by David Barton
“I don’t know how this works but I think you should talk to your boss and sort it out.”
“I warned you.” He stepped forward and put his hand on my shoulder. His grip hurt a little but nothing compared to his stinky aftershave attacking my senses.
“You shouldn’t have done that.” He smiled like a rat, showing off his missing teeth. I smiled back at him, then called to the light inside of me. The virtual handshake happened as my body changed, growing bigger. The light projecting my black leather jacket and black clothes. The mask wrapping around my head.
His eyes widened as his hand no longer gripped a skinny shoulder. His hand barely held onto me as I towered above him. “Do you want to remove your hand now?”
“Yes.” He did so and took a few steps back. Lifting his sleeve up to his mouth he spoke to a hidden. “He’s here.” There was static and then a muffled reply. “Yes sir.”
“Sorted?”
“Yes it is. This way.” He opened the gate and I walked onto the small ferry that would be full of people during the day. It motored over the water to what used to be a famous prison. Now it was nothing more than a tourist attraction.
We docked and I walked off, heading over to the ticket booth next to the entrance. Henrikson was waiting there for me. A big smile on his face. “I see you came in your outfit.”
“I had to make a point with your man by the gate.”
“He’s new. Not too sure about him yet. Please follow me.” I was expecting to walk through the entrance where the tours begin. Instead we walked off to a small door that was signed, Staff Only. We walked through straight into an elevator.
There were no buttons. The box descended automatically as the doors shut. “The thing I want to show you is actually underneath the prison. Have to keep the tourists coming in for funding but keep them away from what I’m working on.”
“Don’t forget the funding from the parade last week.”
“Indeed. The public don’t need to know how they are kept safe, only that they are.”
“One way of thinking.” I got a sideways glance from him before the wall behind me opened up. I turned and followed a step behind Henrikson. Wondering the whole time what he was going to show me and how I would be helping him.
We came to a T-junction. We turned right and heading down some stairs. I kept quiet for the whole time. Heading through another door and into yet another corridor. We kept walking, our feet pounding on the metal flooring. We turned around a corner then came to a massive door.
Henrikson opened it up with a numbered code and we walked in. I waited in the middle of the small room we were now in. He shut the door behind us. That’s when a green light from the ceiling shone down upon us. It swirled around the room until a soft ping came.
“It’s just checking for weapons, that’s all.”
“Oh right.” The door ahead of us slid open and we walked into a massive room. In the left wall was a set of double doors locked with a keypad. My eyes moved from there all the way to the right wall.
The room was full of tables and more expensive, scientific equipment. Men and women in white lab coats were doing various things. Most of them were wearing white masks over their mouths and noses.
I look at Henrikson who is looking around the room like a proud father. “Is it safe in here?”
“It’s fine as long as you don’t intend on sniffing what I’m about to show you.”
“Sure. What is it?”
“Come with me.” I stepped in behind him again, following, my eyes moving all over the room. Taking in as much as possible until we came to stop at a table on the right side of the room. “This is the product I wanted to show you.” He stood aside, his hand hovering over a petri dish of clear liquid.
“What is it?”
“I know it’s not much to look at but after many experiments and extensive research we’ve found some interesting things out.”
“Like?”
“Like how when it comes into contact with a human being nothing happens. But, if you add a catalyst to the mix it changes the very DNA of that human. It becomes a lethal weapon that kills within seconds.”
“Seconds?”
“Yep, it could probably work on you to.”
“I’m not super human. I can easily be killed.”
“I wouldn’t tell too many people that.”
“Noted. I’m guessing you’re not showing me this because it can kill people.”
“We aren’t too sure about this but we think it can also change someone’s DNA and make them better, more like you.”
“Like me?” I wasn’t about to tell him that I was a guardian light from another world. No one out there is like me anymore. “So, anything else or was this it?”
“Is this it? Don’t you understand what this means. Harnessed right, this thing could cure people of cancer or other terminal illnesses. This is a break through.”
“Okay, that does sound good. Where did you get it from?” I looked around the room again, seeing the people at work on the clear fluid.
“I found it at a business front under the leadership of my traitor. They seemed very interested in protecting it so I took as much of it as possible.”
“What do you plan on doing with it?”
“Finding out exactly what it can do and then give it to the government. Distribute it to energy companies if it can be used as an energy source. Stuff like that. We’re not keeping it to ourselves. I’m not like that. If it can help then it’s better out there for the city.”
“Very admirable.” My eyes hit the double doors again. “What’s through there?”
“Behind that door is the most important part of what we’re doing here. Are you sure you want to see it because I think you would make a great part of the team.”
“Sure.” I had no idea what I was getting into but I came this far. Why not go a little further.
“Great, please follow me.” We walked around the outside of the room, not weaving amongst the tables and scientists. He punched in a six-digit number and the doors opened. Another elevator.
We rode it down, further beneath the original prison. Then the shaft around us disappeared and the walls were revealed to be glass. I looked out around me. It was a massive circular room. I could only just see the ground far below us. The elevator went down and down.
