“I think he mentioned some stuff about reincarnation.” When I reached them, Bruno and Julia shook my hand.
“Nice to see you again,” Julia said. Having people remember me that I had no recollection of still made me feel self-conscious like it was somehow my fault.
“Take me for example. If you have any memories of me, they are probably not of the young man you see before you. I can’t get over how much you look like me.” Nicholae stopped like he lost his train of thought or was overcome by a memory.
“So much,” Matilda said. “I said that to myself when he first stepped into my tent. For a split second I thought it might have been you.”
“And look at Julia. At first glance, she may look like your average seven year old, but behind the innocent exterior lies several hundred years of experience, past life experience accessible to her not-so-delicate fingertips.”
“Please help me,” the man fused to the chair begged.
“Don’t worry,” Nicholae said to the panicked man. “I have not forgotten about you.”
“What is all this?” I asked.
“These are newer members of the Lorne Royal Guard—or so they’re calling themselves—men and women unaware of what they’ve gotten themselves into. The true members would have put up more of a fight. Every one of them can be tracked, so we disposed of the devices embedded into their skulls. Isn’t that right? You’re off the grid now.” Nicholae directed the last few sentences to the living chair, and then turned his attention back to me. “We’re extracting information. You informed us about Cias and we’ve had to act fast. We had to purify the last camp and move here before Kafka had time to react. He’d been waiting patiently, planning, researching, and now that the first guardian has been slain, I feel things will move very quickly from here on out. The end is coming soon, and it will either be him or us standing when it does.”
“Our numbers are small, but we’ve kept the fight alive this long,” Matilda said.
“I’ve envisioned you joining the fight beside us for ten years, and today that dream has become reality. Daniel says you’re ready. Matilda says you’re not. Which is it?”
I gulped and glanced nervously at Matilda. Then I remembered the arguments I’d had with Mr. Gordon about him holding me back, and then what I’d been through over the past few weeks.
“I escaped SUSY Asylum under the hawk-eye watch of Alexandria. I killed my mirror. I saved Desire from her mirror,” I said with as much conviction as I could. “I am ready.”
Nicholae grinned so wide he reminded me of Jeremy. “We’ll see, but I’m glad to hear your enthusiasm. Bruno, put him back with the others. We’ll continue the interrogation later.”
Bruno grabbed the seated man’s wrist and when he yanked him up with one powerful motion, the terrified man pulled free of the chair. He remained on his feet for only a second, and then sprawled to the floor like he had no strength left. Blood and pink gelatinous residue covered the chair, dripping slowly to the floor.
“You’re fine,” Nicholae said. “I didn’t hit any vital organs.”
The lightening-bolt bars disappeared from one side of the cell, and the skinny man from the chair was dragged in and dropped on the floor at the feet of the other prisoners. The missing energized purple bars sizzled back into existence while the two women and a tall, gaunt teenage boy inside tended to the man who had begun crying. They pulled him up to the bench next to a middle-aged man with red hair and matching beard who remained huddled in the corner.
Nicholae led me out of the building. One of the wolves guarding the door followed a few steps behind. We walked between the buildings, and past them, into the darkness of the surrounding forest. He held out a fist, which suddenly had thin beams of white light spilling out from between his fingers. When he opened his hand, a small orb grew to the size of a baseball and flew out in front of us, lighting the path through the trees.
“What do you remember?” Nicholae said.
“Of what?”
“Of me. Of before. From before your mother gave you the pill.”
“Not much,” I said. “It seemed to do its job well.”
“It wasn’t to delete everything you knew. I want you to know that. My intention was to store those memories away until the time was right and give them back to you.”
“Is now that time?”
“It could be,” he said as we wound through the trail. “But that’s why I wanted to know what you remember or are remembering on your own.”
“What is this? A test?”
“Everything’s a test. Someone’s always testing you. To see what you know. To see what you don’t know. To see what you’re capable of. To see who you really are.”
“And who am I really?”
“You’re my son,” he said curtly.
“That’s so weird to hear coming from you—you know, because of the way you look, because you’re so young.”
“I know, with all this being new to you, I understand. To me, it’s normal. Continuing lifetimes is our way of life. I died after you and your mother left. I kept in control of my death so I could return, and here I am—a little younger, but still me.”
“You killed your mirror, too, right?” I asked.
“We all have. It’s a Lorne family rite of passage.” Nicholae paused. “You have to remember: everyone thinks that killing your daediem is killing yourself. People have been living in fear of their other halves as far back as the creation of the higher planes, an intentional separation of ambition and power. Kafka changed that and showed us the way, a select few of those he deemed worthy. It’s knowledge we’ve kept to ourselves and built upon—as Kafka built the family—over many lifetimes. And now it’s all coming crashing down, all coming to an end.”
“Why?” I asked. “What happened?”
“The creator of the higher planes left guardians at the separation points—the Guardians of the Great In-Between, Kafka calls them. He has secretly been hunting them for the past few lifetimes, unsure of how the rest of the family would react when he revealed his plan.”
“His plan for what?”
