Insolation

by Bradlyn Wilson

  “Is the connection set-up?” Liani asked abrasively.

  The woman nodded and took her phone from her pocket. She pressed a few buttons and a screen appeared on the far wall of the room. Hemmer’s face appeared on the screen. Hadley gasped and quickly clasped her hand over her mouth. Her eyes were wide; Hemmer was the last person she’d expected to appear on the screen. Hadley held her breath waiting for them to come find her. But they hadn’t heard her gasp between the hype of getting Hemmer on the screen and the buzz of the surrounding machinery.

  The look on Hemmer’s face scared her. It was pure rage. He looked as though he was going to jump through the screen and rip their heads off. He was glowing a bright burgundy.

  “What have you done with her team?” He practically spat at Liani through the screen.

  She chuckled, “Oh Hemmer, they are alive for now—”

  “For now?” The colour drained completely from his face, leaving a pale and deathly Hemmer on the screen.

  “Yes Hemmer, you aren’t getting them back in one piece. Any of them.” Liani just smiled, a sickly smile. Hadley’s skin started crawling with the sound of joy in her voice. A shiver went down her back.

  Liani was enjoying this more than a kid in a candy store.

  “You are going to kill a group of innocent kids?” Hemmer was appalled.

  Liani un-holstered her gun and held it in her hand. She looked at it, twisting it back and forth in her palm. “They aren’t innocent Hemmer. No one is anymore. And they aren’t kids anymore; they are grown adults who have been alive for centuries. They were the smartest people on the planet. They were your future, and I’m taking that away from you, like you did me.”

  “You are going to kill all of them?” Hemmer choked, the word barely made it out of his mouth. He looked older and older by the minute.

  “Well all the ones we have—” Liani sighed. She was annoyed at not having everyone, at not having Hadley, who just reveled in that fact.

  “The ones you have?” Hemmer asked cautiously trying to not show any emotion.

  “Yes Hemmer. We ran out of time and energy and missed one. I killed two already as well.”

  “Who?” He asked in barely a whisper.

  “The one who calls herself Hadley Evans. Good one Hemmer, brainwashing some girl to believe she is Hadley. But we all saw her die. We all watched Kane kill her after you told him to.”

  The immense relief that washed over Hemmer was so apparent. Somehow, though Liani missed it. “Yes, funny aren’t I?” Hemmer said lightly, perfectly to cover up how he actually felt. Hadley looked at his eyes and knew that he almost couldn’t contain his joy. He really needed her for something, of which she was unsure. He hated her so much and had threatened her more times than she could count but in this moment he was happy she was still alive.

  “Get the first girl!” Liani chuckled to the others in the room.

  The other woman went to one of the cages and unlocked it. The two men ducked inside. A moment later they pulled out a struggling Kristen. Half her face was covered in blood and cuts. Her hair was matted with mud. Her one arm was twisted in a weird way. She was gagged and tears were running down her face. She was pulling with all her might but it was no use, she wasn’t as strong as them.

  The men put Kristen on her knees in front of the screen with Hemmer. “Kristen—” He whispered in a fatherly tone, silently exuding how he felt. She looked up at him. Hadley couldn’t see her face but knew they were sharing one last precious moment. It was odd seeing Hemmer show any paternal feelings, especially towards Kristen. Hadley didn’t even think Hemmer knew Kristen’s name.

  “Kristen, honey I’m sorry,” he said gently.

  “Dad, it’s ok. I knew what I was signing up for,” Kristen cried.

  Hemmer looked back at Liani. “Li, why her?”

  “Uncle Hemmer, why Anna?”

  “That was different.”

  “You shot her just to get Hadley to give you the code. How is this different?”

  Liani had stumped Hemmer. Everyone in the room could see it all over his face. Liani was using his own twisted schemes against him, and it was working. He was fumbling.

  “Li, I didn’t ever want to do that.”

  “But you did Uncle.”

  “Li, that’s your cousin.”

