by Brinda Berry
“Like I said…kill me. Aren’t we made of those memories?” I cleared my throat. “Please take care of yourself. I’ll miss you.”
I turned to run before my vision blurred with hot tears.
* * *
We left for Magnum Opus. Since Cassie didn’t have a locator chip, we could travel undetected to the secret passage that would gain us entry. We’d been supplied with ropes and gadgets that I knew would be useless to me. But Austin was getting into the entire thing with his exclamation of ‘wicked’ every time Cassie handed him something.
The secret passage turned out to be a cave that backed up to Magnum Opus. Cassie told us that the cave was thirty-eight miles long. Fugitives who didn’t know their way through the cave system could get lost and never find a way out. We’d be walking through the dark with Cassie for almost five miles before climbing to a secret door that popped into the bottom of a water purification room.
Cassie was to remove a section of the floor with one of her handy gadgets and we’d go from there.
Walking through the dark, devoid of sensory stimulation, I reveled in the quietness of it. We walked while hooked together by a cable, stumbling on the uneven terrain. The only negative aspect was the abundance of time alone with my thoughts, so I concentrated on listening to Austin and Cassie whisper together like they were on a first date.
“So, what do you do for fun when you’re not breaking into an enemy camp?”
“That is what I do for fun,” she answered.
“Favorite food?” Austin asked.
“I like dried better than canned. Sometimes the canned has an old, tinny taste to it.”
“Brothers and sisters?”
“Maybe.”
Their conversation continued through the miles and I don’t think either one cared about the answers the other gave. The banter was merely intended for listening to the other’s voice.
I was glad when we finally stopped. My boots weren’t meant for hiking and my feet ached from lack of proper sole support. It was still pitch black but I could feel the buzz of something nearby.
“I think I feel the portal from here.”
“Very good.” Cassie’s steady, pleased answer told me that she thought we’d make it with the prisoners to the portal.
A light shone. “Ready,” Austin said.
“Five seconds,” Cassie said.
Above our heads, with a silver object that resembled a pen, Cassie drew out a square shape while Austin held the light. I grabbed the square as it dropped. It weighed more than I’d estimated and I staggered to hold it aloft until I could place it quietly on the floor.
“Easy,” Cassie said. “I’m going up first. I’ll tap on the floor when it’s safe to come up.”
I gave her a thumbs-up.
It was still fairly dark, but Austin turned out the light that he held with a gadget that reminded me of a dime. “We got this,” he said to me.
There was no way he could see me, but I nodded.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
“Up you go.” I felt Austin’s hands touch my waist. “Grab the sides of the opening and put your foot in my hands. I’ll give you a boost.”
I did as he instructed and pulled myself the rest of the way up. I puffed out a breath and tried to stifle the sound.
Banging my knees on the floor, I took a deep breath and held my hand into the hole to help Austin.
“Move.” He pulled himself up like it was no big deal.
I peered through the dim light where Cassie stood near a door at the other end of a gigantic room with her hands on her hips. Still grinning. Still cocky.
I shook my head and quickly made my way to her. She placed a thin translucent card over her palm and waved it at head height. The door slid open.
Austin and I followed her as she ran down empty corridors at full speed, stopping only at turns to look ahead before continuing. We struggled to keep up as she ran flights of steps like a football player running bleachers.
We’d studied the maps together, but I was already lost. I prayed we didn’t get separated.
Cassie stopped and I nearly plowed into her. Austin grabbed my shirt to keep me from tumbling over. He rolled his eyes and smirked.
Cassie waved her hand over the doorway as she’d done before. The door disappeared and I saw the girl, Vega. We quickly entered, ready to grab the girl and run. She stood so still that I focused on her first. A white light illuminated her beautiful face. Her golden hair and ringlet curls cascaded down her shoulders. Her eyes were averted to the side of the room and that’s when I noticed. Dr. Eli Bleeker stood to her right and pointed a silver cylinder at Austin’s head. “Walk over here, Austin. It’s very important that you do what I say.”
“No, Austin.” I moved an inch and Bleeker shook his head to stop me.
“Mia.” He said my name with a fondness that alarmed me.
I gulped in air. I’d expected trouble. I’d expected the IIA or the Makers or a security system that would fry my brain as we’d entered Magnum Opus. I’d expected to have trouble finding Vega.
I hadn’t expected to find Bleeker.
“Doctor,” I said.
“Austin, don’t move too fast. I don’t want to melt your face by accident.” A green haze of evil surrounded Bleeker’s body, appearing like a layer of pond scum.
“Yes, we don’t want that.” I racked my brain for movies where the policeman talked to someone who’d taken hostages. I thought of the movie Die Hard but didn’t think witty one-liners were going to help me with Bleeker.
“We have a problem,” Bleeker said. “You know that I have nothing to lose by killing him.” He cocked his head toward a noise like a dog listening to a barely discernible sound. “I think we need to hurry.”
“What do you want Bleeker? You want me?” My desperate plea fell on deaf ears.
“Austin, you stand where Vega is. Vega,” he said, “you dear, are free to go.”
