Time to go. Quickly, Sam darted out of the room and tiptoed down the hall a safe distance. From the dark of a sitting nook, where Sam had stopped to scratch his itchy skin against the molding, he could still hear the men laughing. Sam was sick with anger: Their mothers had been chosen and experimented upon because they’d been considered expendable.
The war certainly showed us what had to be done. The cigar-smoking man’s comment haunted Sam. What had the schmuck meant by that? Every time it seemed they got a piece of the Project Buffalo puzzle, they found the puzzle itself was much bigger than they had ever imagined.
Sam stole into the hallway, hoping he could make it back to his room undetected. As he passed the empty soldiers’ room, he was seized by a strange feeling, something from so deep in memory it felt nearly like bone or breath. He took a step into the room. A tiny voice whispered: “Little Fox! Is it you?”
“Mama?” Sam called. He was answered only by the scratch of trees against the window and the boastful talk drifting out from Marlowe’s party.
But he could swear that for just a moment he had felt the unmistakable presence of his mother.
THE üBERMENSCH
The next day at afternoon tea, Jake Marlowe swept into the dining room. “I’m afraid Jericho is needed for some tests. But we’ll return him to you soon enough,” he announced.
“Can’t it wait?” Jericho asked. He wanted to be with Evie, not spend the rest of the day down in the basement laboratory like some rat in a cage.
“No. I’m afraid it can’t,” Marlowe said, and then he was gone again.
“Guess you better do what Dad says,” Sam gloated.
Evie kicked at him under the table, but Henry got there first.
Once Jericho was gone, Sam told Henry and Ling about his night with the Founders Club.
“You could’ve been in real trouble if they’d caught you,” Ling said.
Sam smirked and hooked his thumbs under his suspenders. “Me? I’m too good to get caught. But you shoulda heard these chumps talking about Project Buffalo. They wanted to experiment on people like us, so-called mutts. People they thought couldn’t fight back. Because to them, we weren’t ‘real Americans.’ If something went wrong, they didn’t care.”
“This is why I never leave the city. Bad things happen in country houses. Just look at all of literature,” Henry said. “Uh-oh. Ling is wearing her serious face.”
“I always wear my serious face,” Ling said. “I was just wondering something. You grew up rich, Henry. How did your mother get included in this experiment?”
“We were well off, not rich.”
“Why do rich people always pretend they’re not rich?” Ling said.
“I know that Mama had three miscarriages before me, and my father saw it as her personal failure to produce,” Henry said, nearly spitting out the last word. “It only worsened her depression. She saw plenty of doctors. Now that I remember, I overheard Flossie telling a friend that my father had taken Mama to New York to see a ‘special doctor.’ It’s possible that’s how she made it into the program. If so, between my overbearing father and her delicate mental state, she would’ve been in no condition to refuse. You still have your serious face on, Ling.”
Ling nodded. “That’s because I have a serious question: What do you do with a little army of very powerful Diviner ‘mutts’ if you don’t like or trust those people to start with?”
Down in the lab, Marlowe rolled up his sleeves and readied a syringe of serum. This formula was different—thicker and a midnight blue. “What’s that?” Jericho asked.
“I’ve made some modifications. We’re going to really give it to you today, Jericho. No half measures. Let’s see what we get with the full serum,” Marlowe crowed as the nurse and a doctor readied the room.
“Have you tried this on anybody else?” Jericho asked. He tried not to show how frightened he was as the nurse tied tubing around his biceps and swabbed alcohol across the hollow of his arm.
“No. You’re the first.” Marlowe squeezed the top of Jericho’s shoulder. “You should be proud.”
But all Jericho wanted to do was to yell stop. I don’t want this; please don’t do this.
The nurse frowned as she took his pulse. “My goodness, his heart’s beating very fast.”
“We should get started. Not make him wait any longer,” Marlowe said.
Stop talking over me. I’m right here, Jericho thought.
Marlowe plunged the syringe into Jericho’s vein. The new serum wasn’t cold like the other stuff. It was warm. Uncomfortably so. It whirred through his veins like an invasion of bees skittering toward his heart. Everything around Jericho seemed a threat, as if the world were closing in, ready to take and take from him, reducing him to his most primitive emotions. Panic fluttered against his chest, beating to be let out. He moaned, muscles spasming. His fingers balled into fists, then spread out again, as if reaching for help.
“Easy, Jericho!” Marlowe’s voice.
And then, all at once, the scratching inside his veins gave way. The fear was gone. In its place was a feeling of sheer, unstoppable power. Take from him? From him? The übermensch? A mocking laugh burbled up from deep inside Jericho. Well, he’d protect what was his—he’d hit first and hit hard! He wanted to win. No, he wanted to conquer. It was exciting and primal, this feeling. Jericho was reduced to his senses, and his senses were acute. He could hear a gull sipping water from the lake half a mile away. Could smell the antiseptic harsh and prickly in his nose. Could see every paintbrush stroke on the laboratory walls. He was the sweep of history and the arrow arcing toward an unseen future. His blood raced as if he were running through heavy trees, a kingly beast prowling its fiefdom, ready to pounce at anyone who dared challenge his authority.
Jericho inhaled deeply. His lungs seemed infinite. Evie. He’d caught the scent of her.
The restraints ripped in half as he broke through them. He could sense the nurse’s terror, vaguely heard Marlowe’s shouts as he pushed off from the table. But Evie was his only, all-encompassing thought. Carts crashed as Jericho pushed them out of the way. Glass tubes shattered on the floor. A doctor stood between Jericho and the elevator. Jericho thought about snapping his neck like a twig.
“Leave him alone!” Marlowe cautioned the others. “Let him go.”
Jericho spied the elevator key. Take, he thought. He shoved the key into the elevator and rode it up to Marlowe’s decorative library. The colors in the room were vividly bright to him. He was shirtless, but the cool air didn’t bother him. His body had never been more awake. The elevator was ascending. Arguing, panicked voices inside. Time to go. He was hunting. Hunting for Evie. He drew in another lungful of air.
She was in the rose garden.
Jericho threw open the door, the iron hinges bending slightly as he did, and then he bounded across Marlowe’s manicured lawn. Evie drew him, narrowed the world until she was the world. He saw her at the bottom of the long green slope, sitting in the gazebo, reading a book, surrounded by an explosion of flowering dogwood. She looked up. Smiled. He leaped a tall hedge with no trouble and strode toward her as if commanding an army. Her smile disappeared.