Subject Nightingale 1: Birth and Death

by Tim Cody

  Her eyes went wide as saucers when several men dressed in black tactical gear suddenly aimed rifles at her from the hallway. One of them knelt to grab Doctor Metzger's body, dragging him out of the room by his shoulders and then checking his pulse.

  The team paused for the diagnosis. “Doctor Metzger's dead,” he announced, and then everyone pointed their rifles back at Nightingale.

  “Take her out!” one of the men ordered.

  “No!” she shouted, and the door slammed shut. “I didn't kill him!” She had just woken up here, and now she was being accused of murder? She didn't even touch him!

  “The door's malfunctioning,” one of the other men said.

  “Well get it working again!” another one barked.

  The door slid open several inches, but quickly slammed shut again. Nightingale was beginning to panic, she was starting to cry; she wanted to hide, but the room was too small. She wanted to get away from here, wherever she was, but the only way out was through that door. She didn't want those men to get in. She didn't know what they wanted, but they seemed to blame her for the doctor's death.

  The door slid open completely, and Nightingale winced at the sound of it slamming. “No, stay out!” she shouted, and then it slammed shut again.

  “Is she overriding building security?” one of the men asked.

  “That's impossible, she's just a kid. She couldn't access security from in there even if she knew what to do once she was in.”

  “It's just the door that's malfunctioning.”

  “It's not the door, the door's fine! All the building's systems are online and fully operational!”

  “Just get this %$#@!^& thing open!”

  The door slid open, and then immediately slammed shut. Nightingale's head pounded as this continued; opened, closed, opened, closed, each whoosh of the door adding another layer to the already intense pain. She felt more blood dripping from her nose; it trickled down her lips and off her chin, and her eyes widened in panic when she looked down at the amount she was able to collect in her hands.

  The door slid open one final time, and then something hit her shoulder. She grunted and winced, looking down at the long dart sticking out of her. She became dizzy and her vision blurred; she couldn't keep her eyes open. Her head slumped against the back of the throne.

  She heard the footsteps of those men rushing into the room, and they began shouting, “Clear! Area secure!”

  Nightingale passed out.

  Chapter 2

  Namesake

  Nightingale woke some time later to a deafening silence. Her eyes peeled open slowly and she had to squint in the light of a pure white room, hardly able to see where the walls met the ceiling and floor as she looked all over. She groaned as she sat up, pushing herself up with her arms against a plain white mattress, and she immediately flung her legs over the edge of the bed. The momentum pulled her entire body to the floor and she fell, her limbs still weak from all the tranquilizers she had been given.

  The sound of her body landing on the floor broke the silence if only for a moment, and comforted her. She remembered all that had happened since waking up in that small room with Metzger—she couldn't remember anything prior to that—but that room was enough for her to decide that she didn't want to spend another minute in this place.

  She grabbed the edge of the bed and pulled herself to her feet, holding on to the mattress tight until her legs became stable; then she had to take a moment to get used to the somewhat slick soles of her white slippers on the hard floor. Once she was able to stand on her own, she worked on opening her eyes completely. The room was so bright despite any apparent light sources, so it took some time until she could look around clearly.

  Once she could finally see, she spotted a large mirror built into the far wall. She saw the dry blood on her face and shirt before she even recognized herself, and then looked at her hands. Nightingale rushed to a silver sink and toilet in the corner of the room, and scrubbed her hands under the running water of the sink until the blood was mostly gone. Her palms were still a little pink, but they didn't look as grim.

  After that she stood in front of the mirror and looked herself up and down; she hardly recognized herself. She ran her fingers through her long red hair and touched her face, as if to make sure she wasn't just imagining things. She leaned in closer when she noticed the entire surface of the mirror vibrating, eyebrows pulling together curiously.

  “Hello?” she called out, cupping her hands around her face to block out the light as she tried to peer through it. “Is someone there?” She knocked on the glass, and then jumped back with alarm when the entire room seemed to quake.

  Beep, beep, beeeeep!

  A noise to the left of the wide mirror caught her attention, so she followed it to find a keypad built into the wall. It was all white except for the numbers, so it blended in perfectly with the rest of the room. Red lettering appeared above the numbers, flashing and then scrolling, a red cone of light projecting the words into the air.

  Total building override in effect. Please follow emergency procedures. Enter 4069 to exit Observation Room A.

  “Observation Room A?” Nightingale said to herself, and then punched in the code as instructed.

  Please proceed to nearest emergency exit.

  A seam appeared in the wall around the keypad and expanded to the size of a door, and then slid open to the left. Nightingale was immediately greeted by the sounds of a war zone; gunfire, screaming, and explosions rocked the building.

  Observation Room A let out into what looked like a private office. The door to the hallway was off its hinges, but she could hardly see through the threshold thanks to a rolling cloud of smoke. Flickering fluorescent tubes dangled from the ceiling, and swayed with the sounds of violence.

  Nightingale was beginning to panic again. The keypad told her to find the nearest emergency exit, but she had no idea where that was. She was suddenly too afraid to move; she didn't know what to do, she was paralyzed.

