by David Estes
She blinks and the memory disappears.
Even in the dark she can see the outline of the manhole cover on the wet street, a black splotch of imperfection on an otherwise unmarred surface. She knows that beneath the opening, a monster lies in wait.
She gathers her nerves in a bundle, swallowing them down, forcing them to stop shaking her knees, to stop shivering her spine. Her fingers close on the knife tucked in the waistband in the small of her back. She breathes deeply through her nose, gritting her teeth, remembering her purpose, picturing the faces of the friends she could save by slaying this particular dragon.
Her hoverskates ease forward.
She hears a distant sound and stops, listening.
She waits, wondering if she really heard anything at all, or if she’s just desperately seeking any excuse to delay the task at hand. The sound was real, she realizes, cocking her head as it grows. The noise of the battery-powered aut-car racing by isn’t particularly loud, and yet it seems to split the silent night in two as Destiny shrinks into a crouch, hoping the passengers aren’t paying close attention to the sidewalks.
Just as it passes her, the vehicle slows, stopping suddenly halfway down the block, the doors opening upwards, like a butterfly extending its wings the split-second before it takes flight. Destiny’s heart is in her throat, pounding out a rapid rhythm. Was she spotted? And if so, will she run or fight? The decision has always been an easy one—run—but now she finds herself battling internally. Running doesn’t feel right anymore.
She draws the knife, gripping it tightly in front of her.
Two shapes emerge from the idling aut-car, one on each side. She waits for them to turn, to squint into the dark, to run toward her.
They don’t. They do the last and most unexpected thing they could do:
They open the manhole cover, which clinks when they push it aside. One of the shapes disappears, descending the very same ladder she and Harrison once struggled to climb. The second shape follows the first, pulling the cover after him, the metal shrieking on the asphalt before clanking hollowly back into place.
The Destroyer has visitors.
Are they friends or enemies? Destiny wonders, propping herself against a wall to watch and wait. She’s going to be here to see how this plays out, no matter what. This is her purpose for living, clinging to the only thread she feels like she has left, a thin gossamer strand coiling around her. Maintaining her. Keeping her alive.
I’m alive, she reminds herself.
~~~
The electric pain from the last round has receded into a dull ache that seems to permeate every centimeter of Michael Kelly’s body, becoming more a part of him than his own flesh and bones. It’s like he’s built on pain, and if it were to disappear completely, he would go with it, fading into oblivion. Despite the sense of peace and relief that comes with the thought, it isn’t welcome, not when his wife and sons are still out there trying to survive—or at least he believes they are.
“They must be,” he whispers to himself. The words come out as a frog’s croak, the voice weak and unrecognizable, even to his own ears. He knows he’s trying to comfort himself, to convince himself, but he also knows it makes sense. Why keep him alive if not to use against his family? Surely not just to torture, although the cyborg does seem to get a certain measure of glee from watching him scream and writhe.
At some point the seconds became minutes and the minutes hours, but beyond that, he doesn’t know if it’s been days, weeks, or even months since his captor last visited him. Only the small truth that he hasn’t died of thirst gives him comfort that months haven’t passed. That and the fact that his beard isn’t long enough yet. He doesn’t even notice the hunger anymore, the pit in his stomach as much a part of life as the throbbing in his head.
He knows something strange is happening. He heard the animalistic roars echo through the chambers beyond his iron door. He heard the mutterings and rantings of his captor. And then he heard silence, which was almost worse. For all he knows, the Destroyer has left him to rot. Would that be worse?
The silence is so complete and so long that he can’t stop his head from jerking up when he hears the clinks and clanks of metal shifting. Part of a dream? The final fading remnants of a waking nightmare?
No, he realizes.
It’s something…else. Something different. Muted voices, calling out. Not confident, but not quavering either. Has he finally been found? Will he finally be rescued? He dares to hope, if only because he can’t take the hopelessness any longer.
One of the voices shouts louder, “Over here!” and Michael’s stomach flips, his abs clenching, shooting daggers through him.
He groans. Yells, “Help! Please!”
Footsteps slap the stone corridor. Urgent voices draw nearer. He can’t believe this is happening and he wishes his arms weren’t restrained so he could pinch himself to confirm it’s not a particularly vindictive dream.
The sounds are right outside his door now, and he watches it intently, waiting for that climactic moment of sheer exhilaration when the iron wall is thrown back.
The footsteps pass, fading away now. The voices die out, becoming more muffled with each second that passes.
“No!” he tries to scream, but it comes out as a whisper. “I’m here. I’m here. I’m…”
Here.
Chapter Thirteen
For Harrison, the days are creeping by tortoise-slow. Getting out for a rare hour yesterday only reminded him how useless he feels cooped up in the botforsaken Lab. The urge to just take off is always there, in the back of his mind. No, he admits to himself, not the back of his mind. The front. It’s right there where he can see it, making it hard for him to sit still, and even harder for him to stop from walking out the door right now.
