“That's it?”
“Well, Rudy will have to sign off on it, but he already knows about the Chimera Institute, and it's been a target of his for years.”
“Right... who's Rudy?”
“Our noble leader. Come on.”
He leads me off a walkway and through the mess hall. Scarlet and Pilot are having breakfast at one of the tables.
“Hey, it's Supergirl!” Scarlet grins, looking much more comfortable in a tank top and cargo pants. “Good to see you again.”
“I have a name,” I say pointedly. “It's Ashe.”
“Yeah, we know. Nick won't stop talking about you.”
Nick's cheeks redden. “It's been like, ten hours! I've mentioned her maybe like, twice. In passing.”
“You were talking about her after she first stole the package,” Pilot spits, his mouth full of porridge. “It was a bit weird, actually.”
“Yeah, well... please shut up.” He scratches the back of his neck, avoiding my gaze, and points to a corridor a little further on. I try to hide my smile. “It's this way.”
We come to a study, a proper one, lined with books and filled with maps and papers. There's a lot of tech around too, which jars slightly with the smell of dust and paper. A huge table dominates most of the room, loaded with a full-scale hologram of Luca. This is expensive tech– I've not seen anything like it since I left the Institute.
Standing in front of the hologram is a man so large, so impressive, that my immediate thought is that he would stand a good chance in a fight against me. He is the human version of a tank; solid, muscular, heavy. He's dark, with close-cropped curls, and a prosthetic arm that far from being an exploitable weakness, looks more like he has a weapon attached to his shoulder. It's metal and completely flexible. Where on earth did he get it?
He glances up sharply as we enter and switches off the hologram. “Nick?” he says shortly.
“Brought you a new recruit, Captain. This is Ashe.” He looks at me, as if asking for permission to share my history. I was expecting this, and I nod. “She's a chimera.”
Rudy straightens up, coming forward to inspect me. He folds his arms. “Are you, now?” His voice is cool and measured, and gives nothing away. “I've only met one chimera before, and she didn't stay long enough for me to ask many questions. She wasn't too keen on sticking around. You are?”
“I've been here for five years,” I say. “Haven't been scared off so far.”
He smirks, but there's no warmth there. “Haven't come forward so far, either. What's changed?”
“My outlook.”
“Is that so?” Rudy surveys me carefully. His gaze is like stone.
“She won't be staying with us,” Nick adds. “She has a family.”
“A family, you say? More like you?”
“Yes.”
“Do they not share your change in outlook?”
“They encouraged me,” I say, “but they're... a little young or otherwise... unable.”
I don't like describing Mi that way, but I don't want to explain him in any more detail right now. Having one of us exposed is enough.
“Unable?” Rudy tilts his head. “Never met anyone unable before.”
I glance across at Nick, hoping he will say something. “So... what would you like me to do with her?” he offers.
Rudy shrugs. “Take her to Harris. Give her an ID. Level one, of course. Then have Julia assess her. Let's find out what she can really do.”
Nick looks back at me, just as perplexed. “OK,” he says, “we'll get on that.”
We head out, Nick quietly closing the door behind us.
“That was...” he starts.
“Intense?”
“Incredibly. He can be like that at times. His job is to distrust everyone until proven otherwise. I should have warned you.”
“I'm naturally distrustful myself. I get it.” I shrug, trying to loosen the weight of Rudy's glare from my shoulders. “So... who's Harris?”
Chapter 12
Harris is the resident tech expert. He lives in his lab in a corner of the compound– actually lives there. He has a bed set up at one end and a kitchenette in the corner. That part of the room is dotted with stale coffee cups and breadcrumbs, and the rest is a mess of wires, screens, wheels, motherboards, motors and bits of metal. The only thing that's spotless is the floor, likely because Harris is in a wheelchair and wouldn't be able to move if his messiness erupted onto the floor as well.
