The Riser Saga

by Becca C. Smith

  Up ahead I could barely see Nancy and the others. They were almost to freedom. I needed to give Ryan and I a few more floors before I could let go of my hold on the rats. I just didn’t know if I could do it. I had just been released from the hospital! What was I thinking?

  “Ryan,” I barely croaked out. Wow. I was fading quicker than I thought.

  Ryan climbed up beside me faster than I could think. “What is it? Are you okay?” His face was full of concern.

  “I’m keeping the connection, but climbing… both… too hard… I don’t know if I can make it,” I sputtered.

  He just nodded. “Climb on my back. You keep the rats up, I’ll take you up.”

  I didn’t have the strength to argue. I limply crawled onto Ryan, piggy-back style, until I rested comfortably. Much better. It was still a difficult task using all the energy I had left to keep the rodents attacking the soldiers, but manageable. I leaned my head on his shoulder. I knew being six foot three Ryan could easily carry me, but climbing seven more floors with an extra hundred and ten pounds on your back had to take it’s toll at some point. I did my part. I kept my connection to the rats. And feeling Ryan’s muscles expanding and contracting as he climbed up the ladder was somehow more comforting than a hug. Although I could have used one of those, too.

  Still no alarms, which I found extremely odd. Turner must truly want to keep everything hidden under the rug. It made me wonder where exactly I was on his priority list. The scope of my grandfather’s empire left me breathless. I was just a flea on a Great Dane. How important was I in the grand scheme of things? He could already raise the dead, so aside from a personal vendetta, why did he even care about me? That look in his eyes, in Roberta’s eyes. That was my answer, I guess. They were insane with grief and anger and I was the living representation of it all. Although, Roberta looked genuinely crazy, anger or not. Maybe it was her cat-like face, with that frozen rubbery skin. I’m not usually one to judge on how someone looks, but seeing her face up close like that, with the stretching and the shining. Ick.

  My eyes felt so heavy... I lost my power over at least half of the rats. I could connect to them, I just couldn’t seem to make them move. Hopefully, the little guys I did control could still keep the guards occupied. I glanced up. The others were already on the surface. Ryan was sweating from the exertion of climbing with the weight of two people, but we were only two floors away from freedom.

  “Almost there,” I heard myself say though it sounded like it came from someone else.

  And then my arms slipped from Ryan’s neck.

  I would have fallen all the way to the bottom if it weren’t for Ryan’s quick reflexes. He caught my wrist before I plunged to my death.

  That woke me up.

  I climbed back up to Ryan’s back with as much effort as I could muster.

  The elevator doors cranked open down below and soldiers began to flow through. They were rodent-free and moving up the ladder faster than I could imagine.

  The near fall jolted me out of keeping the rats active, and my exhaustion made me forget to reconnect.

  “Don’t worry about the rats, just hold on.” Ryan began climbing like a mad man.

  One more floor.

  The first soldier was only two floors away from us. Man they were quick.

  I tried to get a good look at the guard closest to us. His clothes were shredded and he was sporting quite a few scratches and bites. He looked severely pissed.

  Ryan reached the opened grate. Hands reached down and lifted us to the surface.

  “Are you okay?” Nancy was all over me. I must have looked really bad.

  I could hear Jason and Bill slamming the grate shut from the outside.

  No matter how hard I tried, my eye lids were made of lead. We were on the outskirts of the building about a few hundred feet from the parking lot. “I’m fine. Just tired.”

  “Not too tired, I hope?”

  My eyes flew open from Turner’s voice.

  We all turned to see my grandpa standing with a few guards. He didn’t have one scratch on him! Not even a nibble. He must have escaped as soon as he saw the rats coming. Or something else? I knew so little about my grandpa, his powers, his capabilities, it was frustrating. And worst of all, it was dangerous. Not knowing your opponent could mean fatal consequences.

  Turner nodded to one of his soldiers.

  The obedient man walked over to the metal grating and opened it for the climbing soldiers to exit. They started to file out one at a time forming a circle around our party. Ryan held me close as if he alone could protect me. The guards from below were shredded from head to toe. Maybe I went a little crazy with the rats. Bill and Nancy on the other hand looked extremely impressed.

  Nancy whispered in my ear with a hint of amazement, “Did you do that?”

  I nodded and tried to make myself smile, but it just ended up being some sort of grimace.

  Turner walked boldly up to Jason. “Give it to me.”

  “Give what to you?” Jason smiled that half-smirk that used to be the basis of my crush on him.

  “Now.” Turner wasn’t in the mood for Jason or any of us for that matter.

  We weren’t going to make it out of here alive.

  Jason reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out the holo-chip. He reluctantly handed it over to Turner’s aged hands.

  “Can’t blame a guy for trying,” Jason said off-handed.

