by Megan Morgan
“How do you know it won’t harm him?” Muse asked. “Have you tested it on anyone else?”
“We did some animal experimentation,” Eric said. “It’s perfectly safe.”
June pictured a bunch of paranormal rats and monkeys running around.
“Animals aren’t humans,” Muse said. “What if the receptors didn’t form? You don’t know what the hormones might do to him.”
“Experiments suggest formation of the receptors can spark bouts of paranormal ability even before the hormones are introduced.” Eric looked at Micha. “Have you been experiencing abilities?”
Micha didn't answer, but he glanced at June. He had been reading her mind. Under the light, Micha’s face appeared sunken and sallow, like the face of a man sick for a long time, but his eyes were full of healthy rage.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Eric said. “Unfortunately, when you got cut off from the prepping agent upon your wife’s death, it affected your health. But you won’t have to worry about that anymore. We’ll take good care of you.”
“You can’t do this!” Muse lurched forward. “I won’t watch you destroy him for your sick notion of science.”
“Enough of this,” Eric snapped. “Shut that little bitch up.”
The white guard grappled with her.
Muse bucked against him. “No! You can’t—”
He clapped a hand over her mouth.
“Here.” Eric grabbed a roll of surgical tape from a cart and tossed it over.
The black guard helped hold Muse down on the floor. For being so little, she gave them a hell of a fight. They placed the tape over her mouth and wrapped several layers around her head, over her hair. She made desperate muffled sounds against the tape, breathing fast through her nose. They yanked her arms behind her, bound her wrists as well, and hauled her up on her knees.
June and Jason were pushed to the floor. June growled behind her gag.
“All right then,” Eric addressed the group of researchers. “Let’s begin this.” He strode across the room.
The researchers dispersed, save for one man and one woman. The two led Micha to a bed in the center of the room, and the man told him to take off his shirt.
“You’re going to pay for this,” Micha said after Eric. “You won’t get away with it. And if I survive it, I’ll never jump through your hoops and pretend I gave my consent.”
“We have ways of keeping you from talking, don’t worry about that.” Eric added ominously, “And you don’t necessarily have to survive it for us to release the results.”
The three of them probably wouldn’t be around to call bullshit, either.
Micha was told again to remove his shirt. He pulled it up and over his head, not resisting, but still obviously furious.
When they turned him around, the tattoo on his back was visible in the bright light, spanning the space between his shoulder blades. The tattoo was, as she thought before, a nautical compass rose, colored gold and rust, the letters at each point in black calligraphy. She wasn’t close enough to take in all the detail, but each degree had been marked and the sunburst in the middle painstakingly textured. Something so intricate took several sittings. Nobody got a tattoo so complex done on a whim; the design clearly had deep, personal meaning. He wanted to be a guide, to provide direction.
The sight of the tattoo made it all the more poignant when he lay silent, while the two researchers affixed restraints to his ankles and wrists. Tears slipped from her eyes.
“Don’t be nervous,” Eric said from across the room. “If anything goes wrong, these people are trained medical professionals. This is going to be exciting.”
June wished she could wipe the tears from her cheeks. Instead she wept harder, silently, behind her gag. Micha gave her a faint smile, as if to assure her everything would be all right. But it wouldn’t be, and she couldn’t trick herself into believing it would.
The woman started prepping Micha’s arm for an injection. The man placed sensors attached to wires on his chest. Nothing could stop the awful forward momentum of the moment.
“We’re going to inject you with a small dose of hormones first,” Eric said. “We’ll be watching your vital signs closely. If there doesn’t seem to be any distress, we’ll give you another larger dose. Once we know you’re physically stable, we’ll give you an MRI, so we can see what’s going on inside you. We’ll be documenting this. You’ll be in the history books. Or at least the scientific journals.” He chuckled wryly. “The first blank human to receive paranormal powers. Think of the adulation.”
No doubt the adulation would all be Eric’s.
They wrapped a blood pressure cuff around Micha’s right arm and wheeled a crash cart over to the bed. The sight of it made things scarier. One of the men brought a tray over; a syringe rested on it, filled with pale blue fluid. The woman picked up the syringe. Micha was unflinching.
“This is a cocktail of various hormones,” Eric said from his vantage point. “It represents several different paranormal classifications. We’ll see if any of them stick.”
Muse’s eyes were wide above the tape. Jason looked about to topple over. June wanted to scream behind the gag, but she couldn’t make a sound.
The room was deathly quiet as the needle slid into Micha’s arm.
Chapter 16
June sat slumped against one of the green tile walls. The awkward position, arms behind her back and legs folded beneath her, had long since pushed her body past discomfort to pain, and then to numbness. Muse sat beside her in a similar pose, head hanging, the occasional jerk or tremor of her muscles making her quake. Jason sat on the other side of Muse, slumped and gazing across the room in a daze. They had probably tortured him in a similar room, tied him down and done terrible things to him like they were doing to Micha.
