Page 154 of Red Rooster

35

“Congratulations, Major Treadwell. You’ve done what no one else has been able to.”

“Kidnap a girl?” Jake said before he could rein in the impulse.

Dr. Talbot pulled back a fraction, hands braced on his giant desk. He looked like he’d been physically struck by the words. If circumstances were different, Jake might have laughed.

Agent West, as oily as Jake remembered, slid into the silence that Dr. Talbot’s shock had left, all business, no smiles. “LC-5 is a weapon, major, not a girl. She was bred in a Petri dish, brought to term in a surrogate, and brought up in a lab. She belongs to the United States government, and she was made for one purpose and one purpose alone: to fight in the war.”

Jake took a breath. And another. “Whatwar? Fucking – Iraq, or Afghana–”

West pulled a piece of paper – a photo printed on glossy card stock – from the file in his lap and slapped it down on the desk. “This war.”

Jake looked…

And was speechless.

Recovered, Dr. Talbot cleared his throat and said, “This is bigger than you, or me, or whatever moral hangups you have, major. It’s about the survival of the human race.

“We’ve known this was coming for a long time. We finally,finallyhave Vlad, and his assured cooperation. Now it’s time to fill out the rest of the chessboard.”

Jake sat back heavily in his chair, head throbbing. “That’s…that’s not real.” But there wasn’t much denial in his tone.

“Very real, I’m afraid. The world isn’t what you’ve always thought it was, Jake. It’s much, much more frightening.”

~*~

The person who entered her room was not the doctor or nurse that Red had expected. A tall man, long black hair past his shoulders. Handsome in a narrow, sharp-nosed way. Blue, blue eyes, and a red leather jacket. He paced slowly into view, shoulders drawn up, tense and careful. He came to a halt poised on the balls of his feet, ready to flee. Or attack.

Hiseyes. She recognized a bit of herself in him. Or, not really. He wasn’t like her, she didn’t think, but he wasdifferent. Not altogether human.

“Are you a doctor?” she asked, voice a rough, dry scrape.

He didn’t flinch, but his mouth tightened. “No. But you’re a mage.”

“A what?”

He cupped his hand; it was empty, but the gesture was unmistakable: the way she held her own hands when she called fire.

“I didn’t know that’s what it was called,” she admitted.

He took a breath, nostrils flaring, brows pinching together over his long, straight nose. “Do you know who your parents are?Were?”

“I don’t have parents.”

“Yes, you do. I can smell them in your blood.” He growled; a quiet pulse of sound, a rumble like an unhappy dog.

Yes, he was different.

Through the receding haze of unconsciousness, and the numbness of the cuffs, a thought dawned, and with it, sadness. “Oh no,” she said. “Are they keeping you here, too? Like they are me?”

His mouth twisted to the side, caught somewhere between a smirk and a grimace. “Something like that.”

“I’m Red,” she offered; it felt absurd to introduce herself like this, lying on her back, unable to shake hands.

His expression shifted, closer to a smile now. “I’m Fulk.”

“Fulk, do you know what happened to – to my…” Tears filled her eyes and she blinked them away. “My friend?”