by E S Richards
“You know they’re not stories!”
“Well why don’t you tell him then?” Emerson taunted Zahyra, “Why are you keeping it a secret from him?”
“Because you’ve already done enough damage to this family you selfish coward. Our mother is dead because of you. Because you did something you couldn’t admit to and ran away. You broke her, you broke her and I feel sorry for her. I feel sorry she ever loved you. You didn’t deserve a woman like her and you don’t deserve us either. Just let us go. Do something decent for once in your life.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that Zahyra.”
Emerson reached around with his left hand and clicked the safety off the gun he was holding in his right. Cain remained perfectly still beside Zahyra, refusing to take his eyes off Emerson and the gun that was pointed at him. If it came to it he knew he would take a bullet to save Zahyra and Asher, but the foundations of a plan were slowly forming in his mind and if he could just get Zahyra to give him some more time he knew he could get them a way out of there.
“Well you’re going to!” Zahyra shouted across the room at her father and in a second her own gun was in her hand, pointed at her own flesh and blood.
Emerson laughed. “You’re not going to shoot me! Do you even know how to handle a gun?”
“Heather taught me actually,” Zahyra retorted immediately, watching the smile fall from her father’s lips. “You didn’t expect that did you? Your own people helping me to survive in here. Helping me to use something against you.”
“I don’t believe you,” Emerson said, although the confidence had left his voice slightly. “Even if you can shoot, you wouldn’t do it in front of your brother. Don’t you think he’s witnessed enough death already? He’s already lost his mother like you say, now you want to take away his father too?”
“You’re nothing like a father to him!” Zahyra screamed angrily but Emerson’s words echoed around her head. He was right, she couldn’t kill him in front of Asher, she wouldn’t let herself expose him to that.
“Let Asher go,” she continued, struggling to keep her voice from trembling. “Let Asher and Cain go and you can have me. I’m the Zero. I’m the one you need.”
“Unfortunately for you, my darling daughter, that is no longer necessarily true. Thanks to your dear friend here,” Emerson waved his gun casually at Cain, “we have another Zero in the facility now.”
Zahyra’s heart sank. That was another piece of information she’d wanted to keep from Asher, she didn’t want him to know the lengths Cain had gone to in order to get back inside the safe haven. But the more pressing matter was, she realised, that she was no longer as valuable to the safe haven. They had someone else to continue her T128 trial.
“The process would be faster with two of you, that’s for sure,” Emerson continued. “We don’t know how transferable your data will be. But one Zero is plenty enough for us. We don’t want to be greedy. We do need Asher though… Asher is special.”
Her father stepped forward and to the side slightly, still keeping his gun trained on Cain but moving so he could see Asher as well. “You don’t really want to leave, do you Asher? It’s safe here, or at least it was until your sister and this mutant started destroying everything. You’ve got your own room, three meals a day and you like the games on the screen as well, don’t you? Let’s not be foolish, this is the best home you’ll ever find.”
Zahyra glared at her father as he spoke. Her free hand balling into a fist when her father called Cain a mutant. Her gun was still pointed at him, but Emerson seemed unaffected by it, truly disbelieving that Zahyra could or would ever shoot him.
“I don’t have a home anymore.”
Asher’s quiet voice sounded out behind Zahyra and she turned her head, reaching out to Asher with her spare hand. He looked at it and then shook his head, his eyes moving to the gun in her other hand. Zahyra sighed desperately and nodded to Cain who in a flash withdrew his own weapon and took up Zahyra’s role, pointing the gun at Emerson. Zahyra knelt down again beside her brother, placing her gun on the ground beside her.
“Ash, your home is with me.” She looked anxiously into her brother’s eyes and tried in some way to reassure him. She didn’t know what else she could say, the mind games her father was playing being greater than something she could combat.
“But we don’t have anywhere to go,” Asher mumbled under his breath. “We’re not safe here. We’re not safe outside.”
