“I saw one once.” She looked at me and shook her head. I think I got the message—maybe she had used something extraordinary to scare it away.
Dex wasn’t listening. Instead, he examined one of the trees.
“You guys ever try to climb one of these?”
“No way.”
Dex ran his hand over the bark and looked up again. “Wait a minute. I bet I can.”
Before either of us could protest, he grabbed at a low-hanging branch and found a foothold. He started moving up the tree quickly. It looked to me like there weren’t too many places to grab, but he somehow found nooks and crannies.
“Dex! You’re gonna fall!” I called out.
“Don’t worry! I do this all the time!” He was over halfway to a huge branch.
With the same speed as his dart up the bookcase on Fresh Meet Friday, he reached the branch and shimmied onto his stomach while holding on with his arms and legs, like climbing the rope in gym class.
Instinctively, I rubbed the auto-splint covering my pinkie, thinking what could happen to Dex would be much worse. “You don’t want to be kicked off the team for messing around and getting injured, do you?”
He ignored me and pushed himself up so he was straddling the branch. “Watch this, guys.”
To our shock, he stepped up on the branch and balanced himself. He stood triumphantly, his hands on his tiny hips, grinning with every one of his teeth. He didn’t even wobble.
Sophi actually turned away, refusing to watch. “Come on! How are you going to get down?” I called out.
“I’m fine!”
CRACK.
The branch started wobbling under Dex’s weight. He looked around to figure out his next move. Sophi screamed.
CRACKKKKKKKK.
The next thing we knew, the branch snapped. And Dex fell, back first, his arms waving uncontrollably.
But in mid-air, he stuck his arms out and somehow got his feet to point toward the ground.
A second after the branch landed; so did he: on his feet, his knees bent, hands barely touching the ground.
I wanted to run over to him to see if he was okay, but I was too freaked out to move. I looked at Sophi and recognized the expression on her face. I got it a second later.
He was one of us.
“Guys, I’m fine,” he said, dusting off his jeans, almost too casually.
“Dexter!”
That wasn’t one of us. It was someone emerging from the thick woods behind Dex. The soldier in fatigues we’d seen last night dropped his rifle on the ground and came up to Dex, who turned around. He pulled off his helmet and goggles to reveal a dark-haired man with a scar across his left cheek.
“Dad?” Dex asked.
“You’re okay? Are you hurt?”
“What are you doing here?”
“That doesn’t matter. Are. You. Hurt?“
“I’m fine! Why are you here? And dressed like that?”
Dex’s dad let go of him. I could see he was visibly shaken up. “It’s a really long story.”
Dex looked at all three of us with his eyes more open than I’d ever seen them. His dad snapped into action. He reached out a gloved hand to me.
“Alex, really nice to officially meet you.” His squeeze nearly broke bones in my other hand. “And Sophi, right? Call me Frank.”
She nodded. We were both in a daze. He motioned toward the stump. “Guys, would you mind sitting?”
All three of us did, soundlessly.
He stood in front of us with his hands behind his back, pacing.
“Sophi, Alex, I know you’re aware of some of this, so bear with me, will you?”
“You know what he’s talking about?” Dex accused us.
“Dex, just listen,” Frank said.
***
I spent four years in the Marines, with the last two spent mostly in Afghanistan in the early 2000s. A roadside bomb shot shrapnel into my knee, left me with a scar across my cheek, and ended my tour of duty. I came home to Dex’s mom lost and aimless, sentenced to a life working behind a desk.
Through the grapevine, I heard about a project that sounded right up my alley, a top-secret group of scientists testing new technology with soldiers. I didn’t care about the risks—I just wanted to do something to help my country. If it’d heal the knee preventing me from protecting my great nation? That’d be a bonus.
The experiments didn’t do much, let alone fix his injury. Yet I had something thrilling to concentrate on—Dex was coming, only three months away from being born. That’s around the time when tests revealed my future son would develop a rare, potentially fatal blood disease. Another devastating blow.
I asked one of the friendlier scientists if he knew anyone who could help. The answer? They had just started work on experimental gene therapy. Perfect. It turned out Dex was one of Dr. Ptuiac’s first patients. Months later, he was born without a trace of illness and everything seemed normal.
I was forever in Ptuiac’s debt. “Anything you need, doc, we’ll provide it,” I’d say over and over again. Over eleven years later, I received a handwritten note left on the windshield of my car: “Your family could be in danger.”
I really believe in your parents, Alex. They’re risking everything to continue what we helped start. There are others like that who needed their help, and they could use us now more than ever.”
I believed in them so much that I quit my job, moved us to a new town, and signed up to take shifts as one of the team’s bodyguards.
***
Things got difficult when Frank got to the end of his tale. He looked Dex right in the eye.
“ … When they did the experiments, they discovered the best way to cure your condition was to mix your genes with the DNA of a … cat.”
Dex turned to us, slowly. “You’re playing a prank on me,” he said, that high-pitched voice of his barely above a whisper.
“No, Dex. This is real. It’s why you have all these amazing abilities,” his dad said, laying a hand on his shoulder. “They have them too.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?” Dex said.
