Cloak (YA Fantasy) (24 page)

“I assure you, he’s perfectly hygienic.”

Dervis sniffed the air and muttered, “Doesn’t smell hygienic.”

Will studied the paranoid doctor for a moment. He was translucent pink with a bulbous head and a beak-like mouth. His thick body balanced on a tripod of tentacles while two more ten-foot appendages sprung from his back and hovered over his shoulders. Dervis’s body had a constant nervous tremor, except for his longest tentacles that moved with powerful precision.

Dr. Noctua stepped forward. “Wilhelm, Dr. Dervis is the world’s foremost authority in the field of enchant prosthetics. He’s agreed to help you. Haven’t you, Dervis?”

“Fine, let’s get this over with.” Dervis slipped rubber sleeves on his tentacles. He picked up the model and placed it next to a long table full of an assortment of artificial body parts. He tacked several to the model, covering the mannequin with prosthetics. Gloves and socks wrapped in metal webbing were placed on the limbs. A mask with long metallic whiskers covered the face. A tail was added, along with a small nose clip and tiny pink triangles that fit in the ears.

Dervis eyed Will. “Did you lose your hearing or have you been defective since birth?”

“Defective?”

“Since birth,” interrupted Dr. Noctua. “Wilhelm was raised in a very Nep environment and just recently decided to become naturalized.”

Dervis lifted a jiggling brow. “I’ve heard of gerbilchants choosing to live as Neps. Disgusting. No wonder you’re so underdeveloped.”

“I’m not underdeveloped.”

“Oh really? I bet you can’t even hear that?” Dervis pointed a tentacle in the air.

“Hear what?”

“Exactly. You should be about a seven and half I think.” The doctor lifted a tiny flesh colored triangle from the mannequin and moved toward Will.

Will backed away.

“Oh, and they say I’m paranoid?” smirked Dervis. “Don’t worry. It’s just an audio enhancer. It’s not going to hurt you…unless you’re a Nep.” He eyed Will. “You aren’t, are you?”

Rizz put a hoof to his lips.

“No.” Will’s voice cracked.

“You can never be too careful.” Dervis lifted the pink triangle to Will’s ear. “This enhancer is designed to improve your faulty hearing. It takes most enchants weeks to get used to its intensity. But since you’ve been defective since birth, it may knock you unconscious. Please hold still.”

Will trembled. A cool, tacky tentacle held the side of his head. Something was pushed into his ear. The world exploded with sound—bright and deep, crisp and intense. He could hear the blood flowing through the veins of everyone around him and the tensing in Rizz’s jaw.

The sounds drew images in his head. Closing his eyes, Will saw his surroundings through his ears. Every wave in the pool and movement of the prosthetics created shapes in his mind. He could hear which pipes buzzed with electricity and which carried water. There was also music. Soft classical tones that rang with more depth and clarity than any music he’d ever imagined. He could actually hear the musicians breathing as they played and the whooshing of the conductor’s baton.

“Is that Bach?” Nurse Grundel used to force him to listen to classical music.

Dervis looked stunned. “Yes. It’s his Arioso. But how did you? I’ve never seen anyone be able to decipher sounds that quickly, much less recognize a super-audio rendition of a classic.” Dervis stared at Will and backed away. “What is going on here, Noctua?”

Dr. Noctua ignored him and took Will by the shoulders. “Are you feeling any pain? Loss of hearing?”

“No, but I can…” Will closed his eyes and listened to the room. “I can hear shapes.” A three-dimensional model of his surroundings appeared in his mind. With his eyes shut, he took a step forward then another. Winding through the rows of mannequins, he picked up speed and confidence.

“That’s impossible,” gasped Dervis. “No enchant could become a super-hearer instantly. It should be as difficult to interpret these new sounds as it would be to hear a new language for the first time and understand what was being said. There’s only one explanation.” His eyes widened and stared at Will, who was now weaving between the tables with his eyes clamped tight. “No. It can’t be,” he muttered.

Will’s confidence expanded as he neared the testing course. A crazy idea popped into his head, but with his new bravado, he had no doubt he could pull it off. He sprung to the top of a steel log and caught the climbing wall. A handstand, a flip, a graceful twist—his body knew just what to do without thinking. He sprinted down the narrow beam between the pendulums. Grabbing a bar, he launched into a twisting back flip, rotated three times in the air and landed squarely atop a narrow ladder.

