by Mike Essex
“I see,” it was clear from their faces that R&R understood. They knew Will worked for the military and that carried its own risks.
“Well stay here, we can look after you,” said Rex.
“No, I’m sorry but I have to go, Will needs my help and no one else can know that we met today,” I said,
“I understand,” Rex looked at Rufus, who nodded. “We understand.”
“Thanks guys. I want you to know that you helped me today, in ways I can’t fully explain but thank you,” with that I turned around and headed for the door.
“Emmie wait,” Rex followed me down the hall “One more for the road?”
He gave me one last hug. I smiled. I still didn’t feel human again but it was a start.
SEVEN
Gabe Treeth
The second experiment began with a bang, as the orange eyed man revealed an automatic weapon from his jacket, which he aimed at the glass ceiling.
He immediately shot through the seats and up past the crowd directly at the glass. it broke instantly and sharp jagged shards of glass began to rain down on the motionless people.
An elderly man’s face was cut from a falling shard, which shattered as it hit the floor. He did not flinch, could not move and yet it was clear he would feel the pain very soon.
The gunman continued to fire, as more glass fell down injuring person after person.
The Deck were powerless to respond, the orange eyed man was so encased in bodies and seats that getting a clear shot meant risking the lives of innocent people and yet if they did nothing those people would be severely injured as well.
Chris Jacobs, a rookie member of The Deck, stood over Gabe’s body trying to help control the bleeding and remove the bullet in his shoulder. As the gunfire raged on Gabe looked at Chris and said “You have to stop this.”
“I know Gabe, the pain will be gone soon, just stay calm,” replied Chris.
“No, you have to stop him. He will hit the chopper!”
Chris knew Gabe was right. A few well-placed shots on the fuel tank and the helicopter would come crashing down, through the ceiling. It would explode in a ball of fire killing a large amount of the audience.
Chris rose to his feet and pointed his gun at the orange eyed man.
The man dashed under the seats, knowing that the more he moved the harder a target he would be.
Chris watched the movement carefully, spotting a pattern and knowing there was only one shot he could make that would ensure success.
Taking a deep breath he fired off a single shot.
The bullet raced through the air hitting the man in the forehead and killing him instantly.
A gasp echoed across the team. They knew this was necessary but seeing a man killed so bluntly was not something they were used to, nor would they ever want to.
Chris breathed a sigh of relief.
Five of the team rushed up, with Chris alongside them to apprehend the man.
“Bravo! You passed the second experiment,” Tobias’ voice echoed around the room. “You were prepared to risk the lives of innocent people for the greater good. The true test of a real soldier.”
He reached his arms together to clap but was unable to do so, with his arms now handcuffed behind his back.
The orange eyed man was pulled out from under the seats and away from the blue light. The bullet was still pressed into his skull. A medic took his pulse and confirmed that he was no more.
“Ok, let’s get rid of the body and …” Chris was stopped in mid-sentence as he saw something he couldn’t believe.
A blink.
It happened so fast but Chris was sure of it. The dead man had blinked.
He looked at the medic and knew from the look on his face that he had seen it too.
As he turned back to the body he noticed something even stranger.
The dead man’s neck had begun to twitch and his whole body soon started to spasm.
“Cyanide?” asked Chris, looking at the medic.
“No, this isn’t normal … this isn’t like anything I’ve seen before,” stammered the medic.
As the spasms continued the dead man began to lift his back from the floor. Slowly at first, like a coil beginning to unravel, his body rose up and up, until he was resting on his knees.
“No! Just … no!” The medic stared at Tobias, startled and unsure just what horror this mad man had unleashed.
With a final push the dead man rose to his knees and stood tall.
His eyes opened again revealing his orange eyes, pulsing much brighter than before. The bullet hole remained in his head and yet this was no zombie. He was as alive as any other man in that room.
He looked upwards at the helicopter and aimed his gun at it.
The team members who had gathered around him took point blank range shots directly at him. Every shot hit the target but he didn’t go down.
In death he had become more than a man.
This time he didn’t miss. His bullet hit directly on target.
“Our fuel tank has been hit. Repeat our fuel tank has been hit. Over,” the helicopter pilot, Saloma, radioed Gabe and he then knew the mission had failed.
“We can’t kill him!” shouted Chris.
“No but you can stop him!” replied Gabe. “Pin the target down at all costs.”
The remaining team jumped on the orange eyed man and pinned him to the floor. His gun was quickly taken from him and broken so he could no longer use it.
It wasn’t enough.
“The damage is too great. We have to land. Over,” and with that the chopper moved away from the building, taking the blue light with it.
What happened next was a blur of screams. The elderly man whose face had been cut by falling glass felt the pain of his attack and let out a deep scream, holding the cut in pain.
The medic dashed for him but was quickly trampled by the now unfrozen audience members in their dash to escape from the room.
The security guards returned to life and immediately began to fire at the men pinning the orange eyed man down. They had no choice but to retreat.
