by Lee French
“Yeah, but I feel like crap.” Her voice cracked, but that might have been from the crying.
“Hey!” Bobby turned and called out, hoping some FBI agent had the crappy job of listening to them. “He needs help! Something’s wrong with him!” No one came running. Either they weren’t being monitored, or… Bobby shuddered as it occurred to him that maybe this happened on purpose. It looked like his blood had been drawn. What if Carver injected something at the same time? He didn’t get his blood drawn very often, and didn’t know for sure what the doodlydad was supposed to look like.
“Nobody—” Alice dropped over in the middle of saying something. Bobby saw her eyes roll up and her body go limp. It was the creepiest thing he’d ever witnessed.
“Oh, God. We’re all going to die,” Ai wailed.
Too panicked in his own right to reassure her, Bobby shut his eyes and curled up in a little ball. Within a minute, Ai went quiet.
Chapter 3
Bobby’s skin felt cold and clammy. His heart raced like he’d had the worst nightmare ever, but he had no such memory. Nothing happened between panicking in that cell and waking up now. An annoying beeping noise matched his racing heart beat and slowed as he woke up. He tried to move his hand to rub his eyes, but it wouldn’t do what he wanted.
It took trying to sit up and forcing his eyes to flutter open to realize he’d been strapped down. There was a strap across his chest, another one at each wrist, one over his waist, one over his thighs, and two more at his ankles. His right arm had an IV in it, and several wires snaked down into various places on his body. He could see them all by lifting his head because he’d been left naked. They didn’t even give him the modesty of a sheet over his privates.
“Hey! What’s going on?” Eyes darting around, he saw machines, white curtains, a fluorescent light surrounded by industrial ceiling tiles, and tray table with silver tools on it. He’d been strapped to something hard enough to qualify more for the word ‘board’ than ‘bed’. What kind of hospital did they take him to? One that used dentists instead of doctors?
“Where am I?” Ai’s groggy voice came from the left.
“I dunno, I just done woke up.”
“Oh God, are you strapped down, too?”
“Yeah.” He struggled against the bindings, trying to pull one or the other hand loose. “Good and stuck.”
“Calm down, you’re quite secure.” Bobby didn’t recognize this man’s voice. A figure stepped through a break in the curtain and scared the heck out of Bobby. Surgical blue covered him from head to toe, with a mask hiding his face, work glasses covering his eyes, a hat, a gown, and gloves. “The more you thrash about, the more chance you have of hurting yourself. Just relax.”
“Relax? The heck? You crazy or something? I ain’t gonna relax when I’m strapped naked to a bed ‘gainst my will!” Panic hitting him full force, Bobby bucked and strained to get free.
The covered man sighed and brandished a needle, then stuck it into the IV draining into Bobby’s arm. Within seconds, Bobby felt a soft, fuzzy malaise stealing over him. His eyelids got heavier with each passing moment. “You’ll cooperate, Mitchell, one way or another.”
The last thing he heard this time was Ai making little mewling noises of panic. He woke briefly with agonizing pain in his left foot and a light shining in his eyes. Another time, he seemed to be floating as if he’d been submerged in water. A third time, he couldn’t open his eyes and heard a woman screaming in pain and terror. The fourth time, he felt like he might really be awake; he saw the curtains and machines and ceiling with nothing weird. Without waiting to see what might happen, he launched into full-throttle struggling. If he could just get free before They came back, he’d be able to make a run for it. Or something.
Quite unexpectedly, his body exploded. Sort of. His body separated into hundreds of tiny pieces, and each one was him, while they were also not him. Something else had a kind of control over his individual parts, yet he still could direct each one. All the parts, each the size of a quarter, made a swarming cloud of tiny silver creatures that all were him, yet also not. His mind, the part that he identified as himself, floated in the middle of it all, detached. Trying to explain this to someone else would be a major challenge.
