The turned humans were so weak they could hardly raise their heads, and they lay, panting on the ground, their eyes half closed in pain.
“So now you’ve seen it for yourself,” Lawrence announced. “You have seen and recorded the cure in action.”
The two employees were dumbstruck, even as the cameraman lowered his camera.
“And now you have no excuse not to cooperate with us in reporting this news,” I told them sternly. Of course, we had them trapped in that room, and we could’ve forced them to make the broadcast. But I wanted them to see it for themselves, to no longer be hoodwinked by the IBSI.
The two men nodded, though they looked terrified. There was a different type of terror in their eyes now—more dread and fear. They feared the truth, and what broadcasting it would do to them. But as we would hopefully show them in the hours to come, no matter how tangled a web of lies was woven, truth always triumphed in the end.
Ben
We rushed back to the broadcasting station, bringing the three turned humans with us. We arrived to find Shayla still maintaining order—not that there was much order to maintain. Everybody in the room was still frozen.
We laid the three humans on the ground before Corrine suggested, “Shayla, now that I’m back to retake control, why don’t you go and take these poor humans back to the hospital in The Shade? Find somebody to help them, leave them there and return.”
“Good idea,” Shayla murmured, even as she eyed the humans. Then she vanished with them, leaving us to our next task.
Recording that footage had taken guts on the part of the cameraman and the manager, but this next step would take a whole lot more.
Corrine glanced around the room at the frozen statues. “If I release the spell, can I trust you all to behave yourselves?” she asked.
They responded with murmurs of yes. I didn’t trust any of them, however, so before Corrine removed the spell, Xavier and I stood at each of the exits—the main exit leading to the elevator, and another, on the other side of the floor, which was a fire exit.
Corrine relinquished her magic while Lawrence took center stage and began to command the employees.
They moved to the studio and began preparations for a broadcast. I caught many of them glancing wistfully at the exits—clearly none of them wanted to have anything to do with this. They feared the IBSI would make them regret it, but it was time that they all grew some balls.
Ten minutes later, they were ready to roll.
They projected the footage on a large screen as Lawrence took his place in front of the cameras. He began to introduce himself as the man who was proclaimed to be dead by the IBSI, and proceeded with the story of the IBSI’s deceit. I couldn’t help but feel a swell of pride for Lawrence—pride that I was sure his mother would have felt—as he looked determinedly, steely, into the camera.
But Lawrence barely got halfway through the broadcast before an explosion shook the building. Somewhere above us, a bomb had detonated, causing a resounding tremor that ran through the walls and floors. The lights buzzed and flickered out.
Being furthest away, I didn’t have time to make it to the witch as she gathered everyone in the room together. I thinned myself and rose up through the crumbling levels, passing through smoke and then fire, until I broke out into the open night sky. I spotted the rest of our group as they landed a few miles off, on the roof of a different building. I touched down next to them and we all turned back and stared at the smoking skyscraper… and then at the black helicopter hurrying away above it.
I hadn’t expected the IBSI to respond quite like that. I’d thought that perhaps the fact that we were on live television would cause them to handle the situation more delicately, if they could figure out how to handle it at all. But we were all stupid to think that they would’ve done anything but respond with violence.
At least we had all gotten out, and as shaken as we were, I couldn’t help but experience satisfaction as the helicopter buzzed in the sky like an angry wasp. We had unsettled Atticus.
But our work was not done yet. Not nearly done. We had not been able to complete the broadcast. We had not been able to show the entire transformation, and Lawrence was unable to finish all that he had to say.
Which meant that we needed to move to another station, far away from here to throw the IBSI off, and quickly.
We waited on the roof of the building for a few minutes for Shayla, not wanting to leave her abandoned. Corrine spotted her emerging in the sky near the damaged building—no doubt staring down in shock—as escapees piled out from the ground-floor exit. I wondered how many innocent lives the IBSI had just claimed from those who had been on the upper floors. This was no joke anymore. No joke indeed.
Once Corrine returned with Shayla, who heaved a huge sigh of relief to see us all safe—including her husband Eli—we needed to discuss our next destination.
“I would say New York,” Lawrence said, looking to the manager for his opinion.
The manager looked too shellshocked for words, but he nodded weakly.
“All right,” Corrine said, gathering us together. “New York it is.”
It was déjà vu as we arrived outside another skyscraper. After figuring out the appropriate location in the building, we took over the room in much the same way as we had overtaken the Chicago station.
Eli had fortunately had the presence of mind to disconnect all the footage and grab it before we left Chicago so that we could continue.
But the IBSI had a base in New York, too. We could not be so careless in our approach this time. They might have thought that they’d destroyed Lawrence—perhaps they had not known that he had been accompanied by a witch—but the moment they picked up on us broadcasting the news via a different channel, they would target that too.
