Magisterium

by Jeff Hirsch

  Glenn knew she should go get her father, but if she did her mother might be long gone by the time they got back. What if she got lost and they couldn’t find her? Glenn set off across the yard and into the forest.

  Her mother moved like a ghost through the trees, a flash of white that appeared and disappeared. Glenn struggled to keep up. She called out to her again and again but her mother didn’t stop, didn’t look back.

  Finally, Glenn saw the bloody glow of the red border lights. Glenn paused at the concrete towers that supported the lights. She had never set foot on the other side of the border. She knew it was forbidden, but what if her mother was in trouble? Glenn crossed over, finally coming to a choked section of the woods where trees and hedgerows covered in thorns surrounded her.

  6

  Her mother was a few feet away, the back of her white gown slicked with the border lights’ red glow.

  “Mom?”

  That’s when Glenn heard the voices. At first she thought it was the wind, but as she drew closer it sounded more like whispers. They grew louder until it was a steady stream without pause or inflection.

  There was something else out there too, something huge and dark, looming in the trees in front of her mother.

  “Mommy?” Glenn asked. “What are you doing?”

  The whispering stopped.

  Her mother slowly turned. Her pale skin glowed. Her eyes had turned a rimless black and were enormous, unnatural, and as thoughtless and feral as some monstrous bird. There wasn’t the slightest hint of recognition in them.

  Glenn turned and ran for the border, but she stumbled when her foot caught on a root and she went tumbling into the leaves, falling on her back. Somehow her mother split the distance between them,

  moving thirty feet in what seemed like seconds. She was reaching out to Glenn, her black eyes huge. Icy fingers fell on her shoulder as something inhuman roared in the night.

  After that, everything went black.

  Glenn sat up, her heart hammering against her chest. She twisted the blanket in her fist until her knuckles went white. It was a dream, she told herself. To believe anything else was the first step into madness.

  But Glenn could still feel the cold of the forest floor beneath her feet and hear the voices as if they were at her shoulder.

  But if it wasn’t a dream, what was it?

  There was a crash outside, and a thin shadow rose up onto the roof and approached her window. Her heart seized. She pushed herself against the wall, drawing the covers over her. The shape took form, long thin arms and spindly legs. It reached her window and crouched down. Its head turned one way and then the other, and then it raised one fist and pounded at the glass. Hopkins leapt to the edge of the bed, hissing with his teeth bared. Too scared to run, Glenn peered out and tried to make sense of the shape, but all she could see was an outline of legs, arms, and … a Mohawk.

  “What’s your problem, Kevin?!” Glenn shouted, tearing off the bed. “So help me, I will kill you!” She threw the window open, letting in a blast of frigid air. “What are you doing?”

  “You have to pack your things,” he announced as he shoved past Glenn into her room. “You and your dad.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Kevin took her by the arm. “You have to run,” he insisted. “Now!

  They’re coming for you!”

  “Run? What are you talking about? Who’s coming?”

  “Good, you’re dressed. Get your shoes.” Kevin snatched Glenn’s jacket off the bed and pushed it at her. Hopkins howled and swiped at his arm. “Ow. Hopkins!”

  “Kevin!”

  “Let’s go! They’ll be here any second!”

  “Who?”

  Kevin grabbed Glenn’s shoes as he herded her out into the hall.

  “Is your dad in his workshop?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Kevin drove her on ahead of him, down the stairs and outside.

  There was a yowl from behind them as Hopkins followed.

  “No, Hopkins, stay there.”

  Glenn snatched her shoes from Kevin and stumbled into them as he dragged her down the hill, his hand clamped on her arm.

  “Mr. Morgan!” he called.

  Dad was at the door when they got there. He looked no better than he had the previous night, manic and disheveled. Glenn found she couldn’t meet his eyes.

  “What’s going on? Glenn, are you okay? Kevin, what are you

  doing here?”

  “You have to run, Mr. Morgan,” Kevin said, catching his breath.