She stumbled forward, an uncertain look on her face. Cassie moved forward and grabbed Vega’s forearm.
He’d confused me. What was he doing? My heartbeat thrummed in my ear. A rush of noise—not my heart—sounded too close.
“You want me. Not Austin. Me!” I screamed without control, thought, or planning. I ran forward, my feet too slow, my mind in mental quicksand, and pushed Bleeker away.
Bleeker’s weapon fired in a stream of blinding light that shattered the glass windows behind him. Smoke filled the air. I could only see flames and glass.
Momentum shoved us both forward, out the building window, onto the ledge. My hands grasped for something, anything, but my body rolled, then slipped off the edge.
Only my fingers gripped the granite ledge and I looked down. Too far. I guessed that it might be four stories from the ground.
“Hang on.” A voice yelled from the ground. Pete? That was impossible.
The ledge extended out from the building for several feet. If I could pull myself up…
A couple of feet away, Bleeker also hung by fingertips. We were both pulling up and trying to make it back to the surface.
My hands began to feel slick.
“Mia!” Austin’s yell came from inside. “Where are you?”
I saw Austin’s dark head move outside the window. Then, another dark head and Regulus was on the ledge.
He grabbed my wrists, dug his heels against the slick surface, scrambled to pull me up. He flung both our bodies as close to the building as possible when we saw Bleeker pull to his feet and jump inside the room.
“Don’t let him get away.” I screamed, shaking my head furiously. “Get. Him!”
Regulus dragged me into his arms and squeezed me. He put his hands on both sides of my face and said, “Where’s the portal? I won’t leave until you’re safe.”
“Bleeker,” I muttered.
“You,” he answered. He pressed his mouth against mine in a hard kiss.
“Not now. Portal?” Austin yelled, doing a little hurry dance from foot to foot
.
I looked up to see Pete standing in the doorway. It had been him.
“Everyone follow me.” Pete didn’t wait to see if we obeyed. He started running.
I pulled Regulus’s hand.
“Good-bye, Mia.” Regulus put two fingers to his lips and touched mine. “Go with your brother. No time to argue.” He shoved me roughly. “Listen for once. If you care for me, do this. You cannot be caught.”
“What about—”
He only said one word. “Bleeker.”
* * *
I felt a burning sensation and smelled the acrid, frenzied excitement of people not far from us. Cassie’s eyes went wide. “Run.”
My heart thwacked against my ribs in rhythm with my feet pounding the hallways as I tried to calm myself.
Portal. Portal. Breathe. Portal.
“This way.” Pete yelled over the sound of an alarm. “Follow me!”
“Carina, you take Vega.” Cassie pleaded with her eyes. She looked scared for the first time. Her eyes were huge and darted behind us and back to Austin. “I can stall them. I’ll double back and lead the bots in a different direction.”
“Bots?” I’d forgotten about that part. I remembered the tiny lights swarming us when Arizona, Regulus and I had been running through the underground garage.
I looked to see smoke filling the corridor. Had someone set the place on fire?
“Go faster, Pete. Cassie, stop!” My voice was hoarse from screaming.
Cassie had already turned to run the opposite way from us.
“Yes?” Vega said.
“Come on.” I grabbed her hand. Vega’s eyes darted to Cassie as she looked for confirmation.
“We’re all getting out,” yelled Pete. “No one stays.”
We ran down one passageway after another, the buzzing and smells drawing me to the portal. I could feel the enemy at our heels. I fought the nausea that rolled from Vega as she doubted our escape. Her fear sent burning stings along my skin.
“There.” Pete pointed to the last door of a corridor that went on too long. Austin reached the door but had no way to open it. He slammed the palm of his hand against the door. Gone was my carefree, wild friend—the daredevil.
“The card, Cassie, the card,” I yelled, still running the last few feet.
She waved her hand over the threshold.
Nothing happened. The door didn’t slide open.
I gasped as a heated tidal wave of fear rolled off my companions. “No,” I yelled. “No.”
We couldn’t run. A bot army of menacing lights appeared at the other end of the corridor.
Cassie’s anger assaulted my senses. Vega’s fear burned and tingled in my throat, threatening to close my air passages. Pete muttered curses under his breath.
“Tiny! Man, do something,” screamed Pete.
I looked at Pete and my world stalled in its rotation during that second. Austin slamming his hand against the door. Cassie searching past the bots, thinking, strategizing, risking.
Why had Pete yelled Tiny’s name? Was Tiny helping us somehow?
I had a flash of Tiny sitting at his computer in my own dimension, feeling that prickly sensation when you miss something out of the corner of your eye. I imagined his shabby bedroom in the run-down house he shared with his grandmother. A naked light bulb hung the ceiling, unornamented and utilitarian. An ancient handmade quilt provided the only spot of color in a room filled with the metal and plastic of Tiny’s massive computer setup—a technological shrine.
Were the hairs standing on the back of his neck? Did he actually have any window into this world? Could he hear the thump of my heart?
Our door slid open.
My focus narrowed at the heart-stopping realization of alternate reality. We ran through the doorway only to discover the floor ended and our bottomless descent began.
