headquarters of World Corp International. To ensure the safety of all personnel, please be prepared to surrender any weapons upon arrival.

A tinny bell sounded as the circle over the door was illuminated, signaling we had arrived at the ground level of the building. The doors swung open, revealing a large foyer. The floor and walls were pure white marble. We shuffled through the glass doors into an enormous round atrium fitted inside the outer shell of the building. Its gleaming brushed titanium walls gave off a cold, industrial feel, and rovers hidden over the threshold swiveled toward us and blinked red.

In the center of the floor stood a white circular desk. A woman wearing a white pants suit and a smartlens sat in the center on a swivel stool. Her gray hair was pulled back into a neat bun, stretching the loose, wrinkled skin around her eyes back into her hairline. The desk in front of her was empty except for a tablet computer, on which she was swiping frantically as her eye flickered over the stream of information flashing across her lens.

“You have the wrong entrance,” she said in clipped, bored syllables.

“Actually, we’re here to deliver two test subjects,” said Jared. “Rather . . . time-sensitive research. Sure you understand . . .”

“Security!” she barked, not making eye contact with us. “I’m sorry, but this is the
visitors’
entrance. You simply can’t march in here with prisoners.”

A red banner flashed across her lens, and she scoffed in irritation. She tapped the edge of the glass, and the projection faded.

“Fine. How can I help you?” she asked Jared, finally making eye contact and forcing a harsh smile.

“As I said, we have two test subjects. Top floor.”

The woman wrinkled her nose. “Let me see.” She swiped her finger over the tablet in front of her, clicking her nails impatiently on the desk. “No, I’m sorry,” she said, distraction creeping in the edge of her voice. “There’s been some sort of mix-up. We’re not expecting any test subjects until next week.”

Mariah gripped the side of the desk with her bony hand and whispered through clenched teeth. “Perhaps you’ve misunderstood. This was a personal request from Aryus.”

I glanced at her in surprise, and the woman looked up. She arched a brow and tried to settle her sneer into a polite expression. “That’s not what I have here.”

“I’m sure you can appreciate the delicacy of the situation,” hissed Mariah, in a voice that was anything but delicate. “It’s absolutely need to know. Maybe Aryus’s assistant didn’t see the need to clear it with you.”

The woman smiled again, but this time she did not bother to hide her contempt. “I think
you
must be mistaken. Everything here goes through me. There isn’t a single arrival to which I’m not privy.”

“Call up to Aryus’s girl
now,
” snapped Mariah.

The woman’s cold eyes focused in on her for the first time.
 

“Tell her Mariah is back. I wish we could give more details, but as I said . . . it’s classified. As in,
above your pay grade
.”

The woman didn’t take her eyes off Mariah but tapped the edge of her lens. Her eyes flitted back and forth once, and I could see the reverse video image of another woman dressed the same way.

“Kale, I have two officers down here with a pair of illegal test subjects. They claim Aryus ordered them, and I said they were mistaken. Do you know if Aryus is expecting a woman named Mariah?”

I could not hear what Kale said on the other end, but she disappeared from view for a moment and returned looking harried. “Send them up.”

“I don’t understand —”

“Send them up, Marge.”

Marge swallowed with displeasure and tapped her lens, refocusing on us. “You’re free to go up.”

My breath caught in my chest as Mariah shoved Logan forward across the atrium to a set of three elevators with white doors. Jared pulled me along in his strong grip, and the doors closed automatically behind us. I looked for the panel of buttons, but the elevator walls were completely smooth. There were no buttons at all, but a rover fitted into the ceiling above us settled on Jared, giving me a very carsick ache in my throat.

“Where are we
going
?” I whispered, the urgency creeping in.

Nobody spoke.

“Where are we going?” I repeated more desperately.

“She controls the elevators,” said Mariah.

Jared jerked his head around. “What?”

“The woman at the desk. She controls where all the elevators go. She’s sending us up to Aryus Edric.”

The elevator shot up through the titanium shell, and I felt sick. The acceleration was just fast enough to make you feel as though you were losing your stomach. We stood in silence for a moment as the realization set in.

Mariah had gone rogue.
We were not prepared to face Aryus or whatever else might be waiting for us.

“Mariah!” Jared snapped finally, his eyes darting to the rover uncomfortably. “Are you insane? What’s going to happen when we get up there and he realizes we’re a bunch of defectors?”

“There’s nothing to do about it now.” Mariah was staring blankly ahead, which filled me with a sense of dread.

“We have to get off. We have to get off before it gets to his floor.”

“Why?” she asked in a lazy voice. “This is what you wanted. All of them . . . out of our hair. Gone.”

“What?” he spluttered.

“It’s what you wanted.”

He shook his head, looking disgusted. “Not like this.”

“What about the cure?” Logan’s voice was low and deadly, and the dark purplish shadows under her eyes made her look demonic.

