None of them spoke. Cody listened as hard as any of the others, unsettled and wanting nothing more than to run away.
“You were supposed to die. You were supposed to get incinerated in a building just a few blocks from here. Instead, some dude decided you should be given a chance at a life, and you were sent out to be adopted. The good news for me is that the guy who made that decision also made some money in the process. The adoption agency cut him a check for a finder’s fee. That allowed me to track him down.”
Cody tilted his head and rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. From the corner of his eye, he saw the entrance they’d come in through and caught the motion as a vehicle rolled to a stop.
He turned his head and leaned in closer to Kyrie’s arm, his eyes leaving the room and focusing on the small part of the front door he could see down the hallway.
“What is it?” Kyrie’s pretty face partially blocked his view as she looked at him.
“There’s somebody out front.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
Kyrie Merriwether
Cody frowned. “I think somebody knows we’re here.”
Kyrie looked toward where he was facing and saw the men climbing from the dark car. They were dressed in military fatigues, but the color was wrong. They all wore black.
“Guys. We have a problem.” Her voice was clear.
Completely ignoring her, the voice of Joe Bronx continued on. “You are currently sitting in what was the head-quarters of the Janus Mask Company. Officially they make props for movies and sell Halloween masks. But they also ran the program designed to make all of us. They were responsible for Project: Doppelganger.” Once again he was starting to stand up. “The woman in charge is Evelyn Hope. Or at least she’s someone high up on the list of bosses.”
Kyrie looked at the soldiers coming closer. No, not soldiers. At least one of them had a beard, and that was against military dress code, wasn’t it?
“Seriously, guys, we have a problem.”
Cody was already standing. Gene looked toward her, annoyed by the interruption. “What’s wrong?”
“Soldiers.” Kyrie and Cody both pointed.
Hunter reached for the tape player and hit the eject button. “So let’s get ready to run.” He closed his eyes and his face twitched for a second, the stress finally getting the best of him. He let out a small noise and Kyrie would have asked him if he was okay, but the soldiers moved.
One of the men outside pulled at the door, and when it opened, he pushed it closed again very quickly.
“They know we’re here.” Kyrie’s voice shook. Her head was starting to throb.
Gene shook his head. “No. They know someone is here. Not who.”
Hunter made a noise and almost doubled over.
“Well, maybe they do and maybe they don’t, but either way, we aren’t supposed to be here.” That was Tina, coming to her rescue, which was a little weird because Kyrie wasn’t expecting help.
“Whatever.” Cody stood; his voice shook even more than Kyrie’s. “Whatever. We need to go now. Is there another way out?”
Kyrie opened her mouth to answer him but stopped when the noise exploded in her head. Not just hers either. All of them reeled from the sound. Two words, but so loud, so thunderous that they made her eyes ache in her skull.
WAKE UP!!!!
The sound was familiar, but so close now, so overwhelming that even as she tried to stand she fell to her knees.
And the darkness came for her again. Kyrie pushed the night away through force of will, looking at the people she’d just met. She needed to know if they felt it too, if they heard the noise.
WAKE UP!!!!
She could see Gene’s legs. He was standing up, but he was shaking violently, like he was in a hurricane-force wind. As the darkness started moving in again, she felt pain lashing through her muscles, her bones, and heard words coming from her throat again, in a voice that was not hers.
“About damned time!” Her throat, she could feel the vibrations, but the words belonged to someone else. “Let’s get this over with-”
Chapter Thirty
Joe Bronx
Joe opened his eyes and smiled. He wasn’t sure he could do that until now, but he’d managed. He’d forced the change, truly controlled it. He hadn’t even had to work hard at it. As soon as Hunter heard about the attackers, he got distracted and that was when Joe took over.
A simple push, really, and he was changing, growing into his proper shape, freed at last from the smaller, weaker form of Hunter Harrison. He was so much stronger than his Other.
A quick look around and he saw the others panicking, all except Kyrie, who was looking at him as he changed and maybe getting a hint that everything he’d said was true. He called out to them, screamed for them to wake up, and they did, all of them. He saw their muscles twitch, their bodies start shifting, even as his was finishing its transformation.
They changed, of course. Joe Bronx told lies, but not this time.
Kyrie fell to her knees and clutched at her head, unaware of the way her muscles shifted and pulled as the bones beneath them grew. Her hair changed as well, darkening. The change was painful, but Kyrie’s Other reveled in the unexpected transformation, freed at last from a very different sort of darkness. He felt the excitement inside of her.
Gene roared as he changed. His skin grew darker, his eyes, his hair. There was little about him that looked at all like Gene by the time he was done changing. His uncle (the Right Revrund Robbie) would have recognized the man he became in an instant. The odds were good that Robbie would never forget the face of the brute that threw him through a tempered glass window. Joe saw him for the first time in the light of day and was as impressed as ever. He was a predator, a killing machine, same as Joe himself.
