Rise of the Elgen

by Richard Paul Evans

  One of the executioners began spraying something on me from a hose, soaking my clothing and skin. What is this? It smells sweet.

  There was suddenly a loud beep like the sound a garbage truck makes when it’s backing up. From its echo I guessed it was coming from the bowl itself. I didn’t think about its meaning, as I was certain it had something to do with feeding time. A thin, tinny voice from an intercom spoke to the executioners. I couldn’t understand what was said, nor did I try. One of the executioners grunted a response then pushed a button. A loud, stoic, female voice began counting down from ten.

  “Ten, nine, eight, seven . . .”

  My executioners put on earphones. “Five, four, three . . .”

  On the wall ahead of me, near my feet, a door slid open and the color of the room immediately changed, lit by an amber glow like the flickering of a fire. The rats. They were waiting.

  “Two, one. Commence feeding.”

  The beeping suddenly stopped, replaced by a single long tone. There was no rescue coming. I had run out of time.

  A light above me began to flash, then the conveyor started to move beneath me. My heart froze. “No . . . ,” I said.

  I was so weak. There was nothing I could do but wait. At least it wouldn’t take long. Soon everything would be over.

  The hours waiting for nighttime passed quietly. The bread, water, and fruit were long gone, and everyone was thirsty, tired, and hungry. As darkness fell over the jungle Ostin gathered everyone together to review the plan one more time. Just sitting together in the darkness already revealed a flaw in their plan. “The guards in the towers are going to see your glow,” Ostin said. “They’ll shoot you through the trees.”

  “Easy fix,” Taylor said. “Everyone who’s electric follow me.” She led them over to a spot near the edge of their camp where the ground was still wet from the rain the night before. She scooped up a handful of moist dirt and rubbed it over her hands and face. With the exception of Zeus, the rest of them covered one another with the dark soil. Jack and Wade said they were rubbing mud on for solidarity, but the truth was they loved the commando look.

  As soon as the last of the light had vanished, they said a quick good-bye to Mrs. Vey, Tanner, and Raúl, then set off through the jungle in single file, Ian and Taylor leading the group. Zeus slowed their pace considerably. He was finally walking on his own, but he had to lean heavily on Jack. Had they not needed his power they would have sent him off with Raúl. Wade, Ostin, and McKenna walked at the rear of the column, carrying the dynamite.

  They traveled east in an ellipse, making a wide swing into the jungle to avoid being spotted by the tower guards at the northeast corner of the interior fence. When they were past the compound they circled back in, crouching at the perimeter of the barbwire fence just thirty-five yards from the pump house.

  The pump house was a simple adobe-brick structure with a tin roof and barred windows. A large pipe, nearly three feet in diameter, was visible on the east side of the structure. It rose up from the ground forming a loop.

  “There it is,” Ostin whispered. He turned to Taylor. “Is group two ready?”

  “Ready,” Taylor said.

  “We’re ready,” Jack said.

  Ostin looked at Zeus. “You okay?”

  He was clearly still in a lot of pain but nodded. “Let’s shut them down.”

  “We should test the wire,” Taylor said.

  “Good idea,” Ian said. He and Taylor grabbed the barbwire about six feet apart.

  “What number am I thinking of?” Ian asked.

  “You’re not,” Taylor said. “You’re thinking about that fruit.”

  “It works,” Ian said, releasing the wire.

  “All right,” Ostin said. “See you after the fireworks. Good luck, everyone.”

  * * *

  While Taylor led group two back into the jungle, Ostin, Wade, McKenna, and Ian covered themselves with branches, then crawled on their stomachs under the barbwire closer to the pump house. Ian and Wade carried the dynamite on their backs but had to take their packs off to slide them through the fence. They all stopped about fifteen yards from the house.

  “What’s going on in there?” Ostin asked Ian.

  “There’s a guy sitting at a console.”

  “Just one guy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is he armed?”

  “No. He looks more like a tech.” He turned back. “He looks like he’s sleeping.”

  “He’s about to get the wake-up call of his life,” Ostin said. “What else do you see?”

