Falling by J Bennett Read Free Book Online

is.
    “That’s where he got his inspiration. He wanted to turn men
into angels.”
    I stare. Gabe just shrugs. “Dude was a little whacked in the
head, but he believed it was possible to…” Gabe searches for the word,
“reengineer the human body. He theorized that humans could be made stronger and
faster with keener senses—that anything was possible. Maybe even human flight.”
    “Oh,” I say. “The man. Last night. We flew.”
    Gabe turns his head to look at me. “You’re taking this a
little too well.”
    “No, I’m not. You just don’t know me.” I’ve begun to
barricade my emotions behind a mental door with ruthless efficiency. I am still
considering letting myself slip off the roof, but first I want to know what
happened to me. I need to understand what I am and how I might go about killing
the man who did this to me. I’m sorry Ryan. Revenge would surely be beneath
you, but not me. Revenge is the weak soul’s justice, and I am beginning to
learn just how weak I can be.
    “Cook’s theory revolved around energy transference,” Gabe
continues. “He believed that the human body contained a vast untapped potential
for strength, intelligence and power.”
    I tuck my hands into my body and pick at the torn skin
around my wrists. I thrill at the sparks of pain when my nails press into the
gashes. Little bits of dried blood fall into the apron of my shirt.
    “Tarren understands the science of it a lot better than me,
but the thing is, humans can’t get energy directly.  Think of the way plants
can just suck it up right from the sun. We get our energy by eating the plants
or the animals that eat the plants. It’s really inefficient. Each link is
farther away from the direct energy source, which means there’s a huge loss of
energy. Cook was after a way to cut out all the middle steps so that humans
could absorb energy directly from the sun. He thought that such pure energy
would allow humans to reach their full physical potential. It’d be like
steroids times a hundred, except not only for muscles. For your senses. For
your memory. For your mind.”
    “But…why?” My voice cracks.
    “To save us from ourselves,” Gabe shrugs. “Cook envisioned a
world where everyone fed directly off the energy of the sun. Think about it—no
more hunger. No more fighting over resources. The superhuman part, I guess I
can see it. If everyone was strong and smart and there wasn’t disease and
stuff, maybe we could fix our other problems.” A lonely little smile plays
across his lips. “Maybe Dr. Cook believed he could fix human nature by making
us all something better than humans.”
    “No one can actually be that naïve.”
    “I don’t know,” Gabe sits up and braces his hands behind
him. “Haven’t you ever wanted to create a better world?”
    I have absolutely no idea how to respond to this. I mean I
do, but I don’t think suddenly imploding into manic, tortured laughter would be
very pleasant for either of us.
    Luckily, I get distracted by my body going crazy.
     

Chapter 10
    “Gabe,” I say to get his attention. Some additional
weirdness is definitely happening to me. My skin tingles, and my hands peel
back and grow hot. I turn them over and watch the veiny pink orbs lift to the
surface of my palms. Out in the distance, the sun has just cleared the horizon.
Sunlight crawls up my knees and flows across my hands.
    “What’s happening?” I ask. The song quiets, and I feel the
deep fog of exhaustion begin to lift from my mind. My senses sharpen. I gaze
through the tinted windows of a squat building three streets down. A woman runs
a vacuum roughly over the carpet, and I can make out gaudy rings on her fingers
and large silver hoop earrings swaying from each earlobe.
    I can hear an old man’s wavering voice order an Egg McMuffin
at the McDonald’s drive thru. The song has grown softer, and when I turn to
Gabe and see again the glow of energy about him, I feel more confident that I
will not give