by Sarah Noffke
He was across the parking lot and through the main entrance in half the time it would take the guards. However, they’d spread out and be looking for him. Kaleb would have to outsmart these guys to get away. Then he’d have to run like hell.
His feet slapped the marble floors, gaining him attention from strolling shoppers. He pushed through large crowds, grateful for the hordes of people and then also wishing they’d part easier to let him pass.
“Move aside,” he heard someone yell in an authoritative voice. It was Mr. Black Flattop.
Kaleb tore across the open space of the mall and toward the escalators but to his dismay, the one ascending was clogged with shoppers. He chose the one descending toward his floor, hurrying double time to make it up to the top of the escalator. From over his shoulder he watched the guards order people out of their way as they ran for the escalator. Kaleb, knowing this mall well from his time recently spent pretending to browse, but really stay warm and dry, raced for the catwalk that connected to the parking garage. He paused when he was to the middle. His idea had been to jump over the barrier and grab onto the sign for the electronics store and then scale down from there. But he wasn’t in werewolf form and had never tried something like that while only human. And now the distance looked greater than he remembered. He didn’t want to risk missing and falling three stories. The men burst through the doors, holding their weapons in front of them.
“Why don’t you come with us, and we’ll take care of you,” Mr. Black Flattop said, the only one not holding a weapon at the ready.
“Yeah, I don’t think so,” Kaleb said and leapt in the opposite direction, jumping over the side of the catwalk wall in one move. He didn’t jump down to the street below but rather to the second level of the parking garage, one story down. Rolling out of the jump, he sprang to his feet. From his peripheral he caught the men watching from the catwalk, but none of them looked like they’d dare take the jump. Kaleb’s small size and dormant-werewolf strength made his attempt successful with the catty-corner jump.
He didn’t stop running until he made it to the ramp at the back. Once at the bottom he spied a shuttle for a retirement home. A gang of elderly men and women were lining up, as the driver held her clipboard close up to her face, her back to the open door of the vehicle. With ease, Kaleb sprinted to the shuttle and slipped into the back, where he slid down low next to the wheelchairs and first-aid supplies.
Chapter Seventeen
“The future is a product of what we sacrifice in the present.”
- Olento Research Employee Manual
Adelaide didn’t feel confident, but she knew how to fake it. She knew how to fake a lot of things. Happiness, remorse, kindness. She stood from the conference table, shorter than both Zephyr and Rox. She was usually the shortest person in the room, which made her angry since her father had been over six feet tall. With her shoulders back and a sturdy look on her face she said, “You two take lowly Middling travel to Los Angeles. I’ll meet you at the docks,” she said, heading for the exit. Maybe if she hurried she could practice teleporting again. Or hypnosis. Or anything that she could bring to this fucking table where everyone else had the advantages it seemed.
“Do you mean by lowly Middling travel, the submarine?” Zephyr said, and now he was clutching the side of his neck like an ache had just erupted.
“How are you getting to Los Angeles?” Rox said, already scowling at Adelaide.
“On a GAD-C,” Adelaide said, like this was the dumbest question in the world.
Rox blinked at the girl blankly.
“Oh, Miss FBI thinks she’s a Dream Traveler, but she doesn’t know about GAD-Cs. Generateur automatique de corp,” Adelaide said with an awful French accent. “It’s Lucidite technology and allows us to dream travel to a location and then generates our bodies to that specific place using a complicated device.” She absentmindedly waved her hand at Rox. “I see your head is about to explode, so I’ll stop talking now.”
“Wait, I’m not taking a submarine when I can be there almost instantly,” Rox said.
“You are too, because someone has to keep an eye on Zep,” Adelaide said, pointing at him.
“Zephyr, please,” he said to Adelaide.
“Thanks for the correction, but I have a horrid memory and most likely will forget your preferences on name calling,” Adelaide said and then turned to Rox. “He’s too much a newbie to this for me to risk letting him on a GAD-C. I actually think you are too, but we’ll discuss that later. To the dry docks.” Adelaide pointed to the door, but she didn’t feel that she sounded in charge. She felt like a little girl pretending to be playing a game in the backyard with her rival neighbors and they were only humoring her.
“Uhhh…” Zephyr said, scratching the side of his face. “Thing is…” And he trailed away again.
Adelaide watched him for a moment. Took in the subtle ways his appearance had changed. Dilated pupils. Widening of his pores on the back of his hands. Sweat beading on his forehead.
“Oh fuck! You’re about to change into a werewolf! Brilliant-bloody-timing,” she said, pointing at the man who had his arms crossed, making him appear smaller than he was.
“Yeah,” he breathed out with a cough.
“It’s a new moon though,” Adelaide said, having memorized the lunar calendar.
“Doesn’t matter. We change every week, no matter what. Every seven days,” he said, and it sounded like it was becoming hard for him to breathe.
“So about like a menstrual cycle,” Rox said with a laugh. “On a regular schedule you can’t control your emotions or what you want to eat and your body goes out of control.”
“Come on, Zeppy,” Adelaide said, waving him to follow her. “I’ve had rooms built for you beasts for when you changed into werewolves. You can’t get out and we all stay safe.”
