HSH: Camp Hero - Chap 23-24
Here we go with the next installment of Camp Hero. Check out all the fun action.
Anyway, enjoy the next part of Camp Hero!
Read the previous chapters.
Chapter 23
Frozen Popsicles
I woke up, no longer in the tunnel, but in a white, brightly lit room. And instead of a cold concrete floor, I was laying on a bed, on a rather comfortable white mattress. My mind was still a little foggy, almost like I was floating on a cloud. My mouth was dry, and I tasted rotting phlegm in the back of my mouth, almost like I’d thrown up.
I rolled over, but was too weak to sit up. There was a small table, and a chair next to the bed, both white. I could just make out a door in the distance. Only it wasn’t the distance. It couldn’t have been more than six or eight feet away.
Where am I? My mind managed to form words my mouth couldn’t.
I couldn’t remember anything. I was visiting my grandparents for the weekend in New York City. Is… this their… house? No… their apartment? It could be. Myles might come in any second and give me breakfast. And my grandfather would take me to the museum, like he had the last time I’d visited.
No, that’s not right. My grandparents never did anything fun. And this room was way too bright to be in their apartment.
Where am I? my mind repeated, a little more forcefully this time, as if the extra push might get my synapses firing again.
My stomach churned, and I thought I might be sick – shame I would have to mess up all this beautiful whiteness. I gagged several times, but nothing came out. Then I remembered – my stomach was empty. I hadn’t eaten a thing since dinner the night before. Nothing in – nothing out. That didn’t stop the stale phlegm taste from reaching the back of my tongue again.
That’s right. I hadn’t eaten this morning, because I’d rushed out of the apartment. I’d had to do something important. What was it?
I had to rescue my friends from Abby. She was holding them hostage. No, not quite right. She wanted to talk to me. She wanted to force me to spy for her.
After that, the memories cascaded through my mind, until I reached the tunnel, and had the ominous feeling of being watched. I knew now what had been in the tunnel with us – Agents. A hell of a lot of them. They’d attacked. Sedated us. Then obviously brought us here.
I craned my neck. I still couldn’t push myself up. The simple act of moving my head made my stomach do backflips. I’m alone. Which brought me to raise my next question. Where’s everyone else?
Closing my eyes, I willed my body to remove the remnants of the poison coursing through my veins. I didn’t know if I could do it, especially not with my head so foggy, but I had to give it a try. Wherever I was, it was someplace I didn’t want to be. I had to get out of here as soon as possible. The longer I stayed, the harder that would be to do.
After a few minutes, I tried to sit up. My head spun like you wouldn’t believe. It felt like I’d spent a solid hour on the carnival’s tilt-o-whirl on high speed. Again, I was sure I would have thrown up, except for the non-existent contents of my stomach.
My eyes remained closed as I willed the sick feeling away. But when a slight breeze hit my face, and the door in the room opened, I forced myself to open my eyes. Tapping boots sounded on the floor. A blurry image stood before me.
The person whose legs I was trying to focus on sat in the chair beside the bed.
“Are you all right?” the person asked. I recognized her voice, even through the haze.
“Abby?” My voice sounded like I was drunk.“Look at you,” she said. “You’re a mess.” She grabbed me by my chin, and tilted my head upward.
She barely came into focus for a second before the image went blurry again. I would have slapped her hand away, but still didn’t have the strength. She had no right to touch me, not after all she’d done.
“Drink this, you’ll feel better.”
Before I could protest, she put a cup to my lips and poured the liquid down my throat, which I swallowed greedily. It tasted like water, but who knew what it was. All I know is that once the drink hit my stomach the fog around my head lifted. Not all at once, but enough so I could concentrate a bit more.
She set the cup on the table, and then looked at me. My brain registered that her face showed genuine concern, though whether it was for me or not was still to be determined.
“Where am I?” I asked, still sounding a little punchy.
She shook her head. “You know where you are. It’s the place you’ve been trying to get to for days.”
Camp Hero. My brain was starting to work again.
The realization must have registered on my face because Abby nodded. “Why couldn’t you have just gone home and left this alone?”
“I need to save Eddie.” I suddenly felt like I’d had a tiny explosion in my head, and I needed to lie down. But Abby wouldn’t let me.
She grabbed my arm and steadied me, even as I rocked on the bed. She held the cup to my lips again. I drank, not caring if it was plain water, or some drug, as long as it made the pain go away.
“Edward Eagan doesn’t need saving, Christine. At least, not from you. Edward is dangerous. That’s why we captured him. So he couldn’t hurt anyone.”
“What about me? Am I dangerous too? Are you going to lock me away forever?”
“I wasn’t planning on it. But you still pose an interesting problem.”
My head started to spin again. This time I reached for the cup and drank the last couple of sips. The spinning went away. “What problem?”
“Christine, I know you’re not that dumb,” Abby said. Her voice dropped an octave, telling me she was genuinely disappointed. “You and your friends broke into a top secret facility. Someone has to pay for that.”
For the first time since the weekend started, I was genuinely afraid of getting into trouble. I couldn’t afford to spend time in federal prison. I had classes to take. I had to graduate in a year and a half. I had to take care of my baby brother.
My body shook, though it could have been from the drugs they tranquilized me with rather than fear or nervousness. “So, what’s next?”
“Well, I think the question you should be asking is…” She paused, until my eyes were able to refocus on her face. “If you can cut a deal.”
