by Chanda Hahn
“You’ve seen one?” Wu Zan asked excitedly.
“I believe so,” Peter answered.
“Sweet. You know our old roommate had been sent out a few times with the morphlings. I think you would have liked him if you met him,” Wu Zan whispered.
“I bet,” Peter said, not in the mood for small talk but willing to appease his friend.
“Yeah, he was cool. He was a trainer here. His name was Jax.”
Peter looked at Wu Zan and shrugged. “That’s cool.”
“I wonder whatever happened to him?” Leroy mused. “He was the one we learned about the pods from. We watched him sneak out enough times at night to go there. So we had to see for ourselves what the fuss was about.”
A clearing of the throat from their instructor silenced their discussion. Peter didn’t pay any more attention to the lecture on the morphlings. Instead, his mind kept picturing an imaginary brace around his wrist. If he closed his eyes, he could almost feel the weight of it. What was it? Why did he remember it?
The video ended, and the recruits filed out of the room, some heading to the gym to spar, others heading to the lounge room. Peter and his group headed back to their rooms, the whole while Peter silently counting every security camera and locked door. When he got to twenty, he realized that they weren’t as free as they let on. The security wasn’t to keep the enemy out, but to also keep them in.
All of them were in bed well before lights out, and the anticipation of their escapade kept them alert and on edge.
“Now?” Wu Zan would whisper, only to be hushed by Leroy.
“No.”
Twenty minutes later, “Now?”
“No, Zan,” Leroy would mumble.
“Geez, man, I want to go see them,” Wu Zan would whine.
Another hour passed and finally Leroy sat up in his bed. “Now.”
Leroy led the way and pointed to the cameras. Peter flew to each, adjusting them with the slightest of increments until Leroy nodded in approval. They moved down the halls, working slowly, listening quietly and flashing each other boyish grins full of mischief. Peter himself felt the thrill at rebelling against the rules. When they finally came to the keypad-locked door, they paused to confront the final challenge.
Wu Zan’s fingers hovered over the keypad. “You ready to run if I get it wrong?”
“No,” Leroy chuckled. “My body isn’t made for running.” He patted his stomach for show.
Wu Zan sucked in his breath and started at 9 on the keypad and then entered 9-8-5-1. A red error code flashed.
Peter and Leroy were on edge as Wu Zan began again 9-8-5-2. Another error code.
“C’mon, man,” Leroy muttered. “You going to walk your way through the numeric system? This is it. Your last chance.”
“Stop messing with me,” Wu Zan hissed. “I need to focus, get my Tom Cruise on.”
“This isn’t Mission: Impossible.”
Peter scanned the hallway, looking for signs of intruders, because no matter how much they whispered, they were still loud. Then he spotted movement around the corner. He froze, studying the darkness, expecting a morphling to appear. Instead, a shadow slipped out and waited, watching, not approaching.
Peter tapped Leroy’s back, but he didn’t notice as he was in too deep of a discussion with Wu Zan about the best Mission: Impossible movie.
“G—ghost!” Peter whispered, unsure what to call the apparition.
“Nah, man, the original was better than Ghost Protocol.”
“Doesn’t matter, you’re not Tom Cruise if you can’t get through the lock.”
Neither of his roommates seemed to see the shadow.
“If you remember, it wasn’t him who hacked. He had outside help,” Wu Zan snapped and began to punch in the numbers slower, starting with the 9.
The shadow didn’t move but shook his head and held up his hand telling him to wait.
Wu Zan entered 8, and they each held their breath in anticipation.
“You’re sure that the first three are right?” Leroy asked.
“Of course I’m sure. It’s just the last one I didn’t catch.”
The shadow closed its hand into a fist and then flashed its palm, gesturing for them to stop.
Wu Zan pushed 5 and then moved his finger toward the top of the keypad, aiming for the number 3.
The shadow that only Peter seemed to see was now shaking its hand back and forth.
