by Shiloh White
“Whatever you think about him isn't right,” I said confidently. “He saved our lives, you know. Brought three complete strangers into his house."
“Just so he'd feel nothing when you came in here and failed,” Lara said. “Speaking of which, the real world doesn't work the way you make it sound. That old man wants this Zone gone, not you. You could've ran away once you felt better, so...why?”
“Because...well, uhh,” I stammered.
“Spit it out already,” Lara said. “Tick-tock for your little buddy.” For someone who couldn't get expressions right, Lara's words cut to the point.
“It's because we're trying to save our friend and we need something from him."
“Ahh, see? It's not about me. It's never about me. How much do you wanna bet that awful excuse for a sagely grandpa has an ulterior motive too? I'll bet my LIFE. Everyone has their own agenda. Did you even ask him what his was?"
“No, but...” I bit my tongue. How was I supposed to know that, and why would I ask it in the first place? What sense would that make? He wanted the Zone gone. We needed the cloak. That was enough for me.
“That's what I thought,” Lara nodded. “And I realized this long ago. You know why my face and my expressions don't match up? It's from trying to be two different things. Live two different lives. The lie, the stunting lie Lionel told us all. The one that my parents and siblings all believed,” she waved her hand around the room as if they were standing next to her. And they probably were, when she wanted them to. As herself.
“Then there was the truth—Disorder's truth. He showed me stuff that I can't imagine anywhere else. He opened up my eyes. And with that knowledge, I was able to build this place. Protect this Zone. Overthrow my grandpa. Disorder is the way I view the world now. I always knew, in the back of my head that something was wrong. And he amplified that. That's the real me. The me I wear on my face. But Lionel forced another me on top of me. A mask. The way I talk. Except, it's the complete opposite of what I know to be true. Yet I can't remove it. It feels like someone hot-glued the mask to my face. It was a long slow burn when it came on, and I have no idea in Dust how to remove it. I can't be me...at least not all the way.
“Lionel wants you to be you,” I said. “I know that, and I know you do too. The only reason you had to live that way was to survive. This is the very thing he didn't want to happen to you. I know it. He's sorry. He wants you to forgive him."
For a minute, Lara looked at me with genuine concern. My words must have cracked her shell. Or so I thought. A moment later, she burst into uncontrollable laughter. She clutched her sides with giggles and snorts. “I'm getting more and more pissed off by the second!” she shouted. “He wants to apologize?!"
Lara took a deep breath, un-balling her tightly closed fist into an open hand, composing herself.
“Any friend of my grandfather is an enemy of mine.” she said, no expression on her face or in her voice. Then she raised her other hand with the blue vial in it, and with all her might threw it at the ground.
“No!” I yelled. The blue liquid splashed all over the ground, mixing in with tiny shards of glass. My heart sank along with the sips of antidote that fell through the cracks in the floor.
I tried to run over and scoop it up; save some for Chug; anything. But the three Laras holding me back didn't let up. Chug had the same idea though. I watched as he—in Lara's body—tried to scrape just enough of the blue stuff into his hand to drink, surely cutting his hands on the shards of glass.
“Don't bother,” Lara said to him, sliding her foot through the mess she made. “You need the full dosage or it's no good. But don't worry. It'll be alright."
“Don't worry?” I repeated. “Are you crazy?” The Lara trio's hands began to tear at my skin as I pulled closer to Chug, but I didn't care. I had to reach him, find some way to fix him. Maybe the real Lara had an extra antidote on her somewhere.
“That's the best part about assimilating people,” Lara said, pacing closer to me, “is that they adopt my way of thinking.” She paid no attention to the last hope for Chug dripping off the edge of her black combat boots as she walked right up to my face. Inches away, she said, “I'm not crazy, Lucy. The rest of the world is caught up in a crazy drivel. My way is better...” she trailed off.
Lara squinted her eyes at me, then looked disappointed. “You don't believe me,” she said triumphantly.
“Wh-what?” I asked. Lara shook her head and began to pace around me.
