The Gender Secret Read online

  “What are you doing here,” I hissed, jerking my hand from her grip.

  She turned and looked through the window, a small frown playing on her face.

  “I had no idea…” she whispered, her brown eyes studying my brother.

  I frowned, clenching my fist. The rage was back, looking for someone to turn on. I bit it back, bitter taste and all.

  “Why are you here?” I replied, taking a deep breath.

  She was examining the panel now, her eyes probing. “I told Viggo I might be able to help you. Her fingers stroked lightly at the keys and my heart jumped.

  “Don’t,” I said sharply, and she froze. Her eyes turned back to me and she frowned.

  “Violet, I don’t want to hurt your brother,” she said patiently, her voice soft. “I’m trying to determine where the control box is on this.”

  I fidgeted, torn between my distrust of Ms. Dale and my desire to see Tim freed. “You really think you can get him out?” I asked.

  Ms. Dale hesitated and turned back to me. “I’m not an electrician, Violet. I’ve had some experience, but this is a bit beyond me. However, I will do everything I can to help you get him out. But I need you to understand—I might trigger some things while I am doing this. He might get hurt. I just figure… it’s better if I hurt him, than you.”

  My stomach clenched, and I resisted the urge to punch her. The rational part of my mind recognized that Ms. Dale was telling me the truth so that I would be prepared. And I was grateful for that. I had no idea what I was doing, and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to live with the guilt if he died while I was trying to free him. But the emotional side of me wanted to keep hitting her until she stopped moving if anything happened to Tim.

  I sucked in a deep breath, and then nodded. I took a step back and crossed my arms, watching.

  Ms. Dale examined the panel for several minutes, stroking the concrete walls around it and under it. I crossed my arms, my patience beginning to wear thin, when I heard an audible click.

  A piece of the wall disappeared under her fingers, revealing a lit area, filled with wires. She examined the wires closely.

  “There are a lot of wires. I’m not sure what all of them lead to. I think one of these green ones might be to a door mechanism, but I’m not sure. May I pull one?”

  I hesitated, and then nodded. “Do it,” I whispered, flinching at the harshness of my own voice.

  She nodded and then pulled a wire.

  Immediately, something flashed yellow, and letters began scrolling from left to right across the glass.

  Stress Test—Level 1—Initiating Test.

  Immediately, a blinding white light came on in the box. I looked at Tim, whose eyes had gone wide. I watched as he immediately slapped both hands over his eyes. Ms. Dale straightened up, reading the screen.

  With a curse, she squatted back down, her fingers sifting through the multitude of wires.

  The lights started flickering rapidly, the colors shifting and throbbing. Just looking at it from this side made me nauseas.

  “Ms. Dale?”

  “I’m sorry, Violet. It was the wrong wire. I’m trying to follow it to see if there’s a kill switch. Watch him and let me know if he’s in any danger.”

  Even with his eyes covered, it was clearly still having an effect on Tim. He was shaking his head, his mouth open and locked in a silent scream. My stomach churned as I watched him. Whatever he was experiencing in there was clearly hurting him. I looked at the keypad, but the panel had gone black. On the screen, more rolling test appeared—Test in Progress—two minutes remaining.

  I slammed my hands on the window, trying to get Tim’s attention, to give him something to focus on, but he didn’t seem to hear or notice.

  I watched him rock back and forth, screaming, until he stood up. He began banging on the walls, keeping his eyes closed.

  I kept one eye on the timer and one on him, my hands pressed on the glass.

  “Hurry up,” I screamed toward Ms. Dale. His pain was breaking me, in a multitude of ways. She didn’t respond, but I could feel her moving next to where I was sitting.

  The lights were increasing their strobes, and my eyes started to hurt from it, but I kept my gaze on Tim. Eventually, he bent over at the waist and began retching, expelling the contents of his stomach on the corrugated floor.

  Then he collapsed, curling up into a ball, trying to shield himself from the lights. A few seconds later they shut off, bathing him in darkness again.

