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  “Four,” he insists. “Your mother killed your youngest brother.”

  8

  I emerge from my father’s study with a blotchy red face and watery eyes. Vega shoots up from her seat on the couch as soon as she sees me. She tosses aside her tablet and takes me by my arms, trying to make eye contact with me.

  “Fee?” she says, low and warm. “What happened in there? What did he say?”

  “Not here,” I reply. “We have to go back to the Academy. I need to find Laertes and Claudia.”

  Vega checks the time on her wrist Monitor. “Classes are almost over. They should be on their way home soon. We can wait them out.”

  “I told you I don’t want to talk about it here.” Without waiting for her, I thread my arms through my jacket, leave the house through the front door, and head for the garage. Vega, being Vega, hurries after me. “Do you mind if I borrow the bike?”

  “I’m going with you,” she says, following me into the garage.

  We both don our helmets, and Vega lets me get on first. Since her mother’s death, her trust in me has grown exponentially. She swings her leg over the bike behind me, and her warm form settles against my back. It’s comforting to have her there. Right now, Vega’s the only person I trust too. I kick the bike into gear, and we speed off toward the Academy.

  “What happened back there?” Vega asks, raising her voice over the roar of the wind. It’s safe to talk on the road, if a little difficult to hear each other. No one’s listening out here. “You look completely freaked out.”

  “My father told me the truth about everything,” I call back. “How he ended up working for Veritas, and why Veritas moved against IA in the first place.”

  “And?”

  “IA wants to inject humans with a serum to make their DNA compatible with an alien species,” I say, echoing my father’s explanation. “They’ve been working on it for years. That’s why the Second Planetary War broke out.”

  Vega clenches her arms more tightly around my midriff. “That’s disgusting.”

  “It gets worse,” I continue, my stomach bubbling up as I recall the things my father recounted to me in his study. “The Intelligence scientists who headed the project experimented on their own children. My mother was one of them.”

  Vega draws away from me, throwing the motorbike out of balance as she shifts her weight. I squeeze my thighs tighter around the seat to keep us from tipping over. Vega’s hands rest on my waist, enough to keep her steady, but I can tell all she wants to do is jump ship.

  “What are you trying to say?” she asks.

  “My mother injected me and the rest of my siblings with alien bacteria.” My voice gets caught, like the wind is forcing it down. I cough to clear the imaginary obstruction in my throat. “Claudia and I showed no signs of mutation or complications. We were both fine. Laertes, on the other hand, got sick right away. Dad didn’t know what was wrong with him. He was completely panicking, but my mother was the one who took Laertes to the hospital. She knew what was wrong, and she had an antidote to the serum, but Laertes was never the same. That’s why he’s sick now. It’s not some autoimmune disease like he thinks. It’s an alien mutation that’s slowly killing him.”

  “Oh, heavens.” Vega leans in again and hugs me from behind. Apparently, my reported immunity to the serum is enough to comfort her. “How did your father find out about all of this? I imagine your mother didn’t tell him.”

  “No, she didn’t,” I reply. “She kept experimenting with the serum, even after the near miss with Laertes. Vega, I used to have a baby brother.”

  “You did?”

  I sniffle, but I can’t wipe my nose beneath the face shield of the helmet. “He was five months old when my mother injected him with the latest version of the serum. He immediately had a seizure, and he was dead within the hour. My father was beside himself. He kept looking for answers, and I guess he was persistent enough in his search that my mother finally told him the truth.”

  “Oh, Fee.” Vega rests her head between my shoulder blades. The firm plexiglass of her helmet knocks unintentionally into the back of my skull. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It all makes sense now.” Snot runs down to my chin, and I wipe it on the sleeve of my jacket. The bike wobbles as I let go of the handlebar. “Why my family always felt like it was falling apart. My father couldn’t bear what my mother had done to all of us. That’s why he withdrew into his study. That’s what he hasn’t spoken to anyone or done anything. He was traumatized by my mother’s actions.”

