by Tim Cody
“Metzger's experiments,” he said, “ill-advised and illegal as they may have been, actually bore fruit. Subject Nightingale hasn't been spotted since she escaped lab four-two-six with the help of a rogue ECHO squad, but her abilities have been well documented. As such, the Council has ordered the Mind's Eye program to immediately resume.”
“I saw the whole thing on last night's news,” his assistant said. “I had a lot of friends in four-two-six...”
It had been less than 24 hours since she escaped.
It skipped forward, and she saw the killer in a white room identical to the one she had woken up in. The doctor was on the other side of the large window.
“It hurts!” the killer shouted at the top of his lungs, curled up in the fetal position and clawing his scar. “I can feel her!”
“You can feel who?” the doctor asked. “Subject Nightingale?”
“She's in my mind!” he shouted. The pillow on the bed began to shake, slowly lifting into the air.
“While Subject Seventy-Four seems to have gained some of the abilities Subject Nightingale demonstrated, he is by no means a perfect test subject. He appears to be in constant pain—potentially because he can sense Subject Nightingale—and his body completely rejected the nanobots.”
“Let...me...” the killer began, and then hurled himself toward the large mirror, “out!” He pounded his fists against it, but then grasped at the black collar around his throat when he received 10,000 volts of electricity.
“The Council has authorized me to release Subject Seventy-Four. Despite being the first official subject to maintain complete consciousness after the treatment, they feel that he may be useful in leading us to Subject Nightingale. Order twenty-six more candidates from the Matron.”
Nightingale gasped and pulled away from the killer's corpse. “They're still looking for me,” she muttered, and immediately sprinted away from the body.
Chapter 26
Guardian Angel
Nightingale spent the rest of the day wandering the streets of White Rain Falls. She just wanted to put distance between herself and O'Shea Memorial Park—between Whisper and Elise, their home, the life she was building with them... If the Council had released that killer, Subject Seventy-Four, with the hopes of finding her, then they could have seen the entire fight. ECHO could be on their way.
She kept her sixth sense cranked up high, constantly scanning the area for any unusual or particularly tactical thoughts. With so much brainpower dedicated to her surroundings, she was sure she could hear everyone in the entire city—and there was not a single mention of nightingale, ECHO, or even any vague chatter of targets being on the move.
She sent her bird up to check things out a few times an hour, and everything appeared fine. There were no giant black vans, no squads preparing to deploy, and no soldiers keeping tabs on her. Eventually the sun began to set, and it brought with it an Arc Fall.
“Look up there!” a young child said, suddenly delighted by the snow.
“It's snow! Miss Belle, it's snowing!” a little girl exclaimed.
“You're right, the Arc Fall's begun!” Miss Belle shoved her spade into the artificial soil by a short white picket fence and wrapped a dark shawl around her shoulders. “Go inside and get cleaned up for dinner, okay?”
“But can't we play in the snow?” the boy protested.
“Not until it lands, silly!” Miss Belle tousled the boy's hair and then gave his back a pat to usher him toward the massive two-story building. She paused when she noticed Nightingale standing on the sidewalk, staring up at the snow, but looked away a split second before she made eye contact. “Inside, now, both of you.”
Nightingale watched as Miss Belle walked the two children inside, and then panned her gaze up the building. It looked like a giant home—a mansion—and was fitted with a sign that read, White Rain Falls Home for Wayward Youths.
“Wayward youths?” Nightingale asked herself. “Is this place an orphanage?” Her bird chirped in her ear to bring her attention back, and she snapped out of her small trance. “Yeah, we gotta get home,” she said, and then looked all around. She didn't exactly know where she was, but the tunnel in the center of the city was pretty close. That's when she began noticing the many cops patrolling the area, so she pulled her scarf up to hide her face.
She didn't have any trouble retracing her steps, but didn't make it home until past 9:00 PM. When she tried to open the door to their shack it was locked, so she knocked.
