Six (10 page)

“What about Comedy Channel?”

“Sorry, we don't have any television channels. Just the videos.”

“No TV? You don't have cable out here?”

“Pioneer Base has no cable connections. No TV, no Internet, no phone lines. It's part of our security. We're protected by an air gap. You know what that means?”

I roll my eyes. Of course I know. It means the base has no electronic links to the outside world. Now that I think about it, I realize it's a sensible precaution. Sigma used the Internet to escape from the Unicorp lab and infect the computers at Tatishchevo Missile Base in Russia. And the AI may try to attack Pioneer Base next. Judging from its actions at Unicorp, Sigma is clearly aware of the Pioneer Project and recognizes it as a threat. That's why the AI tried to kill me. So I'm relieved to hear that the base is off the electronic grid.

“Where's my dad?” I ask the soldier. “I haven't seen him in hours.”

“He's still with General Hawke, but they should be done soon.” The soldier collects the remains of my dinner, then heads for the door. “Just relax and watch a video until he comes back. You'll have some time to talk to him before lights out at twenty-two hundred hours. That's military time for ten o'clock.”

The soldier leaves the room. Frowning, I yell, “I know what military time is!” as the door closes behind him.

I press the index button on the remote control, but the selection of videos is dismal:
Cats
& Dogs
,
Mars
Needs
Moms
,
Alvin
and
the
Chipmunks
, and a dozen other old clunkers. I'm not sure I can watch a movie anyway. In less than twelve hours the Army doctors are going to inject hundreds of trillions of nanoprobes into my skull and scan my head with pulses of radiation that will record the positions of the tiny gold spheres—and, oh yeah, fry my brain cells too. When you're facing something like that, it's kind of hard to keep your mind on a movie about singing chipmunks.

Shivering, I drop the remote control in my lap. I want Dad to come back
now
, immediately. I need to talk to him again about the procedure, about the details of the nanoprobes and the scanner and the robots. I turn my wheelchair toward the door and stare it as hard as I can. Using the full power of my mind, all the thoughts and feelings that will soon be converted into data, I try to will my father into appearing.

In my mind's eye I picture Dad opening the door and stepping into the room. I can see it so clearly—his tired face, his unkempt hair, his strong, veined hands. And a moment later, as if responding to my wish, someone opens the door. But it's not Dad. It's the boy with the huge, deformed head, the kid I saw two days ago in the Pioneer Base auditorium.

My chest tightens. The kid didn't even knock; he just waltzed right in. I open my mouth, ready to yell “Hey!” in the loudest voice I can muster, but then he turns around to face someone I can't see, someone who's apparently standing just outside the doorway. “Come on,” he whispers. “He's in here.” Then the tall girl with the green Mohawk follows him into my room and closes the door behind her.

I can't help but gape. She's even more beautiful than I'd remembered. She has two silver rings in her left eyebrow and three more dangling from her earlobe. Just above her left ear is her snake tattoo, a sinuous cobra showing its fangs on her bare scalp. Her eyes are a gorgeous brown, a shade darker than her chocolate-milk skin, but as I stare at them, she scowls and turns away. She takes an interest in the flat-screen TV, squinting at it suspiciously.

Meanwhile, the boy approaches my wheelchair. Seeing him up close is disconcerting. His head is so large I can't believe his neck can support it. His skull is mottled with bony, hairless knobs, and his massive jaw juts down to his chest. His mouth hangs permanently open, exposing his crooked yellow teeth.

“Sorry I didn't knock,” he says. “I didn't want to make any noise. This base apparently has a curfew and we're not supposed to leave our rooms.” He holds out his right hand. It's grotesquely oversized, like a flesh-colored baseball glove. “I'm Marshall Baxley. It's a pleasure to meet you.”

“I'm Adam,” I manage to say. I raise my good hand and Marshall folds his thick fingers around it. His left hand, in contrast, is normal size, but his legs are unusually large, especially below the knees. He's wearing black orthopedic shoes as big as ski boots.

