Subject Seven (18 page)

Bronx shook his head. “Bear with me, people. We're not done yet. I said you were designed to be perfect spies. Guess what? They failed. You were supposed to be amazing, perfect killing machines that could be called into action with a code phrase.”

He paused for a moment and tilted his head in thought. “Have you ever heard of the book
The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
? A good read. You should try it. Anyway, the story is about a doctor who makes a potion to unleash the parts of himself that he would normally hide away. It doesn't go so well for him, but in the process he creates his second identity, Mr. Hyde. The doctor is all polite and friendly, does good deeds, the whole thing. Mr. Hyde is more like an animal. He lets his baser instincts take over the show. He goes out and parties instead of behaving, and he's faster, stronger and in a lot of ways completely different from the doctor.

“The guys who created this program didn't have a potion. It's all built into you. Instead they had the phrase. Once that phrase was called out, you'd change into faster, stronger and, hell, even smarter teenagers. You'd have increased senses. See better, hear better, even smell things that no human being would normally notice.”

Bronx shrugged. “It didn't work. You, all of you, are a part of an experiment that didn't live up to the expectations. You are the failures. Or so they thought.” He shrugged again, but there was nothing of apology in the gesture. “The idea was to make you, train you and then sell you to the highest bidders. Think about it. Don't go getting all freaky, just think about it for a minute. Take five or six kids, send them off to, oh, say, France. Send them to Paris and let them have some fun, and then, when the time is right, give them the command and watch how they change. Watch those kids who were raised together, who already know each other like brothers and sisters, watch them become a perfect infiltration team. They sneak in as teenagers, and then they get bigger and stronger and use all the training they don't even know they have to sneak into an embassy and steal top secret information, or maybe they take motorcycles from Paris to Rome and assassinate the pope and then just melt back into the background. Why? Because
if
the assassins were seen, they were obviously a group of soldiers, not a bunch of kids who were just there to wave at the pope and check out the Vatican's gift shop.”

He leaned toward the camera again and Joe Bronx's eyes looked around as if they were searching for someone, as if he could, somehow, see through the TV and find the person he was looking for. “Or, even if they were arrested, a few hours later they'd wake up in a jail cell and instead of being a group of trained assassins, they'd just be a few teenagers, scared shitless and wanting to go home to mommy. Sounding a little more plausible now, Cody?”

Cody pushed his seat back as Joe Bronx started laughing softly to himself.

“That's bullshit!” Cody jabbed a finger at the TV screen, his eyes were watering. “That's stupid!”

Kyrie was there a second later. She put an arm around his shoulders and leaned in closer and for just a second Hunter thought the skinny kid would pull away or take a swing at her, but then he calmed down a little. “Just listen. We can decide if it's real afterward.” Her voice was soft and soothing and Hunter watched the tension leak out of Cody's shoulders.

“I know. It's impossible. I used to feel that way too.” Joe Bronx leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms over his chest. “You don't know how long I've been dealing with this now. I'm not quite like the rest of you. I have been aware of what I am since I was old enough to walk.”

The boy looked away from the camera for a few moments and Hunter studied him. There were similarities. He didn't like it, but he could see it. The picture on his ID could even be Joe Bronx, but a younger one. They didn't look the same, no, but they looked like they could be related. Like cousins. “I found out about this little problem when I woke up. See, Joe Bronx is just the name I chose for myself. I'm not like you. I'm not from a happy little family that decided to raise the poor little orphan boy.” The man's voice took on an edge. “Unlike all of you, I didn't get to have a family and friends and a lifetime of memories. What I got was to wake up one day and realize that it was the first day of my life. And then . . .” He leaned forward again and planted his hands on his knees. “Then I got to run around for a couple of hours before I was locked away again.”

Hunter shook his head. So somebody had made him a prisoner? Then shouldn't he have been less likely to do the same thing to Hunter?

Joe Bronx looked at the screen again, his brow knitted and his mouth turned down in a scowl. “This is the part where you're really going to have trouble, boys and girls.” He sneered. “All of you, you're the ones who are supposed to be seen by the public. Me? I'm what was supposed to be the perfect soldier. I'm the one who's stronger, faster, smarter and designed for killing.”

Hunter's heart seemed to stop in his chest, and his mouth watered with sour spit, like he tasted right before he started puking his guts out as a kid.

“The reason I can't meet with you in person is because I'm one of you.” He stood up and started pacing, a hungry predator with nothing to stalk. “If you guys are the Dr. Jekylls in this equation, I'm one of the Mr. Hydes.”

CODY LAUGHED, BUT THERE wasn't any humor in it. Kyrie's arm was around his shoulders and he almost shrugged her away, but part of him needed the comfort. She was warm and soft and wonderful in a world that was rapidly turning into a cold wall of sharp angles and points. Without something decent in his life, he thought maybe he'd go insane, and right then the only thing close to decent was the hot girl standing next to him and holding him.

“I need to call my parents. Maybe my dad won't kill me after all. Turns out I really am crazy.” His voice shook with the desire to scream.

Kyrie shook her head. “If you're crazy, so am I.”

His firm belief that he'd lost his mind gave him courage. “You can't be crazy. I think there're rules against pretty girls being nuts.”

She shook her head again and took her arm from around his shoulders. He desperately wanted her to put that arm back. “Just listen, okay? Please?”

He looked back at the screen, and Kyrie, God love her, put her arm around his shoulders again.

“Hopefully you've all calmed down by now.” Bronx's voice still held an edge. “I've spent a lot of time looking for answers. I didn't even know that any of you existed at first. I thought I was the only one of my kind that was left. I watched a few others die off and then I escaped.”

