by Platt, Sean
He nodded. “I already told you,” he said. “Going with Boricio is what we’re supposed to do. If you don’t believe me, you can do whatever you want. I’ll understand. But my answer isn’t going to change.” His voice was ancient, almost stoic. If you’d just met him, you’d never suspect an eight year old was speaking. Mary said nothing, as Luca continued. “I saw Boricio as a boy. Before he was like this — before his stepfather broke him.”
He turned to her with swollen eyes. Mary couldn’t tell if they were sad or tired. “But I fixed him, Mary. I promise.”
“Life doesn’t work like that, Luca,” Mary shook her head. “I understand how you can think you fixed Boricio, but trust me, you didn’t. People can’t be fixed that easily. Believe me, Luca. I’ve wasted a lot of my years, too many actually, trying to fix broken men. But unless a man wants to be fixed, Luca, there’s nothing you can do to change him. And trying is useless.”
Mary caught Paola from the corner of her eye, listening in and pretending that she didn’t know her mother was talking about her father.
“But that’s just it, Mary,” Luca said.
“What?”
“He did want to be fixed. And I fixed him.” Luca used the hand that wasn’t holding his cane to point at his head. “From the inside.”
Paola said, “Yeah, Mom, Boricio’s super creepy. No doubt. But we’re better off with than without him. At least for now. I agree with Luca on that. Besides, I have to learn to defend myself.” She paused, then said, “And you.”
Mary looked surprised. Paola went on. “You’re gonna be like major pregnant soon, Mom. Who’s gonna defend you then?” Paola’s bottom lip started to tremble. She tried to say something else, but her voice cracked and she seemed as though she could barely swallow. Finally, she shook her head and said, “I can’t stand the thought of not being able to protect you and the baby, Mom. And I shouldn’t have to think about it. There are plenty of guns; why can’t I learn to use them?”
“Because you’re a kid. Kids aren’t supposed to be learning how to use guns and defend their mothers. They’re supposed to be going to school, having crushes on boys, and fighting with their moms — like it used to be,” Mary went from Luca to Paola and pulled her daughter into an embrace.
“That world is gone, Mom. You’re being naive. I need to learn, and Boricio said he would teach me to shoot.”
“I can teach you to shoot,” Mary said
The screen door slammed and Mary could hear Boricio heading back toward them.
“Well, that was fast,” Mary said.
Boricio laughed. “I’ve read that issue of Entertainment Weekly by the crapper 15,000 goddamned times, and I didn’t give a nugget of fuck about Breaking Bad or The Vampire Diaries or any of that other crap that got cancelled forever. Besides,” he smiled. “I’m what you might call a prolific shitter. One of the benefits to being full of shit, I guess.”
Mary hated herself for laughing, but she couldn’t help the small giggle that suddenly escaped from her mouth. Fortunately, surrendering to humor seemed to make everything better.
Boricio sidled up to her side and said, “Look, I’m sorry if I was stepping on those purty little digits of yours, Miss Mary, but I swear on my fat sack and all the creamy fun inside it, I was just trying to help your little lamb. You and Luca too.”
“You’re a pig, you know that?” Mary said.
Boricio grinned. “You’ve been living high on the hog, sister, but now it’s time to get down with the sows. When the apocalypse comes, you gotta be able to get in the mud.”
Mary held her hands in the air. “What does that even mean?”
“It means you’re lucky as fuck that you’ve managed to find yourself on Team Boricio.”
“Lucky?” Mary snorted. “Team Boricio had exactly one player when your last three players were drafted.”
Boricio cackled, probably appreciating a woman with balls. “Yeah, but when you’re the Michael Fucking Jordan of murder, it ain’t like you need a full roster.”
“And you’re right,” Mary said. “Paola should learn to shoot. But there’s no need to impose target practice on you, especially since you clearly have issues maintaining your patience. So thank you very much for the offer, but I’d rather be the one to teach my daughter to shoot.”
