by S. Harrison
“You were badly hurt,” says Bit. “You took a very nasty knock to the head.”
“So that’s why everything is all foggy,” I say as I rub my temple.
A bearded old man leans in, clicks a penlight on, and shines it in my eyes. “Do you know what your name is?”
“Yeah,” I reply, smirking at the stupid question.
“Well? What is it then?” he asks.
I snort, amused at the weird old man. “It’s . . . Infinity.”
Bit’s mouth drops half-open, her face frozen into a startled glare as the old man’s eyes narrow behind his glasses. “Infinity? Are you sure?” he asks.
“Of course,” I say, frowning at their unusual reactions. “But . . . everyone calls me Finn for short.”
“Gooood,” the old guy says, drawing the word out as he eyes me curiously. “And do you know where you are?” he asks.
I look around the lab and nod. “Yes, we’re underneath Blackstone Technologies. Like Bit said, I was hurt and carried down here.”
“That’s right. We’re in an old Eurasian War shelter beneath the facility,” says the old man. “Do you recognize me?”
I study his face for a second, and out of nowhere I suddenly remember something from when I was thirteen years old. It was a beautiful summer’s day, and I was running across the grounds of Blackstone Manor toward a large garden shed. The wooden walls were painted dark green, and through the open door I could see the old man standing inside. He was dressed in a plaid shirt, khaki overalls, and black rain boots and was completely absorbed in tending to some seedlings in little pots. I remember storming into the shed like a force of nature and shouting his name as loud as I could. He jumped a foot off the ground. His glasses sprung off his nose, flipped once in the air, and disappeared into an open bag of potting mix. “Your name is Graham,” I say, smiling at the memory.
He nods. “Very good. But considering that I’m giving you a medical exam, maybe you should call me Dr. Pierce.”
I look down at the blood-soaked towel that Bit is clutching. “What happened to my hand?”
“You blacked out in the bathroom,” Bit says as she cradles my arm in the towel. “It’s quite badly cut.”
“First a monorail track, and now this,” I grumble. “I’m a walking disaster zone.”
“Do you know who I am?” says the large bald man across the table from me. He’s standing side-on to me, holding an open palm up, looking at me warily, almost as if he’s afraid that I’m going to attack him or something.
At first I’m at a loss, but as I look closer a sudden surge of mixed emotions pushes his name to the surface of my mind. “Jonah?” I whisper. “What are you doing here?”
He seems to relax a little, and his expression shifts from trepidation to concern. “That’s not important right now,” he says. “The main thing is that you’re OK.”
“One last question,” Dr. Pierce says as he motions toward my classmates, who are standing in a little group, watching me from across the room. “Do you know who those people are?”
“We all go to Bethlem Academy together,” I reply. “We were on a field trip, and . . . and everything started to go wrong.”
“That’s right,” Dr. Pierce says with a look of relief. “Her memories seem to be reordering themselves. But it may be some time before she’s a hundred percent.”
“I’m fine, really,” I say. “Apart from a slightly fuzzy brain, I actually feel pretty good.”
Dr. Pierce nods. “OK. Well, let’s tend to that hand then, shall we?”
He turns and walks to a nearby trolley and begins sorting through a drawer. I cast my gaze over Bit’s shoulder to my other four huddled classmates, and all of a sudden I feel uneasy, like I’m forgetting something important. I turn to Bit and whisper, “Where is everyone else? Where are Dean and Sherrie and Karla? Where’s Miss Cole?”
Bit’s expression immediately darkens. “They’re . . . they’re gone, Finn.”
“Gone where?”
A distant look glazes over her eyes. “They’re all . . . dead,” she murmurs.
I frown at first, then let out a quiet snort and a soft chuckle. It’s a little cruel of Bit to play such a grim prank, especially just after I’ve woken up from fainting. “They’re all dead,” I gibe sarcastically. “No really, where is everyone?” I ask, still smiling as I scan the room. But as I take in the expressions on the faces all around me, my grin slowly begins to fade. Brody is looking at the floor. Brent has a faraway stare. Margaux’s eyes are pooling with tears, and Jennifer has begun sobbing quietly.
I turn and stare at Bit. “They’re dead?”
