by J. Stone
Amelia had been setting fires, since she was a child; but never before had she enjoyed it so thoroughly. The room set ablaze, separating her victims from one another and allowing Fiona’s pets to deal directly with the corpsman. Amelia, meanwhile, slowly approached the empress. She and the young woman, she recognized as Viola Arkmast, ran to a door, fleeing down a spiral staircase.
The pyromaniac rushed after them, not allowing the pair to get much distance away from her. She followed the circling steps down behind the empress eventually reaching the bottom, where she found a short hallway. The empress and her daughter had nearly reached a door at the end of the hall, when Empress Arkmast tripped and slid forward across the floor.
Her daughter, Viola, turned to see her mother on the ground and began to return for her. She stopped, however, and said, “It seems the fortunes were right. It’s time I succeed you, mother.”
“What?!” the empress shouted from the floor.
It was soon too late for anyone to help the empress, as Amelia descended upon the woman, while Viola closed and latched the door from the other side. Amelia flipped the empress over, so that she was lying on her back, and then, straddling her legs on either side, Amelia sat down on the empress’ lap.
“Kids, huh?” Fiona said using Amelia’s voice.
“Who… are you?” the empress asked with a panic.
“Me?” she asked. “I’m Fiona! Well, that’s not completely true. This body belongs to Amelia… but Amelia belongs to me. Get it?”
“Did you say... Amelia?” Mary Elizabeth asked.
“Good!” she shouted. “You’re listening. Such a rare skill these days, huh? Now then, since your daughter abandoned you, it looks like it’s just the two of us. We get some quality time together. How does that sound?”
Empress Arkmast looked up at the young woman with a vague horror across her face and said, “I knew this day would come eventually.”
“Hey now,” Amelia said. “I get to have the insight on the future, not you. That’s my thing. And it’s about time we discussed this whole awful thing you call Cultwick, what you did to me, and what you did to my little Ryn.”
“The heretic?” the empress asked cautiously.
“You would call her that, wouldn’t you?” Amelia replied. “She sure showed you and your lottery though, huh?”
“The lottery is the price our citizens pay for protection,” Mary Elizabeth said, growing more confident.
Amelia placed a finger lightly on the empress’ nose and willed an ember to grow and singe her flesh. The empress jerked away and shrieked from the pain, while Amelia’s finger healed from the burn. Fiona was careful to not yet allow the transfer of fluids into the empress - she wanted to play more with her food first.
“What do you want from me?” demanded the empress.
“For all the naughty things you’ve done, you deserve punishment,” Amelia informed her. “And once I feel you’ve had enough, I’m going to have Amelia here eat you.”
A wave of horror washed across the Empress’ face, which Fiona found to her liking. “Don’t worry, though,” she continued. “She won’t eat you whole. She doesn’t have a detachable jaw or anything. I’ll just have her take a piece to make you mine.”
“I’ll never be yours,” Mary Elizabeth declared.
“Oh, but you will,” Amelia replied. “You’ll all be mine. Newton says so.”
Amelia set her finger ablaze and dragged it across the empress’ cheek, this time allowing a scant amount of her blood to enter the woman, but not enough to control her. Mary Elizabeth again jerked away, squirming in pain at her touch. Fiona realized she had lost track of the pets she used to deal with Silas and determined that they had been dispatched and severed from her mind.
Fiona instructed Amelia to turn her head, and as the pyromaniac complied, she caught a glimpse of the corpsman. It was too late, however, as he plunged a long blade into Amelia’s face. Involuntarily, the young woman dripped superheated blood from the wound. The drops hit the empress’ skin, searing her flesh and penetrating the wounds.
Silas pushed the woman off his empress, while Amelia’s body began to smolder uncontrollably. After a few moments, Fiona lost her connection to Amelia. She searched through her reservoirs of minds, trying to find the closest one to the tower and the action within, but found no one suiting her needs. There was a gloomy darkness blocking her sight of the events unfolding around the empress for several minutes.
