Downfall And Rise

by Nathan Thompson

  There.

  His nostrils flared.

  “Because he can't get over the fact that your dad stood up to him and ruined his plans. Don't make me get into that. That story's complicated. And if he doesn't do that, Wes, then he's probably just going to get rid of me. You heard him. He's found immortality, so he doesn't need a son to carry his legacy anymore. Eventually he's going to think of me as competition, and a liability, and I'm going to wake up one night with a sack over my head and taken off to some place I'll never leave alive.”

  “And if he does get rid of me, Wes,” I continued. “Then this crap still isn't over for you, because, as my dear father has told me over and over even before he found Avalon, I'm replaceable. Not just expendable, Wes, replaceable. Here.”

  I pulled out a piece of the new alloy I had been working on. It didn't look that impressive, just a small metal box. Dad had looked at it and been unable to figure out what it did, along with any of his vaunted scientists. He had called the whole project a waste of time and smashed my prototype. This one was the second box I made with it.

  Watching Wes' face, I pulled opened the box, and pulled my cell phone out of it. As far as I knew, this was the only phone that had survived our portal's technology-scrambling feature. That was the real victory of my alloy and had my father or his friends figured it out when they looked at it then they would have been ecstatic, and probably already conquered Narnia or whatever by now.

  But since pleasing my Dad had been proven to be a giant waste of time, I was never going to let them find out.

  I turned on my cell phone. I got zero reception, as expected, but since it powered on I could still access the files I had downloaded on it. I flipped to an audio file with Dad's voice:

  “You're replaceable, you understand that, you little worm? If you ever disappear, all I have to do is find a new woman, wave my wallet or grab her by the throat and in fifteen minutes I've made another you! No one's gonna care what I did and no one's gonna care how I chose to do it! So think about the next time you give me lip you little...”

  I turned off the recording to let Wes take in what he heard. I watched for his expressions again, but this time I couldn't be sure if he reacted.

  The fact that I could still have trouble reading him right now put a chill behind my neck.

  “You understand now, right?” I asked. I was practically begging right now, and I hated myself for it. “You have to want to be done with this as much as I do, right? You...”

  “Chris.”

  My name croaked out of my enemy's mouth. I hear could every single time he had died in that one croak.

  “Chris,” he repeated. “Deal.”

  I waited for a second. I was afraid we had gotten too loud, and that someone had heard us. Maybe. I'm not sure what I was afraid of then.

  “You'll do it?” I whispered, realizing that I hadn't been as quiet as I should have been for most of our conversation. “You'll do it, so I can do my part too?”

  “Yes.”

  One word sentences, that I could barely hear right next to him.

  But it was all I needed from him.

  “Good,” I sighed in relief. “Then we can...”

  “No,” Wes' half-dead voice interrupted. “Favor.”

  “You want something in return?” I hissed back. “What? Compensation for doing what I need? As payback for everything that happened to you? Or because you think I'm that desperate?”

  “Yes,” Wes summed up in one flatly spoken word.

  I chuckled darkly.

  He was more aware than I had even dared to hope. He was aware enough to think a dozen moves ahead.

  “Fair enough. I'll tell you what, Wes. I'll do what I was going to do anyway, give you everything I can, because I don’t want to owe you over Regina. And because I've finally learned it's better to motivate people than to trick or belittle them. Here's payment up front Wes. I'll make three deposits. The first one is the knowledge that you're going to eventually get your second body back. It might take years, but eventually you'll be able to recreate a projection back on Earth. It's going to only last seconds, at first, but after that you'll be able to make it last longer and longer. You might even be able to visit Earth every night like you were probably visiting Avalon. I don't think you can ever go back permanently, but that at least gives you the options for visits. Since that might not be a big deal, I went ahead and lead with it. Because the other two are going to make you froth at me.”

  My phone had not been the only thing in the little alloy case. Wes' weird sword-handle thing was underneath it. That was another trick about the alloy, I thought smugly. Its dimensions were always greater than they looked.

  It wasn't until I had started getting non-football, non-modeling scholarship offers from Universities that I realized I was much smarter than my father had wanted me to believe. The fact that he had failed to clamp down on those offers had also enraged him.

  But back to the point.

  “Dad's people couldn't figure out what this thing really does,” I told him, seeing his eyes flare in recognition of the strange tool he had earlier pulled a blade out of and set on fire. “We've actually had it ever since our people murdered John Malcolm and took it off his corpse. How you got it back from us we have no idea. But to try and keep me in check, he had me look at it last, and when I told him I couldn't figure it out he called me a dumbass and said his people figured it out in their first fifteen minutes. But it's a storage device, Wes. Beyond the blade we saw you use, it can store other things. Even information from our world. It can somehow download audio and video. And it can share that video with other devices. I've tested it. Just hold it here, Wes. Like this.”

