by William Hawk
“You didn’t call me here just to discuss the nature of evil, did you?” asked William.
“Yes, I did,” replied Proof.
“Why?” asked William.
Proof paused, as though weighing his words carefully. William felt the weight of a thousand things left unspoken. Then Proof’s eyes landed on William.
“You’re vibrating,” said Proof.
“First tell me why you called me here,” said William.
Proof’s headlight eyes passed over William again, and he ignored the question.
“I have to send you back,” said Proof.
“Tell me,” said William.
“You can probably figure it out.”
“It’s Hunter. It has to be Hunter.”
Proof didn’t reply. Instead, his figure pulled away into the void and shrank into a small point of energy.
Then, without warning, the void twisted around William, spiraling like a sheet of black liquid swirling down a drain.
An instant later, William found himself standing in the corridor, the gate in front of him, the small light pulsing around the outside. He was back in his body.
Next to him, Shana was busy tapping away at the small screen. “Welcome back,” she said, without looking up.
William blinked, spun around, then looked down at his body. He felt his arm. It was solid. “Wow. That felt like a snap minus a body.”
“I wouldn’t know,” said Shana. “I’ve never been invited inside.”
Her eyes flashed up at him, and he saw a bit of jealousy.
“Well,” William said, “maybe he will someday.”
“I wouldn’t count on it. I’m just the help. You guys are the Change Agents.”
William tried to lift her spirits. “We couldn’t do any of this training without your help. You’re essential.”
Shana shrugged, appearing uncomfortable at the compliment. “You’re too nice.”
“But it’s the truth.”
Her shield went back up. “Have a good night, William.”
The next morning, as William entered the galley, he saw four pairs of eyes tracking his entrance. The eyes belonged to his teammates.
“There he is,” said Grace.
“We heard you met with Proof last night,” said Hunter.
William smiled. “You people are horrible gossips.”
“That’s not a denial,” said Jeremy.
“What did he tell you?” asked Trina.
Grace looked at him with eyebrows lifted. There was no hiding anything from his teammates, so William settled into a seat, his legs spread wide, his posture relaxed. “Well, it was kind of strange. We just talked about evil, mostly.”
“What’s his suite like?” asked Trina. “Is it totally tricked out?”
“It’s empty,” replied William.
“Empty like there’s no furniture in it?” asked Jeremy.
“No, empty like there’s nothing in it at all. I wasn’t even there.”
The team grew quiet. “So, where was your body?” asked Grace.
William shrugged. “I couldn’t tell you. Maybe it was having a good time without me.”
He looked around. “Did any of you see me doing anything weird last night?”
“Bro, that’s pretty much every night,” said Jeremy.
Sharp laughter from the team. The ice was broken just as quickly as it had formed. William didn’t want the team to feel jealous that he’d been singled out for special attention. Their one-for-all-and-all-for-one attitude was the thing that would get them through to the next level. It needed to be preserved.
He wolfed down his breakfast, and a few minutes later the team members were climbing into their pods.
CHAPTER 21
NAP.
William found himself balancing on the uppermost rung of a long ladder, one hand on the ladder, the other holding a trowel caked in what seemed to be wet mud.
Five hundred breaths.
He looked at his arm. His skin was an olive hue this time, definitely tanned, and on his face he could feel a moustache tickling his upper lip. On his chest was a loose white cotton garment spattered with bits of the gunk in his hand.
He was a laborer. That much was clear. He looked down. The ladder was at least forty feet high, and it was balanced on a scaffolding that was another thirty feet in the air. A group of men stood on the scaffolding below, and another group on the hard dirt below them. The men on the ground were carrying finished blocks of stone, one by one, and dropping them into a basket. A rope connected the basket to the scaffolding, and another one to William’s level.
Next to him, another laborer was pulling finished stone blocks from another basket and arranging them in a geometric pattern. He was taking great care in the selection.
William glanced around. The two of them were working on an enormous sheer wall. It seemed to be a religious structure.
Four hundred fifteen. Four hundred fourteen.
He watched his hand reach out and slap the gunk over the most recent layer of stones on top of the wall and smooth it out with the trowel. Then he heard himself grunt. To his right, the other man grunted back, then whistled to the men below.
The men began pulling on one end of the long rope, and another basket slowly rose in the air toward William and his colleague.
He felt himself wipe the sweat from his face on the shoulder of his garment. The sun was low in the sky but rising. From this height, he could see the surrounding city. It was packed with two and three-story buildings, some made of stone, others of mud or rammed earth.
The second basket arrived. The men below shouted, and suddenly the first basket dropped. William watched as the other worker used his free hand to swing the new, full basket around to take the first one’s place.
Three hundred twenty-eight. Three hundred twenty-seven.
A nimbus appeared on the head of the man next to him. It was yellow. That meant it was Trina. William wondered why the nimbi seemed to lag behind the start of the snap. They didn’t appear for at least a hundred breaths.
“Hope you’re not afraid of heights,” communicated Trina.
