“Your loss,” Kyva said absently. “Anyways, do you see the point I’m trying to make here, Erin? I delegate tasks to other people so I don’t have to stand there and micromanage every little project I’m working on. I’m a busy guy and I’ve got shit to do and it’s not my fault if those delegated people break the rules from time to time and get greedy. Greedy like they did on Sky Base 10 when they were trying to smuggle out a gremlin and sell it to Riggs Palmer. I have 22 billion employees spread across the galaxy that are working under me. I can’t keep them all in check, but I do try my best. Accidents happen and I do offer compensations for those affected.”
Erin snorted dismissively. “Your health plan sucks.”
“Yeah, I was never really satisfied with it…” Kyva admitted as he trailed off in thought. “Anyways, do you want the good news or the great news first?”
“I get the feeling that neither the good news nor the great news will be as they are being advertised on face value,” Erin said with a roll of her eyes. “Unless you’re about to tell me that I’m not going to be executed.”
“Oh, good god no. Nothing like that,” Kyva said with a slight frown and a shake of his head. “You’re on your own with that one, Erin. I don’t do politics, it’s soul eroding. I learned that lesson years back. I’m just a humble engineer that’s got the entire Milky Way galaxy under his thumb these days.”
Erin let out a sigh and turned her head to look out the window. “I find it fitting, that after everything I’ve gone through, after being used and abused, and after losing all my loved ones, that it somehow wasn’t enough and that I now have to deal with the galaxy’s biggest asshole coming here to treat me like shit. Fucking hell… I wish I had just died up on Sky Base 10… This is embarrassing…”
“That’s a very negative attitude to have,” Kyva said, in a demeaning tone. “I brought you a floral vase that I put together myself. I didn’t get a secretary to do that, or buy it from some fancy store along the way. I handpicked all your favorite flowers and brought them here to make you feel better. A gift from my heart to you. I can’t be that big of an asshole, can I?”
Erin briefly looked at the vase and was about to dismiss it until she realized that it was, in fact, full of all of her favorite flowers. “Wait, how did you…”
“I found one of your old social media profiles when I was reading up on you,” Kyva said quickly. “Your last post was from when you were 12, but a source is a source, right? You know that old saying. Once on the internet, forever on the internet.”
Erin just stared at the strange man and his softly glowing red eyes and had no idea where to go with him. He was operating in some other plain of reality that just so happened to occupy a similar space to hers.
“You’re pissing me off,” Erin said with hostility. “Tell me your news and screw off. I don’t even have two weeks left to live and you’re wasting my precious time.”
“No, you’re wasting your precious time,” Kyva said dismissively. “If I was in your shoes, I would have broken out of here within days of waking up.”
“In my shoes?” Erin asked in rising anger. “Is that some kind of joke? I don’t have legs you piece of crap.”
Kyva then moved in close to Erin’s face and held her chin in an act of sudden aggression. His red eyes focused on her intensely and she saw the edgings of a madman mere inches away from her face.
“I was born without eyes and yet here I am seeing you clear as day,” Kyva said dangerously. “I read in brail for 23 years before I finally figured out how to design and build these crimson beauties and here I am today at the very top of the food chain. Just because you’re a legless sob story doesn’t mean that you cannot transcend to greatness. And here’s the best part, Erin. You’ve got a little advantage living in your blood that I never had. Something my guys put in you after your life pod was recovered.”
Erin gave him a confused look as he released her from his grip. “What the hell are you blabbering on about. My life pod never ejected. I was stuck on Sky Base 10 for nearly four months.”
Kyva gave her a smug smile and shook his head while looking pleased with himself. “Is that what you believe? I guess it would have been confusing to you. We plucked you out of space, put in the implant and let it gestate for fifteen days before reconnecting the life pod and putting you back into your room. You were one of the randomly selected 5,000 people we used for the experiment. And guess what? You were the sole survivor. Most people didn’t even make it past the implant process, but you are a trooper. I won’t bore you with the details, but you’ve got a certain genetic heritage that reacts well with the spores we developed. You have the potential to be a person of unbreakable will. You essentially broke an evolutionary barrier that I’ve been trying to break down for the better part of a century. You should feel proud.”