Gabe stood next to Tobias determined not to let him go but was hit over the head by Jonathan with a chair. The force broke a tooth and knocked him to the floor.
“Tobias are you ok? What happened?” asked Jonathan.
“Terrorists. It was The Deck,” replied Tobias, knowing this was the type of good PR that money simply could not buy.
Chris looked back at the carnage and at Gabe. Gabe lay on the floor, his mouth bleeding. Chris knew there was nothing he could do, that to ensure victory he would have to escape for now.
Our leader captured, innocent people injured and an unstoppable force being revived by security, he thought to himself. This is bad.
With that thought he exited the building and huddled into one of several jeeps with his comrades. They held their head in shame knowing that the worst had occurred. They had handed the biggest mass murderer in history a golden ticket.
EIGHT
Emmie Keyes
“Grace!” my relief at seeing my best friend was just as strong as seeing R&R, only this time I knew I had someone I could tell my secrets to.
“Emmie Keyes as I live and breathe. Did you miss me?” replied Grace.
Grace was the same fashionista she had always been. Every outfit she wore made me jealous and her current top with belt and skirt combo made me as jealous as usual, especially as I was still wearing pyjamas with little sheep on them. She was also incredibly beautiful, something her job as a make-up artist made it very hard to compete with.
Her slightly dark coloured skin went with anything and made her skin always look healthy and tanned, a rarity this time of year with the typical British weather. She wore fake eyelashes with alternated red and brown lashes that went perfectly with the red streaks in her chocolate brown hair. Thanks to her job she got free make-up which was a novelty for most of us and I was always thankful for any samples she could give me.
“You rang?” asked Grace, clearly wanting to know why she had been dragged half way across the country overnight.
“It’s bad Grace it’s…” The next sequence of words were hard to think in my head and even harder to say out loud.
I sat down on a pink bean bag whilst my eyes began to water. “It’s Will,” I said “He’s...” I forced myself to say it. “He’s gone Grace, he’s gone!”
“Gone? Gone where?”
“Gone, gone!” I clarified “I watched him die.”
“No, Emmie. I’m sure he’s ok. If you’re alive that means he’s alive somewhere too. It must be a mistake. We can find him.”
Her words tried to comfort me but it was no use. “This is different. I saw him die and I no longer feel him tied to me,” my eyes started to swell with tears and Grace realised that I wasn’t joking.
Grace sat on the floor with me and placed her arms on my shoulders. She didn’t want to pry but wanted to know more so she could help, “How did he die?”
“He was murdered.”
“No!”
“I saw the whole thing; he was killed by two orange eyed men,” I explained.
“Orange eyed?”
“It was like nothing I had seen before. Their eyes had an orange pulsing glow and they spoke in a language I couldn’t understand.”
Grace nodded along as I explained how Will had died, a dead stare in her eyes as if she heard the words but didn’t really understand what I had said. As if she couldn’t process the how or the why of the situation.
I told her about the DualCam, the last recording it played and how my identity was slowly being destroyed. I felt relief in being able to share what had happened with someone I could trust.
Grace had always been weak. That’s why she clung to me for help and why her job was so low pressure. But she was a good friend and had always helped me when I needed her.
“Emmie, don’t you see what is happening here?” asked Grace, snapping me away from my story.
“Whoever wanted to kill your brother, they think you are dead too. That’s why they deleted your files. You aren’t safe, especially if they know you are still alive,” said Grace.
“I know and that’s why I called you. I want to find out the truth behind Will’s death and to do that I need your help. I need you to help me disappear.”
Grace nodded knowing exactly what I meant. For years she had trained as a make-up artist and this skill meant she could easily change someone’s appearance to make them unrecognisable.
If I was going to find out the truth I needed a disguise, something Grace was an expert at.
“OK, now that I can help with,” replied Grace.
“Great, what are you thinking? A few hair extensions, a tan and some different makeup?” I asked.
She nodded along, waited for a moment as if considering something and then took her backpack off her shoulders. Reluctantly, she removed a silver box from inside and said “I have something even better. This box contains the most advanced make-up kit in the world.”
I stared at the silver box, curious how Grace could fit all of her make-up supplies into it. Sure she was great at what she did but I remained sceptical that she’d have enough bits and pieces in the box.
“This box can make you be anyone you want to be. More convincing than make-up and quicker too,” said Grace. In fact you’ll be the third person in the world to try it out, after me and my boss.
I was excited by the prospect and anything to make the process of putting on make-up quicker was ok with me. “Great! Let’s go for it,” I replied.
“So who do you want to be? How about ‘rocker synth Emmie’, she was hot!” said Grace, our past feelings for each other starting to show through a little too much.
During my darker years I loved Rocker Synth, an electronic mix of rock music and dub step. To go along with the style I had purple hair and tended to wear more dark grimy clothes. It was a massive contrast to my blonde hair and calmer clothes I wear now.
Grace seemed to like it at the time and it was fun to be rebellious at least for a little while.
