Created (Talented Saga) (16 page)

“She was talented to begin with,” Michael pointed out mildly.
“We know the drug works better in the talented.”

“How many different forms can you take?” Victoria asked me.

“I don’t know. All I’ve attempted have worked,” I said.

“And those would be?” Victoria prompted impatiently.

“Um, well, I’ve morphed into a wolf and a bird,” I said. “Oh, and a person.”

This got their attention.
Several of the UNITED council members sat up straighter in the chairs. An ancient woman with folds of skin weighing down her eyelids studied me with new interest.

“You have successfully performed a human transformation?” Victoria asked, sounding intrigued if not impressed.

“Sort of,” I amended. “I changed my eyes to imitate another’s. For a retinal scanner.”

“Truly remarkable,” Michael said, nodding his head appreciatively.

“Yes,” Victoria agreed. “Quite.”

From there the questions turned towards my emotions and feelings.
The UNITED council wanted to know what made me angry, sad, happy, and had that changed since my infection. I hated how they kept referring to it that way – infected. It made me feel dirty. Every time someone uttered that word, my temper rose a degree. Constant mental reminders from Crane, and waves of calm from Penny were all that kept me from verbally lashing out.

Exhausted from the rapid-fire questions that felt much like an interrogation, I was finally allowed to sit back down.
Frederick patted my leg under the table for support. He’d been quiet through both mine and Penny’s question and answer sessions. I wasn’t sure why he was there, but I was glad he was.

The council members began conferring among themselves.
All of them understood English, but several insisted on speaking in their native languages. I followed the conversation easily, keeping up a running translation for Penny, who wasn’t so fortunate.

“The German guy wants to do our evaluations tonight.
But he doesn’t want to make a decision before Erik wakes up. The old guy is French, or at least speaks French, but his accent is weird. He wants to bring in reinforcements now. He’s heard enough,”
I told her.

“I think that is premature,
Barbar,” Victoria retorted, addressing the maybe-French guy. “I agree that we have to take action, but I’d like to have a better idea what we are up against. The evaluations will show us that.”

“Have not these young women been through enough?” Michael asked.

“We can’t know what TOXIC’s army is capable of unless we dig deeper,” Victoria shot back. “We need to be prepared.”

“I am not convinced,” a dark-skinned man interjected in clipped English.
“I’d like to wait until we have the girls’ blood samples. That will be concrete proof.”

This debate continued so long my vision went blurry trying to follow the threads.
It was hard to tell who was winning. On the one hand, a lot of the Council did think that our stories were proof enough to intercede. Some of those same members still thought the evaluations were necessary. Others wanted to launch an airstrike on Washington, D.C. this very minute. Ultimately, the decision would be Victoria’s. She was the undisputed leader, even if no one actually stated that. Hers was the opinion that mattered in the end.

I was on the edge of my seat, ready to interject my own unwanted advice into the mix, when Victoria declared, “This is how we shall proceed.”

Penny clammy fingers found mine again. I felt like I was holding hands with an octopus, but I squeezed back with as much reassurance as possible.

“Councilman Neumann,” Victoria continued, turning those gold eyes on her German colleague, “you will return to Bern and inform the rest of the Council of our decision to take action against TOXIC.
From this moment on, persons associated with TOXIC are wanted for questioning for the illegal use of the creation drug. Have a formal declaration sent to Director Danbury McDonough, inviting him to voluntarily come before the UNITED Council to plead his case. Should he refuse, which I assume he will, then make it clear the Council will launch an attack.” She turned to Michael. “Councilman Tanaka, your job is to, discreetly, meet with the conservative nations. Once TOXIC’s use of the creation drug becomes public knowledge, those countries will declare war. The United States' polices protecting the talented have not endeared them to the less tolerant nations, who would like nothing more than mass genocide of our kind. TOXIC’s violation of rule 1216.45 will be used as pretense. Let them know UNITED will handle the situation.”

“President Crane, if you would be so kind as to lend us the use of your facilities, I want to have the children evaluated immediately.
As I expressed earlier, I want to know what we are up against. I understand the boy cannot be evaluated yet. The girls, however, can be.”

“Of course, Victoria.
Whatever you need,” Crane replied.

“How is your team progressing with the cure?” Victoria asked him.
“You are still researching the cure, are you not?”

“Dr. Patel’s research had been stagnant until recently.
I am confident with Penelope, Talia, and Erik here it will pick up. He will find one soon.”

“Wonderful.
It will be invaluable. If TOXIC has succeeded in making a created army, we need a way to deal with them. We cannot have the created running loose in the world. Whether they have been infected with the beta version of the drug or the long-lasting version, they are too dangerous to be roaming free.”

So not the words I wanted to hear.
It sounded like Victoria had all but sentenced us to containment. I couldn’t keep quiet.

