Though she’d learned much about her mother’s reprehensible research, there were still questions left lingering, and above them all, the question of why her mother had summoned her to Skin Island in the first place. Sophie had a hard time holding onto the concern she’d had for Moira Crue in the past few days. She instead found herself questioning everything she thought she knew about her mother.
All her life, Moira Crue had been a paragon of intelligence and self-sacrifice, and Sophie had worshiped the ground beneath her. Well, except for that brief stage of rebellion when she’d been in middle school, when she’d spent the majority of her time sulking and avoiding her mother’s phone calls. But that hadn’t lasted for long. When she had imagined her mother on Skin Island, she’d imagined her curing dementia and developing vaccines for third world countries, saving the world with cutting-edge science, Mother Theresa in a lab coat and latex gloves. She’d known, of course, that there had to be more to it, that there was a reason for the secrets her mother kept—but she’d never dreamed it was because her work involved manufacturing human slaves.
She gripped the armrests of the chair and looked at her mother now as if seeing her for the first time. She felt frozen to her seat, her body unable to react.
“Well,” Moira said as the door shut behind Andreyev, “how do you think that went?”
Victoria Strauss sat in the chair the Russian had previously occupied and crossed one leg over the other. Her heels were three inches long. Sophie wondered how in the world she managed not to break her neck every time she took a step. “Not as well as I’d hoped.”
Moira’s eyebrows rose, disappearing beneath her sideswept bangs. “Oh? I thought he was intrigued.”
“I need him to be more than intrigued, Moira. I need him to invest, and now. I don’t think you realize how precarious your position is.”
Moira’s lips pinched together, and her nostrils flared in a way Sophie recognized as dangerous, evidence that her mother was holding back harsh words. “I understand perfectly.”
“The Vitro Project has been going on for eighteen years,” Strauss sighed. “And with no return. You know how it works. Corpus is not a charity. We can’t support a project that can’t attract its own investors. You need this funding. Constantin Andreyev is your last chance, Moira, so don’t screw it up.”
“The Vitros are ready to be marketed. I’m not worried. Your . . . what is he anyway? Arms dealer? Politician?”
“Mr. Andreyev, if you must know, is a businessman of exceptionally substantial means, and more importantly, he is discreet. That is all that you should concern yourself with.”
“Well, your Mr. Andreyev is getting everything he ordered in Lux, and more.”
“Mm.” Strauss’s eyes slid over Sophie, her half-lidded gaze giving her a reptilian quality that made Sophie’s skin crawl. “We’ll see, I suppose. She hasn’t done much but sit there so far.”
“You’ve seen them wake before. You know it takes a little time. Tomorrow she’ll be functioning as well as you or me.”
“God, I hope not. She’s meant to take orders, not give them.”
Moira opened her mouth, then clamped it shut again, as if thinking better of what she’d been about to say. She took a moment to inhale, then said, “Have you given any thought to the proposal I sent you?”
“Which one? Oh, yes. I remember. About the chip.”
“Now that the Vitro Project is successfully completed, I really think we should begin considering what I believe to be the chip’s true value. The diagnostic possibilities could—”
“Moira, please. Stop.”
Moira’s lips pursed together as she reached behind Sophie to pick up a glass of water, which she held to Sophie’s lips and softly urged her to drink as Strauss continued.
“The Vitro Project is only just beginning. Even if you win Andreyev over and he puts in an order for fifty of them, you’ll still have work to do here. They may be ready, but they’re not perfect.”
Moira said nothing. She set down the glass and lowered an arm extension bolted to the back of the chair Sophie was sitting in. It was some kind of metal dome, almost like a modified hair dryer dome. She pressed a button and the chair hummed slightly.
Strauss kept talking, but Sophie had stopped listening. She watched her mother instead, trying to read her, trying to tell herself that what she’d just heard couldn’t possibly be the truth. Moira’s eyes were fixed on a computer behind Sophie; whatever the dome was doing, she must have been reading its results. Sophie tensed—what if she didn’t pass whatever test this was? Was she checking for the chip thing, the one she’d apparently implanted in the brains of a bunch of helpless babies? As Strauss droned on, Moira’s eyes flickered down to Sophie. Her brows drew together, creasing her forehead, and she started to say something when there came a knock at the door.
Moira shut off the computer and jerked the door open. A young doctor stood there, her black hair bound into a bun with a pencil and her narrow glasses perched low on her nose. “I’m here for Lux’s therapy,” she squeaked.
“Oh, Hashimoto, come in.” Moira stepped aside to let her through. “She’s ready to go.”
Strauss watched with disinterest as Moira and Dr. Hashimoto took Sophie’s arms and stood her up. She wasn’t sure how to keep up the act; as long as the others were talking around her, she’d seemed to get by just by staying quiet.
“She’ll be a bit unsteady, so keep a hand on her,” said Moira, but she looked at Sophie as she said it, frowning.
Sophie let her legs go a little limp. It wasn’t hard to do. Whatever drug had knocked her out still seemed to be running through her body, making her muscles wobbly. She wished she could stay near her mother, to hear more secrets, but it seemed Moira was staying behind to continue her conversation with Strauss. Dr. Hashimoto, her hand securely around Sophie’s upper arm, led her out of the room. Sophie made sure to go slowly and awkwardly, trying to live up to what they apparently expected from Lux.
When the door shut and she was sealed off from Moira, she considered bolting for the door and running back to Jim—if he was still waiting, which she doubted. A part of her wanted to wash her hands of Skin Island, Corpus, and her mother altogether—but the other part said, Wait. You might be missing something.
Could that something be her mother’s redemption? All her rose-tinted memories of Moira Crue, all her high expectations and glowing opinions, lay around her in shattered pieces. There had to be something, some hidden reason, some noble motive that Moira had for all of this. Despite everything, Sophie found herself still wanting to believe the best about her mother. She’s creating slaves, she told herself as she limped along with Dr. Hashimoto. She steals their wills from them and binds them to people who would use them and throw them away. Sophie saw what Skin Island was now. It was a slave hatchery, a factory that churned out custom-designed, entirely controllable minions. Bodyguards, Moira had said, and domestic servants. Translators and nannies and soldiers. To think that her own mother was involved in creating helpless victims who didn’t even have the ability to say no filled her with revulsion. I hate her. I do, I hate her with every bone in my body.
And to top it off, she was dealing with and catering to criminals. Businessman, Strauss had called Andreyev. Sophie doubted it—or at least doubted that his kind of business was legal. He had the look of a mobster, Sophie thought, not that she knew much about mobsters. But to even be here, to even consider purchasing a human bound helplessly to his will, with no ability to think or choose for herself, was proof to Sophie that he was more soulless than the slaves he hoped to buy. This is an island of monsters. She suppressed a shudder.