Expansion (The Accidental Heroes Chronicles Book 2)

by S. E. Cyborski

  “So, you can turn invisible,” I said quietly, knowing I was stating the obvious but unable to think of anything else to say. “Is it just your arm or your whole body?”

  “My whole body,” Nick replied. He looked acutely uncomfortable and confused, like he’d just been told everything he knew about the world was wrong. I could sympathize but, now, we needed to figure out exactly what his new ability was. And how to control it because we couldn’t have him just disappearing in front of the others. Especially Wendy or Tabitha. “We tested it a little before Jane called you back here.”

  “It was a good thing he was able to reverse it in the kitchen,” Billy spoke up, patting Nick’s shoulder consolingly. “Wendy walked in just after his hand came back. I don’t know how we would have explained it to her. I don’t like messing with people’s minds if I can avoid it.”

  “Speaking of abilities, Billy told me his,” Nick said, catching my eye. “But he wouldn’t tell me yours, George. What can you do?”

  “Shapeshifting,” I replied slowly, wondering if this was really something I wanted to do. Wouldn’t keeping secrets be better for Nick in the long run? The more he knew, the more likely he would never be able to go back to a normal life, right? “I can shapeshift myself into pretty much anything.”

  “Care to give a demonstration?” Nick asked curiously, the ghost of a smile tugging at his lips. “I showed you mine, wanna show me yours?”

  I had to laugh at that and thought for a moment about what to do. I couldn’t shapeshift into the tiger, not in this office. There simply wasn’t enough space for a seven hundred pound tiger. And we weren’t exactly in the most secure place. Anyone could feasibly knock or even try to walk in. Feeling a thread of mischievousness, I made up my mind about what to shift into. Besides, it would show the extent of my abilities and the possibilities it entailed.

  Studying Nick for a few moments, fixing what I wanted to shift into firmly in my mind, I started changing. It was slow, so very slow this first time. But, I lost about an inch in height and put on more muscle. My hair grew longer and fell into my eyes, enough that I could see the brown changing to blond. I didn’t have any way to look but I knew my eyes were changing as well from my green into Nick’s tawny. Billy just shook his head as he watched my transformation, a smile ghosting over his lips. Nick watched with wide eyes, mouth dropping open. Well, it was partial payback for the shock he’d given me and I grinned when I saw his expression. Of course, that grin was made with Nick’s mouth out of Nick’s face and that had to be a little creepy for the guy.

  “All right, cool,” Nick said shakily once I’d finished my shapeshift into his form. “So, do you just shift into other people or what?”

  “Anything,” I replied in my own voice, not bothering to change my vocal chords. Honestly, I’d only changed the outside and my musculature, not bothering with any internal organs. “I found out I could shapeshift because my hands turned into hammers. My favorite form to change into is a tiger but a tiger wouldn’t fit in here. I can shift partially or completely into whatever form I choose, living or not. I turned into an armchair once to see if I could.”

  “You know, I can’t decide if it’s more creepy or less creepy hearing your voice coming out of my mouth,” Nick commented as he studied me. I stood still and let him look, knowing this must be difficult. “Do you always shift that slow? I can imagine that being a problem in some situations.”

  “Not always, no,” I shook my head, starting to change back to myself. I’d made my point and given Nick the demonstration he wanted. There was no need for me to remain like this and I wanted my own shape back. An ironic grin from Billy told me he agreed with my sentiments. “Once I start using a shape, I shift faster and faster. I can turn into the tiger in a heartbeat. But what situations are you talking about?”

  Does he know? I asked in my head, raising an eyebrow at Billy to make sure he caught the thought. About Amy and the others, I mean.

  No, not yet, Billy replied. His mental voice sounded tired, strain turning it ragged around the edges. He must have been using his ability to keep track of all the others in the warehouse and to listen in on the thoughts of the three of us. Billy’s ability seemed to be limited only by his own strength and he was rapidly nearing the edge of it. We thought to keep that secret for now. Nick may not go rogue like Sandra but we don’t know that for sure. Besides, it’s safer for him, especially if he tries to live a normal life after this.

  Can’t argue with that, I said, mentally shrugging. I smiled slightly, ribbing Billy a bit with my next thought. I can see you wanting to protect him, though. You like him, don’t you? Will I be getting yet another roommate sometime soon?

  A light blush stained Billy’s cheeks and he looked away. Even now, after everything we’d gone through, the guy was still the shy guy I’d first met. He’d grown a lot and opened up to me because we’d become friends. But there was still a core of him that was easy to fluster. I grinned widely and turned my attention back to Nick. Our conversation had taken only a few seconds and the other guy was still considering my question. I leaned back against the door and crossed my arms over my chest, wishing that the office wasn’t quite so cramped. I knew it was all in my head but I felt like it was getting a little hard to breathe with so many people breathing in the same air.

  “Well, if you ever fight someone, taking so long to shift would be a definite disadvantage,” Nick finally said, shrugging. “Or if you need to run away or something. I don’t really know what situations really. I don’t make a habit of studying superpowers and I don’t know anything about them.”

