FALLING (FADE Series #2)

by Gow, Kailin

  Whatever this rock is, it has to do with what I am. With what both Jack and I are.

  Lionel understands too, because he moves to stare at the rock. “This has a connection to Celes here, I take it?”

  I can only nod. “It’s the same effect I get when...” I can’t finish that.

  “Yes,” Lionel says. “I have seen the reports. Not to mention the footage in the archives. So, this is where the signal came from. I imagine you must be disappointed.”

  “Disappointed?”

  “That it isn’t from a person.” Lionel looks at the rock a little more closely, though he’s careful not to touch it.

  I hadn’t thought about that, but I nod. “A little. But this is still… it’s still something.”

  “It is indeed. We will need to study it further. Though we will have to be careful.” He looks at the burned up figure. “I imagine, since they were here first, that this was one of the Others. It would have been the first person to touch the rock. After that, they would have stayed around, trying to work out how to deal with it, and that would have been when we arrived.”

  “So they were here before we came, following the same signal,” Grayson says. “It wasn’t a set up. No one knew the Underground would show up.”

  “Exactly,” Jack replies. “And since they didn’t expect anyone, they’ll think it’s just the rock when the bodies turn out to be completely burned up or buried in an avalanche.”

  Lancaster smiles and puts an arm around Jack. “Always one step ahead, Jack. Still the same Jack, but better. I have enough explosives in the helicopter.”

  Jack looks over at me, and I can see the love there. It’s intense, a heat almost as great as the one coming from the rock, and I can feel heat rising in me in answer to it. Literal heat, of the kind I’ve used to kill people. I look away quickly. It’s true then, what Grayson implied back when he was asking why I only burned people up around Jack. Jack’s my trigger. My feelings for him help to spark this power. And they have grown so much.

  “I’m better now because I have a reason to be,” Jack says. He moves over to me. Right now, I’m not sure that’s such a good idea, but it seems he isn’t planning to kiss me again right away. I don’t know whether to be disappointed or not by that.

  “Celes,” Jack says. “We know that your power doesn’t cause you any harm. You’re connected to this rock, so you should be able to handle it safely. I think you’re the only one who can.”

  “What if you’re wrong?” Grayson asks, but he’s too late.

  I’ve already bent to pick up the rock. It’s warm, but it’s a pleasant warmth, like holding another body to me as I lift it into my arms. It’s big enough that I have to cradle it two handed.

  “Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?” Grayson demands.

  I shake my head. “It’s fine, Grayson. I’m fine.”

  And then it happens. The rock flares. It flares so bright that for a moment I think it is incinerating me. I think that my last moment will have been spent arguing with Grayson, and that in less than a second, I’ll be another charred corpse on the floor of the cave. I feel the energy pouring into me; more and more, until it feels like I’ll burst with it.

  Then, just as quickly as the rock flared up, it stops.

  “Did you see that?” Annette asks.

  “You just absorbed it,” Jack says. He sounds almost as shocked as the female Fader.

  Lionel looks at me closely, then at the rock. “Hmm… it appears to have been rendered inert. I think you are correct, Jack. I think Celes here has absorbed the energy of the rock, though I for one won’t be touching it until we have run a lot more tests. Would you mind carrying it back to the helicopter, Celes?”

  I do it, depositing the rock in a box in the back where no one can touch it accidentally. It’s close enough that I can watch it, imagine it in there. Jack comes to sit alongside me as we take off, his hand over mine.

  “Can you imagine it, Jack?” I ask, unable to keep the excitement out of my voice. “This rock is part of where we came from. It has to be. It’s a link to that.”

  “It’s…Lionel will study it. My father will, too, once we get him away from the others. This is potentially a very important find.”

  “Assuming that there’s anything left of it,” I say, as the helicopter pulls its way up into the air.

  “Even then. Then we’ll find out more about you, me, and the planet we’re meant to be from. Don’t worry, Celes.”

