Animalis (30 page)

Chapter 27

A New Beginning

He woke in a confused state inside a cage. In his dream, he had been playing the ACTS Animalis ball game with Hodge. All the players kept remarking about what a big smile he had, and he realized he was smiling. The muscles in his cheeks pulled the corners of his mouth into the biggest smile he had ever held.

The concrete floor was ice cold, and there was no ragged blanket to hold this time. The exhaustion had subsided, all except the numbness in his left hand. It had stopped stinging and was now a constant buzz.

Jax heard the rhythmic stomping of the arena crowd accepting two new Animalis combatants onto the floor above him and was relieved that his mind had adjusted to the change.

They weren’t stomping for him this time. But they would be soon.

How long did he have before the arena was cleared and prepared for his turn in it? Jax began to sit up and had to catch himself from tossing himself back to the floor. He slowly stood, letting himself experience the slightly altered muscle and tendon structures throughout his body.

Once he was able to walk around his cell, he sat with his legs folded in a meditation position. There had been something he’d wanted to test when he had left the pyramid. He closed his eyes and focused on his breathing. In and out. He slowly increased the duration of the intake and exhale.

The crowd cheered loudly above him. What horrible thing were they praising at this moment? Jax found himself thinking. His mind had wandered. He tried to bring it back to his breath. Would it work? Could he get there again? In for fifteen seconds, hold. Exhale for fifteen, hold.

“I don’t know what kind of stunt that was you pulled last time, mal’chik, but people went wild over it. I can’t believe Nara found you again. And look at you, already have a new one grown.” The deep voice of the arena host broke Jax’s concentration again.

Jax refused to open his eyes to acknowledge the man. In for sixteen seconds, hold. Exhale for sixteen, hold.

“This time, I’m sorry, mal’chik, but I can’t offer you any help.” He seemed to think it was big news. “Not unless you want to split Nara’s kingdom with me if you win.”

Pretend he isn’t there
. In seventeen seconds, hold. Exhale seventeen seconds, hold. Jax felt a tingle.

“If you kill Nara, it’s all yours. Her planes, the printer shops.”

Jax tried to hold onto the tingle, spread it around with his awareness.

“But, then, I guess one of the others will come after you. Those Animalis, they’d go to the ends of the Earth for her,” he was saying. “Strangest thing. They’re not terrified of her, like they should be, of a predator like her. I guess that’s why I haven’t made any moves against her myself.”

The tingle faded. He lost it. Well, it was worth a shot anyways. Jax let his breath return to normal and opened his eyes.

“Aw, there you are,” the man said. “Good. Do I need to shock you? Or will you come peacefully this time?”

Jax didn’t fight. He let himself be led down to the cage that would spill him out into the arena. The man kept talking along the way, trying to inspire a good, money-earning fight from Jax, who just tried to ignore the words.

The crowd began to chant. It was a different chant than Jax had heard before: “Na-ra!” Boom, boom. “Sim-ha!” Boom, boom. It was ominous that they already knew what was coming. Inevitably coming, there was nothing Jax could do to stop it. The large man stood in the shadows when Jax’s cage started to push him forward.

Sunlight absorbed the darkness as the cage was pushed forward into it. The cage stopped. Narasimha watched him from across the arena. Her clothes were minimal and sporty, revealing the redundant ripples of muscles in her arms, neck, and legs. Her breathing was shallow. The focus of her stare revealed her animal origin. Jax could feel himself being transformed in her eyes, like he was already a chunk of meat waiting to be devoured. The walls of the cages swung open.

Jax took a deep breath. He was getting close to the end of the DNA’s projected probable future that he had seen—and that which terrified him more: the time limit before the changes he had made disappeared. He could feel the blood in his veins growing cold with fear, but he had to stay calm. He tried to see through Narasimha the way he had in the pyramid. She was a living house of DNA. They were connected, brother and sister in life.

Narasimha slowly walked out of the cage. Her feet took the delicate steps of a hunt about to begin.

“Stop your attacks on humans, Nara,” Jax called out to her. “We're not your enemy.
I'm not your enemy!”

She could have been in the dead of space. The sound of the words hadn’t reached her. She continued to inch forward.

Jax flexed his muscles, testing the changes to his body once more before the fight. He began to walk toward her.

In front of him was one of the most deadly predators to walk the Earth. He had seen her devour a man, and now he had to beat her. He couldn’t be afraid of her terrible jaws, or her razor-sharp hands.

She charged at him. The muscles in her body demonstrated their full potential, launching her across the arena at a terrifying speed.

Jax’s altered brain worked in overtime. An extra layer of neurons preprocessed the visual information coming in from his eyes and gave him the sense that everything was moving in slow motion. Her claws extended from the tips of her fingers as she dove toward him. He could see her exact trajectory before her legs left the ground.

He dodged to the left and felt his increased strength propel him safely away from her lunge. As her hands hit the ground, he turned and cracked his hand down on her back.

Her arms crumpled and her body bounced against the ground. A cloud of dust swirled around her.

Her growl was the first thing to re-emerge. With a fluid convulsion of muscle, she leaped from the dirt and landed on all fours. She closed her eyes and shook her head.

“How?” she said. Her eyes were filled with hate beyond the point of rage. Her skin wrinkled and pulled up in an expression that made Jax want to run for his life.

He extended his left arm at her, pointing his fingertips. But he stopped himself. He had to save that arm for a true emergency.

She stood and began another slow approach, more wary of his speed and strength.

The preprocessed visual information showed her muscles in her chest and arms beginning to bulge. Potential energy was building up in her shoulder.

