Faceless

by Jus Accardo

  “Wow… So your research revolves around the disease?”

  “The disease? No. My research revolves around the cure.”

  “But you just said—”

  He grinned. “’Zactly.” He flagged down the waitress for another round and leaned forward on the table. “What would you say if I told you it wasn’t something that cured me, but someone?”

  Suddenly things started to make sense. The girls at the front, the beer in front of me, even the comforting feel of the skate wheel back in my pocket, all faded away.

  I gave a nervous laugh. “I’d say have another beer, dude.”

  He waved his hands. “I mean it. I’m sitting home one day, seven years old, watching cartoons and minding my own business. This young woman knocks on the door and asks my mom if she can use the phone. Says her car broke down in front of the house. Mom goes to get the phone and this lady comes in, smiles at me, and says, ‘You’re being given a great gift. Don’t waste it.’” He laughed. “I remember wondering why she didn’t have any shoes on and smelled like the funny cigarettes my cousin Bobby used to smoke. She puts her hands on my face, and boom, I’m out like a light. When I wake up, it’s like I’m a new person.”

  “Just like that? Poof, you’re healed?” I shook my head, trying to keep my face indifferent. “What did the doctors say?”

  He threw both hands into the air and shrugged. “They called it a miracle. They were never able to explain it, but the damage in my lungs had been repaired. There was scar tissue, but no degeneration.”

  “And you think this woman had something to do with it? By what, like, just touching you?”

  “I don’t think—I know.” He leaned even closer, voice low. “There are people out there…people who can do extraordinary things. Things you and I can’t possibly imagine.”

  “Extraordinary things,” I repeated, wondering what he’d think if he knew about me. Or even Dez. I’d met a handful of other Sixes since my first jump, one of whom was Daun, a healer who ran with Ginger and the underground. Wentz’s description sounded an awful lot like her.

  “After that day, I started looking. Started really keeping my eyes open. Once I was old enough, I followed any and every report of a person doing something unexplainable. I traveled all over the world, collecting data. Obviously most of it was bunk. But some of it…” His voice trailed off and his eyes sparked with faraway wonder. He downed the remainder of his new glass, eyes glossing over. “Some of it was real.”

  With a deep breath, he glanced to the right and then the left to be sure no one was listening. But in a place like this, where people often bragged they were president in another life, or had recently been abducted by aliens and probed till the sun came up, I doubted anyone would have noticed. No one was sober enough, and I was sure the girls that worked here had heard it all.

  “Lucky for me, I inherited my dad’s knack for science,” he said. “I spent years in the lab, and I finally figured it out. These abilities—all these people who can do amazing things—have the same thing in common. An abnormality in the sixth chromosome. I didn’t realize it at first. It shows up as a simple defect, but if you look deeper, the truth is there.”

  “The truth?”

  “There’s an extra strand on the sixth chromosome. I’ve gotten hold of some, um, samples, and in studying them, I’ve found that the extra strand—the one that most doctors would think is nothing more than a harmless abnormality—is what gives these people their unique gifts.” There was a faraway look in his eyes. “At first I thought it was all the same, but the more I looked, the clearer it all became. Each one of these people is unique. The strand is never exactly the same. A miracle, Cain. I stumbled onto a miracle!”

  “What does this all have to do with this thing you’re working on?”

  “I think these people—the ones able to do all these miraculous things—found out about my research. I think they’re afraid of it. They want to stop it. I think that’s who threw the grenade through my office window, not animal rights.”

  Man, if he only knew how wrong he was. They wanted to snag his research—not stop it. And I’d never believed the animal rights’ story, which begged an entirely new question—who wanted Wentz dead? “How would they even know about the research?”

  Wentz frowned. “Someone leaked it, I guess. Sucks not knowing who to trust.”

  “Then why trust me? I mean, you just spilled your guts here. You don’t know me.”

