“We’re Ones,” Merrin says softly.
“Yeah, I get that.”
“And our abilities… If we touch, they can work together. And lately, sometimes even if we don’t. If we’re close. Have you guys tried that? Standing close but not together?” She whips her head over to Leni and Daniel, who give slight nods.
“So you’re telling me that your genes have some weird temporary mutation when you touch? Holy…damn. I thought they screwed me over on this case, but this is going to be awesome.” Gallagher presses his palms to his forehead and actually spins around , then faces us again, bouncing a little bit. “Aw, man. I’m going to have McCoy check you out. Maybe do a blood panel.”
He turns and walks away, and Merrin practically swoons at his words. Her eyes light up like he just announced we were going to race the original Concorde or something.
“We’re supposed to follow him, right?” Daniel says.
I mash my lips together and swallow hard. I said no blood tests. If she’d learned anything from Biotech, it should have been that blood tests were a bad idea. But Gallagher’s too far away for me to argue now without following him. We hurry to keep up as he leads us through the arena, down a hallway, and into a med lab. The walls in here are scuffed, and the leather on the chairs looks worn and cracked.
There’s one girl in a white coat, standing at a long lab desk, all by herself, staring at an old holomonitor mounted vertically in front of her. Her hair is the same blue the sky turns before a freaky storm, with a tinge of dark green. It snakes down her back in what I’m guessing are a dozen individual braids all twisted together, and her eyes turn to us, watching and somehow mournful, framed with lashes in the same shocking turquoise color.
“Hey, Gallagher,” she says. “What’s up?”
“You are going to love me, McCoy.”
“Vera. It’s Vera. How many times to do I have to tell you?”
“Okay, Vera. You are finally going to love me. You know why?”
She raises her shoulders and gives him a vague nod, even though I swear I see the corners of her mouth twitch up a little.
He holds his arms out, palms facing the ceiling. “I have brought you Ones! Four of them!”
“Are these the kids who got in last night?” she asks.
Gallagher flicks his eyebrows up and grins. “Sure are. The ones who flew supersonic and torched Biotech.”
“I heard about you.” Vera gives us a friendly smile and slides off the bench. “Welcome to CSH, guys.”
These people are definitely into the “welcome to our Hub” thing.
“Yeah, I heard about their labs getting smashed,” she continues. “That was pretty harsh. But…wait a minute… If you guys are Ones…”
“How did they do that, right? Right?” Gallagher’s smile has taken over half his face, and his head bobs crazily. “Wait till you see it. It’s amazing. I mean, incredible. Grey, can you show ‘em?”
Merrin smiles. “We’d destroy the whole lab. There’s not a lot of space in here. But yeah, once we get out to the arena, we can definitely show you. You’re gonna do a blood workup first, though, right?”
I shoot Merrin a glare and consider the older-model spectrometer. “What will you be able to see with that?”
”The very basics, really.” Vera grimaces and motions around the room. “This is the best biotech equipment we have. My mom and I pretty much run the whole show here, and biotech is not something CSH is particularly focused on.”
“I’ve noticed,” Merrin grumbles. I wonder how she feels, standing in the same lab she broke into just the night before. “Anyway, Leni and Daniel can show you their thing.” Merrin shoots a glance at them. “If you want, that is.”
Leni and Daniel display their Super again, lighting up a Bunsen burner with their bare hands.
Vera squeals and claps. “Amazing,” she breathes. “That’s amazing. Does intake know about this?”
Gallagher scratches his head. “Yeah. I…maybe they thought you guys were messing with them though. They actually have no record of you four, existence or otherwise, before you showed up here. The biophysical and in-depth genetic workups will give us something to work from.”
“And what about after that?” Merrin asks, staring at McCoy.
“Then we train you for Clandestine Services.”
“Like…to work here?” Daniel asks.