  Jack kisses my temple, tracing his fingers along my chin and tilting it up so that I’m looking deep into his eyes. “I thought I’d never see you again, Celes, and that thought alone was the scariest thought I’ve ever had. The thought of getting killed was nothing compared to that.” Jack closes his eyes and looks down. It’s the rawest I’ve seen of emotions on his face. “I don’t ever want to experience that again, Celes. I love you too much to risk that again. Even when I got here, near to the rock, all I could think of then was you. You’re everything to me.”

  I know how he feels, because I feel the same way. Yet right then, in the helicopter, I can’t tell him. Grayson is only a few feet away. Or he was. I see that he has gone to the other side of the helicopter, where he’s helping Annette to keep pressure on her wound. The bleeding seems to have stopped. She’s been lucky. And Grayson… Grayson is obviously avoiding me.

  Have I hurt him that much with this, or is he just being considerate? Is he just making it easy for me to be here with Jack by leaving us as alone as he can in such a confined space? I don’t know. He’s always been so understanding, yet that very understanding is enough to make me feel a little guilty about Jack. When Jack touches my face again, I know I can’t just kiss him. Not here. Not like this. Back in the cave was enough. Instead, I try to find a way to distract Jack.

  “How is Sebastian?” I ask him. “He didn’t get away?”

  Jack looks like I’ve just slapped him. Maybe he wasn’t expecting me to shoot down his attempts to get close to me so thoroughly, or maybe it’s the mention of his father. Whichever one it is, it’s enough to make his expression slide back to that coolly professional one he has down so well.

  “The Others have him, but he was well when I left. Richard, his old colleague, wants him to work for them.”

  “But he won’t do that, will he?” I ask.

  Jack shakes his head. “Not willingly. Which means that they’ll either have to find ways to put pressure on him to do it, or they’ll have to give up.”

  Putting pressure on him doesn’t sound pleasant. “And if they give up, what happens then?” I ask. “They don’t just let him go, presumably.”

  Jack shakes his head. “They’d kill him. But we have time. They won’t do that until they’ve exhausted every way of getting to the information about the memory extractors.”

  “We can’t let him stay there, though.”

  “No,” Jack says, “which is why we’re going to break him free as soon as we get back.”

  NINE

  It takes us a while to fly back to Location Two. With the rock successfully recovered, there isn’t the rush that there was getting there. We’re able to take things slowly, even stopping long enough for Annette to get medical attention. We make it back as night is falling, landing quietly outside the old house and going in to meet the Faders there.

  Their mood is somber, but then, they have just lost almost ten of their colleagues in one mission. What would it be like if I lost ten of my friends in one day? If they were walking around, laughing and joking one moment and then dead the next. And this is all because of what I am. They must hate me.

  Jack seems to get what I’m feeling, because he puts an arm around me.

  “It’s what they signed on for, Celes,” he says. “Everyone who becomes a Fader knows the risks, and accepts them.”

  “Even you, Jack?” I ask. “Would you have been a Fader if it weren’t for your father, I mean?”

  Jack nods. “I would. This isn’t just about my fa
ther for me. There’s who I am. What I am. There’s what happened to my mother, too. And what we do here is important. I’m convinced of that. Especially after being assigned to protect you. If the Underground didn’t exist, the Others would be free to kill you, and that... I don’t want to think about that.”

  Jack takes me to a bedroom in the base, where he says I can rest, and leaves, though he seems reluctant to do so. “I have to go and talk to the others about the rescue mission,” he says. “Try to get some rest.”

  I do, drifting into fitful sleep. I’m woken a little while later by a hand shaking my shoulder. It’s Annette, the Fader who came with us to Switzerland. She’s wearing a top that leaves her midriff bare, under an open dark shirt. That exposes a set of bandages on her side to the open air.

  “Does that hurt?” I ask, sitting up.

  “Only a little. Jack sent me to fetch you. We’re meeting to discuss the rescue, and Lionel wants you in on it. Well… no, he wants Jack in on it, and Jack won’t leave you alone, so it looks like you’re coming. Come on.”

