APRIL 8, 2016, ALBUQUERQUE, NEW MEXICO
1:00 PM
The male subject had been lured to the facility with a ruse. He was told he had won an all-expenses-paid safari vacation, but in order to prepare for the trip, he was required to go through a rigorous physical. His wife and three children had already been to the back room where their mouths were swabbed, blood was taken, and vitals were recorded. They were sent back out into the tastefully decorated waiting area, and then it was his turn.
“This will just take a second,” said the nurse.
He opened his mouth, and she dug around his inner lip and cheek with a long cotton swab. The smell of her latex gloves assailed his nostrils. He hated that smell and wasn’t too keen on hospitals in general. “I hope the trip is worth all this. Hey, aren’t you supposed to give me vaccines and stuff? I heard somewhere they do that before trips to Africa.”
The nurse pulled down her face mask and smiled. “Mr. Wilson, this is the preliminary exam. If we see any problems, we’ll notify you and have you come back for a follow-up. As for vaccinations, I don’t know anything about that, but I’m sure the doctor can answer any questions you have.”
“And when do I see the doctor?” He winced as the nurse tightened the rubber tourniquet about his upper arm. She pressed his antecubital fossa, looking for a suitable vein, and he winced again as she inserted the needle.
Zion Wilson was glad when he hopped in his Yukon and drove back to his ranch house with the family. He had been informed all their results would be back within twenty-four hours. The sooner the results were in, the sooner they could start planning the vacation of a lifetime.
“…And elephants, and giraffes, and lions,” his five-year-old daughter was running down the list of animals she hoped to see.
“Kizzy! Why do you talk so much?” his nine-year-old whined.
“All right, all right, simmer down. When we get inside, I want you to give your baby sister a bath, Denise. Your mom and I are gonna get dinner started.”
“Fish tacos?” his wife suggested. He grinned at her and nodded.
“Sounds good to me.”
They piled out of the SUV and filed into the house, where the kids argued about who would take a bath first, and he and his wife sauntered into the kitchen, ignoring the bickering.
Lorraine Wilson put her elbows on the kitchen counter and leaned over to talk to Zion. Her curly black hair was a halo around her olive face. “So, what do you think they were testing us for?”
Zion shrugged. “Beats me. Said they’ll call if they see any problems.” He cupped her face and kissed the tip of her nose. “But there aren’t gonna be any problems. In a few months, we’ll be in the middle of Africa, riding across the savanna, taking pictures of the elephants, giraffes, and lions.” He chuckled softly.
By the next day, he was no longer laughing. He was back at Starke Genetics & Development, wearing a worried frown. Tension in his shoulders and neck made his head ache, and when the nurse called him back to the examination room, his legs were shaking. He had received the callback while at work, and the friendly nurse on the other end of the line had assured him he didn’t have anything grave to worry about, so he hadn’t told his wife.
He couldn’t imagine explaining to Lorraine that some health concern might hold up their trip. Zion wondered what the problem might be. He was healthy as an ox, never got a cold or the flu, and didn’t have any allergies. He had barely aged a day since his early twenties. He was stronger than ten men and sharp-witted to near genius. What was wrong with him that he needed to go back and see the doctor?
An Asian woman with an electronic clipboard was waiting in the small blue examination room. There were furrows above her brow, and she looked anxious and nervous.
“Give it to me straight, Doc,” Zion said, plopping down on the edge of the paper-covered exam table. He put his hands together and dropped them between his knees. “I’m healthy, for all intents and purposes. You’re gonna tell me I got some type of tumor or something growing like a ticking time bomb in me? Something I haven’t felt the effects of yet?”
“No.” Her sharp, monosyllabic answer didn’t make him feel any better. “Mr. Wilson, I want to take you through a series of tests, and I want you to perform them to the best of your ability. Do you understand?”
“Tests?” He didn’t understand. He thought he was finished with tests.
“Follow me, please.”