Eventually, she began to feel a new presence in her mind. It was muddy and vague at first, but it began to grow and develop like a seedling sprouting its first leaf. It was Mary Elizabeth Arkmast, the empress herself. Amelia’s burns had not been in vain after all. Whether it was due to her loss of Amelia before her procurement of the empress or something else, Fiona wasn’t sure, but she discovered she didn’t have full control over Mary Elizabeth. She could see through her eyes, but little else.
Mary Elizabeth was barely conscious as the infection wormed its way through her system, but Fiona was ultimately able to will the woman’s eyes open to survey the situation. The empress was being quickly carried through a hallway by several corpsmen. Leading the way was the constant thorn in Fiona’s side, Silas Skinner, as well as a man she now knew to be Councilor Desmond Crowley.
Inside the Sovereign Tower was a small, private medical station. The empress arrived in the facility to a host of doctors, transcribers, and nurses. They ushered her into a clean, white room, and they injected her with a series of multi-colored fluids, some of which actually managed to weaken Fiona’s connection to the empress.
While the scientists worked to preserve their leader, Fiona delved deeper into the mind of the woman she now had access to. Fiona found herself in a vast empty room. Looking around, she discovered it was the empress’ throne room. A gaudy gold framed throne lined with blue velvet sat center amidst a large open area. On either side of the room were balconies that looked down over the chamber suspended by smooth alabaster columns.
The room was entirely devoid of anyone, and it felt unnatural to have that much space to herself. She began to wander forward aimlessly, until she found a connected hallway. Stepping through the doorway, Fiona found herself in an entirely separate but familiar location. It was the Center for Empirical Research. Again, the entire area was empty, so she began to wander its hallways.
Eventually she came to a room she had never been to before. It was almost completely dark aside from a strange green light. She approached the source of the illumination to find rows upon rows of living fetuses floating inside glass tubes filled with translucent green ooze. Beneath each of the tubes was a lit bulb causing the green ooze to radiate the strange light throughout the room.
Behind her, three individuals entered the room and began inspecting the tanks. She recognized one of them as Empress Mary Elizabeth Arkmast as a very young woman.
“What do you think, dear?” she asked one of the men that accompanied her.
“Hard to say,” he replied, slowly traversing the tubes.
The other man, who wore a white lab coat, stood in the back near the door and waited for the pair to investigate the growing children. As Mary Elizabeth walked past one of the tubes, she stopped, when she noticed the fetus’ eyes were open and looking at her.
“Joseph,” she said. “Look.”
Fiona recalled that Joseph had been Mary Elizabeth’s late husband, and as the memory grew in her own mind, she realized that the Arkmasts were actually choosing their own child. Joseph arrived next to his wife and inspected the tube as well, and the preborn Viola’s blue eyes were still open and switched to him.
Placing his hand on the cylinder, Joseph turned back to the scientist at the door and said, “This one.” Drain and dispose of the rest.”
Fiona faded away from the empress’ memory of Viola, and she thought back on her initial arrival at the center. She had been wrapped inside a tight, restraining jacket and had been unable to move or use her hands for several hours.
She recalled that her nose had itched for almost the entire duration of its use. Upon entry, the various doctors and scientists inspected her and decided what would be done with her. It was then that she met Dr. Norton. She looked down at her mind’s projection of herself to see his bloodied jacket still wrapped around her.
She was startled when she suddenly heard a conversation down the hall. She immediately recognized both participants as Empress Arkmast and Desmond Crowley. They stood outside a subject’s cell, looking in at him.
“Patient SC-1 has shown a remarkable resistance to the toxic effects of the chemical,” Crowley explained. “So far, no one else has managed to survive more than a day on the drug.”
“How has he responded, Dr. Crowley?” the empress asked.
“Greater than we would have expected,” Crowley answered. “He has been able to predict events seconds or even weeks in the future.”
