Reapers

by Bryan Davis

  “Stop it, Phoenix.” Shanghai’s voice spiked. “Just stop it. It’s an impossible dream.”

  I looked into her sparkling eyes. The sadness leeched every ounce of optimism from my heart. The reality of surrender again settled in. I exhaled slowly, as if deflating. “So I guess there isn’t much hope for us. Whether we succeed or not, we’ll die.”

  She nodded, a tear in her eye. “If we’re going to die either way, maybe we should chase a different impossible dream, something that’ll help the world.”

  “You mean Sing’s impossible dream,” I said. “Going through the Gateway and coming back again.”

  She gave a light shrug. “It’s choose your poison. Run away as a roamer or break through the Gateway. We might be Romeo and Juliet after all.”

  “Hey.” I laid a hand on her cheek. “Don’t lose your swagger now. Hang on.”

  “I know, I know.” A warm tear trickled over my thumb. “I’m trying.”

  I brushed the tear away and grasped her fingertips. “Will you make me a promise?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Don’t rope me into that, Phoenix. Spill the promise first.”

  “Fair enough.” I interlocked our thumbs. “When we get Colm’s family out, let’s at least think about running away and trying to make it on our own. We’ll have a fighting chance to survive as long as we’re together.”

  She nodded slowly. “I have to admit that sounds romantic. Running away with you is like a dream come true, but I have a feeling…” She averted her gaze.

  “What?” I angled my head. “What feeling?”

  She looked me in the eye. “When the energy wears off, you’ll be singing a different tune. Your principles will come roaring back.”

  “Principles? Which principles would make me choose suicide over running away with you?”

  She touched my ring. “Do you really think I haven’t guessed what this is all about?”

  The metal seemed to sting my skin. The promise had completely slipped my mind. Was the energy influence that strong? How could it make me forget something so important?

  “Well…” My throat narrowed. No coherent words came to mind.

  “Don’t worry about it.” She smiled, her lips trembling. “Whatever you decide, I’m with you. I think we’re joined at the hip. If we have to die, let’s do it together.”

  I pressed my palm against hers and threaded our fingers. “Together sounds good to me.” I teased with a grin. “But let’s not get matching bullet holes in our backsides, okay?”

  Chapter Twenty

  I sat at our dining-room table and studied the foil tray in front of me. A chunk of dry meat loaf sat in one compartment, stiff potatoes and lumpy gravy in another, and eight shriveled green beans in a third. Everything looked three days old.

  Shanghai picked at her food in silence, her head propped by a hand, an elbow resting on the table.

  After swallowing a green bean, I nudged Shanghai’s arm. “Are you all right?”

  “No.” She set her fork down. “Not even close.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  She looked at me with reddened eyes. “I’m not sure I can describe it.”

  “Okay.” I glanced around. No one was in sight, but the camera aimed its probing lens at us. Although its built-in microphone probably couldn’t pick up our conversation, I kept my voice low. “Can you try?”

  She leaned closer. “It feels like a monster’s inside me. Like my emotions are out of control. Love. Jealousy. Pure rage.” She strangled her napkin. “So now I’m scared. The feeling’s nothing like when I first got infused. Back then it was a trip to heaven, but now I’m in hell.”

  “Are you afraid the monster will control you?”

  She nodded, tears spilling to her cheeks. “What if they try to make me do something awful?”

  “You wouldn’t do it. You’re too strong.”

  “I wish I had your confidence.” She pressed a fist into her stomach. “You’re not feeling what’s going on inside me.” Averting her eyes, she wiped tears with a wadded napkin and said nothing more.

  I stared at the meat loaf. I didn’t have much confidence at all. I felt the hungry beast. It had no cage or leash. We were both vulnerable. Maybe the worst was yet to come.

  Several quiet minutes later, Alex and a prison guard walked in. Alex carried something tucked under her arm that looked like folded clothing. The guard gripped a rifle that he kept pointed toward the floor, a frown communicating readiness to shoot without mercy.

  Alex stopped next to our table. “I assume,” she said, “that you’ve been wondering about the entertainment I’ve been promising for tonight.”

