Another beep from a machine. “What is it? What’s the situation?” Ani called as she fumbled with one of the pouches Sammi had gathered earlier. She tossed one to Sammi, then held another in her hand, staring at it uncomfortably. She glanced back at the monitors.
Sammi didn’t hesitate with her blue. With an expert hand she sank the point into Lucas’ chest and forced the liquid into his body. Ani watched with admiration, then her face sank as she hovered over Kurt, hands shaking.
Maddie moved closer, clearly confused by Ani’s hesitation. “What are you waiting for?”
“Just take the needle and jab it in, Ani,” Sammi called, eyes fixed on Lucas.
Anita looked at the monitors. There was no sign of activity. The needle felt like a strange object in her hand, one that she couldn’t bring herself to acknowledge was there. The idea of poking it through the skin…
“You know I can’t. I’ve never… He’s already been gone for…”
“Ani! Please!”
Maddie looked ready to charge. Ready to grab the needle and do it herself.
Anita looked longingly at Sammi who glanced back at her with a face that almost said, So just let him die then, before turning back to Lucas.
The message was clear. It was a challenge. Now or never.
Anita took a deep, calming breath, and with newfound resolve took the yellow needle in her shaking hand, catching the light on its pinprick end. It was then that she noticed that the boy’s shirt had already been torn open in the exact spot she needed. There was even a raised red bump that acted as a target for where the needle needed to enter the body.
She pushed the needle through, feeling it catch on bone. She adjusted the angle and pushed the plunger. When the liquid was drained, she withdrew and joined in with Sammi, Maddie, Miguel, Stan, and the little girl, waiting and praying that the EEGs would begin to log some kind of activity. Any at all.
45
Something had gone wrong. Very wrong.
Kurt looked around the Deadspace. The familiar monochrome colours, the strange inky blackness of the shadows. It was all here but it felt different somehow. Loose. Free. As if an anchor usually catching the floor had given way and he was finally at full speed, no longer encumbered by the dragging metal.
The pain at having injected himself with a needle had long since subsided. For the first time ever, when he plunged the yellow into his system, his transition into the Deadspace had been painless. No headache. No jolt of pain. Nothing. Not even the aches and groans from his mortal body. Just a sweet slip and slide into the abyss until he woke in a world in which the occupants of Frieda’s house were in suspended animation. He couldn’t help but smile.
A cool mist escaped his mouth with each breath, frost clung to the windows. Every surface was powdered in a strange sort of dust, white in colour. His fingers and joints stiffened in the low temperature. Stepping forward he saw his body, laid on the couch, looking as though he were resting.
So, this is it? The Deadspace unleashed. The realisation came. An overwhelming sensation as it dawned on him what this meant. It had been an impulsive decision, to risk it all, to take the yellow and force himself back in the hopes of finding Amy. But what other choice was there? Lucas had said it himself, ‘the person needs to be in the final throes of death to be able to be found there’. That surely meant that Amy’s time was limited, right? And Kurt had lost enough people already to lose another, the one he held dearest, to the arms of the Deadspace.
He turned now, aiming for the door, but stopped as he passed Lucas. His back to the sofa. Deep in sleep. The man who’d saved him, twice. The skin pale but not frozen, not like his own body. He half-expected to hear the man’s gruff voice telling him to stop, ‘What are you doing, kid?’ But nothing happened. He simply remained frozen in time as Kurt walked past him, then past Maddie, and to the front door.
He wondered how long it might be before they could inject Kurt with the blue. Did they have more in the car? He hadn’t thought that far ahead. Maybe they didn’t have any at all, and Kurt might be trapped here forever. What was the longest any visitor had been in the Deadspace?
All questions Kurt thought he probably should have asked. But time was against him. If it meant sacrificing himself to save Amy… well that was a risk that he was willing to take.