Are you friggin’ kidding? I couldn’t believe she was still on that. How many times did I have to refuse this woman? She was really unbelievable and just as stubborn as me.
Even though I was dead set against cooperating, my lips turned against me to form the words, “What would I have to do?”
A satisfied smile spread across her cheeks. “Work for us.” It was a simple statement, but said so much more. I didn’t have to be told, she didn’t mean for a single mission. She no longer meant just to spy on Quinn. She meant permanently.
“I’ve already said you have the qualities we’re looking for,” she continued.
“I’m no leader.” It had become second nature to repeat these words whenever anyone turned to me for guidance – especially in the last twenty-four hours.
“I can spend the afternoon arguing with you, but I only have a couple hours to get you and your friends home before suspicion is raised. I assure you, if suspicion is raised, this will end badly for you and your friends.”
“What time is it?” I asked.
“Half past four.”
It couldn’t have been that long. I couldn’t have been asleep for three hours, could I?
“You did take three darts of our neurotoxin. It’s more than enough to put a horse out for a full eight hours. The fact that you’re even conscious says something about your strength.”
Blood was starting to circulate back to my body parts, and the nausea was dissipating. I thanked the heavens. I could focus much better now – not perfect, but better.
If I was awake, then Ethan had to be, and possibly Savanah too. I didn’t hold much hope in the others. I doubted even Peter had the strength to combat the amount of darts that hit us. “What about the others?”
“Let’s not worry about them for now.” She’d returned to that counselor voice that she’d used on me all week at the school. “I need an answer from you, and I need one now.”
“You’re not giving me a minute to think about it?”
“Why?” she scoffed. “So you can plan another escape? Not that you could, anyway.”
Damn. That’s exactly what I was going to do. Again, I had to say it – She’s good.
I was backed into a corner and she knew it. My two options were to return to my semi-normal life, and serve the MHDA, a group that for months had been trying to capture me for God knew what. Or spend years, if not the rest of my life, in a cell like this. If I chose the second option, it would condemn my friends to the same fate.
I had no choice.
But that didn’t mean I couldn’t get something out of it.
“Okay, I’ll accept the offer. But I have some conditions.”
Abby didn’t betray any emotion, but I could tell behind her eyes that she was shocked at my boldness, and a little proud too. “Christine, do you really think you’re in the position to bargain for anything?”
“Yes,” I said, and even though I hadn’t meant it, something told me the word was true. I did have negotiating power. “You’ve put in a great deal of effort to get hold of me. I don’t know why, but you apparently think I’m worth something. Locked in a cell, I’m pretty much worthless to you. So, unless you hear me out, and grant my demands, then I’m going to sit here happily.” As if to exemplify my feelings, I lay back on the bed and stared blankly up at the ceiling. Oh, it felt so good to lie down, I didn’t want to sit up ever again. The poison in those darts was still doing a number on me, even if I was feeling better.
It was a bluff, and I’m pretty sure she knew it. But as always it seemed our verbal fencing match would never end. I’d just thrust toward her. Now all I had to do was see if she would parry.
She ran her tongue over her front teeth. “Let’s hear it,” she said, but rolled her eyes as if she couldn’t believe she was going along with this.
I sat up, feeling dizzy again, but I shook it off. “Okay. First, I want everything in writing, and no arrests for me or my friends. Ever.”
She nodded her head. “Done. Within reason, of course. I’m not sitting idly by if one of you decides to going on a murderous rampage.”
“Fine,” I agreed. It was strange, negotiating terms like a businessman. Like my dad, I thought. Yeah, he was an accountant mostly, but he still negotiated terms for payments and settlements. “Second: I’m not a full time spy. Neither are my friends. We are on an as-needed basis only. I’m sure you have plenty of Agents that can do jobs without teenagers around.”
“Done,” she agreed, with no terms of her own this time.
I smirked. This was going better than I thought. “Third: payment. If we are putting our lives at risk, even for something as stupid as spying on a teacher,” I knew she would understand exactly who I meant, “we should get paid.”
“How much do you think you deserve?”
“A million dollars a year.”
She laughed. “No way. Not even I’m worth that much.”
I shrugged my shoulders, “Figured I’d start high.”
“One thousand a month. Tax free. That’s a lot more than any of your little friends in Jefferson Hills are making.”
“Five,” I said immediately.
“Fifteen hundred,” she shot back.
“Four.”
“Two.”
“Done.”
She shook her head. “We were going to compensate you anyway. Even the government doesn’t expect people to work for free.”
“Nice to know.” However, I had one more bombshell to drop. One that would either seal the deal, or blow it right out of the water. “Last,” I said, mentally holding my breath even as the words came through my lips, “I want Eddie and the other prisoners in this facility freed.”
She was already shaking her head before I’d even finished. “No. That’s won’t happen.”
“Why not?”
There was a hard edge to her voice that said I should stop pushing. “Forget Edward Eagan.”
“No. I dreamed of his capture for a reason. If it wasn’t to prevent you from getting your hands on him, it must have been to rescue him from you. If you really need my help that badly, you’ll set him free.”
“How do you know why you were given that vision? How do you know it wasn’t so you’d end up right here, right now, to be recruited? Maybe that’s your destiny.”
“No. I only get these dreams when people are in danger.” I didn’t know if it was true or not, since this was only the second one I’d ever had. But the first was for that purpose, so why not this one?
