The Madness Project (The Madness Method)

by Bralick, J. Leigh

  “What other projects have you got here?”

  Alokin clapped his hands and winced—he’d obviously forgotten about his wounds.

  “Depends on what you’re interested in, Your Highness,” he said, waving me along to follow him. “We’re all physical sciences here in the Masson Labs. In the Garmon Labs in the east wing they’re busy with life sciences and research. Fascinating stuff, but rather disgusting, if you ask me.”

  He led me toward a corner of the room tucked behind a narrow partition, the walls all aglow with shifting blue and violet light. The air rasped with a metallic hum, like a key dragged down a lute string. The closer we got the louder it grew, until Alokin almost had to shout for me to hear him.

  “This is my latest invention,” he called, pulling on a pair of goggles and handing one to me. “My lightning device.”

  “Lightning?” I echoed.

  We stood in front of a tall cylinder capped with a torus-shaped device. And just as Alokin had suggested, tiny tongues of lightning flicked around it in a random, constant halo, stretching to touch the walls, the floor, the ceiling. I stared at the thing, transfixed. I’d never seen anything so wonderful, or so terrible.

  “Is it dangerous?” I asked, when I managed to find my voice.

  “One of the boys claims he can stick his hand through the electricity, but I’m not sure he hasn’t scrambled his brain already,” Alokin said.

  “What is it for?”

  Alokin smiled. “Understanding, Your Highness. Knowledge. And I imagine that Embrin will be trying to make a way to turn it into a weapon. Baisell will be trying to turn it into new ways to light up the city—for a price. Their ambitions are petty.”

  “And your ambition?”

  His gaze drifted over the mesmerizing arcs. “Tell me this, Your Highness. When man first saw a horse, what would have happened if he’d been content to ride on its bare back? He would never have learned how to use the horse to plow, or to carry a man into war, or to pull a carriage. And if he’d never learned those things, would we ever have discovered the mechanical plow, or the armored crawlers, or the motorcar? Baisell and Embrin have no vision. They see one thing, and one thing only, and that is where they wish to stop.”

  I couldn’t tear my gaze from the remarkable device. I would never be a scientist—I would have been content to stop at this machine alone, and never do a thing with it but marvel at its genius. A machine that could create its own lightning.

  “It’s like…magic,” I said, staggering over the word.

  “Indeed,” Alokin said, the lightning reflecting in his enigmatic eyes as he turned to me. “They are not terribly dissimilar. I suppose that’s what those zealots in Garmon are so keen to prove…”

  That dragged my attention from the electricity. “Prove?”

  He waved his hand and turned away. “Come see this, Your Highness.”

  I ground my teeth but followed him obediently to a low table that held a strange little device. It rather resembled a miniature train car, complete with wheels and a track, with a wiry protrusion waving from its back.

  “This is a little toy of mine,” Alokin said, touching the thing fondly. “You know how radios operate, don’t you?”

  I considered, then shook my head. “I know that they work. Never really thought about how.”

  “Well—” He tapped his chin, then flashed his fingers dismissively. “It’s not important. But I took that principle and thought, why not use it in other ways?”

  He picked up a small brass box with its own set of wires and mashed down on a black knob. I waited, watching the box, until a small motion on the table caught my eye. The little railroad car buzzed, lurching forward on its wheels, slowly at first, then faster and faster. I couldn’t say a word. I just stared until Alokin pushed the knob again and the train shuddered to a stop.

  “That…” I started, and couldn’t say anything else.

  “Isn’t it exciting? Baisell thinks it’s a waste of time. I stumbled upon the secret of this mechanism by such accident, I’m not sure I can reproduce the process. Or expand it. But if only I could! The possibilities are, of course, spectacular.” He plucked the little train car from the table and ran his fingers over the brassy metal. “Can you imagine, your friend Mr. Farro could control a plane in the skies with one of these devices! Or perhaps we could even find a way to create something like a miniature version of the newsmen’s cameras that could sit inside a small mechanical device, and it could be controlled from afar… Who knows what secrets we could learn, or what sights we could see! We could create whole armies of beasts that could battle in our stead, and when the war is over, we could gather their remains and craft them anew!”

