ANOM: Awakening (The ANOM Series Book 1) (12 page)

He
turned away from the mirror, picked up one of the suitcases on the floor, and
dropped it onto the bed. There had to be something better to wear. He unzipped
the suitcase, and there it was. Right on top. His Penn State hoodie. This was
Jeremy’s real “uniform.” He wore it more days than not. He lifted the
sweatshirt up to his face, breathing in the warm cotton. This could work, if he
wore this over top. Jeremy flipped the sweatshirt around and had one arm inside
when he stopped himself.

Useless
. That’s what Nyx
called him—all luck and no skill. And she was right. If Jeremy wanted that to
change, he would have to be the one to change it. And that started today.

He
pulled off the sweatshirt, folded it in half, and laid it over the back of his
chair. Then he stepped outside.

In
the main room, all the lights were on now, and Jeremy could see that everyone
was gathered around the far conference table. It was obvious they had been
waiting.

On
the far side of the table, Major Ellison sat with his hands folded, a
half-frown of disgust smeared across his face. He was staring down at one of
the tablets, and he barely raised his eyes when Jeremy stepped into the room.

Lara
sat next to him. She was wearing another gray suit with a white blouse, her
hair pulled back in a bun, and as Jeremy walked toward the table, she offered a
quick smile.

On
the near side of the table, Talon and Nyx sat side by side. They both turned at
the sound of Jeremy’s door opening, but once they saw him they turned back to
face the major, waiting.

Gauntlet
was the only one not sitting at the table. He stood by himself instead, off to
the side with his arms folded tightly across his chest. Of the five of them, he
was the only one not to acknowledge Jeremy’s entrance. He stood unflinching,
his face hidden beneath the scarlet helm. For all Jeremy knew, he may have been
asleep on his feet.

As
Jeremy reached the table, he pulled out the chair next to Talon and sat down.
“Sorry I’m late. This—”

Ellison
didn’t respond; instead he launched into his briefing, his voice static like he
was reading from a script. “Our first order of business is to extend a welcome
to Jeremy Cross. I trust by now you’ve all read his file.”

Nyx
and Talon answered together, “Yes, sir.”

“Good.
Our preliminary data taken last night supports the theory that subject: Cross,
Jeremy can alter and affect gravitational fields. As such, he has officially
been issued the code name: G-Force.”

Talon’s
elbow dug into the side of Jeremy’s arm. “Hey! G-Force. That’s a good name,
man. It’s strong.”

Jeremy
wasn’t so sure.

Ellison
was still reading from his script, “As for activities this morning, Advanced
Tactical Anom Training has been canceled. Instead we’re going back to
Independent Baseline Testing on all genetic anomalies.”

Talon
leaned back in his chair, shaking his head. “We just did that, Major. It was
just last week.”

Ellison
looked up, staring back at Talon; the major was off script now. “I know what
you’ve done and when you’ve done it. Last week the numbers were bad. In fact,
there were signs of regression from some of you. So we’re going to do baseline
testing until I say otherwise. You have anything else to say?”

There
was silence.

Ellison
looked back down at this tablet. “This afternoon we’re still scheduled for a
Simulated Small Team Incursion and Defense. That exercise will be outside at
1330 hours, so use cold weather gear at your discretion.” Ellison looked up and
across the table. “Are there any questions?”

Jeremy
had about a thousand questions ping-ponging back and forth in his brain, but
this last line from the major was a formality. Ellison was already rising to
his feet.

“There’s
one last thing,” Lara interrupted before anyone else could stand. She reached
up, took the tablet out of Ellison’s hand, tapped the screen, and then slid it
across the table to Jeremy. “It’s your contract. Just sign and put your thumb
down on the scanner.”

Jeremy
looked around the table. “Contract for what?”

“Reah
Labs is a private company. We’re hiring you. This is our standard non-compete,
non-disclosure form. It’s a formality really.” Lara smiled.

Jeremy
scrawled his finger across the screen and pressed his thumb on top of the scanner.
There was a soft, electronic ping. Then he pushed the tablet back toward Lara.

She
stood up. “Now it’s official. Welcome to the team, G-Force.”

