One (One Universe)

by LeighAnn Kopans

  “Merrin! Get a handle on yourself,” he says and steps toward me, looking like he’s going to clap his hand over my mouth again. Something rumbles deep inside of me.

  I can’t stand feeling this way about Dad, absolutely can’t stand it, and now that it’s happened — him keeping secrets and shushing me — I’ll never be able to forget it.

  “You have to keep quiet,” he says, more gently, and glances out the door’s narrow window. He pulls me toward it, turns me so I’m looking out.

  The petite figure in a white coat hovers between Michael and Max’s beds and then looks anxiously toward our door, right at Dad. It’s Mom.

  “See? Your mother’s got everything covered. They’re letting her oversee the bone marrow tap, but she’s not going to do it, okay? When she takes them back for the procedure, she’s going to give them something to wake them up, and we’re all going to get out of here. I’m going to take you to the back room, and we’ll all leave together.”

  “After all you’ve kept from me, you expect me to believe you? How do I know they’re not going to just come and drag us back to the Hub?”

  Dad reaches out to try to take my hand, but I pull away. “We very much regret everything we put you through all those years ago. How much you’ve suffered. We wanted to give you a better chance. And it didn’t work, and we’re sorry. But we have a plan. Plans work. Storming the Hub with your friends from high school to save your boyfriend without a plan? Stealing valuable formulas that you have no idea how to implement? Without a plan, Merrin? That doesn’t work.”

  I just glare at him for a second.

  “And giving your blood to Stephen Hoffman in the Nelson High School library doesn’t help much either.”

  “You knew about that,” I say, pushing my shoulders back, trying to breathe deeply.

  “There’s a reason he didn’t want you to tell us, Merrin. We would never have… Well, let’s just say that them having current genetic material from you complicated things quite a bit.”

  Bile burns at the bottom of my esophagus, and it takes everything in me to keep my voice steady. “That’s why the boys are here, isn’t it? So they can take some of their genetic material to figure me out?”

  Dad looks at the door. “They wanted to see how close the match was…” He shakes his head. “The whole family is leaving town. Today.”

  “Leaving?” My eyes narrow. I can’t leave Nebraska, not when the other half of me — of my Super — lies strapped to a table with electrodes dotting his chest. “I’m not going anywhere.” I look pointedly out the window at Elias.

  “There’s nothing we can do for him, honey. He told us he displayed a second, after all this time. Vice President VanDyne brought him in, saying he finally flew. But when they tested him, nothing showed up beyond his One. They’re doing some more intensive testing with the girls now — to see if they can transfer between the siblings. But I’m afraid… Well, I don’t even know what substances they’ve got in him, to be honest. It’s best to leave him.”

  At that, it’s all I can do to keep from snarling at Dad, from lunging at his throat and beating him senseless. If there was ever a time I could bring myself to do it, now would be it.

  “Dad, I love him. I am not leaving him.”

  Dad takes a step toward me, reaches an arm out, looks at me with sad eyes. “Oh, honey…”

  “Don’t you dare call me that after all you put me through, after all you’ve kept from me. And when you want me to just leave Elias here like…like a failed experiment.”

  I jerk my arm from his grasp, surprised at my own strength.

  Dad’s face twists, and his lips set in a hard line. “You’re not thinking clearly. Your mother and I have planned this. Just stay here while I make sure the coast is clear. Your being here… Well, it’s a complication, Merrin.” I bristle at the way his voice raises at the end, the way he uses my full name. “But we are going to get you out. We’re not going to let them test you like they’ve tested…others.”

  I cross my arms and stare at the wall. I have nothing to say to him, can’t look him in the eye.

  He closes the door carefully behind him, and I watch him cross the testing arena floor, check Elias’s chart, and grimace. He looks back at the window, meets my eyes, and shakes his head, slightly, once. I don’t exactly what that means, but tears prick my eyes. I know enough from the look on his face to know that something’s wrong.

  Dad crosses to stand next to Mom, who seems to be the only one besides the nurses in the arena. Must be too early for anything to have really gotten going yet.

