The nine soldiers flooded around the corner. Evident was Wawrzynski's intent to corral them back into his experiment rather than kill them, because no rifles or pistols were raised. They were armed with tasers and tranquilizer guns instead. Shocks of lightning rippled across the tasers and their fingers rested on the non-lethal triggers.
Almost immediately, the soldier in front fired. As if in slow motion, Zane watched as the tranquilizer dart twisted and twisted, flying toward Marcus. Joseph took a hesitant step forward, but Marcus had it covered.
In a flourish of his hand, Marcus deflected the dart with one of his katanas. It struck off a side wall and fell to the floor, still loaded with tranquilizer. Zane couldn't tear his eyes from it, knowing it still carried enough power to knock a human being out. Such a small amount of liquid with such deadly consequences. Just like the serum Wawrzynski had injected them with. He shivered.
He was still confused with Marcus's extreme capabilities with the katanas. He wondered if it was perhaps a result of the previous testing Wawrzynski had done to him. Daisy had mentioned experiments that had targeted the Australian boy's mind, so perhaps this was what Wawrzynski had intended Marcus to do. He had wanted a weapon.
"Stand down, subjects!" a soldier yelled, his voice echoing, as if a thousand soldiers were screaming the same phrase over and over, and it jarred Zane's brain. He felt a compulsory need to obey the order, submit to authority. It was outweighed by the urge to have the visions he'd seen not moments before. Those promises overwhelmed the seventeen year-old urge.
When Marcus stepped out of his shoes, Zane crinkled his eyebrows.
It became evident when he saw Marcus's feet. They were an odd shape and slightly reptilian. Five long toes protruded from an oddly small foot. Short claws extended from the ends of the toes, and they looked surprisingly harmless. When a foot lifted up, Zane caught sight of small ridges along the sole of the foot and the bottoms of the toes, and they seemed to stick to the floor. Whenever he removed his foot from the floor, a strange tearing sound reverbed from the walls that sounded oddly like ripping a sticker from paper.
The resemblance to whatever strange animal he was impersonating ended at his ankles, where his body transformed back to pale, human skin.
Marcus raised his swords. Zane could not see his face, but he pictured the defiant and somewhat pitiful look on Marcus's face. The boy charged forward, the strange yellow-green feet suctioning to the floor, creating strange sounds. Every time a tranquilizer dart neared him it was sliced out of the air, rolling down to the bottom of the curved floor with the others.
The girls had retreated to a safe distance, and Zane was tempted to join them, but he couldn't leave Joseph. Marcus's words came back to him. You need him, and he definitely needs you. Zane stood his ground. Don't lose it.
A babble of yells and commands echoed from the assembled nine soldiers as Marcus leapt. Not forward, but up. His wicked feet left the metal with a slightly amusing squelching sound. He flipped and twisted, the tunnel barely tall enough for his body. Abruptly, he stopped. His body was upside down, still facing away from Zane, but he was completely turned over.
His reptilian feet had stuck to the ceiling, immobilizing further movement. "If you do not comply, we will use force!" yelled a female soldier who had stepped to the front of the pack.
Marcus's voice was deathly calm, dripping with sarcasm and anger and fear. "So will we," he said, his voice dangerously low. Zane had never seen him like this, so completely attuned to violence, drawn to it, even. The world seemed to have narrowed for him, filling his vision with red.
Zane watched in horror and marvel as Marcus charged, his swords scraping the ground, his feet racing across the roof. The soldier's eyes widened through the thin mesh covering over her face. She reached for her belt, and Zane noticed a lethal gun tucked away behind her hip.
She never had time to grab it.
Her body toppled to the ground.
"Marcus, no!" Zane yelled desperately, hoping to stop further bloodshed. Marcus only hesitated momentarily before charging at another soldier. Zane turned frantically to Joseph, whose steel face was an impassive mask. "Get him out of there!" he screamed, his hand disintegrating from terror and ingenuity.
Joseph ran into the fray, and for a second Zane was terrified he would join Marcus in the killing, but he drove through the crowd, aiming for the red-haired boy. Darts deflected off his skin and tasers seemed to supercharge him, giving him more speed. Zane directed his own attention toward his left arm, which had completely disappeared. The sleeve of his shirt hung listlessly.
Joseph's arm wrapped around Marcus's waist, detaching his inhuman feet from the ceiling. The cowboy hat, which had miraculously stayed on his head while he'd been on the roof, slipped from his head as he thrashed. He screamed obscenities at Joseph and flailed his swords. They bounced harmlessly off Joseph's steel skin.
Zane couldn't bear to see the body of the soldier Marcus had killed. It reminded him too harshly of the man he'd killed. They wore the same outfit, carried the same weapons, followed the same orders. It was as if he was reliving the very moment.
