by Kate O'Hearn
‘Where am I?’ Paelen demanded as he struggled against the steel cuffs clamped on his wrists. ‘What is this place? Why have you put me in chains?’
‘We ask the questions,’ said one of the men in overalls. ‘Not you. So just lie still for a moment while we finish hooking you up.’
‘I do not understand,’ Paelen said as he looked at the frightening array of machines being drawn up to the side of the bed. ‘What is hooking me up? What more are you doing to me?’
‘Just relax,’ said a doctor. ‘We’re not going to hurt you. This equipment will tell us a little bit more about you. It will record your heart rate and brain impulses. It will show me if you are very different from us.’
‘Of course I am different from you,’ Paelen said indignantly. ‘You are human and I, Olympian!’
The men in overalls raised their eyebrows at each other.
‘Olympian, huh?’ one of them said. ‘And I suppose you’re the great Zeus himself?’
‘If I were,’ Paelen asked, ‘would I receive better treatment?’
The man shrugged. ‘Maybe.’
‘Then I am he. Zeus,’ Paelen said quickly. ‘And as such, I demand you release me.’
‘Sorry Zeusie old boy, no can do,’ the man said once he was certain Paelen’s steel handcuffs were secure. ‘There are a lot of folks around here very interested in speaking to you. So just lie still and be patient. They’ll be with you soon.’
Seeing that his pleas were hopeless, Paelen lay back and became quiet. He couldn’t believe what was happening to him. All he had ever wanted was to get hold of Pegasus and be free. Free of Olympus and Jupiter with all his rules. Free of the Nirads and the war.
He never wanted to visit this world or meet any of its people. He’d heard countless stories about it when he was growing up. Of the strange people who lived here and how they worshipped the Olympians. But he’d never been curious about them or tempted to visit. They were just human. What could they possibly offer someone like him? But in following Pegasus here, he’d been struck by one of Jupiter’s lightning bolts and was now trapped.
It was bad enough waking in that strange place they called Belleview Hospital. But things had quickly gone from bad to worse when more men arrived to take him away. He had tried to fight them off, but his wounds were too great. Now here he was on this little island, enduring more horrors.
Paelen was helpless to stop them from stealing more of his precious blood. They’d cut off samples of his hair and shone their bright lights in his eyes until he could no longer see. He’d been studied like youngsters in Olympus study insects they find on the steps of Jupiter’s palace. Poked and prodded and put in a strange device they called the MRI.
When they’d tired of that torture, Paelen had been brought to this room. It had no windows and was without any obvious means of escape except through a single door.
Paelen could smell the earth pressing in behind the white walls. He knew that wherever he was, it was in some kind of strange labyrinth deep beneath the ground.
He wondered if these same people had captured Pegasus. Was the great stallion somewhere in this place with him? Part of Paelen wanted to ask. But another part of him thought better of it. These were not good people. If Pegasus hadn’t been captured, he wasn’t about to alert them to his presence. He owed the stallion that much.
Watching the men as they buzzed around him like bees, Paelen tried to figure out how best to escape. That had always been one of his talents in Olympus. No matter where Jupiter locked him up, he always managed to get away.
But with those heavy white things they called casts on his legs and his obvious broken bones and deep burns, this wasn’t the time to make his move. Instead he would tolerate his captors. Play with them, taunt them, and do his best to learn all their weaknesses.
Only when he was recovered and strong again, would he make his move. He would leave this place of pain and despair. And finally, he would capture Pegasus.
8
Emily picked at her food, unable to eat. The story her father had just told was spinning around in her head. She was convinced that Paelen had something to do with Pegasus. But with the stallion unable to speak, and Paelen now spirited away by the CRU, Emily had no idea how they were connected.
Not long after supper, Emily’s father went to bed for a few hours of rest before his next shift. The moment he shut his bedroom door, Emily dashed back into the kitchen to gather together food and drinks to take up to Joel and Pegasus.
