Subject Seven

Chapter Thirty-four
Joe Bronx

When they sat down, Joe ordered coffee for everyone. Caffeine helped them stay alert, stay changed for longer. If they were like him, they wanted the fix, wanted to be free for as long as possible. The group looked ravenous. Fortunately he’d chosen a restaurant that was known for its generous portions. Changing required a lot of calories. As near as he could figure it out, the physical transformation that their bodies went through when they shifted from one form to the other burned about the same calories as a five-mile run. Bones had to grow and change, and muscles had to change with them. It wasn’t just a matter of getting a dye job for the hair. The entire body was altered. Cody to Not-Cody meant putting on a lot of weight, enough to make the difference very noticeable. Cody could eat a dozen pizzas a day for months and not put on the weight that came with becoming Not-Cody. The science of changing was unknown to him, but he knew that every time he took back his life from Hunter, he was so hungry that eating a cow seemed like a nice notion for a snack.

The Others were just as hungry. The four newborns tried everything they could think of and ordered more afterward.

They didn’t spare much time for talking until the feast. But as they settled down to look at the menus, Not-Cody got a petulant look on his face.

“What’s wrong?” Joe asked. “Nothing you like on the menu?”

“I don’t know what I can eat.”

“Why not?”

“Cody’s allergic to shellfish and peanuts.”

Bleed over again. Not-Cody shouldn’t have known anything about Cody. This amount of bleed over would have been enough to guarantee Cody’s death if he’d been one of the subjects that Janus had decided to keep for observation. Joe smiled. “Cody’s not allergic to a damned thing. He just thinks he is.”

“He breaks out.” Not-Cody spoke with the conviction of a religious fanatic.

Joe’s fist slammed into the tabletop hard enough to rattle every plate and glass. People at other tables looked toward him with worry and irritation. He ignored them. They were insignificant. “You’re. Not. Cody.” The four others wore dark expressions, and he had to remind himself how hard he’d worked for self-control. It was easier, so much easier, to take offense, to cut loose and devastate whatever crossed your path. But it was best not to antagonize them. He thought he could shut them down, revert them back to their Jekyll forms, but could he do it fast enough? He didn’t know and didn’t want to test the theory.

When he spoke again, it was with his mind.

You’re not Cody. You don’t have his mind or his weaknesses. Any allergies he has, they belong to him.

Not-Cody didn’t have the ability to speak mentally, so he spoke out loud instead. “How do you know that? If I eat a shrimp, how do you know it won’t kill me?”

His real voice again, now that he had calmed down enough not to want to yell. “You’re new to the world. I get that. All of you are new.” He made sure to look each of them in the eyes. It wouldn’t do to offer insult by ignoring any of them. “I’ve been around for five years.”

“Five years?” Not-Gene sounded doubtful.

“Five years. What can I say? Hunter was an early bloomer.” A necessary lie. He’d been around a lot longer than that, but trying to explain it would take too long. “I’ve had five years to work out details, to learn things. One of the first things I did was to get DNA samples taken of me and my counterpart. What I can tell you without fail is that, as far as that test was concerned, there was no genetic correlation between me and Hunter. Not even close enough to be distant cousins.”

Not-Kyrie shook her head. “Not possible. I saw you change.”

“You saw Hunter become me. We’re not the same. I’m almost a hundred pounds heavier than he is. I’ve developed more body mass, more muscle density. I can see better than he can. I can hear better than he can.” He started lifting one finger for every point he made. “I heal faster, I move faster, I fight better, cook better, read more and even dress better than that loser. He’s probably a virgin and I might as well be a slut. We’re not the same person. We just got stuck occupying the same space. Get it?”

“So how do we change? Do you make it happen?” Not-Gene looked at him with that petulant scowl of his firmly in place.

Joe shrugged. “I can. But that’s not the only way. Sometimes it happens because you’re stressed. That happens to me a lot. If Hunter thinks he’s in danger, sometimes I wake up to handle it. I think it’s almost instinctive.”

Not-Cody stared hard at him, his eyes narrowed as he studied Joe. It bothered Joe that something about Not-Cody made it almost impossible to read what he was thinking. But in the end, Not-Cody accepted the truth of Joe’s words. He ordered shrimp scampi and two additional entrees. The others order several entrees each, and the entire table shared every appetizer on the menu.

