by Farley Dunn
“Makes him too hot to touch, if you get my meaning.” She winked at Garik even as she placed one hand on Paolo’s. Garik noticed that he pulled his from under hers and set it aside.
“I can eject boiling water from my fingertips.” He shrugged. “Your turn.” He tapped one long fingernail and pointed it Garik’s direction.
“Timber wolf.” Garik shrugged. It seemed simple and non-evasive, compared to what he had just learned about these people.
“Lucky boy,” Julia muttered, looking away, before turning her eyes back to Garik.
“Precog?” Leigh leaned in towards Laura, whispering, but Garik caught her question. Precog, like precognition? That was a wolf thing?
Laura’s reply was even more puzzling. “The dog thing hasn’t gone so well for Christian, and he’s definitely precog.”
“True,” Leigh nodded. “Seeing the future is seeing your pain.”
“Cease!” Joanie stood. “Come.” She nodded her head, walked away, and the rest of the group moved with her. Paolo rapped the table, crooked his fingers at Garik, and waited for him to join the group.
Garik scooted his chair back noisily, wondered if he should police his table, and decided there was no time. These people would leave him behind, otherwise.
And he was interested. He wanted to know more.
GARIK’S DOOR double clicked, the thump-thump that told of the lock mechanism releasing.
He was on his bed, still clothed, and too filled with the day to do more than look at the ceiling and try to make sense of everything. Hot water expulsion, sonic communication, and turning to water. What else was possible? Next to those guys, he was nothing. He could hear a little better than before, and maybe his sense of smell was improved, but nothing else. He was still just Garik, Bay City teen on loan from Russia, and living on the struggling side of town. He would never be special like those people.
He wasn’t sure he wanted to be. They seemed to have formed a team of sorts, friends, certainly, but they were also skittish about their lives down here, as if their future was uncertain, and they were looking for a way to ensure their survival.
Did he need to worry? It seemed he was being given everything he wanted, even watched over by the second-in-command, a man who seemed to like him and want the best for him.
Jantzen had even gone to bat for Devon when it was Garik who had messed up. Garik still felt bad about that, although there was little he could do to change past events. He would simply have to make better choices in the future.
Jantzen walked in, surprisingly more rumpled and tired than Garik had seen him before. Jantzen smiled, the expression dulled by whatever the day had done to him.
“Hello.” Garik sat up. “Thank you for my day.”
“I thought you might like them.” Jantzen kicked off his shoes, carried himself to the sofa and dropped, leaning his head back. “I’m glad someone had a good day.”
“I did. I can’t believe all the stuff they can do.”
“I can’t either, sometimes.” His eyes were closed, and he took a deep breath and released it. “What did you pick up from them?”
Ah, a test. Garik deflated. He’d thought . . . maybe hoped that Jantzen had returned as a friend, and now, he was asking him to evaluate his day, as if the people he’d been with were what mattered, and not Garik or his feelings or what the day meant to him. The disappointment cut, and the thought flashed through him that Jantzen should leave. He didn’t need him here, because he was fine on his own.
“Did they say anything?” Jantzen rolled his head sideways and looked at Garik, not irritated or pushy, just reminding him that he’d asked a question.
“They’re scared.” Garik hadn’t thought it just like that, but when it came out, he knew that was it.
“Why? Tell me what you got from them that told you that.” Jantzen seemed more interested, as though Garik had noticed something important.
“Their skills aren’t good enough.” Garik expected Jantzen to agree with him, but the man continued to watch him, not responding, other than a tightened expression around his mouth.
“That’s it?”
“No, that’s not it at all. They are good, can do amazing things.” He thought of Airman Vang, and Colonel Brace from the hospital room flashed into his thoughts. We’ve yet to achieve those qualities in a compliant subject. “They don’t play the game, not the way they’re expected to. That’s what you wanted me to see, isn’t it?”
“Last night, I had to initiate a reassignment for one of our failed hybrids to Basement 5. You know what that means, don’t you?”