‘You’re not going to believe this.’ Emily arrived breathlessly back on the roof. ‘There’s another Olympian in New York! His name is Paelen and—’
The moment Emily said the name, Pegasus started to shriek and tear furiously at the shed’s floorboards.
‘Pegasus, what is it?’ Emily ran over and stroked the stallion’s quivering muzzle. ‘Do you know Paelen?’
Pegasus snorted angrily, rose on his hind legs and came down brutally on the floorboards. His sharp hooves cut into the wood, tearing up huge splinters.
‘Please, stop,’ Emily cried. ‘You’ve got to calm down. My father’s asleep in the apartment below us. If he hears you, he’ll come up and find you!’
Pegasus stopped tearing at the boards, but shook his head, still snorting and whinnying. Emily looked desperately over to Joel.
‘What do you think is wrong with him?’
‘Easy boy, calm down,’ Joel soothed. He turned to Emily. ‘Seems that Pegasus doesn’t like Paelen, whoever he is.’
‘Is that it?’ she asked the stallion. ‘Don’t you like Paelen?’
Pegasus became still and strangely silent. He looked Emily straight in the eye. In that moment, Emily felt that tight connection to him. Somehow she knew that Paelen was someone who had hurt Pegasus and caused a lot of trouble for him. As she stared into his large dark eyes, strange images suddenly flooded her mind. She saw Pegasus in the dark storm-filled sky with lightning flashing all around him. She felt his determination, his fear – and his urgent need to get somewhere, knowing it was a matter of life and death. Then she saw a boy in the sky beside the stallion. The boy was older than Joel, but not nearly as big. He was flying beside Pegasus and reaching across to the stallion. Then she saw him snatching Pegasus’s golden bridle away. Suddenly there was a bright, blinding flash of lightning and terrible, searing pain—
‘Emily,’ Joel repeated. ‘Emily, what’s wrong?’
Breaking the connection, Emily blinked and staggered on her feet. ‘Joel?’ she said in a soft and distant voice.
‘Are you all right?’
‘I’m, I’m fine, I think,’ Emily’s head started to clear. She concentrated on Joel, now looking anxiously at her. ‘I just saw the strangest thing,’ she said.
‘What?’
Emily looked back to the stallion. ‘Pegasus, what I just saw? It was true, wasn’t it? Paelen took the bridle from you. It was because of him you were hit by lightning.’
Pegasus snorted and butted Emily gently. Yes.
‘Please tell me,’ Joel pressed. ‘What did you see?’
‘I don’t know how to explain it,’ she said. ‘But it was kind of like watching television, only much more intense. When Paelen got the golden bridle off Pegasus, it attracted lightning and they were both hit.’
‘So now we’ve got to find this Paelen and get it back,’ Joel suggested.
‘That’s going to be impossible,’ Emily said. Stroking Pegasus, she explained about the conversation with her father and how Paelen had been taken by the secret government agency, the CRU.
‘I’ve never heard of the crew,’ Joel said, bewildered. ‘And my dad worked for the United Nations.’
‘Not crew,’ Emily corrected. ‘C-R-U. Central Research Unit. They just pronounce it like the word “crew”. Not a lot of people know about them. These guys deal with weird science stuff and anything to do with aliens. My dad says, when the CRU come to get you, you’re never seen or heard from again. He’s had to deal with them a
couple of times in his career, and each time, he was threatened and ordered to stay quiet or there’d be trouble. If the CRU ever learned about Pegasus, they would take him away and we’d never see him again.’
‘If they’re as bad as you say,’ Joel said, ‘we’d probably disappear too, just because we’ve seen him.’
‘Exactly,’ Emily said, ‘which is why we have to be extra careful until Pegasus’s wing heals. He’s got to get safely away to finish whatever it is he came here for.’
‘Did he show you what that was?’
‘No,’ Emily said. ‘All I saw was Paelen stealing the bridle and then both of them getting hit by lightning. But it felt like life and death kind of stuff.’ She turned back to the stallion, ‘Isn’t it Pegasus?’
