Bartie shakes his head. “I’ve already told them about the black patches. They’ve all known the end was coming. This . . . this is the only hope we’ll have to survive, and they know it. ” He shifts. “I should help prepare everyone,” he says, heading to the door.

“I’ll make sure everything’s ready here,” I say. The auto-shuttle was designed specifically for people and cargo transport, but I want to make sure everything’s packed as efficiently as possible. I don’t want more guilt on my hands, not after letting three people die in the original shuttle landing.

As I turn to go, I notice the vid feed I’d played for Amy on the planet finishes. I move to disconnect the AV player—why didn’t she say something when the vid stopped?

I touch the controls for the com link. Amy’s voice fills the bridge. “What are you doing with that gun?” she says, her voice crackling over the intercom.

I freeze. Something is very wrong.

“You’ve realized, haven’t you? Looking at that video. You realized my eyes are like hers. ” Chris’s voice sounds harsh—desperate. “You didn’t want to see before,” he continues. “You and your father—you didn’t want to see what was always right in front of your faces. ”

“Oval irises,” Amy says, then pauses. “I’d noticed your eyes were different, but not that they were . . . ”

“That they weren’t normal?” Chris spits out bitterly.

I try to remember Chris’s eyes. I never really looked at him that closely before, and when I did, I was distracted by the way he seemed to show Amy special attention. He has oval irises? Just like . . . just like the girl who was injected with the gen mod compound.

“How?” Amy asks, her voice taut with fear. I imagine Chris with a gun, pointing it at her. “You’re—you’re in our military,” she stutters. “You were one of our people—frozen. . . . ” Her voice trails off.

I try to remember the list of military personnel that Orion gave me. There were so many names on it—but was there a Chris? No . . . I don’t think so. . . .

Why had I never thought of that before? Orion taught me to question everything.

Chris echoes my train of thought. “It was easy,” he says. “Your father left the shuttle the first time, looking for the probe—do you remember? He left with nine people but came back with ten. With me. ” His voice is mocking, gleefully crushing Amy’s trust. “I’m a descendant of the original colony that you humans”—he says the word with disgust—“decided to genetically modify. ”

My hands are clenched into fists so hard that I can feel the nails of my fingers cutting the skin on my palms. I’d do anything not to be miles above Centauri-Earth, trapped in space, unable to save her.

“But . . . the Phydus . . . ”

“That’s really all you can say, Amy? I expected better of you. But no, as you can see, I’m one of the few that isn’t affected by what you call Phydus. ”

“How’s that possible?”

“Genetic defect. The compound they gave to my people genetically modified the adrenal and pituitary glands. Instead of a ‘fight or flight’ option, my people are programmed to ‘accept and obey. ’ Lucky for me, my adrenal gland is broken. Makes more adrenaline than Phydus. After a few generations of being mindless Phydus-controlled freaks, my ancestors started to mutate. ”

“Are there others like you?” Amy asks. “I mean, others who aren’t affected by Phydus?” She keeps her voice very calm—unnaturally so. It’s not hard for me to imagine how much that placid voice is costing her. It reminds me of the lightning in the storm—the thunder was loud and terrifying, but it was the silent lightning that broke through the dark sky.

I am waiting for her lightning to strike.

“Dozens,” Chris says, and even though he’s speaking miles below me, I can hear the sneer in his voice. “The ones the FRX hasn’t found and killed. You met a bunch of us earlier tonight. They call us rogue hybrids, the ones that have the genetic modification but aren’t under their control. And they’ve been trying their best to kill us off for years. ”

“Why?” Amy’s only speaking in short quick words. I wonder if she’s trapped or worse, if Chris is hurting her.

“Don’t you see? Those monsters you’ve been so worried about. Not aliens. People. The monsters have always been people. ”

She is silent for a long time, absorbing this information. I unclench my fists, my knuckles cracking, but that doesn’t stop my hands from shaking.

“That’s not an explanation,” Amy replies.

“Why does any master hate a slave that won’t work? We’ve been sabotaging the shipments, destroying whatever equipment we can. ”

The screen on my console lights up. Amy’s kept the communication link between the auto-shuttle and the compound open, probably hoping that I can see what’s going on. I know better than to try to talk—there’s nothing I can do here. I can only listen as Amy does her best to show me what’s happening on her end.

“I thought you were different. ” Chris’s voice is so soft I almost don’t catch his words.

Amy’s voice, however, is loud. And angry. “Get away from me,” she shouts. I taste blood—I’ve been biting my lip so hard I didn’t notice I’d broken the skin. If Chris touches her . . . if he hurts her. . . .

The menus on the console scroll quickly. This must be Chris’s work. The screen stops at Security Feed: Compound, then a recorded video showing the outside of the communication building at the compound starts playing. It quickly reverses—I see Amy and Chris running—from what?—then a night goes by. The auto-shuttle launch. Me, Amy, and Chris with the glass cube, sneaking inside. Military. Amy and I discovering the compound. Military. Military. And then—Chris.

Tags: Beth Revis Across the Universe Science Fiction
Source: readsnovelonline.net