“I swear my way is the best,” she said. “Direct connection to You-Know-Who.” Then she stopped to my right and shrugged. “Well, sort of anyway. I get whispers.” Lara's boots stomped their way behind me, and stopped.
“Either way, I can see in your eyes you just don't get it."
A cold needle poked against my neck.
“But you'll understand,” she said. “Very shortly."
25. Lara’s Just Full Of Hot Air
The needle broke the top layer of my skin. Then the world exploded. Or, I thought it did.
A loud crash of metal came from behind me. A split second later, the door that shut behind me flew across the room, over Chug-Lara's head and against the far wall of the room, just narrowly missing the Zone-shutdown lever.
I know, I know. Too much to ask for. But hey, it could've happened.
The second the door smacked against the wall, the room plunged into darkness. The three Laras screamed and must have scattered since the arms holding me down disappeared. I whipped around, swatting away the real Lara and the syringe. In the black that enveloped us, I heard the glass shatter in the ground.
“AUGH!” she screamed somewhere to my left. “That's my blood, you crazy girl! I can only make so much at a time!”
I backed up just to be safe, giving her no answer. Then I ran my hand across the back of my neck. It was wet. Did she get me? Was it over for Lucy? Was it Lara now?
Suddenly, the darkness fled the room and I could see again. Next to me, the darkness materialized into the tall, stocky build of Woodstock. Not darkness at all, I thought. Depression Agent smoke. Although, I didn't know it could be that dark. Or fill this big of a space.
“Sorry it took me so long to get in, mija,” he said with a small grin on his face. I was a little distracted with him actually standing there, then staring at Lara, who was frantically trying to get her clones to get up, and then the red liquid on my hand, to answer him.
Red.
A gasp of relief washed over me. I'd never been so happy to see my own blood. A stone's throw away, I saw the syringe and Lara's green blood lying in a pale puddle. She didn’t inject me.
“Change in plans,” Lara ordered. “I definitely want the big one's strength. Get him first and it's over for little Lucy girl.” Then she concentrated and four blobs of smoke shot out of her, forming into more Lara clones. Then they and the other three Laras pulled out syringes from...somewhere, (although, I suppose at this rate of crazy, they might as well have pulled them out of nowhere) and ran at Woodstock.
“Woodstock—"
“We'll catch up when we get out of this,” he cut me off, then he started to lead them away.
“Wait!” I shouted. His feet stumbled, but he stopped. “Don't get stabbed with those—you'll turn into her.” I said.
“I figured,” he said, jabbing a thumb at the one coming at him from the side: the one in Chug's clothes. Then he ran off back towards the open doorway he burst through, changing from solid to smoke-form in order to fight off the ones that got close.
“Chug!” I called out as the almost-complete Lara clone ran after me. I thought I still saw his eyes in there. A glimpse of Chug's mischievousness. I was right. The clone stopped and turned around. In Lara's wishy-washy undecided tone, he said: “Shut down the Zone. It might turn me back to normaaaaaAAAAAAAA!” he screamed in her voice, clutching his head.
The real Lara walked over, 'tsk'-ing at him. Her right hand was in a fist and I figured it had something to do with my friend writhing in p
ain. “Didn't I give you a job?” she asked, and then clapped twice. “Chop-chop!"
Chug-Lara ran off immediately, brandishing a green syringe and ready to pull Woodstock down Lara's mess of a rabbit hole.
“Now, as for you—” she said, turning to face me. But this time, I didn't take my one moment for granted.
While she yelled at Chug, I pulled out my paint whip. In this open area, it'd be much more effective than in the tent. Lara caught a glimpse of it and looked impressed.
“Finally, a fight!” she declared in a nonchalant voice. “I wish you would've started with that,” she said. “It's a lot easier to kill people when they're busy trying—and failing—to kill me.” I smirked at her.
“Now you're the one who doesn't understand,” I taunted her. “I'm not here to fight you; I'm going to shut down your Zone.” Lara folded her arms and pouted.
“Oh, don't be a spoil-sport. There's no fun in that. Plus, no one ends up dead!"
With that, she charged me, a fresh new green-blood filled syringe in hand. I flicked my paint whip to disarm her, but instead, the paint splattered all over the ground.
