Mindstormer

by AJ Steiger

  “Run!” Ian’s eyes are wide, desperate. He lies on the ground, clutching his wounded leg.

  Time slows. I have just a second or two to make a decision. If I run, I can escape. But they’ll kill him.

  Then rough hands grab me from behind and drag me away, behind an empty police car. I struggle instinctively. “Hold still!” It’s Steven.

  He yanks a grenade out of his backpack, pulls out the pin with his teeth, and flings it. It hits the fence and explodes with deafening thunder and blinding fire, blasting bits of chain link in every direction. A sharp bit of metal flies past me, nicking my cheek. He yanks me toward the billowing cloud of smoke, then through it, and suddenly we’re in the street, surrounded by fog and looming brick buildings. Most of them look like abandoned warehouses and factories. He pulls me into an alley, behind a dumpster. His hand covers my mouth, stifling my cry.

  We crouch behind the dumpster, motionless. I pant against his palm, straining my eyes upward so I can see his face. He stares straight ahead, face pale and dripping with sweat. Gunshots bark, and a woman screams. In the distance, sirens wail as more police flock to the scene.

  Steven moves in a crouch, crab-like, along the wall, dragging me with him. We round a corner. Then he lurches to his feet and starts running, pulling me along. His fingers are clamped around my arm. We duck down another narrow street and run between chain link fences and lots filled with broken glass. In a tiny cement yard, a black dog strains against a chain and barks at me, pink tongue flapping.

  “Steven,” I pant, “we have to go back. The others—”

  “We can’t go back.” He doesn’t look at me. His pulse flutters in his throat.

  “You’re just going to abandon them? What about Rhee? What about Ian?”

  He doesn’t answer.

  We keep running. I don’t have a choice; his fingers are anchored into my arm like claws, and I stumble along behind him. Each breath sears my lungs. A deep stitch throbs like a knife buried in my side. When Steven slows to catch his breath, I elbow him, hard, in the side. He loosens his grip in surprise, and I pull free. “What the hell is wrong with you?” I shout.

  “There was nothing we could have done!” he shouts back, eyes wild and bloodshot. Beads of sweat stand out on his forehead; a vein pulses at his temple. “We walked right into a trap. We had no chance against them. If we hadn’t run, we’d be dead or captured.”

  “I’d rather be dead or captured than be a coward who left my friends to die!”

  He flinches back, and instantly, I regret the words. Then his expression goes blank. “Hate me if you want. But I’m not going to let them get you, too.”

  We stand in the alley, staring at each other.

  “We’ve got to find our way Underground.” He turns and keeps walking. His rifle is gone; he must have lost it in the chaos.

  I follow him. Shame burns in my gut like acid, eating a hole through my insides. Deep down, I know that Steven did the only thing he could do. But still, I hate the fact that we ran and left them behind. I think about Ian’s warm smile, about Rhee handing me her coat, telling me I’d earned it. A scream builds up in my chest, and I choke it down.

  Thunder breaks apart the air, and the ground vibrates beneath my feet. I stumble and fall against Steven. “What was that?” I ask, breathless.

  He doesn’t answer. He’s staring at the sky, where a dark column of smoke rises toward the clouds. “Well,” Steven says, “I guess someone managed to set off one of the bombs.”

  I can still see the outline of the warehouse—the column of smoke is to the left of it. The bomb wasn’t detonated inside the facility, so it probably didn’t damage the database. Whoever set it off must have been trying to create a diversion so the others could escape. I just hope it worked.

  Another explosion rocks the air. More smoke rises, thick and black as tar, filling the sky. Even from this distance, it sears my lungs.

  “Lain,” Steven whispers. He sounds a little unsteady. “You see that?”

  I look up, and my stomach drops. There’s a huge face in the sky, projected on the clouds of smoke. At first, I don’t recognize the girl staring down at the city—a girl with pale skin and large, haunted eyes, a girl with short, ragged brown hair. Then a voice echoes through the fiery dawn, amplified by unseen speakers, booming and ominous, the voice of a vengeful goddess. A small, choked sound escapes my throat.

  It’s me.

