by Julian North
“The whole plan. How are you using the transit system to get inside? What do you expect me to do in there besides handle a guard?”
He strummed his fingers on his leg. “I’m not the operational guy. I do the science and computer hacking. They’ll run us through the details this week, once we’re sure the breaking out has been successful. Otherwise, there’s no point in exposing the other members of the group. I don’t even know everyone.”
“So you don’t plan on telling me what I’m supposed to do, or even who will be going with me? It sounds like we might need to stop this vehicle.”
“If it makes you feel any better, I’m going with you. So are Alissa and Lara. We’re in this together.”
“Four Tuck students to break into one of the most secret and secure corporate facilities in the country? How does that make any sense?”
“We are probably the only people in the world who could manage it.” He wasn’t boasting. If anything, he seemed nervous. “Let’s break you out. I’ll get you the answers you want then. Trust me.”
I didn’t answer him.
The sedan’s lights switched off as we approached the safe house. Nythan fiddled with a terminal next to his seat. Some kind of counter-measure, I guessed.
“Who’s paying for all this? Havelock?”
Nythan rubbed his chin, considering. “What I’ve seen isn’t big bucks. My equipment is top notch, but it belongs to the life center. That includes most of the stuff in the safe house, which we, ahem—borrowed. The surveillance in the apartment is low tech stuff available to any hobbyist.” He stopped talking but kept thinking. “Getting the Fart house blueprints took some doing…as did the work to access the magnetic transit tunnel. A few other items…yeah, they cost. You don’t think this is Havelock’s show then?”
“I thought you would know who you’ve been working for.”
“‘With,’ my dear. I don’t work ‘for’ anyone,” Nythan wore a frown. “Havelock has done everything he promised so far, and it’s been fun. We’re winning, in case you haven’t noticed.”
The sedan pulled into the parking garage. Nythan led me upstairs with enough confidence that I knew he had been a frequent visitor to this place. There was more light on this trip than my last. I absorbed everything I could. Nythan used his viser to flick open the door to the safe house. I stole a quick glance at my own device, to make sure it was still working as it should. Everything inside the apartment was how I remembered it, except Mateo was gone. Doc Willis sat at the table reviewing brain images on a portable screen.
“Is that my head?”
She drummed four fingers on her visered hand. The screen image projected into three dimensions before me. It looked like an aquatic creature with a multi-colored flashlight inside.
“Cripes, a guild navigator is among us!” Nythan quipped.
Dr. Willis and I both ignored him.
“This is you, Daniela. The colors represent regions of activity. Notice the red flashes in the cerebrum. It denotes activity not present in most subjects.” Another of Doc’s fingers twitched. A new image appeared next to the first one. “This one is Marie-Ann’s, before her breakout. Watch the cerebrum. What do you see?”
“No red.”
Another finger twitch. The projection changed slightly.
“This is after the breakout.”
“It’s red.” But still less than mine. “What does that tell you?”
Dr. Willis stared at her screen again. “By itself…maybe nothing. Maybe something.”
More finger motion. A gelatinous blob appeared before my eyes, its outer membrane shimmying like the surface of the ocean on a calm day. Inside the blob, something like a tiny heartbeat pulsed.
“Wow, is that from the scans of Daniela?” Nythan asked, pushing his face to within a couple of inches of the image. “I didn’t have a chance to review the extracted cells.”
“Behold a DN10-191-enabled cell. These little guys are clustered in your larynx and vocal cords, as well as your brain, and a few other places. They have a veil which makes them appear like ordinary cells, which I stripped away for this image.”
“What is the light inside?”
“We’re not really sure,” Dr. Willis said. “There’s a lot we don’t understand about how DN10-191 manifests itself. We figured out a way to image them with special equipment. We trick them into showing themselves. But they seem to self-destruct if we try to remove or otherwise tamper with them. To tell the truth, we don’t completely understand trilling, or how it works.”
“What’s the point in showing me this, then?”
“Because those readings shouldn’t be there,” Dr. Willis said. “Not yet. We didn’t detect the presence of these cells in Marie-Ann until three days after she had broken out. They gradually increased in number over the following weeks. You seem to have more than she possessed already, and they are active in more areas.”