“What the heck?” I said. Not good.
“Oh?” Lara said. “Defective weapon?” I stood there for a moment in shock, almost letting her jab me in the arm. I barely sidestepped her attack at the last moment. I ran towards the lever, dipping my paintbrush in the canister that hung around it, but Lara cut me off.
“Uh-uh-uh,” she said, wagging her syringe. “Can't let you do that."
She charged me again, and I flung my whip at her. This time, the yellow rope did it's job. It swung wide, putting distance between me and Lara. I took the chance and ran past her, but she was ready—and it was a pretty slow swing. She took the moment of dodging to also make three more clones that launched her like an expert cheer team. She flew through the air, and with a ten out of ten somersault, she landed right back in front of me.
“I could do this all day,” she bragged. “Haven't broken a sweat in...who knows how long?” I scowled and tried again, baiting Lara to charge me. She happily took the chance, and I swung the whip as fast I could. It flew at Lara, but had considerably less range. With a back-hand spring or two, Lara dodged the attack and flipped in the right direction to cut me off—directly between the lever and I.
Lara must have noticed my frustration, because she shrugged and grinned. “When you have nothing to do, you kind of just get good at stuff,” she droned. “Like, this place doubles as my gymnastics studio."
“Is that all you do?” I asked, trying to think of another way around her. “What about the whispers you mentioned earlier?"
“Yeah, I listen to those too,” she said, hopping from foot to foot, waiting for my next strike. Instead of that, I just shifted to the left and right like her—matching her pace. “But they don't come very often anymore,” Lara added. “Different from back then. I always knew something was off about pretty much everyone and everything here. The whispers, HIS whispers, taught me how to go to other places and see what life really was."
She must have been talking about the other Depression Zones. What life could be. I could only picture my pale-skinned brother, looking like a ghost as he stared up at me in my Depression Zone. That's what that life really did. What Disorder actually did. But how could I get Lara to understand that?
“When I saw it,” she continued, a crazy gleam glowing in her eye, “What real life was...what it could be. The power it held"—Lara stopped to breathe, sounding as hungry for air as she was for this whacked-out fantasy—"I knew I had to right what that ridiculous old man wronged."
“Lara, your grandfather's trying to save you,” I said. “He didn't wrong anything."
“Tell that to my personality,” Lara said. “You think I get a kick out of cheering when I'm in tears? Think again!” She lunged at me.
I hesitated as she came at me. Luckily, my brain pulled me back into the game, shouting MOVE, YOU IDIOT!
I jumped out of the way, but not before Lara tore off a piece of my sleeve. The cold metal felt hot as it cut my arm, but the pain just reminded me it could've been much worse. Lara's momentum carried her a few more steps, so I took the chance to run at the lever again.
Three steps later, my whip weighed a ton and yanked me back. I turned around to see what was going on and my jaw fell to the ground.
Lara was booking it around me, smoke flying out of her like crazy. It hovered a few feet over my whip and blobs of it fell out, solidifying into Laras. Each clone fell onto the whip, adding pressure. As they piled on, it forced the bottom ones to fall onto the paint itself. But when they did, they evaporated back into smoke and shot back towards Lara, only to be launched back into the mass above my paint whip.
She had a Lara-raincloud. (Clone-cloud?)
“I could keep this up forever,” she said as she ran past me, “but I won't cause myself the trouble.” Lara skittered to a stop, once again between me and the shutdown lever. She wore a smug grin on her face. Then she snapped her fingers and all the smoke rushed back to her at once. She staggered back for a second, but played it off with the same smug expression on her face. “See? All good.” she said politely. “And that's been the best part of kicking that old man out, the fearful washed-up wimp. It's all this power.” She held out the syringe to me to emphasize her point.
“Disorder told me I had hidden potential, but I never knew it would be like this,” she continued, licking her lips. “As soon as that old man was gone, my power grew. I assimilated everyone left in the Zone, growing my armor...” She trailed off, glancing at the lever. Before I realized what was happening, she started walking over to it.
