The Nancy Experiment (Book 1) Read online

  The Nancy Experiment Tess McKenna

  Dedicated to:

  My imaginative siblings and family, for all your love, support, and lessons;

  And to my insightful eighth grade English teacher, Ms. Warenke, who sparked the idea for this story.

  Table of Contents:

  Prologue

  Chapters

  1. Dead End

  2. Under the Bridge

  3. Hospital Blues and Grays

  4. Welcome to Kenyon

  5. Eavesdropping

  6. Darts and the Doctor

  7 A Booming Holiday

  8. Hardly a Victim

  9. A Reason to Go and a Reason to Stay

  10. Intruder

  11. Up on the Rooftop

  12. The Walls of Jericho

  13. Where Is Basia Nancy?

  14. Poker Face

  15. Wade Oval Wednesday

  16. Sunlight and Radiation

  17. Goodbyes

  18. I’ll Give You Answers

  19. More Than Friends

  20. Leverage

  21. Training

  22. The One That Got Away

  23. Becoming Human

  24. Who Are You?

  25. Sanctuary

  26. Tangible Dirt

  27. You Are Not a Monster

  28. Here to Help

  29. Into the Factory

  30. This is Worse Than Detroit

  31. Walk Away

  32. The Phoenix

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  Prologue:

  I am not a monster.

  I am not human, not anymore, but I am not a monster.

  A monster comes from something inside a person, not how he or she is perceived.

  I am not a monster.

  I broke free from that twenty-two months ago, when I was just seventeen. I am now a nineteen year old who has taken on more, seen more, and suffered more than any other being ever has. Some say I am a distorted, psychotic girl. I might be.

  I am a criminal—an international fugitive. I have robbed, cheated, desecrated national sites, and destroyed countless other buildings and locations.

  I have killed. Not intentionally, but not fully unintentionally either.

  I am hated. Newspapers and authority figures across the world have painted me as an immoral, indomitable villain. They are not wrong. I have been forced to compromise my morals and to sacrifice much more. Somewhere along my way, I have lost who I am, but I am not a monster.

  For twenty-two months now, I have been on the run—running for my life. Running to my death. Twenty-two months now, and they have not caught me, but they will.

  Twenty-two months ago, when I escaped from them, they had a reason to chase me. They created the ultimate nuclear weapon—a human, nuclear weapon. The unnatural idea of it all backfired because even a human weapon is still human. Naturally, they would want me back.

  I can only run for so long though, and this pursuit, as it was, has only one ending for me. So in a desperate attempt to change my fate, I did something suicidal. I attained tangible, practical dirt on them, my pursuers, giving them a reason to not only recapture me but to kill me, turning the pursuit into a deadly hunt.

  Twenty-two months of running, and now I am the one looking for someone. As they continue searching for me—a fatal game of cat and mouse—I search for someone who I can entrust the “tangible dirt” with and use it to bring them down. This someone has proven to be difficult to find.

  Twenty-two months since my escape, and I feel the end of this hunt coming near. Twenty-two months I have waited. Twenty-two months, and I have been tried and tested as to who and what I am.

  There are no lines I have left uncrossed, nothing more I have to lose except this “tangible dirt.” But what will I have to do—what will I have to become—to protect it? Twenty-two months later and I am still what I was in their factory.

  I still have faith; I still have a glimmer of hope. But I need someone. I need help.

  No one will help me. They will call me a monster.

  I am not a monster.

  I: Dead End

  Monday, March 10, 2065; 7:31 a.m.

  First person

  Footsteps race toward me, sloshing through puddles and half-melted snow. The air is bitter, and the snowflakes bite the raw skin on my face. Keep running… don’t look back…

  I fight to keep my eyes shut and pull the icy garbage bag over my shoulder. An empty, thick cardboard box labeled YAMAHA leans against the side of a brick building and a large brown dumpster—the perfect homeless man’s tent and my bed for the night.

