"Thank you, General."
"However," the general continued, "once I bring them this result, they are going to be extremely hungry for more. Do we have an understanding between us?"
"Of course, General," said Cormair.
"If this bath is going to speed up their...changes...why aren't they all in the baths?"
"It's not like that, General," said Sebbins. "If they are subjected to the serum without confirmed change to their structures, the steroids and enzymes in the serum will tear the flesh from their bones and destroy their muscles. They have to go into their changes on their own, and I don't believe any of them will be undergoing as dramatic a physical shift as Posey. Perhaps Andy, but none of the others will require the serum to survive their shifts. At the most, they will experience some discomfort, some soreness."
"Why haven't you figured out something different then? Why haven't you been figuring out some way to speed the rest of them through it, then?"
"Are you some sort of sadist who--" Sebbins began. Cormair grabbed her by her shoulders and spun her away from the general.
"General," said Cormair, "you have children, don't you?"
Tucker's eyes darted from Cormair to Sebbins and back. "Why?"
"If you have children you understand how difficult they can be to deal with, am I correct?"
Tucker hesitated. "Affirmative."
"That is because their brains are basically like a chilling pudding. There are some bits that are solid and some bits that are still trying to become solid. Their brains are trying to determine who they are, what they are, and what they can do and cannot do. I have made this whole proposition even more difficult for these seven subjects because I transplanted DNA, tampered with their muscles and skeletons, spliced their genes, stripped out their immune systems and implanted systems that I customized to each of them, and I added bits and pieces to their brains! If I tried to expedite that before I knew where their heads were going to be, I would essentially be sentencing them to death. Their brains would attempt to solidify at such a rate that the necessary components that control their new skills and their bodies would be forced into places that they don't belong. They would become brain-damaged. They would lock down into a vegetative state and all the billions of dollars that has been invested in this project would be wasted. That is also why I have tried to make them live as normal a teenage life as I could in these surroundings. I encouraged them to find hobbies, watch movies, watch TV, and think for themselves, despite your desires. I was attempting not to ruin this entire project by having the research subjects become unresponsive, dead tissue." Cormair finished his speech with a dominance posture, crossing his arms and staring hard at the general. He hoped the general would blink first.
General Tucker's mustache twitched. "Very well. I will give you an extension. However, I want to have facts on Subject Six's abilities---documented with digital video as soon as it is removed from this tank. Your investors will be expecting it as well."
He nodded at Cormair and Sebbins and turned on his heel, military fashion, and strode to the door. He turned back. "Now that this project of yours is bearing fruit, Dr. Cormair, I will be increasing security on this base. We do have...enemies...that might wish to intervene on this project. They may know of its location. You can expect to see an increase immediately. I would prepare the experiments for this, of course. A swift-attack vehicle parked on the lawn may disturb them." He nodded again and walked out of the room. The pneumatic door hissed shut behind him.
Cormair blew out a long, slow breath. His knees felt weak and shaky. His heart was beating rapidly, painfully. He collapsed feebly into his chair, hands falling limply to the sides. Tucker was the sort of bully that Cormair feared since he was a boy. Science was his work, his life. It was his only desire. Putting up with people like Tucker was the price he had to pay in order to indulge his desires.
"Water, please," he said. Sebbins reached into a small cube refrigerator under the desk and handed him a bottle.
"You kowtowed to him," she said. "All this time, I've only see the legendary ice-cold Doctor Cormair, the fabled emotionless stone gargoyle---heartless, soulless, relentless in his work, driven and single-minded. But, I see you have a weak spot."
"I will thank you not to mention it again, please," said Cormair. He drained the bottle of water in a single breath. "General Tucker is the liaison of the group that has funded this project for the past decade. He pays your checks, my checks, and enables us to be able to do this great work of ours. He has been the only person to check on our work here. He has had the only say on whether or not this project continues since its inception."
Cormair stood up and walked to the tank, staring at the young woman suspended in the brilliant orange serum. "This project...is the culmination of my life's work, Doctor. I have been doing recombinant gene therapies and working on creating the next order of life since I was an undergraduate student! This is all I have ever done. It's all I ever wanted to do. If I must kowtow to General Tucker to do it, I will. I am nearly seventy now. That is five decades of work. It is a lifetime of labor in which I have advanced the collective knowledge of humanity more than any scientist before me. I realize, of course, that I will die before the true value of what I have done is know, but the important thing is that I have done it. My name will be legend amongst the learned the world over. The work I'm doing here will eventually lead to cures for cancer, AIDS, Alzheimer's, and who knows how many other diseases and syndromes. I have created something great. I cannot have it taken away from me now; you must understand me!"
Cormair turned and grabbed Dr. Sebbins by the shoulders. "Do you understand? This project is my entire life! It must succeed. I will not allow it to fail." His heart pounded and a vein throbbed in his head. He could feel himself sweating. Now that he was so close, he needed to finish this project. He was on to something on a fundamental level that could change the future of humanity. His whole life as a research scientist---his whole life in general---was wrapped in this project. Without the research, without seeing the success of the research, his whole existence was for naught. It could not happen that way!
