by Lucas Flint
“Grandfather,” I said. I straightened up, but did not yet lower my guard in front of him. “Reading the paper, I see.”
“Of course,” said Grandfather. “I don’t own a smartphone or a tablet, so I prefer to get my news the old-fashioned way. I must admit, though, that the quality of newspapers has gone down perceptibly since my youth. Or maybe they’ve always been this bad and I just didn’t notice it.”
“Why don’t we just get straight to the point?” I said. “You wanted to talk to me, right? Well, I’m here. So let’s talk.”
Grandfather sighed. “There’s no need to use that tone on me, Kevin. I’m your grandfather. You should speak to me with some more respect.”
“Respect?” I said. “Why? What have you done that is worthy of respect?”
“Given your father life, and through him, you as well,” said Grandfather. “But I guess that isn’t enough for you, is it? In any case, please sit down so we can talk like rational human beings.”
Grandfather gestured at the chair opposite him, which looked a lot like his, though it was blue instead of red. I didn’t sense anything dangerous or suspicious about this, yet I could not help but feel like this was part of a trap anyway.
“No thanks,” I said. “I’ll just stand. Standing is better for you than sitting, anyway.”
“I see,” said Grandfather. “Well, these old bones of mine make it hard for me to stand for very long. I guess we’ll just have to do what we each think is comfortable.”
“Right,” I said. I glanced around the room for a moment, and then looked at Grandfather again. “Why are you in New York City? I thought you were on the run from the Test Subjects.”
“I am,” said Grandfather, nodding. “Granted, I am not running quite as quickly as I used to, due to the fact that four of them are now behind bars. Still, I can’t stay still for long. I have to keep moving, lest they find me.”
“You didn’t answer my question,” I said. “Why are you in New York City?”
“Because I wanted to talk to you, of course,” said Grandfather. “It has been a long time since we last saw each other. Plus, I feel safer here than I did in upstate New York, mostly because I am so close to Hero Island.”
I folded my arms across my chest. “Is that so? I thought you were going to say that you had come here to look for Grandmother.”
Grandfather averted his eyes, like he was ashamed of something. “She is still out there somewhere, but I decided to come here to this house, which I’ve made into my temporary base due to my history with it.”
“What do you mean?” I said.
“I mean that this was the house that Jane, Ted, and I lived in when your father was a child,” said Grandfather. He gestured at the room. “I had this house built before your father was born. It was very expensive, but worth it. Unfortunately, I had to abandon it when Echo and the Test Subjects came after us, which is why it seems so abandoned and sad.”
“Is that why there’s a picture of you, Grandmother, and Dad down there next to the door?” I said, pointing at the floor. “I saw a family picture when I entered.”
“Yes,” said Grandfather, nodding. “I didn’t get to take all of my things before we left the first time, so I had to leave some of it behind. I would have preferred to spend my retirement in this house alongside Jane, but unfortunately that was not to be.”
Grandfather suddenly gestured at the fireplace between his chair and the empty one. “This fireplace here, I remember when Ted bumped his head against the mantle once when he was a young boy. He cried hard that day, even though it was just a bump. And Jane … well, she comforted him as always. Jane was such a kind woman, a good mother and an even better wife.”
“Is that why you tore out her eyes?” I said. “Or did you do that because you thought you were ‘helping’ her?”
Grandfather immediately looked at me. There was fear and confusion in his eyes, like he didn’t understand what I was saying. Or maybe he did understand and he was shocked that I knew.
“Who told you that?” said Grandfather. His tone had gone from nostalgic to deadly quiet now.
“Dad told me,” I said. “Technically, it was a video recording left by Dad, in which he told me all of your sordid little secrets.”
Grandfather shifted in his seat, like he wanted to get up and run, but he stayed put. “Well, I didn’t expect you to say something like that. I thought we had put that little episode behind us.”
“Behind us?” I said in shock. “You make it sound like no big deal. Do you even know how crazy you sound right now?”
“You don’t understand,” said Grandfather, shaking his head. “And Ted, for all of his hyper intelligence, never did, either. Then again, Ted was just a small kid when that happened, so I imagine that his memories were distorted by the lens of youth.”
“What is there to understand?” I said. “Look, there’s a lot about you and Grandmother I don’t know or understand. But I do know this: You are planning something. I don’t know what it is, but I know it’s no good.”
“Then are you here to kill me?” said Grandfather. “Have you sided with the Test Subjects, then?”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t want anything to do with them, either. But that doesn’t mean I’m on your side, not if you have anything nefarious planned.”
“Kevin, I’m not some sort of supervillain with a devious plot to take over the world,” said Grandfather with a shrug. “I’m just an old man who has made some mistakes and who is trying to survive in this cruel world, just like everyone else.”
“Then what about your soul stealing powers?” I said.
“My what?” said Grandfather.
“You heard me,” I said. “Do you remember Triplet? He told me that he saw you steal the souls of some gangsters who ambushed you in an alley in a small town in upstate New York. You never told me that you had powers.”
“That’s because I don’t,” said Grandfather. “Your friend did not see what he thought he saw. That much I can confirm.”