“She’s already broken out,” Nythan proclaimed, his gaze still fixed on the pulsing mass floating above Dr. Willis’s screen. “You’re like Kris—a natural.”
“Maybe,” the doctor said. “We still don’t know enough about the process to be sure. These are the markers we developed working with Marie-Ann. There may be others. You can’t trill as far as we know. Therefore, something is missing. We should go ahead with the process anyway.”
“Why not just test me? See what I can do?”
“It’ll take an hour to prep the monitoring equipment…and anyway, Havelock expects the process to be run. Even if you do have the cells, we want a complete breakout—we want your full potential. It takes strong emotions to free the mind. We know that part works, let’s keep to the procedure.” Dr. Willis said.
I shook my head. “No way.”
Nythan’s head whipped towards me. “You said you were ready to do whatever you had to do.”
“I’m not going to take a batch of home-brewed drugs if I don’t have to, Nythan.”
“Daniela, there is more to breaking-out than just the drugs. It’s about unlocking the barriers in your mind that prevent you from controlling the ability. The drugs facilitate that. The cells are a necessary condition, but not sufficient. The process is the only way we know how to do it.”
“Let’s try it without the drugs.”
“It won’t work,” Nythan said. “We tried it that way with Marie-Ann at first. The effect isn’t strong enough with just the images. The subject needs to have complete focus, and believe what they are seeing is real.”
“As you said, I’m not Marie-Ann,” I challenged.
“Daniela, we don’t have time to screw around. Havelock wants a demonstration tomorrow morning. Once we start preparations to go inside the Ziggurat, they can’t be stopped. One chance only. If the breakout process doesn’t work, we won’t be able to reset and try again for twenty-four hours. We’re cutting it tight as it is.”
“Nythan, I told you I’m ready to do what needs to be done. That doesn’t mean I trust you people.” I looked over at Dr. Willis, then back at Nythan. “This is the way it’s going to happen, or not at all. As you said, I’m your last chance. You want a triller, you’ll do it this way.”
“Jack me,” Nythan cursed. “Have a seat in the bedroom. I’ll fire up the equipment.”
It took Dr. Willis and Nythan about fifteen minutes to get their contraptions ready. They squabbled like a couple of kids—each confident of his or her own genius. Neither did well at delegating. Nythan wanted to do all the prep, while Dr. Willis disagreed with some of his adjustments to the scenes I was to experience.
“That makes no sense,” I heard him declare. Nythan’s voice took on a high, almost feminine pitch when he was agitated. I just wanted to get it over with.
When the great minds were satisfied, they brought in a sensory pod, unrolling it onto the bed. After a quick diagnostic, Nythan pronounced that it was ready.
“Slide inside like it’s a sleeping bag,” he told me. “Which it is, more or less. The sensory gel
will feel a bit cold at first. Maybe even slimy. Once it gets going, it’ll feel like whatever we need it to.”
I climbed inside. It was just as cold and slimy as predicted. Nythan zipped me up, while Dr. Willis brought over a bulky VR helmet.
“Don’t try to fight the virtual-reality environment or you’ll get sick. Keep looking forward as I lower it onto your head. Try not to think of this room, us, or anything else. Submit to the illusion or you’ll get sick. The effect is powerful, but that’s the journey you need to go on to unlock your potential,” Dr. Willis told me.
She didn’t wait for my consent. She slipped the thing over my head. It was like being lowered into a coffin. Everything went dark. The sensory pod must’ve activated as well, because I could no longer feel the bed, or the weight of my body. I was floating in the void.
I heard something in the distance: a bird’s song, only it wasn’t. I strained to make it out. The sound disappeared, then came again. I began to move. At first, it was like being a leaf carried on a soft gust of wind. Then the breeze became constant. My speed increased and I was flying, soaring. The sun broke through the darkness and I raced towards it, the wind in my face. Faster and faster. The circular splash of bloody light drew closer, larger. As I neared, I noticed the dark spots on its surface. They appeared and disappeared each time I blinked. Initially, the patterns appeared random. But they weren’t. Shapes appeared. More circles, more blemishes on the surface of the star, linking themselves together. I recognized the shape: my mother’s face. But not just a face. It was her.
