Animalis (24 page)

The crowd started up a chant: “I-er-land! I-er-land! I-er-land!”

Jax took control of her arms and wrapped them around herself. It was strange, but he could feel his own arms around her, and he could tell that she could too. The muscles around her jaw pulled into a smile. Her head leaned to the side, pressing her cheek in a warm caress against the shoulder Jax was controlling.

Across the ring, Gold Teeth looked at Grimshaw with wide eyes.

Jax reached up and patted her on the back. The ACTS member behind her took it as a signal to massage that spot and began rubbing between her shoulders.

When the ref called them back up to start the final round, Grimshaw was ready. Her body hopped back and forth, like a natural boxer, pushing Jax into the movement.

Gold Teeth shook his head and strained to focus a glare at Grimshaw, but when the bell rang, he cowered away from her.

Jax gave up control and felt her arms pop the creep in the face a few times before the end of the final round.

People around the ring started up the chant again. They all knew who had won. When Jax raised her hands into the air when the fight was over, they burst into a cheer.

It had worked. Somehow, they’d pulled it off. The mongoose and his family would be safe now, which Jax felt good about. But he was more focused on Grimshaw.

She’d made it through the fight without getting hurt, and that made him feel even better.

——

Two days later, Jax got another message from Hank:

I was wrong. I need more time to understand how to operate it. Give me another week. ~Hank

Jax kept busy, learning about the Animalis. But as the days passed, he realized that something
was
wrong with his leg, and it was getting worse and worse. He woke several times every night from the intense throbbing.

It terrified him to see what it was becoming, but it also filled him with hope. Something was wrong with him, he knew. No … not wrong: he was … different. He wasn’t a normal human. But maybe he was better than human.

The change in his leg forced him to stop using the robotic leg, and he and Hodge found some crutches to use instead. He kept it a secret as long as he could.

——

The one person he could trust was Grimshaw. She knew both sides of him. She knew the army, that he had a commitment to serve and protect America, and humanity. And she had shown him the nature of the Animalis.

And no matter how much he came to know about her, there was always more. They would talk with each other for hours into the night, until one of the human deacons that helped enforce rules within the living quarters would send them off to their own rooms. It seemed like Grimshaw could talk about anything. Sometimes Jax just sat and listened.

Then on Christmas night, as Grimshaw was blushing from remembering when they had tried to smuggle chocolate into the kitchen and had hid for an hour in a storage room under the stairs, waiting for the cook to leave, Jax kissed her.

She let herself be pulled into it. Jax felt the furnace inside his chest blazing. They sat, frozen, lips barely touching.

Then Grimshaw pulled away. Her ears were almost as red as her hair. She held her eyes closed with a shy smile on her lips. But when she opened her eyes, her face became resigned. She exhaled a burdened breath, like she had decided to face something she had been dreading. Jax felt a knot forming in his stomach. Had he completely misjudged her feelings?

“I should go.” She started to get up. Moxie leaped off of her lap and stretched on the floor. “I’m sorry. I really like you, Jax. But … we can’t be more than friends.”

Jax stood up with her. “No, I’m sorry. I should have asked.” He hobbled to the door with his crutches and opened it for her. How had he thought he could kiss her? Could he make up for it somehow? “Can we still be friends?” he asked. He felt like a child saying it.

She frowned, like the question had hurt her feelings. “Of course we can.” She turned her head away from him and pressed her body against him with a firm hug. Then she whispered, “What’s wrong with me? I can’t have feelings like this for you, Jax.”

Of course, she was older than him. Maybe a decade older than him. He had thought about it plenty of times. Silly things: Would they hate each other’s music, would they always wear clashing styles of clothing, would Hodge always be there? But didn’t everyone have to learn to appreciate the other person for who they were?

“I know.” He wanted to ask
“Why?”
but stopped himself. “I hope this doesn’t make it uncomfortable between us. Can you still think of me as a friend?”

She let go of the hug, smiling again. “I always will. Thanks.” She patted her leg for Moxie to follow her back to her room.

“Hurley, before you go. I need to show you what has been happening to my leg.” The words were out before Jax could reconsider. What if the leg withered away in someone else’s vision? No—it was his precious hope. But … what if it did have to be cut off, if something was wrong with his body?

“Your leg? What is it?” She came back into the room.

Jax sat on the chair and took a deep breath. “Close the door for a minute. I … don’t know what’s happening. And I should have told someone earlier.”

He pulled up the pant leg, and he showed her the shape of what looked like a small foot inside the gray sock he wore.

Her eyes went wide. “Jax, what is that?”

He pulled the sock off. The intense sensitivity had diminished as the leg had grown. It was pink, only four inches long, shriveled and hideous, like a quarter-moon raisin.

