by Peter Telep
I can’t lie. I’m tired of all the games and half-truths. Tired of being a prisoner while worrying about my father and Tommy. Tired of Keane only telling us what he wants, what won’t get him in trouble.
I was on my way home with a pizza. I just wanted to have dinner with my dad. I never asked for any of this!
And maybe, just maybe, this crazy girl can help. I mean there must be a good reason why she wants me dead, right?
Dad taught me to be a risk-taker. He said those who don’t push the envelope aren’t really living.
So let’s get back to living. Let’s take a risk.
“Doc, no!” Keane screams from the roof.
He’s a millisecond too late. Meeka and I pass through the road as though it were black fog.
With a whoosh of air, I’m no longer falling. I’m standing in the middle of a warehouse so vast I can barely see the far walls or ceiling.
Jammed inside are thousands of children, many of them burned, sick, and dying.
Most lie on blankets, attended to by overwhelmed medical personnel. The stench of burned flesh and shrieks of agony leave me gasping.
This is unthinkable, unspeakable horror.
Children like melted candles.
Suffering beyond belief.
I turn and face Meeka. She’s about ten feet away, with her arms raised toward the suffering masses behind her.
“What is this?” I ask.
“This... is your family’s legacy.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Sometimes when I have a nightmare, I sense in the back of my mind that it isn’t real. I feel my bed, my pillow, and listen to the whirring of my ceiling fan. I remember my Star Wars figures lined up on the shelves, along with my collection of souvenir mugs from Tenerife.
I also recall how my window is constructed of two panes of thick glass and will protect me from hurricane force winds of up to 900 mph or some crazy number like that. The magnets for the alarm system are glued firmly onto the window and frame, so there’s no chance of anyone entering through my window without triggering the alarm.
My bed frame has drawers built into the sides with no space beneath, so unless some thug can fit his scrawny butt inside my sock or T-shirt drawer, he’s not lying in wait under my bed. Finally, no bad guy in his right mind would hide in my closet.
That place reeks of the dark side of the Force.
We’re talking about dozens of fast food bags and wrappers, at least a case of empty Coke cans and Gatorade bottles, and nearly two weeks’ worth of dirty laundry.
Gross, I know, but it’s a guy thing. Or maybe a teenager thing. Or maybe just a pig thing.
Every Friday like clockwork, Dad says I’m staying home all weekend to clean up what he calls my “ungodly science experiment.” However, he’s always too busy to follow up. Eventually, I do clean it (when I run out of underwear), but that operation requires tying a towel over my face to block the smell.
Point is, I’m safe in my room. Safe from the outside, which also, in a way, makes me feel safe from lame dreams about getting bullied by losers or eaten alive by sharks or falling into a bottomless sandpit.
However, there are always those nightmares that become so real that you forget you’re in your room. You’re completely consumed by them.
You’re there. Standing there...
In a sea of wailing children.
And you have no idea what to do.
Meeka reaches down and picks up a dark-haired child from one of the blankets.
She comes forward with the crying toddler in her arms. “This is my memory. And this is me.”
I gape at the shirtless girl whose back is severely blistered and burned. Meeka tips her shoulder toward me to reveal the scars. She turns even more to show me her entire back, the skin raised and discolored like a relief map, the straps of her spiked bra digging deeply into the ravines.
I can barely talk. “I didn’t do any of this.”
“Really? I don’t care about technicalities. It was all over the Community. The conspiracy. The fanatics. The names of the researchers. All of it. You’ve been trying to hide who you are, and they’ve been helping you. How dare you!”
I’m about to answer when off to my left, Keane shimmers to life. He stands there, screaming and pounding on an invisible glass door.
“This is my private conversation,” Meeka says. “And I’m not letting him in.”
I stare helplessly at Keane. He waves me toward the door. I look away, taking in the entire warehouse in one painful glance. My heart’s breaking. “What happened to these kids?”
“They got rescued and brought here. Now they suffer. Maybe they should’ve died in the blast. ”
“What blast?”
“Too painful to remember, huh? There were ten bombs. They exploded all over the planet. They said none of it would have happened, if it weren’t—”
“What’re you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the apocalypse!”
This is a madhouse. It’s like I’ve woken up in a cage on a planet ruled by apes. And whoever’s in charge is trying to drive me insane by saying my father is responsible for the end of the world.
And yet a small part of me wonders if that might be true... because who knows how long we slept after being abducted. Maybe this all happened during that time? But how? Meeka’s about Julie’s age. The bombs went off about fifteen years ago, if that’s true. Were we in some kind of cryogenic sleep like Khan from Star Trek? Dad went back in time somehow? It hurts to think about this any more.
I close my eyes and will my persona back to the cave.
With a jolt, I wake up there and find Keane looking urgently at me. “What did she tell you?” he asks.
Before I answer, I glance over at Julie, who’s seated next to me, still in her trance-like state. “I saw her disappear,” I tell Keane, and then put my hand on her wrist. “Julie?”
She’s not moving.
“Julie?”
The color’s fading from her cheeks.
“Oh, no,” Keane gasps. “They did it.”
