Project Pandora

by Aden Polydoros

  “Then why did you make me kill?!”

  Kosta sighed, running a hand through his graying hair. “Charles Warren’s ambitions have ruined everything. Several years ago, he decided it would be best if some of the children were used for…other roles, as a way to accelerate the organization’s goals. Children like you.”

  “You’re lying.”

  “But enough about the Project.” Kosta stopped in front of Tyler. “Just give me the gun.”

  “No.”

  Kosta smiled with thinly veiled impatience and extended a hand. “If you shoot me, do you really think you’ll be able to leave this place alive? I can save you. All you have to do is hand me the gun.”

  Tyler hesitated. He held out the pistol, watching as a flicker of triumph shone through Kosta’s smile.

  And then he pulled the trigger.

  Case Notes 43:

  Persephone

  No sooner had Hades drawn Elizabeth against him than he was pushing her back. He seized her wrist with one hand and pointed his other hand at the men.

  “Vernichten!” he shouted, and the dogs that trailed him lunged past her.

  By the time the man nearest to them realized what was happening, a Rottweiler had already driven him to the floor. The man screamed and writhed as the dog worried at his throat, vigorously shaking its head back and forth until flesh tore. Blood and foamy saliva flecked on the polished marble.

  Another man withdrew a gun from underneath his suit jacket and shot wildly at the Rottweiler that felled his companion, only to be blindsided by the second dog. The canines were as vicious as their master, going straight for the jugulars.

  “Run!” Hades said, dragging Elizabeth toward the same door she had come through just moments before.

  Elizabeth had no desire to reencounter Dr. Kosta, let alone the blond boy who had rushed at her with his gun drawn, but she trusted Hades’s judgment. He was clearly more familiar with the house than she was, and if he had a plan, she wouldn’t interfere this time.

  The red-haired girl followed swiftly behind them. As soon as all three of them passed through the door that led to the basement, Hades slammed it shut. At first she couldn’t understand why he had brought them here, but then she realized there must be another exit down below. Otherwise, why else would he have herded them into the basement in the first place?

  The door had no lock, and he pressed his body against the panel as a violent force drove into it from the other side, rattling it on its hinges. Indistinct shouts rose from the hallway beyond, followed by gunfire and furious barking.

  “Go,” he said. “I’ll hold them off.”

  Elizabeth shook her head vehemently. “No, there’s no way we’re leaving you here!”

  “You don’t have a choice. If you stay here, you’ll die.” His hardened expression was the same one she remembered from that evening in the meadow, when he had asked her to run away with him. Past his narrowed eyes and firmly set jaw, his brain was surely running a mile a minute, plotting out every possible outcome he could think of.

  “Come on,” the red-haired girl said, touching Elizabeth’s shoulder.

  “Shannon, we’ll regroup at your friend’s house,” he said to the girl, taking his hand off the door only long enough to reach into his jacket pocket. He pulled out a small silver object—a flash drive. “In case I’m delayed, take this. It’s Dimitri’s research data. You need to destroy these bastards. Colorado. That’s where the Academy’s at. Project Pandora can’t go on.”

  Shannon took the flash drive from him and stuck it in her pocket. She glanced at Elizabeth then hurried down the stairs.

  “Go with her, please,” Hades said, digging his heels into the floor as the door shuddered.

  Gunshots exploded from the other side, and a long, narrow fissure appeared in the wood. The door must have had a metal core, because even the next two shots failed to penetrate it.

  “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine.” He smiled, but it was a paper-thin facade that failed to reach beyond the confines of his lips.

  “Don’t you dare die,” she said, then turned and ran after Shannon. She looked back once she reached the bottom of the stairs and found him in the same place, his arms splayed across the door, one hand gripping the knob. He met her eyes then shifted his body so his shoulder was bracing the door. Maybe so he wouldn’t have to watch her leave.

  Blinking back tears, she turned around and kept going.

