Chameleon Moon

by RoAnna Sylver

  “Where’s Liam?” Zilch’s snapped growl made them all stop. Almost immediately, Zilch looked like they regretted the minor outburst, but not because of Hans. It had taken a while for Zilch to calm Finn down after Hans’s dramatic entrance, and he was still shaking like a leaf. Finn hadn’t said a word since coming downstairs; he sat perfectly still next to Zilch, eyes flicking after Hans around the room, fists resting on his knees.

  “I don’t know,” Hans sounded like he was sulking, and didn’t appear at all as he spoke. “It’s kind of weird. Usually I can see everyone no matter where they are, but… eh, guess Liam’s hiding somewhere, I don’t really care what he does.”

  Apparently Rose did. Evelyn caught the telltale faraway look in her eyes as she slipped back into her thoughtful analytical reverie—but then looked up again with a subtle half-shake of her head. Evelyn picked up on the cue and kept her mouth shut.

  “I knew it couldn’t just be a coincidence that we all ended up back together,” Danae said, fist pounding her hand in a small, fierce burst of triumph. “I knew something bigger was going on!”

  “You were right,” Rose said, shaking her head and sounding halfway between amused and exhausted. “All this time I thought it was fate, or destiny. Losing Hans all those years ago, ending up here and finding him here of all places—wondering if it’s our Hans, finding out yes, it is! And then…” she did manage to focus on his ghostly projection for a moment, and he looked back at her briefly before winking out of her field of vision again. “It seemed like a miracle—but it’s not. He wanted us here.”

  “And I’m so glad you all came!” Hans laughed and it only sounded halfway nervous. “I’m sorry for not just coming right out and saying hello to everyone but… I mean, even I know all this can be a little much!” He gestured down to all of himself; he still looked like he might have stepped right out of high school, but he’d at least tried to tone down some of the edge. No rips in the jeans, tucked in shirt, he even appeared to have cut and tamed his ghostly hair. “Didn’t want to cause any heart attacks.”

  “You wanted to keep control,” Zilch cut in. They didn’t even attempt to follow Hans’s wild zigzags, fixing a point on the opposite wall with a deadly glare from beneath their dark hood. “So you stayed hidden. For a while.”

  “Well, yeah, can’t have a party without inviting the guests!”

  “It was my decision to take us here,” Evelyn maintained. “We did exercise some free will in this at least.”

  “I didn’t.” Zilch said quietly. “Neither did Chi… Regan.”

  “That’s right,” Evelyn’s eyes flashed over to Hans. “What did you do to him?”

  “Nothing! I didn’t do a—”

  “He’s terrified of you. Now it turns out you’re at the center of everything that’s been going on, and you expect me to believe there’s no reason for that?”

  “I wouldn’t hurt a single scale on his little green head!” Hans insisted. “But just out of curiosity, what did he say?”

  “You nearly killed him,” Zilch snapped. “Many times. In many ways.”

  “I admit, there were aspects that could have gone a little smoother,” Hans’s mental voice sounded strained, like it was taking a great deal of effort to maintain composure. “But all in all, my intentions were good, and I still think we can salvage this… venture.”

  “Salvage it by telling them the truth.” Zilch’s voice was the sharpest any of them had ever heard, and even Hans gave a mild start.

  “What are they talking about, Hans?” Rose asked, and he focused immediately on her much gentler tone and face.

  “I… may have… enlisted their and Regan’s help in… certain… endeavors.”

  “Great. Endeavors.” Danae looked up at Hans with a lot less warmth than Rose, and a lot more suspicion. “Want to talk about them?”

  Apparently Hans did not, because he disappeared entirely.

  “Regan’s disappeared, Hans,” Evelyn raised her voice and stepped into the center of the room, turning in a slow circle and scanning the walls and ceiling as she spoke. “I don’t know whether to call it kidnapped, or run away, but he’s gone, and I’d bet every last drop of water in my bottom barrel that you know where he went.”

  “Why would you think I know anything about that?” He evaded, both verbally and visually, appearing only to blink away again in dizzying flashes. Evelyn tried to follow Hans’s frenetic movements for around three seconds, but glancing all around the room made her head spin, and she had to close her eyes to stay centered.

