by Ramsey Isler
“Okay then,” I said. “How are you going to trick her into escaping?”
“Oh we don’t need to do much,” Cecil said as he motioned for me to follow him. There was a narrow door at the back of the truck’s trailer. Cecil scanned his thumbprint and the door clicked open, revealing a cramped space lit with red lamps and chock full of electronic equipment. We walked to the workstation of the controller, a middle-aged guy with a receding hairline and enough bags under his eyes to go on vacation in Bermuda for a month. There were several LCD screens at his station, and one of them showed a live feed focused on Madison. She looked half crazy.
“It’s just simple psychology,” Cecil said as he stared at Madison’s image. “She’s been imprisoned and isolated for quite some time, and it has definitely had an effect. Look at her. Look at those eyes. She’s nearing the breaking point. All we have to do is give her a little push.”
Cecil leaned towards the controller and said, “Begin.”
The controller hit a button on the keyboard in front of him and almost instantly the array of speakers in the truck transmitted the sound of men yelling. It was frantic, and pretty indecipherable. But the words “fire” and “run” came through clearly. Then I saw a flickering on one of the monitors. At first I thought it was the screen itself. Then I realized the lights in the lightbox itself were flickering. On Screen 1, a hallway filled with black smoke. I saw Madison jerk her head left and right. Her eyes were even wilder than before. The lights flickered once again, and then there was only darkness.
I’m not sure what happened next, even though it all unfolded right in front me. I just heard a primal scream full of emotion; a mix of joy and hate and relief. Then the earth beneath us trembled, like the world itself had just seen something disturbing and shuddered in fear or disgust.
But it was over just as quickly as it began. The screens in the control truck came alive again as the cameras in the lightbox switched to night vision mode. The lightbox was empty. Madison had already beat it out of there, leaving nothing behind but a massive hole in one wall. The cameras switched to outdoor views, and there she was. She was running faster than a human being had any right to move on two feet. In just a couple of seconds she was so deep in the woods even the infrared cameras couldn’t find her.
“So she’s gone,” I said. “Is that it?”
“Gone,” Cecil said, “but not lost. When we moved her after Kellar escaped, we sedated her first. We took the opportunity to implant a tracker in her.”
“You’re a sneaky one, Cecil.”
“Hardly,” Cecil said. “Just smart. Now we bring up the GPS monitors and follow her. She was in New Jersey when you found her, so chances are she’ll return there. But there’s no way to know for sure. That’s why we have the GPS signal to work with. We’ve also tapped into all the traffic cameras in a five mile radius, and there are also our eyes in the sky. We’ve got two drones with cameras and satellite connections floating two thousand feet above her. They’re programmed to follow her GPS signal and transmit their live camera feeds back to us. We will see who shows up when she gets to where she’s going.”
“This is kind of scary,” I said as I marveled at all the data views and camera feeds. “Impressive, but scary.”
“It’s all surprisingly easy to circumvent if you know what you’re doing,” Cecil said. “We’re just lucky you nightcrafters aren’t versed in the ways of the spy game. If Madison were better trained she’d be trying to throw us off her trail right now. But I imagine nightcrafters don’t even consider that sort of thing since no one has ever hunted one before.”
“Be careful not to underestimate her,” I said. “She’s good. Better than me.”
“But you captured her.”
“I always wondered if I just got lucky with that,” I said. “Now that I can see her in full action, I’m sure of it.”
Cecil walked up to me, put one of his ham hands on my shoulder, and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “You underestimate yourself, Kal. Stop doing that. It might get you killed someday.”
* * *
Madison continued to impress me.
If it had been me at her age, freshly escaped from a government facility in the middle of nowhere, I would’ve been completely screwed. I’d be lost with no idea who to call for help. Hell, even if I did know somebody I wouldn’t be able to call them — I don’t even remember anybody’s phone number anymore. Without a cell phone or computer, my social connections are pretty much broken.
