Matthew had never spoken to his sister, possibly not to anyone, with such emotion before, but Catrina’s heart was as cold as ice, and no amount of pain or tears on her brother’s part would melt it.
She tried to wrestle the rifle from his grasp as she replied, her voice monotone and emotionless in contrast to her brother’s. “You don’t want to know,” she said coldly.
Matthew released the weapon, allowing her to resume its reconstruction, though with half of the pieces scattered on the floor she began to find it difficult.
Matthew stood and turned away from her, opening and closing his hands into fists as he struggled to find words that might dissuade his sister from the course of action she was planning. It took him almost a full minute before he spoke again.
“For our father’s sake, Catrina,” he began, “didn’t you hear what Tom said last night. Going into the enemy camp; it's suicide. Getting yourself killed, it, well, it won’t…”
Matthew trailed off, not wishing to complete his sentence, but he understood when he started to say it that it needed to be said, for his own sake as well as his sister’s.
“Won’t what?” Catrina asked, finally looking up at him, the faintest sliver of emotion slowly beginning to break through into her voice.
“It won’t bring your family back, Catrina,” he yelled down at her. “Our family. Don’t you understand? I miss them too!” Matthew shouted the last words, grief giving way to tears as he struck the table with his fist. They had not discussed their loss, either with each other or with anyone else. These were the most words they had said to each other since their escape.
Catrina stood and moved around the table with an agility Matthew had never seen before, striking him over and over again as she shouted, “How dare you! How dare you use them against me! How dare you! How dare you!”
Matthew didn’t fight back or attempt to restrain her. Instead, he took each blow, realising that she was not hitting out at him individually, but hitting out at the world. By releasing the anger that she had been holding in, Matthew knew that she might at long last allow herself to grieve.
The shouting and commotion had attracted the attention of other people in the house, but a single look from Matthew told them all to stay back. The look of anguish on Arian’s face was almost more than he could bear, but as his sister’s anger gave way to tears, he pulled her close to him, sealing her fists between his chest and her own.
At first, she resisted, but he held her tight, squeezed her, whispering over and over into her ear that it would be all right, everything would be all right, everything. Slowly she stopped fighting him and started to hug him back, but the way she kept repeating “have to pay, have to pay” told Matthew that, for Catrina, grieving alone might not be enough.
Morning started early for the group. Catrina had locked herself in the second bedroom, her apparent silence occasionally giving way to loud sobs that stirred the hearts of everyone who could hear them.
Under Matthew’s direction, everyone else was set to work, gathering together food and water for their journey, as well as salvaging anything they could from the house that was worth taking with them. Carl informed them that Ben’s fever had broken, but he was still sleeping and unable to be roused.
Matthew had told himself that if Ben wasn’t awake by the morning, he would rethink his plan, consider resuming their course south towards home, but now he wasn’t sure. In fact, he wasn’t sure of anything anymore. His world had been turned upside down and he wasn’t sure where he fitted in, and as he sat there, in the kitchen, watching the sun rise, he felt the weight of that world resting firmly on his shoulders.
Fortunately, Ben made the decision for him. Not long after the first of the morning’s light shone its way through the window, Ben surprised them all for a second time and strolled into the kitchen without a word. He still looked worse than he had done on the previous morning, but compared to how he had looked during the night, there was some improvement.
“Ben, hey, what are you doing?” Matthew asked. “Come here, sit down.”
Matthew rose from his chair and caught Ben as he stumbled around the room and nearly fell over, helping him to a chair before returning to his own. People had already started to crowd the kitchen to hear what he had to say.
Ben moved his mouth and tongue, but dry as they were, no sound came from them. Matthew passed him the cup of water that he had been drinking from, but Ben didn’t seem to mind. He emptied it in one gulp and was ready to drink another as one was handed to him.
“Where are we?” he asked, pausing mid-sentence to drink. As Matthew watched his mouth move, he could almost hear the dried out lips cracking with each syllable.
