“The jumper who nearly killed me?”
Damien nods. “We wrote a software program. That program emulates the muscle group response to brain activity to a ninety nine point nine percent accuracy. That got me all the funding I could dream of ... to develop two hundred percent accuracy. An enhancement of brain to muscle group coordination. You saw the results with Maybelle.”
“And the fifteen?”
“We’ve done a deal with the FDA to limit the enhancement to a duration of only fifteen minutes.”
“Why?” McKenzie says. “It’s dangerous?”
“Let’s just says their caution is in mine and my investors’ long term interests.”
McKenzie stares at the screen showing the thousands of tiny metallic spiders traveling along his blood stream to his organs. Clinging to those organs with their minute pinchers and reattaching each tissue fiber.
“But these things inside me?”
“The Nano-bots deliver the enhanced coordination between brain and muscle groups. Attaching themselves to vital organs, enhancing blood flow, oxygen levels, stamina, muscle memory and brain function. Spatial awareness levels and performance. To reach and surpass the level of the original subject. The sports star.”
“Only sports stars?”
“For now,” Damien says.
“I see,” McKenzie. “Thanks. Just one last question.”
“Sure.”
“How many sports stars throw themselves out of high rise windows into rush hour traffic and survive?”
“Wondered when you’d come to that,” Damien says. “Your body is host to the source code. The original working, evolving Nano bot architecture that contains my - our source code. Your skills, powers, abilities are theoretically limitless. Over time, you will get stronger, faster and smarter. You are the origin. Priceless.”
“And you want the source code?”
“For further study,” Damien says. “A new product range.”
“You’re selling this craziness?”
Damien laughs. “You just witnessed the global launch of Fantasy fifteen,” Damien says. “Turnover yesterday was a cool billion dollars. Who can resist living in the footsteps of their favorite sports hero?”
“What new product range?” Angel says as she walks into the room and wrapping her arms around Damien’s neck.
Damien kisses her lips passionately.
McKenzie turns away. Feels his stomach tie itself in knots. “Yes, what new product range?”
“Specialized products,” Damien says.
“Not sports?”
Damien smiles. Says nothing.
“Then what?” McKenzie says.
“Time for you to rest,” Damien says.
“Why did Tyler jump?”
Damien shrugs. “Perhaps he had some kind of mental illness,” Damien says. “He worked incredibly long hours. Never slept. Month after month working on the breakthrough.”
McKenzie tries to tell if Damien is upset in anyway about his friend’s death but Damien seems completely unconcerned.
“Did Tyler know the source code would survive his death?” McKenzie says.
“We will never know.”
“No suicide note?”
“Sleep well, McKenzie,” Damien says. “I always do.”
*
SIMONA SCARROW looks out the window of her office overlooking central park. She realizes she is no longer listening to the old, lucrative and prestigious client speaking in her ear.
“I’ll call you back,” she says.
She puts the phone down on the client. Turns up the volume of a TV news update recounting the death of two police officers. She speed dials Damien.
“We have a problem,” she says. “Madison Del Amitri.”
*
DAMIEN BURSTS INTO SIMONA SCARROW’S OFFICE. Slams the thick, heavy door behind him.
“Draw the light,” he says. “I’ve something to show you.”
With one click of a remote, the expensive window shutters slowly unfurl from the ceiling.
“When did you last sweep for electronic bugs?” he says.
“This morning,” she says.
Damien seems satisfied and nods. As the room falls into half-light a holographic video projects out of Damien’s contact lens eye.
Tyler Blake stands on the carpet before them. He appears in jeans and t-shirt. Much as he looked moments before he jumped to his death.
“Damien,” he says, “I can’t let you go ahead with phase three. If the source code is not already destroyed by the time you get this message, then it soon will be. You pride yourself in being a hundred steps ahead of everyone else. So I’ll give you five seconds to figure out if I’m bluffing or not.”
“You’ve written a virus code?”
“Hysteria,” Tyler says. “You cannot hack the host. So don’t try searching.”
“Madison Del Amitri,” Scarrow says.
“Withdraw the global launch of Fantasy fifteen,” Tyler says. “Or every user will be infected by Hysteria.”
“He’s bluffing,” Damien says.
“He knew you’d kill him,” Scarrow says.
She turns up the volume on the TV news update of the dead cops.
“We have received footage from the CCTV pictures of the traffic lights and it appears the young girl is Madison Del Amitri. As you know she was reported missing one hundred days ago...”
“Hysteria,” Tyler says. “Will you be the bringer of death upon us all?”
“The camera footage appears to show two cops consumed by green lightning and Madison fleeing the scene.”
“Call your people,” Damien says. “Tell them phase three begins tomorrow.”
“And Madison?”
“We fight fire with fire,” Damien says and dials his phone.
It answers in one ring.
“Prep McKenzie Chase.”