“Yes.” Garik pictured the cages, the mewling creatures, the desperate eyes.
“This one didn’t show quick enough progress for Weston, or at least not the kind he wanted.”
Progress. Garik thought back to Lisa Fortimier’s words. Mr. Rodheimer wants to move this forward. Airman Vang had been concerned about his lack of progress, also. Then, this morning, Joanie’s evaluation. “Too human.” Garik felt the bile rising in his throat.
“What does that mean for me?” Even to ask it meant it wasn’t good.
“That’s what I’m trying to work out. Maybe . . . no, it’s too early for that. Just know that I’m on your side. I’ll do what I can to protect you.”
Jantzen stood wearily, sighed heavily, and made his way towards the door. He slipped on his shoes, pulled out his passkey, and inserted it into the lock. Thump-thump, and without looking back, he was gone.
Garik pulled his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. Try to protect him?
He didn’t feel better, not any at all.
― 11 ―
VAN HERMOSO was the first one in Garik’s door the following day.
“Good morning, Garik.” He smiled too broad of a smile, as if he hoped to cover up something he didn’t want to say. “I see you’re up and dressed. T’Wana will be joining us for breakfast. We have a full morning scheduled for you, so you’ll be getting a break from your room this morning. How does that sound?”
“But . . .” Garik held his hand over his computer keyboard in the middle of typing a search query.
“Go ahead, shoot. I’m listening.” Van smiled, but Garik noticed it was a little less broadly than before.
“I have a full morning already scheduled.” He motioned to the computer. It was on and connected to the research center’s educational site. He was expected to keep up his studies, even though it seemed irrelevant with being locked away in this basement PROBABLY FOR HIS ENTIRE LIFE. “And this afternoon, Devon said I could spend some time climbing with him. Can’t this wait?”
“I’m afraid not.” Van walked to his closet, opened it, and pulled out a pair of athletic shoes. “Excellent! These should do. If you will get these on, we’ll head to breakfast. Get you all sorted out, all that stuff. I wouldn’t plan on making it to Devon’s, but we’ll see closer to lunch. T’Wana will update you with more information at breakfast.”
“Okay.” Garik shrugged. He didn’t mind missing the school lessons, but his climbing lesson with Devon? That was less comforting. And Van’s overly upbeat attitude? It was like leading a puppy to the pound and repeating, “Here, puppy. Good puppy.” It sounded nice, but the results wouldn’t be agreeable.
Rather than argue, Garik worked his feet into the shoes and stood. He touched his keyboard to bookmark his place and shut it down. He had pants and a shirt on and nothing else to take with him. He glanced longingly at his ZBoard, but Van liked to walk everywhere, so the skateboard wasn’t an option.
Both T’Wana and Van joining him for breakfast? The bad vibes were off the chart, and Garik wondered how his life would be different after today.
GARIK REACHED the side of the pool, barely, and pulled himself far enough out of the water that he could breathe. His chest heaved, and he expected the volcanic upheaval in his stomach to breach the levee as soon as he quit wheezing. He was fully clothed and had been wearing a pack with weights on his back for twelve l
aps of the pool.
Were they trying to kill him?
All morning, he had sat in a room on Basement Level 3 guessing what was on cards, prompted by a band wrapped around his arm that gave him a mild shock with each wrong answer. They kept upping the shock value with each question.
His success rate had been nearly nil.
He guessed Leigh and Laura didn’t know as much about Christian as they thought. Precog? There was no such thing in Garik’s brain, and he had the scorch marks on his arm to prove it.
Rapid reading skills, flashing words in front of him until they blurred. His head had been spinning before they finished. Then he had been placed in a maze, inside a soundproof room, he thought, because it had gone deadly silent when they closed the door. Inside was a full-size, walled-in maze, and once he was inside, they had turned out the lights. It didn’t stay quiet. They expected him to find his way out WITH REZ MUSIC BLASTING THE ENTIRE TIME.
