The Other Side

Chapter 10

Landon woke me up bright and early the next morning. Too early, in fact. The sun was just barely rising over the mountains surrounding the backside of his mansion. I had been stifling yawns the whole time through breakfast. I wasn't too tired to notice how tense Landon was, however, as if one wrong move would snap him in half like a thin branch bent underneath the weight of a heavy snowfall. It worried me. It certainly didn't bode well for our hastened meeting with his brother today.

We made our way down to the garage after breakfast, another area of the house I had yet to see until now. I almost had to physically hold my jaw shut when I saw all of the beautiful cars lined up in the absolutely massive underground room.

"Is that a 278x March-Lion? And a 330 Z-Series TECH Growler? How on earth do you have all of these? They only made two of the Growlers and one of them is halfway across the world!" I was totally geeking out. As a run-of-the-mill commoner, the only cars I had ever really seen in person were your standard family cars that the more well-off families got to have. I'd only ever been in a few myself, and a taxi every now and then.

"Yes, and yes, you're right about both of them." Landon trailed his fingertips against the chromatic light blue of the March-Lion. "The Growler was a gift from the designer, she was a friend of mine growing up." He chuckled dryly. "I'm the one who gave her the loan to start her company."

My mind was reeling, as it so often seemed to do in Landon's presence. "You gave Maria Tech the loan that started the TECH Corporation? I feel like I need to start kissing the ground you walk on!"

Landon snorted, and it made me happy to see him loosen up a little bit. "If you love it so much, why don't we take it out? The drive to Lamont's lab is pretty secluded anyway, I doubt many people would see us."

I was almost drooling at this point. The Growler was an absolutely stunning car, with a dark duo chrome green and gold finish and luminescent white wheels. The doors slid up along the roof of the car, a signature for TECH's cars so that you never had to worry about dinging the doors when you opened them. Glowing green racing stripes ran along each side. It was a two-seater, with plush white leather seats and a white and gold interior. As I sat down inside, I saw that there were green LED strips along the walls and floors as well. I felt like I was in the future.

Landon flipped the ignition switch and the engine roared to life. It was called a "growler" for a reason. The sound sent shivers down my spine, and the whole inside of the car lit up with the custom hologram screens and features that were created bespoke for each customer. That was one of the main reasons there were only two of these cars ever made. Another reason was that the engine ran on all four elements of magic, caught inside of magic retainers built specifically for this car. Most other cars ran on a relatively simpler combustion engine.

We pulled out of the garage and began our drive. Landon had told me it would take us about an hour to reach the laboratory. There were labs much closer by, but Lamont had opted to use his most concealed lab for the upmost of secrecy surrounding my case. After thirty minutes of driving, my heart still skipped a beat every time Landon accelerated and I was deeply ingrained in looking at all of the options on the floating holo-screens.

"Alex," Landon began after turning the music down to a barely audible level. "There's something I need to tell you before we get to the lab."

I waved the screen away and turned slightly to face him better. I had been expecting him to say something, and was trying my best not to let my fears of the worst to get the best of me. "What's up? Is something wrong?"

Landon's lips tightened. "I'm... not sure. Marion called me yesterday– sorry, Marion is the head lab technician on your case. She called me last night with some concerning news." He glanced at me from the corner of his eye and then put his focus back on the road. "It seems as though the samples of your blood that we collected the day of the attack have begun... changing. On a molecular level. The very structure of the strands of your DNA are rearranging themselves."

Woah. I hadn't been expecting that. It took me a moment to sift through my thoughts and come up with a question. "Is it contagious? Are my friends in danger? Or you?"

Landon smiled, albeit an incredibly tense smile. "I tell you that your DNA is changing and your first reaction is to be worried about someone else."

"Oh," I hadn't even realized that. "Well, am I in danger?"

Landon shifted gears and rested his right hand on the gear shift. "We don't know yet. Based on the call I received from Marion this morning, the shifting is still too slow to determine whether or not whatever is happening is dangerous. We also don't know if this change is only happening in the samples we took or if it's happening in you right now, as well. And we don't know if it's contagious."

Well, that wasn't very helpful. A whole lot of "we don't know". I was about to ask another question when Landon's cell phone ringing interrupted me.

"Answer," Landon spoke to the car. "Hello?" He asked as a woman's face popped up on the caller ID. "Marion, we're almost there, what did you need?"

"I'll skip the hellos," a woman's voice said. "The change is accelerating at an exponential rate." She sounded a little rushed and intense. "I'm assuming that the closer Alex gets to us, the faster the change is going to occur. Please, keep an eye on him."

Landon looked at me from his periphery again. "He's sitting right next to me."

"Alex?" Marion asked me through the phone. "How do you feel?"

I shrugged. "I feel normal. A little tired." I looked over my hands and arms, trying to see if anything was changing.

Marion sighed deeply from the other line. "Good. The change is still happening slowly, relatively speaking. I'll keep you updated. Get here quickly." And then she hung up abruptly.

I was a little too stunned to speak. This was a whole lot of very important information all at once after a fair amount of just sitting and waiting. I turned to see Landon, his face dark and body more tense than even before. I jokingly thought to myself that I should pay for him to have a nice relaxing spa trip after all the dust settled.

"Hang on," Landon said, pressing a button on the dash and sending the car hurtling forward almost twice the speed we had been going before. It honestly scared me, but these roads were mostly straight and the lanes were wide. There hadn't been another car in sight the entire trip. But I still found myself subconsciously wrapping my hands around the seatbelt.