Subject Seven

Chapter Thirty-six
The Failures

Gene and Kyrie scrounged their money together and snuck out of the hotel room. They came back twenty minutes later with donuts and a six-pack of toothbrushes.

By the time they got back, the others had awakened and managed to survive the embarrassment of waking up mostly naked around a group of strangers. The one who seemed to take it the best was Tina, but if any of them had actually known her, they would have understood how good she was at hiding her feelings.

They read the complimentary newspaper and then watched the TV together as they ate. Not surprisingly, the destruction of part of the warehouse district was big news. They didn’t know the details, but none of them doubted that their other parts were responsible not only for them still being alive, but for wrecking half a city block in the process. There were just enough little flashes of memory to confirm that. Cody seemed to remember more of what had happened than any of the others, but all of them had seen the others around them changing. All of them had been awake and alert this time when they became something else. There was no denying that much of what Joe Bronx had told them was true.

“What do we do from here?” Cody lay on the bed, his narrow rib cage and bony knees pointed at the ceiling and his head hanging over the edge.

Hunter was the one who answered him. “We need to watch the rest of the tape Joe Bronx gave us.” He pointed at the TV. “There’s a built-in player.”

The tape had survived everything, which, all things considered, seemed almost like a miracle. They’d found it waiting on the dresser next to the TV.

They popped the tape in the player and watched, and if Hunter stared with more intensity than the others, they all pretended not to notice.

A flicker of static and then the image resolved into the shadowed face of Joe Bronx. “So the thing is, we have two choices. Well, you have two choices. I only have one. Either we go together to find out who did this to us, or I go alone. I don’t know about you, but I don’t much like the idea of being hunted down or killed for being a mistake. I for one want to take control of my life.”

He stood again and paced for a moment around a room that no longer existed. They waited. What else could they do? Finally he sat again. “I want this done. I want this over with. I know that Hunter would like to go back to his family. I know that Kyrie wants to get back to Seattle. I get that. I do. I want to get on with my life too. Of course, that’s part of the problem, isn’t it? My life and Hunter’s…they’re locked together. I can’t be myself when Hunter is doing his thing. He can’t be himself when I’m doing anything at all.” His frustration was evident.

He leaned in closer to the camera again, staring hard at the lens. “Someone did this to us, all of us, all of you and all of your counterparts. We’re not the enemy here. We’re all victims. We all want to have our lives back, don’t we?” He chuckled. It wasn’t a comforting sound at all. “That’s the thing. We all want our lives back and the only way any of us are going to get them is if we work together. I can’t do it all myself. I’ve been trying now for a long time.” He spread his hands. “I can admit it. I need help. Mostly, I need the Others that each of you carries, but I can’t expect them to help me without it affecting your lives. You, all of you, are in control of your lives. Except when you aren’t. Except when they come out to play.”

He sighed and shook his head. “Gets damned confusing, doesn’t it? It only gets worse. So far each of you has a few questions. You want to know what you did to deserve this, I’m sure. The answer, near as I’ve figured out, is nothing. You were born. That was all you did wrong. Now, because your counterparts are awake and you are here, there’s a good chance that you can’t even go home without this being resolved. Well, you can.” Joe leaned in closer to the camera again and his smile was not a pleasant one. “But it’s gonna suck to be you when your other halves get out and decide to hit the town. You already know something about that, don’t you, Cody? Woke up in a jail cell as I recall. He got busted breaking into a closed store. He was hungry. Never had to eat before he was born, did he?”

He held up a hand to stop anyone who might want to start talking. The gesture wasn’t necessary.

