by A. P. Kensey
The driver downshifted and the truck slowed. For a terrifying moment, Haven thought he was driving away from the building. At any second she expected a hail of bullets to rip through the sides of her plastic container, turning her into Swiss cheese. The constant bright light outside her container suddenly dimmed as if a giant curtain had been lowered over the world.
The truck was going into the building. Had the driver somehow managed to talk the guard into letting them pass? Even as the truck came to a stop, Haven knew her hope was foolish. She could hear the guard outside, yelling at the driver. Several more dark shapes approached the truck.
Then she heard Roku speaking, loudly, as if he were standing right outside the containers. He berated the guards for their carelessness and pretended he was doing an inspection of the security around the facility. He had found a particular lack of due diligence in this sector and he held the guards in front of him personally responsible.
There was a hushed murmur as the guards spoke amongst themselves, and then a gun went off.
Haven saw a bright orange crack of muzzle-flash through the opaque plastic wall and her vision turned blue. A guard was stupid enough to spin the cap off her container at that exact moment and got a face full of flame. He screamed and dropped his gun, then stumbled backward and fell motionless to the ground.
Haven let another blast of blue fire turret through the container opening. It shot out through the hole like the fire from a rocket booster, and when it dissipated, she was standing there, fists clenched, wings outstretched behind her back like a burning angel.
The truck driver opened his door and ran out of the building without looking back. Haven and the others were in a small storage room that was sealed off from the rest of the complex. Crates and empty plastic containers were stacked all around the room. There were six guards in a semi-circle around the truck, and three of them dropped their guns when they saw Haven. Roku lay on the ground next to the truck, holding his bleeding side and breathing shallowly. Behind Haven, the caps of two more containers spun off and fell to the ground. Bastian hopped lightly from the opening and in an instant his entire body was alight with pale yellow flame.
The three guards who had managed to keep their guns in hand raised them and fired. Three loud cracks rang out but were silenced by blue and yellow fire. The searing flames from Bastian and Haven consumed the bullets in midair and turned them to ash. A faint smell of gunpowder wafted over Haven as she stood with her feet in a wide stance and let her fire out into the world.
It was a terrible thing.
The deep well of emotion inside of her had finally found an outlet, and the flames gushed forth from her clenched fists, overtaking and extinguishing Bastian’s yellow fire. He stood back as her skin erupted again and again with the blue flame, each small explosion expanding and pushing the enveloping flame farther and farther from her body.
She couldn’t hear her own screams, and was aware that the fire also streamed from her eyes and her open mouth, joining a few feet in front of her to form a solid beam of plasma. Someone grabbed her ankle, and deep inside her mind, amidst the chaos that came from the memories of two murdered parents and the destruction of everything she once thought of as “normal”, Haven heard a voice calling to her. It was the voice of a woman she had never heard, but it was comforting in its earnest plea.
“It’s okay to be angry,” said the soft voice, so full of understanding…and something else. Pain? Regret? “Be still, my child. Be still, and the deep waters of your torment will calm. Find your peace, and save your fight for another day…”
The voice trailed off within Haven’s mind, and with it the blue energy that enveloped her body. The fire died from her eyes and mouth, her wings receded into her back, and she collapsed to the ground, fighting for breath. Sweat beaded from her entire body; her shirt was soaked. The concrete floor smoked beneath her and part of it had melted to form two depressions where her feet had been planted.
Roku let go of her ankle and rested his head on the ground. He pressed his other hand to the gunshot wound in his side. His face was grey from the loss of blood.
“Thank you,” whispered Haven. In that instant she knew that Roku had pushed one of his memories into her mind, just as he had done when he and Bastian were trying to convince her to join them in the hunt for Alistair. She had a brief glimpse of flames, of a house consumed by fire, and of a woman kneeling before Roku, trying to comfort him in his rage.
Bastian stood looking down at Haven, frowning. He helped her to her feet, then knelt down next to Roku.