“In the farmhouse,” Matthew reminded him. “The same place we were yesterday. You, the fever. It wasn’t safe to move you.”
“Yesterday?” Ben asked.
“Yes. You surprised us, just like now. Don’t you remember?” Matthew looked puzzled. Ben had appeared coherent the day before, but now he was acting as though both of them had dreamed it. The Droca weed had really messed him up and Ben was lucky he’d come out of it alive.
“I . . . I’m not sure,” Ben clarified. “Dreams. I don’t know, I can’t remember what’s real anymore.”
Matthew searched for the right thing to say as all of his plans appeared to be falling apart. If what Ben had said turned out to be a delusion, a hallucination brought about by the Droca weed, they’d wasted two days journey time towards their homeland.
Carl stepped to Ben’s side and felt his forehead. The fever had definitely broken, but Ben was still far from well.
“Ben, don’t you remember?” Matthew asked impatiently. “You told us that you had some things to tell us, things Alexander would have learned in the interrogation that could help us stop the war.”
Ben looked worried. His memories of the last few days were patchy at best, and he wasn’t entirely sure what he’d told them. The interrogation sounded familiar, and the ache in his jaw told him that it probably wasn’t another dream. He shook his head.
“Matthew, please,” Ben said, “you’re going too fast. Start from the beginning.”
Reluctantly, Matthew did. He told Ben about the imprisonment and Peter’s help with the escape, and how they had found him, drugged with Droca weed that would have made him tell his captors almost anything they asked. He told Ben about the war and the huge army only a short distance to the east, planning on marching south to attack Matthew's homeland because of outdated xenophobic attitudes that Alexander had played to the fullest. And finally, he told Ben about what he had said to them, only a day before, though for most of the people around the kitchen table, it seemed like a lifetime ago.
Ben continued to shake his head throughout the entire conversation, wishing that it were just a dream so that he could wake up.
“Then you’re right,” Ben said at last. “Or I’m right. It doesn’t matter. I need to tell you some things.”
Ben asked if everyone should leave the room, but Matthew shook his head. “No, Ben,” he told him. “What you have to say affects all of us.”
“Okay,” Ben agreed. “However you want to play it. I, when I first arrived here, I haven’t been entirely honest with you, Matthew. What I told you, about arriving here, the explosion at the lab and everything, well, it’s sort of true. It’s just that…”
Ben was lost for words, trying hard to remember which lie he had told them and which truth. He wanted to tell them everything that had happened to him, but there was still the voice at the back of his mind questioning his trust for his new friends. The way things were, though, their enemy, now his enemy, probably knew everything anyway, so he didn’t have much left to lose.
“I think I should start from the beginning,” he decided after a moment’s thought. “I, well, okay. What I told you, about the laboratory and the explosion, the accident, that’s all true, but. I don’t know. We were experimenting, with gravity, and that caused the explosion, brought me here somehow. I do
n't know how, but that's not the point.”
“Calm down, Ben,” Matthew interrupted. “You’re losing me already. The beginning, remember?”
Ben stopped and took another long drink from his glass of water. The memories were so jumbled in his own head he couldn’t see how he’d be able to talk to somebody else about them. Taking in a deep breath, he started again.
“Okay,” he continued, “here goes. A few weeks ago; it is only that long ago, isn’t it? It seems like forever. Anyway. A few weeks ago, I was driven to the laboratory as usual. We were doing experiments, a device, with gravity.”
“Which is?” Matthew butted in, already another puzzled look on his face.
“It’s the force which . . . it doesn’t matter,” Ben said, exasperated. “But what I’m trying to say is, when we tested the device, there was an attack, an explosion, and I ended up here, in your world.”
“That’s what you told me before, Ben,” Matthew blurted out. “We know all this. What does that have to do with Alexander, the war?” Matthew was becoming increasingly impatient as he spoke. The sensation he had had earlier, of the world crumbling all about him, was getting progressively worse.
