The Rules Read online

  So I knew even before looking at the newspaper, something was very wrong.

  The article was in the middle of the paper and tucked beneath a gigantic ad for the local tire store, Rubber Mike’s. I didn’t read the whole thing; didn’t have to.

  Lights Out at Ashe High

  An unexplained power surge yesterday morning shattered lightbulbs in an upper hallway of Ashe High School, raining glass shards down upon students.…

  Crap. I sucked in a breath and choked on my eggs.

  I’d stayed up late last night to watch the news and run a few Internet searches—not too many, in case GTX was monitoring—to see if the incident had caught media attention. But what wasn’t big enough for TV or showy enough for the Internet (had to leave room for imploding celebrities and cute cats stuck in boxes) was just right for the Wingate local paper.

  God, why did yesterday have to be the one day free of the small-town idiocy that normally dominated the paper, the day that someone hadn’t stolen an entire neighborhood’s worth of garden gnomes and arranged them in various sexual positions on the front lawn of the Methodist church?

  (Actually, I’d found that pretty funny at the time. You can’t get better examples of hypocrisy than people confronted with blatant—albeit gnomish—displays of sexuality. They get red-faced and blustery all the while intensely wishing they could get their significant other to try what the red gnome was doing to the blue garden fairy. You can’t hide thoughts like that from me, people, not without a lot of training and practice. Genius advancement or design flaw, take your pick.)

  Coughing, I spit the eggs into my napkin. “How bad is it?”

  “Bad enough.” My father looked grim and tired, but he wasn’t shoving me toward the back door with an urgent whisper to flee, so I wasn’t, it seemed, in immediate danger of being recaptured. I relaxed a fraction.

  “Were you going to tell me?” he asked again, tapping his finger against the paper. He looked every inch the imposing head of security that he was. He was still wearing his uniform, and his shirt bore the impressions of his shoulder harness, though it and his gun were probably already locked in the safe in his bedroom. His jacket, emblazoned with the GTX logo, hung from the back of his chair. Normally he would have put it out of sight already, knowing how much I hated it.

  (At some point in my very early life at GTX, maybe right after I was born, they’d marked me like livestock. My right shoulder blade held a tattoo of the GTX logo, a big stylized G, and my project designation, GTX-F-107, just beneath it in crude lettering. I wore a bandage over it to keep anyone from seeing it, but I still had to look at it in the mirror every day when I applied a new bandage. And the sight never failed to make me feel sick and so very angry.)

  “I can’t protect you if you’re going to hide things from me,” he added with a deep frown.

  The censure in his voice made my stomach ache. I hated disappointing him, this man who’d risked everything for me. “I wasn’t hiding it.” I swallowed hard, avoiding his gaze. “It was just…nothing.”

  He didn’t say anything, but his dark expression told me how “nothing” he thought it was.

  “It was over as soon as it started,” I added quickly. Like every other similar incident since my departure from GTX, though admittedly it had been almost a year since the last one (in which I might have turned a page in my English lit book without touching it) and this one was slightly higher profile. “Mr. Kohler made an announcement about it being a bad transformer, and no one thought anything about it.”

  “Were you in control?” my father asked.

  I hesitated and then said, “No.” Just like always, the barrier in my mind—the one that cut me off from the most powerful of my abilities—had fallen and then gone back up with no direction from me.

  “Are you sure?” he persisted. Clearly we’d reached the interrogation portion of this conversation.

  Yes, I’m sure, because if I’d had my way, there would have been a Rachel Jacobs–shaped hole in the wall instead of just a few broken lights. Not a good answer. “Pretty sure,” I said instead. “And I tried again when I was alone, a few minutes later. No luck.”

  Technically, I hadn’t been alone. Not completely. Jenna, the sole other occupant of the bathroom, had been in the handicap stall, sobbing too hard to let me in. The metal latch on a stall door is as simple a mechanism as they come. But with every bit of focus I could summon, to the point of making my head throb with the effort, I hadn’t been able to make that little metal bar rise up and drop away.

  Eventually I’d given up and simply knocked. Some super-secret weapon I am. Behold my ability to knock. Sometimes I wondered why GTX would even want me in my current condition. The mental wall that my six-year-old self had erected around my telekinesis as a self-protective measure was incredibly effective. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t make that wall drop. I could still hear people’s thoughts and sense their emotions—those functions remained intact. But everything else? Gone.

  The ability to manipulate objects without touching them—throw, bend, deflect, speed up, slow down, summon from across the room, all of that—had once been as easy and simple for me as breathing. It hadn’t seemed magical or special, any more than a human would have been astounded by their brain translating electrical impulses into sight. It was just something I could do. A seeing person among the blind.

  Toward the end of my stay in the lab I’d progressed beyond controlling inanimate objects and moved on to bigger and better things. With enough concentration I’d been able to target specific muscles within the body, stop them from moving. I was that good…or bad, depending on how you wanted to look at it. I could keep the muscles in your legs from working, and hold you quiet and still while I did whatever I’d been commanded to do.

  I’m not sure anyone should ever have that kind of power.

