That seemed to please Number One, and Dimitri had no doubt that if he looked over his shoulder, he would see seven identical expressions on Dave's other seven parts.
"We were very young when we volunteered for the enhancement program," Number One said. "The oldest among us was twenty-one. The youngest was seventeen. We have been raised in the Brotherhood's war camp from the age of thirteen."
"You were barely adults," Dimitri said.
"By human standards, yes. Immortals are considered adults at seventeen, but since we live practically forever if we don't get killed, we were babies. Still, in the Brotherhood, a seventeen-year-old is a warrior ready for battle, old enough to fight, old enough to kill, and old enough to volunteer for an experimental program that hadn't been properly explained to him."
"Why did you volunteer?"
"Because we were told it was a great honor and only the best were selected. Because we were told it would make us powerful beyond imagining. And because we had nothing else." Number One's voice was even, factual, but Dimitri could sense the resentment underneath the words. "We were selected specifically because we were young, and our minds were still pliable. We were easier to reshape."
"Selected by whom?"
"Dr.Zhao. He reviewed the candidates. He chose those who were stronger, more resilient, and fairly intelligent. Lord Navuh wanted smart killing machines."
Dimitri felt his stomach tighten. Zhao had been dead by the time he and Petrov had arrived on the island, but his legacy was everywhere. It was in the drug formulas they'd had to fix, and in the eight males walking beside him and behind him whose individual identities had been erased, either purposely or as an unexpected side effect.
"Where did you grow up?" he asked. "I mean, before the training camp?"
"We were raised by our mothers in the Dormant enclosure until the age of thirteen."
Dimitri frowned. "What's the Dormant enclosure?"
Number One looked at him with that characteristic expression of calm attentiveness. "You don't know about the Dormants?"
"I know what you've explained to me. You said that all immortals are born human and are induced at thirteen."
"That's true for the male Dormants. Female Dormants are women who carry immortal genes and are the only ones who can produce immortal offspring. Without dormant mothers, the Brotherhood cannot create new warriors."
A chill ran down Dimitri's back, even though the shirt was sticking to it because of how hot and humid it was.
"So, they're kept on the island specifically for breeding?"
"Yes."
The word hung in the warm night air. Dimitri waited for Number One to elaborate, to soften it, to provide context that would make it less terrible than it sounded.
He didn't.
"Female Dormants cannot transition into immortality," Number One continued. "They carry the genes, but they lack the ability to activate them. They are human in every way except for their genetic potential."
"Can't transition, or aren't allowed to?"
Number One turned his head toward him, and in the starlight, Dimitri thought he saw something flicker across his face, a micro-expression that came and went too fast to identify. "Cannot. Females are supposedly inferior to males, and that's why the God Mortdh did not give them the gift of immortality. Their purpose is to produce male warriors for his army."
The slight tone of derision in Number One's voice implied that he didn't believe that, but he didn't elaborate, and Dimitri filed the observation away for later.
"And the boys are ready to become warriors at thirteen?" Dimitri asked.
"That is when the boys are ready to become immortal. That's why they are taken from their mothers at thirteen, brought to the training camp, and inducted into immortality. As I explained before, it is done through a venom bite administered by older immortals."
"What happens to the girls?" Dimitri asked. "I'm sure that not only boys are born to those poor dormant women."
"The girls stay in the Dormant enclosure, grow up, and continue their mothers' sacred task."
"Sacred task," Dimitri repeated the phrase with a bitterness he couldn't and didn't want to suppress. "You mean they become breeding stock as well."
Number One nodded.