It was wrong to show her. It was wrong to hope it was really growing. Looking at it now, showing Grimshaw, Jax became ashamed of himself for wanting it to grow back. He had seen exactly what he wanted to. Now, with his self-deceptive spells being broken by another person’s intrusive eyes, it just looked disgusting.

“Oh my gosh! Your leg,” she gasped. “You’re coming apart! Does it hurt?” She was horrified, looking at the growth like it might kill Jax. “I’m sorry. I’m an idiot. What happened? I just … don’t understand. What did you do?” She kept stopping herself from touching it. “Did you have one grown? It’s only been a few weeks!” She tried to whisper again. “Why is it pink?”

“I didn’t do it. I haven’t done anything. The leg grew itself.”

She looked at him with an eyebrow raised.

“Every morning, it seems to have grown a few centimeters in the night. I didn’t know what was happening, but I didn’t want to give up the hope that it was real, and have someone cut it off.” He stretched out the toes and wiggled them gently.

“There really isn’t any seam is there?” She was looking at the transition from his upper calf into the skin of the pink leg. “No scar tissue. I can’t believe it. Does it hurt?” She held her hand over the leg, asking permission to touch it.

“Not as much.” Jax reconsidered and said, “Well, it doesn’t hurt, but it is … a little sensitive.”

“That’s incredible,” she said, as the tip of her finger sent tingles of sensation through Jax’s nervous system.

“You think it looks normal?” It hadn’t deflated. It hadn’t shriveled and fallen off now that someone else had seen it.

“It’s hard to tell. I mean, it looks fine, except for being a little red and small. Have you walked on it?”

“No. I have been terrified that any pressure might destroy whatever growth is going on. And I don’t want a doctor telling me it has to come off, or putting me through a round of tests because I’m some kind of anomaly.” He started to pull the sock back over it.

Grimshaw nodded. “I guess you’re right. Yeah, probably best to let it grow, if it’s growing. It’s incredible. Can we show Hodge in the morning?”

Jax stood up, putting the crutches under his arms, and walked to the door with her again.

“Yeah. Let’s do that,” he said.

“Thanks.” She held his hand lightly. “Good night, Jax.”

And she kissed him. Then she walked out into the hall. Moxie circled around her legs and went with her into her room.

Jax stood there, more confused than ever. He didn’t want to move, for fear that the sense of her lips against his might vanish forever.
Just friends
.

——

By Jax's birthday, January 20th, the leg had grown back to its full length. It had been around two months since he had fought for his life in the arena. That time had started as an agonizing eternity of suffering, but now he didn’t want it to end. But finally the fight came back for him. When Hank showed up, it was time for Jax to decide.

Chapter 21

Pulled Forward

Jax was surprised by Hank’s appearance in person. His eyes had signs of lost sleep. His hair had begun to form a curly nest on his head. Clothes and a pair of shoes were tucked under his arm. He panted and finally said, “I figured out the pyramid. We have the perfect opportunity to get it, right now.”

“Now?” Jax said. “Today? But—” What was there for Jax to say? That he was just starting to imagine that he could have a relationship with Grimshaw, that maybe he didn’t have to help fight the Animalis anymore? He looked at Hank and tried to make words come out, some explanation for why he couldn’t help anymore, a plea that Hank, and the captain, and the world would understand that he couldn’t be a tool for the useless violence anymore.

He could see his reflection in Hank’s eyes, and in it, he looked foolish. The time had come to go back to saving the world, helping end the war, pretending there was such a thing as a hero.

“Jax,” Grimshaw interrupted.

She had stood with her arms folded ever since Hank had come in. The Herbal Air shopkeeper had brought Hank to the ACTS building a few moments before, and now Hank was standing at the door to Jax’s room, waiting for him to come.

“Have you told Hank about your leg?” Grimshaw said.

“What?” Hank looked at Jax. “That you lost it?”

Jax nodded. “Well, it’s going to be hard to believe. I don’t understand what’s happening to it.” Jax pulled up his right pant leg, revealing the new foot. He lifted his leg and started to pull off the sock.

Hank stared at the leg. “What happened?”

Jax finished pulling the sock off and the pink foot hung bare. Hank cringed at the sight of it.

“Is that your foot?” he asked. He looked … mad. “I thought you lost it, Jax.”

Jax wiggled the toes. “I did. I don’t know what’s happened to it. But it … it’s growing back.” He started to pull the sock back on.

Hank looked at Grimshaw with a skeptical expression on his face. She nodded.

“Well …” Hank stepped back from it, staring into space for a moment. He shook his head. “We don’t have time to talk about this. Can you come? You know I can’t do this without you.”

That was all Hank was going to say about the leg? Jax had expected some kind of awe from him, marveling at the novelty of it. He was acting panicked and disheveled.

