Faceless

Chapter Nine


Devin didn’t speak to me on the ride back to Dromere. She was obviously distracted by what Henley had said, and that was fine. I didn’t know what else I could say to her anyway. The excuse for what I’d done was lame—especially knowing what I did about her past—and while deep down I wanted her to forgive me, I understood if she couldn’t—and was actually a little relieved. Devin intrigued me. If she forgave me, I might be interested in trying to get to know her. But there was something else to focus on. I had to find a way to get that formula. Still, I couldn’t help wondering about the deal Anderson made with her—and why didn’t they want us working together? If tag-teaming would get them what they wanted faster, what did they have against it? This thing seemed to be getting more complicated by the minute. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time for complicated.

I still couldn’t figure out how I’d made Cain’s ability work last night. I’d been trying all morning with no success—but once I got back to work, it was time to try again.

I finished off the things on Wentz’s list a little before four. Grabbing another six-pack of soda—from the kitchen this time—I made my way up to the lab office with the intention of pushing him to give me next week off. I found him sitting back, feet kicked onto the desk and staring at a small glass box mounted on the wall.

Closing the door behind me, I set the dry cleaning and soda on his desk and sat down.

After a few moments of weird, heavy silence, Wentz asked, “Are you an open-minded guy, Doug?”

“I like to think so.”

He nodded to the case on the wall. “What would you say if I told you that piece of plastic in there was one of my most precious possessions?”

I followed his gaze to the wall, plans momentarily stalled. Inside the glass box was a small, ordinary plastic-looking ring mounted on red velvet. “I guess I’d ask what made it so special…”

“That little piece of plastic there is what inspired my research.”

Now we were getting somewhere. “Research? The kind of research not done on animals and fish, right?”

He hopped out of the chair and clapped his hands together. “The very same!” A smile spread across his lips. Apparently serious Wentz was gone for the day. “I don’t know what it is, but I like you.”

His admission made me feel guilty. I had no intention of hurting him, but I was here to technically steal something from him. The only thing that lessened the guilt was the fact that I wasn’t handing it over to Denazen. I planned on helping people. I planned on helping Dez. “Well, I did save your life. You probably owe me a few rounds for that.”

He looked surprised. After a moment, he stomped his feet, smile growing wider. It was infectious. The guy had a weird sort of energy that affected everyone around him. He made people happy. Well, everyone except Nader, who he made crazy. “Right on. After work?”

“Sounds like a plan.” Then I started thinking. Leaving the boarding house for no reason would arouse suspicion. Since Cain had gotten there, he’d only gone out on Thursdays to hit Skinners. Other nights, he spent his time in his room. This would be the perfect excuse to get the skate wheel back, as well find out more about Wentz—and possibly get the formula. Maybe he’d be easier to push with some liquid aid. I could play it off to Anderson as part of the assignment. “There’s this bar downtown. Skinners. You know it?”

He let out a sharp whistle. “The table dancing bar. Nice choice!”

…

Surprisingly, Anderson wasn’t as thrilled as I thought he’d be about me buddying up to Wentz. He asked twice if there was going to be a problem getting the formula. I promised there wouldn’t be, and repeated my earlier statement about some people being a bit harder to push—which appeared to be true. I’d come to the conclusion that the only reason I’d been able to push Devin was because of the intense feelings I’d had for her at that moment. I’d wanted so badly to kiss her that I’d made it happen. Wentz was taking a little more time, but I was starting to panic—which might be a good thing. Maybe I needed that extra push to get things rolling.

I told Anderson I was meeting up with Wentz at eight, but told Wentz nine. That gave me enough time to slip out and get the wheel. We were all free to come and go as we pleased at Zendean, but Cain had been reclusive from day one. I’d been waiting for an ideal time to slip away without arousing suspicion and this would be it.

A wave of nausea hit me as I stepped into the alleyway. Flashes of Cain’s surprised expression as I emerged from the shadows, knife in hand, came rushing back. It was coupled with the memory of the way my heart pounded—almost making my chest explode—as the blade pierced my skin and sent my life spilling to the ground. Waking up and looking at the face I’d grown so used to seeing every morning in the mirror lying cold and lifeless. The feeling of complete and utter detachment… Not here. Not there. Not anywhere. In those first moments after jumping into Cain I’d been nothing.

I’d been faceless.

My name is Brandt Cross…no matter what face I wear…

Bending low, I stretched my hand behind the dumpster, fingers eagerly searching the ground for the one thing I knew would bring me peace. When at first I found nothing but dirt, a wave of panic washed over me, but passed as the tip of my index finger grazed the familiar marred plastic. Stretching farther, I was able to roll the wheel closer, then finally pull it out.

