Chapter 6

A week passed.

A week of crappy prison food, more injections, and lengthy conversations with Joseph. Zane didn't mind the conversations, but he was fed up with the food and injections. If he had to disintegrate while eating mushy bread one more time, he'd scream.

The last seven days had done nothing to ease his desire to escape, or at least his desire to desire to escape. Now, however, Wawrzynski knew of that plan which, strangely, only made Zane want to prove him wrong. He hadn't had the luxury of a shower in nine whole days, and he worried about his parents. Would they care that he had simply disappeared without a trace? They would have been told some lie that they were legally required to believe, and then they would have gone on with their lives. They probably thought he was making miniature explosions in a chemical laboratory, when the truth was far worse.

He assumed a different person in a different world might worry about how their friends were taking the news, but friendship was a foreign concept in New Vancouver, like love or hatred. Preferring one person's company over another's was considered a form of prejudice, therefore friendship was prejudicial. Zane, who had been a law-abiding citizen of New Vancouver for years, knew no one so deeply or intimately, not even his parents. The boy sitting only several feet from him was the only person he felt like he might really know. And it was a strange and exhilarating possibility.

Joseph was once again bouncing his frayed rubber ball against the imposing metal cell. The playing cards on the table had been used so frequently in the past week that they had begun to disintegrate, much like Zane when he was injected. He focused on the steady thump thump of Joseph's rubber ball. He lay on his bunk once more, staring at the bare ceiling.

"What do you think they'll do with us next?" he asked, addressing the room more than Joseph. He had thought of proposing this conversation to the other boy, but had previously had no real inclination to do so. Now he was truly beginning to wonder what Wawrzynski had in store next.

"Wawrzynski said something about a 'next stage'," Joseph said blandly. "When we would be required to hone our powers." He said the word powers with extreme distaste, as if he had eaten a particularly soggy piece of broccoli.

Thump, thump.

"Do you think they'll have to take us somewhere else or leave us here?" Despite the abstract surroundings, Zane had begun to feel quite comfortable here. It had a homey feel, and he somehow appreciated these stiff prison beds. It could have been simply a reaction to accepting others' decisions and orders without complaint for years. A placebo effect of sorts.

"They'll probably be able to leave us here, but I'm guessing they'll test us in one of those rooms we saw coming in," Joseph responded. Zane nodded. It was a better explanation than any. He shuddered as he remembered the girl screaming on the ground while lava surrounded her. He hoped they didn't throw lava his way. He would not appreciate being burnt alive.

Thump, thump.

"I can't control it yet," Zane said softly. "How am I supposed to hone it?"

Joseph caught the rubber ball in his left hand. "I don't know, Zane," he muttered. "If anything, I don't know how I'm supposed to hone mine either. It seems like it's already reached a maximum. I can turn into anything I touch. How can that be honed?"

"This whole place makes no sense," Zane said under his breath. "Why were we injected? What does Wawrzynski hope to achieve by making superhumans?"

"You want to know my guess?" Joseph asked, turning his brilliant blue eyes on Zane. "I think he wants weapons."

"Why would he want weapons? New Vancouver doesn't even have a police force," Zane inquired. He looked at the syringe resting on the table. The syringe made out of his own cells. He shuddered.

"I'm not talking about New Vancouver," Joseph said quietly.

"But New Vancouver's all there is," Zane protested weakly. As soon as he finished his statement, he realized that it was another supposed "fact" drilled into him from childhood.

Joseph shook his head sadly. "Do you know how big the world is, Zane?"

Zane shook his head.

Joseph began to toss his ball again. Thump, thump.

"I think there's more cities out there," he said yearningly. "I believe there are untouched spots of wilderness where wildlife still exists, where people can live outside of a steel wall and pick their own path in life. Somewhere I can follow my dreams, become an actor, entertain people."

"Wow," Zane said lamely. "That's deep."

"Mhm,"

Thump, thump.

The cell door released with an aerated hiss. The head soldier stepped in, followed closely by Wawrzynski. He was once again wearing the traditional gray suit with the blood-red tie. He smiled widely, and it made Zane extremely uncomfortable. The soldier, on the other hand, was completely bereft of emotion. His face seemed to be wiped clean of its ability of expression.

He simply gestured out the door, and the boys were forced to comply. What choice did they have? Even if they managed to overpower this soldier, there were many others waiting throughout the building.

Even so, Zane managed to slip the syringe into his pocket without anyone noticing. He had a faint feeling he would not be coming back to this room any time soon, and this syringe was just as much a part of him as his arm.

They walked past darkened rooms, past Wawrzynski's office, and past the door to the control room. Zane was perplexed. The enclosed, temperature-regulated rooms were all behind them, so where could they be going?

Zane thought of the syringe that he had frantically tucked in his pocket. Would he ever be able to gain back the lost part of his finger? He felt that the answer was no, but he refused to believe it. He would find a way to dissolve the syringe and get his finger back. Besides, it felt awfully weird to have no fingernail.

