Alive Again: Awakening (Book 1)

190

"First things first. I'm Delilah. You've already met Brandon. This is Sting, Maple, and that's Beetle." She motioned to everyone in turn. "And we're all mutants." When they got tired of staring at my dumb expression, Delilah continued. "What I mean is that we aren't fully human anymore."

"Right," I swallowed hard. "I got that."

"You're probably wondering how we became... like this," Delilah tried again.

I nodded, waiting for a reality TV camera crew to jump out of the bushes.

"Our mutations," she described, "are the result of 'freak accidents' staged by a scientist named Maxwell Everest. You've already encountered some of his associates."

"The suit gun people?" I guessed.

Everyone nodded.

"By day, Everest is chairman of an international research association we know as 'E Corp,' a group of scientists and medical experts dedicated to research on the human genome. By night, he spearheads a covert organization that traffics children and youth from around the world as test subjects for his genetic mutation experiments."

The dread rising inside of me was crippling my ability to understand any of what she was saying.

Brandon picked up the thread. "Everest has been experimenting on kids for the last 20 years. Through his work, he discovered the secret to genome alteration pretty quickly, but since he couldn't proclaim his discoveries without outing himself as an international super villain, he started parsing out his findings slowly, pretending as though he was making his discoveries ethically and in real time. Even now, he's still unveiling his research inch by inch. He's been awarded so many grants and prizes that he's a billionaire several times over. That kind of money funds this whole operation and keeps it under wraps."

Trying to keep up, I repeated what I heard. "So this man, Everest, mutates children with other things?"

They nodded.

"What happens to them after they've been mutated?"

"Well, if the Suits get ahold of them, and they don't die from the transformation, they're taken back to his facilities for further experimenting. Our mission would be to save them before they undergo mutation, an sometimes we do, but usually Everest's hit list is so random that it's hard to predict where he'll strike next. We typically get to his targets in time to prevent their abduction, and by then, it's usually too late for them to be saved by standard authorities."

I stopped him with a question: "What do you mean?" 

"Once the mutation takes place, either Everest will kidnap them to run tests on their newly altered bodies or they'll be rescued by police and likely taken away somewhere to be studied by the government. Or imprisoned as dangers to society," he said.

"But we believe," Delilah smiled, "that our mutations make us special. And that no one's life should be taken from them in the name of science, illegally or otherwise. So we rescue other Specials and take them home with us."

"Home?" I asked.

"Campus, she means," Sting clarified.

"Campus?"

"For kids who get mutated!" Maple offered, except she couldn't quite say 'mutated', so it sounded something like moo-taped.

"But I still don't understand," I told them. "If this guy is out to mutate me, why did he try to kill us?"

"Not us," Brandon said. "Me. The Suits know all about our operations. Hundreds of combat squads like ours are out to put a stop to Everest's plans. The Suits are trigger happy when it comes to taking us down."

"But to kill you, they need a missile?" I looked back and forth between their expressions.

"She has a point," Sting agreed. "That's a bit heavy duty. Even for them."

I exhaled. "Okay, whatever. You're special mutants who save kids' lives. Today, you saved mine, and not that I'm ungrateful, but I need to go home. The whole country probably knows that my school was blown up by now, let alone my parents. They'll be worried sick. I have find them before they start thinking I'm dead, so if you'd kindly point me toward—"

"You can't see your parents," Brandon cut me off.

Discomfort churned inside me, more dread on top.

"What?" My voice was barely above a whisper.

"What Brandon's trying to say is that you're still in danger," Delilah rephrased his point gently. That almost made it okay. "We have to get you back to Headquarters.

"Which is...where?"

They all exchanged glances before Sting answered. "Washington DC."