  He shot me a glance, and something on my face must have brought him out of his reverie, because he set down the train and fidgeted with it on the table.

  “Well, of course, it’s purely speculation,” he said.

  I shifted, strangely uneasy. “I can see why you’re fascinated. Seeing so much possibility, and knowing that you can achieve it… But what would be the cost of it?”

  And for some reason, while I wanted to think of astounding arguments to explain the worm of anxiety in my gut, all I could think of was Griff flying like a wild thing high above the clouds, and the joy on his face when he told me about it…joy that I’d never understand.

  “Yes,” Alokin said, despondent. “I’ve thought of that too. But it may be we have no choice. After all, how can we face an army of mages? They’ve got an unnatural advantage over us. Perhaps the only answer is to use steam and machines to battle their flames and winds.”

  I swallowed hard. “I see your point.”

  “Well, it’s a long way off, anyway,” Alokin said, apparently a bit appeased by that. “I’d have to remember how I made the damn thing work in the first place.” He sighed and added woefully, “I’m sure those Garmon idiots will be well into Stage Two by then.”

  “Stage Two?” I echoed. “What’s Stage Two?”

  But he was busy fiddling with the little train, and just waved his hand again and shook his head. “It’s nothing. Something they’re working on, not sure, not altogether clear… Well, they’re just complainers, anyway…”

  His voice trailed off on a sentence that made little sense. I watched him work at the thing for a few minutes, wondering how I could possibly weasel my way into the Garmon Labs. From what I’d seen so far, Alokin’s experiments were fascinating, but hardly dangerous.

  The thought had barely crossed my mind when the ground shuddered and a terrific BOOM! echoed through the laboratory. Bottles fell from shelves and shattered, and several people started shouting and running. Alokin practically threw the train down and straightened up, but he didn’t seem the least bit panicked. He simply folded his hands into his pockets and swore, elegantly.

  “What’s going on?” I asked, staring toward the back corner of the lab where the lightning device lived.

  “Those incompetent idiots have been messing with the device again. I told them to leave it alone. They think it’s because I’m jealous and want to keep it to myself. It’s really because they’re just fools who don’t understand the complexity of the calculations needed—oh, damn. They’ve set the lab on fire.” He gave a great sigh. “All right, I suppose I’d better take care of it. You should leave now, Your Highness, or I’m sure I’ll be hearing from Kalen tonight.”

  “You know Zagger?” I asked, backing up as he shooed me along. “No one calls him Kalen.”

  “Yes. Now, not to overstep my bounds, but, get out of here.”

  I nodded, risking one last glance at the blue-lit corner that now smoked and flamed and cast the walls around it in black shadows, while a deep buzzing like a mad hive laced the air, stronger than ever before.

  “Be careful,” I told him, and showed myself out of the lab.

  Chapter 20 — Hayli

  “I could’ve sworn I heard this door slam,” a voice said, speaking just on the other side of the door.<
br />
  I crammed myself into the corner, out of sight of the window, and froze. My heart raced fast as the crow’s, and I just kept praying over and over again that whoever was out there wouldn’t open the door.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” another voice said—a voice I recognized…Dr. Kippler!

  All the blood drained from my face. Something like fury or fear crept in to take its place, and I knotted my hands and bit my lip to keep from screaming. The door latch twitched, and shifted down.

  “This door shouldn’t even be unlocked,” Dr. Kippler went on. “I’ll have to call Minister Blake and have him check the upper floors again…”

  I held my breath, willing them to move on. But just when I thought they’d gone, the latch jerked down and the door swung open.

  “What the devil—”

  I could feel the crow in my head, beating against my panic. Get up. Run. Run!

  “Ah,” Dr. Kippler said, standing in the doorway. “You came back.”

