by Natalie Reid
Katherine shook her head weakly, whispering, “You have no idea.”
“But I do!” Jessie insisted. “I loved your boy, and I knew what he felt. As unforgiveable as you think your actions might be, he didn’t want them to kill you too.”
“He would have me live this way?”
Jessie shook her head. “He would have you fight!”
Katherine’s face contorted in deep emotion, and two trails of moisture cut chasms down her face and caught in the moonlight.
“Please just go!” she cried. “If you aren’t going to kill me, then go!”
Katherine had yelled this so loud that a faint knock sounded on her front door a moment later, and Rosie’s voice called through, asking if she was alright. Jessie looked to the bedroom door and then out to the window. She knew she had to get going.
“Hold on, for Ben’s sake,” she whispered.
She gently cradled the side of Katherine’s face before turning and leaving through the window. She felt a deep sense of regret for having to go. She knew Katherine was slowly giving up inside that cold bedroom, merely holding out for the night that seemed best to let go completely and allow the Black to take her.
Jessie’s legs were sluggish as she put more distance between her and that dark apartment. Somehow she felt, if she couldn’t save this woman’s life, then how could she save her mother’s? How could she save Carver’s?
Instead of heading directly for the border of the city and into the woods, she meandered through the streets, irrationally hoping that the codes to the Bank would fall from the sky, or that Carver would somehow appear, having just fled imprisonment in a daring and miraculous escape.
But, as the minutes ticked by, nothing fell from above, and she could see no sign of her father anywhere. She was about to head back home, realizing that they would be worrying about her back at the cabin, when something further ahead on the street caught her attention. Something white was twirling in the wind, little bits of debris creating a circle that ran along the curb. She might not have noticed it had the hardened snow there not been stained in black and brown grit.
Bending down, she reached a hand inside the spiraling cloud of white paper. The pieces seemed to move around her fingers in a dance before she plucked one from the mix. There was a street light overhead, and in the flickering yellow light she read the words written upon the paper: You will soon visit an old friend. Underneath that was a series of numbers. Four, zero, one, two, nine, zero.
The crystalized breath from her mouth stopped. The papers stilled at her feet. She bent down and grabbed a handful of the little white strips. It took only a glance to see that they all said the same thing. Lowering her hands, she looked up at the building in front of her. This wasn’t the first time she had stood in front of it with these very numbers swimming in her head.
Chapter 13
Remembering
Carver blinked painfully at the bright light above his eyes. His head burned with something he had never felt before. He tried to sit up, but his arms and legs had been strapped down. To his left, he could hear someone shifting around, lightly humming to themselves and flicking their finger against something plastic. He turned to see who it was, but his eyes burned too much to tell.
Footsteps moved across the room towards him. A moment later he felt the sharp jab of a needle on his arm. His vision began to clear a little, and the face of a man gradually came into focus.
“Tag?” he strained out, trying to lift his head to get a better view of the scientist. Something painfully intrusive tugged at the back of his head, causing him to stop.
Doctor Tag gave him a brief and conflicted smile, as if trying to decide which to feel, guilt or happiness. “Carver, it’s good to see you again. Just like old times, huh?” He turned to a waste bin, discarding the syringe he just used.
“Not quite,” Carver said through gritted teeth. “Last time I wasn’t strapped in.” He took in his surroundings quickly before adding, “And your lab wasn’t nearly as big.” He silently tested the bonds on his arms before asking, “What, did you get a promotion or something?”
“Hard work promotes itself,” he responded happily. He went to the corner of the room to check a monitor there.
“Not in this city,” Carver said gruffly. “No.” He shook his head and stared at the little man in the corner. “You sold me out to get this. You knew who I was, and you knew exactly how to use that information to get what you wanted. Tom would be ashamed of you.”
Tag’s face flashed in anger. “I don’t want to hear that boy’s name again, do you understand me?”
Carver relaxed his shoulders. “I kinda like the kid,” he commented casually. “Which is just as well, since he is in love with my daughter.”
Tag grimaced and stuck another needle into Carver’s arm. His head burned again in pain and his eyes were filled with an intense bright light.
A moment later another needle pricked his arm. The light grew dimmer. Carver blinked his eyes and looked at the face of the man standing over him.
“Tag?” he strained out.
The doctor smiled at him. “It’s good to see you again, Carver. Just like old times.”
The soldier struggled with his bonds as the small man in the blue coat went over to the corner, readying another syringe.
* * *
The wooden slats creaked on the ground floor of the Ancient Ramen Restaurant. Kenji, who had been upstairs sitting at his desk, sprang up from his chair, rushed over to his bed, and reached for the large piece of wood he had hidden under the mattress. Tiptoeing out into the hall, he heard more creaking downstairs. He ventured a little further and stopped. Something reached his nose. The smell of stir-fried vegetables and boiling noodles. He lowered the wood in confusion, wondering if someone just broke into his restaurant to cook themselves a meal. However, he raised the board once again, telling himself that there was still a thief in his restaurant, and he was still man enough to deal with him.
