Vitro Page 7

  He did a harried and not very thorough search. The rooms here were all labs or storage, all of them empty and quiet, though the lights in the hall were still lit. He grew less cautious as time progressed, both because it seemed unlikely that there was anyone awake, and because he knew he was running out of time.

  He reached the last door in the hall before it opened to the atrium, and told himself that if Sophie wasn’t in it, then he’d leave. I tried. That’s good enough.

  He opened the door and found himself in a room lit with blue light, just bright enough to see the sleeping girl on the hospital bed. His heart stopped. Sophie.

  He crossed the room in two strides and wrapped his hand around her wrist. Her pulse was very faint, but it was there. He breathed out in relief. For a moment, he’d thought she was dead, she lay so still.

  “What did they do to you?” he murmured. He ran his fingers through her hair. “Sophie?”

  She did not stir. There was a metal stand beside her, and on it hung a bag of clear liquid that pumped into her arm through a plastic tube. He looked around, frantic, as if there might be a nurse in the corner who could help him. But they were alone. He looked back at Sophie. She was hardly breathing. I knew this was a bad idea. I knew it from the start. Had she been hurt? Perhaps the IV was meant to help her—but if so, that meant someone here had to have been the one who hurt her. Nicholas? The scientists or the guards? He locked his hands on the back of his neck and stared from Sophie to the door in agitation, then made a snap decision.

  He clamped his teeth together and pulled on the tube, and it snickered out of her arm. He felt ill, and his head spun—he had never been one for hospitals and needles. But he forced himself to stay steady as he scooped Sophie into his arms. She was astonishingly light, or else he was running on an extra surge of adrenaline. His heart beat so wildly that he was surprised she didn’t feel it and wake up.

  “I’m getting you out of here,” he whispered. She was wearing a thin white hospital gown, and he could feel every curve of her body through it. Whatever drugs they’d given her, they must have been powerful. She seemed to be halfway into a coma.

  Jim kicked open the door and burst into the hallway. Now his only ally was speed; there was no way he could sneak around with Sophie in his arms. If she would only wake up, she could walk and they might have a better chance, but even as he ran down the hallway she slept on, her head bouncing against his chest.

  He went out the same door he’d come in by, though he had to pause to click the lock. Outside, it was full morning. The sky was blue, but the building still cast a long shadow over the bluff, giving them a modicum of cover should anyone glance their way. He couldn’t run very well with her in his arms, but still he tried, and he made it to the cover of a wide patch of bamboo without being spotted.

  “Hang in there, Crue,” he whispered to Sophie. She groaned and flexed her fingers, and he waited to see if she’d open her eyes, but though her lashes fluttered they stayed sealed. “I’ll get you out of here, I swear.”

  NINE

  SOPHIE

  Sophie wasn’t entirely certain that she was awake; though she felt conscious, her eyes refused to open, as if her eyelids had been glued together. Light probed at them, red and white and painful. Her throat felt packed with cotton, and her tongue weighed like a brick. A strange sensation flooded her body, almost as if she were floating. Her head was heavy and immobile, but the rest of her felt light and airy as a dollop of whipped cream. Still, her body refused to obey her mental commands to move. It was as if someone had disconnected her brain, left a wire hanging loose somewhere. She was aware of herself but had no control.

  Slowly, she realized there were people around her, talking in low tones. She wanted to call out, to ask for help, for a drink of water, but her tongue betrayed her and remained leaden.

  “. . . told Hashimoto to bring Lux upstairs. Where is she?”

  “She has the morning off. Probably sleeping in.”

  A sigh from the first speaker. A woman, Sophie noted. Her thoughts were languid, struggling to keep up. “I’ll speak with her later. Lucky we got here early. There’s no time to waste, so let’s get her upstairs and prep her for Andreyev.”

  It was like straining to understand a foreign language; every word took an extra moment to register in Sophie’s brain. She vaguely remembered something happening, something before she blacked out . . . a room, a blue light, someone sleeping, someone impossible . . .