“You are safe here Asher!” Emerson’s voice boomed out behind Zahyra and she felt Cain take a step across the room, blocking out her father’s view slightly.
“We’re not safe here,” Zahyra repeated Asher’s words. “But I promise you we will be safe one day. Somewhere. I’ve always looked after you haven’t I? I’ve always kept you safe?”
Asher nodded slowly as Zahyra spoke.
“Then trust me, Ash. Trust that I’ll get you out of here.”
As her brother nodded again Zahyra pulled him into a hug then rose to her feet, picking up her gun from the floor where she’d placed it.
“Look, you’re outnumbered,” she said to her father. “Asher doesn’t want to stay here and Asher won’t be staying here. None of us will. You’re right, I don’t want to hurt you, especially not in front of Asher, but that doesn’t mean I won’t. And it certainly doesn’t mean Cain won’t. Just let us go and –”
“I think you’re forgetting one very important piece of information Zahyra,” her father cut her off again.
“Like it or not Asher is a Gen 6 mutant and I am the only person who knows how to help him control it. He has been given a gift and under my guidance I can help him embrace that gift. Help him to become an incredible feat of genetic engineering. Help him to evolve.
“If you leave with him eventually his mutation will take over him and he won’t be able to stop it. Nothing you try will be able to help him and your little brother will cease to be anything like the boy you grew up with. You don’t want to lose him completely do you? At least if he stays here then I can make sure the mutation never takes over completely. There will always be a part of your brother left here. Out there the boy you know will cease to exist.”
Silence cut through the lab after Emerson’s short speech. Zahyra was shaking now, seething at the words her father had spoken. She didn’t know how to react, the gun shaking in her hand along with the rest of her body. How much of what her father had just said was true? What would happen to Asher if his mutation was left untouched? How much would he really change? Zahyra wanted her brother to be safe from this place, but not if it meant she would lose who he really was.
“How?” Asher’s voice cut through the silence. “How are you the only person who knows about it? I thought it was brand new? I thought I was the first one?”
“Because he did this to you Asher,” Zahyra whispered as she turned to face her brother. “He made you into a Gen 6 mutant. It’s all his fault.”
Asher stared at Zahyra as she blamed their father. Surely that couldn’t be possible? You couldn’t just turn someone into a mutant, and besides, up until he arrived at the safe haven Asher had never even met his father.
“How?” He whispered again, his face slowly draining of colour.
Zahyra sighed and dropped the gun to her side once more, bending down again to Asher’s level.
“He told me all of this when he came to see me here. After our father visited you he came and paid me a visit, and he finally told me the truth. He injected you Asher, when you were only a baby. He’s worked for the safe haven his entire life and when you were born he gave you something, something that would make you turn into what you are now. Then he ran away. He ruined your life and ran away like a coward and now he’s trying to ruin it all over again. I’m so sorry I couldn’t stop him; that I couldn’t save you then. But I can save you now, bud. Don’t you see? We have to get out of here. We can’t let him destroy our lives anymore.”
Asher’s mouth dropped open as Zahyra spoke,
the words bouncing around inside of his skull. The story sounded so unbelievable but as he looked into Zahyra’s eyes he knew she was telling the truth. Suddenly he felt like the world had dropped out from beneath his feet. All his life he thought their father had left because he wasn’t good enough, because he’d done something wrong just by being born. Now he knew the truth. That his father had done this to him. His father had taken away his chance of being normal, of having a normal life. He was so afraid of what he would turn into, of how the Gen 6 mutation would make him change as he grew up. And now to discover it all could have been avoided… his eyes trailed across the room until they found his father’s – the man staring at him in despair.
“Why?”
Emerson didn’t say anything.
“WHY?” Asher shouted across the room, his tiny body producing a tidal wave of noise.
“Asher you can be something great now,” Emerson started, “something incredible! This is why you need to stay here, so I can teach you about yourself. I’ve given you a gift. The greatest gift a father could ever give his child. Don’t you know how many children would kill to be in your position? Would kill to have a choice like this?”
