The Madness Project (The Madness Method)

by Bralick, J. Leigh

  I circle closer. There must be a window open, somewhere, though I can’t imagine why. Humans will think the day is cold and wet, and they fear such things.

  We don’t fear them, Hayli says, sounding cross. We just don’t like them.

  It amounts to the same thing, I tell her. I know she’s scowling, so I add, Either way, it means we can’t get in.

  Keep looking, she says.

  Three stories worth of windows, east, north and south, are all sealed shut. I find no breaks, no cracks, not even a single one left ajar. Most of them are shuttered, hiding whatever is happening inside. I shout, angry at the injustice, and climb back toward the roof. It is no use, though. The building is sealed, and I cannot get in.

  Wait! Hayli cries. I have an idea. There’s an access hatch over there. I might be able to pick the lock on it.

  I sigh, and let her take control.

  I landed on my knees in a heap right in the middle of the roof, while the crow retreated, muttering, into the corners of my thoughts. The wind blew harder up there, dusting rain and bits of sleet into my eyes, but I wasn’t going to let the crow mock me for complaining. I found the access hatch and dropped to my knees beside it, running my fingers over the wet, corroded chain and lock. The rough metal scraped my skin, streaking it with bloody red rust, and I ground my teeth in frustration. I knew without even starting that my pick would never work on a lock that mucked up.

  I gave it a good kick or two, just because I could, and then sat on my heels and stared at the roof. This seemed to be the only hatch, but just across from me stood an old chimney stack. I frowned at it.

  I can get through that, the crow said, poking her head out of her corner.

  I frowned at it a tick, thinking, But there’s a cowl on top.

  That’s why you have hands, she said.

  I grinned a bit and made my way over to it. The air inside the chimney felt cool and dry, so I figured there couldn’t be a fire going at the bottom of it. With all the new steam radiators, I imagined a place as fine as the Ministry wouldn’t be relying too much on wood fires any more.

  I pried at the chimney cowl. The bolts felt a bit loose, so I kept working at it, shaking the thing until I thought my hands would fall off first. Finally I gave up and gave it a kick hard as I could. I almost whooped out loud when the cowl flew off and clattered across the roof.

  Can you fit down that? I asked the crow, feeling inside the chimney.

  The space wasn’t terribly big, and I couldn’t even imagine how far down it went. Maybe it only went down to the third floor, or maybe it went all the way underground.

  Of course I can, she said, sour. The question is, will I be able to get out again?

  What if the flue is blocked at the bottom? I asked. I won’t be able to help you.

  I didn’t tell her what I thought then, You could die.

  Yes. I could, she said, and I slapped my forehead for thinking she wouldn’t hear me. But what choice is there?

  I sighed, crouching down against the chimney, heart racing. If she died, I would too. There’d be no way I could get out of a chimney. Everything sane in me told me to turn around and fly away, but…I’d given up on sanity a long time ago. Boring stuff, that.

  So I gritted my teeth and nodded, and said, Well then. Do your thing.

  I perch on the roof, a bit dizzy from switching places with Hayli so many times, so fast. She has retreated somewhere deep inside of me; I think she is a bit seasick from it all, too. And I know she is afraid of what I am about to do. I will not be afraid. I will not die today.

  I hop up onto the lip of the chimney, fluttering my wings a bit for balance as I grip the thin metal edge. Below me, the flue drops away in pitch darkness. Even I have difficulty seeing anything inside. Darkness is a little frightening to me, but not frightening enough. I tip my head back and tell the world that I am brave, and then I let myself slip over the edge.

  I fall, fast. The space is too narrow. I try once to catch myself on the air, but the edges of the flue close around me, battering my wings. I catapult through the darkness, falling…falling…

  Almost too late I slam into something—a ledge, from the feel of it. I try to make no noise, but my body screams in pain. The world doesn’t stop spinning. When I think I can move without falling over, I take a cautious step, then another. My claws slip over the edge of the platform, and I try to steady myself, but my right wing will not move. Stabbing pain shivers through me. For a moment I rest, laying my belly on the cool metal of the ledge. It is so dark…so quiet…

  Wake up! Hayli shouts, startling me from my sleep.

