The Riser Saga

by Becca C. Smith

  I sat down at my desk and kept my back to the testing. What was going on? Could this day get any weirder?

  And, as if in answer to that very question Jason popped his head into the classroom and made eye contact with Mr. Alaster. “I need to see Chelsan Derée immediately.” Jason had his serious face on and my stomach did flip-flops.

  The girls in the class giggled uncontrollably at the sight of Jason which made Nancy huff in an annoyed, jealous way.

  Mr. Alaster looked at me for approval and I nodded. “Go ahead,” he said, waving me to leave.

  I gave a quick glance to Ryan as the dead lady took a sample of his blood. He shot me a supportive grin, but I could tell he was preoccupied with the fact that the assistant was dead. Besides, he knew I’d be safe with Jason.

  Although Jason coming to school was a first. Must be something big.

  I walked over to Jason and we left the classroom.

  The hallway outside was stark and empty. I could practically see my reflection on the marble floor, it was so clean and polished.

  “What is it?” I decided to get right to the point.

  “Um, how do I explain this?” Jason paused.

  “Spill. You’re giving me a heart attack,” I said and meant it. Jason at a loss for words was an event I had never seen before, and it made me more nervous than I thought possible.

  “Well… The good news is they figured out who bombed the Baby Center.” Jason half-smiled as if this bit of information was about to cushion what was to follow.

  “Okay. Is it Turner?” I thought I’d guess.

  “Nope, it wasn’t Turner. It was Roland Light,” Jason said with trepidation.

  “The Christian Coalition minister?” I could feel my face scrunching in confusion. I admit, it was shocking news that the Christian Coalition was behind the explosion. For the last three hundred years they’d pretty much kept to themselves. It was only in the last month that this Roland Light guy showed his face publicly. He had been all over the news talking about religious rights and bringing the atrocities of this world to justice. Secretly, I kind of hoped the guy would take on Gramps. If Roland only knew what Turner did, he’d be all over him. I actually kind of liked the guy, mainly due to the fact that my new friend, Doris Hornbacher, was his champion. She helped me escape from the serial killer by whacking him with her golf club. She had taken to the limelight and in only two months had become quite a vocal figure in bringing to light some horrible things our society hides. Maybe Doris was the reason Jason was freaking out?

  “Why are you freaking out?” If I didn’t prod Jason it would take him forever to tell me whatever it was he wanted to tell me.

  “His mother’s name wasn’t Light, it was Stearne.” Jason let that hang there for a second.

  Stearne?

  Elisha Stearne.

  Um, she was seven when Turner took her. How could she have a baby?

  “NO! Not that!” Jason reared back in disgust, apparently my face was expressing the extreme grossness I was feeling about what I thought he was implying. “Elisha’s sister! Roland is Elisha’s sister’s son. Elisha has a twin sister, but this girl actually shows her age. You had that look on your face.”

  It made sense now, why Elisha was so desperate to help John and Samuel escape. She was a twin too, but she was separated from her sister at age seven. It must have been devastating.

  Jason checked his phone for a second and then focused back on me. “If Roland blew up the Baby Center, maybe that’s why Elisha is being executed. I mean she visited you probably right after the explosion. We didn’t get the news until later this morning. It can’t be a coincidence.”

  My mind was racing.

  Roland Light, evangelist, and now, a murderer. He was Elisha’s nephew? Why would he kill all those people? Did he even know about his Aunt? Was Turner executing Elisha to punish Roland Light? I couldn’t seem to wrap my brain around any plausible explanations. Nothing seemed to make sense. There was no clickage in the puzzle solving part of my mind.

  “Wow,” was all I could say.

  “Yeah.” Jason nodded and placed a hand on my shoulder.

  I heard a muffled barrage of giggles behind a couple of classroom doors.

  Jason shrugged. “Part of the gig.”

  “You love it,” I said, managing to give him a half-hearted smile. “What do I do now?”

  “We have to wait for the live broadcast. Roland is giving a statement.”