  “Hemmer, first it was my mother, next my sister. You left me alone. I shouldn’t have talked my dad out of killing you.”

  Liani raised the gun to the back of Kristen’s head. Her grip tightened on her gun and Hadley took a step forward. She wanted to help more than anything but retreated back into the shadows after a moment’s pause.

  She didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t think. She had to wait for the right timing to reveal herself and help the others or she would just end up in a cell too. There was too many of them.

  Liani relaxed her body. She slowly tilted her head from side to side and planted her feet. Her finger squeezed the trigger. The small space everyone was in echoed the sound. A moment later Kristen’s limp, dead body slumped to the ground. Her head tilted so her lifeless eyes stared right through Hadley. A small trickle of blood ran down her cheek from the black hole between her eyes, and onto the ground.

  Hemmer stood up in his seat. “Liani stop this! There has to be some way—” He looked on the verge of tears.

  Liani walked forward stepping over Kristen. “Give me the activation instructions and location.”

  “You know I don’t have them! Hadley had them and they died with her!”

  “So you say, but I can’t help but think you are lying. I will call you back in an hour to kill another one of your people. So that gives you 60 minutes to think about what’s more important to you.”

  “Don’t you think if I had them I would have used them to wipe you out?”

  “Fuck you Hemmer.” Liani turned off the screen. She turned on her heel and walked back past Hadley’s hiding spot and out of the room. Ric grabbed Kristen’s body and dragged her out of the room on her face. Hadley had to just watch them go and after they had gone stared at the last place she had saw them. Frozen and despaired.

  She studied the room and knew she needed a key to get into the cells. The man and woman were deep in conversation. The man nodded at her and also left the room. As soon as Hadley heard his footsteps fade away she stepped out of her corner.

  The woman turned around and looked straight at Hadley as she heard footsteps approach her. Hadley pointed her gun between the woman’s eyes.

  “Hadley?” She was stunned. Blown away really, as though someone had dumped a bucket of ice water over her head.

  “No. Open that cell!” Hadley commanded and motioned towards the cell they had just pulled Kristen from. The lady had no other choice than to open the cell. “Get in and leave the keys on the ground. Also any electronic devices you have,”

  The lady crawled in and left the key on the ground along with her phone. This was too easy— Hadley kicked the door shut and reached down and grabbed the key. She locked the bars closed and put her gun into the holster, but she didn’t do it up, she didn’t know when she’d need it next.

  “But you died. I’ve watched the video. My grandma told me about it. She was one of your most loyal followers,” the woman said pressing her face into the rusted metal gate and looking intently at Hadley who was standing a few feet away. For a moment Hadley felt bad for this woman who was working for a psychopath. There was a chance that the woman would be shot, just like Kristen, for not keeping Liani’s prisoners.

  “Then I’m sure she’s really proud of you,” Hadley sneered through the gate, her pity expelled.

  “Hadley is that you?” a voice yelled in the room, it was followed by various murmurs of her name.

  “Yes?” she replied into the dark space of the room. Jeremiah’s beaten face appeared at one of the sets of bars. Hadley went to it and unlocked it. He crawled out and stood up. His nose was shattered and he was limping. After watching the video of us it gave Hadle
y some pleasure to see him like this, but still—she pulled out her gun from its holster and pointed it between his eyes.

  “They have Vanya. They took her somewhere!” He was hysterical. He started towards the exit completely ignoring the gun but Hadley stepped in front of him.

  “We need to get everyone else.”

  He stopped and looked at Hadley as though she was insane. He couldn’t understand why she was stopping him, he had seen what had happened to Kristen and adrenaline was pumping through his veins. “Fine.”

  Together, Jeremiah and Hadley got Fred, Zeek, Olive and Gunner out of their cells. They were in terrible condition and barely able to stand. Hadley looked at the gashes and bruises that the team was covered in. Looking around she had no clue how they were going to get out of this underground maze alive. Fred could barely stand and Olive was practically unconscious.