Boricio laughed, then kept on laughing for a long minute, sucking for air as his eyes went red, slowly making Mary madder. Finally he said, “You’re gonna teach her?”
“You think I can’t shoot?”
Boricio answered with another round of laughter.
Mary marched up to Paola, gently pulled the gun from her hand, then aimed at the bottles and fired six shots, evenly spaced, missing the glass every time.
Boricio’s laughter roared louder than the gunshots as Mary handed the gun back to her daughter.
Suddenly, the wood beneath the shelf shrieked, then splintered and cracked before collapsing to the ground and spilling shattering glass to the ground.
Boricio stopped laughing, and a new breed of smile settled on his face. “Well, tickle my pickle, Miss Mary, that is some sharp as shit shooting.”
Mary said, “Desmond taught me well.”
Boricio said, “Well, well, it looks like old Desmond Do-Right got two things right then.” He winked and smiled at Mary.
She wanted to throw up in her mouth for thinking it was almost charming.
* * * *
Chapter 5 — Teagan McLachlan
Teagan didn’t want to go back underground.
She had been beneath the earth since October, until a week ago when Ed finally decided it was safe for them to live above ground. She wasn’t sure why it hadn’t been safe before, and for all that time, but suspected it had something to do with the other Ed, who was now working with the Guardsmen on a secret mission.
Teagan had lived her entire life sheltered beneath her ultra-conservative parents, dreaming of escape from the trailer park. Then she’d spent the past five months so far underground that she thought she might never see sunlight again. For the first time in forever, Teagan finally felt like an adult. She had a relationship, a child, and most importantly, freedom. And for one glorious week, life felt amazing.
Ed rushed her outside into the cold night air and then into the waiting truck, where Sullivan was waiting in the driver’s seat. She took one last look back at the garden she’d been watering regularly for exactly one week, and the neat row of plants she nurtured to health beneath the warm sun, and felt it — along with her newfound life — slipping through her fingers.
Her dirt road street, shared by 11 other homes, was lined with black carts and bobbing lights as Guardsmen with face masks, flashlights, and weapons scrambled from house to house making sure everyone had pulled their shutters down and barred their doors.
The sirens’ wail was louder outside, turning Becca’s cry into a terrified pitch.
“We’ve got it, Sir,” one of the Guardsmen said to Ed from behind a speaker’s crackle as they passed on their way to the truck.
Teagan climbed into the back seat with Becca, then quickly shut the door to muffle the siren and calm her baby. She rocked Becca in her arms, whispering in her ear, “It’s okay, baby. Mommy’s got you. It’s okay.”
“What’s the status?” Ed asked, climbing into the front seat and slamming the door as Sullivan tore away from their house.
Teagan looked back to see Guardsmen pulling thick black metal shutters down over their windows and doors, sealing the house from God only knew what.
“Subjects 7XY and 17Xz were missing from their cells when the guards checked on the hour. Video screens for both cells went black for a one minute period about 10 minutes prior, at the same exact time. They were in their cells one minute. But after the screens went black, they were gone. There’s no registered activity on the security logs or door logins, until they appeared outside the compound about five minutes after they were reported missing. They were last detected on the north side, but could be
anywhere by now.”
“How the hell did this happen?”
“We think Dr. Williams has something to do with it. He’s not answering his communicator, and people said he was acting weird all day.”
“Has anyone told Will Bishop?”
“That’s the other thing,” Sullivan said. “We can’t find him. No one has seen him all day or night. Not that that’s unusual, given the circumstances, but when I phoned him to report what happened, there wasn’t any answer. I went to his house and he was gone.”
“And surveillance?”
“You know he disabled his surveillance a while ago.”
“Oh yeah,” Ed said.
