Adam took another step back. “How come you know I can do things?”
Malin looked at him, somewhat puzzled. “Dear, because if you’re here, breathing, and Juzo isn’t, it’s because his proteins have merged with yours,” she explained, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “If I was recently attacked, it’s because Broga is still out there, and you can bet he’s monitoring the living hell out of you.”
Adam went from suspicion to terror. He looked around for something odd, for some object that shouldn’t be there; something that could hide a camera or some other transmitter. Nothing. Everything in the living room was in the usual place; all the lamps, at least as far as he could see them, looked the same; there was nothing out of place or anything that looked different.
Malin guessed what was going through his head and stopped him. “There’s no use,” she said. “Do you remember the files Juzo was carrying? There was such a large bank of photos of the two of you in there that you could have filled an entire album for each year. Juzo and you were monitored for almost two and a half decades! and none of you knew. You could be wearing a tracker on your butt right now and not even know it.”
Adam despaired. “And what should I do?”
“Well, nothing!” she said, still stunned by such naivety. “Adam, it’s all done. What else can you do? Go after Broga? How? For what? Do you think he’ll give you an explanation?”
“But what about the supply for which they had suspended the Project before...?”
“Broga,” she said. “I think—I’m not sure but I think he got it. Otherwise, the Project would not have been completed, don’t you think?”
“Right,” Adam bobbed. “The 128.”
“The 128? The Dormant programming?” she was puzzled.
“Yeah, it’s just that I thought…” Adam tried to explain. “I thought it had been activated because Juzo might have had that supply in his pocket.”
“Why would Juzo carry it in his pocket?” Malin chuckled. “What are you talking about?”
Adam responded with another smile. “I dunno. Forget it,” he said.
Feeling a sudden and strange sympathy for him, the young woman took his wrist and, with a gentle shake, tried to give him some courage. “Look, of the few lines that were uncensored in those files, I only managed to read... Well, very few,” she said. “But I remember that they mentioned electromagnetic combustion as one of the effects of the project, and something else. I don’t know the extent of your capabilities, but I’m sure that it should be something similar to what I have as a Grenadier. If Broga or any of those mercenaries show up again, I think you could defend yourself without problems.”
Adam tried to calm down, modulate his breathing, and count to ten; he barely made it to five, but he managed to do a good job of stemming the waves of paranoia. What Malin said was true. Letting himself sink into resignation was the best thing he could do at the moment.
“Okay…” Malin crossed her arms. “Are you gonna give me a demonstration of what you can do or what?”
Adam held out the palm of his hand and trying to hide his fear behind a serious expression, let the electric currents flood him until they formed a handful of white flames.
Bathed in a howling, radiant light like the burning heart of a miniature star, Malin’s eyes widened; her breath caught in her lungs in fascination. She raised her hand, and for an instant, even though she knew it would be crazy to do so, she was tempted to touch that fidgety little ball of fire, but she brushed her fingers away and took a precautionary step back.
“By imitating the movement that you guys made with your fingers, I was able to mold my own Photia,” Adam said, and by contracting his hand, he shaped his fire into a sphere. It wasn’t as circular as the Grenadiers’ Photia; this one spewed fire here and there, and the sound it emitted was closer to the crackling of the flames than to that electric buzz released by the blue grenades.
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Malin gave a smile of pure astonishment.
“What?” he asked and, also with a smile, one much more awkward than the girl’s, he tried to guess what was going through her head. “Yeah… I guess it’s funny, right?”
She looked at him as if to say, ‘What do you mean?’
“Y’know,” he said; “a white sphere, my last name... That’s why you’re smiling, right?”
“What? No, no.” Malin shook her head. “It’s just that your Photia is... Well, a lot more intimidating than anyone I’ve ever seen.”
“Oh, I see…”
And, fearing he would lose control, like the time he had broken the ceiling, Adam made his power disappear before the demonstration turned into a disgrace.
