Found in Amber

by Esther Rabbit

  “Left!” Etienne whispered as they neared an opening Rufus could barely see. “That’s the symbol for the control room.” He pointed up where Rufus caught another intricate sign. Beads of sweat continuously formed at his temples as he followed Etienne in. That vile smell came from both of them. They were sweaty and worn from optan confinement but it felt nice to stretch limbs again, even with the fear dancing in his gut.

  “What do I do?” He whispered back hoarsely. Now that Mia was safe, he could take down the world. If he could at least see it. It got real dark real fast and Etienne’s back was barely visible. “Do we go in?”

  Etienne lined his shoulders with the wall, listening in. If things hadn’t changed in the last nine years, they were bound to come face to face with two tech officials and their shift was bound to get ugly. He quickly filled Rufus in and the plan was simple enough: Rufus would immobilize one and he’d take care of the other.

  “Now!” At Etienne’s command Rufus swallowed hard and pushed himself in. The room was not as big as he expected and all the light came from the many screens they had on

  “There’s six of them!” Rufus called, registering one by one their baffled expressions. Fists were bound to fly if Etienne ever wanted a chance at discharging that magnetic field. “Change of plans.” When Rufus dared for the first, he saw him crouch under the massive translucent desk. Was it his face? His beard? He dared for another one and he soon understood this Tech crew had nothing in common with optan soldiers. He spun around only to see two were missing and Etienne was arched for attack.

  “Rufus I want you to listen carefully, whatever you do don’t let anyone near the blue screen. That’s how they’ll get backup.” He then screamed in a language Rufus didn’t speak and some guy with shaky fingers buttoned another screen at Etienne’s command. Maybe a password? Before he knew it, that guy disintegrated before his eyes at Etienne’s hand. Baffling. A shiver crept up Rufus’s spine.

  “Mother of—” Rufus suddenly found himself pinned to the ground. Whoever had climbed his back was now shoving fists in all the right places. He’d lost sight of Etienne, engulfed in the blood running from his neck into his mouth. The attacker was shoving his head down so hard, he could practically taste the floor. The darkness behind his eyes flooded red, white dots bursting violently with every shove. Squirming, he tried to shake the attacker off, pushing with all the strength he could muster in a loud growl. A stab of disappointment joined a sharp pain shooting down his arm. Just when he thought the weight on his back would sink him, it dissipated. He lifted his head to see no one. Gone. As if he’d never been there. “What the—” he pressed one hand to the floor, trying to regain his sight. Blood dripped from his forehead, down his cheek. He could feel the pain but not the exact spot of the wound.

  “They’re gone.” Everyone in the room was. “Go! We have to go now!” Etienne’s face bore signs of struggle too. Hopeless rage rose up Rufus’s chest. Etienne had made six men vanish into nothingness. Six. And now he was following him out as if his life depended on it. He couldn’t see squat, his only guide the sound of Etienne’s steps that were getting harder and harder to follow. Every step came with a sharp pain. Loud thumps pulsed at his temples as he finally crouched for breath. If only he could somehow stabilize himself. Maybe it was the anxiety of this goddamned dark friggin’ maze but he stopped hearing Etienne. And his neck itched and hurt all at the same time. And he felt like… suffocating?

  “Guys?” his voice came out strained. “Anybody?”

  When Etienne reached Lilou, she wiped the sweat off her forehead and rested her boot on a pile of passed out optans. “It’s done.” She announced wiping her hands on her uniform. “Let’s get out of here!”

  “Where’s Rufus?” Zoey’s question automatically made him cringe and spin on his heels. Jasper’s alert eyes went wide. He didn’t keep up. Rufus didn’t make it.

  “Oh, bollocks!” Etienne spat, throwing fists at his side. “We have to stick together, I can try and retrace my steps. Follow me!” Jasper’s eyes narrowed as he thrust a hand in his now wild hair. This wasn’t good. Zoey could read it all over his face as they followed James. One thing was clear: they were on borrowed time and Rufus was somewhere in the proximity. Alone, exposed to whoever might reach him first. Their pace quickened as they turned right. “I see him!” James finally announced and Zoey’s fingers went damp. It was too dark not to get lost, so she kept a hand on Lilou’s shoulder as they reached Rufus, crouched against a wall, passed out in what Zoey could only make out as a pool of blood.

