Gods of Blood and Bone (Seeds of Chaos Book 1) (22 page)

Adam’s eyes narrowed. “How do you turn over your results to them?”

“I send them a message,” he jerked his head toward the computers lined up against the wall, “and they respond with a time to meet, and GPS coordinates.”

“How far away and how far in advance is the average meeting they give you?”

“It’s usually quite immediate. A couple hours of warning, and most of the time is used up driving to wherever they want to meet.” He looked at China, who had calmed down, but was still letting herself be petted by me, and then to me. “I’m sorry. I had no options. I didn’t know what to do. I had to keep my sister’s kids safe, and it’s not like I could go to the police. Even now, if they learn that you were here, I don’t know what they will do. But if they are doing this to other people, too…you’re the same as me. I don’t know what, but if there is anything I can do to help, I will do it.”
 

I nodded immediately. “I’ll take you up on that offer.”

Adam’s head snapped toward me with a deep frown, but I ignored him and continued talking. “But you must be willing to accept the risk involved.”

Blaine smiled for the first time, despite the fact he was still tied up by four masked people who’d tortured him, and his crushed finger must have been screaming with pain. “I’ve been in danger since they decided they wanted my help in the first place. I don’t want things to continue on as they have been, so something must change. It is insanity to keep doing the same fruitless thing in the hope that it will suddenly become profitable. They’re never going to give my niece and nephew back on their own.”

China pulled back from me, and gave him a weak smile. “Sorry for threatening to kill you.”

“I would have done the same,” he murmured, “if I thought the kiddos were being held here.”

I untied Blaine’s bonds, and nodded to Sam, who I knew had been itching with the desire to heal him. “Go ahead.”

Blaine’s eyes grew wide as he watched Sam’s Skill go to work. When it was done, he gently touched the healed finger, his mouth hanging open. “Spontaneous regeneration. That’s amazing. This is decades ahead of the research in the field right now. What did you use to do that? Could I see it? I’d like to examine how it works.” His eyes searched Sam’s empty hands for the cause of his healing, and then went back to his finger.

“Do you know what NIX does?” I asked.
 

He drug his eyes to mine for a second. “From the things I’ve been asked to research, I’ve gathered that they’re an arms manufacturer. Advanced weapons technology, biological warfare, that sort of thing. Maybe selling on the black market to the highest bidding country, or maybe they’re a military operation.”
 

“Do you know what this is?” I held up the slide of shimmering Seed material.
 

His face brightened. “It’s the most amazing thing—completely autonomous organisms that seem to share a common consciousness, I’ve never seen anything like them before. I received that sample just a few days ago. Honestly, I think, I think they might be a cure to cancer.” he blinked, “Isn’t that ironic? But of course that’s not what they want me to do with them. Even so, my research could be beneficial, if I could release it to the world.”
 

DO IT AND YOU’LL DIE, DUMBASS. NIX WOULD NEVER ALLOW THAT TO HAPPEN.

—Bunny—

“Have you heard of the Game, Blaine?” I ignored Bunny’s warning to Blaine, who’d couldn’t receive our Moderator’s message anyway.

DON’T
YOU
DO SOMETHING STUPID, EVE. DON’T YOU REMEMBER THE FIRST RULE? YOU CAN’T DIVULGE INFORMATION TO NON-PLAYERS.

—Bunny—

“Are you going to kill him if I do? He’s already unable to tell anyone else. And he’s already involved in all of this. Hell, he’s studying the Seeds! Just because he doesn’t use them like we do doesn’t mean he’s not the same as us. He’s trapped, too, already dealing with everything. He just doesn’t know what that is. I’m not going to
reveal
it to him, just
explain
it.”

Bunny didn’t respond, and I knew it was because he couldn’t technically argue with my logic.
 

Blaine was staring at me strangely. “Umm, who are you talking to? Are you wearing an earpiece?”

I laughed. “No. It’s the voice in my head.” I ignored his look of bewilderment, and explained the Game and Trials, our status as Players, and the little we knew about NIX. While Blaine’s head still seemed to be spinning from that, I had him show us around his laboratory and explain what he was working on.
 