They reached a large metal door as equally imposing as all the others. The window was tinted so Zane could not see inside. The soldier rammed a rusted key into the large keyhole above the doorknob. He viciously twisted it until a click could be heard. Zane sensed thick tension and apprehension coming off of the soldier in waves. He furrowed his brow, wondering what could possibly be waiting on the other side of the thick door that unnerved the soldiers so much.

The lead soldier threw open the door.

It would be extremely generous to describe the scene inside as chaotic.

The room was ten times larger than Joseph and Zane's cell, and was fixed up far nicer. Five doors along one wall indicated sleeping areas. A couple ratty sofas and a disintegrating rocking chair surrounded a glass coffee table. A kitchen was set up on the far wall, outfitted with a fridge, a microwave, and a sink. They clearly did not trust anyone with a stove. A bathroom was placed opposite the sleeping rooms. A large steel table sat to Zane's left, and five metal chairs surrounded it. Two large bookshelves sat near the table, overflowing with paper-bound books that Zane had not seen since his childhood.

The scene inside the room did nothing to add to the delightful interior. A horse stood gallantly in the middle of the room, staring at Zane and Joseph with large, pitiful eyes. It did not seem to mind the two girls duking it out in front of him. One girl, with razzled blue hair and sparkling hazel eyes, was literally bouncing off the walls. She was rocketing to either side of the room with no discernible means of propulsion. She was laughing furiously as the other girl tried to catch her. The other girl stood on the ground, reaching to grab the blue-haired girl every time she flew by. But what was truly remarkable was that her arms were stretching to unbelievable heights to try and nab the girl out of the air. The horse nickered, tossing his head, trying to get the girls' attention.

Zane stared open-mouthed at the scene before him. Joseph was similarly flabbergasted.

Wawrzynski smiled. "Hone away," he said backing out the door, the soldier following closely behind. "Have fun."

The door slammed shut and Zane heard the key twist.

Zane heard Wawrzynski's laughter in his brain long after the man had walked away.

The flying girl stopped long enough to stare at Joseph and Zane. She opened her mouth to speak, but a rubbery arm circled around her stomach and instead she said something along the lines of "Ack,"

"Yes!" the girl on the ground cried in triumph. Her arm retracted and she gave the blue-haired girl a noogie. Then she raised her eyes and saw Zane and Joseph standing next to the door, completely speechless. Without warning, she dropped the other girl, earning a cry as she hurtled toward the ground. She stopped inches above the ground and hovered.

"Why do you always do that?"

The horse whinnied as if to say, losers. Zane had no idea why there was a horse here, but he decided to go with it. The girl retracted her arm completely, returning it to normal length. She was olive-skinned, with beautiful brown eyes. Curly black hair fell to her shoulders, and she had a blue nose piercing. She waggled her fingers. "Hi,"

"Hello," Zane responded dubiously. "Shall we address the elephant in the room, and by that, I mean the horse?"

"Oh, that's just Marcus," the hovering girl said. She tucked her feet under her, standing up. The horse whinnied. You bet I am.

The stretchy girl nudged the horse. He heaved a most equine sigh and his face began to compress. His mane and tail disappeared completely, as did most of his fur. A button-down shirt and jeans materialized onto his increasingly humanoid features. His hooves transformed into feet and his large brown eyes changed to human-sized green eyes. Red hair sprouted on top of his head. He straightened up as his front legs formed arms.

Soon there was a redheaded boy with a cowboy hat standing in front of Zane. He was tall, and built solidly, but Joseph was without a doubt taller and broader. His feet were bare, and his jeans were quite short. He nodded, tipping the edge of his cowboy hat to them. "Hey," he said in an accent that made Zane want to swoon into his arms.

"Who are you?" Joseph asked hesitantly as if unsure whether provoking the tall cowboy was a good idea.

The boy held out his hand. "Marcus Brown, mate. I come from Melbourne," he said, again in the smooth accent. When the word Melbourne was spoken, Joseph fixed Zane with a glare as if to say told you. Zane rolled his eyes.

"Where's Melbourne?" Joseph asked, still smirking Zane's way. Zane, however, was still perplexed as to why Marcus was a horse when they entered the room.

"Australia," Marcus said with a frown.

"Yeah, mhm, and where's that?"

"Seriously?" Marcus asked incredulously. "Do they tell you nothing here?"

"Actually, no," Zane pitched in.

Marcus strode to the table, the legs of his jeans rubbing together. He reached for a leatherbound book on one of the shelves, a heavy volume that he laid down on the table. He opened it up and gestured them over. The two girls came over as well. Laid out on the page was a picture of several blobs with vast swaths of blue in between them. A map, Zane realized, although he had never seen this particular map before.

Marcus pointed to a small blob near the bottom of the map. "This is Australia," he said. He pointed to a small dot on the blob. "And that's Melbourne."

Zane gestured to a large patch of land to the top of the map. "Is that New Vancouver?" he asked, earning a chuckle from Marcus.

The boy pointed to a dot just like Melbourne. "That's New Vancouver."

"The world must be so big," Zane said in awe.

The two girls had sat in chairs at the other end of the table. The blue-haired girl leaned forward. "I'm Daisy Fedorov," she said, offering her hand, which he shook numbly.

