Silver and Gold (Red and Black Book 3)

by Nancy O'Toole Meservier

  “Takahashi,” the guard almost growled my last name.

  Diego placed his hands on the table, and I shot up straight.

  “It’s fine,” I said, a noticeable tremor in my voice. “I’m…going.”

  And with that, I turned where I stood, following the Black Hats across the silence-filled room and through those glass doors.

  I had peeked in here a couple times, when the Black Hats were coming or going, so the initial layout wasn’t a complete mystery. There was a floating staircase that ran up the center of the room before branching out to the left and right. It was made of a clear, glasslike substance, which, combined with the lights, was probably meant to give the underground bunker an open and airy feel.

  But to me the lights were too harsh, too bright. I broke out into a sweat the moment they hit me.

  I noticed that there were two additional doors on the bottom level. One—made of the same fogged glass as the double doors—was tucked away to the right while the other—made of metal—was off to the left. I frowned, the different material of the door making it stand out.

  “Up the stairs,” the guard growled as I started to lag. “To the left.”

  I swallowed and followed orders, heading up the left branch of the staircase. I barely comprehended where we traveled next, until I found myself entering an almost familiar hallway.

  It was strange. The place reminded me of the hospital where my parents used to work. Only, instead of making me nostalgic, it left me with a giant feeling of yuck.

  The guard ordered me toward a small room at the end of a hallway labeled “Lab C.”

  “Given the potency of the abilities displayed during the last two and a half weeks of testing, it is fair to assume that the adjustments are performing as required, but there have also been clear drawbacks…”

  A woman’s voice, cool and professional, emerged from the room. I stepped inside to see a metal table, like the one I had been locked into when I had first arrived, only this one had been adjusted to look more like a dentist chair.

  In the room was a woman sitting at a desk, speaking to a camera positioned on the top of a computer monitor. The second we stepped in, she paused. I watched as her head tilted slightly, allowing me to see just the barest hints of her profile.

  “Stop recording,” she said. “Open up file DT0505.”

  A file folder was brought up on her computer screen, as she reached for a white doctor’s mask. She slipped it on before turning around to me.

  I blinked, the sight of her bringing me back to my first night here. Because this was the same woman who had injected me with…whatever vaccine Project Regen was working on. Who had been watching over me for the past two and a half weeks. She examined me so coolly. Some people might argue that she looked disinterested. But I had a feeling that was far from the case.

  I swallowed back an unexpected lump in my throat. I could feel my hands shaking at my side.

  “Where do you want me to put this, Dr. Hale?” the head Black Hat asked.

  “Secure her,” the woman—Dr. Hale, apparently—said, turning back to the computer.

  Before I could wonder what that meant, the older Black Hat had pushed me forward and toward the table. I let out a squeak of protest, automatically struggling as the guard turned me around and pushed me onto the table. I heard an electric hum as the locks closed over my shins and wrists.

  “Thank you, Gardiner,” Dr. Hale said.

  “Sure thing, Doc,” he replied, then began to walk to where the two other Black Hats waited in the outside hallway.

  “That wasn’t a dismissal, Gardiner,” the White Mask said. “I will require your assistance. You may stand near the door for now.”

  Gardiner let out a sigh and nodded toward the other two Black Hats, who shrugged and headed off. And although it looked like it pained him to do so, Gardiner made his way toward the doorway and leaned on the wall against it.

  All while I was struggling not to burst into tears.

  This is what they had warned me about. Testing. What horrible things were they planning on doing? I watched as Dr. Hale reached from her position at her desk and hit a large red button. For thirty seconds, there was silence, and then a young Asian man dressed in blue scrubs and a mask entered the room. In any other situation I would have labeled him as an intern, but I was pretty sure that out of all the evil Project Regen had committed, unpaid help wasn’t one of them.

  “You may proceed,” Dr. Hale said, not bothering to look up from her computer.

  The young man nodded, walking to a large white cabinet behind me. I felt my pulse quicken as he moved from my sight line. What could he be going for? A knife, a…

  Thermometer?

  I blinked and watched as the intern-like guy went through what you might expect from a thorough physical exam. He took my temperature. Looked into my ears and eyes. Loosened the restraints temporarily to check my reflexes. The chair was even able to take my height and weight. I had, I couldn’t help but notice, lost a few pounds since my arrival, which wouldn’t be a big deal to, well…the majority of the population, but as someone who was on the skinny side to begin with, I know this put me at an “unhealthy” weight.

  It would explain why my ribs had looked more prominent in yesterday’s shower.

  The entire exchange was almost cruelly mundane. By the end of it, I swear that the only thing keeping Gardiner from nodding off was the fact that he was standing.

  “Doctor?” the assistant said, a small tray of blood-filled vials in his gloved hands.

  “Thank you, Anderson. You may go,” Dr. Hale replied before reaching up to press a button on the control for the bed. There was a hiss and the right lock disengaged, leaving one hand free. I blinked in surprise. Was that it? Was I allowed to go?

  From her spot at her computer, Dr. Hale leaned forward. I heard the clicking of the mouse before she sat back and faced the camera again.

