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  Later, he might play ball with the Rottweilers, take them for a walk, or brush their fur, but he had other plans for now.

  “Gelb,” he said, and the dogs’ tail stumps went still. They leaped to their feet and continued their circuit around the property, searching for intruders.

  He followed the brick driveway back to the main house. The grass and shrubbery were carefully maintained, although less so than the surrounding houses. Privacy was more important than tidiness.

  He didn’t hurry or draw up his hood. He liked the rain, especially when it was cold, as it was now.

  If there were no guests and the rain persisted, he might go outside later and lie on the patio, allowing the storm to wash over him. Sometimes he fantasized about being struck by lightning. Considering that his own birth was, in a sense, by electricity—those volts delivered again and again to electrodes on his temples during electroconvulsive therapy—he thought an actual lightning bolt might transform him into something else entirely.

  Evolution.

  By the time he reached the colonnade, his clothes were drenched. He wiped his boots on the mat, unlocked the front door, and stepped inside.

  “I’m back,” he said as he entered the house, tracking water across the marble floor. Never “I’m home.” This was not a home and never would be.

  The entry hall was as imposing as the exterior, with a grand staircase and decorative pillars. A second pair of Rottweilers came to greet him, padding across the polished stone the moment he shut the door.

  The estate had six dogs total. He had been present at their birth and raised them. He had trained the Rottweilers as puppies, first disciplining them in the Schutzhund system, then focusing exclusively on combat-related exercises from other sources. His connection with the dogs showed in their behavior toward him. Even if someone used the attack phrase and ordered them to maul him, he was confident they wouldn’t obey, though the idea strangely pleased him.

  Save for the dogs, the foyer was deserted. The main kitchen was likewise empty, and from the refrigerator he took the leftover steak from last night’s dinner. He ate it standing in front of the black granite counter, the way another person might eat a pizza slice. He couldn’t be bothered to get a plate and silverware.

  “If you’re going to eat like a dog, you should at least do it on all fours,” a voice said from behind him.

  “That’s a new one,” Hades said without turning. “Are you trying to flirt with me, Zeusy? You’re going to have to do better than that.”

  “Funny,” Dimitri said humorlessly. “How did it go?”

  “Perfect,” he said, tearing off another mouthful of meat. It was undercooked, and cold juice dripped down his hand. He didn’t care.

  “Look at me when I am speaking to you.”

  Hades turned.

  Dimitri leaned against the wall. He was a tall, wiry man with salt-and-pepper hair. His dark-gray eyes were a single color, without luster, like old coins. He had the kind of lean greyhound face that would benefit from a good beating. Preferably with a tire iron.

  “You already know how it went,” Hades said after swallowing the hunk of beef. He licked the savory juice off his fingers. “You probably jerked off to the live recording.”

  “No wonder the Rotts like you so much,” Dimitri said in evident disgust. “You really are an animal.”

  “Aren’t we all?”

  “I really wish you would use proper table manners.”

  “Is that an order, Dima?” he asked, smiling. He knew Dimitri hated him to use that nickname, which was ironic considering that when Dimitri wasn’t being called “Doctor,” he was being called “Zeus.” Names meant nothing, and they both knew it.

  Dimitri narrowed his eyes. “You should know better than to speak to me in such a manner, Hades.”

  “You know I’m loyal to you. In the end, actions speak louder than words, sir. I delivered the message, and I did it well.”

  When Dimitri did not answer, Hades washed his hands at the sink and left the kitchen. He walked down the hall and entered his room.

  In keeping with the rest of the house’s decor, the walls were painted red and the floor was black marble. While there were no posters, a couple of charcoal sketches he had drawn were pinned to the wall. A punching bag hanging from the ceiling provided the only means of entertainment. The furniture consisted of a bed, a desk with a wooden chair, a dresser, and nothing else.

  Aside from the crimson walls, the only other color came from the few paperbacks piled on his desk. Mostly training manuals. He couldn’t find escape in fiction. It was impossible for him to sympathize with the protagonists of novels, no matter the genre, let alone live vicariously through them.

