“As I mentioned, it’s highly unlikely that Mark will—”
“Oh, Mark’s the one I’m worried about. The guy did hit Alan awfully hard, after all.”
Their voices faded as they entered the house. I swallowed, then took a step forward, the deck creaking beneath my boots as I made my way toward Dr. Hale.
She turned slightly as I approached, her profile as recognizable as it had been when I had jumped through the window. Which had been surprising. I had never really seen her face before, not without that mask, but there was no denying who she was, not now that the memories attached to her were finally uncovered.
I stopped a few feet behind her.
“It’s strange,” Dr. Hale said. “But Leonard had never given much thought to his own abilities. Using his blood to trigger people’s powers for just a few seconds? To my husband, that was almost cruel. Showing them what could have been and then taking it away.” She paused. “Of course, our goal was to make the process permanent.”
Not that it made it any less cruel…
“Well,” I replied, throat tight. “I guess you succeeded.”
She smiled slightly. “In a way. As you witnessed, the results were overall damaging. Most subjects with powers of any significance died, either after the injection was first administered or through continued use of powers.”
“That’s what the testing was for.” I blinked as it dawned on me. “You were waiting for us to die?”
“I could argue that we were really waiting for someone to live, but the results were undeniably the same. Eventually, people’s bodies would begin to break down. You were the only true exception, although arguments could be made for Mark, of course. Headquarters took one look at you and saw our first real success, but when I looked at you and your unique situation, your aggressive healing abilities, I saw the truth. That Project Regen was a failure.”
“And yet, you were going to gas us and bring in a whole new batch of participants.” I took a step forward. “How could you do this? All of it.”
“Would you believe me if I told you that I began with the noblest of intentions?”
She let out a bitter chuckle, an unusual sound from a woman who had shown so little emotion to me over the course of our increasingly odd relationship. She turned to me, and I saw something nestled between her fingers. It looked like some sort of action figure. I wondered if it belonged to her son.
“Growing up, I was always so much smarter than everyone else, could always see further. I started beating my father in chess when I was six. And by the time I was an adult, no one could provide much of a challenge. Their next actions were always so obvious to me, so predictable. And when your friend and her partner first arrived on the scene?” She gestured back to where Lilah had been standing. “People’s reactions were predictable too.
“To them, it was all about masks and capes. Superheroes in real life. But I understood the greater consequences that people with such powers could bring to war, espionage, politics, everyday life. My son was going to grow up in a far more dangerous world. And I knew that I needed to do everything in my power to prepare for it.”
I swallowed, her words strangely familiar. After all, this wasn’t too different from why I had decided to become an Actual. Yeah, I had these amazing powers and Bailey City seemed safe, but I had read enough news articles and Hunter Davies comics to know that it was only a matter of time. Eventually, people with powers, people like Calypso, would come to my city. How could our mundane police force stand up against someone empowered?
I had to be prepared.
“SynergyCorp saw it coming as well, of course. As well as the financial benefit from being able to manufacture empowered soldiers. They knew that we needed to move fast. After all, if we didn’t figure it out first, our enemies would.
“They were not the first company to approach me about creating Actuals, but they were the first to give so much. That list of potential subjects provided by the Forgers. The near unlimited funding. Permission to throw all the rules out of the window, to finally shed all those ridiculous little regulations. I must admit, I found myself drunk on it, the lack of limitations. And with the consequences of the future breathing down my neck, it became easy to write off the cost. What was the cost of this life? Or this one, or this one. These people meant nothing to me, and how much did a few corpses mean when up against the consequences I could so clearly see down the line? Including between me and my gainful employer.”
“Wait…between you and SynergyCorp?”
“I was in too deep, of course. The only one who could create the vaccine, even with access to Leonard’s remains. Not to mention the damage I could do if I revealed all their secrets. I believed the moment that the project was viewed for the failure it was, that I would be summarily killed.” She frowned. “Instead, I found myself the one imprisoned. Me and my son.”
“Which is why you’re going to help us?” I asked.
“Bringing down SynergyCorp is the only answer,” she said, her voice growing dark. “The only way to keep Jacob out of their clutches.” She let out a sigh. “That and eight months is a lot of time to think about my own actions.” She paused. “I guess I’m not as good as foreseeing consequences as I once was. Guilt is never one I ever considered. There are times when I wish I could forget it all.”
The air rushed from my lips in one large breath. “I…It’s strange to hear you say that. For the past several months, I remembered nothing of my time in Project Regen.” Only the fear, I added to myself. “And now that my memories are back, I can’t help but wonder. If Project Regen had never found me on the side of that road. If I had never…gone through everything, would SynergyCorp still be doing this? Would you?”
Dr. Hale raised a hand.
“This is a useless line of thought,” she said. “Lingering over what might have been if things had gone differently. Even with the numerous powers that have emerged in the past decade or so, no one has been able to figure out how to change the past.”
“But my life would be so different—”
“That’s entirely the point, isn’t it?” She turned to me, meeting my gaze squarely. “Every horror of our past, every decision we did or did not make, has shaped us. Without them, we would be different people.”
