by Lee Hayton
If this was the power granted to her when she was surrounded by its Kryptonite, then Grainne couldn’t imagine how much strength the magic would have once she broke free of her cage.
And break free, she would.
If she died trying, that was fine with her. Everyone must die someday. To die here, though, in this stinking cage. That wouldn’t happen, couldn’t happen. If she had to crawl out of her prison with every bone broken, Grainne would do that. If she could take some of her captors out on the way, she would laugh as she did that as well.
The soldiers weren’t thinking of her. She didn’t enter their minds at all. One thought of his wife at home and the meal that she’d have waiting for him. Another envisaged the dark streets that he’d navigate through on the way to a dark apartment. The morning’s dishes would be the only thing waiting for him. Still sitting in the sink, just where he’d left them.
Grainne followed the soldier’s thoughts as they tangled through the minutiae of the working day. There was no one else close enough for her to read. From what she’d gathered on the internet, there was no one nearby aside from guards at all.
Except, she didn’t need guards. The cockroach had been the most help to her so far, and it was just an insect.
Expanding her net wider, Grainne searched for other sentient thoughts. She used the magic to sort them into order, like a biologist sorting species. The highest order she could find appeared to belong to a rat.
A rat could fit easily through a drainpipe. At least, it could once Grainne took its mind over and forcefully steered it in. When it hit up against the grating in the sink, she felt like a dimwit. Of course, a rat couldn’t just waltz on in. If they could, half of the country wouldn’t sleep for nightmares.
The route out took a lot longer. With the poor creature so scared it could barely think, maneuvering it to turn around and go back out took a superhuman effort. Luckily, Grainne did seem to have superhuman on tap.
She pressed against the house again, letting her mind find all the nooks and crannies that weren’t secure. The property seemed to have been coated with an instant set concrete. The long rolls overlapped for the most part, but just like bandages, where care hadn’t been taken, gaps existed.
For the most part, they were small, but one of them was several inches wide. It ran down the wall of the living room, a yard’s distance from the window on the one hand and the front door on the other.
A gap. A rat was born to take advantage of a gap.
Grainne drove the rodent toward the small space. This time the command went through easier. The direction fitted in more naturally with the rat’s own wants and needs. The concrete lip was hard to see in the dim light, but the space between the folds where it had hardened was enough for the rat to gain purchase with its teeth and start to work.
While it went about its work, Grainne turned back to the computer. The online chat never seemed to change. Pontification from teenagers who thought they understood the world from top to tail. A spotty boy holding forth from his bedroom, as though everything you could ever hope to learn about life was contained within those four walls.
A side group had started to chat about how boring everything on the internet was. Thanks, guys, Grainne felt like saying. Sorry, my death can’t be engineered to hold your attention longer.
The total number of death threats had lowered, but then again so had the number of people engaging. Perhaps her ability to interact with people had spoiled all their fun. The nature of voyeurism that she’d tried to exploit through her nighttime antics might not survive the knowledge that she could see what they said and respond.
An older thread, started a day before she came online, was flashing in the corner, active again. Grainne clicked on the link.
We need to get her out.
We’re friends. We restored your internet and power.
Die then.
Cormac? What’s happened to you?
Warning! Cormac is working with the government. Don’t tell him anything.
I’ve had to move house.
This thread is being monitored. Go to <
Is anyone there? We need to get her out.
The cursor sat on screen, waiting. The thin blinking line created a sense of urgency impelling Grainne to act, to respond. She leaned forward, highlighting each line to display the long chain of responses underneath. If the thread was being monitored, how long before they came to shut down the root cause once and for all?
She sent an idle request out to monitor Mr. Rat’s progress. Barely started. Even with his sharp teeth designed for all day nibbling, it was a mammoth task to rupture the seal enough for her to force a path to freedom. As Grainne clicked on her computer, entering through to the private chat site that the forum indicated, she searched through the rat’s mind for family members. Any friends or relatives that were ready and willing to lend a hand.
Her control slipped. Occupied with two tasks at once, she lost oversight of the one being performed on her behalf by another being. Ignoring the computer for a moment, Grainne searched—her heart beating rapidly in her chest—and relaxed when she gained access back to the rodent’s brainwaves. Only when she felt secure that he was back on task did she turn to her laptop once again.
The chatroom required registration with a credit card number. The requirement seemed strict, given it seemed populated with teenagers, but with only half a mind available to track the request, Grainne couldn’t find a quick way around it.
It wasn’t that she didn’t know her credit card number off by heart, she’d shopped online often enough that it had stuck fast in her memory. Just, that she was afraid of what alarm bells she would trigger if she typed the sequence in.
The same alarm bells you’d get just typing on the monitored forum.
The whole adventure was fraught with danger. Still, it had been a long time since Grainne had been tucked away somewhere safe. She quickly ruled up a list in her mind, advantages and disadvantages. There was only enough food left for another week, maybe ten days. Even with her rationing, there was a physical limit to how much she could stand to set aside for the future balanced up against her immediate needs. Even strict control couldn’t outweigh the demands of her internal system. So say a week. At most. With the amount of starvation that she’d self-imposed, the disintegration of her body would begin the moment she swallowed the last mouthful.
