Blood Like Magic, page 25
Luc stretches out his fingers and gets to work on it, pulling up options I didn’t know were available. “Someone’s tried to access this remotely before.”
“The almanac?” That doesn’t shock me. I’m sure there are a few people in the community who would want a peek at our secrets. It’s mostly tips about how to shape your intention to get better effects with casts but also includes recipes for our beauty products, minus whatever special thing Granny adds to them. Still, they could be valuable to witches from less powerful families.
“Yeah. They tried to send some files over too.”
“Do you know who it is?”
“I’m checking the IP address and seeing if I can get a location. Here it is.” Luc’s fingers go still on the tablet.
I come up behind him and lean over his shoulder. “What?”
“Personal space.”
“Get over yourself. What did you find?” Though I do take a step back.
“It’s a NuGene satellite office near Yorkville. A private space only Justin and the Tremblays use.”
My stomach clenches. “That means Justin was the one trying to send these mystery files?”
“It’s so sloppy. I don’t know what sort of state he would have been in to take a risk like that.” He makes a few more taps on the tablet. “It was around eleven years ago when he made that attempt.”
“Okay, did anything happen to him around that time?”
Luc frowns. “Justin made the breakthrough with genetic modification, but that’s probably a coincidence.” His fingers flick across the tablet screen, and his eyes narrow.
I get as close as I can without violating Luc’s personal space.
“It’s fine,” he says. “You can get closer. I was joking.”
“You make jokes?”
“Sometimes!” he snaps. “Whatever, just look.”
I immediately shuffle up so close that I’m basically breathing on his neck. Over his shoulder, a few sequences are pulled up with the plain black dashes that mark our genes. Ava Thomas, William James, Ama Thomas… The genetic sequences of everyone in the family. “I don’t get it. He wanted our gene data?” If Justin and Auntie Elaine were working together, wouldn’t he already have that?
“I assume he wanted the data. It’s not in our NuGene files.” I can’t blame Luc for not knowing any better. He’s shared so much with me, but there’s no way to explain how I know they were working together and what they were working on without exposing our magic.
“What about the files he tried to send over?”
Luc does some more tapping and frowns at the screen. “I don’t get it.”
“What?”
“It’s the exact same files. Same file names and everything. Why would he be sending files he already knew were there? Or why would he try and access them if he already had them?” Luc shakes his head, then pulls up the two files with Mom’s name and scans the code. “Wait… They’re not the same. Most of the genes are, but there are a few here in Justin’s file that are…”
“That are…?”
“Let me check the others.” Luc goes through each set of files, opening and closing them. “These changes in the code… It’s shifting the genes to show predispositions for things like tendencies toward extreme violence.”
I jerk away from Luc. “I think I would know if my family had those predispositions.”
“Not all predispositions end up being expressed.”
“I know,” I snap. “But that’s wrong. Data we keep in the almanac should be originals.”
“And where did your family originally get their genome sequenced?”
I bite my lip. We’ve never had money for full sequencing like that. Justin must have been the one to do it, but he wouldn’t have had almanac access. Which means Auntie Elaine must have put the data in there. “Look at the time stamps. Metadata is locked on genomes, right?”
“They are, but if Justin wanted to change them, he could. But let’s see.” Luc takes a moment to bring up the date for the two files, and it’s there, plain as day. The original files in the almanac were created months before, but the files Justin tried to input were made the same day he was trying to send them.
Sloppy, just like Luc said. Whatever was driving him that day, he wasn’t in a mental state to be careful.
Luc lets out a sharp breath and stares at the screen.
“Just so we’re on the same page,” I say, voice low. “The original DNA sequences of my family are stored in the almanac. Eleven years ago, Justin tried to remotely send exact copies of the files, but with the data changed to show, let’s say, unwanted genetic predispositions. I assume that he wanted to access the almanac so he could overwrite the original correct files with these fake ones. Meaning that if he succeeded, which he didn’t, the only DNA files of the adults in my family in existence would be the fake ones that mark them as potential violent criminals.”
Luc shakes his head again. “Yes. That’s what it looks like. I just don’t understand why Justin would be doing this at all.”
The sort of predispositions Luc is talking about would have ruined us. Underlying genetics don’t mean they’ll become actions, but it would have brought scrutiny down on us from Child Protective Services. Maybe they would be fair. Maybe everything would be okay. But no matter how many people stand and raise their fists in the air with us, there are still people in the system whose prejudice against the color of our skin is too ingrained to give us a fair chance.
Our family would be subjected to constant welfare checks, paying money we don’t have for lawyers, maybe even us kids getting taken away for good. Everything amplified by the threat of a predisposition, because that discrimination exists whether people like to admit it or not. Clients would decline to work with or buy from us, cash flow would stop then if the lawyer fees didn’t already get us, and creditors would snatch the house as payment within the month.
We never had the money to be sequenced in the first place, much less resequenced to prove innocence. If Justin had succeeded in overwriting the files, we would have had nothing to fight back.
Auntie Elaine needed to protect us from him. This is as good a reason as any. But there’s no way Justin would have stopped at not being able to get into the almanac. He would have gone further if he was this desperate. How she managed to make Justin back off is an unknown. Along with why us kids forgot her, and how and why she died.