I saw the night she disappeared. I watched her leaving the hospital where she worked, where she made me what I was. She walked quickly, her gait long, like mine. She followed a route she had walked countless times before, even in the depth of night. It was Manhattan. It was safe. But something lurked in the shadows—a predator. He wore a glove that could kill with a touch. In his heart was a dark mission. She had done wrong. Discovered a project that didn’t exist. She had told others, so she would die. They didn’t know what else she had done, about her theft, but the telling was enough to condemn her. The knowing would’ve been enough. The shadow moved closer to her, his feet silent. Faster. I yelled for her to run. To turn. She didn’t hear. Mommy! I urged myself to fly to her, to save her. I kicked, and scraped, but I was an impotent angel, not of that world. The hand moved closer. It grabbed her, a rough jerk on her shoulder. My mother crumpled to the ground. She was gone. I screamed, a cry rumbling through my body. The terrible memory of that first night she didn’t come home rushed through me; the endless worry, resurrected and relived. Then came the pain of the second night without her—the dread in my stomach, so awful that tears leaked from my eyes. It all came back to me, as fresh as a knife newly plunged into my heart. I didn’t want this.
Then she was gone, and the pain with it. I flew towards that burning star again. The dots appeared. This time I dreaded them. I didn’t want to keep going. The sensation of flying, the wind, the light, it was so powerful. I struggled to tear my thoughts away from what I saw and felt. Another image appeared on the star. Another person. Younger. A boy: Mateo. No. I closed my eyes, but I still saw him. Where was I? I wasn’t really here. I fought to remember. I tried to focus on my body, on what was inside, not the sensations bombarding me. Mateo walked on the street, a different one than our mother. It wasn’t late, but I feared for him. Mateo stared at me. His lips moved. Don’t trust these people.
The sensory pod. I remembered. The damn sensory pod. The VR helmet. They were bombarding me with sensation. That jack-A doctor had told me only part of the truth. Strong emotions. That’s what she said they needed to trigger the mind, to break out. My mind was conjuring all this though the machine. I tried to shut my eyes, my real eyes. It didn’t work. The image was still there—Mateo running. Chased by men and machines. I reached inside myself for the cold. But I had no sense of the true me. I was flying somewhere else, every sense occupied by the machine that engulfed me. I focused on what it had felt like when I slid into the pod: the cold, slimy sleeping bag. That’s where the real me was. That’s what I should be feeling. My arms and legs were encased in gel that transmitted sensations to my body. My eyes were trapped in front of a screen. None of this was real. It was a bunch of Nythan’s tricks, to cajole forth a power I already commanded. I remembered where my body was. I felt the cold. I didn’t need these lies. I closed my real eyes, and drew myself inside, grateful I hadn’t taken the drug. Then there would’ve been no escape.
The so-called breaking-out process kept running, perhaps for another hour. It was hard to tell. I kept my eyes shut. The artificially generated sensations prickled my body, but without the visual images to synergize with, they were slight things. I used the power in my cold place to remain numb. Safe in my internal cocoon, I let Nythan’s house of horrors expend itself. I knew the machine was done when light—real light, appeared on the other side of my closed eyelids.
“Daniela, can you hear us?” asked Dr. Willis. “Do you know where you are?”
I knew, but I shook my head, my eyes still shut. “What’s going on?” I asked in my best groggy voice.
“How do you feel?”
Like stabbing a knife in your heart. “My head…the pain,” I mumbled.
“It will pass,” Nythan said.
“Did it work?” I asked.
I imagined them looking at each other. “Your patterns were remarkably flat. Very different from Marie-Ann’s,” Dr. Willis said. “I don’t know. You didn’t have the drug. It’s hard to know.”
“Either way, you need to rest,” Nythan told me. “Dr. Willis and I will take shifts keeping an eye on you. Get some sleep. Havelock will be here in the morning to observe the testing. Marie-Ann took a lot longer, but I have a feeling you’ll be fine.”
