Chapter 9

Zane didn't feel any noticeable change the next morning. None of his limbs disintegrated and no other syringes appeared practically from thin air, leaving him with even less of a finger.

It was entirely possible that the serum could have done nothing. Marcus had mentioned some sort of gene-altering technology. Perhaps his genes could be altered no more. Perhaps this new technology had done all it could for Zane.

Zane slowly clambered from his bed. In the process, his foot caught in a tangle of blankets, and he slipped from the satin sheet. He yelped as his feet and hands grappled for purchase on the slick surface but found none. He slid to the floor, and the carpet did nothing to cushion the fall against the steel underneath. He grunted when his tailbone struck the floor and let loose a string of curses Mallory would have been proud of.

He sat up, rubbing his rear, as Marcus charged in, his hands formed into vicious bear claws. They were wickedly long and sharp and looked ready to tear flesh from bone. Zane felt the sudden urge to back away. The fur from Marcus's hands, or paws, was spreading up his arms slowly.

Marcus saw him lying on the floor. The procession of transforming into a bear slowed, and the fur began to recede down his forearms. "You alright, mate?" he asked, concern scrawled across his face. Strands of his red hair peeked out from beneath his ever-present cowboy hat. His green eyes were a startling emerald color as he looked Zane up and down.

Zane rose to his feet, nodding. His tailbone ached as he stood. He felt the syringe weighing heavier in his pocket than the night before. He grimaced.

Marcus tipped the front of his hat to Zane, who found it oddly flattering. Then the other boy turned heel and strode from the room. A strange clicking followed him out. Zane cocked his head. How on earth had he gotten spurs? Zane chuckled mirthlessly as he heard the rhythmic clanking of the spurs fade. He really had to have a talk to Marcus about acceptable indoor footwear. And to downplay the cowboy look a little bit. At some times, it was overwhelming.

Zane didn't even bother to change clothes from the day before. He exited the bedroom and headed straight for the communal sitting area, occupied by everyone but Daisy. Zane scoffed. "How could she sleep to such an extent yesterday, and still manage to sleep longer than the rest of us?" Zane demanded.

Mallory shrugged, which was becoming a defining factor Zane would use to describe her. "I swear to god she freaking hibernates," she said, glaring daggers at Daisy's door, as if expecting to intimidate it so it spit a sleeping Daisy out. But no matter how long or fiercely she glared at it, it did not budge.

Marcus chuckled. "I may be the one who can transform into any animal, but even she's more of a bear than me." He smiled and Zane found himself smiling along.

Zane sunk into a particularly comfy chair. He looked across the room and his eyebrows drew together from confusion. "Was that door there yesterday?" he asked curiously, pointing to a tall door right next to the kitchen.

The other three whipped their heads around to see the door. It was sunken in, as if a panel of the wall had lifted up into the ceiling, revealing a secret passage. "What do you think it is?" Joseph inquired. Zane had no answer for him. Zane had no answer for anybody right now. Joseph had donned an azure long-sleeve which complemented his eyes wonderfully. His clear, sky blue eyes. Zane hadn't noticed before, but Joseph had acquired a simple silver ring, which he wore on his right pinkie. The same finger where Zane was missing the first knuckle.

Mallory turned to look at them, and her nose piercing flashed. "Well, don't sit there like drunken alley cats! Let's go see what it is!" she spat at them fiercely. The viciousness of her words caused them to rocket up from their chairs and dash for the door. "That's better." Mallory clapped and followed them toward the strange structure.

Zane reached for the handle, but Marcus laid a hand on his wrist, causing him to shiver. He yanked it back so quickly he was fixed with three studious gazes. "Why?" he demanded.

"We don't know what's on the other side," Marcus stated. It was a decent argument. "For all we know, Wawrzynski has had it up to here with the experiment and wants to off us casually. No mess." He took his index finger and drew a line across his throat. "No more Marcus."

Zane rolled his eyes, but it was a jest gesture. "Fine, I'll take care of it," he said.

He stepped toward the door and used his hands to feel around the edges of the steel, searching for gaps. A steel sliver sunk into his half-pinkie, and he hissed, yanking it from the steel. There was an angry red prick where it had entered.