He left that one with his head splitting open.
The pool was the culmination of sprints, one after the other, chin ups that required his chin to reach past the bar, two-minute non-stop crunches, and a full minute of pushups. He had to restart three times on the pushups, each time more exhausted and more determined to finish than before.
Airman Vang and Colonel Brace had shown up during his weight training test, and they had a phalanx of six others with them, one of which Garik thought might be Wu Han, the Airman he had met in the food court. He didn’t understand the reason for the basketball throw or the kettlebell snatch. He hadn’t even known there was such a thing as a kettlebell snatch, and he dropped the heavy weight several times before he got the hang of it, and with everyone watching, to his mortification.
Dr. Jimenez was there the entire time, with Nurse Ratchett, observing, marking things down, occasionally saying just loud enough for Garik to make out, “Enough, gentlemen. We don’t want to kill him.”
Thank you, Garik thought, though he didn’t expect it was out of personal concern for his welfare. More likely, they didn’t want to have to carry his dead body out of wherever he expired. If he was alive, he could walk out and die on someone else’s time.
After they watched Garik pull himself from the pool and shuck off the weighted pack, kneeling and trying to figure out why he wasn’t dead already, Dr. Jimenez appeared with a tablet and a stylus and directed him to a bench off to the side.
“Come, my boy. We’re learning much today. Let’s have a seat over here.”
“Garik,” he growled. “I’m not a boy. I’m me.”
“So I see. Let’s sit and have a talk.”
“Sure.” He was sopping, his shoes were filled with water, and he’d completed twelve laps of the pool. How about you, Dr. Jamie? Want to give it a try? Still, he stood, walked as steadily as he could, gently lowered himself to the bench.
“Did you see the Colonel earlier?” Jimenez sounded kinder than Garik had expected.
“Yes.” Garik used his hand to wipe the remnants of pool water from his face.
“And Director Rodheimer, did you notice him?”
Garik hadn’t, and he looked up and across to the observers at the far side of the pool.
“Oh, he’s gone, now. I dare say he’s not impressed with your progress.”
“What’s not to impress? I completed everything you people gave me to do. What do you want from me??”
“Clearly, more than you’re giving us. We expected much more from you by this point. It seems the DNA enhancement hasn’t taken with you as expected.” The doctor seemed almost wistful.
“So I can go home?” If so, the tests today were worth it, just to get out of here.
“Oh, you misunderstand me. No one who starts the program ever gets to go home. You are a permanent part of the facility’s residents. There are, um, other avenues for your skills, those you are able to maintain.”
Like Marina and Hector. They got more than they wanted from them, and now they were useless to them except as grunt labor. What was Garik, less than useless? He still had his arms and legs. He could run, jump, and swim. Wasn’t that worth something?
Would he end up like Devon, instructing those who might show prospective skills? Or like T’Wana or Van, nudging other inductees, unwilling or otherwise, into the best their newly hybridized bodies could be?
“Can I change into dry clothes?” Enough was enough. For once, Garik could be locked in his room for two days and he wouldn’t care.
“Let me ask you this, Mr. Shayk. Do you have anything else to give us? Are there reserves in there you haven’t tapped, yet?”
Garik heard the man’s words. Mr. Shayk. He had been demoted to a last name. If that didn’t mean he was on the way out, what would?
“I’ll all used up, Dr. Jimenez. I don’t have any more to give you.”
The man jerked his head up at the use of his last name. He started to say something and instead hardened his jaw and took a deep breath.
“Then, Mr. Shayk, you may get into your dry things. Put all this away first, so that Devon doesn’t have to.” Dr. Jimenez stood, adjusted his lab coat, and with firm steps, walked away without looking back.
GARIK SET the plastic bag with his clothes on the counter in the changing room. Rooms, because there was space for twenty people or more. It was all his, today.