  “We need to find Vanya!” Jeremiah practically screamed at Hadley as she was quietly assessing the group.

  “Quiet Jeremiah! Someone will hear you,” Hadley moaned. “None of you are in any shape to find Vanya. So let me do that and you get out.”

  Hadley explained to them how to get out, to the best of her memory, and asked them to find car keys on the way, stating the mass of cars outside. Jeremiah was about to put up a fight but the second Hadley handed him a handgun, he was quiet.

  “I will find her Jeremiah, I promise,” Hadley said gently, she gave him a look urging him listen to her and lead the team out.

  He seemed to get the hint and decided to take the high road and be a leader.

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Hadley took off the opposite way as everyone else at the crossroads. She had made it about 10 seconds when she felt a hand on her shoulder. She jumped and pointed her gun, putting pressure on the trigger; she was completely ready to shoot.

  But she turned to see Jeremiah standing there.

  “Dammit Jeremiah, I almost shot you!”

  “I’m not going to sit in a car and hope you find Vanya. I’m coming with you.”

  Hadley sighed at him but she couldn’t and didn’t argue. They headed down the passage. The candle light was creating a glow on their faces as they walked. Jeremiah kept pace but he was limping and kept letting out grunts.

  “Are you all right?” Hadley stopped and looked at him. He winced.

  “Let’s keep going—” he grunted and walked ahead of her. She kept her gun up and walked.

  The caverns got more and more intricate and she was scared the deeper they got the harder it was going to be to find the way out, with or without Vanya. I should have left a breadcrumb trail, Jack and Jill style. She stopped and listened. There was running water. It reminded her of Saul’s building, but decades older and less tidy.

  Twist and turn, after twist and turn, they didn’t see a soul. They just wound their way through the candle lit caverns dug into the hard rock. Finally, Hadley stopped before a doorway. She motioned for Jeremiah to stop. He came to a halt behind her. His warm breath on the back of her neck. The hairs on her neck stood up and sent tingles down her spine.

  She pressed her ear against the door softly and held her breath. She could hear a faint buzzing but nothing else. She reached down and grasped the doorknob. She turned the doorknob slowly, one bit at a time until she heard the latch unhinge from the wall. Then she lightly pressed her weight into her shoulder and pushed the door open.

  They emerged into a room filled with computers, that was completely dry walled a stark white. The room was floored with cement, unlike most of the paths we had gone through and was lit by large artificial lights implanted in the ceiling. The first artificial light they’d seen in these caves. Hadley looked around the room and saw one computer was on. It was buzzing and jumping between screens. All the other computers were black and cold. It was odd she thought.

  She went up to it and saw a live feed of various rooms throughout the place they were in. As it jumped screens Hadley saw Vanya, tied to a chair in one of the frames. She barely recognized her before it went to the next screen. Jeremiah looked at Hadley in a panic. Without a word they watched the computer go until it looped around again. This time when they saw Vanya they were ready.

  The box in the right hand bottom corner said ‘A wing-area 32’. Hadley made a mental note of the number. She looked around the room and saw a large map on the wall, making it too easy. It was right beside the door they had entered through and Hadley almost laughed at having just noticed it.

  There was a little blue sticker with: you are here, written on it. Helpful. Hadley took out her coinet and took a picture of the map. She traced her fingers along the wall and saw they weren’t far from A wing. Slowly she found a path to room 32. Without speaking they set off. Jeremiah muttered to himself as they went. He was frantic and trying to calm himself down. The adrenaline had kicked in to take away some pain, but he was still grunting as he walked on a broken ankle.

  After the third turn Hadley had to stop and look around. She opened her coinet and looked at the map. She could feel the heat of the candle she had stopped beside on her cheek. She peered at the map of which she had taken a photo.

  “Well—?” Jeremiah whispered annoyed.

  “Hold on.” Hadley put her hand up to shush him and stared into the screen. A moment later she knew which way we were going.