“But you didn’t give me a choice!” Asher screamed, tears rolling down his tiny, red cheeks. “You didn’t give me a choice.”
The young boy trailed off, his words being lost in heaving sobs. Zahyra moved once again so she was standing in front of Asher, holding her brother with one hand behind her back.
“Do you get it now?” She shouted at her father. “You ruined his life.”
“He’ll ruin yours too if you take him outside!”
“No he won’t,” Zahyra scoffed at her father. “My life isn’t the same without him. You wouldn’t understand that – you never had the luxury of knowing him. And now you never will.”
Zahyra punctuated her words with long pauses, dragging out her sentence in order to fully declare its seriousness.
“It doesn’t matter,” Emerson laughed, “there’s still no way you’re getting out of here now. The other side of that door is littered with our soldiers. So is the one behind me. You’re completely surrounded and you think just because you’ve got two guns between you you stand a chance? Look at you! A child, a Zero and an untrained animal. You’re finished Zahyra. I came in here because I thought I’d give you a chance. A chance to apologise and come back upstairs. Forget all this madness ever happened and help me work towards a cure, towards a better world. I see now I was foolish. You’ll never be a part of a better world, not when your ideologies are so stunted and childish.
“I was foolish too to ever put faith in the idea of a family. I’m ashamed to even call you my daughter: look at what you’ve become! You’re nothing more than a Zero. Worthless. Useless. Expendable. You don’t deserve to live inside this facility. This place deserves better than you.”
Zahyra stared at her father as he spoke, fighting the tears that were threatening to form in her eyes. He didn’t deserve to see her cry. He didn’t deserve anything.
“Goodbye Zahyra.”
She watched, frozen, as her father shifted his arm slightly, re-angling his gun to aim at his daughter. Her own gun still hung in her right hand, limp beside her body. She couldn’t move as her father drew back the hammer, a look of pure disgust in his eyes as his gun pointed squarely at her. Then a loud shot rung off, filling the silent laboratory with death as a body crumpled heavily to the floor.
Chapter 26
Zahyra lay on the floor, her eyes were closed and all she could hear was the ringing of the gunshot in her ears. She concentrated on her body to feel where the bullet had hit her and then slowly peeled her eyes open when she couldn’t feel any pain. She ran her hands over her body, searching for the wet patch of her blood, certain to find a hole somewhere on her person.
Finally looking up she saw Cain, standing where she had stood just moments ago. Had he pushed her? Had Cain taken the bullet for her? Assessing him she quickly realised he was unscathed, just like her. Then her eyes found Asher and she realised the gun she had been holding was not on the floor next to her. Instead it was in her little brother’s hand, still stretched out in front of him and pointing across the laboratory. Her eyes followed his line of sight and met her father. His own body on the floor across the room, a pool of blood expanding around his still form. In an instant Zahyra was on her feet.
“Asher,” she whispered moving in front of her brother, blocking his view of their father. She slowly loosened his grip on the gun and set it down on the floor beside her. Eventually Asher’s gaze moved to meet hers, his expression blank and unmoving. Zahyra wrapped her arms around her brother, holding him tightly and whispering soothing words in his ear.
“I shot him,” Asher said quietly. “I killed him.”
“Asher,” Zahyra started again but the words escaped her. What was she supposed to say to him? He had saved her life but in that same moment he had killed his own father. Even despite all the terrible history between the two of them Zahyra couldn’t believe Asher had actually shot him. She couldn’t even pretend to understand what he was feeling in that moment.
“You did the right thing Asher,” Cain finally spoke up in the silence. “You saved your sister. She’s alive because of you.”
Asher blinked a few times at Cain’s words. “He was going to kill her,” he said, still shocked by what he had done. “I couldn’t lose you,” he turned back to Zahyra. “I couldn’t lose you again.”
