Anarchy Found (SuperAlpha, #1)(77)

“He’s not hiding, Thomas,” Case snaps at him. “I’d like to see how you’d react to this… change.” Case seems reluctant to speak about what they just did. Change isn’t even close to what’s happened here.

“Help me sit up.” I need to know. What am I?

Two pairs of arms grab me by the shoulders and begin to lift. I expect the pain I’ve grown accustomed to, but it’s gone. In its place is… strength.

I open my eyes and all three of them are staring at me expectantly. Sheila, hovering like she’s my mother. Case, his eyes filled with concern. He always was the closest thing I ever had to family. And finally, Thomas. His hard edge is gone, and in its place is a look of… hope.

“We need to find her,” I say. “But first”—I look over at Sheila—“I need a mirror.”

They help me stand, my legs shaking briefly as the muscles adjust to the changes. But then adrenaline surges inside my body and my legs strengthen. I take a few steps, leaning heavily on Case and Thomas, then shrug them off and walk on my own.

Sheila dims the cave lights as I make my way over to stand in front of the massive tank of giant jellyfish, and then everything goes black.

The jellyfish begin to glow. A rainbow of colors moving down their bodies. I refocus my eyes until I can see what I am in my reflection.

I’m naked except for the metal plates on each of my arms and legs. I only had two before this transformation and now I have four. I designed them to be the interface between Sheila, me, and the weapon attached to the plate. And the hum they generate inside my body is a thrill only power brings.

Power is what drives the world. Power is worth so much more than money. Power is the man with the biggest gun, the largest network, the smartest partners. Power is me. Power is Case. Power is Thomas.

Power is we, and we are Alpha.

“Are you surprised?” Case asks. He stands next to me in the reflection wearing jeans, a white t-shirt, and his black leather Anarchy jacket. When I look over at him, he’s smiling.

“You’re not so special,” Thomas says in his dry way. “So don’t start thinking you are.” He’s also wearing the Anarchy jacket, but he’s got a white shirt and tie on underneath. I catch a smile from him too.

And they’re right. I’m not. But we are.

I look down at my bare thighs and spot the new ports they attached to my bones to hold the weapons.

“Stop staring at yourself, Lincoln. And put some pants on.” Case throws me some jeans and I notice they’ve been modified in the legs. The shirt that follows and lands in a heap at my feet is just a plain, white long-sleeved thermal with the same modifications in the arms.

I pull that on and go looking for my gloves.

“Here,” Thomas says, throwing them so they hit me in the chest. He’s got his on too and I wonder about that.

My gloves have been modified too. The palms have been reinforced with a metal mesh.

“To help dissipate the heat,” Sheila says. “It also focuses your light.”

Focuses my light. Interesting.

I shrug on the last part of my costume and find that the leather jacket has also been modified. The arms have ports in them to allow the new weapons to connect to the plates against my skin.

Sheila’s minions attach the specialized guns to my legs and arms. I hold up the new cannon attachment, moving my fingers back and forth, trying out the mechanism. “Load me up,” I say to the minions.

And one by one, each of my arms and legs become weapons. I test the grip of the gun attached to my right thigh. It crackles and snaps into my hand and when I look down the sight, I picture the Blue Boar’s head.

We’ve been building towards this transformation for almost a decade. Case has been here for the planning and Thomas filled the funding gaps. Running a high-tech lab in a cave is no small thing. And even though I’m the only one who went through with the procedure, we were all ready and we were all scared.

“It worked,” I finally say.

“It worked,” they repeat together.

“We’re gonna kill that motherf*cker and take his whole company down with him. Load my bike on to the helicopter.”

I walk over to the new weapons hanging on the far wall. Sheila has been a very busy girl while I’ve been under. I grab a modified rocket launcher, some poison and hallucinogenic grenades, and vector bullets that will deliver the biological agent through the tip of a dart with so much force, it can pierce body armor.

The whole place becomes a frenzy of preparation as I use my new computer interface to access the databases in Cathedral City. I know that Sheila looked, but let’s be real. She’s not SuperAlpha Lincoln.

I find what I’m looking for just as Thomas indicates that the helicopter is ready, and I am not surprised to find that the Blue Castle has been using six hundred times their normal amount of energy in the top few floors of the spire.

“He’s got her up there,” I say to my brothers, pointing at the spire in a web feed of Cathedral City. “He’s changing her.”

“Into Omega,” Thomas says. “I always knew he would.”

I look over at Thomas and a few things about his behavior over the years start to add up. “What are you gonna do?”

“Proceed as planned.” He looks over at Case and me. “You do your jobs, I’ll do my job, and we’ll meet at the top.”