But Madison was quite resourceful. She had already found her way back across the New York state line and she was clearly moving like she knew exactly what she was doing. We all watched in awe as the eyes in the sky showed her stealing a motorcycle. A goddamn motorcycle. I was seriously starting to wonder about all of the cool shit I’d missed in the rest of nightcrafter training.
It was a cold night, but not freezing, and there hadn’t been any kind of precipitation for weeks so the roadways weren’t slick with ice. Madison had no problem zooming along the clear back roads on her stolen bike. She avoided the freeways and stuck to roads hardly anyone ever used, which meant Cecil’s team couldn’t rely upon the traffic cams much. The drones above her were working okay, but there were a few spots where they’d almost lost her.
I watched all these events unfold in the mobile command center truck as we followed about three miles behind her. When we started, Cecil had been hectically giving orders and micromanaging every aspect of the operation. But now he was quiet and just sitting in his chair, impatiently tapping his fingertips against the cheap armrests. I sat back and watched everything play out as Madison swerved her way along quiet roads until she finally turned onto a little residential street in Yonkers and slowed down.
“Looks like she’s reached her destination,” Cecil said as he stared over the controller’s shoulder.
“What’s the plan?” I asked him.
“The girl isn’t our target,” Cecil said. “It’s whomever she’s meeting with. We have no idea who it could be, so keep your eyes open and don’t lose focus.”
“If you’re going to try to recapture Madison,” I said, “we’re way understaffed.”
“Captures aren’t on the menu this time,” Cecil said. “We’re just going for identification. Once we know who they are we can round them up at our leisure. For now this is strictly surveillance.”
I shrugged and focused on the scene on the screen. Madison led her bike slowly down a quiet, tree-lined suburban street and stopped at one of the biggest houses on the block. I watched as one of the drones moved into place to get a perfect angle on the house’s front door. Madison walked up to it and the door opened before she could even knock. The drone cameras zoomed in close so we could get a good view of the person inside. I almost had a heart attack when I saw the wide, dark-skinned woman standing in the doorway.
Cecil noticed my reaction. “Someone you know?”
“Mater,” I said. “She’s the nightcrafter apparently in charge of things now.”
“Oh really?” Cecil said. “That is quite useful. Quite. It seems little Miss Madison has led us to the holy grail.”
“We’ve got several camera angles,” the controller said. “The system is running through the databases now, but it looks like we’ve got the shots we need. If her photo is still in any digital records, we’ll find them.”
Madison opened her arms wide and practically jumped at Mater, grabbing her in a warm embrace. Mater buried her face in Madison’s wild brown hair and held her tight.
“I hope you’re still not thinking about trying to capture anybody tonight,” I said. “Mater is probably way more powerful than we can handle.”
“I’m not going to stir up that hornet’s nest,” Cecil said. “We’ve got more than enough to work with here. I’d say this mission has been a resounding success. A high-ranking member of this little nightcrafter club is much more valuable than a tight-lipped novice, don’t you think? Once we get a positive ID on her we can identify where she actuall
y lives, along with known associates and a host of other priceless tidbits. ”
“I wouldn’t count that chicken before it’s hatched,” I said. “What if her face doesn’t match anything in the datab—”
“Got it!” the controller said. He was smiling a little too widely for my tastes.
Cecil rushed over to the terminal. He read the screen for a minute, then he was grinning like an idiot too. He turned to me and said, “Mission Accomplished.”
I turned back to the live camera feed. Mater was still hugging Madison like some devil would snatch the poor girl away again at any moment. Then I blinked, and they were gone. Disappeared like they were never there at all.
“I really hope you know what you’re doing,” I said to Cecil. “Madison is the type to hold a grudge. She’ll tell them everything she knows about us, and my involvement. Once she and Kellar start comparing notes, they’ll make a plan. They will come for us.”
“Once again, your assessment is quite astute,” Cecil said. “You are absolutely correct. They will come for us. That’s why we’ll have to come for them first.”
