"What could prompt anyone to launch such an attack and risk millions of innocent lives?"
Joseph's question drifted around the room, but Zane sensed they all knew the answer. Only one thing could motivate Wawrzynski to such motions. "Power," Zane whispered. Silence followed. "Wawrzynski knows he won't live through an injection with his serum."
Marcus nodded. "He can't stand the thought of anyone being more powerful than he is," he said.
"Then why make us like this?" Once again, Joseph posed an existential question that could prove harmful if pondered too deeply.
"He needed a tool to win a war," Marcus told him, his voice low and dangerous. "A tool to help him take the power he desires. A tool to cast aside when he's finished with it."
His words quieted them, but naturally, Daisy broke the silence with her unnaturally bad timing. "I can't wait to see London!" she exclaimed.
"Who said we're going to London?" Anastasia asked her sister, cocking her head curiously.
"I did," Mallory said, and it was joined by a chorus of multiple voices affirming their choices as well. Zane nodded, his mood solemn.
"We have to go," he said. "If we don't, Wawrzynski gets exactly what he wants." He paused for a moment. "If we let him know he can win, he'll never stop. As soon as he's assured of his power, he'll be unstoppable."
Mallory grunted her assent. "We're the only ones with any hope of defeating him. We're the only things that stand between him and absolute power over the entire world. His nuclear developments paired with those of Japan will prove disastrous."
"Won't London have nuclear warheads?" Anastasia asked.
"Not to the magnitude of New Vancouver and Japan," Mallory told her. "They've never planned for a war, so their military development never progressed. The same goes for the rest of the world. Wawrzynski, knowing the bastard, has been planning this since he could think for himself."
"Do you think he might have a weapon worse than nuclear missiles?"
"He did," Zane said. "Us." He swept his hair out of the way. A rush of feelings battled for prominence in his mind, but he refused to give in to emotion. He needed his rational thinking. "But we're going to turn it against him."
Anastasia seemed confused. "Why don't we just let history do its thing?"
"And become history?" he seethed. "No thank you."
Anastasia dropped the issue.
They had to stop Wawrzynski. They had no choice. Zane had convinced himself of this fact. Anastasia just had to accept that. Wawrzynski had created them, created this destructive power inside each of them. But it would be his downfall. His experiments had turned against him, and Zane was determined to make him regret every horrible thing he'd done; to Marcus, the human guinea pig, to Mallory, the homeless girl who just wanted a family, to Daisy and Anastasia, who had been each other's whole world until he tore them apart, to Jonas, his own foster son, to Joseph, the naturally rebellious boy who was nervous around people. And to himself, to Zane Morrison.
But in a way, Zane was grateful for what Wawrzynski had done. If it weren't for him, he'd still be a mind-numbingly stupid citizen of New Vancouver, convinced he was living in the perfect world. If not for Wawrzynski, he would never have met the people he now surrounded himself with. Not out of selfishness or protection, but out of necessity. They were his world now, and he wasn't about to let them go.
"Do you think we'll see Big Ben?"
"Daisy, sometimes I doubt your mental capabilities," Mallory sighed.
Zane laughed.
Zane stepped into the cockpit just as Jonas snapped from his trancelike retrieval state. Literally snapped. His head jerked upward and his neck cracked, a sickening noise that echoed too many times. Zane shivered, goosebumps jumping up all over his skin.
The boy scrambled from his chair, dropping to the floor and scooting under a nearby control panel, the one now flashing to indicate the automatic pilot. Zane watched curiously as the tall boy's foot jerked over and over. "What are you doing?" he asked.
Jonas seemed to notice him for the first time. "I know how to turn the autopilot off," he responded, pulling open a hatch that spilled out wires. "I just have to do it fast enough so the information doesn't slip back into the chip." He bit at a wire covering with his teeth, revealing the copper below.
"Why is your foot going crazy?" Zane asked, watching the leg's jerking quicken.
"The microchip is really close to overheating," Jonas told him. "I probably pushed it a little too far, but I really don't want to go back to Father." He slipped a knife from his pocket and sliced a wire. Where he got such a weapon in New Vancouver, Zane would never know. But Jonas did.
"You think you can turn on the manual pilot?"
"There's only one way to find out,"
Jonas cut another wire before splicing the separate ends of each wire, creating two new wires from two old ones. Several sparks flew, but no dangerous shocks were delivered and no fires ignited. But the plane did dip perilously and Zane lost his footing. He heard the engine splutter, and silence filled the air. He fell forward. Or backward. He was quite disoriented. He and Jonas collapsed in a heap, the other boy's lanky legs entangled with his skinny arms and kept Zane locked in positions.