  “Isn’t he in jail by now?” I was incredulous that he’d even be allowed to make a statement in the first place.

  Jason shook his head. “He’s protected under Coalition law. As long as he stays in his town the authorities can’t touch him. You’re taking history and you haven’t gone into Christian Coalition law?”

  “Just tell me, show off, some of us aren’t as old as dirt,” I grumbled.

  Jason just smiled. He really did love being insulted. “Basically, when Age-pro became the norm, the Coalition separated from society and built up towns. They negotiated with the government to secede from the country and essentially were given the authority to make their own laws. As a result they’re considered separate countries and have their own extradition laws. They’re not going to hand Roland over, so unless he leaves the sanctity of the Coalition he’s safe from us.”

  “Do you really think that Elisha contacting me and Roland blowing up the center are connected?” I genuinely needed Jason’s opinion.

  “I don’t believe in coincidences. Look, there’s going to be a holo update projected in every classroom in about five minutes. I just wanted to give you the scoop. Give you a heads up for once, right?” He bent down and kissed my cheek.

  A flurry of exclamations, gasps and giggles from prying eyes behind closed doors.

  I rolled my eyes. “Nancy’s going to kill you, you big ham.”

  Jason’s face went white. “You’re not going to tell her.”

  “But they are, idiot.” I nodded toward Mr. Alaster’s classroom at the girls peeking through the small square window.

  “Well, she needs to move on anyway,” Jason said miserably.

  Such a moron. “She has, didn’t she tell you?”

  “What?” Jason was horrified.

  “You’re such a jerk. Why don’t you get over yourself and just be with her?” I punched his arm lightly for emphasis.

  Jason slumped in defeat. “I gotta go. I’ll meet you back at Nancy’s.”

  I grabbed his arm before he could leave. “One more thing, broody boy. Turner is having all students give blood samples for genetic testing and “historical research.” There’s a dead assistant in there who told me I should trust her, but when I wouldn’t give her my blood she thanked me for it anyway. What do you think that’s about?”

  Jason’s mood immediately perked from the intrigue. “Turner brought in a dead one?” Jason tiptoed to see over the girls’ heads and into Mr. Alaster’s room. “Weird.” He turned back to me, “I’ll see what I can find, but if he sent a corpse, then it’s a safe bet he wanted to send you a message.”

  Great. I secretly hoped my grandparents were out of my life forever, but it was becoming more and more obvious that my period of solace was soon coming to an end. If I thought chanting Please don’t kill me over and over in my head would help, I’d be doing it all day. Most people dread seeing their grandparents because they were boring or over-affectionate, they didn’t have to worry about Gramps and Grams sending zombie soldiers over to murder them. I figured I’d have to keep my guard up even more than usual. It was bad enough that I was going into the lair tomorrow to rescue more of Turner’s prey. I seriously hoped he wasn’t wise to my plan. I reassured myself with the fact that he probably would have had dead girl threaten me or something if he knew anything.

  “I just hope the message isn’t, ‘Surprise, you’re dead!’” I groaned in frustration.

  We both heard the clacking of footsteps on the marble floor and turned to see Principal Weatherby coming t
oward us. I shuddered in guilt as Weatherby’s swirling black hole spun like an over-sized top inside his chest. During one of Turner’s many attempts on my life I managed to get away by releasing his zombie staff from their black holes. As a result, they decayed to the exact time of their deaths (i.e. very gross stuff, ranging from juicy to bones). I left Turner with the cleanup and the task of explaining how his staff walked into Weatherby’s office alive, but when Weatherby walked in he was confronted with five smelly cadavers. Leave it to my grandpa to decide that it was just easier to kill Weatherby and control him. No witness, no questions, no problems.

  I never really liked Weatherby that much before: but now that he was dead, it was just depressing.

  Jason and I made eye contact. We both knew that Weatherby was now going to be Turner’s message bearer since I’d left the dead assistant inside the classroom.