  She felt movement. She was lying on a stretcher, and it was being rolled across uneven floor. Her body vibrated with every motion. She strained to open her eyes, but they stayed soldered shut. Light and shadow rolled over her. Low in her throat, she managed the smallest groan.

  The stretcher came to an abrupt stop. “Did you hear that?” the woman asked. “I thought she—”

  “She’s been off the anesthestic for half an hour.” The second voice was male, but high and a bit nasally.

  “They don’t usually wake this fast. Hand me the xenon. If she wakes up now we’re all screwed—it’s too soon.”

  Something plastic was pressed to Sophie’s face, and she heard a faint hiss. Oxygen mask, she thought. She tried to groan again, but her voice seemed to have evaporated completely.

  They were moving once more, and then she heard a metallic ding. The nature of the movement changed; the stretcher was still, but they were going up, in an elevator probably. It dinged again and then she was rolling.

  The voices faded in and out; her consciousness was flickering like a dying lightbulb. Sounds morphed into low, meaningless bursts of noise, like a tape put on slow motion.

  “. . . snuck out again,” the man was murmuring. “Around dawn, they think.”

  “Let them go. It isn’t as if they’re going to actually go anywhere. They are teenagers and they will roam.”

  “Well. Not exactly teenagers, Moira.”

  Moira. Sophie’s mind had been sinking deeper into a sea of mud, but at that name she lunged upward, grabbing hold of it like a lifeline. Mom!

  “They’re not harming anything, and anyway, maybe it’s better they’re out of the way when Strauss gets here. You know they like to cause trouble.” It was her mother’s voice. Why hadn’t she noticed it before? Mom, it’s me! I’m here—why can’t you see me? She wanted to scream. It didn’t make sense! Her mother was right there, so why wasn’t she trying to help Sophie? Why—oh. The memory finally fell into place, the lost pieces of a jigsaw puzzle snapped together to form a complete picture. The girl in the bed, the one who looked like me. And not just like Sophie—identical to Sophie. Understanding flooded her thoughts. They think I’m her. But why? How? Just when she thought she’d figured it out, more questions followed. Where was the other Sophie? Surely when they saw that there were two of her, they’d realized something was up. Or were there a hundred girls like her on this island? What were they? Why were they? And her mother—Moira Crue sounded well and whole. She didn’t seem to be dying or running for her life. What is going on?

  “This had better work,” said the man. “It’s hard to believe that two decades of research can come down to a single moment.”

  “We’re ready for this.”

  “You say it with more confidence than I have.”

  “What can I say, Rogers? I’m an optimist.”

  “Corpus has been breathing down our neck for years. We only get one shot. This day will make or break us.”

  “Stop worrying. We need to keep our heads straight for this.”

  “I’m just saying. Hashimoto knows how important this is. She should have prepped Lux better. I mean, look at her.” A finger brushed Sophie’s shoulder, but she was so groggy she couldn’t even flinch. “Is that a bruise? And here’s another, on her cheek.”

  “It happens, when they’re moved from one bed to another.”

  “Well, at least she had the decency
to put a gown on her.”

  “Here we are,” Moira said. “And look here. Everything’s in place. Hashimoto isn’t completely incompetent. She just forgot to bring Lux up. Still, I’m going to have a few words with her.”

  “Odd,” the man muttered. “This IV looks used . . .”

  Sophie heard a sudden crash, as if the door had been thrown open. Her mind was clouding over, and she fought to stay awake. Whatever gas they were feeding through the mask, it was working fast to shut down her brain.

  “They’re here!” a new voice shouted.

  “Here? Strauss? Now?”

  “Just landed.”

  “They’re not supposed to arrive until nine!”

  “Moira, it’s eight thirty.”

  “What, already? Good Lord, don’t just stand there! Laurent, stay with Lux. I’ll go meet them.”

  No, Sophie thought. Mom, come back, it’s me, please see me, Mom!

  But she heard receding footsteps, then the door slammed shut, and she couldn’t hold on to consciousness any longer.

