The Seven

by Sean Patrick Little

  "You know all that?" said John. "You been holding out on us, Ken?"

  "Before we left the lab, I absorbed all the computers there. It's here," Kenny said, tapping his temple with a slim finger. I blanked all the hard drives and stored their collective info up here. I know it all, John. At least, everything that was connected to that computer system. Even the deep files, the ones they tried to hide under layers of encryption."

  "All?" Sebbins said. She hadn't been told everything when she joined. Even after all her service, a lot of the project was still classified to her.

  "Well, I know as much as was on the hard drives. Files, e-mails, spreadsheets on our performance during those tests---it's all here. I know a lot, everyone. I know that the United States Government has no idea we exist. I know the true identity of our investors. I know that our parents aren't alive anymore." There was a gasp from Holly, and John bit his lip. Even Indigo raised a hand to her mouth in disbelief. "You weren't going to tell us that bit, were you, Doc?"

  Four pairs of eyes fell on Sebbins and she could feel them burning into her flesh. "No," she said. Air caught in her throat and she was barely audible.

  Kenny gave a half-smile. "Not like it was a big deal, though, right? We've all moved past them, haven't we? I mean, we all pretty much thought our parents gave up on us. In a way, it's kind of nice to know that they didn't."

  "That's why their letters stopped?" Holly wailed. Tears were streaming down her face and she snuffled into the back of her arm. John bit his knuckles thoughtfully.

  Indigo just glared at Dr. Sebbins. "You knew?"

  Tears began pricking at the corners of her eyes. "Guilty," said Sebbins. "Your families were systematically eliminated as the project advanced. Brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, and then---aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. Everyone who knew you existed." Holly let out a loud, heart-wrenching sob and buried her face in her hands. "I guess that's why I got so close to all of you," Sebbins continued. "I knew you didn't have families anymore. Please, please forgive me for not telling you."

  "All this time, I actually hated them because I thought they just didn't care," Holly collapsed in a heap and sobbed.

  "That's cold," said John. "That's really cold."

  "They erased our birth records, too," said Kenny. "Anything that could identify us in the world has been eliminated. Technically, none of us exist."

  "Did you know that too, Doc?" Indigo hissed.

  Sebbins could only nod. So many nights she thought about this information, laid in bed just thinking about it. She had wanted to tell the kids, but Cormair had insisted they not know. They've already given up on their families, he'd said. The anger they feel toward their families will help their abilities develop!

  "I also know about the other experiments. I bet ol' Doc Sebbins here doesn't even know about those." Kenny sneered. "December thirty-first of this year, Doc: We were all going to turn eighteen. And what was going to happen then?"

  Happen? If anything was scheduled to happen, she hadn't been told. "I have no idea," Sebbins said.

  "Liar!" Indigo shouted.

  "No," Kenny waved Indigo back. "I believe her. I know she didn't know. It was in an encrypted, classified file deep in the computers, an email exchange between two of the higher-ups. I don't even think Cormair knew."

  "What 'other' experiments, Ken?" John urged.

  "The other kids---the second project."

  "Stop playing with us, Ken. Just let us have it!"

  "Seven years ago, in a separate lab, they started another group of kids with strange genetic profiles on the path to becoming enhanced like we all were. They have a super soldier, a strongman, and a bird girl. And they have a few of kids that aren't like any of us."

  "There are more kids like us?" Indigo sounded incredulous.

  "Better than us," said Kenny. "They are benefiting from all our testing in order to enhance their abilities faster. They're us, but tuned-up, better, faster, stronger, and smarter. They are our replacements."

  "Replacements?" John said.

  "On our birthday this year, as a present, the program at the Home was scheduled to end. Didn't know that either, did you, Doc?"

  "No, I didn't!" Sebbins felt anger bubbling up in her. She felt like some newbie junior researcher rather than someone who had given up her life for this project.

