Tethered Twins Saga: Complete Trilogy (Twins, Souls and Hearts)

by Mike Essex

  “Yes I have, I helped to build it and so did March.”

  “Well, everyone at TethTech helped build it,” explained March. “We each built a component and Tobias assembled them together. This is the greatest work the company ever built, he just used it for the wrong purpose.”

  “And he didn’t have the capstone,” said my father, placing a hand on Will’s shoulder. “Did he son?”

  “So Will is the capstone?” I asked.

  “Very astute of you Emmie,” replied my father. “When your Tether was broken it affected you both in different ways. Whilst you gained the ability to create and destroy Tethers, Will gained the ability to fuse them together. He is the capstone and you are the trigger.”

  “For what? That machine?” My eyes darted around the room looking for another exit.

  “If the machine is powered by just one of you it can only end with destruction but with both of you working in unison we can use it as a power for good. We could control any person we wished, without the risk of killing them.”

  “Both of us?” I stared at Will, unsure why he wasn’t shocked by any of this. “Did you know?” I asked him.

  “It’s the only way,” said Will. “You know SO13 will return but who is going to stop them? It’s our best chance of protecting everyone.”

  “I can’t believe I’m hearing this. You want to control other people? What about free will?”

  “Free will gave us haves and have-nots, the 20 Day Siege, wars and death,” said my father. “Now we have a chance to fix our broken world; to restore balance.”

  “You can’t just play God.”

  “God isn’t here Emmie. This is a necessary evil to save the people. There are those in this world who cannot be left to their own greed any more. We have to steer them onto the right path. We have to fix this.”

  My father had never truly forgiven himself for the death of our mother as part of the Siege, even though he had done unspeakable harm to others in an effort to try and save her. Clearly he still didn’t feel it was enough.

  “You have to let her go Dad. You can’t be responsible for saving everyone. You can’t take away their freedom,” I begged.

  “We won’t. We’ll control a few people at a time just to push the world in the right direction. We can stop wars, redistribute wealth and help build strong communities. I hope you’ll join with us.”

  His words had a sense of finality about them. He’d pulled a lot of strings to make this happen and I had the feeling that Will and I were just the puppets. How long had he been playing this game with us?

  “Don’t worry, you’ll be safe,” said March. Even the man who saved me seemed to be on my father’s side.

  “How can you know?” I asked.

  “I’ve made sure of it,” he whispered to me as he pointed to the scar on my stomach from the operation he had performed on me. “I will protect you.”

  “Give me one year,” asked my father. “We can change a lot in that time. Then I promise I will give your life back to you.”

  As I looked at the faces of those I cared about, each of them mentally pushing me towards the machine, I could see no other option. I had probably sparked a war with SO13 that the citizens of Q-Whitehall and my friends couldn’t possibly survive. It felt like my duty to do all I could to make sure they’d be safe.

  “I’ll do it,” I confirmed. “But I need to say goodbye to my friends first.”

  “Gabe will escort you,” my father called to Gabe via an earpiece. “But, Emmie, you cannot tell them what we are planning here.”

  I was led from the room by Gabe who barely said a word to me despite all that we had been through before. This place made me feel like a prisoner being led to death row, not like a valued daughter being protected by her loving father.

  Along the way I expected to see other members of The Deck but it seemed most of them had not been trusted with the knowledge of this plan. I had to wonder if Grace even knew what was happening to me. Would she have allowed me to come here if she had known?

  There was however one familiar face waiting for me in one of the rooms.

  “Hi Emmie,” she said, lacking all of her usual excitement. It was an unusual way to hear Jill speak.

  I said hello back and she held out her arms for a hug, much more like the Jill I know. As she hugged me she whispered into my ear. “Your father planned everything; your capture by Tobias, Will’s capture by SO13, it was all to test everything for this day. You have to get out.”

  Startled, I backed away from Jill, trying to maintain my composure in front of Gabe whilst processing what I had heard.

  Jill pointed to a radio on the desk so that I could call my friends but I had even less idea what to say to them now. My father would no doubt be listening, ready to cut off the line at any sign of a warning from either myself or Jill. There was only really one option.

  I turned my back to Gabe and lent towards the radio, pretending to take hold of it but actually slowly retrieving my pistol. As I pretended to lift the headset to my ear I raised my pistol up so it was at body height and prepared myself.

  In one quick motion I positioned myself behind Jill and raised the gun up to her head. Startled, Gabe quickly tried to draw his own weapon. “Don’t you dare,” I threatened. Jill was the best coder The Deck had and I was bargaining with my life that she was as irreplaceable as I was.

  “Think about this Emmie,” said Gabe. “Your father is just trying to make things right. It’s not too late to side with him.”

  There had been too much deception, too many unanswered questions, I just needed to get out and get some space to think. I threatened Gabe again “Let me go, or she dies.”

  He started to move his hand to his gun and said “Easy. Just put the gun down and I’m sure your father will explain everything.”

