Shine: Season One (Shine Season Book 1)

by William Bernhardt

  Tank pulled hard on the rope. The anchor clanged down and locked onto the white stone outcropping at the top of the wall.

  “Success!” Twinge hissed, jumping up and down and clapping her hands.

  Gearhead and Mnemo slapped Tank on the shoulders. “Way to go, girl.”

  It was too dark to tell for certain, but she thought Tank might actually be blushing.

  “They know,” Harriet said, her hands sifting through the air. “They called someone to open the armory.”

  “Our rehab has an armory?“

  Harriet nodded. “They’re coming for us. And they’re armed.”

  38

  Ara tested the rope. It seemed secure. “All right. We have to hurry. Before the guns arrive.”

  “Guns,” Twinge muttered. “At rehab. Talk about tough love.”

  “I’m not happy about scrambling up that filthy wall,” Dream said.

  “Unless you’ve evolved the ability to fly, you don’t have any choice. Move.”

  “I can buy us some time,” Gearhead said.

  “How?”

  She pulled a Coke can out of her backpack. “This little baby is ready to roll.” She shook it up and down for about ten seconds, then flicked a lighter and held it under the can.

  Smoke streamed out of the top. She pressed her thumb over the opening to contain the stream.

  “Presto. Homemade smoke bomb.”

  “Wow,” Mnemo said, eyes wide. “It really worked.”

  “It was your idea, sweetie.”

  “Yeah. But I never thought—never mind.”

  “Wait,” Twinge said. “That will never make enough smoke to hide us.”

  “More like, pinpoint us,” Dream said. “They’ll see the smoke and come running.”

  “It’s not supposed to hide us,” Gearhead said. “It’s a diversion.” She pressed it into Tank’s hand. “Think you can lob this to the other side of the complex?”

  “With pleasure.” Tank reared back and threw like a major league outfielder. The Coke can sailed over the main house and came down somewhere on the pool side.

  “Now these.” Gearhead passed her five more cans, lit and ready to go. One after the other, Tank lobbed them onto the opposite side of the complex, spreading them out over a wide range of territory. “Good enough, Aura?”

  “Good enough to misdirect their attention. For a little while. Who’s going over the wall first?”

  “I will,” Tank said, testing the rope. “I’m the strongest. Then I can help pull people up from the top. So it won’t matter if Harriet isn’t strong enough and Dream can avoid getting her clothes too dirty.”

  Dream gave Tank a memorable expression.

  Tank walked to the wall. “I’ll be up in no—”

  The instant she touched the wall, her entire body spasmed. She shook from head to toe.

  A blue glow lit up the wall and enveloped Tank’s body. The coppery smell of electricity and singed flesh filled the air.

  “The wall is electrified, Tank. Let go.”

  Tank’s teeth were clenched, but she tried to speak, her head vibrating. “Can’t—let—go—I—”

  “Try harder!” She reached out to pull Tank away.

  Twinge stopped her. “If you touch Tank, you’ll get fried, too. And you’re not as tough as she is.”

  “We can’t just leave her there.”

  “Let me.” A line furrowed Twinge’s brow. Her eyes narrowed. She looked as if her entire brain was focused on a single point. It was almost frightening.

  Because it reminded her of herself. When she was healing.

  Good Gandhi, she wondered. Is that what I look like when I Shine? No wonder everyone looks at me with horror.

  Tank’s arm didn’t so much drop as repel, as if an invisible force pushed it away from the wall. Once she was detached, her body collapsed in a heap.

  Smoke rose from her hands.

  Aura crouched down beside Tank and tried to take her pulse.

  “I channeled excess estrogen and other numbing hormones to her hand so she wouldn’t feel the pain,” Twinge explained. “Paresthesia. Allowed her to regain control of her body.”

  Smart teammate, she thought. And useful, too. “I think she’ll be okay. In time.”

  “Time is the one thing we don’t have,” Harriet said, her fingers still working an imaginary keyboard.