Mariah gave a demure smile. It clashed wildly with her cold eyes and stringy, greasy hair. “I’m sure you’ll get your cure. Aryus loves healing the infected. It’s like he wields the hand of God himself.”

My stomach clenched in anger and fear, the bile burning in my throat.

The elevator stopped suddenly, and we lurched forward. Bound by the zip ties, I couldn’t throw out a hand to stop myself from flying against the wall, and my shoulder banged into it.

I heard the harsh, metallic
ping
, and the doors slid open to reveal a steeply curved hallway. The walls were titanium as well, and several panels were inlaid with rippling sheets of industrial steel shaped into abstract designs. Water cascaded over the top panels and trickled into the next. Down and around the wall they wound like stacked building blocks, filling the narrow space with the tranquil sound of a trickling spring.

We followed the hallway until it ended in front of a white door with no handle. Behind us, a panel in the wall opened, a stainless steel tray sliding out. A robotic voice sounded.

Please deposit your weapons.

Mariah laid her gun down without hesitation, but Jared clung to his. He locked eyes with his sister, doubt and betrayal etched all over his face.

“This is crazy,” he said. “We won’t make it out of there alive.”

“You don’t have a choice,” said Mariah. “You see that?” She pointed up. Above the door was an apparatus that looked like a rover, but it had an extra lens. “They’re watching you right now.”

He swallowed and laid his gun on the cold metal tray, looking at his sister with anger and distrust. “You better have a plan.”

No sooner had the tray with their guns disappeared back into the wall than the white door swung open of its own accord. Mariah pushed me roughly inside, and I stopped just past the door. We were standing in a wide-open room much like the atrium on the first floor that took up the entire inner shell. The only difference was the brightness of the place. The entire ceiling was made of glass — a building-sized skylight. Right now, it shimmered with artificial frost that seemed to dim the amount of light shining into the open space. The brushed metal walls were paneled in white.

I glanced around, half expecting someone to shoot me on sight. We had been duped by Mariah; that much was clear. But Mariah’s recklessness was her weakness. If we were lucky, maybe there was some way Logan and I could escape.
 

Our footsteps echoed on the marble floor as we stepped inside, the back of my neck prickling uncomfortably. Modern-looking chaise lounges in the shape of half-moons were spaced evenly around the room on a fleecy white rug. In the middle was an artificial-looking green space with a live bonsai tree planted in the very center of the sphere. I followed the sound of trickling water around the room until I reached a marble fountain that rose up through the floor, forming a large circle. Water rushed up the wrong direction into the wall.

“Reverse osmosis,” called a voice.
 

I jumped, looking around for its source.

“Isn’t it fascinating?”

I turned my head. A diminutive man was standing across the room near a door I hadn’t noticed. His short hair and goatee were so gray they were nearly white, and he was wearing white cropped pants and a velour turtleneck. He was startlingly tan.

“Ah! Mariah,” he said, stretching out his arms and padding barefoot across the rug. “So good to see you again.”
 

As he reached us, I could see that his tanned, aged skin was much too taut and smooth, as though it had been buffed.

“I’m so sorry. I’m being rude.” He beamed, revealing immensely white teeth. “Mariah is my greatest work of art.”

“You cured her,” I said.

“Well, yes!” he exclaimed, positively delighted.

“I’ve brought you two new subjects,” said Mariah. “One recently infected, and one who is perfectly healthy despite prolonged exposure to different strains of the virus. Perhaps you can see —”

“Can you cure her?” I asked, throwing caution to the wind and stepping up beside Mariah.

Aryus laughed musically, as if I had told a wonderful joke. “If only it were that simple. If I cured everyone, that would rather defeat the purpose, wouldn’t it?”

I stared.

“Humanity needed a reset, Haven.”

“How did you —”

He waved his hand. “I know a lot of things. For instance, I know you defected immediately after your friend Greyson was arrested. Now you represent a flaw in the system. You should have become infected or been caught. Darwinism may have favored the selfish survivalist, but we live in the modern age. We are . . .
refining
the perfection of nature. We are culling the human race.”

“I know World Corp released the virus intentionally.”

“Very good,” he said with a smile. “So clever. Well, we didn’t have a choice, I’m afraid. Think of all the major outbreaks of the last millennium: the bubonic plague, Spanish influenza, HIV . . . We haven’t had a deadly outbreak on this scale in more than fifty years! Humans have gotten too smart. We have . . .
outfoxed
mother nature. That’s why we had to be just a little bit smarter.”

“The virus has killed millions of people!”

“Yes, exactly! Haven’t you been paying attention? This planet cannot support its current load — not the way we farm or transport ourselves. We were destroying it anyway. We wouldn’t have lasted another hundred years, the way we were going.”

I stared at him, aghast.