Mutation (17 page)

Chapter 25

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, and it clearly showed on my face.

“It’s not that bad, Jim,” Magnavolt said, attempting to sound reassuring.  “Given time, we can repair the vortex gate.  It’s the virus that’s the pressing issue at the moment.”

“And that’s where you come in,” said Aldiss, seemingly happy that he was now getting a chance to speak.  “We’ve had a few issues with students losing control, but – based on your personal experience with it - we basically think that the virus has a short life cycle.”

“How short?” I asked.

“Roughly three days,” he said, “give or take.  But that’s primarily based on what happened to you, since you were the first infected.”

“So what, you’re labeling me as patient zero in this thing?”

Aldiss suddenly looked stern.  “It obviously began somewhere.  Right now, you appear to be the origin, so we need to get you to our lab, run some blood work
–
”

“Not gonna happen,” I said, shaking my head and crossing my arms defiantly.  I had a singularly unique physiology, from the cellular level on up.  If anybody like Aldiss ever got me into a lab, I was never going to get out if they could help it.  “I’m willing to help, but I’m not about to be poked and prodded like some human guinea pig.”

Aldiss put his hands on the conference table and leaned forward with something akin to maniacal glee in his eyes.

“You don’t have a choice,” he said.

“Wanna bet?” I replied.

Aldiss straightened up.  “Guards,” he yelled over his shoulder in the direction of the doorway.  The two guys who had escorted me to the conference room appeared.  “Take this student up to the lab we’ve set up in the infirmary.  If he tries anything, shoot him – but try to make it a flesh wound, since we prefer to have him alive.”

I snorted contemptuously – obviously Aldiss didn’t know who I was – then teleported back to my room.

Chapter 26

My initial thought after I teleported was that I’d made a mistake.  I had intended to pop back to my own room, but I’d obviously done something wrong and ended up in someone else’s, because – while I was definitely in a dorm room – I found myself in the midst of some students who I wasn’t acquainted with.

There were four of them.  The first was about my height, but with a bald head and Asian features.  He was standing near the window and wearing a long-sleeved, black Mandarin shirt with white cuffs and matching pants.

There was also a willowy blonde with elfin ears (like my mother), sitting at the desk.  She wore a form-fitting two-piece outfit that left her arms bare from the shoulders down.  I also couldn’t help but notice that she carried what appeared to be two ornamental daggers, one sheathed at either hip.

The last two were guys, and they were seated next to each other on the bed.  One had on a golf shirt and cargo pants and was chewing gum.  The other seemed familiar to me, and then I recognized him:  it was the kid who had brought us the drinks at the lake party a few nights back.

I took in all of this in the space of a few seconds, then found myself occupied by the thought that this might be the virus at work.  Had I lost control of my powers?  Was I unable to teleport where I intended anymore?  But then I noticed small nuances that set my mind at ease:  the angle of the blinds on the window; the sheets on the bed; most of all, the box of candy bars on the dresser.  This was indeed my room.  I wasn’t the interloper; they were.

They all seemed to notice me simultaneously.  The girl at my desk was on her feet immediately, blades drawn and glowing.  Next to her stood the guy in the cargo pants, holding his hands in front of him at chest level, left over right, with a glowing sphere between them.  The other two stood behind them.  Reacting to their aggressiveness, I got ready to shift into super speed.

“Stop,” said the guy in the Mandarin shirt.  He didn’t shout or speak forcefully, but his voice resonated.  He stepped out from behind his companions.  “There is no need for conflict.”

The girl with the daggers and the boy in the cargo pants exchanged glances, then slowly came out of their fighting stances.  Her daggers stopped glowing as she put them away, and the sphere of light between the guy’s hands - and I now saw that he had an odd assortment of rings on his fingers - dissipated.

A million questions bubbled up in my brain, but before I could ask a single one of them, the guy in the Mandarin shirt spoke.

“You would like an explanation for our presence here,” he said, “and we will gladly give it.  But it is not safe to speak here.  Will you trust us enough to come with us?”