“I…what are you trying to say?” I said, feeling indignation build up. “That I should be grateful for—”
“Of course not.” Her voice came out sharply, enough to echo over the water. When she spoke next, her demeanor was far calmer overall. “Of course not. Our pasts must be accepted, plain and simple.” She stood up taller. “I own my scars, my missteps, and I accept them as part of who I am, but I do not engage in silly thought experiments. No one should be grateful that horrible things happened to them. Instead, we should look to shaping our next actions.”
“Which are?”
“Cutting off SynergyCorp’s head.”
I paused. The last words had been delivered so calmly, so coolly, as if it were the most logical answer. It was so…Alan-like.
“We should get back to the house,” she said. “I need to explain the situation to Jacob.”
I nodded, stepping out of the way, allowing her to pass.
The deck creaked beneath us as we approached the house, and beneath that…
I froze. Was that someone laughing?
I looked up to the back of the house, at the uninterrupted white space of wall I had just been standing by. No, not uninterrupted. Among the shadows, there was something different.
A human face, pressing up against the whiteness of the wall, pushing the surface outward as if it were made of rubber.
And then it was gone.
“Dr. Hale,” I said, voice firm.
She turned around to me, her face a mask of confusion.
And then froze at the sound of splashing water. I looked down to see a strange ripple in the waves, lit by the lamplight. It headed straight toward us.
“Ru—” Hands emerged through
the wooden slots of the dock, cutting me off.
No, that was wrong. It was like pieces of the wood had been suddenly shaped into human-sized hands, which stretched up from the solid surface of the dock. The wood groaned in protest, as if finding the process of being shaped this way unnatural. Dr. Hale gasped as one of the hands latched around her left ankle.
I charged forward, stamping down on it. Or at least that’s what my intention had been. Instead, the hands snapped back and into the wood, leaving the dock untouched.
My foot passed through the wood with a terrific crash.
“Run!” I cried out. “Get to Golden Strike. To—”
She didn’t need to be told. Once she had regained her balance, she had begun dashing down the dock, heading back for the safety of her former prison. I watched as the water rippled, once again following the doctor like a shark trained on its prey. I wrenched my leg out of the hole, ignoring the pain that came from the wood cutting into the flesh of my ankle.
By the time I began to leap, Dr. Hale had made it to the house. I was airborne by the time she reached for the door. And as I began my descent, I saw them, white arms, the same color of the plaster that made up the side of the house, reaching out and pulling the doctor into a sickening embrace. As I hit the ground, the arms pulled her toward the wall. No, into the wall, the surface giving way as if it had been made from water, and Dr. Hale was drowning in it.
“No,” I said, running to the wall. “You can’t—”
But it was too late. The surface was solid once more, without a single sign that the doctor had ever been pulled in. I balled my hand into a fist and pounded against it, the plaster instantly giving way. I struck it again and again, half expecting to find the doctor buried inside.
But I didn’t.
The air was pierced by a childlike scream.
“Jacob!” I cried.
Dr Hale’s son! I tore open the door and ran up the stairs. I ran past the room where Leonard Haywood lay, still attached to his many machines, then headed to the room I had seen him in before, tearing the door off its hinges in the process. But when I looked inside, it was empty, his stuffed toy lying on the ground forgotten.
“What’s going on?”
I turned to see Alex and Lilah in the doorway.
“We heard a scream,” Lilah said.
“Someone, these hands!” I stammered. “They took Dr. Hale. They took Jacob.”
“The vaccine!”
“No,” I said. “Leonard Haywood is still there. That just leaves—”
“Mark!”
Lilah and Alex ran back toward the living room, where Alan stood, looking wary. His gaze darted to a pile of furniture stacked in front of a door. Where Mark was probably barricaded inside.
I didn’t even need to remove a single item to know that he wouldn’t be there anymore.
26
Alex
“Heeey, man! It appears you forgot my better half.”
Connor lay on the cot where Dawn had spent most of her time over the last several hours, his foot elevated in front of him, a fitness magazine (one, I’m embarrassed to admit, I was constantly stealing from Colossus) in his hands.
“You say things like that, and you wonder why people expect you to be in love,” I said, crossing my arms in front of my chest.
“Not all meaningful relationships involve romance. But seriously, she’s not hurt or anything? I mean, I didn’t sense—”
“Yeah, she’s fine,” I replied. “Just needed to make a few phone calls, to figure out what to do with Dr. Hale’s ex.”
He had been the only prisoner in that house not to have been snatched away by the strange arms Dawn had reported seeing.
“Makes sense. Sounds like our mysterious kidnapper couldn’t deal with all that medical equipment. How is Dawn, by the way?”
As if on cue, my girlfriend stepped into the room. She had transformed back to Dawn on the way home and had barely said a word. I watched as she crouched by the cot and picked up the sweater that she had brought in with her twelve hours ago.
Of course, to her it probably felt like weeks.
“Hey,” Connor asked, his voice much softer. “How are you holding up?”
