by Chanda Hahn
“Going somewhere?” Hook sneered.
At the sound of his voice, Peter stared up into heated eyes of Captain Hook.
Hook motioned and two Red Skulls grabbed Brittney and dragged her into the back of the semi. “I knew that if you were going to try an escape, it would be during our relocation. But you even went so far as to try to take another recruit with you.”
Brittney whimpered and Peter tried to defend her. “No, she didn’t know. I surprised her.”
“Nevertheless, she will be dealt with—but you, my son. It seems that you need a bit more reprogramming. Maybe let’s try again from the beginning. Another reboot.”
Fear raced through Peter’s body. He tried to rise to his knees. “No!” He reached for Hook.
Hook raised his gun, and the butt came down onto Peter’s face.
Chapter 15
“This should do it,” Dr. Mee murmured to herself as she made more notes in her journal, which was littered with ideas and formulas, all in different handwritings, each one like a timeline of her thoughts and how she was slowly losing them. Each idea was attached to a string of a kite, and as she aged, more strings were cut. But Dr. Mee was smart. She left herself notes of her work along with numerous tape recordings—all of it an attempt to counteract the side effect of the memory loss drug Neverland had given to them. A drug that had been administered to all the techs, aids, and personnel that had worked for Neverland Corporation.
It was Neverland’s dastardly insurance policy. Their way of ensuring their confidentiality if someone ever left the company. Without the daily antidote, Dr. Mee and other former Neverland employees would slowly lose their minds; she had witnessed it with her oldest and dearest friend Dr. Barrie, had seen what it had done to his once-sharp mind. The horrifying truth of Neverland had been reduced to children’s bedtime stories.
“Think . . . think . . . think.” She tapped her head, trying to force her thoughts into a more cohesive train of thought. “You’ve studied the parameters. Tested it on Peter and Wendy. It worked on memories lost short term. But is it enough . . . for him? For me?”
Dr. Mee stared up at the mirror in her small basement apartment and held up the small needle, her hands shaking as she pushed it into the vial and filled the syringe. That day so many years ago, she had stolen a few days of the antidote, and as soon as she had touched foot on land after escaping the island, she had begun to run tests to find the chemical makeup of the medicine, trying to determine the exact recipe. Except, there was a chemical ingredient she couldn’t identify, that didn’t appear in any textbooks, one that she could not duplicate. She had been experimenting for years to try to find a substitute for the unidentifiable chemical. Like searching for a sugar substitute when you can’t use sugar.
She had made enough progress that she had been able to keep her mind stable for longer than anyone else, by using small doses of the fake versions of the antidote on herself. But she had done it, discovered it worked fine on Peter if he’d recently panned. But to bring back someone’s mind that had been gone for years, she needed something stronger. A super drug.
And she believed she had it, but now to test it.
Dr. Mee slipped the cap on the needle and reached for her overcoat. She tried to smooth her ruffled black hair, and pinched her tired cheeks. It didn’t matter, though. If it didn’t work, he wouldn’t recognize her anyway.
Herding her German shepherds into their kennels, she gave them a treat and checked their water before locking up and exiting her building. The landlord would look after them while she was gone.
Dr. Mee took the bus, and after two bus transfers, ended up outside of a large park with a clock tower, winding bike paths and open green spaces. Finding a well-placed park bench she settled in and opened a book to look inconspicuous, while she watched the small two-story bookstore across the street. It was near closing time and she hadn’t seen any customers come in or out in the last thirty minutes. She also hadn’t seen the bookstore owner through the window.
She was going to have to go in and find him. Opening the door, the bell rang softly announcing her arrival. A giant Saint Bernard padded out of a back office and came to sniff her pant leg. Deeming her friendly, Nana leaned on Dr. Mee’s leg, giving it all the weight of an attention-starved dog.
“Hello, Nana,” Dr. Mee greeted warmly, bending over to give the dog an affectionate pet. She was the one who had given the dog to her old friend. She knew he would need someone to look out for him. Dr. Mee squatted down and looked into the dog’s eyes. “Where’s Barrie?”