  I can’t go on, I say, twitching my wing. I’m in too much pain.

  I don’t grobbing care! she snaps. We need to get inside or we’ll both die in here!

  I know she is right, but for moments more I still can’t bring myself to move. Every instinct tells me to rest, to be still, to wait…but Hayli’s voice keeps cutting into my thoughts, prodding me to go forward. Finally I pick myself up and move to the edge. I must only be halfway down the flue. The thought of falling again, of falling so far… My heart patters like rain. But I cannot fly up the flue, so if I want to escape and live, I have only one choice.

  I fall.

  As the darkness chases past, I try to twist around, to lead with my left shoulder, because if I land on my right side, I know I will never fly again.

  * * * *

  I’ve stopped moving. I don’t recall when the fall ended, but I open my eyes to a sliver of light, and realize that I have been lying still for some time. My claws scrabble at the slick surface beneath me, trying to push me upright. Panic urges me to flap, to fly, to scream, to beat myself against the walls until I am free, but Hayli is whispering to me, trying to calm me down. Finally I let her voice steady the racing of my heart.

  Once the fear stops blinding me, I realize that I have made it to the bottom of the chimney. The line of pale light divides the flue from the fireplace of a cold, dim room. I’m sitting on the damper, and I only hope that I will be able to squeeze through into the hearth below. I try, once, twice, but the gap is too narrow. I try to jump and land on the thing, but my weight is not enough. I cannot open it.

  Shift back, Hayli whispers. This space is big enough for me. I think I can manage.

  Are you sure? I ask her.

  Sure, she says. Anyway, if I get stuck, I’ll just Shift back and we’ll…think of something else.

  She isn’t convinced, but I accept her argument, and Shift.

  I opened my eyes to find myself pressed into the tiniest space I’d ever been in, my feet shoved against the damper and my back against the bricks, my head neatly tucked up inside the flue before it angled away to the hearth.

  Swell, I thought. I’m all for brilliant plans today.

  Still, it only took one hard kick of my boot heel on the damper to pop it open, and another to break it completely off. That opened up about an eight inch gap, which would have to be big enough for me to squeeze through.

  If you can’t make it, I can get the rest of the way, now, the crow whispers.

  I wriggled forward, dangling my legs into the hearth, and just barely slithered through the gap. The scariest part was trying to get my head through, but I managed it without doing worse than scraping up my cheek. I landed in a heap on the immaculately swept hearthstones—the fireplace couldn’t have been used for years.

  I picked my way out onto the floor and stood up carefully. Every bone in me stung with pain, and I’d realized on my climb out of the flue that moving my right arm too much made me a bit woozy.

  I’d made it into some kind of gloomy old office. A dusty desk stood abandoned against the far wall under a shuttered window. Besides the dust, the place was pristine, nothing like the forgotten buildings down southside. I crept to the door and peered out the narrow window, but the hall outside was just as dark and empty, so I switched the lock and slipped out.

  I passed endless locked doors just like the one I’d left. None
of them seemed to be used anymore, but they gave me the creeps anyway. It felt like the whole place was empty, with nothing but dust and the faint memory of a chemical stink hiding in the corners. I found a narrow stairwell and decided to go down, because if this floor was empty, I could imagine why folks would use rooms on the floors above.

  At the first landing I found a placard that read, FLOOR ONE: OFFICES. That sounded fantastically boring, so I kept going down. No windows here meant the only light came from the little white bulbs hanging from the ceiling. The sight of them chased a prickle through me.

  White lights…white walls…white coat…

  I shuddered and forged ahead. This was it. This was what I’d wanted to do. I wanted to know the truth.

  At the bottom of the steps the sign read, SUBLEVEL ONE: PSYCH. LAB.

