Captivate (Manipulate, Book 2)

Chapter 15

Basher entered the room and his partner stayed by the door with an energy weapon in his hand. Claire had been sleeping a moment ago, and she still looked drowsy. Basher squelched the impulse to give her a hand as she scooted off the lower bunk. Whatever he did, he was not going to touch this girl until he was sure she was human.

She followed him out the door.

“Wait there,” Basher said. “You have to be handcuffed when you’re not in the cell.”

She obediently stood still, but the muscles in her neck jerked with tension when his Spo partner held her wrists to secure the handcuffs.

Basher took a deep breath. For some reason everything to do with this girl grated on him, where was his thick skin?

The usual procedure was to have the fake walk in front of them down the hall to the medical quarters, but Basher felt guilty making her do it. She glanced over her shoulder once, looking uneasy. She clearly appreciated how vulnerable it was to walk with a Spo at your back.

In the medical room were two cot-like hospital beds, the standard blood pressure cuff on the wall, and syringes on the counter. A large EKG machine lurked in the back, part of a failed experiment to find another way to tell fakes from humans.

“It’s all so... earthly,” Claire said. “I thought this was a Spo facility.”

“We deal with a lot of Rik,” Basher said. “We’ve imported standard hospital supplies.” He hesitated by the door, while his partner had Claire sit on a cot.

“First, you will be fingerprinted,” the Spo told her. He removed an electronic pad from the cabinet and hit a couple things. “Right thumb," he said.

Claire pressed her thumb to the screen, and it gave slightly. The swirls of her print showed briefly orange against the black background, then it was gone.

“Right pointer. Left thumb. Left pointer. That is all.”

He held the device in one clawed hand while entering a few more things on the screen.

“Full name?”

“Claire Elizabeth Kindler.”

“Age?”

“Twenty-one. The Spo took me four years ago, during my junior year of high school.”

Basher swallowed. That fit with the data Sam and Nat had found.

“Birthday?”

“June 11.”

Basher didn't realize he was lost in thought, until his partner repeated, “Basher, are you going to finish the questions?”

He startled. "Of course."

“Basher,” Claire said. "That's an odd name."

"From Bashar," he said shortly. “It’s a nickname.”

Claire blurted out. “How can I prove I’m not an alien? Can’t you look for a slit in my neck or parasite in my stomach or something? That must be what all this is for.” She gestured to the EKG.

Basher narrowed his eyes. Even if she was human, wouldn’t she know how the Rik turned people? It was a combination of nanotechnology, inserted into the spine like an epidural, and electro-patterning. The only visible mark was the injection site on the back, and the Rik had quickly learned to erase that tiny mark.

Basher finally came further into the room, taking the tablet reluctantly from his partner. While he switched to his note-taking app, his partner had Claire turn around and raised her shirt to examine her lower back.