With his other hand, he found a minuscule gap on the top of the door. He could barely fit a fingernail in the gap, but he anticipated that would be enough. He kept his one hand on the small gap and glared at the steel sliver embedded in his finger. Then he smiled.

The others faded from his train of thought as he focused intensely on the steel sliver and the half pinkie. He could recognize the feeling when he used his power now. He knew the exact texture he felt when his skin sloughed off and his flesh receded. He had only dared use it several times since it had first manifested. He did not need another incident where he turned into Joseph. That was a little embarrassing.

When he looked at his pinkie, it was gone. A small concentration of particles were whizzing around his hand. Zane saw through the particles like they were spots dancing in front of his eyes. His real eyes largely dominated his sight, but he saw through the cells like watching miniature holographic videos. It was quite disorienting.

He cleared his head and focused on the particles. He directed them to his other hand, the one marking the spot of the gap. He closed his eyes to see fully through the cells. All of them were fixed on the steel wall. A few of them were already inside the gap, resulting in Zane seeing only blackness through them.

When the majority of the particles cleared the door and deposited themselves in the room beyond, Zane drew in a breath and took in the surroundings.

It was shaped like a shooting range just past the door, with three long corridors. There were human-size dummies situated at the end of each one. Zane was also convinced he had seen pistols in holsters hanging at the closer end of the tunnels.

Zane directed his cells to the right, heading further into the room. He saw wrestling mats in a large, high-ceilinged room. Various weapons lined racks positioned on the walls, and Zane's physical body drew in a light gasp. He saw basic weapons that were simple to use, such as staffs or small hunting knives. But he also saw far more complex weapons that he had only ever seen in history books. There were swords, bows, shields, nunchucks, shurikens, and even deer horn knives. Those looked like fun.

Then his "eyes" congregated through a doorway and into what was clearly a gymnasium. Boy, Wawrzynski had no chill. It was obvious he wanted to impress them into cooperating. Basketball hoops were located at each end of the gymnasium and sports equipment was piled in baskets and buckets along the walls.

Zane opened his eyes and drew his particles back to him. He watched as the knuckle of his pinkie reformed. The tip of the finger, however, stayed situated in his pocket as the syringe.

"Well?" Mallory asked fiercely, practically pouncing on Zane. "What did you see?"

Zane cast a glance at Marcus out of the corner of his eye. "There was nothing set up to off us casually," he said, mocking the other boy.

Marcus frowned. "You can't blame me for being extra cautious,"

"Answer the fucking question, Zane!" Mallory shrieked, and Zane heard a sound of disgruntlement come from Daisy's bedroom.

Joseph grinned. "You woke the bear,"

Zane turned toward Mallory, desperate to protect Joseph from her rage. "From what I can see, it's a training room. There's a shooting range-"

"A shooting range?" she asked incredulously.

"Don't interrupt me," he said casually. She growled in frustration. "There's also a room full of weapons and wrestling mats and a gymnasium with, from what I can see, an insane amount of basketballs," he said.

Joseph grinned again, and Zane forced himself to look away from the other boy's lips. "Because I sure miss shooting hoops," he said sarcastically. This earned a chortle from Zane and the others, and he was happy to see Joseph's smile widen even further.

Zane removed his hand from the door, turning around fully to engage his friends. "Either way, it seems like a completely innocent room if you ignore the weapons," he said nonchalantly.

"Only a sociopath can ignore the weapons," Marcus grumbled under his breath.

"Nonetheless, I expect it's Wawrzynski's way to coerce us into staying and to make sure we don't laze around and eat whole boxes of Froot Loops." He glared daggers at Daisy's door, as Mallory had done earlier. There was thumping and clunking coming from inside the room. Mallory and Marcus acted as if this was a normal thing. Which made Zane wonder. "How long have you guys been here?" He directed his question toward Mallory and Marcus.

Marcus shivered as if reliving a violent memory. Mallory caught a sly glance from him and took initiative. "I've been here for about six months. I got transferred to this cell about a month ago," she said, and Zane's eyes widened. Her gaze flicked. "Although Marcus has been here almost twice as long."

Zane fixed his non-believing gaze on Marcus. "You've been here for a year?" he asked incredulously.