“Gene, your other self has a few issues with authority. It won’t get better. I guess you know who put your dad’s good friend Rob in the hospital, don’t you? What you don’t like, he doesn’t like. The difference is, he’ll do something about it.” He sat silently for a moment, composing what he wanted to say next, perhaps. “Tina. I’m sorry about everything that’s happened to you. I’m sorry about your mom, especially.” Tina shook her head and her lips pressed together into a tight line of rage or something else. Her eyes glistened with unshed tears, but aside from that, no one would have known anything serious was wrong. “You’re alone in the world now. No dad. No family, no mom. There’s not as much in this for you. You don’t need to worry about what your other half will do to loved ones. Just the occasional would-be rapist.” He looked at the screen closely again, as if he might somehow be able to see into her eyes. “Your other half killed, what was it, five people? All of them mobsters. All of them connected to your boyfriend. She had to. They had something we needed.” He squinted for a moment and looked at the ceiling, then back at the camera. “Tony, isn’t it? Not a great guy, true, but he has friends. They’re looking for you. They’ll keep looking. Not just because you killed some of them, but because you took one hell of a lot of their money. You want to get out of this alive, you better figure out how to talk to your other half.”

He shrugged. “Maybe you can’t do it all, but I bet we could work out an arrangement to make sure the losers looking for you either stop looking or just plain vanish. Yes, I mean we work as a team, and when the time is right, we take care of your problems. Any way we need to.”

He stood again and paced, and all Kyrie could think of as she watched him was a caged lion at the zoo. Too much energy bundled into too small an area.

“You don’t have to join up with me. You can try to figure all of this out on your own. Hunter’s been my unwilling assistant for a while; he knows some of the details. He might even be able to figure everything out. But I have more information. I have most of the knowledge in my own noggin.” He tapped his temple. “I’ll share when I’m ready. I’m the one in charge if you come along for the ride. Think about it.”

He looked at the camera in silence for long enough that Hunter was just reaching to turn off the VCR before he spoke again. “Look in the closet on the top shelf. You’ll find a box. There’s a few surprises in there for you. They’re my sign of good faith. I’ll find out soon enough if you decide to stay.”

After that Joe reached for the camera and the picture dissolved into snow.

It was a lot to absorb. While most of them sat in the same places and thought about that, Tina stood up and rooted around in the closet until she pulled out a shoe box that had seen better days. She sat on the bed and opened it while the others watched.

From inside the box she pulled two stacks of hundred-dollar bills, one box of. 38-caliber bullets and a handful of Polaroid pictures, the sort made with an old-fashioned instant camera.

She read the notes attached to each piece aloud. “Tina, you’ve been busy. Thanks for getting us funds.” She looked at the money for a long moment without saying anything and then set it down. “Kyrie, you’re a good little spy. Thanks for the weapons.” She looked at the pictures for a moment and then showed them around. “Not-Hunter.” The picture was of Joe Bronx. “Not-Tina.” Tina stared long and hard at that one. The girl who looked back at her was completely unfamiliar. Each of them looked at the pictures of their alter egos with a sick fascination and not a little dread.

There was one more surprise in the box, one that was almost overlooked while all of the kids looked at their other halves.

There was an envelope, and inside it was a single sheet of paper. On the paper was a short note written to the woman Joe claimed was responsible for a lot of their woes. There was also a final note from Joe Bronx.

Evelyn Hope

375 Sycamore Crest

Stanhope, IL 41125

Dear Evelyn,

I hope this letter finds you well. Just a quick note to let you know that one of your people might have developed an unhealthy sense of ethics. What we did in the past might not have been completely cleaned up. You should investigate. I think there might be a few loose ends that managed not to get tied up.

One hint: Check into the Stone Harbor Adoption Agency, Stone Harbor, New Jersey. The head administrator’s name might be familiar.

Josh Warburton

The address under Warburton’s name had been scratched out.

The note included another address in Boston. Hunter shoved both papers into his pocket.

Hunter tore the address off of the letter and held it in his hand. The rest of the letter got shoved into a pocket.

“So.” He looked around the room. “Much as I hate it, Joe is right. I don’t have any choice in this. I have to go after this lady and get answers. The rest of you, you at least know where you’re supposed to be, who you’re supposed to be. So I can’t decide for you.”