  He leans in to her, puts his lips to her ear. Her eyes jerk over to me, then close for a few good, long seconds like they do when she’s upset about something and needs to take a deep breath.

  She reaches out and runs a hand over one of the twins’ heads — Michael’s, I think. Then Mom and Dad walk out together, through a door on the other side of the arena, not looking back.

  I peer through the window, my stomach twisting more and more and more as I look from the boys to Elias, then back to the boys again. All three, so terrifyingly still.

  Making the leap. Filling the gap. That’s what we did. Or I did, at least, with the transferring, with the damn floating apple. Made them think they could close the gap from One to Super. Tie one Super’s powers to another. And after all, isn’t that what we did? Aren’t I the one whose birth got this whole thing started? Who made Leni burn herself and countless other horrible things happen to Ones?

  Then a sick sensation freezes me where I stand. I understand now. Why the boys are here, and why there are three times as many vials for “Grey” as there are for “Suresh.” It’s for me. For all the Ones they tested 11 years ago. They’re testing our siblings, the ones who actually have powers, to figure me out, to figure us out. Figure out why we didn’t respond to that study. Why I can’t make other stuff go light.

  To figure out how Fisk could have saved his son.

  Unless we did respond. Unless I can still transfer. And then it hits me like a ton of bricks right in the chest.

  That’s what we’ve been doing. We’ve been transferring every time we flew. Every time Leni and Daniel flame on.

  If they knew that, it would save Michael and Max. The Hub wouldn’t ever leave us — Elias and me, and probably Leni and Daniel — alone, but they might leave the twins alone. Might leave Nora and Lia.

  I have to get Elias out of here. Because together, we’re the only ones who can do the same for the twins. And for Elias’s sisters, wherever they are.

  I have to get to them. Because I might be the only one who can stop this.

  TWENTY-SIX

  When I push the door open and step into the arena, the buzz runs over my whole body — suddenly, powerfully, but not painful or unpleasant at all. This is warm, thrilling, bonding me to him.

  I sneak along the wall and up to his bed, and his eyelids flutter. Relief washes over me so hard and fast I think I might collapse and lay beside him, there on the bed, where his long legs stretch a little too far, his heels hanging off the end.

  When his brow starts to furrow, his eyes still closed, I can’t wait any more. I can’t. I press my lips to his, gently, then firmer. He doesn’t respond. Please let my Elias be somewhere in there.

  The buzz intensifies even more, running through my veins, charging my muscles. Here, with my lips to Elias’s in the most dangerous place for us I can think of, I feel safe. More important than that, I feel — no, I know that I am — strong. I can literally do anything.

  He twitches again, and my heart breaks. How much have they done to him in the short time that he’s been here? Has he been through pain? I have to know.

  Behind me, a door snicks shut.

  Instead of trying to find a place to hide, I go light. I did it so fast in the hallway, and it happens much faster this time. The air gusts against my body as I go up. I flatten my body against the vaulted ceiling, 25 feet above Elias. He lies so still it’s terrifying.


  Two women in white coats stride into the arena with syringes in hand. From this angle, I can barely see an IV port poking out from the sinewy muscles at the inside of Elias’s left elbow. It’s not hooked up to a bag of fluids or anything, so I know it must be there so that they can inject him — quickly and maybe even often. One of the women chatters about her weekend, and the other babbles about her nephew’s wife’s food allergies.

  I want to spit on them.

  The one on the right pauses beside Elias, injects the entire syringe into his port, and walks away. As they’re moving toward Michael and Max, Mom walks over and intercepts them. She doesn’t even let them touch the boys.

  “I’ve got these two, ladies, thank you,” she murmurs. My body heat rises with pure anger. Even though Dad explained to me what she’s doing here, I still can’t get my head around it. I wonder how much Michael and Max have already been through, how much she and Dad have known about, and my stomach turns.

  But I do believe Dad. Still trust that he loves Michael and Max enough that they’re going to get them out, to run away.

  And I’m too in love with Elias and feeling too guilty about letting him get this far — all the way into the Hub — to leave here without him. There’s no way in hell I’m doing that.