“For this,” Nicholae said. “He discovered that each of the higher planes has four guardians, guarding four separation points. With a guardian slain, that separation point vanishes, like cutting a support cable—and the plane collapses onto the one below. That is what you’re seeing here. One cut. Three cuts left and this plane will be completely fused with the plane above—our home. We’ll be one step closer to the bottom, and Kafka believes, when all the planes are collapsed the barrier to entering the base plane will be eliminated, the barrier built to shield the original lot of humanity from his full potential. Kafka is extremely powerful, but he yearns to walk amongst a world that will revere him as a god.”
“So this is the damage from one slain guardian?”
“Yes.”
“And there are three more?”
Nicholae nodded. “Three more at this level. Four more at the level below that…and four more below that.”
“That’s madness. By then, the entire world’s gonna be destroyed.”
“Exactly,” Nicholae said. “And guess who will be there to rebuild.”
The light floating before us wound through the trees that seemed to have no end. The sound of rushing water grew from somewhere in the darkness beyond while we continued our conversation. Soon we came to a clearing, where I could see a wall of falling black water at the edge of the orb’s illuminated reach.
A waterfall hundreds of feet high poured with roaring fury into a relatively small pool. Off to the right, the pool emptied into a stream that snaked back into the trees. Mist rose from where the falls hit the body of water below, making the air all around us damp like a light drizzle.
The wolf that had been following us since we left the camp walked out from behind us and took a drink from the fresh pool.
“Her name is Ingrid,” Nicholae said and walked over to a cluster of rocks near the water.
&nb
sp; The orb floated out to the middle of the pool and hung there like a chandelier lighting much of the clearing.
I gazed out at the water and noticed my breathing hadn’t increased. My heartbeat remained steady. I pictured myself flailing about in the middle of the pool like I had in Lake Arrowhead when Mr. Gordon had saved me. I thought of that haunting memory, which controlled my life near water from that day forward, and realized its grip on me was gone. The panic was not setting in. After all these years, it was Nero who set me free, a part of me, like I could have done it all along.
I joined Nicholae on the rocks, sitting before the falls and marveling at its natural beauty. Ingrid lay by the bank.
“Doria Falls,” Nicholae said. “I’ve been here before. That’s why I thought to re-station us here. It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Nature creates and people destroy. This is a fine example of nature.” We sat silently for a minute or two, staring out at the water. “Your voice is gone, isn’t he? Nero Orville, I think his name was.”
I couldn’t even remember Nero’s last name, but I assumed Nicholae knew better than me. “Yeah.”
“You killed him.” It wasn’t a question.
“Yeah.”
Nicholae sighed. “Were you trying to kill yourself? Were you—”
“No,” I said. “I guess I didn’t believe we were really connected like that. He wasn’t just a voice anymore. He was standing in front of me, separate from me, and I thought that meant something. When I was in the asylum, we seemed to feel the same things. If one of us was hit, the other one felt it, too. But when he took me over there—to that other Provex City—it wasn’t the same. We didn’t share the same suffering. I believed I was right.”
“That’s amazing, or maybe not. Maybe that should be expected from someone from the base plane. Even though you realistically weren’t, your experience was. I don’t know. It’s unprecedented.
“Kafka originally claimed he conquered his daediem with no prior knowledge that it wasn’t suicide. But I learned numerous lifetimes later, his story wasn’t true.”
“Not like it would have mattered,” I said. “He could just have come back like he’s been doing for—for however long you’ve said.”
“This was before his discovery of previous life restoration. All of us are reincarnated beings, but the access to memories and experiences from past lives are blocked. Kafka discovered how to tap into those past lives, come back to earth in a conscious fashion, and continue—or restore—our lives from the ones prior. But this was after he conquered his daediem; Alkane Fork was his name.”
“What was yours?”
“Lane Holocrine.” Nicholae pulled at the underside of his neck. “Damn, it’s been a long time since I’ve said that name. A long time. Has the death of your daediem spawned any new memories?”
I stopped to think. I had been remembering, but I hadn’t related them to the death of Nero. “I think so. Why would that be?”
“Nero’s memories weren’t repressed. Yours were. So if it’s already started, then everything you thought you lost is coming back.”
“I’ve only remembered a few things so far.”
“A deluge of memories can be overwhelming, especially the first time. It’s probably better this way. Missing memories from when you were five aren’t all that important at this point. What you’ve learned from Daniel and what I’m telling you now is, and will hopefully keep you alive long after this battle is over.”
I looked down at his hand, at the wolf head sticking out from his black sleeve. “Will I be getting one?”
“You certainly earned one,” Nicholae said. “But I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“Do you really want to be branded with what’s coming next, with all the destruction affiliated with the Lorne family name? It is Kafka’s brand. I’ve had mine for nearly a thousand years and have plenty I can feel guilty for. I’ve built a great portion of this empire alongside him. My wolf now symbolizes what I’ve been a part of, not just what I initially earned.
“You’re here to fight for a better tomorrow, not to be initiated into a family that is singularly focused on destruction for the sake of creating false saviors. You are not here to be the wolf amongst sheep, but the shepherd standing in-between the predator and its prey.”
