by S. Harrison
I claw at the ghostly tendrils, desperately scrambling for a hold. They’re slippery and thick, but I manage to wrap my arms around one and slide to a slow stop, thankfully, for now, halting my descent into the dark. I look ahead, and I can see through Infinity’s eyes like peepholes cut into the void. The dim light from the corridor is shining in through them, and as I watch that little moth dancing around the lamp on the ceiling, I can’t help thinking that it’s just like me. Trapped, flying in endless circles until someone cuts the power. Right now Infinity has that power, and I need to find a way to sever it once and for all. I can feel her self-satisfaction, how pleased she is with her victory, but this body is still paralyzed, and I have half an hour to get it back.
“That’s . . . what . . . you . . . think,” says Infinity’s voice, but it isn’t spoken with her thoughts like before. The words came from her mouth; I could hear them through her ears, just like I can see the outside world through her eyes, and even though I’m not in control, I could feel her vocal cords vibrating and her lips moving as she spoke. But . . . how can that be? Dr. Pierce said it would be at least an hour until the toxins wore off, and only half that time has passed.
I hear a groan, and the outside view shifts as Infinity inexplicably raises her head. What’s happening? How is she doing this? I see her lifting her arm. The fingers of her open hand tremble before her eyes, but she’s actually able to move them. Infinity clenches her fist, and I see tiny drops of green liquid oozing from the pores and beading on her skin like emerald-tinted sweat. Incredibly, it seems that somehow she’s physically forcing the poison from our body.
“I’ve trained all my life, developing techniques that you have no understanding of,” Infinity says out loud, clearly addressing me. “This body listens to me, Finn, and that’s exactly why you don’t deserve it,” she mutters ominously. Infinity slowly sits up. The radio on her chest clatters onto the ground beside her, and seconds later it crackles to life with Bit’s voice.
“We’re inside the dome. It’s dark in here, Finn,” she says, her words ringing with the echo that comes from speaking in a cavernous space.
“Pass me your light, girly,” Dr. Pierce says in the background.
“Gotta go, Finn,” says Bit. “I’ll report back when we’re at the wreckage.”
Infinity shakily gets to her feet, picks the radio up, and clips it onto the waistband of her jeans. Then she turns and walks toward the door.
“Where are you going?” I call out into the void. “You can’t just leave Bit and Dr. Pierce!”
Infinity doesn’t acknowledge me at all. As she arrives at the door, she presses her ear to it. The peepholes close, and I’m plunged into pitch darkness. Suddenly the void seems to thicken, as if the space around me is somehow growing heavier, and as I cling to my invisible anchor, I can sense something approaching through the blackness. It feels as though it’s coming from somewhere to the left of me, and all of a sudden the silent dark begins resonating with vibrations, as ripples of movement buffet and shudder against me. I feel like every inch of me is quivering, and I can’t help but gasp as my mind instantly fills with sound.
I was able to enhance my hearing when I eavesdropped on Dr. Pierce, but what Infinity is doing now makes my accidental discovery pale in comparison. I can hear the breeze brushing over the tips of the blades of grass on the other side of the door, and I can hear the slow shuffle of little clawed feet scraping across the path outside, the snuffling of tiny nostrils revealing the nocturnal trek of another hedgehog.
The void grows heavier still. The ripples in the dark become even more turbulent, and the volume of everything increases tenfold. The sound of the breeze becomes a harsh, fizzing hiss, and the hedgehog’s adorable little sniffs become angry bull snorts huffing and puffing inside my ear canal. I wince at the deafening racket, but the noise soon seems to curve away from me, almost as if the ripples are being diverted, brushed aside to reveal more layers of sound underneath. These new vibrations are thinner and much more closely spaced, and as they bounce and reflect back and forth over each other, the points where their ripples cross begin pulsing with fleeting blips of light.
The effect is wholly unnerving and yet at the same time completely fascinating, as a shimmering, undulating picture of the area just outside the door begins to coalesce in the void. The image appears to stretch out twenty yards in every direction before the edges of it gradually fade into darkness, but inside the boundary of the rippling tapestry of sound, I’m able to make out the fuzzy shape of the grass and nearby bushes and shrubs, the winding concrete path, and the slope of the hillside that the door is set into. I even spot the outline of the satchel that I dropped on the pavement a few feet from the door.