He sat down for a moment and waited.

Cody said, “Yeah, well, I go home right now and the only thing I have to look forward to is about twenty years of being grounded and a lot of time talking to shrinks.”

Gene snorted. “Think you might be exaggerating there?”

Cody shook his head. “No. You don’t know my parents. Seriously, I’ve already been to two shrinks because of the whole jail incident.”

Kyrie spoke up. “I want to go home. I do. But I can’t go there if somebody might hurt my family. Especially if she’s that somebody.” She held up the photo of her other self, a tall, muscular girl who was more handsome than pretty and looked like the sort who would break the bones of anyone who got stupid with her. “We need to find out if there’s a cure for this, and if this Hope woman has the answers, that’s who we have to talk to.”

Gene looked from one person to the next. “Look, all I know is somebody blew up the last building we were at. I think maybe the same people who work for Evelyn Hope. I don’t really want to get blown up.”

Tina snorted out a harsh laugh. “Where you gonna go, bright boy?” Her eyes glittered darkly as she stared at him. Every gesture she made bordered on being a challenge and the sneer she threw at him was pure contempt. “You want to run home to mommy and daddy and ask them to make it all better? Whoever is after us blew up a building! You think they’ll be nicer if your folks are in the way?”

Gene stared hard at her. “For all we know, those things we become are what blew up the building-what then, Tina?”

She pointed a finger at him like it was a knife and she was in the mood for murder. “Then like Kyrie said, we better find a cure first. Because I don’t think that thing you became gives a rat’s ass about your family.” She looked down and then toward the far wall. Her voice was strained when she spoke again. “I don’t think we can trust them. They’re dangerous. You want to let a killer in with your family?”

Gene thought about his uncle Robbie and once again felt that brief satisfaction in knowing what had happened to the man. Guilt and dread crushed that feeling quickly.

“Okay, so we check this out first. One more lead.” He licked his lips. He wanted this done. What if his other half decided the family needed to get slapped around the same way it had beat the hell out of Robbie? How could he live with himself if he hurt his sister, Trish?

“So let’s do this.” Hunter stood up, not letting himself think about what might be waiting on the other end of the road they were about to travel.

“How are we gonna get there?” Cody’s voice held the same wavering uncertainty it always held. Hunter thought about the boy’s Hyde, the giant that had come out of the scrawny kid, and wondered if they all changed that much, got that big. He didn’t think so. He hoped not.

Tina pointed to the money with her chin. “Guess we take a cab.”

They were on their way five minutes later.

When they pulled up in front of the small office building, Tina reached into her jeans and pulled out sixty dollars to pay the man. The bill was only forty-seven dollars, but she told the man to keep the difference.

The offices they were looking for were on the third floor. Or at least they were supposed to be on the third floor. What they found when they stepped off the elevator instead of a lot of activity was another empty office. This time the people leaving had been hasty. There were still desks and chairs and filing cabinets, but the drawers all looked to be emptied. Every knickknack and personal item had been yanked, but the walls had notices and calendars, the occasional cartoon strip taped in place.

Hunter started moving from desk to desk, seeking anything that could help them find Evelyn Hope or anyone else who supposedly worked at the Janus Mask offices.

After the third desk provided nothing, he started to lose his temper. He slammed drawers shut and cursed under his breath, his eyes rolling almost madly in his skull.

“Dude, calm down.” Cody barely had the words out of his mouth before he was recoiling from the look Hunter shot his way.

“I can’t calm down!” Hunter’s voice echoed through the nearly empty area. “I can’t calm down! I need to find this stupid bitch and get this done! I want my family back! I want my life back!”

Kyrie opened her mouth to say something, but Hunter shook his head. “No! You don’t get it! This might be new to you, but I’ve been stuck for the last five months! I can’t get away from Joe Bronx! I can’t get away from any of this and I can’t deal with it anymore!” He was starting to hyperventilate, his breaths coming in short, fast gasps. His teeth were clenched and he looked almost as menacing as Joe in that moment.