  TEN

  JIM

  He was growing more and more concerned for Sophie with every passing minute. She didn’t wake; she didn’t move. Several times he stopped to check for a pulse. Whatever they had done to her, he hoped it wasn’t permanent. If he could just make it to the plane, he could get her to a hospital.

  But that was the problem—getting to the plane. The island seemed twice as big as it had before. When he’d first lifted her, Sophie had felt light, but she grew heavier with every step he took. His physical exhaustion was catching up to him and had begun to wear on his mind as well, tempting him to stop, to give up, to leave her behind and save himself.

  “No can do, compadre,” he muttered. “We’re both getting out of here.”

  A glinting dragonfly buzzed around his head, as if urging him to hurry, and a warm wind shivered through the bamboo around him; the leaves danced and cast shifting green-tinted light across Sophie’s skin. She looked the opposite of everything Jim felt: peaceful, serene, even innocent. Her left arm was curled over her stomach, but the right one hung loose. He stopped and leaned against a tree so he could lift it and rest it on top of the other one; as he did, her fingers suddenly tightened on his.

  He froze and stared intently at her face. “Sophie? Sophie, wake up. Please. Come on, kid, just open your eyes.”

  Her lashes fluttered, and his stomach tightened in anticipation, but she just sighed and seemed to sink deeper into her slumber.

  Jim thought wildly of the old fairy tales, the ones where the sleeping princess would awaken only with a kiss. His eyes traveled inevitably to her lips, soft and pink. He shook his head. There was something . . . he couldn’t place it exactly, but there was something too innocent about her. A kind of childlike purity to her repose that made the thought of kissing her seem vile. Which was strange, given that he’d fantasized at least five times about kissing her. But now, it just felt . . . wrong, somehow. She looked more like the Sophie he knew when he was seven than the one who was supposed to be seventeen, an odd mingling of child and woman.

  He hurried on, though the thick bamboo made his going slow. It grew so close together that he felt stifled, almost as if he were underwater.

  A few minutes later, he heard voices ahead, muffled and distant, but unmistakable. He dropped into a crouch, cradling Sophie to himself, and listened. Those kids—the ones that went looking for me. He’d almost forgotten about them. Maybe Nicholas sent them to help, he reasoned. He knew I’d have trouble with the plane, so maybe Sophie convinced him to send them.

  But a part of him doubted it very much. If Sophie’s mother trusted Nicholas enough to send him for her daughter, then surely Jim could trust him too. Yet he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something sinister moving beneath the surface, that Nicholas’s sharp eyes hid purposes of his own.

  He tried to tell if the voices were getting closer, but the trees and wind played with the sounds around him, twisting and morphing them. He’d thought they were ahead of him, but now they sounded as if they were off to his right, closer inland. He looked all around, flinching at every little noise. There wasn’t much animal life on these islands, mostly just birds and insects, but as he listened even they began to sound more and more human.

  Maybe the kids were only trying help, but still, he decided it would be best to avoid them.

  The voices grew louder. Jim finally pinned down their direction—north, headed back from the airstrip, perhaps—and he hurried east, toward the center of the island, hoping they’d pass him by.

  He was moving too slowly, encumbered by the girl in his arms. They were getting closer. If he was going to get away, he’d have to sacrifice either speed or silence. He went with silence, and began hurrying through the trees more quickly, his steps snapping branches and rattling the bamboo. Maybe he should have just ducked for cover, but it was too late now. If they’d heard him, they’d already be on his trail. He weaved through the tall green stalks and then burst out of the bamboo forest and onto higher ground, where the grass was as high as his waist and twisted and bristly pines rose out of the ground like bent old warriors. They didn’t provide much cover, but he spotted a cluster of rocks at the crest of the slope, and he made for it.

  The wind pushed at his back and slithered over the grass, which bent as if some giant invisible hand were running its palm over the hill. The grass hid the steepness of the incline, and he nearly lost his footing when it took a sharp upward ascent. Sophie jostled in his arms and made a sound halfway between a sigh and a groan.