Projects in various states of completion were strewn all about the room. “I prefer to work on defensive capability things, rather than weapons, though I do both types of projects. I’ve got a few going on right now, as you can see.” He gestured all around us. “But most recently I’ve been examining the samples they sent to me…the Seeds, you called them, and something else, which I’m assuming are the samples from…the ones they took, like your sister. I’m trying to figure out how exactly they work, and from there how I can make them do other things. Other than that, I’m working on a lightweight synthetic armor—better than Kevlar, a serum that temporarily stops the pain receptors in your brain from working, and a substance that can stay strong while being thin enough to slice apart molecules. I just finished a mecha suit, an electrically powered framework for soldiers to wear, but the energy requirements make it unfeasible for extended use in combat. Of course, I’m particularly excited about the Seed material, and the things you’ve just described to me. I’d gotten some things from NIX to research before.
 
Things that made me wonder why they even needed my help, if they had technology like that. I even considered that they might have excavated some ancient alien city.” He laughed.
 

That gave me pause, and I didn’t know how to respond, but Adam spoke up. “Why
does
NIX need you? I find it hard to believe an organization like theirs is lacking in scientists of their own. And even so, why do they allow you to do your research here? Why not just keep you wherever their actual base is and have you work there?” he challenged.
 

Blaine shrugged. “They need me because I’m very, very good at what I do. And I’ve always preferred to work in solitude no assistants, no distractions. I’m kinda known for not wanting a research team; idiots only hinder me. Maybe they want to preserve my working environment. Or maybe they don’t want me anywhere near my niece and nephew, or they don’t want me within their base for some other reason. Honestly, I don’t know.”
 

I walked around to investigate the connecting basement rooms. One was a quarantine room, with an air-sealed large glass box within, and I wondered just what he worked on that might require such precautions. Another was a storage room for supplies and equipment, another a small closet with a cot in it, but the last was pay dirt.
 

“Hell yes,” I said aloud. Windows cut into the concrete walls near the high ceiling right at ground level would have let light into the large room, if there were any outside. But it didn’t matter, because my eyes automatically compensated.
 

It was dusty and cobwebby enough to be on the set of a horror movie. Random, rusty bits of metal, tools, and various boxes laid all around and stacked against the walls. Two staircases on either side of the room led up to a second-story loft that ran a third of the width and the whole length of the room. I stepped forward. “This place is awesome.”
 

I waved away a spider web and stepped onto the bottom step of the nearest staircase. A probing push with my foot proved it to be stable. “Except for the dirt.” I turned to Blaine. “You said you wanted to help, right?”

He nodded, tilting his head to the side in an unspoken question.
 

“Guys,” I spread my arms wide. “Behold our new base.”

Chapter 16

For evil to triumph it is enough only that good men do nothing.
 

— Edmund Burke

I crept back into my house late that night and curled up in bed. Adam had of course protested my decision, not trusting Blaine or his house-slash-secret-laboratory. We’d compromised by locking Blaine in the quarantine room and changing all the passwords to his security system. The scientist hadn’t enjoyed that, but I’d told him to suck it up, because as punishments go, the things he’d participated in deserved much worse. That shut him up, and I told him I’d be back for him soon. I’d even left him the rest of the pizza and some water.
 

I’d told Adam to work on making our base safe from NIX, cutting off their access to the security cameras and microphones without them realizing. China would then thoroughly comb the house, making sure there weren’t any other monitoring devices. My house was next on the list, but I figured the base took first priority.

A weariness like the weight of an ink ocean crushed me, suffocating me in dark silence. I’d crossed one more line tonight, created another barrier against my naivety, my normalcy, and my original invisible self. I felt like all the soft parts were being squished out of me, both mentally and physically. When the Game was done with me, all that would be left was a hard, jagged knife of a girl, able to cut through anything and everything. It would shave everything that wasn’t survival away. If I didn’t shatter in the process, that is.
 

I hugged my legs and rested my head on my knees, speaking into the darkness. “Don’t you ever get tired of it, Bunny?

OF WHAT?

