Hope (Book 2, Harvester of Light Trilogy; Young Adult Science Fiction) (11 page)

Lucena looked back
at me and tilted her head towards the doors.  “Come with me to my other lab. 
You can see them for yourself.”

Just as we were
about to leave, Jace rushed into the room, flushed and out of breath like he
had been running for a while.  His eyes were drawn to me first and then to my
mother still floating inside the glass tube.  I knew from the look of regret in
his eyes he had hoped to spare me from seeing this particular horror.

“Are you all
right?” He asked coming to stand in front of me.

“The pain isn’t as
bad now,” I answered.

“That’s not all I
meant,” he said, his eyes glancing behind me.

“I’ll be ok,” I
reached for one of his hands, finely finding my balance with him by my side.

“I was just about
to show Skye our little project,” Lucena said to Jace.

“Can’t she have
some time to rest first?” He implored.  “She isn’t feeling well.”

“No,” I said
quickly.  “I need to know what’s going on.”

Lucena held her
hand out in my direction.  “See,” she said to Jace.  “I told you she was resilient,
just like her mother.”

Jace tightened his
hold on my hand and looked down at me.  “Everything will be all right,” his
words said even if his eyes said the complete opposite.

I nodded hoping he
still had the power to see into my future because I needed to believe in
something good at that moment.

Lucena led us down
a corridor to a set of steps which led to another level below the basement.

“We built this
laboratory when Jace was a toddler,” she explained to me.  “He was always
finding a way out of the other lab.”

“I’m sorry I was
such a rebellious child, my Queen,” Jace said, sounding truly humble and
apologetic.

I looked at him
silently asking him what he was doing.  Why did he sound like an obedient
harvester?

He looked at me
with a warning in his eyes and an almost imperceptible shake of his head before
returning his attention back to Lucena.

“It’s all right,
Jace.  You came around in the end thanks to my daughter.”

“What’s that
supposed to mean?” I blurted out.

Lucena stopped and
turned around to face me.  “His love for you has made him quite the loyal
soldier for me.  He wants to keep you safe and he knows I’m the best person to
make sure you are.”

“But that’s a
lie,” I said, placing a hand on my abdomen.  “You took away my chance of ever
having children.  How can you say you’ve kept me safe?”

“She did
what
?”
Jace asked.

“Oh please,”
Lucena said, rolling her eyes at Jace.  “You knew I planned to make Skye a
harvester when I brought her here.  I took her eggs to protect them.  If it
wasn’t for me, the two of you might not ever have children.”

Jace’s whole body
became rigid like he might explode with anger.

“How can I have a
child?” I asked, hoping to give Jace enough time to calm down.  We needed to
stay calm in order to find a way out of Lucena’s house of horrors.  “You took
that choice away from me.”

“We’ll find you a
suitable surrogate,” Lucena said off handedly like it was the most obvious
solution in the world.  “A human can carry ever how many babies you want.  Did
you honestly think I would deprive my own daughter from the joy of having
children of her own?”

I stared at Lucena
trying to make sense of the woman in front of me.  In her own twisted way she
seemed to think everything she had done was completely logical when it was
completely insane.

“But I thought the
children were going to be used for their organs?”

Lucena let out a
harsh laugh.  “Not the ones you want to have with Jace!  I’m not that barbaric,
Skye. The ones we use solely for their organs will be put into a vegetative
state as soon as they’re born and grown inside a growth tube like the one your
mother is in.”

Lucena shook her
head like she couldn’t believe I thought so little of her.  “Come along.  We
can discuss the details after your conversion.  Everyone comes out of it…
differently.  You might not even want children afterwards.”

I looked up at
Jace and saw the murderous look on his face.  I tightened my hold on his hand
forcing him to look down at me.  I saw the deadly promise in his eyes and
slowly shook my head.

“Someday,” I whispered.

“Yes, yes, someday
the two of you can have all the babies your little hearts desire,” Lucena said,
continuing to walk down the corridor without turning around.  “It’s really not
that big of a deal.”