“No one is in danger. As long as Eddie is kept here.”
She was making me angry. I held the anger back, not because of what I might do to her, but because of the headache it gave me. “I’m not letting you keep him here, poking and prodding, finding out what makes him tick until he dies. He’s a teenager, like me. He isn’t some science experiment.”
“Where did you get that idea?” She was honestly taken aback. It registered on her usually even face.
And that caught me off guard. “My grandfather. And Quinn,” I said without meaning to.
“First, everything your teacher told you is a lie. And the only reason your grandfather thinks that way is because of what the government did to people like him after the war.”
“So, you know my grandfather–”
“Has all the same powers as you. How do you think we tracked the genetic line and find you?”
“But all the records from Project: Hercules–”
“Weren’t destroyed. As a matter of fact, Project: Hercules ran all the way up through Operation: Desert Storm.” The look on my face must have shown my shock. “It’s true. We had super-powered men fighting in that war as well.”
There was something she wasn’t saying. For now, I wouldn’t press the matter. I had too much to think about already.
“The point is, there is no ‘poking and prodding’, I believe you said, going on here. We don’t need to find out what makes you tick. We already know.”
“Then why? Why capture all these super-powered people?”
“They’re criminals. They’re dangerous to the people around them. That’s all.” She’d taken that motherly tone again. I didn’t like the motherly tone. She wasn’t my mother, and there was no reason for her to pretend to be. “We can’t send them to a regular prison. We need to send them to a…” Her voice trailed off as she tried to find words that she thought I would comprehend. Then she rolled her eyes, much like I would have if I had to say it, and spoke, “Super-prison.”
Yup. Just about as stupid as I thought it would sound.
“Your friend Eddie – the boy you’re so eager to help – made $1.6 million disappear from the Federal Reserve. We still haven’t been able to find it.”
I wanted to protest, but didn’t see the point. I could tell by looking into her hard gaze that it was true, or at least she believed it. But then, why did I have the dream? If not to save Eddie, then why?
“Anything that Edward Eagan imagines becomes a reality,” Abby explained. “Can you imagine how dangerous a person like that could be? Especially one who engages in illegal activities?”
I nodded. He could be very dangerous if he didn’t use his powers correctly. But I still had a hard time believing he’d done what she said. He wouldn’t have given up so easily if he was a criminal. He would have imagined his way out of the situation, killed all the Agents, killed Abby. He wouldn’t have just surrendered.
And I wouldn’t have had that dream.
“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
“Honestly, Christine.” She shrugged, motioning with her hands around the tiny room as if I hadn’t noticed it was a cell. “Do I really have a reason to lie?”
“Can I at least see him?” Maybe if I saw him face to face, and could glimpse into his brain to see what he was really all about, I could stop obsessing.
Abby looked over her shoulder at the door, as if to get permission from some superior on the other side. I should have realized there was someone watching this whole exchange. Abby might have been their face when dealing with supers like me, but there had to be eyes, ears, and the whole rest of the body lying somewhere in the shadows.
For the first time I noticed the small camera in the corner. It had been recording the whole conversation – someone monitoring from the other side of the door. How could I not have noticed?
Because you’ve been drugged, my brain told me. You’re still not thinking clearly.
I wasn’t. That was for sure. I might have been at eighty or ninety percent, but there was no way I was at my peak.
Abby turned back toward me. “I’ll take you to see him. But I want you to eat something first.”
“Okay,” I said. My stomach grumbled, despite the sick feeling still lingering in my head and stomach.
She rose from the chair, and went to the door. For a moment, I thought she would step out to get my food. I should have known better. The door opened, and there was an Agent holding a tray. He handed it to Abby and shut the door as she carried it to the table.
“You’ll feel better after eating something,” she said simply.
The tray held a simple sandwich – bologna and cheese. I hated bologna, the very thought of it made me ill. I mean, what was it exactly? My theory was, it was the parts of the pig and cow that were left over after making everything else you could possibly make out of them, including hot dogs – and I already knew those were made from the leftover parts. But I wasn’t about to turn down any food at this point. There was also another cup of the drink she gave me earlier, which seemed to be water.
I ate and drank my fill in less than a minute. Amazingly, once the sandwich hit my stomach, the nausea went away. But even though it’d been some time since I’d awoken, when I tried to stand, my legs didn’t work properly and I found myself wobbling like a girl who’d had one too many glasses of wine.
Abby, charmer that she was, threw an arm around me and helped me to the door. She led me into the narrow corridor. The Agent who’d been holding the tray a minute ago followed us as we made a right turn and followed it along another corridor. Lining the corridor were doors upon doors, seeming to stretch on forever. Everything was brightly lit and white, much like the room I’d been in. Everything had an amazingly clean look to it and I felt like I was dirtying the scene just by walking down the corridor.
Next to each door was a small monitor, each one showing the image of a room like the one I’d just been inside. On each monitor was also the image of a person. Prisoners, I couldn’t help but think. Some were pacing the floor, some sitting at the small table, and other lying in the bed. I didn’t recognize any of my friends on any of the monitors, but I did see Johnny. He was pacing in both directions at once, each copy walking in the opposite direction before turning around and crossing the space again.
“Each of them did something bad?” I sounded like a five year old, but I couldn’t think of a better way to word it.
