In the End (Starbounders) (23 page)

Chapter Forty-two

I rush to Brenna and hug her. She still looks more fragile than before, but she’s better. Her skin is cool to the touch, meaning she’s probably beaten her infection.

Suddenly there is a frenzied scratching at the door. My head snaps around.

“They can’t get through,” Rice assures us.

I glare at him, still angry that he prevented me from helping Kay when she needed me most. Even if Ken was already bitten, I could have been at Kay’s side.

“Where’s Ken?” Brenna asks. “I can’t believe he let you guys in here. I haven’t seen anyone but him for days.”

“He didn’t make it,” I say softly, glancing at Kay. Her face tightens, but she closes her eyes and takes a breath. I know she is fighting her pain, trying to push it down until later.

“Oh, hey.” Brenna’s eyes widen. “You must be Ken’s sister?” Brenna asks. “Holy crap, you look just like him. Sorry about what happened. . . . I mean, despite the fact that he kidnapped me. He talked about you a lot. He wished he could have spoken with you more.”

Rice nods. “He was a good guy. He was a brilliant researcher.”

“Yeah, he was great,” Brenna says. “You know, except for the whole holding-me-against-my-will thing.”

I push Brenna with my elbow and shush her, but Kay just stares at us. For a moment I think she’s going to break down again, but instead she lets out a small bark of a laugh. “Ken was . . . complicated,” she says, her voice strong and clear.

“He was a genius,” Rice says quietly. “When I first met him four years ago, when this was still a university, he was one of the few people who was nice to me. Over time, though, he just got more and more secretive, more locked down into himself. Dr. Reynolds tends to bring that out in people.” He looks at me. “Amy, what do you have there?”

I’m still clutching Ken’s notes to my chest. “He wanted to save these. . . .”

Kay stares at them, then says to Rice, “Well, have a look. See what Ken thought was more important than his life.”

I hand the notes over to Rice, who takes them back to Ken’s desk and starts reading.

“I guess he did try to make me comfortable,” Brenna tells us, eyeing Kay. “He brought me books, which were way boring, but at least he tried. He talked to me about you, too,” she tells Kay. “The stories were pretty exciting. He was proud of you.”

“Maybe,” Kay tells us, her jaw tight, “you should all stop trying to comfort me about Ken for a moment and spend your energy trying to figure out how we’re going to get the hell out of here alive.”

We listen to the Floraes scratch and snuffle at the door and watch Rice riffle through Ken’s notes.

“This is pretty remarkable,” he says, bending low over them, oblivious. “He was getting somewhere.” He looks up at Brenna. “Did any of the other researchers visit you?”

Brenna shakes her head.

Rice looks around at the room and the door with its triple locks. “He was keeping you all to himself. If he’d collaborated, if he’d set a team to work . . .” He shakes his head, flips back a few pages, then starts forward again with growing excitement. “There’s an antigen found in both Baby’s and Brenna’s blood. I think the antigen, in conjunction with the original vaccine, is what saved them both when they were bitten. It makes them carriers, but immune to the effects. That’s why they didn’t change. This antigen is rare; do you know how remarkable this is?”

“I knew there was something different about the original batch of vaccine. . . .” I say. “But it wasn’t the formula—it was the patients!” That’s why they could never get it to work. The problem wasn’t in the replication. It was having the correct subjects.

“I’m one in a million?” Brenna says with a smirk. “I always knew I was awesome.”

“It’s actually more like one in ten thousand. . . . But this is just . . . amazing,” Rice continues. “That’s why we never caught it before. We could vaccinate thousands of people and try turning them all and not one could have the right antigen to combat the infection.”

“So . . . ,” Brenna says, holding up her bandaged hand. “Amy didn’t need to chop off my fingers?”

“We don’t really know for sure,” Rice says, looking from her to me and back again.

“Brenna, I was just trying to do anything to save you. Your fingers were shredded. I don’t think you would have ever been able to use them again, and I thought it might stop the infection from spreading.”

Brenna stares at her left hand, the space where her middle and ring fingers should be. “It’s okay, Amy. I don’t blame you. At least I’m alive . . . and I have my pointer finger,” she tells me. “I can pull a trigger.” She looks at me with a grin. “But I sure will miss the middle finger. Who knows? Maybe it did help the infection spread more slowly . . . letting that anti-thingy kick in.”

“It’s amazing that both Brenna and Baby carry this antigen. Maybe we would have even known right away if they had been in the same test group.”

“There were multiple test groups?” I ask. “How many children did Dr. Reynolds test?”

His head snaps up. “Amy, it was harmless. This was before the outbreak, and the bacterium itself was tested on soldiers who volunteered. We just needed to see if the vaccine had side effects. We weren’t going to infect the children.”

“How many groups?” I ask again.

