Forgiven

by Gina Detwiler

  She shot me. But it wasn’t a bullet. It was a tranq dart.

  As I struggle to regain my footing another dart hits me in the leg. I ignore it, intent on escape. I’m on my feet but it’s like running through molasses, I can’t seem to get anywhere. The rail seems too far away, the dock receding. I stumble on, reaching for the rail as another dart hits me in the shoulder. My blood is on fire, a heavy weight crushes my muscles. I fall. Can’t get up again.

  Everything around me spins as if I’ve ridden on a very fast merry-go-round for too long. Through bleary vision, I see the three men gather around me. Two of them hold me down, while the other one binds my hands and feet. Between their faces, Lucille appears and finally, Speer himself.

  He speaks, his voice coming to me as if through a deep sea. “Jared, you don’t look well. Seasick? I have a patch for that.”

  He laughs. I try to respond but my mouth doesn’t move. My body is frozen.

  “How much Quelicin did you use?” he asks Lucille.

  “Enough to put down an elephant. Len wasn’t sure how much it would take, but we didn’t want to kill him, either.”

  “Ha! That’s amazing. How long does it last?”

  “Five minutes, perhaps.”

  “Okay. Get him below.”

  The guards pick me up and manhandle me down a steep staircase to below-deck. I try to fight, but my attempts have no real effect. Quelicin must be a paralytic. They carry me to a windowless cabin.

  “Over there.” A man with silver hair points to a bunk. The men dump me onto the mattress and strap me down. The silver-haired man looks into my face and smiles.

  “Hi Jared, I’m Dr. Wilder. Relax now.” He wraps a tourniquet on my arm and prepares an IV. He intends to inject me with something else. I focus all my energy on the arm and manage to raise it, snap the straps, and jerk out of the doctor’s grip. The men are on me in an instant and force my arm down to the bunk.

  “Whoa, there, Thor, relax,” Wilder says. “There’s no point in fighting it. This won’t cause any long-term damage, I promise.”

  “What’s…” I can’t form any more words. The needle pinches my arm.

  “Don’t try to talk. I’m hooking you up to a sedative, along with a paralytic, to help you stay calm. For your own safety.” He checks that the IV is working and hooks the bag to a pole beside me. I flex my arm but I can’t dislodge the needle.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” says Wilder in a confidential tone. “The paralytic works on a trigger mechanism. If you try to move too much, it will release another dose. Too much might cause cardiac arrest, even in you. So try to stay as still as possible.” He pats my shoulder. “Good man. I’ll check on you later.”

  He exits the room with the three men leaving Lucille alone with me. She sits on the bunk and runs her hands up and down my arms, my chest, and my face.

  “How beautiful you are,” she whispers.

  “What…do…you…want…” I struggle to speak, but the words come out as grunts, gibberish.

  Lucille smiles and bends over to brush her lips against mine. My heart quickens, though I can do nothing. In all my life I have never felt this helpless, not even in the Abyss. “How I’ve wanted to do that since I first saw you.” She straightens with a small sigh. “I’ll be back soon. Don’t go away.”

  She gets up to leave. Her laughter echoes until the door closes and the lock clicks into place.

  I am alone to ponder what a complete idiot I have been.

  20: Giant

  Grace

  Sorry, can’t talk. Everything’s fine, be home soon.

  After calling all morning, this is the only response I get. After that, his phone goes straight to voicemail.

  Something is very wrong.

  I drive to the Hobbit Hole to find Emilia pacing with worry—highly unusual—and Ralph hunched over Ripley’s shoulder in the Lair, also unusual. The blood drains from my face.

  “Where is he?”

  “Grace.” Emilia gives me a hug. “We don’t know. A man from the airport called and said the van was there and Jared had left the keys.”

  “Airport?”

  I break away from her and race into the Lair. It’s a place I avoid, mainly due to the smell. But right now, I don’t care. Ripley and Ralph are staring at the computer screen with anxious faces.

  “What’s going on?”