“I don’t want to chat,” he replied. “Let’s focus on learning how people make decisions.”
“So testy,” she said.
They went about their work for the next few minutes, Trina stacking the blocks from the basket. William slathered the mortar over the top, filled in the spots between the blocks, and smoothed everything over.
Two hundred two. Two hundred one.
Trina’s host leaned over to place a block on a distant ledge. The worker leaned out, one hand and foot on the ladder, the other hand and foot dangling out into space.
To William’s horror, the ladder began to tip over.
“Ahhh!” shouted Trina’s host.
William swung out into space, watched his hand reach over to the other ladder, and felt himself pull it back upright. Trina’s host swung back to the safety of the ladder.
“How did you make that decision?” asked William.
“I’d prefer not to chat so much,” she replied.
“So testy.”
“It scared the crap out of me.”
“I believe it.”
The two workers stayed there for a while, perched near the tops of their ladders, waiting for the next load of blocks to be hoisted, enjoying the sun on their faces. William tried to discern the state of his host’s mood, but it was hard to do. His host wasn’t happy, or sad, or tired, or energetic. He just seemed emotionally switched off. William wondered if this was a typical state for humankind throughout its history. Or was it that sensitivity and empathy were more recent traits? Whatever the case, emptiness and lack of passion for life were evident.
One hundred forty-nine. One hundred forty-eight.
Suddenly William felt a creeping sensation on his host’s spine. The man turned his head. Below the ladder, a strange creature was peering up at him from the ground. It was stand
ing around the corner of the wall, so only its face and left arm were visible.
“What is that?” William said.
The creature slowly moved around the corner. It was vaguely human, with four limbs and a face, but that’s where the similarity ended. Its skin was pale, a ghostly hue, and was covered in a series of small horns, like the stem of a rose. William couldn’t see its face, but something about the creature felt menacing.
“I don’t know,” Trina replied.
He watched it creep along the base of the structure. It moved like a jaguar or some other type of highly lethal cat. The creature lifted its head and looked up at William. Its eyes were two deep black gashes in its face.
“William,” it said.
William started to panic. This was a freakish creature, a thing of nightmares, and somehow it knew his name.
“Trina, did you hear that?” he said.
“No.”
“It said my name.”
The horned creature crept alongside the bottom of the wall to the base of the platform on which their ladders stood. The men on the platform scattered across the dirt, running, looking backward over their shoulders.
“William, this is not good.”
“Stop talking so much. He can probably hear us.”
The horned creature wrapped its pale fingers around the pilings supporting the scaffolding and began shaking them. The vibrations reached all the way up the scaffolding to the ladders, which William could feel swaying.
“William,” the creature said.
“What do we do? We should do something,” said Trina.
Now the creature had one hand on each piling and was standing between them like Samson, shaking both with all his might. It tilted its head back and let out a barbaric sound that made William’s host’s blood run cold.
Eighty-two. Eighty-one.
William felt the first piling start to give way. It was the one on the opposite side of the platform. Trina’s ladder pitched to the side, away from him, and her host clung to the rungs, terrified.
“Get to the top of the wall!” said William.
“My host won’t do it!” said Trina.
William felt himself climb two more rungs, swing himself off the ladder, and lower himself onto the top of the wall, one leg on each side. He felt the fresh mortar squish beneath his weight, the blocks resettle. This was the work that he and Trina had done not more than three minutes earlier, and it was nowhere near dry. If the blocks slid off the top of the wall, he’d slide with them.
“Influence him!” said William.
“I can’t! He’s too stubborn!” yelled Trina.
Trina’s ladder pitched even farther. Her host was hanging half on and half off the ladder.
“Jump up here!” said William.
The pale, horned creature gave the pilings one final, massive shake, causing one to give way. The platform holding the ladders buckled and sank and collapsed. The three men who were standing on the platform screamed as they fell to the ground.
Next to William, Trina’s ladder finally pitched over sideways. William watched in horror as Trina went falling, tumbling, screaming through the air, her nimbus growing smaller.
“Trina!” shouted William. “No!”
Forty-four. Forty-three.
He could feel the astonishment and disbelief of his host as Trina’s host fell through the air sideways. Finally, she hit the ground, her shoulder and neck striking first. Her head crumpled beneath the weight of her body.
Her host lay there, unmoving, in the dirt seventy feet below William.
“Trina!” shouted William. “Talk to me!”
There was no response. The yellow nimbus was barely visible.
A sudden movement caught William’s eye. Of the group of men who scattered, one had turned around. He was now running back toward the creature, his loose white garment flapping around him. William saw the man had a black nimbus around his head.
“Hunter, what are you doing?” shouted William. “Get away from that thing!”
Hunter ignored him. His host sprinted directly toward the bizarre creature and leapt onto its back.
“Aaaaaargh!” the man cried.
“Hunter, what are you doing?” shouted William.
