by Kailin Gow
“Or just wealthy,” Jack points out. “Rich people, important people have nursemaids. And she did a lot to try to protect you. She obviously thought you were important.”
Important enough to abandon. Important enough to leave in a dumpster, to be brought up by a family that now doesn’t even know that I exist. Sure, she thought that I was important. I know that I’m being petty, though. From the looks of it, this woman gave her life for mine. Certainly, there was no sign of her at the end.
“I don’t feel very important,” I say to Jack. “I feel like a freak. What she did on this tape, it’s what I did to those men back in the field, right? When I killed them.”
“Right.” Jack says it gently. “From what I can see, it’s exactly the same. But that doesn’t mean you’re a freak, Celes.”
“I’m not human, Jack. At least, I assume I’m not. What would you call it?”
Jack shrugs. “You’re different, but you aren’t a freak. That’s part of why I wanted to show you this. To show you that you aren’t alone. That there are others like you. Or there were, at least.”
“People like the woman on that footage.” A woman who was gone at the end of it, probably dead, for all I knew. Yet Jack was right, there was something comforting about knowing that I wasn’t unique. A thought comes to me. “Jack, the underground looks for things like me, right?”
“We look into all kinds of unexplained things,” Jack says. “I think anyone like you probably counts.”
“That really isn’t helping on the ‘not a freak’ front, you know.” I look up at Jack expectantly. “How many more like me has the Underground found?”
Jack bites his lip. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have gotten your hopes up,” he says.
“Jack!”
Jack seems shocked by the force of that, but I have to know. “There are only two instances that we know of before you of someone being able to do what you did to those men,” he says. “One is this recording. The other…”
I don’t need him to say it, because, thinking back to everything I saw in the viewing room, I already know the answer. “Your mother.”
Jack nods. “My mother.”
NINETEEN
“And your mother can’t explain things, can she?” I say, trying to put it delicately. I saw what happened after all. I saw her die. Saw her vanish.
Jack shakes his head. “No. She can’t.”
And however bad it is for me, knowing that the last person like me is gone, it must be worse for Jack. After all, with his memories unlocking like that, he now knows what happened to his mother. He knows that she died burning up one of the Others, while he was just in the next room.
“I’m sorry, Jack,” I say, reaching out to hold him. It just feels like the right thing to do.
“The worst part,” Jack says, “is what my father did. No, it’s not even that. It’s that I can understand what he did.”
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“I mean that I’ve been a part of the Underground so long that if a kid were to come in having seen what I saw, I’d probably want his memories faded too. I’d probably tell myself that it was the best thing for him, the way my father decided it was the best thing for me.”
I hold Jack a little closer. “You’d want it to stop hurting. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
Jack shakes his head. “I don’t think it does stop it hurting. It just takes away the reason for it, so you’re left with this aching hole, and no way to ever make it right. Though my dad has obviously been trying.”
I look at him questioningly.
“This place,” Jack says. “Now that I have the memory, it’s easy to see he’s been searching for anyone or anything like my mother for years… and now there’s you.”
“Yes,” I say, holding him closer, “there’s me.”
Is that why I feel some sense of connection to Jack? Is it because he’s at least partly what I am? Or is it more than that? I need to know, and it seems that Jack feels the same need, because his lips move down to meet mine. It’s only a brief kiss, but I don’t move back when we’re done.
“So,” I ask, “do you get any cool special powers to go with what you are?” I’m trying to keep it light, because it’s easier to think about special powers than about signs of being some kind of freak. “Aside from your memories leaking out all over the viewing room, I mean?”
“I guess I’m faster than most people,” Jack says. I can practically see him thinking, looking back over his life and trying to pick out which moments might have been more than he thought at the time. “And my reflexes… it’s sometimes like I know what’s going to happen the instant before it does. Like back at the apartment.”
“Like the way you drive,” I say.
“What’s wrong with the way I drive?” Jack smiles as he says it.
“Do you have… can you…”
He knows what I’m afraid to ask. “I’ve never been able to put out heat and energy.”
It’s a much kinder way of saying it than ‘burn people alive.’ I look up at him. “All this time, and you’ve had no idea?”
Jack shakes his head. “Da… Sebastian changed me a lot. So much that I’m not sure if there’s anything else. I’m just Jack Simple, utterly and completely. He had me trained too. Cars, shooting, fighting. Real fighting, not just martial arts. I used to think that he was just preparing me to be the perfect Fader. Now I’m not sure what to think.”
“He wanted to protect you,” I guess.
“Yes. And he did everything to manage that except say that there might be a reason why the Others would want to come after me besides my job. I think I hate him right now.”
“Don’t hate him,” I say. “At least we’re together thanks to him.”
I kiss Jack this time, and it’s a much longer deeper kiss. A much better kiss. All the kisses we’ve had before pale into insignificance beside it. It’s not just the passion, though there’s plenty of passion. I think it’s because we both finally know who the other one is. It’s the real us kissing this time.