With a trembling lip, and fighting back tears, she solemnly nods.
“What about Millie and . . . and Amy?” I ask, spitting out the first names that emerge from the ominous knot that’s beginning to twist and tighten in my gut. Bit avoids my gaze as she slowly shakes her head.
“Ryan?” My lips whisper his name, and an image of his eyes rekindles in my mind. They’re an amber-hazel color, with little flecks of gold. I see his thick, wavy brown hair and his crooked smile, and I remember the warmth of his skin setting butterflies free in my stomach as we walked hand in hand through the jungle all those hours ago. I see him again, a rifle against his shoulder, firing bursts of rounds into Combat Drones as they fell onto the grass outside Dome One when we were trying to make it to the bus, but most of all I remember catching him studying my face with a slow-moving gaze, as if he were trying to soak me into his thoughts, whenever he looked at me. I look at Bit hopefully, but she’s looking at the floor. A cloud in my heart begins casting a bitter shadow over the sweet promise of the fleeting memory. “Please . . . not Ryan,” I murmur, every anxious syllable tightly wrapped in fragile scraps of hope.
Bit looks up at me, and even if she didn’t speak, the sorrow in her eyes would’ve said it all. “I’m sorry, Finn,” she says, her voice aquiver. “Ryan died trying to save your life. He’s . . . he’s gone, too.”
I just sit there, staring into nowhere. I can’t believe it. I only knew him for a few hours, so why does it feel like I’ve lost one of my dearest friends? He can’t be dead . . . he just can’t be.
All of a sudden my whole body flinches as tattered pictures flicker and strobe through my head. I see blood. Ashen faces. I hear screaming, gunfire, and the ringing echo of distant explosions.
Bit is telling the truth. I can feel it. And it hits me like a kick to the stomach.
They are dead, and a gnawing, churning ache deep in the core of my soul is telling me that it’s all my fault. It feels like a plug has been pulled from my heart. All the blood drains from my face, and I suddenly feel light-headed. My knees buckle, and I stumble backward; my hand tugs away from the towel as I stagger against a trolley behind me. It topples, and I reach out and clutch at it, pulling it down with me as I crumple to the floor. The trolley clangs beside me as surgical instruments clatter across the concrete. My mind is reeling, and I suddenly feel so incredibly weak and powerless. I screw my eyes closed, and I can see their faces. Millie; Dean; Amy; Miss Cole; Sherrie; Ashley; poor Karla Bassano; Percy, our brave tour guide; Professor Francis; and worst of all . . . Ryan. All of them gone. All because of me.
I look down and see speckles of blood peppering the paving stones beneath me. I look up and see Carlo’s father, Javier Delgado. He’s wearing a military uniform with a Captain’s insignia on the shoulder and standing at the top of an open cargo ramp beneath a large gray transport. He shouts to someone inside. The turbines throttle up, and the transport suddenly begins to lift off. I see Ryan. He’s facing a gathering of angry soldiers, all of them swaying unsteadily on the open cargo door as the transport rises. The aircraft leans sharply; Ryan loses his balance, and the rifle he’s holding slips from his grasp and clatters at his feet. Captain Delgado suddenly pulls a pistol from a nearby soldier’s hip.
As he raises the gun toward Ryan’s chest, the horrific memory slows down to an excruciating crawl. The folds of
the Captain’s camouflage sleeve tighten as he straightens his arm and takes aim. His top lip curls up over his clenched teeth, his nose wrinkles into a sadistic sneer, and his knuckles turn bloodless white as he grips the gun tightly and pulls the trigger. The jolt from the recoil ripples his hand, and a smoking shell casing spits from the side of the pistol. The tiny brass cylinder tumbles through the air as a bloom of sparks erupts from the barrel of the gun, lighting up Captain Delgado’s face like a demonic mask captured in the flash of a camera. Ryan’s body jerks with the impact of the bullet. He staggers and trips, then finally, with his hair flurrying from the downdraft of the turbines . . . he topples backward off the edge of the ramp.
I remember Ryan falling.
I saw him hit the ground.
I remember watching him die.
“Finn!” shouts Bit as she lunges toward me.
