“Over here,” she said, carrying her tablet with her toward the window. Her wide hips swayed while she walked, accentuated further by the height of her heels.
“Now. My device will project an image. Just look out the window and tell me the farthest numbers you can read.”
I didn’t need to pretend. I could only read the largest line of numbers. The line was the closest in the stack of glowing red numbers shooting out into the clouds above the skyscrapers. With each successive line, the numbers grew progressively smaller.
“547825633331.”
“And the next row please,” she said.
“That’s all. I can only read that row.”
“You’re lying to me,” she said. “Now read the next row.”
“I can’t.”
Her jaw tensed. She squinted at me, her eyebrows knitting together, as if she might be able to read the thoughts inside my head if she worked hard enough.
Maybe I should have been disappointed that my skills had somehow shut down, but I only felt the thrill of it. It was brilliant. Vasterias wasn’t getting what they wanted from me, and even though it was not by any control of mine, I reveled in the fact that my test results weren’t sufficient for her.
Dr. Stanstopolis snapped the tablet cover closed. “Let’s head down to the lab. We have a treadmill in one of the rooms. I’d like to extricate the full spectrum of your physical capabilities.”
Extricate?
My throat tightened at her choice of words.
As she moved toward the office door, her curvy hips did the weird swaying thing again. She lifted the white lab coat off a hook hanging by her office door and waved me into the hall.
*
Within a few minutes, we’d made it down to the lab.
Dr. Stanstopolis placed her tablet on the counter and pulled out a pair of reading glasses from her coat pocket. “Ascend the treadmill, please.” She leaned down toward the counter, typing into her tablet.
“You mean get on right now?”
She blinked at me over her spectacles. “Yes. Get on.”
My stomach sunk, thinking about how fast I was likely going to sprint on this thing. “You want me in this dress while I run?”
Again, agitated, blinking from over her spectacles: “I didn’t know style was an issue for you. Would you prefer something different?”
“It’s not an issue,” I said. How was this lady making me feel so stupid?
“Whatever,” I said, stepping up onto the treadmill. “It’s your dress ….”
“That is not my dress.”
“Well, it belongs to your employer.”
“I’m not employed by Vasterias. I do my research here, and they fund me. That is all.”
Wow. Research must be the only thing she ever did because she certainly didn’t have any friends.
“Place this over your heart,” she said, handing me a thick, square sticker with a white wire attached. She plugged her end of the wire into the treadmill display board.
After I attached the sticker over my heart, she handed me another one. “This one attaches to your right temple.”
“Can these electrocute me?” I said, hesitant to put one on my head.
“No.”
True to her standards, Dr. Stanstopolis didn’t waste any time. As soon as the squares were in place, she turned on the treadmill, raised the incline, and increased the speed until my legs moved along at a fast clip.
“We’ll warm up your muscles for a few minutes,” she said, watching the treadmill display flash my pace and the elapsed time in bright red numbers.
I felt the rhythm of my breath increase, nothing painful, but still, a definitive shift. I knew one thing, whatever came, I wasn’t giving up. Not with this. It was like farm work. You just kept working until the job was done. Didn’t matter how late it was, didn’t matter how much more was coming the next morning.
I wouldn’t ask to stop; I wouldn’t quit until she turned off this treadmill herself. It was the only way to leave this treadmill with a victory. Stanstopolis might have put me up here on this thing, but I wasn’t going to beg. She’d enjoy that far too much, I’m sure.
After three minutes passed, she pressed the button to increase the speed. The treadmill belt moved faster, increasing my pace to a jog.
After another two minutes, she increased the speed again. I was running full on now.
Sweat formed at my hairline and neck. I felt it roll down my back and chest. My lungs moved, in and out, in and out.
Dr. Stanstopolis leaned against the cabinet counter and observed my face. I stared right back at her.
“You and Jack are studies of possibility for us,” she said over the sound of my pounding feet and the noise of the treadmill. “We never knew human thought had so much power within DNA encoding. It’s amazing. For years, unbeknown to himself even, and yet with the power of his own thoughts, Jack was able to shield his full DNA pattern from us and potentially even change some of his coding altogether.”
Dr. Stanstopolis reached over and increased the treadmill speed before continuing. My chest began to ache slightly; my head thumped in rhythm with my heartbeat.
“And now look at you,” she said. “Your very own DNA capabilities laid dormant until you yourself were exposed to the truth about your own possibilities. Then, and only then, once you knew about them and believed the truth, only then did those capabilities actually manifest and express themselves within your body. How did you do it? And how are you hiding them now, Sage?”
Dr. Stanstopolis tapped the button again, and the belt moved faster, my feet pounding. How far would she push?
Air heaved in and out of my lungs now. My side ached. My head felt light. Surely she could see I was almost at my limit?
“We’ve come to only one conclusion: your thoughts are informing your DNA expression much more than we ever believed. What you think is possible plays a part in what is actually possible.”
Her hand reached to the treadmill button again.
Click, click, click.
“So you better start believing in yourself, Sage.”