Her hand sliced through the air, almost overcoming his brain’s ability to slow the action. Jax shrank backward and felt the tip of a claw pass in front of his nose. Then he turned to the side, stepped closer, and kicked her before her second hand was able to swipe at him.

The force of the kick knocked her off her feet, and she flew backward with her arms still slicing at him. She caught herself on her hands and feet again. She clutched her chest.

“What have you done?” she said. “You’re not human.”

She stepped away from him.

Jax stepped closer.

“Stun him!” she called to the lip of the arena.

Jax stopped his advance and looked up. Six guards stood ready to extend their long shock sticks down at him.

The nearest one jabbed, and Jax twirled to the side. Another guard moved in range and swung down.

The buzz of electricity vibrated past his head as he dodged. Jax dove away from the sticks to the center of the ring, where Narasimha waited for him.

He shifted his muscles in the air, changing from the dive roll that Narasimha was preparing to leap at, and into a stiff handstand.

As his hands hit the ground, Narasimha pounced on the bare earth where he should have been. Jax continued his sideways momentum, hopping into the air over her exposed back with his body extended above him.

Jax landed on top of her, pressing her face against the dirt floor. Her arms swung up to swipe at him, but he caught her wrists.

His body came down and he pressed his knee against her back while he twisted her arms and pressed her hands back toward her elbows, locking the arms straight. If he pressed too hard, the tendons in her forearms would snap.

She struggled under him, and he pressed her face against the ground harder.

“I’m not your enemy, Nara,” Jax taunted. “Humans are not your enemy.”

“Guards!” she bellowed.

“Call them back,” Jax said.

She growled in response.

Jax grimaced. He didn’t want to hurt her, but he had to have his left hand free. Still, he couldn’t hold both of her arms with only one hand.

With a quick jerk, Jax shoved her left wrist forward and heard a sickening pop. And her arm went limp. Her breaths came in furious hisses. If it hurt, she didn’t let it show.

“I’ll kill them, Nara. Call them off now,” he said.

His left arm pointed into the air. Inside his forearm, Jax pumped the new series of muscles hidden beneath his skin. The specialized cells contracted with the pressure and released their electric energy.

The air exploded above him as lightning shot out of the tips of his fingers and tore through the air. Fifteen hundred volts instantly expelled from the three condensed electric eel glands in his arm and then spidered into the air. The shockwave of sound thundered through the arena and shook the walls.

“Stop!” Narasimha called.

The guards were already backing away, shaking their heads. The crowd of Animalis watching the fight shrieked.

“You …” she panted. Her body shifted under his knee and he pressed down harder on her remaining arm.

“I …” she said. Her head twisted and her eyes searched the empty lip of the arena.

Her breathing grew intense.

“Kill me,” she said.

Jax let go of her arm and stepped away. He could see her muscles coiling and bulging. Every fibrous inch of her body called for his blood. He could have moved to avoid it, but he wouldn’t.

Fur, clothes, and claws erupted from the ground. Jax could feel the bottom of his stomach open into an empty void watching her come for him. His life filled his vision, just like it had in the pyramid. He could see everything all at once: lazy summer holidays from school, executing Hank’s myriad plans, seeing Hurley for the first time, killing the hyenas, living without his leg, and now watching Narasimha’s mouth open wide for him.

Jax smiled. Even with all the pain that the world could offer, and what it was about to offer to him, he smiled.

She slammed into him and they both crashed against the ground. Her face drew close, snarling and panting. He could see right into her yellow, fireball pupils now. There was more than rage inside her now. Her eyes widened as she looked into his.

“I’m sorry,” Jax said to her. “I’m sorry I killed the people you love, Nara.”

Narasimha stopped. She held her body perfectly still, watching him. Her eyes grew wider.

Jax continued to whisper. “I’m sorry I can’t do anything to bring them back.”

A deep growl started to fill the arena.

“What is this?” she bellowed. “Why am I seeing this again?”

It was working, when she looked into his eyes, it triggered the memories Jax had planted inside her DNA, and she could see it.

She roared in agony. “Why can I see this woman? The Animalis!” Her eyes were swelling with emotion. “They’re killing them!” Her roar was ear splitting.

“I gave you these memories,” Jax said, “so that you could experience what you would have inside the pyramid.”

She was seeing the wholesale murder of the Animalis that Hurley had been a part of.

“This is life, Nara. This is what happened. But don’t give up on us. If you can see her life, don’t give up on us.”

She released him and backed away, shaking her head and moaning. He had also given her the rest of Hurley’s life. Narasimha could see how Hurley had changed, became penitent, and filled with compassion.

Jax pushed himself up, watching her.

“Make it stop!” She charged at him. The muscles in her body demonstrated their full potential, ready to launch through him at a terrifying speed.

Jax kept still, his arms open. He let the fear of her brutal approach pass through him in a breath and felt peace take its place.

As her muscles began to flex, the tears overtook her rage and her charge diminished.

“This isn’t real.” She tried to say it with force, but it came out in doubt. “How could a human change like this?” She was walking to him now. Her voice was sinking into a whimper. “It doesn’t change what they’ve done to us.”

“No,” Jax said. He could feel hope building inside his chest. “But there’s a better way to make things right.” He was within arm’s reach of her now. “Help us find a better way, Nara.”

The powerful, bold, dominant lioness Jax had known wasn’t there anymore. A pitiful expression had replaced the ferociousness. Her shoulders rolled forward, and she turned her head down and away from him.

She took another step toward him. She was so close that the fur on the back of her neck bent under his breath. She was waiting for him.

Around them, the audience continued to watch in silence. The guards shifted uneasily. The sweet smell of ozone drifted down and Jax filled his lungs with it.