Redemption Prep

by Samuel Miller

  Behind Yangborne, the radio clicked, a few soft beeps. They both glanced at it, then back to the trophy.

  Yangborne pushed it closer. “Come forward, Neesha. You’ve earned your place here.”

  Her heart slammed against the inside of her rib cage. Her mouth was dry. She felt herself pulled to the front of the room, magnetized by the trophy. Inside the case, it always seemed so far away, but this close she could see its reality: smooth edges; the sharp, reflective design at the top, shooting light upward; the Redemption logo carved into the base, ready for a name to be engraved. Her name. Her place in history would be solidified. Her future would be assured. Her family would be taken care of. Everything she came to school for—everything they came to America for—would be hers. She gripped the sides of the trophy.

  The radio clicked again, three times, but more noticeably than before, the beeps a little longer. Neesha stood taller, listening.

  “Congratulations, Neesha,” Yangborne said. “You’ve just secured your place in history.”

  The radio clicked again, three short beeps.

  Three short, three long, three short.

  It was Evan’s SOS call. They were in trouble.

  Neesha exhaled as she lifted the trophy from the table. “Thank you,” she said. “For everything.”

  She pulled the trophy back and in a fluid motion, swung it at his face, shattering the glass against the side of his head.

  Aiden.

  THE CHURCH DOOR closed and both of the flashlights at the front disappeared. He couldn’t hear anything ahead of him, from Yanis or Zaza, until a voice at the front gently called out. “Hello?”

  “Who’s in here?” It was Yanis.

  From behind the tape covering her mouth, Dr. Richardson began to scream. She rattled the bottom of her chair against the wooden floor, and Yanis charged at the noise. Aiden snuck down the side aisle, getting to the front just as Yanis descended on them.

  Zaza clicked his flashlight on just in time for Yanis to knock it away. “What’s happening?” he shouted, scanning the room with his own flashlight, landing on Dr. Richardson.

  Zaza didn’t hesitate. He threw himself toward Yanis, catching him in the upper chest and knocking him off-balance, but only for a moment. Yanis recovered in time to catch Zaza’s next blow and send it curling back inside itself with twice its strength. Zaza continued to fight, dropping lower to drive Yanis backward, but it was a man against a mountain, and it only took a few seconds for Yanis to stop Zaza’s momentum and collapse him to the ground. Aiden stayed where he was, watching by stray beams of a flashlight. No one had noticed him, cowering in the shadows, giving himself an escape down the far aisle.

  Dr. Richardson hadn’t stopped shouting from behind the tape. Yanis crouched to examine the makeshift bonds affixed to her skin, but Zaza wasn’t done yet. He threw himself against Yanis’s back, screaming. Yanis tried to rip him off but couldn’t, nearly falling onto Dr. Richardson’s chair before shifting his weight back and driving Zaza into the ground. They rolled together, crashing into the holy water basin—the basin against which Aiden had thrown Eddy a week ago. Zaza tried to get back up, but Yanis took out his knees, again collapsing him to the ground.

  Yanis rushed to where Dr. Richardson was lying, surgically removing her tape. “Thank the fucking Lord,” she exhaled as soon as it was off her mouth.

  “Easy,” Yanis whispered. “We’re in a church.”

  He moved limb by limb, slicing the tape slowly with a knife from his belt. When Dr. Richardson was free, she shoved herself away from the chair and stumbled to her feet, glaring down at Zaza.

  “Take him to the chamber in the GRC,” she said. “No food, no water, nothing. He’s going to be punished worse than anyone in this school’s history.”

  “Dr.—”

  “He tried to tie me up! God knows what he’d have done if you didn’t find me!” She was screaming into the shredded edges of her vocal cords. “Did you see the tape they put across my face?” Their flashlights were still in constant motion, but every occasional pass over Dr. Richardson’s face revealed bloodred marks around the corners of her mouth and eyes.

  “What happened?” Yanis asked Zaza. “Why did you do this?”

  “Because he’s insane!” she tried to answer for them. “A fucking savage!” Dr. Richardson crouched in front of Zaza. “Your life is about to become a literal hell,” she whispered. “Get up.”

