Anarchy Found (SuperAlpha, #1)(51)

“Electrocute you?” She rubs her temples with her fingertips, trying to massage away the truth.

“Yes. Basically. It was part of their Genesis plan. To create superhumans. Larger-than-life people who could hold power and manipulate things that no one else could. People who looked normal, but weren’t. But the administrators who ran the school couldn’t become superhumans themselves. They needed children to do that.”

“Oh, God.”

“And what better children to use than their own? Who would miss a rich kid sent off to boarding school?”

“Jesus Christ.”

“You had parents. I had parents. Everyone has parents. They put us in that school, Molly.”

“I can’t believe it,” she says, shaking her head.

“My father too, so you’re not alone. Case is special, he was taken as a payment on a debt. His family never gave him up willingly and after we escaped, they cared for me and all my special considerations until I turned eighteen.”

She waits for it.

So do I. I have never told anyone this and I feel like I’ve been waiting my whole life to be able to say the words out loud. “I am… was made… I was changed into—”

“Just say it, Lincoln,” Molly whispers. “Just tell me what the f*ck is happening.”

“I’m not who or what you think, Molly. Sheila said she told you about my programming skills. How I write computer languages. How I use her as a vector to change code in computers. And if that was all I did, it might not be so bad. I don’t just reprogram machines, Molly. I reprogram people.”

“You did that to me, didn’t you? That drug you gave me after I ran away in the snow.”

I nod. “It rewrote your DNA, changed your memory. It acts like a flu virus. But in your case it was temporary. All DNA degrades over time. It was supposed to wear off gradually over many years. A bit here, a bit there until all the bad code was reprogrammed once again, using another dormant virus included in the drug cocktail. I didn’t take it away.” God, this is so hard to explain. Because I did take her memory away. “I wanted you to remember, Molly. I did. I made sure you’d recover those memories, I just thought it would take a little longer. I didn’t expect it to happen while you were still so young and so…” My words trail off, because what I want to say is ‘desirable.’ It would be so much easier if she wasn’t so perfect. So beautiful. If she didn’t have so many years ahead of her. How could I ever walk out now?

I can’t. I won’t.

“You rewrote those scientists,” she says, refocusing me back to our conversation.

“Yes. I rewrote them. Changed them. Made them want to commit suicide once I activated nerve centers in their brains using a special light pattern.”

She stares at me for a second, like she’s putting the pieces together. “You killed another one, didn’t you?”

I nod.

“I went to look at the scene today and the maintenance guy was changing out the fluorescent lights above his desk. You used them. Made them flicker. That was the trigger?”

I nod again. “Many organisms on earth are programmed to respond to changes in light. Migration of animals and birds. Reproductive cycles. Hibernation in bears. All these things are biologically programmed into their brains. And the Prodigy School figured out a way to make people violent using light to trigger it.”

She lets out a long breath and then she places her palms flat against the table and stares at them. “What do your hands do?”

“Nothing spectacular. The special food I consume feeds the virus inside me which powers my brain like electricity powers a computer hard drive. It generates a lot of heat that has to be dissipated. I do that through my hands.”

“They’re vents. Like the pads on a dog’s foot.”

“Simply put, yes. But they have a few practical applications. They are magnetic and the color of the light can be altered to act like a laser in a scanner.”

She stares at me with her mouth partly open. In awe? I almost chuckle. Hardly. More like in shock or disgust. “And me? What part do I play in all this?”

I shrug. “You’re the one running the show, Molly. They made you to stop me if I ever went too far.”

“Like how a superhero opposes a supervillain?”

“I guess. But more like a bomb and the wires that control the bomb. I’m the bomb.”

“And I’m the wires.”

“We’re an unfinished project. I got you out before the really bad stuff started. It’s part of the reason I agreed to Thomas’ plan. First they put us together as partners. Then they made us hurt each other. In my case, they made me take care of you afterward. They bonded me to you. Made me sick at the thought of hurting you. Behavioral conditioning, genetic manipulation. And other stuff. It’s too much to explain simply. But even now, after all these years, I would not be able to kill you.”

“Lucky me,” she whispers.

“But you could kill me quite easily.”

“What? How?”

“That was the purpose of the Omega. To kill us after we were no longer useful. If your training had completed then you’d be able to hold a gun to my head and I’d be powerless to stop you.”

“I don’t want to kill you, Lincoln.”