Marius appeared at Haven’s side and put one hand gently on her shoulder. “Are you alright?” he asked. He sounded like she had just been in a huge accident and he didn’t quite know what to say.
“I’m fine.” She avoided his eye contact and stared down at her feet.
“Marius feels terrible, not being able to help. Maybe without the Fade, you would not have to do so much on your own. Look at me, Haven. Look.”
She turned and looked.
“Marius has never seen a stronger girl—er, woman, than he sees with you. You are capable of so much more, but you have to be careful. It is hard. Marius knows it is hard. But this thing is not just about you. It is about Corva, and Colton, and Noah and Micah and all the others still stuck in the Dome with that Kamikaze woman.”
“Kamiko,” said Haven, and smiled despite her anger.
“Yes, that one. What a name,” said Marius, shaking his head. “The other thing is, if you burn yourself out too quickly, we don’t stand a chance.”
“I understand,” she said. And she did. Haven knew what was at stake and how much everyone in the Dome was depending on her and the others to come back with a cure. The anger that had seeped from her during her rampage had been unknown to her until the moment it flared up and exploded into the world.
She looked at where the guards had been standing and for the first time noticed that all six of them were gone.
“Where’d they go?” she asked.
Bastian ignored her. He took a bottle out of an inner coat pocket and popped the cap, then poured clear liquid over the bullet hole in Roku’s side. The liquid fizzed when it hit his blood and Roku winced in pain.
Haven looked at Marius, but he said nothing. Then she noticed the burn marks on the floor: six pairs of two oval black marks, each one just long enough to match the soles of six pairs of boots. But the boots and the soldiers that had been wearing them were gone.
She put her hands to her mouth, unable to utter a word. Her fingers fluttered over her lips and she smelled fire. She shoved her hands into her pockets with disgust and turned away.
Bastian leaned Roku against a wheel of the truck and inspected his wound.
“Can he heal himself?” asked Marius.
“No,” said Bastian. “We need another Conduit, or some good old-fashioned surgeon’s tools. The bullet is still in there.”
“Here,” said Marius. He produced a butterfly knife from a hidden pocket and tossed it to Bastian. “We don’t have much time.”
Bastian opened the knife with ease and a second later was sterilizing it with yellow flame on the tip of his index finger. Roku grit his teeth in anticipation but lifted his shirt to reveal his wound. Bastian knelt down and, after a nod from Roku, stuck the red-hot blade into the bullet hole. Roku choked back a scream and his skin sizzled as the blade worked its way to the bullet. With a quick flick of the knife, the bullet was out and on the ground in a small pool of Roku’s blood.
Roku collapsed and closed his eyes, breathing deeply.
Bastian stood and tossed the knife back to Marius. “Thanks. He’ll have to work out the rest on his own.” He looked at Haven and the malice in his gaze was clear.
“It’s not my fault he got shot,” she said, far more defensively than she meant. “What’s wrong with you, Bastian?”
Marius grunted. “He is jealous of your ability. His fire was nothing once you really got going.”
“
I’m not jealous,” said Bastian. He sounded like he was telling the truth. “I’m angry that it took us so long to cross paths. We could have avoided most of the pain and misery and death that we’ve endured over the years if only you had been there to help us. I’ve never seen anything like it.” He shook his head. “I just don’t understand. What took you long to join the fight? So many people would have been saved.”
“She only found her ability last year,” said Marius. “You remember what that was like? How difficult it was to find where you truly belonged?”
Haven thought about it for a long time, wanting to hate Bastian for blaming her for things she could not control. She didn’t feel as if she had put off any responsibility. She felt like she had done her duty during her time at the Dome, just as she had promised Elena: to watch over her people and keep them safe, not venture out into the world to hunt down a madman that no one could find and that Haven thought was dead to begin with.