I was thankful for
Lucena’s narcissism.  She would never think to believe Jace wanted to kill her
for what she had done to me.   In her mind, she had bestowed me with a great gift. 

The hatred on
Jace’s face didn’t ebb away.  I wasn’t sure I could hold him back from trying
to kill Lucena, and I wasn’t completely convinced I wanted to stop him.  But, I
didn’t know what the consequences of her death would be.  If I knew Lucena at
all, her death would cause unknown repercussions.  There had to be a reason she
was still alive and able to control the harvesters so completely.  As far as I
knew, none of them ever questioned an order she gave.  Yet, they all had
similar powers.  They were her equals in a sense.  What hold did she have over
them?  And if we broke that hold, what would happen?

I needed more
information and the only way to do that was to play along with what she wanted.

But right now I
needed to get Jace’s anger under control before he did something we would later
regret.

I stood on the
tips of my toes and kissed him.  I felt him resist it at first but he soon
melted under my touch.  His anger seemed to diffuse as my lips played against
his.

“I need you,” I
whispered against his lips hoping he understood I would need his help to escape
Lucena’s control.  A rash mistake on his part could kill us all.

“My my, I suppose
I really should give the two of you some time to yourselves after such a long
separation,” Lucena said from the other end of the hallway, watching us.

I knew she would
be able to hear us even from that distance with her enhanced hearing.  It was
one reason I had tried to be cryptic with what I said to Jace.

I took hold of
Jace’s hand again as we continued to walk down the corridor together to see
what other horrors Lucena had waiting for us.

Chapter 11

The corridor of
the sub-basement was sterile in appearance and smell.  The stench of freshly
bleached floors filled the air around us.  The walls and ceiling were painted
white and a white tiled floor lay beneath our feet.  Recessed lights made the
hallway blinding with their brightness reflected against all the white.

A series of steel
doors with touchpad locks at their center ran along the length of each wall.

“This is where we
keep the test subjects,” Lucena said indicating the doors as she walked down
the hallway in front of us.  “We have to keep them locked up until their
conversion into harvesters is complete.”

“What are you
testing them for?” I asked.

Lucena stopped and
turned towards us.  “They’re the ones Jace has been rounding up for me. 
They’re just like you.  They each have certain special abilities.”

“That night by the
barrier you said you gave Jace the ability to use my DNA coding to give him
precognition to find me.  Is that how you found the others?  Did you use their genetic
code?”

Lucena smiled,
pleased by my own deduction.  “Yes.”

“But how could you
have the gene sequence of complete strangers?”

“They aren’t
strangers to me,” Lucena cocked her head like she thought I should have figured
this part out on my own by now.  “I helped bring them into this world.  If it
wasn’t for me, they wouldn’t exist anyway.  So, if you think about it, they’re
lives have always belonged to me.”

Then I
understood.  “They’re all from your fertility clinic?”

“Yes, their
parents came to me for help.”

“What did you do
to us?” I asked.  “How did you give us our abilities?”

“I didn’t
give
you anything,” Lucena replied.  “I simply helped you all unlock your
potential.”

“But how?  And
why?”

“A long time ago I
found a set of inactive genes in the human genome which were unique in each
person I tested.  I designed a set of nanites which were supposed to activate
those genes but I ended up having to place them inside the egg before
fertilization so they could be incorporated directly into the chromosomal DNA
during replication.  Unfortunately, the nanites didn’t activate the genes like
I had hoped.  At least I didn’t think so until I realized the nanites had
simply gone dormant for some reason.  When I engineered Jace, I was able to
design his biorhythms to basically wake the nanites up and do what they were
designed to do.”

“Is that why my
mother told you to stay out of our lives?  She found out you used me as one of
your test subjects.”

“You’re mother
simply didn’t share the same vision for the human race as I did.  She couldn’t
understand I was simply trying to give you every advantage your genetic code
allowed for.”

“That’s why
they’re all the same age as Skye?”  Jace asked Lucena.

“Yes,” Lucena
answered.

“Did you ever try
to use the nanites in adults?”

