Chapter 41

Wawrzynski smiled and cracked his neck, the noise echoing around the cabin of the plane. His smile spread across his features, first alighting his lips, then his eyes, his ears, and his eyebrows. "Back together again, huh?" he said, joyfully. "Just the three of us."

A sound emerged from Zane's throat, surprising himself. It sounded suspiciously like a growl. The man standing in front of him was the cause of all his problems, but maybe even some of his triumphs. Zane's thoughts were jumbled, and he didn't know what to think at that moment.

Wawrzynski was exactly how Zane remembered; blood red tie, gray suit, close cropped hair, wide smile. Zane wished he could be outside with the others. He would be willing to fight for his life instead of facing Wawrzynski again.

"You're sick," Joseph snarled. He stalked forward, his skin changing to steel as he went. His voice took on a distinctly metallic tone, like two pieces of metal scraping together, hardened by his hatred of Wawrzynski. "You caused everything."

"I know," Wawrzynski said happily. "The good and the bad." He too stepped forward. He and Joseph were now merely inches from each other's faces. Wawrzynski's smile had grown until it seemed to encompass his entire face, like it had become his persona.

Wawrzynski suddenly laughed. "You can't blame me, son," he said. "I freed you from New Vancouver. I helped you escape that wretched place. I am the cause of all the good luck that has befallen you since I took you in."

Zane thought of the Forthrite soldiers fighting to free New Vancouver outside of the jet that seemed to have become Zane's entire world. He slipped his hand in his pocket and slowly began to dissolve it. "No," he said calmly.

"No?" Wawrzynski seemed surprised. "My dear boy, it is because of me that you were able to escape the mindlessness of life in New Vancouver. I allowed you to become powerful beyond your imagination, and you tell me no?"

"You didn't make this possible," Zane snapped. "We did. Our decisions are not yours to make. If it weren't for my own decisions, I would still be in that room, bored out of my mind, waiting for the day you used me as a weapon. Instead, because of what I alone chose, I am here, on the right side of this battle, opposing you."

"Who are you to decide which side is right or wrong?"

"Who are you?"

Wawrzynski's smile faded and his mouth dropped to set in a straight, grim line. He reached down and pulled a pistol from each side of his belt until he held a lethal weapon in each hand. "I am the ruler of an entire country," he spat. "You can't oppose an entire country, no matter how powerful I've made you."

Zane's eyes drifted toward the cockpit, where two pilots sat, their hands ready to flip switches and pull levers. He furrowed his eyebrows. "You can't hurt us with those futile, weak weapons," he snarled, pulling his hand-less arm from his pocket and letting the particles drift freely. "Your threats are worthless without something to back them up."

For a split second, Wawrzynski looked scared, but it was quickly replaced with yet another look of haughtiness. "If you are so decisive and assured of your position, why have you simply stood there instead of killing me?"

Zane hesitated. Joseph didn't. "We, unlike you, are not killers,"

"I beg to differ," Wawrzynski said. "By your decisions-" he looked pointedly at Zane. "-many people have lost their lives. Those soldiers in New Vancouver that you tased, several of them died. The pilots and soldiers on those jets I sent after you, they are all dead. Those people in the FEPE building. Dead. And poor Marlene, who only wanted to help you."

Zane was seeing red.

Joseph, his iron hands balled into fists, shook like a tree in the wind. "The FEPE building was not our fault. You sent the order to have it destroyed. Your jet fired on it."

Wawrzynski spread his hands apart, the guns lying precariously upon his palms. "If it weren't for your 'decision' to escape, I would never have had to give that order. But you had to indulge your own foolish fantasies and try to run away, which led to so many deaths." He raised his eyebrow and Zane bit his tongue to keep the insults in. Raising an eyebrow was Daisy's thing. Wawrzynski didn't have the right to do it.