Talon
got to his feet, slapping his hand on Jeremy’s shoulder. “Yeah. Welcome to the
team, G-String.”

“That’s
enough. Let’s go,” Ellison barked at the room. He was already walking to the
elevator when he spoke. The others followed him on autopilot, as if they had
been here, in this same room, forever. All except Jeremy. He still sat at the
table trying to catch up.

The
elevator doors opened, and finally Jeremy rose to his feet. He tried to imagine
a time when any of this would feel like normal. It certainly wasn’t today—that
much was obvious—but it could start today.

“I
said let’s go!” Ellison barked again, and Jeremy followed.

The
elevator doors opened, and Ellison stepped into the hallway. As he started down
the long corridor he could feel the others filing out behind him, but he
refused to turn and look.

“Talon,
I want you in room eight,” he said. “Gauntlet, take room five. Nyx, you can
start in room four.”

When
he reached the end of the hall, now with only Mirror and the Cross boy behind
him, he pressed a button on the wall, and another door slid open.

“This
way.” Ellison waited for the others to step through, and then he followed them
inside. This new room was narrow and dimly lit with a single large window in
the opposite wall, and standing at its center, was Dr. John Langer. Langer wore
a different flannel shirt—it was red this morning—but he had on the same exact
khaki pants and lab coat. Ellison knew they were the same because he had
memorized the pattern of stains on the man’s clothing. In fact, this was the
third day in a row for the pants.

“Morning,
guys!” Dr. Langer started forward, holding out his hand to Jeremy. “It’s good
to see you again—I mean, we met yesterday. Not sure you remember, but—”

Jeremy
shook Langer’s hand. “No, I don’t. Sorry.”

 “Hey—no—forget
about it. No worries, right? There was a lot going—”

Ellison
stepped in, ending the conversation. “This is Dr. John Langer. He’s been
assigned to work with you on your powers. Doctor, I think we can get started.”

Langer
was still shaking the boy's hand. “It’s just John. I mean, I
am
a
doctor, technically, but you can call me John. I mean, John’s fine—”

Ellison
tried again, “Doctor—”

“Oh
right. Yeah. Let’s go. Let’s do this thing.” Langer turned and walked through
another door into a second room. Jeremy followed him, and the door closed
behind them both. Ellison glanced sideways at Mirror, and then he stepped to
the window. He could see Langer and Jeremy on the other side of the glass in
the next room.

This
second room was bigger and brighter than the first, with white walls and a
white tiled floor. In the back corner there was a glass table, a chair, and an
open laptop—Langer’s workstation—and in the center of the floor Ellison could
see a large, padded shield mounted on a thick metal framework. A pair of wires
snaked down from the pad, across the floor, and disappeared into a metal socket
at the base of one of the walls.

Ellison
flipped up a switch next to the window, and Langer’s voice filled the narrow
room, piped in over an intercom. “Subject code name: G-Force. This is baseline
test one for gravitational field manipulation. All right, G. We’re all set.
Whenever you’re ready, go ahead and hit the bag.”

Ellison
watched as G-Force squared his shoulders to the target. Then the boy pulled
back his arm and threw a half-hearted punch into the bag.

Langer
typed into the laptop. “Good. Sensors are all recording. I have zero change in
the gravitational field. That’s our baseline. Now go ahead and increase your
gravity, and hit the bag again.”

G-Force
looked over his shoulder at the scientist, and then he turned back to face the
bag. He pulled in both his arms this time, standing like a boxer. He hesitated.
Then he snapped out a right cross into the bag. It was slow—weak.

Langer
typed into the computer again. “Okay. I’m still reading zero change in the
gravitational field. Let’s go ahead and have you increase the field pretty good
this next time. I want to make sure the sensors are working.”

Jeremy
squared his shoulders again, ready to hit the bag, but then he dropped his
hands and turned instead to Langer. “I—I guess I actually don’t know how to do
that. Sorry, John.”

Langer
leaned back in his chair. “You mean you—? Hey, no. That’s—that’s my fault. I
just assumed because of last night—what you did—but nobody can control their
abilities at first. They all start out like this. It’s a defense mechanism or
something, like a flinch, but they all learn to control it. You will too. I
mean, that’s why you’re here, right? Let’s just go again. Try to increase your
gravity and hit the bag.”