  The nurses walk out, and I go heavy again. Mom hovers over Michael and Max, but her head whips around when I land.

  “Merrin!” she whisper-shouts, her eyes wild. She gathers herself and says with a hiss and a jerk of her head. “Your father’s through that door. Get in there.”

  I lock my knees, standing my ground. “Look,” I say, setting my jaw to match my legs, “I know you have to get the boys out of here. I want you to. But I am not leaving here without him.” I reach back and grab Elias’s hand, which lays limp on the bed. I swear I feel a twitch from the tendons on top of it, but when I glance back at him, he’s still as death.

  Mom draws in a sharp breath. “Merrin Grey. You listen to me. You are in great danger. So much more than the boys. If you understood…”

  “I understand, Mom. I found the files in the closet. I understand that I can transfer. And I understand that you brought me here when I was little. I could have understood a hell of a lot sooner if you ever freaking talked to me. If you were ever honest at all.”

  She sucks in a breath. “It was either keep you here in Superior or have them chasing after you. After all of us.”

  The giant white room is silent but for the rhythmic beeping of the machines attached to the boys and Elias, documenting heart rates and blood pressure. The tick of Elias’s heartbeat on the monitor steadies me, strengthens me. I squeeze his hand hard, only stopping when my fingernails dig into it.

  “Elias is lucky, honey. They’ve decided to stop testing him. Decided he’s useless. Eventually they’ll let him go. He’ll be back to normal.”

  I clench my jaw, and tears burn at the corner of my eyes. “They might leave him. But I’m not going to.”

  “But you are so young. You have so much time. You’ll find each other again someday.”

  “You don’t get it. This isn’t just that I love him. Something…happens when we’re together.”

  Mom’s eyes flare wide, a mix of shock and interest and fascination and the fulfillment of expectation, when the door on the opposite end of the room swings open.

  President Fisk walks in.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  He’s impeccably groomed, a Cheshire-cat smile spreading across his face. The swish of his expensive suit fabric echoes annoyingly off the pristine walls.

  But seeing Fisk grinning at Elias, connected to tubes and helpless, isn’t the worst thing. Not by far. Because right next to him, Mr. Hoffman stands gazing at me. He pushes his glasses up and says, “You made it, Merrin.” He doesn’t smile. Not even a little.

  “Welcome back to the Hub, Miss Grey,” Fisk says, his voice steady and quiet. My skin crawls — again.

  “I don’t want to interrupt you,” Fisk says. “Please. Continue. What, exactly, can you and Mr. VanDyne do?”

  “I didn’t say we could do anything.” I raise myself up to my full height and summon every bit of resolve in my body to keep my voice from shaking.

  He takes a step toward where the boys lay, and my skin bristles. “Your brothers are quite remarkable.”

  I keep my mouth shut. I don’t know whether cursing or vomit would come out, but neither would be good right now.

  “You must know just how fascinating they are. When they are together, their speed and agility across water nearly doubles.”

  “Doubles?” I didn’t realize it was that dramatic, and interest about how and why worms its way through my brain.

  “Quite. We think they may have actually inherited the same quality that allowed your mother to attain an additional ability at such an advanced age. One that, if I’m guessing right about you and Mr. VanDyne here, you exhibit most strongly of all.”

  “The boys can only do that because they’re so close...”

  “That doesn’t make any sense, Miss Grey. None at all. If closeness was the answer to our genetic problems, no one we love would have any.”

  “Weaker powers are not a problem. Oneness is not a problem.”

  Fisk tilts his chin up a little and laughs, three staccato beats. Like a robot.

  “Merrin,” he says, approaching me. “You yourself know what a problem you are. You’ve done the research, snooped in your mother’s files, I’m sure. You know that half-Gifteds are a sign that something’s gone wrong. There are so few of us Supers, Merrin, and we’re just starting to gain a stronghold in this society that thought it was necessary to put us in camps 90 years ago. We have to make you better, strengthen you. Or we all weaken. And Supers haven’t come this far to weaken, slowly fade away, become useless. Ones could ruin us. It’s the Biotech Hub’s job to keep that from happening.”