  “Terrific,” Dream said. “What do we do now? We can’t touch the wall, which means we can’t escape. And there are people coming after us with guns. It won’t take them long to figure out they’re on the wrong side of the campus.”

  “Thank you for the useful summary.”

  “You’re the idiot who put this clownfest together.” Dream’s voice rose. “What are you going to do about it?”

  Slap you silly, she wanted to say. But she didn’t. “We have to get over that wall.”

  “We can’t even touch it. There’s no way.”

  “There is a way,” Gearhead said. “I was hoping to save this for later. But it doesn’t matter. They already know we’re making a break for it.”

  Mnemo unzipped Gearhead’s backpack. “Acetone peroxide, right?”

  “What’s that?” Dream asked. “A big stink bomb?”

  “You got the bomb part right,” Gearhead replied. “Pretty powerful one, too.”

  Gearhead pulled a jar out and started shaking. “Some of you drag Tank away from the wall.”

  “No need.” Tank pushed herself off the grass. She looked groggy but ambulatory. “I can manage.”

  “Get at least twenty feet away. All of you. Maybe more. Over by that sycamore tree.”

  “But what about you?”

  “I’ll throw it at the last moment. Once heated, this stuff is so volatile, the impact should detonate it.”

  “If this is a bomb,” Dream said, “won’t it make a noise?”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “Then they’ll hear it.”

  “Very perceptive. Be ready to run.”

  “This is such a stupid plan.” Dream huddled behind the tree with the others.

  Gearhead reared back her arm. “Here we—”

  Tank grabbed her arm. “Let me.”

  “But aren’t you still—”

  “I’m fine. If someone has to stand closer to the wall, it should be me. Besides, I won’t have to stand that close. I’ve got a good arm.” Tank took the jar and stood in front of the tree.

  “I hear something,” Twinge said.

  She did, too. Movement. Shouting.

  “They know they’ve been tricked,” Harriet said.

  She heard them approaching. They had maybe a minute and then this great escape attempt was over. “Throw the damn bomb.”

  Tank did. The jar smashed into the wall.

  And a split second later it exploded. The noise was thunderous, literally rocking her off her feet. Chunks of wall sailed overhead.

  “Get down!” she yelled at Tank, the largest target. Most likely to be hit and the most crucial to their plans.

  Tank ducked. Another chunk thudded into the tree trunk, just a few feet from their faces. Mnemo let out a shriek.

  The ground stopped rumbling. The smoke dissipated. “Is everyone okay?’

  She did a quick visual inventory. Everyone appeared uninjured.

  And the wall had a gaping hole in it.

  “This is so cool,” Mnemo murmured. “I mean, I read about this stuff. I knew it was theoretically possible. But seeing it actually work—is awesome!”

  “Agreed.” She almost couldn’t believe it herself, even though they had planned this in great detail. But in the back of her mind, there had always been doubt. She wondered if she were just kidding herself, believing she could be smart enough to outwit Coutant and her thugs.

  But there it was. The path to freedom. The validation of Shines and what Shines could accomplish, working together. The first checkpoint on the road to Ohm.

  The door to the future.

  “Come on, girls. Let�
��s get—”

  “Going somewhere, ladies?”

  She froze in her tracks.

  The smoke cleared. Revealing Coutant. With at least ten armed soldiers flanking her.

  And they were on the other side of the wall.

  “How—”

  Coutant smiled. “We’ve been waiting for you the whole time.”

  “Run for it,” she shouted. “Get past them and—”

  Strong hands clamped down on her shoulders.

  Troops converged around them, rifles pointed at their heads.

  Waiting for them?

  Coutant knew they were going to try to escape. Knew exactly when and where they were going to do it.

  But how?

  Coutant walked right up to her and, without so much as saying a word, slapped her across the face.

