From the checkpoint we headed toward the parking lot, where Stanley stopped the car. “Are you ready?” he asked.
“Ready for what, exactly?” I asked, without needing to feign interest. I was interested.
“I’m going to blow your mind.”
“I should hope so, that’s why I’m here.”
Stanley grinned, then stepped out of his car. I followed him across the parking lot and toward the building itself. We approached a side door with a huge NO ENTRY, NO TRESPASSING sign on the front. Stanley entered a key code into the panel just to the side of the door, causing it to click unlocked. I got a good look at the as he keyed it in, made a mental note, and summoned Spider into my mind so that he could see it and relay the information to Jamie.
This was my way of holding the door open.
Stanley pushed the large, metal door for me and allowed me to walk through first. Inside, the quiet corridor beyond the door was tight, plain, the walls were grey, and the overhead lights had a slight fluorescent tinge to them. The entire place seemed empty, and save for a slight rumbling, was almost entirely devoid of sound.
“How many people work here?” I asked.
“Just Four, most shifts,” he said.
“Four? No way. This place is huge.”
“Yeah, but most of what happens here is automated, so we just need to make sure everything runs smoothly.”
“And only four of you are required to take care of this entire facility. Those automated systems must be pretty tight.”
“Technically we only need one person to run this place; there are Four of us so one of us can observe the room at all times with the other three running interference.”
“The… room? What room?”
“This way,” he said, pointing down a hall I had overshot.
I followed him this time, walking along the tight, plain corridor with something like anxiety starting to grab hold of my chest. Again, I was beginning to feel some kind of captive, like these walls were too close, too constrictive. I took a deep breath to help keep myself together, exhaling the anxiety away, and kept in step with Stanley as he moved through a door and then down a staircase, possibly three flights, putting us well and truly underground.
What the hell was this?
“So, this room,” I asked, to try and fill the tight hall with conversation. “What’s in it?”
“That’s a surprise.
“No way, c’mon, you’ve gotta tell me. Give me something to work with.”
“Not yet.”
“If you don’t give me something I’m going to assume you’ve brought me down here to kill me, and if that’s what you’re really up to, I’ve gotta warn you, that won’t end well.”
My tone was light, and flirty, but I meant every word. If he had any sinister plans for me, the facility would end up with one less employee on its roster. At the same time, I wanted to know what was down here, where he was taking me.
“I’ll tell you what,” he said, “If you don’t ask any more questions, I’ll take you to it.”
“You’ll take me inside?”
“That’s a question.”
“Yeah, but it’s a valid question. Won’t you get in trouble?”
“Nah, all of the guys have brought girls in here to impress them before.”
Oh, geez, that’s comforting. “Okay, well, then I won’t ask any more questions. I’m just really looking forward to seeing what’s in there. I feel like you’ve built it up so much; it better be amazing.”
“Like I told you; it’s gonna blow your mind.”
And then maybe I would have to blow him for the privilege, since the narrative forming in my mind was starting to look pretty clear. They were sitting on something big, something impressive, and they either didn’t understand what it was or they only told girls it was big and impressive to get them naked.
One thing was certain; I wasn’t about to get naked for anyone.
“Over here,” Stanley said, pointing at a door at the end of the hall. He walked up toward it, set his face level with a panel next to the door, and the panel lit up. Green light touched his face, there was a bleeping sound, and the door next to the panel unlocked. Facial recognition. Stanley pushed the door open and went inside.
Straight away I could hear music playing, distant and faint. Inside, there were two men sitting in front of an entire wall covered in flashing screens; ten, or fifteen regular sized screens arranged around a central collection of four screens which were much bigger than the others. Looking at the central monitors first, I saw they all overlooked what seemed to be some kind of sealed room, where cables ran amok and monitors and lights flashed. In the center of the room, however, connected not only to all of the smaller cables running around the place, but also to four huge clamps was a dome with an inner light so bright, I couldn’t see inside of it.
One of the two men turned around, while the other kept his eyes on the four larger monitors.
“Ah, shit, Stan,” the guy who had turned around said. He was wearing a security guard’s uniform, and was carrying a gun in a holster at his belt. “You know the rules.”
“Relax, okay?” Stan said.
“No way, man. Last month you gave me shit for not checking in first and telling you I was bringing a chick here, and now you pull the same thing without telling us? We agreed we’d always give warning.”
“Spur of the moment. Couldn’t help it.”
“Oh, whatever, Stan. If we get caught doing this we’ll lose our jobs—”
I found my concentration drifting away from the conversation, and being sucked directly into one of the monitors on the far-right upper corner of the wall. There was movement on the screen, and not just any kind of movement either; it was Jamie. He was already inside the facility, somewhere on the upper level I thought, and he was skulking down a corridor where there wasn’t much room to hide or be stealthy. But he hadn’t seen the camera, and right now he was in plain view—if even one of these guys had looked around, they would have noticed his movements thanks to the relative stillness inside the other monitors.
My heart could have leapt into my throat and choked the air from reaching my lungs. I felt the blood drain from my face and go into the pit of my stomach. Looking around at each of the men in turn, two of them were busy arguing about what the protocol for bringing a chick back to work to bang was, while the other had his eyes on the monitors. Luckily, he was fixated on the center four screens, and looked bored half to death.