In school, they’d learned that people could last three days without water, three weeks without food. That equation came from a starting point of normal, though. With the low-calorie intake of the past months, Grainne would easily be halfway through that rationale before she actually stopped eating. A week or two on top of her food supply at most.
She typed in her details, her thinking too slow to come up with a made up sixteen-digit number. It was about twelve more than she felt capable of inventing at the moment.
After scrolling through the sequence of welcome and how-to screens, Grainne finally had to go back to the forum page and click the link again to come through to the correct place. She hesitated there, hands hanging above her keyboard. She didn’t know what to say.
Who is this?
The question startled her. The name Grainne had used on the forum sign-up was Mary. She typed that in, then paused, her finger caressing the enter key. Her pulse was ticking in her throat. Should she lie or tell the truth? With each keystroke telling her it was a bad idea, she backspaced out her reply and typed in her real name. Grainne Helmond.
Hi, Grainne. I’m Anne. Do you want to help us?
Us? There was an us?
Grainne wiped her hand across her brow. Her fingers came away wet, slick with sweat. Despite the coolness of the room, she was overheated with anxiety.
She typed in, I think that I’m the person you want to help.
The cursor blinked stupidly at her, as though amazed at her foolishness. This was what living in a closed society for so many years got her. Too m
uch trust in her fellow man. Even after what they’d done to her so far.
You’re in the house? Wave to the camera.
Grainne turned and waved at the eagle eye tracking her every movement from the corner of the living room. It stared back, impassive. No nod. No smile. No visible register of her movement.
She turned back to her laptop to find a question waiting. What’s holding you in there?
Concrete. They’ve sealed up the house with concrete and immosium.
Grainne threw caution to the wind with the last part of that sentence. If they didn’t recall the reason, she was trapped in there, too bad. They’d know now.
But the person on the other end of the conversation didn’t seem phased by her words at all.
Nothing else? They don’t have the house wired up to explosives or anything?
Grainne sat back in her seat, startled. The thought hadn’t occurred to her. She looked at the scattered remnants of the window that she’d smashed. Nothing had happened in retaliation for that blow, except the damage to her knuckles and the shard for cutting herself if the situation ever got that extreme.
She wiped her sweating palms against her trouser legs and stood up. Her knees creaked after the long minutes of staying seated in one position. She was getting old. To grow older, seemed like a luxury that might once again be in her grasp.
The handle on the front door wasn’t locked, but it wouldn’t turn. The outside was coated in hardened concrete, so there wasn’t the ability to move. Or hadn’t been. With no impetus to get her through the sealant outside, Grainne hadn’t bothered to try to get the door open when it first resisted. She sent out her thoughts, easily locating the rat working a yard away on the outside of the wall.
How thick was the concrete? Too thick for her to get through single handed armed only with a spork. So thick that even the coffee table through the living room window hadn’t cracked it through. It hadn’t even created a dent.
Grainne stretched her hand out, then hesitated. If this was her last moment on earth, then she should do something special. A heartfelt speech. A tearful farewell. At least thank her mom and dad like she was a Hollywood actress.
Fuck it. Grainne turned the door handle, putting her shoulder against the wood and straining when it slipped from her grip. She felt it give just as her skin slipped and her fingers spun uselessly on the shiny metal.
She pulled her sleeve down, this time using both hands and squeezing as hard as possible to try to keep purchase on the slick handle. It caught, turned, caught, turned. At last, it spun all the way around.
Grainne pulled it toward her. Although the part near the door handle gave a little, the rest was locked hard into the concrete seal. It didn’t matter. She hadn’t expected to walk straight out through a solid wall of thick cement. She’d proven what she had to though. No wiring. No trip hammer. No explosives.
She typed the information into the waiting screen and sat back, anxiously wringing her hands together. After a lifetime of flickering, the return message came back, straight and clear.
I know where the house is. I’m coming to get you out.
Chapter Seventeen
She had a bounty of new friends. Grainne sat back, amazed that from nothing and no one she’d amassed a cyber ally and a rat pack all within a single day. The magic thrummed and hummed through her body. Invisible to the cameras from what she could see onscreen, the light made her skin look ablaze to her own eyes.
Relief danced up and down her body in timing with the circulating glow. For a second, Grainne lost all her inhibitions. Her arms shot up in the air, the eternal signal of V for victory. She shook her hips as though she were the queen of the roller disco.
Help was coming. Mr. Rat’s help was already underway. Nibble, nibble. If he wasn’t happy enough biting through the thick concrete, Grainne would have pulled him back. But he seemed content, and it never hurts to have a backup plan.
Especially, when she wasn’t even sure what the main plan was.
The helpful contact had signed off the moment Grainne read the last line. Now, the name just sat there, gray and dull, as opposed to the cheery pink of the talkers still online.