  “Transformation Test 1,” she said, then turned to the Black Hat. “Gardiner, break her right arm, please.”

  The words didn’t even have time to register. Before I knew it, the large Black Hat was no longer standing against the wall, half asleep. No, he was right in front of me, grasping at my one free limb. I felt my eyes go wide.

  “No, don’t—” I began.

  I heard it before I felt it, the sharp sound of bone cleanly snapping in two. But the second the pain kicked in—oh man, barring the cave-in, my injuries before this moment had been minor. A sprained wrist in grade school, a broken finger during gym class. Those paled in comparison. The pain was swift and all encompassing, setting my senses on fire. The noise I let out was more gasp than scream. The shock of the experience was almost worse than the actual pain itself.

  At least in the beginning.

  They left me like that, panting in pain for a full minute. I knew this because what I assumed was ages later, Dr. Hale announced, “One minute even.”

  Both stared at me as if waiting for…something. Not that I could comprehend it at the moment, my thoughts fully consumed by the injury.

  “Why isn’t she healing?” Gardiner asked.

  Healing? Right! I had been able to heal before. I closed my eyes, trying to focus on my time in that cave-in. On the moment that strength had rushed through me and…

  “During the cave-in, she experienced far more physical damage than just a broken arm,” Dr. Hale said, sounding almost bored with the topic. “Gardiner, there is a hammer in the cabinet to your right.”

  “N-no,” I said, my voice ragged, sweat pouring down my face. “J-just give me time. Just—”

  The Black Hat moved around me, and I heard rather than saw him open a cabinet. I slammed my head back against the metal table, if just to give myself something else to concentrate on. I squeezed my eyes shut.

  Of course, the sound of Gardiner rustling around behind me made things even worse.

  Heal, heal, heal. I repeated the single word, over and over in my mind. But unlike the cave-in, nothin
g happened. There was no surge of strength, nothing. Just me, strapped to a chair, my right arm broken in an unnatural angle.

  And the sound of Gardiner’s steps as he made his way back toward me.

  Of course, during the cave-in, I hadn’t been focusing on trying to heal. I had been thinking about Silver Shot and Golden Strike. Heroes.

  My eyes snapped open just in time to see Gardiner bearing down on me, his face twisted in concentration. In one hand he held a hammer, which rapidly descended toward my collarbone.

  Until I stopped it, catching it with my right hand, attached to my no-longer-broken wrist.

  I watched as the Black Hat’s eyes went wide in shock, which I would have found comical had my mind not been consumed by one persistent thought:

  Go away!

  I pushed him backward, and even though gravity was on his side and I only had one arm in use, he practically flew across the room, soaring through the open door and into the hallway. I heard a crash of metal, which I vaguely identified as him hitting the row of lockers across the hall. I looked down at my now-gloved hand in shock at the sudden surge of strength and realized that I had once again transformed into the same red and black outfit as before.

  “Security!” Dr. Hale yelled. I heard a rustle and the sound of her slapping something—probably that red button, given the alarm that blared through the lab seconds later.

  Not that I paid too much attention to that. I needed to focus on getting out.

  My right hand free, I reached down and grabbed on to the lock securing my left arm. The metal crumbled like cardboard. It took mere seconds to rip it off. I heard a sharp, snapping sound, accompanied by the locks on my legs tightening to a painful level. I let out a short yelp, reached down, and tore them away with a grunt of effort.

  I stumbled down from the chair just in time to see Dr. Hale’s requested security arrive in the form of two Black Hats, darting toward the door.

  One charged me with his nightstick, only to be stopped as I struck him across the body in a low, swinging blow with my left fist. He went flying in that direction, hitting the nearby cabinets. The cotton balls and bandages that lined the shelf scattered everywhere.

  The other Black Hat, as if realizing his partner’s mistake, went for his stun gun. Unfortunately, even though I was plenty strong now, I wasn’t any faster or more agile than before. He pulled the trigger and I felt the electricity course through my body. I fell to the floor, convulsing in pain.

  Pain that almost immediately began to fade as my healing ability started to kick in. I shakily moved to my feet, teeth gritted. The guard’s eyes went wide, then he grabbed for me, trying to keep me in place.

  There was a clatter to my left, and I looked to see Dr. Hale descending upon me with a syringe of…something. I didn’t want to know what it was. Instead, I pivoted and shoved the guard at her. They both went flying toward the desk, sending the computer crashing to the floor. Not that I cared. One thought filled my mind.

  Move. Escape. Get out.

  I bolted from the room and into the hallway, glancing at Gardiner, who lay, groaning in pain, in a pile of limbs and dented lockers. I took a right, my feet picking up. I felt invincible, like I could do anything. Bixby was right. This was our ticket to escape. This strength. My healing abilities. All I needed to do was—

  I jerked to a halt as Gardiner shot me in the back.

  And this time, it wasn’t a stun gun.

  I slipped, falling on the smooth floors of the hallway, feeling blood spread from the wound on my back. The pain soon began to fade, but my vision did as well, plunging me into a world of darkness from which there was no escape.

  And then I saw it, a single hand reaching out for me, pulling me into the light, a now-familiar voice crying out one word.

  “Dawn!” Lilah shouted.

