Firestone Key

by Caroline Noe

  Adam, the man who had ordered his torture, had managed to run directly into the path of the beast and was swiftly savaged. A sickening crunch announced the fatal crushing of his skeleton. Harlin looked away, but could not avoid the sounds of tearing and satisfied chewing.

  Be strangely, thought Harlin, that he surviving ten year as hog and only one night as man.

  He had fantasised about Adam’s death, believing it would bring satisfaction and release. He felt only emptiness.

  Trapped by the blood spattered render, patrolling beneath, the rebels shivered in their tree and wondered how it had all gone so horribly wrong.

  PART TWO - ORIGIN

  Chapter 11

  Elaine opened the door of her Project quarters to find Neil shuffling on her threshold. She took one look at his face and instantly knew why he was there; she always knew.

  “Can I come in?” he asked, endeavouring not to sound nervous and failing miserably.

  “Neil, it’s six a.m.,” Elaine pointed out, unconsciously edging the door further towards closed. “I’m barely coherent. Can’t it wait til after I‘ve had coffee?”

  “No.”

  “Fine.” Elaine opened the door, accepting that the usual rejection scene was about to play itself out for the hundredth time.

  Neil cast his eye around her quarters. No matter how long she lived there, Elaine had yet to add any colour or decoration, exposing nothing of herself. The only addition was a solitary coffee machine which was already bubbling in the tiny kitchen. A neat pile of paperwork was stacked next to three interlocked computers, the desktop of a radiating pulsar stretched across the three screens.

  “Still like what you’ve done with the place,” Neil quipped. “It’s not a sin to let a little of yourself free, you know.”

  His advice may well have been right, but Elaine had no intention of receiving it from him. “You really feel the need to be philosophical at six? Coffee?” She turned her back on him and poured her coffee.

  “No. Thanks. My nerves are fried enough already,” he replied, his jollity a little too forced.

  Unseen by Neil, Elaine suppressed a grimace. By the time she turned back to him, her featureless expression had reset itself. She curled up in an armchair, grasping her coffee and avoiding his eyes. Neil shuffled on the spot and then decided to be brave. He lowered himself onto the carpet, crouching as close to her as he dared.

  “How long have we known each other? Eighteen years? We’ve been good friends from day one, haven’t we? I remember the first time I saw you; the day you arrived at the Academy.”

  “Neil. Where’s this going?” Elaine interrupted, knowing full well.

  “I want you to try. Us. Just try. Picnic. Movies. Hold my hand for five minutes.”

  He touched her hand, but she yanked her fingers away as though burnt. Realising that her over-reaction was cruel, she tried to soften the blow and only made it worse.

  “You’ve always been my friend,” she told him. “I value your opinion.”

  That was a long way from what he wanted to hear.

  “Let me take care of you,” he pleaded.

  “I don’t want to be taken care of,” Elaine snapped, escaping the chair and his proximity.

  “That’s a lie.”

  “Fine. I don’t want you to take care of me. Sorry, but I don’t. And you know I don’t. You’ve known it since I was twelve, on day one. I’m not changing my mind just ‘cause I’m miserable.”

  That was far too sore a point for Neil, whose aching heart received an injection of searing anger. Thoughts he had kept to himself came pouring out.

  “You want Caleb, right? Well you won’t get him, not over Leila. She’s beautiful.”

  Elaine’s scarred face turned towards him, disgust written all over it. “Yes, that’ll endear you.”

  “Don’t give me that,” Neil responded. “You want a pretty face, too. That’s all he is.”

  “I never said you were ugly, Neil. I just don’t want you. Please leave. This has nowhere left to go but down.”

  She flung open the door.

  “Elaine, I didn’t mean you…”

  “Go. I want my coffee.”

  * * *

  Barely two hours later, a swirling vortex lifted Elaine off her feet and sucked her into the helix. In the ensuing chaos, Leila could scarcely breathe. Her heart was pounding at such a rate that her lungs refused to keep pace. Rows of computers groaned as machinery buckled. Data frenziedly leapt from one hard drive to another, mixing and distorting in a technological meltdown. Multiple discharges of power, like jagged bolts of lightning, shot across the entire Project, forcing Leila and her brother to duck and dive between them.