Jeremy
turned back to the bag. He raised his hands and fired a right cross.

“I
still have nothing. Hit it again,” Langer said.

Ellison
flipped the switch by the window, killing the intercom, as he turned away from
the glass. “This whole thing’s a joke.”

Lara
folded her arms across her chest. “And what else did you expect? Langer’s
right. We all start out like this.”

Ellison
shook his head. “I need to update the colonel. What about the boy’s psych
profile? Did you get anything yet?”

“I
already told you, I can’t read him like that. He’s spiked. You need to give me
more time.”

“And
I told you that’s not good enough!” Ellison shouted. “I’m trying to avoid a
disaster here, and I need you to give me a goddamn profile! I need something I
can take to the colonel that actually matters!”

Lara
bristled now. “I’ve tried. What else do you want? I can’t read him like that.
Period!”

“Then
try again.” Ellison crossed to the door without looking back. He had told
McCann this wouldn’t work. He told him exactly what would happen, and now here
it was, actually happening, and there was nothing he or anyone else could do to
stop it. Nothing he could say to change what was unfolding. Nothing he could—

Ellison
caught himself. He was angry—he knew that—but not at Mirror. She was just an
excuse. None of this was her fault.

Ellison
stopped in the doorway and turned back. “Listen, I’m… Maybe we can go over his
file again tonight. Together. In my quarters? We’ll see if we can find
something useful.”

He
reached out his hand for Mirror’s arm, but she pulled back before they could
touch. “And I’m supposed to believe that’s all you want to look at, Major? Some
of my files?”

Ellison
straightened in the doorway. He hated when she played coy, turning his advances
into some kind of game. On another day he would have told her as much, but
after his outburst maybe he deserved it. Ellison swallowed his pride and tried
his best to sound formal. “I’d like to see you at twenty-one hundred hours in
my quarters.”

He
stepped out of the room before she could answer, walking quickly toward the
elevator. He didn’t have time to finish their game. There was still too much to
do. For starters, he needed to talk to McCann about their newest recruit—that
much was obvious now—but even the colonel would have to wait. Besides, there
was nothing worth saying. Not yet anyway.

Three
floors up, Ellison stepped out of the elevator into another brightly lit
hallway. He was moving on autopilot now. Halfway down the hall, he turned to
his left. The steel door in front of him slid open with a soft hiss of air, and
Ellison stepped through into the Command Center.

Captain
Reyes was the first on his feet, but the other three sitting around the
conference table followed suit immediately.

Ellison
answered with a half-salute. “As you were.”

They
sat down, and Ellison stepped over to Reyes, lowering his voice. “What do we
have this morning, Captain?”

Reyes
looked up from his monitor. “We flagged a radio transmission out of Philly a
couple of minutes ago. We’re still writing it up.”

“Show
me.” Ellison folded his hands behind his back. Reyes punched a series of keys
in quick succession, and the radio report flashed up on the screen on the far
wall. Ellison scanned the words across the top:
Transcript of radio traffic
on Philadelphia police band
.

He
turned back to Reyes. “What got flagged?”

Reyes
typed again, and the report scrolled up—some of the words were highlighted in
bright red:
5718 Virginian Road.

Ellison
looked back at the captain. “And?”

“It’s
the Cross house, sir.”

Reyes
typed again, the screen scrolled up, and more words were highlighted in red:
Appears
to be of natural cause. Make notification to the ME.

“Who
was it? The mother?” Ellison kept his voice low.

“We’re
not sure yet.” Reyes looked up from his screen. “We’re still trying to pull the
report from the medical examiner. It hasn’t been entered yet, but there was no
one else—”

Ellison
raised his hand, cutting him off. He turned to the lone woman sitting at the
table. “Lieutenant Smythe, airlock your station and join the base network.
Request a complete copy of the G-Force file from the archives with a one-hour
safety lock.”

“Yes,
sir.” Smythe pulled the cable from the back of her laptop, plugged in a second
cord, and started typing.