Nana’s big head swung and huffed at the back office, where she could see through a partially open door, an obstructed view of a very cluttered desk illuminated by a lamp.
“Let’s go, girl,” she coaxed.
Nana took off running, her tail thumping into every bookcase and table between the door and the back room. Dr. Mee followed after the dog into the office and found Dr. Barrie slumped over his desk.
Her breath caught in her throat. She was too late. He never got a chance to remember before he passed.
Nana whined, nuzzling Dr. Barrie under the arm, and a soft snore came from his mouth. Dr. Mee sighed in relief. He was only sleeping. She tiptoed around the desk and saw the scattered notes and drawings depicting an island. Careful to not disturb him, she read over his shoulder, and saw the truth and evil of Neverland sanitized and disguised, retold as a child's fairytale. He had been trying to record his memories before he forgot them, but it all came out as doodles and stories.
“Oh, Dr. Barrie, what have they done to you?” She pushed his gray hair off of his forehead and gave him a small peck on the back of his head. Pulling the syringe out of her pocket, she uncapped it and felt along his arm. “I pray this restores what was lost to you. I hope it brings you back to your daughter.”
She injected the experimental antidote into his arm and moved away to sit in the chair across from him, waiting for the drug to take effect—hoping that it could restore years of memories, like it had for Peter and Wendy.
Nana moved away from her sleeping owner and pushed her head into Dr. Mee’s lap, demanding attention and scratches. As she gave the dog plenty of affection and kisses, she encountered a bump along the collar. Curious, Dr. Mee unstrapped the collar and discovered a tracking bug sewn with an untrained hand into the thick braided cord.
“Isabelle,” Dr. Mee mused aloud and smiled, proud that even though Dr. Barrie was nowhere near his daughter, she was in fact keeping tabs on him.
Her inquisitive mind piqued, she studied each of Nana’s tags: one for her rabies vaccine, another with her address, and then a silver heart with nothing inscribed. Dr. Mee held it up to the light and made out the smallest indent in the tag. Using a nail file from her purse, she wedged the silver tag open, and gasped. Inside of the tag, there was some kind of circuit. Dread filled her as she realized what it was.
It was another tracking device, much more sophisticated and advanced than Tink’s hand sewn tracker. Neverland. They have been tracking Dr. Barrie. She looked around in a panic, wondering if there could be hidden listening devices in addition to the tracker. Did they know she was here? Her hands shook as she removed it from the collar.
She did find a listening device under Dr. Barrie’s desk and one in the potted palm by his office door. Grabbing the heaviest book she could find, she smashed the tracker into pieces, and then flushed it down the toilet, knowing it would be quickly swept into the city’s sewer system.
Now terrified, she pulled out a chair and carefully ran her hands along the bookshelves, then searched the register areas and even the back hall, but didn’t find any bugs in the store. It seemed that whoever planted them didn’t really have any interest in the book business, but more on Dr. Barrie himself.
Dr. Mee made quick work of the other two bugs she found and discarded them like the first. She began to tidy his desk when she noticed he began to stir.
Dr. Barrie blinked, slowly sat up, and stretched. He noti
ced Nana first and reached down to pat his companion, whispering, “Good girl.”
His alert eyes scanned his office with renewed interest as if he was seeing it all for the first time. When his eyes alit on Dr. Mee standing to his right, he smiled. “Why hello.”
Her heartbeat picked up with anticipation. “Y—you remember me?” she stammered.
“Yes, I think I do. He paused in thought, scratching his head. “Your name is . . . just on the tip of my tongue.” Dr. Barrie stood and looked down at his drawings and notes, his expression changing as he processed what he saw. His memories slowly coming back to him. “Yes. Yes. That’s right. Neverland. The research.” He looked up his eyes glassy. “My daughter. I have a daughter.”
“That’s right Dr. Barrie,” she encouraged.
“And you’re Susan.” He stood and pulled her into a warm hug.
“Oh, Dr. Barrie, how I’ve missed you.” Tears fell freely from her eyes.
