The Nancy Experiment

by McKenna, Tess

  “Annika?” Nickel says.

  Shit.

  I take off toward the Cleveland Museum of Art. I pull my hood back on and cross the busy street. Then, I see what I’m looking for: a man dressed in all black with steel-toed shoes. He and I make eye contact, and he turns and enters the art museum. I look around me to make sure Nickel is not on my tail, and I run after the man.

  A sign on the door says that the art museum is closed for construction until April, but the man left the side door unlocked for me. I’m running straight into a trap, and I know it. But what can I do? If I don’t, then Marissa will die, and I would have done nothing to stop that.

  I follow the man in black up the stairs to the spacious lobby. Plastic sheets cover the new ticket booth, the paintings on the wall, and a sign for the upcoming summer exhibit titled Sunlight and Radiation. The white, marble wall in front of me stretches toward the ceiling, and under it are bronze statues of the gods of Olympus. The squares of soil in the lobby have no plants in them yet, and the room itself echoes that emptiness. The hunting crew is not here, and neither is Marissa.

  I turn toward the balcony, and I see them. A row of men and women all wearing steel-toed shoes stand on the balcony and stare at me. They have been waiting.

  I make my way toward the balcony and up the stairs, slow enough to catch my breath and calm the fire growing inside me. The balcony is long and skinny with a simple steel railing along one edge. When I make it to the top of the balcony, I see twenty members of the hunting crew that form a long aisle with me at one end and two figures at the other.

  Marissa is one of the two people at the end of the long aisle. She’s on her knees, facing me, and her hands are bound behind her back. Thick blue tape covers her mouth with a strand of curly hair caught to her cheek, and she stares at me with wide, wild eyes.

  Eva stands behind Marissa. With one hand she holds a knife, and in the other hand she holds the end of the rope binding Marissa’s hands. Eva’s blonde and pink hair stands like spikes on her head like the piercings on her eyebrow and ears. Her lips twist up on one side when she sees me, and I remember just how dangerous she is.

  “Basia, how good of you to come,” Eva says. Her dark lips part just enough to flash a white, wicked smile.

  “Eva,” I say as I pace down the aisle of hunters.

  “Not any closer,” Eva says, jerking the rope that binds Marissa’s hands.

  I stop and narrow my eyes.

  “Why the soar face, Basia? Did we spoil a precious bonding moment with your new friends?” Eva teases. She brushes the flat side of the knife on Marissa’s head. My stomach turns, and I feel like I could throw up. But I must stay calm and controlled. Otherwise, Marissa won’t be the only one dead.

  “Actually you interrupted some bondage—I mean, bonding time with our lonesome invader… had to cut a few fingers off to make him speak up,” I say.

  Eva glares at me and grips the knife harder.

  “Miller, give us some light, would you?” Eva says.

  Someone steps out of formation and presses a button on the wall. The ceiling above us begins to slide into the side wall, revealing a large paneled sun roof that expands across the entire ceiling. Sunlight moves across the floor as the ceiling changes, and the light creeps all the way to our feet on the balcony. I feel the sunlight against my cotton shirt, and my skin tingles.

  “Nothing like a little sunlight, right Basia?” Eva says.

  I stay silent.

  “You know what we want,” she says. “Where are the files?”

  “Let her go,” I say.

  “The files!”

  “Let her go.”

  “You’re not in a position to negotiate!” Eva says. She pulls Marissa up by her curly hair and holds the knife to her throat. Marissa breaths in quickly, her eyes shut, and her skin quivers against the blade.

  Those files… my tangible dirt… that’s all I have. That’s my leverage. But Marissa… friend or not, she’s still a person… a person who deserves to live. I didn’t come here to save the documents. I came here to make sure Marissa doesn’t die.

  “I’m not in a position to negotiate?” I repeat. “I have files on every experiment Dr. Nancy ever oversaw and partook in, including all of those involved in the experiments. I have documents of every orphanage and organization that provided mutated children to Dr. Nancy’s experiments. I have your brother chained and locked up in one of the highest security centers in America. I have the nuclear power to blow up this entire museum, and I have the motivation to do it. Now tell me I’m not in a position to negotiate.”

