The Seven (9 page)

She couldn't stop screaming, though. She knew she was hurting people. She could see Holly, doubled over in pain. Every detail in Holly's face was crystal-clear and sharp. Every minute dollop of agony that was heaped on Holly registered in Posey's eyes. She knew she was hurting her, maybe killing her, and she couldn't stop. The scream seemed to have a life of its own, turning over and over in her throat and her chest, and destroying everyone she loved.

The pain kept intensifying and burning in her. She struggled to raise her arms, causing more pain; malicious waves of flames seemed to be licking at every inch of her flesh. She clapped her hands over her mouth and tried to muffle the sound. She could feel the pressure of the noise against her hands. Her scream had physical presence, it had body and weight. It was a beam of destruction.

In the muffled din, John somehow got to his feet. He was hurt, she knew, but John was tough. He never got tired, he never gave up. He staggered toward the med-kit on the wall by the hyper-womb tank. Posey watched him, wide-eyed with fear, the scream still blasting from her throat. She didn't know what had happened to her. She didn't even remember being brought to the lab. She remembered the spines, and the bones jutting out of her back. She kept one hand over her mouth and reached back with the other hand, feeling a large appendage. It hurt to touch, like prodding an open wound. She flinched when her fingers contacted the flesh, and the appendage moved. Posey discovered a new sensation in her brain---she could
move
that appendage. It was like suddenly discovering you had an arm you never bothered to use. Posey mentally checked her other shoulder and found another appendage that she could move independently.

John grabbed a jet-hypo of sedatives from the med-kit. When they had first begun testing, the doctor told all of them that he placed just such a sedative in there for just such a reason. When John had asked why, the doctor had only replied, "You'll know when it happens." John took two running strides and propelled himself to Posey's side. He slid to her on his knees, jabbing the hypodermic into her neck, and released the spray.

Posey felt the delicious burn of the sedatives traveling through her bloodstream. She started to get sleepy. The scream dwindled in her throat as the pain decreased. She began to drift into that terrible blackness beyond sleep. It was better than being awake.

Holly scrambled to her feet. Her sensitive ears were still throbbing, a loud, squelching, ringing noise echoed in her head; the sound had actually made her physically sick. She clutched her stomach and fought the urge to vomit. Kenny tossing his guts had been enough for her to witness for one night. Holly stumbled to Posey's side and cradled her friend's head in her lap.

"What did they do to her?"

"I don't know," said John. Andy had stopped screaming, toning his discomfort down to pained grunts. "Let's help Andy." He stumbled away from Posey and dropped to his knees next to Andy. "You okay?"

Sarah was at Andy's side in an instant. She grabbed his wrist and slipped her hand into his. "Andy, I'm here. You're not alone."

Andy's head turned to look at Sarah and John. Blood vessels had burst in his eyes and they were now a vibrant crimson, giving him a demonic appearance. His skin was still rippling and surging as his muscles roiled in intense transformation. His arms were bulking up ridiculously. He looked cartoonish, an exaggerated caricature of his former self.

In the distance, somewhere down the tunnel, a loud, low "boom" reverberated down the corridors, down the elevator shaft, and into the lab. Everyone froze. Holly looked over at John and Sarah. "They're coming."

"They blew the first door," said Indigo. "We need to get out of here."

"What about Posey and Andy?" said Holly. She had never known fear on this level before. She hadn't felt terribly sad about leaving her family. There was a sadness there, yes, but it hadn't been tragically sad. It was almost as if they had been kind strangers raising her while she waited for her real parents to return from a trip. Posey was her
sister
; Andy was her big brother. She cared for them on a deeper spiritual level.

"We'll carry them," said John. He grabbed Andy's hands and tried to lift him into a sitting position. A strange look crossed his face. He braced his feet and tugged again. Andy's torso didn't move. John sank low and grabbed Andy under his arms and pulled. Andy remained on the floor. "Oh geez," John breathed. "His weight increased."

"I can see that," said Sarah. "How much?"

"Ten times? Maybe twenty? It took everything I had to just lift his arms." John shot a furtive glance around at the others. Holly could see that he was scared, too.