  I was aware of tears streaking down my cheek. I was sick to my stomach at what I had witnessed. “I’m sorry Violet—I couldn’t find the mechanism to stop it,” Ms. Dale said quietly from where she was positioned.

  I closed my eyes and fought for control. A dark part of me blamed Ms. Dale, but in my heart, I knew she was doing what she could to help me. And yet…

  Wrapping my arms around my stomach, I looked at Tim, conflict tearing through me. Maybe it would be better to leave him in there for now. At least until we could find some sort of guide to tell us how to open the door.

  As soon as I thought that though, I realized it couldn’t wait. Not with the two unconscious princesses upstairs. They would eventually be missed or escape, and if they managed that, and figured out who Tim was to me, they would use him against me to get what they wanted.

  Not to mention, when the scientists who lived in the facility returned—if they returned—they would subjugate him to these tests over and over again. Better to hurt him now to free him, I wasn’t going to leave him here a moment longer.

  Gritting my teeth, I looked down at Ms. Dale. “Keep trying,” I whispered to her.

  “Maybe you should go,” she suggested. “I’ll keep working here but… maybe it would be better if you didn’t see.”

  I frowned and then shook my head. “I’m not leaving him again,” I declared. I was determined to stay right here until the door opened.

  Ms. Dale nodded, her face an impassive mask. She turned back to the wires. “I’m going to pull another wire,” she announced, and my fist clenched.

  “Do it.”

  I heard her grunt and the sound of a spark filled the air. The panel went dark again, and the window screen lit up, text rolling across the surface.

  Endurance Test—Level 1—Initiating Test.

  I bit back a cry at the words, slamming my fist against the glass.

  “Close your eyes, Violet,” said Ms. Dale, from where she was busy trying to find the wire to stop the test.

  I ignored her, pressing my face close to the glass. I needed to know, even if I didn’t want to know.

  Water began to pour down from the ceiling, the force of it splashing water everywhere.

  Tim’s head lolled under the torrential waterfall in the middle of the room, his hair already wet. The room was filling up fast.

  He picked himself up, his movements relaying the state of exhaustion he was in.

  I watched as he leapt up and grabbed on to a pipe on the ceiling. He hung there, looking down and waiting. He looked so resigned, like he had been through this thousands of times before.

  It bothered me that he never looked out the window. It was like he knew it wouldn’t do any good to try and plead with whoever was on the other side. I could imagine him trying many times, only to be met with blank stares of indifference.

  The water was now at his ankles. Tim didn’t panic—he didn’t waste any energy fighting what was happening. He merely hung there, watching the water patiently as it rapidly rose. It reached his neck in a minute. I watched him expel a long breath and then suck in a lungful of air just before the water reached the ceiling.

  He didn’t move after that. His eyes were closed, his black hair floating all around his face. I watched a timer click on, counting up from zero.

  I held my breath as I watched the numbers climb. First a minute, then two. At two and half, my nervousness increased. How long was this going to last?

  When it hit three and a half minutes, I began to
pound on the glass, determined to break it. “Help me,” I said to Ms. Dale.

  She looked up at me from the wires, her face reflecting her own frustration. “I can’t,” she said, helplessly.

  “He’s dying!”

  She stood up and placed a hand on my shoulder. “He won’t die,” she insisted. “There will be safe guards to prevent it.”

  I jerked out of her grasp, tears dripping down my cheeks. “You don’t know that.”

  Ms. Dale nodded, her face melting back into the impassive mask. “Yes, I do. Whatever they were doing down here, they wouldn’t let him die so easily. Test subjects aren’t that easily replaced.”

  I flinched at the harshness of her words, but in a strange way, they comforted me. She was right, but it didn’t make what was happening okay. My gaze flicked over to Tim and the timer, holding my breath as the numbers climbed up to the four-minute mark.

  At four minutes, I saw Tim open his eyes. He slowly pushed air from his lungs, little bubbles running past his face.

  He seemed so calm. I, however, started screaming, tears running down my face as I began beating against the window in earnest. Ms. Dale tried to hold me back, but I shrugged her off, my hand fumbling for the gun in my pants.

