by C Lee Tocci
“So you see, Lilibit.” The gentleness in Syxx’s voice terrified her more than his icy touch would have. “Your friends have decided to help us. They understand that what we’re doing is not bad; it’s for the greater good. We just want to take the resources that the Earth offers us and spread them around. Now is that so bad?”
Lilibit stared at the black screen, not focusing on her own reflection nor the reflection of Syxx who stood behind her. Instead she remembered that afternoon, driving around the compound, pulling cold liquid earth from the depths and pushing it towards the rusting oil derricks. The land here was an open festering sore and she could feel the Earth Stone’s pain and grief. To take what the Earth offered was good, but she knew that what these people were doing was not good. In their rush to take the gifts of the Stone, they pillaged the Earth Herself.
In her hand, Ewa-Kwan buzzed in agreement. This was not good.
Alone again, Lilibit paced the room. The day had been long and traumatic and she was exhausted, but she doubted that she would ever be able to sleep here. The light coming through the faux windows looked like soft moonlight, but it was false, just like everything else. Everything here was a lie. And now it appeared that Jeff was in league with the liars. The hurt of that betrayal was almost as bad as her fear. She tried the door a dozen times; like a rat in cage, she kept worrying at it, hoping against all logic that something might change.
The dolls in their pink dresses stared at her. They were foreign to her. She remembered practically nothing from when she was younger, so she didn’t understand dolls at all. They freaked her out. She turned them backwards so she couldn’t see their unblinking eyes, but the back of their heads, lined up in rows, were even creepier.
She was stuffing the dolls under the bed when the lights went out.
She froze. It was blacker than any darkness she could imagine. Not a crack of light from anywhere and not a sound except her own ragged breathing. Groping in her pocket, she pulled out Ewa-Kwan and with a stroke, made her glow.
Nothing had changed in the room. She went to the door and tried it again.
The door clicked open.
She held her breath and stood at the door listening, the blue light from Ewa-Kwan created a glowing wedge in the hallway.
“Lilibit?” an urgent whisper hissed from down the hall.
“Jeff?” Lilibit pushed the door open farther when she recognized the voice. Blue light flooded the hallway.
Like a bolt, Jeff ran towards her, grabbed her arm and started running back in the direction that he had come. The light from Ewa-Kwan wobbled as Lilibit was dragged behind him. He pushed through a door and they found themselves in a dark stairwell.
“Douse it!” hissed Jeff.
Lilibit didn’t hesitate and with a stroke of her finger, Ewa-Kwan dimmed and the stairwell went black.
“C’mon!” Jeff tugged again.
They felt their way down the stairs, cries and footsteps leaking from the floors they passed.
“What happened to the lights?” Lilibit asked.
“I dropped a time delayed worm program into their dedicated net.” Jeff whispered back. “It unlocked all the doors in the whole complex, then it killed all the power, along with both backup generators.”
Lilibit didn’t follow most of what Jeff was talking about, so she jumped to her biggest concern. “Are Todd and the others here?”
“Yeah,” Jeff whispered back, “They were being held on one of the middle floors. Their doors should have unlocked too. Hopefully, when we get out of here, we’ll meet up with them outside.”
They felt their way down the dark stairwell, their footsteps so quiet, the click of a door opening beneath sounded like an explosion. The muffled voices of angry men reached them before the glow of their flashlights. Jeff yanked Lilibit back up the stairs to the last landing that they’d past, pulled open a door and pushed her through.
It was as black on this side of the door as it was in the stairwell. Lilibit clamped her lips shut to keep her gasping breath from being heard, but her heart beat so loudly, it nearly drowned out the other sounds in the room.
Nearly, but not completely. Someone else was in the room,
Her arm jerked as Jeff’s grip was pulled away. She barely registered his muffled grunt before hands grabbed at her, dragging her in the other direction.
A splash of light as a flashlight snapped on, followed by a chorus of beams, lighting their corner of the room nearly as bright as the ceiling lamps would have. Jeff and Lilibit thrashed in the clutches of a pack of brawny, black-garbed men; their faces grim and uncaring.