  I had all of the explanation I needed. He’d always been obsessed with trying to fix the world, no matter the cost. I was a fool for ever trusting him. “Show me your hands,” I said to Gabe and he held them out in front of me. “Now back away from the door.”

  “I can get you out of here, just don’t hurt me,” said Jill, knowingly playing along.

  Gabe backed away from the door and as he moved around to the right-hand side of the room we moved to the left until we had switched places. We left the room and Jill started to push buttons on the keypad outside of it.

  Realising what we were doing Gabe ran towards the door but he was too late. The door slammed shut and we locked him inside. I could hear the crackle of his walkie-talkie as we ran away from the room.

  “We have to get Will.” I told Jill.

  “There’s no time,” she replied. “We need to get out and find help. They’ll kill us both if we head back down there.”

  I knew she was right but leaving Will after we’d been through so much was heart breaking.

  “It’s the only way,” she explained.

  Acting on faith I followed Jill up towards the entrance to the base.

  “Tell me everything,” I replied.

  “I don’t know much. Only that the missions that Gabe went on recently were to sell TethTech technology to SO13. He sold them everything they would need to experiment on Will.”

  “But why?”

  “To test it worked. After that it was just a case of telling them where Will was hiding and using Vlad to lead them there.”

  “How could they?”

  “There’s something else you need to know. It’s about March.”

  “What is it?”

  “The technology he claimed to have removed from inside of you? He’s the one who implanted it and it’s still there now.”

  “Impossible. I saw Tobias operate on me.”

  “It was a mask with Skin 2.0. March and Gabe did the whole thing. I’m sorry.”

  “March?” I said weakly, feeling sick from hearing that everything I’d known about him had been a lie. Had he ever really loved me or was it just a trick to keep an eye on me for my father? I
felt angry, but most of all I felt glad I’d kissed Rex, that I hadn’t let a lie keep me from something great.

  There was nothing holding me back now. When I escaped I would find Rex and tell him everything. He had stood by me through it all, even when he hadn’t needed to. I had to get out. I had to find him.

  Jill worked her way through each of the keypads, opening the doors in front of us one by one. We reached the entrance to the warehouse - two large doors made of corrugated steel - and Jill frantically searched by the door.

  “There’s no keypad,” she exclaimed.

  “There has to be a way. We are so close,” I replied moving my own hands over the door itself. The door was impassable. No regen machine was going to save us this time.

  I found a padlock on the door and told Jill. We looked at the ring of numbers on it and desperately tried to find the right combination.

  “Technology can let you down sometimes can’t it?” My father emerged from the darkness, Vlad walking next to him.

  “You have to let me go. I know he can’t hurt me,” I said, pointing to Vlad.

  “Don’t think that I can’t,” threatened my father. “Don’t you see what we can achieve together? Don’t you want to be a part of it?”

  “You haven’t given me a choice so far; operating on me and leading me to Tobias! Why stop now?”

  “Very well,” he raised the gun from his side and fired without warning or hesitation. I felt the impact as the dart pierced my neck. I tore it out but it was too late, the toxins had already started to race around my body.

  My vision blurred and I blacked out.

  SIXTY FIVE

  “By an overall majority vote of 67% of seats, the new UK Prime Minister is…” the magistrate paused whilst he read the name on the sheet of paper in front of him.

  I watched from the sidelines, in the body of Gospel Reyes, a vessel that my father had granted me so I could witness his greatest day. The audience was deathly quiet as they waited for the results, although I already knew who the winner would be.

  The magistrate let out a tiny cough and then spoke. “Eli Keyes.”

  My father stood on the stage, a smug grin on his face as he hugged the members of his political party. I had helped him build that party for the last two years, one year longer than he promised me it would take, and today the results had finally paid off. He had the power he craved, a chance to change the world for good and in that moment I knew he would never relinquish his control over me or Will.

  To get to this stage had been a three step process for my father. First he used us to take over key political figures who voted him in as a leader of the party. Then when his campaign to become Prime Minister was announced we drew upon celebrities and those in the public eye to announce their fondness for him.

  It had been worryingly easy. Once each target was selected we simply jumped into their body and my father controlled their actions. We gave them just enough self-awareness so they’d believe the actions were their own whilst we set them on our own tasks.

  We never quite figured out how to stop them having orange eyes but thanks to SO13 we had discovered how effective coloured contact lenses were at hiding the change and keeping our hacks a secret.

  The final part of the plan required a larger scale takeover, but also one that didn’t need to rely on contact lenses; the voting booths took care of hiding people’s faces for us. As people entered the various voting booths across the UK we took over a significant portion of them and forced them to vote for my father. They were unaware of any duress and by keeping the total number of votes fairly close we hoped that we had been able to rule out any signs of foul play.