I knew he was right and let any ambition of having a wolf-head tattoo of my own—even though I wanted one ever since donning the fake one—be swept away by the falls.
7
Training
I awoke the next morning without anyone else in my group knowing I was gone. We cleaned up and dressed in the black fatigues stored in the closet. The only one of us wearing anything from the day before was Desiree with her Elliott Smith sweatshirt, which I knew she would. Desiree had said she’d never take it off. She’d slept in the damn thing, but since she exited the bathroom in a bathrobe, she at least took it off to shower.
“Mr. Gordon, can you come in here a sec?” she asked, and closed the bathroom door once they were both inside.
“What’s that about?” Jeremy asked.
I shrugged.
Mr. Gordon came out a minute later, closing the door behind him, and Desiree emerged from the bathroom a few minutes after that, with her hair still damp and back in the Elliott Smith sweatshirt and black pants.
When we got to the cafeteria for breakfast, it was just as empty as it had been yesterday during dinner. Nicholae (or one of them) had said the group here was small, and it made me wonder if it would be enough to stand up against Kafka.
Matilda and Julia entered the cafeteria and joined our group after getting their food, Matilda sitting beside Mr. Gordon and Julia, across from her. I saw the shock and awe on Desiree’s face when she was introduced to Julia as a Lorne. The age thing still threw some of us for a loop.
“What’s on the agenda for today?” Jeremy asked.
“Are we going to see more of Nicholae today?” Richard asked. He finished adding sugar and a single-serve creamer in his coffee and took a sip, followed by an exaggerated grimace.
“Nicholae has some training set up for the lot of you later this morning. He’s debriefing with Cassandra and Erik right now.
“Who’re they?” Desiree asked.
“Other Lorne members of the rebellion,” Mr. Gordon answered.
“They were out gathering intel,” Matilda said while spreading jam on a toasted roll.
After breakfast, Matilda and Julia hung out with us, showing us around the complex. Julia confirmed this one was only a day old, but all the camps before followed a similar if almost identical layout. It turned out the Jules that Briggs had mentioned yesterday was our seven-year-old-looking tour guide; she was the architect. She pointed out the fixtures and details, plumbing, mechanical, electrical, security features she was tasked with installing into each building to make sure everything functioned harmoniously. Nicholae had a great mind for the big picture, but he always missed little details, which was where she seemed to shine.
Before the tour could officially conclude, Julia was summoned by Briggs to a building that needed fixing. Matilda and Mr. Gordon wandered off alone, and the rest of us returned to our room.
“I think I’ll be going home tomorrow,” Richard said. “I believe you guys are in good hands.”
“We are,” I assured him.
“Jeremy, do you want to come with me?”
Jeremy seemed to ponder the question. I knew how conflicted he was about being here, about any of our pasts reemerging into our lives. Ever since we’d come back from Provex City the first time, he’d shut down every time I brought up the experience, like he wanted to forget it ever happened. I could see the pain in his eyes. He wanted to go home, but something—maybe his guilt for the trap he’d lured me into—was preventing him from leaving.
“No,” he finally said. “I’ll stay.”
“Are you sure?” Richard asked.
Both of us could see the hesitation in Jeremy’s eyes, but his answer remained
firm.
“I’m sure,” Jeremy said.
We filled the downtime with a few board games, which was somewhat interesting since none of us had obviously heard of or played any of them before. Sitting around the small wooden table reminded me of simpler, happier times—the way a regular family was supposed to act. Jeremy made his jokes, Desiree laughed, and Richard played to win using playful misdirection to gain a comfortable lead. The distraction was good, helping to keep our minds off the fact that the world was literally falling down around us. We were far from safe, but in this moment of laughter, confined to this cool gray box, we coaxed ourselves into believing we were.
Colton, the wiry man with the shaved head, came to collect us later in the morning. Mr. Gordon hadn’t yet returned, but Colton said he’d be joining us shortly.
“Joining us for what?” Jeremy asked.
“Training,” Colton replied.
Desiree turned to me with a cocker spaniel look and I shrugged.
We followed Colton to a long building labeled T3 and found that the inside was set up like a shooting range. An older man with salt and pepper hair and rivers of wrinkles on his face introduced himself has Harry Kiplinger and began handing out protective gear.
Colton snapped his fingers and waved to me. “Com’on, Nicholae’s got other plans for you.”
I tapped Desiree on the shoulder and told her I was leaving.
“Where’re you going?”
I shook my head and was ushered out the door before I could even give her a proper goodbye. Colton had said this was by Nicholae’s orders, so I wasn’t too concerned.
On the back side of the shooting range, was Building T1, which had a lone wolf standing guard. The wolves were beginning to create a calming effect. I liked knowing one of our Lornes was nearby.
“Hi, Ingrid,” I said as we walked up to the door. I thought I even saw her nod a greeting back.
Inside, the room was lined with long metal tables. Nicholae and Mr. Gordon stood, engaged in conversation, near the center of the room.
Doria Falls Page 9