Stone and Freya stood across the street from an off-campus dorm. As students passed, several of them looked warily at Stone, without even noticing Freya. Stone grunted. Freya’s bohemian style allowed her to fit in better than his short haircut and military posture.
“Cole said four of the professor’s students live here. These kids’ parents must be loaded to afford a place like this,” Stone said, noting the huge building with wraparound balconies. Compared to the boarding house where he was raised, this was a mansion.
“It is a lovely place, but what is your plan?” Freya asked.
“Ben said that Kwame plans on killing both presidential candidates,” Stone said. “But he thinks Kwame will have his mutant clowns do it. We need to follow the students, and stop them before they can get to Zellweger Hall.”
“Your nation’s politics are confusing. You choose your two best candidates to see which is worthy, and then spend all your time attacking them.”
“Don’t get me started,” Stone said as the front door of the dorm opened.
Quinton stepped outside and stretched. He smiled and looked to the skies.
“That’s one of them,” Stone whispered and then tilted his head as an unusual sensation came from Quinton. “Hey, do you feel that?”
“His increased blood pressure? Yes.”
“Feels more like a horse than a person,” Stone noted. “He wasn’t like this when I talked to him yesterday.”
“You have already met this man? Should we question him?”
“Not yet. For now, we’re just going to follow him,” Stone said.
Quinton walked down the street, fidgeting as he walked. Everything seemed to distract him, and Stone could tell that his emotions were wildly volatile. Seeing a butterfly caused him to clap and smile. A girl almost bumped into him and he turned and roared at her. It took thirty minutes of wandering before he finally reached the professor’s office.
“Okay, this is it,” Stone said, turning to Freya. “Follow my lead, okay?”
“I already told you that I would,” Freya said. “So, what do we do?”
“Wait until we’re sure no more of them are coming, and then bust up their little war party,” Stone said.
“That’s it?” Freya asked.
“Yep,” Stone said. “Stay behind me. Actually, just wait for my call.”
Freya rolled her eyes, but silently followed Stone into the professor’s office. She could hear a group of people laughing from the hallway.
The decapitated head of the saber-tooth cat statue was set on Kwame’s desk.
“What happened to the statue?” Kwame asked.
“I did,” Eddie boasted. “I grabbed that thing by the neck and it came off in my hands!”
The students started laughing.
“Guess what? There was a gorilla’s head underneath!”
“I knew it!” Quinton shouted. “That thing was too ugly to be a real saber-tooth!”
“Did anyone see you?” Kwame asked quietly.
“Does it matter? What are they going to do, fight us? Besides, they were probably so stoned that they thought they were hallucinating!”
The students burst out in uproarious laughter until Kwame held up both hands. The room suddenly fell silent.
“Everyone is here,” he said, smiling. “Welcome to Homo Magis, brothers and sisters!”
The students smiled and nodded.
“We are more than an army — we are a new breed of human! Soon, we will be our own nation. We will not recognize the borders that have been drawn by Homo sapiens, and we will cleanse the world of our inferiors!”
“Yeah, that’s not gonna work for me,” an unfamiliar voice said from the doorway.
Everyone turned to see Stone standing in the doorway. Freya was leaning against the door beside him.
“I’ll be in the next room if you need me,” Freya whispered. “I’ll be waiting for your call.”
Kwame smiled as he recognized Stone.
“Ah, you are the one who met Eve,” Kwame said, smiling. “She was only one girl, but now we are many. Imagine what we will do to you.”
“I’m kind of hoping that you’ll die,” Stone said.
Freya sat on the couch in the waiting room and picked up a magazine with the professor’s face on the front. Even though she was not a philosopher, what she read sounded like nonsense. She heard a small crash and Stone started grunting and exhaling air like a horse. Sunny Joe would have been embarrassed.
Something slammed into the wall behind her and Freya caught a wall sconce before it hit the floor. If Stone wanted to be stubborn and play lone wolf, fine. So be it. She would follow his instructions and wait for his call.
She could hear things slamming against each other, and then Stone crashed into the waiting room, landing on the coffee table. He closed his eyes in pain and reached for his back.
“Do you need my help now?” Freya asked.
“Smart ass,” Stone moaned and nodded.
Freya entered the office. The bookshelves had been destroyed and the professor’s desk had been broken in half, but the professor had remained sitting in his chair smiling.
“And what do you think you can do, little girl?” Kwame asked.
Two students menacingly lurched over to Freya. The first man reached for Freya’s neck, but before his eyes could register the movement, Freya slapped both of them on the chest. The blow reverberated through their bones so hard that it caused their hearts to beat faster and faster, until they finally burst.
When she saw blood running out of their eyes and ears, Freya pushed them over. They fell the floor. They would not get up again.
Kwame’s brow lowered in anger and he stood to his feet.
“You racist!” he screamed.
“I read one of your articles,” Freya said. “You say that a lot.”
Kwame motioned and a large woman moved toward Freya. She only took a moment to assume a Tae Kwon Do stance before striking at Freya’s head. She was faster than Freya had expected, but not fast enough. Freya leaned back, dodging the deadly blow with ease. She followed up with a strike of her own to the woman’s chest.
But in the millisecond before Freya’s strike made lethal contact, the woman moved out of the way. She could not dodge Freya’s attack completely, but was able to deflect some of the blow. With nothing to receive the final momentum of her fist, Freya’s arm continued flying forward, and her shoulder almost popped out of its socket. Pain exploded behind her eyes and Freya gasped to maintain her center.
The woman twisted her body, hooking her foot into the center of Freya’s back. Freya fell to the ground, and the woman prepared to crush Freya’s skull with her foot. As Freya rolled to escape the blow, the sound of gunfire filled the small room.
Stone had pulled out the golden gun that he had borrowed from the Bughanum assassin, and fired three times at the woman. The shells were hollow-point. At close range, they turned everything in the woman’s ribcage to chili. She looked confused for a moment, and tried to say something to Kwame. Before the word could escape her lips, she collapsed onto Freya.
Quinton and Eddie raced toward Stone, but his gun was empty.
“Three bullets?” Stone asked incredulously. “Who only puts three bullets in a gun?”
Stone stood to his feet and used the gun as a golden club, striking Eddie on the side of the head. It slowed him for only a moment, before he returned Stone’s blow with two of his own.
Kwame grimaced. Whoever these two Homo Sapien devils were, they were as powerful as his students. He would have to intervene himself. As Freya pushed the dead woman away from her, Kwame pulled a knife from his waistband. When Freya’s eyes turned away from him, he grabbed her by the hair and pulled her towards him, exposing her throat to the blade.