“Most of them. Some, like in this room,” she paused in front of a monitor. “This boy didn’t do anything intentionally, but he had to be put away for his own safety, and for others.” Inside was an image of a person covered from head to toe in a dark fabric – it actually looked a bit like Kevlar. “If he even grazed your skin, you’d be dead from a deadly toxin he secretes from his pores. We call him Cyanide.”
“You name them all?” I thought, wondering what ridiculous name they’d have come up for me.
“Most.” She smiled. “Not all.”
I watched the monitor for a second longer. I understood the need to contain a boy like that, but it still didn’t make it right. He deserved to be able to live a normal life – even if he couldn’t touch anyone. It didn’t seem right, even if Abby and the MHDA were locking him away for the right reasons.
We moved on. Soon, we were in another corridor, this one without rooms every few feet. Instead, there was a large window, with a single door next to it. It looked like a control room of some kind. There were monitors all over one wall, each with a feed to one of the cells we’d passed.
This room has to be their command center.
I felt the minds of the people in that room. They weren’t wearing inhibitors like Abby was wearing. But when I tried to delve deeper, to get information on how things worked in the room – specifically, which button would open the prisoners’ doors – I got nothing. My powers weren’t working properly. I chalked it up to the sedative.
They ushered me past this room without comment. I didn’t think it would be wise to ask, so I filed what I’d seen in the back of my head for later. We continued our trek down the brightly lit corridor, into what I would describe as a remote part of the facility – if there were such a thing in a place like this. The corridor seemed twice as long as a football field, and there wasn’t anything in it, just a couple of open doors, both with stairways, leading up.
Gotta be in one of the underground bunkers, I thought. I wonder how far underground.
Reaching the end of the corridor, we turned right and in front of us were a pair of heavy steel, red, double doors. The words “Cryo-Chamber” labeled the room beyond the door. Suddenly, I didn’t want to know what had happened to Eddie anymore.
Abby let me go, and I stood under my own strength. She pressed her hand onto a black panel on the wall and the doors swung out at us. With the opening of the doors came the chill of the air inside. Frigid smoke wafted out like in one of those bad science-fiction movies. In the movies it was supposed to add the effect of eeriness, which never really worked. In real life, it did.
A chill ran up my spine that was half from the cold air and half from the fear of what I would find inside.
Like a mother helping along a frightened child, Abby took my hand and led me into the room. “This is what happened to Edward Eagan.”
Once we were through the smoke, I saw—I don’t know what I saw. It looked like tubes connected to large metal cylinders with frosted over glass panels on the front. Small electronic screens, equally frosted, stood in front of each cylinder.
“There are individuals too dangerous to incarcerate,” Abby informed. “Edward Eagan is among them. Even if we locked him up, he could just imagine his way out. Sedating him and putting him into stasis was the only viable option.” She stepped up to one of the metal cylinders. She pressed her hand on the glass and wiped away the frost, revealing the face I’d seen in my dreams – Eddie.
He looked like he was asleep.
“Why?” I asked without meaning to. The question was meant to clarify why I’d been shown the things in my dream. If I couldn’t save Eddie, or worse, wasn’t meant to, then why would I be shown these things?
Abby didn’t take it that way. “As I said. Edward Eagan is dangerous. As are the other fourteen individuals contained in this chamber.” I couldn’t tell if she was happy about this fact, or remorseful. The way she said the sentence could have been taken either way. “Cyanide will be next if we can’t figure out a way to suppress his power – cure him, if you will.”
“That’s horrible,” I said, barely whispering. “You can’t do that.”
“I can. And I do it to protect the lives of thousands of innocent people.” She pointed to the next cylinder. “This one can walk through walls. Imagine what she could do to a person if she was angered.” Abby pointed to another one. “This one can harness the power of an atomic bomb and explode at will. Need I tell you he could take out all of Manhattan in the blink of an eye? And him—he can call forth tornadoes, or debilitating snowstorms, or tidal waves—even indoors. What are we supposed to do with them?”
“Have any of them actually done anything wrong?” I asked.
“Some.”
“But not all.”
She didn’t answer. She didn’t need to.
And I already knew the answer before I asked, “Will you ever let them out?”
She shrugged.
The whole thing felt wrong. I mean, who decided who was “too dangerous” and who wasn’t? I could guarantee that not one of the popsicles had gotten a fair trial. Who were they to be judge, jury and executioner? It was wrong and I wouldn’t be part of it.
But you made a deal with her, my brain reminded me.
Not yet I didn’t.
I pushed with my powers, to see if I could make an escape, but they still didn’t seem to be working. Until they kicked back in, I really had no choice but to cooperate.
“Are you beginning to understand?” Abby asked.
“Perfectly.” She would be disappointed when she figured out what I meant because I finally understood what I was supposed to do and why I’d had the dream.
We stepped away from Eddie’s frozen coffin – I call it a coffin because he might as well be dead. He would never get out. None of them would, unless I helped.
“Can I see my friends now?”
No matter what the answer, I wanted out of that room. Besides the fact that it creeped me out, I felt like I was getting frostbite – my fingers were already numb.
“We’ll see,” she said.
Translation: no.
She brought me back down the long empty hallway. I knew she was going to put me back in my cell, something I couldn’t allow.
“Have you made your decision, then?” she asked, as we passed the command center.
I’d been thinking about it. Not whether or not I’d accept, but how I might get what I wanted and escape as well. When I didn’t answer, Abby stopped in the middle of the corridor and stared at me.