  And now I didn’t. Not in a readily accessible or controlled manner, anyway.

  My father leaned back in his chair with a sigh. “You created the block, you should be able to bring it down,” he reminded me for the millionth time.

  “I know,” I said tightly. But knowing that didn’t seem to make a difference.

  After what had happened in the lab all those years ago, after what I’d done…it was as if that part of me had been lopped off or shut away behind an impenetrable wall. My father told me it wasn’t uncommon for human children to block memories of a traumatic event. He suspected my sudden inability to access that part of myself was a more severe form of this same phenomenon.

  He thought that with time, patience, and practice, what I’d lost would return to me. But it had been ten years of all three now with little or—let’s face it—no progress. Except, apparently, when Rachel Jacobs was on a rampage.

  On rare occasions, like yesterday, the block would sort of thin out for a few seconds, and my telekinesis would break through, like a buried memory floating to the surface. Usually with disastrous results, because I wasn’t in control of the flood of power. And then, before I could even try to get control, the block would close me out again.

  Honestly, most days I didn’t care that my ability was gone. I wasn’t really sure I wanted it back—it had only brought me fear and pain. But I couldn’t tell my father that.

  “You need to start practicing again.” He scrubbed his face with his hands. He probably hadn’t slept since sometime yesterday; exhaustion was catching up to him. “If the block is finally starting to disappear and you don’t have control, those bursts of wild power are going to lead GTX right to us.” He looked at me, worried. “You’d be completely defenseless.”

  In spite of my reservations about getting my ability back, I knew he was right. But more practice?

  Something between a bitter laugh and a scream of frustration lodged in my chest with an ache. The truth was, “practice” was a joke. For years I’d spent several hours a day after school trying to move a red foam ball into a plastic blue cup without touching either one. It was pointless. I’d
stared at those objects for so long it felt as though the afterimages were permanently burned into the backs of my eyes. And the only time that stupid ball ever moved was when I accidentally jostled the table with my knee.

  How was I supposed to regain control over a power I couldn’t even access with any degree of regularity? I’d given up trying about six months ago.

  “Practice won’t help.” I rubbed at the ache beneath my breastbone. “It hasn’t helped.”

  “We have to do something,” he said. “We’re running out of time.”

  I froze.

  “One of my sources at GTX says they’re ramping up the search for you. With the changeover in the administration, new people are in key positions, and the hearing committee on DOD spending is making everyone jumpy. Someone’s going to be checking to see where all the government funds went for this research, and GTX will want to have something to show for the project,” he said. The “project” meaning me.

  I shivered. That explained the phone call yesterday morning and why he’d been following the news about the hearing committee intently. “How close are they?” I asked, my throat suddenly tight with fear.

  My father closed his eyes. “I don’t know.”

  He looked tired—the skin sagging around his eyes—and so much older. As if twenty years had passed instead of ten since the night at GTX when he’d first acknowledged my existence with a discreet wave. He was the only human ever to treat me as a person and mean it. For the first six years of my life, give or take, I’d thought my name was Wannoseven. It was only after I escaped—with Mark Tucker’s help—that I learned Wannoseven wasn’t a name at all but a numerical designation. 107. Pathetic. I’d answered to a number, one Jacobs and the others had assigned me.

  My first few years in the lab weren’t bad. Actually, they were awful, but that’s only based on the knowledge I have now, thanks to ten years of living Outside. At the time, the lab was my home, and while I certainly hated parts of it (the constant testing—no kid likes to get shots or have her blood drawn; and let me tell you, electrodes inserted at the back of your head aren’t much fun either), I didn’t know any different. It wasn’t that I thought other children were undergoing similar experiences in their own homes; it was more that I’d never met another child. I knew they existed—I’d seen them in my cultural training sessions, but I’d also seen talking dogs (Scooby-Doo), a man who rode a brontosaurus at work (Fred Flintstone), and countless women who woke up from long hospital stays to discover they were someone else entirely (soap operas).

  Consequently, my views of the “real” world were initially a little jumbled. I could find Earth in the solar system, identify the various countries on the planet, and pinpoint our location in Wingate. I could even tell you something about all of those things in any one of the five different languages I’d been taught (English, Chinese, Spanish, German, and Arabic).

  But none of it meant anything to me. I’d lived inside the same four white walls every day. The world of Little Red Riding Hood described in the book of fairy tales I’d memorized was as real to me as any map of Earth. Knowledge without context. That was my problem.

  It led to an obsession with Outside. That was how I’d thought of it then, a vast location that was as mysterious, exciting, and frightening as anything I could imagine. The logical part of my brain knew there were states and cities and countries and oceans. But the other part of me, the bit that was both fascinated and horrified when the wolf ate Grandma and she survived, thought of it as a wild and unruly place where anything was possible. And I wanted to experience it. I wanted to feel the grass beneath my feet, to see if it could really grow taller than I was. (I’d seen only part of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and misunderstood what was happening in the back half of the story.)

  I wanted to see where Dr. Jacobs and all the lab techs (save one or two on the night shift) went when I slept. I think I somehow had the idea that they were all getting together and doing something fun without me.