  The blond-haired boy ran into them in the hall. A mist of blood clung to his shirt, a sharp contrast to the waxy pallor of his tan. He lowered his pistol the moment he saw them.

  “Where’s Hades?” the boy asked. “Who’s shooting?”

  “There’s no time to explain,” Shannon said. “We need to go now!”

  As they reached a low brick passage at the other end of the basement, a loud bang echoed from behind them, in the direction of the stairwell, followed by rapid gunfire. The door must have been breached.

  A sudden image came to Elizabeth: A-02 smiling at her from the center of the Academy’s mess hall, smiling even as the switch raised welts on his back. He had always been a good faker, putting on a mask so nobody would know what he was really thinking. He had told her once that it was a strategy, because absolute honesty weakened the defenses and left a person open to sabotage.

  “But I’ll never lie to you, Nine,” he had murmured, and he had been lying then, too. Just like he was lying now, saying he’d be all right and meet up with them later, when she knew that he never would. If she did nothing to help him, he would die alone. She would be abandoning him once again.

  Before Elizabeth could reconsider, she pivoted on her heel and dashed back the way she came. She ran past the open door, glancing inside just long enough to see Dr. Kosta slumped over, dead and bloodied. As she reached the foot of the stairs, her heart sank.

  Hades lay a few steps down from the upper floor’s landing, sprawled on his stomach. A pistol rested inches from his hand. Blood oozed down the stairs. Some of it belonged to the man crumpled next to her feet, whose neck was twisted at a crooked angle and whose eyes stared blankly from a shattered head. The rest flowed from beneath Hades, inching toward Elizabeth as she rushed up the stairs.

  She dropped to her knees beside him, just as he turned his face toward her.

  “No, you can’t be here,” he croaked, sitting up. “You were supposed to leave.”

  His entire frame shook with labored breaths. He leaned against the wall for support, pressing a hand against his stomach, where a glistening shadow spread across his leather jacket.

  “Oh God, you’re shot.”

  “Got two of them,” he said, his voice hoarse and thickened. “Still others. One more guard, at least, and Warren. He’s still out there somewhere. They think I’m armed, but it’s empty. No bullets left. They’ll be back soon. You need to go.”

  How could this have happened? How could everything have spiraled out of control so fast?

  They were destined to be together. It couldn’t end like this. It just couldn’t.

  “I’m not leaving you.” She pressed her hand over his, trying to hold back the thick flow. His blood coursed between her fingers, hot and slippery. “Can you walk?”

  “It was all a lie, wasn’t it?” he mumbled. “Everything I’ve done. Evolving. I’m not evolving.”

  “You’ve got to hold on!”

  Hades chuckled mirthlessly. “It’s all bullshit, and I believed it. Shit, I hate this. All those people, is this how they felt when they told me, ‘Anything. Anything. I’ll give you anything, just don’t kill me’? Is this need…did they feel this? Just one more time. That’s all I want. To go back to before. Even just for a little while.”

  “Don’t speak. Save your strength.”

  “It doesn’t matter now. Just go. Don’t make this worthless.”

  Before Elizabeth could respond, she saw movement at the top of the stairs. A lanky brown-haired man emerged from the busted doorway. The moment he sp
otted them, he lifted the pistol he held.

  Her body moved on its own. As she threw herself over Hades, the whole world erupted into pain and chaos.

  Case Notes 44:

  Hades

  In the time it took to blink, a driving force struck Hades from head-on, slamming him against the steps. The gunshot came seconds later, as Elizabeth curled her body over him.

  Two more gunshots exploded in his ears, and the man at the top of the stairwell collapsed. In the back of his mind, Hades realized the man had been shot, but his focus was on Elizabeth. She lay like an anchor upon him, her hands splayed loosely on either side of him. When he whispered her name, she didn’t answer.

  It couldn’t be.

  As he sat up, she slipped off him. He caught her before she could fall and eased her down gently.

