Zane was not enjoying being in a million pieces.
He felt as if he could see, hear, smell, and feel with every particle that now floated around the room. His vision was a kaleidoscope and he saw a million Josephs and a million decks of cards. He smelled metal and rubber and sweaty two day-old clothes. He heard the faint sounds of terror from around the building and Joseph's heavy labored breathing. The particles closest to Joseph felt the heat of his breath or his smooth skin as they rubbed against his arm. These warm sensations were rivalled by the rough texture of the thousands of particles brushing up against the steel and the rivets and bolts in the wall. There was simply too much sensory input, and he found his consciousness drifting further and further away.
No, he told himself. If you die like this it'd be pretty pathetic. He struggled to shove all other senses to the back of his mind and draw his vision forward.
He saw the room from a million different angles. His kaleidoscope vision captured everything and missed nothing. He saw the roughed up edges of the playing cards and the grimace of the king as if mocking his predicament. He saw the syringe, made of himself, a lasting memento. He caught a glimpse of a drop of the pink serum still inside it. He moved his focus over and found Joseph's battered rubber ball, long forgotten, laying upon the cold steel floor. He saw a small chip gouged out of it with clear clarity.
And his eyes saw Joseph. Zane presumptuously sighed, although he couldn't be sure he actually did. With more than a million eyes, most had turned to Joseph. What a surprise. Zane's conscious mind perked up a little bit, and he anticipated he had found the solution to his bodily problem. His eyes saw singular strands of Joseph's dark brown hair, and a small mole on the nape of his neck. They found his fearful blue eyes and saw a small fleck in the iris of his left eye. Zane could see just what a beautiful sky blue they were, and his nonexistent face smiled. His vision focused further and further, finding a stray thread on the hem of his shirt and a small strip of skin on his stomach. They found a blister on his left foot and a throbbing vein in his neck.
Zane knew how to beat this disembodiment problem and return back to normal. When he honed his sight and reined in his other senses, his consciousness became sharper and his thoughts clearer. When he saw and thought of Joseph, his mind cleared almost entirely and let him gain a shred of hope. He needed something from his old body to ground him, to tie him to that old body. That thing was Joseph.
First, he pictured his old body. He saw himself through his mind's eye, his tall, slightly built stature. He envisioned his golden blond hair, always pushed to the right side. He saw his green eyes as he had through a mirror many times before. He saw their spring leaf color, as if they were staring straight back at him. He thought of his slightly jutted chin and his larger-than-normal ears. He could see his whole body, and the particles vibrated as if sensing, wanting to return to that form.
Then he pictured Joseph. He thought of him as his many ocular particles had seen him; his dark hair, his sky blue eyes, and yes, even the strip of bare skin, because who was he kidding?
He pictured Joseph's muscular build and his deteriorating tan. He thought of his boyish smile and tendency for rebellion. He recalled the conversations they had had; at The Hub, the first time he had ever heard Joseph's soft timbre, on the train, when Joseph had tried to warn him, and the many conversations they had had in this room. He thought of Joseph's charming laugh which made Zane smile.
His particles whizzed together.
They congregated in the center of the room, next to Joseph, who was spluttering some nonsense about headless horsemen. The particles whirled into a small cyclone, and he closed his metaphorical eyes to avoid extreme dizziness. He could feel a pair of feet come together, and through some miraculous happening, his toes wiggled without a brain ordering them to. He felt his knees reform and slowly his waist and hips built and he felt his torso come back into existence. Something was wrong, though. His hips felt wider than usual and when he regained his arms, he felt his stomach. Yes, his abdominal muscles were more defined. He did not work out enough to be that ripped. His shoulders formed slightly broader than normal and Joseph released a small squeak, perhaps of terror, apprehension, or indignation.
His face formed, and when he only had two eyes again, he noticed the source of his uncharacteristic body parts. He also saw why Joseph was frantically pointing at him.
There was no physically distinguishable Zane in this room. There were, however, two Josephs.
"Oh lord, what did I do?" mentally identifiable Zane said.
His particles had reformed, but into the wrong person. His body was now an exact replica of Joseph's, who was standing right next to him. He sighed and it sounded exactly like Joseph.
Despite his current predicament, he managed a smile. "Hi, I'm Joseph, and I like warm hugs!" he said in a mock voice of Olaf from Frozen, a beloved childhood movie.
Joseph grimaced as if in physical pain. "It hurts me greatly that I know that whole soundtrack. I don't need to be reminded." He turned away from Zane and stooped down to pick up his rubber ball, rewarding Zane with a sight his eyes loved but he forced himself to look away from. He astonished himself with the fact that he was watching Joseph so much. What were these feelings?
A blaring alarm sounded, seeming to resonate from all corners of the room at once. Zane covered his ears and his Joseph body shimmered as if disrupted by the sonic waves. Screams of mentally tormented teenagers echoed alongside the alarm, which made Zane threaten to heave, but he realized that would look very undignified in someone else's body. Instead pressed his hands harder against his ears and closed his eyes.
Their door was thrown open and soldiers in navy blue outfits with the atom symbol of the science industry embroidered upon their biceps poured into the room. They surrounded Zane and Joseph and trained dart guns on them. Zane also noted one of them had a fierce looking taser. They had thick visors protecting their faces and Kevlar breastplates over their uniforms. They stood readily, feet separated and knees bent, as they surveyed the scene in front of them.
