Anderson got up out of his chair and walked a few steps away. He shook his leg, and I remembered how it had sort of dragged as he walked into the classroom the other day. He paced back and forth and then turned to us.
“Something’s different. Something’s definitely different.” He sounded excited. Hopeful. “Look, I can still…feel it. In there. Still hear the hum of it. But other stuff is different.”
“I think the tick is gone,” Elle whispered.
“There’s no way to be sure, not until they give me a command. But I think this might actually have worked.”
Elle was beaming. I was very concerned that there might be crying.
“Listen, you guys, you should know something.”
Here it comes, the big ‘I was being used’ apology thing.
“When you’re a lab rat, they see you as a lab rat. These guys talk in front of me all the time, like I’m not even there.
I guess they figure it doesn’t matter, who am I gonna talk to, right? So look, the guy who did this to me, Dr. Piers, he’s here. At least, he was supposed to arrive tonight. They’re not happy with the results of the first round of experiments here, so they’ve flown Piers in from Delta Facility to perform the next round of implantations himself. I heard they were moving the surgeries up to Friday.”
“As in the day after tomorrow?”
“Right. He’s giving himself a day to look over subjects, then he’s planning all the surgeries for Friday, and he’s flying out again on Friday night.”
Elle clutched at me. “We have to do something.”
I didn’t know what to say.
She turned back to Anderson. “We’ll come up with something. If there’s a part for you to play, will you help us?”
“If I’m not under NIAC control anymore, I’m going to owe you, bigtime. And even if I didn’t I wouldn’t mind getting a chance to get in the way of Piers’ success. If I can do it, count me in.”
“I guess we’ll have to wait until tomorrow to see how well this worked.”
“I guess so. See you in class, Ethan.”
As much as I was clear on the whole Talents vs. NIAC
thing, it was still hard not to be uneasy at the thought of possibly having helped someone like Anderson out of his cage. I hoped we didn’t regret it.
Outside we waited in the shadows for the break in the surveillance loop that would allow us to cross back to our own building with the least chance of being spotted. Elle’s back was pressed to the wall and I was using my own bulk to try to shield her from any possible view. It seemed like she was glowing. She wasn’t. But she was wired, practically bouncing and humming with excitement.
“I can’t believe it! I mean, Angie said I should be able to, she explained it really clearly and it made sense, but I didn’t really think I could, you know?”
I almost reminded her that we didn’t actually know if it worked or not, but I looked into her sparkling green eyes and couldn’t bring myself to be that much of a heel. So I just smiled at her and glanced around at the guard towers again.
“Ethan.” She tugged at my jacket and I looked down at her. She looked very serious all of a sudden. It kind of made it hard to breathe. “You didn’t have to do this for me tonight, and now I get what a big risk you’ve been taking.”
“I don’t know why I told you that. Forget about it.”
“No, I won’t. Thank you.” She reached up and curled her hand around my neck. I followed her lead, bending toward her as she rose on her toes. Her lips brushed my cheek, and then she started to ease back from me again. But she stopped.
We stood there for a moment, me bent awkwardly at the waist, she on her toes, holding herself up with her grip on my neck, our lips inches apart, both of us barely breathing.
“Elle?”
“Yeah?” She was so close that when she whispered back to me it was like I could feel her words against my lips.
“I think I’m gonna have to kiss you.”
“Do what you gotta do.”
I let myself sink those last few inches until my mouth touched hers. God it was soft. My heart was hammering hard against my chest, and I told myself just one more second and then I’d step back from her. Just one more, because I couldn’t believe that anything could feel this good. But we weren’t safe and we had to get back. Then she sighed my name and I felt her fingers in my hair and I forgot all about everything else. There was just Elle and the feel of her body in my arms, her mouth moving against mine, the taste of her, her scent.
When we finally came up for air, I had no idea how much time had passed. We were both breathing heavily. My lips tingled and I ached to go on kissing her.
“Don’t look at me like that. I’ve got to start over watching this loop.”
“Like what?”
“You know like what.” I was trying not to look at her, but I couldn’t help stealing glances. She looked happy, beautiful, mischievous, and enchanting. And her eyes kept moving to my lips with this wolfish look that was driving me crazy. As evidenced by the fact that I thought, if it could be just me risking it, I thought I’d brave Everlast just to go on kissing her.
“I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She pulled herself up on her toes and kissed my neck. I was not going to give her the satisfaction or encouragement of groaning about it, though I wanted to.
“You’re going to be the death of me.”
* * *
Every time Elle looked at me, which seemed like a lot more than usual, I felt color creep up the back of my neck. I was sure this must be obvious to everyone.
If it makes you feel any better, not to anyone but me.
Thanks.
Not that I know why I should make you feel any better.
Do you have any idea how exhausted I am? Do you have any idea how long that girl stayed awake last night thinking at the top of her brain waves about what an awesome kisser you are?
She said that?
Karen subtly flipped me off and I grinned.
Neither of you is focused on this plan at all.
