Page 65 of The Godhead Complex
Jackie touched the bracelet on her wrist, “I made it. With my friends.”
“Oh.” Ximena didn’t know what to think of that response. “I found one just like it. Near Annie’s body.”
“Who?” Jackie frowned.
Morgan didn’t seem to care about bracelets right then. “Put her in the back pod, the furthest corner. The front pod will be for the rest of us when we come down later to test.” The professor smiled. Morgan never smiled.
“Come down later to test?” Ximena asked. She had never once in all her time at the Villa seen any of the lab techs gointoa safety pod. They had people like her go in and out with cots and amenities, cleaning, whatever was needed. It was as if the scientists themselves were afraid of the pods. “What do you mean? The lab techs, too?”
“All of us.” Carlos was practically skipping. “To watch the hydraulics in action.”
He was way too excited about whatever was about to happen. It made Ximena nervous. She looked behind her shoulder at the others in the lab, all of them shuffling around, busy busy. They had a buzz about them.¿Qué estaba pasando?
“Just come with me,” Ximena said to Jackie, then led her down the hallway and then the stairwell. With every step Ximena took, her stomach tightened. Something bad was going to happen. Maybe it was because she had never before seen a kid her age, here, or because the lab techs and Carlos were losing their monkey minds about this test they were going to do. Even as they reached the last step to the basement, she couldn’t let the feeling go. She pulled Jackie into a corner.
“What are you doing?” Jackie asked.
“Shh. There aren’t any cameras in this spot.” Ximena pointed to the rounded safety viewers in other places. Safety pods, safety viewers, everything was meant to make guests feel safe—but Ximena knew it was the exact opposite. Everything inside the Villa was a risk. The scientists simply tried to minimize the casualties involved. “I need you to be honest with me.”
“Okay,” Jackie whispered, then shrugged. The immunes were too trusting. Too weak. Too kind.
“Annie—” Ximena corrected herself, “Kletter. Who killed her?”
“Oh, um . . .” Jackie smacked her head in a funny way, as if they hadn’t just met. “I can’t think of their names. The gentle giant and the weird lady with him. They kidnapped Isaac and Sadina and cut Kletter’s throat. It was horrible.”
Her story matched the others, and she certainly didn’t seem the murdering type. But there was something else Ximena wanted to know. “And what about the crew on the ship with Kletter?” She’d only gotten so much out of the other immunes:That her mom didn’t suffer, that they buried her on a plot of land with honor,but she needed to know more—like why Annie killed eight people, and how.
“Oh, that Kletter friend of yours was something else. Gave that whole crew a sleeping drug and then shot them in the head. Right in the center.” Jackie tapped her forehead.
Ximena tried to slow her breathing, tried to wrap her mind around the horrific details. She could hear Morgan at the top of the steps. “We’ve got to go,” she whispered.
She led Jackie into the lower level with the others.
“This place is really weird,” Jackie said as she followed. “I mean, I know you guys saved my life and all, but this doesn’t feel . . .” She stopped talking once she saw her friends locked inside safety pods. “What’s going on?”
“Don’t worry, they’re okay. Just don’t make a scene.” She walked Jackie back to the designated safety pod in the corner and talked as quickly as she could before shutting the glass door. “Listen, the lab techs are coming down here to initiate a test.” She said it just loud enough for the others to hear, as well.
“To test our blood?” Isaac asked through his glass speaker.
“No. It’s more than that. It's something they’ve never done before.”Mantengase Calma.She didn’t know if the message to stay calm was for her inner self, her hands shaking, or if it was for the others. “Just remain calm. Whatever happens, stay calm.” She fought the urge to not lock Jackie’s pod, to just release Isaac, Frypan, and Cowan right there and tell them to run for it. But even if she wanted to help them, Cowan was growing sicker by the day. Andthe devil took care of its own.She needed time to think.
The Villa workers began to arrive. Professor Morgan came into the room first with a walkie-talkie in hand.Why did she need that?Carlos headed into the glass pod closest to the doorway and waved Ximena over, but she was frozen in front of Jackie’s pod. Thinking of Annie, shooting her mom, Mariana, the others, right in their heads.Why would she kill every single one of them like Cranks?They couldn’t have had the Flare. There was no way anyone from their village could have gotten any variant of the Flare. They must’ve finally been turning on her. To see her lies for what they were. There was a chance that the crew of eight finally realized, out there on the vastness of the ocean, what Ximena had seen in Annie all along. That she was a poison. A germ. A disease.
An overhead light flickered and Ximena blinked.
“What’s going to happen?” Jackie asked.
Ximena shook her head; she really had no idea. The other lab techs filed in and crowded inside the largest of the glass pods. Ximena locked eyes with Isaac, and he looked as if the air had just been sucked out of his own pod. She knew the feeling from when she’d been a child, but unlike back then, the Villa wouldn’t be testing on her today.
Ximena stepped away from Jackie’s pod but turned back to her. “Sorry,” she mouthed.
“We didn’t want to come here,” Jackie said listlessly. “We voted. We didn’t want to come.”
“You shouldn’t have,” Ximena said to herself as she walked away.
With every lab tech and assistant that came on to their floor, Isaac felt like he was drowning in another foot of water. Frypan sat on the floor of his pod, arms relaxed on his knees, but Isaac knew better—the old man wasn’t relaxed. Not with this many people looking at them like test subjects.
“Jackie!” Isaac shouted to get her attention but beyond that he didn’t know what to say. He wanted to tell her that everything would be okay like some kind of hero, but he didn’t know that for sure. He didn’t know anything for sure anymore. And Cowan barely looked alive.How had she faded so quickly overnight? Why weren’t the lab workers able to help her like they had done with Jackie?