  I demonstrated, then handed the weapon back to Wes. One of his suspiciously trembling hands open to take it, then turned it in the direction I demonstrated.

  I still didn't really understand the device. I knew how to make it do that recording he was about to see, and I was able to make it work every time. But I had no idea why what I did worked, and I had no idea where that handle-thing had gotten the recording. Dad would have killed a lot of people if he ever learned about the recording.

  When Wes suddenly hissed in a breath, I knew exactly what he was seeing.

  He was seeing a little girl of Vietnamese descent, about twelve years old, crying and cringing away from a man that wore a ski mask and holding a large claw hammer. Wes was recognizing the little girl as a former family friend, and one of the three girls that had accused his father of sexual assault.

  The large man in the ski mask was explaining to her that some men in police uniforms were coming to interview her and ask about what had happened. She was going to say that “the thing” had definitely happened to her and that John Malcolm was the man that had done it to her.

  When the man had finished speaking, the little black-haired girl was going to start shaking her head. Mister John was her friend, she said. He had never hurt her, she said.

  Then the man in the ski mask interrupted her by slamming the claw hammer next to her head. John Malcolm was dead, the man growled. He wasn't coming to save her. No one was coming to save her now. And it was all her fault because everyone could tell that she had a crush on him, so of course they were going to believe that he had done “the thing” to her. And if she wasn't going to be a good girl and do her job, the man in the mask said, then “the thing” was going to happen to her every night, and that everyone was going to find out what a bad girl she was.

  The little girl cried even harder, but she still said Mr. John had been her friend and had kept her safe whenever he was around. She even started calling out to him for help.

  The man in the ski mask had started shouting when she did that. He slammed the claw hammer down inches away from her head over and over, screaming that the whole thing was her fault, and that she was going to die too and get John Malcolm's whole family killed. She was making things worse for the other two girls by being such a wretched thing. They had alrea
dy confessed, and “the thing” was going to happen to them too, if she didn't cooperate.

  The little black-haired girl finally nodded. There was more on that video, but I don't think Wes saw it. He went from having periodic spasms to trembling all over. His long, labored breaths turned into hissing, frothing sounds. The knuckles holding the handle turned bone-white. His head turned slowly, shaking all over, and he looked at me.

  “You,” he hissed. “Knew?”

  “Hell, no,” I spat. “I didn't find this until Avalon. If I had found this sooner I wouldn't have approached you with it because Dad would have too many chances to find out and kill me, or you would have killed me when you found out I was sitting on it.” I pointed at the handle in his hands. “There's a time-date stamp on the video and a few clues in the footage to suggest this happened around the time they staged your dad's suicide. And there's more recordings in there. More than I had time to look through. But if you ever get back to earth with this, the files can transfer onto other media. If I could risk carrying something around with the file on it I'd show you, but I couldn't. It's too risky to even keep this on my phone. But you'll see for yourself if you ever get back to Earth.”

  More hissing breaths from Wes. The blood vessels near his pupils were starting to get prominent.

  “Trust... you? How?” He finally spat, and he was right. This was a lot to take in, and it could have been staged. Which was why I had saved my final carrot for just now.

  “She's here, Wes. I just found out. They call her one of their 'Indentureds', and they keep her in the back with the others. They have the other two girls too. I think they're not done using them. And this way, they can't come back to Earth in their main bodies, just like you. But they haven't died as many times because they can still be forced to make projections back to earth. I heard them talking about it. They've got clients for them, Wes. To keep revenue streams going, they said. They said it's a perfect plan because it doesn't leave evidence and keeps the original merchandise preserved, unless they somehow die as many times as you did.”

  “Where?” Wes growled out, with a lot more force than he had used yet. It made me even more optimistic about his chances while at the exact time that it scared the hell out of me. Because even when he was standing up to me I had never seen him like this.

  “Opposite end of where the portal is,” I said quickly. I was starting to lose him and I knew it. “They keep the native prisoners nearby too. Just go right instead of left, but you still turn right at the fifth hallway. The blueprint planning really was that bad. Now if you need, I can try and get Dad to put fewer guards here tomorrow...”

  “No,” Wes growled. “Want them all here. Especially him. The one I saw with Val.”

  He nodded at the sword handle, where he had seen that video of the claw hammer guy terrorizing his former family friend. “He do anything else to her?”