How was the help coming? Why would they know where she was being held? Who was the person typing? Why hadn’t she thought to ask?
No wonder she’d ended up in such trouble, to begin with. Grainne clearly didn’t have the skills necessary to lead a normal, happy life.
She clicked back through the different posts, trying to sift out any more information. There was nothing of any use. Anne appeared to have put the power back on, so was clearly capable.
Just wait. You can’t do anything from in here, anyway.
She couldn’t just sit around and wait, though. Grainne stood up and began to pace, using up more energy than she’d fed on in the last few days combined.
Should she grab something to help out? But what? Arm herself with a trusty spork in case of trouble? Maybe she should grab a memento of the house that she could use to woo a future audience. Grainne imagined a circle of tiny faces staring at her in awe as she wove her tale. Here’s the bedsheet I didn’t use to hang myself with. Here’s the shard of glass that I decided not to use to slit my wrists open.
The pacing back and forth was making her more nervous. She forced herself to sit, perched on the edge of the sofa. Uncertain even of which way she should stare.
Then a sharp voice, tinged with fear, cried out in the darkness of her mind. Mr. Rat. Still hard at work. Except that the air he breathed in now was tinged with smoke. His lungs were heavy. His breathing labored. Grainne eased up on the impulse to gnaw on concrete and felt his limber legs running. They scrabbled through the walls until he broke free into the late afternoon sunlight. Low down, head close to the ground, shoulders hunched over protectively against any predators circling the air above. He ran, away from the house. Scuttling to freedom between the heavy boots of men gathering in small circles. Each one wearing heavy protective clothing. Their faces obscured with masks. On their heads, yellow helmets to protect them from falling debris. To one side the heaped remnants of bottles of accelerant. In their minds, the certain knowledge that the house she was sheltering in was burning to the ground.
Chapter Eighteen
Grainne ran. Her panic propelled her against the far wall where she spread her arms wide. As though if she could spread herself thin enough, she might somehow wish herself outside.
The air inside was still clean, clear. It was only a matter of time, though. In the minds of the men outside, Grainne could see the flames gathering traction. She could use their ears to hear the crackle and use their nostrils to smell the smoke.
Her washroom.
She pushed open the door and saw to her dismay that a thin wisp of smoke was rising from the drain. Turning, she pushed her shoulder against the door to jam it closed. Her breath catching in a frightened gasp.
Where to go? Where to hide?
She fled across the downstairs carpet, so quick the dry soles of her feet almost raised a shower of sparks. As she pounded upstairs, her heart tried to lift off the top of her head. Punching and fighting to get out of her trapped body.
A sob broke from her throat as Grainne slammed the door to her bedroom shut. Her worst nightmare was coming true. Soon, she’d be reduced to cinders and ash.
The fear was pulsing, yellow and black. Like the stripes down a cold-hearted wasp’s back. It poked and prodded at Grainne, blinding her vision, muffling her ears. She fell to the floor and curled her arms around her knees, tucking her head over.
As her breathing steadied, the crackle of flames up the outside walls became a real thing. Not just something her mind heard an echo of in somebody else’s head. Something real. Something happening. Something that would soon eat her alive.
The lights flickered, stuttering like a strobe in a late-night disco. Grainne held a hand out, as though to ward off an approaching monster. Too late. As the fire ate through the wiring, the power went off
again. This time for good.
She screamed as the scent of smoke wafted up the stairs. The acrid air bit into her lungs and grabbed her by the throat, shaking her mercilessly. The long, slow death by starvation that Grainne had feared for so long rose in her mind. It looked like a calm picnic by the beach. A treat at the end of a long life. A pleasure that she wished she could choose out of the nightmares on offer.
Grab hold of their minds. Do it!
The command came from inside her but was also outside. God talking, clear as a bell. A feeling that grabbed hold of her more strongly than any lust, any anger, any fleeting human emotion.
Grab them?
Mouth low to the ground, trying to seek fresh air, Grainne reached out to the minds outside. Mr. Cockroach had been alien but easy. Mr. Rat had been tiresome but workable.
The minds outside felt like they were clad in the same thick concrete that trapped her inside. As she reached out tentatively to them, each one scurried and slid away. Desperate, full of terror, Grainne tried again. And again. Each time, she put more force into the shards of thought she sent out. The last of the energy from her body, expended in a trip from her mind.
Blind, every sense shrieking on high alert, Grainne tried to hook onto a thought, a single memory, the hint of a sensual observation. The fingers from her mind slid on the slippery surface of the men’s thoughts, unable to find purchase.
Another breath, this time so full of smoke that her weary lungs coughed it out in a surprised exhalation. Her blind eyes streamed from the polluted cloud that rose from the burning house beneath.
In a fight between the magic in her body and the choking smoke, Grainne felt her body tussle. One destroying the tender skin of her lungs, the other healing it just as quickly.
It did nothing to give her air. Nothing to feed the protesting whine of her brain, desperate for oxygen. Like men, posturing outside a hospital while the patient they loved, died inside.
Grab their minds.