  In my dream I’m running from the footsteps, but the steps and the snow are too real―too tangible―to be a dream. Sirens echo in the distance, and the footsteps are followed by at least ten others. A German Shepard barks. It’s the barking that separates the dream from reality.

  My eyes snap open.

  From the opening of my cardboard tent, I see two men layered in stocky, stained sweats sprinting through the snow-and-trash-littered alley.

  “Toss it! Toss it, you idiot!” the taller one says.

  The shorter, stockier one pulls out a plastic bag and throws it aside. They hit the blinding light of the main road and turn left.

  The German Shepard chases after them, gaining. I sit completely still, my heart racing as fast as the footsteps, and watch as seven police officers of the Greater Cleveland area run to catch up with the two men and the canine.

  Had they been aware of whom they were running by, I wonder if they would have stopped and changed their pursuit.

  As soon as the alley is silent, I crawl out of my cardboard tent. I sneak forward and search for the bag thrown aside by the two pursued men. There—looks like ten bumps of cocaine. Not sure if it’s worth seven police officers and a canine, but hopefully it’s worth some eggs and coffee.

  I start walking in the opposite direction. The alley is still dark, but Superior Avenue shines with an uncommonly bright March morning. Too bright for a Monday.

  I brush the ice and dirt off my black sweater and scratch off the dried blood on the inside of my Cleveland Indian’s cap. The cut on my forehead must have re-opened last night. Seems to be fine now. And my leg—I look down to see the black cloth wrapped around my right calf—I’ll check it later. I pull the baseball cap back on my head, pull the hood of my sweater over it, and head west on Superior Avenue.

  The streets are busier than usual this morning. Not surprising—it’s the week before St. Patrick’s Day, and there’s no better place to be than Cleveland for the holiday. T-shirt vendors claim their spot early to hang ill-fitting, cheaply-made green shirts. Street corner coffee shops advertise Hazelnut Coffee, Irish Crème Lattes, and the Best and Cheapest Beer in the City.

  Cleveland wasn’t always like this: big, booming, and still growing. Marred by robberies and poverty, the city had a distinct layer of depression and grime around every corner. Growing up here, I remember having to hold my mother’s hand whenever we ventured through the city.

  “Don’t make eye contact with anyone,” she would say. She would squeeze my hand the whole time until we took that first step inside our home.

  That was before Kenyon was built. The third tallest skyscraper in Cleveland, Kenyon is both the Center for New Human Species and Development and the New School for Gifted Children. Once Kenyon went up, more and more skyscrapers followed, lifting the spirit of the city with them, and Cleveland earned a spot on the map. But the layer of depression still lingers in the shadows of the new city, and now there’s no mother to hold my hand.

  One such spot of dirt is Turk’s Coffee Corner, which isn’t even on the corner of the block. It’s about t
wenty-five feet within a lonely alley off Superior Avenue, and if it could go any further into the shadows then it should.

  I open the doors to the café, and small bells ring. The smell of coffee, pancakes, and tobacco flood my sinuses. The waitress, Stephanie, glances at me from behind the bar and nods. I walk through the café and take the back corner barstool. I lean against the wall and angle my body toward the television hanging from the ceiling.

  Stephanie finishes wiping the counter around the man who’s dead asleep at the other end of the bar, and then she comes toward me.

  “Busy today,” I say to her. Almost every table is occupied, but most customers seem engaged in their food or their phones.

  “You can say that,” she says. She wrings out the dirty water from the washrag and wipes her hands on her apron. “The new blonde that Turk hired decided not to come today.”

  “No Turk?”

  “Smoking in the back, as usual. What can I get ya?” she asks.

  “Eggs and toast, and some coffee.”

  “Coffee too? You have money for that?”

  I grab a napkin and fold it around the plastic bag of cocaine. I hand it over to her, and she inspects it from underneath the counter.