—Bunny—

I’d known he would be there. “Of what you do. Kidnapping, human experimentation, murder…knowing how your Players live in fear?” When I paused, silence reigned. “How do you do it? Do you just not care? I know that’s not true. So how do you do it?” Maybe if he explained it, I could do it, too.
 

More silence, and then a bright window appeared against the darkness of my room.
 

I DO THIS BECAUSE IT’S MY JOB. AND THEY WOULDN’T DO IT IF THERE WEREN’T A GOOD REASON. I KNOW IT MUST SEEM LIKE NIX IS EVIL, BUT THIS IS ALL NECESSARY. THEY’RE WORKING TOWARD SOMETHING.

—Bunny—

“What could possibly be important enough to make this okay?”

I DON’T KNOW. THAT’S ABOVE MY SECURITY LEVEL UNTIL I PASS MUSTER AS A MODERATOR. BUT I’M JUST HERE TO MONITOR AND GUIDE YOU. I MAY NOT LIKE WHAT HAPPENS, BUT I DO WHAT I CAN TO HELP. HAVEN’T I DONE THAT FOR YOU?

—Bunny—

“You don’t know why this is supposedly necessary, and you just blindly believe? You’re saying you’re not
directly
involved, just a bystander, so that makes it easy? That’s how you deal, how you cope? That makes it okay in your head?” I laughed. I took it back. I couldn’t take any lessons from him. If I was dirty, I at least wanted to see the truth of it clearly in the mirror.
 

“Listen to yourself, Bunny. ‘They’ and ‘you’ are the same. You work with them! Those people kidnap children, inject them with microchips, force them into a game of death and abomination while experimenting on their bodies and having them monitored by cameras and microphones and…
you
!” I ran out of breath. “Do you realize what they did to China’s sister? They turned her into a literal flesh-eating monster, and then took her and others like her somewhere to experiment on them. But it did double duty, since they let us watch, to give the survivors extra incentive to use the Seeds and play their Game even better, because we’re afraid to end up like the losers. Chanelle wasn’t even human anymore…” my scrambling voice petered off.
 

IT’S HORRIBLE, YES. DO YOU THINK I DON’T REALIZE THAT? BUT WE HAVE TO PAY THE PRICE FOR URGENT ADVANCEMENT. WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO?

—Bunny—

I took a shuddering breath and let it out, the weight of everything too tiring for me to continue. It was late, and I was tired. “I just want you to face the fact that maybe you
should
be doing something about it, even if you don’t know what it is yet.” The anger had left me, and left behind only crushing loneliness. “You’ve been decent to me, Bunny. But you can’t keep hiding behind your intentions. Inaction is an action, too.”
 

* * *

I let myself into Blaine's house the next morning, breathing hard and dripping sweat after running from the closest bus stop. I wanted to come early to get a full day of cleaning and then training in with the weekend still in full swing. Soon, class would be out for seniors, and I'd be graduating. It's funny how the relative importance of graduating from high school had plummeted so abruptly.
 

The others were already cleaning our new base, and Blaine was still fidgeting in the quarantine box.
 

I helped clean, using a rag and bucket of already cloudy water to wipe things down. None of us had noticed anything unusual or worrying from NIX, which reassured me that Bunny had kept our actions to himself. Or if he’d written a report, no one had read it, like he grumbled about.
 

Sam, up above cleaning the spider webs from the loft area, leaned down to call a greeting. "Did you run here?"

"Yeah. Part of the way, anyway. I don't have a car." I shrugged. "Good exercise, and God knows I need every extra bit I can get."
 

Adam frowned. "It's best to have a vehicle. What if there's an emergency and you need to get somewhere fast, or get
away
fast? Except for China, who’s too young, you're the only one of us who doesn't have a ride."
 

"Both you and Jacky own motorcycles, right?" Sam called down.
 

"I have one," Adam said. "Not sure what you'd call what Jacky does."
 

Sam cocked his head to the side. "What do you mean?"

Jacky pursed her lips. "I may have...
borrowed
that bike."
 

Really, now? I considered for a second if that bothered me, but I didn't find anything inside except a bit of curiosity about what skills that might entail, and if they could be useful. Things like the law were another thing that mattered so little now.