The stallion nodded and pounded the floorboards.
‘So if we can’t go after Paelen to get the bridle, what do we do?’ Joel asked.
Emily shrugged. ‘I guess we just keep Pegasus safe and warm until he heals.’
Joel nodded. ‘And to do that, he needs plenty of good food and care. Did you find any honey?’
Emily started to go through the bags she’d carried up from her kitchen. ‘I’ve got some honey, corn syrup, brown sugar and white sugar and more sweet cereal. But I still can’t believe a horse should be eating all this stuff.’
Pegasus protested loudly.
‘Sorry Pegs,’ she said. She looked at Joel with a half-smile. ‘He really hates being called a horse, doesn’t he?’
‘Wouldn’t you, if you were him?’ said Joel.
As Emily poured half the box of sweet cereal into a huge plastic bowl, Joel opened the can of corn syrup and poured it on top. He added several spoonfuls of brown sugar.
‘Yuck!’ Emily said as the stallion started to eat hungrily. ‘How can you do that, Pegs? After this, I don’t think I’ll ever eat that cereal again.’
After Pegasus was fed, Joel sat down to eat the sandwiches Emily had prepared for him.
‘What time do you need to get home?’ she asked. Checking her watch, it was just past six in the evening. The sun was still up, but had already crossed the city and would soon start to set.
‘I’m not going back,’ Joel said casually after taking a long drink of milk right from the carton.
‘Not going back?’ Emily said in alarm. ‘Won’t your parents worry?’
Joel looked away. ‘My parents are dead. I’m living in a foster home. The people there hardly ever notice me, so probably not.’ He tried to sound indifferent but Emily could hear the quiver in his tone fighting through the bravado. She wasn’t sure what to say, she had no clue about Joel’s past.
‘I didn’t know. Joel, I’m so sorr—’
‘It’s OK,’ he said almost too quickly. ‘It’s not like I’ve told anyone.’ He looked down, avoiding her gaze, and began to speak slowly. ‘Three years ago I was living with my family in Connecticut. We were going away for the weekend when a drunk driver lost control of his car and crashed into us. My parents and little brother were killed instantly. I was hurt too, but somehow I survived. Though every day since it happened, I wish I hadn’t.’
‘Oh, Joel,’ Emily said in a hushed voice. ‘It must have been terrible.’
Joel said nothing for a long time. Finally he looked at her. ‘I’ve been in foster-care ever since. But I hate it.’
Emily was too stunned to speak. She could never have imagined this. She knew what it was to suffer the unending grief of losing one parent, but she couldn’t imagine what it would be like to lose your entire family.
‘Isn’t there anyone in Italy you could go live with?’
‘No,’ Joel said sharply. ‘No one wanted me. So I’m stuck here.’ He lifted his chin in defiance. ‘But not for much longer. I’m planning to run away. I’ll find someplace where no one will be able to tell me where to go, what to do or anything ever again. I’ll finally be free!’
Joel stood up quickly and crossed to Pegasus. Emily watched the tension in his shoulders fade as he stroked the stallion’s face. ‘I’m going to stay here tonight,’ he said, his back to Emily. ‘I don’t like leaving Pegasus alone.’
Emily stood and put her hands on her hips. He may have had a tough life, but there was no need to insult her. ‘Gee, thanks, Joel, for the vote of confidence,’ she said suddenly riled. ‘But for your information, in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m here. So he’s not alone.’
‘You know what I mean,’ Joel said. ‘You’ve got to get back down to your apartment before your father goes to work tonight. I can stay here so Pegasus doesn’t get frightened.’
Emily was about to say something more, but the look in his eyes stopped her.
He was nothing like the angry person she met this morning on his front stoop. In his eyes she suddenly saw – need. Joel needed to stay with Pegasus.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘You can stay. There are some extra blankets and pillows I can bring up. But just so you know, I’m planning to stay up here too. Once my father goes to work, we can bring everything up. It’ll kind of be like camping.’
