The left side of the U was empty. I trailed after Dr. Jacobs, avoiding Dr. St. John’s chair as we walked to our seats.
At the head table, two men and a woman were seated. None of them were wearing anything to identify them as military, but it seeped through in the details. The old white guy on the far end had a buzz cut that screamed armed services. The blond woman in the middle, her hair in a blunt cut that stayed out of her face as if it was too afraid to stray, had her back so straight that she didn’t even appear to need the chair. The younger man was African American and wore a serious “don’t mess with me” expression on his acne-scarred face.
In short, though they weren’t wearing uniforms, you’d have to be blind to miss what they were.
This was the Committee—our judges, our jury, our executioners.
I watched them watching Ford and Carter. Then those evaluating gazes shifted to me, cold, unemotional, and yet still eager. The open avariciousness in the woman’s expression made my stomach churn and my palms sweaty. Under those eyes, I felt small and stripped of not just my human “disguise” but everything that made me me. They did not see us as people. We were something to be acquired.
“Dr. Jacobs, I assume this is your submission…finally?” the one I was calling Morpheus, after the character in The Matrix, asked suddenly, his voice ringing loud in the otherwise quiet space.
The back of Dr. Jacobs’s neck flushed with color as the attention in the room shifted from me to him. “It is. My apologies again. There were final preparations to make,” Dr. Jacobs said.
As one, the three Committee members looked to me again with critical eyes, as if to determine what last-minute enhancements might have been performed. I doubted any of them would have honed in on the sweatshirt, contact lenses, and freaking backpack.
I didn’t care if Jacobs’s ridiculous “out-humaning” gambit actually worked, but given my plans for ending all of this as quickly as possible once everyone was in place, I’d have preferred not to have stares pinned on me.
Fortunately, Dr. St. John, who’d been staring at me as well, chose that moment to pipe up. “We have a prototype and a special model arriving shortly.” He tapped a message into his phone and sat back in his chair, looking all too pleased with himself suddenly.
“Might I point out that our prototypes are functional and capable of telling time?” Dr. Laughlin asked with a smarmy smile.
Blech.
“We’re not waiting any longer,” the woman warned, pointing a pen at St. John. “It’ll be up to you to make sure your product is informed of the boundaries and restrictions.” She paused with a tight smile that wreathed her face in wrinkles, revealing her true age. “Disqualification would be…unfortunate.”
“Not a problem,” Dr. St. John assured her.
Dropping my prop backpack on the floor, I sat down next to Dr. Jacobs, my heart tripping over itself suddenly. I could feel the irregular beat shaking me from head to toe. How had I ended up here?
A little over a month ago, I’d been getting ready to start my junior year, and my biggest worry was about blending in. Zane Bradshaw had been a stranger, a pretty boy lacking a spine, at the periphery of Rachel Jacobs’s circle of piranhas. I’d had no idea that my life Outside was a complete sham, a scheme to teach me more about being human and help me regain the abilities I’d blocked.
Now Zane was dead and I was here, in a surreal version of the world that had me facing down not only my creator but also the people who were even more responsible for my existence. After all, there’s no point in supply if there is no demand. And the three at the head table—or someone within their organization—had provided the alien genetic material and asked for the impossible: alien-enhanced soldier/assassins. Which GTX, Laughlin Integrated, and presumably Emerson had happily leaped to provide.
My palms were damp, and I wiped them unobtrusively down the legs of my jeans, out of sight beneath the table.
Focus. Be calm. Evaluate the situation. Prioritize your objectives.
The old guy cleared his throat. “Thank you, gentlemen, for coming today. And for your work in support of the security of this great country.”
Because the best defense is a good offense. The line from an old movie, a comedy and one of the few my father had actually watched and enjoyed, ran through my head.