“Oh,” I mouth. Fuck me.
“His mother and brother died in a crash when he was twelve.”
“Mental trauma?”
“You’ll find out. But here is the thing, Kat. Zion’s Westside is not exactly a resort. Crone and a couple of others developed blood-testing equipment that creates a personalized formula for the medication to prevent gene mutations after the fallout.”
I swallow hard. That sounds like a sci-fi movie.
“Sounds intense,” I say with a forced smirk, though I am not so sure it’s a game anymore.
Uncle nods. “Heard of the Gen-Alpha Project that failed back in 2018?”
“Yeah.”
“Wonder why so many wealthy smart people invested money and didn’t make a buzz when the project went belly up?”
I don’t answer.
“The public part of it was just a venture. The actual info and studies were meant for times like this—the Change.”
“You are telling me that the Secretary of Defense knew what was coming?”
“Irrelevant.”
“You are telling me that twenty-four-year-old Crone and a bunch of his friends are the masterminds of the medical field?”
He nods, blinking slowly. “Yep. Why do you think that island is so armed? It’s not just the secretary’s money that has sponsored it for the last two years. And not just the investors’ either. Crone is a genius. You shouldn’t underestimate him.”
I cock an eyebrow.
Uncle cocks one right back.
Damn.
Silence sinks between us for a moment.
“Kat, you are not Batman. But you are the best chance we got. The money we get if we bring the girl back will let us move to Australia. Or South America. It will open doors. Tsar will move us anywhere we want.”
I know. I am tired of this country that is growing wilder by the day. I want to be elsewhere—the parts where it’s more or less decent. Most importantly, I want to finally prove that I can use everything that Dad taught me.
“Two years on an isolated island makes one desperate and harsh,” Uncle continues. “Trust me, they are not as soft as you might think. Archer Crone might sound like a privileged star quarterback. But he is brilliant. And vicious. So buckle up, Dorothy, and listen.”
And I do. Because I am curious and excited as fuck.
I grew up with a sense of adventure. Learning how to hunt, load weapons, shoot, jog for miles through the mountains, fight, do first medical assistance, cook, grow shit, camp in the wild, and make fire without matches. That’s only a part of it.
I was home-schooled.
When I was eleven, my mom died. My dad, who was a Navy SEAL, came back and we lived in Arizona for some time. Then we moved to Thailand.
Bangkok can teach you a lot.
Especially when you are thirteen, and your dad is a private contractor, and your sitter is more concerned with her new boyfriend, so you are running around with the local street gang, a lady-boy for a best friend, occasionally doing drug deliveries. Because you are brazen, only thirteen, and it’s a wild world, and you want to explore every part of it. The youngest kid doing deliveries is six, so you should do much better. You learn the streets by heart, and the bosses give you pocket money and nod with a smile when you make a delivery, then laugh when you ask if you can do anything else.
Occasionally, you spend nights in random undercover apartments because the sitter canceled, but your dad has to go to work. So he takes you with him.
You sit in an armchair with a girl not much older than you, whose tits fall out of her netted leotard, her stiletto heels longer than your arms. She is the star of a “pussy shows” at Patpong, popular among tourists. Her makeup is smudged, but she smiles at you.