I Am Phantom (8 page)

It
caught me in the shoulder. I slammed to the ground. Sykes stood above me when I
looked up. He sneered and walked away from me.

Okay.
I believed him. I tried ignoring the rising panic in my throat. Taking him down
was almost out of the picture. But he was a killer. I had to try.

“Why
did you bring me here?”

“You
brought yourself. That means you care enough to try to find out why.”

“Are
you going to answer my questions or talk nonsense?”

Sykes
paused at one of the human sized test tubes behind the table of beakers. His
fingers made a small squeaking sound as he ran them gently down the glass.

“Ever
heard of something called Project Midnight, Drake?”

Even
the name sounded ominous. The very air around us seemed to breathe it in. It
was something that shouldn’t have been said aloud; not here, not in this room.

“No.
Should I have?”

Sykes
smiled toothily. “You may want to learn. They are your past, present and
future. They are who you are and who you will ever become.”

He
turned back to me like he was about to deliver the punch line of a sick joke.
“They’re the reason you’re going to end up just like me.”

Liar.

“I’m
leaving,” I said. “You want to play games, fine. Leave me out of it.”

“You’re
already in it,” Sykes called to my retreating back.

“I
can’t wait until the police catch you. I’m going to tell them where you are.”

“They
can’t do anything to me.” Sykes paused. “You’ve waited eighteen years, Drake.
What’s a little longer?”

I
stared at the ground. Finally, I looked back at him. “Hurry up.”

“No
man tells me what to do. Not anymore.”

“Then
make my visit worthwhile.”

Sykes
faced the screens. “Years ago this place housed a very special project entitled
Project Midnight. Its goal was to make superhumans.”

I
scoffed. I couldn’t help it. “You mean superheroes. Kid’s stuff.”

“Superhumans,
Drake! Far superior than normal man in every way. Stronger, faster, smarter,
with enhanced sense. Gods among men.

“They
succeeded.” His face darkened. “And they failed.” I wanted to scoff again. But
the lab and the way Sykes looked made me think twice. Something told me he was
being serious.

“What
does that have to do with me?”

“The
project never got the go ahead to test their serum on humans,” Sykes went on as
though I hadn’t spoken. He seemed to be narrating to a crowd of ghosts around
me, covering the entire room. “They tested the serum anyway. It worked. The man
they tested on got everything they had hoped for. And everything they had
feared.” At this he looked right through me. Anguish writhed on his features.
“It drove the man insane.”

I
finally got it. “You. You were the first test.”

Sykes
waved a dismissive hand as if banishing the ghosts of the past on his shoulder.
“What happened to me is history. It’s what’s going to happen to you that you
should worry about.”

Pieces
had begun to fall into place. But I didn’t want to put them together. They
must
be wrong if Sykes and me…

“The
tests were cancelled after the failure. The program was officially shut down and
the facility closed. But, like a sickness, the project returned in full force
with private funding and a more vicious drive. They needed test subjects. And
they found them. In four infants.”

“No,”
I said, but my voice wasn’t working very well. “You’re lying.”

“The
infants were selected for potential, the genes mapped and screened even before
birth. They were injected without parental consent.”

“I
don’t want to hear this!” I yelled. “This has nothing to do with me!”

Sykes
slammed his fist into one of the machines. A faint hum like a swarm of
approaching bees came from the corridors behind us. “You wanted the truth,
Drake! Answers? They’re all here!” The large monitor lit up as a tray
mechanically slid out and paused, as though waiting for something.

Sykes
pulled out a knife. I jumped back. Sykes laughed harshly. “Too scared to stand
when the truth hits him in the face. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe you’re not like
me. But to find out…” The knife flashed. Sykes held his arm above the tray and
dark red blood pooled on the glass. The machine’s tray retracted and suddenly
the screen lit up with enlarged red blood cells.

There
was something very wrong with them. I’d seen pictures and videos in my science
class of how normal red blood cells should look. These were nothing like it.

For
one they didn’t hold one round shape, but squirmed and pulsed and contracted
larger and smaller, flattening and swelling again. And there were way too many of
them. They crowded together as nearly one mass, shoving past each other in an
endless swarm.

“Beautiful,
isn’t it?” Sykes said, marveling at the screen. “The underbelly of humanity’s
dream. To be the pinnacle of everything, to conquer all man’s natural restrictions.
To play God. Who wouldn’t want to be part of that?”

For
just a moment the anger directed towards who had created him vanished. Sykes
continued looking at the screen, the light illuminating a mixture of revulsion
and fascination.

“You
can’t prove I was one of those infants,” I said. Sykes seemed to remember I was
still there.

“No.
But you know. The fact that you aren’t willing to try to find out what you
really are disgusts me. It’s a gift!”

I’d
had it with his proclamations of projects that may—no, they
couldn’t—have anything to do with me. If this answer meant having any
similarities with Sykes then I wanted no part in it.

I
leapt over the table, forgetting how much I feared him, what he could do.
Computers crashed, a trays toppled as I pummeled towards him and stopped just
before his unconcerned figure.

“Either
this is a gift or it’s a curse. Pick one! But me? I’m not some freak science
experiment by some freak project I’ve never heard of. I’m not like you, and I
sure as hell won’t turn in to you.”

Sykes
hit the machine again and a new glass tray slid out next to my hand.

“Prove
it,” he said.

“I
don’t need to,” I said. “The world already knows you’re crazy. This is just
another way you show it.” Sykes shrugged, put his hands behind his back and
paced farther into the darkness of the rest of the room, out of the light of
the screens.