Kurt turned the handle and headed into the street. It was darker than he remembered. The trees looming over the road like great phantoms, reaching with their branches. A little ways down the road something caught his eye. He moved closer, seeing the two ferals that he had watched from the roadside standing near the car. They were flickering in and out. Appearing, then disappearing. The same way he had seen those people on the reenactment field. Looking as though they were a piece of dodgy code caught in a computer game.
What did that mean? What was going on? Kurt wondered if he was in danger, though they didn’t seem to be going anywhere in a hurry.
He peeled his eyes away from the ferals, his mind working hard to figure out where to go. The doors were the transport system, that much he knew. Lazarus, Lucas, and the man he had seen previously had confirmed that. Doors which acted as… what? Teleportation chambers? His fingers itched to finally turn a handle and get moving. But how to…
And there it was. As his mind thought of Amy, the door with the frosted glass appeared not fifteen feet away, suspended between the thick boughs of two trees. Kurt approached, his heart racing. The door looked more real than before. Though, behind the glass, there was a component missing. He strained to listen for Amy but could hear nothing. The light that had swayed and flickered previously also gone. He hoped that wasn’t a bad sign. For a second he allowed himself to think that Amy and the light were somehow connected. If the light was off, would that mean…?
No. Not after all of this.
Kurt held his breath as he placed his hand on the handle. The metal was warm. He looked back at the house once more, confirming his decision to move forward. This was the last hope. He’d given everything for this. He pushed the door, expecting it to stick, to not budge an inch.
But found, with great relief, that the door opened.
Kurt stepped through the door, blind to all else. Unaware of Lucas now making his way through the front door of Frieda’s house, hopelessly watching as Kurt’s door closed, and then disappeared.
The heat was the first thing Kurt noticed. A claustrophobic force, pressing into him from all corners. And then the smell of old fires of days gone by. It took Kurt back to Halloween bonfires and the morning-after smells of Independence Day celebrations.
He felt the crunch of grass beneath his feet. He was in a wide, open clearing, trees behind him, a colossal building of great proportions in front of him. The brickwork was grey, the roof jutting up and down to look like the top layer of a Tetris board. From one of the chimneys a thick plume of smoke was frozen, looking like a funnel of snow exploding into the sky. There were cars lined neatly in a carpark some fifty feet to his left, new, modern, expensive vehicles. Straight in front, along a neatly kept gravel path was the front entrance. Above the door, carved in a long block of stone, the words: AEGIS SCIENCE AND ADVANCEMENT.
Without hesitation, Kurt let his feet guide him forwards. The doors gave easily, though Kurt half-expected for them to lead him somewhere else. There was no creaking of the hinges, only the gentle blow of warm wind outside, travelling towards him from somewhere further ahead.
He passed a large reception area, walls lined with posters, empty chairs in the centre. He wasn’t sure where he was going, yet, at the same time, he was. Something drew him onwards, telling him to take a right through the door that read ‘Staff Only’, then a left when he reached the third door along the corridor. He moved in silence, only his gentle footsteps padding on the carpeted floor. After, what felt like, twenty minutes or so, Kurt reached a door with no sign whatsoever. A large plain door with nothing remarkable to report.
He pushed it open, finding this one stiffer than any he’d
encountered so far. When it did open, he found himself high up in a large, open room. The walkway beneath his feet made up of metal tiles and the walls made of bare rock – uneven and shoddily cut. The whole place cavernous with shallow ceilings dimly lit by exposed light bulbs.
He walked along, glad to hear the sound of his own footsteps. His mind was calm. This time he could feel that there was no pressure of finding his way before resurfacing from the Deadspace. He was free to explore – to get to the bottom of this. To stay until his mission was complete and Amy was in his arms.
He made his way down a set of stairs, stopping as the walkway turned a right, into a tunnel-like corridor. A handrail down the left side and doors with frosted glass and flickering bulbs on the right. Signage now on the side of him. Red letters on white. Words that didn’t make sense to him. Written in a nonsensical language. Hexadecimal codes beneath the same ‘A’ as before. He recognised the logo from the door to the factory as well as the little pouches that contained the miracle formulas that were the gateways in and out of the Deadspace.
