by C Lee Tocci
Todd and Marla sat next to Jeff as he surfed the net. Donny was happily enthralled in a picture book of farm animals while Devon and Nita sat on the floor with Lilibit and initiated her into the wonders of the alphabet.
Lilibit labored over the writing on the page. She acted as if she had at one time known her letters, but the memory of them was just out of her reach. She heaved a frustrated sigh, but listened closely to Devon.
Marla nudged Todd with a smile and glanced down at Devon. Todd grinned back. Devon was a funny, quiet boy, but he had a nurturing soul and sometimes showed a surprising maturity.
Then he turned to Jeff. There were so many questions burning in his mind. Maybe this was a good time to get some of them answered.
With a quiet whisper, Todd asked Jeff, “Do a search on a company with the acronym ‘NAVMRI’. That’s what was on the helicopter we saw on the mountaintop.”
In seconds, the website of the ‘Nil and Voight Medical Research Institute’ flashed on the screen. Jeff’s fingers sailed through the public pages.
“Here we go,” Jeff reported. “They’re a private research institute working off corporate and government grants: ‘researching healing, regeneration and pain tolerance in humans.’” Jeff gave an ironic snort. “You got to love this… look at the disclaimer at the base of their home page: ‘No animals are used in our testing and research.’”
Looking at Lilibit reading quietly, Todd understood their interest in her. Only a few weeks earlier she was a broken husk, balancing on the edge of survival. Now, other than when her choppily cut hair parted to show the scars on her scalp, she appeared much like any other child. But who hurt her so badly? And why? And what did they still want with her?
“What more can you find out?” Todd asked Jeff quietly.
With a grin of pure mischief, Jeff responded, “You want me to hack into their network?”
“Can you?” asked Todd.
Jeff responded with a snort and the rapid staccato of the keyboard stuttered through the stillness of the library.
Minutes passed and Jeff’s bravado began to fade.
“They’ve got firewalls in place like I’ve never seen before. The CIA could take lessons from them!” he muttered to himself.
“How do you know what kind of firewalls the CIA have?” asked Todd.
Jeff responded with a cocky grin.
“Never mind,” Todd added, “don’t answer that.”
Another five minutes went past before Jeff slapped the desk with disgust. “It’ll take me hours to get through their security, and I can’t even be sure if I haven’t already triggered a dozen of their infiltration detectors.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Todd saw Lilibit no longer studied her book. Devon and Nita watched her curiously as she sat back and began fishing through her pockets. She pulled out her stones and listened to them one at time before finding one that seemed to answer her. Placing the others back, she stood and turned to Jeff.
“Here Jeff,” Lilibit smiled and extended her hand casually, “he wants to stay with you.”
Todd, Jeff and Marla froze with anticipation at her words. However, when Lilibit opened her hand to reveal her gift, Todd could not restrain a snort of laughter.
Revealed in Lilibit’s palm was a scrap of mineral so meager it might have been brushed aside as a splinter of dust. It looked like a rectangular chip of pale mica, as small as a baby’s fingernail and not much thicker. Jeff stared woodenly into Lilibit’s smiling face, not a trace of gratitude to be seen.
“Thank you,” Jeff said without a hint of sincerity.
His sarcasm was lost on Lilibit. With a cheerful grin, she grabbed Jeff’s hand and turned it to place the stone in his palm.
“His name,” she declared with a calm authority, “is Dave.”
This was too much for Todd and Marla. The librarian hurried over to shush their crack of laughter, but Marla’s eyes were tearing and Todd’s face was hot from biting his lip.
“Dave?” asked Jeff.
Lilibit nodded innocently before returning to her book with Devon and Nita, who had watched this exchange with interest.
Jeff turned his stare from Lilibit to Todd and Marla.
“Dave?” he mouthed to them voicelessly. Jeff huffed at their grins and then set the splinter next to the keyboard before going back to work.
Todd watched closely, wondering if Dave was having any effect on him.
Evidently not, since it was Lilibit who stood again, and taking Dave from the desktop, placed it on the back of Jeff’s hand.
Jeff rolled his eyes and for several moments ignored the chip, continuing his attempts at digital piracy. It took less than a minute, but he stopped still, his eyes lost focus and his head twitched from one side to the other as if he saw things floating before his face no one else saw.
“Whoa!” he muttered breathlessly. Todd and Marla watched in alarm as Jeff’s head snapped up and down, left and right, his grin widening as his eyes snatched at the unseen images.
“Whoa!” he said again, the excitement in his voice bordered on ecstasy. “This… is… so… cool!”
“What?” asked Marla.
“It’s as if the entire web is in virtual reality. I can see the entire layout of the internet. I can see the firewalls as if they were actual physical barricades.”
His fingers rested gently on the keyboard, but made no movement. The monitor however, flashed between screens faster than the light traveled to their eyes.
Jeff began making small noises like a human pinball machine, as he dived through the web, leaping over firewalls and plowing through dossiers of data with an unruly joy.
Todd didn’t try to hide the sarcasm in his voice. “Jeff, I don’t want to interrupt your playtime, but could you squeeze in a little background check on the Institute?”
