Lovely Darkness (Creeping Beautiful)

I take out a few more, looking for clues, but there’s really nothing in these folders but bloodlines. Pedigrees. Which leads one to believe this information is indeed about animals and not humans, but this is the Company we’re talking about.

Breeding is kind of their thing.

That’s how we got here.

In fact, one of the numbers on these charts could belong to one of my girls.

All of my girls.

Nick comes back up the stairs holding the phone out, the face of a young woman on the screen. She’s got long dark hair and there’s a kid talking in the background. Something about candy bars. “I’ve got her on vid call,” Nick says. “Hold that file up, Merc.”

I do, and Nick places the phone close enough for Megan to get a good look.

She studies it for a moment, her brows scrunching together a little. “Turn the page.” I do that and she shakes her head. “Well, it’s familiar, of course. Turn the page.”

“They’re all like that,” Nick says. “Just numbers and crossings. What do you make of it?”

“I can’t really tell. It’s definitely weird. I mean, all my rats had pedigrees too. But there’s no information here. I’m thinking the information has been compartmentalized to keep the true meaning of what this is a secret. How many pages total?”

“Nine,” I say.

“All like this?”

“Yep.”

“Yeah. Well, that’s a lot of generations for humans. But…”

She doesn’t finish. She doesn’t need to. But the Company goes back longer than nine generations, is what she’s thinking.

“Rats then?” Nick offers. “Because nine generations in rat breeding is what, a year or two?”

“Normal rats? Yes. But the longevity rats? It would take a decade at least.”

“That kind of fits,” Nick says. “That would put Donovan and Carter at what, age twenty?”

“I’m afraid I just can’t say for sure, guys. I’m sorry. I wish I could be of more help.”

Nick and I both sigh. “That’s OK,” he says. “Thanks for looking. Tell Johnny I said thanks, too.”

She smiles into the phone camera, flutters her fingers in a wave, and then ends her side of the call.

“That was kind of a bust,” Nick says.

“Not really,” I say. “At least we have a professional opinion that this is unusual and it’s only half of what should be in this file. So it was a good find.”

“Yeah.” Nick does not sound convinced. He scrubs his hands up and down his face as he stares blankly off into the corner.

“What are you thinking?”

His attention snaps back to me. Like he was deep in thought. “What?”

“You’re worried about something. Maybe I don’t know you anymore, maybe I never knew you, but I can tell when people are preoccupied and you’ve definitely got something on your mind. So what is it?”

He lets out a long breath. And when he looks at me, his eyes are filled with worry. “I did something, Merc. I thought it was the right thing, but now… now I’m not so sure.”

“What did you do?”

He stands up. Paces the room and stares at his boots. Then he looks at me. “You’re not the only one.”

“The only one… what?”

“PSYOPS, Merc. You’re not the only one.”

“No? I mean yeah, Carter or whatever. He’s like me too.”

“No. That’s not who I’m talking about. Me, Merc. I was trained as well.”

“When?”

“Long before you came around. Long after I left. I was never really meant to be an assassin.” He holds his breath in, then lets out slowly. “And neither was Adam.”

“I don’t get it. What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that I’m PSYOPS. Adam and I—we were part of a program.”

“Right. The Zero program. But you were pulled out. And so was Adam.”

“Were we?”

“Don’t start answering questions with questions. What do you mean you were PSYOPS?”

“What if—”

“Nick, don’t ‘what if’ me. Just say what you need to say.”

“I’m trying to. But I’m still putting the pieces together. So what if Adam and I never got out?”

“Out of the Zero program?”

“No. We’re definitely not Zeros. What if there was another program, Merc?” I open my mouth to object, but he puts up a hand. “Just listen to me. Adam thinks we might be brothers.” He presses his hand at me to stop my reaction. “Just listen. He’s got some evidence. We can talk about what it is later. But I was pulled from the Zero program, right? We assume this because Santos was the real… whatever you want to call what he was. Assassin? Cleaner? I’m not really sure, to be quite honest. But Adam’s life follows the same pattern. He was in the program, then he was pulled. He was given McKay, I was given Santos. And I know you don’t know Nathan St. James, but he was pulled from something too. A hunt, not a program. But that’s only because he’s not like me and Adam. He’s not from the same bloodline. He was in the hunt and then he wasn’t. And he was still alive. This is the important part. He was still alive at the end of that hunt. And he was sent to live across that lake with his grandfather.” Nick does air quotes for the word ‘grandfather’. “I think there’s something going on here. Something we’ve missed.”