  As my father gave a lovingly prepared speech he promised to protect the citizens of England and to fight for everyone’s rights regardless of whether they were haves or have-nots. He promised to restore relations with other countries and to bring the UK together by creating new jobs for the poorest people, whilst bringing in new trade to made the rich richer.

  I knew he had enemies, my time jumping between other leaders had shown me that, and that his journey to those goals was just getting started. It could take him the rest of his life to achieve his goals and most of my life under his control to do so.

  My life was as good as over. Grace had never stopped looking for me during the last two years, nor had R&R but they had found nothing but the destroyed remains of the original Deck base. I caught glimpses of them as I jumped from body to body but I couldn’t reach them with a message, my father controlling all of my actions, keeping me on a short leash.

  What my father didn’t know was that he couldn’t stop me from watching. For the last two years I had watched military personnel train with weaponry, seen leaders draw up detailed plans of attack and looked on in awe as martial arts trainers fought long battles. If I was ever able to escape from his grip over me I swore that I would be strong enough to fight back. I would be ready.

  Nor could my father stop the voices in my head, a familiar guide preparing me for the day that I would be free. In any other scenario I would avoid the voice of my monster and keep him under lock and key but being trapped in the machine had given him power again. The voice I had kept locked within me was awake again. Tobias Zen lived on in my soul, corrupting me with his poison.

  I had tried to ignore his thoughts as they mixed with my own but in the darkness of my mind, with control stripped away from me, he had been the only ally I had. Tobias Zen had designed the machine that now held me captive and it was his promises of teaching me the weaknesses in the code that led me to his side.

  Although Tobias Zen had devised this plan it was my hands that would execute it and they would do so knowing full well the repercussions they would unleash.

  My father wanted to change the world but all I wanted was to destroy him for what he had taken from me. Today was the day I would reclaim what was rightfully mine. Today was the day I would take action.

  My father thought he had total control over me.

  He was wrong.

  As the bullet ripped through his flesh, he got a true reminder of who was in control. I hid the weapon before anyone could identify me as the shooter, whilst his body crumbled to the floor.

  The crowd screamed out, charging out from the stand in all directions as medics came to his aid. I took one last satisfying look at his body desperately crying in agony, before I disappeared into the darkness, the monster in my mind reminding me that we had only just begun.

  Tethered Hearts

  Copyright Mike Essex 2014

  This book is dedicated to you.

  Without your support it wouldn’t exist.

  You made this happen.

  Thank you, and enjoy!

  Mike Essex

  PART ONE

  ONE

  This is how our world was saved, not through choice but through compliance.

  It had been seven years since Eli Keyes, the man who had once been my father, trapped me in this machine. Seven long years to think about the choices he’d made that led me to this point: manipulating Tobias Zen, experimenting on my brother Will, and using March to get close to me and operate on me. His crimes weighed heavy on my mind.

  I couldn’t forgive him for what he’d done nor what he’d had others do in his name. As the remaining minions in his organisation, The Deck, set about keeping my body in check I tried to remember each and every one of them so I could one day return the favour in kind.

  As he stood on the stage in front of a crowd of his fans I stared at his chest trying to imagine how he had survived the bullet I’d sent flying towards his heart. He should have died five years ago before he could rise to power and yet here I was watching him get re-elected and given another term.

  Five more years of this.

  Five more years of jumping from body to body, acting out his bidding and manipulating the world into loving him. Although I couldn’t see my body I could feel the damage he was doing to me with each new action I was commanded t
o do.

  I couldn’t take it anymore.

  I had escaped. I shouldn’t be back here.

  “We shouldn’t be back here,” said the monster in my mind.

  He’d been my only companion for all of my time in the machine. His voice echoing out in the darkness had given me the strength I needed to carry on when all seemed lost.

  The devil on my shoulder was all I had now. The angel had long since flown away.

  He was right of course; we had escaped once before. After he helped me exploit a loophole in the machine I was able to take control of the body of an innocent bystander to shoot Eli and disappear into the night.

  For 39 minutes and 12 seconds I had remembered what it was like to control a body with my own free will. We had big plans, the monster and I but we never saw them come to fruition. The Deck dragged me back to my body, closed the loophole and sealed me back inside the machine.

  The monster worked hard to find another way out of the machine, after all he was the one who built it originally, but all he could offer me was a way to look through the eyes of others without controlling them. It afforded me some sanity; being able to look at people who were not Eli’s pawns was refreshing and helped me see how the world was changing under his influence.

  In the limited moments when he wasn’t using me to further his own political career I jumped from body to body. During that time I learnt how to fight and protect myself by watching others do the same. Every day I repeated the moves I’d learned in my mind hoping I’d someday get to use them. I wanted to be ready for the day when my friends set me free. I wanted to be ready to fight.

  Except my friends never found me.

  From time to time I saw Grace, R&R, Jacobi and Tom searching for me throughout the United Kingdom and all I could do was watch them walk by whichever bystander I occupied. I was right in front of their faces but could do nothing.