Harris reminds me of electricity. He speaks rapidly, his blond hair sticks out at all angles, and his fingers are constantly moving. His legs are twig-like, but his arms are trunks, covered with scorch marks and scratches. Unlike Rudy, he's incredibly excited to meet me, at least... I think he is. He gets through about twelve sentences before my ears adjust to his speed.
“So, level one?” he repeats.
“I'm sorry, what now?”
He grins. “Level one access. Standard for newcomers. Will get you in at the gates and communal areas. You'll need someone above you to get anywhere else.”
“Sure.”
He whizzes over to a computer and starts punching stuff in. “What's the name?”
“Ashe. With an E.”
“Gotta surname that goes along with that?”
“Um...”
Here in the slums, surnames are not essential. Everything is so informal and undocumented that I've never really been asked for one. The one name has always suited me just fine.
“Not really, no.”
“Another orphan, eh? Don't worry, we get a lot. Do you want to pick one?”
“I don't know. Surprise me.”
He finishes inputting information into the computer and attaches something it; the card-maker, I assume. Then he pulls it out and comes racing back to my side. I'm not paying much attention; there's so much in this room to look at. Is that a mechanical arm on the table over there? One of Rudy's?
“Hold out your arm.”
I hold it out, expecting him to hand me a card. Instead, I feel a sharp pain in my wrist and glance down to see the thin shaft of a needle sitting in my flesh. Panic splits through me and my limbs go everywhere at once. Things clatter to the floor. Harris skids to the back of his lab.
“Hey, hey!” Harris' eyes are wide. “I'm sorry, I didn't mean to–”
Nick stands between the two of us, but hovers closer to me. “Ashe has a thing about needles,” he explains. “I'm sorry. I should have warned you–”
I stare down at my arm. There's nothing there now, not even a mark, but for a second I was back in the Institute, being pinned down, poked and prodded again and again. My breath uncoils in my chest.
“I'm all right,” I tell Nick, waving his hand away. I don't want to look at Harris. I chew my next words. “Sorry for pushing you.”
“Yeah,” he says, his eyes still wide, “I probably should warn people before I stick 'em with needles. Lesson learned.”
“I thought you were giving me an ID card.”
“Those get lost,” he says. “That won't. ID chip.”
Like the ones they have in Luca, I realise. To get anywhere in the city, you need an ID chip. They're worth a small fortune on the black market. Something tells me this one couldn't take me in through the gate, not that I have any desire to go to that mechanical metropolis.
There's a knock at the door, and Julia arrives with a steaming mug. “Delivery!” she announces, beaming at Harris. Her eyes then fall to me. “Ashe.”
“Hey. I'm back. Think I might have broken your technician though.”
“Who? Harris? He's still mostly upright.”
“Thanks, Jules.” He wheels forward and takes the mug from her hands, then glides to the back of his lab to hide all the other cups, not particularly successfully. “You've already met our newest recruit then?”
“We met yesterday.”
“Did she almost attack you, too?”
“That is my speciality.” I turn to Julia. “Rudy says I'm to c
ome to you for assessment. You can take my blood pressure, listen to my heart, ask me any questions you like, even x-ray me if you want, but you are not to stick any needles in me, are we clear? I've had enough of that.”
Julia nods. “That's more than fair. Would you come back to the clinic?”
I'm only too happy at the moment to get away from Harris, ashamed of how I reacted. I mumble a goodbye and follow Julia out.
Back in the lab, she completes all the usual tests. She is most pleased. She asks me how fast I can run, how much weight I can carry, how long I can hold my breath underwater, what my senses are like, what my range is for each.
Nick, who has not yet found anything else to do, is very impressed. “Really? You can hear everything in a marketplace?”
“More or less, if I concentrate.”
“How do you not go insane?”
“I'm pretty resilient.”
The truth is, we had to learn, because if we hadn't... well, the end result was a bullet, not insanity. That's what happened to Moona.
“And you can jump several stories without breaking anything?”
