by R F Hurteau
“Death!” the people cried. “Death to the traitor!”
Nero’s lips widened into a crazed smiled.
“The people have spoken!” he declared. “May this be a lesson to all who threaten our freedom. I hereby sentence the Weaver to death, along with his deluded servant. To be carried out...immediately!”
“You first,” Gavin muttered as he lifted his crossbow, aiming for the space between Nero’s eyes.
He pulled the trigger.
Explosions erupted from the stage and a great surge of heat knocked Gavin onto his back.
More explosions went off behind him. The crowd dissolved into pandemonium.
All around him people scattered, shouts of terror and despair rolling over the dispersing crowd like a ripple in a pond. From among them a dozen hooded figures advanced toward the stage, drawing weapons.
The Envicti guarding the Weaver and Ollie turned and ran.
A roar from above drew Gavin’s gaze skyward. A ship was descending on them, its engines blasting great clouds of steam. Fog started to fill the area.
As Gavin scrambled to his feet, still stunned, he could feel the heat from the ship at his back.
He ran toward where the Weaver had been, but it was difficult to see. He slowed, listening above the din for a familiar voice. Kestrel.
“Kestrel!”
“Gavin! We’ve got him! Get to the ship.”
Through the fog he could see figures running toward him. The Weaver was limping, supported by two others. They quickly came into full view and a voice from behind him was shouting for them to hurry.
“Where’s Ollie, did you get Ollie?”
“I’m here, Gavin.”
The young man appeared at his side and Gavin clasped his shoulder. Then he looked around, peering through the haze of smoke and steam. “Nero?”
Kestrel scowled. “He got away.”
Gavin watched the Weaver disappear into the ship’s hold.
That victory would have to be enough.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”
Thirteen
Rebirth
ELI expected some sort of punishment for his antics. Yet no one stopped him when he entered the building, and no one bothered him as he made his way back to Ward Three. He walked by technicians, orderlies, even an Enforcer.
They all just let him pass.
He made his way back upstairs to Ward Three. The doors did not require codes when coming from the opposite direction, which was nice, since Eli’s exhaustion was such that he might have fallen asleep in the stairwell rather than go and find someone to help him regain entry to his dormitory.
Mabel, Linus and Shane were all waiting for him when he returned. He’d expected it, but had also hoped to sneak in undetected. He did not wish to relive the night’s events.
But they had just as much right to know what had transpired as he did, and so he comforted his sister as she broke down in sobs over Reggie’s loss.
Eli did not tell them about his odd encounter with The Mask. He was too tired.
Morning greeted him with the voice of an orderly calling out his designation. When they had passed by every lab with which he was familiar, he began to wonder if he was being brought to face the reckoning for his actions.
As they drew close to an unfamiliar door, he heard voices within.
“...never gotten this far before, how exciting!”
“Never mind that, let’s worry about the here and now. Have you looked over these numbers?”
“They aren’t great.”
“Well that’s the understatement of the century.”
So this was it, then. Eli had made it to the seventh step. He would be the first.
He found his gait slowing and felt the urge to make a break for it. His heart quickened, and he began to sweat.
The orderly took no notice, opening the door and motioning for him to enter.
“W3V3-12?” one of the technicians asked. This was now what Eli considered a standard greeting.
“Yes, but—”
“No buts. We are in for a long haul here today, and we’re very eager to get started.”
“I understand,” Eli said, a wave of nausea rising up, “but—”
“Tsk, tsk,” the technician said, putting his hand on the small of Eli’s back and urging him forward.
A long metal tube lay across the floor on four stout legs. It was covered in an array of buttons and panels, lights blinking. A retractable glass top peeked out from one side, and inside a thick, black sludge gave off a faint but unpleasant odor.
“Strip down, please,” the technician told him.
“Please,” Eli said, even while he found himself obeying the command. He had never imagined that he would greet his end with such politeness, such calm.
No one had ever made it this far. Perhaps this was the destiny of which The Mask had spoken.
This was the final resting place of Eli Harper, corporate-orphan-turned-lab-rat. In a pool of black sludge, his epitaph little more than a printout of data points for future trials.
“Please.” He swallowed hard, trying not to break down all together. “I only want to...I just want to say...goodbye. To my sister.”
The technician gave him a quizzical look. “Goodbye?”
Eli gestured, defeated, to the tube.
“No one’s ever made it this far, have they?” he said. “I heard you. I know the odds.”
The technician raised a surprised eyebrow. “We mustn’t have such a defeatist attitude,” he reprimanded. “W3V3-12—”
“Eli,” Eli said firmly. “If I’m going to die here, I’d like to at least die as Eli, and not as some stupid, arbitrary number.”
The second technician stepped forward. He was an older man. His hair was white and thinning, and his face held a grandfatherly expression that might have been comforting under different circumstances.
“Eli,” he said, not unkindly, “you’ve made it this far because you are quite remarkable. If anyone can finish the treatment protocol, it’s you.”
Eli was quiet for a moment. “Finish?”
“Yes,” the older tech said with a nod. “This is the final stage. After this, it’s all over.”