He had also started to yawn, and when the yawn was over, his eyes had moved from the center screen to the left side of the wall. Another few seconds and he would land on Jamie stalking through the corridor, or at least, attempting to.
“I’m sorry!” I said, raising my voice several decibels above the rest of the room, startling all three men. I smiled and grabbed Stanley’s arm. “Sorry, I… got impatient. I hurried him over here and kept distracting him with questions and stuff. He would have probably called in if I’d let him think.”
The security guard Stanley had been talking to—Adam Davies, according to his ID—eyed me up and down. “What’s your name?”
“Isabella,” I said, “I work admin at Faction HQ.”
“You’re a little out of the way, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, we met at a bar. I was supposed to meet a friend but then I saw Stanley. We’re old friends.”
“We were at that party just a few months ago.” Turning to look at Adam he continued, “Remember? The one where we all got blind drunk and dared each other to throw stuff out of the side of the Space Needle?”
Adam tried to think. “We did that?” he asked.
“I was drunk as hell, man. You were too. Blitzed.”
“Yeah…” Adam smiled, “That was a good night. Alright, fine, whatever. Do you need me to turn the cameras off this time or not?”
This time? Cameras off? What a bunch of sleazebags! At the same time…
“Yes!” I said, perhaps a little too eagerly, “I mea
n, yeah, sure, give us some privacy…”
Stanley looked at me like he’d just won the jackpot. Here he was, working his usual tricks, hoping they would get him into my pants, and instead of putting up resistance I was playing right into what I knew he wanted. Naturally, he went along with it. I felt dirty saying what I’d said, I hadn’t wanted to give in to this chauvinistic bullshit, not even pretend to, but Jamie was still in full view of the camera, and I needed to stall until he made it to the end of the hall.
“Alright fine,” Adam said, “But I can only give you twenty minutes. Get in and get out.”
Stanley nodded. “I can work with that.”
“Ian.”
Nicky, the guard watching the monitors, turned to look at us, and Jamie—having glanced up and noticed the camera directly in his face once he’d reached the end of the hall—quickly ducked out of sight. Phew. My heart relaxed a little, but I could only hope he would be more careful later on. At least he was here, he had made it inside, and I wasn’t on my own. Backup wasn’t far.
I breathed deep. “So,” I said to Stanley, “We doing this, or what?”
“Of course,” he said, walking over to a door on the other side of the room, “This way.”
He opened the door and I went through, and I followed him in. What I wanted was in the next room, and as I walked along the hall and felt the vibrations continue to rise, like a steady crescendo, I knew I was getting close to something big, way bigger than me.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
My chest was starting to feel tight again, pressure building like a vice clamping down on both sides of my ribcage. It felt almost like I was trapped; a bird in a cage one minute, and a woman on the edge the next. But the edge of what? My vision started to swim, and I had to reach out for one of the walls to stop myself from going over. At least no one had seen that.
Finally, Stanley arrived at what looked like a vault-like door, with a keypad and a retinal scanner. Stanley keyed in the code, this time one I wasn’t in a position to identify, and then put himself in the path of the retinal scan. The panel flashed green, bathing his face with light, and then several hydraulic clamps disengaged from the door. When it opened, light flooded the room, brilliant and intense. I found it difficult to stare directly and had to shield my eyes.
Stanley turned around to look at me, smiled, and the light emanating from the room enveloped his face and reduced him to only his mouth, seeming to swallow him whole.
"Come on in," he said, but I almost couldn't hear what it was he was saying over the enormous, vibration.
I nodded and followed him into the room, where the light dimmed enough for me to be able to bring my senses to bear.
The room was almost exactly as I had seen on the four monitors, only the dimensions were way different to what the monitors had shown. For one, the dome in the center of the room was massive, easily five or six times larger than I had thought. Which meant the clamps holding it down were almost twice as large as me, and the thick cables snaking around the floor were as thick as my arms.
There was almost too much to see, too much going on. The monitors hadn’t done this place justice. For one, they didn’t quite capture the brightness in the room, which made me think maybe they were filtering out the light. It wasn’t too bright to see, but bright enough that staring at the dome directly became uncomfortable incredibly quickly. One thing, however, became certain the more I looked at that thing in the center of the room.
This was not a fusion reactor.
“What… is it?” I asked, slowly approaching.
“I don’t exactly know,” Stanley said, “None of us do. All I know is, this is part of the magic that keeps us safe from the outside.”
Vaguely I became aware that he had grabbed my hand and was pulling me across the room, helping me pick my way over the tangle of cables on the floor. I didn’t stop him. I was in a daze, drawn to the dome like a moth to a flame, or a rock to the floor. Its pull was inescapable. This thing, whatever it was, had grabbed my chest and was pulling me to it, and the closer I got, the closer I wanted to get.
“Wanna touch it?” Stanley asked, looking over his shoulder at me.