They had obviously not seen everything on the security cameras. They looked back and forth between Joseph and Zane, now indistinguishable by sight. One of the soldiers appeared to be a higher ranking officer because he wore Kevlar armor down his arms and legs, not just on his chest. He, like his soldiers, looked back and forth, trying to decipher which Joseph was Zane. After several moments of frustrated back and forth gazing, he pulled his dart gun, levelling it at Joseph's chest.
"Whichever one of you is Zane Morrison," he said calmly. "I demand that you change back, or I will give the order and my men will shoot this one full of enough anesthetic to kill an elephant. I don't care if Wawrzynski wants you to stay alive, I will kill him." He gestured with his gun to Joseph, who was now shaking wildly, his mouth a grim line of fear. "My job is to keep you in check, so if I can't, some unfortunate things are going to happen." He said this with no emotion, as if he truly believed this was simply his job. Zane knew better than to try and talk him out of the intricate web of half-truths and lies the Governors had appeased him with.
Instead, Zane struggled to return back to his body. He pictured his old body once more, focusing on small but important aspects. He felt the particles swim off his body in waves, and reform to his old stature. He felt his shoulders thin and he felt slightly disappointed when his ripped abs faded into slightly less spectacular muscles. He felt his extra toe regrow which was a very odd sensation.
When the parts of him stopped swirling, he felt a searing pain in his gut, as if his body had forgotten to reform his intestines. He doubled over and collapsed to the ground. Joseph, afraid to move for fear of getting shot, looked down in sympathy. Zane grabbed at his gut, trying to disperse the pain. The only worse pain he'd felt was when he'd first been injected with the serum. His eyes watered and he let out a small whimper of pain.
The soldiers hauled him to his feet, apparently not knowing something called common courtesy. They shoved him out the open door. He had no choice but to comply. He was in too much pain to speak, and he was having trouble walking as it was. The soldiers surrounded him and Joseph, marching orderly down the hallway. They kept the dart guns and tasers fixed on them in case they made any sudden moves.
The lead soldier kept prodding Zane in the back with his dart gun. Zane would stumble every once in a while, giving him an excuse to prod harder. Zane's vision swam and he struggled to put one foot in front of the other. His body felt awkward, and his slightly minimized pinkie finger offput him.
They were ushered through a large reinforced metal door. Their good friend Wawrzynski was seated at a large mahogany desk with papers lodged askew in the most random places; rolled up in his pencil holder, taped to his laptop screen, and tied to the drawer handles. He had thick spectacles over his eyes and looked up from his work to regard them suspiciously when they entered. The lead soldier prodded Zane once more for good measure. "Morrison and Romanson, sir," he said without preamble.
"Yes, yes, thank you," Wawrzynski said, shooing the uniform-clad soldiers from his office.
Zane peered around and realized Wawrzynski's failed attempts to make his office seem more livable. A scenic sunset painting was thrown hastily and crookedly on the wall behind him. A plush navy blue rug adorned the floor. A beaded picture of a mountain range hung on the imposing door.
"Please, sit," he said, gesturing to a pair of chairs before his desk. He had obviously not been expecting them, for the chairs were lawn chairs, rickety old canvas rags tied to steel pipes. Zane forced a smile and sat down heavily. He heard a tear and braced himself to fall through the chair. He had underestimated the chair, however. It held him bravely, although it made weird crunching and rippling noises. Joseph faced a similar problem beside him.
Wawrzynski folded his hands in front of him. "I hear you two caused quite a stir just now," he said imploringly. "We haven't had subjects with such powerful abilities before you two. I can only imagine how difficult it must be to control them."
He sighed heavily and heaved a theatrical noise of exasperation. "Nonetheless, we have a few problems." Zane did not trust himself to speak and apparently neither did Joseph. They let Wawrzynski drone on. "I understand that you are excited about your newfound skills." Zane and Joseph shared a look that clearly stated they did not appreciate these so-called "skills". "However, I will have to ask you to stop utilizing them in this building. At this stage in the experiment, you are simply required to acquire your powers, not hone them. That comes later.
"You two are the first multiple subject experiment we have ever run, so, naturally, it comes with some difficulties. However, in case you haven't noticed, the cameras in your room record sound as well." He glared at them through his glasses. "You're being recklessly rebellious against this program. I have gifted you with unimaginable power, and your only thought is how you can abuse it, twist it to your will."
Zane felt it best to remain silent. Wawrzynski looked substantially angry. Instead, Zane did his best to look humble and understanding, more like an innocent teenager who rebelling was a foreign concept to. Because it really was.
Wawrzynski was not done. "You are becoming increasingly difficult to manage. My doctors are nervous to conduct tests on you, even more so since your skills have manifested." Zane sensed that when he said "manage", he actually meant "control".
"This is your job," Wawrzynski said, trying to prey on Zane and Joseph using government-passed laws and guilt. "This is what you were chosen to do. This is your lifelong commitment. If you are committed to abandoning this job and throwing away the philosophy that we base our entire lives off of, I will have no choice but to turn you in to the governors. They will do what they must to ensure this rebelliousness does not spread. Do I make myself clear?"
Zane stood up sharply, knocking the lawn chair to the floor. "Crystal," he said, and stalked out of the room, not waiting to be dismissed.