Erin tried to be surprised, but after everything she had been through, all she could feel was numb. “Was that supposed to be the good news, or the great news?”
“Patience, Erin, I’m getting to that,” Kyva said with his toothy smile. “Let’s start with the good news. You being a success means that all I need from you now is one of your recent blood samples and the experiments with the gremlins will forever be over.”
“I highly doubt that,” Erin said, with a dry tone.
“Oh, the gremlins were simply a byproduct,” Kyva said as he puffed on his cigarette. “Failed test subjects and nothing more. You see, I have a twin sister named Kaylan that I love dearly. She was my best friend growing up and smart in a way that you wouldn’t believe. Unfortunately, she has had a terminal disease for quite a long time and what loving brother wouldn’t try to save his only sister? She’s been in a cryogenic sleep for the better part of a century and you, Erin, are the cure that I have been waiting for. The result of over 200,000 test subjects across the span of a century.”
“Then why did your security team try to kill me up on Sky Base 10?” Erin asked perceptively. “I saw their emblems. They were working for you.”
“No, they were working for Riggs Palmer,” Kyva said with a roll of his eyes and an exhale of smoke. “Those security uniforms were stolen so that they could enter Sky Command and kill my staff. I watched the black box from Sky Command personally and I’ve already sent their head CEO a rather nasty email. They were after you from the start and they knew where you would eventually end up. They really don’t want my dear sister making a recovery. This was months in the making, mind you, and those guys hid themselves well within Sky Base 10. That’s why I sent a bodyguard to keep an eye on you. One of my best double agents. I believe you knew him as Major Tom.”
“And here I thought he was my friend… What a big fucking surprise,” Erin said with the taste of bile in the back of her throat.
“We’ve all got secrets, Erin,” Kyva said with a puff of smoke. “Some big, some small, but there they are all the same. You’ve got a big secret living inside of you and that’s where the great news comes into play.”
“I can’t wait to hear this,” Erin said dully.
“More enthusiasm, Erin, this is big news,” Kyva said with his wide smile. “You’ve got a colony of spores living in your bloodstream that are linked directly to your mind and obeying every subconscious desire that you have. Think of them as organic nanobots and I can tell that they are working diligently to heal you, because let’s be honest, Erin. Not all burn victims look as good as you. You’re starting to lose scar tissue and regenerate your physique, and here’s the kicker, pun intended. Given enough time you’ll eventually grow back your legs. Especially now that Doctor Singh has removed that limiter chip from your head.”
That time, Erin was surprised and she was not sure how to take the new information. “What?”
Kyva nodded eagerly. “Yup, you’re a regenerator. Given enough time, you can perfectly heal any injury you sustain and fight off nearly any disease or poison that enters your system. This is my gift to you as thanks for enduring my cruel tests and saving m
y sister’s life.” Kyva then stood up and playfully tugged at one of the stargazers in the display of flowers he brought. “I’ll leave you to rest and take that all in so you can think on what I’ve said. We probably won’t ever see each other again and that is too bad, because it has been an absolute pleasure meeting you.”
Kyva then turned around and made his way to the airlock and as he touched the handle he heard Erin’s voice. “I don’t get it…”
“Get what?” he asked as he turned around to look at her one last time.
Erin sat up in her bed and rubbed her neck. “If you snagged my life pod after the meltdown and implanted me with the spores, then what was the point of putting me back onto Sky Base 10 for nearly four months?”
