A/N Many thanks and virtual cookies to billy morph, who allowed me to use his characters Rainbow and Mir from his story /s/3148498/1/TheFreed. (copy and paste that onto address bar right after .net, and there's an underscore representing a space in The Freed. I've forgotten how to work HTML)Also, The Institute belongs to James Patterson. All else is mine.

25

Apparently, the Institute wasn't as empty as we thought at first. I was beginning to hear hushed voices amongst the rubble, but I couldn't make out what they were saying. So I turned to mind scanning.

They came from the tunnel thought one. More thoughts came: They have wings, and one of them's a horse! Wow! There are so many. Is that an Eraser with them? And then one voice stood out to me in particular. Are they from Itex? This felt like a little girl, no older than seven years old. I relaxed, and stopped invading peoples minds, when someone spoke up.

"Another psychic, huh?" It was a boy of about ten, but there was something odd about the way he sounded. I saw Jace mouth 'Psychic?' "Guys, it's cool to come out. These guys are on our side."

That was when I saw him. Of course he couldn't speak normally. His mouth was hooked up to something that looked like a scuba suit, but it wasn't air that was coming out of the mouthpiece. He was covered with scales, and his neck seemed wet. When I looked closer, I could see why. There were flaps of skin, presumably gills, that were dropping the water, or something like it, on a regular basis, which led to the assumption that he had no lungs.

"I also wouldn't take another step forwards, if I were you. Look down, and you'll see why." I did, and was horrified. There were human skeletons lying there: These guys had the place booby trapped, and obviously quite efficiently, although when I looked closer, I could have sworn I saw a trip wire.

And then I saw the other recombinants.

26

One of them was furry, with leathery flaps joining the arms to the body. Another looked similar to an Eraser, but instead of the standard grey fur, it was red. Yet another was limbless, like a snake with a human face. A question popped into my mind.

"Who's in charge here?" I asked, but I could never have expected the answer I heard.

"They are," said the fish boy, his hand pointing right at us.

27

Two kids, a boy and a girl, suddenly appeared seemingly out of nowhere behind us, but from what I've learned in my science class, teleportation is physically impossible. Mind you, a lot in my life is, if you consider an evil corporation messing around with peoples genetics, creating freaks of nature and science on a regular basis.

"And who the hell are you?" Jace asked, after he recovered his wits. I wondered how he could be surprised with all he's been through in the lab. The two kids looked relatively normal, but for some reason, I couldn't pin their ages. Their faces appeared young, but they were way too tall, maybe 6' 4", or 5".

The girl ignored Jace, though I was surprised when her eye colour changed for a second, to a fiery red, before returning to what they were before. "I don't really trust you, but I guess if Gil — yes, that's the fish boy's name — does, then I guess we'll have to let you in. Mir, you know what to do." The boy disappeared again, and we heard a number of clicks around us, after one such, I saw the trip wire slacken. "You have five seconds, and I suggest you move to safety," the girl said.

So we did, and a few seconds later, more clicks were heard through the room, but Mir wasn't doing anything. He had already reappeared next to us. "The traps re-arm themselves," the boy explained quietly, eyes going pink. I deduced that the eyes changed colour due to emotions. He seemed a little shy.

"I'm sorry if we were being rude," the girl said with a hint of sarcasm in her voice. "I'm just going to say that we've had some very bad experiences in the past. I'm Rainbow." She held out her hand for a handshake, to complete the greeting.

I accepted it, and said, "don't worry about sarcasm. I'm more than willing to dish it out myself. I'm Terry, and this is Jace, the girl's name is Raine, the horse thing is called Pan, and finally, the Eraser is my brother, Aaron," pointing at them as I went. And I began to smile. A thought appeared in my head, but I blocked that thought from Gil.

I had found my army.