Altercation - Episode 4 (Lost Souls)

by Laurel O'Donnell

  “No. They would find them instantly. The security is pretty tight. I can’t get a static camera in. So, I disguised one.” Eugene grinned. “My own little pet.”

  “Pet?” Ben asked.

  “The idea really came from you and Sam. You call the complex the Crypt. What sort of animal lives in a Crypt?”

  “A rat?” Ben guessed.

  Damien rolled his eyes impatiently and shook his head.

  “Too big. Daniel would have found it immediately. I needed something smaller.”

  “A cockroach?” Damien snapped, glaring meaningfully at Eugene.

  Eugene shook his head. “They couldn’t get through the iron walls. I needed something that could fly and was everywhere.” Eugene stood and moved to one of the tables near the door. He gently set metal gadgets aside, his brow furrowed as he searched. He carefully lifted some of the metal and his face brightened. He picked something up between his thumb and forefinger, victoriously. “A fly,” he whispered reverently.

  ~ ~ ~

  The throbbing in her head mirrored the pulsing of her body. Sam recognized the thrum of energy through her veins. She was being regenerated. She slowly opened her eyes.

  The room was empty. She quickly scanned it. Her hands were bound above her head, her feet tied at the ankles. The straps binding her must be how they were regenerating her. She didn’t see a machine anywhere.

  She tugged at her hands, testing the straps. Strong. Secure. She twisted her ankles. Firm. She was trussed up tighter than a pig ready for slaughter. This was not good.

  The door slid open, drawing her gaze. The same Changed from before entered. What was his name? Curtis. His long brown hair had been slicked back in a familiar style. But it was his eyes that captured her attention. They were not black, but white.

  Tingles of trepidation spread through Sam. “Back for another round?”

  “Ah, Sam,” Curtis said softly, moving to a chair beside her. “It’s so good to see you again.”

  Sam scowled slightly, ripples of apprehension dancing across the nape of her neck. There was something very familiar about the inflections on his words, his manner. But it couldn’t be!

  “Do you recognize me?” he whispered.

  Sam’s heart pounded. She grit her teeth. It couldn’t be! They had blasted the sick bastard out of existence.

  “Yes,” he smiled. “How could you not? We’ve known each other intimately.” He stared fondly at her.

  “Yet, you always chain me down.” She pulled at her wrists as if to emphasis the point. “What are you afraid of? Why don’t you let me up?”

  “Oh, my dear. You know I like my women helpless. You most of all.”

  Sam was screaming inside. It couldn’t be! How had Scala managed to come back? How had he done it? “How did you survive?”

  “Because of you,” he said, running a hand gently across her cheek. “You think that by saving the humans, you save the world. You were so devoted to helping them that you didn’t see it. That white beam of light. That is us. We are energy. I wasn’t blasted away into some eternal nothingness, like you hoped. You just transformed me. Put me into a different state of being. And then I just had to wait.”

  “Wait?” Sam echoed, confused. “Wait for what?”

  “This,” he said, holding out his arms.

  The Changed. He had somehow gotten into him. But how? How was that possible? “How did you get in him?”

  “Curtis allowed me use of his body for a little while. It’s similar to a Jump, but Curtis is conscious in here with me.” He winced and his eyes flickered from white to black and then back to white. “Unfortunately, I am too weak to remain. I need more energy.” He leaned toward her. “And you will help me.”

  Sam chuckled humorlessly. “I don’t think so.”

  “You’ve already helped me so much. Much more then you know.” He grit his teeth. “I’m sorry I don’t have the energy to keep this up. You know how I love…being with you. Before I leave, I want something from you.”

  Panic flared through her as memories from her time with him before came searing back to her. “Do your best,” she said through grit teeth. Her words came out more fearful than she had intended.

  He smiled and stroked her hair. “You know I love it when you give me permission.”