“Did what?”
“They distracted her. They got her lost in the Hood. And if she can’t find her way out in time, she’ll die.”
“She looks weak.”
“I know.”
“Then I need to find her.”
“You? You’ll get lost too.”
“Then help me!”
Keane agonizes over that request, appearing angry one second and sympathetic the next. “Look, I can’t. We need to get back. We’re out of time.”
“Keane, we’re going!”
He springs to his feet. “No way.”
I rise and slam him against the wall. “You take me to find her, or I swear I’ll kill you right now.”
He’s unimpressed and dispatches me like a bug.
I fly across the cave and collapse into the dirt. Damn. How can this stick figure be so strong?
“Keane, please...”
“Don’t you get it? They’ll exile me, too. I’m an idiot. I shouldn’t have done this.”
“Blame it on me, I don’t care.”
Keane stares at Julie and visibly trembles. “I don’t know... I can’t... what did Meeka say?”
“Can I tell you later? Let’s find Julie.”
“You tell me now.”
“Whatever. She showed me that warehouse with all the kids. You saw it, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, I know all about it. They told me the story like a hundred times.”
“Well, she said it was my family’s legacy. And they blame Julie’s family, too.” I tell him the rest, and then add, “She’s lying. There were no bombs, no apocalypse. You people are screwing with us.”
Out of nowhere, Keane begins to cry. “Oh, no. That’s why they wiped your memories. They brought you back here like any other kids. Maybe someone bribed them. I don’t know. They didn’t want you to know the truth about what your parents did. They tried to hide it from you.”
/> “What’re you saying?”
“I’m saying my mother died in the blast, along with my two sisters. I’m saying that my dad and I survived for a while until I told you, he got sick. Then I got chosen. I’ve been here ever since. And what I’m saying is that Meeka’s right. Your family and Julie’s ruined our lives.”
“No, we didn’t. And I’ll prove you wrong. But please, right now, just help me find Julie.”
With a curse, he offers his hand. I take it, and we’re back in the darkened city. We’re on a Street corner, standing in a light mist.
He glances around, stops, draws back his head over a new thought, and then races off.
I have trouble keeping up, and amazingly, he chats as we hustle down the sidewalk, passing a few kids loitering in the doorways of dilapidated buildings. “When you’re connected to someone, and they’ve got their guards down, sometimes you can see exactly where they are in the Hood or anywhere else in the Community.”
“But you said Julie and I have our guards up.”
“That’s right.”
“Then how’re we supposed to find her?”
“You know what, Doc? I should let her die. But I won’t because there’s a reason they want you alive. I’m doing this for them. Not you. Maybe they’ll show mercy on me.”
He picks up the pace, darts down another alley, and then reaches a chain-link fence. We’re up and over the fence in a handful of heartbeats. We sprint down the next alley.
At the end, we emerge into a city square with buildings like Snickers bars that melted beneath a starry sky.
Keane shifts around, eyeing all four intersecting roads. “This place is real. And I hate it. I never come here. One time I got lost, and the girls watched it all on their screen and got a good laugh at Keane the dork. Ha! They’re not laughing now, are they...”
“Some friends you got.”
“I don’t blame them. Everyone’s messed up. Everyone.”
I squint down the nearest street, searching for people, movement, anything.
Just more mist and a light wind.
It’s Gotham City during a power failure. Everyone’s home looking for flashlights while the Joker robs every bank in town.
Behind me, Keane hollers, “I think I see her!”
He jogs off toward the opposite street, leaps up, onto the sidewalk, and then weaves his way through piles of shattered concrete. I trail behind him, feeling weaker by the second.
We find Julie near the entrance of an office building whose sign contains some odd symbols. I blink, and now the sign reads VIOLET PARK WEST. Strange.
Julie’s lying face down on the staircase, one arm extended above her head.
Keane rolls her over. Her glasses are cracked and sitting crookedly on her face. Her aura seems dimmer than normal. Keane fixes her glasses, and then gently taps her cheek. “Julie, listen. Just follow us to the cave. Can you do that?”
“I just wanna go home.”
“Julie, come on, wake up. You need to follow us,” I say.
Her voice comes in a hollow whisper. “I’m hungry.”
I tug off her glasses, grab her cheeks, and stare hard into her eyes. “Come on, look at me. Think about following us back to the cave. That’s all you should think about.”
“Whatever.”
“Julie, please, come on. If you don’t, you’ll die here.”
“Can you shut up?”
I shake her head. “Listen to me!”
“All right, all right,” she says, her eyes finally focusing on mine. “I’m ready.”
“I hope you’re happy,” Keane says. “Because it’s over for me now.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’ll see.”
All three of us hold hands.
It takes a moment, but I finally sense that Julie’s with us, her connection breaking up like a cell phone signal but still there… and boom… we wake up in the cave.
I smile at Julie. She just glances vaguely at me.
Someone clears his throat.
We look up.
Four heavily armed soldiers point rifles at us.