Bronx sighed. “It's a long story and it's boring as hell. After I was on my own, I started thinking about the people that had done this to me, and I started thinking that maybe they could fix the problems that came up.” He paused again. “We'll get to the problems in a minute. First, I had to figure out where they were. That took some time because all I had was a name. Janus. They're the group that started this. They're the ones that can fix it.

“I started searching for Janus. They're very good at hiding, but now and then everyone makes mistakes.” He settled down in his chair again and faced the camera. “After that, well, I started looking for other names, other tips. I've been at it for almost four years. I had to find information, make money to pay for information, hell, kids, I did things you wouldn't believe to get what I have and what I'm going to share with you. Hunter here had to find the rest of you for me because I was working on the answers we all want and need.” He smiled. There was nothing of joy or kindness in the expression.

“You're the failures. You were supposed to be controllable. You were supposed to change when they wanted you to, but there was no indication that you had anything special. They did tests and all they found was that you were perfectly normal babies.” He snorted that short burst of angry laughter again. “They didn't understand that they'd actually succeeded.”

Joe stood up again and reached into his back jeans pocket. “All of you were from the same lot. None of you were anything special, according to their test, and so you know what they did? They started killing off all of the babies that were just plain normal.”

Tina shook her head and spit, actually spit on the floor. Her face was hard, set and deeply angry and she said nothing, but every move she made said she was furious. Not upset because of the joke, but seriously pissed off because maybe the man on the TV was telling the truth.

Cody stared at her for a second and then looked away before she could catch him staring. He thought maybe the look in her eyes right then would have melted steel.

“Sounds horrible, I know.” Bronx got an almost comically shocked look on his face. “Killing little babies is wrong and no one would ever do that.” He shook his head. “The Egyptians did it to the Jews according to the Bible. Hitler did it to the Jews, according to the reports of the Holocaust. He also did it to Gypsy children and the physically deformed.” Joe Bronx leaned in close again. “It's happened lots of times. Hell, it's happened in the United States, just in case you're feeling all self-righteous. Hiroshima and Nagasaki, big bad nuclear bombs, wiped out thousands. Lots of babies in those towns. Oh, and of course there are plenty of rumors of orphans being fed radioactive oatmeal just to see what happens when they get too much radiation.” He grinned. “But you were the lucky ones. A lot of the babies they created were deformed. You looked normal enough for someone to decide you needed saving.”

None of them spoke. Cody listened as hard as any of the others, unsettled and wanting nothing more than to run away.

“You were supposed to die. You were supposed to get incinerated in a building just a few blocks from here. Instead, some dude decided you should be given a chance at a life, and you were sent out to be adopted. The good news for me is that the guy who made that decision also made some money in the process. The adoption agency cut him a check for a finder's fee. That allowed me to track him down.”

Cody tilted his head and rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. From the corner of his eye, he saw the entrance they'd come in through and caught the motion as a vehicle rolled to a stop.

He turned his head and leaned in closer to Kyrie's arm, his eyes leaving the room and focusing on the small part of the front door he could see down the hallway.

“What is it?” Kyrie's pretty face partially blocked his view as she looked at him.

“There's somebody out front.”

CODY FROWNED. “I THINK somebody knows we're here.”

Kyrie looked toward where he was facing and saw the men climbing from the dark car. They were dressed in military fatigues, but the color was wrong. They all wore black.

“Guys. We have a problem.” Her voice was clear.

Completely ignoring her, the voice of Joe Bronx continued on. “You are currently sitting in what was the head-quarters of the Janus Mask Company. Officially they make props for movies and sell Halloween masks. But they also ran the program designed to make all of us. They were responsible for Project: Doppelganger.” Once again he was starting to stand up. “The woman in charge is Evelyn Hope. Or at least she's someone high up on the list of bosses.”

Kyrie looked at the soldiers coming closer. No, not soldiers. At least one of them had a beard, and that was against military dress code, wasn't it?

“Seriously, guys, we have a problem.”

Cody was already standing. Gene looked toward her, annoyed by the interruption. “What's wrong?”

“Soldiers.” Kyrie and Cody both pointed.

Hunter reached for the tape player and hit the eject button. “So let's get ready to run.” He closed his eyes and his face twitched for a second, the stress finally getting the best of him. He let out a small noise and Kyrie would have asked him if he was okay, but the soldiers moved.

One of the men outside pulled at the door, and when it opened, he pushed it closed again very quickly.

“They know we're here.” Kyrie's voice shook. Her head was starting to throb.

Gene shook his head. “No. They know someone is here. Not who.”

Hunter made a noise and almost doubled over.

“Well, maybe they do and maybe they don't, but either way, we aren't supposed to be here.” That was Tina, coming to her rescue, which was a little weird because Kyrie wasn't expecting help.

“Whatever.” Cody stood; his voice shook even more than Kyrie's. “Whatever. We need to go now. Is there another way out?”

Kyrie opened her mouth to answer him but stopped when the noise exploded in her head. Not just hers either. All of them reeled from the sound. Two words, but so loud, so thunderous that they made her eyes ache in her skull.

WAKE UP!!!!

The sound was familiar, but so close now, so overwhelming that even as she tried to stand she fell to her knees.

And the darkness came for her again. Kyrie pushed the night away through force of will, looking at the people she'd just met. She needed to know if they felt it too, if they heard the noise.

WAKE UP!!!!

She could see Gene's legs. He was standing up, but he was shaking violently, like he was in a hurricane-force wind. As the darkness started moving in again, she felt pain lashing through her muscles, her bones, and heard words coming from her throat again, in a voice that was not hers.

“About damned time!” Her throat, she could feel the vibrations, but the words belonged to someone else. “Let's get this over with—”