“Yup.”
“How long would it take for a broken bone to heal?”
I haven't broken anything for years because I'm fairly indestructible, but I do know the answer. They used to test us. “Depends on the bone,” I tell him. “Fingers or toes, about twenty-four hours. Femurs or bigger breaks maybe a week until we're fully up and running again.”
Julia pales, perhaps realising just how I would know this.“Are your family like you?” she asks. “Do they have any additional abilities?”
“Abi is a human computer,” I tell her. “And she's not as strong or fast as the rest of us. Mi is synaesthetic. Ben doesn't have anything unusual about him that we know of, but he was three when he got out and hasn't been fully tested.”
“I see,” Julia swallows. “It's just the four of you?”
Gabe's face flashes before me, but I manage a nod. “So... are we good here?” I ask her. “All cleared for duty?”
“Yes, quite!” She pushes her glasses up her nose and turns back to her computer. “It was good to see you again."
I look at Nick. “What now?”
“I guess I walk you to the exit,” he says, “and then we'll call you when we've got a mission.”
“How will you contact me?”
He reaches into his pocket and tosses a small communication device in my direction. I've used more advanced ones in training, and I know the Phoenix tech is better than this, but I guess they don't want to flaunt it to outsiders. Ones like this aren't uncommon in the slums.
“Keep it on you at all times,” he suggests. “Come. I'll take you to the exit.”
We don't go to the hangar. Instead, we head to a different part of the compound, another series of tunnels that require Nick's no-doubt high-level access ID. How deep and how far does this place go?
“OK, your headquarters are a little impressive, I admit,” I tell him, as we walk along the dimly-lit tunnel. “Can you come over to our place and fix the lift? Or give us hot water? I would kill for hot water.”
Nick chuckles. “There's showers in the dorms if you ever want to use them.”
“I'll be back tomorrow.”
Nick mutters something so incomprehensible and so quiet that even my super hearing can't make it out. We walk on further into the dark.
“Can I ask you a question?” he asks.
“You haven't stopped so far.”
“Why Ashe with an E?”
No one has ever asked me this before, and it's funny that of all the questions he could have picked, this is the one he chose. “What?” I say, half-dumbstruck.
“You chose your own name, right? Why spell it with an E?”
“Because no one could tell me not to,” I explain. “My second act of rebellion. Plus, I liked it. Made it more mine... made me more me.”
Nick smiles. “For the record, I like it. Not that it matters.”
It shouldn't matter, but I like him liking it. I should probably tell him this, but by the time it occurs to me to thank him, the moment has slipped away.
“We're here,” Nick gestures to a ladder above us. We emerge in the basement of an abandoned building, not far from the market. I can hear the sounds of it permeating the stone.
“Got a lot of these concealed entrances?”
“A few. I'll let you know about them one day.”
I tap my device and smile at him. “Call me.”
Chapter 13
“So, I've joined the Phoenix Project, told at least three people about our background, and placed all of our lives in jeopardy,” I announce over the dinner table. “Are you all happy?”
Mi and Abi both start clapping. Ben needs reminding about what the Phoenix Project is, but then quickly follows suit.
“Ashe is going to be a superhero!” he squeals.
“Not quite, buddy.”
“Are you going to help people?”
“That's the plan, but–”
“That's what heroes do!” He gets up off his seat and launches himself at me. “And you're already super, so–”
Oh, this boy. Just five little words from him and already I'm turning to goo. I clutch him to me, trying to stall time. If I hold him fiercely enough, he'll never grow up. He'll remain this sweet forever.
“You are adorable, child,” I say, releasing him from my grip. “Don't ever change.”
“I won't,” Ben promises, completely unaware that he has absolutely no choice in the matter and that change is inevitable. He skips off to his room to get ready for bed. Abi and I clear the plates wordlessly, while Mi wipes down the table. The rest of the evening ticks by. Ben reads to me, Abi sketches, Mi goes up the roof to tend to his herbs. He doesn't come back down until the other two are in bed. He's been pulling on his hair; a nervous habit. He's not as still as he usually is when he sits down beside me.
