Westen was greeted with a barrage of questions from the unseen reporters. At least one of them added something to the effect of, “If you’re implying a connection between splicing and the Great Pandemic, that connection has been completely disproven.”
Westen rolled his eyes. “Well, we’ll just have to agree to disagree.”
The feed cut back to Ainsley Sinclair. “But certain portions of the letter have been, if not confirmed, then at least supported.”
An older woman appeared on the feed, a square head with pale blotchy skin under thinning gray hair. Her eyes were pink and wet. The graphic said DOROTHY CULLEN: MOTHER OF FIRST FLU VICTIM. “All I know is, my Billy was part of our county delegation to that convention, and everybody got sick except the ones with them things in their heads.” She broke down into sobs. “And now my poor Billy’s dead.”
My eyes met Rex’s. It was just like Dymphna had said. None of the chimeras or their friends had gotten sick, and none of the Plants, either.
Sinclair’s voice returned over a 2D feed of another reporter, apparently trailed by her camera operator, being turned away at the security gate at the Wellfood chicken facility in Delaware. “Requests for comment from the Wells Life Sciences facility mentioned in the letter have been denied,” she said. As the guard at the gate was turning the reporter away, the exit gate opened in the background and the camera swung over to show half a dozen small delivery vans leaving the facility, followed by a huge 18-wheeler, all of them the same pale blue with the Wells Life Sciences logo on the side.
I looked at Rex, feeling suddenly old—not mature or grown up or anything like that, but tired and worn out, like I didn’t have enough life in me to comprehend something this big, much less do anything about it. But I also knew that now more than ever, doing nothing was not an option.
“What are you thinking?” Rex asked.
“I’m thinking we need to be there tomorrow. At that Chimerica meeting that Sly and Dara are setting up.”
He smiled. “I don’t think we’re invited.” I could tell from his tone that he wasn’t pushing back. He was just pointing out a fact.
I smiled back at him. “I don’t think I care.”
He nodded, still smiling. “You make a good point.”
“But first,” I said, my smile falling away as I let out a sigh, “I need to go home. I need to tell Mom and Trudy about Dymphna.”
FORTY-ONE
Rex had insisted on coming with me and I hadn’t protested even a tiny little bit. It was going to be a rough evening, and even if him being there in the middle of this family thing might be awkward, I wanted him there, for sure.
As we walked up the hill from the Lev station toward my house, Rex and I talked about everything that had happened at the vertical farm.
We talked about Roberta, and we talked about Stan, who had now killed two people close to me: first Del and now Dymphna. We also talked about Cronos, about his obstinance and callousness, his attitude.
“There’s something else about him,” Rex said. “I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s something about the way he talks.”
“Yes!” I said, whipping my head around. “I was thinking the same thing. He’s familiar, but I can’t think of how. Like I’ve seen him on the holo or something.”
Rex laughed. “Maybe he just seems familiar because he has this super-villain thing going on, with the mask and voice and everything.”
I laughed with him. “That’s what I thought, too! Like, ‘You are vanquished! It is useless to resist.’”
My laughter faded, though, as we turned the corner onto my street and I spotted a black SUV parked in our driveway. My body instantly tensed. I may have even stopped walking. The first thought to cross my mind was that it was Stan. But then I spotted the blue federal government license plate, and I realized it most likely wasn’t Stan at all. It was the FBI.
“Are you okay?” Rex asked.
“I’m fine,” I said. “There’s a car in the driveway. I thought it might be Stan, but I’m pretty sure it’s the FBI.”
“Is that better?” he asked with a half smile.
“Anything is better than Stan,” I said, although I wasn’t entirely sure.
We went in the front door, into the living room.
Ralphs and Scanlon were standing there—Ralphs looking concerned, her eyes pained and her forehead creased. Scanlon was inscrutable as always, his expression unreadable apart from the way his features constantly proclaimed, I am a jerkface.
Mom and Trudy were sitting on the sofa, both looking up at me with tear-filled eyes.
I ignored Ralphs and Scanlon and ran to them. “Mom, Trudy, what is it?” I said, perching on the arm of the chair.
“Oh, Jimi,” Mom said, grabbing my arm and hugging it. “It’s your aunt Dymphna. She’s—she’s been murdered.”
Trudy burst into sobs that broke my heart. She had lost her parents, then her brother, and now her sister was gone, too. Apart from Mom and Kevin and me, she was alone in the world.
But even as this new level of sorrow hit me, I glanced at Scanlon, staring intently at me, as if gauging my reaction, and I wondered what he knew, what his Wellplant was telling him about Dymphna’s death. It had been witnessed by a handful of people with Wellplants, so it was entirely possible that he had watched it go down in real time, that he had seen Rex and me there, in the middle of it. There was already a big part of me that wanted to come clean right there, to tell everyone that I had been there when it happened, seen it with my own eyes when Stan Grainger had killed her. Knowing that Scanlon could well already know made me want to even more. But I couldn’t.
As far as I knew, that thing in Scanlon’s head could transmit straight to Howard Wells. Admitting I’d been at the vertical farm would open up a whole slew of questions I didn’t want to answer, and could let Wells know that we were onto him and prompt him to release his virus. It would also confirm the FBI’s suspicions that I’d been conspiring with CLAD all along. And if they determined I was committing a crime of some sort when the murder took place, they could charge me as an accessory. I knew I had to react to my mother’s news with as much shock and innocence as possible.
“What?!” I exclaimed. “How? When?” Tears welled up in my eyes, and I let them. They were real, coming from the horrors I’d just witnessed, but I still felt kind of icky, using them as part of my act. Even so, I turned to Ralphs and Scanlon, making sure they could see the tears on my cheeks. “Are you sure?”
Ralphs nodded, somber and respectful.
Scanlon tilted his head, as if trying to make sense of my reaction. “I thought you didn’t know her,” he said. The way he said it made me realize, with some relief, that he didn’t know we’d been at the scene of the crime. Maybe the cheapo public-servant Wellplants weren’t networked like the others.
Ralphs scowled at him. I ignored him.
“What happened?” I asked my mom. I made an effort not to look at Rex, in case he was having a harder time being deceitful that I was.
She shook her head. “She was such a remarkable person. I’m…I’m so sorry I didn’t try harder to make her part of your life.”