  Vega grumbles behind me. “If he was so traumatized, why didn’t he do anything to stop it?”

  “Apparently, he tried,” I say. “He reported my mother to IA for child abuse, but it’s IA, you know? They didn’t care about the kids. They wanted to protect their own asses first, so they told my dad he was crazy. He gave up after that.”

  “I always thought your dad was a hardass,” Vega says. “I never guessed how much he was suffering.”

  “Neither did I.”

  We bounce into the Academy’s parking lot and skid to a stop. Vega dismounts, takes off her helmet, and dusts off her sleeves. She glances up at the Intelligence building that we’re parked outside.

  “Are you going to tell Claudia and Laertes?” she asks. “That’s what we’re here for, right?”

  “They deserve to know,” I say. “Especially Laertes. Mom’s been lying to him for years.” I balance the helmet on the seat of the bike. “This isn’t going to be easy.”

  We catch Laertes right as he’s packing up his things in his classroom. The last class of the day has just let out, and the students are still milling about. We wait in the hallway for the last of them to file out. Laertes, carrying his briefcase, attempts to exit, but we block his path.

  “Two visits in one day from my favorite little sister?” Laertes grins then blanches. “Don’t tell Claudia I said that. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

  “I need to talk to you,” I say, guiding him back into the classroom. Vega shuts the door behind us. “You might want to take a seat.”

  Laertes sits in his desk chair as I spell out the situation for him. The more I talk, the more his face turns into an expression of stone. His frown deepens, and a pattern of lines I’ve never seen before appears on his forehead. The resemblance between him and my mother is more prominent in this moment than ever before.

  “That can’t be,” he says. “IA would never do such a thing.”

  “Laertes, you’re living proof that they would,” I insist. “Mom injected all of us with that serum, and now she wants to administer it to the rest of the galaxy. We don’t know what side effects this alien bacteria will unleash. It could kill the recipients or worse, turn them into some human-alien hybrid.”

  “Ophelia,” Laertes says. “You aren’t thinking this through—”

  “I’ve thought everything through,” I reply. “I understand that we wronged the Revellae when we invaded Pavo, but we can’t compromise our own DNA to let them rise again. There’s no peace treaty here. Once the Revellae get what they want, what does it mean for the citizens of Pavo? In a few decades, there won’t be any humans left. We’ll have mutated to accommodate the Revellae’s DNA.”

  “Enough, Ophelia!”

  I jump back at the sound of Laertes’s raised voice. I’ve never heard him speak above a normal level before, not even when we argued as kids.

  “Enough,” he says again, in a softer tone. “This is the exact thing I was afraid of happening when you started asking questions about Veritas. You can’t buy into these rumors, O. There’s no foundation for them.”

  “Our own father says there is,” I remind him.

  “Our father is mentally ill,” Laertes insists. “He hasn’t spoken to anyone in seven years. Just because you’re back doesn’t mean he’s automatically cured.”

  “This is different,” I say. “He’s serious about this. Don’t you think it’s at least worth investigating? If Mom goes through with
this—”

  Laertes slams his fist down, rattling the entire desk. A stack of classroom tablets tumbles off the edge and onto the floor. “I said enough! Ophelia, if you keep talking this way, I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to report you. This is bordering on treasonous speech, and no matter how much I love you, I refuse to support you if you continue with your old ways.”

  I draw away from his desk. Laertes’s chest heaves, and he wheezes with every breath, but he holds my stare with a steady, seething rage.

  “I thought you were different,” I tell him. “I thought I could trust you.”

  “You are, first and foremost, a criminal within this galaxy,” Laertes says. “Then, you are my sister.”

  “I can’t believe him.”

  As we cross the lawn from Intelligence to Defense, the sky overhead begins to blacken. A rare storm makes its way toward the Academy, bringing roiling clouds and flashes of lightning that look like warning signs in the sky. I set a quick pace, but it’s already begun to drizzle. The wind picks up, tearing leaves from trees and tracking them across campus in miniature whirlwinds. In a few minutes, the entire school is going to feel the brunt of the storm.