“Just make sure it’s stocked with meat,” Zephyr said, starting to shiver.
“Can’t do. Thing is, as of a few months ago, the Lucidite Institute only serves vegetarians meals since this is more conducive for dream traveling,” Adelaide said with a cruel laugh.
“Oh, I cannot wait to see this,” Rox said.
“You’ll watch from the viewing room. There’s no way I’m letting you in that room to play fetch with Rover,” Adelaide said, already expecting that Rox thought she was tough enough with her skin resistance to hang with a werewolf.
“Fine. Fine,” Rox said. “But only because you dared to call the puppy dog Rover and that’s fucking hilarious.”
Adelaide pressed the button for the exit to the strategic department, her eyes on Zephyr, whom she needed to get to the safe room pronto. Luckily it was straight down the hall. “Oh, I have plenty more doggie jokes lined up, so don’t worry. I’ll keep it fresh.”
“You gals are sure supportive. Thanks,” Zephyr said, his voice more like a growl now.
Chapter Eighteen
“All humans are considered valuable. Sparing a life at the cost of others is not something the Lucidites take lightly, although it is sometimes necessary.”
- Lucidite Employee Manual
With a large inhale Connor slid his thumb across his nostrils. The gesture brought a host of old memories. Not memories. Nightmares, mostly. The late nights. The binging. The girls. The white powder. The drugs that ruined his life. Not that his life had ever been that great before cocaine and alcohol barged into it and stole away his money and freedom. He’d dragged himself to the doors of the drug rehabilitation center the morning that he awoke and realized he was homeless and broke. In one night he lost it all. Gave it all away to a drug dealer for a bag of shit that wasn’t even pure cocaine. But thirty pounds down from his normal weight and hardly able to complete a sentence, he couldn’t argue against the dealer who would probably break his other fingers if he made accusations. And his “friends” were fed up with his drugs and the junk-type people he brought through the commune. It was the morning he woke up on the steps of the building he used to call home that h
e decided he’d sunk low enough. Dragging himself to rehab was the only thing he’d ever been proud of, and still it was an act that also marked his greatest mistake.
Connor didn’t miss the drugs. Not because of rehab, although that helped. It gave him the skill to resist that which didn’t serve him. He’d learned all about neural networks and how addiction works. How it rewires someone’s brain until they just keep craving that response connected to the drugs. When he thought back, there weren’t any good times when the drugs were around. It had been a mirage that he realized was all wrong. Initially the drugs were a part of celebrations for already good times. They weren’t the fun. They were the end of the fun usually. Later the drugs became the overwhelming focus to his life. That’s how someone loses it all. They become focused on only one thing. Drugs. Work. Sex. It didn’t really matter what it was.
Connor also didn’t miss the drugs because of the rush the change created in him. When he became the werewolf it was the exact same feeling the drugs gave him. It was almost like the scientist had tapped into the same neural networks connected to cocaine. The high. The racing heart. The cravings. It was because of his time spent with cocaine that he usually recognized when the werewolf change was minutes away, and sometimes because of that he invited the change.
As his eyes shifted from their usual turquoise green to a glowing neon, he tore them away from the corner where his last two meals resided. The lone wolf had gone a whole day without eating. The beast inside him would be hungry though. Tonight he’d have to battle with the wolf. Try and protect his rations. Sparring with the beast within him was always his downfall inside of his locked cell, not that he needed any more disadvantages.
The change didn’t hurt as much anymore. Maybe he was numb from hunger. But to Connor it felt more like a burgeoning fern unfurling with time lapse photography. The unfolding didn’t hurt the fern, although it happened within seconds to the watcher’s eyes.
With a deliberate focus, he shut his eyes, wishing he could sleep during the change. The beast always wore him out and he was already so depleted. How much longer could he go stuck in this cell?
Sleep wasn’t even a possibility for Connor. Outside his cell wall the dark skies had awoken and with them they had rattled the beast. It awoke with a growl, hungry and vicious. His eyes sprang open, Connor the observer behind the wolf’s control. He watched as the beast crawled off the bed, crouching down low, furred hands pinned on the ground. How could he be something so hideous? How had they changed him so that hair grew from the tops of his hands, claws hung from his fingers, his teeth enlarged, his ears and nose turned pointy? The only relief was his body remained the same size, although the power he harnessed was extremely noticeable.
Behind the veil of the wolf’s control he watched as the beast sniffed the cell, his nose down low to the grimy ground. The beast seemed as though it had been asleep during the many days between changes. It was always a reentry into this world for the werewolf. And Connor had to watch powerlessly as the animal took in the same environment, like it forgot that they were both imprisoned in the four-walled hell. His nose startled with a satisfactory sensation. The beast spun around, kneeling back, as though about to pounce.
No! Connor thought, powerless in his own head.
The beast ignored him and lunged forward, tearing into the last two meals he had left.
Chapter Nineteen
“Lives must sometimes be sacrificed in order to achieve greatness.”
- Olento Research Employee Manual
“This is unacceptable!” Mika yelled so loudly the bunnies darted to the back of their cages.
“I don’t disagree, sir,” Grant said, his hat tucked under his arm.
