PROLOGUE
Anna
November 23, 1AE
The Colony, Colorado
Anna brushed her son’s bangs off his forehead as he settled
back in the reclining chair. She would have to trim his hair again soon; it was
growing so fast now. “Just close your eyes,” she said, ending the softly spoken
words with an even softer sigh. She hated the pain Peter had to endure every day
simply to stay alive, but such was the cost of a second chance at life. Such
was the cost of being a Re-gen. “It’ll be over soon.”
John, the former coroner who’d been in charge of
electrotherapy since the treatment’s inception, turned away from the small
switchboard controlling the electrical current flowing through Peter just
enough to toss Anna a weak smile over his shoulder. “A word outside while his,
uh, treatment is going?”
Anna clenched her jaw, closed her eyes, and took a deep
breath. Despite his irritatingly hesitant and uncertain demeanor, Dr. John
Maxwell was valuable. He was short in stature, shrewd of mind, and as far as
Anna was concerned, knew more about the anatomy and physiology of the human
brain than any other living person. She just had to remind herself of that
sometimes. If she lost sight of that—of the help he, and as far as she knew, only
he, could offer her son—she might grow annoyed enough to remove him from her
inner circle.
And nobody survived to talk about Anna’s inner circle once
their membership was revoked. Her life—her child’s life—depended on absolute
secrecy, and dead men couldn’t talk. Unless they were brought back as Re-gens,
but still...they had limited
memories.
Anna shook her head, disgusted with the direction her
thoughts had gone. She was thinking like Gregory, something that seemed to be
happening to her more and more with each passing day. What would Tom, her first
husband—her true husband—say if he could see her thoughts now? Nothing
good, she imagined, and definitely nothing flattering.
Peter gave his mom’s hand a squeeze, drawing her back to
the here and now. The heavy glove Anna wore protected her from the worst of the
electrical current humming through his body, but she still felt a slight buzz.
“It’s fine, Mom. Go with Dr. Maxwell.” Peter offered her a slightly strained
smile. “I’ll live, promise.”
Anna clenched her jaw harder, then forced herself to relax
and release her son’s hand. Standing, she removed the rubber-lined glove and
tossed it on the wheely chair she’d just vacated. She paused at the door John
was holding open and met her son’s eyes. If it had been her in the chair,
hosting an electrical current as strong as the one flowing through Peter, she
would have been seizing, her brain sizzling and turning to relative mush.
But not Peter. Because Peter wasn’t like her. Peter wasn’t
really like anyone…not anymore. How much longer could this go on? How many more
experimental treatments could the sixteen-year-old boy’s body endure? How much
higher could they crank up the electrical current without it harming even
someone like Peter?
Peter flashed Anna another tense smile, and her heart
twisted. How long did she have until Gregory lost patience with their son’s
stop and go—mostly stop—recovery?
Holding her breath, Anna left the room and shut the door.
“What is it?” she said on her exhale. “You’re very”—she scanned him from
sneakered toes to balding head—“twitchy, today.” Or, at least, he was twitchier
than usual. “What’s changed?”
John hunched his shoulders. “You know that Peter
is—he’s...”
Anna crossed her arms and raised her right eyebrow. “Peter
is what?”
“He’s, uh, different…fr—from the others, I mean.” John
scuffed his shoe against the linoleum floor. “Because of the chemo and
radiation, not to mention all of the experim—treatments we’ve performed on him
and…” He met Anna’s eyes and blanched. “Which were very successful. Excellent
ideas, all of them. Wouldn’t have done any differently myself, had it been my
kid who—”
“Cut the bullshit, John.” Anna leaned in toward the
pointy-featured man, planting a hand on the wall just behind him. He seemed to
cringe into himself. There were some perks to being Gregory’s wife,
however unpleasant the drawbacks. It wasn’t a fair trade, not even close. But
it was something. “Tell me,” she demanded gently.
John took a deep breath and held it for several seconds.
“He—he’s dying.”