“So, when do I sign up?” he asks.
“For what?”
“I want to join the Phoenix Project, of course.”
“You?” Abi had expressed an interest, but I'd ignored it. She's too young to be putting her life on the line.
“You said they have a doctor,” Mi continues, “a real doctor. I want to ask if she'll train me.”
I have never, ever asked Mi what he really wanted to be, if he could be anything. We've never had much of a choice. But of course Mi wants to be a doctor. He'd be perfect.
Then I think about Rudy, asking if my family shared my outlook. Does that mean that he'd welcome them? He was clearly suspicious of me. Does it look worse, showing up on day two with new recruits?
“Mi...” I start carefully.
“Don't.”
“Don't... what?”
“Whatever you're going to say about it not being safe, or someone needs to be here for the kids, or whatever excuse you're going to come up with. I don't want to hear it.”
Mi's knuckles are white, his fingers pulled into fists. He does not sound like himself. He sounds... he sounds like Gabe, coiled up with rage.
“I wasn't–”
“You don't see it! You haven't seen it! But all this time we've been here, all these years, I've heard every cry and every scream of every person you told us we couldn't help! And I know you've had this sudden change of heart, which is great for you but not for me!”
“Mi–”
“I need to do something! I need to make up for...”
“For what? You haven't done a thing wrong in your life!”
“Not a thing wrong?” Mi laughs hollowly. “I killed my brother.”
Not that, not this. Anything but this. How long has Mi felt this way? Why didn't he tell me? Is this why... is this why we never speak of him?
“No, oh no, Michael... it wasn't your fault. It wasn't anyone's fault.”
“It doesn't matter. It was because of me, don't you see?”
“Or me,” I whisper, my throat tight. “I could have been t
he one to cause the distraction. If I'd thought of it, like a leader–”
“We needed you more. Gabe knew that. But me... I was expendable.”
I am not going to cry in front of him. I'm not. I manage to keep the tears back, but my fist is another matter. It hits Mi so fiercely that it knocks him straight to the floor. I stand over him, holding myself back.
“You are not expendable to me,” I hiss. “I love you. We love you! You must know that?”
Mi sits up, clutching his jaw. “I know, of course I know that! And I love you too, to pieces. But not like you loved Gabe. You would have been happier, if he'd have lived, and I had died instead.”
I don't know if I believe this. Life without Mi? Unthinkable. I've never lost myself in that “what if?” I think what he's trying to say is that I wouldn't be so closed-off, that I might be... less empty, had that particular piece of me not been torn away. But I don't want to imagine life without Mi.
“I'm not sure if that's true,” I say quietly, “but I truly, honestly, genuinely believe... that this world is a better place for having you in it.”
Gabe was too much like me. Too suspicious, distrustful, too quick to anger. The world does not need more of me.
I sink to the floor beside Mi, flexing my hand. He leans out to take it, massaging the fist that punched him mere moments ago.
“Then let me help it,” Mi begs. “Let me make something worthwhile come of my brother's sacrifice.”
“All right,” I concede. “Just... just give me a few days to get a feel of the place first. The leader doesn't like me much.”
Mi groans. “What did you do?”
“Nothing! For once!”
He does not look particularly convinced. “You aren't just trying to buy time are you? To find another excuse to keep me away?”
“No. I promise you. No more excuses.”
“What... what changed your mind, in the end?” he asks.
He's smiling now, which makes my stomach clench. He's not heard the news. I had forgotten to mention it.
I take a deep breath, and tell him about Doctor Herb.
Chapter 14
Two days later, I decide to bite the bullet and go and see Abe for another job. I don't want him getting suspicious about the warehouse incident. My absence will speak louder than my presence.
The Phoenix Project: Book I: Flight Page 6