  “We have,” I replied in a noncommittal tone.

  Alex withdrew something small from her jacket pocket and displayed it between her thumb and forefinger. “I’m sure you remember this.”

  I squinted at the object—one of the microphones we found in our suite. “I remember.”

  She pushed it back into her pocket. “When I first stopped receiving audio signals, I went to investigate your rooms, but, as Peter mentioned earlier, a little ghost prowled the hall, warning you whenever someone is coming, so I didn’t go in. Just now while you were eating, I decided to try again. I found something very interesting.” She pulled the clothing from under her arm. “This.” The material unfolded, revealing Sing’s Reaper shirt.

  Shanghai flinched. I kept my face slack. The situation was going from bad to worse.

  “As you can see,” Alex continued, “this is too small to fit either of you. It seems that you have conspired to smuggle in a Reaper, a female, judging by the garment. Guards are searching the prisoners’ residence building as we speak. Because certain events have transpired that allowed me to deduce her identity, they have an excellent description of her.”

  I kept my stare on Alex. “If you mean Singapore, then yes, I smuggled her in here, but it got too dangerous, so I smuggled her back out. She’s long gone.”

  “I’m not stupid, Phoenix. I heard you say that to Colm, but you found the microphone in his dining room, didn’t you? If you found the ones in your suite, you were sure to look for others, like the one I put under Shanghai’s chair. You lied to throw me off track, just like you’re lying now.”

  “You have a vivid imagination,” I said, keeping my voice calm.

  “Don’t play games with me!” Alex wadded up the shirt and shook it in a tight fist. “You two have conspired to infiltrate this prison with a spy from the Resistance, a rogue Reaper who hopes to destroy our ability to more easily transport souls to the Gateway through the new portable system.”

  I slid my chair back and rose to my feet. “You’re the one playing games, Alex. Everything we’ve done has been out in the open.” I pointed at the shirt. “Singapore just left her spare one behind. You didn’t find any other parts of the uniform, did you? That’s because she’s not here. Check her district if you don’t believe me.”

  “We already have. We found a Reaper named Cairo impersonating Singapore.” Alex tossed the shirt onto the table. “A valiant effort to conceal your friend’s activities, Phoenix, but you and Shanghai have been exposed. We doubled the guards at every exit point, and we will find Singapore. She won’t get away.”

  My cheeks burned. What had they done to Cairo? The poor kid was just a brave volunteer. “Look, I don’t know what Singapore is doing, but she’s obviously not here. You found part of a uniform with no one wearing it, and you jumped to a bizarre conclusion that a spy is here to destroy your precious experiment. You make the Gateway deniers look like rational people.”

  “Another bold stroke, Phoenix, but still inadequate.” Alex swiveled her head toward the lobby. “Ah! Peter. Perfect timing. Bring him in.”

  Peter walked into the room with a glowing sphere cradled in his palms, similar to the one Erin had placed in the Gatekeeper’s disk outside. “Your witness is safe inside,” Peter said as he handed Alex the sphere.

  She held it aloft for everyone to
see. “Peter captured a level-three ghost who is of great importance. We will release him to allow you to hear what he told us. Then I will reveal more unpleasant surprises for Phoenix.” After turning an abrupt about-face, she strode out of the dining room.

  Peter nodded at the guard. “Make sure Phoenix and Shanghai come.”

  “Let’s go,” the guard said, nudging me with the rifle barrel. “The easy way or the hard way. Your choice.”

  I rolled my eyes. “We’re coming.”

  As Shanghai and I walked, she popped a few smoke capsules from her belt and slid them into her pocket, then popped a few more and, while holding my hand, stealthily transferred the capsules to me.

  Once I had them in my grasp, I squirreled them away in my pants pocket. We might need them sooner than later. The situation was plunging downhill faster than ever. Alex proved to be the ultimate schemer. She had everything under control from the first moment she walked into Molly’s bedroom, and now she was ready to reveal yet another surprise move. But maybe she hadn’t figured out our plan yet. If we played it right, Sing still had a chance to rescue Colm’s family if she could get them out in time.

