“I finally asked you how you did it one day after a particularly humbling loss. You know what you said? ‘It’s not a game to me. I don’t hold anything back. I win or I die’.”
“That’s when I learned how powerful your mind was. Your sheer determination to live in the moment is what gave you the advantage time and time again. You live and fight and love like it’s the last day of your life.”
“Evan, what does this have to do with anything?” Meg’s dark eyes were wide with worry.
“Just give me some time, Meggie. I’m still figuring this out myself.” He took a labored breath and continued. “Alik can see into the past. You can exist to your fullest potential in the present. It seems pretty obvious now what my gift was always meant to be.”
“Evan?” Meg watched the boy’s eyes start to roll back in his head.
He took a slow breath through his partially opened mouth. “I can see into the future, Meggie. And if we’re going to live through this, you and I need to come up with a plan we can’t share with the others. It’s crucial that it just be between us. We can win this, but as far as my vision can see, it won’t be easy.”
“You can see the future?” Meg repeated, trying to process the implications.
His sharp hazel eyes widened with a bout of pain causing his body to arch on the slick spread. When he recovered, his breathing was hitched and erratic, but he continued talking. “I can see the future of others, not my own. This gift has serious limitations. The images I get are hazy, like a dream I’m trying to remember, and life keeps changing.” Evan’s eyes glassed over, staring unblinking at nothing. “Meggie, life is so beautifully fragile.” His body began to shake.
“You’re going into shock, Evan. I need to get your core temperature stable.” Meg swiped at the tears that finally overflowed her pale cheeks.
“I don’t have much time, Meg. You need to listen and do exactly as I say. No matter what, you cannot deviate from the path I lay out for us.” His eyes were pinched closed against the waves of pain. “Do you understand?” His eyes burst open. His pupils abruptly constricted to small pin pricks, as though the lights in the room were glaringly bright. His bloodshot eyes locked onto Meg, waiting for an answer.
“I understand,” she breathed, sensing both his absolute determination and fleeting grasp of consciousness.
Williams and Chaunders
The Facility in Germany
14 weeks ago
“What is it Chaunders?”
“Sir?”
“I can hear you breathing. After all these years, I know when you’re thinking of saying something by the noises your sinuses make.” Dr. Kenneth Williams glared impatiently from the neat stack of papers he was reviewing at his laboratory desk. The smell of new paint lingered in his newly rebuilt state-of-the-art Research Hospital.
“Of course sir, you’re so perceptive.” Dr. Percival Chaunders’ hand shook as he held the printout of what was supposed to have been a wild goose chase. The pursuit had been a long shot at best, but the proof stared back at him in black and white. His eyes darted to the laptop’s screen and paused to stare at the icon indicating the presence of an encrypted attachment to the email.
“Well?” Williams asked with exaggerated interest.
“Sir, several months ago you asked me to set up a fact-finding team.”
Williams rolled his beady eyes and waved his hand in the air trying to hurry his second-in-command to the point. “And—”
“And they had found nothing all these months.”
“Thank you for wasting my time, Dr. Chaunders. Now may I get back to more pressing matters?”
“They had come up empty until now, sir.” His eyes were wide with excitement behind his spectacles. The layer of grease collecting in the crevices of his face glistened under the fluorescent laboratory lights.
“What did they find?” Chaunders had Williams’ complete attention now.
“The team responsible for monitoring the scientific community and social networks red-flagged an article submitted for publication. When they dug deeper, they found it was written by Dr. Charles Payne.” Chaunders paused waiting for the name to sink in.
“Payne?” Williams shook his head frowning.
“He worked for you years ago at The Institute in California. He was on the original team that produced the first working Infinite Serum.” Chaunders nodded, anxiously, waiting for Williams’ memory to catch up.
Recognition slipped across Williams’ face. “Ah yes. Payne. I remember him highly intelligent—and a promising enough scientist.”
“Yes, well he must have thought he’d waited long enough. Surely no one would notice, especially after he made alterations of his own. He must have gotten wind of us because by the time the investigators tracked him down, he’d left the country.”