  “You just never learn, do you? I was too soft on you before and this is my reward.” Coutant slapped her again, harder. “I won’t make that mistake a second time. You broke your promise.”

  “This wasn’t her idea,” Twinge said. “It was my idea.”

  Tank stepped forward. “But I’m the one who made it happen. They never would’ve gotten anywhere without me. I’m the one to blame.”

  “I did all the hard stuff,” Gearhead added. “You should punish me. I’m really in charge. They just don’t know it.”

  Coutant gave them a long look. “Well now. Isn’t this touching? Such loyalty you inspire. You’re even more dangerous than I realized, Aura.”

  Coutant grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her till her brains rattled. “Did you think you could outsmart me? Did you think you could escape? You will never escape. Do you understand me? None of you will ever leave this place, unless it’s with a one-way ticket to Mordock. So give up your infantile notions of freedom.” Coutant slapped her again.

  She tasted blood in her mouth. She wanted to say something, but she couldn’t come up with anything worthwhile. She’d gotten the other girls to trust her. She’d given it her best shot.

  And she’d failed.

  She deserved to be slapped.

  Coutant motioned to the soldiers. “Escort the others to their rooms. Lock the doors. Post guards outside. Then bring Aura to me.” Her lips tightened. “Below the stables.”

  Episode Three

  Pandora’s Daughters

  by William Bernhardt

  39

  Pasadena, California

  Bristow Genetics

  Six Years Before

  Long before he was known as the Chief, Ralph strode through the sliding titanium-reinforced doors leading to the third-floor research lab at Bristow Genetics. He did not run. He never ran. Running could be interpreted as the sign of a desperate man or a poor planner. Someone who needed something. In his line of work, that kind of impression could be fatal. He simply moved at a steady rate that made it clear he had no time to waste, that he would not tolerate delay, and that everyone else worked for him, not the other way around.

  So there was no pretense, no nicety, no small talk. “What do you have for me?”

  Dr. Simon Estes pulled his face from the electron microscope. “Do you know what the Big Bang was?”

  “Of course I do. I’ve been assigned to Scientific Oversight for more than a decade.”

  “Did you see it?”

  “Did I see it?” Was the man completely addled? He had always suspected as much. They kept telling him Estes was decades ahead of the rest, but all he ever saw was the crazy. “Of course I didn’t. It occurred billions of years ago.”

  “Well then, you’re in luck,” Estes said, brushing his hands against his lab coat. “It’s about to happen again. And this time, you’ll have a front row seat.”

  He pulled a chair from the acrylic lab table and sat. Contrary to what some people thought, being seated while others stood put you in a superior position. You could appear relaxed while they stood awkwardly before you fiddling with their hands. “Is your data in the BG cloud, Doctor?”

  “Of course.”

  He touched a button on his watch, then made a horizontal sweep with his hand, bringing up transparent three-dimensional files. In this lab, so long as the transponders remained active, the desktop could be anywhere.

  He only needed a minute to absorb the contents of the file. He had always been a quick study. “You’re saying the universe is about to be reborn? Again?”

  “Not the universe. Life. A new strand of life. And no, I don’t mean a variant species, or phylum, or even genus. I’m not talking about evolution or mutations. I mean new life.”

  “When?”

  “It’s already happening.”

  “Spontaneously?”

  Estes looked away. “I don’t know what’s causing it. I haven’t discovered the trigger.”

  He swept his hands through the air a few more times, bringing up several subfolders and files. And photographs. “Explain.”

  “I’m talking about something completely unprecedented. A giant leap for mankind. Except for real, this time.”

  “Just at the exact moment you need a breakthrough to insure your continued funding. Interesting.”

  “I didn’t make this happen. But I think you will be able to see the potential. Just as I do.”

  “A useful potential, I’m hoping.”