“Ah…I’m fine,” Dawn said, hugging the sweater to her chest. She paused as Alan stepped into the doorway.
“Heh. If it isn’t the third stooge!” Connor said. “No more surprises from you, I hope?”
Alan froze, clearly not wanting Connor to bring up any “surprises” in front of his sister.
“Connor, I have a question for you,” Dawn said.
“Sure thing, kid. Anything.” He glanced at his elevated foot. “Within reason of course.”
“Um…do you have access to the roof?”
I held back at first, letting Dawn head up to take in a minute of fresh air. It seemed like she needed a moment by herself.
That, and I wanted to talk to Alan.
“Listen,” I said as I approached the elevator at Birchwood Realty “It’s been a long night already, but maybe after a few days—”
Alan let out a snort of disgust.
“Come on, man—she deserves to know,” I said to him.
His nostrils flared slightly as he turned to me. “I fail to see how my relationship with my sister is any of your business.”
“Oh, isn’t that bullshit. I don’t keep things from her.” I took a step toward him as I spoke. “And neither should you.”
Alan narrowed his eyes. “Or what? Are you going to hit me again?”
I couldn’t help it. I flinched. “Listen. That wasn’t—”
“A total loss of control? Tell me, Alex, had I not possessed these abilities, what would have happened to me on that mountainside?”
I felt my jaw clamp shut.
“It didn’t take much to put the pieces together,” Alan said. “Between the Hunter Davies comics, and Dawn’s announcement about a new boyfriend, I knew you were Faultline long before we ever met.”
“That would explain your warm welcome.”
“Which, I admitted, was wrong of me. If anything, these past few days have shown me that I can say, with confidence, that you clearly care about my sister. This is more than I can say about either of her previous boyfriends.”
“You know, I’m having a hard time following your train of thought here,” I said, spreading out my arms. “Why don’t you just tell me what you really think.”
“What I think is that it doesn’t matter how devoted you are to my sister, or the lengths that you are willing to go to prove that. That doesn’t change the fact that you are dangerous.” He shook his head. “All I want is for my sister to be safe, which is a tall enough order given how she spends her nights. How am I supposed to feel about the fact that she has also chosen to spend her time with a man who clearly is losing his grip on his own destructive powers?”
Sparks came up around the edges of my vision. It wasn’t like my powers were new. They had been a part of my life for years. And sure, things could get dangerous when I lost my temper, but I had never hurt someone who hadn’t deserved it.
But they had never acted up like they had over the past twenty-four hours…
Alan gave me a dismissive look and turned away. I winced, watching him go. I had tried so hard to get along with the guy. But in the end, it looked like we were too different.
At least Dawn’s mom seemed to like me.
The roof of Birchwood Realty was like the rest of the building, kind of trashed, with old-ass patio furniture shoved to the side in a heap.
It provided a helluva view, though.
“Better?” I asked, coming up beside her, taking note of the lack of tension in her shoulders.
She turned to me with a stiff smile.
“Was it that obvious how uncomfortable I was down there?” she asked.
“Maybe not to Connor. He can be a bit thick.”
A cold breeze came through, and Dawn shivered, pulling her arms closer to her chest. I immediately be
gan shrugging off my leather jacket in response.
“Oh, you don’t have to—” she began.
“I want to,” I replied. “You’re not quite as weatherproof in this form.”
“Unfortunately,” she replied with a smile.
And then, for a moment, we just looked out over the lights of Bailey City.
“What was it like, recovering your memories?” I asked, then added, “If you’re comfortable discussing it.”
“Just…like Lilah said, I guess. Like I was experiencing it for the first time, with no knowledge of anything afterward.”
“So, you didn’t know that you would eventually get out of there?” I frowned.
“Or that Mark and I would be the only ones.” She shook her head. “Diego del Toro. Gerry Trimpop. Karen—” Her voice cut off, forcing her to swallow. “I remember them all now. Every name and face. I remember watching them die as if it were hours ago, even though they’ve been gone for months.”
I swallowed, remembering the bodies I had found in Project Regen, the ones who hadn’t been wearing uniforms. The woman with the purple hair. The man and woman in the hallway.
“And during those months,” Dawn continued. “Their families have had no idea where they were. Bixby, Gerry, Luiz—they have children who are still waiting for their parents to come home.” She turned to look at me. “What right did I have to forget about them for months?”
“Dawn,” I said, reaching out for her. “You didn’t know—”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Dr. Hale is gone. I failed. Let down my friends—”
“Let them down?” I asked. “Dawn, if you hadn’t delved into those memories, we would have never discovered the source of that vaccine. And sure, we lost Dr. Hale, but SynergyCorp lost Leonard Haywood. You made sure that Project Regen will never exist again.”
“We,” Dawn replied, her voice small. “If it hadn’t been for you and Connor and Lilah and…why was my brother part of this again?”
“He was the only one with a damn car,” I replied with a scowl. “And he insisted. I must admit, if it hadn’t been for him and Dana, we never would have gotten that door open to begin with.”
Silver and Gold (Red and Black Book 3) Page 28