  As we walked toward the trio of pedestals, the searchlights swung that way and locked on the area, illuminating the white disks. Next to my pedestal, someone sat in a chair. A Reaper’s cloak and hood covered his entire body, including his face, hands, and feet, hiding his identity. Ropes bound his wrists to the chair’s arms and his ankles to the legs. Smaller than a full-grown man, he squirmed and thrashed to no avail.

  I whispered to Shanghai, “I’ll bet it’s Cairo. They’re going to use him to try to get information from us.”

  “What information? We’re not part of the Resistance. We don’t know anything.”

  “But Alex doesn’t know that. She isn’t leaving anything to chance. She’s hiding him to keep us guessing.”

  Shanghai kept her whisper low. “So what’ll we do?”

  “We’re stuck. We can’t trade lives. The best we can hope for is to set him free in the scramble. He’s a Reaper. He can run and climb with us.”

  “Okay, but what if it’s Sing? Our plan is shot.”

  “No way,” I said. “Sing lost her cloak.”

  “But Alex was snooping through our rooms. If she found Sing’s shirt, she probably also found Mex’s cloak.”

  “Mex’s cloak?” I squinted, searching for a triangle on the sleeve. “I don’t see a roamer patch.”

  “Alex might have taken it off, or maybe the sleeve is twisted. Or it might be Cairo’s cloak wrapped around Sing.”

  “Well, we’ll cut whoever it is loose. We can all three run or fight or do whatever it takes to escape. But I’m still betting it’s Cairo.”

  Shanghai gave me a grim nod. “Agreed.”

  When we arrived within the pedestals’ triangle, I looked past the squirming figure in the chair and scanned the yard. Twilight had descended, making it difficult to see the prisoners’ living quarters, especially with the searchlights nearly blinding us to everything beyond the makeshift arena.

  By now, Sing was probably inside the quarters, and with the spotlights already frozen on the center of the yard, she could make her escape move at any time. Since the guards had been doubled, she would have to overpower two guards twice—once at the door to the quarters and again at the Hilton’s rear exit when they opened the door in response to her knock. With each passing moment, every step in our plan seemed more unlikely to work.

  Still, if anyone could do it, Sing could. I had to keep my hopes alive, though trying to free Cairo really complicated matters. Our chances of escape were as thin as the smoke in our capsules.

  Alex set the sphere in the central disk’s depression and held the vacuum tube at waist level. Peter stepped close to the nozzle and nodded at her. “Ready.”

  Keeping the vacuum tube tucked under her arm, she tapped on the tablet’s screen. The hum returned. Peter diffused into a ghostly cloud and streamed into the tube. After several seconds, she slid a finger across the screen. “Peter has him. Reversing now.”

  Soon, a stream of vapor flowed from the tube and transformed into Peter standing with his hand locked around someone’s arm. As they congealed, the captive’s details clarified—a black man with short, salt-and-pepper hair.

  I hid a swallow. Kwame! But how could that be? He wasn’t a ghost. Maybe Peter killed him, but Kwame’s eyes weren’t glowing. He couldn’t have become a level three so quickly.

  Peter kept his hold on Kwame’s arm. “I’ll stay in this state until we’re done. We can’t afford to let him escape.”

  “Very well.” Alex pointed at Kwame while looking at me. “We discovered this rebel agent by following you to his home in an abandoned building, proving the alliance between the two of you. Since Peter can physically connect with ghosts, he was able to… shall we say… pressure the spy into talking.”

  I had to force my jaw closed. Kwame looked the same as always. Since he was a ghost now, maybe he always had been, at least since I had known him. But why the secrecy?

  Peter patted Kwame’s shoulder. “Now tell everyone what you told Alex and me. We already have your confession recorded, so you have nothing to lose. I don’t want to use the same persuasion methods I did before.”

  “I guess I don’t have much choice.” Kwame glanced at me for a split second before folding his hands at his waist. “I am part of a group that has worked to infiltrate the Gateway system in order to determine what really happens to souls when they are transferred there.”

  While the captive in the chair continued to squirm, Alex walked closer to Kwame, a strut in her step. “And how is Singapore involved?”