The sight of Syxx, stepping into the wavering beams of light, stopped Lilibit’s struggles cold. She froze as the demon-man smirked down at them.
“Remove his ring,” Syxx commanded one of the thugs. “It is within the ring that his power lies.”
“NO!” Jeff screamed, tightly folding his fingers into a fist and coiling his body around it. Two men wrestled with him while a third tried to pry open his hand.
Lilibit heard the sound of bones breaking a moment before she heard Jeff’s screams. She tried to cry out herself, but a huge hand clasped over her face left her with barely the chance to breath, never mind yell. She could only watch as they dropped Jeff to the ground, his body curled around his broken hand.
One of the thugs held out the ring to Syxx, but Syxx edged away from it with a shudder.
“The ring, Syxx?” The Duke stepped in from the shadows. His hand extended, he took the ring from the henchman. “The boy’s power comes from this ring?”
Syxx nodded with a faint smirk as the Duke slid the ring on his smallest finger and extended his arm to admire his hand.
“Do what you will the others,” he said carelessly. “Spare the girl.”
He tapped Lilibit’s cheek with mock affection before taking a flashlight from a guard and exiting into the stairwell.
Jeff’s eyes were glazed with pain as one of the guards forced him to his feet. The thugs that held Lilibit let her go, but as soon as her feet touched the ground, a hand gripped her hard on the back of her neck and kept her from running to Jeff.
“Well, Lilibit.” Syxx stepped forward, and Lilibit unable to move, could only lean back into the guard holding her neck. “You have been disobedient and must be disciplined. I think I have conceived of a most appropriate punishment.”
A hum vibrating through the building preceded the electricity being restored. The overhead lights snapped on, revealing the penalty Syxx had planned.
Chapter Forty-Five
Choices
With the lights on, Lilibit could now see how large the room was. It looked like a laboratory. Mechanical panels covered the walls; lights flashed and whirred as they rebooted. Complicated chrome devices suspended from the ceiling and clustered around the two long tables that stood in the middle of the room. When her eyes fixed on those tables, Lilibit bit back a yelp of terror.
Strapped to the tables were Todd and Donny, a dozen bands holding them down and tape covering their mouths. Donny’s eyes were wide with panic, but, like a deer pinned by a bright light, he lay still and unmoving. Todd squirmed as he fought against the restraints, his eyes frantically trying to speak to her.
“So you see, Lilibit,” Syxx said smoothly. “Someone must be punished for your misbehavior. Since the Duke has asked that it not be you, we’ll just have to punish someone else instead.”
Syxx stepped over to one of the panels and flicked a switch. The buzzing grew louder and the tables began to rattle and glow, tiny arcs of electricity crackling up to sting Todd and Donny. They arched and twitched, their screams of pain muffled behind their gags.
“How unfortunate,” Syxx said sadly. “It will take four or five minutes for the current to build to a fatal level. What a painful way to die.”
Lilibit kicked at the guard holding her back, but he didn’t seem to feel her bare feet striking him.
“What a pity that they both have to die for your disobed
ience.” Syxx shook his head forlornly, but then brightened. “Perhaps I’ll offer you an alternative.”
Syxx motioned to a lever between the two tables. “This lever here is set to channel the current to both tables. If it is switched to the right, then all the current will flow to your friend Todd, killing him immediately. If you turn it to the left, then Donny dies.”
With a nod of his head, Syxx signaled for the guard to release her. She felt his hand leave her neck, but she stayed where she stood, unmoving, her eyes frozen on the lever. Syxx drifted over to whisper in her ear.
“If you do nothing, they both will die. The decision is yours.”
Lilibit tore her eyes away from her tortured friends and searched the room, stopping at the switch that Syxx had used to turn on the current. Syxx followed her line of sight and smiled.
“A brilliant idea!” Syxx hissed. “Unfortunately, that switch will only turn on the current. It can’t be turned off. It will only stop when it reaches maximum voltage and by that time, your friends will be dead. Perhaps not the most efficient arrangement, but effective for this use.”