  Eva blinks, and some of the men and women around me shuffle. Now that all the chips are on the table, everyone feels the pressure.

  “Your leverage versus our leverage,” Eva says. “What we want still doesn’t change.”

  “You’re not getting those files,” I say.

  “Then I’ll cut her throat open!” Eva yells.

  “No!” I shout as Eva pulls Marissa’s hair tighter. Marissa moans behind the tape over her mouth, and tears roll down her cheeks.

  “If you want her to live, give us the files,” Eva says.

  “I’ll make a trade,” I say. “One life for another.”

  Marissa’s eyes snap open, and she moans something incomprehensible to me. I’m going to pretend she’s good with my plan.

  “You? Why would we trade you for her?” Eva asks.

  “You could finally kill me,” I say.

  “And I can’t now?”

  “Not as easily. Besides, you wouldn’t want the Metanites coming after you for killing one of their own.”

  “And who’s to say I couldn’t just kill you now and destroy any chance of those files leaking out?”

  “Who’s to say I haven’t given them to someone already?” I reply.

  Eva glares at me while she thinks over my offer. If it’s the files she wants, then that’s the card I have to play.

  “What do you want?” Eva asks.

  “Let her go. No one moves until she is out the doors of the main lobby, and no one pursues her,” I say.

  “Deal,” Eva says. She shoves the knife into her belt and pushes Marissa toward me, tossing the rope at me too. “No of you move until the girl is gone.”

  I help untie the rope around Marissa’s wrists and pull the tape off her mouth. Her face is wet and red, and her whole body shakes.

  “Annika—”

  “Go, Marissa. Now,” I tell her.

  “You can’t do this!”

  “Go.”

  “But—”

  “Now.”

  “You have three seconds to get out of here, curly, or you can stay and watch,” Eva says

  “Marissa, please… go,” I say to her.”

  “No. I won’t leave you,” she says.

  “Miller.”

  Two men pounce on me, grabbing my arms and handcuffing my wrists behind my back with shiny golden handcuffs. My instincts scream at me to fight back, but as long as Eva isn’t threatening Marissa, I can’t do anything. A sinking feeling that this was Eva’s plan all along eats at me. That feeling worsens when I feel the weight of the handcuffs—handcuffs that seem to radiate heat.

  “Annika, no! Don’t do this!” Marissa says. She reaches out to touch me, and an intense, scorching sensation radiates from the handcuffs and electrocutes through me. My head jerks back and I scream, falling to my knees. The scorching lasts only five seconds, but the shaking and pain linger.

  “That’s your first warning,” Eva says.

  The handcuffs… they emit radiation.

  “Next time you get too close, curly, I’ll stain her blood with radiation,” Eva says.

  Bitch…

  “Sorry, someone beat you to it,” I say.

  The scorching returns like heated, poisonous needles stabbing every part of my body. I squirm and kick as my arms bear the weight of a thousand pounds of burning metal. Those poor women burned at the stake centuries ago must be grimacing in the
ir graves.

  The burning stops again, leaving me gasping for breath. Although I’m chilled in the cold room, a thin layer of sweat already covers my skin.

  Eva laughs, and I can hear steel-toed shoes stepping toward me. She kicks me in the ribs as I try to sit up, and I flop backwards. The kick feels just as bad as a bullet, pain swelling and itching from my ribs. Her face covers my blurred vision.

  “The files,” she says, dangling the small button for the torturous handcuffs in my face.

  “No.”

  The scorching repeats, and I cry out again. I can hear Marissa shouting and fighting against the hunting crew—she’s getting nowhere. The burning stops.

  “You want to stop it, curly? You may not have a knife to your throat anymore, but that doesn’t mean I’m done with you. You tell me where the files are,” Eva hisses.

  “I—I don’t know,” Marissa says.

  “Didn’t she tell you where they are?”

  “No… I didn’t know about them.”

  I roll to my knees and muster up the energy to get back to my feet.

  “Liar!” Eva says.