  “We are all born with the right to freedom,” says my sky-self. “But that right doesn’t come automatically. It must be defended, and the moment we stop fighting for it is the moment we begin to lose it. It’s not an easy choice, and never has been. It’s a contract signed in blood.”

  I press a hand to my heart. The recording loops back and starts again. My face looms against the billowing smoke clouds, lit from behind by the blazing orange glow.

  Well, Zebra promised me that everyone would hear my words. He kept that promise, all right. This will probably be on every news station. It will be seen throughout the URA and Canada. Of course, he conveniently left out the part where I urged people not to resort to violence.

  A high, thin ringing fills my ears, and my vision fades around the edges. I seem to be falling into a deep hole inside myself.

  And then suddenly I’m on my back, blinking up at the sky.

  “Lain!” Steven’s face fills my vision. He pats my cheek.

  The world tilts, then reasserts itself. Did I faint? I sit up, touch the back of my head, and wince. That’s going to leave a lump.

  Steven’s arms surround me, pulling me close. “Come on,” he murmurs in my ear. “Let’s get out of here.”

  I walk numbly, letting him guide me. The giant face in the sky has finally disappeared. Maybe the police found the projector and destroyed it.

  “Look.” Steven points, and I see a Z spray-painted on a manhole cover. He crouches, grabs the edge, and strains to pull it aside, but it doesn’t budge. “Help me.”

  My body doesn’t want to move. I feel like something inside me has shut off. The distant wail of sirens catches my ears. If we don’t get Underground very soon, the police will find us. I pinch the soft inside of my wrist and twist, and the pain is a sharp jolt. The world shifts, and everything snaps into focus.

  I crouch and grip the other side of the manhole cover. We pull. The metal disc slides to one side with a scraping grind, revealing a cement hole and iron rungs leading down into darkness. We descend into a subway tunnel. Steven hauls the manhole cover back into place and jumps down, skipping the last few rungs to land beside me. A flashlight beam cuts through the darkness. “Hey…” Fever-hot fingers touch my cheek. “You okay?”

  How am I supposed to answer that question? “I’ll survive.”

  The flashlight beam sweeps over a wall covered with tangles of graffiti and streaks of glistening wetness.

  “Do you know which way to go?” I ask.

  “Sort of.”

  We walk past campfires, past the huddled groups of people in makeshift blanket tents. A scruffy yellow cat sits, watching us with eerily brilliant orange eyes. Nearby, its owner—a bearded man with scars instead of eyes—plays a beat-up saxophone. The low, mournful strains fill the tunnel.

  I follow Steven numbly. We’re in the tunnels for a while—my sense of time is distorted, so it’s difficult to say how long, but I think it’s at least a few hours. We pass a cluster of dirty mattresses filled with sleeping people. In one tunnel, a giggling young couple are kissing, their hands inside each other’s shirts. When they spot us, they dash away like startled rabbits, disappearing into the shadows. Just when I start to think we’re going in circles, I look up, and we’re standing before the towering doors of the Citadel.

  Steven balls up a fist and bangs on the doors. “Hey! Let us in!” We wait, and after a minute or two, the doors creak open.

  Nicholas stands there, flanked by two armed Blackcoats. His lips are set in a hard line. “So. You’re all that’s left.”

  My
heart sinks. “You mean none of the others has come back?”

  “Just because they haven’t doesn’t mean they won’t,” Steven says.

  “Don’t stand in the doorway. We’re not heating the entire Underground, you know.” Nicholas beckons, curling a white-gloved finger.

  We enter the Citadel, and the doors swing shut behind us. An image of Ian’s terrified expression fills my head, and suddenly, it hurts to breathe. He has to be alive. He has to. I won’t allow myself to think otherwise.

  “Well,” Nicholas says, “we might as well get this over with now.” He nods to the two armed Blackcoats. “Take her in for questioning.”

  I back away. “Questioning?”

  The Blackcoats advance toward us.

  Steven tenses. “What the hell is this?”

  They don’t answer. They just keep coming. Steven swings a fist at one, and the man tackles him, pinning his arms behind his back.

  “Let him go!” I shout.