After several tries, they extracted themselves from the floor, the plane now on a downward dive. Zane found himself standing on the windshield and had an extreme moment of vertigo. Jonas was clinging to the pilot seat, trying desperately to click the seat belt together so he could focus his attention on the controls.
Zane watched below him as the jet dove through the clouds and the ocean became visible. He didn't have time to admire it because, in a few moments, he could be a splatter on its surface. "Jonas!" he yelled. Shrieks echoed from the bay, and he only hoped his friends had managed to secure themselves somehow.
"Trying!" Jonas yelled, finally clicking the seat belt and grasping the stick that would control the rudders at the back of the plane. He engaged the engines and jerked the rudder stick backward, the plane slowing its extreme descent and beginning to level out.
Zane yelled, knowing he could do nothing. Jonas gritted his teeth and yanked back on a lever, and then flipped a switch, and then tilted a wheel. Zane had no idea what they did, but they stopped him from becoming fish food, so he was grateful.
As the jet levelled, Zane fell to the floor, his feet leaving the windshield. He hit the metal on his stomach and it forced his breath from his chest. As he gasped for the missing air, Jonas laughed hysterically as his efforts began to pay off, the plane rising higher and higher after a terrifying moment of impending disaster.
"Please don't ever do that again," Zane gasped, pushing himself up onto his elbows.
"You don't enjoy my daredevil stunts?" Jonas asked innocently, wobbling the jet for good measure. Zane shook his head.
A babble of conversation told of the arrival of everyone else. Joseph looked mostly concerned while the others looked slightly pissed. Mallory looked downright murderous. She stalked up to Jonas and leaned forward, right in his face.
"Jonas, I swear to god, I will bury you six feet under after I beat the pulp out of you," she growled furiously.
Jonas didn't seem overly concerned. "I turned off the autopilot," he pointed out.
"That won't matter if you're dead," she said with stony silence.
Joseph pulled Jonas away from her by the back of his shirt. Marcus was struggling to keep from laughing, hand clapped over his mouth.
"Let's calm down," Joseph said. "And take stock of the situation." He looked at them all in turn, a point of calm in a violent storm. "The autopilot is off. We can head to London." Jonas raised an eyebrow at this. "We are the only forces in this universe with any hope of stopping Wawrzynski. We are going to London to try and do just that. I know it may be a bit tense on this jet, but we've got bigger problems to deal with."
"Like a dead pilot,"
"Simmer down,"
"Simmer down! He just about killed us! It may not have been on purpose, but this kid is so aggravating I just want to throttle him and chuck him to the sharks."
Joseph turned to Marcus, a pitiful look in his eyes. "Can you take her to cool off?"
Mallory protested vehemently as Marcus grabbed her by the shoulders and led her away. She shot insults at Jonas long after she was out of sight. Jonas, however, kept his eyes fixed on the sky as they lifted above the clouds once again. He clicked his tongue. "What an emotional rollercoaster this nuclear funride has been."
Zane chuckled. Joseph sighed. "Sorry about Mallory," he said softly. "She's just a little shaken up."
Daisy scoffed. "Shaken up?" she said sarcastically. "She's a snow globe on Christmas Eve. She really doesn't want to go back to New Vancouver."
"Do you?" Zane asked.
"Hell no,"
"Then we can't chastise her for this. She's just a little more motivated than us."
"Marcus is trying to stay calm for her," Daisy said. "If Marcus loses his cool, Mallory won't just contain her rage and motivation. She'll carry enough for the both of them, and that's too much for her."
"We should all try to keep our cool," he said. "For all our sake." Nods of assent echoed around the room as if from one mind or one thought. Zane didn't know if they all knew the extent of Mallory and Marcus's past trauma, and he couldn't say he did either. They had been through far too much in seventeen years. Zane thought he would have succumbed to the pain if he went through as much.
Zane wished he could comfort them, but he knew he could not. He could simply lay off their internal struggles to come again another day. But together, they seemed to be combating it efficiently. He appeared to calm her down, quell her violent tendencies. And she seemed to help him figure out who he was and regain his past self that Wawrzynski had stolen. They were more powerful together, both physically and mentally. Zane was glad Marcus finally had somebody to share his anguish with.
"So, London?" Jonas asked conversationally, letting the question hang in the air like a worm on a hook. He gestured to the open air like a cook mixing batter.
