The Nancy Experiment (Book 1) Read online

  I examine my body and find that the majority of the pain and bandaging is gone, excluding a large bandage taped to my left side that covers a bullet wound, an arm sling, and another bandage covering my left shoulder and upper-left chest. I move my right leg, but my calf doesn’t hurt. I’m okay...

  I’m wearing—what the hell? A pink tank top?! And jeans—someone else’s jeans because I’ve never seen these before and they don’t fit. But something tells me I’m not in danger, and whoever put me here is not one of them. Maybe it’s the pink tank top.

  I’m about to swing my feet to the floor when the door clicks, and the knob turns with a small squeak. I watch an older man walk into the room and close the door behind him. He has dark and graying hair with a grayish-white goatee. His eyes are gray, and his bushy eyebrows are the same color as his hair. The man stands tall and stately with a black cane, and he wears a black suit with a clean, white blouse underneath. He turns to me with a gentle smile.

  “Good morning,” he says.

  I stare back at him without a word.

  “My name is Sylvester Reins, president of the Center for New Human Species and Development and principal of the New School for Gifted Children. Welcome to Kenyon.”

  IV: Welcome to Kenyon

  Saturday, March 15, 2065; 6:25 p.m.

  First person

  “Welcome to Kenyon.”

  Kenyon?

  “I assure you that you are safe here; those people who were attacking you will not find you here,” Dr. Reins says.

  The old man stands tall at six feet and three inches. He could be thirty by how fit he appears; however, the wrinkles under his eyes and the gray that colors his hair reveal him to be much older than that. But his gentle smile is the most mysterious part about him, and that mystery unnerves me.

  “Where am I?” I ask.

  “Kenyon. You’ve seen the tall, gray building downtown with shaded windows?” he asks.

  I nod.

  “That’s us. Right now we are in the hospital wing. I apologize for any stress we caused you thus far. Your injuries were severe and required extensive attention and healing. I trust you’re feeling better now?”

  I nod. Does he know who I am? If he does, I doubt he would be so hospitable. He mentioned injuries, and my mind traces back to the fight under the bridge. Two bullet wounds, old cuts on my head and right leg, and God knows what else.

  “How long?” I ask. “How long have I been out?”

  “Five days. Today is Saturday, March fifteenth,” he replies.

  Saturday… but it was just Monday…

  “How did I get here?” I ask.

  “Some of my best students brought you here. If your memory goes back that far, they were the young men and women dressed in silver whom you met under the bridge of Route 10.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  “Nothing,” he says. “Just to help you.”

  I glance around the room, and my eyes catch something I didn’t give much notice to before: the vase of daffodils. A white and yellow ribbon hugs the vase and end in a fancy little bow. I bet it’s plastic. Or not—I can smell the flowers from here.

  “Why?” I ask.

  “That is what we do here at Kenyon,” Dr. Reins says. “We help people, and we provide a sanctuary for gifted individuals like yourself.”

  Gifted individuals—like the flying boy who can control wind, the boy with white hair who shoots green electricity from his hands, the husky boy with metal skin, the brunette with metal levitating around her, the dark-skinned boy who can set himself aflame, the boy who teleports. Dr. Reins must think I’m like them. But I’m not.

  “I think you’re mistaken. I don’t—”

  The door clicks, opens, and the familiar blonde girl steps into the room. Her long blonde ponytail reaches far down her back, and dark mascara and eyeliner make her large blue eyes pop. Her sweater hugs her chest and the muscles on her arms. Following her into the room is a brunette with long, curly hair. She has dark brown eyes, impeccable skin, and a nose so thin I bet I could break it with just two fingers.

  “Ah, there you are,” Dr. Reins says to the girls. He turns back to me and says, “May I introduce you to Zoë Mencken and Marissa O’Brien, two of our brightest and most reliable students at Kenyon.”

  “Hi, I’m Marissa,” the curly brunette says.

  She walks right up to me and extends her hand. I hold my breath, as do Dr. Reins and the blonde girl.