  “We need light! He’s hurt!” Lilou whispered and took her hand to her belt. With the push of a button, she practically illuminated the entire space. “Jasper, check his vitals!” her voice came out raspy. The light only confirmed Zoey’s worst fears. Blood covered half of his face and shirt and gathered in a small pool to his side. She couldn’t see the wound though. Zoey’s breath caught watching Jasper pushing him to a side and carefully pressing his fingers on Rufus’s wrist. She had to fight all her instincts to check on Rufus, in favor of being alert. It was Jasper he needed, not her.

  “His pulse is weak” a deep frown carved Jasper’s forehead as he kept inspecting. “I need to find the wound.” Terror washed over them all as Rufus suddenly started convulsing once turned over and opened his eyes without any sign of consciousness.

  Etienne’s hands were digging at his hipbones. He bit his lip and spun on his heels. “I’ll keep watch. If he’s not healed, he might not survive portalling.”

  Everything accelerated. From Rufus’s twitching to that gut feeling in the pit of Zoey’s stomach, but it was Lilou’s weird eye conversation with Jasper that worried her most. She switched her glance to James. Where was James?

  “Zoey, I need you to stay calm” he whispered just before she caught sight of Richard. Richard in his pearly white suit who materialized before their eyes and spoke in a language Zoey no longer understood. The lights were suddenly on and Jasper never stilled from healing Rufus. It was now or never. Lilou bolted up, arching her limbs in attack mode. She launched at him with a scream that propelled Zoey to do the only thing she could—try and blind him into oblivion. It all happened too fast among the quick moving shadows: Lilou’s attack on Richard and his single remaining soldier, while Etienne marched forward, shielding Jasper so he could finish working on Rufus.

  There was too much light coming out of her and a deafening side effect to match. She screamed as Lilou took the soldier down and with the corner of her eye caught the one sight she never hoped to see—a flash of blue light firing at James. Richard had aimed and fired something smaller than a laser pen in his direction. James blinked, steady on his feet before moving a hand to the faint blueish glow at his ribcage, now growing in size. His eyelashes fluttered several times before he fell to his knees, bewildered at the glowing layer burning his skin to a crisp. He didn’t even have the time to scream as he fell in gruesome slow motion by her feet.

  Zoey’s stomach clenched along with her deaf howl at the sight of his life-drained eyes, somehow still pinned on her. And then she jumped, launching herself at the blood that was gushing from his mouth like from a broken dam. And in that stone deaf silence, she’d read her name on his lips just before his head hit the ground and his eyes closed on her for the very last time. She was finally reaching him, her fingers stained when it all turned blue.

  “They own this town

  Maybe that’s why we get no ground

  We could go, if we don’t it’s a pity ‘cause

  I could tell you it’ll change but it never does”

  Flora Cash—They own this town

  Her head spun. It wasn’t the raw blood she tasted at the back of her mouth but the realization that James was gone. Cold shivers covered her whole. Another soundless howl escaped her throat as she became aware of the bloody handprint she’d left where she landed. James’s blood. Crimson contrasting against the soft beige colored floor with the same watercolor pattern spreading undernea
th the proof of what was left of him. She was still deaf and for once, she welcomed it. If anything was moving around her, she heard nothing nor wanted to. Just him. Just James. Zoey crawled to it, transfixed and zombie-like, registering movement as she became one with the floor, turning her back to the rest of the world.

  There was no doubt in her mind he was dead. He’d died for them. For a cause he ultimately made his own because of her. That drying patch of blood was all that was left. All of him. And she couldn’t even remember exactly how she’d launched herself for the handprint on the floor, she couldn’t even hear her own screams, but she felt her cheek coming against it. Another bawl burned her throat but failed to reach her ears. The curtain of ginger curls fell over her eyes just enough to at least pretend she was alone.

  For one reason or another, James had made himself indestructible in her eyes. And she knew they were working on ways to kill him, but he’d managed to outsmart everyone for so long. “This can’t be your end…” her voice erupted into a muffled sob “… it can’t.” When her fingertips joined his blood she blacked out a little, curled around him. Because however little was left, it was still him. Still there. Somehow.