"This project will go through no matter what!" Cormair stormed to the door of the laboratory. "Keep an eye on her. Alert me the second anything changes!"
"What about the rest of the kids? The military protection? They're bright kids, Doctor. They're going to figure things out."
"I will tell them tomorrow morning, first thing."
Cormair walked to his room. He kept a basic living quarters in the laboratory level. It was decorated in a modern, sparse style. The furniture was black, white, or gray. The walls were white and decorated only with a few famous pieces of art works, mostly old masters. They were prints, of course. Posters, really. Cormair would never waste resources on real art.
There was a small, utilitarian kitchen in his living quarters. Cormair only used it to heat water to brew tea. He set the kettle on a burner and prepared a tea infuser ball of a leafy, strong peppermint tea. It would calm his stomach. It would calm his beating heart.
Sebbins was a good assistant. No. Sebbins was a great assistant. But, if she tried to get his project stopped, he would have to fire her. She was too close to the subjects. That was jeopardizing the project.
If she tried to stop the project...
If she tried to stop his research...
If anyone tried to stop his research...
Cormair knew that he would have to stop her if she tried anything to jeopardize the project. He would kill if he must.
Kenny's palms were sweating. He knew he could do it, of course. He could open the doors. He could rewire the passkeys. He could make it so no door to this lab ever opened again. He knew he could do it...but he had never tried it with someone else watching. Now, as he stood in front of the door to the labs, it was all he could do not to feel their eyes boring into his back as he flexed his fingers in preparation to make contact with the security system.
"C'mon, Kenny
!" Indigo hissed. "It's almost dawn. Cormair and Sebbins have to sleep some time. This is the best chance we've got to rescue her."
Kenny wasn't a hero. He was a computer nerd and he accepted that long ago. He was going to leave the Home and blend into the ether, using his computer skills to make a great living and have a real, human existence for the first time in his life. He'd even met a friend online, a girl, and they were going to get an apartment together in Seattle. Kenny didn't love her or anything; that would be stupid to fall in love with someone you'd never seen or spoken to, but she was a kindred spirit, someone who wanted to hang out with Kenny because she liked talking to him, not because they were forced into some horrible, B-movie science experiment together.
He touched the keypad of the door and the data flow hit his brain like a tornado. Rewiring a basic firewall security program through a computer wasn't overly difficult, slightly taxing at best. However, getting into an actual security protocol, a door on a vault or a computerized gate, was a different matter. The data streams weren't like they were in a computer, like wooden building blocks to be pried apart and restacked. The stream in a heavy-duty electronic lock was more like an old brick-and-mortar wall. Kenny had to break through the security streams and hack away the individual locks with his mind. He had to force, not finesse. It was physically draining. He wasn't actually moving, but the toll on his body was immense. He knew he was sweating. He could feel sweat trails sliding down his back, soaking his shirt, and making it cling to his skin. He could feel the tickle of sweat beads crawling down his forehead and clinging to his eyelashes. His chest began to hurt as his heartbeat increased. The wall was falling, but it was taking too much time. Kenny didn't know if he would be able to stand at the lock long enough to do it. His face flared red with the stress and his eyes rolled back into his head. It was all he could do to cling to consciousness...and suddenly the wall fell. Kenny collapsed in a heap, weak as a newborn, sweating, straining for breath, dizzy and sick.
Holly knelt down and felt his forehead. "He's burning up!"
"I'll be...okay," Kenny whispered. His throat was dry; his tongue felt swollen.
"Did you get through the door?" asked Indigo.
"Indigo! Be sensitive! Kenny's hurt," Sarah hissed. Indigo glared at Sarah.
"Be...okay," Kenny reiterated. His head felt as if it was being crushed by waves of pain. He had to grit his teeth and seethe in order to keep from passing out. His stomach churned and he became sick.
"Gross!" Sarah's face screwed up as if she were going to throw up, too.
"Does that always happen, Kenny?" asked John.
Kenny nodded. "It's the trade-off." The pain began to lessen. "I've never had it that bad, before. But, I've never tried anything that difficult before. I usually just stick to the computer...it's less---" he wretched again, "---physical. Leave me here for a while. I need to rest. I'm not...strong enough...to walk."
"We're not leaving you behind," said Holly. "I'll stay."
"Andy, can you carry him?" asked Sarah.
"Sure. No problem." His thick arms lifted Kenny off the ground as if the lanky hacker was an infant.
Kenny felt like a rag doll. He lay limply in Andy's arms. It made him feel even weaker.
"What's the new passkey, Kenny?" asked Indigo.
"One...one...one...one."
"Eleven eleven? That's it?"
"Didn't want it to be too difficult."
"Why not just one number then?" said Andy. "Seems to me that'd be even less difficult than four numbers. How about no numbers? That'd be easier, yet!"
Indigo punched the numbers and the pneumatic door hissed and slid open. The six made their way down a dimly lit corridor and opened a second door---same pass code. Kenny had recoded the entire security system.
The main lab was at the end of a system of corridors and down several stories. It was buried deeply beneath the Home. The elevator at the end of the hall was rigged with a security camera and another security code separate from the pneumatic doors.
