The Seven (7 page)

Sebbins was a good assistant. No. Sebbins was a great assistant. But, if she tried to get his project stopped, he would have to fire her. She was too close to the subjects. That was jeopardizing the project.

If she tried to stop the project...

If she tried to stop his research...

If
anyone
tried to stop his research...

Cormair knew that he would have to stop her if she tried anything to jeopardize the project. He would kill if he must.

Kenny's palms were sweating. He knew he could do it, of course. He could open the doors. He could rewire the passkeys. He could make it so no door to this lab ever opened again. He
knew
he could do it...but he had never tried it with someone else watching. Now, as he stood in front of the door to the labs, it was all he could do not to feel their eyes boring into his back as he flexed his fingers in preparation to make contact with the security system.

"C'mon, Kenny!" Indigo hissed. "It's almost dawn. Cormair and Sebbins have to sleep some time. This is the best chance we've got to rescue her."

Kenny wasn't a hero. He was a computer nerd and he accepted that long ago. He was going to leave the Home and blend into the ether, using his computer skills to make a great living and have a real, human existence for the first time in his life. He'd even met a friend online, a girl, and they were going to get an apartment together in Seattle. Kenny didn't love her or anything; that would be stupid to fall in love with someone you'd never seen or spoken to, but she was a kindred spirit, someone who wanted to hang out with Kenny because she liked talking to him, not because they were forced into some horrible, B-movie science experiment together.

He touched the keypad of the door and the data flow hit his brain like a tornado. Rewiring a basic firewall security program through a computer wasn't overly difficult, slightly taxing at best. However, getting into an actual security protocol, a door on a vault or a computerized gate, was a different matter. The data streams weren't like they were in a computer, like wooden building blocks to be pried apart and restacked. The stream in a heavy-duty electronic lock was more like an old brick-and-mortar wall. Kenny had to break through the security streams and hack away the individual locks with his mind. He had to force, not finesse. It was physically draining. He wasn't actually moving, but the toll on his body was immense. He knew he was sweating. He could feel sweat trails sliding down his back, soaking his shirt, and making it cling to his skin. He could feel the tickle of sweat beads crawling down his forehead and clinging to his eyelashes. His chest began to hurt as his heartbeat increased. The wall was falling, but it was taking too much time. Kenny didn't know if he would be able to stand at the lock long enough to do it. His face flared red with the stress and his eyes rolled back into his head. It was all he could do to cling to consciousness...and suddenly the wall fell. Kenny collapsed in a heap, weak as a newborn, sweating, straining for breath, dizzy and sick.

Holly knelt down and felt his forehead. "He's burning up!"

"I'll be...okay," Kenny whispered. His throat was dry; his tongue felt swollen.

"Did you get through the door?" asked Indigo.

"Indigo! Be sensitive! Kenny's hurt," Sarah hissed. Indigo glared at Sarah.

"Be...okay," Kenny reiterated. His head felt as if it was being crushed by waves of pain. He had to grit his teeth and seethe in order to keep from passing out. His stomach churned and he became sick.

"Gross!" Sarah's face screwed up as if she were going to throw up, too.

"Does that always happen, Kenny?" asked John.

Kenny nodded. "It's the trade-off." The pain began to lessen. "I've never had it that bad, before. But, I've never tried anything that difficult before. I usually just stick to the computer...it's less---" he wretched again, "---physical. Leave me here for a while. I need to rest. I'm not...strong enough...to walk."

"We're not leaving you behind," said Holly. "I'll stay."

"Andy, can you carry him?" asked Sarah.

"Sure. No problem." His thick arms lifted Kenny off the ground as if the lanky hacker was an infant.

Kenny felt like a rag doll. He lay limply in Andy's arms. It made him feel even weaker.

"What's the new passkey, Kenny?" asked Indigo.

"One...one...one...one."

"Eleven eleven? That's it?"

"Didn't want it to be too difficult."

"Why not just one number then?" said Andy. "Seems to me that'd be even less difficult than four numbers. How about no numbers? That'd be easier, yet!"

