Chapter 23 – Enjoy

(Sophia's POV)

Considering how everything went down, I chose to eat dinner in the med bay. Trudy's stare wasn't missed.

"Kid, did you really out her to the whole building?"

I sigh deeply. "Trudy, you really don't want to get into this."

"No, I think I do." She adjusts herself on the bed. "You got her in trouble."

"I'm welling up with tears."

"What they have is against the rules. If you hadn't gotten her thrown off Pandora, she would have been removed from the Colonel's service."

"Good!" I snort. "Maybe now she'll learn not to touch things that aren't hers." Trudy's eye raise wasn't missed. "What?"

A small smile hits her lips. "Sometimes I forget how much of a child you are…"

"I am a child! I'm seventeen!" I cross my legs. "Maybe everyone should start remembering that!"

"Look, I agree that the way you found out was really shitty and he should have told you—"

"Thank you!"

"BUT! The way you tossed Socorro under the bus is just as bad." I hold her gaze, not expecting the softness in them. "Do you remember what I told you that night? We're on a hostile planet in the middle of space, no one can tell you who you can love, Soph. No one."

I sigh, the first fingers of guilt festering in my stomach, my spoon gently pushing my food around. My phone buzzes on the counter, my eyes glancing at the number.

"This is Sophia."

The line was a friend. "Hey Sophia, it's Julieanne."

"Hey!" I sit up quickly. "Thanks for getting back to me."

"Yeah, no problem." I hear a bit of computer typing. "So I had a chance to look over the things you sent me and I think you're right."

My heart stops. "They match…"

"Yeah, they match."

"And you're absolutely certain about that?"

"Yeah." I hear more typing. "I pulled the records of that bag, when it would have been made, everything. It's the best fit we have."

"Okay, thank you. Send me that stuff you have?"

"Yeah, I'll do that right away."

"You're a goddess, woman," I chuckle, hanging up as the photos come in.

"Who was that?" Trudy asks.

I pause, looking at her with a smile. "A solid lead, for the first time in days."

...

...

My eyes slide down the info, the worry in my gut deepening.

"Oh my god…"

I had spent the last nine hours following the white rabbit, falling further and further into Wonderland, and now… all I wished I could do was wake up.

"Sometimes I really hate being right…"

I printed off a few more pages, looking at my growing pile and grab my phone. It rings about nine times, just long enough for me to consider hanging up when it clicks.

"… Hello?" A tired voice says.

"Hey Julieanne, it's me."

"Sophia?" I heard the shuffling of blankets. "What time is it?"

"A little after six. Sorry for calling so early, but I need you to call the other heads to an emergency meeting."

"An emergency meeting?" I hear some keys clacking. "Who do you want there?"

"Everyone. I need every department head there as soon as possible."

...

...

(Quaritch's POV)

I stood in the meeting room, leaning on one of the counters. The door opens to Parker, a tablet in his hands.

"I'm a busy man, Quaritch. I don't appreciate being summoned like this."

My brow lifts. "Summoned? I thought you called me here?"

"Well, we do have to talk about a certain rumor I've been hearing, but no, I got an email five minutes ago."

Augustine enters after Parker grabs a chair. "If you two didn't call this, then who did?"

"Me." Every head turns to Sophia in the doorway. "And we have a huge fucking problem."

"You're damn right we do."

"Dad!" Her hand snaps out, stopping anything I might say. "I'm not talking about your mistress right now."

"Mistress?" I snort.

"Focus!" she snaps, slamming the pile of papers on the table. I level her a glare but hold my tongue. She sighs, holding her nose in frustration. "Ten days ago, Max gave me this." She lifts a DVD case. "It's the year of logs Grace made when she was pregnant with me."

Her face shifts. "How did you—"

"That's not important!" She cuts her off. "You can speak when I'm done." She levels each of us with a glare I couldn't help but be proud of. "When I went to see Tyler in Forensics, I found this paper in George's pocket. He was able to restore it enough to get a partial picture, and I've been looking online for it ever since." She shows each of us the picture with the missing middle. "I was watching the tapes three days ago and saw this." She flips up a picture of Grace leaning on a counter. "It wasn't super clear at first, but the bag caught my eye." She slides three pictures to us. "Julieanne was able to clean these up for me, and I was right." She slides them together before a lamp. "They match."

I glance at the papers. "Now here's where things get complicated. Grace had that bag, so obviously that company existed at one time, but we searched all day through the entire web and can't find anything related to this thing. It's like it's vanished off the face of Pandora."

"It vanished?" Parker asks in a clearly skeptical tone. "Everything has a digital footprint, kiddo."

"Parker, I had four people look into this. It's not on there." She reaches into her bag. "Now, I wasn't sure if it was from staring at it so much, but I swore I had seen that image somewhere before, and then it hit me."

She places a small DVD player on the table, plugs it in, and after opening a worn-down case of Sleeping Beauty, inserts the CD. "Now, I never used to watch the trailers for this when I was a kid because I hated waiting, but when I broke the remote and had to wait months for it to get fixed, it made me watch them. It took me a bit to find out which one had it, but—"

She spins around the small screen, the slightly blurry blue background showing an old video of a sad person in a darker room.