"Security might see us in the camera," said Sarah.
"Anybody got a power to disrupt a camera?" asked Andy.
"I might...but, I don't know if I have the strength," said Kenny.
"Anybody got a better idea, then?" said Andy.
"Let me do it," said Kenny.
"We need you to get through the elevator code," said Indigo.
"Why don't you just telekinesis it off the wall or something?" said Holly.
Indigo stuck out her tongue at Holly. "If the camera just stops transmitting, they'll know."
John shrugged. "We've all been in the elevator before. We could just go down as a group, no big deal."
"You don't think they'll get suspicious---six potentially powerful teenagers just out for a morning elevator ride before dawn?"
John gave Indigo a shove, sending the small girl stumbling.
"Jerk!"
"Wait!" Holly hissed. "Do you hear that?"
They all froze. Holly walked over to a door along the corridor; one of the adjacent labs where secondary experiments were examined. Holly opened the door and froze.
Andy peered into the room over her shoulder. "Bugs!"
"They want to help," said Holly.
"You can hear them?" said Andy. "Creepy."
"I can," said Holly. "They want to help." Holly walked over to a floor-to-ceiling cage where dozens of bright green swallow-tailed moths were fluttering in desultory patterns.
"How?" asked Sarah.
"Watch," said Holly. Her eyes began to mist and haze to a foggy white. She opened the cage and the swarm of moths began to flit out of the cage, looping and crossing, bumping into lights and objects, but heading out of the room as a green-and-red cloud, nearly silent, with fuzzy red antennae guiding them as they flew. They landed on everything, tasting, sensing, and moving on once again.
"This is so gross," said Sarah.
"It is not," hissed Holly. "And watch your tongue. They're sensitive. They think they're pretty."
"Oh, they are," said Sarah. "Very pretty. But, they're still bugs!"
The moths meandered toward the elevator. The door was standing open. The moths entered and began to gather over the light in the ceiling and the lens of the camera. In moments, the entire elevator light was covered and the camera was blanked.
"If I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't have believed it," said John. "Holly, you have one truly wicked power."
Holly didn't say anything, but the look on her face was not pride.
"Let's do this, then," said Indigo. "Kenny? You ready to break into this elevator?"
Kenny swallowed again. His throat was parched. "Yeah. I think I got one more in me. Andy can you...move me over there?"
Without a word, Andy moved him into the elevator and held him in front of the keypad by the door. Kenny reached out his hand and placed his palm onto the buttons. Instantly, the electrical tingle and the data streams began to wheel through his mind. This combination wasn't nearly as difficult to reroute as the pneumatic blast doors, but given how drained he was, it was still a Herculean task. The cement blocks did fall, though, and Kenny reclined in Andy's arms, too weak to speak or keep his eyes open. The elevator doors closed, plunging the six teens into blackness. Kenny inhaled deeply and fell into unconsciousness as well.
Andy was always strong, even when he was a kid. He could remember wrestling with his older brother before being taken to the Home. He easily manhandled his brother, throwing him about the room with a strength that seemed unnatural for a six-year-old. When he really stopped to dwell on it, the fact that he couldn't remember his brother's name bothered him.
He held Kenny in his arms and barely noticed the boy's weight. Kenny would never be considered a big guy, but Andy wasn't even fatiguing. Could this be his supposed "power" finally manifesting? Sebbins once told him that he was meant to be the strongest of the seven. He didn't know whether she meant emotionally or mentally or physically, but he guessed it had something to do with physical
strength since he was easily the worst student of the seven.
The group rode down in darkness and the elevator stopped at the bottom of the lift. The level the lab was on was home to Cormair's private living quarters, Sebbins' private office, and the massive structure of the lab itself, the size of half a basketball court, but cluttered with machines and scanners and implements and devices. It was dimly lit and full of fear and shadows. None of the seven liked it down there. That room only brought memories of pain.
Indigo lead the group from the elevator. "What are the moths going to do?"
"They're going to stay in the elevator until someone collects them. If we're fast, we'll be able to use them to get back upstairs."
"Let's remember what we're going to do here, okay?" said John. "Kenny's already got us the passkey to get into the lab. Cormair and Sebbins should be asleep. If anyone's awake, it'll be Nurse Hathcock. She won't be too tough to handle. She's small and fat. All we need to do is keep her from pressing the alarm button. Sarah, that's your job. You're the fastest of us all. You sprint in and block her from hitting the wall alarm. Then, we get one of the sedative hypos from the wall cabinet and put her under. She's a nice lady, but she can't follow us."
"Got it," said Sarah.
"Then, we locate Posey and get her out of the lab. We beat feet back up to the lobby of the Home and run like we're on fire. We make tracks for the nearest road, get away from here and regroup, then we take our next steps, whatever those might be. If there's trouble, we split up, try to stay alive and just get out of here; we'll meet up at that old abandoned barn down the road."
"What if she's sick or something?" said Indigo. "What if we can't move her?"
"Then, we deal with it when it happens. I think we should stay with her, a show of unity and all that."
Holly whistled lowly. "Cormair will be mad."
The Seven Page 5