Marshall lets go of my hand and points at the girl. “And that's Zia. Her flight to Colorado was delayed, just like mine. We got here so late we didn't have a chance to meet all the volunteers before curfew. But now we're making up for lost time.”

Zia is still inspecting the TV screen. I like her name. It sounds Middle Eastern.

“Hi, Zia,” I say, hoping she'll turn around so I can see her eyes again.

Unfortunately, she doesn't respond. She takes a closer look at the blank screen.

Marshall shrugs, then points at himself, splaying his giant hand across his chest. “I know what you're thinking. Who
is
this handsome young man? And how does he fend off all the girls who must be fighting over him?” He widens his open mouth, which I guess is his way of smiling. “Well, I'll tell you my secret. I was born with Proteus syndrome. That's the disease made famous by Joseph Merrick, the nineteenth-century Englishman who was exhibited as a freak. You've seen the movie about him, I assume?
The
Elephant
Man
?”

“Uh, no, I haven't.”

“Ah, that's a shame. But I can give you a quick summary.” He takes a deep, rasping breath. “It's a genetic disease, rare and incurable. The main symptom is uncontrolled growth of flesh and bone. My skull is growing inward as well as outward, and in less than six months it'll squash my brain to jelly.” He steps away from my wheelchair and sits on the hospital bed, bouncing jauntily on the mattress. “But enough about me. I didn't sneak out of my room to talk about myself. I came here to talk about
you
, Mr. Adam Armstrong. You have muscular dystrophy?”

From the corner of my eye I see Zia move to the other side of the room. She's inspecting the heart monitor now. It's really distracting to have this beautiful girl wandering around, but I force myself to pay attention to Marshall. “Yeah, I have Duchenne muscular dystrophy. That's the most common type.”

“And there's another dystrophy boy, isn't there? DeShawn?”

“Yeah, but he's in a more advanced stage.”

“I haven't visited him yet, but I hear he's rather unresponsive.” Marshall lies down on the bed, making himself comfortable. “It's funny, don't you think, how we use our diseases to label ourselves? You know, the dystrophy boys, the cancer girls, the Elephant Man. We define ourselves by what's going to kill us.”

I shake my head. “I disagree. I'm more than just an illness.”

“Really?”

“Definitely. I'm a New Yorker. I'm a Giants fan. I'm good with computers.”

Lying on his back, Marshall slides his glovelike right hand under his skull, probably to ease the strain on his neck. “What do you mean by ‘good with computers'? Are you a programmer?”

“Yeah, my specialty is virtual reality. I've written some pretty cool software.”

I hear a dismissive grunt from the other side of the room. Although Zia is still staring at the heart monitor, she seems to be following the conversation. Marshall's eyes flick toward her, then back to me. His right eye, I notice, is larger than his left. “Well, I know absolutely nothing about software. I'm terrible at all that math-and-computers stuff. I'm more of a literature-and-fine-arts type. I write poetry, believe it or not.”

It's hard to interpret Marshall's facial expressions because they're so distorted, but he seems to be getting serious now. As I get accustomed to his appearance, it becomes easier to talk to him. “Where are you from?” I ask.

“A small town in Alabama called Monroeville. It wasn't such a bad place for me, all in all. When the hospital bills started to pile up, the neighbors were very supportive of my mother. And she needed all the support she could get.”

I remember seeing his mother, the haggard, foul-mouthed woman who sat next to him in the auditorium. “Did she raise you alone?”

“Oh yes. As she often reminded me, it's tough to find a husband when your house is a freak show.” With a groan, he heaves himself back up to a sitting position. His chunky legs dangle over the edge of the bed. “In a way, though, our poverty was a blessing in disguise. Because I was getting charity treatments at an Army hospital near Monroeville, my name got on the list of recruits for the Pioneer Project. General Hawke worked strictly with Army hospitals to keep the selection process secret.” He smiles again, widening his mouth. “But look at this, we're talking about me again. Let's talk about the other Pioneers instead. You know Shannon Gibbs, correct?”

I'm a little thrown by the sudden change of subject. “Yeah, we're both from Yorktown Heights. My dad heard she had terminal brain cancer, so he told her parents about the project.”