  Ralph straightens. “That’s what we’re trying to find out. The FBO says that a man matching Jared’s description flew out early this morning on a private jet headed to Newark.”

  “That’s insane. Why would Jared do that?”

  “I checked the tail number,” says Ripley. “It’s owned by a company called Agro Solutions, which is the entity that owns Silo City. And guess who the major shareholder is?”

  “Darwin Speer.” I whisper the name.

  “Nope. William Hyde. As in the Hyde Foundation. As in the Interlaken Group.”

  “So William Hyde is the secret “bigwig” who owns Silo City, where Jared lived for nine months, unknown to anyone.”

  “Yep. They’re all tied in together. I told you this was a conspiracy.”

  “I still don’t get why Jared got on that plane without telling any of us where he was going. This doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Maybe this is why.” Ripley points to the video on the screen. It’s dark and grainy, a night sky with a spiraling blue light in the center.

  “What is that?”

  “It appeared last night over Tromsø. Right before a massive electrical storm that caused dozens of fires.”

  Tromsø. A stone’s throw from the Abyss.

  “Whoa, that’s weird,” I say. “What caused that?”

  “There are a million theories. But I think it could have something to do with EISCAT.”

  “What’s EISCAT?”

  Ripley clicks his mouse to display what looks like a forest of tall antennae in the middle of a remote valley. “This is EISCAT, near Tromsø. It’s basically a very advanced radar system. The antennae broadcast high-wattage beams of electromagnetic energy into the ionosphere. These beams are so powerful, they can actually push out the envelope of the ionosphere which could lead to all sorts of problems I don’t even want to think about. I mean, the ionosphere is our shield, the bubble around the earth that keeps us from being destroyed by cosmic rays. Messing with it is simply asking for trouble if you want my opinion.”

  “Is this what caused the lightning?” Ralph asks.

  “Well, it could be. There are all sorts of speculation as to what they’re actually doing there, like changing weather patterns and conducting experiments for military uses. But see, these beams could deflect back into the atmosphere in bolts of electricity a million times more powerful than natural lightning.”

  “What does that have to do with Jared?” I demand.

  “I have a theory.” Ripley changes the screen to an aerial photo of CERN. “EISCAT’s radar system can detect tunnels and underground metal reserves a thousand miles away. If the LHC at CERN happened to produce a super-massive particle collision at the same time EISCAT was beaming… Well, it’s possible that energy could have surged into the beams and been deflected back to earth. Those beams can go through solid rock and directly to the earth’s core, with enough power.”

  “In the earth? You mean, into the Abyss?” Waves of heat shoot through my veins.

  Ripley shrugged. “It’s only a theory. But if Jared saw this and thought that’s what was happening, well…”

  “And he would have thought Speer had something to do with it?” I take my phone out and press Jared’s number. Again, it goes straight to voicemail. I want to throw it on the floor and stomp on it. Instead, I scream at the screen.

  “Jared! Stop this craziness. You’ll get yourself killed. Come home right now so I can kill you myself.” Ralph takes the phone from my hand. “Where he is now? Does he have a bracelet like me? Can you trace him?”

  He shakes his head.

  “D
arwin Speer’s yacht left the marina shortly after that plane landed in Newark,” Rip says. “I’ll bet you anything Jared is on it.”

  “Why didn’t he tell us?” I cannot make sense of any of this. All I had was one text. Be back soon. Now, even that seemed to be a lie.

  I spin and run out of the Lair to collapse on the couch. My mind goes in crazy circles, unable to grasp what is happening. Unable to believe it.

  Jared has left me—left all of us.

  Ralph sits beside me and puts a hand on my back. “We’ll find him,” he says in his soothing voice. “Ripley has ways, I assure you.”

  Emilia sits on my other side. “We have to trust Jared now. That he knows what he’s doing.”

  “Why didn’t he tell me?”

  “My guess is he wanted to protect you.”

  “From what?”

  Emilia sighs. “You’d know better than anyone, wouldn’t you?”