  He’s teasing at the edges, knows something’s off, but we still have to keep the others a secret Billy said suddenly in my mind, a thread of urgency in his mental voice. Dr. Carnesby says that even if he manages to guess anything, to deny it all.

  Yeah, I can do that, I replied, letting a bit of my disagreement filter into my words. But are we sure we really want to? At least once we know if they are willing to help. They could make a world of difference. Nick’s invisibility could put him right next to Amy, Michael, or Sandra without them even realizing. Besides, he might choose not to go back to a normal life. It’s a possibility we should consider, even though I wished things had been otherwise.

  I know but it’s not our call to make, Billy said dryly, his own discontent clear in his words.

  “Yeah, I can see where you’re coming from with that,” I finally replied to Nick, preparing to lie through my teeth. “I hope I never have to fight anyone with my abilities. All I’ve done with shifting is for fun or practice. Or even to see if I could, you know?”

  “So what does this mean?” Nick asked after nodding in agreement at me. He turned to Dr. Carnesby, eyes turning sharp as if he didn’t expect to get an answer. “Is this what the trial is all about? Giving people abilities like this?”

  Dr. Carnesby hesitated, clearly debating with himself over how to answer Nick’s question. He looked away, chewing at his bottom lip. Billy and I stayed silent. After all, this wasn’t our trial, we weren’t in charge of it. We weren’t the ones who’d completely changed Nick’s life. And five other people’s possibly. It was all due to the Corporation and Dr. Carnesby, though I could understand doing something because someone else was holding something over your head. Nick continued to glare at Dr. Carnesby, foot tapping irregularly in his impatience.

  “It was a hoped-for result, yes,” Dr. Carnesby finally said, meeting Nick’s eyes again. “When tested on lab rats, the drug gave them different abilities. It was wondered whether the same would happen for humans. I was chosen to run the trial and given a discretionary fund to pay any test subjects.”

  “And how many test subjects developed abilities?” Nick asked angrily, lips twisting in an angry frown. “How many were warned beforehand, had the possible outcomes explained fully so they could make an informed choice?”

  “None,” Dr. Carnesby replied quietly, unable to keep meeting Nick’s eyes. “It was decided
that the least possible amount of information would be given to subjects so that there would be no placebo effect. We wanted everything to be as pure and unbiased as possible. So far, including you, six people have developed abilities and they have all been different.”

  “Well, Billy and George here make two,” Nick said, pointing to each of us in turn. “Who are the other three and why aren’t they here?”

  “They’re busy somewhere else,” Dr. Carnesby said, cleverly evading the full answer by telling a version of the truth. “Honestly, I don’t even know what they’re doing. But a bigger question is, who else is going to develop abilities? Because Darryl, Elyse, Rose, Brandy, and Eric all had the same sickness you did. It’s likely they’re going to develop abilities of their own.”

  “I can’t think about this right now,” Nick said, frustration evident in his voice. The calmness and curiosity was completely gone from his face now, replaced by anger and fear. He turned towards the door and I edged out of the way, basically switching places with him as Nick pulled the door open and stalked away. I closed it again behind him, sympathizing. After all, I felt the same way even before going through the trial. I’d felt even then that something was going to go horribly wrong.

  “It’ll take him time,” Billy said into the quiet, an odd touch of sadness in his voice. “Until then, we need to watch the others. I’ve asked him to keep this all a secret for now and he tentatively agreed.”

  “Is Nick going to be all right being in the same place as a telepath?” Dr. Carnesby asked earnestly, narrowing his eyes as he thought. “What I mean is, we aren’t going to have a repeat of the breakout from the first trial, are we?”

  “No, he isn’t going to try to leave,” Billy replied confidently, shaking his head. “Nick needs the money a little too much. While he’s intensely angry and worried right now, he’s not going to do anything that jeopardizes getting the money.”

  “At least that’s one thing in our favor,” Dr. Carnesby said heavily, running his fingers through his hair. “Let’s give Nick his space and keep an eye on all the others. I have a feeling this may not be the last confrontation we have.”

  Billy and I nodded, leaving Dr. Carnesby in his office. Wendy and Tabitha were still talking in the kitchen though they both turned to us with confused looks on their faces. Billy kept walking but Wendy grabbed my arm, keeping me from passing through the kitchen. Her expression changed to a worried frown as she realized how worried we were.

  “Is everything all right?” she asked, glancing towards the hallway the bedrooms were on. “Nick came storming through here all upset.”

  “Yeah, just a bit of a misunderstanding,” I lied, wondering how many more times I would have to lie over the next few weeks. I shook my arm free gently and smiled at Wendy and Tabitha before walking to my own room. This was going to get complicated, especially if any of the others developed abilities.

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  “Adam?” Jane said hesitantly, breaking into the silence that had enveloped the office since the three younger men had left. She’d prudently stayed out of the discussion, not wanting to raise any questions about herself. If she was just considered an extremely intelligent computer program, that would be one less problem that might come up. The less people who knew she was a truly sentient AI, the better. “I managed to get the information you were asking me about.”

  “Without tripping any alarms?” Adam asked immediately, pulling out an empty notebook and opening it up to the first page.