“I know, just, listen,” Ben continued. “What I said to you, about the lab and everything, it's, well. The lab’s here too. That’s what I’m trying to say, Matthew. The lab, and as far as I know, everything that was inside it, is here, with me, in your world.”
“So how does that help us?” Carl asked, still bewildered by what Ben had told him. Like everyone else there, he had no idea what a gravity device was or how it could help them. The explosion might be a good idea, but from the way Ben described it, he had been attacked, nothing he'd planned, so even if there was a weapon of some kind, it’d more likely kill them than anyone else.
“I’m sorry, I’m not making myself clear,” Ben said. “Like I said, as far as I know, everything that was in the lab is still there. There are cars, supplies, even a small armoury. Matthew, there’s even two helicopters there if we need them. A journey that might take you a week, we could do in half a day, less even. With the cars, we could warn your people, warn, no, no NO!” Ben frantically fumbled at his belt, searching for something.
“What’s the matter, Ben? What’s going on?” Matthew asked. He was starting to think that maybe everything was going to work out.
“We, the lab. There’s no way in,” Ben stammered. “There’s still power going to it, and so the security system's up and running. Even if it wasn’t, that place is designed to withstand a nuclear assault. There’s no way we’d be able to break our way in.”
“So, how did you get in?” Matthew asked, the puzzled look returning to his face.
“I had a pager,” Ben told them. “Sort of an electronic key. I had it with me when you found me, remember? Without that, there’s no way into the lab, no way on earth.”
“Hey, don’t worry,” Carl said, happy to return some good news to the one who might turn out to save all their skins. “We got it covered. Hey, Joe, pass me that thing we found outside Ben’s cell, in the dungeon.”
Joe left the room for a moment and returned with the pager, handing it to Ben, who had his hand held out eagerly. Ben pressed the button on the top, activating the number display. There was still power going through it, so chances were it’d still open the door when they got there, but why was it there at all?
Found outside the cell? When Alexander interrogated him, surely he would have learned about the pager, what it was for, its importance. To leave it outside the cell, that didn’t make any sense to Ben. If Alexander really knew about the lab and what was inside it, why wasn’t he already on his way there, pager in hand, laughing all the way to the bank?
Ben was about to say as much when he caught Matthew’s eyes, and the expression of the face around them. The puzzled look was gone, and Matthew looked as though he was about to jump down Ben’s throat at any minute, as though trying to send out telepathic messages that Ben should shut up or he may be made to shut up.
Matthew knew how important the pager was to Ben, how he had been so reluctant to sell it, even to let it leave his side. Ben reasoned that the thoughts that had just ran through his head had already gone through Matthew's some time earlier, and now was definitely not the time to discuss it.
Ben nodded at Matthew, acknowledging that he understood, and turned the pager over in his hand one more time before clipping it to the belt on his trousers. If now was not the time to discuss it, he would make sure that there would be an opportunity later. Their lives could all depend on it.
“So,” Ben continued, trying to remember where he was, “any questions?”
“Yes,” Carl asked. “What’s a helicopter?”
Ben laughed. “It’s a machine,” he began. “A vehicle, like the Road Train if you like, but it flies through the air. Trust me.”
“Sure, right, flying machines.” Carl laughed before feeling Ben’s head for a second time. “You sure you got all that Droca weed out your system?”
Ben was feeling better by the minute as he set free the burden of the lies and deceit that he had woven since his arrival, trusting his new friends and, in turn, allowing them to trust him. The smile on his face and the laughter in his heart felt the most real since his arrival in his new home.
“Matthew, you, everybody here,” Ben said, gesturing to those seated around the table, “you’ve all been good to me since my arrival. I’ve only known you for a few weeks, and already you’ve saved my life more times than I’d ever want anyone to ever have to. I'd like to call you friends, and if I’ve got anything you can use to stop this war, it’s yours. And, if it still comes down to a fight, then I’m on your side.”