The jet creaked, and Zane knew Jonas was outside it, filled in on their predicament, trying desperately to get inside it. Wawrzynski stumbled. "Obviously my son has not learned his lesson," he said, then gestured to the pilots, who started the jet.

"No!" Zane yelled, and threw his cells into the cockpit.

Joseph swung a fist at Wawrzynski, but he dodged and a bullet pinged off of Joseph's steel skin, harmless. Wawrzynski growled and ducked to the side, reaching for his belt, where more weapons were obviously stored.

Zane reformed in the cockpit, his entire body reshaping itself. He hit one of the pilots, who tumbled from their chair and hit the floor, unconscious. The other pilot was prepared and hit Zane in the gut, making him lose his breath. Zane knew his only weapon was this horrendous power Wawrzynski had given him, but still he barely knew what he could do, and he wasn't about to test its limits in a confined space.

The next hit from the pilot pushed Zane out into the cargo bay, and the small metal door hissed shut, sealing him off from the control panel. He pounded on the door, and he had a faint memory of being locked in a cell in Wawrzynski's facility, beating on the door as the smiling man disappeared down the hallway.

Zane felt his control over the situation slipping away, not that he'd had much to begin with. But everything was slipping out of his grasp. He screamed in frustration and continued to pound on the door, begging the pilot inside to let him in.

He felt the jet rise into the air and his desperation increased. He heard Joseph's fist hit the side of the plane in an attempt to injure Wawrzynski. "Who's afraid now?" he yelled, his face red, his eyes wide and his mouth set in a grim line. Dangerous. Zane had never seen him like this.

"Joseph, stop!" Zane said. "This isn't you!"

"I don't care!" Joseph screamed back, and Zane knew the real Joseph was gone until Wawrzynski was either destroyed or Wawrzynski destroyed him. His anger had been released, the same anger he'd stored for almost two months.

Wawrzynski was scrabbling to grab something from his belt, something probably dangerous or lethal. Joseph had probably noticed, but he was intent on throwing punches, every second one grazing the man's side, and the rare one striking him directly in the upper arm or hip.

Joseph's entire steel persona had become terrifying. Before, Zane had seen the metal as an extension of Joseph, an extra trait to his personality. Now, he saw it as a weapon. Nothing but a tool. It no longer belonged to Joseph. It was its own being, its own entity, and it was using Joseph.

The steel hair that he'd found so marvelous now appeared to be a harder, darker gray, his eyes faded to a slate color dark enough that it was almost black. The wrinkles stopped in time on his clothes cast long shadows over the rest of his body. Zane felt like he was seeing a different person, someone he had never seen before.

Joseph's next punch struck a panel on a nearby wall, and sparks flew. Zane cringed away as little concentrated bursts of heat struck against his shirt, sizzling as they burnt through the fabric. Zane winced, but whenever the sparks struck Joseph's metal skin, the boy's body jerked and the small burst of lightning travelled across his steel body.

Zane watched in horror as Joseph's leg kicked forward, sinking into the side of the jet and sticking. He grunted in surprise as the electricity faded into inexistence but his leg would not budge from the wall.

Wawrzynski clicked his tongue. "Bested by a mere natural occurrence, my boy?" he said sarcastically. "You have immense power within your grasp, but you can't escape a spark."

Joseph's alloy teeth were gritted together to keep from either screaming or releasing a string of extremely inappropriate curse words. His metal body seemed to have frozen in place, the sparks rendering him immobile. Wawrzynski stalked around him like a panther circling its prey. Joseph's slate gray, dangerous eyes followed the man's movements. "You forget, boy, but I created this metal. I know its properties inside and out. Why do you think I gave you such a power? It benefits me. That's the only reason anybody does anything. Plain old greed. It would be wise for you to learn that." He raised a taser from his belt and held it out to Joseph, as if showing him a prized artifact.

Zane threw out his arm and the cells detached, flying straight for Wawrzynski. "Don't touch him!" he spat furiously, already contemplating what would hurt the man the most. His arm was gone in a matter of seconds and his second arm was already disintegrating by the time Wawrzynski replaced the taser in his hand with a small, spherical object from his belt.