  I launched myself at the stairs and—before I could think why—I bolted down toward the Gen. Lab. door.

  “Stop her!” Kippler shouted. “Guards!”

  I shoved open the door and closed it, quiet as I could, behind me. The corridor here was bright but empty, and I picked a direction—right—and took off running. All kinds of doors flashed past me as I went, double doors, office doors, doors with windows. I passed a glass door that led into some kind of huge room, filled with men in long white coats and more tables than I could count. A strange bluish kind of light filtered over them and their strange machines, not bright, but strangely powerful. A minute and I realized I’d stopped to stare, while the guards would be coming any second to grab me.

  I’d just passed an office door that stood a bit ajar, so, with my pulse ricocheting in my head, I darted back to it and slipped inside. Leaving the door just as I’d found it, I scrambled through the darkness to crawl underneath the desk.

  Out in the hall, an alarm went off.

  Footsteps stopped just outside my door, and I heard the other scientist shouting over the noise, “What the devil is that?”

  “Those idiots have gone burning up their lab again. I don’t see why that means they have to put our lab under lockdown. Though I suppose it serves its purpose. We can put it back under lockdown as soon as we get out, so we can be certain she won’t go anywhere.”

  “That was one of your specimens?”

  “She’s an intriguing one, that girl. Shape-shifter. Higher energy readings than most we’ve had.”

  “I don’t know how you did it,” the man said, a note almost of reproach in his voice. “She must be about your daughter’s age.”

  “Don’t personify them,” Dr. Kippler said. “That creature is nothing like Eira.”

  My breath hissed out through my teeth. Creature! I’m not a creature!

  “Don’t tell me you believe all that, about mages not being human.”

  “If that’s what the King declares…”

  “We’re scientists, damn it. The King isn’t. I’ve looked at their flesh under a microscope just the same as you, and I haven’t seen a jot of difference between them and us. At least, no more difference than why some individuals have a leaner or more muscled body type than others… Dr. Sturgan was just explaining about some genes they’ve discovered on your specimens…”

  “It is a settled fact,” Dr. Kippler snapped, interrupting. “We just haven’t developed the tools to observe the real differences yet. It has to tie in to Alokin’s theory about electromagnetism and the energy in those specimens, which makes them so much easier to control if you can tap into it. As soon as we get the rest of the sample, things will be much clearer.”

  “And when will that happen?” the other scientist asked.

  “As soon—”

  There was a sharp hiss and the sound of something opening.

  “Finally,” Dr. Kippler said. “That took far too long. Tell those idiots over in the Physics Lab that their emergency doors need work. We shouldn’t be trapped for five minutes simply because they set fire to their lab.”

  “I’ll tell them,” the other scientist said, his voice fading with the sound of his footsteps. Then he stopped and said, “It’s never settled. And I don’t want blood on my hands if we turn out to be wrong.”

  “Oh, believe me, Toma,” Dr. Kippler said. I could picture his venomous smile from the acid in his voice. “If you think you’ve proved us wrong, it won’t be their blood you need to worry about.”

  I swallowed hard and latched my arms a little tighter around my knees, listening to the sound of their footsteps retreating down the hall. A moment later I heard the same hissing noise, only this time, it was followed by a decisive thud. I scrambled out from under the desk and into the hall, only to find myself caged in by a massive door that filled the entire corridor. I ran my hands over the steel surface, but there were no locks, no latches.

  “No, no,” I whispered. I pressed my ear to the door, but couldn’t hear aught at all from the other side. Panic surged up in me, and I slammed my hands on the door, shouting, “Let me out of here! Someone help me!”

  I sank to the ground and leaned against the door, staring down the corridor. The crow begged me to Shift, because at least she could hide more easily than me, but I couldn’t. If I wanted to find a way out, I’d need to use my hands.

  A minute and I realized that someone was standing in one of the office doors, halfway down the hall. My breath hitched and I froze.

  Told you, the crow muttered, but she sounded too frightened to be smug.

