John shrugged. "I don't. I wish I did, though. This place doesn't have a weight room. I just do a lot of sit-ups and pull-ups and run that obstacle course."
Indigo suddenly lunged forward throwing a punch at John. He fluidly swiveled to the side and blocked her arm with one arm, shooting out his other arm in an elegant counter-punch. His extended fingers stopped millimeters from Indigo's throat. It had only taken fractions of a second. He moved so fast that even he didn't know what had happened. John and Indigo stood frozen for a moment. John's eyes were wide and he jerked his hand back, staring at it incredulously. "I didn't mean to do that. I just sort of did it. It was involuntary, I swear, Indigo! You know I wouldn't hurt you!"
Indigo swallowed hard and touched her throat with her fingers. "I shouldn't have done that. It's my fault, but I had to test a theory I've been working on. I think you're a weapon, John. I've been watching you. You never, ever get tired when you run, even when you sprint. You never trip. You're never clumsy. Everything you do is graceful. What other purpose would you have than to be a living weapon?"
John opened his mouth, and then closed it. He looked at her stupidly. "Maybe I'm just an athlete."
"Yeah," said Andy, "because all athletes are trained to shoot guns and throw daggers while running an insanely difficult obstacle course. I remember that event from the Olympics."
"Or remember why we stopped playing darts?" said Sarah. "You always won. It wasn't fun anymore. You hit any spot you aim for. You never miss."
"So what? That doesn't mean I'm a weapon."
"Look at the facts," said Indigo. "Holly can control animals. I have telekinesis. John's a super athlete who is also a deadly marksman. What's the purpose of that?"
"Cormair says he's advancing human evolution. Maybe that's the future of mankind," said Sarah. "We develop abilities that help mankind."
"How is being a marksman helping mankind," said Indigo. "Unless your version of 'helping' means killing them with a single shot."
"That's not what I meant," said Sarah. "There might be other purposes for John's ability."
"Are you that dense, blondie?" said Indigo. "John is a trained killer. He never gets tired, he can hit anything he aims at, he moves faster than he thinks. Those are tools of an assassin if I've ever heard it. He's a killer. Unless you think that sort of thing is helpful as an attendant in a nursing home."
"Well, what about you?" said Sarah. "Telekinesis would be a helpful ability. So is talking to animals. Think about what we could accomplish if we could openly communicate with animals."
"Telekinesis as helpful? Maybe. If I was a quadriplegic, I could see it. But as someone who can get things for herself? I don't see much use to it."
"I do," said John. "There's a lot of uses for it."
"Like what?"
"Like, what if a telekinetic could pull the pins on the grenades attached to a soldier before he has a chance to use them? How about turning off a security system from across a room? Maybe a telekinetic could drop a mountain on a platoon in the field? I think there are probably a lot of uses for a telekinetic, but I'm only coming up with military aspects."
Indigo's lips were moving, as if she were talking to herself, going over facts in her head. She suddenly stopped and looked up, her face was ashen. "Think about it: John's a killer, I can kill, Holly can communicate with animals that could kill. We're all killers."
"Don't be stupid," said John. "I don't kill. Neither do you or Holly."
Andy was squinting at Indigo. "Hold it. I think she's on to something. What else could it be?"
"We're all weapons," said Indigo. "If your powers show up, there's going to be something weapon-like about them; I'm sure of that. I'll bet Posey's changes will give her some sort of weapon ability. Andy, Sarah, Kenny---if their abilities show up, I'll bet there's some weapon aspect there, too. That's the point, right? They want to make us some kind of superhero soldiers...genetically 'fix' us so we're beyond human...then, send us overseas to kill their enemies. There's no 'next step of human evolution' like Cormair keeps harping about, we're turning into weapons. We're humans with super-human weapon abilities."
"I'm not a weapon," said Holly.
Indigo slumped against the wall and slid to a squatting position. "Right, Holly...because there's nothing at all useful about someone being able to tell every bird, bug, and beast in the area to attack and maul a person...Or how about being able to tell a swarm of yellow jackets to maliciously sting a man to death? Yeah, sure, there's no weapon potential there."
