by B D Grant
“Here we go,” he says, and then stops fast forwarding. The recording flips on again.
Mase and I haven’t started fighting yet, but it’s about to happen. Mase lunges, and again I see his buddies grab him.
The man fast-forwards until the Tempero woman enters, this time unmuting the TV.
The Tempero woman, standing at the side of the group, turns to the one-way mirror, apparently surprised, as I punch the hell of out Mase. People run into the room. A woman in scrubs, the same one who was giving Boston chest compressions on the gurney, is one of those who comes jogging through the double doors. She gives me the first injection, and after a pause, stabs the needle into my other arm.
He pauses the video. “That was an impressive show you put on. That Seraphim right there,” with the remote, he points at the Tempero woman staring at the mirror, “is one of my best.” He sets the remote down next to him on the desk. “So tell me,” he says, leaning in toward me. “How did you do it?”
I shrug, looking at the screen. I see myself passing out, several angry Seraphim standing around me. Glensy has been pushed to the back of the group and is struggling to see what’s going on. The old man waits patiently, raising his eyebrows. I try to think of something I can say that will satisfy him easily, but I come up blank. His stare is grave.
“I really really don’t like that guy,” I say of Mase with a weak smile.
The man crosses his arms, his expression darkening. “Stand up.”
I slowly rise from the couch. He reaches behind himself and I tense. He takes a manila folder from off of the desk and opens it slowly. He then flips through it, scanning a couple pages as I sit uncomfortably. “You were at the raid,” he states, not raising his head. “Did your dislike of young Mr. Heincliff arise from that day’s events?”
I cross my arms around my chest. I know I need to keep my temper at bay, but that won’t happen if he pushes Anne’s death. From our short conversation and this nice office, I know that this is not a man I want to fight. I would win of course, but I am sure I would pay for it. Everything about this place screams “The Boss.”
“Who are you?” I ask.
He squares his shoulders. “You can call me Mr. Kian. Now, did the Heincliff boy say something to set you off today?”
“It didn’t help,” I admit.
He flips back a few pages in the folder. “How long were you a student at the school?”
Months. “Less than a year.”
Kian runs his finger down before flipping to the next page. “Interesting….” He continues reading while I shift uncomfortably from one foot to the other.
Finally, after a while longer, I ask, “What do you want with me?”
He snaps the folder shut. My hands instinctively ball into fists.
Boston and Mick, my other closest friend from The Academy, had both warned me not to ever show my talent for blocking out Tempero. They had told me that I shouldn’t be able to do something like that. They were right, and I am about to learn the consequences. I give a quick glance over the top of his desk searching for signs of a weapon he could be planning on using on me.
“I need people like you,” he says, his eyes fixed on mine. “Working here for me.”
The muscles in my hand slacken, then clench again. I look for some sign that he’s kidding, but there’s none. “You want me, to work for you?”
“It’s not such a bad thing,” he says, looking back at the folder. He withdraws a page. “Your mother was in The Movement when she lived in Aurora.” He hands me a printed photograph of three rows of young faces smiling for the camera. It’s easy to recognize my mother third from the left on the front row. Her smile is the same as it is in every photograph Gran had of her and me before my mother’s death. Her smile is wide and toothy. A taller man on the right of her has his arm draped over her shoulder smiling as widely as she is. “Your mother was exceptional,” Kian says, watching me stare at her face, “and so was your father.”
Him bringing up my father is a shock. I try not to show it, but the way his eyes are gleaming when I look up at him I know that he can tell. I’ve never known who my father was. Gran had told me that my mom was pregnant when she returned home from college. My mother had described the situation to Gran that it was a boyfriend who didn’t want a family and had already ended the relationship when she found out about me.
He tilts his head at me. “Did no one at your school show you?” I stare back at him trying to guess where this is going. Is a man about to walk in and tell me he’s my father? I glance at the door. Kian has another page out of the folder when I look back. “Here you go,” he says, offering me the page, “someone should have already given you this.” I offer him the photograph back as I take the next page. “You can keep it,” he says.
“I know what my mother looks like,” I tell him, holding it out for him.
“But not your father.” I look down at the page he just gave me. Three DNA sequences are marked showing my sequence in the middle with Dianne Edwards’s sequence above mine, and Donovan Andler’s at the bottom. Donovan, I’ve seen that name before. When I had known Gradney as Mr. Grad at The Academy he’d written two names with a question mark at the end in my family tree when I had left the line for my father’s name blank; Donovan and Mitchell. On this, it shows that my mother is my mother and Donovan Andler is my father with ninety-nine percent certainty.
I flip back to the photograph. “And this guy next to my mom is him?”
“It is. He had great potential,” Kian says. I lift the photograph closer to my face. He’s a good-looking guy, and my mom and him do look happy. “It was a tragedy when he died in that house fire.” I glance up at Kian over the photo. I want to ask him if Rogues caused the fire, but the way he’s staring at him like he’s wanting me to ask him question I think better of it. I turn my attention back to the printed photo.