My heart races; my vision swims. There are footsteps from all directions. I reach out to Bit, but Jonah’s face comes into view as he kneels beside me, and all of a sudden hands are grabbing me and hoisting me up. “They’re all dead,” I murmur. “Everyone is dead.”
“Not everyone,” a familiar voice says from behind me. I turn and see Percy’s face at my shoulder, his hands under my arms helping to lift me to my feet. Behind him I see Professor Francis rushing into the room from a side passageway.
I stare at Percy and Professor Francis. Both of them are wearing coveralls that are draped in cobwebs and smeared with streaks of rust. I feel a warm current of relief rise from the depths of an ocean of guilt. “You’re alive,” I stammer.
“Yes, I’m glad to say that we are,” says Percy. “And I’m also happy to see that you’ve finally woken up, albeit a little unsteady on your feet.”
“Help me get her onto the table,” says Jonah.
Jonah and Percy lift me onto the metal slab, and I sit on the edge, trying to catch my breath and process the horror that’s just been pulled from the mire inside my head.
“Are you OK, Finn?” Bit says, fussing over me. “Be careful of your hand! It’s—” Bit freezes midsentence.
Dr. Pierce quickly sets a tray of sutures and bandages down on the table, pushes past Percy, and grabs me by the wrist. “It’s . . . completely healed.”
“Incredible!” exclaims Percy. “If I hadn’t seen your severed hand regenerate with my own eyes, I would never have believed it.”
“Severed? As in amputated?” I gasp.
Percy nods emphatically.
“That’s not what I’m talking about,” grunts Dr. Pierce. “Finn had an accident while you were in the tunnels. There was a four-inch-long gash; it was a deep one, too,” Dr. Pierce says as he prods at my hand with his thumb. “Did you fix the cut intentionally, Finn?”
I pull my hand away from him and begin rubbing the caked blood from my skin. “What? No, how could I? I . . . I don’t even remember it happening.”
Dr. Pierce is looking at me in a way that makes me very uncomfortable. It’s the kind of look that I imagine scientists have when they’re studying a lab rat in a cage. In fact, I don’t like the way that everyone is gathered around me, gawking at me as if I’m a thing instead of a person. The way they’re all looking at me feels very familiar and deeply unsettling, like I’ve been subjected to this kind of cold scrutiny all my life. I can feel an infuriated flicker spark in my gut just looking at all their stupid faces.
“So, just to clarify . . . ,” says Dr. Pierce. “You had absolutely no conscious knowledge of the wound healing? You didn’t focus your thought on it at all? Not even for a moment?”
I frown at him, my anger growing with every second. “What part of the word ‘no’ did you not understand?” I growl.
He seems to ignore my rising annoyance as he stares at my hand and strokes his beard in thought. “Interesting. Very interesting indeed.”
“What does it mean, Doctor?” asks Jonah.
“Well, it could indicate an array of things. I wouldn’t like to jump to any conclusions without running some tests, but I think Finn’s rapid-healing ability might actually be functioning on a subconscious level.”
“Do you mean that . . . she can do it without thinking?” asks Jonah.
“It appears so. We can test that theory right now.” Dr. Pierce picks up a scalpel from the top of a trolley, and with a wide-eyed, almost joyful grin, he grabs my wrist tightly.
“Hey!” I shout as I wrench my hand away from him.
“Graham!” bellows Jonah.
“You’re not slicing me up just because you want to,” I say, holding my fist to my chest.
Dr. Pierce looks at me with an annoyed frown, but then his eyelids flicker and his expression changes to one of shameful realization. “Sorry,” he mumbles sheepishly. “I got a little carried away for moment there, but . . . if the rest of your enhanced qualities behave in a similar way, then this is a very, very exciting development.”
“It’s amazing is what it is,” says Percy. “Maybe we should change the plan to include her? We’d stand a much better chance of pulling it off if Finn is involved.”
Jonah shakes his head. “Dr. Pierce and I were debating the possibility of Finn’s participation in the plan, but after what I’ve just seen it’s apparent that she’s in no state to join us. She woke up barely twenty minutes ago. Her head isn’t clear; we can do this without her.”