Chapter Twenty Eight: Hysteria Grows Stronger
Madison sits on the edge of the statue of Christopher Columbus in the center of Columbus circle. Her shoes hanging around her shoulders. Dipping her toes in the water. Tying the laces together, she lets the ripples of water from the fountain lap over her feet. Watching the green lightning from her toes spark and arc upwards and out across theater. She can see in the lightning the tiny metallic spider creatures leap from her toes inside the lightning and skim across the surface of the water as if she is hurling flat stones across a lake.
It’s as if they like the water. They fly out across it in the lightning and swim back to her. The water sets them free. Free to roam. But for now, they seem content to return to her. As if she has some power over them. Like a mother and her babies.
Madison struggles to remember how she and these creatures first met. An image of a boy appears in her mind. Tyler. Somehow, he made her take these creatures. His words some back to her in whispers like the spiders surfing the ripples of the water fountain.
“You are now the host,” Tyler says. “Protect them and they will protect you until the time is right to release them to the world.”
Yes like children, she muses. But far too many to name.
Her reflection in the water seems odd to her. Her hair sticking to her face. Oily and dirty. When was the last time she washed her hair? The days seem like minutes. Vanishing before her eyes. She cups her hands and scoops up spiders walking across the water. Opens her fingers and lets them glide away. She laughs. How playful they seem. But not always. Sometimes these children can be terrifying.
Her mind races with disjointing images of men in uniform. Cops. Horrible faces of pain. Dying. She tried to warn them. Stay away. Everyone will be safe if they just learn to stay away and allow her to figure out everything. But there is too much to figure out. Only y the important stuff then. Like for example...her name.
Tyler called her something, Wait. It’s on the tip of her tongue. It was a name of a street. Madison. That’s it. She smiles. All’s not lost then if she can remember the fundamentals.
Her eyes well up with tears and she feels spiders ride the flood from her tear ducts and down her face. Their pinchers scraping her skin as they try to claw their way back into her eyes.
“Madison shut you cake hole,” she whispers to herself. “Who used to say that to her?”
Was it dad or Mon? She squints trying to conjure up an image of what they look like. Nothing appears. She shakes her head.
Somewhere in the distance, she hears the five am church bell. A dark limousine pulls up. Doors open. Three men step out.
One of them she recognizes.
An image of his face appears in her mind’s eye. And Tyler’s words. Words of warning. “When you see this man,” Tyler whispers. “Run Madison run like the wind. And never look up.”
“Why?” she repeats as she did then. “Who is he?”
“He is the devil, he is Damien,” Tyler says to her mind’s eye. “He will destroy Hysteria.”
She hears footsteps wading through water.
Her eyes spring open and before her stand two men. Tall, strong looking, men. Unsmiling. They look back at Damien leaning against the limo. He nods.
The men reach out to touch her.
Madison feels the old anger inside her. It boils up as if the spiders sense her fear and manifest it. Share her fear and anger and compel her to act. She feels her arms and legs tense. Feel herself jump to her feet. “No,” she screams. “I can’t let you destroy us.”
Her hands clench to fists and the green sparks swirl around her fingers like a tornado of agitation.
Lightning blasts out of her fists and across the water. Rising in an instant up the legs of the two men. The water seems to rise up as if her spider friends can shape and bend the water to their will.
They scream out.
Two fist shape walls of water and lightning rise up and grab the two men. Lift them off their feet and shake them with the fury beating in Madison’s heart.
But why is she angry? What have they done to her? She tries to calm herself. To stop the manifestation of her rage from destroying these men. She shakes her head.
If they are with Damien then they are bad men. Are they the men who took her memories away? Or was that Tyler? She misses Tyler so very, very much.
“What have you down with Tyler?” she cries and the water fists shake the two men so hard she can hear their brains rattle inside their skulls.
An image of Tyler plummeting from the empire state building. As he falls, she relives the intense loneliness. The knowledge she is suddenly and forever alone and without friends. Without even a name.
Why would he leave her like this?
“To protect you,” Tyler shouts as he plunges down away from her reach. “For you and Hysteria.”
Her eyes spring open once more and she sees her reflection in the lightning water fists.
She’s only young. Surely, she has a mom and dad? Why aren’t’ they here? Why aren’t they looking for her? She tells herself if they care, they should be saving her from all this killing.
The men in the grasp on her lightning water fists reach inside their jackets. Screaming they retrieve guns. Aim them at her. Squeeze triggers
“No,” she shouts and feels her fists smash together.
The men crash into each other and their heads split open. S Madison flings her arms aside and hurls the men across the limo out towards a building with a giant window.
They crash head first into the concrete. Their bodies lay motionless in a pool of blood.
Her lightning water fists dissipate and a torrent of water collapses back into the fountain.
A woman appears. Staring at Madison through the wall of collapsing water.
She seems familiar.
Words form on Madison’s lips. “Mom?” she says.
The woman holds out her arms and nods. “Maddy,” the woman says. “It’s mom, baby, its mom, here to take you home.”
Madison steps forward and glances at Damien standing next to the woman.
Madison pauses. In her head, the voice of Tyler is screaming at her to stop.
Run Madison, run.
“Why are you with him?” she points at Damien, and holds her head in her arms trying to calm the voice of Tyler bellowing at her.
