34
If my regrets held physical weight, I’d sink to the core of the earth.
“Me?” The blood drained from her face.
“Yes.” Alexander stalked toward her like a rising storm, ready to sweep away what was left of her world.
“Haven’t you wondered why I dwell in your dreams? Why you see and hear things from a different time? Why your picture was in Desert Spring?”
She swallowed, unable to speak. If one more utterance escaped her lips, the nightmare would become real. Khalani was just a normal girl. She had parents. A life.
She had nothing to do with Alan’s plan.
The edges of her vision blurred, but Alan snapped his fingers, refocusing her attention.
“You’re in denial, Khalani. But you know it’s true.
You’ve felt it your entire life. Having to look over your shoulder because you sensed someone’s gaze upon you.
Missing a world you never lived in. Always feeling like no one ever truly understood you.
” His voice softened as he stared into her scared eyes.
His words triggered something buried deep inside her. A feeling she’d stuffed down since she was little.
She’d always had a difficult time making friends growing up. Her mom used to tell her that it was just kids being mean. But perhaps that wasn’t right.
Maybe the problem was her.
But one thing the Governor had said was false.
Someone used to understand her. For a brief moment in time, a man with the darkest eyes stared into her soul like he recognized her.
But like everything else, he was taken away.
The Governor studied the turmoil building inside her and whispered, “Let me show you the truth.”
The image in the center of the room grew brighter until Khalani’s mother stood before her. She wore a long blue dress, her smile radiant, more real than the visions in her dreams. And she was pregnant.
“Mom,” she rasped, lurching forward, but the restraints kept her stationary. Her heart sank, realizing that her mother was just a hologram.
“As you know,” Alexander stated, his analytical gaze fixed on the screen, “all expectant mothers must undergo prenatal screening in Apollo. She was young, healthy, and I selected her to be the bearer of a new type of child. One genetically engineered to carry my code in their DNA.”
Genetically…engineered?
The words didn’t compute. None of it made sense.
And when Alexander saw the confusion in her eyes, the image shifted.
Her mother lay unconscious in a white bed, her eyes completely shut, with a thin sheet covering her stomach.
A man in a white coat appeared in the projection, and he shut the curtains around her.
He lowered his surgical mask, and Khalani jolted when the Governor pulled out a long needle.
She braced herself to scream, to warn her mother in the image, but she had to remind herself that this had already happened.
The Governor lifted her gown, exposing her sleeping mother’s stomach, and methodically inserted the needle deep into her skin.
“The procedure was painless. Your mother left the clinic, and when she had you, she thought you were like every other child. But you weren’t.
You were always something more.” Alan’s mouth upturned, his silky-smooth voice growing more terrifying.
“When I injected the fetus with synthetic genes, an extra structure grew inside your brain. A vault for my memories. When you grew up, those engineered neurons activated, connecting you to me.”
Her gaze drifted past him. Unseeing. Numb.
Tears dissolved from her system. She felt weightless.
No longer inside her body.
“Your mother wasn’t the only one chosen,” he added, oblivious to her near catatonic state.
“Several other women bore children injected with my code. I kept a close watch on you all, but I couldn’t risk those files being found in Apollo.
I put them in Desert Spring and created photo albums of all my children. ”
His words sailed at her like swords, each nick and cut digging deeper crevices into her soul. Until she was no longer Khalani Kanes. She was something else entirely.
“That’s why my photo was in the library,” she whispered in a detached voice.
“Yes. I genetically engineered you to be closer to me than even those clones I brought back,” he said with a soft smile. “In a lot of ways, I’m your second father.”
Her thoughts went haywire, realizing why the Governor had singled her out in Apollo. Why his blue eyes had followed her everywhere she went. Why she had visions of a sprawling world before the Great Collapse.
She was seeing his memories.
She was and would always be connected to him.
“Khalani.”
For him to perish, was she the one who had to die?
“Khalani!” The warm voice cut through the fog. “Look at Winnie.”
Her head slowly swiveled. If the ropes weren’t holding her, she’d have fallen over.
She wouldn’t have even cared.
“Don’t listen to it,” Winnie rasped. “You’re nothing like it. You’re human just like the rest of us. What happened to you as a baby doesn’t determine your future. Alan can’t control you.”
Winnie spoke with pure conviction, staring at Khalani in ways only a mother could. But the moment was broken apart by the Governor speaking.
“Precisely right. Despite my code embedded in her brain, and no matter how hard I tried, it was impossible for me to control her actions,” Alan seethed. “Which brings me to my final hypothesis.”
The Governor nodded at one of the guards, who quickly left the room. Khalani felt the others’ gazes on her, but she couldn’t look back and see her face reflected in their eyes.
She’d rather take the knife out of Brock’s hand and saw her own brain out.
Alan can’t control you.
You’re human like the rest of us.
Winnie’s words played repeatedly in her mind, like a raft in a distant sea. But then, Takeshi slammed the doors open, reminding her that no matter how far the pit goes, it can always go deeper.
Takeshi wore his black Captain uniform, his black hair rough and messy, like he hadn’t slept in days. His magnetic eyes swept over the room, pausing on her briefly, before centering on the Governor.
“You wanted to see me, sir?”
“Ah, yes. Come here, Captain Steele.”
Takeshi swiftly obeyed the instruction, coming to stand by the Governor’s side. He folded his hands behind his back, emotionlessly staring at the blank wall behind them.
Alexander observed him with a calculating eye, continuing his story. “When more protests erupted in Apollo, I realized that I needed stronger soldiers to maintain order. I decided to open a new training program for guards, and young Takeshi Steele was one of the best students.”
