by Toby Minton
“He tried using his own DNA once,” Gideon went on, not even glancing at Impact. He might as well have been staring. “The results…did not meet his expectations.”
That was all Impact could stand. He pushed off the wall and strode into the hall, pulling the door shut behind him a little too hard. The clang of the slam echoed through the concrete hall as he headed for the gym. He needed to run. Hard.
Did not meet his expectations.
Impact had been only six years old when Savior told him what he really thought of him, but he remembered the words Savior had used more clearly than he remembered anything else from his childhood in that lab. Those words had hurt far worse than Gideon’s gentle understatement.
Impact…15 years ago
He was the fastest kid in the world. Everybody said so: Lee, Tully, Elias. He was the toughest too. Nothing could stop him when he ran fast. The soldiers had even given him a name like they used on the radios—Impact—even though his real name was Jon.
After today, even his father would call him Impact. He’d have to after this.
Impact raced around one of the curves on the big track in the soldiers’ playroom, his smile growing wider as he went faster and faster. This had to be the fastest he’d ever run. It had to!
He shot down the straightaway right past where his father, Elias, and the old soldier with all the ribbons on his uniform were standing to watch him. His father had called this a routine demonstration and told him to obey all commands he gave him. But when he’d been alone with Elias at breakfast this morning, Elias had told him it was a test. The man with the ribbons didn’t believe he could run as fast and hit as hard as they said. Elias had told him to do the best he could and prove the old soldier wrong.
That was exactly what he was going to do.
Impact sped around the other curve and onto the opposite straightaway, the wooden wall on the inside lane coming into view. He aimed straight for it, his smile feeling like it would split his face in two. He wasn’t afraid at all as he shot toward the wall. He’d smashed through all the lighter walls they’d put up before. This one would be the same. No matter how strong it was, it couldn’t stop him.
Nothing can stop Impact!
He slammed into the wall with a yell, and the wood exploded away from him as he blasted through the other side. He didn’t feel a thing. Toughest kid in the world!
He stumbled after he made it through the wall. Once he hit something, he just wasn’t as fast until he ran some more. If he went through the walls too fast, sometimes he couldn’t stay on his feet. He tried to steady himself, desperately wanting to stay on his feet for his test, but he couldn’t do it. His feet tangled under him and he fell, rolling off the track before he could catch himself and stand back up.
He looked over at the three adults, afraid of what he’d see. Elias was a little behind the others. He looked all serious like they did, but he smiled a little, winked, and nodded his head. The old soldier with all the ribbons looked surprised, but he was nodding too, if not in the same way. Finally, Impact’s eyes went to the one he was most afraid of. His father’s eyes were narrowed, and his mouth looked flat like it did when he was mad.
“Impressive, General,” Impact heard the old soldier say to his father. “But I’ve seen impressive from you before. I’m more concerned about the control issue. Unless you’ve fixed that, I’m afraid my hands are tied. They’ve shut the whole outfit down, Savior. We need a definitive success to show the Chinese we mean business. Otherwise, there’s no changing their minds.”
“As you can see,” his father said. “He’s followed every order we’ve given him. Part of the gene therapy I devised for this subject targeted those genes responsible for his sense of duty and compliance. He will follow any order his superiors give him. He can’t refuse.”
“What I’ve seen is him do things he looked damn happy to do,” the old soldier replied. “I want proof, Savior. I want to see him follow an order he doesn’t want to follow.”
Impact didn’t understand all they were saying, but he could tell that Elias was not happy with the old soldier, and his father didn’t look happy with anybody.
Impact couldn’t hear the orders his father spoke into the radio, but two soldiers ran out to clear the wooden wall off the track. Then they rolled out his bike and stood it where the wall had been.
“Jon,” his father said, using the calm voice he used when he gave orders. “Destroy the bicycle.”
“That’s my bike,” Impact said, feeling like he wanted to cry. He couldn’t cry during his test, but he couldn’t smash his bike. He loved his bike. Tully had made it special so it could go almost as fast as he could pedal. There was no bike in the world like it. Tully said so. “I won’t smash my bike,” he said, and he felt a tingle run through his belly that had to be fear. Nobody told his father no.
“I thought you said you fixed—” the old soldier started to say, but Impact’s father raised his hand the way he did when he wanted quiet.
“Jon, this is a direct order. Destroy that bicycle,” his father said, his voice even harder. Behind his father, Elias looked at Impact and nodded his head for him to do as he was told. He wasn’t happy about it, but he wanted Impact to do this.
Impact nodded at his father and started running.
This was the test. He had to do this. He had to do his best like Elias said.
He shot around the first curve and into the straightaway in front of his father, moving even faster than before but without a smile this time.
He rounded the second curve and shot down the straightaway at the bike, finally starting to smile. This was a test they didn’t think he would pass. But he could. He could smash his bike. He would show them he could. Then Tully could build him a new one, an even better one.
He could do this. He could smash the bike. He could smash the bike. He could smash—
At the last second Impact’s feet failed the test for him. He was only a couple of steps from the bike when he felt a tingle in his chest and his feet just turned on their own. One second he was headed straight for the bike, the next he was headed for the weight rack in the center of the track.
