by Kailin Gow
With all the speed of his Fader training and inherited power, Jack grabs the arm, dragging the newcomer into the room. It’s a young man, with sandy blond hair and broad shoulders, but I don’t have time to see more than that before Jack shoves him face first against the wall.
I dart for the open door, knowing that we might only get one chance at this. Even with the kind of speed that I have from the power within me, I’m not fast enough. The door slides shut with a hiss, so that my hands slam into the tiles of it once more. I can’t even get a hand or foot in the way, though given the speed at which the door closes, maybe that’s a good thing.
I cry out in frustration, almost at the same moment that Jack makes a noise of pain. I spin back to where he’s pinning the man he grabbed, only to find that he isn’t pinning him anymore. Almost as fast as Jack, the newcomer slams an elbow back into Jack’s ribs, ducking under his arm to escape.
Jack fights back, and immediately things are chaos. The room just isn’t big enough for a kind of elegant, calculated fight. Instead, everything has to be at close quarters, at a furious pace. Jack spins after the newcomer, grabbing him and driving him back to slam into the opposite wall, only for a knee to catch him in the stomach, making him double up. Jack drives upwards with the palm of his hand, but his opponent blocks the blow and comes back with a punch that Jack has to cover up to avoid.
That close, there’s nothing pretty about fighting. Not that there ever is, but this is brutal. Jack and the newcomer shove against each other, heads down as they clinch, fists, elbows and knees flashing out with vicious speed as the two men struggle to land blows on each other. For the most part they aren’t successful, as Jack and his opponent manage to parry, or just to grab the limb being used for the strike. There are so many blows being thrown though that more than a few get through, landing with meaty thuds and grunts of pain.
The man in the dark suit looks young and fit, so I doubt that will slow him down much. Jack either. I wince every time a punch hits him, half starting forward to try to help, but with so little space, I’m not sure I can help right then. Even that burning force inside me doesn’t rise to the surface, as though recognizing that there isn’t anything it can do. That’s a scary thought, because it means that I’ve started thinking of the power inside of me as something that almost thinks for itself.
Briefly, Jack and his opponent break apart, but only so that they can go into a whirl of motion. Jack kicks low and then high, forcing the other man to cover his head and duck to avoid being hit. Jack jumps over a spinning sweep with ease, and then they crash back together, each struggling for the best grip on the other while simultaneously throwing punches and trying not to be hit in return.
The young man fighting Jack ducks down to try to tackle him around the legs. In that confined space though, there isn’t the space to finish the move properly, and they both end up slumped against the base of the wall, still throwing punches. Jack’s opponent rears up and I see my chance, pulling him back off Jack just long enough for Jack to gain the upper hand. Jack pounces forward, and they crash into the wall again, but this time Jack is on top.
Jack turns around, looking like he’s offering his opponent an easy chance at a choke, but he’s pressed back against his opponent so tightly that I can’t even see the face of the young man he’s fighting. Jack does something to entangle their legs, figure-fouring both of his around one of his opponent’s before reaching down to grab the other with his hands. I have no idea what he’s doing at that point.
Especially not when he executes a kind of forward roll down by his attacker’s legs. One that sends both him and his opponent into a tangle of limbs, with Jack turning the other man above him like a juggler. The move ends with Jack clinging to his back, in position to start choking him. It also means that, for the first time since he came into the room, I get a clear view of the other man’s face.
It’s Grayson.
Grayson – my longtime former boyfriend, whom I had to leave behind when my family and I were faded, and I had to assume another identity…one of Celeste Channing, a socialite who was with Jack Simple, a Fader who was assigned to protect me. In a complicated twist of fate, Grayson came back into my life, and was faded into a highly-skilled Fader, like Jack.
I don’t know what he’s doing there, but it’s him. I’d know the square jawed, rugged good looks beneath that sandy blond hair anywhere. His deep blue eyes look out at me and widen in surprise, even shock. They also widen in sudden fear at the strangle hold Jack is applying to him. I remember that they’ve been like that once before, out on the road when I was running with Grayson and he made the mistake of attacking Jack. Jack can be ruthless when he has to be. Weirdly, that’s one of the things I love about him, because I know he is strong enough to survive in the world I’ve been plunged into.
Now though, it means that his arms are wrapped around Grayson’s throat, squeezing.
“Jack!” I yell, knowing that in the rush of it all, I have to shout if I want Jack to listen. “Jack, it’s Grayson. Let go.”
Jack looks up at me blankly for a moment, then what I’ve just said seems to register, because he lets go, disentangling himself from Grayson slowly. Both of them scramble to their feet, looking worse for the fight. Jack has a cut above his left eye, which isn’t large, but does drip blood until he presses a palm to it to stop the flow. Grayson has an ugly looking bruise on one cheek, and a graze along his jaw. Both of them wince slightly as they straighten up, and their clothes are a mess. Grayson’s suit jacket is so badly torn that he takes it off and throws it aside, while Jack takes a moment or two to straighten his clothes.
