Brave Fear (boyxboy)

Chapter 6

A week passed.

A week of crappy prison food, more injections, and lengthy conversations with Joseph. Zane didn't mind the conversations, but he was fed up with the food and injections. If he had to disintegrate while eating mushy bread one more time, he'd scream.

The last seven days had done nothing to ease his desire to escape, or at least his desire to desire to escape. Now, however, Wawrzynski knew of that plan which, strangely, only made Zane want to prove him wrong. He hadn't had the luxury of a shower in nine whole days, and he worried about his parents. Would they care that he had simply disappeared without a trace? They would have been told some lie that they were legally required to believe, and then they would have gone on with their lives. They probably thought he was making miniature explosions in a chemical laboratory, when the truth was far worse.

He assumed a different person in a different world might worry about how their friends were taking the news, but friendship was a foreign concept in New Vancouver, like love or hatred. Preferring one person's company over another's was considered a form of prejudice, therefore friendship was prejudicial. Zane, who had been a law-abiding citizen of New Vancouver for years, knew no one so deeply or intimately, not even his parents. The boy sitting only several feet from him was the only person he felt like he might really know. And it was a strange and exhilarating possibility.

Joseph was once again bouncing his frayed rubber ball against the imposing metal cell. The playing cards on the table had been used so frequently in the past week that they had begun to disintegrate, much like Zane when he was injected. He focused on the steady thump thump of Joseph's rubber ball. He lay on his bunk once more, staring at the bare ceiling.

"What do you think they'll do with us next?" he asked, addressing the room more than Joseph. He had thought of proposing this conversation to the other boy, but had previously had no real inclination to do so. Now he was truly beginning to wonder what Wawrzynski had in store next.

"Wawrzynski said something about a 'next stage'," Joseph said blandly. "When we would be required to hone our powers." He said the word powers with extreme distaste, as if he had eaten a particularly soggy piece of broccoli.

Thump, thump.

"Do you think they'll have to take us somewhere else or leave us here?" Despite the abstract surroundings, Zane had begun to feel quite comfortable here. It had a homey feel, and he somehow appreciated these stiff prison beds. It could have been simply a reaction to accepting others' decisions and orders without complaint for years. A placebo effect of sorts.

"They'll probably be able to leave us here, but I'm guessing they'll test us in one of those rooms we saw coming in," Joseph responded. Zane nodded. It was a better explanation than any. He shuddered as he remembered the girl screaming on the ground while lava surrounded her. He hoped they didn't throw lava his way. He would not appreciate being burnt alive.

Thump, thump.

"I can't control it yet," Zane said softly. "How am I supposed to hone it?"

Joseph caught the rubber ball in his left hand. "I don't know, Zane," he muttered. "If anything, I don't know how I'm supposed to hone mine either. It seems like it's already reached a maximum. I can turn into anything I touch. How can that be honed?"

"This whole place makes no sense," Zane said under his breath. "Why were we injected? What does Wawrzynski hope to achieve by making superhumans?"

"You want to know my guess?" Joseph asked, turning his brilliant blue eyes on Zane. "I think he wants weapons."

"Why would he want weapons? New Vancouver doesn't even have a police force," Zane inquired. He looked at the syringe resting on the table. The syringe made out of his own cells. He shuddered.