Oddly enough, I couldn’t read him empathically; he gave off absolutely no emotion.  That was rare and unusual, but not completely unknown to me.  Just as there is training that builds shields around your mind so that you don’t broadcast your thoughts, one can also learn to harness emotions and keep them in check.  Still, there was a certain sincerity in his voice that made me feel he was trustworthy.  Moreover, I got an odd sensation that what they had to tell me was important.

“I’ll come,” I said after a moment.

The guy in the Mandarin shirt nodded at the girl.  She drew one of her daggers, closed her eyes, and began muttering in a language I didn’t understand.  The dagger began to glow red.  Without warning, she shouted and then swung the blade in arc through the air in front of her, as if striking at something that only she could see.

Amazingly, the air itself seemed to part in a jagged red line that ran vertically for about five feet before ending about six inches above the floor.  The girl gave a smug grin to the guy in the cargo pants, who stuck out his tongue at her.  Then she stepped into the opening she had created and disappeared.

The kid from the lake party went through next, followed by the fellow in the cargo pants.  The guy in the Mandarin shirt bowed his head slightly and made a you-first gesture with his hand.  I took a deep breath and stepped through.

*****

We came out in a good-sized, well-lit but windowless room.  There was a workstation in one corner which housed a computer and related equipment.  A sofa and a couple of lounge chairs were arranged around a coffee table near one of the walls.  A miniature fridge was plugged in near a small desk that was covered with books and papers.  Two side doors - set facing each other - apparently led to additional rooms.  There was a stack of chairs pushed against one of the other walls, along with some filing cabinets and other miscellaneous items.  In the center of the room were several cafeteria tables pushed together, with a couple of laptop computers on top and a half-dozen chairs around them.  I would later learn that the room was a sub-basement storage unit (which explained the lack of windows) that my new friends had converted for their own use.

Unlike teleportation, which was instantaneous, the trip here had seemed to take a few seconds.  During that time, I experienced a slight feeling of disorientation, as I just seemed to be traveling through a bleak zone of emptiness where I was robbed of all senses – sight, sound, etc.  And then we’d come out.

Almost immediately, the guy in the cargo pants and the elfin girl began arguing about some aspect of the journey we had just taken.  The other two ignored them, and the one in the Mandarin shirt turned to me.

“Thank you for trusting us,” he said.  “Now that we are here, we can be formally introduced.  My name is Li.  The young man and woman arguing are Kane and Gossamer, respectively.  The other young man is Gavin.”

Gavin, now seated at the workstation, waved.  “Sorry, I don’t have a cool superhero name yet.”

“I’m Jim,” I said.  “Can you tell me now what you were doing in my room?”

“Waiting for you, of course,” said Li.

“But why?”

“Because we require your help to save the school – or rather, everyone in it.”

Chapter 27

I was a little surprised at Li’s statement, but managed to recover rather quickly.

“Assuming you’re talking about the virus, that’s a little over-dramatic, don’t you think?”

“No, it’s an understatement, if anything,” Gossamer replied.

“Come on,” I said.  “There have definitely been some incidents, but that CDC guy, Dr. Aldiss, says that this thing should run its course in a few days.”

“Yeah, ask Adam Atom how that worked out,” said Kane.  I felt my blood start to boil at the mention of Adam, while Gossamer smacked Kane on the arm and gave a vigorous nod in my direction.  Kane frowned for a second, and then his mouth dropped open as he realized I was the guy who had teleported Adam away.  “I’m sorry…”

“Don’t worry about it,” I said, trying to keep all emotion out of my voice.  “Just bring me up to speed.”

“Very well,” Li stated flatly.  “I am aware of the prognosis of Dr. Aldiss, but I firmly believe him to be mistaken.  The virus in question attaches to the metagene in supers and mutates it in such a way that it can affect their powers.”

“Affects them how?” I asked.  Prasad had said something similar, but I’d been too angry at the time to focus or ask questions about it.