CHAPTER 6
Mater’s real name is Azille Naidoo. She was born in South Africa over sixty years ago but I swear she doesn’t look a day over forty. She has two sons, and they’ve both lived with their father in Australia for many years, far outside the reach of the Rift. All it took was a few pictures to figure all of this out. We went from knowing absolutely nothing about her to having an extensive file of data that even covered the average monthly electric bill at her home. Last night she was the mysterious leader of a guild of wizards, and by morning she’d been reduced to another mere human caught in the vast web of the surveillance spiders. The Information Age has brought with it a certain magic of its own. All a techno-wizard needs is your face, and they can unwrap all your secrets with a few gestures on a plastic keyboard.
Cecil was ecstatic.
When he called to give me the news, he didn’t try to hide his enthusiasm. He told me that the team was already in the process of monitoring Mater’s movements and developing a plan for capturing her during daylight hours. They’d call me if they needed any further guidance. For now, I was free to do whatever I saw fit. After taking a full day off to catch up on the sleep I’d been sorely lacking, I went back to Newton’s secret lab to check on his progress.
He looked much better today. His hair was still messy, but not as messy as before. He was wearing clean wrinkle-free clothes, and he smelled like he’d very recently showered. The powerful aroma of Irish Spring was unmistakable. He’d apparently run out of his signature all-natural soap.
Newton was sitting at a metal desk with his head down and his attention on what looked like a small metal gear. He gingerly filed away at the gear with a tiny tool, and all of his focus was absorbed with this task. He didn’t seem to realize that I’d come in, and I had to purposely scuff my feet on the polished concrete floor.
“There you are,” Newton said when he looked up and saw me. “Your timing could not be more perfect.”
“Why is that?”
Newton held his little golden gear up and the fluorescent lights made it gleam. “I’ve just finished the final tweaks on my newest invention. Come on, I’ll show you.”
He led me to the back of the warehouse and we returned to the exact spot where I’d last seen the RID attached to a parachute-like canopy. But this time there was a new contraption attached to the RID. These were actual wings, but bigger than any wings I’d seen on a bird.
“So,” I said, “you really took that whole ornithopter idea to the next level, eh?”
“I did,” Newton said. “But these new wings are specially designed to mimic a particular bird that has a very cool ability that no other bird has.”
“Which is?”
“I’ll give you a hint,” Newton said. “I call this model the hummingbird.”
It only took me a second to figure out what he was saying. “This thing can hover.”
“Clever boy,” Newton said with a wink and a smile. “I had a battery-powered engine attached to it earlier and it worked, but it ran out of juice pretty quickly. I figure with some magic we’ll be able to keep this thing in the air indefinitely.”
“Or until some creature on the dark side tries to eat it,” I said.
“I’ve considered it,” Newton said. “But we haven’t seen that kind of behavior yet. Rift-kind seem to ignore the stuff we put over there, so I’m willing to chance it. Now, if you could commence with the spell casting we can do our final test on this thing.”
“You’re sure this is going to work?” I asked.
“No,” Newton said, “but it’s a damn exciting experiment.”
I cast the flying spell, as I’d done many times before. But this time was different. As I spoke the words, repeating “wings and wind”, I wasn’t just thinking about the fake wings moving through unseen air. My thoughts went back to that video Newton showed me of bird flight mechanics. I remembered the slow motion shots of the hummingbird’s wings twisting as they flapped. It all happened in just an instant, but I felt a difference in the magic. The spell was something else now. My brain had wired new connections. The wings attached to the RID rose, generating enough wind to blow through my hair and send loose sheets of paper flying. The wings beat faster, and faster, until they were almost just a blur. The RID was now hovering four feet above the ground.
“I believe we can call this experiment complete,” Newton said. He smiled and gave me a wink. I suddenly felt warm.
“So when do we install it?” I asked.
Newton shrugged. “Doing anything tomorrow night?”
“My social calendar is always empty,” I said.
“Great. Let’s make plans to take care of this tomorrow night then. I’ll make final preparations in the morning. For now, I think I need to take a break. I have pie. Want some?”
