The Seven (16 page)

The ride to the town had been mercifully short. She had been forced into the back of a truck by a guard who attempted to take liberties with her body. She had never felt more helpless than she had at that moment. Luckily, the helicopter sprayed gasoline everywhere and the fire started. The guard had left her in the back to help the other soldiers, but she couldn't make an escape. She tried. The second she leapt out of the back of the truck, the officer, the sadist in the red beret, had been right behind her. He had dropped into a low stance and swept her legs out from underneath her with an whirling kick. She crashed hard on the ground and the toe of his combat boot quickly found familiar territory on her collarbone.

Two guards were assigned to escort her after that. Thankfully, two guards kept each other honest and she didn't have to feel the sinister sensation of a gross man's hands on her body. The vehicles in yard of the Home had somehow been drained of gasoline. Extra trucks had been dispatched to carry the soldiers back to the town from whence they had come.

Sarah had never been to the town. She knew it was there, of course. Indigo had snuck over to it a few times and she said that she hung out with a couple of the local kids. Indigo never really talked about the kids. Since John's revelations about what the town's purpose might be, Sarah wondered if there even were kids. Maybe Indigo had never found any. Maybe Indigo's excursions were exercises in futility and she had lied to them all in order to mask her failures. When the truck rolled into town, Sarah looked for the small-town normalcy that she and the others had watched on satellite television shows and read about in books. The town looked as normal as a town was supposed to look, Sarah thought. There were a few old, ramshackle houses, a gas station, a small greasy-spoon diner, and a few bars. The main street was populated with a variety of small cars and pick-up trucks.

Sarah found herself examining everything, looking for American flags or any sort of insignias or notations that would tip her off to what country was commanding the military or where the base was located. She saw nothing, not even a bumper sticker flag or a patch on a soldier's uniform. The cars were varied, everything from American to Swedish to Japanese to German makes. The pick-ups were Chevrolets and Fords. There were a few sports cars, both American heavy steel and foreign coupes. Everyone was speaking English that she could hear, but she also heard hints of foreign accents and she saw a few small clues told her maybe not everything was one hundred percent American.

The license plates, for example: That was the first thing she looked at when she saw the town. The plates were all plain white with black lettering, nothing fancy. They looked like government plates. There were no state affiliations and they were all four digits. Typical American plates are six or seven digits. The ones in town had four black block letters or numbers and had no state or country affiliation that she saw. Also, the cigarettes gave her a clue. In the Home one night, they all had been lying around the TV room watching the first
Die Hard
movie and Andy pointed out that John McClane knew that Hans Gruber was European and not American like he was pretending to be because of how he held his cigarette. Since then, Sarah had been very keyed in on how people held cigarettes in movies or on television shows. The soldiers who were smoking around her and on the streets were holding cigarettes in both an American and European manner. Nothing pinned anything down. American and imported beer cans were visible on the streets.

When the truck stopped, two guards dragged her out of the back. Sarah was in the middle of a set of seven buildings, all plain-colored with dark metal roofs. The buildings were surrounded by a high, tan-colored cement wall topped with razor-wire. The walls faded back to the side of a small, rocky bluff and butted against the stone wall. A chain-link fence atop the bluff extended back into a pine forest. The guards frog-marched her into a plain, tan-colored, two-story building. They lead her into the basement and tossed her into her present confines.

Now, sitting in the cell with nothing to do but think and digest, she replayed everything she saw and heard, desperately seeking some sort of clue. Some good her new-found powers were. She was trapped in a cell, no way to get out, and no idea what to do even if she did. Sarah felt disgusted with herself.

The hollow scuffle of a pair of stiff-soled shoes began to get louder. Someone was approaching the cell. It wasn't the usual guard soldier in combat boots. Boots were heavier, with better soles. These shoes sounded crisp and thin in comparison, some sort of leather dress shoes with hard soles. In moments, a pair of eyes glanced through the cell window and the lock turned, opening the door. An official-looking man stepped through. He wore a crisp dress uniform, again without discernable ties to any single country. He had a bushy mustache and hard eyes. He surveyed her and gave her a brief nod in greeting.

"Subject Two. Codename: Blink. I am General Tucker. You are not being held prisoner. Let me make that clear."

"Sure seems like I'm being held prisoner."

"You are not. You are being held in confinement for your safety and protection. I was brought to understand than you experienced a power manifestation last night when you and the other subjects attempted an escape."

"Last I saw, General, the others weren't attempting, they were actually escaping." Sarah was surprised by her snippiness. She didn't know where she was channeling this brash attitude. She wasn't like that. She was always the good girl, the diplomat, the peacemaker.

General Tucker coughed into his fist. "Yes. That remains to be seen. Dr. Cormair is still in intensive care. As the computer files from the Home have been erased, we must hold you in protective custody until the doctor awakens from surgery and tells us how to best handle the final data recovery in this experiment."

"The files were blanked?"

"Affirmative. Including the analog back-up and retrieval system that was stored...elsewhere. I know that one of your kind, Subject Four, Codename: Psiber, was constructed to be a binary telepath. It seems that the subject's programming was extremely successful. I imagine the subject forced itself into the system and performed a data wipe to confound us. We are not so stupid as to keep everything online where someone who possessed this one's abilities would be able to find it. There are off-line copies of the files we need at another location. It will only take a day or so to access them and have them brought here."

Tucker turned his back to Sarah and peered out the small window of the cell door. "It was brought to my attention that a member of one of the squads under my command was less than...honorable with you. I regret that most unfortunate and unprofessional action occurred. Please know that I have punished him most severely and you will not have to deal with behavior like that anymore."

"What about the guy who nearly broke my collarbone?"

"Captain Krantz? He was doing what a good soldier should do."

"You have a weird definition of 'good soldier' then."