Figuring this out could wait. He was free! The straps and wires and needles couldn’t hold him down as a swarm of tiny pieces. The cloud responded to his desires, floating off the bed and flowing under the curtain. He/they found Ai, strapped naked to a board just like he’d been. Needles had been jammed into her in six different places, a tube ran under her nose. Her eyes darted around under her eyelids, making her appear to be dreaming. Could he free her like this, or would he need thumbs? He sure couldn’t carry her like this. Instinctively, he knew the little parts couldn’t handle any more weight than he could all together, and it would be harder for them to carry something. They weren’t good at that. They were good at doing lots of small things at once.
He sent his little parts to work undoing her straps and pulling out needles and wires and things. Quick and clever, they dated about, using tiny front claws to manipulate the objects in small groups. When she didn’t wake up right away, he directed the swarm to find and free anyone else who might be here. Leaving Jayce or Alice behind… He had no intention of allowing anyone else to go through any of this if he could prevent or stop it.
As they surged under the next curtain, he noticed the lights had been dimmed. It might be night, with no one around, so there might be a good chance of escaping. He found Jayce next and the swarm freed him, though the little pieces noted his skin had turned a funny color, an odd shade of brown with black streaks.
They found Alice last, and her skin had a weirder color: blue. Not a bright blue, but rather the purplish blue of a dead body. Did they kill her and not get around to disposing of the body yet? No, her bare chest rose and fell with even breaths, and the monitors still showed her heart beating slowly and steadily. He floated the swarm in closer and parts touched down to do their job. The first jumped off the moment it touched, finding her flesh ice cold. Another found the same thing and they all backed away.
This was a job for thumbs, maybe. How did he get back into his body? Could he get back into his body? Maybe he was stuck like this forever. He heard Jayce’s groggy voice say, “What now?”
Bobby desperately wanted to answer him. All the tiny mouths opened and made tiny chirps, trills and shrieks. Admittedly, a lot of tiny little mouths made all that noise at once, ensuring he’d been heard. Understood, on the other hand… He needed to be able to talk. Without a body, he couldn’t take a deep breath, clench his jaws together, or make fists. Instead, he thought about how doing each of those things felt, wanting to make them all reality and wanting to be Bobby again. The little pieces somehow understood, and he could somehow tell.
It made no sense. At the same time, it made perfect sense. Despite being separate pieces, they all made up Bobby. The swarm flew together and melted into each other, forming his body. As the pieces came together, he lost the feeling of being detached, then he stood as himself again, staring at his hand.
“I got free,” he hissed, resolving to wonder about what happened to him later. “Come help me with Alice. Something’s funky about her.”
“Her? What about me? I’m…I don’t know what I am.” Jayce stumbled into the curtain and thrashed to get through it. As soon as he did, there stood Jayce, the same brown as the board he’d been strapped to, complete with grain lines on his skin. His hair was the same, his lips, everything—really everything—but his eyes. The eyes stayed that same icy blue. “What did they do to us?”
“I got no clue. Look at Alice, though. And she’s freezing.” Bobby grasped a frozen needle and tugged. It refused to budge. He let go and rubbed his fingers to warm them. “The heck?”
Jayce unbuckled the straps, finding them cold and stiff. “This is insane.”
“Don’t I know it.” Bobby tried wiggling one needle, then finally yanked as
hard as he could. It came away with a jagged chunk of ice attached to it, the crystals appearing to be skin and blood. “Damn. She’s made outta ice now?”
Jayce pulled at a wire sensor pad and found it to be stuck, too. “I think it’s frozen to her.” He patted her face. “Alice, wake up.”
“Can I pull the tube off the needle, or will that make stuff worse?”
“I’m a security guard, I’ve got no idea. Try it and see what happens.”
Bobby nodded and pulled out tubes. For good measure, he yanked the power cords of the machines out of the outlets in the floor. “Ai, you awake yet?”
Ai groaned. “Am I dead?”
“Don’t think so. If you are, so am I, and this is the weirdest afterlife I could imagine. You’re free, see if you can walk and come this way.”
“I’m naked.”