  Sam closed her eyes and bit her lower lip so she wouldn’t cry out. She knew he liked it. She felt his fist slowly enter her body, right where her heart would have been. She hated him. She hated him so much! Agony scorched through her like a hot burning with the intrusion of his fist. She waited for the draining to begin, but it never came. He wasn’t trying to take her energy. There was no pulling of energy, no withdrawing of her strength. No. He was trying to push into her, his energy moving forward, trying to somehow gain access. He was trying to get inside of her…

  Chapter Two

  Damien knocked the fly aside. “Enough of these games. What does a fly have to do with Sam?”

  The fly flew from Eugene’s hand and landed on the floor with a strange metallic clink. “No!” Eugene rushed after it, kneeling on the floor to look for it. “Where is it?”

  Ben glared at Damien before stepping forward to help Eugene look.

  “NO!” Eugene screamed. “Don’t move! You might step on it.” He began searching the metal floor with his hands, carefully sweeping one out before him, then the other.

  Damien shook his head and grit his teeth. He didn’t have time for this. Sam was in trouble. He stepped past Eugene to the side of the wall where he had seen the damned thing land. He picked it up between his thumb and forefinger. “Here.”

  Eugene shot to his feet shouting, “Give it to me!”

  Damien was about to hand it over when he noticed something strange. A wire poked out of its body. It was not a real fly. It was some sort of machine.

  Eugene snatched it from him, holding it gently in his cupped hands. “It was a prototype.” He parted his hands to peek in. He scowled. “This was the first one. My original.” He leaned close to his hands, whispering, “It’s okay. I won’t let him touch you again.”

  Damien’s furious gaze snapped to Ben. Eugene was a lunatic!

  “What does this prototype have to do with the Crypt?” Ben asked softly.

  Eugene scowled, returning to the laptop. “It was the only way I could get a camera into the Crypt.”

  Damien cocked his head in disbelief. “You have a camera on the fly?”

  “Not on the fly. The fly is the camera.” Eugene carefully set the fly down beside his laptop and began typing. “I had to make sure when I created it, I used no iron. If it accidentally flew through a Soul, if it had any iron it would disrupt it. And they would know.”

  “You have a fly in there now?” Ben asked in awe and hope.

  “Yes. One. I sent him in about a month ago.” Eugene typed. “There.”

  Damien and Ben swung to the screen. The layout of the Crypt was gone and in its place was a black and white image of a regeneration table.

  “I hid the fly in the regen room. I’ve never seen any other flies, so I don’t know how suspicious Daniel would be if he saw one. He hasn’t yet. When I’m not using it, I have it sit still.”

  “Get it to the cages,” Damien ordered. “Find out where Sam is.”

  Eugene cast him a glare. “It won’t be that easy. I can get there, but I can’t see who is in the cages unless someone goes inside.”

  “Then this is all a waste of time.”

  Ben held up his hand. “No. It’s not. Do the best you can, Eugene.”

  Eugene nodded and began typing. The image on the screen began to turn and zip around as the fly moved from the wall, making its way into the hallway.

  Ben signaled for Damien to join him near the wall, away from Eugene. “He’ll find her. You need to calm down and stop provoking him.”

  Damien clenched his teeth and narrowed his eyes. “You’re walking a very thin line for someone who betrayed Sam.”

  “I know how you feel.
But our main goal is to get Sam out of there. Eugene is our best bet. So just calm down.”

  Damien cast a glance at the screen. The fly was moving forward, down hallways.

  “It shouldn’t be too hard to get her to the cages,” Eugene mumbled. He kept his fingers on two arrow keys to direct the fly.

  “You must know all of Daniel’s plans,” Damien said quietly. “Your little spy has been in the Crypt for a month.”

  “Some,” Eugene admitted.

  “Did you know he was going to go after Sam?”

  “What?” Eugene looked at him. “No! I would have told Ben immediately.” He shook his head again. “I’ve been watching other bases recently. The commotion Ben, Sam and Christian stirred up with their blasting the Changed has really had a domino affect. It was fascinating to watch. Other Souls were speaking of trying it in other sections of the US.”

  Damien clenched his fists. So, he didn’t really know how many Changed had been blasted. He looked down, thoughtfully. “You spy on Souls.” It was a statement, more than a question.