When they were done eating, the limo that had dropped them off earlier took them to the next destination, an old warehouse that had been converted into an illegal party hall.

The music was a mix of heavy drums and screeching guitars, a primal mess that was supposed to add to the excitement of attending an underground party. The volume was loud enough that every beat of the bass pulsed through Joe’s chest. He liked it. The feeling was exhilarating.

Around him the excitement increased. The Others looked at the people, the seething mass of the crowd, and he felt their gratitude. Not just for the clothes, though that was part of it. Mostly, they were grateful because this was something that was new. It had nothing to do with the other teenagers who normally controlled their bodies. This was just for them.

He bought all of them one round and warned them to nurse it. Not because he was cheap but because they weren’t used to booze, and killing half of the people in this place would not help them stay hidden.

The music was too loud to let him even consider talking to each of them, so he cast the thoughts out for all of them to catch. Go. Mingle. Have fun. You need me, you call out and I’ll be there. They needed to stretch their legs and get to know the better side of their world. Mostly they’d been shown the violence, the bloodshed, and this was something new, something special. This was what they could have if they worked together.

He found a spot not far from the DJ and watched as his new friends went on the prowl. Not-Kyrie looked at each person with sharp, alert eyes, never staying focused on any one for long, but instead seemingly sampling each one with her eyes. After five minutes of moving through the crowds, she found a boy who struck her fancy and moved with him to the dance floor. The girl who was with him protested, but she ignored the noise and half dragged her new toy away. He wasn’t exactly complaining.

Not-Gene looked around for several minutes and then decided to try his luck with dancing. He moved awkwardly for a few moments and then let himself relax, blending into the crowd in ways his Gene had never managed in his life. Joe looked on, interested by how they were all becoming different individuals from their other halves. Not-Gene started dancing with a girl who looked to be in high school, moving with her in a slow, sensuous dance that perfectly fit the rhythm of the music. He kissed the girl and she returned the favor. Had Gene ever even kissed a girl? Joe thought it was unlikely.

The Others didn’t even know what they were hunting for, but there was no doubt that they intended to find it. The people in the place knew it too. Maybe it was instinctive, maybe it was in the way the Others moved, an unconscious predatory gait, or even in the way they looked at the people around them. Whatever the case, the strangers in the place deferred to the Others as surely as hyenas make way for lions.

Predators always stand out from the scavengers.

Not-Tina moved from one guy to the next on the dance floor, her body in constant motion. Somewhere out in the mass of people, he could sense Not-Kyrie kissing the boy she’d chosen. Not-Tina was different. She wanted the attention of all the guys on the dance floor.

He watched her kiss several different partners as she moved along the dance floor and she watched each of the men she’d kissed look after her as she vanished into the crowd, wanting more of what she’d offered.

Not-Cody was just as bad as Not-Tina. He moved through the crowd, dancing, touching, and moving from girl to girl. Cody would have never had the nerve to speak to a girl, but Not-Cody made up for that by diving into excess. Girls of all shapes and sizes caught his attention and became the center of his world until he grew bored and started dancing with the next one.

Joe watched it all, felt it all vicariously through his new family. His family. The idea was intoxicating. He had never had others like him in his life, not really. There had been other subjects when he was young, but they’d all been as isolated as he was, only meeting on rare occasions when they were in the same test areas. And as much as he hated to admit it, he’d missed having the others around. For the first time in a very long time, he felt almost complete.

All he had to do was get rid of Hunter once and for all and he’d be ready to take on the world.

He closed his eyes and felt the others as they moved and experienced life with new eyes. Not-Cody sat on the edge of the stage not fifteen feet away from Joe, a pretty redhead in his lap, locked in a deep embrace and a deep kiss. His left hand was swollen. Somewhere along the way, someone had annoyed him enough to make him take a swing. Whatever. Violence was the last thing on his mind. He was focused on the girl and while he might have wanted her to scream, violence had nothing to do with his intentions.

Joe watched. This was for them. This was their night for rewards. He was just there to keep a lookout. Someone had to keep them safe.

They were so young, so naive, and he wanted them safe.

He needed them safe.

He needed them.

For now.