He smashed through the weight rack like a six-year-old bomb, sending the heavy weights he’d watched the soldiers struggle to lift flying out in every direction. And this time he didn’t lose his balance. He stayed on his feet as he slowed and stopped in the middle of the track.
“Father, did you see that?” he shouted, watching the weights wobbling and clattering to stops all over the playroom. He’d never smashed anything so big and heavy before!
When he looked up, his father wasn’t as happy as he was. In fact, his face was showing no expression at all, which meant that he was angry. Very angry.
The old soldier was walking away, but Impact’s father and Elias stayed where they were. Elias looked unhappy too, but he gave Impact a tiny smile. His father just crossed his arms and seemed to get even calmer.
“Twenty-five years of research ends today, Elias,” his father said, still looking at Impact. “Jon is the culmination of all that research. But he’s just another failure.”
Then his father turned and walked away.
Impact cried all the way back to his room, but by the time he and Elias got there, his tears were more out of anger than sadness.
Elias opened the thick, clear door in the glass wall that showed all of Impact’s small room to the babies across the hall, and Impact stepped inside wiping his tears away with his sleeve.
“Wait until I tell the others why their weights are all over the gym,” Elias said as he shut the door. Impact could still hear him through the small holes in the glass, but his voice sounded like he was farther away. “They’re going to be blown away, Jon.”
“He didn’t care!” Impact yelled through another sob. “He wanted me to smash my bike.”
“I know, Jon,” Elias said, squatting by the door and trying a small smile. He was a grown up, like Impact’s father, but he was ni
cer, and he talked to Impact like they were friends. He usually made everything better when Impact was sad, but this time it wasn’t working.
Across the hall, the twin babies were watching him cry. Well, one of them was. The boy. He was always quiet and watching everything. The girl was always climbing around and jumping off things, like their low beds, or throwing things, usually at her brother.
“Stop looking at me!” Impact shouted at the boy.
“Jon, it’s not their fault,” Elias said, turning his head to look at the babies. They had been there almost two years now, but Elias still seemed to get sad when he looked at them, like he had ever since they were born.
“I bet their father loves them,” Impact said.
“Jon, your father loves you in his own way—”
“NO HE DOESN’T!” Impact shouted. “And don’t call me Jon. HE calls me Jon. My name is Impact. I’m not Jon ever again!”
“OK, Impact,” Elias said.
“I hate him,” Impact said, quieter now. “I hate fathers. I don’t ever want to be a father.”
“Impact,” Elias said softly. “Don’t say that. If you were a father, you wouldn’t be...Not all fathers are bad. Not that your father is bad,” he said, squeezing his eyes shut. “I just mean, there are good things about him. There are good things in fathers.”
“Not here,” Impact said. “A good father wouldn’t do what mine does. A good father wouldn’t make his kids stay in this place.”
Elias must have agreed. He got quiet. He looked at Impact and the twins.
“You’re right, Impact,” Elias said softly. Then he walked away, leaving Impact to dream about getting out of this place, and never coming back.
Chapter 15
Elias
Elias watched the briefing room door slam behind Impact. He stared at it, wishing he could have done more to head off the boy’s growing anger over the years.
He wasn’t a boy anymore. Elias had to remember that. He was a man now. He’d grown up. As had the twins.
“What stopped Savior from keeping us there in his lab? From testing us forever?” Michael asked, pulling Elias’s attention back to task.
“Funding,” Gideon said. “China had officially disbanded the army, something many had seen coming for a while.” He cast a look at Elias.
Elias just tightened his jaw and looked down. He didn’t need the reminder of why he’d taken that job. That old, settled guilt didn’t need dredging.
“Savior started searching for private funding while the military pulled out,” Gideon said. “And I took advantage of the confusion to raid his lab.”
“One man against a small army, huh?” Nikki said approvingly. “Nice.”
“No,” Gideon replied, looking over at Elias. “This time I had help.”
Elias…15 years ago
“Termination orders,” Savior said without turning. He was standing in the control room overlooking what they’d started calling the nursery. Through the wide window in front of Savior, Elias could see the glass tops of the holding cells in the dimly lit warehouse below. Three rows, a dozen small rooms, but only a few of them were occupied, the subjects sleeping in the soft amber glow of the night lights Elias and Tully had installed in row three.
Elias looked back at the paperwork in his hands.
“Our benevolent new government has decreed that all experiments performed on behalf of the U.S. Army after the disbandment order were unauthorized,” Savoir said, still staring out at the nursery, his arms crossed, his expression reflected in the glass almost amused. “We’re to destroy all remaining specimens and turn over all data—”
He turned to look at Elias, the bitterness in his smile becoming evident. “—or face criminal charges.”
“They’re children,” Elias said, meeting his employer’s blue eyes. “Not specimens.”
Savior just stared at Elias for a minute, his expression unreadable. Elias stared back, willing the man he’d once respected to resurface, silently pleading with the man to give him another way out.
“I understand why this is hard for you,” Savior said, looking away.