  I wipe my eyes. “Yesterday, we had a birthday party. Today…everything is crashing around us. Why is this happening? Is God mad at us?”

  “Just because bad things happen, doesn’t mean it’s God’s will,” Ralph says. “What we do know is that none of this is a surprise to Him.”

  “But Jared—”

  “Can take care of himself. He’s a grown up, older than all of us.” Ralph sighs. “Sometimes, even I forget how much living he’s done. Whatever he’s doing, I’m sure he has a good reason. And he will be fine.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “Because I know him. And I trust in the Lord—as you should.”

  “But Jared is not—” I stop short of using the word. Protected.

  “This is the time to trust, Grace. When we have no other answers.” Ralph pats my shoulder.

  “I have an idea,” Emilia stands. “Come into the kitchen and I will make you a nice cup of hot chocolate. It always makes you feel better.”

  I don’t want hot chocolate, but I can’t think of anything better to do. I follow her into the kitchen, where she starts warming milk on the stove. I reach for the jar of her “secret” mix.

  “Whipped cream is in the fridge.”

  I find it and spray a huge mound into a mug before I sit at the table. The kitchen is like a cross between the Flintstones and the Jetsons with a rustic stone arched ceiling and ultra-modern electric appliances. I still haven’t figured out how Ralph and Emilia managed to get the Hobbit Hole built in the first place. It is one of the many mysteries of this peculiar family.

  Emilia pours the chocolate into my mug of cream and sits opposite me. She hasn’t changed at all from the day I met her at the Mansion, right after the shooting. She’s short and a little on the plump side, with her hair always in a tight bun, and wears round glasses reminiscent of Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle. And like Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, she looks like a benign grandma with untold powers of intuition and maybe even magic.

  “So I suppose you aren’t worried either.” I sip the hot chocolate, and for some odd reason, it does make me feel better.

  “Worry does not add one day to a person’s life. Jesus said that.”

  It isn’t exactly a “no.”

  “What do you think is going on, Emilia?”

  “I’m not sure, of course. But all this reminds me of something. Do you know the story of Nimrod in the Bible?”

  “Uh…the guy who built the Tower of Babel?”

  “Indeed. A great grandson of Noah. A very proud man, a ruler, a mighty hunter, a king. Nimrod considered himself greater than God.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “He tried to build a tower to heaven. But God did not care for that idea.” She purses her lips. “He confused the language of the people so they couldn’t communicate with each other. They scattered all over the earth and the tower was never finished. Nimrod ended up the ruler of no one.”

  “Yeah, so…what’s your point?”

  “All giants will fall.”

  “But Jared is a giant too.” I say. He may not look like one, but he is a Nephilim and they were literal giants, back in the day.

  Emilia smiles and pats my hand. “He is a giant on bended knee.”

  “I have the impression you and Ralph know what this is all about, and won’t tell me because you think I’ll freak out.”

  “Grace, the best thing you can do for Jared now is to pray for him. Pray the Lord will be merciful. And just.”

  Two things that don’t seem able to coexist.

  “It’s not enough,” I say. “We have to find him. We have to help him. I won’t sit around here like I did the last time he was gone. I can’t go through that again. I have to do something.”

  “Like what?”

  “That’s what I have to figure out.” I stare into my hot chocolate and try not to cry.

  Emilia puts her hand on mine. “Sometimes it is necessary to simply…be still.”

  21: Houdini

  Jared

  I am learning to be still.

  I lie in the dark and will my body not to move. My legs and arms burn from the paralytic flowing through my veins. I fight sleep, but the drugs are strong. My dreams are horror stories.

  “How are you today, Jared?”

  I open my eyes. Dr. Wilder stares down at me, a broad smile plastered on his face.

  Is he kidding?

  “I guess that was a dumb question.” He chuckles a little and listens to my heart with a stethoscope. “Very strong. That’s good. I’ll unhook the IV now. You will be able to move around in a few minutes, but be careful. You’ll be weak and dizzy for a while. Take a shower. There’s a change of clothes here for you. We will be back in about twenty minutes to take you up top.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Ten-thirty in the morning.”