And the final unknown, like Luc said—why would Justin do that in the first place? It doesn’t make sense.
Luc’s eyes flicker across the screen, already searching for more, probably as desperate to understand why his sponsor would do this as I am. “I’ve got video here. Hold on.” Luc taps play on a single video file, and we both lean in to watch.
On-screen is a woman who, from her short, curled black hair and dark brown skin, is Auntie Elaine. Her eyes are puffy and strained with wrinkles at the corners too pronounced for someone as young as her. She stares blankly into the camera for the first couple of minutes.
Then, she speaks. “Sometimes, people don’t end up being who you thought they were.” She wrings her hands. The gesture reminds me too much of my anxious finger wringing. “Maybe that’s obvious.” The corner of her lip jerks up into a little smile before falling flat.
The video cuts out.
Luc breathes out a sigh and goes back to searching through the tablet. “That wasn’t helpful.”
I’m not so quick to dismiss it. “What was the date on the video?”
“January 9, 2038.”
“And what date were those genetic records sent? The ones Justin tried to put in?”
His fingers flick across the screen, and after a pause, he looks back over his shoulder at me, lips twisted into a grimace. “January 9, 2038.”
Justin. That’s when he became a person who she didn’t think he was, when he tried to mess with our family’s genetic records. My stomach clenches. The way she spoke about him, and the expression on her face… They weren’t just two people working together. It was more than that. It’s hard to describe the signs of people in love, but you know it when you see it.
“Justin’s dad died that day too,” Luc says.
“What?”
“He was in palliative care at Bridgepoint Health Rehabilitation Center. Cancer. Every year Justin takes the day off and disappears.”
I sit up straight. “My aunt was a nurse. If that was the hospital she worked at, maybe that’s how they met. Were you able to find anything about that?”
“No, or I would have messaged you.”
I collapse onto a stool. “That photo we saw of them in the hospital, whichever one it was, maybe they were working together?” The words tumble out of my mouth, and I’m glad I can tell Luc some of what I know without mentioning magic.
“Working on what?”
“I don’t know yet,” I lie. “Can you find what day she died?”
Luc moves his fingers across the tablet.
I follow with my eyes. It says Auntie Elaine was found stabbed to death in an alley somewhere in Richmond Hill, an hour north of downtown Toronto. I search the screen until I find the date.
January 9, 2038.
That’s the day Justin tried to corrupt the family’s genes. The day his dad died. The day Auntie Elaine made that video. And, apparently, the day Auntie Elaine was murdered.
I swallow. “You said eleven years ago, Justin discovered genetic modification?”
“Yeah.” Luc rubs his hands over his face and sighs. “He built the first machine from scratch. Didn’t even have a manufacturer.” His voice perks up, suddenly enthusiastic. “They used to have it in the Ontario Science Center on display. He keeps it in his office now along with the first NuSap prototype.”
“Your fanboy is fully on display right now.”
I get a glare for that.
“I’m surprised he keeps the first NuSap unit—doesn’t that remind him of how it went wrong?” Those first units were so basic, like giant expensive versions of the small home units that could turn your house lights on and off. Mostly for rich people with money to burn and lonely people who took out large loans for their robotic companions, desperate for the company.
Luc’s eyes are trained on the tablet. “That’s why he keeps it. Justin is the sort of man who likes to be reminded of his failures.”
I can picture it. Justin staring at the blue-skinned NuSap prototype, fixating on that one failure, ignoring the fact that he’s the CEO of a billion-dollar mega power. “And when did Justin make this miraculous discovery?”
Luc’s enthusiasm wanes, and his voice gets quiet. “January 8, 2038.” He turns to me over his shoulder. “You think they discovered genetic modification together the day before she…?”
The day before everything went sour.
Justin needed Auntie Elaine for something, and she needed him. Together, they were supposed to solve the issue of our genetic anomaly. Maybe they were supposed to be able to help Justin’s dad, too.
Instead, Justin made the most important discovery of the century, and then his dad died and my aunt was stabbed to death and dumped in an alley.
I roll my hands into fists. I’m positive now that Justin didn’t invent genetic modification on his own.
From January 8 to January 9, something changed.
One day. That’s all it took for my smiling, happy aunt to go from helping to discover one of the world’s biggest scientific feats to being dead on the street.
It must have been his dad’s death that triggered the change, but why would that make Justin go after Auntie Elaine and the family? What was it about their deal to help each other that went wrong?
The door to the kitchen bangs open, and I jump almost fully off the stool. Granny walks into the room and raises an eyebrow at the two of us.
My eyes shift to the tablet, but Luc has cleared everything off the screen.
Granny smiles the sort of smile that makes my toes curl. A smile that conveys the opposite of what one should.
I gulp and gesture wildly at Luc. “This is Luc. He works at NuGene as an intern. We were genetically matched.”
He’s also the boy who I need to murder in cold blood if we want to keep our magic. You might also remember his sponsor father, Justin, who my aunt was somehow helping to make a huge genetic discovery. Who also genetically blackmailed the family and maybe murdered her. You know Auntie Elaine, right? The one none of you will talk about?