  Hades sat down at his desk, unlaced his boots, and set them on the desktop beside the lamp. He unstrapped his ankle sheath that contained a small, wicked blade and placed it inside one of the boots.

  From the top drawer of the desk, he removed a thin metal case and a plastic first aid kit. While he prepped his left forearm with rubbing alcohol, he returned to the kill. He envisioned every detail as best he could, even the most mundane ones, like the way the roof had felt beneath his knees and the smell of the oil he had cleaned the gun with.

  He put on a pair of latex gloves, opened the case, and took out the tattoo gun. Throughout the process of assembling the machine, attaching a new needle and tube, and filling the ink reserve, he did not allow his mind to wander.

  It is October 14, he thought as he turned the tattoo gun onto his own flesh. I am here. I am not dead.

  He did not use a stencil. His grip was firm and unwavering as the needle ducked in and out of his skin, forming a perfect line. Even if he did slip, it wouldn’t matter. This body was just a carcass to be discarded once he completed his evolution.

  I exist.

  Blood dewed on his milk-white skin as the needle bit into him.

  I am still alive.

  The needle pricks meant nothing to him. Pain was familiar. It linked him to his victims. When his memory failed him, he would be able to touch his newest notch and think back to the kill that it represented and, in doing so, recall what had transpired afterward.

  I am evolving, Hades thought, watching a new notch appear alongside the first seventeen.

  Status Report: Subject 10 of Subset B

  Apollo is an anomaly. The ECT and tank sessions have not only robbed him of his memories, but they have also taken the entirety of his tactical training. I had to have Hades retrain him how to use a gun. This is rather troublesome, but I suppose every experiment will have its outliers. In any case, this will have very little impact on how Apollo is received into the ROTC once he is initiated into the outer world. His program will proceed exactly as outlined.

  Today, I encouraged Artemis to approach Apollo, who has become rather depressed as of late. I’ve decided that it is in Project Pandora’s best interest to cultivate bonds between the subjects, even if they won’t remember them once they leave.

  The meeting went well. Artemis and Apollo spoke at length and played chess. They got along rather nicely, all things considered. Nothing alarming in their conversation (D5B10-10-03.mp3).

  It’s interesting. When Apollo leaves this place, he will have no recollection of Artemis, let alone the world he once knew, but there is a good chance they will see each other at school and elsewhere. Will they find themselves straying toward each other or just the opposite?

  I’m curious to see how Apollo adjusts to the outside world. He will be going into a completely different environment from the one he is used to. Still, his amnesia continues to concern me, and I can’t help but wonder how it will affect the Project’s plans for him.

  Case Notes 5:

  Apollo

  By the morning of the nineteenth, the week’s nasty weather had finally abated. Against a backdrop of autumn leaves, the sky appeared as flat as a paper cutout.

  Tyler stepped out of the car and looked doubtfully at the house before him. Lurching ov
er a grassy lot, the one-story home was a clapboard monstrosity. Its pink coloring was bright enough to burn retinas.

  Tyler turned to the scrawny boy who crawled from the backseat like a rat from a tunnel, stooped over, toddling on unstable legs.

  “What’s with the new paint job?” Tyler asked.

  “You don’t like it?” Alan asked, rubbing his arms. He had brown hair and bloodshot eyes that were just as dark.

  “It looks like Pepto-Bismol.”

  Alan snickered, his smile one of dazed content. “Dude, like, that’s what I told my dad, but he keeps insisting it’s Suffolk.”

  “What?” Tyler stared at him, uncertain if he had heard correctly. Alan sounded perpetually high, which sometimes made it difficult to understand what he was saying.

  “Suffolk pink.”

  “Oh, that explains so much.” He still had no idea what the first word was.

  Alan rolled his eyes and trudged up the gravel walkway.

  As Tyler followed, his gaze was drawn to the sky. For no reason at all, the flat blue sky troubled him. It seemed insubstantial, too uniform in color, like a painted ceiling.