  He was nearly at the rocks when he chanced a backward look. He thought he could see someone moving in the bamboo, but it might have been a bird or the wind. Calling on the last of his energy, he broke into a run up the hill, his calves burning, and reached the rocks just as he heard a shout from the bottom. He spun and saw the three kids emerge from the bamboo, and he dove behind the rocks, unceremoniously dumping Sophie onto the ground. She moaned but lay still.

  Jim gripped the rock with sweaty hands and watched the trio. The sun had finally risen over the trees to the east, its light washing over the hill like fire. But where his pursuers were, there was still shadow of the night, and he could not tell if they had spotted him or not.

  He turned away and looked in the other direction. The land sloped downward into a narrow gulch before rising again into a green mountain supported by ribbonlike buttresses, their hollows purple shadows. There was no going back the way he’d come, so he scooped Sophie up and started down the gulch. The going was so steep that the grass couldn’t grow there; it was bare dirt and loose rocks. He skidded and slid more than he walked, and it was all he could do to keep her in his arms. If he dropped her, she’d tumble and fall onto a bed of jumbled stones at the bottom of the gulch. I won’t drop her. But his body protested every movement now, his muscles seizing and spasming mutinously.

  I won’t drop you.

  He reached the bottom and stepped quickly but carefully from rock to rock, working his way ever north. If the trio had seen him, they would likely know where he was going and try to cut him off further along. Still, he had no choice. He couldn’t go south; that only lead to the resort and now that he’d stolen Sophie back, they would know he was there and they would be looking for him. He felt like a fish in a net, slowly being drawn out of the water.

  But he wouldn’t give up, not yet.

  The gulch emptied into a bowl-shaped meadow of flowers and golden grass. Halfway through it, he came upon a narrow, almost imperceptible path, likely left over from the resort’s tourist days, some sort of nature trail. It led northeast, and he followed it.

  Half a mile on, his legs gave out. He dropped to his knees and nearly dropped Sophie, but at the last minute managed to turn himself over so he fell onto his back with her on top of him. For a moment he lay there, gasping for air, his vision swirlin
g with black spots. He was dehydrated, hungry, exhausted, and ready to give up.

  Sophie stirred, her hand pawing vaguely at his chest. Her eyes remained shut, but a long, high whimper slipped from her lips, a pitiful, animalistic sound. He winced and sat up, holding the back of her head with his hand.

  “Sophie? Hey. Hey, look here. C’mon, just open your eyes.”

  “Over here!”

  His head whipped up; it wasn’t Sophie who’d spoken. She murmured wordlessly, but was still unconscious. Across the meadow, Jim saw them—and they saw him.

  He was up and running before he even had a chance to wonder where he’d found the strength. Instead of carrying her in his arms, he had Sophie draped over his shoulder—not a comfortable position for either of them, but at least this way he could run a bit faster. Not faster than the ones pursuing them, however.

  A quiet, exhausted voice in the back of his mind whispered, You could just stop, you know. They don’t have guns—they might be here to help you.

  But Jim’s instincts told him otherwise. He actively ignored the fact that it had been his instincts, more often than not, that got him in trouble.

  He pressed on, not bothering to turn from the path to hide. They were too close now. He was fairly certain he couldn’t outrun them, either, but he was too stubborn to give up. Trust all my bad points to come up at once, he thought. If things go wrong out here, I have only myself to blame. But who was he kidding? Things have gone about as wrong as they can go.

  Or maybe not.

  The trail led directly into a steep ravine, its sides sheer rock faces to which only the most obdurate pines clung with spiderlike roots. An old rope bridge spanned the thirty-yard opening, and at the bottom of the ravine he could see a narrow but stony stream, about forty feet down. A fall at that height would more than likely break his neck.

  He turned to see that he was trapped. The girl led the group, a thin smile slitting her face. Her curls bounced in the perpetual wind, giving her a Medusa-like quality.