by Lynette Noni
The trio looked at one another before turning back to Johnny. “We’re listening.”
There were three other doors leading from the padded room, and using Johnny’s remote access to open the furthest one, they followed his direction into the long, dark chamber before them.
It was only once the door sealed behind them that he absentmindedly said, “Heads up, you’re about to get wet.”
“Wha—”
Alex’s question was cut off when a billowing mass of cloud materialised above them just seconds before a torrential downpour of water fell straight onto their heads.
“Run!” Bear cried, his voice garbled by the lashing rain. He grabbed both Alex and D.C.’s arms and yanked them along. Not that they needed the motivation, since they were just as desperate to escape the unnatural weather phenomenon.
“No, Bear, stop! Alex! Dix! Stop! Stop!”
It took a few shouts before Alex was able to hear Johnny’s yelling over the sound of the deluge, but she came to a sudden halt as soon as his words processed. It was only then that she began to feel the rain vaporise around her and a glow of artificial sunlight kiss her skin. She looked up and marvelled at the sight high above them.
Glancing backward, Alex could still see the rain bucketing down from miserable-looking clouds by the entrance. But looking around her now…
“Is this some kind of weather room?” she asked.
The large chamber appeared to be sectioned into different climate categories. Where Alex and her friends currently stood was a clear blue sky, fluffy white cumulus clouds and, perhaps strangest of all, a synthetic sun. Looking further across the room, she could see all kinds of weather scenarios playing out within bordered segments of the room. Clearly the ChemTech R&D department was earning their keep.
“Yes, Alex, and don’t move another step!” Johnny ordered, his features pinched and his tone laced with anxiety. “I thought I could deactivate the room remotely but the coding is more complex than I anticipated. I can do it, but it will take a few minutes and you don’t have the time to spare. You’ll have to make a run for it.”
“Then why’d you tell us to stop?” Bear sounded belligerent as he squeezed water from his shirt.
D.C. gave a frowning nod of agreement as she too wrung out her sodden clothes and twisted her soaked hair, leaving a puddle of water on the marble tiles.
With a troubling feeling that they weren’t out of the worst of it yet, Alex didn’t bother attempting to dry off.
“Because I need to warn you,” Johnny said, “that some of the weather is… reactive.”
D.C. stopped wringing out her hair. “Reactive?”
Johnny chose not to explain. Instead he gave them an impishly apologetic look and said, “Keep moving and you should be fine. The last section will be the most dangerous, but I’ll have your exit door open by the time you get there, so just sprint straight through. Okay?”
“No, not okay!” D.C. cried. “Do you want to give us some more details?”
Johnny turned his attention to his second Device and muttered, “I have a door to unlock. You’d better start running.”
Before D.C. could open her mouth to protest, Alex grabbed her arm and pulled her along. “Come on, Dix. The sooner we get moving, the sooner we’ll be out of here.”
Two
Leading the way at a fast pace, Alex felt the air turn clammy as the sunshine dissolved behind them. Visibility was near to nothing as they entered the next weather zone and a fog-like mist arose from beneath their feet, swiftly obscuring everything in sight. It was disorienting, but Alex pressed on, running forward until she crossed into the next climate. Almost immediately her feet slipped out from underneath her and she fell onto the hard, ice-covered floor.
Dazed from the fall, she managed to yell, “Watch your step!”
But it was too late for D.C., who hit the slippery ground and slid along until she came to a jarring stop in a tangle of limbs at Alex’s feet.
Bringing up the rear, Bear at least heard the warning in time, and was able to get away with a slight skating of his feet without losing his footing.
“Eugh,” D.C. grunted, pushing up to stand. She made a whimpering sound, causing Alex to glance at her with alarm.
“Are you hurt?”
Holding her left hand tenderly, D.C. bit her lip. “I landed pretty hard on my wrist.”
“Here, let me look,” Bear said as Alex stood and slid her way over to them.