Anna shut her eyes. Breathed. Again. And again. When she
reopened her eyes, she said, “I’m sorry.” Deep breath. “I must have misheard
you.”
“The treatments aren’t as effective as they used to be for
Peter…and certainly not as effective as they are for the others.” John wrung
his hands. “The degeneration is progressing more quickly in him...not that it’s
not to be expected, considering that he’s older in Re-gen terms than the few
others left after the rebelli—”
John must’ve caught the dangerous glint in Anna’s glare,
because he shrank back even further. “It’s as though I can’t target the parts
of his mind that are breaking down, like his synapses are firing too intensely,
or um, burning themselves out before I can reset the connection. And the less
effective the treatments become, well, the more quickly the degeneration will
progress.” Quickly, he added, “And I’m sure it’s not just him, or at least it
won’t be. Soon, the others will reach the same point.” He nodded frantically.
“I’m certain of it.”
Anna narrowed her eyes. “I don’t care what you have to do.
Find. A. Way. To. Save. Him.” She eased away from the wall—and the terrified
doctor—and carefully straightened her lab coat. Purposefully, Anna raised her
gaze to lock on his. “Find a way, or you’ll be of no further use to me.” And
there it was again, disgusting proof that Anna was, deep down, just like
Gregory.
John blinked several times. A deer in headlights held
nothing on him. “I—I’ll see what I can come up with.”
Anna nodded and bared her teeth in a self-disgusted smile.
“You do that.”
Quick footsteps drew Anna’s attention to the stretch of
hallway behind her, and she turned around to see Howard, one of Gregory’s
favorite lackeys, approaching. At least, he was one of Gregory’s favorites
amongst the lackeys he still had after the uprising, and one of the few who’d
remained by choice in the chaos and instability that had followed. The
Re-gens had exacted a high toll with their unexpected rebellion, and it was one
her son paid for every day with his increasingly rapid descent into illness.
She needed more Re-gens…more subjects to run her tests on…more scientists to
brainstorm possible solutions. She needed Gabriel McLaughlin.
John tipped the scales in terms of intelligence, but he was
an inside-the-box thinker. Gabriel, on the other hand, somehow managed to turn
scientific experimentation into an art, constantly redefining the concept of
“the box” with his intellectual creativity. Where John was an unquestionably
smart man, Gabriel was a true scientific savant. If anyone could find a
solution to the degeneration plaguing the Re-gens, Gabriel could.
But Anna hadn’t had so much as a glimpse of him in her
dreams for months. Not that it was his fault. These were dangerous times in the
Colony, and only when Anna was feeling exceptionally desperate or bold would
she dare to let her guard down, just for a brief window, while she slept,
hoping Gabriel might be trying to contact her in her dreams. It had yet to bear
fruit. Each time Anna woke from such an attempt, she had only disappointment to
warm her bed—disappointment and the megalomaniac who’d long ago claimed her as
his property...as his “wife.”
Howard stopped just a little too close to Anna.
But she was used to his intimidation techniques. Keeping
her feet firmly planted, Anna squared her shoulders and met Howard’s eyes. “Did
you want something?”
“General Herodson needs you.” Howard held her gaze,
challenged it. “Come with me.” And without another word, he turned and strode
back up the hallway.
Anna forced herself to unball her fists. After several
slow, even breaths, she looked at John, who was still trembling against the
wall. “What do you need to increase the effectiveness of the treatments?” She
spoke the words low and rushed. Much as she might find pleasure in making
Gregory wait, she knew the repercussions; the anger he would take out on her
and the pleasure he would gain from her pain would be far from worth it.
“More Re-gens. More assistants.” John paused, squinting. “A
more intense electrical current.”
Anna blew out a breath. “Alright,” she said as she turned
away from him to follow after Howard. “I’ll see what I can do.” Gregory would
have to see reason, especially when that reason came in the form of releasing
the interred rebel Re-gens into her custody so she could use them to hone the
treatment process and, if she and John were able to make enough progress, save
Peter’s life.