  “I told him!” She heard someone yelling from the hallway, “I told him this would happen! He brought ECHO down on us all!”

  Doctor Metzger's assistant rushed into the office carrying a box of his belongings. Nightingale recognized him from what she had seen earlier.

  “I know that bastard has an express route outta here, now where is it...” He didn't notice her as he ran to the large desk and began rummaging through the contents on its surface. “Come on, I know it's here somewhere.” He dropped his box and reached his arm into one of the deep drawers to feel around.

  Click! A tall bookshelf against the wall behind the desk made a quiet noise and then pivoted into the room, revealing a secret passageway.

  “Found it!” Phellman cheered for himself and grabbed his box in both arms, but then noticed Nightingale staring at him.

  “Oh, $#!%, you're alive!” He looked newly panicked at seeing her, and began backing up toward the bookshelf.

  “Wait, tell me what's going on!” Nightingale said and took a step toward him.

  “The Council found out about Doctor Metzger's unsanctioned experiments, so they sent ECHO in to clean up the place,” Phellman answered, and then shook his head quickly, as if breaking out of a trance. “Listen, just leave, alright? Just run away from this place, and don't look back.” With that, Phellman turned and ran through the passageway.

  “But I don't know where to go!” Nightingale shouted after him.

  “Contact, contact!”

  “Oh, %$#@!”

  Gunfire rang out from behind the bookshelf, and Nightingale ran back into Observation Room A. She didn't know where else to go; between the secret passageway, the hallway, and the observation room, the latter seemed the least threatening.

  She bolted back into the white room and the door slid shut behind her, and then another explosion rocked the floor. The large mirror cracked and chipped; it was sturdy, but small chunks began to flake off, and the soundproof barrier was broken—suddenly she could hear
all the violence. She heard heavy footsteps rushing into Metzger's office, she heard soldiers calling out orders, and she collapsed in the corner farthest from the mirror to hide herself.

  She clapped her hands over her ears and shut her eyes, just wanting it all to end.

  But she couldn't even think of a place where she would rather be.

  Anywhere? Does anywhere count? she thought, and began to cry.

  She gasped and looked up when a quiet chirping caught her attention, the sound suddenly cutting through the rest of the noise. In that moment it was all she could hear, and it inexplicably calmed her nerves and dried her tears.

  “Is that...a bird?” she asked herself, looking up toward the ceiling.

  A ventilation cover had come loose; the white grating now dangled into the room, and perched on its base was a small green bird. The feathers on its chest were stark white, and it looked directly at Nightingale as it sung.

  “Be quiet, someone's gonna hear you!” she told the bird, and it...listened? The bird stopped singing and Nightingale sniffled, and wiped her eyes with the short sleeve of her shirt. “Thanks,” she said.

  She couldn't hear anyone in the other room, and it sounded like most of the violence had calmed down by the time the bird had finished singing. Nightingale was about to stand when it flew off the vent cover and over to her, and perched right on her shoulder.

  She frowned curiously at it and asked, “Aren't you afraid?”

  She lifted one hand carefully toward the bird's head, moving slowly to not scare it away, but as her hand grew closer and closer she began to doubt her ability to scare it at all. And then when her fingertips stroked its back, she somehow knew that the little bird was actually quite frightened.

  “Yeah, me too,” she said.

  Then her eyes clenched shut involuntarily, and her headache returned. She whimpered at the images she was suddenly seeing, because she didn't know why she was seeing them.

  She saw the bird, a nightingale—her namesake?—living in a tiny cage in Doctor Metzger's office; she sensed its sadness at being locked up, such a profound and deep sorrow, and suddenly she felt tears cascading down her face. The cage fell when the fighting broke out, and the door broke off. The nightingale flew into the ceiling, where it was hiding until it found her.

  When she saw the bird landing on her shoulder her eyes snapped open, and she panted for breath. She felt her nose bleeding again; the blood mixed with her tears and she wiped up the entire mess with her shirt, which was becoming increasingly stained.

  “Well you're free now, little bird, so go on,” she said through her tears and quivering voice, and gave the nightingale a gentle nudge with her fingers. Nightingale's lips curled into a little smile when the nightingale began to sing again, and she placed her hands against the wall to help herself stand. “Go on, get outta here, you've got a better chance of making it out than I do.”

  The bird fluttered off Nightingale's shoulder and flew back into the ceiling vent, and she sighed as she watched it go. Then just as her sudden headache was fading, it returned full force, so she had to shut her eyes. She shouted quietly and slumped against the wall, her stomach suddenly twisting with an intense sense of vertigo for what she saw.

  It looked as clear as day—she was flying. She could look left and right; she even felt the wind rushing by her face and through her hair.

  “Why do I keep seeing these things!?” she shouted as she fell back to the floor, holding her head in her hands as she tried to make sense of what she was looking at.

  At first it looked like she was soaring through some metal container, but it exited into a hallway. Smoke, debris—bodies. Was she seeing out in the hallway now? She was still flying, around a sharp turn that twisted her stomach into knots, and suddenly she was back in the office right outside. A large painting she didn't see earlier was hanging half off the wall, and she could see the other side of the mirror behind it; she could see into Observation Room A through it, and she spotted herself curled up and crying in the corner.

