The Dark Side of Nowhere (16 page)

Brutally beautiful, savagely Godlike, the stunning and perfect end product of Creation—so why did I find
myself wondering if there could be such a thing as a monster with the face of a god?

I turned off the flashlight, and in the darkness, I plunged in the stinging hypodermic, pumping its thick pink liquid into the flesh of my half-human shoulder.

T
here was no excuse for what I had done, and no one I could tell. The shame of having taken the old serum was a burden I would live with alone—and it would weigh on me every moment of every day in the compound.

Grant had promised there would be no more secrets between us, yet now I was the one keeping a secret. It would have been easier to live with if I had a clue as to why I had done it. Used to be, when I did things on the edge, I knew exactly why I was doing them. Most of the time it was just to be a nuisance. But this was different. I hadn't done it to defy anyone. I hadn't done it for the excitement, and I definitely hadn't done it to be unique. It served no practical purpose other than to make my life miserable.

It took a few days for me to realize what effect the shot would have. It didn't reverse the process of change,
but it did stop it. It was like pouring water on a fire, and I found myself caught in limbo of being half this and half that.

I tried to tell myself that it was good and that it would turn out to be the best thing for me, because maybe now my troubled thoughts could catch up with the changes my body had undergone. Then the next week, Doc Fuller would give me the good stuff again, and I'd pick up where I left off, just a week behind the others.

That's what I told myself.

But when Doc Fuller gave me the good stuff, I snuck right off and gave myself the old stuff once more. Two weeks, I told myself. I would only be two weeks behind the rest. Then I would be ready. But as that second week neared its end, I realized that I wasn't any more ready than I'd been before. My parents had hoarded plenty of the old serum back at the house, in the event of a quick escape. But what did using it buy me? I was just treading water.

And all this time, I led the others, encouraging them, calming their fears, telling them all about our big, bright, beautiful tomorrow, while secretly I was keeping myself from being a part of it.

And then my parents left.

It wasn't just mine—the adults had been shipping out daily now, ready to fulfill their roles as obedient little
cogs in the clockwork of doom. Mine were the last to go, leaving behind Doc Fuller, Grant, and a meager handful of adults I didn't know.

I was alone in the barracks, trying to steel myself for another day of deceit among friends, when they came in to say good-bye. As had been the way of things lately, Dad kept his distance. Even Mom didn't get too close.

“I suppose when we see you again,” said Mom, “we won't even recognize you. You'll have to tell us which one you are.”

I could see she was holding back tears, and doing a good job of it. I'm glad, because I didn't need melodrama—and I know this is an awful thing to say, but I wanted them gone. I didn't want them to see me now, because if they looked too closely, they would see the shame and the lies in my face.

But they didn't look closely—in fact, they couldn't make eye contact with me at all. And in a way, that was worse.

“We're headed for Chicago,” Dad told me. I already knew that much. The adults had been stationed pretty much around the world. Some in major cities to worm their way into computers and the economic infrastructure, whatever that was. Others went to small towns. Wesley's parents, for instance, had left a few days earlier; their glorious mission was to travel through small towns and
round up people with psycho potential, who hated the government. This from a couple who used to free flies from flypaper.

Mom and Dad said their stilted good-byes to me. Then, just before they left, Dad turned and said something curious.

“Someday son,” he said in his best fatherly voice, “I hope you'll find a way to be proud of us . . . no matter what we do.”

I thought it strange, because it seemed like something I wanted to say to him. It didn't' make much sense to me until much, much later.

The day after they left, I counteracted my third set of shots, and soon after, my spinning world fell off its axis and went completely out of control.

“I
t's brilliant,” Ethan announced as he crunched on a piece of meat that was charred black—apparently the way he now liked it. “Tell them, Jason.”

He was talking about The Plan. We were sitting in the diner at twilight, and everyone wanted to know what the big plan was. It was part of the information that was supposed to funnel through me but hadn't been. I had sat in on enough meetings, but I couldn't bring myself to discuss it with the others.

Ethan sat on one side and Wesley on the other—the
Trilogy of Terror reunited. But Wesley wasn't looking sociable. In fact, he looked about as morose as I'd ever seen him, as he swatted away mosquitoes and pondered the Formica tabletop. He had been like this ever since his parents left. In fact, once our parents had started leaving, the invasion we all whispered about suddenly became very real. It hit Wesley hard.

“Yeah, Jason,” said Wesley. “Tell us about the plan. I want to know what our parents are up to. I want to know how it's going to happen.”

It was the end of a brutal day—four hours of glove-craft, followed by grueling endurance exercises that seemed designed for maximum pain. I was too exhausted to resist, so I sighed and spooned it out to them by rote. “Phase one,” I said. “Cultural inflammation. We turn whole social groups against one another. Keep them hating; keep them divided. We take the worst side of human nature and use it against them.”

One of the kids looked at me with wide blue eyes. “You mean we can
do
that?”

“It's kind of like acupuncture,” I told him. “If you tweak the right pressure point, you can make people feel anything. I guess we've figured out ways of making it work with whole groups of people, too.”

“Is that where our parents are going?” asked Wesley. “To tweak pressure points?”

I nodded but couldn't look him in the eye.

“It's great!” said Ethan. “They'll be so busy fighting each other, they'll never see us coming!” He rapped me in the arm. “Go on, tell them what's next.”

“Phase two,” I droned. “Foul the network. Hit every major computer system and corrupt so much information that the world economy begins to collapse.”

“Ooh!” said a bunch of them, as though they were watching fireworks.

“Phone systems won't work,” added Ethan excitedly. “Banks won't work. No one will be able to find out what's going on.”

“Phase three,” I said, pushing this last part out like a bad piece of meat. “Arrival. Keep them confused, keep them in the dark, and devastate them with a single blow so hard, they'll never recover.”