"I wouldn't do that."
"Would you have a choice?" Andy said.
"What do you mean?"
"If you were a weapon, you could be detained under some stupid Homeland Security policy or something. You could be forced to use your powers."
"I wouldn't," said Holly. "I'm never going to tell Cormair about my powers." She shuddered. The idea of commanding animals was appealing until Indigo put those thoughts into her head. Holly wasn't a killer; they couldn't make her kill. She had never thought of herself as powerful, but perhaps Indigo was correct: Maybe she could be a weapon. Holly quickly forced the idea out of her mind. It was frightening. She couldn't let herself be manipulated like that.
"I think keeping our powers secret is the best idea for everyone," said Indigo. "Unless something happens like it did to Posey---but we have to keep anything physical like that hidden as best we can." Indigo paused and her eyes flicked down the hallway. But, we've got to be together on this one."
"We need to get Kenny in this, too," said Sarah, following Indigo's eyes. The group shuffled to Kenny's door---the only door on the second floor that wasn't adorned with comic strips, pictures of bands, or even a name plate and a "Do Not Enter" sign. Sarah knocked and the door opened. Kenny's stoic face peered out. He didn't speak.
"Kenny, do you have any powers yet?" blurted Indigo. "Posey had a massive breakdown tonight. Something happened to her and Sebbins took her to the lab."
Kenny blinked twice. He peered around at the faces of the others. He shook his head briefly.
"No powers?" said Indigo. "None at all?" Kenny started to shut the door but Andy jammed his foot into the base.
"Hold up, Kenny. We're coming in," said Andy. Kenny backed up, startled. He quickly turned off the monitor on his computer. As the five of them entered his room, Kenny slowly backed into the far corner like a trapped rat.
Holly shut the door and looked around at all of their faces. "We need to keep our powers secret, agreed?"
There was a chorus of nodding heads. Kenny stood staring as if they were going to gang up and beat him down. His arms were up in a semi-defensive posture.
Holly sighed. "Oh for the love of macaroni, Ken. What is wrong with you? We've known each other for ten years and you still act like we're strangers. Just answer like a human being for once: Will you keep your powers secret if they manifest themselves?"
Kenny nodded. He cleared his throat. "Yes, I will." His voice sounded hollow and strange. Holly watched a red flush creep up the back of his neck.
"Good. I shudder to think about what is happening to Posey right now," said Holly.
"Maybe we should go help her?" suggested John.
"What?" Sarah yelped. Holly knew what she was thinking. Going into the labs without one of the doctors meant big-time trouble, and going in with the idea of getting one of them out of testing! Holly could not even begin conceive of the punishments. Once, when she was eleven, Holly and Posey had wandered into one of the classrooms without permission and rifled through the papers in the cabinets. When they were caught, they had been sentenced to a month of solitary confinement in their respective bedrooms. No music, no movies, no communicating with any of the others. That had been harsh enough. An unaccompanied foray into the labs was insanity. Who knew what Cormair would do to them?
"Seriously! Indigo says I'm a weapon, right?" said John. "Well, maybe it's time I figure out exactly what kind of a weapon I can be. I'll just sneak down there and bust her
out. Bring her back to her room."
"What if she's really sick?" asked Sarah. "What if this...reaction...she had tonight was because the testing and stuff is going wrong?"
"Maybe it is," said Indigo. "I don't have any side effects. Neither does Holly or John."
"So what if breaking Posey out of the labs might kill her?" said Holly. "We can't let that happen, either."
"What should we do then?" asked Andy.
"We go down as a group and offer moral support. We be there for her and let her know we don't think she's a freak," said Holly. "Posey would be there for us. She's like that. You all know it. She's the only one of us who makes out birthday cards for everyone. She likes being in this place, I think. She still remembers all of our last names."
"Our last names?" John said. "I don't even remember my own last name."
"Redmond," said Holly. "Posey knew it. We talked about it today. She remembers all that stuff."
"Jeez," said John.