“Oh, baby. I missed you.” With a squeeze, I pocketed the wheel and made my way across the street.

The bouncer nodded in acknowledgment as I passed. Cain had been a regular here for the last month. He even had his own table at the back. Of course, I knew the secret behind his special treatment. Cain used his ability to get VIP treatment. Un-carded, free drinks, and personal attention from the entertainment. Cain was the worst kind of Six. Someone who abused his gift, using it to get what he wanted, whenever he wanted—no matter who it burned.

I sat down and ordered a beer, thoughts drifting to Devin. Even though my gut knew it was a bad idea, I planned on visiting her again tonight. She didn’t fit the Denazen mold. Finding out what she was doing with Anderson, and what she could possibly want from him, had become almost as important to me as finding the formula. I told myself—repeatedly—that it was for recon sake, but the truth was, I liked her. A little too much.

I knew how Denazen worked. Either they’d given her some bogus story about how they helped people, or they had something on her. Something they could use to tug her strings and manipulate her actions. After the run-in earlier with Henley, and then mention of the deal she’d made with Anderson, I leaned toward the latter, and wondered if there might be something Ginger and the underground could do to help.

Or maybe me…

“You order me one?” I hadn’t even seen him come up to the table. Wentz took the seat across from me, swiping my beer and taking a long pull. He was dressed in blue jeans and a blue T-shirt with a picture of a melting ice cube in the oversized palm of a man. Across the top, it said, I can melt ice with my mind—it only takes a few minutes.

I flagged down the waitress and we began our descent into oblivion.

As it turned out, Wentz and I had a lot in common. From music to girls—I tried not to get pissed when he mentioned noticing Devin. We sat and drank, just bullshitting for over two hours. For the first time since Dez and I had been at the field party, right before our lives took a header into The Twilight Zone, I was actually having fun. So much fun, in fact, that I almost forgot why I’d come.

“So kill a rumor for me,” I said, lifting the glass to my lips. I wanted to ease into this in case it didn’t work. Just spitting out, hand me the formula, was going to be a bit awkward if I failed to flip the switch on Cain’s ability. A little liquid lubrication, and a slow build. That was my plan. I’d made sure Wentz stayed ahead and was currently five beers to my two. Now was as good a time as any to jump in. “Someone said you were messing with funky genetics at Dromere?”

Wentz looked surprised, them sobered immediately. “I’m not adding heads to rats or making chickens breathe under water, if that’s what you mean.”

I tipped back the rest of the beer, trying not to snicker at the visual. “But there is something?”

He looked into his glass, oblivious to the skimpily-clad dancer trying to gain his attention—and a few of his dollar bills, no doubt. “Dromere is a genetic research facility.”

“So, is that a yes?” I set down my glass and leaned back. “I’m not judging, man. I was just asking. There’s a rumor going around that you’re messing with some hardcore stuff and that’s what’s got people unglued.”

The dancer gave up and went in search of more promising prey—an older man three tables away with a serious Hugh Hefner complex. Three girls, all under twenty-five by the looks of it, hanging all over him.

Wentz hesitated, then smiled and downed the rest of his drink. “Did you know that I was really sick as a kid? Like, so sick that the doctors told my parents I’d be the smartest kid in the cemetery.”

“That’s messed up,” I said over the music. A new song—Porn Star Dancing by My Darkest Days—came on, the volume cranked. At the front of the room, three girls hopped up onto the bar and began a perfectly choreographed routine. They moved to the music, bending and swaying in a way that, for the first time, had the bits of Sheltie, Cain, and I in total agreement—and appreciation. It was hard to look away, but I managed to keep my focus on Wentz.

He nodded. “Yeah, right?”

“Obviously they were wrong.”

He shook his head, a sly smile playing at the edges of his lips. He raised his now-empty glass to the waitress as she passed. “No. They weren’t.”

“Dude. If you’re going to tell me you’re dead and a ghost, I’m going to warn you now I haven’t had nearly enough to drink to buy into that.”

He laughed. “Not even close. You remember that piece of plastic in my office?”

“The one on the wall? The research inspiration?”

“Yeah. It’s a piece from my breathing machine.”

I downed the rest of my glass as the waitress set two new ones in front of us. I ignored mine, but Wentz immediately went to town on his. “Breathing machine?”

He leaned back, nodding. “I was born with a terminal defect. My lungs barely functioned on their own. There was no cure and I wasn’t expected to live to see nine.”

“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…