by Natalie Reid
“Wait, that’s not what I said!” Ritter exclaimed, pointing a finger at him.
Jessie, who had her hands clasped around the handle of the door, released it and started hurrying back down the hall. She rushed past all of the doors on the right side of the hallway, but didn’t see anyone inside that looked like her mother.
When she reached the end, she turned to the opposite side of the hall and peered in the first door. Suddenly she gave out a sharp gasp.
Denneck ran down the hall towards her. “What is it?”
She turned back to the door’s window and forced herself to look longer this time, gripping a hand to her mouth.
“Mom,” she choked out.
Jessie gulped down hard and reached a carded hand up to the door. There was no mistaking it. The woman inside was her mother. She could see it as she lay on the bed with a hand curled inward toward her chest. Her dark wavy hair fell across her arms, and Jessie remembered how she used to trace the patterns of the waves with her finger when she was a girl. She had always wished her hair was dark like her mother’s. But then Sarah would run a gentle hand through Jessie’s hair, smiling down at her and telling her how special her own brown hair was because it was her father’s color.
She took a deep breath and looked to the key card in her hand. Then, mustering up her courage, she swiped it across the slot and opened the door.
The first memory Jessie had of her mother was fuzzy and broken, but what she could remember never faded in her mind. She was shivering on a chair when her mother picked her up and wrapped her in her arms, filling her with warmth.
How do you know you’re human, mom?
She took a few timid steps into the room.
When you’re cold, sweetheart, and somebody warms you up…
“Mom?” Her voice cracked with emotion and made her sound ten years younger.
Sarah’s hand twitched closer to her chest, and her legs curled inward. Jessie walked up to the bed and kneeled on the floor.
“Mom, wake up.”
She placed her hand on her mom’s shoulder, and slowly her eyes fluttered open. When she focused on Jessie’s face, she sat up in bed.
“I found you, mom. I found you.”
Leaning forward, she wrapped her arms around her mom in a tight hug. She had to bite down on the side of her cheek to keep herself from crying, but the feeling of being reunited with her mom left such a powerful impact on her. She had once considered her mom’s presence as vital as breathing, that it felt like someone had taken away her lungs when she left. Only now had they finally been given back.
When she pulled away, she smiled into her mother’s face and held the side of her head. However, her mother’s eyes did not share the same warmth and recognition that her daughter’s did. Instead, her brow wrinkled with the confusion of a stranger.
“Mom, it’s… it’s me. It’s Jessie.” When Sarah said nothing, she tried again. “Mom, it’s your daughter!”
Sarah shook her head.
Jessie gripped a fist to her mouth, forcing back the cries that threatened to surface now that her worst fears had been realized. After all this time, her mother did not recognize her. She was older now and her face had become scarred. She was not her mother’s daughter. She was not the Jessie her mother remembered.
“I’m sorry,” came a voice from behind them.
Jessie turned to see Ritter in the doorway. Denneck stood behind him, looking soberly at the scene.
“I didn’t know how to tell you,” Ritter continued. “I thought it would have been better if you thought she was dead.” His eyes flicked to Sarah before he explained, “The reason your mother’s up here is because they wanted a clean slate. They wanted to keep all of her abilities, just none of her memories.”
“Y-you knew?” Tears started to fall down her cheeks. “You knew this whole time what we would find up here?”
Her stomach felt sick as she realized what her mom had gone through. Being taken up to The Fulcrum was really no different than being racked. In both cases, you were no longer yourself by the end of it.
“Who… who are you?” Sarah asked.
Jessie’s eyes flew back to her mother, and she stared in silent torture as she lifted a confused hand up to her face. Her mom’s fingers were cold as they touched her cheek. They were like ice against the hot rush of tears down her skin.
“Mom,” she said. She could feel the tears slide in through her mouth as she opened it. “You’re freezing cold.”
She grabbed the blanket that had fallen around her waist, and swung it over her shoulders. Jessie sat on the bed next to her and wrapped her arms around her. She rocked her gently back and forth, trying to ignore the fact that her mom would be confused as to why a stranger was doing this for her.
“Jessie,” Tom’s voice spoke sadly through her ear-piece. “I’m so sorry.”
“No,” she shook her head. She refused to believe that this was it.
Grasping onto her mother’s hands, she rubbed at her fingers to try and warm them up.
“I know I look different mom, but you have to remember me,” she whispered in her ear. “You have to.”
Sarah shook her head, throwing hair into her face. Her hands twitched in Jessie’s grasp, but she held onto them tightly. She took her mother’s hand and pressed her fingers into her wrist, hoping she would feel her heartbeat. She continued to rock her back and forth, saying, “How do you know you’re human, mom? How do you know you’re human?”
“Jessie,” Ritter said with a look of remorse crossing his features. He shook his head. “We have to go.”
“No,” she exclaimed, holding onto her mom even tighter. “How do we know, mom. Please tell me. I know you know!”
Jessie buried her head into her mom’s shoulder and cried softly. She tried to rock her back and forth, but her movements grew weaker and weaker.