He gently rolled D.C.’s wrist back and forth, pressing carefully against the bones.
“Your movement is good,” Bear said. “I think it’s just sprained.”
D.C.’s face was tight with pain. “I’ll be fine. Let’s keep moving.”
“Dix—”
“Alex, I’m fine. Really. Let’s go.”
Taking in the determined look on her friend’s face, Alex slowly nodded. But before she led the way onwards, she unwound the scarf from her neck and used it to tie her ComTCD to D.C.’s wrist as an improvised splint.
“Try to keep it as still as possible,” Alex said. “The more you move it, the worse you’ll make it.”
“You’ve spent way too much time in the Med Ward,” D.C. observed, studying Alex’s rudimentary attempt at first aid. “But thanks. It already feels a bit better.”
“Thank Fletcher,” Alex said. “He’s patched me up so many times, I was bound to learn a thing or two.”
On that wry note, Alex edged her way forward again, carefully this time. Her feet slid along the icy floor, and more than once she had to catch herself before taking another header onto the ground. Their slow progress was made more frustrating when greenish clouds rolled in and began to spit small hailstones at them. They weren’t large enough to cause worrying injuries, but Alex certainly obtained her fair share of stinging bruises. It was a relief, therefore, when they crossed into the next weather section, even if it sent them directly into a blustery snowstorm.
“This place is mental!” Alex cried over the howling wind as they trudged their way through the knee-deep snow. A mass of flurries blew straight into her mouth just from emitting those few words, so she refrained from yelling anything else to her friends until they reached the next section.
Soaked and shivering from the piercing chill of the blizzard, they were grateful to cross the boundary into a section that was both silent and still. But just when Alex thought they were in the clear, the back of her neck began to prickle with warning and a peculiar tingly feeling overcame her.
“Run!” came Johnny’s urgent voice from Bear’s ComTCD. “Run, run, run!”
Alex didn’t need to be told twice. She remembered what he’d said about the last section being the most dangerous, and when a ferocious rumble was followed closely by a blinding light and an ear-splitting CRACK, she understood exactly why he hadn’t given them more details.
They were right in the middle of an electrical storm. And judging by the amount of static charge Alex felt and the strong smell of ozone in the air, it was a nasty one, at that.
With Bear and D.C. right behind her, Alex took off at a sprint through the low-hanging dark clouds, heading for the open door that was still an alarming distance away. Another thunderous roar had Alex slapping her hands over her ears, and she couldn’t suppress a shriek when a spike of lightning struck the floor so close that she felt the power of the bolt surge along her skin.
Alex picked up her speed, but as they reached the halfway mark of the storm-section, the lightning and thunder increased to the point that the three of them had to zigzag their way in short, sharp lunges to avoid being struck. It was only then that Alex remembered Johnny saying that some of the weather was reactive—the storm was actively tracking them, targeting their movements as they hurried through the room.
With that insight, Alex struggled against her rising panic. Instead, she focused on getting out of there alive, blinking furiously to combat the blinding explosions of light. Just a few feet away from the door, she heard the loude
st CRACK yet and knew they had but a few seconds before their luck would run out and they would be burnt to a crisp.
“Hurry!” she yelled, taking a running leap directly through the doorway, noting with relief that Bear and D.C. were right on her heels.
She came to a sudden, messy stop when she soared straight into a mud-filled pond. Bear and D.C. managed to avoid the pile of dirty sludge, but Alex was elbow deep in the muck and covered from head to toe from the splash of her landing.
“Eww, gross,” she said, pushing up and wiping a hand across her face, only smearing the mess further.
She heard a muffled snort and whipped her head around to see a wild-haired D.C. with her uninjured hand over her mouth, her eyes sparkling with humour. It was the liveliest Alex had seen her since Jordan’s Claiming—even if it was at the expense of Alex’s own dignity.