“Not all of us are dangerous,” I interjected.
“I get it, the power is hard to control for people who haven’t had it their whole lives. But what about those of us who have? I’m not a danger to society.”

“Debatable,” I heard Brand mutter under his breath.
I shot him a nasty glare.

“Ms. Lyons,” Victoria began in an extremely patronizing tone that suggested I was five, “the drug was outlawed for a reason.
Part of that reason was to prevent exactly what TOXIC has done. Injecting unwilling recipients is abhorrent, I think we can all agree on that. Even more disturbing are the long-term ramifications of the drug. The original study showed that even recipients who were naturally talented were unable to handle the additional power. Without exception, the test subjects’ minds slowly deteriorated. The Council was left with a contingent of people who needed to be contained.”

“Institutionalized, you mean,” I retorted, a mixture of anger and fear bubbling up inside of me.
I saw her point. Really, I did. But I wasn’t like those people. Penny wasn’t like those people. Erik wasn’t like those people.

“Yes, Ms. Lyons, institutionalized.
For their own good and the good of society.”

“So these evaluations are just a courtesy to Ian?
You’ve already determined we’re a threat?” I wanted to scream.

“Talia, it isn’t like that,” Crane said with a warning note in his voice.
His mind pushed on mine and I knew he wanted to tell me to cool off before I nailed my own cell door shut. I didn’t need the reminder. I was fully aware that openly arguing with Victoria wasn’t the smartest idea I’d ever had.

“You, Ms. Lyons, have always been a threat,” she said coolly.
“Mind Manipulators are the most dangerous of Talents. Katerina knew that. Why do you think she insisted you not parade your abilities in front of others?”

The blood drained from my head, leaving me dizzy and disoriented.
How dare she bring my mother into this.

“Victoria, really,” Michael admonished.

“No decisions have been made, Talia,” Crane said quickly. I could tell by the way his dark eyes went wide, he feared I was about to give the Council members a front-row show of just how dangerous I really was. “Isn’t that right, Victoria? I had your word the children would be evaluated on an individual basis. Talia has lived for almost eighteen years without incident.”

Victoria’s high-pitched laughter was grating to my ears.
Another councilperson snorted and someone coughed to discreetly cover a grunt. Apparently the Council had a dossier of my exploits. Not good.

“And they will be, Ian,” she said with a smile.
“Do not worry, Ms. Lyons, I will be evaluating you myself.”

My mounting outrage had caused my mental barriers to drop, and I was projecting like crazy – or maybe just projecting crazy.
Crane read the words out of my head before they formed on my lips.

“Don’t.
Let it go. You can trust me, Talia. I won’t let them put you in containment,”
he sent.

I swallowed the nasty retort I’d been about to make and said, “I look forward to it Councilwoman.”

Chapter Ten

Thankfully, when Victoria had said she wanted the evaluations done “immediately,” she really meant the following morning. Now I had roughly eight hours before my big mouth got me contained. Awesome.

The meeting had been productive, though.
The fact that the Council was taking action against TOXIC was a huge load off of my mind. No, I didn’t actually expect Mac to voluntarily appear before UNITED to answer for his crimes, which meant a war was inevitable. But at least the Coalition wouldn’t be fighting alone. Mac and his army of Created, if he’d succeeded in making one, had to be stopped, and I wanted to be part of the solution. I needed to be part of the solution. The more I thought about the Mind Manipulator from Gatlinburg, the more sure I was that Mac
had
succeeded. That person had mostly likely been spawned from my blood, which made me feel responsible for his actions. No way was I going to let him wreak havoc in the world.

Brand had shepherded Penny to her bedroom the moment we’d been dismissed, insisting she needed to rest, despite her protests to the contrary.
Frederick and I had returned to the medical floor together, him leaving me at Henri’s door with the promise to visit me in the morning before my evaluation. I’d thought about visiting with Henri for a while before returning to Erik’s room, but decided my time was better spent by Erik’s bedside.

I was sitting vigil in my chair, holding Erik’s cold hand and telling him all about the heinous Victoria and the other Council members when the soft squeak of the door hinge made me jump.
I turned, expecting to see Frederick. Crane stood in the doorway, an oblong triangle of light shining onto the stone floor in front of him, one hand rubbing back and forth against his short hair.

“I figured you’d still be awake,” he said softly.

“Too keyed up to sleep,” I replied, in a voice slightly louder than the one he’d used. Crane didn’t have Morph hearing like me.

“Can we talk?” he asked.

I glanced back at Erik’s blissfully unconscious form. As badly as I wanted him to wake up, as many times as I willed him to do so, he wasn’t going to tonight. Dr. Patel thought tomorrow at the earliest. Besides, Crane and I had a lot to discuss. I kissed the hand of Erik’s that I still held in mine before tucking it safely under the patchwork quilt.