She meant the plan we had come up with over breakfast. A plan which I didn’t really want to focus on because a) it was dangerous and it sucked, b) it relied way too much on Anderson which was dangerous and sucked, and c) it might not really help anything and for as dangerous as it was, that really sucked. So excuse me for wanting to spend my time thinking about kissing Elle which was probably also dangerous, but totally did not suck. And it seemed like it didn’t suck for her either.
Commence idiot grin, Karen thought. At least try to cover that or something.
The guard came in, followed by the instructor and Anderson. I noticed right away that he was back to shuffling when he walked. I studied him carefully as the instructor started in on us, and saw that the tick was back as well. Then the next round of defense exercises started.
Anderson thinks it worked!
He “thinks” so?
It worked. That’s what he believes, Karen clarified.
He’s thinking that he can still hear their orders, but he’s not compelled to obey them.
And the tick? The way he’s walking?
He doesn’t want to let on that anything’s different.
Huh. That’s smart, I guess. Well that’s great. Bet Elle’s happy.
She’s gone completely non-verbal. There’s a lot of making out with you imagery I really don’t need. I had no idea it would get so messy when you guys finally got together.
You say that like you thought it would happen.
Well yeah. You’ve both liked each other for, like, ever.
Wait, you knew she liked me? And you didn’t tell me?
What kind of friend would I be if I did that?
Um…helpful?
Totally caught off guard, I found myself jerked up out of my chair. It took me a second to realize that there was no one there. At the front of the classroom, Anderson was smiling at me. And then I wanted to get up on my desk, scratch my armp
its, and make monkey noises. Really, really badly. I shook my head at him. This was so not even funny.
I found I couldn’t sit back down. I took hold of the back of my chair.
He’s thinking you’re a big ape, Karen thought to me,
and Elle should see you as you really are. But you’re okay, just focus. Concentrate.
I was trying to concentrate, but resisting him made it feel like he was ripping into my brain. I broke out in a sweat, my heart rate sped up, and then it was like I could feel the blood moving under my skin.
Karen, he’s trying to make me shift.
He can’t do that, Ethan. Her mental voice was calm, sure. That’s your Talent. You’re in control of that. You’re always in control of that.
But I wasn’t sure that was true. I could see it now, the image of the ape in my head, the same way I’d see a form I wanted to morph to. Only I couldn’t do animal forms. But I could feel my body gathering itself, preparing itself to change.
“All right, Anderson, let Ethan go.”
And just like that it stopped and I was released so suddenly that I dropped to one knee before I could catch myself. I climbed back into my chair, panting, exhausted, sore, and glared at Anderson.
He shrugged.
* * *
“Are you sure you’re okay to go on?” I whispered to Karen.
She jabbed her elbow into my ribs. Which hurt. “I’m fine, okay? Stop hovering. I’m not a marshmallow.”
Here we were, here we all were, out again, lined up along the outer wall of the mess, waiting for the break in the surveillance loop to make the dash to the next building.
Waiting this part with Elle had been a lot more pleasant.
“Maybe you should keep your mind on the task at hand?”
“Maybe I’m trying to keep my mind off how many times I’ve been talked into running around after lights out this week and how my luck can’t possibly hold. We’ve got way too many people along for this. We should have come up with a simpler plan. You should go back. Rand, you should take your sister back to the dorms right now. We can get by without you.”
“No way. Chaz was my friend. Mine and Craig’s. And those kids who’re supposed to go under the knife tomorrow are our friends too. We’re doing this.”
I looked down the line of us to Craig, the Intermediate pathfinder who was going to lead us through the max security building. We’d heard it was supposed to be a labyrinth. He was looking pale, nervous, and had the saucer-eye thing going, but he nodded at me.
“Anyway,” Karen said, “we don’t know all obstacles, and you never know what Talents are going to come in handy. If nothing else, I can hear people coming by their thoughts. Since we’re not in disguise, maybe what we don’t need is a shapeshifter. You could go back.”
“Oh for Pete’s—”
I sensed a presence before I even saw the gun, and by then I was already reacting, knocking the barrel aside, out of the guard’s grip so that it spun away on the strap he wore.
The heel of my hand smacked up into his nose, I drove my other fist into his gut, doubling him over, and then brought my fist down like a club on the back of neck. He was facedown in the grass before I even started to think.
“Holy shit!” Rand squeaked.
“Watch your mouth,” Karen hissed. “Jesus, where did he come from?”
“What was that you were saying about hearing them coming?” I snapped at her, shaking out my throbbing hands and trying to get my heart rate to slow. I felt like I was going to be sick and made a show of checking the guard so I’d have an excuse to get closer to the ground. “He’s seen us.”
“He saw something, maybe. He didn’t know what, so he didn’t raise an alarm, he came to check it out first?” Elle said.
“When he came around the corner, he saw us. He probably won’t be able to identify all of us, but… What are we going to do?” Rand looked as seriously worried and scared as I felt. I didn’t know what to do. I guess if I’d let myself think about it, I would have realized something like this might happen. Rand was right, if he could identify us, we couldn’t let him make a report.