  Weatherby arrived with a blank expression. Turner wasn’t even bothering to animate him for our sake. I kind of appreciated it in some weird way. Like he was showing an inkling of remorse for what he did. Yeah, right. A girl can dream. The Principal looked like he was in his late twenties (he was actually a hundred and sixty-seven) and was bald and chubby. He used to have a handle bar mustache, but the upkeep must have been too much of a nuisance, so he was clean-shaven now. Another reminder, besides the black tornado in his chest, that he was truly gone.

  His round pink face turned to me, “Get inside the classroom. You have to see the holo announcement.”

  “What’s going on?” I asked, hoping for an answer, but not expecting one.

  “At some point you’re going to have to trust me to a certain extent. I’ve left you alone for two months now. I could have killed you at any point,” Weatherby said in such a monotone voice that it made my skin crawl. Turner was talking through him, which meant he was controlling Weatherby directly.

  “Give me one good reason why I should trust you?”

  “I just told you why,” Weatherby said. There was actually a bit of attitude in the way he said it. Or maybe I was just imagining the way my grandfather meant it.

  “Like I told your lackey in there, not good enough. And what exactly are you trusting me with? Why do you even need my trust? You just come in here out of the blue and say Trust me and I don’t even know what that means!” I was getting angry and frustrated.

  The girls who were watching Jason now ducked out of sight completely. Seeing me arguing with the Principal probably just made me Page One news of the gossip column today, but I didn’t care. Turner was fishing for something, needed me, but he was being vague as usual. Although I liked this better than fighting for my life, it was somehow just as maddening.

  “Well now if I told you, Granddaughter, I wouldn’t need the trust, would I? Just go in and listen to the broadcast. I’m worried about a potential problem that I will be disposing of Thursday morning, but this Roland Light may have something up his sleeve,” Weatherby said.

  So… Turner was worried about Roland breaking Elisha out. And by the way he was talking to me I was as sure as I could be that my grandfather had no clue I was the one planning the deed. The only question was, “And what exactly does this have to do with me?”

  Weatherby stopped and stared at the wall for a second. I was afraid he was about to drool from inactivity. “If my suspicions are correct, everything.”

  Huh?

  “Go in and see for yourself. I’ll be in contact.” Weatherby walked away and out of sight.

  Jason turned to me and shook his head. “Everything, huh? Maybe we should re-think this breakout scenario.”

  “No, we’ll get them out and deal with the consequences later,” I said still trying to think of how we were actually going to accomplish this alleged breakout.

  “And we still don’t know how many I.Q. Farm kids Elisha wants us to help,” Jason added.

  Oh yeah.

  I told Jason what happened with Elisha during our last “meeting.”

  Jason was stunned. “She can do that to you? Just render you unconscious?”

  Great. Make me paranoid all over again.

  “I’m working on it,” I lied, but hoped it to be true.

  “You better, because if she can do it, anyone with that kind of power can, too.” Jason shook his head, troubled by the news.

  “Okay, I got it. There’s nothing we can do about it now, geez. But our real problem right now is not letting Turner kill Elisha when her only crime is being locked up in an I.Q. Farm for ninety years! Once we have her, we’ll figure out what Gramps meant. If anything, it’s this Roland guy we should watch out for. He’s the mass murderer,” I said as I reached for the doorknob.

  Jason sighed. “You sure have a knack for getting involved with the crazies.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  I opened the door and the two of us walked in just as Mr. Alaster was rolling out a cart with a holo-tv on top. It was a much smaller TV than Nancy’s, the rectangular platform only fifteen by ten inches, but the figures were solid and clear as Mr. Alaster turned it on and Roland Light stood in front of a crowd of pregnant women.

  Interesting.

  Joan and her new cronies whispered and giggled as they stared at Jason and I in the back of the room. They obviously could care less about any announcement from Roland Light.

  Nancy and Ryan left their seats to stand next to us. Ryan took my hand then leaned down, kissing my cheek. “Everything good?”

  “Yeah. I’ll tell you later.” I watched as Roland Light cleared his throat.