  “The right side of the house is nothing, just a kitchen and bathroom. On the other side there’s the end of that pipe with a bunch of lights and switches.”

  “How thick is the pipe?”

  “About three feet.”

  “I mean the walls of the pipe.”

  “Oh.” He looked closer. “Maybe an inch and a half.”

  Ostin thought this over. “Dynamite blows down, so we should put the packs on top of the pipe, but it’s much more powerful in a confined space.” He did the math in his head. “For maximum explosive effect we need to stack the packs inside the loop.”

  Ian and Wade pulled a coil of fuse out of each pack, and McKenna wrapped the ends of the fuse around her hand.

  Ostin looked at McKenna. “You don’t ever just spontaneously ignite, do you?”

  “Only a few times a day,” McKenna said, staring ahead.

  “Really?”

  She looked at him. “No.”

  “Sorry,” he said.

  Wade turned to Ostin. “Now?”

  “Do it,” Ostin said. “Don’t forget to check the fuses.”

  “I won’t.” Wade slid his arms through both packs, then McKenna and Ostin covered them with brush.

  “Good luck,” Ostin said.

  Wade crawled on his stomach toward the pipe, moving about as fast as a turtle. In the darkness he looked like a slow-moving bush.

  “Can’t he go faster?” McKenna said.

  “He’s just being careful,” Ostin said. “We’ve got one shot at this.”

  When Wade reached the pipe he looked back at Ian, who gave him the thumbs-up. Wade checked the fuse connections again, then placed the packs in between the looped pipe and crawled back, though much faster. The four of them dropped back into the jungle, McKenna feeding the fuse out from her hand as they went.

  “How’s our sleeper?” Ostin asked Ian.

  “Still snoozing.”

  “Good. Have you found Michael?”

  “No. He’s not in the cells anymore.”

  “What’s going on in the bowl?”

  Ian strained. “It’s hard to see with all the electrical interference. But something must be going on. There’s a large crowd gathered up in the observation deck. The chute’s extended, so it must be feeding time.” He shook his head. “That’s strange, I don’t see a bull. Let me see what’s in the feeding station.” His expression changed. He quickly grabbed the barbwire. “We’ve got to blow it. Now!”

  “What’s going on?” Ostin asked. “What’s in the feeding station?”

  “Michael.”

  The conveyor belt moved me slowly toward the open door leading to the bowl. As I approached the opening I was overcome by the shrill scream of a million rats echoing in the metal collector—far louder and more horrific than the sound of the rats in the hallway. I can’t describe the terror of that sound, though I had once heard something like it. A few years earlier Ostin played for me something he had downloaded from the Internet—a radio program claiming that Russian scientists conducting deep-hole drilling experiments in Siberia had recorded the sounds of hell. The recording was proven a hoax, but if there was such a place as hell, it couldn’t be worse than this—the shrieking of a million hungry rats climbing on top of one another to eat me alive. Even the stench was torture, and I started gagging.

  The belt moved slowly, like a roller coaster about to take its first plunge. My heart raced, fu
eled by adrenaline. My mind and my body felt numb. I wished I could pass out.

  Then I felt something else. As my feet cleared the door, they began to tingle. Powerfully. As I slowly passed through the opening in the wall the sensation moved up my body. What’s happening to me? To my surprise I was able to lift my feet. It felt like energy was washing over me. Of course it did. I was being carried out over the largest electrical field ever created—millions of kilowatts were bombarding my body. The RESAT that had been sucking the energy from me couldn’t possibly handle that much current. A thousand of them couldn’t.

  As my chest approached the opening I was able to sit up and look down. My feet were beginning to glow. What I saw past my feet, at the bottom of the chute, was horrific. Until you see the rats you can’t possibly imagine how terrible they look, bubbling like a vast sea of lava. At the sight of me, the rats’ ravenous, collective shriek grew in intensity, and I could see a wave of rodents swelling toward me.

  My thighs were now glowing. I strained at my bonds. I couldn’t break free yet, but I was still absorbing electricity. My head passed through the opening, and I was looking directly down the chute, lying on the metal rollers. This is where I was supposed to roll down. I waited for it, but I didn’t move. I wasn’t sliding anywhere. Of course I wasn’t. These were metal rollers and I was magnetic again, only a hundred times more.