"Yes, well," General Tucker's mustache wiggled in a funny manner that reminded Sarah of Charlie Chaplin. "We will do our best to make you comfortable here. A better mattress can be brought shortly as will a change of clothes. If you require food or beverages, merely ask. The guards will provide whatever you wish."

"But, I can't leave?"

"No."

"And I'm not in prison?"

"You are in protective custody."

"Do I get to ask questions?"

"Negative."

"Sounds like prison to me."

"We expect your fellow subjects to join us shortly. They will be, no doubt, mounting a futile rescue attempt."

"Better hope they don't. From what I saw, we handed your guys their butts back at the Home."

"Trust me, Subject Two: We are prepared to deal with all of the experiments. Each has its own weakness. We have ways to exploit that weakness. Do you really think we'd create a thinking weapon without a way to disarm that weapon? We will be ready for the other experiments." He left without saying another word.

John was tired of driving. He was tired of running. He was just plain tired, really. And hungry. His stomach felt like it was eating itself.

They had only driven the APC for an hour before stowing it and trading it for an ancient minivan from a seemingly abandoned junkyard on the outskirts of a ramshackle town. The engine of the minivan was barely serviceable and John was able to get it running only after cannibalizing a few parts and gasoline from the military APC. The Dodge Caravan was rusted and it smelled of a gag-inducing combination of gas fumes, mouse feces, and mildew, but with no rear seats it was easy to hide in and it had enough room for Posey to be laid on the floor comfortably. She was still unconscious, kept in a coma by Dr. Sebbins.

During the junkyard search, Indigo had found a book of road maps in an old AMC Pacer. Using the pilfered map, the group figured out where they were. Then, they drove toward Pennsylvania taking a bevy of side streets and gravel roads to keep anyone from following them. They were running behind schedule and Dr. Sebbins was beginning to voice fears that Posey would wake before they were able to get her into the hyper-womb of the lab.

"How much farther, Doc?" John asked. The Caravan was beginning to run rougher. The oil in the engine was old and dirty. The van had been sitting immobile for at least five years. It was only going to get them so far before it shuddered into death on the side of the road.

Sebbins checked the map and looked for a sign on the road. They were going down a small farm road that curled and rolled over the countryside in a graceful, playful arc. It was pretty, but it made driving annoying. There was no place to get a good head of steam and John was constantly braking on the corners and gassing the van to get out of them. It was wearing too much on an engine that was already a gamble.

"Only a few more minutes, I hope," Sebbins said. "We passed Barnsdale, right?"

"A few minutes ago," John said.

"Then I think we'll be there in about ten minutes. There is a road off to the left. Take that when you see it. It goes into a valley."

There was a hill in front of them and a well-weathered Amish wagon with a wizened old man holding the reins of a Clydesdale was taking up most of the right lane. John pulled around the wagon and the Caravan belched a cloud of black smoke and backfired; the horse began to shy, the old man suddenly waking out of his sleepy daze and trying to yank the horse back into submission.

The horse suddenly fell back into step as if nothing happened. John looked over to the passenger seat and saw Holly's eyes were glazed over with a foggy sheen. "Nice one," he said.

Holly came out of her trance and smiled. "You just scared him. That was all. I just helped take away his fear."

The road Sebbins told John to take wasn't even gravel, it was a path worn down to two wagon-wheel ruts by Amish buggies. It rolled down through a cornfield and disappeared into a tree-filled valley. John checked the road ahead and behind for a sign of anyone following them, then guided the Caravan into the valley. The van bounced and banged its way through the field road and into the thick forest at the base of the valley. A hundred yards into the trees in a sunny clearing was a small, log cabin that looked like something out of a Laura Ingalls Wilder book. It was covered with moss and lichens and looked abandoned.

"This is it," Sebbins said. John stopped the van, shifted it into "park," and listened as the engine sputtered angrily, coughed a half-dozen times, and then gave up the ghost. John turned the ignition again, just to see if it would start. It was completely dead.

Holly stepped out of the van and stretched. Her eyes were closed and John could tell that she was reaching out and making contact with various animals. He wondered what it must be like; just looking around he could see birds, a few squirrels, and a few anthills. If Holly could hear all of them, it must sound like a football stadium of voices in her head. Thinking about it made his brain itch.

"This is it?" Indigo didn't bother to hide her displeasure.

"Books and covers, Indigo, books and covers," said Sebbins. "The house is merely a façade. There is a laboratory beneath it, hidden well, even from overhead spy cameras using infrared. Dr. Cormair built this to be a secret, even from the people who were funding the Home."

"Why?" asked Holly. She walked over and helped Dr. Sebbins lift Posey's limp body from the floor of the van.

"Because Dr. Cormair was a man of vision," said Sebbins. "He wanted to be ready for anything, including a possible need to abandon the Home and go into hiding."

Kenny was groggy, but awake. With help from Indigo, he slipped out of the back of the van and stood on wobbly legs. "I think I'm going to be sick." Immediately he turned and vomited, splashing the dirty floor of the Caravan. "I'm sorry," he wheezed, wiping his mouth.

"No worries," said John. He slid the side door closed. "We're abandoning it anyhow." John lifted Posey in his arms. She hardly weighed anything. Her skin was still raw and chapped from the constant change. In the two hours they drove from the Home, she had begun to sprout a fine downy material across her back and her upper arms and all along the fine, bony appendages jutting from her back. Sebbins said the down would eventually become feathers. Posey's skin felt hard and spiny against John's flesh. He started walking to the cabin. "First thing's first: We get Posey into a hyper-womb. Then, let's find beds. And food."

"Food is a must," said Indigo.

John shot her a look. "I thought you didn't eat?"

Indigo shrugged. "Telekinesis makes me hungry."