“What plan?” I ask. “What are you talking about?”
“Some of us have been discussing the situation,” says Jonah. “And we’ve decided that we’re going to try and regain control of the facility. It’s the only way to ensure a safe escape.”
“Wait a second,” blurts Margaux. “No one told me about this! I thought we were waiting for the police to rescue us?”
“No, I’m afraid not, Miss Pilfrey,” says Professor Francis. “Mr. Brogan has informed us that it could take weeks, or perhaps even months, for a rescue team to reach us. Even if we ration what is left, the fabrication gel for the food printer will run dry in just a few days.”
“No one is coming for weeks?” whimpers Jennifer.
“Months,” a twitchy-looking Brent mutters. “I heard him say months.”
“So we’re on our own?” Margaux whines. “Well that’s just awesome, isn’t it? I’m going to starve to death in a basement with a bunch of old guys, a nerd, and a freak who never needs a Band-Aid.”
“I don’t understand. Why will it take so long for a rescue?” asks Jennifer.
“Because great effort has gone into hiding the location of this facility,” says Dr. Pierce. “There are a handful of people who know where it is, and the ones who do won’t risk revealing it.”
“But what about everyone who was killed today?” asks Brent. “Like that technician guy in the Security Station.”
“George,” says Bit. “His name was George Parsons.”
“Yeah, that’s him,” says Brent. “What happens when he doesn’t come home tonight? His family isn’t just gonna sit around doing nothing.”
“That might be the case if he actually had a family to go home to,” says Dr. Pierce. “Everyone who works here was handpicked. They’re all either ex-military, government intelligence, or highly skilled fugitives with nowhere else to go, few ties to the outside world, and no one who will miss them. In most cases, the families of our employees thought they died a long time ago. For all intents and purposes, they’re ghosts.”
“It’s true,” says Percy. “Percy isn’t even my real name. It’s actually—”
“Now is not the time to confuse the children any more than they already are,” interrupts Dr. Pierce. “Let’s just stick with Percy, shall we?”
“Holy crap! What kind of place are you running here?” yells Brent.
“I told you,” Dr. Pierce says calmly. “A very secretive one.”
“No, I don’t accept that at all,” says Margaux, her already high-pitched voice rising higher with every word. “Someone must have realized that I’m trapped here by now. Daddy is very impor
tant; somebody will tell him where I am!”
“I don’t think so, missy,” replies Dr. Pierce.
“My name is Margaux, and why the hell not?” she says, crossing her arms on her chest.
“Because bad things happen if you go up against Richard Blackstone,” I murmur.
Dr. Pierce throws me a narrow-eyed glare. It’s the kind of look that’s asking “what do you know” mixed with a large dose of “shut your mouth before you say something you’ll regret.” I look away and clench my jaw closed. My memory may be little more than a patchy blur right now, but I know the truth when I feel it.
“‘Bad things,’ as Finn so diplomatically put it, have certainly happened,” the Professor says grimly. “But now we must all do our part to ensure our survival.”
“I couldn’t have said it better myself, Professor,” says Jonah. “And us old guys and that nerd have come up with a plan to get all of us out of here.” He turns to Bit. “Is your presentation ready, Bettina?”
She nods.
“Are all the sensors in position along the tunnel?” he asks Percy. Percy also answers with a definitive nod.
“Well done,” says Jonah.
“Sensors? What’s going on?” Margaux asks bewilderedly.
Jonah smiles at her. “All will be explained. Now, I’m going to gather our mission supplies while Bettina sets up.” Jonah turns and strides off toward a big yellow duffel bag and three large gas tanks in the corner as Bit sidles around the metal table and heads for the bench cluttered with computer slates.
“Can someone push a few of those trolleys together in the middle of the room please?” Bit calls over her shoulder. “I need a decent-size flat surface.”
“You heard the girl,” Dr. Pierce barks at my classmates. “Make yourselves useful.” Jennifer and Brody nod and begin pulling trolleys to the center of the room, as an agitated-looking Brent and a sullen Margaux begrudgingly drag their feet to help.
Bit is fumbling with a pile of slates and a tangle of connector cords on the long bench table that’s set against the wall. “I need a hand here,” she says.