“Nobody move!” The voice came from the elevators and all of them turned at the same time to look at the police officers standing there. The Boston Police Department had sent at least four officers, all of whom looked like they ate convicts for breakfast and spit out the bones when lunch-time came around.

Hunter shook his head. “Are you serious? Who the hell called the cops?” His voice cracked as he spoke and Gene couldn’t decide if he was laughing or crying as he raised his hands above his head.

“Silent alarm, buddy. This floor is off-limits.” The first policeman moved closer as he spoke and reached for a pair of handcuffs fastened to the back of his belt.

Everyone tried speaking at once. Kyrie said she wanted her father. Gene started trying to argue that they were supposed to meet someone at that location. Tina used enough profanity to make a whole crew of construction workers blush.

Hunter shook his head and got a strange look on his face. His face twitched and the shape of his jaw warped slightly, growing broader. His eyes grew darker, then flickered for just a moment toward Cody, and the other boy let out a soft grunt that would have been ignored completely if Gene hadn’t watched the silent exchange.

Hunter just shot a look and Cody made a noise. Gene stared harder, not resisting as the officer cuffed him. He stared hard at Cody and then understood. No, he thought. Not Hunter. Joe. Joe’s maybe different from the others. He just woke up Cody’s Other. Gene looked toward where Hunter had been standing and saw that he was right. Joe had taken the other boy’s place.

Sure enough, Cody doubled over, his face twisted by the sudden pain of growing. Every teenager gets aches and pains, a good number of them caused by bones growing longer fast enough to cause discomfort. That means in a few months the teen might grow a whole inch or maybe two. Cody’s entire skeleton grew, as it did every time the transformation took place. All of them grew when they changed, but the one who had the biggest difference in size was Cody.

His small groan became a growl and the cops who were in the process of restraining people looked his way, not understanding what was happening.

Cody’s eyes were aimed at the ground and he laughed, his normally soft voice much deeper than it should have been, his face twisted into a strange smile.

“They aren’t cops. Look at their shoes. These assholes aren’t cops!” Cody’s voice was a harsh barking laugh.

Gene looked down at the feet standing behind him. The uniform was right, but the police officer was wearing loafers. They weren’t standard issue with any police officer he’d ever seen, especially since they were the wrong color.

“You shut your face, kid. You’re in enough trouble already.” The man behind Gene spoke with a sharp, stern warning in his voice.

Cody grunted and laughed and fell forward, catching himself on his hands instead of falling on his face. His hands were too big. His arms were heavily muscled. His hair, always a little longish, fell in front of his eyes but wasn’t long enough to hide the broad face. Cody was a thin boy. The boy standing in his place was anything but skinny.

Gene fought off that strange nausea that hit him every time he thought about the impossible changes and felt his knees grow weak.

Behind him the man cuffing him let out a squeak of surprise. “What the hell?”

“I’m in enough trouble already?” His voice was a deep rumble of thunder in comparison to Cody’s usual squeak. He stood up and the man behind Gene let out a watery moan. “You ain’t seen trouble yet.”

Another of the cops let out a scream, and Gene turned just in time to see Joe Bronx flip the uniformed imposter through the air. The man slammed into the floor hard enough to rattle his teeth, and Gene got a look at the stunned expression on the face. The man had the wind knocked out of his sails.

Half a second after that, the giant that had been Cody reached past him and grabbed the cop’s face like a pro would grab a basketball. His fingers completely covered the man’s upper face and head and Gene could see the muscles in Not-Cody’s hand flex and strain even as the guard screamed.

Not-Cody lifted the man off the ground by his face. He didn’t even break a sweat. His arm didn’t show any strain at all as he hefted the guard-a good 185 pounds of meat and bone-into the air and pulled him closer.