As for Bear, his hair was standing on end, and half his face was streaked with what looked like charcoal—the effect of a close call with the lightning—but he, too, appeared to be struggling to hold back laughter as he took in Alex’s muddy predicament.
“Not a word,” she said with a warning glare.
D.C. and Bear were shaking with silent hysterics, but they swallowed back their hilarity with pressed lips and quick nods.
“Johnny, please tell me we’re close?” Alex called, deliberately ignoring his muffled chuckle when he noted her appearance through the ComTCD.
“Just get through this last room and you’ll hit the skywalk,” he said, eyes dancing with mirth. “There’s a guard still patrolling your side of the tower, so you’ll have a straight path along the corridor from there.”
Finally, some good news, Alex thought.
“What are we dealing with in here?” Bear asked his brother.
Glancing around, Alex noted that it appeared to be some kind of plant-filled greenhouse.
“The schematics say it’s a terrarium,” Johnny answered. “You shouldn’t have anything to worry about. Just follow the path and take a right at the fork. You’ll hit the next door soon after. I’ll have it ready for you.”
Walking through the quiet of the plant-strewn terrarium would have been almost peaceful, but Alex was too preoccupied with swatting away the swarms of insects wanting to feast on her flesh. All too soon she was covered in itchy welts and desperate to escape the incessant creatures.
While slapping at the bugs, Alex, Bear and D.C. managed to avoid three more large mud ponds before arriving at one that was bordered by a forest so dense they had to squelch their way through the grunge to get to the other side. Alex was already covered in the filth so she didn’t care so much, but neither Bear nor D.C. were thrilled about suctioning their way through the knee-high mud.
They took a right at the fork as directed and continued on until the door came into view.
“That wasn’t so bad, comparatively,” D.C. said, scratching her bites as they approached the exit.
When Johnny gave the go-ahead, they stepped out of the room and into another identical hallway.
Alex could clearly see the boundary of their side of the building, since the walls came to an abrupt end, yet the hallway continued through a glass-enclosed tunnel joining the two towers of the facility.
“Hope you guys aren’t afraid of heights,” Alex said, approaching the skywalk.
D.C. swallowed. “I’m not a huge fan of them.”
“Nothing is as bad as the Meyarin’s Valispath, right?” Bear said, reminding them of the invisible rollercoaster that was the Eternal Path. “You managed okay with that.”
D.C. sent him a disbelieving look. “I didn’t have much choice at the time, if memory serves.”
“Unless you want to get friendly with the guard, you don’t have much of a choice now, either,” Alex interjected. She nudged D.C. and offered her a quick, teasing grin. “Suck it up, princess.”
Laughing inwardly at the face D.C. pulled, Alex stepped out onto the skywalk, closely followed by her friends.
Bear was right; it was nothing compared to the sheer terror of riding the Valispath. But they were quite high, and Alex had to make a concentrated effort not to look down. She only just managed to bite back a smile when she heard D.C. whispering to herself something along the lines of, “I’m going to kill Jordan for this.”
That’s the D.C. I know, Alex thought, happy to see some of her zest and spirit returning, even if the cause of it wasn’t exactly ideal.
When they safely reached the other side, Bear informed them that they had less than fifteen minutes to get into the server room and out of the facility before their access codes would be invalid. Alex knew then that it was not only a foolish mission, but it was also an impossible one. But they’d come this far. And there was no turning back now.
Hurrying straight down the thankfully clear corridor, they headed directly towards the surveillance room. Bear opened the doorway by repeating the TCD handprint and retinal scans, and as soon as the three of them flew into the room, he called his brother back onto the screen to ask, “What now?”
“Turn your Device around and show me what you see.”
As Bear followed Johnny’s command, Alex looked around the bright, circular room. Standing in the centre of the otherwise empty space was a large golden globe that glistened against a pearlescent, nearly glowing floor.
“See the TechSphere?” Johnny said. “Press your hand against it to activate it.”
When Bear reached his arm forward to follow Johnny’s order, his brother cried out, “No! Not your hand—the hand I gave you!”
