In Irina's Cards (The Variant Conspiracy #1) (14 page)

“True, but shouldn’t we try in person too, before they ramp up security?” said Ilya.

“Won’t Rubin be listening in on all of this?” Jonah glanced around the room, eying each of us. “I mean, if he was ready to pounce on Cole, won’t he be tracking our minds like a hawk now?”

“No, I’ve kept a shield up around all of us since we left camp. The only drawback is that I can’t look into Rubin’s mind while I’m keeping him out. It’s hard to explain, but if I make a connection, it’ll go both ways between two telepaths,” said Ilya.

“Fair enough,” said Cole. “So if we go back, he won’t know we’re there.”

“Not from reading our minds, but the thought will cross his mind anyway, won’t it?” asked Jonah.

“Probably. He’s not Ivan’s head of security for nothing,” said Ilya.

“Is it really worth the risk? Why don’t we let Faith do her thing here and trust what we find? Maybe we should give this up anyway. Maybe we should run,” I said.

“You’re not backing out now!” Cole glared at me.

“Irina, I believe you’re onto something, now more than ever. The images I saw in Rubin’s mind are dark and aggressive. The people he captured–plus the ones brainwashed into staying willingly–are all in for more experiments that aren’t in their best interests. Some of them will be subjected to pain, and some to permanent damage.” Ilya looked squarely at Jonah.

“Well, when you put it that way,” said Jonah.

“I’ll go,” said Cole.

“I think I have to go too,” I said reluctantly.

“Okay, the three of us,” said Jonah. “What about you, Ilya?”

“If I go with you, I can’t keep a mental shield around Faith,” said Ilya. “I’ll stay here and keep her concealed from Rubin while she hacks the network.”

“Still ready to look out for my sister? That’s sweet,” said Cole.

Faith shot a look at Ilya, then back at the laptop. The white glow of the screen illuminated the blush on her cheeks. Ilya’s own face had a look of tight-lipped frustration.

“No, he’s got a point,” I said quickly. “Besides, between your strength and Jonah turning whatever water is on site into pressurized streams, I think we can defend ourselves. You two watch the door while I get our medical files and whatever other paper documents we can find.”

Everyone agreed, though there were no glad or enthusiastic faces in our group.

Jonah tossed the car keys over to Cole and we followed him back out to the driveway. I’d stopped shivering, but I was chilled to the bone, and worse, petrified of what we were about to do. I’d escaped after breaking into Innoviro’s secure lab once before, but I wasn’t confident I’d get away a second time. Not when they knew we were coming.

I wanted Ilya’s protection, but it made sense for him to keep his shield around Faith. At the brick-and-mortar office, Rubin would expect us whether he could read our minds or not. He’d be more likely to miss hacking into the network since he hated computers, even his phone.

After the short drive back downtown, we parked near the entrance to the market complex, in front of a cafe and a boutique as though we were going to a nearby club for a night out on the town. We passed a few pedestrians, some dawdling from late dinners and others sauntering eagerly towards just-opened bars and pubs. I wished so badly that we planned to walk the few blocks to The Looking Glass instead of the insane course of going back down to Innoviro’s underground bowels.

Once we reached the gate back into the market, we were alone on the street. The shops and offices in the interior courtyard below Innoviro had closed long ago. I prayed no one would witnesses this break-in. My heartbeat thumped between my ears. I imagined finding Rubin on the other side of Innoviro’s main door, perhaps waiting patiently at the front desk where Melissa usually sat. I pictured the smug smile on his face at having anticipated our arrival, listening to each of our fears amplify with every step we took. For all we knew, Hugo stood at the entrance, waiting to tackle us all as we fled. It was such a stupid idea to come here. We faced too much risk for such a small chance of discovering anything of value.

My rapid breath left my mouth dry as we crept up the inner stairs to the second level of the courtyard. Imagine our collective surprise when Cole turned the knob of the knob to the front door and it slid open like it was business as usual. Dread gripped my chest. If it had been easy to break in, I would have been suspicious. But totally wide open?

Cole flicked on the light and the front room looked normal at first glance. Then I looked over at Melissa’s desk. Her computer and the files on her desk were gone. I ran down the hall to the alcove where I sat. My desk remained, stripped of all paper and my own computer.