“Right, I’m sure he didn’t,” I said. “What about Savannah Jones? What did you do with her soul? And don’t deny that you stole her soul. I’m not as smart as Dad, but I’m not an idiot, either. I can see right through whatever lies you’re going to use to distract me.”
Grandfather was silent, no doubt because I had anticipated his next move before he even got a chance to do it. I didn’t know what he was going to say next, exactly, but I at least expected him to start telling the truth, if nothing else.
Finally, Grandfather folded his newspaper up and said, “So you want the truth, is that it? You want to know what’s really going on here?”
“Yes,” I said. “I want to know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”
“That I cannot tell you,” said Grandfather. “You are only supposed to know what I am allowed to tell you. If I told you more, I would get into trouble.”
“Trouble?” I said. “Trouble with who?”
Grandfather looked me straight in the eye. I could now see fear in his eyes, fear that I had never seen there before.
But then I realized that Grandfather actually wasn’t looking me in the eye at all. He was actually looking over my shoulder, causing me to look over my shoulder just in time to see that the door to the room had opened. I did not see anyone out in the dark hallway, which made me wonder if Emma had opened the door, but then someone stepped into the room, someone I had never seen before.
She was a short and plump woman, with the largest and roundest mouth I had ever seen on another human being. She wore a dark leather jacket and leaned on a black cane. She looked like she was in her late fifties at most, though she still had a few black hairs among her gray ones.
“Who are you?” I said, turning to face her. “How did you get into here?”
“Who am I?” said the woman. Her voice was high and screechy, almost like she was shouting. She smiled, which made her look crazy. “I’m Echo, or,
as I was known back in Project Neo, Test Subject Zero Zero Two. And I have you where I want you.”
Before I could react, the woman opened her mouth and unleashed a powerful sonic scream that filled my eardrums. It felt like I had been punched in the gut by a huge fist and I fell to the floor, where I knocked my head and completely lost consciousness.
Chapter Seventeen
How much time passed between me losing consciousness and me awakening, I couldn’t say. All I knew was that I woke up what felt like one second after I hit my head against the floor, only this time I was lying down flat on my back on a slab of concrete. I tried to sit up, but thick steel clamps held me down, clamps so thick and strong that even with my super strength, I doubted I could break them very easily or quickly.
My ears started hurting the second I woke up, making me groan in pain, but I couldn’t rub my ears to make them feel better thanks to these damn clamps. My head felt dizzy, like I had just gotten off a roller coaster.
But when I opened my eyes, I saw that I was lying directly underneath a whole bunch of really bright lights that forced me to squint. That made it almost impossible for me to see where I was; in fact, I even thought about just closing my eyes entirely to avoid the glare.
But then I heard movement and heard Echo’s annoying, screechy voice say, “He’s awake.”
A second later, Echo appeared above me. She looked as ugly and fat as I remembered her, almost like a stereotypical witch than a real woman. Her face was silhouetted by the lights above, but I could still see her gleaming blue eyes from within her large face.
“Look at you, look at you,” said Echo. “How do you feel? You look awful.”
“Ugh …” My head throbbed. “What happened? Where am I?”
“In the basement of your grandparents’ house,” said Echo. She patted the clamps that held me down. “And thanks to these reinforced steel clamps, you are not going anywhere else anytime soon.”
“Huh?” I said. I struggled against the clamps, but still couldn’t break them. “What’s going on? Why are you here? Did you kill Grandfather? Is he okay?”
“The old fool is still alive,” said Echo. She grimaced. “Unfortunately. The mistress told me to keep him alive. She can be so sentimental sometimes.”
Echo said that like I would understand, but frankly, I didn’t. “Who is ‘the mistress’? Is she another one of you Test Subjects? Maybe the real leader behind all of this?”
Echo opened her mouth to reply, but then an incredibly aged and frail-sounding feminine voice said, “There is no need to answer him, Echo. I am here and am capable of speaking to him myself.”
I tried to turn my head to see who was speaking, but my neck had a brace around it that kept it down and severely limited its movement. I just noticed a look of surprise appear on Echo’s face before she said, “Are you sure about that, mistress? You are still ill.”
“Yes, Echo, I am,” said the aged and frail feminine voice. “But please push me over to him. I do not have the strength to move myself.”
Echo frowned, like she disagreed with the idea of her mistress—whoever she was—talking with me, but she nonetheless nodded and then walked around the table. I tried to follow her movement, but like I said, the clamp around my neck made that impossible. I could just hear Echo’s heavy footsteps as she made her way over to her mistress, and then I heard the sound of squeaky wheels being pushed across the floor. It sounded kind of like a wheelchair, which made me wonder just how frail and weak Echo’s mistress really was.
A few seconds later, the wheelchair stopped. I heard some movement next to me and then a second later the face of a very old, sick-looking woman was looking down at me. She looked awful, with graying skin covered in blots, skin that was so thin that I could practically see the bones underneath. She didn’t have much hair, and what little hair she did have was gray and wispy. And her eyes were closed, but they also looked empty, like she did not have any eyes anymore. Her hands moved across my face, which felt dry and creepy, though I figured she was touching my face to figure out who I was.