“Sure,” I said, gesturing to the other armchair.

While Crane settled in, I dragged my chair over to the sitting area. Crane hadn’t changed after the meeting with the Council. He still wore his suit pants, but they’d lost their crisp clean look and were now tired and wrinkled, much like Crane himself. His button-down appeared looser than it had earlier, like he’d shrunk under all the stress. I felt bad for him.

“I know you’re upset about the evaluations,” he began.
His muscled forearms rested on the arms of the chair, and he studied me with his intense eyes.

I shrugged like it was no big deal.
“The Coalition can’t defeat TOXIC on its own. We need their help. They need proof. The evaluations are necessary for that proof. I get it.”

“I meant what I said, Talia.
I won’t let them contain you. It’s in nobody’s best interests. You’re an asset in this war. You know McDonough better than anyone else on our side. Deep down, Victoria knows that.” He paused, waiting for some reaction I wasn’t willing to give. Crane sighed. “Mind Manipulators are, by definition, dangerous. But having one as powerful as you on our side is beneficial. She knows that. Just keep calm and answer her questions tomorrow, and you’ll be fine. Let her see how strong your talent is. UNITED recruits the best and the brightest from around the globe. If her desire to have you on her team outweighs the risk you pose, she won’t lock you up.”

I laughed humorlessly and shook my head.
“I see. So she’s like Mac. Great. One more power-hungry politician, just what I need.”

“Victoria means well.
But yes, she is drawn to strong talents the same way McDonough is. The same way you are. The same way I am.”

I averted my gaze and said nothing.
I hated being lumped into a category that included Mac and Victoria. Even if the description was accurate.

“You still have a choice –”

“A choice?” I snapped. “What? Run? Because that is the only alternative I see. The choice was taken from me the minute you informed the Council I’d been injected.”

The accusation hung in the air like smoke, creating a curtain between us.

“Technically, the Council doesn’t have jurisdiction here. This half of the country is not a member nation. I invited them here and I can disinvite them. Once you’ve been evaluated, yes, the Council can insist you be contained. If you choose not to go through with it, there isn’t anything they can do.”

Crane had more experience with UNITED than I did.
I’d only ever heard vague mentions of them before now, and never actually met a council member until tonight. Still, I had a feeling he wasn’t being entirely honest with me. If I refused, they’d bully Crane into turning me over to them. Or worse. They’d withdraw their aid in the fight against TOXIC.

I thought of all the children who had been infected with the drug already.
I thought about the army of super-Talents Mac was creating as we sat there. I thought about the Mind Manipulator in Gatlinburg and how little it took for him to control me. I closed my eyes and sighed. The better UNITED understood their opponent, the more likely they were to defeat him. Studying me would help with that. I focused on the bigger picture.

“I’d said I’d do it and I will.
Cool, calm, and collected tomorrow, that’s me.”

Crane actually smiled at that.
“I’ll make sure Brand makes himself scarce until after the evaluation.”

Guiltily I fingered the bruised skin next to my right eye.
Yeah, that was probably a good idea.

Several tense minutes passed where neither of us spoke.
Since Crane made no move to leave, I figured he had more to say. Yet, he was in no hurry to start up the conversation again. I considered taking a peek at his thoughts, but I wasn’t in a hurry either. I had a long sleepless night ahead of me. What were a couple more minutes with Crane?

“The creation project is a black mark in UNITED’s history,” he finally began.
“They’d prefer to forget it ever happened. That’s part of why they’re so eager to contain all the recipients of the creation drug. Don’t misunderstand. What Victoria said was correct. The power, as well as the drug itself, deteriorates the mind. But they don’t want their mistake causing chaos in the world either.”

“Why did they fund the project in the first place?” I asked.
“I mean, why create Talents? It just seems like a bad idea.”

Crane smiled.
“Now it does. But at the time, studying the genetic makeup of Talents and learning how to create new ones was exciting. No one considered the ramifications. Hell, I’m not sure anyone really believed it was possible. Since the Great Contamination, scientists have been trying to understand why some people are talented and others aren’t. There is no biological component, no gene that is passed on from parent to child. Isolating talent signatures was revolutionary. The scientists were so eager to see how far they could take it. When they first succeeded in creating new Talents, the Council was elated; it was a huge breakthrough.”

I scoffed.
Idiots.

“A couple of weeks after the first successful implantations, the team noticed that the recipients' talents were weakening.
They considered it a setback, but no one was terribly concerned. A hiccup, they thought. They injected the first round of recipients again. And again, their talents weakened within a couple of weeks. It wasn’t until the head of the research team discovered that the recipients’ minds were devolving that people started to argue in favor of scrapping the project.”