  “Cal, down!” yelled Leila.

  Unable to assist the genius couple, Caleb joined the faceless support staff in keeping their faces on the floor.

  “We’ll have to do it manually!” Neil screamed above the shrieking death throes of claxon and machinery. His hair was standing on end as bizarre energy flooded the laboratory.

  Leila sprinted around the semi-circle of consoles, following Neil into the Project’s core. The helical stream dominated the floor, growing brighter and larger as the seconds ticked by. With no data available, there was no way of knowing how long they had before catastrophic failure led to an unstoppable power cascade.

  “Take that one!” Neil shouted to his sister, pointing at the rod on the left side of the helix.

  Racing to opposite sides of the laboratory, Leila and Neil grappled with the machinery supporting the frozen safety rods. Conflicting commands were swamping the processing units, preventing power being supplied to the lowering mechanism.

  “Crank it!” Neil hollered.

  Leila smashed the safety glass with her fist and grasped the release handle. The energy flooding the laboratory rippled across her skin in a stinging caress. With her eyes fixed on the hanging rods, Leila turned the handle as fast as her burning muscles would allow. She had to keep pace with her brother. The dampening rods must be lowered in tandem in order to disrupt the helix. As a piercing shriek assaulted her ears, a wave of nausea swept over her, destroying her balance. The Project was about to cascade.

  Though dissimilar in almost every way, brother and sister exhibited the same degree of enduring courage, refusing to give up, even when failure seemed inevitable. As the last pulsating edge of the spiralling helix spun into cascade, the two dampening rods just touched its surface. The difference was microscopic, but significant; the energy field started to reduce. Unsure as to whether they had prevailed, Leila and Neil watched as the rods continued to lower, penetrating half way into the slowing helix. Suddenly, the stream began to destabilise.

  “Get down!” Leila yelled at her brother.

  Both threw themselves flat on the floor as bolts of energy leapt above their heads. The helical slipstream wavered, wobbled and finally imploded. At the same moment, it grasped its distant traveller in a vice-like grip and yanked her back.

  When the helix disappeared, the Project’s power completely failed, plunging the laboratory into total darkness. From where she lay, stunned by the potential enormity of the averted disaster, Leila heard a dull thud and a gentle tinkle. Although she had no way of seeing it, the returning Elaine had hit the floor, followed by a small black rock.

  After a moment, a beam of light cut through the darkness, causing Leila to shield her eyes from the glare; Neil had located an emergency torch.

  “You alright?” he asked her.

  “Just about,” Leila replied. “Wow… Cal?”

  Caleb’s head popped up from behind the consoles, followed by an array of blinking eyes belonging to shocked Project workers.

  “Lovely,” he told her, straightening his uniform. “Is it over?”

  Leila threw herself into his welcoming arms.

  Persistent thumping on the sealed door echoed through the smoke laden darkness.

  “Power’s gone!” Neil hollered, hoping he could be heard through the partia
lly molten metal. The banging ceased.

  “What?” called a muffled voice from the other side of the door.

  “I said, we’ve lost all power!” Neil repeated. “The door’s melted, so you won’t get it open! You’ll need to cut through!”

  “OK, Doc!” replied the voice. A flurry of smothered footsteps was followed by silence.

  “At least the claxons have stopped,” Leila remarked. “They were giving me a headache.”

  “Let’s hope they get that door open before we run out of air,” Neil replied, dampening her enthusiasm. The air had ceased to circulate with the cessation of power. He shone his torch beneath his chin and smiled. The shadows played over his face and formed a grotesque mask.

  “You look better like that,” his sister laughed.

  The shaken Project staff managed a few weak titters. Neil stretched both arms, trying to work out the kinks in his shoulders. That frantic handle turning had worn him out. The torch, still in his right hand, flashed light off the stark, singed walls and momentarily trapped another pale face in its revealing beam.