  The RESAT started to make a high-pitched squeal, then popped as it blew, a thin wisp of smoke rising from it. My skin was now as bright as an incandescent lightbulb. I was just lying there on the chute, a few yards past the trap door, immovable and growing brighter by the second, brighter than I had ever experienced. I looked down at my feet, but they were now too bright to look at. I wasn’t melting through my bands; my bands were just gone. I lifted the RESAT from my chest and threw it down at the grid.

  I could hear shouting coming from the intercom in the execution room. Then the chute began to lower. I guessed that if I wasn’t going to the rats, they were going to bring the rats to me. The trapdoor shut behind me, and the chute continued lowering until it was within a few feet of the grid. The ravenous rats began jumping onto the chute, pouring up the trough like a flash flood in reverse.

  I had been covered by the rats before—in the hallway—but I hadn’t felt this way then. The bowl was designed to collect and focus energy toward a collector, and I had become the center of that focus, channeling the pure energy of a million rats.

  The first rats didn’t come within six feet of me before they burned up like meteors entering the Earth’s atmosphere. I was becoming even more electric. I was lightning. I was pure energy. Then I wasn’t burning the rats anymore; I was vaporizing them. For the first time, I felt more electric than human. I wondered if I would vaporize too.

  As the metal rollers began to glow beneath me, I slowly stood and walked, on an incline, down the chute, my feet clinging to the metal. The rats began running from me, scrambling as if they were fleeing a burning ship. I walked to the end of the chute, then stepped down onto the grid.

  I looked up at the observation window. Hatch was pressed against the glass. Even with his glasses on I could see his astonishment. Standing next to him were his kids: Tara, Quentin, Torstyn, Bryan, and Kylee, with at least a dozen guards at attention behind them. I stepped over the sweep and walked closer to the observation window so I could observe them.

  I formed a brilliant ball of electricity in my hand and threw it right at Hatch. Hatch, and everybody else, dove out of the way as the ball exploded against the thick glass, blasting a hole in it large enough for my mom’s car to drive through. When the smoke cleared, only Torstyn’s head popped up. I formed another ball in my hand.

  “Hey, tough guy!” I shouted. “Want to play ball?”

  He ran.

  I noticed that the sound the rats were making had begun to change. I turned to see the rodents pressed up against the opposite side of the bowl. Thousands of them were on their backs, twitching. A loud alarm sounded. That’s when I noticed that the color of the bowl was also changing. The bowl was heating up. Even in my state, I could feel its heat. All around me, rats were dying by the thousands. Am I doing this? Then the rats began to burst into flames, like stuffed animals thrown into a furnace. A robotic female voice echoed across the bowl: “Danger. Evacuation protocol. Bowl meltdown imminent.”

  I didn’t want to stick around to see what that might look like. I ran to the side of the bowl and jumped across a three-foot trough, magnetically sticking to the bowl’s metal side.

  That’s when the power went out.

  Everything stilled. A dying alarm echoed across the bowl, and the only light came from me and the burning carcasses of rats. I slowly lowered myself down the metal side, below the grid. I was free, at least for the time being, but I wasn’t sure how to get from where I was to the mechanical closet.

  Michael?

  The voice sounded as if it had come from someone standing next to me. It sounded like Taylor’s. I looked around but couldn’t see anyone. Taylor?

  Good, you hear me! she said.

  I realized that I wasn’t hearing a voice but thoughts.

  Where are you? I asked.

  I’m outside the building. Are you touching the bowl?

  Yes.

  Me too. You’re reading my thoughts.

  Where is everyone?

  In the jungle.

  Is everyone okay? Is my mother?

  She’s fine. Raúl took her and Tanner to our rendezvous point, where the bull got caught in the fence.

  The power’s out. The bowl melted down.

  I know. We blew up their water supply so the bowl would melt down.

  Ostin’s idea?

  Of course. How are you getting out? Taylor asked.

  The pipe. If I can find it. Is Ian around?

  Yes.

