Henry glanced at me. “You want to be the one on the table, don’t you?”
I shook my head. Isaura would recognize me if I were lying motionless as a test subject. Someone else though, well-skilled and trained in her Mindonsiphan abilities could do it. I could be there, hiding beneath the bed or in a closet, prepared to strike the moment Isaura entered.
Joshua glanced at me, refusing to voice his thoughts aloud. I want to be on the team but I don’t want them to know. We need a backup plan in case they can’t be trusted.
Agreed. I glanced at Henry with a faint nod.
CHAPTER 21
Everything about the plan was sound. I flew with Fabian back to Torv. Janessa, a test subject from Torv, would join us, and Joshua would fly another drone in secret to secure our plan. I hadn’t found much time to say goodbye. I needed time to prepare in Torv and though I wasn’t rusty in my training I was concerned about being quiet, unnoticed and well-hidden. I would have to work on my own stealth abilities to be sure Isaura wasn’t the wiser of our plans.
Fabian offered me a place to stay in the medical facility on the third floor. It was a private office, his apparently. It had a leather sofa and he’d left a pillow and blanket, prepared for someone to partake in his plan. I just hoped we weren’t being set up.
I locked the office door once he left, knowing I didn’t have much time before the plan went into effect. I rummaged around the office, glancing through his desk and eyeing his papers. There were names and DNA tests. I didn’t understand what I was looking at, but it appeared important. Had he left these things for me to find? Against the wall was a dark gray metal filing cabinet, four towers tall and four towers wide. I pulled open the first drawer, my fingers flipping through realizing it was by year. I didn’t know anyone born this year. The files went back ten years. I dug around until I found the section from seven years ago, searching by name hoping to find Adelaide’s birth records, and paused on Adelaide Wells. Pulling her file, I placed it on the desk, fingering through the pages, one by one. The first page was a record of her birth with both of her biological parents’ signatures as well as the physician and governor’s signature. I could barely read the names. The next document consisted of a DNA test. I had no idea what I was supposed to look for. I kept moving through the pages, landing on a checklist. It was bizarre to stare at, to see what the government had the ability to do. The top read Checklist for Subject 13279. To the left was a series of boxes, all had been marked and accounted for. Beside the checklist the first line read Sex of Subject: GIRL with the underlined portion handwritten in to the document. The next line read Eradication of genetic diseases and mutations: COMPLETE. The box next to it was checked. The third line down made my stomach flop Infertility Potential: 100%. I reached around to the cabinet behind me, grabbing another file, searching through it blindly for the same page to compare. A Checklist for Subject 13293, the third line read Infertility Potentiaclass="underline" 100%. I pulled a third and then a fourth folder from the filing cabinet. Each one giving me the same answer: Infertility Potentiaclass="underline" 100%. Had the government intentionally been keeping its population infertile or was the checklist created to make sure no one was missed? Who had brought these files into Torv and were there more in the other offices?
Sighing, I replaced all but Adelaide’s birth record back into the folders and put them back in the filing cabinet. I shoved her birth record into my pocket. It was a long shot to find her parents but I had their names. Maybe I could find out what happened to them.
I stretched out on the sofa, staring up at the ceiling. The tiles were white with black specks, two feet wide by two feet long, spaced perfectly apart. What was up there? Duct work? A ventilation system? A moment later one of the tiles slid open and Joshua came down with a grin. “That was easy,” he laughed, repositioning the tile as it had been, untouched.
I sat up, smiling wider. “I knew you’d come.”
“I wasn’t sending you back into this place without me. Not that I doubt your abilities,” he added. “Just no sense in trusting the enemy completely.” He was right. How could we blindly trust the people who had betrayed us?
“I found something,” I told him, pulling out the folded piece of paper handing it to Joshua.
“What’s this?” he asked reading it over.
“Adelaide’s birth record. I’m hoping we can find her biological parents.” They were out there, somewhere. At least I had to believe they were still alive. Joshua handed it back to me and I slid it back into my pocket. “Are you ready for tomorrow?” I asked knowing I was anything but ready. Nervous more accurately explained how I felt. If it didn’t work and Isaura had the bracelet on, she could easily toss me back to 2225. It was a risk worth taking.
Joshua grabbed a seat with me on the couch as he pulled the blanket up and over us. “Not really.” At least he was being honest. “I’m just glad no one but you knows I’m here.”
“Me, too,” I admitted. It gave me butterflies to know that even if Cabal wasn’t to be trusted, Joshua had my back.
Joshua shifted on the couch, leaning against me with an eager smile. “So I was thinking. Do you remember when we first came to Shadow and snuck out that night, searched the town, and wanted to see what was going on?”
“I remember trying to look for a way to escape.” We remembered things differently. “What about it?” I raised a curious eyebrow at him.
“How about we sneak through the ducts and explore this place. It’s after hours. No one’s in their office. Maybe we can uncover some useful information to take with us to Spade.”
“Maybe.” I considered the plan. It wasn’t without risk. If we got caught, there’d be no chance of taking out Isaura tomorrow. Isaura was the more important goal, but if the place was pretty much dead, why not see what was around? “As long as we’re careful.” I didn’t want to even think about what would happen if we were caught.
Joshua gave me an eager smile. “I’m not worried. Why? Are you?” We shifted the sofa to make it easier to climb up into the duct. Thankfully the metal frame was secure and we weren’t exceptionally loud as we moved through the tight space, inching our way across what would be the hallway. Joshua slid open the corner of the tile, glancing first to make sure no one was inside and second that the door was closed. Once he deemed it safe he moved down into the room. “You’re not coming?”
“How are we going to get out if I do?” I made a valid point. We’d moved the furniture in one room. If we did that in all of them, someone would notice.
“Okay, but you’re searching the next office,” he insisted, rummaging through the drawers. “Nothing worthwhile here.”
After a few minutes Joshua climbed back up the duct, with my help and we headed towards another office. “Maybe we should try another floor?” I suggested.
“Nope. If there’s anything it’s on this one,” Joshua insisted. “The rest of the floors are filled with test subjects and labs. The important people with their own offices are stationed on the third floor.”
How had he gathered so much information in the short time he was back in Torv? How did you run into Hunter when you came back? I hadn’t ever asked the question before, though it hadn’t particularly bothered me until now.
“Actually he found us,” Joshua answered. He knew of the facility and assumed we’d object to it. Hunter didn’t know who else to trust, but assumed he could trust his brother, Gavin, and us from Spade. It wasn’t such a far leap when the new government turned us away.