by S. A. Beck
She hadn’t taken the opportunity to meet anyone. She was studiously avoiding the other residents. But as Jax plopped down into the swivel chair and powered up her monitor, she discovered she was the center of attention. She tried to ignore the whispers and the eyes glancing in her direction. Some of the younger students peered over the tops of their cubicles to get a good look.
“Here we go,” Jaxon muttered under her breath with a roll of her eyes.
“What’s your name, New Girl?”
The taunting voice came from a gangly, pimply-faced boy with a crew cut who was wearing baggy jeans. He had beady blue eyes and an upturned nose. Jaxon sighed. Slouching, he strolled over to her area and parked his arm on top of her cubicle wall, leering down at her. “I saw you when you got here yesterday. What you in for?”
“None of your business.” She barely moved her lips, and she kept her eyes on her computer screen. Using the coffee-stained slip of paper containing her passwords and access codes, she entered the information into her computer and watched the screen load with a welcome message. Jaxon eyed the small print, the letters jumbled.
“Figured you’d come to group this morning and get to know us and shit.”
“Swear bucket,” Jaxon muttered.
He chuckled nastily, leaning over her. “That only works for the teachers, wiseass. So, what’s your name again?” Slowly, he perused her from head to toe. Jaxon avoided eye contact. Where was the supervision in this place? Wasn’t she sent to the group home so she could be watched? She sighed heavily and tried to ignore the menace. “What’s the matter, baby? Cat got your tongue?” he jeered.
“She thinks she’s better than us,” a feminine voice said. Snickers followed. Jaxon cringed. The girls were always so much worse than the boys. Jaxon chanced a glance and noticed that the culprit was the girl sitting across from her in the first cubicle on the other side of the room. With a mouthful of braces and glistening auburn hair cut in layers to frame her pretty face, she was clearly one of the popular ones. Jax groaned inwardly.
Talkative Much continued, “Couldn’t come to group and hang out with the commoners. Had to spend the morning in the doctor’s office with a sour disposition. She’s the shrink’s pet.”
“He-he! Shrink’s pet. Hey, doesn’t she kind of look like a Chihuahua? Like a teacup Chihuahua! Little b—”
“All right, class, let’s get to our places!” The clip of heels entering the room got everyone’s attention, and suddenly the sharks circling her cubicle for blood swam off to their respective spots. Jaxon breathed a sigh of relief. She wasn’t one to be intimidated. She just didn’t want to have to put anybody in their place so early in the game. Why was it so hard for people to leave her alone?
Jaxon learned several important things on her first day of school at Forever Welcome. First, as with all good things, there was a flip side. Forever Welcome had its charms and its challenges. Second, like every other place she had been, the group home would have jerks who had a problem with her for absolutely no reason at all. And third, sitting in front of a computer for nearly eight hours with only intermittent breaks would be torture to her ADHD.
She tapped her foot restlessly and fidgeted in the chair. She swiveled aimlessly, chewing at a loose fingernail and sneaking peeks at what everyone else was doing.
As Dr. Hollis had indicated, four tutors alternated throughout the day, walking the aisles of the classroom. The learning time was mostly a quiet, solitary interaction between student and computer, but Jaxon also heard whispered conversations and the buzzes and chirps of cell phones as text messages were sent. The teachers didn’t seem to mind as long as the work—which she discovered they monitored remotely—was getting done.
Around the first fifteen-minute break at eleven, Jaxon felt a tap on her shoulder and looked up in alarm to see one of the teachers standing over her. Her name tag said Stacey, and she had wiry black dreadlocks piled atop her head in intricate loops and coils. “Are you having any trouble, Jaxon?”
“No, um, I’m just… getting used to…”
The teacher nodded understandingly and knelt down near her desk chair. “It can take a little getting used to, but we do expect you to complete the assignments. Looks like, according to my synopsis, you’re supposed to be answering the discussion questions from your AP English Lit class. You’ve been on the same screen for nearly an hour.”