Another part of her, however, knew that she could have been doing more. She had heard stories of others in suffering; people like her who did not quite know where to turn. Yet she had been content—no, she had been happy—to live quietly at the Dome with Noah and Colton, and wait for the evil to find her.
Well, it found her, and it hadn’t just been taking it easy while it searched. It had been about its business, murdering others and causing the kind of pain from which a person never recovered. It tore apart homes and families and left its victims bleeding in the streets.
But Haven had been safe; she had managed to stay outside all of that.
Until now.
“I guess I had to save myself first,” she admitted at last, repulsed and relieved at her confession. “I had to make sure that Noah would have as normal a life as I could offer. It wasn’t just me who lost everything when our house burned down. It was him, too.”
“I just wish we would have had you sooner,” said Bastian. He turned back to Roku and helped him to his feet. Color was already returning to his face and he had stopped sweating. Roku gave his arm a test-swivel in its socket and winced at the pain in his side, but then he nodded to let them know he was ready.
“Right, then,” said Bastian, rubbing his hands together. His good humor had returned almost instantly. “Now that we’ve kissed and made up, any suggestions on what we do next?”
Haven looked at him blankly. “I thought you guys had a plan.”
Bastian and Roku exchanged glances.
“Well,” he said, scratching the back of his neck, “to tell you the truth, we never really thought we’d get past the doors.” He laughed, but clammed up when he saw no one else thought it was funny. He cleared his throat. “Right. We think they manufacture Fade somewhere in here, and we know that Alistair spends a great deal of his time overseeing the operations. If we can find a head office or an info kiosk that we could access—”
“Info kiosk?!” bellowed Marius. “This is not downtown mall! We find guard, we squeeze guard, guard talks. Good enough for Marius, good enough for you. Let’s go!” He walked off toward the back of the room before anyone could stop him. “Help look for door!” he shouted, his voice already far away.
“I don’t think he likes me,” said Bastian.
“I think you have other things to worry about right now,” said Haven, then walked away to find a path into the vast complex.
25
Colton thought they were dragging him out to be executed. Two soldiers had death-grips on his arms and were carrying him backward out of the hallway that led away from the dormitories and into the dome room. His heels scraped lightly on the floor and his arms burned where the soldiers crushed his biceps. Three more soldiers walked behind him, rifles held ready for any trouble. Kamiko walked farther back, eyes smoldering with intense blue plasma, like small stars set into her skull.
The soldiers turned right out of the hallway entrance and followed the dome room wall until they reached the door to the water processing room. Without a word, they dumped Colton on the floor, then stood back, leaving a clear path for Kamiko.
The ground crackled with electricity as she floated over to him, her feet hovering inches above the concrete. The ends of her black hair lifted away from her body and swayed like drunken snakes around her head.
“The Doctor is not cooperating,” hissed Kamiko. She reached down and grabbed Colton’s jaw, then drew him close. “For every hour he wastes, I will kill a hostage.” She watched his face to gauge his reaction. It took everything he had to show none. “Starting with the boys.”
Colton could barely control the twitch in his arms, the impulse to reach out for her and clap his palms to her temples—to drain the life from her so no one else would ever be hurt again. But he had no ability. His power was gone.
Kamiko saw the look of hopelessness in his eyes and smirked. She pushed his face away and he fell against the door.
“Convince him it is in everyone’s best interest for him to proceed with his work.”
“You don’t have to do this,” said Colton suddenly.
Kamiko hissed again, an animal sound that was a vicious complement to her bared teeth. The dark blue flames in her eyes dimmed momentarily, just long enough for Colton to see the eyes of a human—a real person. He thought he caught a flash of doubt.
Then the flames returned, more intense than ever, and the human was gone. “You have ten hours,” she said. “Get me what I want, or everyone dies.”
She walked away without looking back. Three of the soldiers followed her across the dome room toward the Grove. Two stayed behind to guard the door to the water processing room. Colton waited to see if they would try to hurt him, but they simply stood like statues on either side of the door, looking out into the middle of the room.