“Jessie,” Denneck said, putting a hand on her shoulder. She hadn’t even seen him come into the room. She stilled at his contact, and could feel no trace of movement from her mother within her arms.
She pulled her head up from her mom’s shoulder and was about to release her hands when suddenly Sarah whispered, “…cold.”
Jessie’s breathing stopped. “W-what?”
Sarah turned to face her daughter. “When you’re cold,” she said. “And somebody warms you up.”
Sarah lifted a hand to her cheek, and Jessie stared at her mom in shock.
“M-mom?”
Her mom’s hand slid down her cheek and rested on the side of her neck where her fingers could feel the fast pulse of her daughter’s heart.
“I know you,” she whispered. “They tried, but I wouldn’t forget.”
Jessie threw her arms around her mom and hugged her as tightly as she could. This time she felt a pair of arms wrap around her and hug her back.
She wished she didn’t have to move, but it was Ritter that pulled her back to the urgency of their situation.
“If you guys are still crazy enough to save the rest of The Thirty, we better go now.”
She took in a deep breath and pulled away. “We’re going to get you out of here mom.”
Sarah tightened her lips together and nodded. Jessie saw fear in her eyes, but she also saw something else, something that gave her hope and told her that if they just got her out, they would be able to gain back everything they lost.
Denneck stood in front of them and gently took one of Sarah’s hands. “Sarah?” he said, sounding as friendly and courteous as possible. “I’m going to help get you out of here.” He leaned down to pick her up and lifted her into his arms.
Looking at her mom, Jessie couldn’t tell for sure what she was feeling. She didn’t know if her mom was fully aware of what was going on. Wiping a hand across her eyes and cheeks, Jessie walked up to Ritter.
“You get the doors on the left, I’ll get the ones on the right,” she said.
He gave her a look that let her know he thought she was crazy, but that
he wasn’t about to argue, and together they started opening doors.
“We’re not going to have much time before somebody watching the cameras notices,” he warned, bursting open one door and heading towards the next.
Jessie ignored him as she went down the row, opening all her doors. When she looked back to see them all open, she realized that only a few prisoners had stepped outside of their rooms to see what was going on. She looked to the room closest to her. It was the one that Roger was inside. She hurried in and shook the man awake.
“Roger. Roger wake up!”
He gasped in shock and opened his eyes. When he saw the face above him, he scrunched his face in fear and confusion.
“Who are you?” he demanded. “What do you want?”
“I’m getting you out of here.”
He sat up in bed and tried to get up, but held a hand to his head in dizziness.
“Are you alright?” she asked.
Instead of answering, he looked up at her, asking, “How do you know my name?”
“I’m a friend of your wife’s,” she explained quickly. Then she tried to get him to stand up, saying, “We don’t have much time. Are you alright to walk?”
His body wobbled in dizziness, but he responded, “Don’t worry. If you’re hatching an escape plan, I’ll find the strength I need. I can’t let Mick and Rosie go another day without me.”
Jessie started to help him across the room when Ritter appeared in the doorway.
“Uh, you might want to wake this one up,” he said, pointing to the room behind him.
“Why?”
He didn’t offer her an explanation as he took Roger’s arm from her, leaving her free to go see for herself. She didn’t argue, and hurried across the hall to look inside the room. There was a man on the bed, but he wasn’t asleep. He was already sitting up. He looked up when he heard her at the doorway.
“Jessie girl?”
She ran forward and threw her arms around him.
“Owl,” she breathed. “I thought you were dead.”
Ual cried softly into her shoulder. “You know, I thought I had forgotten you. But seeing your face…”
She pulled away and tried to help him to his feet.
“Jessie, your mom’s here,” he tried to tell her.
“I know. We have her,” she explained. “But we don’t have much time. We’re getting all of you out of here.”
They came to the outside hallway now, and she looked around to see that Ritter and Denneck had gotten almost everyone out of their rooms. A few were on their feet, and most were leaning on the walls for support. She didn’t want to think about what had happened to the five that didn’t make it. She just had to be glad that she had found the survivors.
“We have to get them to the ship,” Denneck said, turning around with Sarah in his arms towards the direction of the hangar.
They started herding the people slowly through the hallway, when suddenly there was a loud beep, and an intercom system turned on. A voice instantly recognizable as Ward’s announced, “Will Sergeant Ritter please come to the command center.”
Ritter’s body went rigid at hearing his name, and he turned around to look down the hallway that led towards the rest of The Fulcrum. Jessie stopped what she was doing and looked in the same direction.
“Hey Harper,” he asked, cocking his head. “No chance you can control the hangars from down there, is there?”
There was silence on the line.
“I… I’m sorry, I don’t think…”
“Can’t you hack in?” Denneck interrupted.
“No,” she responded despondently. “You don’t understand. There’s nothing to hack in to. They can only be opened from up there.”
Ritter nodded. “Thought so.” He turned around to face Jessie. “Looks like we’re on after all. You ready?”
Jessie took her arm from Ual and walked forward. “Right,” she said, taking charge. “Denneck, you take them to our ship. Once they’re all on board, lock the doors. They won’t be able to break in right away, not unless they want to damage their own ship. Ritter and I will head for the command center. Once we open the hangar, I want you to fly out of there the second you can.”