"Mallory Sanchez," the other girl supplied.

Zane was still shocked at how big the world was. New Vancouver was such a small dot on such a large map. He was overcome with a sense of smallness. If the world was so big, what did his problems matter? He felt like a grain of sand on a beach that stretched for miles and miles.

Joseph was curious. "Where do you two come from?" he asked the girls.

Daisy pointed to a particularly large dot on the map. "Moscow," she said.

"Rio," Mallory answered, pointing to a dot on the edge of a landmass to the south.

"Then what are you doing all the way up here?" Joseph inquired.

"The committee of governors is expecting a war with Japan any day now," Marcus supplied, pointing to a very small and thin landmass far above Australia. "They were trouble in the past, in the old wars. Now they've cut themselves off from the rest of the world, and their three Governors have gone silent.

"The other Governors of the world are thinking Japan will ultimately declare war," Marcus finished.

"That still doesn't explain what you're doing in New Vancouver," Joseph said, speaking Zane's thoughts.

Marcus sighed. "New Vancouver has the largest experimental weapon program in the world. The Governors have been hand-picking teenagers who are braver or more strong-willed than the rest of society. They're a headache to find, any Governor will attest to that. In a controlled society, people tend not to think for themselves.

"Recently, scientists perfected the gene-altering technology known as CRISPR, discovered many years ago. They needed something to test it on, and they were fresh out of lab rats. So they thought, 'Hey, why not use our kids. Either it kills them or makes them a biological weapon'. As you may have noticed, compassion runs low in this day and age as well, mate. They shipped all of us with the desired qualities up here because New Vancouver has the most equipped facilities to keep us in."

"So we're just expected to be weapons and leave our lives behind?"

Mallory leaned forward, her elbows on the steel table. "Dude, in case you haven't noticed, nobody cares. Your family and friends are probably convinced you died in a freak accident."

Zane had not considered that possibility before. He had simply assumed they were told he had to stay at this crappy building for days at a time for work. He hadn't considered they might tell them he was dead. A wave of despair settled over him as strong as a wave in the ocean. Would his parents be grieving? He severely doubted it. And he didn't have the courage to tell these strangers he had never had a friend before.

"So do we just go along with it and expect to practically be slaves for the rest of our lives?"

Daisy scoffed. "Look around you, sweetie. Does it look like we live like slaves?" She spread her arms wide, gesturing to the room as a whole. Her voice had a smooth, lilting accent. She seemed to pronounce her s's more like z's.

Zane watched her carefully. Her posture was welcoming, but her eyes seemed to betray her smile. They were weary, as if the hazel color had dimmed slightly, making it appear a more beige tone. "You have no desire to escape?" Zane asked incredulously, practically stage-whispering. He could not understand why they weren't yearning to get out of this place, to run free.

"No," Daisy said, then shrugged her shoulder slightly to the left. Zane switched his glance ever so subtly to peer over her left shoulder.

Seated in the far corner was a security camera much like the ones in Zane's old cell. The red light was bright, and pierced his retinas. He turned away and looked back to Daisy, who was mouthing yes in contradiction to her previous statement.

Smart girl, Zane thought wonderingly.

Mallory leaned even further across the table if that were even possible. "You never told us who you were," she said, her eyes travelling over the both of them. Zane felt like a piece at an art gallery.

"Zane Morrison,"

"Joseph Romanson,"

Daisy chewed a fingernail. "Cool names," she said without looking up from her half-eaten cuticle. Her blue hair was a stark contrast against the steel walls, and she had matching eyeliner and blue pearl earrings that blended in so well you could play I Spy on her face. "What are your powers?" She said this nonchalantly, as if asking for Chinese food for dinner.

To demonstrate, Joseph touched the atlas.

Even though Zane knew what was coming, he was still surprised. A patch of white the color of the shiny paper started from his fingertips and radiated outward to the rest of his body. Soon he was a field of white with two doleful blue eyes gazing out. Then faint colors began to shimmer into existence all over his body. Zane watched in fascination as the continents themselves drew onto Joseph's paper skin, small dots appearing for all the cities. Soon he was a walking, talking atlas.

"Another very useful transformation, Joseph," Zane said, fighting the strange urge to giggle.

"I will throw this atlas at you," Joseph muttered with a scowl.

"Woah, mate," Marcus said, reaching out to touch his city, which was located somewhere on Joseph's knee.

Mallory pointed to Zane. "Dude, if yours is half as good as his, I am going to slap you with that atlas myself,"

Zane desperately wanted to show them what he could do. He just had to figure out how he reformed into Joseph last time. He had envisioned every small detail of Joseph, but he hoped he would not have to explode in a shower of dust this time.

He pictured someone as he had last seen them. He closed his eyes.

He willed the subtle changes to flood over his body. He envisioned his hair becoming darker and his mouth wider. He envisioned a blood-red tie and a gray suit. He envisioned his body shortening a little and his gut belching out. He felt sloughing from his face, and he knew that it was working. He smiled to himself.

He opened his eyes.

Standing in front of the others was a perfect imitation of Lucas Wawrzynski.

Mallory grabbed the atlas and swung it across Zane's face.