Jax stepped down, slowly putting his weight on the new foot. It tingled against the ground, but the sensitivity had gone away. It felt solid and held his weight. He was almost normal.

He wasn’t ready to leave Grimshaw, but he could never use that as an excuse. He had a duty to Hank, and the army, and humanity. Even if he wasn’t sure either side deserved to win.

“Are you sure you want to go?” Grimshaw asked.

Jax looked at her, and back to Hank. Did he have a choice? He had signed the contract for the United States Army. He had to go. And it was vital that they stopped the Animalis militants from using the pyramid. Hank was in command, and Jax had to follow orders.

Did she want him to stay? With her? This was a strange world she had pulled him into, risking their lives to give Animalis a chance to live in peace, but he was starting to like it.

No one would praise him for being a hero the way he had always pictured as a child. But he had already realized that dream was a myth. As long as he was forced to kill, he would never be able to see himself as a hero.

Hank held out the clothes. “We should go now. I don’t know how much time we have.”

Jax looked at Grimshaw, not sure what to say. Would this be good-bye? She had been with him through the hardest time of his life.

He slowly reached to take the clothes away from Hank.

“Don’t think I’m going to leave the two of you alone,” Grimshaw said. “Me and Hodge will be watching you. We’re your unofficial backup.” Her voice was firm.

Hank opened his mouth, but Grimshaw held up a hand.

“Don’t argue with me. Let’s go,” she said.

——

Their automated taxi dropped Grimshaw, Hodge, and the two little ferret animals off at the Atticus. Then, on the way to the pyramid, Hank told Jax what he had been doing during the time Jax had been at ACTS. Living in the Atticus, tracking down surveillance footage of the plane Jax had come in on, hacking private networks for more footage, he had found the pyramid. He watched it being sent from building to building where Animalis and people took turns looking at it.

“And today, I read an article that made it click,” Hank said. “I know how to use the machine.” His eyes looked at something in front of him for a moment, then he looked expectantly at Jax. “Oh,” he said after another moment. “No retina monitor. Well, the article was about repairing damaged cells with your brain.”

Jax didn’t know they were trying to figure out how to make the machine work. Why would they need to? He was about to say something when Hank held his hands out to demonstrate something. With his left hand, he started moving it up and down in a wave motion, while his right hand held still.

“So, say this hand is the cell that needs repaired.” He indicated his stationary right hand. “And this hand is the wavelength of your brain.” He waved his left hand. “Now if the brainwaves fall into the same frequency as the cell here,” he said, moving the left hand to form a line with the right hand, “then the thoughts can dictate instructions to the cell. Normally the wavelength moves up or down, meaning higher frequency and lower frequency, depending on the amount of cerebral activity going on.

“If you’re in a panic, filled with adrenaline, or stressed with a test, then you’re going to be way up here.” He lifted the wave up. “When you’re sleeping …” He dropped the hand down low. “… it gets really low. I think the pyramid is like this cell here. It’s almost like a lock: when you get your brainwaves into the right frequency, your brain becomes the key, and you can open it up.”

He folded his arms and sat back in his seat again. “I don’t know what they’ve been doing with it. While I was watching, there were a couple Animalis, and people, that went inside it. Nothing seemed to happen. There was that lioness, Narasimha—she came just a few days ago and the pyramid was put into another truck. And it’s just sitting there. I don’t know what they’re waiting for, but it isn’t guarded.”

“And what kind of building is it in? How are we going to get in?” Jax asked, focusing in on what mattered: finishing the mission.

“It’s not in a building.” Hank tapped his laser tool against his leg. He hadn’t stopped moving and twitching since he had gotten into the car. “And I found some tutorials for how to get one of those trucks to start without a key. With a laser tool, it should be pretty easy.”

“And we drive it to the Atticus? Is there storage on the Atticus?” Jax asked. He was growing uneasy about the mission.

“No. There’s not quite enough room for it on the Atticus. But we don’t need to jump it, not yet. I rented a storage garage to keep it in, and we can rent a truck to transfer the pyramid into before we go there.”

The uneasiness finally had a name in Jax’s mind. “Why are we alone in this mission? Won’t the captain send another unit?”

The speed of the tapping increased, and Hank’s legs began to shimmy back and forth subtly. “This might be our only chance,” he said. “I’ve been here, alone, for almost two months, tracking this thing down because the captain wasn’t willing to divide his resources. He needs proof. But we’ve got to get it first. As soon as the captain finds out we’ve found you, he’s going to pull us back, and we’ll lose our chance to get the machine.”

“What? The captain doesn’t even know we’re going after it right now?” Jax asked. “Come on, Hank! We can’t do that. We’re going to get killed. Or worse, sent back to the arena.”

“No!” Hank shouted.

Jax shrank back from the angry outburst.