Ellison
turned back to Reyes. “I want you to download emergency communications within
two miles of the Cross house for the last twenty-four hours. Get them all to
the lieutenant.”

Ellison
could feel the sudden rush of energy around him—the sense that all hell was
about to break loose—but none of that mattered. He was in perfect control
now—the eye of the storm.

“Sir?”
It was Smythe. “I have the G-Force file.”

“Cross-reference
with the emergency transcripts. Run it through the search algorithm again.”
Ellison’s voice was quicker now. He couldn’t help himself; they were closing
in, and he knew it. They could all feel it.

“Yes.
I got a hit,” Smythe answered, trying not to shout. “It’s another address: One
fifty-four West Grange Avenue. It’s listed as the residence for Katherine J.
Marino, a known associate of Jeremy Cross.”

Ellison
turned back to Reyes, “Get that transcript up on the big screen.”

Reyes
clicked at his computer. The image on the far wall scrolled up and Ellison
skimmed along:
154 W. Grange Ave. A medical emergency. Person unresponsive.
Possible overdose.

Ellison
felt like he was holding the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle. He just had to turn
it—“Where did they take her? What’s her current status?”

“Bringing
it up now, sir.” Reyes typed into his laptop, scanning across the screen. “It
says that Katherine Marino arrived at Einstein Medical Center at 3:12 a.m.
Patient was unresponsive,” Reyes kept reading. “Efforts to revive her failed.
Time of death recorded as 3:26 a.m.”

Ellison’s
mind was racing. “I want both of those transcripts loaded on a tablet and
backed up to a flash drive. I’ll take possession of both. I want you to pull
and destroy the hard drives on all of these computers. Wipe the audio log in
this room. I’m classifying this morning’s search under priority one. That means
just us and the colonel have access. Are we understood?”

Everyone
in the room answered, “Yes, sir.”

Ellison
took a breath. He tried to center himself—to detach from the moment—to look at
the facts again free from emotion. Maybe in another time, under different
circumstances, the two deaths could be explained as coincidence. For Ellison,
that possibility didn’t exist. He couldn’t afford the luxury of coincidence,
and besides, this was too perfect—too neat.

He
tried to slow down—to go through the facts again, one step at a time. To see
all the angles all at once. The mother and the girlfriend were both dead. It
wasn’t an accident, no matter what the police reports would say. So who were
the suspects? The Red Moon would be first. They were the obvious choice. They
were the group behind the attack at the mall—but they brought in Hot Shot to
distance themselves from that attack. Why would they get their hands dirty now?

So
was it another group? Someone like the Ryoko? Ellison shook his head. That was
impossible too. The timing was too tight—a double homicide less than 24 hours
after the mall attack. The Ryoko would have needed a team in place, ready to
go, and even then, why would they waste the effort? So who else was left?
Ellison could only think of one name—one perfect name—and he knew it from the
start: Hayden.

“Sir.”
Reyes stood up, breaking Ellison’s train of thought. He handed him the tablet
and the flash drive.

Ellison
received both with a quick nod. “Thank you, Captain.” Then he turned back to
the table. “It was good work today. I’ll make sure to mention it in my report
to the colonel. As for now, I need you to scrub the room, and then as you
were.” Ellison saluted. Then he walked out of the command center, back into the
hallway, and into the elevator.

It
had to be Hayden. There was no one else. But why would he do it? Why would
Hayden care if the mom and girlfriend were dead or alive? Ellison shook his
head. It didn’t make sense, but then again, the why didn’t matter. Hayden did
it. He was responsible. That’s what mattered.

Ellison
thought about taking the information back downstairs and breaking the news to
G-Force himself. Then McCann would have to do something about it. He would need
to launch an investigation. He would need to—

Ellison
looked down at the transcript and shook his head. It wasn’t enough—Ellison knew
that—at least not yet. If he went to the colonel now, Hayden would still be
left with too many outs—too many excuses. There would be too much doubt for the
colonel to act. Ellison would have to wait. In the meantime, no one else could
know. The transcript was a start, but now Ellison had to seal off any last
chance of escape. Then Agent Hayden would hang himself.