“This could prove quite useful,” the empress commented.
“Yes, Empress Arkmast,” Crowley reluctantly replied.
“I sense a ‘but’ coming,” she said.
“But he’s proven resistant to cooperation and we’ve had no success when it comes to injecting other patients,” he elaborated.
Fiona finally looked at the subject they had been referring to beyond the glass cell. It was a young boy who looked familiar to her, though she could not say why. She guessed his age to be around twelve or thirteen. The boy wore a soft, white, button up shirt that hung loosely over a pair of matching pants. He wore no shoes on his feet, and his head was completely bald. In fact, he didn’t even have eyebrows. The experimentation done to him had rendered the boy completely hairless. Up and down his thin white arms were pink welts where, she assumed, he had been repeatedly injected.
His room was nearly completely bare, containing only a porcelain toilet, a mattress thrown on the floor, and a leftover tray of food. The walls were a plain cream color, and his floor was comprised of dark tan tiling. The ceiling of the cell was very tall, and at its peak was a large, circular fan embedded into the structure that spun slowly.
“Surely we have ways of encouraging his cooperation?” the empress suggested.
“Normally, yes,” Crowley agreed. “The problem with him is that anything we do to him, his mind is capable of delaying or skipping over it entirely.”
“What do you mean, Dr. Crowley?” she inquired.
“His foresight did not come on its own,” Crowley explained. “The patient does not appear to experience time like we do. He will frequently answer questions we haven’t yet asked or think he is viewing things in a different time. We don’t quite understand it, but that is what allows him to see the future.”
Fiona approached the glass of the boy’s cell and stared at his face. When she was within touching distance, the boy looked up and stared right back into her eyes.
“Hello, Fiona,” he said.
Fiona looked back to the empress and Crowley, who both appeared confused by his sudden outburst.
“Who is he talking to?” Mary Elizabeth asked.
“I’m not sure,” Crowley responded. “He does this sometimes.”
“Fiona,” the boy continued. “I know you’re watching. You should come see me. We’ve got so much in common. Newton’s foresight will be derived from the serum that they extracted from my blood. She refused to help you in your quest, so you came to see me with the hope that I would help you and point you in the right direction. And don’t worry. The empress will die because of the fire in Amelia’s blood.”
“What is he babbling about?” the empress asked. “Is he predicting my death? Who is this Amelia anyway?”
“I’ve no idea,” Crowley said, looking from the young boy over to her.
Fiona found herself ejected from the empress’ mind and back in the medical station. Mary Elizabeth had the strength to lean to the side of her bed where Crowley stood. She waved a hand to him, and as he leaned in toward her, she whispered into his ear.
“S... C... 1...”
Chapter 15. Vincent and the Slave
Scrounging around town for information on the escaped slave, Felix Ellington, Vincent had discovered a few key points. First, he discerned which mine Felix had been working out of. Apparently, Felix had been enslaved only recently, though he was unable to learn what caused that to transpire. He also looked into the identity of the slain man in the cathouse, Thomas Bloomfield, with little revelation, and he learned the kidnapped woman's first name, Cassandra. Perhaps most importantly, Vincent discovered that prior to becoming a slave working in the mines; he owned a small farm to the south of the Chrome City valley.
Deciding it would be an easy enough location to start; Vincent saddled up Polly and rode up above the ridge. Looking down at the mining city, it looked more like a comet had smashed into the earth than it did a manmade hole. Black smoke rose constantly and the ground shook from the incessant blasting within the mines. How people continued to live in the city, he did not understand.
Regardless, he continued along the trail to the location he had been told by locals would lead him to Felix's farmstead. Once he arrived on the property, he found rows and rows of strange crops that had become overgrown and unattended. Not far from the house remained the core structure of a barn, but it looked to have burned down somewhat recently. The house itself seemed unharmed, so Vincent dismounted Polly and went inside for a look. Stepping onto the porch, he realized that the door was unlocked and not even closed. Pushing the door forward with the tip of his boot, Vincent surveyed the interior from the porch. Though it had not been attacked like the barn had, the house had certainly been rummaged through, and quite recently, he guessed.