"Indigo? Can you lift him?" asked Sarah. "Please?"

Indigo shook her head. "It was all I could do to pick up that pen and fling it. I don't know if I could manage anything better."

Holly felt frustration welling up in her. She felt like crying and screaming and hitting something all at once.

Another low "boom," louder than the last, sounded down the corridors.

"That's door two," said Indigo. "They'll be at the elevator shaft in a bit. Then, they'll be in here."

A back door. That was their only hope. Dr. Cormair was so fastidious that he had back-up plans for everything. He had always been one-step ahead of them when they were kids, figuring out plans for mischief before they could even think of it themselves. There had to be an escape hatch.

Holly gently set Posey's head down and crawled over to Cormair's body. "Doctor?" She eased him off the floor gently and cradled him. He coughed slightly and looked up at her. "Doctor, we need to get out the back door. The military is coming."

Cormair coughed again. Red flecks of blood colored his lips. He looked up at Holly with a confused look on his face.

"Doctor," Holly said again. "We need to leave this lab. We need to get out the back door so the military can't take us and make us into weapons."

Cormair's face lost the confused look, and for a second, the cold, hard face Holly knew so well returned. For a long, terrifying instant, Holly was scared that he might not help them. He reached a hand up, grimacing in pain, and pointed at a dusty, unused monitor in the back corner. It stood on a simple wheeled cart and appeared to be attached to an antique bank of black servers. A new wave of coughs overtook him and he curled into a ball.

"The back corner somewhere! There's a back door! There's something we can use!"

Kenny staggered to his feet; blood from his nose had run down his neck and stained a wide spot on the front of his shirt. "I'll get it." He staggered forward clutching his chest. He put his hands on the monitor and his body went rigid. He took his hands off. "There's a security protocol here. We can get out of here."

"So do it!" should Sarah. A third low explosion rattled the lab.

"They're coming down the elevator shaft," said Indigo. The pneumatic door to the lab was still open from when Cormair had entered. Indigo closed her eyes and concentrated.

Holly watched as nothing happened. "Indigo! Close it manually!"

Indigo's eyes popped open and she flushed red. "Oh yeah!" She jogged across the room and entered the passkey. The door slid shut. She glanced about the room. "That won't hold them for long!"

Kenny had already returned to his rigid state. His body trembled as he cracked the security protocols. A door, dusty with disuse and poor housekeeping, suddenly popped open with a loud metallic creak. Kenny collapsed.

Holly looked around the room. Andy was immovable. Posey was light enough for Sarah to carry, or Holly could handle it if she must. John could get Kenny.

"We have to leave Andy," said John. Holly had been thinking it, too, but she didn't want to be the one to bring it up.

"No!" Sarah was horrified. "I'm not going to leave him!"

"We don't have a choice, Sarah!" John shouted. "The military is going to be in here in an instant. We can't move Andy! He'll be okay. We need to get Posey and Kenny out of here!"

"No!"

Andy's mouth opened. His breath was coming in short, seething gasps. "Go! Get out...of here!"

"You have to come with us, Andy!" Sarah shouted. "All for one, one for all and crap like that. Please!"

Andy grabbed her with one oversized hand. "Don't...make me...throw...you!"

Indigo stepped in and yanked Sarah from Andy's grip. "Come on!"

Holly delicately lifted Posey into a fireman's carry. The difference in their sizes was painfully evident as Posey's dangling arms and legs almost touched the floor when Holly stood up. John ran over and grabbed Kenny. Indigo pushed Sarah through the door first, and the others, without Andy, followed. John kicked the door shut behind them and the newly re-programmed security protocol locked the door shut.

They were in a long, dark tunnel. Holly's sensitive ears could hear drips of water in the distance. She also heard...the soft shuffle of leathery wings. A bat!

"I can't see anything," said Indigo.