Reaching the ground floor, he switched on the lights, yelling, “You punks have got ten seconds to get out of here before I start shooting!”
He looked around, expecting to see someone dashing towards the door. Instead he was greeted with an empty room. But it wasn’t completely empty. On one of the tables sat a bowl of steaming noodles. It was untouched and seemed to be waiting for him.
Kenji walked over to it, keeping his sights about him. He held the plank of wood in one hand as he picked up the bowl with the other. He looked for a message on the bowl or in the noodles, or for any sign that would tell him who left this. Then he looked back down to the table. He saw the mark in the wood that had been there for many years now. At first it didn’t seem odd to him. After all, it had been there long before this person had broken in and left a bowl of noodles. But then he began to think that this was the message.
“I thought I would finally return the favor,” a voice announced from behind him.
Kenji spun around. There, standing in the doorway to his kitchen, was the grown up version of the little girl that had once wandered in front of his shop on that cold winter day all those years ago.
“Jessie Fifty-Fifty,” he whispered in awe.
“You remember me?” she asked, taking a careful step forward.
“I always thought you’d come back,” he said, setting the bowl of noodles back down on the table. Taking a step closer, he noticed the scar over her right eye. “I’m just sad it has to be like this.”
“I’m not here to hurt you,” she said. “I’m not a Bandit like they say.”
“No,” he said, with a soft laugh. “I figured that. Bandits don’t really offer their victims a bowl of noodles before they kill them.”
She smiled, and then pointed a hand on the wood of the table. “Sorry about your table,” she offered. “I wasn’t quite myself when I did that.”
“You were a scared little girl trying to remember a long sequence of numbers.” He dug his hand into the pocket of his pajamas and pul
led out a folded piece of paper. “These numbers,” he said, holding them up. “It’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
“How did you…?” she started to say in disbelief. “I didn’t think you’d actually keep that. It was ten years ago. And I was a stranger.”
Kenji laughed goodheartedly. “When you told me what they were, I knew they were too important to throw away. I kicked myself for not giving them back to you when I gave you that ride up to the air-base. Things just happened so fast. So I hid them in a safe place where no one could find them. But when my Aaron came and told me what had happened to you, I dug it back up and I’ve been sleeping with it in my pocket every night since, knowing that you’d come for them eventually.”
“Well, you knew more than I did,” she said. Then her face froze. “Wait, Aaron?”
He nodded in sad understanding.
“Aaron as in…” she started to say, when he finished for her.
“The young man in your very same military squadron. The same young man that came in here not long ago, telling me about a girl he was in love with, running his hands on those marks on the table and not knowing that it was her that put them there. The same young man that cried his heart out because he lost the girl he loved to the same thing that had killed his mother. Yes,” he whispered, “That same Aaron.”
Jessie wiped her hand across her eyes and gripped hard on the bridge of her nose. She hadn’t realized that he had felt that way; hadn’t realized what she had done to him.
“Oh, there now,” he said, coming over to comfort her. “It’s not your fault. You had to do what you did to survive. The government is responsible for his current state, not you.”
She stared down at the floor and took a deep breath, feeling very much like the one-day old girl that had first come into his restaurant.
“Here,” he said, placing the paper with the codes in her hand. “Do what you have to do. Clear your name, fight the system, do whatever it is that you’re fighting to do. Then when it’s all over, maybe both you and my boy can find healing.”
She gulped down a hot clump of saliva. “Will you tell him?”
“I don’t think he would believe me.”
She looked down at the paper, then back up to him. “You know, I wanted to become a pilot because of you.”
He let out a soft chuckle. “Funny. Aaron told me the same thing.”
She stuffed the paper into her pocket and then reached out a hand to hold his. “Thank you,” she whispered.
His face stilled in thought, and after a moment his eyes flicked up to her scar.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
He gave her a gentle smile. “You might think me crazy, but I wish I could see the things you can.”
“This thing in my eye is deadly,” she said, looking at him with a wary expression.
“Don’t worry.” He placed a hand on her arm. “I’m not about to infect myself. I just…Imagine if someone could survive it. If they could hold onto vision like that. Not only would Task Force be held accountable for each innocent life they took, but we could stop those truly afflicted from ever turning in the first place! Imagine how much better Aero City would be for it!”
“Sounds like you want to change the world.”
He chuckled. “Oh, not the world. I’d settle for just one person.”
Her eyes glazed as she stared at the window. Slowly her hand moved for her pocket, coming away with a folded piece of paper. Moisture licked at the bottom of her eyelashes. The image before her blurred in the captured tears.
“Then will…” She sniffed and pressed the paper into his hand. “Will you do something for me?”
Kenji looked down at what was in his hand, and she whispered a short instruction in his ear. He gave her a nod and a warm smile in reply. Thanking him, she disappeared into the shadows, leaving the little Ramen restaurant for what Kenji hoped would not be the last time.