“You’ll
want to know eventually.”

“Yeah,
right.” Why was I being so defensive? So angry? That burst of rage had been
more surprising for me than Sykes, if he had even been surprised at all. It
didn’t even matter. Everything Sykes said was obviously a lie, and I didn’t
need some stupid test to prove that.

But
what if he was right? What if my future was walking, absolutely crazy, in front
of me right now?

It
wasn’t. I wouldn’t let it.

“Project
Midnight kept records of the children they…involuntarily tested. When the time
was right, if they showed true potential that their new serum wasn’t as
disastrous as the first, they would collect them.”

“See,”
I said. “Nobody’s ever bothered me.”

“They
lost the records,” Sykes said. “A week after the serum was tested I destroyed them.
I destroyed everything.”

I
looked around us. “Looks intact to me.”

“This
wasn’t where the records were kept. That part no longer exists.”

I
tensed. My earlier rage was returning, this time directed completely at Sykes.
What small part of my brain may have accepted that maybe, just
maybe
, he was telling the truth, only
grew more horrified the more he casually described the destruction he’d inflicted.
He cared about none of it. Not the lives he may have taken, not the orderly at
the mental hospital. Humanity was simply playthings he could break when he felt
like it.

And
he could do it, too. They had made him so that he was better than everybody.
Normal men couldn’t stop him. And he wanted them gone. Every action he did he
made me hate him more, and hate more what I could become.

“Only
I memorized where the locations of where the kids were. Only I knew what to
look for when the time was right.” Sykes said.

“You
couldn’t have been the only one who memorized them.”

At
this Sykes smiled. I mean truly smiled, like nothing in the world could have
brought him more joy than what he was recalling in the past. “Oh, I’m
absolutely sure I was the only one. I made sure they—what’s the
phrase?—took it to their graves?”

I
lunged at him. To any normal man my ten-foot leap from a stand still would have
thrown them off. Heck, I was even a little surprised.

Sykes
simply stepped back.

Then
the fight began.

Sykes
came in low and hit my stomach. If I hadn’t already been crouched in a stable
tiger position I would have been thrown back.

I
swiped at his head. He ducked.

“Another
thing you won’t accept.” Sykes flipped back, tossing two computers at me. I
knocked one aside and jumped the next. “We can quickly learn fighting styles. I
see you know Kung-Fu. Ever wonder how you got so good at something that takes a
lifetime to master?”

I
didn’t trust myself to speak. All my energy was transformed into making him pay
for those he hurt.

I
rolled beneath a desk and roundhouse kicked his side. He caught it and pushed
me back but I bent backwards and kicked again, sending him flying.

Of
course he landed elegantly. Despite my best efforts he barely looked winded.

“I’m
not going to fight a blood brother,” he said.

“We’re
not the same!” I yelled. But after what we’d just done even I knew how stupid
it was to deny it.

Sykes
started walking away from me. I could only watch as he vanished, leaving only
the eerie screen light and the sound of my own panting.

“Oh,
and one other thing.” His voice was fading away. “Don’t trust police chief
Ryans.”

I
was taken aback. What was that supposed mean? “Why? He’s more trustworthy than
you. He’s the police. He’s authority.”

“That’s
exactly why you shouldn’t trust him.”

Sykes
left me with that. I stared at my hand and then at the open tray, waiting to
collect my blood. I couldn’t stay here. Not in this place that held too many
truths.

I
elbowed Cody in a spot near the ribs where Sonam had told me a nerve was
located and he flipped up in his seat and slammed the back of his head into the
person’s legs behind him.

“Look
who it is,” I said and pointed to the front of our political science class.

Cody
rubbed his eyes and looked.

Police
Chief Ryans stepped to the front of the room, taking his hat off as he walked.
Our professor looked as surprised as we were at his arrival.

“Uh,
hello. This is—unexpected. How can I help you, Mr—”

“Kenneth
Ryans, Queensbury’s Chief of Police. I needed to speak to the students before
returning to work.”

“Oh,
uh, okay…Absolutely!” Our professor scurried out of the way. Ryans put his arms
behind his back and faced us. He stood solid and unwavering, his presence
indicating a man in complete control.

“Though
you may not know me,” Ryans began and at once his eyes shot to me as though he
had scouted out where I’d been before he came in. Which, with what little I
knew about him after our first meeting, was perfectly possible. “Or perhaps
some of you do. I am a part of the reason why you all can enjoy relative safety,
why you sleep soundly in your beds at night and why you can enjoy the luxuries
you most likely take for granted at Queensbury University.

“The
un-oblivious ones among you have probably noticed the increased police patrols
on your commute to campus this morning. That’s because earlier this week there
was a mass breakout at a nearby mental health institution.”

The
few students who hadn’t heard this news before gasped. Ryans’ face twisted in
displeasure.

“Quiet.
I am here to tell you that one convict did escape and is currently on the run.
We have no reason to believe he will come to Queensbury, but the safety of the
students is paramount.” The last sentence made him look like he was sucking a
lemon.

“This
man is extremely dangerous. He is not to be approached and most certainly not
to be helped. If you see him, you run. Anybody who knows anything will tell
me.” He paused as if to say, ‘or else’.

He
looked around the room, as if searching for any condemnation. “Your cooperation
is appreciated and you have nothing to worry about.”

And
without another word, he left the room. I had to hand it to the guy; he knew
how to make an entrance. And exit. And make an entire class hate him. The room
was silent until our professor realized Ryans was gone and he was allowed to
continue teaching.