"Yes, London," Zane said, rolling his eyes, rubbing his ribs where they'd struck the metal floor of the jet. His breathing had steadied, his lungs heaving slower and slower.
Daisy's voice assumed a mocking tone. "The last city of old," she exclaimed, striking a pose. "Ancient and mystical, the perfect tourist attraction."
Zane rolled his eyes again. He felt like he'd been doing that a lot lately.
"What's in London?" Jonas asked, his tone taking an unexpected serious turn, one Zane hadn't heard many times in the less than a day he'd known him.
Zane stepped forward. "New Vancouver and Japan are directing their forces there. They plan on taking the city, perhaps destroying it if there's too much resistance."
"You don't think that could be another lie?"
"We have no choice," Zane responded. "It's the only lead we have."
"What about Germany?" Jonas inquired, his hands completely still on the controls, keeping the plane level and steady. "I got some information in my noggin here-" he tapped his head. "-that says Germany was a dangerous force in previous wars. Maybe they're trying to take them off the board early."
"Jonas, that was over a hundred years ago,"
The boy raised his hands in mock surrender. "I'm just pointing something out,"
"From a hundred years ago,"
"It could be a valid presumption,"
"For a hundred years ago,"
"Are you just going to keep saying that?"
"For a hundred years,"
Jonas sighed, then laughed. "Fine," he stipulated. "I just like messing with you. We'll go to London. I agree that it's our best lead. You found it in an official government correspondence, so there's a high chance it's the truth."
Joseph chuckled. "But still a chance it's false,"
"There's always a chance it's false," Zane said. "Wawrzynski runs his whole operation like a spider, weaving a web of lies."
"You just gave me the mental image of Wawrzynski as a spider, and I can never forgive you," Daisy said. Anastasia, next to her, shivered violently and stuck out her tongue. Her eyes narrowed, her black irises extremely unnerving.
"You're welcome,"
"I didn't say thank you,"
"You implied it,"
"Did not,"
Joseph spread his hands. "Can we stop the childish banter and have an educated conversation?" he asked, his blue eyes flashing.
This time Daisy stuck out her tongue. "Where's the fun in that?"
Joseph threw up his hands in surrender and descended the ladder. Anastasia followed him. If she was anything like her twin sister, she was going for Froot Loops
Daisy winked at Zane, and he knew what was coming. He braced himself for an awkward conversation that made him want to live under a rock.
Jonas beat her to the punch. "You gonna bang that dude yet?"
Zane cringed. He shifted from foot to foot, speechless. Daisy turned on the tall boy. "You know?"
"Please, honey, I know everything," Jonas said in a singsong voice. "I got a computer in my brain, bitch." He never looked back at them when he said any of this, his gaze fixed on the sky in front of him. Zane couldn't tell if this was out of necessity or fear of another threat of bodily harm from Mallory.
Daisy smirked. "Answer the question, Zane," she said conspiratorially. "Remember, I'm your wingman. I deserve to know everything."
"I demote you from your role,"
"I'm self-appointed. I work for myself."
"Fine," Jonas said to nobody in particular, as if Daisy and Zane had not spoken at all. "At least tell us what's going on."
Zane thought for a second, but couldn't come up with anything. "I don't know," he said honestly. "Love was always taboo. I don't know what I'm feeling, and I can't compare it to anything because I've never felt anything like it."
"Alright, Jonas," Daisy said, crossing her arms. "Let's dissect this." She turned to Zane. "What do you feel when you see him, when you talk to him?"
Zane cocked his head. "I guess I'm happy to see him, and it makes my day a little bit better when he talks to me. All my worries disappear. I don't want him to leave, and I want to never stop hearing his voice or seeing his eyes."
Daisy squealed. Jonas cooed. Zane rolled his eyes. He was doing that a lot lately.
Jonas spoke. "How would you feel if you woke up tomorrow and he wasn't here?"
"Sad," Zane said immediately. "I'd be disappointed he wasn't here, and I'd want him to come back. If it was within my capabilities to bring him back myself, I wouldn't hesitate to do it."
Another squeal. Another coo. Another rolled eye. At least the conversation wasn't as aggressive as it had started.
Daisy took over again. "How did you feel when you kissed him?"
Zane blushed, but he took the question seriously, thinking back to just hours before, in the snow outside the air hangar. He remembered the cold of the snow, but also the warmth of Joseph's lips against his. He remembered holding the taller boy in place, intending to never let him go. He remembered feeling hopeful, like the whole world was his for the taking. He looked Daisy dead in the eye. "Free," he said.
A moment of silence followed.
"Man, you gotta bang that dude,"