“I’ve got it covered,” Jaxon growled, looking away. She had trouble with the reading. It was almost impossible to stay focused on the small font, and it was ludicrous of Dr. Hollis to expect her to segue right into college-level courses. This is hopeless, she thought, gnawing at her bottom lip angrily.
Stacey reached over Jaxon’s keyboard and hit the control key, scrolling up with her mouse to make the font larger. Her walnut shell–brown face was freckled with hyper-pigmented moles. Stacey’s full brown lips smiled gently, and her voice was mellow like the taste of saffron. She whispered to Jaxon, “As I understand it, you have dyslexia, right?” Jax nodded once, barely. She hated admitting her weaknesses. “Right,” Stacey murmured. “Put on your headphones. They’re located behind your monitor. You’ll use the Ease of Access control panel to have highlighted text read to you.” She patiently and discreetly showed Jaxon how to set the controls.
Jax felt tears of embarrassment well up in her eyes, but she mumbled, “Thanks.”
“No problem. That’s what I’m here for. If you have any other problems, you can press the help button in the upper right-hand corner of your desk. Once the button is depressed, the light atop your cubicle will illuminate to let me or one of the other teachers—Ms. Karen, Ms. Bhati, or Ms. Megan—know to come lend you a hand.” She patted Jaxon’s back and left her to her work.
Fifteen minutes later was the first break, and Jaxon escaped. “Where’s the restroom?” she asked the quiet young man sitting to her left.
He mumbled directions, and Jax shot out of the classroom before anyone else could hold her up. She sat in an empty stall killing time and thinking about her morning. After the assistance from Ms. Stacey, she had labored through the reading assignment and answered one of the discussion questions.
She still had American History and her foreign language courses to complete, and then it would be time for lunch. She wondered what the catty crew would have in store once she was out of earshot of the teachers. Jaxon sighed and buried her face in her hands. She drew her slender fingers through her thick black hair and shook her head as she smashed her cheeks between her palms.
At that moment, the door to her stall came crashing in. “Hey!” Jax yelped.
“Look what I found. A dog doing her business on the toilet, like a human,” the girl with the braces crowed. She was accompanied by two other girls, neither of whom appeared capable of thinking a single original thought, both of them tittering senselessly at the girl’s crude joke.
Jaxon rose to her feet, fists balled. “Leave me alone,” she growled.
“You made her bark, Lizzie!” One of the accomplices clapped her hands enthusiastically. “What else can you make her do?”
Jaxon shoved Lizzie out of her face and pushed out of the bathroom stall. She knew from experience never to let anyone back her into a corner. “You knuckle-draggers done talking? ’Cause I don’t do speeches.” Jax squared her shoulders, popped her neck, and put up her fists, bouncing on the balls of her feet. “I’m more hands-on.”
Lizzie stepped back, howling with laughter. “I’m not fighting you, dogface.” She flipped Jaxon off and shoved her shoulder as she strutted past. “Just stay out of my way, m’kay, girl? You’re not worth my time. As in, I got just a few more months in this place, and I’m out.”
Jaxon bristled, gunning for a fight but realizing Lizzie was the sort to bait rather than brawl, and the person who passed the first lick always got in more trouble than the person who started the fight. Jax grumbled under her breath and marched out of the bathroom with barely checked fury. No way would she run to Dr. Hollis’s office like the shri
nk’s pet they had accused her of being. But she wasn’t about to put up with anyone’s bull either. It was wonderful the girl with braces would be out soon because Jax didn’t know how much longer she could bridle her fiery temper.
She breezed into the classroom and sat at her desk. She dug out her phone, but she didn’t have anyone to call or text. Her smartphone was mostly for playing games and listening to music. Jaxon didn’t have friends. She shook her head, angry all over again at what had happened in the bathroom. She didn’t have friends because people were too busy trying to push her over the edge. It didn’t matter anyway. Jax sighed. She was a loner by choice. It was easier. She was a rolling stone, a tumbleweed, never in one place for long, and that meant all of her problems were just passing through, too.
She got back to work on her assignments, and by the end of classes, she had survived the first day of school with barely a scrape. She could do it. She was built for it.