  “Eggs, toast, and coffee coming your way,” Stephanie says. She stuffs the drugs in her apron, writes out my order, and passes it through the window behind the bar. On the other side of the window, the chef shouts for a new carton of eggs and some goddamn bread.

  I watch the news while I wait for my food. The anchorman is going on about some high school on the West Side that raised an impressive amount of money for embryonic stem cell research. Probably just had their parents throw in some change, but whatever.

  “It’s been a while since you last came here,” Stephanie says, handing me a hot cup of coffee. I hold the cup to warm my fingers and blow on the coffee.

  “Got any cinnamon?” I ask.

  Stephanie leaves and comes back with a shaker of cinnamon sugar. I guess that works.

  “So I heard this rumor about the police chief that my friend down at the precinct swears by: screwing the mayor’s daughter. I mean, she’s sixteen, so she’s technically legal, but it will be a big scandal when it goes public,” Stephanie says.

  I smile. Although entertaining, I know that eighty percent of Stephanie’s rumors are total bullshit. If the rumor isn’t about sex, then it’s about Kenyon. This one time, she swears that her friend saw a girl with pink skin walk out of Kenyon. Another time she saw through a window a teenager who set his whole body on fire.

  “You know the guy who delivers the meat to Turk would also be interested in your business. Not sure if you’re a vegetarian or not, but—”

  “Thanks, but I’m not a reliable seller,” I say.

  The man on the other end of the bar wakes up and vomits a little on the counter.

  “Clearly.” Stephanie says.

  She leaves to take care of the man, and I turn back toward the television. Commercial break. Now I have nothing to distract myself from my growling stomach. I’m not so sure if it’s hunger or the tobacco-scented air that’s making my stomach turn.

  The kitchen calls out my order and places a steaming plate of scrambled eggs with two pieces of wheat toast in the window between the kitchen and the bar. Stephanie leaves a glass of water for the man at the bar; then she hands me my breakfast.

  “Here you go, eggs and toast,” she says.

  “Thanks,” I say. I reach for a napkin and silverware and pick the shell pieces out of the eggs. It’s everything I can do to keep myself from devouring the whole plate.

  “Welcome back to News Channel Five. We have for you the latest update on the Cavalier’s star point guard Aaron Brooks’ ankle injury last Saturday and…” the news anchor on the television says. Now that breakfast is on the table, the news can wait. “But before we get to that, we have some startling news from the Cuyahoga Cleveland Clinic.”

  My ears perk up.

  “The police force just reported a break-in that occurred yesterday morning in the mortuary and basement level of the downtown Cleveland Clinic. An estimated eight people were killed, and another twelve remain injured. No information was released about the identities of the victims or why it took so long for the break-in to be reported. However, nothing was reported stolen.”

  I smirk.

  “Shitty way to start the week,” Stephanie says, wiping down the rest of the counter with the same cloth used to wipe off the man’s vomit.

  “I’ll say,” I reply.

  “No suspect has been found, but police speculate if this attack could be the work of international terrorist Basia Nancy, last seen in Austria and Munich, Germany two months ago. This wouldn’t be the lone-extremist’s first strike on the clinic or the city, so police and citizens alike are now wondering: has Basia Nancy returned to Cleveland?”

  Stephanie stares at the picture of Basia Nancy on the screen. Slender and fit, the girl in the photo looks almost ghostly with her dark brown hair against her pale skin.

  “I think I’d be scared to death just looking at her,” Stephanie says. She turns to see my reaction, but I’m already out the door.

  I pull the hood of my sweater a little tighter around my face and bury my hands deep in my pockets. The food warms my stomach, but the rest of me still shivers.

  I knew coming back to Cleveland would be dangerous—life-threatening, even—but I had no choice. This is the city where it started for me, and this is the city where it will end.