  “Don’t.” Jasper’s fingers dug in Lilou’s shoulder when she darted for Zoey. “She needs to process this. She’s mourning.” He squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed at the sound of her chocked cries. It ripped him apart, her every whimper turning his knuckles white. Death was a fickle thing to process and those first moments had to be yours and yours alone. He turned to check on Rufus. Crouched on the floor, Rufus had his arms around his legs and kept his fingers curled against the wrist, purposefully looking at the opposite end from Zoey. He couldn’t stand it either, so his eyes moved to the surroundings.

  They’d landed in a huge oval room whose walls and ceiling had the same beigey watercolor pattern. There was no sign of an actual door, but he already knew optan doors were not easy to spot. Could’ve been any of the panels making this strangely oval shape. If the rectangular pieces of the same color were in fact furniture, optans certainly didn’t bother with details. A translucent screen was built in one of the far walls, but it wasn’t on. Or that’s what he thought. Curiously enough, it didn’t smell like a closed space and light cascaded in irregular angles. Jasper had saved his life again, yet he couldn’t thank him. He couldn’t even mouth the words. Rufus was too tense and Zoey’s sobs only made it harder.

  When Jasper patted his back he nearly jumped, yet failed to word anything, crestfallen and lost in his own grief. Somehow, they’d made it. Alive. Disheveled, mildly harmed, but very much kicking, unlike Etienne. Unseeing what he’d witnessed though, proved impossible. He was regaining consciousness when Richard shot Etienne in the chest with something that seemed to torch his first layer of skin like a napkin.

  Watching somebody really die was… “Can you make me forget?” He looked up at Jasper only to see him crouching beside him. His hair had come undone during one of the fights and blonde waves covered his shoulders as he crossed his arms atop his knees. He nodded, eyes still on Zoey and lost in thoughts of his own. Although they could only see her back, her whimpers were loud enough to make Rufus relive each tormenting sight they’d left behind. Lilou hovered around Zoey, arms folded across the chest. The muscles around her mouth tensed along with her lips. She sighed, looking as worried as Rufus felt. “Am I a coward for wanting to forget?” he kept his voice low, turning to Jasper again.

  He flashed him a look that Rufus didn’t recognize, almost as if he’d spoken a different language. “Don’t call yourself that.” Jasper’s voice came out both soft and somewhat tired. “Cowards don’t risk their lives like you did, and we brought all of this on you.” The man was out of his mind if he thought lying in a pool of blood was a display of bravery.

  Rufus glanced over at Zoey again, wishing Jasper could erase that sight from her memory. After all, one of the perks of being an ambassador was the gift to make others forget if caught in a compromising situation. Etienne of course had given Zoey the worst possible gift in Rufus’s view—she couldn’t. Ever. Spasms shook her small frame enough to make Lilou shift her weight from one foot to the other. She too was growing visibly impatient. “I wish we could all skip today. As if it never happened.” Rufus said, lowering his eyes to the marble looking floor.

  “We have pills for this, grief accelerators if you wish.” Jasper would’ve given everything and more to erase the memory of IG-47 from their minds altogether. “They trick your brain into processing things faster so that when you wake up, the pain won’t be so… fresh. You make peace with things quicker so that you can move on with your life.” Beside him, Rufus widened his eyes, intrigued. Too many questions were forming in his mind.

  “Will she agree to it?” his arms tightened around himself involuntarily.

  “Lilou will see to it. Can we have this conversation elsewhere?” Jasper never looked more uncomfortable following Lilou’s growing restlessness as she circled Zoey. “We still need to get you healed and cleaned up. Any wounds I didn’t get?”

  If he had any, adrenaline spiked too high for Rufus to feel anything, so he just shook his head. “Where are we anyway?”

  Jasper bounced up noiselessly and stretched out a hand to pull Rufus to his feet. “My parents’ place.” Judging by the alarm washing over Rufus, he felt compelled to add “This is the last place they’ll look, actually. They know me too well to know I’d never put my family in danger. There’s no tracker on any of us, so we’re good.”