I stare in wonder at the grainy image that Infinity has formed in her head, all of it made purely by combining high-pitched frequencies into some kind of sonar. I don’t see any Lobots within Infinity’s sensory scan; the immediate region outside the door is clear. I’m awestruck at what she’s able to do, and I can’t help feeling spitefully envious of the way she’s mastered her senses like this.
The picture of sound fades into the void around me, and the dim light from the corridor streams in as Infinity opens her eyes and steps back from the door. I watch through the peepholes as she flexes her hands in front of her face, testing them for mobility. Seemingly satisfied, she does the same with her arms, curling them and tensing her biceps. I can feel the raw power surging through them, and again I burn with jealousy. She is so much more in tune with the capabilities of this body than I am, but I swear nothing is going to stop me from fighting with every fiber of my being to get it back, and there’s no better time to start than now.
Grunting with effort, I slowly begin crawling forward along the invisible tether toward the eyeholes in the distance. Through them, I see Infinity reach for the door handle. She’s leaving.
“Where are you going?” I call out again, but she still doesn’t answer as she yanks the handle down and pulls the door open. I can feel the cool night breeze on her face and see the expanse of Sector B stretching out before us. Infinity pauses, scanning the landscape from side to side as I hear the walkie-talkie crackle on her hip.
“We’re at the wreckage,” says Bit’s voice. “It’s been cut clean in half, and I can see my slate, but it’s going to take a little time to lever open a gap big enough to reach it.”
“What was that noise?” Dr. Pierce asks anxiously in the background. “Did you hear that, girly? I don’t like the dark, and I’m certain something just moved in here. Hurry up and get to work. I’ll keep lookout.”
Bit lets out a disgruntled sigh. “Anyway, Finn, I’ll let you know when I have it. I wish you were here. I could really use your help right now. I’ll check in again soon.”
Infinity seems to ignore the radio and strides out into the night. She gives the surroundings one last cautious 360-degree scan, then scoops my satchel up from the ground. She opens it, rifles through it, and for some reason I don’t understand, she snorts with bemusement as she pulls the pair of binoculars and the can of spray bandages out of the bag and tosses them both onto the grass. Infinity unclips the radio from her jeans and stuffs it into the satchel, then she slings the strap over her head, tightens it across her chest, and, with a little starting hop, takes off in a sprint down the path, back the way Bit and I came.
“Where are you going?” I scream as loudly as I can. This time I get a suitably angry response.
“Shut up, Finn! ‘Where are you going? Where are you going?’ You sound like a goddamned broken record in my head!”
“Bit is inside the dome!” I yell. “You can’t just leave her!”
“Otto has a new mission, and I have mine,” Infinity seethes between measured breaths as she increases her pace. “Richard Blackstone is this way.”
“Stop! Please!” I shout. “He’s not worth it.”
“Enjoy talking while you still can, Finn,” replies Infinity. “Because once dear old Daddy t
ells me how to get rid of you, I’m gonna silence both of you, once and for all.”
I have to stop her. Now more than ever. I can feel the strength in her legs as she strides along the path, and I double my effort to claw ahead toward the eye windows as Infinity sprints on. Perhaps she was trained to run this way, but her footsteps are almost silent. She’s also running nearly twice as fast as my top speed, and it doesn’t even feel like she’s breaking a sweat as the landscape flies by.
I can feel Infinity’s hunger for revenge against my father coursing through her, burning with a fire of single-minded intensity. That’s her objective, but now I have one of my own: making it to those peepholes is my goal. I have no idea what I’m going to do when I get there, but I carry on, pulling myself forward, which is so much harder than I thought it would be, as the strange, slippery, invisible line I’m gripping on to wavers from side to side while a multitude of other unseen tendrils slap and whip against me. It feels like I’m inching my way through a sea of molasses on giant strands of angry spaghetti, and I suddenly remember Infinity describing the inside of our head in exactly the same way. That thought gives me a glimmer of hope. If she went through this, then I must be heading in the right direction, too.