  "The program was going to end?" Indigo shouted. "That means we could have just walked away free in a few months?"

  Kenny laughed. His laugh was something other than human: shallow, breathy, and low. "Free? No. Think about it, Indigo! We're billions of dollars and a decade's worth of astronomically ground-breaking research! We're too valuable to simply be turned loose."

  "Jail?" John asked. "Servitude?"

  Kenny's voice was flat and hollow, "Termination."

  Andy spent several hours lying in a copse of trees not far from where soldiers were picking up the wreckage of the disaster at the Home. The pain of his transformation had kept him from sleeping. He had lain in tall grass, oblivious to the chill of the morning, with tears streaming down the sides of his face as he was wracked with aches and agony, trembling and gritting his teeth to keep from crying out as his muscles bubbled under his skin and his bones increased in mass and thickness. The last thing he needed was to alert some soldier to his position.

  From what he gathered, the activity around the Home had quieted down considerably. The soldiers must have assumed that all of the experiments had escaped, save for the one they caught. That would work to Andy's advantage. He might still be able to sneak around, though running might trigger seismic sensors.

  He was still wrapped in the flimsy hospital gown. It barely covered him and left him feeling rather exposed. New clothes would be a necessity if he was going to mount a rescue mission, but those clothes would have to be loose-fitting. He wondered if there was something beyond a Big and Tall Men's store, like maybe a Freakishly Big Men's Store.

  He forced the pain to the back of his mind and hoisted himself up on an elbow, just above the grass level. Only a few soldiers still milled about in front of the Home and none of them were in a position to spot him in the trees. He could make his way toward town without too much trouble as long as he stayed in the trees.

  His feet had grown and expanded during his transformation, shredding his shoes as they did. Each foot was wider and longer. His toes had become thick, bulky rods that jutted out from the meat of his foot and the skin on the soles of his feet thickened and toughened. To balance his enormous bulk, his feet were like steel. With each step, that's what it felt like. Every motion felt as if he was moving in pudding and each step seemed to shake the ground.

  The town was on alert. By the time Andy reached the village, the streets were patrolled by armed soldiers. They stood on street corners chatting quietly and smoking cigarettes, their guns hanging idly from shoulder straps. They looked like they were at ease, but from his vantage point, hidden behind a fallen maple, camouflaged by thick shrubs, Andy could see their eyes darting and he could almost sense their edginess. The soldiers were looking for trouble. No one out of uniform walked the streets, and Andy couldn't see if any stores were even open. He could see the gas station on the corner of the town and no one was at the pumping stations.

  Andy didn't have a clue to Sarah's whereabouts. John would know what to do in this situation; John was good at figuring out things like that. In class, John was always able to lay out winning strategies in games or projects. Take chess, for instance. John was slick---laying out extensive pawn strategies, utilizing his knights for quick strikes, moving his rooks and bishops in conjunction to pin Andy back deep. Andy just tore straight ahead, going for the quick kills and usually lost his queen before the tenth move. John usually didn't even need his queen.

  A loud rumble snapped Andy out of his reverie and he squinted down the road. A dark green Humvee was rolling toward town from the direction of the Home. It was the first military vehicle Andy had seen since he made it to the outski
rts. The hummer took a right by the gas station and thundered up the road, past the main street, and to the outskirts north of town. The hummer took another right and disappeared from view as if it had gone down an inclined road that was hidden by a grassy knoll.

  If Sarah was being held prisoner, it would make more sense to put her in a military installation than a civilian house. And, if he was going to screw up and sacrifice his queen too early in the match, he figured it would be better to take down the military base than to try to tear down the town. It would be heroic...in a stupid, get-blown-up-and-die sort of way.