“Grayson?” I rush forward to hug him, taking a moment to enjoy the clean, earthy scent of him so close. “What are you doing here? We went looking for you outside the farmhouse, but you weren’t there. Then we were grabbed…”
“I swear that had nothing to do with me,” Grayson says. He’s looking at Jack as much as me when he says that. Maybe he just knows which of us is less likely to believe him. Though there were things he didn’t tell me for years, too.
“Do you know where we are?” Jack asks. The way he says it is simple, professional. Just Jack. “You’ve been out in the corridors.”
“I don’t know too much,” Grayson says. “I guess I only got here a little while before you did.”
“What happened to you, Grayson?” I ask.
Grayson winces. “I was waiting for you on the farm when someone grabbed me from behind and put a bag over my head. I tried to fight. I knew…” he hesitates “… I knew I had to try to get back to the farmhouse to warn you.”
“But you didn’t,” Jack points out. Is there a hint of accusation there?
“There were too many of them,” Grayson says. “I got in a few punches, but then one of them must have knocked me out, because the next thing I knew I was waking up in a room.”
“Describe it,” Jack says.
Grayson shrugs. “Like this. Blank. White walled. A sliding door. I couldn’t find any sign of where it was, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“But you got out,” I say, suddenly hopeful. If Grayson managed to get out of one cell, then maybe we can get out of this place too.
“Someone came in and I knocked him out,” Grayson explains. He touches one of the bruises on his cheek. “You had the same plan, I guess.”
I nod, but Jack’s still asking questions.
“What happened when you got out of the holding cell? What did you see?”
“There were corridors,” Grayson says. “I followed them around. I started trying doors, because I figured one of them had to lead out of here. Then you grabbed me.”
“And now we’re all trapped again,” Jack says.
“I guess we’ll just have to wait for the next escaping person to come along,” I say, and laugh bitterly.
Jack reaches out to put a hand on my shoulder. “It’s going to be fine, Celes.”
“You hope.”
“Have I
ever let you down?” Jack looks back to Grayson, who doesn’t look entirely happy about Jack comforting me, but who doesn’t say anything. “What did you see out in the corridors? Can you help to pin down where we are?”
Grayson shakes his head. Watching the two of them there, I notice for the first time that Grayson seems to be deferring to Jack automatically, like a soldier with a superior officer. That has to be part of what the Faders did to him, implanting memories in him to train him to be one of them. Something tightens in me at that thought. It’s kept Grayson alive, but what has it done to the real him? Is the boy who used to run with me still in there somewhere, or is he gone forever?
Of course, I’m not exactly the same girl I was then either. Between the physical changes the Faders made to me to disguise me and the power that comes out of me so easily now, I’m not the same Celestra Caine I was.
“So what did you see out there?” I ask.
“Nothing,” Grayson says. “There’s nothing out there. The corridors are coated in this… stuff…” he points to the panels on the doors “but there aren’t any signs, or symbols, or anything like that. We could be anywhere.”
“Not anywhere,” Jack says with a shake of his head. “We know that this isn’t one of the Underground’s Locations, because I’ve never seen anywhere in one of those that looks like this. It doesn’t feel like one of the Locations either.”
From anyone else, that wouldn’t have made much sense, but I’ve spent so long trusting Jack’s feelings now that I don’t even question it. What does that leave, though?
“The Others? But it was Lionel’s people who took us, wasn’t it?” A small knot of fear ties itself in my stomach at that thought. It can’t be the Others, can it? The people who want me and Jack dead? The people Grayson’s dad works for? It can’t be them. If it is though, we need to get out of here right now.
As if in answer to that thought, Jack looks at the door. Grayson and I look too, because it’s easy to guess what that means. Sure enough, the door slides open. And when it does so, my mouth falls open in sheer shock.
FOUR
I keep staring for several seconds, along with Grayson and Jack. I was expecting guards, or Lionel, or maybe even Grayson’s father. I wasn’t expecting this. I’ve never seen the man who stands in the doorway flanked by a couple of bodyguards face to face, but I know who he is. I guess right now, just about everybody on the planet knows who he is.
Wilson Hammond, former US senator, industrialist, and current presidential hopeful, is even more impressive in the flesh than he looks on the news. He’s in his late fifties, though he looks fit and strong, and his dark hair doesn’t show more than a few flecks of grey. His features are strong, with the kind of open, square jawed good looks that probably make life very easy for his campaign managers. His suit looks like it cost as much as most people’s cars. He smiles as he steps into the room, but his deep blue eyes are watching us carefully. Those eyes of the two bodyguards with him definitely are. I can see the bulge of guns under their jackets. What does it say about my life that as an eighteen year old girl, I know to look for that?
“So, it’s Celestra, Grayson and Jack, right?”
It takes me a moment to realize what he’s just said. He’s used my name. My real name. As far as the normal world is concerned, Celestra Caine never existed. She was erased when the Faders made me disappear. For everyone outside of the Others and the Underground, there’s only Celeste Channing.
“You’re probably wondering what you’re doing here,” Hammond continues.
“Actually,” Jack says, “first I was wondering where ‘here’ was.”
Hammond shakes his head. “Now, son, you know better than that, given what you do for a living.”