Tina screamed too, the pain overwhelming her. The skin on her body stretched and pulled and her entire body rearranged itself, grew broader, stronger, taller. For her the change was shockingly painful. He rode through the pain with her, feeling it in every part of his body as surely as she did. His mind was flooded with sensory input from four additional sources and he blinked back the brief panic and dizziness that the feeling caused. He’d learn to control all of this if he had the time, but for now he had to deal with everything going on around him.
Cody didn’t scream. He clenched his teeth and bent nearly double over on himself and stared hard at the ground, a smile pulling itself from the grimace of pain. What woke up in him had been waiting patiently and now, finally, was free. The change was just as violent for Cody, perhaps even more so as he grew so much, taking on a full foot of height and almost one hundred pounds of muscle and sinew. And if Joe thought Gene had experienced bleed over, he was nothing in comparison to what went through Cody’s mind. The other mind that hid inside of Cody understood that they were in danger, that they were about to get attacked, and immediately dropped into a defensive crouch. He remembered the soldiers while all of the rest were still trying to figure out where they were.
Joe Bronx smiled and shook his head. He’d started changing the second Kyrie said that they had visitors. “We have company. The failures were about to make a few hundred mistakes and get us killed.” The Others looked at him, none of them doubting his words. He was the one who woke them, after all. He was the one who gave them life.
The boy who had been Cody was the first to answer: “Tell us.”
Rather than speaking with words, he showed them the situation: soldiers were surrounding the building.
What had been Tina was the one who suggested the next move. The others listened to her words and chuckled quietly.
And then the soldiers came through the doors and the slaughter began.
Joe stood his ground and watched as the soldiers came in. There were several men and they were armed. On seeing him they relaxed a little and he smiled politely at that notion. They’d learn soon enough.
The others were nearby and he could feel their questions. They wanted t
o know if there would be trouble. They were like little kids. They wanted to know everything.
One of them was trying to hide from him. He could feel a resistance, like he was running into a transparent wall, whenever he tried to dig too deeply in that one’s mind. It was unsettling, doubly so because he couldn’t really tell them apart. He didn’t know most of them very well yet. Well, except for Tina and Kyrie’s other selves. He’d already spent more time with both of them.
Best not to think about that. He didn’t know if they could hear all of his thoughts or only the ones he chose to share. Just in case, he decided to keep their ears busy.
“So, it looks like about ten of these losers coming our way. Stay put for the moment.” He stood still as the soldiers headed for him. He could have attacked. He knew his limits and knew he could probably put a hurt on the men before it was too late. Could he take down ten men before they could put a bullet through an important part of his anatomy? He didn’t know. He wasn’t quite willing to find out, either.
“You need to stay where you are.” The command came from the man in front as he and his followers started spreading out. They kept their eyes on him. Of course they did. The others were hidden away, just like he told them to. Just like Not-Tina suggested.
“I’m not going anywhere.” He held his hands up over his head and kept eye contact with the man speaking to him. Slowly, meticulously, the men moved around, spreading out into a loose circle.
“The alarm went off a little while ago.” The man came closer. He looked Joe over from top to bottom, unimpressed with what he saw. Joe could have taken offense but decided it wasn’t worth the trouble.
They wouldn’t be alive long enough for him to be offended by their attitudes.
“What are you doing here?” The tone was harsh. It was supposed to be. The first job of any cop-private or on the streets-was to take control of a situation.
“Relaxing with a few friends, taking in a movie.” He smiled as he spoke. He was supposed to be intimidated by the uniforms and by the weapons, but he was not. There had been very few things in his life that had made him nervous.
“Yeah? So where are the rest of your friends?”
Joe let his grin bloom into a broad smile. “All around you.” He answered the man with his mouth and at the same time sent out the command with his mind. Now! Come and get them!
The others dropped from the ceiling, where they had been holding on to the pipes. Most of them dropped and landed on the ground, no longer needing to hide themselves, but one of the males-Cody, he thought-hung from a pipe in the ceiling, his feet locked around it, and reached for the guard closest to him without bothering to drop down and land. They’d hidden themselves away and waited for his signal and it worked perfectly. None of the men had been expecting them to drop from above. Tina won points for that.
While the uniforms were trying to look everywhere at once, Joe moved, lunging forward and snatching the weapon from the hands of the first officer. The man opened his mouth, either to scream or to bark out another order, but Joe was done with him. He used his free hand and drove the blade of his hand into the man’s throat. Something cracked in the man’s neck and he dropped like a sack of rocks.
“Ladies and gentlemen, feel free to join the fun!” He didn’t wait for an answer but took advantage of the chaos and aimed his newly acquired weapon. The next guard in line was just starting to aim, his movements so slow in comparison to Joe’s enhanced reflexes that he looked like he was fighting his way through molasses. The pistol in his hand kicked as he pulled the trigger and the slowpoke let out a soft grunt as his right shoulder exploded. “Bang!”
One of the men came toward him, weapon drawn and aimed already. “You need to stop right there!”
Joe had an agenda. He could have cared less about showing the guards what he was capable of, but he needed the Others to understand not just how fast they all were, but how dangerous he was.