We kiss until I can’t think of anything else. We kiss until Jack becomes the whole universe for me. Or maybe we’re the whole universe for each other. The last two of our kind, whatever we actually are. For more than a minute, it’s enough.
Then an alarm sounds, and we have to come back to the real world. “Intruders in Sector One!” an electronic voice blares. “Unauthorized person free in the facility.”
I can’t help looking around at the door, but it hasn’t slammed shut. “Is that for us?”
Jack shakes his head, moving to replace the data drives in their file. “Sector One is the top level. And an unauthorized person…” he doesn’t finish that, but runs out, collecting his gun. I pick up my phone and follow, trying to stay close to him.
We head into the elevator, and then up to the viewing room. There are people milling around, all armed. Jack comes in, and they immediately look his way. Apparently, even though he’s just one more Fader, he’s the closest thing to authority there.
“What’s going on?” Jack demands of the nearest Fader, a woman with an automatic rifle.
“A full security breach,” she answers. “Multiple personnel coming in on the top level, heavily armed.”
Even I know what that must mean. “The Others.”
“Exactly,” the woman says. The look she gives me isn’t friendly.
“What is it, Diana?” Jack demands.
“They’ve come here looking for her, Jack. They must have. Which means that either they’ve been able to track her somehow, or that boy she insisted on bringing in told them where to find us.”
“Grayson?” I say. “You think Grayson did this?”
“It’s the only option that makes sense,” Jack replies.
“So they traced him somehow? Homed in on his cell phone or something?”
“Like we wouldn’t take that off him?” Diana says. She shuts up when Jack looks at her. But then, with the expression curr
ently on his face, most people would.
“He tipped them off, Celes. This isn’t somewhere you find by accident.”
I shake my head vehemently. I don’t believe it. I won’t believe it. “Grayson wouldn’t do that. He wouldn’t betray me.”
“Are you sure of that?” Jack demands. “Because it looks like it from here.”
I know what it looks like to Jack, but then, he hates Grayson. He has from the moment they met. I know Grayson. He wouldn’t do this. He couldn’t do this. And I know just what I need to do to prove it to them. I run for the room where they tried to erase my memory and Jack runs after me. He’s the only one who can keep up.
I look inside, expecting to see Grayson strapped to the thing. Almost hoping to see him there. Yet he isn’t, and what I see instead is enough to make me pause at the door, trying to make sense of it all.
There are technicians on the floor, scattered like white coat wearing bowling pins. None of them is moving, and I don’t know whether they’re unconscious or something worse. Several of them seem to have serious injuries. One’s leg is twisted to an unnatural angle, while another is slumped against the wall, a streak of blood higher up showing where he has hit his head. Marlene, the woman who did so much to help transform me, lays a little way from the center of it all, unconscious and very still. It’s only when I kneel down beside her that I see she is breathing at all.
Jack stands beside me, surveying the scene. “Well,” he says, “that settles it. It looks like Grayson was a plant, Celes.”
“No.” I say it automatically, standing up to confront Jack. “No, he can’t be. He isn’t.”
“They knew you would go back to visit him if we ever Faded you. They’d get our location without losing track of you. They have been setting up your relationship with him for years for this exact purpose.”
“No!”
Jack moves forward, holding me, and it’s only when he does that I realize that I’m crying. Grayson… Grayson couldn’t do this, could he? If he did, then it means that what Jack said is true. That the Others used him to get here. That they used him to get to me. And that means that I never really knew him at all. All those times we spent together were just to get closer to this point. The times we kissed, or held hands, or just spent time together… none of them are real if Grayson did it all just for this.
“I know, Celes,” Jack says, trying to comfort me. “I know it’s hard.”
“It’s… it can’t…” What about the attacks on me? Did Grayson have a part to play in them? He wouldn’t have set them up, wouldn’t have given the orders, because he’s too young to be in a position to give orders. Yet he could have told them where to find me. He could have signaled the Others on that day at the running track.
I hear a groan, and Marlene’s eyes flicker open. She starts to roll to her side, but makes a sound of pain and stops, clutching her arm.
“Marlene?” Jack says, moving to her side.
“My arm’s broken, I think. Oh, it hurts!”
“Lie still,” I say. “Don’t try to move.”
Jack leans over the technician insistently. “Marlene, what happened here? We need to know.”
“What happened?” The woman looks up at him. “What happened? The boy happened.”
“Grayson,” I say.
“We were just getting him ready for the machine. Strapping him in, and he went berserk. He flattened us all, and he ran. He just ran!”
Jack looks across at me. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to. The Grayson I knew could never have done this to so many people, but then, it seems that I didn’t know Grayson that well at all.
The woman from before, Diana, follows us into the room. She looks around and swears. “The kid did this? I knew he was dangerous. We’ve got bigger problems than that though. We need to get ready to clear out. Reports from the top levels are that the Others are here in force, sweeping the base room by room.”
“Sweeping?” I ask.
“Moving room to room,” Jack explains. “Capturing or killing everyone they meet.”