Jayce rolled his eyes. “That’s what she’s worried about right now,” he muttered. Reaching over, he yanked a curtain down and ripped it apart, then another one. His effort produced four pieces of white cloth suitable for covering themselves up.
Bobby took one to Ai, who blushed when she saw him and wrapped it around herself immediately. She didn’t look any different, but her hand shook so fast it almost seemed blurry as she used it to avert her eyes from his own nakedness. “Sorry,” he mumbled, taking his own section of curtain and wrapping it around his waist like a towel.
Alice sucked in a breath, and Bobby turned to go back to her side. Ai took a step in that direction, then Bobby felt a breeze blow past him. The remaining curtains ruffled in the breeze and Ai disappeared.
“What was that?” Now with his own curtain fastened around his waist, Jayce pushed the still hanging curtain between them aside. “Where’s Ai?”
Another breeze blew past them and Ai reappeared. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my—”
Bobby grabbed her hands and held them firmly. “Calm down. What happened?”
Ai squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. “I went so fast I couldn’t— It was crazy.”
“This is all crazy,” Bobby pointed out. “Tell me something here that ain’t crazy.”
Alice groaned, getting everyone’s attention. “Who turned the heat up? Hey, we’re free.” She looked down at her hands and her eyes went wide. “I… I’m…”
“Icy,” Bobby supplied helpfully. “Look, this is all freaky, but we gotta get while the getting is good, yeah?”
“Seconded,” Jayce nodded. “Can you pull the needles and things off?”
Alice focused on the simple question and tugged at one. For her, the needle slid right out. “Yeah.” She quickly yanked it all out and off and hopped to her feet. Where they touched the floor, ice formed. She gulped. “My hands are itchy, like…” Putting one out, she grimaced with confused effort and a spray of ice shards shot from them. Her mouth opened and shut wordlessly.
“We’re superheroes,” Ai breathed. “Bobby, what can you do? How did you get free? ”
“Later.” He waved off the question and started moving. Someone had to. Otherwise, they’d all stand around, freaked out by themselves and each other, until someone came back and drugged them again. “There’s gotta be a door here someplace.”
“Oh! This way.” Leading by pointing, Ai walked with Bobby across a room full of computers and equipment that put him in mind of a modern torture chamber. Vague, dream-like snatches of memories made him think they’d used at least a few of these things on him.
“Where are we?” Alice looked around in horrified wonder. “The island of Dr. Moreau?”
“Don’t know what that means, but we gotta be careful getting out or else they’ll put us all down before we get anyplace.” Bobby went to the door and put his ear against it. He heard nothing. It might have been too thick to hear through. “Anybody got any bright ideas?”
“We don’t know enough about the facility to make a plan.” Jayce reached out and checked the knob. “It’s not locked, we should at least open it and take a look. If anybody sees a weapon, I’ve got experience handling them.”
“I’ve fired a rifle a time or two,” Bobby nodded, “but it’s been a while.”
Alice gulped. “I…guess…I can shoot ice at people.”
“Don’t worry, the goal here is to get out of this place, whatever it is, not to kill nobody or nothing.”
“Anybody.”
“What?” Bobby blinked at Alice, confused.
“Not to kill anybody.” She hugged herself and rocked on her heels, giving the impression she thought most of her sanity had already leaked out and she had to clutch at what remained. “You said ‘nobody’.”
Jayce rolled his eyes. “I’m opening the door.” He grabbed the knob again and turned it slowly. The silver color of the knob infected his hand, then sped up his arm. Bobby imagined an invisible man with spray paint cans assaulting him. When it reached his shoulder, it spread across him until his entire body took on that color. He tapped a thumb and forefinger together and it made a metallic tinging sound. “Huh.”
Deciding not to get sidetracked by that, Bobby took over and pushed the door open. From there, they crept through a labyrinth of epic proportions, though it had all been laid out in grids, like any other building. Ai sped ahead by accident several times. Alice left icy footprints. Jayce avoided touching things, as the weird change seemed to only happen through his hands. Nothing happened to Bobby. He decided those little parts must have been a fluke, or his imagination.
