15
“Just because Lisa doesn’t want you around while she goes through all of Gabriella’s files, doesn’t mean you’re one hundred percent useless,” Donovan said, rubbing his chin thoughtfully between his thumb and forefinger as we rode back up the tube toward the cavern where the truck was docked. “Oh wait, yes it does.”
“Thanks,” I replied and shut my eyes because it was infuriating enough without actually replying to my own personal ghostly tormentor. Somehow, I always seemed to fail at that, though. It made every occurrence that much more frustrating.
“I was originally going to say it made you only ninety-eight percent useless, but I felt I should go for it.” I opened my eyes to see him leaning toward me with a smug grin on his face as blood dripped down his chin and fell to the ground where it didn’t splatter so much as it disappeared completely. “You should always go for it, Abby. Always.”
“Okay,” I said, determined not to speak to him anymore. But then a sudden thought occurred to me. “Why are you such a jerk to me?” I narrowed my eyes at him. “Isn’t there supposed to be another one of you, an angel, who gives me good advice? Instead, it seems like all I have is the devil.”
He shrugged at me, his smug grin infuriating me so much I was about to smack it off his face when the door opened. So I just walked through him. That’d show him, I guess, sort of. Whatever.
I stomped out into the cavern and made my way toward Tom’s semi-truck. As far as I could tell, neither him nor Roberto had made it outside. Then again, I wasn’t sure why that mattered very much. I approached the truck, careful not to move quickly enough to set off some kind of defense mechanism and knocked on the back door. It had sealed after we left and apparently had remained so.
Or maybe not, who knows.
When it didn’t open immediately, I growled at it and smacked it with my palm. There was a weird sort of whoosh like the semi was breathing on me before the driver’s side door swung open and Tom stepped out. He skin was still covered in blood, but he was wearing clean clothes. And sunglasses. I wasn’t sure why since we were inside and the lights in here weren’t that bright, but for all I knew, they gave him x-ray vision.
“How’s Roberto?” I asked, unconsciously crossing my arms over my chest as I made my way toward him.
“Better than Troy,” he replied, voice chillier than a glacier.
“Awesome,” I replied, letting the emotion fade from my voice. “So what happened to Roberto?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. He’s still in that weird catatonic state.” Tom shrugged. “It’s strange because Roberto was supposed to be immune to the flit because of his innate magical abilities. I’m guessing whatever it is that makes him immune worked but fried his brain. Hopefully, he wakes up soon.”
I swallowed and my stomach twisted up. “He’s not brain dead, is he?”
“I have no idea, but I somehow doubt it.” Tom moved past me and began making his way toward the elevator. “I think his brain is rebooting itself.”
I spun and ran after him, and he actually sped up so he wound up reaching the elevator before me. “Why do you think that?” I asked as he pressed the button down with his thumb. It was a little weird because most people did stuff like that with their index finger.
“Well, the rituals they are using to control the flit is based on Gabriella’s research. Presumably, she had some research done on why it can’t seem to take over you paranormals. Stands to reason that she also built some kind of defense against it. I’m guessing those two things conflicted and caused his current state since I doubt the Agency has had enough time to crack that. My best guess would be that his mind went into some temporary internal ‘panic room’ to keep the flit from gaining access.” The doors opened, and he stepped inside. When I followed him, he gave me a look I was pretty sure he usually saved things stuck to the bottom of his shoe. “It’s not the best solution, but the flit has never really been fully operational. Demons are notoriously hard to control. Even ones with as much personality and consciousness as the flit.”
“So what’s to keep it from taking you over too?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at him.
“The flit can only take control of a person once.” He shook his head. “My daughter thinks I don’t know what it’s like, but I do know what it’s like to have the flit control you. That’s why I haven’t killed you for what you did to Troy.” He shrugged as though the gesture explained everything.
“What do you mean you can only get controlled once?” I asked even though the urge to ask him how and why he’d been taken over was so huge I could barely ignore it.
He cracked a smile as he pressed a keycard to the panel in the elevator, and the space filled with emerald light before we rocketed upward. “The way our brains work allows the flit to take over exactly one time and not for very long at that. Eventually, your mind will force the flit out and seal off the way it got inside. Think of it like your brain automatically patching a back door.”
“So why wouldn’t the flit just find another way inside?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at him. “And where are we going?”
“It probably could, given enough time and energy, but remember, it is a demon that has only just become sentient after years of work. Until it becomes truly intelligent, the demon isn’t likely to try to do more than its normal brute-force method.” He stared up at the ceiling of the tube which, thankfully, was not filled with Gabriella’s face this time. “I wouldn’t be surprised if whoever is controlling the flit is struggling just to keep the thing out of Hell for prolonged periods of time. That’s why you’ve only seen it in very limited bursts. They probably have to summon it from the ninth circle every time they want to use it before Hell’s innate gravitational force pulls it back down.”
“So if they don’t have a handle on the demon or the rituals, why are they sending it after me? Am I the beta test?” I asked as the elevator doors slid open to reveal a cobalt blue room the size of a large walk-in closet. Lab equipment sparkled on the steel counter in the center. Behind it stood a storage unit that reminded me of the frosty section of a supermarket where they stored ice cream. Only this one was filled with tubes of liquid every shape and color.
