Nico did so, touched with the finger the room next to them. It immediately filled the screen, replacing the view of the house. “How do we go back?”
“We will think of that later. Can you enlarge again?”
Nico tried to touch various parts of the room, but the camera remained the same. The room also turned slowly, and you could note various furniture, even the chandelier.
“It’s not much,” she mumbled. “I wonder how old this program is. If it is custom made.”
“Watch downstairs now?”
“It seems almost a game,” said Katia. “Of what use can it be?”
Nico started to push a little everywhere in an attempt to return to the main screen. When he put his finger on the door, the vision changed and he found himself in the hallway. “Well, you can move around even so.”
In fact, he reached the stairs; then he climbed on the first floor. He immediately pointed at the door of the living room. He found himself inside. A map he knew well started to turn.
Katia shook his head.
“No, we don’t do things right. So it’s no use. It’s just the map of the house. There must be another way.”
Nico didn’t know what to do. He began to press randomly here and there on the screen, and only by chance found it. Suddenly there appeared a drop down window with all controls, invisible until a moment before.
“Wait, let me read it!” cried Katia.
He also read col heart in his throat. “What does it means Live?”
They exchanged a look. Nico pressed it with heart in his throat. The screen changed again, and this time the room took consistency. The furniture layout changed; the glass cabinet damaged and some furniture moved. Appeared two figures, one sitting on the couch, another standing behind him. A distorted voice came.
“You should drink, you are very agitated.”
Nico was increasingly confused. “They’re not real.”
They were not shooting a camera; the figures were three-dimensional images drawn by the computer, as well as the rest of the room.
“Meaning?”
Even Katia tried to understand, and she was very puzzled. She pointed to the monitor.
“It’s them, no doubt.”
“Because it’s not a movie, then? It would have been more logical, don’t you think?”
“If there had been a camera he would notice, don’t you think? He will come up with some other system. Motion sensors, a kind of radar.”
Nico laid eyes on the image of the man. It was too small and stylized; he had no way of seeing his face, know how he felt. However, he felt the same relief, because he was still alive.
Only the image of the creature spoke, circling the room.
“What are you doing, Max? Did you think you can save them? I’ll get them when they get out. Because they will have to, you know? Sooner or later they will have to.”
Finally, the man voice came to Nico; he seemed very tired and weak.
“Why did you kill them? I’m talking about your family. Why kill them? What did they do to you?”
The creature laughed. “You still worry about this, Max?”
“I would like to know. My mother would have wanted to know. She always asked herself.”
“Why I went to her? Why I chose her?”
“This also.”
“I am sorry, but there is no reason. I chose them because they were there. A place to start.”
A moment of silence, then the man’s voice came almost imperceptible. “I should have known.”
“We must do something!” said Nico.
“And what would you do?”
He had no idea. “If we’re here there is a purpose! We need to do something!”
“I have no intention to get out of this room, forget it!”
“There are traps! He planted traps in the house to capture the creature.”
“Why doesn’t he do it, then?”
Nico shook his head, trying to reason with him. “He would find them; he would not succeed.”
“So?”
“They can be activated only from here! That’s the only explanation. That’s what he meant.”
Katia frowned. “Show me again that window.”
Nico obeyed immediately, and she read all the words in the list.
“There’s nothing there.”
Nico was discouraged.
“I must succeed! He expects me to do that I can save him!”
The look of Kate was strange. “You do care, then. Why is he so important?”
Even Nico was unable to find an answer; he only knew that he wishes with all his heart. Save him, somehow.
“Where should these traps be?”
Again he tried to remember, to reason. He pointed to the screen. “There!”
“In that room? How can you tell?”
“That’s where he has spoken about them. Where he said, he had put them.”
“Do you think that’s enough?”
“There must be a command, something.”
Katia raised the hand towards the screen, and then drew it nervous. “Makes me furious not being able to use it! That you should be the one!”
“What do you want me to do?”
“What do I know? Try! Move those damn hands!”
“You said I shouldn’t screw up.”
“Well, its different now, kill that damn son of a bitch!”
His hands trembled when he put them on the screen. He slid his fingers across the room, he almost approached the man seated, then retreated.
“What is that?” she screeched Katia.
Something had brightened, while he was passing his finger over. “I don’t know.”
The wall at the back of the room glowed red every time Nico brushed over it.
“So then?” asked Katia.
“I pressed it, but it doesn’t change anything.”
She frowned. “Red. Not good. It’s like with traffic lights. Red is not good.”
Nico wondered if his mother wasn’t degenerating, but she continued nonetheless.
“Search the green. Come on, don’t waste time! Search the green!”
Nico continued to move his hand across the screen, and then he froze.
“Blue is it ok?”
Katia seemed satisfied. “Blue is good. Yes, it’s ok. What is that?”
“The ceiling. It turns blue if I touch it.”