“Hell yeah. Where did you get pie?”
“I made it,” Newton said as he made his way to a small box on a work desk.
“Oh really? On second thought, maybe I don’t want any.”
“Oh hush. You liked my oatmeal.”
“Yeah but oatmeal’s not as complicated as pie,” I said. “Baking requires more skill.”
“Just because you suck at cooking that doesn’t mean the rest of us do too,” Newton said. He opened the box and pulled out a nine inch pie. It had a lattice of golden brown crust on top, and a dark red filling. I could smell it from ten feet away, and the fragrance immediately brought to mind winter holidays and the Fourth of July.
“Cherry pie,” I said. “I should have known.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing,” I said. “Just give me a slice already.”
“Oh so now you want to eat my pie,” Newton joked as he opened a desk drawer and retrieved paper plates and plastic cutlery.
“I just want to see if there’s something you’re actually not good at,” I said. Newton handed me a plate with a slice of pie oozing thick crimson filling. I took a bite. Chewed. Swallowed.
“Verdict?” Newton asked.
“This is amazing,” I said. “I hate you.”
“You hate me ’cuz you ain’t me,” Newton said with a cocky smile. Then he scooped a bit of cherry pie into his mouth using just his pinky finger. I watched him do it and tried not to think the thoughts I knew he was trying to put in my head.
“I got the department memo about Madison,” Newton said when he’d finished licking pie off his finger. “But I feel like it omitted some important information. Did anybody ever find her?”
“Nope,” I said. “She disappeared. The tracker Cecil had implanted in her must be malfunctioning.”
“Or she figured out what was happening and removed it,” Newton said.
I nodded. “Possible. But she’s no longer a concern of ours. Cecil got all the info he wanted. We’ll probably be analyzing the video of Madison’s escape for a couple of weeks at least. Tha
t was some really impressive stuff. I had no idea nightcrafter students at her level could be that bad ass.”
“I’d be interested in seeing that video,” Newton said, “but I don’t have access to those files.”
“Really? Why not?”
“I would assume your buddy Cecil considers it ’eyes only’ material, and my eyes aren’t invited.”
“Well that’s weird,” I said. “Are you sure you didn’t do anything to piss him off?”
“I’m pretty good at pissing people off without realizing it so . . . no I’m not sure.”
“I’ll get back to you on the Madison thing once we have more info,” I said. “In the meantime, I want to talk more about this RID installation we’re supposed to do tomorrow night. You have a plan for getting this thing up to the top of the Empire State Building?”
“Let’s try to get there just after midnight,” Newton said after swallowing another piece of pie. “We can’t just lug a big machine up to the observation deck without people asking inconvenient questions. So we’ll need a cover story. I’ll call it in as an emergency FCC matter regarding the cellular transmitters up there. I can use some systems we’ve set up in the past to fake that very nicely. Then we can have the deck closed off and the guards out of the way without attracting any suspicion.”
“Okay,” I said. “We should be in and out in less than an hour then.”
“That’s the plan,” Newton said. “But, you know, prototypes are tricky and you haven’t exactly mastered this spell thing yet. We might end up being there for a while. So dress warm and get to bed early. It might be a long night.”
“It’ll be a breeze,” I said. “Drinks at my place after?”
“Sure,” Newton said. “I’ll bring the pie.”
* * *
Something warm nuzzled against me. It was comforting and calming. I wrapped my arms around the fleshy figure and let my fingertips slide along the smooth, pale skin. I opened my eyes. I was under the sheets, and soft orange light filtered through the white fabric. He was there, next to me. Eyes closed, hair going in every direction imaginable. He looked so peaceful in his sleep. He even slept with a little smirk on his face. Normally he had shallow furrows in his forehead, and little baby crow’s feet appeared around his eyes when he laughed. But when he slept, his face was a mask of serenity. Not a wrinkle to be seen. I tightened my grip, wanting to hold him forever.