Code

CHAPTER 1

THE REEL SCREECHED, nearly jerked the pole from my fingers.

“Whoa!” I death-gripped my rod. “Got a live one!”

“Go easy.” Ben’s dark brown eyes radiated caution. “The line’ll snap if you’re not careful.”

Tern Point. Loggerhead Island. Ben Blue and I were perched upon a wide stone ledge twenty feet above the Atlantic Ocean. We’d been there an hour, with no bites.

Until now.

“WhatdoIdo?” First time on a spinner, and my mind was blank. I wiped a sweaty palm on my gray polo shirt.

“Both hands on the rod!” I could tell Ben itched to take over but was suppressing the urge. “Let the fish run a bit, reel back slowly, then let it run again. But stay alert. That tackle isn’t designed for sportfishing.”

I followed his instructions, letting my catch tire itself out. Finally, a wiggling silver streak flashed in the surf just below.

Ben whistled as he ear-tucked his shoulder-length black hair. “That’s a big boy. Nice haul.”

“Thanks. Tag in?” My arms were burning from the extended tug-of-war. “This monster’s not a quitter.”

Ben took over, muscles straining beneath his black tee and cutoff khakis. Of all the Virals, he was strongest by far. And the most connected to nature. Ben spent most of his free time outdoors, and had a deep, coppery tan to prove it.

The Blue family claims to have descended from the Sewee tribe, a local Native American group that disappeared from the pages of history three centuries ago. There’s no way to prove it, of course. Just don’t tell Ben that.

Ben’s small boat, Sewee, was our primary means of transportation. He’d used the old sixteen-foot Boston Whaler runabout to explore dozens of Charleston’s barrier isles. And learned the best fishing spots, like this one.

Moments later a gleaming, flopping captive dangled from the end of my line. Ben reeled it up to eye level.

My catch was silver, a foot and a half long, and covered with small, loose scales. A thin trail of blood leaked from its mouth.

“King mackerel.” Ben removed the hook and lifted the fish by one gill. “Twenty pounds—a pretty good size. Glad he didn’t break loose.”

The beleaguered fish gulped air, futilely searching for oxygen. Our eyes locked.

Suddenly, I wasn’t having so much fun.

“Throw him back.”

“What?” Ben frowned. “Why? This species is good eating. Or we could sell him at the fish market in Folly Beach.”

The mackerel’s jaw continued to work, opening and closing, but with less vigor now. A bubble formed at the tip of its mouth. Burst.

“Throw him back,” I repeated, sharper this time. “Fish-face still has some living to do.”

Ben scowled, but knew better than to argue. Over the past year the boys had come to accept my stubbornness, and the fact that I didn’t lose too many arguments. Not when I dug in my heels. Just like my aunt Tempe.

You may have heard of her. Dr. Temperance Brennan, World-Famous Forensic Anthropologist. Some just call her the Bone Lady. She’s my great-aunt, a wonderful fact I learned only after my mother’s accident, when I moved in with my dad, Kit.

She’s also my role model. My idol. Only everything I ever want to be. I might as well wear a What Would Tempe Do? necklace 24/7. My greatest ambition is to be as good a scientist as Tempe. To solve cases like she does. Leave my mark.

“Okay, pal.” Ben gripped our captive at both ends. “Count your blessings that my friend here is a total softy.”

He took one stride and tossed the mackerel back down to the sea. It hit the water and, with a flick of its tail fin, disappeared from sight.

“We caught him,” I said. “That’s the fun part.” For us, at least. I doubt that fish would agree.

“Whatever.” Ben began packing our gear. “Let’s go find the others. Hi must’ve given up by now.”

I secured hooks to poles, then scanned the ledge for trash. It’d been nice fishing alone with Ben. The two of us didn’t spend much one-on-one time together, and he often went mute when Hi and Shelton were around. Probably because those two never let anyone get a word in edgewise.

Ben was already sixteen, the oldest of the Virals. He even had a driver’s license. That should’ve made him our leader, but he preferred letting me make the decisions. Which was surprising, since I was fourteen and youngest, the only girl, and still learning about our home city of Charleston. But Ben usually let me have my way.

