The video stops rewinding as Chris hits play, showing Amy what happened. In the vid, Chris is not wearing any of the military clothes I’ve seen him in; he’s dressed in a dark, camouflage uniform, one that looks vaguely like green skin. He tries to get into the communication building. He presses his thumb across the biometric scanner. Instead of flashing HUMAN, it shows a warning light and the words ACCESS DENIED.
The Chris on the screen hits the door with his fist—and a sound that bursts over the intercom tells me that Chris has hit something in the compound, something metallic and hard. If he dares to hit Amy . . .
“But . . . you’re human,” Amy says, but it doesn’t sound as if she believes the lie she’s speaking.
“Not according to them. ” Chris spits out the word. “They genetically altered us. We’re hybrids, no longer fully human. ”
“Why?” Amy asks. I think she’s trying to distract Chris, calm him down, temper the vitriol in his voice. “Why would the FRX mess with your genetic code . . . ? There’s no real risk of solar radiation, right? And they could just control you with Phydus. ” She pauses. “Not that I approve of Phydus. But they didn’t need to make you something . . . other than human. ”
I notice Amy’s choice of words, but I don’t think Chris has. Amy didn’t say the FRX made the hybrids less human, just other than.
“They wanted to make efficient workers, so they enhanced our bodies. But that’s not all,” Chris says bitterly. He sounds louder now; he must be closer to the intercom than before. “They did it so that we don’t technically count as human anymore. At least, not according to them. It helps them sleep at night, I think, to believe that their slaves aren’t people. ”
I don’t want to think it, but I do: would the FRX classify me as less than human too, just because I’m a clone?
There’s a note of pride in his voice now. “We have all the strengths the FRX genetically engineered to make a better, stronger slave, but none of the mind-control. ”
“You can see in the dark,” Amy says slowly, thinking. “That night, at the shuttle . . . ”
I have no idea what night at the shuttle she’s talking about. It’s taking everything I have not to steer the auto-shuttle down, now, straight back to Amy and the compound.
“Better night vision—better senses in general. Strength. Speed. Agility. The FRX thought they were making something less human, but really they improved upon the original model. ”
“You still look human to me,” Amy says, her voice soft.
“Shut up!” Something loud pops over the intercom. I think he hit her. I see red. I will kill the frexing traitor.
The recorded video continues. After being unable to get into the communication room, Chris looks as if he’s going to strike the door with some sort of weapon—is that a scale, like the one I found in the tunnel? Suddenly, he looks up. He quickly hides the solar glass—because that’s what it must be—and Colonel Martin and his military approach, guns out. There’s no sound on this video, but it’s obvious that Colonel Martin is shouting, pointing a rifle directly at Chris’s heart. Chris slowly raises his hands, but I notice that there’s a small, flesh-colored device in his right hand. He quickly sticks it in his ear.
This must be how he can talk like us, I think. If our accents evolved on the ship so that the Earthborns have trouble understanding the shipborns, it must be even more different for people who are born on Centauri-Earth. That device enables him to understand us and reply in our language. The FRX is made up of many nations; no doubt they needed something like this.
Chris starts talking on the screen, but with no sound I can’t tell what he’s saying. Soon, though, Colonel Martin lowers his gun.
“My father knew?” Amy asks, shocked.
“Of course he did—at least, he knew what we wanted him to know. I told him I was a survivor of the colony, that we’d been wiped out by aliens. It wasn’t hard. My people hacked the system—we interrupted the automatic message Earth had set up for you on landing. We manipulated the information, made it seem like aliens were the threat. I gave him some solar glass. But then a real message got through. Colonel Martin was persistent—far more so than I thought he would be. The FRX knows you’ve landed, and they’re on their way. ”
There’s a pause. Amy and I are both trying to sort this information out, I know it.
“The message about the weapon,” Amy says slowly. “That’s the real one. That’s the message the FRX sent to us. ”
“We tried to block it, but enough of the message transmitted before we could stop it. There aren’t many of us. ‘Rogue hybrids,’ or whatever you want to call us. But there are more now than ever before. And the FRX—they’ve figured out a way to kill us all. ”
“The weapon. ”
“Exactly. Problem is, we have a slightly different genetic code than humans now. And the FRX knows it. The weapon? It’s a biological bomb. There’s a disease in there that will attack anyone with mutated DNA—all of us hybrids, rogue or not. It will kill us all. ”
That means—everyone the FRX has enslaved, all the people with the Phydus implanted into their systems as well as all the ones like Chris, who aren’t affected by the Phydus—they will all die. This is why the FRX didn’t worry about the weapon killing us. We don’t have the mutation that makes Chris and his people susceptible. They will die, and we will live.
My stomach drops as I realize what that really means: As soon as the FRX wipes out the hybrids, they’ll turn to us. We’ll be their next slaves.
Orion was right all along.
“But then why—why did you kill us?” Amy asks, and the sorrow that leaks out of the intercom brings me back from my dark thoughts and into hers. “Why did you kill my mom?”
“You heard Colonel Martin,” Chris says, his voice crackling over the intercom. “He intends to fire the weapon. ”
“You killed my mother because she was on a ship to the space station. ” Amy’s voice is hollow now. “She just happened to be there. She had nothing to do with the bomb. But you killed her. You killed nearly five hundred people!”