“When?” someone asked.

“No one knows for sure,” I told them. “We'll know when they get here.”

“That's why we have to be ready,” added Ethan.

And then I heard a voice across the diner.

“Will I have to kill anyone?” asked Ferrari. Everyone turned to look at him. “I don't want to kill anyone.” I'm sure many others were thinking about that, too. I know I was.

While I was figuring out how I would answer, Billy
Chambers answered for me, from across the room. “No sense worrying about things like that now,” he said.

I began to feel an adrenaline fury replacing the exhaustion in my bones. “Why shouldn't we worry?” I turned to Ferrari, who, like so many others, had already graduated to the true weapon. “Look at that glove you've been wearing on your arm and wake up,” I told him, and everyone else. “That thing doesn't have a stun setting—and if you think a weapon like that is for anything else but killing people, you're living in dream-land.”

Ferrari recoiled, as if I had slapped him hard across the face.

“Grant says,” Ethan firmly pointed out, “that we shouldn't think of them as real people, like us.”

“It won't be so hard,” suggested Roxanne. “If you can shoot them down on a video game, you're already halfway there.”

Ferrari considered this. He didn't seem entirely convinced, but he was working on it. “I'm pretty good at video games,” he offered.

I sat there, trying to process all of this. For the most part, these were my friends, but the things they were thinking. . . .

“It's like Jason says,” Ethan reminded them. “It's
our
world now, and nothing else matters.”

And I realized that whatever they were thinking, I had helped put in their heads.

I looked to Wesley, who was looking down at the table, still picking at the peeling Formica. Did he accept all of this? Had the doubt been washed out of his mind as well? Or was he just going along because he was told to? Like me. I wondered how far along we'd be willing to go.

“I think the plan stinks,” I announced.

No one was expecting to hear that from me. Any other discussion in the room suddenly ground to a screeching halt. Then someone spoke up.

“Easy for you to say,” said Billy Chambers, sneering. “You don't even have your real glove yet.”

Billy smiled coldly at me. His homely features had been the first to go, and with his newfound good looks came cruel arrogance.

Wesley jumped to my aid. “He doesn't have his real glove because he hasn't asked for it.”

Billy crossed his arms. “So why haven't you asked for it?”

“Because I don't need to impress Roxanne,” I told him.

Some of the other kids chuckled. I noticed that Billy was the only one in the room who actually had his glove on. It seemed that he always had it on. He moved his finger slightly, and it began to glow.

“While I'm in charge here, no one lights up inside,” I warned him. “Turn it off, and put it away.”

Billy glared at me but obeyed.

That's when Grant made his standard stealth appearance behind us, leaving me no way to know how much he had heard.

“Anyone up for a game of chess?”

“Jason doesn't like the plan,” declared Roxanne, erasing any doubt as to what kind of evening this was going to be.

“I didn't say that.”

“He said it stinks,” clarified Ferrari.

Grant raised an eyebrow but didn't miss a beat. “He's entitled to his opinion.” Then he sat down facing me, crossing his legs like a talk-show host. “If you think you have something more effective, why don't you share it with us. Or better yet, why don't you get a message to your parents—I'm sure they'll be thrilled to have your input.”

“I don't have anything better. I just don't think it has to be so cruel.”

Grant gaped at me and laughed heartily. “Cruel? Us? No, never! In fact, it's one of the kindest things we can do!”

Even Wesley sat up and dared to question Grant now. “You think it's kind?”

“You've all heard of the expression
natural selection
, haven't you?” said Grant. “
Survival of the fittest?
Even here on earth, they've discovered that particular law of nature. All these years the people here thought they were at the top of the ladder, but soon they'll discover us, quite a few rungs above them. It's easy to survive when you're the dominant species—but let's see how well they'll do under us!” Grant gestured with a raised palm, as if offering something of great value. “Now they'll have the golden opportunity to
adapt
. They'll have a chance to evolve and grow once more—this time into something that serves
our
needs.”

“And what happens if they can't adapt to living under us?” I asked.

“Then the kindest thing we can do is prevent their suffering.” Grant casually pressed his thumb against his forearm, crushing a mosquito attempting to dine on him.

“Extinction,” proclaimed Grant, “is one of the most perfect acts of justice the universe has to offer. Nothing becomes extinct that doesn't deserve it.”

I could see everyone watching him, hanging on his words, and absorbing them into their own beliefs.

“Does any of this make sense to you?” asked Grant.

Agreements and affirmations filled the room. Some half-hearted, but too many were filled with deep conviction. And not a single voice would contradict him.

None but mine.

“No!” The word was out of my mouth before I knew I would say it. “No, it doesn't make sense. It sounds really good. It almost sounds wise—but that doesn't make it
true
.”

Grant leaned back in his chair and grinned. “Well,” he said, “lucky for us you're such an expert on truth, Master Miller.”

There were a few chuckles, but most everyone was quiet, wondering where his would end.

“I'm not so good at truth,” I told him, “but I know all about lies.” I stared at him, refusing to break eye contact. It was a mistake—because he stared right back at me. Then the expression on his face changed. I could tell the moment he noticed that something was strange about me.

I stood up. “C'mon,” I told everyone, “let's get back to the barracks.”

And Grant said, “No. No, we'll all stay here for a while.”

No one moved, and I realized that in a single sentence, Grant had taken away every bit of my power over the Transitionals. If I stayed, I lost. If I left, I lost. And it dawned on me that my power was an illusion. I thought of Paula, and how in the end, I had dumped her—just as he wanted. I thought of that night in his garage, how he
had taken our anger against him and turned it around, announcing that there would be no more secrets—as if it had all been his idea. Just as a magician misdirects his audience, Grant had used me to steal everyone's focus, in a smooth sleight of hand.