Rise of the Elgen (8 page)

I began to shake uncontrollably, and I wondered if I was having a heart attack. A moment later a man wearing a purple uniform walked in through the front door. He was followed by a guard nearly six inches taller than him. The guard in purple held an electronic tablet, which he studied as he approached Zeus.

“Frank,” he said to Zeus.

“I’m Zeus,” Zeus said.

“Yes,” the man said. “Dr. Hatch said you suffered from delusions of grandeur. You know he’s looking forward to your reunion. He has something very special in mind for you. He said a pool party was in order.”

Zeus turned pale.

I looked over to see Ostin on the ground with one of the guards standing above him. The guard’s boot was on Ostin’s neck, pushing his face into the carpet. There were four darts in Ostin’s back. “Captain, the darts don’t work on him,” the guard shouted.

“Idiot, he’s not electric,” the captain replied.

“What do I do with them?”

“Same as the ugly kid over there,” he said, pointing at Wade. “Take them to the van.”

The captain walked over to Ian, who had three darts in him. He was on his knees and holding his side. “So you’re Ian,” the captain said. “How’s the vision?”

“Perfect,” Ian said defiantly, turning toward the man’s voice.

“Really? Perfect?”

“Yeah, I can’t see your ugly face.”

He kicked Ian in the stomach. Ian fell to his side, gasping.

“Too bad you didn’t see that coming.” He shouted to the guards, “Get them all into the van. Move it!”

At least Jack and Abi got away
, I thought.

The captain looked over at Taylor and me, then walked up to Taylor, his stooge following closely behind him. “You must be Taylor,” he said, looking her in the eyes. “The reason we wear these uncomfortable helmets. Let’s remedy that.” He turned to his guard. “Belt.”

“Here, sir,” he said, handing the captain a long strap with blinking green LEDs.

He cinched the belt over Taylor’s head and chin. It looked like some kind of orthodontic headgear except with a lot of wires and lights. Taylor gasped. “It hurts.”

“Does it?” he asked. He shouted to the guards who were still in the room, “You can take your helmets off now.” Then he grabbed Taylor by the chin and forced her to look at him. “I heard Tara had a carbon copy.”

“I’m nothing like her,” Taylor said, wincing in pain.

“You’re just as beautiful as she is.” He ran his finger across her face.

“Don’t touch her, you creep,” I said.

The man turned to me, his eyes narrowing with contempt. “And you must be the famous Mr. Vey. Dr. Hatch was very specific about you.” He touched something on the tablet he was carrying, and the pain in my body increased. I screamed out, gasping for air. If you have dental fillings and have chewed aluminum foil, you have an idea what it felt like—except spread throughout my whole body.

“Stop it!” Taylor shouted. “Please.”

I rolled over onto my back, struggling for breath. The pain continued to pulse through my body—a wild, agonizing throb followed by a sharp, crisp sting. “Stop it!” I shouted.

“I don’t take orders from little boys.”

After another thirty seconds Taylor screamed, “Please stop it! Please. You’re killing him. I’ll do whatever you want.”

“Don’t be dramatic, sweetie. I’m not killing him. I’m just making him wish he were dead. Dr. Hatch gave us instructions to bring him back alive—like an animal to be put in a zoo. And yes, Miss Ridley, you
will
do whatever I want.”

He pushed something on the tablet and the pain eased. “There’s an app for everything these days, isn’t there?” He looked at me. “We underestimated you, Mr. Vey. But it won’t happen again. Trust me, there are worse things in this world than Cell 25.”

I
was carried by a guard out to the backyard, where the guards had parked their truck—a large van emblazoned with the name of a moving company. The darts were still in me, and the guards had special hooks with which they secured them. I don’t know what the darts were, but they seemed to suck the life out of me, twisting my thoughts with pain.

Everything seemed to be happening around me in quick, staccato flashes, like I was surfing TV channels with a remote.