  “Yes, I can.” Turner handed the holo-chip to one of his guards. “Search him, make sure he didn’t make a switch.”

  The soldier patted Jason down thoroughly, searching every pocket, nook and cranny on his body. “Nothing.”

  Turner nodded. “Good. Destroy it.”

  The guard placed the holo-chip on the ground and used his stun club on it. The holo-chip sparked and fizzled until it went completely dead, a charred black fleck on the cement.

  Jason’s face stayed in that half-smirk, frozen in time, as if he couldn’t decide if it would help or hurt his cause to act scared.

  Turner turned to me. “You’re free to go.”

  What?

  “What?” I realized I hadn’t said that out loud.

  “You look exhausted. Get some rest.” Turner’s face revealed nothing.

  What was going on?

  “That’s it?” I couldn’t believe my ears. Maybe I was asleep already and this was all a dream.

  “You came here with a mission and you failed. Now go,” he said way too calmly.

  We started to walk away toward the parking lot and sure enough the soldiers stepped aside to let us through.

  “Wait,” came Grandpa’s voice from behind.

  Here we go.

  “You guys get to the car. Don’t wait for me,” I said and shoved them away.

  “Yeah right,” Nancy, Bill and Ryan all said at once. I did notice that Jason had no arguments.

  I turned to face my grandfather.

  “Yes?” I asked, waiting for the worst.

  “I’ll send a car for you tomorrow at Nancy’s. Three o’clock. You’ll be safe, I assure you. We need to discuss a few… matters,” Turner said as if we had been colleagues for decades.

  And with that, he turned and left with all his guards. They headed toward a private entrance not wanting to draw unnecessary attention to their tattered state. Within seconds Turner was gone. The five of us alone in the parking lot, exactly where we started out at the beginning of this trip.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Jason said with some urgency. I don’t think he felt that Turner was on the up and up.

  We all walked toward the lot.

  “You’re not really going to meet him, are you?” Bill said with a boomingly over-protective tone.

  “Yes, I am.” I thought I hadn’t made up my mind yet, but when asked directly I knew the answer had to be yes. If I didn’t settle this with Turner, it would just continue on and on until one or both of us was dead, or worse, someone I cared about. “And don’t try and talk me o
ut of it.” I knew the protesting would ensue.

  “You’re way too tired to listen to reason anyway. We’ll argue with you tomorrow,” Nancy said.

  We all arrived at Bill’s hover-car.

  “Where’s your car?” I asked Jason.

  “I’m going with you guys. I’ll have an intern pick up my car later.” Jason said, and I could tell he was trying to hide some of his fear. “No worries, I’ll ride bitch.”

  No one had the energy to argue. We all piled into the hover-car, Jason sitting between Ryan and I in the back seat. Uggh! I’m sure there was some other way to arrange everyone so we could all be happy, but we were so ready to get out of there no one said anything.

  Bill whizzed away from the monstrous structure and it felt like we were flying away from a funeral. We were all silent. No one wanted to re-live what we just went through, or maybe they didn’t want me to have to, and I was grateful. I wanted to lean against Ryan and go to sleep, but Jason separated us. He was fidgeting like a crazy person.

  “Would you stop that?” Ryan had apparently had enough of Jason’s squirming.

  “No. Let’s get to Nancy’s as fast as this hover-car will hover.” Jason’s knee wouldn’t stop shaking.

  Something was up and it wasn’t just escaping Turner’s grasp. Jason was hiding it from all of us and he wanted to be under the blanket of George’s magic-red-orb-of-silence to tell us.

  “Sure.” Bill read between the same lines I had. We picked up some speed and flew to Nancy’s house in no time.

  Bill landed the car and George and Vianne came out to greet us.

  Jason went straight to George before he could hug his daughter. I stayed close to him, not wanting to miss anything. “Your info-blocker still in tact?”

  George was all business. “Had to make a few adjustments, Turner’s guys have been trying to break it daily.”

  Vianne had done all the hugging for George and looked over at Jason and I with curiosity.

  “Let’s get inside.” George nodded to his wife and she nodded back.

  We all headed inside Nancy’s house.

  I grabbed Ryan’s hand as we sat down on the couch. I didn’t want to be separated from him any longer than I had to. He was becoming a continual source of calm for me lately and I wanted to be the same for him. I could tell seeing those kids really shook him up. His life would have been a comatose state of imprisonment if he hadn’t got away. His hand was shaking slightly and I leaned in close feeling him physically relax. At least I could be some help however small it was.

  Jason stayed standing, in fact, he was pacing. This boy needed to calm down!

  Bill, Nancy and her parents all took their respective seats and all eyes turned to Jason.

  “I have the holo-footage,” Jason said, his eyes crazed.

  “Okay, he’s losing it,” Nancy said concerned.