And he’s a cutie, I had to admit, even though I only thought of him as a brother. Ben fascinated me, but he could be maddening, too. It was often impossible to read what was going on behind that intense gaze. I sometimes felt I understood him the least of my packmates.

After securing our tackle, we descended to the forest below. I’d barely touched boot to soil when a gray blur rocketed from the foliage.

“Coop, heel!” I wasn’t anxious for a full-bodied lunge to my midsection. Mindful of his new training, the wolfdog checked his sprint and scampered to sit at my side.

“Good boy.” Ear scratch. “Where’s your family?”

Crackling leaves answered the question. I turned to see Whisper crouching by a large cedar at my back. The gray wolf regarded me quietly, then stepped aside for her mate, a German shepherd I’d named Polo. Beyond them, Coop’s brother, Buster, alternated between chomping and shaking a stick.

“Release,” I said.

Coop bounded back into the bushes, trailed by his fellow canines. “Hanging around a wolf pack is nuts.” Ben wiped his sweaty brow with a forearm, despite the mild temperature. “Whether it includes your mutt’s mother or not.”

“Don’t be such a baby,” I teased. “They’re practically lapdogs.”

“Lapdogs won’t rip your face off. Or eat you.”

“Hey, we’re a wolf pack, too, remember?” I located the deer run we’d followed to Tern Point and started into the forest. “Why should we be scared of another one?”

Ben didn’t answer. He still wasn’t comfortable with the truth. Not like me.

Here’s the deal. Last spring, my friends and I got zapped by a nasty supervirus. Me. Hiram. Shelton. Ben. And my wolfdog, Coop, of course.

The culprit was a designer pathogen created by Dr. Marcus Karsten, my father’s former boss at the Loggerhead Island Research Institute. In a reckless attempt to strike it rich, Karsten combined DNA from two different types of parvovirus, accidentally creating a brand-new strain. A doozy.

Unfortunately for us, this vicious little germ was contagious to humans. We were infected while rescuing Coop, who’d been abducted by Karsten for use as a test subject.

First came the sickness. Headaches. Fevers. Blackouts. You name it.

The changes followed. We began to evolve. Or devolve.

Even now, I find it hard to describe. My mind twists and bends, sounding out new depths in my subconscious. My senses blast into hyperdrive, becoming more acute than humanly possible.

And sometimes I lose control, succumbing to primal instincts. Foreign impulses. Animal urges to hunt, or feed, or fight. It’s the same with the others. Mostly.

The illness eventually passed, but not the changes. Our bodies had been transformed. The tiny viral invader had rewritten our genetic code, inserting canine DNA into human double helixes.

Shifting us. Hiding the wolf inside our cellular blueprint.

Welding us together as a pack.

Now we’re Viral. To the core.

Scary thing is, we don’t know if the sickness is truly finished. Or if the alterations are permanent. Could the effects grow more intense? Will they fade over time? No idea. With Karsten gone, so was our only link to the virus.

That’s not to say we’ve given up. We don’t have the answers, but we intend to find them. How? Still working on that.

Ben and I continued along the trail to a small clearing.

Beep! Beep!

Ben threw me a knowing glance. My eyes rolled in response. Obviously, Hi was still at it.

Beep! Beep! Beep!

Entering the meadow, I heard agitated voices.

“How much longer?” Shelton Devers pushed black-framed glasses up the bridge of his nose. “This stopped being interesting before it started.”

Shelton is short and skinny, with dark chocolate skin and features common on the streets of Kyoto. Black father. Asian mother. You get the picture.

Shelton stood in the clearing’s center, arms crossed, boredom etched on his face. He wore a yellow Pac-Man retro hoodie and oversized basketball shorts, which hung from his scrawny frame like clothes on a hanger.

“Why all the Haterade?” answered Hiram Stolowitski. “We found buried treasure once before, right?”

“A perfect reason to quit,” Shelton said. “We’ve filled our lifetime quota.”