He sighs. “We used foster-care facilities as a cover and tested on only the children we knew wouldn’t be adopted, older children and, in Baby’s case, children with relatives under Dr. Reynolds’s control. There were five initial groups we used to test the vaccine . . . Brenna’s in Texas, one in New York City, two in California, and one in Kansas . . . right outside of New Hope, when it was a university. That’s where Hannah started out.”

“Then how did she make it to Chicago?” I ask. “She was alone when I found her.”

“I don’t know, not exactly. When the infection broke out, we didn’t know if the university would be safe. We hadn’t set up the emitters yet. We didn’t have a plan. Dr. Reynolds had the children evacuated to a secure facility in Chicago, the one your mother stayed at before coming here. But there was some kind of accident. None of them made it there. . . . We didn’t know Baby survived until you showed up in New Hope with her. We didn’t know that we’d actually evacuate the Chicago facility to here after a few months. If we’d known then how quickly the infection would spread, we could have just brought the children here, but then it wasn’t safe.”

“It’s not safe now,” I say, horrified. “And the other children?”

“None made it, as far as we know. The ones who went to Fort Black, we didn’t reach them in time to evacuate before they were lost.”

“Lost?”

“Dead . . . or like Brenna, simply surviving under our radar. Baby and Brenna are the only ones we’ve found . . . and that’s because they didn’t turn when they were bitten.”

“Could others have a natural immunity?” Kay asks quietly.

“Who knows? Maybe . . . But I think it was the combination of the vaccine and the antigen that saved them. An antigen can be an outside agent, but in Brenna and Baby’s case, it’s produced by their bodies. Usually, naturally occurring antigens are ignored by the human immune system and don’t do any harm or good. But this particular antigen can bind with an antibody and attack the weakened form of Florae bacteria found in the vaccine, neutralizing it. This would allow the body to fight off the full infection of a Florae bite. This antigen is rare, but if it can be synthesized . . . I’m telling you, Ken may have found something here. I . . . have to get to a lab and analyze this.”

“That might be a little hard right now,” I say. I don’t like the fevered look that’s come over him. It’s too familiar.

Rice nods and takes a deep breath as though reeling himself in. “You’re right, of course. I just think Ken didn’t know what he had. He was too close to it. With a few modifications, this might actually work.”

“A vaccine?” Kay whispers from the cot. “You think Ken actually did it? He discovered a vaccine?”

“I can’t be sure until I run some tests, but yes.” His ear-to-ear grin seems almost to split his face, but then fades just as quickly. “I wish I could have talked to Ken about this. If he’d only consulted me.”

Kay tilts her head, listening.

“What?” I ask.

“That was Marcus on a call to all the Guardians. They’ve been dispatched to deal with the Florae breach.”

“Well, that’s good. Gareth would have gotten the call. He can help us. . . .” I stop. “Marcus and his cronies are going to be prowling the labs too?”

Kay nods. “And they’ve been told to eliminate you.”

“Fan,” I say, then laugh, despite myself. Even to my own ears the sound is hysterical, and Brenna looks at me with concern.

“I’m fine,” I assure her. I look over at Kay, not knowing what to do. She stares back, a strange look in her eyes.

“Okay, I’m ready,” she announces, standing. “Let’s go get Baby.”

Chapter Forty-three

We leave the lab with a new sense of purpose. I’m worried about Kay, but she seems to have buried her pain and is ready to help me retrieve Baby. We also have Brenna, who is eager to remind us that we’ll have her newly heightened hearing at our disposal.

Miraculously, we encounter neither ravenous Floraes nor murderous Guardians between Ken’s office and Baby’s dorm, and I’m relieved to see that the door is still closed and locked. So she might be safe, but how do we get inside? Rice swipes a key card and punches in a code, then presses his finger to the door. No surprise when it doesn’t open.

“What now?” I ask testily, scanning the hall behind us for threats.

Rice looks around, thinking. “There may have been researchers stuck inside this area when the alarms sounded. If they got caught in the lockdown, they wouldn’t have left a secure area.”

He fiddles with the panel and presses a button. For a long moment, nothing. Then a tentative voice on the other side says, “Hello?”

“This is Assistant Director Richard Kiernan. I’ve been locked out of the lab. Can you open the door?”

After a long pause, the voice responds. “It’s against protocol.”

“Yes, I realize this.” Rice sounds commanding. “But there is currently a Florae breach and I am trapped on the wrong side of this door. If you do not break protocol, you could be responsible for not only the death of the assistant director, but of the future of New Hope.”

Brenna looks at Rice, eyebrows raised. “Wow,” she says.

Rice shrugs sheepishly as the door opens and a scared researcher pops his head out, his eyes darting over us and down the hallway. “Have any of you been bitten?”

“Yeah,” Brenna blurts out before I can say no, “but it was forever ago and I’m doing just fine.”