“You’re the future, Kelly. With your help, we can move our people forward.” I lower the pages to look at him. Now I know why I’m here. He wants me to work for him. I’m not a Veritatis, so all of this could be one big lie. The photo does have my mother in it, but I don’t know if that’s really Donovan standing next to her, or if he’s actually my father. This could all be staged. Kian smiles at me mistaking my looking at him for interest in what he’s saying. “You would be at the forefront of the revolution of our kind.” He looks up at the television. “Dynamar like Mr. Heincliff would follow your every order.”
On the screen, Mase is on his hands and knees as I tower over him. This dude thinks bossing Mase around sounds appealing to me. Maybe it does a little, but I’d rather beat his face in.
I can’t help it; I sneer. “I’d send him walking off the edge of a cliff. You know that, right?” His smile fades. “Here,” I say, shoving the two pages toward him. “You can keep those.” “I don’t want them.” I hold them out closer to him shaking them a little for him to take them. I don’t want him to think I owe him for these two lousy pieces of paper. If Donovan is my father and he’s dead, than I’m still right where I was before, parentless.
Kian takes them, scratching his upper lip with his left thumb. “Anger is a strong motivator.” He sets them haphazardly on his desk with my folder. He walks around his desk and stops at the corner, opening one of the top drawers. He pulls out two more folders. “Do you know these two?” he asks as he leafs through the top folder.
I can see the picture in his hands before I’ve taken it from him. It is my friend Mick and his ex-girlfriend Jessica. Her head is tilted back and her mouth wide open, laughing.
“You know we went to school together,” I say, my voice empty. He’s switching tactics since showing me my parents didn’t work for him.
“And?”
I pause wondering how many folders this guy has on the people I know. “And Mick was my roommate. I had classes with Jessica.”
I hand it back to him, taking care to seem uninterested. But if Kian’s done his research, he knows that Mick and Bos
ton were my closest friends. Jessica, a Dynamar like me, was in my ability advancement group at first. We were the only two upperclassmen, her for her in ability to be a team player, and me for being brand new to the Seraphim world. Her parents had worked at the school, which I think is why she was finally moved into a class with students her age. I would have to assume that her parents were Rogues like most of the faculty, but I know for sure Jessica wasn’t.
“Would you like to see them?” he offers.
I shake my head, although it makes my headache worse.
On the day of the raid, Mick took off to the marsh where we had learned that Rogues were ambushing students and was the evacuation site for a stage one Mick was determined to get out of there. Jessica followed while Boston and I went on a search for weapons. We heard gun shots shortly afterward. Jessica may still be alive because of who her parents were, I guess, but even if she did make it out of the marsh, I’m not going to go along with whatever this guy is playing at.
He set the folder down, placing the photograph of Mick and Jessica on top of it. “Follow me,” he says, walking to the door.
We leave the office and go down a short corridor to an unmarked door that has a keypad above the doorknob. The man enters numbers on the keypad. The door opens to a stairwell.
“You won’t tell anyone.” It’s not a question.
We go up one floor, where every step causes my head to ache more. He has to use a keypad again to open the next door.
After I follow him through the doorway, I can see natural light mixed in with the fluorescent bulbs. It’s not a very obvious difference when you get to see daylight regularly, but when you haven’t been outside for a while, it’s the first thing you notice.
As we walk past the windows, I’m drawn to the light like a hungry plant. When I see what’s around the building I step closer, not believing what I see.
We are in the middle of a city.
I don’t recognize the buildings closest to us, nor the skyline. We’re too high up for me to make out any street signs. I try not making it too obvious how much the outside world interests me.
We turn down another hallway, leaving the windows behind and entering a hall full of offices. People are dressed in a mix of workout and business attire, those dressed more casually look more relaxed than the others who stroll past us. We get to yet another door with a keypad. It seems that every hall has at least one door with a keypad. This time, the keypad has a cover over its buttons giving the user complete privacy.
Kian opens the door but holds up a hand behind him, leaving me waiting in the hall.
“Shut off six thru twelve,” he says into the room. I can hear movement from behind the door. After a minute, he lowers his hand. The room has gone quiet. “Come on in.”
I walk in to a surveillance room. Two men are sitting at desks facing a dozen screens. The one that’s five or so inches shorter than the other has a control panel in front of him while the bigger guy, obviously a Dyna judging by his size, sits back watching the high resolution screens. The middle screen is bigger than the rest surrounding it, and as I stare at the image, I realize that the man on screen is Dr. Baudin. His hands are moving around wildly as he speaks to the three men and two women who seem to be listening intently. The smaller screens, besides the three that are turned off, are showing a large common area with multiple lounging areas from multiple angles. Including the one Dr. Baudin is on.
Kian leans over the seated Dyna, watching the screens. “Go in tight on these two,” he says, pointing at screen number two.
The image of Baudin on the larger screen flips to screen two’s feed. “Recognize them?”