“It’s all right baby,” Mom says. “Damien’s a friend.”
As if the lightning is striking her own heart, Madison freezes on the spot. She feels pain as if her mom is ripping her heart put.
“Liar,” Madison screams. “He’s evil.”
She runs at Damien and feels herself spring up. She leaps over the limousine and lands thirty feet beyond.
She runs and leaps over the bodies of the men. Bounds towards the building with the giant glass window reflecting Columbus circle in the dawn light. Sees herself running towards it.
Behind her, two more men step out of the limousine and walk towards her.
She grabs at the door handle of the glass building. Feels a strength in her arms she never knew existed as the doors rip off their hinges.
She runs up the motionless escalator into a bookshop.
She finds a fiction section. Crouches down next to a collection of books about Dinosaurs. The covers seem familiar as if in another life she would read something like them Escape into their world. But there is no time to escape now. Perhaps if she can stay here long enough. Let her thoughts calm down so she can make a plan.
She waits in the shadows.
Footsteps seem to follow her. Up the escalator.
Two men. Just like the last two. Walking down the book aisles. Slowly. Passing the section marked with an A. Passing B.
“Move on,” she whispers. “Please, Move on”
Passing C. D then E and F.
“Please don’t stop,” she hears herself whisper. “Move on or I-”
The men stop at G. They look down at their feet.
Madison looks up. “I’m sorry,” she says. They seem confused. They smile and reach down at her.
Lightning explodes into their faces. The men fly backwards out through the giant windows/
Madison stands up and watches their bodies’ crash into the roof of the limo.
Hears the woman screaming.
Madison slowly slides down the motionless escalator and walks out the door of the glass-fronted building.
The woman runs towards her.
“No,” Madison screams. “Stay away.”
The woman throws herself to Madison. Desperation in her face seems to force her to yield to her instincts.
Madison feels this woman’s tight embrace like the love filling the hole in her soul she is so desperate to fill.
Feels the woman’s tears on her face as she looks over the woman’s shoulder at Damien,
He is smiling.
Tyler whispers in her mind. “He will send propel you trust,” Tyler says. “People you trust and they will betray you.”
The woman, her mother, squeezes tighter as she sobs in Madison’s ear. “We never lost hope, Maddy,” she says. “Never for a second.”
“Liar,” Madison says. “You bring him.”
And Madison feels compelled by the spiders to reject her mom. Pushes her away.
“Stay away,” Madison shouts. As her fists begin to swirl with lightning.
“Maddy,” her mom says and reaches out for Madison. “It’s me, mom, I’m here to take you-”
Madison holds up her hands in defensive posture and feels the lightning burst out of her fists.
Her mom screams out. Engulfed by the rage of lightning.
“Betrayer,” Madison screams and feels her vision blur with tears. “You make my own mom betray me.”
Damien smile as the body of Madison’s mom flies through the air and lands at his feet.
He calmly slides back into the back of his limo and closes the door. Madison feels the lightning rage in her fists begin to calm. As if the rage of a million souls has been satiated. Exhausted, she falls to her knees and crawls across to her mom.
“Mom?”
she whispers and shakes the motionless body of her mother. “What have I done? Please mom, take me home.”
Madison kneels by the woman. Strokes the woman’s face with her shaking hands. Hugging her mom. Pulling her mom to her. Hugging her. Sobbing uncontrollably.
Her mom’s eyes stare up at Madison Unblinking. Dead eyes.
“What am I?” Madison says.
The limo glides up to Madison and slows. A window lowers and Damien leans forward.
“Only I can bring an end to your nightmare,” he says and signals the driver to move on. “Remember that, the next time you and I meet.”
She looks down at her hands. Her Mom’s hand inside her own.
A silver locket pokes through her fingers.
Madison pries her mom’s fingers away and takes the locket from her grasp. She opens the silver case revealing a photo of Madison with her mom and a man. She tries to remember who this man is. Her father?
Madison wipes her tears. Tells herself she’s all alone and that’s that. Looks back at the trail of shattered glass. At the tiny metallic spider friends removing the shards from her bleeding feet. She closes her eyes and sees the image of a man. Her father.
“We will wait for him,” she says to herself. “If he comes we will be safe.”
Chapter Twenty Nine: Infiltrate
The room is dark. The only light emits from a bank of screens flickering over images of McKenzie’s rapidly healing wounds. He dreams of running from millions of metallic spiders. One hand firmly protecting his privates as razor sharp pinchers try to snip off anything that dangles.
He feels himself overwhelmed by the creatures flooding into his mouth. His whole body shakes from the inside as if the spiders are about to explode out of him. Shaking him to death between their pinchers.
“Wake up, idiot.”
McKenzie opens his eyes and sees Angel shaking him his shoulders.
“I’m alive?”
“Sshh,” she says placing a hand over his mouth. “Not for much longer. Now listen. Damien will be here any minute now and he wants you to help him with a problem.”
“And I should say yes?”
She shakes her head. “You should say no.”
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