  Annette leads the way, not down, but up into the main house, into an elegant drawing room where Lionel, Grayson and Jack are already sitting on ancient looking armchairs, talking.

  “This is potentially very dangerous, Jack,” Lionel points out.

  “I know that, sir, but you agree that it needs to happen?”

  The ex-military man nods. “Sebastian is too valuable to leave in the Others’ hands.” He looks up at me. “Hello Celes, Annette. Please sit down, both of you.”

  We take seats, and Lionel continues. “The necessity of the mission does not make it less dangerous, however. We lost a lot of good people today. Too many to mount an immediate full scale mission without additional support.”

  “That’s why I think we should use some of the Faders who had to flee Location Six. They will be able to boost our numbers, and they’ll be close enough to help with the operation.”

  “So the Others’ headquarters are in the US?” I ask.

  Jack nods. “Though it’s not an easy location to assault. It’s not well away from everywhere, like Location Six was. They prefer to put their bases in ordinary houses, in suburbs and near schools, malls, homes.”

  “It makes it easy to fit in,” Annette says.

  “It also means that civilians could be hurt in any full scale assault,” Jack shoots back. “So we need to be careful.”

  “Where exactly are they located?” Lionel asks.

  “Virginia,” Jack replies. “Near Celes’ house, in fact.” Jack pauses then, as though wondering whether to say what he’s thinking. “It’s also not too far from the location where we placed Celes’ family.”

  My family. Will this put them in danger? Could I maybe see them? I know I can’t think about that, but I don’t know how to stop it. Lionel cuts into my train of thought, though.

  “Then we’ll also be able to get a small amount of support from Location Four. I’ll contact Jonas there to let him know.”

  “Location Four?” I guess the name of Location Six should have given me a clue that there are a lot of Underground bases out there, but I’m having enough trouble adjusting to the scale of places like this without imagining still more of them.

  “It’s one of the Underground’s smaller operations,” Jack says. “It’s mostly research and surveillance, unlike Location Six.”

  “Or this base,” Grayson says. “Location Two is large because it’s a training ground.”

  I look over at him. The more things like that Grayson says, the easier it is to see him as what he is now. Somehow, Sebastian has used his memory machine to make a real Fader of him.

  “Talking of which,” Grayson says, “I should probably get some training in. I… my mind knows what I need to do, but I’m still not sure about the rest of me.”

  “I’ll arrange something,” Annette says. “Though I hope this won’t mean you’ll leave me out of the mission, Major. I’m ready to go.”

  “You’ve just been shot,” I point out.

  “And?”

  Jack speaks up then. “I think Celes is right, Annette. You should probably stay here for this one.”

  Annette looks over to Lionel pleadingly, but the older man shakes his head. “Jack is right. You’re out for this one. In fact, there won’t be many people here we can take. A few of the advanced trainers, perhaps, but mostly Location Two is full of trainees who aren’t mission ready. Perhaps if I’d thought of that, the casualty count on the last operation wouldn’t have been so high.”

  Annette starts to argue, but Lionel cuts her off. “This is my decision to make, Annette.”

  The Fader hangs her head, obviously upset about it, but apparently unwilling to argue further. “Yes, Major.”

  Lionel looks over at Jack. “Give me the location, and I’ll start to arrange things. I’ll let you know what we have available to us, and we can work out a more detailed tactical scenario from there. Annette, why don’t you arrange that training for Grayson now?”

  Annette nods, and I hear her mutter something about it being all she’s good for, apparently, but she leads Grayson from the room. Lionel heads off, apparently to make a few important phone calls, which leaves me in the room with Jack.

  “Don’t worry about Grayson,” Jack says. “Location Two is a good place to train.”

  “Do all Locations serve a specific purpose?” I ask.

