Free Web NovelChapter 107: Mace
The Hacker got Caleb into Sector Nine through a service shaft she had not used since she was twenty-nine.
He was alone for it. Elara had refused on the grounds that her face on a Sector Nine camera was not survivable. Iris had refused because the captain had refused. He went in with a clearance badge clipped to his coat that the Hacker had backdated to a contractor who did not exist.
Sector Nine was colder than the rest of the city.
The containment wing had its own atmosphere. Lower pressure, lower temperature, dryer air. The corridor lights were a thin, even white. The walls were poured concrete six feet thick, sheathed in lead, sheathed again in a copper mesh that grounded every electromagnetic signature the containment subjects produced.
The sample’s cell was at the end of the corridor.
The Hacker had cleared the duty officer for the next forty minutes.
Caleb walked alone.
The cell had a single observation window.
It was a meter square, set in the wall at chest height, made of a composite the corporate registry did not name and which the duty officer’s manual described only as "treated viewing glass."
Caleb stood in front of it.
The sample was inside.
It was not in a tank. It was on a low stone plinth in the center of the room, lit from above by a single fixed lamp. The plinth was the same shape as the eleven plinths in the underground vault and the same shape as the empty twelfth.
The sample was a coiled, segmented red shape about the size of a forearm.
It had grown.
The last entry Caleb had seen in the Hacker’s intel said the sample was at six percent of cell volume. The sample was now closer to ten percent of cell volume. The segmentation was more defined. The red was deeper. A faint pulse moved along its length every three seconds.
He watched it. freēwēbnovel.com
It did not respond to his presence.
But the second-line warmth in his ribs woke up under the override harness.
Kin.
The Mimic was in the cell with the sample.
Caleb did not see it for the first ninety seconds.
It was standing in the corner of the cell behind the plinth, where the angle of the observation window did not cover. It stepped forward when it was ready to be seen.
It was the same Mimic.
The face was the same. The proportions were the same. The black silk cloak it had worn under the rupture zone was gone. It was wearing a plain gray work uniform with a Sector Nine contractor badge clipped to the chest. The badge was current. The Mimic had been working in the containment wing for an unspecified number of days, or weeks, or months, and no one had noticed because no one was looking.
It faced Caleb through the glass.
It put a long, jointed hand on the surface of the glass from its side.
"Mercer," it said.
Its voice came through the intercom built into the observation window. freёwebnovel.com
The intercom had been off.
"You weren’t supposed to be born," it said. "I have said that to you three times. Twice through other mouths and once through my own. I am out of times to say it. I am here for a different reason now."
Caleb did not move.
"You found the key in me," he said.
"I made the key from you. The venom transformed the tissue. I did not invent the design. The design has existed since before the fourth generation. I followed the recipe. I have followed the recipe four times. You are the fourth. The first three did not survive the carriage. You are the first one who has."
"Why did you make it?"
"Because I was told to. By the same person who is going to seal it on Day Sixteen. Your father has been my employer for the last twenty-six years. I do not work for the Twelfth. I am of the Twelfth. The distinction matters."
Caleb watched its face.
It did not move.
"My father told me there were three pieces and you were the fourth he had not found."
"He was lying to you on a comfortable lie. He has found me. He has not told you. He did not want you walking into Sector Nine with the expectation of a friendly conversation. He wanted you walking in to see the sample without the noise of knowing I would be here. He wanted the sample first. The conversation second. He is very precise."
"What’s the conversation?"
The Mimic tilted its head.
"The conversation is this. On Day Sixteen, when your father seals the Twelfth, the living key in your ribs has to be extracted and returned to me. Not borrowed. Not copied. Returned. I have to be in the chamber. I have to be alive. The executives know I exist. They have known for nine days. They have not located me because I have been inside this cell, which they do not check because they believe nothing can be in this cell that is not the sample. If I leave the cell before Day Sixteen, the executives will find me and kill me. If I do not leave the cell before Day Sixteen, your father cannot seal the chamber. He needs me in it."
"You’re asking me to get you out of the cell on Day Sixteen."
"Yes."
"How?"
"You will know on Day Fifteen. Your father will tell you. The instructions are in his folder, on Day Fifteen’s line, which you have not read because you are reading the folder in order. I am telling you tonight because I want you to know what is on the line before you read it. So you can decide if you are willing before he asks."
Caleb said, "I’m willing."
"That was fast."
"It’s not getting slower." The Mimic’s hand left the glass.
"There is one more thing."
"Yes."
"Your brother." Caleb’s ribs warmed under the override harness.
"He is fine in the facility where Tali has him. He is comfortable. He is awake. He is reading the great-grandfather’s logbook. On Day Sixteen he has to be in the chamber too. The piece in his chest has to be extracted and returned to me too. Your father has not told him. Your father told me he would tell him on Day Fourteen. I am telling you on Day Seven so that you have a week to be ready for what your brother is going to be asked to do."
"What is he going to be asked to do?"
"He is going to be asked to walk into a sealed chamber knowing he may not walk back out. He has been awake inside his body for two years. He has had two years to think about what he is going to be asked. He will say yes. I am not telling you because I am worried he will say no. I am telling you because you should not have to hear it for the first time on Day Fourteen, with three of you in the room, when your father says the words."
Caleb took in the segmented red shape on the plinth, then the Mimic.
"Thank you."
The Mimic did not answer.
It walked back to the corner of the cell behind the plinth, out of the angle of the observation window, and was gone.
Caleb left Sector Nine through the same shaft he had come in by.
The Hacker did not speak to him on the comm for the walk out. She did not speak when he reached the service shaft. She did not speak when he reached the sedan Elara had parked four blocks away.
She came on the channel when he closed the car door.
[Hacker: He is alive.]
"Yes."
[Hacker: He has been alive in that cell for at least sixty-three days. I have been checking the wrong cameras for sixty-three days. I am going to need a minute to be angry about that.]
"Take the minute."
[Hacker: I am taking it.]
Elara drove. The sedan pulled away from the curb.
In Caleb’s coat pocket, against the dampener, against the third folder, against the photograph from Aris, against his brother’s medical gown, his hand was on a list he had not made and which had been finished without his help, and the names on the list were not done filling in.