“I know that you guys had no idea who were the ones who came up with the Project or if they are dead, but some of them must be alive,” he pointed out. “Besides, there must have been assistants, financiers, lab companies, and even janitors, right? For Juzo and for all the other twins who died from this, babies and children alike, I wanna find the bastards who did this and bring them to justice. I don’t care if they are eighty or ninety now. It doesn’t matter that the project started on your continent. I have powerful friends; influential people who can…”
Malin held up her hand, asking him to stop.
“I know how you feel. Believe me,” she said, “but tell me something, what will cause more of a stir, an illegal project that no one will voluntarily take responsibility for—if someone is still alive—or a man who can create balls of fire, without chemical serum and without implants that—?”
“—And float,” Adam interrupted.
“Excuse me?”
“Create fireballs and float,” he corrected, looking at her with a mixture of nervousness and anxiety, with the gesture of a child who has just discovered he can ride his bike without help but who doesn’t know how long he can resist up there before the fall, he lifted his feet a few inches off the ground, wobbled a little in the air as if trying to keep his balance on an invisible surface, and then returned to the ground with a long sigh.
Malin’s eyebrows were so high they almost reached the top of her head.
“And fly!” she added, mouth agape. And processing one surprise after another, she accompanied Adam with another long sigh. “Good heavens! Well, I think my question answers itself,” she said then. “If you start picking up the phone and asking questions, you’ll attract the attention of people who won’t seek justice for you and the other twins, but rather take advantage of you, and by people, I mean mainly the authorities of my country.”
Adam got the point, and fueled by frustration, he slumped back on the couch.
“There’s one thing I can answer, though,” she said, and in front of a puzzled Adam, she went to the kitchen area and reached behind the fridge. “Good, right where I left them.” She withdrew two black things which, with a squeeze, she shaped into Auriga bracelets, just like the ones she was wearing. “That Friday, I crossed my fingers so that, if everything went well and—y’know, you lived to tell the tail, you wouldn’t find them. I was afraid that—I dunno, you’d freak out and throw them in the trash, or worse, give them to someone.” Running her fingers over the chrome surface of one of her Auriga, she removed a tiny chip and inserted it into one of the pair’s bracelets that had been hidden. “This will give them the energy they need to do it.”
Adam crossed his arms. “Do what?”
“You wanted to know how I got here in record time, right?” Malin said, returned the new bracelets to their rectangle shape, tucked them into her jeans pocket, and headed for the door. “Take your car keys. Let’s go to a place, and I’ll show you.”
“You can show me right here, okay?”
“No, it must be in that place.”
Adam took a deep breath; everything to get at least one answer to so many questions, right? He buttoned up his shirt, and as he went in search of the car keys, the image of him inadvertently releasing a jolt of energy while driving assaulted his mind again, and this time, in that horrible delirium not only did he fall prisoner of the fire inside the cabin but also Malin.
“We’ll go on foot,” he said.
“It’s not far, but it’s not close either,” she pointed out.
And when he was about to insist, a familiar voice sounded in his head.
“Stop fearing and you will have the control you need,” he heard Juzo.
“Whatever you say,” Adam sighed. He had already given in to Malin’s demands; what was the problem with giving in to his brother’s commands? He took the 08.09’s keys and shot the girl a warning look. “I’ve traveled by car with people from Markabia and things ended badly. I hope history doesn’t repeat itself.”
“Easy, dear,” she said. “You won’t wake up in a hospital again after this, if that’s what you’re afraid of. That said, you may do it with little nausea.”
They left the loft. Adam headed towards the stairs, but she didn’t follow him. She waited for him, standing next to the open door of one of the elevators.
“No way I’m going down twelve floors on foot,” she said, nodding at her back, “least of all when I’m hurt.”
“You don’t walk with your back… But whatever.”
And hoping that Juzo was right, Adam crossed his fingers and went with her.