“But you know,” she continued. “That’s made it pretty boring. The only other people I get to see are the ones stupid enough to break in—and they don’t usually last this long."
This made my brain feel like it failed a backflip and imploded in on itself as a result, so of course I said something super intelligent like, “Huh?”
Lara stopped, looking down at the lever in her grip. “Maybe a change will be good,” she said, and I didn't know which part of her personality had become the mask in that moment.
Her voice was full of regret, which should have meant she was totally okay with her choice, but the look in her gold and blue eyes was the same. Was she okay with shutting down the Zone? I didn’t get it.
How could a girl life a life as messed up as hers and finally turn around on it on nothing more than a whim? Then again, every moment I'd been around this crazy girl, she seemed to peel back a new layer of crazy just when I thought I figured her out. Maybe this was finally the center—regret.
As I gazed into her two unique eyes, searching for the answer, I didn't realize what the look on her face was actually doing. Distracting me.
Lara cackled at me, and threw the syringe straight at my face. There was another layer of crazy to her.
I panicked as the small, sharp medical tool few at me. This time, my body moved before my mind could scream at me—I brought up the paint whip and knocked it out of the air (phew), but Lara took that split-second of time I was focused surviving the syringe, to sprint right at me.
The second my whip hit the ground, she wasted no time kicking me square in the chest. Her combat boot knocked all the air and then some out of me, and I fell to the ground. Hard.
Lara stamped down on my wrist, crushing my paintbrush out of my grip. I yelled in pain. She reached into one of her overall pockets and pulled out a fresh syringe—how many did she keep on her?—and knelt down on her other foot. She used her free hand to push my jacket sleeve up, exposing my bare skin. “No!” I squirmed, trying to get free, but this girl had a heck of a lot of strength. She moved her other knee on top of my arm and pushed down hard, and my face contorted into one of horror.
“Stop squirming,” she said, “otherwise your vein's never gonna show.” She took the syringe and began tracing the inside of my arm with it. “The process goes a lot faster when it
goes straight into the bloodstream...” She trailed off, gazing at my face, before bursting into laughter. “It won't be that bad,” she said between giggles, “But your face, oh that's rich!” I shook my head. Lara didn't get it.
“Look out—” I tried to say, but it wasn’t quick enough.
Lara's laughter turned to a harsh, shrill scream as a long hunting knife shot through the front of her chest.
Then, POOF! Lara exploded into a million gray particles of smoke. Around me, I heard the same POOF come from the rest of the clones, and then they all flew upward. They swirled around the room into a giant cloud, making the room much darker. Then it vanished, and I was left on the ground, staring up at the bloodthirsty grin of the Task Force leader.
“Gotcha!” Stark growled.
26. I Didn’t Kill Him, But He Better Be Dead
A tremor rumbled under the ground, and Stark lost his balance. I tried to use that moment to get away: scooting back and attempting to stand all at the same time, but Stark regained his composure by clawing his hand around my leg. I screamed and tried to pry my leg out of his grip, but the pressure of his grip was way tighter than Lara's foot on my wrist. He grinned, twirling his knife in his other hand.
This is not good, I thought. I'm doing nothing but panicking. How do I get out of this now? Where's my paint whip? No...That won't do any good. It barely worked against Lara, and he already proved it wouldn't work on him once before. I'll stand no chance against him. Heck, I'm not standing, period. Not good.
Notgoodnotgoodnotgood—
BOOM! A chunk of the ground cracked apart behind Stark, and he jumped to avoid falling down. Then the ground started to sink. I rose to my knees, and found my paintbrush just before the ground in front of me split and began to sink. I took huge wobbly steps as I rose to my feet, narrowly finding myself back on solid ground.
Hyped up on adrenaline or fear (Let's just say I couldn't tell), I flailed my arm, launching attack after attack at Stark with my paint whip. But with each strike, Stark simply cut through the paint with his knife, and a splash of yellow paint fell to the ground. My breathing grew sharp and quick. I swung harder and faster. It felt like my whip was even trying it's hardest, stretching further even though Stark kept cutting it short. But it was a futile effort.