Zion was reluctant, but he followed the doctor with the long black hair that fell to the middle of her back. She had haunted eyes, circles underneath them as if she worked long hours with little rest. He had questions, and nobody seemed to have any answers. She led him down a long hallway to his right, the windows streaming bright sunlight. Zion peeked outside. A movement out of the corner of his eye caused him to glance back, and he noticed two men in black suits were a few paces behind him.
The doctor took Zion to the elevators, and the men followed them inside. They all went down.
“What are these tests about? Do I need to call my wife?”
“Mr. Wilson, we’d be happy to contact your wife for you,” said one of the gentlemen.
Zion stepped back and pressed his spine against the cool metal wall of the elevator. With sweaty palms, he gripped the handrail that lined the wall. His eyebrows lifted, and creases wrinkled his forehead as he replied tensely, “Someone better tell me what the hell is going on here.” He had visions of secret medical facilities, and the place was starting to look more and more like one.
The two men in suits barely glanced in his direction. One of them chuckled briefly. The doctor glared at them and glanced back at Zion. “I’m sorry, Mr. Wilson. I’m not authorized to tell you any more information until nondisclosure forms are—”
“I’m not signing no nondisclosure forms!” he said. Zion lurched forward and banged on the elevator doors. “Let me out of here!” he shouted. “I didn’t sign up for this! Let me out!”
The gentlemen in black placed heavy hands on his shoulders and pulled him back. “Please, remain calm.”
The elevator doors opened on the basement floor, and Zion Wilson shot out, tearing from their grasp. He looked to the left and to the right but didn’t see any way out, so he blindly ran straight ahead.
“Mr. Wilson!” Dr. Yamazaki called after him. They would hurt him. She knew Meade’s henchmen would have no qualms about taking down the patient if he didn’t cooperate. “Mr. Wilson, please! For your safety, you have to stop!”
Zion dashed past a startled man in a lab coat, his wingtips slapping against the white linoleum floor. His suit jacket whipped out behind him, and his arms pumped as quickly as his legs. He didn’t get winded. He coasted around a corner, and there ahead of him was a door labeled Exit. A burly security guard tried to stop him, but Zion pushed the man away with all his considerable strength. The oversized man flew six feet in the air and landed with a deafening crash through a glass wall of the laboratory. Zion knew he could get out. He just had to keep running.
“Stop!” Dr. Yamazaki pleaded.
One of the black-suited men leveled his weapon and fired the tranquilizer dart directly into the back of Zion’s neck. The cartridge was double strength. The medium-height, medium-build runner didn’t stand a chance.
Akiko covered her mouth and dropped her head. “You didn’t have to do that!” she shouted. “Go get him!” She pointed at her patient and stormed to the laboratory. Within a few minutes, Zion was deposited on a stretcher in the basement examination room. Akiko’s laboratory permitted a view from a level above. The room was sealed off by automated doors that opened only by access code.
“Who do we have here?” asked Yuhle. He strolled into her office, peering down at the patient.
“Zion Wilson, case number 6458004e. Our rapid results from the DNA sequencer indicated a probable match with the Atlantis gene. I received word this morning we’re to run further tests and document phenotypic and behavioral abnormalities.” Akiko heaved a sigh, finally catching her breath after chasing him. “Make a note that he’s fast and strong.”
“Are we safe?” Yuhle’s hawkish nose twitched. He wasn’t comfortable dealing with a potentially violent patient.
“Don’t worry, Yuhle. Nothing hands-on.”
General Meade had ways of getting what he wanted and people to carry out his dirty work. A careful combination of mind-altering drugs would make Zion Wilson docile enough to complete the rigorous physical and mental tests required to assess his capabilities. They tested his strength by measuring the force of his punch. He could throw a smart car across a football field. His intelligence measured off the charts.
Zion could also perform minor telekinesis, such as moving a spoon across a table. He could read thoughts with 84 percent accuracy. Zion Wilson was no ordinary human being, and he didn’t have ordinary genetic material. It was all adding up for him to be the first real match. “This is the one,” Akiko murmured with growing amazement as she glanced from her clipboard to the patient dazedly performing superhuman feats beyond the bulletproof glass. “My friend, you are seeing the Atlantis gene in action.”