  The news of Basia Nancy’s return keeps me on edge, and every police officer I walk past seems to look at me a second too long. I keep walking though, away from the Key Bank building and the heart of the city. Maybe I’ll head out to the suburbs, if I can make it that far. My right calf aches more with each footstep.

  Not even two minutes pass, and I sense someone following me. I glance back, but I see no police officer in my tracks. The absence of police sends a chill across my body, so I change my course and turn a corner to confirm my suspicion. Sure enough, the footsteps follow—loud steps with the clicks of steel-toed shoes. Those steps could only belong to one special group of hunters, and they are not the police.

  Am I paranoid? I run across the busy street. Cars honk at me—one nearly hits me—but I make it to the other side without causing too much commotion. As expected, the footsteps follow.

  It’s too early for cat-and-mouse, honestly, I think to myself. I turn another corner, and the footsteps are joined by a second pair. These new strides are longer, heavier, and have the same clicking of a steel toe.

  I can picture their disgusting faces already wearing an overconfident grin. They’re probably thinking how funny this scene is: me racing away from them as they move closer and closer to their prey. Like a snake approaching a tree frog, only this frog is filled with venom.

  I pick up my pace and dodge into an alley while a parade of pedestrians blocks the view. I scale part-way up the wall with the help of a water pipe and wait to watch them pass.

  The two numbskulls walk right past me. I study them for a minute, remembering all the torture they put me through, how I tricked them during my first escape, and how I blinded the shorter one in his left eye. I shake my head to make myself forget, and then I return to the street, heading the opposite direction of the two giants.

  Big mistake.

  Now I have three following me. Shit! My heart echoes my quick steps as I start to jog to E. 13th Street. I could turn there and duck into a café.

  No.

  Two more of them are already walking on that path. Their eyes are locked on me. My heart races even faster: they found me.

  I turn opposite of the group of two, and my face hits the sunlight. Even in my black sweater that shields my head and arms, I gasp and feel the muscles in my face tingle uncontrollably. Thank God it’s still morning: direct sunlight like that would have been much worse.

  Where to now? I can’t go to the rapid—they would expect me there. I can’t
go in a small shop—that would meet a dead end, and a dead end is the worst case scenario.

  I continue to walk toward Rock & Roll Blvd where traffic is so overwhelming at this time in the morning you wouldn’t be able to tell if it was your own father next to you.

  Then, out of the corner of my eye, I spot another one of them: an unfamiliar face. A new recruit — not good. He’s walking directly toward me, so I turn a bit to my right and—

  SMACK!

  “Oh! I’m so sor—” I begin to say, but as I look into the face of the person I ran into, I stop dead in my tracks.

  Big problem. Big, big problem.

  Twenty-two months later, and his gray eyes seem even darker, his black hair is a little longer, and his head is at least four inches above mine. Twenty-two months later, and I still can’t face him.

  Goddamn-it… Stupid… Mother-f… I turn away as fast as I can and strut toward the new recruit. He won’t be ready to stop me—he couldn’t if he tried. I don’t care if they see me anymore; I just have to get away from the original New-bee.

  My hood had fallen when I ran into New-bee, and now the sun beats harder and harder on me with every passing second. I can’t tell if it’s the sun or adrenaline pumping my blood—probably both.

  Run, I tell myself. Get out of here. I start running, and I run straight at the new recruit. His face changes to a perplexed look, and it stays that way as I come closer and closer. He fears me—good.

  Just when I’m an arms-length from the new recruit, I change directions and make a suicide run across the busy street. This bright-red Ford Fusion almost hits me, but my inhuman reflexes save me. I push through a mob of people and dart into a tight alley.

  Dead end.

  “No,” I gasp.

  I turn back to the road, but I hear seven pairs of steel-toed footsteps coming this way. I duck behind a large garbage bin and wait five seconds for footsteps to come charging into the alley. I’m cornered, and the cats are ready to pounce.

  “Come out and play, little girl,” a man says, leading the others deeper into the alley. “We know you’re in here.”