Ivan’s office was the same, gutted of the essentials including Chester’s cage. Each room still had furniture, fixtures, artwork; anything replaceable had been left. They’d taken every computer and scrap of paper. Nothing with any useful information survived the clear-out.

“It’s gone. They took everything,” I shouted from Ivan’s office towards the front room. I wanted to keep venting, but I considered that as far as other tenants or passersby, we were potential criminals. We were still technically breaking and entering just by being inside the office. I walked back to the reception area.

“Do you think it’s even worth going downstairs?” I asked the guys in a hushed voice.

“No, probably not, but we risked coming here, shouldn’t we at least look?” said Jonah.

We all nodded, so I called the elevator and Cole punched in the code that took us down to the main lower level of research labs. It sank in at that moment–all three of us were officially unemployed, without references. Having Ivan and Innoviro look after us had been an extremely spoiled existence. The regular world held little appeal, even for me after such a short time.

In terms of recovery, my lot felt worst. No parents to go home to, no real home for that matter. Even if I had made my way through a certificate or diploma, Rubin might have wiped that out too. Would anyone from the car dealership remember me? Maybe Ilya could reverse Rubin’s memory wipes, starting with my sister Gemma. I would have so much to sort out when the dust finally settled.

The elevator bell rang and we stepped out into the eerily silent lower level. Cole and Jonah headed towards their workspaces in the large testing lab down the hall. I touched the door to the specimen and drug lab. A vision of a snapping, growling dog greeted me instantly. I recoiled from the shock, and then looked around in embarrassment. The guys had disappeared already. I put my hand back on the door and held on as I saw the dog again, more clearly, chained in a muddy back yard. Someone outside my field of vision threw some unrecognizable meat at it and the dog snapped it into its jaws with ravenous zeal. As the dog ate, I noticed there was something wrong with him. His hindquarters were covered in some kind of armor–no an exoskeleton–and his tail got larger as it curved upward. A rat skittered past, but before it cleared the dog’s reach, that bulbous tail struck.

I let go of the door handle and punched in the code, bewildered at why I saw that dog. I paused before turning the handle. There must be some biological specimen from the dog stored somewhere in this little lab of horrors. In a sense, I’d guessed correctly.

I opened the door and stepped into the dark room. Light flooded the space briefly before the heavy steel door thudded shut on its spring-loaded hinges. I cursed realizing that I’d forgotten the step of setting the door gently ajar on its latch. My eyes adjusted to the room. A miniscule amount of bluish-white light lit the room from the handful of small LCD screens on the frozen storage tanks opposite the refrigerated specimen cabinets. I discerned empty racks behind the glass fridge doors. I scanned the surface of the bare counter.

My gaze came to rest on the filing cabinet along the wall closest to me. Half of the room stayed dark. My eyes couldn’t distinguish more in the dim light. I felt around on the wall next to the door hoping to find a light switch. The lights were already on the last time I’d been in there and I kicked myself for not noticing where the switch was the first time. By that point, I knew it was hopeless to expect that filing cabinet to still contain any files, but I couldn’t leave without looking.

Within moments, a menacing snarl erupted from the darkest corner of the room. And out of the pitch black, a four-legged figure kept getting taller and closer. I screamed before I fully comprehended the half-dog, half-scorpion monstrosity in front of me.

I took a step backwards as an ear-shattering SCREEEEEE was followed by a deafening CRACK behind me. Light spilled in from the hall past the wreckage of the door Cole had ripped from its hinges. In a flash, he had the steel door in both hands and brought the end down with earth-shaking force, severing the dog at his mid-section before the tail could strike. The force of Cole’s blow rammed the door into the concrete below the floor and the dog’s blood seeped into the crack from both sides quickly drowning the dust.

Sound faded from my perception as Jonah pulled me back from the impact. Instinctively, I fought him. And then I thought of the files. I tried to form words with my mouth still gaping from shock. My senses returned to normal as I stood in the hall, looking at Jonah’s terrified face with curiosity as the words he yelled took shape.

“Were you going to let that thing eat you alive? Are you completely mental? You could have been killed!”

“Sorry about the door, but I didn’t want to use my bare hands. That thing probably had God-knows-what for venom.” Cole stayed calm as he joined us in the hallway. “Can we get a move on now?”

“Let’s go through the sewer,” I said shakily.

“You’ve got a bloody death wish,” said Jonah.