“Oh, Erin,” Kyva said with a dreamy tone. “We tried many times to get the desired results in the safety of a lab, but there was always something missing. You see, emotions are a hell of a thing. Especially fear. It makes us act crazy and do things that we once thought were impossible within our normal moral boundaries. It is within fear and bravery that we break barriers and push limits and you are a living testament to that. You never gave up, even if the thought crossed your mind several times. Your fear enabled you to survive the subversive dominance of the fungus tapping into your mind. Just as my fear of losing my sister drove me to conduct cruel experiments to save her life. Fear is a great motivator. The Sky Base 10 incident was scripted from start to finish with a few deviations here and there, but like a rat in a maze, you found your way to the end and overcame every obstacle put in your path. That bit at the end though, with the gremlins breaking into Sky Command… That was wholly unexpected and incredibly interesting to an inquiring mind such as mine. We knew that the gremlins had something of a hive mind, but… well, I won’t bore you with the details. See you around Erin. You’re one of a kind.”
Kyva left on that note and once he was through the air lock, there was shouting in the hallway and a bit of a scuffle. Moments later, the airlock opened once more and there was Doctor Singh and Joe rushing in at a frantic pace.
“Erin!” Doctor Singh shouted. “Are you alright? Did he harm you in any way?”
Erin shook her head absently as she thought about what Kyva had said and let herself become subject to some hasty examinations. As Doctor Singh and Joe went to work on her to make certain that she had not been harmed or drugged, she let her brain go to work and think. The flower vase soon came into question and Doctor Singh emptied it out to find a frequency jammer floating in the bottom. The hidden camera and listening devices had not picked up any part of their conversation and as soon as Erin became wise to that fact, she decided to keep what Kyva had said in their short conversation to herself. The less amount of people that knew, the better. She was done being an experiment and she was going to forever be the master of her own life from that point forward, no matter how short it may be.
Chapter 30 – Dead End Drive
A week had passed since Eddie and Romney had caught Lewis Donavan’s scent, but since their initial burst of leads, nearly every angle had gone cold. They thought for sure that Donavan would have made an attempt to contact Erin after the quarantine lifted, but the only thing to have happened was Erin receiving a surprise visit from Kyva Falschwesen himself. Eddie was pacing around the office cursing up a storm as he went on a rampage to squeeze all of his contacts for information. He had two heated screaming matches with Norah over the phone which resulted in nothing positive seeing as his usual lazy smile was gone and replaced by something that was furious and lobster red.
“I don’t get it,” Eddie fumed. “We were so damn close and then this guy just up and disappears on us like he’s some sort of spook. I thought we had figured it out and everything.”
“Give it a rest,” Romney said dully. “Doctor Singh paid us for our work and the investigation is over. Besides, Erin Wilco is refusing treatment and seems committed to the gas chamber. There’s nothing left for us to do.”
“I don’t buy that for a second and neither should you,” Eddie accused. “You don’t go through all that just to give up at the very end.”
“Maybe you don’t, but she did,” Romney said patiently. “We can’t help someone who refuses to help herself. She gave up after her private conversation with Kyva Falschwesen and whatever secrets she has, she’s taking them to the grave. We missed our scoop, Eddie. That’s just a fact at this point.”
“No,” Eddie seethed. “It ain’t a fact and I sure as hell ain’t accepting it. Something has stunk since the very beginning of this investigation and I want to know what it is. I want a confession and I want Lewis Donavan’s confession at that. I want it now, just as much as I wanted it a week ago. He knows what’s up and he’s laying low in wait of something big.”
Romney leaned back at the desk as he reviewed the case over and over again. “Or he could have cut and run. You’re making assumptions, Eddie. Besides, if his intent was to see Erin Wilco, then it was either going to be when the quarantine went down or when she eventually walks to the gas chamber. Until then, she’s under heavy guard and not being disturbed.”
Eddie continued to pace back and forth in frantic thought until he came to a realization and snapped his fingers as he pointed at Romney. “Hey! That’s it. He’s waiting for her to be escorted to the gas chamber. He’ll probably hit the transport truck or something. Do you think we can get the route that they’ll take to the execution site?”