  “Because you do,” Zilch rasped. “Everything comes back to you. My heart. His head. Everything.”

  “I—listen, I had everything under control!” Hans snapped. Finally, he’d stopped his panicked struggling, and floated in one singular point.

  “Maybe you did at one point, but it got a little out of hand, didn’t it?” Evelyn tried to keep the accusatory note from entering her tone, but maybe the sharp note wasn’t such a bad thing after all. It did seem to get Hans’s attention at least; he turned away from where he was glaring at Zilch to look at her with a much different, almost pleading expression.

  “Yes, Ma’am.” He pulled his knees up to his chest, floating in the fetal position.

  “And now, if we’re going to go down there and get Regan back—and believe me, we are going to get him back—we need to go into it with our eyes wide open. Tell us everything.”

  Hans’s mental presence wavered, like a TV channel breaking up with static. “There’s too much to tell. There’s no time. I can’t, not all of you—”

  “It's over, Hans,” Zilch intoned. “No more secrets. No more lies. Tell them.”

  “I’m—I’m still in control here! I still have your heart!” Hans’s voice got tighter, higher. “I can just throw it right in the fire, is that what you want?”

  “Better than obeying you for one more day.”

  The long, silent expectation was like the pause before an infamous gambler finally laid down the losing hand the entire audience knew he held. He’d played a long game and might have even done well—if he hadn’t turned out to marking his cards, stacking the deck and pulling every dirty trick in the book. After this long, after this many years of uneven odds, and all the burned bridges and cities, there was nobody left who wanted to see him win.

  “The one who… took him…” Hans spoke slowly, as if every syllable were carefully measured—and difficult. “His name is Gabriel.”

  “I know that name,” Evelyn tried to hide her victory celebration as she tried to place the name, but couldn’t help one flash of a grin. “Regan said he was having dreams about him.”

  “That’s right. Gabriel is… was… is…” Hans trailed off, pulling his legs up to sit cross-legged in the air, and rested his chin in his hand, looking deep in thought but suddenly exhausted. At last, he sighed, hunching over and letting his long hair flop forward over his face. It looked like it had returned to its normal length, and the knees of his jeans were shredded again. He didn’t look up when he spoke, or after. “I’m gonna make this a lot easier.”

  In every mind’s eye, Hans reached out slowly, like it took the last bit of energy he had, and touched his fingertip to the center of their foreheads.

  ❈

  Evelyn sees everything in a heartbeat. They all do—and they see through Regan’s eyes.

  A city rises beside the river, black skyscrapers jutting toward a blue sky. Regan takes a breath, feels a surge of hope, his heart swells—there’s a light on the horizon, bathing him in golden warmth. A chrysalis, a butterfly’s shroud opening, spilling healing out over a wounded multitude. People scream for the healing, beg for it. Chrysedrine’s golden light washes over Parole and everything changes.

  Blinding pain. Now the screams are of agony, not desperation. People die in writhing horror. People lose their senses, they kill each other with guns and bombs and things out of nightmares. People shoot fire at one another, they fall apart and are pieced back together w
rong, they twist and change, the city is filled with monsters.

  His wrists are wrenched behind his back and clamped in cold, sharp handcuffs. Panic. The lizard in him screams. Men in black masks rise up around him, staring down at him with soulless Eyes in the Sky. And oh, there it is, the white-hot light above him, a black helicopter’s searchlight, like Evelyn’s spotlight, freezing him to the bone. It’s got him, they’ve got him. There’s a chain around his neck. Shackles at his wrists.

  Then he’s not alone. Even in handcuffs, he relaxes because there’s someone beside him, and when he speaks his voice is tentative, but doesn’t shake. “They said it’s Chimera. Some kind of—I don’t know, a monster? Sounds Greek.”

  “That’s right.” The voice that answers is guttural, throaty, almost a death rattle. It scares him at first; soon it doesn’t. “Not a monster. Constructed creature, made of different parts. Three heads. Breathes fire.”

  “Fire… and constructed.” He looks down at his new scales. They shine, almost iridescent. He can’t stop touching them. He feels eyes on him wherever he goes, piercing human eyes, and endless cameras, cold, plastic inhuman stares. “Two out of three. Ha, like heads… what are they?”