I saw Ian being dragged off by three men. McKenna was crying. Ostin had a bloody nose and was calling a guard a dumb gorilla. Two guards were standing near the garage taking pictures of the Hummers. I heard their conversation, or at least some of it—one guard was asking the other where we’d gotten the cars.

My mind flashed, and I remembered that Ian had said both Hummers were in the garage—where were Jack and Abigail? Then I
noticed three pizza boxes on the ground.

Connected to the back of the truck was a motorized platform that the guards used to lift us into the cargo bay. The inside of the truck looked like a laboratory and was filled with long rows of blinking diodes and pale green monitors. On one side of the truck were horizontal cots, stacked above one another like shelves. Zeus and Ian were already strapped down on the bottom two cots.

On the opposite side of the truck was a white, rubber-coated bench with rubber shackles every three or four feet.

Jack and Abigail were both strapped to the bench, their arms fastened above their heads, with belts across their waists, thighs, and calves. Abigail was crying, and I could see that Jack was bleeding from his nose and forehead. He hadn’t gone without a fight.

On both sides, near the center of the truck, were narrow, lockerlike cabinets. Behind those was a console with digital readouts and rows of switches and more flashing lights. A guard was seated at the console, watching as we were brought in. Waiting for us.

One of the guards pulled a cot out like a drawer, and I was laid on it, then strapped down at my ankles, waist, chest, and arms. Last, a wire was fastened around my neck, holding me fast and making it difficult to breathe.

“C is connected,” a guard shouted to the man near the console.

Through my peripheral vision I saw the man push a lever and I immediately felt a tingling in my neck followed by stinging pain throughout my body. I felt nauseous, as if I might throw up, but fought the urge.

“C is active,” the man in back said. The guard pushed my cot toward the wall, into its slot. The empty cot above me was only six inches from my nose.

“What’s this?” a guard said, holding up my cell phone.

“I got it off him,” the other said. “It’s dead. Take it back to the lab.”

They stowed the phone in one of the cabinets. My mind was still racing, trying to figure everything out. Breathing was a challenge. Escape was impossible. Almost everything in the back of the truck
was coated in plastic or rubber, which I figured was so we couldn’t short things out.

Wade and Ostin were secured next to Abigail and Jack on the long bench across from me, their hands strapped over their heads. Taylor was brought in next and bound to the cot above me. I could hear her crying as they tied her down. The sound of her in pain hurt as much as the machine I was connected to.

“B is connected,” the guard said.

Taylor moaned.

“B is active,” the man in back said.

“What about them?” one of the guards said, walking up with McKenna and Grace. “They’re electric.”

“They’re harmless,” the voice said. “Put them on the bench.”

McKenna and Grace were strapped to the bench, their arms lifted above their heads like the others’.

When we were all secured, the overhead door was brought down, leaving the truck illuminated in an eerie, greenish glow. Two guards were still with us, one sitting on a short bench across from Ostin while the other walked to the front of the cargo hold and disappeared through a door to the cab. The engine started up and the truck shook, then lurched forward, swinging everyone on the bench to one side.

I felt drugged. It took effort to maintain consciousness.

“Taylor,” I groaned, the effort taking almost everything I had.

“Shut up!” the guard shouted, which, in my state, seemed to echo a dozen times between my ears.

Taylor never answered. I could hear Zeus breathing heavily below me. No one spoke. I felt like we were being driven to an execution, which was possible.

After a few minutes of silence, the guard stood up from his bench and walked over to the cots, squatting down next to Zeus.

“Hey, stinky. Remember me? It’s your buddy Wes? I used to be on the electric children detail. I bet you’re glad to see me again.”

Zeus said nothing.

“Well, I’m excited to see you. I’ve waited a long, long time for our
reunion—to catch up on old times. Maybe you remember when you and Bryan thought it would be really funny to shock me when I was in the shower?”

Zeus still didn’t speak.

