“No,” I whisper.

“It’s not so easy being God,” Tommy says, and a shadow passes over his face. A memory, perhaps. Or a regret. “You can’t always get it right. But the Plisskens had already developed the Logan Serum. The thing that allows you to recover so quickly when I do this—”

Tommy smashes his fist into my face.

His audience gasps.

“Little Evening had a heart deformity,” Tommy says. “Surgery would have been very dangerous. And the Plisskens had the cure, a side benefit of the research they were doing. Terra traded them her silence for the cure. But she tried to get them to quit. She ordered them to stop.”

“You’re telling me my parents were monsters?” I say. I won’t show any emotion.

I can’t, won’t, refuse to.

But it’s coming clear to me now. I don’t like the picture.

It could be Tommy’s lying just to mess with me. But no. The others are nodding along. They all know the story. Only I am in the dark.

I’m the fool.

“Everything you see down here, it’s all their work, theirs … and mine. Oh, I know how your little mind works, Solo the bagel boy. I know how conventional you are. Inadequate. Thank God your parents are dead or they’d die of shame!”

My parents were monsters.

Terra Spiker is … I don’t know quite what she is.

“Look! He’s going to cry,” Tommy mocks. “Dr. Anapura, Martinez, Sullivan: Get him into the tank. We’ll see if we can’t make him a bit more malleable.”

“What about Spiker?” Dr. Gold asks.

“We’re going to deal with her right now,” Tommy says.

I struggle. But I’m tied up. And worse yet, I’m beaten.

I’ve never been beaten. Even when I box and get my ass kicked, I never lay down, I never admit defeat. But now I feel like I’ve been gutted. Like I’ve been turned inside out.

I struggle. But at some level I almost think I deserve to be shoved into the tank. I’ve been an idiot. I’ve screwed up everything.

I’m the son of monsters, and I almost destroyed Terra Spiker who … even now, even as they drag me away, I can’t quite wrap my head around it … Terra Spiker, who wasn’t the worst person in the world.

– 42 –

The rest of the trip is, shall we say, awkward.

I, the creator, sit by myself while my creation talks shyly with Aislin, and Aislin talks shyly with him.

I, the smart one, am feeling pretty stupid.

I’m thinking about my mother—soon to be in a federal prison. I’m thinking about the vengeful guy who dictated that fate. I’m thinking that Adam is superior to Solo in every possible way.

And I’m wishing Solo was with me.

The bus lets us out a mile from the Spiker campus. We trudge along together for a while down the steep, curving two-lane road, dodging aside to avoid being run over by the occasional BMW.

Aislin and Adam walk together. It just seems natural for me to get out in front a little.

A Porsche comes tearing around a blind corner and nearly hits Adam.

I see the driver’s face. His mouth is a big O. His eyes are wide.

The brakes screech. The car stops a couple hundred yards away. The backup lights glow and the car swerves back toward us.

It stops. The window rolls down. There’s a bland, vaguely familiar, middle-aged man behind the wheel. Complete mismatch between the driver and the car.

“It’s him!” the man cries.

He’s looking at Adam.

“Who are you?” I ask.

“Sullivan. From accounting. I—” He’s confused, clutching the wheel like Wile E. Coyote holding on to his latest rocket sled. “You better look out,” he says at last. “They’re crazy. They’re really crazy.”

“Who’s crazy?”

“All of them.” He spits the words out. “All those scientists. They’re all nuts!”

“What’s happening?” I demand. I put my hands on the door, trying to convince him not to bolt. But he rears back, scared.

“I have no part in this!” he cries. “I just moved the money around. I’m not putting people in vats or, or, whatever they’re planning to do.”

He puts the car into gear and, with a final terrified look, goes tearing off down the road.

“We need to hurry,” I say. “You two go as fast as you can. I’ll run the rest of the way.”

“I can run,” Adam says. Of course he can run. He has amazing legs, incredible stamina, maximized lungs, all the things I gave him.

“Yeah, but Aislin doesn’t so much run as trip and stagger,” I point out.

Aislin makes a face that says Yep, true.

“Adam, take care of Aislin.” I head off.

It’s the first time I’ve run since the accident. I wasn’t sure I’d ever do it again. My muscles are out of practice, but to my surprise, my breathing is smooth and easy. I wish I were in shorts, not jeans, but it still feels good. More than good.

I reach Paradise Drive and leave the cross streets and houses behind me. There’s a bend in the road, with trees on one side and open hillside on the other.

Right, left, right, left. I’m in high gear now. The familiar rhythm lulls me.

Up ahead on my right is the shattered stump of a big pine tree. The small hairs on the back of my neck rise.

The stump is weathered and gray, mangled. The damage happened long ago.