She looked me in the eye, scrutinizing me much like I did when I was trying to pull someone’s deeply buried fear from the dark recesses of their brain. I wondered if she was trying the same thing, in her own way. If she was, it didn’t work – I wasn’t frightened.
“Are you feeling all right?” she asked.
I decided to go along with her and continue playing sick – well, sicker than I felt, anyway. Holding a hand to my head and the other to my stomach, I muttered, “Yeah.” I winced at a sudden pain I didn’t feel. “I think those things you shot me with are still affecting me.”
She looked to the Agent standing behind me. “Take her to the infirmary and get her another drink. Then have the doctor run some tests to make sure there aren’t any lasting effects.” Then she turned to me, and even through the thought inhibitor, I felt a pang of sympathy from her. “I’ll meet you there in an hour. We have more to discuss, I think.”
I nodded, trying hard not to focus on her. She must have bought my horrid acting job, because she too nodded. Then Abby turned and walked away, leaving me with the nameless Agent.
“This way,” he grunted, and began walking up the corridor, away from the control room.
I was able to walk after him, but my legs still felt like jelly, so I wobbled a bit. Several times the Agent looked back over his shoulder and heaved a sigh. My slowness was making him impatient.
We passed the turn that would have led us back to the prisoners’ cells and instead continued straight into another part of the facility. I had the map in my head, but adding all these new corridors was sending it out of focus. I just needed to keep enough info in my head to be able to find my friends and make my escape – that was priority number one.
After what felt like an hour’s walking, though was probably less than five minutes, we reached the infirmary. If the corridors of the facility were clean, then the infirmary was practically sterile. I hate to bring up the sci-fi movie thing again, but it really felt like we were on a movie set. Even the doctors were covered from head to toe in white uniforms, making them blend into the brightness of the walls.
I stood out in my dirty, but still pretty bright, pink top that used to be Samantha’s. Vaguely, I wondered how the cheerleader was doing. If she’d been hit with one of those darts, I doubted she’d be awake yet. She was really going to be pissed when she did. If it weren’t for me, she wouldn’t be here, locked in some cell.
Stop! You can’t begin to have sympathy for that evil…!
“Agent Davidson would like for you to check this one out,” the Agent said to a doctor, interrupting my thoughts. “Please, make sure she gets something to drink.”
Even though I couldn’t see the Agent’s face, I’m pretty sure he winked at the doctor, as if they shared some secret. Maybe I was delusional.
“Thank you, Agent Murray.” The doctor grabbed my upper arm roughly. “I’ll take the prisoner from here.” Then, he practically dragged me across the room and set me down on one of the tables.
Prisoner?
I guess I was still a prisoner, until Abby officially freed me and my friends – or we escaped. More and more it looked like it would be the latter. I just wished I knew how to do it.
He threw a gown at me – white, of course. If I hated the bright pink shirt, the white gown was ten times worse.
“Undress and put that on,” he said quickly and strode away. His voice told me that he wasn’t taking any crap. It was almost like he was bothered just by my being here.
I wasn’t the only patient. Another young girl, not more than twelve, lay on one of the other tables, her skin beet-red, making her stand out against the white even more than I’m sure I did. She wasn’t conscious.
Other than us, the only other people were a few doctors and nurses, none of whom paid much attention to me.
The one thing I didn’t see was someplace to change. There weren’t even curtains to pull around the exam table. I sighed, knowing if I didn’t do it, the doctor would probably have some nurses strip me and put the clothes on. So I chose the far less embarrassing route. Facing the wall, I removed the pink shirt and slipped the gown on before pulling the shorts off.
Then I sat on the exam table.
A nurse appeared as if from nowhere, holding a cup. I knew it was that very same liquid Abby had given me. Thinking of how much better the drink made me feel, I accepted the cup and put it to my lips.
Just before I took the first sip, the voice in the back of my head screamed, STOP!
I jerked the cup away from my lips, and the nurse gave me a curious look. “Is something the matter?”
“Ummm, no. Just gagged a little.” Then I brought the cup to my mouth again and pretended to drink.
As soon as I pretended to swallow, the nurse, apparently satisfied, turned and walked away. Once she was gone, I dumped the liquid under the table, where I prayed no one would notice, and set the cup on the exam table next to me.
Nobody needed to tell me the drink was taking my powers, not the sedative from the darts. The drink made me feel horrible, too. Yeah, it made me feel better at first, but then as soon as it got into my system it kept me weak.
I can’t believe I trusted her, even for a second. She’d been keeping me like this the whole time, even as she talked of deals and sending me home. Without my powers, I wasn’t a threat.
Well, I should say, I wasn’t as much of a threat. Because I could be threatening without any powers. All I needed was a plan.
Three nurses hovered over the red-skinned girl and, a moment later, the doctor too sprinted over. There didn’t seem to be anything out of the ordinary going on with her, but I felt the nurses’ apprehension about even touching her.
Then I realized – I could feel. I couldn’t feel very well, but at least I felt something.
It had been the drink after all, and that’s why Abby insisted I have it so frequently. If I didn’t, then my powers would return, just as they were now. A wave of hatred rolled through my body.
Even as I plotted the demise of Abby Davidson, the girl’s skin darkened. It happened suddenly, turning from a bright red to a deep crimson in a matter of seconds. The doctor pulled the nurses away from the table.
