by A. P. Kensey
“Who’s this?” he asked.
“The girl that Marius and Corva saved from the facility.”
“Ah,” said Dormer. “So you found one worth saving. Was it hard to ignore the screams from the others, Marius, as you ran out with this one tucked under your arm?”
Marius scowled at Dormer.
“We haven’t much time,” said the old woman. “Please, Dormer. Save your judgments for later.”
He sighed and knelt down next to the stretcher. “Fine,” he said, “but we will talk.”
Dormer rested his hand on Haven’s neck, just beneath her throat. He pressed his other hand against the trunk of the tree next to her and closed his eyes. His head drooped down slowly and Haven thought he had fallen asleep.
She heard a rustling in the branches above. The leaves shook as if blown by a gentle breeze, except there was no movement in the air. The leaves shriveled and fell from the branches, spinning slowly down to the ground around the stretcher. Dark stains spread across the tree bark as if the tree were bleeding from the inside.
Warmth flowed into Haven’s body from Dormer’s hand.
The heat moved down through her chest as if she had just taken her first sip of hot tea after waking. It spread to her limbs and finally moved up to her head, bringing with it a wave of rejuvenating energy that took away all of her pain.
She watched as the trunk of the tree shrank in diameter until it was no more than half the width it had been. The bark cracked and peeled. All of the leaves fell from the branches, leaving behind a blackened skeleton that reached up toward the ceiling with bony fingers.
Dormer removed his hand from Haven and stood up. He pressed his palms against both sides of his skull and held his head as if it were about to roll off his neck.
“Thank you, Dormer,” said the old woman.
“I guess we’ll see if it makes any difference in the end,” he said, then walked away.
Haven sat up and was able to fully see her surroundings for the first time.
The tree next to her was only one of at least a hundred more. They were planted in a huge, square grid pattern. Haven was sitting somewhere in the very middle of the grid. On one side of the room, closer to the entrance, all of the trees were dead just like the one next to her. The trees on the other side of the room were still alive.
The old woman noticed where Haven was looking.
“This is the Grove,” she said. “And you are not the first person to be healed beneath the branches of these trees.”
Haven coughed. Her throat felt as if it were lined with sandpaper. She pushed herself up and tried to stand, but her vision flipped over and she felt like she was going to throw up. She dropped back down to the ground.
“Easy,” said the old woman.
Marius reached out and held Haven’s shoulders as she laid on the stretcher. As soon as her head touched the plastic, a small line of blue flames ran up Haven’s body, starting at her feet and skittering across her skin to her head before vanishing. Marius quickly pulled his hands away.
The old woman took a step closer and frowned. “Marius, who is this?”
“The one you told me to take from hospital,” he said.
The woman shook her head. “No,” she said. “The one I told you to take is too young to show any signs.”
“She is young,” insisted Marius, his thick accent heavier with his conviction. “Look! Maybe this is first time!”
Corva stood next to Marius and looked at the old woman. “Can’t you tell if it’s her? I thought you could sense the one you wanted. Isn’t that the whole reason you sent us to the facility in the first place?”
“Of course it is,” said the old woman. “But the presence faded away shortly after you left. I assumed they had drugged the young one and were suppressing the energy output.”
“I grabbed newest patient,” said Marius. “I read charts, I asked nurse.” He pointed at Haven. “She was newest! Only one day she was there before I saved her.”
Corva placed her hand on Marius’s shoulder and squeezed it gently.
“My brother,” said Haven weakly. “My brother was kidnapped two weeks before they took me…took me to that place.”
The old woman knelt down and laid her hand on Haven’s forehead. “Shhh. You need to rest, now. We wouldn’t want to undo all of Dormer’s hard work. Corva, would you and Marius please take our guest to the dormitories and give her a room? I’m sure she could use some sleep.”
Corva and Marius picked up the stretcher and carried it toward the swinging double doors. Haven looked up at the fake sky and dead trees until exhaustion took over and she passed out.
20
Colton followed Shelly to a large elevator on one side of the parking garage. She swiped a small black card over an electronic panel on the wall. A second later, there was a ding and the elevator doors slid open.
Colton stepped inside and cold air swept over him. He closed his eyes to savor the feeling; the parking garage had been a furnace in comparison. A row of buttons were set into the brushed metal next to the elevator doors, and Shelly pressed the one for the top floor—level twelve. The doors closed silently and the elevator began to ascend.
“What is this place?” asked Colton.
“Mr. Bernam’s main office,” said Shelly. “He runs most of his business from here.”
“What’s he do?”
“He manufactures all sorts of machines for private investors. He talks a lot about optics and generators but nobody really understands any of it. I don’t know how the machines work, but one time I got a quick look at the labs on the seventh level—no one’s supposed to go anywhere near that floor, by the way—and I saw some pretty neat stuff.”
“‘Neat’?” Colton teased. “People still use that word?”
Shelly crossed her arms. “I use it.”
Colton shrugged. “I guess that’s good enough, then.”