It was then Peter understood what the shadow was telling him. Wu Zan’s finger barely brushed the three when Peter knocked it out of the way and pushed 5 a second time. The light turned green and the door unlocked.
Wu Zan’s mouth dropped open in disbelief. “How did you know?”
“Yeah,” Leroy accused. “How did you know?”
Peter scanned the hall for the shadow, but it was gone. Would they believe him if he told them?
“I didn’t.” Peter opened the door and beckoned for them to precede him. “It just made sense. If Wu Zan only saw three numbers keyed in, it was probably because the last number was a double.”
“Ah!” Wu Zan announced. “I knew that.”
“No, you didn’t,” Leroy huffed, and they tumbled into the room, closing the door behind them.
A second door opened, and they entered the lab.
Chills raced up and down Peter’s arm, making the hairs on his flesh stand on end. There was a definite aura of weirdness about the room.
“It’s like something out of the movies,” Leroy declared.
“If they made this into a movie, I’d ask them to make me taller,” Wu Zan said as he turned in a full circle, taking in the rows of pods. Most had numbers stenciled onto the side, but inside each pod was a sleeping person entombed in water, with a breathing apparatus over their mouths.
Peter had no desire to go near them. He was having a serious case of déjà vu, but he didn’t know what exactly. What he did know was that something bad happened here.
“I wouldn’t worry about it. Our characters would just be whitewashed. It happens to all the good books-turned-movies,” Leroy said sadly. “I’d probably even lose my Southern accent.”
“The movie would be better without your Southern accent.” Wu Zan choked on his own laughter.
“This isn’t right,” Leroy said, noticing a young brown haired girl—maybe fourteen or fifteen—floating in the pod. “This is wrong. What they’re doing is wrong.”
Even Wu Zan mellowed as he took in all the rows of pods spread out around the single one with the girl. “I never expected this.” He looked over at Peter and became worried. “Hey, earth to Peter. Are you okay?”
Peter was now shaking physically with anger. He gathered the courage to approach one of the pods, which held a young man who appeared to be in slumber. Except that Peter’s approach startled him. His eyes opened, and they focused on Peter before widening in surprise.
The young man tried to speak, bubbles escaping out of his mask. He pounded on the glass, kicked his legs, and began to fight, working himself up as Leroy and Wu Zan came to stand next to Peter. The two of them in their uniforms alarmed the young man even more. His eyes turned black as gems, and Peter could see the pod begin to vibrate with power.
“Look away!” Peter warned instinctively. Without a second’s thought, he covered his roommates’ eyes and closed his own until the throb of power passed.
“What just happened?” Wu Zan yelled in alarm as Peter pulled them both out of view of the stranger in the pod.
“Stay here. Don’t let him see you,” Peter commanded.
“Did he just try to kill us?” Wu Zan was becoming angry.
“He’s scared, and to him you’re the enemy.”
“And you’re not?” Leroy asked.
“No. I’m not.”
Peter walked to the front of the pod and pressed his palm to the glass. The young man inside with the glittering black eyes matched him, meeting his hand on the glass. The pod’s sensors turned on, registering the occupant’s v
itals as being awake. The computer on the side clicked on, and he could see a dose of medication being administered through a tube and into the young man’s arm.
His eyes became sleepy, and his muscles relaxed, but he fought to keep his hand on the glass next to Peter’s. His arm slid down, and a frustrated moan came from behind the young man’s mask and he kept blinking.
“E-d-e-r,” he wailed, crying out Peter’s name, begging him to save him. The young man moaned and slapped his hand against the glass, although it was lower, struggling to stay conscious against the drugs pumping into his system.
Peter absorbed the young man’s grief as if it was his own and slid his own hand to keep it pressed against his. He would not abandon him.
Chapter 14
“Peter, we need to go!” Wu Zan pulled on his shoulder.
Peter shrugged it off forcefully, turning to inspect each of the pods more closely. There was no doubt in his mind that the drugged teen had said his name—which meant that he knew them and probably the others in here as well.