"Holly's right. We have to go to her," said Sarah. "Remember when John was down there getting those horrible tests? Remember how helpless we felt up here? I'm not going to leave Posey alone down there. I think we need to break her out."
"What will we do if we do that?" Andy asked. "That's a major violation. We'll all be punished severely."
"Screw that," hissed Indigo. "I am sick to death of them treating me like an object."
A slow smile crawled over John's face. "I've got an idea. You know how we all said we were going to leave here some day?"
Sarah looked horrified. "We said some day! Not...today!"
"Why not today?" said John. "Good a day as any. What makes today different from next week or next month?"
"What about our...abilities?" Sarah's voice wavered. "Andy and Kenny and I haven't changed yet. What if things happen to us like they happened to Posey? What if we need help? I thought that Doctor Cormair was going to help us learn to use our powers and such."
"I didn't need any help," said Holly. "I just kind of did it."
"Look at me! That punch!" said John. "I don't know that we'll need a lot of training. I think it'll just come naturally."
"What if it doesn't?"
"Sarah, c'mon!" Indigo sighed, throwing up her hands. "This is a chance! We've been going through the wringer here for a decade, just counting days and clock-watching until we got old enough to leave! Maybe we've all just been waiting for a spark to help us get up the courage to leave? This is a spark! We pack our bags, meet in the lobby before dawn, bust Posey out of the lab, and get out of Dodge before Cormair can force us all into brain scans and muscle stimulation tests."
Sarah bit her lip. She looked over at Holly.
"Let's do it," said Holly.
"Andy?" Sarah looked at him.
He nodded. "It's time."
Indigo frowned. "They're not going to just let us go down there and stroll into the lab. It's not a walk in the park. We can't even get past those security doors."
"I..." Kenny suddenly spoke. He stopped, cleared his through and started again. "I...can."
Doctor Cormair placed the girl into a tank of a special solution of his own creation. He didn't have an official name for it; for lack of a better term, he called it the hyper-womb. It was a cylindrical glass tank filled with an oxygenated syrup of steroids, antibiotics, and stimulus agents that was meant to provide accelerated rehabilitation to his charges. When their bodies began to change, the hyper-womb would heal them, and get them through the transformation process with minimal stress and at a greatly accelerated rate. The girl was suspended in the tank now, completely submerged. Her lungs had filled with the syrup, as had her stomach. By now, her blood stream was pumping medicine and steroids through her system to help her cope with the changes.
Cormair sat and watched with self-satisfaction. He knew the children had been lying to him and now here was his proof. Doctor Sebbins monitored the girl's vitals on a machine next to him. She hadn't spoken since the girl had been brought down.
Posey's hair hung in damp tendrils around her face and shoulders. From her back, the appendages were growing at a visible rate. The bones had at first looked like simple finger bones, but now they had elongated and thickened. A pair of gangling, slender bones jutted out from her shoulders and muscle tissue was ebbing from her body in long, corded strips to surround the bones, slowly crawling around them like caterpillars. The bony spines from the back of her arms had lengthened and thickened as well, curving in thin arcs toward her latissimus muscles. The spines pierced into her flesh, connecting with the muscle, but becoming wrapped thickly with muscles of their own. At the point where the bones originally broke through her back, her own skin was growing to cover the bones and the muscle without so much as a scar.
"Brilliant, is it not?" said Cormair. He felt a need to break the tension in the room. He had respect for Dr. Sebbins as a scientist, but felt that her emotional attachment to the experiments had been too strong. Dr. Sebbins saw them more as people and not as projects and that was her biggest weakness.
Sebbins looked up from her machine's monitor. "I'm sorry, Doctor. I wasn't listening. What did you say?"
"I said it is brilliant. We scanned through hundreds of thousands of individual DNA profiles to find this girl who had the proper body mechanics for the experiment and was at the proper pre-pubescent age to begin implanting secondary DNA splices. This particular girl's DNA was complementary to bird DNA, thus she became an experiment to create something avian. Those appendages will develop into actual wings if my research was correct. Feathers and all!"
"I know, Doctor. I've read the files."