I didn’t look at him. Instead I kept my eyes on the brilliant dome, watching what looked like lights dance inside. They were stars, little stars, floating in a sea of white, not black, and they were the most beautiful things I had ever seen. My chest tightened further, throat began to close, and release, close, and release. My eyes stung, the onset of what felt like tears threatening.
Careful, tentative, hesitant, despite being pulled toward the dome, I approached, stretching my hand out, fingers pointed. I walked a step, then another, and another. One of the stars—no, they weren’t stars, they were orbs—pulsed brightly, adding its light to the show. Then another pulsed with it, and another, and another. Mouth slightly agape, I laughed. It was a playful display, random at first, I thought, but the closer I got, the more I thought, no, it wasn’t random. Those lights, those orbs, they weren’t dancing, they were talking.
Talking to each other.
Talking to me.
Pleading for me to hear them, even though I couldn’t.
I swallowed as I reached the outer shell, fingers twitching, then touched the glass. At least, I thought it was glass. The shell was cool, and transparent. Inside, it was as if the light wasn’t light at all, but gas—luminous gas. In it, orbs danced. Seven of them, pulsing, and twirling, and swirling in the mist-like light. I didn’t know it, but I was smiling now. Tears were trickling down my face. I had never been a religious person in my life, but in that instant, I understood what people meant when they spoke about looking into the face of God.
Only there wasn’t one God, there were seven; and they were here.
Stanley said something, but I couldn’t hear him. His voice was a muffled droning, a quiet vibration living beneath the powerful hum in the room, a hum so intense it made my entire body hum with it, as if every molecule inside of me were singing and dancing with the lights. I laughed again, smiling fondly, and this brought more tears streaming down my cheeks.
A cone of mist began to part in front of me, as if I had blown into it, and an orb came floating from within, floating toward me, toward my hand. Part of me wanted to pull away from the glass, no, don’t touch it, don’t let it touch you. But this was fear talking, fear trying to take hold of my body and bend it to its own desires. The light, however, was the opposite of fear; it was joy, it was safety, it was protection. I didn’t know how I understood this, I just did.
The light fell short of the edge of the dome, and for an instant I felt panic’s cold fingers pinch my throat shut. I turned my head briefly to look at Stanley. Why can’t it come forward? I wanted to ask. What’s wrong with it? But the words didn’t form, maybe because I knew he wouldn’t understand, knew he wouldn’t see what I was seeing. If he did, if he could, how could he be as calm as he was?
Didn’t he understand he was standing in the presence of Gods?
I looked at the light again and cocked my head to the side, sadness overtaking my expression and softening it. “What are you…” I whispered, my entire body trembling now.
Helpless I watched as my magic came forth, black patterns first tracing down my arm and stretching over my hand, cool, blue light following them. The orb on the other side of the glass then began to change and shift, and its light became blue as if to match mine. My vision began to swim again, and I felt my stomach flutter, as if I had been picked up and then quickly put back down. I looked over at Stanley, worried that something had happened, and saw that he wasn’t standing next to me anymore. In fact, there wasn’t anything around me at all—only the swirling, white mist.
I was inside the dome.
“Hello?” I asked, and the mist stole my voice, returning no echo.
I spun around on the spot, but my movements felt dreamlike, and lazy. I reached into the mist with my burning hand and watched the fire lick and shift, leaving trails of light to
mix with the mist
“Hello?” I asked again, harder this time, with more conviction.
The light mist moved around me, filling my hair, shaping itself to my body, and then it parted before me as it had done when I had touched the glass. An orb began to descend from within the light, and I felt myself take a single step back, away from it, years—decades—of self-preservation instincts kicking in.
The orb was huge, easily larger than I was. White at first, but its light shifted to match the color of my burning hand as it came closer to me. I saw the epicenter of the orb, the shining nucleus, and saw how it too left trails of sparkling blue and white as it came closer. The orb pulsed blue, filling the surrounding mist with its own light. It pulsed again, twice, and I felt a tug in the back of my mind, almost as if… as if this orb truly was speaking to me as I had thought.
I swallowed, but my throat was dry. “What are you?” I asked again.
I heard a voice, faint and far away, soft and low. I took a step toward it, but the orb backed away.
“Come closer,” I said, “I can’t hear you.”
A light manifested within the glowing orb, and then a tendril of flame the color of the fire wrapped around my hand began to extend. My breath hitched, and I stretched my hand out toward it as if to pet a panther, or a lion, fully aware of this thing’s enormous power and yet spurred on by an intense curiosity and fascination, but we were like magnets set to the same polarity—I couldn’t touch it, and it couldn’t touch me.
“What’s happening?” I asked.
I cannot touch you, the orb said, soft and quick, like the sigh of a gentle midsummer breeze.
“Try…”
I cannot.
I licked my lips. “What are you?”
I am the Precipice. I am the Tempest. I am betrayed.
“The… precipice? I don’t understand. Who betrayed you?”
You did. You betrayed us. You betrayed all of us. And now our light cannot touch you. It will not.
“But, I… I didn’t… I don’t even know what you are, or what this place is.”
Prison. This is a prison you built. A prison for us, and now you can no longer reach the Precipice. You can no longer reach us. We can no longer help you. We will not.
Cloak and Daggers Page 12