“We couldn‘t,” I said.
“No way. This isn’t true,” he replied. “Prove you‘ve got powers. Right now.”
Sophi looked at me.
“You’ve already seen mine. I basically have tiny robots inside my body that have helped me throw long passes a few times. Like in gym class,” I said. Dex actually gasped. “I can‘t do anything on command, but she can.”
I backed away and motioned for Dex and Frank to do the same. Sophi nodded and pulled up her sleeves as the three of us found a place underneath one of the trees.
She held her hands up toward the sky, her palms facing us. With that same look of determination she had at my parents’ house days before, she stared at the sky. Her hands started to shake and electricity began shooting from her fingertips. The Christmas lights above us flickered. After a few seconds of the spectacular light show, she put her hands down and looked at Dex.
“But … how did you … ” He stopped talking and stared at us. We looked back, dead serious. “That’s … that’s … ”
A huge smile broke across his face. “That’s AWESOME!” He started laughing. We started to laugh with him. He gave his dad and me a huge high five, hugged a very stunned Sophi, and started running around. “This is incredible!”
He ran to another tree at the perimeter of the clearing and scampered up again with ease. He climbed even higher than before. “Dex!” we all called, nearly at the same time.
“No! I’m part cat! This is what I’m supposed to do! If you don’t like it, call the fire department to get me down!” he yelled back with another laugh. He walked out on another wobbly branch, steadied himself, and launched backward, doing two backflips in the process.
Like before, he landed on his feet, a perfect dismount. “Nothing too it!” He started laughing again.
“D
exter, stop!” Frank scolded.
“If I showed Coach Schmick that trick, I’d start for the rest of the season,” he said.
“Right!” Frank said with a chuckle.
There’s was something about what he said that echoed in my head for an extra second. I felt a pit form in my stomach. “Dex, we can’t.”
“Can’t what?”
I couldn’t look him in the eye to see the disappointment I knew he’d feel.
“We can’t use these abilities to be good at football. We’d be no better than those pro athletes who use steroids.”
“That’s not true,” he replied.
“I know it means a lot to you that you made the team, but it’s wrong to use what we’ve got for ourselves,” I finished, sitting on the stump glumly.
Sophi piped up. “We have to keep looking like nothing is different. Someone will start to suspect something is weird. It probably won’t happen, but our cover could be blown.”
“Don’t you think it’s weirder that he can run faster than anyone on the team and can jump, like, ten feet high?” I shot back.
“Enough,” Frank interjected.
We all fell silent for a minute. Dex joined me on the stump.
“I can’t speak for what your parents want you to do, Alex,” Dex’s dad said. “But you’ve all got to be extra careful, even if that means keeping up appearances.”
“I don’t want to cheat either,” Dex said. “But I think it’s too late for us to change anything.”
“Not to take sides here, but your powers are uncontrollable. So it might be out of your hands,” Sophi said to me.
I sighed. “Okay, fine. I’ll keep it up in practice for now. But I don’t know what I’ll do if I get in a real game.”
Dex grinned. “That’s not going to happen for either of us until next year, at the very earliest. Coach doesn’t even look at seventh graders during games.”
“That’s what you think. My nanobot-powered arm is too powerful to keep me on the bench!” I joked.
Frank put his fingers to his ear and listened for a moment. “This is three-oh-five … they’re safe … ”
He grimaced and gritted his teeth.
“I understand, but my kid fell from a damn tree. I had to make sure he was … ”
The three of us heard loud squawking from his earpiece.
“Roger that.” Frank put his hand down. “Guys, as much as I’d like to stay, I’ve got to take my position again. Dex, see you at home.”
He walked over to where his rifle lay near the entrance of the clearing, put his helmet back on, and disappeared into the forest.
Chapter Sixteen
“Eagle far slant ten on three. X receiver.”
I called out to the pass-catching robot and watched it process the command. “You got it,” the ‘bot responded with Peyton Manning’s Louisiana drawl. I had just relayed one of the formations in the playbook and asked it to run the pattern for one of the receivers, a modification Dad made recently to help me as I recovered from my broken finger.
I called out my cadence and watched it run a quick slant down our empty street. I timed my throw perfectly and hit its outstretched gloves. “Solid spiral, great timing,” it squawked, tossing the ball back to me.
Dex and Sophi, standing nearby in my front yard, applauded.
“This machine is amazing,” Sophi said.
“That’s nothing,” I replied. “Watch this. Dex, line up and run a play.”
He tentatively walked over to my right and waited.
“Bear PA hitch thirty-three shuffle. On one. Cornerback,” I said.
This time, the robot looked at Dex and lined up across from him, ready to play defense. Dex’s eyes widened as it squawked, “You got nothing, kid.” Yes, my robot talked trash, too.
“One-eighty! Set-HUT!”
Dex ran about ten yards as I ran play action, faking to an unseen running back. When I looked up, he had made his cut toward the corner of the hypothetical end zone. The robot matched him stride for stride, but I threw the pass, hoping Dex would use his speed to outrun the taller electronic defender.