He catches Benson’s eye. His twin is talking to Minda, but watching him at the same time. It’s like his brother knows the impulsive thoughts he’s having. No more running off and doing crazy things, Benson had said. He was referring to Harrison’s past decisions, but he knows his brother is perceptive enough to see the gears turning in his brain, the way he can’t stop eyeing the exit.
Harrison doesn’t know why he’s like this, why immediate and drastic action is the only solution that makes any sense to him. All this planning, waiting, talking… He can’t take it much longer. He needs the next version of breaking his mother out of the asylum, the next version of hunting down his brother’s Death Match, the next version of fighting off a deranged cyborg to escape certain death.
If he doesn’t get it soon, he thinks he might go crazy. After all, crazy runs in the family.
In what feels like a synchronized fated twist of timing, his mother appears by his side. Where did she even come from? “Benson thinks a lot,” she says, which immediately chases away Harrison’s dark thoughts and pulls a gruff chuckle from his throat. A few weeks ago he wouldn’t have thought his mother and he had anything in common; now it seems like they have everything in common.
“He does,” he agrees. “It’s probably good though. We don’t want anything to go wrong.”
“With my mission?” she says.
And there it is, Harrison realizes. The reason he hasn’t given in to the impulse to rush off into the night after Destiny. His mother and brother are still here. In a few days they’ll be embarking on an insane mission. He can’t abandon them before that. Without any clue as to Destiny’s whereabouts, it’s highly unlikely he’d be able to find her and make it back to help them. And he has to help them.
So he’ll persevere a bit longer. Just a few more days. He’ll stare at a holo-screen, he’ll pace the halls, he’ll eat and sleep and breathe away one second at a time. And then after they’ve erased Pop Con, he’ll find Destiny.
“Yeah,” he says. “Benson and Minda are planning every detail of your mission, Mom. So you’ll be safe. But it’s not your mission. It’s our mission. All of ours. You’re not alone.”
She blinks, her expression one of conf
usion. “Of course it is, Son,” she says, taking his arm. “I’m the key, remember?”
~~~
Although Benson thinks he’s finally gotten through to his brother, he’s not going to take an eye off of him for the next few days.
Ever since he stood up to him, he feels less intimidated by Harrison. At least as strong as him. Not physically, but mentally. Emotionally. They’ve both been through a lot. But they’ve both survived, which makes them equals in every sense of the word. Despite the fact that the very thought makes Benson uncomfortably cocky (is this how Harrison feels ALL the time?), it also makes him feel more alive. Real. Like his whole life he’s been nothing more than the ghostly idea of a person, and now he’s finally become one. It’s a good feeling, and he wishes his old friends were around to share it with.
The thought of them makes his stomach hurt. Not only Luce—although thinking of her seems to squeeze his heart to half its size—but Check and Rod and Gonzo, too. And Geoffrey. A boy too young to have lost the last of his family. Benson may have been through a lot, but he hasn’t lost his family. Quite the contrary. He’s found them.
“Benson?” Minda says, squinting at him, her new yellow eyes boring into his gaze. He’s been gone for a few minutes, not hearing anything she’s said.
“Sorry, I—” He sighs, and she tracks his stare to where Harrison is speaking to Janice.
“It’s okay to be distracted,” she says. “I think everyone is.”
“No,” he says, the word coming out harsher than he intended. She raises an eyebrow. “I mean, I know we’re all distracted, but we can’t be. We have to be focused if we’re going to pull this off.”
“Then focus,” she says. “Do you want to go over the plan one more time?”
He nods, and she starts through it again. The date of the rock concert of the year, held annually by the Department of Population Control to allow their employees the much-needed chance to blow off some steam. The concert, which is headlined by the biggest band of the decade, Sonic Boom, will take place in the usual venue, an enormous concert hall adjacent to Pop Con headquarters. The arena is usually used as a conference center for quarterly summits on Population Control. Although most of the tickets are offered only to government employees, Minda’s network of contacts within the government managed to procure enough tickets for everyone included in the mission.
The venue is connected to the main Pop Con building through a series of secure corridors. During the event, these corridors would typically be locked and heavily guarded. Minda apparently has a way around that, although she seems determined to maintain the secrecy of her insiders.
For two hours, they study the diagrams and building schematics, memorizing every possible route to the newly built datacenter, deciding on contingency plans in the event that one or more of the courses are unavailable. Once in the datacenter, it will be up to Janice.
“And she has to be there, on site?” Benson confirms for the umpteenth time.
“You could learn the passcode, and we might be able to fake her retinal signature, but the fingerprint reader is nearly impossible to trick. Even if we cut off her finger”—Benson frowns deeply—“we wouldn’t be able to maintain the skin warmth required.”
“I wasn’t considering chopping off my mom’s finger,” Benson clarifies.
“Well, we were,” Minda says. Before Benson can object, she continues. “We’ve considered all possibilities, no matter how crazy or awful. This is it. This is the endgame. The choices we make now will alter the course of history forever.”
Although Benson doesn’t like thinking about the fact that Minda and other members of the consortium actually discussed removing Janice’s finger, he understands what she means. He’s a late-comer to a project that’s been planned for years.
A plan his father came up with.
“This is what my father wanted, wasn’t it?” Benson asks.