  “Sonofabitch!” Rufus whispered all wide-eyed. If the Alliance came bursting in, Jasper’s parents would be toast. “Why are you doing this? They’re not safe, we’re not safe. Nobody’s safe here! Don’t you have like a cousin maybe?”

  Jasper’s attempt at a reassuring expression proved to be anything but. “I keep telling you to trust me and you just keep doubting. The last thing they expect from a strategist is to run to his family. Look, we just need to get Zoey back on her feet, eat, rest and contact Alex.” Many were the times when Rufus looked at Jasper as if he spoke a different language and now was no different.

  “You must be delusional if you imagine that’s going to happen anytime soon.” Rufus’s fingers brushed his forehead in a desperate effort to come up with something, anything to avoid more casualties. “Don’t they have a basement at least? Somewhere we could hide?” His eyes instinctively searched—for what, he had no clue.

  “Housing is a little different here, so no. And they’ll be home in forty-eight hours, so let’s get you decent.” Then he turned to Lilou. “You know what to give her.”

  She nodded back and spoke as if Rufus wasn’t even there. “Make sure Rufus gets one too.” For that one instant, her voice stern and commanding, she sounded exactly like his grandmother.

  “Oh, I’m sold.” Grief accelerators sounded like the best possible invention right about now. And he knew what they were living was unprecedented for all the parties involved, but somehow, aliens seemed to handle it better. Pills or no pills. As the general norm they proved to be more adaptable to everything. Jasper was covered in debris and blood, but he didn’t seem one bit broken.

  Fake it till you make it, Rufus thought, suddenly determined not to add more to the growing problem. He tried to pull a hopeful half-smile and nodded in acceptance. If an ambassador didn’t think his parents ran the risk of being charged with treason if caught hiding their son, who was practically a terrorist at this point, so be it. Mia had warned him his biggest problem was his inability to accept approaches which contradicted his own. If people were different, heck, aliens were bound to shock. So yeah, keeping a mouth nicely shut and playing by Jasper’s books for once wouldn’t hurt anyone.

  “Shall we?” Jasper directed him toward a wall that suddenly slid open.

  Rufus followed everything with a curious sparkle in his eyes. At least the hallway looked like one. The same watercolor marble-like walls, the same warm light reflected in irregular angles. No doors though. Just
a long, dead end ahead.

  “How am I supposed to know where everything is? There’s no order, no doors. This feels more like falling down the rabbit hole, man!”

  How Rufus had survived a near death experience, being imprisoned, tortured, kidnapped and now fussed over not being able to identify a door just baffled Jasper. “There’s a light strip above every single door and yours is the third.” Rufus followed him as he stopped in front of the third not-visible-to-the-naked-eye-door and tapped twice with his index finger.

  “We’re entering the touch screen era of everything, aren’t we?” He asked, sheepishly taking in the sights. Just like in the former Chancellor’s home, this bedroom was big enough to fit a small army. The wall parallel to the door was a window looking over a private garden with a window sill so wide he’d fit his ass and then some. “Your parents’ garden is huge, what are you, rich?” He peered at the lush lawn ahead, propping his arms against the window sill.

  “They’ve done well for themselves,” Jasper said, and in this light, Rufus saw the signs of the fight he’d just had scattered all over his face and uniform. Dry blood hung on his jaw and his knuckles had been scraped to the point of horror. His own blood surely patched his uniform from when he’d healed him. Anyone would’ve shriveled in pain by now, but optan soldiers were of a different fabric too. Or maybe knowing they could heal themselves made the pain more tolerable. “And that’s your en suite.” Jasper pointed to the light strip on the left wall.

  Rufus’s mind however, had moved on to different thoughts. “Tell me more about this happy pill. The grief accelerator.”

  Jasper nodded and paced toward the window himself. Grieving was part of human life, but neither of them had the luxury of time and Lilou was probably explaining it all to Zoey much better than he ever could. When pain took over, all functions were affected in both humans and optans. And why would anyone prolong the torment if they had the chance of resurfacing sooner? Zoey would make the smart choice, even in this excruciating stage. Or so he hoped. “When you wake up tomorrow it won’t feel so raw, so tormenting like it does now. You’ll have the memory of what happened and 90% less of the anxiety you’re under right now. There’s no reason to punish yourself.”