  Hadley motioned them both forward. A few feet later they had to stop, there were footsteps ahead. Hadley watched a group of men walk by. Once they had passed they kept on their route. Finally, after what seemed like ages, they got to a room marked 32.

  Jeremiah pushed in front of Hadley emotionally and opened the door without checking anything. He was ready to fire on whoever was in his way. Vanya was sitting in the chair. Blood dripping from the corner of her gagged mouth. One of her eyes was so swollen that no one could see where it opened. Her ankle was twisted sideways. Jeremiah half ran, half hopped to her. She looked up in a daze. After a moment her look turned to panic and she started to shake her head furiously. Hadley furrowed her brow as she rushed towards her friend.

  Jeremiah ripped off Vanya’s gag and kissed her cheek. Tears running down his face.

  “Oh my god, you’re alive, thank God! I love you so much, I’m so sorry,” Jeremiah rambled in a hurry.

  Vanya didn’t look at him though, she stared into Hadley’s eyes and screamed, “Stop, get out!”

  “Vanya. We’re here to help,” Hadley said calmly, thinking she must have hit her head.

  “It’s a trap Hadley— they knew you would come after us if you actually were Hadley Evans.” Vanya whispered.

  It was too late.

  Hadley had fallen into their trap. She had done exactly what she always would have. She turned around just in time to see the giant needle plunge into her neck. The world disappeared in a fog.

  The only thing she saw was the ground get closer to her face as she fell in slow motion.

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Everything, and Hadley meant everything came rushing back. Every memory she had forgotten, every pain she had endured, every plan Hemmer had erased was back. All except one. The one she now remembered she had erased. She was liberated and confused as too many neurons in her brain fired at the same time.

  She was beyond furious that she kept getting knocked out by everyone. Then again getting knocked out by people in general. But everything was back, and for that she was slightly grateful.

  The nerve endings in her brain kept firing and she helplessly drifted in and out of consciousness as her brain was overloaded with information. She felt like a computer that kept trying to update but the hard drive kept crashing. She now knew what it felt like to be a piece of equipment. Useless, as though there was a bug.

  She was just a piece in some game, and with her memories back she knew exactly where she fit in the puzzle.

  Slowly she was able to focus on her surroundings. Her temples throbbed and she felt as though a bus had hit her. Every muscle in her body hurt. Her hands were shaki
ng, her nails clicking against the metal bed she was restrained to. She was so cold that she was shaking. She was wearing a thin white tank top and hospital gown over her sports bra and panties.

  She looked up and a large metal disk hung over her with a small incandescent light bulb in the middle. It was swaying gently. The ceiling was grey and cold looking. She looked to her side and saw a machine very much like the one in Dr. Emily’s office, though this one was older. The rest of the room was bare. She glanced down and saw there were tubes and cords attached to her everywhere. They wormed their way like snakes from under her clothes.

  The door opened somewhere above her head and she strained her neck back to see. But could only see the top of their head. Though, with a falling feeling in her stomach, she could see the dark hair.

  “Hello Hadley.” The person stood over her and looked directly down at her face. It was Liani. She pressed a button and the bed rotated to an upright position so Hadley’s feet were firmly on the floor.

  Liani pressed a button on the wall and a holographic projection appeared before them both slowly. It was Saul; he was sitting at a desk somewhere far away, safely in his compound. But Hadley felt as though she could reach out and touch him.

  “What Liani?! I told you to leave me alone. I don’t agree with what you’re doing!” He was annoyed.

  He rolled his eyes and raised his hand to slam it down onto a button to end the call. Then he saw Hadley, in her stark white against the metal bed in the background.

  “What are you doing with her?” His voice was panicked; he didn’t try to hide it.

  “Do you recognize her Saul dear? The great Hadley Evans raised from the dead. And guess what?! I restored her memories.” Liani was positively gleeful. She was grinning from ear to ear. Then she became somber, serious and menacing. “And Saul, I do mean all of her memories. Even that one about us— oops— was I not supposed to bring that up?”