“I suppose I have you to thank for this?”
She nodded. “I’ve been trying to find a cure for years. But it’s only temporary. You have to keep taking these. She handed him an orange medicine container full of liquid gel pills. “Just like we did at Neverland. I’m still working on improving it, but now with your help, I can make it stronger.”
“We will, don’t worry. We will. All will be right now. Don’t cry.” He wiped the tears away from her cheeks.
He gave her arm a squeeze, then headed out of the office and searched up and down the aisles of the bookstore, before returning to the office. “You haven’t happened to have seen my daughter anywhere, have you?”
Dr. Mee crumpled into the chair. “Something terrible has happened to the children.”
“But they have Neverwood. The school, the teachers, I put people in place to take care of them in my absence.
“The school was attacked.” Her lips trembled anew. “They took them.”
“What?” He grabbed on to the doorframe for support. “Isabelle is gone?”
“I don’t know. I was hiding from them for so long, and I knew I shouldn’t. Not when two of the children kept panning. So I went to Neverwood to drop off a supply of the drug and to check on them, and the school was . . . so much damage. I can’t even fathom what had happened. I don’t know where they fled. I don’t know where the children are,” she cried, her shoulders shaking in fear. “If Neverland took them, then everything we’ve done is for naught.”
“I can’t accept that,” he said. “Some would have escaped . . . and if they did, I know where they would have gone.”
Dr. Mee wiped her eyes as Dr. Barrie grabbed his coat off the coat hook. Nana, sensing the change in the room, barked in excitement and ran to the front door.
“Come on, they need us.”
“Where?” she asked.
“Neverfalls.”
Chapter 16
“Whoop, there it is!” John crowed at the video screen. Having taken down the enemy, he stood and did a little dance around the room, then high-fived Tootles and Michael. Michael’s grin was huge and his face owlish as he looked around the room wearing his new and improved specs, thanks to Tink and John.
Tink was sitting in the chair next to Ditto’s and speaking quietly with him, her face grim. Wendy noticed the change in the atmosphere between the two old friends and made her way to Ditto’s bedside.
“Don’t, Ditto,” Tink admonished. “Don’t try it when you’re injured.”
“Tink, I’m done hanging around here. We need to get the others back.”
“You’re not well enough.”
“I am. I’m stronger than you think.” Ditto pulled the blanket off his lap, exposing the bandaged wound, and Wendy winced at seeing the damage the gauze was hiding. It’s much easier to convince yourself your friend is well when he’s just sitting in bed playing video games than when he pulls back the sheet to reveal his wound. “I’m healing fine.”
“We will go,” Tink said. “But you will not be coming with us.”
Ditto’s face turned dark. “You can’t do that. I’m one of you. I need to help save the others.”
Tink’s chin jutted out, her mouth pinched in a firm line, eyes narrowed stubbornly. “It’s been decided. We can’t take you. You will stay with Tootles and watch over him while the rest of us go.”
Ditto’s head shook in disbelief, his voice hitched with emotion. “You can’t leave me behind.”
“You leave us no choice. If you hadn’t acted so foolishly, we could have left sooner. We had only planned to come here to get supplies and recoup before heading out, but then you had to go and get yourself hurt, and we obviously couldn’t leave you until you were on the mend. But now that you’re at least out of the woods and mobile, we can’t delay any longer. You’re able to take care of yourself if something happens to us, but you’d only slow us down if you came with us.”
Ditto’s eyes turned dark, and he turned away from Tink. “You don’t get to make the decision for me.”
“It wasn’t her decision,” Jax spoke up from the doorway.
“You don’t get to make the decision either. Traitor,” Ditto mumbled under his breath.
“With Peter gone, I’m in charge,” Jax retorted.
“If Peter were here, he would let me come.”
“I beg to differ,” Jax said. “He absolutely would not.”