  “Now! No time to talk.”

  Glenn tore her wrist out of Kevin’s grasp. “We’re not going anywhere unless you tell us what’s going on.”

  Kevin saw he was beat. “As soon as you left my dad’s office he started making calls. A bunch of them. The last one was to Carraway at Science. They talked about some project and then I heard them mention an Authority warrant. Mr. Morgan, they’re coming to arrest you.”

  “Arrest him?” Glenn was stunned. She wanted to make Dr.

  Kapoor see that her dad needed help, not that he was dangerous.

  “Glenn, why were you with Dr. Kapoor?” her father asked.

  “What were you talking to him about?”

  “I–I can fix this,” Glenn stammered. “I can talk to him. It’s a mistake.”

  “Glenn, what did you do?”

  She met her father’s eyes for the first time that night. “I was worried. After our talk last night, I went to see Dr. Kapoor.”

  “To talk to him about me?”

  Glenn’s throat seemed to have closed up. She nodded.

  “You didn’t tell him about The Project, did you?”

  “Dad — ”

  “Did you?”

  “I mentioned it, but — ”

  “YOU ARE UNDER ARREST.”

  They all turned as a thin rectangle slid into view, hovering silently above the trees. It was maybe eight feet long and six wide, with skin the featureless gray of a shark’s. An Authority skiff. Its underside exploded with a light so intense it flooded the entire yard and hit all of their bodies like something physical.

  Dad ducked into the workshop. There was a clatter of metal from inside.

  The skiff’s loudspeakers boomed as it descended. “YOU ARE

  UNDER ARREST.”

  Glenn and Kevin followed Dad inside, hoping to escape the noise and light, but it was useless. The skiff’s beams tore through the gaps in the workshop’s walls. Inside, Dad was huddled in a corner in front of a wadded-up pile of papers. Glenn smelled smoke.

  “Notes in the other basement computers,” he mumbled as he

  worked. “No time. Have to hope the encryption is enough.”

  “Dad! What are you doing?”

  The fire caught quickly, an orange glow barely visible amidst the blare of white. Dad turned to the machine and set about ripping out wires. When he was done, he knelt by the generator and started pressing buttons until its blue glow intensified and it started to hum loudly.

  “We’ll have to go across the border,” Dad said, pushing Kevin and Glenn out of the workshop. “It’s the only way. They won’t follow us there.”

  “Dad, wait, maybe … maybe this will be okay. Maybe someone

  can help — ”

  “I don’t need their help!” Dad roared, his face red and lined. He took Glenn by her shoulders. “I understand what you think, but you’re about to find out the truth.”

  The skiff’s lights blinked out. There was a smooth mechanical hiss and Glenn saw over her father’s shoulder that the Authority skiff had begun to off-load its drones.

  “I wish I had more time to explain. Here.” He took Glenn’s hand and pushed something over her fingers and onto her wrist. It was the bracelet with the red jewel in the center. “Kevin, go home.”

  “No! I want to help! I want — ”

  “There’s nothing you can do! If you try, they’ll just take you too.

  Glenn, let’s
go.”

  Glenn’s dad took her by the hand and pulled her along toward the forest. Behind them a swarm of gray, plus-shaped drones slid off the back of the skiff. Half of the drones made for the workshop, soaking it with fire retardant. The rest chased after Glenn and her dad as they fled through the snow.

  The forest wall loomed ahead. He’s taking us across the border, Glenn thought, breathless. The hum of the drones grew louder behind them. Dad put on a burst of speed. When they were just steps away, Glenn dug her feet into the frozen ground and jerked her arm back like a fisherman yanking in a line. Dad had no choice but to stop.

  “Glenn, what are you doing?”

  “You need help! We both do!”

  “No. Glenn. Listen to me. The bracelet, we can’t let them have it.

  We — ”

  There was a snap behind Glenn and her father’s face went white as he grasped at the drone’s stinger that was buried in his chest. His eyes caught Glenn’s once more, pleading, and then he collapsed into the snow.