“Just for me?” Elias said, letting some of the emotion he was holding back bleed into his tone.
Savior met his gaze again, and this time Elias knew he saw a hint of anger behind those cold eyes. “There’s no room for sentiment in science, Major.”
“This isn’t sentiment, Savior. This is basic hum—”
“And there’s no room in your orders for interpretation,” Savoir cut him off, the first sparks of white light flickering deep in his eyes.
Savior had never used his powers against Elias. He’d never had reason to before now. But tonight…Elias tightened his grip on the papers in his hands, fighting the impulse to go for his sidearm and find out just how fast the nation’s hero was. That wasn’t Elias’s way. He’d never shirked his duty, and he’d never broken an oath of loyalty. He just wasn’t thinking rationally. Considering the situation, he wasn’t surprised.
Savior picked up a tablet, scanned his thumbprint, and keyed in his code. He continued to talk to Elias as he typed with one hand. “We have thirty days to comply with those orders, Major. Take the time to make your peace with them.”
“Yes, sir,” Elias said as calmly as he could manage.
“I have a meeting with potential investors. I’m leaving the facility in your trustworthy hands,” Savior said, dropping the tablet back on the console and giving Elias a thin smile. “See to your duty.”
“Yes, sir,” Elias responded again as Savior strode from the room.
Elias stood in the control room for a while after Savior left, making his peace with what had to be done. Through his com he heard the report of Savior’s transport leaving base. A few minutes later, he heard the perimeter units check in on schedule.
He’d never broken an oath of loyalty. Never.
Elias left the nursery control room and took the lift to the main floor. He walked the darkened halls without seeing another soul on his way to the main laboratory. Once inside the vault-like door, he walked slowly through the carefully maintained equipment toward the incubators where he’d first seen the children.
He gazed at the empty machines while he waited for his conscience to convince the rest of him he was doing the right thing. Every few minutes, he checked his watch.
He’d never broken an oath of loyalty—
At exactly twenty-three nineteen, he keyed open the emergency doors and stood aside as a hunched figure detached itself from the shadows outside and slipped into the lab.
—until tonight.
Elias resealed the doors and turned to find Gideon pulling back his hood and looking over the lab. “How much time do we have?” Gideon asked.
“Less than an hour until the next patrol.”
Gideon was already pulling micro-charges from his bag. “More than enough. The servers?”
“I put charges in place this morning. Same detonator frequency,” Elias said, taking a breath and letting the details of the job keep his focus off the bigger picture, and trying to stop the word “betrayal” from repeating in his head. “I’ll meet you in the motor pool. Stick to the route I showed you and you shouldn’t run into patrols.”
“I’ll be there,” Gideon said, his low voice barely audible as he moved off into the lab to carry out his part of the plan.
Elias slipped out of the lab, his own tasks foremost in his mind. Once he reached the nursery, he stood in row three outside the cells, the soft glow of the night lights on the corners of the rooms illuminating the children sleeping peacefully inside.
The twins had two small beds in their cell—Elias refused to call them “rooms” like the others—but one bed was empty, as usual. They were tangled on the other bed, Michael on his back, Nikki sprawled facedown beside and on top of him with her hand splayed out on his face. Their downy hair, normally so pale it was almost white, looked like orange flame in the amber light.
He turned to the cell acr
oss the hall and slid his access card, opening the door as quietly as he could. Impact was curled up in a ball on his bed, his naturally bald head reflecting the light like a polished beacon.
Elias shook the boy gently awake, keeping him as quiet as possible, and explained the situation quickly. Convincing the boy to come with him took nothing more than asking. Convincing him to help with the twins was trickier.
“They don’t belong here any more than you do, Impact,” he said. “They need my help. And I need yours.”
The boy’s serious blue eyes met his, and he knew without a doubt, for the first time, that he was doing the right thing.
“They’re not as old as you,” Elias said. “They’re going to be scared, and they’ll need someone to protect them until we get out of here. No one is faster than you. No one is tougher than you. No one else can do this, Impact.”
To his credit, and Elias’s pride, the boy didn’t jump at the obvious attempt at manipulation. He thought it over, staring across the hall at the twins, looking so much like his father with his mouth drawn tight. “I’ll guard them, Elias. Will you guard me?”
“You have my word,” Elias said, and extended his hand to the boy. He knew he meant it more than the boy knew. He knew at that moment he’d die before he let anything happen to these kids.
Impact solemnly shook his hand. Then he slid out of bed and got dressed.
The twins were already awake when Elias opened their door. Somehow they knew something was wrong. Their fear was evident on their nearly identical faces as they stood by the bed holding tightly to each other, Nikki with a tiny scowl, both with unshed tears standing in their eyes.
Before Elias could say a word, Impact pushed past him into the cell. He knelt in front of the twins and spoke quietly, too quietly for Elias to make out his words. Whatever he was saying, they were nodding back at him.
That’s when Elias saw someone step around the corner, and everything started to fall apart.
Elias stepped forward and drew in one motion. Past the night sights of his pistol, he watched Sergeant Tully step toward him, his assault rifle aimed at Elias’s chest.