  I had no notion what a psych. lab. might be, but it sounded more interesting than “offices.” But the staircase went down one level further, so I bit my lip and crept down the rest of the steps to read the placard there. SUBLEVEL TWO: GEN. LAB.

  That didn’t help. I pressed my eye to the tiny window in the door, but saw only another corridor lit by the glaring white bulbs. Maybe I’d have better luck in the psych. lab. I crept back up the steps and cracked the door open. Voices drifted around me, muttering, laughing, but I couldn’t tell what direction they were coming from. I poked my head into the hall.

  Someone screamed.

  I jumped back into the stairwell, the door slamming shut in front of me. All the wee hairs on my arms and neck prickled, standing straight on end. I’d never in my life heard a scream as awful as that scream. Terrible, terrified…animal fear.

  Chapter 19 — Tarik

  Two days after I left the streets, I went to visit the Science Ministry. My stomach knotted with apprehension. I could learn so much, without even having to fake and hide and spy to do it…but part of me was terrified of what I’d learn. Terrified that my mother would be right, and I would unearth some horrible secret.

  I took my chances with the western wing of the Ministry first. Security on the eastern wing was thick enough to make even me hesitate. Zagger had warned me from the cab of the motorcar that being the Crown Prince wouldn’t be clearance enough if the laboratory was under lockdown. From the row of black-uniformed guards with their black-barreled rifles posted in rigid formation outside the door, I guessed that was the case. What Zagger didn’t know was that I had the passcode that should get me inside. I just wasn’t sure I wanted to risk their interrogations if they decided I didn’t have a right to know that code.

  Only two guards stood in front of the west doors, and they simply saluted and let me into the building. Most of the upper levels housed the scientists’ offices and a vast library, which didn’t interest me the least, so I passed the brass-grated lift and headed straight for the double doors at the end of the long entry. The caution symbol had been painted in bright blue on both doors, right under the words, “Physics Laboratory.” A guard stood posted there too, but he opened the door for me without a word. I headed down the broad metal staircase, deeper and deeper underground.

  At the bottom of the stairs I pushed through another set of double doors, and found myself standing ant-like at the mouth of a massive chamber. The ceiling in some places hung several stories overhead, and the walls pressed deep into the shadows on all sides. The room simply spread on and on, broken up by faint patches of uneven electric light—sometimes pale and blue, sometimes dim and golden—as scientists busied themselves over their research. Strange screeching sounds of grinding metal and the low, rasping hum of some kind of electrical experiment broke the vast silence, but somehow, even with the noise, it felt hushed as a crypt down there,

  At the nearest table, I glimpsed Dr. Baisell and the elusive Dr. Alokin conferring over a piece of photographic paper, murmuring too quietly for me to hear. I took a few slow steps toward them, waiting for Baisell to catch sight of me. I half-expected him to drive me out of the facility, but instead he waved me toward them. His round face gleamed with sweat, his cheeks bright red in spite of the chill in the air. Of course, I’d never seen him any other way.

  “Come look at this, Your Highness,” he called.

  Dr. Alokin straightened up, a smile flashing at me from beneath his neat black mustachio. The swaying light from a suspended bulb made his dark eyes eerily blue. For just a moment I hesitated. The man was a genius—or stark mad, some people said. His theories and research put even old Baisell to shame, but you’d never imagine it from the way he acted. As I finally stirred to join them, he put one hand behind his back and his other over his heart, and gave me a quiet bow. He was Meritian through and through, suave and genteel, even if he had lived in Cavnal for the last thirty-some years. Even if he was paranoid of society, as some of the rumors claimed.

  “Destri Alokin,” he said, “at your service.”

  I nodded and flicked my fingers toward the paper. I didn’t have to say anything. With a gracious nod he stepped back and gestured me toward it.

  “Please, Your Highness,” he said.

  I stepped closer to the table and peered down at the paper. The obvious black shape of a skull, askew and off-center, took up most of the space, surrounded by grey blotchy patches. I grimaced and frowned up at him.