Chapter 6
APRIL 8, 2016, ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO
1:00 PM
The male subject had been lured to the facility with a ruse. He was told he had won an all-expenses-paid safari vacation, but in order to prepare for the trip, he was required to go through a rigorous physical. His wife and three children had already been to the back room where their mouths were swabbed, blood was taken, and vitals were recorded. They were sent back out into the tastefully decorated waiting area, and then it was his turn.
“This will just take a second,” said the nurse.
He opened his mouth, and she dug around his inner lip and cheek with a long cotton swab. The smell of her latex gloves assailed his nostrils. He hated that smell and wasn’t too keen on hospitals in general. “I hope the trip is worth all this. Hey, aren’t you supposed to give me vaccines and stuff? I heard somewhere they do that before trips to Africa.”
The nurse pulled down her face mask and smiled. “Mr. Wilson, this is the preliminary exam. If we see any problems, we’ll notify you and have you come back for a follow-up. As for vaccinations, I don’t know anything about that, but I’m sure the doctor can answer any questions you have.”
“And when do I see the doctor?” He winced as the nurse tightened the rubber tourniquet about his upper arm. She pressed his antecubital fossa, looking for a suitable vein, and he winced again as she inserted the needle.
Zion Wilson was glad when he hopped in his Yukon and drove back to his ranch house with the family. He had been informed all their results would be back within twenty-four hours. The sooner the results were in, the sooner they could start planning the vacation of a lifetime.
“…And elephants, and giraffes, and lions,” his five-year-old daughter was running down the list of animals she hoped to see.
“Kizzy! Why do you talk so much?” his nine-year-old whined.
“All right, all right, simmer down. When we get inside, I want you to give your baby sister a bath, Denise. Your mom and I are gonna get dinner started.”
“Fish tacos?” his wife suggested. He grinned at her and nodded.
“Sounds good to me.”
They piled out of the SUV and filed into the house, where the kids argued about who would take a bath first, and he and his wife sauntered into the kitchen, ignoring the bickering.
Lorraine Wilson put her elbows on the kitchen counter and leaned over to talk to Zion. Her curly black hair was a halo around her olive face. “So, what do you think they were testing us for?”
Zion shrugged. “Beats me. Said they’ll call if they see any problems.” He cupped her face and kissed the tip of her nose. “But there aren’t gonna be any problems. In a few months, we’ll be in the middle of Africa, riding across the savanna, taking pictures of the elephants, giraffes, and lions.” He chuckled softly.
By the next day, he was no longer laughing. He was back at Starke Genetics & Development, wearing a worried frown. Tension in his shoulders and neck made his head ache, and when the nurse called him back to the examination room, his legs were shaking. He had received the callback while at work, and the friendly nurse on the other end of the line had assured him he didn’t have anything grave to worry about, so he hadn’t told his wife.
He couldn’t imagine explaining to Lorraine that some health concern might hold up their trip. Zion wondered what the problem might be. He was healthy as an ox, never got a cold or the flu, and didn’t have any allergies. He had barely aged a day since his early twenties. He was stronger than ten men and sharp-witted to near genius. What was wrong with him that he needed to go back and see the doctor?
An Asian woman with an electronic clipboard was waiting in the small blue examination room. There were furrows above her brow, and she looked anxious and nervous.
“Give it to me straight, Doc,” Zion said, plopping down on the edge of the paper-covered exam table. He put his hands together and dropped them between his knees. “I’m healthy, for all intents and purposes. You’re gonna tell me I got some type of tumor or something growing like a ticking time bomb in me? Something I haven’t felt the effects of yet?”
“No.” Her sharp, monosyllabic answer didn’t make him feel any better. “Mr. Wilson, I want to take you through a series of tests, and I want you to perform them to the best of your ability. Do you understand?”
“Tests?” He didn’t understand. He thought he was finished with tests.
“Follow me, please.”
