Evolver: Apex Predator Read Online Free PDF Page A

before everything went dark.
    And quiet.
    He couldn't hear himself shouting, but he knew he was --- he could feel the muscles moving in his jaw, his throat opening and closing. The strands of the net were cutting into him slowly, leaving a waffle pattern of welts on his skin.
    Light. Too much light. It hurt and even though he shut his eyes he could still see it in flashes of red and white. He tried to turn his head but it was held fast, his arms tight at his sides, his feet bound. Jackson counted to ten forward then backwards as his father had taught him to do when he was stressed, then opened his eyes a fraction.
    Everything was shadowy, indistinct. There were moving things and he felt the vending machine sandwiches rising from his gut, threatening to reappear. He closed his eyes, still saw the flashes of red and white tracing across the backs of his eyelids. His mouth was dry, his skin felt clammy and he was sore from all the fighting, the running. A deep breath and he opened his eyes again.
    It took a moment to focus, but he recognized the chamber he was in though the lab beyond was different. Buckles across his wrists, his chest, and both ankles dug into him; he was held tight to the table. Whoever had kidnapped him was taking no chances on him escaping. His head was held by another strap just above his eyes. Jackson could only look straight ahead.
    "Ah, you're awake." The voice was filtered through a tinny-sounding speaker but he recognized it. "Good."
    "Thorn?" Jackson pulled against his restraints, grunting with the effort. "Thorn?!"
    His father's former partner moved into Jackson's sightline. "Yes," he said. "You're quite an amazing specimen, Jackson. Your father should have shared his advances with me. We all would have benefited."
    He gave up trying to get free. Jackson felt his heart sink to the pit of his stomach and he thought he might throw up. He'd given his trust to a man who betrayed him at the first opportunity.
    "I trusted you," Jackson said, his voice raspy and slight. "Let me go."
    "Let's test your abilities to adapt first," Thorn said. He was unsmiling, serious, studying the boy on the table. The scientist held up a tablet computer similar to the one Dr. Savage had used at home. "Are you ready?" He swiped at the screen twice, three times, then tapped it once.
    Jackson felt radiant heat from above and looked up. There was a ring of square lights that glowed red and the air became dry, began swirling around. He heard a sound beneath him that could have been large grains of salt pouring into a container. "This environment chamber is derived from the old sensory deprivation units from the Seventies," Thorn was saying over the speaker.
    "Of course I've adapted it to serve my purposes. Does it feel like a high desert in there?“ He was detached, cold, studying Jackson. “Let's add some sirocco , shall we?"
    The wind in the chamber gusted, blowing the increasingly brutal hot air mercilessly around him --- picking up what Jackson now realized was sand in the bottom of the chamber and whipping it with awful speed against the glass, against his skin. He started to shout in pain but closed his mouth quickly when hot sand caught on his tongue. He closed his eyes and felt himself begin to change.
    His skin beaded up, became scaly. His chest and stomach developed plates that ran from side to side and he got taller, larger. The straps tightened across him and when he opened his eyes he saw color, but he also saw something else behind the normal spectrum, infrared if he wasn't mistaken. He smiled.
    Jackson felt stronger and pulled against the straps holding him to the table. With some effort he ripped his right hand free, then pulled at the strap on his left and tore it away easily. He expanded his chest, spread his shoulders flat and flexed. In a matter of seconds he stood on the floor of the chamber, his skin orange and black and the sandstorm and heat showing no visible effect on him.
    "Is this what you want?" The