Ultraviolet Catastrophe

He shook his head. “Most of it’s a blur. The warnings started going off about halfway through the ramp-up, and it exploded before we could shut down the machine. I have no idea why it failed.”

I did, but now wasn’t exactly the best time to tell him. I needed to get my head together and get more facts first. “Whatever happened, I’m just glad you’re all right.” I kissed him on the cheek, his stubble tickling my skin. “I’m going to go grab some coffee from the cafeteria. You guys want anything?”

Mom nodded. “A bottle of water would be great. I’ll get the nurse to bring Dad’s breakfast. Don’t worry about him.”

“I’ll be back in a few.” I raised an eyebrow at Dad. “Don’t go anywhere.”

He smiled at me, his eyes still shadowed with pain. “Never, Lex.”

I grabbed a bagel and cream cheese in the cafeteria and sat in the corner to do some quick searches on my tablet. My head swam with questions about Amy and her family. How long had they been here in Oak Ridge? Where had they come from?

I found Amy’s parents easily; both were well-respected nanophysicists who’d gone to Harvard and spent most of their careers working in private companies on the East Coast. Three years ago, the same time Danvers had taken over QT, they’d both gotten jobs here and moved to Tennessee. I chewed my lip. It didn’t mean anything. There were lots of reasons they could have come here. Maybe Dr. Danvers had recruited them. Maybe they’d wanted to get out of the big city.

I didn’t find anything on Amy, which was a bit odd. If I searched for Zella, some of her research papers showed up. Max had Comic Con pictures and blog posts and some QT experiments that had made the rounds in a few scholarly journals. But this careful absence almost seemed like Amy had something to hide.

I stared off into space, my muscles tense and aching. It couldn’t be true. Amy couldn’t be the plant on the inside. Could she?

I tucked my tablet into my purse and went back upstairs. The door to Dad’s room was slightly closed, and the whispers from inside made me stop to listen.

Mom sounded panicked, her voice trembling as she spoke. “How is this possible? How could Branston get someone inside QT? I thought it was the safest place for Lexie. And for you. The whole point of bringing her here was to keep her away from them.”

“The whole point of everything was to keep her safe. And now I don’t know what else to do.” Dad paused, and I knew he was running a hand through his hair. “There’s someone working for them on the inside. Someone who knows about the experiments and who wants to stop Project Infinity and destroy QT. You have to take Lexie and go. It’s time for plan B.”

“I left once before, and I’m not doing it again.” Mom’s voice was determined. “I’m tired of living like this. Branston needs to be stopped.”

“They’re too big to be stopped. Too powerful. They’re not going to miss again, Maria. They’ll go to any lengths to get Lexie back.”

24

My head swam, and I tried to steady myself against the doorjamb. Why did Branston want me so badly? And if my parents thought I was going somewhere, they were sadly mistaken. These people had threatened my family and tried to ruin Project Infinity. There was no way in hell I was going to let them get away with it. Maybe my brains would finally come in handy for something.

I pushed open the door all the way. “How do we stop them then?” Mom and Dad stared at me with identical looks of horror. I would have laughed if I wasn’t so freaked out.

Finally, Dad shook his head. “We don’t do anything. You and your mom are going to go off the grid again for a while.”

“It didn’t take Branston long to find me this time. Do you think that’s going to work again?” I shook my head. “This is bigger than me now, Dad.”

I quickly told him about the real reason Asher and I had been in Avery’s office and about the brochure with Amy’s number on it. I reminded him of Grant’s threatening email.

Dad frowned at me. “But I don’t understand. Why were you searching Avery’s office in the first place?”

I studied the scuffed toes of my black ballet flats. If I told him about Avery’s calculations, I’d be betraying Asher, Max, and Zella. But if I didn’t, Branston might strike again before we could stop them.

“Lexie?”

I didn’t have a choice. I had to tell him. “Dad, Avery’s equation is wrong, and someone altered the project simulations to hide it.”

He blinked, his eyebrows furrowing. “That’s impossible. Dozens of people have checked that equation. Hundreds even.”

“I know, but it’s wrong. And when you plug it into the simulation, it still runs like it’s correct. Someone wanted the machine to blow up.”

“No. That’s not possible. You’re wrong, Lexie. Even with that brain of yours, you couldn’t be the only one to catch this.”

Mom and Dad exchanged a look that made my skin crawl. Of course I wasn’t the only one to catch it. If there were spies inside QT, they probably knew about it already, too, but the look that passed between them was even bigger than that.

“What does that mean? What aren’t you telling me?” I demanded.

Dad brought a bandaged hand up to rub his eyes. “There has to be another explanation.”

“For what? I’m not wrong, Dad. I figured it out a few weeks ago on my own, and Asher will back me up.”

He groaned. “Asher is involved, too? This just gets better and better. That boy has always been trouble.”

“Not as much trouble as you evidently,” I snapped. “Now, what’s going on?”

“Tell her, William. You should have done it when we talked about the meds.” Mom stared out the window and wouldn’t look at either of us. She only did that when she was hiding something.

My vision swam with black spots. What hadn’t he told me? What else was there?

Dad’s voice was hollow when he spoke. “I told you the reason I left Branston was because they were performing experiments on students, which is true. Unfortunately, I didn’t leave soon enough to prevent you from becoming part of those experiments.” Dad looked like he was about to be sick; his face had gone pale and a sheen of sweat covered his forehead. “When your mom got pregnant with you, they convinced me to let them include you in their latest experiment on fetal intelligence. I knew Maria would never agree, so without her knowledge or consent, we injected her with a new type of genome while she was pregnant, masking it as a vaccine. It mutated your DNA into something…more. Something that gave you super-intelligence.”