  He was an older man, like my grandfather: maybe a little younger, but late forties at least. He was lean and tall with a full head of white hair cut short. His face was long, its deep lines making him appear ominous.

  Roland spoke through thin, pursed lips, “Fellow citizens. As you can see from these women behind me, I have killed no one on this day. My fellow Christians and I do not believe in the murder of innocent lives. These women and their doctors were taken out of the breeding farm because they are victims of a heinous crime. The women will stay with us in Havenville until further notice, the doctors will be returned home immediately. I am guilty of destroying the monstrosity that you sinners call a Baby Center. This is a travesty in the eyes of the Lord and I will not rest until these Centers are wiped off the face of this planet. Using women to carry your life so you can stay unnaturally young forever? This goes beyond any kind of evil imaginable. Your world is spinning out of control. It is becoming Hell on earth, and you are all embracing it like moths to flame. But it’s the Devil’s fire and I am here to cleanse you. I will be your savior in this madness.”

  He sounded like the serial killer Brady. Brady used to talk about cleansing too. Even though I was relieved to hear that no one was killed, Roland was off-kilter. Maybe it ran in the family, but my gut was telling me that there was something not quite right with the minister.

  Roland continued his speech, “These women will deliver their babies here in Havenville. The babies will not be returned to the donors. They will be a new generation, a generation where the new world embraces the old world. It is time, people. You will not be warned again.”

  The holo-tv feed went to wavy lines.

  A holo of Carleton Gordon sprang into quick focus. He actually looked stunned. “Now a word from our sponsor.”

  Mr. Alaster turned the holo-tv off with a kind of dazed expression.

  No one spoke.

  The babies will not be returned to the donors? Over seven thousand babies would never know their real parents. They’d be raised by their surrogates, or worse… by Roland Light and his followers. There had to be something someone could do. This was the biggest kidnapping ever! And what was he going to do? Blow up all the Baby Centers? It certainly seemed so.

  And if Roland knew about the I.Q. Farms, there was no way he wasn’t going to go after those, too. I mean Baby Centers were one thing, but making children take Age-pro and experimenting on their brains was another. If he really was planning on r
escuing Elisha, then it also meant that he planned on exposing the I.Q. Farms. Most likely, he wasn’t sure if anyone would believe him without proof. Bring him proof and I.Q. Farms would be sought out and shut down.

  As crazy as I thought this guy was, I was starting to see our paths colliding. No matter how justified Turner thought he was in keeping these Farms, they had to be stopped, and if this Roland Light guy could do it, then… well… I didn’t know. I didn’t trust him, pure and simple. Elisha was the key. She still scared the bageezies out of me, but one look at her and the public would be outraged.

  Something was definitely brewing and somehow I was creeping toward the middle of it yet again.

  I still didn’t know why Turner was convinced that I had anything to do with anything. He had no idea I was planning to break out Elisha and the boys, so why would he think this Roland guy even knew who I was? But Turner said (or Weatherby said) that this whole thing had everything to do with me. So what was I missing?

  I needed answers and I clearly wasn’t going to get any.

  The shock of Roland Light’s statement started to wear off and the class sounded abuzz with chatter.

  Joan and her girls began their stare down of Jason, and flirting smiles and giggles followed. Jason was a sucker for it as usual and waved back, giving a slight wink to Joan. This sent a flurry of whispers and excited noise around the classroom.

  I smacked Jason in the chest while Nancy crossed her arms in a fury.

  PUNCH!

  Ouch!

  I fell on my butt before I realized it was Jill’s fist that landed me there.

  “You know something!” Jill yelled at me with anger.

  Jason’s fans and Jill’s punch were apparently too much for Nancy to handle: she tackled Jill to the ground before I could utter the word, “Ow.”

  “Girl fight!” one of the students yelled as Nancy and Jill wrestled each other on the ground. Their bodies were smacking into desks as they clawed at each other.

  The crowd that formed around them was so thick that Mr. Alaster couldn’t break through to stop the fight.

  I tried to get up, but I had to sit immediately because I was so dizzy.