“It won’t be long until they’re down here,” Diana says, “so we need to either evacuate or be ready to throw everything we’ve got at them. And we need to decide now, because the longer we wait, the worse our odds get. What do you want to do, Jack?”
TWENTY
Jack’s still trying to make a decision when Sebastian steps into the room. That’s almost a shock. When he didn’t seem to be around before, I had started to assume that something had happened to him. It makes me wonder what he’s been doing in the last few minutes. Coordinating battle plans, probably. Yet he’s here now, and he quickly takes charge.
“We’re going to stand our ground, Diana,” he says, and the Fader who had been talking to Jack before nods an acknowledgement, readying the weapon she carries for use. Apparently, it’s the answer she was hoping for. “Now, prepare to evacuate those who can’t fight. Everyone in this room is a priority. My jet is waiting at the airfield for them.”
Diana the Fader rushes off to start to organize things. Jack remains behind, watching his father. He doesn’t seem happy.
“If we’re evacuating the injured through the airfield, we have to get them there first,” he points out. “Which means going through the Others’ lines.”
“True. And that won’t be easy, when the majority of us will have to stay here to fight.”
Jack turns around on his father, obviously upset about that. “So you’re prepared to sacrifice everyone here to save this place? Do the people who have devoted their lives to the Underground mean that little to you? I know you Faded me without a second thought, but I guessed you might care about one or two of them.”
“We have valuable equipment and information here,” Sebastian shoots back, not raising his voice. “Everyone’s memories, everyone’s records. There’s no time to take it with us, so if we lose this place, it falls into the hands of the Others. Then they get our entire network. Hundreds of people, not dozens. Do you want that?”
Jack shakes his head, and I have to agree.
“Do those memories include my parents?” I ask. “My brother’s?”
Sebastian nods. “They do.”
“Then I’m staying to fight them off,” I say, trying to sound determined. I don’t know if I succeed. “Those memories are valuable. I’m not going to lose them.”
“Celes,” Jack says, “you haven’t been trained to fight.”
“I can still help.” I’m determined now. I’m not leaving. One day, my parents are going to get those memories back. They can’t do that if the Others have taken them along with everything else in this base.
“I’m inclined to agree with Jack, Ms. Caine.”
I shake my head. “I’m doing this.”
“Come with me,” Sebastian says. “I want to show you something.”
He leads the way up to his office above the viewing room, where he activates screens, switching them over from a blur of technical information to what look like security cameras. They show automated defenses slowing down the Others on the top level. There are automated turrets, pinning them down as they try to circumvent them, shock patches on doors that stun individual attackers, and vapor emitters to cut down visibility. Through it all, the Others fight on, hunting down the few members of the Underground still on the top level.
Outside, a small number of cars surround the place. Not enough to constitute a full scale assault, but enough to be a problem. Particularly since there seems to be a much larger group out in the distance, serving as back up, reinforcements, or simply a way of making sure that no one escapes. It’s an intimidating sight. Since they must know that the Underground will have surveillance, it’s probably meant to be.
The cameras focus in on a group in one of the upper rooms. They’re moving through them with their weapons high, looking for potential targets. Sebastian presses a button, and they all jerk spasmodically, falling to the floor.
“Electrified floor,”
he explains without being asked. “Jack, take a team up. That should have left a hole for you to punch through and attack the main group outside. With luck, they won’t know what hit them.”
“Yes,” Jack says sounding less confident than usual. Is the situation that bad? He looks at me, his eyes full of concern. “Promise me you’ll look after Celes, Dad. I…”
“You love her,” Sebastian says, as though it is only to be expected.
Jack nods.
“Very well. Just make sure that you keep focused on what you need to do. We’re counting on you, Jack.”
I can’t believe Sebastian is sending his own son into such a dangerous situation so easily. I step between them.
“Sir, I’m not the one you should be protecting. Jack’s injured. He won’t be any use out there. Don’t send him. Send me.”
“Send you to lead an assault?” Sebastian asks.
Jack shakes his head. “No, Celes. It’s too dangerous. You’re not trained.”
“I don’t mean to fight them,” I say. “But it’s obvious they want me. I don’t want anyone else here getting hurt because of me.”
“I’m not sure that this is just about you,” Sebastian says. “And in any case, I agree with Jack. It’s too dangerous. You’re too valuable. We haven’t even begun to understand everything there is to know about you.”
I know then that I have to act now if I want to persuade the Underground leader. Otherwise, he’ll just pack me off to safety, while leaving Jack to face the Others. Thankfully, it’s at that moment that I have an idea.
“We have to hurry, Jack,” Sebastian says. “They’ll notice the downed team soon enough.”
I put a hand on Jack’s arm. “Trust me,” I say. “I can stop them. And they won’t hurt me. Not if they know what’s best for them.”
That’s enough to make Sebastian look at me. “What exactly did you have in mind?”
I swallow. It’s now or never. “I’ll need a jacket of some kind, along with whatever wiring you can stick to it.”