Indigo punched the numbers and the pneumatic door hissed and slid open. The six made their way down a dimly lit corridor and opened a second door---same pass code. Kenny had recoded the entire security system.

The main lab was at the end of a system of corridors and down several stories. It was buried deeply beneath the Home. The elevator at the end of the hall was rigged with a security camera and another security code separate from the pneumatic doors.

"Security might see us in the camera," said Sarah.

"Anybody got a power to disrupt a camera?" asked Andy.

"I might...but, I don't know if I have the strength," said Kenny.

"Anybody got a better idea, then?" said Andy.

"Let me do it," said Kenny.

"We need you to get through the elevator code," said Indigo.

"Why don't you just telekinesis it off the wall or something?" said Holly.

Indigo stuck out her tongue at Holly. "If the camera just stops transmitting, they'll know."

John shrugged. "We've all been in the elevator before. We could just go down as a group, no big deal."

"You don't think they'll get suspicious---six potentially powerful teenagers just out for a morning elevator ride before dawn?"

John gave Indigo a shove, sending the small girl stumbling.

"Jerk!"

"Wait!" Holly hissed. "Do you hear that?"

They all froze. Holly walked over to a door along the corridor; one of the adjacent labs where secondary experiments were examined. Holly opened the door and froze.

Andy peered into the room over her shoulder. "Bugs!"

"They want to help," said Holly.

"You can hear them?" said Andy. "Creepy."

"I can," said Holly. "They want to help." Holly walked over to a floor-to-ceiling cage where dozens of bright green swallow-tailed moths were fluttering in desultory patterns.

"How?" asked Sarah.

"Watch," said Holly. Her eyes began to mist and haze to a foggy white. She opened the cage and the swarm of moths began to flit out of the cage, looping and crossing, bumping into lights and objects, but heading out of the room as a green-and-red cloud, nearly silent, with fuzzy red antennae guiding them as they flew. They landed on everything, tasting, sensing, and moving on once again.

"This is so gross," said Sarah.

"It is not," hissed Holly. "And watch your tongue. They're sensitive. They think they're pretty."

"Oh, they are," said Sarah. "Very pretty. But, they're still
bugs
!"

The moths meandered toward the elevator. The door was standing open. The moths entered and began to gather over the light in the ceiling and the lens of the camera. In moments, the entire elevator light was covered and the camera was blanked.

"If I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't have believed it," said John. "Holly, you have one truly wicked power."

Holly didn't say anything, but the look on her face was not pride.

"Let's do this, then," said Indigo. "Kenny? You ready to break into this elevator?"

Kenny swallowed again. His throat was parched. "Yeah. I think I got one more in me. Andy can you...move me over there?"

Without a word, Andy moved him into the elevator and held him in front of the keypad by the door. Kenny reached out his hand and placed his palm onto the buttons. Instantly, the electrical tingle and the data streams began to wheel through his mind. This combination wasn't nearly as difficult to reroute as the pneumatic blast doors, but given how drained he was, it was still a Herculean task. The cement blocks did fall, though, and Kenny reclined in Andy's arms, too weak to speak or keep his eyes open. The elevator doors closed, plunging the six teens into blackness. Kenny inhaled deeply and fell into unconsciousness as well.

Andy was always strong, even when he was a kid. He could remember wrestling with his older brother before being taken to the Home. He easily manhandled his brother, throwing him about the room with a strength that seemed unnatural for a six-year-old. When he really stopped to dwell on it, the fact that he couldn't remember his brother's name bothered him.

He held Kenny in his arms and barely noticed the boy's weight. Kenny would never be considered a big guy, but Andy wasn't even fatiguing. Could this be his supposed "power" finally manifesting? Sebbins once told him that he was meant to be the strongest of the seven. He didn't know whether she meant emotionally or mentally or physically, but he guessed it had something to do with physical strength since he was easily the worst student of the seven.