“I’m going to let you in on a secret,” Tom said as he stepped past me and pale blue lights came to life, illuminating the room just a skosh better. “Like software, most rituals never really leave beta. It just gets good enough to ship without catching someone’s cat on fire. The real test begins when the users start to break it.” He touched something I couldn’t see, and the door began to shut. I wedged myself in between the doors, and they shuddered to a stop. “Now if you’ll excuse me.”
“Whatcha doing in my mom’s super-secret spy base?” I asked as he shot me a look that could have melted sand into glass.
“Nothing, now go away,” he replied, and this time, I saw him press the button by the elevator again. Only I was pretty sure it wasn’t going to close with me standing halfway through the doorway. Pretty sure…
“Look, Tom, I might be willing to let Lisa gallivant through the mainframe on her own, but I don’t know you. And even though you have a shiny keycard that gives you access, I can’t be certain you are on the up and up.” I would have said more but his face had taken on a sort of haunted quality as he processed what I’d said.
Without warning, he leapt back inside the elevator and slammed his keycard furiously against the panel. “Computer, take me to my daughter!”
“What’s going on?” I asked as he grabbed me and pulled me inside along with him. The doors slammed shut, and we were sent rocketing downward.
“You can’t leave her alone with access to all of Gabriella’s technology. You don’t understand what she’s like…” Tom shook his head, beginning to pace in the tiny space.
“Um… she’s my best friend. I’d like to think I know her a little better than you.” I crossed my arms over my chest petulantly. “Absentee father, much?”
“Whatever has happened to my
dear, sweet daughter has changed her, and not for the better. She tried to convince me to destroy the Agency. When I tried to explain how much collateral damage would be involved, do you know what she said?” He was staring at me so hard that it was making me uncomfortable.
“No?” I offered.
“She said she didn’t care. My daughter did not care about collateral damage, and you just gave her the keys to one of the most powerful arsenals on the planet and left her alone. Please tell me how that seems like a good idea?” Fear flashed across his face before he pushed it away and took a deep breath.
Why had I been so stupid? Even if Tom was outright lying to me, I had no idea what the Agency had done with Lisa prior to using her as a hostage. They’d been able to change Stephen, why not Lisa too? For all I knew, she was some kind of deranged sleeper agent waiting to jump me when I wasn’t looking. How could I be so blind?
The floor sort of swayed under my feet as Donovan’s looming face filled my vision. He didn’t say anything at all, but he didn’t have to because I could hear his “I told you so,” loud enough in my head.
The elevator opened, and Tom leapt past me, sprinting into the room. Lisa was still in the same spot, staring transfixed at the monitor. I couldn’t make out what was on the screen exactly because the images were whirring by so quickly I found it hard to believe she was actually absorbing the information. Then again, maybe she was just fast forwarding through it.
“Lisa Ann, what are you doing?” Tom called, his voice a mix between panic and anger. It reminded me of the one Esmeralda had used when she told me to stop doing something that could hurt me.
Lisa’s face was bathed in sickly green light as she turned her head just enough to glance at us. A strange smile that gave me the heebie jeebies was plastered across her face.
“I think I’ve got it,” she said, voice low and strangely annoyed. She turned back toward the screen and pointed at something. The image enlarged to show a giant picture of a brain lit up with various spots of white light.
I had no idea what the image meant, but I was suddenly worried. Rising terror crept down the back of my neck, slinking across my skin as I struggled to push down the horrible realization Lisa had played me like a fiddle. Who knew what she’d found out in the time I’d been gone…
“What have you got, Lisa?” Tom asked, his face drawn and puckered looking as he approached her. He put one hand on the back of the chair and stared for a long time at the display.
She didn’t respond. Instead, she keyed in some kind of command, and a holographic 3D image of a human brain appeared in the center of the room. She stood and walked over to it. “I figured out what’s wrong with the flit.” She made a pulling gesture with her hands, and the brain came apart in midair, separating itself into bits and pieces I didn’t recognize. Little labels hovered above each separate piece, calling out the names in Latin, not that it helped me much.
“See this spot is where the flit enters your mind.” She touched some spindly piece of brain, and it lit up with blue light. “It sort of places you into a dream-state while it takes over your motor control.” She shrugged, turning to look at Tom and quirked an eyebrow at him. “Your backdoor analogy is stupid by the way. It doesn’t work that way.”
Tom’s face fell as she pulled apart some other thing and continued talking. “This is the actual scan of my brain post flit.” Another brain appeared next to her and fell apart into the same pieces. She glanced at me as she put two pieces of brain together in front of her. “I bet even Abby can tell the difference.”
I couldn’t because they looked the same to me. As far as I could tell, Lisa’s brain was lit up super brightly but the other was dark and dormant. Only, maybe that was it?
“Um… why is yours shining like a Christmas tree?” I asked as Tom stepped up and peered at the pieces of brain.
