* * *
“Did I mention what a bad idea this is?” I reached up and adjusted the tag in the neck of uniform shirt I was wearing. It was itching my neck.
“Only five or six times,” said Elle, who was walking beside me along the quiet, dimly lit corridor.
On her other side, Karen grunted irritably. “But you’ve been thinking it non-stop. At this point I think I’d prefer your daydreams about—”
“Hey now,” I interrupted on cue. Karen wasn’t really about to out me in front of Elle, she just wanted to annoy me. But what did she expect? That I would be thrilled when the two of them snuck out of the Girls’ Dorm and came looking for me, bearing the dirty laundry of NIAC personnel? I’d said it then and I’d say it again, sneaking around trying to find information about the story Rand had told us was a bad idea.
“Please,” Karen drawled, “don’t say it again.”
“Just keep your nose in your clipboard and look officious.”
“Is that even a word?” Elle asked.
“It is,” I told her. Sure, I liked hanging out and joking with my friends, but with Karen wearing the white lab coat of a NIAC researcher or technician, me disguised as a guard, Elle walking between us as the subject under study, the three of us so where we were not supposed to be, and lighthearted banter was not where my head was.
“This is it,” Karen said, stopping in front of a door. She looked around. “No cameras, and I don’t hear anyone nearby.”
“That’s good, because if anyone hears this, we’re gonna have some explaining to do.” The form I had taken was one of the guards I was saw fairly often, a guy pretty close to my own size and muscle mass. Unfortunately, the girls had brought me a uniform, but no boots and all I had were my sneakers. They were black and would probably pass if anyone stopped us, but for this, it was gonna hurt. “Stand back.” I snapped a kick at the lock. Son of a… Had to kick it twice before the door swung inward. We hurried in.
Elle wrapped her hands around the busted lock and closed her eyes. When she pulled them away the door looked good as new. She shut the door and locked us in. I let myself morph back to my real form with a sigh of relief.
“Ethan, these file cabinets are locked.”
“Of course they are.” I broke those locks and we commenced rifling. “I got some more out of Rand before I finally got him to sleep. His friend in the Intermediates told him that they took five kids almost two weeks ago. They came back a week ago with their heads shaved, bandages on their scalps, and acting strange. Over the last week, two of them, his friend Chaz and some other kid, collapsed with seizures and died. Now they’ve notified five more kids in the Section that they’ve been selected for a special project. It’s supposed to start Monday.”
“That’s pretty much what I got out of his head earlier—except it was a lot messier than your version,” Karen confirmed.
“Anderson’s got something to do with it.” Elle got our attention with that one. She was sitting on the desk with a file labeled Confidential. “What happened to Rand’s friend is a later phase in an experiment that started at Everlast. The round of…procedures—the surgeries they did two weeks ago—the results haven’t been what they expected. So they’ve flown Anderson in, as a successful test subject, so the doctors involved can study him before the next round.”
“Test subject for what? What kind of surgeries?”
“They’re doing brain implants. Computer chips. For mind control.”
We all let that sink in for a moment. It made sense. Who would these paranoid monsters want to control more than a Talent who had the power to control them?
“It does make sense.” Karen said. “It felt like there was something really wrong with that Anderson guy—”
“You’re telling me,” Elle growled in a dry tone.
“More than just being a creep, though. I wasn’t sure how to describe it, but it was like…not all his thoughts were his own. Now the one about you—that was all him, all horny guy with no respect. That was about showing off. Getting away with something like that—approved by an instructor even—that’s one of the few shows of power he’s capable of. And power’s important to him because he feels powerless. He feels…leashed.”
“You sound like an empath.”
“I’m just trying to put clearer words to it. His thought is kind of non-verbal a lot of the time.”
“Ok, whatever,” I ground out. I didn’t want to talk about this guy, let alone hear about his feelings or how his evil little mind worked. I still wanted to pound him into the ground. “Anything else in those files, Elle?”
“Yeah, but I don’t even know what I’m reading.” She looked at Karen. “We’re going to have to take this back to Angeline.”
“No,” I said, “no, no, no. I don’t care if she does understand everything she reads, we’re not stealing files.”
“Well, I guess we could always bring Angeline down here,” Karen pondered. “We’d probably need two ‘guards’ to pull that off. Think you get another one of the guys to help out?”
“You want to sneak five people around the restricted zone after lights out?”
“He’s kinda cute when he’s about to explode. Don’t you think he’s kinda cute, Elle?”
“Give him a break. Look, Ethan, I understand your concern—”
“Oh, I’m real glad to hear that.”
“—but kids are dying. Little kids. Are dead. These,” she held up the files, “are definite plans for hacking into more little kids’ heads and cutting into their brains, making them into slaves of—“
“Okay, okay. Get off your moral high-horse before you crack your head. I get it. But I get to sit next to you on the bus ride to Everlast.”
I couldn’t believe I just said that. I felt my cheeks get hot. Elle blushed. Behind a file folder, Karen rolled her eyes at me.
“Get what you’re getting and let’s get out of here,” I snapped.