Zahyra responded by hugging Asher even tighter. She didn’t know what to say to him but in that moment she just had to let him know everything was okay. It still didn’t feel real to her. One second she was ready to die: resigned to the fact her father was about to shoot her. The next Asher had done the unthinkable and now their father was dead because of it. Their father and their mother: both dead. The three of them were the only family any of them had now.
“What do we do now?” Zahyra asked quietly. They were surrounded by safe haven soldiers; they’d just killed their father and head scientist of the facility and somehow they needed to find a way out of there. Zahyra couldn’t even begin to think of a way to do it.
Cain paused for a moment and then moved over to Emerson’s body. He picked up the gun that lay beside him and clicked the safety on, depositing it into one of his pockets. Then he moved his hands over Emerson’s uniform and pulled out his plastic card, along with a set of keys. Cain didn’t know what they were for but he knew they might be useful in some way.
Silently he looked back across the lab to Zahyra and Asher, both who were staring at him. He swallowed and grabbed Emerson’s arms, dragging his body out of their view and behind one of the tables. Once the body was hidden he wiped the remnants of blood from his hands onto his uniform and straightened up. It was up to him to get them out of there now.
“We’re going to get out of here.” Cain said firmly. “Just like we had planned.”
His eyes scanned the laboratory for anything else they could use and landed on a small rucksack on one of the tables. He moved over to it, transferring the pills, keys and Emerson’s gun to it.
“Here,” Zahyra’s voice carried over to him and he turned to see her unloading some things from a cabinet. As she walked over to him she held four bottles of water and a few scraps of food.
“Professor Welbeck kept some supplies down here for when she was working late.” Zahyra said simply as she transferred the food and water into the rucksack Cain was holding. She then moved back over to the cabinet with the red cross plastered on the front of it and started pulling out bandages and various other medical supplies Cain recognised but couldn’t put a name to.
Once the bag was full Cain nodded to her, pulling her in for a quick hug with a sheepish smile on his face. He then slung the bag over his shoulder and headed towards the door where Asher was still waiting.
“You ready?” Cain could see from Asher’s expression that he was still in shock from what he had done. Cain cursed himsel
f for not being the one to shoot Emerson but if he was honest with himself the thought hadn’t even crossed his mind.
He’d pushed Zahyra out of the way in an instant, expecting the bullet to hit him instead but Asher had moved like lightening. Grabbing the gun from Zahyra’s hand and pulling the trigger before he had even fully taken her place. He’d seen more bravery in that boy in those short seconds than he’d seen in some of the strongest mutants he’d ever got close to. Although it was a terrible thing to have to do – shoot your own father – Cain was proud of Asher and he wasn’t going to let the boy suffer for doing the right thing.
Zahyra joined the two of them slowly, bending down and picking up her gun from the floor and carefully putting it into her pocket. She knew she was going to have to use it very shortly, but for the time being just didn’t want to feel its weight in her hand.
Instead she held her hand out to Asher and nodded towards Cain. He ran a hand through the short hair on his head and then withdrew Emerson’s plastic card from his pocket where he had stored it. Then, with his gun drawn he held it against the panel and watched the white light turn green and the door begin to slide open.
The three of them were met with an empty corridor and Zahyra turned to Cain with a confused expression on her face. Cain shrugged and started to move forward, another identical door at the end of the corridor. Zahyra knew that on the other side of it there were stairs leading up to the main atrium and also a route leading towards the white room they’d all inhabited before their scanning. That felt like so long ago, she couldn’t believe she’d only been in the facility for just over a week.
When they reached the second door the distinct sound of voices and boots on the ground carried through it. Zahyra reluctantly pulled her gun from her uniform and clicked the safety off, holding it in her right hand, ready for the safe haven soldiers that would be waiting on the other side.
“What’s the plan?”
Cain clicked the safety off his own gun before replying; making sure the rucksack was securely on his back as well.