Then the girl began to smoke, her skin turning yet a darker shade of red. She convulsed on the table. It looked like she was having a seizure, and I wondered why none of these people were helping her.
I began to get up, to rush to the girl’s side and see if there was anything I could do, but the second my feet hit the floor she burst into flames, making the already brightly lit room even brighter. I had to avert my eyes, or risk becoming blind from the sudden illumination.
Just as suddenly as the flames erupted, they were gone. Lying where the girl had been was a pile of ash. The ash was moving, however, and from within, the girl stirred, her crinkled black skin having returned to a normal color.
The doctor and the nurses approached her, no longer worried.
“Are we feeling okay now, Ms. Gray?” the doctor asked.
The girl nodded, but said nothing. The nurse was already approaching her with a cup of the same liquid they gave me. I wanted to warn the girl, but that would give me away.
Sitting back on the table, I decided it was time to leave. I didn’t know what had happened with the girl, whether or not it was her powers that caused what I’d seen, but I wasn’t going to find out. I needed to get the poison out of me—and now.
I mustered all the mental strength I possessed, and built a mental net around my brain. I looked deep within myself, sensing all the particles that didn’t belong in my blood. Millions of them floated through my bloodstream, attacking my cells and making me weak. I pictured millions of tiny sheepdogs, and had them corral all the tiny particles into the nets I’d built.
With each passing second I got stronger. It took several minutes, while the doctor and nurses scanned and probed their other patient, but I finally had them all caught. Unfortunately, they were still inside my body. So, I did the only thing I could think of. I moved them into my nasal cavity and tickled my nose.
I turned my head and sneezed the hardest I ever sneezed. It was so hard I actually hurt my neck. Snot, along with the offending molecules, splattered the wall, ruining the perfect white finish.
Flexing my mental muscles, I could tell there was no more of the stuff in my system. I felt amazingly better, like I hadn’t felt in forever.
The sneeze unfortunately, got the doctor’s attention. But I was done here. There was no reason to linger any longer, especially since Abby would return soon.
He left the nurses and returned to check on me. But he wasn’t getting near me—not this time.
Tell me, Doctor, I thought, scanning the darkest parts of his brain, what do you fear?
Chapter 24
Exploring the Underworld
It didn’t take long to subdue the doctors and nurses. I locked them in a supply room, but not before stealing a set of white clothes that looked like a pair of pajamas. They were a little loose, but they would do.
The girl who’d burst into flames watched me, but said nothing. I wanted to take her along, but she would only slow me down. I’d come back for her later, if I could.
I didn’t have much time. I needed to head directly for the command center and find a way to get those cells open. If I could open every cell door, I might be able to create enough chaos to find my friends and free them. If I was lucky, I might even be able to get Eddie out of his frozen tomb.
No sooner had I stepped through the door of the infirmary, however, than alarms blared. The white lights in the hall all turned a blood-red color, making the clean surfaces look as if they were on fire.
Damn, that was fast.
I knew which way the command center was, but I was positive that was where I would meet the most resistance. I ran the opposite way – into unknown territory.
There was nothing ahead. Just rooms that looked like offices, though I couldn’t see inside. These red halls were empty. All I needed was someplace to hide until I could go ahead with my plan.
Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be any good places to conceal myself. After about a minute of sprinting I reached the end of the hall. I turned back, hearing voices, but was unable to see very far in the deep red light. They were coming, and I was going to be caught – again.
I backed up a few paces to the last door I’d passed. Pushing it open, I saw a flight of stairs heading up. The voices were getting closer, so I slammed the door, mentally bending the doorframe shut. Then I ran up.
One flight of stairs later, and panting for breath, I stopped. The stairway seemed to go up at least another six levels. I couldn’t believe how deep underground the facility went. If there really was a nuclear attack, they could probably survive for years.
Instead of climbing further, I went through the door. Immediately, I noticed the change. Aside from being quiet—too quiet—the corridor looked dingy and dirty—much older than the floor below. Old-style hanging lights with exposed lightbulbs lit this hall with a dull yellow light. It looked much more like the pictures I’d seen of the old bomb shelters they’d built in the 1950s and ‘60s when everyone was afraid of the Russians launching nukes at us.
I gazed at every crack and hole in the wall. Something about this place was familiar. That was impossible, though, as I’d never been to Long Island in my life, let alone here.
At the first door in the corridor, I checked behind me. No sign of pursuit – not yet, anyway. So I turned the knob and pushed the door open.
My God!
I’d apparently left the science fiction movie set behind, and found myself wedged inside a horror movie. I could practically hear the blades scraping on the wall, and smell death in the air.
It looked like a doctor’s office – a deeply disturbed doctor’s office. Dried blood stained each and every wall. The stench was like that of rotted meat. There was an exam table, much like the one I’d been sitting on a few minutes earlier. This one, however, had a hole in it, about the size of a human head, and several straps, meant to tie a person to the table, dangled from the sides.
However, what hung above the table frightened me the most. It looked like some kind of alien device. The only way I could describe the contraption would be to call it a giant metal octopus. At the end of each of the eight arms hung a large syringe. As old as the thing was, it still looked as if it were ready to attack any unwitting victim foolish enough to lie underneath.
Through the feeling of dread and terror the feeling of familiarity returned.
Leaving the room, I walked further down the corridor. The next couple of rooms were the same, rooms of torture disguised as medical offices.