  “You’ve been photographing skeletons, Dr. Alokin?” I asked.

  Alokin smiled, his eyes meeting Baisell’s over my head. “On the contrary,” he said. “This photograph was taken of my own head.”

  I straightened and tapped my finger on the paper. “Your head. I don’t see how that’s possible, sir.”

  “It’s the genius of it,” Baisell said, almost giddy. “You should hear his theories of radiant energy. Simply phenomenal!”

  “Radiant energy?” I echoed. “You mean like sunlight?”

  “Yes!” Alokin said, then shook his head and clutched his arms across his thin chest. “Or…or no. Not precisely. Very like, but different.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said. Even I had too much respect to act flippant toward a man like Alokin.

  “Well, for one thing, this particular kind of energy isn’t visible. But it is fully capable of seeing into a man.” He touched the photograph. “It passes directly through the skin and, as far as we can tell, stops when it finds bone. Or metal.”

  “Is it safe?” I asked.

  “Ah,” he said, with a feeble sound rather like a laugh, and rubbed his hand through the back of his hair. The top of his coiffure lay in perfectly smooth, gelled curls, but at the back it stuck out every which-way, like a bristle brush. “We’re not certain about that.”

  He turned his face so that I could see its right side under the full light. A small, circular pattern of red dots clustered near his ear and hairline, and after a moment he shifted aside some of the gelled curls and I saw a gruesome patch of bald black skin. Thick liquid seeped from the wound, glinting in the lamplight.

  “Stars,” I gasped. “That’s from this…radiant energy?”

  He patted the curls gingerly back in place so they hid the worst of the injury.

  “We’re not sure what happened, or why. It’s here too,” he said, and showed me his palms, which were flecked with tiny blisters.

  I stared at them, then at him, and couldn’t stop myself from flicking an anxious glance around the laboratory.

  “Don’t worry,” he said, noting it. “It seems to only cause damage when you’re close to the device when it fires. I…I’ve been trying to find ways to prevent the problems, but…”

  He shrugged his thin shoulders and rubbed idly at his right eye.

  “Your eye too?” I asked.

  “Sometimes I get flashes, burning sensations…I feel as though I’m seeing out of two different eyes.”

  “And you keep studying it?”

  “Of course I do!” he said, leaning forward, eyes bright and half-mad with excitement.

  “Have you called a physician?”

  He chuckled. “I’m a scienti
st, Your Highness.”

  “But not a doctor,” I interjected.

  “No. They can’t help me. What can I tell them was the cause? You can’t see it or taste it or feel it, but it eats your skin from the inside.”

  “That does sound difficult,” I said.

  “But you see!” he said, picking up the photograph and flapping it between us. “Don’t you? You see the potential!”

  I arched a brow. “The potential for death? Disease?”

  “No, no, to prevent death! To prevent disease!” he cried.

  I nodded at his hands and said nothing.

  “Compared to the possibilities, that’s hardly worth a mention,” he said. “It’s a burn. You know how badly Masson got burned when he tried to invent the electric light, don’t you?”

  I’d seen the pictures of Masson’s scorched body, the pictures the Herald was not allowed to print. The memory made me cringe with revulsion. Somehow the man had survived, but he never appeared at the annual Science Exposition any more. He never left his laboratory, either, some said. Just hid inside with his equipment, forgetting that the world existed around him.

  “Don’t let that happen to you,” I said.

  “Don’t fret, Your Highness,” Baisell said. “With some more resources, I’m sure we’ll find a perfect solution for blocking the damage from these…rays. If only I knew where we’d come up with the funding…” His plaintive voice trailed off as he strolled away, shaking his head as if in deep contemplation.

  I exchanged a glance with Alokin, who watched me closely through a thinly-veiled smile.

  “You know how he is,” he murmured.

  I grinned and swept another glance around the laboratory, this time curious, not terrified.