Will sprinted down the ladder and back toward the group, listening to the grin on Dr. Noctua’s face and the expressions of amazement worn by Dervis and the others.

Dr. Noctua nodded, lifting a ball-bearing from a nearby tabletop and standing ready to throw it. Will understood the doctor’s intent and nodded in agreement.

He threw the ball.

Will cart-wheeled, vaulted into a back handspring and dropped to his knees, catching the ball-bearing as he slid across the floor.

“No. No. No. You come here.” Dervis took Will’s face in his tacky tentacles and turned his head from side to side, examining him. He pulled his tentacles back and sniffed them. “No. No. No. It’s impossible.” Dervis staggered backward and sat on a table. “I never thought I’d see it in my lifetime. An Immune! Here!” He turned to Dr. Noctua. “And you made me give him an enhancer? What if it hadn’t worked? He could have lost his hearing, or worse. Did you think I wouldn’t figure it out, Xavier? I invented artificial gerbilchant musk. Did you really think you could con me with my own creation?”

“We weren’t trying to make a fool of you, Dervis. The disguise is for Wilhelm’s protection. And as for the enhancer, he was aware of the risks.”

The squid turned to Will. “You knew what could have happened?”

Will nodded.

“And you did it anyway? No wonder your kind is…was extinct.” Dervis stared. “When Josef W. Grimm died, I thought that was it. He liked to try untested enhancers too—and with similar results, although he never had such instant success. He was reckless and impulsive, and he liked to show off his abilities like you just did. I think that’s what made him so ingenious, and probably what got him killed.”

“You knew Josef Grimm?” asked Will.

“I was his assistant for years—myself and Thaddeus Bump. In fact, most of my work is just building on Josef Grimm’s genius. Everything except his Builder communication research.”

He looked at Dr. Noctua. “Did you know that awful Liska woman barged in here and demanded that I recreate Josef Grimm’s pheromone amplifier so she could track down those Builders from the Gathering Hall? How did she even know about that? It was top secret.”

“What did you tell her?” asked Dr. Noctua.

“The truth. All of his research was destroyed in the explosion.” Dervis eyed Will. “Liska doesn’t know about the Immune, does she? Anyone else in the government know? The military?”

“We think she might suspect something. But for now, we are the only ones who know.” Kaya prowled forward. “And we’d like to keep it that way until after he is naturalized.”

“Of course, of course. I understand completely.” Dervis looked over his shoulders. “But if the boy is going to be naturalized, he’ll need more than just hearing. I think we’ve proven there isn’t any risk for him. Will, do you feel up to another little experiment?”

“Sure.”

“Good. Let’s only try one new sense at a time. We don’t want to overload your system.”

Dervis was much less jumpy now that he was inside a conspiracy. He reached out and removed the implant from Will’s ear, muting the world. The images in his mind were snuffed out, his confident bravado erased.

Dervis began testing enhancers in rapid succession. One, an artificial tongue, gave Will the ability to taste everything he looked at. Will ended the trial quickly when he accidentally looked Dervis in the face then at Rizz’s feet, filling his mouth with the flavor of squid and ramchant toe jam. After making Dervis promise there would be no more taste tests, Will agreed to try more prosthetics.

The gloves and strange socks were artificial claws that made it possible to sense vibrations anywhere in the room. Each step was like sonar and soon Will had mastered seeing with his feet. There were also a pair of goggles that mimicked the eyesight of a hawk, allowing him to see dust particles floating a hundred yards away.

He tested tails that increased his balance and speed, whiskers that made his nose so sensitive to vibrations that he had sneezing fits anytime anyone moved, and prosthetic antennae that let him focus in on and separate sounds in a cacophony of noise.

Will made excuses not to try out the flippers or artificial gill enhancements. The thought of being underwater terrified him, but he didn’t mention that he couldn’t swim. It was too embarrassing.

By noon, his senses were all raw and tingling. Will was ready to call it quits. His brain throbbed from over-stimulation and lack of sleep.

“Impressive.” Dervis placed antennae on the silver mannequin, along with all of the other enhancers he’d tried. “I’ll tailor the enhancers that you’ll need for naturalization tonight and they’ll be ready for you in the morning. These others, we’ll just keep under wraps until your Immune status is made public. It would look suspicious if a gerbilchant was walking around with antennae.”