Muddy boot prints lined the hard wood floors, and much of the furniture had been tossed around and knocked over. He cautiously took a few steps inside to find that the bedroom had the most things out of order. His reckoning was that Felix had come back to the house and packed some of his things. Placed on the bed stand, Vincent saw a framed photograph, and since no one had yet supplied him with a full picture of Felix, he stepped over the piles of clothes and retrieved the photograph. Looking at it, he saw a man and woman standing outside of the house he was sifting through.
"Cassie?" He said aloud, eyeing the woman in the photograph.
He flipped over the picture and pulled the back off the frame. Written on the backside of the photograph, he found the following text:
Felix and Cassie
Outside our new home!
Vincent immediately recognized the handwriting to belong to a woman he once knew, Cassie McCarthy. The picture on the front matched his memory of her well enough, and he had every reason to believe this was the same woman. He was so distracted by the possibility, he didn’t hear the footsteps behind him, but he certainly felt the smack on the back of the head.
Several hours later, Vincent regained consciousness to someone dabbing his forehead with a wet cloth, but he kept his eyes closed and listened.
"Cassie, we need to hurry up and get out of here," a man's voice insisted.
"Not yet, Felix," she said. "I know him. He might be able to help us."
"Or he'll turn us in for the bounty," Felix replied. "He had our papers in his pocket."
"Vincent wouldn't do that," she explained. "He's a good man."
Groaning, Vincent opened his eyes and said, "That entirely depends on who you ask."
"Vincent," Cassie said in a warm tone. "I'm sorry for the bump on the head. I didn't realize it was you."
"You're the one that hit me?" Vincent asked.
She nodded awkwardly with an apologetic expression across her face. Vincent sat upright on the bed and felt that something was off. Looking down, his belt had been removed - pistol, tools, and all. He looked back up to see Cassie's still apologetic face looking back at him.
Her long, curly, orange hair dangled over her shoulders and onto her open maroon coat. Beneath the coat, she wore a white, laced up shirt with black string. She leaned back fr
om the bed, crossing her legs and matting out her long, black skirt.
"Sorry," she said. "I certainly hoped you wouldn't pull on us, but I couldn't take the risk."
"Mmm," he simply replied.
"We need your help, Vincent," she explained. "I need your help."
"You better tell me what's going on, cause this whole thing doesn't add up with what the sheriff told me," Vincent said.
Cassie fidgeted in her chair, while Felix paced back and forth at the base of the bed. Covering Felix’s fist was a rusty mechanical hand, known as a chela, which manual laborers sometimes used to assist them in their efforts. He squeezed his own hand into a tight grip, and the machine followed suit. He had long tangled hair, and a relatively thick beard, that Vincent expected he earned while working in the mine. His clothes were dirty and blackened, and it looked like he had not yet changed since escaping.
“I don’t know what you were told, but I can tell you what happened,” Cassie said. “A couple years back, after Felix and I got married, we bought this land, and we started growing a special bioengineered form of soybeans. The miners use them to create their explosives for clearing the minerals. We were doing quite well, but an inspector from the company that sells the soybean seeds, Dayton Biotech, came to visit the farm.
“Their representative claimed that we were keeping seeds in an attempt to crack their formula and that we had violated the terms we agreed to when we purchased the seeds. We’ve been fighting their lawsuit for the past year, and with the lawyer fees, we were barely managing to keep our heads above water. Ultimately, we decided that we needed help in dealing with Dayton. We went to Mr. Graham, to see if he could give us a loan.”
“Graham?” Vincent asked. “That man can’t be trusted. You know better than most.”
“We didn’t have a choice, Vincent,” she explained. “Anyway, he agreed to help us, but his costs were pretty high. With the money, though, we were able to settle with Dayton.