“We need to keep watch,” Corrine said.
“More than just keep watch, we need protection,” I added.
The dragons would have come in handy for this, but we didn’t have the patience to wait for them to arrive right now. Thus, Shayla headed outside, promising to keep watch on the skies and use her magic to ward off any approaching helicopters.
Hopefully, there wouldn’t be too many at once, and she could deal with them all without problems.
And so began our second broadcast. This time, as Lawrence began to address the camera with the Bloodless footage playing in the background, Eli filmed it with his phone—which was a good idea. I already had plans for what we would do with that footage once Eli had finished recording.
We got further into the broadcast this time, although I eventually heard the faint whirring of choppers. And then came another explosion, except this time, the building did not shake. The bomb had not reached the structure. Shayla had managed to somehow avert it and hopefully now she would ward the aircraft away.
We needed to be quick nonetheless. I guessed that they would send backups. There was only so far that Shayla’s attention and strength could stretch.
I clenched my fists nervously as I watched Lawrence plough on unwavering with his story, until finally he had finished and they had displayed all the highlights from the footage marking the various stages of the Bloodless-to-human transformation.
Lawrence ended with a gleam of passionate triumph in his eyes. “Although the IBSI is clearly not qualified to be in the position of authority they currently assume, there are others who are. The Shadow League, a cooperation of supernaturals you might’ve heard mentioned, are in the process of bringing the IBSI down. We will establish a new order, based on honesty and diligence. For years you have had the wool pulled over your eyes by the IBSI—but now it’s time to take it off. Embrace the truth, and soon we will all be living it.”
With that, the broadcast cut. I would’ve been extremely nervous if it had gone on any longer.
“Okay, guys, we should get out of here now,” I said.
The humans among us—both the Chicago and New York employees—looked panicked as the explosions grew louder. C
orrine gathered everyone together, before transporting them safely out of the building.
I preferred to make my own way out, as I had done last time. I rose up through the floors and spotted two black helicopters attempting to shatter the building. Shayla, breaking out in a sweat, was managing to keep them at bay with a giant protective shield around the building.
Anger rising in my veins, I soared upward until I was level with the choppers. I yelled at the men in the bellies of the aircrafts: “Stop bombing! Your targets are no longer in the building! We have finished the broadcast…” And soon, we will finish you.
Ben
We headed to a different side of New York City, where we allowed all the employees we had gathered to trickle away if they wanted to. But none of them felt safe without us now, so they opted to remain under our—or rather, our witches’—protection.
As we touched down in a quiet back street, Eli uploaded the footage he had taken on his phone to the most popular news sites on the internet. Word should spread quickly from here as the people took over propagating the message.
And in the meantime, there was more that we could do to send our message further. Broadcast it via more news stations. We already had over fifty employees with us. By the time we were done, we might have accumulated a whole army.
We asked the Chicago manager where he suggested we head next; he said Los Angeles would be a good port of call.
And so we followed his advice, pulling the same trick with Shayla watching the building on arrival. But we weren’t so lucky here as we had been in New York. We only managed to get through half of the broadcast before the electricity abruptly went out.
We tried in two more cities, San Francisco and Houston—where we thankfully had more success. Perhaps the IBSI were less organized in these cities, but we managed to get through the full broadcast.
I was going to suggest that we travel to other parts of the country when Eli checked his phone and reported to us that the video had already gone viral.
The people were indeed hungry for the truth.
I gazed down triumphantly at the rapidly rising video views and articles popping up all over the web. Soon, we would be reaching people in the millions.
We landed in a quiet park and took a pause to recalibrate.
“I think we’ve done what we can,” Eli murmured, still scrolling through his phone. “It’s spreading like wildfire.”
I agreed. We had completed the first step of our plan—shake the IBSI’s almost holy public perception and create widespread doubt in the organization… Now we had to discuss what was next.
Atticus
My drink slipped from my hand as I scrolled through the rapidly increasing number of blogs and news sites picking up Lawrence’s story.
His broadcasting it via the television was bad enough. As soon as I’d gotten wind that my son had infiltrated a Chicago news station, I had feared that he would blast out his misguided message on the internet too, just as he had previously threatened me he would.
That boy has really crossed the line now. Really crossed it. There is no returning from this.
Any leniency I might have showed him while he had been with us in Canada had been a mistake. I should’ve treated him as the person he was, a traitor just like his mother.
My softness had been my mistake. One would have thought I’d learned by now…
I sank back in my chair in front of my desk, gripping my phone hard in my hands.
So the League really thinks they have what it takes to replace us. They really want our power? They really think they’d know how to use it…
After I mulled over the situation for the next five minutes, I decided that I would give it to them.
I would play them at their own game.