  “Fuck,” I swore. “I swear to God I don't know Wes. I've had that video for less than a month. But probably,” I admitted. “Him and the others. And if not Val, or the other two girls, then they've definitely hurt some of the natives. This is me guessing though, Wes. Because Dad doesn't hire a lot of people who are right in the head.”

  I took a quick glance at the two of us.

  Even counting us, was there anyone left who really was right in the head?

  Or were sane people just another fairy-tale?

  I shook my head. Those were wrong questions to ask in this place.

  “Alright, that's all I got,” I said, moving to get up. “Kill everyone I hate, especially Dad, and don't die until you finish. Do whatever the hell you want after that, and leave me alone if you can. I'm going to do the same, and maybe see if I can get a portal to take me even further away from all of this. Hopefully a place not as shitty as Earth or as Never-Never-land-ish like this place is. Goodbye, Wes.”

  I heard him again just before I made it to the door.

  “Chris,” he somehow hissed from across the room.

  I turned to look at him and found I could just barely read his eyes this time.

  “Thank you,” he spat out. “And... I understand.” Another heaving breath. “Because I... hate you too.”

  I nodded and walked out of the door.

  I felt relieved. And angry. Because there had been more balm for my soul in Wes's single declaration of hatred to me than there had been in every word of approval Dad had ever spoken of me.

  Chapter 30: Rise Up and Rage (Round Two)

  Beat, my heart said for the thirty-fifth-thousandth time today. Beat...Beat...Beat…

  Stop counting, a twinge of pain said through my right arm. It's annoying.

  Shut up, I said back to it. It's your fault I'm in this mess. Every time I've ever given you the slightest bit of attention I've suffered for i-

  Crap. I had done it again. Get back on track.

  Beat...Beat…

  By my guess, I had less than a thousand beats to go.

  Chris had told me I had six to twelve hours.

  And after our little heart-to-heart, or at least our little hate-to-hate, I believed him.

  Six to twelve hours.

  Six hours made too little sense. They had gotten up early in the beginning. It was brand new, then, making me die. Then after I kept coming back, it got predictable. But predictable is still interesting. Based on how I took being stabbed, how would I take being drowned? How would I take being eaten?

  It wasn't exciting enough to start at the beginning of the day, but they only came in an hour later. Then they had stopped getting what they needed out of my deaths. My reactions had standardized, they said. I could no longer distinguish how I was dying. The trauma was too much.

  Then they decided I couldn't tell even when I was alive anymore, that I was all but brain-dead from the trauma. I was finished. And they were tired of me.

  In other words, it had worked.

  Beat... Beat... Beat…

  They would come for me in twelve hours, I decided. Everyone had looked like they were at the final end of the day when they went to come see me. So that meant they were going to bed. They would wake up late today, I knew, because other than killing me one last time, today was going to be a light day for them.

  That was another thing being 'finished' had let me do. Nobody worries about operational security if the only audience is a corpse. I learned all kinds of things about these men. Combined with what Rhodes had told me I had a pretty good picture of this place. I mean dungeon. Let's just call this place a dungeon.

  So that I can feel better when I rip it apart.

  But from what I understood, this place was a waypoint- their safest, most secure waypoint. But one they didn't like using for some reason. The Order of Malus- that's their name, until I can think of something more insulting- didn't keep any leadership here. Just the least dangerous prisoners. And me. Because this was the most convenient portal to and from Earth. How they got to other places I don't know. But this is the one location that they believed was completely, absolutely secure from attack from the people in the other worlds. I had to assume this was where they kept a number of prisoners that they didn't mind being out of the way.

  I had no idea how many prisoners they had total. But my understanding was that the number was decreasing more quickly than they had wanted. I also didn't know what they were doing with the prisoners but after what they had done to me, I had only dark guesses.

  But after today that changes, the part of my mind that hadn't broken yet said. I had stuffed most of myself away to the hidden corners of my mind back when all the deaths and tortures started. It was a last-ditch effort to get through what they were doing to me, and the deeper the torture went, the farther away in my mind I retreated to. On the one hand it worked. They hurt me, but they didn't get all of me.

  On the other hand though, I wasn't sure I could get all of me back either. I had no idea where I had stuffed parts of myself, and I may never find those parts again.

  But today, that
's not my focus.

  The little piece of me that still peeked out had made Val my focus. Her and Sam, and Kayla, and anyone else they have down here.

  I wanted them back.

  I wanted them all back.

  And no one had better tell me they're not mine. Everyone else lost that right to them when they failed to protect them. They're mine. The next person who wanted to hurt them would get to fight me for them.