Page 61 of Captured Immune

“Right. Okay, Victor is planning to get rid of you the second the Immune projects her immunity onto someone besides you. He’s pretty confident she can do it. I overheard him giving orders to Craig to shrink you, then play off your death like it was an accident during testing. You need to get outta here. Tonight. And take the Immune with you.”

Why doesn’t it surprise me that my uncle has plans to off me?

“There’s a tech lab down the hall.” Katie points in that direction. “Go past the elevators, take the first left, then two doors down is room 317. In the far back right cabinet are perrizo guns—the sedative kind, not the normal kind that Enforcers use to subdue people’s powers in z-prison. I’ve preloaded two guns for you. Each one carries thirty shots. Aim well. One shot will subdue your target’s powers and make them drowsy. Two doses should knock ’em out within seconds. Do not—I repeat—donotkill anyone on your way out. Half of these agents arerealZIRDA agents.”

My face screws together. “What do you mean, half?”

“I don’t know if I have time to explain. Are you sure we’re good? Check again.”

I do, even though I know we’re okay. “My empathy power has been stretched throughout this entire floor and up to the security room this whole time. I’ll let you know if anyone’s coming.”

“Excellent. I’ll try to make this quick. Basically, this ZIRDA base has been compromised.”

“Compromised? By who?” As soon as those words leave my mouth, I know the answer.

“The Royals, duh. More specifically, Victor. Over the years, he’s been slowly getting rid of the real ZIRDA agents and replacing them with Royals. He’s done it so discreetly that it took this long for anyone to notice.”

Victor? A Royal?It doesn’t make any sense. How could he work for the same people who murdered his younger brother? Plus, they tried to kill him too. Katie’s gotta be lying.

I eye her through slits. “How do you know this?”

“ZIRDA Toronto was the first to recognize that there was something fishy going on here. Every time they collaborated with ZIRDA California to defuse one of the Royals’ schemes, somehow, the Royals were always two steps ahead.

“A few months ago, Toronto sent two agents here to do some snooping on the pretense that those agents needed more-intense training. They were never heard from again. I was sent here from ZIRDA Minnesota to find out what happened to them and try to uncover what’s going on here. Victor thinks I was sent here because I want to be a field agent and my CEO thought I needed more experience at a larger base first. Thanks to my submissive-girl act, Victor took me in as his assistant.

“Through some snooping, I found out Craig shrunk and crushed those two Toronto agents under Victor’s orders. But that’s not all I’ve uncovered. There’s heavy shit going on here. Everything from human trafficking to suicide bombing, and they’re creating another bioweapon.”

Suicide bombing?It hits me. Those Tickers—the ones Victor sent those two agents out to find—Victor doesn’t want to protect the Tickers. He’s the goddamn Royal who’s been kidnapping them to use as unwilling suicide bombers.Fuuuck. I think I’m gonna be sick.

Katie continues, “I send weekly notes to my CEO about my progress here. Victor thinks I do that because she’s monitoring my experience to determine when I’m ready for field work. Really, I’m just encoding secret messages to her about what I find here. Since Victor reads and approves all my notes to her before I send them out, I can only give her so much info. She’s building a case against him and trying to get some other ZIRDA bases involved to take him down.”

I let out a scoff. “You’ve been here for how long now? Why is Victor still in charge? What the fuck is taking so long?”

“These things take time, okay? We’ve gathered the evidence, and my CEO has been in contact with some of the other bases, but a proper takedown can’t happen overnight. If it makes you feel any better, after this last Immune arrived, I asked for reinforcements. I’m determined to keep her alive.”

A little hope sparks in my chest. “That’s great. When are your people coming?”

“Um, I dunno. It could be days. Could be weeks. That’s if they’re sending anyone at all. They’ll only come if they think it’s safe to.”

“What if your life was in danger? Shouldn’t they make saving you a priority?”

“I knew the risks when I took this field assignment. My CEO told me up front that she’d rather let me die than risk more lives. I told her I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

Kill ten to save ten thousand. Seems like the other ZIRDA bases believe in that mentality too. Except, this base isn’t ZIRDA anymore. At least, fifty percent of it isn’t.

Wait...“How do you know that half of this base is still ZIRDA and the other half isn’t?”

Katie shrugs nonchalantly. “I don’t know—not for sure, at least. In my time here, I’ve onlytheorizedthat it’s fifty-fifty. I’ve only been able to confirm that seventeen people here are good.”

I whisper yell. “Seventeen? That’s it?”

“Well, you can’t expect me to run around asking people what side they’re on. I have to be discreet about it. Including you, that’s eighteen.”

“How are you so sure I’m not a Royal?”

Katie gives me acome onlook. “Victor wouldn’t try to kill you if you were. Also, I did my research. Back in May, Victor assigned a field mission to some guy in the LA area who had no prior record of being a ZIRDA agent. I thought for sure you were another Royal that Victor recruited to test out hisinfatuation theory.

“When I researched you, I discovered that your parents died under mysterious circumstances. All of ZIRDA knows that’s code for ‘The Royals did it.’ That was my first sign you weren’t one of them. Once I met you, I was one hundred percent sure. The agents before you personally brought in their Immunes for testing. Your Immune was taken in by other agents, and you seemed genuinely livid to find her here.”

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