24
Regulus
Regulus listened to Arizona without agreeing or disagreeing.
“They’ll drop all allegations against us when we hand him over.”
Regulus sensed that Arizona watched his every expression. A bound and sedated Dr. Eli Bleeker walked between them through the Garden area and to the outer perimeter of The Vault.
When Bleeker had exited the frenzy of Magnum Opus, Arizona had caught him as easily as catching a child.
Now, they had no choice but to take Bleeker in themselves. Their locator chips had been online since leaving underground. They were both monitored.
The Vault housed the IIA and the officials who would take over custody of Dr. Eli Bleeker, a man who’d used a population from Mia’s world as a personal pool of lab rats.
“We’ll be assigned another,” Arizona said.
Regulus didn’t want to hear about another.
“Mia’s not the only portal finder.” Arizona looked at the gates and sighed. “Sometimes teams dynamics are off, or a personality requires a new match.”
“I’m not going in,” Regulus said softly. Gently.
“I can’t take him in alone. You’re still recovering from that stun from Cassie. If she hadn’t handed Bleeker to us, I’d likely have throttled her myself. Never trust a woman.”
“I’m not going with you. I’m going back to Mia’s world. Someone will help me.”
“I’m not going back there without authorization. We can talk about this. Maybe we can persuade them that there’s an error and Mia can be part of our team again,” Arizona said.
“No. You’re wrong. You should know this by now. You do know.” He frowned and wondered why Arizona cared so little about losing Mia.
Arizona stared at Regulus. “We are both taking Bleeker in. Don’t make me—”
“And you don’t threaten me.” Regulus spoke within inches of Arizona’s face.
“You’re not throwing your life away for her. I won’t let you.” Arizona yelled. “They won’t let you come back. They don’t forgive.”
“You told them.”
“What?” Arizona sighed. “Told them what?”
“You told them I was in love with Mia Carina. You did. I know there is no other way they could have known.”
They stood for several moments in silence.
Arizona gave him a smile that tipped one corner of his lips. “You of all people should understand their power. Last fall, you were planning to leave with Mia. They would have disposed of you when they caught you. There’s no way to hide.” Arizona’s voice was gruff, full of emotion.
“I was leaving with her?” Regulus said.
“Right. Giving up your entire life to be with a girl.”
“Did she know?”
“I don’t know. Probably. You’d asked me for help. For the name of someone who could remove your chip.”
This area of the city bustled with activity and people walked around them, curiously staring at Bleeker in the shackles around his ankles. He’d stayed silent until that moment.
“I can remove your chip. Take me somewhere and I’ll remove it in exchange for my freedom.” Bleeker’s voice was clinical, but persuasive. “I’ve performed many of these surgeries.”
“How many died while you performed them?” Regulus asked.
Bleeker shrugged. “Not many. It’s a risk, but I’ll make sure you survive. The losses on Earth weren’t important. I had other uses for their bodies if they didn’t make it.”
Arizona turned to look at Regulus, ignoring Bleeker. “I did it for you. You’re my family. You were going to get yourself killed.”
Regulus gave him a tight smile. “You’ve never loved anyone.”
Arizona looked at the blue sky above the gates of The Vault. “I’m not apologizing. I’d do it again. Relations with their kind will hurt others.”
“Others like you?”
Arizona stayed silent. They continued taking slow steps to the entrance of the Vault.
“My error was that I thought it would change things,” Arizona said without looking at him.
“It did change things.”
<
br /> “Not really. You two are still in the same place you were before.”
“I don’t understand.” Why did he feel Arizona talked in riddles when he wanted him to speak plainly?
“You still love her.” Arizona turned to him and gave him a smile. “And she still loves you. The memory cleanse didn’t take, huh?”
Arizona had said ‘still.’ Regulus smiled at the thought.
He dropped Bleeker’s arm and stopped walking with them. “You could come with me.”
“That’s not my life. You know that.” Arizona hesitated for a moment, searching for the right words. “I wish you well. I’ll do what I can to stall their search.”
Regulus put his hands on Arizona’s shoulders. “Until we meet again.”
“Until we do,” Arizona echoed.
25
Good-bye
I sat with the worst case of dry mouth I’d ever had.
“Austin. Austin? Cassie? Pete?” I struggled to remain calm. Vega stood brushing off her clothes, smiling brightly and I wondered if she had brain damage.
This didn’t seem to be a laughing matter.
I turned my head toward a smacking sound to my right. I’d found Austin and Cassie. They were both on their knees ten feet away, kissing and not coming up for air.
I smiled for the first time in days.
Rising to my feet, I noticed Em’s car on the dirt road not far from us.
Was it a mirage in the middle of the woods?
Austin and Cassie had stopped kissing and were looking at the car with me. His arm was slung carelessly over her shoulder and she looked questioningly from me to Austin.
“Trouble?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t get it. What’s her car doing out here?” I walked hesitantly toward the red Camry.
That’s when Em stepped out of the car and began waving.
When we stood a few feet from Em, I finally found the nerve to speak. “Are you really you?”
“Who else would I be?”