Instead the ball was underthrown. Dex knew it and began slowing down. The robot put its arms up to intercept my pass.
Dex had a different idea. As the ball came down, he jumped on an outstretched metal arm, leaped into the air, and caught the pass. As he fell back to the pavement, he ended his performance with a backflip and an emphatic spike of the football.
The robot stopped in its tracks. Its chest opened and out flew a yellow flag that landed in front of Dex. “Pass interference, offense.”
A mechanical arm picked up the flag while the three of us doubled over laughing. Dex jogged back and tossed me the football.
“Dex! You have to be careful. What if somebody sees you doing that?” I said.
“We can relax. My dad said we’re safest in around your house.”
“Really?” Sophi said. “Can I try something?”
“Go for it,” I said.
“Call out a play.”
This time, Dex threw out something designed for the robot to make a couple of cuts. I called out my cadence and stepped back to throw. As it zigzagged, I saw two lightning bolts hit its shiny head before I could make my toss.
We watched as it stopped in its tracks, and the metal body went slack. A small message popped up on its chest screen: “Power Surge. Restarting … ”
“I would’ve done the same thing if I could control my powers,” I said. I’ll admit I was jealous.
“Nothing’s happened since that night with Jared?” Sophi asked. I shook my head. My finger throbbed almost as if it were responding to her.
“I have no idea how to control any of this.”
Sophi rubbed my arm in sympathy.
ZZSST!
“Ow!”
Sophi apologized, but then a smile crept onto her face.
“Dex, call out a play.” The robot’s head snapped up as its restart finished.
“Why?” he asked.
I think I knew what Sophi was getting at. I started backing away. “No way. You can’t!”
“Alex,” she said sternly as she kept walking toward me. “You know I can get you even if you run. Let’s try it.”
I stopped. My heart started to pound. “What if you knock me out like you did with Flab?”
“I’ve been practicing. Dex—do it.”
“Hawk mid seventeen deep six on three. X receiver,” he said. We’d try that pass at about the opponents’ thirty-yard line for a touchdown. It was a long one, something I’d struggled with. The robot lined up next to me. I swallowed hard and closed my eyes as I pretended I was under center.
“Fifty-seven, fifty-seven, set-hut,” I said, barely above my normal speaking voice. My heart was thundering now.
I dropped back, right to where Sophi stood. She put a hand on my shoulder, and a second later, electricity shot through me and all my muscles seized. I tried to keep my eyes on the robot, and as I inhaled, about to let out a scream, the smell of toasted marshmallows wafted in. She let go.
SQUEEEEEEEEE went the high-pitched sound through my ears.
I felt my muscles unclench and I automatically let go of the football.
The ball spiraled through the air and right into the “fingertips” of the robot’s hands. A perfect throw. I heard it exclaim, “Dang!” as I came out of my mini-trance.
Dex, who had never seen me do that up close, started babbling. “OhmyGod, that’s amazing. Your body got all huge for a second, and then you looked like a real quarterback, even though you are a real quarterback, but wow, I can’t believe … ”
I felt my cellphone buzz in my pocket. Downstairs in five read the text from my dad. Uh oh. I told Sophi and Dex I had to go.
I walked through the underground passages as Dad opened them one by one. As I entered his laboratory, I found him reading numbers on a giant screen. They looked a lot like t
he same readouts on the sensor I carried with me.
“What do you see?” I asked as I sat next to him at the console.
He didn’t speak for a moment and took off his glasses.
“I’ve got some bad news for you,” he began. “Sophi was right. Pain has helped you activate recently, but I’ve got a very specific theory behind it.
“It looks to me like it’s taking more effort for the nanobots to activate. Weeks ago, all it took was adrenaline combining with your fluctuating hormones to produce an activation. But like anything foreign in your body, your immune system has started to fight off the nanobots’ effect. So now it takes serious pain to make things happen.”
I felt my heart sink.
“If it continues to get harder for the reactions to happen, at some point soon, it means … they’ll stop happening altogether.”
I sat there silently.
“I know it’s disappointing, but remember, you didn’t want to use it for football. Quite frankly, it‘s safer.”
Dad hit a few buttons to shut the screen off, got up, and tousled my hair. “Listen, this is for the best.”
It was all I could think about for the next few days. I tried to distract myself by putting in more time at the gym, figuring I’d need all the help I could get. My broken finger limited me, but I found myself setting personal bests on the treadmill.
One afternoon, I came into the locker room to grab my backpack and head home. I passed by the row belonging to the offensive line. Of course, Flab had to be sitting there.
Something had changed in him since that night in the woods. There hadn’t been a single incident with Dex, Sophi, or me. He wasn’t his usual chatty, trash-talking self on and off the field.
When I walked in, Flab had just emerged from the shower and was in the middle of putting on his extra-large school uniform. We were completely alone. I guess he didn’t hear me arrive, so I waited until his pants and shirt were on.
“Hey.”
Flab didn’t even look up at me. “Freak,” he responded as he slipped a belt through the waistband on his slacks.
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