Traitor Born (Secondborn #2)(93)

“Assets?” I spit. “You’re talking about people!”

“Oh, you don’t know the half of it, Roselle.”

“If the ban on procreation were lifted,” I snap, “Census would lose its power. So instead, you kidnap people like Hawthorne and insert VPMDs to make them obey you?”

“It’s called conversion, Roselle. We implant devices that allow us to control the host. Let the Gates of Dawn throw as many bodies at us as they want. We’ll just keep killing them and producing enhanced reinforcements until there’s no one else left.”

“My mother knows?” I can barely contain my rage.

“We needed each other, Census and The Sword.”

“How long will that last?” I ask him. He smirks but doesn’t answer. “How long has Hawthorne been your convert?”

“Not long. A few weeks. We grabbed him at his home after that little stunt you two pulled at the Sword social club. I must admit that I was impressed with how you handled our non-converted zeroborns. It showed just how weak they are compared with our enhanced AI versions.”

“Non-converted?” I ask.

“None of the assassins you fought at the Sword social club had cerebral enhancements. It was too risky. If the implants and other enhancements had been found before we were ready to unveil them, it could have ruined everything.”

“Other enhancements?” I think of the steel claws that sprang from the Black-Os fingertips.

“Lethal enhancements, Roselle. We’re on the cutting edge of tapping into other perceptions, what some would call a sixth sense. The new neural pathways that the VPMD creates have presented us with some tantalizing opportunities. We’ve commissioned Star-Fated engineers to help us with our research—only the brightest.” I haven’t seen these Star-Fated technicians around.

“You’ve commissioned them or you’ve kidnapped them?” I ask.

“‘Kidnapped’ is such an ugly word, Roselle. Most of them are secondborns. We appropriated them.”

We leave the room and enter a stark white corridor. The light hurts my eyes. Windows afford a view of a nursery. Swaddled in temperature-controlled cocoons, infants rock gently in nestled bins. Above them, holographic images of faces hover, talking and smiling, giving the impression that a real person is attending to the infant. These are interspersed with other images, flashes of light that I can’t make out.

“They haven’t gotten their cornea or other implants yet,” Agent Crow says. “The holographic images simulate mothers and fathers—a sibling—obedience to Census.”

Thousands and thousands of cocoon cradles fill the nursery. It reminds me of a morgue. “Cranston Atom, the mortician at the Halo Palace,” I surmise, “somehow figured out that something wasn’t right about the assassins at the club.”

“He was clever. At the morgue, Cranston noticed that the zeroborn monikers were all cut out of the Death Gods, but he also detected that the zeroborn moniker had left behind unique imprints inside the corpses’ flesh. The markings were different than ‘normal’ Fates Republic monikers. His discovery meant I had to kill him.”

“How did you get away with that?”

“We’re Census. No one questions us.”

We’ve reached the end of the corridor. Another elevator opens before us. Agent Crow steps in. I have no choice but to follow. Hawthorne enters after me, the doors roll closed, and I’m relieved to feel the car rising.

Hawthorne’s sandy hair lies over his eyes. I want to brush it away, but if I touch him, he’ll hurt me. He gazes straight ahead, emotionless. My heart aches with sorrow.

“How is it that Hawthorne was converted weeks ago?” I ask. “I just saw him yesterday in the war room of Upper Halo.”

Agent Crow laughs. “Hawthorne has no idea that he’s a Black-O when he’s not being actively redirected. Unless VPMD is turned on, you’d never know he is one of us. His eyes have the implants, true, but they won’t shine. You’d have to examine him closely. He’s the perfect spy because he’s unaware that he’s spying. We have but to question him.”

“You’re disgusting,” I growl.

“And you’ll make a fine Black-O, Roselle.”

A cold shiver slips down my spine.

We return to the trunk of the Tree. I’m escorted to a heartwood in the center of the facility. Agent Crow gestures for me to enter the heartwood with him. I clutch the pole and step onto a rising stair. Agent Crow is on the step beside mine. We’re lifted upward together through the tube. “There is something I want to show you on level five,” he says. We pass storehouses of neon vials containing people—his experiments. On level five, we step off the heartwood and walk together to the area that, in a normal Tree, would be used for the intake of new Transitions. Inside, secondborn Atom-and Star-Fated technicians are busy at work. They don’t appear to be mind-controlled. No silver light shines from their eyes.

Agent Crow commands the attention of the nearest Star-Fated man in a yellow lab coat. The tall, handsome man stops what he is doing on his holographic screen, climbs off his chair, and walks toward us. Dark hair falls over his brow. His eyes are focused on his moniker, but his inattentiveness doesn’t seem to bother Agent Crow. “I need you to prepare Roselle St. Sismode for Black-O conversion.”