Resistance (The Variant Series #2) (40 page)

“It will help to sell it,” he said. “If anyone asks, we’ll tell them that I’m taking you for some tests on another floor.”

Alex slid out from between the sheets and off the bed—tugging her hospital gown back into place as much as she could manage while in handcuffs—and wincing as her bare feet connected with the cold tile floors.

She carefully deposited herself into the chair, and Li guided them out of the room and into the low light of the hallway. If there were other patients on this floor, she couldn’t see them. The doors they passed were all closed and dark.

The floor they were on looked just like any floor and any other hospital Alex had ever seen. They even rolled past an empty nurse’s station on their way to the elevator.

Once the doors slid closed behind them, Li focused in on a camera positioned in the upper right corner.

The red light blinked off.

Alex arched an eyebrow. “Are you a jumper?”

“I am,” he said. “And I would happily loan you my ability—except that it would be of very little use to you within the confines of this facility.”

They were descending.

“Why’s that?” she asked.

“There’s an EM shield surrounding the entire building,” he explained. “It’s an electromagnetic barrier designed to prevent teleportation in to or out of the site. It also seriously limits our control over electronics. The best I can ever seem to manage is a bit of troublesome interference. That camera will only be off a few moments longer.”

When the elevator reached B1, the doors dinged open to reveal a long hall with no other doors—only another elevator staring back at them from the far end of the corridor.

As Li guided her wheelchair down the hallway, he added, “And if the Director discovers you’ve absorbed an ability, it won’t just be
my
neck on the line. The rest of my staff will pay the price as well.” Li punched the button for the elevator. “They’re not bad people, Alex. Most of them don’t even realize the full extent of the Agency’s influence—or even what the current Director is capable of.”

The current Director
.

It was odd to think that there had been
others
before Dana Carter took the job. Or that someone would one day replace her.

Alex had always viewed the Agency more like a totalitarian regime—not a bureaucratic office.

The elevator dinged and the doors opened. As he wheeled her in, Alex glanced back at the panel of buttons to see what level he punched.

Six.

They began to descend.

Floor six was
down
? They were already at basement level. Just how far beneath the ground did this facility
go
?

The doors opened and he wheeled her out and into another long hall.

Gleaming black, glass-lined cells stretched the entire length of the corridor on either side of a wide hallway. Alex noted with distraction that every one of them stood empty—that is, until they reached the cell at the very end, on the right.

Li stopped the wheelchair as Alex squinted into the darkened cell. A red light high up on the far wall blinked off.

“
Parker
?” asked a tired voice.

In the next moment, Aaron Gale stood before her, his face caught in a shaft of light being cast by a lone fluorescent bulb in the hallway.

The teen’s face was pale and gray and covered in stubble. His curly black hair was tousled and looked as though it hadn’t seen a comb in a long while.

“Oh my god,” she said, scrambling to climb out of the wheel chair and approach the bars. “
Aaron!
How did you…? When did they take you? And
why
?”

Aaron reached through the bars and grabbed hold of her hands.

“You
are
real,” he said. “I thought I might be hallucinating.”

Realizing their hands were still connected, she withdrew—but not before she’d absorbed his ability.

Crap.

She’d have to deal with that later, and try to keep her mind clear in the meantime.

“Have they fed you since I was last here?” asked Li. “You don’t look well, Aaron.”

That was an understatement.

He looked half-starved.

Aaron glanced back and forth between Alex and Li as though unsure of who to answer first.

“They’ve fed me,” he said. “I just didn’t want to eat the food they brought me, at first, so I threw it back at them. After a while though… I guess I was too hungry to turn it down. They brought me here after school let out on Friday. I don’t know why. I don’t even know how long ago that was.”

“Six days,” said Li, quietly.

“That’s all?” Aaron asked. “Only six?”

“Why is he here?” Alex asked Li. “I thought Grayson forced the Agency to agree to leave Aaron alone?”

“Yes, well,” said Li. “That was before they connected the dots and figured out how valuable someone like Aaron would be to them. Especially, now that they’ve acquired
you
, Alex.”

“So… what?” asked Aaron. “They want Alex to destroy a few cities using my weather ability? Because that’s really all I can think of as far as my
usefulness
to the Agency goes.”

Alex studied Li’s face. He, in turn, darted another nervous glance at the camera.

Clearly, he wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep the camera off without someone noticing.

“Is that what they want us for? Truly?” asked Alex. “This
is
the Agency we’re talking about. I would have thought they’d have more efficient methods at their disposal for demolishing a city.”

Li shook his head. “They don’t want to
destroy
anything. They merely want to
ensure
that a very important event takes place. Something that hasn’t happened yet. And something that might not happen at all, if the two of you fall into the wrong hands.”

Alex arched an eyebrow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

The doctor sighed. “Alex, while you possessed Aaron’s ability did anything…
odd
happen to you?”

Her throat went dry. Suddenly, all of the pieces were beginning to fall into place.

“I affected time,” she said. “More than once.”

Li didn’t seem the least bit surprised by her claim.

Aaron, on the other hand, appeared bemused. “You did what?” he said. “Time has absolutely nothing to do with my ability.”

“Actually, Aaron,” said Li. “It does. But first you have to understand how the teleportation ability works. By summoning an immense amount of electrical power, a jumper is able to travel to a seemingly infinite number of locations in space. Their only real limitation lies in the realm of time. Alone, they lack the energy required to travel through
time
as well as space. Do you follow?”

Aaron and Alex nodded.

They could jump any
where
, just not any
-when
, because they couldn’t summon enough electricity to make it possible.

“When combined with your weather ability, Aaron, Alex is able to call up enough energy through the lightning she summons, that she’s able to
add
that extra coordinate to her destination. She can travel to any place, and to any time… and it’s exceedingly likely she can do far more than just that.”