Dervis collected the mountain of notes he’d taken. “Oh!” He slapped a tentacle to his forehead. “Smell! I completely forgot about smell. Gerbilchants aren’t bloodhounds, but he will have to complete a smell test during the naturalization exam. Wilhelm, we’re going to have to try one more. I’m sorry. But this one should be quick. Just tell me if you can pick out smells from a distance, alright?”

Will nodded and shrugged.

“Okay. Just hold still.” Dervis picked up a small silver clip and attached it just under Will’s nose.

Will inhaled. “Nothing.”

“Take a deeper breath,” he suggested.

Will breathed again. No luck. Then something happened. The sensation was slower and less crisp than the hearing he had tested earlier, but it was just as powerful. Scents stronger than anything he’d ever experienced rushed into his lungs, flooding his mind with strange images—the smells created ribbons of color painting the air.

After a moment, Will understood. The scents evolved into stories, each wispy band of color telling the history of the room. Rizz, Manning, Noctua, Flores—each had their own distinctive aura of color. The scents of Dr. Bump, Wart, and Cylus were there too—and one other that was blurry and flickered in Will’s head.

Most of the trails had a warm, pinkish hue and smelled like the ocean, the same scent surrounding Dervis. His smell meandered in all directions, the newer trails vibrant and the older ones wilting with age. Will felt a powerful curiosity, an impulse to discover the secrets of the scent paths, to read their history. He wandered through pinkish echoes of the doctor, frozen in suspended motion. Fascinating. Will knew he wasn’t seeing with his eyes, but the images produced by the scents were just as real.

Halfway down the second row of tables, a new trail veered off to the right. Will couldn’t help but follow. The divergent path was much smaller with an earthy, black licorice odor that left a deep crimson wake. Bending low and inhaling, Will flashed to a ghostly vision of a diminutive man with four legs and an insect’s thorax inspecting the seams and rivets of the steel floors. A Builder!

The small enchant had obviously been scurrying quickly; his scent was streaked and blurry except where he had stopped to inspect something or to run his segmented fingers over a wall joint. Will stepped closer to a spot where the smell was so strong that the whole area glowed a vibrant red. Between the floor and the wall, a rivet was bent and the wall plate dented. The damaged area was covered in a pulsating blanket of scent.

Will sniffed deeply and a three-dimensional schematic unfolded in front of his brain. He could see exactly how the repair should be made, and had an overwhelming need to do it himself.

“Tools. I need tools.” Will began to search for a ratchet and wrench. Desperation engulfed him as his hands rummaged across a nearby table. He was vaguely aware of Dr. Noctua, Dervis, and the agents speaking. Their words simply washed past, holding no interest. A tentacle wrapped around his waist, lifting him off the floor. He was still grasping for tools when a second tentacle pulled the silver clip from his nose. In a heartbeat, the desire to fix the bolt was gone. He panted, exhausted.

“Will! Will, are you okay?” Rizz’s face floated into view as Dervis lowered him into a chair.

“What happened?” Will rubbed his temple with his knuckles.

“You started running around and crawling under the tables, sniffing the ground. It was like a trance. Then you stopped in that corner and went crazy. You were trashing tables and yelling about tools. What did that nose thing do to you?”

All six enchants were staring, their faces full of worry.

“I saw smells.” Will scratched his head. “I could tell what happened in the past, smell who had been there and what they did. It was like I
had
to follow the trails. Then there was something stronger than the other smells.”

“What was it?” Dervis leaned closer.

“A Builder.”

The team tensed.

“I could smell that he had been inspecting stuff. He marked something—a broken bolt. The scent showed me how to fix it, but it also made me
need
to fix it. I couldn’t help myself.”

“He tracked a Builder.” Dervis’ mouth gaped open. “Xavier, this proves Einstein’s theory.”

“Einstein’s theory?” asked Will.

“Yes, Einstein was an Immune,” explained Dr. Noctua. “Many famous scientists were. But Einstein hypothesized that Immunes may be capable of much more than just seeing through Cloak. You see, Immunes have always had unique abilities. Some had an instinctual understanding of enchant culture, like Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm. Other Immunes were able to gain enchant-like physical abilities over periods of time. Some understood flight, architecture, science, or music in ways far beyond the Neps of their day.”