  Yanis didn’t look so sure; he looked almost sick staring down at Zaza, a bloody mess on the chapel floor.

  Dr. Richardson stumbled down the center aisle to the back of the chapel. She pulled a radio from the wall and flipped the switch on.

  Yanis tried to pick Zaza up, but it was obvious Zaza barely had control of his body. Yanis tied a knot around Zaza’s arms, behind his back, loosening it to the point of comfort and lifting him as gently as he could, using his shirt to wipe some of the blood from Zaza’s nose. Aiden cowered in the far aisle and watched.

  “Dr. Richardson for anyone else,” she screamed into the radio. “Carl, Lisle, Luc, anyone! We need a sweep, immediately! I was just attacked by students!”

  She released the talk button and noise began to filter in, loud and muffled from the static. Aiden crept closer, listening.

  “Hello?” Dr. Richardson tried again. “What’s going on?” She let off the button, this time long enough for the sounds to clarify, and Aiden recognized the voice—Billy Ray Cyrus. It was “Achy Breaky Heart.”

  She had done it. Neesha flooded the radio.

  “Can anyone hear me?” Dr. Richardson tried to scream over it, but the song was cranked. “I need a sweep! Someone!”

  She screamed and slammed the radio against the wall. “Fucking idiot!”

  Yanis, dragging Zaza under his arm, reached the back door and pushed it open, night air rushing in.

  Dr. Richardson followed them out. “Lock him up, then get out to maintenance and call for a sweep, immediately. Everybody, I don’t care who they are. Nobody’s sleeping until every student is locked in their dorms and accounted for.”

  Aiden crept out the door behind them.

  Dr. Richardson was hobbling down the steps. “What time is it now?”

  Yanis checked his watched. “One fifty-nine—oh. No. Two a.m.”

  “Then get the sweep started at exactly two—”

  She froze, staring up at the long, cold walls of the dorms, slanting away from each other into the blackness of the night. On either side, a few lights clicked on, slowly and randomly, then went out. A few more, these ones closer, began to turn on, then off, then back on.

  It rippled outward, a wave of flickering lights washed across the walls until every light in every dorm had joined. Hundreds of dorm rooms, in every direction, began flashing on and off, pouring yellow out into the night, then yanking it away with the precision of a programmed show, the entire complex twinkling like Christmas lights against the icy blackness of the Utah wilderness.

  “What the . . .” Aiden heard Yanis breathe.

  “Wait . . .” Dr. Richardson shouted. “Wait! They’re all drawing power! They’re trying to—”

  Rippling from the center outward, every yellow light went black, followed by every guide light, and every exit sign. The light atop the cross, the yellow glow of the maintenance garage.

  The whole complex was down.

  Dr. Richardson spun to Yanis. “Go, now. Send ten men to my office. We’re under attack.” She took off sprinting for the GRC.

  Evan.

  HE TRIED ONE more photo from under the machine. With a loud clicking noise, the camera flashed, taking all the light in the room with it. Every overhead machine and whirling noise. They sat together in perfect silence for a moment.

  “Holy shit,” Emma breathed. “It worked.”

  They were huddled behind the curve of the ARC, the only spot in the room invisible from the door. Their backs were up against the metal of the machine, their arms touching. She hadn’t said anything; he hadn’t
either, instead keeping his eyes closed, focused entirely on her, their breathing falling into rhythm.

  He knew exactly what he wanted to say. He’d written it in his journal, said it aloud to himself a hundred times. He’d pictured himself meeting her at the big wooden cross after church, telling her exactly what she needed to hear. It had been a perfect plan, from the way he would look to the way she’d be feeling to the words he’d say. He didn’t have any of those things anymore, except the words. But he did have two minutes.

  “I knew you needed someone.”

  He couldn’t see her, and she didn’t say anything. That was okay.

  “I knew you needed someone, because I noticed that you were sleeping a lot, and walking around with your head down instead of up, and . . . my mom used to do those things whenever she needed me around more. And I noticed it right away when I moved in across the hall from you, and then, when I heard you read your poem—”

  “My poem?” Emma asked. He could tell from the direction of her voice that she was looking at him.

