“What is it?” Kyrie’s pretty face partially blocked his view as she looked at him.
“There’s somebody out front.”
Chapter Twenty-nine
Kyrie Merriwether
Cody frowned. “I think somebody knows we’re here.”
Kyrie looked toward where he was facing and saw the men climbing from the dark car. They were dressed in military fatigues, but the color was wrong. They all wore black.
“Guys. We have a problem.” Her voice was clear.
Completely ignoring her, the voice of Joe Bronx continued on. “You are currently sitting in what was the head-quarters of the Janus Mask Company. Officially they make props for movies and sell Halloween masks. But they also ran the program designed to make all of us. They were responsible for Project: Doppelganger.” Once again he was starting to stand up. “The woman in charge is Evelyn Hope. Or at least she’s someone high up on the list of bosses.”
Kyrie looked at the soldiers coming closer. No, not soldiers. At least one of them had a beard, and that was against military dress code, wasn’t it?
“Seriously, guys, we have a problem.”
Cody was already standing. Gene looked toward her, annoyed by the interruption. “What’s wrong?”
“Soldiers.” Kyrie and Cody both pointed.
Hunter reached for the tape player and hit the eject button. “So let’s get ready to run.” He closed his eyes and his face twitched for a second, the stress finally getting the best of him. He let out a small noise and Kyrie would have asked him if he was okay, but the soldiers moved.
One of the men outside pulled at the door, and when it opened, he pushed it closed again very quickly.
“They know we’re here.” Kyrie’s voice shook. Her head was starting to throb.
Gene shook his head. “No. They know someone is here. Not who.”
Hunter made a noise and almost doubled over.
“Well, maybe they do and maybe they don’t, but either way, we aren’t supposed to be here.” That was Tina, coming to her rescue, which was a little weird because Kyrie wasn’t expecting help.
“Whatever.” Cody stood; his voice shook even more than Kyrie’s. “Whatever. We need to go now. Is there another way out?”
Kyrie opened her mouth to answer him but stopped when the noise exploded in her head. Not just hers either. All of them reeled from the sound. Two words, but so loud, so thunderous that they made her eyes ache in her skull.
WAKE UP!!!!
The sound was familiar, but so close now, so overwhelming that even as she tried to stand she fell to her knees.
And the darkness came for her again. Kyrie pushed the night away through force of will, looking at the people she’d just met. She needed to know if they felt it too, if they heard the noise.
WAKE UP!!!!
She could see Gene’s legs. He was standing up, but he was shaking violently, like he was in a hurricane-force wind. As the darkness started moving in again, she felt pain lashing through her muscles, her bones, and heard words coming from her throat again, in a voice that was not hers.
“About damned time!” Her throat, she could feel the vibrations, but the words belonged to someone else. “Let’s get this over with-”
Chapter Thirty
Joe Bronx
Joe opened his eyes and smiled. He wasn’t sure he could do that until now, but he’d managed. He’d forced the change, truly controlled it. He hadn’t even had to work hard at it. As soon as Hunter heard about the attackers, he got distracted and that was when Joe took over.
A simple push, really, and he was changing, growing into his proper shape, freed at last from the smaller, weaker form of Hunter Harrison. He was so much stronger than his Other.
A quick look around and he saw the others panicking, all except Kyrie, who was looking at him as he changed and maybe getting a hint that everything he’d said was true. He called out to them, screamed for them to wake up, and they did, all of them. He saw their muscles twitch, their bodies start shifting, even as his was finishing its transformation.
They changed, of course. Joe Bronx told lies, but not this time.
Kyrie fell to her knees and clutched at her head, unaware of the way her muscles shifted and pulled as the bones beneath them grew. Her hair changed as well, darkening. The change was painful, but Kyrie’s Other reveled in the unexpected transformation, freed at last from a very different sort of darkness. He felt the excitement inside of her.
Gene roared as he changed. His skin grew darker, his eyes, his hair. There was little about him that looked at all like Gene by the time he was done changing. His uncle (the Right Revrund Robbie) would have recognized the man he became in an instant. The odds were good that Robbie would never forget the face of the brute that threw him through a tempered glass window. Joe saw him for the first time in the light of day and was as impressed as ever. He was a predator, a killing machine, same as Joe himself.
Tina screamed too, the pain overwhelming her. The skin on her body stretched and pulled and her entire body rearranged itself, grew broader, stronger, taller. For her the change was shockingly painful. He rode through the pain with her, feeling it in every part of his body as surely as she did. His mind was flooded with sensory input from four additional sources and he blinked back the brief panic and dizziness that the feeling caused. He’d learn to control all of this if he had the time, but for now he had to deal with everything going on around him.
Cody didn’t scream. He clenched his teeth and bent nearly double over on himself and stared hard at the ground, a smile pulling itself from the grimace of pain. What woke up in him had been waiting patiently and now, finally, was free. The change was just as violent for Cody, perhaps even more so as he grew so much, taking on a full foot of height and almost one hundred pounds of muscle and sinew. And if Joe thought Gene had experienced bleed over, he was nothing in comparison to what went through Cody’s mind. The other mind that hid inside of Cody understood that they were in danger, that they were about to get attacked, and immediately dropped into a defensive crouch. He remembered the soldiers while all of the rest were still trying to figure out where they were.
Joe Bronx smiled and shook his head. He’d started changing the second Kyrie said that they had visitors. “We have company. The failures were about to make a few hundred mistakes and get us killed.” The Others looked at him, none of them doubting his words. He was the one who woke them, after all. He was the one who gave them life.
The boy who had been Cody was the first to answer: “Tell us.”
Rather than speaking with words, he showed them the situation: soldiers were surrounding the building.
What had been Tina was the one who suggested the next move. The others listened to her words and chuckled quietly.
And then the soldiers came through the doors and the slaughter began.
Joe stood his ground and watched as the soldiers came in. There were several men and they were armed. On seeing him they relaxed a little and he smiled politely at that notion. They’d learn soon enough.
The others were nearby and he could feel their questions. They wanted to know if there would be trouble.