  There were guards in woodland gray camouflage and black berets about a hundred yards from Andy's present location. Between the edge of the woods where he currently hid and the town, there was nothing but scrub grass and pavement. There was no way he could make a run at them. He'd find himself riddled with bullet holes before he made twenty yards. If he angled away from the guards and headed toward the backyards of some of the houses at the edge of town, he'd leave himself exposed to anyone looking out their window. If anyone saw him, a lumbering behemoth in their backyard would inevitably lead to a phone call to authority figures, and then, most likely, guns.

  Rocks and hard places, Andy thought. He thought about the class they had taken on strategies. A wizened professor with a face like a dried apple had been brought in to discuss the battle tactics of Alexander, Napoleon, Hannibal, and other great military minds. There, Andy had been instructed on the art of battle: Everything from tactical movements such as the Hammer-and-Anvil, the Chariot Vice, and Throwing Sand to Disguise the Blade, to the great battles such as Thermopylae, Waterloo, Omaha Beach, Midway, and Gettysburg. "Do something unexpected," the professor had told them. "A ruse, perhaps. Scare your opponents. Feint! That is the secret to finding a weak spot. Destroy your opponents' confidence. Make them think they've won and then go for the kill."

  Andy dug into the dirt with his hands. His fingers, each easily three times a regular man's finger, plowed into the earth with the ease of a backhoe. He pulled up handfuls of black loam, wet and dark. He haphazardly smeared his face and body; he rubbed some in his hair. He waited for a few moments to allow the dirt to dry a bit, fanning it with a wide skunk cabbage leaf, and then it was show time.

  He set his feet and put his hands on the trunk of a diseased elm at the edge of the woods. He pushed hard, feeling the surge of power through his core. The elm wavered; roots began to snap beneath his feet as they broke under the stress of being stretched. Suddenly, the elm gave way beneath his hands and fell straight, smashing into the ground. The guards immediately scrambled for their guns. Andy stumbled out of the trees like a drunk, staggering and reeling. He let out a loud, low, moaning wail and fell to his knees. The guards were advancing on him quickly, guns raised; one was already on his radio calling for help. Andy fell face first into the dirt and let his body go limp. In seconds, guards were swarming the area and several medics had arrived on the scene. A thick needle bored into the skin of his upper arm, piercing a vein, and then everything became light and filmy in his mind. He felt his breathing slow and everything went dark.

  Andy woke up in a windowless hospital room lit by a droning fluorescent light. The room was a pale, sickly, industrial green color. The walls, the tiles, even the bed linens, all colored in institution green. There was no TV or radio in the room. There was nothing to tell him where he was. A small basket of plastic flowers sat on an end table next to a wooden bureau that was painted a dull off-white, but that was the only decoration in the room. Through a glass panel in the only door, he could see an armed guard standing at the ready. Andy had been strapped down to a metal table in the center of the room with polymer cables, each about as thick as a man's forearm. A few large-bore needles ran fluids into his arm from a hanging bag. There were EKG pads taped to his chest. Everything was quiet. There was no hustle in the hallway and there was utter silence. That meant it was time to make some noise.

  Andy closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. Polymer cables held his wrists to the table, but his arms weren't strapped down otherwise. If he could get his arms free, he was confident that he could tear a new door in the hospital room. Andy inflated his chest, pushing against the cable across his chest and stomach. He tensed his thighs, feeling the cable there, too. He began to curl his hands toward his shoulders, feeling the hard, taut resistance of the bonds. His biceps began to burn and the cable across his chest began to bite into his skin. He relaxed for a second, grabbed another deep breath to inflate his lungs again and pulled. He repeated this several times, each time gaining a little more ground against the wrist cables. Finally, he pulled up hard, one last time, and neither he nor the cables broke, but he had succeeded in stretching the polymer until he could slip his massive fists out of the bonds. Once his hands were free, it was short work to stretch the other cables so that he could wriggle his way to the end of the table and out of the restraints entirely.