With an effort, Jeff turned to Todd. It took him a moment to focus on his face, but when he finally saw Todd, he grinned.
Turning back towards the monitor, Jeff said, “Well, let’s just see what the Nil and Voight Medical Research Institute is hiding.”
The screen flashed through several dozen security checkpoints.
“Okay,” Jeff’s voice grew serious, “we’re in.”
Todd hushed his voice was so the others on the floor could not hear him. “Search for ‘Lilibit.’ See what you get.”
The search revealed several dozen options scrolling down the screen. With an unerring aptitude born from years of hacking, Jeff trained his attention on a likely file. The case file of Research Subject 1717 popped onto the screen.
As one, Marla, Todd and Jeff absorbed the information on the first page.
Research Subject 1717
Birthname: Unknown
aka Elisabeth Moore; aka Lilibit
Parents : unknown
Todd was surprised to see her birth date reported as her having turned eleven several weeks earlier. He glanced down at Lilibit where she sprawled on the floor with Nita and Devon. She was smaller than the two eight-year-olds and Todd had assumed she was younger.
He returned his attention to the screen, hoping to find the answers to his questions.
DNA analysis showed she was possibly Polynesian, probably Hawaiian in ancestry. No surprise there, Todd guessed as much from the shape of her eyes and the texture of her skin. It was the next page that made Marla gasp and Todd felt his blood chill in his spine as Jeff scrolled through the attached documents.
According to the files, starting nearly five years earlier, RS 1717 had been the subject of a series of exploratory research surgeries. The purpose of these operations appeared to have two objectives. The surgeries conducted by Doctor Nil were interested in the subject’s regenerative abilities, while the surgeries conducted by Doctor Voight were more interested in the “ratio of pain tolerance”.
Todd could feel the blood drain from his face as he read the transcripts of the procedures. Amidst the reams of technical data, certain phrases dragged his attention:
; Anesthesia : None…
Time : 1 hour 18 minutes: RS 1717 terminates vocalization…
Time : 1 hour 20 minutes: RS 1717 loses consciousness…
Procedure terminated.
An image of Lilibit, screaming for over an hour, before “terminating vocalization” made Todd nauseous.
The pages flickered past. Jeff was able to absorb them with his inner eye faster than either Todd or Marla could read.
“There are hundreds of these transcripts. They must have been operating practically every other day for over four years.” Jeff whisper echoed the horror they all felt. Todd glanced at Jeff and saw he was pale, almost green, beneath his freckles and his hands trembled. “Check this out.”
Reluctantly, Todd looked back at the monitor. The notation on the top showed “Procedure #817”. The date was eight months earlier. He forced himself to read on.
Time: 0 hour 42 minutes: RS 1717 enters cardiac arrest.
Resuscitation instituted.
Time: 0 hour 46 minutes: RS 1717 cardiac activity resumed.
RS 1717 stabilized.
“She died?” Marla’s voice was barely audible to Todd, even though her face was inches from his.
The pages on the monitor began fluttering past again, Jeff’s eyes flickered as he digested the data.
“According to these transcripts, she went into full cardiac arrest three different times and was gone for four to nine minutes each time.” Jeff muttered. “Check out the last operation transcript.”
The date was about three months prior.
Time: 0 hour 14 minutes: RS 1717 enters cardiac arrest.
Resuscitation instituted.
Time: 0 hour 28 minutes: Unable to resuscitate.
RS 1717 terminated.
Cadaver sent to Biopsy Research for autopsy.
Todd, Marla and Jeff all turned to look at Lilibit. If it weren’t for the condition they saw her in when she arrived at Dalton Point, they would not have believed the girl in front of them was the same child coldly described as RS 1717.
Evidently, Lilibit was a very difficult child to kill.
While Todd and Marla mulled over what they read, Jeff turned back to continue his scan.
The files had two more surprises to offer.
First, Jeff reported, the case file on RS 1717 had been re-opened two weeks ago when eighteen employees were terminated for conspiring to transport “Cadaver 1717” to another research institute. “Reclamation Procedures” were currently underway.
The final revelation made Todd jump. “Pack up, we’re moving out,” he hissed. Devon, Nita and Lilibit looked up at Todd, surprised by the alarm in his voice.
Jeff quickly darkened the monitor and purged the terminal’s history log before the younger kids saw the last entry in the Reclamation Operation File. Where there was now only a black screen, moments before had been the images and history of all six of the others.
And their current location: Little Pine.
The bus accelerated sluggishly as it pulled out of the terminal. The driver announced the towns they were scheduled to pass through over the next six hours, his voice not bothering to reach above a bored monotone. He glanced into his rear view mirror, his interest primarily in the two shapely young women who giggled their way onto his bus. He had little concern for the group of children huddled in the back. They seemed well behaved.
Thirty minutes out of Little Pine, the bus slowed to a stop. The driver was annoyed, but not very concerned over the delay.
“Four Twenty Two to Base” he called over his radio.
“Base” cackled his radio.
“We’ve got a delay here on the interstate. Looks like a State Police road block. I’ll give you an update on our ETA as soon as we clear it… over.”
“Confirmed.”
