Your One & Only(73)

His back still turned, he shook his head. “I do, though. I underestimated Jack’s . . . ties here. When this is done, he has to come with me.”

“Why? You don’t need him.”

Jonah said nothing, his back still turned.

“Oh,” Althea said, suddenly understanding. “You don’t need him. You want his company. You want your brother. That’s it, isn’t it?”

Again he said, his voice forced, “I’m not letting you go.”

“Then untie me at least,” she said. “I can’t stop you or hurt you.”

He stepped toward the post and crouched at her side. From his belt he pulled a knife and cut away the wire holding her, then stepped back cautiously, arms at his sides.

Althea still wasn’t sure in what way he meant he needed her. Did he intend for Althea to leave as well, with them, as a way to convince Jack to go? But no, nothing in the way he acted toward her suggested that. He thought it would be easier to convince Jack to leave if she wasn’t around anymore. He wanted her dead.

“Stay out of my way,” he said flatly.

Without looking at him, she stood. The effects of the Somnium lingered, making the floor waver like the deck of a boat. She wandered carefully to the table and examined the box he’d made. She picked up a heavy metal tube with a black button in the center.

“What are you going to blow up this time?”

“Don’t touch that.” He snatched the tube from her. “It’s dangerous.”

“What’s it do?”

“Go ahead, press the button.” He grinned. “See what happens.”

Althea felt cold. “Where’s the timer?”

“I used all I had on the boats. Had to come up with something else.”

“I don’t understand why you want to destroy the Ark. It was built by the humans, people like you.”

“Althea-310, I thought you were the clever one. Do you know how long I’ve been trying to figure out what the hell the Ark actually is? I knew it was here, in Vispera, but I knew only that it was something the clones needed to keep making humans, and by making humans, make more clones. And I figure, what the hell do we need more clones for? Think about it. Countless cells, like this.” He pulled from his pocket the glass slide and tossed it on the table in front of her. “These bits of glass, they line the whole room like wallpaper. I didn’t know there were so many.” Pressing his finger into the slide, he inched it toward her along the table, his face thoughtful. “How do you think they picked who got stored in the Ark? Two by two, from every city, state, country, continent? Was it a lottery? Maybe they were volunteers, and they hoped it would give them some kind of immortality when their world was dying.” Jonah pinched the slide from the table and gazed at it against the light, his eyes unfocused as he looked through it. “Maybe they imagined it would save them.”

“You sound sentimental,” Althea said. The slide, limned in blue against the light, gleamed like ice.

“Really?” He straightened. “I don’t mean to. If they did think it would save them, I guess I’m the one who’s going to make sure it doesn’t.”

“But they’re human. You could bring them back, start your own community with your own people.”

Jonah propped his booted foot on the table and leaned back. “The Great De-Extinction? To build what, a world of people like me? It didn’t go so great last time. No, I don’t want that.”

“Then what?” she said. “You want to start over and reproduce like the humans did . . . sexually?”

Jonah’s forehead lined as his eyebrows rose. “That’s an idea.” Smooth as a cat, he was beside her again, his fingers wrapped in the ends of her hair. She gazed at him, unflinching. His glance darted from her hair to her lips and then her eyes. She remembered his mouth on hers in the banana grove. “It could be interesting,” he said, pretending to consider. “Are you my rib, then? We go forth and replenish? You can do it if you like, I hear. It’s the little boys that can’t plant the seed, so to speak. Or wait, are you and Jack already sowing that particular field?”

He talked in riddles, but she knew enough to know he was insulting her. She pushed away from his unyielding body.

“No, little snake charmer,” he said, dropping the strands of her hair. “The world’s hard enough without a bunch of brats running around.”

“So tell me what you want.”

“What I want is to be left alone. No more humans, no more clones. We’ve had our hour.” He cocked his head then and, without warning, spun away from her. He pressed his ear to the door and waited, listening. Althea strained to hear what he did, but heard nothing.

“Someone’s coming?” she said. “Jonah, what are you planning?”

A trace of a smile still playing on his lips, he took hold of Althea’s arm. “Sink the ship, drown them all. Easy,” he said. “So, Althea.” She looked him in the eyes. “It’s been three hundred years. Are you ready to fulfill your destiny?”

Which was when she knew he had read the journal, and she knew how he meant for this to end.





Chapter Twenty-Two


JACK


The mouth of the cave that led to the Tunnels dangled with vines. The ceiling yawned high above, alive with chirping bats. Jack and Sam approached a metal door that slid open with a smooth hydraulic inhalation when Sam pressed his hand to a glass panel. They walked down the narrow stone hallway beyond. The silence that descended within the rock walls made Jack aware of the noises that had surrounded them outside: the swaying trees, nattering insects, and howling monkeys. It was quiet within the confines of the cavern, with only the echo of their footsteps and their rustling breath that fogged in the cold air.