“Thus far, it can either decrease their abilities substantially or increase them by an order of magnitude.  But, over time, as the virus mutates the metagene, their abilities will become more unstable.  They will eventually lose control of them altogether.”

I suddenly had a very good idea of what had happened to Adam.

Li went on.  “Even more, their entire DNA structure will start unraveling.”

“Unraveling?” I asked.  “What does that mean?”

“It means they’ll die,” said Gossamer.

*****

Over the next fifteen minutes, Li and his friends gave me a very thorough education regarding the virus.  In addition to either increasing or decreasing a super’s powers, there was a third class of infected people within whom the virus still attached to the metagene but appeared to be dormant.  Moreover, the five of us were the only uninfected students in the entire school.  (Although technically, I had been infected but had recovered.)

“How do you guys know all this?” I finally asked Li when we stopped to take a break.  Gossamer and Kane were over by the mini-fridge, arguing.  Gavin was at the computer workstation.

“I hacked the mainframe of the infirmary.  It contained all of the accumulated information that the medical staff had gathered on the virus.”

“Why’d you do that - bored?”

“In actuality, I thought I could be of assistance, so I proffered my services in the wake of the freezing incident involving Glacia.  However, my offer to serve as a volunteer was rebuffed.”

“So you hacked your way in.  Well, I’ll say one thing for you, you’re persistent.  But what makes you so sure that you’re right and Aldiss is wrong about the hazard posed by the virus?”

“With the data I collected, I ran exactly one thousand, three hundred seventy-seven simulations.  In each instance, the virus eventually spread to the entire student body and killed them all.”

“Obviously not everybody, since you guys are immune.”

“I should elaborate.  After I ran my simulations, Aldiss had the entire school tested.  I hacked back in to find out the extent of the infection and whether my simulations were accurate.  That is when I found the records of the others here indicating that they were uninfected.”

“So it was you who assembled this little ragtag army.”

“Correct.”

“Well, if you really needed someone to help, why not get some of the big guns, like Dynamo?”

“Would Adam Atom have been a good choice for our ‘army’?”

I frowned, clenching my fist.  Then understanding dawned on me.  “Of course not.  Adam would have been a poor choice because his powers were unstable due to the virus.  He blew himself up, even though his powers weren’t supposed to have an effect on the atoms of living things.”

“Yes.  Any infected person might be just as likely to harm us – whether intentionally or not – as to help us.  They would be a liability.”

“Still, I should go visit my friends - Electra and Smokey - and let them know what’s going on.”

“I would advise against that.”

I raised an eyebrow.  “Don’t you think they deserve to know?”

Rather than answer the question, Li asked one of his own.  “Have you ever known someone to have such a strong emotional reaction to something that it affected them physically?”

“Yeah,” I said, after thinking for a moment.  “In fifth grade, Molly Lewis became so nervous about a speech she had to give that she threw up.”

“So you would agree that emotions can affect you physically?”

“Of course.”

“And for a super, can strong emotions affect the use and control of their powers?”

“Yes,” I agreed, reflecting back on the day I took Electra to Paris and she twice became so excited that the air became charged.  I sighed.  “I see your point.  Telling my friends about the virus might balloon their emotions in some way and destabilize their metagene.”

“I’m glad you understand.”

“But I should at least go see them - let them know I’m okay.”

“Okay?” he repeated.

“Yeah.  Magnavolt said he thought I’d been killed when I didn’t come back, so they’re probably thinking the same thing.”

“And when they see that you are not dead, do you think they will be excited?”

“Probably, if they thought I was…” My voice trailed off as I saw what he was getting at.  Seeing me alive might get them excited, and excitement might affect the stability of the metagene.

“You are right to be concerned,” Li said, “but it is best that you avoid your friends for now.  We can best help them by being successful in what we are now contemplating.”

“I still don’t know what this plan of yours is,” I said.

Li was about to say something when Kane and Gossamer approached us.

“The fridge is almost empty, so we’re going on a food run,” Kane said.  “Anyone want anything in particular?” Both Li and I shook our heads in the negative, while Gavin said something about fresh fruit.  Kane and Gossamer, in heated debate about something, headed towards a door that had an “Exit” sign above it.