“And then what happens?” Eli asked.
The man smiled and shrugged. “I guess we’ll see, won’t we?”
“Now,” said the first technician. “Enough talk. In you go. And the mask. There we are!”
Eli submerged himself in the thick, sticky liquid, which barely moved to acknowledge his jostling. His heart was racing now, and he felt tears burning in his eyes.
He wanted to get out, to run. But that was foolish. He had run yesterday, hadn’t he? There was nowhere to go. There was nowhere to hide.
If he were to meet his end here, he would not do it kicking and screaming. He would go with quiet dignity.
He pulled the mask down, hiding the hot tears as they escaped his eyes and streamed down to meet the edges of the rubber lenses and pool against his cheeks.
He felt guiding hands urging him to lay back, felt the breeze of the closing glass, felt panic at the liquid beginning to rise over his head.
And then the torment began.
Compared to this, the fire chamber had been a walk in the park on a hot day. Eli felt as if the very atoms that made up his body were being ripped asunder.
He knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this was, indeed, the day that Eli Harper died.
Thoughts of Mabel, of Shane, of all else were wiped from his mind as the pain consumed him.
And Eli did scream.
***
The afterlife, he decided, was not so terrible. A bit dark, perhaps. But it was peaceful, and he felt no pain.
Eli.
He was floating. Whether in the air or in the sea or somewhere in between, it did not seem to matter. He drifted along, his body warm, his mind empty of all worries.
“Eli!”
Jolted from the warmth of his dream, h
e was jettisoned into a world that was too bright, too cold.
He felt himself shaking uncontrollably and looked up at the faces surrounding him—blurry, unfamiliar faces. He shrunk away from them, scooting backward until he hit a wall and could go no further.
“Eli, what’s the matter?” said one of blurry faces. Then, “What have they done to him?”
“He’s suffering,” said a different voice.
“I’ll get him another blanket,” offered a third.
“L-leave me alone,” he whispered, his chattering teeth causing his words to come out in a stammer.
“Eli—”
“Stop calling me that!” he screamed, curling his head down into his knees, his wide eyes staring at nothing. “Stop calling me that,” he repeated in a sob.
So confusing. Nothing was as it should be.
Who were these people? Why were they here? He wanted to go back to the quiet place. The floating place.
Where no one bothered him.
He felt something brush against his ear. The touch was gentle but caused him to recoil in fear nonetheless.
“Oh, Eli. What did they do to you?”
He pulled the blankets higher up around him as he felt the weight of the others leave the bed. They moved away, but he could hear them as clear as ever.
He wanted to yell at them to stop shouting, but he also didn’t want to draw their attention again.
“This can’t go on,” one of them was saying. “Someone has to do something.”
Do something about what?
“Mabel, you know I’m on your side. But what can any of us do?”
“Shane’s right. There aren’t enough of us to make a difference. Look what they did to me.”
There was a rustling of fabric and a low gasp.
Either the voices dropped or he tuned them out. He was staring at the underside of his blanket, fascinated by a strand of thread that had come loose.
It was swaying back and forth, and it took a few moments for him to realize it was due to his own breathing.
“How many more of us have to die before they realize this isn’t sustainable?”
People are dying? That’s sad, I suppose. But it’s not so bad. I died, once.
They continued arguing, and the thread continued swaying.
“Look at your brother. He’s made it farther than anyone. That’s going to encourage them to ramp things up, not ease back.”
“I agree with Linus.”
There was a frustrated sigh and the sound of someone stomping around the room.
“If you won’t help me, I’ll do it myself.”
“Mabel, you have three days left on your sentence. You are so close! I can’t let you do anything to jeopardize that. That’s not what Eli would want, if he was coherent enough to have a say.”
“I don’t care about that. I never intended to leave. I left him behind once, I won’t do it again. Look what they did to him, Shane! He’s my brother. My twin brother, and he doesn’t even know who I am!”
“And you think he’d want you to do something rash, if he were in a position to say so?”
There was a long pause.
He reached up, grasping the thread between his forefinger and thumb and yanked it loose. It hung limply in his grip and he stared at it in alarm.
“Eli’s always taken care of me. I promised I’d get him out, and I didn’t keep that promise. So I think…I think, this time...it’s my turn to step up.”
***
The next hours were painful. Not physically—besides the insatiable chill, Eli felt fine. Rather, they were painful emotionally.
His memory cleared, the fog lifting, but it came in fits and spurts, all jumbled up. Eli could not yet decipher what was real, and what was a dream. He could not be certain which memories had actually taken place, and which were made up. Some were abstract, while others were so vivid they might have been taking place at that very moment.
In one such burst, Mabel appeared, squeezing his hand between both of hers. She had tears in her eyes as she tucked his blanket up under his chin, giving him a tender kiss on the forehead as their mother used to do when they were children.
At least, he thought she had. He still couldn’t be quite sure.
Mabel faded from view as he sank into this new train of thought, trying hard to determine if he had ever even had parents at all.