“No, she’s right,” Cole said. “We could have drawn some attention from anyone upstairs in this section of the building or even on the street.”

I led the way to the door at the end of the hall, up the stairwell, and into the cavernous main room. As I’d suspected, not one variant remained. “This is the fastest way out. And if this place is any indication, everyone squatting in that sewer catacomb is long gone by now.”

Chapter 13

Cole drove back to his aunt and uncle’s house carefully maintaining the speed limit the whole way. I practically bounced in my seat for the entire ride. I wanted to lock myself in that shed and never come out. It was definitely time to go home to Prince George and stay forever. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I remembered, yet again, that I no longer had a home there.

The light was still on in the shed when we pulled back into the tiny gravel driveway. I checked my phone. We had only been gone two hours. It was nearly two in the morning. As the relief of being relatively safe wore off, exhaustion took hold. We went into the shed to find Ilya skimming through an old magazine and Faith, reading intently on my laptop. For a one-time couple, they seemed at ease in the tiny room. I caught myself puzzling over which of them had ended the relationship and why. A split second later, I cringed inside and mentally apologized to Ilya, although he gave no sign he’d heard either thought.

Faith looked up at me and grinned. “Get some sleep guys. We’ve got lots to do tomorrow.”

“What did you find?” said Jonah.

“Only the exact addresses of all other Innoviro offices in a memo from Ivan to Tatiana. It’s over a year old, but it’s a place to start. I mean, there are a few pop-up-type field stations and research labs, but this is a sweet score.” Faith looked extremely proud that her digital detective work had yielded results.

“The deeper we get into this thing, the worse I feel about it,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound totally wiped out by a combination of fatigue and defeat. “I’m still sure something is horribly wrong at Innoviro–and I want some form of justice for my parents. But I shouldn’t be rallying everyone to go into something this dangerous. We have no idea what we’re getting into, do we?”

“Yeah, I’m not so sure about this either,” said Cole. “Last thing I remember, I had a good job, with a good salary. What happened to that? We weren’t even fired!”

“Obviously, we’re past that point, now aren’t we? The fact that we turned up to an abandoned, yet booby-trapped office reinforces Irina’s angle,” Jonah said. “We got more than a brush with death from that trip downtown. I’ll miss my job too, but I won’t question whether or not it had to happen.”

“Where’s the nearest office?” I asked.

“Thankfully, Vancouver,” said Faith.

“What time do you want to leave in the morning?” I eyed her wearily.

“There was something else worth looking at on the network,” said Faith. “Innoviro received a bill from a property management group for a house in the Highlands. Our friend Melissa forwarded the invoice to Ivan asking him to approve the housing expense for Hugo Greenwald. I hacked into the web-based version of Melissa’s email.” Faith smirked. “Jonah, here’s a fun fact. Your name was her password.”

Jonah put his face in his palms and sat down while Cole laughed. “Nice! That bitchy uptight secretary turned out to be good for something. I wish I could see the look on her face when she tries to go to work tomorrow!”

“So you want us to turn up at this house and knock on the door?” said Jonah.

“I looked it up on Google Maps and Google Earth,” said Faith. “The property is pretty isolated, like half the houses in that area. We could sneak up to the back door and break in if Ilya keeps his shield thingy around us. And we can fight if necessary. We need to take a stab at finding someone who can tell us where those people who got captured are being held. They could be at this house. Wouldn’t you want someone to come after you, if the tables were turned? If we go to Vancouver without even trying, who knows what we’re leaving them to deal with?” Faith’s face had the earnest expression of passionate conviction. All three guys looked at the ground by the end of her speech.

“You’re right. Let’s get some sleep so we can deal with that in the morning.” I curled into the fetal position on the cold musty bed.

I woke the next morning with Jonah spooning behind me, only without the hug part. Wisps of my breath curled into the air in front of me. Someone had covered us with a blanket, but the shed had become unpleasantly cold. The chill of the night had overtaken our body heat and the small radiant space heater kicking in and out didn’t do much to warm the place.

Faith and Cole were gone, inside their aunt and uncle’s house I assumed. Ilya clicked away on my laptop. I sat up and rubbed my eyes.

“They’re bringing some breakfast back as soon as they get a chance.” Ilya noticed I was awake and closed my computer. “We have to wait for their aunt and uncle to leave for work before we can go too.”