Donny let out a pained grunt, barely muffled by his gag. Veins throbbed on their necks and sweat beaded on their pale faces. Lilibit took a step forwarded and then stopped. She couldn’t make that decision. To choose one would be to kill the other.
“Save the handsome boy!” Syxx whispered. “The other one’s defective. He should never have even been born. Killing him would be a mercy. Hurry! There’s still time to save one of your friends!”
Lilibit sobbed, her hands quaking in panic. She looked over at Jeff, who was still crouched, huddled over his broken hand. He kept his face averted from the guards, but when he glanced up at Lilibit, he shot her a speaking look, then he glanced over to the floor against the wall, about ten feet away behind her.
Lilibit looked quickly in that direction and then turned away immediately, but not before she had seen what Jeff was trying to show her: a weathered shaft of wood. It looked like Keotak-se’s staff, but what it was doing there wasn’t as important a question as how she could use it.
Donny gave a tortured squeal and Todd stared at her with blood red eyes as the arcs of electricity crackled louder and higher. Shaking, she took a step towards the table. With a satisfied smile, Syxx dropped back.
Lilibit stumbled. She fell to the floor and rolled to one side, clutching her leg. When she tried to stand, she stumbled once more. Each fall brought her closer to the staff. This time, as she pushed herself to her feet, she dove toward the wall. She rolled, the way she’d seen Todd and the others do when they practiced Quaybo and grabbed the staff as she sprang to her feet.
Syxx started for her, fury in his eyes, but it swiftly changed to fear as Lilibit struck the staff on the ground three times.
So many things happened so quickly that Lilibit couldn’t be sure what happened first. The quaybo trembled and blazed white, power throbbing up and down the staff. At the same moment, Syxx, with a snarl of rage, melted into a wisp of black smoke that sunk to the ground and traveled along the floor before escaping under the door. Lilibit fought to hold onto the shaft as the flare built up to nova explosion before blasting out in all directions. Rays of energy shot out, stabbing the guards that still stood, amazed, waiting for orders that would never come. They fell soundlessly to the ground.
The flare from the staff faded and Jeff leapt to his feet. Reaching Donny first, he ripped off his gag. The shock from the table sent Jeff reeling backwards and Donny, no longer gagged, let out a horrific scream.
Lilibit, not knowing what else to do, ran to Todd’s table. When she grabbed his arm, the current blasted her back. She rebounded and the second time, braced herself and only touched the gag. It tore off with a ripping sound. Todd gasped and spat but then, to Lilibit’s amazement, cried out “Kissy-face!”
A good sized raven is still a lot smaller than a thirteen year old boy, but the bands that had pinned him down were now tangled in his wings. The bird squawked and flapped as it tried to escape the stinging table. Lilibit, carefully avoiding flapping wings, snapping beak and powerful shocks, lifted the straps and the raven fluttered free. He fell to the floor and morphed back into Todd, stunned and wheezing.
The power was surging and Donny, too far in pain to focus, was losing consciousness. Jeff, fighting off the shocks, tugged fruitlessly at the bands with his one good hand. Lilibit raced to the lever, intending to switch it to the right, to flood Todd’s table with the current and direct it away from Donny’s. She grabbed the handle.
“NO, LILIBIT!” Jeff roared. “Syxx lied! Turn it the other way! He lied!”
Lilibit hesitated only a fraction of a second before slamming it to left. She kept her eyes on the tables, ready to pull it back to the right if they were wrong.
Like a puppet that had its strings cut, Donny collapsed back onto the table, unmoving. Lilibit cried out and was about to pull the lever back to the right when she was shoved hard on to the floor.
Jeff, his broken left hand still cradled against his chest, stood by the lever. “Don’t move the lever again,” Jeff said between pants. “It’s good where it is. Now give me a hand with Donny.”
Scrambling to her feet, Lilibit saw that the sparks were still rising from Todd’s table, even higher then before. There were no sparks coming from Donny’s table, yet Donny lay pale and still. Jeff went back to tugging at the straps. Lilibit walked slowly towards them, afraid of what she would see. Hesitantly, she reached out and touched Donny’s arm.