  The question seemed to stump him. He paused, mid-sip, and watched me for a moment. “That’s a good question, Doug. One I don’t have a real answer to. I’m normally a decent judge of character—regardless of what Nader says—and I get a good vibe from you.”

  “That’s one I don’t hear every day,” I joked. Taking a deep breath, I made the decision to push forward. Channeling every ounce of self-control I possessed into making him tell me what I wanted to know, I said, “Tell me more about this project, Wentz.”

  He continued speaking as though I hadn’t said a word, but I noticed the corner of his lip twitch and his eyes sort of flutter. There was a spike of pain in my temple, and my pulse kicked up to eleven. Working! I’d finally gotten it working. “I’m close to something, Doug. There’s a serum I’ve been working on—I call it Dromin12… I think with a little more time, I can manipulate the abnormality—maybe even change it.”

  His admission surprised me to the point that I lost my focus. I physically felt the push fade. “Change it?”

  It was like someone had walked up and slapped Wentz across the face. He blinked several times, then leaned back in his chair, a surprised expression creasing his features.

  “Tell me,” I said, pushing again. My chest hurt, and it felt like every ounce of blood was currently running the Daytona 500 to get to my brain. I didn’t understand what was so different. I’d pushed Devin without any of this. “Change the abnormality how?”

  More twitching from Wentz. “There’s a flaw in my recipe. Somewhere along the line, the serum breaks down. The way it is now, it would be instantly toxic to any living thing that took it, I think. But with a little more time, I’m pretty sure I can change it to manipulate the defect and predict the outcome on the abnormality. Kind of tweak the individual strands…”

  I let out a breath and sucked down my beer in a single gulp. Finding the cure made getting to the formula a priority, but knowing Wentz was close to tweaking it to control Six abilities? That upped the odds tenfold.

  “Why?” I set the glass on the table. “I mean, this is cool and all, but it seems like a lot of risk. You said you think these people are trying to kill you. Why continue with it?”

  Wentz thought about it for a moment, then downed the contents of his own glass, and raised it for another round as the waitress passed. “It started out as curiosity. I wanted to know how she did it. How she cured me. I needed to know… But then, as I got deeper and deeper, I saw the potential.”

  “Potential?”

  A gleam of excitement flickered in his eyes, and he leaned closer. “These strands—the possibilities are endless. You can’t even begin to know the sequencing potential. There must be some of them out there, ones whose abilities are dangerous—to themselves as well as others. What if I could predict that? Maybe change the outcome? It could mean the difference between a normal life and misery.”

  I thought about my cousin’s boyfriend, Kale. His skin was lethal to any living thing it touched. Until he met Dez. At least until recently, she was the only person he’d ever had physical contact with. What if Wentz’s research could change that? What if it could give Sixes like Kale a chance at a normal life?

  There were a lot of ifs, but one thing was certain. Now, more than ever, I had to get that formula before Denazen did.

  Before Devin did…

  Chapter Ten

  As I lay in bed trying to keep my eyes open, Wentz’s words played over and over again in my head.

  With a little more time, I can manipulate the abnormal
ity—maybe even change it…

  Everything made perfect sense with the confirmation that Wentz might be able to manipulate the Six mutation. I bet Denazen’s interest in the notes on Dromin12 was more about starting a new Supremacy trial than it was about curing the old one. If Wentz was as brilliant as they said, and he really could manipulate the abnormality, that might result in a successful Supremacy trial. One without the side effects.

  I slipped into the darkness, thinking about Anderson and uncle Marshal and the kind of damage they could do if they got their hands on Wentz’s research, and still somehow managed to dive into Devin’s dream instead of my planned trip to Ginger to update her on what I’d found.

  The landscape was different from last night. I entered the dream, stepping into a brightly lit ballroom. It was crowded and soft music filled the air as men in tuxedos twirled girls in fluffy gowns around the middle of the room. Looking down at my own attire—a pair of black boxers and a T-shirt decorated in tiny skulls—I frowned. This wouldn’t work. I imagined the tux I’d seen my dad wear when he’d accepted an award for Journalist of the Year. A moment later, I was looking slick in shiny shoes and a well-tailored penguin suit. Not the most comfortable get-up in the world, but hey, I looked sharp.

