by Elle E. Ire
The mirrors are unbreakable, immovable, but what about the covers? Would they secure something that I would never have any desire to remove since that would reveal the glass beneath?
I step to the rear of the closest mirror, grasp the rolled-up fabric in both hands, and yank on it, hard. It tears at the edge, then comes off with another couple of sharp pulls. I want to jump for joy or at least pump my fist in the air, but I’m too damn tired and settle for an exhalation of relief.
VC1 helps guide me back to the room’s halfway point beneath the balcony, and ten minutes later I have a pile of black fabric rolls collected at my feet. Another five and I’ve shredded them into thick strips of cloth and tied the strips together to form a makeshift rope. I tug off one boot and use the laces to tie the footwear to the end of my rope to make an anchor. Then I step back from the balcony until I have a clear view of the railing.
It’s a metal bar with a narrow space between it and a solid panel. Not a lot of room for error. I have to throw my boot just right so that it goes over the railing and through that narrow opening to drop back down to me.
“VC1, I need some very precise calculations.”
Working on it.
A major advantage to having the AI as part of my actual brain is the lack of need to repeat myself. She’s always listening. She knows what I know. Unnerving at times but helpful now.
The margin of error is too narrow for you to accomplish the goal on your own or even with my assistance. You will need to give me control in order for us to succeed.
Damn. I was hoping to avoid that. “Am I strong enough to take control back when you’re done?” It’s always a risk, turning things over to her. I’m beyond thinking she’ll take advantage of the situation and keep my mind and body for her own. I trust her. But when I’m physically and emotionally stressed, my psyche sometimes shies away from retaking responsibility for my own actions, leaving her to manage all of me until I’m stable.
I believe you are strong enough. If not, I will use the interim to locate the second clone and Kelly. And… thank you for your trust. You have not always felt so.
I nod, knowing she will feel it or see it through the conference room’s cameras. “Okay, hang on a sec.” I remove all my overlay armor, the vest and arm coverings, and toss them up over the railing onto the balcony. Climbing will be easier without all the bulk, but I’m not leaving them behind. I have a feeling I’m going to need that gear. “All right, I’m ready.” I take a couple of deep, cleansing breaths to prepare myself for the switch. When it comes, it’s abrupt, like a shroud thrown over my head and a sizzling jolt that knocks out my external senses.
For a moment, I’m deaf and blind. The absence of sensation moves to the forefront of my perception as I note my complete inability to feel anything: not the growling of my stomach over a missed lunch, an urge to pee from being trapped in the room, not even the brush of air currents across my skin from the ventilation system. Nothing.
I’ve only been this way once before that I can remember, and that’s when I needed to bury the body of my… original, for want of a better term. I’d been so emotionally overwrought that I couldn’t complete a single step in the process, and VC1 had done it all. This is unpleasant, I send into the darkness of what I perceive to be the space inside my own head. Do this quick, okay?
Working on it now.
Why can’t I feel anything? Was I that close to overload? Surely I should sense the movement of my own body. Under other circumstances, I’ve seen, heard, and felt what VC1 is doing when she’s in control, just been unable to intervene.
You are stressed from the maze, frustrated by our inability to escape the room, and panicking over Kelly’s potential circumstances. I am maintaining your functionality, but for these additional tasks, I need to redirect my focus from you to the task. Now quiet, please. I must concentrate.
Alone, in the darkness of my own head, the worry creeps in worse than ever. How much time has passed since I entered the mirror maze? I can’t ask VC1 right now, but I’m guessing it’s been over an hour, maybe two—less than I think, more than I want. Feels like I’ve been in here for days. I also realize I’m not completely sensory deprived. Tugs on my body make themselves known to my brain. A distant rhythmic pounding might be my heartbeat. My physical self, under VC1’s guidance, is doing something strenuous. The whole thing is unnerving, to say the least.