  “The one you read on May fourteenth at the church . . .” He took a deep breath. “‘I’ll hold your place next to me, eternally, endlessly. . . . This world was never big enough, but you still tried to make a place for me. . . . We all deserve forgiveness, I know you could wipe the slate for me . . . you’ll find me here again, a different form, the same memory.’”

  Evan swallowed. “It was my mom. Speaking to me, through you. I thought I failed in my mission, but you taught me I could have a new one. That’s why I’m here. That’s why I came to save you.”

  Closing his eyes and offering a silent prayer, he moved his right hand and set it gently on top of her left. She didn’t flinch or protest, leaving it there to be touched, warm nerves connecting beneath their skin and tying them together, his color filling her in.

  She cleared her throat. “I didn’t write that.”

  “What?”

  “The poem? That’s not mine. That’s a song, by the Sick Buffys.”

  “Wait, but . . . b-but, you . . . the Sick Buffys?”

  “Yeah, they’re a band. I don’t really even like them anymore.”

  “B-but then . . . why did you read it?”

  “I don’t know, I just thought it sounded cool.”

  “B-but . . . but y-you . . .”

  Evan fell silent, processing, feeling himself falling away from her. His brain was clear and reflective; everything that was inside him was now outside him; the plastic pieces of the poem were broken on the floor in front of him. It wasn’t Emma’s words; it wasn’t even Emma’s thoughts. It wasn’t a message, sent to him through an angel—it wasn’t even a poem. It was just words. He’d never even heard of the Sick Buffys.

  “I’m sorry to hear about your mom, Evan,” she said, pulling her hand back. “But that has nothing to do with me. You don’t know me at all. And what you did to me was messed up. You realize that, right?”

  The air had been drained from his lungs, the life drained from his chest.

  “You weren’t helping me,” she said. “You were using me to try to fix yourself. That’s not love.”

  Footsteps came sprinting through the door, faster than he could react, and by the time they turned around, a flashlight bobbed into view.

  Aiden.

  OUTSIDE THE SCHOOL, with all the power offline, you could almost convince yourself that everything was normal.

  Aiden sat alone, atop a large rock in the first cut of the forest, behind the maintenance building. He’d watched, safely fifty feet behind, as Yanis had dragged Zaza back into the school, then watched as Yanis went charging back out to the maintenance building to call a sweep. The instructors and security, much less organized than usual, were starting to stumble across the lawn and into the dorms, flashlight beams appearing in random windows around the complex.

  From where he sat, their plan had gone off almost without a hitch. The sweep had started just in time to pull everyone from the front gate. The power to the electrical fence was off; Neesha had stopped the sweep from starting too early; Evan and Emma had been given plenty of time to get the picture; now all that remained was the vehicle. At this point, now that everything had played out accordingly, they’d all make it out, safely, together.

  Except Zaza. He wouldn’t be escaping. He’d suffer severe punishment, a “literal hell,” as Dr. Richardson described it. He couldn’t get the image of Zaza’s eyes out of his head: stained with blood and bruise, searching in the dark, begging for backup. Aiden couldn’t have done anything, just like he couldn’t do anything now, or anything for the hundreds of other students at the school. But sitting there in the chapel, hopeless and in the dark, he couldn’t help but feel like Zaza’s fate was his fault.

  He heard footsteps coming up the path, away from the church. He ducked behind his rock, until he saw it was Peter, staying low and sprinting along the path. “Peter!” he called.

  Peter’s head spun wildly. He flew toward Aiden. “Holy shit, buddy!”

  “Oh—” Before Aiden could protest, Peter tackled him in a wild embrace. They tumbled backward into the forest. “I guess we’re friends now.”

  “Holy shit, buddy,” Peter said again. “I can’t believe it. The kid’s plan worked. We might all actually get outta here.”

  Aiden stood up and brushed himself off, not saying anything.

  “Shit. What happened?”