  Eugene grimaced. “I prefer to call it monitoring.”

  Damien shook his head slightly. He didn’t give a damn what he called it. He wondered if Eugene had been keeping tabs on him, but decided to let the thought go for a moment. “How do you do it?”

  “I have cameras in operation all over. I –”

  “Cameras can’t pick up every movement, everywhere. How do you know which humans refuse to pass? How do you know who will become a Soul?”

  Eugene pressed the arrow key, guiding the fly toward the cages. “I have a complex system of monitoring. It incorporates all the police communications as well as the morgue, hospitals, and obituaries. There is no precise way to catch all the humans who refuse to pass. But I catch enough. And those that I don’t, I start a file on shortly after they are found.”

  Damien was silent as he watched the fly settle on a wall. A long hallway stretched before the fly, with three corridors branching off of that one. “You have a lot of technology.”

  The silence stretched. Eugene turned to him with a scowl on his face.

  “Can this technology pick up…” Damien floundered. He was no technology geek. He didn’t know the term for it. “…different levels of…sound?”

  “Sound?” Eugene shrugged. “You mean sound in different frequencies? I suppose if I fiddled with it long enough I could adjust the machine to register hertz to…”

  “I asked if your machines could pick up different frequencies.”

  Eugene scowled. “Not right now. They are able to pick up our voices and nothing else. I suppose it could if I altered my machines. They are not set up for anything above 55 kilohertz.”

  “What about physical forms? Like us? If it can pick us up, can it pick other things up?”

  Eugene scowled, confused.

  “What are you getting at?” Ben asked.

  “Ever since you started blasting these Changed, I’ve been seeing misty forms and lately, hearing whisperings. I thought Eugene might have caught some of it with his gadgets.”

  “I haven’t noticed anything different,” Eugene said with a thoughtful note in his voice. “There!”

  Damien spun to stare at the screen, thinking he caught one of the forms on his camera. A Soul passed the fly down the metallic hallway. His dark hair was cut short and spiked on top. He wore a black sleeveless t-shirt and ripped jeans. He walked down the hallway and turned down the second corridor. The fly followed, settling on the wall across from that hallway. The Soul with the spiked hair stopped before the second door on the right. He opened it and stepped in. When he emerged, he escorted a woman Soul with red hair who looked weak and lethargic.

  It wasn’t Sam. That was all Damien cared about. They knew she wasn’t in the second cage.

  ~ ~ ~

  There was nothing to do but wait. Ben watched Damien become more and more agitated. At first, he paced. Then he took an interest in Eugene’s machines, which aggravated Eugene. Damien seemed to get enjoyment from this for a while. Then, Ben engaged him in chess. The first game Ben won.

  The same Soul had returned to the cages empty handed, then escorted another prisoner from down another hallway. The fly followed him and then returned to its position on the wall when it wasn’t Sam.

  Five games later, Ben was letting Damien win to calm him down. It wasn’t working very well. Deep down, Ben was afraid Damien would go out to drain a Soul. Or worse, make the Jump. Ben couldn’t afford losing him. He wanted his help finding Sam and getting her away from Daniel.

  Hours later, Damien was bouncing his leg up and down as he studied the chessboard.

  Ben stopped trying to engage him in conversation. He was too irrational and angry.

  The same Soul returned, drawing all their attention to the screen. He had a nose ring and Damien called him Ringer. It stuck. Ringer appeared with another Soul walking down the hall. They pulled a weakened Soul between them. Short cut blonde hair covered his bowed head.

  Ben stood up. “It’s Christian.”

  Ringer paused at the first door, opened it and shoved Christian in. The iron door closed. Ringer chuckled. “Daniel said to let him recover and he’ll try again later.” The two Souls walked away.

  “We have to help him,” Ben said.

  “No,” Damien objected. “We wait to find out where Sam is. If we go rushing in to save him, they’ll know what our plan is.”

  “Maybe Christian knows where she is.”

  “And maybe he doesn’t.”

  “Do you want to risk it?” Ben demanded.