  “Of course without tripping any alarms,” Jane replied shortly, exasperation in her words. “That’s why it took me so long. I needed to make sure they couldn’t trace me.”

  “All right, my apologies, Jane, for ever doubting you,” Adam laughed wryly. “What can you tell me?”

  “Well, the trials were ordered by a group within the Corporation called the Council. They are your typical, work-behind-the-scenes, shadowy figures,” Jane explained, a lecturing tone coming into her voice. “There are three people on this Council that go by the names Lucian Thorn, Katrina van Hale, and Aaron Moore. They are listed as regular employees within the Corporation but that isn’t all they do. These three hold a lot of the power within the company itself and all the power with regards to Gnotret. All experiments on the organisms are run in the building itself in a basement area no one else knows about.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me in the slightest,” he cut in with another sardonic laugh. “What about these Council members themselves? What did you find on them?”

  “Lucian is the oldest member,” Jane continued. “He’s been on the Council for ten years now. I don’t know how long most members stay on the Council but Katrina has only been there for six and Aaron three.”

  “How do you know that?” Adam interrupted her, confused. “I would have thought that that wouldn’t be the type of thing they would have included in their personnel files.”

  “They didn’t,” Jane agreed, amused. “I made an educated guess by checking when they moved into their current offices. For each of the three, it was a massive step up from their previous ones. In an ordered hierarchy such as the Corporation works under, one can safely assume that a more valuable office would be given to someone when they attained a more valuable status within the company.”

  “All right, I get it,” Adam chuckled, amazed again at Jane’s initiative. You’d think, after all the time he’d worked with her, he would stop underestimating her. “Sorry for interrupting. Please continue.”

  “They know where Gnotret came from but they very carefully never write it down anywhere,” Jane continued, a peevish note in her voice. “I searched through all the records on them I could find. They refer to Gnotret by name or as the organisms but that’s all. Though I did find something new, buried so deeply it took me the longest to find it. This last trial wasn’t the first on human subjects. It was just the first successful one.”

  “Is that so?” Adam asked sharply, looking up quickly. “Well, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that was a lie. What did you find on those human subjects?”

  “That absolutely nothing happened to them,” came the surprising answer. “They were convicts, mostly death row inmates. There is talk about incentive for them to participate but no guarantee any of them actually received whatever they were promised. There was also one death. A woman came down with a similar sickness that we experienced in our subjects. She died before the week was up. It was believed she had an unknown heart condition and couldn’t handle the injections.”

  “Is there anything else?” Adam asked, a thread of desperation entering his voice. If he had nothing on anyone on the Council, they could destroy his life without a care and there would be nothing he could do about it. “Anything we can use against them?”

  “Not that I found,” Jane replied hesitantly after a lengthy pause. “There are a couple files that were too protected to get into. They were in Lucian’s files but only had numbers for titles. If you like, I can try to get into those files.”

  “If you can without putting yourself or the rest of us in danger,” Adam said firmly. It wasn’t worth it to get the information if the Council knew he had it. They were far too dangerous. “Thank you, Jane. This is a start.”

  “You’re welcome, Adam,” Jane replied crisply, pride evident in her voice. But her next words were laced with an interesting excitement. “You may want to go to the lounge. I believe some of the others have discovered their new abilities.”

  Though his first impulse was to ask who and what, Adam put his notebook in a desk drawer and locked it. Even the three names he’d written down could be profoundly dangerous in the wrong hands. He headed through the kitchen, where Wendy and Tabitha were finishing lunch, and walked into the lounge. Elyse and Darryl were staring at each other in absolute surprise, the end of a checker piece visible in Darryl’s clenched fist. Rose and Brandy wore similar expressions of surprise, though theirs was laced with fear. Eric had joined t
he group while Adam had been speaking with Billy, George, and Nick. He had his back to the others and was holding up his hands as if he’d never seen them before.

  “What’s going on?” Adam asked conversationally, sitting down easily in a chair at the table. There were checker pieces scattered over on the board and a few on the floor beside the other chair.

  “I... I think... I think I did something, Dr. Carnesby,” Darryl stammered, sinking down in his chair again and opening his fist. A checker piece thunked onto the board, clattering about halfway across before coming to a stop. But it wasn’t quite the same anymore, the round edges no longer completely round. It was more oblong shaped now, a corner forming on one side. It actually looked like it was in the process of being changed from round to square. “I was thinking about dice when I was holding the pawn because I like playing dice games more than checkers. I was actually wishing we were playing with dice. Then the piece started changing.”

  “Did you see it happen?” Adam asked, turning to Elyse. She nodded silently, twisting her fingers together nervously. “Okay, that’s all right. I can understand it might have been scary for you but it’s not a bad thing. Eric, you’re rather silent over there. Is everything all right?”

  “Not really,” Eric said quietly, shaking his head. He turned around, eyes wide and skin pale. He held up his hands, which were shaking subtly, and displayed them. “When Darryl screamed, I was sitting with my hands on the armrests of my chair. I was startled and I grabbed the armrests. When I jumped, the whole chair came with me. I felt it slam back down so it lifted up at least a couple inches. I’m not that strong. What’s going on here?”