“You had him! Cornered, it sounds like!” Mika yelled, not caring that scientists, checking their subjects’ cages, were pretending not to be listening.
“Yes, and we thought we could find him in the parking garage, but it appears he found a way to escape there. We searched everywhere, I assure you, sir,” Grant said.
Mika’s smoldering eyes scanned the open lab, not really taking in the various cages holding animals in different stages of experimentation. Finally when they were resting on the drain beside his feet, where so much of the lab was washed away to each day, he pulled up his chin, his eyes calm once more. “Well, despite your incompetence, we’ve still had a small victory here. We know he’s homeless. On the run. And alone. Now I’ll just have to draw him out. A hungry wolf won’t be able to refuse a feast,” Mika said, before marching to the exit.
Chapter Twenty
“There is no evil we will not fight. There is no battle we will turn away from, if it means preserving the integrity of our world.”
- Lucidite Employee Manual
“So that was a bit anticlimactic,” Rox said, as the threesome strode through the hallways of the Institute. Blue carpet, which shimmered as the light caught it, ran under their feet. The walls of the corridors were brushed stainless steel and doors with blue buttons lined the upcoming stretch.
“Yeah, he just sat there grunting and howling,” Adelaide said from her place on the other side of Zephyr, whom she eyed quizzically. His breaths were starting to grow more even, the pulse in his neck not beating as wildly. She was pretty sure he hadn’t slept at all during the night, although she and Rox had taken turns dream traveling to ensure they’d be ready for the lab in Los Angeles. Zephyr would have to sleep on the way there. Or he could wither away from exhaustion, she didn’t much care. One dog down, eleven to go.
“It’s because I was starving. And oh, I’m sorry that my weird mutation wasn’t more entertaining for you ladies who are still purely human,” Zephyr said, pushing the front of his hair off his forehead and corralling it into place.
“I know, I’m sorry too. But next time, I’ll leave a bundle of carrots for you to chew on,” Adelaide said.
“And I could throw a ball around for him to fetch, if you’ll let me in there, Freckles,” Rox said to Adelaide, angling her head around Zephyr.
Adelaide narrowed her eyes at the girl who had changed into a lavender tank top. It wasn’t the most appropriate thing to wear on a reconnaissance mission, but Adelaide was certain “appropriate” was still a word that Rox was struggling to understand.
“Call me Freckles again and I’ll find a way to disconnect your superpower of resistance and then I’ll stick you in there with wolf-boy,” Adelaide said.
“No way. It’s impossible to take away a Dream Traveler’s gift,” Rox said, keeping stride with the three, all of them shoulder to shoulder.
“You do realize that we’re taking a werewolf for a walk right now? Nothing is impossible, especially for the Lucidites. And yes, we do have the power to strip a Dream Traveler of their gifts in our catalog. We confiscated it from an evil society,” Adelaide said, hating that she was having to look up at Rox and then Zephyr. It made them seem powerful and her seem like the little girl, tagging along.
“That’s your superpower? You’re resistant? Then that’s how you made the jump, isn’t? Off the top of the building?” Zephyr said to Rox, remembering when she jumped down from the rooftop. “So your bones, they don’t break?”
“With enough force anything will break, but yeah, they’re super resilient. And my skin too,” Rox said, winking at Zephyr, her eyes lingering on his too long before darting to Adelaide. “I want to go in the safe room with Zephyr next time and then we could spar or do something semi cooler than watching him drool on himself,” Rox said.
“Well, I’m still in charge here according to Lucidite Lore so—”
“That’s not a real thing,” Rox said, cutting Adelaide off, but not sounding sure.
“Well, you’re merely assisting on this case. I’m in charge, so what I say goes in the Institute and in the field.”
“But—”
“No buts,” Adelaide said, interrupting Rox’s rebuttable. “I’m a Lucidite and the two of you are a bunch of worthless gits who will get yourself killed
in this place if I don’t take charge. You’re not in the FBI anymore. We do real things and have real laws, ones that if you break then you’re going to fuck stuff up,” Adelaide said. She stopped at the entrance to the dry dock, remembering a long time ago when she had to enter the underwater facility that way. “Now get on the submarine, like the lowly halfwits that you are.”
The two stared at Adelaide before exchanging a look. Zephyr’s was one of complacency. He was out of his element and knew it, Adelaide assumed. This wasn’t a man who was going to argue when he knew he was in the company of superior knowledge. He was used to rank. Rox’s expression, however, was one of brooding contempt. Still, she turned after a moment and headed for the windowed door that hung in reflections from the glowing blue lights pouring through from the other side.
“And Rox?” Adelaide called at her back, unable to fathom how or why anyone would wear three-inch heels when there was a plethora of better shoe options. She would need to find the room the Lucidites had assigned to Rox while at the Institute and burn all her clothes. Adelaide’s only other option would be to poke out her eyes and therefore arson seemed like the better approach.
The girl turned and regarded her over her pursed lips.
“Try and keep your hands off of our subject. I see you longing to pat his head, but our mission is to protect him. That is all. Got it?” Adelaide said in a voice that almost sounded like her father’s. Maybe it was her imagination. She hoped not.