Yuhle whistled. “How the hell does he do this stuff?”
“Ancient Atlantean mythos supplies vibrational energy as the source of their unique power. In theory, I’m guessing they possibly have the ability to affect the electromagnetic spectrum.” She shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t have a clue. But what if we could get a better understanding of the genes that make this possible? Do you know what that would mean for us? We could modify faulty genetic material with improved Atlantean genes. We could effectively cure cystic fibrosis and Down syndrome.”
Dr. Yuhle shook his head. He was frustrated with that gleam in Akiko’s eyes. It was a hungry gleam. She was so stuck in her vision that she couldn’t see how others might use the knowledge. “Think about it, Dr. Yamazaki. The US military is supplying us with a list of names of people like Zion Wilson, people who can read minds and throw cars. You might not think there’s something strange about that, but I do. They want these people for a reason…and I’m betting it isn’t to cure disease.”
APRIL 11, 2016, SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
1:45 PM
Jaxon stood in the middle of the greenhouse, knowing she wasn’t supposed to be there, but she was unafraid. She needed an escape, and it was the only place on the expansive property where she knew no one would find her. They would most definitely be looking for her everywhere else.
She had been at Forever Welcome just under a month, and she was growing more familiar with her foes. Seventeen-year-old Lizzie Baptiste, the leader of the pack, was the worst of them. Then there were Lizzie’s emulators, adoring fifteen-year-old fans Beth Sharpton and Delilah Griffith. In the four weeks since Jaxon had arrived, the three girls had taken every opportunity to stir up trouble and push her around, from sly taunts to meetings in the public restroom.
The craziest part of the scenario was Lizzie’s reason for bothering her. Jaxon had discovered—after overhearing a dining hall conversation between Lizzie and crew—that the eldest of the group was infatuated with Dr. Hollis, of all people. Apparently, Lizzie had decided the psychiatrist’s interest in Jaxon’s assimilation into the school was too close a doctor–patient relationship for comfort. Dr. Hollis was sweet, and while Jaxon hadn’t had much respect for psychiatrists in the past as she had for him, she certainly wasn’t interested in him like that. She was in the awkward position of feeling she couldn’t go to the one person who would likely squash all the nonsense.
Jax had refrained from solving the disputes physically, but she was running out of self-restraint. She wanted to punch something. As her sprinting heart rate slowed to a normal rhythm and her breathing grew calmer, she let the vital energy of the growing things surround her and soothe her frazzled nerves.
“They’re idiots,” she muttered to herself. She wanted to use foul language and more apropos descriptions of the Cretans at the main house that were driving her insane with their immaturity, but she had gradually stopped using profanity after being at Forever Welcome for several weeks. Idiots was an apt enough term. Dim-witted, ignorant, slow to learn. She was sick of them, but she had two years to deal with them or people like them.
The rest of the residents barely paid her any attention. There were nine of the twelve- to fifteen-year-olds and ten within her own age bracket. The younger kids had far fewer freedoms than the older ones, and she rarely saw them other than during class and in passing during morning group therapy. The age brackets ate at separate times and had separate downtimes. Of the ten sixteen- to eighteen-year-olds, Jaxon had only one other nuisance besides Lizzie.
Delaney Houston, the pimply faced sixteen-year-old, had a crush on her, displayed with characteristic elementary school aplomb. If she was eating alone, he made himself a pest. If she was walking alone, he made himself a pest. He called her names and said she smelled funny and generally made himself a pest, but Jax could deal with him. A healthy dose of ignoring him was enough, after the first few weeks, to cut his ego down to size. He pretty much left her alone.
Lizzie and her ilk were the ones who seemed to have nothing better to do than torment her. Just as Jax had suspected, the minute word got out that she was taking advanced placement classes—as she knew it inevitably would—Jaxon was deemed the geek, the nerd, the weirdo. She was picked on for her size and her figure. She was too skinny. She was too stuck-up. She was the shrink’s pet.
“Ugh!” she growled. She hated it.
