“Are you going to get your pet under control,” Strauss said to Moira, not once looking at Sophie, “or shall I?” She raised her handgun threateningly.
“She’s right,” said Moira. “I won’t let you harm them.”
“This place, all of it, belongs to Corpus, not you. I make the calls.”
“And I’m telling you I won’t let you harm them.”
“If I have to forcibly remove you, I will.”
“Then you’ll have to forcibly remove me, too,” said Sophie, stepping closer to her mother.
“And me,” said Dr. Hashimoto unexpectedly. She joined Sophie and Moira.
One by one, then all in a rush, the other doctors stepped forward. Even the bespectacled one who’d turned on the gas after Strauss conferred control of the project to him—what was his name? Michalski. His hands were visibly trembling, but he stood beside Moira and held his ground.
The doctors, with Sophie in their midst, formed a protective hedge in front of the Vitros. Strauss looked angrier with each one’s pronouncement of support for Moira and her skin seemed to grow tighter and tighter over her cheekbones as her opposition swelled.
“Each and every one of you is expendable,” Strauss spat. “I have no qualms about removing you all. Once I shut this place down for good, you will all be fired. No relocation, no reassignment, no pension, nothing. In fact . . . I could have you all shot here and now. There is no law on Skin Island but what I make. You know I can do it.”
Sophie reached out and took Moira’s hand. Then Moira took Dr. Michalski’s. Down the line, the doctors grasped hands and stared silently at Strauss and her guards, daring them to fire.
All except Sophie, who looked over her shoulder at Jim.
Jim sighed deeply. The last thing he wanted to do was get tangled up in some Gandhian protest. He didn’t want to get shot for the sake of some miserable lab subjects he didn’t know. But he did know Sophie, and now Lux, he supposed. If he had to get shot over something, it might as well be for the sake of a friend.
Maybe getting involved was the stupid thing to do, but it had never stopped him in the past. And if Skin Island had showed him one thing in the brief time he had been there, it was that the world had plenty of heartless, detached bastards—and it could really use a few more idiot heroes.
So he took Sophie’s hand and stood beside her with his other arm wrapped around Lux. She was still shaking and a little wobbly on her feet, but she was proving her resilience. She looked at him with clear eyes, eyes less innocent than they had been an hour ago. The world had given Lux a cruel reception and she was growing up fast.
Jim drew a deep breath and turned to face Strauss and the dozen rifles aimed at him. Sophie squeezed his hand; he squeezed hers back.
For a long moment, Strauss said nothing. He imagined her running a hundred different responses through her mind, trying to find a way to cow them into submission. The guards glanced uncertainly at her, waiting for an order.
Together, in silence, they waited.
Only one person stood apart from it all—well, three, if you counted Andreyev’s bodyguards. The Russian stood a short distance ahead of the line of doctors, between them and Strauss’s men. He seemed unperturbed by the amount of firearms being brandished about, and looked lost in thought, as if he were sitting in the back of a movie theater watching with halfhearted interest as they all played out their drama. His bodyguards, on the other hand, were tensed like a pair of panthers, ready to spring at the first sign of gunfire.
Jim realized Sophie was staring hard at Andreyev, her eyes pouring pressure onto the Russian’s shoulders. Why? What did she want him to do? Is this what it came down to—one man whose decision could tip the scales for or against them?
“Constantin,” Strauss said his name slowly, “come with me. I am afraid what I must do next will not be pleasant, and it would be best if you were not caught up in it. These employees have proven too insubordinate to be trusted, and so Corpus must act.”
“As one of Corpus’s foremost investors, Miss Strauss,” Andreyev said, his accent almost a purr, “I believe I have a say in what Corpus will and will not do, wouldn’t you say?” He slowly shifted into motion, crossing the grass to stand on the other side of Lux, completing the defensive line against Strauss.
Her eyes widened slightly when she realized he had chosen his side—and it was apparently not the side she had predicted. “I don’t understand.”
“Understand this, Miss Strauss. Young Sophie here has apprised me of some very interesting facts regarding Skin Island’s past—and its original purpose. In light of this information, I would like to double my current contributions to the Vitro project, under three circumstances. One,” he lifted a finger. “Full control of the project will go to Dr. Crue. And by full control, I mean I don’t want you to have a say in so much as the color of the wallpaper.”
“Mr. Andreyev! I—”
Two,” he steamrolled right over Strauss’s angry interjection, “I want every possible effort to be made in reversing the mind-control you have put over these poor children, and I want my funds to be channeled not into the making of Vitros but into utilizing the neurotechnology that has imprisoned them to explore its therapeutic and curative abilities. There is a great deal of potential in that, I think, and I am curious to see what Dr. Crue can make of it.”
Strauss’s eyes bulged, but she said nothing. Down the line, Moira Crue let out a soft cry, and she turned to stare at Sophie with wide eyes. Sophie looked up at Jim and gave him a small smile. He returned it and squeezed her hand again.
“And three,” Andreyev turned to Sophie and Jim. “I want these young people to be given their freedom. They must be allowed to leave this place with no harm done to them.”
Jim resisted the urge to crawl across the ground and kiss the man’s thousand-dollar golf shoes. He wondered what the Russian words for “can I buy you a drink” might be.
Strauss cocked her head and studied him with a bemused look, as if she was wondering where the punch line was, as if she couldn’t believe he was actually serious. But the look he gave her in return was cool and smooth as Russian vodka.
“If this is your decision,” Strauss said, “to reject everything I have offered you here, why did you come in the first place?”
“I came because I was curious. And because I cannot afford to have weapons such as these—” he gestured at the sedated Vitros “—in the hands of my enemies. I will admit, at first I was intrigued when I read the dossier you sent me last month. Only a fool would not consider the advantages of the particular services your company offers, and I wanted to see these Vitros for myself, to see whether this imprinting could really be done. Still. You think that because I deal in arms, that because I fund your weapons research and your . . . special project in South America, that I am a coldhearted bastard who would sit by while children are turned into robots, made to serve with no capacity for their own choice?” He shook his head slowly. “I am a businessman, yes. But I am not a monster.”
Jim was surprised Strauss’s death grip on her hand gun hadn’t already dented the metal. Everyone seemed to hold their breath as they waited for her to speak. The silence was filled by the rushing surf and windswept leaves of the palm trees. Even the moon, suspended high above them, was poised in suspense.
At last, Strauss relented. Her capitulation was evident even before she spoke; she folded visibly, like a tent robbed of its supports. “So be it, but this is entirely on your head, Constantin. I will take no responsibility when this plan of yours fails.”