  “Christian or Sam? Yeah. I’ll risk waiting for Sam,” Damien said, nodding.

  “Christian is on our side. He cares about Sam, too. He’ll fight with us.”

  “If we blow our plan rescuing a Freshie, then they will focus all their efforts on Sam. No. We wait.”

  Ben took a deep breath and shook his head. “You need me to get into the Crypt. I’m going to get Christian out. You can come with or stay here.”

  Damien glared at him with his completely black eyes, his teeth clenched in rage, his brow furrowed.

  “Go get Christian,” Eugene said, rising to stand by Ben. “I’ll continue to watch. When I find out where Sam is, I’ll let you know.”

  “I’m not leaving without her,” Damien said. “If I have to destroy the Crypt to find her, I will.”

  “We don’t have a problem there,” Ben agreed. He looked at Eugene. “Cells will work in the Crypt?”

  Eugene nodded. “The cells that I made for us will. Just like the camera still works. Oh!” He walked across the room to a side wall and ran his hand up the wall. A panel in the wall slid open to reveal a hidden room. He entered the room and emerged quickly, holding a small shiny metal device. “You’ll need this to get in.” He handed it to Ben. “Place it over the scanner. It will disrupt the signal and open the door. Get Christian and Sam and get out. When you leave, don’t forget it.”

  Ben turned the machine over in his hands. “We won’t leave it.”

  Eugene nodded. “It will keep the door open for seven point three minutes. It won’t take them that long to sound the alarm.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Ben and Damien materialized before a large iron wall of the Crypt, Ben’s hand on Damien’s shoulder. Beside the door was a rectangular black screen. Ben dropped his hand and looked up at Damien. A muscle in his cheek clenched tight as his black eyes glared at the wall.

  Ben put the machine over the black screen. It adhered to it as though it were some type of magnet, almost leaping from Ben’s hand. Ben placed his hand on Damien’s shoulder as if they were good friends. And once, they had been. But Ben no longer trusted the black-eyed group of monsters he now belonged to.

  It took only a moment before the iron door began to slide open.

  Ben fazed to the cages, pulling Damien through the faze with him. Seven minutes was not a long time. They had to get Christian out and then get to Sam.

  When they faze
d into the hallway where the fly was, Ben glanced behind them and down the hallway in front of them, looking for other Souls working for Daniel. The metal corridors were empty. Ben fazed to the doorway where Christian was being held.

  Damien waited where he was in the hallway, staring down the corridor at Ben.

  Ben removed a small vial from his shirt pocket, uncorked the slim tube and threw the liquid at the wall. The wall sizzled and dissolved where the liquid touched it. Acid. It was the same type they had used to escape when Sam, he and Christian were prisoners last time. He waited only a moment before a small hole appeared in the door. He fazed inside.

  Christian was sitting slumped against the opposite wall. He looked up when Ben appeared, blinked and a smile stretched his lips. “Am I glad to see you.”

  “Yeah.” Ben crossed the small cage in two strides and clasped Christian’s outstretched hand. “Can you faze?”

  Christian shook his head. “I can barely stand.” As if to prove his point, he stumbled forward.

  Ben caught him, holding him up with a hand around his waist. Christian draped his hand across Ben’s shoulders so he could support his weight. Ben fazed back to Damien.

  Christian stiffened when he saw him. “A Changed!”

  A high-pitched noise erupted in the Complex. “He’s with us,” Ben clarified, looking around. “They know we’re here.”

  “Where’s Sam?” Damien demanded in a leashed voice trembling with anxiety.

  “Sam?” Christian echoed.

  “Where is she?”

  Christian shook his head. “She got away. Daniel never got her.”

  Damien stared at him for a long moment in disbelief.

  “Are you sure?” Ben insisted.

  Christian nodded. “Yeah. She’s not here.”

  Ringer suddenly appeared down the hallway. He fazed to their side in a second.

  Damien whirled, thrusting his hand into Ringer’s chest. His lips grimaced as he began to drain him.

  “Damien, no!” Ben shouted. “Let him go!”