Zion was reluctant, but he followed the doctor with the long black hair that fell to the middle of her back. She had haunted eyes, circles underneath them as if she worked long hours with little rest. He had questions, and nobody seemed to have any answers. She led him down a long hallway to his right, the windows streaming bright sunlight. Zion peeked outside. A movement out of the corner of his eye caused him to glance back, and he noticed two men in black suits were a few paces behind him.
The doctor took Zion to the elevators, and the men followed them inside. They all went down.
“What are these tests about? Do I need to call my wife?”
“Mr. Wilson, we’d be happy to contact your wife for you,” said one of the gentlemen.
Zion stepped back and pressed his spine against the cool metal wall of the elevator. With sweaty palms, he gripped the handrail that lined the wall. His eyebrows lifted, and creases wrinkled his forehead as he replied tensely, “Someone better tell me what the hell is going on here.” He had visions of secret medical facilities, and the place was starting to look more and more like one.
The two men in suits barely glanced in his direction. One of them chuckled briefly. The doctor glared at them and glanced back at Zion. “I’m sorry, Mr. Wilson. I’m not authorized to tell you any more information until nondisclosure forms are—”
“I’m not signing no nondisclosure forms!” he said. Zion lurched forward and banged on the elevator doors. “Let me out of here!” he shouted. “I didn’t sign up for this! Let me out!”
The gentlemen in black placed heavy hands on his shoulders and pulled him back. “Please, remain calm.”
The elevator doors opened on the basement floor, and Zion Wilson shot out, tearing from their grasp. He looked to the left and to the right but didn’t see any way out, so he blindly ran straight ahead.
“Mr. Wilson!” Dr. Yamazaki called after him. They would hurt him. She knew Meade’s henchmen would have no qualms about taking down the patient if he didn’t cooperate. “Mr. Wilson, please! For your safety, you have to stop!”
Zion dashed past a startled man in a lab coat, his wingtips slapping against the white linoleum floor. His suit jacket whipped out behind him, and his arms pumped as quickly as his legs. He didn’t get winded. He coasted around a corner, and there ahead of him was a door labeled Exit. A burly security guard tried to stop him, but Zion pushed the man away with all his considerable strength. The oversized man flew six feet in the air and landed with a deafening crash through a glass wall of the laboratory. Zion knew he could get out. He just had to keep running.
“S
top!” Dr. Yamazaki pleaded.
One of the black-suited men leveled his weapon and fired the tranquilizer dart directly into the back of Zion’s neck. The cartridge was double strength. The medium-height, medium-build runner didn’t stand a chance.
Akiko covered her mouth and dropped her head. “You didn’t have to do that!” she shouted. “Go get him!” She pointed at her patient and stormed to the laboratory. Within a few minutes, Zion was deposited on a stretcher in the basement examination room. Akiko’s laboratory permitted a view from a level above. The room was sealed off by automated doors that opened only by access code.
“Who do we have here?” asked Yuhle. He strolled into her office, peering down at the patient.
“Zion Wilson, case number 6458004e. Our rapid results from the DNA sequencer indicated a probable match with the Atlantis gene. I received word this morning we’re to run further tests and document phenotypic and behavioral abnormalities.” Akiko heaved a sigh, finally catching her breath after chasing him. “Make a note that he’s fast and strong.”
“Are we safe?” Yuhle’s hawkish nose twitched. He wasn’t comfortable dealing with a potentially violent patient.
“Don’t worry, Yuhle. Nothing hands-on.”
General Meade had ways of getting what he wanted and people to carry out his dirty work. A careful combination of mind-altering drugs would make Zion Wilson docile enough to complete the rigorous physical and mental tests required to assess his capabilities. They tested his strength by measuring the force of his punch. He could throw a smart car across a football field. His intelligence measured off the charts.
Zion could also perform minor telekinesis, such as moving a spoon across a table. He could read thoughts with 84 percent accuracy. Zion Wilson was no ordinary human being, and he didn’t have ordinary genetic material. It was all adding up for him to be the first real match. “This is the one,” Akiko murmured with growing amazement as she glanced from her clipboard to the patient dazedly performing superhuman feats beyond the bulletproof glass. “My friend, you are seeing the Atlantis gene in action.”