“The ones I put
into you and the others were the first nanites I ever developed.  The second batch
of nanites, which I hoped would activate the genes in adults, were placed in
the immunity shot everyone received a few years later.”

“The one that
killed all the babies?”

Lucena sighed. 
“Yes, an unfortunate side effect I hadn’t counted on.  I’m still not sure what
went wrong but it soon became a moot design flaw after I designed the first
harvester nanites.  I still wasn’t able to tap into the unique gene coding
sequence but I didn’t have to.  I gave my harvesters the powers they needed to
survive and become the dominant species.”    

She walked up to
one of the doors and pushed the red button on the touchpad.  The door became as
transparent as glass and we were able to see a boy with dark colored skin
sitting on the lower level of a bunk bed against the far wall.  When he saw us
his eyes traveled from Lucena to Jace.  He stood from the bed and walked
towards the door.

“When are you
letting me out of here?” He asked Lucena.

“In time, Jackson. 
Once you’re converted I won’t have to worry about you trying to escape.”

Jackson looked at
Jace.  “I trusted you, man,” Jackson shook his head.  “How can you let her do
this to me?”

“I’m sorry,” Jace
said.  “I didn’t want to deceive you but I didn’t have any choice.”  Jace looked
down at me.

“You sold me out
for some woman?” Jackson asked in disgust.

“It was the only
way to make sure she was protected,” Jace said.

“Whatever, man,” Jackson
turned his back to us and went to lie down on the bottom bunk bed.  “Could I
have my privacy back?”

Lucena pushed the
red button and the door looked like steel once again. 

“What can he do?”
I asked.

“Jackson is able
to harness power from any source and use that energy as a weapon.  We’ve only
seen him burn a hole in the wall of the lab but that was enough,” Lucena
laughed.

“How do you keep
him from burning his way through that door?”

“Jackson was the
first one Jace brought back to me.  Luckily we were able to sedate him to keep
him from using his powers but obviously we couldn’t keep him in a medicated
coma forever.  So, for each person Jace has brought back to me, we’ve had to
modify their cells to meet their particular needs.  For instance, Jackson’s
cell is completely insulated from any type of electrical power.  The only power
source he could pull from would be himself and that would kill him instantly.”

Lucena walked over
to the cell across the hall from Jackson’s and pushed the red button on the
touchpad.  This time the transparent door revealed a girl with brown hair
pulled back in a ponytail wearing the same white scrubs.  She was doing push
ups against the bunk bed in her room seeming to not have any difficulty at all
with the exercise.  When she noticed us looking in at her like a bug in a jar,
she stopped and walked over to the door.  She was rather homely in the face but
her body seemed to be a mass of muscles.

“What do you
want?” She asked gruffly.

“Ava here can make
plants grow so we’ve made sure no plants are within the vicinity of her cell. 
She actually had the roots of a tree invade her first cell as a means of escape
before we caught her,” Lucena said, completely ignoring Ava’s question.

Lucena pushed the
red button and blocked Ava from our sight.  She then showed us the person in
the cell next to Ava’s.

“This is Lawrence.”

Lawrence was
walking back and forth in his cell only stopping when he noticed us on the
other side of the door.  He was tall and thin with dirty blonde hair grown out
to his shoulders.  His nails were bitten down to the quick making some of them
bleed onto his white scrubs.

“Is it time?” He
asked excitedly.

“Not yet Lawrence.” 
Lucena turned to us.  “Lawrence has the ability to walk through objects so his
power was probably the hardest to control.  But we found having an electrical
field surround him keeps him in place.”

“I only wish to serve
you, my Queen,” Lawrence said in a rush before kneeling in front of the door
with his head bowed in complete supplication.

“You’ll soon be a
harvester, my dear Lawrence.  I have what I need now to convert all of you,”
Lucena said before pushing the red button.  “Sweet boy but he can be a little
annoying in his undying love for me,” Lucena shook her head.  “At first I let
him roam around the mansion but he kept interrupting my work so I had to put
him into a cell.”