  “Lion. Goat. And dragon.”

  “Oh, that’s hilarious.”

  “They did it to me too. My designation is… Zero.” His new friend holds up a cold, dead hand with a stitch running across the palm. Regan thinks about horror movies, zombie apocalypses and Halloween, and doesn’t smile. “As in ‘Patient.’ Someone thought they were funny. They weren’t.”

  “Nothing funny about calling you something they don’t want to be called. Nothing. No way. Zilch.”

  They fix him with a one-eyed stare. It’s still hard to read some of their expressions, either from the facial reconstruction or their… shyness, really, and he can’t blame them. But Regan thinks they’re smiling. “That’s better.”

  There’s a sweet taste on Regan’s tongue.

  Regan smiles, lets out a long sigh—then he gasps. There’s a collar around his neck, a chain, and now he chokes and gags.

  The cold iron constricts around his neck, cutting into his soft flaps of fragile skin. It’s hard and too tight and almost draws blood, but when he opens his mouth or tries to escape it just gets tighter, he can’t see. He sucks in a choking breath and the air isn’t hot or smoky; instead it’s frigid and smells like antiseptic cleaner. He’s freezing. He can’t remember being cold in Parole aside from the quick shivers when he disappears, but this cold is forever, and it sinks into his bones. He escapes the paralyzing spotlight but fluorescent lightbulbs shine in his eyes. It’s too bright. This place is made of sharp angles and hard floors and high-pitched, whining lights, and cold, cold air. Everything hurts.

  He looks down again. Regan looks down, and his hands are not green. They’re red with bright, warm blood.

  A building. The Turret House? No; cubelike, industrial, stark, sterilized. The imposing intimidation he feels when he looks up at it reminds him of it. Inside, cages. Four children behind bars. It’s not dark anymore, the place is flooded in white light—but it’s cold, antiseptic, like the terrible light of Finn’ prison cell.

  “Aren’t they amazing?” someone says beside Regan. He looks up, into the thin face of a younger Liam Turret. But he isn’t talking to Regan. He isn’t even looking at him. Beyond him stands Garrett Cole, staring straight ahead in silence, eyes narrowed, calculating. The brilliant scientist’s hands are behind his back, and clenched into shaking fists.

  “They’re the future,” Liam says in a soft whisper, his eyes wide with wonder as Garrett Cole begins to shake his head, slowly at first, then faster. “They’re going to save us all. Look at them.”

  Regan steps toward the cages and looks inside.

  The first is a wiry girl with wild red hair and a huge grin, dancing in a whirlwind of little metal birds and butterflies. Her metallic creations protect her, she wears living armor that embraces her, holds her safe and warm.

  “Look what I made!” She giggles. “They love me!”

  Beside the laughing, dancing girl, another one smiles from behind the bars. A girl with dark skin and long, free-falling black curls raises her arms and spreads her fingers as thousands of tiny vines twine around her limbs—her metal legs are smaller and nowhere near as advanced as they will be—flowers blossoming at her fingertips. Then the thorns sprout through her skin, and she gasps in pain. Blood leaks out along with the spines, but she’s still standing.

  “It hurts… but I feel better than I did,” she says. “And I’ll keep getting better. I’ll learn how to make everything better.”

  The next boy wears tight jeans and expensive sneakers. Aside from his hair—still feathered, dyed bright blonde with brown roots, not flowing white—Hans looks the same as in Regan’s head, the way he’s looked for ten years. He does something nobody else has done: yet looks directly at Regan and shoots him a grin, like he knows much more than he should. He turns his wave into some jazz hands and spins on his heel, so easily it’s almost like he’s walking on air.

  “They can’t hurt me now,” he says, but his smiling mouth doesn’t move. “I’ll never be helpless again.” But as Regan watches, the boy’s eyes close, and he starts to disappear, just like Regan’s ability but much more gradually. Almost painfully slowly, like an inevitable fading instead of anything quick and painless. Hans’s desperate cries ring through Regan’s memory long after he’s gone. “Don’t forget me! Don’t let me die!”

