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Which was a problem.

Constitution Center was a secure government building that required credentials and passage through a metal detector to enter. While the security was outward facing, the lobby was the only exit from the building.

And there were cameras everywhere.

As I passed the third-floor landing, I heard the fourth-floor door bang open and then two sets of footfalls pounding down the steps, reverberating off the concrete walls.

At the next landing, I opened the door and slipped out into the second floor, letting it close soundlessly behind me.

I ran through a corridor I’d never seen before. There’d be no hiding here. Every door I passed was locked and required IT security clearance to enter. I suspected that most of the MYSTIC servers were kept here.

I turned another corner, and straight ahead, an Exit sign glowed over a door. I ran for it harder than I’d ever run in my life, hoping it wouldn’t just lead back down to the lobby.

Slammed through; glanced back.

The hall was still empty.

I shot down the stairs, reaching for the phone in my pocket, but I’d left it at my cubicle. The stairs terminated at a door emblazoned with a red sign:

EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY. ALARM WILL SOUND.



I shouldered through.

Alarms shrieked, lights pulsated.

I was outside, D Street SW straight ahead, and as I took my first step, something slipped over my head.

Everything went dark.

My legs lifted off the ground.

And then my back struck the concrete so hard I felt the air leave my lungs and I was gasping, trying desperately to tear the hood off my face, but someone rolled me over, my arms torqued behind my back as plastic zip ties dug into my wrists.

Then I was up again, powerful people on either side of me clutching my arms at the shoulders, carrying me swiftly along and the tips of my shoes scraping the pavement.

I shouted. I screamed for help.

Strings of daylight were barely visible through the threadbare portions of the hood.

Straight ahead, I heard the sound of a door sliding open.

I was thrown to a metal floor.

The door slid shut, and I rolled back under the force of acceleration as a deep male voice said, “We’ve got him…Yep…Came out the northwest fire exit…Okay…We’re twenty minutes out.”

Then two people held me down against the floor and raised the hood just enough to expose the side of my neck.

I felt the sting of a needle.





THE NEXT TIME MY eyes opened, I was lying on a hard mattress.

I sat up slowly.

My head felt too large and too heavy, like it might roll off my neck.

Edwin Rogers sharpened into focus.

He was standing fifteen feet away, and I wondered how long he’d been there, watching me sleep.

I swung my legs off the bed and stood.

Unsteady.

My mouth tasted bitter.

I staggered toward Edwin, wading through a heavy, mental fog.

After a few steps, I stopped.

Looked around.

Just beginning to process my surroundings.

I was inside an octagon, twelve feet across, with ten-foot walls made of glass.

There was a desk, bed, toilet, and sink.

On the other side of the glass, I saw a data terminal and an array of medical equipment.

I looked at Edwin. “What the fuck is this?”

He didn’t say anything.

I went to the desk and tried to lift the chair to throw it at the glass.

It had been bolted to the concrete floor.

“Ballistic glass.” Edwin’s voice came through a speaker in the ceiling.

He was moving toward me now, holding a tablet.

Then we were standing three feet apart, separated only by the glass of my cell. He looked somber, and it was a small thing, but his lower eyelids were tensed in a microexpression of what I somehow knew was fear.

Of me? I wondered. And also—how had I noticed such a granular detail?

He wore jeans and a navy windbreaker bearing the GPA insignia.

He walked over to a desk on the exterior of the vivarium and took a seat. It faced the desk on the inside—the one that had been bolted to the floor.

He gestured for me to sit.

I slid into the chair across from him.

“Why am I in here?” I asked.

“For everyone’s safety.”

“Come on. I’ll cooperate. You don’t need to lock me up.”

He didn’t say anything.

“Where am I?”

He turned on his tablet.

“Is this a GPA black site?”

No answer.

“How long are you planning—”

“Logan. You’ve undergone a tremendous amount of genetic change in a short amount of time. There could be dangerous side effects. We’re going to monitor your evolution. We need to understand what you’re becoming.” He looked back at the tablet. “Do you know what the inhibition of the PDE4B gene does?”

“Fuck you.”

Edwin’s mouth twinged with irritation.

He said, “Why didn’t you tell us you were—”

“Because you would’ve done exactly what you’ve done. Overreact. I wanted the evidence to defend myself. I wanted to know if, and how, I’d been changed.”

“And do you know?”