“Tell me about the trouble I’m in. Go ahead, tell me!” Not-Cody looked at Gene, and the eyes that scanned him seemed to take his measure and decide he wasn’t a problem. Gene was okay with that. He figured if he didn’t get the monster’s attention, he might be okay.

Joe moved fast, slapping aside the one who’d handcuffed Tina like he was wrestling with a toddler. The man staggered back and flopped to the ground, still breathing but very obviously unconscious. Joe wasn’t smiling this time. He seemed dedicated to getting this done as quickly as he could.

The Cody monster used his free hand to pull the keys from the fake cop’s belt buckle and a moment later dropped the man to the ground. A second after that, he was behind Gene, and despite his best efforts to be brave, Gene’s whole body shook. The last thing he wanted or needed was for the bruiser to decide he didn’t like Gene. He knew he wouldn’t survive the encounter.

Instead of killing him or breaking his arms, Not-Cody patted his shoulder. “Free as a bird.”

Gene managed to get a shaky “Th-Thanks” out of his mouth despite the dusty dryness caused by panic.

Not-Cody laughed and patted his shoulder again. “ De nada, hombre. ”

Gene shook his hands out and felt where the cuffs had pressed for a moment as he looked around the room.

Joe had dropped the other guards and was uncuffing Tina. Impossible. The whole thing was crazy. What had been Cody looked around with a dark, twisted expression. Gene knew the expression and understood it: back when he was younger, he’d hung around with a kid named Mike Berrington. Mike had been, well, he’d been a sick freak. He liked to burn bugs with a lighter or with a magnifying glass or whatever he could find. He’d watch them burn and he’d get a look on his face that meant he was enjoying it.

Not-Cody wore that expression. Gene wasn’t conscious of rubbing his arms in an effort to get warm, but that was exactly what he did. The look on Not-Cody’s face chilled him that much.

Joe looked his way and grinned. The gesture was cheerful enough, but there was still that underlying sense of threat.

“You okay, Gene?” The voice was completely different from Hunter’s. It wasn’t just the face or body, it was everything. He heard Joe speak and that, as much as anything else, made it clear. He wasn’t Hunter on steroids or Hunter under the full moon. Joe lived in the same physical space as Hunter. Only one of them could occupy that space at a single time, but he was no more Hunter than Gene was.

“She’s not here.” Joe looked from one of them to the next. “Evelyn Hope decided to cut her losses and run.”

“Why? You think she’s running from us?” He was looking right at her, but it took Gene a moment to realize Tina had spoken.

Joe shrugged his broad shoulders. “Don’t know. She might want to run from us or she might want to put together a better team for taking us down.”

“Wait a minute.” Gene held up his hand. “You think she’s the one behind all of these guys?”

“Who else?” He looked around again and frowned at Not-Cody. The other oversized boy looked at him for a second and dropped the fake cop he’d picked up. Not-Cody looked like a kid who was told he had to wait until Christmas morning to unwrap the presents he was looking at under the tree.

“Listen, Evelyn Hope has answers. She may not want to share them, but she has them, and if any of us would like to have a normal life, we need to confront her.”

Joe was talking, getting into the subject, and he didn’t notice as the door behind him opened. The door led, according to the light above it, to the stairs. One figure stepped out, dressed in black and toting two police-style billy clubs.

Kyrie was watching him from the corner of her eye and took in the details. Dark black hair and dark eyes, a young face, and sneakers. He was wearing sneakers. Looking closer, she saw how young he was. Maybe their age, maybe a little older, maybe a little younger, but he was big. Hard to tell his exact age, but he wasn’t an adult.

She opened her mouth and pointed, not sure what to say.

Joe looked in that direction and his eyes widened.

Not-Cody looked in the same direction and his face split into another grin. Here was something new he could play with.

The figure started for the elevators, keeping his eyes on all of them, justifiably wary.

Not-Cody charged, moving like a bulldozer on overdrive. The dark-haired figure dropped down, spinning his leg out and catching Not-Cody on the hip hard enough to stagger him.