“Why is it again that these people are so freaked out about guests back here?” I said.

“I don’t remember. I didn’t want to pry, so I didn’t pester them.”

I looked over at Jonah still asleep. The silence with Ilya made my limbs stiffen awkwardly. I’d foolishly been hoping for some alone time with Jonah.

“He likes you too, you know.”

“Shit, I keep forgetting you’re like Rubin. It took me weeks to get in the habit of watching my thoughts around him. I guess I’ll have to do it all over again.”

“Rubin and I are similar, but I’m better at tuning people out. Still, if there’s anything terribly private you don’t want me to know, bury it. I can stay out of your head, but sometimes things ‘pop out’ of some people,” Ilya said through a thin smile.

“Great. Thanks for the tip.”

Jonah stirred and stretched.

“Rise and shine, sweetheart,” said Ilya.

The door to the shed opened and Faith came in with a plate of muffins. We each grabbed one and I forced down bite after bite of stale store-bought bran. Dehydration left me parched, fighting with each starchy morsel.

Faith and Cole gave the shed a cursory search for anything useful for our trip to the Highlands, or in general, while the rest of us finished getting ready. We took turns in the add-on closet-sized bathroom with nowhere near enough soundproofing. Less than half an hour later, we left the locked shed behind and were on the road, heading back out of the city to a remote suburb.

The Highlands were about a half hour drive from the part of town where we spent the night. We skirted downtown and took a highway northwest. The forest became denser and Cole turned off the highway. Each house we passed looked more rustic than the last. The combination of gigantic cedars and pines mingling with cabin-style buildings formed a neighborhood that resembled the way I’d always pictured the American Ozarks. I craned around looking for vehicles, people, animals, or other signs of normality. It was exactly the sort of place I’d pick to hide in if I wanted to conceal something strange.

“I think this is it.” Cole consulted the map on his phone.

We slowed past an inconspicuous grey wood house. The small building clung to a steep slope, one story in the front and at least two in the back, from what I saw in passing. Rubin’s little hatchback was in the driveway alongside an old pick-up truck.

My heart started beating faster. “Now that we’re here, I don’t know if I can go through with this.”

“Too late, this is happening,” said Jonah.

“Don’t worry,” Ilya said. “I can hear thoughts in there. Rubin and my father are the only people who can block me. Nobody has any idea we’re coming and if Rubin knew, he would have briefed at least a few others. In fact, Hugo thinks it’s pointless to hold up out here. He thinks we’re headed for the mainland already. Rubin insisted they stay on the Island. Hugo is losing patience with Rubin’s fear of facing Ivan. Some of the others are here too. I don’t think everyone that got captured, but the twins, Vincent, Camille, and a few more.”

“I’ll find somewhere down the road to park,” said Cole.

“Faith, did you print that Google Earth page?” asked Jonah.

She nodded, beaming.

Cole pulled over after the next corner and I stuffed my backpack down on the floor. Faith gave the grainy black and white satellite map to Jonah. Climbing out of the car, we followed him down the embankment.

Naturally, there was no path to follow so we slid and stumbled down the loose earth on the hillside. A long spring had helped the growth of grass, shrubs, and leaves on the trees which slowed our progress, but kept us concealed as we closed in on the backside of Hugo’s house.

The back yard struck me with its picturesque greenery. The trees hemmed in the lawn like a miniature meadow. A gazebo and small garden created a fairy-tale atmosphere. Could anything that lived here–even a giant thug–be as evil as I’d come to believe? As we neared the edge of the tree line at the back of that picturesque yard, we heard a rustling and saw his massive form emerge from around the side of the building. He had someone slung over his shoulder, dripping wet and splattered with blood.

I had never seen torture. Where would I? But it looked to me like the limp body Hugo carried had experienced exactly that. I shuddered as I watched him open the sliding glass door to the basement while holding his victim.

“That’s a man named Ronald,” whispered Ilya. “He’s conscious, but in a lot of pain. He believes he’s going to die.”

We all stood there for a moment, speechless, each waiting for someone else to make the next suggestion.

“Tatiana was here last night,” Ilya said. “She’s got a few lackeys helping her. Now that this has degraded into a captive situation, they’re not being gentle with their experiments. Tatiana told Hugo that none of these subjects will live.”