  I wanted to see the sun, feel the warmth against my skin. (You have no idea how often you all talk and think about the weather: what it is, what it will be tomorrow, what it should be.)

  Dr. Jacobs, who I thought of as my ally, my friend, at that point (he wasn’t the one holding me down to stick me with needles or taking away my dessert when I bit someone), kept promising me that I would go Outside one day, but for now I was special and they were keeping me safe. And I believed him.

  I know, I know. But I think he believed it too. Or at least I never picked up any thoughts from him that indicated he was lying.

  No, that I got from Leo.

  The lab techs didn’t wear name tags or have their names embroidered on their white coats, the way Dr. Jacobs did. But when you can hear thoughts, even as sporadically as I could, it’s not hard to pick up names and make the connections.

  Leo was the short but strong tech they always sent in on bone-marrow days. Having your bone marrow taken is extremely painful, so whenever I saw Leo coming, I knew what was in store. And I did everything I could to stop it, which was more than your average human child of three or four.

  One of my most vivid memories—one of those pivotal moments that divided my existence into Before and After—is of Leo leaning over me in the corner of my room, where he’d trapped me. His mouth was bleeding. The sharp edge of a book had split his lip.

  He caught my wrists together in a single thick fist, grinding them together until I cried out. “They’re never going to let you go,” he whispered, his teeth stained a horrible pink. “They’re going to keep you in a jar just like all the other freaks.”

  I felt the truth in his words, along with the hate and fear bubbling out from him like his foul breath. Alien. Freak. Fucking Martian.

  I knew those words, knew what they meant—the Great Gazoo on The Flintstones was an alien—but I’d never heard them applied to me before.

  It didn’t make sense. But it also spoke to some distant feeling I’d felt flitting around inside me—that I was different from everyone else. Not special, as Dr. Jacobs had said, but different. Even as sheltered as I was then, I’d grasped the nuances between the two: special was good, revered even; different was not.

  If Leo was trying to shock me into compliance, it worked. I froze, his words banging around in my head like noise I couldn’t shut off, and he hauled me out of the corner without a fight.

  That had been the last time I’d seen Leo. The techs weren’t supposed to interact with me, except as required by their tasks. (“Stand up.” “Sit down.” “Does that hurt?”) I’d heard Dr. Jacobs warning them about “unnecessary conversation” before. Looking back on it now, I suspect he was probably trying to limit any outside influences beyond what he approved and introduced.

  But getting rid of Leo was too little, too late. The damage was done. After that, I knew I was different, even if I didn’t exactly understand how, and that Dr. Jacobs might not be the friend he wanted me to think he was.

  That was the first time I remember feeling trapped. Not just in the room, but by my inability to do something about the knowledge I’d acquired. I’d changed—my mind had cracked open just that tiniest bit to the reality around me—but nothing else had.

  It would be years before I’d have a chance to act on the information, but the seed had been planted and it would grow, reaching up for the sun I hadn’t yet seen.

  I couldn’t go back to that room now, to that existence. The thought of it made me feel like I couldn’t breathe.

  “We should leave, just go. Right now,” I insisted, pushing my chair back from the table. My father had heard from his GTX sources that families who moved away from Wingate were subject to intense scrutiny, especially if they had children of an appropriate age (as in ones who could be GTX’s missing experiment in disguise). We had never wanted to take that risk—not when hiding in plain view was still a good—if not, the best—option. But now, if they were closing in on us, what did it matter?

  “It’s too late.
” My father opened his eyes and gave me a weary smile. “If anyone is keeping an eye on us here, they’ll be expecting us to spook. We might confirm something they’ve barely had time to consider as a possibility.”

  And running when they already had us in their sights and I wasn’t able to defend myself—or him—would prove pointless. A lame mouse trying to outrun a cat in a closed maze. They’d get us in the end. I wouldn’t be able to stop them.

  A fresh burst of hate for Dr. Jacobs bloomed inside me. If he hadn’t tried to force me into obedience, I wouldn’t be this broken. I’d still be a freak, but a fully functioning one, at least.

  “Maybe we’re going about this wrong,” my father said, with a thoughtful frown. “What happened yesterday? What was the trigger? If we can replicate the situation, maybe we can use that to figure out how to keep the barrier down and get you back in control.”

  He was probably thinking about things like my mood or the actual environment—lighting, sounds, smells, etc. He’d hypothesized something similar before, during the year we experimented with hypnosis. Turns out I’m not particularly susceptible. Not altogether surprising if you consider how unwilling I might be, even on a subconscious level, to let someone mess with my head.

  I hesitated before responding, mainly because I knew he would not like the answer. I didn’t even like the answer.

  “Ariane.” He leaned forward, elbows on the table. I shouldn’t have to ask twice was evident in his tone.

  I took a deep breath and explained what had happened, as clinically and unemotionally as possible. Except for the part where I’d lost it a little when confronted by Rachel. Couldn’t de-emotionalize that.

  When I finished, my father was furious. “Do you have any idea how dangerous that was? What if someone had taken video of you with their phone? It would be all over the Internet and then where would you be?”