  The last child huddles in his cell, curled into a shaking, frightened ball. With his light brown skin and head full of dark curls, he reminds Regan of Jack, how he might look in five years. He rocks back and forth, hands over his ears, mouth open in a scream, tears running down his face.

  “Make it stop hurting!” He sobs, looking helplessly up at Regan through the bars. “They’re so scared, everyone’s so sad, they’re feeling too loud, it hurts! Make it stop!”

  Regan steps closer to the bars, heart pounding. “Gabriel.”

  “Chimera…” He looks up now, just like Hans did. As soon as he sees Regan, hope enters the boy’s his red, puffy eyes. He scrambles to his feet and reaches through the bars. Regan moves closer and takes the small hands in his, and a smile shines through Gabriel’s tears.

  Then Regan gasps and lets go as sudden searing pain shoots through his hands. He looks down and his palms and fingers are covered in angry, shining burns. He looks up, and Gabriel is on fire. He’s not in pain, he doesn’t scream as the flames envelop him; he just stares mournfully out at Regan, reaching through the bars.

  “Please,” he begs quietly. “Make it stop.”

  Suddenly, millions of voices, screams like a tidal wave crash over Regan’s head; he drowns in an onslaught of noise and panic. He can’t breathe and he knows it’s all of Parole, all of its people and their pain pressing down on him, all of their fear and despair, and he knows it’s not his pain, it belongs to the boy in the cell, it’s what’s killing him.

  “Stop sticking needles in him! Stop drugging him! Don’t you get it?” Danae appears beside Gabriel, looking up at Regan with firm, determined protectiveness in her young face. “He’ll die! We’ll all die, but he’ll die first!”

  “She’s right,” says Rose from his other side. “But you can save us. Please. Just let us go.”

  Garrett Cole and Zilch stand on either side of him now; Regan realizes the three of them are mirror images of the three children on either side of the bars. He has the very uncomfortable feeling he’s on a jury, deciding not only these young prisoners’ fate, but his own.

  “Thoughts, Chimera? Zero?” Garrett prompts. “You know where I stand.”

  “Does it matter?” Zilch asks without looking up or away from the cells. “You’ll do what you want with or without us.”

  “Of course it matters.” When Garett looks up at them with a half-smile, Regan catches the faintest hint of the charismatic Master of Ceremonies before he disappears back in
to worry and grim regret. “I’d rather have help. And after your little demonstration, Zero, I know I’m not the only one who’s seen enough of Major Turret and Eye in the Sky to last a lifetime.”

  “I’m in. I’d rather walk barefoot through Hell than spend one more minute in this place.” Regan says the words without hesitation.

  “If we’re discovered…” Zilch watches him with their unblinking gaze. Both eyes are bright blue, and he’s never seen them look so frightened. “That might be less painful.”

  “I don’t care what happens to me.” Regan’s voice holds steady. “You’re right. We’re on the wrong side, and we should have seen that a long time ago.”

  “Choice wasn’t yours to make even if you saw,” their voice didn’t shake, but pain has never been clearer in their all-too-living eyes. Or the resolution. “Now it is.”

  “Thanks to you.” Regan smiles, and his heart feels light instead of constricted in terror. “You made the right decision. Now you’re making it again. Let’s go, Zilch.”

  Zilch stares at him for a moment. “I hope so.”

  Then they push the bars aside like they’re made of smoke.

  “Thank you, Ze… Zilch,” Garrett adjusts with a slight smile and appreciative nod. “I’ll access max-security and find Hans if you take the rest. Run, and don’t look back.” The scientist with the melodious voice opens a door to set them all free. Then he disappears.

  Running with Zilch again. This time with the children shepherded between them; Regan holds Gabriel’s small, unnaturally hot hand. Dodging the spotlights, jumping over cracks in the asphalt, crumbling holes in the pavement. Parole had always been on hollow ground even before the fires. Even more so as they moved through the city limits and away from its lights, cutting across a vacant construction site. The trenches were already deep, but they’d broken deep into the ground, hit a subterranean network of caves, and now the black pits seemed endless, the ground above a thin crust. They keep running.

  Then, an eruption of white light—they’re caught in a helicopter’s searchlight, and men in black body armor appear all around.