Ya nodded once. “Do you have an idea of where to lay him to rest?”
“I do.”
The surviving members of the DefCo team, Alyssa, and Chansong and her mom, stood with Myri around the casket that had been lowered into the open grave next to Myri’s treehouse. Next to the tree where they’d first met. Further back from this central group, stood a multitude of people from the compound.
Myrikal’s shoulders shook as she looked down at what remained of her friend. The only sound that of shuffling feet and an occasional sniff. Myri squeezed her eyes shut and drew in a deep breath, trying to gain control of her emotions. She released her breath through tight lips, opened her eyes, and raised her head, not looking at anything in particular, just staring out in front of her, not seeing anything but the past.
“I wouldn’t be who I am today without Branch.” Her voiced hitched. Dang it! She needed to be strong. Alyssa stepped closer to her side and grasped her hand. Myri squeezed back, grateful for the support. “He was my first save.” She looked up at the tree and smiled sadly. “My first friend. The first besides my father to know of my special abilities. The first to give me real clothes, the first to celebrate my birthday. He gave me my first taste of strawberries, took me fishing for the first time. That one didn’t turn out so great, though.”
A low chuckle passed through the crowd.
“Branch was the only light in my life filled with darkness. He showed me that I could be more than what my father raised me to be. He showed me, through his actions, that kindness exists in this world. He brought laughter into my life. And love.”
She looked down at the casket again. “You saved me long before your insane act of bravery in pulling me from that monster’s deathtrap. You won all the points, Branch. You won and I lost. I love you.”
The group silently shoveled the dirt over the casket until a small mound covered Branch’s final resting place.
A loud bark and the crunch of running feet made Myri turn toward the sound. “Dal!” She smiled and hurried to meet him. She hugged him tight with one arm while scratching Lobo behind the ears with her other hand.
“Myri, you’re squishing me.”
“Sorry.” She pulled back and looked at him. “I’m just so glad you made it back safe.”
“Me too. The guards at the front gate told me what happened.” Dal frowned. “I’m sorry about Morgan.” His eyes glistened with tears. “But I’m really glad you’re okay.”
“I have to leave.” Myrikal sat next to Baby, her friends gathered around her.
“No, Myri! You just got back,” Alyssa cried.
“I have to. And it has to be soon. Like now. I should have gone right after closing the chasm.” Her fingers dug into Baby’s fur. “There’s another one of the crevasses. It’s the one Cascus crawled out of after the ‘quakes. I have to go close it before he gets out again.”
The crowd, eyes wide, stood in silence. No one urged her to stay this time. They now had an understanding of Cascus’s abilities, if not precisely what he was.
Myrikal gave quick instructions. She left Baby’s care in the hands of Chansong and her mom. “Please do all you can to help him sur… survive,” her voice broke on the last word.
“You should take some of us with you, for backup,” Sandeep said, eyes downcast.
“No.” She smiled her appreciation at the offer. “You’d only slow me down. I think I can get there in a week if I don’t stop or slow down.”
Dal wiped his nose on the sleeve of his dirty shirt. “But you’re coming back, right?”
Myri stood and put her hand on his shoulder. “I’ll try my hardest, Dal.”
With a lightened load in her backpack, Myrikal ran toward the nearest gate out of the compound.
As she gathered speed out into the city, Dal yelled, “You come back when you’re done, Myri! You be safe and come back!”
The pressure around her heart eased just a touch. Being wanted, needed, and loved was the only thing likely to heal her broken soul.
Russ escaped the compound shortly after his daughter dispatched Cascus. He wasn’t about to stick around to see how things turned out. Myrikal could rot in hell for all he cared. Today was the day he had a meeting with the scientists. He’d contacted them back when Myrikal had refused to do what she’d been born to do, when he realized he would not be getting rich off of her abilities after all. What a waste of time she’d been. He should have just dumped her in the river when she was born.
His hope was to still get something out of the abomination his daughter was. The scientists had shown great interest in his tale. Enough interest to pay him a healthy sum in advance, with more to come if things panned out.
A diminutive woman, slightly older than Russ, met him near where the Empire State Building once stood. “I’m going to take you to our lab, but you must promise not to reveal its location to anyone. Understand?”
Russ nodded.
