Shudder (Stitch Trilogy, Book 2) (36 page)

Lizzie paused once more before
revealing her final message. “They want to call a
truce.”

The assembly erupted with jeers and
boos, angry fists pounding the air.

Janie turned to Isaac and Alessa. “Do
they really think there’s anything they could say that would
convince this group to back down? How can they just expect everyone
to forget what they did? ‘Oh, that’s okay.’” Janie snorted. “Fat
chance.”

“
She didn’t even tell them
about the virus yet,” Alessa added.

Isaac shook his head.
“There’s
no
way
they’ll even
consider
a ceasefire if they know about that.”

“
But how can Regina keep
something like that from everyone?” Alessa argued. “They have a
right to know.”

“
Maybe so,” Isaac
shrugged. “I’m sure she’ll tell them when the time is
right.”

The crowd continued to grouse and
Lizzie threw her hands up in defeat. “I told them to expect as
much.”

Regina stepped forward, holding out a
palm to calm the mob. “I understand what you’re all feeling – it’s
a lot to ask. I, for one, am not convinced that a treaty will solve
much of anything. But if our organization feels that a peaceful
resolution is a possibility, then I will not stand against it.
Please – think this over, talk to your loved ones, and consider all
of the options. I will call another meeting in a few days’ time
where you may all share your opinions with the group.”

That seemed to placate the rebels for
the moment at least. Once they’d settled down, Regina shared a few
logistics to conclude the meeting. “We’re only a couple hours from
our destination now – our new base, Raptor. When the train arrives
in the city, a motorcade of rebel agents will be waiting to
transport us to the base. We must move with all haste, as Paragon
will be swiftly on our tails. Do not delay in exiting the train,
and take no detours to the shuttle. In addition to the threat from
Paragon, we also have not found conclusive evidence that the virus
is no longer viable – Alessa and Isaac came back unaffected, but
that may just have been luck. Touch only what you need to, and get
to Raptor safely. Once we’re inside, we should be out of harm’s
way, for a time, at least.

“
I’m certain many of you
had sleepless nights last night, as did I, so take these remaining
hours to rest so that you’re ready for the final leg of our
journey. Thank you.”

The room swelled once again with the
sound of voices as the rebels began to file out, and those who’d
been asked to move to other cars during the meeting funneled back
in. Janie pulled Alessa and Isaac aside where they could talk under
the clatter of the crowd.

“
What was Regina saying
about the virus? Didn’t Lizzie tell her we’re all vaccinated?” Her
dark eyes looked critically between Isaac and Alessa.

Alessa nodded. “Yeah, that was weird.
Maybe Lizzie never told her that part? Either that, or Regina’s
just keeping it quiet for some reason… I can’t imagine why,
though.”

Isaac shook his head. “I can’t believe
Lizzie’s the traitor who got us ambushed.”

“
Wait, you got
ambushed
?” Janie
demanded.

Isaac had forgotten that Janie was
locked up ever since he and Alessa had left – he guessed Alessa
hadn’t mentioned that to her yet.

Alessa nodded. “Yeah, not long after
we left Isaac’s set. It was a close call…”

“
Yup. That’s where Alessa
got her new ‘do.” He fluffed a piece of her hair,
smiling.

“
What?” Janie
questioned.

“
Never mind,” Alessa
sighed. “I’ll explain later.” She turned to Isaac. “I guess I can’t
really blame her if she was under interrogation – especially with
everything they’ve put her through. Maybe that’s why they decided
to make her their messenger, since she was being
cooperative.”

Janie was still eyeing
Alessa. “I
thought
your hair was shorter…”

Alessa laughed. “Please, we have
bigger things to worry about.”

Isaac certainly couldn’t argue with
that. If the rebels refused to surrender – and he was almost
certain they would – the next few months were shaping up to be
pretty lively, at the least.

He put his arms around Alessa and
Janie’s shoulders, pulling them both in tight. Alessa smiled up at
him, her green eyes sparkling – two emeralds bathed in fire – and
he knew that the woman he loved, and all the fight in her heart,
was back for good.

“
I hope you ladies have
fastened your belts,” he grinned. “I’ve got a feeling we’re going
to war.”

38. SCHEME

The Developer switched off the audio
recording and greeted the other Engineers with a self-satisfied
smirk. “Well, looks like everything is going according to
plan.”

“
According
to plan
?” the General
sneered in his usual rasp. “We just let 800 rebels waltz off the
compound, and you heard their reaction to the girl’s offer. What
are we supposed to do now?”

The Developer released an exasperated
sigh – he was growing tired of having to spell out every little
thing to this group. “Now, we wait. We have them exactly where we
want them.”

“
And how is that?” the
General argued, his black eyes narrowed defiantly.

“
They think we’re weak.
They think they have the power here. They
also
think that Phoenix is on their
side…” He grinned wickedly. “But we know better.”

“
B-but how do you know for
sure?” the Economist interjected, nervously smoothing his hair into
its ridged side part. “How do you know she’s convinced? And that
she’ll stay loyal – especially after… e-everything she’s been
through.”

How many times did he have
to explain? “First off,” the Developer quipped. “As far as she
knows, she hasn’t been
through
anything, at least not at our hands. The stoning
memory sequence worked like a charm –”

The General grinned. “You’re welcome.
Can’t say I didn’t enjoy that.” He flexed his knuckles. “The bitch
had it coming,” he added, running a finger across his scarred
lip.

The Developer gave the
General a scolding look. “– and any
past
transgressions I wiped from her
mind while we implanted the experience of the stoning. So Phoenix
knows only what we
want
her to know, and thinks only what we
want
her to think. Which
means she’ll
do
only what we want her to do. Understand?”