  Ask him how I get to the pipe.

  Just a minute. Ian, how does Michael get to the pipe?

  Tell him to climb down to the ground below and go right to the first door. That hallway will take him back to the air duct we crawled through. Did you hear that, Michael?

  (It’s a little weird listening to someone’s thoughts when they’re listening to someone else speak, almost like an echo.) Yes. I’ll lose contact with you when I drop down from the bowl. I’ll meet you at the rendezvous point.

  We’ll see you there. I’ll see you soon.

  I couldn’t help but smile. I’ll see you soon.

  I climbed down the sloping metal of the bowl as far as I could, which wasn’t far enough, as there was still a twelve-foot drop to the dark ground below—the floor barely illuminated by my glow. I let go, dropping hard to the concrete.

  “My ankle,” I groaned. I looked down at my foot. My right foot had landed on a wrench and twisted as I hit. As I stood, a shock of pain shot through my ankle. It felt like a sprain. I limped along the wall until I found the door Ian had told me about and opened it to the corridor we’d escaped from. The hall had some illumination, as the battery-powered emergency lights had been activated. I looked both ways, then hobbled out into the hall.

  I could hear running, heavy Elgen boots, but it was coming from somewhere else in the maze. I limped down the hall until I found the vent cover. I climbed the water pipe next to it into the duct, then replaced the cover behind me.

  My glow had increased tenfold, illuminating the duct almost as brightly as McKenna had. I crawled as quickly as I could until I felt the cold of the refrigeration room. I crawled slowly to the next vent and put my ear to it. I could hear movement. Then I saw the beam of a flashlight. There was someone in the mechanical room. I pulled back, afraid that they might notice my glow through the vent, but the sound didn’t stop. I crept up and looked out the vent again. There was a guard below. He was in uniform, standing near the pipe. I couldn’t tell if he was coming or going. He lifted the cap off the pipe and dropped his flashlight in, answering my question. He was escaping too.

  I gave him time to disappear down
the pipe, then I removed the vent cover. I looked around and then climbed out, lowering myself as much as possible, then dropped to the floor, trying to absorb as much of the fall as I could on my good foot. I hobbled over to the pipe and lifted the cap. I could hear the echo of the guard moving inside. I put both hands on the pipe and pulsed, knocking the guard out. I climbed into the pipe, then slid down, crawling out of the compound as fast as I could.

  I caught up to the unconscious guard just a hundred feet from the pipe’s entrance. I took his weapons, mostly so he couldn’t use them on me. He was carrying the standard Elgen weaponry and ordnance: a concussion grenade, a smoke grenade, a special ops knife, and a 9mm pistol. I took everything, including his flashlight. Then I cuffed his hands behind his back. I didn’t want him following me. I wondered how many other guards were taking the opportunity to escape.

  I hurried on as fast as I could, wondering how the rest of the Electroclan were doing. They had just shut down the Elgen’s largest power plant and blackened out the country’s largest cities. I could only imagine how angry Hatch was. He would spare nothing to catch us before we left the country. He would be out for blood.

  As I neared the end of the pipe, I saw something move. I pointed the flashlight toward the pipe’s mouth. A brightly colored snake was slithering toward me. I didn’t know what kind of serpent it was, but Ostin always said that when it came to snakes the rule of thumb is “the more pretty, the more dangerous.” I think he said the same thing about girls.

  Even though I could feel my power returning to its normal levels, whatever that meant these days, I was still carrying excess electricity from the grid. I produced a brilliant, softball-size lightning ball and tossed it at the snake. The ball exploded in a bright flash, and even though I missed the snake by at least a foot, the ball still burned it to charcoal. I crawled past it to the end of the pipe.

  I shone my flashlight around but could see nothing, so I let myself down. My ankle was swelling now and too painful to put much pressure on. Using the knife I’d just confiscated I cut away part of my shirt, then wrapped my ankle with it. I looked back at the compound. I could hear shouting and an occasional gunshot but no machinery of any kind. There were no electric lights, but in the moonlight I could see a column of smoke rising from behind the power plant. My Electroclan had wreaked some serious chaos. I was so proud of them.