  The living room smelled of fresh paint. Its walls were half green, half white. As he stepped inside, he avoided tripping over one of the many cans of paint or spread tarps.

  “I keep telling him it’s like being in an inside-out watermelon,” Alan said, glancing around at the unfinished paint job. “But ever since he started watching those home improvement shows, he’s been obsessed with repainting the house.”

  “I hate to break it to you, but watermelons are red, not pink.”

  Alan stared at him blankly. “Dude, what watermelons are you buying?”

  “Uh, the ones from the grocery store.”

  With a mystified shrug, Alan went into his room to use the bathroom, then returned with a grocery bag and a tin of chips. Instead of pulling off the plastic lid, he turned the can upside down and stuck his fingernail into the crevice between the cardboard tube and metal bottom. As he pried off the metal disc, a small circular tin dropped into his palm.

  “No way,” Tyler said as Alan opened the tin. “I’m not smoking.”

  “Relax, my parents aren’t home.” Alan set the container on the glass coffee table, being careful not to spill any of its contents. “Come on, bro-ski, it’s time you lose your weed virginity. Just because you want to join the army—”

  “The ROTC.”

  “Doesn’t mean you need to walk around with a stick up your ass all the time,” Alan finished, and from the grocery bag, he took a glass pipe and a lighter. “Besides, you’ve been acting all weird and super serious lately. This can help. Just take one hit.”

  He sighed. “I thought you just wanted to play Wii.”

  “I do,” Alan said, removing the leaves from the stems and crumbling them between his fingers. “Wii and weed.”

  “I’ll play Wii, but I’m still not smoking.”

  “We’ll see about that.”

  Tyler walked over to the TV as Alan packed the pipe. He knew that Alan smoked weed, but he didn’t like being in the same room when Alan did it. It made him nervous, like he was doing something wrong. Something that went against who he was as a person. Disobeying orders.

  As he turned on the TV, the doorbell rang.

  “That must be Victoria,” Alan said.

  “Wait, you invited Victoria over? And she actually agreed?”

  Alan scowled. “Why wouldn’t she?”

  “Uh, because she almost curb-stomped your balls in study hall last week.”

  “How was I supposed to know she wouldn’t like the pickup line?” Alan asked, setting down the pipe.

  “Dude, I’m not even friends with her, and I knew she wouldn’t like it. I tried telling you.”

  “Whatever.” Alan stood, smoothed the wrinkles from his shirt, and ran a hand through his lank brown hair to give it some life. “How do I look?”

  Tyler smiled. “Like an idiot.”

  “Bite me,” Alan said, then ambled off.

  Tyler picked up the Wii remotes and returned to the couch but did not sit down. He stared into the hallway, listening to the footsteps and voices too faint to discern what was being said.

  For some reason, it always made him nervous to hear people but not be able to see them. To truly be comfortable, he needed to know where everyone was, that every door was locked behind him and every window shut tightly. He needed to feel absolutely secure in his surroundings.

  His gaze swept to the TV. The news channel droned in the background. Through a static haze, a mustached man talked about death.

  “According to an anonymous source affiliated with the Philadelphia Police Department,” the reporter said, “there is no indication that the bioethics conference shooting was an act of terrorism. The gunshot victim, Dr. Benjamin Klausman, was a controversial figure whose support for eugenics drew much ire from the medical community. As of yet, the authorities have declined to speculate whether his extreme ideology might have been a reason for his murder.”

  Alan returned, followed by two girls.

  Victoria was tall and edgy, wearing a studded leather jacket, fishnet stockings, and scuffed Doc Martens. Her black curls fell in a crazy tumble down her back, blond at the roots.

  The other girl, whose name Tyler did not know but whom he recognized from school, was several inches shorter than her friend. She possessed a dancer’s graceful build, all long legs and lithe gait. She wore her auburn hair just past her shoulders, as thick and glossy as fox fur.

  Victoria plopped down on the suede ottoman and reached into her voluminous pleather purse. “Look what I brought,” she said, adding a bottle of tequila to the table.