Things like freezing time, for instance.

Aaron’s face fell. “So you’re saying that the Agency wants to use us to rewrite time? To change the future?”

Li nodded. “That’s why they need you both here. Why they need you both alive. They brought you to this facility to ensure your safety until the exact moment you’re needed.”

The light in Aaron’s eyes faded. He retreated further into his cell as the doctor spoke, then spent a long, silent moment staring at his shadowy reflection in the glass wall.

“It can’t happen,” he said softly. “We can’t let it, Alex.
I can’t let it
.”

He crouched beside his cot and slipped below the shaft of light, disappearing into the shadows.

“We have to get out of here.” Aaron’s disembodied voice was hollow.

When he stepped into the light once more, he held a long shard of black glass in both hands, razor sharp at its edges and formed into the shape of a stake.

He must have shattered the wall of his cell at some point and had planned to use the obsidian stake as a means to overpower the guards and escape.

“What the hell?” came an angry voice from the end of the hall.

Alex gave a start. Li grimaced.

“Dr. Li? What are you doing on this level?” An Agency guard in black fatigues was moving toward them from the other end of the hall.

“Diego,” said Li, flashing the guard a genial smile. “I’m here to check on Mister Gale. Just a routine follow-up.”

“Then what is she doing with you?” asked Diego. “I’m sorry, Dr. Li, but I never received clearance for this. You’ll have to come with—“

The guard cut himself short as he reached the end of the hall and gained a clear view inside the cell. His eyes settled on the shard in Aaron’s hands.

“Shit,” said Diego. He reached up to use the radio attached to his shoulder. “Riley, I need you on six. Be advised, prisoner is armed with a shiv.”

He dropped his hand from the radio, unsheathed the Glock from his side holster, and stepped closer to the bars.

“Come on, kid,” said Diego. “Hand it over.”

Aaron arched a brow. “Come and get it.”

And that was when Diego did something profoundly stupid.

He dropped one hand toward his hip, presumably to reach for the keys to the cell, and took a step closer to the bars.

It was one step too many.

Three seconds, and it was over.

Aaron lunged forward, thrust his arm through the bars and buried the obsidian shard deep in Diego’s chest. The shock caused Diego’s gun arm to jerk upward and his finger to constrict against the trigger, letting off one wild shot.

As Aaron fell, Li let out a furious cry of, “
No!
”

He lurched toward the cell, beating futilely against the bars.

It wouldn’t make a difference.

No doctor on earth could save Aaron now.

The bullet had hit him in the head.

Alex turned away, unable to bear the sight of her friend lying on the floor as his blood pooled darkly around him. A sob caught in her throat as she sank into the wheelchair.

First Nathaniel. Now Aaron.

Li slammed his palm against the bars one last time. “
Dammit, Aaron…
”

Turning away from the cell, he knelt on the ground beside Diego and pressed his fingers to the man’s throat. The guard’s eyes were open, but unseeing.

“We need to get you back to your room, Alexandra. Right now.” Li got to his feet and took hold of the wheelchair, guiding her back toward the elevator. “No one can know you were here.”

She barely heard him. Through the tears and the desperate ache in her heart, Alex was devising a plan.

As the elevator doors slid shut and the lift began its ascent, Alex asked quietly, “What if I never
was
here?”

“What?”

“You could get me out of here, I know you can. And I have Aaron’s ability. I absorbed it when he grabbed my hands earlier… You could get me outside, away from the shield, and I could—”

“
No,
” He said, his tone adamant. “I know you want to save your friend, Alex, but if something goes wrong and you can’t reach Aaron before his death, all of this will be for
naught
. If you’re going to jump back, you need to pick a time and a location that will stop
all of this
from happening.”

The elevator dinged open and he wheeled her quickly down the empty corridor. “You haven’t figured it out yet, have you, Alexandra?”

Reaching the end of the hall, Li stabbed the call button for the second elevator. “You can save
everyone
. Not just Aaron, but everyone you’ve ever loved. You can still save all of us from this future. But you’re going to have to be smart about it.”

— 31 —

B
ack in her hospital room, Alex lay awake in bed for almost an hour, struggling to suppress her emotions and quiet the storm she could sense building outside the walls of the facility. The shield Li had mentioned was doing nothing to quell her effect on the weather. Obviously, it was intended to keep jumpers from getting in and out, and did little else.

She could control the ability now, thanks to Aaron’s training.

Still, it was difficult. All she
really
wanted to do was curl up in a ball and sob into the starched white sheets until she ran out of tears.

Alex bolstered herself with the knowledge that she still had a chance to change things.

Li was on board with her plans. With any luck, he’d arrange her escape soon.

So far, no one at the facility had connected Dr. Li and Alex with the events on sub-level 6. The cameras were offline when it happened, so it was presumed that Diego had gone down to the cells to investigate, discovered Aaron with the obsidian shiv, and the two had killed each other during the altercation.

No witnesses.

Sometime just before dawn, Alex was transferred further below ground to sub-level 4, into what Nurse Ames referred to as a “dorm room.” 

Call it what you liked—the bolt on the door and the armed guard at the end of the hall put it squarely in the category of “prison cell,” as far as Alex was concerned.

Though she had to admit, with its small, private bathroom, it was a far nicer cage than the one Aaron had been thrown in.

Aaron
.

Nate
.

She took in a deep, steadying breath and promised herself she’d mourn for her friends later. And with any luck, by the time she’d finished, there’d be no need to mourn
at all
.

Alex glanced around at her new surroundings.

There was a full-sized bed, a small nightstand with a lamp and a digital clock, a trunk for her “belongings” (i.e. a collection of standard issue black cargo pants and t-shirts), and a desk with yet another lamp and a white pad of paper.