  I entered the room, and searched for Devin. When my eyes found her standing in the corner, it was all I could do not to hyperventilate. Her chestnut hair was swept atop her head, several curly strands falling on either side of her face. The dark purple dress she wore hugged her midsection tight, then fanned out at the waist and fell to the floor. Each time she moved, the skirt swayed, revealing a hint of silver at each toe.

  Heart spazzing like a jackhammer gone rogue, I crossed the floor and made my way to her, one step at a time. A part of my brain was getting a kick out of this. I was in a dream. Someone else’s dream. And here I was getting ready to piss myself over talking to some girl.

  Dez would be laughing her ass off if she could see this.

  “Hey,” I said, stopping in front of her. Awesome. Now my palms were sweating. Did dream sweat stink?

  God, I hoped not.

  She turned, startled as if seeing me for the first time, and her face fell. Not exactly the reception I’d hoped for. For a second, I worried I’d reverted to Cain, but when I glanced down at my hand and saw familiar skin marred with long forgotten scars, relief washed over me.

  “Brandt?”

  “Forget me already?” I joked, and tried to take her hand, but she pulled away.

  “What are you doing here? You have to leave. Now!”

  “Leave? What are—”

  “Deeeeevin…” a voice boomed. It echoed through the room, over the music and noise of the crowd, and bounced off the walls, but no one else seemed to notice. There was an unearthly vibe to it that screamed of danger and venom.

  I didn’t get the chance to ask her about it. She took my hand in hers, hiked up her puffy dress with the other, and started to run. We wove in and out of the crowd on the dance floor, all twirling and dipping, completely oblivious to our escape.

  Around the corner and down an impossibly long hallway, we burst into a bleach-white room. The sounds of the party drifted away, replaced by a soft, consistent beeping and a stinging smell that made my eyes water and nose itch. The room shimmered and stretched, the edges blurring for a moment before things took on a more solid shape. When it was over, we were still wearing the clothes from the ball, but instead of being at the party, we were in a hospital room. The acrid smell of antiseptic and bleach filled the air, along with the trapped, nearly claustrophobic feeling I got as a child whenever Mom brought me to see my sick aunt.

  Devin let go of my hand and stepped up to the thin white curtain. Pulling it aside, she sucked in a deep breath and said, “It was my fault.”

  I came up beside her. The man in the bed lay motionless, chest rising and falling in sync with the beeping machines. He was pale, with the same chestnut-colored hair and a thin scar that ran from his right cheek down to his collarbone. I turned to check the door, but it was gone. We were surrounded by four solid, windowless walls.

  “Your father?” I guessed, ignoring the uneasy feeling in my gut.

  She pulled the covers up around his shoulders and fiddled with the edge of the pillow case. There was such a staggering amount of guilt in her eyes. It made me want to sweep her into my arms and not let go. “We were in an accident.”

  I pulled her from his bedside, taking both her small hands in mine. “How is that your fault?”

  She turned toward the other wall as a door appeared. When it opened, the same guy from last night’s dream stepped through. He grabbed her from me and spun her toward the wall. “I warned you,” he snarled. “But you didn’t listen. This is all your fault.”

  Josh stared at her, silent, as she turned her head toward me. “I’d broken up with him. He was my first boyfriend,” she admitted. “I was young and I didn’t know any better. He was mean—abusive. After almost three years of his controlling, erratic crap and constant threats, I finally got the strength to walk away. He asked me to meet him. He wanted to give me some stuff back…” Her eyes fell back to her father’s bedside. “I didn’t want to go alone. I was afraid of him. I asked my dad to come…”

  Josh laughed, and I realized in this dream, he was a manifestation of her guilt. “I cut her brakes. I told her she’d never be able to leave me.”