“Not yet.” Hi returned his attention to the device in his hands. “The geocache is supposed to be right here. Somewhere. I just have to find it.”

“So far, all you’ve found are bottle caps, some pliers, and a Diet Coke.”

“I re-jiggered the settings to ignore trash metal. No more false alarms.”

“No more anything. It just beeps.”

Hi wore a jarring arrangement: red Adidas headband, blue Hawaiian shirt, and white board shorts. In his hands was a Fisher Labs F2 metal detector, fresh from the package as of that morning. He’d been combing the clearing for thirty minutes, insisting something was buried there.

Chubby-faced and red-cheeked, Hi looked like he’d been running sprints rather than carefully walking a grid. No question he could be annoying at times, but we all respected his scientific curiosity. Hi loved experiments and gadgets, figuring things out. Usually I gave him the benefit of the doubt.

That day, not everyone was feeling as charitable.

“This is stupid.” More a computer guy, Shelton preferred hacking websites to tramping through the woods. “Check the GPS again. We could be in the wrong place. And who’d bury something out here, anyway? It’s private property.”

Loggerhead Island is a private veterinary research preserve, complete with troops of free-ranging rhesus monkeys. The habitat is almost wholly undisturbed, with no permanent buildings outside the main LIRI complex.

We visited often. Loggerhead was one of the few places we could be totally alone.

“The geocaching website listed these coordinates,” Hi repeated stubbornly. “This is the first cache ever posted for Loggerhead, and I intend to find it.”

“When’d you adopt this wonderful new hobby?” Ben asked.

“When I ordered the detector. So last month, I guess. Now stop bugging me and let me finish scoping the clearing. The cache is within a hundred-foot radius.”

Lazy Sunday. With no other plans, we’d selected our default option—messing around on Loggerhead. Our safe haven. We’d taken Sewee, as usual, then hiked over to explore the woods bordering Tern Point, a conical stone peak on the island’s southeastern corner. Hi had insisted.

“Explain this again,” I asked, not sure I fully understood the concept.

“I’m searching for a geocache.” Hi, with infinite patience. “It’s a game. Someone buries or hides a box with an object inside, then posts the coordinates online.”

Shelton, skeptical. “How do you know a box is buried here?”

Hi continued at his deliberate pace, slowly sweeping the detector back and forth in front of him. “Because my iPhone says we’re on the exact coordinates, and the clue told me to ‘be sure to scratch the surface.’”

“All in all,” Shelton said, “this is a tremendously dumb game.”

“You’re a dumb game,” Hi shot back.

“Let me practice linking while Hi works,” I suggested, knowing they wouldn’t like the idea.

Three groans. As expected.

“We have to master our powers,” I insisted. “What’s the point of having special abilities if you can’t control them?”

Hi grunted, eyes glued to the detector’s LCD screen.

“It’s creepy.” Shelton shivered despite the warm October afternoon. “Invasive.”

Ben nodded. “You should stay out of other people’s minds.”

Exposure to the supervirus had one major … side effect. Benefit? Curse?

We call it “flaring.” When the changes come, our minds warp and snap, then the powers break free. Our senses shift to impossible clarity. Sight. Smell. Hearing. Taste. Even touch.

The wolf comes out, making us sharper and stronger.

Viral.

But evolution doesn’t follow a single set of rules. The virus affected each of us differently. Perhaps the mutations were unique to our individual genetic sequences. Whatever the reason, our strengths vary. Hiram has eyes like an eagle with Lasik. Shelton can hear feathers flutter as a sparrow flaps its wings. Ben becomes strongest and fastest, like a bull on steroids. My nose gets so sensitive I can sniff out emotion, deception, and fear. And other things you’d rather not consider.

And, recently, our powers reached a whole new level.

For me, anyway.

The boys can’t do it. Don’t like it. But when our pack flares in close proximity, I can sometimes touch the other Virals’ minds. Hear their thoughts, and pass on mine. This talent has come in handy more than a few times. Has saved our lives.

“Just one try, please.” Firmly. “I need to gauge what Coop adds to the mix.”

More dramatic moans, but the boys stopped what they were doing.