Sight returns in a sudden bright flash, and I squeeze my eyes shut and cover them with a hand that responds to my commands. Blinking furiously, I ease it away a little at a time until they readjust to the conference room’s overhead illumination, embedded discreetly in the ornate ceiling.
A ceiling a lot closer to me than it was before.
“We made it,” I breathe, taking in my new position on the balcony. Something warm and wet covers the lower left side of my chin, and I swipe at it with the back of my hand. It comes away with a smear of blood. “What the hell?”
I am not as infallible as you believe. I caught your chin on the railing as I was hauling us over it. Sorry.
It’s a small price to pay for my—no, our—freedom. Pronouns for being half of a symbiotic pair are confusing. “No worries,” I tell my counterpart. I glance around the small balcony, spotting my boot lying beside me, still attached to the fabric rope, and the rest of my armor scattered around. But the boot is not connected to the railing. I’d thought to throw it and have it wrap around a few times as an anchor, then pull myself up.
“Um, how the hell did we get up here?”
The thickness of the boot was too wide to throw through the space beneath the railing. I threw it over the top. Then you climbed up a mirror, balanced yourself atop two of them, and jumped… which is how your chin hit the railing.
“You’re saying I wasted a lot of time making a rope I didn’t need.”
That is what I am saying, yes. Neither of us thought of climbing a mirror until the last moment. Do not concern yourself with things you cannot change.
I nod and unknot the bootlaces from the rope so I can pull it on, then reach for and reattach the armor to the rest of me. Using the railing, I lever myself to a standing position and feel the burn in both my arm and leg muscles. I don’t know what VC1 had to do to get us up here, but it must have been one helluva workout.
Leaving me that much less ready for a fight.
I shake that thought away, literally, working out the kinks in my shoulders and neck. One problem at a time. Taking a deep breath, I peer through the crack in the partially open door.
Nothing. No movement. No sound. I check my internal chronometer now that VC1 isn’t diverting herself so much: 1636 local time. I was in the maze for two hours and thirty-six minutes.
It’s coming on dinnertime in the facility. The hallways should be bustling with food service carts and personnel, nurses giving the evening medications, doctors making final rounds, but it’s silent and still.
“Anything?” I whisper, my voice loud in the silence despite my efforts.
No access beyond the doors, VC1 responds.
Great.
I take a step out, then two. A flicker catches my eye, emergency warning lights coming on at last, now flashing steadily above all the doors lining the hall. I turn toward the stairwell and bound down the steps two at a time, terrified of what I might find when I emerge on the first floor.
Chapter 44: Kelly—Solutions
Vick is in my soul.
MY HAIR hangs in my eyes. I blow at the strands to clear my vision, glad VC2 isn’t here to push them aside for me. A shiver rolls from my neck to the base of my spine. So alike and so very, very different. Same genetics, different minds. Says a lot for nature vs. nurture, or, if not nurture, then whatever the exposure to certain experience memories counts for.
Where is Vick? Did she get out of the maze? She’s been so close to success, maybe she got back up and finished the test, especially given so much recovery time. Or is she trapped, weakened, waiting for rescue that will co
me in the form of VC2’s imminent attack?
And what about me? Useless. That’s what I am. Tie some rope around my limbs and I’m out of commission. Some member of the Fighting Storm I turned out to be.
Okay, that’s unfair to myself, and I know it. I’m support personnel, not a field operative, not really. But Vick has worked hard over the years to teach me basic skills: self-defense, a mean right hook, beginner piloting, general physical fitness, and other survival assets. I should be able to get myself out of this. Somehow.
The sun’s going down, the quality of light changing from bright daylight to warmer evening tones. My stomach rumbles. I had a snack in the green room, but no lunch, and it’s probably dinnertime by now, and if I were speaking out loud, I’d be babbling. Instead my thoughts chase themselves in endless irrelevant circles.
I tug on my wrist and ankle bonds, succeeding in causing more painful abrasions before I give up. If there’s one thing VC2 knows, it’s how to tie a proper knot.