  “I’m sorry if we scared you this morning,” Marissa says.

  Oh… right… when I freaked-out, and they stuck a needle in me, again. And when I pushed the blonde girl into the machine…

  “Oh, yeah. Sorry for pushing you,” I say to the blonde girl. She looks away.

  “It’s okay! No one was hurt. Anyways, we’re glad you’re awake now,” Marissa says.

  She glances back and forth between my eyes and her extended hand. She keeps smiling, but despite her enthusiasm, I can’t help but feel her kindness is more forced than this handshake. Regardless, I shake her hand with my uninjured arm, and she smiles even brighter.

  “Zoë and Marissa volunteered to give you a tour of Kenyon,” Dr. Reins says. “That is, if you feel well enough to move around. Please don’t feel rushed or anything. You are welcome to stay here as long as you’d like.”

  “Stay?” I ask.

  Stay here? What is this, a hotel? Dr. Reins is very welcoming, but I don’t belong here. They wouldn’t invite me to stay if they knew who I was.

  “Zoë and I finished putting together your room,” Marissa says. “Our room is just down the hall from yours, so—”

  “Wait, room? No, I’m sorry—I really can’t stay,” I say.

  “You are perfectly safe here, my dear. No one knows you are here, and I intend to keep it that way,” Dr. Reins says.

  “So you know my name?” I ask.

  Dr. Reins smiles.

  “We know who you are, yes.”

  “Then why am I here and not in custody?” I ask.

  Marissa opens her mouth to say something, but then she looks back at Dr. Reins. Zoë, arms crossed and eyebrow raised, looks to Dr. Reins, too. He steps forward and rests his cane on the foot of the bed.

  “Because that is not where you belong,” he says.

  My mind shuts down for a second. Not where I belong? I may be avoiding custody, but I’m not arguing that I deserve to be there. I’ve done many things to earn a cell. Hell, I’ve done things to earn a spot on death row. Death is my sentence, and I am prepared to pay it.

  “But I don’t belong here,” I say.

  “That is for you to decide, but for tonight here is where you should stay. Take the time you need to recover from your injuries, and tomorrow we will hopefully take that sling and bandage off your arm,” Dr. Reins says.

  I may be desperate to get out of here, but I’m not stupid. I just had two bullets pulled out of me, slept for five days, and can’t move my arm without feeling pins and needles run through my shoulder. Staying at Kenyon won’t be my first choice, but it’s my best option.

  “Alright,” I say.

  Marissa’s face lights up.

  “Great! So would you like that tour now?” Marissa asks. “Or are you hungry? Do you want food, or water? What would you like us to call you?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Your name,” she says.

  “You know my name.”

  “Is that what you want us to call you?”

  I hesitate. To have a new name for a day—that wouldn’t be too bad. But what name would I give myself? There was that one name… God, what was her name…

  “Annika,” I say. “Call me Annika.”

  “Well then, Miss Annika,” Dr. Reins says. “Welcome to Kenyon.”

  “So we figured we could start in the hospital while we’re here, head to the first floor, then work our way up,” Marissa says.

  “We can say hello to some of our friends while we’re here, too. I think Lazzer and—�
� Marissa says.

  “Do you have my sweater somewhere?” I ask.

  I follow Zoë and Marissa down the white hall of the hospital. They walk fast, faster than my leg will allow me to walk. They also have sweaters on, while I still have this ugly pink shirt and jeans.

  “It’s just a little cold,” I say.

  Marissa and Zoë stop and turn back to me. They glance at each other, and Marissa bites her lip. My stomach sinks.

  “You didn’t throw it away, did you?” I ask.

  “No! No, we still have it. It’s just—” Marissa says.

  “It’s downstairs where we’re not taking her,” Zoë says to Marissa.

  Marissa turns to Zoë and says, “I can grab it and meet you two… Oh, but then…”

  “Or could Kia get it and meet us…”

  “No, Kia’s not back yet, but I bet…”

  “It’s okay,” I say. “I don’t need it now, but later maybe.”