They trudged up three flights of stairs, checking each floor as they went, before finally finding a dark window. This place reminded Bobby of horror movies in sanitariums. Every door they passed made him wonder if a lunatic with rubber gloves and an axe or a chainsaw would lunge out. As they went, most sections, including the stairwell, had been left in darkness. Those few with lights had little of it, dim bulbs straining against the inky blackness of dank underground passages.
Jayce checked the first window they found for an alarm trigger and found one. “Okay,” he whispered. The room they’d slipped into had a narrow path circling around stacked filing cabinets. “We can’t go out the window without raising an alarm for whoever is monitoring the place. I could try breaking the glass, but I’m not sure what kind of alarm it is. I can just tell there is one.”
Bobby peered out the window into the night, able to make out three cars in the reflected light. “It don’t look like there’s anything to really stop us once we’re out of the building. The parking lot ain’t very big, and I don’t see no fence.”
“I’d rather get out without them noticing, if we can.” Jayce also peered out, frowning. “They’ll find we’re missing soon enough, but not as soon as if we set off the alarm. A few hours’ head start could make a very big difference.”
While they spoke, Ai poked through filing cabinets. Her newfound speed didn’t manifest during this activity, and she picked random folders to open and leaf through. “Hey,” she pulled a page out, “this one has my name on it. And here, Robert Mitchell, right? Yours is on here, too.”
Footsteps went by the door, the sounds of someone patrolling the hallway outside. They all froze, except Ai, who shoved the one page down the front of her makeshift dress. It must have made enough noise to catch the sentry’s attention, because the footsteps stopped, then approached the door. The doorknob turned and the door opened, a flashlight clicked on and shined in. By that time, all four of them had hidden among the cabinets, but the one drawer hung open. “Somebody in here?” The man’s voice was deep and, to Bobby, sounded dangerous, though that might have been his imagination.
Despite their silence, the sentry walked in to investigate. So much for getting out without a fuss. Bobby didn’t want to hurt the guy, but maybe if he got walloped without realizing what happened, they could still get away more or less clean. The guard paced to the filing cabinet and looked it over, then pushed it shut.
A whoosh of air announced that Ai took her chance and ran out the door. The guard turned to look,
shining the light. Jayce and Bobby both surged at the guard, the bigger man reaching him first and shoving him against a file cabinet. He staggered into Bobby, who followed up with a slug to the gut.
This guy had to be in good shape, because he failed to fall to the floor. Instead, he doubled over and waved the flashlight around. “Hey,” he shouted, “help!” Jayce socked him in the face, which shut him up and dropped him to the floor. Bobby grabbed what he could from the man’s pockets and belt: keys, baton, radio. Alice picked up the flashlight where the guard had dropped it.
“Come on,” Jayce hissed. “Let’s get out of here.” The three of them found themselves face to face with another guard who had his baton out already. Ai was nowhere to be seen.
This new guard stared, blinked, then pointed. “Hey, who are you? What are you doing here?”
“Leaving,” Jayce snarled as he charged forward. The guard’s eyes popped wide as he took in the sight. The metal man plowed into the poor guy, sending him flying backwards into the wall. He made a dent and fell to the floor in a heap. “Move it,” he called back. “There could be more.”
They rounded the next corner and found a gate of iron bars between them and the solid white front door. Ai stood at the gate, holding the bars and shaking them so fast she blurred. Bobby ran for the security booth where the second guard must have been and slid into the seat. He checked the camera feeds and looked over the buttons and knobs and things. In a stroke of good luck, everything had a label.
“Should we try to erase camera footage?”
“Is there an obvious way to do that?” Alice followed him in and peered around. Jayce stopped a step behind Ai, trying to calm her down.
“Um…well, it’s a computer. You’re a college student, right? You got any ideas?”
“Sure, medical students are all about hacking.”
“Hey, I barely scraped through high school, like I know what people do in college.”
“Argue later,” Jayce called in. “Just open the damned door.”