Kate was puzzled; she checked the monitor too.
“Now what I have to do?”
“Try pressing it.”
Nico brought the finger to the center of the ceiling and pressed. Suddenly the ceiling became entirely blue, and this remained even after he had removed his hand.
Katia smiled.
“That’s why he doesn’t use a camera because he can't manipulate you.”
“What’s next? Nothing happened. What else should I do?”
“Hit the wall, now.”
Nico tried. The wall color changed when he put near the finger, but it remained red anyway. Even after pressing it he just moved away the hand to make it turned off.
“It doesn’t work,” said Katia. “It is still red. Try something else.”
“Why he did it so difficult to use?”
“Maybe it’s not that hard. Maybe we are the ones who… never mind. Come on, look, look!”
Nico moved his finger around the room. Also tried to aim it on the simulacrum of the creature, but nothing happened. Once again he held it far away from the man. Then it happened again, suddenly.
“Before there was no!” he shouted.
Touching the floor, right in the middle, appeared a yellow circle. It had a diameter of a few meters.
“I’m sure; I touched it. Do I press it?”
Kate was uncertain. “Not even yellow is good.”
“Stop!” said Nico. “We’re not going to be influenced by traffic lights! I will press it.”
“So press it, if you’re convinced.”
Nico did, but this time nothing happened. The
circle just extinguished when he withdrew his hand.
“See, what did I tell you? Yellow is not good.”
“So what am I looking for?”
“Yellow means that you have to be careful, that something is going to change.”
“What?”
“What do I know? Maybe the trap is not ready yet; you have to load.”
“Ah!” he said and returned to lay his finger in the center of the circle. It returned to yellow.
“Not yet.”
Katia was studying the room in the monitor, puzzled. “What kind of trap has made?”
Nico screamed: “Green!” But immediately his voice cracked. “No, yellow again.”
He looked at his mother. “I swear to you, for a moment it became green!”
Katia had no doubt. “Green is good.”
“Well, not anymore and I don’t know how to get it back.”
“What is going on?”
“I have no idea.”
They put their eyes on the monitor. The man was always motionless, sitting in the chair, and he no longer spoke. The creature was walking around in the room, back and forth, and he seemed upset.
“You do not mean to do that until the end, Max! I am tired of your attitude!”
“Now!” Katia yelled.
But Nico was not quick enough and found the circle yellow.
“What does it mean?”
“It is him!” Katia shouted indicating him. “Him! When he enters the circle, it turns green!”
Nico looked incredulous. He had to agree to his mother. As soon as the creature entered the radius of the circle, it changed its color. Katia hands grabbed him a moment before he could press it.
“But…”
“It’s too early! Wait till he is in the middle, don’t rush it.”
It would happen, and it would happen soon. The creature walked and walked, constantly moving, perhaps a reaction to all the years when he was left immobile.
“Do you want to be killed, is this?” the creature shouted. “Do you hope to be able to escape? Do you think it will be fast? You don’t know how long I’ve waited for this moment, Max.”
“Be ready! Be ready!” Katia whispered.
Nico’s hand was shaking over that yellow circle. The creature was pointing right there. They saw him enter the circle and it changed its color to a bright green. Nico forced himself to wait a couple of seconds until he reached the center.
It wasn’t exactly in the center, but Katia yelled the same: “Now.”
And Nico pressed.
In one instant, the image of the room changed. The ceiling was not blue anymore, and the circle on the floor had disappeared, but there were transverse lines across the room, starting from the ceiling to join to the floor. Intertwined. The creature was still, motionless, and could be seen trespassing all these lines.
“What happened?”
Not even Katia understood well, it has been too fast. However, there had been an effect.
“It is imprisoned.”
Nico looked again. The creature was always there in the middle of the room; it did not move.
Nico jumped up.
“What are you doing?” his mother shouted.
“I’m going downstairs to see!”
“Wait! It's not over!”
He looked at her confused. “What else is there to do?”
“The wall, remember? The red one.”
Nico frowned.
“Try to press it, let’s see if it has changed.”
Nico stooped to look at the monitor. That thing was always immovable, and the man had approached it. He spent just one finger in front of the wall, and that became green too. “Should I press it? Maybe there is no need.”
“You press it; it’s for the best.”
Only at the moment in which he was in contact with the screen, Nico realized the mistake he made. The man was close to the creature, too close.
The screen changed again, in an instant. Now as many transverse lines departed from the wall, and even these pierced it the creature going to creep into the opposite wall. He searched the man with horror and saw him lying on the ground, motionless.
“No!” he yelled and darted toward the door.
“Stop!” Katia shouted after him. “We don’t know yet if…”
But it was too late; Nico had opened the door without encountering obstacles and was already running away.