She dropped her arms to her side and winked at him. The elevator slowed to a stop and the doors opened. Shelly grabbed Colton’s hand and pulled him down a long hallway lined with several doors. The hall opened onto a large room. The walls were made up of large, black, tinted windows and dimmed the burning midday sun to a tolerable level.
Leather couches, plush recliners, and sleek tables were placed throughout the room. Shelly squeezed Colton’s hand and let go, then skipped over to a smaller room next to the hallway. It was a kitchen, fully equipped with a microwave, sink, oven, and refrigerator. Shelly grabbed two bottles of water from the fridge and tossed one to Colton, who didn’t realize she was throwing something at him until it hit him in the shoulder and rolled under the nearest couch.
Shelly laughed and jumped over the back of the couch, sinking down into the cushions before unscrewing her water bottle and taking a long drink. Colton knelt down and felt around under the couch. His fingers touched cold plastic and he pulled out the water bottle.
He stood up and walked over to one of the glass walls. Yellow sand and hard-packed dirt covered the ground as far as he could see. Colton drank the entire bottle of water, only just realizing how thirsty he had been. He walked over to Shelly and sat on a recliner next to her.
“We’re in Montana?” he asked.
“That’s what I’m told.” She pulled her goggles up and over her head, then tossed them onto the couch. She tapped her shoes together as she drank more water.
Colton looked around the huge room. A ping-pong table sat in one corner next to a large TV screen with a huge crack in the middle.
“Where is everyone?” he asked.
“Not sure. They’ll be back later.” She looked at him and lightly bit the top of her bottle.
“So…what do we do until they get back?”
One of the corners of Shelly’s mouth raised up in a small grin.
Colton stood up to move to the couch when the elevator doors opened. Reece jogged out of the hallway with a huge smile on his face.
“Colt!” he said. “There you are!
I’ve been looking all over for you. Well, not really all over, since they won’t let me wander off.” He nodded over his shoulder as Alistair walked into the room. Alistair rolled his eyes and went into the kitchen.
Colton walked over to Reece. “How do you feel?”
“You mean physically? Pretty good, considering. Emotionally, though, I’m absolutely wrecked. They poisoned me, Colt!”
“Yeah, I saw that.”
“Well, did you at least try to stick up for me after I passed out?”
Colton smiled because he knew Reece was being overly dramatic to try and get the attention of the cute girl in the room. “I told them very sternly that if anything bad happened to you I would do everything in my power to crash the plane into a mountain.”
Reece slapped him on the shoulder. “A true friend.” He sidestepped around Colton and sat next to Shelly on the couch.
Colton sighed and sat back down on the recliner. “I’m so glad you’re back,” he said.
Reece ignored him. He crept closer to Shelly on the couch. “Reece Michael Frasier—the third, esquire, Ph.D., every fancy initial you can think of. And you are…?”
One of her eyebrows raised slightly. “Just Shelly.”
“‘Just’ Shelly? Just? I hardly think ‘just’ is any kind of word to use when describing a girl as beautiful as you.” He picked up her hand and bent forward to kiss it. Shelly pulled away and Reece’s lips landed on his own palm.
She stood up from the couch and walked toward the hallway. “I think I’ll go get cleaned up.” She winked at Colton right before she disappeared behind one of the hallway doors.
“She keeps doing that,” said Colton.
“Doing what?” said Reece.
“Hm? Oh, nothing. So what have you been doing since you got off the plane?”
Reece sank back into the couch and propped his legs up on the black polished coffee table in front of him. “Nothing, really. I only just woke up about twenty minutes ago. That Alistair guy was slapping my face and telling me we needed to get inside so the other dude could take off.”
“Bernam?”
“I guess so. Alistair said he never stays on the ground for very long. Sounds a little paranoid to me, but when you have as much money as he does I guess you can afford to be eccentric.” Reece looked around the room. “Man, how ‘bout this place, huh? What a chick magnet.”
“Reece, you don’t really know what’s going on, do you?” It was more of a statement than an actual question.
“Alistair gave me the short version in the elevator. Some bad people are doing bad things to people like you, and these guys want to stop it, blah blah blah. You can shrink apples and for some reason—I can’t figure out why—‘Just’ Shelly likes you more than she likes me. Does that about cover everything?”
Colton smiled. “That about does it, yeah. But you don’t have to stick around if you don’t want to. I’m sure one of these guys will take you home.”
“And leave all this?” said Reece, gesturing to the building around him. “I thought you knew me better than that. I wouldn’t miss it for the world, Colt.”
Alistair walked out of the kitchen and popped the last bite of a sandwich into his mouth. He sat in a recliner a few feet away from Colton and picked up a magazine from the coffee table. He flipped it open to the middle and scanned the page.
“Whatcha reading?” asked Reece.
Alistair held up the magazine to show the cover: Us Weekly.
“Really?” said Reece. “Really?”
Alistair sighed and stood up, then walked to the other side of the room and stretched out on a couch near the window.
“Give him a break,” said Colton.
“What did I say? You gotta admit it’s a little weird. That guy looks like he should be reading ‘Guns & Ammo’ or something.”
“It’s how I relax,” said Alistair from across the room.