Vick would have knives hidden in three places on her person. Well, maybe not now. Definitely not now. As a patient at the Klenar Facility, she is not allowed any kind of weapons. That’s why she had Robert for protection.
My heart twists at the thought of Robert—and Dr. Nuzzi—lying in the hallway, blood spreading everywhere. My stomach turns over, and I fear I’ll lose the little bit of food I consumed. Swallowing hard, I get my body under control. Small victories.
The darker it becomes, the more time that passes, the less likely I’ll be able to do anything and the more likely VC2 will return… having killed Vick.
No. I’m not letting that happen, if it hasn’t already.
If I could smack myself, I’d do it. Thinking like that helps no one.
Rocking myself from side to side, I manage to roll onto my knees. Getting to my feet is much harder. I lean forward, putting pressure on my bound wrists and the sides of my hands, then attempt a little jump that lands me on my side once more. If I live through this, I’m going to have a bruise the size of a dinnerplate on that hip.
Five more attempts and bruising on both hips and I make it to my feet. Yay. Now what?
The light is even dimmer now, the sun blocked by both mountains and trees. Klenar has lots of exterior spotlights that make the surrounding lawns practically glow at night, so bright that Vick and I draw all the curtains in our suite of rooms just to get any sleep… or do anything else. But the trees prevent most of those lights from reaching the storage building as well.
I waver on my tied-together feet, my balance off with the unusual stance, and peer into the corners. Tons of winter athletic gear. There must be something sharp I can use. My eyes rake over the snowmobiles, but they’re all curved plastic and smooth metal. And far. I mean, okay, ten feet or so isn’t far, but when you’re going to be hopping the whole way, distance takes on a new perspective. Even if there’s a broken piece on one of them, I’m bound to fall more than once trying to get there.
Rotating with care, I face the back of the space. Snowshoes, all-weather rubber boots, some spare parkas. Nothing helpful. The other side is more snowmobiles, and by the front door are skates… with metal blades. Sharp metal blades. And farther away from me than the snowmobiles.
At least they’re in the right direction for the door, and a sure thing to cut my ropes if I can reach them.
I give an experimental hop, then another and another, before I go down hard on my knees. Something in my left knee pops, sending pain reverberating up my thigh and down to my bound ankle. Oh, that’s just wonderful. It’s not excruciating, probably a sprain, but it makes getting back up even harder than the first time. And hopping? Oh God, that hurts.
I get five more hops before I take another tumble, this time smashing my face into the hardwood floor. My teeth drive into my lower lip, and the coppery taste of blood fills my mouth. Holding up both wrists, I manage to wipe the worst of it on my sleeves, but I must look horrific. When Vick sees me, she’ll—
If she’s still alive.
I need to know. I’ve been hesitant to lower my walls after my brief link with VC2. She did damage and I’m still emotionally fragile, but now I drop the barriers and reach out with my empathic sense… and almost sob with relief. She’s alive. The blue line that connects us is faint at this distance, but not invisible, leading out beneath the door and across to the mental health center. She’s alive. For now.
A new wave of determination fills me, and instead of standing, I drag myself forward the last few feet on knees and elbows, ignoring the pain in both. When I’m beneath the dangling skates, so near and yet so far, the logs of the wall provide good handholds for me to haul myself upright once more.
I study the pairs of hanging skates and select the best-maintained, sharpest-looking ones. Twisting my arms at an awkward angle, I use my elbow to press the skates against the wall for leverage while I rub the ropes between my wrists back and forth over the blades. I’m not the most coordinated on my best days, and it would be just like me to slit my own skin open during this process, so I’m extra careful even while I’m trying to hurry. After ten or fifteen minutes of sawing, the strands of the rope part, one by one by one until I’m free.
With the use of two separate hands, cutting the ankle ropes is much easier, taking only a handful of minutes to snap them. I toss the skates into a pile of tarps on the floor and study the door VC2 left by.