‘Without the marshmallows,’ Joel added.
‘I think we might have some of those,’ Emily said. ‘But if I know Pegasus, he’ll have them off me before I even open the bag!’
9
After the doctors finished hooking Paelen up to the equipment, they went over to their computers to check out the readings.
Paelen watched them curiously, but said nothing. Instead he concentrated on his surroundings. On the wall behind him, high above the bed, was a small ventilation grill. He could feel fresh air blowing gently down on him. He could also hear sounds coming from other rooms floating through the same grill. That meant that there was a system of tunnels up there which he could easily slip through. Tunnels were his speciality. There wasn’t one tunnel in all Olympus he couldn’t slip through, or find his way out of; including the great labyrinth of the Minotaur. Paelen knew that once he was free of the casts on his legs, he would be able to find his way to the surface.
Of course, there was also the issue of the handcuffs. But he’d seen the men in the overalls had keys to the locks. If he worked it out properly, he could easily get the keys away from them. Failing that, Paelen could always use his talent for stretching out his body; though he preferred not to.
As his mind worked on the problem, Paelen heard the same strange series of beeping sounds he’d heard before. Soon after the door to the room opened and two men entered.
One was middle-aged with salt-and-pepper hair. He was wearing a dark suit and had a grim expression on his face. The other man was much younger, with light blond hair cut short. Also wearing a dark suit, he looked equally unpleasant.
With their backs to Paelen, they started to whisper with the doctors. Paelen couldn’t help but smile. They had no idea that he could clearly hear them discussing the test results and what had been learned so far. Just like they didn’t know he could hear the other voices through the grill above him.
Once again, Paelen was reminded of how different he was to these humans. And even though the meaning of some of their words eluded him, he understood enough. They were discussing how extraordinary his brain patterns were. How he had superior muscle strength and density. How his bones were flexible and nothing like human bones, which partially explained how he survived the fall. They’d also found several organs they couldn’t identify. When asked, one of the doctors suggested that Paelen was no more than seventeen years old.
That comment nearly had Paelen in fits of laughter. He had to bite his own tongue to keep from laughing out loud. If they knew the truth of his age, he was certain they would never believe him. But then again, maybe they would. That could only make things much worse for him.
Finally the two new men sat down in chairs beside Paelen’s bed. The older man pulled out a small black device from his pocket and flicked a switch. He held it up to his lips and started speaking.
‘CRU report, C.49.21-J. First interview. Date: June 2nd. Tim
e: nineteen hundred hours. Subject is male. His approximate age is seventeen. Medical tests reveal multiple injuries consistent with a lightning strike and fall from a great height.
‘Further tests reveal profound physical anomalies. The subject’s organs are not where they should be. We’ve identified several other organs whose function is as yet undetermined. These warrant further investigation. Subject has multiple broken bones which are healing at a remarkable rate. Blood work has revealed an unknown cross-type with unfamiliar properties. Subject is physically strong despite his small size and youthful outward appearance …’
Paelen watched the man speaking into the device. It sounded like he was describing some kind of monster and not him. The more he listened, the more he started to understand the degree of trouble he was in.
Finally the man finished and turned his attention to Paelen. ‘State your name for the record,’ he demanded, holding the device towards Paelen.
At first Paelen remained silent. But when the man repeated the question, he thought this would be a good time to start his own investigation. Breaking his silence, he replied. ‘Subject.’
‘That is not your name,’ the man said.
‘Perhaps not,’ Paelen agreed. ‘However, it is the name you have given me. One name is as good as any other, is it not?’
‘I didn’t call you Subject.’
‘Yes you did.’
‘I don’t think so,’ the older man said.
‘But you did,’ Paelen insisted, ‘Just now. You were speaking into that little black box and said, “Subject has multiple broken bones which are healing at a remarkable rate.” Then you said, “Subject is strong despite his small size and youthful outward appearance”.’ So if it pleases you to call me Subject, then that shall be my name. I am Subject.’