Spurred on, I claw my fingers into the tether and keep heaving myself along as Infinity runs on through the night. I’m focusing all my attention on putting one hand in front of the other, so I don’t notice the view changing through the eyeholes until I feel Infinity slowing down and coming to a stop in the middle of the path. I can hear her quietly catching her breath as she stares at something strange lying on the grass a couple of yards from the edge of the pavement. Infinity looks cautiously from side to side before she approaches the object, which in the darkness, away from the lighted pathway, resembles a six-foot-long burrito-like cocoon. As she gets closer, I spot the deactivated Lobot that Bit smashed, lying next to the other side of the path. A quick glance in its direction from Infinity shows me that she notices it, too, but she obviously sees that it poses no threat as she silently creeps toward the curious-looking object in the grass.
“Finn!” Bit’s muffled voice issues from the radio inside the satchel. “I got my computer slate, and I’m heading back to you. See you soon!”
Startled by the sudden transmission, Infinity whips open the satchel and pulls the walkie-talkie out. It slips from her grasp, and she juggles it awkwardly in her hands before she manages to get a good hold on it and muffle the speaker with the palm of her hand, but it doesn’t work very well, as I can still hear Jonah’s muted reply seeping from the sides of Infinity’s clutch.
“Copy that, Bettina,” he says. “Good work.”
Infinity pulls her hand away and is searching for the “Off” switch when Bit blurts out, “Thanks, Major Brogan!”
As if reacting to Bit’s voice, the giant burrito begins writhing with a crinkling, rustling sound. Infinity immediately raises her fists, holding the radio out in front of her like a weapon, but a grin spreads across my face from ear to ear as I suddenly realize exactly what that weird-looking thing really is.
“Brody!” I shout out into the darkness.
Infinity clearly must’ve heard me, because she repeats his name, albeit with a very quizzical tone. “Brody?”
“Finn?” Brody’s voice replies from inside the cocoon.
Infinity shoves the radio back into the satchel and quickly jogs onto the grass. She kneels beside the silver burrito and begins pulling the rolled layers of foil blanket down to expose Brody’s face.
Somehow he wasn’t taken, and I feel a fantastic mix of elation, surprise, shock, and grateful disbelief.
Brody looks up at Infinity, blinking wearily. “Oh my god, Finn,” he says with a huge sigh of relief. “I’m so glad to see you.”
Maybe Infinity’s mind is just as boggled as mine is right now, because she doesn’t even bother to correct Brody when he calls her by my name. Instead she stares at him, shaking her head in wonder, but there’s more to it than that. Deep down inside her, I can feel a bizarre welling of emotion. I know it isn’t coming from me, because it’s rippling toward me through the void in a similar way to how the waves of sound did only moments before. As the feeling shudders over me, the first word that comes to mind to describe it is . . . admiration.
“I thought those brain spiders had you for sure,” says Infinity as she helps Brody unravel himself from his thermal foil wrapper.
“So did I,” he replies. “But then I remembered a survival show I saw once. It said these blankets hold in all your body heat, and Dr. Pierce said those things see body heat, so I guessed I’d try to, well, y’know, roll myself up in one.”
“It looks like you guessed right,” says Infinity, and I feel that same warm pride rise from the depths of her core again as she helps Brody to his feet. “Well, the spider bite has clearly worn off,” she says, slapping a hand onto his shoulder. “What were you doing just lying there?”
“The poison spread all the way through me, and I couldn’t move at all,” Brody says solemnly. “I didn’t know how long it would last, so I just waited, and . . . I think I fell asleep.”
I can feel Infinity smile. “You liar!” I call out into the darkness. “You do care what happens to him!”
I know she hears me because I can feel that very same smile vanish as she quickly withdraws her hand from Brody’s shoulder. “You should get out of here,” she says, her tone now harsh and cold. “Get back to the underground shelter or something. Those spiders might head back this way any minute, and there’s still a R.A.M. wandering around here somewhere.”
Brody points back toward the promenade. “The R.A.M. and all the spiders went that way; I heard them.”