  The figure left the office to stand under the electrical lights, and I squinted to see better, because I couldn’t be seeing what I thought I was seeing. Tanned skin, dark hair all in an unruly mess, fitted charcoal suit…

  That was grobbing Prince Tarik, looking for all the world like he’d been hiding in an office same as me. A minute and he just stood there, staring down the hall at me, then I thought I saw his mouth quirk in a smile and he strolled my way.

  “Well,” he said, stopping a few feet from me and folding his hands behind his back. “Didn’t expect to see you here.”

  “Your Highness,” I stammered, choking on the words, too baffled to think of a better come-back. “What are you doing here?”

  His dark eyes glinted at me with that mischievous smile of his. “Same thing you are, I imagine.”

  My mouth dropped open. “But you’re…but you…”

  “I’m…just a pompous prince? A self-absorbed do-nothing?”

  I stared at him, but he spoke honestly, without venom, like he wouldn’t be surprised if that was what I thought of him.

  “Not what I said!” I protested. “I just div’n think…that is, I never figured you’d be so quick about…um…science.”

  He laughed, running a hand through his hair. “Heard some rumors about odd things happening over here. I suppose I just thought it’d be a delicious bit of fun to try to find out what.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  Of course it was just a game to him. It was all about getting in the spits, and making life dreadful for his father. He really wasn’t any different than everyone said.

  “Did you find aught interesting?” I asked after a moment.

  “Not really here in the Genetics Laboratory, but up in the Psychiatric Lab, they’re doing some very strange things.”

  I swallowed. “Psychy…psych…what is that?”

  He tapped his head. “Study of the mind, Hayli.”

  Oh God, he does remember my name. The Prince knows my name!

  “They’re doing some kind of…hypnosis experiments, I think,” he said. “Psychiatric manipulation. I couldn’t understand all of the science, but it seems they’re trying to find ways to control how people think and behave.”

  “Like with drugs?”

  His gaze snapped to my face, dark and utterly unfathomable. “Not really. Drugs aren’t very effective, not for this sort of thing. Why?”

&n
bsp; “Oh,” I said, and shrugged. “Just had a…a mate who got dosed up by some street lord. Seemed like they wanted information from him. I guess I was just thinking, maybe they were working for the scientists!”

  And I kept thinking how I’d seen Kantian at Kalethelia, talking to that spectacled man. If only I’d got a better goggle at him. Spectacles weren’t enough. It might have been Dr. Kippler, or it might have been anyone else.

  Tarik gave me a skeptical kind of look and turned to scan the corridor behind us. “I rather doubt that,” he said. “This is a fairly closed-off community. I don’t think they care overly much what happens on the street.”

  “But they’re targeting mages!” I said. “The folks Dr. Kippler is experimenting on? They’re mages!”

  “What, really?” he asked. “And this friend of yours, he was a mage?”

  I nodded.

  His eyes hardened suddenly, and he took a step toward me. “This isn’t the first time you’ve been on the palace grounds. Was this chum of yours there then, too? My friend’s aeroplane crashed that day, and the only thing the engineers could say was that it had gotten damaged from the inside. Know anything about that?”

  “I div’n have aught to do with that!” I gasped, pushing myself to my feet and pressing my back against the door. “Honest. That was a different mage. Shade had nothing to do with that either. He’s not a Flint.”

  “But you do know who did it? My best friend could have died.”

  I sucked in a breath and tried to hold his gaze, but he’d got a fury in his eyes that I’d only seen once before, when the Ghost had shot his father.

  “I div’n want it to happen,” I said. “But I can’t tell you who did it. I’m sorry. I just can’t. Dan’ ask me to rat him out.”

  “He’s a friend of yours?” the prince asked, eyes narrowing.

  “No,” I admitted.

  “Then…”

  “He’s still a mage! I can’t betray another mage.”

  “Hm,” he said, still holding my gaze. “I’m surprised. I suppose I thought the south-streeters were a bit lacking in loyalty, especially seeing as they have none for their King.”