***
Eli’s eyes flew open as he sat bolt upright in bed, the thin cover falling away. The room was empty, but there was some kind of commotion in the hall.
He didn’t bother to put his shoes on before racing to the door, the soft slap of his soles against the cold tiles trailing behind him.
Opening it, he found himself immersed in chaos. One orderly lay on the ground, unconscious, and several of his dormitory mates were holding the double doors to his left shut as more people hollered on the other side, banging and shouting, demanding to be let through.
Eli caught a glimpse of black through the glass door pane; an Enforcer.
Whatever was happening, he’d slept through a good deal of it already.
“Eli!” shouted Simon, one of the boys with his back to the door, “help with the beds, and hurry!”
Eli rushed into the dormitory, but a quick glance showed no sign of his sister.
He grabbed the cast-iron bed frame that several of them were struggling with, mindlessly flipping it onto its side and dragging it, single-handed, into the hall. He helped prop it against the double doors, and Simon wiped his forehead as he gave a grateful sigh.
“Thanks! That should hold them, for a bit.”
“Simon,” Eli said, “what the hell is going on? What happened?”
Simon shrugged wearily.
“We’re staging a coup,” he answered with a little wink that caused Eli’s frown to deepen.
“No, seriously. What’s happening? Where’s Mabel?”
“Well,” Simon said, glancing over his shoulder at the angry face of an orderly smooshed against the glass, “now’s not really the time to explain. If you wanted in on the action, you shouldn’t have slept for three days.”
“For...”
Eli couldn’t believe his ears. He’d been asleep for three days? It had felt like mere hours. “Simon, you need to tell me where Mabel is. Right now.”
Simon gave Eli one more exasperated look. “She’s farther down,” he said, pointing in the opposite direction. “With Linus.”
Eli did not ask any more questions, turning and heading down the hall, stepping over the orderly’s prone form.
He found the next set of doors wide open, one torn from its hinges, no doubt Linus’ work. Despite that many of the test subjects were at least somewhere in the transformation procedure, none had progressed far enough for this kind of brute strength but the two of them.
The halls were quieter in this direction.
As Eli passed the rooms in which he had been subjected to every sort of test imaginable, he peered into the open doorways. Several of the rooms contained technicians or orderlies, tied to chairs or shoved into experimental chambers. Others were deserted.
The one thing they all had in common was the destruction; everywhere he went, computer monitors were smashed, glass shattered across the ground. Eli crushed it underfoot, barely conscious of the pain as the tiny shards bit into his flesh like starving lampreys. Bins full of papers burned unattended, and soon an alarm began to wail, no doubt signaling the perceived danger from the billowing smoke.
A familiar flash of blond caught his eye.
“Shane!”
He called after the young man, who was dashing down a connecting hallway. Shane stopped, looking back. He was holding his rifle, something Eli had never seen him do inside the ward.
“Eli?” Shane asked, looking surprised. “You’re awake! And...you’re feeling...alright?”
“I feel fine, nevermind me. What the hell is going on?”
Shane grimaced, glancing back in the direction he’d been head
ing.
“Come with me,” he said, “I’ll explain on the way.”
Soaked with sweat and panting, Shane looked more scared than Eli had ever seen him.
“Today was supposed to be Mabel’s transfer day.” As if Eli wasn’t already aware. “A whole new set of volunteers were arriving on the same transport that would have taken her back to Gables.”
Eli had a vague recollection of the conversation he’d overheard that first day back from his last treatment.
“But she didn’t plan to leave,” he said.
Shane nodded.
“The transports only come every three months. Security is lightest in the entire building during that time, because so many of them are called out to escort the new recruits. The military presence, myself included, was supposed to be guarding Belenus. Because, you know, all of the volunteers are hardened criminals, hell-bent on stealing Next Level tech.” He scowled. “I can’t believe I followed them so blindly for so long.”
“Now is not the time for introspection. You still haven’t explained what’s happened here.”
“Oh. Right. I was able to lift a few key cards over the last few days and get the necessary codes for Ward Three access. One of the guys in your dorm was a programmer’s apprentice. He used them to lock down the whole floor. Only there were still employees up here, but we’re dealing with them as we come to them. I was just on my way to check the entry points again. I wasn’t able to get any other weapons, so it’s down to me.”
“Then they might need you back by the dorms,” Eli told him. “There’s an Enforcer trying to get in.”
“Damn!” Shane stopped short and turned to Eli. “Listen, Eli. Mabel and Linus can tell you more. I’ve got to go help.”
And with that, Shane sped off down the hall.
“Wait!” Eli called, too late.
This was madness. Suicide. How long could a programmer’s apprentice and a bunch of random kids hope to hold onto the floor? What purpose could it possibly serve?
He quickened his pace, a trail of blood marking his passage through the shrapnel-strewn hallways.
“Eli!” Mabel called to him. “In here!”
They’d reached the stage seven laboratory, and Linus was grunting as he tried to force the cylindrical holding pod from its place, the black liquid sloshing back and forth reluctantly. He released his grip and turned to offer Eli a roguish grin.