“I talked to her already, right after I got here. She's a math-and-science type too. Do you like her?”

Now I'm thrown again. Marshall is doing a good job of keeping me off balance. “Uh, yeah, I like her. She's smart, that's for sure.”

“And what about Jenny Harris? Her father is quite important, you know. What do you think of her?”

I shrug. “I'm surprised she volunteered. Her parents were so opposed to the idea.”

“But do you like her?”

“Come on, this is ridiculous. I don't know the first thing about her.”

Marshall lets out a snort. I can't be sure, but I think this means he's amused. “Of course, how could I forget? You prefer Zia, don't you? I caught you staring at her in the auditorium.” He swings his massive head, looking over his shoulder. “Zia, you have an admirer.”

She finally steps away from the heart monitor. I see her gorgeous eyes again, but now they're narrowed and fierce. She glares at me, her brow furrowing. As her muscles tense, the cobra above her ear stretches a few millimeters. “I don't need any admirers. And I don't like people staring at me.”

Her voice is low and menacing. I have no idea why she's so angry. With my paralyzed legs and arm, I'm not much of a threat.

“I stared at you because I was curious,” I say. “You look pretty healthy, compared with the rest of us.”

“You think I'd be here if I wasn't sick? Does that make sense to you?”

“Hey, chill out. I was trying to give you a compliment.”

“That's another thing I don't need.” She sneers at me, pressing her lips together. “I have cancer, just like the other girls. But you don't see me crying about it. I've seen worse things than cancer.”

“You have to forgive Zia,” Marshall interjects. “She's had a difficult past. Her parents died when she was young, and she's been in and out of foster homes ever since. Isn't that right, Zia?”

Ignoring him, she approaches my wheelchair. With her left hand she taps the cobra tattoo above her ear. “You see this tat? I got it done in Central Juvenile Hall. That's the worst detention center in LA. In all of California, probably. I was doing a six-month sentence for slashing a guy's face.” She lowers her hand and pokes me in the chest. “And you know why I cut him? Because he was staring at me.”

I shake my head. Her level of hostility is ridiculous. “So how did you end up here? Did General Hawke do a recruiting tour of juvenile detention centers?”

“You think that's funny?”

“No, I'm serious. I can't figure out what you're doing here. You seem completely unstable.”

“
Shut
up
!
” Zia grabs the arms of my wheelchair and leans over me. “If anyone doesn't belong here, it's you!”

Marshall rises from the bed and comes toward us. “All right, Zia. Calm down. Please back away from your new friend Adam. I have a feeling this relationship isn't going to work out.”

Zia waits a few seconds, baring her teeth and breathing on me. Then she lets go of my wheelchair and steps away in disgust. “Look at him. It's worse than I thought.”

Marshall shrugs. “I don't know about that. He seems to have some spunk.”

“You're dreaming, Baxley. He'll never make it.” She sneers at me again, then heads for the door. “I'm out of here.”

She darts out of the room, quiet as a cat. I take a deep breath as she disappears down the corridor. To be honest, I was a little worried when she grabbed my wheelchair. For a second I really thought she would smack me.

She left the door open, so Marshall closes it. “My apologies, Adam. That didn't go so well, did it?”

“Yeah, no kidding. What's her problem? She acts like a gangster.”

“As a matter of fact, she did belong to a gang in Los Angeles. The Twelfth Street Bloods, she told me.”

“Great, that's just great. How did Hawke find her?”

“She said her father was a captain in the Army, serving under Hawke. After her father died, the general kept in touch with her. He must've recommended her for the project when he learned she had cancer.”

“And now we have a psycho on our team.”

“That's a strong word, Adam. I wouldn't go that far. But it's true that Zia has some trouble controlling her feelings. And right now she's feeling a little negative about you.”

“Why? Because I stared at her in the auditorium?”

“No, because you're first in line for the procedure. And she thinks
she
should be first.”

I feel a surge of irritation. “You're joking, right? Does it really make a difference who goes first?”