“Did they?” I asked.
“Scrap the project?”

“No.
Not yet. They figured it was only a matter of time before they perfected the formula. The research was only in its infancy, the researchers said. Give it time. UNITED did. Time only produced more failures. Several of the scientists resigned from the project. Dr. Albert Wythe was one of them.”

My jaw came unhinged.
It took me several long moments before I was able to speak. “You mean, Dr. Wythe, my therapist?”

Now it was Crane’s turn to look surprised.
“I wasn’t aware that was Albert’s function within TOXIC, but yes, I suppose it makes sense. He is a very strong Manipulator, both perception and mind.”

“Perception?
That’s rare,” I commented. Perception Manipulators were even more rare than Mind Manipulators. They altered their surroundings so that people saw what they wanted them to see. It was an external talent, where Mind Manipulation was internal.

Crane grinned and the room around me fell away, replaced by sun, sand, and surf.
I gasped. Rays of sunshine warmed my arms and legs. Waves lapped the shore, sounding like a soothing lullaby. For a split second, I was relaxed and at peace. Then, it all went away and I was back in Erik’s bedroom, staring open-mouthed at a beaming Crane.

“So that’s your talent?” I said when I regained control over my muscles.

“Guilty as charged. Brand, too. He’s not quite as strong, though.”

I was suitably impressed.

“But I digress. After Albert left the project, the team made another breakthrough. They perfected the formula. The head of research presented his findings to UNITED, with the suggestion that the drug be outlawed. He concluded that the side-effects far outweighed the benefits. The recipients were no longer showing signs of lessening ability over time, but their minds were still devolving. Now UNITED was burdened with dozens of people who were both extremely gifted and extremely unstable. Immediately, the focus turned to creating an anti-drug. A cure, if you will. But …” Crane’s voice trailed off.

“But what?
If they could invent the drug, how hard could inventing a cure be? And why hadn’t anyone thought about that from the start?”

Crane’s black gaze turned sad, sympathy rolled of off him in waves, and my throat tightened.

“The head of research died before he had the chance to finish working on the cure. Even with his notes, the rest of the team has been unable to produce results.”

“How’d he die?” I asked, dread forming a pit in my stomach.

“He was murdered, Talia. Murdered because he refused to give the perfected formula to TOXIC.”

Murdered because TOXIC wanted his very talented daughter, I thought.

“I worked on the project with your father, Talia. His intentions were good. He was a scientist. He craved knowledge. Having a talented daughter when neither he nor Katerina were talented made the research personal for him. He wanted to learn everything he could about talents.” Crane’s words cut through the booming in my ears.

Tears prickled at the backs of my eyes.
My father had been the one who invented the creation drug. My father had unleashed this plague on the world. My parents had died because of a stupid, freaking drug. The throbbing inside my head started at the base of my skull before taking over my entire body. Soon my skin was pulsing with the need to release the energy building inside of me. I wanted to scream, to throw the chair I was sitting in, to beat my fists against the wall. Anything besides sit there and think about what Crane had just told me.

“No.
No,” I moaned. “He worked for the government. He was … he was,” I stuttered, at a loss as to how to finish the sentence. All I’d known as a child was that my father worked for the government. I realized I had no idea what his job had entailed.

“Yes, he was a scientist – a brilliant scientist – for the Italian Government.
That is why UNITED asked him to head the project. They asked me because I had some of the most qualified doctors and researchers in my employ. I agreed because I was curious. I’ve always been fascinated by genetics. After your father’s death, the project was disbanded for good. Work on the cure has continued, but in general, UNITED has focused on containment. A cure wasn’t necessary because the pool of test subjects from the original project wasn’t very large. Now, well now it’s imperative. There is no telling how many people have been infected.”

I tried to wrap my head around the tornado of information, but all I kept thinking was about how my father’s thirst for knowledge had thrown the world into a tailspin, and we were just now realizing it.

“The reason I’m telling you this now is so that Victoria doesn’t catch you off-guard tomorrow.”

My head snapped up from where I was cradling it in my hands.
“Excuse me?”

Crane blew out a long, tired breath.
“Victoria
might
bring it up during your evaluation tomorrow to see how you react. She’ll use it to needle you, see if she can elicit a reaction. I want you to be prepared.”

I blinked and hot tears poured down my cheeks.

“Francis was my friend, Talia. He was a great man, a great father, and a great scientist. Don’t let this taint your memory of him. He was the one who insisted the drug be outlawed. He was the first person to understand that nothing good could come of creating Talents. If you want to place blame, lay it on Albert Wythe’s doorstep. He’s the one who gave the early versions of the drug to TOXIC. Blame TOXIC for using it, despite the risks. But don’t think ill of your father. He died trying to do what was right.”