  Nightingale looked up toward the mirror, but couldn't see anything except the return trip. Back into the hallway and through the metal container—an air vent? She grabbed her face and pried her eyes open to make sure they were actually open, that she wasn't dreaming, but she couldn't see through her own eyes. It made her uneasy when she spotted herself again, and then suddenly she had her own vision back.

  The nightingale was perched once again on her shoulder, and Nightingale's nose was practically gushing.

  “Stop it, stop it!” she shouted, bunching up the front of her T-shirt and holding it against her nose. “Why are you doing this to me!?”

  The bird just sang in response, though, and again, the singing eased the throbbing in her head.

  Nightingale sniffled and pulled her shirt away from her face. Her nose had already stopped bleeding, but a good deal of it remained dried and stuck to her. She rose and headed back to the sink to wash up. “I don't know how much blood I have left in me, so please don't do that again,” she said politely as she splashed water on her face and washed as much of it off as she could.

  Once she was cleaned up, she sighed and walked back over to the keypad. The nightingale remained on her shoulder, its small talons dug into her shirt, looking all over as it had apparently decided to tag along.

  “Were you showing me the way out?” she asked. “It looked like things had calmed down...” She typed 4069 into the keypad to open up the door, and stepped back into the office.

  Much of the smoke had cleared, and it was eerily quiet. In the distance she could hear gunfire and shouting, but it sounded like it was a few floors away. She couldn't tell if it was a few floors up or down, but hoped it was all above her... She needed to get out of this building, and that meant heading down.

  “You got a name?” Nightingale said to the bird, and it responded with a quiet chirp. “Right... Well, let's get going.”

  She stood in the remnants of the office's doorway and stuck her head out, looking left and right down the hallway. The crumbling walls were covered in bullet holes, and the floor was littered with bodies, but it looked otherwise clear. As long as she kept her head up, her gaze above the bodies, she found she was brave enough to walk past them. She did her best to keep her eyes forward, only looking down when she needed to maneuver carefully around some rubble or twisted limbs.

  A bright red EXIT sign at the far end of the hallway gave her hope.

  Chapter 3

  Team Up

  “They started on the first floor, right?” Nightingale asked the bird, making one-sided conversation because it helped settle her nerves. “So they should all be above us, since they were already on floor fifty.”

  She had found a stairwell door at the exit sign, and started making good progress as she rushed down the winding sets of stairs. She was already approaching the 40th floor, each cement landing raising her hopes higher and higher. She held on to the handrail and practically flung herself around the turns, but as she neared floor 30, the nightingale flitted off her shoulder and began chirping.

  It dive-bombed straight down the center of the stairs, and Nightingale reached out after it. “Wait, come back!” she called out, but had already lost sight of its tiny body as it flew several floors down. She grabbed her head when she felt a headache building, and crumpled to the floor. She groaned and curled up on the stairs, huddling against the wall as the pain overtook her. “Not now!” she muttered.

  That sinking feeling of vertigo hit her, and suddenly she was hurtling toward the first floor. She stopped next to the landing for floor 25, spotting the thick block lettering on the heavy steel door just in time to see it pried open from the other side. A squad of four rushed through, all dressed in the same black gear, each boasting a patch above their left chest pocket: E.C.H.O. The first three into the stairwell aimed their rifles all around, ensuring that the area was secure, while the fourth member collapsed a retractable crowbar and tucked it into a pouch on his hip.<
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  “Is that a bird?” one of them asked, distracted by the nightingale just before it flew away to rejoin Nightingale.

  She shook her head when her vision returned, and the pounding began to subside. The headaches were getting shorter, but no less intense. The bird landed on her shoulder and started to sing, and Nightingale scrambled to her feet. She could hear their heavy boots rushing up the stairs.

  She pulled herself up to the nearest landing, floor 31, and threw herself against the automatic door. When it didn't open, she began pounding on it and shouting, “Open up, come on! Please!” She grabbed the latch labeled Pull in Case of Emergency and tugged it, but the door didn't budge.

  Panicking, she turned around and grabbed the handrail to peer down the stairwell. She could see the soldiers getting closer, and one of them spotted her.

  “Contact topside!” he shouted, and the entire squad immediately shifted to run against the wall, using the stairs above them for cover as they moved.

  Nightingale held her head and looked up the stairs, but doubted she could outrun them. She looked back at the heavy door and grabbed the emergency latch again, tugging it with all her strength, and eventually it eased open with much effort. The scent of smoke filled the threshold, and sparks erupted from around the latch, but the door opened just enough for her to slip through. She sidestepped through the narrow opening, and sprinted in the first direction she faced.

  She turned a corner at the end of the hall, and stopped dead in her tracks when she came face to face with another squad of four. This wasn't an ECHO squad, though, it was one just like she had encountered earlier—building security, armed to the teeth, and shooting first without even the vaguest intention to ask questions later.