“Back toward Sector C? That doesn’t make any sense. Major Brogan, Percy, and that old bastard are in the tunnels, so what could be setting off motion sensors enough to draw them all back that way?” says Infinity.
“I don’t know,” says Brody. “But at least Brent and Margaux can make it to the bus now.”
“Don’t waste time worrying about them,” Infinity says with a sneer. “You get yourself to safety, Brody.”
Suddenly Bit’s voice issues from the satchel at Infinity’s side. “Finn, I’m still inside the dome.”
Brody’s eyes widen at the sound of her voice, and he eagerly thrusts his hand out toward Infinity. She lets out an indignant sigh, but she indulges him as she pulls the radio out of the bag and slaps it into his hand. Brody stares at the walkie-talkie in his palm, smiling as Bit keeps talking.
“I can’t find Dr. Pierce,” she says, obviously shaken. “He wandered around the other side of the wreckage while I was trying to get my slate, and I don’t know where he is! He’s not answering me! Major Brogan? Are you there? I think something is wrong. What should I do?”
“Keep looking, Bettina,” replies Jonah. “You’re in an enclosed space. He can’t have gone far.”
“The dome is huge,” says Bit. “I’ve been searching for ages!”
Brody quickly squeezes the “Talk” button. “I’m coming to help you look!” he barks into the walkie-talkie.
“Brody?!” exclaims Bit.
“Yeah, it’s me,” he says with a huge grin.
“But . . . how?”
“I used my brain, just like you would’ve.”
“Oh, Brody,” Bit says with a happy tremble in her voice. “I’m so glad you’re OK.”
“It’s wonderful to hear that you’re alright, Mr. Sharp,” Professor Francis says in the background.
“Absolutely,” agrees Jonah. “I don’t know how you avoided the X-27s but, well done.”
“Thanks. I wrapped myself in a foil blanket, and they couldn’t see me,” Brody says with a goofy chuckle. “They walked right over me.”
“Well I’ll be damned,” says Jonah. “There are three radiation suits in one of the storerooms; hopefully they should work in a similar way. Unfortunately nothing down here can help us stop the X-27s, but thanks to you, B
rody, we might be able to survive if we run into them. We’ll suit up and join you as soon as we patch up my leg and the Professor’s hand. We just got clipped by a little errant shrapnel when the R.A.M.s fired at us. We’ll be fine, and we’ll be there as soon as we can. Be careful, everyone, and, Bettina, keep looking for Dr. Pierce.”
“I will,” she replies.
“I’m coming to find you, Bit!” Brody shouts into the radio.
“Thank you, Brody,” she replies happily.
Brody releases the “Talk” button and smiles at me. But then his eyes widen. “Sorry, Finn, I totally forgot to mention you! I meant to say that we were coming,” he says, putting the radio to his lips again. Infinity quickly snatches it out of his hands before he has a chance to press the button.
“Hey!” Brody protests.
“Don’t be an idiot! Otto will be just fine,” grunts Infinity. “Get to the underground shelter before those spiders decide to come back this way.”
“What? Why?” asks a clearly confused Brody. He leans forward and squints, studying Infinity’s eyes. “You just called her Otto,” he says, frowning suspiciously. “And why are you going that way?” He nods back in the direction of the promenade. His expression drops as the realization dawns on him. “Finn would never leave Bit alone like that. You’re not Finn . . . are you?”
“Ding, ding, give the boy a prize,” Infinity says dryly. “Take my advice, Brody. Find somewhere to hide until this is all over, or you won’t walk out of here alive.”
And with that Infinity thrusts the walkie-talkie into his hands and turns away from him. She jogs across the grass and takes off running along the path, even faster than before.
“Where are you going?” Brody calls after her. “You can help us!”
She glances back over her shoulder at Brody as he snatches the foil blanket from the ground and begins folding it, muttering under his breath. Even when she isn’t enhancing her hearing, Infinity’s ears are sharper than mine, and I can hear every word that Brody is saying. They’re all about Infinity, and not a single sentiment is flattering. She turns back to look at the path, and a new emotion ripples through the void. It’s uncomfortable, disagreeable, but completely unmistakable. Infinity feels guilty.