  Glenn backed away, putting his body between her and the

  approaching drones. It was quiet except for the faint crackle of the flames that licked at the workshop. There was a flat metallic taste in Glenn’s mouth. Her head was swimming.

  “Glenn?”

  Kevin was standing at the foot of a hill to her left, but she was watching the drones hover in a soundless cluster in front of her. One of them peeled off from the group and descended. The sound it made was like a slow exhale. When it reached her father, a thin line of filament extruded from one of its spars and wrapped itself around his arms and legs, binding them tight. Glenn thought of a spider skittering over a kill and wrapping it in silk.

  “Hsssss!”

  The sound made Glenn jump, but it was just Hopkins, who had come from nowhere to stand between her and the drones and bare his teeth. Glenn took him up into her arms.

  7

  “They’re here to help us,” she said soothingly as she held the little cat tight. “It’s okay. Everything is going to be okay. Dad needs help.”

  But as the one drone finished tying up her father, the others moved into position, one by one, forming grim ranks that all faced Glenn. They crowded closer around her — in seconds, she would be surrounded. Hopkins howled and Glenn went cold as she realized what was happening. The drones moved forward as one, bearing down.

  They wanted her too.

  Glenn tensed, waiting for the hiss of a stinger, but before it could come, her father’s workshop exploded.

  Glenn hit the ground hard, thrown back by a wave of heat and pressure. She heard someone yelling her name, but with the way her head was buzzing the voice seemed slow and distorted. Hopkins yowled and shot out of her arms.

  The air was full of popping sounds, like a string of firecrackers.

  Hands grasped her shoulders, but she wrenched away from them, mesmerized by the tiny impact craters that were opening up the ground all around her, kicking up a haze of snow and dirt.

  “Get up, Glenn! They’re shooting at us!”

  Kevin yanked Glenn to her feet and pulled her backward. As she staggered away, she was shocked to see the orange flashes coming from the drones. Not stingers, but bullets. Real bullets.

  Reality came crashing down and Glenn turned and fled into the woods with Kevin staying just ahead of her. They both ran flat out. At some point Glenn was aware of passing the border’s warning lights but she just kept on going, lurching over obstacles in their path until her lungs ached and a vicious cramp put a stitch in her side. Finally exhausted, the two of them dropped down behind a thick screen of trees, panting.

  Glenn dared to raise her head to look back the way they had come. Nothing but trees. The firing had stopped.

  “We must have run a mile or more,” Kevin said, shivering as he looked around. “We crossed the border.”

  The warning lights were only a faint glow behind them. Ahead was dense forest stretching as far as she could see. Even with a nearly full moon, the space between the trees was a deep black.

  “Why aren’t they chasing us?” Glenn said.

  “Why were they shooting at us in the first place?”

  The red jewel at the center of the bracelet glowed like a cat’s eye.

  Was it possible? Had he really discovered something? Something Authority was willing to kill for? Glenn felt sick as she saw him on his knees in the snow, looking up at her before he collapsed.

  “We have to talk to your father,” she said.

  “What? He’s the one who got us into this in the first place!”

  “It’s a misunderstanding. If we explain it to him rationally maybe he can get my dad freed.”

  “And how are we going to do that when thirty Authority drones want us dead?”

  “They stopped chasing us,” Glenn said.

  “But — ”

  “What choice do we have? Unless you picked up some camping

  skills while I wasn’t looking we’re going to have to go back at some point. And your father is government, Kevin. There’s no way Authority is going to shoot us on his doorstep. Your house is probably the safest place we could be.”

  Before Kevin could say anything else Glenn looked up and

  sighted Polaris.

  “That way’s north,” she said. “Come on.”

  Kevin started to protest but Glenn was on the move and he had no choice but to follow. As they made their way through the darkness, Glenn looked for some sign of Hopkins. Her heart ached at the thought of him putting himself between her and the drones, only to be lost in the cold without her to protect him. No, she told herself, he’s smart.