All of them had enhanced reflexes, enhanced senses and strength. What they lacked, what he had that they did not, was four years of training. Part of his free time had been spent learning tae kwon do and the basics of weapons training. He had been taught by professionals. It was an edge and he needed to make sure the others knew he had an advantage over them. They were like children, really. They were young and impressionable and he intended to make an impression that would last.
Joe took a fast sliding step in the direction of the trigger-happy guard and slapped him across the face with a blow that fairly blurred. The man never had a chance to continue his sudden need to bark orders before Joe broke his jaw and his nose. Before he could recover, Joe was pushing past him and firing at the next in line.
“Reflexes, kids. This is what I’m talking about. Our reflexes are easily ten times the normal human average.” He kept his voice casual as the next man fell, the shot having taken him square in his chest.
The rest of the men took the hint and stayed quiet as they took aim. Get them! he called out silently, and the Others answered, attacking even as the guards were focusing on Joe. Not-Cody didn’t waste time with finesse. As big as he was, he was unsettlingly fast. In all of his existence, Joe had never seen one of his kind attack a human being before. He was impressed. Cody swung a thick arm around in a fast arc and the man he hit let out a short scream before he lifted off the ground and soared through the air. The odds were good he was already unconscious before he hit the wall ten feet away.
One of the girls-Tina, maybe?-was bleeding from a split in her lip. The guard had struck her, apparently, and the look on her face said she didn’t take kindly to being hit. Not-Tina let out a screech and grabbed the guard with both of her hands. She caught his neck with one hand and his gun hand with the other and while the man struggled and tried to break free, she brought her knee up and drove it hard into his crotch. He let out a muffled moan and turned deathly pale. A second later whatever pain he was feeling didn’t matter anymore because she’d knocked him unconscious.
Joe fired again and missed, his shot thrown off as another of the guards reached him. The combat was getting too close, too personal for weapons. That was all right, he preferred hand to hand. It was more fun.
He let out a growl and used the butt end of the pistol on the man’s face. The impact ran from his hand up to his elbow and he grinned as Mr. Grabby’s jaw took on a new shape.
Not-Gene caught the guard in front of him in a strangle-hold and lifted the man off the ground. He squeezed hard and let out a snarl of anger at the same time. The man shuddered in his grip and tried to break free. His hands beat at the Other frantically, but it was like watching a five-year-old trying to get away from a full-grown man.
Another one of the guards aimed at Not-Gene and without a word Joe warned him, sending the image directly into his mind. Not-Gene spun his new toy to the right and laughed as the bullet punched through the man he’d been strangling instead of him.
The joy coming from the Others was brutal and pure. They liked violence, liked breaking bones and crushing their enemies. Joe knew exactly how they felt.
Kyrie-no, he corrected himself, NOT-Kyrie-surprised him the most. She delivered a perfect side kick into the leg of her opponent and danced backward as the leg broke and the man screamed. Before he could fall to the ground, she hit him again, a second kick that nearly took his head off his shoulders.
Joe grinned. Each of the Others had taken out a single opponent. He had eliminated six.
That should get the point across, he thought. That should let them know who the head honcho around here is.
Not-Tina was looking at the man she’d taken down like he was her worst enemy and he just might get back up and try to hit her again.
He reached out with his mind and felt her emotions, picked at them and studied them. He couldn’t do that with most people, only with the others like him. If he tried hard enough, he could capture images from the minds of their weaker counterparts, like he had when he spoke to Cody on the phone, but it took e
ffort. This sort of eavesdropping was easier.
Not-Tina was aching inside. Though she wasn’t sure why, exactly, she felt grief. He knew. He understood all too well. She was feeling her counterpart’s grief. All the sensations, none of the memories. She was experiencing a little bleed over. Not a lot, just enough to guarantee that she came awake in a piss-poor mood because Tina was in a bad state of mind. He might tell her eventually, but for now it was best to let her learn.
Not-Gene was a different story. He looked down at his enemy, thrilled at the damage he’d done. He was happy. He wanted to cut loose, to make up for the fact that Gene held everything inside. He wanted to be alive in ways his Other never was.
Not-Kyrie looked at the man she’d taken down with mild curiosity, but she also took the time to look at each and every one of the guards Joe had taken down. She got it. She understood his message. She took her time before looking at him with her dark, almond eyes. The smile she cast at him was enough to get his attention even if he hadn’t been able to read the attraction she felt for him.
And then there was Not-Cody. Joe frowned as he looked at the last of the Others. He was big. Physically he was actually bigger than Joe, and that was unusual, especially since Cody himself was damned near the runt of the litter.
It wasn’t his size that caught Joe’s attention, however. It was the fact that he got nothing at all off Not-Cody.
The other Hyde looked in his direction, his expression unreadable.
For just a moment, Joe was nervous.
He pushed that notion aside. He still had the ultimate card in his deck. He could wake them up, and he could put them back into a deep sleep.
“We have to leave, kids, right now.” Joe looked at his new friends and smiled. They had no names yet, but that was okay. They’d figure out what they wanted to be called when the time was right. “They’ll be sending in more armed men-a lot more. We’re faster and stronger, but that doesn’t mean we’re indestructible.”
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