My eyes moved over the wall. Cat walks ran all around us, stairs leading up and down to each floor. Capsules the size of bank vaults were sitting against the curved wall. “What are those things? There must be hundreds of them.”
“Only two hundred and forty.”
“You say that like it’s not enough.”
“I wanted more but there was an issue of space and money.”
“Sure. So what are they?”
“I’ll show you. Be better that way.” I eyed him cautiously as the elevator finally came to the bottom. We both got out. A single woman was down here, monitoring a wide station of monitors and other instruments.
She didn’t wear a lab coat like the others. Just a simple blue blouse with black trousers. She turned to face us, pushing her thin glasses up her nose. Her face was cute, not beautiful and she didn’t seem very tall. In fact, she looked like she was still in her teens.
“Ryan.” He suddenly paused. “That is your real name isn’t it?”
I thought back to the original name I was giving when I was born into the light. It had been a while since I’d heard it but I was sticking to my human name now. “Yes, that’s right.”
“This is Dr. Hannah Redcliff.”
“Doctor?”
“I know she looks young but she’s a prodigy. Best in her field.”
“And what field would that be?”
“All of them.” Even her voice sounded young. She gave me a smile before returning to her work.
Henrikson tapped me on the elbow and started walking towards a vault sized capsule. There was a small window in the door on the front. “Please, have a look inside.”
“It’s a cryogenic chamber. Keeps people asleep. They don’t grow old or sick. It’s just like they are dreaming as time goes by.”
“What are you doing to them?”
“Keeping them until the city needs them. It’s alright having vigilantes out there. Stopping petty crimes like muggings or murder.”
“Murder isn’t a petty crime.”
“Compared to what I fear is coming, it is.”
“What?”
“I’m talking about something worse than murder. A proper risk of the city being destroyed. Wiped off the face of the planet. Severe danger. That’s why I have these people here. So I can release them at the right time, to save this city. Not in a prison for attacking the wrong person or arrested for trying to stop a bank robbery and being mistaken for the criminal.”
“It doesn’t make it right.”
“It’s a necessary step to ensure the safety of everyone in this city. Maybe even the whole country or planet. I hope you can get on board with this. It would be valuable to have you on my side.”
“Absolutely not. This is barbaric.”
“I was afraid there would be no persuading you.”
“Let me out of this place now. You’re sick in the head. I….” I felt a prick in my neck before I could continue my outrage. My head feeling heavy I turn, seeing the young doctor with a syringe in her hand. I try to speak but it comes out in an incoherent muddle of noises.
“I’m sorry I have to take this step but it’s vital. You are a fantastic specimen, I need you as part of my collection.” I thought about punching him and speeding out of here but my body didn’t want to listen. All it wanted to do was submit and give up.
I felt arms around me and I was dragged off. My vision went dark as I was pushed up against something metal. Coldness invaded my body. Sharp pricks as pipes and tubes were pushed into my skin.
I tried to wriggle free but I was restrained tightly. Even without the restraints all I would have done was fall to the floor. Whatever they injected me with was working too well.
I heard a loud bang like a door shutting then a loud hiss. The temperature dropped even more. A cloud of cold air came down upon me and that was the last thing I remembered. The sharp hit of freezing cold air.
The darkness was strange how it was man-made. It felt so real. My mind still alive but my body felt a million miles away with no way of finding it again. Then a voice out of the darkness came to me like it was a ghost from inside my head. “Why didn’t you speed us out of there. All your powers and we’re now frozen for that insane idiot.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m you.” Out of the shadows stepped the reporter. “Looks like we’ve got time to have a chat. Talk about what we’ll do when we’re out of here.”
“If we ever get out.”
“Oh come on. You have to have faith. This isn’t the end of us and when we get out of here we will burn the place down. There won’t be anything left.”
“Sounds good.” We both smiled at each other. The plan was set. We just had to wait for our chance to escape. We had so much time to plan this. Together.
Mid-credit Scene
“Fancy meeting you in here.”
“Very funny. How long do you think we’ve been frozen?”
“God knows. Could be months, could be years.” I watched the reporter’s body pacing back and forth before he stopped, looking up at the darkness that loomed over us.
“What are you doing?”
“Listen.”
“What?”
“Shhhh!” I stopped talking and looked up at the shadows of my own mind. I couldn’t hear anything but he could. He looked back down at me. “You can’t hear that?”
“No.” I said the word and like the noise was listening to me, it started sounding in my head. A faint noise that quickly became a loud annoying alarm. “What do you think it is?”
“I don’t know but I’m betting it’s time for our little plan.” I was about to ask him what he was thinking when the cold that I had felt ages ago came back to my skin. The pain of being restrained came next, my joints aching from the single position I’ve been stuck in.
My eyes opened, slowly, the world shrouded in a cloud. Then a figure came running to me, right up to my body. Her hands landed on my shoulders but the cold had them feeling numb. But her face was clear. It was the woman I had helped before. The assassin who was after Shade.
It was Elizabeth. Even in my current state, I couldn’t help but smile. She smiled back and says, “After three years I think it’s about time we get that drink.”