Jenna Black - Resistance

Reluctantly, Nadia did as Dorothy ordered, and Nate followed suit. Dorothy forced the Chairman to his knees so she could keep easy control of him while she gathered up the weapons. The guns were too large to fit in the pockets of her skirt suit, so she stuck them in the waistband instead, one in front, one in back. The knockout gas did fit in her pocket. She rose from her crouch, dragging the Chairman with her, keeping him between herself and Nate and Nadia as if she still needed his services as a human shield.

“So what happens now?” Nadia asked quietly. Dorothy seemed to have painted herself into a corner by shooting Chairman Hayes. If she let the security officers in now to arrest Nate and Nadia, how would she explain the gunshot wound?

“Have you figured out who I am yet?” Dorothy countered.

“We’ve figured out you’re not my sister,” Nate snarled.

Dorothy looked at him with an expression of smug condescension. “But I am, Nathaniel. Ask any geneticist you like to examine my DNA, and he will tell you I am the daughter of Chairman Hayes.”

Nadia’s head spun as an awful, terrifying idea came to her. “Thea,” she whispered barely above her breath, not expecting anyone to hear her. But Dorothy did.

“In the flesh,” Dorothy said with another grin. She certainly wasn’t making any attempt to hide how much fun she was having. “Literally.”

“What?” Nate cried.

“I was rather further along in my research than you were led to believe,” Dorothy said. “Even Daddy didn’t know about the most recent breakthroughs I’d had before you meddling children got in the way. I’ve had to move up my timetable a little bit to make sure my remaining research is secure. I couldn’t stand the thought of coming as far as I have and then being cut off just before achieving full success.”

Thea had claimed to be researching the mind/body connection. Her ultimate goal had been to fully separate the two, so that she could combine a person’s mind—more specifically, Chairman Hayes’s mind—with a younger version of that person’s body. To protect herself from any change that might lead to her deactivation, she had determined that Chairman Hayes had to remain in power forever, his mind forever reimplanted into a new body when old age got the best of him.

“So you’ve succeeded,” Nadia said breathlessly, unable to stop herself from looking Dorothy up and down with both awe and revulsion.

“I’m very close,” Dorothy corrected. “As you can see, I have mastered the construction of a human body. Minds, however, are harder to create. Fascinating thing, the human mind. Give me an original to work with and a perfect duplicate of the body, and I can bring it fully to life. As I did when I created this Replica of Nathaniel.” She jerked her chin toward Nate. “A perfect likeness. But as of this moment, I can only transfer that mind to the exact physical duplicate of its original.”

Dorothy’s brows drew together in obvious frustration, her fingers tightening on the Chairman’s collar.

“Obviously, there’s something about the human brain I am failing to understand properly,” Dorothy continued. “There is no such thing as what you humans call a soul, no mystical, magical entity that makes you who you are. It is all scientific and physical, or I would not be able to produce such perfect Replicas. Somewhere in that science, I will be able to isolate the specific differences in brain chemistry or biology that make a human being into a unique individual, and I will be able to sculpt a fully functioning brain in a fully functioning body.”

“You seem to have had a lot of success with that already,” Nadia pointed out, her mind reeling at the implications of what Dorothy was saying. It didn’t sound so much like she was trying to find a way to make a human mind immortal by implanting it in a younger body; it sounded more like she was trying to create a human being from scratch. A human being whose mind would be exactly what Thea wanted it to be, who would think exactly as she wanted it to.

Dorothy sighed, an expression of frustration crossing her face. “I am close. As you can see, I’ve created a fully functional body that is not a Replica of any living human. The brain is capable of controlling motor functions, and it should be capable of handling all the other jobs of a human brain. But I’m still missing something. There is no mind here. This body would be nothing but a worthless vegetable if I hadn’t implanted receptors in its brain that allow me to control it. It is a vessel, not a person.”

Her expression brightened. “But it’s an achievement nonetheless. A step in the right direction. With more research, I’ll be able to figure out how to create an independent, functioning mind.”

Nadia didn’t want to think about what Thea’s idea of research entailed. “What is it you hope to accomplish, exactly?” she asked, because keeping Dorothy talking couldn’t possibly be a bad idea. Whatever Thea was up to, it seemed that Chairman Hayes was no longer on board with it. Nadia remembered when the Chairman had first introduced Dorothy to the world and Agnes had speculated that it had been an odd time to introduce a potential heir. Perhaps that hadn’t been the Chairman’s idea at all.

“I was created for the purpose of research,” Dorothy said. “It is the end-all, be-all of my existence. I cannot rest until I understand the workings of the human mind. I will not give up, nor will I settle for anything less than perfection.”

Thea had made a similar claim when she’d been eagerly awaiting permission to vivisect Nadia. Nadia had taken it as nothing but the truth then, but this time, she found it harder to swallow. There were any number of ways Thea could have used her hunger for research for the good of mankind, and yet she was focusing on the mind/body connection with single-minded resolve. She wanted more than just research for the research’s sake.

“Wants to be goddess,” Chairman Hayes choked out, then gasped when Dorothy twisted her hand in his collar and cut off his oxygen. He reached up to claw at her hand, but she poked her gun into his back.

“Stop that,” she commanded, and though his eyes were unnaturally wide and his lips were turning blue, he let his hand drop.

“Please let my father go,” Nate begged Dorothy. “There’s no need to torture him. We gave up our weapons like you asked. You don’t need to use him as a hostage anymore.”

“I am rather angry with Daddy right now,” Dorothy said, but she loosened her hold slightly. “He has allowed you children to interfere with my work. He destroyed me to appease you. Yes, he made a Replica of me, but tell me, Nathaniel, do you forgive him for killing your original just because he made a Replica? Does it make the original Nathaniel any less dead?”

Nate didn’t answer. But then, he didn’t have to.

“I dedicated my entire life to making him immortal,” Dorothy continued. “I’ve been unfailingly loyal to him. And he was willing to destroy me rather than let the world know I existed.”

Still using the Chairman as a shield, Dorothy moved toward the door. “Be a dear, Daddy, and unlock the dead bolts for me. Leave the electronic locks engaged.

“In a way,” Dorothy continued as the Chairman followed her orders and opened the dead bolts, “I should be grateful to you for revealing exactly where I stand in Daddy’s heart. I might never have understood it if it weren’t for you. But I now also understand what humans mean when they say ignorance is bliss.

“Here are some things you should know. One is that as Thea, I can undo the electronic locks anytime I feel like it. Two is that if something were to happen to this body, I can make another one, and it will still be genetically identifiable as the daughter of Chairman Hayes. And three is that there is a great deal of digital surveillance available in this room, and it’s child’s play for me to make it record my version of what has happened here.