The group rode down in darkness and the elevator stopped at the bottom of the lift. The level the lab was on was home to Cormair's private living quarters, Sebbins' private office, and the massive structure of the lab itself, the size of half a basketball court, but cluttered with machines and scanners and implements and devices. It was dimly lit and full of fear and shadows. None of the seven liked it down there. That room only brought memories of pain.

Indigo lead the group from the elevator. "What are the moths going to do?"

"They're going to stay in the elevator until someone collects them. If we're fast, we'll be able to use them to get back upstairs."

"Let's remember what we're going to do here, okay?" said John. "Kenny's already got us the passkey to get into the lab. Cormair and Sebbins should be asleep. If anyone's awake, it'll be Nurse Hathcock. She won't be too tough to handle. She's small and fat. All we need to do is keep her from pressing the alarm button. Sarah, that's your job. You're the fastest of us all. You sprint in and block her from hitting the wall alarm. Then, we get one of the sedative hypos from the wall cabinet and put her under. She's a nice lady, but she can't follow us."

"Got it," said Sarah.

"Then, we locate Posey and get her out of the lab. We beat feet back up to the lobby of the Home and run like we're on fire. We make tracks for the nearest road, get away from here and regroup, then we take our next steps, whatever those might be. If there's trouble, we split up, try to stay alive and just get out of here; we'll meet up at that old abandoned barn down the road."

"What if she's sick or something?" said Indigo. "What if we can't move her?"

"Then, we deal with it when it happens. I think we should stay with her, a show of unity and all that."

Holly whistled lowly. "Cormair will be mad."

"Unity wouldn't work," said Andy. "Think about it: Kenny hacked through the system and Holly commanded a horde of moths. Cormair will review the tapes and know that their powers have started, too. They'll end up in here doing whatever it is they're doing to Posey. The rest of us will never see daylight again."

Indigo and Sarah exchanged looks. "What's our alternative?"

Andy bit his lip. "There is no alternative. We either break her out of there or we don't. If we go in, we go all the way. There's no backing out. If we can't break her out, we're going to be pinned to the wall by Cormair---loss of privileges, no movies, no books, no talking to each other. We will become lab rats, pure and simple. This is it: Gut-check time. We either back out like cowards or we get Posey and blow this place."

Indigo didn't hesitate. "Let's do it."

Andy looked at Sarah. "There's a bigger world with plenty of better caves."

Sarah gave him a half-smile. "If you go, I'll go."

"I'm in," said Holly. "I've been meaning to leave for years."

John scratched his head. His mop of dreadlocks bounced. "I'll go if you all go; no point in me staying here all alone."

"What about Kenny?" said Holly. "He's unconscious."

"Kenny would be the first one out the door," said Andy. "In ten years, he's never, ever even been
here
."

"Then we do this," said Indigo. She reached out her finger and keyed in the four digit passkey. Andy held his breath.

"Holy...wow."

John felt like someone punched him in the gut. There before him, in some sort of glass tank filled with an orange-amber fluid bubbling like a champagne glass, was Posey...only, she wasn't Posey anymore.

"What happened to her?" Indigo could hardly spit out the words.

Andy knelt down and laid Kenny's unconscious body on the floor. "I don't know, but it can't be good."

Holly looked even smaller than normal. She moved behind John and put a hand on his arm. "Is...is she alive?"

His tongue felt thick and he felt a little dizzy, but John whispered, "I...I don't know." The testing had never been this rigid. They had never submerged them in some sort of tank. What was worse was what had happened to Posey's body. She was grotesque, but strangely beautiful. There were large, fleshy mounds on her back, long and pointed; a framework of bone and skin jutted from them in lengthy arcs. A thin membrane of skin hung between the bones like mesh webbing.

"Wings," said Holly, barely above a whisper. "She's growing wings. Like an angel."

"They gave her wings," said Andy. "What were they trying to prove? She looks like she's dead." He punched the wall next to the doorway in the hall and cracked the plaster. John saw a vein standing out in Andy's face that he had never seen before, a thick, obtuse blue vein that ran into his neck.