  The other man pulls a hypodermic from his pocket. He grabs hold of my arm, and I struggle, panting. “Hold still,” he says. “The more you cooperate, the sooner this will be over with.”

  There’s a small, sharp sting in my neck, and blackness pounces.

  ‌

  27

  I wake in a strange room, bound to a chair. My head throbs, and thirst claws at my throat. I swallow, and a tiny stab of pain goes through the raw flesh. It takes all my willpower just to open my eyes a crack. The world swims, blurry, and my brain is swaddled in gauze. Am I drugged?

  Leather straps dig into my wrists and ankles, painfully tight. More straps run across my chest and stomach. It’s mostly dark, so it’s difficult to see how large the room is. Something pinches my brow and presses against the crown of my head. A helmet. A Gate.

  Another chair stands across from me, lit by a bright, glaring overhead light. Nicholas sits in the chair, legs crossed.

  “What is this?” My voice comes out a weak croak. I’m trying, unsuccessfully, not to panic. “What’s going on?”

  The harsh overhead glare transforms his face into a mask of light and shadows. “You’re aware of what happened during the recent mission?”

  I don’t answer, because it’s a rhetorical question. Obviously I’m aware. I was there. I wait, but he doesn’t seem inclined to say anything else. “What about it?”

  “All the participants have been captured, except for you and Steven. As we speak, the prisoners are locked inside Area 9. The Canadian officials are negotiating with IFEN to have them returned to the URA, where their memories will be scanned for information. After that, they will likely be mindwiped.”

  “No,” I whisper. My eyes fill with tears, and one spills down my cheek, a warm trail.

  But they’re alive. I cling to that thin thread of hope. If they’re alive, there’s a chance of rescuing them.

  “Everything was carefully arranged,” Nicholas says. “The plan should have gone smoothly. So why do you suppose there were police cars waiting for you?”

  Again, he waits, as if he expects me to answer. “I don’t know.”

  “Really? You don’t?” He widens his eyes in mock puzzlement.

  I’m shaking now, angry and confused and terrified. I try to focus on the anger. “Is this some kind of game? How would I know?”

  “Well, that’s the question.” He folds his long fingers in front of him, his eyes never leaving my face. “We’re trying to figure out how the authorities knew what we were planning. The only thing I can think of is that someone—some very naughty person—found a way to alert them. Do you realize what this means?” He leans forward and grips my chin between a thumb and forefinger. I tense. He smiles, his eyes like crystals of blue ice.

  I swallow. “Let go of me.”

  His grip tightens, claw-like fingers pressing deep into my flesh, into the bone. My eyes water. “Do you know what I think, Lain? I think it’s you. I think the little canary had a change of heart and decided to start singing to the other side. That’s what you do, isn’t it? You sing and sing. You can’t keep anything to yourself. It all just dribbles out of you, doesn’t it?”

  My head swims. The room spins around me, like I’m trapped on a carousel careening out of control. A weak sound escapes my throat.

  “Now you’re going to sing for me,” Nicholas says. “You’re going to show us the truth. Let’s review some of your memories, shall we?”

  Zebra must be on the other end of this Gate. He’s probably observing my thoughts right now. Anger mounts inside me, despite the blinding terror. After all he’s put me through, how could he do this? How could he dare? “No.”

  Nicholas narrows his eyes.

  “Zebra’s already rummaged through my head once. He knows I’m trustworthy. Why is he doing this? Did you talk him into it?”

  He backhands me across the face, hard enough that my head rocks back and my ears ring.

  I glare at him through the haze of drugs, my face stinging, and visualize a solid brick wall blocking my thoughts and memories. I’m done playing games. I’ve compromised my principles for them, fought for them, nearly died for them. I’m not giving them anything else.

  “Show us. Show us how you betrayed us, Lain.” He backhands me again, and a flashbulb goes off behind my left eye, momentarily clearing the fog. “Stop resisting.”

  It’s a struggle to form even a single word. “No.”