The sound was as muted in here as it had been in many of the other rooms, and he suspected it was sound dampened and insulated so that whatever happened in here never made it past the door. That was as unnerving as everything else that had happened to him since arriving here.
What could happen in here that needed total secrecy? How bad could it be?
He left the wet clothes in a pile in the corner. He had policed the outside equipment. They could carry this away. He worked his dry clothes on, looking at his arm before slipping his shirt over his head. The red whelps from the glass hadn’t disappeared, not quite. He was surprised how quickly it had healed. Even the butterfly stitches were only on for days. Shrugging, he pulled his shirt over his head, worked his arms through the sleeves, then pushed the sleeves up to his elbows. At the bottom of the bag was the passkey they had given him. Van had said it only worked the one elevator from Basement 3 to Basement 1. Breakfast to training, the two places he was trusted to go.
And access to knock on everyone else’s door on Basement 2. He knew some people now, and with this, he could look them up, maybe even make some friends. Perhaps even Houdini out of here someday, although the chances of that seemed to be getting slimmer and slimmer.
He thrust his hands into his pockets as he charged out of the changing room, angry at the Tower, angry at the doctor, angry at the turn his life had taken, and especially at his helplessness to do anything about it. As the door slammed back, hitting the wall and echoing into the vast space surrounding the pool, he was surprised to see a familiar person leaning casually against one wall, his feet crossed at the ankles, and his arms crossed at his chest.
Jantzen unwound himself and said, “So, how did it go?”
Garik’s throat filled up, his eyes filled up, and he fought to keep his face straight. Worse than awful, he wanted to say, but he was afraid he would fall to pieces if he did.
“That bad, huh? Well, I have some people who might like to spend some time with you. Do you think you, maybe?” Jantzen held out a hand, palm up, and crooked his fingers. He began to back away, leading Garik somewhere, who knew where.
Garik felt a grin break on one side of his face. He sniffled, shook his head yes, and pressed his shoulders to his eyes. Yes, he knew there were wet crescents, but the suddenness of Jantzen’s unexpected invitation was a surge of warm molasses covering his bitter interaction with Dr. Jimenez.
Maybe he did care. He was here, wasn’t he?
Garik kept his head tucked, and he still sniffled, and his hands were thrust deep into his pockets, but he wasn’t alone, and right then, that counted for everything.
― 12 ―
THEY EXITED the
natatorium, leaving the shimmering pool behind, and passed by a dining hall—smaller than the one on Level 1—where the lights were on, but only a few tables were occupied. Jantzen waved, called out to two people named Heath and Chad, neither of whom were familiar to Garik. Chad was in a motorized chair and appeared to be disfigured in a way Garik couldn’t define.
Several tables away, Justin Kurtew sat alone, this time in a tight shirt, revealing more differences in his physique than Garik had noticed in the gaming center. He was hunched over his table, his back especially long and convoluted, and his arms with their extra joints rapidly reordering the pieces of a game, also unfamiliar to Garik. He glanced up at Jantzen and Garik, his face darkened, and he went back to reordering his pieces without speaking.
“He’s in a bad mood.” Garik’s hands were still thrust into his pockets, but he was interested in their destination. They had already bypassed the elevator, and he couldn’t make sense of why.
“Justin hasn’t dealt well with his slot in the program’s hierarchy. He was too early in the program for us to have the kinks worked out.”
“The reason he got the arms.” And they had been too cautious with Garik, and he had gotten nothing, nothing worth crowing about. That would be fine, except now he would be locked away in this place forever with nothing to show for it, not even a deadly weapon he could use to display his massively successful combat skills, always at the bottom of the totem pole.
No one would ever bet on Garik because he was nothing worth betting on.
“Yes, but mostly he hasn’t come to terms with his new self. That’s a parameter only the volunteers in the program can control.”
“He volunteered?” Garik recalled several comments he’d overheard suggesting people wanted to submit to the DNA melding process, but he’d not put it together that someone would choose to be changed into something so not normal.