  “I can’t believe him!” I say again, fuming. Vega matches my furious pace with long, balanced strides. Even now, she’s calm and rational, and for some reason, that angers me more. “Well? Aren’t you upset?”

  “I’m concerned,” she replies. She taps a patch on the shoulder of her IA vest, and a protective, waterproof layer suddenly coats her torso. The rain bounces right off the glossy coating. “If Laertes doesn’t believe your father, maybe we shouldn’t either.”

  “No, come on.” I walk backward so I can face her without slowing our progress. “We’ve come this far, Vega. Your heard your mother and Orion. There’s too much evidence not to follow this up, and we’re not out of resources yet.”

  “You think Claudia’s going to take this any better?” Vega asks. “Are you forgetting how deeply embedded she is in this institution? She’s trained these kids to be super soldiers, Fee. Honestly, I can’t believe you still want to tell her about this. She’ll probably report you before you get the entire story out.”

  “I guess we’ll see.”

  Claudia isn’t in her office, so we proceed to the training gym. When I peek through the window in the door, I see my sister running laps around the floor. Every thirty seconds or so, she hits the ground and does twenty push-ups. Then she’s off running again. She’s dripping with sweat, and the longer she works, the more her muscles tire. When she’s shaking too much to complete another set of push-ups, she flips over and does leg lifts instead.

  “Defense robot,” Vega mutters. “Are you sure you want to go in there?”

  “What choice do I have?”

  I push the door open. Claudia whizzes past us, sparing us naught but a glance. At the corner of the floor, she drops and does another twenty leg lifts.

  “What do you want, Ophelia?” she asks. Her breathing is steady. No sign of fatigue in her voice at all. “Class is over, and you’re interrupting my training session.”

  “Mom injected all of us with alien bacteria, killed our youngest brother, and wants to sell out the galaxy to an alien species called the Revellae,” I blurt out all at once. “IA’s planning to refine the serum and administer it to all of Pavo.”

  Claudia doesn’t even pause in her training. She pops up from her set of leg lifts and completes her circuit around the training floor. When she reaches us, she throws her bag of training gear over her shoulder, wipes her face with a towel, and takes a long swig from her water bottle. Then she claps me on the shoulder.

  “Let’s get a drink.”

  After Claudia showers, we end up at a bar in the little town near the port. We pass a few other IA agents on the way there. All of them are dressed in their casual IA finery, with some hint of color on their polo shirts to indicate their department and status. Claudia, in comparison, wears jeans, a white T-shirt, and a black bomber jacket. She doesn’t look like she belongs to IA at all, but every Defense agent we pass in the streets nods and salutes her. She ignores them.

  Claudia takes a seat at the crowded bar and flags the man behind it. The bartender is a handsome older guy. A jagged scar splits his scalp, parting his graying hair at a wonky angle. He grins when he sees Claudia, and the pair exchanges a complicated personalized handshake.

  “My girl,” he says. “Your usual?”

  “You know it,” Claudia says. “How’s business, Saros?”

  “Wrong kind of customers keep showing up.” Saros nods to a table near the front of the bar, where a group of Intelligence officers guffaws over several pints of beer. “It’s like watching the same chess match over and over and over, and chess is boring to begin with.”

  “It’s an intellectual sport,” Vega defends.

  “That’s rich.” Saros eyes Vega’s vest. Today, she wears the bright teal of a cross-trained operator. “Ah, that explains it. You’re a half-breed.”

  “Keep it light, Saros,” Claudia says. “This is my associate, Vega Major, and my sister, Ophelia. They’re cleared.”

  “Well, in that case” —he gestures to the shelf of booze on the wall behind him— “what are you having?”

  “I don’t drink,” Vega says.

  “You should start,” Claudia replies. “She’ll have the same as me. You like gin, Vega? This is top shelf. Tastes like Christmas in a bar glass. Ophelia, if I remember correctly, you stole a lot of whiskey.”