  A crimson stain bloomed across the front of her blue hospital gown. Her chest rose in faint, gasping breaths. Her gaze focused on him and yet at the same time seemed to see through him.

  She was fading by the second.

  “Why?” he asked hoarsely. “You weren’t supposed to get hurt.”

  That wasn’t part of the plan. His whole decision to side with Shannon and Tyler had been so he and Elizabeth could be together again.

  “You were my light.” Or maybe she meant to whisper “life.” Her voice was thickened by blood or pain, and he couldn’t tell.

  “No. Not you. You’re not allowed to die.”

  “I’m so sorry, Two. I…” She parted her lips as if to say more, but no sound came out. Her eyes centered on a distant point and clouded over like frosted windows.

  “No, don’t you dare go,” Hades said. “Nine, Elizabeth, hold on.”

  He sensed a presence beside him and looked up to find Tyler and Shannon standing on the steps below him. Shannon held her pistol in shuddering hands. From the blank shock on her face, it was evident that she had been the one to shoot the man.

  Going to Hades’s side, Tyler knelt down and placed his fingers on Elizabeth’s neck.

  “Don’t touch her,” Hades growled.

  How dare he touch her! What was he trying to do—hurt her?

  “Hades, she’s gone,” Tyler said, lowering his hand. “We need to get you to a hospital.”

  “Get the fuck away from her.”

  “If you stay here, you’re going to die,” Shannon said.

  “Just leave us.”

  She took a step toward him. “Hades…”

  No, not Hades. That wasn’t his name. Never his name. He didn’t have one. None of them did. They were all just subjects. Just sacrifices. Not human. Never human. Less than.

  “We’re not leaving you here to die,” Tyler said.

  “I said leave!”

  Shannon and Tyler exchanged looks, then hurried back down the stairs. Hades held Elizabeth in his arms. Hot liquid soaked through his clothes, and the step beneath him became slippery.

  As he waited to die, it suddenly occurred to him that Elizabeth couldn’t be gone. The world should have ceased to exist the moment her heart had stopped. How could her death have passed as inconsequentially as a single ripple in a vast pond?

  Looking down at her, he thought he saw her blink. Her chest rose through the sodden hospital gown, and he knew at once that she was still alive. There was a chance to save her.

  She couldn’t die before he did.

  “You’re going to be okay,” he said, cradling her against his chest like she was a slumbering bride. Her blood sluiced down his arms and made his grip slippery. He struggled to rise to his feet, nearly dropping her in the process. His grip tightened at the last second, and he stabilized her. He leaned against the railing for support.

  His entire body throbbed in liquid agony. The blood that poured from his stomach wound was as hot as boiling oil, eating away at him from the inside out. Soon, it would devour him entirely.

  “We’ll always be together now,” he said as he carried her up the stairs. With each step, pain radiated from his core. His body grew heavier by the moment. His legs didn’t want to obey him and slipped and swayed beneath him.

  “Every day, just like before,” he mumbled as he walked down the hall, passing the bloodied corpses of four men and just as many dogs. He looked briefly at the men’s faces and found that Charles Warren wasn’t among them. Oh well. Elizabeth was the only thing that mattered.

  Hades pushed the front door open with his shoulder. As he stepped out from under the colonnade, he tried to shield her against the pouring rain, with little effect. The downpour was so heavy it drenched them both in an instant, turning the stones under his feet pinkish. A shadow descended over his world, leaving it in shades of monochrome, fading away.

  The gate hung open, and Shannon’s car was gone. They must have already left.

  Soon he would leave, too.

  His legs collapsed as he passed the curb, and the burden of Elizabeth’s unresponsive body dragged him down to the wet asphalt. He couldn’t really feel his legs anymore, but he forgot about that as he drew Elizabeth against him and looked into her face.

  She wasn’t asleep at all. Her eyes were wide open and unblinking. Staring at him. Staring. Stop staring. Just stop staring.