Jaxon sank to the mulch-covered floor and inhaled slowly and deeply. The greenhouse was inordinately warm, the heat of the afternoon sun intensified by the clear paneling of the glass framework. Perspiration beaded along her forehead and rolled down her dusty face. She licked it from the top of her lips. She smiled to herself, feeling more at peace and at ease in the lonely shed than she had since arriving—or since having her arrival fantasies dashed by the reality of Forever Welcome. The name was a misnomer. Those people didn’t want her there.
The greenhouse was about the size of her bedroom, and the walls were lined with two shelves, one high and one low, each holding potted plants. A large table dominated the middle of the small space with just enough of a pathway to circle the room, and a wire trellis extended from the tabletop to the framework of the roof. She followed the narrow mesh wall of trellis up and up to where buckets hung overhead, suspended from a sprinkler system.
Plants were on every available surface, and clay pots were home to aloe, pothos, and ferns. Planters were filled with pink and yellow flowering plants, and scarlet orchids climbed stabilizing sticks. An odd assortment of citronella pots was isolated from the rest of the plants along the wall farthest from the door. Their black plastic containers were labeled, and one group of plants labeled “Control” wasn’t as robust as the other.
Jaxon touched the chartreuse fronds. Like partial snowflakes, they branched off in rounded spikes, and the foliage gave off a lemony scent. The plants labeled “Praise” overflowed their plastic containers. The control plants had fewer leaves. She was curious to know what type of experiment was going on.
Jaxon dug a finger into the moist, loamy dirt. “What are you guys doing?” she murmured to the citronella. As she touched the earth, she again experienced the strange tingle she had felt the first day she stepped into the backyard. She felt it in her toes. Her skin seemed to spark with static, and she felt a rush of adrenaline. Then, right before her eyes, the plant began a rapid growth that stole her breath.
Jaxon stumbled back, alarmed. Mulch kicked up under her shifting feet as she hit the ground, landing on her rump. She looked up at the plant on the shelf and watched as it visibly stretched an inch taller, its leaves shaking subtly. “Okay, that wasn’t supposed to happen.” Her voice was breathless with amazement and fear.
There was no way to get around it with the evidence right before her eyes. Something Jaxon had known all along was becoming impossible to ignore—she was different. It was the reason the kids back at the residence, kids everywhere, gave her a hard time. She wasn’t like other people. She was smarter, stronger, and… more powerful?
Her eyebrows lowered over her heavy-lidded eyes as she shook her head. “This is just what I need,” she muttered to herself. “More reason to be the butt of everyone’s joke.” No one could find out. Like the fingerprints left in the table at the courtroom, like the fights she had won through sheer impossible strength, it had to be kept a secret, but another worrisome thought was beginning to take shape. Why? Why was she so different from everyone else? What was wrong with her?
Dr. Hollis ambled into the greenhouse intending to check on his plants, but when he saw Jaxon sprawled on the ground, he called out in alarm, “Jax! Are you all right? What on earth are you doing in here?” The psychiatrist bustled forward and helped her to her feet.
“I’m fine,” she replied too hastily. “I was just out for a walk, and I found this place.”
Anthony eyed her suspiciously and glanced at his watch. “No, Jaxon, you’re supposed to be in your bedroom. I got word from Ms. Bhati you reported a headache, and she released you from class early. Hey, I’m no rocket scientist, but I don’t think the walk up the stairs to your room led you out here. So… why don’t you tell me what’s going on, and let me see if I can help?”
She bit her lips and looked around, racking her brain for an excuse, but none was forthcoming. Jaxon sighed and threw her arms up in surrender. “Things are getting out of hand up at the house, and I just don’t know where to go to get some peace,” she wailed, suddenly tearing up. Jax dashed the hot tears from her face and covered her eyes, taking deep breaths. She shook her head, pissed off for breaking down. “Look, I’m trying to do everything right, but it’s just not working. I’m scared I’m going to hurt somebody!”