“Who … who are you?” I said as the eyeless woman removed her hands from my face. “Another Test Subject?”
The woman shook her head. “No. Are you sure you do not recognize me? Of course, the last time I saw you, you were just a baby, barely even a day old. I should not be surprised that you don’t remember me very much.”
“You saw me when I was a baby?” I said. “I don’t understand.”
“That much is obvious,” said the woman. She suddenly broke into a coughing fit, which made me wince, but the clamps made it impossible for me to move out of the way. She just coughed for several seconds before she finally regained control of her coughs and frowned. “Ugh. I hate being sick.”
“Mistress, do you need to sit down?” said Echo’s voice, though Echo herself was not visible from my perspective. “Your cough sounds worse than usual.”
“It’s fine, Echo, it’s fine,” said the woman. “I can stand for a little while longer. You need not worry about me.”
Then the woman looked down at me again. “Since you obviously did not inherit your father’s own super intelligence, I should perhaps spell out my identity to you. I wish I didn’t have to, however, because most grandmothers usually don’t have to identify themselves to their own grandchildren.”
My eyes widened in shock. “You’re Grandmother? No way.”
“Why do you doubt me?” said the woman. “I know your real name, Kevin, and I know all about your real history. I know we’ve never met before, but surely you must see part of Ted in me.”
I looked at her a little closer. She didn’t look much like Dad, but she did slightly resemble the woman I had seen in that old family portrait near the entrance. The shape of her face, in particular, was almost exactly the same as that of the younger woman in the family portrait, if only older and aged from the years. And, of course, she was missing her eyes, just like Dad had said.
“Okay, you’re Grandmother,” I said. “But … what are you doing here? What is Echo doing here? Why is Echo treating you like her master? I thought you had been kidnapped and Echo was going to harm you to get to Grandfather.”
Grandmother shook her head. “You sound oh so very ignorant right now, Kevin, much more ignorant than I’d expect the son of Theodore to be. But then, I suppose that is to be expected, given how little contact we’ve had and how hard I’ve worked to make sure that no one knows what I’m truly trying to do.”
“Truly trying to do?” I repeated. “Where’s Grandfather? Is he still alive?”
“I’m over here, Kevin,” came Grandfather’s voice from a corner of the room. “Still here, as always.”
“Quiet,” Grandmother snapped at Grandfather. “You will speak only when spoken to, and no more.”
“Yes, dear,” said Grandfather meekly.
“Huh?” I said. “And what about Emma? Where is she?”
“Unconscious,” said Grandmother. “I’ve never liked that girl—too eager to please—so I had Echo knock her out and tie her up and leave her in a closet. She has already served her usefulness. I thought about having her killed, but then I decided that that would be too much work and take too much time. Better to continue along with the plan, the plan that’s been in the works for thirty years, and not waste time killing someone I don’t need to have killed.”
“What plan?” I said. “What are you even talking about? What’s going on here? Are you going to explain or am I just going to be very confused?”
Grandmother tapped her chin in thought. “Ordinarily, I would not bother to explain my plan to someone like you. But since you are my grandson, I think you deserve to know the truth. Blood should never lie to blood, after all.”
Grandmother coughed briefly before looking down at me again. “Do you see this old body of mine, Kevin? Do you see how weak and frail it is?”
“Um, yes,” I said, nodding. “Why?”
Grandmother felt her own face, an a
nnoyed scowled on her ancient features. “Because I hate it. It is disgusting. When I go to bed every night, I can never be sure if I will wake up in the morning. I used to be young and beautiful, with so much energy even after I gave birth to Theodore. And it is that youth and beauty that I fully intend to regain today, no matter the cost.”
“How are you going to do that?” I said. “You can’t reverse the aging process. Well, okay, I think there’s a guy in the INJ who has the power to de-age people, but—”
“Please let me finish, Kevin,” said Grandmother. “You interrupted me. That’s a bad habit for a young man to get into, though I remember that Theodore had that same problem when he was your age. His super intelligence made him think he was better than us, so he never took our authority as seriously as he should have.”
There was a definite hint of bitterness and anger in Grandmother’s voice when she said that. Her tiny, old hands curled into fists, though she did not move them from the table.
“Anyway, back to the story,” said Grandmother. “You asked how I intend to do that? It’s quite simple, though it took a long time to execute. Echo? Is the machine ready yet?”
“Yes,” said Echo from somewhere behind Grandmother. “The Rejuvenator is operational. Would you like me to get it ready?”
“Yes, please,” said Grandmother. “I intend to have my youthful body back before the end of the hour. How long will it take for it to fully boot up?”
“Just a few minutes,” said Echo. “Barring any unforeseen circumstances interrupting it, of course.”
“There should not be any unforeseen circumstances now, Echo,” said Grandmother sharply. “Not when I am this close to regaining my youth.”
“Yes, mistress,” said Echo. “I will do everything in my power to ensure that it all goes well.”