“You know about Jack?” I ask, and the former senator turns a smile on me that he’s probably practiced in a mirror. He holds out a hand, and one of the men with him hands him a file.
“I know about all of you, Celestra.” He flicks through the file. “What the Others and the Underground do isn’t common knowledge, but did you really think that no one in government keeps an eye on these things? There are committees, and sub-committees, and things less formal than that. I’ve been a part of some of them.”
“So this is some kind of government run secret prison?” Grayson asks. Already, the bruises from his fight with Jack have faded, his body rebuilding itself the way it did back on the farm.
Hammond laughs. “You think that? No son, things aren’t that bad. This is one of my company’s facilities, and frankly I’m sorry that there’s a need for this at all.” He looks to each of us in turn. “Believe me, I didn’t want to have you snatched and brought here, but there are times when a man has to make difficult decisions. Hopefully, you’ll all be able to go home very soon.”
Hopefully. It’s kind of a frightening word, because it suggests that there are ways we might not be going home.
“What do you want from us?” I ask.
“From you, Celestra? Nothing. It’s the fathers of these two young men whose help I need.”
I don’t quite get that, but Jack seems to. “You’re interested in memory fading,” he says.
“A good guess.”
Jack shrugs. “It’s what my father and Grayson’s have in common.”
“Because they worked together on the original experiments.” Hammond turns over a page in the file he holds. “I know. When I first heard about it, I was skeptical, but I did my research. I found reports. Some of them were hard to get hold of, but I found them.”
“So you want the details of fading,” Jack says.
Hammond shakes his head. “I need someone faded.”
“Who?”
He hesitates. Not for long, but he does. “My son.”
Jack’s expression doesn’t change by much, but then, it never does. I reach out to put a hand on his arm before he does anything. He shakes his head. “No.”
“You haven’t heard why yet,” Hammond points out.
“I’ve been through it,” Jack says. He looks around at me and Grayson. “We all have, or at least they tried. Do you think we’re going to put a kid through that?”
“I think your fathers already have,” Hammond says. “So why not do it again? Fade my boy. Change his identity so well that even he doesn’t know it.”
I look at him, trying to make some sense of it. “Why? Why would you want to do that to your own son?”
Hammond nods. “That’s a fair question. I guess it deserves an answer. You know I’m running for president? I have to ask, because kids sometimes don’t pay as much attention to politics as they should.”
“I know,” I say. It’s kind of hard not to, this close to the election. People seem to think that Wilson Hammond will win, too. They’re already talking about what a great president he’ll make. Right now, pretty obviously, I’m not so sure.
“Well, I’ve worked very hard to keep Johnny out of the public eye so far,” Hammond explains, “but that isn’t going to be enough if I win the presidency. I’ll do whatever I have to do in order to shield him from that kind of scrutiny. He doesn’t deserve to grow up like that.”
“So you want to fade him?” Jack says. “You want to send him away and take away every memory of you?”
Hammond looks angry for a moment. “Of course I don’t want to, but it’s necessary. You sound just like your father.”
“You’ve already spoken to Sebastian about this?” I ask.
“And he said no?” I ask.
“He said no,” Hammond agrees. “And Grayson’s father Richard did not have the fading machine. Which is where the three of you come in.”
“As hostages.”
Hammond shrugs. “That’s an ugly word, but I guess it’s an ugly situation. So this is what’s going to happen. You, Jack, obviously know more about all this than the other two, and I think your father is the better bet anyway, so I’m going to let you go.”
“So that I can help fade a little boy?” Jack dema
nds. He shakes his head. “That isn’t going to happen, Hammond. What you’re suggesting… it’s wrong.”
“It’s what’s right for my son.”
Another shake of the head from Jack. “It’s what’s right for you, but trust me, I’ve been there, and there is no way that this is what is best for the boy.”
“I decide what’s best for my son,” Hammond snaps. He gestures to the two men with him and they hurry forward. One of them heads straight at me. I go to punch him but he manages to block the blow, driving into me and pinning me back against the wall through sheer bulk. He spins me around, wrenching one of my arms behind my back.
I want to burn him then. I want it, but I force myself to squash the feeling. I’m not killing anyone. Not here. Even if what Wilson Hammond is doing is wrong, I’m not killing him and his men just for trying to help his son. That doesn’t mean I won’t fight though. I stamp down with my foot on the shin of the man grabbing me, then try to drive my elbow back into him.
He holds tightly, and I feel something cold and metallic snap around my left wrist. He grabs my right, and too late I realize what he’s doing. He’s handcuffing me. For a moment, I start to panic, but then I realize that it isn’t a problem. I even stop fighting, letting him put the cuff on my other wrist and waiting until he lets go of me. I turn around, to see that Grayson is cuffed too, while Wilson Hammond is watching the whole thing impassively.
Then I burn.
I call up the power inside me, call to it until I can feel it blazing out through my eyes. Call to it and stare straight at Wilson Hammond so that he can see what he is dealing with, while I send that power into the handcuffs holding me. I figure that a pool of molten metal on the floor ought to persuade him that he shouldn’t be threatening us. So I drive the power in me down into that metal, waiting for it to fall from my wrists in ruins.