“Whoa, whoa. Calm down. Nobody’s going to hurt anybody, and nobody’s going to get hurt. Take some deep breaths for me, and let’s get that anger under control.” Her vehemence threw him into protective mode. Anthony guided her to a clear edge of the lower shelf and let her rest her backside against the ledge. He studied her face intently, realizing Jaxon wasn’t the type to blow up over trivia. Something serious had to be taking place, and whatever it was, neither his teachers nor he were being let in on the secret. “What exactly is going on?”
“I’m no snitch,” she said fiercely.
Anthony fought the urge to roll his eyes. He sighed and perched beside her. He let the silence clear the air between them. When she was ready to talk about it, she’d talk. “This is where I go when I need quiet time and space, too, so I don’t blame you,” he said.
Jaxon peeked at him out of the corner of her eye. “Is all this yours?”
“No, I wish I could claim credit for it all, but it isn’t. Most of the flowers belong to Ms. Faye, the housekeeper. She likes gardening. The rest are waiting for the groundskeeper to plant them. That little grouping of citronella over there is mine, though.” Anthony’s roving eyes moved over his plants, and he sat up with interest. He pushed away from the shelf and strolled over to get a closer look. “Wow, look at that. This one has made a big leap since the last time I checked these little guys.”
“R-really?” Jaxon said in a shaky voice. “How do you know? I bet it’s just your imagination. Um, I mean, it looks the same to me.”
“How would you know?” He grinned at the plant, eyeing the fronds, fingering the pot, and turning it around for a different perspective. It had definitely grown. Anthony dug a tailor’s tape measure from the pocket of his wool slacks and held it against the plant. “Wow,” he said. “A whole inch?” He peered at the label again. It was one of the controls. Anthony dropped his head in disappointment. His experiment had failed, and the controls were catching up to the Praise plants. “Oh, well. I guess that’s that.”
Jaxon cautiously tiptoed closer. “What’s what?”
“Hmm? Oh, I was testing a hypothesis of mine, but it appears I was wrong and… science might be right. I, uh, I follow the works of a researcher named Emoto who posited that exposure to positive images could change the molecular structure of water. What I did was treat the water for the Praise plants with positive reinforcements, a daily prayer of thanksgiving for its benefits. I know. Sounds crazy.” He grinned sheepishly.
“Not really.” She shrugged. She could understand the psychiatrist subscribing to such a thought process, although it didn’t sound all that scientific to her.
“Anyway, at first my Praise plants were outpacing the controls, but now it looks like they’re catching up, more than likely negating any difference between the Praise and controls. At some point I’m going to have to stop chasing dreams. I mean, I don’t have any hopes this stuff will make it into a journal or anything, but I was just curious, I guess.”
Jaxon twisted her lips. “Maybe not. Maybe you need to keep going. That one could be a fluke.” She reached for one of the citronella pots, careful not to touch the plant itself.
“You might be right, but I don’t want to get my hopes up. Hey, what do you know about gardening?” Dr. Hollis asked. Gardening might be a great way to get her out of the house and away from whatever was bothering her.
“I’ve never done it before. I might have a green thumb.” She tucked her hands in her pockets. She might have more than a green thumb. She might have some weird, freakish powers that caused plants to grow an inch at the touch of her hand. Jax rethought her first response. “Or not,” she replied hurriedly. Knowing Dr. Hollis, he would try to assign her to the greenhouse permanently. “You know what? I’d probably kill everything. You’d better not let me near them.”
Anthony burst out laughing and shook his head. “What if I told you that you could spend some time in here every evening? I’ll get Mercado, the groundskeeper, to pull together some resources for you. You can have your own pots, soil, seeds. Of course, you’ll have to use some of your own funds to keep it up, but we’ll start you off. Does that sound cool?”
She had to admit, it did. If she got out to the greenhouse every evening, she wouldn’t have to put up with Lizzie’s meanness after class. Between five in the evening and nine at night when it was time for lights out, Jaxon had been confining herself to her room to avoid conflicts. Even if she didn’t touch a single seed or flowerpot, she could go out there and play on her phone or listen to her music.
A slow smile split across her face. “That would be fantastic,” she said. “When can I start?”