In the immeasurable amount of time they’d been watching, Micha experienced a wide range of physical reactions June considered bad, but Eric didn’t seem overly concerned. She suspected even if Micha burst into flames, Eric probably wouldn’t be concerned; he’d turn a fire extinguisher on him and give him another dose.
Micha turned frighteningly pale within the first few minutes after the shot, as if all the blood had run out of him, as if he were dead. Then he became flushed, his skin reddening and glistening with sweat. He shook for a while, and then he was deathly still. June had seen people detox in the same manner. He didn’t cry out or look anywhere but above him, into the lights.
Eric went back and forth between a bank of monitors and the bed. The room, aside from the blip of machines and the occasional murmur of the researchers, remained agonizingly quiet. The tension grew so heavy June thought the weight would snap her neck.
Eric approached the bed again. The woman researcher was checking Micha’s blood pressure. She started talking to Eric, and June strained to hear.
“His blood pressure and heart rate are elevated,” she said. “His temperature keeps fluctuating.”
Eric lifted his arm and looked at his watch. “It’s nearly nine thirty. I have an important meeting at ten.”
June narrowed her eyes. Who the hell had important meetings at ten o’clock at night?
Eric placed his hands on the bed and leaned over. “Mr. Bellevue, can you hear me? Do you understand me?”
Micha's eyes were glazed and unfocused, the way he'd been for the past couple days.
“You’ve been very cooperative,” Eric said. “So, I’m going to let your friends go. I’ll see them out myself.”
Muse snapped her head up. June tensed.
“I think we can give him the second dose,” Eric said to the woman. He patted Micha’s arm. “We’re going to give you the next round. I’ll come back and check on you in a bit.”
“I thought we were waiting until he processed the first one?” the woman said, with some concern.
“There’s no need. He’s doing fine.” Eric motioned to his men.
June’s heart ra
ced as they hauled her, stiffly and painfully, to her feet. They weren’t being let go, she would put a lot of money on that.
Eric followed them out. In the hallway, he spoke to the guards. “Take them down to Special Projects. I think there’s still a few things we can learn before we dispose of them. No need to waste good research material.”
Eric turned and walked briskly down the hallway. June wanted to lunge after him, but she was pushed in a different direction.
“Move it,” the black guard said gruffly.
The guards ushered them through the empty hallways, Jason still unsteady, the white guard gripping his arm. With every step, June’s fear increased, mind racing to figure out a way to escape. They turned a corner and faced a bank of elevators. The black guard pressed the down button next to one.
June prayed Micha wouldn't die. She couldn’t dwell too much on it or grief would overwhelm her and she wouldn’t be able to focus on getting out.
A ding sounded, and the doors on one of the elevators slid open.
The elevator was wide and deep, as though made for transporting beds. They were herded in, and the white guard hit the button for the twentieth floor.
“Don’t you worry,” he said. “They’ll take good care of you down there. Eric doesn’t like his monkeys bruised.”
The doors slid shut.
June looked at the numbers. They were on the thirty-third floor. The elevator started to move, and each number after their floor lit in succession, counting down. Thirty-two…thirty-one…thirty… Her stomach dropped. She could barely breathe around the gag.
“You know,” the black guard laughed, mockingly, “you just got to witness history, how about that? Something to take with you to the other side.”
Twenty-seven…twenty-six…twenty-five…
“You’re both awful pretty though,” the white guard said. “I’m sure you can probably bargain your way out of being treated too badly.” He swept June with a slow, disgustingly appraising look. June wanted a sharp object and her hands free, so she could stick him in his eye.
At the twenty-second floor, the elevator lurched to a stop, settling beneath them. June stared at the strip of numbers, the changing light frozen. She looked at Muse. Muse looked back at her. They both looked at the doors.
“What the hell?” The white guard jabbed the “twenty” button several times, but the elevator remained still.
“Someone called for the elevator on this floor,” the black guard said. “There’s not supposed to be anyone down here, is there?”
They both drew their guns and took a step back. June braced herself. After a tense physics-defying moment, the doors slid open. The appearance of the two men on the other side shocked everyone in the elevator, except for probably Jason, as he wouldn’t know either of their faces.
“Drop those toy pistols,” Sam said.
June knew little about guns, but she knew Sam had a shotgun. A sawed off one, with two barrels.
“I guarantee I have better aim,” Sam said. “And mine will take out an entire internal organ.”
The two guards didn’t drop their guns, but they didn’t fire, either.
“You heard him,” the other man said. He too held an impressive-looking gun, but his looked like something out of a gangster movie. He was tall, older, handsome.
Muse looked a lot like her father. That’s why June had recognized him on TV.
“We’ll drop you both before you can pull the triggers,” Aaron said. “They’ll be cleaning bits of you out of the elevator shaft for weeks.”
“We have orders from Eric Greerson,” the black guard said. “We’re not letting you near these prisoners.”
Aaron stepped forward and jerked a hand out to stop the elevator doors from closing. Both guards aimed their guns at him. Aaron remained calm.
“Drop your guns,” Aaron said firmly, “or I’ll shoot you right between the eyes, which will probably blow both of them out of the sockets. I’m guessing you wouldn’t have the skill to shoot my balls if they were hanging out, while I, on the other hand, know exactly what I’m doing. Do you really want to die for Eric Greerson?”