“Yeah, I’m sure you remember. How could you forget something that hilarious? Unfortunately,
I
almost forgot about it because of the concussion I got from hitting my head on the tile. And then I got distracted by the surgery it took to fix the slipped disk in my back. Not that they really fixed it, I still have chronic back pain. But no big deal, right? Everyone had a good laugh.” His voice dripped with venom. “I guess we just don’t go well together, stinky. That happens, you know? Some things don’t go well together. Like, say, oil and water. They just don’t mix.” He turned around to the cabinets and brought something out. “Or should I say Zeus and water.”

I caught a glimpse of what he’d taken from the cabinet. It was a child’s plastic squirt gun.

“I brought this especially for our time together. Our special reunion. Oh, look at you. You look scared. What are you, a baby? It’s just a tiny, little squirt gun. What harm could that do?”

He pulled the trigger and a stream of water showered on Zeus. I heard the crisp sparking of electricity. “Aaaagh,” Zeus groaned.

“Oh, come on. It’s just water, stinky. It’s about time you bathed. You smell like an outhouse.” He sprayed again. There was a louder snap, and Zeus cried out this time. He was panting heavily and moaning in pain.

“Ah, the stench. How do you live with yourself? Or don’t pigs smell themselves. Maybe you like your own stink.”

He sprayed again. Zeus sobbed. “Please . . .”

“Please? You want more?”

“Hey, be cool,” Ian said.

“Shut your mouth, mole boy, or I’ll turn up your RESAT.” He leaned in toward Zeus. “Do you remember what you said to me after I got out of the hospital? You said, ‘C’mon, Wes, where’s your sense of humor?’” He began pulling the trigger over and over.

Zeus let out a bloodcurdling scream.

“C’mon, Zeus, where’s your sense of humor?”

Zeus’s screams rose higher still.

“Not so funny now, is it?” he shouted over Zeus’s screams.

“Stop it!” Abigail yelled.

The man looked back at her. “Stay out of this, sweet cheeks.”

“Please,” she said. “Please. I’ll take away your pain.”

“What?”

“I’ll take away your pain, if you’ll leave him alone.”

Wes stared at her, wondering if she was telling him the truth. “If this is a joke . . .”

“It’s what she does,” Ostin said. “She stimulates nerve endings. She can take away pain.”

“I’ll help you,” she said. “Please stop hurting him.”

Wes turned back to Zeus, then spit on him, which also elicited a sizzling spark. Then he walked back to the bench where Abigail was sitting.

“If this is a trick, I guarantee you’ll wish you were never born.”

“I can’t hurt you,” Abigail said. “I wouldn’t if I could.”

He studied her expression, then sat down next to her. “What do I do?”

“I need to touch you. If you unlock my hands . . .”

“That ain’t gonna happen, baby face.”

“Then put where it hurts next to me. Anywhere.”

“Your knee?”

She nodded.

He crouched on the floor next to her, his back pressed up against her. After a moment he sighed. “Wow. I’m going to have a talk with Hatch about keeping you around.”

Zeus was still whimpering below me, but Abigail had probably saved his life.

The truck continued on, but with few stops, which made me believe we were on the freeway. I turned my head as far as I could to look at the others. McKenna and Jack were shackled directly across from me. What was this thing I’d been hooked to? My body and my mind ached. My heart ached too, but that was my own doing.
What
did I get my friends into? How could I have been so stupid to believe some stranger on a cell phone?

Suddenly McKenna seemed to blur. It may have been sweat running down my forehead into my eyes, but something about her was different. Her skin color was changing. Was I hallucinating? Ostin looked at me, then he glanced over at McKenna. He got a strange expression on his face, and I wondered if he saw it too.

Ostin looked over at the guard, then suddenly began singing. “Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall. Ninety-nine bottles of beer. Take one down. Pass it around. Ninety-eight—”

“Shut up,” the guard said.

Ostin swallowed. “Just thought . . .”

“Shut up.”

Ostin clenched his jaw. He looked down for a moment as if thinking, then he said to the guard, “Those new gizmos you have rock. What do you call them?”