  Just as I swing my arms to hit the button out of Eva’s hand, she grabs my arm and pulls my face toward hers. Our eyes lock, and she stares at me so intently I can feel her eyes trying to carve mine out of my skull.

  The scorching returns, and I wrestle with the electric, stabbing pain as Eva squeezes my arm. Another endless five seconds of hell dies away. I blink and see the burning, pink shade of skin on my wrists where the handcuffs touch my skin.

  “I swear,” I mutter softly, “the next time I see Jericho… I’m snapping his neck in half.”

  Eva’s eyes burn, and she hits the button. I close my eyes and try to rein in my screams, but the pain is unbearable. And it doesn’t end. Eva kicks me to the floor, where I shake and spasm, hitting the source of the radiation against the ground as if I could break it off. The needle-like pain grows hotter and sinks deeper, and I fear the pain will never stop.

  “Annika! Marissa!” I hear, but the call is distant, maybe even an illusion.

  I continue to wrestle with the handcuffs when more sounds of shouting and blasts of fire and electricity explode above me. Someone grabs me, trying to contain my spasms, and even tries to pull the hot handcuffs off my wrists. Moments later, the handcuffs break, the scorching finally stops, and my hands are free.

  “Hey… hey!” someone shouts at me, lifting my head and shoulders off the floor.

  I open my eyes, and Nickel is inches from my face. His hands are the same golden color as the broken handcuffs, and he studies my eyes for consciousness. My hair has fallen out of my ponytail and hangs over my face, so I pull the strands behind my ears and look around the balcony.

  Battle is in full swing. Zoë and Lazzer throw blue and green blasts at approaching madmen while Elijah, with his arms on fire, fights off three men. Nate and—is that?—an invisible Izzi fight next to Abraham, who’s positioned in front of Kiaria, meddling with some system in the wall. Kono fights off Eva, along with Marissa, who holds a metal pole in her hand that she probably pulled off from the pipes on the new hole in the wall. Xander stands behind Nickel, giving him an opportunity to help me back to my feet.

  “It’s alright. I got you,” Nickel says. He lifts me from under my armpits until I’m on my feet. I fall against him at first, and my vision goes black.

  Shit… shit…

  “You’re okay,” Nickel says.

  My vision slowly returns, as does my balance, and now I feel strong enough to stand on my own.

  A man in black hollers and charges at us, but Nickel jumps toward him and starts throwing punches. Another man jumps at me, but I’m steady enough to dodge the first strike, and the second, and then find the energy to kick his legs out from under him. A shock of pain as quick as a breath assaults my ribs. I groan and grab the sore area with my hand.

  A woman with a purple, slick ponytail comes toward me next. I deflect punch after punch, kick after kick, backing up in the meantime, until my back hits the balcony fence and the sunlight from the sun roof. The woman winds up to strike me, but Elijah pulls me out of the way and lets the woman fall over the side of the balcony. I look at him and see that he’s holding his right arm close to his body.

  Out of nowhere, a man charges at us. Elijah winds up to fire at the man, but the man tackles him first. Elijah trips, and the two fall off the balcony. I reach for them and manage to grab Elijah’s left wrist. His weight and momentum pull me against the railing and into full sunlight, but I wrap my leg around the railing and hang on to him with both hands.

  The sunlight seizes me immediately. Under my skin, I can feel my blood burning and my mind fogging. Tiny needles, not nearly as painful or overwhelming as before, pierce me from underneath my skin. I hang on, dizzy and strained from the sunlight and the weight of Elijah’s dangling body, and I know I cannot hold on forever—I don’t even think I can hold on for more than fifteen more seconds.

  “Nate! Somebody!” I shout.

  I look down to the main lobby of the art museum. The man who fell through the wall with Elijah and the woman with purple hair lie on the ground with their necks angled sickly away from their bodies and shards of metal around them. Dark, red blood is splattered on the floor like a firecracker and starts to pool from underneath their bodies.

  Elijah opens his eyes and looks down.

  “Ho! AH! HaahHH!!” he shouts. He looks up at me. “Annika?!”

  “Give me your other hand!” I yell.

