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You have two minutes. If you try to scream or fight me, Daniel, I promise you I’ll make you wish you were never born. Do you believe me? Or do you want to test it?”
    Daniel believed him. They left the bar together and walked across the street to a diner that looked just as seedy. Seven was calm; he waited until they’d both ordered food before he started the interrogation. Daniel Clarkson was fidgeting and looking all too ready to rabbit. Seven set a hand on the man’s wrist and watched him flinch.
    â€œWhy are you so nervous, Daniel?”
    The sweating man barely dared to look at him. “Because I know who you are.”
    â€œReally? Who am I?” He smiled, watching the nervous wreck in front of him.
    â€œSubject Seven.”
    The smile actually grew larger. “Now how did you know that?”
    â€œI remember you. I saw you a few times.”
    â€œI thought you just did paperwork, Daniel.” His smile faded. He’d never thought that the people providing him with information might have been among those who tortured him. That changed the equation.
    Daniel looked like a dog that’d been whipped too many times. Seven guessed that if he screamed boo too loudly, the man would likely bolt from the diner. He was granted a few seconds’ respite when the short, round waitress brought them their food. He held his answer until after she’d left. “All I do now is paperwork. That’s all I did then, too, but now and then I saw things.”
    â€œWhen did you see me?” Seven took a bite of his burger. It was half rare and heavily salted and he loved it.
    â€œI saw all of you. All ten. I mean, not all at once, but I saw all of you. I saw you when they found out what made you special.”
    â€œWhat made me special, Daniel?” He kept his voice calm. He wanted answers, and he would have them, but not if he lost his cool.
    Clarkson looked a little surprised by the question. “You, you were an Alpha.”
    â€œWant to explain that to me?”
    â€œAlphas, that’s like with a pack of wolves, okay? Alphas are the leaders.”
    â€œDaniel, let’s pretend that I don’t know all the lingo, okay?” He set down his burger and put his hands on the table where Clarkson could see them. His voice was low, but he knew the man was hearing every word. “Let’s pretend that back in the day, no one told me much of anything. They just did what they wanted. Start at the beginning and tell me what an Alpha is and what makes it special.”
    Daniel nodded and inhaled half his burger, chewing fast and hard while he tried to figure out exactly what to say to avoid getting himself murdered. When he’d finished his eating frenzy, he started talking. “Okay, so, the idea was always to make soldiers. And what do you need to have good soldiers? You need a leader. You need to have someone in charge who can make split-second decisions. That’s you. That’s an Alpha.”
    Seven nodded. He didn’t care about the reasons. He just wanted to know the results.
    â€œListen. You, all of you, were failures. They thought they’d screwed it up again, okay? Nothing they did, none of the tests, showed any measure of noticeable change. None of you were performing up to expectations at first, so you were all going to be discarded. So, they were almost ready to scrap everything and start from scratch, but somebody got the idea to watch all of you together to see how you reacted to one another. Remember, you were all . . . part of the same batch. They put you all in a room where they could observe you by video camera, but then there was an accident. I think it involved Three if that matters to you.”
    It didn’t. Not anymore. He’d long since dealt with the deaths of the others as best he could.
    â€œSubject Three got loose and they sent a couple of guards after her. She was trying to get out and they had to, well, they had to