“What’s their story?” I asked as Kane and Gossamer left.

“Ostensibly, they are bitter adversaries with respect to whether the human sorcery employed by Kane rivals the elfin magic wielded by Gossamer.  In actuality, they are romantically attracted to each other and unsure of how to express it.”

“So instead they argue all the time.  It’s the teen version of little kids who hit the person they like.”

“That is an accurate analogy.”

“What about him?” I nodded towards Gavin, who seemed to be staring at the computer at the workstation.  In my opinion, Gavin was a bit of an odd duck.  I had noticed when we were at the table talking about the virus that he acted as if he were afraid to come near me.

“Gavin has an inherent ability to interact with computers, even without an interface such as a keyboard.  Thus, I believe he spends an inordinate amount of time online playing games and such.  The result, however, is that he has developed into being what you might term ‘socially awkward.’ He has yet to learn how to comfortably interact or engage with others.”

I smiled to myself, reflecting on the fact that just a few minutes earlier I had thought something similar about Li because his manner of speech seemed stilted and gauche.  Then I’d realized what it was that seemed off to me:  Li spoke almost entirely without contractions.

“Back to the plan,” I said, changing the subject.  “I still don’t know exactly what it is you’re trying to do.”

“Before I recruited the others, I tried to present my findings to the medical staff at the infirmary.”

“Let me guess.  They didn’t take you seriously.”

“That is a correct assumption.”

“Well, why should they?  Why should I, for that matter?  What makes you more qualified than a world-class virologist?”

“I have PhD-level expertise in twenty-three fields, including medicine, chemistry, physics, bio-mechanics
–
”

“Alright, alright, alright.  Let’s say I believe you.  Now what?”

“Like myself, I assume Dr. Aldiss and his team have run simulations concerning the virus.  Compared to the modeling software they are using, my own constructs are rather crude and primitive, but I do not possess the time or the resources to significantly improve them.  However, I think that if I can use their own modeling software to obtain the same results as my simulations, then the CDC team will be more inclined to listen.”

“So you want to steal a computer program.”

“More or less.”

I shrugged.  “I guess you can count me in.  And no offense, but I hope you’re wrong.”

“So do I.”

“Well, if you are right about how deadly this thing is, at least the outbreak happened here – at the Academy – where we’re sealed off.”

“Yes,” Li said.  “That is rather convenient.”

Something about his tone caught my attention.  “What are you trying to say?”

“There are a number of coincidences here that go beyond the expected levels of probability in terms of random occurrence.”

I frowned, thinking about what Li had just said.  “Are you trying to say that this is deliberate?  That someone is doing this?”

Li inclined his head thoughtfully.  “We have an isolated environment, a genetically unique population for the most part, and a pathogen that only affects
that
population.”

Li was dropping hints, trying to get me to figure it out on my own.  When I did, the answer hit me like a freight train.

“A lab experiment,” I mumbled.  “The whole school is a lab experiment.”

“That is my conclusion,” Li said.  “With at least three different experimentation groups:  those with a dormant version of the virus, those with increased powers, and those with decreased powers.”

It all made sense, and yet…it felt like we were missing something.  I thought back to my science classes over the years, trying to remember how experiments were conducted, and then it came to me.

“If this is just one big experiment like you said, then where’s the control?”

“The control?  You mean the control
group
?  The one that doesn’t get infected in an experiment like this?”

“Yes.  Where are they?”

Li seemed to ponder this momentarily, then pulled over one of the laptops on the table and began typing.  After a few moments, he turned it towards me.  The screen was covered with a long list of names

“I’m pulling this from the information I hacked.  Previously, I screened the data only for individuals who had been exposed but were uninfected and therefore immune.  The list before you is a list of people who have
not
been exposed at all.”

“The control group,” I said.  I looked at the list, unsure of who many of these people were.  Then I came across names I recognized - like Magnavolt - and understood.  It was the faculty and staff.