Joseph stopped several feet in front of Zane, cautious to bring the viciously thrashing Marcus any closer. He noticed the absence of Zane's arm and nodded almost imperceptibly. He winked once before laying Marcus on the ground, pinning his arms.
Zane stepped forward past them, placing himself between them and the soldiers. A tranquilizer dart flew past his ear, and he threw his arm forward. His free-floating cells followed, flowing in a steady stream past him, replicating, becoming more populous.
Zane closed his eyes and pictured Joseph's metallic skin, the tunnel in front of him, and the soldiers. He opened the faucet.
He felt the cells knit together and reform, obtaining a different chemical structure. How science allowed this, he did not know, but he did not question it. When he opened his eyes, the tunnel was barred by a thick layer of steel, the same lustre and texture as Joseph's skin. He exhaled the breath he'd been holding.
His left arm was now the only thing standing between the soldiers and them. His thoughts were foggy. He had pushed too far with this unpredictable power, exceeding the breaking point. His vision blurred and he stumbled while turning around without his arm to stabilize himself.
Joseph was seated on Marcus's stomach, holding the boy's arms out to either side. The katanas lay forgotten further up the tunnel. Daisy, Mallory, and Anastasia watched from a safe distance as Marcus struggled against Joseph's brute force and size.
Zane watched in slight revulsion and horror at what Marcus had done. He knew Marcus had killed before, but he couldn't keep the look on the cowboy's face out of his head. The complete disregard for human life, the emotionlessness. Zane wondered if this was just another side effect of the experiments Wawrzynski had run on Marcus. He had wanted a weapon. Zane could now see how devastating of a weapon Marcus could be. How all of them could be.
If Wawrzynski had run those same tests on Zane, would he have been killing those soldiers? Would he be the one with no qualms about taking life, destroying futures? He only recently saw the possibility of his own future. It was so bright and hopeful, he couldn't imagine depriving someone else of their own.
Joseph grabbed a nearby tranquilizer dart and sank it into Marcus's arm. The boy screamed heartlessly and tried once more in vain to disrupt Joseph's weight from his stomach. Within moments, his struggles had faded and his eyelids had declined down his face, his green eyes rolling back into his head.
Joseph then slung the cowboy over his shoulder, grabbed the wicked swords, and wordlessly proceeded toward the girls. Zane, after stooping to retrieve the cowboy hat, followed.
Joseph laid Marcus on the floor between Daisy and Mallory. Marcus was fully unconscious, his limbs limp. "No more secrets," Joseph said forcefully. "I need to know what Wawrzynski did to him and why he went bloodthirsty back there." Gazes flashed between the two girls, discreet glances that seemed to convey an entire conversation.
Zane pursed his lips.
Mallory gave up and collapsed next to Marcus, softly running her fingers through the boy's hair. She gazed fondly at the line of his mouth, which was now pleasant, contradicting his earlier urges. "He was Wawrzynski's first experiment," she murmured. "Ever." Her hair hung over her forehead, obscuring the look in her eyes.
She continued. "Wawrzynski didn't have the serum yet. He used microchips, implanting one after the other into Marcus's brain, hoping to achieve the same results the serum now gives. He didn't care about damaging the brains of his subjects, he just wanted to see proof of his experiments. He managed to implant various microchips that gave him certain skills Wawrzynski desired in his soldiers.
"Early on, Wawrzynski tested a microchip to alter his personality, make him more suggestible, more obedient. It was only a prototype. It partly did its job, but removed Marcus's whole personality as a side effect. He had no idea who he was, where he came from, what he liked. No offense, but he was practically a New Vancouver citizen."
Zane raised his hands. "None taken,"
"He continued to run tests on Marcus, but got no further. He only resulted in causing severe mood swings and periods of, and I quote, 'homicidal rage'. Marcus, desperate to regain his life, remembered only one thing from that life, so he exploited it, blew it out of proportion in hopes of getting his memories back."
"And what may that one thing be?" Joseph asked curiously with a hint of anger.
"His farm," Mallory answered. "He began to wear these cowboy hats and buttoned shirts and jeans. It's been working, he's been getting memories back, but he occasionally has blank periods where he reverts back to Wawrzynski's test vegetable for several moments, or has the sudden urge to cause violence."
Zane grimaced. "Are the microchips still in his head?"
Mallory shook her head, and Zane breathed a sigh of relief. "No. They were used to implant brainwaves, not permanently become a part of his brain."
"Okay," Joseph said. "That explains Marcus, but how did Wawrzynski give us these curses?" he spat, looking disgustedly at his own hands.
Mallory heaved a deep breath before once again continuing. "After many failed attempts to produce results, the governors ordered Wawrzynski to cease his efforts with the microchips and focus on the CRISPR technology. He never bothered to try and revert the impacts of his previous tests. He simply began running the new tests on Marcus." She stopped for a second to gaze back at Daisy, who urged her on. "The way he uses CRISPR is diabolical.
