Now that Tailyn has a plan, I leave her to work and return to the infirmary. Inside is the same solemn picture as before with Sayda sitting next to our friends.
“Any changes?” I walk over and put my hand on her shoulder.
“Not really. Adara says Hadwin is getting close coming off life support, but he looks the same to me.” Sayda’s eyes never leave the two men she watches over.
I spend most of the day sitting with Sayda. Though we have already lost so much, each of us has to brace ourselves for the possibility of losing even more. Whether it will be death or life for us and the ones we love, it is past time to find out. I am done preparing for it.
*
I wake up alone in my quarters. Hadwin has been steadily improving. His circulatory system has fully recovered. All that remains is to see if the lack of blood flow from his prior injuries caused an anoxic brain injury. So, today after breakfast, we are going remove the sedation and hopefully wake him up. The anticipation is nerve wracking. If he does not wake up now, it is unlikely he ever will. Radek, on the other hand, still fights a wound infection. He is not nearly stable enough to have his life support removed. More time is needed before we will know if he will survive.
As it has been since I returned, breakfast is a solemn occasion. My mother is not handling Arluin’s absence well. She is nearing a nervous breakdown. Between his disappearance and my seemingly never ending parade of injuries, we have given her a lot to deal with. I stay with her until she has to leave for work. I could give her an excuse not to go, but keeping active will help distract her, if only for a while.
Before going to the infirmary, I stop again at the main Control Room. Despite Cyrina’s vow to inform me as soon as she hears anything, I cannot keep myself from constantly checking. After another disappointment, I go back down to the infirmary. Rana, Adara, and Sayda all wait for me. Their heads are lowered, silently watching Hadwin.
“We ready to turn off the sedation?” I ask.
“We already did. I wanted to wait for you, but Sayda wouldn’t let us delay it any longer,” Rana explains.
Now that I look at him, the breathing tube has been removed and the sedating infusion is no longer attached. Hadwin looks peaceful, but is not awake. I place my hand on his shoulder while lean over to whisper a goodbye to him.
“Dude, are you trying to give me mouth to mouth?” Hadwin’s gravelly voice shocks me so much that I trip and fall backwards. From my undignified position on the floor, I see Sayda turning bright red from the force of her laughter.
“I’m sorry, but when he woke up, he insisted we play along,” Rana says with a coy smile. “Who am I to deny a patient such a small request?”
“I’ll get you for that,” I tell him, now laughing at myself for falling for his shenanigans yet again.
“And you’ll be happy to hear Radek is finally showing signs of responding to the antibiotics. With any luck, he’ll make it past this soon,” Adara adds. The news is the best thing I have heard in a while. Sayda and I spend the next few hours catching Hadwin up on how we got back as well as the discovery of the poison in our food. Even with the good fortune, the emptiness inside of me does not fade. One thing haunts me even more than the review itself. I need to know if Talia is okay.
*
Right before dinner time, I get a terse message from Cyrina. It only says to come to the Control Room immediately. This can only mean one thing. There must be some communication from Talia. One way or another, the review is finally coming to an end. I spring to my feet and attempt to run toward the exit. My still-healing body does not respond as it normally would. Before reaching the door, I have to stop to wait out the paralyzing cramp in my thigh. When it finally subsides, I walk at a more deliberate pace from the infirmary to the central elevator. With my weakened muscles, this is a lot faster than the stairs would be. The whole way up, my legs shake nervously. I yearn to see Talia on the communicator with good news.
When reaching the control room, my trembling hand knocks on the door. I anxiously wait for it to open. After a nauseatingly long pause, it finally does. As the door opens, a tingling sensation sparks into my stomach and chest. Instead of being greeted by Cyrina, I am face to face with an angel. Before she speaks, I grab Talia and lift her in the air with exuberant happiness. I set her down and kiss her, ignoring the pain caused by my overexcited reaction.
“I’m okay too,” Arluin says with a snicker. The joy of seeing Talia blinded me to the others in the room. Instead of the normal people working the controls for the Solar Panels, Talia, Arluin, Seonah, and Cyrina are all inside.
I push Arluin as hard as I can, which in my present state barely budges him. “I’m so glad you all made it back.”
“Me? You’re the one who had us all worried.” Talia pretends to scold me.
Being so caught up in the moment, for a while I forget why they were even gone. When regaining rational thought, I turn back and ask, “So, what happened at the final review?”
“They had a council set up, with Braeden leading the discussion. He went over all the details of the review, asking me to explain every minute aspect. In the end, he declared that the privacy of Caelum has not been compromised. They accepted me as the new head of Leadership for Securus,” Talia says. “It was weird though. The Patron of Leadership mainly observed and stayed out of the discussion. I think somehow Braeden has influence even over him.”
A noticeable change in Talia’s expression shows when she says Braeden’s name, like the very act of forming the word causes her discomfort. Like always, Talia recovers quickly, so I do not push her feelings on the matter in front of the others.
“The Soldiers mentioned something like that in The Caves, but I never thought his control would go that high,” I tell her, being careful not to actually say Braeden’s name.
“Me either, but that doesn’t matter now. As long as we keep our production up, we should be left alone. That gives us all the time we need, and hopefully we don’t have to talk to him again anytime soon,” Talia says.
“How about you guys? Did you get anything useful?” I ask Arluin and Seonah, wanting to change the subject for Talia’s sake.
