Lifting my hand to direct my power, I took my frustration out on the room drapes, using my newly acquired abilities to jerk them back along the track set in the ceiling and let in the last of the daylight. But the tiny burst of satisfaction that came along with every demonstration of skill vanished almost immediately.
“It’s only been fifteen minutes, bro,” Adam said from where he leaned against the opposite wall. He sounded, even looked, bored, but it was an act. He had almost as much at stake as me, and if you knew him well enough—as I now unfortunately did from living in close quarters with him at St. John’s lab in Rochester, New York—the forced nature of his relaxed position was screamingly obvious. Mainly in the way he kept flexing his fists and cracking his knuckles.
“Dude has to justify you to everyone,” Adam continued with a smirk. “That’s going to take some time.”
“Shut up,” I snapped, even though he was exactly right. Adam was the more obvious candidate to represent Emerson Technology, Incorporated in the trials in just about every way possible. He’d been recruited from the army. He’d had years to train and practice for these trials, not to mention the deliberate and gradual introduction of RSTS47—Emerson St. John’s DNA-altering virus—to his body over the course of many months.
As opposed to dumping a whole bunch of it in at once and hoping for the best.
That was what had happened to me, and Emerson’s impulsive actions had saved me. The bullet wound and the resulting internal injuries had been healed within days.
The virus hadn’t been created for healing purposes, though; rather, transformative ones. So there were consequences. The least of which was simply that I hadn’t had a chance to master the new skills I’d acquired. (My show downstairs, pulling the guard to his feet, had been to demonstrate that I possessed the abilities, that I had the right to be present. That was it, which was good, because that was about all I was capable of. For the moment.)
But Justine, Emerson, and I were hoping that the Committee—as Emerson called them—would be intrigued enough to allow my candidacy, even with the creative answer Emerson had come up with for my entrance qualifier.
If not, Adam would be sent instead, and while I had no doubt about his ability to win the trials—or at least make a good show of it—I was significantly less sure of his capacity to accomplish our true mission here. Ariane didn’t trust easily. Or at all, really.
And evidently, Emerson and Justine agreed with me. For now.
“No news is good news at this point,” Justine said without looking up from her phone. “Jacobs is bound to strenuously object to your presence for the effect it will have on Ariane.”
Her tone was flat, factual without a hint of empathy. But that was just Justine.
Hers was the first voice I’d heard upon waking up three weeks ago. “I don’t care. You weren’t authorized for this.” She, whoever she was, had been pissed about something.
A doctor? I had wondered vaguely. I hadn’t been awake, not entirely, my thoughts slipping away from me like those tiny fish in the lake up north, the ones Quinn and I had tried to catch in our hands when we were little.
Quinn. Something about my brother. What was it? I couldn’t think. My head hurt, as if my skull had swollen to three times the normal size. More disturbingly, there was a low-level hum and buzz inside my mind.
Then an image clicked into place behind my closed eyes. Quinn, his face pale, his arm in a makeshift sling. He’d been in the hospital? No, I’d been in the hospital. I remembered that, sort of. The smell of antiseptic; the cool, unfamiliar sheets rough against my skin; and the pain, an unrelenting throb in my left side.
“You wanted a way to get to one of them, Justine. I’m giving it to you,” another voice, male and a little petulant, argued.
“We had people working on it. Now you’ve just compounded the problem. This boy will have people searching for him.” A weird tug at my left arm suggested that by “this boy” the woman meant me.
“The hospital records have been modified. They’ll think he’s dead,” the man, who’d turned out to be Emerson St. John, had protested.
“Not without a body,” Justine had said, sounding like maybe she intended to make that happen.
I’d opened my eyes right then.
Justine looked like someone’s mom—a little soft through the middle, a rounded face, with dark red hair pulled back into a tight ponytail—and today, at the hotel, she was dressed like it. A sweatshirt that shouted GO LIONS in black and gold lettering, jeans that were too short at the ankles, and bright white Keds, their brilliance suggesting they were fresh out of the box.
But that outfit, like her appearance, was pure camouflage. Justine “You Don’t Need to Know My Last Name” was a hard-ass connected to DHS. Department of Homeland Security. She had a badge and everything. Whether it was hers or legit, I had no idea. But motherly looks aside, she was about as comforting as a steel beam, and equally communicative.