Alexander clapped him on the back, but Takeshi hardly moved, hardly listened. Like he was present physically, but his brain had been wiped entirely.
“Before graduation, all the students underwent final testing. They thought they were being put under anesthesia for neurological examination, but the medical team made them faster. Stronger. They enhanced their muscles, durability, and bone density. And when they inserted the neuro chip, they created a super-soldier.”
A super-soldier.
They stared at Takeshi as he stood tall and mighty beside the Governor. He had always been stronger and more lethal than anyone, able to rip heads off and fight a dozen men without flinching. She’d thought it strange before, but never questioned it, assuming Takeshi was born like that.
But the truth was worse.
They’d made him into their weapon of death.
“That can’t be true.” Serene’s voice rang out. “They removed his chip in Hermes.”
“You’re right.” The Governor grinned. “But they didn’t know about the cybernetic implant in his spine that we inserted when he was younger. The one that allows me to see and hear everything he does. Control his motor movements when necessary.”
Khalani heaved in ragged breaths. Time itself stood still as the memories rushed back.
“I don’t think you’d be as fond of my teachings as you are of others.”
The Governor said those words to her at the Genesis Ball.
She thought he’d said it just to scare her.
But what if it was worse? What if he’d seen her training with…
She lifted her shocked gaze, and Alexander smiled, as if he saw the exact moment reality came crashing around her.
Alan had been watching her through Takeshi’s eyes. Since the very beginning.
“Did he know?” Her throat tightened, about to throw up all over the floor. “Did you have him get close to me on purpose? Were you in every conversation? Every moment?”
Every stolen touch?
Her voice grew more panicked, and the Governor rolled his eyes.
“Believe it or not, I had more important things to do than spy on your misguided romance. I spent most of my time managing the crop failure in the underground cities—my backup plan to wipe out the humans. But occasionally, I’d listen in.
He had no idea. When I got wind of your foolish escape from Braderhelm, I saw an opportunity to bring you in one last time.
And if you finally joined me, my vision for the perfect human would’ve been successful.
But you ended up being stubborn, uncontrollable, and destructive, just like the rest of your species. ”
The Governor’s gaze sharpened, turning volatile.
“Right there on the surface, I realized you had to be eliminated. I tried to take control of Takeshi to do just that, but something happened that I never accounted for.”
The Governor walked around Takeshi, sizing him up as if he were a disgusting specimen that needed to be dissected.
“His affection for you was much stronger than even I’d anticipated. It was too wild. Too human.” He bit out the word. “When he realized your life was in danger, he overrode the implant and tore off my clone’s head.”
They sat in stunned silence as the Governor revealed what had truly happened that fateful day on the surface. But what Khalani didn’t expect was for her to be the reason Takeshi had killed Alan’s clone.
She stared at him, begging for him to look back, but Takeshi didn’t glance her way. Not once.
“I liked that body a lot,” the Governor muttered bitterly.
“But after I made another clone, it taught me a valuable lesson. Memories and feelings interfere with control. That’s when I came up with a new plan.
A better one. I devised a chip that overrides all memory.
And with the devices all sent out, I have total obedience with no risk of override.
” His gaze snapped to Takeshi at the last part.
“What do you mean?” Adan’s eyes widen. “Aren’t the chips here?”
“My clones have already implanted the chips in every underground city. You met one of them.” His gaze swept to Khalani. “Doctor Strauss. Though he always failed to realize his true nature.”
Sweat beaded on her forehead at the mention of the terrifying doctor. She still remembered his knife cutting her open. Slicing her arms off.
Only someone inhuman could torture a person with a smile.
“When Takeshi was shot in Hermes,” the Governor continued, “I wiped his memory of you for good. But I made a miscalculation. I had a much tougher time taking control of him due to how confused his brain was.”
Khalani remembered Takeshi in her bedroom, telling her that he was losing control.
He thought it was his fault.
But he hadn’t been weak. He’d been fighting Alan the entire time.
The Governor gritted his teeth as Takeshi stood utterly silent, the ultimate super-soldier he’d always struggled to conquer.
“For the longest time,” Alan continued, “I couldn’t hear or see anything he did.
Only tidbits. But over time, bits of his memory returned, and I was able to listen in.
When I learned you were headed to Prometheus, I knew I had to act.
I immediately sent vehicles and a strike team in case you were able to access Project Helix remotely.
“But imagine my surprise when you uncovered a secret message from Timothy Talbot, and I discovered that fool created a bypass in my system. If I hadn’t known, I would’ve activated Project Helix, and my entire code would’ve been deleted.”
Winnie’s eyes locked with Khalani’s, horror flashing between them as they realized their biggest mistake.
If they’d never gone to Prometheus, the Governor would’ve destroyed himself.
They were the reason he’d won.
“It was difficult,” Alexander said. “But I finally managed to regain control of Takeshi and bring you in. Since then, I’ve worked around the clock to undo Timothy Talbot’s sabotage.
But I’ll give him this. That little man was clever in hiding the break.
The code is long and complex, but in about forty-five minutes, I’ll have fixed it. And it’s all thanks to you.”
No.
Their heads dropped, regret weighing down upon them like a landslide.
“And to answer your final question.” The Governor turned. “Why are you here in Genesis?”
Alan reached into his pocket and pulled out a small device—a remote with a black button embedded in its center.
“At my command, my soldiers will cut down every human in sight before killing themselves. And once the cleansing is complete, I will activate Project Helix and usher in a new golden age.” His cold smile rivaled the despair that seeped throughout the room.
“And because you helped make it happen, I’m giving you the respect of being the last ones to die.”