Ditto struggled to get up, and when his feet touched the wood floor, he dipped and had to catch himself on the edge of bed. His legs wobbled, his teeth gritted in pain, but he pulled himself up to stand face-to-face with Jax. His nostrils flared and his breathing was ragged, but Ditto clenched his fists at his sides and stuck his chest out, threatening one of the strongest leaders of Neverwood.
“Don’t, Ditto,” Jax warned. “It’s not the time nor the place.”
John and Michael had long stopped playing and were watching the power struggle on the other side of the room.
“It is, especially if you are talking about leaving me behind. I’m a soldier. A lost boy, like you. I deserve to fight.”
Jax seemed to be thinking it over, but Tink shook her head. “Jax, no.”
He considered Tink and started to nod, but then he caught the pleading look in Ditto’s face. “I don’t know, Tink. You’re probably right. He could be a liability.” Then turning to Ditto, he said meaningfully, “But I think he has a right . . .He has a right to prove himself. You’d want the same for yourself, Tink.”
Tink’s censor box went off and ringing bells filled the air as her mouth moved, but no audible words came out.
“You can come—” Jax began.
“Thank you, Jax,” Ditto said, his face beaming. “I won’t let you down.”
“If you can replicate into four right now,” Jax finished.
Ditto’s face paled. “W—what?”
“You heard me,” Jax said. “Replicate right now. Prove that you’re strong enough to do that and you can come.”
A heavy silence befell the room and all eyes gazed upon a pale Ditto.
“That’s not fair,” Wendy said. She had thought Jax had changed, but it seemed that he was setting Ditto up for failure. Or he knew more about the situation and Neverland and was trying to protect Ditto.
“Jax,” Tink said. “He’s never been able to go past two.”
“If he wants to go with us, he has to prove he’s fit,” Jax said stubbornly, his jaw set, though there was a slight twitch to his mouth. “If he’s not fit, he stays.” When no reply came from him, Jax nodded his head. “Okay, he’ll stay behind with the young ones.”
“No, I’ll do it,” Ditto murmured.
“No, don’t,” Wendy said. “You could get hurt.”
“It’s not worth it,” Tink called out.
Ditto’s head dropped, and he blurred for a second as his body tried to separate. A scream came from his lips at the pain of being torn in two. He flickered between one body and two and then solidified again into a single Ditto. He tried again, with another scre
am of pain being ripped from his lips.
Tink’s hands went to her mouth in horror. “Jax, if he replicates now, he not only doubles himself, but the pain from his injury is amplified.”
“I know,” he said regretfully.
“Ditto,” Wendy pleaded, wishing with all her heart that she could help ebb his hurt. Over and over again he would try to replicate, but the pain would double and you could see him trying to control both bodies through the agony.
“If he can’t control himself here, then he won’t be able to once we get to Neverland. We can’t allow Ditto to be captured. You don’t understand what they would do if they had access to his ability. It’s bad enough they got Peter. But a whole army that can replicate would be disastrous. We have to know he can control himself. Defend himself,” he said callously.
Another cry echoed, followed by a shout of triumph, as Ditto split himself into two. The two Dittos blurred again as he attempted to replicate again.
Wendy struggled to focus as the Dittos both were blurring and separating again. Ditto was going for four.
“I don’t believe it,” Tink said as Ditto attempted what had never been done before.
“He doesn’t want to be left behind.” Tootles cheered him on. “Go, Ditto!”
For a split second, Wendy saw it. Four individual Dittos, hands in fists, raised above their heads. Then four mouths screamed and collapsed on the floor in a single heap. Grabbing his side, Ditto groaned and tried to rise to his feet before sliding to the ground and passing out cold.
“Jax,” Wendy pleaded. “He did it.”
“No, he didn’t. You saw him. He couldn’t hold it. He can’t go.”
“Well, maybe if he wasn’t injured, he could have,” Wendy insisted, stepping in front of Jax as he tried to leave the room.
Jax’s body went still, his eyes narrowing, and Wendy felt the full force of his stony gaze. “Don’t make excuses for him. I set the bar, he didn’t pass.” He pushed past her.
Wendy followed him down the hall. “The bar was too high,” she snapped at him.