  “Elaine! Thank goodness,” Leila cried. “Are you alright?” Even in the reflected light, Leila could see that her friend was staring at her with a peculiar look on her face.

  Elaine lay on her side in the centre of the Project, where the swirling stream had deposited her. She put her hand on the floor to lever herself up and placed her left palm straight onto the Firestone. At first, she snatched her hand away from the vile thing, but swiftly changed her mind and clutched at the stone; it might be her only way back to Harlin.

  Just as he had always done, Neil stood back and waited as his ebullient sister threw her arms around their friend. He was, therefore, in a position to witness Elaine’s expression of disgust switch to neutrality through sheer force of will. He frowned, knowing that something was very wrong here. There had been a darkness lurking in Elaine’s eyes; something he had never seen there before, almost…hatred. When her gaze swung to his face, he was relieved to see that the look had gone. Perhaps I imagined it.

  Leila’s hands grasped at Elaine’s tatty shift. She pulled back to stare at her friend. “What are you wearing?” she asked, her shocked brain taking a moment to catch up with unfolding events. “Oh my God!” yelled Leila, dancing a little jig of triumph. “It worked, didn’t it? The Project worked! Where did you go? How far back? How did you have time to change your clothes? You were only gone a minute. What’s the scratches on your face?”

  Caleb was at their side in a flash. This was the crux of his appointment to leadership. This could mean a promotion. He beamed at Elaine, his charm working its full offensive. He was, after all, certain of the attraction she bore for him.

  “Did it work? Ellie?”

  To his consternation, and Neil’s delight, she simply glanced at him, uninterested.

  Leila fingered the material of the shift. “What is this, medieval?”

  Elaine yanked it from her grasp.

  “Let’s get out of here. We can bombard her with questions later,” said Neil.

  His intervention caused Elaine to gift him with the tiniest of grateful smiles. It was enough to warm his heart.

  “What did we do? Why did it work? Why this time?” Leila’s barrage continued.

  As those outside began their assault on the molten door, Elaine remained silent, the Firestone gripped within her fist.

  * * *

  With every sinew in perpetual motion, Leila draped herself over the armchair in Elaine’s stark quarters. Her legs dangled over the armrest, beating time to the music of impatience. Almost a polar opposite of his twin sister, Neil leaned with his back against the wall, as still as a statue. They had been listening to the sound of running water for almost thirty minutes while Elaine took the longest shower in history. Leila could stand it no longer.

  “Oh, come on!” she hollered, directing her ire towards the bathroom door. It was locked; she had tried it ten minutes ago.

  “Leila,” Neil sighed.

  “How much cleaner can she get? She can’t have any skin left.”

  “Give her time. We’ve no idea what she’s been through,” said Neil, although he was secretly just as disturbed by Elaine’s reaction. She was not known to be talkative, but he had never before sensed that she would withhold information.

  “No, we don’t know what she’s been through,” Leila agreed. “And we never will, if we can’t get her to talk to us.”

  “To you, you mean.”

  “She always talks to me,” whined Leila. The fact that her friend wouldn’t confide in her was almost as painful as the lack of information. Almost. “Why won’t she talk to me?”

  Neil sighed and slid down the wall to a sitting position.

  Behind the locked door, Elaine stood beneath the cascading shower, allowing the water to pummel her body. Her grief was intense, but brought forth no sound, not even the slightest sob or whimper. Droplets caught in her livid facial scar, forming rivulets and pathways for tears that never fell. Her memory brought back images of Harlin, both unwanted and desperately needed, but, behind his visceral loss, hidden from logic, lurked a cold terror.

  Her second journey through the vortex had been even more disturbing than the first. The disorientating freefall in the stream had been replaced with a hard plummet into a frozen wasteland. As she lay paralysed, screaming abandonment had been thrust into her soul with the savagery of an ice pick to the brain. The great power of evil that had crept around the edges of her sanity had, this time, stared straight into her heart, as though coveting a new home. Given more time, she might have been so lonely that she could have welcomed its presence. She found that possibility utterly terrifying, for she sensed that it was nothing less than the power of darkness and silent vengeance.