When Jessie got back to the cabin, she found everyone awake and nearly frantic over the urgency of their situation. They had all been gathered in the living room, each talking at once, but had immediately silenced when Jessie entered the room and closed the door with a tired thud.
“Where have you been?” Tom asked, rushing over to her.
Without responding, she reached inside her pocket and took out the piece of paper with the codes to the Bank of Social Numbers. Trying not to let her hands shake too much, she unfolded it and held it out for everyone to see.
Denneck ran his hand across the fragile sheet of paper. “Is that what I think it is?” he asked in astonishment.
She nodded her head.
“I thought you said you couldn’t remember them.”
“I wrote this down ten years ago,” she explained.
“Well that was smart of you!” Harper cut in from where she stood by the fire. Then her face twisted in confusion as she said, “Wait, I don’t get it. You had the keys to the kingdom this whole time. Why didn’t you get them sooner?”
“Because,” she said, rubbing the back of her head, “They were in a Ramen Noodle Restaurant. And I didn’t think the man I left them with would have still kept them.”
“The Ancient Ramen?” Griffin asked, lifting his head up from the arm-rest of the chair he was sitting on. “The one ran by a man named Kenji?”
“Yeah,” she said slowly.
“What were they doing in there?” Denneck asked.
“Kenji used to be a pilot, right,” Griffin offered.
Ritter gave out a low exclamation, shaking his head. “That’s how you reached the air-base that night. I had always wondered. I got a lot of flak back then for not being able to find you. I never understood how a three-day old could have made it to the air-base by herself. But you hadn’t, had you? You had found an old pilot to take you there.”
“Yeah,” she admitted. “I had left the codes with Kenji, then when I went back three days later asking for help to get up to the air-base, I didn’t think to ask for them back. I guess it’s understandable; I was only three days old.”
She extended the paper to Denneck, saying, “We’re ready to go now.”
“Good.” He gave a tired nod and stared down at the map of codes.
For a moment they both held onto the paper, knowing what this meant. In that moment they had both agreed to go up to The Fulcrum, and that meant leaving Carver behind.
“Right,” Ritter said, looking down at where the two soldiers still held onto the codes. “Well, it’s already two in the morning. We’ll go tomorrow night.”
* * *
A gentle forest scene washed over the four walls of the bedroom. It was supposed to have a calming effect. Even the fluttering of birds had been added in the canopy of trees to promote a more soothing environment.
Aaron let out a whimper and turned over in bed. It was just an hour after dinner, but all he could do was lie in bed. It was infuriating. He shut his eyes closed and lifted up a blind fist to bang on the wall. The forest was gone, replaced by the wooden structure of a log cabin. He opened his eyes to peek at it, but somehow found the even-keel color of brown grating on his nerves.
Casting the blankets off him, he swung out of bed and made for the door. A cylinder key hung from around his neck. The lady that acted as his “mentalist doctor” had given it to him, explaining that it would be good for him to walk around and take an interest in the place, as long as he kept out of the restricted rooms.
Before, a warning like that would have had him searching for those very same rooms the moment he got a chance. But, when the woman had given him his key, he had not the slightest inclination to go exploring anywhere inside of BLES. This was where she had stayed. It was inside these very walls that she had given in. This was the last place he wanted to be. Unfortunately, his doctor didn’t think so. She even told him the exact room Jessie had stayed in while she was with them, explaining that his key would open the door if he wished to go inside. As if that was something he could handle right now.
As Aaron exited his room and padded out into the hallway, wearing the simple blue shirt and pants of a BLES patient, he didn’t know what he was doing or where he was going. He just wanted to get away from his room. Rounding the corner, he came upon the main circular corridor which housed The Eye in the center, connecting all of the complexes together. Across the way, two Task Force agents had been stationed in front of the entrance to the government section of the building. His blood ran hot when he saw them. Though he knew it wasn’t their fault that the girl he loved had turned into a Bandit, he still blamed them for it.
Jogging swiftly down the hall, he started circling around to head for the two agents. He was ready for the confrontation that his presence would certainly spark. However, as he drew closer, the men stationed at the door hardly gave him a moment’s glance. They were whispering animatedly between themselves.
“Those rackers up there had it coming,” one of them said.
“It’s just a matter of time before something big happens. My money’s on them snapping first.”
Aaron had paused to listen to their conversation, and it wasn’t until he stopped in front of them and leaned against the ledge of the railing that they looked up at him in alert preparedness.
“What are you two doing here?” Aaron asked, glancing past their shoulders to the empty hallway.
“What, are you stupid?” one of them exclaimed. “Get lost kid!”
Aaron gripped his hands on the ledge and looked down at what he was wearing. He mentally scolded himself, realizing that these men would have no way of knowing he was military.
“Did I hear you just insult the military?” he asked, challenging the man that had called them rackers.
“I’ll insult whoever I racking well please!” the man said, taking a step closer to Aaron and placing a hand on the hilt of his gun.