“Whisper, Elise, are you in there?” she called through the door. “It's me.” They had hung a curtain like she said.
The door flew open and Whisper hurled herself out, wrapping her arms around Nightingale and nearly squeezing the life out of her. “You're okay!” she shouted.
“Hng, you're gonna smush me, Whisper!” Nightingale said, her voice slightly strained by the hug. “Of course I'm okay, why wouldn't I be?”
“Because I heard about the Grants!” She was starting to tear up again. “I didn't want him to get you, too!”
Nightingale frowned and returned Whisper's hug. “Nobody got me, I'm just fine. Okay?”
Whisper nodded, but didn't let her go. “The cops came and took the Grants a few minutes after you left... I didn't get to say goodbye...”
“I'm sure they heard you, Whisper,” Nightingale replied.
“Alright, Whisper, why don't you get back inside,” Elise said. “It's snowing, you need to keep warm.”
Whisper nodded and wiped her eyes. “Roger, Elise.” She headed back inside and sat in front of the fireplace, and Nightingale's bird followed her in to keep her company.
“She was worried sick about you,” Elise said once Whisper was inside. She shut the door. “And so was I. Where'd you go?”
Nightingale shook her head. “I was just out walking, that's all... I needed to clear my head.”
Elise sighed and rubbed her face, as if exhausted. “I'm not stupid, Nightingale,” she said. “I know there's something going on. The things you do—starting fires with practically nothing, how those guys did exactly what you told them to, it's not...normal. There's something you're not telling me.”
“You don't have to worry about it, Elise,” Nightingale replied. She was hiding her nerves well, but she didn't know what to tell her.
“There's blood on you.” Elise pointed to the blood that had dripped onto Nightingale's clothes after she was stabbed. “I do have to worry about it, because I can't put Whisper in danger—and I can't have other people putting her in danger, either.”
Nightingale put her hand over the spot of dried blood. “I'm not putting you in danger, I'm protecting you both!” She didn't mean to yell, but she kept her voice down. She didn't want Whisper to hear. “I needed to make sure that the guy who killed the Grants didn't come after me—after us, our family!”
“How!?” Elise asked. “How did you make sure of that, Nightingale!?”
“I just!—” Nightingale cut herself off and looked away. “I just did, alright?”
Elise sighed and rubbed her forehead with her fingertips. “Back when we first met I told you that everyone's got a past, something that forced them onto the streets... I told you that you don't have to tell us what happened, that it isn't important what happened to make you who you are today—just that we're here now, and that we can keep moving forward... And I still believe that.
“I don't know how you're protecting us, or why you decided to, but...thank you, Nightingale.” She looked up at her. “Thank you for doing these things for us—for being our guardian angel.”
Nightingale managed a small smile. “You're welcome, Elise... Sisters gotta—”
“Look out for each other, I know,” Elise finished her sentence with a grin.
Chapter 27
All the Trappings
The next morning, Whisper woke Elise and Nightingale up early—she was excited to get to the pit and find things for their new home.
“Come on, wake up!” Whisper shou
ted, and suddenly Nightingale found herself unfurled from her toasty-warm cocoon of blankets and sprawled out on the floor.
“Quit it, it's early,” Nightingale responded, immediately finding Whisper's sleeping bag and crawling inside.
Whisper huffed and folded her arms. “If we don't get there early enough, all the good stuff's gonna be gone!”
“I didn't know there was such a high demand for old mattresses,” Nightingale muttered.
“Your hair's a mess,” Elise chimed in, slowly waking up.
Whisper had put her hair up herself, but without assistance or a proper mirror, she wound up wearing two uneven and lopsided ponytails. “I'll fix it later!” she said.
Elise sat up and yawned, stretching her arms out to her sides. She was considerably better at rising and shining than Nightingale. “It'll be fine, Whisper, the pit isn't gonna be picked clean before we get there. I'll make breakfast and do your hair, we'll give Nightingale a few more minutes to wake up... Then we'll go hunting, alright?”