  When she finally emerged from the shower, the time-traveller’s mind pondered the recent turn of events. When confronted with her friend in the past, Leila had been, on different occasions, haggardly ancient and far younger than she was now. What was happening to the timeline? Had Leila found a way to go back in time, decades ago? Had the current Leila already experienced all that Elaine had been through? Had she abandoned her son in the past?

  Question after question bombarded her mind until Elaine could scarcely think at all. Finally, she came to a decision. Neither Leila nor Neil should be trusted with the events that she had experienced and no-one must ever learn of the power of the Firestone.

  Who would believe me, anyway?

  Having donned faded jeans and a grey sweatshirt, she perched on a stool, glaring at the Firestone as it lay on her dressing table. In a fit of rage, she flung open a drawer, threw it inside and slammed the drawer shut.

  Inside the living area, there was another crash as the front door swung open and Caleb marched straight in.

  “Don’t Majors know how to knock?” griped Neil.

  “Not ready yet?” an impatient Caleb asked.

  Neil leapt to his feet and stubbornly crossed his arms, stating, “No. Leave her alone.”

  “Can’t I’m afraid,” Caleb told him and turned to Leila. “They’re here.”

  “Who’s here?” asked Leila, her feet still dangling.

  “Everyone. Debriefing starts now.”

  That got her attention. Leila sat up, asking, “How can they possibly have got here that fast? What were they, camped in the car park?”

  “It worked Lei, that’s pretty major,” Caleb told her, perching on the armrest.

  “Talking of pretty majors.” Leila kissed him.

  Elaine’s arrival in the room was so quiet that she appeared to materialise out of the wall. The kiss ended and the trio shot to their feet as though the headmaster had entered.

  “There you are. Feeling better?” Leila chirped.

  “No,” was the succinct response.

  “They want to debrief you, now,” Neil told Elaine, standing between her and Caleb. “You don’t have to…”

  “I’m afraid you do,” Caleb inter
rupted, at his most officious. Noticing her jeans and sweatshirt he added, “You might want to change.”

  “Why?”

  Elaine didn’t wait for a response; she simply marched out of the door, leaving Leila to exchange a curious, but troubled look with Neil.

  * * *

  Elaine sat on a barren metal chair in the middle of a large, grey meeting room that reminded her of the Academy: a functional, lifeless purgatory. In a semi-circle in front of her, those who perfectly fitted the environment had convened their meeting. Granite uniformed military sat, ramrod straight, to her left; sharped suited Ministers of Parliament and civil servants took the middle ground; bean counting sponsors lounged on her right, their sleeves rolled up, the better to display an array of obscenely expensive watches.

  Behind the committee of vultures stood a stone-faced Caleb. Neil and Leila had been placed against the far wall; a position designed to offer as little support as possible to their beleaguered colleague. On a table in front of Elaine lay her discarded shift.

  A greatly decorated and thoroughly unimpressed General slowly scanned a document and peered at Elaine as though studying her under a microscope.

  “Medical says you’re fine. No infections. Nothing except scratches and a few episodes associated with the…”

  “Time travel?” offered Elaine.

  “We’re waiting, Miss Thorne,” said a Minister, his voice couched in fake sincerity.

  “What for?” replied Elaine, although she knew very well.

  The Minister continued, his voice carrying just a little more tension. “Major Grantham told us the Project works.”

  “Did he?” said Elaine, offering nothing.

  Neil scanned the faces of those who held the purses. They were not reacting well to Elaine’s recalcitrance. Neither he nor his sister had any idea how to deal with this situation.

  A Sponsor with a sparkling diamond watch and even whiter sparkling teeth prodded the medieval shift, sniffing. “What’s this?”

  “It’s called a shift, I think,” Elaine told him. “Nightie to you.”