I was in an all-out sprint. I think she was watching me closely now, but silver dots sprinkled my vision, and my concentration was solely focused on not falling off the end of the treadmill. My chest was heaving so hard I could barely hear the doctor’s words.
“In regards to the big scientific picture,” she continued, “this means that every human being has the ability to do this on some level. Not, perhaps, as obvious or as strong as your capabilities but certainly each human can, to some extent. Imagine what this information will do in the world. Imagine how it would shift the field of epigenetic research.”
I couldn’t imagine anything besides being done with running.
It felt like my legs would split and rip off if I continued at this pace for much longer. There was nothing but the pound of my feet, nothing but the speckles in my vision. And then, the speckles were gone, and the wall in front of me flashed gray. For a moment, I couldn’t see anything.
Instinctively, I grabbed for the side railings of the treadmill. My feet still pounded on the belt.
Dr. Stanstopolis’s voice pulled me back to the room.
“Oh no, don’t hold on. That will slow down the feedback, and you’ll have to run for even longer.”
Longer? I released the railings; my vision cleared a bit. I tried to focus on the display in front of me, then on the wall in front of that, then on Dr. Stanstopolis’s face. I couldn’t concentrate on any of these things for very long, though, because it took too much work.
“Why are you getting tired now?” she said, sounding frustrated again. “We’re only just getting started.”
Did she say that? Or did I imagine it? But then her hand reached up and pressed the button.
The speed increased.
My feet were flying. I’d hadn’t run this hard or this fast in my entire life, aside from that brief stint on the island, getting to that helicopter.
I couldn’t suck in enough air to keep up with my legs. My heart was going to thump right out of my chest. I felt both light and heavy at the same time. Speckles crowded my vision. I wanted to go back on my word. It was okay if I begged her to stop. I wanted to do that, tried to do that, but I had no oxygen to spare. I couldn’t say a single word.
My lungs were screaming.
Dr. Stanstopolis looked down at the display. “This is pathetic.” Her finger hovered over a button.
Thank the Lord. I was done.
I’d done it. I’d failed whatever she’d been watching for, and the test was over. Why wasn’t she pressing the button?
She didn’t push stop.
She increased my pace.
My heart beat too hard.
Too. Fast.
I give up. I tried to rasp the words out loud. I’m done now. I give up.
I swatted down at the buttons, aiming for the one that would decrease my speed or stop me altogether. But the speckles in my vision increased, and black closed in. I felt my legs collapsing, felt myself flying off the end of the treadmill.
Then, all of it disappeared.
33
JACK
We stepped inside the warehouse. That putrid lemon smell wafted out into the alley behind us. I tossed the mannequin to Beckett so I could lower and lock the warehouse door.
Beckett hadn’t talked to me the whole way back from Crash It. What did he expect? We needed a mannequin, I got us one. Beck’s panties didn’t have to get twisted every time a girl talked to me. Besides, that girl had checked him out, too. He never seemed to notice that, though. If he ever woke up, he’d realize he had just as many of them staring at him. But ever since we turned thirteen, he was too preoccupied with the girls looking at me to notice.
Whatever. I didn’t want to talk about it.
And I didn’t like being so close to headquarters, either. It stirred up every bit of anger and complicated emotion inside me. Mainly, I tried to forget solid chunks of my childhood—and I didn’t like physical landmarks forcing me to face them.
Being in the city was making me say things to Beckett that I didn’t mean, making me lose track of the promise I made on the bike ride here.
I turned from the warehouse door. Beckett had pulled the sheet off the Ego 45 and was attempting to set the mannequin on top of it.
I pulled out my temporary cell phone, supplied by Dr. Cunningham.
“It’s just a few hours before you head out,” I said. “Let’s grab lunch, then we can come back here and get you ready.”
“She doesn’t fit very good,” Beckett said in reply. “Her hips are too narrow.”
He tried to release his hand from the shoulder of the mannequin, but she tipped to the side.
“We can strap her to you if we need. I’ll even let you dress her in a pair of the sequin jeans. You always wanted a woman in sequins strapped to you, right?”
Beckett opened his mouth, but instead of releasing some smart-aleck comment, his hand shot to his chest, right over his heart. I would have thought it was some sort of joke but the panic on his face was real.
I lunged toward him, but I couldn’t move fast enough; there wasn’t time to catch Beck before he dropped to the concrete floor, the mannequin clattering to the ground beside him.
My eyes scanned the warehouse for an intruder, for anyone, anything, that had sent Beckett down.
Nothing.
He was gasping now, holding his chest, his eyes out of focus, floundering on his back on the ground, his body rigid as he struggled to get enough air.
“Beckett!” I shouted, gripping his arm. He looked at me with terrified eyes, trying to talk, nothing coming out.
A numbing sensation rolled over me, a feeling of complete powerlessness from the inability to help my brother. An image flashed in my mind: me holding Caesar’s hand, watching him die, not being able to do a thing about it.
Beckett took another gasping breath and went unconscious.
My hands moved to his chest, ready to pound his heart back to life with my fists, ready to blow air into his lungs for as long as I needed—forever, if that’s what it took to keep him alive.
And then, over my own erratic breaths, I noticed he was still breathing. I could hear his heart still pounding, like he’d run a series of sprints.