  I’ve been here for over twenty-four hours.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “No.”

  “Well, you need to eat. I’ll see you in twenty minutes.”

  When he’s gone, I test my legs and arms. I can move, although my muscles still burn. After a few minutes, I put my legs over the side of the bunk and stand slowly, wavering a little. My vision blackens, then clears. I hold onto the wall and creep toward the bathroom. In the shower, I let the water blast my face and body. It feels like needles on my skin, but I welcome the pain—it reminds me I’m alive. I dry off and put on the clothes left for me. Khakis and a black T-shirt with Speer Enterprises’ golden-spear logo on the breast.

  I sit on the bed and wait while I try to get my bearings. My backpack is gone. I have no phone. Grace and Ralph are probably going crazy by now but I have no way to contact them. Why had I not told them where I was going?

  Dr. Wilder returns accompanied by two of the bodyguards from day one. They look prepared for a fight but I don’t have the energy to give them one.

  “All set?” The doctor smiles. “Follow me.”

  I stand and follow him with the two guards close behind. I barely have the breath to climb the steps, and I pause at the top, actually dizzy. Weakness is a new sensation for me.

  “Easy there,” Wilder says. “Take your time.”

  When I’m ready, he leads me to the dining room. The light is too bright after so long in the dim bunk room. I blink several times, convinced I must be seeing things.

  Seated at the table with Speer are Harry Ravel and Shannon Snow.

  What are they doing here?

  “Hey, Jared,” Speer rises to greet me. He’s smiling but there’s a hint of nervousness in his eyes as he gauges my reaction. “Glad to see you’re feeling better. Seasickness is a bear, right?” He barks out a laugh. “Sit down. Sit.”

  Wilder guides me into a chair at the far end of the table. The guards strap me to the chair with a belt around the waist and zip ties around my legs. My arms are free. I’d like to turn the table over, but I know better than to waste my energy on futile gestures.

  Owen places a plate heaped with eggs and bacon in front of me. The smell makes me nauseous. Two other people
—an older man and woman—sit at the table across from Harry and Shannon. The woman moves her fork absently around her plate. The man leans on the arm of his chair and watches me intently.

  “Eat,” Speer says. “You must be starving.”

  Harry shifts in his chair, but Shannon smiles and lifts her coffee cup to her lips.

  “Jared Lorn,” she murmurs. “Now it’s your turn to be tied up. How do you like it?”

  Harry looks at her, confused.

  Speer continues. “You’ve met Len, of course. And you already know Harry and Shannon. Small world, right? And this is Marta Keller.” He indicates the woman. “The Director of the Global Initiative on Biotechnology based in Geneva and one of my closest friends.”

  “I’m pleased to meet you.” She is middle-aged and slight, with a thick German accent. Her eyes dart quickly away from me. She’s disconcerted by the way I was brought in.

  “And this man,” Speer continues, pointing to the other man, “you probably already know too, because he’s more famous than I am. William Hyde, Founder of the Hyde Foundation, the largest philanthropic organization in the world.”

  Hyde’s eyes are cold and assessing. Unlike Marta, he seems unmoved by the way I am being treated. I sense a very disturbing presence around him.

  “Bill and I co-founded the Interlaken Group.”

  “I’ve heard of it,” I say. “Kind of like the Illuminati.”

  Speer erupts in wheezy laughter. “No, no, not like that. This isn’t one of those weird secret societies where rich old men dance around a fire half naked and worship a giant owl. The Interlaken Group is totally different. This is the most forward-thinking group I’ve ever had the privilege to be a part of. The members are devoted to the one noble purpose of saving mankind. They know that our true salvation must come through knowledge. Utilizing advanced technologies to deal with the problems we face in the twenty-first century.”

  “And so, in the interest of science and saving the world, I am tied to a chair.”

  “Sorry about the restraints. I wanted to do this another way but we figured you wouldn’t be cooperative right away. And knowing your unique abilities, it was necessary to…disarm you.”