The lights up ahead, mostly broken and dead, apart from two on the furthest end of the corridor, spat sparks of electricity to the floor. There was a chill that took the place of the stifling heat further back. Kurt felt a tingle run down his spine and slowed his pace.
He heard a cough, followed by the shuffling of feet.
“Hello?” he timidly called ahead. “Who’s there?” But there was no reply. The corridor swallowed his words.
He approached the first door on the right, the wooden front scratched as if from keys or some kind of animal claws. Peering through the little window, he saw a tiny box of a room with a single bed. One he might picture an inmate in orange overalls sat inside. On the floor was an old board game, its contents spilled, and a single glass of water on a small table that had been left so long that it had birthed life and sprouted mossy leaves. On the side too, a radio. The ones you might see a trucker on an old film using. Its exposed wires twisted and loose. Old junk that didn’t look like it would work.
“What the hell is this place?” he muttered.
His curiosity propelled him to the next room. It was also empty. And then the next too. The only real difference being that this one had a violin resting on the bed, dusty and forgotten.
As he removed his hands from the glass he heard the cough again. Louder now, as though it were coming from next to him. He whipped his head around, half-expecting to see someone at either end of the corridor waiting for him. Maybe even…
“Lazarus?” he called, feeling less brave than he thought he sounded.
“Don’t,” a voice came in reply. “Keep him away from here.”
The voice came from the next room along. Kurt, cautious of what he might find inside, tiptoed to the door until he was stood just out of view from the glass. He leaned as close as he dared, hearing hurried breaths and shuffling material.
“Where d’ya go? Hey!” the voice called again. “Come back. Don’t leave me here.”
The voice was soft, maybe a little gruff, reminding Kurt of the old people he’d seen in diners and at bus stations who had spent half their life with cigarettes between their lips. The voice didn’t sound unfriendly, just helpless.
Kurt stepped in front of the door and looked inside. The room was much the same as the others. Same bed, same radio. Only, this one had a person inside who stared dazedly in Kurt’s direction, eyes big as bulbs.
“Hello?”
Kurt’s mouth went dry as he looked into the man’s face. “Who are you?”
The man stood up, bones clicking, the tattered rags of his clothes looking like a parachute over his frail form. He came to the door and looked through the glass. “He said there’d be more soon. I’ve heard him talking about boys and sisters now and more, he said, more and more.”
Kurt took a step back, unable to comprehend what he was hearing.
“Kurt?!” Another voice to his left.
The man smiled a crooked smile and nodded towards the next room.
Kurt took a few steps, paused, craning his head ahead of his body, and took a peak through the window. Frosted glass, a flickering bulb, and the undeniable shadowed outline of his sister.
“Amy?”
Kurt turned the handle, and stepped inside.
46
Lucas watched helplessly as Kurt disappeared through the door. He closed the door to Frieda’s house behind him. The door he’d used himself to teleport himself to where he knew that Kurt’s journey had begun. Only a few moments ago Lucas had lifted his Deadspace avatar out of Donny, navigated through the crowd of glitching ferals that he had driven straight into – much to the protests of Maddie – and thought of here. Thought of Kurt dead on the sofa.
It felt strange to be back. The Deadspace had felt like a second home at one point in his life. When the Revivers used to play with the fabric of it all. When they discovered the doors, Lucas and Ira had played childish games, disappearing and reappearing behind each other to give the other a fright. It had all been fun and games. Before the worst had happened and Ira had walked too far…
No amount of blue can bring a person back from that.
But now, as Lucas felt the familiar cool air on his face, he wondered about the ferals that had swarmed his car. He had never seen that before. The glitching apparitions with scowls and teeth and drool. Anyone not currently either dead, or in the Deadspace themselves never usually glitched or moved. Maddie, a perfect example, was frozen in stasis, hands over her face as the glass splintered and cracked. Kurt’s body was still there, a corpse on the backseat. But those things… Lucas was sure he saw one of them move. It was a small movement, for sure, but a feral only a few feet from the car had definitely been facing the other way.