Hank lowered his voice: “I’m not going to let it go. And I’m going to use it, at least once. Don’t think I’m being selfish, either. We’re doing this for you, too, Jax. They have to pay.” His green irises tunneled into Jax’s eyes.

“I …” Jax hesitated.
Why am I fighting against him again? Hank needs me.
“We’re going to use it?”

Hank’s stare grew less intense. “If we get an opportunity … once we get it out of their hands.”

The car came to a stop. Outside, the sky looked dim, covered in heavy clouds, rimmed with red and orange, hinting at the sunset hidden behind them.

“You look good, Jax. I can’t believe you were in the arena,” Hank said. “They never posted video of your fight—but then, with an escape like that, I’m sure they don’t want anyone seeing it.”

They stepped out of the taxi and into the chilly air. Beside them stood the remains of a crumpled, partially demolished building. Old bricks still formed a short wall along the sidewalk, and beams and other structures stuck out into the sky.

The city block was divided in half, with a shipping access road between the ruined building and the warehouse where the truck was parked. Down the skinny road, to the right, would be the shipping bays.

“How is it walking with your new foot?” Hank asked, his voice joining the rumble of machinery and combustion engines spread throughout the city.

“It’s uncomfortable, but it’s working,” Jax said.

“You really lost it?” Hank asked.

Jax had no interest in talking about it—not right now. They had to be focused, watching and listening for anyone that might catch them. Hank, though, looked and sounded nervous. Maybe he was talking to distract himself from what lay ahead? If the plan went wrong this time, could either of them hope to make it out alive?

“They might not have posted a video of it, but I bet they recorded it and have it somewhere in their files,” Jax said. “I’d like to see it myself if they do.”

As they came to the edge of the alley where the trucks were parked, Jax started to feel the skin on his arms start to tingle. His stomach began to churn as well. It felt like he was being drawn to the pyramid again, being pulled toward it.

He didn’t have time to ask Hank about the feeling now. Jax wasn’t sure if it was just fear of the pyramid roiling his insides, or if there really was a force pulling at him. Either way, he was determined to ignore it and finish the mission.

They turned down the alley. Footsteps echoed off the walls of the buildings. They could see the trucks parked in the loading bays now. Lights on the side of the building had turned on, beacons for the darkness that was coming.

“Do you see that one?” Hank said. “The third one down. Not from the end, from where we are. I’ll have to check the license plate, but I’m pretty sure that’s the truck we want.”

“Alright,” Jax said.

About fifteen yards separated the alley from where the trucks were parked. Once they started crossing that distance, they would draw the attention of anyone watching. They’d have to be fast and direct.

“This doesn’t seem suspicious to you?” Jax asked. “They just left it here, out in the open?”

Hank kept walking, pulling his chin down into the collar of his coat. “We’re not aborting yet. Get ready.”

They walked into the loading bay. Jax went for the door to the cab and tried pulling it open. He was surprised to find that the door wasn’t locked. He was about to climb in when he heard the sound of another door opening, and then felt the truck shake.

Jax whipped around, expecting an ambush, but he saw no one—not even Hank. Feeling his heart rate increase, Jax moved to the back of the truck to look for him.

“Hank?” he whispered.

The back door of the truck had been opened and Hank was standing in front of it, looking in. Jax looked up and down the loading area, expecting to see Animalis coming for them at any moment. When he looked back at Hank, he felt his stomach drop. Hank was beginning to climb into the back of the truck, where the plain, metal pyramid stood from floor to ceiling.

Hank was going to get them both killed. They had to leave—
NOW.

“Stop!” Jax hissed.

Hank jerked to a stop, hanging on the edge of the cargo truck.

“What are you doing?” Jax took a step closer to him.

“I can do it. I just need a minute,” Hank said. His breathing was fast and loud. “Help me up.” He turned his head back to look at Jax, scowling. “Come on!”

“You don’t need to do anything! We have to get out of here, Hank.” Jax checked the area around them again. He grabbed the door to the truck to begin closing it. “Let’s go.”

“Leave me back here while you drive.” Hank took his foot off the truck and moved to stop the door from closing. “I have to see inside it. I want to know how it works. To see if it can undo what it did before, and make the world right again.” His hand held the door.

“You’re the only one that knows how to drive a vehicle like this—and you know where we’re going,” Jax said. The look in Hank’s eyes wasn’t fear, like Jax had thought; it was hatred. “We have to go!”

Hank blinked, and shook his head. “Right, we have to get it out of here.” The hatred was gone, leaving his face pale with fear. He let go of the door and Jax closed it.

They quickly went back to the front of the truck and climbed in. They didn’t even have to hot-wire it; the keys were still in the ignition. The truck rumbled to life. A horrendous grinding noise came from the front of the truck, and it jerked forward.