As he watched, Hunter’s host’s body writhed and sizzled. Still, he stayed affixed to the creature’s back, as though he were a piece of meat left cooking for so long that it had stuck to the grill. William heard the host’s moans. He was in agony.
Then William saw something else. The black nimbus slowly disengaged from the man’s head . . . and moved onto the creature’s head. The creature blinked its demented eyes and then shook off the human from its back. The man fell backward onto the dirt and lay there, a field of red pinpricks forming a ghastly pattern on the front of his white garment.
The horned humanoid crept away from the man’s body and then craned its blank face up the wall. It appeared to spot William and then, slowly, it began to climb the wall, as though it were a lizard.
It was heading toward William.
Twenty-three. Twenty-two.
William felt his host’s blood run cold. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, and even if there were, he felt the paralyzing fear in the man’s hips and waist and torso.
Fifteen. Fourteen.
The horrific creature slowly scaled the wall, drawing ever closer to William, as though it had suction cups on its hands.
Nine. Eight.
William’s hands frantically worked a block loose from the wall, one on top that hadn’t dried yet. It popped free in his hands.
“Trina, where are you?”
Still no response. He peered down. Men had gather around Trina’s host’s body.
Five. Four.
The creature was almost within arm’s reach now. William smelled its acrid, decayed presence. It was the scent of a creature that maybe was once human, but had gone horribly off course. Its black eyes were as flat as quarry holes. The tiny curved horns that covered its skin glinted beneath the noonday sun.
And the black nimbus was still affixed to its head.
“Hunter, get out of that thing!” William shouted, desperate now.
No response.
Three. Two.
The creature sprang at William. He lifted the block in self-defense, but it was too late. The humanoid was already on him, the small horns ripping into his flesh.
One.
William fell backward, the creature at his throat, falling through the air on the other side of the wall.
Snapback.
CHAPTER 22
HANA HAD NO SOONER REMOVED THE TOP of the pod tank when William sprang out, the white spiritual-conductor goop still clinging to his back.
“Is Trina out yet?”
“No,” said Shana, shocked, “I was going to her next. Why?”
He ripped off his cuff and ran over to Trina’s pod. The digital display read 500 in red numerals. That meant she’d reached the end of her snap. William pressed a button, and the top of the pod tank slid open.
Trina lay there, unconscious.
“Trina, wake up,” he said, trying to undo the medical cuff. “Her host was badly hurt, maybe even killed. She fell at least sixty or seventy feet.”
“Let me handle it,” said Shana, elbowing him aside. “I’ve been trained for these situations.”
He stepped aside while Shana analyzed the girl’s vital signs. She checked for respiration and then pulled a small radio from her pocket and spoke urgently into it. “Proof, we have a medical situation.”
There was a small knocking from Jeremy’s pod. Shana glanced over. “Would you let him out? And the others too?”
William ran over to Jeremy’s pod and slid open the top. His teammate took a look at his face and stifled a laugh. “Well, Shana, you’ve gotten a lot uglier.”
“I’m not in the mood,” William said. He removed the medical cuff and offered Jeremy a hand, pulling him out. “Trina’s in trouble, man.”
&
nbsp; Jeremy’s face darkened. “What happened?”
“Her host fell off a ladder. About seventy feet.”
“Are you serious?” asked Jeremy.
“Yes.” William went to Hunter’s pod and slid open the lid. His teammate was already scowling at him. “Oh, it’s you.”
“What the hell, Hunter? Didn’t you hear me in the snap?”
Hunter sat up and removed his cuff. “No, I didn’t.”
“Your host jumped onto that bizarre creature, and your nimbus was transferred onto it.”
Hunter made a pantomime of thinking. “Hmm. I didn’t notice that an unholy creature leapt onto my body and tried to suck out my soul. Nope, just overlooked it.”
William shot him an assassin’s look. “We’ll talk about it later. We’ve got a problem over here.”
At that moment, Proof appeared in the doorway and went to Trina’s pod and took a long searching look at her condition. “Hold on,” he said.
The team watched as their coach went to a closet, pulled out a device, scanned it over Trina’s body, and then waited. William had no clue what the device could be. Evidently, it was important, because when Proof looked at the readout, his face fell.
“Oh boy.” He turned to Shana. “Is the medical bay ready?”
“Yes, it is.” said Shana.
“Run and make sure the doors are open.” He turned to Jeremy and Hunter. “I need both of you to assist me. Come on.”
Jeremy sped over. Hunter followed reluctantly.
Meanwhile, William realized that he hadn’t opened Grace’s pod. He went over to it, popped it open, and undid her cuff. Grace sat up on her hands and watched the three pull the unconscious Trina out of her pod and carry her out of the room.
Grace looked up at William. “What happened to her?”
William was as white as a ghost. “Everybody’s worst nightmare.”
A bit later, the debriefing room was abuzz with conversation, which was normal. This time, however, it contained only four team members, not five. Trina’s customary seat was empty.
Proof stood before them, his hands held up in a calming gesture.