“Nythan, I need to get back to Lenox,” Dr. Willis said. “I can return here when my shift ends. That’s going to be sometime around three in the morning though.”
“No problem. I’ll keep an eye on her. I’ll send my mom a ping. No worries, I got this.”
I listened to Dr. Willis’s footsteps fading away. “See you in the morning, Daniela. I sure hope this worked. Everyone is counting on you.”
I heard the door shut. She was gone. Just Nythan remained.
“I’ll be next door if you need anything,” he said. My face didn’t even twitch.
I started a slow count in my head, imagining seconds elapsing, each number in sequential order. I got to twenty thousand before I heard the rhythmic sounds of a sleeping person’s breathing from the other room. I flicked my finger beneath the covers, activating my own set of jamming countermeasures. Nythan wasn’t the only one who could play that game. Once I got the confirmation that the room wasn’t being monitored, I swung myself out of bed, checking my viser.
Time to get to work.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-FIVE
Headmaster Havelock arrived before dawn. I was already awake, sharing a fabricated coffee with Dr. Willis and Nythan on the rickety table. Havelock wore a charcoal-shaded trench coat over his usual antique suit. He didn’t arrive alone.
The man beside Havelock had an athlete’s build and posture. His suit hugged his well-cut form, the thick cheekbones of his carved face pushed at the taut skin covering them. He had round leather eyes, and large, formidable hands. Chrome streaked the edges of his flaxen hair. Not an athlete, I decided. A fighter.
“This is Dillion Macleod,” Havelock told us.
I recognized the name. The man watching me at Alexander’s house. My so-called backup.
“Are you ready, Daniela?” Havelock asked, taking off his coat. “As you no doubt have been told, we have precious few days left. The Allocators’ Ball approaches, but it’s all for nothing without a triller. We can scrub the mission, but our access route will never work again. It may be years, or never, before we find another way into the Rose-Hart Ziggurat.”
“I’m ready,” I assured him.
“Doctor Willis
told us you refused the drug,” Dillion said. It was an accusation.
“I’m ready,” I said, meeting his cold eyes.
“Doctor Willis, please proceed,” Havelock said.
“Certainly,” the doctor said. “I’ve got the equipment ready. I think we can start simple. Nythan, please stay at the table with Daniela. I’ll take your drinks.”
She positioned us facing each other. Nythan was amused. I tapped my foot softly under the table. Dr. Willis placed a metal disk, no bigger than a quarter, on my temple. It was heavier than it looked. She did the same to Nythan. With a few taps of her finger, a nearby screen began streaming data.
“All right, Daniela. Marie-Ann told us that trilling wasn’t like talking. We wasted a lot of time before we got that right. The cells on the larynx threw us off. We thought that was where she should’ve focused. But it wasn’t until we let her explore that her power manifested itself. According to Marie-Ann, the power was accessed through meditation, not raw effort. You have to relax, become aware of your body. She spoke of a sensation, a chill that she felt when her focus was at its best. When she felt that slight cold, she pushed it out through her throat, at the other person, trying to feel their mind. You should think of the command as you push outward, while you speak what you want the other person to do.”
“What should I try to make Nythan do?”
“Tell him to scratch his nose—anything you like. The real test is on my screens,” Dr. Willis said. “But let’s take it slow. Start by closing your eyes. Listen to my voice. I’ll try to guide you the way I guided Marie-Ann.”
I tuned her out. She sounded like a self-important preacher. Instead, I dwelled on my anger. That was easy. I didn’t know exactly what the people in this room wanted from me, but I was certain it was more than they had told me. They thought they could control me. They wanted me as their little bird who would sing. I offered them a taste of my power to get what I wanted.
I opened my eyes. I heard the breathing of four anxious people around me. My heart beat with anger, and power. I pushed the chill of my essence towards Nythan. It was a stream of frigid water flowing toward him. There was a stone wall between him and me, shielding him, but my essence flooded over it easily, washing over the mind hiding behind it.