  “Now it’s a party,” Alan said. “Hey, Victoria, want to help me get some snacks and stuff from the pantry? We can make margaritas!”

  Victoria sighed and stood again, picking up the tequila. “Whatever.”

  As Victoria and Alan went into the kitchen, Tyler set the remotes on the table and turned to the pretty redhead, who stood with her arms crossed, staring at him.

  She had a face that reminded him of one of those Japanese cartoon characters, with her huge eyes and rosebud lips. Brown eyes, deep and velvety, like the eyes of a doe.

  “We’re in English together, right?” Tyler asked. “You sit in the same row as me.”

  “Yeah,” the girl said, brushing her hair out of her face. She wandered over to the couch and sat down next to him. “My name’s Shannon.”

  “Tyler.”

  “I know.” A light blush touched her cheeks. “Must have been some pretty important phone call, huh?”

  He blinked. “What?”

  “Last week, when you walked out of class.”

  Tyler wondered what in the world she was talking about, then suddenly remembered how he had received an emergency call from his foster mother. He had explained the situation to Mr. Preston the next day and had gotten off with lunch detention.

  “Oh, right,” he said, deciding not to regurgitate the whole tale. “It was.”

  She glanced at the TV, where the reporter had been replaced by a recording of the stampede that had occurred after the man was shot. “Oh. I heard about this.”

  “Yeah, it’s been on the news all week,” Tyler said. “I think they thought it was terrorism at first, but I guess not.”

  “I heard that the guy who was shot wanted to sterilize the mentally ill, and there was this big protest over his being a speaker at the conference. Still, I feel bad for the people who got injured during the panic.”

  “Yeah.” Hearing the rev of a blender, he glanced toward the kitchen.

  “Are you going to be drinking?” she asked.

  “Uh, no. I have to drive.”

  “You mind?” she asked, picking up the pipe.

  He shrugged. “It’s not mine.”

  Shannon used the lighter to disinfect the mouthpiece, waited for the glass to cool again, and then brought the pipe to her lips. She
thumbed the lighter and angled the flame downward, inhaled, and held the smoke inside her. Once she exhaled, she tried passing the pipe and lighter to Tyler.

  “I don’t smoke,” he said.

  Her velvety brown eyes twinkled with amusement. “Really?”

  “It’s not my thing,” Tyler said. “I just don’t like how it makes me feel.”

  “He’s lying,” Alan piped in, returning from the kitchen with sodas and enough junk food to feed a small army. “He’s a weed virgin.”

  “Then we’ve got to do something about that,” Victoria said as she entered the living room. She carried a stack of red plastic cups and the blender’s plastic pitcher filled with a greenish sludge that resembled toxic waste more than any sort of drinkable beverage. “Time to lose it, Ty.”

  “Hey, Victoria, can you help me lose mine?” Alan asked, raising his eyebrows.

  “Worst pickup line ever.” Victoria rolled her eyes. “How about you Google some pickup lines first and then get back to me?”

  Tyler sighed, his resolution wavering. One time wouldn’t hurt, right? Besides, it might make him feel better. Alan was right, he had been stressed lately. For the last couple weeks, he had awoken with the feeling that he had done something terrible, and each night he’d fallen asleep with the same thought.

  “Give me the pipe,” Tyler said to Shannon.

  “You sure?” she asked without sarcasm. She seemed almost uneasy. “You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to.”

  “I do.” He took the pipe and lighter from her. It took him two flicks of the wheel to ignite the lighter. On the first hit, he began gagging and something flew down his throat.

  “You all right?” Shannon asked, laying a hand on his upper arm. In spite of his breathlessness, he enjoyed the pleasant warmth of her touch. He wished she wouldn’t let go.

  “Shit, bro-ski,” Alan said as he tore open a bag of Doritos. “Did you just get a Scooby Snack?”

  “A what?” Tyler asked once he had regained his breath.

  “Some weed, man. You were sucking that pipe like, well, like I wish Victoria over here would suck my—”