  He’ll slip past the drones and get back inside the house. He’ll be there waiting for me when all of this is over.

  The land sloped upward, a slippery mess of old snow and fallen tree limbs. Glenn was more used to asphalt and concrete but she carefully picked out a narrow path and eased her way up. She felt every rock and branch through the soles of her thin slippers. Beside her, Kevin had his arms wrapped around his chest and was shaking as they walked.

  “Seriously, Kevin. There’s nothing to be afraid of. They’re just woods. No werepeople.”

  “I’m not afraid,” he said, his voice wavering. “I’m cold.”

  “So dial up the thermals in your clothes.”

  “Not working,” he said. “Must have busted something when your dad’s workshop went up and I came to get you.”

  Kevin pulled his thin jacket tight over his chest. Other than that, he was wearing a T-shirt and a pair of jeans. The temperature had to be below zero, easy. If his thermals weren’t working, he must have been freezing.

  “You didn’t have to do it,” Glenn said. “You could have just gone home.”

  “Gee, Morgan,” he said, “you’re welcome.”

  “I didn’t mean — ”

  “Why didn’t you tell me what was going on?” Kevin asked. “I would have told you that you couldn’t trust my dad. He’s a doctor, sure, but he’s government first. I mean, we’re friends. Aren’t we?”

  There was a noise off to her left. Crunching leaves. Glenn

  stopped.

  “Wow. Thanks for the lingering pause there, Morgan. It’s a real vote of confi-”

  “Shhh.”

  Kevin stopped where he was. Half a second later another set of footsteps came to a halt. Glenn looked out ahead but saw nothing.

  “What was that?” Kevin asked.

  Glenn turned back just as an enormous shadow glided behind

  Kevin. It moved from one tree to another and disappeared.

  “What? Did you see something?”

  Glenn swallowed hard.

  “No,” she said, wrestling with the stammer in her voice.

  “Nothing. Just … my imagination.” She took his arm, looking over her shoulder as she urged them forward. “Come on, this way’s east. It’ll take us right to your place.”

  Glenn told herself that what she had seen was a trick of
the moonlight. Some hapless forest animal blundering through the woods just like they were, its shadow almost certainly making it seem bigger than it actually was. She remembered her own words to Kevin the day before. The mind’s tendency to find patterns where there were none.

  Glenn was as susceptible as anyone else.

  They passed under the red lights at the border and soon the forest broke. There was no sign of the drones. Kevin’s house was a little farther on, just over the rise of a tree-covered hill. Glenn and Kevin climbed it side by side, digging their feet into the snow and grasping tree branches to steady themselves.

  Once they crested the hill, Kevin’s house loomed in front of them.

  It was huge, more a mansion than a house: three stories with an expansive yard, the kind of estate that was only available close to the border where few people wanted to live. Most of the lights were on, filling the windows with a warm glow that spread out across the yard and the heavily manicured trees that flanked the front door. No sign of drones or agents or skiffs. It should have seemed absolutely normal, but Glenn felt a sinking in her stomach. It was eerily quiet.

  “What?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Something’s … I don’t know. I’m just being paranoid. Right?”

  Kevin looked down at the grim face of the house and swallowed.

  “Yeah. Definitely. Paranoid.”

  Glenn took a step forward but Kevin grabbed her wrist at the last second.

  “But maybe we go around the back,” he said. “Just in case.”

  They slipped into the house through a back door. Unfortunately, it felt the same inside as out, like the tense seconds before a bomb went off.

  “Where is everybody?” Glenn whispered.

  Kevin shrugged. “Mom should have been back by now.”

  They froze as somewhere in the house a door opened and closed.

  There was a pause and then the sound of voices, quiet and talking fast.

  Kevin nodded ahead and he and Glenn crept through the living room and into the darkness of the Kapoors’ bedroom, which was as dark and spare as the doctor’s office. At the far end there was a heavy oak door with a razor of light underlining it. The voices were coming from the other side.