  He rises from his chair and paces around me, a hard gleam in his eyes. He’s actually drooling a little, like a rabid animal. He wipes the back of one hand across his lips. “I don’t believe you.” He seizes my hand and starts to bend my index finger backward. I let out a choked scream. He stops. “A little more pressure, and the bone will snap,” he whispers close to my ear, like he’s talking to a lover. “So what will it be?”

  I clench my jaws against the pain. He bends the finger back a little farther, and my vision goes white. But still, I keep my head empty, keep the brick wall in place. They can do whatever they want to me, but I won’t cooperate. I won’t make it easier for them. Nicholas applies a little more pressure, and I sob once, a hoarse bleat.

  “That’s enough, Nicholas,” Zebra’s voice calls from the shadows. Nicholas releases me. He rolls forward, into the circle of light around the table, and removes his helmet. His face is drawn and ashen. “Let me speak to her alone.”

  Nicholas scowls and opens his mouth, but Zebra raises a hand, forestalling his protests. “Undo her restraints.”

  Nicholas hesitates, then unbuckles my straps.

  Zebra sets his helmet on Nicholas’ now-empty chair. “Go.”

  “You’re too soft on them, you know,” Nicholas says. “If you let me break a few fingers, I could get some real answers.”

  Zebra’s slender shoulders stiffen. He turns his face toward Nicholas, eyes narrowed to a hard line. “I will decide what is too soft. Remember who found you in the gutter, half-starved, with your eyes scratched out and bleeding from a fight with some other Underground brat. Who fed you, Nicholas? Who gave you top-of-the-line artificial eyes because you kept crying about being scared of the dark?”

  Nicholas’ face flushes brick red. He storms out of the room, slamming the door.

  Zebra and I face each other. Slowly, he reaches out, unbuckles my helmet, and pulls it off. Cool air washes over my sweat-damp scalp. “I’m sorry for this,” he says. “You are correct. It was Nicholas who urged me to do this. I don’t truly believe you’re the one who leaked that information to the police, but I let him plant a seed of doubt in my head.” He sets the helmet on the chair, next to his own.

  My head throbs dully; it’s a struggle to focus. “That was a nasty trick you pulled,” I say. “With my face in the sky. Twisting my words.”

  “I never promised you that I’d play the entire message.”

  “Next time you promise something, I’m going to pay very close attention to your wording.”

  The faintest ghost of a smile twitches across his lips. “Personal
ly, I thought it was very effective. Very dramatic. All that fire and smoke. You were like an avenging angel.”

  I glare at him. “How many people died tonight? Do you even care?”

  He lets out a small sigh. “Odd, how you’re so torn up over the deaths the Blackcoats have caused, yet you don’t feel the same level of horror over the countless deaths engineered by IFEN. And I don’t just mean the experiments. You have to take Somnazol into account. How many more thousands of human lives will have to disappear before you will acknowledge the necessity of what we’re doing?”

  My thoughts are fuzzy, and my face throbs, and the last thing I want to do is have another debate with Zebra. “I hate Somnazol. I always have. You know that. But it isn’t the same. A humane, painless drug that people take voluntarily isn’t the equivalent of blowing someone up or riddling them with bullets.”

  He arches one slender brow. “You don’t know, do you?”

  I wish he’d just stop talking. Still, I can’t help asking, “Know what?”

  “You’re aware of how Somnazol is supposed to work, I’m sure. The first layer induces a state of euphoria. The second renders the person unconscious. The third paralyzes all their muscles, including the heart. Or at least, that’s what they say. Except the second layer of the drug—the sedative—wears off before the person is entirely dead. They wake up, paralyzed, unable to move or scream, and feel the poison burning out their insides.”

  A chill ripples through me. It has to be a lie. IFEN’s done terrible, cruel things in the past, but they always did them for a reason, a goal—not out of sadism. “That doesn’t make any sense. Why would they—”

  “It wasn’t deliberate. It was a miscalculation. By the time they discovered the error, it would have been costly and difficult to completely reconfigure the chemical formula… and of course, if they recalled the existing drug, people would know they’d made a mistake. They weren’t willing to risk looking bad and losing public support. So they did nothing. They believed that no one would ever find out the truth, since those who experience the effects firsthand always die.”