  “Of course! Do you want a sweater now, though? It’s kind of cold in here today,” Marissa says.

  “Why don’t we start upstairs then, show Annika her room and grab a sweater there?”

  “Did we put sweaters in her room?”

  “I did.”

  “Sounds like a plan. Is that alright with you?” Marissa asks me.

  “What?” I say. I’m still stuck on the idea that I have my own room with new clothes in it. “Oh, yeah… that sounds great.”

  “The elevator is this way,” Zoë says. They’re the first words she’s spoken to me, and they come with the most sincere screw-you tone I’ve ever heard.

  We turn around and start walking. When we get to the other end of the hall, it opens up to a round room with hallways branching off in different directions. Eight large elevators form a circle in the middle of the room. We walk toward the closest elevator, and Zoë presses the “up” arrow on the Bleu screen next to the elevator. When an elevator finally opens, we step inside. Zoë taps “71” on the Bleu screen inside the elevator, and the doors close.

  “You were the ones who found me at the bridge,” I say. “Weren’t you?”

  Marissa and Zoë glance at each other but don’t say a word. Marissa bites her tongue, but Zoë shakes her head.

  “I remember you,” I say. “Thank you.”

  They glance at each other again, but this time they smile.

  “Of course,” Marissa says. “And thank you.”

  I shake my head.

  “Don’t thank me. I almost got you all killed.”

  “Thank you,” Zoë says. She stares at me for the longest time then looks to the floor. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to stare… it’s just, I’m trying to remember what happened. I was told you saved my life.”

  I feel my shoulder start to ache, and finally it clicks. She’s the blonde girl who the new recruit tried to shoot.

  “Who are you, by the way?” I ask.

  “We’re the Metanites,” Marissa says.

  “The who?”

  “Uhh, the special operations team located in Cleveland, formed from the top of Kenyon’s class.”

  I stare back at them.

  “You’ve never heard of us?” Zoë asks.

  “No…”

  “Seriously, she’s never heard of us?” Zoë says to Marissa.

  “You know,” Marissa says to me, “the super-powered ‘Young Justices’ or ‘Little Avengers?’ We had a story in Time Magazine, not a cover story, but, you know.”

  “She doesn’t know, Riss,” Zoë says.

  “Yeah, no idea. Sorry,” I say.

  Marissa takes a deep breath and tosses her curly hair behind her shoulders.

  “That’s okay!” she says. The elevator doors open, and we walk out and down a blue and gray hall marked North Wing. “You’ll have plenty of time to get to know us. You are staying, aren’t you?”

  “Uhm, just for tonight. I can’t—” I say.

  “Here’s your room!” Marissa says, stopping at the closest door to the elevators, room 71N01. “You have to scan your hand to unlock the door.”

  I hold my right hand on the screen, and the screen flashes green. A light by the doorknob glows green, and the door clicks. Zoë grabs the handle, opens the door, and leads me into the room.

  My mouth drops when I see it. The room is three times the size of the hospital room and has its own bathroom. It could easily fit ten people comfortably, yet the arrangement of furniture yields only one person.

  The walls are light gray with a white border at the top. A bed rests against the side of the far wall, a short dresser fits under it, and a desk sits next to it. On the bed is a pair of folded pajamas, black and soft. There’s a Bleu-screen positioned on the wall above the desk that probably shows three hundred channels, and a couch leans against the wall on the opposite side. Where I walk in there’s a door to the left that leads to the small bathroom with a toilet, shower, small cupboard, and large mirror.

  “It’s a bit small, but it is a single,” Marissa says. “And there are sweaters and blankets in the bottom drawer of the desk.”

  “Our room is down the hall and to your right. We’re room 71N17,” Zoë says.

  I trace my fingers on the soft, gray comforter neatly tucked on top of the bed. A bed, a warm bed with a pillow—three pillows. And a shower! And a couch to match the gray comforter! How long has it been since I’ve enjoyed comfort like this?