“I’m not judging,” said Reece, holding up his hands. He shifted loudly on the leather couch. A few seconds later, he shifted again, the leather creaking as if he were rubbing his hands on the outside of a wet, inflated balloon. “Sorry about all the noise,” he said.
Alistair closed the magazine and slapped it against the couch. “You really don’t know how to shut up, do you?”
“My mother always told me I had such a beautiful voice, I should use it as much as possible.”
Colton smiled. Alistair rubbed his eyes with his hands.
“How about a tour, then? Will you promise to be quiet if I show you the building?”
“Definitely!” said Reece.
Alistair looked over. “How about you, Colton? Fancy a tour?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“Excellent,” said Alistair. He stood and walked past them toward the elevator. “Maybe afterward I’ll be able to hear myself think.”
As they waited for the elevator doors to open, Colton cleared his throat. “Alistair, there’s something I’ve been wondering.”
“Ask me anything.”
“I’m not saying I wish Reece weren’t here, but why did you bring him in the first place?”
“Hey!” said Reece.
“The way Mr. Bernam was talking,” Colton continued, “it sounds like things might get a little bumpy down the road.”
The elevator dinged and the doors slid open. They stepped inside and Alistair pressed a button near the bottom of the panel.
“An excellent question,” he said as the elevator doors closed and they descended. “Mr. Bernam discovered long ago that the revelation of so much knowledge—who we are and what we can do—was usually met with bewilderment or outright denial by the person he was trying to, ah, recruit. He found that inserting an element of familiarity into the equation greatly reduced the possibility that the potential candidate would deny his offer.”
“So I’m just here to make sure he feels comfortable?” said Reece, jabbing his finger into Colton’s shoulder.
“Precisely. Also, Mr. Bernam seems to like you. I can’t imagine why.”
“Because I have a great personality, that’s why.”
“Right,” said Alistair.
The elevator stopped and the doors opened.
“Holy geez!” said Reece.
“This is the fifth floor,” said Alistair. “The gymnasium.”
Colton followed Alistair out of the elevator and into a big room filled with nothing but exercise equipment. Weight benches, treadmills, bench presses, free weights—there was even a rock-climbing wall in the middle of the room and a one-lane swimming pool running next to the far wall. Thick flat panels that doubled as structural supports separated the various types of equipment, visually segmenting the entire floor into smaller rooms without physically crowding the space. The panels were placed far apart and each was about twenty feet long, giving the room an open quality that Colton found very inviting. He could see outside through the windows on all four sides of the building.
“No wonder Shelly’s in such good shape,” said Reece as he lifted a small dumbbell from a nearby bench and strained to curl it up to his chin.
“That’s mostly due to her genetics,” said Alistair. “I haven’t seen her in here once since she arrived. She spends most of her free time in the recreation room, playing games with whoever is interested.”
“I’m interested,” said Reece.
Colton shook his head.
“This room is open to you—to both of you—twenty-four hours a day. Exercise is heavily encouraged around here, and you will find that only a few of us do not make use of this facility regularly.”
Alistair led them back to the elevator and brought them to another room a few levels higher.
“A word of warning,” he said, stopping Colton and Reece before they stepped out of the elevator. “Consider any floor that I am not showing you to be strictly off-limits. Is that understood?”
“Absolutely,” said Colton.
“One-hundred percent,” said Reece.
Alist
air nodded. “Very good. Reece, you probably won’t be too interested in this part of the building, but it is where you, Colton, will be spending most of your time. Welcome to level nine—the training room.”
There were no windows on that level. The walls of the room were gridded with steel bars which crossed over steel plates that had been secured in place with massive bolts.
Alistair pressed one of the many buttons in a black wall panel as soon as they stepped out of the elevator. With a soft mechanical hum, a large metal sphere lowered slowly from the ceiling and hung suspended over the floor in the middle of the room.
Colton stepped forward hesitantly.
Alistair waited behind him. “Think of it as breathing,” he said. “Except that you are the lung and the energy around you is air. The goal is to see how long you can hold it in before releasing it. Your ability is a muscle, in a sense, and exercise will only make it stronger.”
“Hey Colton, you’re a lung!” said Reece. He leaned against the wall near the elevator and crossed his arms. “How long are you guys going to be doing this stuff?”
“As long as it takes,” said Alistair.
Reece clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “In that case, you kids have fun. I’m gonna go find Shelly.” He gave Colton a thumbs-up as the elevator doors closed.
“Your friend is a little…different,” said Alistair.
Colton frowned thoughtfully. “I can’t really argue with that.”
He turned back to the sphere.
Alistair explained that the sphere he chose was one of many, each one designed to produce a different kind of energy. The one he lowered from the ceiling emitted what Alistair called one of the simpler energies: heat.
Colton wiped sweat from his forehead as he stepped closer to the sphere. It was about ten feet in diameter and the surface was brushed instead of polished. His reflection appeared as if he were looking at himself through a dirty window and was distorted from the heat fog being generated from within.
A large pipe made from the same material as the sphere ran out of its top and into the panel in the ceiling from which the sphere had lowered.