Whisper sighed and began undoing her hair. “Fiiiiine...”
A short while later, the three girls were climbing through the clutter of the pit. Nightingale had made short work of locating a clean mattress, and then Whisper became excited when she spotted a small, two-seat sofa.
“It's the perfect size!” she said, straining as she shoved it upright. It was balanced on various piles of junk, so it toppled fairly easily. She jumped onto the cushion to sit.
“I think it's too big,” Elise said, looking it over. “Plus it's kind of ugly, don't you think?” The green and white floral design was wonderfully tacky.
Whisper didn't care, though. “So what, it's comfortable!” she said. “Have a seat, see for yourself!”
Nightingale stepped toward the couch, positioning her feet carefully between the clutter, before turning and falling back. The entire couch rocked and she thought it was going to tip, but once it steadied itself, she nodded in agreement. “It's pretty good,” she said, though she didn't really have any basis for comparison other than pavement.
Elise sat between Nightingale and Whisper; there was just enough space for the three of them to sit comfortably, and she looked left and right before shrugging. “Yeah, it's pretty comfy... I guess we can take it back and see if it fits.”
They hauled the mattress home first, and placed it on the floor of their shack. It took up half the space and was a bit of a snug fit, but it fit nonetheless. After that they brought the sofa home; it was shorter than the mattress, but required a bit more finagling to get through the door. They placed it under the window, and then Elise wiped some sweat from her brow.
“It doesn't actually look too bad,” she said. “The layout, I mean. The sofa's ugly as sin.”
After that, it was back to the pit. Elise found a set of tall collapsible dinner trays that she thought would make a fine dinner table, Nightingale was filling her backpack with whatever salvageable foodstuffs she could find, her bird was feasting on grubs, and Whisper was having a small panic attack brought on by the excitement of actually finding a television.
“Elise, Nightingale, come quick!” she shouted, and the girls came running.
They weren't sure if there was some sort of trouble, but Nightingale couldn't sense anything out of the ordinary. Her bird took to the skies to scope things out, and only saw Whisper frantically waving her arms.
“I found a TV!” she said once they arrived, gesturing to an ancient-looking CRT television set, complete with rabbit-ear antennae.
“That thing looks like it's a hundred years old,” Nightingale said.
“Someone from White Rain Falls must have tossed it out,” Elise said. “No way anyone topside would have a TV like this. Not to mention it wouldn't have survived the dump.”
“We've gotta take it back, Elise!” Whisper said, already crouching to try and lift it.
“It probably doesn't work, Whisper,” Elise replied. “Even if it does, we don't have electricity. We live in a shack.”
“What about that guy you met the other day,” Whisper came back. “He said he used to be an electrician, didn't he?”
Elise had spent some time getting to know their neighbors while Nightingale was out the day before; one of them was a former electrician who had tapped into the nearby lampposts to route power to some of the shacks. “Yeah, but he said we need our own extension cord.”
“We can find an extension cord,” Nightingale said. She was skeptical that the television would work, but wanted to at least try—if only because Whisper was so excited.
“Alright, but don't be disappointed when it doesn't turn on,” Elise said.
“Quit being such a negative Nancy!” Whisper said. “We just wanna give it a shot.”
“A negative Nancy, huh?” Elise said, reaching out to tug on Whisper's ponytails. “I'm just trying to protect my little sister's feelings!”
“Ow, ow, I feel that, Elise!”
“Come on, you two,” Nightingale said as she crouched down to pick up the television, “one of you help me with this.”
Elise handed her backpack and the trays off to Whisper, and helped carry the television home—but not before Nightingale happened to find a long extension cord.
Even Elise became excited when the television actually turned on. The screen was completely fuzzy, but she and Whisper began directing Nightingale as she tried to position the antennae just so.
“Just like that! Wait, back, stop there! Okay, a little more,” Elise was inches from the screen, trying to catch even a glimpse of an image.