“Because the flit never actually left her brain. All those neurons are stimulated in a way they never have before. Does this mean what I think it does?” He swallowed, spinning to stare at his daughter and my mouth went dry. Was Lisa still being controlled by the flit? If she was, and I’d just let her into the system…
“Yup,” Lisa said, spinning and pointing back toward the screen “That’s what actually happens when the flit ‘leaves’ your brain.”
Tom swallowed again. “That’s bad, Lisa… very bad.”
“Why?” I asked, stepping between them and rubbing my temples with one hand. “Can you just break it down like I’m a third grader?”
“Basically, the flit never actually leaves you. Because of the way this part of your brain fires as it kicks the flit out, it can’t get back in because it never really left. Basically, it can’t come back into your brain because it has itself stuck in the door.” Lisa smirked. “It’s like when you try to shutdown your computer, and it hangs up on the shutdown screen until you pull the plug. Only you can’t pull the plug on a human brain.”
“Well that’s good, right?” I asked. “I mean it sounds like a bug, but that’s why it can’t take you back over…”
“It isn’t just that though,” Tom said, moving back to the computer and staring at the code. “The flit still receives stimulus from the brain when it takes someone over. It’s a two way street.”
“So?” I asked, raising a confused eyebrow. “What does that matter?”
“Abby, the flit is getting stimulus from every single person it has entered, always and forever. The demon’s mind can’t handle that kind of stimulus. It’s just too immature.” Tom slammed his fist against the panel in front of him hard enough that it made him wince.
“I guess I’m too dumb to understand what you mean?” I said, sighing. “Remember, third grader.”
“Abby, the flit is getting feelings from all of us at once, one hundred percent of the time, but they aren’t necessarily related to what it is doing at the time. So say I’m thinking about eating ice cream while the flit is taking target practice. It will actually think about ice cream and every other thought every single person it’s entered is having at the time. It’s bogging down the system because the demon doesn’t know what ice cream even is. This demon was selected for this job because it can go into a person’s mind and control the host body, not because it was supposed to learn.”
“I fail to see why demonic ADD is bad,” I replied, smirking. It seemed like having the flit be distracted by ponies and ice cream was a good thing.
“The flit has connected to a bunch of psycho killers bent on capturing you. People’s minds are scary places. If the flit’s objectives even sort of line up with what those soldiers are thinking about doing to you, well let’s just say what you experienced in the trailer with Troy is the tip of the iceberg.” Tom sighed. “You have to remember, the flit doesn’t have a filter to say ‘this is a bad idea.’ It’s not creative. Once it decides to run with a plan, it pretty much runs with that plan until a better one presents itself, but now it is filled with the creativity and anger of who knows how many people…”
“So they turned to unfeeling demonic killer into a psychotic demonic killer who is channeling the rage and emotions from people who want to see me dead and in a ditch?” I asked as visions of the Troy filled my head. He pinned me down, his inhuman strength holding my struggling body in place as his cold, unfeeling fingers ran across my flesh.
As the Troy of my visions licked his lips, I could see the countless soldiers maimed not just by me, but by Gabriella, and all those associated with me. My throat seized up, and I struggled to breathe as the world teetered.
“Guys, it’s not just that. Remember, I said it was a two-way street. That means the flit is still influencing every person it touches. It never actually stops, which is bad, but do you know what’s worse? Everyone is sort of leaking into each other subconsciously. That means I’m having thoughts generated by some psycho soldier and every other person the flit has infiltrated.” Lisa sighed and shook her head.
Horrible recognition filled Tom’s features as
he stared at the brain with wide eyes. He opened his mouth to say something when the room shook, flinging me from my feet as we were pitched into darkness. Red lights sputtered on, filling the room with crimson shadows as warning sirens blasted my eardrums into smithereens.
16
Lisa’s head smacked into the control panel as the room quaked. Blood spurted from her forehead as she slumped bonelessly to the ground. Tom swayed next to me, toppling over the chair next to him and hitting the ground on his forearms. He let out a yowl of pain that was loud even over the air-raid sirens.
I swung my head toward the elevator as blast doors slid down, sealing it off. The shaking subsided, and the sirens dialed themselves down to a dull, annoying warble. My knees were still stiff from their impact with the metal floor as I got up and leaned heavily against the control panel.
“Systems check normal, intruders have gained entrance to the outer perimeter but have not managed to breech the inner sanctum,” my mother’s voice said as the screen in front of me zoomed in to show a veritable army of black-suited men standing outside what looked like an immense steel blast door embedded in the side of a mountain. “The safeguards have been triggered.”
Bits of rock and debris filled the air as a man in green fatigues with a well-trimmed grey goatee and long white hair tucked under a green cap approached the door, an annoyed grimace plastered across his face. He waved his hand at the camera, and the bottom left corner of the monitor zoomed in on his face like one of those picture in a picture televisions.
“Abigail, we’re coming in to get you whether or not you like it. You need to come with us.” His voice sounded like he chewed granite appetizers before eating a breakfast of small kittens. “If you surrender now, we won’t kill everyone inside.” He shrugged once. “You may be thinking I can’t get in there, and maybe you’re right, so I’ve brought some persuasion. Tell your computer to focus on these coordinates.” He held up a small handheld with some numbers scrolling across it.
The Magic Within: Found Magic Book #2 Page 12