  “Whiskey’s fine.” I take the seat to Claudia’s left, and Vega takes the empty one on her right so we sandwich my sister between us. “But why are we at this poor excuse for a bar?”

  Saros sets a glass in front of me with a little too much force. “Respect the establishment, Miss Holmes.”

  “It’s safe here,” Claudia says. She jerks her thumb at the Intelligence operators’ table. “Mostly.”

  “I don’t understand,” I reply. “Safe from who?”

  “From IA,” she says. “Welcome to Harmonia’s underground Veritas hotspot. I knew I could count on you, little sis.”

  I slump over the bar in utter disbelief. On Claudia’s other side, Vega’s mouth drops open. Saros sets Vega’s drink in front of her and pats her hand.

  “Drink up, sweet cheeks,” he says. “You’re going to need it.”

  “You’re with Veritas?” I ask Claudia. “But you’ve treated me like shit ever since I got back! You’re IA’s best Defense trainer.”

  “Yeah, and I’ve recruited a handful of my students to work for Veritas,” she replies. “We’re scoping IA from within their own institution. It’s the perfect way to dismantle them from the inside out, but we’re running out of time.”

  “You could say that again,” Saros says as he sets Claudia’s drink in front of her.

  Claudia plucks the rosemary sprig garnish from her gin and chews it between her teeth. “I found out about Mom’s little experiments five years ago. Laertes was giving me shit about something—don’t remember what—so I went snooping around on his computer to see if I could find something to blackmail him with. I found our little brother’s death certificate, as well as Mom’s notes from the ordeal.”

  “She took notes on her own dying baby?” Vega asks, not bothering to mask her disgust. “What kind of human—?”

  “One who cares more about her career than her children,” Claudia finishes. “I’m sure the only reason she had four children was to test her creation on them. Goody for us” —she nudges my shoulder— “that the original serum didn’t stick to female DNA. Laertes, obviously, didn’t get so lucky.”

  “Have you seen how thin his face is?” I say. “It looks like he’s dying.”

  “That’s because he is,” Claudia replies. “Mom and the rest of her team are close to perfecting another trial run of the serum. We know she plans on administering it soon, but we didn’t have an exact date until recently. That’s why I sent you to the hospital wing, Ophelia.”


  “When you knocked me out?”

  “I bugged you before I concussed you,” Claudia says. “While you were lying unconscious in the medical wing, we were listening to Mom’s conversation with Doctor Parks.”

  “I remember,” I say. “They were talking about releasing a vaccine at the end of the month. That means we’ve got a few more weeks, right?”

  “Unfortunately not,” she answers. “Yesterday, we received word that Doctor Parks has altered the formula to fit our dearest mommy’s needs. They plan on administering it to children and young adults the day after tomorrow. By the end of the week, the galaxy’s youngsters will be half-alien.”

  “Unless we do something about it,” Saros interjects. “You left that part out.”

  “I was waiting for my clever sister to catch up with the program.” Claudia lifts her drink and examines the other bar patrons through the clear glass. Then she turns to me, cup still raised in a toast. “Veritas needs you, Ophelia, because Mother loved you best.”

  9

  “What are you talking about?” I ask Claudia. “Mom treated me like her personal trophy, parading me around at every IA function like a trained monkey.”

  “Exactly,” Claudia says. “You were one of the best students that ever went through the Academy, even better than me, but there was something else that set you apart from me and Laertes.”

  I toss back another sip of my drink, feeling like I’m going to need it. “And what would that be?”

  “When Mom injected me with the serum, it simply didn’t stick,” Claudia says. “The alien DNA had no effect on me, and my body flushed it out. You, on the other hand, mounted a personal defense.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When you were injected, you produced antibodies to rid yourself of the alien DNA,” Claudia explains. “Your body didn’t just expel the serum. It killed it off. Mom knew you were special, so she devoted her experiment to you. She used your DNA to perfect the serum she plans on using in a few days as well as an antidote in case of emergencies. You do know why she plucked you off The Impossible, right?”