Gallagher laughs. “Yeah. You’ll spend the rest of high school and college training here, and then eventually, they’ll put you out in the field or behind a desk if you want. I mean, with a special case like you guys, we really should send you to Biotech, but I don’t think we’ve dealt with them in years.”
With a Super like mine — air pushing plus invincibility — I don’t think I would be an obvious fit for the field. I could work on something logistical, something on the ground, inside the building. Something safe and secure.
“No,” Vera says. “We haven’t. Which is why I can hardly do my damn job.”
“What is your job?” Merrin asks, craning her neck to get a better look at something on Vera’s lab bench.
“I’m just trying to work through a report for each Super power out there, on why the genes work to make us do the things we do. Inherited the ability from my mom to see things in incredible detail. I’m basically a human microscope, so it makes things a little easier… But it’s very slow-going.”
“Hey,” Gallagher says, completely cutting Vera off. She rolls her eyes and goes back to her holomonitor. “I just thought of something. Have you tried putting your powers together in different combinations?”
“I’ve thought about it,” Merrin says. “But they wouldn’t really make any sense together. Like, if Leni helped me catch on fire, both of our skin would burn. But, actually, now that Elias is indestructible, I wonder…”
Like she can’t help herself, Leni walks over to me and threads her fingers through mine, holding my hand loosely, letting the space between our palms breathe. “Close your eyes, Elias,” she says. “Think about being invincible. Impenetrable.”
Her voice is so serious, almost reverent, that I trust her, do as she says without even thinking. A strange warm feeling creeps under my skin, and my breath catches in my throat as a flight-or-fight response begins.
“Just relax,” Merrin murmurs. “What are you feeling?”
I take a deep breath, trying to find the words. It feels sort of like the buzz that told me something was definitely special about Merrin, even though I didn’t know her name, didn’t know what she could do. But this is heavier, duller, more solid somehow. Less exhilarating and more terrifying. Leni holds her hand up in the air and flings it open, the same way she did when she first showed Merrin what she could do, and a low flame dances across her palm
That heavy warmth suddenly turns five times more intense, and sweat beads on my forehead. My breath becomes quicker and more shallow. I’m panicking.
“Breathe, E,” says Daniel. “That happened to me, too.”
But my body’s so hot it feels like I’m struggling to get air into my lungs, and that if I do, I’ll burn up from the inside.
“I…Leni…stop,” I gasp, and she breaks away.
“But we did it, Elias. That’s even a new thing for you, that indestructability, and you used it. We did.” Leni laughs.
Gallagher moves next to Vera, handing her the supplies she’s assembling on a stainless steel, rolling tabletop for our blood draws. “Wow, that’s… Vera, can you map their genes and try to get a read on why that happens?”
“I’m sure they did that at Biotech,” Merrin says, letting her eyes dart to mine. Is it possible that she’s actually considering my feelings about these blood draws for once? I can see that she’s battling between the two choices: satisfying her curiosity or respecting my request to stay away from an intense examination of our genes.
“We haven’t had the greatest experience with blood tests,” I explain when Vera’s face twists up in confusion.
&nb
sp; “I promise I’d just take a look at a very basic genetic map — that’s the most I can do with these machines,” Vera says. “Even if the Biotech Hub officials had those readings available, we haven’t received communication of that level with them in…years. They send us all the products and reports we need for our work here if we ask, but there was a universal funding agreement between them and the U.S. government years ago that allows them to keep their preliminary data classified. And considering the things they told us we’re not allowed to talk to you guys about, I’m assuming you’re pretty classified yourselves.”
Daniel snorts. “That about sums it up.”
“Why don’t they communicate?” I ask.
Gallagher shrugs. “I don’t know that much about it, and honestly, I don’t think most people at this Hub care. All CSH knows is that developing your abilities is something you can do with practice and training. Anecdotally, different people have different experiences — some develop faster, others take years to be ready for the field. Speaking of,” he adds offhandedly, “we’d like to do a physical exam to assess your specific abilities.”