He rushed to another pod and pounded on the glass, trying to wake up the boy inside.
“Stop it!” Wu Zan hissed. “You’re going to get us caught!”
“We need to help them,” Peter snapped before moving to the next pod, where another boy floated inside the drugged-laced tube.
“We can’t, Peter,” Leroy said regretfully.
“You heard him.” Peter pointed to the tube where the drugged teen slept. “He said my name. He knows me. And I think I know him.”
“You can’t be sure that he said your name,” Wu Zan said.
“It was my name,” Peter insisted.
“How? Tell me how in the world, then, do you know him?”
“I, uh, I don’t know.”
“Then you don’t—”
“I just do,” Peter interrupted Wu Zan, silently pleading with him to believe the unexplainable. “His name is Onyx. And if he was one taken from Dr. Barrie, then maybe I was too?”
“I believe you,” Leroy said, pulling Wu Zan away from Peter and placing his large form between them as a barrier. “But we can’t help them now.”
“But—” Peter began but was silenced by Leroy’s pointed look.
Peter turned and regarded at the boys in the room as Wu Zan ran to the door and punched the code to exit. Leroy took a few steps and called over his shoulder for him.
He didn’t budge, his heart growing heavy with a weighty decision. Despite his promise to Brittney, he couldn’t leave now. Not without them. He could feel their fear, their uncertainty, as he pressed his hand to the glass. They were so lost.
Peter was the last to clamber into bed, climbing onto the top bunk. Wu Zan and Leroy were both silent as they processed what they had seen and discovered. No one slept, each of them tossing and turning in their bunks, shifting restlessly.
Leroy finally spoke aloud. “It’s wrong.”
Peter held his breath, not wanting to be the one to steer the direction of the conversation. He wanted them to be on his side willingly.
“Did you see the tubes in their arms?” Wu Zan whispered. “I knew that it was being harvested from them, but in my head, I just saw it as a simple blood donation. You know, one prick and it’s done.”
“They’re imprisoned, like animals.” Leroy’s voice became gravelly with emotion. “Is that what happened with the first group, the ones we call Primes? Do you think they were ever in those machines?”
“Yes,” Peter said emphatically. “I’d bet my life on it.”
“And you?” Leroy asked.
Peter closed his eyes and tried to search his sketchy memories, his mind swimming through the darkness . . . and there it was, just a hint of recollection, a vague memory of the weight of the mask over his mouth. He brushed his hand against his face, recalling the pressure. Then he remembered someone walking in front of his pod—the recruit named Jeremy, and Hook was with him.
With each blink of his eyes, a flash of a memory came back to him, and he mentally replayed the moment when Jeremy had hit the button to sever his life support and Hook grinned. He remembered the instant he died.
“Yes, that is where Jeremy executed me.” He took a deep breath and tried to calm his anger.
“Whoa!” Wu Zan said, sitting up so fast he whacked his forehead into the bunk with a soft oomph, but quickly dismissed the pain. “You mean to tell us you were in one of those pod things and that meathead executed you?”
Leroy propped himself up in bed. “Was that the first time it happened to you?”
“Dying and coming back?” He thought about it and shook his head. “I don’t think it’s the first time. What about you? Do you remember anything at all from before you came here?”
“Of course,” Wu Zan stated. “I lived in . . .” He paused in thought. “I mean, I told Leroy the story of how I was recruited, right? Leroy will remember.”
Leroy shook his head no. “I don’t recall you ever telling me how you came to be here. And all I remember is Neverland.”
“What about your mother?” Peter pressed. “Your father.”
“Oh, yeah,” Leroy chuckled. “I had those. How else could I be here?”
“What are their names?” Peter asked.
“Mom and Dad,” Leroy said, but he didn’t sound sure.
“Siblings?” Peter added.
Now Leroy’s face blanched as fear slowly appeared on his face. “Wu? I talked about my siblings, right? I think I had them.”