What looked like just a pile of rubble turned out to be a secret entrance to a stairway. She led him down too many flights of stairs to count then down a well-lit hallway with doors on either side about twenty feet apart. Russ marveled at the lights. No flickering. How did they have power for this? He hadn’t noticed any solar panels or large batteries.
The woman stopped at a set of double doors and placed her finger on a print scanner. It beeped and the doors slid open.
“How do you have…” Russ gaped at the technology.
“Don’t ask any questions,” the woman interrupted. “Follow me.”
Russ narrowed his eyes at her back but did as she said.
They entered a clean, well-equipped, gigantic lab. A group of men and women in lab coats greeted them as they approached the table where they sat. “Russ,” Brad, the man Russ had been dealing with, said. “Have a seat and we’ll get started.”
Russ sat mid-table in the metal chair proffered him. He rested his elbows on the table and leaned forward. “Well? Were you able to find anything out?”
Brad nodded. “Yes. I think we have a good theory as to where your daughter got her powers. The sample of her hair you brought us revealed some very interesting changes in her DNA. Diane, do you want to explain our findings to, Russ?” He gestured to the woman who had led Russ to the lab.
“First, we tested her hair. We believe her invulnerability occurred as a genetic condition, likely inherited from the mother—something that changed within your wife that allowed her to survive the plague where so many others did not. We believe that, because of that invulnerability, Myrikal’s stem cells were able to adapt to new powers in utero.” Diane looked at Russ. “Does this make sense to you so far?”
“Mostly.” His heart burned with anger. It was Karly’s fault. She gave Myrikal her powers.
Diane nodded and continued, “What that means is that your attempts to abort the fetus resulted in more mutations in her cells. So, when you punched her in utero, her muscles adapted, gaining strength. When you infused saline solution into the womb it did two things, we believe it caused her skin to become impenetrable and also to make it so she can be submerged in water without drowning.”
Russ ran his hands through his hair and suppressed a growl. So… not all Karly’s fault. He played a hand in the birth of an abomination, too.
“The stem cells are the key, here.” Diane tapped a finger on the table excitedly. “Your attempt to electrocute her gave her the power to draw electricity to her and shock other people without getting electrocuted herself.”
“What about the radiation? Did that give her any powers?” Russ asked.
Brad answered, “We aren’t exactly sure there. Are you sure you told us about all of her extraordinary abilities?”
“All that I know about.” Russ strained to think of anything else. “I don’t know. Maybe that’s what helped her survive the green goo Cascus dumped her in. Everyone else that came in contact with it just melted away into a blob of liquefied tissue.”
“Perhaps,” one of the othe
r scientists said. “We’d need a sample of said ‘goo’ to determine that, though.”
“Well,” Russ said. “I’m not going back to that place.”
“We’ll figure out how to get a hold of some. Do you have any other questions?” Diane asked.
“Yeah, will she be able to adapt further? Gain more powers?”
“We don’t think so. If we’re right about the stem cells, and I’m sure we are, her ability to adapt ended after she was born. She’d only be able to develop more powers if she was injected with more stem cells with the same properties.”
“Well, that’s good.” Russ sighed. “So, what now?”
The lab-coated men and women looked at each other. Brad answered, “We’d like to—invite—your daughter to visit us here. We’ve even built her a special room with all the comforts she could possibly need.” He smiled. “If you can arrange for her visit, we’ll take care of the rest. And we’ll compensate you well for your efforts.”
Myrikal would never agree to anything Russ proposed. He’d have to find a way to lure her there. “I’ll get her here.”
“Great!” Brad clapped his hands together. “Diane will show you out, and remember, keep quiet about our whereabouts.”
Russ nodded. He hung back just a little to try to listen in on their continuing conversation.
“… we found another female plague survivor. Chihiro is bringing her in.”
Holli Anderson has a Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing—which has nothing to do with writing, except maybe by adding some pretty descriptive injury and vomit scenes to her books. She discovered her joy of writing during a very trying period in her life when escaping into make-believe saved her. She enjoys reading any book she gets her hands on, but has a particular love for anything fantasy.
Along with her husband, Steve, and their four sons, she lives in Grantsville, Utah—the same small town in which she grew up.
Myrikal Page 24