  A bio-monitor came online. I watched as his heart beat slowed, and then stopped.

  My brother was dead.

  “No,” I shouted, pulling the gun free of my pants, and unloading it into the glass.

  Ms. Dale’s fists swept up and knocked the gun out of my hands. I stared at her in disbelief.

  “How could you?” I hissed, stooping to retrieve the gun.

  She took a careful step back, lifting her cuffed hands up, palms out.

  “You could compromise the cube, Violet, which might make it disconnect from the beam above.”

  I glanced up at the beam, anger writhing in my stomach. I opened my mouth, intent on shouting that it didn’t matter, when there was a whirring sound coming from the box. I turned, and watched as the water immediately drained from the room. Tim’s body landed heavily on the floor, his eyes wide and vacant. My hands were shaking as I covered my mouth.

  There was a zapping sound, and Tim’s body gave a little jerk. Then, he blinked. Immediately, he began expelling the water from his lungs onto the floor, sucking in deep breaths of air.

  That was enough for me. I staggered back a few steps and vomited, bracing myself on the handrail.

  I was disgusted beyond rational thought. And I wasn’t letting Ms. Dale pull any more wires. I was going to rip that cube apart rather than subject my brother through one more of those hideous test.

  Looking over at the wires, I felt the white hot rage from earlier filling me. Before Ms. Dale could stop me, I reached over and grabbed a handful of the wires and yanked, pulling as many of them out as I could.

  Sparks flew and I jumped back. The key pad went dark, and there was a humming sound coming from the box. Heart in my throat, I looked up to make sure Tim was okay, and I noticed more words flashing on the screen.

  System malfunction—Test Subject 55 B in danger from faulty equipment—Initiate relocation protocol? Y/N?

  My eyes grew wide. Whatever I had done had triggered something, but the panel was broken. How was I going to initiate the relocation protocol?

  Ms. Dale came up from behind me and reached out to touch the ‘Y’ button on the screen. It went green under her finger, and there was a hissing sound.

  I took a step back, and watched, wide-eyed, as the glass pane got sucked up into the concrete. There was a grating sound, of stone on stone, and a small gap appeared just under the window, creating a narrow door.

  Without hesitating, I stepped through.

  “Tim?” I gasped, looking at where my brother was still laying on the floor, water still streaming off him.

  He didn’t react, not even a flicker of movement from his eyes or body.

  I bit my lower lip and moved closer to him. “Timothy? It’s me. It’s Violet.”

  Nothing. Licking my lips, I settled myself on the floor in front of him. “I’m your sister. We’ve been apart for a long time, but I’m here now.”

  Still nothing. I fought the urge to cry, but tears still slipped from my eyes as I looked down at my brother.

  “It’s my fault you’re here,” I whispered. “If I had just planned everything better, you would be safe in Patrus. You wouldn’t have had to go through this nightmare. But I promise you, baby brother, I am going to get you out of here, and I will never let anything bad happen to you ever again.”

  I watched him for a long time, looking for any trace of movement. He remained perfectly still, his eyes focused on a spot somewhere behind me, his chest rising and falling in deep even breaths.

  My lower jaw convulsed as my guilt mounted. Eventually, I began to sob in earnest, burying my face in my hands.

  “Please,” I begged him, wanting him just to look at me. To show me somewhere, deep inside, he was still there.

  I didn’t know how long I sat there crying, when I felt something touch my hand.

  Lifting my head, I gazed into my brother’s eyes.

  His eyes were cloudy and confused. “Violet,” he whispered, his voice raw and deep.

  I threw my arms around him and held him tightly. He was stiff under my arms, tension radiating out from him. I didn’t care—I hugged him anyway. I never wanted to let him go.

  I heard Ms. Dale cough and I turned my gaze toward her. She was looking through the door opening at us. “I’ll… I’ll go back up to Mr. Croft,” she said quietly.