Her spark of hope dwindled when she realized that Howard
wasn’t leading her to Gregory’s office on the other side of the Colony, but to
the underground holding cells two buildings away from the electrotherapy lab.
Doubt sprouted in her chest, spreading like a noxious weed. Gregory had been
keeping his distance from the makeshift prison and its ailing Re-gen occupants.
She feared his presence there now could mean only one thing—he’d finally
settled on their punishment for rebelling. And when Gregory came to a decision,
he acted on it quickly and without mercy. It was one of his few qualities that
Anna actually admired. Except for right now.
Anna had no doubt of the severity of the punishment the
uncooperative Re-gens would suffer, had no doubt that she was walking toward an
execution. And she had no doubt that by extinguishing the rebel Re-gens’ second
lives, Gregory would be all but killing their son.
#
A livewire of tension and frustration, Anna descended the
stairwell leading down to the long, underground hallway and its intermittent
holding cells beneath the headquarters building. She couldn’t allow Gregory to
kill the few remaining Re-gens, not when she needed them so badly. Her mind was
awhirl with thoughts…possibilities…logic…arguments…excuses…pleas…none of which
would be good enough if Gregory’s mind was already made up.
The first door on the right, a heavy, metal barrier set in
the reinforced cement wall, stood ajar, and Anna could hear Gregory’s
disinterested voice floating through the doorway. “…but some mistakes are just
too great to make amends for, MT-01. I can no longer trust you. Your words are
now meaningless to me.”
Howard passed the doorway and took up a guard stance on the
far side of the opening. Anna stopped opposite him and hung her head. Now that
she knew which Re-gen Gregory was addressing in the cell, she recognized the
emotionless quality of his voice for what it really was—a mask to cover the
betrayal he felt, to hide his utter heartbreak.
Mikey—MT-01, in Re-gen terms—had been Gregory’s favorite.
He’d been loyal to “the General” before his death and had trusted Gregory
implicitly, to the point of volunteering for the Re-gen program when it was
still in the experimental phase. He was the only Re-gen that Gregory didn’t
address using a Re-gen identifier. Or rather, he had been…before the uprising.
And while Mikey hadn’t actually participated in the
rebellion—in the massive slaughter that had taken place during those few,
terrifying minutes that the General’s people had been immobilized by Camille’s
metal-controlling Ability—he’d admitted to knowing about it before it happened.
How could he not have when the oracle and orchestrator of the rebellion,
RV-01—Becca—had been the closest thing he’d had to a best friend?
“Pl—please, Father.” Mikey was sobbing, the sound sloppy
and gut-wrenching. It was rare for a Re-gen to feel intense emotions, let alone
express what they were feeling, and it yanked on the tangled wad of stored up
heartbreak that Anna kept tightly wound inside herself. She couldn’t imagine
what it would take to summon such an intense emotional response in her own son.
“I kn—knew you w—would be safe,” Mikey said between gasping breaths. “I—I would
have w—warned you if I thought you—”
His words cut off with the sound of flesh hitting flesh,
but his sobs continued.
“There are few things I enjoy less than the bitter taste of
disappointment,” Gregory said quietly, “and I could count on one hand the
number of times I’ve felt such intense disappointment as I do now.”
“Pl—please, Father—”
There was another fleshy smack, closely followed by a wet
crunch that brought to mind a sickening image of the Re-gen’s skull cracking
against the cement wall.
“You were my favorite,” Gregory said in the silence that
hung in the absence of Mikey’s sobs, thick to the point of choking. “I loved
you like a son,” he whispered.
Anna couldn’t bring herself to step through the doorway, to
enter the holding cell that she all but knew now contained only one living
thing. At that moment, she refused to think of Gregory as a person—he was so
much less.
Anna squeezed her eyes shut. Gregory truly had loved Mikey
like a son; she knew it, had seen it with her own eyes. And he’d killed him
anyway.
She just hoped he wouldn’t
inadvertently do the same to his actual flesh and blood.