  Jack nods. “Most of them. I like Location Two though. I spent a lot of time here. I came here at sixteen, straight from school, looking to be a Fader. The Major agreed to let me start training, but forced me to stay at school into the sixth form too, so that I had the option of going on to university. I learned a lot from him.”

  “He seems like an amazing man,” I agree. “Was this where they Faded you?”

  Jack shakes his head. “All the bases have basic surveillance and signal interception capabilities, but Fading is purely done in Location Six. It’s my father’s specialty.”

  “So that’s why they attacked Location Six,” I say. “They want the memory device.”

  Jack nods. “And that’s why they’ll go to any lengths to get the information about it from my father. He’s strong, but everyone breaks eventually. My only hope at the moment is that they won’t trust to… aggressive methods to get information on something that complex, because they wouldn’t be able to trust the fine detail.”

  “You mean torture, don’t you?”

  When he nods, I can’t help swallowing slightly. It’s a reminder of how harsh the secret world the Underground works in is. I can see the worry on Jack’s face too. I haven’t seen him show this much emotion about his father before. It’s enough to make me want to reassure him, so I reach out to put a hand on his shoulder.

  “I’m sure everyone is trying their best to get him back safe. I mean, you know how much they’re doing, because you’re helping to plan it.”

  I turn the hand on Jack’s shoulder into a one armed hug. It’s a nice sensation, and I turn my face towards his ever so slightly. Our eyes meet.

  That’s when I feel it again. The burning power I have brought out only a couple of times before is rising up in me, making me feel like I’m glowing from the inside. A second later, and I’m really glowing, because I can see the painfully bright light coming out of my skin, pouring from me in golden waves. For a moment, it feels perfect, but then I realize what that feeling might mean. I remember the faces of the men I’ve killed, and what they looked like in the seconds after I touch them. I start to jerk back. I won’t burn Jack. I can’t burn Jack.

  It’s only as I pull away that I see that Jack is glowing too. Not as much as me, but he’s glowing. His eyes are golden, the way mine are when the power comes into me, and his skin is almost luminous. He doesn’t let me pull away the way I want to, pulling me back, pulling me into a kiss. It’s… amazing. I can feel the energy in that kiss, pulsing between us, moving through me. It’s warm, and loving, feeling like I’m immersed in gently hea
ted water, with nothing else around me. It feels like I could float in it forever. Except that I can’t. Eventually, of course, the kiss has to end. We have to move away from one another.

  We pull apart, and the feeling fades. The glow in Jack disappears, and the energy in me quiets down.

  Jack smiles, looking at me. “I wasn’t expecting that. From the looks of it, when you and I are… emotional, the energy of what we are feeds off it, becoming stronger.”

  I nod, and can’t help returning his smile. “You were glowing too. It seems like your mother’s side is beginning to emerge in you.”

  “I know,” Jack says. “I’m not sure what that means.”

  “Whatever it means,” I promise, “I’ll be here. Remember, I’ve been there.”

  Jack kisses me again, gently. There’s no rush of energy this time, but it’s still a nice kiss. “I can’t get enough of you, Celes. You’re the only one I’ve ever felt this much for, even when I try to rein in my emotions. It’s probably only because of that I was able to reach this point at all. You’ve helped me, Celes.”

  “I know, and I feel everything you feel, Jack.”

  For a moment, Jack looks happy. About as happy as it’s possible for one man to be. Then his expression changes to something more serious. “We have to be careful though, Celes. We’ve already let too many people see us kissing and being close, but that’s fine if they think that it’s not serious. There are too many people who would look at us and see what we feel as a weakness to exploit. They would use our feelings against us.”

  I nod. “I won’t let the Others see us.”

  Jack leans close, lowering his voice to a whisper. “I’m not just talking about the Others. We have to be careful, even in Location Two.”

  TEN

  It takes Lionel and the others another couple of hours to make preparations. I guess important, life or death missions aren’t something you can rush. Even so, it’s frustrating being stuck there, knowing that every moment we waste is another moment Sebastian has to spend as a prisoner.