  Estes proceeded as if he had not heard. “For decades now, scientists have babbled about the God particle, the Higgs boson, the so-called building blocks of life—as if all the secrets of creation could be contained in a subatomic particle.” He punched a few buttons on a wall panel. A large overhead plasma screen flickered to life. “The secret of life is not in physics. It’s in genetics. It’s not about particles, but chromosomes. That which defines what we are. And what we have the power to become. Genetics is our most valuable commodity.”

  “Forgive me, Dr. Estes, but you’re wasting my most valuable commodity—time.” He really wasn’t, but he knew the importance of keeping these people on edge. Estes acted far too comfortable around him. He normally made sure everyone understood that they were his tools, cogs in his all-encompassing machinery. Estes didn’t seem to get it. Almost as if the man had plans of his own. “I’ve heard all this before. Give me something new.”

  “I’ve given you more than you ever asked for.”

  “And yet never as much as I needed. We’re still financing your research—”

  “And harassing me incessantly for practical applications.”

  “Charming euphemism. Have you got something for me or not?”

  Estes hesitated barely a second. “Maybe.”

  “Marvelous. Show me something I haven’t seen.”

  Estes swept his hand through the air, opening an entirely different set of files. “Behold the humble chromosome.”

  The space between them filled with a transparent diagram displaying twenty-three pairs of dots.

  “I’ve seen representations of human chromosomes before and—” He stopped. “What’s that at the bottom? I think there’s a smudge.”

  Estes chuckled. “That is not a smudge. That’s the 47th chromosome.”

  “But there isn’t a 47th. Humans have twenty-two autosomal chromosomes, plus two sex chromosomes. There is no 47th.”

  Estes pulled out a chair and lowered himself into it, meeting the other man, perhaps without precedent, at eye level. “You mean, there wasn’t.”

  He tilted his head. “Explain.”

  “Something extraordinary is happening.”

  “And you’re the first to discover it.”

  “Perhaps. Here’s the gist of it. Something on the Y chromosome causes the extra chromosome to become unstable. Therefore, it never appears on full-term male infants. But for these Shines…well, it explains some of the remarkable events that have been reported of late.”

  “Which events?”

  “The ones I’m not supposed to know about.”

  He arched an eyebrow. Seemed Estes got around more than he realized. “Can you describe the im
pact of this new chromosome?”

  “It alters the structure of the human brain. Allows it to function in various unprecedented ways. It conveys…power.”

  “I don’t believe it. Next you’ll be trying to get me to believe aliens are visiting our planet.”

  Estes’s lips parted—then closed. “There are some precursors to this. Right here on earth. Savants with remarkable cognitive abilities. People with preternatural memories.”

  He shrugged. “Big deal.”

  “Have you heard of mirror-touch synesthesia?” Estes continued. “People with this neurological condition physically feel what they observe others touching. Super-recognizers have a phenomenal ability to remember faces. Supertasters—well, the name rather explains itself.”

  “You’re talking about those girls.”

  “I am.”

  “But if all the girls have that 47th chromosome, shouldn’t they all have the same power?”

  “And by that logic, everyone with forty-six chromosomes should be exactly alike. But they’re not, are they? And the reason is—junk.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Estes pushed his spectacles up his nose. “Scientists have only recently realized that the human genome is far more complicated than we believed, which is why initial gene analysis gave no explanation for why, say, one identical twin develops cancer and another does not. The genome is loaded with over four million gene switches that were once dismissed as junk. We now know that they play critical roles in controlling how cells, tissues, and organs behave. Tiny changes in the gene switches can produce prodigious variations. If a poly-activator protein is encoded on the 47th chromosome, the junk would probably reside on the other chromosomes as well, thus enhancing the diversity produced by the effect.”

  “So that’s why these girls manifest different abilities.”

  “I believe so, yes.”

  “How does it work? What causes it?”

  Estes’s eyes darted to the table. “Still working on that. I estimate that a thorough analysis of the junk in the forty-seventh chromosome will generate about fifteen nonillion bytes of raw data.”

  “Then you need many computers. And fast ones.”