June suddenly understood why, though they had differing views, Sam and Aaron had a treaty.
The guards seemed to consider Aaron’s words. Sam looked impatient.
Finally, the guards dropped their guns and put their hands up, stony-faced and glaring.
“Good lackeys.” Aaron stuck his leg out, hooked one of the guns under the heel of his leather loafer, and drew the weapon toward him. He toed the gun out of the elevator and kicked it away.
Sam stepped in and picked up the other one.
“We’re not the only ones in the building,” the white guard said. “You’re gonna be in trouble, real soon.”
“Why don’t you come out of there now?” Aaron said.
The men hesitated but, after a moment, cautiously stepped out, hands still up.
“You won’t get away with this,” the black guard said. “This whole place is on lockdown right now. You won’t get anywhere.”
“How’d we get in, then?” Sam asked.
June flinched as Sam and Aaron swiftly stepped around them and brought the butts of their guns down on the back of the guard’s necks, nearly in tandem. Both men dropped to the floor in a heap, the white one twitching. Aaron slid forward and stopped the doors from closing again.
“Why don’t I ever get to shoot anyone?” Sam grumped.
“Killing is the Institute’s job.” Aaron moved into the elevator and hit a button. The doors stayed open. He set his gun down and started pulling the tape off Muse’s mouth.
Sam strolled in behind Aaron, gun on his shoulder, and stopped in front of June.
“That’s a good look for you.” Sam poked the ball of the gag.
June frothed at him.
“Hold on, hold on.” He smiled lasciviously. “I need to capture this moment.”
June snarled behind the gag and jerked at her cuffs.
“Sam, get her out of her restraints.” Aaron unwound the tape from Muse’s hair.
“I knew coming here with you was going to be no fun.” Sam set his gun down, propping the weapon against the wall of the elevator, and started undoing the gag behind June’s head. When the ball popped out, a gush of saliva followed and plopped quite satisfactorily on Sam’s shoe.
June worked her jaw. “Holy deus ex machina.” Her words were slurred. “Where the hell did you two come from?”
Sam turned her around. The sound of metal on metal, like a knife being removed from a sheath, and Sam slipped something under the chain of the cuffs and started jerking.
“Don’t call me God yet,” he said. “Save that for later.”
“I don’t know how much I’m enjoying being rescued by the pervert squad,” June said.
“Would you like us to leave so you can take care of your own fate?” Aaron asked. He’d gotten the tape off Muse’s mouth.
Muse’s lips were swollen and red. She stared at her father. “Where did you come from?” she asked.
The chain on the cuffs broke. June brought her arms around in front of her, teeth gritted. Her shoulders and biceps burned, and her fingers were numb. She turned around and glowered at Sam. He was holding a huge serrated hunting knife. He twirled it, and walked over to free Jason.
“I got a phone call a couple hours ago,” Aaron said. “Who knew baiting Eric Greerson into a press conference was a bad idea?”
“I’ve always overlooked that bastard.” Sam started taking off Jason’s gag.
“I haven’t.” Aaron turned Muse around and undid the tape on her hands. “I always suspected he was shady. I wouldn’t have cared that the Paranormal Alliance got themselves in a bind except”—Muse turned back around—“Sam told me they took you.”
“Nothing went as planned,” Muse said.
“Obviously,” Aaron replied.
“Cindy saw them throw you guys i
n the van,” Sam said. “So I called up Aaron, we got some guns”—he turned Jason around to cut off the cuffs—“and boom. We came on over.”
“You just walked into the Institute?” June asked. “I almost died trying to get away from here, and you’re telling me you strolled in the front door?”
“Yes,” Aaron said.
June looked between them, baffled.
The chain broke on Jason’s cuffs. Sam stepped back and slid the knife into a sheath on his hip. Aaron gestured to him, as if expecting him to answer June’s question.
Sam sighed dramatically and tilted his head back. “There’s this rumor going around that I don’t actually have paranormal powers.” He lifted his hands. “That I’m a false king.”
Aaron rolled his eyes.
“The reason people think I don’t have abilities,” Sam said, “is because they’ve never seen me use them. I’m a shapeshifter.”
“A shapeshifter?” June asked.
“A glamour generator,” Aaron said.
“Shapeshifter,” Sam said. “I can make people see me as something else, someone else.”
“Using a glamour,” Aaron pointed out.
“I can extend it”—Sam raised his voice—“to someone else, as long as I have physical contact with them.”
“So we looked like security guards,” Aaron said. “A couple of really close, glued-at-the-hip security guards, but regardless, it got us in. The goon was right. The place is on lockdown. Eric is paranoid.”
“We did some eavesdropping and found out where they were keeping you,” Sam said. “We were on our way up when we were told they were bringing you down and to report to the Special Projects Department. Figured we’d head them off at the pass.”
“There’s a little problem, though,” Aaron said. “I’m sure by now they’ve realized you’re not on your way anymore.”