  Aiden swallowed. “Yanis got into the church and Dr. Richardson escaped. It wasn’t until after two, so everyone else should be fine, but . . . Zaza’s not getting out.”

  Peter’s face fell. “Shit.”

  “I know,” Aiden said. “But I don’t think there’s anything we can do—”

  “It’s not just that.” Peter looked back over his shoulder. “Everybody else was still in the school. Neesha, the kid . . .”

  Aiden’s voice broke. “Emma?”

  Peter shook his head again.

  After a long moment, Peter turned to the maintenance shed. “Alright, well, we’re not doing anything standing here. You ready to go steal a bus or something?”

  Aiden ignored him, staring past him at the nearest path back to the school. “No. You get the bus. I’m going back in.”

  “What? No, that’s a horrible idea. How are you possibly gonna improve that situation?”

  Aiden rocked back, a little confused. “I—I don’t know—”

  “Even if you get in there, if Dr. Richardson has them, they’re not getting out. Not tonight, anyway. We’re best off waiting to see who makes it out, then going. Otherwise we might not have a chance.”

  Aiden took a deep breath. “I just have to, okay? I can’t . . . just sit out here.”

  Peter stared at him for a long moment, then smiled. “Damn,” he said. “Look at you. Not so candy shit anymore, huh?”

  Aiden nodded. They clasped hands once more and took off, sprinting in opposite directions.

  Neesha.

  “OH MY GOD,” she heard Emma exhale as she entered the room.

  “Camera, now,” she called, and caught it without breaking stride. She leapt to the machine and started to pull herself up. The only light in the room came from her flashlight, now on the ground, throwing long shadows of the ARC up the wall of screens. She couldn’t turn around; if she took a second to consider the fall, they’d be a second too late.

  Her vertical instinct came back from her climbing days, three-point balance between her limbs as she swung the forth, up several stacks of monitors. Within sixty seconds, she’d found a ledge, ten feet above the awesome machine. She adjusted the photo through the scope, lining up the corners to capture the awesome reach of the ARC’s size.

  Click. The camera flashed with a satisfied purr.

  “Okay, let’s get outta here,” Emma whispered.

  “I’m not sure I got it,” Neesha said, adjusting herself. “I’ve got six pictures left, I’m just gonna take all of them.”

  “They’re all gonna look the same, let’s—�
�

  There was another flash of light from the camera, a single strobe to remind them of the room they were in and the massive machine behind them, and then blackness again. One, two, three, four, five more flashes exploded across the room, dangerously visible in the pitch-black room. “Okay,” she whispered. “That’s it.”

  Outside the room, they could hear the faint shuffling of feet in the hallway growing louder. Neesha looked to the ground, wavering in her balance as she tried to judge the jump. “I don’t know how I’m gonna get down from this,” she whispered. “I can’t see shit.”

  “We have to go. Don’t worry, I’m right below you,” Emma whispered. “If you have to fall, just fall into—”

  The door to the waiting room slammed. They all froze.

  It felt like it took a lifetime for the footsteps to cross the office, for the bobbing light of the flashlight to crawl in and over them. As soon as it was far enough inside to catch the rim of Emma’s face, the figure holding the light let out a long, loaded sigh.

  “You don’t know this,” Dr. Richardson said, smiling, her face floating in the light reflected from the ARC, “but you’ve come back on purpose.”

  Emma pressed her lips together so tightly they began to shake. Neesha could see tears welling up in the corners of her eyes. Dr. Richardson stepped forward, blocking Emma from the doorway, coming within arm’s distance of her face and reaching out.

  “What are you so afraid of? This is exactly what you wanted.”

  Emma shook her head. “I’m not staying,” she said, her voice unsure. “I’d rather die than be in here with you.”

  Dr. Richardson frowned. “Don’t say that. It isn’t honest.” She noticed Evan, hovering behind her. “Mr. Andrews. This is surprising. To go from an obsession with Emma to spying on her, to . . . whatever this is. All with so little emotional intelligence and social awareness. You’re evolving, in a very . . . interesting way. All the same, thank you for bringing her back. She’s very important to the work we do here. Just the two of you?”