  18

  Alex

  I knew exactly where Alan had gone. One of the double glass doors had been opened wide.

  I headed in that direction, wincing as I stepped around the body that lay in my way. I passed through the open door carefully, not wanting to jostle the cracked surface and shatter it any further, then entered a massive room.

  And boy, do I mean massive.

  Unlike the other lights in the building, these appeared to be faulty. They blinked on and off every two or three seconds, each round revealing a new section of the room. On. Four sets of tables and chairs, partially covered with paper cups and plates, as if people had been interrupted in the middle of eating. Off. All Dark. On. Alan standing across the room, his form silhouetted by a doorway.

  “Alan?” I called out.

  The lights flicked off, and when they came on again, he was no longer there.

  With a frown, I began to make my way forward, the seizure-inducing light show not making the trip any easier. Alan had actually stood in one of multiple doors—four to be exact—that lay across the back wall. As I drew closer, I realized that the second one was blocked by something. It looked almost like the ceiling had collapsed. Unlike the laboratory area, this place was mostly made up of the natural rock of the mountain. I couldn’t help but wonder if it had been a cave once.

  Alan had entered the fourth doorway, so that’s where I headed. I stepped inside of one and found, unlike the rest of this godforsaken place, that the lights stayed off. I opened my mouth to ask for Alan and—

  “I’m here.”

  “Shit!” I cried.

  Alan had been leaning up against the wall, a foot away from me, hidden by shadows.

  “Don’t do that, man,” I said.

  “I apologize.” He took a step forward so he was better lit by the flickering lights. He winced as he did.

  “Are your eyes sensitive to light?” I asked, “because of the whole—”

  “I don’t want to talk about that,” he replied in a tone that brooked no argument.

  “I guess that’s your business. Although it would have been nice to know the guy I was supposed to be protecting already has ways of protecting himself.”

  I waited for Alan to rise to the bait, but he remained stone silent. I sighed in frustration.

  “What I don’t understand is the fact that you never explained any of this to Dawn,” I said. You clearly already knew about her. So why not—”

  “I suppose you’ve told your sisters about your powers?”

  “Hey.” I took a step toward him. “That’s different. I tell them about my powers, I tell them about Faultline, and that’s not a truth I want to burden them with.”

  “Suit yourself.” He nodded down the hallway. “The two doors lead to bedrooms, holding six beds each.” He paused. “They don’t look immensely comfortable.”

  I frowned. Was this the place where Dawn had been kept? Before I had a chance to ask, I heard Connor, calling for me from across the large room.

  “Uh…Alex. You have a call?”

  “Guess I need to go,” I said, then nodded at Alan. “You coming?”

  He nodded and moved away from the wall. We headed across the large room and through the double doors to where Connor stood.

  “I thought you were going to call Lilah?” I asked.

  “Couldn’t get through,” he replied, handing me the phone. “Looks like your guy was luckier.”

  “Hey, Dana?” I asked. “What’s—”

  “Going on?” he finished. “I’ll tell you what’s going on. My moronic sense of judgment. Of all the stupid things I could have done—”

  “Huh? What are you talking about?” It was impossible not to pick up on the panic in his voice. It was a tone usually reserved for when he talked about (as he put it) the “asshole,” the person Dana had been before Amity messed with his brain.

  “I guess I’ll give it to you straight,” Dana replied. “I fucked up. Remember that code I gave you to use on the front door?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, as much as I had tried to keep you guys a secret, as careful as I was about covering my tracks…”

 
I felt my blood run cold.

  “Dana,” I said. “Are you telling me SynergyCorp knows we’ve been crawling around Project Regen?”

  “Kiiiinda.”

  “Fuck, we’ve been here for hours!”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you! SynergyCorp doesn’t just know you’re in there. They’re at the front door.”

  Before I could reply, every light in the room turned off.

  “What the hell?” Connor said.

  “It’s SynergyCorp,” I explained. “They know we’re here. Have known, since we opened the damn door.”

  “I thought your hacker took care of that!”

  “Me too.” A growl crept into my voice.

  Connor snapped his fingers and a small sphere of light appeared, hovering inches above his right hand, casting a soft light over the three of us. It was a neat trick. Not that I was able to appreciate it.

  “Why’d they turn the lights off?” Connor asked.

  “Why did they—fuck, how do I put this on speaker phone?”

  Connor showed me, and Dana’s voice came through almost immediately.

  “They’re resetting the system,” I heard him say. “Not too happy with how I keep on freezing them out.”

  “You can do that?” I asked.

  “Not for much longer.”

  “Wonderful.” I turned to Connor. “I don’t suppose you can make another one of those. The flashlight is back in the crematorium.”

  “I’ll get it,” Alan said, and then walked out of the sphere of light and into the dark. Which made sense. If his saunter through those pitch-black barracks were any indication, he probably had fantastic night vision.

  “So,” I said to Connor, nodding to his bow. “How many operatives do you think you can take down with that?”

  “More if I can see them coming. As you might expect, a bow isn’t much good for close combat.” He scowled. “I haven’t had the most impressive performance today. My powers aren’t meant for enclosed spaces.”