"But, are you not amazed? We are on the cutting edge of the future here, Dr. Sebbins. We are creating a new type of human being, an entirely new species."
"People have been destroyed for playing God, Doctor."
"Dr. Sebbins, you will not scare me with your fairy tales."
"I'm just saying, Doctor: Look at literature, history. People have been punished for reaching above themselves. Does the name 'Icarus' mean anything to you?"
"I am not worried. I have too much to lose to be worried."
"I'm worried about the wing structure," said Sebbins. "It doesn't look as if she will be able to utilize those wings for propulsion. The muscle structure looks too weak."
"She will be able to propel with the wings," Cormair's voice was firm and sure. "She is not going to take off like a game bird or a finch, but she will fly. I imagine she will be much more like a condor or an albatross. Perhaps her human legs will give her an advantage for lift-off that condors do not possess. The wings will allow her to utilize thermals to glide for hours, maybe days if she can stay awake. They will also allow her to glide from high places, escape routes and the like. Surveillance. That will be her forte. Her eyes were genetically enhanced to be as powerful as a falcon's eyes, you know."
"I know," said Sebbins, rolling her eyes. "I said I read her file."
"The only thing I'm worried about is her vocal chords. I wonder if they will be able to stand up to the enhancements I tried to implant. That was my idea, you know---turning her voice box into a weapon."
"'Shrike Scream' it's called in your files."
"A voice box that's been mechanically enhanced and amplified to the point of being able to cause physical damage with a scream. Wonderful!" Cormair never smiled. His face only gave hints to his emotions, but he was happy. Ecstatic, even.
A pneumatic door slid open at the back of the lab. Cormair and Sebbins both stood up. A slightly overweight man in a dress military uniform walked through the door. He was bald with a thick mustache. A dark gray service cap was tucked under his arm and he walked with a brisk, smart step.
Cormair swallowed hard. He rubbed his palms on his lab coat and nervously straightened the lapels. He extended one hand genially. "General Tucker! I was not expecting you for some time, yet."
"I received a message that you finally had a major development," Tucker said. He ignored Cormair's outst
retched hand and kept his eyes on the tank. "What has happened? That looks like Subject Six in that tank."
"Posey," said Sebbins. Cormair hushed her with a stern look.
"Yes, General. That is Subject Six. We have had an extremely exciting development. The project has finally borne fruit. It has begun to sprout its wings."
"'Its wings?" Sebbins hissed.
"Why is it in that tank?"
"Why is she in that tank," said Sebbins. This time, General Tucker turned and looked at her. He narrowed his eyes.
"Why is it in that tank?" he reiterated.
Cormair felt his chest tightening. "The subject is undergoing an accelerated mass transformation process. In the past few months, we have been administering a cocktail of gene development serums and pituitary stimulants to Subject Six. The subject has also been given bone growth enhancers in order to stimulate the scapulae growth that we hoped to achieve. Combined with the avian DNA splices and injections administered over the past ten years, it appears that Subject Six is precisely on schedule. The subject remains in the tank in order to facilitate fast, pain-free bone-and-muscle growth as well as to allow us constant monitoring to all chemical changes in the body. I expect the subject to be operational within fifty hours."
"Excellent," said General Tucker. He approached the glass of the tank and examined the wing stubs on Posey's back. "Excellent," he said again. "And it will be able to fly?"
"She--" Sebbins began, but Cormair cut her off quickly.
"If everything works as I have planned it: Yes, the subject will fly. At the very least, the subject will be able to glide for extensive amounts of time."
"And the eyes?"
"I believe the eyes may already work. I have not confirmed this, but I have my suspicions."
"Such as?"
Cormair cleared his throat. "This subject used to wear glasses, General. However, the subject has not worn glasses or contacts in almost a year, except when she knew she was going to be brought to the lab. I believe the subject's vision to be quite incredible."
General Tucker nodded. "Excellent," he said again. "Doctor Cormair, I believe this development may save you from...unpleasantness. I don't have to tell you that the investors in this project have become extremely...impatient...waiting for you to finally produce some results."
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