Michael Grant - Eve and Adam

As has often been the case with my mother, I feel the urge to take a step back. But I resist.

“It’s obvious,” I say. “My mother runs a biotech company with a reputation for cutting corners.”

She steps closer. “Would you rather have the pain? Would you rather have the scars? The lifelong limp?”

“What else have you done to me?”

She’s close now. “Done to you? You mean, what other great gifts have I given you?”

“I—”

“How else have I made your life better than other people’s lives? How else have I protected you?”

I’m breathing hard. Her certainty and confidence is stifling. I start to answer but my throat is dry.

Do I really want the answer?

“What is it you came for? Sweetheart?”

“I need nine thousand dollars.”

“For your loser friend? I gather she found you last night? Do I have Solo to thank for that?”

I nearly panic. I can’t put it on Solo. He trusted me. “She found her way to me,” I say. “And she’s staying. As long as she wants to.”

I’m proud of the steadiness in my voice.

“Those are your demands.” It’s not a question. “Nine thousand dollars and a suite for your idiot BFF.”

I don’t see much point in quibbling about her description of Aislin. Not the time. “Yes.”

“You have to stay here another week, at least,” she says after a moment. “For appearances.”

“Fine.”

She takes a deep breath. She cocks her head, looking at me curiously, as if it’s the first time she’s met me. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

“And?”

“And nothing.”

Oh, she’s clever. Oh, she is so very clever.

“Anything else?” she asks. Smug. She knows she’s outplayed me. She knows she just bought my silence and my acceptance. For pocket change.

So that’s how she got to be a billionaire.

I’ve got to get this right.

I pause in a hallway, clenching my fists. My heart’s slamming against my chest.

I’ve got Tattooed Tommy’s poppy-seed bagel ready. What happens next will be vital. If I screw it up…

“Hey, Solo.”

I practically leap out of my skin. It’s Ben, one of the research assistants.

“Where’s what’s-his-name?” Ben asks. “The coffee dude.”

“Jackson. He got food poisoning at the wedding. At least that’s his story.” I try to smile. “I’m filling in.”

“Beats school, I guess.”

“Barely.”

Ben grabs a doughnut. He starts to leave, then, with a guilty grin, grabs another. “Big project. Carb loading.”

I’m so buzzed, so exhausted, I’m wondering if I can pull this off. For the past hour I’ve been pushing the stupid cart around like a zombie, handing out muffins and chai tea while I answer questions in monosyllables. Grunts, practically.

I’ve had too little sleep, too much adrenaline.

But it’s time.

I was going to wait till Eve was gone.

But something about last night, seeing her face when I told her the truth about why she’d healed so fast… I don’t know. She won’t be here much longer, and I feel like she deserves to know it all.

Maybe I just want someone else to be doing this with me. I brush the thought away.

No. That’s not my style.

I wheel toward Tommy.

“Bagel boy,” he says, not looking up from his screen.

His computer’s in use. There’s no way for me to get into it. He’s added an alphanumeric password, almost as long as the one I use, backed up with retinal scan. Hack-proof, unless I can get hold of a supercomputer, ten years, and Tommy’s right eyeball.

“Here’s your bagel,” I say.

I can see his screen. He’s playing fantasy football.

Better than solitaire, I suppose.

“Any feelings on that new Jets quarterback?” he asks. His version of egalitarianism, talking to me about sports. I know nothing about sports and couldn’t care less.

“Not really. Bagel?”

“No, his name’s not bagel, it’s Jibril.” This is a huge joke. So I laugh. My laugh sounds strained and hysterical to me.

“Just put it down,” he says, already bored by me.

I place the bagel beside his keyboard. “Capp?”

“Yeah, put it—”

I don’t even have to pretend to spill the coffee. It happens. Yes, I planned it, but now it just happens.

“Aaahh aahhh!”

Coffee on his lap, his leg, his arm. Tommy pushes back violently, which dumps the last two inches of coffee on top of the rest.

“Idiot!” he shrieks.

He’s up, backpedaling, patting at his clothes, and I’m saying “sorry, sorry, sorry,” and snatching at napkins. He pushes me back, furious, and curses impressively.

Will he?

“Dammit, I have to go change.”

Will he?

Yes. He runs off, muttering, and leaves his workstation on. As soon as he’s out of view, I’m in. I’m shaking. I’ve hacked the systems at Spiker for years, but this is an individual workstation. This is the stuff too personal or too secret to put on the main servers.

I punch in the Adam code.

And just like that, I’m in.

The hard part is transferring the data. There’s no USB drive. Is there Wi-Fi? There isn’t supposed to be; there’s no Wi-Fi at Spiker for security reasons. But ah, yes, the capability is still there.

I open Tommy’s Wi-Fi, scan for the only active beacon. It’s titled snakep. As in Snake Plissken, my more-or-less namesake from that movie Escape from New York. The only other Plissken I relate to.

File after file is now streaming to my phone. How much time do I have? I glance guiltily over my shoulder. With one hand I mop at the spilled coffee on the chair, just in case anyone is looking.

But my other hand pounds keys—I have a heavy touch—searching for whatever it is that Tommy is hiding. He’s arrogant, fortunately, sure that no one can hack his computer, so the individual files are not password-protected.

There’s a large file of photos. Probably porn or something. I open it, anyway—it might be useful to know Tommy’s kinks.

But if these are someone’s idea of porn, they have very, very strange tastes indeed.

I open more pictures.

I’ve stopped breathing.

I’m seeing long rows of Plexiglas tanks. Some are vertical cylinders. Some are horizontal rectangles.

Each contains a horror.

A full-grown pig with faintly green skin.

A hairless puppy with what looks like two human ears growing just behind its own ears.

A girl, a human girl, at least something like a human girl, but with two faces—one where it ought to be, and one stretched flat across her back.

“Oh God,” I say out loud. I can’t help it.

I shut the file. I swallow back the sour taste in my mouth.

Oh my God.

I hear a sound. Tap, tap, and I’m back in the fantasy football app as Tattooed Tommy returns, wearing the gym clothes he must keep for trips to the Spiker fitness center.

“Get the hell off my computer!” he snarls.

“I was just cleaning up the coffee that—”

“And spying on my picks!” His eyes narrow dangerously. “Did Wilma Petrov put you up to it? That bitch has been trying to figure out my lineup so she can… I’ll kill her!”

“No,” I say, doing my best to seem as if I’m lying poorly.

“Wilma!” he yells across the room. “Dirty pool, Wilma!”

I’m backing away, and I realize suddenly that I’ve left his Wi-Fi turned on. If he notices—

Tommy grabs me, not too gently, either. “Listen, kid: Next time Wilma bribes you, come see me. I’ll double whatever she paid if you get her picks before Friday. Hear me?”

“Yes, sir.”

I’m out of there. And now I just have to decide what to do with a secret that is so very much bigger than I had ever imagined.