Embers & Ice

Chapter Fifty-Three

Jet Slater truly believed he made the right choice. Dr. Wolfe gave him a tempting offer, his power was better than any of the others and he always felt he had the guts to be a bad guy, a villain. There was a darkness flowing in his veins, and Dr. Wolfe noticed it. He called it potential. Jet was proud to be noticed, and ever since he came out of the Orb with the mental girl, his creative juices flowed hard and fast inside his mind. Being bad just felt natural to him. He was born that way, unlike his idiotic princess of a brother. Jet was destined to do great things with his power, to make men, women and children fear his name. And he had Dr. Wolfe to thank for giving him a chance to prove himself.

But after the others escaped, Jet felt a little less sure of the choices he’d made. The adrenaline died down after the fight, and Jet was left to face the small, dead body of the boy he killed. Sammy was his name. He looked like a little angel asleep on the ground. Only his eyes were open and Jet was sure he’d never forget the look of astonishment and pain there, and the glass eye that gazed into nothing. It felt good to kill, sure, but the feeling afterwards wasn’t so appealing.

Mikayla stood beside him in Dr. Wolfe’s office days after the escape. She had been quiet for a long time. He knew her well enough to see past her stoic appearance. She, too, was doubting her choice to remain, to join Dr. Wolfe’s side. But she trusted him. She said nothing.

Jet faced the room that felt much smaller now that it was almost crowded with people. He and Mikayla had their backs to the wall beside the desk where Dr. Wolfe sat with his hands folded on the desktop. Jet felt on edge just looking at the man. He appeared to be holding back a cyclone of rage. Even though not all of them escaped – Hunter and Will were still in his clutches – the doctor was furious that he’d let them go so easily. He seemed to believe his security was enough, and without their powers, there was no hope. Clearly he needed to keep his office better secured.

But Dr. Wolfe held it together in the company of two official-looking men dressed like generals. Jet guessed they were Chinese, but he couldn’t be sure. They were completely robotic, emotionless men with pursed lips, clean-shaven faces and eyes as hard as stone. They wore medals and badges that flashed in the fluorescent lights. Dr. Wolfe put on his I-have-everything-under-control expression and cleared his throat.

“Welcome Gentlemen,” he said, all official-like. “Thank you for attending this meeting today. I trust you had a pleasant flight?”

The men glanced quickly at each other and nodded.

“Wonderful… well, as you may know we had a little accident just a while ago with-”

“You let out those mutants, didn’t you?” the taller one snapped. “The ones in your little circus act demonstrations?”

Jet grit his teeth hard, tempted to throw his fist into the man’s face. Who’s he calling a mutant?

“Yes,” Dr. Wolfe said thickly, “Only eight escaped. We still have two very powerful subjects here, and two others in secure lock up. Those that ran away were practically harmless and have nothing to do with our operations in Death Cave 1.”

“I heard you also had some difficulty with a raging dinosaur,” said the other in a much thicker accent. One of his eyebrows shot up, as though he was amused to even speak the words. “And several other test subjects were killed in an explosion?”

Again, Dr. Wolfe nodded forcefully. “That situation is completely under control now. But as I was saying, Gentlemen, the escapees will be caught and detained again. That, however, is not our main project.”

“Dr. Wolfe,” the taller one said.

“Yes, General Cheng?”

“We aren’t here to babble with you all day long. What we want is a full status report on your weapons project. Do you have a prototype available?”