Teagan wanted to lean forward and ask what was happening, but figured it would be better to keep quiet, concentrate on making sure Becca stayed in her silence as she tried piecing the puzzle together from the relative safety of the back seat. Plus, Ed seemed visibly shaken by what Sullivan was saying. Asking him questions he probably wasn’t prepared to answer was sure to only make things worse.
They passed another road where a second row of houses was being shuttered. From what Teagan could tell, nobody else was being brought to the Facility, which meant the others were expected to ride out the mystery threat from inside their shuttered houses.
“Where’s the sphere?” Ed said.
Sullivan reached into the glove compartment, keeping one hand on the wheel as he navigated the quiet dark dirt road, and retrieved a dark glass orb, about half the size of a tennis ball. The sphere glowed with a red luminescence as it passed from one man’s hand to the next, sending an unexplainable shiver down Teagan’s spine.
“What’s that?” she asked as Ed slipped the sphere inside his jacket pocket, as if to shield it from her view immediately.
“Nothing to worry about,” he said, then turned to Sullivan. “I want you to bring them to my room, and station two guards outside until I return. Make sure you’re underground in case I have to use this.”
“OK,” Sullivan said.
“Use what?” Teagan asked again, not liking the finality in Ed’s ‘in case I have to use this’, as though it were the sort of last resort that meant he wouldn’t be coming home.
Teagan met Ed’s eyes, and was about to insist he tell her what the sphere was, but something in his stare begged her not to ask — she wouldn’t like the answer, and he didn’t want to lie.
Ed said to Sullivan, “I’m going to go find Will.”
“What about the doc? What do we do?”
“Shoot him on sight.”
They pulled up to the Facility’s hangar and stopped the truck just past two Guardsmen. Sullivan got out first, then opened Teagan’s door. She climbed from the truck with Becca, who had stopped crying on the ride.
Ed kissed Becca on the head and Teagan on the mouth.
“Don’t worry,” he promised, “everything will be fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” Ed nodded, giving them each one more kiss. “I love you both.”
He climbed back inside the truck, then left Teagan standing beside Sullivan in the hangar’s interior. She couldn’t move as tears began to flood her eyes.
“What’s wrong?” Sullivan asked, leading Teagan toward the doors and into the Facility.
“He’s never told me he loved me before,” she said.
Teagan couldn’t finish the second half of her thought — the part that was tearing through her heart.
He’s never coming back.
* * * *
CHAPTER 6 — Boricio Bishop Part 2
Black Island Research Facility
Black Island, New York
Other Earth
August 22
TWO MONTHS BEFORE THE EVENT…
Boricio sat at Rose’s bedside, hating the guard standing on the other side of the door. Not that it was the guard’s fault for being there; he wasn’t the one who had restricted Boricio’s access to Level Seven. But still, it was a special sort of bullshit that Boricio was only allowed to hear the breath that kept his heart beating with an armed guard on the other side of the door.
Boricio stared at Rose sleeping, her chest rising and falling like a flatline with rhythm. He pulled her hands into his and squeezed, biting his bottom lip hard to keep from crying.
Boricio remembered the time they’d spent an entire rainy Saturday afternoon cozied up on a comfy sofa in a trendy bookstore a month after they started dating.
Rose’s friend Annabel had warned her against spending too much time with Boricio, who Annabel had not yet met. “That man clearly has an agenda,” she said.
Boricio laughed. “Of course I have an agenda!” he had said. “What sort of fool flies through the forest without a map? That’s called wandering, Rose. And I don’t like to wander. You can’t get to your best life when you spend your time wandering. Know what you want, then know what you’re willing to give up to get it. That’s the recipe for the best possible life. That’s my recipe, and an agenda worth having.”
Rose smiled, then laughed and said, “I love your agenda, Boricio.”
She always smacked her lips when she said his name, like she was tasting it for the first time. After a long second, screaming its silence in his memory’s eternity, Rose added, “And I love you.” It was the first time she had said it, and Boricio didn’t waste a second before he said it right back.
“I love you, too, Rose.”