Romney let out a tired sigh. “Eddie, listen to yourself and try to think reasonably. You’re grasping at anything in desperation right now and that isn’t you. No matter where Erin Wilco is in the next week, she’ll always be surrounded by guards and cameras. If Lewis Donavan didn’t breach the hospital when he had the chance, then he’s certainly not going to steal or assault a truck that’s going to have television cameras on it the entire time. Face it, we lost. It’s time to let go and move on to writing your article before it goes stale. Once Erin Wilco is dead, people will move on to hating the next high level convict and she’ll be forgotten. This is the only time to make any money on this investigation. It’s over.”
“The investigation ain’t over until I say it is!” Eddie snapped like a child.
He stomped towards the door and grabbed his coat to go take a breather as Romney stayed behind and shook his head defeatedly. Eddie hated losing, especially when victory was within grasping distance, and Romney didn’t blame him for storming out like he did. Although he kept a cool air of rationality, Romney too was pissed about the investigation coming to a standstill and being left only with a lukewarm conspiracy theory without any real citations. Sure, he could add the videos of the burn piles at the crash site and even the video of the gremlin that had spoken to them, but it would be brushed off as a hoax in an instant and chalked up to some old wartime footage and clever digital doctoring. The fact that the gremlin had tried to curl up in a light projection’s lap looked like an amateur attempt at special effects and didn’t help their case any bit either. They needed the citation of a supposed dead man attached to the story, but the guy had disappeared and that was that.
Eddie made his way to the race track to blow off some steam by watching a pack of crazies ice themselves on the track for chances at a slightly prolonged life in what had quickly become one of the Death Row Derby’s most bloody races. Right out of the gate there were two convicts shoved and impaled upon the deadly spikes along the guardrails and a gruesome decapitation when a chained whip was wrapped around a racer’s neck and the other end thrown into the spinning tire of his own armored motorcycle. The starting rush pretty much set the tone for the entire race and all throughout the ten-lap gauntlet, the convicts relentlessly beat on each other in a rolling melee of daring jumps and powerfully revving engines. Something must have gotten into the racers because there seemed to be a clear and present bloodlust going around that reached far enough to infect the crowd cheering loudly in the bleachers.
True to form, Eddie lost about 500 bucks on h
is poor choices and was left feeling even more duped than when he started. He had bet on Gogo, thinking that she still had the winning streak left in her, but she was taken down in the final lap by Speedy Pete and sent flying into the deadly out of bounds area of jagged sharp scrap steel and burning tires. By the time the race ended, she was fished out and put on a stretcher where she was pronounced dead and taken off the track where she was promptly forgotten to the annuls of time. The only reason that Eddie waited around was because Gogo was the last of two surviving racers out of the original fifteen when she went down and if she would have been pronounced alive, then technically that would have put her in second place and Eddie could have made some of his money back. As it stood, the race track had found another way to siphon the cash out of his wallet against all the odds, leaving him to sit there while staring at his ticket and wondering in what imaginative way he was going to tear it up in livid frustration. Minutes passed as Eddie became consumed with his anger, but there was a sudden uproar as the announcer came over the speaker sounding excited and possibly high on meth.
“Hold onto those tickets people! We’ve got some astonishing news,” Larry the announcer said with baiting anticipation. “I request that you turn your eager eyes towards gate 11 and witness another Death Row Derby miracle. We’ve got another racer rising from the ashes!”
Eddie could not help but look in the direction that Larry instructed and soon his eyes went wide and his heart began to beat swiftly in his chest. The Japanese convicts were helping their most prestigious racer walk on a broken leg and there at gate 11 was Gogo looking like hell, but alive and breathing. Cheers began erupting from the stands as a recently beloved racer was saved by what seemed to be the mercy of grace. The paramedics working behind the scenes had managed to restart her heart and seal some of her bloodier wounds with gauze and stitches and like hell she was going to lie on a stretcher and not claim the extension on her sentence. The entire scenario filled Eddie with an immense sense of mirth as realization entered his head and his mouth dropped open in disbelief. So much so, that his ticket fell out of his hand, completely forgotten, as he gathered up his stuff and ran back to the office at full speed to tell Romney that he may have finally figured it out.
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