Page 13 of Beautiful Chaos
At least according to the one guy I follow.
It’s Mama and Papa Bash’s neighbor. He used to have an OnlyFans account—one of the earlier indie porn sites. His videos are considered classics, and I feel more comfortable learning from a friend.
Hm. Rabbit trail.
I refocus on the steak and salad, polishing them off. I gotta hustle to get to the initiation on time.
I jog across the big campus to the half-round building everyone calls the Shed. It used to be flocked in asbestos, a decent glamour to hide the high-end dormitory and gym within. Enough people complained about the risk, though, and now the asbestos has been replaced with solar panels. The Shed is now a completely self-sustaining off-grid building, just like the rest of the complex.
I get in with my retinal scan, then pass the dorm rooms and head into the large, open-air space of the gym. Top-of-the-line equipment lines the walls, and in the middle is a series of sparring mats. Edison, Rae, and Hedy are already there, and they look ready to begin.
Holmes is off to the side, talking to Maverick. He’s been assigned as Mav’s mentor, a stroke of brilliance on Hedy’s part.
Why she needed that stroke of brilliance is kind of a sensitive subject.
Holmes and Mav are identical twins, and when Mav discovered Holmes has been in on the family business since he was practically eighteen… Oof. It really hurt Mav. Put a chill on their normally warm relationship.
Holmes has apologized and explained that he couldn’t say anything—the fathers, aunts, and uncles decided long ago that only the Wimberley staff gets to know what we do out here. All the Wildlings agree it was a shitty decision.
I’m glad everyone is now on the same page, but today is the day I introduce Maverick to my genetic modifications. I’m crossing my fingers that it doesn’t undo all they’ve done to repair things between him and Holmes.
The Wildlings know I was genetically modified by Blake’s science goons. Peripherally aware, anyway. Only the ones who’ve been through initiation have seen the mods in action.
It only took Rami a couple of weeks to be able to look me in the eyes after his initiation, so I’m hopeful Mav will still love me—and Holmes—after this.
For today’s purposes, a large rolling whiteboard covers a section of the wall.
Rich assholes always like to do fucked-up shit with their money. Earlier in the century, it was the Epstein types. Silas Blake, however, was one of the forefathers of genetic manipulation. Edison, Anders, and I are the specialists who handle those operations.
It’s hilarious how many scientists fuck around with genetics and are then surprised when their ultraoptimized subjects get tired of being lab rats. Sometimes we show up andfind just a bunch of dead scientists, and we’re left to wonder where their little experiments got off to.
Whenever we come across a geneticallyinterestingspecimen, we determine if they can be reintegrated into the general population, if they can be useful in our operations, or if they have to be put down—often as part of a new operative’s initiation.
While the Rae-test tells us how much people will freak out in a strange situation, the initiation test tells us how they will respond tactically in that same situation, with true danger heightening every response.
Snoring can be heard from behind the rolling whiteboard.
Maverick, who has changed into our black tactical gear, walks in from the locker room, his coily hair twisted into a low bun, his body loose.
We have advanced tools that make overcoming our enemies a certainty. Ash rifles, precision drones with low-boom grenades, and, well, me. Still, it’s important for each of our operatives to have critical skills in hand-to-hand combat.
Edison and I have been tapped to test Mav’s skills in that area. Holmes whispers a few last-minute instructions in Mav’s ear, then pushes him onto the mat.
Mav appears to have forgotten his freakout from this morning, a sign that his brain has integrated the information. He looks ready to show us what he’s got.
Edison goes first and puts him on the ground in under a minute.
“How the fuck is he so fast?” Mav asks, wiping sweat from his forehead.
Wait’ll he finds out that Edison and I have been asked to pull our punches in these initiation runs.
“Don’t assume older equals weaker,” Holmes calls from the side.
Especially when it comes to Edison.
Determination sharpening his jaw, Mav pops up and stops holding back. He loses the attitude and grapples with Edison, knocking him to his back in an ugly move. We heard Mav had been awarded a purple belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu by his extremely stingy professor a few months ago. Watching him now, he'd be a solid brown belt—maybe even black—under anyone else.
That said, I know what’s coming next.