  “And, Merrin,” Mr. Hoffman says, stepping up next to them. “No has ever wanted to change her Oneness as much as you.”

  “The VanDyne twins are similar to your brothers,” Fisk says. “When they are together, they are able to transfer at a near-constant rate. It’s like pressing a gas pedal. You can move in ‘drive,’ but if you press down, you go quickly. We think they can control it. We can get them to control it, here in the arena. Only in a sedated state, at this point, of course, but one day, we should be able to push their powers to such a level that they could move at light speed. Be invisible. Be endlessly useful.”

  “Useful for what?” I glance back at Elias. I could swear he’s breathing faster than he was a minute ago.

  Has he woken? Has he heard?

  “At any rate,” Fisk says, “with the help of some formulas we’ve been carefully developing over the years — since you were born, in fact, Merrin — we’re hoping to research a little…deeper. Your mother’s blood,” he says as he crosses over to a locked cooler on the wall, “has helped us develop this formula. Along with our most recent addition — your sample, which Mr. Hoffman so kindly collected for us.”

  Mom’s wild eyes flash to me. Like I’ve betrayed her.

  I fight to keep my voice even. “If you already know how to fix me, what do you need Michael and Max for?” I know he doesn’t need them for a goddamned thing.

  “Their bone marrow will tell us something, something we have never been able to figure out about you because, well…you’ve never proven you can do anything. Won’t admit to it. Even to Mr. Hoffman. So, you see…” He moves over and puts his hand on Michael’s head. “…we simply have no choice.”

  That’s when I totally lose it.

  “They are babies!” I scream. Mom’s small hands clamp around my upper arms, and her nails dig into my skin. “They’re just kids. You keep your goddamned hands off of them.”

  He clicks his tongue and shakes his head, and the combination makes me want to hurl myself across the 15 feet between us and claw his eyes out.

  Instead, I move back toward Elias’s bed, hoping getting near
er to him, to the buzz, will steady me. Maybe help me figure out what the hell to do in a room with passive parents, an evil Super mastermind, and an unconscious boyfriend. And my poor baby brothers, who should never have had anything to do with this, prepped for spinal taps.

  Mr. Hoffman chuckles. “You, who wouldn’t be caught dead with a boy your first year at Superior High, suddenly now have a boyfriend? What makes him so important to you that you would risk everything, break into the Hub, just to make sure he’s okay?”

  My stomach twists, churning out resolve to get out of this, and then make Fisk pay.

  Fisk lowers his voice to barely above a whisper. The only ones who can hear him now, I’m sure, are Elias and me. “He makes you feel beautiful, makes you believe in yourself, all that. Yes, yes, fine. But that is boring. So I’ll ask you one more time, Merrin: What can the two of you do?”

  Something inside me snaps at his use of my first name.

  “Without each other, you are useless, pathetic Ones. Without us, you will always be nothing. We can make sure you’re without Elias for a very long time, Merrin, if it’s true that he’s no use to you as he is. We could use his body in…other ways.”

  I stare at him, half to challenge him and half because terror seizes me so strongly that I have nothing else to say.

  He shrugs. “Fine. So Elias VanDyne is…a nothing. In two days of testing, we’re very sure of that. He is powerless — weakly pushing air will never make him a Super. He was nothing but a false alarm. His sisters, on the other hand…”

  Fisk pushes a button on his remote control thing, and I glance at Mom, hoping that she can prepare me for what I’m about to see or hear by how she looks at me. A tear runs down her cheek, and her jaw is clenched. I’ve never seen Mom cry.

  She looks down, her face twisted.

  One of the walls of the arena spins around to reveal the girls, wearing nothing but black swimsuits that cling to their frames — thin and almost skeletal — suspended in a tank of green goop. Breathing tubes snake down their throats, and nodes dot their heads, which are shaved bald. Their eyes are closed, and if I could ignore all the tubes and wires, they would look like they were sleeping. Every once in awhile, one of them twitches, her eyebrows draw together, then after a few seconds, she relaxes again.