“Desperation makes you stupid,” Cody said. “They’d been working for a while before Decision Week happened. Nobody knows what set it off. Several of the experiments went horribly wrong all at the same time. Reality was ripped to shreds. Men mutated. Turned into insects, incorporeal wraiths, you name it. Some were found with their bodies partially fused into solid objects. Portals were opened to who knows how many dimensions. Ancient gods were communed with, Aztec to Zulu and everything in between. Brilliant men were driven mad. A Nobel Prize winner grew an extra eye in his forehead. Some minds switched bodies. They had this one janitor, his tongue grew its own mouth, complete with tiny little shark teeth, and then started communicating…in Latin. A better question, Z, is what didn’t happen at Los Alamos.”

Lee was taking rapid notes. “Tongues with teeth? That’s awesome.”

“Not for the fellow whose tongue began talking to him, I’d imagine,” Paxton said. Even in her armor she still reminded me of a Cub Scout den mother. Even the werecat on her team patch was cute.

Cody continued, “Our problem now is deciding which, if any, of those harebrained experiments we’re dealing with here. All of the experiments were potentially war-ending weapons, but some turned out to be far more dangerous than others. None of the possibilities are good, and this quarantine indicates that the government has decided this is one of the bad ones, but obviously not the worst.”

“How can you tell?”

Cody shrugged. “They haven’t bombed us yet.”

I was sorry I asked. Before I could say anything else, someone bumped my elbow and moved into the brainiac circle. It was Edward. I was shocked to see that Tanya, Princess of the Elves, was right behind him. Surprisingly enough, Edward was standing right next to an elf, and nobody was getting stabbed. From what I understood of those two groups’ history, that was really good. I looked around to make sure Skippy wasn’t here too, because seeing those two together would cause him to lose his mind. Luckily, no Skip. Edward, as usual, was entirely covered, wearing mirrored shades and a ski mask. As a Newbie, Tanya hadn’t been issued armor yet, and was wearing a too-tight tank top and jean shorts. Apparently she was pretty confident she was going to pass training, since she’d gotten the MHI logo tattooed on her ankle. With her hair hiding her pointy ears she could at least pass for a human being, but she really didn’t look like she fit in with this crowd.

Even though he’d already gotten my attention, Ed bumped my arm again. It was odd to see the orc so willingly enter a room full of humans. “What’s up, Ed?” I looked at the non-MHI Hunters. “This is Edward, my administrative assistant.”