Arluin looks at me with an indignant surprise at my question. “Did we get anything? Of course we did! We got schematics of the entire place. It’s a palace on the inside and a fortress on the outside. We’ll never be able to overpower them, but with the link we set up, we can monitor them directly. With that, we should be able to avoid their detection until we get out of here.”
It is hard not to shake my head. With Arluin’s proud proclamation, he clearly has picked up some of Hadwin’s bravado. He makes it sound so straightforward, except we are still far from getting out of here.
“Everything didn’t go so smoothly for us. I’m sure Cyrina already told you Nyree and Edric didn’t make it back. Neither did Aamon, Ardal, or Danyor for that matter,” I say, trying to rub away the ache that comes to my chest when remembering of the loss of Nyree. No one mourns the death of the conspirators, but the mood of the room dampens when reminded of the fate of Nyree and Edric.
The subject is difficult for me to talk about, so I change the focus. “But we did make an important discovery. We stumbled onto Munitus. It’s a lot closer than we thought.”
They are shocked by the news. I guess Cyrina left the Munitus part out when she filled them in on what has been happening.
“Did you make contact?” Talia asks.
“We did, but not intentionally. Radek and I stumbled onto a Guard named Auden. He gave me his personal communicator code for when we come back,” I answer.
“Can we trust him?” Talia asks.
I shrug my shoulders. “I don’t know, but he didn’t tell their Leadership about us when he had the chance.”
“We have to go back. They need to know the truth,” Arluin says, standing up straight, ready to go right now.
“We will, just not now. We need to stay under Caelum’s radar for a while,” Talia tells
him.
“Besides, getting there isn’t exactly an easy thing,” I tell him.
Talia arranges a table for us all at dinner so we can fill each other in on the details of our separate trips. For now, I am relieved they are okay and we finally have a chance to move forward without the review looming over our every action. We are even able to coax Sayda out of the infirmary. After telling them about the genetically altered animals along with every detail I remember from Munitus, Sayda fills them in on the trip back through the tunnels. Talia looks pained as she listens, but does not interrupt. Arluin, on the other hand, keeps pushing for more details.
“That’s enough about us. What happened with you guys?” I ask.
“We never got very far in,” Arluin says, with a disappointed look on his face. “After they escorted Talia away, Ms. Drok and I found a storage room in the tunnel with the access we needed. We pretty much stayed in there until Talia signaled us to get back into the transport. Good thing we brought food and water with us, otherwise we would’ve starved being stuck in there for so long.”
I turn to ask Talia about her experience, but her eyes are already telling me not to. I think she is not ready to talk about Braeden in front of the others. Instead we finish our meal and enjoy the reprieve.
“Well, I have to go before Haddie starts demanding sponge baths again,” Sayda says as she gets up to leave. When the rest of the group disperses, my mother forces Arluin to leave Talia and me alone.
Through all of this, we have lost more good people, especially Nyree, but we will continue on to make sure their sacrifice is not in vain. We have survived the review and discovered Caelum’s subversive methods of control over Securus. We continue to collect the hidden boxes filled with The Agent they have scattered throughout our facility. Tailyn steadily works on the hidden monster in the very food that sustains us, using Caelum’s clever manipulation of the poison against them. We do not yet have a way to deal with the beasts stalking the forest above, but now that we are aware of them, we will not be caught unprepared again. We may not be ready to expand to the surface yet, but if Taig’s location works out, we will have a place to start.
Talia and I lay on our bed with her head resting on my chest. These past few days I was so worried she would never return. Now that she has, I am content to have her in my arms. Talia is exhausted and needs to sleep. Before she does, I have one more question.
“How are you really holding up, Talia?”
“Better now that I don’t have to see that bastard anymore,” she says, squeezing me. “I couldn’t stand another second in his presence.” Her eyes close even tighter, releasing a single tear. Our situation and her trip to Caelum have taken a toll on Talia. She hides it from everyone else, but not from me.
I gently run my hands through her hair and kiss her forehead. “Don’t worry. We’ll be out of her soon and away from them forever.”
I hold Talia in my arms until she falls asleep. This ordeal has inflicted physical and emotional wounds on us both. Together, we will work our way through them.
For once, pleasant thoughts keep me up for a while longer. I bask in relief from Arluin and Talia making it back to Securus. The information they gathered is simply an extra bonus to me right now. With Talia here and the review finally over, for the first time in a while, we have a chance to breathe. For me personally, now that Aamon is gone forever, I can finally leave that chapter of my life in the past. All my energy can be focused on helping Talia lead us from our servitude. We are so much closer to starting anew. Now more than ever, I am certain we will find a way to get there.
About The Author
Anthony Maldonado was born in southern California on August 18, 1979. He earned a degree in biomedical sciences from University of California, Riverside in 2001 as well as a MD from UCLA's school of medicine in 2004. He then went on to complete his internship and residency in Emergency Medicine, in which he currently practices. He currently lives in Southern California with his wife, Bernice.
Aside from writing, Anthony enjoys running, hiking, and dabbles in a bit of woodworking in his garage. He is fully in touch with his inner (really outer) nerd and enjoys video/computer games as well a range of entertaining movies and cartoons.
If you enjoyed this book, please watch out for the final installment of The Securus Trilogy. For more details, visit www.TheSecurusTrilogy.com
The Controller (The Securus Trilogy Book 2) Page 31