It was cold and still. It wouldn’t have matter which way she had turned the lever. She stood in shock and grief, unable to move.
The hum of the table throbbed to a pulsing level, then stopped abruptly, the crackling ebbed, the equipment shut down. Lilibit was aware of Todd, back in human form, pulling himself to his feet. He stumbled over to where Jeff still worked to free Donny.
“Out of the way.” Todd’s voice was raspy and patchy. He pulled out his knife sawed through the bands. When they were all cut, they rolled Donny off the table.
Todd’s fingers looked for a pulse and then started chafing his arms. “He’s not dead,” he told Lilibit. “C’mon. Give me a hand.”
Wanting to believe it, Lilibit crouched down besides Donny and started rubbing his legs. They were so cold, but then she noticed that Todd was shivering too. She touched his arm; it was nearly as cold as Donny’s. She turned back to warming Donny’s legs.
Jeff was searching the room, stepping over corpses as he checked out the panels.
“What are you looking for?” Todd asked, wheezing.
“Either blankets or an Internet terminal. We need both.”
Suddenly, Donny gave a convulsive twitch and started gasping. He curled up into a ball and started heaving as if he were trying to vomit but couldn’t. Lilibit patted his back helplessly.
“He’ll be okay.” Todd sounded confident, but Lilibit didn’t think he was quite as certain as he was trying to sound. She nodded anyway. “We need to find Marla and get out of here.”
“Marla’s here too?” Lilibit whispered guiltily. Even Marla was in danger because of her disobedience.
“Got it!” Jeff pulled a smartphone out of the pocket of one of the dead guards. “I’ve got an internet connection.”
Chapter Forty-Six
Death Toll
Leaving Lilibit with Donny, Todd grabbed Keotak-se’s staff and staggered over to where Jeff stood, the phone flickering in his hand. He leaned against the counter for support while images flashed by too fast for Todd’s eyes to follow.
“How can you do that?” Todd asked. “I thought they took Dave.”
“Nah, they just got the ring.”
“I always figured that Dave was in the ring.”
“He was.” Jeff grinned. “Lilibit warned me that gold doesn’t hold on to a stone as well as silver does and she was right. So when the gold lost its grip, I told Dave to hold on to the ring instead. And he did, right up until a few minutes
ago when I told him to let go. Dave fell on the floor and the guards never saw it. When they dropped me, I scooped him up.”
Gingerly, Jeff opened his left hand. The fingers were twisted at a painful angle, but he didn’t seem to care. The tiny stone lay on his palm. He smiled softly at it before moving his thumb to cover it. With Dave pressed safely against his skin, he turned back to the monitor.
“We’re on level five right now,” said Jeff . “Marla’s still in the holding cell on four.”
“Who’s left in the building besides Marla?”
“Lilibit took out all the inside security guards.” Jeff wasn’t staring at the phone, but instead, seemed to be focusing on images that floated in the air. “All that’s left is the Duke, my Dad and someone they all refer to as the ‘Director of Security.’”
“And Syxx.”
Surprised, Jeff looked around the lab as if he had just noticed that Syxx wasn’t among the scattered corpses. “How’d he get out?”
“He turned into a black mist just before Lilibit let loose. He got out under the door.” Todd bit back a shiver. “Freaky.”
“Yeah,” Jeff agreed. “Freaky.”
The screen flashed again.
“I’ve unlocked all the holding cells as well as all the exit doors again.” Jeff was all business again. “I’m trying to put in a smoke screen so they can’t tell that they’re unlocked, but if they catch on, they can probably find my worm programs and purge them, but I can use this smartphone to watch what they’re doing.”
They turned to see Lilibit trying to lead Donny over to where they stood. Todd shot over to them and pushed Lilibit out of the way, putting his shoulder under Donny’s arm for support. Donny was still pasty white and shaking, but he didn’t seem as confused as Todd thought he might have been. Donny actually managed a smile.
“Let’s find Marla and get out of here.” Todd called over to Jeff.