He held out the smooth plastic ball. A fuse extended from one end, small. Wawrzynski's wide smile returned and he chuckled softly. "Do you know what this is, Zane?" he demanded, holding the ball-like object over the sparking panel. "This is an atomic bomb. Concentrated into the size of a baseball. It has the power to wipe out all of London. All I have to do is light this fuse." A spark jumped up, coming dangerously close to the fuse, and Zane flinched.

"You won't," Zane said confidently. "You don't want to die."

"Oh, I don't have to,"

The bay door opened slowly and suspensefully. Zane saw nothing but blue sky with a few slivers of clouds throughout it, as if the sky were mocking him. Zane knew Jonas had not managed to pull the jet back down, because they were rising. Miraculously, though, they were not moving horizontally, only vertically. Wawrzynski wanted to create a spectacle where all below could see.

The man's smile, if possible, widened. "This would not be necessary if you would have just listened to me and served your country, fought for the greater good." The man's eyes narrowed, but his smile did not waver. Zane shivered. "Instead, I am forced to threaten the lives of millions, including all of your friends."

Zane took a step back. "They're your experiments, too," he said, his voice quivering slightly. "Why would you want to kill them?"

"Oh, you two are plenty powerful enough for me to utilize. And I have many more perfected serums back in New Vancouver, in case you didn't notice." Zane pictured the assassin that Wawrzynski had sent to kill them. He had noticed. "I can afford to sacrifice them. They are ball failed experiments and deserters. I see no reason why I should spare them."

"Because you caused all their grief," Zane said. "If you caused everything here today, don't some people deserve a life without you? And if you could have gotten out of New Vancouver for years, why didn't you?"

"Nobody deserves to leave here without a memory of what I can do," the man said, his voice dangerously low. "And you can never understand my motives for staying in New Vancouver. You are only a child."

Zane called back his cells to his arms, knowing he could do nothing as long as Wawrzynski held the bomb over the sparks. Potential armageddon was within Zane's grasp, but he could do nothing about it. He could only watch as it dipped lower and the sparks jumped toward the fuse. "I'm a child that's been experimented on and manipulated. By you. I managed to escape your grasp once, I don't see why I can't this time."

"You might," Wawrzynski said, and then gestured to Joseph's still immobile body, although his metal fingers were twitching. "But he won't." Joseph's eye twitched, and it almost looked like a wink to Zane. His own fingers were jerking, trying desperately to form a plan of action that would save both him and Joseph from Wawrzynski's clutches.

"My boy," Wawrzynski said. "I can see you're agonizing over what to do. Allow me to decide for you."

Zane cocked his head, but Wawrzynski was fast. He drew a pistol and shot it, the sound echoing around the bay of the jet. Zane, startled, tumbled backward. His mind flashed back to when they were escaping Wawrzynski's facility in New Vancouver, when he had been shot. He couldn't prevent himself from stepping backward in fear.

And out of the plane.

As he flailed his arms, struggling to retain his balance, the last things he saw were Wawrzynski's smile and Joseph's arm, struggling to move, vibrating in place. He screamed an apology at Joseph as he fell out of the plane. He tried desperately to dissolve himself, but focus would not come. His internal agony outweighed his desire to rescue Joseph.

He felt all his doubts and worries come rushing back. Wawrzynski had had complete control of the situation, even if Zane liked to think otherwise. The man was manipulative and controlling, but he wasn't dumb.

Zane freefalled through the air as he watched the first person he'd truly known vanish as the bay door closed again and he fell. Wawrzynski knew that Zane would do whatever it took to get Joseph back. The man knew Zane needed Joseph. He knew he couldn't live without him. Once again he had Zane wrapped around his scaly little finger.

Zane tumbled.

Zane screamed.

Zane cried.

And he fell.