I kept my hands hovered over his chest, freaked out that at any moment his heart would give out and his breath would stop.
I remained there—frozen in a kneeling position, locked in a terrified moment of unknowing, hands ready. I stayed that way for three whole minutes, and then, Beckett’s eyes flickered open.
At first he looked lost, a confused glaze over his eyes. But then he blinked, and his full awareness returned. He realized I was hovering.
He flopped his hand on my forearm and smiled weakly. “Aww, brother. You still love me after all.”
I shoved his hand away and fell back on my haunches with an exhale, doing my best to hide just how relieved I felt.
34
BECKETT
Jack was silent.
That means I ticked him off.
But how come he’s the one who’s upset when I’m the one who almost suffocated to death? Out of nowhere?
Whatever just happened scared me worse than the time I’d got my foot caught in a stirrup back on the farm and my horse took off.
I might have died that day if Sage hadn’t got to me in time.
But this felt different than the horse. On the farm, I’d been scared because something outside myself was in control of my fate. The horse. This time, whatever just happened to me was coming from the inside.
I tried to hide my complete and utter terror by being sarcastic when I finally regained consciousness, but I had a harder time hiding my trembling hands, still shaking from the shock.
The truth was, I had no idea what just happened.
No idea at all.
35
SAGE
I felt a cool air blowing over me, heard the hum of a fan nearby.
My eyes flickered open, and I heaved my body up to a sitting position in one fluid movement. The paper crinkled on the examining table below me. My sundress, soaked with my sweat, was pulled up high on my legs. I jerked it down. My face felt hot and clammy.
“Not to worry,” Dr. Stanstopolis said from her computer near the wall. “You only passed out for a few minutes. After your heart rate stabilized, we drew blood. You’ll be heading back to the mansion momentarily.”
I swung my legs off the side of the table.
“No need to get up yet,” she said. “Sven went to find you some lunch.” She set a vial of red blood—mine, I assumed—into a small holding rack. “Your mile time was unimpressive. Just over seven minutes.” She crossed her arms. “I’m sure you’re disappointed in your results.”
Disappointed? This was the best news I’d had in days. I loved the idea that I’d let her down.
“But not to worry,” she continued. “The code is within you. Dr. Adamson proved that with his tests on the island. We’ll get to it soon enough, and you’ll see your capabilities in full bloom.”
I remembered the gleam in Dr. Adamson’s eyes when he talked about the possibilities for Jack’s sperm and my eggs. Maybe it was just my sweat-soaked dress, but I shivered.
“Where is Dr. Adamson?” I said, smoothing my dress flat over my legs. “I half expected to see him here at headquarters.”
Did he have any idea that his sons were on their way to New York? Assuming what Sven said was true?
Dr. Stanstopolis paused her typing. “You’ll see Dr. Adamson tonight at the gala. I’m sure he’s anxious to confirm with his own eyes that you’ve arrived safely and are in good hands.” She sniffed, and, almost as an afterthought, added, “I can’t say I’ve missed him. It was refreshing having him away on the island.”
Something about the tone and beat of her last sentence clued me into the fact that Dr. Stanstopolis didn’t mean what she said. Had there b
een something between her and Dr. Adamson? Or was there still?
“You two weren’t close, then?”
“Close enough.” She slapped her tablet closed. “I remember his boys too. I remember them well enough to know that you’re probably in the mix of a love triangle.”
I willed my cheeks not to blush at the directness of her statement. How could she possibly know of anything going on between me and Jack and Beckett?
But what I really wondered was, why did she avoid talking about Dr. Adamson?
“So you liked him, then?” My fingers toyed with the paper covering the examining table. “Dr. Adamson?”
Dr. Stanstopolis pulled off her glasses and dropped them in her pocket.
“How about a question for you? Who would you pick, if you had the choice? Believe me, it was the talk of the secretaries around here once the boys hit their teens and were semi-old enough to ogle.
She moved in closer. “So? Are you a ‘bad boy’ girl, or do you prefer ‘salt of the earth’? Do you want rock ‘n’ roll? Or jazz? Do you want parties, unpredictability, someone uncontainable? Or do you prefer quiet nights and the security of knowing things will never change? Do you want the challenge of the one who needs to be rescued from himself? Or do you prefer the security of knowing you’ll always be loved? You can’t have both, you know.”
Dr. Stanstopolis stood right in front of me now, not realizing how absorbed she’d gotten in her speech. And although she’d effectively described pieces of both Jack and Beckett, I had a feeling she wasn’t referring to them at all.
I swallowed, refusing to pull away from her close proximity. “My mom always said it’s delusional to box people into stereotypes.”
“But it is representative of the way men are, isn’t it? They either lure you in with their inability to be bound to anyone or anything, or they violently profess the desire to love you and provide stability. But it’s never both.”
“And who’s jaded you, Dr. Stanstopolis?” I said. “Dr. Adamson?”
Dr. Stanstopolis snorted. “Dr. Adamson? He hasn’t gotten over his wife, even after all these years. He still can’t accept the fact she’s dead.”
The Golden Order Page 10