A State Police Officer, followed by six men dressed in dark grey approached the bus. The driver plastered on his official smile as he opened the door.
“What can I do for you, Officer?” he asked, a façade of cheerfulness thinly covering his impatience.
“We’re looking for some runaways and we’ve got a report they might be on your bus. Can we take a look?” It wasn’t a request and the bus driver knew it.
“Absolutely!” The veneer of politeness firmly in place.
The police officer turned to the largest man in grey, and gave him a sharp salute, “Go ahead, Director.”
The “Director” brushed rudely past the officer, making a beeline to the back of the bus. A mousy woman with blue hair stood up to block his path.
“Can I help you?” She bristled like an angry French poodle.
Without a word, the Director pushed her aside and continued towards the children. Reaching down, he grabbed the shoulder of the smallest child and spun her towards him with a jerk. The cap on her head fell to the ground and long red-brown hair spilled down her shoulders.
“Did my Dad send you?” The girl tossed her head angrily. “He signed the permission slip! I told him weeks ago about this field trip!”
Rage burning in his face, the Director’s eyes snapped at each of the children before shoving the girl back into the arms of her blue-haired chaperone. With a growl he pushed a path back to the front of the bus. A frightened hush and the faint stench of petroleum lingered in the aisle long after he had stormed out the door.
This was a field trip that the Little Pine 4-H club would never forget.
Chapter Thirty Six
The Demons of Malagua
None of them moved as they rolled slowly to a stop at the police roadblock. They didn’t even breathe. The sight of the powerful men in grey suits made Todd pull his head back from the window, into the shadows. The hard eyes of the men raked the vehicles as they passed by. Todd felt a cold spasm in his gut as the largest of the grey men seemed to lock Todd’s eyes with his. Instinctively, Todd gripped his staff and his stone tighter.
They were moving again, pulling slowly away from the roadblock, but Todd felt he could never forget the eyes of that man: the eyes of a hunter. Even now, Todd almost felt the eyes following him; almost felt his breath on his neck.
He bit back a startled yelp when a gust of hot wet air actually brushed his hair. While the brown mare seemed amendable to sharing her trailer stall with the travelers, there was only one small window and she wanted it back. Todd crouched down and rejoined the others at the front of the trailer.
“Roadblock,” Todd whispered, “we’re through it.”
The others peered between the slats in the sides of the trailer, watching the flashing lights pull away. They all released their breath at the same time, sounding like one huge sigh. Nita giggled, but Lilibit stayed huddled in the corner, staring.
Clustered together on the floor of the trailer, they watched through the cracks between the floorboards as the highway scroll beneath them. Donny stood and went to the horse’s head, mumbling softly to it, an unusual sparkle of delight gleaming in his eyes. Other than that, there wasn’t much talking.
Hours later, when the trailer pulled off the highway, Todd decided not to tempt fate any further. They bailed out of the back gate, Donny giving the horse a quick goodbye pat.
Jeff waved cheekily at the elderly driver of the car behind the trailer who watched them with a cantankerous grimace as they clamored out the back and piled on to the sidewalk.
The town of Malagua was a large town, almost a city, drenched with a darkness not completely attributable to smog and dusk. The travelers had no difficulty in losing themselves among the busy streets of the downtown area.
Todd saw pine covered mountains in the northeast. For a moment, his heart beat quickly, but as he looked closer, he realized they weren’t at all like the mountains in his dreams. He knew there would probably be hundreds of mountains they might pass before finding the Mountains of Kiva.
Like most cities, there were too many people but too few eyes and no one noticed them as they walked through the crowds.
Todd watched a wave of pedestrians ve
er, dodging one particular section of the sidewalk. Their movements seemed almost subconscious and Todd wondered what they were trying to avoid.
Then he saw him. On the corner, waving his arms and screaming at demons only he could see, stood a shabby man with long, black, lanky hair and bloodshot eyes.
“Leave them alone!” he screamed at a point off to his left. His head snapped to the right and he stabbed his finger in to the air. “No! Stop it! I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you! I swear I’ll kill you all if you don’t stop!”
Todd led the group away from the man as he ranted and cursed. Jeff snickered. Marla looked disgusted and Nita was frightened to the point of tears. Lilibit was openly curious and would have lagged behind, but Todd grabbed her hand and pulled her away.
Devon stopped to gaze sadly at the man. He looked up and down the street, like he was trying to see who it was that the madman was screaming at.
In his left hand was a bottle-shaped paper bag which he waved as he spun around, screaming in all directions “I know what you’re planning! I know what you’re thinking! You’ll do it again, I know you will!”
Devon opened his mouth to speak to the man but Marla grabbed his arm and pulled him away. Marla had no sympathy for the vagrant. For an instant, the burning contempt in her eyes seemed to pierce the man’s insanity, but the moment passed and the madness returned. He screamed at a point just beyond her left shoulder and lunged for it.
“Stop it! Don’t you dare! Stop it!” he screamed, his face glistening with sweat, his skin rancid with alcohol.
Marla’s contempt turned quickly to fear and she dragged Devon away. Even from the distance of a city block, the man’s eyes followed them until the movement of the crowd cut him off from their sight.