  “We hit a tree,” Devin continued, keeping her eyes on her father. “The passenger’s side airbag went off, but the one on the driver’s side failed.”

  “You can run from me, but you can’t hide. I’ll find you,” he said, wrapping his hand around her throat. “Wherever you are now, I’ll find you.”

  Sheltie’s rule to never interfere in the course of someone else’s dream forgotten, I stepped forward and punched Josh in the side of the head. He went down hard, and lay motionless at my feet. The horrified expression and unadulterated terror in Devin’s eyes as she backed away told me she fully expected him to get back up. That’s what he always did, I imagined. In her dreams, he was always there. Always stronger. Always in control… But I was in control now. That asshole wasn’t going anywhere.

  When it was clear he wasn’t going to make another move, she raised her head and our eyes met. “I’m a horrible person.”

  I took her hand again and pulled her to the side. Closing my eyes, I imagined the picnic area of Memorial Park back home. When I opened them, we were seated on a blanket surrounded by sandwiches and cold soda. The crisp air smelled of fall, colorful leaves littering the ground all around us. They twitched in the breeze, tumbling across the blanket and dancing away.

  “What—how did you do that?”

  I winked. “I’ve got moves like Jagger. Now why would you say you’re a horrible person? What happened to your father was his fault, not yours.”

  “Shortly after the accident, a man came to see my mom and me. He said he could help us—help me.”

  “Help you, how?”

  “He knew about the accident. He knew about Josh. And…he knew about my ability to mess with computers.” She picked up one of the sandwiches and pulled off a piece of the end. “Of course, Mom totally freaked. She denied it till her face turned blue, and finally the guy left. The next day, he caught up with me outside of school. I don’t know how, but he knew our money was running low, and Dad’s care was killing us. The bills were piling up, and the mortgage was late. He offered to help.”

  And I had my answer. That’s how Denazen had secured Devin’s trust. By swooping in and playing the White Knight. A part of me felt vindicated. I knew she wasn’t being manipulated for anything as trivial as greed or power. Devin wasn’t the standard Denazen material. They’d snowed her. Manipulated her into service by offering something she wanted. Something she needed. “Pay for it, you mean?”

  She let her head dip low, hair falling like a curtain to hide her face. With a deep breath, she said, “He said he’d have my dad moved to a special facilit
y and promised he’d get the best care possible. Then he said he could give me a fresh start. A chance to put Josh and the whole mess behind me…”

  “What did he want in exchange?”

  “Me,” she said simply. “They wanted me to work for them. Some special place where people like me—I guess there are more of us out there than I thought—help them…do things.”

  “Do things?”

  Her face fell. She hesitated, looking from me, then down to the sandwich. Picking off another piece of the crust, she sighed and flicked it away. “They want me to steal information from this company.”

  “What kind of information do they want you to steal?”

  She shrugged. “They want everything I can find on something called the Dromin12 serum. And the worst part? They’re pitting me against one of the other guys at the boarding house.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “They’ve made it a race. Sent two of us in—but not together. The first one of us to get the information wins.”

  I’d never been a good liar, so I hoped I was doing a convincing job of acting like I had no idea what she was talking about. “Wins?”

  “If I find the information first, he says he has someone that can heal my father. I guess he made a deal with Cain, too. He’s the other one they sent in.”

  “So what, like a game?” I hoped the disgust in my voice masked the guilt. She needed to find the formula before me to save her father, and I needed to find it before her to save Dez and the others, as well as keep it from Denazen. As far as twisted, this pretty much took the cake.

  She reached out to grab a bright red leaf as it blew past. Picking it up, she twirled it between her fingers for a moment before the wind took it and shifted the edges of her gown. I could have imagined her in something more practical when I changed the scenery. Jeans or something functional, but the truth was, she looked amazing in that dress. I didn’t want to miss a minute.

  Frowning, she said, “Yeah. That about sums it up.”

  “So this Dromin12 thing he wants you to find—what is it?”