  “If you want a window view, just press the pink button the side of the screen,” Marissa says.

  “And here is a sweater for you,” Zoë says. She hands me a black, hooded sweater similar to my own, only this one is more of a fashion statement than a practical sweater. It is fuzzy on the inside, though. And it’s not pink.

  I feel tears coming to my eyes as I hold the clean and warm sweater, but I force them away. I catch Marissa and Zoë glance at each other when my eyes water—how embarrassing.

  “Thank you,” I say, “for… all of this.”

  I refuse help when putting on the sweater, even though I definitely need it. I have to restart and pull my left arm through first before pulling the sweater over my head. After conquering the sweater, we leave the room and head back toward the elevators.

  Marissa keeps talking, but I tune her out. If I had my way, I would choose to stay in my room for the rest of the night. But that would be kind of rude, and a tour of Kenyon would be pretty cool. What lies within the shaded windows of the tall gray building that brought Cleveland to life, and what mysteries does it hold? Also, where are the exits?

  I hear a door creak open while we wait for an elevator. Zoë and Marissa don’t notice—too busy talking about something. I turn around and see a face poking out of a door, staring at me. The face disappears, and the door closes.

  “Annika, you coming?” Marissa asks.

  I turn around and they are waiting for me inside the elevator. I glance back once more, but the face is gone.

  “So this is the school,” Marissa says. “Grades seven and up have classes in the morning, and grades six and below have theirs in the afternoon. It’s almost five, so they should be getting out soon.”

  Something-something about school and holidays… weird graduation ages… something-something… three more exits on this floor alone to add to the fire escape on the North Wing on every single floor.

  “We’ll have to be quieter, Riss,” Zoë says. “Ms. Grenavich will probably be here.”

  “Who is she?” I ask.

  I listen in just enough to know that we should be avoiding a certain woman, but for the most part, I’ve been concentrating on the people following us for the last twenty minutes. There are at least two of them, and they’re not very quiet. I’m somewhat shocked that Marissa and Zoë haven’t noticed yet, but then again, they talk a lot.

  “Ms. Grenavich is… well, she runs things here. She’s like Moton’s right-hand man,” Marissa says.

  “Who?” I ask. Now they have my full attention.

  ““Oh, Dr. Reins—we call him Mo
ton.”

  Moton… that’s why Dr. Reins looks so familiar! Moton, the world’s first unimagined superhero, with his ability to read minds, fly, and bones stronger than brass… that must be him. He disappeared for almost thirty years, forced to retire from a near-fatal injury.

  “Wait,” I ask, “the Moton?”

  “Yeah,” Zoë says. “He’s the one who founded Kenyon and the Metanites.”

  It was big news over twenty years ago that someone had opened a boarding school for the child victims of the chemical mutation accident in Detroit, which ended Moton’s career as America’s superhero. Multimillionaire Rayvon Artis, Moton’s long-time nemesis, planted a trap in an elementary school in Detroit, which, when released, would transform all three-thousand students and staff members into gruesome creatures under the control of Rayvon Artis. Moton was able to rescue the children before the school exploded, but some of the staff were killed, and Moton suffered a severe injury to his left leg, maiming him forever. Or so the story goes.

  Ten years after, when the students started to have children, the world discovered that the students did not escape as safely as everyone had thought. The fumes from the chemicals Rayvon Artis planned to use to mutate the students and staff leaked into the building before the explosion, altering the survivors’ DNA and resulting in birth defects for their children. The birth defects, as one might describe it, made the children of the students a so-called new species. Such defects include the children’s ability to shoot colored energy from their hands, the ability to fly, children with purple skin or green hair, and children who can set aflame anything they touch.

  No wonder Moton is the one who opened the school; the responsibility he must feel to take care of these victims’ children must be overwhelming. That makes Kenyon the school and sanctuary for those special children. That makes the Metanites those special children.

  “So does Dr. Reins—” I begin to say, but the whispers that had been following us since we left my room are now just a few feet behind us.