Could it have been a reaction to the RevitaGo yellow? If the formula brought people here, could there even be the slightest chance that the reduced strain had the ferals… stuck, in a way? Caught in the throes between life and death, unable to truly enter the Deadspace without a stronger, more concentrated dose?
Something to discover later. Something for Sammi, with all her scientific brilliance, to sit and sketch on a whiteboard with Lucas and find the answers.
For now, Lucas needed to find Kurt.
He crossed the road and stopped at the spot where Kurt had entered the door. He closed his eyes, focusing as hard as he could, thinking of the boy. First on the way Kurt looked. His scruffy dark brown hair and his pale complexion. Deep, thoughtful eyes with wisdom beyond their years. Once that was locked in he moved to the way the kid made him feel. His lost little face. His overwhelming determination and grittiness. For a thirteen-year-old, the kid was something special. The kid made Lucas feel like a sham, like almost everything in his life was simply a way of making himself look good. He’d only known the kid for a short time, yet already felt a connection. Something akin to what Lucas imagined to be paternal instincts. Sincere may have been the word. That’s what came to his mind when he thought of Kurt. Sincerity. He should be more sincere, like the kid. He should be more like Kurt.
With that feeling locked in place he felt the door appear. He reached forward and turned the handle.
Distance worked differently in the Deadspace. There was a sense of dislocation and nausea as Lucas stepped through. He’d forgotten what it had felt like, travelling the great unknown energy force that linked them together. He could feel Kurt’s presence, almost see it ahead, a sooty trail lingering in the air from where he had passed. Those feelings of Kurt were the GPS coordinates and the door had been the engine by which to travel … and boy did it travel quick.
When he crossed the threshold and stepped onto the stiff grass, the door disappeared instantly. Lucas looked around, trying to gather his bearings, already sweating from the stifling heat, and felt his heart jump into his throat. The grey, battlement-style factory loomed ahead like some great demon. A sight which he could scarcely believe he was seeing. The roaming halls of his old life, the place
where it had all begun.
What have you got yourself wrapped up in, Kurt?
He stared, open-mouthed for much longer than he should have, unable to believe he was here. A wave of emotions fighting for attention as he studied the place that he thought he’d left behind. After that fateful day in which Ira had become the Revivers’ Icarus and flown too close to the sun, Lucas and the rest of the gang packed it all in. Parted ways and left their jobs behind. Perhaps a few remaining Aegis staff had been curious at their sudden departure but no further questions had been asked. Or, if they had, Lucas had already been long-gone on the road in search of a closure that he’d never found.
Ghosts and images haunted him. He watched the Aegis Science and Advancement facility blend in his mind from greys to full colour. The sun piercing through the plume of smoke from the chimneys. A younger Lucas screeching into the carpark in Donny, Ira a few seconds behind. It had always been a race between those two. Friendly competition, but furious.
He saw Ira stepping out of his car. The image of Lucas holding his hands high and celebrating. “Winner! That makes me two for zero, right?”
Ira throwing a fake strop. “We can’t all be cheaters. No way I could’ve made it past that truck.”
“Excuses.”
Walking side by side up the gravel path and towards the large front doors. A briefcase in one hand. Long coats that nearly trailed the floor. Lucas throwing an arm over Ira’s shoulder as Freddy parked up and clumsily ran after them both. “Wait up!”
And then they were gone. Through the doors, out of memory. The colours of the factory melting like chalk on a rain-soaked sidewalk.
Lucas wiped a tear, steeling himself. Thinking of Kurt. He couldn’t explain how he knew, but the kid was in there somewhere, roaming the halls, maybe already lost and afraid. Maybe before the Deadspace had seemed a safe place. Back when Lucas and Ira played and Freddy lurked in the background. But Lucas already felt a growing unease in his stomach. A danger that he couldn’t quite explain.
Lazarus: Enter the Deadspace Page 27