Ben
We had begun to discuss our next move when Eli, who had been keeping an eye on the constantly spreading news, interrupted us, panic shining in his eyes.
“Oh, no,” he rasped.
“What?” I urged.
“The boundaries in Chicago separating the residences from the Bloodless… they have fallen. They have been blown.”
I grabbed the phone from him and stared down at the report. Horror filled me as I realized what was happening. I looked to Lawrence, who appeared to be thinking the same thing.
“My father,” he muttered. “I’m sure of it.”
“Why is he doing this?” Xavier posed.
“I should’ve realized this was what my father would do,” Lawrence said, cursing beneath his breath. “It’s just so typical of him. He wants to make a public mockery of us, after I just declared that TSL’s plan is to take over. They want to prove to the world how incompetent we are at the jobs they are carrying out—like keeping the divide between Bloodless and humans.”
My throat constricted as I imagined hordes of Bloodless flooding into towns inhabited by families and children. We had our work cut out as it was, attempting to cure the existing Bloodless, let alone thousands more who were probably being created as we spoke.
Eli took the phone back from me and continued scrolling. “Oh, great,” he said, “apparently IBSI Chicago has made a statement, confirming that they are withdrawing even the mutants. And they will do the same in New York, very soon.”
“Scare tactics!” Xavier fumed.
And they were working. I could only imagine how terrified the humans who lived in the city must be. Or humans who lived anywhere that was dependent on the IBSI’s protection.
It seemed that we had pushed the IBSI to the point of desperation, and they were no longer cautious enough to hide their ugly side publicly, for this was nothing but open blackmail. Continue on our path, and they were going to continue wreaking havoc on the cities and townships that they were supposed to be protecting. If anybody ever had any doubts about the IBSI’s motives being tainted by power, they should be eradicated now. And yet it didn’t matter. Because the irrefutable fact remained: the people still needed the IBSI to keep the Bloodless sectioned off.
We still needed them. We weren’t prepared yet to take their place—and they knew it, which was why they had withdrawn just at the wrong time. I had honestly been hoping that they would remain clinging to power as long as possible, and if anything, increase their protection around the cities to prove themselves to be more competent than us. But apparently, I still had a lot to learn about Mr. Atticus Conway, and Lawrence knew a lot more about him than me.
We had little time left until the IBSI were going to do the same to New York… and then where next? When would they stop, or would they even stop?
We had done our job in unsettling Atticus, that much was clear. We had done that job too well.
Ben
First, we all traveled together to the borders of Chicago, and then the witches transported everyone to The Shade, while I remained behind.
In this state of emergency, any plans had to be scrapped. Our first priority had to be to gather as large an army as we could possibly muster from our island and for all of them to rush back to Chicago to try to remedy the situation—including the dragons. They also needed to bring as much antidote from the island as they could carry—I hoped that Dr. Finnegan and her helpers would be prepared for what we required.
In the meantime, Lawrence suggested that I go to search for Atticus. If the order to blow the boundaries had come from Chicago HQ, Lawrence was sure that it would be his father directly behind it… which meant that Atticus was likely back in Chicago. I had to search for him and attempt to stop him from giving another order. He had seconds and thirds and fourths in command, who would not respond to Atticus’s absence lightly—assuming I did get hold of him. If he’d already discussed his plans with them, likely my capturing Atticus would make no difference; they’d go through with them anyway. But hunting down that man was the most useful thing that I could think to do with my time right now, and so, after the others vanished, I dashed toward the looming silhouette of the IBSI’s Chicago headquarters. The boundaries se
ctioning their compound off from the rest of the city remained intact, keeping the Bloodless out, not that this should come as a surprise.
As I passed through the main entrance building, I tried to block out images of the horrific situation going on around me in the city and focus on the man who had started it all.
Lawrence had better be right that he was here in Chicago.
I headed straight for Atticus’ office, whose location I knew well enough by now. But it was empty. As was the rest of his apartment. I continued to search throughout the rest of the buildings, until I lost patience completely at one point and manifested myself before a hunter, pinning him against a wall and threatening him for an answer. But I made no progress with him either.
I finished roaming the base, looking in every room that I thought he could have even a remote possibility of being in, but in the end, I failed.
Either he was somewhere in this HQ but so concealed that I would never find him, or perhaps it wasn’t him who had given the direct order after all, and it was one of his representatives here in Chicago. Maybe he was back in Canada, or in some other place. God knew.
I had no choice but to leave the IBSI headquarters and return to the city.
As I departed from the main entrance to the IBSI’s compound, I found myself discovering street after street of horrors. The blown boundaries had caused the Bloodless to storm the city. I found myself wondering how they had even crossed the toxic river that was supposed to be acting as a natural second boundary. To my shock, I realized that bridges of long wooden slabs had been laid across the water at various intervals along the bank.