Not-Cody growled as he stumbled into the wall.

Joe reached for the newcomer, but the boy moved faster, slamming his nightstick into Bronx’s temple hard enough to drop him to his hands and knees.

Both of them were knocked flat in an instant. The difference was that Joe was back up and swinging before anyone knew what was happening. His hands reached out and grabbed the weapons in each of the stranger’s hands, blocking him from using them again.

As fast as Joe was, the stranger seemed equally quick. While Joe blocked both of his hands, the boy let go of the weapons and dropped back, using the momentum of his drop to help him kick Joe in the face. His foot connected solidly with Joe’s jaw and sent him backward.

Not-Cody was back up and starting to move, but Joe waved him off, not saying a word. He didn’t look angry. He looked intrigued.

Joe whipped the first of the nightsticks at the stranger’s face and watched his attacker roll out of the way. The wooden missile hit the ground and bounced into the wall hard enough to chip the paint. Joe moved forward, not letting go of his second prize, and swung the stick with all of his might. The stranger was crouching, ready for the maneuver, and he ducked as the baton came down. Unfortunately for him Joe was also good at feinting. Joe kicked and the shoe cracked into the side of his chest and sent him sprawling.

Joe watched his attacker roll across the ground and moved after him in a near blur. The stick slammed down on the dark shape’s back and he grunted as he hit the ground.

But instead of staying down, the stranger twisted around and slid backward, regaining his feet.

Joe looked at him and scowled. His face registered how surprised he was. Most of the time when he hit someone, that someone stayed down.

Gene stared at the two of them as they faced off. There were similarities. It wasn’t his imagination.

“Joe, he’s one of us.” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them.

The stranger looked at him for a second, staring hard. That second was all it took for Joe to attack again. He grabbed his enemy by the throat and at his crotch. The boy let out a gasp of pain as Joe lifted him over his head and threw him against the nearest wall.

There was no finesse to the move. Joe didn’t feel the need to test any further. He heaved the stranger at the closest wall with all of his might and they watched as the dark shape crashed into plaster and drywall and broke the structure behind him.

He dropped to the ground and landed on his feet, shaking off the impact.

“Who the hell are you?” Joe’s voice was a roar of challenge.

Instead of answering, the stranger turned on his heels and ran hard and fast. As he moved, he threw something small at Joe. It hit him on the brow and dropped him hard. Without even seeming to pause, he threw something else at the monster Cody had become and nailed him in the throat.

A moment later, Joe was back up and growling low in his throat. Not-Cody was behind him, still coughing and gagging from whatever had hit him. Gene saw the two metal ball bearings that had been thrown. They were the size of small apples and had hit each of them with deadly accuracy. Neither gave chase.

“We need to leave,” Joe warned, rubbing his temple. “They might bring back others.” He looked around for a moment and then went to the receptionist’s desk and fished around for a few moments. He came back with a Rolodex full of business cards.

“Maybe we’ll get lucky. I saw a few addresses in here, including one for Evelyn Hope.”

“What does it matter?” Kyrie was the one who asked the question that Gene wanted to ask. She spoke softly, but just loud enough for everyone to hear. “How can we have a normal life? How can any of us have normal lives? There’s two of us in each body.”

Joe shook his head and smiled again as he moved closer to her. He looked her from head to toe, and Gene could see that Joe had that much in common with Hunter. They both thought Kyrie was hot.

“Yeah. We each have two lives. Now, which sounds better? Two lives that switch whenever they want to? Or taking turns?”

Kyrie thought about that for a moment and conceded. “Taking turns, I guess.”

“Maybe she can’t fix us. But she should be able to help us work out something. I don’t like Hunter. Hunter doesn’t like me. But I can live with him being around if I know I can have a life and schedule things. Seriously.”

Gene managed not to speak. He was good at reading people. He had no doubt, however, that Joe Bronx was lying through his teeth.