“Fine.” Hi.

“Whatever.” Shelton.

“One time.” Ben held up a single finger. “One.”

I nodded, then closed my eyes and stilled my mind. A deep breath, then I reached in a way I can’t fully describe. My thoughts delved downward, backward, deep into the primordial center of my brain.

I visualized a single strand of DNA. The bedrock of my genetic being.

Honing my concentration, I imagined unzipping the double helix.

SNAP.

The flare burst through me like a river of molten lava. I gasped. Sweat exploded from my pores as the wolf came out.

Though I’d become better at summoning the power, that first wallop still challenged my defenses. Like a wild beast set loose in my nervous system. Control was tenuous and fragile. At best.

Focusing inward, I swam down into my subconscious. An image of each Viral appeared, sharpened. Hi first, then Shelton. Moments later Ben crystallized in my thoughts. I sensed Coop alert in the woods close by.

Flaming ropes connected the group. A golden nimbus surrounded each member.

Virals. Hear me.

My message smacked an invisible barrier. I tried again, concentrating harder.

VIRALS. HEAR ME.

This time I forced the message outward, driving it along the fiery cords. The boys flinched as if struck. Their glowing eyes widened in surprise.

I examined the mental barricade separating us. Probed for weaknesses. Suddenly, the roadblock weakened, then fragmented.

The other Virals’ minds opened like a floodgate. Thoughts and feelings poured into me. Worries. Raw emotions. Random bits of foreign memories. The tide of information nearly scoured my brain clean.

I fought to hold against the onslaught, sensing danger to my sanity.

What shattered the barrier? How did I break through?

“What barrier?” Hi sputtered. “Why are you screaming?”

“Tory!” Shelton’s hands flew to his head. “It hurts! Make it stop.”

Ben stood rock still, grimacing, eyes focused on nothing. “Get out!” he sputtered.

My eyes darted, frantic, unable to comprehend. My mind gibbered, desperate to block the deluge of thoughts pouring into my brain.

I saw trees. Sky. The metal detector. Coop, edging into the clearing, eyes locked on to mine.

As if sensing my peril, Coop bowled into Shelton, who went down with a puff of surprise. The golden light abruptly vanished from his eyes.

The cerebral onslaught lessened.

Coop then bounded to Hi and barked full in his face. Startled, Hi backpedaled wildly, dropped the detector, and fell. His flare disappeared as he struck the ground.

Another wave winked out.

Suddenly on firmer ground, I stilled my mind and extinguished the flare.

SNUP.

The sensory bombardment ceased. I dropped to a knee and saw Ben do the same.

“Damn it, Tory!” Ben spat through gritted teeth. “You’re playing with fire!”

“It’s Coop,” I panted, heart pounding. “When he’s close, my ability skyrockets. But I couldn’t control it.”

“Then don’t do it!” Shelton shirt-wiped his glasses with shaky hands. “You were yelling inside my head. I’m officially freaked out!”

Hi studied me with worried eyes. “You were in trouble, Tory, I could tell. You’ve got to be more careful. This mind stuff is dangerous.”

“I will.” But I’m going to unlock this secret.

I kept that to myself, though the thought wouldn’t have surprised them.

Dangerous or not, I was determined to discover the full extent of our flare abilities. I needed to know what had happened to our bodies. What we were capable of. What could happen next.

Our mishmashed genetics gave us skills no one else possessed. Astonishing sensory abilities. But the changes went deeper than that. The cellular cross between man and beast had opened doors in our minds. I felt compelled to learn where they led.

Though, I had to admit, the idea of straight-up mind reading gave me the willies. I wouldn’t want someone poking around in my head. Everyone has secrets, and the right to keep them. Finding the line between communication and mental invasion was proving to be tricky.

My hard drive finally came back online. Head clearing, I noticed a pulsating tone coming from Hi’s metal detector, discarded in the grass.

Ding! Ding! Ding!

Hi collected his precious toy, then waved it over a rough patch of dirt close by.

DING DING DING!

“Bingo!” Hi shouted. “The bloody thing works!”