10
It was the most gruesome scene that he had seen in his entire life. Years of horror movies had not prepared him for it. The creature was in the exact center of the room, half off the ground. Dozens and dozens of thin steel cables pierced it, falling diagonally from the ceiling and embedded into the floor. Other cables strained between the two walls, in the same way. Every part of the creature had cables all around: legs, arms, even the head. But the chest was in worse shape because it was the most affected part.
He was immobile and unrecognizable because of all the blood that covered him. The blood was splashed everywhere, along with shreds of his body. He looked dead, though Nico knew he couldn’t be. He looked like a fly trapped in the middle of a giant spider web.
“We did it.”
Katia’s voice came over his shoulder, she followed him. Nico was looking for the man, but he could not see him anywhere. Steel cables were strained everywhere, to advance into the room was complicated.
Nico had to do it. He tried to get around them, don’t touch them, and never lost sight of the creature’s face in fear of seeing him awaken. How would the creature body react in front of a similar debacle? He was able to regenerate, yes, but what he could do with all those wires?
He tried not to think about it, to remain focused. He was young and agile, but it was difficult anyway. At one point he managed to see the man, hidden from the couch. The cables pierced through the sofa, and a lot of furniture crumbled to pieces. He ran the last stretch almost lying on the ground. He fears that a minimum pressure on one of the cables could awaken the monster.
The man did not move, and blood covered him. Nico couldn’t figure out if it were him or the creature trapped. The fact that cables did not spear through him was nevertheless a good omen. Must have knocked down just in time.
He was hurt; he noticed right away when it reached him. The dress was cut off, on his back, and he was bleeding. The cable had cut, but without hooking him, and fortunately was not penetrated deeply. A piece of flesh on his arm torn apart. Nico tried immediately to pad it dry with a towel before he woke him up. He recovered himself, little by little, while Nico was bandaging, but not looked at him at all. He turned his eyes looking for the monster. He looked long him before speaking.
“We got to get out of here, quick!”
Nico tried to help him, but it was by no means easy. The man weighed too much and was not agile. He happened to hit the wires, on several occasions. He saw them shake.
“Fast! Fast!” Katia shouted. “It’s moving!”
They both blocked and Nico laid eyes on the creature. The regeneration was already in place because the blood that submerged him until recently was almost gone. The dress was in tatters, and the cables still inside the body. But the face was changing. Even knowing what it was Nico was struggling to believe. Four cables pierced his head: two in front, one came out through his cheek. Another had punctured his neck, just below his chin. He saw that face tingle and move a little.
“What do we do?” asked Nico. “We have to tie him down before he wakes up?”
“He is not sleeping,” said the man. “All his energy is engaged in reconstruction; he has no time for anything else.”
“It is the same. What do we do? As long as he stays there, he is blocked, no? But how can we bring him in the cellar?”
The man stared at the young still hung. As his body was regenerated, he was just a kid, always too fragile.
“What’s underneath the house?”
The question shook the man from his torpor, and he looked back at Nico.
“What do you mean?”
“There’s something under the house, I saw it. What is that?”
“Ah… the well.”
Nico frowned. “A well to put him?”
He shook his head. “My mother believed that it could be useful, she has sought long something like that. But it was unusable.”
“Why?”
“It did not give any guarantees. It is a natural well, ancient, deep more than four hundred meters. But the bottom has never been explored; we have no idea what’s down there. Maybe there’s an outlet somewhere, a link. And I don’t think the rock is enough to hold him.”
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe for a while, at first, but I am sure he would find a way back out. He would make his way by digging.”
Nico was puzzled. “Four hundred meters of rock? It will take an eternity!”
“And so does he! Even if it were to take one hundred years it would not change anything, sooner or later he will be free to bring destruction to the world. I can’t let that happen.”
“What do you want to do, so keep him chained forever?”
“As long as there is someone to guard him, the world will be safe.”
“Are you afraid that he would destroy the world? But it is absurd! He will be strong, but he is just one. You will always find someone who can stop him! If your mother had not hidden him, today he would be inside a prison, guarded at sight.”
To the man escaped a smile. “You don’t understand.”
“You’re wrong. One man alone cannot deal with such a problem! There are more experienced people to treat similar types.”
“You do not realize the danger he represents.”
“Perhaps. But even you don’t. Otherwise, you won’t keep him in the cellar.”
There was tension between them, at the very moment when they should feel more united. And they were still far from the door, tangled in cables.
“Oh my God!” Katia cried, in a muffled voice.
They paralyzed and turned right away.
“Look at his eyes! Look at his eyes!”
The man paled, and his hand shook. Nico looked at the young man imprisoned. His eyes were wide open. Only they weren’t more blacks; they were blue, crystal clear. He read the terror in those eyes; the young man began to scream. A scream of pain, excruciating.
The man grabbed Nico for an arm, restraining him. “Don’t go near him!”
The Prison Page 11