  Hades pressed his lips against her damp hair, hoping to catch a trace of her floral perfume. But all he smelled was blood and rainfall, and he thought about that rainy day long ago, when he had been wheeled from the infirmary, the wounds on his back not yet scabbed over, to witness her departure.

  Don’t go.

  Please don’t go.

  Please don’t leave me…

  He had tried to shout to her, but he could only whisper it. She’d pressed her face against the backseat window as the car trundled through the gate, out of sight. He had known she wouldn’t remember him. She wouldn’t come back. Nobody ever did. They all went to one place or another, and he would stay at the Academy; he would die there. After what he had done, he would die there.

  But then he had been sent away, too, within days of her departure. Except he had never left Dimitri’s care. An experiment, they’d called it. Further research. A sacrifice. Punishment.

  “Your request has been approved,” Charles Warren had said. “This is Subject Two of Subset A. You may do with him what you wish, provided you keep us updated on the effects of the depatterning.”

  He had been the best. He had won fight after fight. At tactical games, he had led his team to victory, without fail. They had told him that he would make a great leader one day.

  But he hadn’t, and the only thing he ever would be was always, always alone. And it was all because of one simple mistake.

  More water. Vision fogging. He was crying—the realization struck him almost as hard as the bullet itself. It had been years since he had last cried.

  I’m alone, he realized, lying next to her on the side of the road. I’m going to die alone, and nobody’s going to cry for me.

  Holding her against him, Hades thought about the years gone by. His childhood memories were coming back to him now, as if the bullet had cut open a path to the past at the same time it had ripped through flesh and organs.

  They had been together every day, inseparable. Back then, he had seen violence as necessary for stability, a way to protect her and discourage other boys from going after her. When had it become a way to satisfy himself and fill the emptiness inside him? When was the precise moment he had stopped being A-02 and became Hades?

  Didn’t matter anymore, he supposed. It was all over anyway. He was all alone again, no matter what name he went by now.

  He looked down at Elizabeth. He missed her so much. He began to sob. Then he was too weak to sob.

  Voices filtered down to him, and a hand touched his shoulder, his stomach. Heavy touch. Hurt.

  “Go away.” He tried to shake the hands off but couldn’t lift his arms. His head tipped back, and all he could do was let it fall.

  Shrill sirens pierced the air. Hades felt the dampness of the rain but not its coldness.
He had lost all sensation in his limbs. As the sirens grew louder, the numbness oozed upward into his stomach, consuming everything.

  Even when hands separated her from him, there was little he could do. His arms didn’t work right.

  The pressure disappeared from his stomach, and he felt things rushing out. Felt something spilling. It didn’t hurt anymore.

  His gaze slid past the concerned faces, to the luxurious houses around him, and then the cold sky above. He felt a brief toxic hatred for this world and everyone inside it, this world where he would never belong.

  Then he became too exhausted to feel anything at all.

  The world darkened. That didn’t surprise him. He had always known that the darkness inside the deprivation tank was just a glimpse into death and that he would end up back there in the end.

  His body grew lighter as if fading, and his view of the stormy sky was replaced by a low roof. Blurred faces hovered over him, as pale and featureless as the monsters of nightmares.

  “Get away from me,” Hades croaked and tried to roll off the flat surface—an examination table, they’re going to vivisect me—that he lay upon. Hands seized him and held him still.

  “Calm down, kid,” a man said. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

  “Get away.”

  The world grew darker, darker.

  “Kid, hang on.”

  He couldn’t breathe anymore. He heard another voice from the eclipsing light. A-02.

  I hate you. I hate all of you. I wish you were all dead.

  I don’t want to be alone.

  Stop it. Stop hurting me. Please stop.

  I’ll kill you. Someday, I’ll kill all of you.

  Memories that had felt so separate from him were returning. The recollections of a different life were coming back now.

  Who was that boy?

  Was that once him?

  Who was that weeping boy? And who was he weeping for?