The guard started to stir and I got ready to knock him out again, to give us more time to think. It was Anderson who grabbed my arm. “Let me handle this part. Help me sit him up.”
Anderson and I dragged the guard up and sat him against the wall. Anderson knelt over him and took the guard’s head in his hands. For a moment, I expected to hear the guard’s neck crack, but after a few seconds Anderson just let him go and stood up. The guard fell sideways and started to crawl away from us. Rand lunged forward, but Anderson stopped him.
“Don’t,” he whispered. “He’s just going to crawl back to the barracks, have a drink, and go to bed. He’s not going to remember anything about tonight except that drinking on the job makes him really clumsy.”
“Are you sure about that?” I asked him.
Anderson glared at me. “I’m sure. Anyway,” he said, shrugging, “he thought he saw something, so when he approached, he had his mental defenses up. He was blocking his thoughts, that’s why you didn’t hear him coming, Karen.
They do train these guys you know. Just apparently not enough to overcome Mr. Fists of Death over here. I’ll remember not to try to sneak up on you.”
“Yeah, you do that,” I said. “There’s our break. Get going.”
Accessing the building we needed wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. We had been able to use Rand’s jumping ability to reposition some of the cameras, and Elle had been able to manipulate some of the locks. Ideally, we hoped to get through this without leaving any definitive evidence that Talents had passed this way. Even if they couldn’t pin anything on us in particular, there was always the chance that NIAC would punish any number of kids if a security breach was discovered.
“I can’t get this one, I’m sorry,” Elle said, shaking her head at the keypad by the door.
“It’s all right, you tried,” I told her. “What happens if I smash it?”
“Sirens, flashing lights, guys with guns, I presume.”
“Great.”
“Someone’s coming,” Karen warned. Elle and I backed off and ducked into hiding with the others. A man in a lab coat came from the other direction and entered a series of numbers into the keypad. A buzzer sounded and a green light came on as the lock clicked open. The man opened the door, went through, and shut it behind him. The light went back to red.
Karen rattled off a series of numbers. “That’s what he was thinking at the door.”
“Don’t look so smug,” I told her. “It doesn’t suit you.”
“I think it doesn’t suit you,” she grinned.
“I can’t believe this place,” Anderson almost sounded like he was complaining. “At Delta it’s all thumbprints and retina scans…”
“Bite your tongue,” Elle hissed at him.
“I’d rather bite yours.”
“Hey—”
“Children,” Karen interrupted us, “Can we do this before I forget these numbers, please?”
“This must be the labyrinth,” Elle said once we’d all come through the door. We were in a narrow, grey corridor, and whichever way we looked, the hallways looked exactly the same.
“I’m up,” Craig said, taking point and starting confidently down the hall. He turned this way and that, without hesitation, even though he had never been here before, and even though all the many branching hallways looked exactly the same to me, with only slight variation in the number of doors before the next branching corridor or turn. At first I tried to keep track of it, counted doors, steps, left and right turns. But it didn’t take long before my brain just dumped and I was left blindly following with no idea how to get out again if I had to.
Calm down, Ethan. You’re really letting this stress you out.
Hell yeah, I’m stressed out. I’d be an idiot not to be stressed out about this.
You’d be an idiot not to be concerned, yeah. Okay, okay, wor
ried, et cetera, whatever. You need to slow your heart rate. You don’t feel in control of the situation and that’s causing you to feel frustrated, anxious. You know that’s not good.
Yeah, yeah, okay. I tried to calm down like Karen wanted me to. She was right, I needed to keep a clear head.
I’d never thought of myself as claustrophobic before, but maybe I was.
“This is it.” Craig had stopped in front of a door that looked like every other door we’d passed in every other hallway.
“How do you know?” I asked him.
He gave me a look. “I know.”
Karen confirmed, “He’s right. Someone in there is thinking about the surgeries. He’s alone.”
“Anyone else around?” I asked.
“No,” she answered. “These other rooms are empty.”
“That makes it easier.”
I snapped a kick at the door and we all rushed in. Dr.
Piers jumped up from his chair and started to move for a panel on the wall but Rand sailed across the room in one of his impossible martial arts moves and kicked him in the chest. The doctor was thrown back against the wall, clutching his shirt front.
“You’d better hope that didn’t break anything,” I told Rand.
He shrugged. “Maybe Elle can fix it. He murdered Chaz.”
I didn’t really have an argument for that. I noticed that Elle had just repaired the door and was pushing it gently closed while Karen seemed to be listening intently beside it.
Craig shuffled his feet nervously.
Piers, still clutching his chest, stood up. “Anderson,” he rasped, “you’ve come to see me. And you’ve brought friends. Never really thought of you as the type to make friends.”
“You never thought of me as anything but a lab rat.”
“That’s not true. I think of you as a tremendous achievement. You were my first success. You’re just the kind of Ability-Affected person people are afraid of, putting thoughts into people’s heads, making them do anything you want.”
“The way you do.”
Piers smiled. “I guess you’d see a certain irony in that.