Colton touched his jaw where Kamiko had grabbed him and felt the warmth from her palm, still glowing on his skin as if he had stood too close to a heat lamp. After she disappeared into the Grove with the three soldiers, Colton pushed open the door to the water processing room.
Adsen was off to one side, eyes closed, sitting on a wooden barstool with his head leaned against one of the metal water tanks. The tanks stood vertically around the room, lining the walls like pillars, connected by pipes and humming equipment that purified the drinking water and fed it out to the Dome.
The center of the room had been turned into a science lab, with all kinds of brand new equipment set up on shiny aluminum tables. The only piece of equipment Colton halfway recognized was something that looked like a chemistry set he used in one of his high school classes. Empty beakers and vials sat glistening in wireframe holders over new Bunsen burners. Sealed gallon jugs of various chemicals were lined up beneath the tables, most of them labeled with large skull-and-crossbones.
It looked like a mad-scientist’s play-set.
“I heard everything,” said Adsen, his voice croaking. He opened his eyes to look at Colton. “She’s an evil woman, isn’t she?”
“She’ll do it,” said Colton. “She will kill everyone in here.”
“Don’t I know it,” said Adsen. “If she runs with Alistair, she would have to constantly prove she wasn’t too weak for the job.”
Colton picked up an empty vial and held it to the light. “What does she want you to do?”
Adsen sighed. “She wants me to perfect death.”
“By increasing the lethality of Fade?”
“Precisely.” Adsen scratched at his beard. With his receding hairline and sharp widow’s peak, he looked like a version of his brother that had been shipwrecked on a deserted island for ten years and finally rescued, just without the suntan. Adsen’s skin was sickly pale, as if he were suffering from a bad case of the flu.
“Why do they want to make it deadlier? I would think it’s bad enough already.”
Adsen smiled weakly. “It’s never bad enough for someone like Alistair. Tell me, if you were planning on taking over the world, wouldn’t it be easier to eliminate your adversaries before they knew you wer
e a threat? I imagine it bothers him that a small percentage of our population is immune to the current version of Fade. He wants to rule out any margin for error.”
Colton set down the vial. “What do you mean, ‘take over the world’? There’s no way Alistair is powerful enough for that.”
“He is if there are no more people like us. If he wipes out all of us quietly, in a way that would never alert anyone, all he has to do is simply step out of the shadows and declare himself King.”
“People would fight back. Regular people, I mean.”
Adsen shook his head. “Alistair could burn entire cities to the ground if he wished. The only threat to his power is his own kind.”
“And he’s going to kill all of us.” Colton couldn’t believe it. The diabolical, world-ending schemes of madmen belonged in comic books and the Saturday night made-for-TV movies that Colton used to watch with his father. He remembered shouting gleefully at every idiotic move the characters made.
This was the real world—a world where one man was not supposed to be able to take absolute power.
“It would be better for all of us to die in here,” said Adsen, “than for Alistair to finish Fade. It’s a hard reality to face, Colton, but it is the only one that assures the survival of the human race. And ours.”
Colton sat heavily on a nearby chair, his face slack with disbelief. “There must be someone who can stop him.”
Adsen shook his head. “There was a Nova, once, long ago. The strongest of our people. He disappeared, gone to the place where beings of pure energy go when their time on this planet is finished. If anyone could have stopped Alistair, it was he. Now we are alone. Now we are finished.”
Colton slammed his fist down on the table next to him and glass rattled loudly. “We are not finished.” He stood and walked over to Adsen, who backed away slightly as if Colton might strike him. Colton spoke quietly so the soldiers outside couldn’t hear. “You and Dormer tracked the soldiers’ movements. You know where they will be and when. If I can somehow get all of the survivors into one place during that window, we might be able to thin their numbers. You could buy us some time until we’re ready.” He waited for Adsen to reply, but only a small groan escaped his lips. Colton reached out and shook him. “Think! Is it possible?”