“I appreciate that, Ben,” Matthew told him. “Really, I think we all do.”
“So, when do we leave?” Ben asked.
“You think you’re up to it?” Carl pointed out.
“I, yes, I guess I’m as fit as I’m going be for a while,” Ben said. “As long as we take it easy for a bit.”
“Then we’ll leave as soon as we’re ready,” Matthew announced. “Ben, why don’t you take a walk with me, let everyone think over what you said and get everything together. Some fresh air might do you good.”
Ben collected a coat and a piece of chicken before following Matthew outside to the rain-soaked rear of the house. Stepping from the relative warmth of the room shocked him at first and it took Ben a few minutes to get used to it.
“Can you believe I was worried about water on our trip?” Matthew asked as they started towards the barn.
“It's raining cats and dogs,” Ben replied.
Matthew didn’t understand the expression, but Ben told him that it wasn’t important. “What do you want to talk to me about that we can’t say in front of everyone else, Matthew?” he asked.
“Trust, Ben, trust,” Matthew told him.
“What are you talking about?” Ben said, confusion showing plainly on his face. “What’s going on that you’re not telling me?”
Ben pulled up the collar of his coat as a sliver of water ran down the back of his neck, though he wasn’t sure if it was the weather or the conversation that sent a shiver down his spine.
“What do you remember about your time in the dungeons, Ben, really?” Matthew asked.
“I’m not sure,” Ben replied. “It all seems like a bad dream. I know Alexander was there, and someone else. They kept asking me questions, nonsense, about electricity, hitting me. I didn’t know what they were talking about.”
“Electricity?” Matthew said, surprised. “Like that machine you made? What did you call it, the dynamo, that Daniel liked so much?” His voice dropped and there was a tear in his eye as Matthew spoke of his lost nephew. Ben hadn’t been formally told what had happened to the rest of the group, but the fact that they were not with them told him everything.
“Yes,” Ben said, “I remember I didn’t know what he wanted and he kept hitting me and hitting me. What’s this al
l about, Matthew?”
“Electricity?” Matthew said again. “My grandfather used to tell me stories about it, about the energy that would make all the old technology work. Most people still think of them as just stories, but then you come along. You tell me your machine can make electricity and you make light without a flame.”
“You didn't seem too impressed at the time?” Ben asked.
“No, but I've seen tricks like that before,” Matthew told him. “Most of us have at one time or another, and that's all they are, tricks, ways of making some fool part with their Deniras.”
“Really, with all this technology all over the place, you really don’t have electricity, anywhere?” Ben asked.
“No,” Matthew continued. “Like I said, it’s just a myth, a legend. My father once said to me, 'most of the junk you find won’t ever do anything, but you don’t have to let your customers know that'. That’s what it’s all about, Ben, ending up with more Deniras in your pocket than you started with, and maybe making someone’s day. I thought you understood?”
“I do, sort of,” Ben acknowledged, “but it’s just that where I come from, electricity, well, it’s everywhere. We couldn’t live without it. It runs our lives in one way or another, and there’s nothing fantastical about it, not really. You’ve seen lightning.”
Matthew was looking sceptical. “Yes, of course, so?”
“Well, what do you think that is?” Ben asked.
“I don’t know,” Matthew replied. “I suppose I’ve never really thought about it.”
“It’s just electricity, natural electricity, in the environment,” Ben informed him.
“You harness lightning where you come from?” Matthew asked, amazed.
“No, not really,” Ben said, smiling. “We make electricity. Like the dynamo I showed you, only bigger, much, much bigger. Like I said back there, the reactor in the lab was still operational when I left. I’ll show you it when we get there. There’s probably enough power, well, to run this entire area if it had to.”
“My guess is that’s what you told Alexander too,” Matthew confided, “and that’s what he’s after. Power, the power to change the world. If what you’re telling me is true, Ben.”
Knightfall - Book 1 of The Chronicle of Benjamin Knight Page 20