One of them grunts, “On your feet, people. You’re coming with us.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Our escorts wear full body armor. They’re like Tommy’s younger brothers jacked up on energy drinks and impressed by nothing. Two march in front of us, two behind.
“Why did this happen?” Keane asks aloud. “I was a good kid. I did what they told me. I was just... curious. I suck.”
“No, you don’t,” Julie says. “You saved my life.”
“Temporarily,” he adds quickly.
“Yeah, temporarily,” I agree.
Julie scowls at me.
“Where are you taking us?” I ask the soldiers.
They ignore me.
“Hey, they don’t like questions,” Keane says.
“Why not?”
“Just shut up. You’re just making it worse.”
“Oh, Yeah? How does it get any worse than the end of the world?” I grit my teeth and blurt out, “Hey, Seal Team Six? Where we going?”
I’m on the floor, on my back, before I finish the sentence. A soldier’s boot begins to crush my neck.
“I told you,” Keane says. “They hate questions.”
“Yeah, they do,” I manage.
The soldier pinning me turns his laser-like gaze on Keane, who shrinks back toward the wall, placing a finger over his lips, as if to say, I’m cool. I’ll keep quiet.
Without a word, the soldier yanks me to my feet, and we’re off again, marching down another of our prison’s dim hallways.
My head throbs. I think he pulverized my Adam’s Apple with his size 14 boot, I’m not sure. Maybe not. He’ll hear from my lawyer. I’ll get one of those online guys.
Julie takes my hand and glances at me like this is it... the last time we’ll ever see each other...
All right, maybe she just has to go to the bathroom. She looks jittery, and her hand feels sweaty.
We turn down a more narrow corridor, and then cross into a lift with one of those glass control panels similar to the treadmill’s. The soldier swipes his hand over the panel, and we’re off. Ascending.
Keane and the soldiers act normal, but Julie and I wince as our knees buckle against the force.
I’m doubling over as the doors slide open.
The soldiers nudge us forward onto a catwalk overlooking a room like mission control at Kennedy Space Center. Been there, done that. It’s awesome.
About twenty or more people dressed in white uniforms monitor conventional and holographic images of the prison, including the pool, gym, bike park, and exterior images of some colossal walls. Before I get a better look, the soldiers usher us across the walk, through another door, and into a windowless office about as large as a classroom.
It’s more like a library, with thousands of books lining floor-to-ceiling shelves on three walls. I guess whoever works here is a serious collector. And wow, you need an entire office to store all these volumes. I could put ten times as many books on my phone and still have room for more.
A glass top desk sits at the far end, with more paperbacks stacked like leaning towers of pancakes lining the edges.
The door slams behind us.
I turn around. We’re alone. Just the three of us.
“So what’s the deal?” I ask.
Keane eyes the place. “I’ve never been here.”
“This another game?” Julie asks.
“Who knows,” he answers. “But don’t touch anything.”
“They’re books,” I tell him. “They don’t bite.”
I cross to the shelves and draw a text, a red hardcover with those strange symbols I saw on the building in the Hood, symbols like hieroglyphics or a mishmash of Arabic and Chinese—
But then when I blink again, it’s all in English, like my brain translated it for me. The book is A Brief History of the Floran Highlands by Michael Debeau.
&nb
sp; Boring. With a capital B. Or is it capitol? I don’t have my dictionary app to verify.
I wasn’t expecting comic book adventures or pornography, but the owner of these books must be a total geek or what Dad would call a “high nerd”—someone who makes even nerds seem stupid.
I return the book. “Maybe it’s a test.” My gaze lifts to the ceiling in search of cameras. I never find any.
“I know what this is,” says Keane. “These are some of the books they’ve been gathering from the city.”
“Why?”
“To save them. I guess Ms. Martha is going through them first, before they add them to the main library downstairs.”
“Who’s Ms. Martha?” I ask.
Keane’s tone darkens. “You’ll see.”
Julie looks up from the text in her hands. “When I first started reading this—”
“Yeah, I know, the symbol things, right? But now you can see it?”
“Yeah. So weird...”
I ask Keane about the symbols. He’s at a loss. He doesn’t see that lag in translation the way we do. Everything looks “perfectly normal” to him.
Behind us, the door swings open.
“It’s unfair, some say, for us to pay for the sins of our fathers. Still... others beg to differ.”
The woman who said that is a million years old or at least sixty, with silver-and-white hair reaching her shoulders.
Her blue uniform top, matching skirt, and conservative black heels suggest she works for a military or government organization, but I don’t see any name tag or security ID like the one Dad wears around his neck.
She’s actually in good shape, narrow at the waist, and it’s awkward to say, but yeah, she’s got a nice body, like how Storm from X-men might look when she grows old.
Without so much as a passing glance, she strides toward the desk, shifts around it, and then stands there, waiting for some reaction.
It’s Keane who reacts to her first, hurrying forward and coming to attention. “Ms. Martha, please let me apologize.”
“Don’t.”
“But it’s not fair. This wasn’t a normal orientation.”
“I’ll concede that point. I chose you and the girls for this job because you’re my very best. I thought the rewards would outweigh the risks, but I see I was wrong…”