“Together or apart?” Leni asks, looking at Daniel, her eyebrows drawn together.
“Apart first. I’m going to have to draw up a protocol for your combined capabilities because that’s something we don’t usually do here. We don’t even have an intake form for that.” His face lights up when he says the words, like he’s been waiting for a challenge like this — for any challenge — for months.
“Okay, Elias,” Vera says. “Yours is the first profile I have, so I’ll do your prelim scan first, okay?”
Her pale, thin fingers, with carefully rounded nails, guide me to sit down in the chair beside the station she’s set up. I flinch as the needle nears my skin, thankful that Merrin looks away when it goes in. Neither of us are too fond of needles after Biotech, it seems. So when it’s Merrin’s turn, I stand beside her and hold her hand while Vera switches gloves and draws her blood. Then Leni, then Daniel.
Vera clicks the vial of my blood into place in some spinning machine beside her holomonitor, and right away, it a rotating double helix in the air before her eyes. She frowns, and Merrin hops to her feet to study it. But as soon as she does, Vera taps some keys, and it flattens back onto the screen.
“I just need to do a few more things here…”
“So, if we stay here for college or whatever…what will we be doing?” I ask.
Merrin could stare at that holoscreen all day, and I want to fill the tense silence her anxiousness creates. Besides, the idea of actually getting to work for one of the Hubs — not just bent over a lab table all day, but actually doing something with my abilities to help people — it feels good. Not that I never could have felt that way about Social Welfare, but this just seems more serious. More proud.
I’ve never exactly felt ashamed of my One status or my Super at all, but I really could use a chance to feel proud right now.
And maybe if my dad heard about what I was doing, he’d be proud of me, too. Maybe he’d ditch whatever skeezy work Biotech has him doing and he and mom would move up here to DC.
A low growl comes from Vera’s stool, and she mutters, “Close the screen, Kara.” Merrin whimpers, but Vera adds, “It wasn’t showing us anything.”
“But I thought I saw some anomalies in the phosphodiester bonds…”
Vera smiles and nods. “Yes, you did. Nice work. But there’s no way we can see that more closely without hours of more mapping. I’ll let you help me if you want.”
Merrin beams. I can hardly remember the last time she smiled like that.
Vera grabs her tablet and follows us to the door. “Clay, you work with them on the standard assessments, but I’m not going to wait for you to bring them back. I’m coming along — I want to do some informal inquiries of my own.”
He raises his eyebrows at her. “Shouldn’t you stay in the lab?”
“Shouldn’t you stay in the testing arena? Yet you saw fit to march these kids over to me for blood draws and genetics panels. So if I think it’ll help me figure out what’s going on with them, I’ll do as I see fit, thanks.”
Gallagher cocks his head and raises an eyebrow. “Why, Vera McCoy. That’s the most impassioned I’ve seen you about anything since the day I met you.”
She rolls her eyes. “Which was only five months ago. But whatever.”
We spend the next several hours going through Gallagher’s field tests. Daniel is the worst at the obstacle course — no athletics in his past at all, unless you count mathletics — and Merrin’s the best. She can float to the top of the rock wall, stick her arms out, pull herself over, and float back down on the other side. Gallagher talks for a second about different ways to test exactly how indestructible Daniel is, and Leni looks like she’s going to be sick. She offers to see if she can throw some fire before she gets too badly burned — I think mostly to distract him — and Gallagher happily books her a spot in a fireproofed section of the arena tomorrow. I can make the wind blow a little, which distracts people, but other than that, I don’t have much to offer.
While the others are testing, I throw out suggestions and scenarios for how they could be helpful. For most of them, Gallagher nods or shows me the spot on the schedule where he’s already planned that. But for others, his eyebrow arches up, and he says “huh” and furiously types the notes in his tablet.
“You’re good at this stuff, VanDyne,” he says at one point. “‘Mission strategics,’ as we call it here. I know your One frustrates you, but have you ever thought about a desk job? I know we talk about field work like it’s hot shit, but the truth is that it takes a good strategic brain designing every mission.”