  “I can’t! It’s dislocated!”

  I grimace and let out a cry of pain.

  “Nate!”

  “Annika!” I hear him shout back to me.

  Sweat drips through my fingers and onto Elijah. Hold on… Hold on!

  A sharp, scorching pain stabs my lower left back—my Achilles’ heel—and the electrocuting agony returns full throttle. I scream, my muscles seize beyond control, my legs collapse underneath me, and my arms fly backward, letting go of Elijah’s hand. My assailant digs the radiating dagger deeper into my back and holds a hand over my mouth to silence me.

  “You little bitch… I swear you’ll get what’s coming to you,” Eva hisses in my ear. Her lips barely touch the skin of my ear, and her nails dig into my skin.

  The stabbing pain is so overwhelming that I can’t move. My body is paralyzed, but I see clearly and feel everything. Inside, it’s a constant screaming of pain, but my mind is soft and peaceful, removed from everything. The sting in my back sucks all the energy and severity off the turbulent balcony, and a low buzzing sings in my ears.

  Then, Nickel thrusts Eva’s body away from me, leaving the radiating dagger still stuck in my back. I fall backward, like falling from the peak of a mountain into thin, artic air, but someone catches me before I hit the snow. I blink, and Nate’s face fills my vision, his bright blue eyes sparkling like crystals dancing in a flame.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Kono asks from miles and miles away.

  Somewhere behind Nate’s head, I can make out Abraham stretching over the balcony railing. He pulls Elijah—alive and scared to death—back onto the balcony. I see Zoë jump into his arms, and Elijah wraps his good arm around her. Some part of me knows that things are going to be alright. I feel ice freeze in my veins… a passive sort of freezing… the sunlight… the sunlight… the fire inside me sedates.

  “I think it’s the sunlight,” Nate says.

  He takes off his jacket and wraps it around my shivering body.

  “Hang on, Annika…”

  XVII: Goodbyes

  Wednesday, March 26, 2065; 10:59 a.m.

  First person

  Peace, almost.

  My mind drifts away from my body, drifting back to a time I try not to remember…

  The wind roars around me, throwing my hair in one direction and then another. Lake Geneva carries the burning casket away from me toward a distant place of peace.

  It is exactly the way she wanted it: h
er funeral. She had said that she wanted to be sent away from this world the same way she believed Merlin said goodbye to King Arthur: a burning casket floating out in the lake. I had made her stop whenever she talked about how she would die or the details she envisioned of her funeral. This is different lake, but I guess it’s as good as any. Switzerland is a place of peace, and that’s the way she was. I suppose it suits her.

  My face burns. The tears that scar my face now freeze in the bitter wind, and I wonder if permanent ice will form. My body shook for the first few hours but now stands as cold and unmoving as a statue. I stand there long after the lake engulfs the casket and the flames.

  I will make them pay for this. I tell myself those words over and over until I convince myself they are true. Whatever it takes, I will make them pay for this.

  The appeal she made to me asking to return now seems a cruel fortune of fate. I am bound to her plea to make a stand against him and his factory as mistletoe is bound to its host: death the fate of both.

  Basia, I hear her call to me. Her voice echoes in my mind, the only way I can conjure her back into my life. Where are we going?

  Home, Cassie. We’re going home.

  We don’t have to split up, do we?

  Just for a little while, but we’ll be back together soon.

  “Basia,” a voice calls to me. The sun peaks out from behind the mountains, and a distant rainbow with it. Footsteps alert me that someone is coming behind me. A soft hand touches my shoulder, and the familiar voice says, “Basia, it’s time to go. It’s time to say goodbye.”

  A quiet night. We stand at the closed door of the small jet as a black car pulls up to the barbed wire fence some twenty meters from the plane. We’re not supposed to be here. This is a private jet filled with precious heroine traveling from Switzerland to Sydney and then to Cleveland. We found the dealer just as they were boarding, and since he remembered that he still owed me a favor, he had no choice but to offer a free ride for my friend and me. We used his untraceable phone to call Margo’s father in Australia. He’s the one in the black car.