Alex let out a quiet huff of laughter at the absurdity of their situation—or perhaps more at the nearly identical frustrated expressions on both Bear and Johnny’s faces.
After accepting the scanned handprint clearance, the TechSphere lit up, and with it, so did the rest of the room. The previously blank walls were now buzzing with energy as if ready and waiting at attention.
“Now input the codes I gave you,” Johnny instructed, and Bear did so using quick finger swipes too complex for Alex and D.C. to follow.
Johnny’s complicated guidance began to fly over their heads and blur into gibberish, but thankfully Bear was able to keep up and he cried out a triumphant, “I’m in!” when the system unlocked.
“Awesome,” Alex said, moving up beside him to peer at the bunch of letters and numbers within the Sphere, all written in code. “Do you know how to find—”
“Just a sec, Alex,” Bear distractedly interrupted. “I think I’m… There! I think I’ve got it! Johnny, can you confirm?” He pulled the Device close and spun it around, showing the TechSphere’s code to his brother.
Johnny’s hologram squinted at the sequence of random symbols and he nodded enthusiastically. “That entry was definitely hacked in the not-too-distant past. A dodgy job too, since whoever it was didn’t clean the feed or wipe clear their tracks. I’m pretty sure that’s what you’re after, guys.”
Needing no further prompting, Bear input something into the Sphere’s server and one wall of the room instantly came to life, like a massive television screen. The footage that began playing was grainy and the poor quality degenerated further as the feed dropped in and out, but Alex could still recognise the same room they were standing in on the screen, with very few differences. The main one being the young man shown in the video.
“Is that…?” D.C. whispered, her eyes wide.
As if he heard her, the man abruptly turned to face the hidden surveillance camera. D.C. let out a strangled sounding noise and even Alex sucked in a breath, recognising his profile. His blond hair was about six years overdue for a cut and his scraggly beard made him look like a caveman, but his bright blue eyes combined with his bone structure and athletic body shape made his resemblance to Jordan unquestionable.
“I don’t believe it,” Bear said in a quiet, incredulous voice. “Aven… Jordan’s parents… They were all telling the truth. Luka’s alive.”
Alex was able to pull herself together first.
If what Jordan had said really was him speaking freely—and outside of Aven’s influence—then the footage he’d seen had to have been believable enough to ask Aven to Claim him. Though, Alex wasn’t sure whether to believe that actually happened or if Aven really did take Jordan against his will.
To her unending frustration, Alex knew nothing was certain.
“Johnny,” she called, “are you able to confirm if this footage is legit?”
After some more incomprehensible gibberish, Alex ascertained that Johnny had managed to open a network through Bear’s Device to download the footage directly—which was something he hadn’t been able to do remotely without having someone on the inside to input the codes manually.
“I’m running it through my scanners as we speak,” he said, ending his Techno-babble spiel by answering her question. “I just need a minute.”
He took two, but when he came back to them it was with a shuttered, disappointed expression. “It’s fake, guys. I’m sorry.”
“What?” D.C. exhaled sharply. “But—But he looks just like Jordan!”
“It’s an enhanced digital likeness, likely rendered from an image of Jordan himself and aged a decade into the future.”
Jordan had been deceived all along, and Alex felt the crushing devastation of what that meant. If they ever found a way to free their friend from Aven, he’d have to come to terms with Luka’s death all over again.
“I’m sorry, guys,” Johnny filled the hanging silence. “I know that’s not the news you were after.”
At least we now know the truth, Alex thought, sad as it was.
“If you hurry, I can still get you out before—” Johnny broke off and his face paled when something on his other Device caught his attention. He leaned in closer to it and his eyes widened as he released a string of curse words. “Guys, it looks like you left muddy footprints in the corridor and that guard in the other tower has just flagged them and raised the alarm. She’s on her way to you, along with every other guard in the facility. You need to move. Now.”