A jerk on the handle tells me what I already know; it’s locked from the outside, and the mechanism on the interior of the door looks damaged. A couple of attempts confirm VC2 disabled it so it can’t be opened from within. I roll my eyes. Not sure why a shed at an isolated mental health facility needs locks at all. Maybe they’re worried about adventurous yetis. Another scan of the room reiterates that it is the only door in the building.
With the only window.
It doesn’t take much to use a skate blade to smash the window. Then I wrap my sleeve over my hand to swipe away the remaining glass. For a moment, I consider screaming for help, but it might bring VC2 instead, so I don’t. Instead, I shove an empty crate in front of the door, stand on it, use the window’s edge to lever myself up, and squirm my way through the narrow opening.
Vick would have had no trouble with this. She’s taller, but lean and wiry. My chest and hips both get caught, and for a horrible minute, I worry this is how I’ll be captured again—stuck half in and half out of a door’s window. My twisted knee screams as I use my toes for one last push, and then I’m falling, of course, headfirst onto the ground outside.
I guess I’m lucky that, one, there isn’t a concrete walkway or something, and two, I don’t cut myself on the shards of glass scattered across the dirt pathway, but it hurts, and I’ve opened my split lip again.
Whatever. I’m free. I wipe away the new blood flow on my already stained sleeve and jog down the path, letting the trees around me hide me from sight. When I reach the edge of the clearing, all lit up with spotlights from the facility, I stop and study the multiwinged structure.
Well, someone knows there’s a problem. Emergency lights on the roof and sides of Vick’s wing are flashing an orange-yellow, although there are no interior lights on in that section. The thrum of distant alarms, muffled by the brick and stone, reaches my ears. There’s a cluster of men and women in Klenar uniforms, along with a handful in scrubs and lab coats gathered around the nearest outside door. What looks like a technician, toolkit beside him, kneels in front of the electronic locking mechanism. Even as I watch, he looks up at the medical professionals and shakes his head.
They can’t get in. VC2 has overridden the locks.
Chapter 45: Vick—Confrontation
I am pissed.
“LET ME know if you regain access to the building’s systems,” I say under my breath once I reach the exit to the stairwell on the first floor. “I’m not big on going in blind.”
Acknowledged.
VC1 sounds a little miffed. “Um, please? Look, I’m not trying to treat you
like a machine when I give you orders. I’m trying to treat you like any member of my team. Even if you solved the balcony problem without me, I do kinda consider myself in charge of this unit most of the time. Okay?”
Okay. I am… pleased that you consider me a team member and not an accessory. And unless you place me in control, you are most definitely in charge, though I may take some liberties if I see a way to improve our odds in a situation.
“Just… keep me in the loop, please, whenever possible.”
A chuckle in my head. Affirmative.
Okay, then.
The emergency lights are still flashing both in the stairwell and the hallway I can see through the face-sized window in the stairwell door. Far in the distance, an alarm is ringing, though I think that’s coming from outside or another wing in the facility. How much havoc has VC2 caused?
I stand on tiptoe in order to see as much of the corridor as I can through the small glass pane. At least it isn’t reflective. I’ve seen quite enough of my infrastructure for one day.
Nothing appears amiss in the hall, except the absence of all personnel and patients, and some disturbing bloodstains on the far wall. All right, yeah, that’s pretty amiss, actually. No sign of VC2.
With caution, I push the door open, getting about an inch before it stops. Not a security measure. Something is on the other side, on the floor, blocking the door. I shove harder, making it another foot when red begins seeping beneath the bottom crack. Startled, I jump backward to avoid the horrific flow.
I have to take a wide stance and then press with all my upper body strength so as not to step in the puddle of blood at my feet. I don’t have to see it to know I’m shoving a human being along with the door. Once I’ve opened it wide enough, I slip through the space and into the hall, where I’m greeted by the wide-open, unseeing eyes of Dr. Nuzzi staring up at me from the tile.