The door to the fourth room was broken in and lying off its hinges. Daring to poke my head inside, I found the room destroyed. The metal octopus contraption had been ripped from the ceiling and torn to pieces. Shards of metal stuck out of the walls, where they had apparently hit with tremendous force. The table itself was in no better shape, bent in half.
At that moment, I couldn’t decide what I was more afraid of, the room or whatever beast had destroyed it.
I continued walking, my footsteps echoing off the walls. Deeper into the cavernous halls I trekked, unable to stop myself from imagining what had gone on—what horrible experiments had they been running in this place.
Oh crap! Horrible experiments. I thought long and hard, trying to see the images in my head, like I’d done before—imagining what it would have been like back during World War II.
It can’t be, though, I tried to convince myself. They wouldn’t have tortured them like that.
Ghostly people walked along the corridor with me. Three men, dressed in hospital gowns and each led by two soldiers, marched toward each of the rooms. I recognized the faces: Gary Walen, Charlie Smith, and Thomas Stephenson: three men from my grandfather’s platoon. Three of the Dirty Dozen. The first three men given the formula that would change their lives forever.
I broke my concentration. I couldn’t bear to watch them go in. The octopuses would penetrate their tissue, deep into bone, adding genetic materials to their DNA. I couldn’t imagine the pain each of them would feel. The worst part was, from my grandfather’s journal, I knew each of them would be awake while the procedure took place.
Stop thinking about it, Christine, I ordered. You’re gonna make yourself sick again.
I willed the images from my head and continued down the corridor, faster, to put as much distance between myself and those rooms as possible.
At the other end of the hall a large pair of double doors loomed. Both were made of steel at least a foot thick. Both doors also lay propped against the wall, ripped from their hinges, leaving the entrance to the room beyond wide open. Above the doorway, spray-painted in an unsteady hand, were two simple words: Project: Hercules
I didn’t want to go in, yet something compelled my legs forward. As I entered the room, I was greeted again with the stench of rotting meat. It was like walking into a butcher’s shop – one the cockroaches had long since taken over.
Incredibly old computers, the size of cars, lined several walls. Their monitors only showed green text. Dust had settled over much of the room, and dark cobwebs occupied every corner. There was a giant bloodstain in the exact center of the room, which, again, appeared to have been there a long time.
Along the far wall were deep cavities, roughly human-sized, with straps similar to those from the beds. Twelve exactly. My grandfather hadn’t mentioned being detained, or being held against a wall like that. But I also knew he hadn’t put every single detail into his journal.
Then again, the computers couldn’t have been there back then. The first computers, even ones as primitive as these, weren’t invented until the ‘50s or ‘60s. So this room might not have even been here at the time.
Still, that didn’t change how horrifying the place was. Something dreadful had happened here, and traces of the tragedy lingered. The horrible blood stain on the floor told the tale of not one, but many people dying on that very spot—probably murdered. The depressions in the wall also had blood spatters where their heads would have gone.
The fact the metal doors that could have survived a bomb blast were pulled from their hinges also told the tale of something bad happening here. Whatever this place had been, it had been shut down with force.
And I was going to explore it. Something still tugged at me inside.
I took a closer look at the computers. I wondered how anyone could have worked on those things. They couldn’t do anything – no games, no internet, not even a word processor.
I ran my hands over them, wiping off a sheen of dust. The metal shells were cold. Touching them sent goosebumps shivering up my arm.
No matter what I did, I couldn’t stop myself from imagining a hundred different things that could have caused that bloodstain.
Still, it wasn’t the computers or the bloodstain calling me into the room. There was something else – a presence. But it wasn’t alive. It was thinking, but the thoughts weren’t real. I couldn’t make sense of it, but there was definitely something, and it wanted me to find it.
I walked around the perimeter of the room, not about to step across the spot where dead bodies had once lain. I got a closer look at the straps outlining the impressions in the wall. Kevlar. They were powerful, and meant to hold a person who was equally powerful. None looked like they had been torn through.
Still, it was something else that called to me. I concentrated on the presence I felt, pinpointing its location. My mind pinged it like the sonar on a submarine. Once it did, the thing attached itself to my mind, and drew me toward it.
I returned to one bank of computers. It was there, screaming for me to locate it. I closed my eyes and let it guide me. Lifting my hand, I stretched to reach the top of one of the computer towers. I groped around the top until my hand found a metal object. This metal felt warm, almost like it had been sitting next to a fire. It was heavy as well, and scraped along the top of the computer tower as I pulled it from its perch.
The thing was rusted and old – incredibly old. It measured about a foot in length, and probably weighed five or six pounds. It could have been a large knife, but it was more like the tip of a spear – an ancient spear. The brownish metal felt coarse in my hand, and even as I handled it, the coating of rust flaked off. I couldn’t understand how an old rusty spear point could call me. It was just a hunk of metal, but somehow the object in my hands had a mental presence.
With the item in hand I left the room. There would be time to figure out what had gone on in that room later. For now, I needed get back and rescue my friends.
I clutched the spear point, and found another staircase. This time, instead of heading up, I descended back into the depths.
The alarms still blared loudly, growing louder with each step I descended. A chaos of emotions came from the Agents as they searched for me. Were they really too dense not to search any other floor?
Maybe, in all the chaos, I’d be able to sneak into the command center.