“Hey, are you really sure you can read the minds in there without putting us at risk? How can you know you’re blocking Rubin simply by staying out of
his
mind?” No sooner than the words left my lips, a whizzing thud hit Cole in the back. He dropped like a stone and Faith shrieked. Darts hit her and Jonah next, and then Ilya as he cried out.

I whirled around looking for the sniper. I saw nothing, frantically whipping my head back and forth. And then the world went black.

When I blinked awake, my head throbbed. I felt my hands bound behind the back of a hard chair. Cracks of sunlight gleaming through gaps in the curtains dimly lit the room. The carpet was old and matted with bits of debris ground into dark shaggy yarn. A musty mold smell wafted through the thick air, mingled with sweat and body odor. I saw other seated captives. Faith, Jonah, Ilya, the twins with their wings looking painfully crunched, plus a few others I didn’t know– two women and one man, Ronald according to Ilya. Cole was strapped to the only bed in the room with an IV in his arm. All were unconscious.

Burning heat in my head seared my brain. I badly wanted to free my hands and crush my own skull to dull the pain. A sudden wave of nausea launched me forward and I threw up what was left of my muffin with swirls of yellow bile. I spat several times unable to wipe my mouth. I tried to speak, but the residue of stomach acid on my dry throat reduced my words to a painful croak.

All I needed to do was rouse Cole and he could free us all. But I suspected the fluid being fed into him was designed to keep him incapacitated. Could Faith or Jonah burn or freeze our bonds loose? Probably not a good idea. I’d seen their lack of precision and I really enjoyed having and using my fingers.

Footsteps echoed in the hall ahead. Faith groaned from her chair across the room. Her spot in the corner was farthest from me. I’d have to speak up to get her attention, so I concentrated on the person walking down the hall towards us. The footsteps got louder and closer as I squinted at the doorway in the dim light.

I recognized the man immediately. Brad, the lab tech from Innoviro, brandished a syringe. He met my gaze and smiled as he walked over to Cole’s IV and injected the contents of the container. He grabbed the back of one of the twins’ chairs and dragged her back out the door. The platinum girl left behind remained lifeless for a few minutes, but a sudden jolt to her body startled us both. From what I’d seen back on the beach, the twins seemed to share sensations. The twin in front of me moaned. Then she cried out, once and then again. Now, I was certain of it. The twin’s suffering ended, but the other girl wasn’t brought back.

Faith and Jonah stirred, but didn’t awaken. Instead, I heard footsteps again and Brad reappeared.

“We’re finally ready for you.” He grabbed the back of my chair and twisted it up onto its back legs, dragging me behind him. I tried to speak, but only a grunt came out.

“I’m really glad we can dispense with all that fluff and pretence now. I’ve always thought it’s easier to treat lab rats like lab rats, not coddle them with jobs and apartments and stupid corporate picnics.” He dragged me down a sunlit hallway and through the main room in the house’s basement. We reached another hallway and he turned into the first doorway.

The plain square room had a bare concrete floor, a stainless steel counter, and a few cabinets. Brad picked up a syringe of the familiar lavender liquid Tatiana had injected into me. I grunted again, still feeling more wakefulness returning. As Brad approached, I wriggled in my seat to fight him as much as I could.

“If you don’t sit still, I’m going to break this needle in your arm. And I’ll keep sticking you with needles until I get five milliliters into you and I don’t care how much it hurts. Totally up to you.”

I let my arms go limp, defeated, and exhausted. I felt Brad’s needle in my arm and the pressure of liquid being forced into my flesh. Nothing happened for a moment, but then Brad’s grip melted away and I watched him walking along an industrial park road at night. He was a much younger man. He walked up to a woman wearing slick black pants, long over-the-knee black boots and a fitted black biker jacket. Her perfectly ironed blonde hair gleamed down her back. Brad said something and she responded with a smile on her bright red lips. Her eyes were fringed with thick black make up, but still had a playful sparkle.

Brad caught her by surprise as he yanked her jacket down off one shoulder and put a needle in her bicep, much like he’d just stabbed me. The woman struggled to free herself from his grip, but quickly fell limp. Brad heaved her onto his shoulder and started back the way he’d come. As he passed under a streetlight, I saw her features more clearly. Camille’s unconscious face bounced above Brad’s back with each step. Under all that black armor, she looked very young herself.