Marcus wouldn't meet his eyes.

Mallory rubbed her hands together. "He doesn't like to talk about it," she said sadly.

"Anyway," Joseph said, dodging the sore subject. Zane was grateful. He didn't want to see ever-sarcastic Marcus look as if he had lost all hope. Joseph turned to Zane. "Let's see if this door's unlocked."

Marcus had recovered his swagger. "Yeah, because Wawrzynski would give us a room full of weapons, expecting us to train with them, and then just lock us out." He rolled his eyes and reached out, turning the handle.

The door swung open, and the room was even more magnificent when Zane saw it through his real eyes. It was all dark steel, with bold lines and smooth curves forming a domed roof. It was constantly dark, brooding compared to the other rooms. He found his eyes widening as he realized the array of weapons was far broader than he had originally thought. Many of them, he didn't have a name for.

"Bit medieval, huh?" Joseph inquired. He ran his hand over the blade of a double-edged sword that looked ready to save a damsel in distress. Or dude in distress, Zane thought hopefully. Joseph frowned.

"Wawrzynski has got to have some sort of twisted mindset if he expects us to cooperate," Mallory agreed, stepping onto one of the large wrestling mats. "Does he just assume all teenagers are full of angst and want to stab and shoot things?"

"I don't know." Marcus picked up one of the pistols by the shooting range. "Could be interesting." When she glared at him, he elaborated. "I would kick your ass at everything."

She crossed her arms over her dark green shirt. "Fat fucking chance," she hissed. Marcus put the gun back and mimicked her poise, crossing his arms and planting his feet wide. Mallory grinned. "Come at me, bro,"

Zane hadn't noticed before, but there were several dummies similar to the ones in the shooting range at the end of this room, too. They appeared to be humanoid but there were targets painted expertly on their faces, their chests, and their stomachs. Fatal points.

Zane looked away from the dummies and back to the weapons. Joseph had picked up the sword and was now holding it up to the light to admire it. Zane picked up a simple knife, about six inches long and sharpened to a point. "Woah," he breathed in admiration. He had never laid eyes on a real weapon before. He had never touched a real weapon before, and he had certainly never fought with a real weapon before.

Marcus noticed him staring at the knife. "What's so special about that knife?" he asked.

Zane rotated the handle in his hand, watching the light glint from the smooth edge of the blade. He didn't look away as he said, "I've never seen anything like it."

"You've never seen a knife?"

"Only kitchen knives," he amended. He set the knife back and continued to peruse the rack, marvelling at all the magnificent craftwork and expertise put into them.

"You mean New Vancouver has no weapons?"

"None. It's a law."

"I suppose that has some merits," Marcus noted absentmindedly. "Less crime, I'd bet."

Mallory uncrossed her arms, but Marcus kept up the facade. "Do you even know how to handle a weapon?"

Zane pursed his lips. "No," he said. "I suppose that's part of the reason Wawrzynski allowed us access to this room. I bet he wants his 'biological weapons' to be able to handle real weapons."

"A valid hypothesis, but then why not just give us guns and not all these melee weapons? Guns are the most effective."

"Do you expect me to know what Wawrzynski thinks?" Zane asked her, weighing several weapons in his hands. "He's kinda hard to understand."

"Well, you did literally become him the other day,"

Zane harrumphed and turned away from the weapon rack. "Well, I don't know, and don't expect me to in the future," he spat. "He's a mystery to me, just like everything else. The only thing that made sense to me was New Vancouver, and my old life, and I've lost that." He felt a tear begin to form in the corner of his eye. "I don't know what's right or wrong anymore. I don't know what's real and what's not. I don't even know who I am anymore."

Mallory raised her palms in mock surrender, but she had a soothing look in her eyes. Her soft brown skin glowed faintly under the dim bulbs on the roof.

Zane felt Joseph and Marcus's gazes on him. He lifted a hand subtly to wipe the tear away, pretending to readjust the collar of his shirt. Mallory smiled at him. It was a smile full of warmth and comfort. He knew she had meant nothing by provoking him. He knew she regretted causing his outburst. He knew she understood him more now. She told him all this through a smile, and Zane immediately felt better.

"Let's go shoot some hoops," she said, sashaying away.