At the bottom of the stairs, I slowed my pace. I could hear the tromping of footsteps as Agents charged down the corridor just beyond the doorway. Pressing myself against the wall, I waited until the footsteps faded into the distance. Then I peeked through the doorway and found the hallway empty. Only then did I charge out. Turning back and forth, I had to decide which way to go. I was very near the Cryo-Chamber. With no one guarding it, I could easily get myself into the room, or at least more easily than I could get into the command center.
Maybe I’d be able to get myself a little help.
Running, I headed for the chamber, and a moment later stood before the large metal doors again. But I couldn’t get in without a proper handprint. Cursing my own stupidity, I turned to head back down the hall. But I didn’t get more than two steps before I was stopped.
I wasn’t stopped by a person, or gunshots. The roof didn’t collapse, blocking my path. I was simply told to stop—not in words, but with a feeling. It came from the spear.
What is with this thing? I gazed upon the object in my hand. Whatever this was, it was beginning to bother me. An inanimate object shouldn’t be able to think.
If I hadn’t listened to the stupid thing, I would have been far away as the doors hissed open, and the cold smoke wafted out again. No one had opened the door.
As I looked into the Cryo-Chamber, no one seemed to be inside.
Tentatively, I stepped toward the door. The cold air froze me again. I went straight toward the cylinder that held Eddie Eagan, looking over my shoulder every few seconds, thinking I might find someone hiding here. This didn’t feel like a trap, but every ounce of my being said it must have been.
I wiped my hand over the control panel, erasing the frost so I could read what was on it. Strangely enough, life sign signals came from inside the cylinder. Eddie seemed to be doing very well in his frozen state.
Pressing my finger to the screen, a memo came up. I could go back to his vital signs, or I could check out his family history.
Maybe later.
There was an option to see how much time had elapsed since he’d been frozen, and one to check the status of his reprogramming – another button I’d check out if there was time.
The one I pressed was the option that simply said, “Thaw Sequence.”
A loud hiss, like a thousand snakes, swept through the room. I was sure someone had heard the noise, so I willed the machine to move more quickly. It didn’t comply, simply showing a countdown for the procedure, starting at ten minutes.
“Like I have ten minutes to wait,” I muttered.
No way someone hadn’t heard the noise. The Agents could have been mobilizing to bum-rush the room at this moment. Ten minutes was just too long to wait. I needed to speed the process up.
Grabbing the edge of the glass panel, I yanked with all my might, feeling my muscles strain. The chamber was sealed tight. I couldn’t increase the pressure inside the chamber like I’d done before, because the added pressure would crush Eddie like an empty tin can. The only way I could open that chamber was to break the glass.
However, if I broke the glass, I risked tearing Eddie to shreds with sharp and deadly shards.
There was no good option here. And with nine minutes still left on the timer, I knew they’d be here before it opened.
I looked around for something to break the glass, but everything that might have a shot at cracking it was bolted down. By the time I disconnected a metal pipe and banged on the glass, the timer would have run out.
Then I felt the weight of the spearhead in my hand. If I did it right, I could turn the heavy object into an effective missile. I’d just have to make sure to stop it before it buried itself in Eddie’s chest. Of course, and the shattered glass was still a concern.
Faintly, I heard the sounds of boots hitting the cement, coming steadily closer. I didn’t have very long until they arrived, but there were eight minutes left on the countdown.
I let go of the spearhead with my hand, at the same time grabbing hold of it with my mind. Placing a mental shield around Eddie’s body, I prepared to fire at the exact center of the glass, praying I didn’t kill Eddie.
His lifeless-looking, frozen body hung in the frosty cylinder. If I accidentally ended his life, he would never know it. The thought made me hesitate. I couldn’t live with myself if I murdered the boy.
Taking a deep breath, I knew I had to do it one way or the other. I made sure the shield I created was strong enough, and then let loose the spear, shooting at the glass panel like a bullet.
The sound wasn’t at all what I expected. Instead of the high-pitched tinkle of glass, there was a loud crack, like a thick branch breaking from the top of an old tree. The glass itself didn’t break – at least, it didn’t separate. The spearhead stuck, protruding out from the center of a million cracks.
Well, I guess that worked. I approached the cylinder and pressed a finger to one of the tiny shards. It immediately fell to the floor of the cylinder.
It was at that moment an alarm blared from the panel next to the cylinder. It sounded like a fire engine roaring through the room. If they didn’t already know I was here, they did now.
I yanked the spear from the glass, then grabbed every shard with my mind and pulled them out as well. More cold air poured out of the cylinder, making me numb instantly. Eddie’s frozen body fell right into my arms.
As expected, he was cold, much colder than a human body should have been. His skin, covered in frost, had a blue tint to it. His lips and the skin around his eyes especially were a deep blue, making him look dead. Even his blondish hair, hard as a rock, had a bluish hue. He wasn’t dead. I could feel life slowly coming back to his body.
Giving a mental heave, I dragged him away from the chamber and down the hall. I pulled him to the stairway I’d come down, disappearing up on the next floor as the Agents tromped toward the Cryo-Chamber.
A wave of relief settled over me. Just in time.
All I had to do now was wait for Eddie to thaw. His life was steadily returning. The frost on his skin was already turning into tiny beads of water that were rolling onto the ground.
I just hoped he woke before the Agents found us. I had the feeling a little imagination was what I needed to survive this.
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