“Hello, Luc,” she says. “Why don’t you two go take a walk or something outside?”
Luc doesn’t need to have grown up with my grandma to pick up on the fact that she isn’t making a suggestion but a demand. Granny should be thrilled that Luc and I are spending time together. That means I’m doing my task.
But that doesn’t mean that she wants to watch it happen. She doesn’t want him in her house, near her, visible and present when she’s hoping I’ll kill him. Like watching the purity that she worked so hard for crumbling in front of her eyes.
She wants me to do that with him away from here.
A flash of irritation goes through me, and I bite down on my lip so I don’t say something that I’ll regret. I don’t even know what the words would be. Only that they would be rude and cutting.
Luc slides off the stool and gives my grandma an insincere smile of his own. “Yes, ma’am.”
Granny smiles wider. “Good.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
The Thomases aren’t a quiet family. Not normally anyway. But the house is silent as I walk with Luc out of the kitchen, into an empty foyer, and out onto the front steps. He ruffles his hair and flicks through his phone. The summer air is soft and warm. There’s fading light in the sky and joggers in the street. It smells like that undefinable sharp and sweet scent of the season that fills your nostrils and activates allergies in more than a few people.
“I ordered a ride,” Luc says, digging his hands into his pockets.
So much for that walk Granny told us to take. But I get it. Today has been a lot. Or maybe he just took her words more as a complete dismissal than the specific “get out of my house” that it was. “Container?” I ask.
“What?”
“Did you bring my container?”
He looks away from me. “Sorry, forgot.”
I’m about to tell him he may as well keep it at this point when the front door opens and Alex and Keis step out. My older cousin is still decked out in her beautiful fashion show outfit, and her eyes dart over my face and away. Keis shrugs at me.
“What?” I ask.
Alex lets out a breath. “Thought I would come say hi to your match.”
I want to shout “Why?” at her. Why would she want to come see the boy I would have to kill for her to keep her gift, to keep Eden alive? I thrust an arm out at him. “This is Luc.”
Luc does a little wave before helplessly looking at me, clearly not sure what to make of it all.
“Keis, you’ve already met. This is Alex, another one of my cousins.”
“Ah yes,” he says to Keis, “you left that lovely comment for me.”
In typical Keis fashion, she doesn’t look the least bit embarrassed about being called out for her poor rating. “I stand by it.”
“I admire the conviction.” He nods to Alex. “Nice to meet you.”
“Can I ask something kind of personal?” Alex says. She plays with the fabric of her amber cape as she looks at Luc. My entire body tenses. What is she going to ask him? “I just figured I wasn’t ever going to get a chance to ask a real person. I’ve messaged and gotten copy-and-paste statements, which isn’t the same. You’re here in the flesh, so why not?”
Luc digs his hands farther into his pockets. “You can ask if you like. I can’t promise I’ll answer.”
Alex twiddles her fingers. “Is NuGene ever going to update the genetic ID-ing convention? It’s a government system, but it’s you all that set the options. Every time I need to use my ID, I have to see a Y gene pop up and label me something that I’m not.”
I remember my cousin mentioning this before. When she was talking with Granny about gene options for transitioning. Getting your knockout/knock-in just affects the special gene that triggers those changes in the body, but it doesn’t change your sex chromosomes. They tried that, but it was too unstable. The most you can do is have your gene updated in the system. Something only NuGene can authorize.
Alex continues, “It’s not like back in the day. I’m not afraid to be trans and in the world. I feel safe to be myself. People fought for that. But I’m at dinner with my friends, and I go to pay, and my ID comes up with that Y, and the server just looks at me with this little shocked face, and it’s just…”
“… Humiliating,” Luc says. He’s ramrod stiff beside me.
“Yeah,” she says. “Being misgendered and outed constantly to people I don’t know, even if I’m safe… I figure, in your unique position, you might know about the progress of that.”
In his unique position. I’m not sure if she’s talking about the fact that Luc is Justin’s sponsor child, that he’s an intern at NuGene, or that he’s trans. It might be all three.
I open my mouth, planning to tell him he doesn’t need to answer, then close it. This isn’t a conversation I should be in. Luc has never had a problem shutting people down. If he’s not comfortable, he’ll say so.
My stomach clenches. I never knew that Alex was going through any of that. Didn’t think twice about it when we went out to eat and she treated me. My cheeks burn. Never once had I considered that things outside our family and home maybe weren’t so simple, nor did I think about how she felt about those things.
“It’s not ideal.” Luc pauses and considers the words. “No, it’s hacked.” He shakes his head. “People shouldn’t have to be misgendered, outed, humiliated, and exposed like that. I’ve said something about it, believe me. The issue is political. The board of directors at NuGene are reluctant to push options like concealing sex chromosomes because it means they’re taking a stance. If they leave things as they are, NuGene can pretend they’re just sticking to scientific fact. And Justin… He’s attached to the science. He doesn’t understand why it matters so much.” Luc jerks his shoulder in something like a shrug.