Minda shakes her head. “Not like this,” she says. “He never wanted you or Janice involved. Certainly not Harrison. He was doing it to give you your lives back.”
“While ending his.” Benson can’t hide the sharpness in his tone. The bitterness. He feels like his father never included his own life in his grand plans.
“”He knew he might die, yes,” Minda says. “But it was never a foregone conclusion. And anyway…”
She trails off. Benson waits, trying to grab her unspoken words from wherever they’re hiding. “Anyway what?” Benson asks.
“Nothing,” Minda says. “Your father would want us to do this.”
“Would have wanted us,” Benson corrects. “He’s dead, remember?”
“Yes, of course,” Minda says, looking away. She turns, hiding her expression from him, and he gets the distinct impression she’s hiding something.
“Hey,” he says, but she walks away, refusing to look back.
~~~
The news comes just after they finish lunch. “Inspectors!” Minda hisses, listening into her earpiece. “Positions!”
Benson and Harrison stare numbly at each other and Janice ducks, covering her head, as there’s a mad scramble of activity. “Scientists” race to their lab tables, turning on burners and pretending to examine slides under their ion microscopes. Benson can see the telltale bulge of their weapons under their white lab coats.
“You,” Minda says, turning to them. “Come with me. This is not a drill.”
They pull Janice to her feet and urge her along, staying close behind Minda. Benson wonders what the chances are that only a few days after they arrived here they’d have a random inspection. Pretty low, he suspects, unless it’s not as “random” as it seems.
Minda stops at a door marked Dangerous Chemicals: Unauthorized Entry is Strictly Forbidden. She opens the door and ushers them inside. “Umm, is this a good idea?” Harrison asks, reading the sign. “I’d rather not grow a third arm or anything weird.”
“It’s fake,” she says, meaning the warning. The information does make Benson feel better about going inside, even if she might be lying. Where better to hide a few criminals than with hazardous materials?
Regardless, they all move inside and Minda flicks on a flashlight, which she shines against the far wall. The cramped space is lined with shelves, stacked with crates of vials of various colored liquids. Each one is stamped with a skull and crossbones and the warning Fragile: Handle with Care.
“Hurry,” Minda advises, guiding them around boxes and crates to the back, where there’s another door, this one padlocked. It has the most serious notice yet:
Extremely Sensitive Materials Inside. Do Not Enter Without Full Body Protection Gear.
“Seriously?” Harrison says as Minda produces a key for the lock, twisting it until it clicks. The door swings open, revealing only a dark void.
“A ruse,” she promises.
“I’ll come for revenge if my future babies turn out to be aliens,” Harrison promises back.
“Just get in. There’s not much time.” As if to prove her point, the sounds of heavy footsteps creak the floor above them. Voices carry to their ears, muffled but full of authority. She shoves them inside, not even bothering to shine her light to guide them.
Inside, Benson turns to ask Minda a question, but the door slams in his face. The padlock jangles and the lock clicks back into place. “Awesome,” Harrison mutters in the dark. “She couldn’t have let us borrow her flashlight?”
“We should be quiet,” Benson says. “Just in case.”
“Like mice,” Janice agrees.
“I’m thirsty,” Harrison says, ignoring them. “Should we look for something to drink? Surely not everything in here will kill us.”
Benson ignores him, hoping his brother will eventually shut himself up without further urging. He does, and an eerie silence sets in, thick and soupy. Something brushes against his arm, his mother’s fingers sliding down into his hand. He grips them firmly, trying to be comforting.
“Stop trying to hold my hand, Bense,” H
arrison says.
Janice giggles. “It’s me. I’m holding both your hands. I can finally comfort you.”
Although Benson finds it interesting that his mother did it to comfort them rather than herself, he says, “Shh.”
It’s unnecessary, however, because they all clam up the moment they hear noises, much louder than before. He squeezes Janice’s hand harder, without even realizing it.
A door thuds and a familiar voice carries through the padlocked door. One of the pretend scientists, a woman Minda introduced Benson to when they first arrived. Sheila something or other. “You’re welcome to inspect the storage room, but please do not disturb any of the materials. They’re extremely volatile and dangerous if handled.”
Someone grunts out an indecipherable response, and then several sets of feet stomp across the space slowly, presumably shining lights in every corner.
Janice’s and Harrison’s breathing is muted and even, almost impossible to hear, while his own sounds ragged and heavy, like wind shrieking through an open window. He holds his breath, counting off the seconds in his head. One-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three-one-thousand…
He can hear his blood rushing in his head, his heart beating in his chest, the scrape of his shoes on the floor when he inadvertently shifts his feet.
“What’s in here?” the same deep voice asks, and Benson knows without a doubt in his mind that the man means their padlocked room.
“What the sign says,” Sheila says. “That’s the worst of the worst stuff we play with in the lab. Trust me, you don’t want to mess around with it.”
There’s a moment of silence, and for a single gleeful second—six-one-thousand—Benson thinks they might’ve left…and then—
Slam!
“What the hell are you doing?” Sheila cries.
“That’s for us to decide,” the man growls.