"The smoke, the smog, the dreary view. Are you tired of wanting to jump out a window every time you open the curtains? Well, we can help. Want a start at something new? Adventure? Fame? A second chance? So do we. Introducing Zone-letz, a second chance at life." Two L's, blue and yellow, swirled around the screen before coming together to make a Z in a circle, the same fucking logo on the paper. "Let Zone-letz make your dreams a reality."

"Zone-letz. Zone-letz. Zone-letz," Parker mumbles. "Why do I know that name?"

"Because it turns out that Zone-letz is the original parent company to Sec-Op's. They created all of this." She moves another copy of the old logo on the table. The current one we all sported was the fifth redesign.

"Before Zone-letz was Zone-letz, it was a program in the prisons. They took prisoners on death row and offered them a chance to better themselves. That was a lie."

"Obviously," Augustine states with an eye roll.

"They experimented on them. Like drilling into people's heads experiments. They took out everything that made them people and turned them into weapons. They sent them into town, into places that had been taken over by gangs and had them kill as many people as possible." I glance over the older files, stamps and blacked-out parts were all over them in an attempt to bury this. "They used fellow family members to clean out the riff-raff before the military came in and took over."

"How did this stand?" Augustine asks.

"It didn't. They managed to keep it under wraps for five years, but when word got out, public outcry was massive. The government shut down the program in fear of retaliation and changed it to Zone-letz. A program that allowed people a second chance at life, new identities, and jobs in dangerous places."

"Then thirty years later, they started shipping them off to Pandora," Parker sighs.

"Zone-letz became Security Operations, the team tasked with keeping you guys alive, and everything else got blacklisted." I slap the folder on the table. "Son of a bitch…"

"So what does this mean?" Augustine asks.

"It means that George had his entire identity changed—or his father did, meaning we have no way of knowing how many of them are really out there."

"And who's coming here to kill me?" Sophia sighs.

"Not unless we can find the original source," I state, catching Sophia's eye twitch. "Kid." My eyes narrow.

She winces. "Remember when you said everything comes through you first?" She rubs her neck. "Well, I might have left out a thing or two…"

...

...

(Sophia's POV)

"HE SAID YOU GUYS WERE SIBLINGS AND YOU DIDN'T THINK I SHOULD KNOW THAT?!" Dad roars.

I wince again. "We thought we should wait a little bit."

"WE?! LYLE KNOWS ABOUT THIS?!"

Crap… I didn't mean to say that out loud.

"Yes. I went to speak with him after the attack!" I step between him and the door, blocking his path. "I was always going to tell you."

"When? When the next one comes to kill you?"

"Next one?" The room falls silent, Grace's glare could level a building. "But we don't know anything about…" My eyes flicker between the three of them. "Did you tell them who my father is, Grace?"

My mother turns toward the window, hands on her arms.

"I know because of the documents," Parker says softly. "I think Quaritch just figured it out."

My eyes snap to my dad, tears in my eyes. "You knew this entire time and you didn't tell me?"

"Kid—"

"I asked him not to," Grace whispered, the words could have been screamed for the ungodly silence.

"I have asked you for fourteen years and all three of you knew?!"

"It's not our secret to tell, kiddo," Parker says softly.

"SHE WILL NEVER TELL ME!" I turn. "I mean, I can't even get three words without her shutting down! And I doubt that will change just because my life's in danger!"

As if proving my point, Grace turns away, those iron walls going up again.

"Okay, that was a hard time for everyone," Parker says, stepping between us. His hands move to my shoulders. "Sophia, I know you have questions, but the one thing Grace asked us to do was respect her request. Give us a few days to figure out the information with what we know, and we'll meet again."

"He's my dad."

"He may have created you, but he wasn't your dad," Quaritch says. "You've done so much, kid, I'm beyond proud." His finger wipes away a stray tear. "But let us do this, for Augustine."

I shut my eyes, a few more tears spilling down my face. "Fine. But I want answers as soon as you have them."

(Quaritch's POV)

I watch Sophia turn, that guilt simmering in my gut. I hear Parker sigh.

"Grace… you're not going to be able to keep this a secret much longer…"

The head scientist turns away. "She has a right to know, Augustine." I push again.

"I know, but—" She holds her head.

"If you can't tell her, I can." I lean against the counter, my voice soft. "I know how to deliver sad news, Grace. I can be there for her."

Her hands squeeze together, eyes on the floor.

"Grace—" Parker tries again.

"Parker, let it go." I sigh, turning to look at the board and the pictures before me.

"Thank you," Grace whispers.

I stand, looming over the woman and cross my arms, my face centimeters from hers.

"You have till the end of the year, Grace. If you don't tell her by then, I will." I turn to Parker, swiping the papers off the table. "Now, the sooner we solve this thing, the sooner I can kill these sons-of-bitches, so let's get to work."

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