  Wordlessly, I nodded, tears still streaming from my eyes. She hesitated for another moment. “I’m glad you found your brother,” she added, as she turned to leave.

  I was too, but I was also worried for him—whatever had been done to him while he was here… he would carry the scars forever. I cried harder, trying to feel strong for him, but feeling helpless myself.

  35

  Viggo

  I sat back in the chair, my mind trying to process everything I had read on Mr. Jenks’ computer. Ms. Dale strode in and sat in the chair. I looked at her inquisitively.

  “She’s fine. She’s comforting her brother.”

  A dark thread of suspicion cut through my thoughts, but as I studied her face, I saw sincerity behind that carefully constructed mask. She also looked tired—like whatever she had seen had an effect on her. I resisted taking a jab at her, it would be counter-productive, and I had too much on my plate.

  “How much of this were you aware of?” I asked, indicating the computer.

  She said nothing, just stared at me with that blank face. I sighed, and folded my hands on the desk. “You’ve realized that you can’t really hide anything from me, right?”

  Shrugging with one shoulder, the corners of her mouth quirked up. “That remains to be seen,” she replied arrogantly.

  I felt a dull throb in my skull—a reminder of my concussion—and I shook my head at her. “You are something else, lady.”

  “How do you mean?”

  I leaned back into the chair, it squeaked under my weight but held fast. “I mean that you are going to pick a side very soon.”

  “I have a side,” she replied curtly.

  “Matrus? The people who want you to catch an innocent woman as a public relations prop?”

  Her mouth pinched and she looked away. It was progress. Minimal, but progress none-the-less.

  I leaned forward, pinching the bridge of my nose to try and relieve the growing headache. I was starting to feel tired, a sign that the adrenaline patch was beginning to wear off. I still hadn’t done anything to patch my wounds—I had been too curious to stop reading for long enough.

  Turning back to the computer screen, I re-read a few of the conversations between Queen Rina and Mr. Jenks.

  It seemed that the two of them had been conspiring on this project for the better part of thirty years. I couldn’t understand the science aspects of it—they were far too technical for a lay
man like myself—but luckily for me, neither could Queen Rina.

  Mr. Jenks had diluted the science enough that I could understand his and the queen’s ultimate goal. Apparently, they had stumbled on to a way of enhancing humans. I had gathered that Mr. Jenks had been studying the insemination program, focusing on the unborn embryo.

  I didn’t understand his theory, but he believed that exposing the unborn child at a certain stage of development with radiation or chemicals would trigger a mutation. And for some reason, Queen Rina had allowed him to experiment on her own unborn children.

  It had apparently been a success, but it was limited, and there were some larger problems that developed in association with the experiments. Yet the queen’s children had survived and were considered enhanced. There weren’t many specific details about her offspring beyond that, but Mr. Jenks’ research carried on.

  In studying the princesses’ genetic code, he had found the areas which triggered these physical enhancements. Strength, speed, intelligence, agility… he had unlocked the key to advancing the human race. The next evolutionary step forward.

  But it was an artificially forced evolution, and with that came consequences. In this case, psychological ones. He found that the children born often manifested intense psychological issues.

  It put a stop to his in vitro experimentation, but he didn’t stop. He believed that there was a way he could awaken these mutations on fully formed humans and, given enough time and study, he could create a single human with all the enhanced abilities he had catalogued.

  The queen had funded him, helping him create a laboratory and giving him test subjects in the form of the boys deemed too aggressive for Matrian society.

  He had limited success in waking the dormant genes in the boys, using pills. Yet the same psychological issues persisted in each individual. It varied, from hyper-phobia to bipolar manifestations. There were even several cases of schizophrenia.

  Mr. Jenks didn’t let that stop him. He’d pressed forward with his research, determined to create the ultimate enhanced human.

  And he eventually thought he had. I stared at the picture of the egg, its shell open, the small embryo resting inside. It seemed that Queen Rina had been scheduled for implantation (by some specialized process I didn’t understand), but had it been a successful test, more would be created and implanted into the women of Matrus.