  He was still naked, save for the king-sized hospital linens. Andy ripped the pads from his chest and slipped the needles out of his forearm. He quickly ransacked the bureau, finding a pair of navy blue sweatpants that looked like they'd initially been made for an elephant. He was able to slip into them with ease. The hooded sweatshirt that accompanied them was a little too small. Andy ripped the arms off, and then ripped slits down the sides from the underarm sections. He also had to rip the neck open. When he put it on, it stretched tightly over his torso, but it was better than being naked. He caught sight of himself in a mirror. Someone had bathed him, shaved the scrub from his cheeks and chin, and brushed his unruly red mop of hair.

  The door to the room opened. Andy froze. A man in a military-style gray dress uniform walked into the room. Andy scanned the ribbon bars and hanging medals on the left side of the man's chest. He'd studied the American military; none of the colorful little rectangles were American medals. One looked like a Canadian medal, one of the many service crosses; another medal looked French, but Andy couldn't place it. The epaulets on the man's shoulders each had two stars. Whatever military he was in, he was a high ranking officer.

  "Good afternoon, Subject One. It's nice to finally meet you. I am General Tucker, the executive officer of this installation. I'm glad the pants we found for you fit, at least. I'll try to have someone find a better shirt for you. If nothing else, I'll have someone sew you something. Please, have a seat back on the table and get comfortable."

  Andy didn't move. He watched the man's eyes. There was no fear, no concern, despite the fact that he was standing before a genetic behemoth capable of tearing him in two with his bare hands. That fact didn't sit well with Andy. It meant the man knew something that Andy didn't.

  "How did you know I was awake?"

  Tucker smiled and pointed to the floral arrangement. "There is a camera in that basket. Also, the moment you began to strain against your restraints, your heart rate and adrenaline shot up to a point where a warning went off at the nurses' station down the hall. You have been under observation the entire time."

  Andy felt like a deflated balloon. Of course they'd be watching him! Why wouldn't they? Andy was at a disadvantage. He was on the defensive, he needed to get on the attack. He took a different tack. "You know what I'm capable of, don't you?"

  Tucker nodded. "Affirmative."

  "So, why aren't you scared? How do you know I'm not going to tear apart this room? This hospital?"

  "Because we have something you want: Your friend, Subject Two."

  "Sarah."

  "As you say. I am not here to argue semantics with experiments, regardless of what that experiment might think it can do to me. You took a risk coming back to this town. You might have been killed, you know that? You were one of the more risky experiments."

  Andy drew himself up to his full height, which wasn't overly impressive, but when he folded his arms across his chest, there was a slight tearing sound as part of the sweatshirt gave way to his sheer, broad mass. "I'm not an experiment."

&n
bsp; "As I said, I'm not here to argue. Why don't we take a walk?" Without waiting for an answer, General Tucker turned on his heel and walked out the door. The guard at the door snapped to attention and the general nodded and then turned the corner. He didn't look back to make sure Andy was following.

  Andy hesitated. Part of him wanted to follow the general to see what he could learn, and because the general expected him to follow. The rebellious side of him wanted to stay in the hospital room, wait for a while, and then trash the place as only he knew how. Andy sighed and followed the general. As he walked, trailing the general by a few paces, his bare feet slapped against the cold tiles in the hallway, each one making a thunderous noise that seemed to tremble the corridor.

  "Quite a step you have there," the general called out, not bothering to look over his shoulder. "The medics estimated your weight somewhere around eight hundred pounds. However, your body fat is at only 2.2 percent. That is amazing in and of itself. You are practically made of muscle." Tucker paused, as if waiting for a response. Andy kept his mouth closed. After a moment, Tucker baited him again. "I saw what you were able to do at the Home. Your strength is impressive."

  "You should know. You did it to me," Andy said.

  "Dr. Cormair's genetic enhancements surpassed our expectations, you know. We had anticipated you being about half as strong as you appear to be."

  "Sorry to throw off your plans."

  "Come with me; I want to show you something," Tucker said. He beckoned Andy with a finger but he still didn't look behind him. "I have a feeling you'll want to see this."