"CRISPR allowed him to alter the genes of living things, rearrange the DNA sequence, and create mutations. As you may remember from high school biology courses, DNA contains four nitrogen bases that always pair up. CRISPR gave Wawrzynski the power to swap them around, but he did far worse. He removed the natural nitrogen bases and replaced them with foreign compounds and substances."
"So you're telling me-" Joseph began.
"Yes," Daisy said abruptly. "Wawrzynski integrated proteins and cells from all sorts of animals and injected it into Marcus."
Mallory fixed Daisy with a stern gaze. "The problem was, most subjects' bodies couldn't handle the foreign substances and their immune systems failed. The contaminant killed them. Us six, we're his only successful experiments."
Zane's jaw dropped. "No wonder he wants us back so desperately,"
"Exactly," Daisy said.
Zane stared at his own hands. "So if Wawrzynski replaced some of Marcus's DNA with animal cells, what did he replace mine with?"
"You want my guess?" Mallory asked. Zane nodded. "Acid. Something corrosive that lets your cells fully detach from your body." She pointed to Joseph. "I'm thinking he injected you with chameleon DNA or some kind of chemical indicator and your body blew it out of proportion."
"What about you and Daisy?" Joseph asked hesitantly.
Daisy stepped forward. "He replaced my DNA with jet fuel, hence why I can fly. Mallory was pumped full of rubber, and Anastasia with magma, although that was probably self-explanatory."
This new information only sparked one major question within Zane, and it demanded to be asked. "Why? Why do this to us?"
"We told you before, biological weapons," Daisy said. "He's preparing for a war."
Zane wasn't so sure. "If a war threat was imminent, why didn't the governors relay the information to the citizens? If an entire nation goes silent, everybody deserves to know why."
Mallory stared at her hands, which continued to run through Marcus's hair. An intense feeling of hopelessness radiated from her, engulfed her. "To keep order. The governors knew that if this information got out, it would spark riots and protests and rebellious movements," she said, her voice growing stronger. "New Vancouver is the first walled city, and its citizens have become nothing more than slaves. They want to keep it that way, keep people complacent."
Joseph's gaze snapped away from Marcus and landed on Mallory. "The first walled city?"
When Mallory didn't answer, Daisy once again stepped forward. "Yes," she said, confirming Mallory's statement. "Your city was part of a trial run for a world-preservation program. For hundreds of years, humans have been polluting the planet, killing it. We made small efforts but they did next to nothing." Zane winced. He imagined the world he'd seen in the brief visions, the beautiful trees and bright blue oceans, wilting and losing their vibrance. He pictured them disintegrating like his skin, fading from existence. "New Vancouver agreed to become the test city.
"It was supposed to remove humans from the world around the city, let the earth catch up. It also forced the citizens to be self-sufficient, sustainable, and reduce their impact on the planet." Daisy didn't look up when she said, "It worked. Pollutants ceased to be expelled from New Vancouver and the city uses nothing but renewable energy. They've got solar panels all over the roof of this place and a huge wind farm next to the ocean. But it appeared that slicing themselves off from the rest of the world had its impacts on people."
She stopped, and Zane was grateful for the pause. He needed time to process this knowledge. Daisy had told him of Marcus's personality bends, but everything else that was spoken was news to him. He couldn't bear to think of the imposing steel walls as a good thing, a way to save everything. The entirety of New Vancouver was now a foreign concept to Zane. It was practically just an experiment like him.
He looked to Joseph and saw that the other boy had the same look of utter despair across his face. His anger had lessened, replaced by the astonishment of this new information.
Daisy went on. "Wawrzynski must have seen the conclusion and the silence of Japan as an opportunity. He must have gotten permission from the governors to run these tests. I have no doubt he convinced them he could create a weapon capable of ripping a nation apart. And I believe he succeeded." She looked over all of them in turn, including herself and Anastasia. "We are that weapon."
"Not anymore," Zane said, hoping to spark a fraction of optimism into the desolate conversation. "We escaped his facility. We can escape New Vancouver."
Joseph sighed. "Is it even possible to do so, knowing you've all but ensured the death of millions of people?"
"It's a war, Joseph. People are bound to die."
"Multitudes more if we don't cooperate,"
"We could stop it," Zane whispered softly.
"And how exactly would we do that, Zane?" Joseph demanded harshly.
Zane flinched away, but his mind was whirring. There was a way to do both. Escape Wawrzynski and have a chance at stopping this war. It seemed like a crazy idea, but didn't everything now that his life was upside-down? It would be a difficult task for any normal person, but Zane and his friends were no longer normal human beings.
He looked around the small tunnel and was met by hopeful gazes, some dotted with anger or fear or apprehension. He grimaced, knowing he could very well be arranging their deaths, but the urge to do the right thing was stronger than he could ever recall. It beckoned him forward, forcing the words from his mouth.
"We go to Japan,"