"Hush!" Holly said. "There's a bat in this tunnel! He can get us out." Holly reached out mentally, implanting images of friendship and assistance into the bat's mind. The bat replied in kind rather quickly. Holly caught images of what the bat was experiencing, walls and shapes being lit up by echolocation. In seconds, she began to receive images of the tunnel's surroundings. There were some boxes near the door, but the rest of the tunnel was vacant. It had a damp floor from being subterranean, but it wasn't muddy or flooded. The tunnel went straight for about two hundred and fifty yards, and then began to lead upward in a long, low, shallow incline. "This way," said Holly. She began to walk forward, Posey's feet bouncing off the ground occasionally as she walked. The others followed closely behind her, silent, listening to her footsteps.

As the tunnel began to incline, Holly could see a pinpoint of light in the distance. The bat projected images of freedom into her head: Cave mouths, open sky, a forest. It was a long way, but it was freedom.

"We're almost there," she said. "The bat says we're almost there."

"Thank him for me," said John. "And ask him not to fly into my hair."

Holly could feel the fresh air on her face. The air was becoming cleaner and pine-scented. The entrance of the tunnel was blocked off with tree boughs and leaves. To anyone walking through the woods, it looked like a lump of branches. Holly set Posey down and pushed through the tree branches. She popped up in the thick, pine forest, not far from where Andy and Sarah had emerged the previous day. From her vantage point she could see the yard of the Home lit-up like a Friday night football field from portable halogen lights and vehicle headlights.

"This isn't good," she said. Indigo, John, and Sarah quickly scrambled up to see what Holly was seeing.

The yard of the Home was full of soldiers. Military vehicles had set up a perimeter around the Home. A helicopter was in flight to the west with a searchlight swinging from its belly.

John cursed under his breath. "Get back into the tunnel!"

"What?"

"Get back in!" John shoved Holly and she nearly lost her balance. "This is bad! They've got a copter!"

"So? A helicopter can't see us in the dark!"

"Didn't you ever watch an episode of
COPS
? Those helicopters are probably equipped with those high-tech infrared cameras. Our body heat stands out in the forest like blips on a radar screen. If that helicopter passes us, they'll locate us for sure!"

They ducked back under the relative security of the tunnel. John pulled the tree boughs back over the entrance. He slumped against the wall next to Holly. "We screwed the pooch on this one."

"Don't say that," said Indigo. "We got Posey. We escaped the Home."

"We haven't escaped anything yet," said John. "In fact, we're going to be in trouble soon."

"How?" said Indigo.

"Food," said John. "I know you don't eat much, Indigo, and maybe that's a side-effect of your power or something, but the rest of us need to consume a lot of protein and carbs to be able to fuel up. No food means we're going to be weak as kittens in this tunnel."

"I can get us food," said Holly. "But it won't be pretty unless we can cook it."

"Trapped like rats," said Indigo. She flopped backward against the wall and slid to a sitting position. John followed suite, and Holly knelt beside Posey and held her head. Posey was still slick and slimy with the serum from the tank. Holly could feel goosebumps on her arms.

"We should have brought a blanket for Posey," said Holly. "She's still naked and I think she's cold." John tugged his sweatshirt off and handed it over.

"This is the warmest thing I packed," he said. "I don't really get cold. I think it's part of my gene programming."

Indigo rooted in her backpack and came up with an oversized hooded sweatshirt of her own. "I got this."

Sarah took off her plain denim jacket. "She can have this. It's not much. I might have a pair of trackpants, too." She rooted in her duffel until she came up with a pair of insulated black vinyl pants.

Holly took all of the proffered items and began to dress Posey. She tugged the pants on, and then draped her naked torso with the sweatshirts and jacket. She didn't pull them over her head for fear of causing so much pain that Posey would awaken again. After dressing Posey, Holly laid her down on her side and spooned up behind her, draping an arm over Posey and trying to hold her close enough to share heat.

"So now we wait?" asked Sarah.

"Until we figure out something else to do," said Indigo.

The tunnel became quiet and Holly began to feel sleepy. She yawned. John was looking at her.

"Go to sleep," he whispered. His whisper was as loud as a shout in Holly's ears. "I'll stay up. I want to watch the yard, anyway. Maybe I can figure out a way to get us out of here."

"Yeah, like sleep is even possible right now with a battalion of soldiers looking for us."