same time.
“Oh my God.” Seth placed his hands on the desk beside me as if to steady himself. “Those are incubators.”
“Incubators?”
“Open it.” Sandra was no longer talking into the camera but to a lab tech.
A cold sweat broke out across my neck. Seth’s fingernails dug into the wood of the desk beside me. I stared wide-eyed at the scene unfolding in front of me.
The lab worker punched something on a keypad, a task that appeared difficult with those clunky protective gloves covering his hands. The lights along the edge of the machine changed from red to gold to green, and then a clicking sound was followed by the whoosh of air as a door over half of the machine opened like the lid of a coffin.
Sandra peered into the machine, then turned and seemed to look straight at me before grabbing the camera from whoever had been doing the filming. She held it out at arm’s length so I could still see her face. “Lexi, I’d like to introduce you to a clone of your best friend.”
For the second time that week, I couldn’t breathe. Sandra guided the camera to give me a look inside the incubator. Beneath a layer of glass was a clear liquid, but in that liquid was what appeared to be a human baby.
“What has she done?” Seth gasped beside me. “She’s growing humans outside of a human body! True test tube babies.”
I stood sharply, knocking my rolling chair backward against the wall, and pulled in a deep, labored breath. “Look at how many there are.” My voice came out hoarse and breathy. Had Sandra truly cloned Dani? “Oh, God.” I dug the heel of my hand into my chest.
Sandra’s face filled the screen again. “Well, that’s it for today. Bye!” Just before the screen turned to snow, she actually raised her hand in a friendly wave.
“She can’t get away with this,” I whispered. A large lump burned the back of my throat.
“She is getting away with this.” Seth moved around the desk. He linked his hands behind his neck and tilted his face toward the ceiling. “The International Intelligence Agency is allowing her to get away with this.”
“What do you mean?”
“How else could she fund such a facility? To run a laboratory big enough, sophisticated enough to clone humans in large quantities… that would take an enormous amount of money. Government money.”
And it would take a large amount of money to take that kind of operation down.
Money I now had.
Chapter Ten
I rushed across campus to get to class on time, but slowed when I saw two vehicles—an older-model SUV and Jonas’s car—parked in the drop-off lane. Jack leaned against the SUV, aviators covering his eyes. His visage was unreadable.
On the sidewalk behind the vehicles, Jonas and Briana stood with Georgia, Fred, and Kyle. I hadn’t seen Kyle in two weeks. I had meant to stop by his dorm room to make sure he was okay. I knew he was still mourning Dani. We all were. How would I tell him what Sandra had done? How would I tell any of them?
They all had strange facial expressions, like they were scared to tell me something. “What’s going on?” I asked Jack when I got closer. Jonas acted like he was listening to the others’ conversation, but he was staring at me.
“A field trip.” Jack pushed off the truck and took three steps toward me.
“We have classes,” I said, stating the obvious.
“We’re cutting. Not like we need any of those classes to graduate.”
He was right. The advanced classes we all took were formalities. Those of us who had been enrolled at Wellington had completed all of our AP classes by junior year. We were now taking college courses, or classes such as art, for fun.
He reached for the strap of my backpack, I assumed to take the weight off my back, but I shrugged away and out of his reach. For some reason this “field trip” felt like some sort of intervention.
“Why are we cutting?” I couldn’t hide the defensive tone in my voice.
My mind and stomach churned from the vision
“Oh my God.” Seth placed his hands on the desk beside me as if to steady himself. “Those are incubators.”
“Incubators?”
“Open it.” Sandra was no longer talking into the camera but to a lab tech.
A cold sweat broke out across my neck. Seth’s fingernails dug into the wood of the desk beside me. I stared wide-eyed at the scene unfolding in front of me.
The lab worker punched something on a keypad, a task that appeared difficult with those clunky protective gloves covering his hands. The lights along the edge of the machine changed from red to gold to green, and then a clicking sound was followed by the whoosh of air as a door over half of the machine opened like the lid of a coffin.
Sandra peered into the machine, then turned and seemed to look straight at me before grabbing the camera from whoever had been doing the filming. She held it out at arm’s length so I could still see her face. “Lexi, I’d like to introduce you to a clone of your best friend.”
For the second time that week, I couldn’t breathe. Sandra guided the camera to give me a look inside the incubator. Beneath a layer of glass was a clear liquid, but in that liquid was what appeared to be a human baby.
“What has she done?” Seth gasped beside me. “She’s growing humans outside of a human body! True test tube babies.”
I stood sharply, knocking my rolling chair backward against the wall, and pulled in a deep, labored breath. “Look at how many there are.” My voice came out hoarse and breathy. Had Sandra truly cloned Dani? “Oh, God.” I dug the heel of my hand into my chest.
Sandra’s face filled the screen again. “Well, that’s it for today. Bye!” Just before the screen turned to snow, she actually raised her hand in a friendly wave.
“She can’t get away with this,” I whispered. A large lump burned the back of my throat.
“She is getting away with this.” Seth moved around the desk. He linked his hands behind his neck and tilted his face toward the ceiling. “The International Intelligence Agency is allowing her to get away with this.”
“What do you mean?”
“How else could she fund such a facility? To run a laboratory big enough, sophisticated enough to clone humans in large quantities… that would take an enormous amount of money. Government money.”
And it would take a large amount of money to take that kind of operation down.
Money I now had.
Chapter Ten
I rushed across campus to get to class on time, but slowed when I saw two vehicles—an older-model SUV and Jonas’s car—parked in the drop-off lane. Jack leaned against the SUV, aviators covering his eyes. His visage was unreadable.
On the sidewalk behind the vehicles, Jonas and Briana stood with Georgia, Fred, and Kyle. I hadn’t seen Kyle in two weeks. I had meant to stop by his dorm room to make sure he was okay. I knew he was still mourning Dani. We all were. How would I tell him what Sandra had done? How would I tell any of them?
They all had strange facial expressions, like they were scared to tell me something. “What’s going on?” I asked Jack when I got closer. Jonas acted like he was listening to the others’ conversation, but he was staring at me.
“A field trip.” Jack pushed off the truck and took three steps toward me.
“We have classes,” I said, stating the obvious.
“We’re cutting. Not like we need any of those classes to graduate.”
He was right. The advanced classes we all took were formalities. Those of us who had been enrolled at Wellington had completed all of our AP classes by junior year. We were now taking college courses, or classes such as art, for fun.
He reached for the strap of my backpack, I assumed to take the weight off my back, but I shrugged away and out of his reach. For some reason this “field trip” felt like some sort of intervention.
“Why are we cutting?” I couldn’t hide the defensive tone in my voice.
My mind and stomach churned from the vision
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