Mick and Jessica are suddenly in clear view of the surveillance, walking hand-in-hand in the common area. Each lounging area has its own television, and in the backdrop I see kids playing a video games on some of them, a few others egging them on. I lean in closer. A woman walks into the frame. Mick drops Jessica’s hand as the woman stops them. Jessica pulls Mick in closer, and the woman turns so that I can see the side of her face. It’s Jessica’s mom. Her mom tucks a loose strand of Jessica’s hair behind her ear. Jessica follows the trail of her mother’s hand smoothing her hair further. Jessica smiles, and the three of them head for a group of Seraphim their age, holding hands again. “Can I see them, in person?”
“Of course. Presuming you agree to work with me.”
I lean away from the screens. “I watched people that I cared about die because you decided that they were expendable. Showing me that my friends are alive isn’t going to change that.”
The two men monitoring the screens stand abruptly as I take a step closer to the old man. I look at all three of them. I’m not scared of them, not even the Dynamar.
“You might as well tie a noose around my neck and throw me off the roof, because I will never work for you.”
Kian turns to the two men, still calm as ever. “Give us a minute.”
The Dyna grabs a pistol from under the desk and hands it to the old man. After a nod, he leaves the room, the shorter man following.
With a gun at play I decide taking a step back some isn’t a bad idea. Maybe I should just follow the two men out. Maybe I could find the common area before the old man and the other two catch up to me. He’ll shoot me in front of all of them, and then Mick will know what kind of people he and Jessica are surrounding themselves with.
Kian holds the gun casually at his right side, pointed at the ground. “You’re passionate. I was the same way as a young man.”
I’m not sure what to say. “Thank you?”
“You will change. Your passion will either grow into an insatiable hunger or it will fade, leaving you a sad whisper of the man you could have been. There will always be innocence lost,” he continues. “With your help, though, lives like his will be safe.” On the screen, I see Mick put his arm around Jessica before the old man turns it off. He taps the side of the gun against his thigh. “You will demonstrate to me and my associates how you were able to fight despite my Tempero. And, with my help you will become the best.”
“No.”
“No?”
I cautiously shake my head at him, waiting for the pistol to point in my direction. I watch as his hold on the gun tightens.
“I don’t think we’re understanding each other. You see, you are important to me, but if you refuse my offer, you become a liability.” Behind me, someone raps gently on the other side of the door. He lets out a hot breath that smells of cigarettes before pushing past me. The door is unlocked from the other side, and it opens just enough for me to catch a glimpse of the Dyna. His eyes are averted. In a hushed voice, he says, “He’s stable.”
“Turn on camera eight,” Kian tells me crisply, shutting the door in the Dyna’s face.
He is right behind me as I go to the surveillance screens on the wall and flip on the screen that has the number eight written on the corner. I get a flash of Kian’s wicked, one-sided grin reflecting in the screen, I feel the heat of his body right behind me.
Camera number eight shows some sort of long hospital wing. There are multiple beds lining either wall. There are drapes hanging between every bed, but none of them are pulled away from the wall to give privacy. Boston is in one of the few occupied beds; I see him clearly and immediately. He is close to the surveillance system panning the beds in the wing. I lean in to the screen as the camera moves over him.
The old man reaches around me, pressing number eight on the keyboard in front of me. The camera stops panning to freeze on Boston. They have him hooked up to machines, and for a painful moment I’m reminded of our brief stay at a real hospital. But some of the Rogue nurses that have been treating me are moving around in the background of the wing. I have seen some of them strolling past the barracks. Despite the looks of Boston’s surroundings, he is still being held somewhere in this building.
The blood pressure cuff around his upper arm gets a reading and red numbers light up the device that it’s connected to. H
is pulse and blood pressure rate fluctuates, but he’s alive.
“What are you going to do to him?”
“We’re going to take care of him.”
I look back at the old man sharply, but then realize what he means. They are actually going to care for Boston, not kill him. “You aren’t going to hurt him?” I ask, for clarification.
“Why on earth would we do that? Your friend has proven to be extremely useful,” he says, looking thoroughly confused.
I know exactly what he means by useful. Boston never would have been “useful” if he knew what was happening to Lena and all the others.
Does he plan to keep exploiting him if he wakes up?
Does he really think that after this, Boston would still be willing to help them, now that he knows? And what is he going to do to himself next time?
Without much further thought, I blurt out, “I’ll work for you, under one condition.”
The man’s gray brows wrinkles with intrigue. “And what would that be?”
“Let them go.”
“Pardon?”
“Boston, Glensy, Lena, all of them returned safe and sound to Mr. McBride.”
“All of them,” he repeats pulling one of the chairs out from under the desk.
“All of them,” I repeat.
He collapses in the chair. “I wish that were a possibility. However, some of the Seraphim we saved from that bus can only get the treatment they require from my team of specialists; others have parents who are here. You’re asking me to pull families apart and risk the others’ lives.” I stare at him. He seems sincere. I could almost believe that he cares. “I’ll tell you what,” he continues, resting the pistol in his lap after he sits down. “I’ll arrange for the three you named to be returned to your misguided comrade, so long as we begin your training today.”
“You didn’t mention any training.”
“How do you expect me to turn you into a leader if not through a training program? Like I said, you are exactly what Seraphim need to be able to move towards our future. You have to be trained by the best.”