“No, I need to be unrecognisable. Make me look like no one you have ever met before,” I said.
“Ok, you’re the boss,” Grace pressed a button on the silver box and it began to glow.
I wondered what possible make-up kit would need to glow and I instinctively lent forward to touch it.
Grace batted my hand away. “No touching. This thing runs incredibly hot.”
This only added to my curiously. Sensing this Grace asked “What’s with all the questions anyway? You’re the one with a top secret camera.”
She was right; it wasn’t as if I didn’t have a mysterious box of tricks in my own room.
“We need a computer, does the DualCam let you install programs?” she asked.
I nodded and turned the DualCam on so it was once again reflecting on the wall with its twin rainbows. We ran a search for new devices and found one called “Skin 2.0”.
“Is that it?” I asked. Grace lent forward and clicked the confirm button.
A loading screen appeared showing a Queen of Diamonds playing card rotating around and around. I assumed that must be the developers of the software.
“So how did you get to test this anyway?” I asked
“My boss loves me,” replied Grace, who had always had a knack for getting what she wanted so this didn’t surprise me.
The software loaded up and presented a series of options from skin colour, to hair style and we spent thirty minutes tweaking them until we had found a new face for me. It seemed quite different to my normal look and I was unsure exactly how I could undergo such a rapid change without hours and hours of work.
The computer sent a signal to Grace’s device and we boiled a cup of tea whilst we waited.
“So what exactly are we waiting for?” I asked, whilst the kettle boiled.
“It’ll have a red light on top when it’s ready,” said Grace.
“Ready with what exactly?”
“The face we created for you is being made inside the box.”
I looked at the box. It wasn’t anywhere near the size of my face. “I know I have a small head but I don’t see how…”
Grace interrupted me mid-sentence as she started to poor the boiling water into our cups. “It’s simple really. The box creates fake skin that will be placed over the top of your skin like a mask sitting on top.”
That sounded anything but simple. “What? How can that be safe? And didn’t you say it was hot? Won’t it hurt?” I continued to think of one hundred and one more questions but before I could say them, Grace interjected; “Look at my face. I used it this morning. You’ll be fine.”
A red light flashed on the box indicating that it was ready. Grace stirred our cups of tea, threw the tea bags away and poured in milk. She gave them another stir, extra slowly as if she was playing with me.
She paused for a moment and asked “Do you want sugar?”
“Just open the box!” I shouted.
“Fine, fine. You’re no fun.”
Grace lifted a lid on the grey box and removed a flesh coloured ball. The ball was shifting slowly in her hands as if it wanted to escape. It wasn’t a hard material like a bouncy ball but wasn’t runny enough that it ran from her fingers either.
“This is Skin 2.0, are you ready?” she asked.
“No,” I replied, hoping to go back to the make-up idea.
“Trust me Emzie,” she said, using her affectionate name for me. “If we don’t use this, you will get caught. There’s not good enough make-up in the world to hide anyone completely but with this you have your best chance. Now hold out your hands.”
I reluctantly agreed and placed my hands out in front of me, palms facing upwards. Grace angled her hands downwards and the flesh coloure
d ball slid down her hands into mine.
The touch was instantly off-putting. It felt like holding a living creature. The ball twisted in shape and its slimy texture reminded me of the snakes that sometimes crept into the downstairs basement of our building.
With the ball firmly in my hands it began to glow. “What is happening?” I asked.
“It’s just remembering your DNA,” said Grace, as if this was the most normal procedure in the world. “You know, if you don’t trust it you’re basically saying you don’t trust me. I did design it after all.”
I rolled my eyes at her. I was more than used to this type of playfulness from our college days together.
Once the glowing stopped, I asked “Now what?”
“Place it onto your face and whatever you do, do not remove your hands until I tell you to. Understood?” she said, with her best Headmistress impression. Yet there was an ounce of severity in her voice too.
I placed the skin over my face and it began to expand covering every pore. As the skin branched out, it expanded over my ears and neck and then wrapped around the back of my head to cover my hair. As it expanded over my lips I started to feel it tighten up, like clay beginning to form. It felt like my real skin was drying out and being suffocated.
As the skin on my neck began to tighten I was thrown back to the memory of Will being strangled and I started to panic. My breathing became shallow and I felt my hands begin to drift away from my face.
“It’s me Emmie, you’re ok. Just calm down,” Grace’s words soothed me and helped bring me back to reality. She pressed her hands against mine and gently placed them back on my face. I so badly wanted to remove my hands and tear this fake skin from my face but Grace helped to stop me.
I opened my eyes and looked in the mirror, watching as dye started to run from the skin that had covered my hair, changing its colour from blonde to a dark black. Suddenly all of the hair from below my shoulder fell to the floor, as if someone had suddenly cut my hair to that point. For the hair that remained each strand became a little thicker and my fringe lowered down to just over my eyebrows.
“How is it doing this?” I asked.