“You're gonna ruin your eyes, Elise,” Whisper said.
“When did you two trade places?” Nightingale asked as she manipulated the tall antennae. When the sound of static was suddenly replaced by a voice, she took her hands off the metal.
“That's it!” Elise exclaimed.
“You did it!” Whisper cheered, and then nearly passed out from excitement when the first thing they heard was, Coming up at eight: Mister Coffin the TV Series.
Nightingale stepped in front of the television to see the picture. It wasn't the clearest image, the colors were a bit distorted, and any knobs that might be used to adjust them were missing, but the girls finally felt like they had a real home—even if almost the entire floor was hidden beneath furnishings.
Then a few days before Christmas, Elise brought home a four-foot tall, fake pine tree and placed it beside the television. Whisper was immediately excited, but Nightingale thought it was just her being excited about everything that anyone brings home (case in point: she nearly burst into tears when Nightingale found an actual pair of drapes for the window).
“What's with the tree?” Nightingale asked, watching as her bird chirped excitedly and practically dive-bombed onto one of its branches. It began singing, and Nightingale rose from the couch. “Alright, alright, I'll move it,” she said as she moved its nest from the small ledge to the branches. She made sure it was nestled in nice and secure before stepping back.
“It's a Christmas tree,” Elise said. “I found it in the pit, it has most of its branches.”
“What's it do?” Nightingale asked.
“It's a decoration,” Elise explained. “You set it up for Christmas, decorate it with ornaments, and then on Christmas Eve you put the gifts you got people under it. Though, I couldn't find any ornaments...”
“I've got some stuff we can use!” Whisper grabbed her shoebox and began rummaging through her sewing supplies. She found a handful of ribbons and began tying them into bows.
“Why a tree, though?” Nightingale asked, looking between the tree, Whisper, and Elise. “And does my bird's nest count as an ornament?” The nightingale was pretty happy, she didn't want to move it...
Elise shrugged. “I don't know why, it's just an old tradition. And I don't think a nest technically counts, but I'll allow it.”
By Christmas Eve the tree was decorated with a dozen ribbons of various colors, snowflakes cut out from plain white paper
, and the bird's nest. Elise had to explain the concept of hanging stockings by the fireplace to Nightingale, who thought it made about as much sense as bringing a tree into your home—but she had to admit, it was a nice sight: a decorated Christmas tree and a small pile of wrapped gifts beside a roaring fire... It made their little home feel quite festive and cozy.
They had saved enough money and stockpiled enough food for a true Christmas feast. Stuffing, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes—Elise had even saved enough money to buy a couple large pieces of turkey breast from the butcher. It all cooked up amazingly well over their fireplace.
Whisper leaned forward, resting her elbows on the tray with her plate on it, but Elise cleared her throat. “Huh?” Whisper said, craning her neck to look up.
“Elbows, Whisper,” she replied.
“Yeah, I got two. What about them?”
“It's impolite to put them on the dinner table,” Elise said.
“Oh...” Whisper leaned back, and Nightingale discreetly did the same.
They spent Christmas Eve exactly the way they imagined a normal family would: they ate, watched Christmas specials on television, and tried to convince Elise to let them open their presents early. She didn't give in, and eventually managed to change the subject by unveiling dessert: an apple pie she had bought with her last few dollars.
They had never eaten so much food in one sitting before, and when they finally fell asleep, they did so without grumbling stomachs.
Chapter 29
Christmas Morning
“Who goes first!?” Whisper asked, the three of them sitting on the mattress with their gifts in the middle.
“Why don't you go ahead?” Nightingale said. Whisper was so excited, she didn't think she could stand opening her gifts second or third.
And she didn't waste any time. The first one she picked up was from Elise; she tore the paper away to reveal a pair of elastic hair ties, each one capped on either end with two crimson butterflies. She smiled wide and immediately handed them to her sister.