Denneck’s eyes ignited in anger. “What makes you think I’ll agree to that? You’re my soldier. I’m not letting you—”
Ritter interrupted him, saying, “She’s the only one that can pull this off. Either you let her go, or none of us make it out alive.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, giving him a quick hug. “I don’t have time to convince you.”
She looked down to her mom, who stared at her with wide eyes. Jessie gave her hand a squeeze. “I love you so much.”
She turned away from her mom quickly, knowing that if she waited too long, she would never want to leave her side.
She was already rushing down the hall with Ritter, when Ual called out, “Jessie, wait!”
She stopped and looked back at him.
“Tonight… it’s December 24th, isn’t it?”
Ritter ran an agitated hand through his hair, saying, “We don’t have time to discuss the date!”
Ual shook his head and reached out to grab Jessie’s hands. “That means it’s Christmas night! It’s Christmas!”
She shook her head at him. “I… I don’t know what that means.”
“It’s something the world should have never forgotten,” Ual said, squeezing her hands. “The song!” he suddenly exclaimed. “You found the song, didn’t you?”
She blinked at him in confusion, wondering how he knew that. “How did you—”
“Which night!” he said, smiling widely. “You’ve asked that to me over a hundred times. Which night? Which night? Well it’s this night! The song is all about tonight. This night, over three thousand years ago. I can’t explain it now, I just… I wanted you to know.”
She nodded and held his arm in a hurried sign of affection, before breaking away and hurrying down the hall.
“Merry Christmas!” he cried out after them. “Merry Christmas!”
When they had turned the corner for the next hallway, running at a careful pace, Ritter turned to ask, “What was all that about?”
She shook her head in a silent state of shock, wondering how Ual knew about the song, and if he knew why it was so important.
“Hey, Chance,” Ritter said, drawing her from her thoughts. “I need you here with me.”
She nodded. Looking down at the uniform she was wearing, she started to tear it off. With a last forceful shove, she pried it from her arm and left it on the floor. Ritter shot her a curious look.
“If I die tonight, I’m not dying in that,” she explained.
He shook his head and smirked.
When they got to the end of the hallway, they stopped and peered around to the next one. There were two other workers walking down the hall towards them, but they entered a room before reaching the end.
“They know we’re here,” Jessie said. “So why aren’t they sending anyone after us?”
“I think I have an idea why. Ward probably knows where we’re headed and plans to stop us there.”
She stepped away from the edge of the wall and looked over at him.
Ritter put a hand to his ear, saying, “Can you find out something out for me?”
“Are you talking to me?” Harper asked in confusion.
“Yeah, genius, you’re the only one with a computer.”
“I’ll take genius over sweetheart,” she responded pleasantly.
Ignoring her comment, Ritter asked, “The ship that Ward took to get up here—was it called The Guardian?”
They waited a moment for her to respond.
“Yeah, how’d you know?”
He turned to Jessie. “That’s the ship. It has everything I need to leave Aero City.”
“Can you fly it by yourself?” she asked.
“I’m no pilot, but I’ve been on The Guardian a number of times to know that an idiot could
fly it. It’s probably why Ward chooses it.”
“Jessie, why aren’t you going there with him?” Tom asked.
A small feeling of guilt passed through her chest. She hadn’t told him all the details of Ritter’s plan. She knew he would be too worried for her if she did.
Instead of answering him, she asked Harper, “The Guardian’s in hangar one?”
“Eh… yes, that’s a positive.”
“And there are fighter pilots in that hangar, right?”
“Oh yeah.”
“Denneck, are you there?” she asked.
“I’m right here,” he responded quickly.
“If we can open up the hangars, I want you to wait a minute until I give you the signal to go. They can’t shoot you while you’re still in The Fulcrum. The second you get out there, you’re an easy target. I’m going to have to draw away their fire.”
“Jessie!” Tom and Denneck both yelled at the same time.
“You know I can do this,” she insisted. “I was born to be a pilot. Just, please, trust me.”
“Speaking of trust,” Ritter said, taking a glance up at the camera on the wall and then looking back to Jessie. “Think you can trust me one more time, Chance?”
She ran a hand through her hair and then took in a breath.
“If you do anything to get her killed,” Denneck warned.
“Relax,” he said casually. “For whatever reason my daughter’s taken a liking to her, so I gotta bring her back in one piece or she’ll never forgive me.”
Jessie shot him a sideways glance and then looked out to the hallway ahead. She had already made her decision back in the cabin. She had partnered up with Ritter, and there was no going back. Whichever way this thing played out, she just had to hope that she could rely on him.
“Hey Trid? You still conscious buddy?” she asked.
The indistinct sound of grunting, punching, and yelling came through the line before her friend responded in a strained voice, “Ace pilot, reporting for duty.”
“It’s time for phase two.”
“Oh, I love phase two!” he exclaimed, though it was hard for her to tell if he was being serious or not.
“Please don’t let yourself get hurt,” she added.