The researcher moves to slam the door, but I jam my foot in it, and Kay and I push our way in past him. Brenna and Rice follow, securing the door behind them.

“I’m going to get Baby,” I call back to Rice as I hurry away down the corridor. Maybe this time I can convince her not to scream. She just needs to be reminded of the dangers, to remember how she used to avoid Them every day.

The door to Baby’s room is already open. I rush inside and find her sitting at her table across the room, coloring, completely oblivious. But she is not alone.

Dr. Reynolds looks up at me from his seat next to her and smiles. “Hello, Amy,” he says, the loose flesh under his jaw jiggling as he speaks. “How nice to see you again.” His hand rests on the table, gripping a gun. Before I can think of moving, he stands, sweeps up Baby in his free arm, and presses the gun to her temple. She doesn’t even look frightened; she just blinks blankly a few times, her eyes unfocused.

“No,” I say, stepping forward. “I’ll do whatever you want. Don’t hurt her.”

“He won’t,” Rice says, appearing at my side. “He has twenty different researchers analyzing her blood. He won’t kill her. She’s too important.”

“Are you certain of that?” he asks, staring me down. “You have managed to be quite the disruption. You’ve rendered your mother useless to me. You’ve turned her against me, her and I don’t know how many Guardians.” He looks past us and cocks his head. “Kay, is that you? Why don’t you put your weapons on the floor? All of them.” He digs the gun deeper into Baby’s skin, and Kay begrudgingly throws her gun and knives onto the floor. His gaze falls back on me. “You too, Amy.”

I nod and slowly place my weapons at my feet.

“Good girl,” Dr. Reynolds tells me.

Unable to contain the fury welling up inside, I take another step forward—only to stop myself. He holds Baby’s life in his hands.

“It’s amazing that one emotionally disturbed girl could cause so much trouble.” Dr. Reynolds shakes his bald head. “And you,” he spits at Rice. “You’ve been completely useless. I should have left you in that orphanage, alone and unwanted. I should never have taken you into my care. You’ve become such a disappointment.”

Rice looks as though he’s been slapped, his face blazing red. “‘Taken me into your care’? Is that what you call it?” I realize he isn’t ashamed, he’s livid. “You think I don’t know about my parents’ car crash? You think I don’t know you had them killed so you could use me? What a sick, sad lunatic you are. You had to have been cooking up your crazy plans long before then, raising your stable of super-geniuses to do your bidding. What a gift the Florae infection must’ve been for you.”

My heart breaks for Rice. How hard it must have been for Rice to work with Reynolds, filled with hate and bitterness.

But far from being taken aback by Rice’s words, Dr. Reynolds’s grin has been widening all along, and now he laughs out loud.

“A ‘gift’? Are you serious? For a ‘super-genius,’ you’re terribly slow on the uptake, boy. You think the Florae outbreak was an
accident
? You insult me. When I saw what this mopey young girl’s mother had created, I alone realized its full potential. I saw it as a way to correct all the mistakes humanity had made. Everything could be undone, and the very building blocks of society could be reconstructed. New Hope is my Eden!”

No one in the room moves. No one can believe what we’re hearing.

Dr. Reynolds created the After,
on purpose
.

My mother may have given him the weapon, but Dr. Reynolds is the one who pulled the trigger. It hits me like a gunshot. He killed everyone—my father, my friends, my neighbors. Everyone. Dr. Reynolds ended the world.

Rice keeps talking. If he’s as stunned by this as I am, he gives no sign. “So,” he says, “in that formulation, you would be . . . who?
God?
”

“And why not?” Dr. Reynolds says, beaming. “As if things were working so well before? At least now humanity can be controlled. I decide who lives, who breeds. I alone decide the future.”

My attention is brought back to Baby as Dr. Reynolds shifts her weight in his arms. I’m so in shock, only now do I see that Kay has been creeping closer to Dr. Reynolds as Rice talked, keeping his attention on him. In an instant, Kay rushes him, dropping low and driving at him. Without thinking, I join in.

Seeing our charge at the last second, Dr. Reynolds swings the gun wildly and knocks Kay against the wall. He aims wide, the pistol discharging. The bullet flies harmlessly past me as Baby drops to the floor. I’m on him, driving my fist into his neck before he can begin to turn back, ripping the gun away from him. Brenna is at my side. She’s grabbed one of the guns from the floor and now has it trained on him.

“Wow, what an asshole,” she says.

Kay joins us. “Kid, you have no idea.”

Kay hands me some cinch ties to bind Reynolds’s hands and feet, and I turn to check on Baby, who sits in a ball, arms wrapped around herself, staring across the room. I crawl to her to check her for any injury. She’s clear, though she may be badly bruised later on.

“Baby, are you okay?”

She doesn’t answer but looks past me, over my shoulder. I follow her gaze to Rice, slumped against the wall.

Blood seeps through his lab coat.