She said, “You’ve never said that before, have you?”
Boricio wasn’t sure how she knew, she just did. Like she always seemed to know stuff about him that he’d not yet given breath.
“Not to a girl.” Boricio shook his head. “Just to Will and Luca, and only when they say it first.”
She rose from the chair beside him, set the copy of Twilight she was using to “see what the big deal was all about” on the small table in front of them, then sat on Boricio’s lap. “Let’s stay here the rest of the night,” she said.
“Okay, Rose.” He leaned into the back of the couch, then pulled her to his chest and lightly stroked her hair. The rest of the night ended up being nearly 20 minutes. Another twenty minutes after that and the pair of them were spending the remainder of their day in bed.
Boricio blinked his eyes at Rose, now a shadow of her former self; the tender memory fueling his anger, both at life and at Will. He had to speak with Dr. Williams. Williams would see reason, and that reason would lay the first bricks for the road to Rose’s eventual full recovery.
But how in the hell was Boricio going to get to Williams?
He considered stealing an access badge to come back later, but that was stupid. Boricio had a working badge before he threw it on Will’s desk, but that didn’t change the palm problem. It wasn’t like Boricio could cut off someone’s hand.
He could make up an emergency, perhaps trick Will into getting him onto the floor. Even if that managed to work, it would only show Will the cards he intended to play.
Boricio got an idea that turned his face into a sudden, wide smile. He stood from his chair, kissed Rose on the cheek, then went into the bathroom and hoisted himself onto the toilet, pulling keys from his pocket and unscrewing the four tiny screws in the corners of the air vent.
Boricio removed the grate, set it down gently on the floor, and then hoisted himself up and began crawling through the metal network of air ducts on his way to Dr. Williams’ office, four doors down from the bathroom.
When Boricio reached the vent in Williams’ office, he pulled back his arm and thrust the flat of his hand flush against the grate, popping it from the wall and launching it onto Williams’ office floor.
The doctor leapt from his desk, clearly startled as he stood staring at the wall and Boricio climbing from nowhere. He reached for the phone. Boricio said, “Wait, Doc! Just one second, please. Hear me out before your fingers finish the dialies.” He dropped to the carpet. “I know of a way we can change the future together.”
A bit dramatic perhaps, but
it got the good doc’s hands to hover somewhere other than above the receiver.
“What do you want, Boricio?” Dr. Williams said. “You’re not supposed to be here. The fact that you are, and that you came in through the vent,” he pointed up at the wall, then down at the busted grate, “is making me uncomfortable.”
“Well, Doc,” Boricio said, “I’m only not supposed to be here because Will’s served up a special sort of bullshit for the both of us. I’ve done nothing wrong. And the only reason he doesn’t want me on Level Seven is because he doesn’t want me talking to you. So this right here,” he pointed at the grate on the ground, “is as bad as it’s gonna get.”
“Make it quick.”
Boricio said, “Thanks, Doctor Williams, I will. And I appreciate it.” He walked from the wall to the doctor’s desk, but didn’t sit. He stood, looking Williams right in the eyes instead. “I think we should use the vials on Rose.”
“That’s what I thought you were going to say.” The doctor shook his head. “But that’s not possible, Boricio. I simply cannot agree to do that.”
“Of course you can!” Boricio cried. “You’re the only one who can. He’ll listen to you. It’s me Will has a problem with. He trusts you, Dr. Williams, and your judgment. Will won’t listen to me, because he thinks I’m blinded by my allegiance to Rose, which maybe I am, but that doesn’t change the facts, or why you should care. The vials work, Doc. And they’ll work on Rose like they worked on Luca. All we have to do is try.”
Williams was looking everywhere but at Boricio. When he finally looked at him, he said, “I won’t go over Will’s head.”
“I’m not asking you to,” Boricio said, growing impatient. “I’m only asking that you ask Will. If we pitch from your lips instead of mine, we might get the ball over the fence.”