  “No. I gave Turner a fake holo-chip, well, it wasn’t fake, it was some footage I picked up after I stole the tornado footage, but I knew we’d need a decoy, just in case.” Jason was babbling out his story now.

  “But, they searched you.” Bill tried to be the voice of reason to Jason’s apparent insanity.

  Jason continued to ramble. “They didn’t search inside of me. I swallowed the chip. It’s covering should be enough to protect it from my digestive system, but I need George here to retrieve the data just in case. Nancy’s place is the only safe haven we have from Turner, as long as he’s in the dark about us having the holo-chip, we could still get it on the air.” Jason was excited now.

  “You swallowed it?” I asked, as a surge of hope coursed through me. Maybe we could still take Gramps down before he could do any more damage.

  “Yup,” Jason said like the cat that ate the canary. And I guess, he actually did.

  “So what, you’re going to poop it out?” Nancy’s face cringed in disgust.

  “Well, yeah, but I got it out of top security. Turner was just being lazy, he should have had me scanned but he was too obsessed with Chelsan to be thorough.” Jason side-stepped the issue of how the chip was going to re-surface.

  “But you’re pooping it out?” Nancy wasn’t letting it go. “That’s disgusting.”

  “When is it coming out? Are you… regular… or…” Bill suddenly found himself too embarrassed to finish the conversation.

  “Would everyone stop obsessing about my bowel movements and start congratulating me on accomplishing our mission. It’s not easy shoving a piece of metal down your throat.” Jason seemed very put off by the disturbed reaction of the others.

  “I think it’s brilliant.” George was beaming. “As soon as it… well… as soon as you clean it up, it’ll be no problem retrieving the data. I’ll have it transferred on a new chip and read to go… when you are.” George apparently didn’t want to mention the method of extracting the chip either.

  Jason turned to Vianne and held his arm out for her. “Let’s make a concoction that will speed this process up, shall we?”

  Grinning, Vianne wrapped her arm in his. “I’m sure I can put something together, load you up on fiber.”

  “This is so gross.” Nancy’s arms were crossed and she was extremely disgusted by the whole ordeal.

  “Hush,” Vianne scolded her daughter as she and Jason left for the kitchen.

  Once they were gone, George turned to the four of us. “You kids should get some rest, Chelsan looks like she’s about to pass out. Bill, Ryan, you better stay here tonight. I’ll call your parents and let them know. You all have school in the morning.”

  Ugggh. School. Did we really have to go to school after everything we’d been through? Apparently, the answer was yes. But George was right about something. I was ready to drop. I only had a few minutes left in me. Just enough time to snuggle up to Ryan before wondrous sleep overtook me.

  There were no arguments on anyone’s part. We all said our good nights to George and headed up stairs. Bill and Ryan were to sleep in Nancy’s guest bedroom, but there was no way I was letting Ryan out of my sight. Bill obviously didn’t want that image stuck in his head so he left for the guest room.

  Nancy decided to join him, giving me a wink and a nudge toward Ryan. “And besides, it’ll make poop boy jealous. Mom and Dad won’t care anyway. I think they’re secretly hoping I’ll marry Bill.” And with that she joined Bill in his room.

  Ryan and I entered Nancy’s room still holding hands. It was like walking into a safe haven of awesomeness. I checked the room once over for anyone lurking about. Once clear, Ryan and I plopped down on Nancy’s phenomenal bed of comfort. It was just about the softest most amazing sensation ever.

  Ryan and I faced each other forehead to forehead. His hand rested comfortably on my hip while I placed mine on his waist. I was about to nod off into dreamland when Ryan suddenly leaned in and started to kiss me. It was like an electric charge surged through my system and I kissed him back empowered by this newfound energy. His lips were tender and firm at the same time and my head went dizzy with the feeling. Kissing him was almost like a drug taking over all my senses to the point of explosion. I couldn’t seem to stop. I didn’t want to stop. The more we kissed the more I wanted it to keep going. The thought of stopping was actually excruciating to contemplate. His hands pulled me in tighter to his body with just enough force to make the butterflies in my stomach go insane. I held onto him as if he were my salvation from all the craziness. His hand now cradled the small of my back with agonizing tenderness. This boy was going to be the end of me! So much adrenaline, hormones, emotions, everything was becoming too much to bear all at once.

  I pulled away breathless.

  He was slightly out of breath as well.

  “Too much,” was all that came out of my mouth.

  Ryan nodded, though his hand still cradled my back, which made me want to kiss him all over again.

  He was so freakin’ hot!

  We sat there for about five more seconds before Ryan pulled me in and started to kiss me again.
/>   Oh boy.

  It was even more intense than the first time. I found myself wanting more of him. Wanting more than just kissing. I wanted all of him. I started to pull off his shirt when he drew back.

  His hand cupped my cheek. “We should wait. I want to make this special.”