Flood Rising (Jenna Flood #1)

She turned to Noah. “Remember what you said? ‘It’s like a switch gets thrown.’ Something hardwired into our DNA. You were right on both counts.

“Soter hoped that the DNA transmission contained instructions for creating a human ambassador—someone who could communicate with the aliens. He thought that we would be able to read the part of the message that he could never decipher. When it didn’t work, when the clones read the message and…changed…he thought it was some error in his gene sequencing. Back to the drawing board. But it wasn’t an error. The message activated those buried memories. It told them what they were supposed to do: start World War III.”

She paused, letting it sink in, and was surprised by how much she cared about Noah’s reaction. Not only had she just confirmed his original worst case scenario about the clones, she had also admitted to reading the message, activating the alien memories coded in her DNA. If he had any doubt about whether she was damaged goods, she had just removed it. Yet, if Noah felt that way, he gave no indication.

It doesn’t matter what he thinks, cautioned an inner voice. Her own voice, but also the voice of the teacher. They will fear you. They will try to kill you.

“So?” Cort asked. “Soter’s science projects blow a gasket and try to destroy the world. You’re not telling us anything we didn’t already know.”

“Aren’t you listening? These aren’t random actions. It’s the prelude to an invasion.”

Cort stared hard at her. “Let’s say I believe you. You’re one of them. Why should I trust you?”

“Because I’m one of them,” Jenna said, speaking slowly as if explaining a difficult concept to an impatient child. “I know what they’re doing. I know how they think. And…” She took a deep breath. “I know what’s going to happen next. If you want to stop them, you need my help.”

Noah nodded to Cort as if to say: See? Told you, but Cort just shook his head. “Sorry kid, but if that’s all you’ve got, you’re not worth the bother.”

He nodded to Trace.

“Cort!” Noah’s protest had a menacing air to it. “That wasn’t the deal.”

“There is no deal,” Cort said, shaking his head. “There never was, and you know it. This isn’t even my decision to make. There’s no other way.”

“There’s always another way.”

“Not this time.” Cort’s pronouncement had the finality of a guillotine, but then he added. “Look, I get that you think of her as your daughter—”

“She is my daughter,” Noah replied in a quiet voice.

He moved so quickly that even Jenna was startled. In the blink of an eye, he was behind Cort, gun drawn and pressed up under Cort’s jaw. Cort dropped his crutches in surprise, letting them clatter loudly on the floor.

Trace and the other two gunmen brought their weapons up, aiming in Noah’s direction. Jenna did not doubt that they were expert marksmen, capable of hitting what little of Noah’s form was visible behind his human shield, but doing so would almost certainly result in Cort’s death. She wondered if that mattered to them. Would they be willing to sacrifice their leader to make sure Jenna was dead?

As if reading her thoughts, Trace shifted his aim to her. “I’ll kill her.”

“Don’t do it,” Noah warned, moving his gun to cover Trace.

More shouted threats sizzled between the armed men, all of them talking but no one hearing. Somebody was going to pull a trigger, and once that happened, everyone in the room would probably die.

Jenna could feel the situation reaching a boiling point. She had to do something to stop the room from exploding into a storm of violence, but what difference could she make, unarmed, exhausted and helpless?

You have to live. They will fear you.

I have to make them fear me, she thought, and she realized she wasn’t as helpless as she believed.





55



11:20 a.m.



“Stop!”

Jenna’s shout did not merely cut through the tension; time itself seemed to freeze. Then, one by one, guns lowered. The men fought against the command, with shaking muscles and disbelieving expressions. Their compliance was not voluntary. Jenna was as surprised as everyone else. Was this some newly discovered, genetically programmed ability, or an extension of the techniques Noah had taught her? Regardless of the explanation, she knew the effect would not last. She could already sense the window of opportunity sliding shut.

“Listen to me, all of you. Don’t you get it? If we don’t start working together, we’ll all be screwed.”

What are you doing?

She ignored the voice—the teacher’s voice, her voice. “The world is about to come apart. I can stop it, but I can’t do it alone.”

Stop it? Why?

Cort was the first to shrug off the shout-induced paralysis. “And just how are you going to do that?”

You can’t tell them.