“
And what’s your plan if
someone reminds her of what actually happened? Of the bordello?”
the Doctor asked politely, smoothing a wrinkle out of his long
white coat.

The Developer shrugged. “That’s the
beauty of the selective perception tool – she’ll simply forget it a
few moments later. And then our little Phoenix will be back in
action.” And Regina won’t know what hit her, he thought to himself.
It was really a brilliant plan – even if Phoenix failed to win back
the rebels, the blow of her betrayal would devastate Regina. No
matter what happened, they were poised to tear down the rebels from
the inside out.

The Draftsman leaned forward. “So it
sounds like the transmitter is working?” he commented.

“
Like a charm,” the
Developer confirmed. “We can hear every word that’s spoken in her
presence, and her GPS location is updated every three seconds.” He
dabbled a few fingers over the tablet on the desk in front of him
and a screen lowered beside the conference table, a map showing one
glowing red dot slowly making its way toward the nearest city
center. “Looks like the rebels have almost reached their
destination.”

“
Explain to me again,” the
General grumbled, “why we’re not meeting them there and crushing
this rebellion once and for all?”

The Economist cleared his throat.
“F-first of all, we don’t want to kill all those people, if we can
avoid it. Their genes are, after all, integral to the continuation
of our species.”

“
Well –” the Developer
interposed, “that’s not
strictly
true.”

The Doctor frowned. “Of course we’d
like to preserve as much variety as possible –”

“–
but we
did
build some
redundancy into the algorithm, to account for accidental deaths and
the like,” the Developer explained. “We knew that not everyone who
was chosen would actually make it to the quarantine zone.” He’d
been careful to account for that in the design. “And anyway, once
we’re done with our plan, most of the rebels will return to us of
their own accord. After they see who it is they’re working
for.”

“
Regina seems like a fair
enough leader to me,” the Draftsman argued, fingering his beard.
“How do you plan to turn them against her?”

“
Oh,
I
don’t plan to do anything. But
Phoenix, well,
she
just might be able to win them over. And when she shows up on
our doorstep with half the rebel army in tow,
that
will be a more crushing blow to
Regina than anything we could have dealt.”

The General still didn’t seem
convinced. “And what happens when she fails, your
Phoenix?”

The Developer rolled his eyes. Hadn’t
they learned not to underestimate him by now? “Of course, I have a
backup plan. In fact, Phoenix’s would-be rescuer delivered it into
Regina’s hands first thing this morning.”

“
The power cell? From the
hospital?” the Economist wondered aloud.

The Developer sat back, a gleeful
smile spreading across his face. “Let’s not ruin the surprise,
shall we?”

The room fell silent for a moment,
everyone contemplating his strategy. The Doctor piped up with a
question. “Did you end up telling her about the origins of the
virus?”

The other three turned wide-eyed
towards the Developer, waiting for an answer – he hadn’t shared
that with them yet.

“
I did,” he
admitted.

“
Why
?” the Economist insisted. “They’ll never
understand!”

The Developer shrugged. “If she tells
them, it will only work to our favor – anger will make them sloppy,
and I’m sure we can pull together some sort of evidence disproving
the accusation if it ever makes its way back to Paragon. Either
way, the confession served its purpose – Phoenix understands how
dedicated we are to our cause, and we’ve won her to our side. Now
she’ll do the rest.”

He waited for any final questions, but
none arose. “Well, it looks like that’s settled. What else do we
need to discuss?”

“
There was some damage,”
the Doctor groaned, “to the labs, during Phoenix’s exit. The rebel
fighters destroyed all the blood samples from the immunity
specimen.”

The Developer cursed. “Can we get
more?”

“
How?” the Doctor
questioned. “She and her parents escaped with the
rebels.”

“
I
told
you we should never have let
such a valuable asset out of our sight,” the General
hissed.

The Doctor looked affronted. “And how
were we supposed to know she had any significance to the rebels?
They can’t possibly know who she is, what she means.”

The General glared
accusingly at the Developer. “Well if your little
Phoenix
–” he spat the
word like an expletive, “– tells them about the vaccine, they might
just put two and two together. And then we’ll never get her
back.”

“
This is a problem,” the
Doctor agreed. “We need the girl to find a cure. The vaccine is too
powerful to administer to an infant. Every one we’ve tried it on
has died. And the others all succumbed to the virus within days. I
need more samples of her blood to continue my research.”

The Developer scowled at
him. “If you’d just concentrated on developing the cure back when
we discovered the girl like I
asked
, we wouldn’t be in this
situation right now. But instead you let yourself get distracted by
the memory alteration, and allowed this incredibly important
investigation to drift by the wayside.”

The Doctor cleared his
throat aggressively and held up his hand in defense. “If you
remember
, we didn’t know
at the time how important the girl would become. We thought the
vaccine would work on the newborns – there was no need for a cure.
Not to mention, it’s not
my
fault that the rebellion became a bigger problem
than we anticipated. You know we needed the memory technology to
keep things under control. I can only do so much.”

The Developer sighed. “Fine. Let’s not
rehash the past. I’ll think about how we can use Phoenix to get the
girl to us. Who knows, maybe she’s already figured it out
herself.”

The General snorted. “I doubt
it.”

But the Developer quietly shook his
head to himself. The General had a bad habit of overlooking his
enemies’ talents. Some sad defense mechanism, the Developer guessed
– he ignored the strengths of others to blind himself to his own
shortcomings in comparison. Indeed, all the General saw when he
looked at Phoenix was a pretty little plaything.