  “She is our number one agent.” Kwame’s voice carried the heaviness of resignation, quiet and monotone. “She delivered a soul to the Gateway, a departed Reaper who hopes to return to report her findings.”

  Alex tapped on her tablet again, glancing between the screen and Kwame. “Since you told us that story earlier, we searched the data and learned the identity of the Reaper Singapore delivered. Tokyo has traveled beyond the point of no return. She will not be coming back.”

  I curled my fingers into a fist. So that was how Sing’s mother got to the Gateway. Sing delivered her herself—the Asian woman on Bartholomew’s screen. That meant the Resistance kept Tokyo’s soul around until Sing was ready to deliver it—a brilliant but dangerous plan.

  Alex gave the screen a final tap and tucked the tablet under her arm. “Your conspiracy theories are pure lunacy, and you have wasted valuable resources. In pursuing this ridiculous idea, you endangered your wife’s journey to the afterlife and you risked your daughter’s life by making her an anti-Gateway agent. Your insanity is monstrous.”

  My heart skipped a beat. His daughter? Kwame was Sing’s father? How could that be? Sing said she didn’t recognize him. The only resemblance was his voice. They had the same name, but so did thousands of other Ghanaians.

  “I make no apologies for my beliefs.” Kwame looked straight at me. “My only apology is to Phoenix. He knew nothing about this plan, and now he faces punishment for no reason.”

  “Do you expect me to believe that?” Alex paced in front of Kwame, her hands folded behind her. “Phoenix willingly broke the law to smuggle Singapore in here. He allowed himself to be taken in by her seductive ways. He was friendless, and she used his vulnerability to sweep him into her scheme. It’s not hard for someone as pretty and charming as Singapore to put a lonely boy under her spell. Your spies arranged to have her stationed in the district next to Phoenix’s, to live in an apartment directly across an alley so she could seduce him.”

  She huffed a sarcastic laugh. “Oh, how clever to put her so close yet just out of reach. This is pure seduction at the highest level. And once she gained his trust, her mission was to learn about the Gateway as quickly as possible, though she cared nothing for the fact that as he followed her come-hither advances, he might find himself dangling with his neck in a noose.�
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  Shanghai slid her hand into mine and whispered, “I still love you, Phoenix. Never forget that.”

  I grasped her hand weakly. It seemed that all strength had drained away. On one side of my brain, Sing’s words—thank you for trusting me—reverberated again and again, but Alex’s accusations overwhelmed the call. How could Sing have lied to me? Every word Alex spoke made sense. And the reality of betrayal tore my heart in half.

  “Yet,” Alex continued, “Phoenix swallowed the bait without care. We might wish to exonerate the lovesick lad, and we would have done so if he had merely helped a fellow Reaper learn the necessary skills. But when he shifted to conspiring with rebels to destroy the only means we have to set souls free from wandering without purpose in this world, he became guilty of treason. There can be only one punishment for such a crime.”

  “Death,” Peter said, as if scripted. “And Shanghai as well. They conspired together. They’re both guilty.”

  As the guard pressed the rifle barrel into my back, I cringed. Alex had set the trap, and we were the mice.

  Alex smiled, obviously pleased with herself. “It would be such a waste to kill two powerful Reapers. I have an idea that not only will avoid wasting one valuable soul-collector, it will also provide our entertainment for the evening.” Her Owl eyes slowly scanned us, obviously milking the pause for dramatic effect. “Phoenix and Shanghai will fight to the death. The one who kills the other will prove his or her loyalty, and we will grant mercy to the winner as a reward.”

  Shanghai’s grip on my hand tightened. Her face grew red and taut. My blood boiled, and strength rushed back into my muscles. A fight to the death? Alex couldn’t really believe that we’d try to kill each other, could she? Or was she counting on the energy dosage and the threat of killing Cairo to force us to obey her insane demands?

  Alex nodded at Peter. “Take him away. Where he is heading, we won’t need a photo stick.”

  “Let’s go.” Peter pushed Kwame toward the vacuum tube.

  Struggling to free himself, Kwame called out, “Phoenix! Trust Akua! I am her father, but there is much more to explain.”