“Nah, man. I mean, I think you did, but that was months ago.”
“We’re forgetting?” Leroy looked up at Peter, a look of terror filling his eyes.
“I think they’re drugging us with more than PX, something to suppress our memories,” Peter answered. “Who wants homesick soldiers?”
Wu Zan and Leroy seemed disturbed by this news. Peter could only speculate about how often, they were administering the drugs to make them forget where they came from.
“Jax knew,” Wu Zan said angrily. “He kept asking us about our families, making us tell stories of the past. Why else would he do that? He probably convinced himself he was actually helping us,” he scoffed, “all while keeping the truth about this place from us!”
Peter’s fist curled again at the mention of their last bunkmate. He didn’t know why he had such a strong desire to punch him, but the thought wouldn’t diminish.
An alarm sounded and a white light flashed on and off in the room. It wasn’t an ear-piercing wail, or a sound that might signal an emergency. This one had more of a somber tone.
“What is that?” Peter asked.
“Evacuation,” Leroy said, moving to his locker and throwing his belongings into a bug-out bag. “This site is being decommissioned.”
“Decommissioned?” Peter jumped off his bunk and followed suit as the two others left their bedding and only grabbed the few items in their lockers.
“Yeah, we don’t stay in one spot long. We move every few weeks and always at night.”
“What will happen to the lab?”
“Don’t worry. It gets broken down and comes with us. Didn’t you see the rooms and how they’re assembled?”
Peter hadn’t been paying attention. But then he thought back on the lab he’d woken up in with Candace. The brick walls were solid, but not every wall. Some were made of reinforced glass and bolted to the ground. Even the computers were built into metal desks on wheels that could be closed up and moved. Neverland was portable.
This was the chance he needed. He could escape, grab Brittney, and ensure a mass escape of everyone in the pods while in transport. It was a brilliant idea. He tried to hide the smile that came too eagerly to his lips.
Wu Zan and Leroy lined up at the door but didn’t open it. Peter didn’t understand why they weren’t moving until a knock came on the door from the hall. Wu Zan opened the door to a Red Skull standing there with a fully automated gun.
“Don’t move,” he growled. “Wait.” The Red Skull guard
ed their door, and Peter could see movement in the halls as the other recruits were herded out of their rooms and down the hall. When the room before theirs emptied, the Red Skull barked out an order for them to follow.
It seemed this wasn’t anything unusual to his roommates. Wu Zan picked up his step and followed in line behind the other room. There were Red Skulls lining the halls, hands on their guns, as the recruits were herded like cattle.
The girls’ bunks were emptied, and he saw a terrified Brittney jump into the line a few feet in front of him. Her eyes wide, she craned her neck until she saw him, her eyes pleading.
He gave a slight nod, and her brows rose in understanding. They were going to escape tonight. She spun back around, her head down as she followed the three other girls from her room.
Peter didn’t have a plan. He just knew that if they were going to escape, it would be during the transport.
Double doors opened at the end of the hall, and the chill of night air hit him. It was still dark out, and he could smell gasoline in the air. But they wouldn’t be outside for long because before them was a loading dock and a ramp into a semitrailer. Inside the semi were rows of benches. To his right and left, Peter saw more semis and soldiers loading up large crates. This was it.
He began counting down in his head, the paces to the semitrailer, gauging how small of a window of opportunity they might have.
Brittney slowed her footsteps and dropped back until she was right in front of him. Wu Zan and Leroy stepped into the trailer of the semi.
Peter stepped through the outer doors and grabbed Brittney’s hand, pulling her back. He heard her sharp intake of breath, but there was no time to explain. Focusing on the open sky above, he began to float up, Brittney along with him, but his feet had only left the ground a few inches before he was smashed in the face with the butt of a rifle. Brittney screamed as Peter collapsed to the ground, pain radiating from his temple. The ground felt like it was shifting beneath him.