“I don’t know. I kind of want to be out in the field just to keep an eye on her.” I tilt my chin in Merrin’s direction.
“She lets people keep an eye on her?” Gallagher laughs, watching Merrin do a fast float, complete with a flip in the air, out of reach of a guy with super-strength while Leni and Daniel look on.
“Okay, no, I guess not.”
“Seriously, though. Your experience with Ones means that you have a unique outlook on the different possibilities for each Super. You can think outside the box a little bit.”
I nod, trying to communicate my thanks, but the safer it feels for me and Merrin, the less I can think about anything but Nora and Lia. “Hey, man. You guys get the news here, right?”
“Since you had all your IDs and stats checked, yeah, you should be able to just pull the sources up on your tabletop. Ask Kara to help you.”
I stick my hand out to shake his. “Thank you. I really appreciate it.”
“Pleasure’s all mine. And seriously, I meant it. Really great to have you here. I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”
Vera walks toward him with her tablet, a smile in her eyes. I wonder if it’s for Gallagher, but as soon as she shows him what’s on the tablet and starts moving stuff around there with her stylus, I realize she’s excited about whatever’s there. I’ve been keeping her in sight, and she’s been working with us all day, so it must be something from one of our genetic readouts. Gallagher looks up at Leni and Daniel, then nods. When he catches me watching them, he gives me a tight smile, puts an arm around Vera’s shoulders, and leads her back toward her lab.
Okay.
I look across the arena to see Merrin speed walking toward me, her cheeks flushed and her “I’m excited” smile on her face. “Did you see me? I mean, the float’s good for something, huh?”
“I always said it was.”
“I’m no superhero, but…spy work, Elias! This is good!”
I try very hard to match the fullness of her smile. I’m sure she can tell it’s not quite there because she steps up close to me and says softly, “Let’s go to your room, okay?”
She slips her hand into mine, and we head out of the arena, stopping by the dining commons and picking up sandwiches to bring back to my room. Merrin chats the whole way about obstacle
courses and spying and how, even if she didn’t have the One, being really small turns out to be good for all sorts of spy stuff.
“Did you know that a lot of the snipers in the Israeli War of Independence two centuries back were women? The little ones because they could fit into more places? And think of what I could do with an M-16 if I could float with it.”
The idea of Merrin floating around with an M-16 is either terrifying or comical, and I know neither reaction will be well-received, so I just smile at her and lean forward from my crossed-leg seat on the bed to kiss her.
She smiles, her sky-blue eyes meeting mine, serious and warm and alive. She doesn’t move, just keeps staring up at me. My pulse races and my heart pounds in my chest. I know that look. It’s the same one she got right before she told me she loved me. Focused and full of heart, deep and devastatingly beautiful.
“I’m so glad we’re here together. There are so many ways this could have ended up, but it’s good we ended up this way, you know?”
I want to push our sandwiches to the side, pull her next to me, lay back on the bed, and stay there forever, running my hands through her hair and down her hips.
But I can’t do that with my sisters on my mind. I lean in for another quick kiss, then glance down at my cuff. No calls, but then again, how would I get calls on this thing? I don’t think CS is keeping people from communicating with me, but it’s not like Lia or Nora know my number or could figure out where I went.
My gaze drifts to the tabletop where I could watch the news, and Merrin knows. She squeezes my hand and says, “I asked around. I haven’t heard anything.”
I look back at her with my lips pressed into a hard line. “Me neither. I’m just going to see if I can find something.”
I ask Kara to pull up all the normal news sites on the touchscreen, scrolling through any story that looks like it could involve the twins: car accidents, house fires, even vandalism. But there’s nothing there that indicates that they’ve been causing any trouble at all.
“This means one of two things,” I say, leaning my elbow on the tabletop. “Either they’re in serious trouble or…okay…”
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